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Episode 49: Twisted Pair featuring Grant Levron
39 Plays1 month ago
Burgeoning filmmaker Grant Levron takes the podcast to new teritorty: the cinematic mind of Neil Breen. This film this week is Twisted Pair (2018) and it's said to have a plot, but it's actually just made of stock footage and confidence. Also, Chris is a true hero and braves the five-hour Neil Breen Five Film Retrospective. Don't do that to yourself, just tune in.
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Banter
00:00:15
Speaker
It's bad to be bad, it's bad to be bad, and I guess it's understood that you would, that you could, and you know that you should, yes you know that you should be good.
00:00:40
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast. The only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why you like it so much?
00:00:54
Speaker
We're your hosts. My name is Chris Anderson, and with me, as always, I have the cade to my kale, Mr. Greg Bossy. Greg, how are you? I'm doing all right. I was really hoping that was the comparison you were going to make, and I feel fantastic about everything.
00:01:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think that's true, Greg, because I think you're just super... Thank you.
Special Guest Appearance: Grant LeBron
00:01:16
Speaker
and We do not have my lovely wife, Anna, with us this week, unfortunately, but we do have a very special guest.
00:01:22
Speaker
Mr. Grant LeBron. Grant, how are you? It's nice to see you. It's a pleasure to be on, y'all. And let me tell you, I will happily be your corrupt business CEO if one of you is Cade and one of you is Kale.
00:01:34
Speaker
Fair enough. Well, we will be kidnapping you for the duration, so that is apt. Okay.
Discussing 'Twisted Pair': A Neil Breen Film
00:01:41
Speaker
Now, you chose for our movie this week, Twisted Pair.
00:01:45
Speaker
Listeners, if you haven't seen Twisted Pair, well... I'm excited about this. with Yeah, here's here's what I've got.
00:02:00
Speaker
Twin brothers Cade and Kale are granted special powers by an advanced technology... but one of them has his powers taken away and they must forge separate paths to justice.
00:02:18
Speaker
That's um much more eloquent than I was expecting, but I feel it's still very accurate. Let me tell you, I had to watch this film and take a bunch of notes in order to follow what was happening.
00:02:35
Speaker
And that is the absolute worst way to experience this film. I'm going to say, yeah. Uh, so, but it did allow me to clarify a lot of things. Okay. Uh,
00:02:47
Speaker
Now, ah Grant, how did you come across Twisted Pair? Why did you choose Twisted Pair? Two-part question.
Grant's Admiration for Neil Breen
00:02:54
Speaker
So ah why I picked Twisted Pair was, ah frankly and unironically, Neil Breen is one of my favorite directors of all time. And I know that that is ah odd praise given the premise of why we are all here today.
00:03:09
Speaker
Hey, favorites in the title, too. there's a very big sentimentality that I have, uh, going to film school, ah working on films with some of my friends. And then every Friday, Saturday night, you know, we're not the type to be like the token college kids from every two thousands raunchy team movie.
00:03:28
Speaker
We were, you know, sit up and watch bad movies. So a lot of those would be Neil Breen nights. So I would host a bunch of people at my house and we would watch things like, um, faithful findings, or I am here dot, dot, dot. Now you know? And so for me personally, it's a very, ah it's a very ah personal joy to sit down and watch something from the mind of Neil
Podcasting Journey and Bad Movie Tradition
00:03:50
Speaker
Breen. And that's how ah Greg and I actually came, our paths crossed because we were, you know, working at the same job and realized we both had a love for cinema of this nature.
00:04:00
Speaker
it's It's always been something that's brought joy to my life and many of the people's lives around me. that You two give each other the conspirators of pleasure look like perfect that's what we'd like to hear so neil or greg you were introduced to neil brain through grant then yes that's correct so we used to do podcast together okay ah called was it two g's go to the movies two two g's go to the movies was very proto it's a very prototype-esque podcast
00:04:31
Speaker
Yes. You got to get your shakes out somewhere. Exactly. We would each assign each other a movie and then we would come back and talk about them together. And eventually, like we didn't have any stipulation over what kind of movie it had to be. But eventually, i think we decided that one time at least we wanted to do bad movies. So we did a bad movie brunch where we watched them together.
00:04:52
Speaker
And this was Grant's pick or not this movie, but Fateful Findings was. Yeah. I've not seen this one. but Okay. Do you remember what your pick was, Greg? I'm trying to remember, actually. Do you remember, Greg?
00:05:04
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. It was, um, I'm picturing it in my head. Was it City Dragon? Philly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, City Dragon. Oh, I love City yeah city Dragon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. City Dragon. City Dragon.
00:05:22
Speaker
With filthy f Phil Phillips. That's right. Listeners, keep an eye out. We will do an episode on City Dragons someday. That is a promise. please. yeah yeah It's too good not to be featured.
00:05:33
Speaker
Oh, my God. Um... I had seen fateful findings on Greg's recommendation. That's my background with Neil Breen. Yeah. So I think Grant is responsible for all of us being here, basically. I twas the domino that tipped us into this moment right now here in history. zero of this cluster for sure.
00:05:56
Speaker
i did... for my that was the only other Neil Breen film I had seen. I did for my research after watching this, watch Neil Breen's nine, six hour long auto documentary called the Neil Breen five feature film retrospective.
Neil Breen's Unique Filmmaking Style
00:06:16
Speaker
I'll be talking more about that later. It's an experience. Uh, and I think all of his films are an experience. Uh, I think,
00:06:29
Speaker
One thing that you can say about Neil Breen is that like all of his films are sort of about Neil Breen. That's part of the charm. Yeah. ah That you are seeing the man behind the film so much. it's It's got his fingerprints all over it to the point where him making a documentary about himself is kind of putting a hat on a hat.
00:06:51
Speaker
but it's also sort of the purest distillation of what he's trying to do. i feel like that makes total sense. ah But yeah, that, that's my background with Breen.
00:07:05
Speaker
So with that out of the way, do you guys want to hear about my context research? I, I, I'm most thrilled after checking out the podcast. Cause I want to know what you found because there's not much out there about oh old, old Neil Breen.
00:07:21
Speaker
No, no, unfortunately not. But we'll see what I dug up. And damn, I wish I had some context.
00:07:41
Speaker
I wish I had some context about the background of the film. Script director, actors on set. What was going on on screen? I wanna hear some details.
00:07:53
Speaker
Gossip screen to all that shit. Can't imagine all the time.
00:08:10
Speaker
Twisted Pair came out October 3rd, 2018. twenty eighteen Directed, written, produced, edited, and starring Neil Breen, as well as a bunch of other things. he He is nearly a one-man band.
00:08:24
Speaker
He did the catering, I think. He does on a lot of his films. That's for sure. He does hair and makeup on a lot of his films. He does props. He does locations. The fact that he does hair and makeup makes a lot make sense now, actually.
00:08:37
Speaker
A true renaissance man. Oh, definitely. The tagline, very apt, a Neil Breen film. Mm-hmm.
00:08:49
Speaker
And he talks a lot about, in his documentary, ah the value of building a brand, that a Neil Breen film means something to Neil Breen fans.
00:09:00
Speaker
And, goddammit, he's right. He's right. Neil Breen is widely considered to be one of the best bad movie directors working today. While changes to German tax laws hobbled Uwe Boll, and Tommy Wiseau has accepted that he'll never make another The Room, ah Neil Breen has been cranking out self-produced micro-budget sci-fi parables for the last 20 years with no signs of slowing down at a pace of roughly one every three years.
00:09:30
Speaker
Okay.
Speculating on Breen's Enigmatic Persona
00:09:31
Speaker
ah Now, when I say Neil Breen self-produces his films, if anything, this is an understatement. In addition to producing and directing, Breen will also star in, edit, write, and occasionally shoot his own films.
00:09:47
Speaker
ah He also does the costumes, hair, makeup, lighting, music. He doesn't write the music. he edits in the he He says he just licenses music. That's what he said in his doc. So I don't know why he says he does music, but he does.
00:10:00
Speaker
ah He also does some accounting and even craft services. So I think it's fair to say that Breen is a true auteur. Sure. Right?
00:10:12
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I would say that he's certainly got a clear vision and he does what he wants. I don't know if that's true. Well, but I think he is the definitive artist of his films.
00:10:22
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like yeah he is, this is a 100% an expression of him.
00:10:29
Speaker
Now was able to find almost no information about him outside of his filmmaking. And there's a lot written about him on the internet, but it's pretty much all just like blogs and other podcasts being like, damn, this guy's crazy. Look at this crazy movie.
00:10:44
Speaker
There's not much about the man.
00:10:48
Speaker
So there is Neil Breen's documentary, the Neil Breen 5 feature film retrospective. ah You can rent it through his website for $160. And if you want to support the man, you certainly can do that.
00:11:01
Speaker
I found it on archive.org. Wait, i I'm so sorry. Can you rewind that there there for a second? How much did you say this five film retrospective costs to rent? Well, here's $160, but you are getting complete Neil Breen Film School.
00:11:18
Speaker
This is a one-day Neil Breen seminar that is that I have a lot of thoughts about that I'll be discussing later. Okay. Okay.
00:11:30
Speaker
So ah the main things that I was able to learn about Breen personally is that he lives in Las Vegas. He shoots a lot of his films in his home. Great location. Saves him a yeah lot of money.
00:11:41
Speaker
ah His day job. He was still working as an architect when he made his first two films. He has since stopped working as an architect. Makes films full time. He also may or may not have also worked as a real estate agent.
00:11:53
Speaker
But that might have been some miscommunication somewhere. But he definitely claims and claims he's an he was an architect. I have no reason to doubt he was an architect. ah His first film was
Exploring 'Twisted Pair': Plot and Performance
00:12:05
Speaker
called Double Down. It was made in 2005, but it didn't really get a following until it played CineFamily in Los Angeles in 2010. That's when he sort of broke out.
00:12:17
Speaker
that's when he started building his fan base. He followed that up by completing his second film, I Am Here, dot, dot, dot, dot now, four periods for some reason. Oh, I always thought it was three.
00:12:29
Speaker
No, he jammed an extra one in there, just to finish the thought. yeah yeah Just keeping us on our toes, apparently. yeah he In that film, he plays a messianic alien known as The Being.
00:12:43
Speaker
He followed that up with Faintful Findings, where he played a hacker with supernatural powers that takes on a corrupt U.S. government. In 2016, he made Pass Through, where he plays an AI sent from the future that kills 300 million people in order to save all of humanity.
00:13:01
Speaker
Wow. All of them ah corrupt government and business officials. Okay. Of course. Of course. Yeah. Then, in 2018, he made Twisted Pear, our movie for today.
00:13:13
Speaker
He funded it on GoFundMe, raising $7,073. Wow. He allegedly cast the film on Craigslist.
00:13:26
Speaker
ah None of his actors... playing the named characters in this film have any other feature film credits. That makes sense based on their performances.
00:13:36
Speaker
Not a lot of slam dunks. No. And to be honest, is anyone going to a Neil Brie movie thinking that, yes, this will in fact be my big break when when all these cinema nerds see me in this niche be B movie director's film?
00:13:54
Speaker
I strongly suspect you'll notice that he does not have a lot of people coming back. We see a lot of bad movie directors sort of building up stables, and that's one of their tricks for longevity.
00:14:05
Speaker
Neil Breen does not have a stable. He does not have repeat actors. He is turning and burning them, let me tell you. guess that would make sense based on what i can what I'm assuming about him from the films that I have watched.
00:14:20
Speaker
The only actor in this that near as I could tell that was a professional actor was the actor that played the detective. So he might have been in there for semi ironic purposes. But I have a feeling the majority of people working this film i have never seen a Neil Breen film, have never heard of Neil Breen. And they saw a Craigslist ad that said 200 bucks for 10 hours working overnight in a film.
00:14:42
Speaker
Well, it's yeah it's it's a super interesting dichotomy there whenever you have like... Because because for for us, it's like, yeah, we we love watching these movies. And then for someone to be in these films, it's it's it's kind of it's kind of that odd thing of like, well, would you want to know the kind of fan base that you have whenever someone might be selling you a futuristic AI type movie that's going to be super cutting edge?
00:15:06
Speaker
And then it turns out to be a Neil Breen film. I can't necessarily imagine... will no matter my acting proficiency that I wouldn't necessarily want to be known for that role. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah. And I think honestly, if you were to go see like you, he invites you to come watch it. You got to think, well, no one's ever going to see this.
00:15:29
Speaker
And then you'd leave and you never think about Neil Breen again for the rest of your life. You know? Yep. And he would be, if you're not into bad movies, i don't know why he would pop up on your radar. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah. You don't see him on like, ah you know, E. Right.
00:15:48
Speaker
Critics were largely unimpressed with twisted hair. That's nothing new for Breen, but he says he does not read reviews. He does not listen to podcasts.
00:15:58
Speaker
He does not read blogs. So we can say whatever we want. We will not hurt the man's feelings. He blocks out the haters. Okay. God bless. ah He was so pleased with how Twisted Pair turned out that he decided to make his first sequel.
00:16:13
Speaker
ah In 2023, he released Cade the Tortured Crossing. So he must have liked how Twisted Pair turned out. yeah So as as a person who is on the very short list of people who could say they've boughten a film ticket in a physical theater to go see a Neil Breen movie.
00:16:33
Speaker
Mm-hmm. The sequel is most definitely interesting and it's most definitely a Neil Breen film. But yeah I could tell you if you are out there in the liminal void in which I'm speaking to, if you're out there listening to this and you have the chance to see a Neil Breen movie in person, please do it.
00:16:56
Speaker
Because this man's films need to be seen. like this This type of film is meant for a theater setting, I feel like. I could see this being really fun with the crowd for sure. Yeah. I was just going to say like watching this with other people, I think would really be a blast, like a huge theater of people.
00:17:14
Speaker
And it, you know, it's got to be an event and you want to support artists making stuff like this. Like as much as we like to goof on Neil Breen, obviously we want him to keep making films. No, I doubt i i can get him to keep making. Yeah.
00:17:28
Speaker
You keep chugging along, buddy. You're fine. You're good. Yeah. You're doing great work. Yeah. No, don't get us twisted. Just
Comparing 'Twisted Pair' to Other Thrillers
00:17:37
Speaker
because in terms of craft, I'm going to say you could stand to tighten the screws a little bit.
00:17:45
Speaker
Yeah. In terms 100% there. you've that you've got ah Other thrillers of 2018. I'm very excited about this. say you wanted to go to the movies.
00:17:57
Speaker
What could you see? that And thrillers were sort of in a a low point, I think, in 2018. So he's filling a hole. He's filling a gap in the in the in the culture. It's there. Yeah. So you got Fifty Shades Freed, the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey.
00:18:13
Speaker
You got Bad Times at the El Royale. Okay. didn't Didn't see it. The Mule. oh Oh, interesting. Yeah. ah You got ah Widows.
00:18:27
Speaker
When All the Widows Did a Robbery. Remember that one? No. We Have Always Lived in the Castle. i remember the name of that. That's all I remember.
00:18:40
Speaker
Replicas. about some kind of replica. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So not a great year for thrillers. So Neil Breen, you could see him sliding in there.
00:18:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Well, that's sort of the end of my context research.
00:19:02
Speaker
Do you guys want to talk about the plot of Twisted Pair? Yeah. 100% plot plot comes with the biggest finger air quotes that could but represent to any audience within an audio wave because yes the the plot is just kind of um to use a marketing term uh it's like seo word soup decided to write a screenplay yes super in and it's super into marvel and super into ai yeah yeah and that's really it
00:19:33
Speaker
There's going to be a lot that I did not include. If you are sitting down watching this and trying to write things down with the intent of writing a plot summary later, it is a real challenge to determine not only what is happening at any given moment, yeah but also whether or not it relates to the rest of the film, in what way it relates to the rest of the film.
00:19:54
Speaker
Is it at all in any way important? And also because ah Neil Breen put himself in a challenging dual role Which fucking guy I'm even looking at at any given moment.
00:20:08
Speaker
Oh yeah. You never really know. I've got it worked out. I think I've got it worked out. Okay. Let's get into it. So with that, let's talk about some plot.
Character Analysis: Cade and Kale
00:20:37
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm gonna give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
00:20:49
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper.
00:21:02
Speaker
So we open on a shot of the planet Earth. And the credits roll and they let us know that this is a Neil Breen Films LLC presentation.
00:21:15
Speaker
We see stock footage of twin boys eating a cut up hot dog. And the narrator let us know that he's one of the twins, Cade, and his brother is Kale.
00:21:27
Speaker
Now, all of this beginning part is done with stock footage. There's a lot of stock footage in this movie. Movies, essentially stock footage. The man works smarter, not harder. I can tell you. This is how you stretch a budget. Ed Wood used to do this all the time.
00:21:43
Speaker
And I think it's really fascinating that they have that shared DNA of being like, I could just make it out of stock footage. I could almost make a whole damn movie out of the stock footage. Great, bad movie making tradition.
00:21:53
Speaker
Yeah. Now, ah the twins, they get selected by an alien life form to receive AI enhanced superpowers to use to make the world a better place.
00:22:07
Speaker
Unfortunately, it appears that Kale is not as good at doing that as his brother. So the aliens fire him and they take his powers away.
00:22:16
Speaker
As you can imagine, this causes the brothers to grow apart. You hate to see it.
00:22:24
Speaker
This is ah symbolized by having them stand next to each other and then one of them fades away. You can't really tell them apart at this point because they're both played by Neil Breen. has got kind of like a perm. His hair is kind like a perm in this, I want to say.
00:22:39
Speaker
he's wearing like a long sleeve black Henley tucked into faded jeans with no belt. He really looks like a fucking idiot. I hate to say this about another man.
00:22:51
Speaker
ah
00:22:54
Speaker
And the fact that he doubled himself up like that is insane. Also, the fact that I'm pretty sure that the shot is like stock footage of a like a like computer generated forest.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yes. the pink and per mar for They're just superimposed over the image and then or the footage. And then also, if you go ahead and look, I'm fairly certain it is this scene, if not at several other scenes, but there's times where he needs to be on screen at the same time.
00:23:24
Speaker
But instead of doing a second take, he will just take the first take and delay it slightly and put it ah and superimpose of himself smaller in the background to make it appear that he's walking like...
00:23:38
Speaker
just a distance away. it's It's mind boggling to where it's like, hey do you want to do a second take? No, we're moving on. Now that's a man that knows how to budget. yeah It's true. I mean, in the the documentary, they showed the green screen studio that he rented out for this.
00:23:54
Speaker
It was something like 70 feet wide and 30 feet deep. He says he owns 12 different green screens that he uses all the time in tons of different ways. But for to get some of the him put into these huge sweeping vistas that he's in in this film and these really long distance shots, he really wanted to have just a giant green screen studio to shoot in.
00:24:15
Speaker
So he probably rented that out for day and just got shots of him just walking back and forth and gesticulating. He's like, I could just put this all in anywhere. It's perfect. I would love to think he actually just got the 200 green screens for buying like the super cheap lighting sets that like is every, every, every videographer's first green screen ever. He just bought 12 of those. And he's like, yeah, I have 12 green screens.
00:24:36
Speaker
Perfect. He's not being incorrect. No. Yep. Now Cade, he continues his fight against evil. he gets further cybernetic enhancements, but he also gets in touch with nature by standing near an eagle.
00:24:53
Speaker
And caressing it. Yes, well, yeah caressing as well as you could if you were green screened in front of a stock eagle. Yep. Now, Cade then demonstrates his newfound abilities by escorting not one, but two squads of troops out of an exploding building, proving he is both braver and stronger than a troop.
00:25:16
Speaker
It turns out that Cade has taken his super scientific humanoid abilities and he's been putting them to work for some sort of shadowy government agency. He meets his boss back at his house, unloads his two guns on his ottoman, and she tells him that he'll be facing a new threat, programmable virtual reality, the corrupt version.
00:25:42
Speaker
Mm-hmm. here what did you guys think of the chief i love her so much yeah she's great it's just just yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah totally corrupt uh corrupt virtual reality sure yeah she doesn't like doesn't know how to say much like she doesn't know how to like actually act i think because again it's just craigslist so she's trying really hard and it is so strange to watch She kind of reminded me of listeners who checked out our reality show special.
00:26:15
Speaker
She reminds me of Dale from season nine of Canada's worst driver. Check out episode 38. I could see that. season's nine ah In that they're both sort of blonde women with kind of spaced out eyes who are saying things without understanding what they mean.
00:26:31
Speaker
That sounds about right. I will also say during the – during ah previously to meeting up with the chief, the whole action scene with the troops, he is still wearing the the black kidly shirt, jeans, and loafers. He has not changed his wardrobe to fight.
00:26:51
Speaker
No. No. to to fight the evil robots or whatever's going on. Unbothered. Oh, no, it's frequently very unclear what he's doing and why he's doing it.
00:27:02
Speaker
But whatever it is, it's action packed. That much we can tell. Like, it seems like he wants to let our minds just sort of fill in the details. Yeah. But it's not really evocative enough for that because you're so distracted by what you're seeing that you can't imagine what you don't see.
00:27:18
Speaker
And has he started um he started flying at this point yet? Yes, he flew up to the window to save the troops. Yeah, yeah. He can fly.
00:27:29
Speaker
He can fly. One of my favorite bits that ah my my friends and I that cultivated this love of Neil Breen say is that he learns one new thing each movie. In this movie, he finally learned how to keyframe himself on a green screen, and he's super hyped about it.
00:27:44
Speaker
So get ready for that a lot. Well, the good news is I can confirm you and your friend's theory. He says explicitly in the documentary that every film he wants to make sure he's challenging himself to learn a new technique.
00:27:56
Speaker
There you go key you are era nailed it Key framing is technically a technique, I guess. Yeah, he's not learning anything particularly complicated, but he is learning technically something.
00:28:08
Speaker
yeah You know what I mean? It's like I learned how to change the size of my font and in Microsoft Word. i You did do that? Yeah, good for you. Now...
00:28:20
Speaker
um now We then cut to a scene of a boardroom composed almost entirely of characters we've never seen before and will never see again. and they're all spouting gibberish.
00:28:31
Speaker
ah And there are a lot of scenes that are sort of like this that have no clear relation to the rest of the plot. I didn't include a lot of them. I included this one because I wanted to pull this audio. this is yeah This is what the gibberish sounds like in this movie.
00:28:44
Speaker
This is the most insane thing. This scene is crazy. A crisis. Programmable virtual reality. We have evidence of the largest cyber and terror attacks ever
Breen's Writing Style and Dialogue
00:28:58
Speaker
planned.
00:28:59
Speaker
Programmable DNA.
00:29:04
Speaker
This is very serious.
00:29:10
Speaker
Homeland Security is ready. We are on the verge of mind hacking. right ah Programmable matter. We will all be connected telepathically.
00:29:24
Speaker
Special agencies are prepared. i have the power of instant personal facial recognition data, content on everyone to prevent the spread of evil and terror.
00:29:44
Speaker
That's that what this movie is like. it's yeah it's it's giving trying to It's giving what your elderly relative thinks you're saying whenever you're explaining them, like how to set up a Wi-Fi router.
00:29:56
Speaker
Yeah. So it goes through the air? did you say programmable virtual reality? No, I did not, actually. haven't been reading about it.
00:30:09
Speaker
Is my TikTok also the Wi-Fi router? Yeah, it's definitely got that kind of vibe. It's so weird. And the guy who's like... This genuinely was going to be my baddie award. I've been very torn on what my baddie awards were, but this scene to me showed out so much, I literally wrote down all the dialogue and I was going to read it out loud.
00:30:29
Speaker
Like, this scene... This scene's in incredible. it's it's It's incredible. it's It's the SEO style script writing to where it's like you just throw a bunch of keywords at a page and hope it makes sense in the edit.
00:30:45
Speaker
Here's the thing, it never does. it never does. And none of the people are looking at each other. None of it is edited really well. So it's like there's no pause. As you heard it, there's no pauses. it you There's long pauses everywhere.
00:31:01
Speaker
There's no back and forth. It's just people staring at a camera saying things like ah program programmable virtual reality, programmable DNA. It's like you are not even in the same place.
00:31:14
Speaker
It's just insane. You're just sort of listing vague concepts at each other. i don't know. And you're communicating something to the chief. yeah And every scene has this sort of same baffling quality, but I think this one more so than others. really shines out.
00:31:30
Speaker
One small detail about this, the Homeland Security guy, like they cut back. It's one of the few, there's not a lot of cuts. This is one of them. They cut back to him. He's got one canister on the table. He's like, Homeland Security is prepared.
00:31:44
Speaker
And he puts down two more. And it's just like, what are those? I thought they were gas masks. Maybe they were. i couldn't really tell. That would make more sense.
00:31:55
Speaker
Not really. to say Homeland Security is prepared and then put three gas masks on the conference table where all of you are sitting in one corner of the conference table. That's right. And you're also talking about programmable virtual reality. I don't know what you need a real gas mask for in programmable virtual reality.
00:32:12
Speaker
And also just to go ahead and and just give the piece de resistance to the scene that we're painting here. Throughout this entire film, I think maybe there's a light used that isn't naturally occurring in the building that they are in.
00:32:26
Speaker
i think i think it happens one time they get another light. yeah to to to be anywhere near here because it's all just house lights. Like if you turn the lights on in your room, congrats, you have the same lighting setup as Neil Breen's twisted pair.
00:32:43
Speaker
That's right. Well, you know, I hate to argue with you, but I watched a solid half hour of him talking about his lighting process and it's slightly more complicated than you.
00:32:56
Speaker
Not that much more complicated
00:33:00
Speaker
Now, ah Cade talks about his ah being the next step in evolution before heading to the strangest interaction with a woman I've ever seen in my life.
00:33:12
Speaker
It's the craziest thing. this is It's especially strange considering that he is a super humanoid AI cyborg. ah Trigger warning, sexual violence.
00:33:24
Speaker
ah He bumps into a woman on the street knocking her papers to the ground. He frantically apologizes and insists that he meet her back at this same spot at eight o'clock in front of a hobo that is witnessing all of this with very little reaction.
00:33:39
Speaker
ah But if the she meets back up with him, he'll take her out for a drink. He then actually does show up expecting her to do that, despite the fact that she was very much against ever seeing him again.
00:33:51
Speaker
So what he does is he goes and breaks into her house and starts assaulting her. She smashes him over the head with a painting that she had sitting on her couch. And then he asks her what's for dinner.
00:34:05
Speaker
It turns out this is all an elaborate, consensual, non-consensual role-play scenario between Cade and his girlfriend, Alana. And what I find interesting ah about it is it involved the extra step of waiting until 8 o'clock and coming back.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah, he wanted to give his character that motivation. Yeah. Yeah, and... Like, there's so much there's so much to an ah to to unpack with that type of a setup in all of this.
00:34:35
Speaker
um But also, the broken picture that you mentioned earlier? Mm-hmm. No actual glass in the frame. No, no, no. They just know throw that in into post, which is it's just just a mind-boggling decision at this point.
00:34:55
Speaker
He did cowl out that painting in the documentaries. Like, you see how I'm destroying that painting? That's production values. Audiences love to see something get destroyed. Okay. okay Maybe that's why he destroys seven laptops in Faker Findings. Yeah. yeah like so laptops Audiences love to see something get destroyed.
00:35:12
Speaker
I guess that's true. um And it was just the scene went on like uncomfortably long. daring And Breen is already such a confounding filmmaker.
00:35:25
Speaker
You really don't know what could happen at any moment. yeah so you have no idea how far he's going to go with it. Mostly it's just sort of like a tickle fight where he keeps calling her a bitch.
00:35:37
Speaker
And then, then they hug and say, what's for dinner. It's a really odd scene. It's what's also strange about it is you'd think that maybe this is like some sort of like sexual game.
00:35:49
Speaker
It maybe is, but it ends with him asking like what's for dinner, which means that it's still in the process of being made. They have dinner to get to first, most likely. so if like this is foreplay, then this is like foreplay well before the actual event with a break after the foreplay.
00:36:07
Speaker
Or it's just a larf.
00:36:12
Speaker
I don't know. i think he came in his pants. That's my theory. That could be... That would make more sense than not. You know, you learn a lot from ah from an individual, from their art and from their... ah Yeah, and I mean, to be fair, let's be real here.
00:36:32
Speaker
Neil Breen, unfortunately, is not the best writer of female characters. No, it's not compelling. I mean, not a compelling writer for male characters either, but especially for women.
00:36:43
Speaker
um very Very much in his films, if anyone out there is looking to get into them, ah there is a lot of boob. there's a there's okay There's a good amount of boob but and a lot of Breen butt.
00:36:55
Speaker
A lot of bri Breen is not shy with them cheeks. Okay, a little BN, a little Breen nudity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's there.
00:37:06
Speaker
Whether it's necessary or not, I guess, is an artistic discussion, but it's there. Was there nudity in this one? thought there was his cheeks. Yeah. There might have been him, yeah.
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah, it might have just been green butt. In his documentary, he had
Cade's Heroic Missions and Supernatural Elements
00:37:23
Speaker
a lot of footage of women topless lying face down with very bad back tattoos. That seemed to be something that appealed to him as a filmmaker.
00:37:33
Speaker
Okay. Now, Kale has not let his lack of superpowers stop him from making the world a better place. Kale being the twin that lost his He's still out there fighting for good by kidnapping a trio of CEOs and locking them up in his garage.
00:37:51
Speaker
Shot in Breen's actual garage. Oh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They bemoan that this must be what they deserve for all the fucked up stuff they did. And then Kale shoots them all in the arms.
00:38:04
Speaker
And they did a lot of... They did, like, more... more messed up things than you would expect from a CEO was like ordering deaths and kidnappings and things. Wasn't it like, it wasn't like cheating people.
00:38:17
Speaker
Or like squandering our employees. We're just like, yeah, we ordered, raped people. it's like, what are you talking about? Why would you that? We toppled governments. yeah like We funded genocides. We sent nuclear weapons to bad people.
00:38:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a classic. This is like, this is what you see when the corporation gets so big, they just start sending nukes to terrorists. Yeah, they love it. They'll do anything to make a buck.
00:38:43
Speaker
That's right. Profit, profit, profit. Have you seen Amazon.com lately? You never know. But the thing is, they have an obligation to their shareholders. That's true. they ah ah Now, meanwhile, Cade has reserved an entire restaurant to have dinner with Alana, which is a very weird thing to do.
00:39:03
Speaker
He then selects, they didn't even really clear the place out. He selects one of, I want to say, 12 tables on the patio. And he's like, let's sit here. Yeah, which is clearly just like a college mess hall food court situation.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah. Very much not a restaurant. No. No, he did ah rent out the ah university a University of Las Vegas campus, maybe University in Nevada, Las Vegas, something like that. He rented it?
00:39:32
Speaker
He rented it out at nights. His production, I can tell you about his production schedule. His shoots are normally around 20 days, 20, 22 days, 10 hour days.
00:39:44
Speaker
ah This, he did most of his shooting at night. Yeah. ah So he can bang these out in a month in terms of shooting. That's wild. He gives Alana a candle, which is, once again, there's something weird about it.
00:39:59
Speaker
ah Later, Cade and Kale cross paths for the first time in ages. Kale is now a wearing a fake beard and a fake mustache, which does help in telling them apart.
00:40:11
Speaker
It's very fake. The fake mustaches and beard in this, they look like they came from a grocery store. They are bad. look very bad. And like the CEO, one of the CEOs I think is wearing one. It's like, you can see like where they attached it to his face.
00:40:26
Speaker
Yeah, the spirit gum shows it's like over the top, like extends beyond the mustache. like, this is, just don't put on the mustache. Yeah, it's terrible.
00:40:36
Speaker
Yeah. Unfortunately, the they still have a huge emotional divide growing between them. And Kale is also having a rough time at home. ah His addict girlfriend uses up a lot of his emotional and fiscal resources.
00:40:51
Speaker
But at least he does still have those evil CEOs chained up in his garage. He's still got that going for him. He's still got that.
Storytelling Techniques and Virtual Reality Themes
00:40:57
Speaker
Cade, he gets a new assignment from the chief. Take down the mysterious Mr. Kuz.
00:41:04
Speaker
What did you guys think of Mr. Kuz? Mr. Kuz is a top tier villain. I'm talking Thanos. I'm talking of the Breen CU.
00:41:14
Speaker
Kuz is right there. i love Kuz so much. He's I love how he's pretty regularly absolutely stone still.
00:41:27
Speaker
I also love how I strongly suspect that he is played by two different actors, even though only one person is credited. Interesting. I think the guy at the college was a different guy than the guy in the kitchen. The the guy at the college seemed to have an accent.
00:41:43
Speaker
And I think he put that voice modulator on the, both of them to make them sound the same. That would make more sense. We're, i'm trying I was trying to imitate it earlier. ah i see you're interested in my special art.
00:41:59
Speaker
It's like they just like down pitched his voice so much. and it's But he's he's saying all this insane nonsense. He literally says, i see you're interested in or I hear you're interested in my special art, which is a weird thing to say to anybody.
00:42:15
Speaker
Yeah, especially to a super humanoid AI that just walked into your home. Yeah, and he's always stroking diamonds. I think that it's a reference to Blofeld.
00:42:27
Speaker
Always carrying around those diamonds. Yeah, he what appears to be a stemmed bowl filled with, I want to say, golf ball sized diamonds.
00:42:37
Speaker
He's always wearing a very large scarf and like a newsboy cap and orange Bono sunglasses and just an incredible screen presence.
00:42:50
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And that voice happens. Yeah, and his voice, when you hear it, it blows you away. And then to top it off, ah his best friend is a fairy that lives on his property. Now, I don't mean a gay person. I mean a member of the Fae Folk.
00:43:07
Speaker
For some reason, I believe this character was referred to in the documentary as a muse. I don't know... Okay. Mr. Coos shows Cade a magical painting, the artwork that Greg just referenced.
00:43:21
Speaker
ah The painting is stock footage of a person that has been body painted. And then we're on to the next scene. Yeah. Yeah. Scenes don't really have beginning, middles and endings in this movie. They just sort of have a thing.
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah. A length. Yeah. You just see some things happen and then you see another thing. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Kale and his girlfriend, they share booze and pills.
00:43:50
Speaker
His girlfriend says, Kale, I'm so content now. And Kale responds, me too. So everything's going great with those guys. Yeah.
00:44:01
Speaker
Kade then wanders around the UNLV campus at night. There are terrorists and men in black. Mr. Kuz is there. But when Cade confronts him about the disturbing technology he's seen around campus, Kuz teleports away.
00:44:18
Speaker
I guess he can teleport. That's Kuz. That tracks. That's old Kuzi. Yeah, nobody said he couldn't. That would have been great if there was a scene with the chieftain being like, don't worry, Cade. He cannot teleport.
Analyzing Film's Conclusion and Themes
00:44:33
Speaker
And Cade's like, damn it. I thought that intel was good. Yeah.
00:44:39
Speaker
Meanwhile, Kale checks in on his captive CEOs. He tells them that they'll be dead soon before assaulting them some more. Apparently, this is taking an emotional toll on Kale because is because he gets in a big fight with his girlfriend in the next scene, and I think they might break up.
00:44:58
Speaker
I think this may be the same. I wrote one quote from her. I was trying to figure out what one of my words was, and then we started talking. i remember this. it's ah ah I don't even want you anymore. i just want the drugs and money.
00:45:09
Speaker
Yeah. also Also, mind you, i believe this is the scene. ah get a bit of a trigger warning here for for for assault. I believe that there's a point where Kale hits her and she falls off of the bed.
00:45:24
Speaker
but instead of like flying off the bed like you're used to seeing for someone getting you know hit, she just kind of falls. Yeah. Just kind of slides off the bed.
00:45:35
Speaker
yeah like she fainted when when he tapped her or something. And then he just kind of was like, all right. Yeah. Anyway.
00:45:45
Speaker
Then someone, I'm not sure who leaves a single rose in front of an empty bicycle rack. Hmm. I really liked that shot, but I don't know what it means. And I don't, and I didn't understand anything about it.
00:46:00
Speaker
It's there. did remind me of a Bruce Wayne visiting crime alley. Oh yeah. I like that. I do. A comparison. Yeah. Then Cade blows up a large facility used by Mr. Coos to do whatever it is that he does. He does this by flying around and placing a bunch of bombs.
00:46:18
Speaker
the Placing the bombs is him just slowly walking through rooms with explosions superimposed where he had been standing. Yeah. And it like when you look at the size of the like when you think of an explosion and someone walking away from it, you think of them like at the front of the frame in a huge explosion behind them. This is quite the opposite where the size is different, where it's like he is much larger than the explosions that are leaving behind him.
00:46:44
Speaker
Yeah. So I have a sense it might be like the Morpheus ah I'm fast gas kind of look where just looks like he's just kind of farting explosions as he's going through the building.
00:46:55
Speaker
That's fair. It's very bizarre. That sort of reminded me of like a Sega Saturn FMV. Do you know what mean? The way that they were just sort of ah superimposed there and like they had different resolutions in the world around them.
00:47:10
Speaker
Just completely unbelievable. oh Very, or I should say artificial. Yes. Stylized. His girlfriend asks what he was up to today, because he seems kind of out of it.
00:47:24
Speaker
And Cade tells Alana that he can't reveal secrets.
00:47:29
Speaker
The next thing we know, Cade runs into Kale's now ex-girlfriend on the street, who starts demanding to know what happened to his beard. He explains he never had one, and that he's in fact Kale's s twin brother, Cade.
00:47:42
Speaker
After that's cleared up, Cade's girlfriend, or Cade's girlfriend, Alana, sees them hugging, and she's not happy about it.
00:47:52
Speaker
Kade then destroys another one of Kuz's facilities. Back at Kuz's house, his fairy friend puts a Neil Breen movie on in the home theater before dissolving into a pile of diamonds in a pair of spiked heel shoes.
00:48:07
Speaker
She went on to a better place. Double down.
00:48:12
Speaker
Kuz runs away. Cade celebrates another successful mission by kissing his girlfriend. I believe at this point they might have been standing in front of two moons for some reason. No, I definitely wrote, ah why are there two moons?
00:48:27
Speaker
There was definitely a point when there was two moons. But then she pulls a gun on him. It only makes sense. It turns out it was only business. They shoot each other, but the gunshots don't really bother Cade because he's a super humanoid
00:48:45
Speaker
Alana dies though. What's going on with kale and the CEOs at this point? I have no idea. Do you guys know? It doesn't matter. They're evil and bad. Yeah. yeah Not really. That's not the story we're telling.
00:48:59
Speaker
No. ah Cade then wanders through a virtual reality. Yeah, you really thought the relationship between the twin brothers would be the key, but it turns out it was really hanging on his relationship with Alana because he wanders through a virtual reality forest where he encounters the spirit of the dead Alana that he shot just a few minutes ago.
00:49:22
Speaker
They chat briefly before she fades away. Cade then looks directly at the camera and says, everyone has the right to be loved. Everyone has the right to love and peace.
00:49:38
Speaker
I'll be right here. I'll be right here is of course, also the final line from the movie E.T. But unlike E.T., Cale points at his own heart with a glowing finger when he says it.
00:49:53
Speaker
Uh... An on-screen text tells us that Cade Altair will return, which of course he did in Neil Breen's 2023 film, Cade, the Tortured Crossing. The end.
00:50:06
Speaker
So, was first of all, was there anything important that I missed? Anything that you guys feel like we should have covered? There's some point where there are three corpses on the steps, and that's when the detective comes in and he's like, look at this pen.
00:50:20
Speaker
And then nothing really happens with that. Was that the CEOs? Is that what happened to them? Or were those three other people that someone shot on the steps? Cale shot those people because he picked up his shell casings.
00:50:32
Speaker
I remember that. Okay. and ah But those were not the three CEOs because he had the three CEOs in the garage after that. Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. That's the thing I eliminated the detective's entire plot line.
00:50:44
Speaker
That's fine. i mean I don't recall anything other than that scene. It's very difficult to remember this movie in a whole sense. I don't know if that makes sense, but I think to the two of you, it does.
00:50:58
Speaker
it's not a it's It's not a film that that you can watch and go a and then B and then C happens. It's more like, hey, we like X and W and also have you looked at V?
00:51:10
Speaker
And by the way, here's the number seven. It's kind of more like... ah Yeah. yeah It's kind of more like you you think of a movie idea in your sleep and then you wake up and you forget to write it down and then you're like, oh, what was I trying to... Yeah.
00:51:26
Speaker
Something about AI, you know? For me, it's kind of like, you know how you can remember the lyrics to a song more easily because it has a melody. Yeah. You know, there's no melody here.
00:51:38
Speaker
Trying to remember this. It's just a bunch of like random words. It's, it's, I mean, you heard me describe it. Yeah. So I wrote at one point, like, you can't feel the structure of this.
00:51:48
Speaker
ah You can't feel the structure of this thing. Where are we in the plot? Like, usually you're like, are we act one or act two? It's like, I don't really even know. what we're trying to work toward.
00:51:59
Speaker
I do know that because this guy's kind of superhuman that like at any point he could just do something he's never done before. so you have no grounding at all. It's kind of amazing.
00:52:15
Speaker
Yeah. Literally anything could happen for literally any reason. Mm-hmm. Well, with that, listeners, we were going to try something new this week with our five star ratings.
00:52:26
Speaker
Yes. So let's go over this again. Yes. We're going adding a separate axis. We're going to have a one to five rating for how good, how watchable this movie is.
00:52:37
Speaker
How much fun someone could have sitting down and watching this. And then the other axis. How weird is this movie on one to five? So watchable and weird.
00:52:48
Speaker
so i'll So I'll kick us off. and okay I'm going to put this one at, like I said, I watched this in the completely wrong way to watch this. So i I ended up having it at about a three in terms of watchability.
00:53:04
Speaker
You know, but I think that's sort of not truly fair. Uh, but Hey, that's life, you know? ah yeah, I'll bump it up to a, uh, to 3.5.
00:53:16
Speaker
This is a pretty watchable time. If you are in the specific mood, it is a little bit daunting because it does not help you. yeah There is no, there's no plot to sort of hang your hook on. and Uh, it's just sort of a series of images and a very much a vibe based watch that said, I will say does get a solid 4.5 the weird scale for me.
00:53:37
Speaker
This is a very strange thing. Yeah. Uh, so that's where I wound up. What about you, Greg? So as far as watchability goes, I'm going to put this with a four.
00:53:49
Speaker
Um, I think, I think though that you have to not do what you did. Like you have to not be trying to keep track of it because there's no point to that. Um,
00:54:00
Speaker
And you need other people around. Like, this is not going to be a great watch on your own, but with other people. This was, I was able to watch this one with Grant. Because that is an issue that I have been having is like watching it alone. Sometimes I feel like I'm a little skewed because I'm like, I turn on like, you can you know there's nobody here?
00:54:17
Speaker
And then you're just kind of in this soup of like, what? I can't imagine watching this one by myself. ah But I was able to watch it with someone. It's definitely a four. I think Fateful Findings is a better first Breen to watch if you are interested in Breen.
00:54:33
Speaker
But there is something about this one because even he liked it so much he made a sequel. Like there's some value in that as far as bad film and Neil Breen fandom goes.
00:54:44
Speaker
As far as weirdness goes.
Insights from Breen's Retrospective
00:54:46
Speaker
I hesitate to give it a five because I feel like I got to give myself a ceiling, but it's a five. Like it's just one of the, it's so bizarre.
00:54:56
Speaker
It feels, ah I was thinking earlier, i was like, we don't need to make an AI movie because Neil Breen made an AI movie. That's what it feels like. Like it feels like someone who watched movies is like, I know what a movie is. It's like, I don't think you do actually.
00:55:11
Speaker
I think you know what it looks like, but I don't think you know what is. is He does sort of have like an Ezra Sachs man who mistook his like there's some sort of brain problem going on. Yeah. Yeah. Face blindness for movies.
00:55:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah. He just doesn't see what he's looking at. What about you, Grant? On your watchability and weird scales, where'd you land on this one? Gosh, you know, I look at cinema like I look at food. Sometimes you have your things like The Brutalist or or something like that, your fine dining, like something you need to chew on for a little bit.
00:55:45
Speaker
You have your fun popcorn movies like your MCU's, for example, or like... whatever action movie might might be out. And then there's the meal you have 2 a.m. drunk off your ass on the on on on the bar strip and you have the best burrito you've ever had in your life.
00:56:03
Speaker
Would you eat it sober? God, no. Would you actively make this choice if you weren't in this moment? God, no. But it's a beautiful time. And that's how I view every Neil Breen film that I watch. So I think for watchability...
00:56:16
Speaker
I'm going to have to say like a 4.5 because I also understand that the context in which you watch any of Neil Green's movies is going to matter. I think it's definitely better to watch it with people. I think it's great to make an, make an occasion of it and just enjoy it and be able to connect with someone by going, oh my God, that's so weird that, you know, this guy thinks AI is just this word soup.
00:56:42
Speaker
And then when it comes to the weirdness, man, It's pretty weird. it's it's It's pretty weird. I think I'm also going to yeah I think I got to go with like a 4.5 on that as well.
00:56:55
Speaker
Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, with that, do you guys want to talk about something that's really weird? Yes. Please do. All right, because um I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent.
00:57:10
Speaker
Sure, the movie's the main event. But that's not the case with this segment No need to be sad lament Cause we're going on a tangent
00:57:45
Speaker
Tangent.
00:57:59
Speaker
All right. Let's talk about the Neil Breen five feature film retrospective. Yes. ah So this is 345 minutes long.
00:58:11
Speaker
I watched it this last Saturday. It is composed of only two original shots were shot for the entire film. One is Breen sitting in his editing studio talking directly to the camera.
00:58:27
Speaker
The other is Breen sitting on his couch talking directly to the camera. All other narration is over stock footage or over footage of his older films and behind the scenes footage and photographs.
00:58:39
Speaker
And he broke it up into segments. Each segment is somewhere around a half hour long. And they'd cover things like ah lighting or locations and production values.
00:58:50
Speaker
There's a segment called character images. I don't know what that means. There was a segment that was just called romance. Another segment about special effects, things like that. um And in each one of these segments, you could maybe piece together two things about Breen and his filmmaking process.
00:59:08
Speaker
And then there would be ah about 20 to 80 minutes of filler. And I do mean 80 minutes of filler. There was at one point where he was just showing stock clips from a previous film. I forgot which segment it was.
00:59:22
Speaker
And he didn't do any narrating at all. And he also used the same clip for segment. like he would reuse them throughout the film.
00:59:33
Speaker
Okay. So you would see the same footage four or five times. And often he would say the same thing. For instance, in locations, he went one point cut to a living room and said, this is a living room scene.
00:59:48
Speaker
So, wow. You know, I will say, it is very much uh, nearly six hour long Neil Breen film.
Acknowledging Breen's Filmmaking Accomplishments
01:00:00
Speaker
So if that, if you like Neil Breen, I think you can enjoy it, but I think you have to come into it prepared emotionally. Um, But one other what else did I learn about his process from watching it?
01:00:14
Speaker
I learned his writing process, which is he will write ideas down on note cards. And then when he has about 300 note cards or so, he will lay them all out on his floor in order.
01:00:25
Speaker
And then he will pick them all up. And that will be what he works off of. Or at the very least, that'll be the rough draft of his script that will then adapt. He will only bring a few pages of script with him to location every day. He's not thinking about the whole movie. He's only thinking about one thing.
01:00:40
Speaker
He pays all his actors and crew, but he plays them below union minimums. They are non-union, but everybody starts somewhere, I guess. Yeah. Who would have thought? Shocking.
01:00:51
Speaker
Shocking. Who would have known? Who would have thought? But he does pay them. He does pay for his locations. He pays for his rights for everything. He always gets ah permits.
01:01:03
Speaker
And the big impression that I got from watching the film is that the real trick of Neil Breen is that he's actually a fairly talented film producer.
01:01:15
Speaker
He's just not a talented writer, director, editor, or star. Yeah. But, boy, he he sure can make fucking movies. You can't take that away Well, yeah, I was i was just going to say, like, listen, for for someone to make one feature film is is a daunting thing. I think the largest film yeah I've personally made, i think, went to about 15 minutes.
01:01:38
Speaker
And it that was off, like, a two-day, 12-hour schedule. um I couldn't imagine making multiple films. like feature-length films that you direct, write, star, and produce in.
01:01:52
Speaker
And yeah yeah and like we might want to make the joke of like, haha, it's a Neil Breen production, but like, listen, Gabe still needs to recognize game. Yeah, i can't I couldn't fucking do this. I couldn't make one of these.
01:02:03
Speaker
I've never made a movie, and he's made five. like He's made seven. He's made seven. He inspires, like when I watch a Neil Breen movie, I think to myself like, Maybe I could make a movie, actually. like Maybe I could make a feature-length movie. He made a feature-length movie.
01:02:18
Speaker
Maybe I could. It sort of reminds me of what the I used to call the myth of punk rock. You know, that you hear punk and you think, oh, it's just like two chords and this guy just sort of mumbling. Anybody could do that. Anybody could be a rock star. It's very approachable that way. And Neil Breen has that same sort of like, God, it's so approachable that anybody could do this.
01:02:36
Speaker
You know, ah like he that's why. Yeah. All Neil Breen movies are ultimately about Neil Breen. And like you're just watching like, hey, a guy made this. That's the the triumphant feel good story whenever you watch an Elbreed movie.
01:02:51
Speaker
And the fact that he kept going and kept making them. I think also the fact that he was an architect makes sense why he would be a good producer because it's like he knows how to plan the overall structure, get everything together. But he's not putting in the tile. He's not putting up the drywall, you know. Yeah.
01:03:09
Speaker
And he doesn't.
Interactive Game: 'Twisted Pair' Dialogue
01:03:11
Speaker
Other people will do that, but then they rely on the crew to put up the drive. It's like, I don't know how to do cinematography, but this guy does. And that's why I hired him.
01:03:20
Speaker
I don't know how to like record sound, but these people do. So they're going to do that for me and then give it to me. And I'm going to give that all to, an you know, like, he's just like, I just do it on my own. Oh, okay. Yes, please. I will say ah it looked like for his later shoots, he was working with a much tighter crew. Okay. um He, ah for a lot of the shots, it was just him and the cameraman. Instead of a boom operator, he would just clamp the boom in a C stand.
01:03:47
Speaker
uh hey hey it kind of works i definitely saves you paying a boom operator yeah uh you know he he had some tricks there's a reason why he can keep doing this yeah why he was able to take a seven thousand dollar go fund me and make a feature-length film out of which is insane So my question for you, Chris, is this, like you saw a lot of, a lot of like BTS and and things like that.
01:04:13
Speaker
What's the general vibe of, of the backstage of a green production? um ah Well, he didn't have that much. Most of the the backstage or behind the scenes stuff was still photographs. There was very little like footage of him interacting with people. Oh, okay. you You saw him giving direction to actors a couple times.
01:04:36
Speaker
They showed him directing ah Kale's girlfriend to throw something. He's like, flip it like that, just sort of more casually. Like, you're just talking to people like they were just like normal people. Like, he seemed...
01:04:48
Speaker
relatively normal to work with. Huh? Interesting. And I would say he was the one selecting the footage, but it oftentimes i that didn't feel like it was true when I'm watching the movie. He didn't work that hard in terms of his selection.
01:05:02
Speaker
Uh, he certainly didn't work that hard in the editing booth. No i retrospective. You could have cut this down to a very interesting half hour, but instead it was a very mind melting five and three quarters. Yeah.
01:05:19
Speaker
ah yeah I'm very impressed with your wherewithal. Oh, thank you. Like I said, the the real trick, listeners, if you want to watch the Neil Breen five feature film retrospective, start at like 730 in the morning.
01:05:31
Speaker
Yeah. It's perfect way to do it. With that, do you guys want to play a game? Absolutely. would love a game. All right. We're going to be playing our newest game, Strange Line Currencies.
01:05:44
Speaker
Name to be changed. Oh,
Baddie Awards: Memorable Moments
01:05:56
Speaker
I don't know what you mean to me
01:06:04
Speaker
when you said those words you said.
01:06:10
Speaker
I don't know why you said that thing. Well, I need you to fill in the word, fill in the line, fill in the blank.
01:06:26
Speaker
These words, they are not mine. These words,
01:06:51
Speaker
That's right. We're doing a little strange line currencies, but we're not doing fill in the blank this week. What I'm going to do is I'm going to read you a line and then I want you to say whether that line was delivered by Cade, Kale, or another character.
01:07:07
Speaker
And you'll this is a buzz in game. You'll buzz in by saying your own name. Please wait until I've finished reading the line. Everybody ready? have one clarifying thing to ask. Please.
01:07:19
Speaker
Cade is the main character. Cade is the one that has superpowers. Yes. kale is the one they won that this yeah Thank you. No problem.
01:07:31
Speaker
All right, here we go. Question number one. We're done. We're done. We're done. We're done.
01:07:43
Speaker
Greg. Greg. and Other.
01:07:50
Speaker
No, I'm sorry. Grant, would you like to steal? Uh... God, I'm gonna say... Do you need the line again? think I got it the first time.
01:08:04
Speaker
I'm gonna go with... Cade.
01:08:10
Speaker
No, I'm sorry, that was Cale, I believe, yelling at his girlfriend. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, that tracks. Question number two. Kuz's empire is planning a takeover of the earth through the masterful use of his biochemical and cyber control of the humans life support systems.
01:08:30
Speaker
A feat not really hard to accomplish through today's technology. Grant. Grant. I'm going to go with other.
01:08:39
Speaker
No, I'm sorry. Okay. I'm going to go with Cade. Correct. Greg is on the board.
01:08:49
Speaker
All right. All right, question number three.
01:08:54
Speaker
I hear the food here is spectacular. The service is impeccable. It's just freaking invisible. Grant. Grant.
01:09:06
Speaker
I'm going to Cade.
01:09:09
Speaker
That is Cade. That is Cade when he rents out the whole restaurant. such a weird line. he gets like, so he's so into this line. And I bet you he's like, this is really going to like sell Cade is like this fun guy. And it just comes across as creepy.
01:09:25
Speaker
he Very weird. He was very proud of that line. right. Question number four. I don't even want you anymore. All I want is the drugs and the money.
01:09:38
Speaker
Oh, Greg. Greg? Other. Correct. one of that that That seemed to be one of your favorite lines from this, Greg. I just, just here, take it, take it. I just, I just love the idea that someone in an argument is like, I don't want you. I just want your stuff.
01:09:57
Speaker
It's just like, I can't believe you're just that honest. I mean, like that's a terrible sentiment, but also that level of honesty is commendable. It's pretty great, honestly. Yeah. Question number five.
01:10:11
Speaker
I don't need to carry a weapon. I am the weapon. Greg. Greg? Cade.
01:10:21
Speaker
Correct again. I wrote that one down. I am the weapon. I am the weapon. God, he is. He has the flattest delivery. I was trying to work out a Neil Breen impression because I thought that would be very useful. You can't.
01:10:38
Speaker
You can't. There's it's it has no distinguishing features. There's no like key phrase to lock in on. Question number six. Just hang there and rot, you scum.
01:10:51
Speaker
This is where we bring you all to rot and die. Grant. Grant? Kale. Correct, that's Kale talking to the CEOs. Rot in my garage, and I'll superimpose you on top of each other.
01:11:07
Speaker
I forgot about that. Yeah, and then it happens several times. There's like an infinite number of the same three CEOs. Didn't even think about, like, moving them at all.
01:11:17
Speaker
Nah. Nah. Just gonna let them rot. Question number seven. A limitless digital universe connecting all shared virtual reality.
01:11:30
Speaker
Digital tribes. Greg. Greg? Cade. Correctamundo. That's Cade talking about digital tribes.
01:11:42
Speaker
and That happens right after the CEO thing. And like I written everything down and it went into that. It's like, I want to write that down too. But like, that's not a part of the scene. there's It's so nonstop. It's like a fire hose. It's crazy.
01:11:58
Speaker
Question number eight. Programmable virtual reality. The corrupt version. Grant. Grant. Grant.
01:12:09
Speaker
I'm going to go other. Sorry, wrong button. That's correct. I was just just i was like, wait a second. I was like, what? Huh? Nope. Sorry. That was me.
01:12:20
Speaker
All right. This is your chance to tie it up, Grant. Greg, you could lock it with this one. Question number nine. Last question. All right. I never had a beard. Grant. Greg.
01:12:33
Speaker
Grant. but theres There's so many names. It's Cade. It is Cade. Congratulations. Cade never had beard.
01:12:44
Speaker
Cade never had a beard. He never had a beard. I never had a beard. I never had a beard. I never had a beard. Uh-oh, it's the Batty Awards.
01:13:02
Speaker
Now you're messing with me. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:13:13
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:13:18
Speaker
Congratulations to all the nominees.
01:13:27
Speaker
That's right. Congratulations to all our nominees. You've made it to the Batty Awards. I'll kick us off. Okay. Uh, my baddie award goes to, uh, the poster that's hanging up in the, movie theater in the in-home movie theater. Did you guys notice what movie poster he had on his? I remember seeing a poster and then I was just like, this movie theater is probably in his home, isn't it? And then I got lost. It is for sure.
01:14:00
Speaker
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, he mentions at the beginning of the five film retrospective that ah people will often ask him who his favorite directors are. And he says, well, I've been to 85 cities all over the world. That's like asking me what my favorite city is.
01:14:15
Speaker
I don't have a favorite film. I don't have a favorite director. But you can see that the one movie that he decorated his house with by putting its poster on his wall is the movie Ultraviolet starring Mila Jovovich.
01:14:30
Speaker
Huh.
01:14:32
Speaker
where she plays a sci-fi vampire. That is so strange. the man has some eclectic taste. Yeah. That is the strange... Nobody liked Ultraviolet.
01:14:44
Speaker
I've never met a single person on Earth who liked Ultraviolet. I've never met a single person on Earth who's seen Ultraviolet. I have. Okay. Okay. It's not worth it.
01:14:56
Speaker
So that gets my baddie award, the poster for Ultraviolet. Greg, do you have a baddie award? Yeah. So this is, so the game reminded me of this. I was, there were so many things just to get my baddie award too. And I really want to take a moment to just highlight Kuz.
01:15:11
Speaker
Just go over that again. He's spectacular. His outfit is spectacular. It's crazy. It's crazy how much you can suggest a strong character with so little, but Kuz top-notch.
01:15:23
Speaker
Yeah, I also so this is kind of in this when I was going back and writing down all the lines, i I had to figure out where it was. I had to keep kind of bouncing around and watching a little bit because it's so frenetic and oddly paced that it's like, where is this scene at? I remember being in the first 45 minutes.
01:15:41
Speaker
ah watching just kind of bouncing around watching Neil Breen's reaction when he's not the focus like when someone else is talking like when he's taking off the guns in the holster for the guns and stuff It is just so hilarious.
01:15:57
Speaker
Like his level of confidence and just say, yeah, it's just like you do not look like a person who knows how to handle a weapon. Like you don't look like you're not acting, but you are acting.
01:16:09
Speaker
It's really impressive. And in one scene, in the scene where he talks, where he says that long thing you said, where it was... ah programmable virtual reality, a shared experience, you know, ah virtual tribes. Yeah. Digital tribes.
01:16:22
Speaker
That scene is over a piece of stock footage. And as I was watching it, mesmerized by what he was saying, I realized that he superimposed himself into the stock footage, but because it's stock footage, it's very simple. It's just like center of the frame is the main guy.
01:16:36
Speaker
So it's very easy to not realize that he has put himself in the scene kind of off center. Yeah. And not in attention. in his face mask doesn't match the face mask of the other guy and then at one point he just kind of like puts his hand up like he's maybe interacting with the thing but like the eagle it's like he can't really tell what he's interacting with so just like it's here ish And it's just beautiful moment. It's just a wonderful little moment to just like ignore everything else and just watch him attempt to try to appear as though he's in a piece of stock footage when he clearly isn't. It is almost missable.
01:17:16
Speaker
It's beautiful. Truly beautiful. and Trying to act like you're in stock footage and hide yourself in the stock footage actually sounds like a very fun challenge. Yes. I would love to do that. How about you, Grant? do you have a batty award?
01:17:30
Speaker
ah I think I would love to give the Batty Award to all of Neil Breen's ah animal co-stars and all of his movies. Because this man is smart enough to know, i shouldn't have ah have live animals on set.
01:17:44
Speaker
So, what are they in? Oh, just some cheeky standees from Spirit Halloween and some stock footage, of course. as As we saw, he he caressed ah caress an eagle, but because of his placement in the stock footage, it looks like he's caressing the stump that the eagle is on.
01:18:01
Speaker
Very simply, I might add. And then um early on in the movie, we see that there's a homeless man. And to personify the fact that, yes, this is a homeless man, and he is in fact dirty, he has two little rubber rats next to the homeless man.
01:18:18
Speaker
Yeah, to just
Grant's Projects and Farewell
01:18:20
Speaker
really drive that point home that this man is homeless and dirty. It's like drawing the two flies next to him to show that he stinks. if you're Yes, exactly. yeah Yeah, precisely. Which, by the way, homeless man in the most pristine college campus you have ever seen. oh yeah Couldn't even get this man a cardboard box to sit on to make it look more realistic.
01:18:41
Speaker
The cleanest homeless person you probably have ever seen. oh yeah. Yeah. Great stuff. yeah Thank you so much for coming around this week, Grant. It was great to see you. Great to talk about a Neil Breen movie. A huge name to cross off on our list. Yeah. ah Do you have anything that you want to plug?
01:19:03
Speaker
ah Most certainly. I'm kind of in the process of making my next short film right now. It's called Employee of the Moth. It's a short that I'm looking to produce this summer. If you follow me on Instagram, ab b underscore LeVron, L-E-V-R-O-N, I'll be posting updates there whenever that project is live on Instagram, and we are working towards it.
01:19:25
Speaker
All right. Awesome. Listeners, check that out. Keep an eye out for Employee of the Moth. You know you want to support that. You know if he's bringing Neil Breen as inspiration, as a touchstone, you know it's going to be quality.
01:19:37
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Just wait till you see how many laptops we're going to mess up here. Oh, yes. that's Audiences love to see things get destroyed. Remember that. They do. ah
Listener Engagement and Next Episode Teaser
01:19:48
Speaker
And listeners, you know what I'm going to do right now.
01:19:51
Speaker
You know how i got to do it. I do it like this. Give us five stars. Follow us. Leave a rating. Share us on your timeline. Tell your best friend about it. Find us on Instagram.
01:20:02
Speaker
Find us on Blue Sky. All the links are in the show notes. Come hang on our Discord. We're watching movies there. It's tons of fun. Listen. Listen. Do all those things. I got them through them really fast this week because I love you guys.
01:20:16
Speaker
But pay me back. Give us those five stars. And ah tune in next week when we'll be talking about Southland Tales. I'm so excited about this. wo Yeah, i I haven't seen Southland Tales, so I'm very excited to check it out. That's and this's another big a hole in my knowledge. so Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listeners, you don't want to miss it.
01:20:38
Speaker
I forgot to get music for this. So ah enjoy ah little bit of Don't Destroy Our Future.
01:21:04
Speaker
Police in Southern California. The President. The President.
01:21:37
Speaker
Toxic waste, third world stress, manatees, landfill men.
01:21:50
Speaker
Don't destroy our future.
01:22:26
Speaker
I love Kuz so much.