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DigiGods Episode 250: Legends of the Winter
49 Plays1 year ago
More painful obits, epic 4ks and an amazing month for Criterion. Only on the DigiGods.
DigiGods Podcast, 03/07/23 (M4a) — 60.1 MB
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In this episode, the Gods discuss:
- The Adventures of Batman: The Complete Collection (Blu-ray)
- Air Force One (4k UHD Steelbook) (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- American Gigolo: Season One (Blu-ray)
- American Murderer (Blu-ray)
- Bergman Island (Blu-ray)
- Bones and All (Blu-ray)
- Bubba Ho-Tep (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Call Jane (Blu-ray)
- City on a Hill: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
- Cloverfield 15th Anniversary 4k UHD Steelbook (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- .com for Murder (Blu-ray)
- Crimes of the Future (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Dazed and Confused (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Detective Knight: Redemption (Blu-ray)
- Devotion (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Dynasty (2017): The Final Season (DVD)
- The Fabelmans (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Father of the Bride (2022) (DVD)
- Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 (Blu-ray)
- The Great: Season One (Blu-ray)
- The Great: Season Two (Blu-ray)
- Hollywood Shuffle (Blu-ray)
- The House That Screamed (Blu-ray)
- I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Blu-ray)
- Incredible But True (Blu-ray)
- The Inspection (Blu-ray)
- Joe Pickett: Season One (Blu-ray)
- John Wick Stash Book Collection – SteelBook® Box Set (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Lady Whirlwind & Hapkido (Blu-ray)
- Lars von Trier's Europe Trilogy (The Element of Crime, Epidemic, Europa aka Zentropa) (Blu-ray)
- Legion of Super-Heroes (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- The Loneliest Boy in the World (Blu-ray)
- Longmire: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
- The Lukas Moodysson Collection (Blu-ray)
- The Magnificent Seven (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- The Man Who Fell to Earth: Season One (Blu-ray)
- Marquis de Sade's Justine (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Boudoir (Eugenie...The Story of Her Journey Into Perversion) (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- The Mask of Zorro (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Millionaires' Express (Blu-ray)
- Nothing is Impossible (DVD)
- The Old Way (Blu-ray)
- On the Line (DVD)
- Paradise City (Blu-ray)
- Poppy (DVD)
- Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin: The Complete First Season (DVD)
- Puss in Boots - The Last Wish (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- The Remains of the Day (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Resident Alien: Season Two (Blu-ray)
- The Return of Swamp Thing (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Rock Dog 3: Battle the Beat (Blu-ray)
- Romeo and Juliet (Blu-ray)
- Running the Bases (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Savage Salvation (Blu-ray)
- Sesame Street – Elmo & Tango: Furry Friends Forever (DVD)
- She Said (Blu-ray)
- The Split: Series 3 (DVD)
- Station Eleven (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- This is not a Burial, It's a Resurrection (Blu-ray)
- Three Colors (Blue, White, Red) (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Training Day (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Two Films by Marguerite Duras (India Song; Baxter, Vera Baxter) (Blu-ray)
- The Vagrant (Blu-ray)
- Violent Night (Blu-ray)
- What Remains (Blu-ray)
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Transcript
Return from Illness and Show Updates
00:00:10
Speaker
And we are back and it is March and it has been a while. And I should I should explain. We were meaning to be back a couple of weeks ago. And the reason is because that we did not is because, wait, yours truly came down with the mother of all respiratory infections. Thanks to my loving daughter. Not the one that people are thinking, but just a good child, a good child, a good child earned respiratory infection from back in the day.
00:00:37
Speaker
Yeah, this was just the meanest thing I've had in decades. Anyway, just wiped me out. My voice was trashed. I was coughing nonstop. So sometimes I can push through and I can do a show when I'm not well. But there was no way with this thing. So literally, I am just back basically like yesterday.
00:00:58
Speaker
I'm not coughing as of yesterday even during our big film week oscar thing on sunday my voice was starting to give out during the show and i didn't cough but i was drinking a lot of water to try to lubricate the vocal cords and and you know it was it was given out but i am pretty much a solidly back now so tim you were a star at the show i have to say the whole
00:01:19
Speaker
thing was good. People should really listen. I guess people will have an opportunity, right? It'll be the first time this week. It'll air on Friday the 10th, right? Yes, Friday the 10th at 11am Pacific time. You can listen, and then it'll be on podcasts, but you can listen to SCPR, which stands for Southern California Public Radio.
00:01:44
Speaker
dot org SCPR dot org or if you're in LA just go to eighty nine point three LA ist FM but it was a good show you you got you got us off on a really great joke and everybody else is kind of loosened up and kick back and the audience laughed we did it at the at the classical movie palace the Orpheum downtown which had originally which was originally a vaudeville
Tributes to Entertainment Legends
00:02:05
Speaker
house. Yeah.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah, I did. I don't know that man. Yeah a real old haunted building that one is man. Oh man. What do you tell us? I think it was Judy Garland with her family when it was the gum family, you know Family, you know on that stage that was kind of really sort of interesting some of the folks Marx Brothers on that stage doing vaudeville. So, you know, that's
00:02:26
Speaker
That's a kind of a cool thing we got to do there, bro. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It was good. It was fun. And I enjoyed Justin and Charles. That was good. That was fun. Little cat fighting on the stage. There was nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that at all. And we got some wicked obits.
00:02:49
Speaker
Let's start with the one that is deeply personal to me. Melinda Dillon passed away a few weeks ago. Melinda Dillon, of course, two-time Oscar nominee for Close Encounters. Got the first ever acting nomination for Steven Spielberg-directed film there. And then another one for Sidney Pollock's Absence of Malice. Also won accolades for an amazing double role in Hal Ashby's Bound for Glory opposite David Carradine.
00:03:14
Speaker
slap shot you know a christmas the mom and christmas story the mom and harry and the henderson's and i'm no melinda was a was a very very very close friend she and my mother were close her son and i you know are still very very dear and close friends she was she was part of our mom squad when you know i was growing up.
00:03:34
Speaker
It was just a tight-knit group of moms, and they were mothers to all of us. My mother was one of them, and Melinda was one of them, too. So I haven't lost just a great actress. I've lost a very, very dear friend and a member of the family. And that one pricks. I'm sorry that she never won an Oscar outright, but point, she gave some amazing performances. Extraordinary performances that really, really heartfelt performance in absence of Malick in particular, and even
00:04:03
Speaker
close encounters, she was always just so earthy. And Melinda had a chance to meet her a few times over the last 30 years or so because, you know, come to your house and sometimes Melinda Dolan would be there. And we did we did do a sit down interview with her for our friend Ray Green, filmmaker Ray, R.H. Green, and
00:04:21
Speaker
about the film that he was making and that was a lovely day too. So yeah. It was the cry of jazz. That was about the cry of jazz, which was her very first film. She was 19 years old when she made that and that was one of the first films pre-Civil Rights era to start challenging the color line in relationships and on film.
00:04:44
Speaker
It's now in the Library of Congress, whatever they call it, the protected films list, and that was her first film. So it's quite a claim to fame there too. So deeply, deeply missing. Melinda, her last film, by the way, was a 9-11 film. It was a 2007 film, Rain Over Me with Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle. Oh, yeah. It was a very good film, not often seen.
00:05:09
Speaker
very powerful film from both of them. To my mind, beginning what has been Adam Sanders, Sandler's a long sort of Oscar, seeking a nomination, not getting run of films where he's just been, been really self good in these movies and haven't gotten any sort of Oscar, not so he probably should have got that was a really good one. You're right. Mike,
00:05:30
Speaker
Mike Binder, Mike Binder wrote and directed that. And I remember when she was shooting it, you know, I remember talking to her, I was like, how's that movie going? Is, you know, she, and, and, you know, cause it was, I was thinking, Adam Sandler movie and Don Cheadle, like they don't, Cheadle and Sandler don't kind of live in the same universe, right? Um, but she, I remember her telling me, she's like, no, it's, it's really dramatic. And it's, uh, it's like, Sandler came over to Cheadle's side of the fence for that one.
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah. Boy, I think everybody in that movie just slays it. Mike Binder just doesn't make enough movies. I thought that was a really well-written and directed film. Yeah, very heartfelt. Well, and then here's who else we lost. We lost Hugh Hudson. Never won an Oscar, but directed Chariots of Fire to an Oscar, and then many other great films like Grey Stoke. Hudson was a class act, very close friend of David Leans.
00:06:22
Speaker
in his waning days and I still think Chariots of Fire is just a stone cold, flawless masterpiece. I didn't realize he was in his 80s, like all those directors that came out of that same advertising shop of David Putnam in the 1960s and 70s. The only one that's still with us and kicking hard is Ridley Scott. Adrian Line, if you ever decide to make another movie, but my goodness.
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah yeah yeah these guys were fantastic and they made the kind of movies that you really can't make as feature films with more chariots of fire. Feature films like that. No not today can't get that done. Revolution the one he did with Pacino.
00:07:03
Speaker
Back then, which wasn't a big hit in the first place, but nevertheless, it would be tough to get a movie like this. All these guys made movies of a sort that would be really hard to get made as feature films today, which is sort of interesting. It's sad. It is. Burt Bacharach. I feel like the guy scored my youth.
00:07:27
Speaker
It's like I think of all these great songs. It's Burt Bacharach nonstop. There was Barbara Streisand and Burt Bacharach. It's so much Burt Bacharach from the 1970s. Yeah, I mean, you can't. I mean, what are you going to do with the Burt Bacharach?
00:07:46
Speaker
It was like raindrops from Buskesh and Sundance Kitchen, which is just so completely out of place song for a quote-unquote cowboy movie at the time, but it was just so perfect and Arthur and that's the thing, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, a little bit of birth across all of that.
00:08:12
Speaker
It goes, for me, it stretches from what you get when you fall in love, Dan Warwick, all the way through to Grace in My Heart, the amazing film where he wrote all those wonderful songs with Elvis Costello and Allison Anders just directed the hell out of that movie and it got no love. Yeah, it's beautiful. Such a great movie, great songs.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah, well, backtrack. Raquel Welch finally died, which I didn't think was possible. It, like, defies physics. These things at some point just start to make, you know, so Raquel, if you're as old as me and Wade, and certainly if you watch these things and reruns the way we did when we were kids, you saw Raquel Welch in episodes of Mikkel's Navy. You saw Raquel Welch in episodes of Bewitched.
00:09:03
Speaker
Rocco Welsh was the only thing could possibly be finer than Elizabeth Montgomery in an episode of Bewitched. I'm watching Bewitched because I'm obsessed with Elizabeth Montgomery, and I'm like, well, who's that? And it's Rocco Welsh. It had to be. Who else could have been possibly bad? And then, of course, sexy. All of that, yes. Rocco Welsh, hysterically funny.
00:09:29
Speaker
She's so funny, Raquel Welch, particularly in her later years, which she always was. Never took herself seriously. Never took herself seriously. Didn't take that sex symbol thing seriously. She wasn't dumb about it. She knew she was fine. But she never took it seriously. One of my favorite Raquel Welch movies,
00:09:45
Speaker
100 rifles with Jim Brown. Jim Brown. I love that movie. That was a big deal because one of those early black and white movie kisses there in cinema, that one. But you give me Raquel Welch in that episode of Seinfeld back in 97, which she wouldn't move her arms.
00:10:14
Speaker
No, it's just too funny. Here's the thing that's devastating to me is that, you know, realizing that Raquel Welch, she was always just ageless, passed away in whatever she was, 82, 83, something like that. And you just thought, gosh, I never thought she would age. And then I got to thinking, wait a minute, but Toni Welch, who was just this beautiful, beautiful clone of her mom in cocoon, how old is Toni? Toni's 61.
00:10:38
Speaker
Tony's my age, literally. And in Cancun, I was like, ooh, is that how you get new fans? And I was like, yeah, man. The years fly by. Like zip, zip, zip. Man. It's unreal, the older you get. Stella Stevens, that's another one, you know, another great beautiful actress and sex symbol of yesteryear, kind of taking the youth out of the equation. Walter Mirish, I think he was 102. Yeah.
00:11:07
Speaker
You have to say the great, you know, amazing. I mean, and here's the thing here, you know, Walter Marish right to his dying day was was and by the way, Walter Marish was still getting credits. He got a credit on Steven Spielberg's West Side Story. Yeah, you know, because he was a producer of the first one. So contractual, right? Can you imagine you're 101 years old, and you're like,
00:11:29
Speaker
I got that closet contract, came through for me in the later days. If you're smart as Walter Meris, you knew back in 1950s. We're talking about someone getting high. Producer. Oh, the Pink Panther movies. And the thing about the Meris company, the Meris brothers of whom Walter was the last one, was that they were the first independent producers in Hollywood, literally the first. They were the first. Was it Harold? I think it's Harold.
00:11:56
Speaker
Harold too yeah yeah yeah and they were the ones that went to the studios and said why don't we do like this instead of you carrying all the water we'll just make a deal we'll make the movie and you make a deal with us mm-hmm nobody had ever done that before yeah
00:12:11
Speaker
I mean and the closest was sells nick and sells nick was his own studio you know sells the international pictures was a studio he didn't go to another studio the merishes they did they just said. You know it's like airline leasing you know why go through all that trouble will take care of it. And their track record just turned out to be amazing i mean they were they were phenomenal it was just it was the birth of american independent producing.
00:12:35
Speaker
Yeah, Walter in particular gave us some really, you know, City Portier, no Walter Mears, no City Portier. That's right. And having the guts, the balls at the time to do that. Just to do that. That's the kind of stuff that he and his brothers gave us.
00:13:01
Speaker
they shifted the landscape and they made it possible for Billy Wilder in particular to make movies that nobody else was gonna let him make. And for that, I mean, the book on the meerish contribution to Hollywood has yet to be written, but it will be, it will be. And then lastly, Tim.
00:13:20
Speaker
i mean premature death tom size more and brain aneurysm that one kind of hits a lot of us hard i mean tom is like our generation well tom yeah literally literally my age now that i'm uh... did you get the sixty one years old and tom just came roaring roaring onto the same out of theater did that some of that chicago theater with those guys onto the scene and
00:13:42
Speaker
And he really was amazing. And it's kind of weird when we look back now at all of those great Tom Sizemore movies. He never let a movie start in a movie, but he created characters that defined a lot of movies. And Devil in Blue Dress, playing that crooked cop in that white suit across from Denzel Washington, Tom Sizemore just created this character.
00:14:06
Speaker
And saving Private Ryan, he held a screen with Tom Hanks there. And everybody else in that movie, he was Tom Hanks' henchman in that movie if you want to play him that way. Because nobody else wanted to save Private Ryan. Nobody wanted to do it except Tom Hanks.
00:14:24
Speaker
But it was Tom Sizemore's character who said, you heard the captain. And, you know, he had that kind of gravitas on the screen, you know, and all that nutty stuff, Heidi Fleisch, this, that, and the other thing. You know, whatever. Life goes that way when you have when you have addictions sometimes. And he had a tough one. Good friend of mine, junk filmmaker.
00:14:48
Speaker
20-something years old has made a couple movies and put Tom in both of them. He may have in the can right now, a young man named Trevor, Tom Sizemore's last film. He's editing it and Tom has a fairly large role in it. So, you know, I've been bumping up against Tom for a long time and I'm glad I had a chance to work with him in that capacity at least.
00:15:11
Speaker
Yeah, in Black Hawk Down. He was one of those iconic actors who, even though he had a persona, even though he had that face and that voice and that attitude, somehow he wound up in really wide diversity of movies and he could somehow always make every character his own. That's a gifted character actor who can do that. I know he had a really tempestuous life.
00:15:39
Speaker
you know how the flights and all that stuff he was you know he had he was connected to a lot of crazy stuff and. But it's it's really a sad loss very talented actor and he will be missed.
Criterion Collection Highlights
00:15:51
Speaker
Well, let's get down to the goods. We're going to talk about the criterion stuff right out of the gate, and especially Hollywood Shuffle because we have a great chance to talk to Robert Townsend. Yes. And that's going to be separate on the CineGod site. We're going to put the video up there concurrent with this podcast. And you will see our wonderful, wonderful conversation with Robert Townsend, who just could not be nicer and damn him could not be more ageless.
00:16:19
Speaker
Oh man. Seriously, I, you know, look, I mean, you know, here we are doing a Zoom interview and looking at the guy and I'm just thinking, what is your damn secret? You have not aged a day in 35 years. I don't understand how this works. Hasn't put on a pound, doesn't have a gray hair, doesn't have a wrinkle. I don't get it.
00:16:38
Speaker
I get it. It's just nuts. And again, he's our age. He's our age, but he's there and he's just great. And so magnanimous and funny, funny, funny, funny, funny. He's doing characters and voices for us. I pointed out that if you're paying attention to Cooley High, Robert Townsend is in Cooley High. 1975 is Cooley High. He's a teenager in Cooley High.
00:17:06
Speaker
He doesn't have any dialogue, but he's wandering around that basket, that scene in the gym when all the kids are student basketball intern and everybody. Robert Townsend is in that scene. And it's really, really, really funny. And, you know, he pulled the whole Wayans family along with him, right? I mean, he wrote Hollywood shuffle with Keenan.
00:17:24
Speaker
Yeah and and he pulled Peter Deming along with him. Peter Deming that was one of his first big breaks as a cinematographer and he goes on to become you know the like David Lynch's go to guys. So Hollywood Shuffle is is just such a seminal film and and in the interview you know I even I even brought up with him I said have you seen Kevin Hart's
00:17:44
Speaker
new film for amazon diehard where he kinda plays himself and pokes fun at his own career and how he can't break out of comedy and become an action star as you know he's basic what you paved the way he's basically doing his version of hollywood shuffle so all this stuff is so much a part of a zeitgeist that he just tapped into and it's such a great story how this movie was made you gotta watch our interview with it it's just anyway hollywood shuffle gets the criterion collection
00:18:14
Speaker
Treatment and it is just beautiful there's a terrific commentary on it by Townsend and new interviews with everybody from rusty kundiv to Bobby McGee and Ann Marie Johnson, a radio program with where he's interviewed by Elvis Mitchell. It's just it's a wonderful wonderful honor to get a Hollywood shuffle on the criterion collection and it couldn't happen to a cooler awesome more awesome nicer guy.
00:18:40
Speaker
Yeah, definitely listen to and watch the interview. Yeah. Then we also got Mia Hansen Love's Bergman Island on Criterion. That's from just a couple of years ago, so that's also a really wonderful honor for Mia Hansen Love. This is her seventh film. I can't believe she's made seven films at this point. Anyway, she went to the home of Ingmar Bergman.
00:19:09
Speaker
to tell this really, really interesting intimate family drama in this place where, you know, all of Bergman's genius happened, where all the inspiration happened. And so there is this kind of a spiritual connection that happens there. And it's a really, really interesting
00:19:31
Speaker
very unusual movie, comes with a new interview with Hanson Love, an interview with Vicki Cripes, a short film by cast member Gabby Clinger. And it's good. It's really good. It's Mia. Mia has a film out now called One Fine Morning. Yeah. I wrote a piece for AB Club over there if you want to go check it out. It's a very lovely film. Her films are all
00:19:57
Speaker
very sort of personal and into one extent or another family oriented. This is, Bergman Island is a real filmmakers film. I mean, you know, if you're a filmmaker in any capacity, you're definitely going to want to see that.
00:20:10
Speaker
So another movie here that I had never heard of, came out a couple of years ago. I never even heard of The Filmmaker. So this, I always enjoy when these things happen. This is by a filmmaker by the name of Lemoine Jeremiah Moses. And the movie is called Resurrection. Sorry, this is not a burial, it's a resurrection. It's not a burial, it's a resurrection. Did you see this when it came around by Chinese?
00:20:38
Speaker
No, I remember when he came around, but I didn't see it. I didn't get a chance to see it, did you? Yeah. So the language is Sosofo. And it's one of these, I mean, I always enjoy movies that sort of drop me into a completely different cultural background so that I feel like I've just been transported to another time or another place. And this takes place in Lusotho.
00:21:06
Speaker
And Lusotho is a really interesting country. For those who don't know, Lusotho is basically this little, it's its own country, but it sits inside South Africa, right? And a lot of people just, you know, it almost looks like it's a nature preserve. If you look at it on the map, you just see this little dot inside South Africa, but it's fairly substantially sized.
00:21:28
Speaker
But it's not South Africa. So I went and researched the history. I'm like, how do you become a tiny country inside South Africa, surrounded by South Africa, like just it's like Portugal, how did Portugal get stuck on the edge of Spain, you know, those kinds of questions. So so it's a really interesting history. I'm not going to get into it here. But but this movie made me want to go research that. And this is just an absolutely beautiful, sometimes almost magical realist study of
00:21:58
Speaker
culture and family drama and the reverence for ancestors in this fascinating nation and culture, which is very different from South Africa. I mean, it really does have a tribal history independent and separate from. So I'm grateful for this. I've discovered a filmmaker that I had never heard of before and who is making his mark in the world.
00:22:21
Speaker
And so, you know, this is a director approved edition, has wonderful audio, beautiful transfer. Moses does a commentary along with the producer, Kate Pansagrou. And you even get a bunch of short films, so you can kind of catch up on Moses' career. And it's, you know, we got a world class filmmaker here who's going to be doing a lot of great work in the future. So it's a really cool film. It is once again called, This is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection. Long title, beautiful movie.
00:22:51
Speaker
Uh, you know, dude, uh, man, I have such a love hate relationship with Lars von Trier. Oh yeah. That trilogy. Yeah. So Criterion has released Lars von Trier's Europe trilogy, which to be honest, until they announced this as a trilogy, no part of me actually considered that the element of crime epidemic and Europe were a trilogy. I didn't think I never thought of them as a trilogy. Crime is a movie I liked at the time. I've had to reevaluate it in the wake of von Trier being a lunatic.
00:23:21
Speaker
In 1984, yeah. Yeah, Epidemic, I don't much care for, it's okay. 1997, yeah. In Europa, which was released here as Zentropa, so as to not confuse it with Europa Europa, which was at least the same year. 1991, yeah. Yeah, they're now calling it Europa, it's correct original title, so just know that that is Zentropa. Was this high style thing with the freaking angles and the black and white and just this intense look, and I remember just thinking, I don't really know what this is about.
00:23:50
Speaker
And what's funny is, these aren't large, more problematic films. Those are easy, large films. That's true. There's no, you don't have, you know, nobody's putting a drill through Willem Dafoe's knee. There's no, there are no rape scenes.
00:24:12
Speaker
It was funny, I always think of Nicole Kidman's story when she was shooting. Probably one in the warehouse with something built, whatever it is. Yeah, and when Russell Crowe was shooting nearby, he just came to drop in and pay her a visit, and he walks into the sound stage where there is literally nothing. There's just Nicole Kidman and other actors in costume, and then chalk and tape on the floor and walls of an empty sound stage. And Russell Crowe,
00:24:40
Speaker
Russell Crowe in his inimitable Crow way walks walks through the door and takes a look around takes a beat looks at the walls looks at the floor looks at Nicole goes, what the hell is this?
00:24:53
Speaker
Dogville. Dogville. Yeah. So these are all real movies compared to that stuff. Yeah. So, you know, yeah. So, yeah, there you go. Funny how that worked out. And I mean, look, there are audio commentaries with Von Trier and other people, obviously, on all of these. And I can't, for the life of me, I can't listen to him talk anymore. I can put up with like 10 minutes the commentary and then I just think,
00:25:18
Speaker
You go just see a shrink. You are so messed up, bro. You are so jeez. And what's funny is Lars is not even like, frankly, after all of that 30 years, 40 years, 40 years of that. Lars is not terribly relevant anymore. He's not. Frankly, a lot of those dogma guys aren't relevant anymore.
00:25:41
Speaker
And he still won't leave Denmark. He's afraid. That's weird. Smart to stay in Denmark. Anyway, look, I don't know. There's some other interviews on here and there's a couple of student films that he made in 1980 and 82 that just
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah i can watch them make up your own mind but look i mean why is this a trilogy i guess i kind of understand it i mean the whole box that makes the point as to why this is a europe trilogy i understand it but it's it's a very very tenuous thematic and career trajectory that that can that connects these movies.
00:26:24
Speaker
So I'll go with it. I'm glad to have them in case I need to pull them out for any kind of an academic reason, like if I'm ever going to teach a class or have to argue with somebody, but man. Wow. Okay, there it is.
Cultural Impact of Classic Films
00:26:38
Speaker
Tim Romeo and Juliet. Let's talk for a second about Olivia Hussie is in her lawsuit with this, both of them actually. Yeah. You know, from years and years and years and years and years and years ago. 1968. 1968. So how she was like 16, he was like 17, something like
00:26:53
Speaker
They were both relatively speaking underage and a couple of nude scenes in there that they say now they were pressured into doing and did not want to do and feel like they were basically abused as children. Of course, who directed that? What's his name? Is that Forelli? Is that Forelli? I'm with Yahasean Leonard Whiting.
00:27:13
Speaker
I don't know, that's a long time, man, to have had these issues and not said anything. I guess the things today are what they are today, so maybe that's why they feel empowered to talk about it. A lawsuit, though? I don't know. You're saying how you felt, then. That makes total sense to me. Hindsight is 20-20, and I'm kind of okay with that, but a lawsuit, not quite sure that that makes any sense to me.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I remember seeing the film as part of, you know, they showed it here at the local Lemley as part of a Shakespeare series. And I was in elementary school, you know, and I remember they kind of dragged us to go and expose us to Shakespeare. And that's fine. You know, we saw Taming of the Shrew and a few other Shakespeare movies. I think, you know, Olivia's Hamlet was part of the series. I don't think the school officials
00:28:06
Speaker
did their research into Romeo and Juliet and realized that these first and second graders were going to be seeing some nudity. But I remember at the time I was grateful for it.
00:28:16
Speaker
Yeah, I just thought it was all wonderfully sophisticated. I didn't see this movie until I was a teenager, but I just thought it was all wonderfully sophisticated. I didn't think it was. But all of these things, again, it's that hindsight thing and it's this new lens, but that's the reason why I have to wonder whether it makes sense to be a lawsuit about it.
00:28:40
Speaker
thoughtful consideration of the time and the period and the pressures, that's all fine with me. But I'm not sure that we should be suing people 50 years later.
00:28:51
Speaker
Well, there is a lot on this, relatively speaking, considering that at the time they didn't really have, you know, a lot of behind the scenes stuff to go from. There is an excerpt from the 2018 documentary Franco Zeffirelli Directing from Life. I wish they had the entire documentary because it should be here. But the excerpt is fine. There are Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting interviews that were conducted pre lawsuit between 67 and 2016. And that's really, really terrific. And then a lovely essay by Ramona Ray, who really kind of
00:29:21
Speaker
you know hits the sweet spot on the film so are relatively speaking some really good extras there and nothing addressing the lawsuit which you know we'll have to play out and we'll see where that goes.
00:29:38
Speaker
Yeah, about four or five years ago, I think. I don't like that. So two films here that are really, really worth paying attention to from Marguerite Duras, the great French, not just filmmaker, but author and extraordinary individual, just one of the major literary and artistic figures in the history of France.
00:30:04
Speaker
And Marguerite Duras has written books that were turned into movies. She's made her own movies. Anyway, these are a couple of films that she made in 1975 and 1977 called India Song and Baxter, Vera Baxter. Both of them shot
00:30:21
Speaker
you know, square frame kind of Academy aspect ratio, India song is even it's 137. It's like really square. And you know what, I think if you want to appreciate Marguerite Duras, you you almost have to combine what she wrote with what she made in terms of films. And I think seeing these and then reading her literature will give you a perfect snapshot of who she was. I mean, it's, you know, it's it's it's tough to really explain these movies. But
00:30:51
Speaker
It's worth checking out. You get an amazing snapshot of somebody who just had this. And I hate to use the word postmodernism because it's tarnished significantly by the philosophical approach, but the aesthetic of postmodernism in French cinema is one that she certainly embraced, and you can see it in these films. So highly recommended there. And then we've got on 4K.
00:31:17
Speaker
Dazed and confused, which is nice, finally getting this from the, I don't know that it was beautifully shot enough in the first place in 1993 to warrant a 4K, but, you know, what Richard Linklater kind of came storming on after Slacker and he gave us Matthew McConaughey in this movie and he gave us Parker Posey. And, you know, a lot of people made their debuts in this film. So it is kind of a seminal movie.
00:31:51
Speaker
Just to put it real quick and fast. A lot of that early 90s wandering around, slacker, Gen Xer, chat movies, these people just wandering around talking and watching it from the perch of a, frankly, a 60-year-old. I want to smack all these kids. You're right. Gave us a lot of cold housers walking around this movie. You got Anthony Rapp walking, Adam Goldberg walking around this movie.
00:32:11
Speaker
Does it hold up for you?
00:32:18
Speaker
You know, all of them walking around this movie, but back then, watching this movie, thinking that this was really bright, and it's Richard, the whole complete director, every word written by him. And now, you know, every kid in this movie had a slap. Shut up. Just shut up.
00:32:36
Speaker
All the crap coming out of your face is retarded. But that said, it's fun to watch just to do that. Richard Linklater, at 20, whatever he would have been in 19, whatever, he's younger than me. So he would have been, I don't know, 20-something, philosophizing through all of this kind of stuff. But it is an interesting time capsule, though. It's an interesting time capsule of 30 years ago.
00:33:05
Speaker
I will say, and it takes place in 1976, and I'm just going to say, for movies that take place in 1976, my preferred film is The Spirit of 76, which of course is a hilarious time-travel disco comedy. Those are those supertrooper guys. Now, it was directed by Rob Reiner's little brother.
00:33:25
Speaker
And Sofia Coppola did the costumes and it was produced by uh, uh, Martin Landau and Barbara Baines daughter, Susie Landau. So it was like, basically all these Hollywood second generation, uh, you know, brats that got together and said, let's make a movie about, you know, and then, you know, I remember this marks mother's bar. Yeah.
00:33:47
Speaker
Lafe Garrett is in it, Olivia Dabo, David Cassidy. It's basically about a bunch of people. Like Carl Reiner has a cameo at the beginning. You know the premise of it. It's in the future. A magnetic cloud passes over the earth and degosses all of history.
00:34:06
Speaker
And so they need to get into a time capsule and go back to 1776 to rediscover the Constitution. But the time capsule, the time travel machine malfunctions and lands them in 1976. So it's all disco era and it's just freaking hilarious. I remember that movie. About 1990 years. Man, I totally forgot about that. That's a good one. It used to be a midnight movie at the New York. I used to go to see that thing like at least three times a year. It was just hysterical.
00:34:35
Speaker
Anyway, here we're talking about a movie that's not even being released this week. So the best thing from Criterion this week by far is the 4K release of Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy, which I just think is one of the alta. This is the greatest trilogy ever made. Blue, white, and red based on the colors of the French flag. Blue with maybe the greatest performance Juliette Binoche has ever given on screen. Blue won the
00:35:01
Speaker
blue one the berlin film fest yeah blue on the berlin film festival white one venice and red was it was a nineteen ninety four at can everybody thought he's gonna get the triple crowns gonna win the can film festival it was phenomenal and then clint freaking eastwood goes up there and goes in the palm door goes to.
00:35:22
Speaker
hope fiction and people lost their minds and lost their minds so quentin tino much as we love quentin kind of feel like that year he stole keselowski triple crown possibility but i'm all say about this and there are extras galore in here the four k is just
00:35:42
Speaker
thunderously good, a magnificent transfer. I just can't believe these have not been a part of the criterion. They have been, but not on 4K. Not on 4K, it's the 4K, okay. It's the 4K. I was actually one of the last people to interview Kieslowski before. Oh yeah, I remember you. That was an interview that our good friend Ziggy set up here in LA and I
00:36:03
Speaker
It was just a miraculous hour that I sat there with him because I've never met someone so revered in cinema who was so absolutely unimpressed with himself. I mean, that's the thing about Kieslowski is you could sit down and you treat him like he's a god of cinema and he will look at you like
00:36:24
Speaker
Get a life. Just get a life. I'm a failed author. If I had any motivation, if I had any skills, I'd be writing novels and not making movies. So don't put me on a pedestal. That was basically his attitude. That's extraordinary. And I just love that. And these films are just astonishing. They changed my life. And so go check them out on 4K. It's worth upgrading. Absolutely. Let's hit some arrow stuff here real quickly. The house that screamed. Tim, do you have any recollection of the house that screamed?
00:36:52
Speaker
House of Scream, give me a little refresher real quick. Okay, The House of Scream is one of these just absolutely, well, I don't want to be overly cruel about it. That's an Italian film. Is that what it is?
00:37:10
Speaker
Spanish. It's directed by Narciso Ibanez Cerrador. And it's like Spanish schlock cinema from that moment when Jess Franco was inspiring far too many people to make knockoffs of his already bad movies. You know, I'll just say this about it.
00:37:34
Speaker
Take your time. The lingering, the lingering residue. Lily Palmer is in that movie. I know, I know. It's, it's just, it's like it's a knockoff Just Franco movie. And I know it has a following. And I know there's kind of like a feminist element to it in some people's eyes, but
00:37:49
Speaker
Anyway, this thing is loaded with extras. It uses branching to give us the American cut. And I was like, Oh, that's right. You can do branching. Like that was the big promise of DVD and Blu-ray in the early days 20 years ago. I think one movie ever used it. This is like the second one.
00:38:07
Speaker
This is the second time that they've used branching to actually deliver a different cut instead of just an entire separate transfer dropped on here. No, no, no, no. You can switch between the 105-minute cut called the finishing school and the 94-minute American theatrical cut called the house that screamed. You can use branching to do that, and that's pretty good. I love that. Yes, thank you for finally putting that technology to use after 20 years.
00:38:32
Speaker
and a lot of interviews and other tidbits here. But ultimately, I mean, I look at it and I'm like, it's a Jess Franco movie that Jess Franco didn't make. We've also got a Quentin Dupure movie called Incredible But True. This is the guy that made Rubber, that movie out of tire. I think he's out of his mind. But anyway, this is another Quentin Dupure movie. They're all kind of weird and quirky and they don't make sense to me.
00:39:00
Speaker
Um, this one, you know, is, is called incredible, but true. It's got a decent cast. I like Shabbat and, and, uh, you know, lay a Drucker or fine, but I just, it's, you know what, it's just weird. It's just weird. It's kind of, it's sort of, um, it's sort of a haunted house movie, but not really like people move into a house and you know, there's a tunnel in the bay anyway.
00:39:26
Speaker
It's just, it's just him just, you know, doing what he does and being weird and odd. And when you have good actors, I guess they sell it somehow. Lucas Moodyson. Yeah, we got the full collection here. Container, Lilia Forever, Together, A Hole in My Heart, Blanking Amal, Man, We Are the Best. I'm not a I'm not a Moodyson fan. Yeah.
00:39:52
Speaker
But he is definitely an auteur. He definitely has kind of a weird cynical sense of optimism about the world. It's almost an absurdist humanism is maybe a better way to put it. It's absurdist humanism.
00:40:11
Speaker
You know, either you like his stuff or you don't. Lillia Forever may be the one that I think is the most accessible for me. But look, all of these things on here, it's a great box set. Arrow has pulled out all the stops. They understand that he is a relevant filmmaker and this is the first time that anybody has ever actually put his entire body of work together and it comes with a big old booklet telling you why you should care.
00:40:39
Speaker
Let's see, last four here. I'm going to hold on to the martial arts titles for the end because I'm particularly fond of those. .com for murder by Niko Master Rockis. Did you see this by chance? You guys did not see that one. So I only saw a little bit of it. It's a Nastascha Kinski movie.
00:40:56
Speaker
I kind of feel like it's trying to do, so Nastasha Kinski, she's got a skiing accident, she's in a wheelchair, and this sets up kind of a digital era thriller that wants to be a little Hitchcockian, kind of has one foot in rear window a little bit, maybe another foot in some De Palma films. I don't know.
00:41:23
Speaker
You know, I'm not that familiar, I'm not that familiar with Master Rockis, but, you know, I... Interesting cast, you got a little bit of a... I mean, oddly, you have Huey Lewis... And Roger Daltrey. Roger Daltrey, Nicholas Sheraton, who was like, you know, one of the, just a thing, this is early 2000s, just fell. And of course, Natasha Kinski, who knew, who was another thing, so ridiculously beautiful people, and Roger Daltrey in that 25 seconds between Tommy and 2002, when he tried to be an actor.
00:41:52
Speaker
I feel like if this movie were made today, it would be much less Hitchcockian and a lot more cynical. At the time it was made, it's sort of like The Net. Remember when Sandra Bullock made The Net? Oh, yeah. Yeah. How much does that movie resemble anything? We're even more paranoid about the internet now. You watch that movie and you go, oh, they didn't know the half of it.
00:42:14
Speaker
I didn't know the half of it. So I kind of feel like this is, it's more old school thriller than it is internet. And as a result, it kind of feels a little bit dated. But, you know, I mean, it's, you know, it's a good cast and it's probably an artifact of a kind.
00:42:31
Speaker
Uh, the vagrant. I don't get this at all. Um, but you know, it has a following. Uh, this is a cult film made in the nineties by Chris Wallace, who, who is the guy that originally, uh, designed the, the actual, um, uh, what was the name of the gremlin and gremlins? Uh, little guy, he actually, he did that actual like a Zig big or whatever that little nut, nut things the name was. Um,
00:43:00
Speaker
He designed that so he's a he's a he's a he's a creature effects guy. And so Chris Wallace, you know, directed this and it's kind of a throwback black comedy slash exploitation.
00:43:16
Speaker
homage of sorts. Bill Paxton's in it, Michael Ironside. It definitely belongs to that moment. It's about a vagrant. It's nasty and gross and disgusting and a little bit exploitative.
00:43:39
Speaker
almost more of an overlong student film that's a little bit experimental. And given today's current homeless crisis, it really kind of feels significantly like whatever side of that issue you're on, you're probably going to be offended by this on some level. But anyway, it has a cult following.
00:43:58
Speaker
There's that. And then on the martial arts, man, a couple of great
Exploring Series and Film Critiques
00:44:01
Speaker
things here. So Angela Mao, the amazing Angela Mao and a double feature of Lady Whirlwind and Hap Keto. Oh my gosh, this is just so awesome. It's just so, so cool. Angela Mao was a
00:44:15
Speaker
kind of a major Shaw Brothers figure, and she came from, you know, she was Taiwanese, came out of a lot of the opera, you know, like Jackie Chan and Sam O'Hoon did. That's basically her background. Anyway,
00:44:30
Speaker
And these movies are just, they are just so amazing, absolutely amazing. Sam Ohung shows up in here, Carter Wong shows up in here. Hapkido is especially cool because Hapkido, you know, is a Korean martial art made, you know, create basically pioneered by Bong Su Han.
00:44:48
Speaker
He didn't make any Hong Kong movies. He didn't make Shaw Brothers movies. I mean, he made like one movie with Ed Parker here in the US, which is not very well made. So to see Hap Keto introduced into a kind of a kung fu genre is really something special. And that's just a great, great movie. It really is. Hap Keto is a terrific movie.
00:45:11
Speaker
And Lady Whirlwind, you know, fantastic. There's a wonderful couple of commentaries on here. And then a third commentary with Sam Deihan, but the first one with Frank Dajeng and Bobby Samuels is really awesome. And then the second with Frank Dajeng and Michael Worth is equally as good. Sam Deihan is more of a kind of the artistic commentary, but the two that really, really get into the meat of the movie is the first two with Frank Dajeng.
00:45:36
Speaker
And there's a new interview with Angela Mao too here. So it's all really awesome. Both of those movies from 1972. Angela was just so ridiculously beautiful. I'm looking at some pictures. You heard those eyes? The best. And then if you still want some more Sammo Hung, then you can watch Millionaire's Express. Millionaire's Express is one of my all time favorite Sammo Hung movies. It really is just absolutely terrific.
00:46:03
Speaker
So much great action, such a fun story. You know, it's maybe the best of the kung fu in the Wild West scenarios. And there have been a number of those. There's a little bit of friction between Jackie Chan and Sammo over once upon a time in China and the West, which starred Jet Li.
00:46:27
Speaker
and shanghai noon which was jackie chan story and and over you know whether jackie ripped off sam or sam a ripped off jackie they resolved that is their brothers but i don't think any of those movies are as good as millionaires express a million express is just absolutely a load of fun tons of great action incredibly well made gotta check it out that also from arrow sam along just killing it here
00:46:53
Speaker
And such a great cast, a lot of other great people, Richard Norton, Cynthia Rothrock, Hyun Woo, Dick Way, it's just, it's fantastic. Rosman Kwon, amazing Rosman Kwon, absolutely fantastic. Best thing that Richard Norton has done in Hong Kong cinema outside of Jackie Chan's City Hunter.
00:47:13
Speaker
Which was kind of a wild, crazy thing, but anyway. Every Saturday afternoon, that great, fun cop show that Sammo had here in the United States when they'd be in the seminar at Cineo. Marshall Law. Marshall Law, Kelly Hugh. Yeah. It's got to be like middle late 90s or something like that whenever that was.
00:47:33
Speaker
That was all here, but it was a fun show. That really kind of introduced Sammo to the greater public. I always like to tell people, you've seen Sammo before. You saw Sammo long before that. They're like, no, no, no, no. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, in the very opening part of Enter the Dragon,
00:47:55
Speaker
where the fat guy is getting beat up in the class. Sam was in that movie for like 40 seconds. He's just getting the crap kicked out of him, but it's fine. 4K or TV, what do you want to jump to?
00:48:09
Speaker
Let's knock out some 4K if you're... Yeah, let's talk about the John Wick stash box, this steelbook stash box of chapters one through three. So this is this nice, beautiful collector's box set with just everything to do with John Wick and more. I mean, it's 4K, it's a freaking digital copy on it.
00:48:36
Speaker
I mean it's got the booklet it's got the whole nine yards you know what this will this does not have however this this 4k john wick chapters one through three wasn't missing the fourth movie that comes out in a few weeks.
00:48:50
Speaker
So I have a hard time recommending this because honestly, in three months, there's going to be a new box set that includes the fourth film. And that's kind of irritating. Look, if you had told me that I loved that first John Wick film, thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly. You had to sell me on that. You had to forget me. I did not want to go to those movies and you pushed me to it.
00:49:14
Speaker
But diminishing returns by me as they get a little bit more, you know, people, but hey, it's a franchise and people love it. I think it is hilarious. And I finally, you know, you're on your advice and I finally had to catch up because I had to review the third one on the radio and I was like, Oh,
00:49:30
Speaker
So Tim says, watch him. So I watched the first one, I watched the second one, the third one, all back to back to back. And which is kind of cool because they all take place basically on the same day. Like each one picks up the second the previous one ended.
00:49:47
Speaker
which makes it hilarious that this guy just cannot catch a break. Everybody is just shooting at him. It's just an unrelenting kind of scenario. And it all starts because of a dog. You're going to mess with his puppy? They shouldn't have messed with his puppy. That's the problem. Anyway, I mean, I'm kind of on board the whole John Wick thing now. I admit it. I'm on board. That's Keanu. You know how I feel about Keanu. So there we go.
00:50:15
Speaker
Uh, devotion. The other Top Gun. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Another, um, really good performance from John, Jonathan Matrix there. That, that, that kid, and, and he looked at movies, the movies are, are, are fine. The Ant-Man movie, he's, he's, uh, uh, who's he playing? Kane. Kane, yeah. And, and he's doing Shakespeare while everybody else is in an Ant-Man movie.
00:50:40
Speaker
And of course Creed, he's really eating up the scenery in that one too. And here he is in devotion, opposite Glenn Powell, who was opposite Tom Cruise in Top Gun. So Glenn Powell just can't get away from airplanes. I'm kind of surprised that he did this, but I'm glad he did this because he's really good in it.
00:50:58
Speaker
So basically, Jonathan Majors stars in the true story of Jesse Brown, who was the first black aviator in the history of the Navy and a really significant figure in the Korean War. And this is quite a story. It's amazing to me that it's taken it this long to breach the screen, but it's really, really beautifully done. I think it's a solid story. It's an old-fashioned Hollywood melodrama. It's a true story.
00:51:27
Speaker
And and and majors in pal know exactly what they're doing like glen pal in particular he doesn't he doesn't get stuck playing the smarmy guy attitude guy like in top gun like you really gets to have those scenes with with jonathan majors where they're bonding and they're talking about life and existential stuff and death and.
00:51:46
Speaker
You know i'm the flame the flying scenes are yeah good good early your new aircraft carrier stuff details of stuff in which is very different than the stuff that's going on the topic of yes and but yeah it's just a classic story drama well made i thought it might do a little bit of a award season love not a whole lot but you know it was a tough award season.
00:52:11
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's a tough award season and oddly enough, they didn't really put anything into this thing. They didn't put any juice behind it and I blame Paramount. They could have put a little bit of heat behind this, but they didn't and it's really unfortunate. Awards campaigns
00:52:28
Speaker
are an art. Speaking of, Remains of the Day gets a 4K treatment. I am thrilled about this. I can add this to the Movies Anywhere collection. This is a perfect movie for me. This is my favorite merchant ivory film by far. You and I have talked about this. The book scene in this movie is just one of the most perfect pieces of cinema ever. It is Anthony Hopkins' look on his face, holding that book as Emma Thompson peels it out of his fingers.
00:52:57
Speaker
is I want to cry just talking about it. It's just so poetic. It's absolutely, was it that scene in particular? It's just such a moving, and beautifully written screenplay. Ishiguro, he has a, what is he, he wrote a Bill Nye film. Living, living. Well, what's nominated? Bill Nye's nominated. Bill Nye's nominated. And Ishiguro's nominated as well.
00:53:28
Speaker
And this is the thing that I think is so beautiful about Remains of the Day, is that it is considered such the perfect atypical story about what it means to be British. And of course, you know, it's the story of servants in the home of a wealthy lord.
00:53:44
Speaker
just on the eve of World War II. Christopher Reeve shows up as an American politician in this thing, and a lot of people don't realize a lot of the British aristocracy supported Hitler and the Nazis before the war broke out. They thought that they had a wonderful vision of society and utopia that they were aspiring to, and that they really needed to have support.
00:54:04
Speaker
And that whole milieu of British aristocracy obviously came crashing down when the war started. And this is about the upstairs downstairs politics of that based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. But it is so British and yet it's based on a novel by an Englishman of Japanese extraction produced by an Indian.
00:54:25
Speaker
directed by an American and screen-written by a German, Ruth Tarr Japala, who obviously had been married to an Indian. So these are all people who are coming from outside British culture with experience from outside the UK and they're kind of inhabiting it from the inside with this amazing British cast
00:54:46
Speaker
And they've created the perfect portrait of what it means to be English in the pre-war period. And all the contradictions that that entails, especially for those who are working in service. So I mean, it's an unbelievable movie. It's just absolutely freaking flawless. James Ivory has never made a better movie. My wife would kill me for saying that because she's her favorite. But Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson coming on the heels of Howard Zand and just killing it. Just absolutely killing. It's a beautiful film.
00:55:14
Speaker
great extras on here you get the uh... james ivy is male merchant and a thompson commentary previously released all the other stuffs previously released but you get this for the four k and it's magnificent
00:55:26
Speaker
Tim, what else on here? Where are we going? Puss in Boots, The Last Wish. Well, it's funny because we talked about that at the show. Yeah, we did. Along with, you know, Del Toro's Pinocchio and all the other movies. So here, another Puss in Boots movie. And Charles had a great comment about returning to the Shrekiverse.
00:55:46
Speaker
as it were, which gave us Puss in Boots. There's so much Puss in Boots beyond just the feature films. This one and this one, Puss realizes that he's used all but one of his nine lives and he's a little bit worried about how to live his life out a little bit more safely since he's only got one life left.
00:56:10
Speaker
That's what's going on in the film. It's about the same as all of them. They're fun, if you like them, and enjoyable, but they might scare your child. I got some exploitation stuff. I'm going to kick out here real quickly. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is out in 4K, believe it or not. One of them is regular. One of them is a steelbook. Look, honestly, I don't know why you need this movie in a steelbook. I don't know why you need this movie in 4K. I don't know why you need this movie in anything other than a scratchy, dirty, 16-millimeter dub in your basement.
00:56:39
Speaker
It kind of works better that way. The only places should be watched. Invite some friends over, go down to a dark dank basement and crank up the 60 millimeter projector, and it'll be scarier than in any other form. But that said, look, they make a good attempt at kind of giving it the 4K treatment. I don't think this really warrants it. I think it was shot in 16. Yeah.
00:57:04
Speaker
You know, okay, fine, 4K for the obsessives. You know, the Steelbook and the other one, they all have the same stuff on them. There's a bonus disc, a Blu-ray bonus disc. And then the feature film with, you know, some commentaries, four commentaries in all on the main 4K disc.
00:57:25
Speaker
None of them really kind of blow my mind. They're all previously recorded. Toby Hooper, that one is probably the most interesting. But, you know, it's the Texas freakin' Chainsaw Massacre. It hasn't changed in all these years. It's got one scary moment when Leatherhead slams the door and the rest of the movie is just horrible. Speaking of Jess Franco earlier, couple of Jess Franco movies on 4K for some reason. As Marky just said,
00:57:52
Speaker
Yeah, the Marquis de Sade things, Justine and what they are now calling Philosophy in the Boudoir, obviously known as Eugénie. I don't know why they changed the title on that one. These are both from Blue Underground. Look, you know, these are maybe just Franco's most serious films. And that's not saying much, because it's Marquis de Sade. But he went and he made these two films based on the material of Marquis de Sade. And, you know, they're predictably
00:58:18
Speaker
erotic and dated and risque and they have his unique sensibilities all over them. So tons of extras here, audio commentary from film historians and a lot of other fun stuff. But if you're not a Just Franco fan, they're going to be meaningless. Decent transfers though. Just Franco movies are never great looking, but the colors are kind of garish.
00:58:44
Speaker
You know, Training Day, Tim, we got interviewed about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Washington's Training Day from back in the day, which was a very interesting film, Antoine Fuqua, who's got emancipation out right now. Running around, it's funny, I watch Emancipation, I kept thinking about myself, this is Training Day.
00:59:04
Speaker
Only, you know, what the guy said during the slavery business was the same movie. It looked kind of, Ethan Hawke had had a career as a child before this, obviously, right? All of those kid movies. But this was the movies that sort of made him a grown up actor. Training Day, Occidental Washington, you know, having to do, having to do it. What's on that sucker? Do we get anything good?
00:59:28
Speaker
You know, yeah, what it doesn't have is the featurette that we were interviewed for. Oh, really? No, it doesn't have that. That was for the other. Well, for that little, the one from on that. The more recent one, yeah. We're on that one. I wish they had put it on this one.
00:59:51
Speaker
Nonetheless, anyway, no, there's a commentary from Antoine Foucault, which is really good. I mean, Foucault is a very, very... Here's one thing I like about his commentaries, and they're all kind of like this, which is that he is much better at self-analysis. He's much more self-aware as a filmmaker than a lot of them are. Like, I love John Borman's commentaries, but John Borman cannot sort of look at himself from the outside to save his soul.
01:00:15
Speaker
So you get these very kind of existential personal, you know, memoirs. Whereas Fuqua can look at this and in a very detailed way he can say, you know, when we shot that scene, I wish I had done this or I'm glad I did this. And he kind of frames the moment for you in a way that a lot of commentaries don't.
01:00:34
Speaker
He's a useful guy because he's very much a technician and he's very self-aware and his approach is very technical. So I appreciate his audio commentaries. There are also some additional scenes and alternate ending that doesn't work and a couple of featurettes and music videos.
01:00:49
Speaker
That's about it. But it's still, it's a beautiful 4K transfer. And all, damn, if he doesn't, Denzel doesn't just fill the screen with that performance. Yeah, yeah. Larger than life. Larger than life, yeah. Got that Oscar for very good stuff, yeah.
01:01:06
Speaker
Yeah. I got a couple of steel books as well that had been released from Sony in tandem with each other. They're kind of trying to tie these two films together. I'm not quite sure why, but anyway, it's a twofer. The Mask of Zorro with Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, and then Harrison Ford in Air Force One. I guess they're both hero movies in which
01:01:28
Speaker
bad guys are being fought. That's the closest I can draw, parallel I can draw between these two. Mask of Zorro is a fun film. I still like it. I still think it works. I think Catherine Zeta-Jones is great. Anthony Hopkins somehow makes me believe that he's Mexican. I don't know how. Really, it's kind of a miracle. This is Zorro for our generation, and I appreciated that. I appreciated that it kind of found a way to update this very dated character.
01:01:56
Speaker
Air Force One, man, you know what? Gary Oldman doing that Russian accent is just beyond embarrassing.
01:02:14
Speaker
So what are we talking about here? That's 97. The Master of Zorro is 98. Martin Campbell, you know, sort of a classic. A lot of this stuff is tough today. A lot of this stuff today. But hey, Master of Zorro really kind of gave us that young Catherine Zella Jones, she was kind of fresh for Master of Zorro.
01:02:35
Speaker
I mean that right from British TV, just right from British TV. I mean Wolfgang Peterson is phoning this in totally. He's basically giving us, here's what this is. You know, this is basically giving us in the line of fire crossed with Das Boat on a plane. That's what he's doing. Seriously.
01:02:54
Speaker
I mean, you know, he directed In the Line of Fire, he directed Dustboat, and he thought, oh, well, you know, why don't I just actually, like, not just a Secret Service agent, but I'll literally have the President, and he'll be on the submarine except we'll make it a plane.
01:03:10
Speaker
There's a lot of folks walking around that movie at the time. Just you're in the movie. William H. Macy's walking around that movie. Dean Stockwell is right. There's all kinds of people walking around that movie that you don't close. Glenn Closway, Wendy Cruz can walk around that you just weren't thinking about at the time, but there they are in that movie.
01:03:31
Speaker
And when I look at this, I'm always reminded of what Mark Kaiser used to always say about his mom, which is he goes, you know, my mom only likes one kind of movie where Harrison Ford saves the world.
01:03:43
Speaker
That's it. Now he's saving the old west. It's a brilliant, apparently. Oh, boy. So let's talk for a second about David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future with Viggo Mortensen and Kristen Stewart and Leah Sedue. This movie, I mean, for a Cronenberg movie, which normally they go, I mean, they become major award season contenders. Yeah. You know, this went nowhere.
01:04:10
Speaker
No, yeah, look, I wonder if that Cronenbergian sort of style of creepiness, and this is a creepy-ass movie, as all his films are. I don't know, Christian, I don't know. Maybe that just doesn't play the way it used to with contemporary audiences. Our generation who go back to all those existents and all those creepy Cronenberg movies,
01:04:38
Speaker
Maybe the kids today are just not into it. He's got a kid out there making creepy movies too, so maybe they're... Yeah. I mean, the premise here is also one that I think might freak people out a little bit. It's like a near future thing where people are basically... It's sort of about performance art and human mutation.
01:05:01
Speaker
It's body modification and a lot of subjects that I think are just generally off-putting to people because they're hitting a little too close to the bone in some respects. Let's see here. Cloverfield, we got a Cloverfield anniversary release, 15th anniversary. Can't believe it's been that long on 4K. Great commentary by Matt.
01:05:24
Speaker
I mean, it's interesting to look at in hindsight. This was the film that resurrected his directing career. He hasn't done a feature film since the Paul Bearer, which I got some fun stories about. But he came out of doing a lot of TV for a lot of years. JJ and Brian threw him a bone with this. And he got his career back on track. Next thing you know, it's Planet of the Apes and now the Batman. So Cloverfield kind of started it all. It was also the first of the found footage movies. How do you think it holds up?
01:05:53
Speaker
Not bad, and it actually feeds into the sequels fairly nicely. Yeah, it does. It's a nice foundation for those sequels that came along. It's another one that gave us a lot of young folks who went on to do some really interesting. Lizzie Chaplin and TJ Miller and Theo Rossi and a lot of folks who've gone on to have some interesting solo careers. So interestingly, it is, even though it's the most
01:06:21
Speaker
You don't really know what the hell is going on in Cloverfield. That's the game. That's the game. Because of that, they've been trying to tie what's going on in Cloverfield into a whole bunch of other franchises. I find that kind of irritating, but that's the game, right?
01:06:42
Speaker
I got an interesting faith-based film here on 4K, Running the Bases with Brett Varvel. This is basically about a coach, a baseball coach and a high school baseball coach who bumps into, has conflicts with the superintendent over matters of faith. It's very formulaic. Like most of these films are, it's basically the same trajectory. The thing that I'm curious about is why they're releasing it on 4K.
01:07:11
Speaker
Because I don't know, like 4K, most of the stuff we talk about, it's hit in three spots. It's either new movies that are just technically so on the edge that 4K accelerates it, or it's classic movies that have a certain nostalgia, or it's cult movies, just Franco movies and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where you're a collector and you're particularly enamored of that filmmaker. I don't know what the 4K audience is.
01:07:35
Speaker
for faith based movie most of these things get released on dvd a few on blu-ray because they're penetrating the audience that typically goes to walmart or that doesn't get their product on a streaming platform so if there is no faith based streaming platform you're gonna pick up what you see at walmart or you know on amazon or at best buy on dvd right i don't know that there's an there's an audience of four k adopters large enough to justify this so i find it a curious release
01:08:03
Speaker
But it's interesting. I don't know. I don't know where else we go with that. And then some comic stuff. Let me just hit the comic stuff real fast. Legion of Super Heroes DC Universe animated movie. Perfectly fine. Love a lot of these characters. Supergirl and John Johns and Brainiac. It's the usual array. The DC Universe stuff is going to start changing very soon because I think
01:08:32
Speaker
They're going to bring that under the umbrella of everything else. We've also got on 4K Return of Swamp Thing. We've had a Locklear and Louis Jourdan. Absolutely love this. I can't stand the Swamp Thing movies, but I love this for only two reasons. You know the two reasons? Yeah, the Locklear. The old Swamp Things with... Adrian Barbot. With Adrian, that was another reason. But there you go.
01:08:57
Speaker
And then we got a 4K collector's edition of Bubba Hotepp, a non-cascarelli film with Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. What an absolute lunatic movie this is. That was so much fun. Bruce Campbell is Elvis. You're not dead. Fighting against a mummy. This is really great. I mean, this is one of those cult movies that just says, I'm a cult movie.
01:09:23
Speaker
And if you have a problem with that, then there are other movies you can go see. I am not going to try to be more legit. Like, that's my problem with Cocaine Bear. Cocaine Bear is Sharknado, but it wants to pretend that it's not. No, you're Sharknado. No, there's a reason for the... No, there's not. There's no reason. There's no reason. Don't be legit. And that's the beauty of Bubba Hotel. Bubba Hotel just says, we don't care. Yeah.
01:09:51
Speaker
We don't care, we're just going to go there. Let's see, just a few others here. I'm going to end on the Oscar-y one. Station 11 is on 4K. Yeah, I watched that. Yeah, I didn't read the graphic novel, but I did engage the- Interesting movie. Paramount put it on 4K. Interesting movie to put. I mean, it's a very psychological, very intellectual post-apocalyptic
01:10:15
Speaker
story. Tim, your thoughts on states and weapons? I like the way it moves around in time, because it moves around in time in such a way that we're in the future, and then we're back to when things first started to happen, and you get to piece together who these characters are. When we meet Mackenzie Davis as a little girl,
01:10:39
Speaker
And I got to tell you, Hamish Patel, this is becoming one of my favorite, favorite, favorite actors. He's just this wonderful actor who, you know, really at the beginning of this, whatever it is, that wipes out most of humanity. He runs into this little girl by happenstance, and then they have this connection that lasts us over the course of the series, which lasts over the course of many, many years, more than 20 years.
01:11:04
Speaker
and we just sort of move back and forth in time. But by the time you get to the end, it all sort of makes sense. You sort of start to understand what happened and where we are now. And I found it kind of wonderfully satisfying. Generally speaking, I don't care for all of these post-apocalyptic, there are a bunch of them now. The Last of Us is on out there. There are a lot of them. And they're all pretty bleak and they're all pretty can't win situations. The Last of Us isn't finished yet, but I did read that graphic novel series.
01:11:33
Speaker
And we don't fare well in that. So it'll be interesting to see how they changed them a little bit from the original graphic. Now, this was a pretty good one. I liked it a lot. McKenzie Davis was particularly good.
01:11:46
Speaker
The Magnificent Seven is on 4K as part of the shout select line. It's hard to kind of criticize The Magnificent Seven. This is just an epic film, even though it's adapted from The Seven Samurai. It's a beautiful adaptation. Akira Kurosawa adapted a lot of non-Japanese stuff, Shakespeare and Epic Bane and Westerns.
01:12:05
Speaker
kind of brought all of that to japan and in exchange a lot of people have been adapting kurukurosawa into a lot of their films living being the latest example so there's this wonderful intercourse that takes place between a kurukurosawa and japanese culture on the one hand and western culture european and american on the other hand it's been it's been a wonderful kind of dialogue between
01:12:28
Speaker
uh you know his cinema and other cinemas and other literatures and the Magnificent Seven is one of those and I always like to kind of give Kurosawa props for this because you really do feel him as a presence here if you if you know to look for it um and you know what I mean it's just it's a it's a great it's a it's a great movie what a what an amazing cast you'll bring her Eli Wallach Steve McQueen I don't know how you go wrong and they really did a number on the uh on the 4k they really did wonderful work
01:12:54
Speaker
John sturges direction here as it is in you know the great escape and all the great movies is just be on compare wonderful wonderful wide screen film making.
01:13:04
Speaker
and tons of extras and, you know, great commentary here featuring people who are now long gone. One of them being Walter Mirish. Yeah. Walter Mirish, James Coburn and Eli Wallach. So, you know, in the wake of Mirish's passing, this is a fun commentary to listen to. Great movie. How's your feeling about, you know, the old Magnificent Seven?
01:13:25
Speaker
Oh, it stands up solid. We were talking about Antoine Fuqua a minute ago. He did a remake with Denzel and everybody a couple of years ago, which was kind of one of these sort of nutty things where there was really no reason for all these people to be together. I remember you, I went and saw it and I came back and I was trying to sum it up in my head. I said, it's like, it's, you know, all these, well, it's kind of like, and I was mumbling and you cut me off and you said, is it forced diversity?
01:13:54
Speaker
And I said, yeah, it kind of is. You got this Chinese guy, for example, for absolutely no reason with all of his Chinese weaponry. It's like, you know, I mean, I can buy these guys all being together in 2022, but Wild West, this kind of rainbow coalition of heroes is not coming together.
01:14:18
Speaker
Well, because look, you're just making this up. And I know it's a movie and we're supposed to make things up, but you got to make up stuff that I can actually buy. And so that was like this unnecessary sort of thing that they did in that movie that, you know, Kurosawa knew not to do when he was young. And Ron, Ron was another one that was taken. That's Lear, right? So, you know, yeah, a really interesting dialogue. Yeah, great that you pointed that out.
01:14:46
Speaker
Our last 4K is The Fablemans. Tim, I put this entirely in your lap. Well, here's the thing. Look, I've softened on this and we didn't, obviously, we talked about it at the Oscar pre-show before in this town, Love Steven Spielberg, and there's a pretty good chance this film and he might win Academy Awards. For me, the problem is in the title, The Fablemans. It's a fable.
01:15:09
Speaker
And for a film that ostensibly is supposed to reflect something of a biographical story, which is what I really would have loved, would have loved that, this is just a collection of stories that Steven Spielberg has been walking around this town telling for 50 years about his childhood.
01:15:29
Speaker
and many things to do with going to see The Great Escape and what little bit we've come to know about the dynamic between his mom and dad. And he just takes it and he squishes it into this big gloss cover. What they used to do back in the day, put Vaseline on the lens or something like that. This entire movie is Vaseline on the lens. The whole thing. And I'm just, look, man, if that's what you want to do, knock yourself out. But you had an opportunity to
01:15:58
Speaker
Tell us all something true and piercing about yourself and where you came from, but instead you told us a fable. And that's unfortunate as far as I'm concerned. Is it an enjoyable movie? Fine. But if you want to know something about Steven Spielberg, I say watch Close Encounters, watch E.T., watch Catch Me If You Can.
01:16:20
Speaker
Watch a whole number of Steven Spielberg films that will tell you a great deal more about Steven Spielberg than the Fablemen's will.
01:16:30
Speaker
I have a friend who's in the film, and so I love aspects of it. I certainly think there are some, I mean the actors are all terrific. They really are. But yeah, watching this, and then of course Armageddon time, and you've drawn that analogy many, many times. You did on stage the other day on Sunday as well.
01:16:52
Speaker
You know, James Gray is draws his circle. It's a little bit more than here's a story about me. It's here's a story about this time and place. And I just happen to be there. And there and there is something to be said for that. And, you know, it'll be it'll be interesting to see how all this shakes out long term. Anyway, TV, shall we jump in? Yeah, really real quickly here. Um,
01:17:18
Speaker
I'm just going to jump onto a few things here. Furry Friends Forever, Elmo and Tango. This is just animated Sesame Street stuff with Elmo. Skews super young. My daughter is now way too old for this. And she was a big Elmo fan at one point. Couldn't get that Elmo doll away from her. Animated Elmo and live action Elmo and all things Elmo. This has three Elmo episodes. New Friends, new songs, new adventures. I don't know.
01:17:48
Speaker
It's two hours of Elmo. I can't handle that. The Man Who Fell to Earth, season one. The new Man Who Fell to Earth. Have you watched it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I watched it the whole... I got Chewie there, name and character. Yeah, Chewie led you for. And produced by Jenny Lomette and Alex Christians. And it's just an interesting sort of take on that whole story as a series. I like the way they break it up. It's very...
01:18:17
Speaker
It's sort of existential sci-fi. It's what it is. It's science fiction. Our guy falls to earth, and we watch him develop and become the person that he's going to be, not unlike in that David Bowie movie, as he's interacting with Naomi Harris and her father, and she's a scientist, and he needs her to help him do this very complicated thing.
01:18:41
Speaker
Essie basically learns what it is to be human, what it is to be human, which is what this story has always really been about. What is it to be human? An alien bit by bit, interaction by interaction, conversation by conversation, coming to understand what it means to be human. It worked pretty good. The technology is kind of interesting. It's pretty easy to follow. And yeah, I liked it. I thought it came together pretty well.
01:19:05
Speaker
Good i agree it's gonna be interesting to see where it goes we also have the complete showtime series city on a hill can make an aldis hodge. Which takes place in the early nineties in boston it's it's a little bit of a wide like the wire is it there's a bed touch of the wire that that runs through this.
01:19:23
Speaker
I actually think this is, you know, as kind of this overarching look at law enforcement and the justice system and the problems of, you know, modern urban America, I think, especially at that kind of pivotal moment in the 90s. Yeah, in the 90s, yeah. I thought this was pretty gritty and pretty tough, and I think it compares well with something like the wire, especially because it's a much tighter
01:19:47
Speaker
sort of focused narrative, but I don't know, your thoughts? No, I agree completely. It felt so true to the moment. That early 90s, there were issues at that period on the East Coast and in Boston in the 90s.
01:20:03
Speaker
I thought this felt so true and it looked so true. The production value suggests sharp. It would be really easy to blow those production values because they're so close to the present. Maybe they don't. Every car, every outfit, those shoulder pads, it was just really, really great.
01:20:21
Speaker
Yeah. The complete series of Longmire. We got a lot of these shows that I think it's interesting. You watch something like Longmire or even what's the other one? The Yellowstone. Well, the ones that precede Yellowstone. What was the other one in Kentucky?
01:20:39
Speaker
Oh gosh, they're all these modern westerns, there have been a number of them. Longmire is one of them and they all kind of paved the way for Yellowstone. So I think in that regard, it's interesting, I didn't watch a lot of Longmire when it was on the air.
01:20:53
Speaker
you know, I didn't even realize they were based on these mystery novels by Craig Johnson. So, you know, now that I know that, I'm like, all right, well, I can see that, you know, Lou Diamond Phillips is terrific. Yeah, Lou Diamond's the thing that's really, really great. So, I mean, it's catching up on this. I'm like, all right, well, now I see where Yellowstone came from.
01:21:12
Speaker
Justified, that's the other show. Justified, the one with Timothy Oliphant. Yeah, so Longmire and Justified kind of paved the way for Yellowstone, I think. They created an audience of people who are like, well, I think I want to see more people in 10 gallon hats driving cars.
01:21:27
Speaker
And it's probably why Walker, Texas Ranger got a reboot. Yeah, no doubt about it. Great call. So yeah, so Longmire is an interesting rediscovery there. And this is the complete season on the complete series, I should say, the complete series on Blu-ray from Warner Brothers. And you know, in the wake of Yellowstone, nice rediscovery. Tim, do we really need a seventh season to fear the Walking Dead?
01:21:51
Speaker
Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man. I just, you know, they're really pressing that this is as deeply as they can. Now, to be honest with you, I was only good for the original walking for the original walking dead and the spinoffs. I haven't been paying that much attention to. So I don't know what's going on. I take it. These are all these are all taking place at the same time, but in different places, if I'm not mistaken. It's the it's though it's a walking deadverse.
01:22:15
Speaker
Walking Dead was very good, sir. You might have to copyright that. Is this the one that takes place in Southern California?
01:22:24
Speaker
Dude, I guess. I think that's the one that takes place. You know what? I mean, it's all post-apocalyptic. I can't. I don't. I watch. Here's how I go through this. I'll take it. I'll be like, I don't know. I'm not going to. I'm not going to watch the first episode of the season. I'm not going to watch the last one. I'm not going to watch the whole season. So I kind of play eeny, meeny, miny, mo. What episode am I going to watch that will not require me to to have a lot of backstory and will not bait me with some kind of a horrible cliffhanger that will make me want to see something else?
01:22:52
Speaker
So I'll pick an episode of Ran and I'll watch it and I'm like, I don't know when or where the six plays and I get what it's doing but I'm not watching enough of it to become that invested. And then that's deliberate. But it just strikes me, it's just been done to death and when you're on your seventh season of this series,
01:23:13
Speaker
It doesn't feel like it's doing anything different. And you watch the next episode and you're like, it's doing the same thing. Yeah. As you said, the zombie verse, it kind of all works the same.
01:23:25
Speaker
All right. We also have the new dynasty. It's final season. They threw in the towel. They cried, uncle. How many did they get? How many did they get? I mean, reworking that dynasty thing. Oh, gosh, was it five, six, seven? I can't remember. I can't remember. This is the final one, though, and it's the end of it. And thank goodness. It's just
01:23:48
Speaker
You know, it needed it needed to go away. It just it doesn't have what the original had. You know, it was the same thing when they rebooted Dallas. It's it's missing the lightning in a bottle quality that they that they captured when they took a very, very specific cast of unbelievably popular people and brought them together and just packing a whole lot of like today's current beautiful people into a movie who don't bring
01:24:16
Speaker
who don't bring something else with them. It just feels like treading water. It feels like I've gone to TJ Maxx and there's a... Oh, look at those clothes that are hanging on the rack. I saw celebrities wearing those in the red carpet, but they don't look the same. No.
01:24:31
Speaker
I don't know. That's what it is. They're knockoffs, because they're all cheap knockoffs. Look, you can only create JR, for instance, from Downs. Larry Hagman once. The characters that you call JR a junior, or JR the 15th, the 3rd, or whatever, he's not JR. And it's the same thing with these Downs. You can only, Joan Collins, can only walk onto the set of Dynasty once. Linda Evans can only walk onto the set of Dynasty once.
01:25:00
Speaker
everybody else is just going to be pretending to be them. Like you said, they got five seasons? They got five seasons. Maybe more. I lost track. I didn't want to do the homework before the show. It was lazy. I'll admit it. I'll admit it.
01:25:19
Speaker
A really interesting drama series here, The Split, in its third season on BBC with some really fine actors that I'm just not that familiar with. Nicola Walker, Annabelle Scholle, Fiona Button, wonderful British names, Deborah Findley, Steven Mangan. I mean, I feel like I should be saying these names with an accent.
01:25:39
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, this is a show that deals with the divorce, the legal ins and outs, the personal ins and outs of divorce in London. And I didn't see series one or two. So I'm coming at this a little bit cold. But as a drama, as a well-written, well-acted drama, it certainly seems to have something going for it.
01:26:07
Speaker
Yeah. Divorce is an ugly subject, no matter what, and especially to turn one into a TV series. I don't know how many people are going to want to watch that on a regular basis. Somehow, the British accents make it feel all so much like a detective show. British divorces get tested as ugly as American divorces, and this is like a family of things. All these women, these divorce lawyers, and their dad comes back. I did watch a little bit of the first season of that.
01:26:33
Speaker
Yeah, it was very, very sharp. Not unlike, you know, any of our wonderful shows like that going all the way back to the old LA law. So completely on the opposite end of The Man Who Fell to Earth is Resident Alien, which is now in season two.
01:26:47
Speaker
which is about an alien who has to somehow pretend to be an actual human and not only a human but a physician. The trick is that this physician has a mission and the mission is to kill every single human being on the planet.
01:27:13
Speaker
Uh, this is a very, very, this is a very odd comedy.
01:27:21
Speaker
I'm not quite, it's comedy where I feel like I should be laughing more than I do. But I feel like, but somehow deep inside I'm laughing harder than I actually am laughing verbally. Does that make sense? Oh, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. Have you seen any of this? Oh yeah, sure, sure, sure. He's here. He's got to wipe off the planet because they got to do that alien thing. He likes us.
01:27:46
Speaker
Oh, but but he has to kill us all. You know, it's so hysterically odd. Elle Fanning and Nicholas Holt in two seasons, both on Blu-ray now of Great. Yeah, the story of Catherine the Great. Not, you know, Catherine the Great, big, big, someone my mother was particularly a fan of, not because she was a great person, particularly, you know, Catherine the Great kind of paved the way for Putin. She was the one that, you know,
01:28:16
Speaker
paved the way for a lot of anti-Semitism and pogroms and, you know, seized a lot of territory and really kind of geopolitically engineered most of the problems that we are dealing with with Russia today. Catherine the Great did a lot of that. But here's why my mother was a fan. They were born in the same village.
01:28:38
Speaker
I love it. Okay. So, you know, my mother, my mother was like, you know, Catherine the Great, and I come from the same village. I'm like, I, you know what, that's fabulous. And that's terrific and good for you. But, you know, there's, you might not want to spread that around too much. Well, here, it's played in a, you know, yeah, you're sort of the me to eat kind of, you know, feminist dynamic with Catherine having to deal with that nutty with Nicholas's nutty guy who Nicholas walks around naked in the show.
01:29:04
Speaker
So this is absolutely hysterical. It's funny. But it's, you know, it does not represent the reality in any shape whatsoever. It's walking a different solid path, but I get what they're doing. I'm a big nutty nutty nutty fan of Elle Fanny. I think she's just wonderful.
01:29:22
Speaker
She's terrific. She is. She's the fanning that really elevated, isn't it? Yeah, really good. Sister kind of stalled there for a second. John Bernfall, season one, American Gigolo. I just don't get it. I look at that guy's face, and I'm thinking to myself, we're comparing that face to young Richard Gere's face? Right.
01:29:40
Speaker
I'm like, seriously? And maybe it's a dynamic thing. Maybe the suggestion is here that 20 years, 30 years, 40 years on what is considered masculine and handsome and saleable as a gigolo is a rugged sort of blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. Maybe that's what you're saying there. But all I know is Richard Gere in that original movie, I bought every second of it. I saw exactly why women would throw money at him. Of course you would.
01:30:10
Speaker
Let me tell you about John Bernthal. I don't think there's going to be a second season of this series because John Bernthal just got rehired to do an old character. E, as of today breaking news, John Bernthal is coming back to the new Daredevil series as the Punisher. As the Punisher. I thought that that would happen. That is breaking. I did not know that. Yeah.
01:30:31
Speaker
Yep. Yep. The poster just released today and it's a picture of Daredevil in a new suit, by the way, you know, he's in he's in the new suit and Punisher next to him and they're both just they got that comic look on their faces like we're going to kill every living thing in front of us. So I'm kind of looking forward to that. Season one of Joe Pickett, as long as we're talking back about these
01:30:53
Speaker
these modern Westerny things. Joe Pickett is something kind of went off of, I didn't catch this at all. And it takes place in Wyoming. And it is definitely one of these modern Western things that we're just talking about, also based in the book series by CJ Box. And you know, it's, it's okay. It's very,
01:31:17
Speaker
It's still very much in that kind of long mire justified pocket. It's a little bit there, so we'll see where it goes. It's a little more
01:31:31
Speaker
Gosh, old school, rustic-y. It's a little more hard. It's a little more rooted in the Western thing. But David Allen Greer. Yeah. David Allen Greer shows up in this thing with that big old white beard, as I sit here with my big old white beard, which I kind of dug. I thought it was interesting. He's a game warden, this guy. There's a whole bunch of stuff going on there. I like so much of what he's doing at this stage in his career.
01:31:58
Speaker
to do. He's not looking to be a sidekick. He's not even looking oftentimes to be a funny man. He's just looking to just do some interesting work and he kind of is sort of liberated him. The complete first season, Pretty Little Liars Original Sin. This is a new HBO Max spin off from the whole Pretty Little Liars thing.
01:32:18
Speaker
I don't know if we need more pretty little liars, Tim. This inclination to just make another buck by spinning it off or stretching it out, I wish that that inclination wasn't there. You have the power, just do a new thing.
01:32:34
Speaker
Do a new thing, do a new thing. I just wish that that would be, but, you know, it's not like there aren't times when I haven't loved that. I can think of a few series where the spinoffs I've liked actually more than the original. I'm a ridiculous note of the entire Stargate universe, you know, all that kind of stuff. And I got to tell you, some of those spinoffs are better than the original. There was a movie and then all that kind of stuff. But generally speaking, I wish they'd just do a new thing.
01:33:04
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And then we have lastly on the TV front and then we'll wrap out with some new movies that are not 4K.
Film Reviews and Industry Commentary
01:33:12
Speaker
The Adventures of Batman, two discs, animated show, you know, the original animated Adventures of Batman is
01:33:22
Speaker
perfectly fine. It dates reasonably well, I guess, but, you know, the, the film, I mean, for, you know, Mark, you always rip on me for all the how much I love the film, the old Filmation animated shows, you know, and they made 34 episodes of this thing. And I actually think they're they're solid. Well, I love that Burton Adam is their voices. It's Casey Kasem is Robin.
01:33:48
Speaker
Oh, really? Casey Kasem does Robin here. That's not Burton Adam. No, it's Casey Kasem is Robin. But what's funny is that Casey Kasem first did Robin. This is why I think a little bit of trivia. Casey Kasem, who, of course, did Shaggy on Scooby Doo. Well, there was one of those Scooby Doo episodes where remember where they meet like all they meet the Harlem Globetrotters and they meet the Three Stooges. And yeah, we started just day was ridiculous. We started throwing guest stars in that make no sense whatsoever. And in one of them,
01:34:18
Speaker
Scooby-Doo and the gang, they meet Batman and Robin. And for some reason, my adult self looked back and said, son of a bitch, now I know why it bothered me that Shaggy and Robin sounded exactly alike.
01:34:34
Speaker
It didn't bother me, but I didn't know what bothered me at the time. And then I found out that Casey Kasem did them both. So anyway, when they did this standalone thing, it was Casey Kasem doing Robin. I had no idea about it. Absolutely. Yeah. So anyway, but yeah, this is perfectly fine. It probably feels closer to the comic Batman than just about anything else that's ever been done. So I give Filmation props for that.
01:35:00
Speaker
Okay, so let's talk about some of the newer movies that did and did not get love from the Oscars. Let's start with Whitney Houston, I wanna dance with somebody. Wow, man, it just kinda came and went, and it rolled really fast. Look, I let you in on a secret. I appreciate that young actress, she's wonderful, and she was actually quite good, very, very effective. I gotta tell you, in the black community,
01:35:28
Speaker
the casting of that young British actress as our beloved Whitney Houston from the hood. That was problematic, man. Look, maybe this is a crazy way for people to think, but I can't tell you, I did not talk to
01:35:44
Speaker
everyone's like engaged about that movie. That's the first thing that came out of their mouth. That chick's not from around here. And people take these things very personally, man. They really, really do. There was a bit of an issue, frankly, with Cynthia O'Reevo playing Aretha Franklin.
01:36:04
Speaker
I was going to bring that up, too. I was going to bring that up, too, because Jennifer Hudson did not face that blowback. And Jennifer Hudson, I thought, did a much better job. Yeah, in the feature film, yeah. There has been this conversation in this moment about British actors.
01:36:19
Speaker
taking over a lot of iconic American roles. Black and white, right? David Oyelowo playing Martin Luther King. You know, for a moment, every single iconic American superhero was British. Spider-Man was British, and Superman was British, and Batman was British. Lincoln was British, right? So this, you know, God love him, we love Chewie, we love Man Who Fell to Earth, but 12 Years a Slave,
01:36:47
Speaker
Chewy was British, right? So I know what you're saying. There was this moment where I kind of felt like, you know what, could some American actors take over here? And it's not that the other performances weren't great, but there is something when you are rooted in the culture that you are portraying that you bring an extra layer of depth to it. And depth and understanding and even
01:37:13
Speaker
even if it's just about the audience. The audience is sitting there with this idea in their head. And the idea is the idea. And you can't get it out. So I don't know. There it is. But nevertheless, she was quite good at that movie. It's a well-made movie. But it's bumping up against the cultural dynamic that I think some filmmakers might want to start paying attention to.
01:37:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. Well, here's another one. I got no love from the Oscars. She said, and I thought this was going to be one like a major Oscar contender for a minute. Man, did I get that one wrong. Blu-ray, DV, combo set, movies, anywhere code. You know, basically it's all the president's men except it's about the New York Times journalist, the two women who blew open the Harvey Weinstein scandal. And I think this is, I think this is better than all the president's men. I think this is better than, um,
01:38:02
Speaker
Uh, what was it? The one about the, um, oh, the insider, maybe, uh, the priest abuse scandal. I spotlight.
01:38:11
Speaker
Odd light, thank you. I think this is a better depiction of investigative journalism than either of those movies. Granted, the scandal that it's depicting is very inside Hollywood. It doesn't travel as well with general audiences as something that is about, you know. Oh, the tobacco scandal or something like that, yeah. The Catholic Church. Catholic Church, yeah. Or Nixon. So we're dealing with Harvey Weinstein and how many people really want to pay attention to Harvey Weinstein right now who's still in the news and still going to prison?
01:38:38
Speaker
So, Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan, though, are phenomenal. I think it's an unbelievable screenplay. I think it's incredibly well-directed. You know, I just think it's a monumental effort. It just didn't get any love.
01:38:53
Speaker
And that's kind of sad to me. Makes me sad for Anna Portna as well, who produced it. But, you know, Andre Brower is phenomenal in this. Samantha Morton is unreal, unreal. Samantha Morton has one scene. It's almost even just one monologue and she steals the whole movie's phenomenal. And, and you know, Ashley Judd plays herself.
01:39:15
Speaker
I mean, something to be said for that. So, I mean, I still think she said is an unbelievable movie. I still recommend it, but man, it got no Oscar. Yeah, that was one of the ones that did not rise.
01:39:27
Speaker
The Inspection. Interesting movie. The Inspection has gotten some independent love, some Oscar love. But I think this is a film really worth paying attention to. This is a... Elegance Bratton is the very talented young man, first time filmmaker, wrote and directed based on his own experience.
01:39:46
Speaker
Which is the story of a guy who was a drug addict and homeless and gay and had to somehow lie about all of that to turn his life around. Had this really horrible passive-aggressive relationship, kind of codependent and passive-aggressive relationship with his mom. And he wants to turn his life around by joining the Marines. But you can't say,
01:40:06
Speaker
I was gay or I am gay and I've been homeless and I'm a drug addict. You can't say those three things and get into the Marines. So you got a lie. And a large part of this movie is basically still the first part of Full Metal Jacket. It's boot camp stuff, boot camp sadism, fighting with it. But it goes
01:40:24
Speaker
into some really interesting directions. It's very revealing. And it's a really well made film. And I think elegance. Braden has some has some real chops. I think he's going to be a really interesting filmmaker coming. Yeah, real union very strong in this movie. She got a lot of love on the independent scene for real strong. Yeah, bokeh, we plan that plan that that drill sergeant. Very straight up. Who's who's who's our guy in a full metal jacket?
01:40:50
Speaker
Yes, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, we are,
01:41:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's about it's about it's about it's about young lovers who who bond over the fact that they have this like whatever Genetic mutation or whatever it is, but they are compelled to eat people and how do you
01:41:43
Speaker
eat people without killing people, because they know that killing is wrong. So you hang out with other people who kill people, and then you just eat the people that they kill. I mean, it winds up being just foul and disgusting, and it's just a nasty movie. It really is. And Taylor Russell's wonderful, and she almost saves it. Man, what a nasty movie. The Old Way.
01:42:05
Speaker
You know, Nick Cage is just making these cheapy knockoffs and this is another one. But I will say, you know, there are elements to this. This is like if you did a low budget remake of Unforgiven with Nick Cage in it. This is basically that movie starring the girl who was from the remake of Firestarter, the reboot of Firestarter playing his daughter. You know, Nick Circe, who I know, is tremendous. Nick Circe owns this movie. Like Nick Circe is acting in a different movie from everyone else.
01:42:34
Speaker
Nick is acting in a real movie and he's kind of daring everybody else to come up to his level and you can tell everybody else is sitting there going,
01:42:44
Speaker
But Nick Cage is in the movie, too. Shouldn't I be acting down to Nick? Why do I? No. But in fairness to Nick, he's pretty good. So I mean. It's OK. It's just it's as you said, 25 years ago. Yeah. With Nick Cage, with his status, the status of Nick Cage, 25 years ago, this would have been, you know, it's like you said, unforgiven. It's unforgiven. And Nick Stearns, Nick Stearns is still unforgiven. He's like, let's just do it anyway. Let's just do it like it's unforgiven.
01:43:12
Speaker
I didn't think it was bad at all. I rather enjoyed it. It amazes me the people who show up in some of these movies. Like if I were to say to you, oh, dude, there's a new movie. It's got Robert De Niro and John Malkovich in it. Wouldn't you normally go, oh, that's going to be an Oscar contender? But somehow when you stick Jack Houston in it and you call it savage salvation with the tagline,
01:43:34
Speaker
Payback is dirty. What? It's like now this is some cheesy B movie straight to video. What is this? What are you doing, Robert De Niro and John Malkovich? Why are you? What are you doing? Oh, gosh, it's just I like Jack Houston, too. You know, it's but how could this just not come together as a real movie at all? You think of what John and Robert and it would be a real movie just because you're walking around in it.
01:44:02
Speaker
It's a vigilante revenge drug movie. That's all it is. And they make like 50 of those a year. And I don't know how they get the money to make them. Well, it's something that we have to do with the whole opioid thing. You know, somebody overdoses it. You know, and Robert puts on that. He's a, what, sheriff? What is he, a sheriff or something like that? These sheriffs, they're going to go out and they're going to do what they're going to do.
01:44:22
Speaker
I am loving what David Harbour's doing with his career. His whole springing out of Stranger Things, you know, we have a ghost on Netflix, which I think is where he's the ghost and he has no verb, no words, no dialogue and the whole thing is terrific. And I got to say, man, Violent Night is just a hoot. I didn't think I'd like this movie where he plays, it's basically Die Hard with Santa Claus.
01:44:45
Speaker
You know what? David Harbour just has so much fun with this part. He really, really, really does. The guys from John Wick said, hey, why don't we remake Die Hard? Well, that's boring. They've already made Die Hard. How do we make it different? I don't know. Die Hard was a Christmas movie, right? Well, what if we're making Die Hard, except instead of Bruce Willis, it's literally Santa Claus. Oh, that's a great idea. That's how this movie happened.
01:45:12
Speaker
It's funny. It's almost funny. Yes. It's good. Yes. I predicted it will become a Christmas cult classic. It absolutely will. It really will. Absolutely. Too much fun. Another faith-based movie from Pure Flix. Nothing is impossible. Same deal. Except this time, the same deal as the other one. This is a basketball movie. It's the same deal.
01:45:33
Speaker
But it's not on 4K, it's on DVD. Like I said, this is the way you market and sell these movies to that audience. Anyway, you know, life's not turning out as planned and, you know, faith saves him. And it's that trajectory, which I find tedious because these movies are all the same. But you know what? They elevate themselves very often, and they do in this case, by hiring real actors to fill out some of the parts. And in this case, you know, it's not the lead actors, but they pull in Stephen Bauer and Harry Lennox.
01:46:03
Speaker
And that makes the difference steven bower and harry lennox are real actors they bring some gravitas and elevates the movie so it's you know nothing is impossible it actually can be seen there and it's just a little bit better it is interesting thing it tells you why you want good actors and they just make it all a little bit better for sure what remains
01:46:26
Speaker
Interesting movie, What Remains. I missed this in theaters. I know it was in theaters. This was a gravitas release. Interesting little low-budget family intimate drama. Good performances, Kellen Lutz, Ann Haysh. Andrea Reisborough, which people are talking about. Yes. Maybe, is this Ann Haysh's last performance? Oh, I wonder if it is.
01:46:52
Speaker
I feel like it is. I mean, it's a little bit of a mystery. It's a little bit of a kind of a family drama. But I'm looking at this and looks terrible in this, by the way. And that was the thing. I'm thinking, is this Anhesh's last performance? I think it probably is.
01:47:08
Speaker
And that's kind of sad because I wish it were something a little more distinguished. Speaking of Bruce Willis, I don't know if this is his last performance technically, Detective Night Redemption. Do you know, do we have any others sitting on the shelf or is this? It's a good question. I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Yeah. We'll have to do a little research here real quick and see for Bruce. Everybody knows about Bruce's situation. It's gotten worse. Which I suppose we knew that would happen, right?
01:47:37
Speaker
Well, this is technically the second film of a trilogy. I don't know if that means that there's a third one that he's in. Well, there's Detective Night Redemption, Detective Night Independence, which I guess would be, would that be the second one? And then Detective Night Rogue, which was the one from a couple of years ago. So is this the third? No. Is this the second or the third? There might be one more. There might be one more. And then there's another movie called Assassin. Because this one is dated 2023. This is dated this year. Redemption?
01:48:04
Speaker
They say this is dated this year, so I don't know. Anyway, it's a detective film, and he plays James Knight. I presume then that because it is Detective Knight, he is the central character in all of them. So I assume there has to be another one after this. Detective Knight, Independence. There is one called Detective Knight, Independence. I just can't figure out which order they come in. But the first one was Detective Knight, Rogue. That's for sure. I remember that one. I saw that one.
01:48:29
Speaker
This is this is about a bunch of guys. You know, it's just it's a it's a it's a little diehardy as well, ironically. And it's about, you know, guys who are using Christmas themed persona to terrorize a city. So, you know, it's the Christmas bomber is what the guy calls himself anyway. And, you know, it's I got to say the thing that makes me so sad is that now that we know what Bruce is going through, you can see it in the acting, see it in the performances. And it's really, really I'm glad he's getting the work, but it makes me sad.
01:48:59
Speaker
Our Ray Green wrote a great review of one of his more recent and later films. I think it was the one called The Wrong Place, if I'm not mistaken, which was 2022. And Ray pointed out how some of that actually lent itself to the performance that Bruce was still able to engage in that particular film.
01:49:32
Speaker
And speaking of another Bruce Willis performance here, and this is why I'm trying to figure out the order of these things because this one is dated last year, so this was clearly made earlier.
01:49:41
Speaker
This is Travolta and Bruce Willis. By the way, Travolta in Die Hard is just to die for. If you haven't seen it, watch Die Hard, the Kevin Hart thing on Amazon. It's Amazon, not Amazon. Because it really is, the whole idea is he goes to this action school, this action star school. A-S-S action star school.
01:50:04
Speaker
to be able to be an action star so that the crazy director that does all these action films will put him in and make him an action star. And it's John Travolta is the guy who runs the action star school. And he's out of his mind. He's insane. All he does is torture poor Kevin Hart. And it's very funny. Travolta is really good in it.
01:50:27
Speaker
Oh boy. It's just so great. Anyway, Travolta and Bruce Willis for the once great Chuck Russell in Paradise City. And it's weird because looking at the other film, looking at the night film versus this, you can tell that Bruce is a little sharper in this one. And here Bruce Willis plays a bounty hunter and everyone thinks that it takes place in Hawaii, right? It's a beautiful Hawaiian backdrop.
01:50:56
Speaker
Anyway, but he's a bounty hunter and everybody thinks that he's dead and that he's lost and they can't find the body.
01:51:07
Speaker
There's some twists and some interesting things that happened with Stephen Dorff and Travolta plays the heavy really beautifully. And it's not bad actually. Chuck Russell has made better films and he's a better director than this. I wish that they'd kind of give him some better stuff, but it ain't bad. It feels a little bit like what a studio would have done a better job with maybe 10, 15 years ago.
01:51:30
Speaker
Yeah, Chuck Russell knocked out, what, the mask? Yeah, a scorpion, eraser, a scorpion king, eraser, all that good stuff. Didn't he also do, was it Conair? Was Conair his? Yeah, that's one of his, too. How do you feel about the new father of the bride, the Cuban father of the bride with Andy Garcia and Gloria Estefan?
01:51:54
Speaker
It plays. They've done this with a couple of them now. They had the Latinx One Day at a Time remake. This, of course, is Father the Bride movies, number one. The old, old, old movies. Now, of course, the Steve Martin movies. And this, they're doing it. They did. It's OK. It's all the exact same beats.
01:52:20
Speaker
I don't know why it's necessary if it hits all the exact same beats. Which it does. It plays and you could do it 20 different ways and you could do a different version for every different neighborhood and culture and state and country. You could set it in 20 different decades and it's still going to play, but I don't want to watch them all. Because it's literally the same movie. I don't know.
01:52:46
Speaker
The Longest Boy in the World is on Blu-ray from Wellgo. You know, Wellgo does veer out of their martial arts and their Asian-centric stuff once in a while. And this is a really interesting kind of modern zombie fairy tale. It's a weird little genre movie.
01:53:06
Speaker
but it's got charm and it's well made and I think it's worth watching. I would have liked to see this get a little bit more play in theaters. I think this is the kind of thing that might have had a life in theaters if they were sufficiently open. So since they're not, might want to check it out. From well ago, the loneliest boy in the world, a sweet little kind of humanistic zombie,
01:53:31
Speaker
drama comedy. Called Jane with Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, abortion drama, set in Chicago in 1968.
Oscar Predictions and Notable Releases
01:53:40
Speaker
Basically about a woman who goes from being anti-abortion to being an abortion rights activist and helping women basically get abortions through this underground network, run by Sigourney Weaver. True story, actually. That period right before Roe v. Wade, yeah.
01:53:59
Speaker
leading up to leading up to an into Roe v. Wade, I, you know, and it deals with the network, the Janes, which was, you know, the, I think there was a documentary about them as well. So, I mean, I think it's, as a drama, it doesn't quite fire on all cylinders, it could and should be a little better. But, you know, if you if you're if you can separate yourself from the politics enough, I think there's some good performances to hang on to Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver both particularly good.
01:54:27
Speaker
Poppy only on DVD. This is a actually really kind of a sweet little
01:54:38
Speaker
I think it's an Australian film about a young woman with Down Syndrome and trying to take charge of her own life. And it's a coming of age film. It's got some sweet humor in it. I do feel like it probably needs an extra something. But boy, this young actress, Libby Hunsdale, is just absolutely wonderful. She really is.
01:55:04
Speaker
she's she's got nuance she knows she knows exactly what she's doing and it's really it's really really nice to see you know it's so rare that we have actors with down syndrome who have a chance to actually act and and and you know be themselves and and so i i really do welcome along every now and again and frankly i've never been disappointed not a single day i was in that series back in the eighties up
01:55:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, life goes on or whatever was good. Yeah, same thing. And then, of course, the amazing French kid who was in the Jacob Van Dormel film, the seventh day. Yeah, the eighth day, the eighth day, which who was wonderful. And I interviewed him. I interviewed him and Daniel and they were amazing. It was just it was really, really wonderful.
01:55:47
Speaker
Last couple here real quick. Rock Dogg 3, Battle the Beat. I don't know why we needed Rock Dogg 2. But there it is. Rock Dogg 3. They made a third one. So I guess somebody's watching these things. You know what? What can I tell you? He's still playing the guitar and he's still Rock Dogg.
01:56:03
Speaker
It is what it is. And the last one here, American Murderer, which is based in an actual story. So what I love about this is Tom Pelfry. Because Tom Pelfry, who has just not really broken out since that amazing season of Ozark, Tom Pelfry is just equally spectacular here alongside Ryan Felipe, Idina Menzel, the great Oscar-nominated Jackie Weaver, who I had such a great pleasure of giving an award to some years ago.
01:56:32
Speaker
So it's a really, really rock solid cast in a film that kind of needs a little bit of help. So go out there and help it along. Tom Pelfrey plays a con man.
01:56:42
Speaker
And he's being chased by the FBI agent, played by Ryan Felipe. And it's a wonderful cat and mouse story, all really true. They embellish this very, very little. And the way that it escalates is very methodical. It's well-written. The characters are well-drawn, and the performances are just absolutely superb.
01:57:06
Speaker
So, and good work from the director, Matthew Gentile, who wrote and directed it. So, you know, it's an interesting thing. There's even a little short, which is their proof of concept, how they raised the money for it and everything. It's a nice, it's a nice little film. Nice little film on Blu-ray, American Murderer, Tom Pelfrey and Ryan Felipe, and Idina Menzel and Jackie Weaver as well.
01:57:27
Speaker
So with that Tim will will close it this week i think we've we've somewhat caught up with a little bit of a backlog here we'll get to next time some gently movies and some other stuff some of the lb gtq stuff when we come back will be pre or post it'll be post oscar i guess right.
01:57:45
Speaker
Yeah, Oscars are next week, so we will be post Oscars. What do you think is going to win? Seriously? I think you know, I think you're right about the Fablemen's are all quiet on the Western front leading. I in my heart, I am deeply hoping that for no reason whatsoever, other than it's really great movies that I that I think that it's among my top three movies of the year. I'm going to Maverick. I'm hoping that a bunch of people are just going to vote their gut and and say, Tommy, you got it.
01:58:14
Speaker
You know, it's where everyone's saying everything everywhere all at once, which swept the spirit awards, swept all the guild awards, and, you know, it didn't sweep the BAFTAs, all quiet swept the BAFTAs. But, you know, Fableman's also won the Audience Award in Toronto. And I can't, I just can't help it. And maybe it's a generational divide. I don't like everything everywhere at once. Love, Michelle Yeoh. Watch the Michelle Yeoh kicks ass series right now on Criterion Channel. It's amazing. It's all, I mean, it's everything from Crouching Tiger to
01:58:40
Speaker
All of her 1980s stuff, Royal Warriors, Magnificent Warriors, the phenomenal Yes, Madam, which has the greatest finale with Cynthia Rothrock. You can't imagine how awesome it is. Heroic trio, executioners, The Stunt Woman by Ann Hoy, which is not a great transfer. Magnificent Warriors is a beautiful transfer. But anyway, it's all on Criterion right now.
01:58:58
Speaker
watch it they're all great movies i think they're all better movies than everything everywhere all at once which is i just don't care for but it's because it's too frenetic it's like a giant tiktok to me i can't imagine that that with as many detractors as it has is gonna get enough twos and threes to be able to win on the preferential ballot but if i but i could be wrong you know it just feels to me like fableman's has the green the green book
01:59:19
Speaker
Well, it's a phenomenon. It's a phenomenon. I got to tell you, that smacked me like nothing. But you nailed it. It is a very specific sort of dynamic. And it's a Hollywood thing. It has to do with that interesting mix of all the new people who are in that Academy now. Yeah. Yeah. That really sort of, but yeah.
01:59:43
Speaker
All Quiet? Not All Quiet. Have you moved on from that? You know what? I mean, the thing about All Quiet is it's, gosh, it, you know, the people who voted for Parasite might vote for All Quiet, right? Because they don't have that. It's nominated for nine awards, man. I mean, it's... Including that international.
02:00:01
Speaker
The International Award. I mean, it's it is the only the only every it's definitely going to win Best International Film. There's no doubt about it. Only seven films prior have been nominated for both Best Picture and Best International Film. Every one of them has won internationally. Every single one. And the last one also won Best Picture. That was Parasite. I think there was another one since Parasite. I think something else was nominated. But anyway, but maybe my Nori was it my Nori and that would happen.
02:00:29
Speaker
Oh, can't remember. But there, but there, there, you know, the, the, the most the interesting thing to me here is that only two foreign language films have ever received more than nine nominations at this best picture. One was Roma, one was Crouching Ty.
02:00:44
Speaker
So there's a lot of love for Michelle Yeoh, and she may just carry everything everywhere by herself. There may be people just hold their nose and go, I don't like the movie, but I love Michelle Yeoh, so I'm going to vote for it anyway. And that may do it. That may well do it. That may push it over. But I just also can't help but feel like there are people. There's an old school guard that says Steven Spielberg deserves one more. We're going to immortalize him with this. We're going to push him out of the two-time winner crowd into the
02:01:11
Speaker
We're going to push him up there with John Ford and William Wyler and we're going to really make him one of the all-time gods of the Oscars. And, you know, the film about his own life is the one to do that with. And the Daniels are going to be back again. They're going to make many more movies. I think there may be a feeling like, eh, they'll be back again. But Spielberg, let's give it to him for legacy.
02:01:32
Speaker
I could be wrong. Those things happen all the time in this time. So, you know, you're probably not wrong at all. It'll be interesting and we'll talk about it on the next show. All right, everybody. We'll see you then.
02:02:45
Speaker
Bye!