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Documentaries on Human Obsession
13 Plays6 days ago
Dustin picks three documentaries that hone in on what it means when humans become obsessed.
- Fire of Love (2022) - 04:15
- Art & Craft (2014) - 29:10
- Finders Keepers (2015) - 01:00:00
Triple Take Cinema is where your hosts, Dustin, Alex, and Kyle, dive into three movies with a twist. In each episode, one of us takes the reins and picks a theme—whether it’s a wild connection or a subtle thread—and assigns three movies that fit the bill.
We all watch, and then the real fun begins as we dish out our takes.
There are no rules and no limits—just a wild ride through movies we love, movies we've never seen, and a few we hope to forget.
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Alex
Thank you.
00:00:00
Brooklyn Brown
Okay.
Introduction to Triple Take Cinema
00:00:01
Dustin Zick
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Triple Take Cinema. My name is Dustin Zick. With me, as always, it is my co-host Alex and my co-host Kyle, who I just in my head wanted to call Jake for some reason, but I won't do that again.
00:00:19
Dustin Zick
so just pointing that out. Maybe I can do that. Maybe we should just like call each other, like make up different names for every episode of this. Anyways, no,
Podcast Format and Documentary Theme
00:00:28
Dustin Zick
we won't do that. But each episode, we take three movies, and we take our three different takes on all three of those movies. So i guess technically it's like nine-take cinema, but we call it triple take.
00:00:42
Dustin Zick
So this week, I got to pick three movies, and I picked the theme of documentaries, broadly speaking. i picked two movies I'd seen before and one I'd never seen but heard of.
00:00:54
Alex
you
00:00:55
Dustin Zick
So the ones that I had seen were art and Craft from 2014, Finders Keepers from 2015, and the one that I hadn't seen but had heard of was Fire of Love from 2022.
00:01:11
Dustin Zick
Before we get into these, what Alex, what was your familiarity with any of these?
00:01:17
Alex
Yeah, this was a really fun episode because i had zero familiarity in terms of I didn't know any of these three movies existed, knew nothing about any of them.
00:01:29
Alex
So I was going in as blind as blind can be. And I really enjoyed these to different
Alex's Insights on 'Finders Keepers'
00:01:38
Alex
levels. And i think coming in with no prior knowledge or context, you know, was really exciting. i I was probably the least excited to watch Finders Keepers just based on the premise of the three. That one felt like kind of the most interesting.
00:01:55
Alex
you know kooky maybe like it was going to be you know just kind of taking the piss and making fun of these two guys but it ended up being my favorite and i'm excited to talk about all three of these but especially that one so this was a wild ride into documentary filmmaking uh what about you kyle
00:02:15
Brooklyn Brown
That was your favorite.
Kyle's Dark Documentary Preferences
00:02:16
Brooklyn Brown
Can't wait to talk about it. i I was not as blind as alex which is an evergreen statement.
00:02:26
Brooklyn Brown
woo. Got them.
00:02:26
Dustin Zick
Wow.
00:02:27
Alex
Damn.
00:02:28
Alex
Dropping zingers. Fucking zingers.
00:02:28
Brooklyn Brown
got them.
00:02:30
Brooklyn Brown
Coming in hot, baby.
00:02:31
Alex
but
00:02:32
Brooklyn Brown
Coming in hot. Uh, no, I was, I wasn't as blind as Alex because i i had also heard of, I had not heard of the other two. Arden Craft and Finders Keepers, but I had heard A Fire of Love. It did make some some buzz a year and a half ago or so, I think.
00:02:45
Brooklyn Brown
And it was one of those movies that, and this is, again, thankful for the podcast, was one of those movies that I put on, and it just wasn't the right time for me to put it on with what I was doing and who I was that day.
00:02:57
Brooklyn Brown
and the time and my tiredness and all those things. So I put it on and it just didn't like capture me. So again, you know, a movie that, that the podcast just forces you to like, whatever that initial reaction is to kind of push through.
00:03:08
Brooklyn Brown
And, and yeah, so I, I will say I am a aggressive consumer of documentaries. I, I have been known to,
00:03:20
Brooklyn Brown
use documentaries to make myself feel better about the
Exploring 'Fire of Love'
00:03:25
Brooklyn Brown
world. And I do that by watching, generally speaking, documentaries about super messed up stuff.
00:03:27
Dustin Zick
i Yeah, I thought you werere going to say make yourself feel better about yourself, so watching documentaries about less fortunate people or something like that.
00:03:37
Brooklyn Brown
I mean, it's not incorrect.
00:03:38
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:03:39
Brooklyn Brown
I'm not too proud to admit that sometimes when I'm feeling bad about the world or myself or all those things in between, I'll put on a documentary and I'm like, poof.
00:03:40
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:03:50
Brooklyn Brown
Could be way worse.
00:03:50
Dustin Zick
you know
00:03:51
Brooklyn Brown
Could be way worse, dude.
00:03:51
Alex
Way worse.
00:03:52
Dustin Zick
yeah
00:03:54
Brooklyn Brown
This shit is fucked. So, yeah, that was my familiarity. Almost nothing. And enjoyed enjoyed them all to varying levels of degrees. But most likely in opposition to whatever Alex says.
00:04:06
Dustin Zick
Okay, well, let's let's spin off of that that pun to various level of degrees. And I'd like to start with Fire of Love first. I think this is, if you were to present these three documentaries to someone with the premise of this podcast and tell them that there's one of these three that the person who picked hadn't seen, i feel like it'd be pretty obvious that this is the one that I hadn't seen because
00:04:28
Brooklyn Brown
Thank you.
00:04:30
Dustin Zick
to To some extent, from a thematic standpoint, it diverges from the other two in a way that I think is isn't problematic or anything, but is pretty notable, whereas the other two I think are really...
00:04:44
Dustin Zick
Americana quirky storytelling to a certain extent. This one, I mean, they're French, so obviously not Americana, but like is definitely more artfully told, which to your point, Kyle, in 2022, when it was released at Sundance,
00:05:02
Dustin Zick
It was nominated for Best Documentary for the Academy Awards. It did not win. But i had i I had heard of this. I think it made its way to the Milwaukee Film Festival in 2022, or 2023 even, which is probably when it was on my radar.
Personal Connections to Volcanic Events
00:05:17
Dustin Zick
which is probably when it was on my radar
00:05:20
Brooklyn Brown
Thank
00:05:22
Dustin Zick
ironically, the other two movies I saw at the Milwaukee Film Festival. but So this one, it definitely, like, bet on my radar. I generally, like, enjoy Nat Geo, like, documentary movies, like, the the higher produced, and not that any of theirs are not highly produced, but, like, the more...
00:05:40
Dustin Zick
widely distributed ones that go beyond just National Geographic channel kind of a thing. And this this took me, i ultimately really liked this, but I think it took me two or three times to finish it or like two or three sessions to finish just because I wasn't giving it my full attention.
00:05:58
Dustin Zick
And I would say out of the three, like, I think part of that is because I feel, I really wish I could have seen this on the big screen. I think that
00:06:06
Alex
Yeah, absolutely.
00:06:08
Dustin Zick
Visually, it would have been... And audially, the sound in this is incredible.
00:06:13
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah.
00:06:15
Brooklyn Brown
Uh,
00:06:15
Dustin Zick
i i like was so enthralled in so many of the sequences with the sound editing that they did. There was one when they... After Mount St. Helens erupts, which this reminded me that I bought a...
00:06:31
Dustin Zick
nonfiction book like a year ago but about different accounts of people that witnessed Mount St. Helens eruption, which I'm excited to finally dive into after watching this because that's always been natural event that's like fascinated me because I feel like 1982 wasn't that long wasn't that long ago and And yet you really like, it's just wild to me that like that happened so recently in America and it's just not something you hear about in the same way. Like there's Hawaiian volcanoes that have erupted, but like, as far as I know in the continental U S there hasn't been another volcanic eruption since then.
00:07:11
Dustin Zick
But there's a sequence in fire of love when Katya and Maurice are, coming after
00:07:18
Brooklyn Brown
Mm-hmm.
00:07:18
Dustin Zick
st Helens erupts and they come and spend their three months, but they're like from the perspective of the helicopter going up to the top of the summit and the base from the audio. Like I thought,
00:07:31
Dustin Zick
like my furnace was breaking down or something. Cause like my whole living room was shaking it was just building up and intensity into that reveal when they got there. And, just, just so cool
Comparisons to Other Documentaries
00:07:43
Dustin Zick
visually. Like it's such a wonderful, uh,
00:07:48
Dustin Zick
wonderfully told story of this couple and their expertise and their, i mean, it really doesn't talk too much about their relationship, but I'm okay with that given all of the other footage they have of like, I'm fascinated by stories that are able to be told by this ephemera of all of these old like interviews they've done, the audio recordings, the footage they shot themselves, which they were beautiful filmmakers and the things that they caught, like everything just felt so...
00:08:22
Dustin Zick
poetic and visually stunning. It was really interesting to go into Letterboxd and look at my friends that had reviewed this. And a good friend of mine had seen it at the Milwaukee Film Festival and did not like it at all.
00:08:36
Dustin Zick
She thought it was boring. And What was wild to me is i was like, well, she got to see it on the big screen and she didn't like it. And like to me, this movie is as much about the visuals and the audio as it is about the story being told.
00:08:51
Dustin Zick
And I think that independent of each other, there's really – not that there's not a lot there, but it doesn't carry the same weight as they do kind of merge together. But I just thought, yeah, like this just felt – very different from the other two in terms of being like a work of art in a way, where the other two are, are straight up stories being told and and not necessarily visually capturing artistic flourish.
00:09:19
Dustin Zick
Uh, despite what Mark Landis might want you to see in his work. but yeah, like, uh, Kyle, what'd you think of this one?
00:09:29
Brooklyn Brown
this this i This is my favorite of the three. I'll just spoiler. i I really liked it. i It was almost... I i enjoy... this It reminded me of another movie, of another documentary. i don't know if either of you have seen called The Alpinist.
00:09:51
Brooklyn Brown
Seen this, heard of this.
00:09:52
Dustin Zick
Mm-mm.
00:09:53
Alex
not
00:09:53
Brooklyn Brown
two Check it out. And really the the reason, and not in any content, but just in form, and the form of of of both of those movies is to tell you that these people are going to die very early on.
00:10:07
Brooklyn Brown
And to tell you that they are spoiler, to anyone who's not watching it, to tell to tell you that they are going to die and to then unfold their passion on screen in a way that is, it's easy to, you know, like when Christopher McCandless went off into Alaska and died at the bus through his own you know will or whatever, a lot of Alaskans were like, what an idiot.
00:10:40
Brooklyn Brown
Like, what is this stupid, why is this kid so stupid? Why did he do this? So it's it can be easy to take someone's passion that doesn't work out in many ways. and other you know We all die, but we don't always, all of us get to do the things that these these characters did, characters, people.
00:10:58
Brooklyn Brown
And so I think it really takes a deft touch from a documentary filmmaker. And it also requires the subject and the person persons in the film in the subject matter to be of a particular type, to not like really to, to celebrate the passion, despite it leading to an end that maybe is too soon.
00:11:22
Brooklyn Brown
The alpinist is very soon. I mean, rock climbers tend to die before they're 30 and you know, and, and these people lasted quite a bit longer, but the it was it really was it had like The flow of it was really spectacular for a documentary about two people just chasing volcanoes.
00:11:46
Brooklyn Brown
And the the the footage was tremendous. There is something just mesmerizing about volcanoes. And I think that... similar to, i think it's easy to accomplish in in some documentaries about people's passions, especially ones that lead to their death.
00:12:03
Brooklyn Brown
But and I felt, I understood the the reason, the call of their, of their passion because of what I was being shown
Narration and Editing in 'Fire of Love'
00:12:14
Brooklyn Brown
visually. And it it did help that they, they filmed all the footage, most of the footage.
00:12:20
Brooklyn Brown
And, and so that, that, that, that to me is just, it's a very, this time when it hooked me, when I was watching, you know, and it really did, I think I must've missed the first time I tried to watch this.
00:12:32
Brooklyn Brown
Cause I watched about 20 minutes the first time. And when I say the first time, I mean like a year and a half ago. when i watched the and i And I was shocked because I'm a documentary person. So I was just kind of like, oh, this is the best documentary. Everyone's talking about it. And it just didn't get me.
00:12:46
Brooklyn Brown
And I think I must have missed that they died early on when i was I was watching it, which is, i don't know how, but it has to be the reason.
00:12:53
Dustin Zick
i don't I don't know. You mean you missed in in the story of the documentary or you just missed that knowledge overall?
00:13:03
Brooklyn Brown
Oh, no, no. I missed it in like the beginning when they so essentially tell you that that's happening, that that's going to happen.
00:13:09
Alex
Right.
00:13:09
Dustin Zick
Oh, I think I missed that too. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:11
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah, no, they...
00:13:12
Dustin Zick
cause i i
00:13:12
Brooklyn Brown
they
00:13:12
Alex
I mean, they do tell you, but it is understated. Like, Right.
00:13:16
Dustin Zick
yeah
00:13:16
Brooklyn Brown
It is understated. Yeah, it's not... It's understated because it's not meant to be... dreary or dreadful or to you know create that sense of whatever.
00:13:25
Alex
Right.
00:13:26
Brooklyn Brown
But yeah, I mean, the the sound merging with those visuals and those close-up shots of those volcanoes and the whimsical nature of Maurice and how it you know combines with Katya and how they're just this...
00:13:40
Brooklyn Brown
I loved how there was... know, you know, and they're like, well, there's really nothing about their relationship before any of this. Like would they, they recorded everything, but not this, and there's nothing about their lives. And then they just merge on the scene and it's just, it's, it's told so, so well.
00:13:51
Dustin Zick
Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:57
Brooklyn Brown
And the the narrator was so good. I thought when it, when it, cause you know, this kind of required in a movie like this, it's not going to be that heavy on the interview.
00:14:06
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:14:07
Brooklyn Brown
And i really appreciated how they gave us the information of like, yeah, they did this, but then like they had to go back and he had to do all the, all the publicity and he had to go on all the talk shows. And that was what he was good at. And she had to cut all this stuff and write the books and like the actual nuts and bolts of, of funding the science, but it didn't get bogged down anywhere. And it really stayed with them.
00:14:31
Brooklyn Brown
And their journey and and Mount St. Helens being, you know, that very impactful event that took them back to wanting to use this knowledge to somehow save people, as difficult as that is with volcanoes and most natural disasters, but seemingly very specifically volcanoes, was great.
00:14:48
Brooklyn Brown
And I got a sense of the community that they were a part of. But I just, you know, it was almost a movie that I didn't want to be over. When it was over, I was just like kind of happy to be in that dreamland of volcanoes.
00:15:02
Brooklyn Brown
And it definitely was... a you know I started looking up flights to Iceland being like, got to go see some lava. like cause I got to get after this at some point in my life.
00:15:08
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:15:09
Alex
just
00:15:11
Brooklyn Brown
like This is pretty... it's It's mesmerizing is the only word I can use. like yeah I could just stare at one of those you know slowly bubbling situations of of of the earth erupting, but in a very nice and calm way that's not a gray volcano that's going to kill me.
00:15:27
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah, splendid. So I i was Yeah, it was almost a documentary where I was like, I mean, I'm probably gonna fall asleep because it's now one in the morning, but like, just put it back on, just put it back on. And it's like, I'll just, I'll just let it lull me to sleep.
00:15:40
Brooklyn Brown
But in a, in like a very comforting way, despite it being about these, you know, these two people's arcs all the way to death.
Audiovisual Prowess of 'Fire of Love'
00:15:47
Brooklyn Brown
Alex, what was your, yeah, oh no.
00:15:47
Dustin Zick
It was your just really quick. Like, i think it was another thing that was like really added to my enjoyment of this. And I kind of touched on it a little bit was just like the footage. Like it
00:16:01
Brooklyn Brown
So,
00:16:02
Dustin Zick
it's for what, For the fact that they recorded so much of this footage, I would argue it's probably 80% or more of the movie is like their self-recorded footage.
00:16:16
Dustin Zick
and it coulds And they were so – and the movie does a great moment where they call out, you know, the fact that they said, well, we're not filmographers. And it's like, but Ari, are you sure you're not?
00:16:26
Dustin Zick
Because you've you're pretty damn good at it.
00:16:28
Alex
Right.
00:16:29
Dustin Zick
And like – far above the average person.
00:16:31
Brooklyn Brown
Mm-hmm.
00:16:33
Dustin Zick
And the fact that they could have so easily not been good at that and had all this footage, but like, had it been like just kind of boring or static or shake, like extra shaky, like all of these things could have gone wrong with getting footage just by virtue of someone who that's not their focus. And they're not thinking about how do we make this interesting?
00:16:56
Dustin Zick
But the fact that they caught so much, that was so interesting and so unique and that they were, know, not not only unafraid of being on camera, but seem to really relish being on camera in some degree, if only to provide context for the enormity of what we're seeing, I think really just adds to this like charm of this and the you know just makes you want to watch it because it's so visually striking and interesting and and human.
00:17:24
Brooklyn Brown
Thank you.
00:17:25
Dustin Zick
like i think it's like seeing them physically there in these environments innately makes it more interesting as a consumer, at least in my mind, because you're getting that, that contracts and and that size of like, wow, this, this is huge.
00:17:42
Dustin Zick
Like some of the images of like, I'm looking at the poster cover in that scene where they're, the two of them are like in the silver suits and the lava is blowing up behind them. And like,
00:17:54
Dustin Zick
you it it looks like an optical illusion and i still don't know i'm like is it it's gotta be massive like it takes up the entire frame and so yeah like i just i mean this is the movie that i feel like there's if i could just capture like screenshots from this movie it would be awesome to have like on my computer desktop and blown up with pictures framed pictures in my house and Yeah, just like visually and audially, just love this on every note.
00:18:23
Dustin Zick
But Alex, your your thoughts?
00:18:26
Alex
Yeah, you guys nailed a lot of it. I really do think that this is the most cinematic by a wide margin of the three that we've watched. And just as you were just saying, Dustin, as an audiovisual experience, it incredible.
00:18:41
Alex
really something to behold and just kind of drink in and i like how you reference the poetry of it and kyle you kind of talked about it being mesmerizing and i think both of those elements work in tandem really fucking well in the introduction which is just so perfectly paced and calibrated where you've got them kind of slushing through the the sleet and the ice and the muck to get to Mount St. Helens.
00:19:09
Alex
And then there's that great reveal of the of the lava with that kind of roaring sound effect that just you know fills your ears, even if you're watching it on a laptop like I was.
00:19:21
Alex
And so the point about the poetry, i love how the opening credits kind of treat the volcanoes as you know, the third part of this doomed epic love triangle where it's listing, you know, who the main players are, obviously, Katya and Maurice, but also Nancy and Helens and all the other, volcanoes that feature really prominently in this site. I, love just that, that flourish.
00:19:49
Alex
And talking about just the massive amounts of archival footage that they had to work with really underscores that this is kind of a triumph of film editing in a way that was really impressive to behold.
00:20:02
Alex
And just the way that footage is stitched together, knowing when to slow down and pick things up. you know talking about the introductory scene. It's very leisurely. It really lets you feel like you're you know trudging along through the slush with them to get to the top of of that crater.
00:20:21
Alex
And then later there are these montage scenes and they're often scored with that kind of scratchy you know rock and guitar that's that's playing and providing the soundtrack for much of this.
00:20:31
Alex
The wonderful narration by Miranda July. Everything about this movie just feels very very French and European.
Editing and Personality in 'Fire of Love'
00:20:39
Alex
I feel like i needed to be smoking a cigarette you know and drinking some red wine while watching this. It just had you know this grunginess, but also this sophistication in the in the music and the narration, that the tempo of the editing.
00:20:54
Alex
I also really love those little animated sequences that we got. and Just another example of this movie really being kind of balls to the wall, cinematic and artistic, and not being afraid to take big swings.
00:21:10
Alex
I think the one thing that I might have been craving more from it as a documentary is, and I'm going to talk out of both sides of my mouth here because it's something I both appreciated but also wanted more of, which is more of kind of a look into Katya and Maurice's psyches and kind of their relationship with where on the one hand, I appreciated that it leaves the viewer to make their own conclusions, especially in format where we're often told in the form of these talking head interviews, you know, what to think or what to feel about people in their interactions. But here things are much more subtle where, you know, they lay the groundwork that, you know,
00:21:52
Alex
Maurice is kind of the the risk taker and he was the one who was really pushing them to kind of chase the the gray volcanoes and do the more death defying shit.
00:22:03
Alex
Whereas Katia was a little bit more measured and reserved in in her kind of risk taking. And I think there's an elegance in like having a lot of that be something that the reader or the viewer kind of infers just by watching them them talk and even they mentioned it a couple times. but there was something about their relationship where I wanted to be brought closer into that.
00:22:27
Alex
And there was something a little bit surface level about just them and their love of the volcanoes as being like their driving force, their singular passion. It was their, their love language that brought them together.
00:22:40
Alex
And to your point, Kyle, that's what makes this really wonderful as a viewing experience is you're totally right. We don't feel a sense of like looming tension or dread knowing that they're going to die. Like it's almost kind of this very, you know, slow paced, steady, like walk to inevitability,
00:23:02
Alex
you know, there's not, there's not the tension about knowing that they're going to die. It just feels like something that's bound to happen because of their shared love language. But yeah, I did find myself craving just more insight into kind of them as people.
00:23:20
Alex
But I also wonder if that would have taken away from the wonderful visuals that we get from letting the story be communicated through their footage, which is such a cool artistic choice and so kind of bold and stylistically different from, you know, most other documentaries. So i really do think that they made a smart choice in taking this like,
00:23:43
Alex
bounty of riches that they had in all these hours and hours of footage and making a film constructed around this. I texted you guys about this, but I would love to, now that I've seen this, uh, see, uh, Werner Herzog's, uh, take on the exact same material, same year that this came out 2022, Herzog also did, a documentary about, uh, Maurice and Katia Kraft and,
00:24:10
Alex
Yeah, I'm going to have to check that out now to see like if it does give me more of that, you know?
00:24:14
Dustin Zick
i don't I don't think it does. i was I was reading up on it a little bit the other day, and it it sounds like it's more of a – he described it as a requiem for them. So it's really – it's leveraging almost entirely footage they shot with music and some limited narration. so it's more of just like a visual – appreciation of their talents.
00:24:40
Dustin Zick
I don't necessarily disagree with you. I just almost wonder if like if we just don't know that much about them and their relationship. It seemed like they were so...
00:24:52
Dustin Zick
so attached to volcanoes that that was it. And I don't believe they had kids. You know, it yeah, it was a a choice or a
00:25:00
Brooklyn Brown
I don't think they had kids. hips
00:25:06
Dustin Zick
of for the filmmakers to like not seek out any new interviews with people who knew them, but also knowing that the age at which they died and that they died going on,
00:25:20
Dustin Zick
40 years ago now? like How many people that knew them well are still around kind of a thing? like So yeah i'm just yeah, I would not be surprised if there just isn't a lot out there about their life. Certainly their life before they met each other, but even their life it seems like their life outside of volcanoes really wasn't a thing. like Volcanoes were their life.
00:25:43
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:25:44
Alex
Right, totally. And I think there are good examples of them.
00:25:46
Dustin Zick
yeah
00:25:48
Alex
Like they do use show, not tell to kind of convey some of that nuance.
00:25:53
Dustin Zick
Wild.
00:25:53
Alex
i'm thinking I'm thinking of the scene where Maurice is going out in the inflatable into like the the sulfur lake. And
00:26:02
Brooklyn Brown
The sulfur acid lake.
00:26:05
Dustin Zick
wild
00:26:05
Alex
and it's it's a wild, hilarious scene. It's also, again, really fucking well edited because we get this great little like a bunch of quick little cuts showing like skeletal remains of like squirrels and animals who have gotten eaten up by the sulfur.
00:26:20
Alex
And then we've got Maurice and his colleague out in that like flimsy ass inflatable. And then, you know, you, I think you get a closeup of Katya and lot's communicated by like, you know, she's pissed off. She's afraid.
00:26:35
Alex
Like that's, that is a really like subtle, nice bit of filmmaking to show like the montage of the danger and then show the reaction on her face and kind of like the incredulousness of, you know, even in the context of them being the only two people who like would, you know, have this kind of relationship, do this stuff.
00:26:54
Alex
There's still a level of risk-taking and, you know, almost like, I don't want to call it, you know, self-destructiveness, but there's definitely some self-destructiveness when it comes to Maurice's like willingness to put himself in these situations just to experience them.
00:27:13
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah. Yeah. He was, I mean, he said it right. And that one quote where he's like, nah, I just, I don't need to live a long life. I'd rather live a life just filled with some wild, you know, paraphrasing here, but wild shit, some exciting stuff.
00:27:22
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:27:25
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:27:26
Brooklyn Brown
So yeah, I, I, I, I don't think, I don't think that these people like offered that to the world, partly because what they did was always remote and always, you know what I mean? Like,
00:27:40
Dustin Zick
Mm-hmm.
00:27:40
Brooklyn Brown
just don't think I just don't think it's available. and they're just there're They're people who you... It's just they they're their actions speak to their... I guess, you know I don't know, there's probably a lot more interviews with Maurice we could we could sort through, but at the end of the day, those are interviews.
00:27:55
Brooklyn Brown
you know like you're you're You're, in a certain sense, performing to us to some degree, and he that did kind of and you know intimate that he he knew that that was part of it.
00:27:59
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:28:04
Brooklyn Brown
you know like You got to get the great money. You got to get the next money. You do have to to be a bit of a salesman on you know your own life to to keep the good times rolling and to pay for pay for the passion.
00:28:16
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:28:16
Alex
Yeah, I thought all that stuff was really interesting and layered when they did get into like, just the the how of, you know, how they constructed this lifestyle.
00:28:26
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:28:27
Brooklyn Brown
yeah
00:28:29
Dustin Zick
Okay, let's move on to the next movie. And am really torn on which one to move to next. Do you guys have a preference? im like i I love both of these. i just i'm really like I'm trying to think which one would feed into more conversation for the other one.
00:28:48
Dustin Zick
Art
00:28:49
Brooklyn Brown
I feel feel like Alex said that he liked Finders Keepers the best, so we should go to Ardencraft and say Finders Keepers.
00:28:55
Dustin Zick
and Craft.
00:28:56
Brooklyn Brown
for Yeah.
00:28:57
Dustin Zick
Okay. Okay. All right. Let's do art and craft. The story of Mark Landis, notorious art forger and all around interesting character. Kind of almost in a way, i feel like a human Eeyore.
00:29:11
Dustin Zick
Could be one way to describe Mark Landis. I saw this at the Milwaukee Film Festival 2014-2015, the director and Mark Landis himself were in-house for a Q&A session afterwards.
00:29:16
Brooklyn Brown
Thank you.
00:29:25
Alex
wow
00:29:26
Dustin Zick
I don't really, it was a smaller theater, Alex, for your context. It was the the downer. It wasn't the oriental. so it was like a tiny, like narrow theater.
00:29:39
Dustin Zick
And I don't remember any questions. I just remember that Mark Landis, like, he, he like, not that I really like walked away from the movie, watching it being like, is this guy for real?
00:29:51
Dustin Zick
Like it felt pretty clear that he's like, is who he's presenting as kind of a thing, but seeing him like walk down the the aisle of the theater to the front, like was like, yep, this is a guy from the movie, like just same kind of posture.
00:29:53
Brooklyn Brown
Thank you.
00:30:03
Dustin Zick
so I think he had a bigger, like not a trend, like a trench coat, like down trench coat thing on just like kind of just like kind of dopey looking. Yeah, i I just find...
00:30:16
Dustin Zick
like i i I find the story in this to be fascinating. I find the person...
00:30:22
Alex
with
00:30:25
Dustin Zick
molten
00:30:25
Brooklyn Brown
Thank you.
00:30:26
Dustin Zick
the two main people, i Mark Landis is five and like by and far like the main character in this piece, but I feel like the one art curator that kind of like makes it his mission to like out Landis is also like another lead character in this, and I find him to be fascinating in his own right.
00:30:50
Dustin Zick
I just think that... like it's just wild to me. am rewatching this. Like I had to kind of like re like retrain my brain to think of this accurately because in my, the back of my head, I was like, Oh yeah. Like he's like really, really talented art forger that like fooled a bunch of people. And it's like, yes and no. Like, like he's, he's a really good artist.
00:31:19
Brooklyn Brown
Thank you.
00:31:20
Dustin Zick
but he's not a great artist. Like half of his fooling people is how he gets the, like who he picks to donate the works to and how he pitches the works to the people.
00:31:32
Dustin Zick
And the fact that they don't, they up until the point of the story or whatever, hadn't taken any sort of effort to look at anything with like, like there's a really telling scene towards the end when the,
00:31:45
Dustin Zick
the The curator that had been on the mission is is out like out of town at the other gallery that's going to do the Mark Landis exhibit. And he's looking at all the works that have been acquired for this exhibit. And he just like pulls up a blacklight and can immediately identify, oh, that's fake, that's fake, that's fake. And it's like, man, that's all it took? Yeah.
00:32:07
Dustin Zick
it didn't You didn't need a magnifying glass. You didn't need a tweezers. You literally just flick on a black light and there's obvious like indicators that maybe this isn't what we think it is kind of a thing.
00:32:19
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:32:21
Alex
I mean, that's part of it what makes it emotionally interesting, right?
00:32:21
Brooklyn Brown
Thank
00:32:21
Dustin Zick
and
00:32:23
Alex
Is like a lot of these curators are pissed off because they're embarrassed that they like, you know, their their hubris and their arrogance kind of got the better of them.
00:32:28
Dustin Zick
yeah
00:32:32
Alex
And they were like, yeah, of course we'll take this donation without like investigating. So it shows like how sloppy a lot of this world is.
00:32:38
Dustin Zick
yeah Well, and I think what's what's extra jarring and fascinating to me is like the fact that... and and you so I feel like you finally get to see it when he goes to that exhibit himself, when Landis goes to that show at the end and is interacting with people in the crowd.
00:32:57
Dustin Zick
Because all the other have footage and interviews we have of Landis, he is just this awkward, weird-looking... bit of a slob in his house. And you're just like, like, how does this guy fool anyone? And then you see him in person, like talking to these people and he's like turning on the charm and he's suddenly like super, like not only like, it's not like he wasn't talkative in the, the Q and a interview, like the talking head interviews, he definitely like talks and likes to hear himself talk, but it's a totally different affect when he's like in person with people. And like,
00:33:34
Dustin Zick
It's like he's a he's just embodying these characters that he's playing. So you can totally see how he rolls up in his nice car to an art gallery at a prestigious school or whatever, and is like, oh, my great aunt died, and I want to donate these – I just find that juxtaposition to be completely like fascinating. And the fact that we never get a clear answer from him as to why he does this, I think is equally fascinating to me and and not at all like dissatisfying. I feel like it very much could be dissatisfying, but I love the, I mean, I think the answer is probably because he can and he doesn't,
00:34:18
Dustin Zick
And he also has some mental issues, so he like maybe can't think of a clear reason not to kind of a thing. But yeah, I mean, the only other thing is I'll point out before I kick it to one of you is that I've never seen someone take a more disgusting drag on a cigarette than I've had seeing this guy when he lights up a cigarette and just looks like
00:34:28
Brooklyn Brown
Thank
00:34:43
Dustin Zick
I'm like, what are you doing? This is so awkward and weird to see you smoking your cigarette like this.
00:34:49
Brooklyn Brown
and Yeah, it's not a cool cigarette smoke.
00:34:51
Dustin Zick
no.
00:34:52
Brooklyn Brown
it's not a it's it's It's whatever the opposite side of the coin from Humphrey Bogart is.
00:34:53
Dustin Zick
oh no
00:34:57
Dustin Zick
I do i appreciate, though, that like like how like if it only it were 60 years ago, like the advertising firms would be like just wetting their pants over excitement over the fact that, I don't know why, wedding I've never used that analogy before in my life, but over the fact that he's like, oh, well, I needed to like lower my stress, and I thought they always do it in the
00:35:20
Brooklyn Brown
for anxiety.
00:35:23
Dustin Zick
like really that worked on you so so yeah
00:35:25
Brooklyn Brown
and
00:35:27
Brooklyn Brown
I mean, but also, yeah, but I also love that you like if he's getting that from Turner classic movies.
00:35:34
Dustin Zick
yes
00:35:35
Brooklyn Brown
Like, he's literally, he's getting that from, like, men telling women to calm down and giving them a cigarette to execute that.
00:35:42
Alex
listen
00:35:43
Brooklyn Brown
Like, that was, yeah, I mean, that was, the the him picking up the cigarette smoking was really and unexpected turn in the movie for me.
00:35:53
Brooklyn Brown
It's like, oh what?
00:35:54
Alex
Well, that whole that whole subplot like about you know or just part of his life and personality that like he is so seriously like mentally ill that he is picking so much up from like classic cinema was just wildly fascinating.
00:36:09
Dustin Zick
Yeah, yeah. And I think, I feel like part of what, like this movie to me rewatching it especially, feels like one... It's one that I wrestle... like I definitely am not like... and wouldn't say... There's parts in this movie where I kind of like chuckled at the absurdity and whatnot, but there like there was no moment where I felt like I was laughing at him or anything.
00:36:33
Dustin Zick
There's no... like And there's... yeah It's a tough one in which do I feel like it's objectifying him or or whatever the right term would be. Like, is he an exhibit in a zoo that we're watching kind of a thing?
00:36:48
Dustin Zick
But then he clearly has enough autonomy that like, I don't feel like he like just doesn't have to, or like, he's just not aware of like what's going on or anything like that.
00:37:02
Dustin Zick
like I really would be interested in knowing like what his actual like mental disorders are. And I think, I know at one point he's literally, another great moment is like he's literally reading the paperwork from when he was a kid of like all the different diagnoses he got. And he's like, oh, they said I had that. And then they said I had that. And then he just like puts that paper on a random pile in his living room.
00:37:28
Dustin Zick
oh I did see... Somebody on like a doctor. Okay. So he somebody said that he thought he was more likely bipolar than schizophrenic.
00:37:40
Brooklyn Brown
Thank you.
00:37:44
Dustin Zick
And so like that kind of tracks with me or whatever. And then, you know, obviously like your living environment and, you know, how you were raised factors into that to some extent too, and how you deal with a mental disorder and whatnot.
00:38:01
Dustin Zick
But yeah, I mean, just everything watching this and it like watching him walk through his house, there's some great moments for like the, the cameraman, like he's walking through his house and like cut to his feet and you just see him like walking over random papers. And I'm like, this looks like half of the estate sales I've ever been to. It's just random things spread all over. Yeah.
00:38:22
Dustin Zick
I don't know. One of you take this. I'm just rambling, but I just find him to be such a fascinating character to like have a story told on film.
00:38:31
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah, i mean, he certainly is that. and The thing that kind of struck me about the story, and they don't spend too much time on it, but it is, it's a bit of what's what's the exact word I'm looking for here? But it's kind of like,
00:38:49
Brooklyn Brown
and the the way that he describes his childhood and the way that he talks about his parents The childhood he describes is so of that era of the like, we have a kid, but they're just kind of here.
00:39:11
Brooklyn Brown
You know what i mean? Like the idea that his parents are out in Europe and they're like, you know what? Just hang out here. Like the hotel people will check on you occasionally, maybe.
00:39:22
Dustin Zick
Mm-hmm.
00:39:24
Brooklyn Brown
and like, we're going to go out and just go, corrals in Paris all night. And I'm sure, you know, stay out till all hours, get back till two, three in the morning, wake up. Like it was this very interesting portrait of childhood that also, you know, i don't think caused his, obviously a lot of that is just there, but you know, certainly didn't, didn't work against it, I guess, in helping to create the person that he was. And then I was kind of shocked that he had the devotion to his parents with some of the ways that he described them. But again, like it was just one of those portraits of looking back in time and how parenting or the lack thereof used to be like what having a kid was like. And it like, I don't know, we just have a kid. We just have kids. Like we just do stuff and their kids are there.
00:40:09
Brooklyn Brown
And of course that wasn't everyone, but I don't know. and So that made me think a lot about like modern parenting compared to that, which is, which, which, and then you see the character that he is. And it was, it was just, it was definitely a fascinating portrait.
00:40:24
Brooklyn Brown
i I, kind of, the movie did a good job to the point you made Dustin about like, you never were really laughing at him. I think it really came close to that line a couple of times and it, and that's a delicate line to be anywhere near.
00:40:42
Brooklyn Brown
But it it did a good job of kind of like pulling that back in various ways with like the the the counselor that checks in on him and asks him how he's doing.
00:40:51
Brooklyn Brown
and
00:40:52
Alex
Yeah.
00:40:52
Brooklyn Brown
And just, and and yeah, and kind of also making sure to highlight the whole don't necessarily feel too bad for this guy because he's doing what he enjoys doing. And it's not really harming anyone except that one dude in Ohio, they couldn't like let it go.
00:41:11
Brooklyn Brown
and, and Yeah. I mean, it it came close to that. And there were times when it was little difficult, but it, it also, I don't know, it really, I really enjoyed wrestling with just the ethical question of, of what he was doing and, you know, what he was getting over on people. And it's kind of amazing how, you know, if he goes in there and he's like, i have this work, all I want is $20,000 for it. like that that none of this happens.
00:41:39
Brooklyn Brown
None of it. you know If he goes in and it's like, I want $5 for this, none of this happens. If he goes in and he says he wants $2 million, dollars none of this happens. right like there's The only way this happens is like the way that he executes it.
00:41:52
Brooklyn Brown
And it was it was kind of cool to be like, I mean, you know if this is how you want to spend your time, like get after it. I don't know where the money's coming from, but sure.
00:41:59
Dustin Zick
yeah you
00:42:01
Alex
Yeah.
00:42:02
Dustin Zick
Yeah, that's and well and it's like, yeah, like this, maybe not as a movie, but like this, what he's doing could very easily be spun as like just an indictment on gallery curators and how poorly they're doing their work and like could be an Esquire article about that.
00:42:20
Brooklyn Brown
Mm-hmm.
00:42:23
Dustin Zick
Right. And how this guy's prolific journey to out lazy gallery, curators like involves him being like a half-assed decent forger,
00:42:35
Dustin Zick
who like knows how to pick things and whatnot. And like, and the fact that he donates these forgeries and like make it on the wall and nobody calls it out. Like, so the, the fact that someone, and I, I don't remember if the movie, I don't think the movie explains like how they learned about him.
00:42:53
Dustin Zick
But I presume it's from the guy from Ohio that like kind of raised the attention of it or something.
00:42:58
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah, it's it's that dude. I believe he gets a work from him, and then he does like he's trying to research that work. And in so researching, he finds that that work is at six other museums.
00:43:12
Dustin Zick
Okay.
00:43:12
Brooklyn Brown
And he's like, hmm, that's not right. And then he decides to make that his life's goal and largely upends his whole his whole his whole life.
00:43:16
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:43:20
Dustin Zick
Yeah. Loses his job.
00:43:21
Alex
Mm-hmm.
00:43:22
Dustin Zick
And then I thought the scenes with him and his daughter were, they were very brief, but I was like, what are like? This does not make you look like, any less crazy when you're like with your daughter in your kitchen and she's like asking you questions about Mark Landis and whatnot.
00:43:40
Dustin Zick
I don't know.
00:43:40
Alex
Yeah.
00:43:41
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah. but
00:43:42
Alex
And in some ways that was more disturbing to me than anything we saw Landis do because Lester Sullivan, the Ohio curator who, you know, becomes obsessed with him, like you get the sense that he has more self-awareness. You know, he may have other mental things he's struggling with, but he doesn't have like the kind of serious illnesses that were shown that, you know,
00:44:07
Alex
that Landis does. So yeah, I felt, i felt really bad for, bird Lester Sullivan's daughter in those scenes. And just like, it does paint a pretty damning picture of him in a very short amount of screen time.
00:44:22
Alex
But yeah, i I, totally agree with what you were saying, Kyle, about this kind of coming
00:44:22
Brooklyn Brown
Thanks.
00:44:30
Alex
very dangerously close to to being exploitative of Landis. And I think ultimately it does walk it back. It's really shrewd that they do show those scenes of Landis' social worker, a counselor,
00:44:49
Alex
And like that gives you a vulnerability, that gives you a humanity and an empathy that you wouldn't get if it was just kind of painting this you know this wacky character of him.
00:45:00
Alex
and do think some of the scenes kind of showcasing the hoarding in his house were the ones that felt probably the most uncomfortable to me as a viewer and felt the most like,
00:45:12
Alex
you know i was kind of getting an emotional you know rush out of seeing kind of this guy's squalor in a way that lacked some texture. But we do get some insight into the fact that that really got worse when his mom died and what you were saying, Kyle, about you know just that crazy upbringing he had that was very normalized at the time where you know, in his case, like all of these mental issues he was living with, you know, probably got very limited attention and allowed him to kind of, you know, find his his own passion in a weird way with this forgery.
00:45:52
Alex
i think that's another thing that kept it from being, you know, from crossing that boundary for me as a viewer is knowing that there is like joy and fulfillment that he's getting out of this, you know,
00:46:05
Alex
this pursuit and there's, there's a cheekiness to it. There's like an impishness of it, you know, where you can like see this little smile he gets where he's like, yeah, I just like, I just like fooling him.
00:46:16
Alex
and talking about the jobs and the different personas where it's, it's endearing, right? You know, there's, there's a gentleness in like the con that he's pulling.
00:46:26
Alex
And I think it's also shrewd of the filmmakers to, put that clip of the FBI kind of art forgery expert really early in the film and basically be like, yeah, we can't prosecute this guy for anything. He's not doing anything illegal.
00:46:42
Brooklyn Brown
There's the committed fraud, yeah.
00:46:44
Alex
Right. Yeah. And then like, and then it does become again, to your point, Kaya, like a really interesting philosophical exercise into like, well, how do we evaluate like the morality of what he's doing? Like, is it, is it so bad or is he just kind of like,
00:46:58
Alex
you know pulling the pants down on a lot of these very pompous, you know self-absorbed curators who aren't doing the diligence they should be for such you know expensive, important works of art.
00:47:11
Alex
Right.
00:47:12
Brooklyn Brown
And if people enjoy it at the, at the museums, right.
00:47:13
Dustin Zick
Well, it's...
00:47:15
Brooklyn Brown
Like that's the other thing, right.
00:47:16
Alex
Right.
00:47:16
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:47:16
Brooklyn Brown
I mean, they're, they're good forgeries. They're good. They're good rep, you know, replications, whatever you want to call them. And like, if people at the museums are enjoying them, it's, yeah it's very bizarre.
00:47:26
Dustin Zick
Well, and it's...
00:47:28
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah.
00:47:28
Dustin Zick
It's interesting too, because we never really get, i mean, you, we get what you kind of alluded to, alex like we get a little bit of a hint, like he obviously enjoys doing it. And we, we see that a little bit, but we never see him going like, yeah, fucked one, another one over or anything.
00:47:44
Dustin Zick
And we never see him being like, well, i I think they're all crooks and they need to be, you know, they're too lazy or anything. We never really get, we certainly don't hear him ever say like, I do it because x Y, z I do it because,
00:47:51
Brooklyn Brown
Thank
00:47:54
Alex
Right.
00:47:58
Dustin Zick
I have money and this is tons of fun to me, or I do it because I want to expose them for being lazy at their jobs. So like that just kind of adds to the ethical dilemma of like, okay, we don't even get a a stake in the ground as to why he does it, why he says he does it.
00:48:08
Alex
right
00:48:14
Dustin Zick
We have to kind of just think from the receiving end and and what's going on there. And from there, and it's like, well, they kind of bear the brunt of the blame there because
00:48:25
Dustin Zick
but Their sifter has you know holes in it the size of a country. like Things are just falling through without any sort of effort, especially when they show you later on the minimal amount of effort it takes to identify any of his works as forgeries. It's not like they need to bring in some expert from across the ocean to like identify it. It's like, throw on the the black light or like use a magnifying glass. That's a dot matrix printer. It's like, okay, like this is stuff that, I mean, like we could probably do if you gave us a little bit of direction, right? Like it's not rocket science.
00:48:25
Alex
Right.
00:49:06
Alex
i mean That's the part of this that I did find interesting. and i definitely you know disagree a little bit there because I think i think there is a recognition of Landis' talent that we get from the other curators when they're talking to him and they're kind of like,
00:49:22
Alex
why the hell don't you just do this for real? Like put your own name on a painting. Like you've got, you know, you're, you're a talented guy.
00:49:26
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah.
00:49:27
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:49:29
Alex
He may not be like a master artist, but I think enough talent to like make a name for himself and, you know, do this like more legitimately which I think shows that for him, it,
00:49:42
Alex
you know, it's kind of mirrored with the rest of his like mental issues. It's kind of like a compulsion that he can't stop doing, even at the very end, like we, we end with him going on another con.
00:49:50
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
00:49:55
Alex
you know, I think, I think it might be him putting on the preacher collar, which is like a great little comedic moment. I just, I love that character he puts on.
00:50:01
Brooklyn Brown
Uh-huh.
00:50:04
Dustin Zick
i wonder I wonder, too, if it's part of it for him, too, is, like, he, you know, with his mental baggage that he carries and and how he, I mean, frankly, like, physically how he presents himself. And, I mean, if you saw him and he came up to talk to you, like, if...
00:50:25
Dustin Zick
What I'm trying to get at is like I wonder if by him doing these impersonations of a Jesuit priest or whoever it is donating these artworks, if that's a way that he subconsciously, unconsciously is able to socialize and like step out of the the life he's built for himself. And so he feels like connected to people when he's...
00:50:48
Dustin Zick
doing these, what do you want to call it, when he's going in and impersonating someone because they're treating him as someone of respect and of someone higher up on a pedestal maybe than they are if he's a wealthy donor or a priest or a doctor or whatever it is.
00:51:06
Dustin Zick
So he's able to kind of engage with people socially from a perspective and an angle that he isn't able to do by himself. And if he gets fulfillment or satisfaction out of that, like they never really even push him to to get any kind of context for that.
00:51:16
Brooklyn Brown
Thank you.
00:51:23
Dustin Zick
Like that would have been something I'd be really interested in hearing is is trying to ask him questions about like, okay, like how do you decide who you're going to impersonate? Like, what do you look up so that you sound and like an expert?
00:51:36
Dustin Zick
Like how long, you know, what kind of conversations do you have with people when you're in character and things like that?
00:51:43
Alex
Right. I mean, it was really interesting. It was probably a couple months review removed, but I did see Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can for the first time earlier this year.
00:51:54
Alex
and
00:51:54
Brooklyn Brown
Mm-hmm.
00:51:55
Alex
you could not be farther apart from, you know, Mark Landis and Leonardo DiCaprio are like diametrically as opposed to human beings can be.
00:52:06
Alex
But I do think that's a really good insight. And I think there is like a uniting thread in wanting to like put on these personas and yeah, get like some respect, get some, some social engagement where you're more on an even playing field and even kind of looked up to.
00:52:18
Dustin Zick
Thank
00:52:23
Alex
and you get a bit of that at the end when he really lights up when he's at the exhibit about his forgeries and about himself and his work. And you know, you really see him like, you know,
00:52:36
Alex
being jovial and going up and talking to all these art students and curators and like you know he's showing genuine interest in their lives because you know they're showing him a level of respect that he probably doesn't get when you know for example he goes to see his social worker and like she asks him this laundry list of questions that are inherently dehumanizing so i think there's like a really interesting rolloversal that happens in that last you know
00:53:06
Alex
15 minute sequence we get of him just walking through the exhibit, especially him with interacting with with Lester at that exhibit. I thought it was great. There were so many like funny comedic moments with just like how frustrated Lester was getting and like how he wanted to have this catharsis and like to have Landis feel like some kind of shame or acknowledgement.
00:53:31
Alex
And he is just not not wired that way.
00:53:33
Dustin Zick
No. no
00:53:35
Alex
And I thought that was kind of amazing to, like you know again, like put the mirror on on Sullivan to be like, dude, what are you doing? Why do you care this much? This guy like doesn't think about you at all.
00:53:46
Alex
He like said to your face, like yeah, like i you know i don't I don't read your emails, but now I will. because Because we're friends.
00:53:52
Brooklyn Brown
Thank you.
00:53:53
Alex
We like each other now. There's some great comedy there. And like again, really interesting like social dynamics. But yeah, I think the movie ended really strong.
00:54:00
Dustin Zick
Yeah. Well, and I feel like you almost, you can see him, like you can see the disappointment in him a little bit too of like when Landis shows up, A, that I feel like that Landis showed up to begin with. Like he was like, oh, okay. I didn't like shame him out of his presence here.
00:54:20
Dustin Zick
And then even though like, I'm sure he'd seen pictures, maybe some video clips of him before, but just seeing him in person, after you've built him up as this like villain in your life, like had to have been a huge kind of disappointment. right And not i mean just because like, not only is he not like a physically intimidating person, but just like his persona that he puts off is not intimidating or cruel or mean or any villainous kind of adjective you can think of.
00:54:35
Brooklyn Brown
yeah
00:54:51
Dustin Zick
so that was something i remember sticking with me the first time i watched it it's just like how how weird that must have been for him when landis showed up and then it was just like any way you would have written that going for yourself that's probably not one of the ways you wrote right like that's just not what you expected to happen
00:55:11
Alex
Yeah.
00:55:11
Dustin Zick
oh
00:55:13
Alex
I think it's a good moment where this movie really does get at like, you know, i think finders keepers does it to an even greater degree, but it gets at like something really insightful about the human condition is when we do build shit up in our heads and like, you know, do cast someone as the villain in our hero's journey and then being confronted with that reality and having it be as far from that story as you could possibly be.
00:55:37
Dustin Zick
Thank you.
00:55:38
Alex
is's just a clever little bit of filmmaking.
00:55:42
Dustin Zick
Before we shift to our last film, I just want to read a little snippet from the Wikipedia page on Mark Landis that I think, for me, it added a lot of context to his background and it almost poses more questions than it answers, but certainly kind of fills in some blanks.
00:55:59
Dustin Zick
So his he was born in 55, three years after his parents married, and his dad was in the was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. So when Landis was born, they moved around a bunch, and he had they lived in the Philippines and Hong Kong.
00:56:19
Dustin Zick
Then he was posted to NATO and Europe, where they lived in France, London, Paris, and finally Brussels. Which it says in Brussels, Landis began forging stamp cancellations for his friends.
00:56:29
Brooklyn Brown
Thank
00:56:31
Dustin Zick
So even as a kid, he was doing forgeries of some sort. In 68, the family returned to the United States, settling in Jackson, Mississippi. In 71, Landis' father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he died the following year.
00:56:44
Dustin Zick
At 17, Landis was deeply struck by the loss of his father, and he was treated for 18 months in a Kansas hospital, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenic, paranoid, and psychotic disorders and catatonic behavior.
00:56:58
Dustin Zick
And then what I think is super interesting is after that, he attended art courses at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in San Francisco, where, among other things, he worked on the maintenance of damaged paintings.
00:57:10
Dustin Zick
So to like that's really interesting because he looked you know already had a background in forgery of some sort. And then to learn how to fix paintings that were damaged seems like a very – like there's that scene in the movie where he talks about like was it a piece of wood or whatever that he stained with coffee on the back of it?
00:57:31
Brooklyn Brown
ham
00:57:31
Dustin Zick
And, and I was just like, this is just wild to think that like you're doing like, and just like this on his TV tray in his bedroom. And like somebody might see that and think it's like this historic piece of artwork. So he did that and then he bought an art gallery, but it was not successful and he lost money in a real estate investment.
00:57:53
Dustin Zick
Yeah. In 1988, he decided to return to live with his mother and stepfather in Laurel, Mississippi. So there isn't a citation as far as the art gallery and the real estate investment, but assuming those are true, that is interesting.
00:58:11
Dustin Zick
I would love to know more about like why the art gallery wasn't successful and things like that, and if that might have factored into his work.
00:58:14
Brooklyn Brown
Thank you.
00:58:20
Dustin Zick
his choice of of pursuing this route of forgery and donating things to galleries to try to get them placed in because no matter how good of an artist you are, if your name isn't known, a well-known bad artist, I feel like would have an easier day getting work in a gallery exhibit than a poorly known good artist in many instances.
00:58:46
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah.
00:58:47
Dustin Zick
All right, let's shift to the final, the movie, Finders Keepers. So where do you even start with this?
00:58:59
Dustin Zick
It's about a guy who loses a leg and another guy who buys a storage unit like in Storage Wars.
00:59:09
Dustin Zick
And happens to find the lost leg of the guy who lost the leg. It was in a grill or a smoker. I think it was a smoker specifically in the storage unit.
00:59:17
Alex
It was a smoker.
00:59:20
Dustin Zick
The partially somewhat unsuccessfully, successfully mummified leg. And the battle between these two guys to figure out who owns the leg and and their motivations therein.
00:59:38
Dustin Zick
I'll let one of you guys kick off conversations on this one. Yeah.
00:59:42
Brooklyn Brown
Alex, you out she take it.
00:59:44
Dustin Zick
yeah
00:59:45
Alex
Yeah. So I, you know, as I teased earlier, i went into this kind of being the least excited about it of the three, because you alluded to it when we were talking about art and crafts, Austin, but the premise sounded like we were going to be, you know, laughing at these guys and their, you know, their feud was going to be presented to us, the viewer, for our amusement.
01:00:09
Alex
And what I really loved about it is that how it kind of slowly peels back different layers of the onion and you get a greater and greater appreciation for like the levels of psychological nuance and kind of intergenerational trauma that's happening with these two characters.
01:00:31
Alex
the way it builds empathy for both of you both of them. At the beginning, the way that they're framing things, they really frame things as you know John, the amputee who loses his leg, presents him as kind of like a cut and dry victim and presents Shannon as this, you know the clearly more villainous you know figure.
01:00:55
Alex
in this feud and the way that the movie slowly undercuts that and reveals kind of the layers of Shannon's trauma from like his abuse at the hands of his father to kind of this desperation for any kind of fame or notoriety and the way that he exploits the situation to like kind of just hang on to any kernel of recognition is like deeply sad and humanizing.
01:01:25
Alex
And I think the way that the movie just has this really smart dual structure where we're bouncing back and forth between, uh, between John and Shannon and like, again, kind of slowly peeling back the the different layers of their stories.
01:01:42
Alex
this felt the most kind of nakedly sentimental of the three movies where when you have different figures who are kind of relaying parts of of John and Shannon's lives, there's music that swells and it's clearly meant to tug at your heartstrings. And i was always pretty aware that I was being kind of manipulated by these different filmmaking you know techniques and The use of certain quotes in the talking head interviews were really kind of again designed to kind of elicit a response in the viewer.
01:02:17
Alex
But even as I was aware of that, I didn't really care and I find myself like getting misty-eyed at like different parts of it. When we learn the extent of what happens with the airplane crash that claims John's foot,
01:02:33
Alex
there's one part where it breaks the fourth wall and the the person filming the sequence asks him questions about like what it was like as he's going about the crash site and kind of reliving that experience. you know All that I just found like deeply,
01:02:51
Alex
you know whereas Fire of blood Love was visually poetic, I found this the most poetic in terms of human nature. And one bit at the end I really loved before I turned it over to to you, Kyle.
01:03:06
Alex
is another humanizing moment we get of of Shannon where, again, he's trying to like grab hold of any fame he can get.
01:03:15
Alex
And i forget the name of the show that he's participating on but he becomes aware that they're only featuring him on this program to kind of make fun of him.
01:03:26
Alex
And you get like you get that moment of recognition, you get this like anger. And he kind of stops playing ball for the first time in the movie and like almost develops a backbone and is like, I will not degrade myself to this level.
01:03:42
Alex
and think that's like, you know, just again, poetic about what the, you know, the hunt for fame can do to someone, especially when they're driven by trauma and insecurity the way that Shannon is. Yeah.
01:03:57
Alex
yeah I just found this really interesting. poignant, even if it did feel the most manipulative of the docs that we watched.
01:04:07
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah, I would definitely agree with the manipulative part. i
01:04:13
Brooklyn Brown
a borderline didn't like this. i i i did. i did enjoy it. But there were there were times when it just...
01:04:26
Brooklyn Brown
it felt a little bit like headline grab, you know, where like, you know, you, you just said what this movie is about Dustin. And I think you want it to be more whimsical. And there were times when it couldn't really figure out its tone of whimsy when Shannon's life is falling apart.
01:04:45
Brooklyn Brown
And it's clear that he doesn't understand that kind of the joke is on him and he's the one perpetrating it. and how that relates to it. It was painful to watch his wife stand there and then to eventually see this kind of, you know, lead to the destruction of their relationship and just her not really have any idea what to do.
01:05:06
Brooklyn Brown
it was It was tough to go down the pathway of just another, you know, opioid story in America was with a tragic accident leading to you know, both for emotional pain and for physical pain, you know, someone getting caught up in drugs and the interview, you know, it was just, it was, it was a tough watch that it was kind of weird for me anyway, how the subject matter of what was driving it, right. This, this leg, mummified leg as well.
01:05:43
Brooklyn Brown
that That was just... was that I don't know. i just it It was hard. I didn't really... and didn't love how it kind of handled that. And I think, actually, it's the kind of movie to me where if you were to go... if someone else were to have tackled this subject matter and maybe approached it from...
01:06:09
Brooklyn Brown
the accident. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want I don't want to rewrite the movie. I want to critique the movie we watched, but the I just, yeah, I i was like, i I couldn't tell if I was supposed to feel bad. And again, it was a line that really, it was a movie that really sat on the line of, of making fun of and laughing at a couple of its characters. It did get back to some wholesome, heartwarming moments with John but the But all the Shannon stuff was was difficult for me to sit through. And yeah, I don't know. Like it was, it was and didn't, I guess i I don't really know if, if, if,
01:06:53
Brooklyn Brown
they knew exactly what they wanted this to be. And in the end, they kind of tried to make it everything and it didn't fail. But there were just times when, you know, like when they go into the Judge Mathis stuff that, that they were doing and I don't know, it just like Judge Mathis, this is one of those things where you're watching characters or people, which is one of the reasons it's so painful. You're watching people and like anyone,
01:07:19
Brooklyn Brown
it And that Judge Mathis and those types of shows to me are like, these are people that they're exploiting these these very vulnerable people who want some kind some kind of combination of being on screen and having their their their situation heard because no one seems to care.
01:07:41
Brooklyn Brown
and and so the whole, those shows in and of themselves are like very, poking fun at the people that don't seem to be in on the joke of those shows in general.
01:07:53
Brooklyn Brown
and And don't know, that was just difficult to watch at times with Shannon. And I mean, it did all come to a head and in the scene you you you mentioned, Alex. But yeah, I don't know. Like there were some things I liked. I did i did think the stuff with his dad, and the plane crash was, was kind of fascinating and how he couldn't let that go.
01:08:15
Brooklyn Brown
But it was a really, I guess I'll put it to you this way. This movie made me very sad. and not in a way that made me feel so better after, enjoying someone else's misfortune.
01:08:28
Brooklyn Brown
So yeah, I guess that was kind of weird. And I think because of how it starts with this like, whoa, there's a leg and a grill and everyone's having a good time with it. And this guy's kind of not giving it it back and it's wonky.
01:08:40
Brooklyn Brown
Really turned into just like a real sad portraiture of both these characters and all the people around them. And it did, it there was some redemption, but yeah, I guess it made me sad and I couldn't figure out which way it wanted to go. And you you compare that to,
01:08:56
Brooklyn Brown
art and craft and, and fire of love. And those movies felt like they knew where they were going, what they were doing and kind of the arc that the documentary is going to take.
01:09:07
Brooklyn Brown
And it almost felt a little bit more meandering in, uh, in finders keepers where they started with this kooky story with kooky characters from, you know, the South of America.
01:09:18
Brooklyn Brown
uh, And they ended up with just a bunch of tragedy and, and, and not that much hope, but some. And, uh, yeah, it just, it just left me a little bit like, Hmm, I don't, I don't like this very much.
01:09:36
Brooklyn Brown
Uh, yeah, that's, that's my general take on it. I also didn't think there was anything,
01:09:42
Brooklyn Brown
filmmaking wise, that was too in the, in the sense of editing or cutting it together or giving us the information. and just, there was nothing. i kept trying to have to kind of figure out where we were at and what tone we were at in the moment. And I didn't think it handled those transitions perfectly well, but I did, did, you know, it like I said, i did not enjoy it, but it's not one that there's some documentaries I could watch again. And this probably wouldn't be on the list. Whereas Ardencraft and fire of love certainly would be.
01:10:12
Dustin Zick
I feel like that kind of just speaks to the see the word that comes to mind is like the authenticity of this. Not that either of those other movies weren't authentic, but just like the realness and the rawness of this and the characters and the stories being told.
01:10:26
Brooklyn Brown
Right.
01:10:30
Dustin Zick
I don't disagree with you as far as the... the the technical production wise being not that it's poorly made, but and and unimpressively made.
01:10:40
Brooklyn Brown
right
01:10:42
Dustin Zick
i mean, certainly, i I mean, like, I feel like fire, fire of love is in a class of its own looking at the three of these. So like ignoring that, but comparing this to like art and craft, I feel like there's a little more finesse in pacing. Well done in, in art and craft, but yeah,
01:11:01
Dustin Zick
I think that by nature of this the the snippet of Mark Landis' story that they're telling, it works that it culminates in this gallery exhibit about him, right? Like there is no natural culmination to the – there is and there isn't to the the leg story in Finders Keepers.
01:11:22
Dustin Zick
Because I tried to dig up – Because you know most of what happens in this movie is in the course of 2004 to 2006, 2007. And
01:11:36
Dustin Zick
the movie came out in 2015. So I tried to – and I couldn't find any info on this. I'm really curious as to like when the documentarians started telling this story. Was it something that they worked on for 10 – ten years you know, did they get some of that? And it's hard to tell, like when they were interviewing Shannon and things like that in relation to like when he originally found the leg, because if they started, even if they hit pause for a number of years before they finished, if they started telling this story when Shannon first found the leg and it was making local regional news headlines because a guy found a leg and whatnot,
01:12:16
Dustin Zick
I can see the lack of, you know, that meandering nature of this making more sense because they're just kind of telling it how they learned it, where they started with this, whoa, guy found a leg, quirky story. And then as they were like, oh, let's make a documentary about this weird ass thing.
01:12:39
Dustin Zick
And then as they dive into it, they're like, oh, actually, no, there's like two pretty tragic stories going on here. Let's dive into those a little more. My hunch is not, though, that they started telling this story in 2005. I think they probably told it, you know, built this documentary wholly after the fact.
01:12:58
Dustin Zick
And I think that weakens it a little bit, especially hearing, you know, how you were explaining it, Kyle. I do think, though, I do feel like it ends a bit more hopeful than maybe i you felt it did, but that's really because I think you have two very different trajectories, right?
01:13:23
Dustin Zick
Like, like,
01:13:23
Alex
Yeah, one ends up here, the other ends way down there.
01:13:27
Dustin Zick
Yeah. And like Shannon's story actually even gets more tragic because he had a heart attack and died in November, 2016. But he basically spent the rest of his life billing himself as the foot man, trying to be celebrity based on that thing, which as, as sad as it is, and as,
01:13:47
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah.
01:13:55
Dustin Zick
I don't disagree with anything either of you have said and in the film, obviously like gives that context of like people in his life saying why they think he is how he is and why he wants to be so famous and whatnot.
01:14:10
Dustin Zick
The film also does a pretty damning job of showing how, uncaring he is towards his wife and like, and and the impact it has on her. So i it I find it harder to like empathize with his path.
01:14:26
Dustin Zick
What I think is, i mean, obviously like John's story is much more hopeful and and optimistic and and we get the resolution for him. And we do get the resolution, I guess, with the leg of like, I still think it's weird that he saw his leg as something that he wanted to make as a shrine to his dad.
01:14:48
Dustin Zick
And, you know, damn good on him for really seeing it through all these years later. Like that seems like something you could have just thrown in the towel on at some point.
01:14:54
Brooklyn Brown
Thank you.
01:14:58
Dustin Zick
But like, I think, it is kind of like, it's wild to me that like this man can like almost singularly credit judge Mathis with his, his spring back in life.
01:15:12
Dustin Zick
The fact that Mathis recognized he was on drugs when he was on the show and not only like pulled him aside and said, look, man, you got to get your shit figured out. But like actually offered to like pay for him to go to rehab. Like,
01:15:25
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah.
01:15:25
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah.
01:15:25
Dustin Zick
good on John for taking that up and and using it and getting on the right track and figuring his shit out.
01:15:28
Alex
Yep. Yep.
01:15:32
Dustin Zick
And I really, really don't do love the fact that that woman, that taxidermy woman was like, I can help you.
01:15:41
Brooklyn Brown
yeah
01:15:42
Dustin Zick
Like, that's the kind of shit that was like, what? Like there's people like it's.
01:15:47
Brooklyn Brown
Dude, the South is weird, man.
01:15:48
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
01:15:50
Brooklyn Brown
The South is weird.
01:15:50
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
01:15:51
Alex
yeah
01:15:51
Brooklyn Brown
I have no problem saying that. I've had been to many of those places and spent real time. And it is a weird place, but it has those characteristics where like someone will just be like, I'm just going to dedicate so much of this time to helping this person.
01:16:00
Dustin Zick
Yeah, yeah.
01:16:04
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
01:16:07
Brooklyn Brown
I would have liked to, it's amazing that Judge Mathis wasn't a part of this documentary, right?
01:16:11
Dustin Zick
Yeah, yeah.
01:16:12
Brooklyn Brown
And he wasn't like, yeah, I don't need to give too much.
01:16:12
Alex
Right.
01:16:14
Brooklyn Brown
i don't need to steal any spotlight, but like, it seems like a guy who would have loved to be on camera for a quick interview about this.
01:16:20
Dustin Zick
you know Yeah. Well, I also would have loved to watch like a 30 minute like tour of the veterinary woman's house too, because like when they go in her house and whatnot, I'm like, this, this is, this tracks like your house looks like what, i mean, it looks nicer than I would have expected, but also weird.
01:16:36
Dustin Zick
And like, but so I feel like, yeah, like it, it's a interesting, path to go down telling like the story of each of these characters these they're they're not well they are characters but like each of these people and and and seeing them through not necessarily to i mean we get we get john's conclusion i really do feel like we do i mean i'm assuming he's healthy sober hopefully all of those things today but like we see him close the door on this
01:16:54
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah.
01:16:55
Alex
Yeah. Right.
01:17:14
Alex
right
01:17:15
Dustin Zick
And Shannon, we don't, but that's that's because that's who he is. and And, I mean, i don't... Like, it it and really it... Well, I think it kind of... The movie does kind of, like, underscore that, like... Yeah, like, part of why Shannon, like...
01:17:36
Dustin Zick
digs his claws into this idea and this leg thing is because he's always wanted to be more. And like, this is like the most differentiating thing that's ever happened to him. And like, but he just like, hasn't, it's like, can you not, i'm I'm trying to like stop myself from like knocking on somebody who's since passed, but it's just like, can you not figure out something else to do different or whatever?
01:17:47
Alex
Right.
01:18:01
Dustin Zick
Like that is not, and it's not even that like, For me, as someone with like an advertising background, it's like, this is a pun for, was going say, it's a very weak leg to stand on when it comes to like your, your, your hook and your brand.
01:18:20
Alex
Bye.
01:18:22
Brooklyn Brown
Outrageous. Outrageous.
01:18:24
Dustin Zick
but it just came to my mind before I realized it was a pun.
01:18:25
Brooklyn Brown
yeah
01:18:27
Brooklyn Brown
but
01:18:28
Dustin Zick
But you know what I'm saying?
01:18:29
Brooklyn Brown
but
01:18:30
Dustin Zick
Like if, if you want your, your, your hook, like your, your, Being the foot man, like just isn't, there's a lot of explaining that has to go into that for that to be relevant enough that somebody wants to like amplify you up and, and sees value in what you're providing.
01:18:52
Dustin Zick
And it's a limited, i don't know. I just think it's like,
01:18:56
Alex
Right. Well, we see all that, right? We see like what a struggle it is to like claw his way onto relevance and how he markets the grill as being a part of it.
01:19:04
Dustin Zick
yeah.
01:19:07
Alex
And like you know he he like tries to grab all these little kernels, and you put it beautifully, like things that differentiate himself. And that also adds, to me, like to the the tragedy of you know, of this experience for him is that like, that was enough for him like build everything around it.
01:19:25
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
01:19:27
Alex
Like this crazy house of cards around, you know, finding this kooky thing. and Going back to your points, Kyle, about like the structure of this feeling meandering and kind of the tones feeling like it wasn't quite sure what it wanted to be.
01:19:43
Alex
To me, this felt really clear eyed and deliberate in terms of the tones that it started with and the tone that wanted to work towards where we are presented with the story of like,
01:19:55
Alex
this wacky like you know foot found in a grill in a storage unit. And we get that in the way the story is told, where we get like these little you know kind of goofy infographics that show you the journey that the foot took you know to the storage unit, to the mortician's office. And we're presented the story the way that the media presents this story initially as like this kooky oddity that we can all point at and laugh at.
01:20:24
Alex
and then the structure of the movie is to like you know dig into the the human pathos and tragedy like underlying that you know that farce that we get on the surface level and to me the unifying thing is it does kind of turn the critique you know not against these two guys, not against John and Shannon, but like against the media ecosystem and the culture that like feeds off of their pain and suffering basically.
01:20:56
Alex
Like, it's not wholly about that. There is this huge element of the opioid crisis and addiction and trauma, but I think there's enough for me to follow that through line of, you know, kind of the media circus that ties all of this together.
01:21:13
Alex
You know, whether it's the, the judge Mathis bit or that sequence at the end where, where Shannon goes on that, that new program. But that all,
01:21:24
Alex
felt part of the tone management that I would argue this movie is doing is it is taking you from that, you know, comedic, surface level view and we even get a quote from like a news commentator that like kind of made my blood boil in a way that i think was intentional where the guy's like man what like what a circus or what a freak show and he's totally like you know mocking their their story and at that point in the film we as viewers have seen enough of like their real pain to like understand what he's mocking and what the culture and the media ecosystem that like
01:22:01
Alex
feeds off stories like this is mocking and you know i think that was a really effective uh bit of editing to like show that footage after we had already seen the tragedy of their story so yeah i would i would counter that this movie you know in my viewing was doing some tone management and even though it like starts comedic and farcical and ends like very somber and tragic but also with a kernel of hope with with John's story that I felt like I had you know gone through an arc while watching it.
01:22:36
Alex
And I did end up you know at a low place. like this This is a deeply sad movie. I felt very sad when it was over and like a little bit gross. But I think that's part of why why I did like it as much as I did is that it you know evoked a really powerful response to me that didn't feel exploitative. You know, I felt like I i have gotten insight into two people who I might not have if I had just read the headlines.
01:23:06
Brooklyn Brown
Yeah, fair enough.
01:23:09
Dustin Zick
Alright, Kyle, rank them.
01:23:14
Brooklyn Brown
Oh, yeah, Fire of Love. Fire of Love, number one. Number two, Arden Craft. and Number three, The Fighter's Keepers.
01:23:23
Dustin Zick
Kyle, what about you? or that cow
01:23:27
Dustin Zick
Speaking of names, Brad, what about you? now
01:23:30
Alex
Well, my
01:23:32
Dustin Zick
What if we were all Kyles? Triple Kyle cinema?
01:23:37
Alex
i like I like Triple Brad cinema better. I think that has a nice nice ring to it. Brad
01:23:42
Dustin Zick
Well, if we called it that, we'd have to just be Brad, Brad, Brad cinema.
01:23:45
Alex
squared. Brad squared.
01:23:49
Brooklyn Brown
If we could keep that going for any amount time, it'd be something.
01:23:52
Brooklyn Brown
Because it'd be like, Brad, what do you think? And then we'd just, I don't know.
01:23:55
Alex
yeah
01:23:57
Brooklyn Brown
shit
01:23:57
Dustin Zick
It's just where we all talk over each other.
01:24:00
Alex
it would It would break down very quickly within like 10 minutes of the first step.
01:24:04
Dustin Zick
It'd be like the world's
01:24:04
Brooklyn Brown
And then we'd just start fighting.
01:24:06
Dustin Zick
It'd be like the so
01:24:06
Brooklyn Brown
It's like, he was talking to me.
01:24:09
Alex
Excuse me. i am the one true Brad.
01:24:12
Brooklyn Brown
yeah
01:24:13
Dustin Zick
lamest knockoff of who's on first.
01:24:18
Alex
So my number one is going to be Finders Keepers.
01:24:18
Brooklyn Brown
uh
01:24:22
Alex
My number two is going to be a Fire of Love. And my number three is going to be Art and Craft. But I liked all these quite a bit.
01:24:30
Dustin Zick
I think I would say my number three is finders keepers. And then I'm really torn for one and two. i think I'd probably have to put
01:24:45
Dustin Zick
I think it really depends on like what I'm in the mood for.
Comparing 'Fire of Love' and 'Art and Craft'
01:24:48
Dustin Zick
Cause I feel like, uh, fire of love and art and craft are so like two very different movies.
01:24:48
Brooklyn Brown
you
01:24:54
Dustin Zick
So like, if I want a movie that's really going to like suck me in and like, keep me focused on the screen, I think it's fire of love.
01:25:05
Dustin Zick
But if it's if I want to just be, for lack of a better word, like entertained by someone's story and just kind of fascinated by the quirkiness of someone, it would be art and craft.
01:25:18
Dustin Zick
But... Like i right now thinking of, you know, the two that I'd already seen and rewatching it. I mean, this is kind of an apples and oranges thing. Cause I'm like, I really do want to rewatch for the next year to fire of love again. And I wish I could see it in the theater. That's when I would so jump at the opportunity to like feel that in my seats more and stuff. But
Episode Conclusion and Farewell
01:25:41
Dustin Zick
Yeah.
01:25:41
Dustin Zick
Okay. Well, thank you too, as always. Thank you to our listeners. And we'll see you guys on our next episode. Bye.
01:25:49
Brooklyn Brown
See you.
01:25:50
Alex
Happy watching.