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Episode 029 - Cinema is a Many Splendored Thing
14 Plays5 months ago
In this episode we continue our look at the cinema of love discussing stories of optimism, doom and growth while sharing some of our favourite examples along the way.
Intro clip from Rob Reiner's "The Princess Bride" from Act III Communications and Buttercup Films distributed by 20th Century Fox and Interaccess Film Distribution
Opening music: https://pixabay.com/music/id-116199/
Closing music: https://pixabay.com/music/id-11176/
Two Oceans is a creation of Siouxfire & Scrumpy in association with SiouxWIRE
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Transcript
Exploring Love and Romance
00:00:09
Speaker
Two oceans. Two oceans will begin. What is this love of yours? Another prince like this one? Ugly, rich and scabby? No. A farm boy. Poor. Poor and perfect. With eyes like the sea after a storm.
Philosophy of Piracy
00:00:42
Speaker
On the high seas, your ship attacked. The Dread Pirate Roberts never takes prisoners. I can't afford to make exceptions. I mean, once word leaks out that a pirate has gone soft, people begin to disobey you, and then it's nothing but work, work, work all the time. You mock my pain! Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
Introduction to Tuitions Podcast
00:01:06
Speaker
Welcome to the Tuitions podcast. Myself, Sue Fire, along with my friend and romantic colleague, Scrumpy, discuss film and other media through a decades-long lens of mass media consumption. In this episode, we'll be continuing our look at the cinema of love, discussing stories of optimism, doom, and growth, sharing some of our favorite examples along the way.
What Defines a Romance Movie?
00:01:27
Speaker
This is the Tuitions podcast.
00:01:30
Speaker
So drag that harmonium from the street and stock up on Healthy Choice Pudding as we begin Episode 5, Series 2. Counting down, we love countdowns. Part 2 of the Love Cinema episodes. You know last week when we were talking about the different categorizations that they use for this type of movie, it's stuff like chick flick.
00:01:56
Speaker
historical romance, romantic comedy, drama, fantasy thriller, all that's musical, you know. But those don't really seem to have too much meaning, if you know what I mean. My idea around a romance movie is around like a human fundamental need to connect to another person
00:02:16
Speaker
And sometimes it's easier to learn when you're watching other people fuck up and kind of experience things from other people's eyes.
Authenticity in Romance Films
00:02:27
Speaker
Yeah. And it also brings back memories. You know, you can like hearing that old song that recalls a past love or a cherished moment. Situations in cinema are really, really vivid. But yeah, I'm thinking about it. Out of all the film genres, this is probably the one that I kind of revisit the most, aside from those those movies that I kind of tune out on, you know, action films and stuff like that. You know, sure. And you will die hard Christmas viewing that sort of thing.
00:02:56
Speaker
And I don't know if we went over this last week, but I think the kind of important thing with these movies is that kind of sincerity. And I think this is probably true of all movies, but especially, you know, the romance movies that you need to feel that they're sincere. They don't need to necessarily need to be realistic. So you've got movies like eternal sunshine, spotless mind, or her that feel authentic, you know, that they're coming from a place of
00:03:22
Speaker
you know, real experience. But they're set in these weird future worlds. You know what I mean? Right.
The 'Found' Narrative in Romance
00:03:29
Speaker
And what we have up for our first group is the found. So this is the narrative that's about the search, typically starting from a point of isolation and loneliness and ends at the most optimistic point to the relationship as the pair find each other.
00:03:47
Speaker
And as we were building this out, the most numerous titles we came up with were for this section. Absolutely. And I left out the stuff that I think is insincere or so. Good. Just go by
Unique Romance Portrayals in Film
00:04:01
Speaker
the wayside. First one on my list, Punch Drunk Club from Paul Thomas Anderson. The one Adam Sandler movie I can watch.
00:04:10
Speaker
One of two uncut gems being the other one. But yes, punch, chuck, love is, yeah, that was also kind of coming out of nowhere for him, especially. He's not doing silly noises or anything in it. He's just... And he's really good. He's perfect for the part. He's very good in it, yeah. I haven't watched that in forever, but... Well, I revisited it for this episode. Oh, good. It hasn't lost its punch.
00:04:42
Speaker
I mean, it's still really good. I mean, it's weird. It can fit into next week's episode of Weird Movies. But, you know, the henpecking sisters that are all kind of looking out for him but are just smothering him.
00:04:56
Speaker
Emily Watson is very good in it as well. But yeah, I love that movie. And then also another Paul Thomas Anderson, Magnolia. And it's been a while since I've seen that one. But I do remember John C. Riley as kind of the lonely cop. And Melora Walters, the two of them are both lonely people, but they have a real hard time sort of connecting to each other.
00:05:23
Speaker
but that stuck out for me. That is a part of the film that I still remember with a lot of clarity.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah, and there's the more romantic of the stories and evolve in that whole series of stories about love, some kind of relationship, familial, earned, lost, whatever. Right. And Tom Cruise playing... Tom Cruise being very good in it. CD part, but yeah, it's one of the movies that I quite enjoyed his performance in.
00:05:53
Speaker
Then I've got on my list, Amelie, the Jean-Pierre Genet movie. Again, that was all within the same few years here. Absolutely. At least three titles. It just seemed like a thing. The turn of the century, maybe people wanted that kind of...
00:06:12
Speaker
or needed that kind of insurance or something. It's kind of weird. 2001 in Magnolia was 1999, Punch-Drunk Love 2002. You see? I don't know. It just seemed like a rash of them. It's really interesting. Yeah. Emily's been so influential on these stories and the way that things are cut in movies and in television.
00:06:36
Speaker
Well, and the sort of upending the manic pixie dream girl thing into just letting her tell the story, not being told the guy's point of view and her coming in and fixing everything and like, no, there's some things broken. You know, she has this, you know, this, it's a very interesting psychological study as well, but it's all, it's all her, right? I mean, it is, it is. And it's got an interesting little mystery and, and the middle of it, which is, which is different.
Analyzing 'The Princess Bride'
00:07:05
Speaker
And now we're going back a few years and we probably talked about this way, way back as soon as this came out with the princess bride from Rob Reiner in 1987. Indeed. Yeah. And that's obviously, you know, the whole true love. It was kind of with the sideways glance, you know, yeah. Carrie always and Robin Wright, uh,
00:07:32
Speaker
that one. It proves that it's a hassle, that it's not clean. There's the struggle as well and what they have to go through to kind of re-earn it from childhood crush to lifelong commitment to what you believe in and what gets lost along the way sort of thing.
00:07:53
Speaker
that original crush as well, so when Carrie Alves meets Robin Wright, she's horrible to him. They can't speak directly. The way that he says, I love you is as you wish, bending to her will before then he becomes the dread pirate, Roberts.
Romantic Classics and Cinematic Evolution
00:08:12
Speaker
We're following the pattern of going back, way back now with the 1931 City Lights with Charlie Chaplin.
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, I was happy to see this one on our list, just because far enough back, you kind of forget about it. I'm like, oh, yeah. And obviously, there's a lot more that we're picking up on the later years, but in terms of...
00:08:33
Speaker
You know, there's romance versus melodrama versus what we're kind of going at here, but there's, you know, a lot of movies, especially in The Silent, when, you know, but a lot of times, you know, because it's silent, they have to overplay the facial things and it can be kind of misconstrued or kind of be overplayed, right? Into, you know, just kind of gaping looks and, you know,
00:08:55
Speaker
literally batting eyelashes, all the very stereotypical things to just try to convey without words, right? But yeah, Chaplin, that's getting part of his fantasticness of being able to do that without the moping for the camera or anything like that. I mean, there's a little bit of it, but not much. He puts the characters together as he tries to convince her of what he's about and prove himself.
00:09:25
Speaker
I mean, it's funny, you mentioned the kind of the fluttering eyelashes and all that, you know, there used to be the foot lift as well. You could kiss and one foot would go off the ground. And when I was doing some research today on our upcoming queer episode,
00:09:44
Speaker
I read an article about the Hays Code and the reason that they did the foot lift is it was shorthand for just assume the couple slept together at that point because there was a rule saying that the couples had needed to have at least one foot on the ground.
00:10:03
Speaker
And that was the way the writers kind of worked around that is they have this code in there that you can assume that, right. If you get that foot lift during, during your kiss, um, it's meant to mean, mean more than yes. Yeah.
Modern Romance in Film Contexts
00:10:19
Speaker
And city lights as well. That structure surprised me in that, that kind of went in assuming that, you know, he's going to get the girl at the end kind of thing.
00:10:28
Speaker
But they get together in the middle of the movie. Then they lose each other. I thought that was quite interesting, especially for that time period.
00:10:41
Speaker
that the structure around that. And actually, I'm just going to kind of, well, we've got another one of the era coming up in another category. But yeah, I'll leave that one for now. Next one is one that I mentioned a couple of years ago. It's a little British film called Ali and Eva with Adil Akhtar and Claire Rushbrook. And it's kind of an odd couple story, very grounded. You know, he's coming from
00:11:12
Speaker
and Asian background and, you know, she's white kind of thing. They live in a small town in Yorkshire, which is where I am. And it can be a bit, I suppose, the north of England is kind of the equivalent to the south in the US. Not quite as bad. But the same sort of connotations is that people who are living in kind of smaller towns and villages,
00:11:39
Speaker
don't have as much, you know, don't have as broad a horizon, I suppose is the most light way of putting it. Especially older. I don't want creativity, imagination, yeah. Right, right. I mean, I think it's changing for the next generation because everything's online. So it doesn't matter as much where you're at. But we still have the, you know, the boomers and whatnot, kind of holding things back a bit.
00:12:07
Speaker
clogging up the progress lanes, clogging up the passing lane. Yeah. Yeah. Um, next one on my list, uh, 1987, uh, wings of desire. Yes. And I remember going to, I think this is probably the first time that I went to, uh, went to cinema to see a movie like this. Um, because as you know, there, there really weren't art house movies when,
00:12:34
Speaker
when in Olympia, when we were growing up. Not so much. Or at least we didn't get to see him. I mean, we saw the weird stuff. So we got like John Waters and things like that. But, you know, European cinema was something that, you know, maybe there's like five videos in the video shop in a corner. But there was a, you know, people weren't as accustomed to subtitles. And now, you know, the new generations are watching subtitles with the English stuff as well, which I do sometimes as
00:13:06
Speaker
There's a lot of dense dialogue. It is a little bit easier to have the subtitles on. But yeah, that movie kind of blew me away. I didn't know how to deal with it. There were bits that just made me laugh that I just thought, oh my God, what is going on here? When he gets clogged in the head with the armor that falls out of the sky. But yeah, that whole movie was just such an experience. Everything in it was new.
00:13:31
Speaker
And I really did sort of buy into the love story as well. Bruno Ganz is amazing. Absolutely amazing. I mean, he's good in everything he is, but especially in that one. And what his character has to go through and what he's evaluating.
00:13:49
Speaker
Yeah, and that that I know it's not part of the romance bit but but that whole well actually it is because as we're talking about sort of human connections, but that that opening where the angels can hear people's thoughts, you know, the guy that's that's thinking about suicide, the people in the library kind of worrying about bills and all this. And yeah, I don't know if you saw the remake, I saw it on an airplane,
00:14:14
Speaker
I didn't bother. I wasn't interested. Lucky you, because I gave up maybe 15 minutes in. As much as I love everyone involved in that remake, it's not a film you want to try to remake. It'd be like trying to remake 2001, you know?
00:14:31
Speaker
Right. Yeah. It just seems ridiculous to kind of do it, especially from moving in from gloomy Berlin to sunny LA. It's like- Right. It doesn't feel right. Yeah. City of Angels. You know an executive somewhere was thinking, I got a title.
00:14:48
Speaker
It makes sense. Wings of desire. That just makes no sense. Um, um, right. I, I don't know what the order is on this list. It's just completely random, which is kind of as it came to us. And as we're like, Oh yeah, no, I agree. Yeah. So be glad to see you had the apartment on there. Cause that one's just,
00:15:12
Speaker
That one is, you know, that's Jack Lemmon being Bruno Ganz and Wings of Desire, right? It's just that same sort of put upon trying to reclaim something for his own life, ending up with something that kind of works. Maybe, maybe not. Well, I mean, he also starts out sort of like Amelie, who's, who's like trying to make everybody else happy, but forgets about themselves. And Shirley MacLaine's amazing at it.
00:15:42
Speaker
Yes she is. She just feels like she's going to tip over the edge at any point without being melodramatic.
00:15:53
Speaker
And, uh, I mean, I'd seen this one recently as well. I rewatched it and it's a really beautiful film as well. It's, it's, it's not anywhere like dramatic, but the way that they filmed this, you know, the massive office with the rows and rows of death. Um, and, uh, I got to see a, uh, nice blueberry print of it and it, it looks great. It's, it's, it's just, uh,
00:16:19
Speaker
But it comes across as really sincere as well because you gotta go into these things going as made in the you know 50s or 60s it's gonna be you know it's gonna be dated and small see and it's not it's not at all.
00:16:34
Speaker
And the next one is a big favorite of mine, Moonstruck from Norman Jewison, one of Nicholas Cage's better performances. We share Olympia Dukakis' great in it, Danny Ello, Vincent Gardenia, but that is such a sharp script, like the dialogue in Moonstruck.
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah. It's very, it's a very good, very atypical of it. It's just like how it could be showing how it can be done really well. And they didn't make the romances in that tidy, like everything was messed up. Everything across the board was messed up. Yeah. They approached it so well. Um, yeah, they didn't go for the easy way out as well. You know,
00:17:26
Speaker
shared. It doesn't end the way that you think it would either. I love the idea of the whole moonstruck thing with the grandfather. Everyone's looking at the same moon. It's pretty great.
00:17:46
Speaker
I mean, it's funny because we talked about the Princess Bride as well. I think Moonstruck has as many quotable bits in it as Princess Bride does. Yeah. I haven't seen it in forever, so I couldn't cooperate, unfortunately. I need to revisit it.
00:18:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those movies that if it's on television or something, and at any point in that movie, I'm stuck. It's like, I'm going to have to watch the rest of it. Because you go, oh, this is a great scene. I'm going to watch this scene. And then what you forget is the whole thing is just a string of great scenes.
00:18:26
Speaker
And the next one, I think we went to go see Together, actually, which is Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah in Roxanne. And I think we may have you maybe right there. Yeah, retelling of Cyrano de Berger.
00:18:44
Speaker
And the same... I've seen this in at least 25 years. Oh yeah, yeah. Well, and it was also atypical for... It's one of those times when Steve Martin gets to do his own stuff and what he puts out there is so much more, just so much more, right? And this was one of them. It's like expecting the jerk or...
00:19:11
Speaker
Uh, something like that. And that's not what you get here. I mean, it's surprisingly low key, isn't it? It's incredibly low key. Yeah. And he is, you know, the, the, the updated, uh, you know, Cyrano in a modern context, you know, he can't pull out a sword and like, you know, snip somebody's buttons and so their pants fall off or something, you know, you gotta make it a little more real.
00:19:33
Speaker
And the side story, which- But they don't take those fights out. No. No, they don't. They still have them in there in some way, but yeah, it's just- It just feels fresh. It does. Yeah. Yeah. And nobody, even the, everybody feels like they get, you know, get to tell their story. Yeah. Everybody, like, and nobody's like just there, you know, like, oh, the dumb guy or the,
00:20:02
Speaker
Right. Or Roxanne herself, you know, even calling it Roxanne, you know, putting her at the middle of it and his weird kind of obsession, but it doesn't, you know, it carries over into, you know, something bigger just because of what he's been forced to deal with and, you know, that kind of thing. So there's a lot I like to love for that one.
00:20:23
Speaker
You know, from the original story as well, right? But this one ends a bit better. I'd like to see that one again. But, you know, some of these movies that you expect to be on Blu-ray just have never been released on Blu-ray. Never, yeah, don't exist out there. Which is a shame.
00:20:42
Speaker
Oh yeah, I do remember the fight with the tennis rackets. And Kevin Nealon's one of the guys, yeah. Next one, jumping back to 1997, that's a pre-millennial thing going on, as good as it gets from James L. Brooks.
00:21:04
Speaker
which caught me out of nowhere in this movie. I didn't even know what to expect going into it. The last time Jack Nicholson acted? Right. Totally. Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Knier is very good in it. He is.
00:21:24
Speaker
And again, it's you can almost sit there and read the script and you just can keep reading just because it's so, so sharp. Yeah, exceptionally well written. Yeah, yeah.
00:21:37
Speaker
It's an excellent one. That is a very, very tight movie. And I've seen that one a few times. It's one of those movies that's quite easy to share with people. And they're going to enjoy it. Some of the movies that I like, I am very aware other people have a hard time acclimatizing themselves to.
00:22:01
Speaker
Right. We're jumping to 2017 now. Ooh, look at us go. The shape of water from Gary Bemorow, Sally Hawkins, and Doug Jones. Yeah.
00:22:14
Speaker
Yeah, such a, I mean, again, almost moves into the forbidden section that we talk about, but it's also the, you know, people on the outside, where both of them are, but, you know,
00:22:31
Speaker
interspecies romance we can call it yeah it's it does sort of push the boundaries on that um yeah but fairly right it's like why not you know they treat it very much as a kind of a very practical approach and and those like michael shannon's character they have a problem with it
00:22:49
Speaker
have a problem with it overall, right? There's a bigger issue that there is just something that subverts the norm and anything that subverts the norm has to be eradicated because that's a terrible thing to do.
00:23:01
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's exactly what it's about. I heard someone talking today about the new Planet of Apes movie and said, they said something along the lines of, well, this one's not about humans. It's about ape versus ape or something like this. And I'm like, it's all about people. Things about people, even if there's no human beings in the movie, it's about people. Same thing with the shape of water. It's about,
00:23:30
Speaker
You know, Doug Jones' creature is embodiment of the different, like you were saying. Yeah, exactly. And just a very good story. And, you know, they make it work, right? And in the monster movie context. Yeah. I mean, it's basically the creature from the Black Lagoon, isn't it? Kind of. You know? No, I'm not saying the story, but the creature itself. The creature itself, yes. Yeah.
00:23:59
Speaker
Um, which was one of my favorites when as a kid, just never, we had to wait until it came on television. Exactly. Fortunately was on often. Yeah. Uh, and the next one from going back to 1984, uh, is this the only Ron Howard film I like possibly, uh, splash with Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. Mm-hmm.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's again another one I haven't seen in forever. Yeah, John Candy as well. I think it just it's so well paced. And again, it's this kind of forbidden connection with something from the sea with and the effects in it are fantastic.
00:24:46
Speaker
The practical effects that they did with the mermaid's tail and folding in the bath and all this, it's really well done. Yeah, agreed. Gosh, I want to say it's a fish out of water story. And Daryl Hannah showing up again.
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah, Daryl Hannah again. She may show up again if I... She must might. Yeah. And then we're going back even further in the Wayback Machine to Harold and Maude from 1971 from Hal Ashby. And I've only seen this one recently. Nice, yeah. And it is a romance movie, because theirs is a romance, but it's not a sexualized romance. It's just two people that have the same heart, right?
00:25:32
Speaker
Right. Right. And I think this one kind of fits into the next one of the categories that we have coming up, which is around learning a lesson as well. And I suppose it would also be considered a coming of age as well. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, someone who is dying versus someone who wants to die. Right. And there's your comedic duo for this one, but it's so well done. And
00:26:00
Speaker
you know, the awkwardness just fits, you know, but court fits so well in there. Well, Ruth Gordon, Ruth Gordon is just, is so confident in it. And the crazy thing is she was taking risks at this time, because just a couple of years earlier, she was in Rosemary's baby. Right. You know, like, man, can you imagine, you know, being at kind of the twilight years of your career?
00:26:28
Speaker
And she's just going for it. I mean, she's essentially living right into that character. Still getting work, but it's all horror movies now, so that's what the kids want. Unfortunately, her stuff she was picking was a little better than, say, someone like Ray Meland or something. Right. And then Hal Ashby, who directed it,
00:26:50
Speaker
would go on to do being there, the last detail. I have shampoos, one I've not seen. I've never seen that movie. I never have either.
00:27:02
Speaker
We've always heard good things about it, and it's always like, well, I like his other stuff, I should give it a chance. Yeah, yeah. Add it to the list. Yeah. I know it's a massive list, isn't it? Being there in last detail, Harold and Maude, very good. Yes. And I know this next one, we went to go see it together. Yes. A bunch of our pals. Joe versus the volcano in 1990. Yeah.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yeah. And that one just, uh, I mean, that's romance and, and boyish wonder, you know, childhood sense of wonder and appreciation for, uh, uh, you know, seeing yourself and seeing the world as well. You know, both. I mean, it's very surreal. It's a, everything's a metaphor in it, you know, the volcano, all of it. Um, and it's actually from the writer,
00:27:56
Speaker
Moonstruck. Right. That's the other thing. It's mind-blowing, you know. Very, very different movies. Yes.
00:28:06
Speaker
But, yeah, and Joe Versochael is the one, a lot of people, I've had a lot of people that have disliked it, and then I've said, like, sit down with me and watch it. Not that I'm going to explain it, but watch my reaction to it. That is important. It really is. It could be like a cheerleader, right?
00:28:27
Speaker
Well, I remember when we watched it and the one scene that stuck out for me is how the film opens with him at work. And the light is fluorescent and flickering. And he's got this mannequin's arm that he is just plodding stuff. And oh, we were in hysterics. But you know, if you're in a room in front of your television in silence,
00:28:57
Speaker
I could see where it might not click, you know. Yeah. Or you think it was something else, some of the kind of love story or something. Right. And it's not that. I mean, it is that, but it's not that.
00:29:10
Speaker
And then Meg Ryan would end up being in a lot of other love stories coming up, Harry Met Sally, and then they just tried to redo the formula again and again, and they could make up division. One of the old ones, the original being better than the remake of, but she and Tom Hanks again, and you've got mail, which was a remake, though, of the far more excellent Lubitsch shop around the corner.
00:29:39
Speaker
And that's another good one to hold out. I think that was on our Christmas list. Might have been, yeah. Yeah, that might have been.
00:29:47
Speaker
And the next one on the list, John Meade of 2018, is one of yours is Crazy Rich Asians from John Meade. Yeah. Because again, I think it got labeled as like, oh, it's a chick flick, but with Asians. Like it's a category on Pornhub or something. I don't know.
00:30:08
Speaker
It just felt grossly reductive to the story's good and you get some better representation from folks that don't always get a lot of representation in film, especially in the successful, again, the image of the, well, they're Asian, so they're gonna be hardworking and they'll have a convenience store.
00:30:33
Speaker
Well, Ken Jeong and they're playing a different role. Aside from the community, he tends to be kind of the stereotypical kind of ancient character in Disney.
00:30:49
Speaker
Sometimes to good effect, though, like playing off that like intentionally. Yeah. In the in the Hangover movies, especially, it's employed oddly well. Yeah, no, I know what you mean. No, I will say I laugh dreading carefully here. And the next step, the one Wes Anderson, one that I think we've got analyzed is Moonrise Kingdom.
00:31:17
Speaker
with Jurn Gilman and Kara Hayward as the two sort of young leads. But I thought that was so well done from the narration. I mean, in some of it is, and a lot of his work is nostalgic for the time that we grew up. We grew up at the same time as roughly that he did. And I think he takes those conventions from that time period
00:31:42
Speaker
And in this movie in particular, this American kind of conventions from the time and uses them to such great effect, like all this sort of idealism that those books, you know, that she's reading, this adventure that, you know, I remember thinking as a kid, I could just put everything into a backpack and go into the woods and go, right? I don't think that's realistic anymore.
00:32:09
Speaker
But it probably wasn't realistic then, but it felt like it was. It sure felt possible, right? Yeah. Yeah. And Bruce Willis puts in a great performance in this movie as well. Again, a lonely cop, right? Right. And the relationships, they're all looking for that connection. So for example, Bruce Willis is trying to find this connection with Francis McDormand. But then he kind of finds it with adopting
00:32:39
Speaker
kid and then and then and Bill Murray is just has one of the best lines ever where he's walking through the house with the axe and you know he's gonna I'm gonna go chop down a tree you know Edward Norton is really good in it as well really kind of understated but
00:33:01
Speaker
I don't know, is that the tipping point? No, no, no. I did enjoy the Grand Budapest Hotel as well. But I didn't think of that, I know there's a love story in it, but I don't think of that one as much of a love story. Well, and for me, you know, we disagree on Asteroid City, but there, you know, and while there is a love story in it, it's not the point, that's part of journey, that's part of what else is being explored, I think. So that's why I didn't bother to include it.
00:33:31
Speaker
Yeah. There are a few movies like that where I was like, eh, but is it, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't click as being of story. Yeah. That doesn't focus on that. It's not clear enough on that. Yeah. Well, like a diehard, you know, husband and wife kind of thing, but that is, that is not the focus. Seeking reconciliation. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, so 2008, uh, Wally from Andrew Stanton, um,
00:34:01
Speaker
But again, this kind of goes back to that genuineness doesn't need to necessarily be realistic. This is another thing sort of thinking about when we're... I've been trying to write things up for the queer episode we're doing upcoming. It's probably the one that's taking the most preparation since we did the kind of Black History episode. But this whole thinking of people are kind of willing to watch a movie about
00:34:30
Speaker
a romance between two robots uh but not a romance between people with a different sexual orientation which just feels stupid really you know they're all human stories you know right when you when you boil them down but uh yeah i mean wall-e was another one where i it was um
00:34:55
Speaker
Like we were just saying, is it a romance kind of thing? So it just barely sort of pipped the post there.
00:35:03
Speaker
I was convinced. Yeah, I think it's core. I mean, the thing that really resonates is the romance aspect of it versus the survival struggle. But the part of the survival that's necessary for them is... Keep your humanity. A romance, a humanity in that. And I didn't realize it was Ben Burt plays Wally and Eva in it.
00:35:28
Speaker
Yeah, which is great because for those who don't know, he did all the sound effects in Star Wars.
00:35:39
Speaker
various movies, just genius. If you ever sort of seen any documentaries on how he works. Um, and the next one is, uh, we are going to France in 19. The most romantic people finally get a movie. Another movie. Yes. Emily was on the right side. Emily was on there. We gave Emily pass, uh, uh, the green Ray, um, from Eric Romer, um,
00:36:06
Speaker
I mean, all his movies kind of blend together a bit. They're kind of Sunday afternoon fare. I don't know how to put it in the summer, usually. But this one, I remember, it's kind of based all around that this woman Marie Riviere is
00:36:31
Speaker
is by herself. She's just been dumped at the beginning of the movie and she has this time off because the French get like a month off for summer and she doesn't know what to do with herself. She doesn't want to go on vacation on her own. Her friends kind of insist, oh no, no, no, you should go and mix with people kind of thing.
00:36:52
Speaker
but she has a real hard time making connections. And the title refers to this Jules Verne story and a phenomena that happens is that when the sun sets on the sea, as soon as it sort of tips below the horizon,
00:37:15
Speaker
that if the atmospheric conditions are right, you get this green flash on the horizon. And in Jules Verne's book, he's saying that when that happens, you can hear everybody's thoughts, you can understand everyone.
00:37:36
Speaker
Um, and that's why it's called the green, right? But it's, it's a general movie, you know, it's, it's really easy to get into. Um, I'm just surprised at how dated it looks being from 1986. It looks like it's been shot in video and I had a blue ray version. So yeah. And then the next one, um,
00:37:58
Speaker
have on the list is the Fisher King from Terry Gilliam in 1991. And this is kind of a redemption arc again. And it's two pairs of people, which I really quite like. Because I think a lot of these kind of what, aside from Moonstruck, where there's a whole cast of people that are struggling to make that sort of connection.
00:38:26
Speaker
the Moonrise Kingdom as well. But this has Robin Williams and Amanda Plummer, and then you've got Jeff Bridges and Mercedes Rule. And again, for Gilliam, I think this is probably a point at which he started to go downhill for me. I think he started to get more and more indulgent
00:38:54
Speaker
Yeah, agreed. And kind of lost me. And the screenplay was by Terry Gilliam and Richard Lavagraness, who also adapted the Bridges of Madison County, which I think we talked about last week. We did indeed. Interesting.
00:39:19
Speaker
And the Fisher King's just got lots of great imagery in it, you know, the Red Knight, and taking that whole sort of medieval story and making it modern. You know, it's, again, sort of like Roxanne earlier, just taking something from a historical setting and sort of bringing it into a modern setting.
00:39:39
Speaker
Um, and the next one I've got is fallen leaves, which is what my top 10 last year from Aki Karasmaki. Um, I won't go over this too much. Very sort of Jim Jarmusch kind of tone to the movie, uh, very dry humor. Uh, I found it hilarious all throughout.
00:39:58
Speaker
It just flew by, I think it's a pretty short movie as well. But that's been popping up on different streaming services, so it should be pretty easy to find if anyone wants to watch that. Yeah, I'm looking forward to watching that one. I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, it's a good one. It's very nice.
00:40:14
Speaker
From what I understand, I've been trying to catch up with his other movies. This is probably one of the more optimistic ones. Fun. It's in this category, so there you go. We've got a couple more. True Romance from Tony Scott in 1993. I think it's the only Tony Scott movie that I kind of enjoyed.
00:40:42
Speaker
with Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette. It's kind of a guilty pleasure, I think. This really kind of divides people, this movie. But what I enjoyed about it at the time, watching it when it came out,
00:41:00
Speaker
Christian Slater was very relatable to me. He understood comics and he talked about comics in a passionate way. I completely bought the connection between Slater and Arquette as well. I think that really connects in the movie.
00:41:22
Speaker
Yeah, and the film's also notable for a early and hysterical performance from Brad Pitt. Oh yeah, the cleaning products. And Dennis Hopper playing a nice guy.
00:41:38
Speaker
in it. Again, a lot of these things where they, you know, geek out about a cast and everything, but this casting and this one was pretty solid across the board. Even like Bronson Pinchot is fantastic in it, right? Oh God. Yeah, of course he's in it. Yeah. And you know, there's just everybody that's key is like really good. And there's a director's cut that has a little slightly different ending and a little bit added here and there that makes it a bit better. So
00:42:05
Speaker
And I like Patricia Arquette's kind of perspective from kind of coming from a deprived background and that thing about looking at the airplanes coming in and wondering where they're going, where are they coming from and kind of dreaming about stuff like that. Yeah, I thought it was really good. And I would rank it among
00:42:33
Speaker
Tarantino's higher than a lot of Tarantino's more recent work. Oh, yes. Boy, he would clutch his handbag at that. Good. Yeah, well, there you go. The last one in this category, Frank Capra, it happened one night. It happened one night, yeah. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.
00:42:59
Speaker
Yeah, and that one's just, it's notable on a lot of
00:43:05
Speaker
for a lot of things, but the love story thing of the mismatched lovers. And there's some troublesome dialogue that hasn't aged well about giving her a good sock in the jaw if she needs it, or if she's earned it sort of thing. But it's done in a playful style, so we'll look the other way. Yeah, it's a little troublesome. But, you know, he was looking at him and was like, he'll never do that. I mean, it's Clark Gable, come on, he's not gonna punch a woman, is he?
00:43:35
Speaker
Also, the golden age of Hollywood, right? And that being a preeminent and Capra just doing what he does best of getting really
00:43:51
Speaker
You know pulling on the heartstrings all over the place but with a lot of comedy and freshness and a little bit of darkness and you know because they're you know, the backdrop is the is the Great Depression and You know, there's that that combination of elements that that you know, the the love shines through sort of thing that you know, it was kind of his Kind of his hallmark, right?
00:44:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's such a sharp script as well. And then, you know, other movies at that time, I mean, in the way that they paid attention to dialogue, you know, like His Girl Friday, you know, bringing up baby, I love those movies, they're just, just have to keep watching them.
00:44:32
Speaker
And you kind of wonder why why do they make movies like this anymore? But right. Look at the. And well, yeah, the other fun fact is that his character there was the basis for Bugs Bunny. So. Oh, that's a good one. Oh, you know, I probably heard that ages ago. That seems. Yeah, it's it's a weird kind of thing. But then you're watching it like, oh, yeah, he's always got, you know, yeah, a response and some kind of out. Right.
00:45:01
Speaker
So moving on to the next category, the descent. So this is basically where in acts one and two, the pair are in conflict usually for fault or one or both and end up being separated one way or the other at the end of the movie, either by death or mutual agreement that they're going to go in different directions.
00:45:25
Speaker
And the first one I've got on the list is Park Chan Wook's thirst. I mean, this sticks in my head because of the whole just being able to buy into that desire between the two characters and that relationship is so convincing.
00:45:50
Speaker
And it's so weird because you got a King Ho song and Kim Ok Van and they're like, he's a priest. You know, it's it's just a weird take on the zombie movie and then, you know, not the zombie, the vampire being set in Korea. And
00:46:11
Speaker
It's just so smart and it's so fresh. And I've watched that a couple of times. I definitely want to revisit that because I think it's been a while. That only came out. Agreed. Yeah. And then there's weird situations in the middle where other people become involved. And you don't realize it at the time, but then when you watch it for a second time, you're like,
00:46:35
Speaker
Oh, that's a metaphor for this. And that's a metaphor for this. In terms of a love story and the relationship, these other people become involved and things get complex. It's really great. And the next one is 2012's Amur from Michael Henneke. And again,
00:46:56
Speaker
It's probably one of the movies. It's not an easy movie, but I would say relative to the rest of his movies, I find this one a lot more accessible, and it's got a great performance from Emmanuel Riva and Jean-Louis Trichon.
00:47:12
Speaker
Grinting young and his ability as well. But that whole I won't go into too much detail because this is good. This film reappears in the sort of latter years category as well. But I'll just jump to Spike Jones 2013. Her Joaquin Phoenix is awesome in this. You almost don't even realize it's Joaquin Phoenix. He looks so different in it. Right.
00:47:41
Speaker
Um, and it's the whole thing about relationships and, and in, I mean, in a way with the relationship I'm talking about here in this category is between, uh, the AI Scarlett Johansson and, uh, you know, Phoenix. Um, and that, that, that she starts exponentially kind of growing to the point where she doesn't have the same connection with him. And that's kind of the sadness. Uh, but then.
00:48:10
Speaker
You know, it goes, I don't want to spoil it. Well, and what I found out in doing this too is that it was Spike Jones's version of the story talking about the breakup he had with Sofia Coppola that she did, Lost in Translation.
00:48:27
Speaker
And he did her as their responses to that kind of... And it's why it feels so authentic, because it is authentic, you know? Yeah, because it is, yeah. You're not going to go, well, okay, I'm going to make a movie about someone called Spike and Sophia. Of course you're not going to make it. So he's going to created this great little movie here.
00:48:51
Speaker
Um, the next one, oh boy. Okay. It's from Lars von Trier. Um, I, I, that's enough. You don't have to go to the woo boy. You're already there. Oh man. You know, this, it's probably the toughest movie that, that I find of his to watch and that's saying something. Um, so, you know, you got Emily Watson and still in scars guard and they've got this,
00:49:19
Speaker
poisonous relationship coming from yes guard who's who's dying but man this was a tough movie not the first movie I saw I didn't see this in 1996 I saw it probably five years after the first movie I'd seen of his was a movie called the idiots but that was easier to get into but breaking the waves man oh my god I mean I I would put it up there with martyrs
00:49:49
Speaker
in terms of an ending that just left me floored and thinking, well, crap, um, make the pain go away. You know, it's, it's a really tough one. Um, yeah, which makes the next one look like a walk in the park, which is only lovers left alive from 2013 from Jim Jarmusch. Um, another vampire one. Um, I mean, vampires are just kind of a great,
00:50:17
Speaker
kind of metaphor and romance and all of this. It's got all that sort of inbuilt imagery as well. You've got Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddlestone. I think one of the later performances from John Hurt and I only just realized I started looking into this today that Anton Yelchin and Jeffrey Wright were in this movie as well.
00:50:41
Speaker
Uh, right. Okay. We got 10 minutes for the last two categories. Um, I don't know if we're going to make it. We might have to pick and choose here. So we got, um, okay. The repression one, I think, uh, just to kind of explain this is where, uh, one or both of the couple are repressed in some way, or they are, um, repressed by social norms or their own shyness, this sort of thing.
00:51:11
Speaker
I think the peak on this one would be the Age of Innocence from Martin Scorsese, Daniel Day Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder. And it seems more accessible. A lot of people will know. Yeah.
00:51:31
Speaker
something to it, it seems much more to draw the human eye in more. Sure. So like Brokeback Mountain. Right. Which is a part of this repression list as well. Right.
00:51:46
Speaker
But Scorsese has described Age of Innocence as being the most violent movie he's made in terms of emotions and conflict and all of that. Other films in this category are Past Lives from Celine Song. Less so, this one, I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to include this in here, In the Mood for Love, definitely. There's definitely kind of the social norms that
00:52:15
Speaker
Oh, in that movie you just want to scream sometimes. You can't say what you mean. And then the recent film, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, with Emma Thompson from Sophie Hyde, which is
00:52:30
Speaker
basically about a woman who's got into her 60s and realized that her entire life has just been repression, you know, and she's still having a hard time kind of breaking down those barriers. But okay, next category, we might do this, is the lesson. And this is where the couple are tested or challenged in some way.
00:52:54
Speaker
And I think the first on the list is a really good example of it, is after W. Murnau's, Sunrise, from 1927. And that starts off with the couple being together, but the fella getting tempted by Margaret Livingston. And the whole movie is about
00:53:21
Speaker
them kind of reconciling this whole thing. Because it's been a little bit since I've seen this one, but doesn't it start with like he might be murdering her at the start? Like Margaret Livingston is trying to convince him that, oh, no, no, no, you don't stay with her. Just
00:53:44
Speaker
Yeah, there's, there's definitely some menace in there. I don't know if it's murder at the murderous level, but I honestly don't remember because yeah, it's been forever. Yeah. There's something very dark at the very start. Yes. Yes. And then they go away to the big city. Um, and then it turns into almost kind of a, a before sunrise type thing or a lost in translation where the couple who've been together for a long time, refined each other, you know, emotionally, that is,
00:54:15
Speaker
But yeah, that's a pretty terrific movie. And then another movie that we saw together, Wild at Heart, from David Lang. And Laura Dern and Nicholas Cage, man.
00:54:30
Speaker
Yeah. That's, uh, it wasn't getting on like a house on fire. Georgia asphalt. Yeah, exactly. And, uh, okay, because we've only got like six minutes, I'll just kind of quickly go over the other ones. You stop me if you want to, you want to jump in with anything on these. So we got true romance again. Uh, Latolante from John Vigo. Uh, and again, that's another one where the couple,
00:54:57
Speaker
come together at the beginning, and then they lose each other, and it's all about them trying to find each other. Various versions adapted from the book. Emma, Scott Pilgrim versus The World from Edgar Wright in 2010. Definitely want to include that. Yeah. Got to have that one in there. Frank Capra, It's a Wonderful Life from 1946. That's definitely
00:55:25
Speaker
And again, this is kind of borderline, but it is pretty kind of core to the movie. It's also the romance of life, right? It's not necessarily the romantic thing. It's being in love with life, being in love enough with yourself to live a life that's reliable or whatever. It moves beyond it, so yeah.
00:55:48
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, she doesn't play a huge part in the movie. I mean, she is a part, but she isn't. Yeah, exactly. And then the next one is Barry Jenkins moonlight from 2016. Yeah. Again. Oh my God. That, you know, it's just such a convincing relationship in that movie. And I know that other people had the same reaction where they
00:56:17
Speaker
that journalists kind of foolheartedly were saying, hey, how did you make a movie about sort of two gay people and then made it feel normal? You know, journalists were asking this question all the time, which is just kind of infuriating because it's like, for God's sake.
00:56:35
Speaker
you know, but what a movie that is. Fantastic Mr. Fox, again, it's another one, it's not sort of core to the story, but that relationship between George Clooney and Meryl Streep in that movie is really important. Because it starts off immediately with her trying to tell him that she's pregnant and
00:56:58
Speaker
He's kind of just walking all over her with his words. You know, he's a mile a minute. Lars and the Real Girl, I did manage to get to see that. I enjoyed it. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah, Ryan Gosling is amazing at it. Yeah, to me. I'm a programmer who's very good, too. Yeah, everybody is. Patricia Clarkson as well. But it's, you know, this one's
00:57:19
Speaker
I mean, it is kind of about romance, but it's also getting at what romance is. Again, kind of like it's a wonderful life, I would argue. It's the same sort of thing about how you find, you know, what you identify as the good parts of yourself and how those get expressed and that sort of thing. You know, this one's, and again, a similar pairing to wonderful life because this one's about, much more about mercy and gratitude and living in community.
00:57:45
Speaker
The community is a big thing. It's a big part, yeah, right? And so it's, but it has those, you know, and those could be romantic ideals without being, you know, love romance ideals, right? You know, we're dealing with a lot of things here, people. A lot of layers. The onion of love. There we go. It's an onion.
00:58:07
Speaker
Then next up, I've got Eternal Sunshine and Spotless Mind from Michel Gondry. Journey to Italy, 1954 from Roberto Rossellini. That's got Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders. I find it a really hard watch.
00:58:25
Speaker
But in the end, again, it's a couple, starts off with a couple who are already together, but they kind of realize that they're sat next to strangers. They need to reconnect. And the last one, I don't know why I put this one on here because I don't think it's, it kind of is, it kind of isn't. Frances Ha, and it's more about her trying to connect with herself. She's all these relationships.
00:58:55
Speaker
Um, and I tell you what, so the last category we have is later life. And it's all these stories about sort of older people and romantic relationships. But kind of thinking about it, since we don't have time to kind of go into those is, uh, we could probably do an episode with, uh, you know, central, uh, characters who are older. So you've got things gray Fox about the guy that comes out of prison and he, he robs trains, you know,
00:59:25
Speaker
We used a train robber when he went in prison, and now he will be banged. All this stuff, so that might be an episode that we'll do. Yeah, that would be good. Yeah, that would make sense. But yeah, so next week, we're looking at the cinema this strange. Weird. The weird. Not unfamiliar territory, because obviously it hits a lot of movies we've seen and a lot of movies we like.
00:59:51
Speaker
Right? Not just seen, but ones we've viewed repeatedly. I think the weird one is going to be pretty natural for us. Yeah, agreed. Whereas I think that the next episode following on the queer cinema is going to be a bit of a challenge, but your friend's going to join us on that instead. Yeah, if we can make it work, it would be good. Yeah, I think we'll hash it out. So I'm going to email her.
01:00:43
Speaker
Hi-ya-ya-ya Feels like fire I'm so in love with you