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1995 - 2023 In Review
54 Plays2 years ago
Wherein your hosts are a little out of shape, podcastingwise, but bang out a review of the glorious year of film - 2023!
Produced by Bud Cutino
Music by oji, "rooms for music"
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Focus on 2023 Films
00:00:23
Speaker
We must listen to love
00:00:50
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of We're Spanning Time. This is a podcast in which we explore the films of a particular year. This season's year is 1995. I am Bud Catino. And I'm Beth Martini.
Impact of 2023 Strikes on Film Industry
00:01:01
Speaker
For today's episode, we are covering the year 2023. Oh, what a year. Yeah. Gosh. You want to say anything real quick about this year? Gosh, I'm so excited about this year in film. Oh, man. So, you know,
00:01:20
Speaker
This year for like the entertainment industry alone has been absolutely fucking insane. You know, we had the writer strike, we had the SAG-AFRA strike, and we had like some major, major wins as a result of those two strikes that I think we're gonna really see the fruits of labor as a result of that. I think my favorite anecdote around those is that
00:01:47
Speaker
Studio A24, banger of a studio, never seen a phone from them that I didn't love. They negotiated with both the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA to get exemptions. They got special dispensation from the strike because they were like,
00:02:07
Speaker
Oh, you guys want to be paid a reasonable amount of money? Sure. You guys don't want us to use AI in the writers room. Fucking cool. Whatever. And as a result,
00:02:19
Speaker
filming didn't stop on A24 movies. Writers didn't leave the sets of A24 movies.
Unexpected Success in 2023 Cinema
00:02:25
Speaker
So we got some extraordinary, quote unquote, indie films on top of like actual good blockbusters, you know what I mean? And so it's like, it's like
00:02:38
Speaker
There was a lot of fear that like, you know, 2023, 2024 was just going to be a bunch of bullshit as a result, because like films that should have been released got pulled and things like this, but it actually turned out to be a pretty stellar film year. I think the last year that I was like this excited about
00:02:57
Speaker
The felt like new films that had come out was the year Nebraska came out. So I think that was 2016, 2015. It was like one of those years where all the nominations were just all like so, so, so good. I mean, and to be honest, even 2022 was great.
Notable Films of 2022
00:03:14
Speaker
We fucking everything everywhere, all at once as like a blockbuster film in the US like that's crazy. So, you know, let me take a look at some other ones from last year.
00:03:27
Speaker
Um, the, and the 2000 years of solitude was, or 2000 years of longing was last year. Uh, the menu was last year. Triangle of sadness was last year. Oh gosh. Barbarian 2022 and 2023 Northland smile was green night last year. Green, green night might've been 2021, but again, eight 21. So like, or eight 24. So like, you know,
00:03:56
Speaker
Gosh, tar tar was 22. Okay. Good. I don't have to compare fucking maestro to tar. Wonderful. Um, did you see a triangle of sadness? Now we're just, okay. Now we're spiraling fucking out of control, but let's just do it.
00:04:11
Speaker
I liked that movie. That was fun. I loved it. I thought it was really, really good. I think from the between the two hospitality industry films of 2022, the menu and triangle of sadness.
00:04:30
Speaker
I would say I loved the menu slightly more, but that's because I was in fine dining. And to me, that shit was like, it was so good. It was so good. Like, sure, we knew what was going to happen.
00:04:45
Speaker
Sure, there was a bit of formulaicness to it, whatever. I love Anna Taylor Joy. I think she's amazing. I think she's beautiful. Like I love how far apart her eyes are. Like she's like the weirdest looking actress in Hollywood, I would argue, but she's gorgeous. And so I think she was a really great addition to that film.
00:05:06
Speaker
But yeah, the menu I thought was just, it was so
Spotlight on Anya Taylor-Joy and Oscar Isaac
00:05:10
Speaker
tongue in cheek. It was so spiteful. It was so petty. I fucking loved it. I loved every fucking minute of it. I agree with you that Anya Taylor Joy is absolutely captivating. She's doing a new ad campaign for one of the jewelry companies around town. And I'm like, I would just leave my wife for Anya Taylor Joy. Hands down. No problem. No contest.
00:05:36
Speaker
She's such a baby and she's and she's such a good actor and just like everything she's in she does just like suck like all the attention to her from everyone else and she's yeah she's amazing yeah that's how I feel about um Oscar Isaac mm-hmm I would leave Trevor in a heartbeat also weirdly Matthew Greg Gubler
00:06:00
Speaker
I love him. I don't know who that is. He was like the nerdy doctor in criminal minds for like 14 years. Okay. He's also an artist. Oh, he was one of the interns in life aquatic.
00:06:14
Speaker
He he had a speaking role. OK, one of the only interns. I'm going to not look this up and I'm going to I'll take your word for it. I saw I saw Oscar I's like on Broadway this year with that woman from Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and they played, you know, a married couple in this play called The Sign in Sydney, Bruce Dean's Window. I think I might have just ruined that.
00:06:39
Speaker
that title but and like she just gets naked like in the first three minutes while they're on stage just like Oscar Isaac and um that woman just like hot babes flirting with each other trying to have sex you know in the midst of like kind of social upheaval in in New York City.
00:06:55
Speaker
That sounds great. I would watch that. So yeah. So today we are here to review the films of 2022. What else? Smile was really good. 23. 23. We're reviewing 23. That's 22. Black Adam, probably the best of the whole violet night.
00:07:11
Speaker
Just kidding. The Batman? Yeah, last year was really good. But, um, what occupations, what are you reading, watching, listening, creating? So we, we spoke earlier, you kind of redid your whole house, it sounds like. Yep. Yep. We, uh, you've been up to.
00:07:27
Speaker
So I lost my entire computer literally like the day after my last semester ended, my computer died. And so I've been kind of dealing with that. Just like I lost 18 months worth of work. God damn.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah, and that kind of overshadowed a lot of things.
Cultural Reflections in Media and Personal Projects
00:08:00
Speaker
Yeah, I bet.
00:08:02
Speaker
Yeah, there's nothing like bursting into tears in an Apple store in Seattle and crying so hard that the manager brings you an entire box of tissues. Just bawling. Oh, boy. So that I've been catching up on film and TV for sure. We I finally won. So stupid.
00:08:32
Speaker
OK, so like Fargo, the TV show, it has been a phenomenon for we're now going on like six years because there was a break. I got completely caught up on Fargo, the TV show, and we are now waiting for the last two episodes of season four to come out because we're not going to cliffhanger ourselves. We kind of have made a rule in that regard.
00:08:57
Speaker
I watched Station Eleven, which was an absolute banger. Interesting. It's coincidentally about a world that suffers a global pandemic, although their global pandemic is like 99.9% of the world is killed from it.
00:09:17
Speaker
And it is like, what does it take to heal and survive in this post-pandemic world? And it basically is like art. Art is how. You cannot do it without art. You cannot do it without artists. And it was beautiful. And it's like a loose allegory for Hamlet. And I am absolutely just like, I fucking love Shakespeare.
00:09:42
Speaker
I've always unabashedly loved Shakespeare, so that was really incredible. Another thing that I watched that I'm not going to talk about because it is in my honorable mentions, so I'll hold it for then. And then I've been crocheting. Oh, nice.
00:10:04
Speaker
Yeah, there was like a weird yarn sale and I was like, fuck it. I'm going to just, you know, crochet in the evening time. And I've made one and a half pairs of fingerless gloves. Nice. I just haven't finished the second glove in the second pair yet because house project. But yeah, so like, you know, a mix of really being productive and also trying to do some nice relaxation. How about you? What are you doing?
00:10:34
Speaker
Boy, lots of travel to weird places. I guess the thing I'm excited about the most is I kind of revamped my food blog, my food and travel blog, which I've had for a while now. It's called, you can find it on Medium at Nachos and Chardonnay. And when I first started it, I was like, oh, it'd be funny to have
00:11:00
Speaker
a blog about like how I get to travel to all these weird places and I'm like a lonely depressed person and I just eat at like the hotel bar by myself. And isn't that kind of funny and clever? And then it turns out like that's not actually very compelling for anyone to read. It's not really compelling for me to write either. And so I kind of took like a step back for a while.
00:11:17
Speaker
And then like I was in Detroit at this restaurant called Mad Nice and it's like this Italian restaurant and I was in there and I was just sort of like, you know, drinking my gin and eating my pasta. And I was like, this place is fucking silly. Like, look at this silly little fucking knife. And then I was just.
00:11:33
Speaker
You know, I just had this chuissance. I just had this avalanche of ideas and I was like, oh, my food blog could just be like I'm interviewing myself, you know, and I can just, you know, a set of criteria, sort of like how we do with this podcast, a set of criteria, you know, kind of encompassing what works and doesn't work about a restaurant, what works about the, you know, the presentation and the craft of the food and what doesn't work. And I do I do I eat out.
00:11:58
Speaker
I eat out like 10 times a week when I'm busy on the road. And I do have like a sizable, you know, budget to do that from my work. And it is like my thing that I like to do for fun on the road when I travel is to go out to eat. And, you know, it doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to be scummy. Just like whatever I can find, whatever is a regional specialty, I am really passionate about exploring those things.
00:12:24
Speaker
Am I on cholesterol medicine now? Yes, I am. Am I the heaviest I've ever been? That's also true. So I kind of revamped that. And just, you know, now the blog structure is like, what kind of fork, like what fork position is this restaurant? Is it like a continental or is it like American, you know, which is
00:12:42
Speaker
which is kind of code for like, is this like, is this respectable? How respectable is this place or how respectively coded is this place? You know, can you feel comfortable taking your friends or your in-laws or your parents or, you know, um, that sort of thing. Um, who did you most want to beat up in the restaurant? Um, like, you know,
00:13:05
Speaker
One of those criteria for me inevitably because of my like background is there's two, like does this restaurant do a full reset between courses? So like do
Dining and Service Standards Post-Lockdown
00:13:20
Speaker
they take all of your silverware and all of the plates and then completely reset you? That's like a marker of service standards or whatever. And then do they care
00:13:34
Speaker
about how they refill your water. And this one's a very weird thing, but there's this philosophy of open-handed service that is at a certain level of
00:13:54
Speaker
like certain service directors and floor managers and stuff have this thing that like, if you are refilling someone's water or pouring wine, that's another example, and someone has to reach across your body, do they do it with their chest open to you or do they just pour it with whatever hand is the convenient hand to pour it? And those two things, they are incidentally,
00:14:23
Speaker
always, I always fucking notice because of like having those things drilled into me. And like those are, it's like, it doesn't matter. That's the other question I have to ask myself. I notice it is like, does it fucking matter? Doesn't even matter. And it usually ends up mattering if like, I also want to beat up the server. Right.
00:14:49
Speaker
if they're also a dick and they're also bad at their job, and then they cross my body with their closed arm, then I'm just like, fuck it. This place only gets 20%. Yeah, I mean, it's the same thing. When you're staging a theatrical production, you're like, don't turn your back to the audience.
00:15:14
Speaker
Right. Unless it's like for dramatic effect, right? Right. Yeah. There has to be a reason. And a lot of times the things that bug me are the things that like are apparently careless.
00:15:28
Speaker
Mm hmm. If that makes sense. This one thing that I especially with nicer restaurants, this one thing that I've I've noticed, I like to have like an appetizer drink, you know, like sure. Yeah, I like specifically I like a neat gin. Like first thing when I sit down at a bar waiting for my food, I like just pour me a glass of house, you know, lukewarm gin. And it's a weird one, dude. I'm not going to lie. I don't care. I like it. I love that about you. Call it a martini. I don't know.
00:15:59
Speaker
Continue. You like your glass of lukewarm gin. Yeah, just fucking room temp gin. You know, it can be nice. I'll do like I usually do like a Hendrix, you know, nothing crazy. And and then, you know, it's rare. So I'll be like, OK, I'm drinking this gin. I'm like, OK, here's my appetizer. Here's my main course. And can you help me pick out wine? They're like, yes, do this like house Cabernet. You know, you're getting the fucking whatever steak or cavatelli or whatever.
00:16:29
Speaker
And then I'm like, cool. And so what I hate is then they bring me the wine immediately. And I'm like, no, bro. So a now I look like a freak because I have two beverages. And like, I already know that I'm a freak because I'm drinking fucking lukewarm gin. I'm aware of what's going. I know how it looks and that's fine. But, you know,
00:16:51
Speaker
Okay. A glass of gin that's slightly debonair, a little psychotic, but a glass of gin and also wine that just, you look like it's fucking an out of control blush at that point. And also like, I don't want to drink that wine. That's ice. I chose that wine to go with my main course and I don't want to have it with my fucking broccoli, like appetizer that you're going to serve me. Like I want it with my fucking, you know, my main. So.
00:17:20
Speaker
It's rare that I find a server, maybe it's because I sit at the bar and bartenders aren't as tight about that sort of thing, but it's rare that they should be, right? They should. You would think so, but that's a big complaint of mine. You get points marked off for that for sure. Yeah, that is justifiable that those points...
00:17:43
Speaker
And there's there's also like I'm more willing to give a pass to places that are not cosmopolitan when they pull shit like that. Like. Sure.
00:17:57
Speaker
you know, but if the ticket price is a certain level, if you're in anything resembling a large city at this point, like you should fucking know better. You should have better. You should know better. Absolutely. Like for better or for worse, the expectation of dining out. And here's what I will say. This is what I will say. I think that if you had had this exact same job that you have now pre lockdown,
00:18:25
Speaker
your experiences would probably be different because a lot of the people who did know better got out. And then as a direct result of that, not only are you not being like, not only are your bartenders not
00:18:46
Speaker
the people who should know better, but they weren't even trained by the people who should know better, right? So we have this cascade of bad service now because people like myself, people like Trevin, people like a lot of our colleagues, we all got out. We retired. We got fucked over by all of our respective hospitality establishments.
00:19:13
Speaker
And we said, fuck you. Fuck this. I'm done. Right. So like and now anybody who's like, yeah, I wanted to be a bartender, but I couldn't get a bartender job. It's like you couldn't get a bartender job because the people were fucking doing the hiring saw through your bullshit. The only reason you have one now is because there was no one there to stop you. Yeah. You know, so we're going to have this entire generation of shitty service people because all the good ones left.
00:19:44
Speaker
the lost generation of service people. Truly, truly. Um, yeah, so I've
Literary Escapism and Adaptation Casting
00:19:50
Speaker
been working on that. That's very exciting. I've been writing more and that's really great for my mental health. Um, just fucking journaling and I've been craving writing and yeah, I'm excited about my blog. This year I've been reading like just Martha Wells, just like all fucking year, like that's it. Um, and my girl Martha, her fucking murder brought diaries got picked up and, uh, is being,
00:20:13
Speaker
becoming a series done on Apple TV. Um, so that's, I'm so excited. However, apparently there's just all white people behind the camera. And I shouldn't say that that's probably, that can't be true entirely, but, um, and I don't want to be like a race, anyone who's not a white person behind the camera, but they chose Alexander Skarsgard to play the titular role of murder bot.
00:20:36
Speaker
to what a hunk. Yes, don't we all love him? But murder. Martha Wells is a straight, cis white woman from Texas, and she writes by and large queer Afrofuturism. And none of her characters, especially not in the Murderbot universe, are white like none of them really.
00:20:59
Speaker
and say what you will about white people fantasizing about the future of humanity as being some sort of like everyone in color being like different levels of like brownish you know say what you want about like that whole idea but she really has always written from the perspective of marginalized people whether it be their culture their
00:21:17
Speaker
what they look like, their sexual orientation and gender identity. And that's what's truly magical about Martha Wells. And that's what's really magical about Murderbot, who in effect is this sort of big. Murderbot is young and they're like a teenager. They have no gender.
00:21:37
Speaker
in a way, they're kind of gender fluid, but they have no gender, they have no sexuality. And almost certainly, in order to blend in with everyone else in that world, they are most certainly not white. And Murderbot describes everyone else in different shades of brown and black, et cetera. And so I think Alex Garsgaard reads some male.
00:22:01
Speaker
And he reads so white and straight that I think it's really doing a disservice to the character to to cast him in that role. That tracks. I will say that his range like it was Alexander Skarsgard in it, right? Bill Skarsgard. Bill. OK, I was going to say because like Bill Skarsgard has like a very like
00:22:30
Speaker
A feminine face. Yes, he's a pretty boy. So in a way that could be you through makeup and CG be. But like the thing is, is then we're getting into that same problem of like, why wouldn't you just cast someone who is non binary if you're going to make someone look non binary, right? Yeah. I yeah, I I would choose Sheila, a team.
00:23:01
Speaker
Let's see, do you know this person? She was in Woman King. Oh, fucking slept on that movie. Oh, you didn't see it? No. Oh yeah, absolutely, 100%. Yeah, she would be my pick because... I've seen her in like some Shakespeare stuff.
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah, she's a British actor. She's tall, she's athletic, she's super powerful looking, she's feminine and also masculine, she has short hair, that would be my choice.
00:23:35
Speaker
Um, yeah, cause she's also a fantastic, I mean, Alex guard guard is a great actor also, but yeah, I don't know. So that's my big bone to pick with that casting, but oh my God, I'm so excited because I love murder bot diaries. I love, I'm, I'm working through the stories of the racks or which is just,
00:23:55
Speaker
these big stories about these sexy dragon changeling people who all live in trees and they fuck their friends and they have queens and they have consorts and they have all this magical shenanigans and it's just a whole lot of fun. Martha Wells has a big body of work that you can just plow through if you need to. Yeah, I do.
00:24:19
Speaker
And good times and bad, say, perhaps if you need a bit of escapism. Also, I mean, not even just that. They're intellectually well done. They're beautiful pieces of art. Absolutely incredible.
Reviewing 2023 Films: Highlights and More
00:24:31
Speaker
Yeah. You want to get into talking about this year? Yeah, let's fucking go.
00:24:36
Speaker
All right, so I I wanted to review this year because, boy, what a year. So I think we're going to do what? Top five, bottom five. What else? I can't believe I didn't see this. I just couldn't, which is just movies that looked so terrible that you just didn't want to touch them with a 10 foot pole. And then honorable mentions, I think. And then we will rate, you know, our year on a scale, a typical scale here at we're spending time.
00:25:06
Speaker
One to five hundred. Yep. Do you have a number one? I don't know that I had a number one for my top five. I think I just sort of like I also I didn't because my top fives are all really, really memorable and like valuable to me for different reasons. Yeah.
00:25:28
Speaker
there's, you know, there's some nostalgia, there's some just pure filmmaking, there is storytelling, you know? And so, like, for me, it's really hard to do, like, best picture of 2023, because, like, you know, to me, it's very subjective and I don't know.
00:25:51
Speaker
I also don't feel like my list is complete because I have a very long list of movies that I didn't get a chance to see before recording for various reasons. So I did as best as I could with what I did see effectively. Yeah, of course. Which was still like 17 movies.
00:26:12
Speaker
That's crazy. And those aren't even just all the movies I've watched in the year. I watched 17 movies that came out in 2023. I cannot remember the last time that I saw 17 movies that came out in one year. And that's not even all the movies that I watched this year.
00:26:32
Speaker
to say there's still probably 10 or 12 films that I didn't get to see from 2023 that I'm really excited about seeing, that's crazy to me. I don't like to make grand proclamations of the golden age of cinema, but 2023 feels like the start of something extraordinary.
00:26:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I saw 39 movies that came out this year in theaters. That's so crazy.
00:27:03
Speaker
I saw a fucking 30. No. OK, so just sorry, last year, which was, you know, a fucking last week, ended last week, I saw 39 movies. So movies that were released in 2023. I saw 41. That's so wild. And that and that also is not counting other fucking movies I see on like a Delta flight or like at home or whatever. Right.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah. Fucking boy, what a year. This was such a heart. This is like I said earlier, this is the hardest podcast episode I've ever had to prepare for because narrowing it down. And I'm sorry, like our Google Doc looks fucking insane because I just like had to sprawl all my thoughts and my words all over the page in order to like narrow down my top five because I just there. And yeah, easily 20 more fucking films that I would I need to see. Feel like I need, need, need to see this year.
00:27:58
Speaker
So, do you want to just do one for one? Do you want to go first and then you do one for everyone? So it's worth? Okay. Cool.
Top Films of 2023: Asteroid City and More
00:28:04
Speaker
So I'm just going to go in order of how I wrote them down. It's no particular order of having seen them or what I think is the best or whatever.
00:28:13
Speaker
So my first film that I put in my top five for the year is Asteroid City, directed by Wes Anderson, written by Wes Anderson, Roman Copula. Wow, speaking is hard.
00:28:29
Speaker
cinematographer Robert Yeoman and then of course the cast classic Wes Anderson, Scarjo, Schwarzman, Tom Hanks who's a new addition to the Wes Anderson universe, Maya Hawk also a new addition, Jeffrey Wright who we saw in the
00:28:53
Speaker
the one about the New Yorker that's not the New Yorker. God, what the fuck? The one about the newspaper. I don't know why my brain's failing me.
00:29:02
Speaker
Well, French dispatch. Yes. French dispatch, Jeff Goldblum, who has been in so many of Wes Anderson's films. So I loved it. Some people would say that it is Wes Anderson at his most Wes Anderson-y. But I'm pretty sure people say that after every single movie that he makes.
00:29:25
Speaker
I think he's my favorite director in a lot of ways because he's sort of like the Scorsese of our generation. He has such a quintessential style. His movies have all come out through very formative years of my life and most of us elder millennials.
00:29:47
Speaker
And they've progressed in like, they've sort of grown up with us to like, bottle rocket and Rushmore were very different films than asteroid city. But so
00:30:02
Speaker
Although he is my favorite director, I would say the movie is also objectively good. It's very beautiful to look at. It's a very entertaining story. He once again has cast and directed child actors who kind of steal the show a little bit.
00:30:24
Speaker
The way that he gets people to just bring themselves in a different way is really extraordinary to me.
00:30:37
Speaker
I know we're doing just tight reviews on these, so I do want to plug one of my favorite YouTube video essayists, Thomas Flight, who did a really incredible breakdown about why Asteroid City is extraordinary. So definitely go and watch that, because he's very, very thoughtful in his film criticism. And yeah, that's probably my first one on my list.
00:31:07
Speaker
I did really enjoy asteroid city. That was it was such a gorgeous movie. And yeah, like speaking to what you're saying about how we have grown, he has grown with us as we have grown up and become adults. Yeah. And also like he's well, he just insists on framing.
00:31:25
Speaker
you know, his films around characters, especially this one that are actors that are our age, you know, Scar Joe and fucking Jason Swartzman, like that's that's people of our generation. And they're they're also struggling with what it means to be a middle aged person and how to go through life successfully and to be happy and that sort of thing. And.
00:31:44
Speaker
Yeah, it was fucking so fun. Like it's such a gorgeous movie. Well, I was just mentioning Sheila, a team. So I will talk about all dirt roads, taste of salt, which was a small independent film. This is me being kind of smug because like this is a small independent film. It did. I definitely don't think it had wide release.
00:32:03
Speaker
And I met the cinematographer at a party that we had at our house recently. And then I was just like looking through the IFC lineup, IFC center lineup, and I just saw his name. And so I went to see the movie. And this is like an absolutely gorgeous movie that I didn't even write. Like, I didn't write any notes on it, but I'm just going to wing it.
00:32:24
Speaker
So, this is an absolutely gorgeous movie. It's all black and white. It is directed by Raven Jackson, written by Raven Jackson as well, cinematographer Joma Frey, cast Charles McClure, Sheila T. Moses Ingram, Reginald Helms Jr., Kaylee Nicole Johnson, Chris Chalk, Zainab Jha, Presto McDowell, Janie Hampton, Jia Henry.
00:32:48
Speaker
That's kind of the entire cast. It's a small movie, kind of takes place, seems like in the South, in a Black community, and it's kind of focused around a young woman who is just kind of going through life. And the thing that I loved about it is that it's...
00:33:06
Speaker
The film is told in a nonlinear fashion, so you see snippets of her as a child and you see snippets of her as an old woman or an older woman, a middle-aged woman with gray hair, and it just goes back and forth and it unfolds the story of her life in this nonlinear way, which that was one of the most striking things to me about the movie because that mimics how a life is lived. If you think about it, I also don't live my life in a linear fashion.
00:33:31
Speaker
Like, I live in the past and I live in the future and I think about my past self thinking about me in the future and vice versa. I'm very cognizant of living that way and how people, you know, that's how people experience the world, right? Yeah.
00:33:47
Speaker
It was shot beautifully. The way that the cinematography was framed was very evocative of what it means to be like a child and a very evocative of what it means to be like a teenager walking through the woods with other teenagers. And just everything was designed in such a gorgeous way to really make you feel like
00:34:10
Speaker
I am like a horny, weird teenager. I'm feeling I'm growing into my body. I'm developing and like the freedoms and the anxieties and the fears and the passions that you feel throughout all these different phases of life through motherhood and childhood and the death of a parent and all these sorts of things and what it's like to witness experience your parents like loving each other and and and just how just it's just very evocative of like how to live
00:34:39
Speaker
in a body, you know? And so that was an absolutely gorgeous movie. No, it was just such a great movie. And I think a lot of, you know, I think my top five I really chose because like ultimately the criterion was like, did I want to spend more time with the movie? And all these movies in my top five are just movies that I just had to spend more time with. I just like really want to go back and revisit. Yeah, I can't wait to see that movie again.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting that you brought up that nonlinear narrative, because I think like 2023 might be the year of the nonlinear narrative. Sure. Yeah. Because the films that like all let me I just I want to like
00:35:25
Speaker
that my top, like my tier one films, all three of them are nonlinear narratives. Okay. Um, you know, asteroid city, it has like this crazy sort of like jumping back and forth between reality and like the, the like
00:35:44
Speaker
behind the scenes, behind the curtain sort of thing. Same thing goes for this next film that I literally just watched, so it's very fresh in my mind. Oh, it's sick. Yeah, Killers of the Flower Moon.
00:36:01
Speaker
Directed by Martin Scorsese, writers were Eric Roth, Martin Scorsese, and David Grant, who wrote the book that this was loosely based off of, or at least inspired by. Cinematographer was Rodrigo Prieto. I think that it would be doing a disservice if I didn't also mention that the editor is Thelma Schoonmaker, because the editing of this film was just out of control.
00:36:28
Speaker
cast Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone. There was a bajillion other people in this film, but
00:36:38
Speaker
It seems insane to list them all. Yeah, exactly. Honestly, this movie was a whopper. Three and a half hours. We turned it on and I was like, okay, we're doing this. I didn't get a chance to see it in the theater because of life, so I watched it at home.
00:36:58
Speaker
But for anyone who's living under a rock, it tells the true story of the Reign of Terror in Osage County, when in the 1920s after the Osage Nation found oil on their reservation,
00:37:13
Speaker
over 30 it's not exactly clear exactly how many in the things that I read Osage tribal members were murdered for access to their head rights so for anybody who is not intimately familiar or hasn't seen the film or hasn't done research very briefly in a nutshell
00:37:36
Speaker
The Osage Nation was the only tribe that negotiated the purchase of their reservation from the US government in the 1890s in Oklahoma. So they actually owned the land collectively when oil was found. Then they sold the mineral rights through, what's the word for it? Royalties.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yes. So Osage Nation was to receive royalties on the mineral rights, basically.
00:38:15
Speaker
The way that this was accomplished was through something called head rights. There was 2,190, I think, some number in around their number of head rights, and that was a fixed number. So if someone died, that head right went to their next of kin, which essentially created a system for fraud, embezzlement, and treachery because
00:38:41
Speaker
like these white men came in, they started marrying native, like full blood Osage men and women to then acquire their head rights through accident, death, whatever, right? So this is like, this is happening. And it was kind of all orchestrated by
00:39:11
Speaker
Earl, I think was his name, who was colloquially referred to as King Burkhart, the king of the Osage Prairie or whatever. So this is the story, right? But the film was actually originally inspired by a book that was about the newly formed FBI, kind of halfway through or a quarter of the way through the first filming.
00:39:40
Speaker
Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese in collaboration scrapped the entire original script and rewrote it from the perspective of Molly and Ernest Burkhardt's relationship because it served the narrative better. It was more true to the duality of evil that is sort of classically Martin Scorsese's
00:40:10
Speaker
interest, right? Throughout his entire oeuvre. How do you say that word? Oeuvre. Oeuvre. Oeuvre. Oeuvre. I don't know. I don't speak French. Body of work is how I would say it. Body of work. He really analyzes and dissects that duality of evil. The thing that I thought was
00:40:40
Speaker
special and extraordinary about the film and the storytelling was how cognizant it was of the role of white settler colonialism in the downfall of this community and how culpable it was in that.
00:41:06
Speaker
In doing some research, I read a quote that was, I believe, in the Washington Post from the chief of the Osage Nation, the current modern chief of Osage Nation. And it was, effectively, this was our story to tell. We just had the best people in the world at the time to help us tell it. And I think that that is what made this film so powerful.
00:41:32
Speaker
The cinematography was incredible, but the editing really is what I think does it because they used this really interesting mechanic of showing something happen without any context, getting through 45 minutes of the film to the context of the thing happening.
00:41:56
Speaker
cutting back to the scene that we haven't had that visual perspective on into the current moment. So like a death, a narrative, like a voiceover, a vision of the land, some kind of thing. And it's like creating these like blip-its of moments where you're starting to put things together.
00:42:24
Speaker
And it was just, it was just incredible. It was so incredibly done. And Lily Gladstone, she is just a powerhouse. The subtlety of her was...
00:42:41
Speaker
just incredible. She would have just these moments where she would just make like the smallest little grin, the smallest little grimace, like just like the most delicate facial change that told an entire story.
00:42:59
Speaker
Um, I was, and I was glued to it. I was glued to the film at an hour and a half. I was like, Oh my God, like, how could they possibly have two more hours worth of story to go? And then by 30 minutes to the end, I was like, how are they going to wrap this up? You know, and it was just, it was just, yeah, it was extraordinary. It's going to win like a bajillion awards. I can already see it.
00:43:24
Speaker
I think that's probably true. I mean, I would assume that she would get best actress. I fucking hope so. I fucking hope so. Yeah, she was absolutely riveting. Like, you know, she's fucking stole every scene from Leo to Cap. She stole every scene from everyone throughout the whole movie, even when she was fucking literally dying and puking in bed. Like, she just...
00:43:46
Speaker
you know, for kind of like the second, you know, or the middle third of the movie, she's like just like, you know, a fucking gray ET in the ditch, just like in bed, actively being poisoned by her husband. Yeah. And which just like ratchets just like such a huge amount of tension throughout the whole process, which makes the movie like really move in such a great way. But yeah, Lily Gladstone is great. I love this movie also.
00:44:13
Speaker
But I it wasn't because it was so long, maybe, and also because it just was it's a beautiful movie, but so uncomfortable. And so many awful things happened. Yeah. It's not really something that I want that I like want to see all that often. It's not something I'm going to be like, oh, hell yeah. Like I'm I'm just like, I'm just going to put that back on because it's an investment. Like you got to gear up. You got to like eat your weenies and like make sure you stretch before you watch that movie. Yeah.
00:44:43
Speaker
Uh, you know, I would say that Lily Gladstone, if she doesn't get it, I would say, um, Carrie Mulligan and Maestro. How do you like that for a segue? Um, good segue. I mean, she is like the lead of the movie and Maestro, which would be like, you know, my number two in my top five.
00:45:04
Speaker
directed by Bradley Cooper, written by Sam and Josh Singer, cinematographer Matthew Louboutique, costume design Mark Bridges, makeup by Kazuhiro, who like, you know, he's just badass costume or makeup designer. He did Benjamin Button. He did Darkest Hour, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Norbit, just to name a few of his credits. But he's like fucking amazing. Did you see this movie? I didn't know.
00:45:30
Speaker
It's really worth a watch and it's really worth a watch if you can see it in a proper theater. Just obviously for the Leonard Bernstein score or sound design of it all. And I'm not a classical fan or anything, but like,
00:45:46
Speaker
You know, it's a story about a closeted homosexual who has a marriage and a partnership, a creative partnership and like in a way like a romantic partnership and a family with, you know, Carrie Mulligan. And it just was such a fucking delight. Like the sound design was amazing. Bradley Cooper's performance was just like magical and effervescent. And even though, yes, he's like a man who's like kind of hiding
00:46:13
Speaker
this aspect of himself, his sexual orientation. It's like he was hiding it, yes, and also not hiding it. It's like you would be full to not understand that he's queer. And just, you know, these people that you have in your life that are so dynamic and so creative and artistic and have so much personal momentum, they really draw everyone along in their wake. And Bradley Cooper really was able to portray that in his performance.
00:46:41
Speaker
Mulligan definitely still steals his lunch, you know, like similar to Lily Gladstone. Like she is the most captivating person in the scene, even when she's with Bradley Cooper, who like looks like he looks like an amazing snack all the time, even with like a fucked up floppy neck. You know, when he's older, she's still she still is like such a good actress.
00:47:04
Speaker
And what's what was crazy I thought was like, she's like, she was able to convincingly portray her age throughout the movie. And the movie takes place over the course of like, probably like, you know, 20, 30 years. And like, she could be like old carry them all again.
00:47:19
Speaker
or like, you know, she could be like early twenties or like mid fifties and like they didn't even have to do anything. It was just her fucking bearing and her performance and like not a lot else. And she was able to convince you that she had aged in these ways.
00:47:35
Speaker
just based on her posture and her facial expressions. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Previously, I wrote this note last night and I said that I cried the must at this movie out of any this year. That's not true. And when we get to my next one, I will tell you the one I actually cried the must at.
00:47:57
Speaker
Sounds great. Okay, speaking of crying, excellent segue yet again. Just kidding, that was a terrible one.
00:48:11
Speaker
I expected to cry at this film, and I didn't, which was shocking to me. But it's Oppenheimer, director Christopher Nolan, written by Nolan Kibert and Martin Sherwin, cinematographer Hoyt van Hoytema, cast, Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr.
00:48:35
Speaker
So yeah, I Barbenheimered. Pretty much everyone else I knew also did it. So I went Oppenheimer first, Barbie second. And immediately after leaving the theater, I was like, wow, Barbie, incredible.
00:48:50
Speaker
Like, shocking. Didn't expect it to go that way. Didn't expect it to be a critique on the patriarchy. Didn't expect it to be a critique on capitalism. But the gravity of Oppenheimer, no pun intended, really hadn't settled in.
00:49:12
Speaker
Oppenheimer has lived sort of rent free in the back of my mind for months since I've seen it. There will be moments where all of a sudden, a scene will just pop into my head and I'll be like, Oh, yeah, that happened.
00:49:29
Speaker
But I think a lot of this had to do with editing. Jennifer Laim edited this film, or I think it's pronounced Laim, it might be Lame, I don't know. But the way that she used that nonlinear narrative to tell this story of effectively the rise and fall of Oppenheimer,
00:49:58
Speaker
was really, really fascinating. I'm also really sort of
00:50:07
Speaker
I'm very interested on a sociological level of McCarthyism and the usage of artists and scientists by the government as propaganda and then persecuted by that same government. It's a very fascinating idea for me.
00:50:33
Speaker
because it's kind of happening again in a lot of ways. It's more centered on just persecuting intellectuals rather than using them as international propaganda. But there's this one scene that no one has really talked about, and I don't understand why.
00:50:58
Speaker
But this scene where, you know, Abenheimer has just been told that his lover died by apparent suicide. And then there are these cuts of her drowning herself. And there's just this one tiny flash of a gloved hand holding her head underwater. And it's like,
00:51:25
Speaker
That one scene reinforces this idea of reality. What was real? How were the things that he imagined and how were the things that actually happened?
00:51:45
Speaker
intertwined. And you know, that speaks to sort of Nolan's whole thing of like questioning everything, what's real, what isn't. But the editing was just, it was just so good. It was so much like how, you know, catastrophizing actually happens in the human mind. And we're seeing it playing out on screen.
00:52:12
Speaker
The other scene that just sits, people, a lot of criticism was like, well, they didn't show the horror of what his decisions did. They aggrandized him, this, that, and the other thing. But they didn't have to because of the scene.
00:52:32
Speaker
in the clubhouse, in the camp counselor house auditorium after the bomb had been dropped at Nagasaki, and he learns the true impact of it, and all of this sound leaves the room. And it's just silence, and it's just him, and it's these flashes of reality, of the gravity, the horror of the situation.
00:53:02
Speaker
And it's like, that was true. That was his truth in that moment. And that speaks to the terror and the horror and everything. And so like, I think that what made the film extraordinary was this inability to distinguish between memory and imagining and creating this world of like,
00:53:31
Speaker
misguided optimism, because that's really kind of what Oppenheimer's life was, was this sense of misguided optimism and the pursuit of pure science, which is impossible in a capitalist society.
00:53:47
Speaker
like pure science doesn't exist. So yeah, that's that's why that's how Oppenheimer made it on my list. I enjoyed Oppenheimer. I did a barbenheimer also I did it the wrong way. A lot of times we kind of talk about how my drinking drinking is a little reckless and I went to Barbie first and I brought
00:54:08
Speaker
Um, like a flask of whiskey and I drink the whole thing during Barbie and I shared it with the like four or five women that were sitting in my row that were all wearing pink and they're all like my age. And I was, I kind of shocked, shocked them by cracking open the flask of bullet bourbon. Um, you know, like whatever 11 30 in the morning or whatever. But so I was a little tight by the time I got to Barbara hammer and I think actually, yeah, like we were even supposed to record bar Oppenheimer last time I was in Chicago.
00:54:35
Speaker
And I think I think so. So I saw it again. But yeah, it was definitely one of the top movies. It definitely was enjoyable. But I think similar to Killers of the Flower Moon, I was just like, I don't know. This is not something I want to sit with again. This is not something that I like want to revisit any time soon, although I did watch it twice. Yeah. Fucking definitely a stunning movie. It's a big old Christopher Nolan movie. It's just like fantastic in the visuals and the sound design was just amazing. And yes, did everything.
00:55:05
Speaker
I think he's he must be getting away from it because people can't help but mention that he just, you know, using frigging as as using dead white women as like a thing to propel the narrative is just like getting a little old, bro. Like I think I think maybe next time you don't need to do it. We kind of do that for everything. But, you know, Emily Blunt was fucking fantastic. Incredible. This was also a big year for like
00:55:34
Speaker
Boy is it hard to be a wife to one of these great men films. And I feel bad. And I think like that and Penelope Cruz and Ferrari kind of did them a disservice. I don't think they were written good enough parts because like Emily Blunt's fucking fantastic.
00:55:57
Speaker
like you could have done a gender swap. She could have played fucking Oppenheimer for all I care. Like she wouldn't, she could have done a better job. Even I think Penelope Cruz is such a full fledged, like three dimensional actor that, you know, as, as Enzo Ferrari's wife, you know, she did great, but it just was frankly like two dimensional. And I, I would have liked to see her do something else. Yeah.
00:56:22
Speaker
But yeah, will I probably watch Oppenheimer like when I'm visiting my in-laws at Christmas time next year? Probably. I think that's like one of those movies. Yeah, you have some sort of dad. You would you would watch that flip side. Perfect segue. This morning I got up and I watched Godzilla.
00:56:43
Speaker
which was directed by Takahashi Yamazaki, written by same cinematographer. To be clear, Godzilla minus one. Excuse me, Godzilla minus one. Cinematographer Kozo Shibasaki cast. I'm going to ruin all these names, so I apologize in advance. They're phonetic. Japanese is phonetic.
00:57:13
Speaker
I this was the movie that I cried the most at at the movies this year, just at the end sobbing, like actual sobbing. I had an emotional year. My father died this year. So I'm a little emotional right now. And just like it was just me and this Japanese woman at the end of the movie side. We were both both solo film watchers in the same row. Just just saw both sobbing together, but separately.
00:57:40
Speaker
This movie fucking rules. It looks great from the first moment that the movie starts. It just like you can tell it's CGI and it's fine and you don't really mind it. Like it's the ocean water is kind of fake, but it's still like, OK, Godzilla Godzilla looks great. Like he keeps on getting bigger and he just is really fucking ferocious. But at the same time, he's just an awkward, pear shaped man kind of walking around like knocking shit over.
00:58:07
Speaker
It's a little silly and I think that they did not shy away from designing him to be a little bit silly. He's got man boobs and he's got a big bottom and he's a little dumb looking.
00:58:22
Speaker
I thought that was great. Like the costume design was fantastic. The writing was really good. I think where the acting could have been like a little melodramatic and people are just sort of like shouting at each other over emotional things. I think that the craft of the writing and the human emotion was like really solidly portrayed.
00:58:43
Speaker
the costumes there again, going back, this is like 1940s, I fucking love all the costumes. I started shopping at this company in San Diego called Imperfects, and they're like these bros. I am loosely associated with them through the studio where I used to make my surfboards back in the day. It's all the same type of person, gang of people.
00:59:06
Speaker
And they do these fucking cool jackets that are inspired by 1940s work wear jackets. Oh, sickening, yes. And I can run and pull one on for you. I'm just going to look it up while you're talking. Yeah, it's called Imperfects.
00:59:24
Speaker
They're like it's like a cross between like a 1940s like World War I, World War II jacket meets karate gi meets like something that you throw on to do work around the house. And like I got a couple of those jackets. So I'm just kind of into that style. They're boxy. They fit well in the shoulders, but they're a little baggier. They're boxier. The pants are great. But I got a couple of their jackets. I bought jacket jackets for like my father in law and my brother in law because I'm like, you know, we need to update the uniform. Yeah.
00:59:53
Speaker
I just wanted to share it with everyone. So yeah, just getting into the style of that era. Yeah. And Godzilla, like it's it's truly, you know, my friend Flavia is staying with us right now and she was like, how is Godzilla? And I was like, it's great. It's about forgiveness. And it's about like forgiving yourself and forgiving your culture and
01:00:18
Speaker
you know, accepting love wherever you can find it in the most unlikely of places and, you know, being nice to yourself. And it's about dignity and courage and that sort of stuff. And yeah, just fucking I highly recommend that movie. It's it's a whole lot of fun. It's you know, people say it's kind of like a heist movie, I suppose, but it's also just like a fun action packed film.
01:00:44
Speaker
In an era where like, you know, most action stars in Western movies are just like weird pumped up testosterone guys, like these action figures are like emotional and they cry and they don't look like they spend 40 hours a week at the gym and they're just like normal people doing sort of like heroic shit. Yeah, so I highly recommend.
01:01:10
Speaker
Um, yeah, Trevor really buried the lead on this one. I think actually the marketing people buried the lead on this one. And I was like, I don't need to go see a Godzilla movie. Um, and now in retrospect, I'm like, I was a fucking idiot. It's not too late. I mean,
01:01:27
Speaker
I know, I know, I know. And I will see it for sure. But the funny thing is, I just talked on the phone with my sister last night and she's like, yeah, I went and I saw Godzilla minus one. And I figured I discovered that the minus one was minus one Godzilla because he's not fucking in the movie at all.
01:01:46
Speaker
And she was like annoyed because she didn't feel like there was enough Godzilla. She was like expecting it to be like a Godzilla movie. And I was like, well, then you need to watch Monarch Legacy of Monsters because I've been watching that show and it slaps. It's really, really good. And.
01:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, like, so yes, it's everything I've heard about it is absolutely extraordinary that it's really, really heart wrenching. And, you know, my next movie is heart wrenching for a completely different reason. My last two top fives are very much like not high cinema at all.
01:02:27
Speaker
I'm just going to say that because I am a person of dual interests. I love really thoughtful, really beautiful, really artistic things. And then I love trash. But so Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, just
01:02:47
Speaker
fucking so good. I loved, I love Guardians of the Galaxy. I think that in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Guardians is the best story that they've been telling on film, like on the big screen.
01:03:03
Speaker
Directed by James Gunn, he was fired, he was brought back. They couldn't have done this without him. Guardians 3 could not have happened without James Gunn. Written by Gunn, Jim Starlin, then of course the eponymous Stan Lee. He is the creator of all of these characters. RIP, my dude. Cinematographer was Henry Braham, or Braum, I don't know.
01:03:31
Speaker
cast Chris Pratt, Chukwuri Iwoji, Bradley Cooper, Dave Batista, Karen Gillan, that popularly known possibly by a certain segment of the world as Amy Pond from Doctor Who.
01:03:51
Speaker
And so, yeah, it's pretty ridiculous that this is in my top five, but it was a great movie. It was a great movie. I laughed. I cried. I cried a lot in this movie. Like, I cried a lot. Like, Rocket's backstory was just fucking heartbreaking. And also knowing that it was the last Guardians movie was kind of heartbreaking. Like, it's like the end of an era, you know?
01:04:18
Speaker
This was for sure James Gunn at his gunniest like king of hallway fight scenes and boy did he fucking deliver like that like crazy tentacle monster hallway scene it was just so so good so funny and just
01:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, I just I loved it. It dealt with grief. It dealt with loss. It dealt with, you know, what is it like to continue living? You know, some of the one of the other most like sort of impactful quotes about grief.
01:04:54
Speaker
also is weirdly from the MCU like what is grief if not love persevering you know like that was from fucking WandaVision and everybody's like and and now it's like gets quilted on fucking
01:05:11
Speaker
these like wall hangings, I don't know. So yeah, there's not like, there's not a ton to say. I mean, like the CG was fine. The acting was what it needed to be. You know, Chris Pratt is Chris Pratt about it. But like, it was good. It was a really good, really fun movie. And I loved it for what it was. So yeah.
01:05:35
Speaker
Yeah, people were kind of latching on to the rocket backstory as like, oh, they're just tucking in your heartstrings with animal cruelty. And I didn't I don't really think that that was actually the case.
01:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, it was a fun movie, fucking fun movie. I kind of made the mistake of not watching it a second time because the first time I watched it, I did like the whole trilogy all in one sitting at the movie theater like a fucking psychopath. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. And honestly, it started late. It started at like 6 p.m. or something. So like I think I went into Guardians of the Galaxy after like watching one and two.
01:06:12
Speaker
And then I think it started at like 11 p.m. So I can't say I don't think I could say much about this movie. I believe I enjoyed it. I think like when I first when it first came out, you were like, oh, I love it. And I was like, yeah, I think it's OK. I'm not really sure. And that's probably because I watched it. But yeah, like.
01:06:36
Speaker
That last the end, the end is fucking wonderful when they're all dancing together. And yeah, that's it's a very heartfelt movie. And yeah, everyone's moving on. And surely this won't be the end of our friends, the Guardians of the Galaxy. You know, surely we'll be able to see those characters again.
01:06:53
Speaker
Although who knows what the MCU is going to look like in the future going forward, right? Fucking seems these, you know, it doesn't really need to be mentioned that it seems like these superhero movies are imploding over the last couple of years. So we shall see. But you know what? And I was thinking about that. It's like fucking fine. Give me more Godzilla. There is actually another Godzilla movie coming out this year. But give me things like Maestro. Give me things like, you know, Killers of the Flower Moon.
01:07:19
Speaker
Give me things like more movies just like poor things. Did you see this movie?
01:07:24
Speaker
I haven't seen it yet. You've got to see this movie. It's on my list. I can't believe I haven't fucking seen yet. Go see it in the theaters also. I know. Your Ghost Lanthamos was the director written by Tony Mac De Rea, cinema talk for Robbie Ryan, cast the fucking, you know, the amazing Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Rami Yousaf. Fuck. This is probably the most remarkable movie that I saw this year.
01:07:52
Speaker
I, it kind of takes me a while to cogitate on my thoughts after I see a film and really have anything good to say. But I walked out of this movie and I just had all sorts of things to say about it. Like it's your ghost Lanthamos. Like I always liked his movies. You know, the favorite was really cool. I think that was his last thing, one that came out killing of a sacred deer, even though they're always like awkward and weird and gross and uncomfortable, like just the way that they're shot.
01:08:19
Speaker
the lighting, the cinematography. This movie in particular, like just the fucking set design was like so great. The production design was amazing. The set dressing was just all the all the intricate details and everything. It's sort of like this weird Baroque steampunk period piece, not a period piece or a situation.
01:08:40
Speaker
It's fucking gross. It's corporeal. It's perverted. It's sexy. It's like I said, in my notes, it's like Barbie with pubic hair. It's Barbie that it's, you know, Super Mario Brothers, but hornier. It's just, you know, lots of sex and really gross shit and good writing and good directing and like excellent fucking. You know, excellent performances by all the actors. Mark Ruffalo is sort of like
01:09:10
Speaker
No spoilers. I really I want to go in with as little knowledge as possible. That's what I've done with all of these movies as much as I can. So, you know, Mark Ruffalo is like on some sort of level, like such a sweet guy that he's almost like take he's like almost becoming kind of like America's dad, almost like Tom Hanks was previously. You know, he's just such a sweet man. And suffice to say, he sort of subverts that image that he has.
01:09:37
Speaker
Cool. You know, it kind of slows down in the second third of the movie, but it's still such like a fun movie that it really maintains momentum. It's got a great ending. Just, you know, we don't really want to compare it to Barbie because they're just very separate movies and.
01:09:58
Speaker
I don't think like either is any more daring. I think that they both really, I think they both accomplished what they set out to do just in kind of vastly different arenas. You know, Barbie is quite daring in what it did and caused a lot of bullshit and shenanigans and controversy and discussions and I think maybe
01:10:18
Speaker
And maybe in a sense, that was more successful politically than poor things was or philosophically because poor things was because poor things is just some fucking weird movie by your euro goes to Lanthimos. And I think that in that context, people aren't going to be as divisive about it as Barbie was. But I think that it's just the most fun movie probably I saw this year. Like I highly recommend it. I definitely want to see it again. It's just, yeah, it's fucking blast.
01:10:42
Speaker
Amazing. My last top five movie is strictly a top five movie because of my own sort of nostalgic feelings about this series of films. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, director James Mangold, writer Jez Butterworth, John Henry Butterworth, David Cope.
01:11:07
Speaker
I remember looking up the cinematographer, but I didn't write it down for some reason, which is very weird. Caste, Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, several other notable people.
01:11:22
Speaker
So was this a great film? No, well, was it a was it a great sequel to Raiders? Fuck. Yes, it was. Sure. Hands down. This is the sequel to Raiders that we have been waiting for. This is like. It was perfect for that for that purpose. It was fucking perfect, like.
01:11:49
Speaker
I have a Raiders of the Lost Ark tattoo. It was mine and my grandmother's favorite movie. I could have done without anything else in the fucking Indiana Jones franchise if I had only had Raiders of the Lost Ark and Dial of Destiny. The casting was perfect.
01:12:14
Speaker
Phoebe Waller-Bridge is an analog to Marion Mads Mikkelsen as like the fucking Nazi like so and like the casting perfect
01:12:27
Speaker
Like, it was so fucking fun. We learned about that, you know, Indian Marion had a son and Indiana Jones pissed him off so bad that he went and fought in a war and died. Marion left him. Like, we got some time travel. We got some fucking redemption. We got Phoebe Waller Bridge being hilarious and hot. Like,
01:12:52
Speaker
It was great. Ten out of ten. No notes. I loved it. It was wonderful. I cried. I laughed. It was it was exactly the end of Indiana Jones that we needed and deserved. And like fuck Crystal Skull. It was trash. Hated it.
01:13:20
Speaker
Didn't even really love Holy Grail. That one wasn't very good to me. But, like, chef's kiss. Yeah, it was fucking fun. Also, you get to see a hunky topless fucking Harrison Ford. He can still get it. He can still get it. Fool is 80 years old and he can still get it. He's still hot as shit. God, it was so good. And it was just like, it was just like, okay.
01:13:50
Speaker
I love a time travel thing. That's just like, I love them. I think they're so silly. They're so fun. I love when we get to see new takes on time travel. I love when we get to see new takes on time paradoxes. I love the fact that the dial of destiny was never going to take them to any other time than the siege of, what was it? It's Sicily, I believe. Yeah. And like,
01:14:19
Speaker
That that that was that was that was like that was always gonna happen that way, you know what I mean like
01:14:26
Speaker
I loved the delusion of Mads Mikkelsen's character being like, I'm going back to kill Hitler because he did it wrong and I can do it better. Like just absolute, just unhinged. I loved it, I loved it. It was wonderful. Marion, she still looks bangin' after all these years, that gray hair.
01:14:51
Speaker
Just everything. I mean, did we need to bring Jonathan Rhys Davies' character back? I don't know because it's kind of racist. Is he like not an Egyptian person? Oh, he's a Welsh actor. Oh, yeah. OK. Yeah. Well, OK. He's super like, yeah, he does have like, yeah, he's he's like only ethnically ambiguous for being craggy and he's been craggy for the last 60 years or whatever. So.
01:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Salah. Yeah. But like Karen Allen still crushing the game. You know, fucking I I really was just deceased at how incredible Mads Mikkelsen was as Dr. Voller because when you put each of these characters up against
01:15:39
Speaker
Um, like against their analog character in, uh, Raiders, like they look the part like, you know, like we even had like a kid sidekick, but he wasn't annoying and he wasn't a trope. And like, also a racist, another racist thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is like the one thing of like, there's a line where, um, uh,
01:16:06
Speaker
the Helena is talking about him and Indiana Jones is like, who the fuck is this kid? And she's like, well, he tried to steal my purse and then I tried to steal it back, but he didn't let go. And we've been together ever since, you know, and like, oh, like she's yeah, she's being passed on the torch. Like in theory, right. That's kind of the whole idea. Right. Right. I mean, I would watch an entire franchise of her as the new Indiana Jones in a fucking heartbeat would watch.
01:16:36
Speaker
I'll take it. But yeah, I loved it. My top five. My friend Joe Finkel and his wife, who is a short Korean woman, will dress up for Halloween as Indiana Jones in Short Round. Go to parties, which is really funny. She gets the baseball cap and he gets the leather jacket and the fedora and all that. Incredible. It's really great. I would love to see a photo of that. It's pretty good.
Film Discussions: Styles and Performances
01:17:07
Speaker
I have seen The Killer, which is directed by David Fincher, written by Andrew Kevin Walker, cinematographer, Eric Metzer Schmidt, cast Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, bunch of people, Charles Parnell. Those are kind of like the big, you know, the main actors. Did you see this movie?
01:17:25
Speaker
I might be watching this movie tonight. I wanted to see it so bad, and then I completely fucking forgot what it was called. Yeah, because the killer wants you to forget all about him. That's kind of the whole point of the killer's whole thing. I've seen this. This movie came out this year. I saw it in fucking theaters. I have seen it at home, like twice probably. I saw it on a fucking plane. I made my sister-in-law watch it with me. She hated it and talked shit the whole time when we were drunk.
01:17:55
Speaker
This movie is fun. This is like this is my most rewatch movie of the year. And it's just it's a David Fincher movie. Like there's it's it's fucking cohesive. It moves good. You know, great. It's all green and yellow. It's all like slightly less green and yellow. It's more. Yeah, it's more of like a blue blue scale, but.
01:18:15
Speaker
You know, Michael Fassbender is always a sight to behold. You know, he there's these great, great shots of him doing yoga and wearing no show socks. And, you know, the last couple of years, I have officially I have effectively become a weird assassin person who travels from town to town. I have changed the way that I dress and look in order to fit in better with wherever I'm going.
01:18:41
Speaker
and to be comfortable and just for ease of access. My work looks like someone hands me a file. I fly to a city. I do the thing I'm supposed to do. It's typically very stressful and dangerous, literally dangerous to my life. And then I go home again and start the process all over again. But yeah, this movie is just fucking rules. Highly entertaining. It's super smart. It's funny.
01:19:08
Speaker
The end of it leaves you, you feel a little creeped out at the end for sure. Um, you know, this is a really huge year for like all these fucking big haters coming out of the woodwork and, and probably it's the fact that we had a plague for three or four years. No one really able to like bring a lot of their projects to fruition. And so, yeah, we have fucking Michael Mann and we have Martin Scorsese and we have David Fincher coming out and, um,
01:19:37
Speaker
This is great. It's like a weird Netflix movie. I don't really mind it that much. It just has like great production design. It's all these little vignettes of like Michael Fassbender is an assassin and he like goes from Paris to New Orleans to all these different places. And he has, you haven't seen yet, so I will really try not to spoil it for you. Thank you. You know, he's got an excellent scene with Tilda Swinton. She's, you know, she's
01:20:03
Speaker
Her like just like Mads Mikkelsen, I wouldn't say that they're on the same level, but like Mads Mikkelsen, I you could you could see anything he does all the time. He does. He takes kind of trashier roles. He makes trashier, cheesier decisions. She is top notch. She fucking does like tight shit only always always always. So I will. And she has like, you know, a really short role, a really quick cameo, but she's really fucking fun.
01:20:31
Speaker
Yeah, just the meticulous nature of the character of the narrator is really fun. It's reminiscent of Fight Club. It's sarcastic. It's dry. He fucking listens to the Smith's like only all the time. So yeah, it's it's really fucking fun. Like it's not.
01:20:49
Speaker
Is it like going to be a great classic work of cinema? Like not necessarily, but it's so well made. It's written. It's great. It's I believe it's adapted from a French comic book graphic novel. Oh, cool. Yeah. Which is like huge, you know, super fucking thick. And from all accounts is quite different in nature. You know, this is adapted into like a fucking normal feature length film.
01:21:19
Speaker
But yeah, like, is this maybe David Fincher sort of commenting on his body of work and where he's going to go next? And like, is it impossible for you to be a happy person if you're this serious about your work and and this obsessive and compulsive and flawed, but like so.
01:21:40
Speaker
Yeah, obsessed with your work. Is it possible for you to be a happy person? Can you ever settle down? Even though you're so obsessed, are you even actually good at your job? And does that matter? Do you have to be good in order to be successful? I don't think the answer is yes.
01:21:59
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, I don't really have much more to say about that because I've been talking for two hours. But yeah, like watch the fucking killer. It's it's just fun. Like great set pieces, great action sequences, great like fight choreography, cool fucking techniques because he's going through all these different, you know, vignettes of like, what is he going to do this person? What is he going to do that person? And then just all the logistics.
01:22:21
Speaker
And just the meticulous nature of the character. I think you probably as a neurodivergent person will really appreciate how he lives his life and how he organizes his life that like, yeah. And going back to what I first said when we first started talking about our movies today. I just wanted to spend more time with the killer. Like, I just wanted to spend more time in this movie and it just it just drops me back. It's very comfortable. It's just it's like watching something. It's like watching somebody do something
01:22:52
Speaker
that's really well executed and it's just very enjoyable in that sense. Amazing. Yeah, no, I really, I remember seeing the preview for it. I remember being like, oh, I really wanna watch this movie and then just. Didn't have time. I don't know what happened. Yeah. So I am feeling like maybe we should do, we should just like really quickly like run through our honorable mentions.
01:23:21
Speaker
Uh, then do, uh, can't believe I didn't see this. And then bottom five, cause like we're on a high note. I don't want to bring it down by talking about our bottom five just yet. Okay. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, cool. So, uh,
01:23:38
Speaker
The movies I can't believe, oh, we're going to do all the removal mentions for, say, just fucking sell that. Do you want to just like list them and just kind of like blast through it? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The Wes Anderson Rolled Dolls shorts.
01:23:53
Speaker
were amazing. So cool. So like, well shot. Interesting. Loved them. A haunting in Venice. I'm a sucker for an Agatha Christie story. I'm a sucker for a fucking mystery. This new Agatha Christie film series that they're doing is really fun. I loved the remake of the
01:24:21
Speaker
Oriental Express killing a night on the Nile, death on the Nile was really good. I hate that What's Her Face Gal Gadot is in it, but whatever. And then
01:24:36
Speaker
Haunting in Venice. So good. I fucking loved it. Barbie, of course, honorable mention. Chicken Run, Dawn of the Nugget. Fucking same production house as Wallace and Gromit. Stop motion animation. Clay. So cool. Very much like
01:25:00
Speaker
low-key, high-key, communist manifesto. We're not free until we're all free. Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, just incredible animation, incredible art, just really changing the game. Nimona, which was released on Netflix, was so good, so sweet about honesty and truth and
01:25:27
Speaker
who are you really and what is the nature of good and evil and all this stuff. And then this wasn't a movie, but it's one of the most cinematic things I have seen in years. Blue Eyed Samurai animated series of like hour long episodes about this very, very intense period, Ito Japan.
01:25:53
Speaker
The level of research, the level of historical accuracy, the level of thoughtfulness that went into making the story and then how they produced it. Incredible. Absolutely fantastic. Can't wait to watch it again. I like literally just watched it. So I'm like, can I rewatch it three weeks later? I don't know.
01:26:16
Speaker
So those are my honorable mentions. You absolutely can. You should watch any movie you want to, like as many times as possible. My memory is giving out on me, so I have no shame in doing that whatsoever.
01:26:28
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely I feel like the Wes Anderson role doll shorts were like not really heavily advertised if you don't look at Netflix all the time and they're like kind of hard to find. So I definitely want to check that out. I fell asleep in the middle of haunting in Venice in Venice. I started reading the book and it's funny that character, I forget the main character's name.
01:26:52
Speaker
Poirot. No, not Poirot. In the book, it's the other at the lady is the main character. Oh, the other the other writer who's played by Elizabeth Lemon. Tina Fey. Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple of ones where she's the main character that Agatha. And it's it's obviously just a stand in for Agatha Christie. Right. And she's such an awkward fucking weirdo in all of the books where she's the main character, because she's just like she'll just be like sitting at a party and just be like,
01:27:18
Speaker
I don't know. And just talking about things that are going on around her. And she's like, by the way, I'm so sorry. I haven't helped with the party. I'm just like, God, I'm so useless. And everyone's like, oh, that's okay. You're just really weird.
Film Preferences and Avoidances
01:27:31
Speaker
As long as we don't have to interact with you too much, you're fine. No, just sit in the... Which is actually kind of like what it was like for Agatha Christie. I bet. Yeah. Yeah.
01:27:42
Speaker
Yeah, my. Honorable mentions inside, which is that Willem Dafoe movie where he's like an art thief and he gets trapped inside of someone's like luxury condo. I love I love a castaway story like all day every day. And that's pretty much a castaway story. It's fucking great. Operation Fortune, which is like that.
01:28:06
Speaker
Guy Ritchie movie, one of the two Guy Ritchie movies that came out this year. You know, it's just, it's a dumb fucking Guy Ritchie movie. Like, but it's, you know, Josh Hartnett, Aubrey Plaza, who like, I definitely have season tickets to Aubrey Plaza. She's always amazing in everything she does. Hugh Grant, Carrie Elwes.
01:28:24
Speaker
Jason Statham, Bugsy Malone, super fun fucking heist movie shenanigans. Frankly, can't even remember what it's about, but I remember enjoying it. I saw it in theaters. Dungeons and Dragons, like, hell yeah. That was fucking great. That was on my list. Oh, yeah. I forgot to write it down, but definitely. Like, I've seen that movie three times. Like, it's almost like right after The Killers. Like, that's easy Sunday, middle of the day. If you're like cooking a fucking roast chicken, just put on Dungeons and Dragons. Like, yeah.
01:28:50
Speaker
I saw Ninja Turtles on a plane recently. That was a surprisingly fun movie. It's delightful. All the kids that played the Turtles were just super fun. Knock at the cabin was like, that was OK. It was worth a watch. But Dave Batista, also, there's just a lot of performances this year from actors that are just super fucking tight. Dave Batista is always great.
01:29:17
Speaker
Jawaan is this, I don't know if you watch like Indian cinema ever, but Jawaan is kind of one of these weird Indian cinema, Count of Monte Cristo sort of movies where it's like this guy, he's the warden of a prison of women and he really loves women and he pulls these heists with like his favorite like female prisoners and like
01:29:41
Speaker
He's the long lost son of this man who went missing and they're played by the same actor. And there's lots of like motorcycle gymnastics and crazy fighting and fucking dancing. And it's you know, I don't know if you ever watch these movies. They're always in wide. I've seen a couple of them. They're always in wide distribution. You can always go see them like an AMC theater. Yeah. And for the like.
01:30:05
Speaker
This dude's 43 and he lifts too much weights and like is on steroids and testosterone. And he's meant to be like a 25 year old and the dancing and the stupid fight scenes and an insane CGI. Like it's worth a watch. Like you should you should see one every once in a while. It's definitely worth it. Boy in the hair. And I saw last night that was fucking magical movie. I haven't seen it yet and I'm pissed.
01:30:29
Speaker
Gotta go see that on the big screen. We saw, I saw it last night at the Jaffier Theater at Village East Angelica, which is an old, like, ornate, you know, mid-century theater. Bo was afraid. I really liked, I like, I like fucked up Ari Aster movies.
01:30:44
Speaker
Um, you know, Joaquin Phoenix, he's just, he's always good. He was, you know, just making me think of his ridiculous performance in Napoleon this year, but he just, he had some good fucking performances this year. I love him. Um, you know, just the scene where the woman's like,
01:31:03
Speaker
I forget this this girl in a bedroom is trying to get him to like have sex with her or something. And then she's just like calls him a faggot and drinks paint until she dies. Like I just like I just I just loved it. I loved all the weird, you know, being John Malkovich of it all.
01:31:22
Speaker
couldn't really justify it in my top five. But it was fun. Napoleon also honorable mention because just horses and bicorn hats and having sex in 90 seconds and just all of it. It was just great.
01:31:41
Speaker
So speaking of movies I haven't seen that I'm fucking pissed about, I can't believe I didn't see this yet. Poor things, obviously. Holdovers, I haven't gotten to see that yet. Holdovers would be in my honorable mentions and that was a lovely movie and you definitely should watch it. Godzilla minus one, we talked about that. Boy and the Heron, fucking...
01:32:07
Speaker
I just, the stars have not aligned yet. We were gonna go see it on Wednesday and then our project was still happening. It was a whole thing. Past lives, I really wanna see. So we're gonna watch that. Priscilla has gotten not a lot of publicity, but largely I think due to the fact that it is shedding a lot of light on how shitty Elvis Presley was to Priscilla and that people are not,
01:32:39
Speaker
the American fiction. I just we just haven't I haven't seen it in one of our theaters yet. But that movie looks fucking stellar. Zone of Interest, which is on a super limited release, has not come to Chicago yet. So there's no way we could have seen it.
01:32:56
Speaker
And then for funny reasons, I have also two Nicolas Cage movies that I didn't realize he was also in the retirement plan and the old way, both of which look awesome for different reasons.
Diverse Film Choices and Controversies
01:33:09
Speaker
The retirement plan just looks like it looks ridiculous on the level of like bullet train. OK. Like.
01:33:16
Speaker
Just like so stupid, but so funny. And then cocaine bear, because also so stupid, so funny. But I'm pretty sure it's based on a real story. Seems like it. Yeah. About how this bear fucking got into some cocaine and just went on a rampage. So that sounds hilarious. Yeah, that would be on my list as well. Do you see Renfield this year at all?
01:33:43
Speaker
Yes, I loved it. I thought it was great. Although there was a Twitter controversy about it because some artist was like, this is literally my short film that I made when I was in college. And he like put his up, like the video of it up and it was like basically the same film.
01:34:01
Speaker
Um, past lives definitely got to watch that. It's, it's, it's not something you need to see in the big screen. So I don't think you missed out there, but like it fucking takes place in my neighborhood, which is fun. Um, but yeah, that's, you will cry a lot for sure. Lovely movie, beautifully written. Um, I definitely want to see American fiction zone of interest. I definitely want to see, because I also saw, you know, she was in anatomy of a fall, which was a fantastic movie. That's also on my list to see. Yeah, that was a really good one. Um, I definitely want to see zone of interest. Um,
01:34:32
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, Nichols Cage, he's he's doing so many fun choices these days. Yeah. That is just great. Yeah. Zone of Interest is mine. All of us strangers. I really want to see, which is seems like it's like the story of this guy who goes back to visit his.
01:34:50
Speaker
his house, he grew up in and he's visiting his parents who are dead and it's like he was visiting their ghosts. No hard feelings is that movie about, you know, the woman who like, I don't know, gets paid by this guy's 19 year old man's parents to like take his virginity. But just like a good old fashioned sex comedy, which you don't get much of anymore. This is Jennifer Lawrence and she doesn't do funny things and she's very funny. And so
01:35:20
Speaker
Like it's just like a straight down the line, like fucking comedy about Jennifer Lawrence, like building some sort of weird relationship with a 90 year old boy. And that looks fucking fun. Monster, which is, I think a Japanese film about a child who's being abused by his teacher at school. Sound of freedom. I just, I really, you know, this is a whole phenomenon and I could not justify
01:35:48
Speaker
either paying money to see this movie nor inflating its box office numbers when it was coming out. I just couldn't do it.
01:35:59
Speaker
It's that weird Jim Kravitzel fucking QAnon movie that just did really, really well at the box office. And I just could not justify it. I would like to see it, but at the time I just couldn't justify it. Perfect Days, Strange Way of Life is the Ethan Hawke and our friends from the men. My brain is literally just shutting down at this point. Hold on.
01:36:24
Speaker
Well, good. We only have to talk about the movies that we absolutely would not are not going to see. OK, good. Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, it's like a gay Western movie. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yes. And so that's one that I wish I could have seen and Renaissance. The Beyonce movie. Amazing. What are your movies that you just won't watch?
01:36:52
Speaker
Just could not, just couldn't do it. I tried Pope's Exorcist and I was just like, I can't do this. I just really can't. Fair enough. You people, that fucking, I don't know, movie looked really dumb. Fair play was just some like weird sort of romantic, erotic thriller that was on Netflix that I just didn't like the look of.
01:37:14
Speaker
Sound of Freedom also, I just couldn't, like I said, I just couldn't do it. The heiress tour, I don't know anything about that. I'm not a Swiftie. Yeah, I'm not a Swiftie, didn't even want to try. And then Jean du Barry was a Johnny Depp movie that came out this year that was... Oh, absolutely not. Yeah, I just couldn't do that. Although it looks, I was like, you know, this looks like this could be fun, but let's just not go there. It might be kind of stupid, most likely.
01:37:43
Speaker
Yeah, so mine are not because like they don't look so atrocious, but there's I just get like I just have feelings about them. So like Infinity Pool, the previous that I saw of it, just it it doesn't it does not seem like a movie I would enjoy. It has like a very who's the famous actor whose last name starts with a K famous for body horror. Oh, yeah, it's it's
01:38:12
Speaker
So it has a very Cronenberg-esque sort of vibe to it, at least from the trailer. It's his son. It's Cronenberg's son. It's baby Cronenberg. OK, there you go. So probably not going to watch that. Bo is afraid. Ari Aster's stuff, it makes me have this feeling of
01:38:33
Speaker
cringe and uncomfortable. I literally won't watch his films. I've not seen anything that
Film Critiques and Disappointments
01:38:40
Speaker
he's made. And then Treven made me go and see a dream scenario and it was produced by him. And I was like, no fucking wonder this movie made me so uncomfortable. This movie was not funny. People are like, it's so funny. And I'm like, I didn't think it was that funny. I was really uncomfortable the whole time. So yeah.
01:39:01
Speaker
That I'm good. The Flash because obviously just no trash, terrible. 65. I love Adam Driver. They fucked up on that goddamn preview. Like they gave away the fucking answer in the preview. I don't need to see the movie anymore. I know what happened.
01:39:23
Speaker
Like they could have had that be a reveal and it would have been I probably would have seen it because I do love Adam Driver. I love sci fi. I love all of that. But they fucked up. I agree. That trailer. Well, that you would think that that trailer spoiled the movie, but it didn't. Oh, like they get off the planet. So you're just like, OK, I guess I don't know. What does that mean? It's just like
01:39:50
Speaker
I saw that movie, it was fun. It's just exactly like you would expect, right? But I don't think Adam Driver knew what movie he was in in that movie.
01:40:06
Speaker
the woman that he was working with, like, I think they're in separate movies. And Adam Driver was just like not didn't really know what he was doing, which is really a stark thing to say for Adam Driver, who is like an MVP all the time. You know, he's he's always fucking amazing. Yeah, but like they they tell you that he's in 65 million years in the past. They show you the dinosaur in the previous.
01:40:29
Speaker
That's the part that pissed me off. They jumped the shark. That could have that could have been that just could have been the mystery. That could have just been in the film and I could have just been mad in the film. I mean, how how fulfilling would it have been if all of a sudden it was dinosaurs and they're on Earth and you're like, oh, holy shit, this is the best. Like that would have been amazing. You know, it would have been cool if it was like
01:40:53
Speaker
But they just I don't know. That just made me mad. And it takes a it honestly takes a lot for me to to not watch bad films as you're going to discover because of my worst category.
01:41:10
Speaker
Uh, are all films that most people probably said something to the effect of absolutely not. I watched a 10 foot pole, but I watched rebel moon. Uh-huh. Terrible. Yeah. So bad. What the fuck is this? Okay.
01:41:28
Speaker
It's the dude who did the Superman and there was all the controversy about how Snyder. So it's like Snyder. Yeah, Zack Snyder. He made the the film that he made the Star Wars that Disney didn't want to make, quote unquote, like it's too dark to be Star Wars. He pitched it three times to Disney and they said no, all three times.
01:41:53
Speaker
It's like watching a series of video game cutscenes. Like there's no story. There's no like there's no character development. It's literally just like boss fights. It's a film of boss fights. And it's like it's like if Warhammer 40k had been made
01:42:17
Speaker
to be sort of a space western. But literally, it's trash. Also, not the best movie that's ever been made, The Creator. It was beautifully shot. There's a lot of really interesting commentary on how they filmed it because they used really accessible technology to film it.
01:42:39
Speaker
the characters, like the actors were pretty good actors. Like I think it's, some famous actors are in, but the story, I figured it out 20 minutes into the movie, like what the whole deal was. Like I knew what the story was well before the end.
01:43:04
Speaker
And then Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantum Mania, you also have this on your list. I was so fucking disappointed by that movie. I love the first two Ant-Man movies. I thought they were just so fucking hilarious. Paul Rudd, he is a man out of time, much like Tilda Swinton. I don't know what's going on, but they're not aging. And it's weird.
01:43:33
Speaker
He's so funny, he's so charismatic. This movie was fucking trash. I was so disappointed. They went through all of this effort to have Kang be the big bad only for Jonathan Majors to be convicted of a battery and assault and be written out of the MCU completely by the end of Loki. Sorry, spoilers, anybody who hasn't seen Loki yet.
01:44:00
Speaker
Kang is not the big bad anymore. Jonathan Majors is out of the MCU. Like, it's just, you know, I was just really fucking disappointed. A giant wet fart. I mean, it seems so cynical to me.
01:44:18
Speaker
just the design of Ant-Man, Quantum Mania, Ant-Man and then the Wasp of Quantum Mania, because it felt so much like Rick and Morty. And it just seemed like they were just like humping the Rick and Morty of it all. And it seemed, and I get it, like the visuals that they developed
01:44:38
Speaker
in Rick and Morty, which is a show that I do enjoy, are like kind of groundbreaking and funny and very new and surprising and delightful. And I get it that they're like, oh, people like this. And I think that maybe some of the same creative team was involved in Ant-Man movie.
01:44:54
Speaker
but it just seems so cynical that they would just capitalize on that and also like everything was like so big that it was all at a scale and like I just couldn't tell when they were big or small and there's one point when Paul like it was in question and so they just had a Paul Redby like oh you're huge to his daughter and you're just like oh that's because
01:45:16
Speaker
This this is a fucked up movie visually and no one understands what's going on. And it's yeah, it's just it's like illegible as a film. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's definitely on there for me. But oh, hypnotic. Did you see this?
01:45:39
Speaker
Hypnonic is the new, like I said, my brain's falling apart. It's the same director who did Desperado. We covered him already this year, Paul Rodriguez. It stars Ben Affleck. I cannot tell you what it's about. It's insane. I started watching it on a plane and then the seat got broken and it wouldn't shut off and I just unplugged it and I was hung over and I just stared at it silently for like 90 minutes straight until it was over. It was the worst day of my life.
01:46:09
Speaker
I think. Oh, man. Fast X was a giant wet fart. That was fucking horrible. Expendables four. I tried watching it there again on a plane recently. And I was like, this is fucking horrible. Yeah. The Flash, you know, for the whole, you know, gosh, I did love to see Michael Keaton as Batman again. You know, I'm that was I could actually recite the Michael Keaton Batman movie like verbatim right now if you wanted me to. So, yeah, like that's you know, I was a little boy growing up.
01:46:38
Speaker
Yeah. So I watch that all the time. But fucking, yeah, just speaking of like actors that should be written out of whole franchises and frankly, out of Hollywood altogether and like should never be able to make another movie and we should never have to look at that man's fucking face. He's he's a good one. And also he just was like so annoying. The character is so annoying and unbelievable. And who cares? Fuck off.
01:47:08
Speaker
Yeah.
Year-End Film Summary and Reflections
01:47:09
Speaker
R.I.P. DC universe. Exactly. Let's see what happens. All right. Well, we made it. We made it. What was your rate? What was your. Yeah. What's my what's your score for the year for 90? What a year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to say I'm going to say for four seventy five. OK. Just because there there were a couple of farts.
01:47:36
Speaker
that were slated to be like really good. And then there was a bunch of surprises. Netflix is a film studio. That was a surprise. Who fucking knew? They did some good ones this year.
01:47:51
Speaker
Apple TV, like Apple as like a TV slash film studio has been really surprising. I know we don't talk about TV on this film podcast, but I watch a lot of serialized television and Apple has been doing some really fucking cool shit.
01:48:10
Speaker
But yeah, 475, like a couple of let downs, but overall just really great. Real bang every year. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for being here with us for another episode of We're Spanning Time. Since you made it this far, please comment, rate, subscribe, and in case you need to be reminded,
01:48:33
Speaker
I don't believe in magic, Wombat, but a few times in my life, I've seen things, things I can't explain. And I've come to believe it's not so much what you believe, it's how hard you believe it. And in case you need to be reminded by me, who abandoned Snoopy in the vestibule? Who abandoned Snoopy in the vestibule? I love old-timey voices, that's my favorite thing to do. Beth Martini, thank you for another good episode.
01:49:03
Speaker
Thank you, Ro Quetino, and I'll see you in a shorter period of time than seven months.
01:50:02
Speaker
To me
01:51:33
Speaker
Searching anywhere the field goes Darling strings to make a sound You can see it too