These are fun, off the cuff discussions on movies and streaming series, both new and old together we’ll attempt to bridge the gap between Hollywood industry insider and the casual viewer. This is Alec and I'm Ben and you're listening to the Cinema A to B podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Cinema A to B. Alec took us both a little bit too to get this thing watched and kind of for good reason. It is not an easy watch. So the film is. It's All Quiet on the Western Front.
The Netflix exclusive. Hmm. This thing's brutal. Yeah. Why don't you lead us off on this? This war film from. From last year. So, initial thoughts. It's brutal. Like you said, I feel like it's trying to be kind of like a Terrence Malick war film. Like, I got a lot of thin red line vibes from it. Granted, Thin Red Line, different World War. But, like, that's the feeling I was getting.
All I needed was a babbling brook that we sat on for 30-40 seconds that we didn't get outside of that definitely showed the brutality of war, but it wasn't the best. Like definitely wasn't the best I've seen of showing the brutality of war. Like, it didn't get to like Saving Private Ryan levels of brutality and this and again, different World War. There was some slight differences.
I'd compare it a lot while I was watching it to 1917 because obviously that's pretty fresh in my mind of seeing a World War One film and obviously a very different film. I had a little bit more of a focus story on like one or two characters. I mean, this had this, but it was definitely much more of the what do you do? And, you know, as the the losing opponent in a, you know, four year war and kind of what does that look like? So I walked away.
Not impressed is not I mean, it was it was perfectly fine like, you know, well done. Some shots were absolutely amazing. Some some look like I just saw. I just saw it was just amazed by just the framing of the of it, the actual quality of it, even though I'm watching it obviously on Netflix compressed being streamed to my house, it still looks gorgeous for most of it. I just never was super engaged by it. I think I never was. And the parts that were sad were really telegraphed.
Very much so. Oh, yeah. So like, like, knew this was coming so it didn't hit the same way because I was like, Oh, yeah, you know, X, Y, Z is going to die. You know, there's a lot of people that die in this movie. So like, I'm not like, so, Oh yeah, that's done to death. Telegraphed what, maybe 20 minutes ahead of time? Yeah, I was just like, okay, I'm just kind of like, Yeah, yeah. And I was like, This is coming. This is coming.
Well, I mean, one, they spent too much time building up that relationship. Like, even though, like, like half of the movie, I was like, well, you know, at least one of them's going to die, you know? And granted, like, this is technically the third revision of this this movie, but it's not a remake in the movie, technically, whatever it is. Like, it was actually a book called All Quiet on the Western Front that it's based off of. So, like, famous quote. Yeah.
Famous book. Haven't read it. So, you know. No, no, I know. But you know, and it was kind of the yeah, this is the this is kind of the antithesis of 1917. Yeah. As a movie because 1917, you know, you go through the depravity and horrors of war. But the main character, spoiler alert, the main character's still alive in 1917 at the end. And, and there's some hope there about like what he's trying to get back to spoiler alert as well. And this didn't happen.
So this movie reminded me I don't know if you've ever seen it. 1993, there was a movie called Stalingrad. Oh, yeah. From the German perspective, and it's very similar to this, it's just bleak and all the it opens kind of does seem to where they're it's a, you know, German company and they're, they're fresh never seen battle and they're all you know, gung ho about fighting the Russians And then the reality sets in that no one's making out of this making it out of this alive.
So it reminded me a lot of that. You're right. It is It is a spectacularly shot film. I can see why it's on the nomination list for best cinematography. Yeah, 100%. And now, admittedly, I've not seen everything that's nominated, so I can't really make a great judgment call, but I'd probably be put this right near the top as far as stuff I saw from 22. Yeah, And it's. It is. It's it's a beautiful image. The color grading is fabulous shot selection. But yeah, it didn't.
The emotional beats don't quite hit all the time. It's kind of and the performances aren't aren't really not that memorable that that Albrecht Schuch he plays Kat Schuch. Yeah yeah He's the best he's the best actor in the whole thing. Like and there is no, there's nobody close to him. I mean even Daniel Bruhl character, like, Daniel does a great job of playing whatever that Ernsberger guy is, You know, the sign that signs the treaty, but he's not.
It doesn't have an off screen time to really, you know, pull at it alone. I think they put him in it as a kind of a marketing. You know, usually you need to get one big bigger name in your movie, if you can, to get audiences to watch it. I think this movie needed another big name. I think it had one other big name either either in the lead is Paul or somebody else with a lot of screen time. That would have helped a lot. And that's just reality.
Like it may not even even made the movie that much better, but I think more people would have seen it. So I slightly disagree. I think I mean, I think the acting was like it was definitely mid-grade. I wouldn't say anything. I completely agree with you that Albert was definitely the best of it with Cap, like he's he was fantastically the one that actually drew my eyes. I think they needed to tighten up the story in a little bit, little couple of different ways.
I mean, we had a couple of time jumps that, you know, obviously overseen that they've now spent a year in war, you know, going from there, you know where it is. But I never I never grasp on to Paul and his friends like that little group like it never I never was actually like engaged with him. Whereas like with 1917 or Thin Red Line, like I was able to actually start to care for the characters.
And I don't know how much of that is what the director did or how much of it was trying to see it from the German perspective, knowing that they're going to fail, knowing, you know, the history regards them as the bad guys in this this scenario and those kind of things. I didn't have a really problem with that, so I didn't think that was going to do it. I just was never attached again.
It wasn't until much later that I got attached to Kat, and just because I just seen this guy kind of, you know, act and work and kind of have some fun scenes, but I feel like, I don't know, it felt very meandering, especially on the Paul Kat, like the the war side of things where it was like, I mean, and I guess that's war. I mean, obviously I've never experienced it, so I don't know.
But like this random lot of obviously a lot of downtime, but they didn't take that downtime to really build the characters and they never really got to the true depravity levels of like 1917. It was like they kept kind away from some of the really brutal stuff. So I don't know if they just didn't have the budget for the CGI or the practical effects to do it. And so a lot of it was implied, which can actually sometimes be worse.
But I don't know, it just didn't drag me in like, like this is the depraved, like it felt like a typical war film. I didn't feel like an overly like, you know, the depravity of war, war, war film kind of a thing.
It's not like I mean, just the only yeah, the only scene that really kind of resonated and stuck with me that I thought was pretty haunting was when Paul kills that French soldier in the down in the where there's been showing it's kind of in it and then the regret like that that worked but I was so far into the movie I mean I think that was 2 hours in and this movie's like bordering on 3 hours. I think it's like 2 hours, 48 minutes something. It's too long. It's just too long.
And I found the first half more interesting than the the back half. But I unfortunately, I had like a really splintered viewing experience with this. I I've pretty much watched the first two thirds in the movie. Don't remember what happened. Something came up an emergency or something had to stop it and then remembered where I was and then picked it up later and finished it. And so maybe, maybe there's some recency bias there, I don't know.
But I felt like the first half of the movie was a little more interesting than than the back half. And then it's like it was very predictable, right? Mainly because I am familiar with World War One, not as much as I am World War Two, but I'm familiar enough to know that where they were going, that, hey, just because the treaty, the armistice has been signed doesn't mean guys aren't going to still die.
And I was like you said, stuff is just telegraphed from a mile away that that Kaiser or whatever sitting in his palatial estate, you know, saying, oh, we're just going to we're going to really stick it to him one last time before the the treaty is official. I knew that was going to happen. It is. It is a good picture of the futility of war, though. No, I totally get that. And I feel like they had it been done just a slightly bit better, had been not telegraphed as much.
Some of those emotional beats would have hit more or focus some more of the futility of this. Like the depravity, because, I mean, you were even talking like like in the front half, you had the Daniel Rule's character talking about how terrible this is and how we need to end it or whatever. And obviously now year later, he's on his way to to try to sign this this treaty.
It felt like you either needed to focus on the futility of war, the depravity of war, or these emotional beats like it just kind of felt like I was being pushed too many ways or and they didn't really not that lined up, but like, it just felt off. Like it never really hit nothing actually kind of really landed, which I think what the director was trying to go for.
So again, I walked away from it going, not that I wanted my to, you know, almost 3 hours of my life back because it was definitely beautiful. But it this is definitely a heavily flawed film. And I think the law was definitely saying it right where she's like, if I want to sit down and watch a long movie that looks like this, I'm going to just watch The Thin Red Line again.
She goes, Because it again, it had too much of that nature stuff interposed with like the depravity of war, which again, very much reminiscent of like a Terrence Malick film to me. And I guess I'm going to do that. I'm going to go watch a better movie, which has me engage with with the characters a little bit more. I know, again, Different war. So it's hard to compare those because World War Two moved a whole lot faster than War one.
But if I want to watch World War One film, I want to watch 1917, you know, or or Paths of Glory by Julia. Yeah, this is probably the best. 1917 is is great, but I think Paths of Glory is the the best World War one film that there is, But I think 1917 is more accessible for, for regular people and then obviously it's only a couple of years old. Yeah, well, and I'll also say 1917 is like we talk we're talking about the the cinematography of this movie, 1917 blows it out of the water summit.
I don't know. I want to tell you, man, that that night scene in the town where you fight for the red flag. Yeah, No, that's fair. That's fair. That but there's there's a whole lot more going on there than just the cinematography. I mean, the score. The score. They did a minimalist kind of score for this for All Quiet on the Western front. Like that. Weird, like horns and drum. It's very unsettling. It's the whole thing's very unnerving. I will say I will give the the filmmakers credit.
They did give me a sense of uneasiness and anxiety, watching all quiet on the Western Front that I didn't always have watching 1917 because of that minimalist music with the drums and stuff in it, like shrieking. It's really unnerving. And so that was largely successful.
But yeah, 1917, I mean, the but as far as the as far as the color grade and shot selection, for the most part, all quiet, not like I don't think it's like a mile behind 1917 know but you're right there are certain scenes in 1917 they just put it over the top you know so like for example like there is a point like near the, like the latter third or whatever it was the night before the, you know, the treaty gets signed or whatever, and Paul and Kat
are sleeping off in that little French town that they've occupied or whatever, and they kind of go to bed and then it's now just shots of, you know, inside of rooms with flares happening outside of like light peeking through. And I was like, this is a cool shot, But it doesn't add anything to like, I don't see just the passing of time.
Yeah. And I was like, there was so much of that that we could have cut this down, maybe gotten it on, you know, 2 hours or 15 minutes, you know, or even under 2 hours like cut. It cuts terms on the fact that would have sped the movie along or at least gotten the story going where some of those beats might have hit more because I wouldn't have had as much time to just, you know, in between those beats or had as much time to kind of process them to kind of make me feel a little bit more emotional.
Again, the telegraphing probably were too still like cats death. I never would have been like, Oh my goodness, Cat is now dead. Because, you know, I mean, I was kind of curious how it would happen. And then when the reveal, I was like, Oh yeah, that makes sense. Now, how did you watch this? Did you did you have the were you watching in the German original language was subtitles. Okay, so same same here. So we had the same and I try to do that, you know I subtitles don't turn me off.
In fact, if it's something like this, I would rather hear I get more inventive. I can actually just hear the German, even though I can't understand, you know, 99% of it. We get better acting than a dub version. Yeah, And honestly, I get at total aside, the technology is nearly here where they're going to be able to not only re dub correctly, the mouth movement is going to be corrected for 20 languages.
There's already there's already a demo of it where you'll be able to watch these, these movies and their mouths will move correctly for, for an English translation, which is pretty cool. It is, but I'll try it out. I'll definitely try it out.
But there's something to be said about being there, you know, in the moment, in front of the camera, dealing with that instead of being, you know, in a sound booth where, you know, you've got your, you know, tea with honey right out the outside, crisp, ready for you when you need to take a break and, you know, stop confrontation, then, you know. So I definitely try it out, you know, when it happens and see what I think. But yeah, we'll see. We'll see what audiences think.
I don't I don't mind subtitles. And again, much like you, I'd much prefer to hear the actual actor, you know, saying it as opposed and that's for obviously live action for, you know, animated stuff that's maybe in a different language than then, which I generally will list. You know, watch it in the the English version. No, absolutely no. Yeah. This like you said, this is this is a flawed movie. But for a Netflix production, I I'd say it's pretty solid.
It's not the best I've seen from Netflix and I don't know if this is a I'm not going to Google it right now. I don't know if this is an actual Netflix production or of this or they just slap their name on it. I don't know who all the rights holders are.
I'm I'm assuming it's a it's a since it's exclusive to Netflix that it was produced much like the king was which I which is probably one of my more favorite films that that Netflix has actually produced the one with Tim Timothy Sharmila Yeah really good film but yeah I mean this was if you're warm or if you're a war film aficionado, you've probably already seen this. I don't know where it ranks. Not, it's not bad. It's probably middle of the pack.
It's kind of weird to me that it's a got as many Oscar nominees as it did. Yeah, y definitely won for best picture. Is throw me for a little bit too. Yeah I don't I, I it's it's nominated for nine Oscars now and I mean cinematography so cinematography 100% totally can get it I have you I've got it up here so it you know best sound design was good visual effects I'm assuming we're seeing a lot of stuff that looks like it was just shot in camera. That was a visual effects.
I get that best picture. No, no. Then separated screenplay and cinematography. Iris. What's that? Makeup and hairstyling? Sure, sure. Yeah. And production design. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, most of them are justified, but. And this is, again, these, you know, shock shocker. These are our opinions. Yeah, but what, what. But yeah, I think, I think some of that was a reach.
And the reason I say that is because I've seen better war films that didn't pick up near as many nominations as this like they didn't know well and I'm a little surprised. I mean he's got a 7.8 on IMDB, which I know you know, we're not really care that much about ratings, but that's that's really high, in my opinion. Like almost an eight. I mean, you're talking like Raiders of the Lost Ark is like 8.1. You know, saving or saving Private Ryan is like 8.1.
You tell me this is 3/10 of a point eight less. I don't know. Maybe, you know, maybe, maybe it's really resonated in Europe. Maybe maybe European viewers have seen this and are like, yeah, this is this. Make no mistake, Europe is still scarred from both world wars like in the psyche of the continent for good reason. They are they are scarred and so maybe it resonated. I don't know.
Maybe people went back and looked looked up more of their family tree and then were like, Man, yeah, look at all the people we lost in First World War because yeah. WW two gets all of the, all the books, all the movies and as far as brutality, World War One was a far more brutal conflict. I mean yeah, you gain you gain no ground mowed down by machine guns, mustard gas. Do you remember was there any gas seen in this? No, not really.
So you had the scene where they're walking to the front and there was that bomb that dropped that mister. And then he says, you know, gas, gas, gas. And everyone puts their mask on. But there wasn't actually a gas, so I couldn't tell when the tanks rolled in. It had a like the the air like had like a mist or fog. I got a yellow change now. Is it there. Now is mustard gas. Okay. But I don't remember. They went into that room with it was just littered with bodies.
No. Yeah. And they were, they were all dead from chemical warfare. But I don't remember seeing I don't remember seeing guys like actually dying via mustard gas, which is horrific. I mean, as horrific a death as you can think of. And I hate to tell them like, oh, well, you should have put more stuff that's horrific in here. But and there's some I don't know, there's some there's some rough moments and and there's a flame flip. The flame thrower stuff is really rough.
And I don't know how much of it's me conditioned to watching war movies with you know, a little bit more upper ending, not really joyous. And certainly Apocalypse Now's not not an opera. And that's one of my that's one of my favorites. Yeah. Private Ryan's even sort of middle middle ground middle road on on. It's tone on how it ends. Yeah. Thin red lines. Not a not a happy movie. Oh, and yeah, I that that movie's tremendous.
I remember I, I know we disagree on we need to do the debate of Private Ryan versus thin red line Yeah yeah we design team I used to be team Private Ryan now I'm team thin red line team. All right. I mean, I'm Private Ryan. Now, bear in mind, I haven't watched them for either of them for a while, so maybe in my old age, I will appreciate that red line more. And I don't think I'm actually just stirring up trouble because I don't think there needs to be a versus debate on those two films.
They can they can coexist nicely. What is it? You know, two different theaters. So. Yeah. And well, yeah, two different theaters of war. And then somebody I don't remember who somebody made a really nice comparison that said Private Ryan is a novel and the Thin Red Line is a poem. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. And I thought that was beautiful. And I was like, Yeah, that's that. That describes those two movies to a T. And so you're telling me a, is the novel better than the poem?
No, they're just they're both great. So. But you know what we're missing? What? Fantastic War film. So Windtalkers, the fantastic Nick Cage vehicle? No, just kidding. Sorry. You want to talk about remakes? Yes. Do you want to talk about a remake? Give me freaking remake of Windtalkers because the whole Navajo code speak thing was is super cool. And that movie just ruined it. I remember seeing the trailers for that going, Oh yeah, that's that's great.
That finally, finally that that group is getting their due and no, no, just. Just the ridiculous Nic Cage vehicle. Yeah, yeah. Now that would be a great remake. Yeah, but what a decent director behind it. Put some serious actors behind it.
Get a good you know obviously the there's a great story already kind of you know there with with that the code and stuff just don't make it a nic cage vehicle like no they made their mistake was oh we're going to make the lead Is the lead going to be a Navajo code talker? No, no, no. Let's just put Nic Cage in there and then. No, that was It's terrible. That's terrible. Terrible. So, yeah, this is tough because the war film library catalog is really deep now. Right?
So, like the the deck was stacked against this, I think, in a lot of ways. And then coming off what Yeah. Three, three years ago with 1917. And that's going to be the immediate comparison that it's drawing. Yeah, it's like my question. I love to conjecture if this came out in 2019 and like maybe it doesn't win best picture, but that it cleaned up at the Oscars and then 1917 comes out last year. What kind of conversation we have in on what's the better movie like?
Are we even able to put ourselves in that headspace to say, like, if All Quiet got the theatrical run and the 1970s and Netflix? It's hard to say. It's hard to say. It is. Again, I feel like 1917 still would have beat it out because the story is tighter then yeah, like it is more concise. This felt, you know, out and it still kind of made those hits of the brutality of war, the futility of war, of just what World War One was kind of do. And I think it was Sam Mendes, right. Did 1917 and.
DEAKINS Yeah. Who by the way, as much as I think this is great, I haven't seen Empire of Light but Deakins did that. And so I'm like, I kind of like I'm already rooting for a movie that I have not seen because of Deakins Even though this movie is beautiful. And I'm like, I felt bad.
But anyways, beside the point, welcome to Deakins A-To-B Deakins It'd be amazing this of Deakins anyway, but like, I think even again, it's hard to put yourself in that headspace, but even switching that out, I still think I would prefer 1917 over this movie because, again, the I think the acting was better. I think the storyline was better.
A Definitely the shot selection story beats were better and again, I the night scene when he's going to that town were basically representative basically going through hell kind of a situation. I just there's nothing that replicates it in all quiet and I was kind of well I was waiting for that moment, like I was waiting for something not equivalent, but I was waiting for a similar moment that would really resonate with me.
And the closest it got was was Paul watching that French, the French soldier, die in front of him, that he just stabbed. It was powerful. But it didn't it didn't reach the height of no of that of that scene in 1917 where. Yeah, you're right. He is it is his descent into into hell.
Yeah. Yeah. This is a solid movie but I do question I do question a best picture nomination I really do unless they're I mean, is the Academy maybe starting now to say, hey, we're going to kind of take what we felt like was maybe the best of the bunch from the streaming services and give it a best Picture nomination to open it up, because that would make sense to me.
Right. This is this is Netflix kind of acknowledging, hey, this streaming these streaming studios are our power players now and we'll we'll take maybe what the best of what they came up with in 22 and we'll give it a best picture nomination and a bunch of other nominations. So the only other explanation I can come up with, yeah, I hesitate to want that because I like I want oh, I don't I'm perfectly I'm perfectly fine them pulling movies from streaming services.
But I wanted to also kind of measure up to that best picture. Like I want it to be in the same quality. Now, of course, this is a really weird year, in my opinion, for best picture nominees of like where you've got movies like Top Gun, Maverick and Avatar, which I think you take any other year that we've had, the Oscars would never have made the list. I mean, yeah, it's COVID killin the theaters It's yeah we've talked about that That's that's what it is.
But it is a weird it is a weird nominee here. I mean, it is it's half the stuff nobody's seen. The other half everybody has seen. I mean, I think if you if I went out on the street right now and surveyed a hundred people and asked them what should be best picture, I'm pretty confident Top Gun Maverick would be their answer for like the average cinemagoers. Yeah and yeah and that's fair.
Like it's it was a lot of fun but can we get back to I'm just missing an era of like when Gladiator was named Best Picture and everybody saw it. Like most people saw Gladiator or most people saw Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King. Right. And if you go back through Best Picture winners, Return of the Kings, like the last big blockbuster that anybody saw that won Best picture, that was 2003 for the 24 Oscars. Yeah, it's been a long time.
Everything after that, like usually pretty obscure or middle of the road obscure, like No Country for Old Men the year it won which I knew or what Argo in like 2012 I think Yeah yeah yeah Argo I knew it was evil It saw Argo. Yeah yeah it made it made good money. But it wasn't it wasn't. I wouldn't call Argo a blockbuster. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah. So yeah, they've got they've got their work cut out for them.
On trying to figure out what what the criteria are and you know exactly what's like, what deserves it, what doesn't, you know, when they take a look The departed. But yeah I wouldn't either of them again I would like you're you're correct and they're not huge blockbuster films no halo the rings close if anything ever get back to that that era. Yeah. Especially like that era in 1998 when you know, the greatest film ever, Shakespeare in Love won Best Picture, Man. They got it right that year.
So there'll be a drinking contest later for how many times an episode we bring up 1998 and the sham Oscars. Any time, any time Ben gets but heard about Saving Private Ryan. Grab a drink, grab a drink, or you bring it up just to anger. You know, I find I it's what's funny now is it's kind of increased the legend of Saving Private Ryan rather than worked against it. It may be the best non best picture winner of all time. It might be so certainly up there.
Yeah. You have any you know, any closing wrap up on before we wrap up all quiet. I'm not much I mean, like if you do see it, I would recommend carving the time out to watch it and watch it in one sitting. I think that benefited me more. If I had had to carve this up and watch it kind of piecemeal like you did, I think I don't know if I think I would have the same problem where I wouldn't have gone back to it for weeks and just been like, Oh yeah, I need to go finish this. Like, there's nothing.
Would it drawn me back to make me, make me watch it, you know, finish it. The irony is, I think is the people that I would recommend watch it have already seen it. So for, for the average cinema goer, moviegoer, I'm probably not even going to worry about it. It's just because it is. It's just downright depressing. Yeah, but it does. If you've never seen anything that conveys how futile and how many young men futilely lost their lives in the first World War, then yeah, give it a watch.
And it's not hard to watch because it's on Netflix. So. Or go watch Paths of Glory by Kubrick. Yeah or 1917 Yeah yeah well or thin red line Yeah well the list goes on we can we can post what we do know we'll post we'll come up with some sort of joint top ten list of war films we both recommend and post it somewhere on socials, which brings me to follow us on the Facebooks and the Instagrams at Cinema A to B and now YouTube. Yeah, as cinema A to B as well.
If you want to watch, watch the podcast there. And then we are, we are now on the TikToks. Wha?! @ cinema A-To-B Yeah, so was waiting to surprise Alec on that one. Oh man He is frustrated with me. the Sure. Oh yeah. We are on the TikToks @cinemaatob We are on the TikToks ugh. No it's what is your daughter running that then? Yeah. My daughter is my six year old daughter soon to be six year olds running, running our TikTok page. It's blowing up because you only need to be six to blow up on TikTok.
Nobody appreciate you guys tuning in. Listen into another episode of Cinema A to B and yeah, if you're listening the audio only, please give us a review. I think you can give a review on Apple Podcasts and then maybe a star rating on Spotify. That's it. So I think Google Podcasts is Google around that.
Yeah, and feel free to engage with us on these these places, and especially since we're talking this movie, if you do live in Europe or a not, you know, not the US and have, you know, experienced war in this kind of way and this resonated with you a lot more than the two of us. Hey, like let us know that this was a much better movie for you than maybe what we experienced.
Oh, yeah. If anybody. Yeah, if anybody's listening from Europe and you want to get a hold of us and comment on the YouTube about your own, if you've got if you've done research into your family tree on the First World War and loved, I would love to read that. I really would. So yeah again thanks for for catching Cinema: A to B. We appreciate you. Thanks everybody.