Eddington, The Fantastic Four, Sunlight, Top 5 Joaquin Phoenix Performances (2023)

Adam and I did that one back in twenty twenty three, around the time of the previous Phoenix Ariastor collaboration bo Is Afraid, But First Astors Eddington, which opened and wide released this weekend and has been the recipient of strongly and maybe this is appropriate divisive takes since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Phoenix is Joe Cross, a conservative small town sheriff with political ambitions.

Pedro Pascal is Ted Garcia, the town's incumbent mayor. Oh and did we mention that it's twenty twenty.

what's the best COVID movie? And by COVID movie, I don't necessarily mean a movie that was made during the pandemic. I mean a movie that is explicitly or metaphorically reckoning with our shared experience as people who lived through the pandemic. For example, the first titles I think of our asteroid city and white Noise. Well, Michael, Certainly, Eddington, written and directed by Ariastor of Hereditary and Midsommar Fame, counts as

what Sam calls a COVID movie. Set in the small New Mexico town of the title, during the spring of twenty twenty, the film pits Joaquin Phoenix's sheriff Joe Cross, a skeptic of the virus in general and of masking in particular, against Pedro Pascal's mayor Ted Garcia, who staunchly supports mandates requiring masks, limiting customers in grocery stores, and establishing six feet of separation in public. Have I triggered you enough yet, Michael? The movie expands beyond the standoff

between these two men. However, to consider how the entire community crumbles amidst escalating personal tensions, political posturing, and social media fueled conspiracies. Going back to Sam's prompt about COVID movies, I unsurprisingly leaned toward Asteroid City if I were looking to put a film in the time capsule for future generations. Though that's partly because I think Asteroid City touches on

current anxieties even beyond the pandemic. Now Listeners on the film spotting Family discord throughout other titles for pandemic movies, such as Steven Soderberg's Kimmy, Sarah Polly's Women Talking, and Ryan Johnson's Glass Onion. What say you, Michael about pandemic movies in general and Eddington in particular? Is Eddington a time capsule film for the pandemic? Or should it be left in the dustbin of history largely forgotten?

to hell with it? I mean, they didn't like it in any way, And I think it's actually getting a more interesting response here in release, because I'm reading kind of a really sharply divided and also I think a lot of people stepping up on Reddit or letterboxed two and not just so not just mainstream you know, old lye critics, but people stepping up and really grappling with the fact that they really like a lot of it and really kind of hate a lot of it. And

that's me. Yeah, in that way, it's not It doesn't really reflect the the psychic temperature of the pandemic, because I don't think anybody, any sane person would feel that they were had mixed feelings about you know, the last five years, you know, I mean, and it's just nothing but fall out of every kind that we're going to be studying a generation from now. We barely know what

it is. But it's hard to it's really hard to get extremely recent history sorted out in your mind about what captured you know, you know, twenty twenty, or just even just sort of like a metaphoric sort of pandemic sense of isolation and all the rest of it. I do love that somebody brought up Kimmi though, because I

love Soderberg's Kimmi. If you want to talk about a straight ahead, straight ahead meat and potatoes, you know, kind of linear mystery thriller, storytelling in a pandemic, shot in a pandemic, set in a pandemic with an agoraphobic, pandemically paranoid for good reason character trying to solve, you know, a rear window type mystery in her Laft without leaving it. And I love that about that, and I think that

film is just a grand, efficient story to us. Yeah, that's one, but yeah, I mean Eddington, I wrote a really squirrely review on that one. I do think I was happy to have seen it a second time, frankly to kind of help sort it out why. I really like a lot of the first two thirds and I kind of hate the last forty minutes. Did you feel that way?

and impressive. I don't have as linear of a response where it's a first half second half break. To me, though I would agree, I do think the second half is weaker, squirrely review. Maybe that's what listeners are going to get, because that's how I feel. I went into this somewhat dreading it, even though I am a very big fan of Hereditary and had positive, if mixed feelings about his other films. I just didn't want to go back to twenty twenty. I wasn't really ready. I didn't

know what could be said about it this soon. Maybe that's why we're struggling, Michael Is. It's not so much that Eddington doesn't have anything to say about it, because I did think. I do think I landed on something there, But I don't know how helpful it is to capture the brain rot and the chaos, and the honestly the dysfunction and hatred that we experienced just a few years on from the dark heart of the pandemic. I don't know what the ultimate value is of an endeavor like that,

but I found myself surprisingly appreciating the attempt. It's not entirely successful. But I did appreciate the attempt and the one thing. Let me throw this out at you and see if you know there's the one thing, this one thing that I kind of landed on it. Maybe this is what the movie's trying to do, is just capture the fact that in the pandemic, the virus was not

enough of an enemy for us as human beings. You would think, and initially maybe it felt this way that could you ask for a more common enemy to unite against is a virus?

Maybe even beyond the pandemic, just as a nation. I don't know if Eddington is assured enough to pull that off, but as an attempt to capture that brain rap that you know, really did spread from sea to shiny sea in this country. I do think the movie. I do think the movie manages that in some pretty effective ways. Do we need it now? I'm not so sure about that. But did you did that have a hook for you?

found it not too soon. And in fact, the best of this film, which is almost the first two thirds, it's really more like not halfway that I feel like it was settling for something else, because what happens a little past a halfway point, there is an escalation in the plot where a certain key character, you know, kicks it up a notch to quote Anchorman, and and you know, we have a kind of a different, a different, huge plot redirection, and it's it's it's very effective, I think,

And I think one of the things Astor does really well. And this is also Joaquin Phoenix I think working at his best in this film. I mean, I don't think this is this film is Joaquin Phoenix at his best. But the best work he does in this film is we have we have a characterization of this guy, Joe Cross, who doesn't come out as a wildly political really like almost inhumanly stubborn caricature of a conservative, nothing like that.

Nothing like that. It's a much more of a slow build and just kind of like, h I don't know about the band. I love the I love the tone of the first scene where you know, it's just it's just a debate and an argument between two reservation police coming off the pueblo and you know, saying to Joe and they're both both in their respective you know, law enforcement cars, and it's where's your mass Joy says, I

don't need it? You know, very casual, and that's you know, it wasn't like it's not like the lines of being drawn in the sand. And I think that's why why the film is as intriguing as it is for as long as it is, because Joe Cross, even if he is you know, people disagree all over the place about how sympathetic or unsympathetic he is from from scene to scene, but he's generally a pretty foolish mediocrity of a man.

And I think that's asters you know, he's he's not running from that, he's leaning into it, and it's up to it's up to the actor to make that compelling, even if not heroic, you know, but that's a good build to that character and very interesting swerves. And then know what's happening around that, well, you have you have at least four or five and maybe six different subplots that all kind of feed what is going on in

this town. There's this nascent Black Lives Matter movement, very small but very mighty in the eyes of the mostly younger characters who are kind of newly awakened, let's say, by what they have seen on the TV in the recent George Floyd murder, up in Minneapolis, and that's why this film is set in when it's sad May twenty twenty, and some of those scenes are better written than others, or more germane to the I guess the overall plot.

But I think you know, I am never a guy, Josh, who goes to any movie to see them tell me to watch movie makers and actors tell me a nice linear story. I appreciate it when it's interesting, I guess. But it's about forty ninth on my list of why I go to the movies. You know, I just I like somebody chaos. I mean this you want to talk

about a chaotic time. I mean, in a way I wish this film we're a little more kind of out of control and chaotic in those early more realistic, uh kind of slyly comic scenes where everybody is kind of getting dinged for either their kind of liberal credulousness maybe in some characters eyes, or they're sort of like conspiracy prone mania or their butt headed conservatism. I mean, it's all there, and it was all in the country, and I like that Astor took it on, so I for me,

it's not too early, Josh. It's like keep it coming. I like topical stuff that forces people into me calling you completely wrong in your opinion that it was too still to make this move.

But going back to Phoenix and this character of Joe Cross the Sheriff, I agree with you there on the characterization of him, because depending where you lived, the conflicts that you encountered at that time, maybe we're more like that, almost like aggressively passive aggressive about masks, you know, is how you and that's how Joe carries himself, right, is like, I'm not going to make a big deal about it, but I'm also not going to put the mask on.

But notice this happens in an early scene at a grocery store where the employees are keeping an older man who's not wearing a mask out, and Joe stops them and says, you can't put your hands on him like that, and says let him in because the man is claiming he can't breathe through the mask. So okay, you know, everyone maybe is trying to be reasonable in this crazy situation. But then what happens. Then Joe enters the grocery store after the man and doesn't put on a mask on either,

and so we're getting this slow escalation. The mayor is in the grocery store shopping, and so they have this confrontation, which is, you know, it's very familiar there. It's a showdown of claims and counterclaims, facts and rumors, pandering and posturing. And I thought that was very smartly handled and written. But to your point about you know, Phoenix's performance and the characterization of this sheriff notice that he buys the older man's groceries as well.

trying to reach her and making space for her. She creates these bizarre, creepy dolls that she sells online, and we learn early on he's buying them online to kind of, you know, give her a boost of encouragement. So there are these other sides to the sheriff that I think are important, especially to your point as things do escalate, and he, you know, he suffers from a particular form of brain rot in a particular political direction. At the same time, Pascal's mayor you know, the movie pokes at

him too. He seems to he seems to almost delight in the new rules that the pandemic is allowing him to show that by following them, how progressive he is, you know. So this is this is a little bit of an undercutting of that character as well, which I think does make the movie richer. And we could list a number of other characters who are involved, but this thing really broadens out. I was wondering, Michael, a movie that came to mind, and maybe I'm way off here.

You seem to be in the mood of telling me when I'm way off, so let me have it. But I thought at this point, I thought at this point about Robert Eltman's Nashville in the sense of a movie that does come to incorporate a very large ensemble cast, also wants to, you know, be a cinematic consideration of America at a critical juncture, and do it through this broad canvas. Now, stylistically, there I can't think of two filmmakers.

Maybe further apart, right, Astor doesn't have the shaggy, free flowing touch that you know Altman does, which made us feel like a fly on the wall. Astor is very controlled. His films are very controlled, so there's that difference. But just in the sense of the broad canvas and trying to capture Americana, Nashville did come to mind for me. Yet, how far off am I?

is a different register. Yeah, and it's and it's it's a it's a little it's a little slippery almost all the way through. And I guess why I did think it, you know it, I I sense Astor's need to give this picture a satisfying, if outrageously kind of overscaled action climax, just to kind of bring it to a head. And maybe was always scripted that way. I probably was, but to me that the kind of outrageousness does seem to me much more puerile, and I guess adolescent need call it.

I mean, I think I compared it to like Tarantino, a guy who I just don't think has a serious storytelling bone in his body. Truly. I think he's got great skill and he's often a lot of fun, but he you know, to me, it's it's just empty calories, uh, you know, and and you know, so be it, you know, asters much more he'll he'll never have the commercial instincts the Tarantino does. And this film. The funny thing about where this movie goes, where editing goes, and it's last

half hour forty minutes or so. It's it's almost as if that part of the film exists, so that a twenty four could legitimately include some pretty shocking, you know, scenes of firearm you know, I mean, like like major league heavy duty firearms and fireballs as part of the trailer, and it looks like a movie. I mean that trailer is very, very crafty, and that it seems to get everything about the film, and it might even get a traditional action audience a little bit interested in seeing it.

Now what they get when they go in the door, I mean maybe, but they're going to be waiting to way.

male protagonist. And he's a very clear eyed and honest, kind of deadpan black humor perspective on on you know, on this outrageous, outrageous flaws of your typical American and that's what you get in Midsommer, and you also get that into Ednington. And I don't think it kills the movie. I think that actually, as I say, because Quaquin Phoenix is there to slowly build the character. And also the writing, as you say, it's not all one note like a movie like Don't Look Up. Just you know, they don't

even have one note. Is too many notes for to describe Don't Look Up. And it's treatment of all the attitudes and characters, and that I think what you said about Emma Stone, yes, but I'm I think I read that those scenes differently even after two viewings than you.

surprising female characters. And I think, you know, Emma Stone does God knows every single thing she could do to make that woman more dimensional interesting than she is on the page.

than what the screenplay provided. As this conspiracy theory obsessed mother in law, which is a crucial part of what people were, you know, going through, is when you couldn't have human connection, it just amped up our inclination to turn to digital connections, which is why Facebook, Instagram, YouTube plays a prominent role in this movie. I think it's

pretty sharp about that. I would also say, to counter your claim about, you know, the sheriff's feelings towards his wife, one of the first videos we see him watching, I think it's the very first scene, is a YouTube video about someone talking about infertility and how that's hard for couples and handling it, and we learn that this is part of their difficulty in their marriage at least, if not infertility. I think it's just a willingness that he does want kids and she's not in an emotional state

for it. So so yeah, I do think there's more of a genuine impetus to him, the sheriff, wanting to work out that marriage. But I agree the role that Emmastone plays is underwritten. Do you think we should segue Michael to a little spoiler? We've been dancing around that last third the climax, and I know I do want to mention one bit that really did work well for me,

that chaotic bit, which is also a joke. I found it, but I'm not quite sure how So maybe listeners, if you haven't seen Eddington yet and don't want to hear a few spoiler bits towards the end, you might want to jump ahead. If you're going to do that and you end up seeing the film and want to let us know your thoughts, you can always email us at Feedback at filmspawning dot net. As we mentioned, Eddington is currently playing in wide release.

trying to kill him. So he breaks into the gun shop, comes out with like a Schwarzenegger style machine gun assembly, and just starts laying waste to the whole town.

There is a thread acknowledging you know that part of America clearly originally the original indigenous peoples who lived here. That's a thread in this movie. And something about that bit where Cross is laying among the bones and then has to get up with his guns and still run out and try to take down his assassins. I don't I don't know what it says. I don't know what it means to say, but it seemed apropos for our

current moment and as I said, the country's history. That's where I think Eddington is doing something that makes me at least glad I gave it a shot.

in narrative filmmaking. I think that's an immediate weakness because it makes it makes it easier to just sort of, you know, get off on the killing, which I you know, we've you know, the whole industry is built on that to some degree. But uh, I think the way that scene is staged and edited and timed, it it leans into the many, many too many times we've seen exactly that sort of thing played for straight laughs in a much lighter film, And so I think the audience doesn't

know if you know what what what it's. It's it's a somewhat insecure a bit of that sequence. I think, you know, to your point, Astor doesn't quite really know how he wants to come off. I think just in that bit, uh, you know what I thought of I mean, I discus I've just seen the play recently, what I

thought it was. I mean, this is this is sort of just the fact that he's landing on the bones of First Nation people who were there before all any of these idiot white people came along, just are shooting up their town, a town with the absolute palest whitest name in the history of fictional cities in film, Eddington, you know, and I'd love to get the backstory on the probably halpless military figure that it's named after. You know, maybe there's a maybe there's a short film in that.

So maybe there's a Tracy Let's play called The Minutes that premier here at Steppenwolf, played on Broadway, and it's got a very similar kind of dynamic about these foolish, blinkered small town white sort of politicos just kind of going about their business and in a way that gets increasingly sinister, and it all kind of ends with this sort of second layer of history kind of eating them, eating them up on stage. I don't want to lay it out to uh too completely, but and it's all

about the people that were there first. And yes, it's an effective moment, and it's also a little unexamined or it kind of needs a yes and improv prompt at that point, like yes, okay, good and and we don't really get that because it's an action set. I mean, I mean at that point, astor probably realized, Okay, this just has to kind of I have this thing carved up. In the eight beats, they're all increasingly violent and fatal and bloody, and you know, we just got to keep

it going at this point. But I don't love I just don't love the way that movie, inevitably, I suppose, goes where it goes, and in sort of a way that again, if you see the trailer, you're really you're really I don't want to pin it on a twenty fours marketing, but it's just it's just promising a different movie than you get. And I think this movie really does get at a lot of what we still feel. And this is why I don't even look at it like recent history, Josh. I think you know how many

people died last week of COVID in this country. I don't know, hundreds, maybe maybe more than a thousand. Is there always another viral threat seemingly these days. Yes, So to me, it just plays like it happens to be specific recent history, May twenty twenty. It also feels like, you know, like we're not over with this. It's not you know, in that regard, It's not well in every regard. This movie is not the best Years of our lives right.

Came out in nineteen forty six, a year after the war, and the whole movie is about people coming home from the war like that. You know, it's set in you know, it's set basically one year back.

It's two and a half. But it does feel like it's either you know, this is one of the rare ones where it's like, you know, just not necessarily to clean up the mess of it, but to actually let some of the things flesh out. You know, it could have been longer, and there's something a little off about the length. So what do you think, do you think it's or did you feel like enough already?

we meet these kids, these teenagers. Those are interesting stories, you know, I think the Sheriff's deputies are interesting stories we only get little bits of and more about the marriage the movie I feel I could use. We've talked about, you know, Ema Stone being underused. So yeah, so before we wrap up here, we've worked through a few things. Do you feel stronger in terms of a little less squirrely?

Let me say, would you say you are overall favorable on the film or more favorable I am than maybe after you saw it. Okay, I'm gonna go favorable as well.

Sooner Moondog. So Michael, we have a little bit of a questionnaire we ask new family members to fill out if they so desire when they join the family. Jason did that for us, so I want to share some of his responses here. We ask you know when they started listening, if they remember their first show, and he says, it's been so long, I can't remember when I started listening. Well, thanks for sticking with us for a while, Jason. His

favorite reviewer segment. Jason says, one that sticks out is the methodical way you broke down Killers of the Flower Moon. I love it when you guys geek out about a film or a filmmaker. What review did we get wrong? I struggle to recaller review I strongly disagree with, which means that either the show has started affecting the way I watch movies, or that we share similar viewpoints, in

which case I commend you on your impeccable tastes. It's always always encouraging to hear that the indoctrination is taking effect among our listeners. All right, Jason on Letterbox, As I said, here's his top four films listed there, eight and a half, The Empire Strikes Back, Princess Mononoke, and Rear Window. Any issues with any of those titles, Michael.

about movies or movie making. He said, the easy answer is Ebert's Great Movies, But I will mention a book I got from the book Fair as a young upcoming centophile that stuck with and ignited a curiosity about film move monsters, monster makeup, and monster shows to put on by Alan Ormsby. Thanks for the recommendation, Jason, I am unfamiliar with that one. Thank you again for joining the

Film Spotting Family. If you would like to join the Film Spotting Family, just go to Film Spotting Family dot com.

superhero movies. And yes, I remember the competition was strong around two thousand and five and two thousand and seven. Ten years later we got Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan's turn. That one fared even worse. Here's a review we dug up. Everyone on screen speaks in a flat, earnest monotone, bordering on openly not giving a rip. It's a choice, a boring one, but a choice. Do those words sound familiar, Michael.

I skipped the twenty fifteen one and didn't make it to this latest iteration. So you are our Fantastic Four correspondent. Is the third time the charm.

first ant Man film with Paul Rudd. Uh that that that to me felt like a relief when it came, because it was it wasn't It wasn't about yet another apocalyptic sort of universe crushing scenario. Is more just about like regional trouble, you know, with the ant Man fighting the forces of darkness. All.

it's actually really sharply production design for once. It's not it doesn't it's not production design that gets completely smothered by every other visual element, you know, the via, the visual compiled, the digital compositing, the green screen stuff, all that. It actually is a really tasty look at Manhattan the sixties. If in an alternate universe, if the designers of Tomorrow Land redid Manhattan so that there's an awful lot of skyscrapers that don't really exist on the never did exist

on the skyline. But you know, so you know, alongside this Chrysler building and the pan Am building, uh, you know, you get you get these kind of wonderful wonderful you know, what if, what if? The what if? You know, the jet Age, space Age. It's great, and there's kind of it's a movie that really trusts, maybe maybe to to

a fault, the hangout factor. The audience might feel like, I don't mind hanging out with these four Fantastic four as they sort of struggle through through various issues about it's increasingly serious about like, okay, you know, are we really going to deal with this ethical dilemma of doing what the nemesis in this story is asking, which involves a new family member, and it's a big issue. I don't want to spoil it, but I did sense that people were relaxing into enjoying it more than I've maybe

experienced in a lot of marvels lately. Pedro Pascal's good. I think he's kind of It's the first performance I've seen it. It didn't seem surprising in any way it's a very steady, methodical performance. He's a very serious character. But it's Vanessa Kirby that really kind of takes off a little bit in this one. And you know, not great, but good, solidly good. And you know, I'm you know, I'm a Superman, which I also I know I like

Superman more than you did. You didn't like it at all, but I think we hated the same things about it, the fact that it had that sort of crushing, punishing, sort of like jokey sadism running through it, and that's

James Gunn at his worst. But I did like a lot of the other bits of Superman that maybe most people wouldn't go to a movie four like in fact, like the fact that there's a really interesting argument between Lois Lane and Clark Kent at the beginning of the picture that's all about like how do we sell how

do we solve our relationship issues? And that scene is not a joke, and it actually is like it's buying in, you know, buying into the and and there's there's some of that, there's some of that even Superman very up and down film and kind of neurotically uneven and fantastic four is much more confident and sort of just a gratifying, pretty good picture all the way through. And look, I didn't you know these days. I'll take it.

a manimal direction here with Sunlight. It's not why I am nominating it for our Golden Brick Award. Let me just put it that way, But I do want to throw Sunlight into the ring for a Golden Brick because, boy, we talk about, you know, looking for movies to consider for this award having original vision and taking bold strokes. Yeah, how about a movie by a ventriloquist comedian of sorts who is writing it, co writing it, directing and starring

in a monkey costume. Just the fact that this works, Michael, that this isn't an abject disaster, I think is worth admiring. And it is much better than that. This film really worked for me. Uh, and it is all about to my mind, Contie's performance in some ways, you can tell it's a first film, and you know, maybe gets a little too easily cheery at the end. But this performance she gives as Jane, the woman behind the mask is it's alarmingly entertaining and works on a number of levels.

The idea here Jane is basically fleeing an abusive relationship, and you sense that past in the physicality of the performance and in the way that Monkey she calls herself. Monkey is assertive, crude, and irrationally confident in the ways that Jane can't otherwise be. She also speaks I think what's supposed to be a vaguely British accent, which is very funny. But most of the humor comes down to that physicality. There are details like, you know, Jane just

resting her head on the dashboard of this vehicle. She falls in with a man who's actually co wrote the film. It's the co star here, Shanoah Allen. He's playing a radio personality who's on the road and she falls in with him and she's in his motor home. And when she just lays her head on the dashboard, there's something melancholy funny about this mask doing it, and the mask

in general works. It has dead eyes and whenever she looks at the camera, it's almost like a Rorschack test for the audience, for the viewer trying to read what she might be thinking of what we're thinking about her. But then comedy too. You know, she keeps her flip phone in the monkey suit, so she has to zip

it down to get her phone out. When she gets hot, she dumps some ice in the suit, and then there's pathos as well, as we realize how severe the personality split between Jane and Monkey has become, how it's escalating and becoming something that's actually concerning. So this is it's a cringe free ventriloquism movie that made me genuinely laugh and I found moving, and that is a rare accomplishment that, yeah, I think does make it worthy of a golden bricknut.

thought exactly the same. I mean, they laughed a lot. They couldn't believe that the premise didn't dry out after fifteen minutes, and by the end they were quite quite touched by it. So it's, you know, it's what you're

describing sounds. Remember that film Frank with Michael Fassbender and Domin All, which was quite good, quite good, right, And it's that whole thing about sort of like you know, a bit about sort of like cloaking your identity but you know behind some crazy mask of you know, an artificial front, right and yet finding a weird sort of freedom minute. And you know, this is a simple idea,

but it's a workable one. But I you know, your recommendation on top of brother and sister and my sister law, I'm going to check it out good.

to Film spotting dot net slash Bricks. Next week, Adam is going to be back and we have a big task ahead of us. We are going to indulge in a Pantheon Project review of nineteen seventy five's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It is the film's fiftieth anniversary. It's been quite some time since I've seen it, so we'll dig deep into that one, and we're gonna pair it with our top five Jack Nicholson performances. Michael springing

this a little bit on you. I know I had mentioned we were going to talk Joaquin Phoenix performances on this show, but just top of your head, do you have a go to favorite Nicholson performance or maybe a less praised one that I should try to catch up with as homework that you don't think folks talk about enough.

or familiar at that point. He was an established, you know, presence for sure, but that he's great in the last detail, and he just drives the movies excellent, I think, in a smaller role that I think I saw. I saw the film like it, don't love it, Reds saw it

recently again from is That eighty one? I think from Warren Baties film about John Reid and you know Dyan Keto, and Nicholson plays Eugene O'Neill and he loses almost all of what you might call the nicholsonisms in this This very the stern and very careful performance, full of charisma. He's really a great, a great addition to that on. So yeah, those two, those two, all right.

is coming up next week. If you want to see our schedule of all our future shows, you can check that out at filmspotting dot net slash episodes. Michael, you know, I've been doing Ebert Interrupt thiss out in Boulder, Colorado at the Conference on World Affairs for a number of years now, and yeah, brought it a version of it, Cinema interruptis to Chicago last December, and am doing it again just next month at the Gene Sisco Film Center.

Have you I don't think you I've ever had a chance to see Roger do interrupt this at Boulder, to do.

four days of communal film criticism. That's how I've been describing it to people. We basically will watch The Player in its entirety on day one and then come back started at the beginning, and for subsequent days make our way through it scene by scene, and folks can yell, stop, ask a question, make a comment at any time. So it's possible to come for all four days. Buy a ticket package for that, that would be awesome. Make it a journey, make it a team effort, join me on that.

But if you can only pop in for one day. Single day tickets are also available. You can get either of those at Cisclfilmcenter dot org. Slash Interruptis.

Keith's first episode, enjoyed it. Quite a bit. This series is exploring science fiction films from the second half of the twentieth century. Again, you can find that wherever you get your podcasts.

very easy for you. You can only pick one. You can only have one, The Apartment or Sunset Boulevard.

a new generation. Every twenty minutes, there's a new twenty two or twenty nine year old or fifteen year old that discovers The Apartment and they, maybe forever, maybe just for that year, it is their new favorite film. And I love that. So it's a tie. Josh, Sorry, Oh it's a tie.

our new poll question. Actresses plain actresses who are going through it. So that is producer Sam way of limiting this poll to performances that share. You know, they have some anks to them, so he didn't want to He didn't want to include comedies or musicals. He didn't want to include apparently Dustin Hoffman as Tutsie. So it's actresses, plain actresses who are going through it. Michael, I believe you have the options, the pole options there in front

of you. Would you mind reading through those for us?

and it's, uh, it's great work. So yeah, that's very a fruitful, A fruitful list Sam, Sam, Yeah.

very good choice for that Johnny biopic. I think The Master is really inventive work that daringly starts on such an extreme note of distress with that character Freddie Quell, that the movie can barely recover from it, but somehow it does. And so it is Phoenix. I really love his work with Spike Jones on Her, which I am due for a rewatch, but I haven't seen it since it came on, I think all the way through. But another one I'd utterly forgotten, and this is the other

one i'd mentioned. Another one I'd almost forgot is Lynn Ramsey's You Were Never Really Here Where that's much more of a I mean, that's an explosively violent picture, and I had you know, it's only since twenty seventeenths only been eight years since I've seen it, but I you know, I don't retain much of a clear memory of it, but rereading it, his work is really good in that

and I just think he is. One of the best things about Phoenix is he really seeks out and responds to a variety of directors that he may lock horns with half the time. I don't know. I suspect he does, but that's what's keeping him reasonably more than reasonably, that's what's keeping him vital and worth seeing what he's up to next. The one thing he can't do, Josh, you want to hear it. The one thing that I think will never get from Watkin Phoenix, the one thing he

doesn't have. And no actor has everything or can do everything or anything. He doesn't have great verbal facility. I think he knows how to use his voice beautifully in a lot of different keys and for different kind of shades of character. But when you see something like Inherent Weiss, which is all about that, that's what I was thinking to play. Yeah, he's not a guy who can spin out a lot of crazy gobblybook crisply. You know, he doesn't have that. It's just it's something. It's just part

of its just the physical equipment you're born with. Part of it is the training you either have or have don't have as a screen actor. It's the one thing he's you know, it's it's the one thing in almost every kind of film he's done. He's done almost every genre where if he has to do that where he has to really propulsively zip through a scene, and it's a lot about just how fast you can handle the language and sling it, you know, in another character's direction.

He's not the guy. And that's an interesting interesting I wouldn't call it a drawback, but because you know, he is just like every other really good actor on the planet. He cannot do everything equally well. But those are those are some of the ones I think very fondly of.

want to use that phrase at some point. Now, speaking of her, which you called out as listeners will hear, that was a performance that we excluded from our top five list, Michael, And that's where Phoenix played Theodore of course and Spike Jones is her. The reason we did that is because we had devoted a bonus episode to that film for its tenth anniversary, which I think was right around the time we did this top five list, So there was a lot of talk about Phoenix's performance

in her on that bonus episode. We did repost that her review in our main podcast feed this week, so you can find that wherever you get your podcasts. And you know, if you want to make sure you always get our monthly bonus episodes, just join the film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com. All right now, from April twenty twenty three, here are our top five Joaquin Phoenix performances.

to take a look at her. And of course we're living right now, not only in the Age of Ai but Chet GPT, so that plot is going to have a lot of resonance for us, I think, and we will be spent a fair amount of time talking about Phoenix's performance in Her, So we are setting that aside, putting it in the penalty box for this list. Officially, though I think we can say, Adam, it would be on both of our last.

bad decisions. Phoenix brings that out in us while being completely committed to those more negative.

who also picked it. Adam Rupert touched on this audience sympathy quality on Facebook said that scene where he's shaking so bad while being questioned by the police heartbreaking, and then over on Twitter, Marissa Jude, she's at Marissa Jude here said, Phoenix reminded me of Juliet Lewis's performance in Cape Fear. The exquisite and nuanced expression of vulnerability and

desire that seems unteachable well said by both. I love that comparison to Juliet lewis also one of those just deeply uncomfortable, unsettling breakout performances from a younger performer, and I think it does apply to what Phoenix is doing here as Jimmy Emma in to.

that way, but he doesn't seem overly dangerous. And for him then to get to that point where he is going to murder Matt Dillon's character. We have to buy that, and we by it because Phoenix makes him damaged enough that you can go there as quickly as you do with him. But then he also plays him as an innocent, so that he just becomes part of this tragic, manipulative web of Kidman's character. He's another victim in at all.

terrible ruler by virtually any standard. His fictionalized depiction as a mad emperor in the film Gladiator actually plays down some of his less believable excesses while giving him a nobler death. So just keep that in mind, Josh, that that sniveling, conniving, evil little baby that Joaque in Phoenix plays is actually exhibiting some restraint.

But in general, that character, the way Phoenix portrays him, is anksier than Robert Pattinson in The Batman and Adam Driver in any of those Star Wars movies combined. He is so quiet and deliberate, it's as if it's wrenching him to even speak. It pains him so much. And he's a weak character. He's more than that. He's evil. But Phoenix really does give him some dimension. We see

the emotional havoc. It reeks on him to be weak, to not live up to his father's image or to his father's expectations, and Phoenix amplifies, I think, his self awareness.

revisit for that, all right. Number four for me is Merril hess in signs. This is Phoenix in likable mode in m Night Shyamalan's Alien Invasion thriller. Likable mode is something he can do and does on occasion. Not very often, however, but it's kind of fun and rewarding when he pulls it out of his tool kit. I also like here how he effortlessly slips into what is essentially an ensemble piece.

I mean, Mel Gibson is the lead, of course, but this is an ensemble drama in a lot of ways, and Phoenix comes in to do things you might not expect, to lighten the mood, lighten the movie's edges a little bit. He just has a wonderfully light comic touch, and I think it's probably best displayed when he gives the response to Mel Gibson and his long soliloquy about miracles or coincidences.

This is an occasion of Shyamalan, I think, also kind of undercutting himself and being aware of his grund eloquent tendencies with this soliloquy here. But then in comes Phoenix. Merrill has given this whole speech some you know, probably not so deep thought, and he decides he's a miracle man who was at this party.

So when I look back at his performance as a well meaning fella like Meryl, I appreciate how good he is at depicting loyalty and bravery. So yeah, maybe a simpler character than some of the others he plays, but he plays it just right.

put him on that scale. And it's not because he's got things about him that make him someone that you really respond to favorably and even aspire to be like. That's not the case at all. But he also isn't so bad that you despise him ever, either.

I had completely forgotten that Two Lovers, the movie and this performance were totally overshadowed at the time by the Shenanigans surrounding the filming of I'm Still Here, which would come out two years later, or actually just a little over a year later. In terms of when we reviewed this film Two Lovers on the show was February twenty seventh,

two thousand and nine. That infamous David Letterman appearance was February eleventh, two thousand and nine, so this was all in the wake of that, and people were really watching Two Lovers thinking it was Woquin Phoenix's swan song from acting. It was supposedly his final performance as an actor because he was retiring to become a rapper, and with all of that, he had apparently completely lost his mind.

You could apply similar words and phrases to Bo's Afraid or to some of these other performances that we'll probably talk about for those who don't remember. Two lovers. It's pretty much what the name suggests. It's a movie about a love triangle. Leonard is involved with two different women. One who really wants to take care of him and wants to love him, and he's too neurotic to let

her do it. That's Vanessa Shaw's character. And then there's another woman who he wants to take care of and she's the one with the issues in allowing him to do that. That's Gwyneth Paltrow's character. But there's a melancholy to Leonard that makes him endearing or certainly endearing enough.

And there's an intimacy that Gray captures with Phoenix and these women that is really striking in the way Phoenix can often be intimate on screen and also make you a little bit uncomfortable at the same time, there's an intensity to these intimate scenes that can be both off putting and something that also brings you in. And what really stands out about Phoenix in this role, but again, I'm sure many others we might get to. He's someone

who's utterly uninterested in vanity. He has no interest in being cool on screen, and Leonard is not cool, and he also has no interest in being conventionally masculine, which is also one of the things that I think really does define Phoenix as a fascinating performer. He's volatile, but the softer and the more vulnerable he is on screen, the more interesting he is. And that's certainly the case here with Leonard in Two Lovers.

Inherent Vice. We've touched on a little bit his comedic abilities, and I think this is the movie of all of his that I've seen that puts them on display the most. This adaptation of Thomas Pinchon's comic Gumshoe novel. It's set against the druggy beach scene of nineteen seventy California. Doc Sportello is this hazy private detective just ekeing out a living of sorts in a beach shack just a few blocks from the ocean, and as happens in these sort of tales, he gets caught up in a rabbit hole

of an investigation. Phoenix has so much fun with the curly qu noir dialogue here and the chance to play really this adult fool who's sometimes smarter than he's presenting himself and a lot of times not or or let's just say not in complete control of his faculties. And just watching Phoenix have fun with that is such a blast.

So many of the laughs come from observing Doc trying to focus in the midst of these increasingly ridiculous conversations with all sorts of characters, and this includes Josh Brolin's Lieutenant Detective Bigfoot Bjornson, Yeah.

this being the performance. Going back to the idea of collaborations, this being the performance and the character that he and Paul Thomas Anderson wanted to explore together after working on The Master. So interesting choice. I don't want to get ahead of myself, so I'll leave that there.

violence that he carries out. He's not demonstrative, he's certainly not vocal. He barely speaks. This has to be the fewest lines the Phoenix has in any one of his performances. He's a big physical presence, like with bo Is Afraid. He put on weight for this role, and he certainly carries it. It's it's not a weight that manifests itself, certainly in muscle or as if he's been hitting the gym a lot. He is someone who carries a big

burden and needs a big frame to do it. And yet somehow Phoenix may makes him feel like a ghost, like he's incapable of leaving a footprint. He's just moving through the world, almost invisible to everyone around him. A line that has always stuck with me from that film is when a character says, and if I remember the context right, they're not using it negatively. I think they may need his skills. They say, I hear you're brutal,

and Phoenix says, I can be. And something about the kind of flat delivery of that the succinct screen writing there just having him say I can be. It's a case where Phoenix in the performance could indicate in that line reading or with some kind of physicality or something on his face before during after he says it. He could indicate that well he's not really a monster. He doesn't want to be brutal, but sometimes he has to be. And again, he's not someone who's interested in being cool

on screen. He's not someone who's interested, it would seem, in indicating those things.

I think this movie resonates in that way. And I also think that that is what connects with Phoenix's performance. Arthur Fleck is both a symptom and a symbol of societal breakdown in Joker, and that is something that Phoenix communicates through a performance of operatic physicality.

wearing clown shoes. That's how he runs. I think about him slipping and fumbling with the gun on the subway in that sequence where he's trying to defend himself from his attackers. And then yeah, the dance on those steps. I love so much, the dance and then his comic scrambling away when the cops come interrupt him in undercut. The whole scene, now, as outward is so much of this is Phoenix. This is the thing he does. We've touched on a number of times. He internalizes all of

this as well, so you're getting both. He's using physicality to convey and internal brokenness, and we get another man whose wires just seem to be crossed, and in this movie, he's stuck in a society that doesn't care at all to even bother trying to uncross them.

this high and Joker would be at three. But for now, it's my number two Walking Phoenix performance.

you already mentioned. Some crossover here Paul Thomas Anderson Larry Dox Sportello from a Inherent Vice, which contains what is still probably my funniest moment in any Paul Thomas Anderson film, when early in the movie he's talking to Jenna Malone's character at her kitchen table, she's recounting her heroin use and getting pregnant. She shows a picture of little Amethyst, which Phoenix's doc responds to.

She does say I, I don't know if you have the stomach for it before she hands him the photo, so she knows that the picture is horrifying because she was breastfeeding but using heroin at the time, but it's still her baby. And you still expect that Doxportello will react by repressing whatever his instinctual reaction is. You actually think he'll do what he does right after he screams, which is he looks again at the photo, even though

he doesn't want to. He looks again at the photo almost like he's he's assessing it, and he says mm hm, and he's very clinical about it, but he can't help it. He's so horrified. He lets out that scream and then it just immediately closes up. And I laugh every time I see it, and I do just love this gumshoe character who's in, as you said, this labyrinthine pinsion world of early seventies LA. In the setup to our review of this film, I described it this way. I said,

take the big Lebouse, he's perpetually stone protagonists. Add the anachronistic absurdity and culture clashing of Altmans along Goodbye, Mix in the borderline nonsensical plot machinations of the Big Sleep, and top it all off with the pervasive corruption of Chinatown. That's what you get with this film. And there's some pretty strong touchstones there. Not surprising that I love this

movie as much as I do. And I think one of his real gifts we've talked about a few of them, is that he's able to embody these characters who do kind of straddle these different these different worlds. He so naturally exudes being a man out of time, even literal time with this character and others in terms of the pace of his movements, his manner of speaking. He always moves at his own pace and often doesn't verbally respond in moments that you think a woking Phoenix character would.

He's he's processing, he's experiencing it. You experience it in real time with Phoenix's character. So I'm with you in my appreciation. I have it even higher Dox Portello at number two. A lot of processing going on by document of processing, indeed, and that brings us to our number one, which is not a surprising pick, but we think it's the right pick obviously, and it's a joint number one

pick there. There can only be one here if we're talking about Phoenix, and it turns out if we're talking about Phoenix and Paul Thomas Anderson.

somehow ill attracting the audience's interest and sympathy. I think Freddie Quell pushes that the most, and it's only maybe having Philip Seymour Hoffmann's Master as something of an antagonist that allows that to happen. I think once we see how Freddy is being manipulated a little bit, we maybe begin to feel a little more sorry for him. But

this is a broken, dangerous, scarred man. And I remember my first impression of The Master, a movie I've revisited a number of times, but coming away from it that first screening was Phoenix's face and what he did to it. I don't know how he transformed physically so much. You know, we talk about losing weight gaining weight for actors. I wrote,

his face was withered and warren. Particularly when he scowls, it's almost as if his cleft lip has spread so that rivulets now also cross his cheeks, his brow, his chin, And that also is a physical man inifestation again of what's inside. It's like all of this torture is bubbling and seeping out, and it's coming out in his face. It's also coming out, and how Freddie walks, how Phoenix carries himself. I want to get to this when we

talk about his performance in Her. There's some interesting examples of just, you know, his gait as an actor, and we see it here more than anywhere else. I think it's just this mask of torment that Phoenix wears and spreads to the rest of his body, and of course

it does explode into violent physicality at times. I think one of the movies' first indications of this is that incredibly odd and uncomfortable scene where Freddie is working as a photographer at the department store when he gets back from the war, and he just lets his rage seep out into this passive, aggressive session with a client.

this man. It's going to go badly for him. So yeah, I'm with you, master crowning achievement at this point in his career. Just a perfect marriage of the physical and the psychological that he's so good.

for his wife. This is this is the virile American male who is the domesticated version of a man that Freddy Quell can never be right. And it makes sense on some level that then that's going to be his instinctive response to him. And this movie is dealing with a lot of those subjects and those themes in a

way that is not spelled out. But I really feel that Freddy Quell is carrying the burden of post war America on his shoulders, on his pretty slight shoulders here, Yeah, very thin and way more frail coming back from the war. And the way I described his character at the time was he's like an arthritic fist. You know, he's just crumpled up.

the movie, is Freddy. I really think a lot of lesser actors who tried to embody that character, tried to evoke those feelings and the type of phrasing that we're summoning here. They would make him overly theatrical. They would make him feel like a character, wouldn't feel natural, and

it wouldn't have the power that it has. The putting his hand on his hips, the slouching that he does with his shoulders, in the facial reactions, all the things were saying, Phoenix makes it feel almost like Freddie Quell may have come out of the womb that way to go back to bow is afraid. We know that's probably not the case. That the war and his experience is there had to shape him somewhat into, if not completely, into the man that we see now, this broken man

that we see now. But he makes it feel as if this is his life experience, and we don't ever we never questioned it. I never questioned it.

to the entire show archive. For show t shirts and other merch go to film spotting dot net slash shop now. In that film Spotting archive, you will find reviews of all three previous ariastorfilms, so bo Is Afraid on Show nine seventeen, Midsomars seven thirty six, and Hereditary on six eighty five. I'm going to do a quick ranking here, Michael, just because I recently revised my Ariaster ranking on Letterboxed,

I still have Hereditary up at the top. Maybe it's the horror fan in me just love that movie so much. I think I have bos Afraid next. I think that's where I put it because it and Eddington are close in that. Something's worked for me. Some things don't. But I love the swings they're taking. Midsomar I am positive on, but I thought was the least successful. Do you have a clear favorite of his, Michael, or have you seen all four?

new boyfriend played by Logan Lherman. Next week, Adam is back and we will be doing a Pantheon Project review of One Flew Over the Huku's Nest in honor of its fiftieth anniversary, and we're also tackling our top five Jack Nicholson scenes. Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Deso and Sam van Holgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempenar.

Special thanks to everyone at wb easy Chicago. More information is available at wbeazy dot org and special special thanks to Michael Phillips for helping me wade through my conflicted thoughts about Eddington. Michael, any work you've been up to coming out, things you're looking forward to that listeners should keep an eye out for.

She's getting a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice International Film Festival. I've been lucky enough to get invited back to Venice to be on this sort of off off the main slate side panel called the Bi and Ali College Cinema. Several critics in the country are going over to could reconvene and do that, and I'd like to. I'd like to, and I'll just talk process right here. I don't care if it doesn't work out. You guys

are all friends. I'm trying to get. I may try to get out to Oregon, where miss Novak lives and has lived for many decades now, and do a do a minute interview away from the red carpet first and then catch up with her. So I'd love to. I'd love to do that. She is one hundred percent of Chicago, a really great, very bittersweet and anyways Chicago story, and I love it that she's getting the recognition now for one of the most unusual big stars Hollywood ever produced.