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What kind of a show you guys putting.
On here today?
You're not interested in art? Now? No, Look, we're going to do this thing. We're going to have a conversation.
From Chicago. This is Film Spotting celebrating our twentieth year. I'm Josh Larson and I'm Adam Kempinar.
No, it's not a revolution.
The message is clear. I'll be seeing you very soon. Let of us see you first.
Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle after Another may not be a revolution, but it is one of the movie events of the year.
We've got a review, plus the new doc Predators, Massacre Theater and more ahead on Film Spotting.
I don't know what freedom is, no fear, Just like.
Tom Cruise, Welcome to Film spotting a new film from Paul Thomas Anderson is always a big deal, Josh, but one Battle after another it does feel bigger, and not just because of the Imax screenings the VistaVision screenings. Did you get to partake in either of those in Scotland?
You know?
The Scotland theater adventure continues. We tried out another one and it was not Imax or VistaVision, but it was a giant screen. It was a beautiful presentation, huge theater. So yeah, excited about that. And a quick thanks to listener Heather who just before we signed on here, she left a note about the DCA in Dundee. Dundee is the town we've been traveling to to see Move and that's a smaller, almost art gallery slash theater, and yeah,
I hope to get there as well. They have fewer screens, I've heard, they're not quite as big as the one where I did see One Battle after Another, and yeah, I knew I wanted to see that one on as big of a screen as possible.
I didn't have a special experience myself, but I did see it on the big screen at theater Number one at my local multiplex so that's the best that I could do. We will have a review of one battle after another here in moments. Plus I'll have a few thoughts on the new documentary Predators. Yes, it is a documentary Predators, not about the making of any of those Schwarzenegger movies. And we will play Massacre theater. A quick reminder that film Spotting is now available as a video podcast.
You mentioned, Heather. That was a comment that came in Josh via Spotify that I shared with you. And if you are a listener on Spotify, you can toggleween video and audio. But you can also watch the show on YouTube, and you can find the link to our video episodes over at film spotting dot net slash episodes.
Well look, look, maybe I can maybe I can give you some information and then you give me some information. All right, we'll just share a little information. My name is Bob Ferguson. I don't know if you've ever heard of any all right. I was part of French seventy five for years, years and years. All right. They used to call me ghetto pat rocketman stuff like that. Only problem is I've fried my brain since then. Man. I
have abused drugs and alcohol for the past thirty years. Man, I'm a drug and alcohol lover, and I cannot remember for the life of me or the life of my only child. The answer to your question, what time is it?
Fifteen?
Now?
I need this rendezvous point. You understand what I'm saying. I need it.
I understand.
And the question is I think it's appropriate for this movie, Josh? How it just throws us right into this sort of past, sort of present world. We're going to jump right in to one battle after another. And I thought I might go see it with a friend who lives about twenty minutes away from me, Scott, and Scott's one of the biggest movie fans I know. Of course, he beat me to it as soon as it was available. He went and saw it. So I was going to go see
it all alone. And he texted me back and he pointed out something that I had missed that Paul Thomas Anderson that night was programming TCM with movies that inspired one battle after another. And here was the lineup. Yeah, here was the lineup. And this will of course, since you have seen his new movie, this should feel appropriate. The movies were running on empty midnight run The French
Connection and The Battle of Algiers. Run through those real quick right, running on empty the Sydney Lamette film with River Phoenix. Of course that makes sense, right, You've got former activist parents now in the wind, on the run, struggling with raising their teenage kids. Check Midnight Run a
film spotting Pantheon movie. This new one from pta Is is kind of a road movie, and you've got the angle with de Niro and an element here of almost estranged father and daughter, right, the French connection, the obsessed authority figure that we have in this film played by Sean Penn, and also the conspiracy element. Oh and how about lengthy and very intense car chases or extended chase sequences period, and then well, the Battle of Algiers.
That's an easy one.
If there if there was one film that seems like it's the movie that most inspired one battle after another, it probably has to be The Battle of Algiers. Oh and it is the movie that is directly called out in this movie right where you have Leonardo DiCaprio's Bob Ferguson. Now this aged hippie who is getting high one night and since he's no longer in the game, all he can do is sort of fall back on the greatest hits.
He actually puts in the Battle of Algiers so he can watch it and kind of quote along with the movie and relive his glory days through what is I suppose essentially the manual, you know, the Manual for the Revolutionary the Battle of Algiers. So I'm curious as as you hear that, I believe for the first time those four movies, though you probably saw the influence of some of those, and of course the Battle of Algiers, any
of those really resonate with you in particular? What did you make of any influences and did any others strike you as you watch this movie or did you see this as as purely a Paul Thomas Anderson film.
Boy, I want to get to that. I think the influences are interesting. It was something I thought about. But first I've got to get out of my system at him, because I haven't really been able to talk to many people besides Debbie, who is with me. This is the movie I've been waiting for all year, and it delivered astonishingly. I knew I knew nothing of its context going in, had not watched the trailer. I had no idea it
was going to be this topical. If you remember when we did a Sacred Cow review of Dogged Afternoon not too long ago, I wondered what films and filmmakers are going to rise to the challenge that we're in right now, the way Sidney Lumett and al Pacino did. There. Of course, we talked about responding to this notion of state violence Mickey seventeen. We split on I thought it took a good sci fi swing at satirizing the state of things.
Not everyone agreed, Eddington. I thought that was interesting, but felt a little bit behind the times given its lockdown setting. I know some folks took comfort in Superman as a tonal reprieve from what we're going through. You and I did not. For me, one battle after another? Is it? This is it? This is the movie, This is the movie we need right now? It is. Yes, it's exaggerated what we see in this film, but nothing in here is not happening to some degree right now in America.
And I am in Scotland, but I am keeping an eye in Chicago. You better believe it. Ice agents, they're arresting and assaulting journalists, instigating violence. I mean, I could not believe what was on the screen in front of me and how it was reflecting what we are experiencing in America and what can we do in the midst of this. I think a lot of us feel paralyzed.
But you know what, filmmakers can make films like this, Critics can champion them, and these are maybe small gestures, but you know, they add up or they're something, And at the end of one after another, I just I felt so galvanized about the littlest something because to my mind, there are a whole lot of people doing nothing and to see a formal filmmaker like Paul Thomas Anderson take this on and absolutely just kill the assignment was so thrilling to me. So just had to get that out
of my system. Maybe we'll come back. I'm sure we'll come back to the politics of it. But I was thinking about these influences, this question, and I think what's so exciting about one battle after another on that front Adam is that this might be I would put this in the category of his most singular works, something like Punch Drunk Love in particular, where yes, the influences are there, but it's not something like you know, I would say,
Phantom Thread is so obviously my favorite movie. By the way, I'm not knocking him for this. My favorite Paul Thomas Anderson movie, Phantom Threat very influenced by Hitchcock, right, among other things. It's all over it. There will be blood to me, you know, is so influenced by something like Citizen Kane, and you go down the line of his filmography.
But I look at Punch Drunk Love, and that's a movie that, like only Paul Thomas Anderson could come up with, I feel like, and some people might feel that way about something like The Master perhaps, but I am definitely
thinking that way about one battle after another. That being said, yes, Battle of Algiers, you know, just what a touchstone as well as a funny a funny side in that scene, as you mentioned, I thought of that before it did pop up in the movie French Connection, other seventies paranoid thrillers. The propulsion of those movies is what I think he
borrows here. Yeah, and you know, just thematically, I thought about Alfonso Koran's Children of Men, which is more of a prophetic many many years now, a prophetic envisioning of what in that in the UK to teller Terrrian government response to refugees might look like. I think that's a more I don't want to say grim, but Children of
Men is a more serious take on the subject. But that doesn't make one battle after another any more important, and its take on the subject just because it is this absurd, comic, hysterical satire that saying a lot of trenchant immediately needed things.
Yeah, I'm with you on so much of what you said, including a couple words you just used right there at the end. So let me get out just kind of my single sentence take on this film. It is a beautifully choreographed fever dream of resistance and reckoning, blending absurd of satire with a poignant meditation on parental legacy.
That's the thing. There is such an emotional.
Core to this movie as well that I'm sure we will get into. And I suppose this also indicates how long we've been doing this show. Though I don't know that I can remember examples of you telling me this. I think I always think about you, Josh when I'm at the movies. But I was watching this film and I was seeing certain scenes and different themes were being brought up, and I was thinking about the police state evidence in this film, evident in this film, and the
state sanctioned violence. And I was thinking about our conversation about Dog Day Afternoon, and I was going, Josh is eating this up right now, Josh is halfway around the world eating this movie up. I was having very similar thoughts about the film, and I was.
As well, cross the Atlantic.
Yeah, yeah, I think so. In terms of the influences, one that maybe he just couldn't program the fifth film, but I have to imagine that the fifth influence, and maybe this is just too easy picking, but come on, the fifth influence had to be Doctor Strangelove. Right with Sean Penn's character makes sense. His name is Colonel Lockjaw, after Jack t Ripper. His name is Colonel Lockjaw. He's a military figure. He's full of all sorts of interesting
ticks and behavioral quirks. He's got that great haircut, and he will assert his authority unilaterally. And at one point he does speak of bodily fluids and his power being taken from him. So that seems like a pretty clear call or reference to Doctor Strangelove.
To me, Jack, Jack, tell me, tell me Jack, when did you first well developed this there well.
I I first became aware of it, Man Drake, during the physical act of love. Yes, a profound sense of fatigue, feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Man Drake.
Where those references ended up bearing fruit for me a little bit and thinking about this film, it actually was the first one Running on Empty, which is a movie I haven't thought about in a long time, but I remember watching a lot when I was a kid. I think it was just a movie that was on HBO, and for some reason it always really resonated with me. And one difference here is that because it is very similar,
you have the parents. And maybe while I'm talking you can look it up because I can see I can see the actress in my head and cannot place her name, and it's killing me, right, jud Hirsh's the dad, River Phoenix is the sun, the talented musician's son. Man Christine Lottie, I just got it. Christine Lotti is the mom, isn't it?
You got it? Nice time? Do I get two points?
So Christine Lotti is the mom and they were activists, and they were involved in a bombing and someone died, as I recall it, unintentionally, someone wasn't supposed to be at the building they bombed, and they've been on the run ever since. I don't think this is a movie.
You can disagree with me on this, or we can talk about it, But as I reflect on my lone viewing of this film, I don't think this is a movie that really cares about whether or not the acts that Bob or Perfidia, who we haven't mentioned, Tayana Taylor's Perfidia, Beverly Hills, the mother, the acts that they committed in the name of injustice, in the name of oppression, in the name of revolution, were right or wrong. The conscience of what they did, that's not on the mind of
this movie. Whether Bob or anyone else should have pangs of moral guilt, that is on the mind of Running on Empty very much. That movie is concerned about whether or not the sins of the father and mother should be passed on to or whether it's fair that they're passed on to the children. And this film is concerned with that question. Like Running on Empty, it's concerned about whether or not the sins of the father in this case and the mother should be passed on to the children,
passed on to the daughter Willa. But it also asks, and maybe we'll get to this in more detail as we get into our conversation, but I think it also asks, really interestingly the opposite. It almost asks, should we allow the sins of the father and mother to be passed down to the children. It's almost like the movie is saying it needs to be we need that child, It's okay for that child to have that consciousness and they need to be enlightened about it and engaged in that.
And I think that's an interesting spin on that question.
Yeah, that's the you know, dancing around spoilers. I think the movie leaves us in exactly that place. And that's what I found so stirring is, you know, not that it's too late for us to participate, but man, this this thing is going to be a long haul. I think we're starting to realize those who are paying attention to the.
Movie might say it's actually too late for us, Josh, And that's okay.
Our job and our generation, our job, and.
This is to support the next generation. Might be what the takeaway is.
I think I think that's completely fair, and I do want to take a moment to point out as to that moral question, because I know this is going to be a talking point once this movie, you know, gets out, and those who aren't aren't ready to root for it see it. It is very clear to me what you pointed out, that the movie itself is not necessarily endorsing the tactics employed by this group that Leonardo Dicaproo's character is involved with at the start of the film before
we jump ahead sixteen years. It does not denounce them, but to your point, it is interested in other things. And also, just because a group is using tactics you might object to, does not legitimize the clearly unconstitutional anti American tactics that were initially employed. So I just want to get that out of the way in terms of, you know, this is not endorsing one battle after another. It's not endorsing such things. I think it's interested in
other questions, those personal ones. And this even relates to the Sean Penn character Lockjaw, because I think it's really key that while he is not at any point sympathetic, he is depicted as a human being with you know, some perversities because of the way I read the sense of unchecked authority he's been given, which means there are no guardrails for him at all. But at the same time it is one of the supreme comic performances in the film, just that constipated walk Penn has and the
way he carries himself. It I'm sorry, but as I said, like I've seen this on Chicago streets, the performative nature of these ice guys is it's clownish, and that is what Penn is tapping into here. I want to see on a protest sign, speaking of the kids, some kid holding up what Bob's daughter when we meet her as a teenager, later says to Pen in a crucial scene,
why is your shirt so tight? That just killed me, because it's only a great line, but it gets at the root of the performative nature of There's something about if you are not morally sure of your actions, you're going to perform them even more. And that is what we are seeing now, and that's what we see in the film in Penn's character. But I do like that we also get him, as you know, we don't agree with any of his choices really but this is not
just some faceless monolith that is conducting these things. This is an actual human being with motivations that are yes distorted, But I think that's key. It's almost connected to what you were talking about this movie, having a heart and being interested in the relationships here. This is not a socio political tract. This is a story about a family deeply connected and you know pen is related to this,
deeply connected to these events. How it affects them on a day to day relational basis, you have to understand and will me and Mom we used to run around and do some real batches. They got hurt.
Now they're coming after us.
Sorry, I didn't ask for this.
That's just how the cards were.
Rolled out for me.
It's not cards.
You don't roll cards. It's dice.
Dex's wrong with you?
You're right, let's go.
I think you made a good case for how for you anyway, this this almost feels like a bit of a departure for PTA. But let me maybe try to make a case for how it fits into a certain paradigm and we'll see if it works for you or not. When you think about his filmography, he is often reckoned with America's present through its past. Many of his films have been period pieces, and here he brings the battle from the past into the present. Though, as I alluded to earlier, and I think I haven't read it. I
think this comes from the Pension novel. I may have heard this somewhere. I could be wrong that even though that was set in a different time, that that there is a sort of blending, right, And I felt that watching the film, that you're seeing it and you're not quite sure even when we're watching the prologue, when exactly is this taking place? And this feels like the present,
but when exactly is this the present? That feels by design and it feels coherently incoherent in an appropriate way for the times in which we currently live, right, And so not every film follows this, of course, But I've certainly talked about his emphasis on mentor protege relationships that often takes the form of fathers and sons or surrogate fathers and sons. Con Men as well are often found populating his films, and those are among the most enduring
and evocative figures in all of American fiction. Neither seem to be what this movie is concerned with, though maybe we should consider is it one battle after another about the absence of a mentor protege relationship, the mother daughter activist dynamic that should be here, but also the father
daughter one. Since Bob is wallowing an apathy and you have Willa constantly looking to him, wanting that direction, craving it and not getting it because he is, he is completely absent, and according to my reading anyway, to some degree, isn't isn't Bob sort of a con man? You could argue, You could argue he's barely playing the role of a father. But I'm really talking about how we meet him in the prologue.
Isn't he? Even with that name Ghetto Pat?
I think it supports this, and I think DiCaprio's performance supports this. The nervousness, that anxiety, how Perfidia has to urge him on, how he constantly seems to be having to prove himself that he's worthy to be with her, that he's worthy to be part of this resistance group, the French seventy five. The ease then, also with which he falls into fatherhood and domesticity. Right, Ghetto Pat seems to be an upper middle class white boy from Ohio who joined the revolution.
Right.
And I have to say Ohio because I'm from Iowa. Otherwise I'd say from Iowa.
Right.
But there's a key line, and I may not have it exactly right. You maybe have it in your notes. My notes were completely worthless to me. But there's a scene where he's talking to his mother in law, Perfidy's mother, and she says to him something like, you'll never be good enough for her, You'll never be up to her standard my daughter and for my daughter. And I think
I think she says something like she's a runner. I think the words like a runner and that will that will have or something along those lines, and that will have residents later. But in the moment, it's clear that what she's saying is, you know, Perfidy is she's a hunter. She is always on the move, she is volatile, She's never going to be contained. And it's kind of like she's saying, you're a lump. You just you don't belong here, really,
you don't belong with her. And and you know, even if you reject everything I've said, what are those mentor protege relationships fundamentally predicated on and even what are con artists manipulating. I do think it's all about power, and that's at the core of every dynamic and decision that's
made in this movie. If you look at every single one of them, including of course that key scene, that scene where we meet Perfidia and Lockjaw, and where we see them interacting in other scenes too, it's fundamentally the story of America. And oh what is that type of power? It is specifically white power, right, and that's what this movie hilariously excoriates.
Yeah, I think that's right, and I think the mentor protege dynamic is at play, even if to me it's a little more scene through the prism of the father and daughter. Actually wish I'd probably say at this point Willa his daughter as a teenager. We do jump ahead after the opening section sixteen years, played really well by
Chase Infinity, a relative newcomer. It's almost about Bob coming into maybe mentor is a strong word, but coming into the realization that for him to be the best dad to this young woman, he's going to have to shake off the apathy and he's going to have to be
more than what as you're describing. I think you're right, he was probably something of a hanger on in that opening scene where we see Perfidia leading an attack on a detention center and he's the explosives expert and she's telling him what do I almost thought he was just the way DiCaprio carries himself, he's kind of like a gun for hire. I didn't know what sort of convictions he had. And then we realize they're in a romantic relationship, that.
There's a other question is just real quick you get the dynamic that maybe it is almost like he's proving himself, like they aren't in a full fledged relationship be yet you could read.
It maybe that too, but they're basically the point is you don't sense the cause is what's primarily driving him. At least didn't. I didn't give that sense. I don't think it was objecting to it. But he's a little bit along for the ride. And I think in terms of this dynamic you're talking about mentor protege. You know, maybe it reverses where the daughter becomes the mentor to the to the father as the movie goes on. Yeah,
let's talk a little bit more about DiCaprio's performance. I think he's just this is a first rate dimmed bulb in the line of the likes of of course, you know, we're thinking about Jeff Bridges and the big Lebowski or Joaquin Phoenix in the other pinchin adaptation from Paul Thomas Anderson right and here and vice. He's as good, I think as well. He's almost as good as both of them in those films. I really enjoyed him here, not
only the way he dims his bulb like that. It's clearly because of the drugs, right, but it's also because of the psyche weight of this failed revolution and the burden of raising a child in this climate, because we learn that sixteen years have gone by and if anything, things have only gotten worse. Right, their movement people are scattered because of an incident. We won't detail their underground as he is hiding, and he's trying to make sense
of raising a teenager in this environment. It took a while, Adam, but I knew I was on board with the performance. It shifts into high comic gear when he shows up at a parent teacher meeting, stoned but also weepy.
He just if I takes a drag, he takes a drag during it. But you're right, he gets emotional.
If I get emotional, it's just tears of joy, that's all. But the thing about the performance is he's not just trying to cover up. He is, but he also means it. He really means it because he's got a good report about his daughter at school. Yes, and this is just what DiCaprio's trying to balance as this character. And yeah, from that scene, none, he puts the pedal down and never lets up through the rest of the movie.
No, I don't or I haven't come up with yet the right adjective to describe what I'm thinking about DiCaprio's performance.
But I like that.
Of course, the touch points for it have to be Doc Sportello because it's Pta and it's it's a pinchin adaptation. But it's a very different performance, and it's very different than the other go to, which is Lebowski. It just it doesn't it doesn't have that same stoner vibe to it. There is something different about it, and I think I think one of the things that's different about it is that it just doesn't feel But I think in a
good way. It doesn't feel quite as lived in it feels like someone who was transplanted into that character and
is still taking it on in some way. And I'm really glad that you you mentioned that psychic weight, because in the few comments I've seen about him here and there or about the character, everyone talks about him just as and we have so far as this apathetic character or someone who, you know, the revolution's been gone for a while, so now he's just hanging around and he's getting drunk and stoned and doesn't feel like there's a fight anymore, or he's too lazy or not willing to fight.
Going back to what we've said about the emotional core of this film, I still see him as fundamentally a heartbroken character.
Yes, josh as Air.
I think that is also part of who he is, and that's driving so much of his apathy. It's not just that what was me, you know, quote unquote the sixties aren't here anymore. I think he's a heartbroken character.
I used a word earlier at the start of my comments that I want to come back to a little bit because it relates to Paul Thomas Anderson in the filmmaking, and you have to be careful a little bit, how often you go to certain words or phrases as a critic when praising movies, especially in the same year when we talked about Sinners, I spoke about it having the rhythms and audaciousness of some of our boldest musicals. I know that Punch Drunk Love feels to many like a
musical despite their being no singing in it. And of course there are numerous sequences we can point to in Paul Thomas Anderson's filmography where we can single out the fluidity in the intricacy of the camera, the elaborate nature
of the shots right, the coordination with the performers. But with Battle, I had a different sense, and it was largely in that extended I'm gonna call it the extended raid on back ten Cross, especially when we haven't mentioned him yet, especially when Benisil del Toro, Oh gosh, was on screen, and.
I wonder if you were thinking.
I wonder if you were thinking the same thing I was, because even though you liked the movie more than me, we were both a little down on the mellowness of Beniicil del Toro and Phoenician scheme. And here it couldn't
have served this movie better. He is so good as this senseay in this movie who who ends up coming to the aid not only of Bob when he most needs it, but also so many other people in a scenario that he even himself describes it as as a Harriet Tubman like situation, going on, Oh wait, wait, a Latino Harriet Tubman situation.
There you go, right, That's exactly what it is.
But when he's on screen it it relates to how the camera Josh slows to match the calmness of that character, who truly is like the conductor of the Latino Harriet Tubman like situation. All the movements that are occurring. I was, I was keenly aware of the blocking everything that was occurring, not of the camera how it was moving, but everything that was occurring within the frame, the choreography of it.
That's the word for the camera to capture, not not how the camera again was moving within the space, but how the camera was there to observe for us, how we were then able to observe in that space with a sense of often real time urgency. It wasn't like the long shot in Boogie Knights right where you know we see William H. Macy's character kill himself right, and it's it draws a lot of attention to itself. It's about us being able to observe in real time and
that that sense of intimacy and urgency. But it's not overwhelming. It's heightened, but it's steady. Bodies are constantly in motion, but it never feels jagged or jarring, the only way I could really describe it. And and here it's just a little bit of a trick that Pta pulls off. He somehow creates a serene intensity.
I need you, brother Sencing, please courage Bob Carriage. It did good.
Yeah, thank you, hey, thank you, since thank you, thank you, God, damn it.
That's a great, great description of it. The one thing I had to put out there in blue sky after I saw this was maybe Benicio del Toro will save us all, because that's what I can help. So thinking he has this, it's this bemused spiritual calm. You know, we should say this is when the town has been
taken over by the military. The streets, they've instigated among protesters an attack, and that is what precedes the underground railroad to go into effect to get some of these mostly women and children not violent criminals, women and tru children who are being targeted by the military, and del
Toro's calm balances with DiCaprio's antickness. This relates to our discussion of how invested in the cause is Bob, because there isn't until there's a moment where Del Toro has given him clear, calm directions about what to do, where to go, and Bob pauses, catches a breath, and that's when he screams out, Viva la revolution.
Right.
Yeah, it's not it's not so much because he's about to, you know, to make a blow against the authorities. It's because he knows what to do. He's he's been told what's do. But del Toro in this scene and yeah, the blocking and the camera because we're following him upstairs, downstairs, through back rooms, in and out of shops. This elaborate system he's put together, but he just has this this
sense of assuredness to him that is so reassuring. And to your point about the Phoenician scheme, Yeah, that was one of my My main qualms about that movie is how is it constricted Del Toro into a Wes Anderson type of character. Other actors have given their best performances as to that type, but to me, it just did not fit del Toro, who needs to have a certain looseness.
I don't know if I identified it as much while watching the Phoenician Scheme until I saw him here, and I think this might be a career best turn for him, because there is even when he's playing villains, like really scary guys, which he's done in the past, there's this same sense of calm or looseness where he's not always he's not necessarily taking the scene or the actions as seriously as you think he should be, but it's because he knows what he has a firmer grasp on it,
and this whole sequence just allows him to be this grumbly sage whose she's rumbling through these halls not being hurried because he knows exactly what to do.
It's wonderful in addition to the politics of the film as we're describing it, that we were on board with the emotional core of it that we've talked about that did resonate with us. The humor of the film. You can find humor in all of PTA's movies. I'm pretty sure I had a scene from liquorice pizza is my funniest moment of twenty twenty one, or it was the runner up. I'm certain I had a scene from Inherent
Vice as my funniest moment of twenty fourteen. I'd probably still put Boogie Knights as his funniest film, but I think this would be my number two, Josh. And it's also obviously his most action oriented film, his most suspenseful. Despite that steadiness I was talking about, and there is a chase scene at the end. This is one of those movies where I'm sitting in my seat with my knee bouncing in rhythm to the score, you know, wondering where this is exactly going, and feeling the intensity of it.
And actually it is a steadiness where you're feeling it kind of the entire film. So you've got that, right, You've got that intensity that's maintained for almost the entire two hour and fifty minute running time. But all those elements are culminating with that humor. And even though I'm not someone who has read Pension, I understand that pension esque some of it through films like in Hair and Vice, that pension esque postmodern sensibility tinged with paranoia, as it
is here that absurdist sensibility. And the bottom line is, we haven't mentioned this part of the story yet, and I want to mention it here because it relates to the humor.
I mean, Hail Saint Nick.
This will mean something to you when you see the movie if you haven't. While Saint Nick is one of the funniest three word phrases you'll hear all the year at the movies. And I want to praise I want to praise Paul Thomas Anderson and whoever I should look it up, whoever his casting agent is, because whoever is responsible for coming up with this group of completely unrecognizable for the most part, unrecognizable but innocuous looking, evil, middle aged white.
Dudes, they deserve a raise.
I'm thinking, I'm thinking, And I went for the record. I wanted to give them praise. I went to IMDb, and I just did not have the time to scroll through every name and try to identify them.
I couldn't.
I couldn't pick them out. You know, the pictures didn't line up or whatever. But I'm thinking of the second in command to Lockjaw, who we see interrogate some people. Yeah, perfect right, every single person, and one of them. I can't believe I didn't. I didn't recognize this guy, even though now of course I see it. He's the bar owner, yes, But but other than Tony Goldwyn, who you do most of us do know? The one guy who we see later in the house who at first is silent and
we're not sure that he's going to talk. Oh yeah, that's that's Kevin Tigue. That's Kevin Tigue from the bar owner of the Double D in Roadhouse. So fairly a classic.
That guy.
We kind of recognize him, right, But otherwise all those other guys are that guys that we don't know. And I'm calling these innocuous looking, evil, middle aged white dudes the Tony Goldwyn all stars, and every one of them in this movie. Josh is just so perfect.
This is the Christmas Adventures Club, This is the Christmas Conspiracy, pulling the strings we learn, and it's so funny. I saw it just on Blue Sky today. Alyssa Wilkinson, the New York Times critic, say something about being out in New York and she's pretty sure she's I think she said something like pretty sure. I saw a member walking down the street, and I'm sure we had the same
thing here. Debbie and I were walking down and we saw a guy sitting like a really nice house in town here and he was out in his yard, just sitting on the patio in like a you know, innocuous but very expensive, clearly like sweater vest. And we both were like, we looked at her, like, oh, he's in
the Smith's Adventures Club. Yeah, it has to be. So this is so funny, and it is, it is really fun and it's sometimes it's beautifully I'm gonna call it a sequence that has the humor and also the filmmaking chops. And this is actually part of the entire sense sequence. But at this point, del Toro's character has sent Bob off with some skaters. He said, these guys will get
you safe where you need to go. And the route is across the rooftops because, as I said, the military has taken over the streets and are just you know, shooting at random. Below this is shot by Anderson and
cinematographer Michael Bauman from a distance and in silhouette. And so you have these these skaters, these younger guys with their boards just you know, very beautifully leaping in silhouette from one building to the other end just as you're thinking like, oh, this is a I have this sense of like mythical resistance, and then we have Bob stumbling behind them, barely able to keep up. And that's just you know, the This is what's so great about this movie, too,
is it's willing to puncture those moments. It's not taking itself too seriously, even though it's probably going to be the most serious movie that comes out in the United States this year, But it doesn't carry itself this way.
Hi, what's up?
What's upon me?
It's it's me again, Bob Ferguson. I don't know if you remember what we we we spoke earlier on the on the phone. I think we had a little misunderstanding. I think we got off on the wrong foot. I was trying to get the rendezvous point for my daughter, right will.
If you can't answer, what time is it, I cannot give you. The rendezvous point is the relion.
I'm surprised.
I don't know if you are.
I do love that it punctures that mythos there, but what it does with that imagery still astounding, that shot, that silhouetted shot of those those younger men on the skateboard is still among the most vivid shots in his filmography. And think about what he's given us through ten films.
I have one that wowed me even more, and it's during the climactic car chase, which we won't even say who's involved, but it is taking place on this stretch of desert hills and at one point it's they must have placed the camera on the hood of one of
the cars. Three cars are involved, and as the vehicle kind of lolls up and down this road, the road is like an undulating road, and the experience of watching it from that point of view was it was anxious but also mesmerizing, and it was inducing in me because it kind of is repeated and goes on, and it was inducing in me like a nausea but also a sleepiness. And the only thing I could think about is when I got out of the movie, and even a day or two later, like what was that all about?
Is?
Oh, That's how I felt. For the last ten years, I've exact life has felt like being on that road of dipping up and down and not knowing what's over the next hill, and what it might do to you, and my goodness, however, they got that shot and sustained it so that it works in terms of suspense, but also on a certain level just pure beauty is incredible.
Well, it kind of goes back to what I was saying and we were talking about. It is intense and suspenseful, and yet it feels I remember the feeling of watching it and what you're talking about with the undulation, there's a certain serenity to it as well, isn't it. So it's crazy how they managed to balance that in this film.
There is I think we've had the discussion we probably wanted to have, and we could close here, but I will at least raise that I knew within about ten minutes of this film that among the conversations that were going to be had about this film, there was definitely going to be the discourse around a certain issue with the movie, one that the two of us probably aren't the best people to weigh in on, but I knew there was going to be a discourse, and sure enough,
I woke up this morning and I actually these days I'm not on social media much at all, but I will usually wake up and just sort of check in and the very first thing I saw this morning, it had begun. Josh, I don't know if you know what I'm referring to, but I guess I will throw out vaguely, do you want to get into it or do you want to wait until feedback on an upcoming show and get into whatever or this discourse might be.
Yeah, I mean we're gonna have to. I'm unaware of it. I was in a bunker before seeing this, and I've tried to be in a bunker aside from you know that Alyssa Wilkinson comments and a few other things since until we've had this conversation. I cannot wait till tomorrow to be able to dive into all the critics who I respect their takes, and I'm sure there's gonna be some pushback. I surprise it hasn't started already because so far it's just been a wave of raves seen star
ratings come through on Letterbox. So yeah, I'm gonna dive into all of that tomorrow and perhaps we'll pick it up. Yeah, when we get some feedback, which may.
Be a lot of those lines I had thoughts because they relate to the experience I had watching the movie. They don't relate to the thoughts or I should say, the specific criticisms that this person had, because they just came out this morning and I didn't have time to read those. So I wasn't going to be reacting to that article necessarily or not at all. I was just going to be talking about what I saw on the screen now.
As it is.
The discourse will pick up in the days before our next episode, and maybe we will be more informed and we can talk about.
It, and hey, this is a movie that needs to be interrogated. I mean, just because I'm in line with it's totally relative politics, if you want to say that doesn't mean that it's a film that has everything lined up perfectly right. It's capturing chaos and capturing a way to honorably respond to that chaos from my point of view, But it doesn't mean that it has everything right along
those lines. So I'll be curious to see that. And I think, you know, the only other thing I would say on the political front is I almost pardon me, was like, this doesn't even really feel political, because it's it's not arguing against, you know, a political direction we may be heading towards. You know or and it's not even offering an alternative political vision to our current circumstances.
That goes to your point about, you know, whether it's it's endorsing the this gorilla group's actions, it's it's just mirroring what we're in right through this comically absurdist lens. And all I can say is that by doing that, it goes back to what I said at the top. It felt like this desperately needed fresh air. To me, It's like that, this is what I've just been feeling. Why are we not talking? Why are we recognizing this? And and One Battle after Another is at least doing that?
Is it doing it perfectly? Probably not? And yeah, well we'll see what qualms other people might have about it. It's a good thing.
I don't expect perfection from art, even from Paul Thomas Anderson. One Battle after Another is currently playing in wide release. If you see it and agree or disagree, you can email us feedback at film spot Net.
This episode is brought to you by dead Man's Wire, the new film from Roque Entertainment. Dead Man's Wire is the incredible true story of the nineteen seventy seven kidnapping that turned an aspiring entrepreneur into an outlaw folk era directed by legendary filmmaker Gus van Zant. Dead Man's Wire stars Bill Scarsguard Daker, Montgomery, Carry Always, and Mahalla with Coleman Domingo and al Pacino, now playing in select theaters everywhere, January sixteenth.
Well, listening is the number one thing you can do to support an independently produced show like ours. Here are a couple of other things you can do. Take a minute to give us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also do this on Spotify if you listen to us there. It doesn't matter if you're brand new, this is the first show you're hearing, or if you've been listening for twenty years. Every one of
these reviews does help us reach new listeners. Now to go even further, a very substantial way to support us is to join the Film Spotting Family, which you can do at Film Spotting fas family dot com. We want to thank family member Remi must Say and Leland Michigan. Remi's letterbox handle is R M A S S E. Yeah.
This is tough because producer Sam did a great job of phonetically spelling out the name, and I'm not sure where he got that from. Maybe he reached out to this family member. But the problem is you do have to put where the the emphasis is. So is it Remi or is it Remy?
This is me because I would be I would be saying this, and I think it's Remy. I'm gonna go. I checked it on fourvoh, so we'll see, we'll hear from and see what they say.
From here on out. We're gonna call him he and I'm gonna hope that's right.
Please tell us.
Remy or Remy which pronunciation is correct. After moving to a city where I knew nobody than my now wonderful wife, I found myself missing the movie conversations that regularly sprung up with my college housemates. After watching The Banshees of Na Sharon, I was desperate to have a discussion with someone, anyone. Film spotting was the first result online, and Adam and Josh hooked me in and haven't let go since a favorite review or segment Top five Movies for Graduates found
me at the right time. The respect for hyomi Izaki from both Adam and Josh let me know I was in the right place, and because of their top fives. I watched Columbus and Hikaru for the first time and adored both. Good job by us. What review did we get wrong? I can't find it on film spotting, but here at Kazu Karata's Monster, I thought it was brilliant and one of my favorites of the year. Sorry, Josh, you didn't like that movie, Josh.
Yeah, I was a little down on it, but hey, in the case of Karita, I'm probably wrong, so that's fine.
Letterbox Top four spirited it away. I mean, here, you guys are simpatico again. Fantastic mister Fox.
There will be Blood one, There will Be Blood is great in the Fall. I love well, Okay, Tarsum saying.
A favorite movie that Remy revisited recently Bong Juno's Memories of Murder Good one. A random filmmaker that he loves Rob Reiner, not necessarily because I think he's one of the great filmmakers, but he certainly doesn't get enough love from film nerds. A movie you credit with becoming a cinophile, he says. My dad loved Jim Carrey movies when I was a kid, and after showing my brother and I ace Ventura when Nature Calls. We watched The Truman Show
and it completely altered what I loved about movies. I can still love a terrible exquisite film like ace Ventura, but the Truman Show led me down a path of loving movies for.
Something a little different. I can see that terrible exquisite for ace. That's kind of great.
Thank you, Remy for joining the family and for all those years of listening. In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, your support comes with perks, Josh. They get to listen early in ad free. I'm not sure if you're aware. They get our weekly newsletter. They get exclusive opportunities like being part of the Film Spotting Family discord just an unruly bunch now, actually they're they're quite really great group of Film Spotting Family members over there
having wonderfully insightful and sometimes absolutely absurd conversations. And you get our monthly bonus shows. We have channels over there devoted to music, books, sports, food, but yes, also movies, new releases, older films, TV, you name it. September Bonus Show was our Trivia Spotting edition that is now available, Josh. The one you know you slept through because you're in Scotland.
I did.
I slept quite well. How did you do? Where did you place? That's all I really want to know.
I did not podium, Oh I didn't. I didn't make the top three. But but my team fared well. I mean we I think we got at least seven right both rounds. And I went quite deep in the in the Lightning round, the Captain's Lightning Round.
I think I was a topic.
It was uh, it was directors, and it was of directors of sun Dance winning films. I think I was the last. I was the third from last out, so I had it. I had a shot. And and the one, the one I went out on, is so depressing because, as Sam and I were talking about later, there were ones throughout where you were you were just praising the Lord that you didn't get because you you should have known, but you just could not pull the name.
You know, Josh how it is, but you can't pull the name.
And and and then there were others that that you knew, and you were so grateful that you got those. The one that I went out on, the one that I went out on, for me, it was hump day one of my favorites, like one of my movies, the movie that I championed years ago on the show, and I missed Bacon, Lee said the Duplas Brothers because I thought
about Mark Duplas being in the film. Now right right, I'm not going to say, well, I'm gonna say that I thought Thomas was a little too quick on the draw, and I think you should be allowed to think out loud for a second, like why does the first thing.
You say to Thomas?
Why does the first thing you say have to be your final answer? Why can't you think out loud? But right after I said it and everyone jumped on me for being stupid, I it hit me, of course that like Lynn Shelton there. Lynn Shelton of course directed hump Day. I mean I knew it. It took me a second, but wow.
That's the way it goes. Yeah it is can go.
Yeah, it's a bummer. October Bonus, we are going to do a draft with a family member. Looking forward to that. Please do learn more about becoming a member and supporting the show at film spotting family dot com.
Hi, you sound so sweet. Are you nervous about talking to me?
Yeah?
You know, we gotta be like really careful about doing this. Yeah, Adam, you caught up with a new film called Predators, as you mentioned earlier. This shouldn't be confused with the animated predator Killer of Killers, which came out earlier this year. Still hoped to catch up with or Predator bad Lands, which is coming to theaters next month. This is totally different. Predators is a documentary from director David Osset about the
reality TV program To Catch a Predator. The premise of this show was basically hunt down child predators, lure them to a film set where they would be interviewed and then arrested. It ran from two thousand and four to two thousand and seven. So yeah, fascinating idea for a documentary. I'd love to hear what they do with this sort of material in the dock.
They do a lot. Yeah, they do a lot. And I don't know, I could be wrong. I don't know if they actually lured them to a TV set or if they lured them to an actual house that had basically been turned into a TV set. But I'll say this, the opening of the trailer that you just heard is also the opening of the movie. So yes, right from the start, it is as deeply unsettling as you might expect this material to be predators lingers long after the final frame. I remember to Catch a Predator on TV.
I remember seeing bits of it. This isn't revisionist history, because anybody who did watch it regularly, if they watch this show, they might after it feel like maybe I should and say that out loud, or maybe I should feel guilty about it. I'll let others wrestle with their conscience or not. I do remember seeing maybe an episode or two, but I certainly was not familiar with the lore around it, or the fact that people would go to conventions around of course true crime and Chris Hansen.
I knew he was a celebrity, but I didn't realize that he was a celebrity to the extent that he was, and that there were all these to Catch a Predator wannabes now on YouTube basically.
Doing this same world.
And to be fair, just like Chris Hansen, they are working usually with police, with authorities, and they are catching actual predators. Right, so you can point to real justice being done. But there is a downside to a lot of this. Whenever, whenever you have punishment as entertainment. There is a downside to this that this movie and you can imagine that. Well, this movie explores that. And I
mentioned that I didn't know the war. I also didn't know about some of the recurring gags almost on the show, or some of the catchphrases. At the end of the trailer, you hear the documentarians say to Chris Hansen, you're free to go.
Some people watching this may feel like you have something to answer for.
What do you say that.
They're free to go?
Apparently that's what Chris Hansen would say to all these predators who would, somehow and the movie talks about this, would stay there and talk to him rather than run out the door. But it wouldn't have mattered either way. He says, you're free to go. Of course, they're not free to go. As soon as they walk out the door.
They're police there to apprehend them. But when I say deeply unsettling, I want to be clear that, yes, occasionally it's the behavior of predators like the guy we hear there on the phone in the trailer, but mostly it's it's the movie's project in a good way. It's the it's the questions that it wants to and does pose that there are just no answers to Josh. I mean that that you're going to be wrestling with, I said, it lingers the questions you're going to be wrestling with
throughout and and maybe for days after. Like I was, I can answer the question of whether or not the show is terrible. I think it was terrible, even if it did result in legitimate predators being caught, even if it did provide something in some cases cathartic for victims
of sexual abuse. But the movie considers what it wants us to think about, what it poses as its main goal is to get us to think about and get some of the people on camera to think about, is what happens when the camera turns off and we see when we have to see these people as people, as human beings.
Can we do that? Should we do that?
And there are two scenes I will say, and I won't get into a lot of details because I want people to see the movie, to see this and experience it for themselves, But there are two scenes in the movie, Josh, where you watch catchers of predators, both pretty hard line, both inured to this. When confronted with their humanity, they soften.
They do. They do see their humanity.
And what I appreciate about the movie is that the documentarian, the director, Oh Sit, he doesn't take those moments as clear victories. He doesn't try to simplify things. He actually reminds you usually in these moments that let's not forget that these people, these predators, did show up because they were going to have sex. They thought they were going to have sex with someone under age, and in one case, they brought alcohol because they thought they were going to
have sex with a fourteen year old. Preters is a documentary that that dares to question everything, including itself, and I think that's really bold about the project. So from the comfort of my TV, I can sit here as an enlightened liberal man and talk about how we need to see their humanity. But what if it was my child? Would I really be feeling so generous? And I can't wait to discuss this movie with someone who's seen it.
I haven't had that chance yet, Josh, because I am as much as I do appreciate the movie and I do, I really recommend people see it. I'm very conflicted about the ending. It's not a spoiler because it's in the trailer and I alluded to it earlier, but I didn't know it. I hadn't seen the trailer. I was waiting the whole movie, and I said to Sarah, who was watching it with me, I'm like, when are we going to find out? The whole movie has been building to this?
It has to be building to it. Are they going to interview Chris Hansen? They have to confront Chris Hansen? Or they have to tell us that they tried to get Chris Hansen on camera and he refused to be interviewed. But if they don't, if we don't get the interview, or we don't get the disclaimer, honestly, the movie is almost worthless because the whole movie has been in some way building up to it. Osi would be derelict in his duties as a documentarian and the journalistic enterprise would
be sunk here. Well, he gets him, He gets him, and the interview is is entirely appropriate. I think the inquisition, if you will, is entirely appropriate. But how it concludes, how it concludes esthetically, I feel icky about. I'm not sure I'm on board with the choices that Osi makes. Again, some thing I would love to discuss with someone.
So, I mean, this is grueling subject matter, and you know, someone who watches Predators may not be in the mood
to see something else along these lines. But the way you're talking about the humanity and the question of that in it reminds me of this documentary I saw way back, I think twenty fifteen at Sundance called Pervert Park, and it was about a Florida trailer park that was basically founded to provide a place for registered sex offenders to live because their options are severely limited, you know, can't live by schools, can't because a condition of their parole.
And it's a movie that's very much about you know, that One aspect it sounds like Predators is partially interested in is what humanity might there be in people like this? Now, this is on the other side of justice in this case, so it sounds like it's very different to that end, but still interested in that question. So yeah, if people are up for thinking about these sorts of really difficult issues a little bit more, i'd also recommend Pervert Park.
Okay, Predators is currently playing in limited release next week. Here on Film Spotting, we've got a top five inspired by our conversation about one battle after another with Leonardo DiCaprio. I think I've read this or heard this somewhere that it was a dream of his to get to work with Paul Thomas Anderson. And certainly fans of PTA's work like I am, and so many people are, and I know you are, Josh as well, it only seemed fitting that we finally got a big star like Leo working
with Paul Thomas Anderson. So what are the actor director combos that we haven't had that we'd like to see. I should know the answer to this, because when I propose this top five at a film spotting production meeting several weeks ago, I think I looked up, or maybe on the call we looked up. We've done something similar
to this before. I can't remember if we've done exactly this top five or something like it, but either way, certainly worth revisiting because it's been a while that we've done something like it, and I haven't started the work yet, but I'm excited to do it.
Yeah, I'm struggling where do I start. Do I start with the directors or do I start with the actors?
Yeah?
Yeah, right now I'm feeling like starting with the actors might be a bit more fun. Yeah, because there I can certainly think of five and I'm not going to name them here about like five, you know, relatively new names, and it doesn't have to be it could be veterans we could go with. But right now I'm thinking about new names who I'm excited about where they're at in
their career and thinking about where they might go. And you know, pairing up with a top flight director is a way to kind of move up in your career. So I'm leaning towards that path. But yeah, I haven't really sat down to think about it much yet.
As soon as you said it, I have to say my immediate thought was to start actor because I think I can build the director off of I can match the sensibility.
Of the director to the performer.
I know doesn't the opposite two, but for some reason, it feels more natural for me to match the director to the actor.
Doesn't This go back to the Del Toro conversation, and maybe with Wes Anderson. Now, I think he's brilliant in Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch, but that allowed him to have in that case a little bit of the mournfulness that he can carry in some of his performances, whereas the Phoenician scheme was at a little bit more prescriptive of what he needed to do. So yeah, it's I don't know if I would have ever said Benicio del Toro, an actor I love, he needs to pair with Wes Anderson.
I probably wouldn't have thought of that. I don't know if I would have thought with Paul Thomas Anderson either, and would have missed out on one battle after another. But but yeah, it's yeah, it'll be an interesting experiment to conduct.
Sam had a very good related prompt in the film Spotting Family Discord and in the newsletter this week, he said, Paul Thomas Anderson can only make one more film, and I'm gonna knock on wood and hope that that doesn't happen. The star of the film can't be anyone that he's ever worked with before. Who is that star? And I think I might take up that mantle for one of my five picks?
Why not?
I mean, I'd love to, I'd love to. I'd love to do the DiCaprio Pta pairing that inspired the Top five. Why not go ahead and use it for one of my picks?
Yeah, I like it fun. I'll steer away from that and let you have that one. Okay, thank you. You can.
You can go with Wes Anderson and we'll have the battle one battle about Anderson after another. You can send your actor director combo picks to feedback at film spotting dot net, and yes, we would love to share some on next weeks show. Also next week results and your comments from the current deeply flawed and deeply difficult Film Spotting poll. I said, you know, it's actually not a
deeply flawed poll. It's a really good one when it feels impossible to answer and I will stall and procrastinate and do almost anything to avoid answering it.
You agreed. The other way you know it's.
A really, really good poll is when the answers are almost evenly split. I have not looked at the results, Josh, in about five days, so it's possible that it has changed, that there's been a shift, But the last time I looked it was about thirty three thirty three thirty three, And in fact, right now, wow, the number one answer has has taken a little bit more of a lead, but it's currently thirty six thirty three thirty Yeah, think.
About difficult, deeply difficult, not deeply flawed.
Okay, you can still vote at filmspotting dot net and yes, we would love for you to leave a comment. We might share your thoughts on air. If you'd like to see our current show schedule, some of the episodes we have planned, the reviews we have coming up. Go to filmspotting dot net and click on episodes.
We want to keep you up to date on what they're doing on our sister podcast, The Next Picture Show, looking at cinema's present via its past. It's part two of their Till You Drop pairing. So this week they're talking about the Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk, which just came out. Previously, they set that conversation up by looking at Sidney Pollack's nineteen sixty nine film They Shoot Horses,
don't they That one featuring Jane Fonda. New episodes of The Next Picture Show drop every Tuesday, and you can find them wherever you get your podcasts.
I want to mention one more time, maybe we'll get another plug in, but at least one Film Spotting family member posted in the discord they heard me plug this last week, Josh, and they must be somewhat in the area because they heard the promotion and said that sounds great. I got to get a pass. I'm going to Refocus. If you're anywhere in the vicinity of Iowa City, Iowa Film Scene is having their fourth annual Refocus Film Festival,
celebrating the art of adaptation. It's October ninth through the twelfth, and you can come see a live taping of a film spotting Top five segment Friday, October tenth, four thirty pm. That will be with me, And since I can't record with you, I'm going to bring on, you know, our great third Wheel, our regular third Wheel, Michael Phillips, will.
Be taping that with me.
We are going to share our top five Iowa writers, basically grads of the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop or people people who were born in Iowa the films that have been adapted from their works. One of the things I'll say, we haven't totally ruled this out yet. I guess I haven't made a ruling, but I think I know where
I'm going to lean. What you have to also consider is what do you do with people who are famous for teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, not that there's a lot of great film adaptations of his work, but if you go that route it opens you up to all of Kurt Vonnegut's adaptations, for example Josh. So you know there's different criteria you could include. But some great films I mentioned last week, The new Park Chinook film is playing. The new film Train Dream starring Joel Edgerton
is playing at the fest. The Zodiac Killer Project new documentary from Charlie Shackleton which is very grill and trying. Yeah, playing at the fest, so worth getting a pass. If you're in the area, please do check it out. Refocus Film Festival dot org.
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All right, let's embarrass ourselves with some Massacre theater. This is where we perform a scene and you get a chance to win a film spotting prize. Last time, was this the video debut of Massacre Theater? Adam that I think there's an addition to floating somewhere with video on the end.
Yeah, but really the official debut. And yes, you have me totally self conscious now, but that's fine.
We'll get to that. All right. Well, last time we massacred this scene smoking to your.
We're on a flowers math. He's already on us.
Oh, this is Tom Cruise and Miles Tuller in twenty twenty two's Top Gun Maverick, written by Eric Warren Singer, Aaron Krueger, and Christopher McCrory and directed by Joseph Kasinski. That massacre was part of our five Years Five Movies show. A couple weeks back. We also had reviews of Spinal Tap two and the History of Sound on that show. There is always a tie in. So why that scene from Top Gun Maverick?
Well, Alexa Debly has the answer. I believe the Masacer Theater was Top Gun Maverick. The tie in would be a movie sequel that was released years and ay decades after the original was released, as is the case with Spinal Tap two. And I'm just going to put this out there so all the true tap heads get it. Are you sure it's deubly and not doubly? There you go, Josh, I'm sure they appreciated that.
Yep. Here's David Allen who said it's got to be Top Gun Maverick. Here are the connections. One, Like Spinal Tap two, this is a sequel that came many years after its predecessor two. One could say Tom Cruise feels like a continuation of Robert Redford's dashing smile and swagger. I don't know. We may have to discuss on our upcoming top five Robert Redford movies, Adam. David Allen's third point, The Right Stuff has some thematic crossover with the Top
Gun movies, and I believe that came up on your list, Adam. Four. Glenn Powell's next vehicle is The Running Man, which, like Rear Window, is an examination of voyeur culture. Okay, Rear Window on my list, that's right.
We close with Ron and Havertown, Pa. You both went above and beyond on this Mascar theater. I laughed out loud on hearing you both pretend to have masks on playing out the pivotal ending scene where Tom Cruise, Maverick and Miles Teller Rooster are in a dogfight against the nameless bad guys flying next Gen Fighters.
Thank you for making my day.
You're welcome, Ron, You're welcome. Everyone you know who's not welcome, all the people who just wrote in Top Gun the original, it's not the original, it's the sequel. Josh, of course, just like spinal TEP two our listeners, So, yeah.
Can you imagine, Adam, if we had a prop budget, like, how good we would have been if we had actual masks? Okay not just use our hands maybe next time.
And yes, as at least one listener one entrant pointed out, we did go with Cole for the name of Maverick, referencing Cole Trickle from Days of Thunder. We went with Andrew from Miles Teller's Rooster, a reference Yes to whip Lash, Josh, reach into the not very brimming film spotting hat and pick out this week's winner.
Our winner is David Zobel from Roswell, Georgia.
Congratulations David. Email feedback at Filmspotting dot net and we will set you up your very own film Spotting t shirt, film Spotting tote bag, or trial membership to the Film Spotting Family Broadsheet. Journalists have described my impressions as stunningly accurate.
Well, they're wrong.
I've not heard you, Michael o kay, but I assume it basically along the lines of I'm okai.
That is where you are so wrong.
We move on now to this week's edition of Massacre Theater. I think the tie in is going to be pretty obvious here, Josh. And we don't have any fancy sound effects that we need to employ here, no masks that we have to pretend to be putting on. Though Producer Sam picked a scene that does involve throwing our voices a bit, multiple voices.
Yeah, he's basically making us each play two characters. Yeah, and you should enough each play a single character.
That's that's correct. I struggle playing myself every week. How alo expect me to do this?
Apparently he thinks I've been about a month in in the UK here, and I have a firm command. Yes, of a British accent, but I'm up in Scotland. It's totally different saying I'm I have hearing people like this.
I mean, come on, yeah, this is this is going to be rough. It's going to be rough, but we're going to go for it. You are going to hear us attempt multiple voices in at least one instance, maybe maybe two back to back, and we are going to change the names in a couple of cases, as we are wont to do here on Masacre Theater.
Josh, you started off. Are you ready? Yeah, let's do it. And action? Where are we? Canterbury? We're close? Anyone know if there's a hotel around here? What lind to promise me? A little bit of action? You still like it in the afternoon? Would you do rob a train, blow up a building? You told me he was swavek as a drunk. He's suave. Should have seen him in the old days when he was a real activist. You were an activist. I just wanted to get laid.
One time the police came to throw us out of our squat and Dalton invited them up for coffee to negotiate. Only coffee was spiked with ketamine.
And scene. See I played, we got I played an American there. That was easy.
I don't know that I performed otherwise. If you know what film we just massacred, email the movie's title in your name and location to feedback at filmspotting dot net. Your deadline is Monday, October thirteenth. We'll select the winner randomly from all the correct entries. I'm expecting just a big full Film Spotting hat and announce it in a couple of weeks.
Josh, that's our show. If you want to connect with us on social media, you can find Adam and the Sho show on Instagram, Facebook, letterboxed, YouTube, all as film Spotting, I'm at those places, also hanging out on Blue Sky as Larsen on film. We are independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the film Spotting Family at filmspottingfamily dot com. You can listen early and
ad free. You'll also get a weekly newsletter from producer Sam monthly bonus episodes our latest just went out, as well as access to the entire show archive. For show t shirts and other merch go to film spotting dot net slash.
Shop in that film Spotting archive, you can get past Paul Thomas Anderson conversations like our review of Liquorice Pizza eight fifty three, Phantom Thread that was episode six sixty four in here and weis episode five seventeen. The Master was episode four fifteen. There Will Be Blood episode one ninety three. The more in depth conversation was for its tenth annivers episode six fifty eight, and we talked about
Magnolia on episode seven point fifty two. That was part of our nine from ninety nine series, and we just put that back in our feed a little from the archive episode just this past week, so you can find that available to all listeners in the main film Spotting feed.
Quick note, Adam, as you were going through that list, I meant to say, while we were reviewing one battle after another and talking about the humor Phantom Thread, you know underrated for how funny it is. You're very dry, very dry, but quite hilarious.
Yes, almost anytime or Woodcock admonishes, anyone is high comedy right exactly?
Yep.
Okay, streaming or out vod you can see play Dirty. This is La Keith Stanfield and Keegan Michael Key, written and directed by Shane Black, in order to score a major Heisen expert thief played by Mark Wahlberg must outsmart a South American dictator, the New York Mob, and the World's Richest Man. Okay, I'm curious. The Lost Bus is out. Paul Greengrass has a new movie out, Josh. A man rescues a teacher and her students from a wildfire with
Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera. Huh been a while since we've heard from Yeah, mister Greengrass obviously very interested in this one. Anemone. Daniel day Lewis returns to the screen in Son Ronan's feature directing debut, Hope to catch up with that one good boy. As dark entities threaten his human companion, a dog must fight to protect the one he loves most. Yes, it's a horror movie, Josh told
from the perspective of the family dog. Indy Wire gives it four and a half stars, saying one of the year's scariest movies and one that doubles as a tribute to the bond between people and their four legged friends.
This is killing me. I was going to try to fit this in at him and then, as you know, and listeners and viewers probably can tell got hit with a bug and have been down and out so had to take it off the viewing list. But man, come on, that sounds great. You know you want to see that?
Can you see that? Or is that one that maybe you can get a screen or two.
I was going to ask for a screener, lank, but maybe it'll maybe it'll get a release around these parts as well. Okay, happy end.
This is a feature debut from Japanese American director Neo Sora, a near future japan bracist for a devastating earthquake. Mitchell bo Pray, our friend says, maybe the best looking film of the year. Also outlimited is Predators, the documentary recommended by me earlier in the show. GoldenEye is being re released for its anniversary. And very eager to see this one. Benny Safdi's solo directed The Smashing Machine. It's the story of MMA fighter Mark Kerr starring Dwayne Johnson. Hope to
see that one. But next week we are planning our top five actor director combos. We'd like to see. If you've got a pairing you want us to consider or just want us to read on air, send it our way feedback at filmspotting dot net.
Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Disso and Sam van Holgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Special thanks to everyone at wbeazy Chicago. More information is available at wbez dot org for film Spotting, I'm Josh Larson and I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening.
This conversation can serve no purpose anymore.
The burn.
Film Spotting is listeners supported. Join the film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com and get access to ad free episodes, monthly bonus shows, our weekly newsletter, and for the first time, all into one place, the entire film Spotting archive going back to two thousand and five. That's a film Spotting Family dot com pantibly h