Pride & Prejudice at 20, Top 5 Rain Scenes, Madness ‘25 (Elite 8), Eephus

sixty five years old. Who is the first character you think of when you think about or just tell us how you first encountered Bell Kilmer as an actor.

They were terrific, and he had they had this sage, he had the stage chops to fill that Guthrie, the old Guthrie Theater. So yeah, yeah, Yet it was not it was not hard to detect that he had a modicum of talent.

do such a top five. And here's what I also know, Michael, with a hat tip to the respective screenwriters in these cases, Bell Kilmer is responsible for two of the movie characters I still quote the most to this day. Chris Knight from nineteen eighty five's Real Genius, Yes, Real Genius really, one of my first screen heroes. Brilliant, hilarious, but edgy, a rebel at his nerdy college. And then, of course the brilliant, hilarious, edgy and rebellious Doc Holiday in Tombstone.

me to tell you the other one? This is controversial. Okay, you could say top Gun either top Gun he's the best thing in both whom he's probably you could say any number of things. I am a mysteriously vulnerable fan to the craziness that is the Saint. You know, I love. I love the movie doesn't work at all, it's not, but I love seeing a guy who just can't give two f's at about like playing along with the Blockbuster game.

You know, he's just he's got twelve disguises, twelve characters to play within that character, and he is having a ball. I mean, and I think the work he does not just the cheap dialect humor of which the movie. That's why the movie exists, for vealkim or to have a cheap dialect real when he's done with it. But he's

that's it. But it just is he's got kind of a kind of a you know, he's such a blithe, you know, sort of bluesh you know presence, you know in a in a movie that you know is preposters who asked for a reboot of the Saint anyway, you know, I mean, I mean the character goes back to the twenties and the literary roots, and then of course the Roger Moore series in the sixties, which had a great theme. Actually, but this movie, I mean, do you do you remember that film?

the career. I don't know if I don't know what kind of career he wanted or made or or went after. I get the feeling he didn't really chase any of the usual you know it to stardom dreams or anything. But I'm just glad he was around while we had him, and and it was a thrill to see him when I was in college, just just kind of having a real, u vivid, easy going, kind of delightful turn in Shakespeare. So yeah, so sad to see him go.

just wanted to hear that drawl. And I ended up paying pretty close attention to it Michael and throughout and really lingering after it. I could sum up for you intellectually why that character is such a beloved character. Why on the page almost anybody playing him would have been a whot. We would have had some fun with him. But I, honestly, after finishing the movie, still can't tell you or articulate exactly what it is that Kilmer is doing that makes that character one of the most memorable

screen characters and what is otherwise? And I really do like the film I considered a favorite movie of mine, but I wouldn't argue with anyone who said it's a pretty mediocre Western, but that character is one of the most memorable characters in a Western or any other genre film of the last twenty five thirty years.

was part of. I think probably created on set this feeling of like, well, he's doing that, and why I can't try to do anything like that, because that's just, you know, literally not going to work if more than one person is trying that sort of eccentric, very sly verbal humor, just kind of getting getting strange line readings out of some good lines, I mean actual Actually it's a pretty good script in tunestim I love I love the way at the poker table. I said that must be a preach of a hand.

that's that kind of like twinkle in his eye. Not not necessarily in that in his part in that film, but Russell in many films is kind of that sort he serves that sort of uh, I don't want to say a gesture role, but it's kind of like a gester, you know, it's like the court jester just having a little fun with everybody else, kind of messing with and keeping all the actors on their toes and and to the audience's delight.

I will say this as a tease for content coming up later this year. I have been hounding Josh and Sam because it is thirty years to do a sacred cow review of Heat. I don't know how we have gone this long and not talked about that great Michael manfilm, but this is the occasion it seems to do it.

to theaters. We'll talk a little bit more about that at the end. But it could be because of its four Oscar nominations back in six including one for Nightly, or to honor Donald Sutherland who passed away last year, Maybe to remember that McFadyen of succession fame was once

pretty hot. Or maybe because if you go to Letterboxed and filter it by ranking of all films released in two thousand and five by popularity, the number one title isn't Batman Begins or Broke Back Mountain or even Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Michael or Star Wars Episode three Revenge of the Sith. It's Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice, Yes kidding. That either tells you something about

the movie or about Letterboxed, maybe both. I wanted to revisit it because when I's all it was coming back to theaters, I knew this was an occasion to reconsider a movie that I liked back in two thousand and five, but would never have envisioned that twenty years later it would be a top such a ranking, and my cost at the time, Sam adored it. My daughter, Sophie, who is now as old as this film, loves this film and I thought, you know, she's on the payroll now,

Michael as our production assistant. Why not employ her then to tell us a little bit about why she loves the movie so much and see if she can set us up for our conversation.

no distance could keep me from calling in. When the topic is two thousand and five Joe Wright, Pride and Prejudice, I mean, how app this year's mat and this theme is best of the century so far, just in time to discuss this movie one of the great cinematic works of our age. For the selection committee's sake, I'll assume its absence on the bracket was just an unfortunate oversight. Now also act that the film is celebrating its twentieth year alongside the show. It got an original review back No.

Five on Cinecast number fifty eight. Listening back, I was struck by Sam's comment that Wright's greatest triumph was his success in bringing language to cinema. Sam credits the sharp, witty screenplay with making him more articulate even hours after viewing Now. If you are like me, knee deep into niche Austenite infighting, you are familiar with the forever raging battle over which pride and prejudice screen adaptation is superior This or the nineteen ninety five BBC mini series starring

Jennifer E. Lee and Colin Firth. Sam's praise echoes a central point of contention in that debate the value of historical accuracy and loyalty to the original book. Writes detractor argue, he took too many creative liberties with his overly sentimental romantic world, one that is incongruous with the restraint the story demands. In their view, the language Sam found so

illuminating is instead a bastardized imitation of Austin's text. Various characters dress and hair is often misaligned with the period and or their status. The iconic hand flex isn't in the book at all. Wright brings language to cinema with his choice of subject, but he also presents this story with an entirely new cinematic language, to the delight and derision of many. So, Adam and Michael, I ask you, did Joe write sparkling vistas, hand flexes and rain soak proposals?

Have you swooning? Or should he have dialed the drama back? Or should I say, will Adam follow Lizzie and Darcy's example and reevaluate his tepid first impression from twenty years ago? Or are the shades of film Spotting to be thus polluted once more?

a lot of barnyard mud and cackling geese. In this version, it's very boisterous and the boisterousness and sort of the comic uh, kind of the bumptious comic quality in the first twenty to thirty minutes just to kind of establish that this family is not, of course it's in the lace. Really it's more like, you know, they are, you know, middle class, you know, living with far it's you know, on the farm, and you don't get the oh, kind of the exquisite high toned edge to all the language.

It's it's a little more conversational and it's if you can get into that rhythm. Though, as the film also kind of finds its rhythm after fifteen minutes. It is completely intoxicating anything And it's all Joe writes, camera work is so fluid and and so and it's not showing off. It's not necessarily He's done plenty of that in his career, with like the the Dunkirk sequence and a toonement and I mean this, this is there's a little of that

what I what I loved the first time. And on the rewatch where the just the way he'd sweep you into a ball a ball a party. Uh, you know, another scene with all these you know, all these family members. Uh, it's got a real activating quality. And and then you get you get shifts visual and otherwise that really really

really catch up short in a great way. Like I love the scene where Rosamund Pike and Kira Knightley are under the sheets having that late night talk and it's it's just it's just beautiful, uh, framework and just you know, really really felt again all over again, like you're hearing a conversation in that in that kind of really really lovely intimate feeling that you just don't get in a lot of Jane Austen. So there I'm I'm well, what about you.

So I do want to point out that the only thing I carried into this viewing was the recollection that I found Nightley's performance to be limited. I agree, agree, That's all I remembered about my reaction. Then. Fortunately Sophie listened to episode fifty eight and took notes, which meant I could check twenty twenty five Atam against two thousand and five ATOM through her. Turns out two thousand and five Adam was a dummy there. There wasn't a single

criticism I made then that holds now. Not only was I down on Nightly way too much, it turns out I called mcfaddy in a drip liked him so much better this time. I railed against Brenda Blafin for crying out loud as Missus Bennett, who I think is quite

good in the film. I wasn't moved by it much as a romance at the time, and while I thought the filmmaking was fine, I wasn't stirred by Right's formal choices, certainly not the way I would be a few years later with the tonement, leading me to wonder, now, Michael, as if possible I didn't actually watch Pride and Prejudice back in two thousand and five because I think about the filmmaking now. Right's approach is elegant, vibrant, and prudently ostentatious.

I'll explain why I say that, because he does he

does take some very bold steps with the material. But that opening following Elizabeth back home from her walk with the book, tracking along the clothesline and picking up and introducing us to all the other Bennetts there within long burn the piano that's playing the score, it seems, of course, to be non diegetic, or is it because the younger sister we see is actually playing the piano forte when the camera stops on her and so maybe for a second we think there's a little bit of playfulness, Oh,

is that actually emanating from her Elizabeth then watching her mother and father through the window, listening to them, kind of eaves dropping on them, placing her like an observer to the drama that is about to all play out the same way we are as viewers. And Right does something similar later in the film, moving along the windows, revealing all the Bennetts, some separation, some sharing spaces, they're

all united by the camera. And there's another move like it that comes in the middle very intentionally, I think, where that roving camera sneaks around and just spies on all the conversations. I think this might even be I could be wrong, but that might even be where we see and hear Jane and Elizabeth, as you said, the under the covers, but just kind of sneaking us into all the conversations and those storylines. It's just it's just so again, elegant is the only way I can describe it.

And the lighting, even Michael harnessing natural light the way Right does in so many of these scenes, which feels like it could be very appropriate to the period, using candles.

Then later to really dramatic effect in darker scenes. How about that great confrontation where I think, I think Knightley absolutely holds her own against even the likes of Dame Judy Dench as Lady de Burgh, with those candles just lighting their faces and giving her giving Dench a little bit of extra viciousness there and that scene adding real tension to it.

that's such a beautiful touch. And I'll give you one more, even though I'm gonna go on and give you some of those ostentatious ones. Here in a little bit the not so obvious but really lovely match cut, we get where Elizabeth at one point blows on a feather in her hand and it cuts to a flame, as if as if she could be blowing out the flame or

she's kind of igniting the flame with her breadth. There are so many lovely moments like that, and including one more quick one, Michael, the one that inspired our top five this week, the rain scene, that proposal and post rain scene, that shot of her just ensconced in darkness. There are so many great choices like that in this film, and again I'll say it, I don't know how I missed them. In two thousand and five, they're there.

just to see how it's changed and all that. But there is I think I would actually address both atoms in this case, the twenty twenty five version of especially, but I think there is something it Maybe it relates a little bit to my sense the first time and on the rewatch that the movie does push it pretty hard, you know, in terms of sort of comic and visual style in that first you know, in the introductions and in some of the key scenes in the first fifteen

twenty minutes. So yes, yes, that is when you see Nightley, who was all of twenty at the point sort of sort of working you know, a little hard, and she doesn't all the way through. She does, I think, find many more kind of like range, you know, points along the range or her natural range to find, you know, the real emotional range in the role in the material.

I think you're actually right about Brenda Blevin. I think I wrote back in five and I like this film health a lot, you know, I wrote that she is pitched like she's auditioning for a music hall review. Yeah, I mean that's you know, it's a little like she's unfortunately auditioning for you know, Madame Frendre and Le Miz and I don't ever want to see anyone sing Master of the House again, so you know that I had

a little bit of a bad reaction to that. But the I think it's just it was bled and who was in an extremely technically skilled actor, you know, I think again she was just I think I think the directive from Joe Wright, I'm guessing is to like this, we have to just pay this has to be pacy at the beginning, and we're just going to really kind of swirl, uh, you know, swirl the audience in to this sort of mailstrom that is this family and in this place and in this kind of gorgeous, little muddy

little corner of England, and you know, some things work better than others. But yes, it's hard to look at Kira Knightley and mcfaddy and Matthew mcfaddy and in direct relation to the pride and prejudice that was on everybody's mind when this came out in No Fi, which was ten years earlier. The British television series adaptation with Jennifer Eally and Colin Firth, which is sort of Olympian level casting. I mean, I mean they are just sublime, I think.

And they're both wonderful, wonderful performers and weren't particularly well known to most Americans then. And this is a very different feeling here in Joe Wright's version, it does. It all feels very much friskier and younger and more a little more kind of comically petulant and different kind of you know, kind of spirit of the comedy. But I don't know. I think in the key scenes, even when I remember thinking the first time that Sutherland, well, is he really is he? Is he doing a dialect?

you know, And uh, that's it's really I think. I think the reason Sam uh and I haven't talked to Sam about this, but I would bet money that the reason Sam really went for this is he knew somehow that just by instinct that Joe Wright, I remember hearing this story, Joe Wright did something that was not completely novel, but it was somewhat unusual, and that he convened the entire cast for something like three weeks of rehearsal in

a country house. They all lived together, ate together, drank together, rehearsed together, and so by the time they actually filmed on day one, it was pretty loose in the best way. And that's why the movie like it does.

myself right in being a parent myself. That line she does say would you have five daughters, Lizzie, tell me what else will occupy your thoughts, and then perhaps you will understand when Lizzie calls her out for seeming to only think about marriage. I just keyed in earlier to the notion this time, Michael, that with missus Bennett, it's always coming from a place of love and a place

of fear, basically the condition of being comparent. She's not overally greedy, she's not overly entitled, she's not overly concerned with public perception. She is just worried about her family. And as I said, that was clearer to me on this viewing with Knightley the thing that hung me up last time, and I feel a little bit silly about it now having rewatched the film, I noted that she

seemed to have this kind of go to move. It suggested to me that she didn't have the depth at the time to play this character, and that I sometimes felt like she was in fact playing a character. Playing at the character of Elizabeth Bennett. She would recurringly whenever she was delighted. Whenever Elizabeth was delighted about something, and she was often delighted, especially early in the film, she would do this thing where she would thrust her tongue

up against her teeth. She'd give you this toothy grin, and you would see her tongue touch the back of her teeth. And I just felt like, is that what she thinks? Delightedness? Looks like, why does she keep doing that? And I watched it this time, and at first I got nervous, Michael, because we're five minutes in and I saw it, And then we're eight minutes in and I

saw it again. And then we're like fifteen minutes in and I saw it again, and you know what, I just didn't see it again after that moment.

And I think, you know, I, I think all you have to do is look at what night Lea's up to two years later with atonement, Uh, and and that's and that's Joe Right too, and and those are his two best films. And I guess, I guess if there's if I have any sadness about revisiting this and seeing how good it is like Kenneth Branna as a director, and in a way, Joe Wright is nothing like Kenneth Branner. But the one thing they have in common is I wonder I fear that their best film was their first film.

And I don't know, although Atonement's just just about as good, I think, and I've liked some of Wright's work since, But but I thought, I don't know, it might it might have just been that lucky moment where they got the right people, they had the right amount of time, and and Right working with that cinematographer Roman Ausin or Osin. I'm not I'm sorry. I apologize for the mispronunciation of I made it. I think that was a really a

learning experience for Right. It would have been a learning experience for Right working on any first feature, working with any cinematographer. But I think for him he clearly learned and collaborated and really really used all the right information about how to how to you know, kind of keep the camera as a dancing partner, but not let it get too crazy. You know it too. It was too much.

It always will be. This film will always be a little much for a lot of people, especially diehard Austin fans, who have certain adaptations in their head, and anything sort of outside those lines feels like it's wrong or out of character or out of period or something. And I admit I have a little bit of that feeling with the performances of the Jennifer e Lee Colin Firth version on television, because those are sterling. But I think just as cinema, there's no contest.

on here on Film Spotting two thousand and seven. Atonement was my number two film of that year, and I never would have imagined, based on how much I love that film, though I haven't seen it in many years, how much I love that film, that I could revisit this film, and even if I did change my mind, as I've changed my mind, I never would have thought I'd sit here and say that you might be right, that pride and prejudice might actually be Joe Wright's best film.

I do feel that way now after seeing it, even though I would definitely watch Atonement again before I would fully declare that I do want to go back to Nightly real quick and just say not only did I no longer see her employing that same tactic after the first fifteen or twenty minutes of the film, I just appreciated the fearlessness with which she tackled this character, the way, as I said, she holds her own in scenes against an actress like Dench. I think the way she matches

the grace of Sutherland. She certainly doesn't back down a ninch at all from mcfaddyen and what right does And this is I'm sure in the screenplay too, but Writes choices the way he builds that character and really gets

us as viewers to attach to her. It's little moments that are little moments but are nevertheless inspired, Like that shot when she's with her relatives, I believe, when she's traveling and they end up by accident almost at Pemberley and she sees Pemberley for the first time and I and if I'm remembering the sequence correctly, we see it in a very long shot and we've seen some glorious

English countryside manners in this film already. But when we see Pemberley from a distance, we are mouths agape in awe of it, and we don't see her carriage pull up. We just see the shot of her standing up getting out of the carriage, and it's a close up and she just lets out this giggle, so just giggle at the pure audacity of this location in front of her. And again, I just think it's a wonderful, little but inspired touch that attaches us to that character and gets

us really inside her head. And speaking of being inside her head, right has the good sense as well when she gets lost in Pemberley amidst all the art in the statues, even before she sees the statue of him and is drawn to that, or her attention is drawn to that. She's just lost in the art and it feels for a second like she's the only person in the world there in that scene, which again just really brings us into her mindset. And I want to go back to some of those flourishes that really do set

up something like the Dunkirk scene. They're not on that level, they're not drawing attention to themselves on that level. The Dunkirk sequence in Atonement that incredible, long take.

From a technical standpoint, it's a it's a marble, but those ostentatious moments and the way he prudently employs them, Michael having everyone at the ball, this is a very naturalistic film otherwise, and yet we get a moment when they dance, they finally dance together, and everyone at the ball disappears, as if Elizabeth, Bennett and Darcy are the only inhabitants of this space sharing this moment together.

There's a lot of conflict inside her, and she starts getting crossed up in the swing as she twirls on it, and then the world sort of just passes by for a bit. Michael, it's not entirely clear. Is she on that swing for five minutes? Is she there for five days? Have five weeks passed? And that happens, I think too,

as I mentioned amongst the artwork at Pemberley. But the other great example of that is after the proposal and after that fight with mister Darcy, when she goes and stares at herself in the mirror, and she stands there from daylight into nighttime, and he appears to her at

some point. With the letter and the Waywright showcases her in that scene, and her stillness, and the fact that we have seen this trick, if you will, employed before, in terms of time and space, you almost wonder, or I did, on this viewing, is this even really happening? Is he there or is she imagining this? And how long has she been standing there? It all just reflects how unsettled she is mentally in that moment, how undone she is by all of this. And you noted this earlier.

I think as bold as those choices are, none of it calls undue attention to itself. It all seems perfectly functional organically within those scenes and for the characters. It's in support of the characters and their wants and desires and and shows us or or allows us access to deeper access to their their states of mind at the time.

style and all the rest of it. And otherwise it's just a bunch of theatrics, really, And you know, when you look ahead to another Cure Knightlyy Joe Wright collaboration, the Ana Karren and adaptation, I mean, that's that's frankly, completely utterly kind of theatrical and really just a theatrical deconstruction of the novel, and even it's almost playing with the idea of just adaptation in general. And I found

that film fairly interesting. I've never gone back to it, so it's you know, and I think I've seen an awful lot of theater work that did the same thing with other very famous novels that presume a certain familiarity, so they can kind of start jacking with the narrative a lot, and sometimes that can be really bracing and

kind of alive. That was like, okay, I thought, but this, I do think that you get a rapidly maturing director at who start, you know, with those first two films with Pride and Prejudice, and then Atoman, who just really knew how to put his technique to a more refined, more and more refined and judicious purpose without drying it out.

I mean, I mean this, this came out, This film came out the same year that Roman Polanski adapted Oliver Twist, and that film is just dead on a rival, and I mean very uncharacteristic for Polanski, which is like it literally looks like, you know, his mission was like I just need to direct this as if nobody directed it or even had ever seen a film. You know, it's like perfectly, perfectly respectable bore and that is not this film.

And thank god. Yeah, I will say that there's one line that to me captures the spirit you're talking about about, just kind of the feeling of it, the spontaneity of it, the naturalism. It's not entirely naturalistic, but largely there's that moment at the you know, near the end, when mister Collins list he would be suitor tells mister Bennett that he likes to affect quote as unstudied an air as possible. And I love that line because that's exactly why this

movie works. It has that unstudied air which only comes from a lot of careful planning, a lot of rehearsal. And maybe it did. Maybe what did The trick is putting all these people together in a nice house together and letting them rehearse and eat meals and you know, drank wine and all the rest of it. And man, it just feels like the party. They just kept the party going and said action.

maybe the most emotional part. And we've talked a little bit about Sutherland. I really think we get near the end of this film one of the all time great father daughter exchanges on screen. Ever, when she says when she Lizzie says that yes she does love mister Darcy, and we get Sutherland's tears there where you know that he is just so happy. He is rejoicing because this special girl, his special girl, has found happiness.

some screens. Focused Features is re releasing the film. Tickets are on sale now, so if you need to revisit it or you need to see it for the first time, seeing it on the big screen would be a great way to do that, Or you can check it out via Netflix, also widely available vod If you agree or disagree with any of our takes, we'd love to hear from you feedback at filmspotting dot net. Listening, of course, Michael is the number one thing someone can do to

support an independently produced show like ours. A couple more things you can do. Take a minute to give us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Whether you're a first time listener or you've been listening lo these twenty years, every new review helps us reach new listeners. Another way you could support us is to join the film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com. We have family members from all over the world, Michael,

including Melbourne, Australia. Shane Adam is out there and is a family member. His letterbox handle, if you're interested in following him, is Shane Adam. One word though, that's Shane with a why. I just want to say I read this earlier today, Michael. I don't pick these. I do not pick these. Sam does, and maybe he thought I needed a little bit of a pick me up because I recognize how delusional I was twenty years ago as a co host of this show. I must have started

listening just post cinecast days, I reckon. I was looking for a film podcast to keep me saying on my long car journeys as a Masls esque traveling salesman of sorts, and found it in Film Spot. What hooked me and my wife were the marathons. There were a few film podcasts tackling new films, but only one that was boldly going where no other podcasts had gone before nineteen seventies sci Fi. Yes, that was an early marathon, A favorite reviewer segment. So here we go. Well, there was that

time I had the guy's review sallow for me. But I'm going with Fargo. Adam's insights into that film changed the way I appreciate the Cones, although I was already

a huge fan and cinema in general. Specifically, his deconstruction of the scene were Marge Gunderson blatantly but convincingly is lied to by Mike Yanagita, which leads to the requestioning of Jerry Underguard and the unraveling of the entire plot, which seemingly was a disposable scene with another wacky Cone character to laugh at, was in fact the crux of the film. That moment she realizes she was lied to, her whole mindset changed, and Adam pointing that out so

eloquently on the pod kind of changed mine. Look at the work.

Phantom Menace, et cetera. And I give him kudos for defending his position on all of these so fervently and well courageously.

he truly is Team Adam Locke. I'm a sucker for low budget, beautifully acted and perfectly written one location films. What else can I say? A movie he credits with becoming a cinophile man bites Dog. Having an older brother certainly helped speed up my cinematic learnings. I should probably credit all the Hong Kong martial arts films we watch or Eraserhead, which he may have shown me slightly earlier than this, or even Halloween, which he showed me when I was a lot younger than I was when this

came out in nineteen ninety two. I won't explain the movie for those who haven't seen it, safe to say it's French shot cinema verite style is about a serial killer and is a comedy. To say I didn't know films like this existed at age fifteen is an understatement. Finally, a book about movies or movie making, He Loves the Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans. There are undoubtedly more educational books on cinema, but he says few more entertaining.

film Spotting Madness. You get a chance to be part of our April bonus show where we will do a draft. The winner of Film Spotting Madness gets to decide the topic. You can learn more at film spottingfamily dot com. It may throw the Ephis pitch is a type of curveball so unnaturally slow that it confuses the batter, makes it.

and I enjoyed Ephie. It's a hell of a good first film from Carson Lund, and I love that he and his co writer really didn't force a single conventional plot element onto what is a daringly plot free reverie about a bunch of middle age guys just you know, trying to make the best of their last game of not just the season, but in that particular physical space

where the middle school for this small town. I think it's supposed to be in Massachusetts, and in fact it was in Massachusetts, because I think that's where the real Soldier Field I'm sorry, Soldier's apostrophe, Yes field is and

they call it out by name. I think that's where it is, and it I just love that it's it's both a goodbye to a season but also to kind of this this tradition, this physical place and and what I also love is that in interviews Carson Lund has said, I've wanted to make my version of Goodbye Dragon in the Taiwanese film that I'll be mentioning later in the show, in fact, under a different you know, meteorological context, but the but you know, I love that. That was his

that was his guy post. It was like, Okay, this is I want to make a film. It's saying goodbye to something meaningful and all any sort of marginalized in the culture a little bit, so I know, I enjoyed it. It's also got the kind of a peculiar visual wit in that it is all this sort of minutia being sort of discussed under the breath of all these guys and just sort of like the smallest of small talk. A lot of it very funny, but none of it stressed or kind of leading anywhere hugely dramatic or any

of it. And yet it is this wide screen sort of epic treatment. If you see it in the theater, it's a you know, it's it's kind of beautifully was composed in this wide screen format, and it's the it's the smallest movie with with kind of the least fraud and thesis driven dialogue given sort of this epic VistaVision sort of treatment. So I don't know, I can't wait to see what this guy does next. It's it's you know, you don't want to. I don't want to overpraise the movie.

It's it is the size it is, it's playing in the league it is, but it's playing it well.

that really isn't overly romantic, overly romantic about baseball. And I like what you said in relation to Goodbye Dragging In meaningful, Yes, but meaningful you added the marginalized part.

It's all about the fact that it is really meaningful, but only to a select few, and to most of the world outside of those few, it doesn't seem to matter at all, which is what gives it its heft, actually, which is what makes it even more profound to those people who care about it and thinking about the golden brick. We're talking usually about ambition in a first film or second film, and really showing incredible vision to hear us talk about this low budget baseball movie that almost could

be like a play. It could be on a stage if not for the fact that you would miss you would miss the details that you need, the baseball details of the diamond and the park and the atmosphere. I grant you that, But at times it feels like a play. How inventive and how risky can this film really be? It's kind of the slice of life. It's very low stakes drama. It's almost a real time baseball game that

we're watching play out. Yeah, but every baseball movie asks us to believe the game is a metaphor for life. Lund isn't asking. He's not asking. I actually think what's so distinct and daring about his approach is that he has no interest in trying to sneak a curveball bias. He's like, make no mistake or sneak the ethis pitch bias. Right where the film it states the thesis. It tells you why it's called Ethus right about halfway through, and it, like the film as a whole, is a metaphor for life.

The later and darker it gets, the more the sun is truly setting on these characters literally and figuratively, the more almost surreal it becomes. Michael, the Field takes on this sense of a spiritual limbo. And I don't know if I was entertained by Eva's I certainly was fascinated by vas.

But I also like the experience I had at the music Box seeing that with four hundred people a few years ago, a good print, and we did a discussion afterwards, and it was it was wonderful to just feel it working with the audience all over again. But there are baseball films that have kind of that sort of secremonious approach a little bit. The tone is just a little it's it's so it's so metaphor driven and all the

rest of it. I mean, they didn't even get the film version of The Natural, right, that's a good novel and a tough minded, pretty hard nosed novel, and that that's just a big piece of cheese. I think it's good looking, good looking, and I loved I could have hung out with Richard Farnsworth and Wilford Grimley in the Dugout. In fact, that's the movie that should have been made.

They should have called it The Natural and not cast Redford, but simply just redirect the narrative to those guys and then they you know, that's that's the Ephis effect, you know what I mean, That's that's why Ephis works as the way it does, because it has that sort of just you know, off center conversation going on here in the less important part of baseball mythology.

pseudo intellectual. I heard about the mallow Mood story it's based on, and how it's grittier and it's it's more real, and it's what the movie should have been, and I just refused to accept that. And I'm still at this age of refusing. I didn't end up reading it too, And I still want to watch that ball sail into the lights and the sparks rain down on Robert Redford as he runs around the bases. As he trots along, Michael, I can't help it. Yeah, I'm a sucker. I like cheese, is what.

and I do love minor league ball. You know, have you seen the Joliet Jack.

twenty twenty five. It may just take all the life out of us, but it's gonna be worth it. We're finally going to cross off all the blind spots for one of the all time legendary filmmakers, and we're going to become Andre Tarkovsky completest excellent. That is going to eat like a media definitely only seven features in his filmography, slightly more imposing, certainly from a reputation standpoint. We have five movies in the marathon, which we will do over

four shows. A couple of them I've already seen, a couple of Josh has seen. By the end of it, we will have seen them all. We're starting with a double feature, nineteen sixty one's The Steamroller and the Violin. That's his student film. It's a little on the shorter side, so we're pairing that.

filmspotting dot net slash marathons. We also wanted to acknowledge the anniversary of a Chicago cinema institution, Facets Film Forum, turns fifty this year, Michael, and to celebrate, they've got a couple of special series going on Chicago on screen, including Work in Progress with Lili Wachowski, a discussion about Wachowski's Showtime series set and shot in Chicago, and another series called five Films, Five Decades, Five Critics coming up

this Sunday. You can see Werner Herzog'sagira The Wrath of God at Facets. Belatar's Damnation with Jonathan Rosenbaum that's coming up in May. Other films to be announced. You can learn more at facets dot org. Any kind words you would like to share for Facets Michael, My.

Back in the day where you could not get films, a lot of thousands and thousands of films from the rest of the world, and half of the stuff I didn't know anything about came straight out of the America, whether it was earlier, you know, along in cinema history and whatever. It just meant everything. The mail order facets thing, just to send away for these things and ship them. It was marvelous, and I'm glad to see it's still

around and remaking itself in many ways. But I have to say it felt like a an incredibly bittersweet privilege to write a couple of pieces on milosch Stalek, one just before he died and one after just about the influence and sort of his place in Chicago exhibition history,

which is huge. So yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad they fifty years Manny, any organization like that, in any realm of the arts and cinema, hats off to figuring out a way to try to get to the point where you can say on to the next fifty.

Missus mystery pairing. So, Michael, they've taken Steven Soderberg's Black Bag and they're juxtaposing it with nineteen thirty four Is the Thin Man with William Powell and Myrna Loy seems like it inspired pairing, though I'll say it again, I still somehow have not been able to catch up with a black Bag, which Josh and Roxanna Hadadi both we're so favorable on a few weeks back on this show. I can't wait to finally see it. I can't wait

to then listen to The Next Picture Show. New episodes drop every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts.

pretty early and pretty decisively. There were no blowouts, but there were also no upsets. In fact, our Elite eight are the Elite eight. They're the eight films that the selection committee, myself and Sam. It turns out seeded as the eight films we thought would be left standing at this point, and it has turned out that way. So from the largest to smallest margin, we will tell you those.

We had David Fincher's Zodiac up against George Miller's Mad Max Fury Road, and Fury Road took it sixty six percent, Zodiac thirty four percent.

reflect on how much I love Lynch. But my three favorite filmmakers forget of the past twenty five years, just in general, Pta, the Coen Brothers, and David Lynch, somulhalland Drive for Me over in the mood for love.

April fifteenth at five to get those picks in. Those of you who submitted brackets and our bracket contest, this is a barn burner of a competition so far, Michael, with great prizes including a limited edition film Spotting Fest poster signed by Coganata and Ryan Johnson. Eight hundred and twenty five people filled out brackets and at the top of the leader board for the second week in a row, the guy who won last year, Michael looks like he's

on the verge of winning it again. His name's Ricky Kendall. My god, he's in the UK. He titled his bracket uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Apparently no, it sits quite easy upon his head.

Ross at Film Spotting Fest, Carl Bjorkman. We have an internal competition, Michael, between myself, Josh Sam and the film Spotting Madness godfather, the originator of the idea, Mike Merrigan in Dover, New Hampshire. Josh has dropped to fourth place, and this is one of those competitions where really there's no prize for winning, there's only punishment for losing. So just don't want to finish fourth, which I've been in

up until now. Josh is now in fourth. He got seven of eight right though in this round, but he's tied for seventy second. He's down from fifty fifth. He did have get out advancing to the elite eate, So tough one.

is tied for fourth overall in the tournament. Mike always does well, Yes, in this competition.

only four votes. That's how close it is. It's gonna it's gonna come down to the wire.

in the film spotting pantheon. And Singing in the Rain was just inducted bad timing for Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor and Debu Rent can't make the top five. It's in the pantheon. Now it hurts, Yeah.

not ours. And another movie that's in the film spotting pantheon that I didn't consider. And this sets up another category. I excluded Michael Glengarry Glenn Ross, and that's because it's a movie. Sam reminded me of this line. I knew this movie was a good example of what I'm going to describe, but I certainly didn't consider this film. The line Sam noted is Eric Draven Brandon Lee saying in The Crow, it can't rain all the time. There's some movies where it just seems to rain all the time.

Glenn Garry's one of those films. A couple others, and we'll see maybe these ended up making your list, or one of them did. But a couple of Kurosawa films like Raschoman seven Samurai certainly, but it's raining all the time. It's raining all the time in Blade Runner. Even though it's hard to overlook a moment like Rucker Howard's tears in rain speech is one of my favorite moments, one

of my favorite speeches in all of movies. David Fincher's seven Yeah Full of Rain, bon Juno's Memories of Murder seems to be NonStop rain. So I left out movies where it just seems like it's raining all the time.

is this is the fault, the final cut. No, no, this one's really the final But every time the visual kind of wonder of it, the real the real brilliance of the design work carries me over my feelings about story limitations or whatever. So yeah, all right, I may have a little bit of call on that one.

Freaking's Sorcerer from nineteen seventy seven. Very rainy, also not real. I thought, I wasn't sure. It looked like kind of legitimate, you know, sort of tropical rainstorm weather there, and that is well faked, convincingly fraudulent rain going on. They couldn't they couldn't even film in the country they wanted to because the rains the rainy season was so dry the river itself looked wrong, so they had to move it all to Mexico. I mean, that scene alone costs something

like three million to film. Took a month to film that scene, and I mean straight, and it's a strange suspense sequence. And of course the rain makes it, you know, this stunningly expensive, convincing looking rain makes it all all the clammier and more memorable. But anyway, it didn't quite make it so but fake rain in a real setting, So you know whatever, You know all that, But my number five, you want to hear it?

about anything. It's very very light on plot, deliberately a ticket taker and a projectionists sort of routine on this last night while they show the nineteen sixty seven King who film the Wusha film dragging in you know who did a great work. And I just caught up with Nick Pinkerton, the critic and works at Metrograph. I believe now he is a very good video. I say on behalf of the Metrograph for the re release of Goodbye

Dragon Him that's on YouTube. And just about how the closing of this theater, Yes it's yes, it's a metaphor for a lot of things, but it's really dealing with kind of how movie going is about two in some way they couldn't quite put their finger on in two thousand and three, really about to go through a serious sudden maybe slow and then sudden transformation it's also in

Pinkerton's view, I like this. It's also just about urban social space and how people, you know, people's relationship to cities, and what is available and on offer for entertainment in cities, and how that's all kind of dissolving along with analog filmmaking around this time anyway, what we see is just you know, it's really just the last five minutes or so that I'm pointing to from my scene is, you know,

what has to happen at this final screening. Well, the two employees we spend the time with, the rain buckets still have to be emptied. We got leaky roofs, so you know, we got leaky, leaky ceilings all over the place.

We have you know, just a kind of as a ritual of hooky closing up, you know, in this sort of soggy situation, and we just spend the last you know, two and a half minutes I think outside the theater, a little curve in the road with the ticket taker who may or may not ever see the film projectionist.

She's clearly sweet on again, walking home in the rain outside the theater, as the song with the lyric about Can't Let Go Can't Let Go plays on the soundtrack after the scene cuts the black, and to me, it's it's not as heavy as that makes it sound. The film is really kind of a if you want a US corollary just to the kind of this minimalist comic tone. It's Jim Jarmers probably in that. But I love the I love that use of the rain. It's not like

a staggering, dramatic amount of rain. It's just a rain that kind of this is rain as bittersweet Farewell. That's kind that's kind of the message here. So that's my number five.

able to fit it in before Madness began. Our family members will know that Sam brought it up on a bonus show. He thought he had to squeeze it in before madness began, and instantly went crazy for it. Gave it five out of five stars. It's called it a masterpiece. So I would love to say that I've seen it, but I am admitting that I haven't seen Goodbye Dragon In and now I want to see it even more.

wait for their father. It's a rain, Michael, where it's constant, but it's quiet, it's peaceful, it isn't tormenting at all. They have their umbrella and that's all they really need. They're fine otherwise in the rain and the umbrella and the rain allows for the great point of view reveal that we get where Setsuki kind of just peaks underneath her umbrella to see Toto's to see this furry creature appear next to them, and just kind of see we see the giant hairy leg before we see anything else.

And I love how the rain is employed in the sound design, where it isn't just kind of that nice white noise like some people may go to sleep too at night, but it recurs in that the rain will fall down on Totoro's nose and we get that little plinking sound, and so that compels Satsuki to help this creature who obviously exists out in nature. She has such natural empathy and care and compassion that she gives Totoro an umbrella.

And with this Hitchcock film, I think it's one of his most sheerly enjoyable movies, especially in his early Hollywood period. This is the This is the right after he moved over from England and got a contract with Selznik and made Rebecca and the film won the Oscar for Best Picture of Rebecca, although Hitchcock did not even get nominated, I believe for a Best Director. But this is the second film. It's just a gas. I mean, I love

Foreign Correspondent. It's it's not as well known as some, although it's I think it's got a pretty pretty good reputation. Is a great time. Have you seen that film Foreign Correspondent?

a great Hollywood legend. And what he creates in this scene I Love for the Rain, among other things, is just kind of a great example of peak Hollywood back loot, avocation of another place with a slightly fanciful kind of air of fraudulents, which I love in Hollywood, you know, just like I referred to, you know, one of the charms that Cosablanca is backlot Morocco, my kind of place,

you know. And here we have a scene where we have Joel McCrae playing the New York reporter Johnny Jones, who's chasing Nazis in Europe and there's a peace conference in Amsterdam and he's over there. He gets embroiled with that, and we have in this great establishing shot of of suddenly, okay, cut to Amsterdam, right, and it's a backlock crane shot up up up pivots about ninety one hundred degrees, covers

a very lovely kind of city square in Amsterdam. Street cars working street cars is dozens and dozens of Dutch folk on bicycles in the rain, moving around many many cars. And then over there there's a huge crowd waiting to see these key political figures showing up for this peace conference, luting the Dutch diplomat named Van Mihir, and okay, he poses for a picture. Photographer comes up. He's got a gun.

It's a very famous assassination sequence. I mean it's it's sort of this grand kind of like almost a peaceful kind of city scene. Oh that's very bustling and very crowded. And then there's this brief shot with a startling amount of blood in it where he is shot in the face for and you see it for two seconds, because that's all I think you could probably get away with Hitchcock. That is in nineteen forty and it's a major incident

in the plot. But right for that, Joel McCrae shocked, stunned, he sees he's hey, he's got the gun, run get him. And the assassin hides underneath this sea of umbrellas held by the people in the crowd. So this is rain as a murderer's best friend. That's what this scene is. And there's a great it's just about a ten to fifteen second bit. I don't mean like comic bit, but it is sort of like a weirdly kind of just

kind of like horrifyingly funny just to see that. You know that we see the umbrellas kind of jostle and move, but we see no people even holding them because they're being hidden by the umbrellas, as is the Murderer, and it's just a great it's a great combination of production designed by Menzies, you know, a wonderful kind of you know shot designed by Hitchcock. And it's a six minute scene,

that's all it is. And they took the usual amount of big budget for the time, you know, it kind of a budget, major studio care in getting the look right for you know, a fake version of Amsterdam with a lot of wonderful fake rain and it's just a I love the film anyway, so check it. Check it out.

Frank Darrabannce the Shawshank Redemption. So the Cone Brothers staging Gale and Evil's escape like they're emerging from some primordial ooze. It's this rebirth almost John Goodman head first, popping up. It's like popping up from below the mud. And just like most babies come into the world, Michael, he's screaming his head off, covered in goose, screaming his head off.

Bevel Well he comes out breach. Goodman has to reach down and grab William Forsyth by the legs and pull him out upside down, and at no point does the screaming cease. If you think about all the conventional, boring ways this could have been staged. Oh, we need these guys to break out of jail. You know. The Cone Brothers just take it to the cartoonish level that that

whole movie functions on. And Gail and Evil, they're not so unlike Randal Tech Cobs, Lone Biker The Apocalypse, you know who h I McDonough says, But I feared that I myself had unleashed him, for he was the fury that would be as soon as Florence Arizona found her

little Nathan gone. They get Nathan Junior home and what happens Hi's pass drudges itself up from the slime in the form of the Smoke Brothers is just so so good and if it hadn't come out seven years prior to shawshank Redemption, you might think the Cones were having some fun at the expense of Shawshank in the portentousness of this moment. But it's one I still love, and I loved again when I revisited the film with Josh here on the show and we gave it a sacred

cow review for its anniversary. Another sort of rebirth. Andy dufrayin head First, emerging from the sewer tunnel after crawling to freedom through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness. I can't even imagine, or maybe I don't want to, into the river where he strips away the stink and filled the sewer of his life in the hell hole that was Shawshank, all culminating with that Roger deacons iconic bird's eye view shot of Tim Robbins and his outstretched arms.

Two very similar uses of rain. It couldn't be more tonally different.

mean pretty just perfect. So yeah, you know that's that's not a halft the moment, but it's just it's literally just a bit of bump, you know. But but but it's great and so anyway, but I'm glad we got I'm glad we got an epic example of comic use of rain. Very good.

the one. But uh, you know, the script of the film follows the events of the book, you know, fairly faith fully chance meeting after the four day affair for the ages is over between Francesca played by Meryl Streep, the Iowa, the unfulfilled Iowa housewife. It's a word farewell between her and Robert Kinkaid, the photographer played by Eastwood, just before Francesca's lunkhead farmer husband gets the driver's seat

of the pickup. But just like everything in this movie, just about everything, and there we see outside the truck, Eastwood's character is simply standing in the rain looking at her from a distance. You know, out of context, it would look like a stalker or a killer waiting to strike. And Eastwood's range as an actor has always been not expansive, you know. He's always had a very kind of like

comfortable groove in a very narrow kind of range. But there are things that he does at this scene in the rain that partly because the character has to have a ponytail that is now sort of like he's a long hair, you know. That's how he's described, I think by the husband character. Oh yeah, it looks like some hippie, right, you know, so he just looks like kind of a wet, you know, aging hippie, you know, but just truly heartbroke and crushed. And Eastwood is doing things in that shot.

It's just a series of shots of him just looking. This is a wordless scene between these two characters saying goodbye, and there's a little smile that thanks change sort of after you know, ten seconds go by. And this is just this is you know, the last one was Rain as a murderer's best friend and foreign correspondent. Rain is a bittersweet farewell and goodbye dragging in this in Bridges

of Madison County. It's Rain crying the tears that this man cannot and that's you know, and you definitely believe that Eastwood is somebody who is not dying to do a crying scene ever, so the rain must you do it. But it's it's all handled so well. And this film is just part of this great trifecta of excellent work that Eastwood did behind the camera in the early nineties. I mean it was unforgiven a perfect world and Bridges of Madison County and that that's you know, that's that's

an for anybody to kind of rest their laurels. Yeah, that's my number three.

has been executed. At this point, Perry, played by Robert Blake, is waiting his turn, and he's talking about his troubled childhood, his relationship with his father, a disturbing relationship with his father, harrowing story. He recounts of his father attempting to kill him, and he's effectively giving his testimony, his final testimony to the prison chaplain. It's a three and a half minute scene.

There's two cuts in the first minute from Blake in a medium shot to the chaplain and then back to Blake, and then the camera just holds on Blake in a tight close up for the next two and a half minutes, and Brooks and his cinematographer, the legendary Conrad Hall. They stage the whole black and white scene so that Blake's face fills the left side of the frame, and the right side is the window where we have the pattern of constant rain hitting it, providing the only sound that

we hear other than Blake's voice. And the key part beyond the sound is the shadow of the rain. There's just enough light coming through that is the rain hits the window, it creates this effective tears rolling down Perry's cheek from his left eye. I've read a few things over the years about this scene, Michael, where Conrad Hall has said it was mostly fortuitous. Everyone thinks his line is even people think you're a genius for planning something like that, but he says, in reality, you were just

smart enough to notice it and exploit it. The way they had set it up that effect was occurring, he said, okay, we have to keep this. We have to do everything

we can to maintain this. It wasn't as if they necessarily plan that when they were approaching shooting that day, but it's fortuitous for all of us that he did have that eye and he and Brooks decided to exploit it for what they did although the character's delivery isn't robotic at all, he's also not overwhelmed with emotion, and as he says about his father, I hate him and

I love him. Rather than pouring on sentimentality and asking us to weep for Perry, which I don't think any of us at this point are prepared to do, it only heightens his very fractured, confused psyche. The layering of tears, in this case over his face.

be married. And she gets to the little village on the coast where she's supposed to catch a boat to the island, but there's terrible weather causes her and a British naval officer leave played by Roger Livesey to bide their time among the locals. Well sparks fly subtly, i would say, but then simply to flee her own intense,

increasingly intense attraction to this navel man. She sort of bullies the local boatsman to take her across the water in this awful rangetorm, terrible dangerous weather, and there's this dreaded, practically mythical whirlpool doing its thing, and you know it's all studio bound, rear projection, the rain, all the rest of it. But this is, you know, near the end.

It's a really effective climax. It's very it's very exciting, and you're also at this point so utterly beguiled by how this film is working its magic for what is essentially a meat cute rom com but treated in a way that no other romantic comedy or screen romance, let's just call it, has ever been treated. It was so much interesting folklore and music, and you get Petula Clark at age fifteen and these heart shaped glasses, and I mean, it's this fantastic. There's so many great things in it,

and Wendy Hiller is just wonderful. You just buy every element, and there's I think this is Rain as kind of a supernatural matchmaker, you know. I mean, there is a hint of the supernatural in many elements of the story of I Know where I'm Going, and the weather itself is actually conspiring to keep these two together and Wendy Hiller and her fiance whom we never meet, and the rain is keeping them apart, as they should be because

it is destined to go the other way. So I love the film, and you know, it's it's it's there's a lot of it in the film, but it also is a film that really really lives for the sunshine. And my people are Scottish and Irish, and I know exactly what that's like. And also, if you've ever been to the this is on a fictional Hebrides Island, but that is a gorgeous part of the world. Oh my god,

I mean, this is great. And but I love the film, And honestly, Adam, even if this film were taking place completely in sunshine, I still would have put it on the list for the rain scenes because I love the film so much.

so hard to watch. It feels so dangerous that sequence that you are thinking they are doomed. There is no way they are getting out of this alive. I remember very vividly viscerally feeling that watching that sequence. So well, yeah, you told.

any other film I know and love. So yeah all the way, do you know if And it's a story about the Norwegian prince who does had broke What happened to the one made in the hair of faithful maidens?

to be exclusively of the liquid variety? Because I think Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia question that with the Frogs. We talked about this film back during our nine from ninety nine series, I think in twenty twenty I talked then about the line of that film, one of them for

me being I'm not through asking questions. And I think it's not only a great question, a great line, but a great line delivery in the film speaks to its inquisitive nature about these characters having to confront some really harsh truths and having to confront the reality within all of this randomness that seems to be occurring around them, accepting narratives or abandoning accepted narratives by them or those around them. And here you've got pt Anderson taking something

that feels biblical, but isn't really. I mean, there's the tail of the plague of the frogs emerging from the nile, but not so much dropping from the sky. But of course we instantly go to that in our minds. It feels apocalyptic. Undoubtedly, we have a movie about the possibility

or impossibility. Perhaps I think I would go with possibility based on what occurs after the frogs fall from the sky, of people being redeemed, and it plays out on such an intimate but epic scale that it somehow isn't totally shocking when it all culminates, not with a downpour, a rain that washes away everyone sees, but the absolute chaos of frogs just thudding down repeatedly to the ground. Like the movie itself, the visuals and the sound of them

thumping is intense and it's kind of distressing. But you know, we were just talking about comedy, and you don't really have a comedic choice. I had won and raising Arizona. Michael rewatched this scene. It's hilarious, complete with an ambulance flipping on its side and skidding to a stop right in front of the emergency room, and there's the vera shot tracking a frog from the sky, the camera falling along with the frog as it drops onto the ceiling

where Jimmy Gator is preparing to kill himself. But we also get the beauty of the tracking shot moving in on the movie's true innocence, Stanley, the young boy who's actually shielded, and that tracking shot that just kind of neatly pushes in on him, and that look of awe and really joy and that line this happens, This is something that happens. Indeed, it is happening. Frogs are falling from the sky, just further connecting these disparate stories and

these characters who are all experiencing it together. And it does compel change, It compels the Catharsis in these characters. And I think it's fitting with the film subject matter, because the type of catharsis if we're lucky enough to find it, or certainly we all, whether we want it or not, end up experiencing great change. It often happens

in unpredictable and random ways. But these things, these things do happen, his film suggests, and it's one of those moments I think we all remember, you remember where you were watching Magnolia for the first time, and being stunned by that sound first and then the visual of those frogs and trying to process what's occurring in that moment.

You actually do hear the thudding for a good twenty or thirty seconds, the camera holding on Philip Seymour Hoffman's face in shock and pta withholds what he's seeing until he finally says, and really only the way Philip Seymour Hoffman can he says, oh, there are frogs falling from the sky. He delivers it both in a way that suggests he's utterly perplexed, as you would expect, but also

it's completely matter of fact. It's both. He nails both of those senses at once with that line reading and Yeah, I instantly thought of rain. I instantly thought of frogs falling from the sky in Magnolia.

hadn't seen the movie. You know, I probably think maybe you know, but somehow at all the tone is perfect, and it's just one of the craziest nervous transitions into another realm that mostly realistic film, you know, he's ever pulled off. So yeah, great pic, great pick.

Sleep from nineteen forty six. Humphrey bogartist Philip Marlow, and in the scene I'm talking about Dorothy Malone, all of twenty years old, is the unnamed but unforgettable proprietor of the Acme Bookshop in downtown La So Marlow is on the trail of the shady pornographer right, whose name is on the door of the Rare Books emporium across the street. But one of the best timed cloudbursts in the history

of Los Angeles cracks open again. Marlow continues a little quicker across the street to see if you anybody at the other bookstore can talk abit and give him some information about the rival bookstore and the shady corner across the way and dozy. So the second Marlow starts questioning this cool a cucumber woman about what she might know about the suspect. She sort of leans in and says, you begin to interest me vaguely, and it's a smile. And they're both I mean, they both just so clearly.

It's like it's like there's a little thought bubble about

both of them. It's like I dig this person. And so just as the mutual flirtation is easy into kind of very promising territory, let's say, Malone's character mentions, you know that it's raining pretty hard and gives Marlow a long look that Howard Hawk's the director makes sure to give a choice two and a half second close up, and then she says, looks like we're closed for the rest of the afternoon, and she pulls down the shade in a way that suggests that she might have done

some night work as a stripper occasionally, and she actually says that line ye know, the look says, looks like we're closed for the rest of the afternoon, and then she actually says that line out loud a few seconds later, so Marlowe says, I've got a good got a flask

a pretty good ride in my pocket. And then there's this fade out just after he wonders if she could remove her reading glass, and then new scene undetermined length of time later, And it's entirely in the mind of the viewer at this point to speculate if they've actually managed to make love and get dressed again, or are

we just thinking that because we were raised wrong. You know, I don't know, but either way, Max Stein or the composer is determined to make it seem like they, yes, they have had a lovely hour or so of passion, just because he's pouring on this music on the soundtrack, and it's just enough slightly hands the physical contact in the last few seconds between these two, just before Marlowe has to get back to the goddamn plot nobody can follow.

But you know, we're with the Big Sleep all the way for every reason that besides this plot that is you know, almost wilfully decipherable, and this film. To me, those three minutes or so that the whole scene probably makes it. It's just the kind of detour, the off plot moment that between two people dealing with a great a great bit of timing and luck that they have been thrown together in this bookstore. To me, you know,

if this what does rain serving this purpose? Well, it's it's like it makes literacy look really sexy, you know. So that's that's this is rain as you know, it's rain as misliteracy nineteen forty six. That's that's that's my reading of this.

to rendezvous with her boyfriend Sam in California. Hitchcock's camera fixated almost entirely on Marion's face for the entire scene, as she replays some actual moments from the day and the crime she's committed, and imagining other scenarios, though fantasizing is probably a more appropriate word because of how Hitchcock links Marian here to Norman later, I think quite intentionally, that tormented face that twists up into a little smile,

eyes almost sparkling as these voices talk about how sweet, innocent Marian could possibly be so devious as to pull all this off, and she likes that, she likes the darker talk about her and the thing that she's done. Again, she's all conjuring it in her mind. She couldn't be there for any of these things that they may or may not actually be saying. But then the rain does come, and as the rain starts pouring, down during a drive that makes it difficult for Marian to see the road.

She can't see her path any longer. To Sam, everything seems to be going as they've planned it. Now the rain is coming, She's confused, and then that's when she finally gets scared, and this is where Hermann's strings become more violent and frenetic in time with the windshield wipers trying to keep the rain at day. The relentless music then only stops when, almost like a mirage in the desert, the light of the Baits Motel is revealed through the

darkness and the spatters of rain. I love how Hitchcock shows that reveal and how her car somehow almost floats into the drive of the Baits Motel like the car's on autopilot. It's like Marion has no choice in the matter. Her fate has been preordained. She is completely powerless, and of course water is going to factor into her fate in a major way as well a few scenes later.

But it's it's that reveal. It's it's the rain only slightly dissipating enough for her to see the light of the Bates Motel and pull in, even though she has really no choice in it, Michael.

it's it's wonderful. And and Herban's music, You're right, Bernon, Herban's music is uh is absolutely evoking, you know, this sort of like driving repetitive, you know, rhythmic kind of like you know, hammering rain. And why it's not in the pantheon, what the hell, Adam, Well.

But that's certainly memorable that film. The fact that that film was such an enormous flop at the time too just I think attest to how gruesome it was then and how it still seems that way. And also it's a it's a two faced achievement in that it's dealing with fairly sincere sympathy, you know, real sympathy toward these characters and the performers because Tom Browning his career had

been spent in part in these sort of acts. And at the other time, he's said, by the end here he's just exploiting the hell out of the you know, sort of the image of these quote freaks unquote for the worst possible shock value, you know, which I you know, I don't know. I mean, the movies are built on that kind of hypocrisy, I think face quality. But that's my dad, that would be a runner up for me.

news and beginning is I'm mad as Hell's speech? Two thousand and two Spider Man, the famous upside down kiss happening in the rain, a couple from the film Spotting Family Discord that I otherwise would have completely overlooked. Ohver, Libergall mentioned the ending of Kiarastami's Taste of Cherry, and Mark Friedman highlighted the wedding night scene what are they ducks from It's a Wonderful Life? Okay, they're a great one.

about pride and prejudice. This week. We talked about atonement on episode one eight nine, Hannah, Episode three forty three, Anna Carininda for twenty three in the Darkest Hour on episode six sixty seven, Michael, I'm gonna give you some new releases outlimited out wide. If you any of them want to give us a quick yay or nay, please do Grand Tour. This is a period drama from Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomash, who made Taboo. It's playing at the

Gene Siskel Film Center. Justin Chang from the New Yorker says undermines the relationship between sound and image with a sly and miraculous fluidity. I'm intrigued.

giving us a little levity. Robert Daniel says, clear and present data, Ryan Ty the board identity, and Aaron Newarth our friend said the boorn novice.

fun stuff. This is a movie about a platoon of Navy seals on a real time mission gone wrong, co directed by Alex Garland and former Seal Ray Mendoza, who was Garland's technical advisor on Civil War. Isaac Feldberg says, a clear response to the politics of apathy. Next week, we're not planning on talking about any of those films. Some things still up in the air. Not up in the air, Andre Tarkowsky. Our new marathon kicks off with two early efforts from the Russian Master, The Steamroller and

the Violin, and Ivan's Childhood. For show plans and more, visitfilm spotting dot net slash episodes. Film Spotting is produced by Golden Jo Toso and Sam van Holgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, the show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempenar and special thanks to everyone at wb e Z Chicago. More information is available at WBEZ dot org and of course a huge thank you, Michael to you for filling in this week. Always a pleasure, dave On.

We gave the folks a robust show and I'm glad we saw ey'd eye and pride and prejudice.