Together Review, Sunset Boulevard at 75, AngelHeaded Hipster

Is there any other kind? We're asking you to re litigate the nineteen seventy six Best Picture race, the rare case where all five nominated films are legit masterpieces, but first together, a long time but unmarried couple make a move to the country, which puts a strain on a relationship that has already entered a state of complacency. Things soon get weird. Notably, their body is becoming one. Here's a scene that has them considering drastic measures to free themselves.

I'd imagine what you're about to do actually happening, and tell me that's not going to make things way worse.

but oddly transfixed by body horror. That's not to say I love the genre uncritically, just that when I hear about a new body horror film, I'm usually queasily intrigued, and the good ones make me both physically repelled and intellectually invigorated. But what makes a good body horror film? This isn't your favorite genre, Adam, but there are movies in this mode that you've appreciated. You were a fan of Coraley Fargo's The Substance from last year, for instance.

What makes a body horror movie work for you? What makes you glad you sat through the gruesomeness and gore and to get to the point, did you find that? In the new film Together. The movie stars James Franco and Ellison Brie as a longtime couple at an awkward moment in their relationship. Things get more awkward when, while hiking, they drink from a suspect pond and suddenly their bodies have the grotesque urge to merge. And that's not a euphemism.

In fact, Franco's tim has been avoiding physical intimacy for quite a while. So what did you make of Together, Adam? In general and as a work of body horror.

the filmmaking, the storytelling overall. So there will always be body horror films I like and some I don't. I'll tell you a little story, though, Josh, about my experience watching Together. It was Monday, it was late afternoon. I had the entire theater to myself, and you know, those scarier, uncomfortable scenes that we involuntarily react to by covering our eyes or maybe watch with our eyes peeking through fingers.

It's a face with yellow eyes, and longtime listeners will know the yellow eyes and movies and horror movies always get me. It so unnerved me that, even though I knew I was alone, I swear to you that I looked over both my shoulders just to make sure that nobody saw me freak out for a second. I was so embarrassed by how I reacted.

it and navigate your own discomfort. It turns out I'm more averse to people unintentionally humiliating themselves than I am body horror, especially well intentioned people humiliating themselves. But that's all around about way of saying or trying to illustrate that although I might be as conflicted about my relationship to this movie as Tim is about his relationship to Millie, it's quite subdued as body horror. Even when the knives come out, even when it gets a little bloody, the

gore really is left to the imagination. And while that might disappoint fans of the genre expecting more blood and guts and conventional thrills, I'm, of course in the other camp, And instead of overindulging in the potential gross out elements, I do think this movie sincerely wants to reckon with the conundrum that a lot of couples that have been together a while face. Do we want each other, do we love each other? Or have we just gotten used

to each other? Are we together out of convenience and to some degree comfort, Have we developed a kind of codependency, and, as horror often does, Together takes a very real, universal anxiety and amplifies it to its most absurd degree codependency. Well, what happens if we remove the co and you know Milly? You think you're sure? Emphasis on think, because the cracks are clearly there right from the beginning, and she's aware of them. You think you're sure you want to spend

the rest of your life with Tim. You can't wait to be secluded with him out in the countryside. You just wish that he was tethered to you as emotionally and physically as you seem to be to him. Guess what your wish is? Granted, Tim, you're not sure you want to spend the rest of your life with Milly. You're seeking clarity. You need something that will give you that certainty, give you that direction. Guess what your wish is?

to think it's going to explore. I wish it had done the work to excavate that throughout, and for me, a lot of it had to do with beyond that scene you mentioned, which I won't spoil either. Before this couple moves to the countryside, we don't get much about their relationship, or I didn't get a sense of who the they were together, or even a part they were

probably thinly but effectively sketched. At the start, you get the broad outlines as you described, of Tim being quite not as committed and Millie perhaps being over committed for the situation. And beyond that, I felt the film got out in the countryside and became more interested in setting up these set pieces of gore. You're right, there isn't

out and out gore. It's not necessarily what the movie wants to spend all its time on, but it wants to spend significant sections on and we know we're going to get it, and I felt a disconnect between the relationship. Perhaps it's the performances. For me, I found both of these performances to be pretty flat. In the case of Brie, I'm not all that familiar with her. I mostly know her from mad Men, where you know she had a bit of a school my arm quality, and that's doubled

down on here. You know, her telling Tim when he should show, or that he's using too much data on their phone plan, these sorts of things. Again, that's that's more of a a repeating of what we've learned at the start, and Tim, you know, this idea that he's a little unsure about the relationship. It almost reverses after this curse falls upon them, where the relational allegory for me gets confused because then he becomes I don't think this is a spoiler, but he becomes the needy one

and she starts to become the somewhat distant one. Again, there's that a progression. It's to me, it's more of a flipping. That doesn't make sense because I don't really demand a lot of logic for my horror films, but I did find myself wondering, why is Millie not similarly affected? If that, if this fundamental curse, which has biological rooting, it's related to, you know, this pond water, like, why suddenly is she not as compelled to be close to him.

There's just little things like the first set piece we get, which I think counts as body horror, because he's injuring himself. Tim is in the shower and Millie is driving away and he's suddenly violently thrown about by the turns in her car. I didn't quite understand the dynamics there. And again, these are minor things, but it was difficult to feel the movie was really rooted in this exploring of the

idea of it as a central relationship. As it went on, I thought maybe there were other interesting things that could have been examined. I mentioned the physical intimacy Tim's lack of physical intimacy with MILLI does the curse represent a fear of sex? There's a very simple idea. If the movie had committed to and spent more time on that might have worked. You mentioned that dream sequence, which I

agree is very effective. The jump scare there that's related to a story we learn about Tim's trauma and his mother's mental illness. Might there be a connection to the curse there, maybe kind of we get a cult subplot here too. There is a lot that for me hinted at other movies Together could have been. And really, I'm not demanding much from a horror movie like this. I just I want exactly what you said at the top, a potent allegory. I want a specific anxiety it's going

to be explored. I just want one idea and it to really give service to that. And for me, Together was a little bit more going for the gore scenes, the body horror scenes, eventually really going off the deep end in that direction speaking of the substance, but not doing any of the work that I like to see put in beforehand.

couple of lines that you mentioned in particular. But even though she's the one who, as I said, is more tethered in some ways to him and he has the more clear doubts, she is also someone who, from the very beginning we see is spiraling a little bit about

their relationship. And I think the whole premise there as well is tied to the fact that it's like the struggling married couple who and we hear so many of these stories, right who decide that we're really struggling, So what are we going to do to save this marriage?

And I really felt like I understood who they were as individuals and as a couple from that opening scene, I'm so glad they just kind of threw us into it based on the way they talked about each other, the way, in Millie's case she's always having to defend Tim to her best friend, and in Tim's case, the way he's really not talking about her much at all, He's just talking about himself and his failed music career. That told me enough about who they really are as

people and how they maybe feel about each other. And the way even that they interact with each other Josh at the party from across the room and then when they're together, the smiles, the gestures. This may be where some of the Brie Franco extra textual stuff comes into play and really serves the story, where you I got the sense that they know each other really well. There's a built in familiarity with the way that these two characters interact with each other, and I I got that

sense that, yes, they know each other. There's an intimacy where you not only understand that they love this about each other, that they know each other so well, but it also could be taking its toll on each other. So I'm really grateful that we didn't get any more fleshing out if you will, to these characters.

that working against them. And I didn't know this until after I'd seen the film and had written up a review about it and then saw it on social media somewhere. And it can go both ways, right, Sometimes offscreen couples bring that chemistry that you found, and it's absolutely why their performances work together. In this case, for me, it

was the other way. Once they got out to the countryside, I felt like, in fact, some of their scenes together were awkward when they're discussing you know, what would your last social media post be if you died that there was In my experience, I felt I would have guessed that these two performers were deeply uncomfortable with each other on screen. It was the opposite.

see her through that that lens. But those lines you mentioned, I remember them very vividly, because there's certain line readings that I remember pretty vividly in this film, like when she she says to him that that maybe he should take a shower, and the fact that they are running out of data, and I just think there's more to it. It isn't a case where it is just about her being someone who's chiding him, who has to be telling him what to do. That moment with the shower is

one where it's just followed him. She's gotten out of the shower and he's rubbing her back and he actually really hurts her. It's a really it's a really weird physical exchange, and he wants to go with her, or asks if he can go with her, and she really clearly wants some distance from him. And the way she says, like take a shower is kind of like if you were saying to someone like, no, you know you can clean the garage, like you've got other things to do.

It's not so much like take a shower, you smell bad. That's that's how I interpreted it. And even even the data, Josh, the data is another example of them it. I think it's adding to the to the character because it's in their relationship, because it's another example of him just casually without thinking. She's not saying, don't do that, how dare you you? She's just pointing out, we only have so much and it's about gone. And what's he doing yet again?

He's just not thinking about it and he's using it.

for me. I know, people really appreciate her as an actress. And again I haven't seen all that much and it's not fair to just bring mad men into this if that's all I've seen, but it is a quality where I don't know, there's there's just like a low energy lack of engagement in the performance that seems at odds a little bit with the premise and at odds with what Franco is trying to do too. I wanted to ask you this, and I don't know how this played in your alone viewing in the theater, but at what

point did you find this purposely funny? Unsure whether it wanted to be funny or not funny. You shouldn't be laughing, but you were. And it relates to Franco because the level of shouting he's frequently doing here to me feels a little bit like sweaty trying to make something funny. And it works in one scene the clip I believe we heard where they're contemplating with this SASA actually having to cut their own flash. This isn't spoiling anything, I

don't think. And he notices you're right handed, and I think she's got it. She has to have it in the other hand, and that to me felt like, Okay, that's a good line. He delivers it with like exasperation. It's the ridiculousness of this situation, and can laugh. In terms of release. There are a couple other moments, though, one involving her hair, which struck me as unintentionally funny.

I wasn't sure how to how to gauge his performance, and I will say too, I think some of the effects, the special effects, although they're practical and I always appreciate that, were a bit dodgy to me, And that was fell into the same bucket of should I be laughing at this? Am I meant to be laughing at this? Is it because of how it looks? And it shouldn't look that way? But anyways, in general, where did you land on, you know? Together as a comedy.

Franco's performance and separating it from Brie. I just see them as such a pair in this film, and I like the performance. I feel like it's a unified performance in this movie. But as far as the comedy, nowhere in this marketing of this film have I seen it tagged or referenced as a comedy. And that makes total sense. But I do think it has a lot of humor to it, and I even use the word absurd earlier. I think Shanks and company get the inherent humor in

some of these scenarios. As you said, even a bathroom quickie that results in getting stuck together. That's funny you mentioned it. I never thought i'd say this about a scene involving a sasaw in human flesh. But it's neither played for humor or horror. Yet it's both awkwardly funny and distressing. I mean, I say, play, Josh. What I mean is, I don't feel like and I watched that scene again, we played it coming in right, I don't feel like it's either ramped up for comedy's sake or

ramped up for terror and gore sake. They're just letting the natural tension of the scene and the suspense of are they really gonna do this? Are they really going to cut their flesh, and the dynamics of their relationship, like how they naturally talk as a couple, the way they banter with each other, what they know about each other's idiosyncrasies and their failings as people. That's all coming to bear in that scene. So without ramping it up, it is funny. And if I was in the theater

with other people, maybe we would have been laughing. I was laughing, and yet I was also terrified watching it. So I think that's a really effective scene. I think it translates to other set pieces too.

out the door towards him. And it does also seem like the way they're being led, the way their bodies are being led, it's as if certain pieces are meant to fit together intentionally, like buzzle pieces that they're trying to fight against. And what I like in particular, Josh, is the use of sound here, and I think there are some other nice filmmaking touches throughout that show that Shanks knows what he's doing with the camera, but the sound. The way that sequence starts, they go to bed and

close the door, and then what happens next. It's darkness, and we hear sound. We hear the sound of him being dragged, and that cues us in that oh, no, something terrible is happening, but we don't know what, and so we're anticipating the lights being turned on, so to speak, figuring out what's actually happening. But it also makes sense because he doesn't know. He hasn't woken up yet, his eyes haven't opened yet, right, He's just being dragged across

the floor. So we're in the same situation as viewers that he's in where he has to open his eyes. He's just waking up to the sound of him being dragged in the dark. So I really do like that. I will say, though, Josh, all of that established the humor surprised me and surprised me in a good way. I'm not sure that when you add in all of the other elements, and I do want to talk about

some of these more. When you add in all those other elements that are introduced into the plot, I'm not sure that they find the right balance.

to me, it goes back to my simplicity idea. It strikes me as wholly unnecessary this movie if it had devoted the time it gives to the cult elements, for me, to the relationship dynamics, just given all that screen time and moved over and given us more scenes of them as a couple, even more scenes just being there in the countryside before they drink the water. That would have enabled the movie to be more focused and richer and deeper.

So I think that was And the other issue I had with a cult element is just some of the logic that goes into it as well. Again, not being nitty gritty about horror movies, I give them a lot of leeway, I know. I think one that we split on was it follows and you had many logical concerns, some of which were valid, I agree, over arching ones. Yeah, and I agree it's a valid question. But for me, that movie engrossed me to the point where I was like, yeaheah, okay,

but whatever. Here it became increasingly hard to say, yeah, whatever.

is it too clever for its own good? Where it there's no mystery to it if you think about it. A lot of other films would have actually built up to the reveal, and there is a bit of a reveal, don't get me wrong, but this has a prologue. We know ahead of what the characters do exactly what's happening, and we're not idiots, so that when we see certain symbols and everything, and we see what's in that cave, we kind of know, just based on other movies that

we've seen, what has to be happening. And then we hear a conversation that occurs and we're like, Okay, we know what's going on. It almost feels to me like they want us to have a meta experience where we're ahead of the characters. We know based on other films that we've seen, other horror films, that the joke is actually no, nothing's a mystery. It's exactly what it appears to be, and we're not even going to build it out.

We're going to be discussing the director's follow up film, Weapons next week, and Barbarian similarly builds to this gonzo gorzo climax, and in some ways it feels like together at some point the filmmakers wanted to have that direction as well, and just having a movie about this couple might not have enabled that possibility and the way they wanted to. But you add in these elements that the cult brings in and maybe we can get there again.

I don't know. Maybe it was a more holistic process as a viewer, that is what it feels like, and it's still that's fine if you want to go there. But even something like The Substance, which I liked better, had some reservations about. At least it had complete focus and commitment on what it wanted to be about, right,

the horrors of aging as a woman in Hollywood. And it took that as far as it could go, and it was insane how far it took it, but it did the work before it got there was my feeling on it, and together the work is at the homework is a little messy and all over the place.

But there's the prologue. There's a cave, there's a missing couple. I don't think we've mentioned. There's a pair of dogs. This all connects to a cult. They all factor into the story in major and in some minor ways. And when I do try to envision a version of Together that leans into these elements even more, I don't necessarily see a better movie. I see one way down by a lot of plot. But the version we get also

does feel, as we've discussed, too flimsy. And there's a reveal here's here's a minor one, or actually a bigger one for me, I'll get to the minor one.

The only direct reference to the dogs from the prologue, which by the way, felt to me like an overt homage to the thing John Carpenter. The only direct reference to the dogs from the prologue happens about midway through, when things are really kind of starting to get truly

weird for Tim and Millie. She's a teacher and one of her young students, this young girl leaves a troubling drawing on her desk for Millie to see, and it opens the door for us to consider something very traumatic involving a character who is otherwise a complete non factor that the movie is using just to add a little bit of ominousness. And it's not ominous. It doesn't serve

any purpose. And here again it's a minor issue. It's a nitpick a house, but it does connect to a larger one for me that I wanted to open up and see what you thought of it, Okay, And I kind of already know what you think of it, because I know that you think overall the movie just has too much going on, falls into that Tim's trauma, what he is dealing with coming into the issues that they start dealing with in the story proper, the recent loss that he has suffered, and the grief he is still

wrestling with. He's lost his parents, we learn, and this is information given early on in the movie. This isn't uncommon in horror movies dephic character who has recently experienced a loss or gone through something painfully traumatic, parental loss. I think about Midsummer right away, and it can be very effective. It can be powerful. Sometimes the horror they're facing is a manifestation or can be read as a manifestation of these feelings in this trauma.

I think it's impacting his sexual desire. Once we get some insight, we get more insight into the exact nature of what he saw, what he experienced, it becomes clearer, and I think it's even articulated at one point in the screenplay why he would fear legitimately fear not just be skeptical of or be hesitant about entering into marriage or long term commitment, but really fear the idea of being bound to someone forever and sex sex is going

to be seen as part of the gateway to that commitment. Still, Josh, the scene he describes is grizzly, and I wonder if it doesn't undercut the movie and my defense of it in some way. The way the filmmakers have stacked the deck and this concept is introduced that the movie is definitely having some fun with. Plato talks about it in

the Symposium. Aristophanes raises this whole notion that we all were originally creatures that had arms and four legs, and Zeus thought we were too powerful and he split us, and we're all really searching for our soulmates. That's the other main conceit of this film. Really, soulmates isn't just a concept that comes from romantic comedies. What if it's real?

That's what this movie is, basically, that's the question it's posing, and that of course ties to this central anxiety about commitment as well and the idea of it being real and universal. Those are not only enough to build the movie around, but arguably that's kind of the entire point. We all face loss, sure, but most of us hopefully hopefully never go through or never confront anything as horrific as he does, which doesn't make Tim then representative of

all of us. It actually dilutes the power of the universality of the concept of the film in some way by adding this element of the really horrific.

I'll just say it nods to like non binary implications here and there, which are also potentially very interesting, but if you're not going to really explore them, just don't bother with that. But if it had just kept with that subplot, which is Tim's trauma, I think you're right. It's very directly related the grizzly element. And again I'm dancing around spoilers. The grizzly detail we discover is a direct parallel for his greatest fear relationally and the actual

physical reality of what begins happening to them. So I think there's a great horror movie there, but the family trauma is sort of dropped about halfway through after we get that reveal. I don't know if it's even referenced again, and it doesn't have to be talked about. I don't even think the filmmaking returns to it again. I don't know if we get another flashback or a dream sequence again. Maybe that's not those aren't the right choices to make.

Those are kind of cliches. But some way, visually, even maybe even the eyes that you mentioned, Adam, somehow bring that back so that we're connecting Tim's trauma with what we're now seeing in the latter half of the film. And that's where I do feel. I'm usually one who defends horror trauma. I know a lot of people these days roll their eyes as soon as there's a story that, oh, it's a horror movie, but it's really about grief. Oh it's a horror movie, but it's really, you know, about

this terrible thing that happened. I think I think those are instrumental ways to make a horror movie. The problem is if you just drop it in as a device, right with any sort of filmmaking device. If you're just going to say, well, I'm going to kick start my movie and try to give it more importance by referencing this and then going to kind of forget about it. Yes, that's cheap. It does happen occasionally, maybe more so recently

than it did before. But I still think there are good horror movies being made today that take the trauma seriously. It's a through line through the character's experience, and that makes them richer. For me, I see what you're saying about the particular experience that Tim had not being universal, thank goodness, but I think that doesn't bother me as much because it does kind of take it into this really disturbing realm that horror sometimes can push things. I'm

okay with that. Again. For me, it's just pair away some of these other potential avenues that you kind of tiptoe on and instead focus on Tim's asked how the body horror reflects that and how it reflects the current relationship. I think they could have had a really strong horror film.

you're right. Even though I like some elements of the humor, there's something about that antithetical nature of the absurdity and the cult elements and the flimsiness of some of the areas, this film goes against the real terror of that trauma it's introduced. And you know what, if the movie had actually gone even to go back to your setup question, if the movie had really leaned into that even more, that might be a film, ironically I'd enjoy even more, even though it might actually be.

member Jake in Indianapolis. If you want to follow Jake on letterboxed, his handle is mister Underscore Thurman.

as a resource many times. So I guess I also kept listening to be better at my job.

much as watching them. And finally, a book about movies or movie making. This is about as impossible as the letterbox four favorites, but I would say that I recently read and really liked Adam Nahman's books on the filmography of the Coen Brothers and on the filmography of Paul Thomas Anderson. Good stuff from mister Thurman. Thank you so much for writing in and for your support of the show.

If you like mister Thurman, would like to be a family member and support us here on film Spotting, you can visit film Spottingfamily dot com and get all the details and all the benefits of being a film Spotting Family member, including our monthly bonus shows like the recent conversation about burn. After reading we just dropped into their family feeds Josh, we have upcoming here in August a bit of blind spotting. Three candidates that family members are

voting on right now. It's either going to be Gaslight, Stray Dog or Rocky Horror Picture Show. And no we didn't just pick those all randomly. There are behind all three of those choices. And then in September we've got trivia spotting. So always something fun going on with the film Spotting Family again, film Spotting Family dot com.

that name in that band. If you're drawing a blank there, I've got three words for you. Bang gone and no I'm not gonna sing to help you out any further, Adam. This documentary, which is currently playing in very limited release and is scheduled for a September VOD release. It's both a profile of Bolan, who's credited with launching the glam rock movement and who died at twenty nine in nineteen seventy seven, and it's a document of a Bolan tribute

album that was released back in twenty twenty. Artists as diverse as you too, Kesha Father, John Misty, and Nick Cave appear. Were you a Bolan fan before this, Adam, And if not, did the documentary make you one?

and especially documentaries about musicians. If I want to appear credible as a music fan a musician, Josh, I can always point to the fact that the first albums I ever listened to and loved, the first needle drop I ever had on my first stereo as a young kid with a record player and a caste deck and speakers in my bedroom were my parents' copies of the Beatles Rubber Soul and the Wine Album, unquestionably two of the greatest albums ever. Of course I didn't really get that

as that young kid. I just thought the songs were really catchy, which of course they were. But it is also true that it would be a good eight to ten years after that before I would realize that that Paul McCartney should be my bass playing idol and not Nicky six of Motley Crue.

doing Mark Bolan. Despite that, I never dug deeper. I knew Bangagong and that was about it. Maybe Sam can help me out here a little bit and give us a little sound underneath the song Twentieth Century Boy.

It's a very straightforward documentary. Bolan's prolificness and eclectic spirit beg for a documentary is daring as his look and sound.

renditions we get in the movie. But then you also get one like the song Nick Cave performs, and it's really kind of wondrous. I am glad I saw it, and I'm glad Bowlin's getting the exposure he deserves and I will say we're dropping this show in people's podcast feeds on Friday August eighth. You are in New York because this is getting a limited release here just in

New York in LA. It actually came out in the UK a few years back, so some of our listeners Josh may have already seen this back in twenty twenty two or twenty three, but it's just getting released here now. And again that VOD release on September fifth, but the Roxy Cinema in New York tonight Friday seven point fifteen, the director Ethan Silverman is going to be doing a Q and A with John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig and

the Angry Inch fame, and Mitchell has a performance. He has a song on the album in the movie as well. That's certainly something I would want to participate in or go see if I was in New York, so I wanted to make sure I mentioned that with that film coming out now New York, LA and rolling out to a few other cities over the next week or tenular.

on the music doc Beatids. Yes, Never Over. Jeff Buckley is opening in limited releases this weekend. You're going to check it out and report back on that.

will when Interruptus begins on August eleven. That's our first day when we watch The Player in its entirety at Chicago's Gene Cisco Film Center, and then we're going to get back together three days in a row after that through the fourteenth to go through the film a scene at a time. Anyone can participate with a comment or a question. So yeah, it's last call to get your tickets.

You can purchase a four day package if you want to do the whole thing, or if you can only make it for one of the days, just pop in. Single day tickets will be available again. Cinema interrupt Us the Player at the Cisco Film Center August eleven to fourteen. Ciscofilmcenter dot org slash interrupt us is where you can get your tickets.

and we gave you many great ones. Betty Davis all about Eve, General Rowland's Opening Night, Glorious Swanson, Sunset Boulevard, Julia Binoche, The Clouds of sALS Maria, Laura dern Inland Empire, Naomi Watts Mullholland Drive, Natalie Portman made December Scarlet, Johanson Asteroid City or despite all of those options, you could write in other how did it come out?

it's Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. Twenty four percent of the vote went to Betty Davis for All About Eve, which means Naomi Watts won the poll with thirty percent of the vote.

justify her being so low. Granted, she's behind some legendary performances and she's far from last, but I guess I just don't care. I'm deciding to be outraged just for the heck of it. Go watch Opening Night if you haven't. Yeah, well, I'm not going to argue with the last part. Go watch it if you haven't. Great film.

Medea on stage. She meets with Ellen Burston's Brenda, the American wife of a cheating Greek husband, imprisoned in Greece for murdering her children and christened the modern Medea by the Greek press for an actress going through it. Getting in touch with your inner Medea is about as primal as it gets.

the Cuckoo's Nest, and Robert Altman's Nashville. So we gave Jaws the Sacred Cow treatment back in twenty twenty for its forty fifth We just talked about Cuckoo's Nest last week. Both loved that film. We're going to be talking about Dog Day in a couple of weeks. Those three films are in the film spotting pantheon. Safe to say we're fans of those three films, and then you throw in Barry Lindon and Nashville. Pretty formidable roster of films. What

we're doing is we're throwing out Jaws. We're saying we just think Jaws would annihilate the other four as good as they are in this poll, especially knowing what we think we know about our listeners. So without Jaws, which one is the best film? Do you have a clear pick here, Josh?

with recency bias and say Cuckoo's Nest right now? And maybe I'll regret that when we do Dog Day our review coming up here. But yeah, I guess I lean that way.

those two films. But I know I love Dog Day Afternoon, So after we talk about that, I'll feel like I've given them both the treatment they deserve. Josh, and this poll will have already been closed down and it will all be for nothing. But right now I'm going to go dog Day just slightly ahead of one flow over the Cuckoo's.

wrote with Charles Brackett and D. M. Marshman Junior. You may be wondering, okay, what picture could have possibly beat out Sunset Boulevard. Well makes sense that it was another showbiz related tale. The nineteen fifty one Best Picture winner was all about Eve.

Hollywood by the time Sunset Boulevard rolls around. As far as the plot goes, should we start at the beginning Josh or at the end like Wilder does with William Holdens down on his lux screenwriter Joe Gillis dead in a swimming pool. We then flashback six months earlier with Gillis fling repomen when he turns into the driveway of

a Sunset Boulevard mansion. That's where he meets Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond, a reclusive, silent movie star who is eager to boot Gillis from her home until she learns his occupation, which conjures up dreams of a career comeback and maybe of romance.

we should talk about the ways it's a noir. It's also a backstage studio drama, which is something entirely different, and it's brilliantly that and maybe the observation I had watching this more towards the beginning, but this is equally a Tinseltown Gothic horror. And I'm watching this movie, Adam, and maybe it's just because you know, we got Robert

Egger's No. S Faratu a few months ago now, and I'm looking at Norman Desmond sitting like Dracula in this high backed chair in the midst of this dark, cavernous room. It doesn't really click for me there. But then I notice as she's interviewing gillis their first meeting at her desk and she's trying to she's trying to hire him basically, and her one knee is up on her chair. She's clutching her knee.

There is the coffin for her chimp. You've got a coffin even you know, as the movie went on, it seemed to drop. Who knows how much any of this was intentional, It did seem to drop some of the Dracula stuff. Gillis does call her a sleepwalker at one point, and then there is that great Bride of Frankenstein's shot of her when she stands up in her private screening room. She's backlit by the projector she's going off, and I'm thinking, oh,

this is Bride of Frankenstein. So anyway, the larger point I want to make is not that Sunset Boulevard is a Dracula movie, but that it is also this gothic whore in so many ways the filmmaking. The filmmaking leans into this, but it's also these other things. That's the brilliance of it is that it can be it can explore all of these genres fairly equally and equally well.

going to perhaps use it for different reasons. Even though I'm not going to take issue at all with your reading, including even the mention of her as a sleepwalker. That gothic element is undoubtedly here. But for me, the thing that stood out to me this time, or at least what I as a viewer tapped into that I never had before. And Josh, maybe it was just about me opening myself up to this possibility. It doesn't even have to be so much about Wilder's filmmaking. It's just about

me allowing myself to have this experience. I really tapped in for the first time to Norma's humanity. It's been fifteen years since I've seen this film. I believe it was part of a Wilder marathon back in twenty ten that corresponded with a gram school class that Maddie and I were teaching at the University of Chicago about Wilder and part of it, as well as maybe just appreciating Swanson's performance even.

you think of a spirit. And she's not even Norma Desmond really. In that same bit where Joe talks about her as a sleepwalker, he calls the great Norma Desmon, the subject that makes her crazy, her celluloid self, the great Norma Desmin. So she's not a person, she's a thing. And when he starts reading her lousy screenplay, he says, as for her, she sat coiled up like a watch spring,

her cigarette clamped in a curious holder. And if you notice even there, the way he's describing her, the way Wilder and his co screenwriters are describing her, they're dehumanizing her. They're describing her coiled up like a watch, like an object. But I had never paid attention, even though the narration is calling attention to it, I had never really paid attention to how she is sitting and how odd that is for a character of her stature and status to

be sitting like that. And I almost felt like Josh going really the complete opposite direction of a vampire or any other creature. I saw her sitting there on almost like a little girl, the way a little girl would sit in a chair with her, with her legs up in the chair, with her knees up by her neck.

And so she's still on some level performing the role of Norma Desmond, but she's also betraying the fact that a handsome man is in front of her, and she's hoping to impress him because he's good looking, but also because it's her script and she wants to impress him with that script. And so so the body just kind of kind of does that and betrays that fact. So

that is something that I tapped into this time. And I think, you know, throughout, Josh, we can geek out and we will about probably some lines and some shots, but just to really put a bow on this thought about her humanity. My god, that staircase descent at all.

of those classic Mandela effect moments. Right we all think, don't we all think that she says I'm ready for my close up, mister de mil But she actually says, mister de Mille, I'm ready for my close up.

a sensationalistic way and her tragic fall. I actually really felt I felt sadness. I felt sadness for Norma in those final moments in a way, as I said, I haven't before even if even if did you notice Wilder denies her the close up. He blurs the camera lens before she fully moves into the close up, and you could read that on some level like a coldness or

maybe a meanness to Norma. I do know that in my research back when I taught this as part of that class, that Bracket thought throughout the film that not even so much Norma the character, but to Gloria Swanson, Wilder was often too mean with how he staged some of those shots. The harshness of the lighting, all the mirrors, the close ups, that they were too garish, that they they emphasized her oldness, and they were maybe too But I'll just say at the end it goes back to

something I talked about during the apartment Josh. It's more about just kind of Wilder's clear eyed, matter of factness about the world. And it actually kind of for me, just further amplifies the tragic nature of the fact that even in that last moment, she still she doesn't get it. Not only does she not get her film, she doesn't even get that close up she's asking for there.

our memories because of how the line is quoted. Choosing to go otherwise to me is a bit of deference to her and a distinction from what we do get earlier in the film, where she does look scary or monstrous, you know, rather than using a similar shot and expecting Swanson to do all the work of making that distinction. The filmmaking here is helping her and then she's doing the work, as I said, by underplaying the line. In my memory, it's shouted, it's declared, it's this camp moment,

and it is not. As a matter of fact, it stands out. It's one of the only lines that she speaks softly where she isn't performing for anyone. And I think it's because she has found her space. Now it's a false space, but she's found the place she's been seeking to be on set in her mind, doing good work, and so she can be relaxed and she can be herself.

And that's why she just says the line quietly. Another touch in terms of the filmmaking, the crane, which is probably what was used as she comes down the stairway. I think it's crucial that the crane follows her because we're with her. This again is putting us aligned with her, not gawking at her. It's not making her look ridiculous,

it's making her look regal and noble. Is there some irony there, of course, and maybe Wilder means it to be sarcastic, but for me on this viewing, it felt almost honoring actually, how that final sequence played out.

not only in the sequence. Adam is Demil so gentle with her, not trying to squash her deluded dreams, but finding a way to yes, move her along, but without making her feel foolish. But how about the choice Wilder and working with cinematographer John f. Sites Here they anoint her in this angelic air by having this veteran spotlight operator recognize Norma and on the set, and so he turns the beam onto her as she sits in a chair, and she exults in it. Again, this could be a

gawking moment. There are gawking moments of Norma in this movie, but to me, this is more about her regalness, her nobility, her history, her place in Hollywood history. This attracts the attention of the crew. They're delighted by the surprise appearance of this legend, and then we get after their effusive praise, she weeps in gratitude, And there's something I find deeply touching and genuine about that moment and not sarcastic or even ironic or biting at all. So I think that's

in the filmmaking the humanity. But maybe another revelation I had Adam is in Glorious Swanson's performance. Again, don't know how long ago it was that I saw this. Certainly had not seen enough movies or thought deeply enough about performing. This is something I feel like sometimes I'm still trying to get better at what makes a good performance in different tones and ranges and styles. And we certainly have

one of cinema's grand melodramatic performances here from Swanson. But I think it works beyond just being entertaining in a gawking way. And what helped me is having seen between my first viewing of Sunset Boulevard and now a lot of the work of Betty Davis and Joan Crawford. Now Swanson, I had to remind myself, had already been nominated for

two Oscars before she was nominated for this. In her heyday, she had made silent pictures, she had produced silent pictures, So her heyday was before Crawford and Davis were in their professional pride, So for them it was like late thirties into the forties. So you have to think Swanson's early work had to influence them, especially the deliciously vicious women. I think of them as playing right and without a doubt.

Her Norma Desmond is, you know, in that cauldron of whatever Happened to Baby Jane, which has Davis an Crawford right. And so Swanson is largely remembered for Sunset Boulevard despite that earlier career. But it's hard to imagine the careers of two other Hollywood legends without the totality of her contributions to Hollywood, all of which informs the pathos she

brings to Norma Desmond. So you have someone here who is rooting these outsized gestures and these grandiose expressions which she gives, she's rooting them in a real character because Norma Desmond feels like every day she's performing in a silent movie exactly, And what do you do in a

silence movie set? Her house is a sid I understand not all silent movies did actors perform this way, but in there was a certain strain of silent cinema where yes, your gestures were broad, your expressions were exaggerated, and that is the kind that Norma Desmond, we understand, had made. She's still making them to your point in her home.

And so this is where the melancholy matt for me is really rooted in this yes, melodramatic, but also effective method where we see her as a person, as a human, deluded but once regal, once noble, and perhaps deserving to still have more of a shred of that than she actually still has.

didn't need words right, they had faces. But in that moment, just like a great talkie screen actress, she's effectively able to modulate her performance and speak the lines to the camera exactly the way she needs to. So that occurs to me as you were saying that, And I also think about the heavy lifting that is done as we're touching on this point and the bygone era of her former performances, how much heavy lifting is done. By the scene where we watch Joe and Norma watch her old movie,

he in his narration, is disparaging it. He views the whole thing as pathetic and pitiful. But Wilder's camera lingers on that movie screen, and what do we see on the screen. There's nothing pathetic or pitiful about it. We see an astonishing face. And I think it reinforces for me, Josh, that that what she's hanging on to and what she's trying to recapture so badly. It's not even so much her youth. I'm trying to think of the words something something greater than youth.

that isn't just for show. They aren't pitying her. They those people genuinely do know who she is, and they come up to her and they show their gratitude to her, and she's grateful for it. So we know that in the grand scheme of things, she's not the star she once was, that she's a has been, that Max has to write the notes. We know all of that's true, but two things can be true at once. That in that moment she gets the reverence that she probably deserves.

And so the indignity part is that soon after this, of course Demill is going to deny her She's not going to get to make this movie. And that's already hard enough for Norma to accept, considering what she believes about herself, but imagine how much harder it is after she's actually felt the basking in the glow of the light again and it's real.

those that I have seen. We spend some time in our discussion of The Apartment about how that is visually ambitious, but I think this is an area Wilder is sometimes not given enough credit for. And man, are there so many aesthetic flourishes here. I want to talk about a few that aren't related necessarily to Norma Desmond, but just the fact that this movie opens with that unbroken reverse tracking shot moving down a road and then lifts up to reveal these squad cars racing toward her house. Yeah.

a crane. As Gillis is walking up the steps to her outdoor terrace, the dilapidated terrace, and then we see her through this slow zoom, we see Norma behind some blinds, creepily watching him. I mean, these are all kind of crime and horror techniques that are blended to create something that's very eerie, very unnerving. Goes back to the noir idea, goes back to the Gothic idea, but it also has this faded glamour of old Hollywood to it. So, yeah, the filmmaking here is on his top tier level for

Wilder for sure. Absolutely. Yeah.

that you may notice in the film. For me, those elements I love are things like Joe Gillis is a screenwriter, and yet he's absolutely horrendous at picking up on foreshadowing the fact that he the fact that he shows up, and even though it's misdirection or it's a mistake, they think he's someone else, the fact that they have been expecting him right suggests that there's almost something faded about

his appearing. The fact the fact that he does show up and there's this dead monkey, which the the insanity of that we up in a time, right, remember we we grew up in that time with Michael Jackson at his Neverland ranch and knew about like monkeys, and stuff and.

And the fact that Max says I made your bed this afternoon before he's agreed to spend the month, and I even love just the fact that he refers to himself as a ghostwriter. Ghost writer in this case takes on a little bit of extra meaning. I think, especially as from the beginning of the film we know that he's dead, and then when his car gets taken away, that's another moment where the car is almost like the monkey's coffin. That's when he's officially being left left behind.

It's like, Okay, Joe isn't going anywhere. But the other little Wilder touches Josh are things like when he goes to leave at one point in a huff, and I think it might be that that first one on New Year's Eve when he gets mad at her and and goes his pocket watch. That touch she gives to him, Yeah, gets stuck on the door. It's it's only Wilder would think of this, right. It's almost like Norma's hand is somehow there to just snatch him back for a second before he goes.

The meta element here, the screenwriting element that he is a screenwriter, the fact that it's all rooted in Hollywood and Hollywood lore, the way he finally comes clean with Betty. He tells her everything. They're writers together, and he's finally he's giving her the backstory. He's filling her in on everything.

his voice and his delivery. And again this is where a noir element comes in. I think he evokes that well as a screen presence in his scenes with you know, Gloria Swanson. He works, I guess, is what i'd say. But the power dynamic is not supposed to be equal, but the performance dynamic maybe should be a little more equal in some way. I did like, though, and here's another nor thing I'll throw at you. I did like Holden's Joe Gillis is essentially the femme fatale when you

think about it. He shows up and he he's mysterious, and he's maybe useful, maybe not. You can't quite trust him. And how about the fact that he's absolutely a sexual object that pool scene when he gets out of the pool and towels off in front of her. So I realized that, Okay, well, this is this is interesting about his character, that he's basically playing the femme fatale in the noir. Otherwise, you know, I don't know, maybe just a little bit more there from Holden might might have gone.

If you know, A'm nitpicking here. This is this is a masterpiece.

really got it. Part of it was I just felt like, and I looked this up at one point, but now I don't have it in front of me. It felt like one of those classic Hollywood cases were just there was a dramatic age difference. I don't know if there was, but it feels like it on screen, you know what.

Wilder and Bracket. They've constructed this story the last film he worked with Bracket on, where they've constructed this entire thing around this notion as we see in the beginning, that all Joe wants to do is write something that will sell. That's all he's trying to do, and he's failing miserably. And then what happens He stops writing and he becomes embroiled in a story that's the best, most sensational story maybe of all time. Think about how well

this story is going to play, right. He's not going to reap any benefits of it, you know, but but it is going to sell like hotcakes and and is probably going to get turned into a movie at some point.

in this film. And at one point she says, great stars have great pride, And I think that's key to the performance, because I do think that's something Swanson deeply, intimately understood and is able to bring it to the fore and make again Norma someone who's maybe has been, but her feelings about that are real and genuine, and that comes through in the film. Yeah, it does.

and it is so dirty and grimy. And the fact that the title of the film isn't Sunset Boulevard in some kind of radiant way, right, it's just the words in writing on the street.

the economy of the filmmaking. Even like we get the moment where we learn why there are no door knobs on the doors, and then when Joe leaves and she goes upstairs, the camera just shows us the door closing and focuses on the door, and in that moment, we know exactly what's coming next. We don't need anything more, we don't need to go inside. We know exactly just by that simple establishing of what that door knob means and the fact that the camera shows us that as

she closes it, we know what is coming next. And he's just so as I said, economic and smart as a filmmaker. And then there are those grand touches like we've mentioned as.

He just doesn't he doesn't overlook anything. Wilder and actually, what we haven't even touched on, I'll just I'll leave

it here. We don't need to get into it. But having just talked about the apartment, and I know the Apartment comes ten years after this, but there is very direct overlap in the concepts of opportunism, and Wilder very directly said everybody in this movie is an opportunist if you think about it, even Betty, who's kind of playing like the wide eyed naive or she seems like the very ideological Well, no, she's in this certainly at first because she.

he decides he's going to be a human being. He's just going to leave. He's not going to blame anyone else for his problems. He's not going to try to cause any more problems for anyone else. He is just going to go and he's going to live his life. But it's too late, and that's the tragedy of it. I think he learns the lesson.

she knows she can make. There is there is a level of complication there that I think is interesting, which which is it's perhaps the right decision, but maybe not necessarily a noble one. I don't know. At the same time a little complicated. How can you put that burden on him right here? Because she was in this she was in this state before he arrived as well.

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group of ruthless criminals. But then I saw who that group of ruthless criminals was led by, and it's Keky Palmer.

and Sienna Miller. In wide release, Freakier Friday, I'm told Josh that it's another Freaky Friday, but just a little bit freakier.

going to see the Jeff Buckley doc. We'll see what else comes up on next week's show.