Casey on Paranoid Park

old pros at this, at this lockdown stuff. I know how you guys doing holding up? Well? How's the house? Yeah, it's it's my my girlfriend. Actually she went back to her place this week because she's actually started back work again. So yeah, that's not great, but it is what it is. Um, Yeah, we're we're holding up fine here. Um to me, this just feels like the normal way now. And I'm kind of interred anyway, So in a way, I've I've lived weeks in my life like this prior to the whole

confinement thing anyway, So yeah, I'm fine, that's good. You know, Paula, your roommate, and I did a very controversial episode on Soup v bat which I started. I have not finished yet, but I'm about halfway through that one I started. Yeah, and it's it's weird because I have not seen that

movie even but um, I'm gonna check it out. I guess I'm gonna do the whole, the whole cursed the trilogy now of what is a Man of Steel, Batman Verse, Superman, and then the the newly yeah, the Justice League, which is now coming out in the uh the Snyder cart apparently. Yeah, yeah,

I'm gonna watch that. I mean, here's my deal. The reason I'm watching these movies even though I don't love them, is that I was I wasn't a comic guy growing up, but I was more d C in um my loves, which were just sort of from watching Believe it or Not, super Friends, in Justice League cartoon, and um just the early Superman movies and you know, from Donner in the eighties I grew up with, whereas there was no Marvel

going on. Uh, so I'm in more. I'm more invested in the and I had the wonder Woman TV show, so like wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, I had the Batman TV show. All that stuff is more part of my DNA than Marvel ever was because I wasn't into comics. So that's why I'm watching these movies each one with the hope that it's going to be awesome. Right, Yeah, I was. I was a DC kid, and I did.

I did collect comics for a while. Um, kind of in like the mid nineties, right around the time that Baine broke Batman's back and the killed Superman and all that stuff was going on. So I think the I think the whole Batman versus Superman thing will be somewhat in my wheelhouse. So what I'm familiar with because I did read like Dark Knight Returns, the Frank Miller graphic novel and all that. So, um, I was never into Marvel at all, So I don't don't really have any

attachment to those characters or those movies. Yeah, I've said it before on the show. I don't know why I never got into superhero comics. I don't know. It's weird because I like that stuff. It just I don't know, And it was weird with me because I got into it because there was a comic bookshop, like an independent comic book shop in Roswell where I was growing up, and it was just a cool place to go hang out for a while and browse the stacks and find

cool stuff. And then yeah, and then the guy ended up closing the shop or moving it somewhere else, and that was just sort of like that ended my fascination with comics right then and there. So you know, I could have I could have grown up to be way more of like a comic book guy or something. But I'm kind of glad that, uh it ended when it did, like in my adolescence, and Paul is not as well.

I was surprised he picked that movie. Um. It was an interesting conversation because I didn't love the movie the first time I saw it. I liked it better through with his cut and you know, just through the lens of talking about it with a fringe. That always helps. But I still don't love it. You know, It's just I don't know. Zack Snyder to me is just he's

not you know, he's like he's a seventy percenter. It's it's I think, um, a lot of us are still when we think Zack Snyder, we think, um, three D. And I don't know just that that one that whole that whole aesthetic of like sweatymen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and uh, you know, gratuitous violence and all that stuff. So yeah, I did. Having said that, though flawed as it was, I was such a big fan of the I did read the Watchman um graphic novel. That's one of the

few things I did. Actually. Jonathan Strickland gave it to me, uh in the early days of how stuff works and recommended it, and I I did. For all its faults, I did enjoy the Watchman movie just because it was uh just seeing those characters come to life, and I thought I thought a lot of it worked, even though it was a bit of a mess. Yeah, that's that's another one I wanted to see, but I still have not checked out. But I am kind of curious about that one. I mean, I do like this sort of

like meta comic approach. I think, yeah, well, I do like I like the Watchman better than any of any of the Superman stuff he's done so far. I think interesting. And of course I love the Watchman TV show, but he didn't have his dirty little pause on that, so uh, paranoid Park I sent you. I need to share this with everyone. Casey and and poke fun at you a little bit. You asked, what kind of movie if it

needs to be more feel good? I was like, no, I feel good at least something widely seen, you know. And so you sit Paranoid Park and Old Joy, two very little scene films. Still I get, you know, I have a hard time, like, um, I feel like we need we need some kind of objective measure for like how widely a scene as film or not seen. I think box office is that measure. Casey, this did like four and a half million I think on on like a one point five budgets, so that's pretty yeah. And

four million of that was in Europe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw that too. Like the press screen average was like I don't know, five tin grand or something in the US. So yeah, it was interesting. Um, and that was one of the notes I had to bring up. This movie Gus Vans and clearly does well in Europe. Did percent of its its revenue there did about four hundred thousand and change here. Uh. And my deal with Gus Van's aunt dude is I was a devote and saw his first whatever seven movies as they came, and

then stopped watching gust Vans and movies. For some reason, was there like was was like Psycho the breaking point? Like what was there a moment where you were just kind of done with him? Or I don't know. I thought the Psycho thing was an interesting experiment exact wouldn't say like, oh, yeah, it was great, I want to see it again. But I'm glad I watched it. Uh. It wasn't so much that I think he went after a good while hunting in the Psycho sort of backlash.

He went way back to his roots and went really, really really in the borderline experimental, which I'm all about too, for some reason that I just I missed that. I mean, that's that to me is my favorite, um, my favorite period of his when he when he makes Harry and Elephant and Last Days and then this movie. I didn't see any of those, but I've seen bits of all

of them. I'm going to go through now and watch them all because I had not seen this, and it reminded me of how much I just fucking love Gus van Dan. He's one of my favorite filmmakers. This one, I think is it's it's odd because it's the last one that he made kind of in this style before he went sort of back into more Hollywood mainstream filmmaking with Milan seen those either, yeah, Um, actually I did see Milk. That's the only one I saw, Yeah, which

was I mean, Milk was pretty good. It was well shot, well acted everything, but it doesn't have like the experimental panash of of this, you know, the last the four films before it. Um this is a bit of a detour. But the last thing I did before all this um quarantine stuff started Alex Alex Williams and I our colleague from work, we went on kind of a cinematic pilgrimage to Philadelphia back in late February to go see this seven and a half hour film, Satan Tango, directed by

Bail Atar. He was a Hungarian filmmaker, and Satan Tango came out in the bid nineties and it was like a big deal at the time. Um. You had like Susan Sontag saying that she would watch it every year for the rest of her life, and all these kind

of like heavy intellectuals weighed in on it. And then a lot of filmmakers responded to it as well, and Gus Van Santon was one of them, and so that kind of directly led to him making this trilogy or quadrilogy of um sort of experimental, low budget features that all have some share DNA with the Bellatar films of long takes and tracking shots and overlapping timelines and things

like that. Yeah, yes, yeah, I've gotta be gotta be comfortable with slowness and silence for sure, And um, I don't know, it was it was a great way to see the movie, because I've been wanting to see it pretty much since it had first came out, or at least a few years after when I learned about it, and um, I had put off seeing it all these years. I had had video copies of it, but it never seemed like something I would actually be able to sit

through at home. And so when the restoration came out and it started touring around, it wasn't coming anywhere close to Atlanta, so we just kind of decided, why not, We'll we'll go up there and see it. And so like the whole of this, the whole process of like you know, getting on a plane and flying and getting an hotel and like arriving at the venue the next

day and everything, it's just like it. It reminds you that that the theatrical experience and just the feeling of like remembering a time and a place and circumstances and like even like meals we had, you know before, after the movie. Like the whole thing is all kind of like combined into one one thing, and it's it's so much more meaningful in a way than just like streaming

stuff at home or whatever. There's there's so much more weight to it, and in a way, it kind of feels like, I mean, I hope that that theatrical experience will still survive post all of this, but it kind of feels like almost like the last great memory I'm

going to have of that era. I don't know. I mean, obviously, obviously people will still be seeing stuff in theaters, but I think it's going to increasingly just be the big budget stuff that gets those theatrical runs, and these smaller movies are more and more just going to go to Netflix, are going to go to streaming, are going to play festivals and then just kind of be like V O D or whatever. So I hope that's not the case, but I'm kind of thinking economically that's probably where things

are headed. Uh. I think could be surprised how things are going to get back to normal. Eventually, It'll be a slow ramp, but um, there have been uh, there have been nasty sicknesses before and humanity always you know it's not an existential risk. Well now it's impossible. Uh you listen to our stuff you should know podcast on that. Um,

you know. The last thing I did, and I've mentioned this on the show before, was in mid March for a birthday trip, me and my friend Eddie went to Philly d C in New York to see Bonnie Principilli and Richmond and that I had a similar experience man, where it was like when you go to a different city to do a concert or like you did like a movie. It's different than going on a vacation. Like Uh, all we had to do all day was uh, walk around and enjoy ourselves and eat and drink and then

be at the venue showtime. The next day we did that. We were at the venue, and after that third night, I was like, dude, I don't know what I'm gonna do tomorrow, not getting up and going to see Bonnie Principal. Yeah, I wanted to keep following him until his tour stopped Yeah, absolutely, I love Wild and um, you know, I don't know if you're aware he's the co star of Old Joy. Yeah, dude, I've seen Old Okay, okay, alright, alright, alright. Kind of

question is that, Um, I don't know. I thought when I when I slid that, when I slid that in there, I thought I thought maybe that would be the one you the one you went for. So I was surprised when you went Paranoid Park. Well, I went Paranoid Park because I hadn't seen it a and Old Joy is so obscure that, uh, I felt like I had to go with with Gus van Zan on this one because he's, you know, to me, a true artist. Filmmakers like him

that that do achieve big successes in Hollywood. Eventually with winning all the Oscar or I don't know, I think he wanted the Oscar, did he? I know the guys did for Hunting. Yeah, yeah, I think it was just screenplay that that one. Maybe maybe starting stuffer. Yeah, but

you know, major Hollywood accolades. After starting out as it's Superah with drug Store, Cowboy definitely became accepted into that whole world and then chose to kind of do something interesting with it, do the make and kind of stay true to his roots. And I think his last couple have been a little more high profile though. Right. He had one called The Sea of Trees, which almost barely even came out with Matthew McConaughey actually in the league

about the suicide forest in Japan. That's that's very well known. Um, I actually have not. I have not seen that one yet. It's it's on the list. I will get to it eventually, but it's sort of the played in can and then it just sort of like disappeared and it came out in like a limited release maybe about a year or two later here in the States. Um. But he has also made one with Joaquin Phoenix called Don't Worry he Won't Get Far and Foot, which is great. I really

really like that one. Yeah, yeah, man, he's so good. Um, before we get going on Paranoid Park though, how was the seven and a half hour film experience? It was great? It was Actually they did have it broken up. It is broken up into three separate chunks, so it's sort of like a two hour film, a two hour film, and a two and a half hour film. Kind of when you're when you're sitting through it something like that.

So they had intermissions. They had intermissions of about like fifteen minutes, and there was like a Starbucks right next door to the theater, so we would like run out, go to the Starbucks, like pounce and caffeine, run to the bathroom, and then run back and get in our seats and started again, and we have like, you know, just like a few minutes in line to kind of talk about what we had just seen and what we

think is going to be coming. And it was a really cool way to to um, to watch that film, Like I said, I mean, there's there's absolutely nothing can compare to that versus just like sitting at home and being tempted to look at your phone every five minutes

and phone calls and all the rest of it. So um, I would say, actually, my favorite Bilitar film is still probably Rick Meister Harmonies, which he made about five years after that, and which is only like a two and a half maybe three hour film, and it does many of the same things, but it does them in a much more condensed, focused way, whereas sometimes in Satan Tango, I was never bored necessarily, but there were scenes where I was like, Okay, you could have cut like five

minutes ago and I would have gotten the point of what you're doing. But um, you know, as long as you keep the mentality that you're gonna just hang in there, then um, you kind of have to surrender to it. And it was cool because the whole audience was obviously very self selecting. Everybody that was there was there to like reckon with this movie and exactly exactly, so everybody was very respectful. No one's on their phone or making noise or anything like that, so you know, we were

all just kind of in it together. And yeah, it was It was a really cool experience. And I did like the film, but um, like I said, surprisingly, I didn't think it was like his masterpiece. I think he's done better, um in other in other films. I'm gonna put that down on the old list for people listening. Uh, we're saying his name kind of fast. It's b E L L A, I think T L and uh. And

it was a sidetrack. But as you mentioned, Gus vans And has been very open and um respectful of the fact that he really influenced sort of this period in his filmmaking career. Yeah, and and Satan Tango right now even I think you can rent it on streaming the restoration version. Uh. And there will be like a physical Blu ray release. I think later in the year or maybe next year. It might be delayed because of all

this stuff, but right, all right everyone So. Paranoid Park is the Gust fans Ant film from two thousand seven, written and directed by Gus van z Ant, from the novel by uh not Tim Blake. Now is not Tim Blake Nelson, who I always want to say it's by Tim Blake Nelson. It is not. It is by a

different guy named Blake Nelson. Yeah. And it is a film about a um a murder that happens in Portland, Oregon, and a a group of young skateboarder kids, in particular one who is the protagonist of the film, and just how how he may or may not be involved, and they're going to be spoilers. I don't know why I bothered to say that. I never do, but um, you know, it's uh, it was great. I loved it. Good, good, an hour and twenty minutes long. Yeah, it's nice and tight,

it's it's does not overstay. It's welcome at all, which I think especially for films like this that have these kind of they're spacey, they're experimental. Um, there's there's long kind of slow motion sequences which is playing and so on. But the fact that it's it's so short overall really

just kind of like leaves you wanting more. You're you're very like, I don't know, it just it just gets it gets in, it gets out, it does what it needs to do, and it kind of leaves you just like wanting more of that, which I think is a great way for am to to go about. So many films these days I think could easily lose you know, yeah, I totally agree. Man, that's been one of the biggest changes in filmmaking I think over the last like fifteen years,

is uh. And you know, especially with comedies being too long, and there's a certain filmmaker that I won't we both know who we're talking about in his new film. People people already are talking about the length of his new film because I think it's in the two and a half hour range, and so you know, just all the kind of snarky comments on until on, like you know, do you really need too and a half hours to

tell the story of X y Z. I don't know. Yeah, And if you don't know who we're talking about, um, everyone, it's jutt as Our right right, who I love you know, I love his movies. I just I think he's I think he's being a little indulgent with these two and a half hour comedies. You don't need tow and a half hours to tell the story. No, no, no, I mean it's it's it's amazing what can be done in

in a much more condensed part of time. And partly that is what makes cinema great versus these like you know, eighteen hour episodic TV dramas, which are great too, but being able to say everything you want to say, to establish character and narrative and do it all in like that compact ninety minutes, it's just that is that is what differentiates cinema from from television in a large Expeah, absolutely, to to to pack in really um fully realized character

arcs for multiple characters inside an hour and twenty minutes or an hour and a half is is very impressive. And ah, it's tough to do. As someone and you've written stuff too, it's it's hard. Yeah, it's very very hard. You just you have a tendency to want to stretch things out, and you have to Instead of having like the five scenes that all say the same thing more or less, you just got to find the one and really honed in on that and say everything you have

to say. So you know it's easy to do. Casey write a shitty screenplay exactly. Yes, I've written them before, and I've written a couple that I think you're pretty good. Um. All right, so this movie opens up and we'll we'll be jumping all around. But um, I did want to mention the opening shot just because it was so cool, that great shot of Portland, of the bridge there that river, and it was and this brings up a larger point. It was set in fast motion, yes, even though it's

a static shot, so it's not hectic. Um, but it sets up this and this is not an insult. The best way I can describe this movie is it felt like the best student film I'd ever seen. Absolutely. That's that's what this whole period of his filmmaking feels like to me. It feels like the kind of stuff that when you are a film student and you're just getting your hands on the tools for the first time this Obviously I want to do a tracking shot, I want

to do time laps, I want to do you know, etcetera, etcetera. Um, it really does feel like he he kind of rediscovered that that joy in the simplicity in a way of just like the camera in a space with a few actors and and just what the sssibilities are of what can be done just by moving the camera or not moving the camera. And um, yeah, I love that that that bridge time lapse shot. It kind of it has a very dreamy music that is uh, it's from a Felini film. It's composed by Nino Rhoda and it comes

from mostly um Julietta the Spirits. There's also one track from all Marcord in the film. Um. But but the it's almost even. That's kind of contrasting in a way because it has this dreamy, floating kind of feel, but the motion is all sped up in time laps. And he did that a lot. There was a lot of h I mean, the music is factors in a huge

in this movie. Um from you know, book ending the movie with two full songs from Elliott Smith, which um, you know, a total uh fanatic Smith always have been too, uh, the way he uses these um these classical sort of upbeat romantic classical scores in the third in the third act, juxtaposed against you know, the scene that really stands out as the breakup scene with with the main character and his I mean, I guess it's his girlfriend, and you know, the whole thing is in in silence. All you see

is her mad at him. You don't see his It's just that one take of her or not her perspective, but hers his shoulder kind of and you see her face and it's great because you know, if if you've been paying attention, you know that this is like the breakup scene. You know that's what he's going to do. And you can see from his from her reaction, you can almost read her lips and kind of like gather mostly what she's saying. You know, totally, How can you do this? You think you can just you know, hey,

we got a visit her. Hey all right, Ruby, this has got to be a quick can you say, howe casey? Hey, Ruby, did you like guess fans as paranoid park? Oh? That's great, it gets it gets the Ruby uh approval. I love you Alright, so that's been happening a lot with with Ruby, as you know. Yeah, she did not watch Paranoid Park by the way. Okay, well yeah, it's probably not age appropriate exactly, should be like when's something going to happen, um, just to say, we would just wait Ruby, a body

gets cut in half. There's one shot that's really gross. It's gonna be cool. Yeah uh yeah. But you know, that was a great scene, the breakup scene, because um, the contrast of the music, and it felt like a lot of that stuff really came on heavier than the third act. This sort of bouncy classical like romantic. Um. The one at the beginning with the Willamette River shot was the one thing I did think that gave it was this had this sort of noir edge to it.

Um and this movie. It's interesting to think about this movie in a movie like Brick, which are have a little bit of the same d N a completely different execution. Yeah, but it is it is sort of like he's he's flirting with that genre a little bit. And I think that's another thing that differentiates this film from the previous three that are a little bit more free form and not really beholden to any genre other than just kind of quote unquote the art film or the experimental film.

This one does have some genre elements that again I think, just give it that little bit of a hook, a little bit of a grounding where it is a little bit of a who done it, even though it's pretty obvious early on who did it and so on. But I didn't really feel that way actually really maybe the first because I've seen it like ten times at this point, you know. Um, to me, I feel like there is more or lesser reveal before the big reveal, just based on his reactions and emotions and so on, and some

of the scenes. To me, it tips over into he is truly guilty, although I guess there's the question of whether he's guilty because he was there or he's guilty because kind of thing. Yet I thought he knew what had happened. He's a good kid. Um for the most part. He's just for listeners at home. You know. The idea is that this kid is h he's a skater kid. He's hanging out at this uh and by the way, I've been by the real skate park in Port uh Lance. Bangs drove me by Yeah, on our way to dinner.

I went out to dinner with he and his son, Marshall, and he drove me by the Burnside thing because it was on the way the restaurant. He was like, I think he even said for Paranoid Park was filmed. Um, so the kid is a good kid. He's hanging out the skate park. That's kind of dangerous in the culture over there is is a little scary obviously, drug use and shenanigans going on and sort of lawlessness, no parents, no cops exactly. It's it's that whole vibe of like

divorced parents who are not paying attention exactly sort of stuff. Yeah, and then we what we learned through the film, and it doesn't it didn't follow a traditional chronological narrative. It sort of hops around via this kind of cool device of his journal entries as narration and and and we just got a great reveal we'll get too later. But um,

there is Ah. It turns out that a security guard at a train yard has been killed and they have traced it back to the fact that he was killed by getting hit with a skateboard and falling on the train tracks and getting cut in half. By a train.

And uh so that's the premise, and there's some question going on and and you've learned about I guess about halfway or towards the third act that this kid has actually done it hopped a freight train with a bad kid and this guy came running after almost kind of hitting him with a flashlight and he just sort of hits him in the face with the skateboard, not even

too hard, just to get him away. And it's and it was an accident, you know, it's funny, Like I was thinking about it more like how would that be regarded and like a criminal court would it be? Was there even possibly a self defense not trest at the flashlight first? But it's true they were they were trespassing, so maybe because they broke the law originally, Yeah, I involuntary man being an accident, you know, yeah, yeah yeah. And like I said, he's a good kid. Um, he's

a good kid who made a mistake. Uh. What I thought was interesting And I didn't kind of pick up on this till towards the end. Was like a traditional movie might there's never any other mention of the guy he was with, true, Yeah, Like I kept waiting for there to be a search for him or him to come back into the picture, but he just kind of runs off and that's it. I mean, that guy I think got away clean, right, Like nobody really saw him

or knows about him. His name never came up. So kids just like clean, We think, right, yes, yes, that is true. But I mean, at least he gets pulled into questioning a few times, and there is at least a little bit of a hint that he might be under more scrutiny than than some of these other skate kids. Um, but the the other kid, he's just like gone. So let's talk about that first questioning scene with Detective Lou. Yeah, it's fantastic, one of the great interrogation scenes because it's, uh,

it's not like a typical interrogation scene. He's not playing the heavy he's he's total good copying it. Uh. And then I'd like you to talk a little bit about what he does with a camera there, because it's really interesting. So there's a really cool sequence just before where he's walking down you know, he's been called to the office and so he's walking down the hallway and then he arrives in the classroom and the cameras kind of pointed off in the direction where you can't see the cop.

It's looking at another part of the room. Maybe it's sort of like the first thing that Um Alex the character sees when he walks in, and then the camera suddenly kind of swings over reframes so that you see the cop and you see this long table, and he goes and sits at the table, and then the camera just does this very very slow dolly push forward where you know, if if you know about filmmaking a little bit, you realize that they're they're having to kind of clear

that stuff off the table as the camera is like pushing forward, pushing forward, and it's a pretty traditional just two shot pushing in. Yeah, but it keeps it keeps going, It keeps going, and then it's it's kind of framing them in a two shot, and then at a certain point it just goes off to the left and it it just frames him up and kind of a single close up, and it stays on him for a really

long time. Um and then only after you know, probably a couple more minutes, does it finally cut to the reverse, which is again it's like the one thing we should talk about is the the aspect ratio of this film. He shot this in the in the square Academy ratio. So when you have a close up of a person, you don't really even see any of the environment around them. You just see the face or you see maybe the head and the shoulders. But it's it's very narrow and

so it's it's very direct and confrontational. It feels like something that comes more from almost like silent cinema. It's very very intimate, and it's it's it's sort of like you're looking at these beautiful portraits. There's, um, there's even like this like like splash of bright light that goes across the cops face where he's lit sort of like in a painting or something. Um, it's just it's very very distinct to me. The light is almost a metaphor

for like truth or something. It's it's kind of like he's this apparently like pretty pretty, um, genuinely benevolently motivated cop, you know, who's just out to find what's going on, and he's not out to railroad anybody. He just wants to get to the bottom of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and um and so yeah, I don't know that I've

ever seen that shot before. I don't think I've ever seen and not the whole thing, but even starting with that slow push in, like I said, it's a very traditional slow dolly in, and then it just starts veering left and veering left until the detective is completely out of the shot. And as I was watching it, you know, it's so slow and subtle. At first, I was like,

is this a mistake? Yeah, well so much. It's I mean, sometimes they do feel like mistakes, but they work, you know, It's it's it's hard to hard to fathom how you know, as an artist you can you can have that kind of objectivity on your work to know that a mistake or something that would appear to be a mistake or amateurish or whatever is actually going to be really cool

and fresh. And I think it's partly because so much of the film is so tightly aesthetically controlled and constructed that when there are these quote unquote mistakes that happened, they happen within a framework of precision and control, so that you, as the viewer, feel them, experienced them as something deliberate, as a choice that's being made, and not just like you know, people who don't know what they're doing. It's interesting too on that on that that push in.

You probably only would hear this on headphones if you're really listening closely, but there's actually a little bit of cell phone interference at one point where where somebody must have gotten a call. It's like that sound that you get and you can tell they kind of they try to filter it out as best as they could. But I thought it was really cool that they didn't just like loop that scene or use a different take or whatever.

Like there was something about that particularly taken, that particularly sound that he he was just like, that's the one we're using. Yeah, yeah, I mean this like I compared it to the best student film I've ever seen, Like you were talking about all these things that could be mistakes or you know that he he has his whole

bag of tricks here. He's got soft focus, he's got you know, a k A. It looks blurry, very very shallowed depth the field, and sometimes like sometimes the shots are even out of focus when their quote unquote supposed to be in focus. They'll they'll be just you know, an inch forward or back from where the plane of focus is. And so it'll be like an eyelashes in focus, but the eye is not and so on. UM, very very interesting way of of um isolating the viewers attention.

And again something that I remember very well when I was kind of getting into filmmaking at the beginning for the first you know, not for the first time because that was on VHS, but for the first time more seriously in college. UM that was right in the era where digital SLRs were starting to shoot video, and so you could use these like full frame cameras like the five D and get that insanely shallowed up the field with these big lenses and big sensors that were really

impossible on video. Before then you always had it was just deep focus all the time. So one thing that you saw in like so many student films and short films in general of that period, everybody shot wide open, you know, everybody shot available light. Everybody just like you know, put the longest lens on that they could find, because everybody was so obsessed with that shallow depth the field Boca heavy kind of look because it's very beautiful, but

you know, it also became extremely overused very quickly. It's one of those things where it's another tool to have in the kit, but you have to know when and why to use it, and I think he uses it very, very deliberately and very well in this film. Yeah. I mean everything in here that I'm liking, the student film stuff is different in the hands of a master filmmaker.

And that's kind of what you're saying, like, um, knowing when to utilize it, knowing how long to utilize it, knowing what you're what salad, you're building from the beginning and not I guess, you know, I'm sure being open to ideas on the day, but this feels like a film cinematically that was very well thought out. Yeah, it seems like you would have to be, because this does not feel like a film. I mean, there's never really any scenes that have like quote unquote coverage. You know,

I don't always wondering about coverage. I mean there's maybe like one or two shot reverse shot kind of constructions, but even those feel very deliberate when it cuts from one side to the other. Liking that interrogation scene, it's a very deliberate moment that he chooses to finally cut to the police guy. UM. So it's not a film that could be quote unquote found in the editing room in that way. You know, these scenes probably a we have one way that you could actually cut them and

have it make any sense. Um, you could restructure the order of the scenes but you couldn't really within the scenes themselves. You would kind of just be stuck with whatever it was you shot on the day. Yeah. And the other interesting thing he does a few times is, like we were talking about in the breakup scene, he does what would normally be, um, just a regular over the shoulder shot of one character's face while the other characters,

you know, off screen having a conversation. And what traditionally you do is you do that from both shoulders of both characters. You shoot a master, you know, you shoot your wide and then you cut between those at least those three, maybe more you have time and money. But he has a few scenes where it's just that one perspective and point of view, uh, and you keep waiting for the camera to cut to the reverse and it doesn't,

and I think it's you know, it's really interesting. There's a great moment where it's the second time we see the cop and he's there to interrogate like a larger group of the kids, not you can interrogate, but just to kind of entry and uh and hand out that the grizzly photos of the of the crime scene to kind of spook everybody a little bit. But when you first see him the cop, he's standing, he's overlapped by

somebody else who's covering up his entire face. All you see is like his bald head and his ear, and the camera stays on that for like probably a good thirty seconds, and then it kind of pans down and it's kind of like racks to focus on some of the kids who are sitting in the desk. But again, it's that kind of like fragmented perspective that feels like it's almost like maybe Alex's POV like when he first like the thing that stuck in his memory was not

like the full on shot of the cop. It's just like the ear and the bald head, and and that was enough to tell him that like, oh, it's this guy or something. And there's there's so much of the film that is is just like subtly done like that is artfully chosen to kind of put the film in his perspective and his subjectivity and in and kind of get us inside of his head, his his sort of like paranoid state of mind. Yeah, and you know, before that interrogation scene is one of the favorite, my favorite

shots of the movie. It's the initially the one boy gets called out of class again to come down and meet with his detective. And as he's going, it's in slow motion. He keeps it's like the Wild Bunch or something. He's going down this big hallway and all these all these skater kids, yes, keeps going out of various classrooms

and joining him. Such a shot. Yeah, there's some really interesting stuff too with um, with exposure in this film, where um, they will they will deliberately way over exposed or way under exposed something, or even change the exposure during rampit. Yeah, Yeah, rampant in a way that's very visible. It's not like they're just trying to move from indoors to outdoors or something. It's it's literally like a static shot, um, where they'll just ramp down the exposure where suddenly somebody

that was fully lit just becomes a silhouette. UM and so on. And that shot after the hot tub scene in particular, Yeah, when we have that beautiful like clouds in the background and gorgeous. Yeah, and there's some great dialogue over the top of that tube where they're talking about you know, um, why why people, why adults do

what they do? Why you know that a cop in, in this kid's words, makes less than a janitor and so on and and so one of the kids replies to that, you know, no, no, no, adults only do things for money. That's like the only reason adults doing things for money. And it's over this this yeah, it's and it's it's this kind of like throwaway moment in a way, but again it's not because it's very thematically

resonant with the rest of the film. But I love those kind of like little pauses where it just becomes this kind of like painting or or just this beautiful visual tableau that we just kind of pause and take in. And it's so well paced that when this moments arrive again, like I I never really have that feeling of like restlessness or that he's going back to it too many times. They're parceled out really really well during the film. Yeah,

I totally agree. Um, I think maybe now we should talk a little bit about Gus vans Aunt and his his mastery of working with non actors and working with kids and kid non actors. Um is something he started doing. Uh jeez, I guess I'm trying to think of the first movie where an elephant certainly by elephant. Yeah, I'm wondering if he if he did it even before then.

I mean, malin his very very first film. I don't think that lead was like I'm pretty sure that lead was was not like a professional actor, um yeah, but certainly an elephant um yeah. I mean what he does is just for the listeners, is for these movies, for this an elephant at least he has uh for this when he used my Space and he just puts an ad upt and or you know, the equivalent would be flyers in the community and says, come on down and

try out. He wants non actors. Um. You can tell their non actors, but in a good way, you know, in the best way that non actors are always used, which is they're not acting. It's it's really interesting, like because the lead um who's played I think his name is Gabe Gabe Nevins Um. He he has to do a decent amount of voiceover and and when he's reading the voiceover, he reads it in this very kind of

flat way. It doesn't have it doesn't have like the rhythm or the musicality of the way we're used to hearing voiceover, and even me, like, who's not an actor, Like I can I can kind of hear that. And if I were asked to read the same thing, there would be a way that I would read it that would sound more like a movie or something. But it sounds like, Yeah, I love But actually I love the kind of like flatness of it, um, because it just it feels more genuine in a way. He's not performing.

He's just a kid, you know, um reciting this stuff. And it it reminds you in a way because so often in films like child actors are too trained there too, you know, and they stand out because kids in real

life are nothing like that. And um, and so there's a real like what I think what it gives you, especially is a sense of his like his youth, his innocence, his vulnerability, and and it it's it makes such a such a stark contrast with the seriousness of what he's gotten himself into, and it makes it that much more powerful. It would not be nearly as powerful if he seemed like a kind of like, you know, um, smarter than his age. Um. It would completely yeah, it would. It

would completely change the feeling. It would. It would probably make him seeing him a little bit more sinister or something. But the fact that he has just kind of like this kid who bumbled his way into this thing, um, and and now he's he's he's being hit with all these like big time adult, grown up terrifying realities. UM, it just makes it that much more powerful. I think, do you know the story of that kid? Did you look into him a little bit? I heard that after

filming he was, you know, had some some problems. I think, yeah, so he uh, he met a photographer on set, a still photographer shooting this movie, and he after this movie kind of stumbled into drug use and homelessness and some mental illness and just sort of had a really bad run of it. I don't think right after this. He did a couple a few more movies after this, but very very low key. Uh. And this photographer ended up kind of befriending him, this adult photographer, and taking making

a photo book of him. And I think it's even called Gabe. I think, yeah, I I did not look at this when I was looking when I was preparing

for this yesterday. But I do remember seeing that at some point, reading like a blog post or something about it, and seeing some of the photographs and yeah, there's a good Fader interview with him, and uh, there's a they get a quote from Gabe Nevin's like today, but they weren't able to interview him because I couldn't really find I think he was in prison actually when this came out, like five or six years ago, and um, but there were questions of whether or not this photographer was bordering

on exploitation because it was this kid who ended up homeless and on drugs and their nudes and he was like, you know, I was very conscious of that and I did not want to veer into that territory. And Gabe Nevins was like, no, it's not. I was way down with all of it. Um. But it's interesting because it shows him kind of growing up and it shows him kind of wrecked at a certain point. I saw some of the stills and I'd be interested to see the whole book, though it's very sad story. Do you know,

do you know the work of Larry Clark much? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, I mean Gus van Stand was a producer on Kids First, Kids ESK, and then you know, even Larry Clark his his photographic work. He made this book called Tulsa, which is like him photographing his friends in this like small town and they're you know, going from just being kind of wild teenagers to like serious drug addicts to like dead in a lot of cases

or shot or or whatever. And there's there's that same kind of question ethically of like are you exploiting these people? Are you kind of aestheticizing their their poverty, their their drug addiction and so on? Um, But I think in both cases what comes across more is like a sincerity and it's just like depict depicting life as it is, telling somebody's story, not not a pretty story, but real story, and not trying to um embellish it, but just kind

of show it for what it is. Yeah. I don't think Larry Clark got rich off of Tulso, you know, would be one thing if you were exploiting people for like great riches, but not every story is pretty, and I think there is value in seeing sort of the what can happen to people? You know, it's powerful. Yeah. Um, the other thing this movie really is and uh, is it's a love letter to skateboarding. You can almost call

it a skateboarding movie. Yeah. I mean there's a lot of video in the film, gorgeous, gorgeous skate video and clearly a love letter from Gus Vansan's point of view because he was just he used to skateboard and stuff like it's clear that whoever made this movie, if you

don't know anything about it, loves skateboarding. Yeah. And and just like again like the I love that they I think I think a lot of it was shot on Super eight, the skateboarding stuff, and um, it just it gives it this this kind of it's sort of in

the film, but also outside the film a little bit. Um. One thing I actually picked up for the first time last night when I was watching is the last bit of skate footage that is in the movie, like the kind of amateur Super eight skate footage you actually see

Gabe for a second appear. Um, it's it's his way of sort of almost being inserted into this kind of alternate parallel reality or something, because you know, in in all the other cases, it's kind of it's it's very close to his reality, but it's somehow separate a little bit. It has more of a documentary feel or something. But then to kind of see him inserted into it at the end kind of combined the two together in a

cool way. Cool. Yeah, yeah, I mean, just so many beautiful shots of uh skating through these big giant tubes and on the ramps, and then they have the just the best one of all, that great lockdown shot with all the guys in slow motion coming up over the ramp like one and after the other after the other. It was just gorgeous, gorgeous shot and again very solid up the field, so they're all kind of having to hit the same mark in the air and then come

back down. And then the last guy kind of like doesn't doesn't pull it off, and like you hear him kind of crash in the It cuts the way you

hear him crash in the in the distance. Yeah yeah, And it's cool too, because like if you if you're ever a skater, like or just know about it, it's all about it's all about your personal style when you're flare and like it's a beautiful shot, but each one of those dudes, you know, it gets to do his own thing too, Like everyone has their own way of doing their jump and what they do with their hands in the face they're making, and it's all about your style,

and it's it's a really cool showcase of that. I think that culture absolutely and it's it's cool too because, like, you know, just just on paper, you might think like a murder mystery taking place around a skate park and all the skaters are like suspects. You might think this is going to be like an after school special or something where it's like stay away from those dangerous skate

kids or something. But it's actually a very loving portrait of these kids and in a very like you know, through through the story, it acknowledges like all the all the sort of like reasons that these kids would have for looking for basically a family outside their own, for a sense of community and connection and um, you know all that. It just it brings so much about like high school back to me, of that that feeling of

belonging or not belonging. I was not really a skate a skate kid at all, but that was like a group that I definitely clocked when I was in high school. And like even wanted to be friends with those kids, and so, yeah, skater kids are just cool. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's funny because I'm like Ruby is if she's ever shown natural talents at anything. From the beginning, it was on her little scooter. Yeah, like from a very very young age when other kids were just sort of like

figuring out how to get on it. She was doing tricks and like had some style and flair. And then she got to where she she saw the skaters in the skate park next to the playground here indicator, and she started standing sideways, started standing on our scooter skateboard style, And so I was like, man, maybe that's the thing. Like they have girls. They have a girls skater camp in the summer in Seattle. It's like cold. We could

take her there in Seattle. But then I started thinking, and it's so wrong headed to go down the bad Avenue. But like I was a little skater kid in a way growing up, but I didn't I wasn't in it for too long. But you know, I know what happens at skate parks. It's not as bad as this movie. But those are the kids who were getting into weed at fourteen years drinking. Yeah, but then I was like, you know, you can't live in fear like that and just say like no, you've got to go to gymnastics. Um,

So we'll see what happens. I mean, it's probably a little more wholesome these days, and it was in previous eras maybe that maybe I'm wrong on that. Dude, I got that play aground a smell weed coming from that state every time. Yeah, the old fourth Ward spark. Yeah, but you know, you just you can't like lock your kids up and prevent them from being exposed to badness. At some point they've got a interface with the real world.

She could also be super good at it and get sponsored and got the extra to make a ship done of money meat Tony Hawk and all that exactly. There are there's a skater in this movie. The character who plays his dad is a because a very cool, which you can kind of tell he's a non actor. He's all, yea, yeah, yeah, but there's that's a good time to mention that the parents. He almost does a Charlie Brown thing in this movie, where you don't you get to see the detective but

almost all the other adults. There's a teacher that you get an administrator that you get to see her face a little a bit, but with the with the mom and the dad, you rarely ever see their face in focus at all. The mom is like she's she's way in the distance in that shot where she comes down the stairs when he's down in his room from behind, Yeah, exactly, when when they go back upstairs, it's over her shoulders, so you just see the back of her head kind

of out of focus. The dad is completely out of focus for a long time in that sequence where they're talking there. Yeah, and there's sort of like he's he's trying to connect and they're not really connecting. And then finally when he kind of like he turns it around again and he's like, hey, you know, really, I'm serious, like this whole situation sucks and I really want to make the best of it. Then he's he's kind of in focus and they actually do it. Seems like have

like a moment for for a second there of recognition. Yeah, and and that was no accident. It kind of mirrors the conversation. He comes into focus as their relationship comes

more into focus. Yes, um, but I thought it was a good thing, Like I've seen enough of Elephant to know that it's sort of was the same bag, wasn't it pretty much fully from the children's point of view, Yeah, elephant is it does the same thing with with the kind of the shallow doth the field, um oftentimes filming people from the back, which is very interesting, um tracking tracking down these um, these long corridors of the high school, and um, it has a very sinister quality to it.

Elephants so much more. Elephants a movie I struggle with because I think when I first saw it, I really really loved it. It was like my my maybe first year of college when that came out two thousand two thou three, and um, I guess second year of college. Whatever.

But as I've as I've watched it more, as I've gotten older, it's gotten harder to watch for me because when I was when I was first seeing it, I was only a couple of years removed from being in high school, and so I basically identified with those kids with that situation exactly. Columbine happened when I was in eighth grade about to go to ninth grade, So it was sort of like, welcome to high school, and now we have shootings, you know, and it was it was.

And that's the thing too, is that in that era, it was just Columbine. You know, Columbine was like this singular horrible thing that we all knew about, and it was sort of like a never again. You know, you didn't have active shooter drills exactly, this this this awful thing that happened this one time. And then, you know, now when I watch it today, I'm older, I'm not

the age of those kids anymore. And you know, it's it's not really the film's fault, but I understand intellectually that this is just something that happens, unfortunately, very often, you know, in this country. And in a way, it kind of robs the film of of a of a meeting in a way, because it's not about this one

singular event. It's just about this horribly banal thing that that happens over and over, and it's sort of there's there's more of like a nihilism to it, because there's it's not like this bad thing that happened one time that we learned from. It's just kind of this It's like it's like you know, a car accident or something.

It's just it happens. It happens all the time, and so some of the things that that film does in terms of building the suspense and so on, feels really icky when you realize that it's about something so real, but yet he's he's using kind of these filmic conventions of building suspense and um, you know, playing with the audiences emotions in a way. Yeah, that that feels because I mean that the whole film is like this incredibly slow build up to the event, and you know going

in that that's what's going to happen. And it's like watching a train wreck and slow motion, you know, a very a very beautiful train wreck with like beautiful music and absolutely gorgeous cinematography and so on. Um, I mean it's it's probably one of my favorite shot films ever. Um, just amazing. And I've seen pieces of Last Days too.

Was that overall? Was that good? Yeah? No, I mean I I don't have a bad word to say really about any of these films of this period, other than you know, Elephant Is is a little difficult now, um, but not really not necessarily the film's fault. Last Days, I think is a little bit more. It's less of the fluid like long takes and a little bit more

on the side of fragmented timelines and locked off shots. Um. He's referencing this Shantel Ackerman film Gean Dilman, um quite a bit in that film, Jean Delmont is a is a three hour plus film basically about a woman alone by herself in her apartment, in her kitchen doing housework and washing dishes and other stuff happens. But it was it was like this really powerful, uh, kind of feminist statement back in the seventies about you know, domesticity and

women and so on. Um. And so he's referencing that quite a bit in in Last Days in sort of just leaving the camera on and and kind of playing uh with boredom, with duration and so on in a way that Elephant and Paranoid Park don't do so much. Yeah. And then imagine in Last Days it's the the prison of celebrity, which sort of Kurt Cobain's, you know, part

of his downfall. Yeah, the prison celebrity, the hangers on, the people that we're supposed to be your friends but they're they're not, And and the people that really are trying to do something are kind of kept at arms length and and all that. Yeah, Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna finish up the second half of gus Man's ance career and then expe awesome. I want to talk to for a sect to about another one of my favorite shots,

the shower shot. Yes, it's after um. Well, so what happens is there's a an odd not an odd, but just a nonconventional timeline in this movie, and about halfway through, like I said, it's revealed that this kid is actually responsible, and it goes to that night shows what happened. There is one really gross shot of a dude cut in a half. I'm glad it was in there because it was very impactful and like you kind of had to

see it. Um. And then he goes he tosses the skateboard into the Willamette River, which is ends up being

evidence because they find it. Um and then realizes he has blood and on the board maybe right exactly um, and then they he's got his clothes that he's got rid of it, goes home, bags him up, and then gets in the shower very disturbed, and it's just a beautiful, beautiful slow motion shot where he plays with exposure again and the sound too, because he has all these like it's this weird field recording of like birds singing and

nature sounds and um and insects and so on. There was a yes, yes, I know, I noticed that too, And it's interesting too. It it seems like they're they're playing with the exposure, but I think they're also moving a light physically in the room because the directionality of the shadow on the wall kind of changes too. It's sort of ramps across. It looked like somebody. I thought someone was going to get in the shower. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's it's a very unnerving shot, the way that the water the the these individual like strands of water falling from his hair because he has this long hair with all these kind of interesting points on it where the water can fall, and so in slow motion the water is like this solid kind of thing and it's

just he he looks like an alien or something. It's very very unnerving and um and of course you know metaphorically the idea of like showering to get clean and to kind of wash away the sin or the or

the the blood or or the guilt exactly. Um. Yeah, such a such a powerful shot and such a kind of thing that obviously in a novel you would just have sort of conventional like he was worried, he felt guilty, he was panicking, and so on, but to show it visually without saying anything, to just know that what we're observing is is maybe one of the darkest moments of his life of him really fully reckoning, like because in

the immediate aftermath, it's just pure shock. It's like survival fight or flight kind of thing where he's just trying to get rid of the evidence and get home and figure out what he's gonna do. But then once he finally gets in the shower, that's when he has a moment to kind of yah, breathe and like really process a little bit of what's happened. And it, Yeah, it's so powerful, which is something that like, uh, I don't know if I'll go so far as to say it,

but it's a trope. But that scene has been in a lot of films where a bad thing happens, they're very adrenaline lye that's not a word dealing with the immediate aftermath. And then there's a point where they slow down and then it hits him and they break down, and this it's just done in such a great way.

It doesn't feel tired at all. Um. You know, it's such a slow shot that builds from him just getting in the shower, his dry hair getting wet to soaking, to the waterfall, and then he eventually he don't see his face because he's got his hands over it, but you can tell he's crying, yeah, and just hits against the side of the wall and slowly slides down out

of frame. Just really really beautiful shot. And it's it's interesting too, because you see it, you see a brief moment of that of him taking the shower anyway you see earlier in the film, because he kind of goes through the events of that night. It's almost like different drafts or like he's he's kind of like passing over at once, and he just completely avoids what really happened,

you know, he just he kind of skips forward. You this is later that night, you know, I had to change my clothes and dot da da da, And he gets in the shower for a second, and then the second or third time through, we kind of you know, we see what actually happened at the at the at the train and um, and then we see the shower and full and we realize that we're now fully within um, you know, his perspective of that of that moment of wrecked timeline or not timeline, but just the correct order

of events. And one thing that I clocked last night too was that, UM, when he's when you see in all these scenes where he's writing the journal, you know, writing on the on in pencil on paper, Um, there's a moment where, uh, like in the banning of the film, he's he's by himself, he's writing. UM. His uncle who's actually played by the cinematographer Christopher Dorele, he comes in and switches on a light and says, what are you writing,

And he's just like, oh, just school work. And he kind of goes into the room and closes his door, and then he's in that room and he's kind of just writing for a while. Then at a certain point I feel like he actually switches on the light, like on the lamp that's on the desk there with him.

And I feel like, actually, if you if you go back and you look at those scenes, so I think there's a little bit of aggression of the lamp being off to the lamp being on and him getting a little bit more honest or a little bit more like exhaustive in the detail of what he's writing about. UM. So there's there's a little bit of a visual metaphor there too, to kind of indicate that over over time he's becomeing more um, just open about about what he's

writing and what he's kind of confessing to Oh totally. Um. And the other thing that that scene where it shows the reality of what happened that night calls back is back to that great opening interrogation scene in the library when you realize that he was lying the whole time. When he gives him this really really tight, believable story about what happened. He's not nervous. He's like so like when the investigator is questioning him, he's really he's doing

it in a good cop way. But if you have ever heard of cop ask questions like that, he's trying to trip him up a little bit. He's saying, he's asking him very quickly like would you eat? Would you go to subway? You got the receipt, what you have on it? And his kid is just nails it, and I believed him. That's why I didn't think it tipped into he's guilty because it totally believable to me, and not nervous at all, like, uh, you know, may always like no no, Mayo sick. He's like gotta have Mayo,

No no, no cand of Mayo. Like they have like a real nice back and forth. And it's not the kind of thing you would expect somebody in that in that predicament to be able to they be. You would think they'd be a lot more defensive about it or something like you know, no, you don't keep receipts? Who keeps subway receipts? But he's very casual about like, no he keeps, you keep subway receipts, But he's he's lighthearted

about it. Yeah, It's almost like in the way he is going into that scene and is pre that point in the movie where you know he did it, and I think he even writes something about blocking it out, it's almost like he has no memory of doing it until he sees that picture and the second interrogation, and he even says something about that it all came back to him or something like yeah, it's like a repressed memory almost, He's compartmentalized it until that he can kind

of process it and and yeah, it is it is seeing those images that that takes him back to that moment.

And it's interesting like later, you know, when when the big reveal does happen in the film, um, and he's he's sort of he has that moment where he's actually looking down at the guy who's been kind of half and the guys looking up at him because he's still got a few seconds of consciousness and you know it probably it probably would not have lasted as long as it lasts in the film, but it's almost a suspended moment in time where it's like time stopped and he

and he felt like they had this back and forth exchange where they looked at each other in the eyes and so on. Who knows if that really quote unquote happened. But then at that moment, there's like this beautiful coral Beethoven music from the Night Symphony, and it actually cuts back to the interrogation scene and again it's like the that slash of light going across the CoP's face. It's sort of like, here is revealed, you know, the the

the full truth of this of the situation. It's yeah, I love I love the way the film plays with chronology and kind of uses what he says is like his poor creative writing ability as a kind of justification for why he hops around so much in his in his memory. Yeah, and the cool reveal that I mentioned earlier about this journal is that we learned sort of towards the end of the film he as his other friend named Macy played by Lauren McKinney. I assume another

non actor who does a great, great job. Yeah, even a conventional acting way. I think she's very very believable. Yeah. Um, she we learned towards the end that she is the one that had told him to write a journal. Uh. And he and that is the reason, you know, if you look at it from a filmmaking point of view, that's the reason we're even getting this film in this story is because she has told him to write down

his thoughts and that it would help him. And um, and I guess because you know, he's a kid that's uh, his parents are separated, they're getting divorced. He's got this girlfriend that he is just sort of sleep walking through. Uh, this relationship. He's he doesn't even like her. He even says that to the other girl, He's like why am I why was he even dating? Or uh? They do sleep together? He uh he, I guess the flowers. I hate that term. But uh, she more chooses him to

lose her virginity to Yeah. In that one scene, she it's it's such a I mean, it definitely is that way to to a lot of kids at that age, Like they just want to get it over with, They just want to lose it. They want to check that box and move on and sort of like I feel, you know, it's it's it's part of like getting a driver's license or or smoking or like anything that teenagers do that sort of a quote unquote write of passage

or whatever. Um, it's just it's there. There's it's less an emotional thing, and it's just kind of like that's what you do. You you you get a boyfriend that need do it or whatever, you know. Um. And so she's very kind of detached about it in a way. The first thing she does when it's over is just go off to the bathroom and they call her friends and like, yes,

we did it. It was so amazing. And he's just kind of they're like, Okay, I got to that, you know, I didn't I wasn't really interested, but I guess it's fine. She's like, we need to start buying condoms because it's gonna be happening a lot. He breaks up with her.

There's a there's a funny moment where um, she she's you know, she's at his sucker and he starts to say, you know, like he doesn't necessarily want to buy more, and he has this thing about like, well it was it was your idea in the first place to do it, and she's like, well, what are you talking about, Like now you're saying you didn't want you or something, and then he he quickly turns it around and says, no, no, no, like by the condoms. I thought that was your idea,

so I figured we would do that together. And she kind of calms down. She's like, oh, okay, I thought you were talking about something else. But she was completely right, like she knew she she totally picked up on the subtext there. Yeah, And the relationship with the Macy characters great.

She's she's really sweet and nice and um, they have a playful sort of I mean as playful as he gets in this movie sort of back and forth, and there's that one moment when they're sitting together where the way it's framed, like you they almost hold hands when they're on the bus. Yeah, they're not touching, but it's ends they're almost kind of like I think you can

tell that they both want to. They're both they're both thinking about it, but the tension is they're they're they're just too nervous or it's a sweet shot, and it really like, I love it when a filmmaker is so skill that they can conjure up such an evocative moment just from a simple thing like that, because I immediately remembered being a kid, and like holding hands for the first time was so powerful and just that connected touch, physical touch was such a big deal. And he gets

that all in that one beautiful, beautiful shot. It's, um, it's like that Big Star song thirteen. You know, it's it's it's that kind of moment of like innocent, let me walk you home from school, hands, that whole thing. It's it's yeah, it's a very very cute scene. And it's very interesting because moments like that are interwoven with him trying to figure out am I going to be charged with murder? You know? And and and the the whip lash. The juxtaposition of those two realities existing at

the same time. There's a great moment um when he goes let's see, it's when he is it's it's one of the times that they're hanging out anyway, him and him and Macy, and she's kind of pressing him on the breakup, I think, and he goes into this kind of mini speech where he's like, look, I just don't think this stuff really matters. You know, There's there's more important stuff in the world. There's like the war in Iraq and and people starving in Africa and all this

kind of stuff. And she's like, since when do you care about that stuff? You know? He's like yeah, yeah. And he's like, well, look, I just think that, you know, there's like this other world out there beyond like parents

and girlfriends and breakups. There's like this other there's other layers, you know, and um and I just think that, uh, and he kind of trails off, you know, basically, but he's he's basically saying like he's he's trying to articulate that he's been he's been introduced to the world of grown ups, in the world of like big time ambiguity and and and heavy stuff, and he can't quite process it yet because he's still just a kid at heart,

you know. Um. But he he starts to articulating anyway that he's caught this glimpse of this other world that's out there, and now his like teenage you know, bubble um just seems completely trivial to him. Yeah, there's another great moment too that um, you know, in a movie that's eighty minutes long, you could very easily lose a

moment like this. But towards the end when his little brother and his little brother is barely in the movie, but his little brother is he's uh Gabe's line there on the couch or Gabe, that's the real guy's name, Alex. Alex is laying there on the couch, and his little brother comes by and just tells this story that only a little brother. And what he's doing, which I didn't pick up on, is describing a movie. He's quoting Napoleon Dynamite. Oh is it? I couldn't figure it out because he

keeps the character that he keeps talking about. Okay, Napoleon, all right, I was hoping you could knew, but I couldn't quite because he's kind of mumbling, and yeah, he's hard to follow. And I remember being that age and like describing stuff like that to my parents and the humoring me basically because like when you're when you're that young, like your idea of humor is just quoting other stuff awkwardly.

And yeah, and and it's very interesting visually to what he does in that scene because there's like a desk or or table or something that's that's partially covering up Alex. So there's this big kind of black square in the foreground overlapping him where you kind of just see like the top of his head and a little bit side of his face, and there's like a TV on in the background. There's like also I think like a beam from the house that's that's sort of like covering up

the brother. Maybe it's between the two of them a little bit, but you it's it's not like it's not framed in a way to make it feel like this is comfortable domestic time. It's sort of like he's he's trying to be there for his little brother to have this kind of like innocent moment, but in his head, everything is all wrong. Everything is all heavy and dark and confusing, and he's just kind of he's he's playing the role of like the older brother who's listening, but

in reality he's kind of that. That's sort of like immersion has been broken, you know. Yeah, and it's it's a framing and a shot that, uh that if you were in film school teacher would say, like, what are you doing with this thing? Wrong with it? Yeah, you gotta you gotta move that, you gotta get this out of the way. And it just it really works somehow. Yeah, very cool and I love I mean, just like the it feels like I'm sure I'm sure probably in the

script they probably didn't even mention Napoleon Dynamite. I'm sure it was probably just like that kid's favorite movie or something that they could they could just have him he was not reading enthusiasts. Yeah, and I love that. How long did they leave it going on? And then he gets out at exactly the right moment where he he kind of winds up and he's like and then another thing, you know, and then it like cuts to the scene and kind of realized that it just kept going for Yeah.

One of my favorite moments is towards the end when he he's been writing this journal and he well, it's kind of the very end and then he burns it eventually. Uh, and Elliott Smith comes back in is his great second half book end another one of my favorite songs, and uh he I think he lets this one play the entire link. I think so too. Yeah, of the film, both of I mean, both of the songs play for quite a while. The White Lady Loves You More, Um,

the whole song, isn't it pretty much? Because I think it's yeah, unless there's like a skillful edit, like you said, I'm pretty sure the whole the whole song plays because it goes from um, whatever was on screen initially something narrative related to then it kind of cuts to like just like skate footage. But it is like this like three minute kind of pause in the film where you're seeing a lot of the skate footage and stuff. And I'm pretty sure that the same thing happens. Yeah, at

the end, like the whole song plays out. Yeah. I mean it's an hour and twenty minutes long and there's ten minutes of just music video skate foot Yet he still manages to tell a complete whole story like in a really rich way. Yeah, yeah, so jealous. I know. I wanted to say, like, one one thing did you this is this is just an interpretation. I don't know if you picked up on this or felt the same

way about it. But part of the relationship with it with the girlfriend, it seemed to me like maybe he was a little bit unsure of his own sexuality, Like maybe he wasn't necessarily into girls. Maybe he's into guys, because I think there's I think there's like a little bit of attention with the bad kid at the skate park when he's like, hey, kid, you want to go get some beers and ride trains, even though he can't

really articulate it to himself. The way the way the camera films him this other guy and this close up it's this kind of beautiful portrait, um. And the way I think he kind of gives in to his request to go do this stuff. I think he's almost doing it that we can't yet admit it to himself. He's like his his alterior motive is to just like spend time with this guy and kind of see what he's about. Um, because it could be sexual or it could just be

he's a cool older kid. But yeah, there is an ambiguity, I think because I think I think especially because you know, the his girlfriend that he's dating. Um, she's you know, she's a cheerleader, she's she's very like conventionally attractive. She seems like the kind of girl that any teenage boy would like be super into dating. And the fact that he's like so kind of indifferent and he just wants

to go hang out at the skate park and so on. Um, and then also the fact that even even later on when it's just him and Macy, like there's still that kind of distance where it kind of, you know, most of the time you would assume like, oh, these two seem like they're much more on the same frequency. They could be an item, but maybe they won't be, because again, he's sort of he hasn't yet figured it out. And that's that's a common theme and a lot of gust

fans dance movies. Obviously gust Van Sant also being a gay man, and um, it's something that comes up like an elephant as well, Um that he plays with a lot a lot in his films. Yeah. Yeah, And there's even that scene later on after the breakup when he's talking to his friends about it, and one of them is like, like, I know, it's better to be getting mad than not, and he's he's just not identifying with

that at all. Um. And the other moment earlier on, when he's with his main sort of best friend, I guess when he you know, he gets a new skateboard because he has lost the other one, the murder weapon off the bridge, and his friend says, you know, is that a fag skateboard or something like that, and then his reaction to that you could definitely read into a

little bit Yeah. And there's a great there's a great kind of subjective shot right after where it's his it's him from the passenger seat looking at his friend while this like punk track plays really fast and aggressive and it's slow motion, and it's his friend kind of turning and looking at him and then turning back to kind of look at the road. Um. I it's hard to even put into words what's so great about that scene.

The elements are so simple, but but it is just something about the combination of the slowness of the shot and the kind of contemplative feeling of it married with a kind of like fast, aggressive punk song, hardcore really well, another juxtaposition of of score and what's going on on screen. Uh. He he does it sort of all over the place. I forgot about that one. Usually it's it's like the breakup scene. There's that sort of old school romantic score. In this way, he sort of does the reverse, but

just so good man. I really really loved the movie. I'm glad you sort of jogged me back into my love for guess Van's aunt, because I'm gonna die back into all this again. Uh. You know the end of the film, it's sort of implied, you know, he burns the stuff his journal, and it's implied that he gets away with it. There's nothing to make you think otherwise this.

You know, when I was watching it last night, something I kind of like, never really watched the film for before, but I was trying to kind of clock at this time the guard. I think, you you don't you don't know very much about him. You just see his face. He never says anything, but you you see his face. You see like his his I D card, you know, his headshot when it's on the news and so on. And I don't know. I I got the feeling that this was kind of just like a blue collar, working

class guy totally. He's not drawn a big salary. He's just kind of like one of the millions of kind of faceless and non with people that that don't get written about or or made movies about and so on. Um, he's just a guy doing a job. And contrast that

with with Gabe and his family. They seem to be solidly middle class or even maybe upper middle because there's like a beach house and when the the the other kid's house city, his best friend's house that he sleeps over at, when he wakes up in the morning, there's that beautiful sunroom with like the high vaulted ceiling and everything.

That's that's some money, you know. So I think while it never it never gets to the point where there's like a criminal case or anything, so he never gets to pay for like a pricey lawyer to get him off all that kind of stuff. Um. At the same time, I think there's a little bit of an undercurrent of like this is kind of a you know, a well off kid and this sort of anonymous blue collar guy

who just gets killed and kind of forgotten about. Um. And yeah, I feel like that's a little bit of the tension there that he Gabe is gonna is gonna be a to to go on and live this or Alex the character is going to be able to go on and live this kind of you know, like easy, easy life. You know, he's he's still going to be set up for success because he comes from the family that comes from he went to the school that he went to, and he's going to be one of those

guys that has a secret exactly. He's you know, he's he's a quote unquote rebellious teenager and everything, but I'm sure I'll get his act together and go to college and and all the rest of it. So yeah, and and he's going to have this this really dark thing that's going to haunt him for the rest of his life. But at least externally, you know, the facade is going to be somebody who's had a very kind of simple and charmed life. Yeah, let me ask you this for

an alternate ending. Is same exact shot him burning the book pages, Elliot Smiths playing in the fire outside, and just at the very end of that scene you see very soft focus the police squad cars with the Whites well into the background in him just kind of stand up, cut to black, Like, what do you think about that? Interesting to me? To me, I think I open it

does change it. Yeah, I think to me the open ending is more interesting because it gets it gets into the real Like I feel like if the cases is closed in some way, or if we feel like he got caught it, it's sort of it redirects us more into just sort of like a genre who done it territory, whereas leaving it unsolved and ambiguous gets us way more into sort of like I don't know, DOTOYASKI territory, like crime and punishment, the idea of like if you commit

a crime and you get away with it, you still have to reckon with yourself and your conscience and and how that can eat away at a person over a lifetime. And isn't that actually maybe in some ways the worst punishment than just getting a manslaughter case. You can say to somebody, look, I was a kid. It was it was a terrible mistake. There's not a day in my

life that I don't regret it, etcetera, etcetera. But I done my time and now I am moving on, you know, right, He his whole rest of his life, presumably is going to carry this thing with him, and no matter what good deeds he does in the future, he's always going to have that nagging in the back of his head, like, but you did this thing and you can't tell anybody, and you can never tell anybody, and it's just gonna Yeah, that's a different deal. That's like stuff that leads to

alcoholism and drug abuse. And UM, not to go too far down the Jerry rabbit hole, because we gotta wrap up here in a sec But his movie Jerry, with Matt Damon and Casey Afflect tells the true story of or a semblance of the of these two guys went hiking out of the desert. They get lost, they suffer dehydration, one kills the other in a in what appeared to be a mercy killing. And uh, I just sort of doe down that rabbit hole of the real story last night.

And that guy, UH paid his I think he went to had two years of a suspended sentence, h and robation and all this stuff. So he was found guilty in a way of manslaughter or not in a way, but fully guilty of manslaughter. But I just typed in his real name, and I was like, I wonder if he's still around. Uh he is, and he's kind of notebook open Facebook page and you can just go on

Facebook and look at this guy's life. And it's super weird that we live in a wow, weird time where you can do that killed killed his friend is like on Facebook. And you know, I'm not saying that he's a bad guy or anything, because it no, no, no, but it's there was some weirdness with the case, but it did appear to be manslaughter. He didn't want to murder his friend. But it is strange to just be like, oh and here he is at a park having a pick. Yeah,

it's so strange. I mean I still forget sometimes, like how quickly and easily it is to find people on Facebook, especially um, the whole idea of just like, you know, the mystery of people from our past, we wonder whatever happened to dot dot dot. It's it's it's so easy to to solve in most cases. And yeah, even even people that you think of as not necessarily famous, but people of note they're just on Facebook. You know, I can find him and you can send him a request

or a message or whatever. It's very very strange. Uh. One final note here for me. The movie ends, uh, and the credit sequence is set to a song by a man named cast King, who Uh it sounds like a little bit of a bizarro world Johnny Cash in a way. And then you know, I looked him up and cast King as I'm sure you know. But for listeners, he was a He was an old man in Alabama who made his who was a singer and made his first record when he was like seventy eight years old,

seventy nine years old, and it's just this. I started listening to it immediately. It's just beautiful dominal and died a couple of years later. But he it's a pretty interesting story. And and of course CAUs fans Aunt knows about this and finds it out because he's the King of Cool, and it has it has a lot to um.

I think it has a lot to say thematically for the film itself, because yeah, the refrain is he died like a man, and I think I think what's happening is what you know, the connection to the film is that like he died like a man sort of means like he faced the music, like whatever was out there that he needed to to acknowledge. He did and he

paid his life for it. But basically, like you know, the the the account summed out to zero, like he paid the debt whatever whatever it was, whereas in this film, that debt is still outstanding, and it's going to remain outstanding. Like he's not going to quote unquote die like a man. He's going to die like a coward. And in some ways for not facing up to you know, for for taking in some ways the easy way out and in some ways the harder way out. He almost to his

dad at one point even and didn't do it. I love that, um, that whole that whole sequence where even something as simple as like throwing your skateboard away and and and changing your clothes, like suddenly there's all these questions of like his mom asking him, Hey, where's your skateboard? And then his friend like did you dude, what's that? What's with the new board? And you know, and then when he calls his dad had um his mom again asking him like, oh the colorade, he said that you

called from your friend's house at like four in the morning. Yeah. In that unenviable position of being a parent going through a divorce that has to kind of let your kid get away with stuff. It's like it's like there's not enough there to really pursue further. She just knows that, like he's he's lying. Something went down, but I don't know what. And obviously most parents are not going to be able to conceive that, Oh, he probably went to

a skateboard and like murdered skatepark and murdered somebody. So it's probably more like, oh, there was a party and it got unruly and he was really drunk and he called his dad or something like that. But you know, that's that's the level of um, you know, severity that she's thinking. But I do love that that long pause where she's just like he's like, so, I don't I have no idea, and she's just like, well, bumbles, Yeah, it's a terrible excuse. He's a terrible liar in general,

like you don't have no idea what happened. And then and then when he's at the he's at the mall, he's reading the newspaper and again he's looking at the obituaries to see if there's something about the guy in there. Yeah the metro section, Yeah yeah, yeah, And She's like, oh, you're reading sports in the metro section and where you're reading sports, and again, his story just falls apart immediately. But yeah, there's there's not enough there to really pursue.

So it's just like everybody knows that something is weird, but nobody was going to push it any further than that. Yeah, it works that it doesn't go down those roads further. I think, yeah, that all of a sudden, Macy wasn't like, wait, something's going on, I gotta figure this out. It's totally realistic that like it would just be like this weird hiccup, you know, momentary and then I've forgotten about probably you know. Yeah, alright, man,

well that was great. We did what I hoped we would do, which is talk about the movie as long as the movie was. I think we talked about every part of it in fact. But this is a movie that was just fantastic. Highly recommend it um if you're into you know, if you're into art and cinema. This is one of those films. But not inaccessible either. It's not so out there that it's hard to watch or anything like that. It's really a quick, tight, really well

made constructed film. Yeah, I would say, if you're if you're interested in this period of of Gus fan Stands filmmaking, I would start with this film, even though it's the last in the progression. I would start here and then go back to Jerry and do the rest in order, because I think you'll you'll probably have an easier time appreciating those films when you kind of see this slightly more digestible version. Totally awesome. Dude, Well this was great. Uh,

I'll see you get in another month or so. Great. I love it. Yeah, looking forward to it. All right, Well, thanks everyone for listening. Check out Paranoid Park. It is actually streaming if you have a Hulu it's on Hulu for free um or you know the cost of Hulu. And I had a commercial at the beginning, but then was uninterrupted. I think you can you can rent it on Amazon Prime also if you want to go that route. Awesome. Well, thanks Casey, and thanks to the listeners, and we will

see you next Friday. Looy Crush is produced, edited, and engineered by Ramsay Hunt here in our home studio at Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My Heart radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.