Selects: Some Movies That Changed Filmmaking

podcast sprouted from. Maybe, which if you like this, go listen to the extensive Movie Crush catalog anywhere you get your podcasts. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, A k A. Ciskel, and Ebert save with Sea I'll see, and Jerry's over there. I guess she's Jeane Shallott. That's that's the stuff. If you should know,

trium for it. I don't know why that took on me so much, because Jeane sell it's a funny looking I guess Jerry's not. I'm just picturing her with a big afro and a mustache and like a tweed jacket and bad opinions about movies. Jane Shell. It had a look for sure. Still though he's around right, Oh yeah, I think so? Yeah, r I p both cisk Lanni, but it's so sad. Um. Have you seen the Roger Ebert documentary? No, I've heard nothing but good things, really

really good, very touching. Yeah. What is it? Uh? Something Life, Life like Mine, Life with Me, Life on Top, Life Itself, Life with thumbs, Life itself, Life itself, Life with thumbs. It was really great and I watched it and it made the mistake of watching on a plane, and I was just like, my allergies are acting up, so yeah, oh yeah I was. I was watering because you're allergies. No, because it was sad. I was crying. Do you want me to say it? Yeah, crying on a plane. I

was confused there for a second. That's better than when I watch other movies that are on my laptop that are like like bad violence or or nudity or something. I'm always just like, oh, then I kind of lower the laptop and it's like I didn't realize this was in here, and the lady next to me, he's just like you disgusted me. Yeah, because I don't I want to be sensitive people around me. You know, I'm not one of those jerks just like just lives in my

own bubble. It's like watching some sex scene on Blane. You're like elbowing the lake. So no, I hate it. That's it was so embarrassed that happened to me a couple of times. I'm like, I needed to start going PG on movies like airplanes, Judd Apples. How Am I right? He's unpredictable? Yeah? Alright, so Chuck, this is your episode to shine Man, is it? Yes, you're a movie guy too. Though I like movies, but I've I almost consciously don't let myself watch movies on a like a film aficionado

level kid pure enjoyment. Yeah. I don't never want to see the individual shots and just be like, oh, well that could have been better whatever, um and and just miss the movie as a whole. Yeah. I fall somewhere in the middle of that. I try to let go, but um like, our our video producer director, Casey Is is pretty bad about that, and our Buddy Scotty who shot our TV show. He's the worst. He's just a

camera working. That lighting in that scene's awesome. Hey, Casey, they're all in here with this in spirit, and hey, this is the last show in the studio. Ye, last episode in the old office, the murder Room. Couldn't feel more neutral about it. I actually feel less than neutral, less than zero. It's it's weird. That was a good movie. You great shots. I say thank you as if I directed it a lot, right, I not only directed it, also played Andrew McCarthy. Uh. Yeah, I'm ready to get

the heck out of here. Man. I can't wait to get in that new office and that it's gonna be good, tiny little dedicated studio, whole new world. All right, let's do this. Okay, So, Chuck films, you've seen one or two of them in your time. Have you seen any of the ones in this list? I know you've seen a few of them, but have you seen like some of the early ones I've seen. Well it we'll just go piece by piece because I have not seen Battleship Penkin. Okay, Um,

but I do love Mandy Patankin. It's a little different in spelling pronunciation meaning the whole thing. But it's close, I guess. But we're talking, of course about films that change filmmaking and somewhere or another, and the first one on the list is from Battleship Patankin. That's hard for me to say, which is not the first movie, by the way. The first screen movie was Workers Leaving the

Lumier Factory, which is forty seven seconds long. I'm the most boring piece of celluloid anyone's ever put together, But it was the first, that's right. This was many years. That was a full thirty years before Battleship Potempkin. By the time thirty years had passed, like we were doing like narratives and there was banning and all sorts of great stuff, and battleship pretention fell under both of those umbrellas. It was a narrative story. It was a silent movie, right,

but it told a pretty clear story. And it was a bit of Russian propaganda as well. Yeah, it tells the story of a nineteen o five uprising in uh where there were Russian sailors. Basically, there was a mutiny aboard a ship and then the bad guys, the Cossacks came in looking for revenge. Yeah ninety five, that would have been rising up against tyranny, would have been rising up against the romanof monarchy, I guess. But it was made.

So this is a time when you know, Lenin and Trotsky and all those dudes were running around trying to do the great experiment, and uh it ends up. It turns out that the battleship Potempkin was banned in some countries. Some countries are like, we don't want this Rusky propaganda, right, But Russia itself later on banned it when Stallin came to power because he was a self aware dictator. Was that the deal? Yeah, okay, he knew this could be a metaphor for rising up against my dictatorship. So I'm

gonna just bay in this. Uh yeah, even though it's Russian propaganda. Well, filmatically, I need to bring the history, by the way, uh, Filmatically speaking, it was a landmark film because of the montage, most notably the Russian or Soviet theory of montage, which is basically that, um, your impact is going to come from juxtaposition of shots and not necessarily smooth sequence of shots. Um, and it should be rhythmic instead of necessarily being tied to the story.

It was like a rhythmic series of shots. And um, this one is popular. It was The Odessa Steps sequence is one of the five acts, and it is huge because it has been aped and um mimicked and mocked and um homaged, probably more than I don't know about more, but a lot of times in film history. Well, yeah, the montage it's like a go to editing technique, right, Oh yeah, well the montage in general, but specifically the Odessa Steps. There are two notable parts in that sequence.

One is the you know, it's basically a big charge on these these grand steps leading up to a building in a big battle Odessa, Texas. And um, there's a part of it where there's the old the old baby carriage going down the steps. You know what's going to happen to the baby And it sounds tired because we've seen that in uh, you know, The Untouchables. Notably that I did not find it tiresome Naked Gun thirty three and a third everything is illuminated the great movie by

leaf Shaw. Ever, um that was from directly from the Odessa Step sequence and Battleship Patinkin the Baby Carriage and the old um shot through the shot in the eye through the glasses. Oh cool, that comes from this movie too. They were the first ones to do it. Yeah. Um, And you've seen that in Woody Allen's Love and Death and Bananas and of course The Godfather. The great sequence where Mo Green's getting the massage and he looks up

and puts on his glasses during a montage. Yeah, that's exactly the whole Yeah, because there was an assassination on the steps as well. Oh yes, that was definitely a double Who was that? That was Francis Ford Coppola. Yeah, he was clearly aware of battleship attemptin clearly. I was trying to think of other examples of montages and the only thing I could come up with was the a team building something. But that counts as a montage, right, Yeah. Yeah.

It's like some related in some way related shots that are kind of put together that a little bit transand and like a story in itself, like Rocky training for a fight. Yeah, that's another good A lot of times to set to music. Yeah, I love that. That's the only one you can think of. And in the Great Movie Brazil too has the shot through the glasses bit as I like to call it. So that's a Battleship at Tamkins, doesn't one of the Nazis and Raiders have

lost art gets shot through the glasses. Maybe that wouldn't surprise me. It's been it's been off homaged, you know. Yeah, So Battleship at Tempkin was a It made a pretty big splash in ninety six. The following year, the next movie on the list. Um, it wasn't his first, but it really solidified I think his stardom Buster Keaton stardom, Yeah, the general rightfully so too. Yeah, he was one of the great Um well, some people call him the greatest

stuntman to ever live. He's done some stuff that I think earns him that, yeah, because I mean this is back in the day two where he was legitimately risking his life, you know, like the the very famously where he's standing on the street in front of a house and then the whole front of the house falls over him and the window he just goes right around him. I watched that again today. It is I can't believe

he did that. And there's actually a half of a second where his arm jerks up because he startled as the house finally makes its way like into his peripheral vision, and it has to be one of the most dangerous things that human beings ever done on film. I'm sure the whole time before that was like, we did the math right, he did the math. Do the math again, do the math again, Show me the math right, show me the math, because that's all it was. It was

math and measurements. But yeah, he could have been squashed and killed very easily, and he had a lot of faith in everybody who was pulling off the stunt with him. You know, he had to just stand there. That was his whole thing is he had to just stand there. And his bit was that he um was he played it straight constantly. He was a stone faced actor. Yeah, deadpan. Yeah, he kind of started that whole thing because his big um.

I was about to say rival, but I guess um just contemporary Charlie Chaplin, while similar in some ways, was completely different because Chaplin was constantly mugging for the camera and like asking for the audience, uh sympathy, raising his eyebrows or yeah, like look what's happening to me? Come on? Come on? Whereas Buster Keaton was just he had that

dead pan look the whole time. Yeah, he would go from like a house falling around him to jumping on a train or something like that with just the same blank facial expression. Yeah. And the reason this is a highly influential film the generals because it kind of showcases the best of both, um, the the amazing stunts that would be mimicked in throughout the years and built upon, and then the dead pan style that influenced everyone from Obviously Bill Murray is one of the great dead pan

actors of all time. Like you can count the number of time Bill Murray even smiles in a movie on like two hands, much less like apes or laughs or anything. Michael Sarah's mentioned in here, and I'm like he, I think he might have Bill Murray beat as far as actor goes. Well. Zach Galfin Akiss is on the list, he's super deadpan, um Leslie Nielsen, of course, Amy Poehler. I think is a is a woman that's a very

dead pan has a dead pan style. Jason Schwartzman, Yes, but people say this is this all is a direct descendant of Buster Keaton's work. Yeah, And if you think we're overstating this. Go watch any Buster Keaton movie. You will be thrilled and delighted. And if your attention span has been shredded to ribbons by the Internet, just go on to YouTube and type in Buster Keaton and it'll bring up all sorts of um clips of his awesome stunts.

Pretty great. He will be thrilled in amazed, I promise. Yeah, And I think I made a note here by the way, that we have a fatty Arbuckle retraction to make. Remember when we we called him out as the rapist murderer, I didn't say murderer, well, we said rapists at least, but we were taken a task by fan he was he had, he was acquitted of all that stuff and apparently didn't do uh either act and um, his career

in life and family name were ruined forever. So he was evidently done a grave miss justice, and we sort of cavalierly just still called him that today. Yeah, I need to look into it more, all right, So next up we have the Jazz Singer the edition not the Neil Diamond one. No, and there was one in between two with Danny Thomas. I believe, Um, I like Neil Diamonds. It's good. I never saw do you ever see it? No? No,

it's not bad. Um. But this is the original from Alan cross Land, and it is notable because it was the first feature link uh movie that was at least spoken dialogue. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's totally new. Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't the first talkie because they had short films that were talking key's. And there was a movie the next year I'm sorry, yeah, called Lights of New York that had full spoken dialogue, but the jazz

singer had a mix of music and spoken dialogue. The first big, big daddy feature length film to do so right with substantial dialogue, right, Yeah, and they they did it in the most roundabout difficult way that you could possibly do it, which is too record the audio and the soundtrack, both the dialogue and the music, onto vinyl records probably wax records really, and then um, the projectionists had to sink the record up with the film strip

so everything was in sync. Yeah. It was a device called a Vita phone that Warner Brothers sunk about half a million into. Uh. This company called Western Electric who invented it, and it was actually physically connected to the projector's motor. Um, so they did while they did have to sink it. It was it was a physical connection between the phonograph player and the projection. Uh real, I guess. And it went on to gross three and a half million bucks a lot of dough. That's a ton of dough.

That's like five six million dollars today at least at least, but uh, it was ineligible for the Best Picture because they were just like, you can't compete with the rest. It's not fair, oh wow, because everything else is silent and everyone's going to vote for you. So that changed

the whole game for sure. We will continue on with our awesome and engrossing list right after this, So Chuck, if you will notice the first three movies in our list, the first three films that changed everything happened in twenty seven. Things were changing vast they really were. I mean, like we buy leaps and bounds. But you can also make the case that there was a lot of new ground to cover. So just about anybody who did anything new

that was noteworthy. Yeah, it was a big innovation. Harder to innovate these days, it is um And if you'll notice on the list. Um, So the earliest ones where like technical editing, innovations. Um. Now, starting with Citizen Kane from we start to get into innovations and storytelling, which is a lot more nuanced than you know, um, doing your own stunts or using a montage or something. It's it's figuring out how to tell a story in a

much less linear narrative fashion. And Citizen King was one of the early ones to pioneer a non linear narrative of Yeah, did you you saw this? Yeah? Yeah, I didn't see it until I mean it was probably like probably about fifteen years ago, but like way later than you would think I would have seen this as a big film buff. I saw it in college at a in a film class. Yeah. Often. Yeah, if you sign up for a film class, you're gonna study Citizen exactly

pretty much. And I finally found out where Rosebud was. Don't ruin it. I won't. But it is a landmark film in every way, and it has often been top of best Films of All Time lists for great reasons, UM, one of which, like you said, the non linear narrative was really unique thing at the time. UM. Although Flashback wasn't brand new it was the first time it had been this extensive and effective in the story because I

mean it's substantial enough that it really cuts up the flow. Yeah, you know, it's not like a quick flashback and they come back and the actor is like staring off into space to transition back into the present again. I mean like it was all over the place. Yeah. Uh. Some

of the more concrete cinematic landmarks. One was using deep focus. Uh. Director of photography Greg Toland Legend used he had used deep focus before on a movie called Long Voyage Home, But um, it's all over the place in Citizen Kane.

And that basically means if you see a shot where something very far away is in focus in the shot, basically where everything is in focus, or the background in the foreground or in focus, so you can press pause and look around exactly like you're sticking your head into a box. Yeah, that's called deep focus. And it was brand new. Uh, as far as Citizen Kane goes. It's how extensive it used it. One of the other things

was off center framing. Um it was a big, you know, pretty common thing to just center whatever the main act was, either the character or the object, and um, Citizen Kane had a lot of things where the main focus of the scene the character, maybe even off screen, which was really weird at the time. People didn't know what to think of it. Um expressionistic lighting. Uh back then everything that they just lit it there, like make sure everything's well lit. Um. But auto premature also like a big

pioneer with that. Yeah, I think so with um Dalin for Murder, I think he directed that. Was that Hitchcock? I think that was Hitchcock? Was it? Okay? Well, auto premature directed stuff like that, though right he was. He used moody lighting and shadows and stuff a lot. I probably messed that up. People are going to be Dalin for murder. I think it was premature, okay, Um, but U orson Welles of course. I don't think we even mentioned that who wrote, directed, and started and produced, and

I think he even edited A Citizen Kane. Yeah, I just assumed everybody knew that, you know. Yeah. Um. He came from the theater, where uh you create mood with lighting only certain parts of the stage, so he brought that into the movies and uh it was very um evocative and set the mood well. And people are like, man, why are we lighting everything all bright all the time? Look at Citizen Kane, which really worked. Um. A couple of other things, one of which I know you will appreciate, sir,

is that he pretty much invented the wipe. Oh, the star wipe, not the star wipe, but it followed. Yeah, the star wipe followed, which I know is your favorite transition in cinema. Oh, it's all Star wars Star because it almost makes a beop sound, you know. Uh. And one of the way, I want to say, you're right, Dallan. For murder, it was Hitchcock. Okay, what was premature? Did you look that up? He did one called Laura the Man with the Golden Arm. It's not who I'm thinking of.

I'm thinking of a director named Auto who directed in like the twenties or thirties, and he directed like moody um, like like moody movies like yeah, murder movies, yeah, filmore, yes, film noir. That's exactly what I was going for. And I don't remember who it was. Maybe his name is Otto film Moore, He's French. Um. And then one final thing, of course, that you could study Citizen Kane for a week in the film class. So this is an overview.

But um, the low angle shots. Um, people didn't use a lot of low er high angle shots back then. It was kind of just shot from straight on and um Orson Welles even dugout cut out the floor a lot of times to get the camera lower. And for the first time we saw ceilings in view in a movie because quite often things were shot on a sound stage where you don't have ceilings, and um, he wanted those low angle shots, so they used um fabric most times to act as a ceiling, but very effective shots

of from below of orson Wells. As I mean, it wasn't exactly William Randolph first, but it was an approximation of William Randolph first, a very effective low angle stuff that now, I mean we take for granted all these things, Um, but you know, there would be no pulp fiction and that non linear storytelling if there was no well maybe somebody would have done it, but maybe eventually. But the first he did the first, and and that's why it

was innovative. Exactly. It's Fritz Lang. Yeah, there you go, Fritz Lang Metropolis and m just um, that's okay, Yeah, it's all making sense that get confused. Yeah, but you were right, You were right there. Fritz and Auto are not close. I mean they're both Jerreman, but that's about it. Yeah, but do you know the difference between M and dial M? Just a telephone? What's up next, Chuck Breathless? One of my faiths. So I am going to rely on you mostly for this one because I looked up what the

French New Wave really did, what did accounted for? And like all of the essays I found were are they were dense, Yeah, and I didn't really understand. I understood that the French New Wave like changed everything, yea, and that a lot of the movies that I know and love today are the offspring of the French New Wave, but I still didn't get exactly specifically what the French New Wave did. And you're going to rely on me

to summarize this, no pressure. Well, for me, the French New Wave basically ushered in an era of what now I think most people might associate with in d filmmaking Okay, okay, like uh, handheld camera work and what some people at the time considered amateurish camera work. UM movies where maybe not a lot seemingly happens you know, nothing grant happens, which was the case in Breathless. A lot of people didn't like it at the time because it was like,

you know, not much happens. You know that the the two leads in the movie, uh, Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean c. Berg weren't really lie didn't show express a whole lot of deep love, and there weren't these big moments of love and affection and these huge action sequences. And it was described as flat by a lot of people. Um, and I think a lot of indie movies do that, just kind of show life as it happens. Yeah, So without Breathless, we wouldn't have like Bottle Rocket. Maybe. Wes

Anderson is definitely a big French New wave guy for sure. Um, but uh go dar John Luc Goodard who directed it, and Trufaux and some other um French New wave forefathers were film critics at first. Yeah. Yeah, and they decided as a group like we want to look at cinnam in a new way, um and do something different. So they would and started making their own movies. That's like James Fenimore Cooper, Yeah, the guy who wrote Less of

the Mohicans. Yeah. He apparently used to complain that, like nobody wrote good books anymore, and so I think his wife or something said, well, why don't you do a big shot? And he did. And the books he wrote really weren't so great, but he he went and wrote him and he wrote a bunch of them too. One of my favorite four sides ever, is the second to the last of the Mohicans. It's just a line of Native Americans. In the second to the last one, they're

online facing away. He just sort of turning around and waving at the camera, I guess the camera at Gary Larson's hand. Um. So Breathless is notable for those reasons. It kind of kicked off the French New Wave. But the use of jump cut editing, which we see so much now. It was the first movie and it was very jarring at the time to see jump cuts in a movie. And that's when you're showing, like, I guess the best way to describe it as um, multiple shots

of the same subject or thing from different angles. Right, It's like, um, you indicate the progression of time or movement or something by just cutting quickly rather than focusing on somebody walking down the street for five minutes. You cut a couple of times, and all of a sudden they're just closer to the camera, and then closer and closer, and then they're past the camera. It's a jump cut, yeah, or even as simple. Something as simple is like you're going to leave the house, so you go and pick

up your keys and you put on your coat. Instead of showing all that you come out of the bedroom, Boom, you're putting on your coat. Boom, you're putting the keys in the door, right exactly, you're just showing the high highlights of this progression of stuff, where that would otherwise be boring to watch the whole thing. But it also um is used to create tension too, because it's it's um jarring. I guess it's probably why it creates tension. And Scorsese famously used it in Goodfellas at the end

when Henry Hill is like like trying to sell some guns. Yeah, he's coat to the gills, right, and he's like trying to sell some guns to Nero but they don't fit the silencers, and like he's the helicopters following him. He's got the sauce going and all this stuff is being represented and compressed in a very short amount of time by the use of jump cuts. Very effective and for budding filmmakers, it's a great way to hide mistakes. UM of things you may not have gotten that you thought

you got. UM. Jump cutting is a really easy way to to just sort of uh yeah, to hide your errors. I did a lot. In other words, when I was making those shorts, I UM, I was. I realized that in my head I was referencing the UM shot in Soul Taker. Have you seen that mystery signs three thousand with it's um. His last name is Estevez is Martin Sheen's brother, and he is a soul taker and he's next to this guy who's a soul taker. You just

have to see this. But anyway, they're they're walking down the road and this jump cut like has this progression of them. It's so unnecessary, but it's like a great use of jump cut. You could tell the director was like, I can't wait to use a jump cut, and that's what she did. She used it on UM. But go watch the MSc three K. It's a good one. Man. You did you see every single one of those episodes? No, it's still I still run across the ones that I haven't seen. Yeah, nice, um hey, and the shout out

to Bill Corbett, who I know as a listener. Oh yeah, he isn't. Yeah. I don't know if he's gonna hear this one, but the great Bill Corbett, so take care. Uh. Next, we're gonna move on to Federico Fellini's eight and a half. Have you ever seen this one? No? I haven't. Now I understand why it's called that. Yeah. It was one of the first, although not the first, movies about movie making and uh, starring the great Marcello Mastriani Masterroianni from

Ludulta Vita. Amuse of Felini's over the years too, And this one, Um, this one really kicked off the surrealist filmmaking and sort of saying you can play around and shoot a dream sequence where the guys in traffic and then he leaves his car and floats up in the air and is you know, being pulled down to the ground on the beach from a rope tied around his ankle, just like go nuts. Yeah, and successive filmmakers did go nuts like um Gondry did. Uh eternal sunch out of

the Spotless Mine. Oh yeah, he's hugely influenced. Um, Darren Aronofsky did some weird stuff here there, Yeah, David Lynch and Terry Gilliam. Of course. Just basically surrealism is is what I'm taking Felini introduced into this, Yeah, for real. And um, besides the surrealism, uh, that opening sequence of eight and a half where the director of um, he's the director in the movie, Uh, Guido is stuck in traffic. It's really claustrophobic feeling, and that's why he floats away,

uh and escapes. You know that, that traffic jam. But that was directly mimicked in like R E. M S. Everybody Hurts video, And Um, the beginning of the movie Falling Down. Do you remember that that started with the traffic jam. Michael Douglas just laughed. He doesn't float, he gets I saw that again the other day. Most of it it's weird. It alternately felt way ahead of its time and also very dated. Yeah, because the stuff that Michael Douglas is doing felt way ahead of its time.

But then there was I just forgot about that whole um weird subplots with Robert Duval retiring and he had this wife that was him pecking them, and like this retirement party they were trying to throw off. Forgot that. Yeah, it was just so unnecessary and felt really weird and out of place. The other day when I was watching it was there like a jump cut montage where he's

putting on his watch, his gold retirement watch. No, but then to the Barbara Hershey, you know, is in venice at home with the daughter, and he spends a whole day coming there to grab them basically, and the whole time she just keeps calling the cops like a no, he's coming, and no, he's coming. And I was watching the other day, I was like, freaking leave, what are you doing there? That's a movie character thing, you know. That's just bad writing, bad directing. When you just walk

right past the ability to leave, there's you. You missed a huge step. Where were we falling down? Yeah? I think that pretty much sums up eight and a half. I think so too, falling down boom, so chuck. We got a little more left, we got more films. Is this making you want to watch films? Yeah? Me too. I feel like eating ice cream watching a film and scratching from poison Ivy lately and burning this office down. Uh you know if that happens now, suspicion is going

to fall on you for saying that's all right. Uh, we'll be right back after this. Alright, So we're back with our awesome jingles, which, by the way, um, we we have to thank John bagonin John begin begin to begin. He even emailed with the pronunciation of his name, but he, um, the original guy who did our jingle, the first jingle ever, Rusty Maddius Mattias Man, I'm not good with the pronunciation. Uh well, anyway, Rusty who's banned the sheep Dogs are

on tour right now. Um, just because his work was so original, we contacted him and said, hey, we got this other guy who's done like covers of your work. Can we use these is like totally and John's been making awesome like versions of it ever since. Yeah, they're both great and talented. Thanks to you both. And go check out I think that what you say. They're on tour right yeah, the sheep Dogs. Go check out the sheep Dogs in town here you Yeah, all right, let's

finish with these two in reverse order. Okay. Toy story was a big one, hugely innovative, huge, And again it's one of those things where now almost everything about it seems pedestrian or what it did. See. It's still a great movie, I'm sure, um, but the innovations that it undertook her it's just seemed pedestrian. But at the time it was totally groundbreaking. It was the first, um, the first c g I movie, all c g I movie ever. Yeah,

that was enormous. Well yeah, and I remember at the time seeing it and just being like, Wow, this is the future of animated films. What's the best all c g I animated film you've ever seen? Visually? Uh? Well, I haven't seen a lot of them these days because Emily doesn't like those. So I probably wouldn't be the best person to ask Holly from stuff mom or sophiasts and history class, she'd probably be the one to ask for my money. Have you seen The Adventures of Tintin? Oh? Yeah,

that was amazing, mind blow. Yeah. I saw that on your recommendation and really really liked it. Yeah. The story was great, the action was great, the characters were great. But the c g I, the computer animation is but I think possibly the best ever done. Yeah, And that's a bit of a different style than say like UP or Um The Incredible. It's not nearly his cartoons. It's like the I think it's the motion capture. Yeah, I

think that's what they did for that. Oh yeah, with UP it would strictly be totally just animation, right, yeah, but I mean they're both animation. Um. But yeah, man, Tinton, that was really good. It was good. I'm surprised how much I like that. But UP was good too, and Toy Story was good too. And but all of these things came as a result of the ground that Toy Story broke absolutely in Um, like you said, what seems like a common thing today, could I mean, you don't

see sell animation anymore. It's almost I know, I kind of miss it. I totally miss like the new Um, Mickey Mouse is all weird and CG like stuff from our generation should have just been discontinued, and then you just come up with all new stuff off that's CG. I start very shortcake not supposed to be c G. I it just all looks weird now. Yeah, I wish there would have people would have done a little bit of both still, because I think Sell animation like Uh.

I think The Iron Giant came out after Toy Story and they did sell animation and that was great, great movie that it was really good, you'd like it. Uh Like it was a movie for grown ups, and Toy Story sort of laid the way for that because it was one of the first movies. Um, I guess cartoony kids movies to really have a lot of dialogue that flew over kids heads that adults got a little nod

in a wink. What Toy Story. Yeah, yeah, not like dirty humor, but it's not like f it's the cat no no no, but a little entendre here and there that adults might appreciate that kids won't understand. Those are the best jokes. Um. And now we have you know, best animated uh feature in the Oscars, which definitely came straight out of the original Toy Sto worry because movies started being considered before they created its own category up

in Toy Story. Three were actually nominated for a regular Best Picture, and I think everyone's like, oh, we need to get in their own category because you can't have an animated movie when best Picture it came well up would have come after. Um, the the best Animated Picture category came out, really, so that kind of goes as a testament to just how amazing that movie is. Yeah, but it was still for Best Picture. Oh, it was both.

I don't know if it was up for it probably was up for Best Animated as well, but it was definitely also up for Best Picture while there was an animated category. Yeah, I never considered that. Bam, that was a good movie. Yeah, it was sweet. Um, so I got nothing else in toy Story. Well then what about the last one? Yeah, two thousand one Space Odyssey quite a film. You sent this, uh essay on Criterion I think Criterion dot com, but you know the criteria in collection.

Um it was written, I guess in even though it says posted in it's like there wasn't an internet to post it on in night. Maybe it means posted it like in the mail. Maybe. Um. But I realized, like I can read film essays about Stanley Kubrick's work all day long, Like I love that documentary Room two to seven two three seven six seven, you know the one about the shining conspiracy theory. Yeah, then the number of the room is amazing. I can't remember though. Um, I

read a bunch of articles is I think two thirty seven. Um, I read a bunch of articles around the release of that documentary, which we're basically like film essays on on the shining. I read this one amazing one um from several years ago about Eyes Wide Shut about how it's like a masterpiece of sociology, studying sociology. People hate that movie. Um.

And then now this like two thousand one. I'm sure there's tons out there to consume, but I can just read that stuff all day long because that guy was so just amazingly detailed as a director. Yeah, I agree. I can read more about his work critical essays on his work than any other director. It's just unbelievable. It's almost like its genre. It is, you know rick. Yeah,

it's got a word named after it, and well it should. Um. So two thousand one of Space Odyssey, Um, blue minds back then, blows minds today one for its uh just the amazing look and the technical achievement. Um. A eight is really well. I mean, if you see a movie from nine about out of Space, it still looks like the future. Yeah, he don't expect it to hold up well,

but it totally does. Um so much so that a lot of the you know, George Lucas and Ridley Scott were just like it's done, Like we might as well give up. Yeah, George Lucas when Star Wars came out said Star Wars is technically comparable, but for my money, two thousand one was by far the better movie. Yeah, everyone was sort of intimidated, I think by how talented Kubrick was. Well. Plus also, um, you have to take into account that he made this movie at a time

when other sci fi movies were just pure schlock. So not only to make the movie in this way this visually amazing and amazing with an audio soundtrack and just totally innovative, it also took like that mindset. It is completely go in a different direction that everybody else has as well. Yeah, of course I think about Ridley Scott saying that, and then he goes on to make Alien and Blade Runner after that. So I mean he helped Prometheus. Man. Yeah,

people are like Prometheus. I don't care. It's a cool movie. No, I liked it too. I thought, Okay, one flaw, the big flaw to me was and I'm sure it's like part of the subtext, the context, or one of the texts, but um, the engineer coming back to life or coming out of hibernation after however long and just immediately like inflicting violence on these p brained humans who are showing him no threat whatsoever. I just thought it was a little, uh,

it wasn't explained well enough for my taste. Yeah, I don't think I agree with you, But when I'm watching a Ridley Scott movie, I just assume if I'm missing something, he has an explanation for it. I'm just not catching it. Yeah, I know what you mean. I'd like I think I read some stuff about how it tied into the alien cannon and realized I need to go see it again with all this knowledge that I wasn't really thinking about, and maybe i'd like it more. Yeah, but I haven't

done that yet, So back to two thousand one. It was also notable for being bookended basically with thirty minutes of silence on both ends of the movie. The first thirty minutes or and when I say silent, I mean no dialogue in the last thirty minutes have no dialogue. Yeah, the last line comes like a full thirty minutes before the end. Yeah, and over the hundred and forty six minutes. There are only forty minutes of dialogue and the whole thing.

And um, that's why I just when people compare something like Interstellar and call it kubricky in, I just want to smash do you know like Interstellar? Not really? Oh, I liked it. I was super let down despite McConaughey doing Waterson in the future. I still liked it. I even liked him in it. I liked a lot of the parts of it. But um, to me, it's anti kubricky in because every ten minutes they're explaining everything that's

going on again another thing. Just like Inception, Ellen Page's entire character was written in to explain what was going on every ten minutes. Yeah, and I felt like Interstellar was the same way. It's like Christopher Nolan needs to just trust his audience a little bit like kubrick did and say figure it out or don't. Yeah that I'm not gonna stop every ten minutes just to explain everything. Here's just going on. Remember if you didn't get it right,

here's what's going on again. Well, I think if they are labeling something like Interstellar, is Kubrickian right, one of the ways that you can interpret that is that he was he rooted his two thousand one in science fact right, So like the stuff that the astronauts are like dealing with and the things that are going on and the conditions of space, it was all factual. Whereas with Interstellar, same thing. They went to really great lengths to do

what they could to make everything scientifically factual. Aside from the fact that the idea that you could go into a black hole and then come back out or something like that drifting in space, that's not gonna happen. But

for the most part, Interstellar was scientifically accurate. So maybe that's what they meant when they called it Kubrickian, because you're absolutely right, like they did blaming a lot and went to great links to explain a lot, whereas with with two thousand one, you just watch it the first five times like what just happened? Yeah, And apparently Carry Grant had that same reaction as well. That was rock Hudson,

Rock Hudson, that's right. Yeah, the original screening that Roger Ebert was at in l A. Rock Hudson just left and said, can somebody tell me what the hell that was about? Yeah? And it wasn't even over yet. Yeah. Um. Well the reason it it uh has science fact and not science fiction is because Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark, who it wasn't actually a book that was made into a movie. It was a movie B book made after

a movie, and they collaborated on both. And um, they went to Carl Sagan, um of course of Cosmos and said he said, you're gonna make billions and billions. That was pretty good, it wasn't. Yeah, that's a lot like them. Um. They went to Carl Sagan said, hey, we want to portray these extraterrestrials. Are they maybe the Star Child is uh? Or they turned Dave into the Star Child? Are they humanoids? What are they gonna look like? And Sagan was like

they were very unlikely to be humanoid. So Kubrick did the smart thing and was just like, well, we just won't show him at all, instead of making a fool of myself like signs and making some dumb looking at man, man, let me just not show the aliens. Very smart move. Um. Getting back to the story of two thousand one, although I think the Village is underrated, Yeah I can stomach that one. What about well, you like the six cents, right, everybody like the sixth Cents. I guess that was it

for him. I loved Unbreakable. Unbreakable that was one where like, yeah, I think it was maybe even better the second time. Yeah, I still like that movie. Uh. But then he also made that Lady in the Water movie and the the one with Marky Mark the people were jumping off no three kings. Uh is it the one in the elevator? No, he just produced Oh I know what you're talking about, the one where people like jumping off of buildings and stuff inexplicably. Yeah. That I didn't even I didn't see that.

You couldn't get through ten minutes of that movie. So um. Two thousand one Back to Good Movies was had a three x three part structure, but not a conventional three act structure that you might be used to in movies, which is why it confounded people like Rock Hudson. The

first they called the movements. The first movement was the Dawn of Man sequence with the the the apes with a monolith um and uh, he has that great part where he throws his little bone tool up in the air and then it morphs into well not Morse but maybe it's a dissolve into the spinning and outer space. It's called the match cut. Yeah, match cut and um of the rotation of what we now know was a

nuclear warhead. Because I read that little article twenty Things you Didn't Know about two thousand one, I didn't know those are nuclear warheads necessarily in outer space. They made it a little more vague, and initially it was going to be more explicit and they were going to explode it in outer space. But he said, now it's a little too close to uh, the ending of strange. Yeah,

so let's not do that. Yeah, probably a good choice, Yeah, but some as a result, some people have taken it to mean that, like it was a That match cut was supposed to show how far humans have come from using a bone to murder somebody to satellites in space. But if you know that the satellite is actually loaded down with nuclear warheads, that match cut demonstrates how little humans have changed from using a bone to murder somebody to using satellites to murder somebody. The the motif is

still the same, and it's murder. Yeah. He was going for some deep things. Oh yeah, a lot of metaphor happening. I mean supposedly in every single shot, because he started out as a still photographer, right, supposedly every frame of a Kubrick movie. You there is nothing that isn't unintentional in place there by him. He did a lot of

his own set decorating. Yeah, Like the pencil holder on the desk in the office of the guy at the Shining Hotel was where it's supposed to be, right, and if like if it has like a picture of a

goat head inscribed on it, that means something. It's not accidental. Yeah, Although I will say Room two thirty seven, which I think may have been the point, is a little bit like these people are crazy, not like, oh man, I just see what they're saying in all this, right, I was just thinking, these people are nuts, right, It's it was just kind of enjoyable to hear their interpretations of it well, and I think it had a It was a comment on obsession and fandom more so than the

Shining but there I thought there some of their ideas were interesting. I said Room to two sid didn't I like going out with conspiracy theorists like Mary. Wasn't Room two two seven like a sitcom? Yeah. It was just called to seven. Okat. Remember was Jack k She'd be like, Mary, Okay, that's what my impression was. What do you think I was doing? Well? I wasn't sure what. You must be a weirdo. Yeah, okay. The second movement was, of course

the house sequence, the computer, the how was it? The How nine thousand um really creepy and How ended up being a lot of people's favorite character, even though it was just a voice the supercomputer on the Discovery ship. Remember, he's like, what are you doing to you? It's so creepy. I had the Mad Magazine spoof of two thousand one when I was a kid. It was great. And then the third movement is when Dave moves on to the next stage of human development with these extraterrestrials that you

know only here and um. Basically, it's when it comes full circle the third movement, and the third movement is the one that has almost well, it's really just the second movement. That's it's dialogue. Yeah yeah. Uh. Some of the alternate titles for two thousand one Journey Beyond the Stars, Terrible Universe, not bad, Tunnel to the Stars, not so great, Planet Fall, that sounds bad. It sounds like good James

Pond movie. And then how the Solar System was one as a play on how the West was one, Yeah, which like movie geeks would find that appealing, but everybody else would say that's dumb. He ruined everything, Yeah, and Kubrick was this is the last thing I have. He was so obsessive with protecting his material that he allegedly, uh,

I don't think allegedly. I think he did have all the sets and props and miniatures destroyed after he shot it so they would never be reused, which is a common thing at the time, like, hey, we're doing a space movie, go get the go get that space from Stanley set. Yeah, let's reuse it for a planet fall. He he also destroyed all of the footage that didn't make it into the original theatrical release. Yeah, destroyed it's gone. Yeah, so they wouldn't one day after his death recut it,

which they invariably probably would have done. Yep, he's a smart man. Yeah, I could. We should just do a podcast on Kubrick. Okay, he was I'm down for that challenge. Be a dude, Yes, one of my heroes. Yeah, cinematically, you got anything else? I got nothing else. Uh. If you want to know more about movies, if you like this one, you probably also love our exploitation episode exploitation movie episode fun one. What else have we talked about movies in Cannonball Run? Oh yeah, I had a lot

to do with the movie. Yeah. Our James Bonda episode. Yeah. Uh yeah. We've had a few of these, and people always respond to these, were like, you guys should have a spin off, should do an all movie podcast maybe one day. May remember if you're confront any of these, UM press control F or Apple F in your web browser and search that way on our podcast archive page. Uh. You can also search for this article on how stuff works by typing movies in and seeing what comes up.

And since I said how stuff works, is time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this Mike. Could DuPont really clear something up for us on scientific method? Hey guys, it was a great um Well, actually he doesn't say it was great. I think I just made that up. Hey guys, your Scientific Method podcast has a consistent misuse of what a scientific law is in relation to uh,

to the working of the scientific method. Uh. It appears that you believe that a law e g. Newton's law of gravity isn't held uh in higher esteem than theory, and that eventually a theory matures into a law. Um. I think I probably did think that because of politics, you know, bill becomes a law right exactly, he says, when in fact, theory is considerably more robust than a law. A law is a mathematical model that describes observed behavior,

does not answer the why. Theory does answer why something happens. Did we not say that? I thought we did, Like I I knew that. I remember finding that out from the research. I just can't believe it didn't come out of my mouth. He claims, we did not, and I I feel like I'm learning this So I definitely did not. But you may have. For example, Newton's law of gravitational attraction describes the action of two bodies that can be

used for pretty much everything. Um. It is perfect for describing what happens, but it cannot tell you why the two items are attracted or drill down to the underlying mechanism. Yeah, law is like much more succinct. It just is what it is. Uh. Nor is the law even universal and could not be used to explain the para helion procession of Mercury's orbit burn. In comparison, Einstein's theory of general relativity was eventually used to solve the mercury issue. Oh yeah,

the mercury issue. Uh, and the standard model, along with the recent discovery the Higgs boson on my sern, can answer the why do these two masses attracted to each other? Question? I think what you mean is, why are these two masses attracted to one another? Mike, it's pretty teleological theory is considerably more developed and richer than a scientific law, which is more of a tool that is applicable to a wide range of applications. Keep up the good work

that is, Mike DuPont. Thanks Mike, thanks for that of the Valley Forge DuPont's I think so, huh have you seen Fox Catcher? Oh no, I've heard it's good. Is a good? No? Really, I don't think so. Now. I've heard it's kind of slow. It's beyond slow. Really, I I can understand why, Um, the Academy loved it, or a lot of people. I'm sure, do you like it? I was not a fan of Fox Kich. I think people generally seeing like a turn by an actor like

Steve Girl doing something really different. They're knocked out by that. No, I still can't believe you didn't like Birdman. No spoiler alert for people who have not seen Birdman. The following conversation is full of spoilers. Yes, what didn't you like about it? Um? So I thought? I thought Michael Keaton was good? Okay? Um? Who plays his daughter Emily Blunt? Is that? Who that is? Emma Stone? Emma Stone? Excellent? Okay? Um Edward and even pretty good? Okay? So the acting

was fine? Who is Naomi Watts was in it? Yeah? She did great? Okay, So yes, the acting, the acting was fine. Sure that the acting was fine. I thought the photography was amazing. The whole seemingly one take thing kind of knocked you out. Probably I didn't even pick up on that, but yes it did. Um. It was more the the for me, the juxtaposition of the story, which was pretty boring in realistic and everyday life. Even though it was about a Broadway production, it was still

about the everyday life of it. Sure, against the surrealism that's like threaded and embedded in throughout the whole movie. I didn't like that it was like choose one or the other? Man? It irked me. Um and uh. And then just so that one part with the critic or Michael Keaton tells off the critic. I thought Michael Keaton did a wonderful job, but just the whole point that it was in there of like the director, you know, using Michael Keaton's character to tell off all the critics

he's ever wanted to. I just thought it was pretentious and I thought it was kind of clumsy in that sense too, and it was enough that it it. Yeah, and then the ending. I did not like the ending at all at all. That'll ruin a good movie because it was completely went contrary to all the other stuff that he went out of his way to point out was fake or fraud and they're not real. And then all of a sudden it is what no choose one or the other? The director refused to make very important decisions,

and I think that that ruined the movie. That is a very well uh thought out the criticism. I think you thank you very much? Sure, uh man. That was the end of Listener Mail even, wasn't it? Yeah? Because now I'm not like she's Josh is weird? He didn't like Birdman. Now I'm like just in like Birdman. He has good reasons. Thank you, Thank you. UM. I like

justifying my opinion, don't we all? So? If you want to get in touch with Chuck and I or Jerry, who I apparently just spoiled Birdman for UM, you can contact us via Twitter at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook, dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email. This stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at Home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a

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