Hail Caesar w/ George Bagby: The J. Burden Show Ep. 447

my favorite comic writers of the day. Their comedies are some of my oldest favorites.

They go from masterpieces, just stupendous achievements like No Country for Old Men, and they've also made these really slapstick sorts of comic movies, like Raising Arizona with Nicholas Cage doing one of his Madman routines. They've also made these really distinctive regional films, which is something that I particularly love about them. They've made They made Miller's Crossing, which was one of their earlier movies, one of my favorites.

It's a really good one. Did you know that one was shot almost entirely in Louisiana, specifically New Orleans?

kill him. That was that was shot in a place that I know, and it's all very familiar to me, but outside of the city obviously it's a forest, but in Louisiana.

genuinely hilarious. Like there's one moment I always think where, you know, Gabriel Burns is tied to a chair, you know, and you're sort of expecting him to get you know this, you know, beaten, you know, with the swinging light, and he just gets up, grabs the chair, and breaks it over one of the guys interrogating him, and the reaction the man just looks so genuinely offended he's been hit

with the chair. Very very funny. But additionally, it's funny you mentioned that because I just assumed, because of the subject matter that it was set in Chicago. You know, it seems like a Chicago esque film, and I was thinking about that when they're walking through the woods, I was like, this doesn't look anything like Illinois, right, this looks like the middle of nowhere in the Deep South. And so that actually makes a good bit of sense.

why I adore New Orleans. It's this untouched old city. In a way, it's simultaneously New Orleans best selling point and its downfall that they haven't invested in their own city in such obvious ways, but it's also the charm of the place. But they've made, as I said, all these really interesting regional films, and I think this is the best testimony in spite of the Cohen's being very famously amish, uh, the the regional work that they've done with with Fargo, with Oh Brother, where Art Thou? It

comes from a place of love and affection. Even the Big Lebowski as as like a set piece for Southern California, Southern California hippie characters, deadbeats, stuff like that. It comes from a place of real affection. And the easiest way to tell that is do you come out of Oh Brother or Art Thou hating Mississippi or do you come out of Oh Brother or Art Thou thinking, Wow, I

really like Mississippi. Like there's there are a lot of winsome points and beauty and and curiosity about these these funny, you know, country white people. And I think that that's the best tell about the Cohens, that they love their subject matter. And they've also they also produced a personal favorite of mine, which is a serious man. Have you seen that one.

own right. But I really like that one. So about the Cohen's they they have a great affection for Americana, for American regions, for the gentile majority of the United States. They really seem to like these people, and that's really my brief for them. The fact that they are famously Amish is an interesting factor in the film that we

have for discussion today. It's the twenty sixteen film Hail Caesar, and the image of Christ haunts this film in a really surprising way, especially because it comes from non Christian writers. The very first image that you see when the title fades is a crucifix in a Catholic church and the very first scene is the protagonist, who is a Hollywood fixer, a real historical character by the way, who worked for Big Studios in la Eddie Mannix, who's kind of fictionalized

for this. He's kind of a legend in Hollywood, as I understand it, portrayed by Josh Brolin, and he is. He does a wonderful job in this role, you know, the stoic and strong Josh Brolin. He's sitting in a confessional and he's a very scrupulous Catholic. He's going to confession with spans of hours between his confessions. He's, uh, he's obviously a man that takes his religious ritual very seriously.

of like similarly scummy looking actor. And he walks up, you know, pulls out the negatives, tells the guys to leave, smacks her in a moment that's very kind of like silver age Hollywood. Right, you know, you can almost imagine Jimmy Stewart, right, you know, holding her close and kind of slapping her across the face. And then when the police come in, he's given her a fake story. He hands a bribe to the policeman and they leave, right, you know, kind of contrasting that, you know, how he

is at work. It is this kind of laying down the law and then you know this very tender family man right in the confessional booth.

it's a really fast paced film. There there are lots of different characters and a bunch of different little subplots, of many of which are just comic gold. But it's always turning back to that what what do we understand to be, what is going on? What is real is what are we projecting about ourselves? What do we believe about the circumstances. So faith turns out to be one of the key themes of the film. And as I said, the character of Jesus Christ literally portrayed in the film

in the context of the movie within the movie. So Eddie Mannix is managing the production of this big tent pole production for the studio. It's a film called Haile Caesar, and this is the source of most of the drama in this picture, also called Haile Caesar. But like the movie within the movie, this is obviously a satire of ben Her and some other nineteen fifties epic biblical films like The Robe and Cuovadis and things like that.

this movie is the fifties. It's like the Golden age of Hollywood and some of the things that we see in the context. It's a Christian country and the Hollywood studios are wanting to present an image of themselves and of their stars, who are certainly not like traditional moral kinds of people. They want to present an image of moral norms, they want to present an image of spiritual norms.

And of course there's a cynical reading of this film that it's it's meant to discredit the society in that it's portraying right, that it's these dissolute Hollywood people who are projecting a sense of normalcy on the screen when the reality is moral degradation in Hollywood. Nix Is is constantly encountering that paradox. So he has he has gossip columnists, columnists coming up to him, uh constantly, and they're saying, oh,

I know about this scandal. I'm going to publicize it tomorrow, And he says, no, No, the actor is a good family man. Everyone knows that. And and this is a and this is a really interesting element here. But I think that the Cohens really have a general, uh a genuine affection for the the mainstream that they're presenting here. I don't think they're they're trying to take them down a peg. They're they're attacking the corruption in Hollywood. They're

lampooning it. In the film, especially the writers, which we're going to get to, but we see the Hollywood is in the business of making dreams, of projecting images on the side of Plato's cave, and Eddie Mannix is dealing with the real problems at the base of this projection apparatus. So these themes of what is true, what is fantasy? What do we believe? And the whole time Jesus Christ

is lurking in the background. Jesus Christ very clearly services in several important discussions in the film as the key question to all of this is Jesus Christ significant? Is he real? Does he demand faith of us or not? Even the question is Jesus Christ God? Is a serious question that's presented in this satirical context.

you know, the presence of Christ in this film. And there are several things because in a cheaper movie, of course, I mean it is comedic, right, it is played for laughs. You know that all four of these religious figures are offering me. You know that this man effectively uh, you know, your kind of scraps of you know, Christology, right, and he's deeply confused. But at the same time we see

that same sort of love for America. That all four of these men they're not caricatures, you know, they're positive characters, and particularly coming from the Cohen's it's interesting that the uh if anyone comes out of that interaction looking badly, right, it's the kind of very nebbish uh nebbish rabbi And you know that's not the focus or the goal of this film. But again, right, that's that's where from almost the very beginning you see the presence of Christ in Hail Caesar.

faith is the key word in the film. It appears in the climax of the film at the very end, and it's uh, it's the forgotten line that an actor is delivering a speech in front of the crucified Christ in the climax of the movie within the movie, and he forgets the pinnacle of his each and the word

he forgets is faith. And this is intentional. Obviously, they're trying to emphasize the point the one thing that they lack, as the actor almost gets to say when he forgets the last word, if we could only have this one final thing, and that is faith, then we could see what is true. And so we see it all come together there at the end. But we see conflicts of faith in the film in a big way, and that's with the communist subversives in Hollywood, and so they present

a different kind of faith. This is the faith in ideological materialism and Marxism and their their faith and what it leads them to is also played for laughs. Their their ham fisted uh sort of attempts to to blackmail Hollywood and UH to fund the Soviet Union, which is what their their ultimate goal is. It comes to nothing, uh in the end, and it's all and it's all very absurd, but that is another element. So we see the Cohen's they're they're framing the the two faiths presented

in the film. You have traditional Christianity, you know, faith in the doctrine of Christ, and then you have an innovative new ideology, which is Communism, which they they don't hold back on for their disdain.

of the Communists. The communists pretend to portray themselves or they want to portray themselves as these believers in materialist dogma. They are actually motivated by very low, vengeful pecuniary interests and this well and from really obviously with them well.

that he is. He is recreating everything in his own life, right, so it is all, you know, his sort of like background Hollywood, you know, relationships explained through Marxist theory. You know, that's the only way he can under standard. You know, he has no way to conceptualize really outside of like

his incredibly petty foibles. It's very, very funny, and to that point, there's there's a really hilarious moment where you know that they've sort of told him that they're kidnapped, that he has been kidnapped, which happens after this kind of absurd uh. It kind of like Marxist debate over finger sandwiches, where you know, they're sitting across the room and he's he basically says, he's like, well, what happens

if I just tell everyone who you are? And it becomes very clear that these these Marxists have not even

considered this. This is the most poorly conceived plan. And so to your point, right, obviously, you know, there is at least some level of sympathy for these men because we see that they are from a certain perspective, they're sort of being ripped off, but they're so so sort of like so sort of incompetent and bumbling and as you said, greedy that they come off really as say, villains isn't quite the right term, because there is, you know,

a more villainous character who sort of serves as the ringleader. But they are they're painted much much more harshly than the clergy or you know, the normal Americans. You know, as we see one of the other kind of rising stars, you know, the character of of you know, Hobby Doyle, who is this sort of like you know, small town actual cowboy who's become you know, a lead in westerns and in a cheaper movie, you know, he would be the bumbling rube, the idiot, you know, the redneck. But

he's played very sympathetically, right. He is a character that you are supposed to feel for and the kind of you know, sinister homosexual Hollywood mafia is really the villain of this movie, which, to your point, is a very brave thing for Hollywood to say in twenty sixteen.

the Catholic priest are both going towards the theology. They're trying to argue about the details of the theology, and the rabbi gets involved with that and he says well, this is all nonsense. The Trinity is nonsense. Christ was not God. He says that, which is a really incredible thing to portray on screen just by itself, was a very courageous thing to do. To put that on screen.

And of course it's played for laps, which kind of diffuses the tension, which I think is necessary in order to present such a thing, but it's also so very valuable. The Orthodox bishop who is in this scene is obviously my favorite. That's my representation here. The Orthodox bishop, I think, is the one that takes it as seriously as it

needs to be taken. He is not arguing theological points it Curiously, Eddie Mannix, after interacting with the Catholic priest, the Catholic priest is trying to talk about the dual nature of Christ, that he's both completely God and completely Man, and this is Christian dogma. There's nothing controversial about saying this. Mannix is confused. Now he's observing Catholic but he's also

not very deep in the theology. So he says, so God is split, and the Catholic priest says, well, yes and no, which is also the Christian answer, that he's one being with two complete natures at the same time, which is kind of paradoxical, but that's the that's the doctrine of the trinity. The Orthodox bishop he references the Bible. He says, well, we have the Bible, you know, and and Mannix says, well, yeah, but we we have pictures too, and that's what we're doing here. And that's what I'm

getting your vice on. He's kind of try to refocus. The Orthodox bishop says, h, he says some mystical things. He says, well, God is who he is, and this this uh infuriates the rabbi. He says, you think that's special who isn't who he is? But his his take is entirely mystical. And and then the Mannix he asked them all, well, would any reasonable person object to our portrayal? And they all say no, No. I think I think

this is all fine. I think it's tastefully done. The Orthodox pre says, oh, I've seen worse, which is just a wonderful, uh sort of detached, h sort of approach, which I much appreciate. I think that he comes out of that maybe make maybe looking less serious than any of his comrades there, but from a certain perspective may

be more serious than all the rest of them put together. Now, when the Communists when they assembol with Whitlock after they've kidnapped him, of they they've employed the villain from Jurassic Park to drug Whitlock's wine in a movie scene. Did you notice that that actor?

in every scene. He sits down with these these communists and they say, oh, we're a we're a reading group, you know, And he goes, oh, what what are you talking about? And they say, we're talking about history and economics because it's the same thing, you know, don't you agree, And and they say, well, history is science of history is determined by materialistic formula, so we can explain everything that has happened and everything that will happen according to

our formula. So we know what the future will be. This is inevitable, and we are on the side of the future. And once they get into the discussion, we see the parallel emerge. Clooney is asking for clarification and he asks one of the communists, so man is split, and the communist says, yes, we have two classes. We've got the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and they're in conflict with one another. And we know the means to resolve this conflict. It's going to be, you know, the future utopia,

and it's going to solve the dialectic of history. And this is just all orthodox Marxism. But in the background of the meeting we have all these Communist members. They're all Hollywood writers. Uh, they're also all Amish, which is coincident here. Many of these are these are kind of minor Hollywood actors that as as is the case with

a lot of Cohen Brothers movies. They've they've appeared in other uh previous uh elements in their filmography, and a lot of those in the communist group had previously been in A Serious Man, which portrays this Amish community in Minnesota. So they're they're you know, ethnic actors, and they're portraying Communist subversives in Hollywood, and they and they brag that they've they've inserted their Marxist doctrine into their screenwriting. But

they're all personally personally vindictive. They want to loot the studios because they believe they deserve more. And this this comes out really clearly that there are several members of the group that are perpetually angry and they just randomly belt out things, screaming out there. They're exploiters, they deserve to be destroyed, and they're just randomly shouting in the background, and another character is constantly telling them to shut up.

It doesn't matter what one of these guys says, whatever he says, another character is always telling him to shut up.

And it's very funny, but we see that this this kind of faith is a belief that man is split into two distinct classes, into warring classes, and this explosans everything whereas the clergy are talking about the nature of God, that God is split, and this determines man's relation to God, so that God became man, and this is a kind of split in the divinity that we insist this is unity, this is the doctrine of the trinity, but that God is both completely man and completely God in the person

of Jesus Christ. So it's a complex theological dogma, but it's also a fig feature in the film, and we're invited to consider it, and that's really extraordinary. Now that this isn't a Christian film given its makers, but I think they were taking it seriously. They're presenting it fairly. One reading of the film, which I've encountered in the reviews is that this is all played cynically.

you know, period ballroom drama. You know, the other actors, the director, very proper trained British actors, and you know, while clearly he is a fish out of water, the relationship between him and the director, which is Lawrence Lawrence in the film, but I mean it's it seems to be sort of a pastiche of like Lawrence Olivier, is that the brid is acting horribly to him, you feel for him. And later, you know, he goes on this sort of studio arranged date with this other star and

we see him again acting very genuinely. He likes this girl. He is, you know, interacting with her in a very non cynical, non predatory way, and he is in fact that the man who you know returns George Gluney to the studio. He ends up rescuing him. And it would be very easy to play that character as a rube, to play him, you know, as an untalented moron. But you know, at this this date he goes on this woman.

This premiere, we see that he's actually a very talented musician, and obviously there is some dissonance because while he is singing this sort of beautiful song, there's the kind of stock you know, Prospector Pete character in the background, you know, fumbling around and you know, falling into the pig trough and we see the crowd laughing and he's looking around like, well, yeah, it's funny, but also, you know, I did I sang

this song. You know, it was an emotional moment. And you know, he is you know, sort of on the b plot for at least most of this. But again, this is normal small town American, you know, he's he is shown to be very naive, but he is a force for good in the film and is honestly better than pretty much any other actor on a moral level we see in this film.

this horse jumping over a vertical cliff or something. This is the kind of thing that they're they're portraying Hobby Daniels performing or Hobby Doyle performing. It doesn't require much in the way of dialogue. It's gunfights and horse races and stuff. But he gets he gets cast on on the sound stage and he's trying to adapt to it and as part of the comic element of the movie.

But it's one of the the subplots involved Scarlett Johansson is also in a subplot as a starlet who has unexpectedly come down pregnant and has no husband, and Mannix is trying to manage this for her, and that's and that's part of the comedy of it, and it also it also refocuses the theme of fantasy versus reality. Mannix goes and sees Scarlett Johansson. He says, have you thought about who you're going to marry? Because you got to marry somebody and this this speaks to the social norms

of the time. He says, well, we have to have you married to somebody because your your image is that of the innocent woman. But we can't have a single mother, you know, replace your Hollywood image. And she's compliant to some degree. They come up with this crazy scheme and such, but it ends up working out. I don't have to spoil it for you that that's one you should go and find for yourself.

We see these climactic moments and scene sort of subverted at the last minute. And when she's talking to Matt's on the side, she says, I just need a reliable man. You know. He goes through sort of comedically, the other figures she's been married to. You know, he's been married to a major mom mob figure, you know, a drug

addicted musician. And now she's been you know, gotten pregnant with another director probably and you know, at first they think, well, you know, we'll have this director, you know, marry her, only to find out that he is, in fact Mary. He has a wife back in Sweden. Obviously it's impossible, but scarletor Henson is not necessarily playing the most sympathetic character,

at least initially. But you see a very interesting inversion where when she is faced with or when she interacts with a genuinely reliable man, right, the most reliable man in Hollywood. We see her character change in a very interesting direction. And like I said, I won't spoil it. You should watch it. It's a fun film. It's one you can watch with your wife. Your wife will like

this film to you listener. But again, it's a moment where this movie is less cynical than it initially appears, and less cynical than many have read it to be.

give me more information. And she tells Mannix the people want the truth, and Mannix replies, people don't want the facts. They want to believe, again emphasizing faith. And we've got to have something worthy to believe in. And what is what is Hollywood offering? You know, it's it's Plato's cave. It's believing in believing that Baird Whitlock is an upright family man, which anyone that looks into the details of

his life is going to know. And he's not the same with Scarlett Johansson's she's not an innocent person the way that Mannix kind of casually says, well, that's your image, you know, that's what we've made you to be. You're an innocent woman. That's why everyone loves you. And then they absurdly talk about the sort of details of her personal life. But it's it's true. Nevertheless, people do want

something to believe. Richard Weaver, who is one of my favorite writers, a great Southern agrarian writer, he said, it's the raw stuff of life that is exactly what civilized people want and need to have refined. And we don't want the mere, undigested facts. We want something higher to believe in. We want to order these things, we want a system to have faith in. And this is the major conflict in the major groups we've encountered already in

the film, the Communists, the religious Christians. So the the plot comes to a head with the curious character Bert Gurney portrayed by that that flaky looking fellow. I guess he has a great profile. Is his name Channing Tatum? Is that his name?

of you know, Roger and a Hammerstein musical. And at first, it's from the film's perspective, played relatively straight double and tundra is intended, but as you get further and further through the musical number, it's it's a group of sailors singing about how they aren't going to see any women while they're out at sea, and then dancing getting more

and more comedically homo erotic. Uh, it's genuinely it's a hilarious and relatively subtle joke in the film, right, they never go out and say it, but it is sort of funny. The dissonance you see between this you know more and more kind of fabulous glee club style dance and then the very kind of like dour Norman Rockwell esque film director and also Josh Brolin's reaction. It's legitimately hilarious.

very well done as well well. Bert Gurney, the channing Tatum's character is actually the ringleader of the communists, and his house is the setting for the communist book reading group and uh Clooney's captivity. Uh Gurney returns to his house with the intention of defecting to the Soviets, and he's actually arranged for a Soviet nuclear submarine to come pick him up. It might not be a nuclear submarine, it's certainly a Soviet submarine, I believe it's it's a

minor role. And you don't never never see this guy, Dolf Gungrin, who is the he's the guy from the Rocky film. He portrays the Soviet superboxer.

they lose the ransom that they got for Whitlock. They're supposed to send it to the commentary and it's incredibly funny. There's multiple layers of jokes to this. One of them, which is kind of just a background joke, is that they have to row him out in this old timey row boat, and because they're all academics and writers, they have to wear gloves to row a boat one hundred yards, which is funny. They're also, despite being Communists, they don't

like they row in the most unsynchronized way possible. There's literally no coordination between them, which is a joke, but also Tatum's dog. Is Is it named Engles? I think, isn't it? Yes? Yes, his dog, his name is Ingles.

his little flufy dog. And then the dog breaks out, runs away, and Tatum, who's been at least to this point very you know austere, you know, kind of strong jawed, you know, flips his wrists out, catches the dog, and then the money drops into the ocean. And the last thing we see of this summarine is them walking in at just the sound of this barking dog get get quieter and quieter as they close the the you know, the hatch to the submarine. It's a very funny moment.

in the excluded middle will save Western liberalism. A possible allusion to James Burnham there, who Weaver was familiar with. The Soviets are very hard logical believers in a doctrine, and they believe that they're going to save the world, that this is going to Their success will mean the end of history, which means the end of conflict, the

end of war, the end of suffering and evil. It is an apocalyptic vision, the solution of all of history, and this inspires them to feats of sacrifice, courage, and the art that surrounds it, which has certain religious kinds of undertones. Of course, these are not people who believe in the spiritual world. They deny that this soul exists. You know, they're completely thoroughgoing materialists. But they're also messi and that that is part of the dichotomy here with

the two systems of belief presented in the film. The communist system, which uh isn't isn't given much serious treatment. I think they present orthodox Marxism more or less. It's it's very clear what these people are talking about, even though the dialogue is unfortunately short. I would have liked more in the communist reading group, but it's it's one of the one of these two systems presented here that are in conflict. Obviously, but Hollywood isn't isn't representing you know,

Christian belief or social norms. They're they're kind of representing it in spite of themselves. Well, we finally get to the the climactic scenes of the film, after the defection of Gurney. He gets on the submarine, he goes away. The communists are all rounded up by the police. Immediately after the cell is busted. Whitlock is returned by Hobie Doyle, who goes to the house in the nick of time, gets Whitlock out of there, and then Whitlock confronts or

Whitlock is confronted by Eddie Mannix. Whitlock mindlessly and he's just an absurd character with no ideas of his own. He is explaining Marxism to Mannix in his office and he says, oh, well, I found out you know how the world works, that history is science, that we know what's going to happen next. And all we're doing here is we're manufacturing lollipops for the masses, so the fat

cats can get rich and exploit the proletariat. And this is all this all amounts to what they used to call bread and circuses, just to distract the masses of people and to take their money. And in the midst of this, of this thoughtless stream of consciousness from Clooney, Josh Brolin gets up and starts slapping him across the face and says, I hear another word out of you on this nonsense. I'm going to have you arrested for

colluding in your own abduction. And Clooney, in the midst of his explanation, he says, we have this delusion that we're producing something of artistic value, or that there's some spiritual significance to what we're doing. And of course, the the implication here is the Marxist denial of the spiritual realm. They're completely materialist. Brolin gets up and then gives this

really interesting and spirited command to Clooning. He says, you're going to go and give your speech at the foot of the Cross, and you're going to believe every word you say. And then Brolin gives what I think amounts to another, you know, another sort of philosophical realism. He says, you're going to do it because you are an actor, and you do what you do just like the director does what he does. You do it because the picture has worth, and you have worth when you serve the picture.

Now go out there and be a star. And ultimately, is charge is you got to believe there's something bigger in life. It's more than money. It's more than the material world. It's not about the owner of the of the studio. It's not about the money that we make from the picture. It's about intrinsic worth that this is

actually something. Ultimately, we're trying to do something beautiful here, and it's only gonna be beautiful, it's only gonna be worthy if we believe, which is a wonderful comparison to what a worthwhile life looks like, that our actions have significance when we have faith in the ultimate meaning. And ironically, just before this scene with Mannix, we have this absurd little vignette of a man on the set of the Crucifixion.

They're getting ready, you know, to shoot this climactic scene in Hail Caesar, and the one of the Errand boys, he's distributing lunch to the set and he goes up to the actor who's all strapped to the cross, you know, and he's he's crucified on the cruss. You know, it's an incredible difficult position to hold, and who knows how long he's been there. They're obviously all exhausted because the star hasn't shown up yet. They're all just waiting for

the moment. And he goes up to the man portraying Jesus Christ, and he says, well, what kind of lunch do you have anyway? And he goes, oh, I don't know, you know, he's obviously very exhausted and in pain. And he says, well, are you a principle or are you an extra? And this is uh, this is ultimately, you know, this is obviously the major question of the whole film. It seems to me, the fact that it's put right right where it is to stick into our heads, you know,

the absurdity of it which makes us laugh. Is the man portraying Jesus Christ in this Hollywood epic is he a principal actor? Is he the point and the illusion, of course is the broader one. Is he the point of human life? Is he supposed to be the point of our lives? Or is he just an extra? And the actor says no, I'm a principle and goes, oh, okay, well you get the better lunch then, not that he

can eat it, you know, he's strapped to the cross. Well, then Clooney, after his meeting with Mannix, he shows up. He gives his speech. It's a you know, it's rather what you would expect from from a Hollywood piece of the of the day, but it it gives. It gives like basic Christian affirmation. A Roman legionary who has come into faith in Jesus Christ at the moment of his crucifixion, and George Clooney gives this this speech in front of the cross, and he says, Christ came to ease the

suffering of all men. He loves sinners. He knows all that I've done, and yet he loved me. That he is God revealed to us in this strange people, in this distant land, and we could see the truth of God if we had. And then he forgets his line, and of course the missing word faith. If we only had faith, then we could see the point of human existence. We would have the ultimate meaning that we can have

in our lives. And I think that if we interpret this straightforwardly, we see this as actually a very encouraging film, encouraging to people of faith. Though it is obviously a comedy and it makes us laugh. I think that it does what it does brilliantly. I think it's insightful, it's moreover entertaining, but it's getting at the most fundamental questions of life. And that's one of the reasons why I immediately enjoyed it when I saw it some years ago.

I guess it's ten years old, now, yeah, I was.

their movies. And honestly, this movie's not particularly well reviewed. It sort of has, you know, middling to low praise if you look at the critics, which you shouldn't. But I think it's quite a good film. I highly recommend it. And honestly, George, this has been a fascinating discussion. Thank you so much for coming on to discuss it.

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