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Welcome to the Projection booth. I'm your host. Mike White joined me once again as Miss Heather Draine.
Hello, Hello.
Also back in the booth is mister Chris Tashu.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here.
We continue our request month with one from Andrew Hendrickson. Kamikazi eighty nine or Kamakazi nineteen eighty nine per the film itself, directed by Wolf Graham of the film is the fifth adaptation of the same book by I'm sorry by my pronunciation. I'm sure it's not pronounced the way it's spelled per Walloo murder on the thirty first floor, with two of them coming out in nineteen eighty one,
the year prior to this one. Graham takes a very different tact, setting the film in the distant future of nineteen eighty nine. We will be ruining this film as we go along, so if you don't want anything spoiled, please turn off the podcast and come on back after you've seen the film, which used to be incredibly easy to find, possibly one of the easiest German films to find for a number of years. Heather, when was the first time you saw Kamikazi eighty nine and what did you think?
I'm Michael's eighty nine has been on my radar for years. I anybody who's into film, especially foreign film or even cult film, that image of Rayner Werner Faspender in leopard print like a teddy boy from hell a Sor I think it's even morely brothel creeper is icotic like that image? Allowed is okay? What is this? And I didn't get around to actually sitting down. I'm watching this film till this year. File under thank you Mike for making me get off my ass and watch a movie that's been
on my watch list for freaking ever. My initial impressions loved it, absolutely loved it. I had a good spidy sense that I would I don't know about you, guys. I feel like I'm pretty good about, like ninety percent of the time having a good feeling if something's gonna jail with me or not, and this one one hundred percent. It. I absolutely loved it. I'm looking forward to to hearing what you find, Chaps think about it.
And Chris about yourself.
First off, I'm actually a little bummed you didn't tell me who picked this movie, because Andy Hendrickson is a Patreon supporter of mine as well. Go Andy, so we got a little crossover action here. I also really enjoyed it. I think that there are plenty of things in this movie that we're going to talk about that what's the word we use, prescient or topical or like the fucking nightmare that we're living in now just in film form.
So there's some of that going on with this movie, which makes it a little bit more prescient and topical to use those words again than I was expecting it to be. I didn't read anything about it going into it. I knew nothing about it going into it. I just wanted to go in blind and I enjoyed it immensely. It's one of these movies that, to your point, Heather,
I feel like more people would enjoy it. More people should see it, and people that have been sleeping on it to watch it should do themselves a favor and check it out. Because the time and this is gun sound like a goddamn broken record by the end of this episode, I'm sure, but the times that we're living in now are not that far removed from what this movie and the per Wallou book talk about. We're not
too far off from that. Frankly, We're inching ever closer every day, and if that means more people stop listening to the stuff that we work on, because we, as weirding Way Media are part of the media, and we want a free and fair media to continue to be a thing, which is part of what this movie is
ultimately about. I think more people should educate themselves about because it's quickly and possibly becoming a reality a lot faster than I think anybody would like to hope, and anybody would even at least some of us would like to believe.
I enjoyed it.
There's a lot to talk about there's a lot to break down, and hey, what isn't like a good movie that you could double feature with Brazil?
Don't think me? Heather. Definitely thank Andy Hendrickson because he got me off on my ass to watch us as well. I've owned, oh gosh, I don't know how many copies of this movie I've owned over the years. I initially picked it up when there was a video store going out of business. I was very familiar with the cover art from working at video stores and going to video stores. Like I said, this one seemed to be everywhere for
a while, very easy to find. You couldn't really find too many Fastbender films when you were looking around, but you could find this which has him on the cover in this amazing What is it cheetah or leopard print that he's wearing?
It just is a animal print. Man, I love it. I want this fucking jacket so bad. I have a real affliction for these kinds of outfits that are really loud, and I want his jacket.
You got to get the matching pants now, Oh, I want all of it.
His outfit is every single character's outfit in this movie is absolutely insane, especially the gentleman that you essentially meet five minutes into the movie with his green jacket is long green jacket. Oh my god, it's just everybody is just to the nines in this movie. The outfits are off the chain.
I owned this for a while. I think I even owned it on DVD, and now a new blu ray is out from Film Movement. I picked that up. It's a documentary by Wolfcram who was the director of this. He also acted in Quarel, and you could see a whole bunch of behind the scenes footage from both Querrel as well as this. But what would have motivated me to watch this sooner? I didn't realize that this was based on a Pervallu book and so Wilo he and
his partner MJ. Showwall. However you pronounce this stuff, I'm so sorry, and I even I tried watching interviews and trying to listen to see how people are actually pronouncing these names, but a lot of them weren't in English, and the subtitles weren't necessarily that good. And then even with the English ones, it was like, oh, yeah, you know who this is, We're just never going to say the person's name. I'm like, fuck you very much. But anyway, I love that.
I love it when that shit happen.
Yeah, thanks so much.
So.
They were the two who created the character of Martin Beck, and Martin Beck is the central character in a film that I absolutely loved, the laughing policeman, and the Martin Beck character was around for years and years. This is just the state of foreign noir and detective novels, and almost all of these Becks have been translated into English. I wasn't that familiar with Inspector Jensen, which was Wa Lou's solo character. Apparently he was supposed to write three
he only wrote two. But this Jensen character is very interesting because he's such a curmudgeon and I really think that they capture that pretty well in this, especially him picking on his partner Anton played by Gunther Kaufman, and he's always on him about no superfluous.
This no superfluous that I'm gonna start using that in my daily life. Get to the fucking point.
And those are lines right from the book, cut to the fucking chase. I don't need to hear it at one point in the book, like some guy's joking around or something. It's just oh, just so you know, I'm going to report you for this.
He just he is so like, buy the book.
It's amazing. But I would say, and Chris, it sounds like you've read the book. Correct me if I'm wrong, But this is a pretty faithful adaptation.
Yeah.
Again, that's what it seemed like to me anyways. And again, obviously with something like literature, our own minds are going to fill in some of the gaps that the author intentionally leaves open for the audience to do. Look, that's what Jadie Salinger always complained about with adaptations of Catcher and the Rise. I don't want any one film version of this to usurp the way I wrote the book, and I want the reader to have And for me,
I would agree with that sentiment. But at the same time, this is a really close and well done adaptation of
the book and I appreciate that as well. To your point about him being a curmudgeon, and this might be jumping ahead at bit, jo Nezbo has mentioned multiple times that Berwalloo's works are an inspiration for him, which Harry Hula, his detective in his books, is a drunken curmudgeon, just the same way that Jansen is in this kind of curmudgeony dick doing his job and he's good at it, but he's also dealing with a substance abuse and substance addiction,
and I really appreciate that influence here. But I also appreciate, like to your point, that they don't really deviate too far from an already well done book, and that it might sound like I think people don't do all the time, but there are plenty of things that are great that then they just adapt it and it's awful. This is a great adaptation, frankly, a really great adaptation as far as I'm concerned.
The thing with Jensen that I like is that he's not really addicted to anything, but he has all of this intestinal distress, and you get a little bit of that in here. They talk about a drug called Narton I think it is, and he puts it in some water and drinks that up, and it's very similar to how Jensen is constantly taking.
Like a biki car rioshi as the Italians would call it, some sodium biicarbs, some alca seltzer and then you so.
You have that whole basis and you've got a lot of the same characters, You've got a lot of the same plot points. I would say a fairly simple story at heart, because it's basically someone sends a letter to In the book, it's a magazine conglomerate, and they say there's a bomb in the building. It's going to go off at two o'clock and Jensen gets called in. He tries to evacuate the building. The person that is running the business is a complete dickhead and doesn't want anybody
to leave. He's just like, it's going to cost us so much money. We've got forty four thousand people here. It's going to take forever to do. This isn't going to work. He eventually gets stocked into evacuating the building, and of course the bomb doesn't go off, and then it becomes the Jensen's responsibility, thanks to his jerk of a boss, to go out and find who sent this letter and prevent anything else from happening. And then it just is a very detective novel. Him going around and
he tries, when was the letter mailed? Can we figure out where it was mailed from? How is this letter made? Because it's one of those ransom type notes where you get all the letters cut out all we figured out what the paper is. The paper's this very specific paper and it is only given out as a diploma quote unquote, which is a great word for a diploma for people
who have been fired from this company. So then he has to go around to all of the people that have been fired and try to figure out what their story is and how much did they hate the company and are they capable of doing this? And meanwhile he has his boss, the police captain, who's just what are you doing. You got to hurry up, You've got seven days to solve this, very arbitrary puts a seven day limit onto him. You got to hurry up and do this. And after a while, it feels like everybody is trying
to make him stop investigating, even his boss. His boss is like, oh, we have a confession, don't bother with this anymore, and he's like, no, I'm going to buy He breaks a confession super easily and then just keeps going.
On with his job.
That's this movie. Then you add this whole level of science fiction to it and put it in this dystopian utopia where it's it's like, oh, there's no pollutions, there's no that there's no suicide anymore, and they really make a point of that no one commits suicide, whereas I don't know if it was a thing when this book was written that there were a lot of suicides. I've seen the seventies people, the Peter Watkins film where they're talking about how rampant suicide is in some of these
Nordic countries. Okay, I think this is all being completely glossed over. And even that opening narration that you get in Kamikazi eighty nine where there's no pollution, everything's green, everything's so good. I'm like, yeah, I'm really not buying this, especially when you get that audio affected the voice where it's just it feels so evil and feels so big brother.
And that's the thing for me that I appreciate is that it just gets right into it immediately. It's yeah, there are no suicides. They're called unusual daths.
Oh premature. I don't premature. And that's always the whole thing of George Carlin saying soft language makes soft people, and we currently have I know there are content creators on YouTube who can't say suicide. You have to say un alive. I can't think of anything more offensive to somebody who's actually either had suicidal ideations or know somebody who's committed suicide to be like, oh, we don't like to use that word. This is offensive, that's offensive. It's
just this. No, this doesn't exist like the weather forecasts or even like oh, bright blue Skies Dale song Dane song enis. Meanwhile, it's like gray and shitty out every day.
I think Gray and Shitty Outside was Depeche Mode's third or fourth album, was the one after Black Celebration. Okay, we underrated EP by them. I love loved Alan Wilder Synth work on that one. I love how to your point though, Heather, how gray and shitty the movie does
look because it works. Again, like to say Brazil or even like a Blade Runner, this feels so I do not to give Ridley Scott a lot of credit, but or or I would give Terry Gilliam Moore credit frankly for Brazil getting to evoke this kind of feeling and time in a place we see it now that there's a lot of directors who think it takes a lot to do that, when in reality it's actually less is more and all you have to do is just shoot in Eastern Europe somewhere. That's what all those and I
know this is going to seem like a stretch. A lot of those VOD movies now all look like these movies that came in the seventies and eighties that were being shot in Eastern Europe. A lot of those late Bruce Willis Segaal, John Claudevan Damn movies while being shot in Romania and Eastern Europe or something like. This is again ostensibly theoretically, we're trying to evoke that time and place. I love how not that they don't do a lot, but how little it seems like they have to do
to get the feeling and time and space evoked. Very I think again, just about as well done as Brazil, which I know a lot of production went into that. I'm not saying a lot of production didn't go into this, but this seems like it just it's in the world already and they didn't really have to create much, if that makes sense.
They do that Alphaville thing where it's in the future, but they're not making it. There's a couple of futuristic things in here, but they're not relying so much on science fiction and special effects. I would say it's very similar to what Fastpender was doing with his own world on a wire type thing, where it's okay, we're gonna
shoot this with a ton of mirrors or something. But in this one, the production values are over the moon because they're using disused factories and everything just looks like shit. So many of these places they all look completely run down. You think of that final image of Fastpender in that office area and just all the peeling paint that's everywhere, and just everything looks so run down.
I think the thing that impressed me with how things frame too is particularly between Wolfgrem's direction, but also the cinematography is the way through angles and perspective they are able to make the combine, which is this huge building that we're given to believe hit house, multiple TV studios, an arena at one one do we see like a large arena, And he does such agree job of making it seem on one hand, completely like a labyrinth, like
it almost never ends, and yet also completely and utterly claustrophobic.
And I wonder with them calling it the combine, if that's they I know what a combine is. And of course there's the farm equipment, the combine, and there's other combines, but I kept thinking of One Flu of the Cuckoo's Nest, the actual book of One Flu of the Cuckoo's Nest, where Keisy is talking about this kind of epic machine that is just coming and running over everybody and just
chopping everybody up into bits kind of thing. It's almost like Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock or something where it's just like there's a machine that controls everything, that sees everything, and the combine works in combination with the Big Nurse from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. She's almost like
the agent of the combine. And I was just like, yeah, that kind of feels like this where it's just one media conglomerate that runs over everything and they try to control the whole message and the thing that I love that they really make it more apparent in the book for me. But we'll talk about what they do with
the TV stuff here. But in the book they're talking about all of these magazines that are being run and I guess maybe that's why I was thinking of The Big Clock as well, all of these magazines that are being run by this company, and they're all completely vapid and insipid and just all about good news, and if you try to write anything that's real, it just immediately gets axed. I think, speaking of suicide, somebody wrote a report about suicide, try to submit it as a story.
And he's one of the guys that got fired. And we'll talk more about some of the what's actually on the thirty first floor as we go along, But yeah, this whole idea of them running this TV station and the only thing you really see is the laughing contest where it's just people on TV louing.
Holy fuck, it's like a true dystopian fucking nightmare right there, folks. It looks so bananas and I was I can be like, this is like torture. This is literally if you were forced to watch this, you would go insane. It just it is maddening anytime they show clips of it. And of course you get a lot of the great stylistic design where we especially keep seeing like one lady in particular, who's got like this great hat and she's got this great just almost like a RICTI scrint.
Is that quite technically, but it's one inch away from being like a ricta scrint and then later on the Little.
Girl that's where it's really upsetting. But hey, it's the future, folks, and she's the.
One who's gonna break the world record. Apparently.
I love Jensen and see I'm going into this. I have not read the book, but for anybody listening to this, you don't need to. I don't think you need to read the book necessarily.
No, I don't think so either.
This film is it stands alone on its own brilliantly. And Chanson is such a cool character because he's like a great mixed Fastpender just visually. To me, it's always such a cool looking guy, such an interesting guy.
Would you say Kinski and Heather No, because.
I don't think Fastpender. I would trust him with the house plant. I love Klauskinski as an actor, but as a human. Yeah, the fish stops swimming, it becomes to the house if you know what I'm saying. Best Manders And he's great as an actor here too, because I've seen more of this work as a director, to be honest, and I am as an actor, but which I want to rectify that, especially after this, because he's not supernaturally cool though because I think the thing is in America.
And this kind of actually ties into a discussion Mike that you and I had with Jessica Shiers earlier this week on Franco's Dantown, because we got a detective character in that who was very much an every an, average man and every man in a way. Janson's not quite that. He does have this Stirling track record, but there's a haggardness about him. I'm not even talking physically. There's just something in his gait in a way. He knows all of this is bullshit, but he but he knows better
than to say it out loud. It's like when Anton makes it I love Anton too, Oh my god, his interplay with Anton, Oh my god, so great. But Anton really apt leaves. You're basically saying, wow, the state bans alcohol, but then creates a world that drives people to drink, and then we basically beat them for it. And immediately Jansen's just don't say it. Don't ever say that out loud again. And you could tell he's not trying to be like a dick, like he's drank.
The crew laid.
It's almost more just you got to cover your ass.
It is what it is.
If you want to make it in this world, Anton, you better not say this stuff. You better keep it on lock like me, because you'll never get anywhere other than maybe thrown in a looney bin or something.
Early Unexpected Exodus. Ooh, that would be a great prog album, Unexpected to exit it.
I did notice that Chrismo Papas is a banned out of Germany now, so they must have taken the name from this.
Yeah.
Hell, that's a great name. Oh now, speaking of.
The book, that stuff was not in here, the Blue Panther, the Chrismo Pappas. No, no, I totally agree with you, Heather. You do not need to read the book for this because it is a self contained world in this movie. Well, I just want to bring that aspect to it of what the book had versus.
This, because oh, absolutely, yeah, this is I absolutely think that this movie really sets up a world and sets up the look and feel of things.
Even if you look at Jensen's car and he's got like the leopard print across the fucking dashboard and it's in the back, I'm just like he is on brand with all this.
I love the leopard print so much. I really think that for me. As much as I enjoy the movie itself, the production design of the movie and the costume design is just it's so unique and weird and strange, and it is that weird. It's not futurism, but I would say almost retro futurism in a way. We have this again, the juxtaposition of advanced civilization. But yet people are still like, I don't know, driving cars because again it's something like
Blade Runner. There's no cars, right, It's just it's the floating taxi. So I guess the floating cars as it were. And then in Brazil are there cars in Brazil? Do we ever see people driving around in cars?
At least in the one cut they take that truck and go out of town to the beautiful countryside. But they sure the big fucking trucks those too, like the big industrial type things. But yeah, you're right, I'm trying to think of the car situation. It feels like he gets round in a little car.
With that futurism, you have them using cars phones that have like keypads on them, still like CRT TVs. So I like that juxtaposition because it makes it feel similarly to someone like George Lucas. It makes the world feel genuinely lived in a way that, again it's hard to do, not intentionally, but it's hard to do on a budget
that this movie was operating on. For all of the great quality acting, I think everything else is matched by the production design and the writing obviously, but the production design I can't say enough good things about, because every time you meet a new character or you go into a new scene, there's something else to look at, there's something else to notice. And I appreciate that about the film and the filmmakers and even the book itself, because again, while the book may not be one to one, a
lot of this stuff does come from the book. Yeah.
And where it doesn't come from the book, I think they just add such a great flavor to it, things like how he's wearing the camera ring the eye of the Tiger, or it reminds me of Mark Singer's ring from a beast Master?
Was it Mark Singer?
It was?
Which ring I'm talking about from beast Master where they eventually put the poker in there and blind the witches from seeing what's going on.
When you say beast Master, my brain immediately goes to Ferret's rip torn in that order. But yeah, No, I loved that ring and the fact that he's got like a well it's not quite.
A bolo tie, no, but it's like it's not a cravat either, No, but.
He's got a sort of a permutated bolo TIChE what's af fixing it is like another sort of like type tiger eye, which tiger is this stone is often used for protection. I don't know if that was going into that, but that's something cold as an aside, and it kind of adds toutely and Chris, I love the fact that you brought up sort of the tech because I think sometimes when people do science fiction they get too lost
in the weeds. I mean, like everything has to be high tech and it's but that's not always reality, is it. And to be honest, if you're focusing so much on tech and not so much on the human story, because humans are the same like we That's why we keep rereading history unfortunately, but humanity doesn't ever really change that much. And this story in this world definitely conveys all of that.
And there is a great stylization though to the fashion, and it is a great mix of we have Jansen who is very much like a teddy boy, which actually quick another aside about teddy boys, because there's that great club that we see in the film, and the last time we see in the club, there are people in the back dancing, and I swear to god they're doing that weird teddy boy dance that you see in Tommy. Anybody ever seen Kid Russell's Tommy You know what I'm
talking about. And my husband actually writer me that if you watch the Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park that was like the memorial for Brian Jones, there are Hell's Angels doing that same dance and I'm like, oh my god. kN Russell probably though that and so connective tissue. Janssen has an old slot machine where he hides his booze. He's got the astronaut imagery. He has these tathers to the past, and he's surrounded by people that are dressed
in this very much. I love your term, Chris, like retro futurist kind of style, where it's very much more like Neon cutlers. Bright colors that clash together, patterns that clash together at times, sort of angular clothing for some of the particularly some of the people in the clubs and also which we'll get to her, I'm sure in a bit Barbara the ex hostess of the cop of
one of the Combine's top TV shows. And yeah, and but we see her those great angular glasses that are very eighties style, commerced a bit like what we see Christopher Lee down in the club scene and haling to she's got that is she also the one.
With the shoulder pads where she looks like a football player.
Yes, that outfit is amazing.
That is the greatest outfit in the film. And this is a movie that has a guy in a leopard suit the entire movie. Yeah, that outfit in particular, in my notes, I was just like, what the fuck Tennessee Titans outfit is this? She looks like she could be a Tennessee Titans player or cheerleader or both because it's blue and white. But then the pink shower cap with the flowers on it, for me, is really the set the production design that sets it right over the top.
Everything in this is just stylized. We just keep coming back to the term stylized. And I love how stylized this movie is because and there's other things like it, But there's nothing really specifically like this, which is really fun. That makes us a really fun movie.
Yeah, and that whole shower cap or shower cup like that swimming cap thing is totally like such a to me in nineteen fifties figging.
Like, yeah, another kind of anachronism, really, oh totally.
Even her home design is very like mid century like, very like mid like late fifties to late sixties design, which I don't even know if that was that common of a design in Germany, then I always think of that design more being very American. But of course maybe it's because I'm American. I don't know. Don't nobody judge us and judge me? Like, Okay, our schooling system in this country has a lot of fatures. We're doing our best, Okay, what's left of it?
Heather, Just wait till your friend Vince McMahon's wife gets douned.
It's the wife of former Disgrace CEO and founder Vince McMahon. Just to make sure nobody forgets that he's a disgraced piece of dog shit allegedly. But that's the thing about this movie, right, not to get real for a moment. On the movie podcast, Folks, but let's get real for a moment. The point of this movie is what we are dealing with now, which is the utter and complete erasure of ideas as they exist completely. We are being told that things are not existing when we know that
they exist. We are being told sometimes that the sky is green when it's clearly fucking blue. And there are people now that Again I'm not making broad generalizations about anything. There are people that believe things now that are so out there that to even bring it up and give it credence. I'm not saying we should stop people from having conversations, but sometimes even the things that we're talking about,
if you're believing it seriously, that's fine. But the total erasure of ideas is not okay for me for the most part at all. And this movie literally cuts to that idea completely because they live in a society where what you are told every day is what you are expected to believe, which I don't know how we haven't mentioned it up until this point, but nineteen eighty four, anybody, that's the other big point of influence with this, right, it's a huge point of influence here.
Clearly, Yeah, news speak would be all about unexpected exodus.
Unusual deaths, and you can think Arbik further before or Well. This is pretty much considered a proto in nineteen eighty four. But there's a Soviet author by the name of Eugene Samyatin who wrote the book We, which I do highly encourage. Maybe I don't read it right now if you're in this country.
There's a lot of things I wouldn't suggest people read right now.
It is a brilliant work of dystopian science struction and definitely has a lot of I wouldn't say that Orwell ripped it off like Orwell's great a lot nite day four, But there's some parallels. Certainly there's some again connective tissue. I think though, that's why it's so important to watch
movies like this and actually this is souf fake. As I think about some of the science fiction films that stay with me the most are the ones like this that really have a humanity to the story, that it's really this is us now, guys, and this has always been us too. We have always historically as a species had to battle. Hey, here's some breads and circuses. Don't worry while we oppress you, while we economically oppress you while we physically approached you, while we et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. But this is the vitality of art, and this is the vitality of films like Comic Cozat nine, because it's able to not only remind us of that because we're like that, We're like the mouse that keeps getting shocked trying to get that cheese. We keep having to relearn the lesson, and that that's why art is so important to have, because that's a great way for us to be reminded of that without having to put our hand in the fire. Do we need to relearn the lesson?
Or do the people that have never learned the lesson to begin with need to learn the lesson for the first time. I think that's probably the I mean the collective when I say we have the species.
I'm not talking about individuals here, but yeah, I know I'm trying not to be thrown in with everybody else though, But I've heard mass graves are quite cold and frigid this time of year. I can't segue from that, but I can't segue from American culture and how it does pop up in this belt because you have the whole comic book, which I mean, obviously underground comics have been a great way to attack oppressor's attack the status quo.
People are doing that in Europe in a seventeen hundreds and having pornographic drawings of a various royalty just to be a way to undercut them. But I love seeing that here, and I love also there's this weird invocation of comic book culture, particularly the Blue Panther character of the fact that his weirdo nephew is his nephew, because please guys, if I'm misremembering that's please tell me is isn't it you? The one that keeps going? At one point, baby like that when we person met.
Him, baby, oh babe, what the fuck is going on here?
Is he pop?
Like?
What really hit him? Hard? Oh?
Man? He needs to share? But he's got like the Superman phone. And then later on we see another character who is like a landlord who we find out actually has some ties to the underground comic about chrismal popos, but ended up getting bought out and sold his soul, and the he learns that I sold my soul on time ago, which that's a heavy statement. That's the shit that I think haunts me is characters like that. It's not so much okay people that basically barely had a
soul to sell. You definitely don't get any sense of real conflicted humanity from the head of the combine or his weirdo nephew or any of their sort of people adjacent, But you do get that from that guy, and it's godly. How do you got just think you gave that journey to going from somebody who was really trying to fight the good fight to being like, fuck it.
The person that sold his soul was that wis.
No the guy with the paint cowboy hat and the diegg Yes, that's right, and he's in a hammock reading. He's like, well, we finally Jansen gets to truly confront him because when he first meets and the guy just shrugs, mop and he's Ohlana because there's that whole character of Elena Farr, who's this model that Chanson's trying to research because obviously she's tied to this somehow, and he's just, oh,
she doesn't live here anymore, but nobody goes back. The guy's in a hammock and he's reading a Superman comic and the.
Car that chases after them on the highway at one point is papered with comic Oh geez yeah covered in it, and I think there's even I forget exactly who it is, but there's a female superhero on the windshield of the car. Even to your point, whether the American culture is there, which kind of again comes back to this like a nack weird, kind of anachronistic feel that this movie has at times where it's like, if this is the future,
what a weird future this must be. Again, I'm sure people one hundred years ago from now might look at us and be like, that was a weird future. People had computers and cars and tablets. Like again, like there's some of that here. But yeah, the superhero stuff, I
think it's interesting. But again to your point, like it does make it goes back to the comic book underground comic book feel and kind of message of the movie, because the message of the movie is pretty subversive, right, I would think at least anyway at least for good, common, polite society.
Going back to the way that stuff looks in this film. I love the use of neon. I think this is one of the best uses of neon I've seen, even when they're doing the evacuation of the building and you've got the different colored neon numbers and then the same color for the piping around there and stuff. And then when he goes to there's like a medical clinic that
has a huge needle that's made out of neon. And then when he goes to the police, which is right next door to the sixteenth Precinct where he works, and that's got another great neon sign, and their whole thing of the thumbs up for the police, and I love how they've got that guy standing outside of the building just with this thumbs up welcoming people there. It's almost like a salute. And when they're like, oh, who are you, and he's on a company opens up that great leopard
jacket and there's a thumbs up inside of there. This is so strange, but I love it. This world is wonderful.
Some of the police, the people who work at the station that thumbs up, theyre dressed like medicals. There almost a high fashion medical staff, more so than what we think because there's not even really a uniform for any of the actual officers, which is cool.
I do like that.
I like the fact that the Chief is basically we never really see him in person. Yeah.
He reminds me of the Donald Pleasants character from Mister Freedom, where he just will show up on a screen and be like, you know, here's what you do today.
Yes, that would be a great double bill.
There you go.
Yeah, I really think so, especially with all that jingoism of Mister Freedom.
Yeah. Yeah, o oh, God blessed William Klein. And the Chief being so frail because even when we do see him on the screen, he's always got that nurse with him. Is he gonna be okay? And the answer is no. But spoiler, spoiler for a film that came out in the eighty two, Like anybody I know, we have to say spoilers I had, but really, people, my gosh, come on, But if a film's old enough to vote, don't worry
about it. And the fact that it doesn't feel like a trope in this film, because there is that whole trope that we have in this country of you're a wild card, but you're the guy we need for the job, and the Chief's always mad at him and always cussing, and we have it. But this film doesn't play it quite like that. There's nothing in this film that's played as how you would expect it, and I always love that, and that's something I always really treasure in any film
I see. Please, don't give me what you think I want, give me what you want, give me the story that you want to tell. And plusly, Chance's a character the Gray Fassbender portrays him. He's the definition of still waters run deep.
And I was really glad to watch that little documentary, the Wolfgram documentary about the making of this in Quarel, and he's talking right at the beginnings. People told me not to work with him. People told me not to have Rainer in my film because he's a fellow director and he's just going to question everything and he's going to be a total pain in the ass. But he was completely the opposite. He was curious, he was polite, he asked questions, he was on time. That's the thing.
I don't know that much about Fastbender, but I know that he's temperamental. That's one of the few things that I've heard about him as a person. And what a weird thing too, Sar, This is a complete tangent. What a weird fucking thing too, To have the American ad campaign for this. Be another director to have Fucking John Cassavetti's be the guy who's recording all these radio spots and acting like a complete nut job. Fossin Fastpinda. Who is this guy with the leopard suits and the leopard.
He's a detective in his self's madness. Kamikazi eighty nine starring Fospinda.
He's got the leopard suit, Rabo. He just keeps saying that in these spots. I'm so glad that those radio ads are on the Blu ray of this because they are something. And there's a YouTube video out there of like all six of them I think he recorded, or it's just one after the other, and it's just cassavettis going absolutely batshit in these things.
John Cassavetti's is clearly the hype man that you want in your corner for great near fosspenders outrageous final role. What does that mean to Americans in nineteen eighty two? Hey, you know what, you have the guy credit for being enthusiastic. At least he's he's that guys, go sell ice to the Eskimos. All right, I'll do it, all right, Hey, at least you got the right guy for it. But Cassavetti's just, hey, he must be. He's a fan of
Foss Spender. Clearly, Cassavetti's pretty in tune, in touch director at his own right, so I would think he's probably familiar with his work.
That's the thing. John Cassavetti's like I needed any more reasons to love him, because I already love him because he's a fucking brilliant ow tour and I really think he was the real deal. But he was the guy to put his money where his mouth because of course, as you guys now, I mean massive Timothy Carrey fan, and just even saying his name, I'm like, oh, but
that's the thing. John gave him money for his film projects, and every film like the most conventional thing Timothy carry ever made was the world's greatest and if you know anything about that film is not conventional. But that's the thing, Like he really I think as Vive's a guy that truly loved He was an underdog. He loved the underdog.
He loved real.
Centim and I when I say uls to mountain, I'm not saying that in a potentially one has to be or house no bullshit.
Sent them up.
Filmmakers making the stories they want to make, making the films they want to make, not just hey, how is this going to do a test audiences? None of that bullshit. We were talking the real deal.
A woman under the Influence. One might say that movie was a fucking rough watch, but it's a rough watch because Peter Falk and John Cassavetti's and Gina Rowland's, like all of them just doing exactly what you just said, being artists. And that's we talk about Peter Falk on the Columbo podcast all the time, just being a fucking
stick in the mud. And look, I have not gotten to the level of success that I can do that, and I am glad that there are people out there in the world that do when they came, because there's good behind that with people being like a legit, like you said, Heather, the genuine, real deal and Fastpender is in that same camp of this. He's just a guy doing his own thing and fuck it, it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. And I appreciate and respect that.
And clearly Cassavetti's game recognizes game, as they would say, Hell.
Yeah, real recognized is real if only Cassavettis was still alive to criticize that horrible Blu Ray art for Corral from Criterion Collection. I'm sorry. I know this is maybe not the time of place, but I hate that art so much. I want that Blue Ray because I love that movie and my copy of it is old and needs upgraded. Wait, oh my god, I can't with that art. I'll buy it eventually, But what's worse is that it's actually not AI art.
I've read an interview with the guy who did that. That's his style of doing art, but it looks just like AI.
Art one thousand percent. And now I feel bad that I hate criticizing other art like I love Chris Is saying, don't not the yung. Yes, I don't want to do that, but I'm let's just say, out of fear of that art. And I know that they were trying to go for a Toma Finland thing, which I get.
I totally get.
I love tom of Finland. I love Toma Finland when it doesn't look like AI.
Right, Yeah, the skin looks so plastic and.
He's got these huge titties.
Yeah, I need to get that on a soundboard. He's got huge titties, Heather just saying I've.
Said so many things on the shower over the years that I'm like, I'll never This is one of the many reasons why everybody's hate Criterion. You should get that Heather drained. They're like, oh the titties you.
Mean Yosemite Sam with titties aka from.
Yeah Girls work. Hey, I got the show quoted on the onion av love with that one. That will be on my fucking grave at Yo City's here with titties.
What got me on the Cassavetti thing was just the fellow, not only fellow director, fellow actor director. I tend to think of Cassavetties more of an actor. Now, Fastbender did act in some of his movies. Acting in other people's movies, I don't think was his regular bag. So it was pretty nice that he did this for Gream and then he's so fucking good.
He is so good.
Of course all the refrain from unnecessary comment lines that he just tosses off. But like the when he goes back to the building, to the Combine building and there's the dead body of the woman and there's a person out there who's just like, oh, yeah, suicide and he's suicide. That'd be the first suicide we've had in four years. She's I meant premature death and he's yeah, it's a good thing you remembered that. I'm like, whoa. And he's
got that menace in his look. He does a really good job with that.
He's so good about paying attention to all the details in a really nice, sort of subtle way. Because with that scene, I love how he takes her hand and that she's clutching a button and there's not a big to do. Ahai revealed that pays off, but it's a touch. It's a nice clue that it's, yeah, this suicide, my ass, this was yeah, premature deaf my ass as well. All the moves he makes are so smart as an actor here and on top of just being somebody who has
a physical presence that's compelling. On top of that, because he's just got that aura, you can definitely see why, even for having a temperamental reputation, he had people that acted with him so many films, and if you're just a stone cold butthole with no charisma, you're not going to get great actors to continually work quickly.
You do on the same people behind the camera in front of the camera. How many times did Michael Ballhause work with him?
So many?
Yeah, yeah, exactly had a shula And they say this film.
Are beloved a ton un for Kaufman.
I love him, yes, and he's so great in US. Oh my god, Anton is Anton the chaotic good in this film. I love him so much and I love that he looks like an ice cream man.
The vertical red and white pin striped suit. But it's not pin stripes like fat thick stripes. Oh my god, I want that suit so badly, especially the hat.
He's even got the hat.
Hat is everything. That's the Hat's say, it's about the hat. We all know the power comes from the hat on top of his head. He's such just the whipping boy for Fastbender though. That's the only problem, right Fastpender is just a dick. But that's okay because he's our dick and that's fine.
That's the way he is. He plays that role so well. You can play detectives in so many different ways, especially somebody like this who is burnt out. He does have the stomach problems. You know, he is drinking the Bromo all that kind of stuff, but it's yeah, he's very consistent.
And that's one thing I like about this role as well, is that you know what you're getting from this character, and it's just surprising how he is able to be that consistent and be that cold and you care about this character even though he is a dick to so many people, including our beloved Gunther.
And I mentioned at the opening of this podcast Jo Nezbo's work, and if anyone enjoyed this movie, I wouldn't code check out the Snowman movie. That movie is a fucking nightmare. They're sweet Jesus, that movie is bad. As an actor in it whose name sounds oddly similar to Michael Fassbender who's playing the Harry Foulay character, which is essentially the yez Bo detective equivalent of Jansen, and they're
very similar. It's not a sci fi thing. There's not the sci fi trappings of the dystopian world around it, which sets this apart from most things. Harry Hula is more of just a Nordic detective. It reminds me more of steg Larsen, who was doing like the Millennium series with Lizabeth Salander. It's more kind of in that direction in terms of the themes that it's dealing with. But the character of Jansen and Harry Hula are very similar. And it even says it on Wikipedia like this is
Nordic Noir, which would inspire jo Nezvo. I was putting that together before I read that on Wikipedia, because again, just the way he's painted as this really curmudgeeny detective for anyone who has not checked him out, that Harry
Hula character is books. He's either an alcoholic or a recovering alcoholic, but he's always a curmudgeon and he's always perturbed constantly, which plays into the character which is completely lost in the movie version of it, which is a shame because I hope they adapt it again at some point because it could be a really well done detective story that a lot of people would resonate with because of just the way the main character is painted almost
Bosh in a way, because Bosh is a little curmudgeony sticks to his guns, and Titus Welover does a really good job of that. I'm a huge fan of detective stories, so I could continue talking as I know I'm sure three of us are fans of detective story, so I really resonated with the detective story part of this movie as well, especially the Nordic noir of it all as it's being called or coined.
I definitely was getting a lot of Millennium Series while I was reading the book more than watching the movie. I think it might have been because of the magazine aspect of this. And we should probably talk about the thirty first floor and the differences between the book and the movie of this. As far as what is on the thirty first floor. I don't think you ever get to see the thirty first floor. You just know that
it's there. And in the book you eventually find out from the guy who sent the note threatening the bomb that there was. He's the one who set us up the bomb. He tells about all of those insipid rags that I was talking about where you couldn't say what the truth is, where it's just placating people. He and a whole bunch of other incredibly smart and just on the cutting edge and coming up with all of these great social theories and on point when it comes to diagnosing the ills.
Of our world.
They were being placated by the people that run the magazine conglomerate. Hey, we really think that you're doing a great job. We really want to hear your voices, So we're going to dedicate a whole magazine to you so that you can come up with all of these great
things and put these things out. And they come up with this weird pay structure so that basically they keep not putting out the magazine, or they'll do a very limited print run and everybody gets a copy, but they're not allowed to take it out of the building, and by doing that, they owe the company money every single time a magazine comes out, so they keep getting more and more in debt, right, and no one ever reads what they write, and they're writing all these wonderful things
and trying to help society. But the magazine itself is just like, you know, we're keeping you under our thumb. You're up here on the thirty first floor, basically locked in a supply closet. Almost it feels very much like you have to go up a special staircase to get up there, and you guys stay up.
There, you do your thing.
And we're going to even say this building has thirty floors. We're not even going to talk about the thirty first floor.
I love that idea of having this ominous presence that they keep mentioning. Have you heard of the thirty first floor? It's that kind of thing where it's there's this one big big brother in nineteen eighty four, right big brother, or or in something that has a really poor finale but feels similar to this anachronistically the prisoner again, who is number one? That's the question that's asked throughout that entire show, and in this it's similar, what is the
thirty first floor? What is that? Where can we assume the thirty first floor is? Okay, it's the thirty first floor of this building. Outside of that, nobody can get a straight answer as to what exactly is going on. And to your point, when we figure out what it is, it's so dastardly that if it weren't so awful, you'd
applaud them for being so clever. But it's so unbelievably repugnant and dastardly what they're doing, because effectively, it's stifling free speech by allowing it to exist in a pseudo vacuum, which is pretty clever. Who's going to listen to your magazine that only has ten issues, and each issue is only printed ten times one hundred people. And guess what, who fucking cares. That's how free speech dies when the hose is not necessarily turned off so much as just
tripped into attrition. And that's I don't know, I found it clever. Again, it's frustrating the reality of the situation. But yeah, I think the execution of what the thirty first floor is pretty dark, but I think it works pretty well for where the movie's kind of going and the book by the same token.
Either what's the thirty first floor in the movie?
The thirty first floor in the movie when we're first hear about it is the lady who's one of the associates of the combine who winds up very soon after unaliving herself, but she just, oh, the third floor. It's
a little in Basically, she laughs at all. Oh, it's like an end joke we have and wait, there's a thirty first floor, and so Jansen starts looking into it, and basically, by the time the film gets close to the end, we find out the thirty first floor is where they've been keeping basically a handful of I think there's a term at one point used like politicos, but basically journalists who before the whole combine took over, who
were vital journalists, were people asking great questions, doing great work, asking the real questions. And they were brought in as a ruse, being like, hey, we want your ideas, we want to put out something, and we want to give people good quality information and stop. They deserve to know the truth about things, and they're sold basically a billip goods. And instead of outright saying we're going to censor you,
it's a slow death. And in fact, I believe the character Franco Niro's character refers to it as intellectual.
Murder, because that's the thing in the note is for the murder on the thirty first floor, And you're thinking like a literal murder throughout the entire book and movie, and then you find no, it's the murder.
It's the death of ideas, and it's also the death of a dream. And that's because instead of being outright told no, which is an easy thing to fight against, I feel like somebody tells you fuck you get out in the streets and fight and protest. But it's a little trick here. Once somebody gives you the illusion, and that's what the thirty first floor is, and that's the whole reveal of That's fascinating because by the time we get to the reveal, it almost has a mythical status.
It feels like when you're watching the movie, it's you're almost like, is it going to be like the movie Death Machine or there's a giant robo dinosaur? What is going to be in the thirty first floor? It get the possibilities fills on this end list and instead it's something both seemingly smaller, but the reverb of it is
so atrociously huge and it makes your heart break. For I think to me, one of the saddest kind of depth is people when somebody's either sold out when their heart was in a good place initially, or somebody who basically had the wind taken out of their sales slowly like that some heavy stuff, and the film, to its credit, it toes this great line of giving you everything we've been talking about, but it doesn't do it in a heavy handed way. It doesn't spoon to feed you anything either.
It's not oppressively obtuse either. For the most part, there are some few things that do make you pause particularly the ending, which we'll get to. But I like that, like it doesn't it's not treating you, because that's the problem sometimes with any time of art form, if it gets overly political, it's easy to get tripe. That's why political music, it's either going to be the most inspirational thing in the world or you're going to be like, okay, dude,
we get it. It's got to just feel the worst poetry you wrote when you were like seventeen.
Settle down their rage against machine.
I was waiting for. Do you know that those who burn crosses are also those who I forget what the fucking line is because everybody said it at this point, who cares, right, Like it's hollow.
No, it's weird to be anti capitalists when you're on a major record label and making a lot of money. We mentioned Franco Niro. Okay, if his name wasn't in the cast, would any of us have known that was Franco Nero?
No?
I did neither.
I didn't know it was him at the beginning when they actually showed his face, But then I went back and I watched it. I was like, of course that's Franco Niro. But yeah, I had no idea where he's weird, the one good glass, the one bad one, and he has that amazing goatee and everything. I'm just like, what the what is this guy's problem. He's the only one that's looking at Jensen. Everybody else is looking around and stuff.
And I love how everybody's got like makeup on their face or like different things are dyed and stuff, and I'm just like, Oh, this is the future. We're doing this, So I'm surprised nobody had tattoos because that's really the future.
Yeah, I was floored.
It wasn't until I watched a trailer for this after whalk midway through watching the movie, I took a break and I was like, you know what, I don't think I've seen the trailer for this or forever. And then I was like reminded. I'm like, fuck, that's Franko near That was the floored. I love Franco Nero too. It isn't the biggest part, but it's such a pivotal part, and the fact that we get to live in a world where franco'neiro acted right next to Rannerferner Fastpender. I
feel like I just messed up this autorious name. I'm so fast Spender. I'm just gonna say Fastpender, but I'm sure somebody. Don't anybody come for me. And the soundtrack, Oh my god, I can't believe it. Take me this lot, Edgar Rose, and I knew I would because I love Tangerin. They're just especially eighty seven, You're getting into this era where every soundtrack they're doing, or anybody from that band
is doing, is just fire. Is just pure fire in my opinion, and I loved those, and especially because there are times where it felt like a ham. It almost felt like a ham that was like slowly throttling you, and then other times it's like very poppy. It's really beautifully tailored to which scenes and stuff that you're in. But it's so perfect, and it's just the right amount of scent futurist sounding without it being to like cliched or to woo.
But there's not of that.
I'm on band camp by Yeah.
No, it's great. It's got that future. It sounds futuristic without relying on the people bluff.
There's one scene I'm surprised we haven't mentioned it where the music and the movie sync up perfectly. It's when foss Bender is playing croquet, I was thinking badminton, I was thinking squash. I think we're all thinking about something. I think only one of us is thinking about the thing that has the term shuttlecock in there, which is the funniest of the three. That's bad men. I think I love a good.
Shuttle cock.
To me too. But in that scene is where the music and the movie finally sync up for a moment of here's where it's a little futuristically weird, maybe a little too much. I'm not saying I didn't like it, but the Tangerine dream of it all works in the movie throughout, aside from a couple of times where I'm like, maybe there is a little beat boop too many, And that's one of the again, sometimes the movies is like,
let's just be weird. That's the one scene where I'm like, I like that, it's weird, but what the fuck is going on? And no explanation needed, clearly we get it. But the Tangerine Dream score for the most part works for me. And yeah, Tangerine dream, I mean, my god, the Tangerine Dream score for what Sorcerer another or is it Sorcerer Safe Cracker. It's safe Cracker right to James Kahn movie.
But they also did.
They okay, god brilliant.
Yeah, yeah, they worked with Friedkin a few times, and they also work with Michael Mann on the keep.
That's right there, we go.
I wanted to call out two montages that they have. We We've got Jensen at the headquarters of the Combine, which is more TV magazine, And that was the one thing I definitely noticed while I was watching some of these other adaptations of this. So there's two Russian adaptations, a Hungarian and a check and I find it very interesting that it's all Eastern Europe former Communist block countries
that are are adapting this. German one is the only one that puts it in this future realm, and the rest of them are fairly faithful with the time and setting. And it's weird too, because there's one that's an hour law the two Russian ones are well over two hours. I can't remember how long either the Hungarian or the check one was. I think it was just like an
hour and a half. But I love when he's in the headquarters and he's on the And this was actually in the book The Pattern Noster and I did not know what a pattern noster was until just a few years ago, and I think I found out about it because of the podcast. And there was a movie the same woman that directed Me and Him, the classic Griffin dun comedy, whereas Penis is talking to him, she also
directed a movie about a pattern noster. I think it was just called The Lift or the Elevator, and so I've had to look up what the hell this thing is. I've never seen one of these things in real life. I would love to see it. It feels so fucking dangerous, especially when he gets on and he has to jump
onto it and stuff. I'm like, oh my god. But I love how he's going through each of the floors and he keeps getting different sequences of that, and then you get that echo of it just a few scenes later when he's in the apartment building and he's going from door to door and like looking inside of everybody's doors open. Get that naked couple that's just sitting there,
the old people, You get the woman who's singing. But the greatest one, though, is that little girl who's got the blindfold on because she's counting, she's about to play.
She's about to play Hide and go seek with her dead, and you see her dead in the corner of the frame, eyeing a sheet in a knot, and you know he's about to commit suicide.
I'm like, oh my god, that's fucking dark. And then you get the little girl running out a few minutes later, going oh there's the everything's hanging in there riggling, and I'm like, oh my gosh, not another unexpected exodus.
Both of those, I'm so glad you brought this up because they're both so beautifully executed. And on top of that, I did not know that was called a potternoscer. Also, thank you for reminding me of me and him.
I've still never seen it, and I love Gryffin Done.
I love Gryffin Done too. That's why I was on that episode, which you can listen to on Weirding my Media on the Projection Pope. To add to that, I love how Jansen shoots him down because he thinks this guy could be that either tied to Cosmopos or yeah, the very least. The whole thing was the I love how they kept calling this this shitty folder. That's basically letting me know, hey, you've been canned an.
Award, you know, calling it the diploma.
Yeah, the diploma, because now it looks like it just looks like a bad diploma. That's like spray pain and gold, or almost like a folder that you'd put you to trapper keeper or something that's been torn in half. And that was what the bomb threat was written on that it's oh wait, here's his folder. And he realized, oh, okay, this guy is not who I'm looking for because it's intact.
And then he's canceled the ambulance. Yes, I think over the ambulance just to helpfully revive him until he realized, oh, this isn't the guy I'm looking for. His canceled it in an ample.
Man, he's all so cold.
He's a curmudgeon. You gotta love him though.
Man, that little girl had some chilled though. I don't think I would have been as calm as she was about like, oh he's in the airbic. She was so peppy about it.
Just forward to set the record straight. The name of the movie that was directed by Doris Dory is Men Are M A and E R with the over the A the diacritic that is the one with the pattern noster so it wasn't called the lift or the elevator.
But just so you know, wasn't the lifts made by Dick Moss. Oh fucking come on, Dick Moss just well known stuntman, so really the cool director. Dick war was a sun Man.
Son Billy Warlock start in society. Not named Dick Warlock, but Billy Warlocks still a cool name.
Dick Moss is a good name too.
It Dick Mass who also made some iconic music videos for Golden Earring. Okay, I've alluded to this, guys, I need to bingu your brains. There's something about Barbara, this character, this former TV hostess, with her amazing fashion sense, her high kicks that she does. She's in the pool and heels by the way she gets out of the pool and full heels is doing this high kick thing. She keeps sticking her tongue out.
Oh the tongue.
Oh my god, it's she's almost that one. Oh god. What was that guitarist who replaced Chris Holmes and Wasp? I remember that guy, Johnny Rod. This is a heavy metal deep cut here, but she makes me think it was an eighties hair rock guy that keeps whipping out his tongue, being like.
Hey, late like that like a lizard.
She does that, and her whole mannerisms are fascinating. And then it doesn't she say she's erotic tension.
She just I brought up erotic amorous noises. Yeah, amorous thoughts, I believe is her words. And if this woman's a stone cold super freak. And then we get to see that a lot of fars hanging out with her, and we realize that she is the quote unquote.
Assistant aid to the head of the combine, but she's this mistress but it sounds a little ripey. Did you guys get that impression?
But she yeah, is she the one that we run into in the hallway and her dress is basically off. She helped me button my dress back up, and I'm just like, oh, okay, Yeah, she just got attacked in her in his office.
That guy's so creepy, and I love that. A lot of her big crime is she's growing vegetables.
Yeah, you can't do that. You gotta only eat government issue cheese.
It's illegal, don't you know.
Yeah, how dare you grow your own vegetables? How dare you plant something in the ground that can grow naturally, and how dare you do something with it that could be illegal? Just in this movie. Yeah, but that's one of those weird things that again reinforces the thought process that went into making this movie and the book. Right, what's a way to make the government seem stifling? Take away the ability to grow your own food. That's a pretty good way to make it seem stifling and overwhelming.
It's actually a pretty novel. I can't think of another thing where it's illegal to grow your own food as a plot point in something other than this. But it's such a weirdly dystopian idea. It's like, what's the thing about how to cook a baby that they make everybody read in high school?
The Swift thing?
Yeah, the Jonesie Swift thing. Yeah, Like, I know it's call how to Cook a Baby, but we're talking about the same thing.
You got me there, you got me there, I got you there. See it's pictionaries.
See we're here now, I got you there to cook the baby thing.
I'm glad Mike said something because I was like, I missed, have missed that class.
Well, then here in the Deep South, we have a different tradition on what kind of food we eat out at night? How to cook a baby? You're more central Southern, No that I'm talking the deep South. Yeah, I'm modest proposal, But that's again, that's goes back to that idea of like and when all else fails, what do we do? Okay, let's eat the young here. It's no, what do you do? Grow food? You can't even do that?
So I'm sorry. I love your patois. He sounded like a character from in The Heathen Night.
I ain't go even further, just be, I say, I just go for a full flog horn leghorn, just go all southern. Good Lord, Oh.
My god, this Grits are giving me the papers.
I do declare.
Oh yeah, so can we discuss the ending?
You're talking about the very actual ending?
Yeah, I got questions. I really requested it.
Yeah yeah, let let me take us there a little bit. Here have a second bomb threat that happens, And there's no reason to believe this bomb threat any more than the first one. The guy confessed. He basically in the book, he's, oh, you'll get another one of these in a few days. Just ignore it. And so he's okay, and he does, and he's just no, Chief, I have no reason to believe that there is an actual bomb in the building. That doesn't make any sense. Okay, great, they don't evacuate
or do they evacuate the building. I'm trying to remember because it's really fucking oh. They do evacuate the building as a matter of precaution, but they don't evacuate the thirty first floor.
That's right, yeah, because that's the thing. Franco Niro's character contacts him. They do, you need to get up their people up there, their politicos up there.
That's my faing, And so that's the thing.
Jansen and Anton both go up there, and they realize they're gonna have to go up all the way upstairs because of course the power is shut off, and then Jansen ends up taking a helicopter to get automatically to the top. Anton takes the stairs, and I'm going to
believe Anton died same And that'sy. And you notice that's the only time, I really, if I'm remembering correctly, at least, that we really ever hear Jansen get super loud, because you notice he's always really good about having an even tongue. Even when he's there, you still tell when he's irritated, but he doesn't get loud. He's not a loud everbody yell at you.
Not like that guy.
But then like when he calls up for Anton, and it's almost like his voice breaks a little bit. It is so goddamn Fastpender's going in this role. And but you realize they hear he got three or four people out of there. We hear on the news and they all died from burns. And if you're not already feeling like a veteran of the psychic War, already from living in as society, you do now. And you notice the framing of him at that lash slot because you mentioned
the peel paint, but there's almost like bars. It almost looks like he's in a like in a jail sale for a second, and then the camera moves and you realize, okay, no, he's in his office and they're clearing it out and everybody's in hazmat suits except him.
Yeah, that whole thing with the hazmat suits, and they're just like, hey, you need to get out, we're cleaning this place. I'm like, okay, yeah, that's very strange. And Chris remind me, dude, he evacuates everybody with the thirty first floor in the book, right, yeah, and it ends really coldly. I just remember the last line in the book is when you realize that there were people still up there and the bomb does go off and you're
just like, oh, fucking that's how it ends. Is just really a smack right in the face.
And again, like, this is another movie that kind of goes back to the dystopian idea of it, but it does remind me a little bit of Fight Club in that way, right where it's just and here's the end, and that's the fucking end, and there you go, and the thing that you expected but hoped wouldn't happen happens in this movie, though, the stakes are so much worse because it's them finally doing away with like you mentioned already,
the death of free thought. Here it is. Here is the death of free thought and knowledge in this society. They're being blown up, murdered intentionally because you know what, we can't keep oppressing them, so what do we have to do? We just kill them? Yeah, but just kill them. And if they don't exist on the books to begin with, then there's nobody that actually died and it's wow, what a like you said, like, what a horribly cold ending.
But the reality of the way that the system thumbs up everybody, there's nothing wrong, and again in a society where the people that are being killed don't really exist and aren't being acknowledged to begin with thumbs up everybody.
And that line from Franco Niro is I didn't plant the bomb. The CEO did it. Is the Blue panther himself winning and taking out all of these people intellectuals.
Yes, again, to round people up and shoot them is one thing. To round people up and have them do their job and then just shoot them anyway, same thing. I don't know which is worse. They're both pretty awful. This movie, I think makes its point rather well. But to your point, Mike, I actually think that the ending in the book is a little bit more impactful because the book doesn't fucking hang anything on it. The book just says and that's it, the end, and you're just like,
oh god, wow. I will say, though, the juxtaposition against a Mayora can exceptionalism with that photo at the end of Fast Understanding next to the astronaut, because again, he's doing.
More than standing next to that astronaut, astronaut?
What was it all about? Folks?
I was okay, because we keep seeing him throughout the film, look at the astronauts.
What's with the mask? At some point where the image of the mask yeah, and I'm.
Like, Okay, that's fascinating, that's cool. What does the astronaut mean? Is this a reference to an image of the past that can project a sense of hope, a sense of discovery, a sense of exploration. I said sex because he then humps it, but it's like a grief hump, like because he's not happy. It's not Oh, I'm feeling sexy now I'm gonna get all up in them nassa parts. It's not like that. It's almost defeated, a sense of defeating.
But he's humping and he rubs himself and then it's I don't even know how to describe the look on his face as this role. It's not happy, it's not overtly I hate this. I usually like going into these discussions having at least an idea of what is my interpretation of something. Honestly, I'm still mulling it over. I'm not quite sure what it means.
I think the only thing I can compare it to directly is why Liza why. It reminded me of that. I'm not saying it in a bad way, but in that scene at the end of the room, it's never explained why he's doing what he's doing with the dress. I can put my own theory upon it as to why he's doing what he's doing. The people who made the movie would seem to think they had no idea what the hell he was doing. And I'm not sure
what foss Binder is doing here either. It's that same weird, sorrowful, mournful sexual energy that just it's not something that you see often, and seeing it here at that's just what the movie ends on is a hard hard not hard to deal with, it just it's one of the few parts of the movie where I'm like, what did I
miss something like you said, had there? I normally like coming into these discussions with a sense of like where I thought the thing went, and right at the end, I'm like, I'm not really sure what the movie was saying right here at the end. I got the message ninety eight percent of the way through, but right here at the end, what are we trying to say? Or Mike are you any clearer than us?
No, because he does go through such a range of emotions after he does that humping and even before. But yeah, he's very sad listening to the news. And then you get the whole conversation between Nixon and Armstrong, which was an interesting part for me because suddenly the subtitles switched from English to German, and I'm like, oh wait, they're speaking English. Okay, I can actually understand this, but yes, okay,
we get that conversation. Then you get the humping, and then you get him just standing there with that cigarette, and there's moments where he like throws his head back and he laughs and he's just like shaking his head.
It's just I don't know if he's like figuring more things out at that point, because he's a very smart detective and he's not one of these incompetent detectives where you're just like hey, Even though when I was reading the book, I was just like, hey, Jensen, they said the thirties first floor two times, and one of them they brushed off as a joke. But then as I'm reading the book more, I'm like, oh no, he realized that he heard that it's just a matter of how
he's going to play this type of thing. I'm like, all right, he's not a dumb guy, and this Jensen isn't a dumb guy either, So yeah, I wish I knew what was going through his head. But I like endings like this where you're just like I was with you all the way through, and then when you got to that last bit, you threw me a bit of a curveball. I don't know if that's just fucking Fastbender himself is throwing as a curve ball or if that's him as Jensen throwing us a current ball.
But I I like it. It's just I felt under prepared right there at the end for whatever the movie is going for. Wait a second, it almost of you. I was like Fastbenders just looking at the audience really and just do you like what you saw? Was that good for you? It was good for me. Literally smoking a cigarette, he doesn't light it post humping. He actually has it on him while doing the humping of the picture.
But again he does just like stare through the cinema out into the audience in a way that I know that not a freeze frame, because I can see that moving a little bit, but it seems like a freeze frame.
It does right towards the end. But yeah, no, it's what an interesting movie, what an interesting pick, and what a I don't know, what an interesting guy to lead the movie, because again to all the points that we've already made, this guy is also a director and look at look at what he's able to do here as an actor. What a talent, and what a genuine shame to that he passed away the year that this film came out, from an overdose of barbituates and cocaine, which is fuck good.
God thirty seven. Yeah, I know why that's such a both fucking young. I'm so young. Everything that flows me is like God, all of the great art he made and he didn't even make it to forty. And now I'm like, oh God, what am I doing with my life?
What am I doing with my life?
I'll never make Coral, but no, this guy. I do love the ending too, and I actually I especially love it because it is making me think because and especially because I know there's I really there's something behind it. I hate it and it's the perfect kind of ending to throw up people off because have you guys ever had to hear people discuss anything that they immediately understand, they like bitch about it instead of being like, think
about it. Maybe somebody's wanting you. They respect you. That's why I never liked Tolster, because he is a writer, will tell you every fight, everything, every detail. And to me, it's that's not an act of love, an act of love as an artist being like, I respect you as a being. I'm not going to spell anything out for you because you're not stupid. I might even throw you some shadows, some shapes, some mystery. It just to me is it's an act of respect and trust and love.
And how oftener are you going to see a great true auteur hamp a giant astronaut mural?
Yeah for people. I hope everybody that's listening to this podcast is familiar with him. I haven't seen that many of his movies, which is a real shame. I was talking to Sam Degan, I was like, why don't we do the Fastbender cast because so much about this I know absolutely nothing, but that's forty four films that he directed.
And he was one of these guys like we've talked about with the Takashi Mike and some other people where they're just directing, directing, directing, and it's I'm amazed he made it to thirty seven with the pace that he was doing. You look at his filmography and you're just like, nineteen sixty nine, ninety sixty nine, ninety sixty, nineteen seventy,
nineteen seventy nineteen. I'm like, you're making three and four and five films a year, sir, How are you able to do this other than through arbituates and cocaine?
The answer is there, and you're right in the nose as they would.
Say, I'm making interesting films. Oh yeah, films that are great, were impactful films, because that's it. It's we always say it's quality, not necessarily quantity. But he was able to do both. That's that's that's like seeing a unicorrent, like, how was this man real? Because plenty of people do or Brichan's cocaine doesn't mean they're making good art most time, it means they're making shit art, to be honest.
Yeah, and this was very deep stuff. I mentioned World on a Wire before and I'm really glad that's now available. I want to say again it might be criterion.
Really experian. Yeah, and with a better cover at least, oh.
Yeah, much better cover, thank god. And that is based on the same book by oh, what's the name of the author, Daniel Galuis. I think it is same author, same book, and Galui's work is fantastic. He did one where every speaking of we just were talking about blindness in the Woman on the Beach episode, and that whole book takes place in darkness, so none of the characters can see. So just the way that he's able to describe things as if you were blind is just amazing.
But the same book, that WorldWind Wire was based on, same thing as The Thirteenth Floor, the one with Vincent DiCaprio and Craig Birco, And when that came out, everybody's just like, oh, it's a rip off of the Matrix And no, that book's.
Been around since.
Know your shit before you start spouting off.
I've never seen The Thirteenth Floor, though, I need to say him, I enjoyed it.
I think it's a really good movie. Yeah, we were in Mexico, actually it was a Florida trip and we had no entertainment.
Really.
We had a TV that had a DVD player, so we ran over to a Walmart or something and just went through the five dollars bin I picked up the thirteenth floor, and I was so glad I did, because I really enjoyed it.
It's a favorite of one of my favorite people, Philosopher Slavojik, loves the films. I also Craig Bierco, who I know has been on this show indeed at least in the past several times, or at least once, right.
As a guest, as a interviewee at least once, and as a co host at least twice.
It's better than the Matrix Quorina.
I like the Matrix as well as that. I don't think you have to discount one because of the other, because they're definitely coming out things from different places. All Right, We're going to take a break and play preview for next week's show right after these brief messages.
Crimes and Misdemeanors gets two thumbs up from Cisco and Ebert. Gene Shaman of The Today Show calls it an astonishing accomplishment. Vincent Camby The New York Times says Crimes and Misdemeanors hits the bulls eye a memorable villain. Jack Crowell of Newsweek writes, what ay Ellen whipsaws you between this may and laughter? Richard Chickle of Time Magazine finds it hilarious, and Peter Travis of Rolling Stone ads Crimes and Misdemeanors is so funny it hurts rated.
PG.
Thirteen now playing a selected theaters.
That's right, We'll be back next week what they look at Crimes and Misdemeanors. Until then, I want to thank my co host Chris and Heather. So, Heather, what is the latest with you?
I have recently finally on my to do list checked off. I've started doing video essays on my YouTube channel, with my inaugural one being an intro to the whim in Wonders of I Don't Know Why the German.
It's like my really the vim and Vendor.
God, Damn, I do love.
It is about the beauty of Outrey Cinema and particularly the Grindhouse. I'm also working on some upcoming projects, including a commentary for a film that I love deeply and that's all I can say about it, but I'm very excited, and the Cruise. There's all sorts of other sundry goodies. You can find it my link tree linktree dot com for slash Mondoheather, find my Patreon, find my website, find my social media contexts. I need to add I am blue on Blue Sky now I need to add that
to there. I will take that after this recording. But anyways, yes, find me there linktree dot com, sport slash Modoheather.
Yes, I am so fucking woke. I'm no longer on X and on Blue Sky, but I've been there for a few months. It's just they haven't integrated with my social media posters, so I always forget to go there and Chris, what is happening with you, sir?
I'm not on X either. No, I guess I am on X still, but I'm also on Blue Sky as well. But a social media for me just now less important than Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where this show and all the other shows that Mike and I work on that are other content creators. Slash Friends, slash Cohort, slash Merry Men, Women, theyvem's and everybody else can be found at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. And it's a great place to listen to inclusive storytellers
telling great stories. And that's that's what we're doing here. That's what I do over at my show, the Culture Cast, and over at the only thing you can't find a weirdingway media because I know Michael plug it if I don't is Ranking on Bond, which can be found at patreon dot com slash Projection Booth or patreon dot com slash Culture Cast at the ten dollars level or higher, and once a month, we, along with the host of Richard Adam's paranormal Bookshelf Richard Adam, talk all about James
Bond once a month. Wouldn't you think of a podcast called Ranking on Bond is about James Bond's where you can find me? So there you go.
Well, thank you, Chris, you pretty much took my entire outro. So let me just say that every donation that the Projection Booth gets helps us produce some more Ranking on Bond and also helps us take over the world.
But you don't think the doctor a dad. I think they may have whoever, Yeah, I think they maybe the I kinda might be eventually. Map your eyes, think your
Long way