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of America and a member FDIC. What

0:34

kind of a show are you guys putting on here

0:36

today? You're not interested in art? No. Well, look, we're

0:38

going to do this thing. We're going to have a

0:40

conversation. From

0:43

Chicago, this is Film Spotting. I'm

0:45

Josh Larson. And I'm Adam Kempinar.

0:47

This is for all those memories that

0:49

belong in the back of the mind,

0:51

like this penalty one. It's weighing on

0:53

her, so let's lighten the load. A

0:56

one-way expressway to... We're not going to think

0:58

about that right now. Woo! Speaking

1:01

of memories, the general public seems to have

1:03

remembered the existence of movie theaters, making Inside

1:06

Out 2 a massive hit at the box

1:08

office. But is it among our best of

1:10

the year? This week, it's our top five

1:12

films of 2024 so far. Joining

1:16

us, Michael Phillips from the Chicago

1:18

Tribune. I totally forgot Michael was

1:20

coming. Joy must have grabbed

1:22

that memory for some reason. It's all ahead on

1:24

Film Spotting. Hey,

1:28

it's Kaylee Cuoco for Priceline. Ready

1:31

to go to Hey, it's Kaylee Cuoco for

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to your happy price, Priceline. to

2:01

Film Spotting. It's our best of

2:03

the year so far this week, Josh. First

2:06

thing to establish, everyone loves ground rules. What

2:08

is a 2024 movie anyway?

2:10

Oh no. Michael Phillips, welcome to the

2:12

show and please give us your 2024

2:15

film eligibility criteria.

2:20

I saw it in 2024. So even if it's

2:22

a, like

2:25

I saw the big broadcast in 1938 for the

2:27

second time and I'm even considering,

2:29

that's even the AI, I consider that. I can't

2:32

wait for Citizen Kane at number one. This is going to

2:34

be great. We're very loose with

2:36

the rules here on Film Spotting. We are

2:38

thrilled as always to have Michael Phillips back

2:40

on Film Spotting. Later in the show, a

2:43

2024 film that didn't crack our

2:45

top fives, but it's new in theaters. So we're

2:47

going to talk about it. Josh, we

2:49

have had a chance to see Janet

2:51

Planet, the feature directing debut from playwright

2:53

Andy Baker. We'll also reflect on the

2:56

passing of the great Donald Sutherland. Michael,

2:59

this is simple. No consensus, no outliers.

3:01

We each get five picks, our five

3:03

favorite films of the year so far,

3:06

and we're just going to count them down.

3:08

Rotate old school film spotting here. You

3:11

get to start with your number

3:13

five. Number five, I got 12. What are you talking about?

3:15

I got that. I did

3:17

actually, it was darn hard to come down to the

3:20

actual five, but we'll see. It's been a

3:22

good year so far. I love the Midway

3:25

Purge, Midway through the year because you can

3:27

just pretend it never happened come early December.

3:30

Exactly. We actually erased this show. We

3:32

just erased it. It doesn't go into

3:34

the archives. It never happened. It's rethink

3:36

the whole thing. Well, my number five

3:38

is a film I just saw a

3:40

couple of weeks ago, and that's a

3:43

nice how do you do for June.

3:46

It's a film called Tuesday, Dinah

3:49

O. Pusic's feature

3:51

debut, and it's not the only

3:53

feature debut that

3:56

rose to the top for me. Julia

3:58

Louis-Dreyfus really, really excellent

4:00

as this mother who's coping not

4:03

very well with the imminent death

4:05

of her daughter, a teenager

4:07

played by Lola Petticrew. And

4:10

right away, in the first five

4:12

minutes, less, you understand

4:14

the fantastical parameters of the story.

4:17

It's beyond magical realism. Just like, okay, take

4:19

it or leave it right away. It's not

4:22

magical realism to me sort of implies a

4:24

more or less realistic story with like

4:27

surprise elements later on of magic.

4:29

And this is, you're going to get a large,

4:32

shape-shifting, size-shifting, talking mccaw

4:35

that is basically death

4:38

and then angel of death. And

4:40

that's the third character in this

4:42

film Tuesday. And I

4:45

haven't been so sucked into

4:47

anything all year that quickly

4:49

and assuredly by especially by

4:51

a brand new filmmaker, this

4:53

Croatian director. Really wonderful. I don't

4:55

know. I'm really still thinking about

4:58

it. I saw it. I knew about

5:00

11 people would see it in the country. I'm

5:02

one of them. You guys

5:04

are, I think also. So that's eight of us. Eight

5:06

of the 11. Big fans.

5:08

Big fans. Big fans. Yeah, absolutely.

5:11

And I'm really,

5:13

really happy to have just seen it

5:16

come into existence. And

5:18

I think honestly, that's where the future cinema is,

5:20

is spending roughly that amount

5:22

of money taking that degree of a

5:24

chance, which is somebody who's proven herself

5:26

a lot in short films, just

5:29

as a visual stylist, working

5:31

with tip top performers who

5:33

just simply trust a

5:35

visionary. And I don't want to overstate it

5:37

because it is, you know, it's a certain

5:39

size of film, but I'm really hot for

5:41

Tuesday. So yeah, number five. Yeah. We talked

5:43

about this last week, Michael, on the show.

5:46

We're both big fans and you

5:48

mentioned it's a debut. I think

5:50

we're going to see a theme here, possibly

5:52

among our three lists of some really

5:54

stirring debuts. And that's why we gave

5:56

Tuesday the Golden Brick nod on our

5:59

last show. show, you know, the annual award

6:01

we have for exciting work from

6:03

emerging filmmakers that may not get a

6:05

large audience. And so we wanted to

6:08

get behind Tuesday right away

6:10

just off my top five.

6:13

However, I've got it. If I'm looking at a top

6:15

10, which I feel really good about at this point

6:17

in the year, honestly, I think it's like at about

6:19

seven. So it was close, enjoyed

6:21

Tuesday quite a bit. So my number

6:23

five, speaking of golden bricks,

6:26

you love to see a golden

6:28

brick nominee from the past come through with

6:30

their follow up. And that's exactly what

6:32

Jane Shonbron did with I Saw the TV

6:35

Glow, which comes on the heels of 2022.

6:38

We're all going to the World's Fair, which did get that

6:40

brick nod. TV Glow follows a middle

6:42

school boy and a high school girl. They're those ages

6:44

when we first meet them in the film. They

6:47

form this unlikely bond over the

6:49

deep lore of this cheapo sci-fi

6:51

series that's called the Pink Opaque.

6:54

And then from there, they grow

6:56

older and reality and this show

6:58

and TV in general, they begin

7:00

to blur in ways

7:03

that are very open to

7:05

viewer interpretation. And this

7:07

is all guided by Shonbron's increasingly adept

7:09

eye for images that are very distressing,

7:11

I think you can say, but also

7:14

many of them have this welcoming weirdness.

7:17

And that was my experience of I Saw

7:19

the TV Glow. Now, there's been an interesting

7:21

debate that I've caught up with since the

7:23

film came out. And there's been a lot

7:26

of pieces written about it and podcasts about

7:28

it, a debate about what critics owe in

7:31

terms of those interpretations of a movie

7:33

like this, especially as they relate in

7:35

this case in TV Glow

7:37

as a metaphor for the trans experience.

7:39

So questions like, do critics

7:41

have a responsibility to acknowledge and

7:43

explore all possible interpretations in their

7:45

wrestling with the work? Are

7:47

they only responsible to express their own interpretation?

7:49

Is one interpretation the right one? Or maybe

7:52

we should say the more correct one, at

7:54

least. I don't know if I have

7:56

answers to any of that, but I was especially intrigued

7:58

by the conversation on

8:00

the next Picture Show podcast about

8:02

I Saw the TV Glow. They had guest

8:05

critic Emily St. James on for that discussion.

8:07

And it was really good. It got my

8:09

mind spinning not just about the movie, but

8:11

about the role of criticism in

8:13

responding to a movie like this. So check

8:16

that show out. It was part of their pairing

8:18

with Donnie Darko, which was also a

8:20

really good conversation. And if you still need to see

8:22

I Saw the TV Glow, you

8:25

can rent it right now on a

8:27

lot of places, Amazon, Apple TV, Google

8:29

Play, Microsoft, something called Spectrum

8:31

I found, and also Voodoo and YouTube.

8:33

So yeah, catch up with this one

8:35

for sure if for some reason you

8:37

didn't see it in theaters. I don't

8:39

know how big of a release it

8:42

actually got. Well, now it's

8:44

my turn to say that that's a movie

8:46

that was just outside my top five right

8:48

in the mix there at number seven or

8:50

eight for me, Josh. And I don't know

8:52

the answers to those heady, philosophical,

8:54

critical questions either. I do know going

8:56

back to our review that that interpretation

8:58

was the only one I had while

9:00

watching it, and it was the lens

9:02

through which the movie made sense to

9:05

me. I do still need to hear

9:07

that conversation though over on the next

9:09

picture show. The way I

9:11

looked at this, trying to come up with a

9:14

sort of framing device, I suppose, for my

9:16

list. And it's pretty simple. I've got

9:18

five films that stand out because

9:21

they take big swings. And

9:23

I'm going to start with the one

9:26

that features several hundred or more actual

9:28

swings, not a

9:30

directing debut in this case. It's

9:32

Challengers from Luca Guadagnino. I

9:35

love Justin Chang's line. Challengers comes at

9:37

you like an amped up Adidas sponsored

9:39

jewels and gym. I

9:42

think that gives you a pretty good sense of

9:44

Guadagnino's pluck as a director, though credit

9:47

certainly has to go as well to

9:49

the writer, Justin Kuritzkis. Big swing number

9:51

one. This is a highly

9:54

sexually charged movie. And more than that,

9:56

it's a movie that arguably is about

9:58

sex as much. as it is

10:00

about tennis, but do

10:02

we see any actual fornicating between

10:05

its three sexy stars? Only

10:07

fits and starts, because all the

10:09

mental and physical work of sex is happening

10:11

between these three people on the court. The

10:15

climax, as it were, confounded some, I

10:17

know, in its form and

10:19

in its failure to deliver a

10:21

more traditional sports movie payoff. What

10:24

does pay off, and I appreciated

10:27

that about it, let's be clear, but

10:29

what does pay off for me as

10:31

well, the nonlinear structure that makes every

10:33

stroke on the court matter more and

10:35

sometimes take on different meanings based on

10:38

what we've just learned. It's

10:40

the years better showcase of Zendaya's

10:42

talents, and it's not even close.

10:45

It's the years better showcase of Mike

10:47

Feis' talents, and that's because he just

10:49

has a very little part in Jeff

10:52

Nichols, the bike writers, and I'm certainly

10:54

ready to get more familiar with

10:56

Josh O'Connor now. We got an email from a

10:58

listener named Rachel who said, the

11:00

door I would walk through without a doubt Josh

11:03

O'Connor and what Rachel's referencing there, Michael, is on

11:05

our show during our review of Challengers. I think

11:07

Josh posed to me a question based

11:10

on now having seen this film, and

11:12

I appreciated Zendaya in a way maybe

11:14

I hadn't in some of

11:16

her previous performances. Josh

11:18

asked me if I'm walking into a theater and

11:20

all it says above the theater door is the

11:23

name of those three actors, which

11:25

one am I walking into? Just based on

11:27

performance or actor, don't know anything

11:29

else about the movie. Rachel says

11:31

it's Josh O'Connor. I first noticed him in

11:33

God's Own Country, wow, and then just this

11:35

year in La Chimera, which I greatly enjoyed.

11:38

Dare I suggest he brings Daniel Day-Lewis

11:40

to mine. I encourage you to check

11:42

out both. That's from Rachel,

11:44

a big swing there from Rachel to say

11:47

that, but you know what? He clearly has

11:49

the chops, and that's just

11:51

based on Challengers, and I still need

11:53

to see those other two films, unfortunately.

11:56

Challengers is my number five. risky

12:00

Daniel Day Lewis comparisons because I love

12:02

the Glenn Powell's character in Hitman is

12:04

okay Daniel Day and he's called out

12:06

to this. Exactly. So yeah,

12:09

he's still the benchmark, you know, but yeah, that's great.

12:11

Well I have more to say about challenges when

12:13

I get to it. I might as well.

12:15

I might as well though Adam, you do deserve

12:18

bonus points for getting the word fornicating in there.

12:20

I always appreciate it. Nice work. All

12:23

right. Michael Phillips, your

12:25

number four film of the year. The

12:27

number four is a film that I

12:29

saw just the fall of the previous

12:32

year, last year. We grown now.

12:34

I saw that on the festival circuit. This

12:37

is Minhalt Beggs. Really,

12:39

really tender, lovely

12:41

and quite beautiful

12:43

1992 story

12:46

set in the Cabrini Green

12:48

Projects in Chicago. And

12:51

it tells just kind of a simple

12:53

story of these two young boys, 10

12:55

year old Malik and his

12:57

friend and high rise neighbor Eric.

12:59

It's not just his head. You're

13:03

still not going to give us a hand are you? No,

13:05

I'm good. This momma know you're jumping? Momma, I should tell

13:07

her. And what if I do? Gosh, go away Dee. Let

13:10

me jump. Why? So he can

13:12

get hurt and start crying to mom? You're so mean. Look,

13:14

you're about to cry right now, aren't you? That's not what

13:16

I'm talking about. You're not going to cry. You're not going

13:18

to cry. Look, you're about to cry right now, aren't you?

13:20

That's not true. You all got to be like this, you

13:22

know, sister. Not everybody can jump. You're not like me. It's

13:24

really just kind of an episodic structure of a tale that

13:26

just kind of gets them through

13:37

the days and the months together at

13:39

a time of great change and not

13:41

particularly happy change for Cabrini Green and

13:43

that the cops are knuckling

13:46

down. There's been a fatal shooting

13:48

based on real life violence in

13:50

Chicago. And

13:52

I don't know, this film, I saw it twice. I

13:56

sort of understood why some people thought it was a little

13:58

ideal. Realized or

14:00

kind of honeyed It's

14:04

a it's a bit soft in terms

14:06

of its depiction to some about what

14:08

about the harsh realities of life for

14:11

these kids, but I Just

14:14

found it You know this is there's

14:16

such a thing in the world and

14:18

and these cinematic medium called poetic realism

14:20

and I don't think we've

14:23

scratched the surface about what poetic realism can

14:25

mean depending on who's imagining it and with

14:29

the writer director of the talent of

14:31

bag, I think It

14:33

to me it felt Absolutely earned

14:35

and justified and you know, even when

14:38

you get to things that are direct

14:40

homage is references

14:42

to other Chicago movies when the two

14:44

boys Playhook II run downtown

14:46

run around to the train station and

14:49

then end up at a Bard Institute And

14:52

you're getting you know, sort of echoes of

14:54

Ferris Bueller You're getting

14:56

a little bit of coolly high in there maybe more to

14:58

the point The

15:00

filmmaker bag is referenced Crooklyn

15:03

Spike Lee's crooklyn in terms of how

15:05

do we make it real but not

15:08

really real in in its sort of

15:10

day-to-day vibe And visual

15:12

imagining a world. I found it

15:14

really rich just a rich experience

15:16

both times and to me We

15:18

grow now was a really hardening

15:21

Extension of the talent she she

15:23

was not fully on display in her previous full

15:25

holla, which is actually her third

15:27

feature But yeah, I just hope We

15:30

get more of the same and

15:32

we know it'll be different because those two films although

15:35

inspired by events in her own life And just sort of

15:38

echoes of her own family issues. She's

15:40

she's really got versatility in her corner

15:42

So yeah, I'm not for this film.

15:44

We grown now another one that's gotten

15:46

the golden brick nod from the show

15:48

Michael and Yeah, I

15:51

I get what has been said

15:53

about that honeyed element that you

15:55

referenced my experience of

15:57

this movie, you know growing up the

15:59

Chicago suburbs my perception of Cabrini-Greene

16:01

homes was all from the local

16:03

news, which was just completely alarmist

16:06

and it was hysterical, essentially, in

16:09

depicting this community. And so being

16:11

able to see something that recognized

16:14

the humanity and the daily life of

16:16

these families there is something

16:18

I appreciated. And I think it is,

16:20

you referenced it in some of that

16:22

synopsis, it is acknowledging the difficulties of

16:25

living in Cabrini-Greene as well, but

16:27

it also does offer this corrective,

16:29

this really artful balance that I

16:31

at least appreciated. So yeah, one of

16:33

the good ones from 2024 so far. All

16:37

right, number four, you guys ready to do this?

16:40

Furiosa? A Mad Max saga?

16:42

I gotta catch up with you

16:44

two after your review while I

16:46

was traveling, but I'm not

16:48

gonna hold you to task too much, because

16:50

you know, you guys didn't dismiss the movie

16:52

entirely. You had many appreciative things to say

16:54

about it. But you're riding in high, so

16:56

I can hear a comment. That's good, that's

16:58

good. Oh, my gosh, I was just riding

17:00

high on this film, absolutely. And maybe part

17:02

of it was that I've

17:04

seen, I swear, every review

17:07

on Letterbox that has passed my feed

17:09

says, it's no fury road. And

17:12

maybe I fell for this so hard because

17:14

I went in just tossing that

17:16

out the window. It was, I didn't even think

17:18

of that as a possibility. It wasn't a standard

17:21

I expected this movie to at all meet.

17:23

So that opened up the freedom a little bit. And

17:26

I do have to say that I

17:29

loved it in conjunct because it

17:31

was a prequel to Fury Road,

17:34

precisely that reason. I

17:36

think it's a prequel that

17:39

almost feels necessary because it further enriches

17:41

for me one of the things that

17:43

was so brilliant about Fury Road. And

17:45

this is the sense of hope that

17:47

Charlize Theron's Furiosa has in that film,

17:49

even in the face of real horrors.

17:51

That's the trajectory of her character, her

17:53

story. It's what sets her apart from

17:56

obviously Immortan Joe, but it also sets

17:58

her apart from Max, who's this direct.

18:00

a Californian survivalist, right? Furiosa

18:02

is something different. And here,

18:05

in her own movie, we get to see

18:07

the desperation and the despair from

18:09

which that hope was eventually born.

18:11

This is an incredibly dark movie.

18:14

It's full of dismemberment and torture,

18:17

even on the part of our supposed heroine.

18:19

And I just think that was incredibly brave

18:23

to not make a spunky movie about

18:25

this young girl who's on

18:28

a grid, but instead, this is

18:30

a movie that goes deeply into the

18:32

perversity of vengeance and suggests

18:34

maybe that Furiosa had to fall this

18:36

far in order to become the

18:38

Furiosa we see in Fury Road, one who does choose

18:41

life over more death, which

18:43

is the driving prerogative of this wasteland

18:45

that she finds herself in. So I

18:48

thought Furiosa was incredibly moving, very mature

18:50

on that front. It

18:53

was also another action movie master class

18:56

on its own. And Tom

18:59

Burks, Pretorian Jack, this greaser Elvis

19:01

in the wasteland was so much

19:03

fun. And I do have to

19:06

differ with you guys about Chris Hemsworth. I don't

19:08

think he worked for either of you. I thought

19:10

he was this delirious, delightful

19:12

presence. He was kind

19:14

of the circus ringleader of this gang,

19:16

but also, without realizing it, I mean,

19:18

Hemsworth realized this, but Dementus didn't. He

19:21

was the circus clown, too. And

19:23

I thought that performance worked brilliantly and

19:25

offered a little of a balance

19:27

to all that darkness I'm talking about, while also being

19:29

very much a part of it. It

19:33

comes down to Dementus' fate

19:35

and what he thinks about Vengeance, too. So anyway,

19:38

I could go on and on about this. It

19:40

just really worked for me. It

19:42

is still in theaters if, for some

19:44

reason, people haven't seen it. I know this has

19:46

not been the blockbuster that many expected or that

19:48

Inside Out, too, has been. So

19:51

it is well worth seeing in the theater. That's where

19:53

you got to see it, in the theater, and you

19:55

still can. I'm serious, son!

19:58

The darkest of angels. The

20:09

question is, do

20:14

you have an Indian who might get epic? Just

20:19

to be clear, Josh, okay, I think you're mischaracterizing

20:22

my Chris Hemsworth issue. I actually don't think it's

20:24

in the performance. My issues aren't really with the

20:26

performance. I think it's really more with the writing

20:28

and the pacing, and that's not really him. Okay.

20:31

The talkiness? Was it the talkiness? Yeah,

20:33

the scenes uncharacteristically

20:36

familiar, I think, stall

20:38

a little bit visually when he's taking

20:41

over a good

20:43

chunk of the script here

20:45

and there. So that's my issue. I

20:49

think you're willfully actually mischaracterizing

20:51

these opinions. Well,

20:54

it's been a while, Michael, and I was listening

20:56

to it. I'm on a

20:58

transatlantic flight short on sleep, so maybe I

21:00

misremembered. But I do think, to your point

21:02

about the script, I do that

21:05

conversation, Furiosa and Dementis have

21:08

at the climax. I

21:11

love everything they say, yet I still wish they said

21:13

it in half the lines somehow.

21:16

I do think it works, and it's crucial, and it's

21:18

needed, but it does get a little talky. And

21:20

so I can see what you're saying for that scene in particular.

21:22

And it's funny. The scene in particular,

21:24

which obviously we can't really get into here, is

21:27

one of the reasons I maybe

21:29

have some misgivings about the film, or I

21:31

should say, I'm not as enthusiastic about it

21:33

as you, Josh. Some of those themes and

21:35

different ideas that you're talking about that it

21:37

sounds like you feel culminate there in that

21:39

scene. To me, that scene felt gratuitous,

21:42

and it didn't

21:45

pay off for me the way it clearly

21:47

did for you and probably the way Miller

21:50

intends. So that would be one of

21:52

my concerns there with Furiosa. But

21:55

I knew it would make your list, and

21:57

it's certainly not one of the... The

22:00

lesser films of the year it

22:02

deserves to be in this conversation even if it didn't

22:05

really come that close to my top five I think

22:07

I've got it. I've got it maybe at 11

22:09

or 12 so far this year. Let's

22:11

talk about a movie I like more and it's

22:13

one that you Michael have already

22:15

espoused the virtues of my number four film

22:17

of the year so far is Tuesday

22:21

Big swing here. Gosh. I don't know death

22:24

appearing in the form of a talking

22:26

macaw as you described Arinze

22:28

Kenny voicing death the best the best

22:30

as far as I understand it, you

22:33

know, no no real effects assistance Making

22:36

death not this smirking

22:38

Ethereal enigma, but

22:41

another tragic figure caught in this circumstance

22:43

with the mother who you

22:46

said this well Michael who is Resistant

22:48

to her terminally ill daughter being

22:50

taken from her as we all would

22:53

be and if that wasn't bold enough You

22:56

know, it's it's mostly a fairy

22:58

tale is chamber play, right? It's confined

23:00

to these characters and the home that

23:03

the mother and daughter share Until the

23:05

decision one of the characters makes leads

23:07

to consequences that range outside of just

23:09

their little realm. I'm not Totally

23:12

sure as we touched on

23:14

Josh the movie can carry the weight

23:17

of the questions it provokes with that

23:19

decision but I believed the character revelations

23:21

that it generates and Lots

23:24

of movies and other great pieces

23:26

of art Have dealt

23:28

with mortality and how we as human

23:30

beings confront it or try to deny

23:32

it. I Don't

23:34

know that there's anything Brand

23:37

new to say any grand new lesson to

23:39

take away our knowledge to be gained that

23:41

hasn't already been explored But we're

23:44

always going to need what this movie Said

23:46

to me made me feel

23:49

was that we're always going to need

23:51

thoughtful and thought provoking reminders a Reframing

23:54

of our perspective from time to time and

23:56

and this one does that I

23:59

know I just said maybe there's not new things

24:01

to take away, but beyond the novel approach,

24:04

I'll note that there is one, I won't spoil

24:06

it, even though they kind of allude

24:08

to it in the trailer or we hear a bit of it,

24:11

I'll note that there is one

24:13

particular poetic idea that

24:15

a character in the film presents that

24:18

I had never really considered before. It

24:20

did actually feel like a

24:23

complete reframing of this topic, and that's just

24:25

one of the reasons why I do

24:29

really love this movie, and that is

24:31

all why we did add it to

24:33

our Golden Brick shortlist. So it's a

24:35

real contender for sure for that

24:37

Golden Brick award at the end of the year.

24:39

I know we have half the year left and

24:42

we're gonna add some more titles into the mix,

24:44

including during this list, but it's up there. It

24:46

also has the most disarming laugh line that comes

24:48

out of nowhere in the most wonderful

24:50

way where the 15-year-old is sort

24:52

of like just lipping off and kind of trying to

24:55

cope with this or just sort of figure out what's

24:57

up with this talking, the call

24:59

and all that, and then she says something to Snide and

25:01

he just says, is that sarcasm? And

25:03

then she's like, I

25:05

love sarcasm. It's good. And

25:09

it's not, I mean, it's played for a

25:11

laugh, but it's not played for a gag,

25:13

you know? It's just more like, ah, interesting

25:15

character wrinkle for the bird

25:17

of death. Exactly, and so

25:20

to that end, can the three of us make a

25:22

pledge right now since we all love this movie so

25:25

much, can we not

25:27

forget Arinze Kenny's performance when we come

25:29

back to our year-end best supporting performances

25:31

category? I'm not saying it has to

25:33

be on any or all of our

25:36

lists. I'm just saying, can we put him

25:38

on the short list and not let

25:40

it fall by the wayside? Because I think that

25:42

tends to happen with vocal performances. And

25:44

as we talked about, Adam, in our

25:47

review, this is, yes, a brilliant vocal

25:49

performance, but also him being there on

25:51

set and being the

25:53

physical presence of this macaw is

25:56

crucial to how the other actors respond.

25:58

And the believability they have in the

26:00

presence of this bird is because he

26:02

was there on set performing

26:05

the actions. So I just want to

26:07

make sure he doesn't get forgotten in

26:09

this category. And I'm not saying he'll

26:11

make the final list, but he deserves

26:14

to be considered. The

26:16

echo you leave. The

26:18

legacy. Your memory

26:21

is how she lives. I'll

26:26

sign your pledge. Thank you. I'll sign it. He

26:28

will get consideration. I'll seal it.

26:30

I'll seal it. Michael. I'll sign and seal

26:32

it. Okay. Even better. Uh-huh. Michael,

26:34

you're number three. Number three is a film

26:37

I just caught up with. My

26:40

bad on me, and I haven't seen it

26:43

a little early, but it's Alice Roarwalkers, A

26:45

Lot Chimera, which

26:47

we mentioned Josh O'Connor recently

26:49

in the context of Challengers.

26:52

And he plays, if you haven't seen it yet, he plays a

26:55

disconsolate British tomb raider

26:57

who is pining

27:00

for his either lost or

27:02

possibly dead at the beginning. We

27:05

find out later, love. And

27:07

he's kind of falling in as

27:09

he returns to his village. He's falling back

27:12

in with these sort

27:14

of village tomb raiders as they go looking

27:16

for a Truscan, priceless a

27:18

Truscan pottery. And he

27:20

has a, this central character has

27:23

a divining rod and he's got a

27:25

somewhat magical way

27:27

of locating just like

27:29

the Rainmaker, the old play in the movie,

27:33

finding what is most valuable. It's

27:35

not water this time, it's a

27:37

Truscan pottery. There's a

27:39

wonderful, speaking of magical realism, Roarwalker

27:41

is just working at a level

27:43

that it just feels like the

27:45

most easy breathing, relaxed sort

27:48

of acknowledgement of some other forces

27:50

in life than the forces we see on

27:53

the ground every day. And I

27:55

thought this film, it took a little

27:57

while for me to get the rhythm of it. That

27:59

was also true. of her previous film, Happy as Lazaro,

28:02

but when this one really kind of

28:04

clicks in, in

28:06

every way, in its central

28:09

romance, in scenes

28:11

with Isabella Rossellini, every

28:13

one of the supporting players, at the

28:15

midway point, man, I was really in,

28:17

and then I just sort of happily

28:19

in the hands of a terrific, terrific

28:21

international filmmaker. So

28:24

I love it, and I was late

28:27

to it, and I'm sad about

28:29

that. But I saw it. Yeah, we're

28:31

very late to it, aren't we, Josh?

28:33

As in, we didn't get to it.

28:35

And just a quick disclaimer, we

28:38

missed our chance to see it really, because

28:40

the reason we haven't prioritized it is because

28:42

for us, it's a 2023 film, and

28:45

that it did get that late December release.

28:47

That's at least why I haven't prioritized it.

28:49

Maybe I shouldn't speak for you, Josh. But

28:52

Michael is above our petty little

28:54

rules here on Film Spotting, and many

28:56

people are considering La Chimera because of

28:59

that, kind of, what was it, February

29:01

release, considering it a 2024 film. That's

29:04

right, it's the We Grow Now card. You

29:06

know, the card, I mean, yeah. There you

29:08

go. Sometimes, if you're worst in your favor,

29:11

you use it. Whether or not I can consider it

29:13

for my top 10 or not, despite

29:15

how much I may end up loving it, I

29:17

still feel like I have to see

29:19

this film, Josh. Too many people that

29:21

I trust have loved it. Exactly, and this

29:24

is the Josh O'Connor theater

29:26

I need to go into yet. This

29:28

is the one I want to see, having seen some of his

29:30

other work, but not this one, and being excited. So

29:33

excited about what he did in my number

29:35

three, Challengers. I'm gonna add

29:37

to the Challengers praise here. Guys,

29:41

it was kind of a crazy day. I

29:43

only had an hour or so to put

29:45

together this top five list we're doing. You

29:47

know how I pulled it off? I

29:50

put on the Challengers original soundtrack by

29:52

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The thing

29:54

was done in like 50 minutes flat.

29:57

I know it's gonna turn me on the square, man at

29:59

least. It just, that

30:01

deliriously clubby score, it drove

30:04

me right through it. It's also, it's one

30:06

of the reasons this might be

30:08

the most purely entertaining movie of the year so

30:10

far. I've been describing it

30:13

as this love triangle framed by a

30:15

rectangle following these tennis pros

30:17

who are intertwined over the years

30:19

in various ways. And

30:21

one facet of the brilliant screenplay by

30:23

Justin Kuritzkis, and this is his first

30:26

screenplay we should mention, is the way

30:28

it jumps around in time, you know,

30:30

while being framed by this climactic match

30:33

between the two men. Then you've

30:35

got Luca Guadagnino, director, bringing what

30:37

I would describe as an almost

30:40

comical sensuality to the proceedings. But

30:42

it's the cast that makes this more

30:45

than a campy lark. They are all

30:47

bringing a deep humanity to each of

30:49

these characters who are flawed in

30:52

their own specific ways that somehow

30:54

doom this triad

30:57

of a relationship in specific ways.

31:00

It's just absolutely fascinating to

31:02

watch. How often does this happen? Going

31:05

after the same girl? Come

31:08

here. Which one of us? I

31:18

can listen to that soundtrack anytime. I can't wait

31:20

to watch this, though, once more in

31:23

its entirety, just for the thrill of it.

31:26

Right now it's in a tricky place. It looks

31:28

like you can rent it on Amazon and YouTube

31:31

for $19.99. You

31:33

can also just buy a digital

31:35

copy there and at some other places.

31:37

So however you do it and whatever

31:39

you do it, don't let 2024 go

31:41

by without seeing challengers. Okay.

31:44

You have been officially warned

31:46

by all of us now the challengers is

31:48

very good. If you haven't had a

31:50

chance to see it yet and you need to make sure

31:53

that you do. And I'm going to add my

31:55

number three into that mix. Josh, I think it's a

31:58

movie that a lot of people

32:00

probably. overlooked but is available VOD

32:02

now on many platforms and you

32:04

alluded earlier to how it's always

32:06

nice when we see Golden

32:09

Brick nominees from the

32:11

past come through with their next effort.

32:13

Well, I'm going to go from Tuesday

32:16

and Dinah Opusic, a 2024 nominee to

32:18

follow up from a 2021 Golden Brick

32:24

nominee. What's audacious about

32:26

Rose Glass's Love Lies

32:29

Bleeding? I offer you

32:31

Ed Harris as

32:33

a devilish desert

32:35

crime kingpin who collects and

32:37

occasionally likes to munch on

32:40

large insects. Is

32:42

there a name for his hairstyle? That's

32:44

my burning question. They

32:46

say a mullet is business in the

32:48

front, party in the back. He's got

32:50

a three-day drug-fueled bender in the back

32:53

and a chew ball in the

32:55

front. There's nothing. Yeah.

32:58

It's quite

33:00

jarring. What I went with was

33:02

he's a Sasquatch who had a bad run in with

33:04

a ceiling fan. I mean, that's all. Okay, well, that

33:06

nails it. We just need to

33:08

distill that down into something catchier, something you can

33:10

take to your barber if you

33:13

admire perhaps Ed Harris' character.

33:15

You got to think that character's barber

33:17

is lying at the bottom of that

33:19

gorge. Oh, yeah, exactly. There's a pile

33:21

of barbers down there. It's

33:26

almost as jarring as the

33:29

sudden and vivid jolts of violence

33:31

we get in this noir twist

33:33

about a manager of a

33:35

gym, Lou, who's played

33:37

by Kristen Stewart, she falls

33:40

in love with Jackie, a

33:42

bodybuilder who has dreams of

33:44

striking it big in the

33:47

industry at a competition in

33:49

Las Vegas. All of

33:51

that's almost as jarring as Glass's merger

33:53

of horror, body horror, and

33:55

magical realism. And to be clear, every time

33:57

I'm using the word jarring here, I mean

33:59

it as a compliment because I was on

34:01

board for all of it, including

34:05

Glass's dynamic use of color. There

34:07

isn't a single composition in this

34:09

film that isn't textured and evocative

34:12

and beautifully lurid. And it's not

34:14

just about the color and the

34:16

lighting. We get not only

34:18

that great scene, you reference the gorge.

34:21

One of my favorite shots of the year, I

34:24

think is without sound, except maybe some music

34:26

of police cars at

34:28

night with their headlights glowing overhead

34:31

as they head out to that gorge. And

34:33

everything about that shot just

34:35

tells us what we already know because

34:38

it's been suggested that they're going to

34:40

come upon something that's going to break

34:42

everything wide open. It just adds

34:45

a grand scale to this

34:47

film, but also those nightmarish

34:49

flashback sequences we get with

34:51

no sound again between Kristen

34:54

Stewart's character and Harris. It's

34:56

just slow motion close ups and

34:58

they're bathed in that satanic red.

35:00

And with this film and with

35:03

Saint Maude, you've got two striking

35:05

portrayals of passionate,

35:08

determined, ambitious, and

35:11

perhaps with some justification, disturbed

35:14

misfits. I can't wait to see what

35:17

Rose Glass does next, but for now

35:19

we can still enjoy Love Lies Bleeding

35:21

from this year. Also Katie M. O'Brien,

35:24

really good. I remember seeing her- So

35:26

good. That's Jackie. Just

35:29

enduring the quantum mania of the

35:31

Ant-Man film. And then she

35:33

comes in as a supporting character,

35:37

a handful of lines, and it was suddenly a

35:40

movie. I can't imagine. And I like this film

35:42

a great

35:45

deal. I have to see

35:47

it again to see what my issues with the last

35:49

20 minutes really were, the leap was too much for

35:51

me. Usually I'm like

35:53

bigger, give me a real leap, not a half

35:55

leap, but this was like 17 leaps,

35:58

so maybe like 14. Yeah. Yes it

36:00

was. Yes it was. But I

36:02

need to see it again. I need to see it again.

36:04

And I certainly enjoyed the one time I saw it. But

36:06

yeah, that's a good description of it. A

36:08

couple more picks to go. You can

36:11

always find our top

36:13

fives at phonespotting.net/lists. There

36:15

are a couple of very easy ways you can

36:17

help an independently produced show like ours. Whether

36:20

you're a longtime listener or if you're just

36:22

finding us, take a minute and give us

36:24

a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or

36:26

Spotify. It's easy. You could do

36:28

it right now. Every new rating

36:30

or review does help us reach new listeners.

36:33

Val City Gal gave us a

36:35

brief five star review on Apple

36:37

Podcasts calling us an

36:40

enjoyable and enlightening show. We'll

36:42

take it. See? How long did

36:44

that take? You could do that right now.

36:46

Just put in a few different adjectives and

36:48

you're done with it and we would go

36:50

to your thesaurus online. Go to your thesaurus.

36:52

It'll help you out. We'd be very appreciative

36:55

as we are to you. Val City Gal.

36:57

Another way to support us join the film

36:59

spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com. We

37:01

welcome new family plus member Alex

37:04

Garcia. He's in Madrid.

37:06

I'm guessing that's Spain. Madrid Spain could be

37:09

wrong. Alex says I found you searching on

37:11

the internet about movie podcasts. That was around

37:13

six years ago. The madness series.

37:15

This is a great little bit here

37:17

for Michael Phillips. He says the madness

37:19

series has always been the best since

37:21

it helps me discover movies I haven't

37:24

seen or have forgotten. I like the

37:26

bracket process and get surprised very often

37:28

about the results. The older the decade

37:30

the better. Alex says but

37:32

he also enjoys Michael. You may disagree. You

37:35

guys may see film spotting madness a little

37:37

bit differently but you know what he loves?

37:39

The top 10 films of the year episodes

37:41

in December. They're long but so engaging. Of

37:43

course Michael a key part of those. The

37:45

last movie Alex saw in the theater. Poor

37:47

things. I liked it but I agree with the

37:49

term one of you use. This was you Josh. In

37:52

your review exhausting. Yeah

37:54

that was me. No I thought

37:56

it was exhilarating. I'm going to go with

37:58

another EX word. Favorite movie he reads. visited

38:00

recently and man it's a good one. Brief

38:02

Encounter, David Lean Hitchcock is a

38:05

random film or filmmaker that he loves. A

38:07

movie he credits with becoming a cinephile, Mulholland

38:09

Drive and Barry Lyndon, two great choices there.

38:12

And finally a favorite book about movies

38:14

or movie making. One I had to read

38:16

in film school and I have recommended

38:18

at least a couple times here on the

38:20

show and it's it's an easy read too.

38:22

It's pretty it's pretty quick. It's

38:25

In the Blink of an Eye by Walter

38:27

Murch. Thank you Alex and welcome to the

38:29

Film Spotting family. In addition to keeping us

38:32

doing what we're doing, your support comes with

38:34

perks like you get to listen early and

38:36

ad free. You get the weekly newsletter. You

38:38

get monthly bonus shows new in the feed.

38:40

We went back to 1994. We talked about

38:44

The Crow starring Brandon Lee.

38:46

Next week we will drop

38:48

an Ask Us Anything segment.

38:50

Great questions from our listeners

38:53

to reckon with and ask us anything Josh.

38:55

Michael can you give us like a one

38:57

sentence take on The Crow 94? Did you

39:00

see it? Did you like it? What's

39:02

your memory of it? Didn't see it. That

39:05

was my theater period. I was

39:07

probably watching some dinner theater production

39:09

of you know Man of

39:11

La Mancha or Showboat or

39:13

something. Were there were there ravens or crows in

39:15

it? No but actually

39:18

I want to mention too that while you were

39:20

just finishing up the Alex's

39:22

letter from Madrid, I

39:24

just finished up a little Reddit,

39:26

a five-star rating myself actually and

39:28

Shattering and Beautiful. That's my quote.

39:31

That's the show. Oh, Shattering and

39:33

Beautiful. Michael Phillips dash Michael Phillips.

39:36

That's a glorious blurb. Coming in

39:38

July, bonus content

39:40

a 1999 movie draft with

39:43

me Josh Sam and

39:45

maybe you all current Family Plus or

39:47

Film Spotting Advisory Board members. That's current

39:49

but new members who joined by July

39:51

15th will all have their

39:53

names thrown in the film spotting hat for

39:55

a chance to join us for that draft.

39:58

Somehow I've already started. prepping for the 1999

40:01

movie raft, Josh. I'm

40:04

not surprised at all. I rated

40:06

like 40 movies. How you prioritize

40:08

your time is a complete mystery

40:10

to me. Hey, don't

40:13

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40:15

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need mealtime inspiration, it's worth

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shopping Kroger, where you'll find

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over 30,000 mouthwatering choices that

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excite your inner foodie. It's

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hell. I don't think

40:59

it'll last, though. I'm

41:01

actually pretty unhappy, too. That's

41:05

from Janet Planet, which expands to more

41:07

theaters this weekend, including here in Chicago.

41:10

It's the feature directing debut of playwright

41:12

Annie Baker and stars Julianne Nicholson as

41:14

the single mom of 11-year-old Lacey, played

41:17

by newcomer Zoe Ziegler. The film, set

41:19

in the early 90s, is told largely

41:21

from Lacey's perspective. Josh,

41:23

we have already said the words

41:26

golden brick too often on the show. If

41:28

you're drinking every time we say it, you're

41:30

going to get hammered. It's a problem. But,

41:32

you know, Annie Baker may be established, pretty

41:35

well established as a playwright, new

41:37

as a filmmaker. Janet Planet,

41:40

does it need to be added to the list?

41:42

Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's it's

41:45

quietly provocative

41:48

and quietly inventive

41:50

in terms of the filmmaking. You know, that's one of

41:52

the things we do look for is is

41:55

bold. Sometimes we'll use

41:57

that terminology, not just an emerging filmmaker, but a

41:59

movie that has a. very clear vision. And

42:01

I think this absolutely does, especially in

42:03

terms of that perspective,

42:06

how Baker uses the tools

42:08

of filmmaking to give

42:11

us the experience that Lacey has over the course

42:13

of the summer. So yeah, I like this

42:15

film quite a bit, totally fine with giving it

42:17

a golden brick nod. Yeah, we've both

42:19

seen it. So Josh, we're going to spend

42:22

a couple minutes here on it. Michael, you

42:24

though, have seen at least two productions

42:26

of Andy Baker's work. So maybe you

42:29

can jump in and correct me if

42:31

anything goes askew here, but

42:33

I've only seen the flick. I saw it

42:35

at Steppenwolf in Chicago. So I

42:37

am going to tread a little carefully talking about

42:40

our work, but a quick Google search today confirmed

42:42

the notion that it seems impossible

42:44

to talk about Andy Baker's work without

42:46

using some form of the phrase

42:49

deeply observed, or at least the

42:51

word observed. The flick is very

42:53

much about behavior. Instead of action,

42:55

scenes play out deliberately and

42:58

demand not just your attention as a

43:00

viewer, but engagement. It's highly subjective what

43:02

each audience member chooses to focus on

43:05

on the stage and what they take

43:07

away. It all varies. And so my

43:09

assumption going into this

43:11

movie, only knowing what it was about and

43:13

having not seen any previews was

43:16

that an Andy Baker film might

43:18

employ a sort of Paul

43:20

Schrader esque transcendental style in

43:22

unsophisticated terms, you know, long

43:25

shots, long takes

43:27

the movie frame, essentially

43:30

replacing the theater personium. My

43:33

assumption was completely wrong because you

43:36

could still categorize this movie as one that's

43:38

deeply observed, but Baker relies

43:40

on closeups to align us with

43:42

Lacey's point of view. And

43:45

she transfers the

43:47

audience's responsibility to observe to

43:50

her. Lacey is the

43:52

audience for Janet Planet, by which

43:54

I mean the drama that's

43:56

unfolding around and including her

43:59

mother. think about it, this summer

44:01

that we see is structured

44:03

as three acts, each

44:05

one centered on a different

44:07

character, and I do mean capital C

44:10

character that comes into her orbit, and

44:13

Lacey watches, and she

44:15

tries to make sense of it all. But she's

44:17

also a biased observer because she's not really interested

44:19

in sharing her mother with any of these people.

44:22

And, and when she wants, unlike

44:24

a theater audience, she can insert herself into

44:27

the story, she can possibly even influence the

44:29

action, which she does on occasion.

44:31

So, you know, in a play, in

44:33

an Annie Baker play, would we notice

44:35

a moment like when someone

44:39

comes to take some things away from

44:41

a room where someone's staying and

44:45

Lacey and the camera linger on this

44:47

little piece of paper when

44:50

a New Yorker cover is torn

44:52

off the wall and a little bit of the tape

44:54

and a little bit of the paper stay there on

44:56

the wall. Now, if we were in a theater and

44:58

that stayed there on

45:01

a wall, maybe we'd pay attention to

45:03

it. Maybe we wouldn't even notice it. Maybe we'd

45:05

turn our attention to something else, but we, we

45:07

linger and we look at it here because Lacey

45:10

focuses on it. And I even, I

45:12

even love what the cover itself kind of, the fact

45:14

that it opens, it requires you

45:16

then to kind of interpret it in a way where

45:18

it's like, this woman was there,

45:20

and then she was gone, just

45:23

ripped away from the scenario, like the cover

45:25

itself. And it's almost like that

45:27

piece of tape and that little bit of

45:29

paper in the end

45:31

will be the only evidence that she was

45:33

ever even there. And then like Will Patton

45:35

plays her mother's boyfriend in act one. And

45:37

Lacey's clearly not a big fan, but

45:40

even if she didn't express it verbally,

45:43

we'd know it because he's like faceless for the

45:45

first 15 to 20 minutes of the movie, right?

45:47

Like I didn't know it was Will Patton until

45:49

about 20 minutes in, when we finally get to

45:51

look at his face, the camera

45:53

is always at a distance from him and

45:55

he's, he's just a presence in this film.

45:58

Yeah, I think I've seen. And this is

46:00

kind of a crazy setup here, but I've

46:02

seen exactly 50, 50, five old

46:04

minutes of it, just about half of it. And

46:06

I'm going to finish this film up for

46:08

review tomorrow after we taped this podcast. So,

46:10

but I'm with you with, with everything on

46:12

that. I think Annie Baker's showing

46:14

an awfully good instinct

46:17

in her first feature about

46:19

how to, how to kind of take what

46:21

works and has worked in various styles she's

46:23

written in, you know, for the stage for,

46:25

you know, for three decades now and

46:28

figure out how am I going to sort

46:30

of deal with that visually. I, I got

46:32

in the, in the opening, you know, 40,

46:34

50 minutes, Josh, I got a little more

46:36

of the sense that she was willing to

46:38

just actually, you know, Oh, you're going

46:40

to, this 20,

46:42

25 seconds is going to take a, take a while. I

46:45

mean, it takes 20, 25 seconds, but it's 20, 25 seconds that

46:47

are, that's composed just two

46:51

people walking down to get a, you know, to get,

46:53

or it's not rushed. And

46:56

it's, and it's, it's just not the kind

46:58

of 20 seconds you see in the average

47:00

movie, you know, you can look forward to

47:03

Michael's review over at Chicago, tribune.com. Janet planet

47:05

currently playing in limited release. If you see

47:07

it and agree or disagree with our thoughts,

47:09

we would love to hear from you. Feedback

47:12

at filmspotting.net. We

47:17

had the entire cabinet on a trip to

47:19

the far East. We had one third of

47:21

a combat division returning from Germany in the

47:23

air above the United States at the

47:25

time of the shooting

47:27

at 1234 PM, the entire telephone system went

47:29

out in Washington for a solid hour. And

47:32

on the plane back to Washington word was

47:34

radioed from the white house situations room to

47:37

Lyndon Johnson, that one individual performed the assassination.

47:39

That sounded like a bunch of coincidences to

47:41

you, Mr. Garrison, not for one moment.

47:44

One of those scenes there that I'm sure we

47:46

all saw popping up on our social

47:48

media feeds over the past week. Sadly,

47:50

the late great Donald Sutherland in Oliver

47:52

Stone's JFK, Donald Sutherland was

47:55

88 years old and a beloved

47:57

actor, certainly based on the outpouring.

48:00

affection for him and you look

48:02

back at his performances in that

48:04

career received an honorary Oscar in

48:06

2018. Otherwise, somehow no Oscar

48:09

nominations. 200 features, almost 200

48:11

features going

48:13

back to the mid 60s. I'll list a

48:16

few of the main ones here and then

48:18

Michael would love to hear your thoughts. Maybe

48:20

you have a favorite Sutherland performance. It's among

48:22

these titles or is not the

48:24

Dirty Dozen in 67. He was Hawkeye and

48:26

Altman's Mash in 70 also

48:29

that year he was in Kelly's Heroes

48:31

with Clint Eastwood, Clute with Jane

48:33

Fonda in 71. Don't Look

48:36

Now 73. Philip Kaufman's Invasion of

48:38

the Body Snatchers in 78. Also

48:41

that year Animal House, of course,

48:43

Ordinary People in 1980. That

48:45

was the film that I went to

48:47

and started immediately looking up clips from

48:50

and I haven't even mentioned Backdraft, Six

48:52

Degrees of Separation, Ad Astra Outbreak.

48:54

Many will think of him as President

48:56

Snow in The Hunger Games. Any of

48:58

those in particular stand out for you,

49:00

Michael? Well, it's certainly, President Snow in

49:02

The Hunger Games stood out for the

49:05

headline writers at the Tribune because that

49:07

was the thing they led with completely.

49:10

It's like, oh, that's the one they've seen. What's

49:12

remarkable to me is when you

49:14

go back to 1970 with

49:17

Mash and take it through Ordinary

49:20

People in 1980. Just look at it as the decade

49:22

of the 70s. He

49:24

was even a more

49:26

prominent and vital part of that decade

49:29

than I realized. I just had never stacked

49:34

all that up. When you see

49:38

talent like his, it tends

49:40

to follow, he's not like anybody

49:43

else, but actors on that order

49:45

follow the directors they believe in and

49:47

that they want to learn from. He

49:50

did that with everybody from Fellini

49:52

to Philip Koffman

49:55

and Nicholas Rogge. Don't

49:57

look now, it's staggering, I think.

50:00

The fact that it was a popular

50:02

success really speaks awfully well of that

50:04

decade. You know, because it's a tough,

50:06

pretty nervy adaptation of that story. And

50:10

yes, some of the filmmaking is of the

50:12

time, but man, that performance, unbelievable. He

50:14

just never stopped learning. He was

50:17

an incredibly scholarly

50:19

guy, unbelievably curious,

50:23

good researcher, you know, I mean, just and took

50:25

his job seriously. Even on, I mean, like look

50:27

at the JFK thing, not my favorite movie. I

50:30

think that scene is, he

50:32

does more than save it. I mean, he

50:34

makes it sound cogent and compelling. And that's

50:36

more than I can say for most of

50:38

that film. I know I'm in the minority

50:40

on that, but the fact that he took

50:43

two months, I think, to memorize that and

50:45

find it and just make sure that he

50:47

was not just sort of just barely off

50:49

book, but like ready to rip and make

50:51

every new development packed into

50:53

that, whatever, how many minutes it is, like

50:56

vital information we must know. And here's

50:58

why. I mean, that is an acting

51:00

class. But

51:03

he's also, he was lucky enough to

51:05

work all those years and more

51:09

than occasionally work with material that

51:11

really was up to his level.

51:13

So it's a sad loss, but

51:16

a wonderful career. Follow that, Josh. Well, you look

51:18

at that run from 70 to 80 and the

51:20

titles there

51:22

and it is either someone

51:24

who has the right instinct

51:26

or the good fortune. As

51:28

you're, as you're suggesting, Michael,

51:30

something to, to get involved

51:32

with these major works

51:35

from that decade. And

51:37

yeah, I guess the question I'd have

51:39

for you, Michael, is I've got two

51:42

major blind spots when it comes to Sutherland. And

51:44

if I'm looking to correct those, do I, do

51:46

I go with, if you've seen both of these,

51:48

do I go with 30 dozen 67. So

51:51

a little bit before that decade, I'm talking about, or

51:54

I've never seen Altman smash, which is

51:56

haunt, which haunts me like on a

51:58

monthly basis for a different reason. each

52:00

month and now it's haunting me again.

52:03

But just in terms of Sutherland, you know, do

52:05

I start with an earlier effort like

52:07

Dirty Dozen in 67 or

52:09

do I just check MASH off that list

52:12

of blind spotting titles? I mean, all the

52:14

stuff he did in the 60s is fascinating

52:16

because so much of it is just, you

52:18

know, television and the Hammer horror films he'd

52:20

made over in London when he was broke

52:23

and struggling. And yes,

52:25

the Dirty Dozen kind of got a launch, you

52:28

know, just a matter of really just a scene

52:30

or a scene and a half where he stood

52:32

out because there was some sort of edge,

52:34

some comic insolence that everybody kind of

52:37

caught on to. You gotta see

52:39

MASH. I mean, it's a problematic

52:41

classic and I do think it's a

52:43

classic. I mean, that film was hugely

52:45

influential in my young life, unfortunately, because

52:47

it's just an adolescent boys club, you

52:49

know, sex comedy,

52:52

basically. But, you know, for the

52:54

time, it had kind

52:56

of a stunning quality of improvisation to it

52:58

to the point where both stars,

53:01

Southerland and Elliot Gould, didn't know what the hell

53:03

was going on when they were making it. Because

53:06

they didn't understand that the script was essentially thrown away, that

53:08

they were kind of winging it. I

53:10

mean, they tried to get, I have different

53:13

accounts on this and I don't really know all

53:15

my research on it, but I think they tried

53:17

to get Altman kicked off that film or they,

53:19

I know Gould tried to get out, you

53:21

know, just like Cary Grant did with Leo

53:23

McCary back when the

53:26

awful truth came along in 37. Sometimes

53:28

you get an improv based director and

53:30

they freak actors out. Because

53:32

it's like, what are they, I don't know how I'm

53:34

doing. And you should see

53:36

it, Josh, just to see, find out, you

53:38

know, is he comfortable completely with the style

53:40

they're after in this thing? Not entirely. Is

53:43

the casting of those two still

53:45

somehow magic, Southerland and Gould? Yes,

53:47

I mean, it is. And,

53:50

you know, the film does leave a little

53:52

bit of irritation in the mouth always for

53:54

me, because it's misogynist as hell and all the rest

53:56

of it. But, you know, I don't want to dismiss

53:58

that, but I also, I also don't want to dismiss

54:02

the qualities of it that still make

54:04

it worth looking at. And make his

54:06

performance, you know, that film was huge

54:08

and that's what really made people like

54:10

Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland, especially, you

54:12

know, like, you know, by many measurements

54:14

bankable, thank God. Yeah,

54:16

you don't need my opinion on that after

54:19

hearing that, Josh, but I will

54:21

agree with Michael and say that if I was

54:23

just going by film, I might say the dirty

54:25

dozen, but if we're just going Sutherland, it definitely

54:27

has to be imagined. Part of that too, just

54:30

goes back to, I don't

54:33

know if I know his career well enough to

54:35

say playing against type, but just looking at these

54:37

titles, you think of movies like Clute and Ordinary

54:39

People where he can play kind of an ordinary

54:42

guy or he can be someone

54:44

who's mysterious and a little

54:46

bit sinister, a little scary like he

54:48

is even in that JFK scene, certainly

54:50

in that one scene he's in, in

54:52

Backdraft, we get that with President Snow.

54:55

Yes, there's Animal House, but otherwise I don't think

54:57

of him as a comedic actor.

55:00

Like we see him get to flex that

55:03

muscle in MASH a little bit more, Michael,

55:05

is that fair to say? I think so,

55:07

yeah, they're trying to, it's really just an

55:09

actor with a fair amount of good, you

55:11

know, Rada, I think he studied Rada in

55:13

London when he was young, you know, stage

55:15

training and just trying to figure out what

55:17

is this sort of new hip now San

55:19

Francisco, the committee sort of improv comedy we're

55:21

going for here, I don't quite get it,

55:24

but I'm going to give it a shot

55:26

and it's just, it's

55:28

a fascinating working out of this, I

55:30

think for those two stars of MASH,

55:32

a riddle about style and, you know,

55:34

I mean the movie sailed with both

55:37

guys, you know, a big part of

55:39

the success, but yeah, it's, check

55:41

it out. I'd like to hear what you think of it,

55:43

Josh. I sincerely would like to hear what you think of

55:45

it, Josh. I

55:47

will report back. The

55:50

night is young sincerity for Michael Phillips. This

55:53

early, the current deeply flawed film

55:55

spotting poll looks ahead to kinds

55:57

of kindness. The latest from your

55:59

ghost, Lanthe. and Emma Stone.

56:01

It's out in limited release. In fact,

56:04

this weekend opening at the music box

56:06

with a 35 millimeter special run, we

56:08

are asking you to choose a

56:11

single Lanthemos film. Now this is

56:13

where it gets a little tricky. It says, according

56:15

to producer Sam, for yourself

56:18

and for posterity, you can only make one

56:20

choice. It has to check

56:22

both those boxes. It's the film for

56:25

you, the one I suppose you enjoy the most,

56:27

admire the most, want to watch again. The

56:30

most, but also thinking about it within

56:32

a larger context. It's not just about you. It's

56:36

about the world in which film

56:38

would most benefit others. So your

56:41

pick Josh was the lobster. It's in the

56:43

lead. The favorite though is

56:45

not far behind. We left out Alps,

56:47

Michael, sorry. We also included dog tooth,

56:50

the killing of a sacred deer and poor things.

56:52

Do you have a clear, easy

56:54

choice? I like to see

56:56

again, the most I'd most

56:58

like to see a second time. I only saw

57:00

once was the lobster. So I would, I would

57:02

vote lobster. Okay. Josh will

57:05

share those poll results next week.

57:07

I'm off little family vacation. Roxanna

57:09

had Dottie from vulture will sit

57:11

in and we will get to

57:13

kinds of kindness in a couple of weeks here

57:16

on the show. You can vote and leave a

57:18

comment in that Lanthemos poll at filmspotting.net. Quick

57:20

note about our sister podcast, the next picture show,

57:23

they've got a new pairing out inside

57:25

out to with Pixar's

57:27

brave, always love Pixar talk.

57:29

Very eager to hear what

57:32

the group makes of both of those new episodes

57:34

of the next picture show post every Tuesday. And

57:36

you can find them wherever you get your podcasts.

57:40

It is time now for massacre theater, the part

57:42

of the show where we perform a scene and

57:44

you get a chance to win a film spotting

57:46

prize. A couple of weeks back, we

57:48

massacred this scene. Your government

57:50

spook. Yes. I mean, no, I was before,

57:52

but I'm not now. Uh, but that's all

57:55

irrelevant. Really. The idea of government's nations is public

57:57

relations theory at this point. I don't want to

57:59

hear about the theory. I want to hear about

58:01

the dead people. Explain the dead people. Who

58:04

do you kill? That's

58:06

very complicated. But in the beginning, it matters,

58:08

of course, that you have something to hang

58:11

on to, specific ideology to defend, right? I

58:13

mean, taming unchecked aggression. That was my personal

58:15

favorite. Other guys like live, free, or die.

58:17

But you get the idea. But that's all

58:19

bullshit. And I know that. That's all bullshit.

58:21

You do it because you're trained to do

58:23

it. You are encouraged to do it. And

58:25

ultimately, you know, you get

58:29

to like it. That was

58:31

John Cusack and Minnie Driver in

58:33

1997's Gross Point Blank, written by

58:36

D.V. Divicentis, Steve Pink,

58:38

Tom Jankewitz, and Cusack. And it

58:40

was directed by George Armitage. That

58:43

massacre was part of a show a

58:46

couple of weeks ago when we reviewed

58:48

Richard Linklater's Hitman alongside Inside Out 2

58:50

and Ghostlight. So why that

58:52

scene? Well, Sarah Swale from Tacoma,

58:54

Washington has this. The connection to

58:56

Hitman is obvious, as both are

58:58

best described as a rom-com with

59:00

an assassin. But Gross Point also

59:02

involves angsty teenage emotions, so maybe

59:04

also a tie to Inside Out

59:07

2. John Cusack is

59:09

anxiety personified after all. Here's

59:12

Josh Ashenmiller in LA. First degree

59:14

connection, Hitman. Obvs. Second

59:17

degree. Last week's show mentioned

59:19

another film set in a suburb on the

59:21

shore of a great lake. Ghostlight, which takes

59:23

place in Waukegan, Illinois. We were definitely thinking

59:25

about that. Third degree, the Massacre Theatre scene.

59:28

We were not thinking of this. The Massacre

59:30

Theatre scene was Cusack with Minnie Driver. On

59:32

the show, you talked about Inside Out 2,

59:35

which features joy, rage, anxiety

59:37

at all as the

59:39

Minnie drivers of Riley's thoughts

59:41

and feelings. Sorry if

59:44

this gets me permanently blocked. I

59:46

understand. Josh, I am shaking

59:48

my head right now. Chaperone

59:52

Josh is really upset. Vigorously

59:54

head shaking. Ben Kair

59:56

also wrote in from Los Angeles

59:58

by way of Rogers Park. The film is

1:00:00

the classic gross point blank starring Chicago boys

1:00:03

John Cusack, Steve Pink, and D.V. De

1:00:05

Vicentis. I got to see it at the

1:00:07

Evanston Theater and met Jeremy Piven afterwards. Writers

1:00:10

Pink, De Vicentis, and Cusack would of

1:00:12

course go on to write the now

1:00:14

Chicago classic, High Fidelity. I

1:00:16

was the pink-haired skater kid in the film.

1:00:19

How about that? Of which there is a

1:00:21

new book about the filming called Top 5.

1:00:23

How High Fidelity Found Its Rhythm and Became

1:00:25

a Cult Movie Classic by Andrew Bus. Adam,

1:00:28

have you sued or should

1:00:30

I ask have they sued you yet?

1:00:32

Yeah, exactly. I definitely lifted the idea

1:00:34

from the book. Let's be clear. Oh

1:00:36

boy. Ben continues. I love

1:00:38

the show. I found it during the

1:00:40

pandemic. I enjoyed the insightful and friendly

1:00:42

movie banter with a familiar and heartwarming,

1:00:44

hard A Chicago accent. It makes me

1:00:47

feel at home. I don't know what

1:00:49

Ben is talking about. Because I'm an Iowan and

1:00:52

I don't have an accent. I have to say

1:00:54

Jodie Comer's performance in Bike Riders, we covered

1:00:56

this in our review. It has

1:00:58

me, like when I'm out talking

1:01:01

to people, second guessing myself quite

1:01:03

often. You don't hear

1:01:05

yourself. That's exactly what you sound like. Patrick

1:01:07

from Logan Square. In our home, we watch

1:01:10

Gross Point Blank at least once a year.

1:01:12

And you may hear me quoting Dan Aykroyd's

1:01:14

demented killer for hire, Grocer exclaiming, bing, bang,

1:01:16

boom, popcorn from time to time. It's criminally

1:01:18

overlooked. And I always listed as one of

1:01:20

my most underrated comedies of the last few

1:01:23

decades when watching Hitman, the tie in crossed

1:01:25

my mind, too. It doesn't have the same

1:01:27

chaotic balance of elevated violence or comedic chops.

1:01:29

The Gross Point Blank does. And although I

1:01:31

like Powell quite a bit, he could have

1:01:33

used a touch of Q-Sachs gloom and danger

1:01:36

to balance out that smirk that he employs

1:01:38

so effectively. But it does do the thing

1:01:40

that always impresses me about Gross Point. It

1:01:42

gives you a top-notch ensemble of fleshed out

1:01:44

characters that play to the height of their

1:01:46

intelligence. And it trusts the audience to keep

1:01:49

up with them. Honestly,

1:02:00

we ruined it for him because we were quoting the

1:02:02

lines and then looking at him to see if he

1:02:05

was laughing. Lesson learned. I

1:02:08

never did anything like that again. You can't be that

1:02:10

guy. Oh gosh, that sounds like possibly the most annoying

1:02:12

thing in the world. Sorry, David. Even

1:02:14

just hearing that anecdote, I think I have to quit. I

1:02:17

mean, I just took a quit. It's

1:02:19

too much. Oh no, we've lost Michael.

1:02:21

Thanks, David. Thanks a lot. Josh,

1:02:26

the film spotting hat is fairly brimming

1:02:28

this week. So much love for gross

1:02:30

point blank. Why don't you reach in

1:02:32

and pick out this week's winner? Our

1:02:34

winner is Ben Watson from Seattle. Congratulations,

1:02:36

Ben. Email feedback at filmspotting.net. We will

1:02:38

set you up with your very own

1:02:40

film spotting t-shirt or tote bag or

1:02:42

trial membership into the film spotting family.

1:02:45

Broadsheet journalists have described my

1:02:48

impressions as stunningly accurate. Well, they're wrong. I've

1:02:50

not heard your Michael Caine, but I assume

1:02:52

it would be something along the lines of

1:02:55

I'm spark cocaine. That is where you are so wrong. We

1:02:59

move on to this week's edition of Massacre

1:03:01

Theatre. I don't think we're going to need

1:03:03

to give any hints. I'll say this and

1:03:05

I kind of have to say it because

1:03:07

I know there are some people out there

1:03:09

who adore many people out

1:03:12

there who adore this film and might even

1:03:14

be reciting it along with

1:03:16

us. We have well, we've

1:03:18

bastardized it. Charitably,

1:03:20

you could say we've adapted it.

1:03:23

We have combined some

1:03:25

parts, multiple parts into one.

1:03:28

That's the part I will be playing. And

1:03:31

we've alighted things a little bit. We've really

1:03:33

just ruined it. We've ruined the scene. And

1:03:35

now we're going to ruin it with our

1:03:38

acting. Now, because he's our guest,

1:03:40

Josh, I offered a

1:03:43

pick of rolls to Michael Phillips earlier in the day. And

1:03:46

he decided to go with the

1:03:49

person who starts the scene. I'm very

1:03:51

eager to hear it. I

1:03:54

know my role here in Massacre Theatre. I

1:03:56

know what I'm good slash terrible at. And

1:04:00

so I'm going to play that. You

1:04:03

have to save us here. And I

1:04:05

will offer this performance with nothing but

1:04:08

dignity and respect. Always.

1:04:12

Dignity and respect. Well, that's true. I

1:04:14

always do. But particularly in this case.

1:04:17

OK. Michael, you started off. I'm

1:04:20

going to give you the action. Are you ready?

1:04:22

I was born ready for this role. And?

1:04:25

And? Action. You must go

1:04:28

and visit him at once. Good

1:04:30

heavens. People. Sorry, I

1:04:34

stuttered there. I jumped in. You

1:04:36

were too ready. I was too ready. From

1:04:38

the top. I have to come up with a

1:04:40

completely different library. Here

1:04:43

we go. And? Action. You

1:04:46

must go and visit him at once. Good

1:04:48

heavens. People. For

1:04:51

we may not visit if you do not, as you

1:04:53

well know. Are you listening?

1:04:55

You never listen. You must, Papa. At

1:04:57

once. There's no need.

1:05:00

I already have. Have? Oh, how can

1:05:02

you tease me so? Have you no

1:05:04

compassion for my poor nerves? Oh,

1:05:07

you mistake me, my dear. I have

1:05:09

the highest respect for them. They've been

1:05:11

my constant companions these 20 years. Papa?

1:05:14

Is he amiable? Is

1:05:17

he handsome? I will give

1:05:19

my hearty consent to his marrying, whichever

1:05:21

the girls he chooses. So

1:05:23

will he come to the ball tomorrow, Papa? I

1:05:26

believe so. Oh,

1:05:29

God. Oh, God. You

1:05:32

cannot hear that. And whatever you

1:05:34

just did, Adam, sent a shiver up

1:05:36

my spine. That was what I

1:05:38

was going for. What

1:05:41

would you prefer? It

1:05:44

was a little, you know, it could get

1:05:46

a little sweaty and hot in this closet

1:05:48

I record in. That was like cool things

1:05:50

down by 20 degrees. I'm sure. I

1:05:52

think we all reached a level of

1:05:55

rare misunderstanding, just persistent, you

1:05:57

know, just keep going. That's

1:06:00

it. That's it. If you know what

1:06:02

film we absolutely just massacred, emailed the

1:06:04

movie's title and your name and location

1:06:06

to feedback at filmspotting.net. I don't think

1:06:08

I even attempted a British accent. The

1:06:10

deadline is Monday, July 8th. We'll select

1:06:13

the winner randomly from all the correct entries

1:06:15

in a couple of weeks. That

1:06:19

was a little, that was

1:06:21

a little, that was a little, that

1:06:23

was unsettled. Michael Scowill says it all.

1:06:26

It was unsettling. This

1:06:30

man with a face broken

1:06:33

in half, he is a

1:06:35

victim of an accident. He

1:06:37

was going out from your

1:06:40

courthouse. Warehouse. No, no,

1:06:43

you know, funky creatures

1:06:45

or whatever. The

1:06:48

sounds of a festival favorite there and

1:06:51

Michael Phillips, your number two film of

1:06:53

the year as we continue

1:06:55

our countdown of the top five films of the

1:06:57

year so far. Tell us about it. This is

1:06:59

Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of

1:07:01

the World. This is Radu

1:07:04

Joude's really, really blistering

1:07:07

black comedy from Romania. It's a

1:07:09

great workplace comedy. I think it's

1:07:11

one day in the life of

1:07:14

this woman who's kind of a

1:07:16

gopher and a driver played by

1:07:18

Alinka Manoloke, a fantastic young talent.

1:07:20

And she's working for a video

1:07:23

production house that's been hired

1:07:25

to put together interviews for

1:07:28

a workplace safety video this

1:07:30

company wants and the lawyers

1:07:32

involved are very intent on

1:07:34

getting just so. And her

1:07:36

job is to interview different

1:07:38

injured workers and sort of

1:07:40

build the company's case for

1:07:43

them less they get sued out of existence.

1:07:46

It's just kind of her travails

1:07:49

all day. Very funny, very,

1:07:52

very sobering. And you

1:07:54

just get a great sense of kind of where

1:07:57

we are right now. in

1:08:01

this world of ours about how we treat

1:08:03

people and don't treat people, how we tell

1:08:06

the truth and how we pretend like we're telling

1:08:08

the truth, how we do a lot of things.

1:08:11

I just found it as bracing as, and

1:08:13

it reminded me of some of the Romanian

1:08:15

films I saw in that sort

1:08:17

of first amazing wave that came around 2005,

1:08:20

2006. It's

1:08:22

just, it's my kind of comedy, meaning

1:08:25

it just tastes like nothing like, except

1:08:27

ashes in the mouth, you know, but

1:08:30

it's not my only kind of comedy, but I

1:08:32

respond to a very kind of,

1:08:35

I guess just naturally, especially

1:08:37

when it's got the life that this lead

1:08:39

performance has. I really like it. You're

1:08:41

here to see it again. Not easy, but

1:08:43

that's all right. Capitalism isn't easy. It's

1:08:46

my number six, Michael, and I

1:08:49

think a second watch might bump

1:08:51

it up even higher than that

1:08:53

because it's a tough watch.

1:08:55

You describe it as a comedy, which

1:08:57

is accurate, but blistering, which you said

1:09:00

is more accurate, I think. And

1:09:02

the lead performance is blistering, but

1:09:04

that is the thing, you know,

1:09:07

Alinka Monolake shot

1:09:10

to the top of my list of female

1:09:12

performances of the year right now after seeing

1:09:14

this. I knew that even though this is

1:09:17

in many ways a very, you sympathize

1:09:19

with her position, even

1:09:21

as she's pretty despicable throughout much

1:09:23

of the film, but you

1:09:26

understand why. You start to see as this goes

1:09:28

on how she is

1:09:30

carrying herself as a reaction of

1:09:32

where she's been put. And yeah, this

1:09:34

is one I definitely do wanna take another

1:09:37

look at, even though it is quite long,

1:09:39

it's quite intense, it

1:09:41

is funny in moments, but I forget how you put

1:09:43

it, but you know, better than this, but those laughs

1:09:45

that stuck, get stuck in your throat, it's that sort

1:09:47

of comedy. And it's

1:09:50

a real achievement, I think. So definitely

1:09:53

glad you highlighted here, made it in

1:09:55

your top five. My number

1:09:57

two, however, gonna go in a different

1:09:59

direction. the people's joker,

1:10:02

one that we raved about on this show. Adam,

1:10:05

and you know, if hundreds of beavers isn't

1:10:07

the wildest thing I've watched this year, and

1:10:09

yes, I did catch up with that. I

1:10:11

know we have listeners who love hundreds of

1:10:14

beavers. I enjoyed it quite a bit, even if it's

1:10:16

not gonna make the cut here for me. I

1:10:18

gotta say, if that isn't the wildest thing I watched

1:10:21

this year, it's only because I saw Vera Drew's designer

1:10:24

desktop hodgepodge of Batman

1:10:26

mythology, queer identity, and

1:10:29

anti-corporate shenanigans. This

1:10:31

is something Drew co-wrote, directed,

1:10:33

edited, Drew stars as Joker

1:10:35

the Harlequin, this trans woman trying to

1:10:38

find herself, and a community really in

1:10:40

this dystopian Gotham City. This involved over

1:10:42

100 creative contributors, which you know at

1:10:44

a big budget effort, doesn't sound like

1:10:46

much, but this was not a big

1:10:49

budget effort by any means. That speaks

1:10:51

to the communal nature of this project.

1:10:54

All these unique skills came together

1:10:56

to help with the character designs,

1:10:59

the background imagery, the costumes we

1:11:01

see. This thing is so creative

1:11:03

and original. I'm gonna name it again, grab

1:11:05

your beer or your shot glass. This is why it

1:11:08

got our golden brick nod when we reviewed it on

1:11:10

the show. Now, despite so

1:11:13

many direct references to Warner Brothers material,

1:11:16

Drew has managed to stave off corporate

1:11:18

censorship to a degree, claiming fair use.

1:11:20

This has been screened here and there

1:11:23

so that we get, what we get is

1:11:25

a Batman movie of sorts, but it's from

1:11:27

the ground up, rather than coming from the

1:11:29

IP gods down. It's a

1:11:31

completely different direction and you experience it

1:11:33

that way. What is

1:11:35

it about the wrong kind of man? You

1:11:41

know how I feel about Robert Nipple's Bruce.

1:11:43

I imagine when most little boys watched the

1:11:45

Bat Nipple love scene from Legends of the

1:11:47

Cape Crusader, they probably wanted to be Batman

1:11:49

and screw Nicole Kidman. I'm sure this was

1:11:52

a sexual awakening for a lot of young

1:11:54

men, but I watched it and I wanted

1:11:56

to be Nicole Kidman. Was

1:11:58

this why my mom didn't usually. Let

1:12:00

me watch PG-13 movies. Does every PG-13

1:12:03

movie make little boys want to become

1:12:05

girls someday? It took years of moments

1:12:07

like this. Now, of course, this still

1:12:09

limits the exhibition options. So it's

1:12:12

been making the rounds in all sorts of

1:12:14

inventive ways. We've mentioned on the show a

1:12:16

couple of times and those listening to this

1:12:18

episode early, there's still a chance.

1:12:20

If you're near Springgreen, Wisconsin, producer

1:12:23

Sam, he's holding a June 30 screening

1:12:25

of The People's Joker as part of his movie

1:12:28

club that he does there. Otherwise,

1:12:30

looks like this is gonna be available on

1:12:32

Blu-ray, August 13. So

1:12:34

that might be, I'm thinking that's gonna be

1:12:37

the chance most people have to see

1:12:39

this. It is well worth it.

1:12:42

Again, my wildest movie experience of the

1:12:44

year so far and that is why it's at

1:12:46

number two. It is well worth it. And

1:12:49

I'm gonna now transition into a

1:12:51

film that, well, pretty much everyone can

1:12:53

see, at least everyone who has Netflix.

1:12:55

And I'm glad, Michael,

1:12:58

that you're here because Josh claimed to

1:13:00

like it, but had a lot

1:13:02

of negative things to say about my number

1:13:04

two film. Where's my new movie? It's my

1:13:06

Furiosa, Michael. This is my Furiosa. I know

1:13:08

that you strongly considered it

1:13:11

for your list, even if I'm guessing it's

1:13:13

not going to clock in at

1:13:15

number one, Hitman. And it

1:13:18

wasn't a great idea to prepare my notes

1:13:20

today, going in order from five down to

1:13:23

one, because I didn't do Hitman any favors,

1:13:26

watching clips from it, after watching clips from Love

1:13:28

Lies Bleeding. Richard Linklater's

1:13:30

big swings here are decidedly not visual,

1:13:32

which I will come back to. But

1:13:35

that doesn't mean the former college baseball player

1:13:37

doesn't take some strong wax and

1:13:40

it's all about structure. At multiple points, it

1:13:43

seems clear, and this is my experience, but

1:13:45

I know from talking to others as well,

1:13:48

it seems clear where this movie is

1:13:50

going and what notes you

1:13:52

expect it to hit. And if anyone

1:13:54

out there tries to tell me that

1:13:56

they correctly predicted anything close to resembling

1:13:58

the circumstances, Glenn Powell. and

1:14:00

Adria Arrona put themselves in and the

1:14:02

decisions they ultimately make, I

1:14:05

will tell you that you're a liar. Linklater

1:14:08

and Powell are acutely

1:14:10

aware of how audiences

1:14:12

consume hitman movies and

1:14:14

noirs, and they riff on those

1:14:16

narratives and those expectations in surprising

1:14:19

ways and sometimes silly ways. The

1:14:21

movie is very funny at times,

1:14:23

and in ways that like

1:14:25

we expect from a good Linklater movie, in

1:14:28

ways that still deliver the philosophical

1:14:30

provocations that we get from

1:14:32

him. I mean, I

1:14:34

know Josh, you're a prefer salty

1:14:37

to sweet scold, so you wouldn't get

1:14:39

it, but is there a truer maxim

1:14:41

than all pie is good pie? No,

1:14:43

there isn't. It's the truest thing

1:14:45

we've heard on screen this year. Give me a

1:14:48

bowl of potato chips any day. Oh, man.

1:14:52

I now want to hire a hitman, and

1:14:54

we can solve this once and for

1:14:56

all. Which one? Visually. Which

1:14:58

one would you hire, Adam? You know, the one

1:15:01

that resembles Tilda Swinton, I think. So I'm

1:15:04

going to come back to this because I do love

1:15:06

this movie. That's why I have it at number two.

1:15:08

I've seen it twice, the only movie on the list

1:15:10

I've watched a second time. But because I know, Michael,

1:15:12

you've got my back and you love this film, I

1:15:16

have seen this notion catch a little steam on

1:15:18

social, and I wrestled with it

1:15:20

as I was watching it the first time.

1:15:22

I was aware of it in that very

1:15:24

early diner scene where Powell pretends to be

1:15:26

a hitman for the first time. And I

1:15:28

was watching it thinking, you know, Linklater

1:15:31

isn't always the most daring

1:15:34

visual stylist, but man,

1:15:37

this seems pretty conventional and

1:15:39

generic. The conversation, not the content

1:15:41

of the conversation, but how it was being brought

1:15:43

to life seemed to me that it could have

1:15:46

been straight out of any generic Netflix

1:15:48

romantic comedy. And it struck me

1:15:50

because, as I said, even

1:15:52

if you don't think of Linklater as

1:15:54

an overly inventive filmmaker outside of his

1:15:57

use of rotoscoping, I've always been able

1:15:59

to account for it. for formal choices

1:16:01

he's making, no matter how talky the

1:16:03

movies are. I couldn't do

1:16:05

that here. And it's odd because it's Shane Kelly,

1:16:07

who's the DP he's worked with many

1:16:10

times. They've done projects going back to

1:16:12

a Scanner Darkly. He shot

1:16:14

Boyhood, Everybody Wants Some, Apollo

1:16:16

10 and a Half and others. So is

1:16:19

it a limitation of the movie or

1:16:21

is it my limitation as a critic, probably

1:16:23

more likely, or does it just not matter

1:16:25

with this movie because it's so fun and

1:16:28

sexy? Yeah, boy, that's a

1:16:30

tough one. It's a good argument. I'm

1:16:32

aware of that sort of conversation going on in

1:16:34

various social threads, just about, why

1:16:38

does it look like a cruddy

1:16:40

Netflix film, many people think, or

1:16:43

they just take it straight to Linklater saying he's never

1:16:45

been much of a visual stylist

1:16:47

or anything more than a

1:16:49

really good humanist

1:16:52

technician behind the camera, aside from

1:16:54

everything else he can do right.

1:16:58

Yes, yeah, it's a limitation. I think

1:17:00

Glenn Powell is still a slight limitation,

1:17:02

even though this is the best and

1:17:04

most effective he's, for me, he's been in

1:17:07

any film. I think

1:17:09

he's just finally, slowly,

1:17:12

gradually, finding a

1:17:14

way to kind of modulate the smirk and kind of just

1:17:16

find ways to be on camera without

1:17:22

posing on camera. And I think he's

1:17:24

got a lot, maybe, he's got a

1:17:26

lot he can do that we haven't

1:17:28

seen yet. And this film gets him

1:17:31

a good way. Look, the reason I like this film a lot,

1:17:33

and it did just miss my top five, is

1:17:36

that it is an unpredictable rom-com

1:17:38

that is about a fake

1:17:41

hit man, and that is based on a

1:17:43

true story a little bit. And

1:17:45

it doesn't have a punishing spirit.

1:17:48

It doesn't have the usual use

1:17:50

of violence and brutality for

1:17:52

laughs. It doesn't go see bad boys for

1:17:54

that. It doesn't have a lot of things.

1:17:56

It's because of the sensibility behind the camera.

1:18:00

Link later. Any other director would have taken that same

1:18:02

script and found a way to, well, we really need

1:18:04

to lease two more shootouts and then somebody has to

1:18:06

get kicked in the face, whatever.

1:18:09

It is the gentlest film out there. I

1:18:12

mean, Netflix, I'm sure the suits at Netflix

1:18:16

were like, what? But I think

1:18:18

people actually respond to it because it

1:18:20

is fundamentally both

1:18:23

easygoing, really amiable work.

1:18:25

And also it's got that weird

1:18:27

sort of turn I don't want

1:18:29

to give away where you have,

1:18:31

you know, hot. Didn't see that

1:18:33

turn. It's not like a big

1:18:35

surprise or a spring or

1:18:37

big reveal. It's just more like a really?

1:18:39

Wow. And it works. Can I

1:18:42

offer a little evidence that I'm not the complete

1:18:44

villain when it comes to comes to Hitman? I

1:18:46

mean, this is a movie I enjoyed enough

1:18:50

to we've got, I spent

1:18:52

today part of today editing an article at

1:18:54

Think Christian about Hitman, because after all,

1:18:57

this is, this is a movie quotes

1:18:59

Nietzsche, right? Who famously wrote the

1:19:02

anti-Christ. And so we

1:19:04

had, we had a writer who

1:19:06

loved the movie quite a bit,

1:19:08

very appreciative post, exploring things way

1:19:10

above my head, the Nietzsche-ness of

1:19:12

it all. And, and what that

1:19:14

might mean for this movie and this character and

1:19:16

how we see ourselves, what we

1:19:19

aspire to. And I

1:19:21

think you would like it. It's, it's

1:19:23

very, a very glowing piece about

1:19:26

Hitman that is probably not up now

1:19:28

because I'm still not completely done editing

1:19:30

it. By, by the time this episode

1:19:32

airs, people confided at Think Christian. That

1:19:34

was really well done. You get to

1:19:37

come off gracious and magnanimous and plug

1:19:39

the website. I mean, I'm doing what

1:19:41

I can here. Uh-huh. That

1:19:44

brings us, I do want to check out

1:19:46

that article. I, you know, I dabbled like

1:19:49

everyone else in college in Nietzsche, you know,

1:19:51

took an existentialism class once. It

1:19:54

was early in the morning, but I made it

1:19:56

through Michael Phillips, your number one film of the year

1:19:58

so far. For God's

1:20:00

sake, I mean, it's the one, you know,

1:20:02

I saw that film very happy. Number one.

1:20:04

Twice. Yes. Yes.

1:20:07

And I love it. I mean, it's insane

1:20:09

really. I mean, the film, it

1:20:11

doesn't quite take place on any planet I've been to,

1:20:13

but you know, I love it. I

1:20:16

love the fact that this, I'm going

1:20:18

to list the negative virtues, lickety-split. I

1:20:20

love the fact that everybody's acting like

1:20:22

just a louse, you know, in different

1:20:25

keys and different ways. And

1:20:27

it doesn't, there's not any points

1:20:29

for noble, you know, behavior

1:20:32

or above board dealing with, you

1:20:34

know, lifelong friends, none of it,

1:20:37

out the window. And somehow this

1:20:40

script and then sort

1:20:42

of is souped up by

1:20:44

the director, Luca Guadagnino, so

1:20:47

that we really don't just want

1:20:51

a little action visually for

1:20:53

the last glimpse, extended sequence of

1:20:55

the big match. But we're

1:20:57

really begging for it. And we get tennis

1:20:59

balls right in the face over and over

1:21:01

and over. And somehow I was just grinning

1:21:04

and ducking the whole, I mean, you know,

1:21:06

that's that, to me that was like, you

1:21:08

know, now we're talking 3D without it, you

1:21:10

know, without 3D. But I also

1:21:12

do, I do think it's a wonderful actor's showcase. My

1:21:15

only issue with this movie is it's

1:21:17

elegant trash. That's what, that's how I

1:21:19

put it. And I tried the best

1:21:21

kind. I don't know. Having

1:21:24

seen it twice, I don't know personally if I'm not

1:21:26

going to give it anything away, if

1:21:28

the deliberate ambiguity at the

1:21:30

end plays too

1:21:32

much like indecision for

1:21:35

me or just the

1:21:37

wrong kind of ambiguity. I don't know. I

1:21:39

don't know. Why do I need it? Why do I need a clear

1:21:41

answer? We disagree. Why do I need a clear

1:21:44

answer? I would disagree with you, Michael, on that. Really? As

1:21:46

I said, I've got to watch it a second

1:21:48

time. So you're more experienced than I am. But

1:21:50

I loved that indecision, if you want

1:21:52

to call it that. So much. But

1:21:54

I think your characterization, your

1:21:57

two word characterization of the movie, it's insane.

1:22:00

That's poster worthy. I love it. That's

1:22:04

a Michael Phillips blurb. It's great.

1:22:06

I love it that the key

1:22:09

scene, the key discussion, the flashback

1:22:11

to Atlanta where you sort of

1:22:13

get what really happened down in

1:22:16

Atlanta, right, takes place in a

1:22:18

windstorm that is really more like

1:22:20

interstellar level weather. This

1:22:26

movie will be experienced as camp

1:22:28

in 10 to 15 years, for

1:22:30

sure. And I don't know that

1:22:32

that's a bad thing. I don't

1:22:35

know if that's what the filmmakers are intending.

1:22:37

I think it's more nuanced and I think

1:22:39

mature maybe is a word I used to

1:22:42

describe it, but I think that is going

1:22:44

to happen for elements like that, Michael. Yeah. I

1:22:46

mean, it's witty. It's witty. And thank God.

1:22:48

I mean, because you can't, you cannot

1:22:51

buy that. You can't AI that on

1:22:53

a rewrite. There is real wit in

1:22:55

it and that's where a lot

1:22:59

of the juice comes from. So again, thank God

1:23:02

the actors respond to it. I

1:23:04

want you to be my coach. What?

1:23:11

Even if he wins the opening, completes his

1:23:13

career grand slam, Art's still going

1:23:15

to retire as someone who's just really, really

1:23:18

good. That's what you guys would

1:23:20

have done together. But imagine if

1:23:22

you could turn Patrick's of I get a guy

1:23:24

and win just slam. You

1:23:27

still have a season. You still

1:23:29

have one good season and I need you to bring it out

1:23:31

of me. So

1:23:36

what do you think? How

1:23:39

are you? Jesus Christ. You want my best

1:23:41

piece of advice? Do you want me to

1:23:43

go to Okay, quit. All right.

1:23:46

My number one is a little less

1:23:48

sexy. It doesn't

1:23:50

have the same score. It doesn't move as fast.

1:23:52

This is slow cinema, but man,

1:23:55

it still has stuck with me and

1:23:59

it's inside the yellow cocoon shell. I talked

1:24:01

about this early on on the show. A

1:24:04

debut feature from filmmaker Pham

1:24:06

Tin An, another golden

1:24:08

brick nod here, follows basically

1:24:10

a young man living in Vietnam who

1:24:12

undergoes this spiritual crisis after the sudden

1:24:14

death of his sister-in-law. That leaves him

1:24:16

in charge of his little nephew because

1:24:18

the father, so basically his brother, has

1:24:20

left the family years before. So this

1:24:22

kid has nobody and this

1:24:24

guy steps in. So yeah, it's

1:24:27

a work of slow cinema that's spiritually

1:24:29

minded. So think Andrei Tarkovsky, you

1:24:31

think Picha Pong, Ross DeCule.

1:24:34

The thing is, Ann has such an

1:24:36

incredible sense of command here that

1:24:39

he makes this as approachable.

1:24:41

I want to say it's approachable, as

1:24:43

approachable as possible. Let's put it that

1:24:45

way. He keeps pretension at bay because

1:24:47

the movie has little bits of humor

1:24:49

sprinkled in here or there. That helps incredibly.

1:24:52

It's asking these big questions about

1:24:54

eternity and heaven, but

1:24:57

it has a humble curiosity about

1:24:59

those and it does all of this. If

1:25:02

none of that interests you, I mean,

1:25:04

if you're just an aesthetics person, check

1:25:06

this out for the formal control.

1:25:08

Each frame is incredibly bewitching and

1:25:11

full of mystery. So it's worth it on

1:25:14

that alone. As a matter of fact, here's what I'd suggest. Give

1:25:17

the first 10 minutes of Inside

1:25:19

the Yellow Cocoon Shell a try.

1:25:21

This is an extended single take

1:25:23

that I feel like in its form and really the

1:25:26

theme sets, it sets up and sums up the entire

1:25:28

movie. So it's either going to pull you in and

1:25:30

you're like, I'm locked in for this long running time

1:25:33

or maybe it's not your thing. That's fine because

1:25:35

it's going to give you a good taste of

1:25:37

what the film is like. And you

1:25:39

can try that. You can do it right now. It is streaming

1:25:42

for free on Hoopla. If anyone has

1:25:45

Hoopla, but you can also rent it

1:25:47

on Amazon, Apple TV, Google, Google Play,

1:25:49

Voodoo and YouTube right

1:25:51

now. My number one, no

1:25:53

questions asked. Wow. I knew it had

1:25:56

a shot. I knew I was potentially

1:25:58

going to feel shame because it's one

1:26:00

I haven't caught up with. I didn't know you were

1:26:02

gonna put it at number one, just really

1:26:05

digging at me there, Josh. It's a commitment

1:26:07

to, you know, and you gotta watch it,

1:26:09

it's a body, like I've described before, it's

1:26:11

a body rhythm movie. Don't squeeze this in,

1:26:13

don't chop it up in parts, you know,

1:26:15

give it the space it needs, the time,

1:26:17

which is hard to find these days, right,

1:26:19

for anyone. So yeah, if you're gonna do

1:26:21

it, do it that way. And yeah, I

1:26:23

don't think, even if you don't love it

1:26:25

as much as I did, I

1:26:28

don't think you'll come away like disappointed or feel like

1:26:30

your time was wasted. Well, I'm not going to shame

1:26:32

you with my number one film

1:26:34

of the year so far. In fact, you

1:26:36

might just applaud because it's your number two.

1:26:38

I've got the people's joker. Love it. At

1:26:41

number one, a movie so undaunted, I'm talking about

1:26:43

big swings, it was set to premiere at TIFF,

1:26:45

and I know you covered some of this ground,

1:26:47

Josh, but it was set to premiere at TIFF

1:26:49

in September, 2022, before

1:26:51

the director of Vero Drew had to pull it due

1:26:54

to rights issues. And the poster

1:26:56

calls it a fair use film by

1:26:58

Vero Drew because it portrays these characters

1:27:00

from the Batman universe that DC and

1:27:02

Warner Brothers didn't sign off on. And

1:27:04

I'm actually gonna read you a little

1:27:06

bit from Katie Reif writing

1:27:08

for IndieWire about the movie. She might

1:27:11

be, this is Drew, in her own

1:27:13

words, irony poison, but she's fluent in

1:27:15

Batman comics. Alan Moore's 1988 graphic novel,

1:27:17

The Killing Joke, is especially relevant to

1:27:20

Drew's version of Joker's origin story. She

1:27:22

makes impassioned arguments in favor of Todd

1:27:24

Phillips' Joker. Seeing Batman forever in the

1:27:26

cinema was a formative experience in her

1:27:29

life. Her film has deep cut

1:27:31

references to minor Batman villains. And here's how deep it

1:27:33

is. I had to look this up, and even after

1:27:35

looking it up, I'm probably gonna get it wrong. Mr.

1:27:38

Mxyzptlk, okay,

1:27:40

someone's gonna write in and say they are

1:27:42

never listening to the show again. Imagined

1:27:45

here is a fairy godmother type who

1:27:47

allows Drew's Joker to come to terms

1:27:49

with her childhood. With the People's Joker,

1:27:51

director of Vero Drew is doing the

1:27:53

exact thing that studios have been asking

1:27:55

superhero fans to do for years. She's

1:27:57

telling her life story through the medium

1:27:59

of Batman characters. identifying with these characters

1:28:01

and intertwining them with the deepest, most

1:28:03

vulnerable parts of herself. In Drew's

1:28:05

film, becoming a woman has the same

1:28:07

freeing effect as becoming the Joker has

1:28:09

on Arthur Fleck. She's less antisocial about

1:28:11

it, however, and in some ways, here

1:28:13

is the film less cynical than Phillips,

1:28:16

she's making IP personal. So it's a

1:28:18

number one for me because it's that

1:28:20

vulnerability, the humor, and I

1:28:22

would say with all

1:28:24

due respect to Katie, it's not just

1:28:26

less cynical, it's far less cynical than

1:28:28

Phillips film, despite the fact

1:28:31

that Drew very pointedly takes aim

1:28:33

at several different targets, and

1:28:35

it's that fluency, fluency that obviously

1:28:37

I personally don't have, but really

1:28:39

appreciate because I think the satire

1:28:41

is so much more potent because

1:28:44

it's clear that Drew cares enough to criticize.

1:28:46

I got this email from Jeremy in Iowa

1:28:48

City who said, I saw the People's Joker

1:28:51

last night and just listened to your review

1:28:53

this morning, I realized listing the best moments

1:28:55

would either spoil everything or take the entire

1:28:57

episode, but the level of care Drew and

1:28:59

co used to throw in a constant pile

1:29:02

of under the radar Easter eggs for the

1:29:04

Batman nerds is one of my favorite parts.

1:29:06

The animation throwing back to the Dark Knight

1:29:08

returns during Mr. J's old life in particular

1:29:10

killed me, thanks for covering something so unbelievably

1:29:13

weird and dare I say punk rock. So

1:29:15

I didn't get any of those Easter eggs

1:29:17

watching the film, but that's the level you

1:29:19

can appreciate this movie on or you can

1:29:21

watch it like Jeremy did because of how

1:29:23

fluent Drew is and get all

1:29:26

of those references. And you

1:29:28

talked Josh about how it was

1:29:30

crowdsourced during the pandemic, over a

1:29:32

hundred different artists collaborated virtually with

1:29:35

Drew, made up of all

1:29:37

this mixed media. And I hope

1:29:39

more people get to see it here as

1:29:41

we do put it in the

1:29:43

running. We have put it in the running for the golden brick at the

1:29:45

end of the year. And you beat me to this as well, Josh, a

1:29:48

final note that we have details

1:29:50

about the screening in Spring Green,

1:29:52

Wisconsin. It's just about an hour

1:29:54

away, I think, from Madison Sam

1:29:56

pulling this together. If you go

1:29:59

to thepeoplesjoker.com. You'll actually

1:30:01

see the details there under screenings,

1:30:03

or you'll find a link in

1:30:05

the show notes for this episode

1:30:07

over at filmspotting.net. Pile,

1:30:10

Jeremy said pile, right? That's such a perfect word.

1:30:12

And it's, it might have a

1:30:15

negative connotation, but it's not.

1:30:18

It's the levels of creativity. I

1:30:21

think that's like hodgepodge I said too, and

1:30:23

I don't mean that to be a pejorative

1:30:25

thing either. It's just the

1:30:27

density of the

1:30:29

ideas and visual brilliance

1:30:31

of this movie is overwhelming.

1:30:33

Yeah, I can't wait to see it. I can't wait

1:30:35

to see both of your guys. This is number one. I have

1:30:37

not. Just drive to Spring Green. There you

1:30:39

go. If I was free to swim in,

1:30:41

I would go. Those

1:30:45

are our top five films of 2024. So

1:30:49

far now we've heard some honorable

1:30:51

mentions along the way. Any additional

1:30:53

titles either of you would like to

1:30:55

throw into the mix that haven't come up yet? You

1:30:58

got anything, Michael? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I

1:31:01

got a few things. You had 12, so you got some titles to list. Yeah, I

1:31:03

know. Thanks for this frustration. I

1:31:05

really really love it. How, you know,

1:31:07

my number six, I just missed it.

1:31:09

How to Have Sex, a fantastic debut

1:31:12

film and a really clear

1:31:14

eyed portrait of, you know,

1:31:16

sort of female coming of age and a

1:31:19

spring break trip to Crete from England.

1:31:22

It's just, I don't

1:31:24

know, that one really hit me almost

1:31:26

about the hardest of anything I've seen this year. I'm

1:31:29

not quite sure why I didn't make the top five.

1:31:31

That's just how frustrating this thing is. But I really

1:31:33

like, you know, Heaven, as I mentioned, I

1:31:36

really still wrestle with

1:31:38

the ethical implications of this film,

1:31:40

Gasoline Rainbow. Did you see that? Yeah,

1:31:44

I did. What are the concerns? I like

1:31:46

that film a great deal. But

1:31:49

this idea, this sort of like long road

1:31:51

trip among these sort of high

1:31:53

school group from Far

1:31:55

East Oregon, rural Oregon, going to see

1:31:58

the ocean for the first time. and

1:32:00

it's shot like a documentary, and

1:32:02

it plays a little bit of peek-a-boo, but what is

1:32:05

the truth? Is this a made-up

1:32:07

documentary? Are these, in

1:32:09

fact, just non-actors who are playing versions

1:32:11

of themselves in sort of improv settings,

1:32:13

all this? I

1:32:15

didn't find it cheap or specious, I guess,

1:32:18

in the things, but I still wrestle with,

1:32:20

like, ah, you know, is this, how

1:32:23

legitimate is the effect of it

1:32:25

on me? I find it

1:32:27

compelling every minute. And I don't

1:32:29

know, I need to revisit that even to get the

1:32:31

ethical questions clear, but I really like that a lot.

1:32:34

Yeah, I mean, that's a good one. Yeah,

1:32:36

well, that what-is-it question is kind of, and

1:32:38

I've only seen gasoline rainbow and bloody-nose empty

1:32:40

pockets, but based on those two films, the

1:32:43

brothers who made both Bill and Turner Ross,

1:32:45

it kind of seems to be their thing

1:32:47

in those two movies, is like, is this

1:32:49

a documentary? Is this

1:32:51

fiction? Are these

1:32:53

performers, or are they documentary

1:32:56

subjects? So yeah, it's kind

1:32:58

of in this gray area, for sure. All

1:33:01

right, so I have a couple, really,

1:33:03

if I look at my tentative top 10

1:33:05

right now, of the nine, I've got nine

1:33:08

in contention. We've mentioned most of them, we've

1:33:10

mentioned most of them except for a good one, which

1:33:13

is not coming out till August, I

1:33:15

think, but this is another debut by

1:33:18

India Donaldson, about a 17-year-old girl who's

1:33:20

going on a camping trip with her

1:33:22

father and his good friend. So look

1:33:25

for that in August. It's incredible, really

1:33:28

enjoyed that. And then the only

1:33:30

other one I think I would mention,

1:33:32

looking at my list, is, yeah, the

1:33:35

Frida documentary. I talked about a

1:33:37

couple months ago on the

1:33:39

show, but on Frida Kahlo,

1:33:42

that inventively uses, not

1:33:44

only animates some of her work, but

1:33:46

uses her writings and diary

1:33:48

entries and gives another great

1:33:50

vocal, you gotta call it a performance, even

1:33:52

though this is a documentary, to bring those

1:33:54

to life, definitely compelling.

1:33:57

And right now, as of

1:33:59

June, and

1:40:01

special special thanks to you Michael

1:40:03

Phillips how's the Chicago Tribune website

1:40:05

operating these days I always love

1:40:08

the updates good I was on

1:40:10

the phone with

1:40:13

a friend of mine I hadn't talked to in

1:40:15

years and he says you know I tried to

1:40:17

read that review of you know

1:40:20

whatever it was Tuesday or something and it's

1:40:23

it just didn't want my dollar you know

1:40:25

it's a dollar for six months couldn't quite

1:40:27

figure and I wouldn't take it I got

1:40:29

on the phone I did it I said

1:40:31

let's do it together for you well an

1:40:33

hour and a half later we figured it

1:40:35

out and then an

1:40:37

hour and within one minute after that he

1:40:40

was asked to sign in again as if

1:40:42

it had never they had never met you

1:40:44

know this new subscriber so it's

1:40:47

going to find it's going fine thanks it's

1:40:49

it's going this is always this is always

1:40:51

PTSD for me for my

1:40:53

last newspaper days circa oh nine

1:40:55

twenty ten when

1:40:57

I hate to say the same things were happening anyway

1:41:00

it's fun thank you Mike thank

1:41:02

you I appreciate it I was

1:41:05

he was a good of enjoyably

1:41:07

frustrating you know exercise and I

1:41:09

recant a lot of these come

1:41:11

to sober that's

1:41:13

right it's always gonna have you Michael

1:41:15

for film spotting I'm Josh Larson and

1:41:17

I'm Adam Kemp and our thanks for

1:41:19

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