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patreon.com/next picture show.

1:16

It's very difficult to keep the line

1:18

between the past and the present. We

1:21

believe that someone out of the

1:23

past can enter and take

1:25

possession of a living being. We may

1:27

be through with the past, but the past is not

1:30

through with us. Welcome

1:36

to the next picture show, a movie of the

1:38

week podcast devoted to a classic film and the

1:40

way it shaped our thoughts on a recent release.

1:42

I'm Keith Phipps here with Scott Tobias and

1:45

Tasha Robinson. We're also joined

1:47

this week by a returning next picture

1:49

show guest, critic, television writer, podcaster, newsletter

1:51

writer, novelist, and all around interesting

1:54

person, Emily St. James. Welcome back,

1:56

Emily. Hi, when you line them all up like

1:58

that, it sounds like I don't sleep. I

2:00

also am a mom and my child

2:03

is wandering. I'm not convinced you're the

2:05

only one. Whatever has slept. Yeah, you

2:07

never slept, even pre-mom status. Yeah, this

2:09

is true. This is true.

2:12

Yes. Have you considered taking

2:14

up a sport and becoming a superstar in that

2:16

sport? I'm just looking at this list and trying

2:18

to see what it's missing. I have taken up

2:20

running in the last year, so I'm working my

2:22

way toward that. I don't think I'm going to

2:24

become a superstar though. Oh my God.

2:28

By the next time you're on this podcast, this list

2:30

is going to be twice as long. I'm pretty convinced.

2:33

I'm so glad to be here to talk about these

2:35

movies. I love them both. Yeah, me too. I'm looking

2:38

forward to this discussion. But in some

2:40

ways, I think half of our current pairing, a

2:42

story of pop culture obsession, was kind of inevitable.

2:44

We were always going to do this movie because

2:46

we wouldn't do what we do if we didn't

2:48

define ourselves to one degree or another by the

2:50

movies, TV shows, music, and books we consume. I

2:52

think that's probably true for most people listening to

2:54

this podcast too. Do you think we're particularly susceptible

2:56

to these sorts of stories? I

2:59

mean, your high fidelities of the world and other

3:02

films and projects that reference their own

3:04

obsessions with pop culture? I think yes.

3:08

Absolutely. In both

3:10

of these films, I'm sure we'll give

3:12

plenty of opportunities to name check the

3:15

many, many, many references that are jammed

3:17

into both of these movies and kind

3:19

of inform the spirit of them and

3:21

the characters and that sort of thing.

3:23

So these films are definitely resonant to

3:25

our experiences in this way and seem to

3:28

be made by filmmakers who

3:30

are super plugged into popular culture and

3:32

have been influenced by it and have

3:34

it sort of bled into their

3:36

lives and the lives of those characters in pretty

3:39

profound ways. Yeah, I think I

3:41

mean, I do love movies like this. One

3:43

thing I find interesting is how rarely they

3:45

are about women. One of

3:47

the things I find interesting about I Saw the

3:49

TV Glow, which we'll talk about next week, is

3:52

that it is focused on characters who are not

3:54

white guys. And like a lot of these Are

3:56

focused on white guys, which is fine. I Love high fidelity,

3:58

but it is a very. It's very

4:00

heavily skewed in that direction. I've been thinking

4:02

about the worst person in the world, which

4:04

also sort of like poison this material on

4:06

his sensibly about a woman. but it's like

4:08

kind of actually put this guy who's obsessed

4:11

with pop culture love that movie to. for

4:13

me, at least it depends on the direction

4:15

that it's. Coming and like I am Definitely.

4:17

Very susceptible to movies about moviemaking.

4:20

I entered. Some degree to movies about

4:22

people who don't create culture but are

4:24

still obsessed with it and wrap their

4:26

lives around it. but when it turns

4:29

into movies about in a gate keeping

4:31

about like toxic obsession. With a pop

4:33

culture. It may be our jobs make that

4:35

a little close to home for me. I like.

4:37

I encounter enough of that in my in my

4:39

work life and my social media life that I

4:42

don't have a whole lot of patience for stories

4:44

about that on screen or surprised get into what

4:46

we're talking. I thought, if not high fidelity ago

4:48

I did sort of relevant to to Summers Tosser

4:51

Can you go and tell us about are? Apparently

4:53

there's two weeks. Didn't Schoenbrunn Second feature

4:55

I saw the Tv Globe stars Just

4:57

Dismiss and Bridget Lundy Pain as pair

5:00

of teenagers in Nineteen Ninety suburbia who

5:02

become devoted viewers over the. Pink opaque

5:04

a Saturday night fixture on a Nickelodeon

5:06

like network in which two. Girls with

5:08

the psychic bond side of variety of supernatural

5:11

bad guys. Their. Investment the shows

5:13

dense mythology. Begins to blur. the line between real.

5:15

Life. And fantasy and offers each reflection

5:17

of their sexual identity. the one.

5:19

Proves more willing to look than the other. We.

5:22

Talked for a long time. About those

5:24

we compare with it, but ultimately settled on

5:26

a title Schoenbrunn said helped inspire their film.

5:28

Richard. Kelly's two thousand and one debut. To

5:31

me, Darko, Also set in a

5:33

suburb he of the recent past it stars

5:35

take till and halls a troubled teen who

5:37

don't grasp on reality may or may not

5:39

be slipping away after he survived the bizarre

5:41

accident. There's. Much to discuss with both

5:43

film so get comfortable. This we be a

5:45

riveting that the mystery and already filled world

5:47

of Donnie Darko the next week will discuss.

5:49

I saw the Tb go. To. places

5:51

where each film overlaps in the differences

5:53

between them It

6:01

was as though this plan had been with him all

6:03

his life. He pondered through the

6:05

seasons. Now in his

6:07

15th year, crystallized with the

6:10

pain of puberty. So,

6:20

why'd you move here? My mom had a year's

6:22

training order against my stepdad. He

6:25

has emotional problems. Oh, I

6:27

have those too. What kind of emotional problems did your dad have? I

6:30

met a new friend. Real or imaginary?

6:33

Uh-huh, Donnie. Imaginary.

6:36

I'm going to tell you a little

6:38

story today about a young man whose

6:41

life was completely destroyed by these instruments

6:43

of fear. I haven't seen stuff. Donnie

6:46

is experiencing what is commonly called

6:48

a daylight hallucination. I

6:53

have to obey him. He saved my life. Have

6:55

you ever seen a portal? Have

7:01

you ever told you about his friend Frank, the

7:03

giant bunny rabbit? What? As

7:06

a film, Donnie Derkow died a quick

7:08

death then shortly began a long afterlife.

7:11

Released in October 2001, it opened

7:13

in eight markets, but his director Richard Kelly recounted

7:15

to the Los Angeles Times a few years later,

7:18

played to empty theaters outside of New York and Los

7:20

Angeles. Exclamations as to

7:22

why it failed inevitably bring up

7:24

timing. Audiences were simply

7:26

not in the mood for such

7:28

an unnerving movie so soon after

7:30

9-11, particularly one that concerned an

7:32

aeronautic disaster. But by 2002, it

7:35

started to be revived as a midnight movie. It

7:37

played one theater in New York for two years

7:39

and found a new audience via DVD, a

7:42

meeting that allowed viewers to watch and rewatch

7:44

the film while exploring a variety of extra

7:46

features, including a director's commentary from Kelly. But

7:49

none of these explained the film

7:52

undoubtedly contributed to its success. Donnie

7:55

Derkow's story hit it at a puzzle box

7:57

that could be solved but kept the solution

7:59

fuzzy. It also said your

8:01

other and eponymous hero three by

8:03

Jake children all who's unstable emotions

8:05

had unclear roots, allowing the function

8:07

as a blown up reflection of

8:09

almost any ones teen angst. I

8:12

also always suspected that the curdling of the

8:14

national mood as Two Thousand and One turned

8:16

into Two Thousand and Two has funded do

8:19

with it. Second Life here was a film

8:21

about death and loss, about novice we wish

8:23

we could do and how any and we

8:26

simply. Couldn't it? Also took

8:28

place in a recent past america censored

8:30

to resemble the present with the ascent

8:32

of George W. Bush, the son of

8:34

a man who would lose the election

8:36

frequently mentioned and Donnie Darko. Every

8:38

citizen of the jingoism that had gone out

8:40

of fashion of the end of the Reagan

8:42

Bush era. This. Time in an armor

8:45

plated version forged for the trauma of

8:47

an attack on American soil. Yet.

8:49

For all it's vagaries, Donnie Darko is

8:51

a story of a particular time and

8:53

place it's first like to dialogue by

8:56

daddy Sister Elizabeth played by magazine and

8:58

heartache sister. Does it ever plans to

9:00

vote for Dukakis to have conservative parents?

9:03

Everything from.his hobby t shirts, the athletic

9:05

p base at why the walls of

9:07

his replace it bedroom to forcibly chosen

9:09

by his parents in hopes of surrounding

9:11

him with the trappings of a normal

9:13

teenage boys life grounded in the late

9:15

nineteen eighties. So to the Tt wipes

9:17

of the videos created by Jim Cunningham

9:19

played by Patrick Swayze a a self

9:21

help guru with a horrifying secret and

9:23

the music chosen by Sparkle Motion. The.

9:25

Heavily beta dance she was members

9:27

include on his younger sister Samantha.

9:30

It occurs to me that gone on for

9:32

a bit describing what Donnie Darko is like,

9:34

that describing what happens in. It. But.

9:36

In Subways, what it's like is what

9:38

happens. The plot embrace. Donnie. Darko,

9:40

a teaser suburban Virginia with a troubled

9:43

past, is prone to sleep walking Envisions

9:45

namely visions of someone named Frank who

9:47

wears a malevolent looking buddy costume and

9:49

tells him the into the world is

9:51

approaching. Donny. Sleepwalking allows him

9:54

to escape certain death when an airline

9:56

engine falls on his bedroom. In.

9:58

the days that follow his vision continue. He

10:01

falls for an outcast transfer student named

10:03

Gretchen, played by Jenna Malone, inadvertently exposes

10:05

Jem as a pedophile, and explores

10:07

the concept of time travel as laid out

10:09

by a book written by an elderly neighborhood

10:12

figure known as Grandma Death. In the end,

10:14

well, let's talk about it, but we won't

10:16

figure it out. It's what can be found

10:18

in the time and place just before the

10:20

end of the world that matters here. Donald,

10:24

let me preface this by saying that

10:27

your Iowa test scores are intimidating.

10:34

So let's

10:37

go over this again. What exactly

10:39

did you say to Ms. Farmer?

10:43

I'll tell you what he said. He

10:46

asked me to forcibly insert the lifeline

10:48

exercise carton to my anus. All right,

10:50

everyone. We've largely phased out what used to be our stock

10:52

question, which is what is your history with your film? But

10:55

I think it's actually not a bad

10:57

way to open our discussion since, you

10:59

know, the discovery of this film seems

11:01

to be, you know, there's several different

11:04

ways to discover this film or the way

11:06

people have discovered this film over the years.

11:08

Scott and I first saw it at a

11:10

critic screening in Chicago where we're like, went

11:12

out American Summer, which we previously covered. It

11:14

seemed to be resonating on a frequency that

11:16

people older than our generation just couldn't hear.

11:18

It seemed that was my impression anyway,

11:20

because I was kind of blown away by it on

11:22

the first viewing. Scott, you were with me at that

11:24

screening, I believe. Yeah. I mean, I was and

11:27

I was on both films earlier that the 2001

11:30

Sundance Film Festival is the

11:32

only time I have

11:34

been to Sundance and What Hot American Summer was

11:36

there. Donnie Darko was there.

11:38

Hedwig in the Ingrid Lynch was there.

11:40

Anyway, there are a lot of good

11:42

films there, but I mean, What Hot

11:44

American Summer seemed to be somewhat DOA

11:47

when it played at Sundance. And Donnie

11:49

Darko was kind of considered, you know,

11:51

an ambitious curiosity at best. And, you

11:53

know, both films resonated quite a bit

11:55

with me and continued to do so. And

11:58

as you're, I think you're right about,

12:00

you know, and hitting on a certain

12:02

frequency because they're both grounded in such a

12:04

hyper-specific time and place and

12:06

have reference points in film and

12:08

in music, in just a

12:11

general tone of a

12:13

certain cultural enclave that's going to hit

12:15

different audiences in a different way, I

12:17

would say. So I kind of agree

12:19

with your statement here. I saw this

12:21

movie on DVD, like I think most

12:23

people. I was living in South Dakota.

12:26

It did not play in any theaters

12:28

in South Dakota. And I watched, I

12:30

know, it's so weird. And then

12:32

I watched it on DVD, I think shortly

12:34

after it came out. I don't know why

12:37

I did. It was not yet the cult

12:39

movie that it had become. I

12:41

think I just picked it up because it looked

12:43

interesting and fell in love with it. And

12:45

my wife was telling me I apparently like made her

12:48

watch it like 10, 11, 12 times. We'll

12:51

talk a little bit in the I Saw the

12:53

TV Glow episode about why I don't remember doing

12:55

that. But I did. I did watch it a

12:57

whole bunch. I listened to the soundtrack nonstop. I

12:59

remember the first time I saw that that sort

13:02

of it's a side. It's a shot that's tilted

13:04

to the side that then turns around to the

13:06

tune of Head Over Heels by. Yeah. The

13:09

first time I saw that it was like some

13:11

part of my brain blew open. I was a

13:13

college kid. I was annoying. But this movie just

13:15

like I watched it so many times. And

13:18

then I watched the directors cut once and

13:20

didn't watch it again. Yeah. I

13:24

don't remember whether I first saw this as

13:26

a critic screening or in the movie theater,

13:28

but I saw it when it came out

13:30

when critics were talking about it and seemed

13:32

like practically nobody else was. And

13:34

I was a little baffled by other

13:37

people's responses. Like this is just one

13:39

of those movies where I was out

13:41

of step with a lot of my fellow

13:43

critics. Especially

13:45

because like the immersiveness and

13:48

strangeness, the late night headiness

13:50

of this movie is

13:52

so compelling. And I

13:55

love an idiosyncratic movie coming from

13:57

somebody who knows very clearly what

14:00

they want and what they want to communicate that's

14:02

not like anything else that I'm watching

14:05

in this case, except maybe I would

14:07

say, you know, David Lynch projects. But

14:09

at the same time, I

14:11

found Donnie so revolting as a

14:13

character. You know, the film has such

14:16

sympathy for the point of view of

14:18

this kid who is a bully. You

14:21

know, he bullies his family members,

14:23

he bullies the people around him, he

14:25

inadvertently hijacks a therapy session to talk

14:27

about how much he wants to have

14:30

sex with every girl he sees, how

14:32

he spends his school days fantasizing about

14:34

them, and then starts, you

14:36

know, unzipping his pants and getting ready

14:38

to masturbate in the therapist's office

14:40

before she breaks him out of

14:43

the hypnosis in a obvious

14:45

kind of discomfort. He's

14:47

just kind of like out of

14:50

sync with everybody, not in the

14:52

appealing nerd way that I

14:54

am used to, like outsiders in

14:57

cinema of the era, but in

14:59

a hostile, like prickly, offensive

15:01

way. And I just, I mean, it

15:03

took me back to my own high school days and my own

15:05

just sort of feeling of alarm,

15:07

like I'm absolutely the chorita in

15:09

this movie, you know, I'm the

15:11

fat girl like watching with your

15:13

love was in love with Donnie.

15:17

I probably know actually, I'm thinking of a

15:19

kid who was much like Donnie in his

15:21

way in my high school. And

15:24

no, I we actually traveled in the

15:26

same circles because we were both rejects.

15:29

And we were friends of a woman who gathered up

15:32

rejects. But I was not in

15:34

love with him. I did not write his his

15:36

name on any of my books. I found him

15:38

alarming and unpredictable. He was the

15:40

kind of kid who brings a butterfly knife to school

15:42

because he's trying to compensate for something

15:44

and he's trying to be badass and edgy

15:46

and different. And even back then, I found

15:48

that kind of repulsive. So

15:51

I found this movie in the spirit of

15:53

Roger Ebert's, you know, empathy machine comment. I

15:55

thought it was really interesting to see the world

15:58

from the point of view of that person. But

16:00

at the same time, I just found him so alarming,

16:03

so depressing in a

16:05

way. And his point of view, like

16:07

being inside his head is not pleasant. He

16:10

is not happy there. And

16:12

being stuck inside his experiences

16:14

with him feels like being

16:16

inside a really constrictive, itchy

16:19

sweater. Making

16:21

the end of the movie, I think,

16:23

even more resonant and strange in a

16:25

lot of ways. So all of which

16:28

is just a long-winded way of saying,

16:30

I didn't love this movie the way

16:32

other people did. I understood why they

16:34

did. And then I was just sort

16:36

of fascinated with the phenomenon of it. It's

16:39

interesting you say that because I was thinking about

16:41

my memories of this movie as I sat down

16:43

to revisit it. It had almost nothing to do

16:45

with Donny. Re-watching this, I was like, he's kind

16:48

of unpleasant. Like I very much at the time

16:50

was drawn to the other family members. I was

16:52

drawn to Gretchen. I was drawn to, I think

16:54

we'll talk more about this. I think Richard Kelly

16:57

is like a weirdly empathetic filmmaker, sometimes to a

16:59

fault. But yeah, when I was

17:01

thinking like Donny Darko to me, like the journey

17:03

he goes on is interesting. But like him

17:05

as a character, I found kind of hard to

17:07

take. But

17:10

in a way that I enjoyed, like

17:12

ultimately because of, I think again, Kelly's

17:14

empathy that he's very empathetic towards his

17:16

characters sometimes when he doesn't need to

17:19

be. His instincts are

17:21

okay though. He

17:23

might be unpleasant, but I think there's also on

17:26

his part a rejection of the world that is being

17:28

offered to him. I think there's kind

17:30

of a rejection of particularly

17:32

the Patrick Swayze character and everything

17:35

that he represents. I mean, there's

17:37

a rebellious side to Donny that's

17:39

healthy and needed in an

17:42

environment that is so Reagan-y that

17:44

the first line of the film is this

17:47

shock bomb that his sister is voting

17:49

for Dukakis. It's like that's kind of

17:51

the world in which he finds himself

17:54

rebelling and ends up being –

17:56

and so some of the actions that he does take are

17:59

maybe more instinctual. thoughtful but but at least

18:01

he's kind of on the right track and he's

18:03

just a young maybe

18:05

unpleasant semi-aggressive guy

18:08

who's sort of figuring things out

18:10

like a lot of adolescents do

18:12

so I don't find him tremendously

18:14

unpleasant obviously flawed but there are

18:16

aspects of his character there you know at least

18:18

somewhat noble and someone on the right on the

18:21

right track about things. In a way

18:23

he is pushing back you know this is

18:25

this is kind of a classic poisonous

18:27

suburbs movie you know a

18:30

classic dark underpinnings of

18:32

the skin of the suburbs pushing

18:34

back against a whole bunch

18:36

of John Hughes movies basically like there are a

18:38

lot of very huesian setups

18:40

in this movie that are

18:42

then kind of violently

18:45

rejected in a lot of ways and

18:47

the way Donnie pushes back against the fakeness of

18:50

it all and especially the way his father like

18:52

has a little bonding moment with him

18:54

over what he can say to the

18:56

rest of the world who just isn't

18:58

as smart as he is and isn't

19:00

as perceptive as he is is kind

19:02

of an uncomfortable squeamish way of dealing

19:05

with that feeling but I feel like this

19:07

movie is the very consciously very deliberately

19:09

kind of like toxic spin

19:12

on you know something like the

19:14

breakfast club which puts John Nelson's

19:16

character for instance is also a

19:18

rebel who pushes back against you

19:20

know the saccharine world that teenagers

19:22

are expected to live in but he's

19:25

also just like you know a good-hearted rebel

19:27

who just needs like a nice girl that

19:29

he can convert into a prom queen I

19:32

would so rather hang out with Donnie darker than John

19:34

Nelson's character this guy is really gross and I never

19:36

really feel that

19:39

I'm about Donnie I mean Donnie's a trouble kid

19:42

and maybe I would get uncomfortable in his company

19:44

but I kind of was Scott in the sense

19:46

that I do feel like he maybe his heart's

19:48

in the right place maybe he's gonna he you

19:51

know if he grew up at all would grow

19:53

up to be someone who looked back on these

19:55

years as time when he was figuring these things

19:57

out well Donnie has a good dad too Whereas

20:00

Judd Nelson, whose dad gave him a pack

20:02

of cigarettes for Christmas, man. That's

20:04

tough stuff. They probably both voted for

20:06

Reagan, though. Judd Nelson's dad and Donnie's. Well, you

20:09

had to. You had to at the time. I

20:11

think that one of the things this movie

20:13

does well with Donnie's character is depict what

20:16

it is like to be a teenager going

20:18

through a pretty severe mental health crisis. And

20:20

nobody quite knowing what to do with that,

20:22

nobody quite knowing how to treat that. I

20:24

think, to me, this is to put on

20:26

my screenwriting hat for a second. His character

20:28

is kind of centerless. He kind of feels

20:30

like he's trying on a bunch

20:33

of personae to sort of see what sticks.

20:36

And often that kind of character is just very grating

20:38

and hard to take in a film. But

20:40

I think that what makes it work is

20:43

Donnie is pretty clearly going through some sort

20:45

of mental health episode. Regardless of the time

20:47

travel aspect of the film, he's clearly struggling

20:49

with his mental health. And

20:51

I think that the film is very good at depicting

20:53

how that feels, while not

20:55

necessarily getting

20:57

the rough edges off of it in a way that is

21:00

like, I watched the first 30 minutes of this

21:02

movie and was like, who is this kid? And

21:04

I don't know that the movie ever adequately answers

21:06

that, but I'm also not sure that it

21:09

has to because he's 16, 17

21:12

and trying on these different selves because his

21:14

course office is so sad and lonely. And

21:17

I do think I tapped into that back when I used to

21:19

watch it 11, 12, 13 times a day. I

21:23

think it's also just like there's a

21:25

warmth to the degree to which he

21:28

has a very, very little time to find

21:30

himself, to figure out who he is and who

21:32

he wants to be. But over the course of

21:34

that very short period of time, he does get a

21:36

little bit of a redemption arc. He

21:39

goes from bullying his sister, bullying other

21:41

kids in the school, to reaching out

21:43

to Charita and trying to say

21:46

something nice to her. He makes

21:48

the choice in the end

21:50

that somebody else's existence, fundamentally,

21:52

is more important than his

21:54

own. Like he kind of becomes

21:56

the Messiah figure by the end of the movie.

21:59

He's laying down his life for the sins

22:01

of the world so that other people

22:03

can go on, you know, to prevent

22:06

everybody else's death. Like he is definitely

22:08

moving over the course of this story

22:10

from being kind of a shallow, selfish

22:13

jerk to being a very troubled

22:15

kid who can't connect

22:17

with anybody because nobody, I

22:19

hesitate to say because nobody can understand it because

22:21

I think that's a pretty universal teen feeling. But

22:24

I think Emily exactly tapped into it.

22:26

Like there have been a lot more movies

22:29

made in this mode since the

22:31

mode of is this person experiencing like

22:33

a profound mental illness or is this

22:36

a science fiction or fantasy story. We

22:38

don't necessarily have the tools to

22:41

decide for ourselves. But

22:43

either way, being inside it,

22:45

not being certain of that yourself would be terrifying.

22:47

It is like kind of interesting. Like if Donnie

22:49

Darko was the new release and we were pairing

22:51

it with something, it would be kind of interesting

22:53

to pair it with The Last Sceptation of Christ

22:57

because they're both movies about what if you

22:59

were the most important person in the world

23:02

and like you had to sacrifice yourself to save

23:04

it. And this movie is just like

23:06

we're going to live the entire time in that

23:08

fantasy that Jesus has when Satan lets him down

23:10

on the cross. That's

23:13

the movie itself offers that.

23:15

It's over. It's right there on

23:17

the movie, on the marquee, The Last Sceptation

23:20

of Christ. Yeah, The Evil Dead and The

23:22

Last Sceptation of Christ, which is quite

23:24

the pairing. But those two films made it. You might

23:26

get Donnie Darko in a way.

23:28

It's less explicitly horror and less, certainly

23:30

less comedic than Evil Dead, but there

23:32

is kind of the same like 80s

23:34

underground film, semi underground film sensibility and

23:36

then Last Sceptation of Christ. I mean,

23:38

I have it in my notes here that I did

23:40

want to talk about who Donnie is. And

23:42

I think we kind of may have covered

23:45

this already, but we know he's troubled. We

23:47

hear about some past troubles, but we don't

23:50

really ever learn

23:52

what that is. Does that matter? I

23:54

mean, would the film be improved if

23:56

we did get a better sense of

23:58

who Donnie Darko was? and what his

24:00

past was. I mean, my general feeling

24:03

on Donnie Darko, and I think the

24:05

director's cut sort of supports it is

24:07

that the less that is clarified, the

24:09

better for this film. I

24:11

did not find myself wanting to know

24:14

anything more about his past than what

24:16

the film ultimately gives us. Yeah, I

24:18

feel like the movie gives us enough

24:20

to suggest that Donnie is a kid

24:23

who doesn't really fit in in this

24:25

community. He's friends with some

24:27

guys who maybe aren't really good friends to

24:29

him. He's cruel to other people

24:31

in his circle, but it does sort of feel

24:33

like it's suggesting he's the kind of kid who

24:35

will figure out who he wants to be in

24:38

college, and he just has to get there if

24:40

he indeed goes to college. He feels like someone

24:42

who might reject those bourgeoisie values or get himself

24:44

kicked out of college when he pulls that, like,

24:46

I'm going to stand up and within

24:49

an obscenity-filled rant. And

24:51

instead of being surrounded by smaller town,

24:53

like, high school teachers who don't know

24:55

what to do with him except shake

24:57

their fingers at him, you know,

24:59

he just gets booted out of college. There

25:01

is, like, an interesting angle on this which

25:04

I hadn't thought about, but which my friend,

25:06

the critic and screenwriter Carol Grant talked about

25:08

in her Letterboxed review, which is this is

25:10

very specifically a movie about going to a

25:12

religious school and being kind of a kid

25:14

who isn't quite sure of who they are

25:16

in that space. I don't think that Donnie

25:19

is queer, but, like, if you sort of

25:21

resonate with that idea of, like, being in

25:23

an environment that's heavily religious, which obviously I

25:25

was raised in that, so maybe that's why

25:27

I resonated with this character so much, I

25:30

do think that is an interesting aspect that's sort of

25:32

under-discussed in this film because Kelly doesn't really go

25:34

out of his way to depict Catholicism. He's just

25:36

like, this is a Catholic school, but it

25:39

is, like, really implied that this is an environment

25:41

in which religion is kind of

25:43

overbearing, and I think that's an interesting lens to

25:45

view his character through. I don't think Donnie is

25:47

queer, but I think his parents might fear it

25:49

because I do love it, but I think one

25:51

of the more jokes in the film is when

25:53

he gets a new bedroom and they decorate it

25:55

with his bikini posters. Like, you know, come on,

25:57

be a normal, all-American, red-blooded boy, right? If

26:00

only they realized how much he's already thinking

26:02

about sex, maybe they wouldn't like decorate his

26:05

room trying to get him to just, you

26:07

know, think about sex or specifically think about

26:09

having sex with girls. As far as

26:11

the Catholicism angle, though, I got a little

26:13

hot goth or a little trivia for you on

26:16

that. The reason it's set in a

26:18

Catholic school is because they didn't

26:20

have the budget to get like

26:22

80s period clothing for everybody. So

26:25

it was suggested, one of

26:27

the producers suggested setting it

26:29

at a school that would have to have uniforms. So they

26:31

didn't have to worry about period and like

26:33

all the kids could dress the same

26:35

and didn't have to dress like individualistically.

26:38

So that might be why

26:41

the movie's religious themes are

26:43

hugely overt because it's

26:45

not set at a Catholic school because Catholicism is

26:48

tremendously important to them. And it does, but the

26:50

weird thing is it does work in terms of

26:52

like when you're in that environment, you're raised to

26:54

believe, I think all the time about the story

26:57

that came out of Columbine, which proved to be

26:59

apocryphal, that there was this girl who said, I

27:01

believe in Jesus and then she was shot. And

27:03

like that was like a thing that was drilled

27:06

into our brains as tiny evangelicals. And

27:08

like that is kind of in the soup of this

27:10

movie is I am Jesus and I'm going

27:12

to save the world, that sort of thing.

27:14

On top of the sort

27:16

of the big Christ metaphor throughout it

27:18

all, the fact that they're at

27:21

a religious school maybe also explains kind

27:23

of some of the messaging they're getting, which

27:27

like you, Emily, I grew up in a pretty

27:30

religious environment and I went to a religious school

27:32

for four years for high school. And

27:34

the kind of the seminar that they

27:36

get about love and fear is not

27:39

chapel, but it does

27:43

very much have that feeling of we

27:45

brought somebody into preach. We brought somebody

27:47

into preach among other things like abstinence

27:49

to the kids. And the

27:51

fact that, you know, I too am a sinner

27:54

who has been down the road of drugs and sex, but

27:57

you know, I have redeemed myself and I'm here to

27:59

give you the good word of, you

28:02

know, buy my books and videotapes

28:04

and follow my path out of

28:07

perdition. All of that did seem

28:09

very familiar to the degree that I wondered

28:11

if that was something that was also in

28:13

Richard Kelly's life at some point. Well,

28:15

that kind of also, I mean, I think

28:17

it was in all our lives growing up

28:19

at that time that was sort of like

28:21

self-help and motivational speakers, not specifically necessarily in

28:23

religious schools, but it was just kind of

28:25

in the culture. You can definitely see someone

28:28

like Beth Grant's character just totally falling under the

28:30

spell of someone like that as

28:32

well. You know, perhaps maybe not their name,

28:34

you know, it could be that he was

28:36

in the neighborhood too. You know, I think

28:39

we're gonna help the podcast right now by

28:41

pausing briefly for a quick break, but we're back

28:43

to continue this discussion of Donnie Durico in

28:45

one moment. Once

28:52

again, The Next Picture Show is brought

28:54

to you by CinemaMade in Italy and

28:56

the new release Kidnapped. It's the latest

28:58

film from Marco Bellocchio. I think Bellocchio

29:00

is still best known in America for

29:02

his 1965 debut Fist and Pocket, which

29:05

is part of the Criterion Collection, but

29:07

he's remained active ever since. This is

29:09

the 80-something director's third film just this

29:11

decade. Bellocchio comes from the 60s

29:13

radical tradition and some of his recent work

29:15

has looked back at key moments in the

29:17

history of Italy. Kidnapped is no exception, retelling

29:20

the true story of Egardo Mortaro, a

29:22

young Jewish boy living in Bologna, Italy,

29:24

who in 1858, after being

29:26

secretly baptized, was forcedly taken from his family

29:28

by the Pope to be raised as a

29:30

Christian. His parents struggled to free

29:33

their son, became part of a larger political battle

29:35

that pitted the papacy against forces

29:37

of democracy and Italian unification. Though

29:40

largely forgotten until recent decades, this story was

29:42

a global scandal in its day and the

29:44

way Bellocchio depicts it captures what an enraging

29:46

injustice it was. I like

29:48

this movie and I'm not alone. It was an official

29:51

selection of the Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film

29:53

Festival, the New York Film Festival. It

29:55

won five awards at the 2024 David

29:57

Di Donatello. That's Italy's awesome.

30:00

They got five star from the Guardian. It's

30:02

gotten good reviews all over the places I

30:04

think anyone who likes historical dramas particularly those with

30:06

religious themes like silence would like it too and

30:09

like Moments set at the at the moment where

30:11

one era changes into another like the Last Emperor

30:13

You should check it out kidnapped

30:15

us now playing in New York City and expanding

30:17

to select cities this Friday You can find details

30:19

about the release at made in Italy calm Welcome

30:26

back We were just talking about Self-help

30:28

and gurus and Patrick Swayze and and

30:30

the dark underbelly of suburbia Which is

30:32

probably what you get to next actually

30:34

which is this is definitely a other

30:36

mini influences I throw blue velvet into

30:39

the mix They're sort of

30:41

like what's going on underneath the surface

30:43

of this, you know, perfect American community

30:45

and you know It

30:47

is Jim Cunningham's exposure as

30:49

a pedophile a child, you know someone

30:51

who has Traffics and

30:53

child pornography is sort of be

30:56

kind of on the nose and depicting

30:58

the hypocrisy of the environment But it works

31:00

for me. I think actually the Cassie and

31:03

Patrick Swayze is quite effective as well What

31:05

do you think it's a picture of suburbia

31:07

in general and then that subplot in particular?

31:09

What can we why hasn't Spielberg come out?

31:13

Because you're talking about we'll get to it. We talk

31:15

about the so we talk about the suburbia of this

31:17

movie I feel like you got you have to talk

31:19

about Spielberg and which is are you saying that a

31:22

movie that climaxes with a bunch of kids on bikes?

31:28

We've name-checked so many things and it's just like

31:30

gang to it. All

31:33

right. All right. Yeah, I mean I

31:36

this religious Reading didn't really

31:38

occur to be even with the Last Cemptation

31:40

of Christ they get that felt more of

31:42

a like a like

31:45

kind of a cue to what the film

31:47

was trying to pull off and then with

31:49

the With the swaying any film

31:51

that throws a character with initials JC into the

31:53

mix I kind of you know, I think it

31:55

kind of since the it tweaks my

31:57

intent on on terms of religious themes. Yeah, maybe

32:00

But in any case, with the

32:02

Swayze character, Jim Cunningham,

32:04

Jim Cunningham, it's good stuff. It

32:07

feels like it's kind of sneaking that sort of

32:09

thing into the back door that it doesn't ...

32:12

It's kind of a more insidious, new

32:14

age-y thing that he's trying to

32:16

push, which does have all these

32:20

religious themes to them. But the

32:22

one thing that does have and that

32:24

Donnie points out is a simplicity

32:26

that doesn't account for the complexity

32:29

of the world and the kind

32:31

of emotions and forces that kids

32:34

like Donnie are having to deal with, to

32:36

put them on the spectrum of

32:38

love and fear, to put every situation on that

32:41

spectrum without acknowledging all

32:43

these other complicated aspects of being

32:45

human is just not resonant

32:48

with him. But it feels

32:50

like a way, kind of

32:52

a gimmicky way that we often

32:54

try as Americans, and in particular,

32:56

a lot of grifters try to

32:58

impose on people to try to

33:00

make simple what is, in fact,

33:02

quite complicated. At the same

33:05

time, maybe you're just not as

33:07

dialed into this sphere,

33:09

Scott. For me, the prospect of

33:11

somebody who is very much a

33:14

grifter around morality and who's preaching

33:16

morality to people from kind of

33:18

a high and mighty place of

33:21

anybody who doesn't live like me is

33:24

a lost person who should be

33:26

pitied, but who is secretly molesting children

33:28

just has very,

33:30

very open and specific church connections. Yeah,

33:32

I think the one thing in this movie

33:34

that suggests it was originally in public school

33:36

is that Jim Cunningham comes in and gives

33:38

a religious speech with the religion filed off,

33:41

which is this period in time, there's a

33:43

ton of speakers doing that at public schools

33:46

who are often pastors that are like, I'm going

33:48

to come in and talk to you about extremely

33:50

general emotions. It has nothing to do with God.

33:52

By the way, you can come to my church

33:54

to some degree. Yeah, I remember when I watched

33:56

this movie, I was like, well, he's a hypocrite.

33:58

That's just kind of an easy one to one,

34:00

but I think rich Richard Kelly is constantly weirdly

34:02

prescient about things like this. We are definitely living

34:04

through an era in which more and more of

34:06

these people are being exposed.

34:09

But the difference here is that when Jim Cunningham

34:11

is exposed, it is a huge scandal. And now

34:13

it just kind of feels like it's a thing

34:15

that maybe resonates locally and is not as big

34:17

of a deal. It happens constantly. It

34:19

happens constantly. But yeah,

34:22

it does feel like he was

34:24

very tapped into something true about

34:27

the rise of Christian conservatism that's

34:29

in the background of this movie just

34:31

sort of fascinatingly. Right. And

34:33

with Beth Grant, she's moms for liberty. You

34:35

know, she's everywhere now. Yeah.

34:38

Yeah. Between the urge

34:40

for book burning and the urge

34:43

to call anything she doesn't like

34:45

pornography, in this case, a story

34:47

where somebody sabotages a school, she

34:49

labels as pornography, trying to whip

34:51

the PTA up into like a

34:53

rabid attack against kids just

34:56

having too much freedom to read stuff and

34:58

to not only restrict what they're allowed to

35:00

have access to, but like what teachers can

35:02

say. And then on top

35:04

of that, to like threaten to eject

35:07

people from the school if they're caught

35:09

reading it at all. That is a

35:11

very prescient thing to be seeing in

35:13

this movie and looking around the

35:15

current political state of the nation. It's

35:17

also like interesting because he's presenting these

35:19

characters as like farcical. And to a

35:21

certain degree in 2001, 2002, that was

35:24

like the predominant read of that era

35:26

of American politics. But now it's back

35:28

in a big way, baby. And like

35:30

the film still works in that regard.

35:32

It's fascinating. Yeah. The

35:34

difficulty being that, you know, Kitty Grant has probably

35:37

the biggest laugh line in the movie. I'm

35:40

beginning to doubt your commitment to sparkle motion.

35:43

One of the things, by the way, just

35:45

revisiting this movie, I

35:47

certainly remembered that line and there are

35:49

a few others, but revisiting this

35:51

movie at this point in time certainly

35:54

reminded me like how many like

35:56

little cultural bits of popcorn like

35:59

have wormed their way into the sofa

36:01

of our lives from this movie. My wife was

36:03

never a huge fan of this movie even though

36:05

I made her watch it a billion times and

36:07

yet I'm starting to doubt your commitment to sparkle

36:09

motion. It's still like a top ten most said

36:11

movie quote in our house. We say it all

36:13

the time. It's just, it's very effective.

36:15

I mean it holds her

36:17

up for lampooning. I would say maybe

36:19

all of the kind of like laugh

36:22

lines slash you know catch phrases, things

36:25

that we hung on to from this

36:27

movie are things that seem trivial, delivered

36:29

as if they're highly important, delivered

36:31

in a very straight faced way. That

36:33

exchange between Donnie's parents where his mom

36:35

talks about how you know

36:38

telling any woman to forcibly insert something

36:40

into her anus deserves some sort of

36:42

punishment and he says, I think we should get

36:44

him a moped and she says, I think we should get a

36:46

divorce and then they just move on.

36:48

Like that almost feels like it was pre-saging Tommy

36:51

Wiseau and The Room and oh by the way

36:53

the doctor called it's definitely breast cancer. I

36:56

like it. This was not done

36:58

with incompetence the way The Room was.

37:00

Like I'm sure it's quite deliberate tonally

37:02

but there is a lot in this

37:04

movie that's hilarious because of just how

37:07

incredibly straight faced and

37:09

seriously some very funny things are

37:11

presented. I think also yeah it's

37:14

tough with this movie because I like a

37:16

lot. I mean I think it's terrific but

37:18

it's one of those things you can point

37:20

to and say is this mysterious or is

37:22

it underdeveloped? I think the same could be

37:25

said of a lot from the self including

37:27

his relationship with Donnie's relationship with Gretchen, the

37:29

new kid in town who becomes his girlfriend

37:31

sort of and then kind of definitely but

37:33

you know what do you make of their

37:35

relationship and what it says about each of

37:37

those characters and how it plays out? I

37:39

think an interesting tension. I

37:41

feel like we started to talk about the

37:43

who is Donnie question and rapidly veered away down,

37:46

hmm could we call it a rabbit hole? You

37:49

know all of this fruitful conversation but

37:51

felt like we didn't necessarily complete that

37:53

thought and I think his relationship with

37:56

Gretchen is kind of the big point

37:58

in this movie that... invites

38:00

us to examine the different

38:03

things going on with him, you know, the

38:05

tensions and the contradictions. Because one

38:07

of the things we didn't touch on in discussing who

38:09

he is is we're told that

38:12

his test scores are intimidating. You know,

38:14

we're led to see that even though

38:16

he's kind of a juvenile delinquent, even

38:18

though he's kind of got a bender

38:20

in the breakfast club like hostility

38:22

against authority that manifests

38:25

as, you know, throwing

38:27

profanity around in-school presentations, it's because

38:29

he's smart. And as perhaps some

38:32

of the people in this room

38:34

know, if you're smart in a

38:36

school that is kind of geared toward

38:39

the average student, it's very easy to

38:41

get bored and very easy to get hostile and very

38:43

easy to like look for ways to act

38:45

out. So in some ways he's

38:47

very precocious and very like ahead

38:49

of himself and his hostility and

38:51

aggression are him

38:53

kind of wanting to be out in

38:55

a bigger and better world. His relationship

38:58

with Gretchen is pure teen boy. He's

39:00

a horny kid who talks

39:02

about horniness in class. He

39:05

talks about horniness when he's hypnotized. Like

39:07

he does to some degree think with

39:09

his groin. And again with Gretchen, he

39:11

really just wants to get in her

39:13

pants and then he's like

39:15

slowly given a kind of a redemption arc

39:18

where he starts to more and more see her as a

39:20

person and see her as real and see her as important.

39:22

And that's I think one

39:24

of the stronger elements of the film

39:26

in a kind of emotional and moral sense.

39:28

But as you say, maybe kind of underdeveloped

39:31

in a narrative sense. I when I was

39:33

revisiting this, Gretchen is like was like my

39:35

favorite character in the film back when I

39:37

watched it. And now rewatching I was like

39:39

yeah she is kind of underdeveloped a little

39:41

bit. But not she is not

39:44

is what's interesting. The relationship is but she

39:46

like there's a lot of movies like this

39:48

where it's like here's the sensitive teen boy

39:50

and here's the girl who comes

39:52

to understand him and comes to love him.

39:54

And Gretchen is that character but like she

39:56

has her own perspective on the world. She has

39:58

her own like backstory. There's a

40:00

lot of elements of her that I very specifically

40:02

resonated with when I was the age, closer to

40:04

the age of these characters and that I still

40:06

do. And I just think Jenna Malone

40:09

is a better actor than all you often cast in

40:11

that part and I think that sort of sets it

40:13

up as well too. But it

40:15

very much is I buy their love story

40:17

because I buy them as characters even though

40:19

Richard Kelly devotes no attention to like developing

40:21

the love story. There's a lot on his

40:23

plate I think. Yeah. I

40:26

think you get enough. I mean you get enough of

40:28

what her back story is, of

40:30

the caution with which she, her need

40:33

for him in a way or her

40:35

need for someone to understand her and

40:38

show her affection but also the caution

40:40

and fear that she brings to the

40:42

table based on her situation. And

40:44

I think she navigates that relationship in

40:46

a plausible way and I think the

40:48

connection between the two of them and

40:50

the two actors who play them is

40:53

ultimately quite resonant and powerful where it

40:55

needs to be. And that whole bit

40:57

about their first kiss and what she

40:59

needs to see happen or have

41:01

happened before it happens makes

41:03

it powerful when it does. So

41:06

it goes with them. It's

41:09

funny when we talk about, sometimes when we

41:11

talk about movies and characters in movies in

41:13

the way they're developed, we almost

41:15

have to get out of the sort of mindset

41:17

of the way we might think about other media

41:19

like television or something where there's a more democratic

41:22

approach to character development. Gretchen

41:24

is a part of Donnie's world but she

41:26

is a small part of many, many parts.

41:28

And so what you just hope for

41:31

is to get just enough information to where

41:33

that part of the movie is resonant because

41:35

ultimately this is going to be Donnie's story.

41:37

I do think the other character I really

41:39

related to when I saw this movie was

41:41

Drew Barrymore's and this time watching it was

41:43

like, who is this movie? What is she

41:45

doing? I'm always perplexed

41:48

in that moment where she and Noah, while this

41:50

character just go, Donnie Darko. I know. I

41:52

don't know what's going on in that moment. Oh really?

41:55

I like it. I don't know what's going on. I

41:57

thought that was very understandable. Like they're not going to...

41:59

Really? I can sit around and super

42:01

trash talk this kid. But

42:03

they have a moment of complete recognition of each

42:06

other. It's just like, you know,

42:08

they know he's very smart. They also know

42:11

that he's a handful, that he's trouble.

42:13

They also know that he's careening towards

42:15

what seems like potentially a very bad

42:17

end. Like it's a very big

42:19

conversation. And by kind of

42:21

just exchanging that word and that look, they seem

42:23

to have a moment of complete recognition where there's

42:26

like, where they're like, we don't even have to

42:28

have the conversation. We both understand. If

42:30

this is a musical, we'd start singing, how do you solve a

42:32

problem like Donnie Darko? Instead,

42:35

we can just kind of go, yeah, that kid.

42:38

Yeah, the same thing. I also kind of

42:40

read it though. It's like it's after he's

42:43

had the conversation about time travel and it's

42:45

after he's, you know, kind of been very

42:47

much character, clearly recognize him as an insightful

42:49

kid. It's almost like maybe they, you know,

42:51

I don't think it's necessarily meant to be

42:53

read this way, but it could be read

42:55

as like, maybe they know

42:58

something about this larger issue he's

43:00

dealing with of time travel and

43:02

paradoxes, et cetera, et cetera, and

43:04

are kind of pushing him toward that. I don't know. I

43:07

don't know. It's, it's, it's, to me, it's like, I think there's

43:09

a little bit more mystery to that moment. The

43:11

two things that I think made this

43:13

movie called classic that many imitators didn't

43:16

achieve were Richard Kelly absolutely nailed the

43:18

casting. Everybody in this movie is

43:20

no perfect in their roles down to the smallest

43:22

parts and be like, he really

43:24

did give you a sense that these characters

43:26

have their own lives going on when Donnie

43:29

Darko isn't around them. And I think that

43:31

moment really contributes to, yeah, they're talking about

43:33

the protagonist of the film, but it's clear

43:35

they have their own viewpoints and agendas. And

43:37

like, I love movies that do that. I

43:39

love movies that suggest every one of these

43:41

people has a whole life going on outside

43:44

the film. I think like Altman's

43:46

my favorite filmmaker often for that reason. And I'm

43:48

not going to compare Donnie Darko to an Altman

43:50

film, but it very much is like you get

43:52

the sense that all these people have lives off

43:54

the screen. I also think one thing that

43:56

really appeals to me right away when I saw

43:58

this film was how good the production Design was a

44:01

devoting that moment in 1988 and

44:03

like the larger world outside even though we

44:05

don't really leave that suburb except for You

44:07

know some scenes from the sparkle motion Event

44:10

but um, you know, you see that blockbuster card

44:12

toward the end It's like yeah the blockbuster card

44:14

you keep it by the door whoever wants to

44:17

go run a video. It's it's right there You

44:19

know, it's really quite good I think

44:21

you're right You're also right about the casting where people

44:23

who aren't weren't already perfect for these roles We didn't

44:25

know would go on like even down there like, you

44:27

know, Seth Rogen is one of the bullies Kind

44:30

of hear that that awful laugh of yours

44:32

is applied for evil purposes instead of good

44:34

purposes Before we veer too far

44:37

off drew berrymore like I I feel like

44:39

I understand the donnie darko, huh? Moment just

44:41

fine. There is a moment that I would

44:43

like somebody else to explain to me that

44:45

just baffles me and

44:47

that's gretchen's arrival in her classroom where

44:51

Gretchen doesn't know where to sit and The

44:55

teacher says sit next to the boy

44:57

you find cutest And there

44:59

are no there don't seem to be any empty

45:01

seats in this classroom. So it's not like she

45:03

can just You know punt and

45:05

sit down in the empty seat She's

45:07

faced with this Humiliating

45:10

trial this this ordeal she's the new

45:12

kid in in class and the first

45:14

thing she has to deal with Is

45:17

her teacher pulling just an absolute

45:19

mean girl move, you know A

45:22

move coming from a place of power

45:24

and authority where she's saying You

45:27

know set down your place and

45:29

the hierarchy of this school

45:31

immediately with everybody watching you

45:33

and judging everything The

45:36

tone of it was that I mean, it's a very unusual I

45:39

didn't feel unusual. I mean, there's something go back and

45:41

watch it and and watch drew berry's She

45:44

says that it's horrible scott No,

45:46

no it is but no no, but I think but

45:48

I don't think that's her I

45:50

don't think she's setting out to humiliate this person

45:52

I think she's she's trying to like do something

45:54

kind of quirky and unusual and because she's not

45:56

part of I don't think she really I think

45:58

I don't think the drew berry character really

46:01

fits into the rest of

46:03

the school in fact she ends up losing

46:05

her job but I watched that scene this

46:07

time and was like who is

46:09

this woman how did

46:19

she get this job what is happening that

46:21

said again to put my screenwriter

46:23

hat on I have to make that noise every time

46:26

I put my screenwriter Emily

46:31

could you take a moment and describe the visualization like

46:33

what does the screenwriter hat look like for you

46:35

weirdly it's a it's one of those hats

46:37

that press people wear in old movies that

46:39

say press except there's a little card that's

46:41

a screenwriter so that's what it looks like

46:43

no that's fine

46:47

like knowing how vital Drew Barrymore is

46:49

signing on to this was to getting

46:52

the film made guessing that

46:54

there probably was a past to like beef

46:56

up that character who's a minor character she

46:58

is paralleling Donnie Darko in many ways

47:01

she is like starting out the film

47:03

in kind of a like anti

47:05

social shitty place and then like as the

47:07

film goes on you know she has a

47:09

similar voyage of like she loses everything she

47:11

doesn't lose everything to the extent that Donnie

47:13

Darko does but it very much is like

47:16

one of my favorite scenes in the film is

47:18

that cellar door scene which is just these two

47:20

characters like sitting and being like in kind of

47:23

a sad moment for both of them kind of

47:25

living through that together and it very much feels

47:27

like this film is like this character is going

47:30

through the same arc but because she's an adult

47:32

the consequences are I don't want to say more

47:34

dire cuz Donnie like literally has to die

47:36

but like it's definitely a sense of like

47:39

Donnie can take these chances and you know lose

47:41

things and not lose his entire future and she

47:43

like loses her whole job and I think I

47:46

think that's interesting when I look at it from

47:48

a screenwriting perspective from just like a person watching

47:50

this movie that's he made me be like what

47:52

the fuck is going on guys they're saying I

47:54

want to talk about Steven Spielberg you,

48:00

but Scott, you can't be read as, you

48:02

know, it is a spin on

48:04

John Hughes in many ways, but it's also

48:06

kind of a dark take on some classic

48:08

Spielberg tropes, and I'm gonna let you talk

48:10

about that now. Oh no, I think I

48:12

thought I already talked about it. Just, I

48:15

mean, you talked about, I mean, the E.T.

48:17

thing is a good reference, but I feel

48:19

like, I just feel like, you know, we

48:21

talk about the suburbia of this

48:23

movie. I don't immediately go, I don't go

48:25

to John Hughes, you know, maybe

48:27

because John Hughes is so specifically the

48:30

North suburbs of, the Tony suburbs

48:32

of Chicago, but there's

48:34

just something about this town and the

48:37

environment that Richard Kelly sort of creates in

48:39

this film that, you know, and plus that

48:41

just it being a science fiction film,

48:44

which is the genre that Spielberg was

48:46

playing with in a suburban

48:48

setting in films like E.T. and Close

48:50

Encounters, that kind of rang

48:52

the bell for me in terms

48:54

of this seeming to take place

48:56

more in a Spielbergian universe. Well,

48:58

I think also, if you

49:00

want to reduce the classic Spielberg suburb

49:02

story, which really comes down to pretty

49:04

much just Close Encounters and E.T., but

49:06

I think those films loom so large

49:09

and others that kind of inspired it,

49:11

you know, Polargeists is in the mix

49:13

there too. It's basically,

49:15

Polargeists aside, it's like, what

49:17

if the suburbs could be a side of

49:19

wonder? What if like this most, you know,

49:21

mundane kind of mocked American environment was actually

49:24

where you find this transcendent thing. And this

49:26

is that, but it's kind of the dark

49:28

spin on that, isn't it? Yeah, and

49:30

also you can find hidden pockets of

49:32

like darkness. I guess that's the blue

49:34

velvet thing too, right? I'm just like,

49:37

okay, you look under the surface and,

49:39

you know, Jib Cunningham has a kiddie

49:43

porn dungeon or whatever it is in his house

49:45

and so, you know, and there's

49:47

a lot of rot that needs to be

49:49

exposed here by Donny

49:51

and these little acts of

49:53

terrorism that he commits under

49:55

influence, things that have to be

49:58

exposed and I guess that ends up being more

50:00

Blue Velvet. But just generally the film

50:02

is just so immersed in the period

50:05

thoroughly that it's

50:08

obviously going to be more than Spielberg. And

50:10

the music is such a key part of that

50:12

as well. The other thing

50:14

I would say too about this movie before we

50:16

close out on it is that Kelly has a

50:18

really great sense of the movie moment. Emily

50:21

mentioned of course the Head Over Heels montage

50:23

which is awesome filmmaking and a great

50:25

song and also just sets up all

50:27

of these characters and all of these

50:29

interactions that will come back later. So

50:32

it's also a really useful piece of storytelling.

50:34

But then you also get, you know, you

50:36

establish the movie with the Killing Moon and

50:38

that's really cool. The

50:41

Mad World thing at the end. Yeah,

50:43

Mad World at the end and

50:46

you've got Notorious during the dance

50:48

sequence that kind of also bleeds

50:51

into the score of the

50:53

film which is great, great, great. You know, he

50:55

just has a – I mean that's

50:57

kind of what makes the film

50:59

work too is that it has these moments

51:02

out of time, these set pieces

51:05

that are really exciting, you know, and

51:07

dynamic as filmmaking. Every song in this

51:09

film was at the time this film

51:12

came out not really used in movies

51:14

and TV and then after this they're

51:16

all over the place. On the show

51:18

I write on Yellow Jackets I think

51:20

we've used every single one of them.

51:22

Oh wow. Because this movie so suffused

51:24

the culture that like all of these

51:26

songs became standards in a way that

51:29

they kind of weren't before in terms of like

51:31

music licensing which I find fascinating. The

51:33

Mad World montage in particular, like

51:35

I think the music really sells

51:37

the tone of what – with

51:40

like a different song backing that

51:43

could have just been seen as like bemusement

51:46

as opposed to like mourning and elegy

51:48

and also a sense

51:51

that the world is just completely out of

51:53

place somehow in a way a

51:55

lot of these people cannot place, can't

51:57

put their fingers on. just

52:00

such a perfect, creepy

52:02

cover for a song that was

52:04

always lyrically creepy but kind of

52:06

had a much more like sped

52:09

up, almost upbeat kind of execution

52:11

the first time out. So

52:13

that's a piece of genius. It's kind of also

52:15

prescient of the slowed down cover for, spooky cover

52:17

for a trailer sing isn't it? I don't think

52:20

that's really been a done thing at this point.

52:22

That's such an insult to the cover though. No,

52:24

well I'm just saying it's just done, I

52:27

don't think it's bad. I'm just saying it

52:29

is the original version of that before it

52:31

got copied. It was a different song at Sundance

52:33

though if I recall, right? Was it Mad World?

52:35

No, no, no,

52:37

that sequence was set to a different song

52:39

I thought. Which sequence? The Mad World

52:41

sequence. I don't think it was Mad World originally. I

52:44

don't know what it was originally cut

52:46

to but I do know that this

52:48

movie went through a lot of musical

52:50

shifts in terms of basically the music

52:53

he could afford for the Sundance cut

52:55

and swapped in new songs for the

52:58

eventual theatrical cut because he got enough backing

53:00

that he could actually afford the musical rights.

53:02

So I don't know specifically what song

53:05

that you set it to but if

53:07

you go look on Wikipedia even you'll

53:10

just see a list of changes that

53:12

were made musically in terms

53:14

of him getting to swap in the music that he

53:17

wanted. So I think on from

53:19

influences, like I think of

53:21

John Hughes in this movie just because

53:23

the adults are for the most

53:25

part such ineffectual dunderheads and

53:28

I think of Lynch because of

53:30

the like the heavy nightmarish

53:33

quality of so much of the

53:35

narrative, the just the sense of

53:37

oppression even in broad daylight.

53:39

But one influence that I cannot find

53:41

any evidence that anybody has spoken to

53:44

this I did a bunch of Googling

53:46

looking for it was I really

53:49

think Jake Gyllenhaal's performance here

53:51

is heavily inflected to Anthony

53:53

Perkins in Psycho. Every time he

53:55

lowers his head and like looks up

53:57

through his eyelashes and smiles that

54:00

kind of curly creepy smile, which he does

54:02

a lot during this movie, I see

54:04

Anthony Perkins' kind of final shot at the

54:07

end of Psycho. And some of the, and

54:09

you know, the sort

54:13

of juxtaposition between him and Frank, who's

54:16

a bunny with effectively a skull face,

54:18

also reminds me of that last shot and

54:20

it's his little flash of skull. The overall,

54:23

he goes back and forth between kind of

54:25

playing Boy Next Door and

54:28

playing this kind of like grinning

54:30

psychopath, like literally. I really

54:32

think, you know, if Jake Gyllenhaal is, if

54:35

nobody's ever asked Jake Gyllenhaal about that comparison,

54:37

I wish they would. I went hunting for

54:39

any interviewer who had mentioned that and couldn't

54:41

find anything, but it just seems so blatant.

54:43

Yeah, I think you're right. I think Scott's

54:45

right too, but the Kubrick face as well.

54:47

And there's a lot of like sort of

54:49

like, you know, misfit outcasts that

54:51

kind of go into the stew that is the

54:54

character of Donnie Darko. I think Travis Bickle

54:56

a lot too. I think he's like sort of

54:58

a benign Travis Bickle in some way. Speaking

55:01

of Jake Gyllenhaal's performance, someone needs to cast

55:03

Jake and Maggie as brother and sister again.

55:06

They're just so good. They're so good at

55:08

just like taking a piss out of each

55:10

other. And they were both like new

55:12

at the time too, as part of what made this

55:14

some exciting. I mean, Maggie Gyllenhaal doesn't have to be

55:16

just really new. She makes an impression, but and I

55:20

thought of Jake as that kid for

55:22

a long time. Now, obviously now he's...

55:25

Bubble boy? You don't remember the bubble boy?

55:28

Bubble boy and was it the good

55:30

girl where he was like the teenager

55:32

who... Jennifer Aniston Hooks on the side

55:34

of the news. We were killed in

55:37

a matrix with this stuff. Yeah, exactly.

55:40

I got so many points from Bubble Boy one

55:42

day. I got so many points from Bubble Boy.

55:45

Oh my God, you people in

55:47

your diversions. While we're talking about

55:49

family dynamics, we haven't said anything

55:52

about Mary McDonald's performance in

55:54

this movie. I know she would come

55:56

under perfect casting in every role, but

55:59

her's are done. criticism throughout this

56:01

movie the the Expressions

56:03

that cross her face when Kitty shows up

56:05

and wants a sub to take

56:07

sparkle motion to town Just

56:10

watching her like gently work

56:12

her way through that characters

56:15

complete disaffection with the

56:17

entire Everything

56:19

that Kitty and sparkle motion represent and

56:22

the need to get along well with your suburban

56:24

neighbors The way that she's

56:26

portrayed in that final mad world

56:28

montage versus the way everybody else is

56:32

The way she deals with Donnie and the the sequence in

56:34

the bedroom where she's got her head up against

56:36

him and he's saying What's it like to have

56:38

a nutcase for a son and she's saying it's

56:40

wonderful that character just really stands out for me

56:43

Yeah in a cast of amazingly written very small

56:45

roles that are very colorful I mean and there's

56:47

a character that John Hughes would be incapable of

56:49

writing and that Spielberg would write You

56:52

know like like that's a huge difference there

56:54

in terms of talking about the parents in

56:57

Movies that in suburban movies are

56:59

largely about the kids she

57:01

and I think her husband to him You

57:04

know, it's not I think she's given a

57:06

little bit more depth

57:08

a little bit more to do But I think there's

57:10

like I think they're fundamentally good parents who are trying

57:13

to figure their son out and do well by him

57:15

And you know and then she gets kind of the

57:17

last moment in the film that this kind of silent

57:19

exchange With her and

57:21

Gretchen's really nice ending and yeah, it's

57:23

a really it's it's I think my

57:25

favorite of the you know Small performances

57:28

in the movie is that

57:30

that character and that that performance is so good.

57:32

She's kind of always the best You

57:35

look at her for monophage it's really not she's not

57:37

in that much But compared to other people who've had

57:40

the long career and she said but she's kind of

57:42

quietly the best whatever she shows I mean, I just

57:44

rewatch Passionfish not that long ago and she's so good

57:46

that she's amazing. Yeah She

57:48

like I think of this as the start

57:50

of the Mary McDonald Renaissance because she starts

57:53

battle star very shortly after this and Nice

57:57

well, we've talked about this for a long

57:59

time and we'll talk about more next

58:01

week. I feel at this point we have

58:03

sufficiently untangled all the mysteries of Donnie Darko.

58:05

We've offered the definitive statement. Thank goodness. What

58:07

this film is all about, what its mysteries

58:09

are. I mean, if you

58:11

missed that, rewind and listen again. You know

58:14

everything about time travel, it's all in there.

58:16

I do want to briefly, and briefly, because

58:18

we've been talking about this for a while,

58:20

talk about two things. The director's cut, and

58:23

then Richard Kelly's subsequent and to date, rather

58:25

abbreviated career. I have also never, I've never

58:27

seen the director's cut. I've watched the deleted

58:30

scenes that were on the original Blu-ray, and

58:33

when I learned the director's cut was

58:35

basically that, and I just kind of skipped

58:37

it. Because to me it's like, it just explains

58:39

stuff that I didn't really need explained, and

58:41

the scenes aren't as strong as the ones

58:43

in the film. It was well done the

58:45

first time. And to return to the issue

58:47

of music, the songs that he wanted were

58:49

never tears apart by an excess where the

58:51

Killing Moon is now. And for me, Killing

58:54

Moon is like what just locks me into

58:56

this movie. It's beginning, and Pet

58:58

Shop Boys, West End Girls, and Southern Detroit.

59:00

That one I can kind of see. That

59:02

one I think might have worked as well.

59:04

But you have all seen the director's cut,

59:06

I believe, or maybe not all of you,

59:09

but can we speak to that? Can we

59:11

briefly talk about Southland Tales and the box?

59:15

I actually rewatched the director's cut

59:17

this time around, which was

59:20

not originally my plan, but it's

59:22

the one streaming in

59:24

a lot of places. A

59:27

lot of places that have it for rental

59:29

or Peacock where I watched it only has

59:31

the director's cut. I think maybe Emily has

59:34

much stronger feelings about this, but the

59:36

first time I watched it I was

59:38

like, nope, okay. It feels like, I

59:40

don't know, watching Inception if there was

59:42

a final shot where somebody came in

59:44

and just pointed at the top and

59:46

said, see, it's still spinning. And that

59:48

means he's still in the dream. And

59:50

we're going to watch it and not

59:53

see it wobble unless you do, in

59:55

which case it's a perception thing. Do

59:57

you get it? While like text scrolls

59:59

by and... in the background saying all

1:00:01

of that too. It just it feels so

1:00:04

overstated in some ways. And

1:00:06

in the same way, I enjoy talking

1:00:08

director to directors about what they meant

1:00:11

with a film or reading a good

1:00:13

interview with somebody about what they meant in

1:00:15

a film, you know, once to

1:00:17

see what their take is on it. I'm just

1:00:20

so glad that I didn't see the directors

1:00:22

cut first. Yeah, I don't like the directors

1:00:24

cut. I think it's I don't I'm kind

1:00:26

of agnostic on directors cuts in general, but

1:00:28

I think it's one that actively makes this

1:00:30

movie worse. I think

1:00:32

the beauty of this movie in Spielberg terms

1:00:34

is close encounters and ET tell you exactly

1:00:37

as much as you need to know to

1:00:39

understand what's going on. I think the theatrical

1:00:41

cut of Donnie Darko does that as well.

1:00:44

And the directors cut very much just

1:00:46

adds a bunch of stuff and explains

1:00:48

everything. And it's like, I've never been

1:00:50

someone who's like, it's like, we'll read this

1:00:52

as like, this is all happening in Donnie's

1:00:54

head in some capacity. It very

1:00:57

much feels to me like, yeah, there is like

1:00:59

a science fiction explanation, but I kind of don't

1:01:01

need it. All I need to know is there's

1:01:03

some weird time anomaly, but he's trapped in and

1:01:05

only he can stop it. Once

1:01:07

you start explaining it, the mythology behind this

1:01:09

is kind of not very smart.

1:01:13

It just feels very like, and it

1:01:15

turns all the characters into automatons in

1:01:17

a way that really defeats the purpose

1:01:19

of all the good work Kelly did

1:01:21

making them sympathetic. I don't think

1:01:23

it's very good, but I think the theatrical cut

1:01:25

is quite stellar. And I'm just going to say

1:01:27

it's my least favorite of his movies. I think

1:01:29

the other two are better. Controversial.

1:01:33

Yeah, I have avoided the directors cut

1:01:35

just based on everything I've heard about

1:01:37

it. And I will say that a

1:01:40

Western girls is now a

1:01:42

song that is owned by Gotti,

1:01:44

the film, I don't know if

1:01:46

you've seen. I have not seen

1:01:48

it. No, you've got to just

1:01:50

look up the sequence in

1:01:52

Gotti that uses Western girls and watch it

1:01:54

on YouTube or whatever, and you will laugh

1:01:57

until you cry. Our friend, Mike

1:01:59

D'Angelo. though made me aware of that

1:02:01

initially and I just watched over and

1:02:03

over again because it's the most hilarious possible use

1:02:06

of that song. As for the other films,

1:02:08

it's been a while. Neither

1:02:10

of them really resonated with me all that much. I know

1:02:13

Southland Tales has kind of got a cult

1:02:15

reputation and that's another one where it hits

1:02:18

you with certain movie moments really

1:02:20

pop in that one but

1:02:22

overall it struck me as kind of a

1:02:24

mess that I wasn't all that excited

1:02:27

about trying to sort out. The box strikes

1:02:29

me as a mess that I am excited

1:02:31

to sort out. Keith wrote something about it

1:02:33

for us at the reveal that kind of intrigued

1:02:36

me again to kind of seek that

1:02:38

one out before maybe trying

1:02:40

to seek Southland Tales out again. But just

1:02:42

generally though, I mean they're all big swings

1:02:44

and it makes me a little bit sad

1:02:46

that we haven't really gotten a

1:02:48

whole lot from... If you read interviews with him,

1:02:50

he's still trying to get stuff made. It sounds

1:02:53

like he's maybe doing some like, you know, Dunson

1:02:55

script doctrine work. He's not

1:02:57

begging on the street for money but he is... It

1:02:59

strikes me as someone who's frustrated that he can... He's

1:03:01

trying to be someone who wants to film films he wants to

1:03:04

make and is frustrated that he

1:03:07

can't. And I don't see that situation improving

1:03:09

with the current film

1:03:11

environment but hopefully. I

1:03:14

don't know. If he had just gotten Netflix

1:03:16

to throw a whole bunch of money at him

1:03:19

when it was in its... We will

1:03:21

throw many millions of dollars at anybody

1:03:23

with a recognizable name because we want

1:03:27

auteurs and we want to win people

1:03:29

with names to the site. We

1:03:32

want to give people money to make whatever

1:03:34

they want so that we can say

1:03:36

we're the home of X filmmaker.

1:03:39

That might have been interesting and I almost

1:03:42

feel like we don't have enough of his

1:03:44

work to really know whether he

1:03:46

is a chaotic

1:03:48

filmmaker who kind of

1:03:51

happened upon Genius or a Genius

1:03:54

filmmaker who kind of like has

1:03:56

overstepped a little bit. Southland Hail

1:03:58

strikes me as... just

1:04:01

one of those movies that would

1:04:03

probably be functional if it picked three

1:04:06

of the 27 things it's doing

1:04:08

and braided those together. But it's just

1:04:10

got that sense of like, A,

1:04:12

I've got a much bigger budget, much more trust

1:04:15

now, and B, I have so many things

1:04:17

that I have to express because I might never

1:04:19

get the chance again. And too

1:04:22

many of them just kind of don't rhyme with each

1:04:24

other or don't fit together. It's been

1:04:26

a long time for me with Southland Tales. I feel like

1:04:28

I owe it to Richard Kelly because I like this film.

1:04:30

I like the box quite a bit too. I

1:04:33

remember it so much better than I remember the

1:04:35

box though. I remember being a little like

1:04:38

exhausted and disgusted with the box, but I

1:04:42

don't really remember much about it.

1:04:45

You know, it just didn't resonate for me.

1:04:47

I had never seen the box. I had

1:04:49

Richard Kelly on my old podcast, I think

1:04:51

you're interesting, to talk about the whatever anniversary

1:04:54

of Donnie Darko it was. And

1:04:56

I watched the box for that and was kind

1:04:58

of like, this is like a really taught, interesting

1:05:00

little thriller. I had never

1:05:02

seen it before that. I watched

1:05:04

Southland Tales in theaters and

1:05:07

was like baffled by it, but also it

1:05:09

really stuck in my memory. And then when

1:05:11

I rewatched it for that interview, I

1:05:14

was kind of blown away by it. I think it's

1:05:16

an American masterpiece. It's

1:05:19

one of my favorite movies of that decade. It

1:05:21

is one of the few movies that I think captures

1:05:23

21st century America the best. It's

1:05:25

kind of angry and like doesn't like to look

1:05:27

at itself in the mirror. At

1:05:30

the time it played to me like

1:05:32

The Daily Show, if Jon Stewart yelled

1:05:34

the subtext to you all the time.

1:05:36

Like time has been weirdly kind to

1:05:38

it because it seems like it really

1:05:40

anticipated the Trump era. It seems like

1:05:42

it really anticipated this current era. And

1:05:45

I guess I read a piece I wrote

1:05:47

about it just to sort of prepare myself for this. And

1:05:49

I wrote that it was shortcuts

1:05:52

if it was shortcuts for Philip K.

1:05:54

Dick. And I

1:05:56

think that like that to me crystallizes

1:05:58

what's good about it. ago or so

1:06:00

he got the Serling family was like he's gonna

1:06:02

make the Rod Serling biopic and I was like

1:06:05

well that can't miss and then the pandemic happened

1:06:07

so it seems like that's off the table. I

1:06:10

really wanted to make another movie I think he's

1:06:12

an interesting guy and an interesting talent. He certainly

1:06:14

has a point of view. Now you're re-intrigued

1:06:16

now but just by all that now

1:06:18

I feel like I need

1:06:21

to give Southland Hills another chance. Watch

1:06:23

the can cut it's

1:06:25

better. Okay. And then read all

1:06:27

the graphic novels that you have to read to

1:06:29

understand everything and then talk to read the interviews

1:06:31

we talked about the stuff you can get the

1:06:33

film. Yeah you have to like look through time

1:06:35

like Donnie Darko and you'll understand. And

1:06:39

you have to look for the the

1:06:41

CG ribbons that show you where

1:06:43

Richard Kelly is going next to

1:06:45

understand where he is now. I

1:06:47

can smell Keith wanting to move on. I'm gonna

1:06:49

throw out. Nope let me throw it out. Let

1:06:52

me do it. I'm gonna throw out one thing

1:06:54

that is not for discussion here because we just

1:06:56

don't have time. It's for the listeners to bring

1:06:58

back to us. Emily touched

1:07:00

on the question of is

1:07:02

this all just happening in his mind?

1:07:05

You know is this all just a

1:07:07

subjective experience of somebody having

1:07:09

a paranoid delusion? And

1:07:11

I'm a hundred percent with

1:07:13

her that no of course not. This is a science

1:07:15

fiction movie. But this is

1:07:18

a discussion that happens all the time

1:07:20

around movies that are you know kind

1:07:22

of hanging on that hinge of what's

1:07:24

real and what isn't. I

1:07:27

am curious as a question

1:07:29

for the listeners as an

1:07:31

exercise for our fans is

1:07:34

there a single movie? Has there ever been a movie

1:07:36

that plays that is it real is it

1:07:38

not game? Where the answer no it's not

1:07:40

real it's all in their head would be

1:07:42

more interesting. Would be

1:07:44

a better narrative choice because I'm

1:07:47

really don't think that there is but I would love to be

1:07:49

proved wrong. I like the idea of throwing

1:07:51

stuff out for our readers to write in about

1:07:53

Tasha. This is innovation that I welcome to the

1:07:55

next picture show. I have an answer I'm gonna

1:07:57

throw out because I'm not usually on the show.

1:08:00

on this show. I think Mulholland Drive is equally

1:08:02

interesting if it's all in her head or

1:08:10

if it's all really happening. And I

1:08:12

think that is fascinating. That answer is

1:08:15

taken now listeners write about something else.

1:08:18

And we are going to move on from Donnie D'Arco. We're

1:08:20

going to come back to Donnie D'Arco, don't worry, we'll come

1:08:22

back to it in the next episode. But for now, we're

1:08:24

going to take a short break and we'll be back with

1:08:26

the message. Now,

1:08:37

it's time for feedback. Before we get into

1:08:39

it, we want to shout out our Mothership

1:08:42

podcast, Film Spotting, which is hosted by Adam

1:08:44

Kempinar and Josh Larson. As we record this,

1:08:46

Adam and Josh are on the cusp releasing

1:08:48

an episode about Furiosa and recently released one

1:08:50

about Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

1:08:52

briefly. Does anyone have any thoughts about Kingdom

1:08:55

of the Planet of the Apes? I

1:08:57

wrote about my thoughts about Kingdom of the Planet of

1:08:59

the Apes, which is I don't understand why

1:09:04

they based the entirety of

1:09:06

the marketing around like breaking

1:09:09

the only emotional arc in the

1:09:11

film. It's not a very complex

1:09:13

emotional arc. We all knew where it was going, but

1:09:16

it's just it's so weird. Yeah, I wrote about

1:09:18

that over at Polygon. I think I will let that

1:09:20

stand as my thought. My theater

1:09:22

cut out with five minutes to go

1:09:25

because there was a fire in the

1:09:27

building. Oh, no. So I

1:09:29

went and read what happens. And I

1:09:32

like those movies. I like the Apes movies, but

1:09:34

I was also a little bit like, what are they

1:09:36

doing here? I am assured if I

1:09:38

see the last five minutes, it'll all make sense. That's

1:09:40

what the internet has told me. No,

1:09:43

not really. I think it's anything that kind of like points

1:09:45

to some shortcomings in the film, which I liked. I think

1:09:47

it's I think it's I think it's a perfectly good film.

1:09:49

I the new Apes

1:09:52

films. I feel it's a little hamstrung by

1:09:54

its deed to start a new trilogy. Well,

1:09:57

that's my thoughts on that film and Tasha's

1:09:59

and Emily's. Scott, I don't think you've seen it yet,

1:10:01

but you will at some point, I'm sure. We'll have a

1:10:03

whole special episode to educate your thoughts on it. We

1:10:06

need to get to feedback, though. We're

1:10:08

going to reach back a couple of movies for

1:10:10

some thoughts on Civil War. Scott, can you read

1:10:12

this letter? Sure. Kyle writes,

1:10:15

I had a lot of thoughts about Civil

1:10:17

War, some of which I'm still sorting through,

1:10:19

so I'm curious what you make of these

1:10:21

aspects. When I was really

1:10:23

struck by the contrast between the harrowing images captured

1:10:25

by Lee and Jesse and the

1:10:28

extremely aestheticized images the film conjures

1:10:30

up, including its thrilling finale, I can't decide

1:10:32

if that sharp contrast is meant to be

1:10:34

a comment on the impossibility of cinema to

1:10:36

portray the horrors of war or what it's

1:10:39

doing, or if it's just Garland

1:10:41

prioritizing pretty images and excitement over message, which

1:10:43

I don't think it is, but I'm struggling

1:10:45

to sort out its purpose. I'm

1:10:48

also curious what you think of the

1:10:50

scene in the Winter Wonderland where Carl

1:10:52

Gluesman, as one of the sniper

1:10:54

team in a standoff with an unseen sniper

1:10:56

across the field, says, essentially, we're stuck, they're

1:10:59

over there, and we're over here, and we're

1:11:01

both stuck. It almost feels like a thesis

1:11:03

statement from the film about current politics, but

1:11:05

without giving any specificity, it kind of just

1:11:08

feels like centrist lecturing to those on either

1:11:10

end of the political spectrum. Yeah, let me

1:11:12

take the second one first. I

1:11:15

kind of reject the idea of this being

1:11:18

of the kind of centrism or both

1:11:20

sides-ism that people have been sort of

1:11:22

accusing civil war of engaging

1:11:24

in. I don't think that's really true, and

1:11:28

I certainly don't think by the end of the film,

1:11:30

it's all that ambiguous where the film stands.

1:11:32

I think it's just something that you kind

1:11:34

of have to do to try to get people to see the

1:11:38

movie, but I

1:11:40

guess you could say, broadly speaking

1:11:43

and truthfully speaking, that if

1:11:46

you have a civil war in America,

1:11:48

that is certainly a sign that people

1:11:50

are not talking to each other, are

1:11:52

not communicating well, that they are dug

1:11:54

in on certain sides and

1:11:57

acting out in destructive ways. You

1:12:00

know if you can you can make that observation While

1:12:04

not necessarily without it being both sides

1:12:06

ism. You know what I mean? I

1:12:08

mean with one of those sides

1:12:10

being wrong you could still have Yeah,

1:12:13

a breakdown of communication and a breakdown

1:12:15

in civility and in order and a

1:12:17

sense of being stuck. I Mean

1:12:20

to me that that is pretty much what

1:12:22

that moment means is just sort of a

1:12:24

sense of there's no moving forward But if

1:12:26

you want to if you want to throw

1:12:29

a little bad faith reading or bad lip

1:12:31

reading on it If you're a fan of

1:12:33

that YouTube series you

1:12:35

could read this to say as We're

1:12:38

both stuck and we're not conversing and

1:12:40

the only solution to this is a

1:12:43

sudden irrevocable violence and in killing the

1:12:45

other side I don't

1:12:47

think that that's what Garland is saying at all

1:12:49

But because it's such a broad

1:12:51

metaphor a broad statement a Detail-free

1:12:54

scenario for an one-size-fits-all

1:12:58

feeling the way that

1:13:00

scene ends just sort of strikes me as Very

1:13:04

easy to read in in certain

1:13:07

ways that I don't think garland intends I

1:13:09

am going to sum up my feelings with

1:13:11

a question by quoting the American poet W.

1:13:13

Axel rose and saying what's so civil about

1:13:16

war anyway, I Saw

1:13:20

this movie and found it I

1:13:22

obviously have not shared my thoughts on this podcast before so

1:13:25

take all this with a grain of salt I found it

1:13:27

to be I really am still struggling

1:13:29

with it I I liked it and I can't

1:13:31

figure out how much it does

1:13:33

feel to me like a film about America made

1:13:35

by a British person both in a good way

1:13:39

And yeah, I will say though if

1:13:41

civil war breaks out I am going

1:13:43

to hole up in a Christmas themed

1:13:45

house and shoot people. That's my plan

1:13:50

I mean we've written before and Maybe

1:13:53

even going back to the the AV Club No,

1:13:55

I think this was at the dissolve because it was at the dissolve that

1:13:58

you're at the dissolve when the American money

1:14:00

came out. And that's a movie about America

1:14:02

made by a British person that

1:14:04

really does the work to be

1:14:06

specific and I think insightful and

1:14:08

real in a lot of ways. It

1:14:11

might have been Noel Murray who wrote

1:14:15

kind of what crystallized for me about that

1:14:17

kind of thing, which is just that sometimes

1:14:19

an outsider can see things more clearly. And

1:14:22

so whether or not you

1:14:24

think they're quote unquote right in

1:14:26

their perspectives on our

1:14:29

country, seeing how they see

1:14:31

our country is just always an interesting perspective

1:14:33

that none of us can necessarily

1:14:35

get. It's really one of my

1:14:37

favorite things in movies. From the Zabriskie Point

1:14:39

to Paris, Texas, I love it when directors

1:14:42

from abroad come here and give us

1:14:44

their take on what this country

1:14:46

is like because it's always illuminating. I

1:14:48

keep thinking of it from the perspective of

1:14:51

Dogville, which I think is a very compelling

1:14:54

complex movie about America. And then the follow-up, Manderley,

1:14:56

you're like actually Lars, this is maybe not a

1:14:58

thing that you want to be talking about. To

1:15:04

jump back to the first question in

1:15:07

this letter though, the question of

1:15:09

what the big aesthetic

1:15:13

sequences of combat at the

1:15:15

end are doing, to

1:15:17

me it's not meant to show what

1:15:19

Jesse and Lee

1:15:22

can't capture because we

1:15:24

know that short of having

1:15:27

a movie production level array

1:15:29

of cameras there, they're not going to be

1:15:31

able to capture it at all. But

1:15:33

the movie is so much about the importance

1:15:35

of them capturing any of it. How

1:15:38

many thoughts and experiences and lives

1:15:40

and to some degree atrocities are

1:15:43

going to be lost if

1:15:45

they aren't there to capture them. So

1:15:47

for me what those battle sequences are

1:15:50

doing, it's not just some sort of

1:15:52

like slick cynical let's blow things up

1:15:54

real good to make people come see this

1:15:56

movie, it's putting you in the middle of

1:15:58

what war feels like. like and

1:16:00

then studying their differing reactions

1:16:03

to it. And not just

1:16:05

them, but Joel, Lee's

1:16:08

writing partner as well. We've

1:16:10

come to a point in all of

1:16:12

their careers where Jesse is

1:16:14

new to this experience but

1:16:17

reacts with avidity and eagerness and

1:16:19

keeps running into danger without realizing

1:16:22

it in an attempt to capture

1:16:24

things. Lee is a

1:16:26

veteran war photographer, but she's like

1:16:28

curling up and trembling in the middle

1:16:30

of combat. Joel is a

1:16:33

thrill seeker who's really enjoyed some of

1:16:35

the more dangerous moments up until this

1:16:37

point, but has kind of had it

1:16:39

shaken out of him by the death of a friend.

1:16:41

And he kind of

1:16:43

defaults to he still wants

1:16:45

to get the story, but he defaults

1:16:47

and throughout a lot of those sequences

1:16:49

to protecting Lee and looking after his

1:16:52

friend because he's just lost a

1:16:55

different friend. So I think

1:16:57

the immersiveness and the kind

1:16:59

of blockbuster excitement of those

1:17:02

sequences is just to

1:17:04

have a backdrop for the character study of

1:17:06

what these three people are doing and who they

1:17:08

are now. Well, we always appreciate when our

1:17:10

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it for this episode of Next Picture Show. In

1:17:33

our next episode, we will talk about I

1:17:36

Saw the TV glow before bringing back Donnie

1:17:38

Darko into the discussion. Look for that episode

1:17:40

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weird kids sleeping on the golf course could

1:17:58

be the only thing standing between you

1:18:00

and the end of the world.