All right, here we go, quiet. Hello, welcome to the Big Picture podcast, where we take a look at the latest movie news, the films of today and yesterday, and put them all into some sort of context. Seated across the microphone from me is Film Buff Online, Editor in Chief, and Birthday Boy, Rich Dries. And Seated Across the Microphone from me is Film Buff Online contributing editor and birthday party planner extraordinaire, Natasha Baguette.
Thank you, thank you. By the way, it has been 114 podcasts that we have done. Over the space of about five years, I mean, we're not the most consistent weekly podcasters, I will admit that. Because I always enjoy this time where we have discussing films, but sometimes we're also off making short films or going to festivals or something like that.
But that being said, we need to write a new intro. That has been on my mind, you know, mixing up a little bit of. Because we are obviously. Some of the standard things that we do.
Like the outro. We are not just now available on Spotify and Google Play. We've been available on Spotify. True, true.
Yeah, that is on my short list of things to do, kind of like mix up things here a little bit. But then again, that short list is about 100,000 items long. So I completely understand. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry, I am just waking up.
See, this is what we do. We go with that. We go sleep deprivation to get you this quality quality program. We go sleep deprivation.
You mean we are sleep deprived? That too. He's obviously tired as well. Yes, well, yeah, well, I was up late, watched the Chris Rock special live on Netflix, enjoyed it.
It's not his best hour overall. But considering he kind of had to sit through some of that to get to, I think what everybody was really waiting for him to talk about right there at the end. And if you don't know what I'm obliquely referring to, go back and rewatch last year's Oscars. Yeah, I can't wait for this year's Oscars.
Honestly, I kind of like the positioning of this. A week before the Oscars, Chris Rock comes out, has his say, and let's move on. We get a couple of chuckles out of what he had to say. He had some points too, I think.
And honestly, if the Smith family is actually sincere about being contrite and asking for forgiveness for what they did, they're going to drop any further discussion of it. We hope. Although I could see somebody going, yeah, well, Chris, and trying to fire back again. But we don't need that kind of nonsense going on.
There's far too many more fun and interesting and wonderful things to be talking about, like the indie Spirit Awards, which are also last night. Hence, we're recording on Sunday and this should be out Monday morning. We hope it'll be out in the morning. But I got a bus in here a little.
I know, I know. But our favorite film of the year of last year continues. It's March through the awards season. It's March.
It's dominating. It's ransacking on the awards season. Yeah, it's sweeping everything. Yes, we are, of course, talking about everything everywhere, all at once, which is an incredible film.
If you haven't seen it, what are you doing listening to our podcast? You have not been paying attention. Pause it, go watch it, and then come back. And thank us.
And yes. Yes. I'm just I'm amazed like the previous film from the Daniels was Swiss Army Man, which everybody kind of like laughed off as oh, it's the farting corpse movie. I couldn't say I got laughed off for that.
I think it just kind of went under the radar. It's a fabulous film. I still haven't seen it, but I can hear it. People hear the premise and are like, that sounds weird.
I'm not going to watch that. And somehow they harness their weirdness in just the right way, taking science fiction tropes, mixing them with Hong Kong films and a generous helping of heart and emotion. It's very profound in the third act. Yes, it's beautiful, actually.
And it's what I wish we, and I don't want to slam it by saying it's a genre film, but technically, it is kind of a genre film. And I wish we would get more genre stuff like that. That would kind of illuminate more of the human conditions, stuff like that. Colossal was like that too, a few years back.
Not as strong a film as everything everywhere at once, but I think Colossal had something to do, deal with in terms of trauma and abuse overall. Yeah. I know that we have spoken in the past about Colossal. That's another one I still haven't caught up with.
Pitch. We pay attention to different sectors sometimes. I know we do. I know.
You are very much more into genre films than I am. I know. I go deeper into indies and period pieces. That's true.
Wow. Anyways, you were going to say, you look like you had something else to say, though, before. I did. And you're just not going to say it now?
Oh, it kind of flew away, OK? It's gone. It's freaking gone. But let's kind of go over some of these indie spirit award winners.
What winners? It was almost all EAO. They swept with seven wins last night. That's true.
That's true, but let's count them off here. Obviously, best picture and best director for the Daniels. Yes. We had key, you know, best supporting actor.
Oh, man, this guy's underdog story. He's returned to film. It's so hard. I mean, I'm not even saying that as, you know, somebody who's a fan of his work when he was a kid.
And when I was a kid at the same time, it's just so moving, I think. And if it's going to really sting if he does not win an Oscar next weekend, he's winning. Yeah, he pretty much is because I mean, he's he's won every single win if you look at the SAG Awards as an indicator than yeah, you know, it's his to lose. SAG Awards don't always get it right.
But there's a good enough probability there that he should definitely be thinking about what he's going to be saying on that podium. What else we have? We had they won Michelle, Michelle, yo, Stephanie, too, for a best break up performance screenplay and editing. Editing, yeah, editing, absolutely.
Yes. With Stephanie, that's that's just another indicator of why you need to be watching Mrs. Maisel, but she's been having a great week. I know you're going to I've just started on Mrs.
Maisel, and you know that because I've been watching it over at your place. Oh, boy, you were a while to go. I know I do, but she's also has a great turn in this week's episode of Poker Face over on Peacock. And this episode was probably the best episode of the season.
It's really good. I don't want to get into it. I can't even talk about it without like spoiling stuff, except to say, well, first of all, it has the best episodic title in all of the history of television. It's called Escape from Shit Mountain.
That's a pretty good title, however, not the best. Oh, OK. I can't think of something right now better, but it's it's it's it's it's funny, but it's not original. I don't know.
I like it. And once you see the episode, you like puns. Oh, yeah, that's true. Once you see the episode, though, it's like, holy shit.
This is amazing. It's really good. And it sets up something for the season finale next week. So I'm very excited for that.
Poker Face has been a great series. If you like if you're tired of standard procedurals and you like something that's maybe almost a throwback to literally Colombo from the 70s. This is a great show and I highly recommend it. No matter who was the creator of the show, I know you're looking at me like, you're just a Ryan Johnson Stan and we know this, which is true.
I am a Ryan Johnson Stan. However, I would be recommending this show if he weren't involved. But you wouldn't have watched it at first if he wasn't. There was enough buzz about it, especially the Colombo angle that I probably would have at some point checked it out.
I'm not sure it would have been appointment viewing Thursday morning, make myself breakfast and sit down on the couch and watch that before work kind of watching. I was going to say there have been plenty of shows yet I've gotten a lot of buzz that took you years to get to. Hey, we're all very busy people. I mean, that's why I watch a lot of new television like first thing in the morning, partly to avoid spoilers on social media.
So, you know, I'll get up on Wednesday and watch Mando Thursday. I'm like getting up and I'm like, okay, Poker Face and Picard, before work. Okay, let's have a little bit extra caffeine later in the day, I guess. But you know, I do that to avoid all this stuff.
And hopefully, you know, because, you know, I have a friend who is like, I'm holding off on reactivating my Disney Plus subscription until Mando's almost done. So I can just binge the whole third season. But I'm afraid people are going to screw me with spoilers just on, you know, on Twitter or on Facebook because, you know, somebody will see something it immediately gets me mified. And then boom, they're out there spoiling stuff.
He had a key, and I'm even saying this for season two of Mando, which is about two years old now. He had a return in the last episode of a character spoiled for him, which I feel bad for because, you know, I got up, I watched it, you know, I got to experience it. Oh my God, is that, is that, oh my God. One of those moments, and you don't get those a lot anymore unless you kind of have to like enforce things, you know, around you to be able to create those moments.
You have to create your own space to be allowed to be surprised by a show, which sucks. I'm not gonna lie, I don't get a lot of spoilers that come across my, everyone is usually pretty good about, you know, not spoiling things for other people. Oh, yeah. And I will say that part of the creating your own space around you to remain unspoiled is curating your social media feeds.
And if you need to mute the word Mandalorian for six weeks until you can watch the show, maybe mute that word on Twitter. At the same time. I don't think you can do that on other social media platforms. Yeah, at the same time, yeah, which sucks.
Who uses Twitter anymore? I do, but it's mostly just for... Contact with other creators, I know. Contact with other creators, and it is kind of a good news feed.
Even though, and I can tell you this from me, just looking at film buff online's own server sets, Twitter has never driven traffic to the website. Yeah, because not a lot of people still use it. You know, I'm talking about in the eight years I've had a Twitter account for the site. It's never driven any appreciable amount of traffic at all.
It's kind of just like a pro form of thing out there. You know, I'm staking my claim and using it. So nobody else tries to do something hanky with it. But anyways, so who were some of the other winners there on the indie spirit teams?
We had After Sun for first feature, which is very impressive. It's been getting a lot of love from critics. I am not one of those. It was all right.
I could see where a lot of people liked it, but it didn't connect really for me. Joyland from Pakistan as Best International Film. Okay. I saw for you Best New Scripted Series, The Bear.
Yes. Well, it's a fantastic show. And see, that's one I was on top of, and you have to get a job on. Yeah, just to strike me.
I'm sure I'll get around to it. I've had friends who work in the restaurant industry who are like, I tried to watch it and gave me PTSD. So it's intense, but apparently it's very dramatically true. Which is what we watch any of this stuff for, ultimately.
I think on some levels, some amount of truism that we can relate to or learn from. Or to be able to see something from a different perspective, I think is probably the most important lesson to take away from film. Yeah. And also for first screenplay, we had John Patton Ford for Emily, The Criminal.
That should be good news for you. Yes, that was one of my favorites from last year. Great performance from Aubrey Plaza, who we'll be talking about in just a little bit. And it's funny because I was looking at the winners of the awards that I got to vote on as a member of the Philadelphia Film Gridic Circle.
And John Patton Ford won our Best Directorial Debut Award for Emily, The Criminal. Yep. And let's see, going down, we gave best film to everything everywhere, all at once. Best director to the Daniels.
Michelle Yeoh was our runner-up for Best Actress. Who won Best Actor at the Indies? There was no Best Actor, it was just Best Lee performing Best Supporting Best Supporting Best Supporting That's right, that's right, that's right. They changed their format.
They went non-gender this year or last year. Stephanie Seu was our runner-up in Best Supporting Actress. Best Supporting Actor was Ki-Hu-Kwan. So yeah, it seems like the Indie Spirit Awards were kind of in sync with us on a lot of that, which is nice, I guess.
But yeah, Aubrey Paz, I'll have it a bit of a moment too. Emily, The Criminal, Great Reviews, Great Performance, one of her best. And this week, she's in the first of the two films we're gonna talk about, we're talking about Operation Fortune. All right, so we're both Guy Ritchie fans here, I think.
Yes, definitely say that. Although, I would say we're probably critical Guy Ritchie fans in that we know where some of his faults have overtaken Aladdin, yes, and swept away. I would say ours, two absolute worst movies. I will admit, I actually do kind of, I don't love them, but I enjoy them, his Sherlock Holmes films.
Oh yeah, they're fun, they're fun. They're big, they're him on a big budget. And you know, so those films are carried by his directorial touches and Robert Downey Jr's. I think the second one is not quite as strong, and that's a script issue more than anything else.
Agreed, but it does have a stronger, I think, emotional tie through the film. It's just not as well done in terms of, yeah. And we don't talk about King Arthur. Ooh, God, see, I forgot about that.
Otherwise, I would have listed that with the other two movies that I don't think are all that good of his. I started watching it because, you know, I'm a big King Arthur fan. Oh, I know. But having Katie McGrath, who famously played Morgana Lafe on the BBC Merlin, come in briefly as Jude Law's character's wife in the opening credits of the film, for him to kill her as some sort of human sacrifice, was the biggest fuck you to one of the best versions of King Arthur ever made that I shut it off and I nearly flung my phone across the room.
Okay, let me ask you this though. Is that a, was that a fuck you, or was that just a? We're doing something, we're doing something different. Similar to that opening shot of Twin Peaks Fire Walk with me of the TV set that gets the axe through this screen or the British spy in the Tuxedo at the beginning of Triple X that, you know, looks so suave and sophisticated and yeah, we're supposed to think of James Bond and then he winds up getting killed like almost immediately.
Yeah, but there's a difference between a television screen and faking a character that is incredibly famous. There's another entirely to get the exact same actor. Okay, yeah, yeah, that's a little bit more personal. Yeah.
But honestly, the rest of the movie is so bad. I couldn't, I don't know if I can give them credit for actually saying that was their intent. I just know for a fact that I am such a huge King Arthur buff that my brain was going, you know what? I know it's probably not gonna be good, but I should probably watch it anyway just so I can cross it off my list.
But that, those opening credits, I was fuming. I know you. I was so pissed off. That was worse than watching Katie McGrath get knocked around like pterodactyls.
Oof. And then he gave by the minute. Yeah, that moment was evil. Because that was more personal to me.
Yeah, and I can see that and I understand that, you know, again, I'm not sure I might give the movie that much credit for that much forethought because the rest of it's just that bad. And it was going to be like the start of a King Arthur cinematic universe and like all the men were gonna get their own spun off things and that just sounded like a terrible idea. I mean, I always said, no ideas, absolutely terrible. It's just the execution of it.
It's not a horrible idea. If at the end of your cinematic universe, you have a big bad that is like Thanos big and that's the creation of the round table. Like it's not a bad idea. I mean, most of the King Arthur stories, like you have the story of Percival, you have the story of Gawain, you have the story of Lancelot of the lake, Elaine, the lily maid, particularly if you're looking at Tennyson and all of that.
So giving them all their own films and then bringing them all together for the round table to battle whatever this huge bad is. Morgana. Probably and, you know, he can be, or Morgana and Mordred. It's not a bad idea, but I mean, at the exact same time, Mordred kills Arthur and that's the downfall of Camelot.
So if you're setting everyone up on this massive. Your story arc has a bummer ending. Yeah, it has a shelf life. One of the things I loved about the ending of Merlin though, when they did that was Merlin put dead Arthur in a boat and pushed him out to the Isle of Avalon.
Two thousand years later, we are now in modern day at that same location. The lake is unchanged, but there's like a road that drives past it and a car goes down it. And just as the car is driving by, you see a man walking along and it's Merlin, old Merlin, still walking and patrolling to make certain that one day when Arthur wakes up and comes back, he's there for him. So there's a bunch of hope.
Yeah, that's great, actually. Honestly, I'm like, yeah, how else do you end that? Okay, it almost, when you said first there's the road, I was almost like, oh, they paved over Arthur's thing. What a cynical sad ending.
And I started to think about it. It's a road past the lake. Oh, okay, so it's past the lake. You're driving past it and the lake's like off to the left-hand side.
All right, because the way I was looking at that, you know, like I said, I thought you meant they paved over. And then I started to think, well, first of all, I was like, wow, what a cynical ending. I sort of like that. You're a cynical guy.
I'm a cynical romantic, you know, I'm like, I believe in romance. I just know it's never happening to me. I was gonna say those two things contradict each other. I know, I'm a complex man.
Then I started thinking about, oh gosh, I'm suddenly blanking on the King's name, the one that they were like, everybody was sure had been buried somewhere else. And then somebody did all the research and she found out that he was actually buried under a car park. Richard III, actually there's a movie coming out about that. Yes, Sally Hawkins.
Yes, I saw that at the Philly Film Festival, I think it was last year. And it's a delightful film. It's, yeah, so it's a fun little film. It's got some quirky characters.
Sally Hawkins is, as always, delightful. So I would recommend that. But let's kind of move off of the indie spirit awards and whatever weird ass tangents we took here. We always take weird ass tangents.
We were talking Guy Ritchie. Yes, Guy Ritchie. And get back to, yes, Guy Ritchie. So that leads us to today, this weekend and his latest film, kind of delayed, not necessarily because of the pandemic, but Operation Fortune, the Roozed Care.
Definitely this is a film that wants to establish a franchise. We have a fun world of almost freelance spies, it feels like, led by a spy team led by Jason Statham. And they're off to, at the behest of the British governments, stop some arms dealers from selling something that was stolen from a secret research facility that was so secret, we don't even know at first what was stolen, which seems weird. But if you kind of just go with it.
It's a quirky little mystery first before it turns into a spy movie. Yeah, with a lot of fun action sequences. So right off the top, where would you put this in the range of Guy Ritchie's work? Well, I'm looking at his filmography right now.
Lockstalk and Snatch are King, swept away. Undisputed there, swept away, would be the bottom of the, yeah. I've not seen Revolver or Rock and Rolla, so I can't say anything about those two. Sherlock Holmes, Game of Shadows, that's mid-range.
Yeah. Man from Uncle, I would put that closer to top tier. King Arthur, bottom of the barrel, Aladdin, bottom of the barrel, gentlemen, closer to top tier, Wrath of Man, I didn't see. Operation Fortune, mid-range.
I'd put it near like Sherlock Holmes. I've seen almost all of his stuff. I'm trying to think, I don't think there's anything I've really missed. Some of it I've only watched once, which even the mid-tier stuff, I've only really watched once or twice like Rock and Rolla and Wrath of Man, his most recent before this one.
And I would say this kind of sits comfortably mid-range, upper-mid-range of his work. It's fun, but I actually found it slightly annoying, and that just goes to Aubrey Plaza. I am not an Aubrey Plaza fan. And let me preface this before people rip my head off.
I think that she is very attractive, very funny. She's intelligent, she's good at what she does. But there's something about her that makes my skin crawl. Like I feel like I could be in a room with her somewhere in the back, and her eyes are going to find me, and she doesn't even have to turn around.
Like there's something snake-ish about her that terrifies me. Other than that, I think she's wonderful. I just don't want to be anywhere near her. But no, the thing that annoyed me the most about this movie, the good guys are never really in any danger.
Yeah, you're right. There's not a... There's no feeling of true threat to any of them. There's no stakes.
I mean, we're told that this device ultimately could cause a financial meltdown, and I don't want to get any further into spoilers on that. But it never feels real. It doesn't... Not even in the fight scenes.
Do you know it's Jason Statham? You put anyone against Jason Statham, you're like, Jason Statham's winning. Like, there's no threat. Even the Aubrey Plaza, when she gets caught in that room, it's like Aubrey Plaza.
You know Deception's her number one tool in real life from everything you've ever seen her do. She could pull this off. You don't feel like she's ever in any danger. Everybody's too good for their job.
Yeah, Bugsy's always off in the corner sniping. Like there's no threat to him. It's... Yeah, there needed to be, I think, some more complications to what was going on there.
It's very straightforward. They're super competent at what they do to the point of, it's like, okay, these are fun action sequences, but I'm not emotionally invested in these action sequences. Yeah, and also the pacing was off on this movie. It doesn't start off with a walk before a brisk jog and then break into a run.
You hit the ground running from the opening shot. Yeah, I don't think there was any... There's no credits at all at the beginning, are there? It didn't...
You know, I remember we were about five or six minutes in, and I'm like, wait, we didn't even get a title or anything? You know, it's just literally like a production car, you know, at the beginning, and then boom, we're in. Which is, you know, I mean, it used to be, it used to be a director's guild rule that you had to have your director, you know, directed by credit at the beginning of a film, you know, and by extension, probably Title Card and blah, blah, blah. And that is why George Lucas left the director's guild because when the first Star Wars came out, he goes, no, I don't want that, I want the Star Wars.
I want, you know, Lucas owned presents, Star Wars, and then the crawl. And I want my director's credit at the end of the movie, because I just want to boom, that's what I want to do, to set the mood, to get people in the mindset. And the director's guild was like, well, you remember the director's guild, you have to have it at the front, that's one of our rules. And he's like, guess I'm not part of the director's guild anymore.
And I'm guessing that's probably changed by now, because I'm sure we have seen it elsewhere, but here it does kind of stand out, because as you said, we hit the ground running, and- There's no break. That's it. Boom. Yeah.
There were some highlights of this film, Honest, Josh Hartnett, and Hugh Grant are a highlight. They were the main reason I wanted to go see this movie to begin with, because I'm not a fan of replazas, so she wasn't the draw for me on this movie. And Jason Statham, you know what you're in for with Jason Statham. It's gonna be sharp, just, what's the word I'm looking for?
His comedy is gonna be very dry. He's gonna beat the shit out of some people, and then he's gonna walk away looking really cool. You know what you're in for. So my brain is going, where are there going to be the excitement, the keep you on your toes, kind of?
And I'm like, oh, Josh Hartnett, he hasn't done anything a little while, and the last thing I saw him in was so magnificent, he needs to get more work. And Hugh Grant, who anytime he works with Guy Ritchie, she was at the goddamn screen, he has so much fun. He is totally off the leash in terms of like, I'm just going for it, and I'm gonna have, because he understands that this is at its core, pulpy material. It's good, you know, this is a solid B movie.
And I think we saw this in the best way possible, on a Saturday afternoon with some friends, and we're just sitting there, you know, laughing, and enjoying it. It's kind of disposable, unfortunately. I certainly don't think it has the depth of something like snatch or lock stock, and she's smoking better. Even the gentleman had more to it.
Okay, and I was actually discussing this with Darren in the car the other day. There was a faction of people who really didn't like the gentleman because it's very much in the vein of lock stock and snatch. And some of the comedy does kind of rest on some outdated racial stereotypes. Yeah.
And that's even going past the vulgarity section. My favorite section of the gentleman comes from Bugsy Malone and Colin Farrell is the coach. And I am going to quote this film, so please don't rip my throat apart, ladies and gentlemen, and variations are fun. Where a boxer looks at Bugsy and goes, why aren't you training your black cone?
He goes, just give me a black cone. Yes, he did. He can't do that. It's racist.
He goes, no, he was being specific to you. He's not saying that black people are cunts. And I would even go a step further and call it a term of familiar and dearment. He goes, well, he, he's a gypsy.
You don't see me calling him a pike gun. He's like, why not? He might be very understanding. There is a variation of how people talk to each other if they're friends.
Yeah, there was in those lines of dialogue, which kind of play comedically. They're educational as well. It definitely dives into, you know, text and context. And when people and who can use certain words.
Oh, I look at my friends all the time and like girlfriends and I will be like, bitches just kind of gone out the window in the last 20 years before it used to be like the top tier. You don't say that. And now it's just like, bitch, bitch. See, what's so funny is thinking, I'm thinking back to about 1989 or so.
And one of my favorite shows from the 80s moonlighting, when Dave and Maddie finally got together. It was in the midst of a very heated emotional argument. They're going back and forth, which was 90% of that show anyways, was that's going back and forth. And he finally just looks at her and goes, bitch.
And she replies, bastard. And then she slaps them, slaps them again, and then they kiss and they fall into bed. And the idea that they used bitch, it was kind of like the nuclear option in the 80s. You didn't say it'll be a word.
And that they were able to get that on television was, you know, I think very groundbreaking for the moment. Especially for a show that was considered mostly light comedy. Yeah. Like moonlight.
Honest, I, now the nuclear option is the CU next Tuesday. Yes. For Americans. For Americans.
Not for, I'm trying to point to England in a much different direction. It's a everyday general use term. I remember this had been 15 years ago, based on who I was having this conversation with, my ex-wife. We've not been together for a while.
But I remember saying to her at some point, I was like, look, you know, we know how bitches kind of become a softer word in terms of its impact in its use. I dare say, some point, the C word is going to be softened. And it's not going to have quite as much of a gut punch as it does now. And she said, you're absolutely wrong.
And you, honey, you're absolutely right. Because most of my friends, most of my friends, and I, we use it on a regular basis. A generational thing, even. Yes, and honest, that's, that's kind of how people look at it, is the next generation is willing to take the risks verbally and create new ways of using.
I think the word fuck is a beautiful, beautiful word. It can be used in so many different ways. There's so many different connotations behind it. And, you know, it's, I mean, I've old enough to remember back in 1984, 83, somewhere around there, when they tried to bring the John Candy film, Uncle Buck, as a sitcom.
And one of the characters said, crap. And people went bananas. They're like, yes, yes. Honestly, crap was like, we're having a child say crap on network, on network TV and prime time during a family hour.
And yet they also had Christmas story. Oh, fudge. Yeah, well, that's, that's a dodge on the word. That's great comedy, because you know what he means.
But yeah, it's funny how like, I, if I heard a priest on the altar, say something is crap, I wouldn't blink an eye now. No, but my nuclear option in my house growing up, yeah, if I said fucker kind, oh boy, was I in for it. However, the nuclear option that got your mouth washed out with soap was either saying, God damn it, or Jesus Christ. Oh, well, that's, that's, I think that's entirely different.
And that kind of obviously relates to religion and one's personal spiritual beliefs and that. I got the spank for a fucker kind. I got the soap for it. Yeah, I know your mom.
So yeah, that makes sense. But yeah, this movie though, to get back again. I think it was missing a lot of that, I think. Yeah, it was, there was some humorous moments, but I don't think there was smart humorous moments.
No, no, they weren't. No, again, Aubrey Plaza is very good at what she does, but she was making up probably about two thirds of the comedy of this film. And it was just, there was two dry, two on the nose for it to be funny. There was one cutaway where it seemed like they probably had.
Suckually is what they, she was getting ready to say. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Earlier in one of the like, one of the scenes in the hotel room where they're going over what their next step of their mission is going to be. Yeah, get inside him.
No, no, no, no, it wasn't that it wasn't that. There was, she said something and then she made like the, you know, mind blown thing. Oh, the eyes roll. Yeah, the eyes roll.
There was like one or two different reactions. They cut away, then they came back to her and then they cut away again. And that cut away back to her felt like what we just filmed, like five or six reactions to figure out what we were going to use in the edit. And these are our favorite two and we can't choose between them.
So we're going to throw both of them in. It just felt like a gratuitous cut back to her. I think it was like a knock on the bridge or something like that. Yeah.
And and she almost had a smile on her face like, yeah, I'm just screwing around at this point, you know, as the, as the actress is saying, it's not the character is saying this is like, because, you know, we've seen that on set where you try a couple of different things. Yeah. You know, you hope something works when you get to the edit bag. And I just, it was just kind of weird.
I remember going, huh? Yeah, no, that she, she was really good. But it is a type of humor. I don't think worked for Guy Ritchie.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure she's a good fit there. Although some of the other stuff she did, I liked.
And the other thing that really kind of I did like the moment in the car. What are you going to do? I'm going to shoot at them, Daddy. Like that did work.
Yeah. But some of the other stuff just didn't when they kind of let her go off on her own to do comedy. It was like, OK, no, no, no, she needs to be reigned back in a little in terms of what she's doing, because it's not fitting tonally. Exactly.
Yeah. And another thing that kind of didn't fit right was it. This was a fun movie. It had a few moments of style, but it didn't.
And I will say this, I'm going to tangent off and tack back to what I was about to say. I think Jason Statham in a tuxedo fits the literary ideal of James Bond better than we've seen in a lot of other of the James bonds. James Bond kind of in the film series outside of Daniel Craig has kind of become the he suave, he's smooth, he's sophisticated, but also a killer. I think Ian Fleming's conception of the character was a bit more he's a brute.
He's a killer. And he kind of has to tuxedos shouldn't fit him perfectly. They should kind of be a little bit ill fitting because he's trying to blend into these higher society things that he's not born to. And there's a class idea here at work.
Well, I think Sean Connery then works because honest, I don't think that tuxedo ever really looked good on him. OK, OK, that's fair. That's fair. It kind of felt like it was a working class person.
But something like Bruce Brosnan or Roger Moore. Way to swap, even Timothy Dallen, way to swap. And I love to. And I think when you look at Jason Statham, you know, he's a bruiser.
And when you see him in a tuxedo, like, well, that's a good looking tux on him, but he's not wearing that tuxedo is wearing him. Yeah, and that was that was actually a good beat of comedy in the script itself was. He's like, Oh, I'm his manager. You know, you don't really look like a manager, you know, books covers.
Yeah, like obviously he's trying to address the fact that he looks more like a bodyguard in the tuxedo, standing next to Josh Hart and its movie star than his, you know, his personal manager. Yes. But the point I was getting to that was when we look at Guy Ritchie's body of work, we think lock stock to smoking barrels and snatch are his two best films in part because of how visually stylized they are. And I don't think outside of a couple of instances, we get a lot of that here.
No, we don't. There's a thing where they attached a GoPro onto the end of his gun during that final assault to sneak and so jumped out at me, up and down the car chasing where she shoots back. There was like one or two cool shots in that. But overall, this movie, it felt a little pro forma in terms of just here's a fun, globe hopping spy caper.
And if you want a globe hopping, a spy caper that is visually stylistic clothing and production stylistic, I'm sorry. Man from Uncle does it a thousand times better. OK, I will, however, say when it comes to clothing and like a physical stylistic look on our characters in the world that they're in, man from uncle made him up his ante because between that, the gentleman, and even to a certain extent, this movie, man, it's beautiful to look at and particularly in terms of men's wear. Um, I did kind of he has taken on a lot with doing plaids, tartans, uh, checks and all that, like, knit ties.
There was, there was, Terry is amazing in this, by the way, he's having a lot of fun. And he had a great assortment of 60s knit ties that we're making their way around the film. Yeah, my eyes lit up when I went, because I, I mean, obviously, you know me and well enough to know that I am a Thai person. I have a lot of ties over 200.
And one of the subgenres in my Thai collection is 80s and 60s knit ties. And I just, I think they're wonderful. And I did however notice, particularly with this movie, he upped the men's wear design to also include production design. So the inside of the jet plane, the wall behind it had this wonderful, like navy, tartan design going on.
Did you catch that? Yes. Yeah. And then also the use of aviator, uh, leather and sheerling, particularly for bugs, uh, bugs him alone, JJ character.
Amazing. They're not putting him in sleek and suave men's wear, but there's something still style, man's styling. He's styling. Okay.
Well, let me ask you this to kind of wrap this up. If this movie is a hit, and honestly, I haven't looked at box office at all or anything, um, would you like to see this maybe as a franchise launcher? I mean, it feels like it's a franchise launcher. So did man from uncle.
Well, yeah. But again, that's a box office decision. No, this is the one and done. You're good.
We visited these characters and I'm fine. I'm okay with this one. Okay. If they want to make this like the next mission impossible or the next, whatever, which to be honest, we're going to start seeing a lot more of spy films like this that are going to be trying to create a, um, a franchise because mission impossible is almost done.
You think people are going to be trying to step up into that? Yeah, they're going to be looking for what's the next big spy well, because obviously James Bond is on hiatus right now. Mission Impossible dead reckoning part one comes out this year and we're getting dead reckoning what next year or the year after. And that is the end of Mission Impossible from everything that I have read.
Well, they've said that before too. They have. But then again, Tom Cruise was not as old as he is now when they said it before. True, but there's also, they seem to be upping the ante with every film.
They get closer to some sort of solidified end. When Mission Impossible first started, it was kind of that fun episodic. You know, we kind of go on. It wasn't until three and four that we started branching into.
Okay, if we're going to survive for the long run, we have to start doing a connecting story just like James Bond. And, and so that kind of it works, but it has a shelf life. It's running out. I would dare say we're not going to see a new James Bond.
Well, I know we're not going to see a new James Bond movie before the Mission Impossible franchise comes to its end with these next two films. Exactly. So they're going to be looking for that. That's all the void, probably a good thing.
I mean, I would not be surprised if MGM Amazon or whomever it is who owns it now along with Eon Productions says, okay, now that Mission Impossible is over. Next summer, we have our new James Bond out and we'll find out more. And that might be a part of the calculus. She's got a baton and all of them that comes in.
It might be part of the calculus of when does Mission Impossible end so we can get our new bond out. That might be part of, you know, they're thinking there, but I mean, if Guy Richie kind of upped his anti a little bit and the script was stronger, I wouldn't mind seeing a follow up to this, but if it's going to be just at the same level, it's not going to work. I'd rather see him devote his time to something new. Honest, the gentleman was so fantastic.
And it does kind of play on what he's good at. It did feel like a modern sort of lock stock snatch film, yeah, including the vulgarity and all that, which obviously would not play in a PG 13 film that is trying to start a franchise. Um, I think we got one or two fucks and we made a joke going into the movie that we should play a drinking game with how many of a certain word? Yes.
And we didn't get any of them. We got the see word right at the end in the form of see you next Tuesday when they were trying to figure out when can they be back from holiday for the next mission mission was like 10 days, 96 hours, see you next Tuesday. Like, yeah, and we all kind of Leo meme that the screen. There is, yeah, but it's it's done so artfully.
It kind of sneaks under the radar. It's perfect for a PG 13 action film that's tried to start a franchise. That being said, it's missing the guy, Richie signature and honest, it's not Man from Uncle Man from Uncle was done beautifully with the signature for a franchise and it's not here. Yeah.
I would rather see another film similar to the gentleman than to come back to Mr. That's that's fair. That is absolutely fair. And I'm pretty much like I said, you know, I do want to see more bugs him alone, not just in Guy Richard, I think he has potential.
Okay. No, you're right. You're right. But let's move on from this to somebody we've kind of talked about a little bit earlier and Michelle, yes, that's it.
Exactly. Also, just this last week or two in theaters, Sony pictures, classics for that. What? I want to see Michelle and Aubrey Plaza do a movie together.
I would actually go see that it's amazing how your brain clicks things together. Oh, you know, oh, man, you love it. That would be so weird. I'm trying to.
Okay. Anyway, let me get back to what I was saying here that just the past couple of weeks, only picture classics brought back to theaters. The amazing, the wonderful and the Oscar winning Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which is where a lot of American audiences first got to see Michelle. Yo, it was definitely where I first are.
Well, yeah, that was your, as you said, that was your first foreign film that you saw in a movie theater. Yep, I was, I was, yeah, I was six years old at our local cinema. So yeah, blew me away. I was super excited when that movie came out because already with some friends we had been doing a lot of watching of Wusha films that director Ang Lee was drawing from things like Michelle Yo in Heroic Trio and The Executioners and a lot of the early Jackie Chan stuff, Samo Hong, Yung Woo Ping, who would go on to be the action director for the Matrix films and whole genre stuff that was exploding through like all the way back to the Shaw Brothers studio films from the 70s.
And Ang Lee took all of that stuff and mixed it in with a, the fourth novel of a five book series from the mid to late 20th century in China about the 1940s and 50s when it came out and then it kind of, um, the author kind of got swept up unfortunately in the Cultural Revolution wasn't allowed to write anymore. And, um, the books kind of fell out of favor, but copies still existed in Hong Kong and elsewhere and he was able to take the one book and turn it into what's really a beautiful story of honor, duty, unrequited love. And it's just a fantastic film and I hadn't watched it in a long time myself. So I was glad to get the chance to revisit it.
And I was once again just struck by this film has a quiet beauty about it. The editing isn't like fast paced in any of the fights to the point of incomprehensibility. There's always kind of a gracefulness to these fights. It's almost like ballet, which again, that's a Yung Woo Ping influence.
And then you see that also in like some of the Matrix action sequences. Yeah, definitely see that there's a connection there. How long had it been since you had seen it? Oh, really?
You hadn't revisited it since you saw it as a kid or no, it's only been about eight months. Oh, okay. It's one of my favorite movies. I keep it on my shelf all the time.
And yeah, no, I, I definitely, no, I definitely revisit that one regularly. Okay. So so we're looking at it from two different perspectives here. I'm almost rediscovering this movie.
And I'm, you know, I'm just in awe of what, like you rediscovered Titanic. Yeah. Um, and this is funny because I, when I watched it before you, when we decided we were going to talk about that, so I re-watched it, you know, because I had the disc, you were, you wanted to go see it in the theater. I just didn't have the time, unfortunately.
Um, and there was something about the editing though. Yes. Did you, what, what was your, what was your thoughts about the editing and the pacing of this movie? Cause I know what I want to say, but, um, the pacing never really kind of picks up.
It, it rarely does. There's a couple of fight sequences where the pacing gets a little faster, but overall, the level in which this film is edited kind of remains there. That being said, during the fight sequences, particularly in the dojo fight between Xian and Jen, um, there's got to be somewhere close to, I would say somewhere between two and 300 frames, uh, different angles and shots and that. Yes.
That up. Thank you. And they are edited together so quick that your brain is going, it was shot specifically to be edited specifically this way. Oh, yes.
Yes. I kind of want to know how many setups are in that. Um, yeah, that would be interesting to go back and I don't know if you'd want to sit there and, you know, with a pad and just someone else has to have noticed it. Um, but yeah, but yes, the editing is a very slow, steady and methodical.
And I think that serves the story here because it's about people who are reserved, who don't express their, their inner emotions in a way that would imply an energy, if you don't know what I'm saying. Yeah. Um, whereas operation, fortune, you know, we hit the ground running and because it's just a boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, because it's, you know, a spy movie and that's our milieu that we're working in here and it doesn't work there because it's kind of like, give me a moment to catch my breath in this thing, which here though, I think it's very, you know, like I said, more slow paced, but that's because the characters themselves, it's a reflection of these characters and they don't accelerate in a term, in a like an emotional term until like right at the end, but when they, you know, are faced with having to, you know, when Michelle, you know, and Chagun fat are there, you know, finally, in a moment where they have to, they're almost forced to express and confess that scene is fucking heartbreaking. Oh, it is absolutely is because you look at it and go, they've loved each other for so long and they've never been able to say it.
They know, they knew that each other felt that way. And just because of circumstance, everyone knew it. Yeah, everybody around them was kind of like, yeah, okay. Sir Tate was like, if he doesn't, if he comes back and he doesn't say anything, let me know, I'll have a talk with him.
Absolutely. And I think that's, that's what makes this movie, and I think that's what attracted critics do it more so than, you know, the action sequences. I think that's what everybody watches this movie and it resonates with them is because of that heartbreak. It's, it's, it's beautiful.
It's sad and you can be thrilled by the fight sequences and you can be thrilled by horse chase and all this other stuff. And, and then ultimately though, you're kind of like, oh, your, your heart is broken at the end of it all because all of those things added, like emotional, had those emotional stakes that ultimately led to this. Jen and Lowe, there, there's, there's an interesting pairing that rivals Numbai and she, and I was recently during the rewatch and I always liked that pairing of Jen and Lowe. I hated it this time around.
Really? Yeah. Okay. What, why the reversal?
Lowe was the excitement in the romance that she wanted as a child. She was, he was her eye opener, her first sexual experience, her first love. You think because of all that, it would be stronger. It was exciting for her.
It's run its course. So by the time he finally comes back for her, she knows a little bit more of the world now, the idea that he can claim she's mine. She, I don't think she wants that anymore. Okay.
And she again, and then keep telling her, you know, Lowe's waiting for you at, uh, at a Wooten Mountain and she doesn't go there until the very end. And I think she only does it as a kindness to she and after watching the move by die in front of her is she's got, she is willing to give that love a second chance. I hate to say I always see it as her performing an obligation. Yeah, like he died because of me, basically.
And because, and so I wrought all of this. So I owe it to him to continue with this relationship that I started, that I got into that caused all this other havoc. When she stands on that bridge at the end and she jumps, my brain actually for once gave it a completely different idea behind it. Now the legend is, of course, if you leap off this bridge and you make a wish, you will be carried away on the winds.
You'll never return, but your wish will have come true. When she stands there, it, yes, I know that has always been kind of a sticky spot of did she commit suicide? It could almost be seen as she can't live with what she's done. The guilt and not the law.
She realizes I think this time when I was watching it, there was a realization of I'm poison. I never satisfied with anything that I've been given. I've been the spoiled princess. I've been the warrior.
I have wrought so much pain upon myself and upon the people around me. And Lowe wants one thing from her to return to the desert and to continue their relationship, just those two forever. I don't think she loves him anymore. So it's a kindness.
It's the one good thing that she could do is by giving him the dream that they could be together instead of the reality that would have fallen apart in about six months. OK, she's very flighty. She's very just fleeting with everything that she does. She's easy and quick to anger.
I mean, and the idea of she and trying to help her and all of a sudden, she snaps at her because she thinks she's trying to corner or cage her. Jen, I grew up and Jen was like a role model to me. I was someone I definitely related to because I always felt kind of caged in my life. And I was like, I want to break free and take on the world and say, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, growing up and maturing is realizing that she is actually the villain in the story, not Jade Fox, not Jade Fox.
Yeah, it's her selfishness, her entitlement. Yeah, because she even does it to Jade. That scene is heartbreaking when Jade realizes that because she's a literate, she's been learning from the Wuten manual manual by just looking at the diagrams, whereas Jen, who is rich and privileged and daughter of the governor has read everything, learned everything and kept her master out of the loop. And then she plays, I was so scared when I realized I could surpass you.
I had no one to learn from anymore. Why not then become the master and raise? Mm-hmm. You're a protégé of your own.
Yeah. And Jade felt so betrayed by that because she had devoted all that time and energy and not just to a protégé, but she had to sneak in and be a governess to this little girl as well. So in a weird way, she raises her like a second mother. Jay, Jen is a spoiled little bitch.
It's funny. The more I see you go down this road of exploring this idea, the angrier I am seeing you get actually. I see you like gritting your teeth. Because I feel because I feel betrayed.
OK, because I grew up idolizing that character so much. And now realizing that the one I probably should have idolized with Shui Yen, but I didn't because use and all that. You kind of gravitate towards someone closer to your age. Someone who is experiencing things that you wish or wanted to experience.
And they're not a good person to eat down. And that's what hurt. That being said, there are some beautiful fucking shots, particularly in the bamboo fight and the music, Tandon's score for this film is bananas. Good.
It's so good. I have I actually borrowed it from my local library when I was probably about 10, like they had the soundtrack and I ripped it. And it was on my mp3 for the longest time. I used to fall asleep to it.
It's it's absolutely beautiful. It's it's the drums for the night fight. I help get your energy up, but the rest of it is so sweeping and so calm and meditative. Yes.
I actually recently went back and I was listening to it again, because obviously streaming you can find anything now and it's that score never will get away from me. It will stick with me for the rest of my life. It may not be Hans Zimmer or John Williams, but it definitely made an impression on me that will never go away. And I was, you know, like I said, I was excited to be about this film because I saw Ang Lee taking elements of movies.
He liked as a kid. He loved those things as a kid and stuff. I was getting interested in at that moment. Was this his follow up to sense and sensibility, by the way?
I think so. Wow. That's a jump. Well, they're both very at pieces.
Yeah. And then he'd go on to do Hulk. So yeah, which which has some interesting things. I don't think it actually works entirely as a film, but I think there are some interesting elements within it that I think people dismiss out of hand, but that's a whole other thing.
But here though, you know, I was like very excited because I was like, Oh, finally, people are going to know about Michelle Yoe and Shallion Fat. And they never really kind of got as good roles as these two films as these two characters are in any of the films that they did in Hollywood after this for the longest time. Actually, there was a movie. Period piece and then the king.
Shallion Fat did that I think a year or two before. Because very young Tom Felton, by the way, plays a Louie. Oh, that's right. Yeah, he was in that.
Well, him and Jodie Foster. And I really, really like that movie. And I think it kind of gets swept under the rug because of, you know, it's never as good as looking an eye. Well, it's a different kind of story.