"The French Dispatch," "Eternals," "Dune," and "Passing"

Hello there welcome to another episode of pivotal film I am Tom Nolan I'm Mario Ponzio and I just open to them Just finished our last episode and this is a double episode day. I'm glad we're drinking high-lives Yeah, because this would be bad if you're drinking beers. I will do that for a single episode I will never forget robo-kapu-kavos Mario. We did really did one episode that day We did one but we did good fellas twice because whatever we were drinking was whatever it was Good fellas last time we recorded like I remember recording the candy man episode in I think I was drinking like oh yeah I was drinking IP aids, but we had to do two in a row.

I was drinking IP. You were drinking like a little you're drinking um Well, we tried so you got some you got a pumpkin I think I had a pumpkin But also like some CX and you had the little devil so you were fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah I think I was I know I'm fine during the episode but like that was a good episode though Mario's out Did you change your opinion about candy man? Was my opinion like I remember?

Oh no my opinion stills oh yeah no cuz that's not for me being too drunk my opinion of it being the third act Root fails ruins the film and the other thing yeah Yeah First out of that movie really works speaking of third acts ruining films Oh, no, no, no, no, it's not the third act ruins the film So yeah, we're gonna you know like I said we haven't recorded for over a month to three to this and so Tom And I have been seeing a bunch of movies This is a problem with 2021 I really feel like and I was thinking about this today when I was you know I was just like looking at movies because of the pandemic. We're getting just annihilated with films I'm just gonna get it. It's kind of hard to keep up a little bit with all the stuff that's coming out And but we're trying we're trying to keep we're trying to keep on top of the big stuff the relevant stuff You know and I think we're doing some of that today not necessarily award stuff But just the stuff that you know, yeah, no like you know talks with Movies will definitely get a good number of nominations, but yeah, yeah, you know So not the movie that probably should get So yeah, the movie I saw that Tom tended to see but just to get around to and I could I told him not to see it Oh, spoiler that is the French dispatch We take as the subject of tonight's lecture mr. Moses wasn't all certainly the loudest audisly voice of his rowdy generation Simone I could stop luxury hobby.

I want to buy it. It's not for sale. Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

Yes, it is Yes, in short the picture was a sensation The kids did this obliterated a thousand years of republican authority in less than fortnight. What do they want freedom full stop? I mean this is I can see that The great extent flower of the mode of cuisine known as police go The aromas of the kitchen cast a smell which was to be mortally broken as you know by now. We have kidnapped your son Oh I'm just from the foreman one house press.

You're fired Don't cry in my office This is West Anderson's newest feature. It is not a solid narrative is three stories told after the death of Arthur Howitzer He was the editor of the fresh dispatch York or like magazine and your car like magazine based upon some Kansas whatever It's it's the cutesy thing some West Anderson nonsense And so in memory of him the the staff have come together to kind of like create one final episode one final issue because he says upon his death Publications gonna be immediately suspended so they picked three stories of real no connection to publish in memory of him Did you know that and I'm sorry there's a being there's a being four stories and they're being published but like the they pull from it Did you know that he West Anderson published a book of his favorite New Yorker of articles? Like in relation to like this movie I just listen to podcast. I said it I was like that's the most West Anderson thing I've ever heard and also kind of makes me hate this anyway There's there's four different tales that are told throughout it I'm not gonna go through them because I'll talk about during my review and it you know kind of Ends with a you know that morning the staff morning is death again, and but sending the work of green issue um Fuck this movie You can talk about this in the sense of like West Anderson kind of falling too much into his right and falling too much into his tone I fucking hated great good best hotel.

Yeah, I'm gonna tell Lisa's like consistent solidarity throughout Um, I like moon rice kingdom a lot. It shows up on my list. Um this this is just him that is aesthetic worse The word I knew is used 20 times. I believe It just like it keeps doing it.

Um, and it was not the name of the town Like is it like is it the name of the town? No, it is the name of the town right isn't the town, but even still but it's used not only in the name of the town But also just in the the reference of the term boredom. Yeah Um Early on I thought this was going to work. Mm-hmm.

Uh, when you get Owen Wilson has a cycling reporter has her say the sazerac Cycling through it and when your first year to the movie, you know has that tight way with the only two four three let's say He's these love for the aspect ratio for three aspect. I haven't seen a western movie in because I saw grand Budapest in theaters But I didn't see moon rice kingdom in years. I don't think I think grand Budapest was in four three, but I think I'll dance was okay I didn't see how it's all That really controlled central yeah the centralization of everything and early on It works early on you're thinking it's gonna work In the first story the concrete master piece story the story of but he sealed a twirl playing this like really troubled Artist who's in a mental hospital? It's actually a prison for murder.

Mm-hmm. He kind of draws these paintings on a wall and something something something happens He's in love with Leah's a dial. Mm-hmm. She's a prison guard.

Yeah, she's like his views, right? Yeah, I don't want you to do it I just it just like that that works to like some of that stuff works to me because I think the cast is doing a lot of Lifting which is making that movie. Yeah, just make that fucking movie It's a little bit this fucking shit But then we get into like this we get into like this communist sort of like young kids showdown to miss Lee Chalamet Who's sleeping with Francis McDormand who's a reporter? Mm-hmm, you know pulling on the student revolution, and that's and then it leads into the Jeffrey Wright story about this Kidnapping and that's just going through this and going like oh my god.

We're just spinning our wheels That's what this movie does is the first story is interesting because it has those Those West Anderson things going on, but I think but he said that Tora Leo Sadow and Adrian Brody actually Twice like Thing now right is that you can't there's nothing to hold on to it's just a series of images that look exactly like even It's like Even his movies now blended together and that's the problem. It's like so the tour it's really they'll totally use it out and Adrian Brody thing and Bob Dallod and Harry we could pop up a little later. It's kind of like the uncles of Adrian Brody Not really uncle but are called uncles and their business partners of Adrian Brody that is fun and that works is like that Early kind of West Anderson funnest to it. Um, it's not first story works It gets you like in the groove of things, but then we realize there's these two really soulless stories that follow it even though Poor Jeffrey right he's there in the third one trying to make it work like he's really trying to carry it But we're so totally devoid of this close the closeness to it right like this is a problem with West Anderson I'm like we might be the guy starts demonstrating this But grab with us hotel dogs are very much present of it It's like we're gonna go from like bottle rocket rush more and real Tana bombs You know from like this they have his abstractness.

They have his visual touch they have his You know his shit. Yeah, but there is a tenderness to it. There's a closeness of the story there is a necessity It's kind of like cradle and it feels as though his visual motifs his soundtrack and all that and it's you know Script cuteness is working in sense of like carrying the story This is the this is the instance where it's like obviously that isn't the case anymore. You know, grand Budapest hotel is so Hand like held held far in the distance.

It looks good and it's fun and in that sense, but and it works as one Cause it's narrative, but it's so far out there emotionally in terms of well, it's not that's a motionless Yeah, it's a motionless and I'll dogs the same way, but this is worse because it's you know for disjointed stories. Yeah Um, but you're into like watching going like what why I'm just I'm looking at a mama art piece now I'm looking at you know, I'm looking at you know, I'm looking at a visual art Yeah, you're looking at like a Joseph Cornell like box of shit like framed as art and his hands it is art But that means nothing because you know that if you're if you're in a museum and you're looking at you know Joseph Cornell so he makes his boxes like dioramas almost of just like stuff with a real- Oh, it's not actual shit What I was like thinking was actual shit. No, maybe I don't know what the things that Joseph Cornell will do is that Joseph Cornell would go out in the morning and walk like all It seemed we all great artists do and he would just pick up stuff off the ground and he would just bring it back to his house When you know he had this horde of just stuff and he would create these boxes and then he'd put these things in these contexts And they're they're very striking and they're very sometimes are silly and sometimes are whimsical and sometimes they're like but they all carry an Emotion with them, you know, but it's art So you can't say exactly what the emotion is but when you look at them you feel something You know, I mean I think he has got Wes Anderson has gotten to this place and he got there with Grand would I Grand would have a hotel went Jude Law and every Abraham or not on the screen I wanted the fucking throw up. I like going to full on it I was well.

Yeah, cuz he threw that fucking cat out the window. Yeah, but that's the only thing he did that was any good It's the only thing I had the skiing scene. No the skiing scene is face during that is whatever Sure fine. I love going to phone man I love only to phone too But I feel like he's selling himself too short by being a West Anderson because my son just sent Steve Sizzoo And accepting Darjeeling limited because I think Darjeeling limited was like a girl Somehow this will him to foe is used in that third one and he just looks he looks like he's unhappy to be there He's like why why he's like able for air Sean Baker Sean Baker doesn't be for a rocket.

Yeah, Sean Baker and able for air. Don't need me for anything What am I supposed to do with myself? I think a paycheck. Um, maybe 12 minutes to There's nothing these are empty gestures These are things that and I think one of the things that my bug me about Grand Budapest hotel is that I thought of myself a lot In Grand Budapest I was a lot of Aping in Grand Budapest hotel and I feel like sometimes as a songwriter and as a writer one of the things that I worry about is like Aping other people's stuff or a big my own stuff and he that's exactly what he is doing is that there is a Between Rushmore and Royal Ten of Arms something really worked and he doesn't understand what it is and it's that all this crazy shit He did with Max Fisher and like showing Max and all his clubs and Max's plays and all this other stuff that shit was sad Yeah, okay, Royal Ten of Bombs every time when they showed like, you know Richie or not Richie's Richie's portraits and What's been still his character's name?

I forget what it is now doesn't matter when they show his mice when they show like Margot's Stuff like her plays and things like that when they show Raleigh St. Clair's like book covers when they show The Wilson character his name is to now when they show his book covers that was all kind of motion attached to it now He's just showing the stuff with no emotion attached to it at all. It's just like look at this thing look at it And you see it the thing that's rude rights Kingdom work It's like your like a little child focus and like this wonder of like not Identify a fully identified person who's looking at the childhood Why can't you just fucking do a bottle rocket movie again? Have it's like little stuff in there, but not all of it just make a small movie where it's like some of this stuff But not all of these I make it if you love it So if you so obsessed with the New Yorker on a similar syllables in this instance Why not just make a movie about like you know the editor Why not make a Bill Murray centric movie where all these people come in and out of his life to pitch stories or tell him stories and do short stories or Whatever, but make it more about no Murray's care Supposed to be based on like when the co-founder right get me why not make it about him But why not it seems like he's avoiding a motion at this point and he's using aesthetics to cover up all Sense of anything having any kind of emotion.

They don't look good. They don't look good anymore No, because it doesn't look stupid because in the reason it looks like yeah from a purely aesthetically pleasing standpoint It's fun to look at but it doesn't work anymore because it means nothing right and when aesthetics mean nothing There's nothing there's nothing there's nothing there's nothing there, especially we're trying to make a story. It just doesn't work Okay, that's enough of that. This is long as you're okay with moving on This is the perfect way to segue into our second solo review here The movie I saw with my fam on the day before on the preview night that you were gonna same thing with French Just bash we both were kind of like oh we should we should see this movie Chloe jazz entry into the MCU internals We're a tunnels Go to protect humans from the demons Why don't you guys help fight that night or any war all the other terrible things throughout history?

We were instructed not to interfere in any human conflicts in the Stevens room. Oh, you haven't seen some of them for centuries This is what the end of the world looks like You know what's never saved the planet your sarcasm We've loved these people since the day we arrived When you'd love something Okay, so in the BC times A celestial known as our shim sent 10 beings to earth They're known as the internals and they are there to defeat deviance and motorcycles Another coming but they don't know they spend their days defeating deviance and then they defeat all the deviance in like 15 Like 1520s in the last remnants of the old Mexican Kingdoms like as the Spanish come in they defeat all the deviance and then they're free to kind of live their life until our Shim calls them back to do whatever So they're all living on earth for 500 years Got your cerces played by Gemma Chan. It's really good in this. I'll get you Icarus played by Richard Madden Who's nice and charismatic the cast in this movie is actually fantastic And they're on earth and they're just hanging out doing stuff live in their life like people and then deviance come back And then there's like one deviant who can the deviance can consume powers now and they evolve a little bit The deviant Starts to evolve and then and then Samahaya can talk to erishim and then she dies and she's the leader right?

She's a Jack yeah And then she passes on her ability to talk to erishim to sir See you put Gemma Chan and then in what I found very humorously referred to in one of you was like a powerpoint presentation We get this not very long but pretty detailed exposition dumped from the celestial to the eternal But what the hell is going on and how the Eternals use this is very spoiler heavy maybe when I edit this I'll put the spoiler alert thing in Much more Time this episode comes out eternals might have bombed in its second week and third week and then it might be on Disney plus for 30 bucks so who knows the Eternals were there because the the Celestials made the deviance to consume apex predators But then the deviance in a flaw in their through a flaw in their system started to evolve So the celestial's made the eternals which are synthetic beings to kill the deviance because the Celestials require life on planets because inside the planets are new celestial so the energy It's like a matrix situation the energy from life from from the evolution of of life intelligent life Births from the planet a celestial was ego a celestial ego was like a sort of celestial Yeah, cuz he was a planet but ego in in and of itself is more of like Did you ever see it read in the classic infinity gauntlet stuff? Okay, no, so I mean No, so some of the 80s infinity gauntlet stuff which like all which like the infinity war endgame stuff borrows a lot from And which kind of plays heavily into some of like what's gonna come in guardians the galaxy three? I think Adam or luck war luck and then the Harry Styles reveal the end of this movie heroes Scott boiler on yeah, of course, sir says and a troll voiced by Pat and I was one so of course sex god One of those guys the sex god So they require so they find this eternal find out that out of earth post blip Or post post blip right where everyone comes back. Everyone comes back that the return of life on earth was enough to birth in Eternal or celestial out of earth so earth will explode everything on earth will die and out of that will be born a new celestial Fanos was a good guy so that was so that so that's brings up some MCU questions Which I guess we can talk about or which is part of the problem I guess like how this movie receives is that like you can't ask these questions these questions matter in one realm But they also don't matter like another round It doesn't matter But no, but it does matter because in reality the comic books that was 100% know about this he would 100% know how celestials are born And so he would not bother to wipe out half of earth if it meant that a celestial is going to be born unless he was going to use his infinity God Let's like he did in the infinity got saga in the comic books to take over literally all of everything because the celestials can't beat him Galactus can't beat him ego and like a couple of those other pseudo celestial One above all what's the one above all?

It's like the god in Marvel. I know that Mmm, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about the watcher can't beat him.

No, he's above the watcher Right, but I think like he's like trans I remember that yes, it's like a So they're like so but the celestial's have been living there two thousand nineteen Tom would be so disappointed in 2021 Tom talking about I'm not undispointed, but I'll get there. Okay, we got time we're only 22 minutes in this podcast So this eternal find out that they're gonna destroy earth and they've all been living on earth for a long time And they really like humans Brian Henry's Mary to use fantastic in this movie and so he when is he not exactly So they decide they're gonna stop the birth of this of the celestial and that's essentially ostensibly like the plot of the movie Getting all the eternals back together so that they can because they've all been separated for a couple hundred years since the last like since Ajax I think it's separate getting all these girls back together to collectively stop the birth of a celestial and Icarus is not who he says he is and The deviant want the celestial to be born the day so the deviant The deviant has evolved to so this is one of the loose Right that doesn't really work in the movie is like the evolution of the deviants because we get told that the deviants can evolve the deviant wants To be able to achieve the type of evolution that humans have been allowed to to achieve that's what they're after That's what the one deviant is after and the angel usually takes care of that and it's pretty good Here's the tears that here's the deal Mario That's the end that's the movie ends and they save the day and they also don't say the day it's there It's very in keeping with the Neil Gaiman eternal's run that he did which is pretty good, but it's very consumptive Okay, it's very matricity in the sense that the celestials are consuming stuff Sprite who is the one eternal who looks like a kid wants to be angry that like she doesn't get to live the same life as the Eternal because she's a kid so she's like in love with Icarus But she can't ever act on it even though she's been alive as far as she knows for like seven thousand years because she's a kid She looks like kid and he looks like Richard Madden So she becomes a human at the end of the movie Doesn't it? Here's a deal. Here's a deal, Mario.

This is the one time we need a YouTube show. Oh Chloe Shao Made this movie and it's it's she's very been very forward about what she was and wasn't gonna do in relation to like and so she got and she made this movie I She got this movie. I believe before she did no madland think so. Yeah Because she was editing eternals when she was doing the nomad land Press stuff when she was winning all the Oscars for no madland.

She was editing eternals She said she probably she probably filmed nomad land before this or she filmed eternals I don't know doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. They were kind of running concurrently remember She said on one of the award shows that she was actively editing Eternals like as they were doing with it or maybe she was editing something There's a lot of practical effects in this obviously there can't be that many practical effects There's a lot of practical effects. There's a one point where they're in like a village where um What's his name?

I don't know why can't they give his name right now? Barry keel is drew He plays this guy drew a good control people with his mind He's kind of he left the eternals like under a bat some bad circumstances in a sense He wanted to stop the Spanish genocide of those of the Mayans Or you know what was left with the mines that kind of evolved into it in the 50s because they can't interfere in human Because they can't interfere with human affairs. They're not there because they need humans to evolve But they at that point they didn't know why then they know why because the evolution of humans intelligent life gives energy to birth the eternals He wants to stop Slushes he wants to stop the Spanish doing it He does and he brings a bunch of those people to live in this village kind of peacefully and remove them so this you jack You up and try to find a tree I'm gonna talk about that. I want literally I want to talk about that exactly There's a point in this movie where they're fighting in his village and have housefalls down and a house out there Like clearly they pulled some supports out of a house and it fell down and niggalet My wife and my kids didn't feel anything and I was like holy fucking shit that house felt like it blew my mind because in Marvel movies Houses don't fall down.

They just CGI explosion. Okay I'm not the best person to ask about this stuff because I think I just watched Captain America the Winter Soldier because I think Captain America sucks And he does suck have the American Winter Soldier sucks fucking ass. Okay, sorry if you like that. Did you say agreed?

No? I agree. I think everyone that says it's the best Marvel movie is out of their fucking mind. I don't get my favorite Marvel movie Okay, good.

So that's like what I want to say here Mario is that I'm a bad person I'm in the original I'm in what I think is a what everyone else thinks is a is like The best Marvel movie I think is probably the bottom tier of Marvel people like Civil War II all the three four the first or movie The best Captain America movies the first one and I don't even really like that. Oh, I don't like either middle for me. Yeah What I'm gonna say here is gonna be controversial to the I'll get into it's gonna be controversial in the sense that like everyone else is shooting on this movie This is a top tier Marvel movie for a couple of reasons The cast is excellent and Chloe Zhao is doing something real and different and remember the scene in Green Knight with the Giants with a back Projection with a projection she does that with a celestial being born and it looks doesn't look real looks pretty good It looks in scale which is something that Marvel has really struggled with scale They have not been able to manage and figure out scale the whole thing because everything's computer generated nothing matters that eternal or that celestial On a big screen looks fucking huge. So it has that galactus From the kind of that Like a rising right it looks like a giant.

It looks like a giant. It looks like a giant. You know Think about Kong god silver versus Kong and how stupid all that motion should look everything looks small right this looks fucking awesome Okay It's not like panther. It's not infinity war.

It's not Uh Either the Guardians galaxy movies not Ragnarok It's like in the second it's not dr. Strange, which I think is like a very underrated Marvel movie Got diggers. Um, it's in the top of the second tier of Marvel movies. It is very interesting I understand that not everything works.

I understand that when we talked about I think in the last podcast about expectations and feel It doesn't feel like a marvel movie and I think that's what people are really resisting Is that it's just it's just cumulon johnny and Um, lemme queue with spright that and richard man's pretty like kind of funny in kherington as um Human right but he's the black knight. So that's part of that's one of the he's got to turn it this man Um, we're going like we're going too far. I think it's a really really interesting well-made movie that is getting a bad Is getting a bad reputation because it's not doing what all the other marvel movies are doing Which is this goofy which i've decided is this goofy ass superhero bullshit, which is I'm I personally just kind of had enough of it. I think that's one of the reasons I think I thought black widow was pretty good I thought she was pretty good.

I think this movie is better than both of those movies But both of those movies while they adhere to goofy bullshit are going for something a little bit different They're just they're just trying something else and marvel hasn't tried anything new didn't try anything new until ragnarok really Um, maybe the guardians of the galaxy movies for a law Those are the only movies that were different and then endgame and fineworn endgame This is kind of like a big reason I didn't want to see it It's not necessarily because of like the fact that ain't no madman with a passion I Like you're you're talking like i'm i hear it. I can hear it. You were talking about like all this shit going on And like I just don't have oh, you know, I don't have the energy I'm gonna talk about how they're trying to create like a second like this is really a phase zero Is this is this even where's king? This is not a thing of this gang right not the multiverse thing where I think we're even so that thing has nothing to do with the multiverse It's actually setting up a different universe of films attached to blade attached to I think silver surfer stuff Like I think so my surface cometh.

I like like this too. I love silver surfer. Um, but I know I think that's what people are resisting is that like they Invested and these people need to get a life you they invested so much time into these first 25 movies or 24 movies That the fact that this one has nothing to do with any of those is like a big kid So like it's literally just becoming comic books where it's just like various things. Yeah, cool.

I don't have time I don't I like the multiverse stuff because that's kind of like because I watched Loki and I was like, oh, well, yeah I'm into like multiverse weird stuff like I'm looking for the spider-man because that interests me I'm not gonna care. I don't care about magical science beings from various galaxies Because this is this is guards the galaxy to tell you right because I didn't give a shit about that Not explicitly Thing I'll just watch that like planet human I don't care here's why I'm not criticizing it. No, I don't think it's like it's like it's like this is not like this is not like no This is why I think I'm in a beneficial position as opposed to like lots of other people is that I think it's really happens I'm not invested like from a long term like I saw the movie And I was done thinking about it. I didn't read anything like I didn't watch any Easter egg videos.

I didn't read anything I saw the movie. I like the movie. I'm moving on with my life Yeah, but I think it's cool exists like it's I think you know like people are super in comic books I think comic books I don't think they suck. I just find them too much of a time investment.

I don't I Watch wrestling like I can't watch wrestling. No and read comic books I like to go to the gym for like three hours. Sure. I can't do those things together No, that's not like I'm it's just like I have a nerdy thing I like which is wrestling and like video games and stuff like I don't Have the time I just I think it's cool that that's there for people and that it's hundreds of dollars is being spent and like I guess it's Sucks that like people are shooting on it for not being a something else.

I think it's cool that it exists I don't have time. I play trivia and all my trivia people are super in the baseball and like they know all the fucking baseball players names And I sit there like during the trivia rounds going like yeah, whatever. It's cool. I'm glad it hurting anybody No, I'm making money, but that's a thing for having fun But I'm not like honestly if these movies keep like if any more you're gonna keep doing solos because I'm not I don't sure But I'm not criticizing it I just I would have to get that and I think you're I think like you're not gonna come over and watch full gear on Saturday What's full gear?

It's a wrestling. It's a wrestling paper view. They're gonna culminate a two-year wrestling Because you're getting vaccinated But even if you weren't like you want to come over to see this like 70 hours of one single story no spread over seven different shows no money, but what I did do I have it so here's a thing it's cool that other people have this stuff and I'm not gonna watch and that's a whole thing So there's there's this apparently there's an Australian TV show called the beach. Have you heard of the beach?

No Show it's a bad guy who lives on a beach. It's kind of a pseudo documentary, but the age one It's a 24 picked it up and they're doing oh that's a newest thing so I paid six bucks So I have continuous access to streaming does it mean it's just gonna be continuously streaming of this guy that be just on Although the whole series is just gonna be on and I would check in with that before I would do wrestling I would check in with that before I would do like 10 hours a week in 10 hours of Easter egg videos about how all these things connect to a turtles I don't those movies when I watch them in the theaters are fun to watch That's where I've gotten with the Marvel movies which I hated for a long time But I've got to the point because me and my kids go we just watch them. They're fun We talk about them all the way home. We kind of like when news comes out where like we watch the trailers But like in between times we don't fill with yeah stuff We just kind of and when I when I do take out the comics I don't buy the comments I take about from the library when I read them I spend it I spend I spend an evening reading I've been evening reading the infinity saga And what I did was when there was lots of Thanos just like talking stuff I just get pages because I just want to get a gist.

I'm super invested in it I don't know if I said this before I like the comic stories I fucking hate comic books there's so much shit in there. Yes, but I read comic stories Wikipedia's yeah Because that's perfect. I'm like I get the gist of the plot. Yep.

I'm not saying like my time's too precious for this No, I literally today instead of going to the theaters to see this movie I spent an hour watching a twitch stream because I enjoy doing that because I have fun with that I don't It's just the problems that people are like what I wanted to be for me. No like the turtles The entire like celestial stuff isn't for me and we're gonna go into riser's a Sarily for me right all like it's and I think it's like I said they're like this is so fucking nerdy I don't understand it But like whatever it's not for me right but why do people need these things to always work for them like this weird kind of like self perspective heliocentric me thing I guess that ties directly into our next movie We had a expansive universe to it, which I personally did don't understand the expansive universe But apparently a bunch of people are very attached to to to to set you know very exactly what's happening there Is Dennis bill in the waves adaptation of Frank Herbert's dune We are house of tradies. There is no call. We do not answer There is no faith that we betrayed smile.

Gurney. I am smiling. He ever asks us to bring peace to a racus house of tradies There's only a way for you my mind. I need the face your fears It's before they're not human they're brutal It's too sudden to see so much.

This is why do kill them all Okay, I am not looking at my phone. I'll doing this as a person who Preface this I fucking hate do the Frank Herbert story with a intense passion It is my least favorite piece of science fiction Historically I do have a reason fucking I so I read it I started reading in the middle school and I think maybe the very first Mine is like in 10,000 day the bubble blonde I'm like fuck you And I just kept reading it for a bit like I feel like 20 pages like I hate this And I just kept trying to come back to it and everything I read about the Frank Herbert doing story makes me Like you're just fucking lazy like the butler genus the butler jihat where he's like all the computers Got outlawed because the computers tried to uprise, but really I just want to have this happen so I can make my story work It's like fuck you Frank Herbert just think you're never existed like don't do this dumb shit right go do all this There exists either so guns did exist but like no human processing human brains became so fast the computers that guns the projected So fast and so with the the blah blah blah the valid room thing that now you need slow moving things and Swords and that's literally like what he does. It's like I don't Fuck you my fucking Wisconsin nerd I just from Wisconsin. That doesn't matter my problem with like the doing stuff Like the book and I only I've only read the first half of Dude I've read it a bunch of times but like the first half of the first of dude like the novel Um there's a lot of books.

Yeah, he got very tokened In the sense that his kid just kind of turning out doing content Or that it's all very I always kind of rejected those Alternate reality stories where they try to convince you that something that's happening in the stories is Super special and has never happened before and just like no this happens all the time and all these stories all the time I just I just felt like he tries to hand wave things to make it work And it's just like just fucking then make it work but instead he has to like spend so much fucking time explaining why it works And it's like dude plot character anyway, so I say that Because I'm gonna be making fun of doing by not looking at my phone and trying to explain the story from it So the house of traitors right there in a nice little Scottish water land, but there is this desert planet Tathooine Arrakis arrakis arrakis which is ruled by the Hadukans the had harkonans or harkonans. Yeah those guys Still in Sarsgarden the Batista basketball zone on the grudges um And David that's milky. Oh, right? Yeah, and they can float for some reason I guess because he can float only he can float Because of robo of technology really because it's too bad, but then how can those guys float down later on?

They're like just dropping. It's part of technology. Okay. It's technology.

Yeah, technology that can't be sent in because of the butler Genet if you are Anyhow, there's this thing called the secret sequel to the butler the butter yeah The spice which is a drug that can increase your longevity. It causes precedence and probably gives you a hard talk I hope so it makes you just mad and just and sit in front of in front of spice But I do know eventually that the spice is important because it's used by navigators who are able to fold space anyhow The emperor who's the whatever there's like some sort of weird corporate Monopoly that's also the corporation and this monarchy of various families. Oh, yeah There's the emperor and then there's like the house system. Yeah, but the emperor like lower Corporation it's a corporation and a house system.

Sounds like Disney has yeah has decided that the house of trace is Trades tradies is going to take over a raucous The a raucous there's also these the Freeman there there they're kind of the freemen there the native family the native people there But you know the Paul Timothy jamais having these these precedents moments because he's also been slowly bred by the Ben Gazis the Benet gesser the Benet gesser it who is the woman led thing because they've been selectively breeding to create Jesus Well, I think yeah, that's that's I have always had the Benet gesser it stuff is I've always found really kind of maybe I need to read more of the back dune story stuff I tried to never got I never got what they're so many media pages about dune and I still don't know the fuck is going on Yeah, they're just witches. Yeah, who? But they can also use the force different curb it like read a little bit of like my like Islam and go like I got it I know what's happening now. Yeah, I think he did.

Yeah, I'm actually less mad at her but then I am like everyone else Who's co-opted something like the one or the savior or the one that will bring battle blooming thing It's like just no just you you were wrong to which house keys and you were wrong George Lucas and like you were wrong everybody So they go there, but it turns out it's a big charade charade charade because the emperor wants to get rid of Oscar Isaac's character Victor no, you know, you know, you know, yeah, why do you think Victor? Because he's actually he's gonna get the harconians back Those guys and wants to wipe out that family because that because they're too good at fighting and they're too like good of people Yeah, like you know, he's going there to you know get the friend and and because they're the firm I've been like attacked and destroyed and he wants to like get spice production and make the friend and like The happy people he wants to get what's you night people? Yeah, he wants to produce spice because he wants money But he wants to use it sounds like once you use the money to help the Fremen and he's more It has to happen. It's gonna happen right he figures what it should happen in a way that makes people not be murdered But it's nice And it turns out to be a victory The attack He does little dies Paul who is the one sort of thing he's able to escape they keep running away they keep running away they keep running away In the desert there's sandworms no beetle juice to be seen He's a guy who's writing the same room at the end yeah, Duncan.

I know dies. Don't why is that a name? name eventually the movie ends with Paul fighting one of the Freeman defeating him because he's having these moments of scenes and dying in the future not seeing John David Washington He realized as he has to fight in a different way That movie's terrible and I think that people remember And it ends with them kind of like going to see the freemen desert power so he was only the green part to right So yeah from a story perspective from a story perspective this continues to be something I don't care about in least absolutely not Frank Herbert has created a world that I find incredibly boring that I find incredibly lazy Even picking back off what we said with the internals stuff and the Marvel kind of like miniverse And verse or multiverse or whatever you know these all the threads are going on I respect those because there's a lot of ideas circulating in there even when they're kind of being lazy There's at least doing something new Frank Herbert for me has always been handling it I need to get this to work so this this news happens also very classic It's not doing anything interesting in terms of like who is doing what it's just an Arthurian tail right and even to that point My wife was like this was just kind of like what the hell is happening and I was like I could explain it to you all day But I'm not sure what ad to your enjoyment of whatever happening on screen right now exactly and for example like the blue red thing Does it they ever explain it and you have to like look it up to be like oh one is a deflection by the shield and ones a hit yeah So a story perspective done this works, but holy shit that I really enjoy this in the sense that like Dennis build the way it kind of like for one thing visually amazing. It's fantastic floating over the sandstorm sequence like even just seen this on Very nice television still just the television was mind-blowing.

Yeah, but that's not the way like kind of He has respect for the material you could tell he cares about it But he is able to just toss out a lot of that bullshit that kind of like weighed down David Lynch and weighed down Especially weighed down that many series In terms of like the political discord. Yeah, I guess so I guess so I just be like listen. This is a story of this kid He's Jesus Christ He is going to save these people and potentially save the universe. There's whatever See you next move like we're building this up.

I'm doing the classics hero's journey You remember when George Lucas did this and didn't do it that well. Yeah, like I watch this. I was like oh shit star wars kind of stinks Well, that's that's that's good crazy things. No, that's always this guy's thing But I'm trying to know from us from a doing that hero's journey thing like this does that so much like Watching the end of this had me more excited for the continuing Obviously, yeah, it's obviously joke.

I'm watching this maybe go like I Want to see doing part two now because like it I was so well that it ended at the right moment But here's what I'll say hit those beats right the right time I'll ever want to see the movie. I don't even really care what happens The movie is so visually arresting I get times I've nitpicky things about it. Oh production is a standpoint, but like It's a visual of from a visual effects standpoint I wonder I wondered a little bit if in the long points where like it just kind of drifted into nothing I wonder if James Cameron watch Dune and was just like I got it I'm gonna delay avatar like this is the best this is the best visual effects film ever of all time, right? Ever easily those ornithopters look like real things and they're not I know they're not yeah You know I don't know even though the sandworms don't look real you can kind of you buy them being real because they're alien Everything that fucking going over the the main city of Tatooine Arrakis like that just looks right.

Yep. Everything feels right. It feels also like it just feels so authentic and but like it doesn't try to ever be I think I work so well to never tries to be real doesn't try to connect to the world in which we live it Just understands the nature of the world that it's trying to portray. Yes.

It's physics and how it looks and blah blah To that point though when you're talking about like you stripped out all the political stuff my problem with the movie is that? Without that beginning political stuff. I don't even know why any of this stuff has to happen Or I don't know why anybody's doing any of the things that they're doing like I almost feel like I want more politics or Don't even bother making the movie really because I it just them from a motivation standpoint My two big gripes of this movie is one is that thing is that from a motivation standpoint? I have no idea why anybody's acting the way that they're acting because in the first 300 pages of the book It's a aside from like the the siege and the escape It's the first I said the first 200 pages are all politics It's all just Lido and Jessica and Paul and then they're like subordinates trying to navigate this really tricky kind of awareness that Them knowing exactly what's gonna happen the whole time But also trying to find ways around that fact or trying to prevent that fact So I think it's problematic for me a little bit that Lido seems to only understand what's about to happen literally moments before it's going to happen When in the book he seems to understand from the very beginning that the hard conans are coming for him It's just a matter of when and how and he doesn't see that it's gonna come from the inside My second thing from this movie Mario and I would love to get into this with you a little bit if you want I think typically shall be is wrong.

I agree. I don't know who should play him He is so fucking boring. I could care less if he's a cot of a lot of problem is it yeah? Because it's the same thing.

It's like it's like the same kind of like a pasty blank surface I think I want a nerve ear I want like an Ezra Miller a younger Ezra Miller obviously like we need to talk about Kevin as a Miller to play this part. I want nerves. I want a little excitement. I want a little Unpredictability Timothy Chalamet is a wet towel Yeah And I'm as soon as we get over this as soon as we figure this out that Timothy Chalamet is probably a good actor But has not done anything really significant with his acting abilities in a long time To be shall be hasn't done anything meaningful from an acting when he was good and little women, but he just was to be a shall they I don't know.

I mean I get supported care. It was hard when him and Zenday were acting off of each other It was very it was very limited and she was making all these faces and she was carrying her body in a certain way I was like why can't you do this to be shall make she is clearly like a person feeling things and carrying weights and thoughts and all this other stuff and you're just like Knife and moves my problems and I is like like man I don't want her to have lines because like her body acting everything works really well, but then what she like speaks It's like so because the line she says stupid. Yeah, but so that those are my big gripes For this movie It's odd. I mean this movie is a real conundrum.

It's actually it's a place where Christopher Nolan always wants to be Well, it's a better Christopher Nolan. That's what I'm saying It's it's it's hedging it's hewing more towards the emotional even though It's a little less emotional than I would like it to be it's it's technically perfect. Yeah And it makes me want to say all the supporting performances are hitting where they need to hit yeah No, I say like Jason Momoa's like great in it. Yeah Rebecca Ferguson is pretty good I think what what is a problem with her is just a problem with her character Which is a problem with the beneges that just right which I don't understand what they're doing or what their goal is No motivation are necessarily that's a frank over problem.

Here's the thing I love the fact that like she's looking more and more not haggard She's looking more and more natural as it goes on like like every sort of like technical choice and this is perfect Yeah, Oscar eyes a cool outside of outside of it's costume design, but I just find the cost It's boring. It's a prank for pervert boring No, but I feel like you gotta find a way to inject some color in so like the last ten minutes in the movie when they're having that They're having the yeah, that's what we are. That's good Well, but it's also very one note color palette But it makes sense there like all the other time sense But I almost wish they'd found a way to have dukes to get something else in there because it just blends a lot But when they the dewkins are attacking our covenants. Yeah, all right a bunch of rias and kens When they attack Duncan Idaho and I like when they're coming down I'm like who those guys and I was like oh man are those those the those the sad you cars Yeah, the embers guys.

Oh, so those aren't even the hard coatings are in black. Yeah, and I was okay Sad you cars are white gray, but then Duncan Idaho when he fights him is also in white gray Yeah, and that's why I was like why are you see fighting his own men sort of thing and yeah That stuff just didn't work for me but I think just Like talk about the political intrigue like that didn't matter to me I like the fact that like he didn't know was like I like the fact that leader was gonna like art Yeah, I'm really like I just kind of wanted it was one of those things where I just wanted because it was so visually stunning I was okay with like a little less awareness of that stuff But I just like from a narrative stamp this so this is you know this isn't even emotion It's just like narratively. I would have liked a little more detail with Because how the other of our dem's character makes a lot of sense But the way that it's played because he like they never talked about it They don't talk about it's just like I have some things to say I'm gonna go I'm gonna go yeah, and then that's how that's literally what he says But because it's it's one moment and they're not talking continuously about like how to draw the Fremen in like they don't have the Do remember in the in the novel like when they have the big dinner Okay, so there's a novel like their apartment novel before everything goes down where they have a big dinner And they talk about the Fremen a lot I know big intentions like them cutting the dairseen right and because you get a lot of you get a lot of Not just Fremen a tradies harkonin But like all the different facts political factions that are exist on arrakis Which are like who they're gonna support in like this thing which is all related to like the Fremen in a lot of ways or the harkonans But it's just absent here So you get the one still garcy and there's really very little mention of the Fremen otherwise Yeah, and I think I like this movie more because of that because I just I look at this as a person who hates this fucking story And goes like harkonin are bad guys the emperor is a dummy who's picking the bad guys And that's probably not a good thing for him right and the atreides are good people Mm-hmm, and the Fremen are also strong people but they don't have the technology They need to do stuff and the harkonin are bad the atreides are good and this guy's a dumb leader But also very good his son is struggling to be Jesus But he's gotta be Jesus and the only way you can prove that he's having to put his hand in a box Yeah, it's the 40 days in the desert And you know the Jesus women are over here going like ah this guys we gotta make sure he's he's the one and now He's like I don't want to be I just want to have sex with us this chick over here my mom Yeah, from the story like that was that is that a thing like that that he wants to fuck that's his that's his actual mom, right? Yes, I don't remember if it's I just read it.

I just read up to page like I don't remember exactly if it's mentioned There is a man for his natural mom. I would know there is an overtone of I think because Frank Herbert hewed so closely towards classicism that there is an inherent edible of yeah context to that relationship or In sexuality, it's from the art theory, which I think in the movie I think plays Pretty well it actually is a one moment in that movie where it's like a little bit complex again I love I love that these people are doing these movies and Like and we talked about this a little bit with Florence pew and black widow when they're not like in shape Timothy shall may clearly didn't do anything. No, they talk like walk There's a joke of like I develop muscles and you know Jason I was like no Like I love I don't know if you watch like the mark because they on Disney plus have like the assembled things I think I'm making up stuff so my daughter's related to the assemble like I'm making up movies and there's one I can't wait was a crazy. It's just like I don't know absolutely I don't want to see watching hangman at a page with I watched I watched two seconds of it So there's a moment though that I saw that like floor to talk about all the works that she did like by training It's like sure you didn't fight training.

We should do that much by training like you know Paul Rudd is talking about like It's getting a man alive Getting trying to get cut up for like Ant-Man and like Florence pew is just like I don't need to be cut I'm fine and that's great to her because I think if you get really cut you won't even be shown sure But here's like she is she is fine. Timothy shallam I talk about come all apparently never sure it was an eternal I think it's just too weird Camille mongi on the guy who's in the big sick is not gonna be super cut and shirtless a superhero movie. No, thanks Maybe the next Michael show Walter movie can just be that Actually, did you read any other reviews for this new Michael show Walter Apple plus show no with Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell Which is just getting like the ideas fine, but then they make eight episodes of this thing I'll register a sequel to the phone show Doesn't matter what she wants to stick as a director he's terrible But the point of making is that like that was really funny that like he was just kind of like this is my body It's like I thought you were training you've been training forever and fighting and you clearly are just like a hipster guy who eats Well, you drink a lot of smoothies and you have a personal trainer who doesn't work you very hard Like I love it. I think it's great Especially compared to all these Marvel movies where everyone's like I guess I gotta get buff.

Yeah, but just Kind of it's kind of nice to just see like have that acknowledged just be like no I guess that's probably the point of just like what works with is like always like prisons and Jesus This is the fact like he's just like he wins the fight because he realizes like I have to fight I have to kill this guy. Yeah, and I have to fight this differently Right, but wouldn't you have and that's the thing so there was a conversation on the bringers big picture podcast They're moving podcast about like what the best Dennis Mila new movie is and they had like runner 24 Yeah, well of course they had Sicario and everyone But they had a very old blade runner 2040 I think I would have literally killed somebody I would have been mean to somebody on purpose to have Timothy Shallow may have even one moment as Frank emotionally compelling is Ryan Gosling doing his baseline to do it Ryan Gosling as Paul not fucking care hold you do it The age him fucking no, no, not even what hand wave it It was I was looking forward to doin to yeah No, no, I'm not gonna watch if I watch this movie again I might watch it with the sound offer I'll fast forward through talking parts Yeah, I think doing two is probably getting more action probably more freming I just like I imagine myself seeing doing part doing part two is a movie. I'm gonna seek out a night I think here I saw this is a movie I watched it because like I'm lazy now and don't like going to movie theater because there's people at movie theaters and it involves me being at somewhere in a time instead of like, why can't I watch that? Two o'clock, why can't I go to it?

I'm at two o'clock in the morning, but you just put it on for me. Which I was extremely wealthy because they could do that for me. Or at ten o'clock in the morning. Yeah.

But I could see myself seeking this out because like this is a visual sound experience. It's a Hans Zimmer, Hans Zimmer doing his Hans Zimmer thing again. But again, it works. We talked about this with, why would we talk about this with like the critical, I guess maybe eternals, but I felt like we talked about it last week too.

Like the Hans Zimmer like conversation about this movie, like he did all this stuff. Yeah. You know what is a movie that exists, the Passion of the Christ. And do like, is that Peter Gabriel?

Yeah. And do largely coral arrangements of stuff? Really? Yeah.

That's what Peter Gabriel was. Absolutely was Peter Gabriel. Look it up. I thought it was John, the Kale D'Aishinaal did this.

No. Kale D'Aishinaal is a super target. It's John Debbie. Yeah.

No, wait a second. Maybe did some of the music warrant? I'm not taking any of this out. No, that's fine.

Peter Gabriel. Production. Passion. Filming.

Music. Mark Joseph. Passion of the Casridic. Music for the Last Intention of Christ.

Last Intention of the Christ. No, no, Last Intention of Christ. You said Passion of the Christ. Oh, I meant Last Intention of Christ.

Okay. I was in there going like, what are you talking about? Okay. Yes, no.

Peter Gabriel did Last Intention. But Passion of the Christ is John Debbie. Which is a really good. But I do love the score of Passion of the Christ.

Right. But I think they're similar. A lot of coral stuff. A lot of weird sounds.

Yeah. A lot of Middle Eastern motifs in there. Hans Zimmer throws a lot of bag types in the computer. But Hans Zimmer also does a lot of Hans Zimmer things where I was kind of hoping that there would be no tune to stuff.

You know, it was a great moment in the movie and we're taking too long talk about this. There's a great moment in the movie where they get to a rakus and they're floating. You talked about this before. They're floating over the city.

There's like a drum sound that kind of comes in. They kind of like Peter's out into kind of like an atonal nothing. Like rhythmless percussion sound that has a tone but is not to have a tone. It's weird.

And I love that because it was like this is different. But there is a theme and Hans Zimmer guitar theme. I was really kind of hoping that the super big deal that everybody was making about this movie that we could avoid Hans Zimmer guitar themes. But we can't because it's what Hans Zimmer does.

And then some of the choral stuff is too much. It's way too much. I'm going to say, leading into our next movie, our last movie of this episode, this is my only gripe about this movie I think. The last movie I'm going to go.

Are you ready to move on? Absolutely. Okay. My only gripe about this last movie is that it over uses its theme.

Honestly, I don't even know what the music is in this movie. Okay. Our last movie we're going to talk about today is the Rebecca Hall's directorial debut. Yeah.

Rebecca Hall's having a year because Night House is a movie. Did you watch Night House yet? No, no, no. Go watch Night House.

It's a horror movie. It's a horror movie. It's a horror movie. It's everything hereditary.

I really wish that it could be. I can get blood on your answer. This is Rebecca Hall's passing. Pardon me.

I don't mean to stare. But I think I know you. Clamming. I'm trying to find out the history of the blondes you've brought along.

She's a girl from Chicago I used to know. Princess from Chicago. Things aren't always what they seem. I'll be dead.

Yeah. Lots of people pass all the time. It's easy for a new girl to pass for white. I'm not sure to be so simple for a white person to pass for color.

So you haven't ever thought to? What? You haven't thought of passing? No, why should I?

I haven't ever wanted. This is my husband, John Belieu. Does he know? You dislike Negroes, Mr.

Belieu? No, no, no. I hate them. Is she extraordinary beautiful?

As a close. Perfect. Have you ever thought of what you do if Joan found out? I'd be what I want more than anything right now.

I can be here to live. Will you? You think they'd be satisfied being what? You satisfied being the same?

All of us passing for something or other? Orange, we? So passing is on Netflix. Netflix apparently doesn't want us to know that it's on Netflix because neither of me or Mario.

It was my second recommended movie. After I got like three squid game things, it was hard to fall. Which is weird because this movie was a Sundance hit this year. I thought everybody thought this was going to be like the film to beat.

Academy award season. I've come out of Sundance, everyone was like passing. It's obviously passing. I think coming out of Sundance, everyone was like passing.

It's obviously passing. We may even have some conversations around Sundance. I don't know. I don't know what happened in January of this year.

I don't remember what happened in January of last year. I don't remember what happened in January of most years. But these last two have been particularly weird January's. I don't need the plot.

Tessa Thompson plays Reenie. She is a black woman living in Harlem with her husband Brian. Played by Andre Helen. It was great.

That's just the scene where he tells us about the lynching. He's like tickling him. He's smiling and he lets his son go. The way Andre Helen's face collapses is just fucking love Andre Helen.

There's not enough Andre Helen movies. Reenie meets Claire in a largely white restaurant in Manhattan. They knew each other in Chicago when they were younger. Claire has been passing as white and she is married to John who's played by Alexander Scarsgard, who is just corner of the market on playing super fucking dickheads and everything.

Which is interesting. There's a weird thing to his face that isn't dickheadish, but he's got the market for it. He doesn't. He doesn't.

He's a wife beater. He's a racist. Whatever terrible thing you want him to be, Alexander Scarsgard is there for it. That family has a corner on it right now.

I know. Except for nine days. Except for nine days. Okay.

Now on streaming and DVD. But moving on, we'll never be talked about again. By us, right? Yeah, never.

But Claire ends up spending a lot of time, and this is a hard movie to talk about from plot standpoint, I think only because there's a lot of stuff happening underneath the plot. Claire ends up spending a lot of time with Reenie and Brian living a largely black life as she's been hiding inside of white life. She's in Manhattan. Claire and she's on her in Manhattan.

Well, they're in lower Manhattan. Right. And they're Reenie and Brian are in our heart. Around the time where the Harlem Renaissance is happening.

Wait, 21, I think. I know the novels are written in the like 28. Or maybe the novels 20. Doesn't matter.

I have it. I have it. I can. 29.

And that's like largely the plot is that Claire spends an enormous amount of time with the red fields. And I think the term passing becomes a really interesting word. And because in regards to who is passing for what? Is it about passing for white?

Or is it about passing for happy? I am satisfied. Is it about passing for being black? Blackness?

It's I'm curious to know I'm curious for the Armand White Review because I don't think he's going to know. Maybe he won't review it because he won't know what to do with it. I don't think it does. It doesn't conform to his like doesn't conform to a strict liberal ideology of black and white right versus wrong.

White is wrong and black is right. It ends up being much more complex. My only criticism I think of the movie and maybe as we talk about it I'll find more. It doesn't lean on the score.

There's a piano theme that kind of starts scenes. Like really fast, like arpeggiated piano. And I know what you're talking about now. It does it a lot.

It does it too much because it does it at the beginning of a bunch of scenes in the middle of the movie. The scenes kind of change a little more frequently and it does it before everyone and it's too much. I think everybody in this movie is utterly fantastic. Right down to the bill camp as he went with a white novelist who enjoys coming to black Harlem to as Rini puts it like because he's curious because he's like wants to see Negroes.

The aspect ratio is interesting I guess in this. I guess another criticism would be that it's almost seems a little too heavy heavily directed sometimes. Like there's some shots that I'm not sure need to be the shots that they are. I'm thinking of when Claire and Rini are on that they come home.

They come back to the red fields with flowers in their arms and they Claire wants to sit on the porch to listen to the guy playing trumpet and she just kind of walks into the middle of the street and then they embrace in the middle of the street and it's like from the shoulder like up and then you just get the rest of the sky. I'm not ever sure what some of those shots are doing. I was wrapped by it in a moment where I was not ready to be wrapped by stuff because I was doing other things. But I put the kitten in the other room.

I did not play Animal Crossing because I've been living my career through my Animal Crossing around over the last two weeks. Not you too. I've been kind of avoiding a depression and I've been using Animal Crossing to kind of like I just made a... I don't know anything about it.

I turned my house into a writer's retreat. So there's like four bedrooms on the top and there's a recreation area. It doesn't matter. But there's books everywhere in like papers.

It looks like a place where everything is a lot of cabin. So I've been just kind of living in this space instead of doing actual real work. Thoughts? Oh yeah, no.

I was going to make a joke but not... I'm making a joke in a sense like, oh I'm going to do it. No, no, this is a fantastic debut. And a lot of your criticisms, I think of it being over directed at the score, always being again, worked so well for me in the sense that I think there's a real purposeful direction, especially this writing, the screenplay is so fucking good.

That's my other... The only thing I don't like about it is I cut out some of the period colloquialisms. But I love that because I feel as though there's a real presence and focus in making a film of its time. I'm going to fade out in the last shot of the snow and just fading for the white.

Making a movie of its time. So having that score introduce every scene. For me, watching a film of the time, that just bleeds in. It does.

Having those weirdly angled shots and whatnot. Dealing with a very modern interpretation of problems of that time that still bleed through... Not after decades, but making a film that is very much the aspect ratio. I love the aspect ratio.

It makes it so much... It makes it so much... It makes it so much... It makes it so much...

It makes it so much... It makes it so much more script. It feels of its time. Not necessarily of its time.

It feels of the late 30s, early 40s. And that's what really works for me. It's the fact that it feels like people of its time presenting problems through a modern lens. I agree.

The performances, Tessa Thompson and Ruth Nega. Nega. Nega. Fucking fantastic.

Ruth Nega's fantastic. I think Tessa Thompson is also very good. I think her character is so complicated that it's hard to tell what's... What's performance and what's performance.

But what's great about Tessa Thompson in this? I think she does this extremely well. The more I see it Tessa Thompson, the more I appreciate her for it. She's the perfect...

This is kind of a weird way of saying she's the perfect straight man in a sense of she's playing off of... She always knows how to play off of great performance. To provide this kind of stable backbone to a great... A great force or to a movie that's doing something else.

But there's a movie that's doing something else or performance. And she just play... Everything she's doing is allowing... But they get to play off of it.

In her straightness, there's an unstreatness... There's an unstreatness... What's the word? You know what I'm saying?

No, no, but it's perfect. It's because in this movie, playing the straight man to Ruth Nege's crazy... But much looser character works in the sense that I think ultimately... Straight man isn't the right word.

Foundational. Yeah. Maybe a more proper term. But I think there's a loose person and there's a non-loose person.

Tessa Thompson does a really good grounding one. A grounding one. Yeah. She does really good playing the grounding one.

I think the great thing about this movie is that being grounded in this movie has certain consequences which are not explicitly spelled out. And that's where I love this movie and I'll say it out loud. This is a top three film a year for me. I wrote it down on my loose piece of paper.

I haven't tried to break them yet. It's such a bad year so far still. It's got to be a top three. It's so much more complicated than whatever it's positioning itself.

It's a movie I want to watch a lot. I'm going to watch it again. But Tessa Thompson comes off as... So the question is not about whiteness.

Which is why this movie is brilliant. It has nothing to do with whiteness. Everything to do with blackness. And Ruth Nege occupying...

Ruth Nege's character occupying a space that... Tessa Thompson's character wishes she could occupy. And now that that rainy wishes that she could pass. But that her life was more stable.

And not only... I don't know even if... Like not only blackness are necessarily but also like... Then like womanhood.

Yeah. All these... Yes. So most fascinating.

It's all these freedoms. And then Andre Holland exhibits some racial... His desire is for a racial freedom. Because he has...

So moved to Europe. You know... Brian? Brian is such a grounded sense of self.

That he knows who he is but he wants. But he also knows how the country works. He knows how the country works. But he has such a...

Self-identity. Such a huge role. That's why final closing scene is great. Just the fucking soft push and everything.

And then when she falls apart he's there to support her and everything. Because it's also about the acceptance of true love. Like true deep love. Because you get the sense that like...

Rini has not accepted herself for who she really is. From an identity standpoint. And I... Talk about this all my guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like ripping apart her womanhood and her race. She doesn't really know who she is as an individual. And that moment kind of like blends into like where Brian knows what he is.

But then he's also dealing with the struggles. Like I don't understand why this is a thing. I don't understand why race matters sort of thing. Like he knows who he is and he just knows it's all fucking the same.

Overall in the sense. Like obviously external forces make it not the same. But like he has such a grounded self-identity. And he's annoyed with his job.

And he makes that comment about sick people. But he's really just saying like I'm tired right now. You know. And Rini's like don't say that.

Because she doesn't have that grounded itself. And so when it all kind of coalesces to that end it just works so perfectly. Because it's all about this like fragmented sense of self everywhere. And that's why like initially when I watched this I was like hmm.

It's like white woman would be making this movie. And then when it kind of like ties like race is a big part of it. Like it's the front door. It's the through line by which I think Rebecca Hall uses probably passing the novel to guide it.

I haven't read the book. It kind of makes me want to read the book. But then she just digs deeper than that. Because the idea of passing.

Nobody knows who they are because he doesn't know who he is. Nobody. Well John is so dedicated to the idea of like the time here because it's the city of the city of the future sort of thing. Like everyone outside of like kind of Brian knows what the fuck they are.

And like Rini like really kind of like digs deep into that and Claire is fully able to admit like what she says was at the wild passion. I think she says the wild desire. She's like what's to find it. But Rini is like hanging on to like these things.

Like parts of identity that aren't identity. She can't have both things. She can't have something in her life that is like not dictating that is illustrating some of the things that she's giving to her. But I was saying it's not pushing her.

I feel like it's just kind of like showing her an example of what her life. Yeah I guess it's more to be like. Exactly fine. Right.

Exactly fine. Yeah. It should be like especially like in that great staircase. Like I love how Rebecca Hall uses that like long winding six floor staircase.

You know they walk up. She gets to see an image of herself. No the more I talk about something more like something. I know.

She gets to see an image of herself in the life that maybe she should be living. But there's nobody that's saying should or shouldn't. It's just how she feels. She's in this position where she's confronted with these options.

None of them seem to work. The one that does seem to work also doesn't seem to make her husband very happy. So that doesn't really work either. And so what should she be doing?

And having Claire be having almost like renounced her blackness but still so easily occupy a space in that society just like totally throws her off. Yeah. Because that shit is but this is why this movie so good is because it conveys that really complicated emotion without anybody having to say I'm not sure how I feel about any of this stuff. I think I really love about this.

Like really love. And like this goes back to like Tessa Thompson playing this kind of grounding rod. You know, replaying this grounding rod off of a scenery as chewing, role and Claire is the fact that like she tries to you know, re-looking initially as just like she's pretending to pass like she's passing has white and that just kind of being it. But then when you delve into it there's there's all this nuance in the sense of beyond what's it mean to be like a woman in that role sort of thing and womanhood and what's that necessarily mean.

Then you get class. Class. What's that mean with zoo? Oh my god.

That's a what's it. I came out of nowhere but it was also perfect. What's it mean with education as well when she's like sitting there like when she makes it like what's just saying the blah blah blah blah in chief and she's naming all the things and like you know she's like she's educated but she's not like she's surrounding herself with doctors and authors and she's not comfortable being educated. Yeah.

And she's kind of like in this housewife and she's educated she's educated for sure but she's like still feels uncomfortable in the sense of like identity of self educated she has status she has all these things but she doesn't necessarily feel as though she can go like I'm this right I'm not like I don't like simplify womanhood because I'm not has free spirit or like the fucking focus on Claire's back constantly like the length of that sound weird but like the roundness and the curves of Ruth and Egg is black back. Like it does that several times a lot of discomfort with feminine discomfort with like with class in the sense of like she kind of talks down several times to zoo and like there comes in there just like chatting to her as even being. The discomfort with like her level of education where she kind of like still acquiesced at times to both not acquiesced but at both times like she defers to both you and Brian. Not that they're like not that their attentions are poor.

And then when Brian tries to educate his sons on what like the reality of being black in America is she's like no don't do this don't do that. You're right it's in all those things. She feels like a square peg trying to fit into a circle and triangle. And all those things and that's why I think that's why I think I felt comfortable with Rebecca Hall directing it is because it's being black is just one part of it.

Yeah. You know what I mean and that's why the movie is so good is that it uses this example to make a much broader point about identity and I don't know. Yeah it's definitely because it's on Netflix it's definitely a go back to. Yeah and I still wonder the ending like what's going on there.

Like I kind of wonder that too I kind of thought to myself when the camera was you know pulling back I was like what's the message here like where where where did we end up who did someone win this was Claire going to jump out the window. Like is that the only thing that she could do or? It's I guess it's the one time was it the one time it's the one time I wonder is it the one time I don't I think Claire is kind of like a a weep a spirit there for like rainy and is that the one time a rainy makes a decision the one time a rainy like makes a search fully truly grounds and asserts itself and makes that decision to push her back right. But I think she would.

You have to ask a question that is she actively trying to protect her. Which she's trying to see. She's trying to see. She's trying to try to push her behind her.

Yeah but then the windows open. Yeah. That's bad architecture design. But let's absolutely let's go.

I mean you can but this is why the movie is really good because you can break this movie down from a thematic standpoint message that you can also look at the scene right before that where Rene is standing out the window and smoking and she ashes out the window and you just see her like a silhouette of her hand come in. I don't know what it means. It's just fucking gorgeous. It's like the way that like that it's super black almost like paper kind of image of a hand comes and ashes a super is authentically fantastic.

Ownership. That's what it is. It's the fact that she finally takes ownership of what? So she takes ownership of what she's done.

Let's look back at this. What's a really pivotal scene early on is that the flower pot falling. And it's like it's something beautiful. It's something that has its own premise and then she just says you will get it.

It's going to happen. It's a telegraph like something falling out of window. It's going to happen. Yeah but she when she does it at the end like she always she tells Brian through what she isn't saying.

And everybody else goes down to get it. But like when she goes down there she claims ownership of it to at least a lot. And I mean that's like the first time she's cleaning ownership. I don't know.

Like I'm interested in that. I think. But I almost want to know what her I was want to know what John right I was what I know what John thinks. John yeah.

He's a little bit back that we just make him sad. I think he's just sitting there on the curb and was he what's like what's he thinking. Does he have some kind of realization about what he's actually lost. Oh the way the way Scars are sells as like he's fucking like destroyed as wife's dead.

That he's his wife is dead. Not his wife is black. No he's dead. He's destroyed that his wife is black and then he's just like mad he's mad that his wife is black.

Yeah. No because think about this. So the way he looks when he comes into the. I think I think this is like purpose of a block ever back all this part like she did fucking fantastic job directing.

Sure it is. She has like he has a forward stance. The shoulders are forward and up right when he's like accusing her and says they're like very like every scene after that even like when he's laying there he's the shoulder sloped forward and but down so it's rounded and then we stand up in the above shot it's still standing up but it's rounded. That's block on purpose like there's an entire part of like this male dominance that John shows throughout everything but there's extreme just that's just like a man but this is in this speaks to like another aspect of the movie which like doesn't really get talked about in the film is that like he doesn't know maybe the reason he hates black people is because he doesn't know any black people and maybe the realization that he did know because everything he says is kind of like this would be your sort of it's like a newsmax like fucking reiteration.

You know I mean like a Dicornier this side director movie what is really the corny this side director movie with purpose. Um. When the last episode. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah everything is boilerplate like boilerplate racism like crime and all this other like boilerplate racism but like boilerplate everything like he says well it's great to live in New York City of the future like everything about him is just like mimicked off of something else. This is a very good movie like almost painfully good. I mean in those first and one of the you know we talked I have no idea what my best list is gonna look like this year.

There's too many movies and I just don't care about most of them because of movies because of one movie that we talked about endless the other podcast but also because of a little bit like movies like nine because of passing which is just like oh it's gonna own a bunch of slots. Yeah for me like three films are slotting everything and this is the third film for me. It's it's complex and so that so I was talking about that when we do our scenes. The first the scene at the restaurant is like horrible.

I mean it feels so uncomfortable and that's where the aspect ratio really comes into focus where you're like everything is crushed in like she's clearly you name the movie passing okay these two women talking about picking any doll you know I mean and like then you know really comes in to help them out she's clearly hiding her face and then she's in this all white restaurant the light is horrifying she's clearly not white clearly but she's here and then she goes upstairs with Claire and then John for whatever reason doesn't recognize that she's black it is uncomfortable and thrilling even though nothing thrilling happens I mean this is where you want to take these Marvel movies and do and all these other movies and like touch the idea what I'm sorry I take the idea yeah absolutely want to take all these movies and just look at this is uncomfortable and painful and and and and transgressive and culturally transgressive and nobody got stabbed emotionally transgressive emotionally transgressive nobody got stabbed nobody had sex with a car nobody's naked nobody's like doing any of this stuff it's just one minute that movie focuses in on her almost being called the N word right but then I'm talking to says to Brian like you know you call me that once blah blah blah you call me that the second time that's on me right but that's and that's but again and that stuff is framed by this beautiful shots and the whole time you're like you're not supposed to have anything because the way that the movie is framed is that she's an interloper in this world but that world isn't that much different than like the other world not husbands a doctor they have money they have status they can move to myself if they want they could live in a multi-story brownstone she's like doing all this work for free she's doing she has a lit but not a lit but almost a lit but made but almost a lit but made she has a made who has to be there after she came that made came and see their own family and I just I just read the awakening K-Chomp and the awakening and the doing charity work on the side I know we have to go no we have to no we have to do it we're on the side is the role of a is a elite white wife that she does she doesn't work she has her children and then she does charity work because it really does she's occupying the same space but it doesn't feel like the same space yeah and all that stuff is done through the photography all that stuff is done through like symbolism and images and that's why it's an arresting breath taking movie and why something like doing is being like that is cool that looks good I saw it I got to turn it back on yeah you know what I mean I look at sequences on YouTube listen to you and I'm gonna be I'm gonna be straight up with you when we talk about doing when after we got finished watching the Justice League movie the next day I booted up the Justice League movie fast forward to the flash running so I could show my son like who's in the super house I was like this seems pretty cool there isn't any scenes in do that I could be like you know what you're not gonna see anything like you're like this is not like super interesting because guess what like in a turtles they do the best motion stuff even better than Zack and Justice League doing is really interesting like visually but the visuals have nothing to do with anything they're just cool visuals yeah passing is different here's cool visual here's these two women walking down the street both carrying flowers their rhythm of their steps is exactly the same they're mirroring each other who's mirroring who okay that's movie making I'm making hand gestures and arch my back oh no like not to you to the listeners yeah which one like pick one I'm pick passing every time yeah and that's like just going back to our conversation last week like where people like love Tatian because it's like oh you're multi-fast interpretation that's like because you're looking you're like you're painting those but something like this there has been a deliberate attempt to at least give you some of that and if you maybe you find more than Rebecca Hall intended you to find right but she's done some of the ground work not just her but her or Tessa Thompson Ruth Nega you know I don't think I'm going to call and have done the ground work to do some of the and don't go camp let's say not enough to like to get he's great in it too but he just is whatever playing one dimensional villain they're doing the ground work to do some of it they're doing some of this work and so if you find other stuff it's because of the fact that they've at least given you a through line to get there well I think it's because of the depth of the film suggests that those things are probably there exactly and I don't think anything that we've talked about we've gone out of our way to find I think they're all kind of they're just there in the movie we're just like oh yeah talk about this this could also be a thing yeah yeah I think I thought passing was passing was great I'm going to give it again I watched it in the midst of a day where I was doing other stuff yeah I started doing other stuff to watch it I was going to watch it in my any sort of deal oh my god no right but the engine kind of like started like I started like I'm like but so I was doing a bunch of stuff like the the hotel the room scene with John yeah because I kind of like didn't catch all of it it actually reminded me a lot of Carol the Tom Haynes movie at first in the first the first scene there in the toy store was very caroly but then emotionally just ratcheted up to a million with the guy passed out the taxi yeah in the restaurant scene but Carol didn't do it this is not helping my obsession with Rebecca Holler she's good work just worse than it does good work alright thought she was a really great actress and I was just makes it worse if you want to cancel me you can do so that's the only option here just canceling Mario I would love to log on to tomorrow just see like hashtag cancel Mario and like the before like episode has been published yeah people have already canceled your neighbors have been like fuck this guy cancel Mario or you can go to my name is Tom Nolan by the way you feel free feel free there's no way I can't be careful right net is King net is into the which is my favorite thing to do on Twitter is to check Ned Lamont for King net oh my god no it's like to check his like daily covid things and just look at the people that are like super angry give up your executive powers he's not doing anything with his executive powers he's literally doing nothing you know why you sound like an idiot because no one else in the legislature is like you should give up his powers they're just like he's fine yeah he's just doing this just in case you guys marijuana he's happy yeah everyone's happening it doesn't matter except for these couple of people that are like I'm asking kids do have kids no masks is anybody wearing masks anymore inside I see that my gym but like I'm the only person wearing masks in my way I wasn't to go to the movies I will I do too but I don't really go anywhere nobody else is where but I go I go places and I'm the only person I'm really going anywhere I go I wear them to school do your students yeah they have to one kid hasn't been but then he came in the other day with it on I'm not sure what that's about maybe a sports thing some of the kids that place sports think they may not have to wear them but they're 18 they're or bellings how they're about whatever go to people emails and people from podcast email the combo or people from the comments you had or subscribe to our podcast or see the list on our pivotal film list or some of the beers that we drank over the last three years some of them probably aren't even being made anymore which is fascinating to think about like you're never gonna drink can't fall substrate ever again in your whole life we all just have to deal with that folks part of life we're gonna be back much sooner than we were this month we're gonna watch a bunch of movies on streaming and theaters we can make them but we'll be back maybe next week depending on the series right finally yeah three movies three movies watch beers