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MTRBWY 12 Monkeys · May The Review Be With You

0:00
I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight. The fact that I like helped
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you realize that what the final scene meant for the whole film. That's for
0:07
me, especially during a time travel film. This is a huge moment for
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me. Everyone. Oh, I'm Joe, I'm Nick, and today we
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are addressing the first of our time travel and movie draft. I have first
0:34
pick on this. It's twelve Monkeys from the category of stuck in the Loop?
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Nick, have you ever heard of twelve Monkeys before? Before this,
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I had not heard of the movie twelve Monkeys. When you picked it during
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our time travel draft, that was the first time I'd ever heard of it.
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And immediately I thought, what a ridiculous name for a film, and
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that that I thought about that the whole time. The whole film, they're
1:02
talking about finding the Army of the twelve Monkeys, and every time they said
1:07
those words, I thought, this is crazy because it's just so such a
1:11
funny name and ridiculous. It's just a ridiculous phrase to say. And that
1:19
was what I thought, and it had some there's a reason that it was
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ridiculous. You find out because we we gets done, so that must have
1:27
been very validating for you. It was extremely validating at the end when I
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realized, Okay, my thought on the stupidity of the name is not unwarranted.
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Definitely not so for those who are uninitued into Twelve Monkeys. Twelve Monkeys
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came out in ninety five. It is performed by Bruce Willis and Brad Pire.
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The director is a bit of a crazy one. For me. It's
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Terry Gilly. I'm familiar with the name. He is one of the Monty
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Python Boys, best known for Monty Python, The Holy Grail Brazil. More
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recently, I think It's a Don Quixote was the movie that was first from
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Hell that he was trying to direct. But yeah, so it's it's a
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Terry Gillian movie. Uh, it's it's got some hallmarks of his style.
2:25
But before we get into the plot, Nick, we haven't done a movie
2:31
in a while. Do you know what that means? Do you know what
2:35
we have to do right now? Oh? Shit, Yeah, I've just
2:39
remembered totally. It was man's the worst time for the fifteen second movie summary.
2:53
I'm so upset. I'm so upset. Well, one, I'm very
2:58
glad that you remembered, so that we don't for get to do it.
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But two, I'm so pissed that it's my turn because I like could have
3:06
prepared a little bit for the fifteen second summary, but had I remembered Oh
3:10
god, Oh okay, Well this is gonna suck. Yeah. So,
3:20
if this is your first time listening to us, are if you need a
3:23
reminder, since it's been a while since we've done this. We go back
3:27
and forth, grading each other on how effectively we can summarize a movie fifteen
3:34
seconds, and I will give Nick a grade from F to probably enough.
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In this case, Well we'll see how he does. Great, Nick,
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I am not in fact ready, but we're gonna. Yeah. Three one,
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Bruce Willis stars in this movie called Twelve Monkeys and he has is in
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the future and he has to go to He gets sent back to the past
4:01
to locate the army of the twelve Monkeys to figure out who started the pandemic,
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to try to stop the pandem. I mean it was terrible, but
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I got a lot of the points. I got the important stuff. You've
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got a lot of the points In like the last five seconds. You've spent
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a long time time travel I know, I know, Well, look time
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travel. It's not. It's not an exact science okay, time travel,
4:30
time it's not what you think it is. I'm gonna I'm gonna give you
4:40
all the major points in that spent a little bit too long. Of the
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one action of Bruce willis We're gonna give a generous thank you. I appreciate
4:49
that. Yes, the streaming plague. I was like, is he gonna
4:54
totally miss miss the playing part because that's the whole point of the movie.
4:58
Yeah, I got I got it. Yeah. In my head, I
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was like, I have to say twelve monkeys and pandemic before this fifteen seconds
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is up, or we're screwed. All right, all right, son,
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you'd like to give a more more in depth summary of the movie that's not
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comically terrible in fifteen seconds, Well, thank you for the opportunity. I
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would love to so. Yeah. Basically, this is a time travel film,
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of course, and Bruce Willison's character, James Cole, is a prisoner
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in the year twenty thirty five, and at some point throughout previous history,
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somewhere around nineteen ninety seven, there was a pandemic and it wiped out like
5:47
most of the population. I forget the exact number. And so these people
5:53
in the future have created a form of time travel to send back prisoner to
6:00
help them gather information so that they can figure out how the pandemic started,
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so that they can figure out how not to stop the pandemic, but so
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that they can locate the original serum so that they can use that in the
6:15
future to eradicate the disease. Basically, so they're not trying to prevent it
6:21
from ever happening. They're trying to eradicate to disease in the future so that
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life can go can start to go back to normal, which I thought was
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an interesting concept. I was like, Oh, they're not even trying to
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save humanity from the previous They're just they're not there. They're just trying to
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save everyone from you know, moving forward in their current time. And because
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I think in the other way would have you know, you kind of get
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into some time travel rules if you if you start to meddle with the past,
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right, so, which they do meddle. But anyway, so he
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goes back in time and he meets a guy named Jeffrey who is uh I
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guess, ends up being the leader of these twelve the Army of the Twelve
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Monkeys, and yeah, I don't want to give away I guess the whole
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thing because we were going to talk about it, but that's kind of a
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bigger synopsis. And yeah, yeah, how did that go much better?
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Pretty bad? The one thing I did want to address that you brought up
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there was some you know what it says about time travel is you're wrong,
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Like they're not trying to fix the future by like amending the past, right,
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going in the past and trying to like stap something from happening, right
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because like they say, and Bruce Willis actually says this a few times,
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that what's happened in the past has happened, and the past cannot be changed.
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So it's not something that they're trying to do, right, And to
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realize how actually concrete those words to be as the movie presses, right,
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Yeah, it's very interesting and I have I have some questions from like on
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like a metaphysical level about about where Cole is in his journey, but we'll
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we'll get to that anyway. So yeah, I first became aware of this
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movie I think back in like it was like two thousand and seven. I
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was in a film class teacher brought this film up. This film is something
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that's appropriate. Yeah, yeah, exactly right, like most appropriate use of
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the word bananas. It's mostly because of Brad Pitt's character. Oh my gosh,
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we have to talk about him in a second. Oh yeah, my
8:58
gosh. Do that. So I think I've told you Brad Pitt was in
9:03
this movie, but I didn't telling you, like how right, yeah,
9:07
so, oh my gosh. First of all, a few notes, Right,
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this is the youngest I've ever seen Brad Pitt in a movie, I
9:13
think. I mean, this is nineteen ninety five. This is like,
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this is like one of this is like one of his earlier roles in general.
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Right, And he won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for this
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role, which is like, and he deserved it because honestly, I've seen
9:31
a lot of Brad Pitt movies and I'm a I'm a Brad Pitt fan.
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This might be the best acting performance I've ever seen from him. And this
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is from nineteen ninety five. Like, if you are a Brad Pitt fan
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and you have not seen this movie, you have to watch it. But
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I'm warning you it's not the normal Brad Pitt that you're used to. No,
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it's not because he's his most different character. Yeah, one hundred percent.
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That's probably why I liked it so much, because it was so much
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different than his normal roles or the world that people are used to seeing him
10:01
in. Yeah, he plays someone who when you first meet him, he's
10:03
in an insane institution basically mental hospital, and he's definitely not all there,
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but he played he plays it so well. I was like I was in
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thralled the whole time. I was like, man, he's just like really
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good at this. So he's doing it was awesome and crazy because it's like
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the role that he plays Jeffrey is a Yeah, he's not all there,
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so he's a hyperactive, mentally unstable person. Yeah, and yeah, he's
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pretty much like I think you could describe him in D and D terms as
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like chaotic, neutral. He's just all over the place. You just don't
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know like what he's going to do at any given moment. Yeah. I
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really appreciate it, and so I really appreciate some of the editorial choices that
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were made around his performance that I think like enhanced, like how crazy Brad
10:58
Pitt comes off in this movie, and like he does he comes off as
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insane, with a lot of like the hand gestures, the repetitiveness that it's
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always doing. Like I'm not sure how those who have been affected by like
11:13
mental illness, like in their families, I don't know how they would feel
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about like watching this kind of character. As someone who luckily does not have
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to deal with that, I look at this and I'm like, I'm pretty
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sure I have seen people with these mannerisms before, right, Like, like,
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this doesn't feel like he just made this up. It does feel like
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it's based on something. And I did appreciate that, But as far as
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the editorial decisions that I was talking about, when they're in the mental asylum,
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there's this moment where Jeffery's showing Cole around the institute and he's standing under
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a TV that his letun's playing, and I love that you can't see the
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TV, but you can hear it as Jeffrey is talking and he's moving his
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hands and he's saying all these crazy things about capitalism and humans and how we're
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all just living for the man and we're all part of this system. As
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he's saying these things, you can hear like the Looney Tunes, like sound
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effects going off like being but damn but well, like like all these noises
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going off, So he's coming off like a tune. Wonderful, wonderful direction.
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I absolutely love that. Yeah, did. As far as your introduction
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to this movie, because, like you said, the movie takes place in
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twenty thirty five and we meet Cole and he's this prisoner and it gets sent
12:46
back into the past. What were your impressions on just Bruce Wallis's character and
12:50
Cole and when this movie first starts. Yeah, when it first starts,
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I was like, it's weird, right because the movie comes out in nineteen
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ninety five, and so like you have to kind of put yourself in nineteen
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ninety five when this movie comes out, and you know it takes place.
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The opening scene takes place in twenty thirty five, which is like, that's
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the present time for the character when we meet him for the first time,
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Right, twenty thirty five is present andure it's the future, so you think
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it's going to look futuristic, but then you realize that, like it's a
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future that is based on a previous pandemic happening and wiping out most of life.
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So the futuristicness of it is really based on like life as we know
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it kind of stalling in nineteen ninety seven, because that's when the pandemic starts.
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So like anything that you see in twenty thirty five doesn't come from a
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like a world that like progressed technology wise from nineteen ninety seven to twenty thirty
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five. It's it comes from a world that essentially stopped progressing in nineteen ninety
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seven and then had to deal with global pandemic that wiped out most of humanity.
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So like the advancement from ninety seven to twenty thirty five is like it's
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like minimal, I think in like a lot of aspects except for them figuring
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out how to time travel and so like like I think in a way you're
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supposed to get that, Like basically all that humanity has done is put all
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their energy into figuring out how to time travel so they can figure out how
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to stop this disease. And so all the tools that they've put together for
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to the time travel is it doesn't like trying to put yourself in nineteen ninety
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five shoes, like when it comes out, you're just I think that even
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in nineteen ninety five, you would have maybe pictured a different twenty thirty five
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future. But when you put into consideration that there's going to be like twenty
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years of advancement that actually doesn't happen because of a pandemic, then maybe it
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actually is a little little bit more in line with what it might look like
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in that case. So I thought it was like, at first, I
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was like, this, why does it look like so shitty for twenty thirty
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five if it's the future, even though the movie was still made, you
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know, ninety five, And then as the movie progresses, you realize it
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was, actually it might it's actually a brilliant I'd brilliantly done because basically,
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when this pandemic starts in nineteen ninety seven, nothing else is going to happen
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afterwards, and then it's going to be much smaller increments of technological advancement.
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But they figured out how to time travel, so good good job for them,
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I guess. But that was my initial impression and some other thoughts like
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throughout I guess based on how that looks, because there's a scene like half
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you know, like in the first couple of minutes, and a couple times
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throughout the movie when like James Cole, when Cole is back in his present
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time, because throughout the movie he's flipping back and forth between whether it's ninety
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seven or nineteen ninety because we'll get to that. But when he's back in
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his present time, he's like on this chair floating in the air, and
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there's like a ball of TVs and like, you know, if it was
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like our future, it would be like one big screen TV and there would
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be like a bunch of different you know, like there would be a grid
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of the people that he's talking to his faces right, and it would be
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very clean. But because it's a twenty thirty five that didn't have you know,
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twenty years of tech technology advancement beforehand, because they were dealing with a
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pandemic, it's like a ball with a bunch of like old shitty ass like
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TVs from the nineties, like squinched scrunched into it, and so it looks
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like it's like shitty futuristic is kind of how it looks in a way,
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But it makes sense based on what had happened in that life, you know
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that in that world anyway, I have two thoughts that I want to follow
16:57
up on that with, because you're right, and I think that's that's incredibly
17:02
intentional regarding like not having had the opportunity to develop or test things that work
17:11
or not work because this in this dystopian future, they haven't had that that
17:15
opportunity, right, And I think you're right about that, because like something
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that Terry Gilliam is really good at is actually like imagining those kinds of set
17:23
pieces. Right. Brazil has a very similar set piece taking place in like
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technological future, and it looks the way that it does because it's like for
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priativeness, it was like ravished by war, right, it developed in a
17:41
very specific way because of it. So like the past informs the future,
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right as always, but he's being very specific about what kind of past informs
17:52
the future, right, So I think you hit the nail on the head
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there, and to make it it kind of goes in with the theme of
18:04
the movie, which is like that humans like make everything worse, right,
18:08
Right, So we saved ourselves, but like we live underground and we have
18:15
this like horrible triology that doesn't really upgraded in at all, Right, we
18:19
can find out the film there's all this commentary like humans have been horrible to
18:26
the everything and horrible to animals, and they create more problems than they solve.
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And the end of the movie, you know, like as a hard
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right, it's like we are in the mess that we're in because of us,
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right, But yeah, we'll get into that twist. So one thing
18:47
that we haven't talked about is when the movie starts. It starts in a
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dream like sequence with Cole. He keeps having this dream about a little boy
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witnessing some kink of farnage tragedy that happens in seemingly right and he's not sure
19:11
what that means. The Cole we to realize about the film call is like
19:15
a really unreliable merit, right, yeah, he says, it's because his
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mind can't anchor itself between the two times, right, between thirty five and
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ninety nineteen seventeen and then ninete oh yeah six, yeah, all over the
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place that I actually think that's one of the movies better jokes. When they
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mess up the first time, right, they send him to nineteen ninety yeah,
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and when he returns to the future, they're like, no more mess
19:48
up this time ninety six right on the money, And then they overshoot it
19:52
and send him to World War One, right, I didn't enjoy that.
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Yeah, so ridiculous. And that's a cool part too for the moment,
20:07
just because of what happens later. But we'll get there. But yeah,
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I guess it was ninety six. I think I said ninety seven earlier,
20:15
which I mean, really whatever, But yeah, ninety six is the year
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that's like the pandemic actually hits. But but as far as him being like
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unreliable, I was just thinking, sorry, But as far as him being
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as far as him having like an unreliable brain, it's very interesting, right,
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because he is flipping back and forth between times, So that makes sense,
20:38
right that like and their time travel isn't like obviously perfect, and so
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he's having trouble anchoring like his brain to the times that he's in, and
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it takes him usually a day or two to kind of like gather himself and
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really be you know, like on point in the particular timeline that he's in.
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But then it also brings up this question on like how much of like
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what he's remembering is actually his original memory from as when he was a kid,
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how much of it is warped from the multiple time travel scenarios they're like
21:19
you chose this as a stuck in the loop film, and there's like multiple
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loops happening in this film. Like it's like it's kind of wild, right,
21:30
Like there's this dream loop that he has that occasionally shows someone else running
21:36
away before getting shot. Like you see like two or three different faces throughout
21:41
the film, and then finally towards the end, you like, you know,
21:45
you realize that, like, oh, he's the one who gets shot.
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But but like, is is that the case? Like you know,
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like I mean, he he did, but like I don't know, like
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the other earlier parts of the film you saw a different face, so you
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have to go back for a second. I just what I say that,
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Gruth, Everything that you said, the term unreliable brain might be the most
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offensive thing I think I've ever heard about someone. Like it's so much worse
22:19
like saying like he's an unreliable narrator. It's like, no, you have
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an unreliable brain. That's worse than calling someone stupid. Did I say unreliable
22:32
brain? Unreliable brain? Hell, yeah, that's amazing. I'm gonna use
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that. That is such an insult in this case. In this case,
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it works because he does have an unreliable brain for multiple parts of the film.
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But man, I can't wait to say that to somebody next They're gonna
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be like, it's devastating. I don't think he'd come back from that.
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Oh my gosh, can you imagine is sounding like a coworker text message,
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you have an unreliable brain. Never spend thought of that in question, that's
23:11
fantastic. Well yeah, but that's what's so crazy about this film, right
23:15
is we're dealing with multiple characters with unreliable brains, and the reliable brain for
23:22
most of the film is a psychiatrist who was a very important character to Cole.
23:27
Yes, but then as the film progresses, you start to wonder if
23:30
doctor Riley is even how reliable is she becoming like and now granted to us
23:38
to the audience, she's very reliable, and we kind of start to side
23:44
with her and realize, okay her and like she starts to believe Cole that
23:48
Cole is actually a time traveler and he's actually trying to stop this global thing.
23:52
And she has like all this research and she's written a book and about
23:56
like you know, like this is like you know, time travel throughout history
24:00
or whatever. You know, it's it's specifically she was writing about. I
24:07
got the exact term, but it's some kind of hearkening to the myth about
24:14
Cassandra from like Greek myths, which like she was an important like Greek mythic
24:19
figure. She's the woman who can who can see the future and has like
24:26
mere perfect like vision of it, but no one believes her, right,
24:32
And like that's what like her thesis is, Evoent is like these people who
24:36
like historically and have like said things that appear to be like insane, but
24:41
they end up coming true. Right, Yeah, she she calls it like
24:45
a psychological effect, right, but here's here's by labeling in a psychological effect,
24:52
that might be the crazy thing. Right. But so she's she has
25:00
a study, and I think that lends her to also believe Coal and help
25:03
Cole a little bit. But the funniest part about it is that like as
25:07
they get closer together and start actually like working together, like whereas like Coal
25:11
originally is like kind of taking her hostage and then eventually, like over the
25:15
years, transfers into her helping helping Cole. But then to everyone else,
25:23
she looks like she's lost her mind and been brainwashed by this insane guy already.
25:30
I mean I questioned her a little bit the relationship. She starts like
25:37
budding with him, like lady, are you okay? Like like I could
25:41
see maybe believing him right, but like the sexual attraction. I'm like,
25:48
well, that's why I was like. She also kind of has a little
25:52
bit of an unreliable brain at one point. I mean, there's a she
25:56
just gets like, what's the syndrome when you're with the after? What the
26:00
hell's a cast Stockholm syndrome Stockham syndrome? She gets it really quickly, like
26:04
really quickly in this film, she kind of gets that. It feels like
26:07
at least also the character who says that, because there's there's a detective that
26:14
tells her, oh, like, oh, it's amazing how these people who
26:15
are kidnapped end up defending their kidnappers. I did not remember. You didn't
26:21
remember person was in this movie Christopher Maloney a ka Ken Stabler from SVU.
26:33
So you you text? So Nick saw Nick saw this movie before I did
26:37
in our review of it, and you sent me a text I think,
26:41
like being like an hour into the movie and just all capital letters, just
26:47
Stabler and like I could only think of one character who's Stabler, right,
26:51
it was like, well that's SVU, but I was like, I don't
26:55
remember him being in the movie. It's all right, everyone like sure,
26:59
like of course he's playing a detective. Yeah, that was a cool that
27:04
was a cool surprise. There's this cast actually this this movie is in nineteen
27:08
ninety five, but there are some like actors in this movie that have had
27:12
like a long like career and they're in a bunch of stuff. Like John
27:18
Ceda, who plays Cole's friend from prison at the very beginning, who then
27:23
shows up later at the end plays hosted in the film. John Ceda is
27:27
like he's been on like I think it's Chicago p D for like ten years.
27:30
Like this guy's like a running character, like major character on like Chicago
27:34
pet like Christopher Plumber. Of course, David Morris has like an insane acting
27:41
catalog. David Morris is the guy who plays doctor Peters, which is the
27:45
guy that and he's actually the person who's released releasing this plague. And you
27:52
don't find out until the very end. You know that the future has it
27:56
wrong. They're completely you know, they're they're chasing the wrong people. But
27:59
he's got an extensive acting catalog, and then there's a couple others toos.
28:03
I found that really interesting. Yeah, pretty cool, like some pretty cool
28:07
like castings even from back then. So I saw this movie. I was
28:12
lucky to watch this movie in a local theater not too far away from my
28:18
place, so I actually got, like, you know, the audience theater
28:23
like reactions to certain things. And one of the bigger reactions, like funny
28:30
enough, was when sorry, what is the actor's name who plays Sailor Maloney?
28:34
Christopher Maloney, Yeah, Christopher Maloney. When Christopher Maloney like appears on
28:40
screen, there's a collective like like around the theater, like when he showed
28:45
up, that's amazing. Yeah, audible gas, that's awesome. That's like
28:53
my reaction was like, oh, I think I did that then when I
28:56
saw last week, that's great. The other thing I'm just not thing now
29:00
is apparently this is going to shock you because you didn't mention it, which
29:04
means you didn't notice him either, most likely one of the psychiatric prisoners from
29:10
the opening from the beginning the earlier in the film. I'm assuming it's when
29:15
Cole and Jeffrey meet for the first time. And this you know, when
29:17
Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt meet for the first time in the psychiatric hospital.
29:19
One of the prisoners was played by Donald Faison no Turk from Scrubbs, apparently
29:29
in this movie as a prisoner in that scene somewhere. I have to go
29:32
back and watch this now and look for it. Yeah, I dude,
29:36
he's way down extra something. Yeah, that's totally an extra. He's way
29:40
down. He's way down on this list. Like I scrolled way further than
29:42
I needed to it. He's literally like at the bottom seven of this list
29:47
on on cast. Okay, yeah, because like I'm I'm on the main
29:49
actors page for IMDb and he's nowhere on it. Yeah, it's very bottom.
29:55
Like wow, yeah, that's a that's a fun thing I did.
30:00
I'm gonna have to go back now and watch I'm gonna have to go to
30:03
that scene and see if I notice him. That's funny. But yeah,
30:07
I was. I was like pleasantly surprised because you know, you know,
30:10
you watch an older film and like there's a good chance that like maybe you
30:14
know the title actor or too, but like everyone else in there, it's
30:17
gonna be hit or miss. Like but there's a number of younger actors from
30:21
ninety five that are still acting today, and they've got like insane resumes now,
30:25
which is kind of cool. Wild it was probably partly why the movie
30:29
was so this actually still holds up. Like, you know, there's some
30:33
like I mean, most of the movie takes place in nineteen ninety or nineteen
30:36
ninety six, so like from a technology standpoint, there wasn't like a lot
30:41
of stuff going on then anyway, So it's not hard to like get into
30:47
the movie. You know, it's not like you're watching like a movie that's
30:52
supposed to take place in two thousand and sixty six the whole time, Like
30:55
if you go watch the original Blade Runner. Sometimes it can be difficult because
31:00
like it doesn't feel to me, it doesn't hold up very well from a
31:06
futuristic standpoint, like for today today's technology, I think, I like,
31:11
you know, I think they do better with Later Under twenty forty nine in
31:15
that respect anyway. But like for this movie, you know, it's a
31:18
older movie and it's opens up in twenty thirty five, but because of the
31:22
state of the world, you can kind of believe why it looks like this,
31:25
because they're all living under ground and then most of the movie you're just
31:26
like in nineteen ninety or nineteen ninety six, and it's not hard to like
31:32
give back in the mindset of like what life was because it was you know,
31:36
simpler then, I guess because there's not as much crazy technology. So
31:38
yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense, but
31:41
that's kind of like my thought process on it still holding up and like not
31:44
being a hard movie to watch like it was, you know, and it's
31:48
well acted, Like I think Bruce Willis does a really good job playing an
31:52
unreasonable brain type or unreliable brain typelyable brain you had er liable praise you bring
32:04
no good Yeah, I want to. I wanted to ask you what you
32:10
mentioned earlier. This movie actually seems to contain a few different loops. Yeah,
32:17
And I think that's like one of the more interesting aspects of this film
32:22
is the idea. And they keep saying this, you can't you can't change
32:27
the panists the past the panelist, right. But what's interesting is Bruce Willis
32:32
James cole Is saying that to characters of the Paist right, because you know,
32:38
if time is relative, then he is in their past, but he's
32:45
living his present right, like there's a now for him right, and it
32:52
seems as though like it's hard for him to know exactly like when he is
32:59
living his now versus when he is part of the past. Because we come
33:06
to find out that there's a bit of a feedback loop happening in this movie.
33:09
Right where we started twenty thirty five with the idea of the twelfth the
33:15
Army of the Twelve Monkeys, I released this plague. Go back in time,
33:19
see if we can find the twelve monkeys so we can get the plague
33:22
and make a cure. Goes back in time looking for the Army of the
33:25
twelve Monkeys, and he incepts the idea of the Army of the twelve Monkeys
33:30
into Jeffrey right, and then later like when he starts asking about the plague,
33:36
he plants the idea of the plague in Jeffery, but Jeffrey wants something
33:39
to do with it. It's later when after Island calls Jeffrey's father about the
33:45
plague, and the father just happens to rattle off like how crazy of an
33:51
idea that is to his lab assistant. So like the past informs the future,
33:54
but the future is informing the past right at the same time. It's
34:00
horrible paradox that created, all right, because if they don't you sorry,
34:07
go ahead, yeah, because if they don't send him back in time,
34:08
then nothing ever happens. And it's fine, but but but it's always happened,
34:14
right, because but it always happens because twenty thirty five is in twenty
34:16
thirty five, right, and Paul witnesses his own jazz, right, but
34:22
like he witnesses like his future and by like proxy, like he's living in
34:27
his past, so like it can't be changed because he witnessed it already,
34:31
right, Like it's part of the past. Like he has to die in
34:36
that moment, and he has to die in that moment because he traveled to
34:38
the past specifically to gather information about this thing that hasn't happened yet. It's
34:46
it's insane, yeah, it's But the thing that that makes that I'm like
34:53
wondering is at the very end of the movie, like they figure out that
34:57
they're chasing the wrong people. They figure out at the end that the Twelve
35:01
Monkeys are just like Jeffrey and his gang of people, Like they're insane and
35:06
they're not. And they're they're insane enough and smart enough to release monkeys from
35:12
or release animals from the zoo, but they're not insane and smart enough to
35:15
actually like release a pandemic. That's someone else, that's the lab assistant of
35:21
doctor Riley that has decided to, you know, bring a bunch of vials
35:25
of this deadly disease all around the world. But they figure it out at
35:30
the end and they relay He Jeffrey excuse me, uh Cole relays the message
35:35
via phone to the future, which then they send his friend from prison at
35:44
the beginning back in time to meet him at the airport two then actually stop
35:51
the lab assistant. But my, my biggest gripe here is that, Okay,
35:55
he does relay the message on who actually is responsible? Well, then
36:00
why can't the future send someone back specifically when they need to for the lab
36:08
assist at a different time, right, Like this is the whole, Like,
36:15
it's the whole, It's the whole. Avengers rowdy paradox of like rowdy
36:19
being like, why don't we just go back in time and just you know
36:22
thanos, right, Like, why can't you just do that? Right?
36:25
First? Sorry? Sorry, I do that every time. You know,
36:32
I said rowdy because we just talked about Turk from Scrubs. Scrubs. He's
36:40
a good boy, a very good damn it rody. So so I have
36:49
a problem with the whole last Okay, I'm glad it wasn't just me.
36:55
Oh yeah, No, there's a lot of things in the last act do
36:59
not make ends. So and to be fair with you, I did not
37:04
remember that. I just remember like being a little confused when I got to
37:07
the ending the first time, but then ultimately just being like, oh yeah,
37:12
like it's a loop, right, That's that was like my takeaway from
37:15
it. But like looking at it again, Okay, so what you just
37:19
mentioned, yeah, absolutely they could do that, right, Like why not
37:22
just do that? But like also two things about like why the whole like
37:28
premise of the final act is ridiculous, which, for the record, what
37:30
we're talking about is in the final Act, Bruce Willis James Cole has decided
37:35
he's going to stay in the past because this is what he wants. He
37:37
wants to live in the past where things aren't messed up, and he wants
37:39
to get it on with Madeline Stowe's character Katherine Reiley right, and he's going
37:46
to go down to the Florida Keys and live his best life. Well,
37:49
like, while they're at the airport, they've come to the realization that the
37:52
Army the Twelve Monkeys is now responsible for fil play. It's this lab assistant
37:55
and the lab assistant is also at the airport, and he must have the
38:00
plague with him because he's visiting like way too many major cities for business.
38:07
Right, So, uh, there's the climaxes. You know, the future
38:13
is aware of the mistake. Now they tell James Cole that he has to
38:15
take care of it. It's not clear exactly what they want him to do.
38:19
He just says, you got to shoot him, right, So they
38:23
decide that means that he has to shoot the lab assistant. Okay, so
38:30
this doesn't make sense to me for two reasons. Number One, we have
38:35
already established the past cannot be changed, So why are we trying to shoot
38:40
Like I don't understand what that accomplishes, because like this has always been like
38:45
a scientific like fact gathering mission, right, and they gather gathered the important
38:52
fact and now they want to just shoot him. And why do you use
38:55
the information to go back in time again? But right, I've got the
38:59
answer, and I know why it doesn't make sense, and I know why
39:02
it never will because the people in charge in twenty thirty five are not the
39:07
people that we would put in charge who actually have the brains to pull off
39:13
the right oh yeah message of time travel. Because at the very very end
39:17
of the movie, when the lab assistant sits down on the plane, he
39:23
sits next to a woman who says she's in insurance. The woman that he
39:30
sits next to on the plane who's in insurance is one of the leaders of
39:37
the lab in the future in twenty thirty five. She's one of the people
39:40
who's talking to Cole preparing him to go time travel, which means she's one
39:45
of the most important people. I don't know if you notice that or not,
39:49
but if you didn't, this is a main This is a key point
39:52
because the people in charge in twenty thirty five, because remember, most of
39:54
humanity gets wiped out, which also means scientists and doctors and a really really
39:58
smart people. That means that people in charge in twenty thirty five or whoever
40:01
the smartest people left were, and one of those people was this lady who's
40:06
just an insurance agent in nineteen ninety six, which means they're all fucked forever
40:14
because you don't have the right people in the right roles in twenty thirty five
40:17
to one do time travel correctly, which is also why time travel gets messed
40:22
up throughout the film, and it's also why they can't handle the end of
40:24
this movie correctly. When they get the correct information, they have no idea
40:29
how to act. Okay, So I am so glad you just addressed that.
40:34
The ending of this movie I found so confusing, and I think you're
40:40
right. I think that's exactly what that's supposed to be. Because like the
40:44
first time I saw this movie, I'm gonna walk you through my thought process.
40:47
I'm both yeah both times when I observed this. The first time I
40:50
saw the movie, twist of one of the defends of the scientific programs sitting
40:55
next to you know, the man who will release the plague on the play,
41:00
she says, I'm an insurance I misinterpreted thinking, oh, she came
41:05
back in time and she's going to be the one that kills him because she's
41:10
ensturing the God God. That's what I thought the first time, right I
41:15
watched it. The second time, and I realized, oh, that was
41:17
completely wrong, because this is this She's not from the future, she actually
41:22
is from this point in time, right, which like we we come to
41:25
see that, right, we come to see like a few future characters who
41:29
lived in this time right, And in watching it, I was like,
41:32
oh, Okay, so is are they like making a meta commentary here that
41:42
like the past is the past and like it's being insured like nothing will change
41:47
from this moment, which like maybe, but like no, that's that's absolutely
41:52
what they were getting at. What you just said that, Yeah, this
41:57
this person did not have a job, but that qualified her to be in
42:01
the role that she will later carry out, which later forms the mistakes that
42:07
will lead to them creating the past of the twelve monkeys in the plague.
42:12
Yep, this is why. Oh my god, Yeah, this is why.
42:17
Because the whole time they're chasing the wrong organization because the people that are
42:22
in power one they figured out how they figured out how to time travel,
42:28
but they haven't figured out how to time travel correctly or like to like the
42:32
specific points they need to, which also means they don't have the right access
42:37
to the right information throughout time to get the right info they need, which
42:42
is why they're chasing the wrong organization the whole time when they really should be
42:45
chasing one guy. And it's because the people in charge in the future are
42:50
just the smartest people that were left, which means insurance agents and you know
42:55
whoever else name name it. But it's not it's not you know, twenty
43:00
of the smartest you know, physicists and engineers. It's just the smartest people
43:06
that survived it. Okay, okay, this is why we do this,
43:10
because this is this this exchange. Like I was so lost. I am
43:16
so glad that I was the one to enlighten you on how this movie goes.
43:22
This is amazing. Twice I did not fare amazing. You're so right.
43:25
That's got it, because one of the themes of this movie is humans
43:31
make everything worse. Yeah, that's what they were trying to start the end
43:37
of Thank You. I would just talk to like my friends about this and
43:43
like, don't get the end of this movie. I don't get what it's
43:45
trying to say. Yeah, that's it, that's and that's it. The
43:50
second that that scene happens, right when he sets next the lab says and
43:52
sits next to this and this woman on the plane. I'm like, wait
43:55
a minute, that's the same woman who's been talking to Cole in the future
43:59
the whole time. My holy shit. And then she goes, hi,
44:02
I'm in an insurance I'm like, oh my god, no fucking wonder.
44:06
They're so bad at this time travel stuff. She's an insurance agent until nineteen
44:08
ninety six, and then she has to figure out how to survive, and
44:12
then she has to figure out how to save everyone else in the future later.
44:15
It's like, this is crazy. She's underqualified for all of it.
44:20
Yeah, yeah, oh man, that's so great. That is so wild.
44:24
But it's also it also explains why the future looks so shitty like,
44:30
even even though they don't have to, they don't have the right people to
44:34
do any of it. So even like nineteen ninety six technology, if you
44:37
don't advance it in twenty thirty five, would still look better than what it
44:42
looks like in twenty thirty five. But when you put take on her consideration
44:45
that they also don't have the right people in place for the things they need
44:49
to do, it makes perfect sense. So really, the director Terry Gillum
44:53
like, h Gilliam, Yeah, Gilliam brilliant, Like the whole thing is
44:58
brilliant by the design, and like the with with how the characters are,
45:02
like you know, with who they actually are, and like the details throughout
45:08
the different time timelines is brilliant. With When you've taken all those things in
45:13
the consideration, it's really well done. Like I am, like, I
45:16
think maybe an hour in I was like, oh my god, this is
45:20
this movie is awesome. And then when once the movie ended, I was
45:22
so pissed that I had never heard of it and that you got to pick
45:25
it and the time travel draft because like when you picked it at first,
45:30
I was like, Oh, this idiot just picked a movie called Twelve Monkeys.
45:31
There's no way it's going to be better than my Stuck in the Loop.
45:37
And my stuck in the Loop was Prisoner of Azkaban and I'm a Harry
45:39
Potter stand so I'm not going to say it's better than that, but god
45:45
damn it, Joe, I want it's a good it's a good pick.
45:50
You picked you. I do remember really enjoying this film as a teenager when
45:54
I saw this, it's really good. I definitely think I got a lot
45:59
more out of it as adults, because like I as a kid, I
46:01
never picked up on like about like the ineptitude of the scientists right, like
46:07
yeah, you know, with like the joke of like them continuing to send
46:12
him to like the wrong places that he needs to be right or like even
46:16
like when he eats the spider right and like that one doctor's like that was
46:21
good thinking. Cool, like try something like that again next time, but
46:23
like why like that digested, Like what are you talking about so stupid?
46:30
Yeah at that point too, is like what are you talking about, dude,
46:32
Like, yeah, this makes any sense? He was desperate? Yeah,
46:37
exact, there was no intelligence behind that action. Yeah, yeah,
46:45
okay, cool, I I love I love that. See this is why
46:51
and this is it makes more sense to you now why I told you like
46:53
three days later, Like Joe, I'm still thinking about this movie because it's
46:58
why, Like it's brilliant, brilliantly done. It really is brilliantly done.
47:02
I still think that there is a bit of a problem with the last act
47:07
with like them Yeah, yeah, like that doesn't make sense. No,
47:13
a lot of it doesn't make sense, but they clean it up. But
47:15
when you realize that that everyone's in that, you just accept it. At
47:21
that point. There was one other thing I wanted to mention about that final
47:27
act that doesn't make sense. I can't remember what it is. It hit
47:30
me later. I did want to ask you, though, on a last
47:37
note before we move on. It's far as shooting out, it's I'm still
47:46
blown away that both thoughts have just been totally off the train. Does the
47:51
movie does the movie open with a shot of Cole's eye? Like, are
47:55
we looking in his eye? Yeah? We see his childlike eyes, witness
48:00
stuck? Yeah, what will become his death by the time we got to
48:04
the end of the movie and they showed you know, they showed his child
48:07
self after watching himself his older self get shot, and then obviously like it
48:12
zooms into his eye, you know, like the movie ends like zooming into
48:15
like young Cole's eye, and I'm like, okay, I'm I think the
48:19
movie started that way, but so much shit just happened that I forgot,
48:21
So I just wanted to clear that up, which would make sense because it's
48:23
like a full circle stuck in the loop film, Like it's as stuck in
48:27
the loop as you can possibly get. Like, yeah, anyway, before
48:34
we go on to final scores, here what would you say is the thing
48:38
that stuck with you most from this movie. That's a good question. That
48:43
stuck with me the most, honestly, Like Brad Pitt's performance was so good,
48:50
like I might I want to rewatch this movie just because his performance was
48:53
so awesome and he won a Golden Globe for it, like amazing, he
48:59
lost the Oscar. He was I think he was the runner up to I've
49:04
read it this morning. I read it Kevin Spacey for usual Suspects, I
49:07
think won the Oscar in that category, I think if I remember correctly,
49:12
So okay, I think that's the same year. Yeah, But like he
49:16
won the Golden Globe, which was really cool, like because he was awesome
49:20
in it, so that that stuck sticks out to me the most, I
49:22
think. And then obviously the very end is such a like a it's just
49:28
such a mind bend because of the you know, the Woman from the Future
49:31
being an insurance agente in nineteen ninety six just completely opens up the hole.
49:37
It opens everything up for just like accepting the chaos of it all and realizing
49:40
that they're not going to get it right. They can't change the past because
49:45
they're they're terrible at what they're doing in the future. That's why they can't
49:49
change the past. Like they're so focused on the past that they can't even
49:53
like work to build the future. Right, Like you brought up that point
49:58
about like the technology techno logical developments and how they're stuck in the past,
50:01
Like they're literally stuck in the past and they can't move forward because like they
50:07
they're in this loop, right, I mean both like emotionally and literally right.
50:13
Yeah, uh yeah, that that is so wild. I think the
50:17
things also the most you know what, I'm just realizing now, they're so
50:22
adept that they're underground. Not because they have to be from a pandemic perspective,
50:30
they're underground because they're like because we see wildlife above ground. There's animals
50:37
alive above ground. So you're telling me that whatever the the diseases is just
50:42
like human and supposedly I almost I almost don't even believe that like that now
50:50
they can't live above ground anymore, they have to live underground, like that's
50:53
gonna help them. I don't think that's true. Man. It's because they
50:58
have unreliable raids. Yeah yeah, man, I'll tell you what we might
51:06
need to make sure of the next time there's a global pandemic. Is that
51:09
the smartest people are like super protected because the last thing we want, the
51:15
last thing we want is a twenty sixty five that looks like twelve monkeys twenty
51:19
thirty five, where like someone like me and you are trying to figure out
51:23
time travel. Oh, we don't want that. We don't want that,
51:28
because I would be the guy who would say, yeah, try something like
51:30
eating a spider again, idea, Right, that would be me. I
51:36
remembered what I wanted to ask you. Yeah, it was the thing about
51:42
the guy who call thinks is talking to him, the guy who keeps calling
51:51
him back. Oh, yeah, you're him. We only hear him in
51:53
the future. In the past we see him. I guess what did you
52:00
think that was about? Right? Like that the really old homeless guy with
52:06
like no chests, that's who Cole thinks is the guy who talks to him
52:08
when he comes back in the future. Right, But I'm I'm not so
52:12
sure it is because like the thing with the teeth, right, like,
52:15
he takes that advice and rips the teeth out of his head. Which also
52:19
that is one of the funnier lines in the movie when the pimp who stumbles
52:25
upon them in the hornhouse and he's like ready to whoop their ass, but
52:30
he ends up getting his ass whooped, right And then like you know,
52:34
he's in the bathroom and col cuts out his teeth and the cops come in,
52:38
and like you only hear him, but like in the background, you
52:42
hear him saying, like I'm a victim here. I got beat up by
52:45
like some bitch, some crazy dentists. That's easily my favorite line of the
52:55
movie. Yeah, oh my gosh, dude. But I don't know,
52:59
I don't know. I'm I don't know what to think about that Bob character,
53:01
like the voice that he hears in the future and then allegedly seeing him
53:06
in the past. The only thing I can think of is there are a
53:09
couple moments and there's one specifically where he's they're running through. This is when
53:15
they're running so this is when him and the doctor when Cole and the doctor
53:20
are like he first kind of kidnaps her or takes like has her follow him,
53:25
and I think they get to Philly and they're like in the underground parts
53:30
of Philly, like in the homeless areas, like trying to like they're following
53:36
the twelve monkey signs, right, So they end up in like this like
53:37
underground area like and this is when like they get jumped and then Cole like
53:43
kills a guy to save both of them or whatever. And then they leave
53:45
that area and they're running through like a homeless like camp basically, and a
53:52
couple of people like recognize Cole or something, and they're like, oh,
53:55
he's one of us. Man, He's one of us, is what they're
53:59
saying. And I kept thinking in my head, I'm like, man,
54:00
you know what, like half these homeless people in Philly are just people that
54:04
the future sent back to try to like figure out what's going on, and
54:09
they just got stuck there because the future obviously is inept and they can't figure
54:15
They were just figuring out the time travel things. So like basically this movie
54:21
also is giving you like like half of the homeless population in the streets in
54:25
nineteen ninety six is like people from the future being sent back just testing time
54:31
travel. They're just they were time travel testers and they were figuring it all
54:36
out. Like that's basically what like they were trying to tell us during those
54:38
scenes in the movie, Like if they're telling the truth. It just sound
54:43
insane, right, right, so sad. Yeah, there's layers to it,
54:50
you know that also make you like, oh shit, like it's a
54:53
little Yeah, it's layered. It's layered and wild. It's wild. You're
55:00
I think you might be right about the people that say that you're one of
55:04
us, because like you can take that two ways, right, like literally,
55:07
like and they are time travelers that are predicting the end of the world
55:10
and they're right because it's coming or it's it's to add to like that paranoia
55:17
that like James Cole like is experiencing throughout his story, right, Yeah,
55:22
I'm inclined to think that you're correct that the future is so inept that they
55:28
just keep like abandoning people in the past. I want to say you're right
55:32
about that. Honestly, I can't imagine that I'm wrong. And it's strictly
55:37
like that last scene is so important to his whole film, with realizing that
55:42
one of the leaders from twenty thirty five is an insurance agent in nineteen ninety
55:47
six when this all started, Like that is such a big it's it's like
55:51
the shortest scene in the film. It's three seconds of dialogue. But it's
55:55
super important for everything that's happening, because it makes so much sense why they're
56:00
sending him to the wrong timeline and then why they probably did have tons of
56:06
hundreds of prisoners that they had time travel tested, and half of them got
56:09
stuck and half of them lost their minds because they hadn't figured it out well
56:14
enough yet. Right, that's definitely what it is. It's fascinating that it
56:20
makes the whole movie work. Think that time travel had actually been developed by
56:27
the nineties. Yeah, that's a good point. And they're like they have
56:30
it like in the future because like smarter people made it right, and now
56:34
they have this tool. These monkeys like have this tool and they don't know
56:38
how to use it correctly. Damn. I almost wish that there were twelve
56:43
scientists. That's been a little too on the names. Jeez, Yeah,
56:46
there wasn't. There wasn't twelve, right, there was like six or eight
56:50
maybe I think it was eight. It was I wish, I wish that
56:53
would Yeah, so great the thing that stuck with Yeah, but they're there
57:00
weren't twelve. There weren't twelve monkeys either. Oh, like the Army of
57:04
twelve monkeys right right, Yeah, there was actually a bunch of them,
57:09
right, Like the number never makes any sense. Yeah, it's like it
57:14
was always like, oh, it was always a fabrication, right, Like
57:16
it was always a lie. I wanted to ask you this though, how
57:21
many times do they say the word monkeys in the movie? Halfway through the
57:27
film. Half halfway through the film, I realized they had said it at
57:30
least five times, and I was like, Man, I wonder if they
57:32
say they say twelve times. I wonder if they say monkeys twelve times in
57:37
this film. But it's probably more because Army of the Twelve Monkeys gets set
57:43
a lot, so it's probably. But they say the word monkey like in
57:46
other and other ass for other reasons besides just the Army of the twelve Monkey.
57:52
So they use the word monkeys outside of the twelve Monkeys context a bunch.
57:57
So I was wondering what the significance was there. Yeah. I would
58:00
love to interview Terry Gillham for this. This would be it would be awesome
58:05
to ask him questions about about like all the creative choices they've made. We're
58:10
gonna have to one day one day, one day, Well we'll get we'll
58:15
get we'll send them a d Yeah. The thing that stuck with me the
58:21
most, the thing that I actually love to talk to him about, other
58:24
than like maybe some of the other themes of this movie, because there are
58:28
other themes that we haven't talked about, like TV, for example. This
58:31
this movie seems to like have some very negative opinions on television. Yeah,
58:37
it brings them up quite a bit. But anyway, the thing that sticks
58:40
with me is one particular shot. There's one shot that I adore because it
58:50
works so well for the theme of this movie. It's the part of the
58:54
movie when we are in the I think we're in like a senator's manchair or
59:00
something for the party that Jeffrey's father is throwing. Yeah, and James has
59:08
reunited with Jeffrey. They're they're you know, going at it. They're having
59:12
their disagreement, and while James is being taken out by guards, they're on
59:21
the spiral staircase. There's this wonderful shot where the camera is looking down on
59:27
them as they're walking around the spiral loop and like it just looks like an
59:34
endless spiral as they're going and like what I like, I wonder if that's
59:39
the whole reason why they chose this mansion, like just for that spiral staircase
59:45
or who wasn't and they just like saw the opportunity and they're like, we
59:49
have to get a shot on that staircase. Like not brilliant, it's the
59:53
best shot of the movie. I love it so much. Okay, so
59:58
nat for per our time to auto draft. I want to change how we
1:00:04
score things. I want to score this three different ways, classic scoring right
1:00:09
one to five. We'll do one through five for all three of these,
1:00:13
but classic, like, how'd you feel about the movie? How'd you like
1:00:17
it? What did you think of the crafts and hip? Two? What
1:00:22
did you think about the time travel mechanic? Because this is a time travel
1:00:24
draft? And then finally how well did the time travel movie fit the category
1:00:32
that it was selected for? So first things first, how do you feel
1:00:37
about the movie? One to five? Awesome film. I it's really well
1:00:45
done, and especially after talking it all out with you, I'm like,
1:00:47
it's probably well even more well done than I originally thought coming into the conversation.
1:00:52
Is talking it out like really helped the downside here for this particular movie
1:01:00
that this is the first one we're reviewing, so I can't. I gotta
1:01:04
I gotta be a little bit like I gotta start somewhere with the grading,
1:01:07
and so it it might get an unfair grade at the beginning, but hopefully
1:01:14
at the end when we're done with all the I don't know how many movies
1:01:15
is at twelve we're gonna end up doing twell, oh, it would have
1:01:21
been twelve. It would have been twelve. I forgot it was originally twelve.
1:01:23
It's so it's fourteen, okay, loop, so after the fourteen So
1:01:32
like, so out of five, I'm gonna go three point eight. If
1:01:39
if this was like getting reviewed, like halfway through the fourteen movies, it
1:01:44
probably would be in the fours. But I I wanted to start a little
1:01:47
lower, just to kind of it's just a good area to kind of work
1:01:52
off of. Three point eight. I think it's really good. It's better
1:01:58
than a three point eight. If we were just reviewing, if we were
1:02:00
scoring this on its own, without considering the fact that, like there's a
1:02:04
whole time travel movie section we're doing with fourteen films, it probably be like
1:02:08
a four point two. But right I'm just like three point eight. Let's
1:02:12
just like ease into this time travel uh saga of ours. Yeah, I
1:02:20
hope that's okay. I hope you allow the the reasoning there. Yeah,
1:02:23
absolutely no. I think it's impossible to like do these kinds of exercises where
1:02:29
you're you're judging movies against each other without like the consideration of I need a
1:02:34
benchmark, right right, Like I can't start with like I love this,
1:02:37
it's a five, right. Well, but it's also I think it's also
1:02:42
good that we didn't start with something like Interstellar that we both absolutely adore,
1:02:46
you know, like this was a great start, Like it's an older film,
1:02:51
ninety five, it's one of the older films we're gonna watch out of
1:02:54
the fourteen, So I think it's a great starting benchmark area too. And
1:03:00
and yeah, okay, what about you? So I want to do the
1:03:06
same thing that you did set the benchmark, because yeah, I don't.
1:03:09
I don't want to go too high with this. But you know what's funny,
1:03:13
I I think I would have been lower had we not had this conversation
1:03:17
because like, dude, yeah, that that confused me to sleep tonight.
1:03:24
The fact that I like helped you realize that what the final scene meant for
1:03:28
the whole film. That's trying to say a big moment for me, especially
1:03:31
during a time travel film, This is a huge moment for me. This
1:03:35
is like, I'm proud of myself for I cannot tell you how confused I
1:03:42
actually was. And I think it's because, like I spend too much time
1:03:45
in metaphor, Like what's it trying to say metaphorically, you know, And
1:03:51
it's like, no, no, it's not a metaphor. Actually, just
1:03:52
stupid. They're idiots, They're unreliable brains, all of them, the whole
1:04:00
A whole lot. I think I think I'd even line up right on with
1:04:05
you. Actually, I don't want to give it a four because I I
1:04:10
actually do have a problem with the final act. I think a lot of
1:04:14
it. Like, I mean, I love the final two scenes, right,
1:04:17
I love how Cole dies, and I love the thing with the insured.
1:04:21
Even before I didn't get the thing with the insurer, like, I
1:04:25
loved that it was right. I was like, well, it's clearly saying
1:04:28
since two final things. I think how we get to those things feels rushed
1:04:33
and like we're missing something right. Also, I don't feel like that there's
1:04:40
a lot of emphasis on the lab assistant. It's just like, hey,
1:04:43
if you remember this dude who was being super weird earlier, it's him.
1:04:46
Yeah, they could have set him up a little bit more, a little
1:04:50
bit better. Agreed. And there's some other confusing things about the movie as
1:04:56
well. Overall, I really like this movie. Like you said, Brett,
1:05:00
there's just so any channing to watch on screen. I use a delight.
1:05:03
I'm gonna line right up with you here. I'm given a three A
1:05:06
time travel mechanic. What do you think of the time travel mechanic for the
1:05:10
narrative of the story. Does it work? Does it have problems? How
1:05:13
do you feel? Well? This is the funny part about this one is
1:05:16
it works, but it also doesn't because of how enough the future is,
1:05:21
because of how many people die in the past, So you can't have the
1:05:25
smartest people working on the time travel mechanic. So while the time travel mechanic
1:05:30
is manageable and does work to a point, it doesn't work as well as
1:05:35
it could. So this is like, it's so funny, really uh to
1:05:43
actually score the time travel mechanic for this film, because like it's it's like
1:05:49
a throw a dart blind folded at board and you might hit the spot you're
1:05:55
supposed to get to. So I'm gonna go with three point two for the
1:05:59
time travel Canic on this. Yeah, I mean, like, I think
1:06:06
that's actually like and I'm not even thinking of other films in this regard.
1:06:10
I think that's just like a total respectable score for the film, and it's
1:06:15
the film doesn't want a better score than that either, based on like what
1:06:18
we've learned. The film is not trying to be the greatest time travel mechanic
1:06:28
film of all time, and it's just trying to survive with what it's got.
1:06:33
I think that's an excellent point. I'm actually also not gonna score very
1:06:39
high in time travel mechanics. This is a conversation I'm so excited to have
1:06:43
with you while we watch all of these movies, because I think part of
1:06:46
the fun of time travel is like setting up how the time travel happens.
1:06:50
Yeah, and this movie isn't too concerned with like the how, right,
1:06:57
It's like it's pretty like soft science is science. It's pretty. There's like
1:07:01
none actually, like we don't even get time troblem. We don't even really
1:07:05
know what it is, right, And we get like one scene where he
1:07:09
just gets like shot through a cannon right, like a bank just right,
1:07:15
exactly, Like we don't get any explation to like how that works, like
1:07:20
which we don't need necessarily right for the point of the movie. Like the
1:07:25
point of the movie is like making a theme about like humans being awful,
1:07:29
right, Like, so time travel is not super important here, but like
1:07:33
it does set up some rules about time travel, which I do appreciate.
1:07:36
Right. It's like we're dealing with the idea of you can't influence or you
1:07:41
can't change the past. Right, Apparently you can influence the past, but
1:07:46
yeah, can't change it, and the movie sticks to that premise the entire
1:07:53
time. But for some reason, the characters decide in the last act that
1:07:56
they can change the past. And I don't know why they think so for
1:08:03
for some confusing last app issues with the time travel mechanic and it being kind
1:08:09
of soft, unlike the how I think, I'm just gonna give this a
1:08:12
three. I just gonna go, like right right there for a three.
1:08:15
There we go. There are movies that do like the mechanics of time travel
1:08:18
much better, but I am going to give it a higher score here in
1:08:24
a second, So the category as we discussed is stuck in the loop,
1:08:30
so there must be some sort of loop or endless loop or a loop that
1:08:34
is meant to be broken in the film in question. So, Nick,
1:08:39
where are you at? It's actually really hard to not give this one a
1:08:42
five out of five, Like this is as good as it gets from a
1:08:45
stuck in a loop perspective, and it honestly, it doesn't even feel right
1:08:50
to like give a buffer because I feel like out of I feel like this
1:08:54
is the category that's gonna be. Like there might be a couple movies where
1:09:00
it's in the three to four range, but I feel like the movie's either
1:09:03
going to be like, yes, this is right on the money for the
1:09:08
category, or it's gonna be like it was almost there. But I have
1:09:13
a hard time believing that we're gonna score any of these too low because we
1:09:16
also had to make our cases and we didn't have any real arguments Donny Darko,
1:09:21
and it severely disagree with me later. That's true, that's a good
1:09:26
point, but but that's why I get to score it in that regard,
1:09:30
why you score it. I having said that, like I shouldn't give it
1:09:34
a five, like so like I guess I'll just give it a four point
1:09:41
five for Stuck in the Loop. It's it's as good to me. It's
1:09:46
as good as it can be for a stuck in the little film. I
1:09:48
think it does a great job. Yeah, I'm I almost wonder if we
1:09:55
should even score this part of it, if it's just just be like a
1:09:58
yes or no. But I guess the scoring is probably okay, we'll do
1:10:02
the scoring, but you can always go retro on it, like, uh,
1:10:09
if if we get through like Azkaban and we're like, you know what,
1:10:14
it makes more sense to just give this pass or fail, right,
1:10:16
we could just do that, just passor fail on the cap. Yeah,
1:10:21
that might be better. But we'll keep going like this and we'll see,
1:10:24
we'll see how it goes. So you're going to what would you say?
1:10:28
Four? You went with four or five? Right? Yeah? Four point
1:10:30
five? Four point five? Nice? Yeah, man, dude, just
1:10:35
it's an endless loop. Yeah, and I love that. It's it's horrible,
1:10:41
it's sad, it's it's great. Yeah. I think are there movies
1:10:48
that do this better? I mean, I guess better is tough, right,
1:10:54
because I think I think when when you say that, I think you
1:10:58
have to take into consideration and you know, the idea of a loop and
1:11:03
the narrative itself, and whether or not it being in a loop works with
1:11:12
what kind of story it was trying to tell, which in this case,
1:11:14
it was how humans create their own problems, right, and it's it's an
1:11:17
endless cycle of problems. And I think it uses like because you could tell
1:11:23
that story in any context. Right, it doesn't have to travel, but
1:11:28
it does. And the whole idea is that it's an endless loop of problems
1:11:31
that we create for ourselves. And I really love that. I think that's
1:11:36
a brilliant theme. I think I'll you know, maybe this is a little
1:11:42
like, you know, self indulgent, but like I think I will go
1:11:45
with like a four or eight year I'm just gonna go shy of a five
1:11:48
for reasons that we discussed earlier, but yeah, I'm gonna go four eight
1:11:53
all right, all right, Well that's our first movie in the bag,
1:12:00
twelve Monkeys. Yeah, I'm super excited. I'm really glad you, like
1:12:05
I've had a feeling that you would. Yeah, very good. Yeah,
1:12:10
But our next movie, Nick, We've said it a few times, but
1:12:12
it's your movie. Care to lead us into what we're watching. Okay,
1:12:15
so is that what we're gonna do. Once we get to we pick a
1:12:18
category, we'll do both from that category back to back. Is that the
1:12:21
thought? Yes, okay, yeah, I think so. But I like
1:12:25
the next I think the next category we should lead with your movie like a
1:12:30
like you know what I mean, Like, yeah, okay, so after
1:12:33
after this one, like you'll puts and then you'll choose your movie. You
1:12:39
know what I mean? Okay, yeah, okay, Well but for this
1:12:42
case, for stuck in a Loop, my Stuck in Loop and was Harry
1:12:45
Potter and the Prisoner of Azkavan. So very excited for that. I've seen
1:12:48
this movie, I mean fifty plus times probably it's ridiculous. That's probably low
1:12:56
the low end. So that'll be really cool to talk about it with time
1:13:00
travel since and uh yeah that's the next one. Yeah, keep uh stay
1:13:05
tuned, stay tuned. Uh yeah, I'm excited for that too. But
1:13:11
uh, until next time, either off you be with you peace h m m