Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Great Expectations (1998) - Alfonso Cuarón | Houselights #159

Transcript

Great Expectations (1998) - Alfonso Cuarón | Houselights #159 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome to the ned party. Hello everybody at home, and welcome to House
• 0:22
  Slights, House of Quorn. That's right, Alfonso Kron. This is our
• 0:26
  second week talking about his directorial works, and we are talking about nineteen ninety
• 0:31
  eight Great Expectations starring Ethan Hawk and Gwyneth Paltrow, written by the late great
• 0:38
  Chuck Dickens and Mitch Glazer, who John wrote scrooged. Yes, that's that
• 0:46
  is very, very true and quite frankly, you know mister Dickens, you
• 0:51
  know he he provided the clay which which mister Glazer turned into a beautiful sculpture.
• 0:57
  Honestly, let's let's be honest with you each other that this is really
• 1:02
  this is somebody getting down to the core of what a Dickens tail is and
• 1:04
  saying, you know, he wrote by you know, he's paid by the
• 1:08
  word. But I bet we could do this in an hour and a half.
• 1:11
  And was mister Glazer up to that challenge? I don't know. We're
• 1:14
  going to find out as we discuss it here on House Lights. Well,
• 1:17
  the voice that you just heard is the amazing John Mills, and the person
• 1:22
  waiting in the wings is doctor sci Fi himself, Darren Moser and I am,
• 1:26
  of course Tristan Riddell, and we are all here today so excited to
• 1:33
  talk about Alfonso Korn making Love to the color Green? For two hours,
• 1:40
  I had noticed are you sure? Are you sure? I mean, what's
• 1:44
  crazy is that this was even toned down from with a color green from last
• 1:49
  week's A Little Princess that was way green. That's true. So, Darren,
• 1:55
  I want to know, when was the first time you saw this movie.
• 1:59
  Was it in preparation for this podcast? And if so, what did
• 2:01
  you know about this film? Yeah, it was actually in preparation for this
• 2:07
  podcast. I had not caught this one before. When I mentioned to my
• 2:10
  wife what we were watching this week, she was like, oh, I
• 2:15
  hated reading that in grade school. It's terrible. Did you know he was
• 2:20
  paid by the word. I'm like, yes, yes, I had,
• 2:23
  so. Apparently not the beloved written word, but possibly a good film we'll
• 2:28
  see. But yeah, I did not know very much at all, I
• 2:31
  think it except for like I think we all remember seeing the cover, you
• 2:38
  know, on the turned out VHS at a blockbuster and we're like, what
• 2:43
  is what is that? This is trying to get me to watch this movie?
• 2:46
  But Gwyne's pal. I don't know, and it took many years since
• 2:52
  nineteen eighty eight for me to finally catch this. But yeah, so that'll
• 2:55
  be my first time now, John, you uh, you kind of had
• 3:00
  you kind of gave us some pushback when we talked about doing House of Kuran,
• 3:06
  specifically for this film. If I remember correctly, you you said that
• 3:08
  you saw it once before and you didn't enjoy it, But I was.
• 3:13
  I tried to convince you for weeks to open up that black heart of yours
• 3:19
  and try to try to, you know, tap into the romantic teenager that
• 3:23
  used to be there a lot time ago. The funny thing is, it
• 3:25
  doesn't matter if that's what actually happened, that's your memory of it, so
• 3:30
  you know, we'll go with that. But yeah, I came across this
• 3:35
  film. This was actually and I'm going to tell the short version of the
• 3:38
  story. I promise it's the short version. There was somebody that I knew
• 3:42
  in a professional capacity that I became friends with, and she lived up in
• 3:46
  Pennsylvania. I lived in Virginia, and by happenstance, both of our spouses
• 3:53
  went off on their own work trips and so we were like, okay,
• 3:58
  well, you know, I'm to watch a movie. What are you going
• 4:00
  to watch? And so I gave her a movie to watch and she said,
• 4:02
  you watch Great Expectations. I love that movie. And I was like,
• 4:05
  all right, fine, and I watched it. And has my opinion
• 4:12
  changed since then? Question Mark, don't know yet. We'll talk about it
• 4:15
  here. And you know, the thing is, everybody makes the joke that
• 4:23
  I have a dead heart. It's sort of like the Grinch at the beginning
• 4:27
  of The Grinch who Stole Christmas? Will my heart grow three sizes today?
• 4:32
  Or will it remain a shrunken prune dying on the vine? We will find
• 4:38
  out as we continue. So with me, this was very much not the
• 4:42
  first time I watched this film. I was obsessed with this movie as a
• 4:47
  young man. Darren. I know you're laughing because it's one of the other
• 4:51
  either it's never heard of it or Herdell family favorite. I can tell you
• 4:58
  I didn't watch this with his dad favorite. This was a Tristan Riddell favorite.
• 5:04
  Team also that that reminds me like for some of you, like I
• 5:08
  was like, we were talking off off mic and this is probably I was
• 5:13
  like, even though this is our one hundred and fifty ninth episode. We
• 5:15
  haven't really talked about too many sexy movies, and so this is probably surprisingly
• 5:24
  the sexiest movie that we're that we're going to, uh, that we have
• 5:28
  reviewed so far. And the lights after I don't know, guys, Oh
• 5:34
  yeah, that wasn't totally I'm totally kidding, You're you're absolutely right. Well,
• 5:40
  no, that's the thing. Like we we've talked about movies that have
• 5:42
  had graphic stuff happen at it. We've had stuff with violent stuff, with
• 5:46
  even sexual violence, but this is this is the first like romantic sexy movie
• 5:51
  that we've reviewed, and so I kind of wanted to just mention that for
• 5:55
  those of you, like, of course we're not going to get graphic in
• 5:58
  this episode, but we we're gonna talk about sex and sexuality and sensuality everything
• 6:01
  like that. So that is going to happen today. And so just before
• 6:04
  warned if your kids are listening in the background. But yeah, no,
• 6:08
  I was, kids are like, daddy, I want to listen to the
• 6:10
  House of Choreo. Yeah right, Oh, this is my favorite. It's
• 6:15
  a little princess. The next one's got to be just his heartwarming. No,
• 6:18
  he did Harry Potter movie. Yeah, oh my gosh. Yeah.
• 6:24
  I think even Daniel Radcliffe made that joke because he said that after they filmed
• 6:28
  the second one and he found out that Alfonso Kuran was going to direct the
• 6:31
  third one, he went tried to go back and watch all of his movies
• 6:35
  and his mom walked in on him watching YouTube mom of Tombien, like,
• 6:40
  what the hell are you watching? He's like, oh, it's research,
• 6:42
  it's research research. Was it very blue? Was there a blue and YouTube
• 6:47
  Tombien? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, but no, this this movie specifically,
• 6:53
  I did not see this in the theater. I did not this was
• 6:57
  This was many years after that. I that I got it on that I
• 7:00
  got it on DVD. I had a friend of mine who who was my
• 7:05
  best friend at the time and I'm still very close with him. He's nine
• 7:10
  years older than me, and we went through like a kind of like a
• 7:15
  lesser known movie phase, like we would just try to get as many indie
• 7:17
  films as we could. Not say that Great Expectations is indie, but you
• 7:19
  know what I'm saying, Like it was movies that like weren't blockbusters, movies
• 7:24
  that weren't like huge and you know, directed by Spielberg and things like that,
• 7:27
  and so like we came across this one and both of us were just
• 7:30
  completely enamored in it, and we were hopeless romantics at that time, like
• 7:33
  in the early two thousands, we were absolutely hopeless romantics. And like I
• 7:38
  would like, you know, like I would write quotes from this in my
• 7:42
  journal, you know, like I had I had my favorite quotes recorded onto
• 7:47
  a mini disc player so I could play them back, you know, like
• 7:51
  on my headphones. And like I just I was just obsessed with this film
• 7:58
  and like like one of my favorite lines of all time is like I'm not
• 8:01
  going to tell you how it actually happened. I'm going to tell you how
• 8:03
  I remember it. And that just oh stuck with me for years. And
• 8:05
  so I was a little nervous to watch this because it has been a few
• 8:11
  years. Like I watched it all like like crazy, so you know,
• 8:15
  when I was a young pe like it happened or will it be like you
• 8:18
  remembered it? Tristan exactly, Darren. It that's the thing. It's just
• 8:20
  like, am I gonna love it as much? Or is it going to
• 8:22
  be like, oh my god, Tristan was so emo and wrote bad poetry
• 8:26
  on his own and thought he was deeper than he actually was? Or is
• 8:28
  this actually going to be a genuinely good movie? And and yeah, so
• 8:31
  it was. It was really nice to revisit this. Now, John,
• 8:35
  have you read the book? Did you know anything about the story? So
• 8:39
  okay, so I'm so bad that you have read the book because I have
• 8:41
  not. Well, I had never read it before I saw the movie.
• 8:45
  Like, I got around to it because eventually I also had gotten around to
• 8:50
  reading Tale of Two Cities because of all growing up having it referenced in Star
• 8:56
  Trek two constantly. Event I got to the point where I was like,
• 9:01
  you know, why don't I read the book and figure out what the point
• 9:03
  of this was? And I was like, oh my gosh, I like
• 9:05
  this Dickens character. He wrote a good tale. And so eventually I worked
• 9:09
  my way over after seeing this to reading great great expectations. I can say
• 9:15
  that this is definitely something that is fascinating because it stays very true to the
• 9:20
  spirit of everything without like I am a fan actually of Dickens's style. I
• 9:28
  know everybody says, oh he wrote you know he was paid by the word.
• 9:31
  Yes, that's true. But he was also The comparison I'll draw is
• 9:35
  it's like reading Tolkien, where that blade of grass You're going to know the
• 9:39
  history of that blade of grass on the top of the hill that Gandalf stepped
• 9:43
  on before he went and he slaughtered a thousand orcs, and you feel like,
• 9:46
  you know, this is a fully realized world. I'm glad I know
• 9:50
  about that blade of grass, and this is you know, Dickens about Blady.
• 9:54
  Yeah, that chapter, the chapters sorry, who had survived the you
• 9:58
  know, the attack of the Second Age and such. But so it definitely
• 10:05
  stays like this is an example and maybe I'm a terrible person for citing this,
• 10:11
  but it's very much in the vein of what was going on in the
• 10:15
  nineties with something like Boz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet. It was a director and
• 10:20
  screenwriter and everybody actually working to find a way to say, you know,
• 10:24
  this, this was a beloved classic for a reason. Times change. How
• 10:31
  do we relay what they're trying to tell you in a way that modern audiences
• 10:35
  want to receive the story? And that's a completely valid thing to do.
• 10:39
  I think if anything, something like great Expectations or Lureman's Romeo and Juliet,
• 10:45
  or there was a version of Macbeth that was like set in New York or
• 10:48
  something like. Those are really valid, good things to do, specifically because
• 10:56
  times change, and if you do it right, you strike a chord and
• 11:01
  you make the person curious to go seek out the source material and then they
• 11:05
  have an in an appreciation for where that original work comes from and why it
• 11:11
  found a hook in culture. So I think you're thinking of Hamlet that was
• 11:16
  set in New York. Well also starred Ethan Hawk, but there but there
• 11:20
  was a Macbeth that. I mean, Beth has been adapted like four billion
• 11:24
  times, but I didn't know that. I didn't know that there was a
• 11:26
  Macbeth that was a modern day I haven't seen a modern day Macbeth. I
• 11:30
  want to say, there's so many different annotations you couldn't corner me on it.
• 11:35
  But for some reason, I think to Turo's involved it in some way,
• 11:39
  but I don't. I don't remember for sure. It's been so many
• 11:43
  years well since I saw it, So I will I will investigate that because
• 11:46
  I you know, like just to kind of say, even though you weren't
• 11:50
  referencing this like it made me think of it like you know, Ethan Hawk
• 11:52
  in Hamlet. I was, you know, like Ethan Hawk was and probably
• 11:58
  still is my favorite act And when you can get me an Ethan Hawk movie
• 12:03
  that he narrates, I'm there, Like he has narrated so many of his
• 12:09
  movies, and I feel like this was me falling in love with his voice.
• 12:16
  And he Ethan Hawk is also an author, and you can hear that
• 12:20
  voice in his writing, like that distinct style, that that that just the
• 12:24
  way that the words drip off his lips, so you can you can see
• 12:28
  it in his in a literary sense too. And so I want to talk
• 12:33
  about the cast a little bit. And because we have Ethan Hawk as Finnegan
• 12:37
  Bell, Gwyneth Paltrow's Estella, hank Is Area, Chris Cooper and Bancroft,
• 12:41
  Robert de Niro, Kim Dickens, even Nell Campbell who was in Rocky Horror
• 12:48
  Picture Show. You know, like this is just so many great actors in
• 12:52
  this was the Darren. Were there any standout performances to you, like,
• 12:58
  did did you like the characters? Did you did you feel like it was
• 13:01
  kind of or maybe did you feel like they were they were off like it
• 13:03
  didn't really fit the material. What did you think? I mean, I
• 13:07
  know it feels like the cop out answer, but like, this is the
• 13:11
  kind of movie with de Niro that you kind of forget that it's him for
• 13:16
  a moment because he's so much younger that he is nowadays, we're used to
• 13:20
  seeing an older de Niro, and it reminds me of like when like watching
• 13:26
  some of the Godfathers that when we went through that, like some of those
• 13:28
  actors are so much younger in that time that you take a moment to realize
• 13:35
  who they are. And he has a lot of beard and other stuff going
• 13:39
  on in this movie. But I really liked his performance and in what easily
• 13:45
  could have been a throwaway character, like anybody could have played that. He's
• 13:50
  got two scenes or you know, two three ish scenes, but he like,
• 13:56
  I'm glad they had him. I think he did a really good job
• 13:58
  with that. Yeah, no, to speak to that point. The nineties
• 14:05
  for both de Niro and Paccino, this is when they were successfully elder statesmen
• 14:11
  of film performing. You got all the young blood and you get de Niro
• 14:16
  there, you get in Yeah, but they but they were they were This
• 14:22
  is a dangerous way to put it. But there's a little bit of a
• 14:24
  sense from time to time that you know in later years are sort of phoning
• 14:28
  it in. They're riding their reputation, you know, al Pacino and Jack
• 14:31
  and Jill for instance, that sort of thing, Whereas if you go back
• 14:35
  to the nineties, they've proven all they need to and you get the sense,
• 14:39
  and I get the sense from Denier's performance in this as well. They
• 14:43
  are actors enjoying the freedom to do what they will with the role. These
• 14:48
  are not act De Niro is not an actor at this point who is trying
• 14:52
  to struggle his way up and prove anything. This is it. This is
• 14:54
  an accomplished actor who has a ton of respect who shows up in this role
• 15:00
  and he's not trying to steal scenes. He's just being an actor because it's
• 15:05
  just it's that stage in his careers. Due but he's comfortable. He's not
• 15:11
  trying to prove anything, and he doesn't steal any spotlight away. He's there
• 15:13
  to support Hawk. He's not there for any other reason but to be the
• 15:18
  performer that he can be. And so I like, I love de Niro
• 15:22
  in this film. This is this is prime de Niro to me, and
• 15:26
  I think nineties is probably you know, I mean cup either Part two notwithstanding,
• 15:31
  but like this is really prime de Niro for me, starting from like
• 15:35
  Goodfellas up until probably around analyze this, yeah, and like that is that
• 15:41
  is just the sweet spot. You get heat, you get all of these
• 15:43
  ones where de Niro's proven everything and he's just great. And I think he's
• 15:46
  just fantastic in this, but kind of like a Pacino is sent of a
• 15:50
  woman. Yeah, like he's he's there, he's present, and he's he's
• 15:56
  enjoying his work. But I'll tell you who is in a thankless role here
• 16:02
  is Chris Cooper. Oh yeah, oh that is an actor who he never
• 16:07
  gets enough credit. And I actually I think Kim Dickens is the same way.
• 16:10
  She's phenomenal. I love her as an actress and seeing her, I'm
• 16:14
  always like, oh wow, I like her, and yeah, whenever she
• 16:17
  pops up on screen, I'm just like, oh cool, this is gonna
• 16:18
  get better, right, And their casting is perfect there, they're actually they're
• 16:23
  really that's like spot on, so you know, I know you you know,
• 16:27
  I try to get us to go down like you know this sort of
• 16:30
  like no, hey, go for it. I don't care go down the
• 16:30
  list. I think the cast overall. Oh man, I'm looking at Gwyneth
• 16:36
  Paltrow, and my god, she was busy in the nineties. Four movies
• 16:40
  in ninety five, three, and ninety six, this and four others in
• 16:45
  ninety eight. Like she goodness that is yeah. No, she, like
• 16:49
  Gwyneth Paltrow owned the nineties. I mean like she's still yeah, very much
• 16:53
  so. I mean she's still a household name for other reasons and also,
• 16:59
  you know, being pepper Pots definitely helps. But you know, like she's
• 17:03
  kind of heard Oscar in the nineties. You know, like this year,
• 17:06
  the same year Great Expectations. Yeah, the same year that Great Expectations came
• 17:10
  out, Shakespeare and Love came out, and Flighting Doors. But what's fascinating
• 17:15
  to me is I love Ethan Hawk as well. He showed if he's in
• 17:19
  a movie, I'm instantly interested in what's going on. I'm like, Okay,
• 17:23
  I'll watch this. And I had not seen Before Sunrise by this point.
• 17:30
  I saw Before Sunrise many years later thanks to missing frames with Sean Eastridge
• 17:33
  here on the Nerd Party Network. And I can tell you that Ethan Hawk
• 17:38
  is one of my favorite actors period. It's not like, Oh of the
• 17:42
  modern No, he I'll throw I'll throw Ethan Hawk's filmography, his performances up
• 17:48
  against anybody at any stage. The before series, he's phenomenal. I loved
• 17:52
  him in Boyhood, I loved him. I love him in every I mean
• 17:56
  training Day for God's sake. The year before this he was in Gatica.
• 18:00
  Oh jeez. That that is a gem from the nineties that not enough people
• 18:03
  pay attention to. That's a good one and he I think he's great as
• 18:08
  Finn. And while I don't have a problem with Gwyneth Paltrow's performance, that's
• 18:15
  one of the weak links I think is in the film is Estella is distant.
• 18:21
  Estella is playing hard to get, but there's no there's no spark.
• 18:26
  I don't with the exception of a couple of scenes, I don't get the
• 18:32
  sense of Ethan Hawke wanting to be with her, and this is a cheat.
• 18:37
  I get it the same way that I get the sense of him wanting
• 18:38
  to be with Julie Delbian before Sunrise. I don't think that's a cheat.
• 18:42
  No, I don't. I feel like young Finn had more chemistry with young
• 18:48
  Estella. Yes, than Ethan Hawk and Gwyneth Paltrow. Do I want to
• 18:52
  talk about that. I want to talk about the young, the young people.
• 18:55
  So we have the amazing legendary and craft playing Miss Dinsmore. And I
• 19:03
  love the the setting of of Florida. I love I loved that Florida is
• 19:07
  the backdrop for most of this movie. And it's so perfect to put Dinsmore
• 19:15
  in a swampy area. It just it just feels so natural for her to
• 19:19
  be in this beautiful place that's that's sunny and your water but at that but
• 19:26
  at the same time there's decay because of moisture and nature encroaching on her,
• 19:33
  on her world and everything like that. It fits the character of dinsmore perfectly.
• 19:37
  And but then you have you have young Finn and young Estella. So
• 19:42
  there's one thing I do want to talk about and with the with young actors,
• 19:45
  because we have talked about this before on the show about I think with
• 19:51
  with Moonrise Kingdom, we talked about, you know, like a pubescent sexual
• 19:56
  encounters, like sexual awakenings and things like that. And so with this there's
• 20:00
  the original moment that becomes a recurring moment when he is drinking from a fountain,
• 20:04
  which I don't think is potable, and I really don't think he should
• 20:07
  have been drinking, she says, So I don't believe. So I'm going
• 20:12
  to simply point out that water in those situations usually is chlorinated and it creates
• 20:18
  with the metal, it can create, in fact, a toxic environment.
• 20:21
  So when they're going up to drink the water, I'm like, if I
• 20:22
  were there and that was my kid, I would like physically restrain them and
• 20:26
  be like no no no no, no, no, no no no,
• 20:27
  you don't drink from that. And then when he later drinks from a public
• 20:30
  water fountain water, when he later drinks from a public water fountain, that's
• 20:34
  just as bad. Like York know Lessia, I will die of thirst before
• 20:38
  I drink from a public water fountain, period, full stop. I will
• 20:41
  die next to it, and I'll be like nope, I'm good, thank
• 20:44
  you. Anyway, Sorry for the interjection there, that's all right. So
• 20:47
  with this moment, you know he's drinking, Estella comes up young Estella and
• 20:52
  Fringe kisses him and surprises him and just kind of like she's just kind of
• 20:56
  like shocked. But they the way that it's shot with the music, the
• 21:02
  lighting, the actors. It's done in a very sensual way. And I
• 21:07
  took it. I'm gonna say it how I took it. Now, I'm
• 21:10
  not saying you guys have to agree, but I took it as a very
• 21:15
  innocent manner of we've all kind of been there, like we've all been kids
• 21:21
  in that moment where we kind of like pushed the boundaries just a little bit,
• 21:25
  where we're just like a little too young to be doing this, but
• 21:27
  yet there's that chemical connection, there's that electricity, and I thought it was
• 21:33
  shot in a way that was very respectful and exploitive at all, and so
• 21:40
  I wanted to get your guys' read on that. I completely agree with you
• 21:42
  it was not. And I think it is a very very tricky line to
• 21:48
  walk, especially giving Quarn's reputation up to this point having done I've never seen
• 21:53
  any two Mama Tom Biene, I've never seen it, but I know its
• 21:57
  reputation. So going into this, he's got to know people are looking with
• 22:03
  a fire, like they are really keeping an eye on it, like this
• 22:06
  is something that's easy to screw up. I think this does capture that I
• 22:11
  was not too much older when I had my first attempt at, you know,
• 22:15
  an adult kiss in my life. And so I agree, this is
• 22:21
  shot. This is treated in such a way that it's not lurid, it's
• 22:25
  not prurient. There's no thrill for the audience in it. There is an
• 22:32
  all credit to Patrick Doyle for finding the right Q to make it feel innocent
• 22:38
  enough that you look at it wistfully as opposed to in a way that you
• 22:47
  don't want anybody looking at it. Yeah, you feel like should I be
• 22:49
  watching this kind of thing? Like yeah, yeah, absolutely, it maybe
• 22:53
  gave me. Yeah, I think it. I think it handled it well.
• 22:59
  I was getting like, you know, the end kissing scene from Casper
• 23:03
  vibes, like it's those it's just it's kid actors, but they're not.
• 23:08
  I mean, it is kissing, but it's it was just that they're fully
• 23:11
  clothed, they're outside, they're I mean, they're semi in public, like
• 23:17
  not yeah, still it's her her aunt's place. But yeah, but no,
• 23:22
  I think you're You're totally right. It needed to walk the line,
• 23:26
  and I don't think it was trying to tiptoe over it. But it sets
• 23:32
  a foundation because as a subtle, a subtle part of her character is you
• 23:37
  know, she's been imbued with don't trust men, manipulate men like they'll always
• 23:45
  hurt you, and that bites her in in later in life. Well,
• 23:52
  give credit as well to the performances. I think that the the raquel.
• 24:00
  Yeah, and Jeremy Kissner who as an aside boy, did they nail somebody
• 24:07
  looking like they were a young Ethan Hawk like I could have sworn they were
• 24:11
  the same bloodline. Pretty amazing. Yeah, he plays that scene, really,
• 24:15
  they both do. But he plays that scene really well, and that's
• 24:18
  good direction because he doesn't look thrilled in a in that lurid sense either.
• 24:26
  He looks shocked and he's trying to process it. It's not pushed in such
• 24:32
  a way where he's like, oh I instinctively know what to do now,
• 24:34
  it's I don't know what to give in to it, right, He's he's
• 24:37
  just like frozen in time. And I think that's very important because Finn becomes
• 24:42
  frozen in time. That's the moment in time that he can't escape and uh,
• 24:48
  you know that that's why he chases her like his whole life, which
• 24:52
  is you know, it's really a fascinating sort of tail because you refer to
• 24:56
  this as you know, oh you know, unfree your heart. And yeah,
• 25:02
  I mean the movie does tap into that sort of thing of the one.
• 25:06
  Listen, I'm going to say the thing that no married man wants to
• 25:08
  say in public. There's always the one that for many years, even after
• 25:12
  you're marriage, you're like, I wonder how life would have turned out?
• 25:15
  Right, every so often you might you know, I think you might think
• 25:18
  that how would life have gone? It's only natural to think about that,
• 25:22
  like and to think to think about the roll the road not taken. I
• 25:25
  mean, there's nothing immoral or unjust or even adults to have those thoughts.
• 25:30
  Now, if you start thinking, like I'm going to look her up on
• 25:32
  Facebook, that's different, well yeah, I mean not as public as Facebook.
• 25:37
  You want to like go and like do your research through like certain private
• 25:41
  I mean yeah, right now you're correct, No, you know, yeah,
• 25:45
  but no, Like, I think that's one thing that I would that
• 25:47
  I wanted to kind of stress about this, like even early on in the
• 25:49
  movie. And that's why I thought that they handled it really well, is
• 25:52
  that they that Quran does a magnificent job of tapping into those moments that are
• 25:57
  universal, even though you know, not all of us grew up poor,
• 26:03
  or grew up without parents or had an encounter with an escape convict. You
• 26:07
  know, like these like none of this is going to be a one to
• 26:11
  one with what we've done, but we've all we all can think about those
• 26:15
  moments like that crazy story that you have when you were ten or eleven years
• 26:19
  old that you didn't tell anybody about, or that first really weird kiss,
• 26:23
  or that girl that you you know, you became obsessed with, or you
• 26:29
  know, like the weekend gig that you had to get some from extra cash,
• 26:33
  or like experimenting with art. We've all had those moments, and this
• 26:37
  movie really connects with that. And you know, flat forward too, when
• 26:42
  we see Estella and Finnegan grow up, you know, like I love that
• 26:47
  transition of them dancing and then they're like in the twirl we see the adult
• 26:51
  actors, and I hate that haircut that they gave Heathan Hawk, but it
• 26:56
  worked because it makes them look younger. But at the same time, you're
• 26:57
  like, oh, good lord, the haircut works as terrible as it is.
• 27:03
  But also, again to give credit to Ethan Hawk, his physicality plays
• 27:08
  off that he's not quite adult, like I buy him as a younger Ethan
• 27:12
  Hawk. This is this is how actors used to do it kids before they
• 27:17
  had cg to map their faces on people, right, Like he just figured
• 27:21
  out a way to shrink his body and they gave him a shirt that was
• 27:22
  a little bit too big and they pulled up his pants a little bit so
• 27:26
  that he looked smaller than he actually was. And I think that is that's
• 27:32
  a moment that should jump out to people for that is somebody understanding as an
• 27:36
  actor that their body is a tool too and something that they can use.
• 27:41
  I mean, she plays her through several years, but I think it's like
• 27:47
  you said, it's it's how they poise, how they you know, I
• 27:49
  mean even as simple as how her hair is done in each of those moments,
• 27:53
  like it telegraphs to us her age, and even though it's exact,
• 28:00
  it's all filmed in the same year, but it does an amazing job.
• 28:03
  Yeah, we didn't need to dage Ethan Hawk for the younger moments. Now,
• 28:08
  granted you have a different actor for the child moments, because that's a
• 28:11
  little weird. If it's like, well, I going to pretend I'm seeing
• 28:15
  and see with it being Ethan Hawke. Immediately, I think of Boyhood and
• 28:19
  link Later, and I'm like, you know, if link Later did this,
• 28:22
  he would have spent thirty years filming this movie, and so thank goodness
• 28:26
  he didn't. Yeah, you know, I think that also. Somebody that
• 28:33
  deserves some credit is an actor who I actually enjoy in a lot of his
• 28:37
  stuff. When I see him as Josh Mistelle, who plays the lawyer a
• 28:41
  lot of regno he is, and I always like seeing him because he he's
• 28:47
  He's a true character actor. He's figured out what he plays best, and
• 28:52
  when he shows up, I know what to expect and it's always what the
• 28:56
  role requires, which seems like a backhanded compliment, but it's the same league
• 29:02
  as like J. T. Walsh. When JT. Walsh walked on screen,
• 29:04
  I was like, Okay, I'm getting one of three JT. Walsh's
• 29:07
  here, But it's going to be a really good thing for this movie that
• 29:11
  he's in that role. And I think Mistelle works really well in what he's
• 29:17
  given to do. I believe him in the role, and I know it
• 29:22
  seems silly to single out, you know, a small character like that,
• 29:26
  but it works very well. And the scene I point to actually is when
• 29:30
  Ethan Hall, Chris Cooper and Mistelle are having that discussion about the mysterious benefactor.
• 29:37
  That scene is that's like a workshop scene. To me, that's just
• 29:41
  a beautiful scene of three actors, and I get very much the sense that
• 29:47
  they're exploring their Like I'd love to see the outtakes, the alternate version of
• 29:52
  how they played the scenes, because I have a feeling that where they they
• 29:55
  got the very organ asshole or does he play him as like a pushover or
• 30:00
  like there's a lot he could do with the exact same lines. Yeaheah,
• 30:03
  oh man, I want to see thet takes too now or that alternate takes
• 30:06
  as it were. But you can see where I give credit. And also
• 30:08
  like Mastella is drinking something different than what they're drinking. Yeah, Like there's
• 30:12
  there's that there. Yep. You can tell that there's something that happened before
• 30:17
  then where they offered him a drink he said no, and but he took
• 30:19
  this you know, Like I know we're getting minute here, but I know
• 30:22
  I know what you're talking about. Like that right when you're thrown into it,
• 30:26
  you can tell that there's been a lot that's happened before and and that
• 30:30
  they're they're they're mid conversation and they do a great job of showcasing that,
• 30:36
  and like they there was you know it. There was only really one line
• 30:41
  of that got kind of exposition y where he said like he's like, yeah,
• 30:44
  you had that showing at the bank. He's like what what what was
• 30:47
  that seven years ago? Come on? You know because like in the previous
• 30:49
  scene he's he's with Estella and he's like, yeah, I just got something
• 30:52
  at the bank. I I I have to give credit to Quaran as the
• 30:56
  director because to get performances like now, I think Ethan Hawk is an engine.
• 31:03
  I think he always gets the other performers to give even more, like
• 31:10
  there's something about him that other actors seem to respond to. But I have
• 31:15
  to give credit to Quirn for getting the performances that happen in this film.
• 31:21
  Even Hank Azaria, right, he got to love the name Walter Plaine.
• 31:26
  How how perfect, but even that, like it would be really easy to
• 31:32
  play that role as the a hole New Yorker, but instead you get a
• 31:37
  sense of that guy's humanity too, that he he's over his head, he
• 31:41
  doesn't know how to approach estella. He doesn't know like what he's supposed to
• 31:47
  do next, and he's not yet. Yes, he comes from a life
• 31:51
  of privilege, but he's still a human being who's feeling a little bit lost
• 31:56
  in what's going on. And you know, with all of these performances,
• 32:00
  I have to give Quiron credit, although I think probably with like de Niro,
• 32:05
  it was just a little bit like what do you think, mister de
• 32:07
  niro yause there are deniroisms that come in where it's kind of like, calmed
• 32:12
  down, I've been doing this for forty years. I know what I'm doing.
• 32:14
  Okay. With Azaria it was interesting because you know, like I've talked
• 32:19
  about this a lot on Houseites, where I hate it when movies you have
• 32:22
  the love triangle and the established boyfriend is clearly a piece of garbage or an
• 32:29
  ass and you're just like, oh, well, of course they're gonna end
• 32:31
  up. You know, she's not gonna end up with him because he's a
• 32:35
  piece of crap. With Hank Azaria, you if this wasn't Grits, if
• 32:40
  this was a movie with a different name, say it wasn't Great Expectations,
• 32:44
  it wasn't written by Charles Dickens, and you're watching this movie and you see
• 32:49
  Walter Plaine, Well, he's not a jerk, he's not an ass,
• 32:52
  Like, he's clearly the quote unquote loser compared to Ethan Hawk. Now in
• 32:58
  terms of personality, now, obviously you know Hank's Aria's character comes from means
• 33:04
  he's wealthy, you know, like he's he's the type of guy that Estella
• 33:08
  has been bred to go towards. And and so you know, from a
• 33:14
  romantic movie type of perspective, like if this wasn't great, expectations would be
• 33:19
  like, oh, well, she's clearly not going to wind up with him,
• 33:21
  right, But because of this is the movie this is based off,
• 33:25
  because this is the story that it's based off of. The crazy thing is
• 33:29
  is that she does win up with Hank's area. And I think that in
• 33:32
  itself is well done characterization and direction and writing, because you see this person
• 33:40
  who's not a jerk, who's not an ass, but clearly inferior in the
• 33:44
  romantic lead in terms of being a romantic lead, and so it tricks the
• 33:49
  audience into thinking, oh, well, they're not gonna end up together.
• 33:51
  Well, and I think what's interesting is there is a subtle difference because the
• 33:55
  friends that are there with Walter, you can tell that they are that sort
• 34:00
  of typical snooty, that stereotypical snooty New Yorker sort of from poor background,
• 34:06
  whereas Walter is actually he seems to be like trying to be nice to Finn,
• 34:12
  like he's not being malicious. Yeah, he's not being malicious. He's
• 34:15
  he recognizes there's a distance between them, but he's not extension of my world.
• 34:22
  But I'm not gonna rub it in your face, right, I'm not
• 34:24
  going to belittle you for what's going on. And I have to give credit
• 34:30
  again to his area for playing. He has some facial expressions when Finn first
• 34:35
  sits down where he can see that there's some sort of history between the two
• 34:39
  of them that he's not necessarily privy to, and he's conflicted. He's trying
• 34:44
  not to act on that and be jealous, but he's very aware. So
• 34:49
  you get the reach out and grab her hand, be like, yeah,
• 34:52
  we're still a thing, right, We're still and still together. And that
• 34:54
  kind of makes sense as well, because from from what we know of a
• 34:59
  stella like she she's manipulating, she's manipulative, So he's probably been on that
• 35:06
  side of it before and he's like, oh, she's troutsing a past friend
• 35:12
  in front of me. She does that every Tuesday, Like this is nothing
• 35:15
  new. Yeah, that would have surprised me. Yeah. Now I want
• 35:21
  to I want to dial back just a little bit. I want to go
• 35:23
  backwards to another scene between Hawk and Paltrow, Finnegan and Estella when they are
• 35:30
  going to go to the party originally and he's trying to go in. He's
• 35:34
  wearing a you know, like a woman's jacket because he doesn't have a dinner
• 35:38
  jacket, and he's in his piece of crap truck that they used to garden,
• 35:44
  and they end up going back to his place and we have an extremely
• 35:49
  sensual moment between the two of them, and Estella is in complete control of
• 35:55
  the situation and I love that. I love the dominance that she shows over
• 36:00
  Finn in in that moment. You can like, this is a perfect encapsulation
• 36:06
  of the character that we even saw as the young girl, where she says
• 36:12
  like she walks in and she's like, oh, is at your room?
• 36:15
  And she just goes right into it. She shouldn't ask if she can go
• 36:16
  in. She walks right in and talks about the art. He's she sees
• 36:22
  herself. She she right when I mean she knew this beforehand, but right
• 36:25
  when she sees her face on the wall, she's like, Okay, I
• 36:29
  got this, and yep she like Finn is sitting down and she walks over
• 36:36
  and presents her thigh and you're just like, holy crap. Like we we've
• 36:42
  had that moment. We've like as as as young men, we've had that
• 36:46
  moment where a woman was in charge and coming in where we were a young
• 36:52
  person, we were we were just like, oh, is this gonna happen?
• 36:53
  Okay, let's see, let's see where this goes. And the music
• 36:59
  and the cinematograph, the editing, everything put together with the dissolves, and
• 37:04
  I didn't feel like it was gratuitous, even though it was showing a lot
• 37:09
  or showing I'm not phrasing it properly, Like John, what am I trying
• 37:14
  to say? I think that the I think I agree that it's not exploitative.
• 37:22
  I agree that it's a very demonstrative scene. I think that more than
• 37:30
  anything taking it out of that sort of sexual thing, I think that emotionally
• 37:36
  everybody can relate to that moment where the person that we have a thing for
• 37:43
  realizes they're in the driver's seat and they're deciding whether they want to allow us
• 37:52
  to be in the passenger seat or if they want to keep driving and just
• 37:58
  give us the finger as they passed. And I think that that's very that's
• 38:04
  very well put. That's what I was trying to say, Thank you.
• 38:07
  Well that that's what I'm here for. That's what I'm here for. Also,
• 38:10
  the good looks that are good enough for you to see on your podcast,
• 38:14
  if you imagine, and I can like this, is there there?
• 38:21
  Yes, that scene is specific and I'm talking about a completely non sexual thing.
• 38:27
  When I say that, I can tell you specifically if I wanted to
• 38:31
  the name of the girl, that if she had asked me to go to
• 38:36
  commit murder for her. And I'm like, well, I guess that's what
• 38:40
  I'm doing tonight. And fung gents, here we go. Cheers. I'll
• 38:45
  see you dad, got yep, yeah, yeah, no, just give
• 38:50
  me five minutes to make sure that my fingerprints aren't on anything. Okay,
• 38:52
  okay tell me. For some of us, that moment we can relate to
• 38:55
  on a sexual level. For some of us, we can relate on a
• 38:58
  sensual level and for others that can relate onto a domineering level, where like
• 39:04
  like you talked about like we like, as I'm saying these words right now,
• 39:07
  John, as you said those words, people who are listening have that
• 39:12
  name in their head of that person from their path, And she did do
• 39:15
  that like where she's just like, Okay, I'm in the driver's seat,
• 39:19
  you're in the passenger side for a while, but I just halted, the
• 39:22
  brakes kicked out, and I gotta go, and you know, and Finn
• 39:27
  pops up and he said, He's like, WHOA, what's it going on?
• 39:30
  I don't understand. And she's just like, oh, I gotta go.
• 39:34
  I got like a million things to do tomorrow. And it's a complete
• 39:37
  and utter power play. She's messing with a man just because she knows that
• 39:42
  she can. And then we find out later that she left for college the
• 39:45
  next day, didn't even say goodbye. But one thing that was really great
• 39:49
  that I loved about the Finn character is that he didn't get angry, he
• 39:52
  didn't get crazy, he didn't get even lustful. It was just no,
• 39:58
  I want you to stay. It was like plead of I want you to
• 40:00
  stay, not like oh please stay. No, no, no, it
• 40:04
  was I want you to stay, right, which is the right thing,
• 40:07
  because if he hadn't asked her, then it becomes oh, I would have
• 40:12
  stayed if you just asked me. So again she is then still even more
• 40:16
  so choosing to leave. Well, I think it's also very important because it
• 40:21
  makes Finn sympathetic and not pathetic. We're all used to the begging scene.
• 40:29
  He treats, he behaves the way that all of us wish we would have
• 40:32
  in certain key moments in our lives, like an adult where we where we
• 40:38
  together, where we had it together, our emotions didn't get the better of
• 40:42
  us and we didn't dissolve into a puddle of sadness and we just said please.
• 40:47
  I'm just pitching an idea here because you know, it's sort of and
• 40:52
  he had the key here name comes out of that. Yeah, Well,
• 41:00
  he retains his dignity in that scene, and I think that specifically is what
• 41:07
  puts me on his side. That makes him sort of a superman, because
• 41:10
  I'm like, yes, yes, I could have maintained my dignity. I
• 41:15
  didn't, but he did, and so like Superman, I can imagine I'm
• 41:20
  him excellent. So fast forward to where he's in New York. He meets
• 41:27
  Estella again. She looks iconic in that green silk, and then so like
• 41:35
  he's painting her portrait. She just shows up. She strips down naked.
• 41:38
  He doesn't ask her to, she just does it. She's like, this
• 41:42
  is going to be a naked portrait. And he's like, all right,
• 41:44
  okay, let me make sure I got enough stencils and pencils. This is
• 41:49
  why you don't use mechanical pencils because otherwise, oh, we're gonna hear that
• 41:54
  too much. And hold still, I need my t square. And in
• 42:00
  that moment she does it again. She controls the situation. She's like,
• 42:05
  I'm going to strip down. I'm the one who's going to smoke. I'm
• 42:08
  the one who's going to go on your bed. I'm the one who does
• 42:10
  this. And then when she's tired, when she's she doesn't want to do
• 42:14
  it anymore, doesn't say a word, puts on her clothes, walks out,
• 42:17
  and but this time he doesn't say I want you to stay. This
• 42:22
  time he gets indignant. This time he actually does get pissed off, and
• 42:25
  he has the right to, and he runs after her in New York with
• 42:30
  no shoes on. Yeah, yeah, no shoes, Oh my gosh,
• 42:34
  and he hops into the taxicab and just has that conversation of what the frigin
• 42:39
  hell? And Darren, what did you think about that taxicab conversation between Estella
• 42:45
  and Finn where she talks about, you know, her past and how she
• 42:50
  was raised. Yeah, I mean, I think this movie does a really
• 42:53
  good job of showing you things, kind of holding your hand once in a
• 43:00
  while, but never like beating you over the head, like she is spelling
• 43:04
  out what we've all kind of assumed as we've seen you know, the other
• 43:08
  characters, and how she was probably raised. And she's literally like saying,
• 43:14
  and we can, but we but she's not saying so much that we aren't
• 43:17
  connecting the dots on our own, so we don't feel stupid, We don't
• 43:21
  feel like, oh, yeah, obviously, you know you were raised with
• 43:24
  by someone who was left at the altar thirty years ago and they've never like
• 43:29
  obviously they hate men like this is very obvious and obviously that, but she
• 43:35
  had been you know, kind of she had been influenced as she grew to
• 43:40
  be the manipulator, to be the one in control of the one in power,
• 43:45
  and it's it's sad that the story never went so far as her learning
• 43:50
  to really let that go and to be the one who is you know,
• 43:55
  submissive or or part of a partnership. And maybe that what happen in the
• 44:00
  next scene after the end of the movie. We're kind of getting there.
• 44:04
  But yeah, but this scene, I think, like you said, John,
• 44:07
  he has every right to be mad because not only is she giving him
• 44:10
  these signals, but he knows that she's engaged to be married and there's this
• 44:16
  whole other, you know, power play going on, and he's like,
• 44:22
  what where do I even fit in all of this? Or am I just
• 44:27
  and she and he's learning like I am a lever, I'm a lever.
• 44:30
  You are using against your fiance to commit and boy, that feels like crap.
• 44:38
  Yeah it does. It does when you find out you're the other guys,
• 44:44
  that's a terrible feeling. And he understands. What's fascinating to me is
• 44:50
  that that scene where she poses for him, that's the emotional abuse of her
• 44:58
  soon to be fiance. Because when when Walter comes over and sees that,
• 45:02
  that's when he's flabbergasted. He still marries her after they after she cheats on
• 45:08
  him sexually. That's the moment though, where he fears losing her. And
• 45:15
  it's interesting because Walter understands that on an emotional plane, get it, get
• 45:23
  it, hitch in the ribs there, on an emotional plane, that's where
• 45:28
  he's in danger. Sexually, it's almost like a secondary thing where it's like
• 45:31
  sex means very little to Estella. Here this is an artist world. People
• 45:37
  do what like this is nothing, But I'm like, when they have sex,
• 45:42
  there's this sense that, like Walter welcomes her back because it's like,
• 45:46
  you know, sex doesn't really mean anything to Estella. It's just a thing
• 45:50
  to do. Emotionally is where the men in her life want to be with
• 45:55
  her. And so his his hurt is much more pronounced, and we see
• 46:02
  his hurt. We don't see his reaction to her running off with him to
• 46:07
  have the one night stand. We see his reaction to the sketches, and
• 46:14
  that is what hurts him because that's an emotional thing that he cannot, you
• 46:19
  know, unlock. That's the part that hurts him, and it's the same
• 46:22
  part that hurts Finn. Well. You can see that he's trying to be
• 46:25
  professional. He's trying to be evolved. He's trying to be oh, how
• 46:30
  much for this piece. It's like, dude, ye, dude, read
• 46:34
  the writing on the wall exactly. He's trying to be like, Okay,
• 46:37
  well, if I get too crazy, then Estella is just going to leave
• 46:40
  me. But it's an it's he's an artist. It's art. Nudity doesn't
• 46:45
  matter. But you can tell, like John, you hit it on the
• 46:47
  head. You can tell he's dying inside, but he's trying not to show
• 46:52
  it. Yep. And at the same time, Ethan Hawk does a fantastic
• 46:54
  job of why the hell are you here? Right right right? He's like
• 47:00
  oh, and he's like in his towel, He's like, it's like I
• 47:04
  can come back. Honestly, I'm like, dude, just close the door,
• 47:07
  just close it up. Why did you let this guy? You know
• 47:08
  what's on your wall? Why would I mean, I know the script demands
• 47:12
  it, but dear Lord, bad bad choice. No. But see,
• 47:15
  the thing is that's where I think that that that Finn has a little bit.
• 47:20
  Finn falls obviously in a spiritual sense in this movie. He lets Walter
• 47:25
  in, not just because he's off guard, but there's to me the way
• 47:30
  I interpret it, he kind of has the upper hand in this moment.
• 47:35
  He's trying to show Walter, Hey, she's mine, she wants to be
• 47:39
  with me. She gave me a side of her that you'll never get.
• 47:44
  And so what has happened is exactly what Estella has set up, which is
• 47:47
  the two suitors warring with each other. Yeah, giving her a sense of
• 47:53
  value because of the way that I know her name's not havisham He or Dinsmore.
• 48:01
  Dinsmore has prepared her to do. Make the men fight for you because
• 48:07
  that is that is what is good. So they won't leave you at the
• 48:10
  altar because they will won't have committed to be You'll get somebody. Yeah.
• 48:15
  Yeah, And it's it's fascinating as well because of the fact that I think
• 48:21
  that then you get this this echo where Finn pours everything into these portraits.
• 48:27
  He thinks that they have real value because his emotional side of himself is put
• 48:30
  into it. He has a poorly edited scene where he goes up and he's
• 48:35
  he pours his heart out while he's drunk quote unquote his boombox over his head.
• 48:38
  It basically was there. But yeah, basically that scene. Technically,
• 48:45
  I got to ask you about this when I'm done with my rant here.
• 48:47
  But I think that's what makes it even more painful for him to find out
• 48:51
  that Arthur Robert de Niro's character bought all of the paintings. He's not a
• 48:55
  great artist, he just had one really rich friend. Well, he is
• 48:59
  a great ereat artists, but he feels that the value of his art is
• 49:04
  in what he poured out for Estella, and instead what he finds out is
• 49:07
  that it's it's just a gimme. He was going to he could have he
• 49:10
  could have just sneezed on the canvas and DeNiro would have bought it for him,
• 49:16
  and that that hurts him because of the fact that he he finds a
• 49:22
  bomb bought all your you know, your eBay items and you're like, you're
• 49:27
  not rich, your mom just paid you money through eBay. But he he
• 49:30
  runs out. He has this breakdown where he's been supposedly drinking. Ethan Hawk
• 49:34
  doesn't play drunk very well, and he is shouting up and the music swells
• 49:39
  and it's beautiful. Tristan as somebody who nitpicks editing going back again to uh
• 49:45
  gone girl with you didn't like the way the door closed. I think that
• 49:49
  I'm never gonna never, never, for the rest of your life. Mister
• 49:52
  Raddell, will you ever live that scene down? But I can say that
• 49:58
  that scene there, like there's something about at the end of his rant when
• 50:01
  the door buzzes, it's like the music in the scene just suddenly cut short.
• 50:07
  It was almost like, oh, it's swelly, it's what okay he's
• 50:10
  in and like it just the connective tissue fell flat for me. I wonder
• 50:15
  did that Did it fall flat for you in that moment? For you?
• 50:19
  It didn't fall flat for me because I feel like with that moment, like
• 50:22
  when he's screaming, you know, I did it. I did it.
• 50:25
  I'm a wild success now. I saw them all. I saw all my
• 50:29
  paintings. I'm rich, you know, Like can we be happy now?
• 50:34
  Because to me, like you know that in that moment he's screaming, he's
• 50:37
  like, he's like you like, why would you want Walter over me?
• 50:42
  Clearly it has to be money. I'm rich now, why don't you want
• 50:45
  me? And so it's got to be something else. And that's why he's
• 50:50
  drunk, That's why he's mad, that's why he's going insane and then he
• 50:53
  doesn't it. He doesn't expect her to open up the door, and so
• 50:57
  I think when she does, or at least what he thinks is Estella opens
• 51:00
  the door, I think he shocked and he's like, oh, what am
• 51:04
  I going to do now? And so to me, it was it was
• 51:07
  a halt. It was that, it was that moment of because I've been
• 51:12
  in that moment one of my one of my the biggest regrets of my life
• 51:15
  is in that moment where you know, like I'm screaming out into the void
• 51:19
  and I'm thinking I'm about to walk away, but then all of a sudden,
• 51:22
  I have to confront what I just did. And so to me,
• 51:25
  in that moment, that's what he's doing. He's like, oh crap,
• 51:30
  what am I going to do now? And then he's walking up slowly like
• 51:32
  he like the next shot, Lubski gives you a cantied angle. You know,
• 51:37
  it's it's Dutch, and so he's walking up. It's awkward. It's
• 51:42
  not like outside it's dark, it's it's raining, it's it's bleak. Inside
• 51:47
  it's warm and low, and he's walking up and it's revealed that it's Dinsmore
• 51:52
  and not Estella. So to me, it was a huge tonal shift.
• 51:54
  You're not wrong, it's a huge tonne shift, but I think it was
• 51:59
  I got what they were trying to do. I think I might have to
• 52:01
  go back and rewatch it. But in terms of those Dutch angles, there
• 52:07
  are moments in this movie where I think it truly unlocks something special, where
• 52:15
  like the scene we're talking about in specific, where suddenly the camera angles get
• 52:19
  a lot more interesting and it starts communicating visually power and imbalance a lot more
• 52:28
  effectively than it does in certain other scenes. Like there are certain scenes where
• 52:31
  the performances carry it and the camera choices are like kind of like eh.
• 52:36
  But like that earlier seduction scene we're talking about where she goes into his room,
• 52:39
  the camera angle starts to get really interesting there, and the camera angles
• 52:44
  starts to get really interesting where he after he pours his heart out and he's
• 52:47
  going in You see that like the world is topsy turvy, it's gone crazy,
• 52:55
  And that is one of the things that it's not frustrating at all,
• 53:00
  But it is interesting to me because I struggle to think, and I don't
• 53:05
  know, Darren, maybe you agree or disagree, but like there is a
• 53:08
  sense of they can't do that through the entire movie. They have to pick
• 53:14
  and choose. But it feels the way it comes across to me is visually
• 53:22
  in those moments, like it's so it's so different from the rest of it
• 53:25
  that it feels disconnected. It feels almost like they should have spaced it out,
• 53:30
  like there were certain other smaller moments they could have chosen to have some
• 53:35
  more interesting camera angles to sort of even it out. Instead, it's sort
• 53:39
  of like they're they're there, Oh, that's really visually weird. They're they're
• 53:45
  they're oh, that's really visually weird, Whereas it feels like they could have
• 53:49
  spaced it's, you know, spread it out more and had a little more
• 53:52
  interesting I would take it back to the very beginning when he talks about this
• 53:58
  is how I remember it. Those are moments wents of not fuzzy memory,
• 54:01
  but memory of like such intense emotion that it isn't clear. Everything is askewed,
• 54:08
  like if you look at it through that lens of this is a of
• 54:12
  him telling a story. You know, that's the part where he's starting to
• 54:15
  talk fast and and the kind of stream of consciousness. But it isn't like
• 54:20
  we'll never know the full picture of exactly how that moment happened. All we
• 54:25
  have is his memory of that emotion. That's how I kind of view it,
• 54:30
  Okay, I when you started talking about that, I immediately thought of
• 54:35
  Chris Cooper going to the art show when you you know, when you're thinking
• 54:38
  about power imbalance, when you look at the camera angles and the editing,
• 54:44
  that's a beautifully edited scene where you know, Chris Cooper is wearing the dumb
• 54:50
  and dumber, you know, blue tuxedo because that's all that he has,
• 54:55
  and he's coming in he wants, he wants to support Finn's all he wants
• 55:00
  to do. He's not there at a malice, he's not there at a
• 55:04
  boredom. He's there just because he loves Finn. And Finn isn't even his
• 55:08
  but yet he treats him like his own and and it's just and you can
• 55:13
  tell that Finn is embarrassed of him, but Finn doesn't want to be embarrassed
• 55:16
  of him. It's such a perfect balance. And then like the camera you
• 55:21
  know, whips and cuts to the reactions of the characters, and then you
• 55:24
  just keep building and building and building to that moment when Finn screams just like
• 55:29
  forget it, you know, and and the look with Cooper's face. I
• 55:34
  want to say on that moment though, like I get what was meant to
• 55:37
  happen. I get like that that forget it was so much that he was
• 55:42
  like I need to leave. Personally, it didn't do that for me.
• 55:45
  I was kind of staring at the screen being like, yeah, he just
• 55:49
  said forget it, and he said it slightly louder than he did before,
• 55:53
  Like it didn't feel like the I have to leave moment. But that was
• 55:58
  just my interpretation the scene lands it hurts because it still hurts. I just
• 56:04
  I felt like it it because he said forget it, and he had been
• 56:08
  saying that multiple times. I think another word of like, you know,
• 56:14
  just leave or something a little more punching would have delved a little bit better
• 56:20
  for me. Again, just just my thought. Yeah, no, I
• 56:22
  don't dismiss that. I get I get what you're saying, but there is
• 56:29
  I think that what I mean, I think it's brilliant the way that Hawk
• 56:34
  and Cooper play that entire Oh yeah, you know that everything about Joe's appearance
• 56:40
  there is very relatable to those of us who have been in a moment where
• 56:47
  it's like we have a family member, we love them with all of our
• 56:52
  heart, like we would die for them, but it's not the right social
• 56:58
  setting, and we're trying to to sort of like keep that under wraps.
• 57:01
  We're not trying to embarrass them. I think that the worst part of that
• 57:07
  entire scene, and the reason I would leave it with forget it, is
• 57:09
  the way that Ethan Hawk delivers it and the way that Chris Cooper receives it.
• 57:15
  Yeah, encapsulates that entire moment of they suddenly realized that both of them
• 57:21
  suddenly realize. Finn is disappointed with himself in that moment, and Joe is
• 57:27
  disappointed with himself in that moment without realizing, Oh I don't I don't belong
• 57:31
  here, and Finn is disappointed with himself for realizing why am I with these
• 57:37
  people? Like Joe is who I belong with? And it's I. It's
• 57:43
  it that scene and then the scene where Ethan Hawk goes out and it's like,
• 57:47
  oh, it's just work. And Chris Cooper is an actor who will
• 57:52
  never get the appropriate amount of praise that he deserves. He had a brief
• 57:57
  moment in time where people knew who he was adaptation seabiscuit American beauty, but
• 58:05
  he never will get what he deserves. And the scene where his eyes are
• 58:12
  filled with tears and he says to Finn, I'm just gonna go find a
• 58:15
  McDonald's or something. It's okay, Like my heart wants to just absolutely fall
• 58:22
  out of my chest because Joe is so hurt, but he loves Finn so
• 58:28
  much. He's trying to keep from letting Finn feel that hurt. He's like,
• 58:32
  no, no, no, no, no, it's okay, it's
• 58:35
  okay. Like any parent who has a kid who hits teenage years understands that
• 58:43
  moment of oh, I'm right, I'm the weird one. You love me,
• 58:50
  but I don't belong with you and your friends. I'm so sorry.
• 58:54
  I didn't mean to make it awkward for you. I have to leave now.
• 58:59
  I'm so sorry. Like that you to remember because I felt this before,
• 59:04
  like he's had a similar performance before, and I was looking through his
• 59:07
  filmography. I think it gave me October Sky vibes because he plays the dad,
• 59:12
  the coal miner. Never seen it a really really great movie. Jake
• 59:16
  Jillen Hall and you know about rocketry and all that, but but there's a
• 59:22
  moment where his son is like, you know, I don't want to be
• 59:24
  a miner, Like that's your life, Like you're kind of like you settled
• 59:29
  for this and this, like and you just see like this man who's been
• 59:34
  a provider for his family and just kind of that being thrown in his face.
• 59:39
  And you again, he Cooper, he can he could dish out the
• 59:45
  crocodile tears, but the emotion of crocodile tears that comes across and he does
• 59:51
  it again in this movie. So right after, right after this the scene
• 59:55
  is when we get the U the fake Wonner shot where it's actually multiple takes
• 1:00:04
  put together to give the appearance of a one take. And this is the
• 1:00:08
  beginning of of Fonso Korn's obsession with the single take that we're going to see
• 1:00:15
  that we're going to talk about with Children of Men and gravity. Now that
• 1:00:19
  I hadn't noticed about it, there's a specific shot I could think of that
• 1:00:22
  is obviously digitally enhanced of Prisoner of Azkaban that is a Wonner right where they
• 1:00:28
  like go through the clock and it's like yeah, yeah, and there's there's
• 1:00:32
  a lot of those shots in there, and so like this is the beginning.
• 1:00:35
  This is the beginning, And so I really want to talk about this
• 1:00:37
  shot because shots, because like when we go through like when he when Finn
• 1:00:44
  leaves the art gallery and he tries to find Estella, it's all about him
• 1:00:47
  just trying to find a Stella. That's all it is. It's just him
• 1:00:50
  tell you know, he goes through the the you know, the the doors
• 1:00:54
  and of course like that's where a hidden cut is. But he's at the
• 1:00:58
  part, he's at a different party and he's trying to find her. And
• 1:01:00
  I love how he looks at it's all shots of blonde women. Like you
• 1:01:05
  could tell he's looking for her, and you pick that up because it's like
• 1:01:07
  there's a blonde woman, there's a blade, but it's not her. And
• 1:01:09
  that's brilliant shot shot composition, yes, absolutely, And so like the you
• 1:01:16
  see Lubeski, like it has so much energy in that shot because a lot
• 1:01:22
  of it is handheld, which is often the case with a lot of wonners
• 1:01:24
  and and so as you know, like the Doyle's score is just like just
• 1:01:31
  basically reaching out from the screen and slapping you in the face and grabbing your
• 1:01:37
  heart at the same time. And so he's running down the street and he
• 1:01:39
  goes to the restaurant that Walter says that they're going to be at, and
• 1:01:45
  we we see what an awkward, awkward moment where should be as a chair.
• 1:01:52
  I'm like, oh my, what what is going on? But then
• 1:01:57
  like or like a chair or a towel, he's he's trying to be charming.
• 1:02:00
  He's trying to be charming, that's the thing. And he asked the
• 1:02:04
  Stilla to dance in a restaurant where there's no music and nobody else dancing and
• 1:02:07
  it's not his date, and she goes with it, and you can see
• 1:02:13
  the excitement on her face. It's real in that moment for her, Like
• 1:02:17
  I truly believe that in that moment, she thinks she's going to run off
• 1:02:22
  with him permanently. I get that feeling, and then later on reality comes
• 1:02:27
  back, we get the sobering light of morning. Absolutely, But I love
• 1:02:30
  that sex scene dearly. I think it's so beautifully shot. I think everything
• 1:02:36
  about it is beautiful, Like the two people are beautiful, and just the
• 1:02:38
  way that the camera moves and where they fall down the bed together her dark
• 1:02:42
  nail polish, and you know her saying those gorgeous and amazing words that we
• 1:02:49
  all love to hear before it fades to white, and it just I think
• 1:02:54
  in that moment, I truly believe that that's what Estella wants, and that
• 1:02:59
  if Estelle was truly a happy individual, that's what she would have done.
• 1:03:04
  She would have stayed with Finn. But she's not a happy individual. She's
• 1:03:07
  not she's she's she's broken inside. Which is interesting because I don't feel like,
• 1:03:14
  at least what's been presented from Estella is like, I don't feel like
• 1:03:16
  she's not poor, she doesn't like what is she what is she getting out
• 1:03:21
  of this relationship with him? Predictability? But I think that Estella is a
• 1:03:27
  victim, and this is a shortcoming of the film I think is that Estella
• 1:03:31
  is not of all the characters, Estella is not given enough opportunity at sympathy
• 1:03:37
  from the audience. She's never played in a sympathetic light exactly. And Estella
• 1:03:44
  is sympathetic in the sense that she's a victim of Dinsmore. Dinsmore used her
• 1:03:52
  made her a tool for exacting revenge on a person who doesn't exist anymore and
• 1:03:59
  to exact that revenge on people who mean at the beginning, right, she's
• 1:04:06
  exacting her revenge on the world using Estella, And that is the one thing
• 1:04:12
  where I think at the end, yes, Estella is like, oh you
• 1:04:15
  know, oh hey, okay, well join hands and maybe we have a
• 1:04:17
  happy moment, and there's a hopeful note at the end, But Estella never
• 1:04:23
  gets the moment to pour her heart out and say, you know, Dinsmore
• 1:04:29
  screwed me over, She emotionally manipulated me, She mentally just absolutely screwed me
• 1:04:35
  up from childhood. I didn't want to be that way. That's the way
• 1:04:41
  I thought the world should have been. And there's a hint of it in
• 1:04:45
  the scene where she basically quote unquote apologizes, but that's not the right play.
• 1:04:53
  I think I think that she should have apologized, and also not I
• 1:04:59
  don't. I'm not saying I think she should have apologized. I'm thinking that
• 1:05:01
  if you're going to give her that scene, you need to give her more
• 1:05:04
  to say in that moment instead of having it be Finn walks up, Oh
• 1:05:11
  that's your kid happy now? Yeah, sure, like it needs five more
• 1:05:17
  minutes of her to say I've worked through it. I'm divorced now because I
• 1:05:24
  realized that I was a product of my environment. I didn't want to be
• 1:05:29
  that way. It's the only way I knew how to be. She's not
• 1:05:32
  given Arthur's given the scene or the location, like I'm trying to like the
• 1:05:39
  extra five minutes where she goes like says something along the lines of, you
• 1:05:44
  know, at a time I thought I would I would live here forever and
• 1:05:46
  grow up here and have a family, or maybe not a family. It's
• 1:05:49
  too far, but you know, but now, like I just A'm glad
• 1:05:53
  they're tearing it down because you know, what she put into this world needs
• 1:05:59
  to die or something something like that. Right, but but look at the
• 1:06:00
  imbalance. He no, But Arthur is given the moment to say, hey,
• 1:06:08
  I've done terrible things, but at least I helped you. Finn were
• 1:06:12
  sympathetic to through the entire thing. Even Dinsmore gets the moment to put her
• 1:06:16
  heart, put her heart, put her hand on Finn's heart and realize what
• 1:06:21
  she's done, name what she hated, and say basically say, oh gosh,
• 1:06:29
  I'm the bad guy here. Everybody gets that moment, but I don't
• 1:06:33
  think Estella gets the moment she deserves, and that I think is the biggest
• 1:06:40
  shortcoming of the film with both of you. Really you're wrong, but please
• 1:06:45
  tell me why you're wrong. I I think it's a perfect ending. I
• 1:06:50
  do because what you're describing isn't isn't real. Most people don't do that.
• 1:06:56
  Most people don't put in the work. Most people don't you talk for a
• 1:07:00
  long time like you talk. Most people don't do self reflection. Most people
• 1:07:06
  don't understand why they do the bad things that they do. Most people don't
• 1:07:12
  understand, like you know, it's it's it's a it's an oprah ism to
• 1:07:15
  to blame your mother, you know, on everything, Like when you talk
• 1:07:18
  to your therapist, you're like, oh my mom didn't get me Malibu Barbie
• 1:07:21
  when I wanted you know, Ballerino Barbie. You know, like those kinds
• 1:07:27
  of things, like like we have that surface level stuff that becomes the kind
• 1:07:30
  of an inside joke and movies. But Estella is still a stella. Finn
• 1:07:34
  is still Finn and it's dins even though you know you talk about everybody has
• 1:07:40
  that moment where like even Dinsmore has that moment of breaking down. Estella is
• 1:07:45
  that statuesque perfect woman in Finn's eyes, and she is still statuesque and perfect
• 1:07:55
  in Finn's eyes at the end where her being there holding his hand and having
• 1:08:00
  that unspoken moment where she you know, like you know, like where she
• 1:08:04
  looks at him and you know, like I can't remember exactly what she says,
• 1:08:09
  but like you know, I'm struggling to remember exactly what she says.
• 1:08:13
  But she's seeking out his forgiveness, seeking out like can we make it?
• 1:08:17
  And he responds with don't you know me at all? And that is a
• 1:08:21
  perfect encapsulation where no, it's it's where you. It's that, it's that
• 1:08:28
  moment of you're you screwed me over so many times, but I'm in love
• 1:08:33
  with you. I am enraptured by you. No matter what you've done or
• 1:08:38
  do to me, I'm yours. And I think that would have taken away
• 1:08:44
  from Finn's final moment if all of a sudden Estella had this this it would
• 1:08:49
  have been a betrayal of character. If she opened up her heart and talked
• 1:08:55
  about her her lifestyle changes and how she was raised. And that's not her,
• 1:09:00
  that's not that character at all. And I know that we can all
• 1:09:03
  grow and change but not that much, and it would have, in my
• 1:09:08
  opinion, it would have been a betrayal of character to give her that Dinsmore
• 1:09:11
  moment of a breakdown, because Estella doesn't break down. What we saw was
• 1:09:15
  a breakdown in terms of Estella's character. Well, it makes me think probably
• 1:09:23
  because it's Gwyneth Paltrow like what you're kind of describing as Emma, which she
• 1:09:27
  also was in just previous to this movie, right around the same time,
• 1:09:30
  where Emma does have that self reflection at the end and realizes the pain that
• 1:09:35
  she's caused and does become the better person at the end. But you're right,
• 1:09:41
  she Sella does not. She does not get that part of the arc.
• 1:09:45
  I what's interesting to me is Tracey and I respect what you're saying.
• 1:09:51
  I do. I respect what you're saying. But why do you think it
• 1:09:58
  is then that I, I would say that Darren and I seem to fall
• 1:10:01
  into where the majority of critics and audience fell. How do you know that?
• 1:10:08
  Well, because I'm reading Wikipedia as we all, because I know updating
• 1:10:14
  Wikipedia as we Yes, yes, that's more like it. I'm a power
• 1:10:17
  editor on Wikipedia. And let me just visit. Tristan is dumb, But
• 1:10:24
  I, like Roger Ebert said, you know, great Expectations begins as a
• 1:10:29
  great movie but ends only as a good one. And then the audience on
• 1:10:34
  Cinema Score gave the film a B minus on the Revered A plus to F
• 1:10:41
  scale. And we all know that in terms of box office typically anything less
• 1:10:45
  than an A is sort of poison because you didn't reach most of the audience.
• 1:10:49
  So why is it, then, Tristan, that you think this didn't
• 1:10:56
  connect the way that I think you you would have wanted it to. And
• 1:11:00
  I'm not trying to like overlay an expectation to you. You don't even know
• 1:11:04
  what my final rating is. So it doubles its budget, more than doubles
• 1:11:10
  its budget, but the audience gave it a B minus out of an A
• 1:11:15
  plus to F scale. Why do you think this didn't connect with people in
• 1:11:20
  the same way that it seems to have connected to you. Well, it's
• 1:11:24
  it's funny because after I watched it in preparation for this podcast, I what
• 1:11:29
  I always do, almost one hundred percent of the time is I'll go to
• 1:11:33
  a letterbox and try to see what other people have said about it, and
• 1:11:41
  sometimes I get blown away where I'm like, really really like, I like
• 1:11:45
  where I think a movie is garbage, and then I see all these four
• 1:11:48
  and a half in five star ratings and I'm just like, I am absolutely
• 1:11:53
  blown away. And it's It's interesting because this was one of those where I
• 1:12:00
  go on letterbox and I see one star reviews, one and a half star
• 1:12:03
  reviews, and where like people will praise the score and say like, oh,
• 1:12:10
  de Niro was great and Chris Cooper is fantastic. But like, one
• 1:12:15
  common thing that I saw is that like everybody hated Finn's art. Where what
• 1:12:20
  yeah, everybody, every every review I read, I did not like review
• 1:12:25
  art. I'm sorry it did not Like I'm not an art person, but
• 1:12:28
  I'm like, it's okay, still a sign. I'm sorry, I'm You're
• 1:12:33
  totally right. I'm just saying I but that's the part of my heart on
• 1:12:38
  that one. But that's the funny thing is that like so many people are
• 1:12:41
  just like, oh, it looks like a kid drew and everything like that.
• 1:12:43
  I'm just like, do you guys, do people who criticize Finn's art
• 1:12:46
  not realize what the New York art scene really looks like and look like in
• 1:12:50
  the nineties or the seventies or eighties or anything like that. The pregnant belly
• 1:12:54
  boxes cracked me up. It was like, what is going on? That
• 1:12:59
  was a slick, subversive comment right there. I have to give on a
• 1:13:02
  lot of credit for that one. But look at look at the crap that
• 1:13:06
  Bosquiat did or Warhol? Who whoa hold on? Now you're in dangerous territory.
• 1:13:13
  Now you're in dangerous territory. Do not do not be smirched, boss
• 1:13:15
  Yacht. Okay, so I will be spirch Boscocht. Wow, don't you
• 1:13:19
  dare? Don't you dare? Stop on Warhol? Do not be smirched,
• 1:13:25
  Bossiocht. Okay. What I'm saying is like, obviously I'd be a moron
• 1:13:29
  if I if I didn't recognize that what Bosquocht did and the impact that he
• 1:13:32
  had on the New York art scene and on New York culture and everything like
• 1:13:35
  that, is it my personal taste? Not soever? Not what's whatsoever?
• 1:13:40
  Like? But could I make the criticism of it? Looks like a kid
• 1:13:43
  did it? But so did Keindin's gig, you know, like you know
• 1:13:45
  everything like that, but yet or like even Franz Klein, you know,
• 1:13:48
  when you get into like the abstract specialism, you know, and things like
• 1:13:53
  that, Like people are just like, oh, my kid could have done
• 1:13:55
  that. It's like, no, they didn't. And that's the thing that's
• 1:13:57
  that's where I'm coming from, Finn, is that it doesn't need to look
• 1:14:02
  like realism. It doesn't even need to look quote unquote good to you when
• 1:14:08
  you look at the New York art scene, and so that that's what I'm
• 1:14:10
  trying to say. But there's a lot of people who think that. It's
• 1:14:15
  like I see, I see a lot of ratings were just like, oh
• 1:14:18
  what happened here? Like this was garbage, but no one really was giving
• 1:14:21
  me like it's no one's really giving me a solid reasoning as to why they're
• 1:14:29
  it's not connecting with them, and it's I can't speak for other people.
• 1:14:33
  I have no idea why this didn't connect with others. Well, why do
• 1:14:38
  you think quarn considers it end quote a complete failed film, meaning it's a
• 1:14:45
  complete film, but it's not quite what he envisioned. I would I would
• 1:14:49
  argue, and Darren, let me know if you agree with this. To
• 1:14:54
  speak to our point about Estella not really feeling like she got just desserts at
• 1:14:59
  the end. I think this film could have benefited from ten more minutes.
• 1:15:04
  I did feel rushed at the end. Yeah, I get that the climax
• 1:15:09
  is a little too quick, and I don't understand why that's the case.
• 1:15:15
  You're obviously making something that is does it's destined for the festival circuit. This
• 1:15:20
  is not something that's going to make hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah,
• 1:15:25
  it's not gonna make Independence Day money, and it's not gonna make Titanic money.
• 1:15:30
  But it still makes money. It's just not a blockbuster. Do you
• 1:15:35
  think ten more? Like? What is it that that falls short? Darren?
• 1:15:42
  You and I talked about what we saw fell short? Is there anything
• 1:15:45
  else you see falling short? I mean, as much as we were talking
• 1:15:48
  about adding ten minutes, I also like the ending. I love the fact
• 1:15:54
  that there's that bit of hope and then we are left to our own imagination
• 1:15:58
  of what happens next. Do they get back together? Do they just stay
• 1:16:01
  friends? And I think that's as satisfying as an ending as you're going to
• 1:16:06
  get, because whatever you put on paper and in the film is probably not
• 1:16:12
  going to be as satisfying as it's like when movies know not to write the
• 1:16:17
  big speech for the character, but show the moment after, because whatever they
• 1:16:24
  write, unless they're really good, is not going to live up to whatever
• 1:16:29
  we're expecting. Unless you're movies called the King speech, you literally have to
• 1:16:31
  do that. But yeah, so I'm happy with the ending as it were.
• 1:16:39
  I think what I was saying before about, you know, with my
• 1:16:42
  terrible writing prowess of you know, was just in that scene. I think
• 1:16:45
  you could still have her reflect and repent a little bit. But I like
• 1:16:50
  the fact that their relationship going forward is a question mark. We don't know.
• 1:16:56
  We have hopes that through all this love story we've seen, but we
• 1:17:00
  don't know what's going to happen next. All right, this it's been a
• 1:17:04
  long for longest episodes it has. We're at an hour and twenty so Darren,
• 1:17:09
  I want to go to you first. How many shades of green are
• 1:17:12
  you? Are you giving this film? Oh man? Shades of green?
• 1:17:15
  Yes, not gray green. This is a good film. This is uh.
• 1:17:21
  I mean, we've it's not often that a film gets us to talk
• 1:17:26
  for an hour plus about and we showed no shine of stopping at the hour
• 1:17:30
  mark. We were just like here, here we go. Keep on going,
• 1:17:33
  and we had spiritual discussion and you know, justin Guy called wrong a
• 1:17:39
  bunch the normal par for the course, normal normal episode. Yes, but
• 1:17:43
  I don't feel like this is like a classic for me, Like I so
• 1:17:49
  I'm trying. I'm trying to decide if I want to give it a three
• 1:17:53
  or four. It's right in between. For me. It's a good,
• 1:17:57
  solid film. I think it's beautifully may to quote the Holy hand Grenade five
• 1:18:03
  is right out. But you know, I think, Tristan, you won't
• 1:18:08
  get that. But that's okay, You're right, I don't get it.
• 1:18:13
  Yeah, yeah, you know what I compared to like, not that we
• 1:18:20
  always compare to others, but I gave Little Princess a three. Little Princess
• 1:18:26
  A Little Princess was a was a nice story along the middle. Who knows
• 1:18:30
  how the things magically got there, It didn't matter. But with this one,
• 1:18:35
  it's a really well told love story. It takes you on that you
• 1:18:40
  you feel for the characters, you feel what the characters are feeling. It
• 1:18:45
  did have a tinge of an older story, like it feels like something adapted
• 1:18:51
  from Dickens and it maybe that's just the fact that it's nineties, and that
• 1:18:56
  feels like older stories nowadays, because this would not be made like this now
• 1:19:00
  nowadays. There's no way it'd be way way different. I think they'd be
• 1:19:04
  less subtle about things. But so okay, I'm going to give it four
• 1:19:11
  shades of green. All right, John, how many chicken booms are you
• 1:19:16
  giving this film? Now? We all know that I gave you a hard
• 1:19:24
  time about watching this film again, and a lot of that has to do
• 1:19:30
  with my commitment to the bit right. It's true, I'm not as hardhearted
• 1:19:36
  a man as might come across. Sometimes sometimes I'm worse. Sometimes I'm better.
• 1:19:45
  Who knows. But for all of the flaws that I see with this
• 1:19:50
  film, and there are flaws, there are a lot of ways where it
• 1:19:56
  just sort of trips over itself, it stumbles. I think there was some
• 1:20:00
  decisions where it like the scene could have breathed a little more. Like the
• 1:20:03
  scenes that we loved that we really lingered on are the scenes that were allowed
• 1:20:08
  to breathe, and so those are editing successes. The first seduction scene,
• 1:20:15
  like, it really seems, honestly, if anything, this is an uneven
• 1:20:18
  film where it seems like there were certain scenes where Quiron and his editor really
• 1:20:27
  sat down and Quiron was like, this is the scene I really care about,
• 1:20:32
  and this is where I really want to get it right. And there
• 1:20:35
  are other scenes where it feels like they were maybe a little disconnected, and
• 1:20:39
  they said, Okay, let's get to the next big scene that we care
• 1:20:43
  about. And there's even a tinge of nineties marketing about it when he's painting
• 1:20:51
  her where it has the music going and it feels a little music video montage.
• 1:20:59
  Okay, it's a product of its time sort of thing, but it
• 1:21:01
  works against it now, whereas back then it almost feels like Quaron's soul is
• 1:21:09
  not in that moment because he's like, Okay, well we got to market
• 1:21:13
  the song that's going to be sold on the soundtrack. Fair enough. All
• 1:21:17
  of that said, I love Ethan Hawk, I love Chris Cooper. Gwyneth
• 1:21:23
  Paltrow is good enough. I know that seems terrible to say, but I've
• 1:21:28
  never been a particular fan of her as an actress. It's really difficult for
• 1:21:34
  me at moments in this film it feels like Gwyneth Paltrow is reading lines from
• 1:21:41
  a script, whereas Ethan Hawk is embodying a character. Yeah, and it
• 1:21:45
  I think that came out in the taxi scene. Oh it's so difficult.
• 1:21:49
  It's so difficult in those moments because it takes me right out of it,
• 1:21:55
  because I'm like to point to something you mentioned, Tristan, when Ethan Hawks
• 1:21:59
  show up, When Finn shows up and grabs her and they're dancing in the
• 1:22:02
  restaurant, Gwyneth Paltrow seems like she's really there, she's present. Estella exists
• 1:22:10
  in that moment. But then to your point, the taxi caab scene,
• 1:22:14
  she's performing, I'm on pins and needles four. I'm being generous because I
• 1:22:23
  found some certain things, specifically through Chris Cooper and through Denier's performance, that
• 1:22:29
  really unlocked something for me. Chris Cooper's performance specifically made my heart break.
• 1:22:36
  I just I feel it right here. I want, I know, but
• 1:22:41
  like I wanted, it's a strange emotion because I know that humans cry,
• 1:22:47
  but I'm not familiar with it. And that scene where Chris Cooper shows up
• 1:22:53
  and he's broken, I wanted to step through the screen and give him a
• 1:22:57
  hug. And even the scene where de Niro where Arthur is dying, it's
• 1:23:02
  such a poignant scene played by a masterclass actor. Who's sitting there. And
• 1:23:09
  that scene is so important because he says, I've done some terrible things,
• 1:23:14
  but I did a good thing in this life. And it speaks to the
• 1:23:16
  complexity of human beings that human beings can do both terrible and wonderful things in
• 1:23:24
  their life and value the wonderful things and do not dismiss them because they might
• 1:23:30
  have done terrible things. The wonderful things are still wonderful. And Arthur did
• 1:23:34
  something wonderful for Finn, And so yeah, there I am. I'm at
• 1:23:40
  a four. Well, I say, you being you, claiming that you're
• 1:23:45
  being generous. I'm calling bs on that because you talked more than both of
• 1:23:51
  us combined about this movie, and you have been grinning ear to ear and
• 1:23:59
  glowing about this movie. So I'd say to you, this is a minimum
• 1:24:02
  of a four with how you have reacted to this movie and how you have
• 1:24:06
  emotionally connected with this movie. I'm giving it a four and a half.
• 1:24:10
  I want to give it a five. I almost did give it a five,
• 1:24:14
  but it is it is true that there are a few parts where Gwyneth
• 1:24:17
  Paltrow is just performing and she's not she doesn't feel it doesn't feel like she
• 1:24:23
  actually is on the same level of the Futain. I can't believe that's Gwyneth
• 1:24:27
  Paltrow. It's amazing. But also at the same time, I think John
• 1:24:31
  that you're right there. There are moments that this movie's too short and it
• 1:24:34
  needs to breathe. There needs to be a director's cut, there needs to
• 1:24:39
  be an extended cut, there needs to be something that it's those moments briefing.
• 1:24:44
  I think if it did just a little bit more, we'd get that
• 1:24:46
  five star film, at least for me. I love this movie. I
• 1:24:49
  think it's amazing. It's one of my all time favorites, but I cannot
• 1:24:54
  give it a five for that reason. I thank you guys so much for
• 1:24:58
  taking this journey with us. We just hit the ninety minute mark. This
• 1:25:00
  has to be our longest show ever. I think this is our longest show
• 1:25:03
  ever. I'm going to go back and look and again. I am very
• 1:25:10
  much looking forward to the rest of the House of Quorn, and I appreciate
• 1:25:15
  all of you who keep up with us. I know that some of you
• 1:25:17
  do that no matter what we're watching, you watch along with us, and
• 1:25:20
  that means the world to us. So please keep your emails coming, and
• 1:25:25
  please keep your tweets and your Facebook messages coming. Darren, what are we
• 1:25:29
  doing next week? Next week we'll be talking about Harry Potter and the Prisoner
• 1:25:33
  of Azkaban from two thousand and four. Join the Revolution, Join the net Party.