Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / Howard Bryant breaks down One Battle After Another & Highest 2 Lowest | 10.08

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Howard Bryant breaks down One Battle After Another & Highest 2 Lowest | 10.08 · The Right Time with Bomani Jones

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. A wave original.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: My name is Beaumont Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: get this podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: a hater. It is that time of week where we
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: have a guest join us.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: The great Howard Bryant on the mic. What's going on, sir?
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: What's up, Beau? How we doing? We're good, man.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: We gonna try something new here. All right.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: So I think as most people know, I'm not the
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: biggest movie buff, right?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: But I do find that if.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: You give me a movie that I find to be interesting,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I could have some interesting thoughts and kind of want
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: to discuss it, right? On the other hand, Howard Bryant
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: is on the board of directors at the local snooty
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: movie house in his town in Massachusetts. He is that guy.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: He does movies.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: And so I was like, huh.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I am curious how the audience would appreciate a little
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: movie talk. And so what we're going to do is
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about one movie that came out
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: about a month and a half ago. Another one that
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: came out about a week and a half ago. And
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: these were so long and short is I wound up
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: watching high and low because Howard told me to watch
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: high and low. or somebody told me to watch High
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and Low. Either way, I watched it, the Kurosawa film,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: which of course is what Spike adapted Highest to Lowest for.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: And so watched a couple of those.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: And then people kept telling me to watch this one
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: battle after another movie. And one person told me they
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: loved it. One person told me he hated it. And
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Howard told me it was worth watching. And so here
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: we are in the Howard world. One battle after another,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I figure we can start here. Here's where we're going
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: on spoilers. We're going to do our best to avoid them,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: if at all possible, on this one. On the movie
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: that came out in 1963, you're on your own. On
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the movie that came out in August, I'm not that
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: worried about your feelings. On the one that came out
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  Speaker 1: last weekend, baby, I'm going to do my best. I
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: think that all seems.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Fair, right?
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: I think it's fair. I never know when it comes
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: to the spoiler alert. Some people are like, you know,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: two weeks. Some people are hardcore. They're like, hey, If
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: you didn't see it opening week and that's on you,
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: I'm not willing to wait to DVD, but I think two,
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: three weeks is good.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I feel like on something like this, I
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: would like to give people some context who might be like, oh,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I might want to go see this movie. Because I
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: did realize that I think in this day and age,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: like in a way, is.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: The best way to put this.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Something that's interesting about the streaming era that I don't
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: think the youth think much about when it comes to music,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: for example. You used to have to roll the dice,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: spend $ 12, $ 15, and then find out if the shit
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: was banking, right?
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Like now you get to kind of just tap in
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: there or whatever it was, but you really used to
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: have to take a chance. And so I think that
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of people, I think people treat reviews of
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: art the same way they treat reviews on CNET.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Hey, that got a bad review. I won't buy that refrigerator.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Right. Which is not how this stuff is supposed to go.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 1: So I have people say something's really good and say
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: something's really bad. I'm like, oh, I'm a tap in.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And so I did the one battle for another. I
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: am curious your thoughts, because I know you enjoyed it.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: But your top line thoughts after watching.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: Top line is that I saw it twice. The first
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: time I saw it, I saw it the day after
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  Speaker 3: it came out at Amherst Cinema. Yes. In Amherst, Massachusetts,
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: where I am on. I am on the board of
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: directors because I'm a geek, which is why they asked.
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  Speaker 3: And I thought it was the first time I saw it,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: I was like, I need to see this again. But
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was brilliant.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: And then I took my son to see it a
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  Speaker 3: couple of days ago. And he immediately went because he's
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: the music kid. He immediately went to the score. He
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  Speaker 3: was like, this is unbelievable. And then in between, I
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: was on the socials and on the socials. There are
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: people just trashing this movie. There were people praising it,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: that it was the greatest thing they've ever seen. And
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: I think you're right that this, where we are right
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: now in terms of our communication, you just get so
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: much input on everything from everybody, from all kinds of different,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: from different sides. Me, my top line was, I thought
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  Speaker 3: it was just terrific movie making. And I just love,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: I love the approach to movie making that Paul Thomas
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Anderson takes, right? Same with Spike Lee when we get
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: into that. give me an original filmmaker and then I'll
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  Speaker 3: make up my mind with the rest.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So let me run people through my day on this, right?
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  Speaker 1: People kept telling me I need to go see the
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  Speaker 1: Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Like I knew who that was.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I had no idea who this person was, right? So
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: let me run this through.
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  Speaker 1: My man Jay hits me and he says, People kept
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: telling me that I would love this movie and he
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  Speaker 1: didn't tell me what the movie was.
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  Speaker 2: I'm starting with no information.
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  Speaker 1: He says, people kept telling me I would love this
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: movie and I hated the movie. And then I found
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: out why I might've hated the movie. And he sends
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: me a clip from the wiki page that said, did
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the man have four children with Maya Rudolph?
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  Speaker 2: Put a pin in that point.
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  Speaker 1: So the next person comes to me and it's Spencer.
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  Speaker 1: And he was like, you will love this new Paul
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  Speaker 1: Thomas Anderson movie. Again, I don't know what this movie
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  Speaker 1: is because no one has told me the name of it.
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  Speaker 3: Can I stop you right there, Bo? That is a
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  Speaker 3: cinephile move right there.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: People who love movies.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: When you are when you're one of those people. They
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: won't even tell you, have you seen the new Scorsese?
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Have you seen the new Spike? Have you seen the
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  Speaker 3: new PTA? Have you seen the new Paul Thomas Anderson?
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  Speaker 3: They don't say, have you seen highest to lowest? They
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: didn't say, have you seen Killers of the Flower Moon?
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  Speaker 3: They didn't say, have you seen one battle after another?
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  Speaker 3: They said... Did you see the new Paul Thomas Anderson?
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  Speaker 1: So it's funny because I would refer to Highest to
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  Speaker 1: Lowest as the new Spike and Denzel movie, because even
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: if you didn't know the title, perhaps you had seen
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the ads, right? This guy right here, I'm just like, oh,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on here. And then I
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: asked you about it and you said that you thought
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: it was really good.
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  Speaker 2: And so I went and checked it out.
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  Speaker 1: But because people were referring to this man by three names,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: like I was supposed to know who he was. I
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: was like, well, damn, let me go look up his movies.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, he's the guy who did
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Boogie Nights. But also, I had not.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Seen any of those movies, right?
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: There Will Be Blood, Magnolia. Hadn't seen any of those.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I was really broke around then.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Like, the timing of what my money was like depends
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: on stuff. What the women I was dating were into,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: that is going to affect how much I had gone
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to see movies. And keep in mind, I was raised
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  Speaker 1: by a man who believes that movies are tools of propaganda.
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  Speaker 2: Which they are. By the ruling regime. Okay, so we
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  Speaker 2: put all those things together. I had never seen Boogie Nights.
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  Speaker 3: And don't forget that point as we keep talking. Yes,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: that's another one. Put a pin in, right?
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  Speaker 1: So I had never seen Boogie Nights. So I decided
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  Speaker 1: before I go see one battle after another that I should.
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  Speaker 2: See Boogie Nights.
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  Speaker 1: Let me tell you what I don't recommend you guys
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  Speaker 1: do at 9.30 in the morning if you have not
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: seen Boogie Nights. That is not really the way to
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: ease yourself up. into your day. It's not quite like
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: how when I saw the Scarface Tiny Desk first thing
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  Speaker 1: in the morning, which was another bad idea for a
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  Speaker 1: great piece of work.
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  Speaker 2: But anyway, I watch Boogie Nights, I take a break,
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  Speaker 2: and then I go.
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  Speaker 1: To watch One Battle After Another because I'm thinking, oh,
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  Speaker 1: there'll be some through lines, right? I'll be able to,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: since this man is just a name, I need to
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: be able to be like, well, you know, in his
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  Speaker 1: other films, even though I'm only talking about film, right?
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  Speaker 1: Like I was trying to get my bougie up purposes
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  Speaker 1: of this discussion. Now, if you don't know about this movie,
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  Speaker 1: worth noting is the backdrop of it is, I will
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  Speaker 1: say for lack of a better term, the revolution.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly what revolution we're talking about is not the point.
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  Speaker 1: And to be honest, not really spelled out that well
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  Speaker 1: by the movie itself, but it is kind of the
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  Speaker 1: amorphous concept of a revolution, which I think is another
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  Speaker 1: topic of discussion in terms of the effectiveness of the movie.
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  Speaker 1: But it is the idea that Teyana Taylor and Leonardo
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  Speaker 1: DiCaprio and some other people, they part of the revolution.
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  Speaker 1: Teyana Taylor, I don't know, she was dating Leonardo DiCaprio.
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  Speaker 1: She had this thing with Sean Penn. It's kind of
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: hard to explain all of this.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: But basically, she kind of did the revolution dirty and
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: everything kind of goes from there. Right. I found this
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  Speaker 1: movie had as much to do with revolution as Boogie
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Nights had to truly do with the pornography industry, which
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: is to say a pretty cool backdrop around which you
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: can write a script.
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  Speaker 3: Right?
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  Speaker 1: Like, I didn't feel like there was an ethos behind it.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't feel like they were giving a proper representation.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, look, it's a revolution where password.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Is versus from.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: the revolution will not be televised. I mean, right there
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: on the nose, man. Drilled you right on the nose.
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  Speaker 3: But it is a thriller.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: And as a thriller, I would recommend a shorter movie
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: than two hours and 45 minutes, for I ended my
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: day of cinema exhausted by seven o'clock. As a thriller,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I absolutely found it thrilling. Like, that part, I could
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: not divorce myself from.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: But I did, like.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like the idea of the revolution may be
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: a little too important to just make it a reason
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: to have your fun little movie.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I feel like once again, and that's the thing
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: about putting a pin in this, like one of the
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: interesting things about where we are right now and in
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: any point in time, but especially where we are right
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: now is your time period is going to determine what
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: types of movies you're looking at and what themes that
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: are being beamed at you and whether you're thinking about
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Civil War, whether you're thinking about just the 21st century movies,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: whether you're thinking about The Meal, whether you're thinking about
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: Emily the Criminal, whether you're thinking about, there's a lot
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: of these movies which are essentially this combination of 21st
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: century anti-capitalism And then also this Civil War anti-Trump nation
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: falling apart theme. And you can tell that directors and
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: writers are trying to tap into this somewhere. They're trying
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: to say something about it. What I liked about this
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: movie was that it was unlike Civil War, which I
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: thought was timid. And I thought I didn't like it
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: at all because it didn't say It didn't spell out, okay,
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: there's a civil war, but who are the sides? Who's fighting?
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: And what are they fighting about? The movie didn't want
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: to go there. This movie, at the very least, the
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: movie begins with the immigrant detention camps. So you know
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: that this is essentially an anti-immigration, anti-Trump resistance. The way
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: that this country is going, that these are radicals who
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: are going against the momentum of the country. I thought
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: that was enough. That was good. If you're expecting them
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: to go two, three, four steps into the philosophy of revolution,
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: the reason why we're here, the actual reasons why the
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: individuals in the film are doing this, then you'll find
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: it very lacking. In fact, that's one of the things
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: that the Tiana Taylor character really does represent in terms
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: of a great splinter in why people online are trash
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: in the film, because it's like, okay, also when it
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: comes to Paul Thomas Anderson, he does not, with the
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: exception really of Don Cheadle in Boogie Nights, he doesn't
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: have a lot of black characters in his movies. And
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: so this one, now, post-Oscars so white, in the middle
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: of Trump, he's got three black women in the beginning
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: of his movie. And so that in of itself, was
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: going to create a lot of response.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: I think part of it with the Black women is.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine a world where Maya Rudolph watches the
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: movie and then comes back and is like, oh, so
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: that's what you really like, huh? Because I can imagine
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: a scenario where Maya Rudolph watches the movie and comes
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: back and be like, oh, that's what you really want, huh?
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Do you like Black girls? There is a heavy... Yeah, yeah.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: If I say you love black girls.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: But it's a heavy sister girl between the Taylor's character
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and Jungle Pussy. And yes, that is the woman's name.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't come up with this myself. But in the
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: ways in which they could port themselves, it is a
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I think a very, very stereotypical beach portrayal.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Of the women that you may have there.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Highly sexualized, that's right. Highly sexualized.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: And again, you love white boys, don't you?
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I love, you know, all this.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: And it's like, oh!
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: And that's why we.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Put the pin in the had four children with the
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: black woman thing, right?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Like, there's parts in there thrown in where Leonardo DiCaprio
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: talks about not knowing how to do the daughter's hair.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: Like, his black daughter's hair. So....
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: It is clearly on my man's mind, right? These black
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: people are not black people in this movie by accident.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: For whatever reason, they are added as a vessel for
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: whatever the point is that's trying to be made, except
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: for the fact that you get to the end and
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: you don't really feel like a point was actually being made.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a vehicle there. And I think, and to me,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: and that's where a lot of the criticism of the
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: movie is coming from. Like for me, when the movie
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: came out, the first, I have still, not heard anybody
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: say this was a poorly made movie. I hear people
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: say it was trash. I've heard people say they didn't
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: like it. I've heard people say it was awful. But
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: from a technical movie making standpoint, Paul Thomas Anderson, just
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: like Clint Eastwood, just like they know how to make
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: a movie. You may not like the movie, but they
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: know how to make a movie. I mean, that 245
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: went by pretty damn fast for a 245. And so
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: but the anger that I've seen people have toward this
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: film is once again the centering of black people in
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: these films by these white directors. It becomes a very
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: racialized movie. And to me, what I thought, you know, look,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: if you go to a movie, my philosophy is very simple.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: The director is trying to take you on a journey.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: If you are down with the director's journey, you'll probably
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: enjoy the film, whether you love it or not. It's
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: a different story, but you'll probably go along with it.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: If you are not down with the journey from the start,
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: you're probably going to hate the movie. And what this
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: film did, I don't have very high expectations when it
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: comes to white directors in how they're going to portray
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: us anyway. I never have. I mean, it's like, and
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: black people love Tarantino movies. And I look at Tarantino
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: in terms of his writing and his dialogue and the
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: whole thing. And I'm like, he thinks that we all
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: either sound like Samuel L. Jackson or Superfly, right? I mean,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: that's where his whole ethos in there is this sort
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: of blaxploitation thing. And so pretty daring, pretty bold choice
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: from Paul Thomas Anderson to have the three black women
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: in there now. And I thought that, number one, I
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: didn't see the, I could see the stereotype and I
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: didn't like it. I could see the hyper-sexualized black woman.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: I could see the racializing of the sexuality. And it
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: was all, to me, I thought it was very surface.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: I thought that that was, I could see why people
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: would be upset about it. But on the other hand,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: I also felt like there are bad people in movies.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Like I didn't feel like the Tiana Taylor character was
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: inconsistent with her character. Now you might have disagreed with the,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: you know, with the fact that was she a revolutionary?
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: Was she not? I think one of the things about
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: these movies that I really, really sort of liked was,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: and that we don't think about it when you think
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: about historical movements, is how young they all are. Like
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: how young Assata Shakur was. In fact, the fact that
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: the movie came out the week she died, which was
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: not on purpose, was kind of wild. But when you
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: think about MLK and Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Fred Hampton.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: And Fred Hampton and Abby Hoffman. They're so young. And
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: so to me, I always look at these characters as well,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: is that they're also just very young people. And young
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: people just do wild shit, right? And yeah, was it
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: inconsistent to me to see a young person who may
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: be full of ideals, who actually kind of gets off
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: on the violence and gets off on the thrill of
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: the violence? I thought that was completely consistent. I was like,
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: that didn't throw me. But what I really loved about
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: it was then also then comes the reality, right? Of
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: what your movement also is, like when there's a possibility
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: that you may actually kill somebody.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: And then people actually come to kill you. And then
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: maybe you are looking at 40 years in prison. And
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, now the adult reality start to
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: come in. And suddenly the violent, you know, the thrill
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: of it is now colliding with the reality of the
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: choice and also the movement itself. And so I thought
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: that those different themes, I didn't have a problem with that.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: At all.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: So I thought the thing I did find interesting about
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the Taylor character, especially the way she is shot, is
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out how much of that is
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: in sports.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: They call it KYP. You know, your personnel.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: And in this case, I mean, the personnel being the audience,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: because if you're absolutely right.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: They shot her like, you want that, don't you? You
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: want that. There's something wrong.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: With you if you didn't want that the way they
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: shot that.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: If they shot her like they want you to feel
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: like old Lockjaw, the Sean Penn character, felt like how
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: it could possibly be that she could have him on
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: string just as easy as she did. A string, I'm
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: not even positive that she wanted to have him off, right?
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: That is, they shot that in such a way where
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: when I say know your personnel, I'm thinking that the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: personnel in this case is the audience, right?
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Where I find it to a degree to be a
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: bit offensive, the way that.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: It's being shot.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: But this man knows the people that he thinks is
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: watching this movie and has decided that this is the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: way that we are going to... It was like starring
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Teyana Taylor and Teyana Taylor's body. That was the play
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: that they made on that. Now, I want to ask
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you this. This I thought was an interesting question. I
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: felt like in Boogie Nights... And in this one, in
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: building to these climaxes, you got to points where it's like,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: oh man, somebody got caught up in the air and
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: isn't exactly sure how we're going to land this plane. Like,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: you know that scene in Boogie Nights where Don Cheadle
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: pulls up to the donut shop and then everybody gets
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: shot by him? come on, man, the game cheating. Like,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: that's not, this isn't going to happen. He was just like,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I need some way to give this man this money
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and to get him out of this robbery all at
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: one time. And this is the means for it. And
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: now he gets to get out of the pornography game.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I'm like, come on, man, the game cheating.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: He would never make that shot in real life. You
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: know what?
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I can never happen. Well, I felt like so much
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: of the wrap up in the action of this one.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Was like, oh, come on, man. Come on, man.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: You're not even trying.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: Well, and that's the thing. Anybody who's ever tried to
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: land a plane, whether you're writing a magazine story, a
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: newspaper story, or a book, you know, it's like, okay. Um,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: The parachute ain't opened yet. It still hasn't opened yet.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: And in the Boogie Nights scene, the only thing, the
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: false note. Now, I actually, that scene is wild. Don
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Cheadle walks in there with a white suit. There's a bloodbath.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: The only false note in that scene to me wasn't
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: that he survived. Because it was a shooting gallery. It's
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: just luck. He just luck. He just got lucky. The
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: false note in that scene was that whatever in that
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: register was enough for him to start his own business.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: That was the piece. I was like, you didn't get
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: enough money out of this.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Also, how many fucking donuts are they selling?
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: It's 1983.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: How many donuts are they moving?
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: How many donuts? They're moving a lot of donuts. I mean,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: that's a lot of bear claws right there. A lot
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: of eclairs, right? I mean, so that was the piece
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: of it. With this one, I thought that the two things,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: just to get back to one quick point, I thought
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: that the racial elements of it were so, and maybe
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: I'm just on social media way too much. The movie's
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: really not only about black people or black women. You
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: could make an argument. It's not really about that at all.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's, you know, there's Benicio Del Toro steals
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: the show.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, he's phenomenal.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think in terms of the idea of revolution,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: it is much more in line with the immigration crisis.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: With immigration, exactly. And that's not getting talked about as much,
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: probably because of my social media algorithm, right? I mean,
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: it's like, okay, how is this being beamed to me
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: and who's doing the talking and where am I getting
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: my information from? But I thought that, once again, I
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: thought the Regina Hall character was completely consistent. I thought
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: she was great. I thought she was great because she
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: was the only person in that film between her and
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: the billy goat. And I think those two characters were
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: the only two characters in the film that you could
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: see were actually committed to a philosophy. Like they were
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: committed to, we need to overthrow this system philosophically. But
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: I do love the fact that you know, that there's
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: one scene, you know, later in the movie where one
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: of the revolutionaries goes, you know, I've been tired of
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: this shit for a long time, right? Where you're also
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: recognizing after 15, 16, 20 years, are we making a dent?
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: It reminds me of the scene, the Kurt Russell scene
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: in Tombstone where he's talking about, you know, when I
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: was in Dodge City, I only shot one man and,
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: you know, didn't even make a dent, did I? I
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: really loved that piece of it because now you are reflecting,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: What was all this for? Right.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: And then it does come back. And one of the
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: things that Paul Thomas Anderson does very well, I mean,
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Boogie Nights is not a movie about the porn industry.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: Boogie Nights is a story about family.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: Boogie Nights is a story about being an outcast. And
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: once you are an outcast, can you ever get back in?
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: And if you look at every single character in Boogie Nights,
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: each one of them that tries to go straight gets thwarted.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: They can't. You are a pornographer, right? I'm an actor, right?
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's what this is about. And in this movie,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: in One Battle After Another, I thought people sort of got,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: they got, I think people got so caught up on
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: the hyper-sexualized black women and they got so caught up on,
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: you know, what Leo DiCaprio is in this sort of
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: stage in his career. If you take this and you
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: take Killers of the Flower Moon, where he's sort of this,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: you know, aging, bumbling, you know, he's not the cute
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: little kid in Titanic anymore, right? I thought that a
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: lot of this really was also sort of reflecting about
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: movements themselves about when you get involved in something, are
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: you actually making a dent? He's checked out.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, the decision to sort of turn this into
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: your earlier point about camp, how much satire did it deserve?
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: How much of a comedy should it have been? All
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: director's choices. And you either ride with those choices or
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: you don't.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Now, I do think, though, where it is fair to
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: say there is cowardly filmmaking at play to me is
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the white villains are so two-dimensional yeah right like there
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: is no there's for example there's nothing normal about the
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: sean penn character yeah he's the terminator right right right
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: there's like this there's there's there's nothing even him pulling
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: up at our house with the flowers is just weird
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Once you ultimately get to it and realize it, you're like,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, there was no relationship here.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: This is just insanity.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: And transactional on both sides.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Right, right. Like, oh, no, no, no. This is nuts.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: But every white person that's in that movie is cartoon bad.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Like the idea of the right wing secret society, for example,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: goes far.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: And then they.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: The steps at which they take to do a bunch
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: of stuff.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: All of it, right?
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: The idea then we bring in a right-wing militia and
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: all these other things. And then the way that the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: scripts gets tidied up at various points is just like,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: oh damn, we got to get out of here, right? Like,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: hey man, I know what it looks like when you're
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: writing on deadline, baby. Like you had just mentioned that before. Like,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: hey man, all right, so we just got to wrap it.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: It's just got to be finished.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Exactly. And that's what I mean about the ride the
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: director has taken you on, right? If you, and obviously
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: once again, right? I mean- The revolution will not be televised.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: You can hear it in the background in one of
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: the scenes, right? You can hear Gil Scott Heron in
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: the background. You know, Leo DiCaprio is lighting a joint
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: watching the Battle of Algiers, you know? I mean, so
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: it's like, okay, we, you know, frying pan hit in
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: the face. We get it, right? We get that point.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: And so 100%, if you're, it's one of those types
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: of films where they're riding a very fine line between
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: are we going to do something serious or is this
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: just camp? Are we taking a serious subject during a
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: very serious time in the country right now? And are
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: we simply sort of having Hollywood whimsy with it? And
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: I think that's one of the really interesting things in
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: terms of the reaction to the movie is that people
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: are so thirsty for something that says anything that they're
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: in some ways misrepresenting this movie as to be more
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: than what it is.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: And I think that leads to backlash.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Because in the end, I realize I expect, for whatever reason,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I expect more from music than I expect from movies.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I expect movies to be candy. And if you give
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: me something that I can really sink into, then fantastic.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: But I only get mad if you try to act
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: like it's more than it is.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: And in this case, I.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Thought it was a cool movie.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And that's what it was. And I think
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: that the more times you see it, and the more,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: not that you're going to see it multiple times, but
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: the more time that gets back the more space we
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: get from the movie, that it's going to reduce itself
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: and be just a movie. It's not a documentary. It's
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: not a revolutionary statement. It's funny, right? There are different movies.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: They went for the funny. And one of the things
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: that Paul Thomas Anderson does a very, very good job of,
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: whether you're watching the Alfred Molina scene in Boogie Nights
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: or whether you're watching Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood,
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: or even Phantom Thread to a Lesser, it's a much
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: more muted film. But there's frenzy in it. And in
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: that frenzy, there's comedy, and he went for the comedy.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: So I think once again, being able to look at
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: the film for what it is instead of what you
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: needed it to be, they're two different things. And I
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: think that One of the things that my sister and
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: I always sort of battle on is that I've always said,
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: and especially in today's, where we are the last 15 years,
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: I don't need necessarily Black people to be front and
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: center in all these films. I really don't. I never have.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: I just need more people to look like me and
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: then to see people look like me on screen. That's
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: a big deal. But to me, it's a bigger deal
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: because I want to see Black people working. you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: these are big jobs. It's $ 140 million budget. You know,
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: if you're Tiana Taylor, you get a chance to be,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: you know, to be a star. You get more work
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: from this. But in terms of needing them to portray
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: us in a certain way, we're never going to get
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: portrayed the way that we want to be seen. We
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: have been watching, you know, white Hollywood do white Hollywood
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: things our whole lives. So I've never felt like, oh,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: I really, really need, because then what if you take
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: me you know, and, you know, and butterfly McQueen me,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: you know, what if you take me and turn me
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: into a caricature every single time? Or like, you know,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: when you look at, you know, the hypersexual nature of the,
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: of the characters, and by the way, she's the only one,
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: I know her and the jungle pussy character in the bank, but,
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: you know, do I trust you to represent me or
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: would I rather have me represent me in terms of
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: who gets to make these films?
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: All right, coming up next, we're going to talk about
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: this Spike Lee movie, but also really, it's Kurosawa or
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: something else. Coming up next.
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• 30:48
  Speaker 1: If you're a fan of this show, you've probably heard
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  Speaker 1: on with Howard Bryant. And okay, so Highest to Lowest
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: came out in August. Spike Lee, Denzel Washington. ASAP Rocky.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: And I was recommended, I believe it was, I can't
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: remember if you told me to watch it. I know
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: you told me to check the Spike one too.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: But no, you had mentioned the Kurosawa one that you
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: had watched it.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: It said, sitting at the house, I'm like, okay, I'll
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: put it on max and I will watch High and Low, right?
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: And the distinction in the titles is important in this one.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Because in High and Low, everything fits into this theme
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: of High and Low, but without being, it never felt heavy-handed.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: me even though it was very clear what was going
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: on but plot of the movie is very simple and
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: we're not really messing nothing up by telling you this
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: it is a rich uh japanese businessman who has just
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: taken out a bunch of money in loans to try
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: to do a leverage buyout of the company that he
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: works for and then he believes his son has been
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: kidnapped and so now he has to come up with
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the ransom to get this child back but he has
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: the ransom to get this child back if he spends the.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Money on the ransom to get the child back, he
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: will lose everything he owns.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: And he also finds out it's not his child.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: He also finds out it's not his child.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: So what do you do? You have to do it.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: He makes the trade and then everything goes from there. Now,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: what is interesting is that where high and low is
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: a police procedural as much as anything else, that is
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: not at all the case. Highest to lowest is about
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: getting to the bottom of it, but the cops don't
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: play nearly the same role in that as they do
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: in high and low. But high and low, also in
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: part of the metaphor is this man lives in a
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: house that's up on high. And keep in mind, this
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: is Japan. Fewer than 20 years after the end of
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: World War II. And it's overlooking a slum, which is
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: a very important detail. And there are other places where
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: this idea, like the cops are searching high and low
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: for the child, for example. And there's some other ones
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: that are a bit more plot specific. But it is
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: a staggering statement on capitalism in a bunch of different ways.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: And it is expressly clear to be that.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Spike Lee made Highest to Lowest, which takes the same theme,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: except it's Denzel Washington as the guy in charge of
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: a record company who is trying to do a leverage
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: buyout to get his record company back. And then a
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: similar thing happens. He thinks his son has been kidnapped,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: but his son hasn't really been kidnapped. And then we
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: go from there. There are some major changes that were
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: made between the two movies that I find to be
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: somewhat indefensible, right? It's in some ways, my buddy Jason,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: I talk about Jason Englund, he wrote something for Defector
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: about the changes that Corey Jefferson made from Erasure by
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Percival Everett in order to make American fiction. And some
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: of those changes, once you make those changes, you're turning
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: this into something completely different.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: You're making a different film.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: And so I know that you have said that Spike
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: has said that he reimagined High and Low, but one
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: could argue he deimagined.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: High and Low.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Because High and Low was a fairly entertaining movie with
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: all the Spike Lee hallmarks, by the way.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Put a pin in that point.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: But, man, High and Low is throwing fastball after fastball
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: after fastball.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a beast. And in 1963, I think that
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: the thing about, and that's the other thing too, right?
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: How much Kurosawa do you know? I only knew Kurosawa
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: from the Samurai Kurosawa. This was the first Kurosawa that
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: I'd seen that wasn't Seven Samurai or Rashomon or Yojimbo, right?
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: And I ended up going down the Kurosawa non-Samurai rabbit hole.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: I watched Ikuru and Stray Dog and whoa, this man,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, no wonder, right? It's like, oh, and I
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: think one of the reasons why it's important to watch
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: some of these films is is that you can see
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: where today's directors are getting a lot of their stuff, right?
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: It's foundational. And I thought that when I saw Highest
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: to Lowest, I thought the biggest thing in that film,
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: you know, you could definitely see the different metaphors. But
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: you also know that Japan in 1963, and Japan now
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: is a homogeneous society. In 1963, clearly there was a
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: trust in society that, does not exist in the United
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: States and certainly doesn't exist now. You know damn well
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: that in 2025, there was no possible way that Spike
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: Lee was going to do a police procedural and have
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: the police essentially solve the crime. That was not happening.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: So now what do you do, you know, in terms
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: of that landing the plane thing? Who's going to land
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: the plane? It's going to be 70-year-old Denzel Washington running
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: the streets like he's, you know... You know, like he's
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: McCall in The Equalizer. And so that piece of it
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: sort of, once again, changes the shift. It shifts the film.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: And also I thought that the choice that in High
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: and Low, the kidnappers kidnap little kids. Those are grade
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: school kids. They're what, nine years old, nine or 10
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: years old. In this one, they kidnap teenagers, which may
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: have just been a way to get you know, to
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: get Rod Strickland and Rick Fox in a basketball game, right?
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: To get them in the movie, right? But that changed
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: everything because I think you have somewhat less sympathy for
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: the teenagers because they're more grown. So it's not as tense.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: But I also felt like Spike, I was surprised that
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: in the 21st century, the land of billionaires, where even
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: the Milwaukee Bucks are worth $ 4 billion, right? That Kurosawa
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: hit capitalism harder than Spike did. And my theory on that,
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: and I don't have necessarily a problem with it because
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: I get it. It reminded me a little bit of
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Jordan Peele in Get Out. Like, are we really going
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: to get kicked in the gut at the end of
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: this movie? Are we going to make it comedy, right?
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: I don't know if Spike really wanted to go after
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: Black capitalism. As hard as Kurosawa went after capitalism. And
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: it was surprising because the thing about high and low,
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: the other high and low metaphor was that he was
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: high and then he was low.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: Mr.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: Gondo, he lost everything.
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: But the thing is, Spike is rich, right?
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: Spike's like, hey, man, the.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Rich people ain't all that bad, right.
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: Right, right?
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: It also becomes interesting because.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Your kidnapping movie now has to be so much more
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: sophisticated plot-wise. Because one thing that stood out to me
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: in watching Kurosawa was, wow, it was a lot easier
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: to get away with a kidnapping.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: Than it used to be, right? Well, no technology.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you see the people go pick up the
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: buddy off of the ground and everything.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: And then run away. Yeah, yeah.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: You see all the things and they still try to
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: figure it out. I thought another important change that was
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: made that I think made the movie less compelling was
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: there was a clear hierarchical relationship between Mr. Gondo and
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: the chauffeur in High and Low, where the chauffeur in
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Highest to Lowest is his mans from the block. And
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: it changes the calculus completely on the decision of whether
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: or not you spend the money.
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: And which he still didn't want to. I mean, I
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: took my boy to see that movie. We walked out
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: of there and as I was telling you- last week,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: it was the first movie, he's 21 now, and it's
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: the first movie where he's starting to get into, you know,
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: because we watch Marvel movies and we watch little kid
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: movies and now he's grown. And it's the first movie
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: where he's realizing that your protagonist may not be a hero.
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: And he walked out of that and he's like, I
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: don't know. I don't think I like Denzel in this movie.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: I don't know if Denzel's heroic. I said, he's not.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: He's not heroic. There are layers to this character. And
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: I think that, like, once again, we talk about courageous filmmakers.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: I still like Tyus to Lois because Spike Lee is
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: a brilliant filmmaker. Despite the holes in the film, sure,
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: people hate the way Spike, you know, his portrayal of women,
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: the way he writes female characters. I mean, there are
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: so many things about Spike, but you know what you're
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: getting when you're getting Spike and you're going to get touches.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: I thought that the The kidnapping chase scene was classic
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: Spike brilliance. I thought that, you know, you know, you're
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: going to get the Spike Lee dolly shot. Spike Lee's
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: not Spike Lee if I don't get a dolly shot. Right.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: And I felt like I thought that, you know, what
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: Spike was also doing was that Spike. The thing about
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Spike Lee films is that Spike makes movies in a
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: lot of ways as though I got one shot. I
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: got one shot to say all the things I want
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: to say. So he crams everything. He makes gumbo. You
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: know what I mean? He puts all the ingredients in
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: the movie. This is an anti-Trump movie. This is an
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: anti-Trump vision movie. I'm living in a time where this
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: is your vision of America, where whiteness is your vision
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: of America. And Spike is in New York at the
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: Puerto Rican Day Parade. That is his response to this.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: It's his response to where we are right now as
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: a culture. And so you're trying to juggle all these things.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: And you still have this plot, this movie that you
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: also still, you still have to follow. Um, and I
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: thought that where Spike decided to go with his highest
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: to lowest metaphor was really in the relationship between Denzel
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: and Jeffrey Wright, that Spike, that Denzel had respectable black
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: rich money and Jeffrey Wright's the ex-con. So the treatment,
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: the way he gets treated by the, the way Jeffrey
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: Wright gets treated by the police, the way I think
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: that was Spike Spike went his high and low there,
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: whereas Kurosawa went high and low in terms of just
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: raw capitalism. Yeah, and.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Kurosawa did this in like eight different ways.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: It was a much more extended metaphor and gets all
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: the way to, and look, I really recommend, all the
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Kurosawa movies are on Max if you have Max.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: It is worth seeing high and low if only.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: For Dope Alley. That's right.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Dope Alley is at the end of the film and
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I was just like, ah, look at him end of
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: the movie with a dollop of anti-blackness.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: But it is very intriguing anti-blackness.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: Anti-Americanism. Anti-modernism.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: That's the thing.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: It's actually really more anti-American is probably fair, but it
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: involved a dollop of the black.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: And them Japanese ladies had beehives.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Like, that's where I was just like, oh, I mean,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: they had black woman hairdos.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: Like, it was very much so.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: I see what you're saying. I see you. And modernity
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: is coming. And I think it's important to remember, once again,
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: you have to have, if you don't have institutional memory,
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: and none of us do because we only live for
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: a certain period of time on this earth. So you
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: have institutional memory for your moment on earth, right? I
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: wasn't alive in 1963, but imagine what Japan was like
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: from 1945 on, knowing that you were being occupied by
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: the United States. So yeah, we get Shohei Ohtani, we
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: get Japanese baseball. You had American influence all over that
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: country coming out of the war, and it was ruthless
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: in a lot of ways because they were the defeated foe.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: And so when you're looking at a director like Kurosawa,
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: look at the different ways that he is depicting what
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: that must have felt like, having Americanism in your very
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: isolated Japanese culture. And then to throw the jazz music
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: in there and to throw the GIs in there and
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: to really zoom in on the black faces interacting with
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: the Japanese women, even though we know that the majority
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: of that relationship was white Asian, white Japanese interracial. He
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: was saying something. He was saying something about the culture.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: And what he was saying, though, was not really that
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: different in some ways. to what black people in the
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: 20s and 30s were saying about ourselves when it came
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: to jazz and the influence of the music and what
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: it was doing to the culture. But this was much
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: more raw, especially when you add heroin to it. There
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: was a lot there, boy.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: They brought all the worst of the jazz into it.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: They treated jazz.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Like playmakers treated the NFL when it came on, right?
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: The jazz was jamming too.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: I do want to throw that part out there.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: I will also say this.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Somehow, I had never considered that there was a time
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: when Japan looked like Pittsburgh.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the first movie. And that includes Godzilla,
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: the 1954 Godzilla, and even Godzilla Minus One, which is brilliant.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: It's the first movie where Japan does not look pristine.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: where you're looking at post-war Japan and that place is
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: wrecked and the people are wrecked and they don't have
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: jobs and you're like, oh, the only thing I ever
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: heard about Japan was that it was so clean you
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: could eat off the streets. That place looks awful and
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: the people look awful and they look beaten and they
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: look hopeless and there's not a whole lot going on.
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: And in a lot of ways, that backdrop in of
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: itself explains why high and low work so well, because
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: of course, Mr. Gondo's a target. He's got air conditioning.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: You know, Mr.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: Rich Guy, right? And that's, Kurosawa does a phenomenal job
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: in that because everybody else is walking around with fans
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: and towels, dabbing themselves. It must've been hot. And here's
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: this man up there in his nice, cool air conditioned
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: house up on the hill. And people hate you for that.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: They hate you for that. To the point where, am
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: I willing to kill because I hate you?
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: Maybe.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: And I thought that in highest to lowest, that was
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: a very interesting relationship because they're trying to create that
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: same resentment with A $ AP Rocky toward Denzel. And some
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: of it I thought was believable and some of it
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: I wasn't quite sure because it was so personal. Because
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: they made the decision to have Denzel solve his own crime.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: So that really personalized the relationship between those two. Whereas
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: in High and Low, the kidnapper, the villain in the movie,
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: really saw Mr. Gondo, saw the rich guy as more
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: of a metaphor. He didn't know him.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: These guys- He just synced them. He just synced. And
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: that's all he needed to see. All he needed to
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: see was that you got something I don't have.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: And I hate you for it.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Whereas High is the lowest- He just wanted a record deal.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: And I will be honest with you, man, in this
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: day and age, if you can't get it yourself, I
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: feel like it's your fault. It was a little more difficult. Also,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: ASAP Rocky did an okay job, but the kidnapper at
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: high and low, man, where he changed the whole ending
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: just because the dude had gone so hard and had
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: sold the idea so strong in the end.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: And if you came here thinking that I'm sorry, I'm not.
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: You know, I mean, and that's what I mean about,
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: and it really does also go back, you know, to
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: switch gears a tiny bit. It also goes back to
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: one battle after another, where as a moviegoer, you have
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: to ask yourself, what questions do I need answered? What
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: questions do I need answered for myself? What questions do
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: I need the director to answer for me? And what
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: questions do I want to just let my imagination answer?
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: For example, right? What happens to those revolutionaries? I asked
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: my son this. Do you think they went to prison
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: or did they just get offed?
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: What happened to the Billy goat? Is he in rotten
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: in some jail right now? Or did they just end him?
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, like the scene where, you know, like, you know, sorry,
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: spoiler alert, you know, jungle pussy. Oh, no more pussy.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's like. So do you need those questions
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: answered for you? Or do you want your imagination to
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: do the talking for you?
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Well, hold on.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: The question that I need answered is, how did Jungle
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Pussy know that important piece of information?
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Do you need to know that? Exactly. Or maybe they just,
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: you know, they were talking one day in the van.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, do you need to know that?
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: Is it something that is germane? And I think that
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: the one thing I do also want to get out, too,
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: was I thought that the score in one battle after
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: another was brilliant. The music that carried that from the
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: highway chase scene at the end was brilliant, but also
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: the very Thelonious Monk-flavored.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was all off-timing keys.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: It was great. And I was like, and that just
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: kept you going in of itself. And the one thing
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: that Paul Thomas Anderson does a really good job of
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: is chaos, you know. And I think that when you
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: look at the juxtaposition of the labyrinthine way that these movements,
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: not movements themselves, but the way these sort of underground networks,
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: look at all the different mazes that the white supremacists
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: have underneath these houses and stuff to get to these
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: secret locations. And then, of course, look at the different
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: mazes that Benicio Del Toro has to sort of get
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: the migrants to safety. It's all this sort of underground
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: sort of under the surface thing that's taken place. I
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: thought the choreography on the rooftop and the skateboarders were great.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: It was all. And of course, also the message there too,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: is if you're going to be like revolutionary, it's, it's
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: good to be young. So you can jump rooftops. Right.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: But I thought that all of that just made for really, really,
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: really good movie making. But to your also point, your
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: point also about landing the plane is, Now you've got
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: the Native American bounty hunter has to make a choice
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: that may not have been completely consistent with his life choices.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: And so it did make you wonder, all right, why
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: did you do what you did? And so once again- Yeah,
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: so that gets to plot hole territory.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: And that's when you were talking about the filmmaking piece about, okay,
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: the parachute hasn't opened yet.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like that part gets to where it's like, oh,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's fair to ask if this is a mistake.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Another device that I noticed in Boogie Nights that he
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: seemed to employ at the end here, and I don't
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: know if it's the rest of his, but one way
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: for landing the plane is to have events happen in
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: geographic proximity. so that you can have a car leave
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: one event and drive you past where the next event
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: is going. And in Boogie Nights, in terms of the
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: way it was shot, Boogie Nights had a lot more
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: long shots that start you here with these people, and
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: then the one person walks, and then it leads you.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: Kurosawa did a lot of this in High and Low also.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: That then leads you over to the next place, and
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: you could be on the same shot for 10 or
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: 15 minutes.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a Pulp Fiction Tarantino touch.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, another movie I haven't seen, don't tell nobody.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: That is taking people from place to place.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: And he does this with the ending of one battle
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: after another, which leads to a lot of highly implausible things.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: I don't understand how this all played out in the
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: way it did, other than they told you this movie
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: can't be longer than two hours and 45 minutes, so
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: you need to figure out how to wrap this shit up.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: Well, and that is the question. Once again, what is
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: the number one thing that you have to decide when
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: you watch a movie? How much suspension of disbelief am
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: I willing to put up with?
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Yes. Right.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, you can't watch a superhero movie without suspension
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: of disbelief. It's all suspension of disbelief. And so some
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: of this is like there is no way when you're
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: watching this that those events could take place in the
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: time that they did in time for them to happen
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: as they did. But they happened because he was making
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: a movie. And so, and so some of that.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: That's his explanation for everything. It's a goddamn movie.
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: Exactly. It's just a movie, right? So, but I really,
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: like I said, I think there's also another piece of
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: this very, very quickly that I think is interesting. And
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: that is our reaction to it because of how we're
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: receiving information. The way that people shit on that movie
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: stunned me. But, This is where we are right now, right?
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: In terms of like, for me, when I go to
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: watch a movie, I don't want any reviews. I just
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: want to see it. I don't want to know anything
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: about it. I will watch a trailer to decide if
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go see it. But after that, I'll
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: read the New Yorker and the New York Times and
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: the Letterboxd reviews. I'll read all that stuff afterward. But
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: this movie, because I think it hit during this cultural
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: moment and also because we've got so much noise on
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: the socials, you couldn't escape it. people were talking about
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: this and I just felt like, you know, I got it.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: I understood why there were some of the characters were
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: considered to be problematic, but I also thought it was
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: a very, very good movie.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, that is Howard Bryan. Check him out
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: at a movie theater near you. Wow, that almost sounded creepy,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: but you know what I'm saying?
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: He likes movies, that's all. I appreciate you, brother.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Hey, man, thank you. And you know what? I think
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: maybe it would be a good idea to see Pulp Fiction.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: I knew you were going to say that. I thought
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: about keeping that to myself.
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: And I'm not even a Tarantino guy.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'll watch it sometime this week, but I knew
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: that he was going to.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'll watch it by the time these people get in.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: You haven't seen Pulp Fiction?
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: No, I haven't.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: I just told you I hadn't seen the goddamn movie.
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: All right. And by the way, last thing, Bo, when
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: people say shit like that, that's part of the reason
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: I haven't seen it.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Don't tell me what I need to go see. I'll
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: see it when I feel like seeing it. It comes
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: up when it comes up. That's all I'm saying. Ladies
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: The Right Time. Really, let us know what you thought
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: about this. This is something I'm trying to do. If
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work, but I'm
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: asking you for your feedback. I am making myself vulnerable
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: to you. I care what you think.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: Man, if your audience don't like movies, come on.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Hey, look, man, they might not want to hear me
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: talk about it is all I'm saying. I have to
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: humble myself in that regard. Maybe they just need to
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: do it without me.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: But Ryan Brumley handles everything behind the scenes.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: Thank you, sir. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: a hater. And we'll talk to you guys in a
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: couple of days.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: Take it easy.