Latest / Everyone's A Critic / The Good German w/ Connor Ratliff

Transcript

The Good German w/ Connor Ratliff · Everyone's A Critic

• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: I guess today helped the door to talk show and podcast dead eye on a rat list.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, thank you for having me.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for being here.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yes, how are you doing at the moment?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: Doing okay, holding up, you know, staying safe.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: What what have you been up to lately, other than obvious stuff?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I've mostly just been staying inside and only going out for uh so I've been working on a lot of anything that I can do remotely.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've been working on my podcast and and uh putting myself putting myself on tape, auditioning for things that I may or may not agree to do if I'm because it's all everything comes with a caveat now where it's like, well this will be filming in New Orleans and you'll have to you'll have to fly there three days from now.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And okay, well I'll we'll we'll get to that if you like me.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll revisit everything feels like it's a negotiation because it also could shut down any at any point, you know.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Any of these any of these productions are just one infection away from uh shutting down, you know.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: How's the um the George Lucas uh thing going at the moment?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, uh that's been going pretty good.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh I did this show called the George Lucas Talk Show at the UCB Theater in New York for six years.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we did it it was once a month.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was a midnight show, usually go about an hour.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when the pandemic hit, we started doing these things as a live stream on planetscum.live, and within a very short amount of time, we had surpassed the number of hours that we had done in six years.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because you were doing like 12 hour streams at one point, weren't you?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've done some stream.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: We did our first stream was 31 hours long, and that was for charity.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: But now we when we do a short show, most of our shows we call them the we do like longer streams whenever we're doing a fundraiser for charity.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: We've raised, I think,$130,000 for charity so far this year for various causes.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the those shows will go long, but when we do a short show, our format is what I call the Irishman Plus.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um we always strive to to have our show last at least one minute longer than Martin Scorsese's The Irishman.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we usually go about four hours, but once we hit the the three hours and I think 29-minute mark or whatever, uh we always celebrate having defeated the Irishman uh for our short show.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't think I think whenever whatever form the show takes after the pandemic is over, uh I think it will probably not be as long a show because right now it's sort of it's long because people have nowhere to go and nothing to do.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it's sort of uh I think there's an audience for that while people are feeling cooped up and and um so we we've adapted the the show to those needs.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like that that makes sense because like all everyone's just purely like all my stuff's gone online now as well.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like it's what happens, it's the only way to do anything at the at the moment.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: So other than just like unless you want to be a solo show somewhere.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's not weird.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there are plenty plenty of people from from the from the looks of it, there are plenty of people who are just doing what they always did, but those people are uh you know, all at some point tend to get infected or and or spread the virus to someone else.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we're trying to keep it safe.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: And and you're raising a lot of money while doing it for your channel.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't feel it at first I thought it would be pointless to do it as a live stream show, and then once we realized we could help some people out, we thought, well, even if this show is ridiculous, it's uh it's justified its existence uh one way or the other.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I noticed you're growing out your beard as well.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Is that is that just uh is that part of the show, or is it is it something that you're like uh just doing for?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It actually it actually cuts against the show because George Lucas himself has never grown a beard this big.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, that's true.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I originally I was just doing it because it felt I've read our I read an article that said that the reason people are growing out COVID beards is just to exercise some measure of control over something.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna grow my beard how long I want.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just sort of did it first out of laziness, then out of curiosity.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then there was a period where I was actually up for a part in something kind of big and the beard was sort of keeping me in the running for it.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then I realized, oh, if I book this thing, I could be stuck with this beard for like five years.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I did not book that part, um, fortunately or unfortunately.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then then I was gonna I was gonna that that pushed me past the election.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna shave the beard trim the beard down once Trump lost.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um now I sort of feel like, well, it's almost Christmas.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, I should keep there's no point in trimming a Santa size beard right before Christmas.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, now you gotta keep it for Christmas.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I I I might leave it till New Year's and have that be a New Year's party, is just trimming my beard down to a reasonable length.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or there's the other thing.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never grow a big beard like this again unless circumstances uh intervene.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: That was the other thing I was gonna say.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the other option is you can keep it until everything is over and back to whatever normality there is.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: But that was that was my thought at one point, but I think it's gonna be a while, so I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and make my beard normal before society is normal.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't wanna I don't wanna wait on society.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's true.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, so you you came on today to talk about the movie Um The Good German, which um I I have to admit I'd like I didn't know anything about this movie other than I remember it I remember it coming out and I kind of got it, but then I also kind of got it mixed up with um the other Clooney movie that came out around the same time, which was um Good Night and Good Luck.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: His other black and white period films.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because they came out with the within like a year of each other, and I kind of like associated them together, and I thought they were kind of the for some reason I thought they were the same thing.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um Well, because it's a very that's a very it's a very specialized black and white period films are a very specialized uh uh kind of a boutique thing.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not very many filmmakers are allowed to do that because the studios typically don't don't want that kind of thing.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: If they can release film in color, that's their preference, you know.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Good Night and Good Luck was 2005 and this was 2006.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, you're right.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: That was so I I for some reason I thought Goodnight and Good Luck.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I have a memory of that being much earlier, but obviously that's that's when it was.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I would I was like uh so how was it?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: I was like 16, 17 for these movies, for these two movies.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so like I I don't think they were like I was a target audience for any of the former.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: Not at all.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, they were not this movie is aggressively not for teenagers unless I would have liked it as a teenager, I think, but uh but I was a weird teenager in that sense, you know.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: I would have been curious about anyone doing anything like this uh experiment.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I do I I at the same time I was kind of like um it was when I was first learning about all of this all of these kinds of movies in the first in it like these 30s and 40s movies.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm surprised I didn't like seek out or anything.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, what is so what's your history with it then?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember when you first saw it?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I vividly remember where I I think I may have seen it in the ideal circumstance because um I was living in New York City by that point, and I believe uh I don't let's I I I I'm not even gonna check this before I say it.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think it might have been around Thanksgiving, uh end of November.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: When was this released in theater?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking at the date right now on it.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: Would you believe it's four days from today?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: It came out.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Four days from it came out December 15th, 2006.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, wait, was that was that in the in the was that the UK release date?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think It says uh limited release December 15th.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: So that would have been the American release date.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Unless Rotten Tomato says it wrong.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking to see.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um no, I I think it's possible I may have gotten it a little bit early because I'm thinking when my parents would have been visiting in town for Thanksgiving.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it may have been that it was in New York City.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: You might have got it earlier.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I saw it at um the Paris uh theater, which is near uh like the Plaza Hotel near the uh the the uh southeast corner of Central Park.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this really lovely movie theater.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think Netflix owns it now.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: It because it it went out of business like within the last year or two, and then Netflix saved it.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And now it is the theater that Netflix uses in New York City to sc I mean, hopefully this will still be true on the other side.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: But when they have a prestige movie, they just show it in that theater.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just great.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you look up the Paris Theater, it's a perfect movie theater for showing this kind of movie because it it's sort of the the the movie equivalent in New York of going to an old Broadway theater where you you're you go and you kind of like look around the lobby and you look, you know, you're looking at everything while you're waiting for the movie to start.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw it with my dad, um and and I feel like he in many ways would be as much the target audience for this because it's a sort of like um smart World War II movie.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um black and white.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like movies that he would have uh uh grown up watching at the movie theater on TV.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so in some ways, like if I had to design a way to see this movie, it would have been it would have been with him and at that theater.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, nice.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh but I think it I I have a feeling it must have been an early like preview like that.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: It must have been that before it went into limited release that it was showing in New York, because that's the only time that he would have been that he would have been in town um would be like right around Thanksgiving.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it definitely would have been in the would not have stayed in theaters for a full year.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um given that it was I was yeah.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it does say that American Cinema Tech Yeah US That must have been.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Is that the one you're talking about?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: It must have been.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know when I saw it and I know where I saw it.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I whatever whatever information is online, there must have been some way that we got to see it.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: It says American Cinema Tech 12th of November 2006.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that must uh maybe that's what it's talking about.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um that also would have explained why my dad and I would have um split off from everyone else on uh a holiday visit weekend to just see a movie on our own.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like it must have been like, oh, we can we can go see this um movie theater and it's not out anywhere else yet, you know.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um But I was, you know, it's interesting because I I remember clocking that um that it got mixed reviews and then it wasn't definitely wasn't a hit movie.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and but I don't think I realized how much people disliked it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I I don't think I realized how harsh the uh how harsh a reception it got.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's um it's 34% from the critics, and then the audience score is 33%, which is very I don't usually see like a tied sort of score.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Usually it's like one way or the other where it's split.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's quite interesting to see that.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um both low ratings.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um But it's I don't know if that see I I had issues with it, which we'll get to.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't think it's it's not like um I don't think it's like a very, very bad film.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's not 34% bad by any stretch, I don't think.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the thing.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: When I was looking for something that was that was under 40%, um once you get below fifty, you're in pretty you're in pretty dicey on tomatoes.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And while this would certainly be something that I would put at the low end of if I was ranking Soderbergh uh movies, this wouldn't be giving any of my favorites a run for their money.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, not for Soderbergh, yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: In this would be definitely be in the experimental sort of lower half of his movies.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I also wouldn't put it in the company of the movies that it's sort of like uh uh sharing space with on Rotten Tomatoes.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I I do feel like it's it's kind of an example of um like even if it like if it was at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, I probably wouldn't bat an eyelash.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: But at 33 I thought this is somewhat being judged on a scale in the sense of what what people know to expect from Soderbergh as both a serious filmmaker and as an entertainer.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like um in some ways when you're a filmmaker who has that kind of pedigree, you can sometimes get a a you know, the the popular audience knows that he can make an Ocean's Eleven style, Aaron Brockmitsch style crowd pleaser.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: The critics know that he can make these more uh uh sophisticated films that hit on every level.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so as a result, there's like an anger that people have when they know that you can deliver that, yeah, and and you don't, uh, people get very like they feel betrayed.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and they sometimes will be like, We're not just gonna give you an F, we're gonna give you an F minus minus.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna, you know, we're gonna Because I think a similar thing happened with his version of Solaris.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, that's true.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Another again, another Clooney uh starring one of the Another one that I liked, uh another movie that I liked, but I think it had one of the lowest cinema score uh because I think people thought it was gonna be a George Clooney space movie.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what they got was this kind of slow and serious meditation on the nature of like suicide.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it just it was not the movie you put you put George Clooney in an astronaut helmet and you put it on the poster, um and then you give them something that they're not expecting, and the and the audience gets very angry, very, you know.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Which does make me wonder about his new one, actually.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm wondering if that's gonna be because that's another space one, isn't it?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um Yeah.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Although he had uh Clooney had a little what was the one.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: He had gravity as well.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Gravity, yeah.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: People like that.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm just wondering how I'm wondering the direction they've taken it.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: It could be like Yeah.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Could potentially upset people again, but we'll see.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean I like the fact that that Soderberg would take those chances.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that Yes.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um I actually miss I I was very sad when they stopped um making films together because um for a long time it felt like they were sort of they had this great partnership where they could make both popular hit movies and these movies that are kind of, you know, taking a chance on something.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that's what I what I like most about the Good German is the fact that like it's not a um he committed to it and uh and it's not an easy sell as a movie, and it's a movie that's not trying very hard to meet the audience's expectations of anything.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um Um like in the sense that just in the sense that like the pacing of it I think you could make this film in a way that was tighter and more suspenseful, and it felt like they were almost deliberately pulling away from that to make the pacing resemble pacing that an audience would have been used to at the time, as opposed to um I think it would be I think it actually would have been very easy to make a movie like this that was much more entertaining.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and some of the some of the ways in which it isn't are I think deliberate and some of them are just like that's the way it turned out, you know.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I think in some cases that there was a discipline that I respect in terms of like you could make it look like a film from 1945, um, but then pace it, just pick the pace up a little bit, score it in a way that's a little bit, you know, like I almost wonder if you put I know there was a I was looking at the IMDb trivia on this and it said that Dave Holmes, who did the score for like Oceans 11, wrote a score for this that was um not used.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And the score that's I was gonna say, sorry, the score that is used is very good though.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's got the only Oscar nomination that this movie got, I think was for the score.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, it might have won, actually.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if it won.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, no, it didn't.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Did not win?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, but it's a great score.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's a score that feels like it could have existed at the time.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I almost went, you know, Soderbergh likes to do it for a while, he was like putting them on his website.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: He likes to re-edit other people's movies for fun.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And like he did a cut of Heaven's Gate where he was like, This is how I edit I would edit it.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he did a re-edit of 2001 that uh the Kubrick Estate immediately told him to take down.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he did a cut of of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he made it black and white and added an electronica score to it.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just to show how good the film is visually, how good it looks in black and white, and how much you could get from it without hearing any of the dialogue.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it made me wonder, I wonder if in his spare time he has ever edited a version of the Good German with a different score.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think if you made it feel like um a modern movie, I think you immediately, even if people didn't like it, I think you immediately gained 10% uh people liking it a little more.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Even though I love I always wonder why I like, yeah, go on.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry, I was gonna say, like, I wonder why if the one one of the issues I had with it was like if you're going to make it this uh throwback to these movies, like these movies from the 40s and everything, why add the why add the bad language and why add why why add the sex scenes and everything, the graphics not graphic sex scenes, but like you do know what I mean?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like why why why is that the world?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: More than you would have had at the time.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's shocking it's shocking the first time to see something like that.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: I I I'd read an interview where he said what he wanted to do was make a movie that as if the all the production circumstances were the same, but that the Hays Code didn't exist so that they could do whatever they wanted.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um But even before before the Hayes Code, no one was no one was using this kind of language or violence or sexuality in movies.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like even even in the pre-code films, that wasn't they weren't it is interesting that um he he just picked a couple of little things that modernize it a little.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: But um the pacing and the style and the tone, everything like that, he does very little to actually uh because I actually think if you were to make a movie now that had the same pacing as Chinatown, I think people would have a hard time with it.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think there are movies that are sort of grandfathered in at a certain pace.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I think one thing that I notice about about uh and it just has to do with the way audiences develop, because it happens in comedy certainly that the timing of the audience changes once they once the they've seen in certain kinds of things.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at a movie like Chinatown, there's a lot of scenes of Jake Giddis um getting into a car, driving somewhere, getting out of the car and going into the building.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And films of the 1970s and earlier felt a real need to show characters leaving a place and going to the other place and then getting to the place and going inside as a way of communicating that they've gone from one place to another.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And a modern audience often will get very frustrated if you try to do that because visually we're just we know that it's like, oh, if you're here, you're there.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like the visual language of storytelling is such that like if you're in one place and then another, we do the math and it's like, oh, they must have driven or something.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they the the and and I think like there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff in this movie where um the the timing of a scene and the scoring of a scene is uh not something that an a modern audience is receptive to, especially if they know you just made it.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like you'll ex people will accept it if they if they know, oh, this was made a long time ago.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: But if they know, oh, you just made this, I think people bristle against that.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, You're making this slow on purpose, not because you didn't know any better, you know.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I kinda part of me actually really respects that, even though there are parts of the movie where I think like, oh, I could be I could be more invested in this if it if you used a handful of the bag of tricks that you we know that you have in your butt I also think I don't know that he would have been as interested in making the movie if it was like I I think to a certain extent and I think a lot of the bad reviews of it are sort of mad that we're watching something that is an experiment.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's trying something and the the critics and the audience I think often kind of resent like well you're doing this experiment and you're using me as the audience.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're witnessing this um and uh and I think Soderbergh is very aware he said there was an interview I was looking to see if there was an interview where he talked about this at length and the only thing I could find was something where he said that people the movie was not divisive.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone hated this movie which does seem the numbers do seem to bear that out yeah um but I just I I enjoyed seeing it in the theater I know there were parts in it where my attention was wavering or I where I was feeling bored while it was happening.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: But then usually there'd be something else particularly on the big screen that would catch my attention even if I was bored with a certain beat of the story.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah um I I think it's actually a pretty good example of how like even if you were going to clock this as one of Sodoberg's worst which I think there are a lot of people who would put it right at the bottom there's still sequences like I think there's the sequence where um I can't remember the character names offhand where where the guy is going through the crowd and he's trying to go through the crowd and pretty good sequence, yeah.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the guy's following him and he just kills him right in the crowd.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it actually reminds me of a similar sequence in uh the TV show Killing Eve.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's a scene in a club that's like that's terrifying because he's following her in the club and then she turns around and looks at him and he realizes oh no she I'm not secretly following her.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: She has been luring me into a trap and she turns and she starts walking towards him and he can't get away through the crowd and the terror of trying to push through an ocean of people knowing that someone is going to kill you if they can catch up to you.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then I watch this one like oh this is this is that sequence that's it's actually it's more exciting on Killing Eve than it is in this but it's they're both I think it's one of the more like um viscerally exciting parts of the movie is it's terrifying when you see that guy trying to push through the crowd.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a sh uh um a a great shot afterwards where they find the they find that he's dead and then the camera sort of tilts up and we see the crowd because it's also scored to the sound of a triumphant postwar parade.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no suspense music you just hear this like and that which I think is very effective.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's this shot where it just sort of tilts up and for a long time we're just looking at a cheering crowd.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought oh this is an example where holding on it a little longer the way an old movie would have actually works.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I almost wonder whether or not there's a part of Soderberg watching the movie where he's like oh this like I wonder which ones which parts work which don't if I use the old way of doing things.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think that's a part where I'm like this is a good scene.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is a good scene that wouldn't be this way if you were doing it in a modern way.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: It might actually be more thrilling in a modern way but I was interested re-watching it how captivated I was by that little sequence.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: I I agree like I don't even think his directing is the worst part.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think the directing in this is bad.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's the story that doesn't work for me particularly I don't think I think the story is the weaker part.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: I I think it's a little bit messy.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's it very much is I think yeah I think that's I there's two things there's two things the story and then Toby Maguire is miss is really miscast in this I think to me like personally I think he's miscast um I can see that I didn't mind him but I can I can certainly see why you're uh why anyone would feel that way he just he feels really I know what you're talking about I mean there's a part of me that feels like especially for a character who's n who's a big part of it and then is suddenly gone from it that he does in places have an energy that's very modern in other places feels like an actor um who would have been in a movie in that era.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know like I sometimes think about like the sequence in um Touch of Evil.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: No not Touch of Evil.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah Touch of Evil.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Touch of evil yeah yeah Touch of Evil.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's a sequence in that movie I think I think it's that movie where there's like a creepy guy who runs a hotel and I remember the the acting it feels like is like oh this guy like would not he would not be cast in a modern movie.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's certain actors in old movies that you think like this person would never be in a modern movie.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um and in some ways Toby McGuire felt like that where you like you and his the way he's acting in this movie feels like the kind of character actor performance that you might find in a movie in the 30s or 40s but that the same style wouldn't necessarily there's something weird or off about him.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's also strange to me is that the screenwriter uh Paula Tanancio is um is a really good writer he wrote like Quiz show and I know I believe he developed the show Homicide for TV like he done he's got a lot of good like he's sort of one of those names like Steve's alien that when I see his when I see his name on a screenplay I'm like oh good we're in like solid hands.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there is something weird about it feels like we're following a mystery through the movie.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we get to the reveal at the end which I believe from what I've read the the novel which I believe is pretty well respected novel they changed a lot of things.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the reveal at the end feels like it's not what we've been building towards and not in a twisty way.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah in a way where it's kind of like um it almost feels like a non sequitur.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah very much the thing I like the thing I like most about the actual content of the movie is I think that it's very interesting it's about like the mess that's left at the end of the war because normally we think of that period as like well that's when the good times started.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really about the beginning of the next bad time and how you have the Russians and the Americans are immediately like we were to we were fighting together and now immediately we're enemies.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're fighting over these Nazi scientists um it definitely feels like there's no heroes in this and I like that as a thing to explore because movies of that era would have been disinclined to explore this.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: They would have been like we beat the Nazis and it would have just been a a um this the there's a darkness to the the subject matter they're exploring that it really is about like the spoils of war being a really nasty place to be living in, you know?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And but it still felt like when it got to the end and Clooney walks away she reveals that she sold people out to the Gestapo and then she gets on the plane and he walks away it kind of feels like that wasn't what the movie was about up until now.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: No like it's it's it's a twist out of nowhere almost and and not in a good way because sometimes a twist out of nowhere is thrilling and exciting this It's a twist out of nowhere for no reason for for just just like a an an ending almost and it doesn't feel like it needs to be it needed to be that yeah it almost feels like if you were watching uh Sleepless in Seattle and at the end you found out that like Tom Hanks was Hannibal Lecter.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of would feel like well that's not not interesting.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's an interesting fact to learn but it really cuts against what we've been what we've been experiencing and it it's it it just feels it almost feels like you could have had Kate Blanchette say anything at the end.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah anything bad where it's like um and anything that would have been off putting in some way and instead what she says you know it fits thematically in the sense that the movie is about how people are going to do what they're gonna do and and it's this sort of like sad um the the sort of nihilism of war and humanity and everybody's in it to survive and pe you know the things people do to survive but it sort of feels like I don't know it it it feels like I I'm left not knowing and I think also that's the the one part of the movie because one of the things that I think I like the most about the experiment of the movie is that it doesn't feel like it's a spoof or a pastiche of old movies.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: No until the end because the ending is so specifically I want to film the final scene of Casablanca.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I was gonna say that also clearly Casablanca that also cuts against that's happening at the same time that we're getting this like thing that's kind of hard to figure out why we're landing here.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think it's also you know having seen like that's a scene that people have spoofed a lot.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um so even if this isn't intentionally spoofy but it goes in that column just because the other times that I've seen people set up those shots are like play it again Sam with Woody Allen or things like that.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we're arriving at that confession at the end and and I'm sure you can go through there this is like a movie made by smart people.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that there are good reasons why everything lands where it is whether it works or not.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it was done thoughtlessly but for me just as a viewer experiencing it I don't feel when she's saying those things I'm like oh my god that's really dramatic but then a part of me is like feels a disconnect when he's walking away and it says the end I'm like I feel like I can't tie that to Toby Maguire's character and I can't tie that to what Clooney's been chasing this whole time.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah well that's the one thing about it like you really essentially like once you get to that once you get to the point where you find out where he finds out about uh the gun and how Toby Maguire died and uh like where what Emil's purpose was and what's what um what's uh Lena's uh purpose was and everything it's like well Toby Maguire was so insignificant to this entire movie like he did not have a purpose like other than to be like other than to mislead uh George Clooney's character.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I do and I and I do think that there there is a kind of great movie that is built on that kind of um one thing leading to another and it and it turns out that the original thing has nothing.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know like I do think Yeah there's nothing wrong with doing it that like that but they they don't hold it doesn't hold up uh within this.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't Yeah it it it's like I remember I've only seen the Maltese the Maltese F Falcon once and I remember not understanding it.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: I remember feeling like I don't get what the uh I I felt stupid when I saw it because I was like I'm not following this and I think there is a certain kind of movie of that era that has like a weird mystery that I'm like I don't get you know I don't get what's going on.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a scene early on in this where I started getting lost.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah I was making notes and I definitely got lost at the beginning.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's a scene the scene where Toby Maguire goes to meet the Russian guy um I think I I rewound that scene a couple times because I was like I I think I missed something.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and then when it carries on from there I I feel like I never fully catch up.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you know like that's what like for instance a movie like the Big Lebowski is sort of spoofing is the idea that like you're um you're following a mystery and the thing you're following is actually just a a a random mistake and you're you're adding all of this drama onto it but it really is just like that some people got two guys mixed up and then one thing leads to another, you know?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And um I think there is a great movie to be made about like the chaos of a postwar situation like this where you start investigating one thing and it leads you to another thing and by the end you're yeah you've gone down this twisted path and you don't know how you got to here.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm just what I'm left with is and I don't have an answer and I don't know that I would be talented enough to come up with one but the the thing that I wish for as an audience member is that by the time you arrive at Kate Blanchett's confession it feels like we were meant to arrive here all along.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like this is almost like how um when you watch a movie I mean different obviously different kinds of movies but how when you watch a movie like seven there are lots of things that are digressions or strange um uh red herrings or left turns that don't act ultimately lead to where it's going.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: But by the time you get to the end, you feel like oh there's no where we've landed at there's no other way it was always going to come to this place.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: And and it doesn't feel like that here.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: No and I feel like that's what it should feel like it should feel like he goes to all this trouble to save this person.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's something inherently so dramatically rich about the idea of you he invests everything in the idea of saving this woman that he had had this connection to.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the moment that he's saving her, she confesses to him what she did in order to survive and he realizes that in a way it makes him complicit.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know that he's essentially saving a war criminal and and it los and then he walks away from it because he uh what what he thought she he doesn't stop her from being saved, but he doesn't know what it means anymore.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know he's not going against like everything he's believed in essentially and like he's so he's he's he doesn't know how to take that.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in some ways they almost I almost wonder whether or not it needed um there to be more of a sense because she seems haunted from the beginning.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like the second you meet her it feels like you're seeing a character who has a dark secret.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then George Clooney spends the movie saving her and we find out that the secret is darker than we suspected.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: And i yeah it it I'm not sure what it needs, but it if it is going to that place, there's something about it as a narrative sucker punch that feels like um it feels like he has everything that he needs to deliver that to the audience but instead of it instead of aiming that sucker punch at the audience it sort of hits the wall of the theater you know that it's sort of like oh that's interesting but it didn't connect with me and I feel like it should have.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: It should have been heartbreaking.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: It should have been like Yeah um it's a big reveal so it's like it should really have an impact and it doesn't.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big reveal it's also revealed it's not an easy reveal.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: No like uh like I mentioned Chinatown before and like the way that Chinatown ends and you feel this sense of um just despair yeah like there's nothing you can do about anything like I I the hero saves he saves the woman at the end of the movie, saves the girl and you know it's it follows all the structure of a classic um heroic movie but at the last minute you find out that even the person you were trying to save is like well I sold out twelve people in order to stay alive and and you're just left to reckon with that.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a great example of where the um when you only modernize a few elements of it and this is maybe the experimental part of it is modernizing a few elements but not all the elements means that you are left with few options in terms of like yeah we'll reveal this and then it'll be over just the end and it's done.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah and it's it's it's interesting.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: But having said all that it's still a movie that I uh I don't think it's a movie that I have I have affection for my experience of seeing it that first time.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have you seen it since then twice?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a movie just twice.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: You only s you only saw it again uh yesterday.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah last night I watched it again and and it's not the kind of movie that um invites like repeated viewings.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like um except maybe may maybe if you were interested in the technical aspects of like oh how did they do this or how did they do that which I think it's it also doesn't you know it always bothers me whenever people try to recreate an an old sort of look and it and they do it in a very superficial way.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I like the commitment of of the lighting style in this and i it's I think it's a a really beautiful movie to look at even in the ways that it looks great even in the ways that it is deliberately ugly in places.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah that like the lighting's very harsh in some spots and I really like that.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: But the the first time seeing it at the Paris theater with my dad um I also think it's an easier movie to see in a movie theater than on home video.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I would agree with that it definitely seems like that because it I mean to a certain extent it's both easier and harder.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think there are certain kinds of movies that if you're seeing them in a movie theater, this is one of the things I really miss about the movie theater experience there are certain kinds of movies where when you're seeing them in the theater um they are uh you're trapped you can't go anywhere you can't do anything uh if you're uh that's if you're not the kind of person who checks your phone in a movie theater which you shouldn't check your phone in a movie theater.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah do it you should leave you should leave if you need to check your phone in a movie theater leave the theater.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is a war this is a warning for 2022.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the the there are movies that at home are really hard to avoid the temptations of doing other things, looking at other things.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you this isn't a movie you can look away from.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you look away from certain scenes of this movie you will miss big things that happen important significant things that happen.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah um it's not just in the dialogue it's in the uh what you're seeing um because there's a lot of side there are a lot of silent moments where things happen and you're not you're just kind of just it's just happening without any of the dialogue.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah you're right it's just it's important to pay attention.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure how long you would it would be before you found out that Toby Maguire was dead if you were just listening to it because it's not like when he shows up they don't say he's dead they reveal it.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: You have to see it.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and even when even when they reveal it you have to like really focus in to see that it's him it doesn't look like it's him first of all.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: And like so you uh when they first reveal it and they cut to they they rev they show this per this dead body and then they cut to George Clooney's face and then they cut back to they cut to the Russians and then they cut back to the Toby Maguire and you like and then they zoom in on him and you're like oh that's Toby Maguire okay he's dead.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's him I thought it was just some random soldier that they found yeah like I there's certain movies like I remember there's certain movies that come out in theaters and they get a really good response and then they go on to streaming and people are suddenly like what's the big deal about this movie?
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see this happen sometimes and I'll feel like oh you should have seen in the theater it's not a good movie for streaming because now you're distracted.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's certain kinds of things that are just harder to watch.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like The Irishman I know we were talking about it but that I think the Irishman is a perfect example of that.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah because I saw it in theaters and I I loved it and then people saw it at home and hated it.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah it's um it's a very There are certain and and I don't think it's a flaw in a movie to be like that.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that there are some um some ways of telling a story.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: There are some ways of telling a story that are require a little more patience.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this movie is extremely demanding of patience.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and um because even when I saw it the first time in the theater, I had that feeling of like I'm watching this because I'm here in the theater, but being aware that if I was in another circumstance, I probably would be checking out at certain points, you know, here and there in the narrative.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: You have that feeling of like and in when I experienced that, if I'm liking the movie, because I was liking the movie on balance and was happy to be seeing it, um, it was a feeling of like, oh, I'm relieved.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad I saw this in a theater.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because um like I think uh I think that's true of some like David Lynch movies.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like Yeah, absolutely.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh we're mentioning long movies, but like Inland Empire, I've only seen it once and I really liked it, but I saw it in a theater.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: And certain movies it's just better if you're a prisoner of them.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's what that's what you are when you're with a long movie in a movie theater.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you choose to stay, it you let the movie make you its prisoner.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, it's not a movie that I could ever tell anyone unless I had a specific reason where it's like someone was gonna make a movie in this style or something.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's not a movie that I could imagine recommending to someone who wasn't like a a Soderbergh like uh um completionist.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um like if someone was like, I've seen all those movies except that one, I'd say like, oh, you should see it.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's a lot of really good things about it.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of really interesting um interesting aspects to it, interesting elements.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think that it's a cold movie in a lot of ways.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think like um for a movie that has characters who I think are experiencing pretty fiery emotions at various points, um it it sort of keeps those in check.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: It sort of feels like those don't get released onto us in the um I like I like the fact that uh and though I've seen people use this as a criticism saying that it was um they felt like it was unintentionally comedic.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I do like the fact that George Clooney never wins a fight really in this movie until he like jumps on a guy.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: Until he like jumps on a guy from a height, like he jumps off a like a banister of a stairwell.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like a super fight.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's well, it's just one of those things where it's like you didn't win the fight.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: Gravity, the principle of gravity, uh like your willingness to like jump from a great height and land on a guy.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone could have won that.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like a child could have won that fight because you would have had the element of surprise and of but anytime it's just down to like two guys punching, um Clooney always ends up like on the floor.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's I didn't even realize that.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I you notice it at first when Tommy Maguire beats him up, and you feel like that feels unusual because it feels like But it is that thing of like, you know, it doesn't but it feels odd, but in a way that like Tommy Maguire's character is um crazy and more willing to like beat someone with a pipe than a journalist.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like Clooney's character just isn't a fighter.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's just a literally respondent.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like he's just a and so I like the fact that he's not good at fighting because I do think there are fights that happen in the world, and they're probably surprising based on what we learned from movies where the Toby Maguire beats the shit out of the George Clooney.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just because the George Clooney is like, I like I'm a journalist, and the Toby Maguire is like, I'm a psychopath.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like um and the will to to to fight dirty and to be aggressive um makes up for any slight difference in physical, you know, capability.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: But like I But I do think that like I like the fact that he never wins a fight.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's a part in it kind of and I like the fact that he they're pretty consistent about as he gets injured through the movie, they kind of you'll sort of see like, oh, his ears still bleeding from having been in the fight in the previous scene.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um he's got gets banged up over the course of the movie.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he previously begins worse threat than it.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I wonder why some of those things we don't feel them the same way we do, you know, because it is kind of to bring up Chinatown again, which is another like that's a movie that for its time was also, I think, a throwback to a different kind of pacing and movie making.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that's also a movie where That's a closer uh sort of like time period as well, though.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that we've had that distance now where it can it do it does feel more noticeable now than it did back then, I guess.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like that was the 1970s doing like uh 1950s pacing or something.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean the setting the setting was earlier, but the pacing of the movie felt closer to like a 1950s film.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um to me.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um but that's another movie where like Nicholson gets his nose slit open and then he's got a bandage on his nose the rest of the movie.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um but we um yeah, I think I think there's um the confusion in the story somewhat and and I think the coldness of a movie in which we're seeing people experience heated emotions.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're uh I I felt a little bit not let in.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like um I think I wanted to I think I because I think that Clooney's certainly I I think Clooney's a great actor.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I really do think he I I think that like he is um adventurous and smart as an actor, and I think he's also like he can go big, he can go small.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't think it's down to the performances particularly, but there is a part of me that feels like um there's there I'm not sure what the fix is, but it feels like a very small adjustment, and we would suddenly feel this movie a lot more than I think we do.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure what I'm not sure either, to be honest.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like what also like what do you think about the chemistry between the t the uh Clooney and uh Cape Blanchard?
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, because I usually I like both of them.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: I felt like the chemistry just is just not there.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's not there for them.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I don't know, because it doesn't what doesn't make sense is that like they're supposed to have this history between them, and it's kind of I don't know, it comes it comes along, you kind of find out about it a a little way into the movie, uh, after you find it after he finds out about Tobey Maguire.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because you're uh initially you're thinking like this this film is following Tobey Maguire and everything, and then Clooney comes along, and that's when you find out he's had this history with uh um Kate Blanchett's character, and then you're like, well, okay, but it doesn't feel like they've had a history, it doesn't feel like there's any chemistry between them.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_02: It just feels like he's kind of following this woman along, just trying to learn things, and not it doesn't feel like they had this this stuff going on in the past.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not sure exactly.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I I definitely I definitely see that like it it's it doesn't feel like and I think that's also the thing that's missing in the final reveal, is that because we never really get that moment where um it feels like these two have the it kind of feels like these two should have the strongest bond.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it actually feels like of the three bonds that we see Kate Blanchette have, the weakest is with Clooney.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like she's more connected to Toby and uh also to the um Emile character.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I think that's maybe an element of what we're missing at the end is um Yeah, and I I don't know.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I haven't read the source novel, so um I know they changed a lot of things, and that may have that you know, that changed.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: And i i that also is the thing that's interesting to me is like I'm always fascinated by the the the fact that people want to adapt novels into two-hour movies.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh the first thing you have to do in taking a 400-page novel and making it into a two-hour movie is cut you know two-thirds of it or something to get in terms of what happens.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: And like The Godfather as a book has so much in it, the original novel, that it makes the first three-hour movie and half of the second three-hour movie, and there's still subplots in that novel that don't make it into either of those films.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have like the Shawshank Redemption, which is a pretty long theatrical movie, and it's a novella in a book with like three other stories.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know why all movies, all feature films should be adapted into uh from novellas, not novels.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're gonna do a novel, it has to be a series.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: You you have to make it into like either a series of movies or a series uh uh on a of a TV series or something.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um because I do think that's where some of the problem lies, because if I was looking at this movie, um, I don't think I would necessarily have a place in it for all the Emil stuff.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: It would just be about Clooney trying to get it would be about Clooney trying to get Blanchette out of Germany, and then at the point where he does it, then we find this thing out about her, and it's like um and you know, I'm contradicting myself a little bit in that part of what I like about the movie is the messiness of post-war Berlin, which I feel like they do a good job of capturing that.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think they do a good job of that.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I do agree with it.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: That is a good part of it.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: But but like but I think having all the stuff about Emile and that Kate Blanchett is helping him, and then he gets killed, and all that stuff, it feels like um that's all one thing, and then when we get to her reveal, which was that I did what I could to survive, it's like oh that feels like it's a different thing.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: And also I don't feel like we know enough about Emile.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's another thing.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_02: We don't learn enough about him.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: He just he just kind of there.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um like we he's in he's in maybe what he's in three scenes, two scenes.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and I found it hard to care about him.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and it's and it's also a thing where we learn two things about him, really, because on the one hand, he's like uh connected to working for um this guy who's connected to making these bombs, and they were making it off of like slave labor and people were dying.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then he's also like people have to know the truth about what happened.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you're like, oh, okay, this is a guy who did some bad things, but he's like the world has to know.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you're like, okay, he's this is complicated.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is interestingly um neither one thing nor the other.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, I mean that's the thing about a movie like that.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like when you most of the time when you get to um again, the movies that are under 40% on Rotten Tomatoes.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like the c when you get down to that level, the things that you're chewing over are like, this is baffling, or this makes no sense, or this is just bad.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the things that are wrong with the good German as a movie, um in some ways actually make for an interesting conversation in terms of like uh you're you're it feels like you are talking about these like heady themes and these interesting real circumstances, not just from this moment in history, but these are things that repeat in history where it's like you have a conflict and then you have the aftermath of this conflict and all the all the new problems that arise out of solving the previous problem.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you you solve the problem of Hitler and the Nazis, uh at least the in that moment.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: But immediately more problems ensue.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and there is something that's uh in theory very engaging about the idea that you save someone only to find out that they're not the person that you thought you were saving.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: That they are the full range of what it takes for a person to survive, and and in some ways this is maybe a very simplistic or like I think my version of this movie would be stupider in some ways, maybe.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be like a version for dummies.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: But there's something about a movie called The Good German that at the end presents you with this very complicated portrait of, you know, it's hard to fully judge Kate Blanchett's character for what she's done because ultimately she's alive and she's haunted and she knows what she is now, and she is like she is the good German who didn't just go along with it, she actively uh harmed others in her attempt to survive.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very you know, there is always that question of what what would you do if you were faced with a similar circumstance, what would you do to survive?
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like one of those really haunting, dramatic, philosophical questions.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I almost feel like the dummy version of this movie, maybe it wouldn't be a better version, but the dummy version of this movie is a movie where you spend the whole movie thinking that George Clooney is rescuing this idealized person.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end you learn that they're not that.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if that's because to be honest, even though it's a shock that you learn that at the end, but the first time you see Kate Blanchette, you feel like she has a dark secret.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then you kind of go along with all these other uh machinations of the plot.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then you get to the end, it's like, by the way, this is the thing about me.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um and I almost wonder whether or not in order for it to have that like feeling of um being as devastated because George Slooney's character is devastated at the end of the movie.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very understated ending, but he's he's gone all this way so he can be with her and they can escape together.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then he just walks away from it.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I I almost feel like um we needed to build up both the chemistry between them.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think the thing you pointed out is right, but also like um yeah, it's it's the character itself is written as this sort of tortured, brooding uh woman who's been immediately we see she's been through the ringer, she's been brutalized.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and then at the end we find out that she was part of that, and I I I don't know.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like that the ultimately I keep coming back to that, that that ending, and I also think I like everything aesthetically about the visuals of this movie.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think if if I had had one one piece of input uh it would have been do not just directly reference Casablanca at the end.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh as much of a dream as much of a dream come true as that must have been.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: It must have been so exciting to do that.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's no it it it's something that it really takes away from the from it from what you've just what you're delivering here.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't like I don't like I don't like the movie Clockwork Orange, it's not a movie that I I I've ever been able to connect to.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_00: But when he starts singing Singin' in the rain, it's meant to be like jarring and funny.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's meant to be like, isn't this like funny that we're like repurposing this um movie moment for this horrible thing?
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: In this movie, it's so the movie's so heavy and so weighty throughout that to have any hint of pop culture reference um like that, anything that reminds you, because I am reminded at the end, oh, it's just a movie.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: After after the movie, despite all of its tricks, it did ground me in a sort of a post-war Berlin reality.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end, I was like, even though they were filming this on sound stages and rear projection and all these things, I was very much in the world of the movie.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the end, when you see that, I'm like, oh, Casablanca.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think I wonder whether or not if he hadn't done that at the end, which might have to some extent been the motivation for wanting to do it this way to begin with, oh, we'll do Casablanca at the end, you know?
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: I get why that would be exciting to do.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I also um I also wonder if um if it wouldn't have been um more dramatically powerful, even in the exact same out-of-left field way, if that scene wasn't staged in that movie moment context.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_00: If like you know how like bringing up the Irishman again, how like the best parts of the Irishman are I think in the last hour of that movie.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're definitely the the one part where it feels like it becomes a meta like, oh, this is the reason that Martin Scorsese made another gangster movie, is to it that was the the the gangster stuff is almost like the sugar coating that covers up the bitter pill of I want to make a movie about being old and re having nothing but regrets.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_00: And no one would have greenlit the last hour of the Irishman on its own.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody would have let Martin Scrcese make a movie about being that old and sad and devastated by loss and life and everything.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's and part of me wonders whether or not the ending of this movie would have had more impact if this is something that George Clooney finds out ten years later.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, like we almost cut to a suburban house in Pennsylvania on like a a nice afternoon in a backyard or something.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's something where it's um she feels like she has to tell him.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, or even just moving just that's just one example of like moving that scene away from the Casablanca pastice.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it doesn't need to be it didn't need to be that.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_02: I do agree.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think, yeah, imagine imagining that he had gone with her and take they escaped and he does find out find out down the line, I think that is more impactful.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it does make me think that the the in some ways there are I feel like this movie is only a few moves away from being from being uh much better than it is.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: Having said that, I do believe it is an outlier in the realm of um movies below the 40%.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in the sense that like while it doesn't necessarily fit in comfortably with the movies that are above 40%, like one the higher you move it, the more you start to feel like, ah, it doesn't, it's not uh it doesn't fit in here.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: It definitely, when I look at the company it keeps at the 33, 34% mark, it's it's not uh it's it's its intentions and its effectiveness and this the level of skill with which it is made, um it doesn't deserve to be down there.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know where it belongs.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know what percentage I would put it at where because it's really not like a lot of other movies, either in terms of um It's hard to place it.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's ambitious.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I think a lot of people, the the easy take on it has been this was a technical experiment gone wrong.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like where you got the technical aspects right, but it didn't doesn't work as a movie.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think um I think in some ways the I think on some technical levels it's very six it's highly successful, but I think it's a very ambitious movie in terms of the what it's trying to say, which is that like um, you know, all victories uh are have a hollowness to them because it requires so much to get by in a world that's so deeply poisonous, you know, um, that normally we think of the end of World War II as this triumphant moment of, you know, the good guys win.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: But how quickly the good guys become these compromised Yeah, it's at what cost do they become at what cost did they win, essentially?
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um I think he's a hero who wins, and you wonder, well, what did he win?
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: He he he helped a war criminal escape.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he he loved her, or did he?
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_00: But he had feelings for her, and she may have had some feelings for him, but you also definitely get the feeling that he's not the most important person to her either.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: That like to a certain extent he's a chump.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: To a certain extent his characters, like kind of realizes at the end that like I'm not the hero of I am not the the hero of a wartime film.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: I am the Patsy of a post-war mess.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: But doesn't she call him a Patsy at some point as well?
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_02: Or I think she calls him a uh not to his face, but like she calls it I I think she calls him or someone else calls him a Patsy.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure, yeah.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't be surprised uh with why that could be why the word is lodged in my brain, although it is one of my favorite words.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um the uh but it is just like we see this guy and it he looks like he's the hero of a movie like this.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: You'd expect it with the Clooney look and everything you expect.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that is the hero of the movie.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's dashing he's not.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_00: But he never wins a fight.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_00: When he does, it's on terms that that anyone by luck almost.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like Well, I think it's like it's the the will to like he's driven at that point to like I have one move and it's to jump from this banister and land on this guy.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: But it it but he's limping after that as well.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like he's like uh He's still hurt.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's it doesn't make him look like he's suddenly like a superhero or something, you know?
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I I do think um uh while I like the movie, uh I think some aspects of it are very good.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that it's that I necessarily think it's I don't it's not a great movie.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I think it's a good movie, although I think it has almost all it's almost like you have all the ingredients to make uh a very good meal, maybe even a great meal.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_00: And there are just some aspects of it are are either uh missing, like some ingredients that fell on the floor.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well yeah, or they were yeah, you did things, you didn't heat this at the right temperature.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's certain things that are not there, but it is in the company of things where it's like, oh, the other the other films that are at 33% are all like, oh, these aren't the ingredients to make a uh to make anything.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is a box of sticks and radishes and paper.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like um yeah.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like, oh, you're so close, you're almost there.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which in some ways I think in some ways I think there are also bad movies that people would have a much better time watching because it's kind of more infuriating to watch an almost great movie that doesn't manage to be a good movie than it is to watch a bad movie.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because um the potential within this movie is for it to have been one of my favorite movies of all time.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that it doesn't land at that is um uh it i it it infuriates us as audience members because it's like you could have been you could have been my favorite movie.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's also like you you know everyone so so Soderbergh and then all the cast and the writer and everything, you know they could do it as well.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_02: You're yeah you know they are capable of it.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, at the same time, there is a part of me that finds it inspiring because um it's it is the part of this movie that really excites me in some ways is the part of me in which I'm watching great artists really try to do something different, and it's not it's not fully successful, but as an as an audience member, I'm frustrated by it.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_00: As an artist, I look at the movie and I'm inspired by it because I would much rather that um I think George Clooney has some really good failures in the l later years of his filmography that come from I think Soderberg always talks about the movie The Underneath, which I actually think is an underrated movie.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a bonus feature on the Criterion King of the whole movie is a bonus feature on the King of the Hill Criterion collection.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's the movie that Soderbergh, like he didn't feel anything well.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a Peter Gallagher sort of thriller.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think it's pretty good.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but he I think making it realized it wasn't he'd lost his way, it wasn't the kind of movie that he wanted to make, etc.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Clooney had that same moment with Batman and Robin, which is like, I don't want to make movies that make me feel like this.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And collect they sort of had that moment, and then with out of sight, they realized they saw in each other, I think, kindred spirits that it's like we're gonna make the kind of successes or failures that we want to make.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna make other people's successes or failures.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think both of them, when they make a movie and it doesn't work, it's because they were trying something that they wanted to try and they were invested in, not because they were um just going along with it.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not a movie that was anyone was going along with.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think with some artists, I think when Soderberg makes a movie and it doesn't quite click, I think it whatever the next movie is that he makes that's great was made great by what he learned on that movie, you know?
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree with that.
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's he's constantly burning as he's going.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's true of a lot of great filmmakers who have like a an experimental spirit and have very hit and miss, like I think Spike Lee and Robert Altman are m movie makers like this that like they can make their best movie the year before or after they make their worst movie.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's because they're because they're taking big swings, and this movie's a big swing.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it's commendable as well, like uh to to to go out and do that constantly as well.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_02: He's always he's always trying something new.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think even just trying to make a movie about how morally compromising it can be to survive in this world, and how hard it is to be a hero, and how easy it is to be a villain.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a hard message to deliver.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that they fully were able to deliver it the way that they were, I think, maybe striving to.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it's certainly like uh uh an a lot, there's a lot to chew on.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Even in things that they kind of get wrong in the movie, there's just a lot to chew on, and that's exciting to me.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad I I will never watch it again unless circumstances unless circumstances um occur.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I probably wouldn't have watched it a second time if I hadn't discovered this in the under 40% pin when we were talking about me doing this podcast, and I was like, oh, I'd like to go back to this movie.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I uh the odds of me ever watching it again are are s slim to know.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like once, once I became like a guy in my early to mid-40s, and I'm a solidly in my mid-40s, um, you start realizing that movies that you might have assumed you would watch again, you never will.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think when you're in your 30s, you part of you assumes that you will watch every movie you've already seen at least one more time.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then you start getting to a point where you realize, oh, maybe I won't even watch some of the movies I really like a second time, you know, or or a fifth time or whatever, you know.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and The Good German is definitely on that list of things that would be like the only way I would watch it again is if like Steven Soderbergh said to me, like, Come over to my house, I want to watch The Good German with you.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be like, Oh, okay, yes.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Or say to you, like, come and watch this.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_02: I've done a recut of it and I've put the new score in.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I would watch a recut.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_00: If he did a recut, I would watch that.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be very curious about it.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think I would too.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_00: But this version of it, um, the it would require a circumstance, you know.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_00: On its own, I've I've gotten what I need out of it, you know.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I also think it's definitely worth watching.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think you're I I I don't think you're missing any I don't think you're um losing anything out losing out on anything by watching it.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think you'll you'll learn things from it.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's fascinating to watch someone try and make a movie of those those times and try and make it so similar to that style, uh, even if it doesn't entirely work.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's very interesting.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_02: I d and I I think it's interesting for you to come on.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_02: I've never I haven't had someone so far come on and defend the movie in in that sense.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_02: They that usually it's like they they come on and defend it because it's uh they love it so much.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_02: I do think it's interesting to have you come on to the movie.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I do love it, but I I love it in the same complicated spirit in which the movie uh uh lands.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like the movie is so complicated that I think I think it's impossible for me to just have an uncomplicated reaction.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I do love the movie.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's even uh uh I don't think it's a very good movie.
• 1:15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of aspects of it are good to great.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah um but as a whole, when I land at the end of the movie, I'm like, I don't know that that was a very good movie, but I do love it.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I do genuinely like I own it.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_00: I own it.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I was going to see Oh, Do I have to rent it?
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_00: I realized I own it on DVD.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I bought the DVD when it came out on DVD.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like I I love it because I I think there was a period where I was buying every single Soderberg movie that came out on DVD.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I yeah.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um but my defense of it is as uh compromised and complicated as the reality of the movie, and that that um the the me asking to watch this movie with you for this podcast, yeah, then I feel like this episode could be you and I standing on the tarmac with the plane about to be taking off.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's actually got all these things wrong with it.
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then I get on the plane and you're like, yeah, and you like walk away.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we are we are in that we are in that moment of like, yeah, it's complicated.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not I can't recommend it to a friend, I can't, you know, I can't fully endorse it, and yet I do love this movie.
• 1:16:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, great.
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um okay, so let's let's move on from this uh segment.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Let's move on to the final segment then, which is uh the reverse of this, which is a um do you have a movie that is widely loved and well reviewed that you think is actually a bad movie?
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um well I have two answers for this that I'll tell briefly, because I think one of them is maybe a little more interesting and maybe complicated.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_00: When I think of a movie that I just had a viscerally negative reaction to, um, it would be Moulin Rouge.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um But it's not a movie that I take any pleasure in like shitting on because um Oh no, you don't have to shit on the movie.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's just like what do you not?
• 1:17:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, but it's like it's just not for me.
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just a m like I got really angry when I saw that movie in theaters, and what I realized immediately after, not immediately, but I guess at some point after watching the movie, I realized what I was angry at, and I think this is a common phenomenon, is that everybody else seemed to be having a good time and I wasn't.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, why am I not having fun?
• 1:17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And like Jim Broadbent is singing like a virgin and everyone's laughing, and I'm like, I don't think this is funny.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I love Jim Broadbent and he's having a blast, and everyone around me is having the bath a blast, and I just didn't enjoy it.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't speak to me, it didn't um connect with me on any level.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't like the jokes in it, I didn't enjoy the music in it, I didn't like the look of it.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was there was no element of it.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I could appreciate like the visual splendor or whatever, but it just didn't work for me on any level.
• 1:18:18
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what that is.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not for me.
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just not it's just you know, that's the thing, and I think that's that's something that I try to I try to keep um in check, is sometimes when people don't like something, they get very mad at it and they say, Oh, that's shit, and that's garbage.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like not everything is for everybody, and it's like it's it's okay for me not to enjoy something, and I don't have to think that thing is terrible.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just not for me.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it really is.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like I'm a picky eater.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean that I think that um all foods that I don't like are bad, that I just don't like how they taste.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_00: But like I don't get mad when someone makes, you know, French onion soup or something, and I'm like, that food's garbage.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's crazy.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we do that with culture.
• 1:19:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, I hate that music, that's garbage.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, you don't like it.
• 1:19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we and we do it, we do we get emotional about it, and you know, people get furious about Star Wars movies, and what they're really mad about is that they're not seven years old anymore, and no Star Wars movie is gonna do for a 50-year-old man what it did for him when he was 10.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what you're mad about is not that Disney screwed up the franchise, so much as you're mad that time is passing and you have experienced disappointment and loss in your life, and you need something to punch.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so and so Moulin Rouge, I think, is not an interesting answer for me, because it's just not for me.
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that I don't think it's a great movie.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I think is the interesting answer.
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Malholland Drive.
• 1:19:57
  SPEAKER_02: That is surprising for you.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, here's what I mean I was not expecting that one.
• 1:20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the thing.
• 1:20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because I well, it's not I have reached a point with David Lynch, especially after season three of Twin Peaks, where I just went back and watched Wild at Heart, which is a movie that one of his movies that never really connected with me, and now I like it.
• 1:20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've realized is that I was asking the wrong thing of David Lynch because some of his movies, like The Elephant Man, really coheres as a story, uh Blue Velvet, I think holds together really well as a story.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's certain movies that hold together as storytelling.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what I realized is that David Lynch's filmmaking, storytelling is not not quite the priority for him the way it is with Mo that that he's not interested in answering any questions, and he's not interested in telling you what's happening, and it really is about just exploring the vibe.
• 1:20:51
  SPEAKER_00: But here's where, and I I I will stand by this somewhat, even though I I under Maholland Drive is a universally beloved David Lynch movie.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody loves it.
• 1:21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not I don't think I ever read a bad review of Maholland Drive.
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like I was losing my mind because when I saw it in the theater, um, you know, there's a version of Twin Peaks of the pilot where they they contractually had to film an ending for Europe.
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's a they wrap up the whole mystery in like 10 minutes, and it makes no sense.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just something they they they took the scraps of that ending and turned them into the dream sequence in episode three of season one.
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it nobody thinks the European pilot of Twin Peaks is the ideal version of Twin Peaks.
• 1:21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody watches that and like this is the preferred version, it's a perfect film.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_00: But they do think that about Mahal and Drive, which is basically a heightened version of that same scenario.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically like the European pilot of Twin Peaks with a fake ending.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_00: The first 90 minutes of Maholland Drive are maybe my favorite television pilot of all time.
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you can feel it.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_00: There are act breaks.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_00: There are places where it's structured.
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_00: That scene where the guy is like trying to rob that office and he keeps getting hurt.
• 1:22:11
  SPEAKER_00: We never go back to that really.
• 1:22:12
  SPEAKER_00: We never there are certain things that clearly we were gonna go revisit that in episode two, three, four, where there were things we were gonna see again, like the two guys at the diner.
• 1:22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And these guys show up in weird ways in the in the ending that he made with European, with like French financing to complete the pilot.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because he made that as a pilot for ABC, and they very foolishly did not pick it up to go to series.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so then he finished it as a movie with some French money.
• 1:22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end, there's some very in the last half hour of that movie, there's a lot of very vivid filmmaking and evocative moments.
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_00: But when I was watching that in the theater, it didn't feel like I was watching a great David Lynch movie.
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like Lost Highway is similarly like weird, but it feels complete.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_00: While Hallen Drive, I can never shake the feeling that I'm just watching my favorite new TV series get canceled in real time.
• 1:23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I get to that final half hour, it just feels to me like whatever he's saying, whatever message is coming through in that final thing about you know doubling or identity or any of those moves, I can't shake the feeling that this is a great TV pilot that I don't think is a great standalone feature film.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh no one's ever been able to persuade me otherwise, even the people who love Mahal and Drive, because I love all the same things about it.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think the premise of a woman who has amnesia who's trying to find out who she is.
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, what she doesn't realize is that people are looking for her to try and kill her.
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you have these two forces.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_00: You have our hero whose goal is lead is unknowingly leading her into greater and greater danger.
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_00: That is, I don't know how long they would have been able to sustain that, but what a great entry point for a for a TV show.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_00: For a TV series.
• 1:24:03
  SPEAKER_02: I already see that, yeah.
• 1:24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, yep.
• 1:24:07
  SPEAKER_00: I and I cannot, I know that David Lynch sees it as this perfect film.
• 1:24:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was able to complete it, but to me, it is no more that he made the perfect Maholland Drive than that the Twin Peaks European pilot is the perfect version of Twin Peaks.
• 1:24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine if there had been no other Twin Peaks except that pilot.
• 1:24:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it would be considered a very weird and kind of minor experiment.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that wouldn't be like because you'd but that's kind of how Maholland Drive feels to me is like it feels like we're meeting these characters, and imagine if all we ever saw of Dale Cooper was the scenes in the pilot.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's how a lot of the characters in Maholland Drive feel to me.
• 1:24:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like I want to see where these characters go next.
• 1:24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it it is built into the DNA of that movie.
• 1:24:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was designed to be a s the beginning chapter of an ongoing story.
• 1:24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And now the thing that makes me feel less bad about it over time, and this is where the season three of Twin Peaks sort of rewired my brain with David Lynch, is that you know, Twin Peaks famously ended its second season with one question repeated over and over, which is how's Annie?
• 1:25:18
  SPEAKER_00: He ends season two with Cooper Possessed by Bob, and he's saying, How's Annie?
• 1:25:22
  SPEAKER_00: How's Annie?
• 1:25:23
  SPEAKER_00: How's Annie?
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they filmed 18 hours of Twin Peaks season three without even once hinting at an answer to that question.
• 1:25:33
  SPEAKER_00: The question was answered in one of Mark Frost's Twin Peaks like companion books.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_00: She's not doing well, she's been in a uh a facility this whole time and basically lost her mind.
• 1:25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um But that made me realize, like, oh right, like like people who want another season of Twin Peaks, which I would love another season of Twin Peaks, I would love even just one standalone movie or episode, anything they can make would be great.
• 1:26:00
  SPEAKER_00: But when season three ended and the question that is asked at the end is what year is this?
• 1:26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And people are like, now they have to do another season so they can tell you what year it is.
• 1:26:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's never gonna tell us what year it is.
• 1:26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like he doesn't he he likes to create experiences.
• 1:26:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's not interested in uh tying anything up or explaining anything.
• 1:26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And given that, I think I could watch Moholland Drive again and just enjoy the ride.
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I did that with Wild at Heart.
• 1:26:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think when I think also watching deleted scenes from like Blue Velvet and the missing pieces from Firewalk with me have made me um kind of relax a little bit on this point.
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh holland drive probably it would have either gotten cancelled or he would have they would have screwed it up somehow on ABC, like if it had gone for like I don't care anymore.
• 1:26:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't care, I can just enjoy Maholland Drive as what it is, but I do feel like of the movies that people think are you know universally beloved David Lynch films, I can't shake the sense of disappointment in Maholland Drive just at what could have been.
• 1:27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that the last half hour, as vivid as the filmmaking is, I don't think it ties the knot for me in terms of like he sets up eight different story strands and then it's all kind of like doesn't mean anything, it's all a dream world.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_00: They go into that little box and everything is flipped and silencio, and it's sort of to me, I just see that as a fancier, more ambitious version of the Twin Peaks European pilot ending.
• 1:27:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:27:37
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah, I I kind of see.
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I know what you're saying there.
• 1:27:41
  SPEAKER_02: I at the same time, I don't think given that he tried to make it a pilot and it didn't get taken, like what else are you supposed to do with it other than try and it's a great salvage job.
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great salvage job.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's salvaging it's salvaging what he could have done.
• 1:27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but uh but I've never seen a s like it is Adort.
• 1:28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like that movie, people write about it as if it is the greatest thing that David Lynch ever did.
• 1:28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not now.
• 1:28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe people say about Twin Peaks season three.
• 1:28:10
  SPEAKER_00: So people sort of like talk about episode eight of that, I think, rightly as being maybe the greatest thing that he's done, because it sort of captures everything about him.
• 1:28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um But I couldn't, at the time I could not find even one critical review of it.
• 1:28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it sort of astonished me that nobody nobody disliked that movie.
• 1:28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, every critic writing about that movie was basically like, This is perfect, David Lynch, fever dream.
• 1:28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, at that point, I had sort of tired of the dream fever dream aspect of it.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I would like him to finish this story that he started telling me.
• 1:28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I couldn't believe that critics, you would think that critics would be eager to say, like, this is a you know cobble together ending for a TV pilot.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody took the bait.
• 1:28:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was the only one feeling it, it felt like I felt very alone when that movie came out because I sort of expected there'd be people who'd be like, you could feel that this is a pilot that got cancelled.
• 1:29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but everybody's I'm also kind of like, how would this have done at ABC?
• 1:29:13
  SPEAKER_02: I can't imagine it at ABC.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean ABC That's a real wrong place for it.
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, well, cause even like the fact that like Robert Forster um has a relatively small part in uh as a as a detective in that, yeah.
• 1:29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's clear that he would have been a bigger part if it had gone on, it would have he would have been part of the ensemble, but it's weird that he's just this little part in the movie, you know?
• 1:29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like um, but um yeah, it would not have done well at ABC.
• 1:29:47
  SPEAKER_00: They were it really but also, you know, we think of it as like I think Maholland Drive would do great as a TV show anytime in the past 15 years.
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um there would have been lots of places that would have loved to have that as a show.
• 1:30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um but at the time, uh even HBO, you know, people don't remember that David Lynch did a sh people always say, like, oh, Twin Peaks would have done great on HBO.
• 1:30:11
  SPEAKER_00: David Lynch did a show between Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive for HBO called Hotel Room, and it was an anthology series.
• 1:30:20
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know that.
• 1:30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Crispin Glover's in an episode, Harry Dean Stanton's in an episode, David Lynch directed, I think, two of the three episodes, and they burned it off as like a as if it was a movie.
• 1:30:30
  SPEAKER_00: They were just like, it's just a 90-minute, it's just like a uh um two-hour movie or whatever, it's just three episodes cobbled together.
• 1:30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, so even HBO of that time was not ready for a David Lynch TV show.
• 1:30:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that um until Showtime, Showtime's the first place that actually, with the third season of Twin Peaks, that anyone ever properly allowed David Lynch to just do a full thing and not at any point.
• 1:30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just go wild.
• 1:30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which has its good and bad points to it.
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_00: There are parts of Twin Peaks season three that are very hard to watch, and there are parts that are perfect.
• 1:31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um But anyway, Moll and Drive, that's my movie.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's my movie.
• 1:31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'll take it down a notch, even though I mostly I also love it, but um I can't help but be disappointed in it, and I don't think it I I it falls yeah it falls, you know, lower than quite a few other David Lynch things.
• 1:31:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not at the top of my David Lynch list, you know, for that reason.
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_00: What is at the top of your list out of interest?
• 1:31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just yeah.
• 1:31:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean uh Do you put Twin Peaks at the top?
• 1:31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Probably Twin Peaks, good uh the good and the bad of Twin Peaks.
• 1:31:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's my you know that's the thing that draws me in the most.
• 1:31:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I probably I probably like um Lost Highway and e I even probably like Inland Empire, I think, more than I like Maholland Drive, even though Maholland Drive is easier to hook into.
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I like Inland Empire because it feels like it is exactly what it's supposed to be.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I love Blue Velvet.
• 1:31:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love Eraser.
• 1:31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Blue Velvet might be my favorite.
• 1:31:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet are like out there for me, but yeah.
• 1:32:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I newly like Wild at Heart, but I also part of that is watching 75 minutes of the deleted scenes.
• 1:32:09
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think that watching the deleted scenes for Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, and Fire Walk With Me, they are actually kind of they kind of cohere into these sort of weird companion features.
• 1:32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're not scenes that I want put um I I might like it if someone put together a cut of Wild at Heart that included all of the things that there's all these great scenes with Harry Dean Stanton and the three people, the two of the people who are gonna eventually kill him, where they're like coming up to him in a restaurant and like pretending to be other people uh and and making conversation with him.
• 1:32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it would have added probably like 15 minutes to the movie.
• 1:32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's a lot, but there's a lot of interesting stuff that I actually think would make a great sort of super cut.
• 1:32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 1:32:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I I think it's worth watching those movies.
• 1:32:56
  SPEAKER_00: They they also those were also some of the things that made me realize, like, oh, I'm not in this for the storytelling.
• 1:33:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just in it for the moment moment feeling of David Lynch.
• 1:33:07
  SPEAKER_02: It does make me wonder you're saying you're watching the deleted scenes in it and it like it added to it and everything.
• 1:33:11
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder what the deleted scenes are of the good German that might have if there's potentially anything that would have added to the story here.
• 1:33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wonder.
• 1:33:19
  SPEAKER_00: I uh it's hard to imagine that there aren't some, although I could also imagine that this was tightly boarded or something, just because it was like getting it made at all was probably uh a big ass for Warner Brothers.
• 1:33:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that they may have been like, you can do it, but it's gotta be under this budget, you know.
• 1:33:35
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I bet it was cheap.
• 1:33:36
  SPEAKER_02: I bet it was very cheaply made.
• 1:33:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:33:39
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah.
• 1:33:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:33:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, this has been great.
• 1:33:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um Do you have any final thoughts on the good German or or on uh Maholland Drive?
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, the I like Mulholland Drive more than I like the good German.
• 1:33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but they're but Mulholland Drive is lower in my estimation than it is in most people's, and good German is higher in my estimation than it is in most people's.
• 1:34:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sort of aver balancing things out.
• 1:34:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, great.
• 1:34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:34:10
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't I wasn't expecting you to say that after after hearing about both of those movies from you.
• 1:34:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um but uh okay, do so do you have anything you want to plug at the moment?
• 1:34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and how can we find you online?
• 1:34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um you can find me on Twitter at Connor Ratliff, C-O-N-N-O-R-R-A-T-L-I-F-F.
• 1:34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh the main thing that I have going on right now is the George Lucas Talk Show, uh, Sunday nights on planetscum.live.
• 1:34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um it starts at different times depending on the week.
• 1:34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you can also find all you know the hundreds of hours of past episodes on YouTube and the George Lucas Talk Show.
• 1:34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And my podcast, uh Dead Eyes, which is about the time that I was fired from uh Band of Brothers.
• 1:34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the reason I was told is that Tom Hanks had looked at my audition tape and he thought that I had Dead Eyes.
• 1:34:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's an amazing podcast.
• 1:35:00
  SPEAKER_02: I really recommend it if you haven't listened to it already.
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 1:35:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's one of my favorites out there.
• 1:35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, great.
• 1:35:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks so much for doing this, Collar.
• 1:35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
• 1:35:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's the end of the podcast.
• 1:35:12
  SPEAKER_02: If you enjoyed it, please leave us a review and rate us a like tunes so we can end up making more episodes.
• 1:35:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll see you next week for more moving stepcritics.