Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Strange Days (1995) - Kathryn Bigelow | Houselights #254

Transcript

Strange Days (1995) - Kathryn Bigelow | Houselights #254 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to the ned Palty.
0:20
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the House of Bigelow, the latest ongoing
0:24
Speaker 2: series in house Lights where we examine the work of directors,
0:28
Speaker 2: and this time it's Catherine Bigelow and we are working
0:31
Speaker 2: through her oove, her list, her filmography, and we come
0:35
Speaker 2: to nineteen ninety five's Strange Days. I am one of
0:39
Speaker 2: your humble hosts, your blackjack dealer for the little sony
0:44
Speaker 2: mini disc that goes on top of your head, John
0:47
Speaker 2: quote unquote Lenny Mills, and I am joined by the
0:51
Speaker 2: virtuous police commissioner who kicked me off of the forest,
0:53
Speaker 2: Darren Moser, and my suspiciously long haired best friend Tristan Riddell.
1:00
Speaker 2: Welcome you both to this look at the future from
1:02
Speaker 2: the past, Catherine Bigelow's giant epic Strange Days from nineteen
1:09
Speaker 2: ninety five, boasting an all star cast. And I'm going
1:12
Speaker 2: to go right off the bat. I'm going to jump
1:15
Speaker 2: right in. Usually we talk about first time seeing it,
1:17
Speaker 2: those sorts of things, and Darren, I know this was
1:19
Speaker 2: your first time seeing it, but I will throw the
1:22
Speaker 2: first question to you. How disorienting is it to watch
1:27
Speaker 2: something from decades ago postulating on a future? Four years
1:31
Speaker 2: from when it was set. That's now thirty years behind us.
1:35
Speaker 2: And how far off do you think that it was
1:37
Speaker 2: in its predictions?
1:39
Speaker 3: Oh so you know eight questions. Okay, that's good. Yes, No,
1:44
Speaker 3: I think I will give it. As far as like
1:47
Speaker 3: the tech and the sci fi element of you know,
1:50
Speaker 3: the squid and the technology. I liked that they kept
1:52
Speaker 3: it at one thing. They're like, this is a single
1:55
Speaker 3: piece of technology. If they can get you on board
1:58
Speaker 3: with that, it's part of the story. But it's not
2:01
Speaker 3: like and we also have this and you know these
2:05
Speaker 3: other pieces of technology that don't exist. So I was
2:08
Speaker 3: happy with the conservativeness of that prediction. Also, I think
2:16
Speaker 3: Catherine talked about how she was not inspired is probably
2:22
Speaker 3: the wrong word, but influenced by the Rodney King riots
2:26
Speaker 3: in Los Angeles, because boy, every shot of the street
2:30
Speaker 3: in LA is like, why are you out of your house?
2:34
Speaker 3: This is like a war zone. It's worse than RoboCop
2:38
Speaker 3: three war zone. And that's you know, even stretching it.
2:42
Speaker 3: So all that to say, you know, I didn't mind
2:46
Speaker 3: it being set in ninety nine watching it from twenty
2:51
Speaker 3: plus years in the future, because I don't think it
2:56
Speaker 3: was really taking a giant leap. Yeah, the Riots is
3:00
Speaker 3: you know, a bit star Trek's taken more leaps in
3:03
Speaker 3: the future, you know, with their prediction of the late
3:06
Speaker 3: nineties than this movie did. Like it was actually very grounded.
3:10
Speaker 2: That's fair, that's fair. Tristan. Do you think that looking
3:13
Speaker 2: at this movie, especially through the lens of now, that
3:16
Speaker 2: you see some of the angst that people were starting
3:19
Speaker 2: to feel as early as nineteen ninety five about the
3:22
Speaker 2: turn of the millennium.
3:24
Speaker 4: I don't think it was necessarily the angst of the
3:27
Speaker 4: turn of the millennium, more so the angst of being
3:30
Speaker 4: in a post Rodney King worldly. I really do believe that,
3:35
Speaker 4: like when you're watching it, like you know, Darren was
3:38
Speaker 4: talking about, like even when you look at the streets
3:40
Speaker 4: and how it's shot and where they shoot in Los
3:43
Speaker 4: Angeles is very much evocative of the riots could happen
3:47
Speaker 4: in any time, you know, the incitement could happen like this.
3:52
Speaker 4: The city is a powder keg, and so I think
3:56
Speaker 4: it was kind of odd to make it about the
4:00
Speaker 4: turn of the century, about to make it, you know,
4:03
Speaker 4: like two thousand. I don't think that was really necessary.
4:07
Speaker 4: I really don't like that was one thing that kind
4:11
Speaker 4: of stuck out to me as odd was that that
4:14
Speaker 4: was a focal point, because I don't think you needed
4:16
Speaker 4: that at all. I mean, like, if you wanted to
4:18
Speaker 4: make it New Year's, sure, you know, make it New
4:20
Speaker 4: Year's But the the whole in the world New Millennium thing,
4:28
Speaker 4: it felt a little out of place, where the rest
4:31
Speaker 4: of it felt very in vibe with the time. And
4:35
Speaker 4: it's how what was that? Oh jeez, what was that
4:38
Speaker 4: movie that we that we reviewed where oh it is
4:42
Speaker 4: Predator too? Yeah, yeah, Predator too. Like you could tell
4:46
Speaker 4: like this, like it's it's this this phobia, it's this
4:50
Speaker 4: this nervousness of how things are only going to get worse.
4:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I like the way you
4:56
Speaker 2: phrase that, because I think that there is definitely a vibe,
5:03
Speaker 2: but it seems to come from people who are living
5:05
Speaker 2: closer to LA at the time than other cities necessarily.
5:11
Speaker 2: I mean, New York went through its post apocalyptic thing
5:13
Speaker 2: in the eighties Escape from New York The Warriors, which
5:17
Speaker 2: was seventy nine, but whatever, you get my point, Like
5:20
Speaker 2: New York had gone through its post apocalyptic thing, and
5:22
Speaker 2: then it seems like the nineties were LA's post apocalyptic
5:24
Speaker 2: vision of the world, whereas you know, a lot of
5:28
Speaker 2: other movies in the nineties were a lot more fun
5:31
Speaker 2: and care free. Like it's interesting, it almost seems like
5:34
Speaker 2: it's a regional concern, not concerned. I'm not diminishing it.
5:37
Speaker 2: I'm saying like, La seems to be where things were
5:40
Speaker 2: really focused. Because you mentioned Predator too and then this film.
5:44
Speaker 2: But Darren to what Tristan is talking about, do you
5:48
Speaker 2: think that this film from the outset is adequately structured
5:54
Speaker 2: to deal with all of the themes that he just
5:58
Speaker 2: went through, the racial anxiety, the future anxiety, the military,
6:02
Speaker 2: police dating. Like, there's a lot going on in this
6:05
Speaker 2: movie about the world. Is it structured in such a
6:08
Speaker 2: way that that supports that.
6:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely swinging for the fences in what it's
6:14
Speaker 3: trying to accomplish. It's almost like it takes all this
6:20
Speaker 3: time to set up this big narrative again, you know,
6:25
Speaker 3: when talking about the riots, the fact that in the
6:27
Speaker 3: background of every shot there's like tanks and squads of
6:31
Speaker 3: you know, police with riot shields, And it's almost jarring
6:36
Speaker 3: because I'm like, why are people going about their lives
6:40
Speaker 3: like that? Doesn't make any sense that there aren't. There
6:43
Speaker 3: isn't a group of people cowering. But then it tries
6:47
Speaker 3: to tell this tiny story that tells takes place in
6:50
Speaker 3: like a city block, and I'm like, Okay, are you
6:54
Speaker 3: telling the big story? Are you telling the little story?
6:57
Speaker 3: And not that you can't create the world, Like obviously
7:01
Speaker 3: that's important, but yeah, at the end of the day,
7:06
Speaker 3: I don't even know. I guess with more thought, I
7:10
Speaker 3: could probably suss it out. But nothing really struck me
7:14
Speaker 3: as oh, this is the message of the movie, you know,
7:20
Speaker 3: because it's trying at all these different ways, you know,
7:23
Speaker 3: talking about the cops, talking about race, talking about you know, inequality.
7:29
Speaker 3: You know, they have little spiels about nothing's going to
7:33
Speaker 3: get better. I guess I would say that's it. It's
7:36
Speaker 3: nothing is going to get better, so give what you
7:38
Speaker 3: can while you can. Like that is kind of the
7:42
Speaker 3: underlying theme of many of these characters.
7:45
Speaker 2: Okay, I think that I think that's a fair way
7:49
Speaker 2: to approach it. But you know, with the way that
7:54
Speaker 2: it opens, it's very jarring, like you're instantly thrown into
7:58
Speaker 2: that first person peron perspective sort of camera work where
8:03
Speaker 2: you're experiencing what it would be like to watch one
8:06
Speaker 2: of these experiences with the rig on your head, and
8:11
Speaker 2: Bigelow and her director of photography actually pioneered a different
8:16
Speaker 2: kind of rig so that they could get something more
8:20
Speaker 2: like eye movement of what it would be like to
8:22
Speaker 2: be in that first person perspective, like I would think
8:25
Speaker 2: back to if you look back at a film like
8:29
Speaker 2: John Carpenter's Halloween that very famously opens with the first
8:33
Speaker 2: person perspective of Michael Myers as a kid, you can
8:37
Speaker 2: tell that it's a camera with somebody reaching from just
8:41
Speaker 2: off and stuff like that.
8:42
Speaker 4: There's some distortion.
8:43
Speaker 2: Tristan, do you think that this represents a leap in
8:49
Speaker 2: terms of how the first person perspective stuff is shot
8:54
Speaker 2: or do you like, do you think that this is
8:56
Speaker 2: an unrecognized leap forward or do you think that this
8:59
Speaker 2: is just good for the equipment of the time.
9:03
Speaker 4: This was an unrecognized leap forward, and you could really
9:06
Speaker 4: tell that you needed someone like Bigelow and Cameron behind
9:11
Speaker 4: the scenes in order to get this to happen. You
9:15
Speaker 4: needed innovative minds like them in order to make it happen.
9:18
Speaker 4: And it's it's true, like while I was watching it,
9:22
Speaker 4: I had to double check the date because this was
9:25
Speaker 4: phenomenal POV because there's there's so many movies before and
9:29
Speaker 4: so many after where the POV is just shaky cam.
9:34
Speaker 4: You know, it's just first person shaky camp. That's all
9:36
Speaker 4: it is. And that's fine if that's what you want
9:39
Speaker 4: to go, or you have like a chest mount where
9:41
Speaker 4: like that. That happens a lot. It's kind of like
9:43
Speaker 4: the reverse of that, almost said Stanley Spike Lee shot
9:49
Speaker 4: where you know, like he has the chest rig and
9:50
Speaker 4: it shows the camera pointed at the person's face and
9:54
Speaker 4: so their face is centered in the frame and so
9:56
Speaker 4: the background is moving all like crazy. It's you know,
10:00
Speaker 4: like there's some you know, cinematographers who do the reverse
10:02
Speaker 4: of that, where it's just a chest cam and the
10:05
Speaker 4: camera's rigged in front, and then it's it's like really
10:08
Speaker 4: stilted and it's kind of like wobbly back and forth,
10:11
Speaker 4: but not in a natural way. This was done where
10:16
Speaker 4: you could see it as eyes darting left and right
10:19
Speaker 4: up and down diagonal and it was much more fluid
10:22
Speaker 4: without being floaty. And that is a really really hard
10:27
Speaker 4: line to walk, and this really pulled it off, and
10:30
Speaker 4: I applaud it and the cinematographer and Bigelow and cameraon
10:34
Speaker 4: for being able to develop that. And I kept looking
10:37
Speaker 4: online to see a picture of the rig and I
10:39
Speaker 4: can't find it.
10:41
Speaker 3: I know, I kind of want to see that. I mean,
10:43
Speaker 3: I'm reading what did they say multifaceted cameras, and I'm.
10:48
Speaker 4: Like, what does that mean?
10:49
Speaker 3: Like I want to see a picture, because you're right,
10:53
Speaker 3: it wasn't just a lockdown, straightforward shot. It had eye movement,
10:59
Speaker 3: but you have to be very subtle on that because
11:02
Speaker 3: if you're darting around the viewers getting nauseous. And while
11:07
Speaker 3: I could see, you know, where the cuts were in
11:10
Speaker 3: some of the sequences, they were very well hidden, like
11:14
Speaker 3: you know, like stumbling and looking left really quickly, I'm like, oh,
11:17
Speaker 3: there's obviously a little cut there. But it didn't ever
11:19
Speaker 3: take me out of it. It was always a well
11:22
Speaker 3: done transition because obviously they're shooting on film still at
11:26
Speaker 3: this point, so it's a tiny camera that Yeah, it
11:29
Speaker 3: was loud as hell, you know rank eight.
11:33
Speaker 4: Oh sorry I didn't mean to cut you off, but yeah,
11:35
Speaker 4: it was an eight pound, thirty five millimeter camera that
11:39
Speaker 4: you could put in front of you. That's amazing. And
11:42
Speaker 4: but the thing is like you said, Darren, it was
11:44
Speaker 4: so loud that they actually couldn't record any audio, so
11:47
Speaker 4: they had to for the opening scene, they had to
11:50
Speaker 4: redub everything, They had to adr everything in post.
11:54
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, because if anyone's heard a camera right next
11:57
Speaker 3: to a microphone, it sounds like helicopter taking off. It's
12:01
Speaker 3: really load, especially if you're trying to get a certain
12:04
Speaker 3: sort of frame rate.
12:06
Speaker 2: You know, I'm going to ask you this question first, Aaron.
12:10
Speaker 2: You know, obviously I never wanted any sort of like
12:13
Speaker 2: school for it. I can, you know, break things apart.
12:15
Speaker 2: I've seen lots of film, I've had discussions with people,
12:18
Speaker 2: but you're talking about the technical stuff there with Tristan.
12:22
Speaker 2: Do you see this first person camera work that's going
12:26
Speaker 2: on here and you understand the technical challenges they overcame.
12:30
Speaker 2: Do you see modern cinema benefiting from digital? Like, is
12:36
Speaker 2: this film so far ahead of its time that it
12:38
Speaker 2: would have been easier and better to shoot it now
12:43
Speaker 2: then back then?
12:45
Speaker 3: Oh?
12:45
Speaker 4: Definitely.
12:46
Speaker 3: I mean nowadays you would strap a GoPro or an
12:48
Speaker 3: iPhone and you have something that's a fraction of the
12:52
Speaker 3: weight and is silent. So yeah, the fact that they
12:56
Speaker 3: did it, you know, I didn't think about it until
13:00
Speaker 3: after finishing the movie, but then thinking about the point
13:04
Speaker 3: of viewshot, I was like, oh, well, Cameron worked on
13:07
Speaker 3: this of course, Like of anyone in this era who
13:11
Speaker 3: would be like, we're gonna make this cool movie, but
13:14
Speaker 3: we're also going to have to spend a year of
13:15
Speaker 3: R and D making a unique camera to pull it off.
13:19
Speaker 3: There's one person on that list who would pull who
13:22
Speaker 3: would do that, and that's James Cameron. So but yeah, nowadays,
13:27
Speaker 3: or I think of you could also shoot it with
13:31
Speaker 3: the A three sixty camera and then later edit in
13:36
Speaker 3: the motion of the eye movement because you're capturing the
13:39
Speaker 3: entire frame. But it's finding that balance between a wide
13:43
Speaker 3: angle lens, which we all know what that looks like,
13:46
Speaker 3: and that's usually what POV was is get the camera
13:49
Speaker 3: as close to the face as possible and really widen
13:54
Speaker 3: it out, because that's the trick about our human perception
13:57
Speaker 3: is we kind of have a mix of peripheral that
14:01
Speaker 3: we're not paying attention to, but we kind of intrinsically
14:04
Speaker 3: see and our telephoto focus in front of us, and
14:08
Speaker 3: then we can swing that focus around. But in a
14:12
Speaker 3: movie camera, you it's all or nothing. It's everything is
14:15
Speaker 3: the focus. So but yeah, props more props to them
14:20
Speaker 3: for making it in the nineties than in the twentyands
14:23
Speaker 3: or twenty tens.
14:24
Speaker 2: But Tristan, do you see modern filmmakers pulling this off
14:28
Speaker 2: as well? Do you think that we like Bigelow pulls
14:32
Speaker 2: off these first person perspective shots. Do you think that
14:37
Speaker 2: the limitations of the technology back then made these shots
14:41
Speaker 2: better because they had to plan them so significantly to
14:46
Speaker 2: get them to go right.
14:47
Speaker 4: Probably definitely With that second question, I think definitely. Like
14:50
Speaker 4: when you it's interesting because like when you compare digital
14:55
Speaker 4: editing to analog editing editing where you know when back
14:59
Speaker 4: in like when you were Spielberg often talked about the
15:02
Speaker 4: differences between making Jaws and making something like Minority Report
15:08
Speaker 4: or Later, where you know, when you're making Jaws, it
15:12
Speaker 4: takes you like fifteen minutes to cut a like a
15:16
Speaker 4: to make a cut, and so you have to really
15:20
Speaker 4: really figure out if that's where you want to cut,
15:23
Speaker 4: Like is this where you want to cut the scene?
15:26
Speaker 4: Is this where you want to cut the shot? You
15:28
Speaker 4: really got to think about it because it's going to
15:29
Speaker 4: take you a while. Fifteen minutes is an exaggeration, but
15:32
Speaker 4: you know, in a you know, in digital filmmaking, on
15:36
Speaker 4: just a computer, you make that cut, you can do
15:40
Speaker 4: it fifteen different ways in a minute, and so when
15:45
Speaker 4: you're prepping a shot like this, or when you're prepping technology,
15:48
Speaker 4: you have to really make figure out what it looks like.
15:51
Speaker 4: And I feel like with digital filmmaking, one of the
15:53
Speaker 4: drawbacks is also one of the advantages is that you're like, oh, well,
15:57
Speaker 4: we can get it like this fifteen different ways and
15:59
Speaker 4: just figure it out later, like with the three sixty camp.
16:02
Speaker 4: That's a great idea, Darren. But at the same time,
16:06
Speaker 4: you're just you're getting all the information so you can
16:08
Speaker 4: decide later instead of you know, deciding on set, which
16:11
Speaker 4: again has its advantages and has its disadvantages. And so
16:16
Speaker 4: I feel like Soderberg does POV really well, especially with
16:21
Speaker 4: his latest film Presence. You know, that's all POV of
16:26
Speaker 4: a ghost, and so it's really floaty and it's really
16:30
Speaker 4: you know, like kind of ambient, and so it's not
16:32
Speaker 4: like this at all. But you know, you know, he
16:35
Speaker 4: famously utilizes the iPhone in a very specific type way,
16:39
Speaker 4: and he uses it in ways that you couldn't use
16:41
Speaker 4: a normal thirty eight millimeter camera or even a regular
16:44
Speaker 4: digital camera because it's so thin and you can put
16:46
Speaker 4: it in different places. But like if you look at
16:50
Speaker 4: I know this is a glaring example, but the Doom
16:54
Speaker 4: movie with the Rock, not Dwayne Johnson, the Rock, you know,
16:58
Speaker 4: a lot of that was POV and it was It
17:00
Speaker 4: was weird because they were trying to go for a
17:01
Speaker 4: video game feel, but yet it was nauseating and with
17:07
Speaker 4: strange days, you could easily make the argument, oh, it
17:10
Speaker 4: feels like a video game, but it doesn't. Like just
17:13
Speaker 4: because it's first person doesn't mean it feels like a
17:15
Speaker 4: video game. It feels like you're actually in it, which
17:19
Speaker 4: was the point.
17:21
Speaker 2: So, Darren, with all of the technical stuff that we
17:23
Speaker 2: spent so long talking about, which is easy to you know,
17:26
Speaker 2: it's a rabbit hole to go down, this is your
17:28
Speaker 2: first time watching it, do you think that they spent
17:33
Speaker 2: more time developing the tech than developing the script or
17:38
Speaker 2: did they find the right balance.
17:40
Speaker 3: It's not a bad balance. I think the times that
17:43
Speaker 3: we do use the POV shot, it's not every frame,
17:47
Speaker 3: it's not every shot that's used sparingly for the narrative.
17:51
Speaker 3: I think I will give them that. I don't feel like, oh,
17:55
Speaker 3: look another POV and it's like thirty minutes and boy,
17:59
Speaker 3: you know, why are we in this? It makes me
18:01
Speaker 3: kind of think of what was it final cut that
18:06
Speaker 3: Robin Williams weird?
18:09
Speaker 4: I remember that one man, That's a weird movie.
18:13
Speaker 3: The only thing I loved about that movie was is
18:15
Speaker 3: like editing station, because it was just like every editor's
18:18
Speaker 3: nerd dream of, like just conducting your edit basically with
18:22
Speaker 3: giant wheels and tumblers. But in the cutter, Yeah, I
18:28
Speaker 3: was a bit of a nerd and wanted to call
18:30
Speaker 3: myself that in editing school, but nobody got on board.
18:32
Speaker 3: So I would have called you that, Tristan. If you
18:36
Speaker 3: had called me, we would have been bros.
18:38
Speaker 4: But I get you, man, I get it.
18:41
Speaker 3: But no, in strange days, yeah it. You know, this
18:47
Speaker 3: is a nineties movie. It feels like a nineties movie.
18:50
Speaker 3: It feels the kind of movies where we interact with
18:55
Speaker 3: people and you know, down on your luck, just trying
18:59
Speaker 3: to get through another night, you know, running the streets,
19:02
Speaker 3: and but also with my cool piece of future tech
19:07
Speaker 3: that sits on your head. And but I liked it.
19:10
Speaker 3: I liked the overall story. We spend a ton of time,
19:15
Speaker 3: you know, with you know, with Lenny. You know, we
19:18
Speaker 3: know it's his story. There's no protagonist confusion, dear lord,
19:24
Speaker 3: there's you know, it's all about him and trying to
19:28
Speaker 3: come through this, you know, a short amount of time.
19:31
Speaker 3: It's like only two or three nights that were actually
19:33
Speaker 3: experiencing of his life. So all that to say, I
19:39
Speaker 3: enjoyed the story. I enjoyed the characterization and the plot,
19:46
Speaker 3: but it's also just, you know, it's a it's kind
19:51
Speaker 3: of a B movie as so far as like there's
19:54
Speaker 3: nothing that's shocking me or rocking me or you know,
19:58
Speaker 3: oh I got to watch that again. And we've we've
20:01
Speaker 3: talked a lot about movies that pull it off in
20:04
Speaker 3: the last act and you're like, oh, I'm ready for more.
20:08
Speaker 3: And not that this saidn't have a good last act,
20:11
Speaker 3: but it just it was kind of like big budget
20:16
Speaker 3: TV movie vibe, you know, like it had a lot
20:20
Speaker 3: of money behind it. It had some amazing shots. I'm
20:24
Speaker 3: still amazed by the helicopter shot of downtown Los Angeles
20:29
Speaker 3: at night where they panned down and there's a crowd
20:31
Speaker 3: of like ten thousand people, which apparently there were. I'm
20:35
Speaker 3: assuming the other shots must have been a model or something.
20:39
Speaker 3: But that shot just totally blew me over. But that
20:44
Speaker 3: was my overall vibe. I would say with the story.
20:49
Speaker 2: Tristan, given the complexity of the story, you're coming back,
20:53
Speaker 2: you were revisiting it. I don't know what you thought
20:56
Speaker 2: of it the first time you saw it.
20:57
Speaker 4: But taking the first time I saw Oh, this was.
21:01
Speaker 2: The first time you saw it. Oh, I'm so sorry.
21:03
Speaker 2: I thought that I thought you had seen this before.
21:05
Speaker 4: Nope, not at all. Oh, my day, it was the
21:07
Speaker 4: first day.
21:08
Speaker 2: So given that fact that you're coming in and you're
21:11
Speaker 2: seeing this for the first time, Like Darren, same question
21:14
Speaker 2: to you, do you think that they spent so much
21:16
Speaker 2: time on the tech that they should have spent more
21:19
Speaker 2: time leaning the script down, you know, narrowing the focus.
21:23
Speaker 4: No, no, I love the script. I thought that was
21:25
Speaker 4: one of the best things about the movie was the script.
21:28
Speaker 4: I think this was I think Jay Cox did a
21:31
Speaker 4: fantastic job with writing the dialogue. I feel like I
21:36
Speaker 4: wish all James Cameron screenplays were like this, where he
21:40
Speaker 4: would he would take the story. It's a it's a
21:44
Speaker 4: James Cameron story, you know, with input from Catherine Bigelow.
21:48
Speaker 4: He writes a treatment and he writes out the story beats,
21:51
Speaker 4: he writes the treatment, and then let somebody else do
21:54
Speaker 4: the dialogue. That is exactly how a James Cameron film
21:58
Speaker 4: should go. And I think Jay Cox just he nailed
22:03
Speaker 4: the noir and the cyberpunk vibe and Lenny's. Lenny's verbiage
22:11
Speaker 4: is so perfect that it's shocking, Like the just the
22:16
Speaker 4: language is so unique and different, and there's so many
22:21
Speaker 4: different pronouns and unique words that are repurposed and reused
22:26
Speaker 4: for this age and for this applicable world and technology
22:31
Speaker 4: that it felt so effortless coming from Ray Fines's mouth.
22:35
Speaker 4: And so I feel like it's a combination of Jaycox's
22:38
Speaker 4: words read by or I should say, recited by Ray Fines,
22:43
Speaker 4: directed by Catherine Bigelow. You know, Like, I think probably
22:48
Speaker 4: my main complaint is that it should be shorter. It
22:50
Speaker 4: should be trimmed down a little bit, like there is fat,
22:54
Speaker 4: There is fat there there it should be compacted, because
22:57
Speaker 4: I think I get when you get to the ninety
22:59
Speaker 4: minute mark. I'm not saying it should have ended at
23:01
Speaker 4: ninety minutes, but like you look at your watch and
23:04
Speaker 4: you're like, I have forty five more minutes. Good, Actually
23:09
Speaker 4: more than that at that point, like you have almost
23:12
Speaker 4: an hour more. That's insane. It's too long, it's too long.
23:16
Speaker 4: But the script itself is solid.
23:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to echo that for a sci fi movie,
23:24
Speaker 3: and I'll say that because of the technology. I mean,
23:26
Speaker 3: obviously it's like ninety percent not sci fi, but for
23:29
Speaker 3: the sci fi elements. It is really really hard to
23:35
Speaker 3: introduce a new technology to your viewers and give it
23:40
Speaker 3: slang and have it not sound atrocious. It is really
23:45
Speaker 3: really hard. And this movie I grew Tristan, it nailed it.
23:49
Speaker 3: The way they delivered lines of like oh, I deal
23:52
Speaker 3: with like blackouts and you know, just like you're like, oh,
23:55
Speaker 3: he means a video about someone killing themselves. Like he
23:58
Speaker 3: didn't have to explain it and have to draw it out.
24:02
Speaker 3: And there was not a ton of slang. There was
24:04
Speaker 3: maybe ten phrases throughout the whole movie, but they were
24:08
Speaker 3: all around the technology and things like that. But they worked.
24:11
Speaker 3: They worked really well, and they felt like even their
24:14
Speaker 3: explanation where they're like, oh, yeah, this was developed by
24:17
Speaker 3: the FBI as a replacement for the wire and then
24:20
Speaker 3: of course it went underground. I'm like, I'm sold, you've
24:23
Speaker 3: sold me. I believe that this technology exists and that
24:27
Speaker 3: there's obviously people who use it for nefarious means. But yeah,
24:33
Speaker 3: the with the with the length and what Tristan said,
24:37
Speaker 3: you know, Filo being the villain. You know, I felt
24:41
Speaker 3: like we should have really only seen him at the end,
24:45
Speaker 3: the fact that we kind of interacted with him, met him,
24:49
Speaker 3: and then left, and then we came and saw him again,
24:51
Speaker 3: and then we saw him a third time, Like there
24:54
Speaker 3: wasn't really a build up because he was only what
24:57
Speaker 3: he was every time.
24:58
Speaker 4: I'm gonna I'm gonna stop you right there, because I
25:01
Speaker 4: never advocate for less Michael Wincott, and so I'm just
25:05
Speaker 4: gonna have to say, uh, that's a noe for me.
25:07
Speaker 3: Michael Wincott was great, I'm not denying that.
25:10
Speaker 2: But the thing I loved was that Michael Wincott playing
25:13
Speaker 2: Filo is a natural extension of him playing Paul Rothschild,
25:17
Speaker 2: a music producer in Oliver Stones the Doors, another movie
25:21
Speaker 2: that we've covered here on House Lights. So I'm like, well,
25:23
Speaker 2: this is a natural progression for his career.
25:25
Speaker 4: It's crazy and this is not an insult to Wincott whatsoever.
25:30
Speaker 4: But there was more than a few times that I
25:32
Speaker 4: heard his character from Robin Hood as as a sheriff
25:36
Speaker 4: of Nottingham's cousin. There's just a few lines where like
25:39
Speaker 4: he just delivered it and he's like, why spoon cousin?
25:42
Speaker 4: You know this is I don't know.
25:43
Speaker 2: That's that's very fair, that's very fair.
25:47
Speaker 3: But I kept hearing the County Mine of Crystal role,
25:49
Speaker 3: like of him as the the head of the Shadow Deef,
25:53
Speaker 3: Like I was like, you're you're just slimy. You're not
25:56
Speaker 3: a good person. I can tell.
26:00
Speaker 2: As bread as butters exactly. Michael Wincott is a guy
26:04
Speaker 2: who was completely comfortable being type cast through his whole career,
26:07
Speaker 2: where he was like yeah, okay, fine, I got the voice.
26:10
Speaker 4: I was really surprised in Nope, like his character and Nope, I.
26:16
Speaker 2: Never saw that.
26:17
Speaker 4: I never saw it wasn't slimy at all. He was
26:20
Speaker 4: one of the good guys. And I was just like disorienting,
26:24
Speaker 4: that's really.
26:26
Speaker 3: Gary Oleman and you're like, but you're the goody Okay that.
26:30
Speaker 2: That would be yeah, that would be like finding out
26:33
Speaker 2: that uh yeah. There are so many different actors you
26:37
Speaker 2: could bring in where it's like when they play the
26:39
Speaker 2: good guy, you're like, wait, what what this doesn't make
26:42
Speaker 2: any sense. But given that statement, this doesn't make any sense.
26:47
Speaker 2: And you know that the shine we're giving to the
26:49
Speaker 2: script and the way that things are handled. Is there
26:53
Speaker 2: anything in this Tristan that didn't make sense to you?
26:56
Speaker 2: Is there anything where when they were explaining it with
26:59
Speaker 2: exposition late or anything where you're like, well, wait a minute,
27:01
Speaker 2: what about that? Like, was there anything that didn't line
27:05
Speaker 2: up for you? Or do you think that everything is
27:06
Speaker 2: successful in terms of tying together cleanly?
27:11
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say that there's anything that didn't make sense.
27:14
Speaker 4: I think there were certain things that might have been
27:16
Speaker 4: overly complicated here or there. Because when Tom Sizemore's character
27:23
Speaker 4: max like, this is one thing I really hate about
27:26
Speaker 4: movies and books do this too a lot like mystery
27:30
Speaker 4: books or murder books and everything like that. It's just
27:32
Speaker 4: like ten pages before it's over, the bad guy explains
27:38
Speaker 4: literally everything, and it can be exhausting, where like we
27:46
Speaker 4: don't like, you don't over explain the desk squads, And
27:49
Speaker 4: I think it's insult to injury when we start doing
27:53
Speaker 4: flashbacks to remind the audience that like, oh no, this
27:56
Speaker 4: actually did happen, and you know they're not just talking
27:59
Speaker 4: about it now, we layered it. You know, like I
28:02
Speaker 4: feel like that there were certain things I know that
28:05
Speaker 4: doesn't really I kind of took this question to do
28:07
Speaker 4: a different example, but like that was something where there
28:11
Speaker 4: were certain things that Max was talking about that might
28:13
Speaker 4: have been overly complicated but not confusing.
28:17
Speaker 2: Darren, I want to throw that to you though. Do
28:19
Speaker 2: you think that the use of flashback at the end
28:22
Speaker 2: when explanations are being given is almost an accidental admission
28:29
Speaker 2: that the movie has gone on too long because they realize, oh,
28:32
Speaker 2: it's been so long since we talked about that, we'd
28:34
Speaker 2: better show the shot so that people remember.
28:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not the strongest narrative take. It's also how
28:43
Speaker 3: do you show a flashback in a movie specifically about
28:47
Speaker 3: POV which also has to look different? So you've already
28:51
Speaker 3: kind of used that trick. So because technically all the
28:55
Speaker 3: povs are flashbacks if you think about it, they're previous
29:00
Speaker 3: events that have already occurred, So I would have been
29:04
Speaker 3: really cautious about using a flashback tool as well. I
29:09
Speaker 3: think it could have done without. But I mean I
29:13
Speaker 3: said this, I saw this through one sitting, so I
29:18
Speaker 3: didn't feel the need for that much of a reminder,
29:21
Speaker 3: that much of a tap on the shoulder of yeah,
29:24
Speaker 3: we're don't forget when I like, I said that twenty
29:26
Speaker 3: minutes ago where it was. Although I will say with
29:30
Speaker 3: Max's character from early on, I was like, so, when's
29:34
Speaker 3: he going to betray us? Like it was too much
29:37
Speaker 3: of a why is this guy on the story if
29:41
Speaker 3: he's not gonna either die or betray us in the end,
29:46
Speaker 3: And so I was not surprised that it was Max
29:49
Speaker 3: in the end.
29:49
Speaker 2: I'll say, for me, that's the Michael Wincott principle, because
29:52
Speaker 2: when Tom Sizemore walks on screen, I just don't trust him.
29:55
Speaker 2: I'm like, all right, fine, like it was, that was
29:57
Speaker 2: that's a great example of Tom. Take Tom size and
30:00
Speaker 2: put him in a movie where he doesn't betray anybody
30:02
Speaker 2: Blackhawk down. I was like, oh, oh, okay, all right,
30:06
Speaker 2: he's he's okay through the whole thing. Okay, cool, cool, cool,
30:09
Speaker 2: cool cool. He's an okay guy. So, with all of
30:13
Speaker 2: the all of the praise that we've given it so far, Tristan,
30:20
Speaker 2: why do you think that this movie has such trouble
30:24
Speaker 2: finding an audience in nineteen ninety five? There are so
30:27
Speaker 2: many different factors. And you know you can Monday Morning
30:30
Speaker 2: Quarterback everything to death. But honest question, is it the length,
30:35
Speaker 2: is it the subject matter? Is it just wrong time
30:38
Speaker 2: to be talking about this or people not ready for it?
30:42
Speaker 2: Why do people have such a hard time with this
30:46
Speaker 2: movie that it winds up being a bomb on the
30:48
Speaker 2: scale that people refer to it as almost ending Bigelow's career.
30:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's It's definitely multiple factors. I would
30:56
Speaker 4: love to know what kind of budget they put behind
30:58
Speaker 4: it in marketing, A.
31:00
Speaker 2: Lot of mix as somebody who was old enough to
31:02
Speaker 2: really it. Oh my god, they I remember how much
31:07
Speaker 2: they put behind this. In terms of talking the visionary
31:10
Speaker 2: new film. This is a like there was a there
31:14
Speaker 2: was a trailer for it that was a specific callback
31:17
Speaker 2: to American Jigglow with Richard Gear, which was a Touchstone
31:23
Speaker 2: movie from the seventies where Ray Findes is talking to
31:27
Speaker 2: the screen, talking you into you know, he's doing his
31:31
Speaker 2: sales pitch to you. You know, have you ever tuned in?
31:33
Speaker 2: Have you ever jacked in? Have you ever experienced? And
31:36
Speaker 2: like it has all of these words going on the screen.
31:38
Speaker 2: It was a really memorable commercial. Obviously to the point
31:41
Speaker 2: where my friends and I started making fun of it
31:43
Speaker 2: because you saw it everywhere, and you saw the trailer everywhere.
31:47
Speaker 2: Fox really went into this. They were really trying to
31:51
Speaker 2: make this a thing. As I recall it, like because
31:55
Speaker 2: you know, I was going to a lot of movies
31:56
Speaker 2: in ninety five and I saw this trailer a lot,
31:59
Speaker 2: and I saw a lot of press behind this, So
32:02
Speaker 2: I can tell you that they did not sleep on this.
32:04
Speaker 2: This was not quietly marketed and it was actually it
32:08
Speaker 2: was actually when on video, as I recall, it was
32:11
Speaker 2: part of like the Fox Special series where they tried
32:15
Speaker 2: to explain letterboxing to everybody. There were these special clamshell
32:18
Speaker 2: cases that they had. Independence Day was part of that
32:22
Speaker 2: push and everything like that.
32:23
Speaker 4: I had that one. Yeah, yeah, Stargate yep, Yes, I
32:26
Speaker 4: was on there too. Yeah, this was That's really interesting
32:30
Speaker 4: to know because I in ninety five, I wouldn't have
32:34
Speaker 4: been that aware of it, of what was going on
32:38
Speaker 4: in marketing around it and everything like that, because I
32:40
Speaker 4: knew nothing about this movie going into it, absolutely nothing.
32:45
Speaker 4: I knew nothing about the story, I knew nothing about
32:48
Speaker 4: the characters. I remember seeing a poster maybe in Blockbuster,
32:54
Speaker 4: and that's it. I didn't know it was cyberpunk. I
32:57
Speaker 4: didn't know it was noir. I didn't know it involved
33:00
Speaker 4: technology that doesn't exist, none of that, none of that.
33:03
Speaker 4: Even today, when I watched it, I went into it
33:05
Speaker 4: just knowing it was a Catherine Bigelow film. That's literally it.
33:10
Speaker 4: And so I'm kind of, oh, yes, okay, your question
33:14
Speaker 4: was why did it fail? So I think this is
33:18
Speaker 4: this is a hard movie. I'm very surprised, like with
33:22
Speaker 4: that much marketing behind it, that they didn't force it
33:24
Speaker 4: to be two hours or under two hours. I'm really
33:28
Speaker 4: surprised because you know that when you're two and a
33:31
Speaker 4: half hours, that severely limits the amount of showings that
33:34
Speaker 4: you can have yep, during the day. And the nineties
33:38
Speaker 4: were huge on that with like keeping it shorter and
33:41
Speaker 4: not expanding too much, Like, especially with a movie that
33:44
Speaker 4: has action in it like this one. Does you know,
33:47
Speaker 4: you'd think you'd want to keep it tight, and I do.
33:49
Speaker 4: And then you know, as I mentioned earlier, that's one
33:51
Speaker 4: of my criticisms of this film, this is this is
33:56
Speaker 4: a hard R and this was hard R in the nineties.
34:00
Speaker 4: I mean even when you know, like even in the
34:03
Speaker 4: twenty tens, when hard R films were coming out. It's
34:06
Speaker 4: it was hard to market, like there's still a risk
34:10
Speaker 4: of how much money, Like you know, like do our
34:13
Speaker 4: rated movies make money? Of course they do. But if
34:16
Speaker 4: you want a broader audience, you go to PG thirteen.
34:19
Speaker 4: That's just standard. That's just how it works. Is there
34:23
Speaker 4: exceptions to every rule, of course there is. But this
34:27
Speaker 4: one is not just art. It's hard art. It has
34:29
Speaker 4: sexual assault, graphic graphic sexual assault.
34:35
Speaker 2: Really uncomfortable to watch see.
34:37
Speaker 4: It's POV graphic sexual assault. And also like Juliet Lewis's
34:45
Speaker 4: nipples are in it almost as much as she is,
34:48
Speaker 4: and so you can't put it on TV later on,
34:53
Speaker 4: you know, like you can't syndicate it. And and also
34:57
Speaker 4: like it's also it's dealing with hard themes. It's very nihilistic.
35:01
Speaker 4: This movie is very nihilistic, and you know, like you
35:05
Speaker 4: dealing with Jericho one, it hits really close to home
35:08
Speaker 4: on purpose, and a lot of people don't want to
35:11
Speaker 4: be reminded of that. They don't want to be reminded
35:14
Speaker 4: of that. And it's it's the movie. It's not a
35:18
Speaker 4: feel good movie. It's hard are it's hard to market
35:22
Speaker 4: internationally in certain countries, and you have lingo that doesn't
35:27
Speaker 4: make sense to a lot of people. There's a buy
35:31
Speaker 4: in that you need to get and it's just, yeah,
35:33
Speaker 4: I can see there's a million ways this could have
35:36
Speaker 4: gone wrong, and it did. This is this movie is
35:39
Speaker 4: not a slam dunk. And that's not a knock on
35:41
Speaker 4: the quality. It's just it's hard to market because you
35:46
Speaker 4: want you want to, you want to market for them,
35:49
Speaker 4: you want to aim high, but market to the middle.
35:52
Speaker 4: That Strange Days is not a movie that you can
35:54
Speaker 4: do that with Darren?
35:55
Speaker 2: Do you think that because this came out in October,
35:58
Speaker 2: which is not exactly like, that's not blockbuster season, and
36:02
Speaker 2: it's not awards season. Awards season December, right, it's not
36:07
Speaker 2: dump off season. Do you think this movie finds more
36:11
Speaker 2: purchase if they release it during what we always traditionally
36:15
Speaker 2: referred to as award season, which is closer to Christmas time,
36:19
Speaker 2: where you know that the movie you're going to see
36:23
Speaker 2: is about the prestige, it's about the awards, it's about
36:26
Speaker 2: the Oscar nomination. Do you think they recoup some of
36:30
Speaker 2: the some of the marketing, maybe not monetarily, but they
36:36
Speaker 2: make it more of a a an awards a Prestige
36:40
Speaker 2: Elite discussion releasing it in December.
36:45
Speaker 3: Maybe, I mean yeah, because you could also release it
36:48
Speaker 3: in December and angle it in your promotion as a
36:52
Speaker 3: New Year's movie, because New Year's is really not that
36:55
Speaker 3: much farther after, you know, Christmas. You know, I I
37:00
Speaker 3: would try if I had a hand behind my back
37:03
Speaker 3: and had to, you know, I could say, yeah, push
37:06
Speaker 3: it into December, but lean into the millennium New Year's Eve,
37:11
Speaker 3: you know, on New Year's Eve. I mean, I'm sure
37:13
Speaker 3: that wasn't the trailer. I'm sure that was a major
37:15
Speaker 3: cornerstone of the marketing, but uh yeah, it it's a
37:20
Speaker 3: hard cell though, I mean, to all the points that
37:23
Speaker 3: Tristan said, and it's not the kind of movie that
37:28
Speaker 3: has a gotcha twist or something that you would be like, oh,
37:34
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed this because of X, I'm going to
37:36
Speaker 3: get my friends to come see it with me again.
37:39
Speaker 3: Like it just it doesn't have that thing. I think.
37:43
Speaker 3: I think this is a if you enjoy it, you
37:45
Speaker 3: enjoyed it once. So maybe it's it's not the kind
37:51
Speaker 3: of movie that gets the repeat view, and that coupled
37:54
Speaker 3: with the hard r and the you know, I mean,
37:58
Speaker 3: I don't know how much they spell that out in
38:00
Speaker 3: the mid nineties.
38:01
Speaker 2: I know later.
38:03
Speaker 3: They would have trailers and it would say, you know,
38:05
Speaker 3: at the bottom like art, you know, are because of X,
38:09
Speaker 3: you know because of now.
38:10
Speaker 2: To No, so spell that out back then, which I.
38:14
Speaker 3: Liked it when they started doing that, because you know,
38:16
Speaker 3: as we've all said, Are is a sliding scale. I
38:19
Speaker 3: mean Point Break was ore, but not in the same
38:23
Speaker 3: way as this one was.
38:26
Speaker 2: So that's true, That's very, very true because Point Break,
38:30
Speaker 2: you know, Tristan, is it disorienting to come to this
38:33
Speaker 2: movie from Bigelow where you go from Point Break, which
38:36
Speaker 2: is sort of a it's a very light thing like
38:40
Speaker 2: Point Break does what is that really saying? It's just
38:44
Speaker 2: a it happens and it's an event and it's fun.
38:47
Speaker 2: It's sort of a pulp movie. I would contend that
38:51
Speaker 2: this is the first movie we've seen from Bigelow that's
38:54
Speaker 2: actually saying something, a lot of something, maybe not as
38:58
Speaker 2: clearly as it wants to, but it's saying something. Do
39:02
Speaker 2: you think that this is a significant step forward for
39:05
Speaker 2: Bigelow as a director as we examine her works, Do
39:09
Speaker 2: you think this is a you know, that important leap
39:12
Speaker 2: forward for her where she's found her voice, She's found,
39:17
Speaker 2: regardless of success, how she wants to tell a story.
39:23
Speaker 4: I feel like this is the first film that I've
39:28
Speaker 4: seen of Catherine Bigelow so far where I'm just like, Okay,
39:33
Speaker 4: that was ambitious. I can see what you're doing. I
39:35
Speaker 4: can see what you're going for. She got some really
39:39
Speaker 4: great performances out of rape Fines and size More and Lewis.
39:46
Speaker 4: Angela Bassett, who is a phenomenal actress. I felt like
39:50
Speaker 4: probably was the weakest in this movie.
39:53
Speaker 2: That's fascinating. I'm going to stop you right there, because
39:56
Speaker 2: Angela Bassett is the one that everybody always points to
39:59
Speaker 2: as love her in this film. Break that down for me.
40:03
Speaker 2: You think that of the four names that you just dropped,
40:06
Speaker 2: she feels the most out of place. Do you think
40:09
Speaker 2: that she's the most uncomfortable with the material?
40:12
Speaker 4: I just I don't know what. I don't know how
40:16
Speaker 4: to put my finger on it, because I remember, like
40:20
Speaker 4: the most recent example is Black Panther two, where you
40:25
Speaker 4: are blown away by her performance. And did she win
40:29
Speaker 4: Did she win the Oscar for that? I can't remember.
40:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think so she should have.
40:35
Speaker 4: Because like it's not just that wasn't just a great
40:38
Speaker 4: performance for a comic book movie. That was a great
40:43
Speaker 4: performance like she was for a movie that was severely
40:46
Speaker 4: lacking Chadwick Boseman. She made it harder than it could
40:52
Speaker 4: have been to miss him. And everybody knows what I'm
40:55
Speaker 4: trying to say. There I'm fumbling it, but everybody knows
40:57
Speaker 4: what I'm trying to say. And so she's phenomenal actress
41:01
Speaker 4: and she's done some really great things, but for some
41:04
Speaker 4: reason in this movie, I really like her character. But
41:07
Speaker 4: there's certain times that she delivers her lines pretty stilted
41:12
Speaker 4: and unlike Bassett, and where you don't always believe what's
41:17
Speaker 4: coming out of her mouth. And I feel like they
41:21
Speaker 4: were laying it on pretty thick with the relationship between
41:25
Speaker 4: Lenny and Mace, where there are certain times when I
41:29
Speaker 4: was just like, oh, that could have been a little
41:31
Speaker 4: bit that could have been done more subtly or more subtle,
41:35
Speaker 4: And I feel like Bassett was one of the reasons
41:38
Speaker 4: why I was like, you're broadcasting your feelings instead of
41:42
Speaker 4: making me feel it.
41:45
Speaker 2: So you're saying you're saying you're like Bender, or I'm sorry,
41:48
Speaker 2: not like Bender, You're like the robot devil, the Robot Devil.
41:51
Speaker 2: Where you can't you can't have characters just saying how
41:54
Speaker 2: they feel. That makes me angry. God, do you know
41:57
Speaker 2: what really kills me? Like is that her saying Lennear,
42:01
Speaker 2: your life is happening right here, right now. That that
42:06
Speaker 2: was sampled for the Fat Boy Slim song right here,
42:09
Speaker 2: right now.
42:09
Speaker 3: I was I was pretty sure it was. I'm like,
42:11
Speaker 3: that sounds just like the song, oh, because that's an
42:17
Speaker 3: amazing song.
42:19
Speaker 4: And to note that it's Angela Bassett saying it like
42:21
Speaker 4: all weirded out and moused up and everything.
42:23
Speaker 3: There was another line that I felt was sampled too,
42:26
Speaker 3: somewhere else in this movie, but I don't know definitely
42:29
Speaker 3: that one.
42:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's it's like Darren, I, I'll let you continue.
42:34
Speaker 4: But it's just, yeah, it's not like she killed it.
42:36
Speaker 4: It's not like she did a poor job. It was
42:38
Speaker 4: just I think, standing up against all these other people
42:41
Speaker 4: who did great jobs in Bassett, who is a phenomenal actress,
42:45
Speaker 4: doing something that I felt she felt out of place
42:48
Speaker 4: mixed in with everybody else.
42:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was just gonna say. She was nominated for
42:53
Speaker 3: Best Supporting for the Academy, did not win, but one
42:57
Speaker 3: in many other Awards shows and in category so to
43:01
Speaker 3: no surprise for Wakanda. Yeah, I will say that was
43:09
Speaker 3: the only thing, and I think it ties in to
43:11
Speaker 3: Angela Bess, it's to Mace's character. Is it was almost
43:16
Speaker 3: sidekick confusion. You know, we've talked about protagonist confusion as
43:22
Speaker 3: so far as you know, I think if they had
43:25
Speaker 3: made a small tweak of the two of them are
43:30
Speaker 3: together from the get go, like obviously she joins in
43:34
Speaker 3: the story very quickly, but if this story had been
43:37
Speaker 3: I have no car, so I have to ride around
43:40
Speaker 3: in the back of my friend's limo as she picks
43:42
Speaker 3: up people, and she doesn't like that I'm hustling them.
43:45
Speaker 3: But we have this kind of friendship, but we're always
43:48
Speaker 3: keeping each other safe on the streets, like we didn't
43:52
Speaker 3: get but instead they're trying for the lone noir figure
43:57
Speaker 3: riding around in his car doing his business. But then
44:01
Speaker 3: it immediately translates into this you know, buddy story, I say, loosely,
44:07
Speaker 3: but you know, so all that to say, I think
44:10
Speaker 3: that was a bit of not confusion, but just contemplation
44:14
Speaker 3: on her character where she's there and in times she's
44:19
Speaker 3: used a lot and in times she's basically set dressing
44:23
Speaker 3: to get him around. And yeah, not the not the
44:26
Speaker 3: strongest of characters. Nothing to her acting, but and it's
44:30
Speaker 3: also decades earlier in her career. You know she she
44:34
Speaker 3: can progress well, I mean that ability.
44:37
Speaker 2: She came right off of filming What's Love Got to
44:42
Speaker 2: Do With It? The Tina Turner biopic, and so like
44:47
Speaker 2: that once she got a lot to shine on and
44:50
Speaker 2: then she comes to this. You know, there were there
44:52
Speaker 2: was heat on her whereas like, oh, Angela Bassett, who
44:56
Speaker 2: you all love from What's Love Got to Do With It?
44:58
Speaker 2: Is in this movie and it still didn't find an
45:02
Speaker 2: audience as a result. And I think that some of
45:07
Speaker 2: the stuff that makes it feel very much like a
45:09
Speaker 2: nineties movie. And Tristan, I'll throw this out to you.
45:12
Speaker 2: Do you think that the movie is trying too hard
45:15
Speaker 2: at times to make itself marketable in the way that
45:19
Speaker 2: nineties movies did, like The Crow and other films, by
45:25
Speaker 2: having musical scenes where it was like, look, kids, we
45:29
Speaker 2: have cool music club scenes going on in here. Because
45:33
Speaker 2: you talk about making the movie shorter, I'm like, there
45:35
Speaker 2: are plenty of things where I would have just yeah,
45:38
Speaker 2: I don't need to see somebody singing a song. It's fine,
45:41
Speaker 2: it's fine.
45:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, they definitely could have trimmed that down. And I
45:45
Speaker 4: was really impressed with Juliet Lewis singing her own vocals,
45:49
Speaker 4: and I actually really enjoyed what she was doing.
45:51
Speaker 2: Covering a Pga Harvey song No Less, which is yeah, yeah,
45:54
Speaker 2: all right, coming to play.
45:57
Speaker 4: And of course you have, you know, the Doors song
46:00
Speaker 4: Strange Day No, which.
46:01
Speaker 2: Is no no. You said that on purpose to make
46:05
Speaker 2: me angry. That is a terrible cover. It's awful. It
46:09
Speaker 2: should be stricken from the record. Go back, make a
46:12
Speaker 2: Strange Day special edition where you play the actual song.
46:16
Speaker 4: Hey, who's playing the drums? Who is playing the drums?
46:18
Speaker 4: No cover? I know who is playing the drums on
46:21
Speaker 4: that cover.
46:21
Speaker 2: I don't care if Jesus was playing the drums on
46:23
Speaker 2: that cover doesn't count, not at all.
46:26
Speaker 4: No, Okay, you heard it. You heard it here, folks
46:30
Speaker 4: on House Slights that even though the Doors were playing
46:32
Speaker 4: the drums, it's not a Doors song because it.
46:35
Speaker 2: Was ray and Xeric. It was ray Man Xeric. It
46:38
Speaker 2: was keyboards. Okay, it wasn't excuse me, keyboards, excuse me done, keyboards.
46:42
Speaker 2: There you go, you just further invalidated your take. Done
46:45
Speaker 2: with you, But yes, that could have been that could
46:48
Speaker 2: have been trimmed down. But at the same time.
46:51
Speaker 4: It didn't feel like, oh, we're making this hip and
46:56
Speaker 4: marketable because we're putting this music in. It really felt
46:59
Speaker 4: like this is the vibe of the movie. I know
47:01
Speaker 4: we keep saying that word and I hate using that word,
47:04
Speaker 4: but it's so applicable with this movie.
47:05
Speaker 2: We're being hip like the kids by stand vibe. That's
47:08
Speaker 2: what we're doing. It's it's giving music video. How about that?
47:14
Speaker 4: How about that? Yeah, it's just like I think that's
47:17
Speaker 4: definitely something that we could have trimmed down because it
47:20
Speaker 4: did go on a little bit. I was just like, oh, okay,
47:22
Speaker 4: cool selling Jesus really great song and we're still going
47:25
Speaker 4: and we're still going and we're still and we're done. Okay,
47:29
Speaker 4: still happening. It's still happening. Yeah, So yes, but I
47:33
Speaker 4: really enjoyed it, Like this is one of those I mean, oh, man,
47:36
Speaker 4: I missed the nineties. I missed the nineties music so bad, and.
47:40
Speaker 2: So I condies music was pretty awesome. You lived through
47:43
Speaker 2: and it was pretty pretty great.
47:45
Speaker 4: We're pretty kids today. I have no idea what you're
47:47
Speaker 4: missing none at all, freaking with.
47:49
Speaker 2: Your producers and your tailor swift and all of those things.
47:52
Speaker 2: You don't know what you're missing. You don't know what
47:54
Speaker 2: you're missing. Yeah, so all right, So speaking of music, though, Darren,
47:58
Speaker 2: we have the music that's uh, that's a character of
48:01
Speaker 2: its own in here, but you also have technically a
48:04
Speaker 2: score from Graham Revel. Is there anything memorable from the
48:08
Speaker 2: score for you?
48:12
Speaker 3: I mean there was. I think there was one moment
48:14
Speaker 3: where what did they talk about the difference between real
48:17
Speaker 3: life or and movies or not real life? It was
48:22
Speaker 3: talking about the playback and movies. Is in the like
48:25
Speaker 3: in the movies the score swells and then you hear
48:28
Speaker 3: the core swell, you know, and then the end credits
48:31
Speaker 3: roll and you know it's over. And I was like, oh,
48:34
Speaker 3: it's a little little on the nose, But okay, no,
48:37
Speaker 3: I think it was a decent score. Again, it's hard
48:41
Speaker 3: for me to get attached to a score that is
48:44
Speaker 3: not doing character based tracks where and not that it's
48:51
Speaker 3: not it's not a good score, it's just those are.
48:56
Speaker 4: The ones I connect to.
48:57
Speaker 3: When you have a theme, a motif connected to something,
49:00
Speaker 3: I'm gonna remember that I'm gonna hummet, you know, just
49:03
Speaker 3: like comedy movies that are quotable are great. You know,
49:06
Speaker 3: scores that are hummable, you know, are also just more memorable.
49:11
Speaker 3: So nothing against it, just it was, it was there.
49:16
Speaker 4: Tristan falling into Light is great. Yeah, I mean that's
49:19
Speaker 4: the that's that's the one standout score piece. And he
49:22
Speaker 4: reused it for Red Planet, he liked it so much.
49:26
Speaker 2: Tristan, the director of photography here, was nominated for a
49:30
Speaker 2: Chicago Film Critics Association Award for his work here on
49:34
Speaker 2: Strange Days. He later went on to work with Jonathan
49:38
Speaker 2: Freakes for Star Trek Insurrection and you know a number
49:42
Speaker 2: of other things. Do you feel that you see a
49:46
Speaker 2: journeyman director of photography here or somebody who's making a
49:51
Speaker 2: mark Let me let me tease that out a little bit.
49:56
Speaker 2: Do you feel that this is a cinematographer who is
49:59
Speaker 2: simply taking notes from the director and translating what's going
50:04
Speaker 2: to be on screen, or somebody who's collaborating with the
50:07
Speaker 2: director to put what's on screen.
50:09
Speaker 4: I love your ten part questions.
50:12
Speaker 2: That's what I live for. Don't you dare take this
50:15
Speaker 2: away from me?
50:17
Speaker 4: No, I think this cinematographer is fantastic. I think he's
50:20
Speaker 4: absolutely making a mark. There's so many there's so much
50:24
Speaker 4: texture to this film, which I mean is in part
50:27
Speaker 4: because of the production design and the art design. Those
50:31
Speaker 4: positions need to be mentioned. Absolutely. I think they absolutely
50:34
Speaker 4: nailed this world. It was tangible, it was real, and
50:40
Speaker 4: I feel like this is one of those movies where, like,
50:43
Speaker 4: you know, Darren, you were talking about it, how if
50:46
Speaker 4: you know, like it takes place in ninety nine, which
50:49
Speaker 4: isn't that far into the future from when it was released,
50:51
Speaker 4: and so it's just the one piece of technology that's
50:54
Speaker 4: really different. That's it. It's just that one piece of technology.
50:57
Speaker 4: And so you don't have flying cars, you don't have
50:59
Speaker 4: telep ortation, you don't have space travel or anything like
51:02
Speaker 4: that that takes place in ninety nine. It doesn't look
51:04
Speaker 4: like Blade Runner in ninety nine, which again, you know,
51:08
Speaker 4: you know, a cyberpunk you know or whatever, you know comparison.
51:11
Speaker 4: There's even a Blade Runner. Yeah, there's even a Blade
51:14
Speaker 4: Runner reference in this movie when she says, you know,
51:16
Speaker 4: dry me. But it I feel like if it wasn't
51:22
Speaker 4: ninety nine, you could easily say, oh, tomorrow, somewhere in
51:25
Speaker 4: the near future that kind of thing, and it would
51:27
Speaker 4: absolutely work. But the cinematography, like with the with the
51:33
Speaker 4: POV shots with certain you know Dutch, the Dutch angles
51:38
Speaker 4: not being overused, but yet subtle enough to give you
51:42
Speaker 4: that that off kilter feel that something is wrong or
51:45
Speaker 4: that you know that that something is something is a miss.
51:50
Speaker 4: You know, there's a really nice mixture of wides and
51:53
Speaker 4: tights and establishing shots. You never felt like you were
51:56
Speaker 4: doing the one two one two one two hack. No,
51:59
Speaker 4: this is this is phenomenal. This is great cinematography. This
52:04
Speaker 4: is this is someone who's not just working for Bigelow,
52:06
Speaker 4: but working with Bigelow.
52:09
Speaker 3: Well, and I know to comment on the POV shots,
52:13
Speaker 3: obviously those have a huge amount of prep and thought
52:18
Speaker 3: into them. It's more than just one person pulling that out.
52:21
Speaker 3: But there were some great moments in those shots where
52:25
Speaker 3: you would see the recorder and they again very clever,
52:31
Speaker 3: like in the mirror but we know the mirror is
52:33
Speaker 3: just slightly and then the actor is off to the
52:35
Speaker 3: side to give that POV. But they all worked. Every
52:39
Speaker 3: time they use that trick, it worked and you felt like, oh, yeah,
52:44
Speaker 3: that's right, that's the POV of the person. There's no
52:47
Speaker 3: camera in the shot. It's always what should be there,
52:52
Speaker 3: so I applaud them for that. Obviously something you have
52:54
Speaker 3: to nail if your whole stick is the POV shot.
53:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is a cinematographer working with the director.
53:06
Speaker 2: But I also feel that this is the first time,
53:09
Speaker 2: knowing what's coming, that I see Bigelow where I look
53:13
Speaker 2: at this and I can say this is a Catherine
53:15
Speaker 2: Bigelow film. I can tell certain things, not everything, but
53:20
Speaker 2: there are certain things I look at and I say,
53:22
Speaker 2: this bears the visual mark of a director who has
53:27
Speaker 2: found her voice, her style, her imprint, whatever you want
53:31
Speaker 2: to say, and it's there. I can look at it
53:34
Speaker 2: visually and I can say this is definitely Catherine Bigelow,
53:39
Speaker 2: and I think that is a tribute to her. I
53:42
Speaker 2: think that's a tribute to her director of photography and
53:45
Speaker 2: the fact that I don't ask ten part questions. I
53:47
Speaker 2: just ask very long questions. So, Darren, since this is
53:52
Speaker 2: a tradition on house lights that I don't always respect,
53:57
Speaker 2: I'm nevertheless, as we have clear third and are heading
54:02
Speaker 2: toward home, I'm going to ask you for your final
54:05
Speaker 2: thoughts and rating of Strange Days. Catherine Bigelow's nineteen ninety
54:10
Speaker 2: five epic of the future of the past.
54:13
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean every time someone set something in ninety nine,
54:17
Speaker 3: I always think of entrapment and then robbing the virtual
54:20
Speaker 3: banks as they're counting down to the bloody Well movies
54:23
Speaker 3: were fun.
54:25
Speaker 2: I still haven't seen it.
54:26
Speaker 4: Oh it's a it's fun.
54:29
Speaker 3: I still I have it on VHS somewhere y two
54:34
Speaker 3: k the movie. It was like a made for TV
54:37
Speaker 3: movie about planes falling out of the sky and everything
54:41
Speaker 3: was going bad. It was made in like ninety eight
54:43
Speaker 3: or something, and I'm just it's terrible, but yeah, this
54:48
Speaker 3: happened New Year. The technical ability in this movie really shines.
54:54
Speaker 3: I mean I just read that the scene where you
54:58
Speaker 3: know she's jumping in front of the train, they play
55:00
Speaker 3: backwards if the train was moving away, and I'm like,
55:03
Speaker 3: I would never have thought that shot was reversed. It
55:05
Speaker 3: was so well pulled off, you know, obviously for safety
55:09
Speaker 3: and pacing reasons. So yeah, this again, it was a
55:14
Speaker 3: nice nineties movie. As much as we talked about the
55:18
Speaker 3: technology in the future being easier to film this kind
55:25
Speaker 3: of perspective, I don't think the story and the vibe
55:30
Speaker 3: as we love saying vibe, but really would have been
55:33
Speaker 3: as good if you had made this in twenty ten
55:35
Speaker 3: or twenty fifteen. It just would not have felt because
55:41
Speaker 3: in that moment you had a lot of angst in society,
55:47
Speaker 3: a lot of pent up anger, especially in the Los
55:51
Speaker 3: Angeles area. So they really capitalized on that. It's a
55:55
Speaker 3: moment in time that you can't pull out and and
56:00
Speaker 3: just look at and be like, no, yeah, this could
56:02
Speaker 3: be present day twenty twenty five. No, it would not
56:06
Speaker 3: have worked nearly as well. So I'm going to give
56:10
Speaker 3: it a solid three, you know, I compared to previous
56:14
Speaker 3: ones she's done. I think, as we've stated, it's a
56:19
Speaker 3: really hard film to market. But I could see myself
56:24
Speaker 3: revisiting it, maybe in a double bill with some other
56:28
Speaker 3: nineties noir like that might if I'm in that vibe,
56:32
Speaker 3: you know, maybe some dark city, you know, some some
56:35
Speaker 3: things like that. I think it would be fun to
56:38
Speaker 3: watch as like a triple bill or something like that.
56:42
Speaker 3: So I'm giving it three jumps off.
56:46
Speaker 2: Of the balcony, Tristan, when I started this conversation, I
56:51
Speaker 2: still wasn't sure whether I was going to land with
56:54
Speaker 2: a three or a four on this because I gave
56:58
Speaker 2: back to the Future Part three a lot of breaks
57:01
Speaker 2: for his technical wizardry, and this I'm tempted to do
57:05
Speaker 2: the same thing. Darren gives it a three. What do
57:08
Speaker 2: you give strange Days.
57:10
Speaker 4: I'm given Strange Days a solid four. I think this
57:13
Speaker 4: is a great movie. I really liked it. This really
57:17
Speaker 4: really surprised me because, as I said before, I went
57:20
Speaker 4: in and blind. I knew nothing about it, and I
57:22
Speaker 4: think I went in with the right expectations because I had,
57:25
Speaker 4: you know, the only thing that I had was the
57:27
Speaker 4: warning from you about the sexual assault scene. And I
57:30
Speaker 4: really appreciate that warning because I do not handle it well. However,
57:36
Speaker 4: one of my favorite films of all time is The
57:39
Speaker 4: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because it's integral to the plot.
57:44
Speaker 4: This is integral to the plot. I still fast forward it.
57:48
Speaker 4: I was able to skip it, and I still knew
57:50
Speaker 4: what was going on. Could you cut it down? Absolutely?
57:53
Speaker 4: Could you make it less graphic? One hundred percent? And
57:56
Speaker 4: I think they should have. And I think with that
58:00
Speaker 4: and the length, that's what knocks it down a star.
58:03
Speaker 4: But I love the acting. I love the vibe, I
58:09
Speaker 4: love the texture. I love the production design, the art design,
58:12
Speaker 4: the soundtrack, the screenplay, I think is top notch again
58:17
Speaker 4: praise to Jay Cox, and I think it's Catherine Bigelow
58:21
Speaker 4: at the top of her game at this point, I
58:23
Speaker 4: really do. I think this is this is a movie
58:26
Speaker 4: I'm going to watch again, and this was this was
58:30
Speaker 4: really entertaining.
58:33
Speaker 2: I could say that now being the tiebreaker between the
58:36
Speaker 2: two of you, I'm not gonna wimp out and say
58:39
Speaker 2: three and a half. I'm I'm gonna say that there
58:42
Speaker 2: are certain things I struggle with with this movie. There
58:44
Speaker 2: are certain things that I didn't like as much now
58:48
Speaker 2: as I did then. I think it is a product
58:51
Speaker 2: of its time. I think Tristan, in the same warning
58:54
Speaker 2: that I sent to you, that I said something about
58:58
Speaker 2: like film in the nineties where they felt a lot
59:02
Speaker 2: freer pushing certain boundaries. And I think that the assault
59:07
Speaker 2: scene that you're talking about, I think I said at
59:09
Speaker 2: the time as well, it's not Rob Zombie with his
59:13
Speaker 2: director's cut of his remake of Halloween, which I consider
59:16
Speaker 2: beneath contempt terrible.
59:17
Speaker 4: He should have never been allowed to direct a.
59:19
Speaker 2: Film again ever after that scene. But I don't think
59:25
Speaker 2: that I can give it a three because I think
59:29
Speaker 2: that it is a film that is trying to say something,
59:33
Speaker 2: and I think that there are certain technical aspects of
59:36
Speaker 2: it that I have to admire, Like I have to
59:39
Speaker 2: watch certain scenes independent of the rest of it and say, wow,
59:44
Speaker 2: that is amazing what they pulled off. We didn't understand
59:47
Speaker 2: in the nineties what they pulled off with what they
59:51
Speaker 2: were doing with the technical wizardry. They didn't explain it
59:54
Speaker 2: enough of what they pulled off. I remember seeing this
59:57
Speaker 2: in the theater and that first was like, what is
1:00:01
Speaker 2: even happening? Like it was completely disorienting and there was
1:00:05
Speaker 2: some real technical wizardry going on. I think it is
1:00:10
Speaker 2: too long. I think that Juliette Lewis actually of the
1:00:14
Speaker 2: main three on the poster, is the one who's floundering
1:00:17
Speaker 2: a little bit in certain scenes. She's given some exposition
1:00:21
Speaker 2: that she doesn't handle as well as I would have
1:00:23
Speaker 2: liked to see. But I will wind up giving this
1:00:27
Speaker 2: a four. Part of it because of affection, because of
1:00:30
Speaker 2: remembering liking it a lot more back in the past,
1:00:33
Speaker 2: but also because it's a movie that's trying to say something,
1:00:37
Speaker 2: and so I'll wind up with a four. This is
1:00:40
Speaker 2: a I think an important step forward for Bigelow. And
1:00:44
Speaker 2: speaking of steps forward, Darren where are we going next week.
1:00:48
Speaker 4: With our house of develop darren afore you answer, Before
1:00:52
Speaker 4: you answer that, I do want to say that I
1:00:57
Speaker 4: was okay. So at the end when they were clearly
1:00:59
Speaker 4: brought podcasting that Mace's Angela Basset's character Mace had feelings
1:01:04
Speaker 4: for Lenny and.
1:01:07
Speaker 3: Felis, that was really subtle. It went over my head.
1:01:10
Speaker 4: Again, Lenny was completely unawares. And then towards the end
1:01:15
Speaker 4: when they were just like ending it where it was
1:01:17
Speaker 4: just like, oh, yeah, we've been through some stuff. We're
1:01:19
Speaker 4: still friends, but we've been through some stuff and they
1:01:23
Speaker 4: were going in separate directions. I was kind of like,
1:01:25
Speaker 4: you know what, Okay, I get it. I think that
1:01:27
Speaker 4: was probably a smart idea not to have them get
1:01:30
Speaker 4: together or not have a kiss or anything like that.
1:01:32
Speaker 4: That's fine, that's fine. And then he turns around, comes
1:01:35
Speaker 4: back and just lays one honor. I was grinning like
1:01:39
Speaker 4: an idiot while that was going on, and it just
1:01:43
Speaker 4: it brought me so much joy, where like the fanboy
1:01:46
Speaker 4: or nay I say fangirl and me was just like
1:01:49
Speaker 4: kind of like, okay, yeah, I was excited that they
1:01:51
Speaker 4: got together. Like it gave me that happy ending that
1:01:54
Speaker 4: I wanted in such a nihilistic movie. And so that
1:01:56
Speaker 4: was that was four stars right there.
1:01:58
Speaker 2: Okay, so Darren, since Tristan gave even more color to
1:02:04
Speaker 2: his final rating, I feel that you have extra energy
1:02:08
Speaker 2: to tell us where we're headed to next week with
1:02:11
Speaker 2: our examination of Bigelow's works.
1:02:14
Speaker 4: That's right.
1:02:14
Speaker 3: This week we were in downtown Los Angeles. Next week
1:02:18
Speaker 3: we'll be traveling beneath the waves with K nineteen The
1:02:22
Speaker 3: Widow Maker. Here on house Lights
1:02:26
Speaker 1: Join the Revolution, Join the NED Party.