Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / The Last Samurai (2003) - Edward Zwick | Houselights #172

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The Last Samurai (2003) - Edward Zwick | Houselights #172 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome to the NED party. Hello, everybody to home, and welcome to
• 0:22
  House Lights House of Zwick, specifically Edward's Wick. We are here tonight talking
• 0:28
  about two thousand and threes, the Last Samurai starring Denzel Washington. Sorry wait,
• 0:34
  wait, no, no, no, I'm sorry, Okay, we
• 0:36
  have to break that streak. Sorry, guys, we have to break the
• 0:38
  Denzel streak. This is two thousand and three, is the Last Samurai starring
• 0:42
  Tom Cruise, Ken Watsonaby and Billy Connolly and Tony Goldwyn and William Atherton and
• 0:51
  Masatu Herrada and Hioki Sonada. Oh my gosh, what a cast. I
• 0:56
  am so excited to talk about this tonight. And join me as they always
• 1:00
  do is John Mills and Darren Moser. Boys, are you ready to talk
• 1:03
  about the Last Samurai? We are bound by honor to discuss this and have
• 1:10
  a very good conversation about the film. Yes, I've introduced myself. You
• 1:15
  have introduced yourself. This has been a very good conversation. Yes it has
• 1:19
  credits. Yeah, well a little bore, A little more happens after that
• 1:23
  scene. But oh right, right, right right, So okay, I
• 1:26
  want to get this out in the open, right, off the bat,
• 1:29
  the last Samurai. The title of the movie is not talking about Tom Cruise.
• 1:34
  It's not even talking about Kim Watson Aaby. It is the plural of
• 1:38
  Samurai, and it's talking about the last clan like they like all of them
• 1:42
  together the village like Kim Watsonabi's village. And I never was the last of
• 1:49
  the Samurai, but this is the last Samurai, right. I never understood
• 1:53
  honestly why. I mean, I saw this in theaters, and my brother
• 2:00
  and I never interpreted it to be that Tom Cruise was the last Sammer.
• 2:02
  Like we never understood that bit of feedback. It was like, I mean,
• 2:07
  I didn't realize it was the plural because I don't understand Japanese very well.
• 2:12
  But like it was one of those things where I was like, no,
• 2:14
  it's about can want to It's not about Tom Cruise. Are you what
• 2:17
  are you guys talking about? Like it always baffled me. And but that
• 2:21
  extra bit is actually, I think, very good to know that it's it's
• 2:25
  the plural of it. But yeah, even back then, it was like
• 2:29
  I I never you know, I don't know, I don't know why people
• 2:34
  took it that way. I mean, it was it just a bunch of
• 2:36
  people didn't see the movie. They saw Tom Cruise on the poster and they
• 2:38
  just made an assumption. Yeah, yeah, that's that's pretty much what it
• 2:42
  was. Yeah, it's just like Tom Cruise movie, the title Last Samurai,
• 2:46
  and then it was just basically rage bait. It was just like,
• 2:49
  oh great, you know another white guy, you know, like going into
• 2:52
  a culture that's different than his own. It's basically dances with wolves and and
• 2:55
  that's the thing is that, like I mean, it is dances. It
• 3:00
  is like you know, it's dances well in Japan, Like yeah, it's
• 3:05
  Avatar in Japan, you know, Like yeah, like it's it's it.
• 3:07
  This is a this is a movie archetype, like this is from the Valley.
• 3:14
  It only exists in the valley. Gosh, that's the only way he's
• 3:16
  gonna get his modern Japan. Yeah uh but that's yeah, that's the thing
• 3:21
  is just like, yes, it's true, they're very very very similar stories.
• 3:25
  But this this, like I said, it's a it's a story archetype
• 3:29
  like it's it is. It is Shakespearean and how many times it's been used
• 3:34
  and it just depends on how well you use it. In my opinion.
• 3:38
  Yeah. I mean, the thing is the reason it it works as a
• 3:42
  story template is because you need to have a character who's unfamiliar with the world
• 3:49
  to show up, so that you don't just have scenes of people sitting down
• 3:53
  and saying, well, you know, fifteen years ago this thing sort of
• 3:57
  happened, Like that's a very boring movie, and instead you have something where
• 4:00
  things can happen while somebody is having things explained to them natively within the context
• 4:04
  of the story. Like it just I mean, it makes sense. It's
• 4:08
  a vehicle for opening up this world to the audience because you want, we're
• 4:13
  all going to identify with the person who doesn't know this specific way of life
• 4:18
  sort of thing. So, and as we were talking about before we hit
• 4:21
  record, this movie made more money in Japan than it did domestically in the
• 4:27
  States, and I saw that some reviews really praised Edwards Wick for doing his
• 4:32
  homework in showcasing the Japanese people in a proper light and even like making distinction
• 4:40
  and proper language of Japanese and making sure that they use the appropriate pronunciation.
• 4:46
  Getting Japanese actors like well known Japanese actors and lesser known Japanese actors and everything
• 4:50
  like that, and so Zwick did his homework. And that's something I've always
• 4:54
  really appreciated about Zwick is that you can tell that he doesn't just throw things
• 4:59
  up against the wall, Like he doesn't do things just because they look cool,
• 5:01
  like this is This isn't Brave Heart, where you know, like you're
• 5:05
  just making up stuff as you go, even though I love that movie.
• 5:08
  I love that movie, but you know, it's not historically accurate by any
• 5:13
  means. But you know, this one is still a movie too. I'm
• 5:15
  not saying that this is like a documentary. I'm not saying that at all.
• 5:18
  Nobody write me on Twitter about it, but this was This got a
• 5:24
  lot of praise in Japan for out show Japanese. But of course it has
• 5:27
  the Western what's the word of like romanticize, romantization that's not a word western,
• 5:33
  No, no, not westernization, the romantic sense of samurai. Ah
• 5:39
  yeah, yeah, the I mean look it basically, it always gets down
• 5:46
  to what is the movie trying to say? Right? What is what?
• 5:48
  What are the themes of the movie and that sort of thing, and it's
• 5:51
  like, how can you help but romanticize something in the context like this of
• 6:00
  an old way of life dying out, that you know that that's that eternal
• 6:04
  struggle of modernity running up against tradition and how do you handle that and how
• 6:12
  do you deal with that? And there are there good ways? Are there
• 6:14
  bad ways? Is there any way to deal with it except to say this
• 6:16
  is these classes are just going to happen. No, we don't want to
• 6:20
  say that, obviously, but I think that if anything, it's you know,
• 6:26
  all cards on the table. I think it's a brilliant way to sort
• 6:30
  of overlay you know, we've talked about how Zwick likes to look at those
• 6:33
  sort of cultural things, and you know, he even talked about I like
• 6:36
  that he likes to ask questions in an uncomfortable way maybe, And it's like
• 6:41
  that to me that that's what makes a movie like this art is that it's
• 6:46
  sort of uncompromising in the sense that it's like, well, you might have
• 6:49
  some romanticizing here, but at the same time you have a very clear sense
• 6:56
  of what that is being used to portray, of the the love that somebody
• 7:01
  might have for a way of life and seeing it die out. It's you
• 7:04
  know, I mean, that's something that every every culture can deal with over
• 7:09
  or relate to over time. I should say, yeah, I always kind
• 7:13
  of equate it with how we romanticize medieval knighthood. Yeah, where you know,
• 7:18
  like we always when when we think of a night, we think of
• 7:21
  everything that's good and right and true, a paragon. But in reality,
• 7:27
  you know, they weren't like they were just like everybody else. There was
• 7:30
  good people, there was corrupt nights. There was you know, like it
• 7:32
  was you know, you know, it's just like with samurai and uh,
• 7:36
  that's that's kind of how I take it, Like it's just a it's a
• 7:39
  different it's basically like our version of knights there. You know, they have
• 7:44
  Samurai's, you know, the people from our cultural background have nights and things
• 7:47
  like that. So like that's kind of how I see the romantic aspect of
• 7:50
  it, where you know, you you long for something that probably wasn't that
• 7:56
  ideal to begin with. Baron, I think, I say, what were
• 8:00
  you going to say? No? No, I was going to agree.
• 8:03
  Yeah. I think the main difference between Knights and Japan is by you know,
• 8:09
  we're around the Civil War, we're in the eighteen hundreds and things are
• 8:13
  just moving so fast. Knights didn't have one day where the sword became obsolete
• 8:20
  and they put them all down and like that. There wasn't that they slowly
• 8:24
  evolved into whatever came next. So instead you have Yeah, but but you
• 8:31
  have this moment in Japan's history that literally the samurai ended in this fight.
• 8:39
  You know, I get. I don't know if this is actually an historical
• 8:43
  battle. I'm assuming it's at least semi history. Is it is based off
• 8:48
  of a historical battle in eighteen seventy seven that was very similar. And that's
• 8:52
  why I wanted to talk to like, I'm glad that you brought that up,
• 8:54
  because it's it's this is historical fiction. There's a lot of fiction in
• 9:00
  this, you know, No, no, I just I just want to
• 9:03
  say it out loud, like there's a lot of fiction in this, but
• 9:05
  it's the final battle is based on a real rebellion by samurai against a modern
• 9:11
  army, a modern force, and it happened very similar to what it was
• 9:16
  in the movie. Similar, not exact. I'm not going to go into
• 9:20
  exact details, but the stuff beforehand is all, you know, made up.
• 9:24
  The stuff with algrind and in Ken wants to be all made up,
• 9:28
  but there, it's the final clusters. Last stand made it to Japan like
• 9:33
  maybe yeah, uh well, and and not to not to jump to the
• 9:41
  mid end. But I I really liked the scene where they're they're breaking Katsumoto
• 9:50
  out of his prison because you have that last stand of that one samurai who's
• 9:56
  charging the bridge, and I think it's so important that he is charging the
• 10:01
  bridge but he doesn't make it. He doesn't land like he hits with the
• 10:05
  arrows, but he doesn't land a blow. And it's very kind of symbolic
• 10:11
  of like you just cannot stand up against modern you know, or or against
• 10:18
  guns. It's it's the old. It's literally visual. I mean this happens
• 10:22
  several motifs throughout this whole movie of old versus new. But I think it's
• 10:26
  really I like that scene because it would be easy to be like, oh,
• 10:31
  it's his son, He's gonna, you know, take down even more
• 10:33
  guys. It's like, no, he he is not. He is only
• 10:37
  gonna make it halfway over that bridge and then he is going down, because
• 10:41
  that is what is going to happen. Well, yeah, I mean technology
• 10:46
  eventually is I mean you go even to Tolkien, right, what does the
• 10:50
  Ring represent well, Ring in a sense represents technology and no matter what,
• 10:54
  no matter who wins, things are going to be different and it's never the
• 10:56
  age is over. Now. I think that what helps the movie is what
• 11:01
  Zwick did and John Logan, who's the screenwriter, right doing appropriate research.
• 11:09
  Let's give more credit to Zwick, you know, just because he's the director.
• 11:13
  He's going to make sure it goes through right, and that's what gives
• 11:18
  it that air of authenticity to it, so that we can sit there.
• 11:22
  I mean, you know, not to be labor the point, but it's
• 11:26
  like there are so many things where it's like people pick and choose what they
• 11:33
  have an issue with in terms of historical inaccuracy, and there are so many
• 11:39
  things that are historically inaccurate that we embrace, and then there are things that
• 11:43
  are historically inaccurate where we're like, oh, it didn't happen like that.
• 11:46
  It's like, well, it's come on, let's be consistent with the way
• 11:50
  we approach it sort of thing. I hate to break it to you,
• 11:52
  but no mobster was as noble as Don Corleone either. But it's like the
• 11:58
  first Don Corleone, nothing second one. But the you know, the thing
• 12:03
  that I think audiences struggle with is that fact, that idea of we have
• 12:09
  this built in trust of going in that the research was done the way Zwick
• 12:15
  did it. And I think it's it's just to the credit of this film,
• 12:20
  you know, like you were saying Tristan, that it has some sense
• 12:24
  of authenticity because the people responsible for the film respected what was accurate about the
• 12:31
  time, if not the story they were telling. Absolutely, I think that's
• 12:35
  well put. That's well put. Now, Darren, we never got where
• 12:39
  you first saw this movie, Like did you see this in theater or did
• 12:43
  you see this at home? No? I did. This would have been
• 12:46
  yeah, right around college, high school era, So I definitely saw this
• 12:50
  one in theaters. When time of a year was this, Oh this was
• 12:54
  a Christmas one. This was a November December release, So yeah, I
• 13:00
  remember big buzz for this, like the trailer, you know, we're we're
• 13:03
  in and we hadn't really seen anything. We hadn't I mean not that we
• 13:09
  had a gap of historical movies, but I think it had kind of been
• 13:11
  a little while since like that surge of the nineties gave us a lot of
• 13:16
  historical movies, and so I remember looking forward to this one and enjoying it,
• 13:22
  you know, and you know, yeah, everyone's like the dances with
• 13:26
  wolves and you know, Avatar wasn't a thing yet, but uh yeah,
• 13:30
  but yeah, I remember seeing this in O three. Yeah I was.
• 13:33
  I was looking up to see this in the theater, just like you guys.
• 13:35
  And when this was coming out, I was so frickin' jazz. Like
• 13:43
  I I, you know, read everything about this movie that I could,
• 13:46
  and like when I saw the poster, I was like, Okay, I
• 13:48
  need I need to know more about this. And when the trailer, like
• 13:52
  the teaser trailer. Do you guys remember the teaser trailer. I don't.
• 13:56
  It was just it was basically just drums. It was like with like epic,
• 14:03
  epic cinematography, epic cinematography, epics and cinematography, and then just like
• 14:09
  you know, it's got hyped up and hyped up, and then you started
• 14:09
  seeing more and more battle. It was, Oh my gosh, take the
• 14:13
  time. Everybody paused this Google last Samurai teaser. It's it's one of the
• 14:18
  best teasers ever made. And just like when I saw that in the theater,
• 14:20
  seen one some other movie, I was just like, I am going
• 14:22
  to devote myself to seeing this as soon as humanly possible. And I got
• 14:28
  to see this on opening night, and I could not have been more wowed.
• 14:31
  I was. I was blown away, like I was. This was
• 14:33
  This was one of those things where it was just like man like I was
• 14:37
  not going in saying, Okay, I'm gonna love this movie. But I
• 14:39
  did go in saying I hope I love this movie because I've hyped it up
• 14:43
  so much. I do remember. There was there was one thing though,
• 14:46
  and this doesn't have a happy ending, but it was there was there.
• 14:50
  I saw this woman with a bunch of her friends and she's just like looking
• 14:56
  really distressed, and I go, hey, what's wrong, and she's,
• 15:00
  well, that guy over there like he won't move, like and you see
• 15:03
  this guy and he's like like it's it's a it's an almost pack theater.
• 15:07
  And there's this guy who's just sitting in a middle seat, you know it,
• 15:11
  has his arms outstretched and they asked him to move down one seat and
• 15:16
  he said no. And he just said no, and he was by himself
• 15:20
  like he wasn't saving seats for no, yeah, he was just he wanted
• 15:22
  the space. Yeah, And and so I sit down right next to him,
• 15:28
  and I say, hey, we're about to watch a movie about honor,
• 15:33
  devotion, and duty, and you're telling me that you can't move your
• 15:39
  ass one seat to help somebody else. And like I said, it doesn't
• 15:43
  have a happening. He told me, go screw myself. I had to
• 15:46
  get up and go. I told you I was in a bad mood that
• 15:48
  night, and don't hold it against me, but you gotta drag this story
• 15:52
  up. I can't believe that dress. This is embarrassing for both of us.
• 15:56
  I forgot to, like, we've known each other, faver, that
• 15:58
  was that's when we first met, Yes, exactly, but we became fan.
• 16:03
  In his historical account of this friendship, yes, like I said,
• 16:07
  it's based on historical events. It's not real, it's based on historical events.
• 16:11
  Yeah. So I want to slide right into a gem of this movie,
• 16:15
  and that is the one and only Ken Watana be Yeah. This is
• 16:18
  his first American film and the first film that he's ever spoke English in,
• 16:23
  and he was nominated for an Oscar for it deservedly. So I remember being
• 16:29
  so absolutely blown away by him, by his screen presence, by his performance,
• 16:36
  by his just his is the absolute control of his facial expression and tone
• 16:42
  of voice and his physicality. Everything you could not have at like this is.
• 16:48
  This is the sort of thing where it's like this is where you give
• 16:51
  the casting director a raise because you're like, yes, that's the guy.
• 16:56
  And I remember when he later showed up in and and Batman Begins. I
• 17:03
  I was excited to see him. I was like, oh cool, Yeah,
• 17:07
  I remember that guy, Like that was that was really something. And
• 17:11
  you know, I think that it's just the most inspired, Like this film
• 17:17
  is not what it is without him, hands down, absolutely, it probably
• 17:21
  probably still would have been a good movie. But he absolutely is one of
• 17:26
  those people that elevates what he's in. And I'm so so happy that he
• 17:34
  was cast in this film because it turned me into a lifelong fan of his.
• 17:37
  I see his name, you know, it's like Godzilla. I'm like,
• 17:41
  Oh, it looks interesting. Ken want to NOA be all right,
• 17:42
  I'm gonna go see it. That's fine. I'm in you know that sort
• 17:45
  of thing. Yeah. I went looking him up and being like I want
• 17:48
  I need to follow this guy IMDb brand new website telling me what to do
• 17:55
  here. Yeah, No, I was. I was the same way Darren
• 17:57
  I like, I looked up his name and I said, I was like,
• 18:00
  Okay, I need to I need to get whatever I can of his
• 18:03
  and I need to watch his career and Kim Watsonami is the personification of of
• 18:08
  how it is such a damn shame that there are so few roles for Asian
• 18:14
  men in the American film industry because he should, one hundred percent be a
• 18:19
  leading man like we should. We should have seen him way more than we
• 18:22
  have in leading roles in American films, and it's just it's just such a
• 18:29
  damn shame. But he was a powerhouse, like you said, like he
• 18:32
  was a powerhouse in this he had. I love that you articulated his control,
• 18:37
  like not only the control of his body, but how he could command
• 18:41
  a scene. And that is a that's a hard thing to do facing up
• 18:45
  against Tom Cruise, because whatever you believe of Tom Cruise, the man knows
• 18:51
  his way around the frame of a camera, Like he knows where to move
• 18:56
  himself, he knows how to frame himself. He like he is such a
• 19:00
  filmmaker in every way of the word. Tom Cruise himself like he's a performer,
• 19:04
  he's an entertainer, he's a creative and this is I was a little
• 19:10
  hesitant when when I saw the trailer, I was just like, man,
• 19:12
  this looks awesome. And then I saw Tom Cruise. I was like,
• 19:15
  Okay, it's interesting, Like like is it Do we really need Tom Cruise
• 19:22
  in this rule? But I absolutely I he made me eat my words?
• 19:26
  Darren? What did you say in this movie? I don't I'm trying to
• 19:30
  remember, because at the at the end he does like he he runs in
• 19:33
  his they were all together I forgot, yeah, yeah, they were all
• 19:37
  together and he runs. So he does run in this Okay, he doesn't
• 19:41
  do his his typical Tom Cruise sprint, but he does run the General on
• 19:45
  the hill, Like, look at that man run. I've never seen anything
• 19:48
  like it. This is. This is still in that period of time where
• 19:52
  Tom Cruise was sort of going through a career. He was trying to go
• 19:56
  through a career reinvention and sort of like re orient himself with movies like you
• 20:03
  know, like The Last Samurai. But also he had been in Magnolia in
• 20:06
  nineteen ninety nine. I love that performance too, who doesn't, But so
• 20:11
  like and Vanilla Sky was something different, but like there was a period of
• 20:15
  time where Tom Cruise was really trying to not be Ethan Hunt, and you
• 20:21
  know, but he's really good at being Ethan Hunt. So that's why we
• 20:23
  have the Mission Impossible movies, and I'm grateful for them because I love that
• 20:26
  series. But this is this definitely belongs to that period of Cruise's career where
• 20:33
  he was really trying to be a dramatic force. And what I would say
• 20:40
  is, and this might seem like a cheap way to give him praise,
• 20:44
  but I think that again, this is where the casting of Can Want to
• 20:48
  Not Be pays off. Is because when a truly great actor encounters another great
• 20:53
  actor, both of them, you know, it's like when you yeah,
• 20:57
  it's like when you watch baseball or football or anything like that, and it's
• 21:02
  like you see a team and it's like that's a good team, but the
• 21:03
  other team they're playing against his blah. But then when two good teams go
• 21:07
  against each other, like that's a game because it's like they're both aware of
• 21:11
  the other person's talents and they don't want to be shown up. That's true.
• 21:17
  Like for every praise we put on Kent want Nabi in the scenes where
• 21:21
  he's sharing it with Tom, like it's it's because both of them are in
• 21:26
  those scenes because you know, and I mean not to not to poke fun
• 21:32
  at glory again, you know, but we I think we all kind of
• 21:34
  agreed that Matthew Brodder kind of came up a little short in the leading man
• 21:38
  role in that movie. That was not the case in this one. It
• 21:42
  wasn't like, Okay, give me more kaent wanta nota be like, I
• 21:45
  don't really care what happens to this lead character. But no, he he
• 21:51
  says a lot. You know, he's saying a lot without saying a lot
• 21:55
  with looks with, which is kind of the whole motif of this. I
• 21:59
  mean, every buddy in that village is so focused and dedicated, and you
• 22:04
  know, just the way they're moving, the way they're talking. You know.
• 22:08
  I like, I just and I love like the little characters, like
• 22:11
  the the guard that's on him that just kind of falls them around. Yeah,
• 22:15
  Bob, he's just he's just there to obviously because he's an enemy combatant
• 22:21
  in the middle of their village. You're not stupid, but yeah, like
• 22:26
  you a ladies man, Bob, Yeah like that, you don't you don't
• 22:29
  mind due, Yeah, I love that bit. I love that bit.
• 22:33
  And there was one thing though, like when when Bob gets shot at the
• 22:38
  end, it's a super emotional moment because they develop a bond, they develop
• 22:42
  a friendship, and you can tell, you can absolutely tell, even though
• 22:47
  not much is said between them. But when Bob gets shot, it was
• 22:51
  so hard for me not to want Cruise to scream Bob like that. Yeah,
• 22:56
  that that might have been a little little much. You're no, You're
• 23:00
  right. You were one hundred percent right there, and and Zwick made the
• 23:03
  right choice. I'm just saying it's hard not to want it, you know.
• 23:07
  You reference that moment, it's obviously it's in the last battle. There
• 23:11
  is a battle earlier which is very reminiscent of the first skirmish in Glory with
• 23:15
  everybody in the woods. Yeah, I was supposing it, Vies. I'm
• 23:21
  like, this person made Glory too, didn't they? You know? But
• 23:23
  whereas that scene in Glory might have been a sketch, that one was a
• 23:27
  painting. I thought there was a much better sense of everything that was going
• 23:32
  on. And so, since we are a director of focused podcast, I
• 23:34
  would say I'm grateful for the fact that there is a specific moment in this
• 23:40
  film where I can do a one to one and I can say how did
• 23:44
  this director grow and change? I was like, oh, he's got his
• 23:48
  battle scenes figured out. Now. This is good to know. Everything is
• 23:52
  much more clearly choreographed. I have much more of a sense of who's approaching
• 23:55
  from where, what's going on, how it's happening. And then even to
• 24:02
  have it resolve the way that it does. I love the way it ties
• 24:04
  into the dream at the beginning. And but you know, like I just
• 24:11
  I just wanted to give that bit of praise to say bravo misters Wick for
• 24:15
  truly demonstrating like it almost feels like that's a scene where he's like, no,
• 24:18
  no, no, I know how to do this one right, the
• 24:25
  grays over there and the blues. I mean, yeah, I really,
• 24:30
  I really like that you pointed that out because it's it's true. I mean,
• 24:33
  like, you know, like sometimes directors get crap for repeating themselves,
• 24:37
  but I see this as an improvement, and it's it's close enough where you
• 24:42
  can say, yes, he definitely was taking from his own work, but
• 24:47
  it's different enough to warrant a redo. And there's another moment that is a
• 24:53
  very much a glory moment is when Tom Cruise Algrin was trying to get it
• 25:00
  that Japanese soldier to reload his musket and yes, yes, yes he was
• 25:06
  shooting it. Oh yeah I was. I was like, did I put
• 25:10
  in the wrong movie? Because yeah, it's it's they talk about another one
• 25:14
  to one with Matthew Broderick, like shooting. He knows how to inmnipuate the
• 25:17
  audience. That's what that scene does. It communicates that they're not ready.
• 25:22
  And once again, I think last Samurai scene was much better because it had
• 25:26
  added depth to it because Algrin was basically suicidal, like he he didn't mind
• 25:30
  if he got shot. He wanted to get shot, and but he also
• 25:33
  wanted to prove his point. And I think it's a little bit more realistic
• 25:37
  because in Glory the soldier would have gone deaf. But that is also true.
• 25:45
  That is also true. Yeah, that and that that's a I could
• 25:52
  go on a whole tangent of like you know that, that's the reason why
• 25:55
  Michael Mann's you know, shootout in heat, Like remember that all the praise
• 25:59
  we heaped on it, It's like, yeah, because it was as loud
• 26:02
  as it should have been. Sort of thing whereas yeah, definitely in anyway,
• 26:07
  No speaking though, speaking of tangent, now you went on a little
• 26:10
  one, I'm going on. I'm going on it even more so. There
• 26:12
  was a moment in the Dark Night where that I cannot duplicate. I was
• 26:18
  in an IMAX theater seeing The Dark Knight and the scene where they're the ballistic
• 26:22
  scene when they're trying to find out the fingerprint on the shell casing and Bruce
• 26:26
  has that gigantic gun in the secondary bat cave and it just blastened to concrete,
• 26:34
  you know, brick, one by one. It was terrifyingly loud in
• 26:41
  this Imax. Oh I remember seeing it in Imax. Yep, right,
• 26:44
  it was crazy how loud that was. And like because the entire audiences is
• 26:48
  kind of like taken aback, like when you have like one second after it's
• 26:51
  done, everybody's kind of like okay. And and then of course Alfred makes
• 26:56
  a comment about it, you know, like I think it could be a
• 26:57
  little louder, sir arising like that. Every time I watch it at home,
• 27:03
  it just it just does not hit you as hard as it should.
• 27:07
  Anyway. Sorry, I just wanted to talk about that. Nope, Nope,
• 27:11
  absolutely appropriate, Absolutely appropriate, especially because if you've got to talk about
• 27:15
  the Dark Night, you got to talk about Hans Zimmer. And you're going
• 27:18
  to talk about Hans Zimmer, you got to talk about how he's got a
• 27:22
  score here his one hundredth score. It's quite good. Quite so. Yes,
• 27:26
  this was his one hundred score. This was his one hundredth score.
• 27:30
  This was in two thousand and three, his one hundred score. Darren,
• 27:33
  what did you think? Like, we've all listened to a lot of Zimmer.
• 27:37
  A lot of people have listened to a lot of Zimmer, whether they
• 27:40
  know it or not. Darren, where do you think this ranks in his
• 27:44
  filmography? And now I'm not talking about like, don't give me a number,
• 27:45
  but just like, do you think that this is this is worthy of
• 27:51
  his filmography? Do you think it's good, Do you think it's mid,
• 27:53
  do you think it's subpar? Where does it land for you? I think
• 27:56
  it's good also in the fact that I don't or anything else in it.
• 28:00
  It really feels like its own thing, you know, not that I care
• 28:06
  when composers borrow from their own work and motifs and stuff like we get it
• 28:11
  like I'm looking at I'm looking at you, John Williams, you know,
• 28:14
  but but no, I I really liked the score in this. It was
• 28:18
  and it was nice in the fact that it wasn't an entire score of like
• 28:26
  the Japanese two string guitar, because we often like that's the low bar that
• 28:33
  anyone can do. It's like, oh, where it's in Japan or China
• 28:37
  or Korea, even it doesn't matter which is gonna use that tone and you
• 28:42
  instantly know, like, but it didn't do that, it didn't rest on
• 28:47
  that single type of note instead. Uh. But but also it's not it's
• 28:53
  interesting. It's classical in a different way. It's not blasting you, but
• 29:00
  it kind of is weird. It's just it's threading the needle on feeling,
• 29:03
  on feeling foreign, but also not you know, being an American film.
• 29:11
  It just worked. It's a beautiful Yeah. I think that's a good way
• 29:14
  of putting it. Yeah, Like it still makes you feel like you're in
• 29:15
  another land, but it's not inaccessible. No, I like that. I
• 29:18
  like that, John. What do you think? Oh, I think it's
• 29:22
  definitely worthy of Zimmer's you know, filmography. For lack of a better term.
• 29:27
  I agree with you, Darren. It would have been so easy for
• 29:33
  this to go down the gladiator route or for me to say, oh,
• 29:36
  yeah, Batman begins comes out two years later, I can hear that all
• 29:38
  over the place. I don't. I didn't have that experience. In fact,
• 29:42
  while I was watching the film, I you know, I noted in
• 29:47
  my brain, I was like, Yeah, this is something I could listen
• 29:49
  to. This is a score that I could have going while I'm working on
• 29:52
  something or while i'm you know, sorting out a bit of code or something
• 29:56
  like that. And you know, as trite as that might seem, that's
• 30:02
  some of the highest praise I can give it is I will listen to this
• 30:04
  just for the sake of listening to it. And with Zimmer's better works that
• 30:11
  is always the case, as I would be willing to sit down and actually
• 30:14
  listen to what he puts down as a score, because I think, just
• 30:19
  like the better works of John Williams or many other composers out there, his
• 30:26
  score becomes that essential piece that helps elevate it even more. You know,
• 30:30
  the whole is always more than some of its part sort of thing with a
• 30:33
  film, and this is definitely one of those scores where would it have still
• 30:37
  been a good and successful movie without this score. Absolutely, I bet you
• 30:41
  there are ten other composers that could have given a great score, But Hans
• 30:45
  Zimmer gave a great score. And I don't sit there with any of these
• 30:49
  cues and think ugh or ah, it's a little off or that's a little
• 30:55
  too bombastic. Everything fit, and so it's like that is a successful score.
• 31:00
  Yeah, I mean it's it's it's hard to argue with that because to
• 31:04
  me, like I'm glad that we're all touching on like oh, we're not
• 31:08
  hearing this or like this is you know, like we're we're not like really
• 31:12
  like cringing, because there's certain times when certain themes can be overused or certain
• 31:17
  notes can be hit a little too long. This is pre Batman Zimmer and
• 31:22
  from Batman Begins. I mean we all know the inception Zimmer. Everybody knows
• 31:27
  that one. He changed the game with inception. Like everyone's chasing that tiger
• 31:33
  or dragon, not tiger. I'm still thinking about last Summa. Sorry white,
• 31:40
  everyone's chasing that white tiger. Yeah, after inception, But there's a
• 31:45
  there's there's a Batman Zimmer. There's an Inception Zimmer. But this is pre
• 31:51
  that. This is you can still feel the drums, you can still feel
• 31:56
  you can feel the orchestra. You can tell that this was not composed used
• 32:00
  on a computer necessarily like all of his later stuff. That may be true,
• 32:05
  that may not be drotter. I'm sure there's some musical people out there
• 32:08
  who know way more than I do, who are who could probably point poke
• 32:13
  holes in that. But you all know what I'm trying to communicate. You
• 32:15
  all know what I'm trying to say, the insane Robin on Twitter. But
• 32:20
  there's another person that I want to give credit to that I feel, you
• 32:23
  know, like the you know, you know, like this was written by
• 32:27
  John Logan, you know, the guy who wrote Gladiator. This was you
• 32:30
  know, composed by Zimmer And this was shot by John toll And for those
• 32:37
  of you who don't know what John Tole has done, like if you go
• 32:42
  to his imd PA I am dB page, the things that pop up on
• 32:46
  top are the Last Time I Brave Heart in the Thin Red Line. Just
• 32:51
  those three movies alone, lit just little films. You might never seen The
• 32:54
  Thin Red Line. This is a reminder that I need to gorgeous film.
• 32:59
  I mean in every single way, the acting, the cinematography, the music.
• 33:04
  Thunder well shot film. Yeah, I was gonna say that is actually
• 33:08
  a really well shot comedy. It's like disturbingly well shot. Like I remember
• 33:14
  watching Tropic Thunder in the theaters and walking out like, well, yeah,
• 33:19
  yeah, I like I was, I walked out. I was like,
• 33:21
  who the freaking hell shot that? Well, well, he's one little thing
• 33:25
  on Tropic Thunder before we move on, because we should move on. But
• 33:30
  I think him shooting that is like a drama actor playing serious in a comedy
• 33:37
  role. It's like, you shot it serious even though it's a comedy movie,
• 33:44
  because it needs to look as good as like Thin Redline and other war
• 33:49
  movies. It has to look like it. Well, I'd say to your
• 33:52
  point, Darren, that's what actually makes that film work as well as it
• 33:55
  does is it feels like the real like it there there is again that historic
• 34:01
  historic I'm using it wrong, but like that. No, but like you
• 34:04
  know, with this, there's that authentic feeling to the way things look.
• 34:07
  It looks like the world exists, and that's the only way Tropic Thunder is
• 34:12
  going to work as a comedy. But I'll also throw him under the bus
• 34:15
  because there are actually two films we have covered here, I think because we
• 34:21
  did House of Coppola, and so we hit on Jack and the rain Maker,
• 34:25
  didn't we Yeah, we did, and so he shot Yeah, so
• 34:32
  you know, but The rain Maker was really well shot. So you know,
• 34:36
  Jack, I'm just trying to forget, but that well, that's the
• 34:37
  thing. Yeah. He also did Almost Famous Vanilla Skylizabeth ray Baker. Yet
• 34:45
  I completely forgot what the plot. No, it has nothing really to do
• 34:50
  with making rain but oh not too much, not too much. No matter
• 34:52
  what you might think of Vanilla Sky, that is a pretty film to look
• 34:55
  at. That. I am a Vanilla skuy apologist. I I will defend
• 35:00
  that movie to anybody who asks I, you know what, this is all
• 35:05
  rabbit hole. But I'll just go ahead and say and almost Famous. Come
• 35:08
  on, that's I'm surprised we haven't done a House on Crow. We got
• 35:13
  to do House of Crow. We should do a house of Crow. Yeah,
• 35:15
  that'd be a good house. That'd be an interesting house. It would
• 35:19
  be a very interesting house. It would be a really interesting house. All
• 35:23
  right, there we go, we're booking it. This is how this is,
• 35:27
  this is this is our round table right here, this is this is
• 35:29
  how it works, folks. Yeah, and so yeah, John holding Jerry
• 35:34
  Maguire. I know. Oh okay, yeah, well there you go,
• 35:36
  We're sold. There we go, there we go. I I mean,
• 35:38
  I can't remember the last time I saw it. It was oh man,
• 35:42
  the memory again, tangent like the memory on that movie. I remember I
• 35:45
  was super young when that came out. What year did that come out?
• 35:51
  Ninety six? Ninety six? Okay, so I was ten when that came
• 35:55
  out, and I remember like going to our home video store, our hometown
• 36:02
  video store. It wasn't Blockbuster. It was like Carnival Video or something like
• 36:06
  that, and they were showing Jerry Maguire on the TV. It was before
• 36:09
  like the Blockbuster era where you know, like they only had like those trailers
• 36:14
  that would go and everything like that, and that the same thing, like
• 36:15
  the same five minute loop all constantly. They were actually showing the movie and
• 36:20
  it gets to the incredibly graphic sex scene in Jerry Maguire and I'm ten years
• 36:27
  old. It's playing on all these TVs and like this this woman's just like
• 36:30
  I think it was. It was John Travolta's wife. I can't remember her
• 36:34
  name, Kelly Preston. Yeah, kill yeah, killer person. She's like
• 36:37
  moaning, going crazy, talking about wanting to do a threesome, and my
• 36:39
  dad, I'm with my dad and he just goes, hey, what the
• 36:45
  hell, like yeah, turn it off? Yeah uh yeah, yeah.
• 36:52
  That was that's his cherished memory as taking my little nephews to Pizza Hut when
• 36:57
  those things existed and somebody had turned on the pulp fiction soundtrack. Oh my
• 37:00
  god, and like I had to go to the counter. I was a
• 37:02
  guys, no, no, these kids, no, not this soundtrack,
• 37:07
  please no, bring out the guilt. Yeah, basically gim sleeping. But
• 37:15
  you know, the simple fact is that I don't think that there is that
• 37:22
  there is a bad choice in terms of who they brought in front of the
• 37:27
  camera, who they brought behindhind the camp. And again that's something where you
• 37:31
  need to give credit to a director, because what's a director but a basically
• 37:37
  a manager, And you have to not only assemble the talent or work with
• 37:44
  the talent that the studio gives you one of the two, but you have
• 37:47
  to get the best work possible out of everybody. And I would say that
• 37:51
  last Samurai is an example of real skill on the part of a director to
• 37:55
  bring some very diverse talent together. I mean, I mean there was like
• 38:01
  some were high and some were low, but really across the board, there
• 38:06
  was no character that I was like, Oh, why did they cast this
• 38:08
  guy? You know, No, it was really well cast well, I
• 38:13
  mean even to that point. And what Tristan was saying earlier about how Ken
• 38:15
  Wantonaby he hadn't even spoken English on camera before. Imagine a director who doesn't
• 38:22
  speak ken wanton Nabi's native language he gets that performance. What a terrific communicator
• 38:30
  he is. What a patient and focused individual that has to be to be
• 38:36
  able to get Ken Wantonaby to get past number one. There's a lot of
• 38:39
  fear that's going to be there. You know, he's going to be very
• 38:43
  conscious of the fact of what's happening right now. There's going to be a
• 38:45
  lot of opportunity for miscommunication, cultural idiom, all of those sorts of things.
• 38:51
  And a director, regardless of how much help he has with him or
• 38:54
  she has with her, the director has to get the respect and trust of
• 39:00
  the cast and very obviously Zwick got that from Wantonabi and everybody else to trust
• 39:07
  him that what he was asking them to do made sense and was going to
• 39:12
  present them in the best light. Yeah, And like when you're dealing with
• 39:15
  a yeah, and you know it's it has to be a true partnership.
• 39:21
  I mean, both parties have to do exactly what you're talking about. And
• 39:23
  so I think, like all the praise that you're giving's Wick. Well,
• 39:27
  and I'm not saying you're not, but like all the praise that we are
• 39:30
  givings Wick, we are giving what's Anabi as well? Yeah, because of
• 39:35
  all the things that you just stated, and it's you know, like when
• 39:38
  you're setting a movie in Japan with primarily Japanese characters, with primarily Japanese actors
• 39:47
  about a Japanese story and culture that is very dear to the Japanese, like
• 39:53
  you better cross your t's and dot your eyes and make sure that you are
• 39:59
  presenting every in the light that they need to be put in. And like,
• 40:02
  once again, just to echo what you're saying, you know, like
• 40:06
  the likes Wick was the right man for the job. I think this was
• 40:08
  floated around with Coppola and We're I think I think those were the two directors
• 40:15
  that they were either attached or approached. I can't remember. And I feel
• 40:21
  like Copola could have done it. It would have been a very different movie
• 40:24
  if Copola did it. But I feel like we're I feel like we're absolutely
• 40:29
  could have done it. I agree that either one that could have either one
• 40:32
  could have done it. I have to make the cheap joke of saying they
• 40:37
  didn't go with Copola because they wanted it in less than a decade, right,
• 40:40
  Yeah, I think that's cheap but fair. You know, I try
• 40:45
  my best here, but you know, let's also give credit. You know,
• 40:49
  it was all floating around supposedly, you know, according to what I
• 40:53
  read in Passing or whatever. Tom Cruise spent two years studying sword play and
• 41:00
  the jet Japanese language. Like that's dedication from an actor producer to know that
• 41:07
  he had to show up as well. But man, this with Coppola would
• 41:15
  have been an interesting, interesting film. It would have been, I'm willing
• 41:20
  to bet a longer film. Although no, Copola was still in his phase
• 41:24
  of trying to prove he could do it in two hours, wasn't he,
• 41:28
  like I can't remember, in the early two thousands. Yeah, well,
• 41:31
  it's been so long since he's you know, he's done anything. It'll be
• 41:35
  interesting to see how is how Megalopolis turned out, but I cannot wait whether
• 41:39
  it's a masterpiece or a train wreck. I can't wait. Listen a couple
• 41:44
  of production, a Copla production, reporting that they're having troubles and and budget
• 41:50
  and scheduling problems. I'm like, yes, yes, he's at work again
• 41:53
  exactly, but but you know, but honestly, this is this is two
• 41:59
  and a half hours. I don't I don't see anything to be cut here.
• 42:02
  Yeah, It's what I wanted to ask you guys what you felt about
• 42:05
  the run time, because honestly, when I you know, I haven't watched
• 42:07
  it in several years, so I looked at it and I'm like, oh,
• 42:10
  okay, Like I was kind of expecting an hour ten or two ten
• 42:15
  or you know, two too even, but yeah, it and it moves
• 42:21
  and but it spent, but it also spends the time you need to care
• 42:24
  about these people. If you rush that, the payoff doesn't matter. So
• 42:30
  and especially when they're put he's put in the house of the guy he killed,
• 42:37
  like that has to go real slow. You can't be like I'm your
• 42:42
  dad now. It's like no, no, no, no, you can't
• 42:44
  do that. I what I appreciate is I think the actor's name is Peter
• 42:50
  Spall, the one who plays basically like the observer type. Yeah, yeah,
• 42:54
  rat dude from uh from Harry Potter. Well he's also he was in
• 42:59
  a Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise as well. Oh I forgot. Yeah,
• 43:01
  Peter Pettick was what most people know him like, even he has a completed
• 43:07
  arc in the context of the film, and I think it's it's interesting as
• 43:12
  well because we both talked about we both all three of us talked about how
• 43:16
  the narration in Glory is a little tough, like who's your narrator sort of
• 43:22
  thing, And I would say that what's interesting is this gets perilously close to
• 43:27
  that territory but towes the line and never messes up. But that's the one
• 43:34
  piece of this film where I like Zwick was playing with fire. He that
• 43:37
  could have gone real wrong, real fast, but it didn't. And I'm
• 43:43
  glad that it didn't because that's the one piece that could have could have burned
• 43:46
  it all down. But he anchored it in a journal and made that journal
• 43:52
  a part of the story, Yes, which I think saved it because I
• 43:57
  understand what you're saying. But the fact that it was a plot point between
• 44:02
  Katsumoto and Algrin about him reading the journal and then giving it giving back to
• 44:08
  him at the end, saying like when I took this, I was your
• 44:10
  enemy or you were my enemy. Sorry, it's a beautiful moment. It's
• 44:15
  a beautiful moment. And so yeah, like I for one, am very
• 44:20
  forgiving of narration because I love narration. I know that some people see it
• 44:23
  as a story writing crutch or a screenplay crutch. I don't think so.
• 44:28
  I think when it's done well, I mean basically, anything that has Ethan
• 44:31
  Hawk narrating, I'm there. I'm there for it. Yes. But and
• 44:36
  then Tom Cruise I think does a great job too. But yeah, I
• 44:39
  totally hear what you're saying, John, and I love the fact that he
• 44:42
  gives it to him in the end, because again, it's a historical ish
• 44:46
  movie, Like we know there's a lot of fiction in it, but it
• 44:50
  plants that seed in the audience's mind of oh, there might be more of
• 44:53
  this that I just watched that is actually true than just a complete because there's
• 44:59
  an account, somebody wrote it down, somebody was there observing. And again
• 45:04
  not that they're trying to make the audience believe it's one hundred percent true.
• 45:08
  But by planning that seed, I think it affects how you view the movie,
• 45:14
  how you you know, Oh, these these might have been real people
• 45:17
  who had real lives and died for their cause, and that's important. Well,
• 45:22
  I'm even talking about the fact that the journal is in that context very
• 45:30
  successful, but then having it bracketed by narration from a secondary character. What
• 45:37
  I think Zwick pulls off, what Logan pulls off, what everybody pulls off
• 45:40
  here is that the having crews narrate in the centerpiece works still because I walk
• 45:49
  away with the sense that because we see him with those journals and he says,
• 45:54
  this might be the basis for that book that you're trying to write,
• 45:58
  I feel like I've just hurt, you know, watched a book being written.
• 46:02
  And so now that narration at the beginning of the end makes a lot
• 46:05
  of sense to me, because this is the book that guy went off and
• 46:07
  wrote, and these are the source texts he was pulling from, you know,
• 46:13
  to create it. I might be reading too much into it, but
• 46:15
  I think, no, no, no, I no, I don't think
• 46:16
  you're reading into it at all. I think this is this is one of
• 46:20
  those things because like it ends with Spaul's narration with him talking about you know,
• 46:24
  like Algrin finding peace and everything like that. So I think it lends
• 46:27
  itself. The movie lends itself to that interpretation that you're talking about. But
• 46:31
  I'm just glad that they didn't shove it in your face, like where we
• 46:36
  see him, you know, and he's he's he's at his table and he
• 46:39
  finishes his novel and then shuts it and it says the last Samurai on the
• 46:44
  cover, you know, like everything like that. Like I'm glad that didn't
• 46:46
  happen because that would have been easy for uh uh for some people to do.
• 46:52
  Uh Okay. So before we give our ratings, because I think it's
• 46:54
  very clear how we all feel about this movie, I want to hear from
• 46:59
  everybody what your favorite scene was. And if you can't think of your favorite
• 47:02
  scene, give me one of your favorite scenes. Like when I say that
• 47:06
  what pops into your head doesn't even have to be your favorite, just like
• 47:08
  one of your favorites. John, you go first. There are so many
• 47:13
  scenes that I could throw love at from Tom Cruise replaying everybody in his brain
• 47:17
  after he's been They've tried to assassinate him, and it shows him applying everything
• 47:22
  that he's learned while he's off with Katsumoto and everything, like that's brilliant.
• 47:27
  I love I mean Ken Wantona Bey's death that just come on that blossoms when
• 47:34
  it sees the blossoms. But there's a scene that I think works so well
• 47:39
  and is a difficult one to watch and a difficult one to pull off.
• 47:46
  Is when you know the the guards are harassing the samurai and Cruise intervenes to
• 47:57
  save his life, but in the process, that poor young man is stripped
• 48:01
  of all of his dignity, and Cruz understands and it's like he's the only
• 48:06
  person who understands exactly what just that just costs that guy that, even though
• 48:10
  he's not dead, a piece of him died because he realized exactly how much
• 48:15
  the world hated him just for who he was. Like, that's a scene
• 48:20
  that always always played well to me, but this time it really really hit
• 48:24
  Like I saw a lot of stuff in it that made me think about a
• 48:29
  lot of things, a lot of different things, not even things that are
• 48:32
  necessarily what you would expect. And so I think that's a beautiful, beautiful
• 48:37
  moment in the film. That's what That's what a good movie does. It
• 48:40
  makes it makes you think, and sometimes it brings up memories or ideas that
• 48:44
  even related to it. Darren, how about you, What's what's a scene
• 48:47
  that pops in your brain? When I ask you for one of your favorites.
• 48:51
  I immediately thought of the I guess Ninja attack. Maybe they're not Ninja's
• 48:58
  but the night attack by the nod Okay, Yeah, it's just it's so,
• 49:06
  you know, because we've had a long stretch of like chill at that
• 49:09
  point. You know, we're in the village for like months and months,
• 49:14
  and it's like, hey, don't forget this is an action movie. But
• 49:16
  it goes. It's so fast and so well cut, and the fighting is
• 49:22
  so cool. It's showing Tom Cruise has now learned he's there's the moment towards
• 49:29
  the end where you know, he and Keetmoso are are like like, hey,
• 49:34
  oh you have a sword now, like you're obviously not trying to kill
• 49:37
  me. I think we're I think we've gotten to another point of our relationship
• 49:40
  that we're not on opposite sides. And yeah, I just I love that
• 49:45
  that whole thing I'll probably watch it again after this, Like just that that
• 49:49
  whole sequence, even how it starts where they're their guard is all down,
• 49:54
  They're they're doing a play, and and the leaders kind of like in the
• 49:59
  play, which just kind of like when your principle comes in and it's like
• 50:02
  a side part. It's like it's funny because it's the principle, not because
• 50:07
  he's good, but because you know, it's kind of outrageous. Uh yeah,
• 50:12
  I love that whole sequence. It's although at the end though, I'm
• 50:15
  like, uh, you're gonna need these guys for your end battle, like,
• 50:19
  don't lose too many because you I know, I know exactly what you're
• 50:22
  saying. Like I felt the same thing. I'm like, no, no,
• 50:24
  no, no, no, no no. It's like it's a war
• 50:27
  of attrition. You're already a treating you yeap. For me, it was
• 50:34
  the armor scene with Taka and ulgrin Oh when when Taka brings the armor and
• 50:40
  dresses him. I mean, they didn't go full romance with that scene,
• 50:45
  but there's a lot of intimacy and I love it when movies can pull that
• 50:51
  off. And Taka what a brilliant actress, beautiful face, she She brought
• 50:58
  a lot of gravitas, a lot of a lot of quiet gravitas to the
• 51:02
  scene, and it was, Yeah, I think about I think about that
• 51:07
  scene a lot. It's so well done, the music, the pacing,
• 51:10
  just the shots. Election Cruise and Kayoke werely they were in it together.
• 51:17
  They they they both knew what to do, all right, Darren, real
• 51:23
  quick, how many how many jolly goods are you giving this this movie,
• 51:30
  Chollie Chilli Goods? Uh not the word I would associate with this Japanese movie.
• 51:35
  But you know, I gotta give it a five. I can't think
• 51:39
  of a reason to give it a four. There's it's just a great movie.
• 51:45
  I I kind of feel sad of myself of not really watching this more
• 51:49
  often. It's probably been since it came out, because it's just, you
• 51:52
  know, life moved on and and whatnot. But yeah, it's definitely and
• 51:59
  I love movie like this that have like a little period of history and just
• 52:02
  kind of tell a little story and you know, and especially with with Japanese
• 52:09
  culture is again they're they're going through this massive change and they will have many
• 52:15
  more massive changes after this. But yeah, I think beautifully handled by an
• 52:21
  amazing director. You know, we saw glory all over the beginning. I
• 52:24
  mean almost shot for shot in some ways. But that's not bad because,
• 52:30
  like you guys have said it, it was better. It wasn't like he
• 52:32
  tried it again and it didn't work a second time. It's like, you
• 52:37
  know, it's more like, oh, guys, I know what to do.
• 52:39
  Uh. But but it's gonna say the same thing, but but even
• 52:43
  better. Yeah, even gosh that just the beginning scene of the samurai coming
• 52:50
  out of the mist in the forest is just like that. I just need
• 52:54
  that. This I need I know, I need to watch the trailers again.
• 52:58
  But I feel like this is the kind of movie that would do well
• 53:01
  with a one minute of the movie trailer where they just take like maybe that
• 53:07
  part of the forest or something else, like it's not the climactic battle,
• 53:10
  but take a movementute from this movie and just play it and people will be
• 53:16
  like, Okay, I'm hooked. I want to go see this now,
• 53:19
  you know. And not all movies can pull off that kind of a trailer.
• 53:22
  It's not usually done, you know. I think Tenant is one where
• 53:27
  they kind of released a minute or two or like a whole sequence and that
• 53:30
  was enough. To be like, Okay, I'm hooked. Yeah, I
• 53:34
  think they did the car chase. I think like the backwards car chase.
• 53:37
  I thought they did the opera. Maybe I'm misremembering. Oh maybe I'm misremembering.
• 53:43
  I don't know. I thought I remember there was like it wasn't even
• 53:45
  a trailer. It was like going to be shown before another movie, and
• 53:49
  they showed like, here's the opera. Sees Yeah, it's the classic No.
• 53:53
  One trick of you know what he did with Dark Knight, Dark Knight
• 53:57
  Rises Tenant Oppenheim would have been a little difficult to pull that one. O
• 54:01
  the bumb went off. I didn't see that coming. But but no,
• 54:05
  so I'm giving it five five swords for sure. All right, John,
• 54:09
  if you can briefly give us your five wrap up five police. I've been
• 54:15
  so bald faced apparent about where this was headed. And I love and adore
• 54:21
  this film. I thank it for introducing Ken Wantanabi to me and to American
• 54:29
  audiences in general. I think that you know, I said this in the
• 54:32
  context of another thing, but if Glory is a sketch, this is a
• 54:36
  masterpiece painting like this is just this to me? Is wis calling card?
• 54:40
  I might enjoy his other stuff, but this is the one where if you're
• 54:44
  like, do you want to watch an Edwards Wick movie? Well, yes,
• 54:45
  I do want to watch the Last Samurai, Thank you very much.
• 54:49
  I would absolutely like to do that. So yes, five out of five
• 54:52
  out of five for me, Yeah, that's it's it's five from me.
• 54:55
  This is This is an amazing movie. It's one of my favorite movies.
• 55:00
  It's this could be in a top ten. It's definitely in the top twenty
• 55:06
  for me, and I think it's it's brilliant all around. The editing,
• 55:10
  cinematography, the music, the acting, the story, it's it's it's perfect,
• 55:15
  and it's a it's great. I truly love it. This was a
• 55:19
  this is This is a movie that has stuck with me since two thousand and
• 55:22
  three, and I rewatch it all the time. I didn't have time to
• 55:24
  rewatch it in preparation for this podcast, but it didn't matter because I have
• 55:27
  it devoted to memory and it was I even use this in a class project
• 55:32
  when I talked about taking still stills of movies and treating them like pieces of
• 55:40
  art. Its like, how good movies with good cinematography you can take us
• 55:45
  still and it can hold its own like a photograph or like a painting.
• 55:51
  And I've just yeah, so I've been in love with this movie ever since
• 55:54
  two thousand and three. Five stars. All right, well we have five
• 55:58
  stars across the board. Please please if you would like, if you like
• 56:02
  this episode, go back and listen to some of our other directors that we've
• 56:06
  talked about, and go to the Nerdparty dot com and find out some of
• 56:12
  our other shows. You can also reach out to us if you have an
• 56:14
  idea of which director you would like us to tackle. Email is the best
• 56:17
  way to get a hold of us, by going to the Nerdpartty dot com
• 56:21
  slash contact and selecting house lights and filling and sending us a message, or
• 56:24
  you can send us a message message on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
• 56:30
  We check Facebook once a week and so if you want to get a hold
• 56:35
  of us, you can do that there. So, Darren, what are
• 56:37
  we doing next week? Well, next week we're going to be ending our
• 56:42
  decade by decade of Edward Zwick as we jump to twenty fourteen with Pawn Sacrifice,
• 56:47
  a Tale of Bobby Fisher. Here on house sites, Join the Revolution,
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  Join the net Party,