Latest / Cigars and Cinema Podcast / "Travel Intersteller!" Ep. 118 8/20/26

Transcript

"Travel Intersteller!" Ep. 118 8/20/26 · Cigars and Cinema Podcast

0:02
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to another episode of Cigars and Cinema.
0:05
SPEAKER_02: Grab a cigar, something to pair it with, and let's journey into another episode of Smoke and Screen.
0:32
SPEAKER_02: Today's episode of Cigars and Cinema is coming to you from the OTT Cigars Society to join five pack premium custom cigars each month at an undeniable price.
0:43
SPEAKER_02: Join the community and smoke with us on the Oakland Tobacchinist YouTube channel as we delve into the rich experience of OT Craft Cigars and many cigars and vitolas custom made just for our membership.
0:56
SPEAKER_02: If you're interested and if you want to find out more about the subscription and the whole host of DT cigars, visit us at www.com or find us on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok at OGT Cigars.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: Hello everybody, welcome back to the channel.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: It is Tuesday night.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: Let's talk movies.
1:19
SPEAKER_02: Let's talk cigars.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: This is Cigars and Cinema Podcast, where we smoke cigars unabashedly commentating, in some cases, giving extreme opinions on film and entertainment.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: I am one of your hosts coming to you from still sunny North Carolina on the East Coast.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh on the opposite side from the West Coast, we have Curtis Bailey.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: Curtis, thanks for jumping on.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for making it through this movie and talking and hanging out tonight.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and uh I I guess since you know what we're not uh in the same location, we can do an experiment tonight and see if smoke transpends space and time.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: We don't know if it's beyond the horizon.
1:55
SPEAKER_02: We don't know the information.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I see we got some people jumping on tonight.
1:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh, so it's gonna be a great night, guys.
2:01
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna hang out, we're gonna talk about uh movies, we're gonna talk about the cigar because we just released a new variety pack.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: I see we've got my brother in studio saying hello, everyone.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: How's it going?
2:11
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and we got Jason on as well saying hello, Eric and Curtis, and everyone watching tonight.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: What's up, guys?
2:17
SPEAKER_02: Oh, and my wife, Cube Macaroni, says, I'll be common uh commenting via bookcase messages from the future.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: I do I do have a bookcase right behind me here.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: So I'll just get her a watch real quick.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: Daniel Frazier's on.
2:31
SPEAKER_02: Hello, made it in time, just finished a Bruno before the storm rolls in.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: That is a great cigar.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm very sad to say like that cigar might be one of those like soon to be just in the history of OGT, since like so many are just out in the wild and completely almost gone.
2:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh, Doc E.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: Rox says, Good evening from SoCal.
2:53
SPEAKER_02: Um Jason, all we are is wind in dust in the wind.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: There you go, Jason.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: So um, thank you guys so much for dropping out in those comments.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna encourage you guys to do that throughout the show because I want to know, Curtis wants to know your opinion, whether it's the cigar you're smoking, the cigar we're smoking, or even the movie we're talking about.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: Because we have decided to voyage into the films of Chris Nolan.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: Um, before we get to that, let's get to the cigar.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: So we just released and sent out everyone seems to have received their variety pack.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: It is a banger lineup again.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm really excited to go through these this month.
3:31
SPEAKER_02: Um out of all these right here, I will say like some new highlights.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: I had to put Bishop's Blend in there because it was like the hottest limited release from Bish from Black Label.
3:41
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, come on, variety members got to be able to try it.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: That skull and crossbones on the left, that's Viaje.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: I've never put Viaje in a membership before because they're so limited.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: So they released this like triad of three different blends.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: One is called uh the Johnny Blaze, one is called the Mephisto.
4:01
SPEAKER_02: That this uh one, I believe in the yellow, is the Ghost Rider.
4:05
SPEAKER_02: They're so good.
4:06
SPEAKER_02: I can't wait till we smoke those.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: Um, but tonight, oh yeah, and I also have to say, I'm sure Curtis, you heard about this.
4:12
SPEAKER_02: We released our seventh anniversary cigar.
4:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:15
SPEAKER_02: This is made at uh El Mago Cigar Factory.
4:19
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one of the biggest releases of our uh of the year for us, celebrating seven years.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: If you haven't gotten this, either pick it up tonight or join OGT Cigar Society.
4:28
SPEAKER_02: You guys don't want to miss out on this.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Curtis, you and I, we've talked about El Mago on this channel.
4:33
SPEAKER_02: We've enjoyed the jug, the cavalry.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: Um, I've been impressed with her stuff.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: Agreed.
4:38
SPEAKER_02: So um super, super excited.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: This is going to our society members at the end of the week, but check out El Mago Mage.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: Tonight we're smoking the Vallicari Astronomia.
4:49
SPEAKER_02: Astronomia?
4:50
SPEAKER_02: Astronomia.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: Um this is I don't know, Curtis, if you've smoked anything by per se that are like under this Vallicari name.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: If I have, it doesn't come to mind.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: So what I will say is that they blend, it's a factory.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: They blend for a lot of other companies like Lure Cigars, which we've smoked on the channel.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: They blended the Emerald Knight and the Crimson Knight.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, but this is their own lineup.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: This is their own brand.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: So this is one of my favorites from Valicari, Astronomia.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: This is in the Robusto size, five by fifty.
5:24
SPEAKER_02: It has a Connecticut Broadleaf Wrapper, which is a favorite of mine.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: The binder is Ometepe, Nicaraguan, and then fillers from Nicaragua.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: So I'm excited to hear your impressions of this cigar.
5:34
SPEAKER_02: Right on.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: So let's go ahead and get a cold draw going.
5:37
SPEAKER_02: Uh, let us know.
5:38
SPEAKER_02: What are you guys smoking tonight?
5:39
SPEAKER_02: Are you pairing with anything?
5:41
SPEAKER_02: Are you smoking the same thing along with us?
5:43
SPEAKER_02: Uh drop it in the comments, and I'll go ahead and pull that up.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: I almost got like uh strawberry starburst.
5:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I I there's a fruitiness to it.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: I I definitely I was like, is that like a like a like a plum skin, something like that?
6:04
SPEAKER_02: There's definitely some kind of sweet fruitiness to it for sure.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: Beyond that, not much like you normally a lot of the Nicaraguan Maduros, you get it with like saltiness or something.
6:14
SPEAKER_02: I'm not getting any of that right now.
6:15
SPEAKER_02: Agreed.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so let's get this lit up and see where Astronomia starts.
6:25
SPEAKER_02: Every cigar leaves an impression.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: However, it's not until you take a moment and analyze the full experience from construction to flavor to profile that you can truly appreciate it.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: So enjoy your cigar as you light it up.
6:37
SPEAKER_02: Take the time to toast it, smell the room notes, and experience the first notes as they come alive.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, movies can tell deeper stories or show us things we haven't noticed on the surface.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: So journey with us as we take a more detailed appreciation for the craft of cigar and movie making.
6:59
SPEAKER_02: Okay, getting this started.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm back to a single flame, so it's gonna take me a little bit longer to get it started.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: Uh so if you notice anything out the gate, any first impressions, please let me know what you think.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Um first kind of like categories of flavor that are coming to mind for me here are kind of uh vegetal and earthy, like maybe leathery type stuff going on.
7:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: Definitely vegetal.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: Definitely earthy.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: There's also a uh hint of like uh how do I explain this?
7:33
SPEAKER_02: I I once in a while I'll smoke a cigar like this, and I'm like, oh, I know exactly what that is, and then my like mind like loses it in a second.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, wait, hold on, what was it?
7:47
SPEAKER_02: There's this musty uh like quality to it.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: Almost that you get from like a less sweet apple, like how it's got that earthy musk going on.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: Um also a little bit like that.
8:00
SPEAKER_02: I I don't know if it's called petrichor, but like after it rains and you get that kind of like musky smell in the air, it's definitely there too.
8:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm also getting something like like almost like in like like a the back of my cheeks, you know, kind of like near the the the finish uh that is just like a slight hint of like a shortbread cookie almost.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Which is interesting because tonight I am pairing this with a Telemordoo Irish whiskey, and shortbread is a pretty common flavor to pick up on Irish whiskeys like this.
8:34
SPEAKER_02: So nice.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: Now, out of Irish whiskeys, because I know for me a lot of them tend to be a little bit on the delicate side.
8:40
SPEAKER_02: Would you say that's with this one as well?
8:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, this is right down the same barrel with uh, you know, um Jameson and uh what's the other one that I'm trying to think of right now?
8:52
SPEAKER_00: Powers?
8:54
SPEAKER_00: My brain isn't braining.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, stuff like that.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, the sort of um uh column distilled, uh uh, you know, straight, unmalted barley Irish whiskey.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: A lot of them tend to be very much the same, and that's fine.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a lot of scotches, you know, space eyes that are all really similar to each other.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: So um, but yeah, you know, uh a pleasant, easy drinker kind of thing.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's it's one of those that's enjoyable, but you don't have to like, you know, get all, well, I'm going to those.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: That's fine.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: I I think this is what I find really interesting.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: I've I've smoked a number of different blends from Vallicari so far, and they have the ability to capture those like bass notes, that those deep notes, that it's like this is a heavy-ish cigar, but it's not punching me in the face.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: This has more of like a gravity to it that's not aggressive.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: It's a really interesting way to blend a darker Maduro, which I find it it's kind of like, especially for a Nicaraguan factory, it's kind of going against the grain, which I like.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's nice.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: All right.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, there is where it starts.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: We'll see where it uh continues.
10:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm gonna pull up one more comment here.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: Jason's saying he is smoking the same with some four roses to pair with it.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
10:11
SPEAKER_02: Wonder if four roses influences it all, brings any sweetness, tones down.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: Let us know.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so Curtis, I'm gonna let you take the helm because this was your pick.
10:20
SPEAKER_02: This is week two into the saga of Chris Nolan.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: So what are we talking about tonight?
10:26
SPEAKER_00: We are talking about Interstellar, which I'm thinking maybe you chose this astronomia on purpose because then then I mean, yes, I did.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: That's exactly what happened.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: I was you know, connect those dots.
10:39
SPEAKER_02: Not at all.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this this is uh uh um uh well, I mean, you want to give the the the rundown on the the stats as it were for this?
10:49
SPEAKER_02: Sure, sure.
10:49
SPEAKER_02: So uh Interstellar uh was released in 2014.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: It is rated PG 13 with a runtime of too long.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean uh two hours and 49 minutes.
10:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh a very quick synopsis in a dystopian future where Earth has become near inhabitable, a team of astronauts embark on a mission to find a new home for humanity.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: Uh it was directed by Chris Nolan, written by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: Uh big names are Matthew McConaughey and Hathaway, uh Jessica Chastain, Mackenzie Foy, John Lithgowgow, uh Timothy, a young Timothy Chalamet.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: Um and the list goes on.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: And also, of course, Michael Cain, Matt Damon.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: Um it's funny because I feel like really big cast, and also one thing I do appreciate about some directors like this is they kind of have their group.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: They're like, okay, I mean Wes Anderson has it, Tim Burton has it, Chris Nolan has it.
11:43
SPEAKER_02: They like to work with their guys and women, and they kind of like to put those in different roles.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: I do appreciate that.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: So you see some familiar Chris Nolan cast faces.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and you know, kind of maybe on a slightly, I don't know, meta level is not the right way to say this, but you know, it it it implies that um, you know, there's uh good working relationships there.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, they like yeah working with each other, they like you know, challenging each other to be creative and do stuff and whatnot.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: And I think that oftentimes you can sense that in the the final product.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: So you know for better or worse.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: So what what made you out of Chris Nolan's films choose Interstellar to take a closer look at?
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh well, for one, I'd only seen it once back when it first came out.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Um but I also remember not being the biggest fan of it and you know getting into sometimes contentious discussions about it with my other movie nerd friends.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh because this is one that uh seems to be, at least among you know fans of this hard sci-fi genre type stuff, like you know, one of the best.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: And um I was like, you know, maybe maybe it was me.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I was uh unfair to the movie or you know, didn't have a good take or whatever.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, let's kick the tires and see if I still feel the same way.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: And I mostly do.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: Well, good on you.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: I I've I'm here to back you up tonight.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've revised certain evaluations up and down, you know, different things in the movie, but like broadly, I'm still kind of like, you know, I think this is trying to um uh achieve something that um either it's not quite capable of achieving, or if we can say that it does achieve it, it's like kind of a silly thing to achieve.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: And we'll I'll explain what I mean by that as we go.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
13:31
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: All right.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: So everyone watching, help us out.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure uh amongst Chris Nolan's films, you've probably been subjected to Interstellar before, or you've done it on your own free will and you went to the theater or rented it.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, what do you think of Interstellar?
13:46
SPEAKER_02: Please put that down in the comments.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: That's gonna help this conversation tonight, I think, instrumentally.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: So please let us know what you think.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, this was unlike Curtis, this was my first time I watched it.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: I had not seen it.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, I will preference uh the entire evening, from my opinion, is that I'm not the biggest science fiction fan.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: Like now, people are gonna be like, Yeah, you just did a whole series on Star Wars.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: What are you talking about?
14:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there are there are outliers, and you also up with that.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: I would also argue Star Wars is not science fiction, it's fantasy, 100%.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: That's maybe why it's good.
14:20
SPEAKER_02: No, yeah, I just I'm not science fiction, is is there's some really good stories out there, it's just not normally like the first thing I go to.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: I get it.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: Um, I will further say that this we had mentioned uh last week about some issues that we sometimes have with Chris Nolan.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: He's made some great movies, but I feel like this is a good example of that self-indulgent side where it almost feels like it's trying to push smarter than it actually is.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: Um beautifully shot, storyline is pretty weak for me, and characters are pretty weak for me.
14:54
SPEAKER_02: Those are gonna be some of the biggest speed bumps I think I encountered.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know I'm I'm largely in that that same boat with you.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we'll get it, we'll get into the details, but so we got let's see, we got a few people to answer the call.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: Let's see here.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: Jason said, I fell asleep, then woke up and thought when Matt when did Matt Damon enter the film?
15:13
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I mean, yeah, it's it's a long nap.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh Daniel Frazier says, Interstellar, I have a love slash hate for the first half I disliked, but the second half I really brought me around.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay, nice.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: And David is saying, What's up, guys?
15:28
SPEAKER_02: Just sliding up the astronomia from the variety pack as well.
15:30
SPEAKER_02: Great.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: Let us know what you think about it.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: Uh, put that down in the comments.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, I I think the issue that I initially will have with this movie is that it's Chris Nolan's not my always go-to.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's a science fiction movie, it's almost three hours long.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: These are mostly the deterrence of why I hadn't seen it in the first place.
15:48
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I just don't know if I care enough.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure visually, like you can probably attest to this.
15:54
SPEAKER_02: Uh, visually, it must have been really cool to see in the theater.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mean, uh, production value-wise, there's uh not much to really argue with in this film.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: I think that uh, you know, the design of things, the execution of things, it looks and sounds pretty good.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh I do still have that complaint uh that uh Chris Nolan oftentimes intentionally does a weird bit with the audio mixing where the music intrudes on dialogue in a way that I'm not a big fan of.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: No.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: And there's several moments in this movie where it really kind of stands out.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Um but putting that aside, yes, this is a pretty impressive sound and light show.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, yeah, especially when we get into the uh latter part of the film where we're approaching gargantua, the black black hole, and the way all that stuff is visualized.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: It looks great, it looks super great.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I wish that I liked the story that it was being, you know, um that all this stuff is being like employed to tell, but yeah, no, it's a it's a very good looking movie.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: And uh broadly speaking, I like the musical score as well.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and in fact, I I think most of the musical score that I enjoyed, this probably will tag team on what Frazier said, uh, but I liked mostly the second half of the movie.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: I liked some of the musical stuff going on there.
17:11
SPEAKER_02: Um that half oh sorry, go ahead.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: Oh no, it's very quickly, I was gonna say Mallory says, I like immersive sci-fi, but the things like devs or tales from the loop, Nolan just pales in comparison.
17:23
SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: I would agree.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: But sorry, what were you gonna say?
17:27
SPEAKER_00: Um on that, like you know, notion of the um the latter half of the movie being you know more uh enjoyable than the first half, I feel like I'm the complete opposite.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: I think that the I think that the the setup in this movie as far as you know the vi the vision of the world that it establishes, where you know, um this guy's a uh you know uh uh a space pilot, and it's more useful for him to be working as a farmer and uh you know, just because of you know what's happened in this version of the future.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: They've got school teachers, you know, teaching kids that the moon landings didn't actually happen.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's all that kind of subtle world building stuff really works for me.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: And then uh, you know, the intro introduction of the mystery about what's going on with um Murph's bookcase, and uh, you know, all broadly speaking, I I kind of like that stuff.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay I get really I get really left out in the cold by the the second half, and particularly as we veer into the climax, because I told you at the beginning, I was like, you know, I feel like if this movie achieves something, what it's achieving is kind of silly.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Because the central premise of this movie is that the odyssey love is a thing that is so powerful that it transcends space and time.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: You've got a scene with Anne Hathaway like almost like mockishly just blurting that theme out of her mouth into the camera, and then uh you know, the way that it's sort of represented, he he goes into the center of a black hole and finds a tesseract there, because the tesseract is a uh um a cube in four dimensions, right?
19:12
SPEAKER_00: So he's in this cube, but he can exp go to any point in time, you know, from this location.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: And it's vaguely alluded that like future versions of humans helped uh make that happen somehow, question mark.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, like it's so vague and weird.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: And this is probably just like a personal philosophy thing for me.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but I feel like love is just the name we apply to an emotion that humans feel.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh sure.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: And this movie's making the case that it's this thing that is ex, you know, uh like extra human, like it that it it goes beyond the boundaries of what we is happening in our brains.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like, that is really hard for me to buy.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: And so the the central thing that this movie is trying to communicate uh uh about love through its interstellar story, just almost 100% falls flat for me.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And I just kind of sit there feeling silly in the the second half when it's really delving into all that stuff.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know, what's your take?
20:13
SPEAKER_02: So my take would be uh, and I don't know if uh Daniel feels the same way.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: Uh he actually dropped down a comment which is interesting.
20:20
SPEAKER_02: I haven't seen it, says, Oh, and the expanse, still in love with that series, and wish Amazon would continue to pursue it.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: I've heard really good things.
20:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I need to check it out.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: Um, probably the reason I found the second half more engaging is because you have to care about where the characters are going in the first place for that to ring as it is.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: And for me, I was just like, I'm here for the visuals and the sound at this point.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: And and and I think that's based on this is that Chris Nolan gets tripped up.
20:48
SPEAKER_02: I feel like when he is so like Hitchcock, premise-based.
20:52
SPEAKER_02: This movie to me very much feels like characters are afterthoughts, premise is everything.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it and I I could I'm I this could be the hottest take of all, but I'm like, I kind of feel like it started with them being like, Whoa, what if there was like this wormhole where like you can go through time and like try to send a message back in the past about the future and then build characters around it?
21:11
SPEAKER_00: Like just the the way the characters develop in this, it's that's that's that's almost certainly uh Chris Nolan's MO.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean, um, he he seems to be particularly obsessed with that notion you were just talking about of how you know time, you know, looking at time in different ways, and the way things that can fall back on themselves, so you look at information you already saw, but with a new context and a different perspective, and it reveals some, you know, uh some uh either narrative idea or thematic idea, or maybe it's a fundamental truth that he's trying to unearth, whatever.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's no uh accident that the um logo for Nolan's production company, Syncope, is a labyrinth.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Um he does this all almost all throughout his career.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And uh you know, on one hand, I applaud that because it's like, you know, what I want from filmmakers is uh, you know, um artists telling stories that are personal to them, you know, like you know, no nobody else is gonna make this movie, right?
22:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, right?
22:16
SPEAKER_00: Nolan is the one who's like, I'm obsessed with this idea, just like like Hatch Hitchcock was obsessed with the uh notion of being uh wrongly accused of something and just kept working out that anxiety through making movies about it.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: And Nolan is doing the same thing, and I'd like that.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: But I still can't help but feel that in you know, taken on a case-by-case basis, I don't think that it's always successful.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think that he like he pulls off the magic trick as far as just like how the plot works in this movie, but like I said, the the thematic emotional thing that it's going for borders on absurd to me.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, and he's also got an obsession with just trying to make it home.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: Whether you look at Oppenheimer, this movie, uh the uh sorry, there's another one I was thinking of.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: Probably Dunkirk, maybe.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, sorry, Dunkirk, yeah.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, sorry, the Odyssey.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: Dunkirk is a big one, and it's it's funny because it's like it feels like almost the JJ Abrams thing of like, look, guys, I'm making Star Trek because I can make a Star Wars movie.
23:14
SPEAKER_02: And it was like, were you just leading up to do the Odyssey eventually?
23:17
SPEAKER_02: Um I will say one of the best executions Nolan has done to where it caused me to be like, wow, I didn't really fully understand this, was in the prestige.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: Like he drops enough clues, but I like the breadcrumbs in that movie.
23:31
SPEAKER_02: I like the progression of the story to where it does bring you to that, oh, like moment.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: This, I'm I'm not even joking, I've never seen the movie.
23:39
SPEAKER_02: But by the second time they mentioned, oh, there's this ghost, I was like, I bet you anything, it's his it's the dad.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: Like he somehow found a way, and it was mostly probably because I'd just seen enough Nolan movies to where I was just like, this is probably where he's going with that.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I could see that it's really difficult too, to where it's like, I think the best times that we get the human experiment is at least when Murph is a child and their interactions.
24:07
SPEAKER_02: It's believable.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: I do like those moments.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: I like it too, but I don't necessarily I was very lost when they're like, okay, let's go to school and then well, we got to chase down this thing that's flying.
24:18
SPEAKER_02: How about in a world where we don't have enough food, I destroy a lot of it while I chase this thing.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah, drive corn.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was like, what is going on?
24:26
SPEAKER_02: Like, and he's and like all the kids who are like obviously dealing with a dust bowl and eat only corn, they're like, Yeah, dad, go get it.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, what?
24:35
SPEAKER_02: Like that, I don't know.
24:36
SPEAKER_02: I I was trying to figure out like, is there a reason behind this?
24:39
SPEAKER_02: Apparently, no.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, well, I mean, I think what did they say that like the the the battery module in that thing was super valuable or useful or something?
24:47
SPEAKER_00: I the there was a reason that they felt like it was worth chasing it down, but but but that's my point is we can't name that reason.
24:54
SPEAKER_02: We just watched the movie.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
24:56
SPEAKER_02: It's it's um again, a few comments here.
25:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh Mallory says he also harps on sacrifice for ambition slash regret.
25:04
SPEAKER_02: Oh, for sure.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: That is true.
25:06
SPEAKER_02: That is that is a hundred percent true.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: Uh Mick Cigar says the variety this month is insane.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: I'm soaked on all of them, fighting the urge to let them rest for the humidor a bit.
25:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you.
25:17
SPEAKER_02: I think you will enjoy it as well.
25:18
SPEAKER_02: Tonight we're smoking Astronomia from Valakari.
25:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, there's I think a lot of plot holes thing.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't understand, I think most average movie goers don't understand fully the theories and the hypotheses that are being explained in this movie.
25:36
SPEAKER_02: But I feel like he did just enough to where it sounded convincing, but it still left a lot of questions.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
25:43
SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, uh obviously a um uh a sci-fi movie is a story first and a you know science thing second, so it's not required that um you know these movies only play by the rules of what's scientifically plausible or possible, right?
26:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, so that's it it's fair.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are things, unfortunately, just because I'm a nerd and I learned about a lot of this stuff, that when I see it happen in this movie, I'm like, that's impossible.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Can't do that, that's not gonna work.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, um uh a uh a black hole to the degree that we understand them, uh the gravity is not only incredibly strong, but it um increases exponentially as you approach the the center, uh, to the point that if a object, like say a free-floating human being in space, were to approach a black hole, um, you would die a very awful death by a thing called spaghettification, which means that the gravity increase is so insanely exponential that what's pulling on the front of my body is many, many, many, many, many times stronger than what's pulling on the back of my body, which means I get pulled apart like spaghetti.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah, yeah.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: By, you know, uh with every millimeter closer, right?
27:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just yeah, so you know, but you know, the movie does need to be like I understand why they're like he goes into black hole to find the Tasseract because this the future glowy human, you know, like blobby humans made it happen somehow, whatever, fine.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh you know, I do like that the movie takes uh stuff like time dilation seriously and makes it a plot point in this movie where they have to go to that that water plant.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: They're like, all right, we gotta decide.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: We have only so much fuel, we gotta we gotta go to a planet.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: They make the gamble of going to that one, and it's a complete shit show for them.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's scary to think about oh, years are burning by as we try to get off of this thing.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a cool idea.
27:46
SPEAKER_02: Yes, and in fact, I was gonna say that's for me one of the highlights of the movie.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: And I going into this, I had seen part of that scene.
27:53
SPEAKER_02: That was like the only exposure to this movie I had had, aside from like trailers.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: And a commentary I saw, I I'm pretty sure this was the intention, but the the score underneath the tone is really interesting, it's really cool.
28:06
SPEAKER_02: It's got this like ticking to it, and apparently, if you rewatch it, each tick signifies a year gone by.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that doesn't surprise me.
28:16
SPEAKER_02: That kind of like technical aspect I can appreciate.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, that is cool.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: Um, at the same time, it does kind of bring me back to my original idea of like that Nolan thought this would be a cool thing, so he put it in a movie.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, on that, Daniel Fraser says the movie felt like Nolan heard someone explain the fourth dimension of time, could possibly be like, then try to crack craft a story around that in science theory.
28:39
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I would agree with that for sure.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, really quick, as we we've got a lot more to talk about.
28:44
SPEAKER_02: There's many characters we got to talk about, but uh, we're about the halfway mark, so we should probably take a second on the astronomia and see where we're getting.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm getting like a more of an aromatic quality, like almost like uh kind of like the type of Christmassy type of spice, like pommeander, persimmon type deal going on.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: It's very faint, but it's coming through on the retrohale.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: The main difference I'm noticing, I mentioned at the beginning that I was like, you know, there's there's something a little bit vegetal going on with this.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: Now those now there's those are roasted vegetables.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: Okay, more like a char aspect to it.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I also get a little bit of maybe mushroom umami.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: I can that's gonna say I think that's part of it is a savouriness, yeah.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: And but you're right, that that vegetal component is all the way through.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: Um, not crazy sweet, but also in a way that it still lightly complements it.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: I think some of that Christmas spice to me on the retro is bringing it to it's a really interesting cigar.
29:46
SPEAKER_02: I can honestly say this is not a profile you're you are more common to find.
29:51
SPEAKER_02: It's really interesting.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty unique, but I dig it.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's smoking beautifully.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: Yes, really good construction.
30:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, that's halfway point with astronomio, the connected broadly from Valakari.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I I want to uh pick up on something since we were just talking about that scene where they're on that planet that's all covered in water with a giant wave that's circling the whole planet.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Um one of the things that I like in that sequence, because I was uncertain for a while the first time I watched this about the design of those robots.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: I was like, this is kind of funky, especially since they allude to the fact that they had been marines.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: But it's clear that no one likes doing practical stuff in camera as much as possible.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: And that's a very straightforward, simple puppet to build, right?
30:41
SPEAKER_00: And have in the uh in the camera with alongside the other actors.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: I kind of like the personalities that they give the robots and how they can like turn their sarcasm meters like up and down and stuff like that.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: But then when I saw the robot like unfurl to like, you know, pick up Ant Hathaway and the different ways that it was moving through the water, like at one point it looks like a wheel, and it's you know, just I was like, this is kind of a neat design, and I haven't seen robots like this in other films.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate this.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Just a production design thing that I think is cool in this movie.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: And and in the way the robots move like there, even like in the docking sequences, there's something that's a little unnerving about it.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: Like you get this sense for I don't know, for the first hour and 20 minutes, this robot is very slow moving and it takes a while, and then it speeds up.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: You're like, whoa.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: And in that aspect you're saying with like the marine aspect, you're like, what else is this capable of?
31:31
SPEAKER_02: Right.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: Like that would be a little daunting.
31:33
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, no, I I appreciate design stuff like that for sure.
31:36
SPEAKER_02: And speaking of which, what are your thoughts on the whole story arc of Anne Hathaway?
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh well, I mean, I think it's a a good layer of complication that they throw in there that she's advocating for one of the planets that the scientists have been, you know, uh kind of like testing out to find out if they're viable candidates.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: She's like, yes, also I want to go see the man that I fell in love with.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's a human element that um makes sense in a story like this.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Because we see that pop up in other parts.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: It definitely applies to Matt Damon's character when he shows up.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Um I do think, like I said, that one of the scenes that really bugs me in this movie is uh uh again when Ant Hathaway uh is asked to basically just say the theme of the movie in a very kind of mockish monologue that just doesn't, yeah, a little lazy and it doesn't work for me.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: And there it goes hand in hand with some other moments in this movie, again, like when Matt Damon's character is brought into the uh thing and he we find out that he's you know betrayed them basically.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: He's been lying about what he's doing on his candidate planet, and there's this scene where he's um he's sabotaged McConaughey's suit and he's walking away because he's trying to leave, and he's got this whole run of dialogue about like basically trying to justify what he's done, and the intensity of the dialogue that in there and the way that Matt Damon is delivering it almost pushes it into like farce parody territory for me.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Like it gets almost a little bit absurd, and again, I feel the same way about that thing with Anne Hathaway, too.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: So that's why, again, like I said, the second half of this movie for me, not only are there those like wacky concepts going on that are hard for me to buy.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: I he's he's trying for sincere profundity here, but it it it it borders on almost unintentional parody to me.
33:42
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, no, no, I yeah, I okay.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: Uh on Anne Hathaway, uh Mallory says doesn't feel consistent with the character in the beginning of the movie.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: She's this calculated scientist, and a monologue feels even weirder because of it.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you you definitely have a switch, like a switch of like who she is, and to the point, I kept trying to figure out like where where are they going?
34:07
SPEAKER_02: Like what kind of service does she actually play in this movie?
34:11
SPEAKER_02: And so by at the very end, I mean, spoiler alert, when you they cut and she's and like it's his daughter's narrating, she's still out there, and blah blah.
34:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh yeah, I guess she is doing that.
34:19
SPEAKER_02: Like, there's no that I I don't know.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: At no point am I like, oh, but what happened to her, or where is she gonna go, or like any of that?
34:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, I feel like many characters in this movie, whether it's Ben Affleck as his son, I just like I I'm not really even Casey Affleck.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry, Casey Affleck, sorry, yeah.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: I'm not really like pulled into even curiosity about where is this character going.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, um there the some of those characters really just are kind of in there to serve plot function, kind of yes, or at least and I feel like the the concept of oh, by the way, my boyfriend's on this planet and I would like to see him again, and then fine, I just I guess I won't be able to, was kind of like a way to interject that concept of her monologue and the the theme of it.
35:04
SPEAKER_02: But it's like when you first start interjecting that, I don't know, halfway through your movie, it's gonna feel like it's forced.
35:11
SPEAKER_02: It's not gonna feel like, oh, this is a natural progression for this character to go here.
35:15
SPEAKER_02: It's like, by the way, I like him, and you're like, wait, okay, wait, what's happening?
35:19
SPEAKER_02: Like it that type of thing frustrates me in storytelling.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I get that.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: So, um, but I also want to talk about uh the Jessica Chastain and Matthew McConaughey, their depictions as one's getting older and not, like, what do you think about that whole situation?
35:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, it's certainly one of those uh things that you know, premise-wise is interesting because one of the you know things that we consider to be the most like natural law thing of existing as a human on this planet is that as a parent, you will always be older than your children.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, but what what what would it be like if that's not true?
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you know, there's bro, let's put that in the script.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, uh there's some penitentially interesting stuff going on there, and I think the most emotionally successful scene in this movie is when McConaughey sits down to watch all the logged messages of having to be forced basically to see the parts of his children's lives that he made himself miss because he had to go on this mission.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's that's a pretty good scene, and McConaughey plays the moment well.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't have kids of my own, so I don't bring any like personal anything to that.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you had a different take on it being a a parent, but um for for my money, that's like the the one scene when it's like wants to hit you with emotion stuff that is at least somewhat successful.
36:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, and see, I'd probably be a little bit on the the opposite side.
36:49
SPEAKER_02: I think the performances are good.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: Um, so I don't think there's anything wrong that with my what Matthew McConaughey is doing, but I was talking to uh Andrew earlier and I was like, I know this scene is supposed to be really impactful, I know it's supposed to be really moving, and I was just like, okay, it's happening.
37:07
SPEAKER_02: But and and but again, I think that just has a lot to do with it's not the performance, it's just the lack of investment, like wanting to see that happen.
37:16
SPEAKER_02: I guess in in in other terms, I don't know if it's earned at that point in the movie, right?
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Like I it's like I wasn't with you on the ABC steps to get here.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: So when you get to D, why do I care?
37:26
SPEAKER_00: Kind of thing.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
37:28
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
37:29
SPEAKER_02: Um David says, Yeah, monologue part for Anne Hathaway didn't make sense to me.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: It was making me mad that she wanted to make the call based on emotion.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: Now, um, oh yeah, a side note too, Faceless Orchestra says says, loved the astronomia.
37:44
SPEAKER_02: Nice, glad you liked it.
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, that's it, that's also a theme, I feel like, is like the good of mankind, and that being like for selfish means, and you see that play out in uh certain characters of the movie, and then also like the self-sacrifice, and Andrew was also talking about that.
38:04
SPEAKER_02: I think that there are some good things to play with there, but not explored enough.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so one of those things is like, I guess Anne Hathaway is like sort of um trying like through it by the end, kind of tries to give that up, but at the end, doesn't she just end up on her boyfriend's planet, anyways?
38:23
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the one that she supposedly ends up on, right?
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Because she's she's got the colony making kit or whatever.
38:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
38:33
SPEAKER_02: These are these are the threads of this movie that one, like after two hours and 50 minutes, you really couldn't hook me in enough investment to for me to ask.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: And two, of there's a lot of them.
38:45
SPEAKER_02: They're like, I guess that is like how you were saying too about the thing flying and the corn.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess they needed this.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: Like, there's a lot of like I think so.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: Maybe some of that is explained more when you can hear the dialogue over the music.
38:57
SPEAKER_02: But for me, I I just just the there's too many random threads like that.
39:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:03
SPEAKER_02: Um, the the one character I don't you're probably gonna have to help me out on his name, but he uh was like the the guy that ages waiting for them on the water planet.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: He was like kind of there, like I I I also forget the character's name, but I know I know which character you're talking about.
39:18
SPEAKER_02: I think maybe Romley, Romili or something.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: Um, I liked his character, I liked his dynamic.
39:24
SPEAKER_02: Um and I don't know, I found his his role curious enough that I I thought was cool.
39:31
SPEAKER_02: I'll give that.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I I like those those characters that are like that, that are sort of like the you know, um dutiful, you know, reliable, get the work done side character guy.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah who you know gets put through the ringer a little bit because yeah, that that would have to be rough, just like being stuck, you know, waiting for your friends to maybe come back, knowing that they're chewing, you know, what is what was it, seven years per hour or something like that?
39:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's he's a cool character.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: And they I mean Matt Damon doesn't dirty, but you know, yeah.
40:06
SPEAKER_02: Well, and that's what's so funny is I felt I felt more like sad for him when they show up and he's like, I've been waiting for 23 years.
40:14
SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh man, more than the video playing with his daughter.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, fair enough.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
40:23
SPEAKER_02: That was that was interesting.
40:24
SPEAKER_02: Um how about I mean this we're talking about time, we're talking about uh dimensions of time.
40:31
SPEAKER_02: How did you feel the minutes in this movie?
40:35
SPEAKER_02: Do you feel them?
40:36
SPEAKER_02: Do you feel like it's paced well?
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's it's it's it's it's long.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean, I don't think that it necessarily wastes its time, uh but it it's a movie that you know he's maybe just like biting off one too many things to want to kind of like experiment and play with.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: And you know, if you know you take out one, you know, one idea, one thematic thing, whatever, because you know, there's this whole side plot that they'd go down where um you know it's revealed that um Michael Cain's character and the NASA folks were lying about the the candidate planet thing.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, it was only ever going to be you're gonna go out there and establish a colony because this other idea is not gonna work.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: And we, you know, we sold you on being able to do this with plan A so that we could get plan B done.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: And you know, that adds you know a dramatic wrinkle to the story, but it's not related to the themes that's they're going on, you know.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: You probably could have excised that whole thing and saved, I don't know, 20 minutes or something, like you know, so I I no, I agree.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: And and um the outrage, so they they play this this scene back of his daughter saying, Did you know?
41:55
SPEAKER_02: And you must have known, and all this thing has happened.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: The outrage that they feel is like, oh man, we were tricked.
42:00
SPEAKER_02: What about Ann Hathaway being like, How could my dad do this to me?
42:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, sure.
42:05
SPEAKER_02: What about what about any of those aspects?
42:07
SPEAKER_02: Um the these types of questions, I feel like if you were telling a different type of story, might not come up, but Chris Nolan demands your attention, your curiosity, your astonishment in his movies.
42:20
SPEAKER_02: So when he's under delivering on a lot of these aspects, all primarily connected to character-driven premises, that's why I'm like, this movie is just coming up really empty.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: Because you can't demand this sense of awe and wonder when your your foundation is the shallow.
42:37
SPEAKER_02: Like that, that I think is one of my biggest issues.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh that reminds me of uh another issue that I had.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, I thought it was very strange.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: Again, at the sort of the climax of the movie when McConaughey is in the Tesseract and he's looking through the bookcase at these different points in time, and he's uh screaming at uh his uh himself, you know, the younger version of himself, his daughter, whatever, to not go, to not let him go.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: Like I need to stay.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, this is a weird feeling for him to be having at this moment because you know he's he's here because you know, like, for one, we already knew he was gonna be there because he was, you know, knocking the books over and you know, making the dust ball and stuff like that.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: So, like, you know, there's a certain inevitability to the fact that he was there.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: So the fact that he's trying to say, don't let me go, it's like, dude, you already knew you were gonna be here.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: You should have been able to put the two and two together.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: But also on an emotional level, it's like, you know, he understood uh the sacrifice that he was making and that maybe he was gonna never see his daughter again.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: He should, you know, he should have been in a place where he's like he's already accepted that possibility.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: So why is he upset now that when he sees his young daughter, he's like, Don't let me go.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: It's like, dude, you already knew.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Like what's a very strange thing for his character to be doing for me at that moment.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's that irrational humanity thing coming in, perhaps, question mark, but I was just like, this doesn't work for me.
44:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:11
SPEAKER_02: No, no, I agree with that.
44:13
SPEAKER_02: In fact, Daniel Frazier agrees with it.
44:14
SPEAKER_02: He says the regret felt misplaced slash poorly timed.
44:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:19
SPEAKER_02: Well, how much more?
44:21
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, of course, we, you know, everyone lives by the proverb of you know what you should do.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: But how much more feeling would that have been if, like, you know, he's like, can't really see knocking at it, and he's comes face to face with her and he can't touch her, and the regret comes there, not like, oh, I've got to tell her, don't like, because he's not going to change anything.
44:39
SPEAKER_02: But if anything, if like you have this emotion that you're trying to build through a computer screen, now you have the opportunity to really bring that home at your climax and at like actual physical like proximity, things like that.
44:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, you probably could have gone that route and have more struck the heartstring a bit better, I guess.
44:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I agree with that.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: And then there's another component of that that sequence that is just super duper hand wavy, and maybe it's because, like, you know, when you write yourself into that situation, how the heck do you write yourself out of it?
45:09
SPEAKER_00: But you know, he's in the center of a black hole in a tesseract that maybe was constructed by the weird fifth-dimensional future humans.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: Which, what is a fifth-dimensional thing?
45:20
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
45:21
SPEAKER_00: What does that even mean?
45:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: But um, they really just like yada yada yada how he gets out of the tesseract back to Earth.
45:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's just kind of there.
45:31
SPEAKER_02: And okay, so correct me if I'm wrong.
45:34
SPEAKER_02: The concept was we can't go with plan A because we don't know what lies beyond the black hole or whatever.
45:40
SPEAKER_02: We can't see beyond the horizon, right?
45:42
SPEAKER_02: I maybe so so I that's why I'm very foggy with this.
45:47
SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, I'm thinking this is what I believe this is what they were talking about.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: So then Tars or whatever the robots, like, I figured out the equation, and we've got to be able to send it as a message.
45:58
SPEAKER_02: So that is what caused them to be able to find a new planet is because he figured out the equation from being within the black hole.
46:08
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
46:10
SPEAKER_02: That that's that's where I'm a bit and then I was also okay.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: So are they implying that the who will who sent us here?
46:17
SPEAKER_02: Who wanted us to be here?
46:18
SPEAKER_02: Is this humans of the future?
46:21
SPEAKER_02: We want you to do this.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: Like it seemed that way because you know, there's there's that bit where um you know they're in the the main kind of spacecraft, and is it is it Ann Hathaway's character who sees the like you know, like the predator, you know, distorted, you know, like outline of a being, and she's like, that's us, that's them, that's whatever, you know.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: All the way that the movie handles that fifth dimensional future human stuff is extremely vague for me, yeah.
46:50
SPEAKER_00: It's like the the um get out of jail free card, you know, plot device thing.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: And it does it feels kind of unsatisfying to me.
47:00
SPEAKER_02: It's it's the execution of this is an example of it done right, I feel like, but you can get away with a lot if you've built it up that much and you have everyone on the edge of your seat, you can get away with throwing a compression tank into a shark's mouth and he'll explode at the end.
47:14
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, by the end, you're like, oh, I don't care, I'm in it.
47:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, you didn't earn it that much, so you're gonna be like, okay, what really just happened?
47:22
SPEAKER_02: Like, how did this make sense?
47:23
SPEAKER_02: Would this make sense?
47:24
SPEAKER_02: You don't want that response at the end of a movie, especially if it's two hours and 50 minutes.
47:29
SPEAKER_02: I feel like you can't leave it up to that.
47:32
SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah.
47:34
SPEAKER_02: I I'm sure we could continue to go on, but I think that these are these are some really big points of why it's just it's a not gonna be my first Nolan pick, that's for sure.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: New, new.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, I did want to ask you another question because I touched on it briefly uh earlier when I was talking about um the way they treat um uh Dr.
47:53
SPEAKER_00: Mann, uh uh Matt Damon's character.
47:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the way that you know he the way he functions the plot that you know he's been lying and uh you know thinks that he can go back home and achieve something.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: Like his his goal seems very vague other than just saving his own ass.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: Um but uh what what are your thoughts and feelings on that character in terms of how he exists on the page, but also Damon's performance?
48:21
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm I'm not the biggest Matt Damon fan.
48:24
SPEAKER_02: Um I I don't think he did a horrible job.
48:27
SPEAKER_02: I like the aspect of him having another side to him.
48:31
SPEAKER_02: Like you could definitely tell like the years he's been here, it's done a number on him through hyperspace and all that.
48:37
SPEAKER_00: Um but sorry, I was just reminded of a line of dialogue.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Have you seen Armageddon, the Michael Bay movie, where they go to stop the.
48:47
SPEAKER_02: I know what movie you're talking about.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: I have not seen it.
48:49
SPEAKER_02: No.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: There's a bit where uh Steve Buscemi is in it and they're on the um uh the asteroid, you know, trying to do their thing, and they've got this spacecraft that for absolutely no reason whatsoever has a minigun on it.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: And Steve Buscemi gets on and he's just like shooting the minigun into the rocks on the asteroid because why not, I guess?
49:09
SPEAKER_00: And one of the other characters goes, He's got space dementia.
49:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there you go.
49:16
SPEAKER_02: That's Matt Damon.
49:18
SPEAKER_02: Um I yeah, I uh uh the best I will give it is I thought it was visually cool when uh he docs uh like poorly and then the whole thing explodes.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: I was like, whoa, that was cool.
49:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but honestly, they try to do this like intensity.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: Like, how do we how do we turn the dials up with intensity?
49:38
SPEAKER_02: Let's cut back and forth between his dialogue about you're now gonna die and your daughter's with you and your son is with you, to a conflict that the daughter and son are having on earth about for some reason the the the the son wants to make certain that his dying spouse and child stays in their dying place and like don't you dare go anywhere.
49:58
SPEAKER_02: So they light the cornfield on fire.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: Like, these are all ways to be like, let's keep that tension going.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: It's a tool to use, let's keep that action moving.
50:06
SPEAKER_02: And it's again let less explanation.
50:08
SPEAKER_02: I honestly was kind of when that started happening, I was like, okay, so I guess this is what this doctor's doing now.
50:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
50:16
SPEAKER_02: But I I I'm you maybe you can explain to me.
50:19
SPEAKER_02: I'm still a little confused of like what he was trying to accomplish by turning on them.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: Which he or you're uh for for Matt Damon?
50:27
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, Matt Damon, yeah.
50:28
SPEAKER_02: His his turning on them, like what his ultimate goal was.
50:31
SPEAKER_02: He kept saying the mission, but it was was it to colonize what the eggs that he had, or was it to go back to Earth?
50:36
SPEAKER_00: Like I mean, his mission was to to to you know figure out the viability of that planet.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not sure that his, you know, uh maybe that's him like just rationalizing, wanting to try to save his own skin, is that somehow to him it makes sense that like you know, oh no, I'm I'm doing this for the mission.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: Somehow I can go to one of the other planets, or like I yeah, his what he thinks he's going to achieve, other than just saving himself from desolation and death, is unclear, I think.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
51:07
SPEAKER_02: So I mean I didn't really have a strong feeling either way.
51:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:13
SPEAKER_02: Um, okay.
51:14
SPEAKER_02: Well, let's talk final.
51:16
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say it's it's it's that's that's like one of the main things for me is that when it comes to the thematic and emotional stuff in this movie, as much as Nolan's one of those guys that seems to be like like Kubrick is like really like tries to be as precise and calculated as possible.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: That stuff in this movie feels kind of sloppy.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: Honestly.
51:34
SPEAKER_02: It kind of feels like that novel that like a first person, like the first novel, like an 18-year-old came out with great concept, but like humans, adults act this way, right?
51:45
SPEAKER_02: And like it has that feel to it, that for me, that flavor.
51:49
SPEAKER_02: Oh, motivations, yeah.
51:51
SPEAKER_02: Motivations are unclear.
51:52
SPEAKER_02: You're close to it enough to get reasonable deniability, but not enough to get high praise for it.
51:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:58
SPEAKER_02: So um, but let's talk final thirds on astronomia.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, definitely getting more savory for me as it continues.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
52:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, this this this is this is nice.
52:11
SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a it's a unique flavor profile, but it's remained despite the changes, it's remained balanced the whole time.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, kind of interesting evolutions on the flavors that it started with keep happening.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know that you know anything has like outright gone away.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of morphed into a different version of itself, and that's kind of cool.
52:35
SPEAKER_02: It is really cool, and a really different take on Connecticut Broadleaf, I feel like, uh, too.
52:40
SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, it's as I mentioned in the beginning, it's not crazy aggressive, it's not like, oh my gosh, it's punching you straight out the face, but it's got some strength to it, it's got some really good depth to it.
52:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, I would put it in like that medium plus strength range, but it's deceptive.
52:58
SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
52:59
SPEAKER_02: Um okay, so let's go to uh writing down our our thoughts on the cigar of astronomia scale from one to ten.
53:07
SPEAKER_02: Let's for the first time write down our notes without conveying to each other.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: All right.
53:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna sound like a broken record from last week, but I got 7.8.
53:21
SPEAKER_02: You got 8.5.
53:22
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
53:23
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
53:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the uniqueness of this is really winning me over.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay, very nice.
53:30
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then here we go for raiding on Interstellar.
53:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh Jason says, Valakari with the four roses.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm getting a dense apple with a mushroom note.
53:40
SPEAKER_02: Nice, that mushroom's there for me as well.
53:43
SPEAKER_02: Okay, here we go.
53:45
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, writing it down.
53:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's a six for me.
53:51
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I was almost writing six, but I wrote five because I was like, it's almost three hours and I don't want to watch it again.
53:58
SPEAKER_02: So it got a five.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's it's it's competently made, right?
54:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, like it looks good, it sounds good.
54:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, the even though I don't like the components of some of the performances, it's not like you know, it's just like complete dog crap bad acting.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: It's just you know, weird, weird choices and stuff like that, right?
54:16
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
54:17
SPEAKER_00: So uh, you know, it it still achieves a lot of things.
54:21
SPEAKER_00: There's cool ideas in there, there's cool uh design.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I like the robots and the way that they're used and all that kind of stuff, but it it it it really falls flat flat for me on its emotional and thematic goals.
54:31
SPEAKER_00: They feel half-baked, unearned, silly.
54:35
SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, it's just not for me.
54:37
SPEAKER_02: Yes, no, I agree.
54:39
SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, I uh the highest marks I can definitely give it is visually and audio.
54:46
SPEAKER_02: Um, and performances aren't bad, but yeah, it's pretty it's pretty.
54:50
SPEAKER_02: I I I don't know if I'd want to go through that again.
54:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can get it.
54:55
SPEAKER_02: So I figured for because next week is my pick.
54:58
SPEAKER_02: Yes, and I wanted to for the first time ever, I'll put up two possibilities um to see which you'd want to go with this.
55:08
SPEAKER_02: One of them is because I haven't seen it in so very long.
55:11
SPEAKER_02: I kind of remember it.
55:13
SPEAKER_02: Um wait, sorry.
55:17
SPEAKER_02: We got a few comments here.
55:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm a bit confused.
55:19
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so David says astronomia is great, going to have to revisit it soon.
55:23
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
55:24
SPEAKER_02: Jason says the score is what made uh the movie for me.
55:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in particular the that that sequence where he tries to redock the ship while the whole thing is spinning out of control.
55:35
SPEAKER_00: The music in that sequence is pretty fantastic.
55:37
SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
55:38
SPEAKER_02: Daniel Fraser says, Oh, the score is an easy nine.
55:41
SPEAKER_02: Now, is that for Interstellar or is that for the cigar?
55:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're talking about scoring or the musical score.
55:47
SPEAKER_00: Which which score do we mean?
55:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
55:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
55:51
SPEAKER_02: What score?
55:51
SPEAKER_02: David says, I'm I'm glad I finally saw the movie because people mention it a lot.
55:55
SPEAKER_02: I enjoyed it, but it's not my favorite.
55:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:57
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
55:57
SPEAKER_02: All right.
55:58
SPEAKER_02: So what do you guys think?
55:59
SPEAKER_02: The two up for option would either be Dunkirk, because I haven't seen that in a while.
56:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
56:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh, or Memento.
56:10
SPEAKER_00: Or the people voting.
56:11
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
56:12
SPEAKER_02: What do you yeah?
56:12
SPEAKER_02: What do you think out of the two?
56:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh well, Memento is a movie that I like a lot.
56:18
SPEAKER_00: I own a copy of it.
56:19
SPEAKER_00: I've seen it a bunch of times.
56:20
SPEAKER_00: Dunkirk, I only saw once in the theater, so it might be interesting to revisit that.
56:25
SPEAKER_00: But I love Memento.
56:26
SPEAKER_00: I feel very I feel very torn on this one.
56:29
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
56:30
SPEAKER_02: Well, so so does okay.
56:31
SPEAKER_02: So Daniel Frazier says musical score.
56:33
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, score, yeah, for sure.
56:35
SPEAKER_02: Jason says Memento, David says Dunkirk.
56:38
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm good with either.
56:41
SPEAKER_02: I haven't seen both in a hot minute, so um you know what?
56:47
SPEAKER_00: We we we just did the Odyssey.
56:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, his newest film, Interstellar, is you know, kind of recent, you know, it was still over 10 years ago, but it's when he was already like a pretty established filmmaker.
56:59
SPEAKER_00: I think let's go back to early Nolan and do Memento because there is a lot of things that are different about that movie, you know, as far as how he started developing his ideas early in his career.
57:10
SPEAKER_00: So I think that'll be a good contrast with the other stuff we've talked about already.
57:13
SPEAKER_02: I I think so too, and I honestly think it will have a really interesting conversation because I probably have not seen that movie for over 15 years.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: And I was not a fan when I watched that movie.
57:27
SPEAKER_02: So I it'll be interesting.
57:29
SPEAKER_02: I I'm in a very different frame of mind now.
57:31
SPEAKER_02: Um, there's been a ton of movies I didn't like back then that I now I'm like, it's actually pretty good.
57:35
SPEAKER_02: So sure.
57:36
SPEAKER_02: It'll be an interesting movie to go through.
57:37
SPEAKER_02: I also chose it because it's an hour shorter than the Interstellar.
57:41
SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
57:43
SPEAKER_02: So if you guys have the opportunity, watch Memento.
57:47
SPEAKER_02: Meet with us next Tuesday night as we continue through the variety pack and we'll be talking about uh that movie.
57:52
SPEAKER_02: We'll be smoking those cigars.
57:54
SPEAKER_02: Uh so thank you everyone for jumping on and hearing us rant about this movie.
57:58
SPEAKER_02: It's been great.
57:58
SPEAKER_02: And uh we'll see you next Tuesday.
58:00
SPEAKER_02: Curtis, thanks for being on tonight.
58:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
58:02
SPEAKER_00: Good night.
58:03
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
58:03
SPEAKER_02: Everyone, have a good one.
58:04
SPEAKER_02: We'll see you next week.