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Prequel to High-Rise - Alice in Wonderland Fan Reaction, What exactly is a "thriller"? · This Film is Lit

• 0:08
  Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on our Alice in Wonderland listener polls to learn about the thriller genre and preview high rise. Hello, and welcome back to another prequel episode of this film is lit podcast, where we talk about movies that are based on books. We have all of our segments, quite a bit to get to, so we're gonna jump right into our patron shoutouts.
• 0:38
  Speaker B: I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons.
• 0:42
  Speaker A: That's why we have one new patron this week, joining us at the $5 Hugo award winning level, getting access to that bonus episode every month. Kevin Smith, parenthetical. Not that one. The answer. The question is asked and answered.
• 1:01
  Speaker C: I don't know. That sounds like exactly what Kevin Smith would say if he didn't want us to know he's Kevin Smith.
• 1:08
  Speaker A: You're not entirely wrong. I feel like that may be what's going on here. There's no way you can prove it. Send a picture of yourself, and it'd be like, nope, that's not. No.
• 1:22
  Speaker C: Clearly a fake.
• 1:23
  Speaker A: Yep. Absolutely. But thank you, Kevin Smith. Not that one. For supporting us at the $5 level. Hope you enjoyed that bonus content. And as always, we would love to thank our academy award winning patrons. Our top tier, and they are. Eric Harpo rat. Nathan b. Vic Vega matild Steve from Arizona. Paul Teresa Schwartz. Ian from wine country, Winchester's forever, Kelly Napier Grey Hightower gratch. Just scratch. Shelby is no more that darn skag. V. Frank and Alina Starkov. Thank you all very much for your continued support. We appreciate it. Very, very nice stuff. I don't know what I'm saying. Thank you, though. It's great. You're the best, katie. Let's see what the people had to say about Alice in Wonderland.
• 2:18
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
• 2:24
  Speaker C: Okay. On Patreon, we had seven votes for the book and one for the movie. Our first comment was from Kelly Napier, who said, shout out to Brian for referencing Calvin ball. I talk about Calvin Ball all the time, and no one ever has any idea what I'm talking about. I feel so seen right now.
• 2:43
  Speaker A: It's amazing to me that nobody knows what you're. Nobody. Calvin and Hobbes is an immensely popular.
• 2:49
  Speaker C: I knew what it was.
• 2:50
  Speaker A: No, I know. No, no, no. I'm not. Yeah. I'm just saying that I'm talking about Kelly's instance here of talking to people that don't know what. It's surprising to me. Cause, yeah, it's.
• 3:00
  Speaker C: I feel like, though, I feel like a lot of people know Calvin and Hobbes but have not actually read Calvin and Hobbes.
• 3:06
  Speaker A: That's fair. I mean, I'm sure that's true, but still surprises me that so many of them would not. I don't know Calvin. Yeah, I guess it is. It shows up pretty often in the, yeah. But again, if you've never read it, yeah, all you know Calvin and Hobbs is it's a tiger and a little dude who's kind of like Dennis the menace, then, like probably his house kind.
• 3:23
  Speaker C: Of look like Dennis. I mean, not, I never thought about.
• 3:26
  Speaker A: It, but I think that's how a lot of people kind of, yeah, yeah. In their head are like, yeah, it's the dude who pees on things. The worst travesty of all time. But yes, I love covenant. Hobbs is probably my favorite comic. Like that kind of, you know, comic strip, whatever you want to call it ever. I've read like, probably not all the books, but almost all the books. I had a ton of them growing up. Like the anthology collections. That and Farside were two of my dad's favorites and so we had all of those. And I've read lots of far side and lots of Calvin and Hobbes, but I love, absolutely love Calvin and Hobbs.
• 4:02
  Speaker C: That should explain a lot to you guys about Brian's sense of humor.
• 4:05
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 4:07
  Speaker C: Kelly went on to say I voted for the book in relation to this movie. While truer to the source material than any other adaptation I've watched, something just felt like it was lacking to me as I was watching. I think I finally decided that all the vignettes felt too slow in the pacing. In the movie, in the book, everything was happening so rapidly that it helped sell the idea of the absurdity of it. You werent given time to process one thing that was said before you had to move on. I agreed with yall about the addition of the moral to the story, that she had the ability to perform inside her the whole time. It wasn't necessary at all. I will say I had a hard time not comparing this movie to the Disney one, which is a perennial favorite of mine. I know this isn't what we're talking about, but I liked better how the animation of the Disney version was able to embrace the absurdity better than this live action adaptation. I'm excited to hear what you have to say about it in next month's bonus episode.
• 5:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, we actually just watched that last night and we'll be recording that episode here in the next day or two. So it'll be out sooner than later, probably because we have a lot going on in April or.
• 5:15
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, we have a lot going on in April.
• 5:17
  Speaker A: Yeah. So we actually recorded it early cause we got tons of stuff. There's an eclipse happening, in case you didn't. People didn't know. It's going right over our town. So that. And then we're going to some events. We're going to a viking festival. We got all kinds of stuff going on. So, yeah, we're going to be very busy in April. So we got that done early. So that episode should be out again within the next. I would say within the next week, but definitely within the next week or two the episode will be up. But yeah, we're recording it very soon, so we will have lots to say, I'm sure.
• 5:46
  Speaker C: Our next comment was from Nathan Bee, who said, I have mixed feelings on both the book and the movie and feel like both started slow but sort of won me over towards the end. The first book, Adventures in Wonderland, felt to me like Alice had been plopped down into a world entirely populated by Amelia Bedelia, the children's book character who takes everything literally. If that reference isn't clear. Oh, it was clear to me. Nathan, you never have to explain to me who Amelia Bedelia is.
• 6:16
  Speaker A: I've heard of Amelia Bedelia, but I don't know if I've ever read Amelia Bedelia.
• 6:20
  Speaker C: I wanted to scream at the characters, you know, what Alice means. I also just found the meandering story to be frustrating and found the lack of resolution in each scene to be frustrating as we zoomed along to the next one. Like, I just wanted one part of the story to have a conclusion instead of just ending so the next part could happen. I did quite like the Griffin and the mock turtle because I enjoyed deciphering the meanings of their pun run about school. I much preferred through the looking glass because Alice, trying to get to the other side of the board, provided a storyline and a straight up list of all the areas and adventures Alice was about to go through. It also seemed appropriate that a little girl like Alice would feel like a pawn who wants to grow up and be a queen. I also loved the introduction of the meta elements. My favorite example was a gnat who whispers in Alices ear on several occasions when she misses a pun that could have been used. This was a far more satisfying way to work in the puns than the constant misunderstandings of the first book. Oh, I will agree that I preferred through the looking glass generally over Alice's adventures in Wonderland I think it was pretty clear to me that the idea had been refined a little bit more. And I do think that there's something to the style of adventures in Wonderland because it is a dream. So we're kind of like, working with that dreamlike quality where things will just change. But I did really, I think I preferred through the looking glass. It was also a little bit darker. I felt like Nathan went on to say the movie started out as a mess. The visual effects were rough, especially when they portrayed Alice changing sizes. And apparently the rabbit's twitchy running was done on purpose.
• 8:11
  Speaker A: But.
• 8:12
  Speaker C: But it seemed like a poor attempt at CGI. This, combined with the often arbitrary breaking into song, made me compare this to cats even before the Cheshire cat showed up.
• 8:22
  Speaker A: I mean, it was a musical arbitrarily breaking into songs. One of those things that happens.
• 8:26
  Speaker C: But, yeah, I felt bad for the talented actors being made to dress up in absurd costumes and sing bad songs, but then Gene Wilder showed up to do exactly that, and I loved every single second.
• 8:39
  Speaker A: And I think arguably the worst costume, in my opinion.
• 8:43
  Speaker C: Yeah, his costume compared to some of the other ones was not great.
• 8:46
  Speaker A: It felt.
• 8:46
  Speaker C: Really felt a little phoned in. Yeah. He made it feel genuine and warm. Despite the absurdity. He really connected with Alice, despite likely never being in the same room while filming. Christopher Lloyd was also fantastic and made the White knight a believable mentor for Alice. I also liked the doorman, who had just the right delivery to add a sense of detached sarcasm that I didn't find from the book. Overall, I dont think the few great acting performances were enough to outweigh the terrible visuals and ham handed application of the framing device. But I certainly ended up disliking it less at the end than I expected to after the beginning. Overall, I kind of wonder why there have been so many attempts to adapt the books. Their lack of narrative and wordplay based humor both seem a little out of place on screen. So I gotta give it to the book.
• 9:39
  Speaker A: I would agree with that. It definitely is one of those ones. That's interesting that there have been so many attempts.
• 9:44
  Speaker C: Yeah. And of course there have been attempts because it has been so popular publication. I would wager to say that might be the only reason that people keep adapting it. But I do think it's interesting, and I think it should be considered more unadaptable than it is.
• 10:03
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It's not one of those ones you ever hear people. Well, it's actually. It's funny because the one high rise which we're doing I read a comment somewhere. I don't think I included it in my notes but I read a comment from somebody saying that at one point that book had been considered, quote, unfilmable. But like, this is one of those ones where it's like maybe somebody sort of should have said that about this because it does seem like. I don't know if we need to keep trying to adapt this over and over again. I'm not sure. My only point of disagreement in here is I don't think the visuals were terrible in the film. I thought that. I thought it looked pretty good overall especially I thought like the sets and some of the camera work and shots were fine not all the cg holds up perfectly but even that.
• 10:45
  Speaker C: I don't think the special effects, quote unquote are dated but I didn't think they were dated in a way that was terrible.
• 10:51
  Speaker A: No, I didn't find them awful.
• 10:54
  Speaker C: They were dated in a way that was like, yeah, this was made in 1989.
• 10:57
  Speaker A: It was kind of quaint but it wasn't like, oof, that looks terrible. Like you're like, oh, yeah, no, that's clearly, you know, that's clearly made in 20 years ago, 30 years ago almost. But it doesn't. Yeah, it didn't like jump out of the page like, God, that looks awful to me.
• 11:15
  Speaker C: Next comment was from Steve from Arizona who said, to be the contrarian we would expect nothing else from you, Steve, to be the contrarian. I went for the movie. It's not due to the technical prowess or the idea of the film but just as a kudos to this era of network time I can appreciate that.
• 11:34
  Speaker A: This was a good era of tv.
• 11:36
  Speaker C: Yeah. Before everything literally became CSI spinoffs and doctoral procedurals.
• 11:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, like right before. Cause we're like. We're just a. Yeah. Five to ten years before that all happened.
• 11:49
  Speaker C: This came out during an era where we saw a live action Gulliver's travels which could be a march madness for.
• 11:55
  Speaker A: Next year I believe I've watched that. I remember watching it made for tv Gulliver's travels as a kid that I really liked. It might be the one he's talking about, I don't know, but.
• 12:04
  Speaker C: And my guilty pleasure dinotopia.
• 12:06
  Speaker A: I don't know what that is.
• 12:07
  Speaker C: I have some extremely vague memories of dinotopia and I would be interested to watch it again to see how much. Well, I assume I've watched it. Maybe I just saw clips of it at some point but I would be interested to watch that. It's surreal watching Jenna Malone as a young girl and marveling at the length of her career considering I just saw her this past week in love lies bleeding where she plays a battered housewife to a redneck Dave Franco.
• 12:34
  Speaker A: Jenna Malone's not in this.
• 12:36
  Speaker C: No, but I assume.
• 12:37
  Speaker A: Oh, was it in Dinotopia? Was she in dinotopia or something?
• 12:40
  Speaker C: Yeah, she was not in this.
• 12:42
  Speaker A: Tina Majorino kind of looks like Jenna Malone. Yeah, I don't know if that's. It's possible that he's referencing either dinotopia or Goldever's travels there. I don't actually know.
• 12:53
  Speaker C: Or some other made for tv movie from this era potentially.
• 12:57
  Speaker A: It doesn't look like she was in dinotopia. I don't know if she was in Gullivers travels but anyways. But yeah, just in case you were thinking Jenna Malone was in this movie she was not just throwing it out there right? Unless she had a bit part I was unaware of I don't think she was unaware of. I think he's thinking Tina Majorino was Jenna Malone. Anyway, sorry, continue.
• 13:21
  Speaker C: I also disagree with Brian about plotless stories. I tend to enjoy meandering stories that are either meant to convey coolness or frivolity or whatever. I can also understand it's not every person's cup of tea. It's the reason why I loved the recent film by Wim wenders called perfect days.
• 13:39
  Speaker A: I believe it's Vim vendors. I could be wrong about that. I don't know Vim vendors.
• 13:44
  Speaker C: Well it's spelled with a w. I know, I know, I know where it just feels like a slice of life rather than an actual plot driven film. Either way, good episode as usual. And I'm definitely gonna comment about high rise. I just need to find the book. Steve, I just want to mention that I did a search on the IMDb page and there were in fact three steves who worked on Alice in Wonderland 1999. I'm a little disappointed that you didn't mention that there were three steves in the crew.
• 14:19
  Speaker A: You missed it. You missed out. Absolutely. And I will say that I don't mind pointless stories necessarily. I can enjoy a story that isn't. That's a little aimless and our movie that's aimless in certain ways. Like I could enjoy certain like slice of life kind of like aimless movies. I would have to. I can't think of a good example off the top of my head but for me it's specifically the like zaniness of like the where it feels like it has a plot but it doesn't and it. Or like a narrative, but it doesn't and I don't. It's a very specific thing about this and spirited away and any Alice in Wonderland style story for whatever. Something about it just doesn't. Yeah. It's not just the aimless, like, the pointlessness of it, because it's something more specific than that that I'm not sure I can put my finger necessarily on.
• 15:23
  Speaker C: We'll keep thinking about it. Next comment was from Shelby is no more, who said, I was glad to finally read this. I really enjoyed the dreamlike quality of the book, but I don't think it translates well on the screen. It's just not the medium it's made for. I guess that's why I prefer adaptations and retellings that don't try to keep that feeling and instead use the book as a jumping off point to make Wonderland a more traditional fantasy world. Leave that type of madness to the original text that was made for it.
• 15:56
  Speaker A: Kind of what Nathan was saying. Yeah, similar.
• 16:00
  Speaker C: Which I don't even necessarily disagree with. Yeah, like, you know, it's hard to mimic exactly what the book is doing in a different medium.
• 16:10
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 16:11
  Speaker C: And our last comment on Patreon was from Ian from Wine country, who said, I'm with Brian, not a big fan of plotless stories. For having such a stacked cast. This was a real chore to watch. And I say that as someone who routinely watches the movies for Godawful movies.
• 16:29
  Speaker A: There you go. Yeah, I can get that. I don't watch the movies for God awful movies, but yeah, God awful movies is a podcast where they watch very similar to, like, good bad or bad bad, but they watch specifically, like, religious movies, which tend to be terrible. So. All right, that's what we got on Patreon. Thank you all for your comments over on Facebook.
• 16:51
  Speaker C: We had five votes for the book and zero for the movie. Sarah said, I voted for the books, but I do love this movie adaptation. I think the characters were well portrayed and I enjoyed how the characters were present at the garden party tying the throughline story together. I particularly love the sets, especially the caucus race and the pop up book becoming the rabbit's house. It really adds to the childishness and the dreamlike state of the story. This movie isn't perfect. There are several noticeable editing errors, and it looks like a late nineties made for tv movie, but it is a great adaptation of the Alice story. Alice in Wonderland is my favorite fairy tale slash fantasy story, and this is the movie I always direct people to.
• 17:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, like, I said, I think if I liked this story, I think I would enjoy this movie.
• 17:41
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 17:41
  Speaker A: Like, there's a lot I liked about the movie. Just. Yeah, couldn't get into it.
• 17:46
  Speaker C: Our other comment on Facebook was from Adam. This was not technically on our feedback post, but I had to include it.
• 17:53
  Speaker A: Yes. No, absolutely have to include this.
• 17:55
  Speaker C: And Adam said as a Cincinnati. Is that right?
• 17:59
  Speaker A: Cincinnatian? I don't know.
• 18:01
  Speaker C: Cincinnatian.
• 18:03
  Speaker A: Cincinnati. I don't know.
• 18:04
  Speaker C: Cincinnati. I'm gonna go with that. I can confirm I grew up eating mock turtle soup in the early nineties. I remember it being pretty good, but it's been long enough. I don't know how much of that is just nostalgia poisoning. I do my best to be vegan now for personal ethical reasons. So all I can have is mock mock turtle soup.
• 18:24
  Speaker A: Mock mock turtle soup. There you go. Thank you for chiming in our local cincinnatian Cincinnation. I don't know, thinking like, martian.
• 18:36
  Speaker C: I feel like we should go for something completely different. Like maybe Cincinnat Cincinnati. No, that doesn't work.
• 18:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, I have no idea.
• 18:48
  Speaker C: Nevermind.
• 18:48
  Speaker A: I don't know. It always. It cracks me up just seeing it written down, though. Cincinnati is one of those words that always messes with me as watching Cardinals baseball games as a kid. It always cracked me up because I would always read it whenever they would go to Cincinnati and play the Reds. Still probably on the backstop behind him, it would say Cincinnati Reds.com, like their website, but when it's all written out lowercase as one word, Cincinnati Reds, it looks like Cincinnati. And I always used to, like, read it as Cincinnati. I don't know. I don't know why, but that's how my brain always read Cincinnati Reds written out as one word Cincinnati.
• 19:33
  Speaker C: We didn't have any comments on a couple of our platforms this time, but we had three votes for the book, zero for the movie. On Twitter, on Instagram, we had six votes for the book and six for the movie.
• 19:46
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 19:46
  Speaker C: Instagram is always a very interesting place. Yeah, it's always kind of an outlier.
• 19:50
  Speaker A: I feel like our stuff gets thrown. Thrown out out to more random people on Instagram than, like, anywhere else. Like, you know what I mean? Like, we have more maybe, like, random people engaging. I don't know, maybe not.
• 20:02
  Speaker C: And on threads, we had three votes for the book and zero for the movie. And then over on Goodreads, we had one vote for the book, zero for the movie. And Miko said, I had similar problems with the movie as Brian, where the pointlessness of the film made it hard to connect with it. I had been similar. I have seen similarly nonsensical art movies, but those felt like they had at least some feeling they tried to instill.
• 20:32
  Speaker A: I think that's it to some extent. I think that's part of it, is that it feels like a lot of times with those, like other pointless quote unquote movies, like nonsensical arty farty movies that like, maybe don't have a plot, because I have seen some of those in my day. Oftentimes they're very clearly invoking a very specific emotion or feeling or sort of, you know, that sort of thing. Whereas this movie, maybe it does more so for children, but for me it does it. It's like, it's just like Zany and wacky for this. Like that's the. The only feeling is like, look how wacky it is. And to me that just doesn't do much. Whereas if it's like a pointless, kind of aimless movie where it's building this sense of dread or this sense of, I don't know, ennui or something, if it's something else, I can sometimes get into it more, but this specific version of pointlessness doesn't. Yeah, I think that is maybe one of the key components of what I was trying to get at.
• 21:32
  Speaker C: Right. Okay. Mika went on to say, I'm sure there's some underlying reason or inspiration Lewis Carroll had when writing, even if it was just all the stuff I think kids like thrown in a blender. But I'm so far removed from the mid 18 hundreds british worldview that I can only see the most obvious references. It just doesn't evoke anything cohesive. Not really even enjoyment.
• 21:56
  Speaker A: Yes, this is. This is. You're voicing my feelings, Miko. Thank you.
• 22:01
  Speaker C: With a funnier story I'd probably have tolerated it better, but as it is, it's just one weird scene after another. There are some nice visual effects and cool puppets. I especially liked the griffin, but on the other hand, some of the effects havent aged so well and the humanoid designs for most of the animal characters left me wanting more.
• 22:20
  Speaker A: Thats something you mentioned earlier.
• 22:22
  Speaker C: Yeah. I feel like the nonsense works better on a page when one can imagine it. Based on my general knowledge of the story and vague memories of the Disney film, I was pleasantly surprised that the book Alice had some attitude and wasnt a totally passive observer.
• 22:37
  Speaker A: I will say she is not in the Disney film either. It last night. Yeah, I don't think she's as passive as maybe you're remembering potentially. I mean, she is a little bit, but.
• 22:46
  Speaker C: She is a little bit, but she's definitely less so in the book.
• 22:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yes, I'm sorry. I'm not saying that it's. Yeah, it may even be more so in the book. I'm just saying in the movie, there's at least a tinge of that kind of obstinate. You know, she's not just a completely passive.
• 22:58
  Speaker C: Yeah, she is definitely frustrated with the whole situation.
• 23:02
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, maybe it's. Yeah, I guess that's part of it, is that she maybe is, in the Disney version is a little more like, woe is me. Like, you know, there's a whole sequence where she, like, sits and cries in the woods that maybe makes it feel a little. But there's other times where she does, you know, kind of stand up for herself and stuff in ways. Like the whole scene with the croquet, like, with the swan, and where she's, like, trying to fight the. Not swan.
• 23:24
  Speaker C: The Flamingo.
• 23:24
  Speaker A: The Flamingo. Like, I think. Yeah, I think maybe a little bit more than you remembered in that movie, but, yeah, I'm sure the book is even more so.
• 23:33
  Speaker C: I understand why most adaptations seem to distill the book to its most iconic scenes. While I enjoyed the style quite a bit at the beginning of the book, it started to get tedious toward the end. Nonsense. Just for the sake of nonsense is fine, but I had to take frequent breaks to get through the book, even while I enjoyed it. Also, I'm sure as a non native english speaker, there was a bunch of stuff I missed. Yeah, I think that would be a little bit rough with this one because it is so heavily based in wordplay. And also you mentioned the mid 18 hundreds. Yeah, very specific references. Like, really, really specific references. Because there's a lot, like, if you really start to pick apart the history of Alice in Wonderland, there's a lot of, like, really niche references to, like, people who worked at Oxford when Lewis Carroll did and that kind of thing. So, yeah, there's a lot you're gonna miss.
• 24:29
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:30
  Speaker C: I think trying to adapt something like this to the screen necessarily means reigning in the nonsense, which feels like going against the very. The very basic idea of the story. I don't know if you both missed it or if there are multiple edits of the movie, but the tortoise taught us bit was in the movie I watched. It's also entirely possible that I wrote that down under the wrong section on my notes and then didn't remember when we went back to record in fairness to me, all of my sections of the notes are titled very similarly.
• 25:03
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I think he did skip one line there where he said, oh, did I? That said, I still enjoyed the book.
• 25:08
  Speaker C: More than that said, I still enjoyed the book more than the movie. Yeah. So Miko's vote was for the book.
• 25:13
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 25:13
  Speaker C: And our winner overall was the book with 25 votes to the movie's seven. Bit of a landslide this week.
• 25:22
  Speaker A: Yes, indeed. All right, thank you all so much for chiming in, letting us know what you thought and voting. We appreciate it. Honestly, one of my favorite parts of doing this show every week is reading everybody's comments and seeing what people had to say. So we always appreciate it. Katie, it's time now to learn what exactly is a thriller?
• 25:41
  Speaker B: No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
• 25:48
  Speaker C: I always struggle a little bit to come up with learning things, segments when I'm not overly familiar with the source material. But I don't think we've ever talked about the thriller genre. And then I was thinking about it and I kind of realized I don't really know how that genre is defined. So I went ahead and looked. So thriller is a genre of fiction that is characterized and defined by the moods that it elicits, which I thought was really interesting. So thrillers give audiences heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. The basic idea is to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, so to speak, as the story builds towards its climax. In short, if it thrills, it's a thriller.
• 26:43
  Speaker A: I mean, sure. Makes sense. Yeah, I can't argue with that.
• 26:48
  Speaker C: A few other things about thrillers. Some common devices that they often use include either the COVID up or the withholding of important information, red herrings, plot twists, unreliable narrators and cliffhangers. Themes frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, romantic triangles leading to murder. Thrillery things. Thrillers often have villain driven plots whereby there are obstacles that the protagonist or the hero must overcome in order to defeat the villain. But aside from just like heroes and villains, thrillers often utilize character archetypes, such as the femme fatale, the sidekick, the Lothario, the vigilante, and the antihero.
• 27:43
  Speaker A: Definitely.
• 27:45
  Speaker C: Another thing that I thought was interesting as I was looking into this, was that thrillers almost always overlap with other genres.
• 27:52
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 27:53
  Speaker C: Most notably crime, horror, and detective fiction, although certainly not limited to those alone. But those are the few of the most common ones.
• 28:03
  Speaker A: I would say that's generally. Yeah, usually. Yeah. Cause I often would say that thrillers are my favorite genre of horror. Usually kind of. Generally speaking, it depends. There's other types of horror I like, but it's up there. Among my favorite style of horror stories is like a thriller kind of thing.
• 28:22
  Speaker C: On the history of thrillers, I thought this was interesting. Some scholars argue that some ancient epic poems use similar narrative techniques to modern thrillers. Some examples that I saw mentioned were the Epic of Gilgamesh, Homers Odyssey, and a specific tale from 1001 nights, the three apples, which is a murder mystery with multiple plot twists.
• 28:49
  Speaker A: Ive obviously never read all of Gilgamesh or the Homers Odyssey, but I have read excerpts from them and I don't know, I would have to revisit that to see.
• 28:57
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I would have to go back and look to see how much I agree with that. But I thought that was an interesting kind of take.
• 29:04
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 29:07
  Speaker C: A couple of. Not that old, but older texts that are maybe more recognizable as being similar to modern thrillers include Alexandre Dumas, the Count of Monte Cristo from 18 60 44.
• 29:23
  Speaker A: Not Crisco. You almost. I know. That sounded like you were about to say the count.
• 29:27
  Speaker C: I know. That's why I stopped. I know, but it's incorrect.
• 29:31
  Speaker A: I always think of it that way in my head, so it made me laugh that you almost said it that way, because. Yeah.
• 29:36
  Speaker C: The Count of Monte Crisco, Erskine Childers, the riddle of the sands from 1903 and the 39 steps from 1915. Thrillers were also especially popular post World War Two during the height of the Cold War, when professional sports, spies and political intrigue dominated the genre north by Northwest. Yeah. Speaking of the thriller genre, my last note here is also especially well suited to film and television, according to the Internet, with directors like Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock setting the standards for the genre to this day.
• 30:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, Alfred Hitchcock probably may be the most well known, like, most of his most, if not all of his. Not all, obviously, but most of his most well known movies, I think, fit into the thriller genre. Ones we've done. Rear window Psycho, I think, kind of fits into, like we talked about psycho in the context of slashers, too. But it's also, like, very much a thriller.
• 30:33
  Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
• 30:36
  Speaker A: And Fritz Lang has directed one of my. A very fascinating movie, like, I think, one of the very first talkies, I think right around the period where the film was transitioning from silent film to talkies, he directed a film called M. Yeah, I actually have it, and I think out there somewhere that I think is just a fascinating, really cool movie. It's about like a. I think it's about a serial pedophile, I think, or something like that. But it's a really interesting, fascinating movie, especially because it's so, again, it's sort of like 1927 or something like that, or very early in, like I said, one of the first talkie movies. Much of it is kind of silent, but there are like scenes where you have conversations. It's been a long time since I watched it, but watched it in a film class and really liked it. All right, now you know a little bit more about thrillers. Let's learn about the thriller we're talking about this week. High rise.
• 31:44
  Speaker B: For all its inconveniences, Lang was satisfied with life in the high rise, ready to move forward and explore life. How exactly? He had not yet decided.
• 31:59
  Speaker C: I'm so sorry.
• 32:00
  Speaker B: I'll survive.
• 32:01
  Speaker C: I thought you were empty.
• 32:03
  Speaker B: I just moved in.
• 32:04
  Speaker C: You're an excellent specimen. Why don't you come up later and have a drink?
• 32:11
  Speaker B: You don't know how things work around here, do you? I'm a fast learner. You built all this? I put all my energies into this tile, but I am the architect of my own accident. Is that a horse? Probably. On the 40th floor. Your husband appears, intent on colonizing the sky. And who can blame him when you look at what's going on at a street level?
• 32:44
  Speaker C: High Rise is a 1975 novel by british writer JG Ballard. Some of Ballard's other novels that you may have heard of include crash, concrete island and empire of the sun.
• 32:59
  Speaker A: Yes, Crash is the one we mentioned in secretary because there's a James Spader led film adaptation of that. It's about people that get off on car crashes, directed by Cronenberg. There's also an empire of the sun film. I don't know about concrete island, but at least I'm fairly certain there's an empire.
• 33:16
  Speaker C: Yeah, there is. Ballard's style of literary fiction is actually so distinctive that he became an adjective Ballardian defined as resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in JG Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak, man made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social, or environmental developments. So fun stuff.
• 33:48
  Speaker A: So Alex Garland is Ballardian? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Among other people. But yeah, the first one of the first ones, it definitely jumps to mine.
• 34:01
  Speaker C: I could only find one contemporary review of this, and I couldn't read most of it because it was paywalled. Thank you, Proquest. But Brian M. Stableford, writing for Science Fiction foundation, said high rise works, like all imaginative fiction, through the method of strategic exaggeration. So something to look forward to, I guess.
• 34:24
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 34:26
  Speaker C: And then a couple notes from the legacy section on this book's Wikipedia article because it was kind of cracking me up. Okay, first note here, the book has been cited as an influence on the 1987 Doctor who serial, Paradise Towers.
• 34:45
  Speaker A: I saw that. I've never seen that specific doctor who serial. I've never watched any old who. I've only ever watched new who. But, yeah, that's interesting.
• 34:54
  Speaker C: And then the next three notes are all really similar. British rock band Hawkwind used the book as the basis for a song of the same name on their 1979 album PXR five.
• 35:09
  Speaker A: Mm hmm.
• 35:10
  Speaker C: Canadian post rock band Godspeed, you, Black Emperor listed it. Right. Listed it among their recommended reading list to coincide with their appearance at all tomorrow's party's music festival.
• 35:25
  Speaker A: If I ever get a recommended reading list before going to a music festival and be like, pardon me, what are we doing here?
• 35:32
  Speaker C: And high rise was known to be among Joy division singer Ian Curtis's favorite books.
• 35:39
  Speaker A: There you go.
• 35:40
  Speaker C: So for some reason, this book was really popular among rockers, I guess.
• 35:47
  Speaker A: But specifically, it looks like sort of. Kind of cerebral, like, political minded rockers. All right, but speaking of that book, we're gonna talk now about the adaptation that was made of it in 2015. It's high rise.
• 36:08
  Speaker C: How's the high life?
• 36:09
  Speaker B: Prone to fits of mania, narcissism, and power failure. We pay the same charges as the top floors. We want our fair share of the power.
• 36:22
  Speaker C: Things would be better if we. We could afford to move to a higher floor.
• 36:27
  Speaker B: I think we should be prepared to meet moderate resistance. The ones who are the real danger are the self contained types like you. Perhaps you're right. What are you doing? What are you doing in there? Teething problems. Building. Still, certainly. Doesn't it seem odd that a man can fall from the 39th floor and not one police can't turn up? Where's the sirens? What have you got there?
• 37:05
  Speaker C: A kaleidoscope?
• 37:07
  Speaker B: What can you see through that thing?
• 37:12
  Speaker C: The future.
• 37:21
  Speaker A: High Rise is a 2015 film directed by Ben Wheatley, known for free Fire, kill list, Rebecca, Meg, two the Trench, and then two Doctor who episodes. Actually. Deep breath and into the Dalek, which you just watched not that long ago. Those are two of the early Peter Capaldi ones.
• 37:43
  Speaker C: End of the Dalek is the one where they go inside the Dalek.
• 37:46
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 37:47
  Speaker C: And I don't remember.
• 37:48
  Speaker A: Deep Breath is the first episode of season eight, I believe. I think it's Capaldi's first episode. Oh, like his first main episode? That isn't like the special or whatever. I'm pretty sure that's. And I think that's the one where they're in like with the T Rex comes back to London and.
• 38:06
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:07
  Speaker A: Not a super memorable episode, but I believe that's which one it is. But yeah, we just watched those not that long ago. But I thought it was interesting. He directed two episodes of Doctor who and Meg. Two, the Trench, which just came out, like last summer, and everybody hated but Rebecca too. So another adaptation, which is interesting. And the film was written by his actual, his wife, Amy Jump, who wrote free fire kill list sightseers, which sightseers I left off his list, but was his first film. So they're kind of a husband wife writing directing duo.
• 38:36
  Speaker C: So she didn't write Meg to the trench.
• 38:38
  Speaker A: She did not write Meg to the trench that I saw.
• 38:40
  Speaker C: Maybe that's why everyone hated it.
• 38:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. The film stars Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elizabeth Moss, and James Purefoy. The film has a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 65% on Metacritic, and a 5.5 out of ten on IMDb. And really interestingly, on Google. So when you google, like a movie, it shows. You, like, the Google reviews or like, it pops up that little, like, window that has like a five star ratings, and it shows. And I thought this was fascinating because I confirmed that this wasn't the case on IMDb. When I saw the 5.5, I thought, oh, maybe this will be similar on IMDb. And it's not on IMDb. It has a pretty standard, like, bell curve of like, you know, a few tens and then mostly sixes and then back down kind of like a few ones and twos. Yeah. On Google, though, it has a 2.7 out of five. They do like a one to five ratings star rating thing. And the vast majority of the ratings are either one or five stars. And a plurality of those are one stars. It has more one star reviews than anything else, but it has, the second most number are five star reviews. So it's one of those that seems very polarizing, which is interesting. Usually. Often means it's good. Sometimes, not always, but it can often mean it's good. The film made $4.1 million against a budget of 8 million. What makes sense? Cause I had never heard this movie. It came out like two years after freaking avengers or three years after Avengers. Tom Hiddleston, at the peak of his popularity, never heard moment one or, you know, one thing about this movie. So I don't know how well they marketed it. So the film was produced by Jeremy Thomas, who's a british film producer who's most probably most known for his work on the last Emperor, which is a film that won best picture in 1987 about the last emperor of China, I believe. Little kid, you recognize the poster. I recognize the poster. I've never seen the movie. But he apparently had wanted to adapt this book since, like, the 1970s. He had tried and failed several times over the decades to get this project off the ground, each time with different directors and writers attached to it. And initially, Nicholas Reg was attached as the director for the first iteration when they tried to get it going, who we've actually covered before because he directed both the Witches 1990 and don't look.
• 41:03
  Speaker C: Now, which we've done another thriller.
• 41:05
  Speaker A: Yes. Which I remember quite liking. Don't look now. Then in 2013, Ben Wheatley, the director of this film, got interested in the story and was looked in to see who had the rights to the book because he wanted to adapt it, which led him to Thomas. They ended up working together, and Wheatley described his desire to adapt the book by saying, quote, the book makes as much sense now as it did then. It was written in the seventies, projecting itself into a near future. But we live in that future now. We're almost in a new version of the seventies, end quote.
• 41:40
  Speaker C: But we live in that future now is always a comforting thing to hear about. A dystopia.
• 41:44
  Speaker A: Yeah, right. Yeah. So a couple other little facts. There wasn't a ton out there about this because again, nobody's ever heard of this movie. I say nobody. This, that's not fair. But a lot of people have not heard of this movie. But this I thought was interesting. Clint Mansell did the score for this, who's probably most known for being Darren Aronofsky's composer, who he did requiem for a dream, the wrestler, Black Swan, Noah, a bunch of other stuff and stuff outside of Darren Aronofsky. But he's also the person responsible for maybe the most overused song in student film trailers and or conspiracy theory YouTube videos. Luxurna. If you look up lux eterna. Yeah, you do. You know what that is?
• 42:26
  Speaker C: No, I'm sure I'll recognize it, but just on the name. I don't know what that is.
• 42:31
  Speaker A: I'll put it in here. It's from Requiem for a dream.
• 42:39
  Speaker C: Uh oh.
• 42:40
  Speaker A: Hold on.
• 42:45
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
• 42:48
  Speaker A: Get to the good part. Hold on. This?
• 42:55
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:00
  Speaker C: I didn't know that was what it was called, but I have definitely heard that.
• 43:02
  Speaker A: Yes, it's from Requiem for a dream, written by. Scored by Clint Mansell. But yes, it shows up everywhere, all the time.
• 43:10
  Speaker C: It's a movie I have never seen.
• 43:12
  Speaker A: I've seen it, actually. I've not seen all of it. I've seen parts of it. I watched some clips.
• 43:18
  Speaker C: Is it based on a book?
• 43:20
  Speaker A: I actually don't know. I don't think it is, but it might be. It's got Jared Leto in it.
• 43:25
  Speaker C: So at this point in my life, I just ask that about.
• 43:28
  Speaker A: I know about every movie, right?
• 43:29
  Speaker C: I'm like, is it based on a book?
• 43:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's one of those movies that always gets cited as the most, like, one of those movies that people watch and then never want to ever see again because it's wildly depressing. It's about, like, drug addiction. Like, it's not. Not a fun movie.
• 43:45
  Speaker C: Oh, it is based on a book.
• 43:47
  Speaker A: There you go.
• 43:47
  Speaker C: Based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Hubert Selby Junior.
• 43:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, we can watch it and be depressed on the podcast.
• 43:56
  Speaker C: No promises. Maybe someday.
• 43:59
  Speaker A: So this is a fun fact from IMDb. It's the only one, but I thought was fun. In the opening shot of the film, the character Lang, who is Tom Hiddleston's character, is listening to a record on a record player, but is apparently a very rare record player known as a transcriptor's reference turntable. And it was the same one that was owned by Alex in the film A Clockwork Orange, which is very obviously a reference to based on the, speaking.
• 44:27
  Speaker C: Of movies that you see once and then never want to watch again.
• 44:30
  Speaker A: Like usually number one and number two on the list is like Requiem for a dream and Clockwork Orange were like very high on that list, usually. So. Yeah. And then finally a few reviews for this film. Tim Robey for the Telegraph gave the film four out of five stars and praised its brutality and its dark comedy. IGN gave the film a seven out of ten, saying it was, quote, enjoyably dark and disturbing. A enjoyingly dark and disturbing adaptation of one of JG Ballard's best for Variety. Kate Wilson gave the film a five star review, calling it a masterpiece. And then writing, I thought this was funny for Architect's journal because this movie is about an architect, I think, or one of the characters, I think Jeremy Irons character, I believe is an architect who designed the high rise they're in. At least from the trailer. That's what it seemed like. Laura Mark was impressed by, quote, the fantastic visuals, but noted that it lacked plot. Also went on to say that the dystopia portrayed reflected current concerns regarding gentrification and division. There you go.
• 45:35
  Speaker C: All right.
• 45:36
  Speaker A: That is what they had to say. It's the review from Architect's journal. I love that I had to include that. When I saw that, I was like, that's amazing. As always, wanted to remind you, you can head over to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, any of the social media platforms, follow us, do all that stuff. We like that. You can also head over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, give us a five star rating, review all that's also very helpful, and head over to patreon.com thisfilmislit. And you can support us like all of our lovely patrons. And if you support us at the $15 and up level, you get priority recommendations, which means you get to tell us what you want us to talk about, which this one is.
• 46:10
  Speaker C: Yeah. This was a request from Jeff Niederhofer, who's not currently subscribed, but had been for quite a while, had been a longtime patron and had this one request that was outstanding.
• 46:23
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 46:23
  Speaker C: And we do you know, if you have been a, a patron for a long time, we will honor your outstanding requests. If you're not able to subscribe, if.
• 46:32
  Speaker A: There'S not, like, in perpetuity, you can't request 20 things and just do them forever. But, like, you know, you got, like.
• 46:37
  Speaker C: One or two that within reason. Yeah, but Jeff had been a longtime patron.
• 46:43
  Speaker A: Absolutely. All right, Katie, where can people watch high rise?
• 46:47
  Speaker C: Well, as always, you can check with your local library or a local video rental store if you still have one. Barring that, you can stream this with a subscription to Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Hoopla, everything, Voodoo, Tubi, Pluto TV, Plex and Distro TV.
• 47:08
  Speaker A: You know what? This makes sense that this could be on everything because it's one of those movies where, like, the cast has enough names that it's like an attention getter. Like, you see the post and you're like, Tom Hiddleston and Jeremy, like, what? Elizabeth Moss. Like, what? But it's also a movie that, like, who care? Like, nobody's ever heard of. So it's probably cheap to get the right.
• 47:27
  Speaker C: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 47:29
  Speaker A: So I could see, I don't know if that's why it's on everything, but it is interesting that it's apparently on everything.
• 47:34
  Speaker C: You can also rent it for around $4 from Apple TV, Amazon, YouTube, Voodoo or flix fling.
• 47:42
  Speaker A: There you go.
• 47:43
  Speaker C: And speaking of, you mentioned the names and everything, and I just wanted to say, so the book that I ended up getting, I buy all our books secondhand through a website called Thriftbooks. And I try not to get the movie tie in novels, but sometimes they send them. And for this one, we got a movie tie in edition. And I think my favorite thing about it so far is that the movie poster is very clearly trying to trick me into thinking it's a James Bond movie.
• 48:17
  Speaker A: It definitely has that kind of vibe.
• 48:19
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 48:19
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, I watched the trailer, and I'm actually really excited for this. It looks right up my alley. It looks like it's, like, probably not as much of an action movie, but it's like, what if Snowpiercer was a building? Yeah, but, like, with less action, I don't think it's gonna be as much of, like, a. You know, Snowpiercer is, like, a beat em up, like, action movie, right? I don't think that's gonna be this, but it seems like a similar thing. Like, it's very much like the class commentary. Class commentary. And then shit goes crazy, and it's. It looks. I think I'm gonna like it, but who knows? Maybe not. It may suck, but I just. Based on the trailer, I think I'm gonna be into it.
• 48:57
  Speaker C: Yeah. I need to start reading the book. I have not started it yet. This probably. It would have been one we did as a switch episode. But you're supposed to be reading something else.
• 49:09
  Speaker A: What? Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah, I'll be. I'm getting to it.
• 49:15
  Speaker C: Okay. All right.
• 49:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, I gotta start reading. Yeah.
• 49:18
  Speaker C: What a tease.
• 49:19
  Speaker B: All right.
• 49:20
  Speaker A: That's gonna do it for this episode. As always. I don't know why. As always, that's the end. Well, in one week's time, we're talking about high rise. You can come back then. Guys, gals on boundary pals, and everybody else. Until that time, keep reading books, keep watching movies, and keep being awesome. We just recorded good bad or bad bad the other day, and my brain is. I forgot what I say where. So that's what happened there. Bye.