Latest / Film Curious / The Christophers Review - How This Film Feels Like the Kind of Great Movies Hollywood Used to Make

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The Christophers Review - How This Film Feels Like the Kind of Great Movies Hollywood Used to Make · Film Curious

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  I really don't have a critique of it, I loved it.
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  You're wrong. No.
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  I actually thought would be one of the most shocking things I've heard
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  from Pete. I loved it.
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  I've ever.
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  Hello, and welcome to film Curious Ashley here.
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  And I'm joined by Pete.
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  We're here to talk about a lovely little film, The Christophers.
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  It is written by Ed Solomon, directed by
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  Steven Soderbergh, which the two of us did not know until.
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  I mean, you.
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  I think you told me that you knew just before you went
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  that it was directed by Steven Soderbergh,
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  and I did not realize until the credits, actually.
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  Yeah, they don't promo him as like, it's a Soderbergh film.
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  They don't do that at all.
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  Which is strange because he's done almost everything.
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  I mean, he's he has such a crazy filmography.
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  He's got there's a reason, but.
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  That's the reason. Yeah.
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  But like
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  Black Bag, Erin Brockovich, the Ocean's 11 and 12.
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  I actually just watched Side Effects recently,
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  and then magic Mike, the magic mix.
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  Sure. So he's.
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  He's done it all. Yeah, yeah.
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  And this film is starring Ian McKellen
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  as Julian Sklar, I think is, if I say the last name Sklar.
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  Right.
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  If you don't, I don't.
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  I shouldn't have to say who.
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  You know, Ian McKellen is like,
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  if you don't know that he's Gandalf and Magneto, like,
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  you don't know who he and McKellen is, I don't we're living under a rock.
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  Then we've got bigger problems.
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  Michaela Coel as Laurie Butler, and you might have seen her.
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  I mean, I know her from two TV series
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  with Chewing Gum and I May Destroy You.
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  She's actually going to be in a 24 upcoming film starring
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  opposite in Hathaway in Mother Mary, so I'm super excited for that.
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  Then you've got.
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  Some near you.
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  It's not yet, I think, wide release.
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  It's okay. Not by me. No. Unfortunately.
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  All right. It's out. It's out near me right now.
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  I was going to go see it tomorrow or Thursday.
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  I'm hoping that it.
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  Yeah, it's going to be soon.
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  I think wide release is.
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  It's not out just yet. Wide.
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  Here we go. Okay, okay.
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  I'm looking it up right now.
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  Actually, because that's David Lowery's new film.
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  Oh, here we go.
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  Okay. Yeah.
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  So I guess wide release is going to be April 20th.
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  Oh, I could see it tonight by me.
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  So I think this past weekend it just showed up.
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  Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
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  It had a limited release for a bit and now it's wide.
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  So yes. To this.
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  You could probably go see Mother Mary, which I will go see this week.
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  Yeah.
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  And then as playing
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  the two children, as James Corden, as Barnaby
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  the comedian, I don't know, I just know him from Carpool Karaoke.
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  I don't know what actual night show James Corden does.
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  Does he still do that anymore?
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  I don't know if he does any more. I don't even think so.
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  That's the only thing I can like off the top of my head
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  knows what he does, what he does.
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  And Jessica Gunning as Sally.
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  I'm not familiar with her.
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  The story is the children of a once famous artist
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  hire a forger, which she's not really a forger.
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  This Laurie Butler, Michaela Cole's character, she's more like a restorer.
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  She's like reconstruction or restores art.
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  Right.
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  Was like her.
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  She she.
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  She she sold.
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  Yeah.
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  She sold.
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  Forged, you know, art that she'd forged.
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  I mean, that is that is a spoiler, though.
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  We find that out later on that she is, in fact,
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  a forger to complete, to complete.
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  So I didn't find that as a spoiler, to be honest.
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  I was like, she clearly is me.
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  She's had to have done this before.
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  Before, you know, nobody hires somebody to be like, you can do this, right?
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  And without knowing.
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  Yes. That's true.
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  I mean, they put it in this synopsis here, so maybe it's not so.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  And so they, they hire her to complete some unfinished and long
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  abandoned artwork of
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  character so that they'll have the money for the inheritance when he dies.
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  That's the the basic plot of it.
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  But I think really, this movie is driven by McKellen
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  and Cole's interactions and their their dialog.
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  And yeah, I think that's really the shining feature of this movie.
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  I enjoyed it, I really don't have a critique of it, I loved it.
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  You're wrong. No.
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  I think that would be one of the most shocking things I've heard
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  from Pete.
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  I've loved it ever.
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  This is extremely my type of movie because it's really a play
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  on, you know, on 2 or 3 sets that's put into film version.
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  You can easily see this adapted into a stage version.
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  And the reason that I think that you've you've heard so little about Soderbergh
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  as a director is because he's he's not there to be like, I directed this.
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  He's never been literally like that kind of a director.
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  You know, he was flashy, like with Ocean's 11 and stuff, Ocean's eight,
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  because it was a flashy movie, you know, Ocean's 11 because it is a flashy movie.
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  For this, he is just letting the camera be smart, efficient,
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  and just letting these two actors, McKellen and Cole,
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  own your attention
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  for, you know, for the entire runtime.
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  But but in saying that
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  there's a danger in doing that, I think where you underestimate
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  what the director is doing because he makes it look so easy.
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  And I'll give you one example, it doesn't really give anything away.
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  I'll give you an example.
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  There is a sequence where our act, our lead actress
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  Michaela Coel, is walking by
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  billboards of what would be Maclean's handwriting.
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  And then she is looking at an item.
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  And on the back there is Sam handwriting,
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  and it's because you just saw it right in front of you,
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  huge on the screen that your mind is so easily able to be like,
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  oh, that's his handwriting, where, you know, she gets it from a third party.
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  And you could have been like, I don't get it.
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  Did she write that on there or did this person write that on there?
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  But it's it's that little visual tell of
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  here's, here's his handwriting
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  because you're going to need that in 20s.
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  Right. Yeah.
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  You know, so you never have a hesitation of like, well, who wrote that?
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  Because that this movie can have moments like that because
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  there is, you know, some faking and some, you know, some stuff like that going on.
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  It's, it's it's a different take on a heist movie in so many ways.
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  You know, there's there's that aspect to it as well,
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  where it's an open heist movie where the person being robbed is aware
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  and you're aware and everyone is aware, but you're still watching
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  what could be a heist movie as it takes its turns.
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  And how is she going to pull it off?
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  We know what the ultimate goal is, we think.
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  But then, you know, and I, I kind of love that about how she plays the character to
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  she's a very reserved character, but we'll have moments
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  where she's front facing, you know, to Julian.
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  And then, I mean, I love the the scene where she's it's her
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  first being interviewed as the assistant and she's putting together the.
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  Yeah, the dehumidifier for him. Yeah, yeah.
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  And you know, she's like smiling and trying to be polite and be like,
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  oh sure, I'll help you. No problem.
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  And then, you know, a second he turns his back to like,
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  go get something out of the room. You see that?
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  She puts her hands on her head and she's like, oh my God.
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  Like, yeah, losing her mind.
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  So I loved how Michaela Coel played those moments of, like,
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  she reveals a bit of herself or how she's actually feeling,
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  which, you know, it's nice that they eventually get a rapport
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  where they are honest with each other.
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  And I think that's also a bit of the point of like
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  two artists kind of inspiring each other, pushing each other.
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  McKellen feels like he forgets, you know, how to create.
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  He feels he can't do it anymore.
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  And she
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  she gives him that little bit of freedom that he needs to be like, I don't have to.
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  There's no pressure here, you know?
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  I'm not actually finishing, you know,
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  the Christopher, as are his works that he can't finish.
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  That kind of been stuck on for 25 years, right.
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  I think it's like the, you know, the artist feeling
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  all of this pressure to create something incredible.
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  But when she gives him the freedom to be like, well, let's make this bad then
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  to spite
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  his children where, you know, she's in on it with him,
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  I think then, yeah, kind of unleashes his freedom.
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  And then, you know,
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  she gets kind of inspired by him again to, to work on her own stuff.
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  So it's, it's a really, like, beautiful
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  look at being an artist, I think.
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  And what a perfect pair of assholes Corden and Jessica
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  Gunning are just from the minute they're goddamn clothes.
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  Everything about them, you know, immediately
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  these are going to be there, going to be so obnoxious.
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  And they're excellent at it.
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  And there's a lot of fun to be had with them, too.
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  And an interaction with a painting that that younger the as a young girl.
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  Maclean's daughter, again
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  played by Jessica Gunning, painted herself.
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  There's just so many little bits for you to enjoy.
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  And there's a little,
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  you know, a little payoff over here, a little moment over here.
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  They're always challenging one another.
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  But I want to say there's there's so many movies where like, this ends.
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  And again, this isn't like giving a spoiler or anything, but
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  this isn't one of the movies where I like at the end of the movie,
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  they like High five on the beach or some shit like that.
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  They have their own moments of finding some clarity
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  and some closure, but it's it's never it's not overplayed.
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  It's not overly sentimental. Yeah,
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  yeah, yeah.
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  We're not gonna, like, go have a sob fest.
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  I really appreciated that because it's even in line with the two characters.
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  You know, these two characters really are an overly sentimental people.
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  I would
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  argue that they were, but yeah, but they.
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  They they hide it. They shut it down.
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  Because we have, you know, one of the, one of the lines
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  from Michaela is again, out of context.
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  I never stopped, I stopped sharing. Right.
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  Which says everything about her, you know, from her body
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  movement, everything to the way she is with other people.
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  You know, she's not rude.
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  She's not mean. She's nothing like that.
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  But she's it's at an arm's distance,
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  politely, at an arm's distance.
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  And Miquelon is more at a
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  non polite
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  arms distance because not only does he push away, but others just one.
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  Don't they want to be pushed away?
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  You know.
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  He's purposefully abrasive almost.
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  And you know he's.
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  Yeah I think it's the line of like no, I asked you questions.
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  I just wasn't interested in the answers or something along the lines
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  of that of like, he's not paying attention to the answer, you know, he doesn't. He?
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  He claims he he he doesn't care what the answers are about other people
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  and Kellan. And this is just amazing.
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  Meanwhile, like this man running up and down stairs, I was concerned for him.
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  He's in great shape, but I was like, McAllen. What?
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  What are you doing?
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  He's totally fine.
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  There's a great other.
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  He's he's made a lot of like, little nice small movies.
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  It was a Sherlock Holmes film recently that he did.
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  Not recently it was me within like the last ten years.
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  It was about an elderly Sherlock Holmes
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  whose memory is failing him.
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  And it's just wild to see someone who's been doing this for this long,
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  and they're
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  putting out some of their best work, like now.
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  Still, it's pretty crazy.
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  It seems. Like he is able to do it.
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  Yeah, it sounds like he seems like he has so much passion for what he's doing.
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  Like he did a phenomenal job with his performance
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  and he's captivating and he's like, it's just a stream of dialog from him.
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  Also, like he just goes in tangents that are unbelievably entertaining
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  and where meanwhile, like Michael Cole is, is supplementing him
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  with with her facial reactions and with her body mannerisms and everything.
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  I mean, this movie was hilarious, actually.
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  Yeah, it's a dark comedy, but it's funny as hell.
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  It was. It was hilarious.
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  And then even just McKellen doing the the video,
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  the message, the cameos.
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  Yeah, that was.
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  My favorite, my favorite comedy bit of the whole thing was when he knows
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  that his kids are trying to rip him off
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  and that, you know, everyone knows each other and they just
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  they show up at the door and he just messes with them,
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  you know, saying, oh, who's what's the girl's name and blah, blah,
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  blah, and just, you know, introducing the exact thing that they want to steal
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  and then everyone having to act, or at least the two acting like it's nothing.
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  It was just a lot of fun.
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  He was just having it looked like he was just having a lot of fun with this.
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  And it does feel like, again, my my biggest attraction to it
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  is that it's it feels like you're watching a play.
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  So I've never gotten to see McKellen in a play.
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  Not personally.
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  I've gotten to meet him in person, which is wild, which I'll remember that
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  forever.
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  But like, I never got to see him perform in a play.
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  So it's nice when you get things like this
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  where you kind of get to experience it without experiencing it.
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  I really do think that like at some point this will find an adaptation, you know.
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  You stage adaptation.
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  Yeah.
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  Because I mean, you got like, well, like a cast of like four
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  that you definitely need 5 or 6 if you include the roommates in the flat.
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  And that's fine.
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  You can do that.
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  You need a set.
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  Really? Yeah.
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  You need a set, maybe a rotating floor so you can go to the outside.
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  It's all very doable.
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  And the dialog and everything is so snappy and so much fun and so quick
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  that, you know, I think it would be a hit.
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  So we'll see.
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  We will say.
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  Yeah, how are you going to get the the two houses that he has and the wrong door.
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  Oh it's, it's a great bet. It's a great big.
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  How's that door?
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  I love his voice.
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  He's always had that, you know, incredible soft.
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  It's the voice.
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  I can do it, but I won't do it.
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  But, yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's.
• 16:17
  I just I had a lot of fun watching this movie.
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  It felt like a movie, you know,
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  like ones that people claim they never make them like they used to.
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  And they do.
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  They just don't make a lot of them. And you have to find them.
• 16:29
  Well, I'm hoping this this has a wider release.
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  I think, like, technically it's still.
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  I mean, Sonneberg has done his the last number of things of his career
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  are smaller releases, smaller budgets, these these little films
• 16:44
  that live no Sudden Move I think went straight to HBO.
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  I think.
• 16:48
  Finally correctly presence was I loved presents,
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  but that was, you know, small scale film.
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  I think it had a wide release in big quotes, but it wasn't, you know,
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  I don't remember it being something that many, many, many people talked about.
• 17:04
  But he's just quietly going along, amassing
• 17:07
  this just wonderful category catalog of.
• 17:11
  Work magic. Michael stands.
• 17:14
  Yeah.
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  No, I mean, that's the thing that's that's you make you huge.
• 17:18
  Like that.
• 17:19
  Was like Black Bag was one of the best years of 2025.
• 17:23
  It just it just. Yet to see it.
• 17:25
  I have to actually.
• 17:26
  Yeah it's it's one of the coolest thrillers you know
• 17:30
  it's actually horny as hell which is great because we've got,
• 17:34
  you know, Cate Blanchett in my class. Bender in there.
• 17:37
  But yeah, he's just kind of.
• 17:39
  Oh, Kimmy was really good.
• 17:41
  That was with, Zoe Kravitz.
• 17:44
  With Zoe Kravitz. That was another really good one.
• 17:46
  He's just been on this role of, like, these smaller framed films
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  that are excellent. Just a blast to watch.
• 17:54
  So yeah, Hasan, keep that going forever.
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  And my god, Ian McKellen.
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  What a one of a kind.
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  One of a kind. Yeah, for sure.
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  I'll tell you something.
• 18:04
  That's it won't it won't spoil it, but I'll tell you.
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  So if you're interested, you can go.
• 18:09
  Look, there's a painting at the end
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  that you can buy a poster for at the neon shop right now.
• 18:16
  Oh, you can, you can actually get it.
• 18:19
  Yeah.
• 18:20
  Oh that's awesome.
• 18:21
  Yeah, I ordered it last night. When I got home,
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  I was like, I have a feeling they're going to be selling this.
• 18:27
  So I looked and you know what it is.
• 18:29
  It's the one at the end. It's the, you know.
• 18:32
  Yeah, yeah.
• 18:32
  With the signature and all that and yeah, they, they're selling
• 18:36
  like little 18 by 24 posters of it I think.
• 18:40
  And it was so available as of yesterday.
• 18:42
  So when this is going up, but if you like the movie
• 18:46
  and you wanted something from it,
• 18:48
  it was the first thing that I thought of like, oh, this would be gorgeous to get.
• 18:52
  So you can also buy $130 paint set.
• 18:56
  So you know, you've got you've got your options.
• 18:59
  Got it has neon doing the, the a 24 thing these days where.
• 19:03
  They neons been doing this. Yeah. Like they are.
• 19:06
  They sell usually a print for almost every release.
• 19:10
  It'll be 18 to 24.
• 19:12
  Some of them have been 24 by 36.
• 19:14
  Like no other choice was a full 24 by 36.
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  This one is.
• 19:20
  Yeah, 18 by 24.
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  Limited edition of 125.
• 19:24
  So it's 40 bucks.
• 19:26
  45 bucks.
• 19:28
  Just to grab that then.
• 19:29
  Yeah, yeah.
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  Where I will put it. Doesn't matter.
• 19:33
  Figure it out.
• 19:34
  Figure it out later.
• 19:35
  I have. Like figure it. Out later.
• 19:37
  We have like four pieces of art right now that need a frame
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  and need to go off on the wall.
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  And I was like, that's it.
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  We're cut off until we put these in frames like we cannot purchase more until.
• 19:49
  No idea what we talking about.
• 19:52
  Yeah. No idea what you're talking about.
• 19:55
  Yeah, that sounds great.
• 19:57
  But definitely go, go see this film.
• 19:59
  It was worth it.
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  Hopefully it's still trickling its way out.
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  I'm hoping because of the I think it's like a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.
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  And people are loving this.
• 20:10
  So hopefully it keeps kind of expanding
• 20:13
  a little bit as they they see that people love it.
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  So that's my hope for it because I want more people to see it.
• 20:19
  And I'm really glad I saw it, even though I really had
• 20:22
  I don't think I even saw a trailer for it.
• 20:24
  I just.
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  I only saw a trailer for it at the theater that I eventually saw it at,
• 20:29
  which is the NZ in in Florida.
• 20:32
  It's the only good theater in Florida that I know of.
• 20:37
  So yeah, now mine was just a playing ad.
• 20:41
  Well, I mean, it's the same sort of deal for me.
• 20:44
  I don't I don't know if it's the only good theater in my area,
• 20:48
  but it's the only small indie theater that was playing it.
• 20:52
  And it's actually I'll shout out the the Sarasota
• 20:57
  Film Society and Burns Court Theater, because if it wasn't for them,
• 21:01
  there would be so many smaller movies that I didn't get to see.
• 21:04
  And they they keep their theaters really nice.
• 21:06
  But it is.
• 21:07
  You are tiny, like you are in a room of a house.
• 21:11
  Basically. It feels like. Oh, really?
• 21:13
  There's like three, there's three theaters
• 21:16
  and one of them is I, it's not that big.
• 21:20
  Like I don't know how many people it could possibly hold.
• 21:23
  And it's like, not, no, there's no stadium seating.
• 21:27
  These chairs are comfortable.
• 21:28
  Like they clearly put new regular chairs in.
• 21:30
  There's no reclining or anything like that.
• 21:33
  But I think they keep it really nice and they keep they,
• 21:36
  they put the small movies in the theater and the prices are really good too.
• 21:40
  So they're not like, they don't overcharge.
• 21:42
  I think they charge like ten bucks a ticket.
• 21:44
  If you remember, it's $6 a ticket.
• 21:47
  Oh, it's ten, it's ten for NZ and 1050 as a member.
• 21:50
  They only have one theater, which is it's pretty large
• 21:54
  and they're actually doing an upgrade to they, they raised X amount of money
• 21:59
  and they're going to be installing a 70mm projector in there.
• 22:02
  Yeah very nice. So yeah that's great.
• 22:05
  So and that's another thing to if you think you don't have it showing,
• 22:09
  but you try to find some kind of film society or little smaller theater,
• 22:13
  indie theater because they'll likely be playing those things.
• 22:16
  So I'm glad that I finally found
• 22:19
  Burns Court and this, this little film society to be a part of.
• 22:23
  So thank you to them.
• 22:24
  Otherwise I would have not have gotten to see the Christopher's.
• 22:29
  Hey, guys.
• 22:30
  Ashley here.
• 22:30
  Thanks for listening to film. Curious if you enjoyed this episode.
• 22:33
  There's plenty more to come.
• 22:35
  I'll be reviewing new theatrical releases and new streaming as much as possible,
• 22:38
  so make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
• 22:41
  Thanks again. See you real soon.