Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) - Kathryn Bigelow | Houselights #255

Transcript

K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) - Kathryn Bigelow | Houselights #255 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the ned Palty.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to House Lights, our director discussion show here
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: on the Nerd Party Network. This week, we're continuing to
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: look at the works of Catherine Bigelow with her only
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: PG thirteen film two thousand and two's K nineteen, The
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Widow Maker, telling the tale of the nineteen sixty one
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Soviet submarine reactor failure and the heroic efforts of the crew.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Star Wars heroes Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson lead this
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: gripping man versus radiation story Beneath the Waves. I'm your
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: host this evening, Darren New doctor Moser, and I'm joined
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: again by my friends Tristan ice Cap Riddell and Pipe
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Fitting Safety Inspector number three John Mills.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Wait, am I am? I just a block of ice?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: No, that's your nickname, your ice Cap. You're like you
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: got off the ship and you're in when we're about
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: to take the photo the last good day of our lives.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: You've got a cool nickname. Okay, John, we blame for everything.
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I am the reason that everything went wrong,
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: which honestly that pretty much tracks with my life and
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: this podcast, so you know, fitting choice.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: If we ever cover a Paul thirteen. Just know where
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: you're going to rank.
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: Okay, Oh, I know, I'm fully aware, I get that,
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: I get.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: I'm actually I know this is completely off topic, but
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of surprised we haven't done Howard. We haven't
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: done House of Howard Ron House. There's plenty of them,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: that's true. That's another' here no there, Darren, please no, yes.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: But hey, that's how things end up on the list.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: And you too can contact us at the nerd party
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: dot com if you want to let us know what
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: you think we should record. Maybe we'll listen, maybe we won't,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: but it usually the good ideas do end up eventually
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: down the list. Don't ask how long the list is, listeners,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: because it's a it's fairly long. I think we're booked
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: through mid January right now. But here, there, here, no there, John,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: this is your first time going beneath the waves with
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: K nineteen The Widow Maker. You were not caught up
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: with apparently the early two thousands submarine vibe that was
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: going on, because there were quite a few films. We're
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: gonna just look from eighty nine to two thousand and four.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I have at least a dozen of these. We Hunt
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: for Red October and ninety, Crimson Tide in ninety five,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: down Periscope in ninety six. I'm gonna kind of count
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Sphere in ninety eight U five seven to one, which
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I think was a lot of people will sometimes confuse
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: with this one in two thousand and below in two
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: thousand and two, same year as Widow Maker. And then
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: maybe we could talk about League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: The Life Aquatic with Steve's issue. Yeah later, nice choice,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: but there so there's a we love our submarines, But
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: this one again we're looking at a semi historical take
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: on an actual event that occurred, it said in the sixties,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: where it was a little weird for me looking at
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: the modernness, like I'm so used to like diesel subs
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: and World War two, this that this was a little
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: more modern than I was expecting. But John, did you
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: know anything about this? Did you? Except for the stars
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: or maybe the poster or this one just passed you by.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: Well, you mentioned Hunt for October and Crimson Tide, and
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: I got to be honest with you that when you're
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: the old man and you saw both of those in
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: the movie theater, other submarine movies surface from time to time,
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: and you're like, that's cute. You stay over there. I've
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: already seen two of the greatest submarine movies that could
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: ever be made. You got to really, really, really convince
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: me to go to the theater and then, I'll be honest.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: It was a terrible marketing push. I mean, Number one
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: is coming out in the summer. Bad choice Number two.
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: Harrison Ford plays a Russian sub captain in the Cold War.
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: I'm like, that's a whole bunch of words that just
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: don't make any sense to me. And the poster was, look,
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: the poster sucks. The poster is Harrison Ford scowling at me,
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: looking like he's being a grumpy old man. He's like,
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: you better not come into theater and see my movie.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, fine, I won't come see it.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: No joke. I was going to start playing. I have
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: multiple monitors. As I was working, and I had I
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: was during my lunch, I had K nineteen up, and
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: I had the menu up, and I was just like, oh,
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: I get I gotta get to this to this email
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: real quick, and I keep out of the corner of
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: my eye. Harrison Ford was just looking at me disapprovingly, like, Judge,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: you really need to use that semi colon.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: I literally turned it off because I couldn't handle it.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: Well, now you know how I felt they were trying
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: to convince me to go see the movie. No, so yeah,
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: and I knew, like I think I saw something that
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: I don't remember if it's on the post or not,
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: where it's like inspired by true events. And I was like,
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: all right, that's fine, sure, and it just wasn't enough
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: to get me in the theater honestly, I mean, but
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, seriously, I think releasing this in July of
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: two thousand and two is basically like release calendar suicide,
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: because it's like, you know, May of two thousand and two,
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: there was a little Star Wars movie that came out
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: that you know, wasn't still all the hotness in July,
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: But wasn't this the same summer as like like Men
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: in Black two or something like that, And uh.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a decent summer for sure.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: Why on earth would you take a movie like this
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: and throw it up against competition like that.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: That's not I don't understand fall movie.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: This is an award season movie.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: I was like, this is a prestige film. Yeah, you know,
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: why would you put it in the summer?
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like you're gonna see a movie with
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: your dad after Thanksgiving? And this is what you guys
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: go see.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Like that spot that's all they should They should have
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: on the on the post, on the poster.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: The movie you'll see if you're gonna see what movie
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: with your dad after Thanksgiving? C K nineteen, The Widow Makers.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna now two dollars off your ticket if you
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: bring in a selfie of you and your dad eating
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: turkey before you go in there, you go.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: You won't have an appetite after the film, So watch
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: it after Thanksgiving?
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Oh my god. Okay, So I work. I work in
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: my basement, like I work from work from home, like
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: three days out of the week. And so but you know,
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: like I'm surrounded by all my kids crap, you know,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: and all their toys and everything like that, and so
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: I normally keep the basement door open, but when it's shut,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: it means don't come down. Dad's watching watching something spooky.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: And so I was. I told my wife, I was like, hey,
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna go watch something a little spooky. So just
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: let the kids know, and she's like, oh, is it
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: fun spooky? I was like, no, it's Russian young men
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: dying from radiation poisoning. And she's like, so not fun spooky.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Apparently when researching for this film, like they
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: toned it way down, Apparently, like they looked up, you know,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: radiation exposure and what it does to you, and they
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: made it much more sanitized than what actually probably would
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: have happened. Like, it's really bad.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: Have either of you Seennobyl on HBO.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I've seen lots of clips of Chernobyl.
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: I've watched it one hundred percent, Yet you're not the
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: same after you watch that series.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: That series they shy away from it, like they did
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: not lessened the effects, especially with one individual in particular.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: And for those of you who've watched, you know what
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about, and it's it's oh my god, it's
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: it's just gruesome. It's just radiation.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Terrible way to go.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one has to be one of the worst ways
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: to go.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean considering that it's basically your entire body
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: just starts decomposing while you're walking around in it, that's
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: that's a pretty tough road to hoe.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, and the psychological effect of knowing, like, because
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: I went into that room, I'm going to die, like
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: but you not instantly, but like it's it's the unseenness
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: of radiation. It's like just diabolical and how it's yeah,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: it's gonna get you, but it's not like a traditional attack.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: Is yeah, yeah, I mean, it's it. It's I don't
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: know that you could show it any more graphically in
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: this movie without getting like an R rating bordering on
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: an NC seventeen like this is. And I think that's
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: the unfortunate thing is they are towing that line, and
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: I think as a result, it does work to the
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: detriment of the movie a little bit because of the
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: fact that when they come out and you see them,
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: you understand, you know, contextually, I understand why Peter Sarsgar's
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: character Richenko freaks out and won't go in. It's a
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: very relatable moment. It's like you don't judge that character.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: You're like, yeah, okay, I get why you're freaking out here.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: But I think that if they had gone a little
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: more hardcore with what it looked like, I think it
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: would have made them even more sympathetic in that moment.
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: And so I'm not like arguing that like stuff should
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: have been falling off of them or anything. I just
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: think it could have gone a little bit harder in
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: that scene.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like instead of my coming out and vomiting, you know,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: and heap freaking out, it's like, oh, you see the
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: horror on his face, because there's little horror on their faces. Yeah,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: I get that. Yeah, I get that completely. And I'm
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: really glad that both of you got that. Not that
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: I thought anything different, but I'm really glad that both
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: of you guys didn't put him in a box. Because
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: we all, you know, all of us want to think
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: that we're the hero of our own story, that we
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: would rise up and do what's right and do what's
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: best for us and everyone else and everything like that.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: But in that moment, you have no idea what you
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: would do until you're in that moment.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: Oh absolutely. And I think that it's also great that,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: whether that's actually part of the true account or not,
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: I think it's very important to have that character have
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: that reaction because that shows how heroic these guys were
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: being in what they were doing. But also there's a
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: huge payoff for him at the end. Because he does
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: go in and he knows full well what's about to
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: happen to him, and it's just it's it's crazy.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. How for you know Verchenko, it's I'm
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: not gonna say it's his story, but he's definitely a
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: major player. Like I would say he's number three as
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: far as story focus goes, and the choices he makes,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: and and like you said, having that setup really enhances
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: the payoff later when he makes the choice. He's in
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: there for eighteen like he's in there a long time
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: basically like to get it done, and we know that
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: it's you know, he when they're listing that so many died,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: I know that he's one of them. Like I don't
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: even doubt, Like it's not like, oh maybe he lived,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Just no, I know that's not even a plausible solution.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: The only thing that undercut that moment so hard for
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: me was when Harrison Ford's character when they when like
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: the timbers are starts going down and like the water
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: starts going through and everything like that, and Harrison Ford
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: goes he made himself a hero.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, yeah, maybe that delivery wasn't the best
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: the Lion the delivery of it.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: It was just it's it sucked all the air out
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: of the room and it's just like I said, it's
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: just undercut it.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: For me, Ford is the best in this when he
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: is Kurt and saying very little like and just presence like,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: not that he doesn't say anything, because he says a
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: lot really well in this, but it's definitely a less
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: is more and you know, we get Radjenko, we get
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: the soldier who jumps off the boat and is like,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: I'm not going back in, you know, And again I
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: think it was important to show it's not like everybody
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: fell apart, but there's just enough resistance that you're like, yeah,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: they're all having to make that decision. Or even the
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: end where where the captain asks them and they all
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, for me, that was kind of an emotional
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: part when they're all ticking through the compartments and they're
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: all saying, you know, we're going to do our duty
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: and it and it mirrors again, you know, we haven't
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: talked about directing yet, but I love how it mirrors
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: the opening sequence of that when they're getting ready to
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: go down for the first time, as they're getting underway
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: and it's the exact same sequence of the compartments reporting in,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: but there's so much more weight. Yeah, because of what
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: we've been through.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I I I. The tough thing for me is
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: that there were certain moments Traysia. I'm glad you called
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: out Ford's line there. He made himself a hero. I
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: think that there is a and this this is gonna
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: sound weird, but I think like this sort of is
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: Bigelow's strength and her weakness as a director. It's a
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: very fine line for her to walk where what this
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: movie is lacking is that ability to connect with me
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: so that I'm I'm actually like viscerally rooting for somebody
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: on the crew where I'm rooting for them in a
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: very personal sense. If you go to hunt For, if
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: you go to hunt For at October, it's not even
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Sean Connery for me, it's not even really Jack Ryan.
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: It's Sam Neil's character, the guy that just wants to
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: go to Montana, that guy and like You're like, you're
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: you're really emotionally invested in that guy because he's he's
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: the innocent soul. He's like, uh, I just I just
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: want to have a good life, man, right. Crimson Tide
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: Denzel Washington. Beginning to finish, You're like, he's awesome. I
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: love him as my commander. He's a great dude. I'm
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: with him the whole way, so that when the conflict
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: happens at the end, there's not even a question. There's
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: not a chance I'm on Gene Hackman's side. Even before
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: that conversation that Tarantino wrote, I'm completely with Denzel from
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: beginning to finish. There's no character like that that it
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: latch onto here. I don't know if you guys felt
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: the same way. The closest I came was Liam Neeson's character.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: I think he's supposed to be the most sympathetic character
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: of the hero characters that you see, where it's like,
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: you know, you can understand what he's going through the best.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: But even that gets undercut because true to life or not.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: When he's like, hey, good job with the mutiny, guys,
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: Now give me the gun and the key. All right,
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: you guys are under arrest, and then at the end
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: he even like he's like an ass to the guy
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: who was like just doing what he thought was right.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: I was like, uh, but you all still went for
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: the like I'm very confused by the ending, I'm like,
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: I don't know what I'm supposed to feel about these
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: guys at the end.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when Liam Neeson, you know, I feel like for
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: his character, I just made the connection in my mind.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: He's kind of like Deckerd in Star Trek the motion picture,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: where he's the captain, he has the most nulled and
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: then you know, Comrade Kirk comes in and just says, Nope,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: you know, you're sorry. You have to stay on and
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: run the ship for me.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: But I'm the captain now, which is even funnier.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Picturing Kirk and like that Chay Gavar T shirt with
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: their beret, just picturing William Shanner in that.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: But the thing that makes that even funnier for me, Darren,
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: is that the whole relationship of Kirk and Deckerd is
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: modeled after a previous Robert Wise movie Run. I think
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: it's Run Silent, Run Deep, where the same sort of
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: command structure upheaval happens where the senior guy comes in
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: and takes the captaincy from a guy. So it's that's
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: a funny thread to follow all the way through.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: I did find that relationship dynamic really interesting because they
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: went out of their way to show that Nissan took
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: it like a champ, like he took it as a
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: true professional, where it was no, this is this is
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: the job. I'm not losing my rank. I'm just you know,
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: losing my position. I'm the exo. I'm still on this boat.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: I'm still with my guys. It's totally cool. If that's
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: what the Motherland wants, that's what they're going to get.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: But he still felt a responsibility to the ship and
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: the crew in a way like a captain would. But
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: at the same time, they didn't show him as a saint.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: It wasn't clear that like, oh, Ford is the big
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: bad because he represents you know, the Soviet and government,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: and you know, Nissan is just the guy. He's the
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: man's man, he's the men of the people. Nothing like that.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: It was you know, I felt like they did a
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: really nice job of showing Ford as like, this is
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: not the men's fault, this is your fault. This is
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: the officer's fault for not setting clear expectations for the men.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: And also it showed Nissan being way too chummy with
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: his men and way too laid back, and the fact
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: that he was trying to defend a man who was
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: drunk on the job on a sub It goes back
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: and forth where there is a lot of gray area
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: where there is no clear antagonist and clear protagonist, and
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: I felt like normally I would be like, Okay, well
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: is this protagonist confusion? But it also felt applicable and
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: where it wasn't like a poorly written novel where you're like, oh,
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: this is the bad guy, clearly, this is the guy
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: who's it's gonna screw everybody over in the end.
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: I mean to speak to that point though, Like what
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: I never got was a scene where I felt like
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: Ford had some sort of humanizing moment, real humanizing moment
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: with Nissan where he's like, just you know, I mean
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: to go back to Star Trek the motion picture. At
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: least we got that scene with Kirk was like stop
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: fighting me, deckerd you know, like that sort of thing.
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: Like I needed a scene like that to really establish
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: the dynamic between the two of them, and I don't
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: think that I got it here.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: I mean I will slightly disagree. I think we didn't
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: get a one for one of that. But when he
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: backs forward after the mutiny, I think that is the
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: essence of that where it is really clearly drawing. It's
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: later in the game, but it really clear is drawing
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: the relationship between the two.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: It's I am, I am so late in the game.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah it is too late, but yeah, I mean what
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: you're daring.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: You're not wrong.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: Maybe an earlier scene, not with that much weight behind it,
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: but where he demonstrably backs the captain and then somebody's like, dude,
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: the hell, like why are you backing this guy? And
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: he's like because he's the captain and like walks off
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: or something like you know, like I a stronger just
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: one stronger scene would have given me a little bit
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: more to to hold on to.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: I love that Joss Ackland, the uh the one of
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: the big wig Russian guys with that white hair, Yes, sir, Yes,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: I love that. He is also in Right October. Yes, and.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: I really same character.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Basically, and I half expected like it to end with
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: with somebody coming to him and saying you lost another submarine.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's got the voice like he is. Just
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: if he plays all the Russian hierarchy in every movie,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't even care. I would just be like, this
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: is the Josh Ackland universe. Of running the Fatherland.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like that one guy who always plays
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: the Chicago cop.
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, exactly, exactly, but you know also.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Johnson of Russian leadership.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not even going down that rabbit hole. And
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: that's a crazy one. Yeah yeah, No, I mean, Ackland
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: is great in in what little he's given to do.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: But I mean, am I, you know, am I the
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: only one, like I've really had a hard time connecting
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: with the movie, Like I thought there was so much
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: like that. One of the things that that I thought
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: of while I was watching it, this is my first time,
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: was what we were talking about last week with Strange Days,
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: where we were talking about the camera being in super
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: tight spaces and it I will say that this, okay,
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: the Hunt for in October and Crimson Tide, those sets
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: are very dramatic, dramatically lit, very you know, very film submarines.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: This felt like I was actually on a submarine and
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: the tight spaces. I found the filming to be amazing
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: in this because I felt cramped when they were. I
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: felt like I was trying to squeeze through corridors and
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: getting through with like a giant you know camera and
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: you know roll speed you know, like and running through
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: and everything that had to be just hell in the production.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I read in research that apparently they developed a
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: rail system that went down the ceiling and that is
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: what the camera was hooked on, and then they painted
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: it out so it blended in and that's how they
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: because yeah, they it was the size. It wasn't like, oh,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: we just swing out this you know this wall and
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: it's like no, no, we are in a tin can.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: It was obviously a set, but it was an actual,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: you know, submarine set, and yeah, you feel that claustrophobia.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: You know me.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: I think we're all kind of on the same page
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: as far as when there are certain locations you need
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: to know where you are. That's kind of important. And
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: in this one, while I never had a full mental
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: picture of the sub I could still understand of like, oh,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: there's the command room, there's the you know, torpedo room.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Like I knew where, I know what room I was
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: in at any given time. I just maybe didn't know
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: what the next room connecting is was.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, all right, So okay, Darren, I know you're gonna
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: laugh at me, but you mentioned diagram No, I like, okay,
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: So this This movie was shot by Jeff Cronenworth, who
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: is a fantastic DP. You know, he's known for Fight Club,
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: Social Network. You know, this guy knows what he's doing
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: and this this John, like you said, this movie is
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: really well shot. But Darren, when you were talking about
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: like geography, like knowing where you are and everything like that, No,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Lie Down Periscope had some of the best geography when
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: it came to a submarine, like you knew exactly where
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: you were and where it was placed in the submarine.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: And for those of you who were who say like, oh, well,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: you know, like it's a you know, it's a modern
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: movie shot at modern times, Like Nope, they were on
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: a World War two sub Okay, so it was even
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: smaller than the K nineteen. But yeah, and I just
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: needed to throw that out there because it's a movie.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: But it's it's shut.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: You got the Typhoon class in uh in Crimson or no,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: in Hunter ad October, which is like the giant Cadillac
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: of subs. You know, it's so they're.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: Gonna be stationed on a sub you want to be
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: on the Typhoon Class. I mean, let's be honest. Plenty
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: of breathing road.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: I was thinking no.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: So we talked about the look. We talked about, yeah,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: the the kind of rooting for a group rather than
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: an individual kind of vibe of this movie. Like, except
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: for a few standouts, it's really the crew is how
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: we kind of view it, at least how how I.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Rooting for the group instead of the individual. What kind
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: of red comie talk is that.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: He got into the spirit of the I mean, obviously movie, yes,
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: it's Soviets Russia movie watches you.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: When? Okay, when when they were watching that film of
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: like the worst parts of America, and then he said
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: he's like, he's like, don't He's like, don't let American
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: propaganda fool you, you know, with everybody you know, like
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: having their own car, wearing nice clothes and individualism. And
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: then like part of me, like a real big part
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: of me as an American, kind of popped perked up,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: and I was like, individualism, Yeah, rock on.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: That's pretty great. I think it's pretty awesome.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Like I started playing an electric guitar in my head
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: while a bald eagle was screaming over my head.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: I was like, hey, yeah, hey, hey, hey, hey, you know,
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: I mean.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: We'll get the Team America World Police in here and
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: they'll set it all straight.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: And yeah, they'll straight they'll straighten everything out. Now, I
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: think that I thought it was it was very smart
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: to include that scene, though because of the fact that
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: we don't typically get to see how like that. I
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: don't know that everybody understands the historical perspective of the
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: idea of the political officer. Yes, he was there on
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: Hunt For in October as the secret antagonist to stretch
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: out Act three and stuff like that, but like it
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: really was a way of life. You had a guy
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: who went around that was like, oh, no, this is
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: what you believe, just to remind you. And if you
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: don't believe that, then I'm gonna report you, you know,
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: like that the school leg right exactly. And it's I
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: think it's very good that this movie included it, so,
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: you know, tip of the hat to the script and
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: to keeping it in you know, the production, to really
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: underline how much of a part of life.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: It was for them. Also, I really appreciated what Bigelow
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: was doing with this because at no point did you
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: feel like, oh, you know, like so many times in
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: war movies, even though this wasn't during a time of war.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: You know, it was a Cold War, but it was
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: you have the goodies and the baddies. And even when
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: you watching something like dust Boot, you know like you're
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: you're watching it and you're like, Okay, these are clearly
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: the bad guys. I mean, yeah, these are people conscripted
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: and they may not believe what they're believing, but they're
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: still in the bad They're still on the bad side.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: You know, like with with this, with this movie and
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: the way that Bigelow is betraying the crew the ship
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: and their mission and their purpose. There was no declaration
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: of good versus evil. It was we're here to protect
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: the Soviet Union. We're here to show them that we
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: can advance, we can shoot dismissial and we can be there,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: and it's just to show them and it's just like
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: we're showing a show of strength and this is what
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: we believe. It was just I'm having a hard time
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: articulating it, but it was just it was a great
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: way to show the other side of the fence, or
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: actually say curtain where it was. It was an interesting
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: peak behind the curtain, and it was it was not
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: like oh well there, you know, like it's a bad
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: cause led by bad people, with bad people on the boat.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: It was just here's the other side that you don't
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: normally see, not glorifying it, not vilifying it. I thought
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: that was pretty interesting.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: So you think it would be fair to say there
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: are heroes on both sides, evil as everywhere. Would you
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: think that's a fair couple of lines to throw out there?
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: No?
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: Maybe, no, I'm not going to say that. You're not
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: going to say that. I'm not going to say that
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: you agree. I would agree with a great philosopher who
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: put that out there, But you know, hey, that's just me. Well,
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: and the accent is that No, you know what, I'm
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: glad you brought I'm glad Tristan brought this up. The
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: accents not really because it they didn't lean into it
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: really hard. They gave like hint of accent, but so like,
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: it wasn't egregious, It wasn't Uh, it wasn't Leonardo DiCaprio
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: attempting an Irish accent in Gangs of New York.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Or even worse, Cameron Diaz attempting an Irish accent in case.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: The thing is, I don't consider that attempting an Irish accent,
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: because I don't know what she was attempting at Gangs
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: of New York. Honestly, it's first I've heard somebody actually
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: call it an Irish accent. So okay, then no, the
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: little hint of accent was enough for me. I mean,
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: I'm still of the camp where it's like they don't
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: they're speaking Russian to each other, none of them have
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: an accent.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, okay, I've for decades, I've gone back and
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: forth on this where that is a very solid argument.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: That is a very solid argument where you're like, okay, yeah,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you're on a Russian boat or Soviet boat,
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: they're going to be speaking Russian to each other. They're
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: not going to be speaking English with a Russian accent.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: We get it. But at the same time, my brain
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: needs some sort of otherness, needs some sort of foreign
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: entity to tell me that this is a different place,
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: because okay, so I felt like it worked in Valkyrie
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: because they didn't attempt any accents there, but they did
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: the Red October thing where like, you know, Tom Cruise
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: is like writing in his journal or writing a letter
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: and he's speaking Russian and as he's writing it turns
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: into English and you hear him narrating his own voice,
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: and it turns into English, and then everybody's just like
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: either British or American or whatever, it doesn't matter, it
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter they're German. But then there was another submarine movie.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: I can't remember which one, but it had David ducoveny
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: and Ed Harris and they're Russian and they didn't have
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: any accents whatsoever. It was just Ed Harris being Ed
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Harris and David Coveney being David d' coveney, and it
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: felt freaking wrong.
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: I love both of those actors that you named, but
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: I would say it's because their vocal range is such
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: that it's impossible to hear anything but sort of an
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: American region to how they're speaking, if that makes sense.
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: They have very uniquely American speech.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: That's true. Dakuny and Harris are very uniquely American, it's true.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: Whereas like Harrison Ford has a more neutral and Liam
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: Neeson you know, is Irish like so it's like it's,
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: you know, one of those things.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the handling of the dialect was enough
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: that I didn't even think about it of like, oh yeah,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: that's right. They're all speaking in Russian. It's just I
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: think they leaned into the it's a movie, and understandability
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: is king if your audience cannot understand what you're saying,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: you know, and that's the route you know that she went,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: which isn't bad, it's just you know, not one of
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: the pillars of the of the film. But yeah, I
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: liked what you were talking about, Tristan as far as
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: the plot, where it is rare for a war movie,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: a submarine war movie, to be like, this is a
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: disaster movie. It's them versus the situation, Like the Americans
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: are barely in it, and like there's no there's not
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: a single torpedo being fired in this whole movie. The torpedo,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I mean technically it rolls over a guy inside the
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: you know, the.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Submarine ruins the dude's hand.
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: Hell yeah, yeah, But I like, yeah, like you said,
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: it's and we've all heard this before and other stories
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: of no one sees themselves as a villain, you know,
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: the one writes themselves in the story as that and
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: and this is just the other side of the curtain.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: But but you know, as we're slowly rounding towards ratings.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: You know, I felt like we've given this film a
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: pretty decent once over, you know, as far as story
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: and characters. But John, you look like so you have
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: something on your mind.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: Well, we haven't talked about the editing yet, which is
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: something we have to talk about. Because a legendary editor
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: worked on this film, Walter freaking Merch worked on this film.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: I gotta ask, did this seem like it was legendary editing?
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, like, you know, I didn't realize it was
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: Walter Merch until I revisited the credits and stuff like that,
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: and I was like, really, Walter Merch. Now. The thing is, like,
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: I thought the way things were put together was was
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: well paced. I thought everything worked together, you know, pretty
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: well in both a micro and a macro. But like,
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: is it unfair to say that, Wow, Walter Merch worked
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: on this, But I don't feel like this was a
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: you know, a tremendous editing work, if that makes sense,
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: Like are my expectations?
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Why That's why Walter Merch is one of the best
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: ever is because you didn't have a feeling one way
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: or the other. True, Like you didn't think, oh, this
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: is really poor editing, or like oh man, the editing
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: in that was amazing. Like if you were watching something
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: like that by Tony Scott or Fincher or something, don't
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: want to notice it. Merch is the king of not
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: being noticed. He is a silent hunter. He is the
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: one that you bring in when you want a well
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: crafted story and something that is well edited that does
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: not insist upon itself. It is something that is just
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: He's so streamlined. He knows exactly how to trick your
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: brain and trick your eyes into not seeing what you saw.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: That's why this was fair to Merch.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: Very very fair. I mean, because the thing is, like
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: I was saying, like when you're moving through the sub
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: when you have the scenes cutting back and forth, it
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: is all really strong stuff, but it is I like
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: the way you put it. He's silent about it. There's
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: nothing here to draw attention to the edit, like you said,
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: as opposed to like a Tony Scott movie where it's
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: like you know that the jet fighters are flying around
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: in top gun and it's like what wait what what's cool?
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: This looks awesome? But wait what this is? This is
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: a very I can tell everything that's going on, and
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: I understand everything that's going on. I actually think there
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: were a couple of I applauded this for the fact that,
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, especially the era this comes out
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: underwater CG is the most forgiving CG that you can make.
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: But I really enjoyed the fact that they did the
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: thing where they were inside and they would keep going
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: up and your brain is like, okay, well you have
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: to stop because that's the ceiling. But then it kept
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: going and you went through the shell of the sub
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: to show the difference between the outer hull and the
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: inner hall, and then go up and go out into
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: the water after that to see everything larger. I thought
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: that was a great choice.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Now, when we talk about films, we rarely talk about
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: sound design. I mean, it is a piece of the
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: film puzzle. But I found myself in this one specifically,
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: there was one sound in particular that really stood out
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: to me, and I don't know if it was the
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: same for you guys, but the flickering of the radiation
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: alarm light bulb. There's many scenes when no one's talking,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: they're just kind of in the situation, and all you
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: really hear is that little like click click click of
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: like you know they've silenced the alarm, but it's still going,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: which means there's still a problem. Did that you know,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: did you pause in that moment at all, John, or
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: that kind of just get washed over with all the
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: other things that are going on when it took a
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: moment to breathe. No.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: I actually I like you calling the sound design out
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: because the sound design and specific is I considered it
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: strong because the sound environment. You know, Tristan just praised
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: you know, Walter Merch, you don't notice him. There's nothing
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: that jumped out at me because to my ear, this
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: all sounded right. This sounded like it should sound inside
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: the sub while everybody's going around, and when I was
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: outside the sub, it sounded right as well. There wasn't
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: an overproduced quality to the sound design. It was simply there.
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: That ticking in the back about the radiation alarm, I
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: thought was one of the nicest touches actually, because it's
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: like that thing where sometimes you'll hear a song or
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: something else where, if you really listen to it, you
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: realize there's like a little heart going right, and once
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: that radiation alarm ticking comes into play's suddenly like oh
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: like it's tick tick. It reminds you of a clock
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: the countdown has started. How much time do I have left?
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: And it's just subtly enough in the background, and they
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: I think they they really did well with that.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, every every tick is like I'm pumping more radiation
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: into the sub, Like the problem is not solved. It's
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: it's you know, mediated for a moment, but it is
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: still ill there. I mean I think of that. I
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: think of yeah, like you said, the sound of the
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: as they're diving or surfacing and you hear the crunch
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: of the metal as it's kind of reworking itself, or
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: the surfacing scene, which is fairly early on in the movie.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: But when they go down and then they just jet
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: and go straight into the ice, like, that's a great sequence,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Like I have never seen that a sub do that
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: in a movie before, with the ice impact. Usually it's
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: just very slow, like hey, look we're gonna raise just
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: the tower out, that's all we brought with us to
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: our filming location. This was more like we're gonna drive
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: straight into the ice flow. And it was amazing.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really kind of tough because I think that
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: this gets back to something that Bigelow what we've noticed,
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: or at least what I've noticed while we've been looking
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: at her films is that from a technical aspect, it
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: is always five stars.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: Across the board.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: As a technical artist, she is one of the best
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: out there in my opinion. The camera work that and
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: it's not even something where she ever gets credit for
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: any innovation or anything like that. But she takes the
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: technology that exists and she makes it really strong, and
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: she gets a crew around her that is going to
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: help put together something that's really strong from a technical perspective.
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: The downside is I think that it's almost similar, although
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: their styles are wildly different to where it can sometimes
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: go wrong with like a Zack Snyder movie, where the
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: technical part is there, the emotional part is what winds
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: up being lost in the shuffle, if that makes sense.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: Where it's like, I feel like there should be more
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: emotional punch to this, But intellectually, I'm satisfied with the
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: way everything comes together and is constructed. So from an
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: intellectual perspective, I can look at it, I can say
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: that is a really well crafted film, but my heart
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: says eh. And it's tough because I think for film
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: to really land for a person, it has to have
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: that heart moment as much as anything technical. You'll forgive
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: a lot of technical problems if it really connects with
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: you on an emotional level. I think that's sort of
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: where this this struggles. And I think this is something
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: that we've seen happen with Big a Low throughout all
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: of her movies.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: John, I think I'm with you on that, where like,
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: this movie is really technically accurate. It has some great sets,
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: great cinematography, editing, even the music, Like I enjoyed the music,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: and normally sometimes that's an afterthought or it's generic, Like
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: I thought this was actually had a lot of presence,
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: but there's there's a lot wrong with it. Like, I
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: feel like we were very gracious towards this movie for
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: a very big portion of the episode because we wanted
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: to like it, or at least I wanted to like it.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: And I've seen this before. I was kind of like eh,
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: And then in preparation for this podcast, when I watched
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: it again, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna give it
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: a fair shake. And you know, it's been almost twenty
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: years since I've seen it, you know, like let's you know,
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: like let me get let me give it another shot,
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: but at the same time, I was just kind of like, eh,
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: you know, like the first act is so slow, it
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: takes so long to get into it, and the bickering
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: between Nisen and Ford is so repetitive, like you don't
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: feel like you have any build. It's just like it
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: almost feels episodic this movie, where it's just like and
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: then this happens, and then this happens, and then this happens,
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: and it's hard to get connected with everyone because of
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: those things, and it's you know, like I get it.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: The duty to the state versus duty to one's men
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: is very powerful, but sometimes I feel like it's over
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: articulated in the dialogue and it's a little simplistic with
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: how how complex real life can be in my opinion,
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: and I just I don't know. I feel like we
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: got a lot of I simultaneously appreciated that we were
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: we stayed on the boat, but at the same time
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: we had some sort of it felt like a visual monotony,
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: and I just could not connect with this movie. I
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: wanted to like it. I wanted to like this movie
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: so bad because it has so many people that I
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: like in it, and it's a great story based on
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: real events, which in itself makes it more compelling, but
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: it just does not reach that upper echelon.
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: I think the fact that, like you said, the story
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: never leaves the boat. You don't get any third presence,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: sumniscient or anything. It's all their point of view. And
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: that's something where again, you know, it's hard to not
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: compare it to Red October, but at least but Red
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: October is we're seeing people on land, we're seeing government officials,
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: we're seeing other people, and I guess we do get
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: a tiny bit of that, you know, maybe a one percent,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: but yeah, you need that to continue to build the world.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: But I could also see going in that direction of no,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: we're gonna tell the POV, we're gonna tell the tin
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Can and that. So it's not a bad choice, it's
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: just it makes it harder to connect to the crew,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: which I think we've all agreed on that.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And just to add on to what you're saying, Darren,
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: I think that more and maybe this is the you know,
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: lap Dog of the West speaking from my heart here.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: But American big dog.
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: Yes, but more of the thing, because there is there
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: are bits of it where like they encounters like, they
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: didn't give us radiation suits, they gave us chemical suits.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: This is the wrong thing, so I'm trying to fight
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: radiation poisoning with aspirin. Like that was one of the
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: things that really contributed to the fall of the Soviets,
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: was like this bureaucratic nightmare of a life where it
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: was just like, they gave me the wrong thing. Old
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: was incorrect, this equipment is wrong.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: It would have been like you gave me a fifty
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: volt piece of equipment that's supposed to handle seventy volts,
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: you know, something like that.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: It would have been nice to see more emotional reaction
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: to that, even if it was to give somebody the
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: opportunity to be like, shut up, the political officers go
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: to hear don't say things like that, so that we
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: could at least get the sense of what the movie establishes.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: But I don't ever think lands the connective emotional punch
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: of this boat is a miracle that had even sailed
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: because of all of the compromises in construction and outfitting
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: that happened, which was simply a byproduct of the way
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: that that place ran. It was like, oh my goodness,
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: like this should have failed. This should have been a
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: disaster that potentially set off World War III. We're lucky
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: as Ella didn't. I didn't have that relief moment to
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: be like, oh geez, you know, like with the crew
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: complaining the whole time about like, ah, what, where's supposed
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: to be a superpower? Why can't I get a decent cracker?
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: You know, like that sort of vibe to the crew.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: It would be paid for by the lowest bidder.
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, basically and by people who can't you know,
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: and determined by people who can't get fired because they
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: have party connections and stuff like that.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I mean they are right, you know.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Well, as we slide into our reviews, Tristan, I want
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: you to give your thoughts on length and pacing and
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: run time. That's often something we like to talk about,
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: and you'd already kind of talked a little about the
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: first act kind of dragging. I mean overall I felt
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: that this movie it it had a weird act structor,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Like it did not feel like one two three, It
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: felt like one no three. You know, So how did
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: that play out to you? And then go into your rating?
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, as I mentioned, the first act really drags,
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: where you're kind of feeling like, Okay, when is the
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: movie gonna start? And like you said, it almost felt
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: like it had a five act structure, but not in
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: a well defined way where when you don't do a
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: five act structure properly, it feels like the way that
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: you just described it, Okay, a weird first act, a
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: super long second act, and then all of a sudden
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: hurry up and wait third act with a with a
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: super koda. Yeah that's what I was gonna say, in
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: a super weird coda. I was gonna say epilogue. But yes,
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: like it was just like, oh, okay, we didn't have
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: to end the movie here, Like we could have ended
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: the movie with Harrison Ford stripping on the boat and
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: then just some title cards. I think that would have
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: been fine. Like I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but yeah,
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: the the it was like what two hours and nineteen minutes,
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: but it was actually much shorter than that if you
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: take away the credits, and so I didn't really feel
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: like it was too long. It just was structured oddly,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: and like I said, it felt like it was episodic
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: within itself, which is not a good thing to feel
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: when watching a movie. And so to me because of
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: all the thing with the structure, with the lack of
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: emotional connection with a solemnity, and this this visual dourness.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: I wanted to like this movie, I really did, but
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: I'm going to give it a two and a half stars.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: This movie's not bad. It's not good. It's just eh h.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah that's the sound I hear.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Eh, yeah, I could. I I'm vibing with everything you're saying, Tristan,
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: I really am. I think I'm a little more forgiving
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: because I think that I still am in awe of
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: how well the camera moves inside such a tight space.
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: It really is something that amazed me while I was
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: watching it, where I think that of all of the
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: submarine movies that I've watched, this is the first one
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: since dust Bolt where I felt the claustrophobia where I
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: really felt like I was trapped in a space that
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to be in and made me question
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: why in the hell anybody would do this to themselves.
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: Relatives in the Navy, some of them did submarine duty,
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: and I'm like, I don't know how you don't go
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: crazy in a place like that. I can't even like
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: an airplane is too cramped for me. Would I would
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: have lost my mind inside a submarine, like I couldn't
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: have done it. And I really applaud that camera work.
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: I think the sound design is, you know, to what
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: Darren was talking about earlier, Like I thought the sound
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: as I was very good. A lot of technical high
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: marks for this, and so I think I wind up
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: grading it a little generously because will I ever come
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: back to K nineteen. I don't think so, but I
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: could see a situation wherein I'm sort of, you know,
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: on the couch one night, I'm having trouble sleeping, and
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: I'm like and I'm like just looking through the services
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: and it's like, oh, K nineteen's eh, okay, sure I'll
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: turn that on. Just because I enjoy the technical aspects
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: of it. I think that that stuff flows pretty well.
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: So I'm going to give it a three. It's sort
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: of a generous three. I could have gone too, because
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: again I have no emotional connection. I think the coda
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: at the end is weird, almost like it's just an
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: excuse to get Harrison Ford an old person makeup. And
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: you know, although I think Harrison Ford looks great in
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: a goatee, and I think he should try to look
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: more often. But yeah, so that's a generous three for me.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to that point, I think a Liam Neeson looks
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: with nineties old man glasses looks great in that, Like
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: they sold those looks really well in that end shot
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: in the coda. Yeah. No, I agree with all we've
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: said the technical aspect. I liked what you were leaning
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: into John about like when would I watch this again?
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: And I feel like I would put it in rotation
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: if I was on a submarine kick, if I was like, oh,
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: I want to watch a bunch of submarine movies, Like, yeah,
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: I would put it on the list. I would watch it.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: You know. It wasn't engaging enough, it was interesting enough
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: on its submarineness. You know, I wouldn't watch it going
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: I really want to watch a movie where I connect
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: with the characters. No, that's not its strength, but for
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: shooting in a oh, it definitely does. So I'm giving
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: it a three as well. I know we're going to
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: keep going up, but I feel like I'm topped out
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: a three so far for Catherine Pigelow for the last
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: couple of films. But yeah, it's as we talk about
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: her in the greater context. You know, she's nailing the technical,
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: she's nailing you know, the look, and it's just getting
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: that right combo of actor and directing and story and
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: caring that I think we're probably gonna get next week,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: as this little thing called the Academy seemed to really
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: really enjoy it. But yeah, as we move past CA.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Nineteen The Widow Maker, next week we're going to be
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: talking about two thousand and eight's The hurt Locker.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: Here on Houselights, Join the Revolution, Join the Net Party,