Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Déjà Vu (2006) - Tony Scott | Houselights #168

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Déjà Vu (2006) - Tony Scott | Houselights #168 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the ned Palty. Hello everybody at home, and welcome to House
0:22
Lights, specifically House of Scott Tony Scott. Tonight, we're talking about two
0:27
thousand and six's Deja Vu. Tonight We're talking about two thousand and six is
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Dja Vu, starring Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, and Jim Caviezel and I
0:37
am joined tonight as I always am with John Mills and Darren Moser. Darren,
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are you excited about tonight? I am? I love me a good
0:48
time bending movie. This is kind of one that slips through the cracks like
0:53
I, you know, to tip my hand. I really enjoyed the time
0:56
travelness of this movie. I'm kind of shocked I hadn't seen it yet until
1:02
now. So it's going to be a fun, fun discussion. It always
1:06
was a fun discussion and it always will be a fun discussion. Well you
1:10
only think that because I sent a post it note to you several days ago
1:14
saying you're going to have fun discussing this movie and talking about I mean,
1:18
this is Val Kilmer, you know, before everything got bad for him,
1:23
and it's it's always nice to revisit any movie with Val Kilmer. In it
1:26
because even in a thank what I would say is a thankless role, you
1:30
know. I mean, it's like the joke about Gene Hackman. He's good
1:33
in anything, right, I've yet to see a bag small role. But
1:38
like I saw his name at the beginning, I'm like, oh, I
1:40
love Christopher Pike. Aka. See that's what you nerds think of. I
1:45
think of Thirteen Days movie about Yeah, Yes, that's it's a great thing.
1:51
I think of Yeah. And we also get speaking of the cast as
1:55
we can keep going, we get another Matt Craven Denzel team up, like
2:00
like we did with Crimson Tide. And we also get Adam Goldberg, which
2:06
he's in like he Adam Goldberg plays Adam Goldberg, and no matter what he's
2:10
in, that is true. That is very very true. I thought it
2:14
was Jake Jillenhall and then I'm like, no, that is definitely not Jake
2:17
jill but had just a hint no offense to Adam Greenberg. But nobody's quite
2:23
as dreamy as Jake jillen Hall. We also get Erica Alexander, who I'm
2:29
always excited to see, uh most famous from in Living Color and right,
2:36
yes, And and also we get a non speaking role with el Fanning,
2:39
Dakota Fanning's sister. She's the one who loses her teddy bear into the drum.
2:44
Okay, okay, there you go. Oh and also Eldon Eldon Henson
2:50
who played Foggy and Daredevil and that's where I recognize him from the Butterfly Effect
2:58
and he was a kid actor and something I'm blanking on all right, Mighty
3:01
Ducks. That's what it is, Mighty Ducks Trilogy, playing Fulton Fulton read
3:07
Okay, okay, So I mean this is a stack cast like this really
3:10
this is a really really great cast. I mean like if this came out
3:14
today, maybe it could have gotten the new Oscar for the greatest cast.
3:17
That's right, yes we haven't wait wait are you are you yanking my chain?
3:23
Is that an actual Oscar? Okay? Actually it's not greatest cast.
3:27
It's great cast. It's best casting. They're adding it. It's good going
3:30
to I think the casting the casting director wins. I don't know. I
3:35
need to I need to read more about it, but I'm guessing the casting
3:38
director. We know stunts, though we can't make that really can't make stunt
3:42
out. We can do casting director stunts please, like that's a thing that
3:46
people actually do anymore in this age of C and G and robots and stuff.
3:51
Come on, C and G G. Yes, speaking of stunts.
3:53
So Jim Caviesel decided at the last minute, no, no, no,
3:58
I want to I want to do the stunt where I get hit by the
4:00
car. They're like, are you sure, because you could easily get paralyzed.
4:05
Yea, yeah, I want to do. I want to do.
4:08
I mean, you gotta tip the hat to the guy that's really commitment to
4:11
your craft. I was curious. So this is a post passion of the
4:14
Christ, Jim Cavizel, this was posting. This was post passion of the
4:17
Christ. And there was actually again I'm gonna I'm sorry, I'm stepping on
4:21
you, Darren, but uh, there was a in the in the screening
4:26
of it, when Denzel first sees Jim Cavizel's character, he goes Jesus really
4:32
loud, and the entire the entire theater erupts and laughter, and Tony Scott's
4:38
like, well, got to cut that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
4:41
yeah, a wise but hilarious, unintentional but hilarious. Yeah that's really funny.
4:48
Yeah. See, the thing is I can tell there's a lot of
4:50
love coming from you guys. Now, I never saw this before, Darren,
4:55
you never saw this before, right, so oh yeah, I've seen
5:00
this before. I've seen it before a lot, a lot. Okay,
5:01
okay, does that chip your hand as well? Remember we know there's two
5:05
types of the household that's born out beloved family favorite VHS and never even saw
5:14
it? Was it my thing? Barely heard of it? Yeah, this
5:17
this one, this one was a family favorite. This one we we rewatched
5:20
all the time. Coming from me, no, yeah, this this one
5:26
was so unlike last week when we talked about Man on Fire, that was
5:30
really just my thing. Like I I, you know, my family didn't
5:32
like Man on Fire. That was a bit too violent to be a family
5:36
favorite. But Deja Vu was was really nice middle ground there, you know,
5:42
because like it it it wasn't over the top violence like in Man on
5:45
Fire, wasn't gritty or anything like that. And also the editing, like
5:47
Darren, you made the joke about how it was like Man on Fire was
5:50
Tony Scott's editing turned up to eleven. If that was turned up to eleven,
5:55
this was about like a two or a three. He contained that editing
5:59
to the day Boom machine that has but it was just in the machine interface,
6:03
and I'm like, that is a great idea. Although we did have
6:06
a little bit of fun with the credits, still like there was still that
6:10
was still him peeking through and trying to be like, I'm not letting it
6:14
completely go, guys, I'm just seeing this is a signature thing. Now
6:16
I'm gonna stick with this, which I appreciated. Titles, yeah, because
6:20
it all already started to build the tension because again, I knew something blew
6:26
up, and I knew they were going to use a machine to fix it
6:29
or figure out who did it. But you're seeing, like you know,
6:31
all these families, all these military people, and you're like, oh,
6:34
it's it's not gonna be a good day. It's gonna be really badt knows
6:41
how to set a tone. He does know how to set a tone.
6:46
But that's actually one of the things I'll cop to it because this is my
6:47
first time seeing it and everything like it. It went on for a bit
6:51
like there, I don't know if it I'm with titles like the setup,
6:57
not just the titles, but yeah, the whole setup. Everybody getting on
7:00
board, like I couldn't help but feel like I'm not like knocking it necessarily,
7:04
but I'm just like, in the hands of another director, this part
7:08
of the movie goes a lot faster because they're just they're just saying, like,
7:12
look, this is the inciting incident. We don't need to spend too
7:15
much time here. But like, I think that it works well enough because
7:23
it establishes the humanity of all of the people on the boat. And I
7:27
think that's probably what Scott was going for with stretching it and spending the time
7:31
that he did, because those other directors who have it in a more compressed
7:35
timeline to start the movie, you don't get a sense of the tragedy.
7:40
You get a sense of the big explosion and the oh gosh, what we
7:44
have to solve. But this, you actually it really I think messes with
7:47
you, like in an empathy sense, because you start seeing people and children
7:53
and grandparents and people laughing and being happy and spending time together, and you're
7:58
like a baby, Yeah, come on, yeah, it does mess with
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you quite a bit. Well, And I was because I was intently watching
8:09
that because again, time travel ish movie, so I was looking for are
8:15
there things that I'm supposed to be picking up now that I will see later
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and understand later, And that didn't really end up being the case, except
8:24
for like him the guy standing on the bridge, but that was very obvious,
8:26
so it didn't end up being that kind of a Oh, if you
8:31
watch it a second time, you're going to notice things in this opening setup.
8:35
Like you said, John, it was really all about humanizing all of
8:39
the to be killed people, not just the love interest. You know,
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that was obviously right what we're supposed to cary Enough about now, John,
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did you know that there was time travel in this movie before you watched it?
8:50
Yeah, I remember ads for it or something like that. There's enough
8:54
about it in my brain, ad campaign whatever from the distant past that is
9:00
sort of sitting in there. I also know that Deja Vous comes out when
9:03
like I think it's a year before Next, starring Nicholas Cage, and then
9:07
there's there's no I like Next, don't you dare bad Mouth? And yeah,
9:11
we're one of like the ten people who watch Next. I know that's
9:15
that's true. And then I look for a source code because the source code
9:18
was twenty eleven. Source code's excellent. I love similar vibes yeah, you
9:24
know, it's there's like Hollywood always seems to go and it's fits and starts,
9:28
and so I think like the two thousands, there's very much like a
9:33
time travel vibe. I don't know if that taps into something where there everybody
9:35
wishes they could go back before nine to eleven and like, you know,
9:39
like but you know, there's sort of like an obsessive psychic imprint I guess
9:45
of like people wishing they could go back and stop a tragedy from happening.
9:48
Maybe that's laying underneath everybody's universal subconscious or something like that. It's so yeah
9:54
possible, and you know, like you know, speaking of you know,
9:56
tragedy and everything like that. This was this was supposed to be filmed before
10:03
hur Hurricane Katrina, but then Hurricane Katrina happened and halted production and so they
10:09
were able to film after Katrina and then integrated it into the story and then
10:15
also really emphasized and focused on hiring local talent as much as humanly possible in
10:20
order to inject money into New Orleans. And also like the explosion of the
10:26
Faery was the biggest special effects shot done in New Orleans. And I think
10:31
maybe the state at the time, and they were very environmentally conscious of doing
10:37
that and because of what happened to the city and everything like that, So
10:39
like this was this was a case of tragedy happening, and then instead of
10:45
trying to market off of that tragedy, they integrated it into the story and
10:50
again try to do well by the community. And I always, I always
10:52
really appreciated that, appreciated that when I heard about that story. It kind
10:54
of makes me think of some of the extra shots they put into Spider Man
10:58
after nine to eleven, Like the people rallying against the Green Goblin. You
11:05
know, you messed with one of us, mess with all of us.
11:05
Obviously not that, but they did make I did pick up on the vibe
11:09
of like it's in New Orleans. They are not trying to be like any
11:13
town USA. Like it's right, it's very specific that this is. And
11:18
when they're driving out to find the bad guy's place, you're like, oh,
11:22
yeah, because they're just filming the devastation, you know that as they're
11:26
driving through it. Yeah. Well, like to answer like the question you
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asked, John, I like, what I knew about this going into it?
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And I feel like this is one of those kind of movies. Like,
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obviously it did decent at the at the box office, but I felt
11:39
like it wasn't necessarily marketed well. I think if had been marketed better,
11:45
young Darren would have been like, oh, gonna go see that for sure,
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because I you know, the title deja vu. The poster is like
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nothing, it's Denzel with a explosion in front of him, and what more
11:58
do you need? Trailer, it's like, we have this machine. Okay,
12:01
I mean you know, but you know, we have this machine and
12:05
we can look only this amount of time into the past. It's like a
12:07
live view but kind of a little bit of Batman begin vibes a little bit
12:13
of his like magical sonar tech. You know, we can see inside and
12:18
outside and overside. Oh that's Dark Knight. You're think of a Dark Knight.
12:22
Yeah, it's Batman. You know, it's the same thing. Don't
12:24
do that, don't don't don't don't take us down this road, Darren,
12:28
don't don't do that, but do that to us. Yeah, I mean,
12:31
but tying that into the like John was saying on the setup of the
12:35
beginning of this movie, Yeah, it's it was kind of odd because it
12:41
was like it was going and then it kind of started like a lot of
12:45
setup on you know, what's Denzel's character doing? What are we looking into?
12:50
And he's brought in front of the machine. I kept feeling like there
12:52
was gonna be some twist in the end where they were gonna be like like
12:58
they had already identified him as a person who dies in some timeline, Like
13:01
I felt like that shoe was going to drop it ever did It wasn't part
13:05
of the plot, but overall I felt like it. I liked the the
13:09
principles of time travel. It it did use. I liked it. You
13:13
have a lot of predestination, you have, Okay, I want to I
13:16
want to talk to you about that because this okay, when you when you
13:24
watch When I watched this for the first time, I was like, man,
13:26
that was cool because I don't know if I really knew how much time
13:30
travel was involved, Like I didn't know how hardcore it was going to go.
13:33
And then when he gets inside the machine, I'm like, Oh,
13:35
we're really doing this. Oh okay, so this is like really time travel,
13:39
Like he's straight up going to go into the past. Okay, So
13:43
okay, we're doing this, And so I, like I said, I
13:46
was like, I didn't know much about it when I watched it, and
13:48
you know, it was you know, explosions, it's fun, it's time
13:50
travel, it's cool, predestination, alternate timeline and things like that, like
13:54
what we've done, we've always done. And then when I, you know,
13:58
watched it with the family, it was just kind of like nostalgia.
14:01
Liked it, just watched it again. But then when I watched it this
14:03
time in preparation for this podcast, I was like, Wow, this time
14:07
travel really doesn't make sense. And that is true, it really, really
14:11
really doesn't make sense. And so I tried to look it up and someone
14:16
trying to explain it. And I'm going to read this to you and it
14:20
is long, but you give us the cliff Notes version No, So here
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we go, real quick, real quick, real quick. I'm gonna read
14:28
it faster. The events of the movie suggest at least four timelines exist.
14:31
The movie begins in the third timeline, where agent Doug Carlin investigates the Fairy
14:35
bombing and the death of Claire Kutchev. In this timeline, he uses the
14:39
machine to look into the earlier events of the same timeline to learn that Carro
14:43
that Carol Orstat killed Claire and bomb the fairy. The presence of Doug's bloody
14:48
clothing and fingerprints in the late Claire's apartment, however, indicate the presence of
14:52
two previous timelines. In the fourth and final timeline, Doug's future self gets
14:56
shot while preventing Claire's death. The audience learns that it was Claire's eye to
15:00
go back to her apartment to dress his wounds. The audience also learned that
15:03
it was Doug who crashed the ambulance into Carrol's fish house in the third timeline,
15:07
which also indicates at least two previous timelines. In the third timeline,
15:09
since Claire was dead, the only way Doug would know to go to her
15:13
apartment to dress his wounds is if she had given him the idea in a
15:16
previous second timeline. Since he already knew about her apartment in the third timeline,
15:20
then there must have been at least one previous first timeline where he did
15:22
save Claire, but the fairy still blew up, necessitating the investigation into the
15:26
past. The presence of his future self in the second timeline nesitates at least
15:31
one previous timeline that may or may not have included time travel. Below are
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all four timelines that must exist for the movie's logic to make sense. Timeline
15:39
right, I think I hear you. I hear you, But I think
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it's that person is way over complicating I'm not getting that time back. So
15:48
thanks so much for reading it to me. Okay, Darren, But is
15:50
he over complicating it? Because here's the thing, if you have to do
15:56
that to make it make sense, it doesn't make sense. I'm gonna be
15:58
over here while this happens. So again, I've only watched it once,
16:03
so probably watching it a couple of times would help it sink in more.
16:07
Really what it comes down to, because I like that they keep the machine
16:11
slightly ambiguous. We don't exactly know how it works, we don't exactly know
16:15
how much power we have to control the past. Obviously going to the past
16:19
has a great effect. There's really two like like they explain it, there's
16:25
two outcomes. There's the girl dying and the girl not dying. And I
16:30
get what you're saying though, because there it does start to become a circular
16:33
argument. Because yeah, when they go first to the crime scene, and
16:37
I noticed how they started to say like, oh, your fingerprints are everywhere
16:41
you've been a bad detective. It's like because he had already been there in
16:44
the in the past, and the way they do the phone recordings and oh
16:51
someone's with me, like we can always we can already see those kind of
16:53
hints of like that's going to come into play later when we see it on
16:57
the second time around. But I there that if it was just a pure
17:03
predestination paradox where it already did happen, I think it would be straight up
17:08
the problem is that things did change. She doesn't die, she doesn't get
17:15
her fingers cut off, she doesn't you know, wash up at that appropriate
17:18
time. Hours earlier, he the bad guy, ends up on the on
17:22
the ferry. So yeah, I totally understand and agree. Yeah, if
17:26
you look at it too deep, it starts to fall apart as he's making
17:30
more and more of a change. But I do but I kind of give
17:34
it that just because that part the divergence happens late enough in the story,
17:41
especially after he's actually traveled through time, and that I can that I can
17:45
swallow it, you know, is it is it a perfect you know,
17:48
closed loop and and immaculate writing no, but I think it's enough to get
17:52
the point across on on changing the fate at the end, and then it
17:59
kind of me at the very end when I was like, oh, oh,
18:03
he's not going to make it because he already exists in this time and
18:07
we can get our happy ending where he was like I didn't even see that
18:11
coming until they were underwater, and then it all clicked, and I'm like,
18:15
oh, you know. The only way that I can wrap my head
18:18
around it and try to make it make sense is a little bit like Donnie
18:22
Darko, where you have multiple timelines collapsing on themselves in order to make one
18:27
timeline. So like you have a bunch of tangency as well. Yeah,
18:32
well frequency more linear of like havn't seen it spoiler alert, Okay what I
18:40
mean, Yeah, I know what you're talking about. All right, moving
18:45
on, moving Look you Donnie Darko with the collapsing time makes more sense.
18:48
But look two things here. One, I'm willing to live with it because
18:53
it becomes like a Sarah Connor sort of ending where she's the only one that
18:57
remembers what the future was supposed to be, right, and at the same
19:03
time she's she's actually the one that gets brought back from death or whatever.
19:08
Denzel now will never know about the time travel thing. He can't or doesn't
19:14
really tell her and she doesn't know. So yes, it's it's the way
19:18
function collapsing on itself once it's observed sort of thing. But number two,
19:22
I will totally cop to the fact that it's not confusing. It's just sort
19:29
of underwhelming the way everything goes with this movie from where I was sitting,
19:33
because so much of it seems a just a I don't even want to say
19:40
foregone conclusion because I was like, oh, of course pre doesn't, but
19:42
like there wasn't the fire. And maybe the problem for me is that I
19:48
love Man on Fire, I love how it's done, I love what's going
19:51
on with it, and then this just feels so underwhelming to me in terms
19:56
of those things. The movie comes alive once he time travels, once he
20:03
climbs in that machine, I'm like, oh cool, the last twenty or
20:07
so minutes of this are actually gonna be pretty interesting now, but the build
20:10
up to it just takes too long to get there, so I can honestly
20:14
says, you know, just Johnny moviegoer, I don't care about the mechanics
20:17
of it, because by that point in the movie, I was like,
20:18
can we just end this? And then when it gets interesting, I'm like
20:22
I worry about it later, Like I'm not sitting there worried about the time
20:26
travel mechanics because I'm like, it basically just you know, to reuse to
20:30
use the phrase it was used a second ago, you know, collapses on
20:33
itself. It collapses on itself. Just become an action movie. And it's
20:36
like, it just becomes an action movie at that that point. It's like,
20:38
Okay, that's fine, and I can see that just because, like
20:42
you said, this is no Man on Fire like Man on Fire was a
20:45
masterpiece. This is more of a standard action movie well told with a time
20:52
travel twist thrown in. You could almost make this whole movie without the time
20:56
travel and it's just him Like take the whole day ja Voo machine out of
21:00
it. It'd be more boring, but you could tell like, it's not
21:03
a really complex story. It just adds this time prep, which I liked.
21:08
I like, you could make this just a detective story and replace the
21:12
corpse at the beginning as the mcguffin with something else. Yeah, Yeah,
21:15
it's a detective story where he has the ability to go back in time and
21:19
change the outcome. That's the only twist really. I will say too that
21:25
it's an incredibly fortunate thing that the the center of the time travel machine thing
21:30
was just perfectly fitted for six Washington to focusing on that area. I didn't
21:38
quite get that either, And also like why there's oxygen and also why he
21:42
can project sound into it, like and have two way communication. Yeah,
21:47
that's that's one of those like it's a movie shaite audio because he asked them,
21:52
and I don't think they I love that. I love that. I'm
21:56
going to say it a third time. I friggin love that because that's one
22:00
of the first questions out of his mouth is how'd you get the audio?
22:03
And they all just ignore him because there's no there's no explanation, like there's
22:07
in the realm of that story. There's nothing that they could think of that
22:14
would be convinced. I mean again, the only thing I could think of
22:18
was like Dark Knight, see I got right this time? Uh, where
22:22
they could say, like, we've hacked into everybody's phones and have recordings from
22:26
the last four days and we're playing it back at the same time, but
22:29
that goes in a whole nother direction, Like I'm glad they didn't explain it,
22:33
like, yeah, it was fine. I didn't need an answer,
22:36
or like, you know, sound waves that bounce off the walls or something
22:37
like that. You know, it's it's sci fi. It's one of those
22:40
things. Yeah. Oh, speaking of speed of laser. Okay, okay,
22:44
So that was something that kind of kind of irked me on this watch.
22:47
So I liked that they were ambiguous with how it works. But at
22:49
the same time, so we're in this high tech, low tech area,
22:55
like it's a it's a high tech makeshift area where they have monitors everywhere.
22:59
It's a project you're showcasing what the machine can be, affordable, high tech
23:03
lab. It's meant to travel exactly. And so are we supposed to believe
23:07
that the main screen that they're looking at is the literal actual portal, because
23:14
if he's shining a laser at the screen, it's not just a projector,
23:18
like, that's the actual portal. So I did say it is right there,
23:22
you just can't see it, but they were also vague in that.
23:26
Yeah, I'm gonna quote Vankman from Ghostbusters. I don't know, like great
23:34
question. Next, I do love. I did love Denzel's reaction though,
23:40
like when he's finally had enough yes, and like he knows that everyone is
23:44
lying to him and he starts throwing stuff around him, breaking a monitor.
23:48
It's just like dead No she did. Yeah. I was like, okay,
23:51
Okay, He's like it's like no, I said, I said,
23:55
explain it to me, okay, not tell me, not talk to me
23:59
like science. Yeah, not talk science to me. Explain it to me.
24:03
Yeah, it's just it. But but you know, and of course
24:07
Denzel Washington, I think, is bringing everything he can to the role.
24:11
Now come explain it. I mean, just it's just I honestly I think
24:18
that this is one of those things where it would have it would have worked
24:21
tremendously well as like a novel. But it just this is not a big
24:26
screen story the way that I think they thought it was. And Denzel.
24:30
The way I get to that is like Denzel's performance in those moments is great.
24:36
He's trying to like you almost get the sense of it's like when you
24:38
go to see a live stage production and there's some point where like it's sort
24:42
of like man and then one of the actors just seems to like come out
24:47
like just absolutely trying to breathe life into the production. And it's like that's
24:51
where I see Denzel in a lot of this Is. I'm sorry, mister
24:55
Washington. In a lot of this Is, I see him being him,
24:59
you know, like really bringing commitment to the role and CAVEASL too, Coveasl's
25:03
you know, he's like, the guy is completely believable as who he is
25:08
in this movie. He's like, he totally sells me on it. And
25:11
i'd say that, you know, aside from as you've said, Tristan the
25:15
Perpetual Sunset, but with a Tony Scott movie, he just always gets his
25:19
actors to show up. And there are plenty of actors, especially you know,
25:23
big name actors that with a script that's sort of a little rough around
25:30
the edges, they kind of phone it in. They like that. You
25:32
know, we've all seen movies where that you can tell that the the actor
25:34
sort of is like, oh, oh okay, I'm kind of trapped,
25:38
let me just get this done. But everybody shows up with this commitment to
25:41
still be as good as they can be, and it's like I think,
25:45
I think Denzel Washington's performance is really really symbolic, you know, like the
25:49
signpost of that. Well, there's a lot of moments when you know Denzel
25:52
and it's I think it's totally fine to say Denzel is Denzel. You know,
25:56
I've been watching him on screen for so long, like I feel like
25:59
a no. One. Well, he has one of those names that's unique,
26:03
Like you don't that's true, you know, it's it's not ostentatious like
26:07
when you say, you know, like when you call Brad Pitt Brad or
26:08
something like that, like that doesn't work, you know, Like, but
26:11
with Denzel, you can do it. Darren, can you do me?
26:14
Favorite? Can you look up the box office a return on Man on Fire
26:18
and DejaVu? So for Deja Vu, it was a budget of seventy five
26:22
million with a box office of oneint eighty so kind of doubled, so not
26:27
double good. And then for the previous one and just a Man on Fire
26:34
didn't do that well, yeah, Man on Fire was a budget of sixty
26:38
to seventy and returned one thirty so little bit less budget, little less return,
26:44
so about but no, like you know, oh, it made seven
26:45
hundred million dollars or five hundred million dollars like this one definitely you know,
26:49
didn't lose money, but you throw in whatever they were calling marketing at the
26:55
moment, and well this is still right before the dawn of the marvel age
26:59
too though, where movies were not expected to make six hundred and two a
27:02
billion dollars. This after Domino, because we skipped Dominant, which I love.
27:10
Domino was fifty million budget, twenty three million return. So that that
27:14
did not do well, That hurt a little, that went stung. And
27:18
that one, that one was much more in the Man on Fire editing style.
27:22
Oh yes, it was way more, way more John on one thing
27:26
I want to address on one thing that I want to talk about is I
27:30
feel like kind of what you were getting at earlier is and one thing that
27:33
I noticed in my rewatch is that the second act really lingers like we're we're
27:37
at the point when he, you know, is brought into Val Kilmer's team
27:41
and then they go about their investigation up until he goes back in time.
27:47
Would would we agree that that's the second act? Yeah? I agree,
27:49
sure, and so and that's that's the section that feels really long. So
27:55
I looked it up and apparently all the scenes with the text talking is forty
27:59
minutes of the movie is just the text talking, and that was painfully obvious
28:04
on this rewatch. And even though I like this movie, part of me
28:10
was just like, I could have ten minutes out of that easy. Yeah,
28:12
well, this doesn't hold up as much as I wanted it to.
28:15
Not just cut. I agree with you, Darren, there are definitely places
28:19
where this could be trimmed down. It's it's two hours six and I think
28:22
this could have been one forty five. But I think that even going so
28:26
far as to find an excuse to have some somebody simply explain something or talk
28:32
to him about something outside, like while they're getting a cup of coffee or
28:37
going out and saying, okay, look here's what we're going to do.
28:40
I'm going to do this, and then we're gonna go and we're gonna view.
28:42
Like I know they had established the rules or whatever, but like whatever
28:47
tweak you have to do to be like, oh, I can tell you,
28:49
for instance, I did. We we have to calibrate the machine,
28:52
and I do this thing in a certain spot and we know to look for
28:56
it to make sure the machine is still calibrate and then they look back on
28:59
like Kilmer getting a specific order at a specific Starbucks at it you know,
29:03
hey, product placement for everybody. But you know what I'm saying, like,
29:07
id them outside of the environment and they and You've suddenly got a little
29:11
more dynamism in that forty minutes instead of just people were watching people watch something.
29:18
Yeah, And I think maybe that's why Denzel Washington's character is so incredibly
29:22
you know, relatable in the moment where he freaks out because I'd be bored
29:26
too, like no, no, no, no, talk to I'm standing
29:29
right here, you're looking at a TV screen. I did like in that
29:32
second act. I liked the dual vision chase, like that was very creative
29:37
and very interesting that like you're watching in the past in this one eye and
29:42
and I'm like, dude, so he puts it Audi's driving. I'm like,
29:45
what are you doing? Man? You go die? A young young
29:48
Tim Cook saw that and said the Apple Vision pro that's what I'm going to
29:53
thank you so and it even had a connected to the car. So it's
29:59
true. While I kept thinking while that scene was going on, was wouldn't
30:03
it be smarter just to put the headset in the dash and then have them
30:08
watch it. Do you have someone drive with you? What? Person?
30:12
One person? But I mean whatever, No, No, Val Kilmer sitting
30:15
there doing nothing talking to the texts who were running everything. Very important because
30:21
you have a chain of authority right there that's unbreakable. They need a little
30:25
bit better communication to look left no more left left no, no back to
30:29
the I'm like, okay, that was my guys like yeah, And at
30:32
the same time, you felt bad for Denzel Washington because you're sitting there and
30:34
you're watching and any of us who have played a video game, no,
30:40
like we're getting frustrated on his behalf. Yeah exactly. It's like, come
30:45
on, man. Also, I think I feel like I've I feel like
30:48
I'm overly sensitive to it now in a post Superhero boom world. But like
30:53
that car crash that he caused while doing that was way too big. Should
31:00
have been a fender bender. It should have been a fender bender, yeah
31:03
some people. Yeah, no, car should have flipped, like multiple cars
31:07
flipped. And he said he'd like, oh, send paramedics. I'm like,
31:10
you're the reason that happened, you jackass. Well, on top of
31:14
that, he's all caught up in this and all torn up to save one
31:17
person's life and he probably cost you know, two or three in that accident.
31:22
So you know, I'm not being glib, but you know, maybe
31:26
a little. Well, although they did establish that his goal was and rightfully
31:30
so, focusing on her to find like at that moment they had found the
31:34
bomber and like that's the ultimate goal. But yeah, but like you you
31:40
knowe no, but no. But the thing is maybe that's part of the
31:42
script needing a rewrite sort of thing where his motivation was that, But it
31:48
was also I think cheapened because they made him obsessed with going to save her
31:53
and I see this and I'm like, wait, what, Like he's seen
31:56
her on a TV screen and you know, like it just sort of yeah,
32:00
that sort of when that was that big thing was that he falls in
32:05
love with her watching the last day of her life. Yeah, I can
32:08
you read it right here. When they were writing the script, they had
32:12
this flash of what if he fell in love with her by watching the last
32:15
day of her life? And it feels like that because that is exactly what
32:19
happens in the movie, and that has the kind of story moment and you
32:23
guys, know what I'm talking about in other movies where they latch onto it
32:28
and they won't kill that darling. That that will that will be what this
32:31
movie is about, even if it kind of shouldn't. I'm not saying it
32:35
shouldn't. I'm just saying it has that. It has that all over it.
32:37
And speaking of the writers, this was the most expensive script to date
32:45
up to that date purchase it was four and a half million dollars. Wait
32:50
what to buy that script? Really? Yeah? And here I am pooping
32:54
on it. I feel kind of like a choke. Now, Well,
32:58
no, you shouldn't, because apparently Scott quit the project part way through and
33:05
Denzel almost did, and they basically did like massive rewrites that were so good
33:10
that Scott and Denzel came back and we were like, Okay, we can
33:14
do this like it had issue. But why did they sign on if they
33:16
didn't like it. I'll never understand, Hollywood, man, I will just
33:20
absolutely never understand that that gig because it's like if you disliked it, that
33:24
whatever, like it matters, like it matters, I you know, yeah,
33:29
I mean a lot of that goes into it, like you you know,
33:30
you you fall in love with the concept and then you're like, all
33:35
I need is Tony Scott and this concept, and I know I'm going to
33:37
be in go to hands. You know, it could be something like that,
33:39
Like there's so much that goes into it. So many movies. I
33:43
mean, dude, you're you're you're a hardcore Prequels fan. You know,
33:45
so many movies get started without a script and finished, let alone one that
33:50
you know is working on it as you go. And yeah, and okay,
33:53
So one thing I do want to talk about is, you know,
33:57
we talked about how the editing is way toned down, way toned down as
34:00
opposed to Domino or Men on Fire and everything like that. But we did
34:04
talk about how you can still see a little bit of it, you know,
34:07
within the titles and within the machine and everything like that. But I
34:13
would love to talk about the cinematography. So, you know, John,
34:15
I want to talk to you first. Were there any moments that really screamed
34:21
to you like, oh, this is this is still Tony Scott, even
34:23
though the editing is toned down, this the cinematography is clearly Tony Scott.
34:27
Well, I think I made the joke about the perpetual sunset. There's always
34:30
there's always a a portion of the movie that has that smog filter on the
34:35
top of it, and it's like, yeah, okay, there he is
34:37
there, I see him coming through. I mean, you know, the
34:39
selection of shots. I mean, you know, the guy likes certain he
34:43
likes to frame faces in a certain way. I very much feel that somebody
34:47
could sit down and see this, and even without knowing Tony Scott's name,
34:52
you could say, you know, this was directed by the same guy that
34:55
did Crimson Tide, and somebody would be like, yeah, okay, I
34:58
could see that, you know, or something like that. So I saw
35:01
similarities there visually. Where the unfortunate thing is that while I saw similarities,
35:07
I also saw and again maybe this is just because I'm coming off of Man
35:12
on Fire, this is my first time seeing this, but it's so much
35:15
less inspired, so much less unique passion in this that it feels like it
35:22
also was possibly shot by a Tony Scott imitator, where he has such a
35:28
signature style that when he's not wowing me, it becomes less distinct in its
35:32
own way, right, because there are people who have copied his style.
35:36
And if you had me watch this and you robbed me of the ability to
35:38
know that Tony Scott directed it, and he said, do you think Tony
35:42
Scott directed this? I'd be like, yeah, I believe it. But
35:45
you know, I don't see anything that's like boom, except for, of
35:47
course, you know, as we keep saying the time travel machine, I'm
35:51
like, oh, that's him, that's him. So long winded, I
35:52
guess, but yeah, I see him, but it's not his most inspired
35:57
effort. Was there anything specifically that you know, noticed about the night scenes
36:01
as I'm trying to replay it in my brain, I mean, i'd have
36:05
to be looking at the I'd have to be looking at the shots, Darren.
36:09
Was there anything that screamed to you about the night scenes? And I'm
36:12
gonna I'm gonna follow up with what I'm getting at. I just want to
36:14
see if you guys notice I say it out loud. When you first say
36:16
night scenes, I think of the scenes in the goggles because those were at
36:20
night first. But I'm trying to remember night scenes. There weren't many.
36:27
It was shot on digital. Oh yeah, okay, yes, no,
36:30
yea yea yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, you can definitely
36:34
tell a difference there, yes, yes, because and I know that I
36:37
know the shots you're specifically talking about, too, because it does jump out
36:42
at you where you're like, whoa, hey, that's different. Yes,
36:45
And to answer your question, Darren, not necessarily just the night shots,
36:50
but it's just that's where it's very noticeable that it's it's digital. HD is
36:54
in the night shots. Because at that time, in two thousand and six,
36:59
it was for a feature film to utilize HD. It was still in
37:04
its infancy. And now I'm not going to say that it was new,
37:07
but it was still very young. And it surprised me because when I was
37:13
watching it and this was Tony Scott. I think this. Listeners correct me
37:17
if I'm wrong, but I think this was Tony Scott's first dalliance with HD.
37:22
And then when you see the stuff in the machine, it completely makes
37:28
sense that it's it looks different than the rest of the film. But then
37:31
I also noticed it a few other times when we were outside the machine he
37:36
utilized HD. So it makes me wonder I would love to find out more
37:40
because you know, he also shot on the Ari Flex like like he likes
37:45
to do using Panavision lenses and everything like that, but like he did with
37:49
Man on Fire and Domino, but with Deja Vu, he mixed in the
37:52
Panavision Genesis HD camera, which I think the first movie to ever use that,
38:00
like first big movie with Superman Returns and Tokyo Like that year took like
38:04
a here in two thousand and six, Apocalypto, Click, Flyboys, Scary
38:08
Movie Four, Superman Returns, Fast and Furious, Tokyo Drift were the major
38:14
motion pictures besides Dajov that used that camera, and it was the Genesis was
38:19
used all the way up to twenty twelve with Ted Ted was the last movie
38:23
to use that specific camera, and of course it was replaced by something that
38:27
Red made. But anyway, I'm getting geeky, but I just wanted to
38:30
say that was really interesting to see Tony Scott use digital in two thousand and
38:34
six. Yeah, I'm seeing notes on like the reception and stuff like that,
38:38
and I feel like a lot of people's overall view on this is for
38:44
this story, Tony Scott may have not been the best choice. He definitely
38:47
gave it a more actiony flare, and it seems like the writer was really
38:53
unhappy and didn't even watch the movie afterwards. But yeah, it maybe in
38:59
the hands of like a Cameron or something like that. This kind of a
39:01
story where they're really going to lean into the sci fi aspect instead of the
39:07
backdrop of an action movie, which is not bad. It's just what we
39:12
got. What do you think on that? John? The thing is,
39:15
I'm still fixated on the digital thing because Collateral. Sorry, like this is
39:21
when the experimentation is starting to happen because there are certain because like in Collateral,
39:24
Michael Mann starts experimenting with digital and then that has to be like the
39:29
most famous example in a major Hollywood film. But it is one of those
39:34
things where, yeah, those shots are definitely those shots, like you can
39:37
definitely pick up on that sort of thing. But is Tony Scott the wrong
39:42
director for this? I don't know who. I don't know who's the right
39:45
director, you know, Like I mean, if we're still talking about digital,
39:47
you know, like Collateral came out in two thousand and four. Attack
39:50
of the Clones came out in two thousand and two. Yeah, and that
39:52
was HD. That was the first. So that's why I really wanted to
39:57
say, like digital pipeline. Oh my god, Yes, I'm so glad
40:00
that you brought that up because I actually used my senior thesis speech, not
40:06
senior no, my fresh my freshman speech. Like in college, I went
40:10
this. No. In in the university, I went to like they make
40:15
every freshman write a speech and give it in front of the entire school.
40:19
And mine was on the digital revolution, and I used Attack of the Clones
40:22
as an example of the digital pipeline and how it was the first movie to
40:28
have a first gin copy, Like there was no there was no data loss,
40:32
right because like when you film a movie and then put it into the
40:36
computer shot at but yeah, yeah, you're you're you're you're losing you know,
40:43
like you're losing a generation like this one. There is no generation loss
40:46
anyway. But that was in two thousand and two, collaterals in two thousand
40:50
and four, and then it becomes more mainstream and still, like I said,
40:52
it's still young in two thousand and six, but it becomes more mainstream,
40:54
and so you know, it just made me think of like when I
40:58
was thinking about like other direct I was just like, oh, could this
41:00
be a George Lucas movie, like because I mean, actually it probably would
41:05
be about the same because it's a lot of sitting and talking, so it's
41:07
very Lucasian, you know, like in a New Millennium, real lucas Yeah,
41:14
I went there. I went there. Yeah, you got to do
41:15
that. That's fine. But back to the question of whether Tony Scott's the
41:21
right director for this, I think that he makes the last half hour interesting
41:24
in a way that other directors wouldn't. It would have just probably I probably
41:29
would have tapped out if it hadn't been him. Even with it being him,
41:35
there's barely enough to keep to keep me with it to the end.
41:39
My question while we're talking about all this production stuff is this movie apparently won
41:45
something called the International Gold Reel Award for Sound editing, and so I think
41:52
that's something that can be easily overlooked, especially when you're talking about you know,
41:55
time travel stuff and listening and watching and all of that. Was there
41:59
anything about the sound that like popped out anybody? Because for me, I'm
42:01
like I read that and I'm like, Okay, there wasn't anything in this
42:06
where I was like, wow, that's that's such great sound editing. Like
42:08
it didn't really see it though, because especially in the time travel or or
42:14
the you know, where they're using the machine, like, yeah, definitely
42:16
a really complex soundscape to you know, we we take cues of like what
42:21
are we hearing in our left and right ear? And like all of that
42:23
is made from scratch, not that it's not in a normal movie, but
42:28
uh yeah. Although I will say the the beep they had every single time
42:32
it kind of like refocused, was a little louder than I think it needed
42:37
to be because we heard it many many times. It was like digit like
42:42
okay, we get it, we get it. Also, they took some
42:45
control and they took some sound effects from Blade Runner as well, which I
42:50
thought was fun. Now, one thing before we close up shop and one
42:53
thing that we didn't talk about, like, well, it's just Denzel's character.
42:57
I really like Doug Carlin and I love his introduction and the type of
43:01
investigator that he is. And the only reason why I'm bringing this up is
43:06
because it's there's this moment that has stuck with me since two thousand and six
43:09
from when I saw this, and I even repeated in my daily life,
43:13
where like he goes to Bruce Greenwood and he lays out the entire investigation at
43:20
his feet, with the evidence with you know, like with motive and maybe
43:24
not motive, but you know what I'm saying, Like he lays out the
43:28
whole story, and then Bruce Greenwood's just like, yeah, we can,
43:30
we can look into that. And then Denzel just kind of takes a moment,
43:34
looks at him and goes, Okay, yeah, it's just only Denzel
43:42
could deliver that that way, and all of us know exactly what's going on
43:46
in his head, like he maybe not only Denzel, but you know what
43:50
I'm trying to say is it's like, really, Denzel was just really good
43:54
in this even though like I totally he doesn't know what's going on, but
43:59
he, yeah, umps in. Denzel saw himself as the audience in this
44:04
movie, and I think that really shines through. All Right, so let's
44:07
wrap it up. Darren brief already wrapped it up. Tristan, Oh no,
44:12
you could have been standing right behind us and then boom, he's gone.
44:15
Darren Briefly, can you give us your rationale for your rating? Yeah?
44:20
So it finally just clicked for me because I you know, this movie
44:23
takes a lot from a lot of other different things. We were talking about
44:27
source code and other things. Really, this movie tried to do what Minority
44:32
Reports succeeded at miner reports very similar and you have kind of precognition and it
44:38
leads to like the choice of fate and decision. Obviously, I think the
44:44
superior film is minor report to this one. But like John said, I
44:49
think Tony Scott did a decent job. Like I was entertained, I had
44:54
fun. I think they left enough gaps on like explaining it like purposely not
45:00
and I think that worked really well. I think Denzel was wonderfully cast on
45:05
that. I mean, I'm not surprised it's Denzel, it's Tonty Scott.
45:07
Of course it's going to be Denzel's shocks nobody, but yeah, he delivered.
45:14
You know. It's kind of like an episode of Star Trek really,
45:15
where like someone gets pulled into future tech and they don't know how it works.
45:21
All they know is they got to save the girl and do their job.
45:24
So yeah, So for the first time watching this, I'm going to
45:28
give it a solid four. I really enjoyed it. Hey, we put
45:30
it in my rotation on my shelf of time travel movies. Probably we watch
45:37
frequency in a couple others. But so yeah, I wish past Daren had
45:40
given it a chance, but finally catching it up with two of my best
45:45
friends. It was very enjoyable. So for four stars, man, I
45:50
wasn't expecting that high. I think that's fantastic. I'm glad that you enjoyed
45:53
it so much. John, are you going to give it a four?
45:54
Two? I am not, like I was saying. I was kind of
46:00
bored by the time they send him back, and then suddenly the movie came
46:05
back to life and I was like, oh, okay, yeah, we're
46:07
going again, and it's it's not it's not Tony Scott's best work, and
46:13
so I wind up landing with a two and a half. Ooh, two
46:16
and a half, brutals, That's where I'm at. No, man,
46:22
not even a three? All right? Well me, even though I really
46:28
like this movie, and I will rewatch it again, you know, I'll
46:30
keep it in the rotation. I think, yeah, the old family favorite.
46:35
I think it's a great Denzel movie. I think it's a great action
46:37
film that kind of drags in the middle, and upon rewatches, I think
46:42
some of the some of the magic is lost. But I'm gonna give it
46:45
a generous three and a half stars with a lot of love. So there
46:51
you have it, folks, we have a four, a three and a
46:52
half and a debilitating two and a half. And you know, Darren,
46:58
can you tell us what we're gonna do next week on house Lights House of
47:01
Scott But we already did it last week? Just kidding, I know too
47:05
many time travel jokes. Next week we're going to be ending the House of
47:09
Tony Scott with twenty ten's Unstoppable. Here on Houselights, Join the Revolution,
47:16
Join the Nerd Party.