Latest / Citizen Frame / The Life of Chuck

Transcript

The Life of Chuck · Citizen Frame

• 0:02
  I know that might hurt, but it's the truth.
• 0:06
  Math is truth. It won't lie to you.
• 0:11
  It doesn't factor in your preferences. It's pure that way.
• 0:17
  Math can do a lot of things. Math can be art. But it can't lie.
• 0:25
  So, take another run at those two.
• 0:28
  Because chuckle you are
• 0:32
  good you have art
• 0:36
  in you hey everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of cso frame and
• 0:40
  today we're still talking king grounded king i guess you can say well no supernatural
• 0:46
  drama king well it's still grounded it's it's with a with a slight fan with Well,
• 0:53
  a fantasy element. Yes, yes, of course.
• 0:56
  But we're talking the lost film that no one ever saw, which I'm still in shock.
• 1:01
  I think it has to do with bad marketing and people don't know what the fuck they want to see.
• 1:06
  They'd rather see green screen animals.
• 1:09
  But the movie's called Life of Chuck. Now, this is directed by Mike Flanagan,
• 1:14
  Stephen King's new go-to director.
• 1:17
  He's known for Doctor Sleep and Gerald's Game, and he's currently working on
• 1:22
  the miniseries for Carrie.
• 1:24
  And for Amazon and Mike Flanagan to me right now, right now while we talk about
• 1:31
  directors are kind of fading they're all guns for hire now for major studios, especially for Marvel,
• 1:38
  so you kind of, we don't have the Scorsese's, the Carpenters,
• 1:43
  the Hitchcocks you know, we can keep going we can keep going on,
• 1:46
  you know and there's still out there, don't get me wrong.
• 1:51
  And I can list a couple of them.
• 1:55
  But this guy right now, active, young, to me, is probably the best film director
• 2:05
  out there right now, horror-wise.
• 2:08
  From Hush, which is just a wonderful little independent film he did,
• 2:11
  to The Haunting of Hill House, to The House of Usher, to the incredibly wonderful
• 2:18
  miniseries is Midnight Mass.
• 2:21
  And he's now founded his own production company. It's called Red Room Pictures.
• 2:27
  Which, you know, is a little nod to our boy King. He's obviously a King fan.
• 2:32
  And this leads us to Life of Chuck, which is based on a short story in the collection.
• 2:37
  It's called If It Bleeds Collection, which is funny because If It Bleeds Collection,
• 2:43
  this film doesn't seem like it would really fit that title.
• 2:46
  Well, King does that sometimes with his collections. You know,
• 2:49
  it's like a good anthology.
• 2:51
  You sort of, you know, you vary the stories. There's a good mix of stories.
• 2:56
  And as we know, doing this sort of Keane drama non-supernatural,
• 3:01
  even though there are supernatural elements here.
• 3:05
  Keane mixes his stories in his collections like a good anthology there's a good
• 3:11
  variation of different types of tales Yeah, he used to do what they call I think
• 3:17
  it was called the Night Shift Collections,
• 3:20
  No, well, that is a one-off collection, Night Shift,
• 3:24
  yeah okay because frank darabont worked on
• 3:27
  that before he we will talk about him next with shawshank well
• 3:31
  different seasons darabont you know got rita
• 3:34
  hayworth in the shawshank redemption but you know
• 3:37
  what it is stephen keen is that prolific it's hard to
• 3:39
  keep track i mean this guy you know there's at least at least one or two novels
• 3:45
  from him per year and then there's collections in there as well and the guy's
• 3:49
  near 80 so he's been doing this for a long long time so there is so much Keane
• 3:54
  material out there. He is extremely prolific.
• 3:58
  Well, he's funny because I think he says something about Shawshank O'Damson.
• 4:01
  He's one of his favorites, obviously, that got produced.
• 4:04
  And he said, yeah, I finally got my five grand check. He sells his stuff for nothing.
• 4:10
  Yeah, one dollar. Stephen Keane allows his stories to be filmed for a dollar.
• 4:17
  See, I like that. Go have fun.
• 4:21
  And with likes of Mike Flanagan, Mick Garris would be a good example,
• 4:26
  Frank Darabont, another example.
• 4:28
  He's really brought some up-and-coming directors, kind of like what Corman did,
• 4:33
  the people we talked about when we talked about Corman.
• 4:38
  So he's not a greedy bastard.
• 4:41
  No, I mean, he's basically, you know He's always supported Upcoming talent in
• 4:47
  terms of You know, adaptations of his work Certainly in the film world Well,
• 4:52
  that being said, it would have been nice To be kind of.
• 4:56
  You know, because some of his work Some of the works that's gone from paper to screen Are pretty bad,
• 5:01
  Yeah, well, I mean, you're going
• 5:02
  to get that if you're going to sell the rights for a dollar, you know.
• 5:06
  I mean, me and you could do an adaptation of, I don't know, Salem's Lot or something,
• 5:11
  and star and write and direct it. I think once the property's sold, we can't touch it.
• 5:16
  So I think like Warner Brothers has Salem's Lot now.
• 5:19
  Well, The Monkey has been, yeah, I mean, this is all complicated,
• 5:23
  but I know The Monkey's been filmed a couple of times before,
• 5:26
  just recently we reviewed it actually, with the Osgood Perkins.
• 5:29
  But yes don't get confused with the monkey and
• 5:32
  monkey shines no i'm not okay okay
• 5:36
  okay yeah there was a very low
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  budget which i haven't seen version of the monkey apparently yeah i wouldn't
• 5:46
  doubt it but yes but these things are complicated you know in terms of rights
• 5:51
  and who owns what and all that sort of thing i always found it i must be very
• 5:56
  frustrating for a writer,
• 5:57
  to not own their rights to their work in terms of a film and have no sort of
• 6:02
  input in terms of a film because it's owned by the studio, but yet it's your original work.
• 6:09
  Quite frustrating i would imagine one of the reasons why i don't i i
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  mean i can respect why he does what he does to
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  give his stuff away pretty much yeah after what he
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  went through with kubrick i'm shocked he does that now yes i
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  know even though good uh king i get why he was frustrated with it but come on
• 6:29
  man the shining pretty fucking good well here's the thing with the shining as
• 6:34
  well with me on a personal level i had watched the film before reading the book so that sort of,
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  affected my reading of the novel
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  in that whenever I was reading the characters as Keane depicted them,
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  I was in my mind's eye seeing Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall doing these
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  things and obviously that was not Keane's intention and something he certainly
• 6:56
  didn't like with the film version,
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  you know, especially the portrayal of Jack Torrance by Jack Nicholson,
• 7:02
  so yeah, read the novels first, I would recommend read the source material All
• 7:09
  right, well, let's jump into this one.
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  Now, there's no research on this one, guys. There's no trivia.
• 7:15
  It just came and went, literally. And I'm shocked. What has been on there? Yeah. So it came out.
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  No marketing. I think marketing failed it.
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  And it sucks because this is his first venture away from Netflix.
• 7:28
  He left Netflix. Good on him.
• 7:30
  Netflix is a bunch of greedy bastards. And now he's with Amazon.
• 7:32
  But he wanted to do something different for himself.
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  And I think this is his first feature with his first production of Red Room
• 7:39
  and it's unfortunate because I love when directors go outside the box and do something different.
• 7:46
  And I like Mike Fletcher because he cast every actor is in this film is in all
• 7:51
  his other stuff but that restricts me,
• 7:54
  well hold on for a sec but anyways it made 16 million and came and went it came
• 8:00
  here last week and played in like one theater yeah so,
• 8:05
  yeah I don't get it I don't I don't know why they get to play I mean these films used to be,
• 8:11
  This movie I put up there, well, in the same level or the same idea as we like
• 8:17
  a Forrest Gump or like the Majestic with Jim, Jim Carrey, another Frank Darapont film.
• 8:23
  I put that up, you know, a lot of nineties films, like the Truman show has a
• 8:27
  Truman show kind of idea to it.
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  And those movies are all, you know, people are talked about and liked.
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  And so I don't get why this didn't find this audience. I wanted to see this
• 8:38
  in the cinema For this podcast And it was really hard To find a showing of it
• 8:45
  It is being shown in cinemas But very limited.
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  There would be just like an afternoon Showing during the week So it was just
• 8:55
  a bit I've never really seen it before with a film,
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  Like this Which you would expect to be big Because obviously Keane is a massive
• 9:02
  name But Flanagan is a very big name As well and has an all-star cast with the
• 9:09
  likes of Hilton and stuff. So I don't know what's going on.
• 9:13
  When I watched the first time, I got a little confused what it was really about.
• 9:17
  It does guys like Shawshank and The Mystic. I'm sorry, The Myst.
• 9:24
  They have, this has a lot of replay value.
• 9:28
  You'll catch little things in the second viewing and then the third and so forth.
• 9:32
  So if you see it once, don't blow it off. just give it a second viewing and
• 9:36
  you'll catch things i had to let's jump into this now when i first saw it i
• 9:44
  almost think it's it was a masterpiece all right because i really really liked
• 9:48
  it i liked the characters even though i was a little thrown off of what the fuck i was watching,
• 9:52
  but again watching it i'll leave it a couple times i'm able to.
• 9:58
  Walk away with my actual review now so there you go tom huddleston jacob treble,
• 10:05
  Benjamin Padgett and Cody Flanagan all play Charles Junk Krantz.
• 10:09
  I'm going to butcher this. He's a great actor. What's his name? Chiwetel...
• 10:15
  Norm plays Marty. Kara Gillian plays Felicia. Felicia. Is it Felicia?
• 10:21
  Felicia. Felicia. But of course, Karen Gillian is most remembered.
• 10:26
  Don't bring up Doctor Who. You brought that up plenty of times when we talked.
• 10:28
  You brought it up there. You brought it up there. No, no, no.
• 10:31
  You were going to say it, but you can't regurgitate. I was going to say Marvel. You can't regurgitate.
• 10:36
  I was going to say Marvel. No, you weren't. You said Doctor Who.
• 10:38
  I am sick of your Doctor Who references.
• 10:41
  No, you weren't. Quit it with the Doctor Who references. No,
• 10:43
  you weren't. You closet Doctor Who fan?
• 10:47
  What I was going to say, her first big feature film was Mike Flanagan's Oculus.
• 10:52
  If you guys haven't seen it, check it out. It's actually pretty good.
• 10:55
  The absolutely stunning looking. She looks incredible. Mia Serra.
• 10:59
  I had a big crush on her when she was on Ferris Bueller.
• 11:04
  She plays Sarah Kranz. That's right. Ferris Bueller's sister. No.
• 11:08
  Girlfriend. It's a girlfriend. Girlfriend. That's right. Yes. The coolest twat.
• 11:13
  It was Jennifer Grey who played the sister. Yes. Oh, my God.
• 11:18
  Now you understand why he has to watch films a couple times? Oh. Yeah.
• 11:23
  Mark Hamill, he plays Albie. Now, Albie Krantz. Now, Mark Hamill,
• 11:28
  I'm going to say now, now this film got lost.
• 11:31
  People are going to forget about it, including Awards Month.
• 11:34
  People are going to forget about this film. But I'll tell you right now,
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  I actually think Mark Hamill should at least be nominated for Best Supporting
• 11:41
  Actor for, a feature film.
• 11:43
  He is so good in this, and it's a soul-destroying performance, but that's just me.
• 11:50
  Howard Lumbly, great little set of character actors in this film. He plays Sam.
• 11:55
  I'm going to butcher this name, but we all know him in the horror field. David Desmukhian.
• 12:00
  He plays Joss. Nice to see Matthew Lillard playing kind of a deeper role.
• 12:05
  He plays Gus, and then you're rounded by a bunch of other characters.
• 12:09
  That's your main core people. Now, before we go any further,
• 12:13
  guys, this is spoiler-filled.
• 12:14
  If you haven't seen the film, a lot of us haven't, you can certainly turn us off.
• 12:18
  Because the film is told in three acts and it's told backwards.
• 12:22
  It's very clever. Didn't they do that in Memento? Wasn't that told backwards?
• 12:25
  Yes, Memento's told completely backwards. Yeah.
• 12:29
  But, yeah. It's told in three acts. We're going to go through the three acts,
• 12:33
  and so this is spoiler-filled.
• 12:35
  So, if you keep listening, you're, you know, who's the fuck?
• 12:41
  Listen anyway and it is still playing locally in Belfast so please go see it if you can,
• 12:48
  it's playing within the UK I know it's out of the US market it's for our US
• 12:51
  listeners you can rent it I think now and over here you still can find it so
• 12:56
  if you are curious to go see it give the movie it's doing give it some money I paid way too much,
• 13:03
  I'm too good. I'm a kind heart. Right. Well, a lot of people who actually know
• 13:08
  you would disagree, but anyway.
• 13:10
  Go fuck yourself. Say, oh, yeah, that's a kind heart coming out.
• 13:16
  Act three. Act three is called Thanks, Chuck.
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  Now, the first part here, we were introduced to Marty, who was a teacher, and Felicia.
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  Is it Felicia? Why am I getting that wrong? Felicia. Felicia. Yeah.
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  Felicia and Marty are a divorced couple and he's a teacher and she's a doctor.
• 13:38
  And this little town that we're, that we're featuring is, is something's happening.
• 13:45
  Internet's going down. There's a great scene where he's teaching these kids
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  and the next scene, the internet's down and he's trying to tell these parents about their kids.
• 13:57
  And he goes, how do you live with this? How do you live with no internet?
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  And they're like, and all they care about is the internet. And he's trying to
• 14:03
  teach, tell them about, you know, their kid and how they're behaving and how
• 14:06
  they're doing in school.
• 14:07
  They're trying to get a signal on their phone. Yeah. And he's like,
• 14:10
  and they're like, how do you, how do you know all this about our kid?
• 14:13
  Well, they're right. It's right here. Oh, you keep things written down.
• 14:16
  Yeah. No, that's not crazy. You know? Yeah.
• 14:20
  And then you have the Josh, the Josh, which is actually quite,
• 14:23
  you have these, each, each Marty's journey, for this first half hour is really
• 14:30
  meeting certain people.
• 14:32
  And during this parent conferences, he meets Josh played by David.
• 14:37
  Yeah. The guy from late night with the devil. Yeah.
• 14:42
  And he, he starts like, can you believe porn hubs down?
• 14:46
  And, but he, but then he kind of breaks down.
• 14:49
  He talks about how his wife left him after 20 years, going back to an old fling
• 14:52
  she had for 30 days back when she was younger and she leaves them.
• 14:56
  And he gives this kind of warm, powerful little speech.
• 14:59
  And then he adds with, Pornhub is down. Can you believe it? And they kind of have a chuckle.
• 15:04
  Yeah. And this is the first introduction of these series of characters that Mario will meet.
• 15:08
  Now, as watching this, each act is narrated by Nick Offerman.
• 15:14
  He's got that great voice.
• 15:17
  And when I watched the film again, it does feel like each act,
• 15:24
  even though they will be in sync, and you will, you know, they all have a part
• 15:29
  to play in Chuck's life, or who Chuck is, that is,
• 15:33
  is it really does play like a Twilight Zone, each act. Oh, totally.
• 15:38
  And Nick Offerman does have that Rod Sterling kind of voice.
• 15:42
  Yeah. In fact, he sort of, not even so much Rod Sterling, but it's that type of narration.
• 15:48
  But more the narrations for the 80s Twilight Zone that actually reminded me of, you know?
• 15:55
  Yeah, exactly. we also know at this point Chuck's dying,
• 16:00
  Yes. 39 years old and he's dying. Well, at this point, I was more thinking that,
• 16:06
  you know, the way it's sort of done with the posters and stuff,
• 16:08
  it's more that he's retiring, even though he's only 39.
• 16:12
  Yeah, but the narrator tells you he's dying. Yes, we do find that out.
• 16:17
  Yeah, during this whole segment.
• 16:19
  And so as he's dying, things are going wrong. You know, monsoons, earthquakes.
• 16:25
  The world's ending. The planet, the world is ending. Yeah. So we are led to
• 16:29
  believe it's, you know, because the, the environment, the environmental issues
• 16:33
  that's, that's going on and so-called hiccups there.
• 16:37
  And, but what we find out as he's walking and he's meeting all these characters,
• 16:43
  uh, the next character he kind of runs into is, is Gus, the Matthew Lillard part.
• 16:48
  And everything one of these characters says or does or the character,
• 16:56
  the act, the character himself will come back in the final act.
• 17:01
  Sam, who plays the, he's the mortician.
• 17:05
  Yes. He says it's not the environment that's doing this. This whole thing is
• 17:10
  about, it's a bigger, it's a bigger picture.
• 17:13
  The world, the universe itself is imploding.
• 17:16
  And they also are a bit mystified as
• 17:19
  who exactly chuck is because he keeps popping up
• 17:22
  on their tvs and on the you know billboards and stuff
• 17:25
  yeah and we don't see we don't meet chuck
• 17:28
  yet but we know that he is dying but they
• 17:31
  just see they don't know that we do but you'll see
• 17:34
  all these billboards of of yeah congratulations thanks
• 17:38
  for 39 years chuck yes and gus
• 17:41
  makes makes the line where he goes it's the
• 17:45
  waiting that's the worst part yeah and that will come back into play so key
• 17:52
  characters come back into Chuck's life when he's younger or and or certain lines
• 17:58
  that are repeated through the duration of his life yep.
• 18:03
  Oh, well done. And as he's walking, you meet, uh, there's a girl called Janice.
• 18:10
  She's on the roller skates when Marty's decided as things are,
• 18:14
  chaos is kicking in, the world's about to end.
• 18:16
  That's the young girl from the Megan films, isn't it? No.
• 18:21
  Oh, is it? Isn't it? I know. I mean, I'm almost certain it is.
• 18:24
  Oh, maybe it is. I think you see it. Hootie something or?
• 18:27
  Yeah, I think you're right. I think that is her. Yeah. But she comes in,
• 18:31
  she runs into Marty, but we'll see her again in the next act when she walks past Chuck.
• 18:38
  So again, all these characters come into play eventually.
• 18:42
  And Marty decides, because at the end of the world, he wants to spend the last
• 18:45
  moments of his life with his ex.
• 18:48
  And there's a great shot when they're sitting down. Their outside is beautiful, actually.
• 18:53
  And they're looking at all the constellations and stuff.
• 18:56
  The nice guy. and oh and she says as she says look at the north it burns out
• 19:00
  yes and then you see mars burns out,
• 19:03
  the universe is burning out yeah the
• 19:06
  universe is burning is burning which we
• 19:09
  later find out what the universe really is and then
• 19:13
  it just cuts to the next act and then
• 19:16
  yep we get the next act that's called buskers forever and this
• 19:21
  is my favorite part this is where tom hiddleston's
• 19:24
  in this now tom hiddleston does have you know
• 19:27
  maybe uh it might be on a poster or something like that but this
• 19:30
  is his this is his part otherwise he's
• 19:33
  barely in it i know that i i looked it up and that was one of the things that
• 19:38
  disappointed me about this actually where the start of it is barely in it you
• 19:42
  know he's only in it like like 19 minutes or something again that's to do with
• 19:46
  marketing you know that type of thing but yeah yeah see that didn't disappoint me i thought it would,
• 19:51
  but as you find out why he's the title character, the title character doesn't
• 19:57
  necessarily have to be in it.
• 19:59
  Well, yes, he's in it, but the younger version is in it longer. Yes.
• 20:04
  The Mark Hamill segment. But.
• 20:07
  This, by far, is the one where he's just walking in the street,
• 20:10
  and he walks into Taylor and Mac, and she's setting up her drums.
• 20:15
  Yes. And for some reason, he's just walking. He's going to a banking convention
• 20:20
  because he's a banker, and he just decides he wants to break into dance.
• 20:27
  And I absolutely love this scene. I don't know why.
• 20:31
  I just think it puts a smile on my face. And all you people are probably like,
• 20:35
  God, he's such a hateful bastard.
• 20:37
  He likes slasher films and blah, blah, blah. I have a heart, people.
• 20:42
  I have a kind heart. Now, this is where it probably Trevor- I found it a bit cringe. Oh, see?
• 20:49
  That means- No, you're a hateful prick. No, that's fact. I'll tell you why.
• 20:55
  I'll tell you why. Well, the whole thing where he just starts dancing,
• 20:59
  and then you meet- Is it Janice? Janice.
• 21:02
  Iris was the girl. Janice is the one who just got dumped.
• 21:06
  And it's all these different people that meet Chuck during this scene.
• 21:11
  And he starts, obviously, dancing with her.
• 21:15
  And it's just a great scene. It does.
• 21:18
  It reminded me of an old singing in the rain. It actually reminded me of Donna
• 21:23
  Reed and Jimmy Stewart dancing in It's a Wonderful Life in the gymnasium during the school dance.
• 21:29
  It had that very Frank Capra kind of feel with it, or Billy Wilder.
• 21:34
  And i think that was deliberate i
• 21:37
  do think the teacher is watching an old musical on tv
• 21:40
  as well so it sort of ties in with that yes and
• 21:43
  this all comes into play when we meet the mother in the first act
• 21:45
  yes i would say regard it is very well choreographed but i even though i i have
• 21:51
  just said that i was disappointed that tom hiddleston isn't in it enough i do
• 21:56
  find him somewhat smug but here's the thing we're going to talk about the Shawshank
• 22:00
  Redemption soon on the next podcast actually.
• 22:03
  He's actually a very similar character to Andy
• 22:07
  Dufresne in that he's a sort of uptight sort of banker but you know he's deep
• 22:13
  but within him you know he has this love of you know in this case dancing but
• 22:18
  you know and with Andy Dufresne it's like you know the music and stuff you know
• 22:23
  he's cultured let's just say.
• 22:25
  That's the whole point of this because we'll know in the next week We'll follow
• 22:29
  up on that comment in the next act, what Mark Hamill says to him about dancing.
• 22:34
  And so that's where his lover dancing kind of disappears.
• 22:39
  Um, and like I said, it's told backwards. Pieces will come together.
• 22:44
  So when he saw her drumming and he puts his fingers in the air and he does click,
• 22:48
  click, that's what his, his grandmother used to do. It reminds him of his grandmother.
• 22:52
  It reminds him of his grandmother. Zadie and Zadie gets into,
• 22:54
  you know, and she gets into dancing.
• 22:56
  She taught him dancing in musicals. So it brought up a little boy in him again.
• 23:00
  And that's why the scene is there.
• 23:02
  It's a, it's, it's a, it's a great moment. It's a great scene.
• 23:05
  It's similar to this fucking, you know, you almost wish people would do this,
• 23:10
  Again, I would pay good money to see you do this. What?
• 23:14
  I would pay good money to see you dance in the street. I'd rate you to fucking dance all the time.
• 23:20
  It would be like that video for Fatboy Slims. What do you call that one?
• 23:25
  Spike Jonze directed it.
• 23:27
  Christopher Walken? Christopher Walken? No, but you would be the one with Spike
• 23:32
  Jonze and stuff outside the mall. You know what they're doing.
• 23:35
  It's the mad dance troupe. you know I'll send you the video of it is he a good looking guy,
• 23:41
  well let's just say it's very wacky and it's very if it's himself saying I'm
• 23:46
  beating the fuck I'm going to find out oh you're going to whoa whoa whoa mister
• 23:50
  I have a heart just was about to say there I beat the fuck out of you,
• 23:54
  no my point is that if nobody if nobody watches.
• 24:00
  The scene and puts a smile on their face there's no way they're going to like
• 24:03
  the movie there's no way Don't tell me to chill out I am arguing with you This
• 24:10
  is the heart of the film right here It's well done,
• 24:15
  You don't like it Because you're an evil fucker Just say it Just say it,
• 24:22
  It's a bit overly sentimental Which a lot of this film has If this was naked
• 24:27
  women in chains Being beaten with whips With fucking fire pits Of dragons and
• 24:34
  fucking the pentagon of the wolf on the ground on fire, you would say this is magic.
• 24:41
  So a heavy metal video then? Yeah, I like the heavy metal.
• 24:45
  If this was in Wicker Man, you would have been going, you would have said, Jesus, this is epic.
• 24:52
  Well, I have to say, the Wicker Man, that dance scene at the end,
• 24:56
  Christopher Lee in a dress as they're burning Edward Woodward,
• 24:59
  that is sublime, that is powerful, that is life-affirming, you know?
• 25:04
  And as he let's just get back you're just upset at me now,
• 25:09
  so as he as he's dancing he stops for a second he gets mojo but he gets this
• 25:14
  little headache and as we know he'll die nine months from this dance and of
• 25:19
  uh an operable brain tumor,
• 25:21
  Yes. Which is sad. But the whole film is, initially, you don't know what's going
• 25:27
  on. In this part, nobody does.
• 25:30
  Anyone says they know what this film is about, they're idiots.
• 25:32
  They don't until they see the first act.
• 25:34
  It's very hard to kind of feel what I used to see it as a man,
• 25:39
  kind of like a Truman Show, where kind of, why is this man being looked at?
• 25:46
  Why is this man being under a microscope? And that's what I got out of the first couple acts.
• 25:52
  And now it's the and I thought it was about meeting people,
• 25:57
  complete strangers and having a dance with them or whatever,
• 26:01
  having a good conversation with them, having lunch with them sitting down and
• 26:05
  talking about the universe like Marty does with Sam and all these different characters that these,
• 26:12
  leads meet I thought that was where the film was going about humanity.
• 26:18
  And the way we should treat each other.
• 26:21
  That's where I thought the film was going. In the final act,
• 26:25
  you've got Contains Multitudes.
• 26:26
  That's the title for this final act. And this is where we meet young Chuck.
• 26:31
  And you've got Mark Hamill played Wonderflake.
• 26:35
  He plays Albie. Then you've got Mia Sara, who plays Zadie, the grandmother.
• 26:41
  Their son and their.
• 26:45
  Daughter-in-law and the Don Law's unborn child were killed in a car accident.
• 26:51
  So they're raising now our boy Chuck.
• 26:55
  Now this is where the mother, he talks about the, is it a cupola?
• 26:59
  He says cupola or cupola?
• 27:01
  I don't know, but I would just call it the room upstairs. I call it the attic. Yeah, the attic.
• 27:07
  Yeah. The room is essentially. There's this, there's a, there's a mystery door
• 27:12
  and you look up and it's always locked and, and Aubie says to Chuck,
• 27:17
  look, you never go into this room.
• 27:19
  You see things you can't take back. That tells you your future.
• 27:23
  And there's a scene where Marty in the third act looks up in his house.
• 27:29
  It's a different house now.
• 27:30
  But he looks up and he sees the attic. So I got confused there.
• 27:34
  I was like, is he living in the same house?
• 27:36
  Well, yeah. But we know he technically is living in the same house. Yes, he is, yes.
• 27:42
  So the mother has all these, this film is about the relationship between,
• 27:46
  the first part is between Zadie, the grandmother, and him played wonderfully by Mia Sarah. And the
• 27:54
  There's a moment, that's how he learns to dance and stuff. We won't go into
• 27:58
  the old dance segment, but it's very nice. It's Billy Elliot, basically.
• 28:01
  Yeah, it's a Billy Elliot. There's nothing wrong with that. Billy Elliot's a
• 28:04
  good movie. But it's, yeah, it's a Billy Elliot kind of tale.
• 28:09
  But once Sadie, we see, there's a scene where Aldi is not handling the deaths
• 28:16
  well of his family members, pretty much, especially his son.
• 28:21
  And he drinks a lot. So the kid, Chuck, takes advantage of that,
• 28:26
  takes the keys and goes up to the attic and opens the door.
• 28:29
  And all the pretty much doors are down the stairs. Well, don't you ever look
• 28:31
  in here again? But we see all the entranced what's in that room again.
• 28:35
  But we never know what that is.
• 28:38
  So we find out what the room really is. It's a portal. It's a portal that sees the future.
• 28:46
  Specifically your own death? Well, that and other people's.
• 28:49
  Someone you know it will let you know
• 28:52
  when they die yes and so there's
• 28:55
  a story about henry peterson the jeffrey's boy who's hit by a car these are
• 29:00
  all henry peterson hung these are all acts that albie has witnessed while while
• 29:06
  he was in that room one time those two deaths so he's never been in that room
• 29:10
  since because he thinks it sees the future which pretty much right.
• 29:16
  Did you see Mrs. Stanley, who that was?
• 29:19
  The one he brings... The dance teacher? No, no, the one he brings the muffins to.
• 29:24
  Who was it? It was Heather Lelligan. Oh, yes, yes, I was just about to say, yes, absolutely.
• 29:30
  Yeah, because as soon as she popped up, there's Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street.
• 29:34
  It actually made me a bit sad in terms of, you know, we saw her as the teenage Nancy.
• 29:41
  Yes, there is obviously a bit of help there in terms of makeup,
• 29:44
  but it did make me feel a little sad seeing her play an older woman,
• 29:49
  but yes, Heather Lagenkamp.
• 29:52
  I like when Chuck is kind of breaking the rules.
• 29:56
  He's trying to find out she's bribing Miss Stanley with these muffins and trying
• 30:00
  to find out what happened to the Jeffries boy and what happened to Henry Peterson.
• 30:04
  We don't know that Peterson hung himself when Jeffries boy was killed by the
• 30:07
  car at this point, but when Chuck broke the rules and Albie opened the door,
• 30:15
  we find out Zadie died a few months.
• 30:17
  I'm not sure the time has gone by, but that's what Albie saw.
• 30:23
  So when Zadie died, he was prepared for it. Yes.
• 30:27
  And he also saw his own death. Yes. So he was prepared for it.
• 30:34
  And all these characters and once Albie dies and once the grandmother Zadie
• 30:42
  dies, Chuck's kind of on his own.
• 30:45
  And this is where he starts to realize we meet Sam.
• 30:49
  He is, again, we met Sam, the funeral director, when we met Marty.
• 30:54
  And we see we meet Marty and Felicia when they were still married at the time
• 30:58
  and Chuck is at the dance.
• 31:02
  And what we find out by the schoolteacher, played by Kate Segal,
• 31:09
  That's obviously Mike Flanken's wife That's right She's in all those She's in
• 31:14
  everything Films and stuff I like her,
• 31:17
  She's, she's, she's, she's talking about a, a Walt Whitman, she's reading a Walt Whitman poem.
• 31:22
  And it asks, he asked the question, what does it mean when he says,
• 31:26
  I am large, I contain multitudes?
• 31:29
  And she says, pretty much lamest terms, everything you see, everything you do,
• 31:35
  whether it exists or not, whether it's your imagination or something live that
• 31:39
  you witness, it's your own personal universe, pretty much. Yeah.
• 31:43
  So at the beginning of the film, as the universe is crumbling and you see the
• 31:47
  stars coming down or whatever.
• 31:49
  That's not the end of the world. That's the end of Chuck's world. Yes, exactly.
• 31:55
  Basically, this film is essentially an adaptation of that Whitman quote, basically.
• 32:02
  You know, obviously, it's expanded it, you know? Yeah, yeah.
• 32:06
  And then he decides he's going to walk into the room and he walks into the room
• 32:12
  and he sees his own mortality.
• 32:14
  Yeah. And he doesn't know how long he's got because he's older,
• 32:18
  whether he's sick, so he doesn't know at this point.
• 32:20
  But he does know he's going to face death.
• 32:23
  Yes. And he left dancing because all we talked about, you're not going to make anything with dancing.
• 32:31
  Real life got in the way. Everything's maths, he was telling me.
• 32:35
  That's a pretty coiny speech about how important math is. So I pretty much led him into banking.
• 32:41
  And that's why that dancing is so important. Because now we realize that the
• 32:47
  one thing he loved in life was taken away from him.
• 32:50
  He got it back. He got that vibe. Well, that's when Chuck realizes,
• 32:54
  as he knows he's dying at the same time.
• 32:57
  He doesn't know he's dying at this point. Oh, yes, he does. Eventually he knows
• 33:00
  he's dying. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:02
  But it's when he realizes that the real moments of beauty in life are things
• 33:10
  like the dancing and not being a sort of stuffy banker. Type thing.
• 33:16
  You know, the film is pretty much a film that's teaching people to appreciate
• 33:22
  the small moments in life.
• 33:23
  Yes. It's pretty much what it's about and treat people decently.
• 33:27
  See, Trevor, maybe you might get something out of this.
• 33:30
  This is Mr. I have a heart, but I'm also psychotic.
• 33:34
  So. And if this video clip isn't the right one that I want to see,
• 33:37
  I'm going to beat the fuck out of you. But anyway.
• 33:42
  But I mean, well. Right. Right. To violence?
• 33:49
  Right, right. Okay. The film is pretty much, it's, it's, it's all,
• 33:53
  the whole film is based on the meaning of life and it's often,
• 33:56
  and the meaning of life is often found through the connection of others and
• 34:01
  embracing mutual moments of joy.
• 34:03
  And that's what the film is about. And that's why you have these little characters
• 34:06
  coming into his life that he remembers and start coming up and starts,
• 34:10
  and, and starts embracing, especially the scene with, with the dance.
• 34:15
  It's actually very simplistic and i don't
• 34:18
  mean that in a bad way i mean that in a sort of
• 34:21
  complimentary way while on the surface it does
• 34:24
  seem you know if you were watching this you get
• 34:27
  into this sort of without knowing anything and you
• 34:30
  were a bit confused about you know the the structure and the the way it's non-linear
• 34:34
  and stuff and the stuff going on actually when you peel it back it is quite
• 34:39
  simplistic and it's essentially that walt whitman quote you know But isn't that
• 34:45
  the beauty of it? Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 34:48
  I was like lost. Where are we here? What's going on?
• 34:52
  And then that one scene, she gives that beautiful little dialogue to him,
• 34:57
  and there you go. The movie summed up.
• 35:00
  I know it's complete night and day. I know it's complete night and day filmmaking.
• 35:07
  But it reminded me of Pulp Fiction because you have scenes where –.
• 35:14
  Pulp Fiction. And then you've got John DeVolta dying and cut to John DeVolta's
• 35:18
  in the next scene. What the fuck?
• 35:20
  Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Even the recent weapons, you know,
• 35:25
  by Zach Krieger, you know, it's similar in structure.
• 35:28
  Yeah. And maybe that's why Mike Flanagan chose this, because Mike Flanagan,
• 35:35
  horror filmmakers, can tell stories like that in non-chronological order and do it well.
• 35:43
  Maybe that's why he's the right man for making this kind of film.
• 35:46
  I don't know. It's got a very Peter Weir style.
• 35:50
  Peter Weir did Witness on the Truman Show on Green Card.
• 35:56
  But it reminded me of a film,
• 35:58
  I like a lot of dramas, but it was a movie called Mr. Holland's Opus with Richard Dreyfuss.
• 36:05
  It came out in the mid-'90s. Loved that movie.
• 36:09
  And it just had that mid-'90s vibe.
• 36:14
  And I mentioned Schumann's show, and I mentioned Mr. Holland's Opus, and it just had that.
• 36:18
  It does have a 90s vibe to it. And even though it's about death,
• 36:22
  you leave the theater, you don't feel sad.
• 36:25
  No it's more of a sort of
• 36:28
  positive outlook on life and death overall i
• 36:32
  you know what i ain't gonna have to watch it again to to
• 36:35
  give a full sort of opinion
• 36:38
  on it but based on a first
• 36:42
  you know viewing of it i think
• 36:45
  it's very good very well done all around in
• 36:48
  terms of you know the act in it and you know the way the story's
• 36:51
  told and all that sort of thing maybe not
• 36:54
  really you know i'm sort of i'm gonna i'm gonna
• 36:57
  be go against what i'm saying here in the next
• 37:00
  podcast with the shawshank redemption but i
• 37:03
  i do think at times flanagan's stuff can be
• 37:06
  a little over sentimental you know sometimes but
• 37:09
  again like i say i don't want
• 37:12
  to knock it because i would have to watch
• 37:15
  it again to give it a fair sort of you know
• 37:18
  opinion but in terms
• 37:21
  of acting and all the rest yes it
• 37:25
  is very well constructed uh it's it's by far i was thinking the best movie of
• 37:33
  the year i really love this film and for the reason i i've already explained
• 37:39
  it puts a smile on your face and And it's a lot like the film we're about to talk about.
• 37:45
  And it did have that very Frank Darabont 90s feel. The Majestic would be up there.
• 37:51
  And with these massive, all these characters from a small town,
• 37:56
  which is very King. Well, it's very Stephen King. Yeah, exactly.
• 37:59
  So I actually enjoy this film. It's not the best film of the year.
• 38:03
  It's the second best film of the year. It's moved Sinners away.
• 38:07
  Sinners was in my top two. Sinners is now three.
• 38:10
  This is number two but very close to one but i still gotta stick with weapons for number one.
• 38:16
  But guys go just check it
• 38:19
  out if you at all like grounded king
• 38:22
  and grounded and then this first time kind of mike flanagan's
• 38:26
  going a little bit grounded check it out if you're fans of
• 38:28
  shawshank frank darabon's work like the green mile and
• 38:32
  the the mist you'll you'll enjoy this there's no way you want it is in this
• 38:36
  that sort of style of while i don't think it's based on this first viewing i
• 38:42
  don't think it's as good as shawshank or even stand by me it is in that similar
• 38:48
  vein so there you go check it out it's definitely worthwhile,
• 38:52
  Alright, that's it. Well, the sad thing is, sadly, there's not too many killings
• 38:57
  or monsters in it. So, you know.
• 39:00
  Yeah, yeah. I remember Trevor sent me a message going, you know,
• 39:05
  Kieran, this is really disappointing.
• 39:07
  I'm like, why? Well, there's no naked old people.
• 39:11
  Killer trees? There's no trees that they can go in and hump in.
• 39:15
  Because he likes good naked old people humping in a tree with a burning crucifix.
• 39:20
  Well, burn him, wicker man. No, no. You're like, you've got upside down crucifix, you sick fuck.
• 39:26
  What? What do you get this from? So that's his passion. That's his passion, everyone.
• 39:31
  This is Kieran's fantasies inadvertently coming out. I'm trying to pin them
• 39:35
  on me, deflecting them onto me, you know?
• 39:39
  We're going to wrap this one up. The new issue of Phantasm Gory is out now,
• 39:44
  available on Amazon worldwide, locally at Forbidden Planet, and of course,
• 39:49
  peppered in in some local stores in the US.
• 39:53
  You can okay god your delays you always interrupt me all the time and then you
• 39:59
  when you're supposed to jump in you don't you talk over me when I have good
• 40:04
  points to make no you don't,
• 40:07
  this is this could be the worst editing ever so listen give us a shout at citizenframe
• 40:13
  underscore podcast on Instagram and of course Facebook we're gonna wrap this
• 40:17
  one up we're gonna jump into Shawshank Redemption and then we can get to Final
• 40:21
  Destination it's coming,
• 40:23
  well I mean it's you know the final
• 40:26
  destination that we're heading towards it's been
• 40:29
  yeah it's let's just say being delayed it's
• 40:32
  this flight has been delayed yeah let's just say because next up we've got the
• 40:37
  Warriors after Shawshank the Warriors and we're doing another 70s one I forgot
• 40:43
  what it was well I can't remember either oh no I think it was Taxi Driver was it?
• 40:51
  I can't remember I know we're doing the Warriors for sure alright guys,
• 40:55
  thanks for listening and uh.
• 40:58
  Music.