Latest / Cigars and Cinema Podcast / "Take This Last Memento" Ep. 119 8/27/26

Transcript

"Take This Last Memento" Ep. 119 8/27/26 · Cigars and Cinema Podcast

0:01
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode of Cigars and Cinema.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Grab a cigar, something to pair it with, and let's journey into another episode of Smoke and Screen.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Today's episode of Cigars and Cinema is coming to you from the OGT Cigars side to join Five Pack Premium, Custom Cigars each month at an undeniable price.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Join the community and smoke with us on the Oakland Tobacchist YouTube channel as we delve into the rich experience of OT craft cigars and many cigars and bipolas custom made just for our membership.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: If you're interested and if you want to find out more about the subscription and the full post of these cigars, visit us at www.bacchinist.com or find us on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok at OGT Cigars.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Cigars and Cinema Podcast.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: We're back at it with another episode, the final one for Chris Nolan Films.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Coming to you from the East Coast, North Carolina, I am Eric Drazen from OGT Cigars.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: And on the other side of the country, on the west coast, Curtis Bailey from California.
1:31
SPEAKER_03: What's up, man?
1:33
SPEAKER_03: I was just uh pondering how like it might be a cool benefit to have our protagonists' affliction so you could forget a bad movie right away.
1:42
SPEAKER_03: But then you also wouldn't remember that you watched it and thought it was bad, so you just get stuck in a cycle of watching Sucker Punch over and over and over again.
1:50
SPEAKER_03: And that's not that's not what you want.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: That's not, but then you know what you could do is you could go through it so many times, and it'd be the first time ever that you're experiencing it.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: And for me, that sounds like a way to do Sucker Punch.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: So no, thank you guys for joining us tonight.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we've got a lot to talk about.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm excited to talk about this movie because I have not seen it prior to this, I think since 2009.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's been a while.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna be talking about it.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be smoking something really great.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: I noticed that you are also pairing something tonight.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Is this the handy-dandy old-fashioned?
2:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Nice, nice, nice.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: And I see we got some people jumping down on the comments as well.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, please put in your comments uh on the movie we're talking about.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: What are your own opinions about it?
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the cigar we're smoking.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're a part of the variety club, you have the ability, you have the access to smoke this cigar.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, first off, let's kind of talk about that.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: As I had mentioned, uh, this is from the variety club that was just released earlier this month.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Each and every week we go through this pack uh so you can smoke along with us.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Tonight we are choosing a very special cigar called Deep Cover.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: This is like uh one of the, it's again from the Shadow Factory, but this is gonna be one that's uh I think like a little bit of a break, maybe for a month or two from what they have done.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: But it's definitely something really special.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Dark Maduro wrapper, six by fifty-two box press torpedo.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: I really like the size.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh, what about you, Curtis?
3:20
SPEAKER_00: I feel like it's a really elegant size.
3:22
SPEAKER_03: I do too.
3:23
SPEAKER_03: Um, it's a it's a handsome looking stick.
3:26
SPEAKER_03: I like um uh tapered shoulders, kind of whatever.
3:31
SPEAKER_03: It just makes for a really pleasant smoking experience for me, especially if it you'd get up into slightly larger ring gauge uh uh cigars.
3:37
SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Definitely, definitely.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a special one.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh Variety Club got first access to it.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, I can say it just released on our website.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: So if you do like this cigar, we'll see how it shakes out to anyone watching, but it's now officially available.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: We got uh J Wag on saying, What's the opinion on okay?
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Well, there you go.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, uh that's we'll we'll stick it, keep it to uh cigars and cinema.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Right.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh Jason says, I have a note here that says these guys put on a good show.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Trust them.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: What do you think about it?
4:11
SPEAKER_00: I think half of the show is good.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: You have you have Curtis you can bet on, but uh Nah nah, that's not true.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's let's get a uh cold draw going on.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh let's let's go ahead and get this cut cigar a cut.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Traditionally, when it comes to a torpedo like this, I like to do a straight cut, but I don't know if it affects.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of people like to do V cut.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: What do you what is your preference?
4:32
SPEAKER_03: Um I pretty much only save the V for um either um uh cigars that have almost no shoulder, like there was that um uh I think was it a Crow Magnon or whatever from Roma Craft where Yes, yes, Neanderthal.
4:48
SPEAKER_03: It was like flat across the top, and it was really hard to get a good cut on that with a uh uh a standard you know guillotine cutter, but V is perfect, right?
4:58
SPEAKER_03: Because you could just make a single line or even an X through the top of that.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
5:03
SPEAKER_03: Or sometimes like really wide, thin box presses where again you kind of have the same problem with getting a clean cut with a regular uh uh straight cutter.
5:12
SPEAKER_03: So um that's pretty much the only time that I reach for the thing.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: No, it makes sense.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: I I prefer usually straight cut whenever I have the opportunity.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Um coal draw is really interesting, wide open draw.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean wide open draw.
5:27
SPEAKER_03: This one has a slight savouriness to it to me.
5:31
SPEAKER_03: Like I immediately just thought of like butter or oil, maybe.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Maybe like to get really technical, like oil that you use, like basting a pork chop or something.
5:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, we're gonna go ahead and light this up and see where it starts.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Every cigar leaves an impression.
5:56
SPEAKER_03: However, it's not until you take a moment and analyze the full experience from construction to flavor to profile that you can truly appreciate it.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: So enjoy your cigar as you light it up.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: Take the time to toast it, smell the room notes, and experience the first notes as they come alive.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: In the same way, movies can tell deeper stories or show us things we haven't noticed on the surface.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: So journey with us as we take a more detailed appreciation for the craft of cigar and movie making.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: There's a fair amount of aggressiveness on the retrohale, a little bit of mustiness too.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: That savory component I feel like has also carried through into lighting the cigar as well.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the same.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Um but it's it it's it's not, I wouldn't say crazy sweet.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: It's more aggressive, savory, uh, a little bit of pepperiness as well.
6:57
SPEAKER_03: Um this hit tasting note had come up on another stick we did a a month or two ago.
7:03
SPEAKER_03: But I'm getting what I can only interpret as old bookcase.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Ooh, okay, yeah.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: I I can I see that on like the musty level.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: Like you have like like older papers and such like that.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Definitely there.
7:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, and that kind of you know implies a certain woodiness, a certain spiciness, like you said, the the the the musty component feels it smokes old.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Mature.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, no, I I'm definitely getting those things.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: And and it's uh really, I mean, in terms of smoke output, this thing is is crazy in terms of how that's that's going.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, like I would say a smoked wood, almost like a mesquite smoked wood, something like that.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Um okay, well that's that's the beginning of it.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm curious to see, like, in terms of uh strength and flavor profile where this is gonna go.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very nice start.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: It's definitely a cigar that like wakes you up, like it lets you know that it's there.
8:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: All right, so that's the beginning of Deep Cover Box Press.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh let's go into the movie.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: This was actually basically my choice in terms of we're continuing down the path, the road, the very long road, sometimes longer than it should be, uh, of Chris Nolan movies.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about the Odyssey, we've talked about Interstellar.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: We decided to go with one uh about an hour shorter in runtime, yeah, known known as Memento.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: And so from correct me if I'm wrong, I believe this is the second movie that Chris Nolan has done.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I think his first was what, the following?
8:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was called Follow, it was called Following.
8:44
SPEAKER_03: Following.
8:45
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
8:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: So Memento uh was was uh come out and came out in the year 2000, second film that he has ever done.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: Um as I said, I had not seen this movie for like a long, long, long time.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: So I was trying to remember it.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: In terms of its stats, it is rated R with a runtime of one hour and 53 minutes.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: A former insurance investigator who now suffers from uh entero grade amnesia uses notes and tattoos to hunt down his wife's murderer.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: It was partly written by Jonathan Nolan and Chris Nolan, and it stars Guy Pierce, Carrie Ann Moss, uh Mark Bone Jr., Joe Penn and Joey Pence.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: That's Joe Pentoliano.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there you go.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh so and it's kind of cool because while this is this covers a lot of ground in terms of uh the movie, it doesn't have, I would say, the largest of cast.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: It's somewhat contained in its cast.
9:43
SPEAKER_03: It is.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, so initial thoughts uh right out the gate.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
9:49
SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, when this movie was new, I remember being pretty blown away by it and thinking it was pretty special big deal.
9:56
SPEAKER_03: Uh obviously, Christopher Nolan wasn't a known name yet.
9:59
SPEAKER_03: He hadn't turned himself into the brand that we know him as now.
10:03
SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know this what do we just say?
10:07
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it was 26 years ago, you know, that's a big chunk of my life.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:11
SPEAKER_03: And uh you know, for a long time I would main maintain that this was my favorite Nolan film because I thought that it sidestepped some of the things that would later turn into detriments for him, like the way that he tries to tackle emotional uh stories and gets a little bit too mired in the premise and that kind of thing.
10:30
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and in this case, one of the things that I really liked about it was how the premise of telling the story in this backwards and forwards fashion somewhat puts you in the protagonist's shoes in that you don't have the context going into the next scene of what's supposed to be happening, right?
10:49
SPEAKER_03: So I thought that was a really cool thing.
10:51
SPEAKER_03: But I actually hadn't really sat down to watch this movie in like probably 15 years.
10:57
SPEAKER_03: Um, so I was like, I don't know.
11:00
SPEAKER_03: I'm like I am I still gonna feel the same way about it.
11:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and um uh I I don't know if I would say anymore that it's my favorite Nolan film.
11:08
SPEAKER_03: I do think that there's a lot of things that I still like about it, but I have different feelings that we'll talk about.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: So okay, okay.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: So as I mentioned, it'd been some time since I watched it.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: When I first did, I did not like it.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm trying to honestly remember like the main points of why this movie just didn't hit for me.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: But I can say going through it a second time, I have a newfound appreciation for it.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, this time around definitely kept me more engaged, more interested in what was going on.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: And I I was trying to like I remember like moments, bits and pieces, but I didn't remember like the the how it all shakes out basically.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna say, and we're gonna get into the movie, but I feel like in terms of the Nolan-esque like mind blown, here's the twist, uh this is one of the better versions you're gonna get, in my opinion.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I think on some degree there's an appreciation for like, oh yeah, the the talent and the drive that you have when you're starting out in your career.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: But then there's the aspect too of like, was those like the best days of his career?
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And I don't necessarily think so, but in terms of consistency of great movies that he was putting out, I feel like I prefer that era than what we get now, if that makes sense.
12:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, I think one of the things that's definitely different, you can probably draw a line somewhere, you know, in the early third or so of his career, uh, in that um he wasn't working with super huge budgets yet.
12:35
SPEAKER_03: So you know, there's not a lot of whiz bang, as it were.
12:39
SPEAKER_03: You know, he's got to really kind of uh you know execute on this premise and make the ideas work.
12:46
SPEAKER_03: And um I I think in Memento it's largely success successful.
12:50
SPEAKER_03: I mean, like I said, we'll talk about a few you know nitpicks and stuff like that, but I like the small-scaledness of this after having just seen like you know the the Odyssey and uh uh Interstellar and you know these big, huge, like kind of insane, you need a million people to make it, you know.
13:08
SPEAKER_03: This this one's kind of a little bit more intimate, and I dig that.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I would agree.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like part of that like really big massiveness that you're talking about, really one of the first iterations we see of that is Inception, in my opinion.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Um I mean the prestigious prestige and dark knight are also big movies.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying anything against that, but in terms of like when it's Batman, it's gotta be Batman, and he does a good job in in keeping it in the Batman world.
13:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's sort of an expectation with a little bit of scale with a Batman film, yes.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to like the Nolan project, that hit comes from him and his own like imagination.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate that too.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: And that that carries on from cast to environment to narrative and also runtime.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: How contained this movie is.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: So I think I was really helped.
13:55
SPEAKER_03: I was curious.
13:55
SPEAKER_03: I looked it up uh ahead of time.
13:57
SPEAKER_03: Uh, this is the third shortest film that he's made.
14:01
SPEAKER_03: Everything else is longer or way longer.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's not to say, like, no, if it's a longer movie, it's bad, but I definitely think that there is a enrichment that this film has over some of his others because it's contained like that.
14:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: So, uh, any of you guys watching right now, drop down in the comments what do you guys think of Memento?
14:21
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time you watched it?
14:22
SPEAKER_00: What are your opinions?
14:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh weigh in on this because I am I am quite curious.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, largely we're dealing with a uh untrustworthy narrator.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: And it's depicted through uh the character that Guy Pierce plays.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Um how do you feel like uh about his performance?
14:40
SPEAKER_00: We're basically with him the whole time, so he's almost in every single scene if he isn't.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: What do you what are your thoughts?
14:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, um I I uh broadly I like this this character, you know, and the degree to which you can call him a character is you know maybe one of those fuzzy things because he's uh an assortment of um motivations and personality traits, but because of the specific idea where he can't retain his memory, the way that he behaves arc-wise through this story is much different than you would expect or want from like a traditional protagonist.
15:15
SPEAKER_03: And I think that for the most part, the movie handles that pretty well.
15:18
SPEAKER_03: And I think that a lot of it is because we kind of have three timelines in this.
15:22
SPEAKER_03: There's the main timeline where it's the scenes that are running backward in backwards sequence, and then they're interspersed with a forward-moving timeline that are shot in black and white where he's in the motel room that eventually meets up with the backwards facing timeline.
15:39
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
15:39
SPEAKER_03: And then there are flashbacks that are interspersed throughout.
15:43
SPEAKER_03: And uh, I think that having that variety uh of different stuff going on, you know, because each one of those three timelines serves different purposes, um, kind of builds this guy out a little bit more than if it was just that backwards time narrative and you had to kind of like figure out who he was just through the modern messed up version of him.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: No, I agree.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: And I really feel like with those timelines that you mentioned, uh, this is a really good example of how to make uh exposition interesting and not boring.
16:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: And and and and I think that if anything, we we complain about certain movies, or I don't want to complain, I would say we critique certain movies.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh big budget blockbuster movies with Marvel and Star Wars.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: We just did a whole series on that, and that really is a barrage of poor expose execution, in my opinion.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: And so this is part of the originality, I think, of the movie.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: And as we all know, if you follow Chris Nolan's career, he loves the timeline aspect.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: It's always interfaced in all of his movies.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the better examples, I think.
16:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, and I think that one of the reasons that it works here too, uh, is kind of what I alluded at before is that um it's not just a twisty premise for a premise's sake, it's directly tied to the issue that the protagonist is dealing with.
17:07
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, I mean, Dunkirk was cool.
17:09
SPEAKER_03: I I there's a lot of things that I liked about that movie.
17:12
SPEAKER_03: I don't know that it's significantly made better by chopping up the timeline the way that he did in Matt, you know.
17:18
SPEAKER_03: Like again, that's his obsession.
17:20
SPEAKER_03: But, you know, other than just doing it because he could, it doesn't seem to directly relate to like the experiential nature of those soldiers on that beach waiting to get home, kind of thing.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I agree, I agree, and tethered.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, and I think that's what hints to uh the originality of this movie is that it is so it in intertwined, it is what makes this movie that much better.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: It's not an added feature of let's make it interesting, like you're saying.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: So you're right.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: I I definitely think that this illustrates that.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I appreciate too through those timelines, the different uh versions of Guy Pierce's characters that we get.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Like in these in this main narrative where every scene is before itself and we're going backwards, he's this very kind of like manic lost on edge.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then when he's narrating whether it's black and white or like in his head, he's almost whimsical in a way.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Like it's just kind of like I these are my thoughts and these are how it goes.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, when we get those flashbacks, it's it's all riddled with fear and uh like hysteria and those types of things.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: So I think he does a good job playing between those timelines.
18:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, broadly speaking, I I think the performances in this movie are pretty good.
18:31
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we really only have three main players, right?
18:34
SPEAKER_03: It's uh um Lenny or Leonard.
18:37
SPEAKER_03: Um Carrie Ann Moss uh as uh blah blah blah Natalie and uh Joey Pence as John G or uh Teddy, you know, whatever you want to think of him as.
18:50
SPEAKER_03: And I think all three of them are pretty great in this.
18:53
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
18:53
SPEAKER_03: Carrie Ann Moss in particular, because of the different colors she has to play, where initially you think she's a trustworthy character.
19:00
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
19:00
SPEAKER_03: And then you realize that not so much the case.
19:03
SPEAKER_03: She plays those colors pretty darn well in this.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: She does, she does.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Jason says Carrie-Ann Moss was a nutcase.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, I remember uh after like watching it the first time, I remember having this feeling about her and her character being like, Man, what a jerk.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't remember why.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: So it was interesting going through it a second time and being like, Yeah, no, I can't remember.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: Maybe she was just like, maybe her acting wasn't good, her acting was on point.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: And that scene, when you really see her true colors, it's like, oh, you're a whole nother level of crazy.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Um that those with as we were mentioning, uh, that kind of thing of like the timelines and how that works.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: That's a pure case of not just premise premise uh built, but building of character and plot through going backwards and serving a purpose that way.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so too.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, no, I I do think across the board, I really do like Teddy's character too.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: He is, I think, a riot.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Um the payoff I enjoy with those characters that you mentioned is I really appreciate them showing you eventually like how each Polaroid came to be.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Because so much, especially when we think about memory, we would go down memory lane or we look at old photos.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: So much about the photo is okay, well, where were we?
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, we call that back.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: And so when you have these abstract photos of like just barely a uh a silhouette or profile shot of Natalie, then you're like, well, wait, why if you're such good friends with her?
20:28
SPEAKER_00: And then when you get these payoffs, you're like, okay, it just enriches the narrative, I guess.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:32
SPEAKER_03: Well, and one other thing that really works in its favor, and you know, we've we've talked a lot about how important editing is, uh, you know, maybe not much more so than in a movie like this.
20:43
SPEAKER_03: But you know, part of uh what is built into editing is also shot design.
20:48
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, what what kind of moments do you choose?
20:51
SPEAKER_03: How do you portray them, you know, and how that can that be useful for reinforcing the story?
20:56
SPEAKER_03: In this case, because of the fact that um, you know, like I said, the main narrative, each scene is progressively going back in time, not forward in time.
21:06
SPEAKER_03: In order for you to understand where you've left off and where you're picking back up, he picks these like specific moments, like uh uh Joey Pants walking through the door going, Lenny, you know, yeah, he's at that motel, you know, like super recognizable moments so that when it comes back again, you're like, ah, that's where I was.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Right?
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And and I think it helps Yeah, yeah.
21:28
SPEAKER_03: For the most part, I think this movie does that extremely well.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: You're right.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: And and it is, I think, something that's happening that you register on the back of your mind, but maybe not on the forefront, but it really helps you from getting disoriented.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: It's they're almost like landmarks in ways.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: I think one of my favorite transitions is when he wakes up and he's got the bottle in his hand.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't feel drunk.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Like those types of things, it immediately hooks the question of okay, how did this happen?
21:53
SPEAKER_00: What how did this get there?
21:54
SPEAKER_00: So when you get that payoff, they're like small amounts of rewards to keep you interested.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Which I think is is huge.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Agreed.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: That one, and of course, also when uh Dodd is chasing him through the the trailer.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, that one's pretty comical.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: It's really good.
22:12
SPEAKER_03: No, he's chasing me.
22:13
SPEAKER_03: It's like, yeah, he's getting shot at, homie.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Um I I think the complication could happen when you're dealing with something like this.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really what happens in Nolan's films later on is that it is such a cool idea and a cool project.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to get lost in basically like what is the what is this movie about?
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, the whole movie is backwards.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: There is a way to get really get lost in that to where it doesn't make much sense or it doesn't have much draw power because maybe the characters aren't enticing.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why this movie is a standout and his later ones don't have that quality, I guess.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, maybe sorry, go ahead.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I was gonna say, I am curious though, if I mean maybe we should talk about the end of the show, but if this was your previous favorite, I'm curious to know what your favorite Nolan movie is.
23:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't know.
23:05
SPEAKER_03: I mean, maybe like maybe I don't have one.
23:07
SPEAKER_03: Maybe they're just like this is because I still really like this movie.
23:11
SPEAKER_03: And it would still probably reside in like you know, my top three or whatever.
23:14
SPEAKER_03: It's just like, would I put a specific order to those top three?
23:18
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: Right?
23:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but maybe it's that kind of thing.
23:22
SPEAKER_03: Um, uh and you know, one of the reasons that I'm uh after watching it that I wasn't as effusive on it, and maybe this is me being a little bit too like nerdy nitpicky kind of stuff, and the movie deserves a pass.
23:35
SPEAKER_03: But I, you know, I did notice this time or couldn't help but feel like um the rules that are established for this premise about how his memory operates and how he navigates it, and the explanations they have about Sammy Chankis and this whole thing about conditioning that you can train yourself to remember things even though the memory doesn't exactly work.
23:58
SPEAKER_03: I was like, some of this feels a little loosey-goosey, sloppy, you know, like almost hand-wavy, like, you know, we're we're making it work sufficiently enough for the plot of this movie, but like outside of that, you know, maybe it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
24:13
SPEAKER_03: I'm sure there's a lot of it that's not even like medically or psychologically accurate.
24:17
SPEAKER_03: I don't know how much they like consulted with mental health professionals to do this whole whole kind of thing.
24:23
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, I bumped into that a little bit watching it last night.
24:26
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and so you know, take that for what it's worth.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: No, I I definitely see what you're saying.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's funny because I feel like I bumped more into that during Interstellar.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: But the main difference, I don't feel like it's so much like because one was researched far better than the other.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: If anything, I would assume Interstellar was probably researched a bit more, maybe, but the difference are the engagement in the characters.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: And as we've mentioned before, you can forgive a multitude of sins when you have engaging characters.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Um but then again, I mean, I do think that both of us err on the side of character-driven storylines and not premise built or plot line built.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And so there are a lot of people out there that that's what they want, and that's what is there.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Um so in terms of, and I want to make sure I get this straight in terms of the the let's talk about basically the payoff at the end and how it works.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: So we open up with him shooting Teddy, and you think, okay, he finally got his John G.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: And then as it unfolds, potentially he was the second, potentially he was the third, potentially potentially he was the the 20th, right?
25:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, like exactly.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: So then it begs the question uh Mallory and I were talking about this after the movie.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: The motivation for Teddy was Teddy really the person who killed his wife or not?
25:46
SPEAKER_00: My take is no.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: The first per the first John G they talk about was actually the real one that murdered his wife.
25:54
SPEAKER_03: But the one where they've got that photo of Lenny shirtless looking really happy.
25:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: And so the motivation for Teddy, in my opinion, is he saw an opportunity to, he is an actual cop, to use him to basically get what he wants, that being a cut of the money or what it is, and using that aspect because he's not gonna remember, anyways, he could take a lie detector test, still can't figure that out.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: He's like the perfect person to work with.
26:20
SPEAKER_03: Right.
26:22
SPEAKER_03: Um I I I I think I kind of take the um interpret.
26:28
SPEAKER_03: Well, I don't even know if interpretation is right because the movie, at least through Teddy's character, tries to tell you that uh Leonard thinks that he remembers what his life was before this incident.
26:40
SPEAKER_03: Um, but maybe maybe not, because you know, Teddy tells him one, your wife is still alive, and she was the one that had diabetes.
26:48
SPEAKER_03: Uh Sammy Jankis didn't have a wife at all.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:51
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, did he conglomerate you know what he thinks he remembers about his past life and this other Sammy Jankis character and turn them into like the same person, and that's who he thinks that he is?
27:03
SPEAKER_03: Um I I think that's a defensible interpretation.
27:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:07
SPEAKER_03: Um and uh, so this idea that you know the memory loss thing puts him into this cycle of just endlessly chasing the the revenge because he can't remember that he did it.
27:21
SPEAKER_03: Right, he can't even necessarily remember why he's doing it because maybe, like I said, maybe his wife's not dead.
27:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:27
SPEAKER_03: Um I think that what he's going for with that, and uh well, him and his brother, because Jonathan Nolan, his brother wrote the screenplay for this.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right, right.
27:36
SPEAKER_03: I think that just thematically what they're talking about there is obsession.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:42
SPEAKER_03: And and really even sorry, go ahead.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, no, go ahead, elaborate.
27:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he's even got dialogue in the movie where he says something for the fact effect of, you know, um, it gives him uh you know a purpose in life, something to do, something to be occupied with, you know.
27:58
SPEAKER_03: Um, and you know, you can relate that probably to uh creative pursuits, like you know, trying to tell stories and stuff like that.
28:06
SPEAKER_03: So I feel like there's a little meta thing about being an artist in this too, as it relates to obsession, but tell me what you think.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: No, I agree.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: I think um that especially I I I think one of the bigger moments that Chris Nolan tries to capture, that aha moment, I really appreciate when he is in his truck at the end and then he looks at Teddy's license plate, and that's where we get the license plate.
28:31
SPEAKER_03: Um you hear him in the dialogue, like specifically, he's consciously saying, I'm going to make you my John G.
28:39
SPEAKER_03: Right.
28:39
SPEAKER_03: He knows that he's setting up a falsehood here, right?
28:42
SPEAKER_03: But does it anyway because I gotta have some I get I I I I I'm not tiring of you know chasing after this truck, you know, right?
28:51
SPEAKER_03: It's just he's gotta do it.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and overall, I think that when they're talking about conditioning and memory and stuff like that, and I have only memories of who my wife was before the accident, and I have feelings he can't really describe, even though he says he remembers everything before the accident, he never really goes into full detail of who she was.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: He has glimpses and thoughts.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: So this obsession leads me to believe this is the type of person he was prior to the accident was an obsessive type of person in that aspect.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: And so that carried over if we're talking about conditioning and doing the same thing.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at every scene that Sammy Jenkins is in, the guy he remembers, it's this sense of like lack of obsession, peace, lack of motivation.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: He's just sedentary.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: And on some degree, we follow similar scenes in black and white with his character, and like he's on the phone and he's fidgeting, he's scratching at his arm, he's he's giving himself tattoos, like he just cannot.
29:49
SPEAKER_03: Well, and also just like non-stop, just blurting out everything that's going through his brain, trying to you know justify or explain what's going on.
29:58
SPEAKER_03: It's a little bit manic the way he delivers that in that sequence of the movie.
30:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: And those are yeah, added uh bits of flavor to the character that I think really works.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, really quick, let's take a break and let's talk a little bit about deep cover.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, this is smoking beautifully in terms of construction, smoke output.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: That savoriness continues.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting a hint more sweetness, um, but there's also something herbal, like almost like eucalyptus or something going on there.
30:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:26
SPEAKER_03: I'm also getting what now I think I might qualify as a bready component.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: Bready, yeah.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: A little bit buttery.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: Um maybe even like a rye bread.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can see that.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: This is the type of Maduro I think of when it's like I am in the mood for something a bit more aggressive that you're gonna taste the cigar.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is not a subtle cigar in any way, and that's I think where I find my appreciation for it.
30:53
SPEAKER_03: I agree with you.
30:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's punchy, it's very punchy, very punchy.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, let's let's talk also a little bit though, in terms of those those moments of character enrichment.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, let's see, we got mob 718 on saying good evening, gentlemen.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: Hey there for jumping on.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh and Jason also saying I was confused about Teddy.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Um I honestly think from what we see of Teddy's character, I he just seems like an opportunist and he uses people to get where he wants, whether it him being an informant or such.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: And so I I would lean on the side, no, he's not the one who killed his wife.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: I would lean on the more side as he saw the opportunity.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I kind of believe him when he says, Yeah, I was the only one who believed you, and we tried to hunt him down the first time.
31:40
SPEAKER_03: Like that right, right.
31:41
SPEAKER_03: Well, I I I feel like there's still a little bit of ambiguity as to whether or not Teddy is actually a policeman, you know, because he claims to be at certain parts of the narrative, he claims not to be at other parts.
31:54
SPEAKER_03: Allegedly, there's ID he's got that confirms that he's a police officer.
31:58
SPEAKER_03: But I unless I'm way off my rocker, I don't think we ever actually really see that ourselves as the audience.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: The only time I think we see is like he flashes out of the side of a a uh a badge, but we don't necessarily ever see the badge.
32:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Ever.
32:12
SPEAKER_03: And for me, I like that ambiguity.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
32:16
SPEAKER_03: Uh, I think it makes the um it kind of reinforces it some of the themes about like, you know, uh the the problem with certainty, right?
32:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:25
SPEAKER_03: You know, how it's difficult to know things.
32:29
SPEAKER_03: Um, and you know, that seems central to this whole thing where you know Leonard is trying to make sense of all these things that he thinks are facts and you know uh uh uh uh uh uh ideas about things, constantly referencing the photos in his pocket and having to trust what's written on those, like you know, right certainty is a theme that's written all over this movie, and I think that bit of ambiguity, at least that I perceive about uh Teddy just reinforces that, and I think it's cool.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, and it it plays up in that unreliable narrator because you have this whole time, don't believe his lies, Natalie is trying to help you, such like that.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: So you're you're going through it being kind of rooting for Guy Pierce's character and against Teddy.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, Teddy doesn't seem like a cool dude, but at the same time, neither is our narrator by the end of it.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: No, and it does a really good job of like the magician's trick of like, watch what I'm doing over here.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: So you start rooting for Guy Pierce's character, and then at the end, you're like, Oh, he was not only an unreliable character, uh, narrator because of his memory, but also because of who he is and what he's been doing this whole time.
33:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:39
SPEAKER_03: Um, there's one moment right towards the end of the film that I think is interesting, and I'm wondering if uh what if what your take on it was, because I remember being kind of thrown off the first time that I saw this, although I thought it was cool, is that there's that bit in the final shot where he's driving and he's closed his eyes and he's trying to center himself and say, you know, uh, you know, basically reinforce his purpose.
34:04
SPEAKER_03: And in that little montage of shots, there's one of him laying in bed with his wife in that blank space on his chest that he was saving for uh, you know, the final tattoo, and you can see it reads, I did it, which doesn't show up anywhere else in the movie.
34:22
SPEAKER_03: Did you catch that?
34:23
SPEAKER_00: I did not catch that.
34:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:26
SPEAKER_03: And uh I'm wondering if if that's meant to be narrative truth or Leonard's, you know, kind of you know, imagination taking him to like that's the goal that I'm keep driving myself towards, right?
34:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, and as you had mentioned, like the the ambiguity and the appreciation for it, um a really like strong moment of that is they they keep flashing back to like he and his wife, she's sitting on the bed and he pinches her, or maybe he had a shot, or maybe he didn't have the shot, like that type of thing.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: I knew something was going on with with the Sammy situation when the flicker happens when they show Sammy in like the rest home, but split second, they they switch places.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Um that type of thing um I think is is really good execution.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: But I didn't actually catch that that added like tattoo thing.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: I might have to go to that one.
35:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:22
SPEAKER_03: Um you know the the the the tattoos uh are another one of those things that like I said, if you like really think hard and logically about this premise and what's implied about like how and why he does this stuff with the way his memory works.
35:36
SPEAKER_03: I don't know that the the the tattoo thing totally sells, but it makes for a really cool visual, and especially like when it's like every time his memory resets, he like rediscovers them.
35:47
SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh gosh, I have what you gotta take my shirt.
35:51
unknown: What the heck?
35:51
SPEAKER_03: And you know, keeps relearning about like his motivation and the things that he thinks that he knows.
35:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it sounds like a hellish existence, right?
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: No, no, for sure.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, we we tie touched a little bit like like lightly on um Natalie's character, but let's follow her story in her narration.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: I was first thinking when I when we started the movie, I'm like, okay, this is a cool premise.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: And I was actually engaged from the beginning, unlike I don't know what happened last time I watched it, but I wasn't.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: But I was engaged to it.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: But I was like, what advantages are we going to actually have by telling the narrative this way?
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Is it just a cool way to tell the story?
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think a lot the some of the biggest advantages really happen with his and her interaction.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: First, first third of the movie, you're rooting for them.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: You're even like, man, she is helping him, she's taking him in.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: And to see that bait and switch, um, I think it is such a unique situation that it wouldn't hit as hard if we were watching it in real time.
36:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
36:54
SPEAKER_03: I mean, somebody probably like on YouTube has done a supercut of this where they took it and rearranged it into chronological order.
37:00
SPEAKER_03: And I'm willing to bet that that movie sucks because it robs it of all the that, like you said, that I mean, this is one of the good examples of Chris Nolan playing with time to recontextualize things that you thought that you knew, and you know, looking at it at a different point in timeline or from a different point of view uh reveals new information, and that's one of the rewards of this movie for me.
37:24
SPEAKER_03: I think yes functions pretty darn well.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and I think um two very impactful moments that illustrate that through her character.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: One, of course, is when she has been hit by him because she goes on that crazy speech, yeah, psycho speech.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: Um so that that moment's really good, and then also when he first meets her in the bar, um, not only with the whole thing with the glass and spitting in the glass and such like that, but also she she kind of knows who he is when he walks in because they just had an interaction about, oh, I thought you were somebody else.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's not a problem.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: And then she starts picking up on that and acts like she's never seen him.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: Like it's such a diabolical, cruel way to go about it.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: That you just love to hate her in this movie.
38:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, and they they hint at it a few times.
38:09
SPEAKER_03: Like, there's a bit in one of those bars scenes where she says something about him, you know, walking in here dressed like that.
38:16
SPEAKER_03: You're like, what does that even mean?
38:18
SPEAKER_03: And it's crazy late in the movie that you learn that the car and the suit that he's wearing aren't his.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
38:26
SPEAKER_03: He stole them from Jimmy.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's almost out of context.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: You're like, well, I mean, I guess he's wearing a suit, but why would this be a big problem?
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Or everyone's commenting, I like your car, nice car.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, it's a convertible, but I mean, yeah.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
38:40
SPEAKER_03: I do think it's also kind of a nice touch, just as a like a uh production design standpoint, that that car is always dirty.
38:47
SPEAKER_03: That's not something that you usually do in a movie like this, unless like you see characters driving through a desert or it's an action film or something like that.
38:54
SPEAKER_03: To just have a regular car that's like all gross and dusty and stuff like that.
38:59
SPEAKER_03: It gives this like you know, slightly unsettling texture to the movie.
39:04
SPEAKER_03: The whole time you're seeing it, yeah.
39:05
SPEAKER_03: I don't know, it's a cool thing.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: It's an it's an eerie realism that is not quite comfortable.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: I think we had remarked upon that a little bit with uh one battle after another.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: How like certain scenes that were supposed to be big action scenes where you have the windshield so dusty and cloudy it's hard to see the subject's face and stuff like that.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, but the thing too, I would say one of the takeaways for the story and its execution is there's a lot of movies, I think it's huge in series two, where you open to get your hook, your audience hooked, you have the like climax at the beginning of the movie, and then okay, how do we lead up to that?
39:41
SPEAKER_00: This format, a little bit similar.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: The difference is because we're following that pattern so much, you almost lose track of like where exactly did we pick up here, and then it kind of helps play it out because you're he's recalling, like we were saying about like moments and landmarks to recall the memory, but he's also recalling things like I really appreciated when they go back to the area and there's this truck that's still there, there's the bullets that are still there, like all those, all those things kind of added on to it.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, that it just kind of brings it brings it into a full circle that's digestible and it's not just like I guess tropey and it's not disorienting.
40:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um that's another one of those things, like I mentioned, how where those transitions between um uh scenes where you know he leaves you on those memorable moments like Teddy or Lenny.
40:29
SPEAKER_03: Um and um uh you know, visually the movie does a lot of the same things of specifically giving you a close-up on something like those bullets on the front seat of a car.
40:41
SPEAKER_03: Like you know, yeah.
40:44
SPEAKER_03: By by doing it that way, specifically doing a close-up of it, you know, that's the movie saying something is there's something meaningful about this.
40:51
SPEAKER_03: So that when you eventually see it later in context, you immediately understand, right?
40:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, that's just really, really solid, uh, not just editing, but you know, uh even probably at the script level, like planning stuff out, like it had to make this work.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: It had to be crazy to keep this timeline in while you're shooting.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: Like I think of stuff like that sometimes in terms of like, man, how often were they getting confused and having like probably a full layout of just like where are we in this situation?
41:19
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: It's gotta be crazy.
41:21
SPEAKER_03: It would have been nice.
41:22
SPEAKER_03: Uh, I have I own a um uh special edition DVD of this.
41:27
SPEAKER_03: I should have grabbed it and brought it into my office.
41:29
SPEAKER_03: It's cool.
41:30
SPEAKER_03: The the packaging looks like a uh a case file, like it would be in a psychologist's office.
41:35
SPEAKER_03: It's got a little paper clip and everything, and then you open it up and there's a bunch of papers in there, and there's a sticky note on the disc and it says watch on the sticky note.
41:44
SPEAKER_03: Um but uh the director's commentary that Nolan did for the movie Insomnia uh is a really interesting one because that's not one where he just lets the movie play and he talks about what he remembers working on it.
41:57
SPEAKER_03: They actually recut the movie for his um uh commentary to show the scenes in filming order, like this is the order in which we filmed everything.
42:07
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that is.
42:08
SPEAKER_03: And I would be interested to see what that would be like for this movie.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, specifically the scene we were talking about with Natalie like getting beat up, stuff like did they film that as one large shot and then just cut it three?
42:19
SPEAKER_00: Or do they stuff like that would be interesting?
42:22
SPEAKER_00: I would be interested to know for sure.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I mean you talk about insomnia, and we've been talking about Chris Nolan films.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, do you have any different perspective going through some of the ones we did, like on his movies in general as a director?
42:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, or do you feel like because I know we've talked and you've said before, like uh David Fincher's outlook is really infused into all of his movies.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, what do you feel as a whole for Chris Nolan?
42:50
SPEAKER_03: Well, um, you know, uh uh uh the theme of obsession this movie is not relegated just to this movie.
42:57
SPEAKER_03: He's definitely got that going in a lot.
42:59
SPEAKER_03: I mean, uh Nolan to me is very hitchcocky almost in the sense that you know he just keeps revisiting the same things that he's obsessed with over and over and over again.
43:08
SPEAKER_03: Uh right.
43:08
SPEAKER_03: This timeline thing is definitely one of them.
43:10
SPEAKER_03: Dead wives, apparently, yeah thing.
43:15
SPEAKER_03: Maybe that's like a major fear of his that he doesn't want to lose his wife, which you know, fair enough.
43:20
SPEAKER_03: I don't want to lose mine either.
43:21
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, uh I I I think that you know, because this was sort of early in his career, like I said, there's not the big budget and you know, the like like tenant where it's this super dense concept that you know requires tons of special effects to pull off and whatnot.
43:37
SPEAKER_03: This feels like one of the purer expressions of that idea.
43:41
SPEAKER_03: Um partly because of the small scaleness of it, but also because, like I said, you know, the the themes and ideas are directly tied to the narrative rather than feeling like they're slightly divorced from it in a couple of his movies.
43:54
SPEAKER_03: So um uh I I I mean, this is one of the things that I like about film is that.
44:00
SPEAKER_03: You know, you get a window into other people's psychology and this stuff that, you know, and it's like I said, it's the same with Hitchcock or or Spielberg or, you know, a lot of filmmakers that we like.
44:10
SPEAKER_03: You learn their personality and their proclivities and their obsessions through the work that they make.
44:16
SPEAKER_03: And that's just a way to connect with human beings, right?
44:18
SPEAKER_03: In a way, it's just, you know, kind of learning about each other through them telling stories that reflect what they think and feel.
44:25
SPEAKER_03: And um, no one definitely does that.
44:27
SPEAKER_03: Uh, but this to me is one of the best, if not the best, version.
44:31
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: I I would agree.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: I think I can't help but like it's hard for me to separate earlier career to what it is now because I'm not like saying, like, oh yeah, everything sucks now, but I I do think there is a level of maybe sincerity that existed a bit more in like this movie, um and his earlier stuff that I think I appreciate more.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: I think I've mentioned one of my favorite movies that he's done is The Prestige.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: Um I really like again, as you had mentioned, the theme of obsession is huge.
45:05
SPEAKER_02: Every time in that movie, yeah.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: Um but I think that this the the even the uh unreliable narrator and the timeline that plays out in that movie.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know, it just it seems more for the character and for the time that we're having, and not so much so big budget, so grand scale that you either get lost or it seems numb.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: Like so many moments we talked about in Interstellar, I was just too numb to it.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: I did it didn't really register with me, it didn't pull me in, and it didn't, I guess, have the desired effect that I think he was going after, the same way even like Memento did.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: Um and it and I think too, you bring up a good point with Dunkirk.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: I think it is a very ambitious thing to pull off those three timelines.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: Just doesn't really, I guess, fit it as much.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: And so I guess when I'm looking into Chris Nolan on his next big next movie and such like that, it's like it's definitely gonna be an epic, it's definitely gonna be thought-provoking, but don't lose the sincerity and the characters in the meantime because that's when it's gonna lack.
46:07
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
46:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um with with a movie like Dunkirk, you know, when you're in it, you know, uh in each of those time sequences, you know, the main dramatic impact is just the experiential terror of these men having to go through what they're going through.
46:23
SPEAKER_03: Right.
46:23
SPEAKER_03: I don't know that playing with the timeline significantly recontextualizes, other than for like a couple moments where you can just go, oh hey, I recognize that thing that we saw from a different angle before.
46:34
SPEAKER_03: I don't know that it if you took that movie and just put it in like a standard chronological order, that it would fundamentally alter like the main experiential horror, right?
46:44
SPEAKER_03: Of you know, having to be in that situation.
46:46
SPEAKER_03: Whereas with this movie, if you did it would fundamentally alter what the movie is doing.
46:51
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
46:52
SPEAKER_03: Yes, you you can't take this movie, put it in standard sequence and and get the same result because it's precisely about how that kind of uh uncertainty about where you're at in the the narrative, again, mirroring Leonard's POV, like the movie has to be this way.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I definitely agree.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: And I think I think we're right to draw the comparison of Nolan and Hitchcock.
47:21
SPEAKER_00: I know they're in separate genres, I know they're uh very different directors.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, there are some through lines and some similarities that I see.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: True.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: And I I heard one author one time say that like the motivation for a premise that he would come up with is not so much the premise and how much terror this is going to invoke or how what the situation is gonna be, but it's I want to watch these characters and how do they interact with this premise?
47:49
SPEAKER_00: How does that affect them?
47:51
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I think I've I've mentioned Inception, um, Interstellar is a good way as well, to where it's like, yeah, the premise is cool, but at the same time, if you don't care about the interaction that's happening with your main protagonist, it's just gonna fall short or seem less humanistic, I guess, in some way.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: And that's the danger I think Nolan falls into.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: It can be too Nolanized and three hours of it or or not.
48:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, and another thing on that front that I think works in this movie's favor is uh the way that Guy Pierce delivers the narration because there's a ton of narration in this, it's kind of you know necessary the what the way that it's structured, and the tone of his voice and the way that he's got like pauses or lingers on words when he's it's like you know, you really feel like he's thinking about this as he's saying it rather than just reading dialogue off of a page, right?
48:42
SPEAKER_03: Um, I think that goes a real big long way in this movie to not only you know giving you a sense of his personality to a degree, but also his his state of mind as he's you know contemplating his situation.
48:57
SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, guy Guy Pearson's performance in this is pretty darn solid.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: It is, it is, and I don't know if you got the same feeling or sense, but each time we're introduced to a new character through the eyes of Leonard, there's this side of like untrustworthy, hoping, like, oh yeah, hopefully, I don't know, the hotel manager, hopefully he's not ripping them off, or hopefully Natalie is okay and she's not crazy.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: Like you you're you want to root for Leonard because you're discovering at the same pace he is that type of situation that Nolan puts you in is a winning situation because the minute you learn that, oh yeah, Guy Pierce is kind of crazy and he is manic and obsessive and all these types of things, you feel almost let down, but also it's such a twist that you're like, wow, I didn't see this necessarily coming.
49:48
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a good setup, and it I think it worked.
49:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, and if it if if we interpret this as being a um, you know, Nolan and his brother self-reflecting on obsession, you know, it's kind of uh laudable thing that they're not putting it on a pedestal, you know.
50:07
SPEAKER_03: They're like you know, because you know, by the time you learn the whole shebang with Leonard and where he like he chooses to go after Teddy is like you're my new John G.
50:17
SPEAKER_03: It's like there's a dark side to this obsession, you know, it's not just you know a uh uh a useful mindset toward achieving a goal, right?
50:26
SPEAKER_03: You know, there's right destructive elements to this, and I I think it's cool that the movie acknowledges that.
50:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 100%.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's let's talk final third uh with deep cover.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm really enjoying the cigar.
50:39
SPEAKER_00: This yeah, this is a blend that it's like if you want something heavier, fuller, uh it's definitely there.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: Really good savory notes.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: I I don't necessarily all the way through would say it has a ton of sweetness.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: Um but you're right, it's got this like savory and still smoked wood, like it's kind of like charcoal-y smokiness to it.
50:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
51:00
SPEAKER_03: There's also a uh distinctly aromatic quality that I'm picking up, particularly on the uh retro hail, that doesn't exactly taste like this, but for I I can't pick out any other thing.
51:12
SPEAKER_03: It's just there's a certain sensation that reminds me of the tingle you get from uh uh uh horseradish or really strong black licorice, if that makes sense.
51:22
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
51:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely, definitely.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's uh let's bring it to a voting on a scale from one to ten.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about uh deep cover.
51:34
SPEAKER_00: Where is this cigar gonna land?
51:39
SPEAKER_03: It's a blank, this is a blank sticky note.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here we go.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: We have we have not conferred.
51:49
SPEAKER_00: Um got a you got an 8.5, I got an eight.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's up there.
51:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh Jason says deep cover is very smooth with some menthol notes.
52:00
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay, yeah.
52:00
SPEAKER_03: See, that makes sense to me too.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then let's go with uh Memento.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because I used to debate this movie with other people and how much I did not like this movie.
52:13
SPEAKER_00: So here we go.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: You ready?
52:15
SPEAKER_03: I'm using the same sticky note.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm doing a 7.8.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh I I did really enjoy it.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: I definitely think that this will be one of the bigger highlights for Chris Nolan through this series.
52:27
SPEAKER_00: For me, I think it's one of his better movies.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: Let's see.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh Jason says, I give it an eight and film eight.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: Solid night, man.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: Super solid.
52:39
SPEAKER_00: So we're starting a new series, and this is prior to soon to be Halloween season.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: I know, right?
52:45
SPEAKER_00: Which we'll be jumping it's crazy.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: It goes by fast.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: But this was kind of more of uh your idea that you came up with.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: So uh we're kind of, if you don't mind elaborating, what what are we tackling these next next weeks?
52:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, you know, there's uh lots of different ways to tackle these episodes, but I think, you know, one of the things that we um talk about a lot with any kind of entertainment, whether it's music or whatever, you know, we very much think of them as belonging to a decade, even though you know, time, you know, the decades are an arbitrary thing that we created to make sense of time.
53:13
SPEAKER_03: But you know, really time just keeps moving forwards, there's transitions all the time.
53:18
SPEAKER_03: Nevertheless, it's fun to talk about these compartments that we call tests.
53:22
SPEAKER_03: So we're gonna start with the 1980s and watch what we think is the most 80s movie.
53:28
SPEAKER_00: All right.
53:28
SPEAKER_00: So stay tuned for that.
53:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and then we'll go from the the 80s to 90s to 2000s, so it'll be pretty cool.
53:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, Jason says, Thank you again, Eric and Curtis.
53:39
SPEAKER_00: Great show once again.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for jumping on.
53:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh, thank you, everyone, who watched the show with us.
53:44
SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, stay tuned for next week as we jump back into the 80s and find a quintessential movie that that sort of embodies the 80s era.
53:53
SPEAKER_00: So it won't be Ferris Bueller because we already talked about Ferris Bueller, but yes, that was an 80s film.
53:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, thank you, everyone.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next week on Cigars and Cinema and have a great week.