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Ranking Spielberg - Later Years · All The Right Movies

0:04
All the old movies, the multiplication table of what
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films are going to cost 10 years from now is going to mean that
0:12
Hollywood won't be able to give audiences grand entertainment
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anymore. The films will be smaller but
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much more provocative. Can you do that kind of movie?
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Yes, I can. If I find the right script and
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story, absolutely. But I'll miss the big show.
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This is not a boat accident. It was a shark.
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ET. Phone home ET Phone home.
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Saving Private Ryan was the one decent thing we were able to
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pull out of this whole God awful shitty mess is.
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Life you said you've got AT Rex. Say again.
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We have AT Rex. In an award leading career
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covering 6 decades in over 30 movies, Steven Spielberg is the
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most successful director of all time, arguably the most
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influential in regard to the most powerful figure in
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Hollywood. My name is John and I'm here
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with Westie. The sand out of your weapons
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keep those actions clear. Now see you on the beach.
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Luke. Hold on to your butts.
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And Matt, careful, Chief, dig up the past.
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All you get is dirty. Life finds a way, and so will
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all the right movies to talk about T Rex's pontificate about
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precogs and converse about con men, as we rank the most magical
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movie maker of them all. We were so preoccupied with
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whether we should, we didn't stop to think if we could.
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Hello and welcome to All the Right Movies and Oscar winning
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box office busting podcast on classic and hit films.
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This is the second part of our Steven Spielberg episode,
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Ranking Spielberg the Later Years.
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So if you've not listened to part one, you might want to head
2:34
over to Ranking Spielberg the Early Years 1st and then come
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back here. So our ranking episodes are
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where we talk about and rank the best 10 films of an actor or
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director. We covered Spielberg's career
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before movies and the first five of our 10 in that part one.
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And they were Jaws, close Encounters of the First Kind,
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Raiders of the Lost, Dark, ET the Extraterrestrial, and
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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
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And today we're going to be talking about the final five,
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the make up our ten. They are Jurassic Park,
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Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, and Catch
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Me If You Can. An emotional rollercoaster, this
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one. Yes, it is.
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Absolutely. Then following that, we'll take
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all those films and bring you our countdown of our Steven
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Spielberg Top 10 Movies. Before we start, though, we're
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beating the Patreon drum again. All the right movies are now on
3:26
Patreon, and if you become a patron, you could gain access to
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a whole host of benefits, including not one, not two, but
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three extra podcast episodes per month.
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There's a whole range of other benefits on there too, so please
3:38
take a look at patreon.com/all the right movies.
3:43
Yeah, for sure. Really appreciate it, guys.
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Thank you. Course, without saying that, any
3:47
support you can give in helping us make new movie content is
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enormously appreciated. Massive.
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Yeah, massively. Huge.
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So that's enough of the plugs for now.
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Back to Spielberg. So the last movie we talked
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about in the previous episode was Indiana Jones in The Last
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Crusade, like I mentioned. Should we carry on from there?
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Yes, we should. Yes, let's go.
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Let's do it. After Indiana Jones and the Last
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Crusade, Spielberg went even further into fantasy and
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directed Hook two years later retelling of the Peter Pan
4:19
story. A fantastical movie, but it
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wasn't received fantastically well.
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It's actually Spielberg's lowest rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes
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was the 28%. However, it wasn't long before
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All Time Classic was back on the Spielberg menu, where meeting
4:35
back Up was in for his next film after Hook, an adventure
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65,000,000 years in the making. It's one of the biggest shows
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around. It's Jurassic Park.
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I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're
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that you're using here. It didn't require any discipline
4:55
to attain it. You know you read what others
4:58
had done and you and you took the next step.
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You didn't earn the knowledge. For yourselves, so you don't
5:03
take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of
5:08
geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could.
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And before you even knew what you had you, you patented it and
5:14
packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunch box.
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And now you're selling it. You want to sell it?
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Well, fuck. I I don't think you're giving us
5:22
our due credit. Our scientists have done things
5:25
which nobody's ever done before. Yeah, yeah.
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But your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not
5:29
they could they. Didn't stop to think of they
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should. Jurassic Park was released in
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1993. Based on a best selling novel by
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Michael Crichton. It's the story of a group of
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scientists who visit a safari park island for the weekend.
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The difference being the safari is dinosaurs, the problem being
5:48
the dinosaurs break free. Starring Sam Neil, Laura de and
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Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough, it regarded one of
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the great blockbuster movies and again was the highest grossing
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film ever made. They have AT Rex.
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What do we think of Jurassic Park?
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I saw this in the cinema when it came out in 93.
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Like everybody else did. Yeah, but what an experience.
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I'll tell you what. What had impact this made?
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What an experience that was still probably to date, what are
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the favorite cinema experiences of me life seeing this at that
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time, I was the perfect age to see it.
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This is Spielberg at his most flamboyant.
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He's hit the ground running with this.
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The effects still today are better than most stuff that's
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coming out now. Really.
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Really hold up. There's that mix between CGI and
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live action. Spielberg knows how to do live
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action so well. The CGI had to match.
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So they went back and they did it over and over until he was
6:51
happy. I mean, I'll show it to my kids
6:54
and they think it's real. I still think it's real.
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I don't want to be convinced that it's not.
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It's such a fantastic film and it is pure, pure Spielberg.
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Yeah, absolutely, Luke. I hadn't seen it in a long while
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until recently and like Westies, still think it holds up
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massively. It's great, dinosaurs look
7:12
great, and you've got Jeff Goldblum playing like a Jim
7:14
Morrison type, which is always a bonus.
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Leather pants. Yeah, open shirt.
7:21
Fantastic. Jim Morrison's Chaos Theory.
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I'm not a massive fan of the kids though.
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I'd forgotten about them when I was really watching it, and when
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they showed up I was like, oh God, I forgot about these.
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As you are in real life. Especially that little brat Tim.
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Hear that little? Shit, now what about you?
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Have to be honest, I've never really liked this, even as a
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kid. I honestly thought it was a bit
7:49
boring. I do.
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Incredulous for Westie. I'm waiting for the punch but.
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You're doing that thing where you're saying you don't like it,
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then you're going to say I'm just joking.
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That's PIS thing. Like he compared, like how he
8:09
builds the anticipation in Jaws that keeps the shark off screen
8:13
for so long. The look on Rusty's face, yeah.
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It's amazing. I don't think he's just the
8:18
same. The beginning always feels very
8:20
kind of restless and impatient, and not in a good sense.
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It feels shapeless even after the T Rex sequence, which is
8:26
amazing. Wes, He's having a breakdown.
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I. Don't think it builds up any
8:30
momentum for me. It feels like he needed to have
8:32
another run out with the editor. And I just wonder because he did
8:37
post production on this while he was in Poland, film and
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Schindler's List, and I just think he doesn't have his full
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attention on it and it just feels unfocused.
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And yeah, I'm just not a fan. It just doesn't build to
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anything for me. Red hot take from Matt.
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Wester, you're getting closer and closer to.
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The screen Wester, You're huge on my screen.
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Objects may be closer than they appear.
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So I saw this in the cinema as well when it came out.
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It's probably the 1st event movie I can remember seeing.
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One of the definitive blockbuster films for me.
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Great concept, huge spectacle. One of the most groundbreaking
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and important films when it comes to visual effects.
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It's not perfect, I do have some nitpicks with it, but on the
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whole I think it's superb. And the dinosaurs are fantastic.
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They are absolutely fantastic, The stars of the show.
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I love it. I love Jurassic Park, so Wesley,
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you're desperate to get in there.
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What do you like about it? I'm over it.
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I'm fine. You can keep your close
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encounters. I'll take Jurassic Park.
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What do you like about Jurassic Park?
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There's so many things for me to like in this film, but when the
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first get there and there's still that doubt in Grant's
9:51
mind, yeah, OK, we're just going to go and look at a few little
9:54
things. It's going to be an anticlimax.
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It's not going to be what you think it's going to be.
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And the driving through and they're looking and he's like,
10:00
he finds the plant. This plant shouldn't exist.
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There's all these little Nuggets in the builds and builds and
10:05
builds. And then he turns and then he
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turns her head round looks and the climbing out the sunroof.
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And then there's just that wide shot and you just see them pure
10:15
daylight. Surge of music as well from
10:17
Williams. Yeah, Williams.
10:18
Yeah, it's that moment. And you just think, Christ
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Almighty, that's what he's wanted to see his whole life.
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And it is in front of him. And then it just pans out and
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you just see flocks of them everywhere.
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You just think this is huge and just that first sight of the
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dinosaurs for me, I just remember feeling so elated and I
10:37
was thinking, where the fuck did they get these dinosaurs from?
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I don't think they exist. Yeah, we see another Spielberg
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trademark, I think there, the Spielberg face, I think it's
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called, where he slowly zooms in on a character's face to show or
10:50
or invoke or in US watching he has where he zooms in on Ellie.
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That's Laura doing when she first sees that dinosaur.
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Yeah, it's just classic Spielberg.
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He does it a lot. Amazing.
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Do you know what dinosaur that is?
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Bronchiasaurus. A brontosaurus just making
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things a. Bronchiosaurus.
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Almost. It's a brachiosaur.
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Brachiosaur, that's what I meant.
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Very long neck, The Brachiosaur look.
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What about you? What's the thing you're going
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for? For what you like.
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It's the demise of Dennis Nedry that I love so much in this film
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because he's such a loathsome individual and he's trying to
11:32
stiff everybody on site. I get a lot of perverse
11:35
satisfaction from seeing this like loaded mess of a man being
11:39
stalked and killed by the dinosaurs.
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I love that he gets acid spat in his face and he's got that kind
11:45
of comedy head bump that leaves him on his ass.
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Yeah. And it's the most terrifying
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sequence in the entire film, particularly when the Dinos
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spread their what are their their wings or gills or
11:57
whatever. This dinosaur kind of looks like
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Stripe from Gremlins. He's absolutely menacing, so
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terrifying. The intensity of the scene as
12:05
well, the kind of stalking of him, is compounded by my
12:09
greatest fear ever realized, which is getting to the safety
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of a seemingly empty car, only to find that there's somebody
12:16
else in there with you. It's like a classic horror trope
12:19
and it works amazingly here. Yeah, do you know what this
12:21
dinosaur is called? But brat, brat you.
12:26
This one, the Dilophosaurus, right?
12:28
Yeah, yeah, of course. And I agree, this is the
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scariest scene in the film for me more than the T Rex.
12:33
The Dilophosaurus isn't CGI, it's all animatronics and
12:36
puppetry. And what I love about this scene
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is because they don't use CGI, they couldn't move it
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realistically. So Spielberg decided to make it
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so that it moves whenever Nedry turns away, and it just appears
12:46
in about three or four different locations.
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Yeah. So we never see the Glorosaurus
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actually walk, but I think it feels like we do.
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It feels like a real dinosaur. There's a side shot when he's
12:55
saying play, go fetch, go fetch and you can see it breathing.
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That just looks legit. It looks amazing.
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The sound design on that dinosaur particularly is
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fantastic. It's almost like rattlesnake
13:05
ish. Yeah, yeah, it's got that look
13:07
like bird kind of noises when it's bobbing its head around.
13:10
But have you noticed that Nedry's wearing the outfits that
13:13
all of the Goonies wear throughout the Goonies?
13:15
Oh yeah. Like each different character.
13:18
Well, I know that the yellow rain mark I recognize.
13:20
The yellow rain mark Sean Astin wears?
13:22
He's wearing the Hawaiian shirt the Chunk wears when he does the
13:24
Truffle Shuffle. Oh, that's fantastic.
13:26
And that's an intentional thing, obviously, yeah.
13:28
Yeah, yeah. To be able to put that
13:30
intentionally. Yeah, all right.
13:31
Great for my like I'm not going for scene in the film but rather
13:36
something around the making of it that I find interesting.
13:39
So the book by Michael Crichton caused such a stir the studios
13:43
are bidding on it before it was even published?
13:45
Really based on the concept. Amazing, so a load.
13:48
Of that, directors wanted to make Jurassic Park.
13:51
Have you heard any names? I haven't, but for some reason
13:55
David Cronenberg slips the mind. So Columbia wanted it right, and
14:00
they wanted Richard Donner to direct.
14:02
Dick Donner. Yeah, I imagine that might have
14:05
been a not quite as a good version of what we got.
14:07
Well, Gibson would have been in there.
14:10
It would have been the version that Matt described about 10
14:12
minutes ago. Warner Brothers wanted it for
14:17
Tim Burton. Really.
14:18
That. Might have been interesting.
14:20
Would have been for me. But the one that made me think,
14:23
oh really, is James Cameron. Right.
14:27
Jimmy I and Jim, yeah. So Cameron wanted it, but said
14:31
the right for both an hour before he made his bid.
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He also said his version would have been much more violent and
14:37
basically aliens with dinosaurs. I like that.
14:42
So Cameron wondered Charlton Heston as Hammond, who's played
14:45
by Richard Attenborough? He wanted Bill Paxton as
14:48
Malcolm. Oh yes, and who do you think he
14:50
wanted as Grant? Sam Neill's character.
14:53
Obviously Michael Bean. Arnold.
14:55
Arnold, of course. What would you thought of that
15:00
shit? Arnold and dinosaurs together
15:02
last. Sounds amazing.
15:04
Much in the one liner. One liners for the dinosaurs
15:07
and. Now he's extinct.
15:11
Yes, get that in there. That would have been brilliant.
15:14
Mike, what about you? What do you like about Jurassic
15:16
Park? Not much, by the sounds of it.
15:18
No, I like it when it finishes. No, to be fair, the Raptors are
15:21
nasty little bastards. I loved how they're our flank.
15:25
Muldoon. Oh yeah.
15:27
He's trying to hunt them. I think that's, you know, a good
15:29
sequence. And to be fair, the scenes where
15:32
the 100 and the kids in the kitchen is really, really well
15:34
done. Oh.
15:35
It's fantastic. And it's got one of those lovely
15:38
little Spielberg touches that only he could think of, which is
15:40
when the Raptor puts its snout up against the window in its
15:44
breath, fogs it up. I think that's the kind of thing
15:46
only Spielberg would think of, little details like that.
15:50
It's that bit that's really Spielberg as well, when the
15:52
Raptors charging at the kids and it's just like, fuck, it's going
15:54
to get them. It's going to get them and then
15:55
it's just a reflection of. Bands.
15:57
That's really good. Fantastic.
15:59
I think they've lost. The Raptors are really cool.
16:01
Even the name sounds cool. Raptors.
16:04
I like the setup of the Raptors in the first act when Grand
16:07
scares that boy by telling him how a pack of velocity Raptors
16:09
would attack one from the front and then the pincer movement
16:13
where two attacks from the side and then that's like my
16:15
touchdown is exactly what happens to Mole doing the
16:17
gamekeeper where he's like clever girl.
16:20
Yeah, Isn't Mole doing like a Raptor expert, though?
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Shouldn't he know that that's how the Hunt Grant knows that,
16:26
and he hasn't. Bred them.
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What's amazing is that you think of the Raptors as being a key
16:33
part of the film, and they are, but they only show up in the
16:36
last 20 minutes when I went 43 minutes in before Raptor shows
16:40
up, yeah, they're just so memorable.
16:42
But they're alluded to, aren't they?
16:43
Like in the intro and then when they're feeding the cow.
16:46
Yeah, they all mentioned. The back story from Grand
16:48
They're always there. The sound design is great as
16:51
well. I like that sound they make when
16:52
they're calling to each other. Yeah, like.
16:54
Can't. Can't.
16:56
Yeah, that's perfect. I didn't.
16:58
Think we'd have used samples on this contest?
17:02
So what? Jurassic Park is one of the
17:04
milestone movies in special effects as well.
17:07
CGI was a new thing at the time, and Jurassic Park blends just
17:10
about every kind of creature effect there is.
17:13
Animatronics, puppetry, CGI. It was ground breaking and
17:17
pioneering. So a new thing for everybody,
17:20
including Spielberg. So how do you think you did on
17:23
that front, working with all these various kinds of effects,
17:26
some of which had never been used before?
17:27
I think it's a massive leap forward in terms of movie
17:30
effects and absolutely like you've both mentioned it.
17:32
Was astounded in 93 when I first saw it as well.
17:36
It still looks amazing. What makes it work for me is the
17:38
blend of technologies. Now, like everything is CGI, but
17:42
on Jurassic Park, they use the right tool for the job.
17:45
There's only 50 minutes of dinosaur footage in the film,
17:48
really, 9 minutes of animatronics and six is CGI.
17:51
And I think that blend gives the film this feel of just like,
17:55
enormous spectacle. Yeah, sure.
17:57
Which is what Spielberg wanted, obviously.
18:00
There was a fella called Dennis Murin worked on the film.
18:03
He was the guy in charge of the CGI.
18:05
He actually had to convince Spielberg to use the CGI because
18:08
Spielberg was going to use stop motion.
18:11
So Mirin did an animation of a Gallimimus.
18:13
OK, those dinosaurs were the herd stampedes towards Grant and
18:17
the children and the hide behind the log.
18:18
Yeah. Which looks amazing.
18:19
He animated one of those and showed it to Spielberg and Phil
18:22
Tippett, who was the visual effects supervisor.
18:25
After they watched it, Tippett turned to Spielberg and said, I
18:28
think we're extinct. Amazing.
18:33
And we've not really mentioned it yet, but we cannot not talk
18:37
about possibly the most famous scene in the film, the
18:40
Tyrannosaurus Rex attack, probably one of the most famous
18:44
scenes, if any blockbuster. What do you think of that?
18:47
The scene I'd used the T Rex in general.
18:49
That was a real thing, wasn't it?
18:50
The only thing that was built. What a real T Rex.
18:53
Yeah, it's a real T Rex. I meant that the building in the
18:58
real world, it was physical. You could see it.
19:00
So you got the idea from the King Kong right at Universal,
19:02
right? Right.
19:04
As he went around that and he's like, fucking hell, imagine if
19:06
that was like a dinosaur. He wanted to have them all built
19:08
but just didn't have the budget for it.
19:10
So I think he spent the money in the best possible way by making
19:13
the T Rex as realistic as possible.
19:15
Yeah, it's fantastic. And the scream of it, I'll never
19:19
forget what that sounds. About Roar It's the greatest
19:21
roar in cinema. Fucking unreal.
19:22
That scene in the cars, like crazy intense.
19:25
The kids screaming, This is a scene where they acting
19:28
amazingly well. Them screams feel real and the
19:31
scene itself is so prolonged, but in an amazing way.
19:35
It's absolutely incredible. Do you think that Grant and
19:39
Malcolm spend a little bit too much time in the other car Gobin
19:43
as opposed to like jumping up to action and helping the T Rex
19:47
though to be. Fair.
19:47
But they do help. They do get out.
19:50
Yeah, eventually. I do like Gennaro being plucked
19:53
off the toilet by the T Rex. Yeah, fantastic.
19:55
Moment I. Think the finest T Rex moment is
19:58
the final scene though, isn't it?
19:59
When he comes in and saves them from the Raptors in the last
20:02
second. And then there's that whole sash
20:04
that falls down and it's like, you know, it's perfect, that row
20:08
at the end. Yeah, it just owns the place.
20:10
It's like I've moved in. Spielberg knows it's the money
20:16
shot, the T Rex, and I love how he builds up to it.
20:19
That shot of the glass of water vibrating, you'll hear his
20:21
footsteps coming and when it shows up, it looks fantastic.
20:25
Those CGI shots where it's attacking the car, that looks
20:28
totally real to me. It's almost 30 years old.
20:32
It looks great. The animatronic T Rex was built
20:35
by we know who doing it obviously Winston.
20:39
Stan Winston. The big man.
20:41
Stan Winston had built a 14 foot alien queen for James Cameron,
20:44
so Spielberg thought he can build a 24 T Rex no problem.
20:49
Winston himself said that was naive of Stephen.
20:54
When Spielberg asked he could do it, Winston said yes.
20:57
And when Spielberg said ha, we said no idea but we'll figure it
21:00
out. So they did figure it out.
21:03
Winston and his team have done loads of staggering work, and
21:06
there's four that we keep mentioning on our podcasts,
21:10
which are the Terminator, the Predator, the Alien Queen, and
21:15
the T Rex. So we've now covered all four of
21:18
them. Fantastic.
21:20
So if you're interested in that stuff, check out those other
21:22
episodes. And that's my final shameless
21:24
plug, I promise. To call Jurassic Park a hit
21:30
would be a bit of an understatement.
21:32
On a $63 million budget, it took $914 million.
21:37
Wow. The third time Spielberg had
21:39
made the highest grossing movie ever, which is a feat achieved
21:42
by no other film maker. Over time, it's going to be
21:45
regarded as a classic, and now it has 91 percent on Rotten
21:48
Tomatoes and 8.1 out of 10 on IMDb, Spielberg himself now says
21:54
of the film. I took a big gamble on Jurassic
21:57
Park using technology that had never been tested, never mind
22:00
using the motion picture. It was the greatest risk I ever
22:03
took. Thankfully it went OK.
22:07
Yeah. OK, yeah, all right.
22:09
And I even Spielberg. And on Twitter, George Anderson,
22:15
the jukebox. George loves it.
22:18
He says JP was jaws for a different generation upon
22:23
release. I saw this nine times in its
22:26
first month. Wow.
22:28
The mixing of CGI and practical effect was mind boggling.
22:31
The piercing was perfect. The action, humor and the music
22:34
are spot on. Nothing less than a 10 out of
22:37
10. Nine times in a month, every
22:42
three days George was in the cinema.
22:46
Loved it. After a film at Jurassic Park,
22:49
most film makers will have taken a nice long break.
22:52
Not Spielberg though, the very same year he somehow released
22:56
another all time classic, Very different in Jurassic Park and
23:00
one of the most important films in Spielberg's filmography.
23:03
Next up, we're looking at Schindler's List.
23:10
This is gold. Two more people he would have
23:14
given me too far. At least one.
23:17
He would have given me one. One more, one more person.
23:27
Person for this one more person. Schindler's List was released in
23:48
November 1993, just five months after Jurassic Park, and in some
23:53
ways was even bigger. Based on Schindler's Arc, a
23:56
novel by Thomas Kennealy, it tells the real life story of
24:00
Oscar Schindler, a factory owner who saved more than 1000 Polish
24:04
Jews from the Holocaust during the Second World War.
24:07
It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, and he's joined by
24:10
Ray Fines, Ben Kingsley, and M Beth Davis.
24:14
One of Spielberg's most personal films and possibly his most
24:18
powerful. What do we think of Schindler's
24:20
List? Luke.
24:23
This is a film I'd not seen prior to doing work for this
24:26
podcast, right? I've always wanted to because of
24:29
its reputation. Obviously, it's one of the most
24:31
respected films of recent times, but I was always put off by it
24:35
because the subject matter just seems so daunted.
24:39
Grim. Yeah, real grim.
24:41
So I was bracing myself for something really tough.
24:44
And although there are some really horrific moments in
24:47
there, the magnitude of the circumstances is overwhelming at
24:50
times. But Spielberg, I think, has got
24:53
quite light touch with it, which I think is absolutely necessary
24:57
for this to succeed as a film because it could have been
25:00
bogged down massively with the subject matter.
25:02
If it was in the hands of somebody else, somebody like an
25:06
Oliver Stone or a David Lynch or something like that, it could
25:09
have been almost unbearable. Great film.
25:12
Spielberg said that this is almost like looking at the
25:14
Holocaust through a keyhole. It's just too big to address the
25:18
whole thing, so you have to look at it from a certain point of
25:21
view. For me, it's one of my favorite
25:23
films of all time. I absolutely adore it.
25:27
I really, really love it. Big words.
25:29
I think the the stylistic choices shoot it in black and
25:33
white. The cast is brought in.
25:35
There's not a single bad performance.
25:37
It's not a single bad frame. I think Liam Neeson's just
25:40
unrecognizable almost. He's just Oscar Schindler and I
25:43
see him and anything else not us think weren't you were great
25:46
actor once. It's Spielberg again, bringing
25:50
this emphasis to how important this is.
25:53
He didn't get paid for it. He said it was going to be blood
25:55
money. He didn't take any salary for
25:57
this whatsoever. In the middle of it, he was
25:59
cutting Jurassic Park. As Matt said earlier on, Yanis
26:02
Kaminski, who he worked with on this, had to bring him back
26:05
every single morning and talk to him and say this is what you're
26:07
focusing on. He said the Yanis Kaminski,
26:09
don't let us lose focus on how important this is.
26:12
Then they got to the point where it was so in depth.
26:15
It was so hard for the cast and crew to just stay true to what
26:20
the Hut to address. And it's such an important film
26:23
because there's people out there pretending that this didn't
26:26
exist. There's people out there
26:27
pretending that this isn't a real thing.
26:29
There's people out there pretending that the absolute
26:31
tragedy of this whole event should not be studied and looked
26:36
at and made into the mainstream. Spielberg took all of them ideas
26:41
and he runs at this and it's the first time you ever see him both
26:44
confident and shit scared. You can tell he's shit scared
26:48
that this isn't going to work, but at the same time he is
26:50
determined to make it work. And that's why I love this as a
26:53
piece of cinema. I think it's historically
26:55
accurate. I think it's culturally very,
26:58
very important. It's a very, very, very
27:00
important film and it's so beautifully done.
27:03
Technically, everything is perfect.
27:06
I think it's really interesting Spielberg got the rights and he
27:09
sat in it for like 10 years until he felt he was a point
27:12
when he was ready to make it. And I think it put some of his
27:15
earlier attempts to make more adult films, it puts them in
27:18
context because it's like he was training himself.
27:21
It's like The Color Purple doesn't really work because he's
27:24
not the right man for that material, but he's absolutely
27:27
the right man for Schindler's List.
27:29
And what he's doing is he's serving the material.
27:32
He's not letting the material serve him.
27:34
So like in Radius and Jaws, he takes that material and he runs
27:37
with it and he's showing off and he's showing you what he can do
27:40
with Shinde assists. It's the opposite.
27:41
He's looking at that material and he said, right, this is what
27:44
it needs for me. It doesn't need my usual kind of
27:47
flashy style. It needs me to be restrained.
27:50
It needs me to just look at what's going on and show people
27:53
what happened. And that's what it is.
27:55
It's an unblinking gears into hell, basically.
28:00
And as Luke said, the control that he's got, the tone of it is
28:03
masterful because this could have been somewhere you just had
28:06
to turn it off because you couldn't watch anymore.
28:08
But he holds his gears, and he holds your gears.
28:11
I can't say that I watch it often because it's a tough
28:14
watch, but once you've seen it, you'll never forget it.
28:17
It's really something, isn't it? Yeah, it is.
28:19
It's amazing. In terms of what we like, then
28:21
I'll start us off and I'm going for a love The approach that
28:27
Spielberg takes to the film, the idea he came up with of how to
28:31
deliver all of this horrific information.
28:34
The film is a social document and a work of art, both at the
28:38
same time. The social document side of it
28:41
Spielberg portrays by not really shying away from much.
28:44
It goes really, really dark. Jews murdered for nothing by
28:47
Nazis, on the street, in labour camps, in their own homes.
28:51
It's really hard to watch at times in Spielberg juxtaposes
28:56
that by choosing to shoot all of these horrors absolutely
29:00
beautifully. I mean, this is one of the most
29:02
beautiful looking things you'll ever see and one of the most
29:04
distressing movies you'll ever see.
29:06
Both at the same time. I think.
29:08
To me the theme is crystal clear.
29:11
It's about light in the darkness.
29:13
The first shot of the film is a burning candle in a black room.
29:16
Most famous shot in the film is a girl in a red coat when
29:19
everything else is black and white.
29:21
Schindler is the light that saves people who made the
29:23
darkness of the Holocaust. And the beauty Spielberg gives
29:26
us is the light in the darkness of what he's showing us.
29:29
It's so impressive. Yeah, it is.
29:32
Yeah, Looks incredible. There's so many terrific bits
29:35
and the feel like you're just glimpsing them out of the corner
29:39
of your eye almost. It doesn't linger on a lot of
29:41
it, and it just feels like kind of snapshots, as if you were
29:45
there at the time. And it's almost, if he's saying,
29:47
if you were that time, what would you do?
29:49
Would you just walk on? That's nothing to do with me.
29:52
I'm just going to let that happen.
29:54
Would you actually look at it and think about the enormity of
29:56
it? And if you did, what would you
29:59
then do about it? Yeah, I'm asking them questions
30:02
of myself all the way through it.
30:03
Absolutely. What about you?
30:05
What are you going for? I'm going for the performance of
30:08
finds in this. It's easy to forget this is
30:11
wasn't quite his debut, but it was the role.
30:14
I put him on the map and it's the type of performance, once
30:17
he's been introduced, his presence, for me, it just hangs
30:20
over the rest of the film. It's awful.
30:23
Yeah, but what I think is really interesting is he doesn't make
30:26
him like a drooling psychopath. You know somebody who was born
30:30
evil to me, what he does is, and this is all the more disturbing,
30:34
he makes him someone who chose to be this way, who would some
30:37
point in his life listen to this ideology and thought, yeah, that
30:40
makes perfect sense. So I don't think when you see
30:43
him executing the Jews and picking people off from his pop
30:46
and overlooking. Oh my God, that's a nightmare,
30:48
isn't? It it's terrific, but you get
30:51
the sense he's not doing it because he necessarily enjoys
30:53
it. He's doing it because he's
30:54
bored. He's doing it because he doesn't
30:56
even view Jews as human. And in a way, that's all the
31:00
more disturbing for me than someone who, like us, he is
31:03
doing it because they enjoy it. And he just lets these little
31:06
bits of compassion, sure, every now and then.
31:09
And you get an idea of what he was like before he chose this
31:12
path to go down. Yeah.
31:13
I mean, he is an absolute monster, but he's not
31:16
two-dimensional and it all just comes from vines and he's just
31:20
sore chilling. After Schindler goes in and
31:23
tells him that, you know, if you can pardon them, then that's
31:26
power, you know? But he says, no, fear is power
31:29
and evil is power. And he tries it.
31:31
He tries to do the whole, I pardon you.
31:33
And then the kid walks out. And then he's like, Nah, I'm not
31:35
having that. That doesn't sit right with me.
31:37
And it's the potshots. And then the kid knows and he
31:40
just keeps walking. And there's that incredible shot
31:42
where it just comes past to see the kid lying on the ground.
31:45
He's fun tastic in it. He embodies all of the hate, the
31:50
aggression, the confusion, the disgust of the s s and how
31:55
warped they were and how misguided they were and how
31:59
inhuman they were allowed to be. Things really impressive from
32:02
Spielberg's point of view is that the character that finds
32:06
players, he gets hanged at the end, Yeah, but he doesn't linger
32:09
on that as like a big triumphant set piece on moment.
32:12
And it's just very matter of fact.
32:14
Yeah, they can't kick their chair away properly, can they?
32:16
It's not a triumphant ending. Not.
32:18
At all. People Berg said he cast Ray
32:21
finds because of his evil sexuality and he plays Eamonn
32:25
Girth. He's called the commandant of
32:26
the Plaza concentration camp. Eagleburg had some Holocaust
32:31
survivors on the set. While shootings act as
32:33
consultants throughout the film. OK, one of them was a lady
32:35
called Mia Fefferberg who would survive the Plaza Will camp in
32:39
real life. The first time she saw Fines
32:41
acting as girth in a scene, she had a complete breakdown.
32:45
Because he reminded us so much of the real girth.
32:48
Not how he looks because we find is far more handsome, but how he
32:51
behaved and carried himself. That horrible sniveling
32:55
arrogance. She was taken off the set to one
32:57
of the trailers, and when Fines finished shooting, he went into
32:59
the trailer, took off the S S jacket he was wearing, and
33:02
stomped on it in front of her. Nice.
33:05
And she was OK from that point, seeing him as girth.
33:08
Little touch of class from finds there, I think.
33:10
Yeah, lovely. It's like it is.
33:11
I mean, the character is absolutely abhorrent.
33:14
It's a wonderful performance. Look, what about you?
33:16
What are you going for? I'm going for Liam Neeson's
33:20
performance as Oscar Schindler, a big surprise for me because
33:23
I'm not a massive Neeson fan generally and he's probably one
33:26
of the reasons that put me up watching the film originally.
33:29
Right. But he's just just a great,
33:31
great man. I absolutely love him.
33:36
I love this opening scene at the party when we first see his face
33:39
and the image of him smoking and the way his face is lit, like
33:43
light at the top, dark at the bottom.
33:45
That could be interpreted a number of different ways, but
33:48
it's such an enduring image from the film, seeing him smoking.
33:51
And I don't know the reason for this.
33:53
When I'm watching it and looking at Neeson Schindler, I see Max
33:57
Shrek as Nosferatu. Does anybody else see that at
34:00
all? I'm about up the wrong tree
34:02
here. Yeah, I think so.
34:04
Just. Because it's black and white.
34:06
You haven't seen a black and white film.
34:07
It's. Just the structure of his face,
34:09
I don't know, it just looks like that.
34:10
He just looks kind of ghostly. It's got that very high
34:13
contrast, isn't it? Like the whites are very white,
34:15
the blacks are very black. It's got a very classic 40s
34:19
field. But anyway, so that's pretty
34:21
where you come from there. I love it when he's consoling
34:23
the woman who is girths, like, kind of slave.
34:27
And then he reaches in and he says it's all right.
34:29
It's not that kind of a kiss because I've been on the edge
34:32
since the start. I get a huge wave of relief from
34:35
that, that it's such a lovely moment and kind of fitting of
34:38
that man and that character. But I also love his final
34:42
address to the survivors in the factory.
34:44
And he turns to the guards and he says that they can take shots
34:47
of them or they can go home to their families as men instead of
34:50
murderers. It's such an incredibly
34:52
brilliant move from Schindler. And he lets out this kind of
34:55
like, little relieved puff of air when he said it.
34:58
And they leave. And then he gives a little wink
35:00
to Ben Kingsley's character. Lovely moment.
35:04
I think 1 impressive things for me is that he doesn't make
35:07
Schindler like an open book. Like a lot of the time you can't
35:11
figure out why he's doing why soon.
35:13
Sometimes I get the feeling he's just enjoying pissing the Nazis
35:16
off or playing them or gaming against them or, you know,
35:19
getting one over on them. He doesn't make it too obvious
35:22
when he goes to maybe doing that to thinking, no, I'm just going
35:24
to protect these people, you know?
35:27
And if there's a change in his character, he doesn't really
35:29
subtly, it's just a wonderful performance to watch.
35:32
It does. Kind of meld from this ambitious
35:36
businessman who is, you know, very much a member of the Nazi
35:39
Party and very much a bit of a Dick.
35:42
Like a Playboy, isn't he? Yeah, and he kind of blends in
35:45
and he just manipulates everybody, takes control of the
35:48
party. They want photos with him, He's
35:50
throwing his money around. And then all of a sudden, it is
35:53
this wonderful human arc almost, you know, Schindler's arc.
35:58
It is that from start to finish. And then when he ends up, it
36:01
leads to my favorite ever moment in the whole film is that
36:04
absolute break of that character.
36:06
The shell comes off, the emotions there.
36:09
He's Bravado's gone. He's a human being and he's
36:12
surrounded by fellow human beings, and he knows that
36:15
material possessions mean absolutely nothing.
36:19
And he just gets the pin barge off.
36:20
He's talking to this. This is a person.
36:22
This car is 10 people. I didn't do enough.
36:25
And then he breaks down with Kingston.
36:26
He's just like hugging him. And he's like, that didn't get
36:29
as many as I should have got. And if you compare that scene to
36:32
the opening scene at the party, that performance, the journey
36:36
that you've been on, that reward as an audience, that feeling
36:39
that you get, that he's just put all that into the space of three
36:42
hours, it's incredible. And it's an incredible
36:45
performance, an incredible transformation, and for me, one
36:48
of the most rewarding endings to a film ever.
36:52
I've heard Liam Neeson talk about acting on the film and he
36:55
says he was really frustrated when they first started shooting
36:57
because Spielberg was directing him like to the NTH degree.
37:01
He talks about that scene at the start and that famous close up
37:05
you mentioned where we see shinla smoking.
37:07
And Neeson says that Spielberg told him exactly what to do, how
37:10
to hold the cigarette, went to move it to his legs, went to
37:13
move it away. And Neeson spoke to Ben Kingsley
37:15
about it because he wasn't happy.
37:17
And Kingsley said if ever there's a time to give yourself
37:20
over completely to a director, it's now.
37:22
Yeah, well, that's what Nathan did.
37:24
And he did everything Spielberg asked him without question.
37:27
And I think we probably have a better film and a better
37:30
performance as a result. Absolutely.
37:31
Have the ultimate Liam Neeson performance.
37:33
Yeah. What's better this Rob Roy?
37:37
Taking the three. Right at the end isn't.
37:41
That's Neeson putting the rows on Schindler's grave.
37:44
Yeah, the very last one. Yeah, that's.
37:46
Is it really right? Very nice.
37:48
So I mentioned it at the start of this section, but Shin that
37:51
list was released the same year as Jurassic Park.
37:54
Richard is notable for a number of reasons.
37:57
Both were big event movies at the time, and they're both
37:59
considered classics now. One was a fun blockbuster about
38:02
dinosaurs, the other a powerful artistic drama about the
38:06
Holocaust. Jurassic Park was the highest
38:08
grossing film of all time. Schindler's List won best
38:11
picture and best director at the Oscars.
38:13
Yeah, Schindler's List was released just five months after
38:17
Jurassic Park, so Spielberg was making them both at the same
38:20
time. He was shooting Schindler's List
38:22
during the day and editing Jurassic Park at night.
38:26
I mean, are we sure this happened?
38:29
It's absolutely crazy. What we make of that is an
38:32
achievement from. Well, it's massive, but he had a
38:35
little helping hand in the middle of it.
38:37
I don't know if you know much about this story, but the
38:39
transition from shooting Schindler's List going into the
38:42
editing of Jurassic Park. He would have a video call with
38:45
Robin Williams, a day shooting with Schindler's List and he
38:49
would tell them like what had gone on that day.
38:50
And then they would do a video call and then get the cast and
38:53
crew of Schindler's Listing and Williams would almost do like a
38:55
stand up. Right.
38:57
And a video call for the whole cast and crew just to kind of to
39:00
pick up the day. And then it's been like said
39:02
that picked him up and enabled him to go on and then add a
39:04
Jurassic Park in a different mindset.
39:06
Rang Robin. Robin Williams, not Robbie
39:08
Williams, obviously, fuck that. Rang Robin Williams like pretty
39:14
much every day, every other day for a video call that had picked
39:16
me up. What a beautiful man.
39:18
Love Williams, but because of him?
39:20
Didn't some of that material find it to be into Aladdin?
39:23
I think I read that. Yeah, yeah, There was ad libs
39:26
that he was doing and all of Aladdin.
39:28
I mean, we're not going to do a podcast on Aladdin, fair enough.
39:30
But he just ad libbed the script and then they animated to his
39:32
script. The highest grossing film ever
39:34
and best picture winner in the same year.
39:38
Greatest feat in cinema history. Simple as that.
39:41
Yeah, it's unprecedented, isn't it?
39:43
It's unthinkable. I would never have guessed that
39:45
in a million years. Yeah.
39:47
And the fact that it's not just best Picture, but the type of
39:49
film it is as well, could not be more different to Jurassic Park.
39:55
About working on both films at the same time, Spielberg said.
39:58
It was a bipolar experience with every ounce of intuition on
40:01
Schindler's List and every ounce of craft on Jurassic Park.
40:06
So to finish it off on Schindler's List, I've got a bit
40:09
of a nicer story about the film. So in 2940, years after he
40:14
dropped out, Spielberg went back to California State University
40:18
to complete his graduation. Yeah, yeah.
40:20
Have you heard this story? Yeah, he couldn't finish it.
40:23
You tried to get him three times and then he went back and they
40:26
said you have to submit a 12 minute short as your final
40:30
piece. You know he submitted
40:32
Schindler's List. Fucking have that.
40:37
Three hours and 12 minutes. Three hours and 12 minutes.
40:39
There's an extra 3 hours for the 30 years.
40:41
That's an extra hour for every 10 years that I've not.
40:43
Been here. And then he lined up with
40:45
everyone else, got his diploma, and when he went to get his
40:49
diploma, they played the Indiana Jones March.
40:52
Fantastic. Lovely.
40:56
So Schindler's List was massive. Of course, it permanently
40:59
silenced the critics who had said Spielberg movies couldn't
41:02
be classed as art. And on a $22 million budget, it
41:05
took $322 million. All the money Spielberg made
41:09
from the movie, he donated to the Shore Foundation, which
41:13
preserves testimonies from genocide survivors, including
41:16
the Holocaust. And Spielberg also to this day
41:19
refuses to autograph any memorabilia to deal with
41:22
Schindler's List. So nobody can profit from it.
41:24
Nice. It won seven Oscars, including
41:28
Best Picture and Best Director Spielberg's first, and today it
41:31
has 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.9 out of 10 in IMDb.
41:39
The 7th greatest movie of all time, according to IMDb.
41:43
Spielberg's age of the film. My primary purpose in making
41:46
Schindler's List was for Education.
41:48
I don't think it'll make anything as important again.
41:51
It's the film of which I am most proud.
41:54
Amazing. Surprising.
41:55
Well, you should be. On Twitter, Trevor Montgomery at
41:59
U2 Fan Trev says Schindler's List is one of the single most
42:05
important and powerful films. I think it should be required
42:08
viewing for high school students.
42:10
This is history. We need a reminder of the good
42:15
that can come from within, the evil in this world.
42:18
Too true. Nice words.
42:20
Powerful comment from Trevor on a serious matter, but also like
42:22
how you managed to slip in a quote from Bellock from Raiders
42:25
there history. I'm assuming that he was really.
42:30
Scored for me. After the monumental
42:34
back-to-back combo Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, Spielberg
42:37
took a well earned 4 year break. He returned in 1997 with a very
42:42
similar year to 93, Jurassic Park sequel The Lost World and
42:47
another historical atrocity drama with Amistad about the US
42:51
slave trade. Neither had the impact of those
42:53
1993 movies, so we're picking back up with Spielberg in 1998.
42:58
So another year, another World War 2 classic, another iconic
43:03
opening scene. Spielberg and Hanks together at
43:06
last. It's even Private Ryan.
43:13
Ryan. I don't know anything about
43:16
Ryan. I don't care.
43:19
Man means nothing to me. It's just a name.
43:21
But if you know if going to Romel and finding him so he can
43:28
go home, if that earns me the right to get back to my wife,
43:31
well then, then that's my mission.
43:35
See, Even Private Ryan was released in July 1998, Regarded
43:39
as one of the most realistic depictions of warfare ever put
43:42
on the big screen. It's set during the Normandy
43:45
invasion of the Second World War, where we follow a squad of
43:48
U.S. soldiers as they search for the brother of three servicemen
43:52
killed in action. The film stars Tom Hanks, Matt
43:55
Damon, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Adam Goldberg, Barry
43:59
Pepper and Jeremy Davies. So this time, the mission is a
44:03
man. Yes.
44:04
What do we think of Saving Private Ryan?
44:07
Yeah, incredible stuff. Luke ended by two of the most
44:10
amazing visceral action segments in film history.
44:14
Like, ordinarily I'm sure if you're a film maker you'd be
44:17
happy with just one of these in your whole career.
44:19
Spielberg's got two in one film. Incredible stuff.
44:24
I really like the cast of characters.
44:26
The ones that drop in during the film are great.
44:28
It's always nice to see people like Ted Danson and Dennis
44:30
Farina in anything. But then Miller's cruise, Great.
44:34
I really like Giovanni Rubisi and Adam Goldberg.
44:36
Stand outs. It's strange to see Vin Diesel
44:40
show on his face, though. He's almost like Lou Ferrigno
44:44
making grunts like Ferrigno. And do you think there's ever
44:49
been a more unremarkable movie star name than Barry Pepper?
44:53
Probably not. Doesn't sound like a movie star
44:55
at. All.
44:56
I quite like him though. Oh, he's great.
44:57
He's great. He's better than who it was
45:00
originally supposed to be to know who that was.
45:02
You know. Garth Brooks.
45:04
What? Yeah, it's yeah.
45:07
Crooning. The country voice.
45:11
Like many Spielberg films, I remember this being a big event
45:14
when it came out. Everybody was talking about the
45:17
realism of that opening sequence, and it doesn't
45:19
disappoint. Obviously.
45:20
The whole thing looks unbelievable.
45:22
Just fantastic. Another great story concept that
45:25
Spielberg executes really well. I love Tom Hanks generally and I
45:29
like him here a lot. I like Matt Damon and like him
45:32
here as well. I think it's one of the best war
45:34
movies for me and depicts the horrors of war as effectively as
45:38
anything I've seen. Yeah, The last Great War film.
45:40
Yeah. You just got to look at all the
45:43
war films that have come after it and how much they've
45:45
essentially copied it. And obviously there were ones
45:48
before that Spielberg's been influenced by, like Doctor
45:51
Strangelove, but he's just amped it up to an unreal level here
45:56
of. Just.
45:58
Visceral shock and awe basically.
46:01
And it was definitely one of the most memorable cinema visits I
46:05
think I've ever had. Because even going in with
46:08
thinking, well, I don't know what this is going to be like.
46:10
I've read the reviews, I've heard the reactions coming out
46:13
afterwards. 1819, however old it was at the time.
46:17
I've not seen anything like it. I needed a walk after just to
46:20
clean the end. I think like it does get
46:22
criticism. People say oh it's just these
46:24
two great sequences and a lot of fluff in the middle and I
46:27
completely disagree. The middle of the film is where
46:29
the heart is when you get an all those characters which gives you
46:32
the emotional impact and the stormy little details in that
46:36
middle section that are amazing. Like that scene when the born
46:39
pastor German Pows and Mel issues the Jewish character.
46:43
Is it a Star of David? He's taken out and he's going
46:46
you'd and you'd and he's really taunting them.
46:49
Incredible detail in the bit where they're getting the dog
46:52
ducks from all the soldiers have been killed because they want to
46:54
see Ryan's dead so they can just suck the mission off.
46:58
And for them, it's actually more of the light relief until they
47:01
actually realized, hang on, we're doing this next to the
47:04
comrades and all that's in the middle of the film.
47:07
So for me, it's a monumental achievement.
47:10
This one I've always loved and always will.
47:13
I've seen this four or five times at the cinema, so I go and
47:16
see it with everyone who hadn't seen it.
47:18
Forced. I remember reading about it and
47:21
Empire seeing it on the news the night before the actual day came
47:25
out on the Friday. It was news at 10 and they had
47:27
the trailer on. I said the premiere of the new
47:30
Spielberg films tomorrow, and I remember watching that
47:32
distinctively watching that, and then read me the review and
47:35
Empire and I bought the soundtrack from the cinema.
47:38
It came out the week before. So I was listening to the
47:40
soundtrack just trying to get in my head, like what kind of vibe
47:43
it's going to be. And I remember after the opening
47:46
sequence I was physically shaken.
47:49
I've never seen anything like it before, but I think the only
47:52
thing that comes close to this beforehand is the Vietnam
47:55
sequence and Forrest Gump. Yeah, great sequences.
47:58
Was actually directed by Spielberg in preparation for
48:01
Private Ryan. Really.
48:03
Yeah. So.
48:05
So make us let him do that and say, like, I've got some ideas.
48:07
How's it going to look? And if you look a lot of the
48:09
camera shots and the way he dies down and there's traces and the
48:12
bullets coming past the camera has that shaky kind of vibe.
48:15
It is very, very much a little bit of like a test shoot for
48:18
sale prior Orion. So that's why that bit for me
48:21
stands out massively. But I didn't learn that until
48:23
afterwards. But this is just that Forrest
48:25
Gump sequence with all the colour taken out and a faster
48:29
move to the camera and it's a lot more of a good punch.
48:32
It's an action film, it's a war film and I think it's a
48:34
fantastic, fantastic performance from Hanks.
48:37
Yeah, that moment where he reveals that he is a teacher,
48:40
that's such a touching moment, Yeah.
48:42
It's just when he goes back to the bunker and gets upset, he
48:45
said he's going to look at the map and he just cries into the
48:47
map and he just looks around and make sure nobody can see him.
48:49
And it's such a strong and very Spielberg in character.
48:54
You can see Spielberg in every single character, and I think
48:57
that's especially apparent here. That bit you mentioned there
49:01
where Hanks goes by and they'll check the map, and I was like a
49:04
little breakdown. It's like seeing your dad cry
49:06
for the first time, isn't? It.
49:07
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've cried a funeral.
49:09
It's just got that. Oh God.
49:12
So I'll start us off for things that we like, and I'm going for
49:16
that opening sequence. So the Omaha Beach landing where
49:19
we see the brutality of the situation in terms of scale, I
49:23
don't think I've seen anything like it in a war film.
49:26
Cost $11 million to shoot. Really.
49:28
The film as a whole was shot in 59 days, and 25 of those were
49:32
spent shooting the beach landing sequence.
49:34
So over half the shoot. And one of the most amazing
49:38
things, I think, is that it was hardly storyboarded.
49:41
So Spielberg was more or less making, you know, but he went
49:43
along. Yeah.
49:44
It's ridiculous. There's a historian called
49:47
Stephen Ambrose who served as a consultant on the film.
49:51
His expertise was the Second World War, and he had a special
49:54
screening arranged for him about screening.
49:58
He had to ask for it to be stopped 20 minutes in as he
50:00
couldn't handle the opening. He'd interviewed hundreds of war
50:03
veterans and said some of those conversations gave me
50:06
nightmares, and suddenly I was seeing those nightmares on the
50:09
screen in front of me. Tough stuff.
50:12
What a sequence. Yeah.
50:14
Just as an action set piece. It never lets up for what is it,
50:18
20 minutes? 25 minutes.
50:20
Yeah. Poor.
50:22
Unlike anything I've ever seen before or since.
50:24
I. Remember when I first saw it?
50:26
Pretty much crying for a cow just so I didn't even know just
50:29
because of the sheer health you can see on through and even
50:33
amongst all the chaos, there's just like so many like little
50:36
details to pick up on. Like when you first see weird,
50:38
the medic, you know, he's literally screaming at God, you
50:40
know, give us a fucking chance. Just what a sequence.
50:44
It's incredible, isn't it? It just.
50:46
Means like that it's the sound of the landing craft in the
50:49
water and the sea sickness, which doesn't show weakness, it
50:51
just shows absolute fear. And then there's that whistle
50:55
when it's like God be with you. And as soon as that ramp drops
50:58
and you get that first bullet, come past and hit that and start
51:03
falling. As soon as I saw that, I
51:05
remember vividly, I thought to myself, if I was in that
51:09
situation, I would be dead. There is no way I would survive
51:13
that. I would just freeze.
51:15
I'm scared shitless, I can't move.
51:16
I couldn't even think. Watching it on the screen.
51:18
It just puts you in that situation.
51:19
You just go. I wouldn't know how I was going
51:21
to react until I'm in that situation.
51:22
Watch that in the cinema and you'll know.
51:24
So the shots where the camera goes under the water, the men
51:27
were jumping over the side of the board and it goes some light
51:30
there. Rapid gunfire is suddenly just
51:32
silence as it goes into the water.
51:33
That's incredible. Yeah, superb.
51:35
But then when Hanks gets the guy and he's carrying him out, you
51:39
get him onto the shore and you think, all right, he's obviously
51:42
an integral member of the cast who Hanks has just helped out
51:44
because that's how cinema works. And then all of a sudden it's
51:47
bang, he's out of there, and you say, oh, fuck.
51:51
But the fact that it's not storyboarded as well, I mean, I
51:53
know Spielberg said Yanis Kaminsky, shoot this at a higher
51:56
frame rate than usual so that everything's sharp.
52:00
There was two or three cameras on the actual beach and
52:03
commencing give one each of his best cameramen and said this is
52:06
going to happen. Capture what you would capture
52:08
if you were here to get this situation.
52:09
And that's where you get the camera panning down.
52:11
People are screaming at the camera.
52:13
I think if this was storyboarded it wouldn't be anywhere near as
52:15
good. No.
52:17
What about you, Matt? What's the thing that you like
52:19
about Saving Private Ryan? It's the performance of Jeremy
52:22
Davies as Corporal Open. And the reason I like this a lot
52:26
is because one of the criticisms of of seeing this film get a lot
52:29
is it's overly patriotic. And I think if you're watching
52:33
this film and you pay a particular attention to open and
52:36
what happens to him in the journey he goes through, it
52:39
blows my mind that you could even think this is an overly
52:41
patriotic film because you look at him in the beginning and he's
52:45
bumbling, he's naive, you know, he's almost the Comic Relief,
52:49
but he's also got compassion and he knows right from wrong.
52:52
You see that in the same way they've got that German POW,
52:54
Steamboat Willie and open Swansea know we can't just
52:57
execute it. We've got to let him go and that
52:59
is the right thing to do. But that compassion comes back
53:03
to haunt him in the most horrible way.
53:05
And you just know that mentally open is broken because before
53:08
that you've got that scene. And for all the horror you seen
53:12
since this having this scene is the one I find hard to do.
53:15
Where malicious obsessed fighting the German soldier that
53:19
the bomb the stairs was having a complete breakdown.
53:22
What's like what Wesley says, just frozen in fear, can't move,
53:25
can't go to save his friend. And his soul is just gone.
53:30
You just know he is absolutely devastated.
53:32
And even at the end when he does shoot Steamboat Willie in
53:35
revenge, yeah, there's no sense of victory.
53:38
It's not a scene you want to cheer.
53:39
No, he's completely cracked. If he survives the war, he's
53:43
going to go home with so much PTSD.
53:45
He's just been absolutely as a person, as a man.
53:48
Man with compassion, a man with soul that's just been completely
53:52
destroyed by war and what he's seen and what he's gone through.
53:55
Davey's performance, for me, it's the performance of the
53:57
film. But you're right, the fact that
53:59
that German who kills Melis just leaves him on the stairs, yeah,
54:02
was he's useless is everything that we would be in that
54:06
situation. And Spielberg was actually
54:08
quoted as saying, that's me, I am open.
54:11
That would be my character. That's exactly what would be
54:13
like. He's a reflection of me or my
54:15
personality in this situation. I think the most powerful
54:17
character moment in the film for me is when they're in the church
54:21
and Giovanna Rbisi tells the story about how he used to
54:25
ignore his mother and she came home from work and used to
54:28
pretend he was asleep. I don't know why I did that.
54:31
Dad did that. I remember doing that when I was
54:33
younger. My mum and dad come back and
54:35
like checking in off. I've had like a babysitter or
54:37
something and I would pretend to be asleep and I don't know why.
54:39
He's a heartbreaker. And then when he died, his last
54:41
words on Mama. He is the most human character
54:45
weird I think. I see.
54:46
What about you? What's the thing you like about
54:48
the film? I love all of it, but I think
54:50
the thing that really hits it home is that final battle.
54:53
From the minute you hear the rumble of them tanks, especially
54:56
if you see on the big screen, and then you've got ribbon going
54:59
off as like the rabbit to lead them into the village.
55:02
And you know that they're totally under stocked, they're
55:04
totally on demand, they're totally against it, but they
55:07
have to stand up for what they believe in.
55:08
And I think that's the whole message at the end of it.
55:10
And it'll always stay with me when he turns out to ride at the
55:13
end and just says earn this. Yeah.
55:16
Earn it. That works for anybody in any
55:18
situation. If you wake up in the morning
55:20
and you just think, I don't know if I can do, just earn the fact
55:22
that you're alive. It's as simple as that.
55:25
And the fact that you don't have to do what they had to do, but
55:28
it does sit with him and he just have that torturous life where
55:30
he's have I done the right thing?
55:32
Am IA good man? You don't see Hanks die much,
55:36
but when he does, fuck me. That whole sequence, that end
55:39
sequence, it's one of the most remarkable things I've ever
55:42
seen. When I was watching, I was
55:44
thinking I wouldn't even. Obviously I wouldn't, I'm not
55:47
Steven Spielberg, but I just wouldn't have the balls to even
55:51
contemplate pull in a segment like that together, all the
55:55
different elements. Oh my God, it's it's so, so
55:58
impressive. The bit where they run out of
56:00
ammo and then they just find the Rockets and they take the primer
56:03
out and then they bash them and throw them and you just think of
56:05
Jesus Christ, they're not going to get out here.
56:07
And then that tank lands in the middle of them.
56:08
Yeah, it's constant onslaught. I just when I first saw it, I
56:12
just wanted to cry. I was just terrified.
56:15
The bit that always gets me, and it's one of those little
56:18
Spielberg twitches only he would Ding of.
56:20
It's when Jackson is picking off the Germans from his position in
56:23
the bell tower. He looks away to reload and he
56:26
looks back and it's like the tank is looking at him.
56:29
The cannon is elevated. Yeah.
56:31
It's like the tank has spotted him and there's a look
56:33
indirectly at him. Park, I get out.
56:34
Doesn't he just, like, completely panicked?
56:36
There's no way they're going to get out of there.
56:37
Yeah, that's that's a heart. It always a heartbreak.
56:40
I think one of the best things about that whole final sequence
56:43
is that Spielberg still finds a commentary on the way the Nazis
56:47
treat the Jews and the fact of the Jewish member of the platoon
56:51
dies in the most painful, slowly disgusting way, really affecting
56:56
way. Each London is a scene that
56:58
always gets taught about, but this final battle, the Battle of
57:01
Romel, is the one for me. It's horrible, absolutely
57:06
horrible. I don't know if it's because
57:07
we've learned that no one care about the characters or because
57:11
the quality of the filmmaking is so high, but I just find it so
57:15
tense. Like actually unbearably tense.
57:18
Whenever I watch this film, I dread this battle coming because
57:21
I find it so hard to watch tense all the way through.
57:24
But the worst bit has to be the fight to the death between
57:27
Melish in the German soldier. That is the hardest to watch
57:31
scene that I've ever seen. The same.
57:34
I saw it. It was in my head for weeks
57:35
afterwards. Yeah.
57:36
Yeah. When I watched this film last
57:37
week in prep for this, I skipped that scene.
57:40
I thought I cannot watch that scene so I skipped it like a big
57:42
baby. As well telling to be quietly
57:47
sweat stripping on him. It's just heartbreaking.
57:49
It's just like, it's so, so good, but it pulls you through
57:52
it like. Yeah, that Melish sequence, I
57:55
think I would say it's the toughest thing I've ever sat
57:57
through just because it's so drawn out and it's so horrific.
57:59
It's. Just the dialogue is why it's
58:01
time to wait. It's just that plain yes, wait,
58:03
wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no, no after.
58:05
Yeah, it is. It's hard like.
58:07
What about you? What's the thing you like about
58:09
Saving Private Ryan? I love just before that final
58:13
battle sequence, the whole set above it and also the set
58:18
design. That whole wall ravage set is
58:22
incredible. Such tension in the detail
58:24
starts off with Miller talking about the sticky bombs and the
58:27
set about making the explosive traps of the bridge.
58:29
And I love this whole work and as a team thing and the music
58:33
that accompanies this. What I love about it is we get
58:36
to see this huge, magnificent set in all its glory.
58:39
There's a part where they're pulling a gun up by a rope right
58:42
to the top of the building that goes from the top to the bottom,
58:45
and the camera pans up and reveals the scale of this huge
58:49
imposing building that's just been ravaged by the war, just to
58:53
reinforces the scale of destruction caused by the war.
58:56
And it's absolutely breathtaking.
58:59
But I also love the little pockets of dialogue that
59:01
happened between the crew just in preparation.
59:04
The waiting forest, Tom Hanks's character set with Matt Damon
59:08
and then the others kind of having a little laugh and a
59:10
joke, kind of filling in time, trying to keep each other
59:14
occupied. I think what I love about it is
59:16
because something that you mentioned, John, is that over
59:20
the last, say, 2 1/2 hours, I'm used to these characters and
59:25
I've come to love them. Even the Eddie Burns character,
59:28
even though he's a bit of a Dick head, he's part of the crew and
59:31
I want them all to survive. And it's the impending doom
59:33
that's coming that's really awful.
59:35
I mean, just sitting there waiting for them tanks to turn
59:39
up. I mean, what must that felt
59:41
like? I do like the bit where they're
59:43
listening to Edith PF and Open translating the French to
59:46
English as she says. Well, the set design is just,
59:49
it's absolutely insane. That definitely plays a part in
59:52
the realism and feeling like you're there.
59:54
It's. Incredible.
59:55
It was built as well wasn't it for the film?
59:57
Built and then demolished. Really, right?
59:59
Yeah, outside it's one of the biggest studios.
1:00:01
I'm sure it's Britain. It was Pine Water, somewhere
1:00:03
bigger, was just on like a back lot, but it was all built
1:00:06
perfectly and then bombed. Right.
1:00:08
Amazing. Well, I mean, it looks
1:00:09
incredible. Yeah, Yeah.
1:00:10
It's fantastic. And there's that bit of dialogue
1:00:12
as well between Matt Damon and Hanks, which is completely
1:00:15
made-up by Matt Damon. That whole story about him and
1:00:17
his brothers totally ad libs. Amazing.
1:00:21
We've talked about John Williams already, but something we've not
1:00:24
mentioned yet is Spielberg's second grade collaboration.
1:00:28
That's his partnership with cinematography Yanis Kaminski.
1:00:32
We've worked together almost 20 times, including Schindler's
1:00:35
List and here on Save in Private Ryan.
1:00:38
What do we think of Spielberg and Kaminski as a partnership?
1:00:42
I'm a big fan of Yanis Kaminski as a whole really.
1:00:47
And I think the earlier things that the work done, especially
1:00:51
this, I mean, these Yanis Kaminski has got so much input
1:00:54
into the way of Saving Private Ryan looks and the way that it
1:00:57
feels. I mean, Schindler's List was the
1:00:59
first film that did together right?
1:01:01
And his decision was to shoot that black and white.
1:01:03
And for any cinematographer worth the salt, if you can
1:01:06
shoot, the film might be shot Schindler's List and you deserve
1:01:09
to do the next 20. It's going to be like, yeah,
1:01:14
that looks superb, what else can you do?
1:01:15
And then when the work you did on the likes of the BFG or War
1:01:19
Horse or like Munich, some of the cinematography and then
1:01:23
films, Lincoln is fucking ridiculously good.
1:01:26
John Williams says he's left-handed.
1:01:28
He asked Kaminsky. He's right.
1:01:30
I don't think it's a coincidence that Spielberg and Kaminsky have
1:01:32
both won two Oscars and they're both for the same films.
1:01:36
Shin, that's less than Saving Private Ryan.
1:01:38
Kaminsky's work here on Saving Private Ryan I think is mind
1:01:42
blown. It's one of the most impressive
1:01:44
looking things I've ever seen. And when Kaminsky sent the film
1:01:47
off to be processed in post production, he had them running
1:01:49
through the developer more than usual as he wanted it to have a
1:01:53
washed outlook to make it look like the film might actually be
1:01:56
50 odd years old by the setting. And Spielberg said his idea
1:02:01
delivered a fantastic visual in the film.
1:02:03
Looks freaking great for it. Yeah, it's amazing that bleach
1:02:07
the film by -15% Saturation, if I remember correctly.
1:02:11
But he also did a wonderful thing on one of the handheld
1:02:14
cameras in Yamaha beach sequence.
1:02:15
And what he had was almost like a small car motor.
1:02:18
And you get them in your mobile phone now.
1:02:20
So when your phone rings and you get that vibration, there was a
1:02:22
similar mechanism like that, but he attached it to the side of
1:02:25
the camera so that whenever there was gunfire then they
1:02:28
could trigger that vibration. It would vibrate the camera like
1:02:30
a gun. So that's how you get that
1:02:32
really beautiful vibration that doesn't really shake the
1:02:35
picture, but it looks really unnerving.
1:02:38
But everything's in focus. So he built that kind of
1:02:40
contraption to vibrate the camera like a machine would
1:02:43
vibrate, right? It's fucking amazing.
1:02:45
Great. Fantastic, yeah.
1:02:47
Saving Private Ryan was another huge hit the box office.
1:02:50
On a $70 million budget, it grossed $482,000,000.
1:02:55
It won five Oscars, including Spielberg second and to date
1:02:59
last for best Director. It was nominated for Best
1:03:02
Picture but lost out to Do You Know What?
1:03:05
Shakespeare in love. I fucking hate that film because
1:03:08
of that. Shakespeare in love, Right
1:03:11
Choice no. Never seen it, never will.
1:03:14
Fuck it. How can that be justified by
1:03:17
anybody in their right mind? It's been forgotten as well.
1:03:20
Now. Shakespeare in Love, hasn't it?
1:03:21
Completely. Private Ryan obviously hasn't.
1:03:22
But I think that's only people remember Shakespeare Love as the
1:03:25
film that beat save from Private Ryan.
1:03:27
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
1:03:28
It's all right. It's not a bad film.
1:03:30
I've seen it. It's not a bad film.
1:03:32
It's dreadful. Today is saving.
1:03:37
Private Ryan has 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.6 out of 10 IMDb,
1:03:43
25th in the IMDb all time list and Spielberg's second highest
1:03:48
rated on IMDb. Spielberg stayed on the film.
1:03:52
Saving Private Ryan was never meant to be thrilling or an
1:03:55
adventure. It was meant to be a
1:03:57
documentation of the experience of those who fought on June the
1:04:00
6th. It was ugly, it was honest, and
1:04:03
that's how it had to be. Yeah, nice.
1:04:05
And on Twitter, Jane Hague at Jane Hague says the most
1:04:09
devastating, realistic World War Two movie ever.
1:04:12
My dad was there and now I have an idea of what a horrible
1:04:15
experience it was for him. The movie moved me so much that
1:04:18
I haven't watched it since. It hit me to the core.
1:04:22
Wow. I mean, I'll find it hard to
1:04:23
watch so I can only imagine how it is for her.
1:04:25
Yeah, yeah. And then on the back of that as
1:04:27
well, let's not forget how amazing Band of Brothers is, and
1:04:30
that is probably one of the most cinematic TV series I've ever
1:04:33
seen. Unbelievable.
1:04:34
And if you love seeing Pride Ryan and you haven't seen Band
1:04:36
of Brothers, there's a real issue.
1:04:37
You know, it's fantastic. We've covered a couple of big
1:04:43
World War Two classics back-to-back there, and
1:04:45
Spielberg then made two science fiction movies back-to-back.
1:04:48
The first he took on from his pal Stanley Kubrick.
1:04:51
That was AI and hasn't made our 10, but the second one has.
1:04:56
So Next up, the biggest movie director finally teams up with
1:04:59
the biggest movie star. We're in the year 2054.
1:05:03
It's tech noir. It's Minority report.
1:05:10
Of course it would have to be someone with access to the pre
1:05:12
visions in the 1st place. Someone fairly high up.
1:05:19
Do you know what I hear? Nothing.
1:05:25
No footsteps up the stairs, no hovercraft out the window, and
1:05:28
don't click at the click of little spiders.
1:05:30
Do you know why I can't hear any of those things, Danny?
1:05:33
Because right now the precox catch you see.
1:05:40
Released in 2002, Minority Report is based on a Philip K
1:05:44
Dick short story where special Pre crime Police Department make
1:05:48
arrests before murder occurs. Based on premonitions by
1:05:51
Precogs. Tom Cruise stars as Chief of Pre
1:05:55
Crime John Anderton, who finds himself on the run after the
1:05:58
precogs name him a killer, and he's joined by Colin Farrell,
1:06:02
Samantha Morton and Max von Sydow.
1:06:05
We umed the nod over this one, didn't we?
1:06:08
This one in particular, yeah. Whether it should be in the 10,
1:06:10
it was out, then it was in, then we put it in a pole against
1:06:13
Munich, which it won, then another pole against Jewel,
1:06:17
which it also won. So here it is.
1:06:19
Yeah, by rights. Everybody runs in Minority
1:06:23
Report. It probably made Luke want to
1:06:25
run away. What do we think of the film?
1:06:30
It's not terrible, but it's not amazing.
1:06:34
It's very disjointed, doesn't know what emotion it wants to
1:06:37
put you through. Spielberg's so good to put you
1:06:39
through any emotion that he wants to.
1:06:42
But this one to me feels like it's a few different ones that
1:06:45
seem a little bit convoluted and it's a little dilute certain
1:06:48
elements of it for me. And it tries to drag you back
1:06:51
when it's taking you somewhere else.
1:06:53
So as an action film, as a Tom Cruise action film, it's great.
1:06:58
Wonderful. I just don't like Tom Cruise
1:07:00
action films, right? I like Mission Impossible.
1:07:04
Yeah, Mission Impossible is great.
1:07:05
I. Like Mission Impossible 2.
1:07:07
The worst one the. Worst one Classic Westy that.
1:07:15
John Woo. Amazing.
1:07:17
What do you think of Minority Report?
1:07:18
I like it actually. I think it's his last good
1:07:21
blockbuster. I think it is a few degrees
1:07:24
short of his best, but I think it says a lot about his
1:07:29
greatness that if anyone else had directed this, we'd probably
1:07:32
be saying it was one of their best.
1:07:34
I think it does really good job of world building.
1:07:36
I think the future is believable.
1:07:39
I like how it's not just science fiction.
1:07:40
It's got a bit of film noir in there.
1:07:42
It's got a bit of kind of Hitchcockian man on the run
1:07:45
conspiracy thriller going on, even a bit of body horror in
1:07:48
there. I think it does fall apart in
1:07:51
the last 10 minutes, but everything up to there I'm
1:07:54
thoroughly engaged with and thoroughly enjoying it.
1:07:58
Lovely look, what about you? Wesley, I'm kind of mirroring
1:08:02
you all the way through this. I thought it was OK but not
1:08:04
great. It doesn't get a head start
1:08:07
because it's a sci-fi flick and I'm not a massive fan of the
1:08:10
genre, but it was OK. It does have cruise in law,
1:08:14
which puts it up a notch in my opinion.
1:08:16
So that puts it in notch one, really.
1:08:22
Well, I am the Minority Report. Yeah, because I love it.
1:08:27
In terms of subject matter, this one is so far up my street.
1:08:31
It's in the house and out the back door.
1:08:35
Science fiction thriller with a compelling story, cool future
1:08:38
tech and some smart comments on society?
1:08:41
Yes, please. Yeah, right up here, Rally.
1:08:44
I like Tom. Cruise and good to see him
1:08:45
working with Spielberg as well. Not perfect, but I think it's
1:08:48
great and I watch it at least once for a week once a year.
1:08:56
Fucking hell, what we like then? Westie, what are you going for?
1:09:02
I love the opening sequence because when I'm at the scene at
1:09:04
the cinema, it really excited us.
1:09:06
I thought this is Spielberg back.
1:09:09
I mean, don't get us wrong, I don't hate the film.
1:09:11
I think it's really entertaining and like Matt said, if this was
1:09:14
anyone else would probably be holding it up there as one of
1:09:17
the greatest sci-fi films of their career.
1:09:19
It is accomplished as a film, but it's when Spielberg puts his
1:09:22
name on it. He brings a certain expectation,
1:09:26
a certain level of expectation to it.
1:09:28
But the opening sequence for me is pure, pure Spielberg from
1:09:32
walking in. And then you see all of the kind
1:09:34
of the hands going up. So you've got that computer tech
1:09:37
and then the balls printed and it comes down.
1:09:40
They don't know how somebody's been killed, but the Norse one's
1:09:43
going to be killed. And the way that he figures that
1:09:44
out, and one of the best shots in the whole film, I think it's
1:09:48
probably the best shot in the whole film, is when you see the
1:09:51
kids merry go round and they're like, it's a park.
1:09:54
But then there's just that shot from Spielberg where you see the
1:09:56
merry go round and then they just come down from whatever
1:10:00
London crafts they're in. There's just ropes and they're
1:10:02
just bang. So they land right in front the
1:10:04
merry go round. Cruz takes his helmet off and
1:10:06
he's looking, he's trying to figure out which house it is.
1:10:08
And then Spielberg frames him perfectly in front of this merry
1:10:11
go round that's spinning, which shows his thought process, this
1:10:13
kind of whirl and brain where he's like trying to figure it
1:10:17
out. That's just Spielberg all over.
1:10:19
That tells you the story without any dialogue whatsoever.
1:10:22
Yeah, I love that moment where and the guy back at the station
1:10:26
did Mark leave the door and leave the door and as soon as
1:10:29
the guy says he did, Cruise just takes off.
1:10:31
Yeah, absolutely awesome, brilliant, classic Cruise.
1:10:34
I love those pre visions. The first things we see in the
1:10:37
film as well, the shots where they're flashing in of what the
1:10:40
prey cogs can say. Yeah.
1:10:41
They were designed by a studio called Imaginary Force, who also
1:10:44
designed the opening credits to Seven.
1:10:47
All right, lovely. I like the way you get all the
1:10:49
flash forwards and the flashbacks, and I like the way
1:10:52
Kaminski shoots all of them flash forwards and flashbacks
1:10:55
and this really weird kind of watery effect that kind of goes
1:10:59
over the full screen. I think that's really excellent.
1:11:02
But I think, you know, he could have waited a little bit longer
1:11:04
for a husband if we can actually leave the street, read in the
1:11:09
house. Holy holy man with a massive
1:11:14
trend dive in there. What was like?
1:11:18
What you said at the beginning about Spielberg's gift of taking
1:11:22
words on a page to make them images, this organ sequence is
1:11:26
absolutely an example of that, because reading that on a page I
1:11:29
would be so lost. Yeah.
1:11:31
What, what? What am I looking at?
1:11:33
How am I going to do that? But Spielberg, just like, no, I
1:11:36
can do this. Not a problem.
1:11:38
Yeah. Boom, done.
1:11:39
Yeah, if you think about it, there's only about 5 lines of
1:11:41
dialogue in it. One of them is, is the door
1:11:43
open? You know, you know, I can't see
1:11:46
without any glasses. Is the door open?
1:11:48
That's it. For me, for my like, I'm a big
1:11:53
fan of the writing. I think there's loads going on.
1:11:56
I've read the book it's based on and Spielberg and the writers
1:11:58
here who are Scott Frank and John Corn had loads of stuff in.
1:12:03
So you've got a setting of the futuristic world of pre cogs and
1:12:06
pre crime. Love that.
1:12:08
Yeah, obviously. And in the back story where a
1:12:10
little boy was abducted and that influences him still.
1:12:13
It's awful. But love that the core story,
1:12:17
which is the noir action thriller about Andin being on
1:12:20
the run for a crime. You didn't or won't commit.
1:12:23
Yeah. Love that.
1:12:25
There's a constant theme of sight and eyes all the way
1:12:28
through as well. The precogs have four sides.
1:12:30
People are Id'd with eye scanners.
1:12:32
There's that drug dealer who's got no eyes.
1:12:33
Can't. See a thinner than he.
1:12:35
Glass out his eyes for somebody else's love That loads going on
1:12:40
with the writing and they managed to pull it all together
1:12:42
into one story, which I think is pretty cohesive and makes sense.
1:12:46
I think the writing is really, really solid.
1:12:48
Do you agree or do you think the writing is a load of shit?
1:12:51
I don't think it's a load of shit.
1:12:52
I think there's a lot of ideas that smash together.
1:12:55
It's like loads of different. It's like loads of different
1:12:59
coloured play DoH getting smashed together.
1:13:04
Just keep them separate. I don't want a big smush of this
1:13:07
spectrum of mistakes. Matt, what about you?
1:13:11
What's the thing you like about Minority Report?
1:13:14
It's all the little futuristic details that are in there that
1:13:18
do create this world building. I particularly like how they've
1:13:21
still got like a physical quality to them.
1:13:23
So you've got the cops using those six sticks.
1:13:25
Oh yeah. And I like how it's quite pre
1:13:28
essent in some ways, isn't it, with how it looks advertising,
1:13:30
how advertisers working in the future.
1:13:32
You know, I look well like Cruz has gone on the run and
1:13:35
everything's scanning his eyes. It's like John Anderson, you
1:13:38
could use it right now because that's what it's like today.
1:13:41
It's like when you go on the Internet and then you go on
1:13:43
Facebook, that's a popping up for, you know, Asian brides or
1:13:47
whatever you've just been searching for.
1:13:51
You've been the game away there, man.
1:13:54
No, so I think also details really good, but I like how it's
1:13:57
mixed with contemporary stuff as well.
1:13:59
So you've still got cops on horseback.
1:14:01
One bit I really, really love it is when the precogs give you the
1:14:05
name of the victim and the murderer.
1:14:07
It doesn't flash up like a graphic on the computer screen.
1:14:09
It's carved. It doesn't a ball.
1:14:11
Yeah, but that just shows the confidence in it.
1:14:13
That's a sure thing. It's like carved in the wood.
1:14:16
Yeah, it just shows that's a definite decision made.
1:14:19
Now, you noticed as well, when you're talking about when he's
1:14:21
kind of get away and he's on the train.
1:14:22
Did you know that Cameron crows in there?
1:14:24
Yeah. Oh yeah.
1:14:25
He's the guy on the paper, Yeah. Oh really?
1:14:28
Is that that crow? Spielberg returns the favour in
1:14:31
vanilla Sky when it comes to his party, and it's actually
1:14:34
Spielberg as. Spielberg behind him, isn't she?
1:14:38
Yeah. Apparently Paul Thomas Anderson
1:14:40
is in there, but I've never been able to spot him.
1:14:43
To help with that side of the film, The Future Tech, Spielberg
1:14:45
hired a team of 16 futurists who are people who predict
1:14:49
technology and Society of the future and get paid a lot of
1:14:52
money by major corporations so they can plan for what may come.
1:14:55
Awesome. And these future groups
1:14:57
basically brainstormed out what they thought 2054 would look
1:15:00
like for Spielberg. They created an 80 page booklet
1:15:03
that Spielberg had on set to refer to throughout the
1:15:05
production. I think they did a really good
1:15:07
job because two decades later, I think it still feels like a
1:15:10
possible future. Yeah, definitely pre COGS.
1:15:13
I mean, that's a few million years of evolution away, I
1:15:15
think, But how it looks, looks great.
1:15:18
It has been said that it's probably one of the closest in
1:15:20
the ways of predictions of where the future's gone.
1:15:23
Absolutely. Yeah.
1:15:24
Yeah. Do you think the predict that
1:15:25
these next 15 films are going to be pretty shit?
1:15:32
Luke, what about you? What's your thing you like about
1:15:35
Minority Report? I like the sequence when Andaden
1:15:39
visits the shady eye surgeon Doctor Eddie, played by Peter
1:15:42
Stormare. Oh yeah.
1:15:44
Feels very Clockwork Orangey, obviously, and it's a lot darker
1:15:48
than I would expect from a Spielberg film.
1:15:50
And in fact, the whole film is, to be honest.
1:15:52
Yeah. I also like the subsequent
1:15:55
spider drones that crawl the way through the apartment block and
1:15:58
the little pockets of domestic life that they interrupt while
1:16:01
they're doing their search. Yeah, I really love that.
1:16:03
This is obviously something that happens on a regular basis
1:16:06
because everybody stops. And knows what to do.
1:16:09
And knows what to do and then go straight back to their business.
1:16:11
Some are arguing, some are making food.
1:16:13
I really really like that detail.
1:16:15
Gives away, doesn't it? It's such a discipline.
1:16:18
No matter what you're doing, you've got to stop.
1:16:21
So that's terrifying. Amazing.
1:16:23
I love that overhead shot where the camera follows the spiders
1:16:26
from one room to the next because it looks fantastic.
1:16:29
And when we visit each apartment, there's like some
1:16:32
sort of family dynamic going on in each one.
1:16:33
Like there's a young couple having sex and a middle-aged
1:16:35
couple fighting and stuff like that.
1:16:37
Yeah, feels like Spielberg's sort of saying things aren't
1:16:40
that different, really. Yeah, it's great.
1:16:42
But more intrusive whenever they want to be.
1:16:44
So yeah, you know, this is your privacy pretty much gone the
1:16:47
whole thing. Another really good futuristic
1:16:50
thing, as well as the cereal box that sings the theme.
1:16:52
Tune and it. Just throws it across the
1:16:56
kitchen. Just that little bits are
1:16:58
fantastic. I said at the start that I love
1:17:01
Minority Report, but it's not perfect.
1:17:04
The thing about the film that I don't like is that I feel it's a
1:17:07
little bit messily put together. I'm not sure if that's just me.
1:17:10
Do you get that as well? That's definitely me.
1:17:13
I concur 100. Percent.
1:17:15
Why do you think that is? I don't know, I think there's
1:17:17
just too much that they want to try and do.
1:17:20
They want to make it like a real family tragedy.
1:17:22
They want to make it a tragic drama.
1:17:24
They want to make it incredible Tom Cruise action fest.
1:17:27
They want to make it a commentary on the future.
1:17:29
They wants to make it a little bit more Kubricky.
1:17:31
And then it's it's pace. So it's fast-paced, it's slow
1:17:34
paced, it's romantic, it's heartbreaking.
1:17:36
It's it's all of these things that don't necessarily work
1:17:40
together. Again, I think it's Spielberg
1:17:42
just having too many ideas and thrown too much at it.
1:17:47
I feel like it looks quite messy as well.
1:17:50
Right. Which with it being spieling
1:17:52
Kaminski obviously the know how to make a film look good, I can
1:17:55
only assume it was done on purpose.
1:17:58
Yeah, it's very flarey. There's a lot of lens flares and
1:18:01
the camera feels quite disjointed and quite floaty in
1:18:04
places. I've got a problem with a couple
1:18:06
of things in the in the writing of it.
1:18:08
Actually, I don't necessarily like this subplot involving his
1:18:12
son. I think it's underdeveloped
1:18:14
really emotionally. I think it could have been
1:18:17
really emotional story. But the pain that he's feeling,
1:18:20
I don't feel as explored enough for me, right?
1:18:23
Just to emphasize the reason why he's descended into despair and
1:18:26
drug use. I understand why it's happened,
1:18:28
I just don't feel it. And I also don't like the
1:18:31
character of Max Fonsido. Lamar.
1:18:34
I'm 5050 on him. From a writing perspective, he
1:18:37
feels as though he fits into the classic trap of if you're unsure
1:18:40
what a certain character's place is within a film, then he's
1:18:43
almost certainly the bad guy. Yeah, this feels like it's
1:18:47
tailor made. It just feels as though the
1:18:49
writing's just a little bit lazy.
1:18:52
Right. I don't like it for that reason.
1:18:54
Yeah, it does have some classic plot points from like filmed
1:18:57
wall and stuff like that, so maybe if I saw it now for the
1:19:02
first time I might see things coming.
1:19:03
But when I first saw this I was a teenager and I had no idea
1:19:06
what was coming. To be honest.
1:19:07
I was thrown away by it the first time I saw it.
1:19:10
Yeah, a thing like when I said it falls upon the 10 minutes, I
1:19:13
think that is due to the writing.
1:19:14
Like for one thing, it's unforgivable.
1:19:16
Not the fall back in my cliche of the bad guy revealing himself
1:19:20
to be the bad guy because he lets slip a piece of information
1:19:24
he should only be Privy to if he's the bad guy.
1:19:27
That's ridiculous when you consider like the convoluted
1:19:30
plot Lamar has set up. And I kind of get the feeling
1:19:33
that the film is almost going for a more ambiguous, darker
1:19:37
ending, but it kind of chickens out.
1:19:39
I think at one point it felt to me like it was going to end with
1:19:43
Cruz not killing Leo Crow and thereby absolving himself of the
1:19:48
crime but also destroying the whole pre crime thing.
1:19:51
But then it doesn't do that. And then some people say, oh,
1:19:54
maybe the last 10 minutes the film doesn't happen because
1:19:57
obviously Cruz goes in like the deep freeze thing.
1:19:59
I don't get that sense of Spielberg doesn't nail the
1:20:02
ambiguity or the potential ambiguity of that ending.
1:20:06
It does feel like everything literally happens and he does
1:20:09
and he just reconciled this wife and she does get pregnant and
1:20:12
the precogs do all go off to live in a lock happen.
1:20:15
You know, an extra beautiful lake.
1:20:17
Everyone's happy. The national false.
1:20:20
Apartment. Minority Report isn't the
1:20:24
Spielberg classic, but it was still a hit.
1:20:27
The budget was $102,000,000 and it grossed $358,000,000, and
1:20:33
it's still fairly popular now. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a
1:20:36
rating of 90%. Yeah.
1:20:39
And on IMDb 7.6 out of 10, Spielberg says about Minority
1:20:44
Report. I went back and looked at The
1:20:47
Maltese Falcon in The Big Sleep to see how some of those film
1:20:50
wall mysteries were resolved. And I wonder a bit, sorry.
1:20:54
And I wanted there to be a very real human element at the centre
1:20:57
of all the sci-fi. That's what I do.
1:21:00
It is. It is what he does.
1:21:01
Yeah, don't. Argue with that.
1:21:02
He's done it a lot better than this though, and.
1:21:04
That sooner what's the big sleep than this?
1:21:06
This is a big sleep. That's what I was going to say
1:21:10
in the middle of that. On Twitter, Oscar at Mir Eyes
1:21:14
under score Oscar says a believable future.
1:21:18
They did their homework on what could be.
1:21:20
The whole eye transplant scene was my favorite part.
1:21:23
Yeah, me and Oscar. Yeah, we like that bit as well.
1:21:27
Tight. The same year as Minority
1:21:29
Report, Spielberg was back with a story that is brilliantly
1:21:32
bonkers and somehow based on real events.
1:21:36
Next up we're going to be that second mouse as we talk about.
1:21:40
Catch Me If You Can mind if I see some identification?
1:21:47
I never can be too careful these days.
1:21:53
Well, tough luck Carl. 5 minutes earlier you would have landed
1:21:56
yourself a pretty good caller. It's all right. 10 seconds later
1:22:00
and you'd have been shot. Mind if I come downstairs with
1:22:03
you? I I, I got to take a look at
1:22:05
this guy. Sure thing.
1:22:06
Just do me a favor and sit tight for a second while I get this
1:22:08
evidence downstairs. You know I don't want some.
1:22:11
Maid walking through here and making the bed.
1:22:12
LAPD should be here any SEC. Wait, your wallet.
1:22:22
You hang on to it for a minute. I trust you.
1:22:26
Catch Me If You Can was released at Christmas time 2002, based on
1:22:30
the life of Frank Abigail Junior, who in the 1960s
1:22:34
performed cons with millions of dollars by posing as a Pan Am
1:22:38
pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer, all before his 19th birthday.
1:22:45
The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank, and he's joined by Tom
1:22:49
Hanks, Amy Adams, and Christopher Walken.
1:22:53
Yeah, it's the true story of a real fake, but is it a good
1:22:57
story? What do we think of Catch Me If
1:23:00
You Can? It's really entertaining, isn't
1:23:03
it? It's so much fun.
1:23:04
You start and it's a bit of a real dour kind of situation that
1:23:10
you brought in new with these family situation and you know,
1:23:13
the lack of money and you have to lend stuff from the bank and
1:23:15
it's all just seems a little bit kind of dour and it's torn.
1:23:18
But then I'd love it. I think it's thoroughly
1:23:20
entertained and I think Dicaprio's great in it.
1:23:23
I think Walton's great in it. Out of the whole list, it feels
1:23:26
like the least Spielberg and of all the films we've discussed,
1:23:30
and I'm not really too sure why, but I do enjoy it.
1:23:34
I think if you play any of these ten films for anybody and say
1:23:38
who directed cash, if you can, I don't think anyone would say,
1:23:40
oh, that's a definite Steven Spielberg film.
1:23:43
It's an absolute delight from start to finish.
1:23:45
I absolutely loved it. Again, this is one that I hadn't
1:23:48
seen before and I always knew that I should have because I
1:23:50
always knew that I would love it.
1:23:52
But it's got grounded characters, grounded story, no
1:23:55
flying sources to contend with, which is a bonus just.
1:23:59
Pan Am Jet. I love the era that's captured
1:24:03
perfectly and it's got a great soundtrack, and I really love
1:24:06
this little unlikely bond that's formed between Frank and Carl.
1:24:10
Yeah, it's great. And who's?
1:24:11
Going to say no to Christopher Walken in anything.
1:24:14
A great story as usual and it's load of fun.
1:24:17
I love the tone Spielberg sets. There's loads of visual flares
1:24:20
you usually expect but I think he shows a really light touch
1:24:24
that suits the film really well to write.
1:24:27
Old caper. Is what it is.
1:24:29
An old fashioned caper, obviously.
1:24:31
I'm a big fan of DiCaprio and great seeing him share the
1:24:34
screen with Hanks. Still get a bit of a thrill out
1:24:36
of that. Very much.
1:24:37
Not quite vintage Spielberg, but I like it a lot.
1:24:41
It's just so much fun, isn't it? You can tell Spielberg's really
1:24:44
relaxed. You can tell he's not worrying
1:24:47
about making like a big historical or political
1:24:49
statement with this one. You can tell he's not bothered
1:24:52
about pushing like the forefront of technology again.
1:24:55
He's just completely relaxed. And it feels to me like a film
1:24:58
made by a guy in his 30s, just like Fleet of Foot.
1:25:01
And I think you can really tell Spiegelberg must really, really
1:25:04
identify with Frank Junior, just like this story.
1:25:07
I'd young dreamer running away from responsibilities just like
1:25:10
pretending to be people who he isn't and just tell us so much
1:25:14
affection in that film. Yeah, it's got a real Paul
1:25:17
Thomas Anderson kind of vibe, and then a Wes Anderson kind of
1:25:20
vibe. It could so easily be really
1:25:22
dark and really terrifying. What he's doing is illegal,
1:25:26
yeah. It's dangerous.
1:25:27
But it's never cleared that way. You always think he's going to
1:25:29
get away with this. Good old Frank, yeah.
1:25:31
Good old price fine, it's the 60s.
1:25:35
I think that there's always like an undercurrent of sadness to
1:25:37
it. You just know he's not going to
1:25:38
be. Able to do this forever.
1:25:40
And he's going to fly face up to his family life, so it's not
1:25:43
just like frothy and lightweight either.
1:25:45
Yeah, but it's shot as if it's every young boy's dream though,
1:25:47
isn't it? You've always had them kind of
1:25:49
fantasies where like, oh, I could fly a plane or all the air
1:25:53
hostesses are around us all the time.
1:25:54
I'm getting all the attention. I've got loads of money.
1:25:57
It's just every young boy's fantasy, really.
1:25:59
And I think that's the way Spielberg takes it.
1:26:00
Now. There's only him who could have
1:26:01
this tone with it and not make it cheesy.
1:26:04
Yeah. In terms of what we like about
1:26:07
Catch Me if you can, then look what are you going for if you're
1:26:11
like. Straight in the opening credits,
1:26:14
right from the get go. I absolutely adore these.
1:26:17
They're just pure, pure class. I love them because they're
1:26:21
obviously all huge debt of gratitude to Sol Bass's
1:26:24
legendary title sequences from films like The Man with a Golden
1:26:28
Arm and Anatomy of a Murder. Lovely stuff and I absolutely
1:26:32
love Williams. This kind of jazz inflected
1:26:35
score, it plays throughout and there's a great soundtrack as
1:26:38
well, but you've got it in here. There's about two or three
1:26:41
themes running through the entire title sequence.
1:26:45
Love it, love it. And the credits do a wonderful
1:26:48
job of just setting the tone for the entire film, this whole cat
1:26:50
and mouse theme that they've got going on.
1:26:52
Yeah, just and. Playful as well.
1:26:54
It's so playful, you know what to expect and you can settle in
1:26:57
for two hours when these titles come up.
1:27:00
Really Hitchcockian as well in some places, yeah.
1:27:03
Audio Hitchcock North by Northwest kind of vibe.
1:27:06
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
1:27:07
Those credit sequences were created by two designers called
1:27:11
Olivier Console. Careful how you say that.
1:27:13
Yeah, and. Lawrence Degas, Couple of French
1:27:16
fellows. They took a lot of inspiration
1:27:19
from Sorbas, like you said, the legendary graphic artist and
1:27:23
Florence Degas said. We created this sequence by
1:27:26
stylistically transposing the handmade design of Soul Bus
1:27:30
using decidedly modern means. Florence knows that stuff.
1:27:34
She certainly does. They created the title sequence
1:27:38
without seeing A-frame of the film either.
1:27:41
Really. Just from Spielberg telling them
1:27:43
the story. Yeah, because it does tell the
1:27:45
story, doesn't it? Yeah.
1:27:47
Math. What about you?
1:27:48
What's the thing you like about the film?
1:27:50
It's DiCaprio for me. I still think this is his best
1:27:53
performance. Wow.
1:27:55
That's amazing. That is good to you.
1:27:58
Remember, I'm standing by it because I know we're so used to
1:28:00
seeing him do like, really intense, tortured performances
1:28:04
for Scorsese and The Revenant. But no, this, to me, it's the
1:28:08
best thing he's ever done because he's so like,
1:28:10
charismatic. It's a proper big movie star
1:28:13
performance. And I must think, like on the
1:28:15
back of Titanic, he must have had so many offers for roles
1:28:18
that just wanted to like, trade on his good looks.
1:28:20
And it's like a more generic movie star.
1:28:24
And to his creditors, knocked them all back because he wanted
1:28:26
to do more in less and work. So I think this is probably his
1:28:30
first role since then and maybe the only one since then where he
1:28:33
is kind of trading on his good looks to an extent.
1:28:36
And it's a tricky 1 to play because he's got to convince you
1:28:39
on one hand that he could pass is, you know, a trainee lawyer
1:28:43
and a young pilot and a trainee Dr. And he does that.
1:28:46
But he also, he's really good at reminding how young he actually
1:28:50
is, that he is only like a teenager.
1:28:52
Like, I love that bit where he's on the plane and the stewardess
1:28:55
is asking do you want anything to drink?
1:28:56
And he just goes milk. Lovely.
1:29:01
And I love, like, how often you see him thinking on his feet and
1:29:04
you can practically see, like, the cogs going on in his brain,
1:29:07
like how to get out of a situation when he's pausing as a
1:29:10
doctor. And he's, like, asking him, what
1:29:12
are you doing? He's like, so you concur.
1:29:13
Do you concur? Fantastic.
1:29:15
It is a tricky 1 because when you think about it, you probably
1:29:18
shouldn't like him that much. You know, he does do a lot of
1:29:21
shitty things. He like breaks Amy Adams's
1:29:23
heart. That's unforgivable.
1:29:25
He is probably endangering people's lives.
1:29:27
Pausing as a doctor. Stand by.
1:29:30
It's his best performance. Well.
1:29:32
Yeah, I think up until this point I thought DiCaprio was
1:29:36
just the pretty boy from Titanic.
1:29:37
But he's excellent. He ensures that he can't
1:29:40
actually act, and he can act really well.
1:29:42
There's loads of great moments he has.
1:29:44
But I especially love the scene where Carl, Tom Hanks tracks
1:29:49
Frank down to the hotel He's been living that, and Frank
1:29:52
comes out the toilet and pretends he works for the CIA.
1:29:55
That's a great scene where Carl realizes he's been hard and
1:29:59
looked out the window and Frank's running off down the
1:30:00
street. Also, the real Frank Abagnale
1:30:07
Junior didn't want the company with a plane, he said.
1:30:11
I don't think he's suave enough to play me, but when he saw the
1:30:18
film, he was really pleased with how it went.
1:30:20
So my favorite part of the film is the airport sequence where
1:30:24
Frank completely outwits Karl and the FBI to get away yet
1:30:28
again, where he hires a load of high school girls, they're
1:30:30
stewardesses, and then waltzes through the airport and I'm
1:30:34
uniform. It's.
1:30:34
An absolute delight, isn't it? All scored by Come Fly With Me
1:30:38
by Frank Sonora. Wonderful.
1:30:40
It's like its own little short story where it started the
1:30:42
school and then he gets out the limo with the girls.
1:30:44
And then at the end, we're calling the FBI, go running over
1:30:47
to the car and that guy gets out with a sign that says hand
1:30:50
ratty. And then you see the plane take
1:30:53
off in the background. Well put together.
1:30:56
And him walking through the airport is so cool.
1:30:59
Time. Of his life.
1:31:01
Isn't he? Yeah, that is the scene where it
1:31:03
looks like he's having literally the time of his life.
1:31:05
Yeah, looks amazing. Let's see.
1:31:08
What about you? What's the thing that you like?
1:31:10
The thing that stands out for me, and this is Christopher
1:31:12
Wharton's performance, which is really understated, but it's the
1:31:18
blueprint of the whole film. It's Frank's whole influence.
1:31:23
Do you see it from the bit when he goes to the shop and it's not
1:31:25
quite open and he drops the necklace?
1:31:26
They do drop this outside and he's got that real charisma to
1:31:31
him and that real believability. But at the same time, he's got
1:31:35
this heartbreak, just this emotion and this weight of the
1:31:39
character that that he's dragged down and he's bogged down by
1:31:42
life. Absolutely.
1:31:44
He's been beaten, hasn't he? Yeah, but Frank's the new life,
1:31:48
the new blood, and it's not beaten out to him yet, but you
1:31:51
can see that Morgan would have been that same person.
1:31:54
He would have had that same attitude.
1:31:55
He would have had that same kind of drive, which has gotten under
1:31:58
where he's gotten to. But he's committed to being a
1:32:01
family man, which is again what Frank doesn't want to do.
1:32:05
The two mice put the cream speech.
1:32:07
I. Forget about it.
1:32:10
I love walking in there. So he's excellent.
1:32:12
I love wanting. He offers to buy him the car and
1:32:13
he just says no. You know, he doesn't want any
1:32:16
handouts. But I'm doing it, dad.
1:32:17
I'm doing it. He's like, but that's not what
1:32:19
it's about. It's not about material.
1:32:21
It's about being happy. It's about finding something to
1:32:23
be happy with. And the scene when he dances
1:32:26
with his mom and he's just watching through the doorway.
1:32:29
Beautiful. This is one of the rare
1:32:31
Spielberg films where he has two father figures.
1:32:34
He's always just one stand out, but he goes from walking and
1:32:37
walking hands off DiCaprio to Hanks and then Hanks continues
1:32:41
that father figure rule. And one other thing is an
1:32:43
honourable mention that I really, really like is Tom Hanks
1:32:47
joke. I think it's one of the funniest
1:32:48
things ever in the history of cinema, really.
1:32:52
It's amazing. He's just a playing down guy.
1:32:55
He doesn't speak to anybody. I've got a joke for you.
1:32:58
Oh yeah? What is it?
1:32:59
Knock knock. Who's there?
1:33:01
Go fuck yourself. I absolutely love it where they
1:33:07
go to see Frank's mother and she gets the Sarah Lee out and the
1:33:12
guy who's sitting next to Carl and he's reaching for the fork
1:33:17
and he can't get it. He can't get it, he can't get
1:33:19
it. And Carl picks it up and kind of
1:33:21
like jabs it towards him and fork.
1:33:25
Also, he's got a great Boston accent.
1:33:28
Walden was nominated for best supporting actor at the Oscars.
1:33:33
I know as well that in the restaurant scene between the two
1:33:35
Franks, the bit where Frank Senior seeing 200 men sitting in
1:33:39
that hall watching her dance, it wasn't in the script that Frank
1:33:42
Senior would become emotional for that bit.
1:33:44
So Walton improvised it. It threw LDC and he said, I
1:33:49
thought the man was having a heart attack in front of me.
1:33:51
Well, but Spielberg loved it. And that was a tape that he used
1:33:54
in the film. It's a lovely moment.
1:33:57
In the script, Christopher Walton's character wasn't in
1:34:00
there all that much at first, because in real life, when Frank
1:34:03
ran away from home, he never saw his dad again.
1:34:06
But Spielberg changed all that, because obviously he's Spielberg
1:34:09
and he loves daddy issues. So of course he does.
1:34:13
That was the only feedback from the real Frank Davenil wasn't it
1:34:16
was that that changed 2 main things.
1:34:18
One, that he didn't see his family again after he left.
1:34:22
And he was like, the second thing was when I got off the
1:34:24
airplane and I came off the airline and I escaped from the
1:34:27
airport. I went out of the hangar.
1:34:29
But Stephen thought it'd be a better idea if I came out with
1:34:31
the toilet. But he said everything else was
1:34:33
spot on. It's like, that's not a big of a
1:34:36
deal. Is it just hangar for him to
1:34:39
compare them? I never saw my family again and
1:34:41
I came out the toilet. It's not the same thing.
1:34:47
So Catch Me If You Can is the last film in R10 and it's almost
1:34:50
20 years old now. Spielberg has been making movies
1:34:54
in all that time, but none of them, when looking at Rotten
1:34:57
Tomatoes, IMDb, or Twitter, were deemed worthy of being in the
1:35:00
10. Does that mean he's not making
1:35:03
his good movies anymore? And if not, why do you think
1:35:06
that might be? Every time I hear that
1:35:08
Spielberg's going to do a film, I'm always excited because it's
1:35:10
Spielberg and he's got this massive reputation and then it's
1:35:15
Tintin or it's the BFG or it's War Horse or it's West Side
1:35:19
Story coming up, and I think, what the fuck's he doing that
1:35:21
for? That just does not excite me.
1:35:25
I don't understand why he's making those choices.
1:35:27
He made his name and his fame from like the blockbuster films
1:35:31
that we've talked about, and he's moved away from that.
1:35:34
So he has. I don't think he's making films
1:35:37
on that scale. I think he's making more low key
1:35:39
films, dialogue films, more than he used to.
1:35:42
I still think there are good films in there, but I just think
1:35:44
some of the choices that he can make and I don't know, feel a
1:35:47
little lazy. Yeah, I mean, here's my theory
1:35:51
on it, right? I watched Catch Me If You Can,
1:35:53
which was the last Spielberg film that thoroughly like,
1:35:56
enjoyed what the cinema say. Thought it was great.
1:35:59
I want to see the terminal at the cinema.
1:36:01
I like the terminal. And I really didn't.
1:36:04
I felt really let down by it. I couldn't get away with it
1:36:07
whatsoever. Tried again.
1:36:09
War The Worlds was let down by that.
1:36:11
Again, even though the sequences and that are incredible, the
1:36:14
action sequences, especially the start of the film, are
1:36:16
unbelievable. Don't worry, I'm not going to go
1:36:18
through every single film since Catch Me If You Can.
1:36:20
Then he did. Then he did Munich 2005, which I
1:36:23
was blown away by. I thought Munich was a return to
1:36:26
form. Amazing.
1:36:27
Then it was Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and then I just
1:36:29
kind of fell out, just went, look, if you're going to piss on
1:36:31
your own legacy, then I'm not really interested.
1:36:33
And I just felt like it was incredibly, incredibly lazy.
1:36:37
But my view on all of this since Catch Me If You Can, the films
1:36:41
that are in our top ten, were made by Spielberg when he was
1:36:44
young and hungry, which are 18 close Encounters.
1:36:48
Everything else was when he was a dad and he had that kind of
1:36:51
dad influence. Everything else afterwards feels
1:36:55
like he's a granddad. Do you know what I mean?
1:36:58
So the films that we really engage with are the young, late
1:37:01
20s, early 30s vibrancy. These are all granddad films.
1:37:05
Look at them. Lincoln Bridge of spies, BFG
1:37:10
post really got to be fair. Ready Player 1 is what your
1:37:12
granddad would think of computer games.
1:37:14
Like then if your nana's banging on at him, what does he do?
1:37:21
Read me to West Side Story. So do you think in 20 years time
1:37:26
we're going to be watching those films and thinking they're going
1:37:28
to be brilliant? Absolutely.
1:37:30
And I also think the producer rule became a lot more prominent
1:37:34
after Kashmir. If you can, he's producing a lot
1:37:36
more. He was overseeing a lot more
1:37:38
scripts. He was, you know, getting a lot
1:37:40
more ideas. He was doing a lot more TV
1:37:41
shows. He was doing a lot more computer
1:37:43
games. He did all of the Medal of Honor
1:37:44
series. He's done a lot of things, a lot
1:37:46
of fingers and a lot of pies. So I think he's actual films.
1:37:49
He's not us. He's he's made 3 billion.
1:37:51
He doesn't give a shit. He wants to make War Horse.
1:37:53
Fucking make it. It really makes no difference
1:37:55
anymore. So I got bitten die hard.
1:37:57
You know what Hans Kubus says? That quote about Alexander wept
1:38:01
when he saw the breath of his domain for the women normal wolf
1:38:04
to punker. What else does he have to do to
1:38:06
prove himself? Nothing.
1:38:08
He invented the blockbuster, redid the blockbuster at least
1:38:11
three times. One is Oscars.
1:38:14
I don't think there's anything challenges him anymore.
1:38:17
And there are a couple of films after Catch Me If you cannot do
1:38:21
really like, I'm a big fan of Lincoln and Richard Spies, but
1:38:24
they're still like minor works by his standard.
1:38:27
And I think like in any kind of autistic field, to produce
1:38:31
greatness, there's got to be some challenge there for you.
1:38:34
It's like Paul McCartney, he gets up in the morning, makes
1:38:37
his breakfast, puts the TV on, and he's probably already
1:38:39
written 3 songs in his head by then.
1:38:41
And I think it's the same for Spielberg.
1:38:44
I guess that's why he's making West Side Story then.
1:38:46
That's his first musical, isn't it?
1:38:48
That's why I'm a little bit more intrigued by that than like,
1:38:50
Lucas, just because he's never done a musical before, so you
1:38:54
never know. I am quite looking forward to
1:38:55
West Side Story because I do love the original.
1:38:58
This is as far away as you can get from the father son story,
1:39:01
so obviously he's moving away from that.
1:39:03
He'll be able to crowbar it indefinitely.
1:39:05
He will. That's probably what it'll be.
1:39:08
It's like if Gordon Ramsay came over and he just made you a
1:39:10
cheeseburger. You're like, you're not making
1:39:12
something else. I know you're capable.
1:39:13
Of like. He's gonna be a great
1:39:15
cheeseburger, but you want something a bit more.
1:39:17
But he's like, fuck that, I've already done that.
1:39:19
Not a review as a lot of the other films in our 10, but Catch
1:39:22
Me If You Can was a really big hit on a $52 million budget.
1:39:26
It made $352 million today. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has 96%.
1:39:33
Yeah. Was that and 8.1 out of 10 on
1:39:37
IMDb. So it is very popular.
1:39:39
Spielberg says about Catch Me If You Can.
1:39:42
People say it seems so far fetched.
1:39:44
But when you meet the real Frank, you understand.
1:39:47
He's so charismatic and trustworthy that you see why
1:39:49
people believed him. I was drawn to him.
1:39:52
Then the story, then to Leo. Lovely.
1:39:55
Yeah. Drawn right in with Spielberg.
1:39:57
Love it. Yeah.
1:39:59
On Twitter, Steve at Hawkeye Coffee says incredible score by
1:40:03
John Williams. Totally original, amazing
1:40:06
acting, fun, anti climactic ending, but probably real to
1:40:10
life. 9 out of 10. Probably.
1:40:13
Yeah. What's the point from Steve for
1:40:15
the ending there? And that is that, wow, we're at
1:40:19
the end. Oh, it's been a journey.
1:40:22
All 10 movies done and dusted. So all that remains now is the
1:40:27
fun bit. All the right movies.
1:40:29
Spielberg Top 10. Let's do it.
1:40:33
All right, all the rank movie, The ranking.
1:40:41
This is it, then. The four of us have individually
1:40:45
ranked the 10 Spielberg movies, and our Twitter followers have
1:40:48
done the same. We've pulled all that together
1:40:51
to come up with the final definitive list.
1:40:54
Yes. So Q the Top of the pops music,
1:40:58
it's the all the right movies, official Steven Spielberg top
1:41:02
ten films. Yeah, can't wait.
1:41:03
It's. Pretty amazing if I had the Top
1:41:05
of the Pops music by John Williams.
1:41:15
So then starting with last place of the 10, what do we think
1:41:20
finished 10th of the 10 films we've covered this?
1:41:23
Is wide open for me. I was going to say a minority
1:41:25
report. Definitely be because you're
1:41:26
waxing lyrical about it. I'm on chewer now.
1:41:30
I'm still going to stick with it.
1:41:32
Because it was our choice. I don't know how well the
1:41:35
Twitter followers like Catch Me If you Can, so I'll say that.
1:41:39
Yeah, I'm going to say catch me if you can. 10th place is
1:41:46
Minority Report All. Right.
1:41:49
Yeah. Had a 10th, Luke had a 10th,
1:41:51
Wesley had a 10th and Matt had a 9th.
1:41:54
Even I had an eighth and I love it. 10th by a long way.
1:41:58
That's a good Spielberg is. Right.
1:42:01
Good. Correct.
1:42:02
Minority Report was adrift a little bit, but from here it was
1:42:05
very, very close, with only a few points separating every
1:42:08
position. Right.
1:42:10
So, Minority report #10 what do we think is next number 9?
1:42:15
I'll stick with cash me if you can.
1:42:17
Yeah, catch me if you can. I'm.
1:42:18
Going to go with close Encounters, no?
1:42:21
Nine for us, maybe. 9th place goes to Catch Me if you can.
1:42:30
What? Yeah.
1:42:32
Not a surprise. We need to see those two in the
1:42:33
last two spots. I don't.
1:42:35
Think I suppose not. Yeah, that you are a classic.
1:42:37
Really. Yeah.
1:42:38
Yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah.
1:42:40
Luke plays cafe if you can, the highest open 4th.
1:42:44
Wow, I loved it. I loved it.
1:42:46
I wouldn't necessarily say it's a BET film, it's just that I
1:42:49
enjoyed it the most and I could see myself coming back to it a
1:42:52
number of times. Where there's the other ones,
1:42:54
great films that they are, I don't think I'll revisit them as
1:42:57
much. Can't argue with that, no, if
1:43:00
I'd done that, Minority report #1 I'm here on.
1:43:07
It was really, really close and I think it's probably going to
1:43:09
be quite hard to predict for the next few.
1:43:11
OK. Yeah.
1:43:12
Well, Next up at #8 what do we think?
1:43:15
I'm. Going to go with Last Crusade.
1:43:19
Wow, I'm. Going to say close Encounters
1:43:22
because I'm a bit on me own on that one.
1:43:25
OK, I'd say close Encounters as well, because I think a lot of
1:43:28
people might not have seen that. 8th place A slight surprise.
1:43:33
Perhaps it is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
1:43:38
Oh wow, I. Mean I disagree.
1:43:41
After after I wholeheartedly disagree with a pile of shit.
1:43:44
Luke very highly in the third. Yes, I did.
1:43:47
I had it down in 10th. That's why I predicted it in
1:43:50
this place, because I knew you didn't place it highly.
1:43:54
And I do like it very much. So that again, that shows how a
1:43:56
good Spielberg is West, you know, amuse, furious again.
1:44:03
No, I'm not here, but when we're collating everything and it
1:44:05
still comes out wrong, I just get furious.
1:44:11
Only one point separated 8th and 7th, so 7th heaven.
1:44:14
What do I think it is? Encounters, yeah.
1:44:17
Encounters. Yeah, it has to be.
1:44:20
Seven spot goes to close Encounters of the Third Kind.
1:44:24
Yeah, had a couple of good finishes.
1:44:25
I had it 5th and Matt had it third.
1:44:28
Loves it. Yeah.
1:44:30
Who was it closing out the last five at number six?
1:44:34
What do we think came in 6th? This is tough.
1:44:38
This is tough, tough, tough. I'm going to say Jurassic.
1:44:40
Park. I'm going to say Jurassic Park,
1:44:42
yeah. ET. 6th place it'll be right
1:44:49
here it's ET. Good spot man.
1:44:54
It's hard, middling results from everybody really looking Matt
1:44:57
bounce each other out by placing it 8th and 4th and everybody
1:45:00
else had a 5th or 6th, right. So to recap 10th to 6th we have
1:45:05
10th Minority Report, 9th Catch Me If You Can If Indiana Jones
1:45:11
and the Last Crusade, 7th close Encounters of the Third Kind,
1:45:14
and 6th ET The Extraterrestrial. That's some top five that isn't
1:45:19
it. Yeah.
1:45:20
Well I can't imagine May directors have a six to 10 that
1:45:23
gets close to that. Wow.
1:45:28
So that leaves Jaws Rail as the Lost Ark, Schindler's List,
1:45:32
Jurassic Park and Saving Private Ryan.
1:45:36
Always. The price of those is the five.
1:45:37
Amazing titles? Not at all.
1:45:39
No, not at all. So into the top five, what do we
1:45:42
think at #5 Park? I'm going to say 7 pro Ryan.
1:45:47
I'm going to say Jurassic Park as I've maybe sabotaged it.
1:45:52
Yeah, I forgot about that, you shit head.
1:45:57
In 5th place it is Jurassic Park.
1:46:01
I placed the highest at 4th and 4th is where I would have
1:46:04
finished if Matt hadn't placed the 10th.
1:46:06
Oh. Matt.
1:46:09
Next up, 4th place. What do I think came in fourth?
1:46:12
Private Ryan. Private Ryan.
1:46:15
I'm going to say Schindler's. 4th, it's in this.
1:46:21
It's even Private Ryan. Yeah, did very well for itself.
1:46:26
Yeah, I had the lowest at 7th in Westie and Twitter had it
1:46:28
highest in fourth. Right.
1:46:30
OK, so the top three, the top three magical movies Joe was
1:46:36
read as in Schindler's List. Are we surprised by those as a
1:46:39
top three? No.
1:46:41
Tough call this one. What do we think?
1:46:44
Then third place goes to I'd. Hate to see it, but I think it's
1:46:48
Schindler's. List.
1:46:49
I think it's list. Yeah, I think it's Schindler's
1:46:51
List as well. Fucking better not be. 3rd place
1:46:53
bronze medal. You're all right.
1:46:55
It's Schindler's List, no? That's fine, I'm forgetting that
1:46:59
there's Raiders and Jaws. Yeah, Twitter and me both had it
1:47:02
#3 in Westie, The Big Kahuna burger for westie #1.
1:47:07
Yeah, number one, that has to be.
1:47:09
I guess yours would be Raiders if allows your number one.
1:47:12
Yeah, it's been #1 film something #1 Spielberg film.
1:47:15
I don't understand, don't ask. It's not, it's not as important
1:47:21
as Schindler's. If Schindler's, this is a real
1:47:23
massive achievement. But anyway, sorry, it's a.
1:47:25
Top 2 Then the two best Steven Spielberg movies and it all came
1:47:29
down to Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
1:47:32
So what do we think came second in first?
1:47:35
I think Raiders came second and Jaws top.
1:47:39
Yeah, I agree with that. Rusty.
1:47:42
Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with that because that's
1:47:43
probably the only way. You cannot go over his debut
1:47:47
with Raiders, you know that. I don't know.
1:47:50
No. Yeah, I have to say Jaws, even
1:47:52
though I really don't want to. Yeah.
1:47:54
Jaws first, Raiders 2nd. So I'll win the winner then, Or
1:47:59
at least I would if I knew who I won.
1:48:02
What are you doing, man? I'll explain.
1:48:05
So when we rank the films, everybody had Jaws and Raiders
1:48:08
one place apart. OK me Look man on Twitter had
1:48:11
them first and 2nd and Wesley had them second and third.
1:48:14
Me and Matt had Jaws on top, Luke and Wesley had Raiders on
1:48:18
top. So it all came down to Twitter.
1:48:21
Twitter gave them both a 10 out of 10, so I took the average
1:48:24
score of 2 decimal places. Jaws received 9.15 out of 10 and
1:48:29
Raiders received 9.15 out of 10. In other words, we cannot
1:48:34
separate them. Oh, drama.
1:48:37
So just as we started this episode, I tweeted and explained
1:48:39
the situation to our followers that we're in the middle of
1:48:42
recording of Spielberg top ten podcasts, can't separate Jaws
1:48:46
and Raiders and need them to. So I set one final poll running
1:48:50
with two options. Jaws or readers of The Lost Dog.
1:48:54
Wow. I don't know the results of the
1:48:55
poll yet, so I'm good on now. John, you are a master
1:48:59
Craftsman. This is fantastically
1:49:01
constructed. Right, right.
1:49:05
Live results here it is. The winner?
1:49:09
Steven Spielberg's greatest movie, according to all the
1:49:12
right movies, is Jaws. Yeah.
1:49:18
Right. Yeah, right.
1:49:20
And out of the Lost Ark what on Twitter?
1:49:28
They will not be separated. What?
1:49:31
We have no choice. It's got to be a joint win,
1:49:33
nothing else to do. Fair enough.
1:49:36
This is drama as it plays out as well.
1:49:39
This is has not been massaged in any way.
1:49:42
This is life. This is all happening right now.
1:49:45
I can't believe that. That's a miss.
1:49:48
They can't be separated. Wow.
1:49:50
So joint winners Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
1:49:53
Yeah, worthy winners. Worthy winners 2 great, great
1:49:56
movies there. So I'll quickly recap the 10
1:50:00
tenth Minority Report, 9th Catch Me If You Can 8th Indiana Jones
1:50:05
and the Last Crusade, 7th close Encounters of the Third Kind,
1:50:08
6th ET The Extraterrestrial, 5th Jurassic Park, 4th Saving
1:50:12
Private Ryan, third Shinders List, and Joint first Jaws and
1:50:17
Raiders of the Lost Ark. Wonderful.
1:50:20
So that's it for our Steven Spielberg episode.
1:50:22
I love it. I can't separate them either to
1:50:24
be fair. Yeah.
1:50:26
It's fucking impossible, isn't it?
1:50:27
Why don't they just, from now on, every release of it, just
1:50:30
stitch them both together? You've got if you watch Joseph,
1:50:34
you've got to watch Raiders after it and vice versa.
1:50:37
We hope everyone enjoyed it. For all Sean Woods credits and
1:50:40
references that were used in the production of this podcast,
1:50:42
please visit alltherightmovies.com/ranking
1:50:46
Hyphen Spielberg. Join us again in two weeks for
1:50:50
our next episode. Luke Westie MPI will be as
1:50:53
pretty as a couple of titties as they dive into Tony Scott and
1:50:57
Quentin Tarantino's True Romance.
1:51:00
Can't. Wait for that one.
1:51:02
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1:51:23
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1:51:37
So we're all off now to see if we can find anybody in the world
1:51:40
who doesn't like Jaws or Radars. We maybe some time.
1:51:44
So stay safe everyone, and we'll catch you back here in a couple
1:51:47
of weeks. Thanks guys.
1:51:49
Thanks guys. Please everyone.