0:02

Hello, everybody, and welcome

0:04

back to We've Got

0:06

Mail. This

0:10

is the podcast where you control

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the conversation right here at

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the critically acclaimed network. My

0:16

name is William Bibbiani. I'm

0:19

a film critic. You're right for the rap. And

0:22

everybody calls me Bibbs. Hey, Whitney? Yeah. What's

0:25

the word, hummingbird? What's

0:28

the tale, Nightingale? Sasquatch. Did

0:31

you hear about Hugo and Kim? They're

0:33

going steady! Did they really get pinned? My

0:36

name is Whitney Seibold. I am

0:38

a film critic. I contribute to

0:40

Slash Film, and we're both fans

0:42

of Bye Bye Birdie. Yeah. It's

0:45

good musical. It's an okay musical. It's

0:47

whimsical. Yeah, good time This is the

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podcast where you write into the critically

0:51

acclaimed network you send us your questions

0:53

your concerns do you disagree with us

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about stuff do you want us to

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Give you suggestions for your homework. Hey

0:59

better us than chat GBT I Used

1:02

to say don't ask us into your

1:04

homework for you and now I'm like

1:06

man. I don't know if the options

1:08

chat GBT. I guess I'll do it You

1:12

know, better anything than chat GPT.

1:14

Well, better doing your own goddamn

1:16

work than chat GPT, but I

1:18

digress. Here's how it works. You

1:20

send us an email. Our email

1:22

address is letters at criticallyclaimed .net. Or

1:25

you can send us mail to our

1:27

PO box, which we did not check

1:29

this week. No, but if we got

1:31

letters, we'll get them. Well, yes.

1:34

But we'll read them as soon as we can.

1:36

Let us get them from the post office.

1:38

Yeah, sorry about this, Whitney. Whitney's

1:41

let us down. It's busy. Yeah. But

1:43

what is our P .O. Box for me?

1:45

Yeah, send us an actual physical letter

1:48

or a postcard or whatever you like

1:50

to the critically acclaimed network P .O.

1:52

Box 641565 Los Angeles, California 90064. Every

1:54

time we haven't checked our P .O. Box

1:56

for like a week or two, I

1:58

get this image in my head of

2:00

like opening it up and like letters

2:02

come flying out like in the Mexican

2:04

Santa Claus movie. Oh,

2:06

our chain mills

2:08

worked. But

2:11

yeah, no, this is your time,

2:13

so we're not going to dilly

2:15

-dally. We will read some of

2:17

your emails and we will do it too

2:19

sweet. Oh, indeed. Wee -wee.

2:21

This is a letter that comes from

2:23

Tom in Capital Letters with an exclamation

2:25

point. Hello, Tom. Hi, Tom. Hi,

2:28

Tom. Tom says, hello to my

2:30

two favorite critics. Oh, thank you.

2:32

you. Wow. And

2:34

he spells favorite with a U, so

2:36

this is either from England or Canada. We're

2:39

just fancy. Or just in American

2:41

writing all fancy. I learned how to

2:43

write like sort of British spellings a lot

2:45

when I was a kid because most of

2:47

the kids books my mom's, my mom's, my

2:49

mom taught me to read were British. Oh,

2:52

so I had like Kalaur. Yeah, so was

2:54

like reading the original Borrowers and Dr. Doolittle and

2:56

Mary Poppins and stuff. And yeah, I just,

2:58

they added you to some stuff. So I learned

3:00

that. And they were like, this

3:02

is wrong. No, it's fine. Tom says, I'm

3:04

writing in regard to a comment I've

3:06

seen on Letterbox to recently that had

3:08

me been pondering a few things. I

3:11

recently watched the new Söderberg movie, Presence,

3:13

which I liked but didn't love. Upon

3:15

logging the film on Letterboxed, I saw

3:17

a lot of reviews saying that Söderberg

3:19

is making too many movies lately. He

3:21

has another one coming up very soon. That

3:23

was Black Bag. It came out within a couple

3:26

months at the Presence. and

3:28

that these movies are not landing or sticking

3:30

around in the public consciousness at all. Do

3:33

prolific filmmakers run the risk of ruining

3:35

their legacy by releasing very middling films on

3:37

too frequent of a basis, or is

3:39

a sentiment like that absolute nonsense? Do

3:41

filmmakers slash artists even care or think

3:43

about their legacy instead? Are they just expressing

3:45

themselves and we should appreciate more the

3:47

more we can get out of our great

3:49

filmmakers? We'd love to hear your take

3:51

and also if you can think of a

3:54

director that kind of lost their cred

3:56

due to a run of flops all the

3:58

best Tom That's a great question actually Tom and one

4:00

thing I can say from

4:02

having interviewed a lot of filmmakers

4:04

over the years and this

4:06

is actors directors writers cinematographers costume

4:08

designers the whole gamut We

4:13

outside of that box think about

4:15

their careers very differently than most of

4:17

them. Yeah, like we are looking

4:19

in terms of like we're looking at

4:21

big picture That's not necessarily what everyone's thinking

4:23

about some people are just thinking about what

4:25

if you have the luxury of being able to

4:27

pick and choose your projects What do I

4:29

want to do? What's gonna be good for me

4:31

right now? What is good for me creatively?

4:33

What will get what will what's a gig that

4:35

will keep me closer to my kids? What's

4:38

the movie I can make for my kids? Some

4:42

filmmakers are concerned about their overall body

4:44

of work, but generally speaking, it's so

4:46

hard to get any movie made, even

4:48

if you are a big filmmaker. Spielberg

4:50

has trouble getting movies made. You

4:53

get the movie made that you can. And

4:55

there are some filmmakers who just like working.

4:58

They just love working and they work constantly. And

5:00

you know, we've seen. Take the gig in front

5:02

of them and do the best they can. Like

5:05

here's a good example of something you're talking about.

5:07

It's not a director, but it's an actor. Michael

5:10

Cain. Okay. Michael

5:12

Cain was a huge star in the

5:14

60s and 70s. And then in the

5:16

80s, he became a joke because he

5:18

basically said yes to everything. And he's

5:20

admitted to this. Yeah, he said so

5:22

in an Oscar to thank you speech.

5:24

Yeah, basically, if you give me a

5:26

gig, I will take it if I'm

5:28

free. Because he was always worried he

5:30

was never going to work again or

5:32

just wanted to make money or whatever. He

5:35

said he did Jaws the Revenge so he

5:37

could buy a garage or something or a

5:39

boat house. Isn't the

5:41

joke like, I haven't seen Jaws the Revenge, but

5:44

I saw the garage it built or whatever. Something

5:46

like that, yeah. Again, some people are

5:48

just doing this because it's a job. And

5:51

not every gig is a passion

5:53

project. But

5:55

Michael Cain lost a lot of credibility over

5:57

the years because he did seem to show

5:59

up in anything whether or not it was

6:01

good. And then he got it back

6:03

because he happened to be in

6:05

good stuff. What I find, generally speaking,

6:08

is that when you look at very prolific

6:10

filmmakers, give it enough

6:12

distance, people don't remember

6:14

the chaff. They

6:16

remember the wheat. In the moment,

6:18

it feels like, do we really

6:21

need intolerable cruelty from the Coens right

6:23

now? But in the grand

6:25

scheme of things, we remember the good

6:27

stuff. Yeah, when it comes to,

6:29

like, prestige, that's not something directors choose

6:31

for themselves. Not often. Sometimes they

6:33

try. They want to only do prestige

6:35

projects. Quentin Tarantino, as famously

6:37

said, he only wants to do

6:39

a finite number of films, and he's

6:41

very picky about the kind of

6:43

films he's making. Meanwhile, you look at

6:45

filmmakers like Stephen Frears, and they're just

6:47

doing whatever. Cranking them out.

6:49

Stephen Frears doesn't care. He just wants to make

6:51

a movie and just shoot it the best way

6:54

he can. It doesn't even have, like, a signature

6:56

style. Who

6:58

directed each of the killer? Takashima

7:01

E .K. Takashima E .K. has made

7:03

over 100 movies. Yeah, he's directed

7:05

over 100 feature films. That's

7:07

not exaggeration, over 100. And he's not

7:10

100, by the way. Like he just

7:12

churns them out and yeah, a lot

7:14

of them are movies you'll never hear

7:16

of or that don't do great, but

7:18

when he makes a good one, you

7:20

fucking hear about it. And I was

7:22

in film school and had a professor

7:24

who was teaching us camera work. And

7:27

he said, there are two ways to do this class. One

7:31

is you agonize over every shot trying

7:33

to make it perfect. Yeah. And

7:35

maybe you'll succeed. And

7:38

two is shoot as much as you can.

7:41

And he recommended the second one

7:43

because you'll get more experience

7:45

that way. You'll learn more

7:47

of what's practical, you'll learn more of

7:49

like how to do things quickly. You'll

7:52

make mistakes along the way, but you'll

7:54

learn from those mistakes faster than if you

7:56

try never to make any mistakes. So

8:00

yeah, I mean, think about all the prolific

8:02

filmmaking. Hitchcock was incredibly prolific. Oh yeah. Threat

8:04

his entire career. How many, he made like

8:06

40 some movies? He made a lot. I

8:08

think more than that if you consider like

8:10

a silent era stuff. Like he did an

8:12

astounding number of films. Most of

8:14

them pretty good. Like there aren't a lot of

8:16

duds. But there's

8:18

like a heyday. There's the big ones

8:20

people remember versus, oh no, there's

8:22

like silent films which fewer people have seen.

8:24

Yeah. There is also the possibility that, you know,

8:26

you don't make a lot of films and

8:28

then if one of them is a dud it's that

8:31

much worse. Yeah, well

8:33

that's the case with the Coen brothers.

8:35

The Coen brothers became awards darlings

8:37

They were really well respected by sort

8:39

of the the art house community

8:41

as it were and then they made

8:43

like three duds in a row

8:45

because there was Intolerable cruelty the lady

8:48

killers and the man who wasn't

8:50

there. Yeah, not in that order and

8:52

Those three films were pretty mostly critically pans.

8:54

They weren't particularly good. I think man

8:56

who wasn't there is better than the other

8:58

two. It's certainly beautiful to look at.

9:00

Yeah, I'm great photography. But yeah, no, like

9:02

there was a time when it seemed

9:04

like no country for old men was out.

9:07

It's like, I don't know, man, thinking

9:09

about giving up on the Collins. Yeah, three

9:11

three in a row that nobody likes.

9:13

That's that seemed like they had lost their

9:15

mojo. Yeah, it was nice to see

9:17

when David Gordon Green came

9:19

back because he was doing like

9:21

big commercial comedies out of nowhere.

9:23

Yeah, he started with these

9:26

really very moody, incredibly emotional, very,

9:28

very good independent films. Films

9:30

like Undertow and All the Real

9:32

Girls and Snow Angels. Snow

9:34

Angels is fantastic. And

9:36

then he's doing, he's also doing films

9:38

like Your Highness and The Sitter

9:40

and Pineapple Express. Yeah. And I like

9:42

Pineapple Express. That one's all right. It

9:46

was just way out of character for

9:48

him. It wasn't a hot that we

9:50

knew about him so far Yeah, it

9:52

was an odd shift and now he's

9:54

done like Halloween sequels. It's like yeah,

9:56

and then exorcist sequels Oh, yeah, he

9:58

did do that. Didn't I I chose to

10:00

forgot about to forget about that the exorcist

10:02

believer Yeah, I was gonna do three of

10:04

them, but the first one tanked so hard.

10:06

Yeah, I'm fine with that Anyway,

10:11

so to answer your question, generally speaking, in

10:13

my experience, people who don't make movies

10:15

and are fans of various artists and filmmakers

10:17

tend to look at their careers from

10:19

a different perspective than they do. It's very

10:21

different to be the one making it

10:23

than it is to be the one looking

10:25

at someone saying, look at all they

10:27

did. And

10:29

when it comes to being a prolific

10:31

filmmaker, there are multiple schools

10:34

of thought on this. You know, Hitchcock

10:36

made dozens, Kubrick only made like 13. And

10:38

with the exception of maybe the first

10:40

two, they're all bangers. But

10:42

every filmmaker is different. And

10:44

generally speaking, I would prefer

10:46

having more films than fewer.

10:49

If I had to pick. I

10:51

think there's a tradition in

10:54

Hollywood, especially if you go

10:56

back to kind of... the

10:58

30s all the way through the 50s,

11:00

there were a lot of these kind of

11:02

workmen like directors who would make a

11:04

couple dozen films in a year. They

11:07

would just go to the studio backlog, shoot

11:09

a Western and a couple of days have it

11:11

edited and just throw it up in theaters. Were

11:14

some of these good? Maybe. Sometimes

11:16

it worked. Often

11:18

it was just to fill the

11:20

studio coffers. think

11:23

there's a lot of integrity to

11:25

that to just sort of shooting

11:27

and throwing it up without a

11:29

lot of attention to how

11:32

the craft is going to be regarded by

11:34

posterity. You know, I remember when I was

11:36

in film school and I was still toying

11:38

with the idea of being a filmmaker and

11:40

everyone was like, what kind of movies do

11:42

you want to make? And I said, I

11:44

want to make sci -fi channel originals. And

11:47

they were like, why? Because you're always working. I

11:50

can make a movie about a

11:52

velociraptor in Hawaii one week and then

11:54

next week, something about a man

11:56

eating potato buck. Like, I'm in. Like,

11:58

I'm just, I'm working. It's a

12:00

wonderful thing to do. I admire that. I

12:02

think that's a great thing. But again,

12:04

different schools of thought. It's all a matter

12:06

of perspective. What we got next? Here

12:09

we have a letter from Chris R. Hello,

12:11

Chris R. It says, hello,

12:13

Luca and a refrigerator. We've

12:17

had to record close to Williams refrigerator a

12:19

couple of times. A lot of times. If

12:21

you've heard it humming in the background, I

12:23

think we can hear it better than you

12:25

can, but it bothers us. Fun fact, we

12:27

are actually recording in a hotel room right

12:29

now. And we didn't

12:31

actually bring a great setup with

12:34

us. So our microphone is purchased

12:36

precariously on a stool on top

12:38

of a chair. This

12:40

is the best we can do right now. Things

12:43

are weird. But, you know,

12:45

we get it too. We're doing what we now.

12:47

We're doing what we can right now. Anyway,

12:52

hello Luca and refrigerator. Making

12:54

this list was an agonizing but

12:56

very fun exercise for context.

12:58

I'm 25 years old. I'll

13:00

try to steer clear of movies you've already

13:02

mentioned. This is a best movies

13:05

of the century so far. The

13:07

list is in no order except for my number one.

13:09

I'll try to keep, that's how we do our list.

13:11

I try to keep my comments on these briefs so

13:13

the letter doesn't become too daunting of a read. Anyway

13:16

the list best movies of the century so far

13:18

that is from the year 2000 and we

13:20

did an episode about this because about a month

13:22

and a half ago Maybe two months ago

13:24

if you want to listen to our take on

13:26

this back in like February and already there

13:28

are things I regret about that list and I

13:30

was like I should have put that on

13:32

there The nature of the beast the list changes

13:34

day by day okay, um paranormal activity one

13:36

through three I'm a

13:39

sucker for found footage and gosh the

13:41

first three movies of this are

13:43

so quietly unnerving also wanted to shout

13:45

out screen life I endured unfriended

13:47

but the sequel uh I

13:49

adore the first unfriended but the sequel and

13:51

searching are good as well I never saw the

13:53

unfriended movie. I was really

13:55

annoyed by the first unfriended because I

13:57

saw the first unfriended and I

13:59

really liked it and I saw it at a

14:01

film festival and it was just before the movie came

14:03

out and I confirmed like hey listen this is the

14:05

final version right and they're like yeah yeah no it's

14:07

fine so I reviewed the movie and I gave it

14:09

a very positive review and then I found out that

14:11

a couple weeks later it came out with a different

14:13

ending and I would not have given it a great

14:15

review with that ending I would have said I don't

14:17

like the ending and that really pissed me off so

14:19

but generally speaking I think these are interesting that

14:22

couldn't exist 50 years ago.

14:25

Comment on the modern state of media. Yeah,

14:27

I think kernel activity one and three

14:29

are particularly good. I think searching is fucking

14:31

phenomenal. Searching is great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So no,

14:33

it's interesting choices. Yeah. Wendy

14:36

and Lucy from 2008. Kelly

14:39

Reichart is my favorite living filmmaker, so you

14:41

can practically swap this choice out with anything

14:43

else she's made this century. Whatever someone mentions,

14:45

the famous Ebert quote about movies being machines

14:48

that generate empathy, Wendy and Lucy immediately comes

14:50

to mind for me. I'm

14:52

fond of first cow. First cow is really good. I

14:54

need to catch up on more Kelly Reichart films as

14:56

if you haven't seen and Wendy and Lucy is actually

14:58

one of them. I love certain women. I think that's

15:00

my favorite. Dogville,

15:03

2003. And almost 180 degree from

15:05

my previous pick, this one really

15:07

explores how the veil of empathy

15:09

can be weaponized to inflict abject

15:11

cruelty. It's a really damning exploration

15:13

of humanity in almost an Old

15:15

Testament kind of a way. Yeah,

15:18

Lars von Trude doesn't think much

15:20

of empathy or - Or people.

15:22

Or Christianity or humanity in

15:24

general. I think he thinks very

15:26

highly of specific humans. and

15:29

not of anyone else. Yeah, not of

15:31

humans as a group. Yeah, I think if

15:33

you're not a martyr, you're an asshole,

15:35

basically, in his worldview. Homecoming,

15:38

a film by Beyonce from

15:40

2019. Simply put, the best concert

15:42

film I've ever seen. This would be

15:44

on the list of the sheer spectacle of

15:46

performance alone, but there's also a series

15:48

of video essays here that manage to cover

15:50

so much on a micro and macro level

15:53

that has become the defining text of a

15:55

generation. If you missed Bay Chilla around certain

15:57

people, they can tell you exactly where they

15:59

were when it happened. Beyonce,

16:02

she's a singer, right?

16:04

Yeah, no, she's saying...

16:06

That one song she's saying

16:08

that ring on it song which I

16:10

hate you hate that song

16:12

with abject passion. It's so

16:15

wait Wait, hold on a second. I'm

16:17

confused for a second. Are you telling me

16:19

with me? Uh -huh that you have

16:21

never liked a Person

16:23

so much that you quote -unquote put a

16:25

ring on it Cuz I'm pretty sure

16:27

you're married. I That's a song for

16:29

everyone. That's a song for anyone who's

16:32

married So you're rejecting marriage. No, I

16:34

put a ring on it. I just

16:36

didn't need to hear Beyonce say it

16:38

50 times. She had a

16:40

robot arm. Did she?

16:42

For you. Yeah. Beyonce

16:44

has a robot arm? And the music video

16:46

for that. It's a dance video with her and

16:48

I think like two other dancers, black and

16:50

white. But for no reason that I

16:52

can determine, one of her arms is a

16:54

robot arm. Is it a ring -producing robot arm?

16:57

It should be, but I don't... She folds her

16:59

wrist open and rings pop out? I mean,

17:01

that would be cool, but I think that's in

17:03

the special features. That's

17:05

an extended cut. It

17:07

adds to the lore. Let's

17:09

see what else we got here. Four months, three

17:11

weeks, and two days. This

17:13

one manages to strike a balance

17:16

of being absolutely harrowing and completely humane.

17:18

Happening and never really sometimes always

17:20

are also excellent dramas about familiar subject

17:22

matter. I really liked

17:24

Never Really Sometimes Always. Yeah, Happening was the

17:26

one that wrecked me, I think. Yeah,

17:29

it's the British film. British

17:32

or French? Oh no, you're right, it's French.

17:34

Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm not crazy. Happening...

17:38

It's like 20, 21, just a couple

17:40

years ago. That was a really good

17:42

one. no, very, very, very paddling

17:45

film. Another one, Finding Nemo.

17:47

Hey! That initial run of

17:49

Pixar movies are pretty unassailable, but this

17:51

is still the crown jewel for me.

17:53

Inside Out also deserves a mention. Yeah,

17:55

I maintain that Finding Nemo is, are

17:58

there maybe other Pixar movies I like

18:00

better? I think Finding Nemo is

18:02

their best script. I think

18:04

everything about finding Nemo works.

18:06

I think they really

18:08

make the most out of

18:10

the concept. I think

18:12

they beautifully realize it It

18:15

gets me every time that movie is that

18:17

movie is when I was working when

18:19

I was writing for Crave and I was

18:21

reviewing movies I gave I think three

18:23

ten out of tens my entire time there

18:25

and one of them was for the

18:27

re -release of finding Nemo Because I just

18:29

think it's just perfect Finding

18:32

Nemo, however, doesn't have that one

18:34

moment where I just sort of

18:36

ugly cry. A lot of

18:38

the Pixar movies do where they're just

18:40

like one little bit. It's like, it

18:42

just hits you right in the chest.

18:44

I can't think of that moment in Finding Nemo. Maybe

18:47

if we'd spent a little bit more time

18:49

with Marlon, and I forget if his wife

18:51

had a name before she died. Oh, okay.

18:53

Like you could have totally gone to full -up

18:55

territory if you'd just gotten to know those

18:57

two fish a little bit more before I

19:00

think it was like a barracuda got to

19:02

them or something. Up is a

19:04

fantastic short followed by a movie we don't need.

19:06

No one talks about the rest of that film.

19:08

I actually like the rest of that movie, but

19:10

it peaks really early. It peaks really early. If

19:12

it wasn't for that opening, I think we'd think

19:14

very fondly of the rest of it. remember the

19:16

talking... and the old man in the Zephyr. I

19:18

love that. I think that's really, really fun. But

19:20

man, it just, ugh. There

19:22

was episode of Game Changer that was called, I think,

19:24

Don't Cry, where the whole thing is if you cried,

19:26

you lost points. So they were like, chop an onion. Here's

19:29

like a video message from your

19:31

mom. And then there's one bit where it's

19:33

like, OK, I'm to give everyone a laptop and some headphones,

19:35

and you're going to watch the first five minutes of Up.

19:38

Can you not? You're going to cry.

19:40

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I had

19:43

a pretty sad moment today.

19:45

I was writing about, it's

19:47

a weird thing to cry about. I was watching

19:49

the music video for Metallica's One. No,

19:51

I get it. Which is inspired by Dalton

19:53

Trumbo's Johnny Godd as Gunn. Well, not

19:55

inspired by it, just uses the footage. Yeah,

19:58

well, and then they made the music

20:00

video, and they took the 1971 film

20:02

version, which it's the only film Dalton

20:04

Trumbo ever directed. And it's

20:06

bleak. Yeah, it's really bleak. It's

20:09

about a soldier who fought in

20:11

World War I. A shell went off

20:13

and completely destroyed his body, but

20:15

left him alive. Yeah, he lost his

20:17

arms, his legs, and his face. He

20:20

cannot see, he cannot hear, he

20:22

cannot speak, and he cannot move. But

20:24

he's alive and conscious and it's

20:26

a lot of it's just in his

20:28

head. The whole story being horrified. And

20:30

that was basically intercut

20:32

with Metallica singing their

20:35

song. MTV used to

20:37

have trouble segueing to that. And

20:40

now for something completely different. I

20:42

was looking for other music videos that

20:44

were hot that same year that came out

20:47

in 1989. There was

20:49

every reason to be like every

20:51

chance that you'd be watching MTV at

20:53

that time, you'd watch one, which is

20:55

just ripping your heart out, this

20:57

like, really horrifying anti -war story. And

21:00

then it would cut immediately to Love

21:02

Shack by the B -52s. That was also

21:04

big that year. I tell you man, Whiplash

21:06

was wild. Yeah, yeah. Anyway,

21:09

funny and emo, pretty good. Pretty good, yeah. Next

21:13

up is Evangelion. Oh yeah, Evangelion. Evangelion

21:15

3 .0 plus 1 .0 thrice upon

21:17

a time. An excellent conclusion to a

21:19

series that had two excellent conclusions

21:21

prior to this. Hideaki Anno is one

21:23

of our most imaginative working filmmakers.

21:25

His series of Shin movies have all

21:27

been varying levels of great too.

21:30

I really love Shin Godzilla. Shin Godzilla

21:32

is great. really love Shin Ultraman.

21:34

Oh, you finally got around it. I

21:36

finally got around it. Fucking great,

21:38

right? Shin Common Rider is

21:40

okay, but the other two are fine. and

21:42

brilliant um yeah I I

21:44

saw the original Evangelion

21:46

in its entirety over the course

21:49

of a weekend which I do

21:51

not recommend it is one of

21:53

the hardest and this is I've

21:55

never seen Evangelion have you know

21:57

it is a giant robot fighting

21:59

monster anime that is all

22:01

just about clinical

22:03

depression and it is brutal It

22:06

is seriously, I have been as low as

22:08

I've ever been because I watched the

22:10

original Evangelion and I paid attention. And then

22:12

they started like remaking them and like,

22:14

because apparently they were never really happy with

22:16

the original. And then they ran out

22:18

of money and there was a whole thing,

22:21

but like, yeah,

22:23

I've fallen behind on these like updates or

22:25

whatever. I hear they're really good. I'll

22:28

bet they are, but yeah. Anyway,

22:31

our next up is Black Swan. This

22:34

one is here for more sentimental reasons.

22:36

This, along with District 9, unlocked what

22:38

cinema could be to a young impressionable

22:40

me. We all have that. We

22:42

all have a movie that broke our brain at

22:44

just the right time. Not the most sophisticated

22:46

movies, but the kind that lit the spark to

22:48

me becoming a cinephile, and I have to

22:50

credit that. That's a movie you cannot argue. Yeah.

22:52

Like, no, this is, this was like your

22:54

cinematic egg crack. Yeah. Like you're watching,

22:56

you're watching fun movies, watching fun movies, watching fun

22:59

movies. David Lynch's Lost Highway. Oh, I didn't know

23:01

movies could do that. Wait, this can,

23:03

this is, this is allowed? Yeah. No, that

23:05

was my movie. That was like the, that was

23:07

like, like, holy shit. That started happening with

23:09

me. I was around 16 or so. I started

23:11

to saw some movies. It's like, wait a

23:13

minute. Cinema, cinema is

23:15

different. Yeah. That was

23:17

really fantastic. Next

23:19

up is Apocalypto. From

23:21

2006, there are some very valid critiques against

23:23

it, and the director is persona non grata.

23:25

Sorry to suspect why people bristle away at this

23:27

one. I just don't think Hollywood has managed

23:29

to produce an action picture of this pulse pounding

23:31

in the years since it has been released. I

23:34

mean, here's the thing. Mel

23:36

Gibson sucks. Yeah. He absolutely

23:38

sucks. That doesn't mean he's

23:40

never had a human being, unfortunately, he's

23:42

a talented filmmaker. That doesn't mean

23:44

he never had any talent. But the

23:46

problem is sometimes that talent is in

23:49

service of bad things. And there's

23:51

a lot of genuine critiques over the

23:53

portrayal of things in apocalyptic. But

23:55

just in terms of a chase

23:57

scene, you know, he knows how

23:59

to film it, which is

24:01

frustrating because, you

24:03

know, It's easier to it's

24:05

easier to write them off if they

24:07

don't have any talent. Yeah. Yeah And

24:10

the number one

24:12

the best film of the of the

24:14

century so far is under the

24:16

skin This achieves everything I can want

24:18

from a movie the gamut of

24:20

emotions. This puts me through Makes me

24:22

physically exhausted every time I walk

24:24

it watch it. Yes. I can't stay

24:27

away from that Honorable mentions certified

24:29

copy. I like so sure copy the

24:31

clouds of sills Maria Sam Raimi's

24:33

Spider -Man trilogy, Love Lies Bleeding, has

24:35

a good choice, The Handmaiden, In My

24:37

Skin. Oh, nobody talks about In

24:39

My Skin. Is that the Banderas one?

24:41

No, that's Marina DeVan. She's

24:44

a woman who becomes a... It's kind of a

24:46

horror - Oh, is that the one where she brings -

24:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what talking about. I

24:51

know she's talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, sorry,

24:53

yeah. Babylon, thank

24:55

you, Justice for Babylon. Orphan,

24:57

any Satoshi Khan movie. Yes. I

24:59

Am Not a Witch, that's a great choice.

25:01

Great choice. Hero, I'm

25:03

guessing that's the - I assume it's

25:06

a Jet Lee movie. Yeah, I don't

25:08

think there's another prominent. There was

25:10

another Wusha film called Hero that came

25:12

out. late 90s, maybe

25:14

very early 2000s, but I'd be surprised

25:16

if that's the one that you're referring

25:18

to. And then, of course, there's the

25:20

Andy Garcia Dustin Hoffman movie, but that

25:22

was the early 90s. So yeah, I

25:25

assume you're talking about the very pretty

25:27

Chetley movie. There's Bridesmaids and Drive My

25:29

Car and a million others, but I need to

25:31

stop naming movies at this point. Thanks for

25:33

reading this. I hope it wasn't too long. Now

25:35

it's time for me to immediately regret my

25:37

whole list. Signed Chris off. I already regret mine.

25:39

Thank you so much. And again, people are

25:41

free to send us in their list. We are

25:43

very curious to hear about them. So, thank

25:45

you very much. What do you got? Let's see,

25:48

what do we have? This

25:50

is from a story a girl.

25:52

Oh, sorry. This is the story

25:54

of this is a story of

25:56

Brian. Oh, hi, Brian. Or rather,

25:58

underscore lowercase b Brian. So,

26:00

okay. We got handles, man. We

26:02

got names, but no names, man. No

26:04

names. I don't pronounce it underscore like it.

26:07

Like a glottal stop. Like, I'm

26:09

not sure. Okay. It's

26:13

just a it's like an ellipsis, but not quite

26:15

as long a beat You know when we when

26:18

we had like everyone always like got excited to

26:20

like you know What if I were an x

26:22

-man? What would my cool name be and then

26:24

everyone got a chance to do that on the

26:26

internet and all the cool names are taken immediately

26:28

So I feel like nowadays if a superhero came

26:30

along is like yeah, I want to be Hawkeye.

26:32

Oh, that's taken That's okay mine is spelled with

26:34

all lowercase letters and an umlaan Small

26:37

s, small n, small a. But a small

26:39

s, small a, small n, big b,

26:41

small a. And like surrounded by like X's

26:43

on both sides and underscores, so it's

26:45

fine. I'm

26:48

startled by some of the names.

26:50

Like my son just turned 10

26:52

years old. Yeah. And he's big

26:54

on the YouTube celebrity channel. He

26:56

doesn't even like movies. He just

26:58

likes the YouTube celebrities. And he

27:00

some of the names those people choose

27:02

that just sort of catch on

27:04

are completely random. He's very fond of

27:06

a YouTuber named Sundee S .S .U .N

27:08

.D .E .E. Why why

27:10

that who knows? I don't know why he chose

27:12

it Why he decided to make that his handle

27:14

if he yeah, if that's what he chose before

27:16

he got famous and just had to stick with

27:19

it That happens sometimes what happens sometimes. Yeah, I

27:21

don't know. I know got baffling But again, if

27:23

they were accident, that's your excellent name now boom

27:25

congratulations Anyway, Brian has another list of the best

27:27

films of the century so far Bips and McCool

27:29

there are two topics I wanted to bring up

27:31

so I'll do my best to be concise first

27:33

up I wanted to show my top 10 of

27:35

the century so far and this is just a

27:37

rundown, okay, um Honorable mentions, the movies that might

27:39

have made my list, but you

27:41

already recommended. The

27:44

Master, Gravity, I would also

27:46

include Roma, another one of Juan's best.

27:48

The Witch and the Lighthouse, tied for number

27:50

eight. Eggers Nosferatu might

27:53

join these two in time, but I want to

27:55

rewatch it to see if it holds up. Number

27:57

seven, Creed. Yes, love

27:59

Creed. Number six, a tie between the

28:01

social network and Zodiac. Cool. Number five, City

28:03

of God, good choice. Number four,

28:05

an elephant sitting still. Thank you for

28:07

saying that. How many people saw that

28:09

movie just because they wouldn't shut up?

28:12

I'm willing to bet it's a not

28:14

an inconsiderable number. Number three,

28:16

the Turin horse. Oh, wow. That's that's

28:18

a good choice. Number two, a

28:20

tie between the tree of life and a hidden life. Both.

28:23

Excellent. Great choice. Number one, no

28:25

country for old men. And

28:27

now here's my top 10. OK. I

28:29

sense a personal restriction. One

28:31

filmmaker per. per one filmmaker. You

28:33

can't have a whole bunch of Soderbergh.

28:35

Number 10 following your lead. My number

28:38

10 is the just for me pick

28:40

Zach Snyder's Justice League. As

28:42

a filmmaker, Snyder makes everything epic and a

28:44

film about superheroes that fits. That's a four

28:46

hour cut. I mostly like that

28:48

cut to be fair. I don't think you need the

28:50

dream sequence at the end. I think that

28:52

takes it down. There's a couple of bit

28:54

of wonky bits. And I think the first

28:56

hour could definitely use a trim. But generally

28:58

speaking, that's really good, actually. I like a

29:00

lot of that movie. I find it strange

29:02

that we had this theatrical cut and everybody

29:04

got you know all up in their own

29:06

heads about how it was a different filmmaker.

29:09

Joss Whedon directed a lot of it even though he's

29:11

not a credited director. He rewrote a

29:13

lot of it and they like upped

29:15

the color and they changed everything. And

29:18

it kind of tanked. It wasn't a big hit.

29:20

A lot of people didn't like it.

29:22

And so there was this big outcry. A

29:24

hashtag released the cider cut. There wasn't

29:26

actually a cut. They had to go back

29:28

and reshoot it. They spent 70 million

29:30

more dollars on it. That's people

29:32

said it would never happen because that's

29:34

a huge investment for a movie that

29:36

already tanked. And if it wasn't for

29:38

the fact that... HBO Max

29:40

needed content. And

29:43

COVID, and pandemic, certainly, certainly, you

29:45

know, was like, we have an

29:47

epic in the can, basically. We

29:49

just need to reshoot a bit. And

29:52

so. Turns out it was a lot. Yeah, it

29:54

turns out it was a lot. I, again, I don't

29:56

think under any other circumstances we ever would have

29:58

seen that movie in that film. Yeah, but after

30:00

all of that, that came out and I

30:02

watched that longer version. It's

30:05

just as entertaining. They're equal. I watch

30:07

them back to the other. One

30:09

is not better than the other. I disagree with

30:11

this. I watch them back to back just so

30:13

that I could notice all the

30:15

differences. The Snyder Cut

30:17

is better. I'm going to go to Bad Ford.

30:19

You and I were two of the only people

30:21

who didn't hate the theatrical cut because it has

30:23

an entertainment value. It was sloppy, but we

30:26

don't necessarily think a deal breaker.

30:28

That's not a detriment. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

30:30

No, the Snyder Cut is remarkably better.

30:32

I think so. Anyway, number

30:34

nine, the curious case of Benjamin Button. It's

30:36

a bit of an odd choice. This

30:39

film has always felt like the outlier David

30:41

Fincher's filmography. That might be a feature, not

30:43

a bug. Every time I watch it, it

30:45

just works for me. All right. It's his

30:47

most sentimental film and for me that... just

30:49

odd from David Fincher. I feel

30:51

like the material doesn't match his style

30:54

very well, but no. If it

30:56

works, it works. It's fun. Number eight,

30:58

the Weeping Meadow. That's an interesting

31:00

choice. Theo Angelopoulos at back, setting grease

31:02

during the ups and downs between World War I

31:04

and World War II. I didn't

31:06

see the Weeping Meadow. Neither did I. read very many

31:08

positive things it. Best of the century, holy shit. Number

31:11

seven, Zero Dark Thirty. I prefer Zero

31:13

Dark Thirty to The Hurt Locker. Despite

31:15

the historical inaccuracies, Catherine Bigelow directs one

31:17

of the most intense scenes in modern

31:19

cinema. Number six, Twelve Years

31:22

a Slave. Steve McQueen's film based

31:24

on the harrowing life of Solomon Northrup and

31:26

Antebellum South. Number five, Pan's

31:28

Labyrinth. Guillermo Dottaro's Dark Fairy Tale set

31:30

against the war in Spain, visually

31:32

singular and emotionally poignant. Number four, The

31:34

Handmaiden. Yes. Park Chenwook's take on

31:36

The Fingersmith, taking it from the British

31:38

period piece to Korean period piece. twist

31:41

in terms of that all work. I really

31:43

want people to see the Handmaiden. We do

31:45

not talk about it enough. It came out. It

31:47

was celebrated a bit. Critics

31:49

loved it. Didn't win a lot of awards. I

31:51

loved it. I loved it too. And I just

31:53

feel like it's one of those movies that nobody

31:55

talks about and then when it comes up, everyone

31:57

goes, yeah, that movie fucking kicks ass. What is

31:59

it? We'll talk about them more. We need

32:01

to start talking about it more. Yeah.

32:04

So because it's amazing. Number

32:06

three is Moonlight, Barry Jenkins' incredible coming

32:08

of age story, a young gay black man

32:10

set in Miami. Number two, There

32:13

Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson's

32:15

American story of greed and power in

32:17

the lives of Daniel Day -Lewis. Daniel

32:19

Plainview will destroy to get them. P

32:23

.T. Anderson did a couple films that

32:25

he like seizes like the spirit of

32:27

America that was There Will Be Blood

32:29

and there was The Master. And

32:32

yeah. They're

32:34

weirdly, weirdly succinct in capturing the

32:37

character of the United States. There

32:39

was a meme going around a

32:41

few years ago that was like

32:43

a blank movie if it came

32:45

out in 2007. And it was

32:47

always the end of the movie

32:50

to the tune of Linkin Park. Oh

32:52

yeah! What I've done! Linkin

32:55

Park's what I've done and that kind

32:57

of... I did two of those I'm

32:59

very proud of and when I obliterated

33:01

my Twitter account I lost them and...

33:04

I regret losing them, but I still

33:06

think they made the right choice. One

33:08

was the last shot in the third

33:10

man. With the zither music. Well,

33:12

it's just Valley walking slowly towards the

33:14

camera for like three minutes. Perfect.

33:17

But my best one I did was, there

33:20

will be blood if it came out

33:22

in 2007. It did. Exactly. Let

33:24

me tell you something. Lincoln Park actually syncs

33:26

up perfectly with that

33:28

scene. I'm finished! What

33:31

I've done! I

33:35

actually kinda, yeah, actually,

33:37

well played, well played, Linkin Park. And

33:40

the number one, Brian's favorite film of

33:42

the last 25 years is The Prestige. Ha,

33:44

good pick. Good pick, I it. It's

33:46

a startling pick. Christopher Nolan makes the kind

33:48

of films I love to watch, and

33:50

I still think The Prestige is his best

33:52

film. Released the same year as The

33:54

Illusionist, and between Batman Begins of the Dark

33:56

Knight, I think... It's easy to overlook, but

33:58

for me, it edges out Oppenheimer, Tenet, Dunkirk,

34:00

Interstellar, The Dark Knight Trilogy, and

34:02

Memento as my favorite. That's

34:05

a hell a film, honestly. It is

34:07

great. What, not following? PS,

34:09

I've added Master and Commander to my watch

34:11

list to revisit after your discussion about it. Thank

34:13

you. Appreciate it. Let us know what you

34:15

think. Yeah, prestige.

34:18

Wow, interesting. I mean, I actually do

34:20

think that's a great film, and

34:22

I think it's one of Nolan's better

34:24

films. I think it's Nolan's most

34:26

sort of warmest, most

34:28

personable movie. It's about characters

34:30

that are actually like kind of fun to

34:32

be around. Most of his characters are kind

34:34

of stuffed shirts. And that's my design. Those are

34:37

the kinds of characters he likes to write. The

34:39

movie I need to rewatch is Interstellar. because

34:41

I saw it and I was, you know, obviously

34:43

I'm dazzled by the scale of it and

34:45

some of the visual effects and all that kind

34:47

of stuff. But I found these emotional beats

34:49

that everyone like fawns over now to be really

34:51

insincere. And yet everyone still

34:53

talks about them to this day. It's been over

34:55

10 years. I

34:58

feel like, yeah, I should just sit down and

35:00

re -watch that just in case I miss something. Because

35:02

it happens. Yeah. You know, maybe I was,

35:04

maybe I'm a different person now. And

35:06

I'll see something I didn't see before. I went

35:08

back to, to enter Stellar and I liked it

35:10

less. Oh dear. So it's, yeah. Okay.

35:13

Well noted. It's always a risk. I wasn't super

35:15

impressed the first time. Always a risk. I watched

35:17

it again. It's like, you guys, this is even

35:19

cornier the second time. Hi,

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Company, SI, and its operating company, 6

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,000 American Parkway Madison, Wisconsin. Anyway,

35:51

part two, the second part. It was only the first

35:53

part of the letter. Speaking of

35:55

my watch list, the movie that has been on

35:57

the longest is called Fairyland. It premiered at Sundance

35:59

two years ago, winning some awards and getting strong

36:01

reviews, but I've heard nothing of it since and

36:03

it seems to be completely unavailable. I'm not going to

36:05

ask what happened to this specific movie, but what

36:07

happens to this type of movie? They premiered at festivals

36:09

and then completely disappear. I may be wrong, but

36:12

I would think that some streamer or distributor would want

36:14

this kind of film, or do the producers just

36:16

sit on it and wait to get a certain offer,

36:18

or do they write it off like WB has

36:20

done with some recent projects? any insight would be appreciated.

36:22

They are on Ovid. Not

36:24

all of them. Ovid is pretty

36:26

good about picking up those festival

36:28

darlings that don't get wide distribution. They

36:31

might finally get released and will only

36:33

play in like a museum, but

36:36

you can't make

36:38

it to a 2 .30 p .m.

36:40

screening on a Wednesday at

36:42

LACMA. So those kinds of movies you'll

36:44

find on Ovid, a streaming service I'm

36:46

very fond of. That's

36:49

a flippant answer, of

36:51

course. What happens to them is

36:54

they do get distributed, but by

36:56

the time they hit theaters, all

36:58

of the reviews have been written. A

37:00

lot of the critics review them out of

37:02

the film festival circuit. And then when

37:04

they finally reach a mainstream audience, there's no

37:06

hype for them. Yeah, the buzz is

37:08

gone. That's part of it. That's a big

37:10

part of it. That happened with a

37:12

movie. One of my favorite movies of a

37:15

couple of years ago is called House

37:17

of Hummingbird. It's a Korean film. It's a

37:19

coming of age story about a teenage girl. Growing

37:23

up in Korea in the 1990s and

37:25

it was a fantastic drama about

37:27

this young girl who had this really

37:29

horrible home life and the teacher

37:31

who kind of showed her a little

37:33

bit of understanding and she actually

37:35

had this like very passionate inner life.

37:37

It was a fantastic movie and It

37:40

was reviewed when it came out like barely

37:42

reviewed when it came out of the festival

37:44

circuit and then I finally hit audiences That

37:47

was it. It already got its coverage. Yeah,

37:49

so I think that happens to a lot

37:51

of that they get reviewed They do get

37:53

distribution, but you're you're rarely hearable and sometimes

37:55

what happens is movie will do well at

37:57

a festival But the people who buy these

37:59

movies to distribute them are saying to

38:01

themselves can we make money on

38:03

that and the answer is not

38:05

necessarily and So

38:07

the moment has passed for them

38:09

to build that hype train. And

38:12

then all of a sudden, you're the movie

38:14

everyone passed on. Now,

38:16

often these movies do come out. I was actually just

38:18

thinking of a film that I reviewed way back in

38:20

2019, a film called

38:22

Giants Being Lonely. Not

38:25

a great title, kind of awkward.

38:27

But basically, what if

38:29

Terrence Malick directed Everybody Wants Some and

38:31

There's a Dark Twist? And

38:34

that's a hell of a pitch, honestly.

38:36

And I liked it actually quite a

38:38

bit. Loving close -up of people running

38:40

their hands through like a dugout's, chain

38:42

hands. Lots of cameras floating behind people

38:44

as they walk home in a rural

38:46

setting from baseball games that everyone loves

38:48

them for, because they're the local boys.

38:50

I love it already. Yeah, I liked

38:52

it actually. And I thought it

38:54

was, maybe it's not gonna set the world on

38:56

fire, but I thought it would do okay. And

38:59

years went by and it

39:01

just never came. out. And

39:04

then just because you mentioned this, that my

39:06

first thought was, ah, giant's being lonely. It's

39:08

on 2B. It

39:10

became content. It just finally someone, I

39:12

guess, said, listen, we got to do

39:14

something with it. And so they

39:16

put it out very unceremoniously. It is

39:18

available to watch. That's

39:21

probably what's going to happen to most festival

39:23

films that don't go anywhere, is that

39:25

eventually they'll end up somewhere. But

39:27

sometimes they don't. And if you look back over

39:29

the history of Sundance, you look at all the films

39:31

that have played at Sundance over the years, not

39:33

all of them have distribution. Some of them are just

39:35

in someone's closet somewhere. And it's a

39:37

bummer. That's a real bummer. So

39:40

I wish I had better news about

39:42

that. I'm going to share

39:44

with you a resource that for some

39:46

reason is not widely known, but go to

39:48

JustWatch .com. So just go

39:50

to JustWatch. They actually will point to you

39:52

to whatever streaming service film may be playing

39:54

on. Just look at the title. They'll tell

39:56

you everything. And Letterbox kind of does the

39:58

same thing, but I think I like the way JustWatch

40:01

does it a little bit better. It's a bit cleaner

40:03

of a search for me. But

40:05

yeah, basically. So I was like, oh, I'll never

40:07

see giants being lonely. Just watch, I literally just

40:09

look at Just Watch. Yeah, it's on

40:11

two because of course it fucking is. So

40:13

yeah, go to Just Watch, maybe the

40:15

films you're looking for are there, all those

40:17

festival darlings. And just check back in

40:20

every once in a while. Just check back

40:22

in every once in a while because

40:24

someday it'll just pop up. Streaming

40:26

is so capricious. I

40:29

know not everybody has the

40:31

money to do so, but if

40:33

you can collect a physical copy

40:35

on... -ray or even DVD

40:38

of a movie you love. Do

40:40

it. Get it. Have it. Do

40:42

you have a player? Not right

40:44

now. Keep it anyway. There may be

40:46

a date when you're the only

40:48

person who has it. Yeah. It's

40:50

important to keep those things kind

40:52

of around. I was getting... I like

40:54

a lot of collectors. This is very

40:56

zealous with my collecting for a

40:58

while. I was just accumulating DVDs. Like

41:00

I would go to video stores

41:02

and get their overflow stock. I

41:06

realized I had started buying films that I didn't

41:08

like that much or just my shelves were

41:10

getting full. So I did a great culling. I

41:12

ended up getting rid of a lot of

41:14

those and I got very, very selective about what

41:16

I was gonna get. And now

41:18

I've come back around again to if I

41:20

like it and I want it, I'm gonna

41:22

buy it immediately. I just knew I'm gonna

41:25

get it. I moved two years ago and

41:27

we just didn't have space on my

41:29

DVDs. We still didn't. You

41:31

saw how many DVDs I got rid of.

41:34

I got rid of... like a

41:36

thousand DVDs, probably.

41:39

And that wasn't even half your collection. No, it wasn't,

41:41

no. And a lot of them was stuff that

41:43

I don't really need. Stuff I accumulated over the years

41:45

kind of randomly. Why do I

41:47

own two copies of Transformers Revenge of

41:49

the Fallen, that kind of thing? Yeah. I

41:53

regret getting rid of every single one. I'm

41:55

not gonna lie, I regret getting

41:57

rid of every single one. I made

41:59

a mistake. It's nice to have a library. Anyway,

42:03

here's a letter. By the way, I sold them. I

42:05

didn't throw them away or anything like that.

42:07

They're out in the ether somewhere. We

42:10

got some video stores here in

42:12

town. If you bought a used

42:14

copy of Daddy's Home 2, it

42:16

might be mine. You

42:19

know what? I guarantee. That's

42:22

William's copy of Daddy's Home 2. Because

42:25

he bought the one that

42:27

they sold. Why did I

42:29

have that? Anyway, moving on. Here's

42:31

a letter from Adam. Hello, Adam. Hi,

42:33

Adam. Dear Bibs & Whitney, this

42:35

email has been years in the making.

42:38

Over the past few months, I've been re -listening

42:40

to the Be Movies podcast for the first

42:42

time in years. You have it. Oh, yeah.

42:45

Done? Don't... just what we were doing

42:47

it, That's what we did at

42:49

the time But

42:52

for at least the third time in total, I downloaded

42:54

the episodes as they were released and kept them

42:56

on my drive like prized possessions. Good thing I did

42:58

since they don't seem to be available anywhere these

43:00

days. That's true. They're gone. I had them on a

43:02

thumb drive and I lost the thumb drive. I

43:04

think I have them somewhere. But you

43:06

might have the only copy of that.

43:08

That's true. You might have the only

43:10

ones. I decided to write because around

43:12

episode 100, released sometime in 2013, you

43:15

guys went on a bit of a sentimental

43:17

tangent, joking about people discovering your podcast in the

43:19

distant future and wondering where you'd be then.

43:21

When you said, if it's 10 or 15

43:23

years from now and anyone is still listening,

43:25

let us know. So here I am,

43:27

12 years later. Oh my God. Still tuning

43:29

in regularly. Wow. I used to listen

43:31

for entertainment and insight and now the podcast

43:34

holds a historic and nostalgic significance for

43:36

me as well. Do you have that much

43:38

time? That's weird. It's fun hearing you

43:40

guys discuss movie news and rumors. We did

43:42

a news segment on this podcast. Yeah,

43:44

our first podcast together was... basically

43:46

an assignment for the website we worked at.

43:48

They wanted movie reviews, but we also want to

43:50

talk about latest movie news. The title, the

43:52

Be Moves podcast, we came up with in a

43:54

second, by the way. Yeah. Like it wasn't

43:56

something we put any thought into. no, no. But

43:58

like, so the format was different. We were different.

44:01

We were told to have a certain tone,

44:03

which really wasn't us. And we abandoned it after

44:05

a couple dozen episodes. And

44:07

we found our way over time. I'm not

44:09

proud of all those episodes. But

44:11

I'm honored that you still have them and

44:13

are still listening. Really wild.

44:17

So movie news and rumors, some films

44:19

that never saw the light of day,

44:21

others that came out years later, often

44:23

in completely unexpected forms. Tetris, anyone? That's

44:26

right. We joked about that. Remember

44:28

when they were announcing a Tetris, but it

44:30

wasn't going to be about the making of Tetris.

44:32

It was going to be some kind of

44:34

weird dramatization of Tetris. I like being with it.

44:36

I remember you said Tetris the movie and

44:39

my response was fuck you. Let's

44:42

see. And of course, how could I

44:45

forget Bibb's hilarious porn reviews, Whitney already being

44:47

weary of comic book movies way back

44:49

in 2012, and the adorable

44:51

adventures of Milo Multigrain. Oh. Oh, Whitney

44:53

had a comic strip once. I

44:55

still do. I haven't made one in

44:57

many years, but yeah, go to

44:59

milomultigrain .com. I'm still paying for that

45:01

domain. You've made these like really

45:03

adorable, very friendly comics that

45:05

are basically just for kids. Yeah,

45:08

it's a comic strip for kids.

45:10

It just wrote them on a

45:12

and it's about this little

45:14

boy, my little multi -gram, it's kind of me. But

45:17

he's just by himself and he

45:19

explains things that he's excited about. But

45:21

little calm thing. Like toast. And

45:24

there's not one about toast, there's one about

45:26

him like how he cuts a pineapple. That I

45:28

think I want to think about. There's one

45:30

about how he's going through the newspaper and like...

45:33

the photographs. Then he cuts them out and puts

45:35

them on a wall. He

45:37

sneaks into his parents' bathroom

45:39

and uses cologne when he's not

45:41

supposed to. There's

45:45

a strip where he's waiting outside

45:47

the library. But we don't see him

45:49

go in. He's just about how he's excited about

45:51

going in the library and he's just waiting for it

45:53

to open. Like, really calm nothing moments. Honestly. I

45:56

think are really big in my mind. Honestly, it's a

45:58

really cozy strip. mean, I think more people should read

46:00

it. I thought it was really fun. My little multigrain .com

46:02

is still out there. This

46:04

re -listen made me realize that one of the

46:06

reasons I love the films of the 2010s

46:08

so much is because I got to discover them

46:10

through you. Listening to your reviews,

46:12

then watching those movies, sometimes the other

46:14

way around, created an unusual dialogue between us,

46:16

one that was incredibly rewarding for me.

46:18

So thank you again for that wonderful decade,

46:20

my friends. Thank you. Oh

46:23

my god, that's so nice. I don't want to end

46:25

on a sour note, but I have to admit that

46:27

in 2020, I stopped listening to critically acclaimed and never

46:29

went back. I don't mean to be harsh,

46:31

but at the peak of the culture war,

46:33

I felt that the podcast leaned too far in

46:35

one direction, making the discussions less nuanced, overly

46:38

emotional at times too preachy. Well, that's who we

46:40

became. I wasn't

46:42

interested in hearing why you found this or

46:44

that movie offensive or more often than not

46:46

potentially offensive to someone, which in your eyes

46:48

made it a fundamentally bad or reprehensible. Coming

46:50

from a predominantly Catholic and conservative country, I

46:52

have an inherent aversion to hearing people judge

46:54

others on moral grounds. That's fair. But

46:58

just not what I'm looking for in movie criticism or

47:00

life in general. I'm a peaceful man. I don't enjoy

47:02

drama or outrage. I don't enjoy it either. I

47:04

hate that we live a world that has so much

47:06

of that, that we have to comment on it. And

47:09

we fell into it. We

47:12

became outraged by things that

47:14

were outrageous. Politics became a

47:16

lot less abstract and became

47:18

a lot more actually like,

47:20

no, people need to

47:23

be defended. People are being

47:25

attacked. Also, we got older and our

47:27

points of view changed a lot. How

47:29

we feel about certain political ops. observations

47:33

did change over time, and how we

47:35

express ourselves politically changed over time. And I

47:37

think, you know, when we think about,

47:39

like, you know, I like this movie because

47:41

it's fun. That's a perfectly valid thing,

47:43

but why is it fun? And if it's

47:45

not fun, why isn't it fun? And

47:47

if it's not fun because I think this

47:49

movie is really racist, it's

47:51

hard for me to have fun with that, and I

47:53

have to explain why. And, you know, yeah,

47:56

and listen, if that's... Not

47:59

something people are interested there. Hmm. Can't can't

48:01

fight that. There's why there's a lot of

48:03

critics out there, you know, and again, that's

48:05

not all we do But it's really really

48:07

hard not to talk about some

48:09

of these things today in particular All

48:12

right, that said, five years later, I'm

48:14

still a passionate movie fan. I don't listen

48:16

to any movie podcasts. I've tried

48:18

many, but I've never found a worthy replacement

48:20

for the Be Moves podcast, and critically acclaimed, you

48:22

guys are the best, and still smarter than

48:24

me. Aw. Wishing you all the best in decades

48:26

of successful podcasting ahead, Adam. Well, thanks for

48:28

writing it. Thanks for sticking with it for so

48:30

long. Adam, that's amazing. Thank you, and I'm

48:32

sorry we lost you, but fair enough. And we

48:35

grow apart sometimes, don't we? Yeah, well, I

48:37

also understand, you know, If

48:39

we don't evolve, we're not good

48:41

critics. If

48:44

we don't grow

48:46

up, then we're not

48:48

growing up. Right, we're

48:50

gonna change over time as every human being

48:52

does and I think should. Yeah. Honestly.

48:54

And we're to turn out differently and that's

48:56

fine too. I can even tell like

48:58

there are certain movies I watch that I

49:00

know I would have loved if I

49:02

had seen them in an earlier age. Yeah.

49:04

There's a lot of movies that I

49:06

would have loved when I was 19 that

49:08

I like hate now. There's movies. That

49:12

I probably would have found boring and reprehensible

49:14

when I was a youth, but I

49:16

really adore now, you know, yeah tastes also

49:18

No, I remember when I was younger

49:20

seeing a lot of like very serious movies

49:22

about very serious topics about being older

49:24

and I was like This

49:27

is doing nothing for me, and I know that

49:29

in 20 years, it's gonna hit me hard. And

49:31

I can't review it on that terms now,

49:34

but you look back now, and it's like,

49:36

yeah, no, that fucking sucks. Oh,

49:38

God, oh, that's so brutal. I

49:40

don't wanna talk about it. I

49:42

admit to liking but not

49:44

loving the movie Parasite, the

49:46

Bong Joon Ho film. I

49:50

know if I had seen that in college,

49:52

I would not stop talking about it for a

49:54

decade. probably would have hit a

49:56

lot harder if I'd seen it when I was 20. But

49:58

I saw it in my mid -40s, so it didn't

50:00

hit quite as hard. I just have thirsts

50:03

for other things now. Right. And again,

50:05

this is why we need critics from different

50:07

age groups, from different experiences, different walks

50:09

of life, different cultures, different everything. And I

50:11

can only argue my point of view.

50:13

So a 20 -year -old sees it and says,

50:15

this is the best thing ever. I'm

50:17

going to say... respect that, and here's

50:19

how I feel about it, which is different. It's

50:22

not to disrespect it or say that the 20

50:24

-year -old is, you know, incorrect in any kind of

50:26

way, because I was that 20 -year -old once. And,

50:29

you know, someday I'm going to be that

50:31

60 -year -old, or I'm going to be that

50:33

80 -year -old who's, you know, watching movies and

50:35

having new reactions to them, and

50:37

who's to say what my tastes will be by then. Maybe

50:40

there's films I love now that I'll hate

50:42

in 20, 40 years. Who

50:44

can say it is? It is weird. It is weird

50:46

to think about how long we've been doing this. Well,

50:49

we started podcasting on

50:51

like an official basis

50:54

in 2011, I

50:56

believe. it 2011 or 2010? It was

50:58

2011. The first film we did

51:00

was that's 3D spelunking movie. Oh, the

51:02

cavern. No, not the cavern. I

51:04

think it was just called below or

51:06

something. No, it wasn't below. Oh,

51:08

it had Richard Roxburg in it. What

51:10

the hell was that? It had

51:12

a very generic name. Yeah. Hold on.

51:14

I'm just going to look at Richard Roxburg because that's

51:17

not going to bring up too many movies. Now,

51:19

not Richard Chamberlain. Come on. Help me

51:21

out here. would Richard Chamberlain. I

51:23

would to see a Richard Chamberlain cave

51:25

movie. Sanctum.

51:29

Sanctum. That was it. Yeah. Yeah.

51:33

We that was one of the first ones

51:35

we did it was that one. I think

51:37

was no strings attaches around the same time Yeah,

51:39

it was like I think we started

51:41

in January, which we did a

51:43

rough time to start the end

51:45

of January. Yeah weird weird times

51:47

I've run into people who have told me and

51:49

I'm very flattered by this But it is weird

51:51

to hear it out loud that they've been reading

51:53

my stuff since they were a kid. Oh, and

51:55

I was no, you know what? That's fine. It

51:57

was kind of weird to hear it Yeah. I

52:00

don't think of myself. Time doesn't work

52:02

the same in your own brain. Yeah. But

52:04

15 years is a long fucking time.

52:06

And if you're in your mid -20s and

52:08

you've only been paying attention to movies for

52:10

so long, yeah, you might have

52:12

encountered my shit in a formative year. Yeah, why not? That's

52:15

wonderful. By all means, please tell me that.

52:17

But it is weird and it will happen

52:19

to you. It's not

52:22

bad at all. It is odd because

52:24

it much like we talked about like people

52:26

have different perspectives on filmmakers career than

52:28

the filmmakers. That's

52:30

you have that perspective on my career and

52:32

it's different than my perspective on my

52:35

career. Right. You know, I just I don't

52:37

think of it on those terms, you

52:39

know, so no, I can't. I haven't had

52:41

somebody tell me they've been reading my

52:43

reviews like. for many years. I

52:45

do remember the first time reading

52:47

a critic and being like really

52:49

impressed. It's like this is, this

52:51

person's a really fantastic writer. And then learning

52:54

that she was younger than me. I

52:56

was, at that time I was still like kind

52:58

of struggling. I was trying to get published and here

53:00

she is writing for the LA Weekly. And

53:02

of course it was Amy Nicholson. Oh yeah, cause Amy Nicholson's a

53:04

genius. Yeah. So

53:07

it's like, so yeah, thanks Amy for

53:09

giving me a crisis of confidence by being

53:11

as good as you are. Anyway,

53:15

we should move on. What do you have? Here's

53:17

a letter from Cameron. Hi, Cameron. Hi,

53:20

Bibs and Whitney. I've never written into a

53:22

show before, but I've been a loyal

53:24

listener for years, so this is literally a long -time

53:26

listener, first -time caller situation. Thank you. I'm a

53:28

little behind, so I just finished your episode of

53:30

The Best Movies of the 21st Century so far,

53:32

and wanted to throw some love to two of

53:34

my favorite movies, not just of this century, but

53:36

in general. One conventional and the

53:38

other a little non -conventional. One is Spike

53:40

Jonze's Her. The tone,

53:42

script, performance, and score all pitch perfect

53:44

in my opinion. All around this movie has

53:47

made a lasting impact on how I

53:49

view loneliness, specifically male loneliness, and our relationships

53:51

not just to technology but also to our

53:53

fellow humans. Truly one of the great

53:55

and heartbreaking love stories I've seen and one

53:57

that I feel will become more representative

53:59

of reality as AI continues to take shape in

54:01

the coming years. That's probably a fair point.

54:04

I'm sure you've discussed her in -depth on your show before,

54:06

but I would be curious to know your thoughts and

54:08

critiques on this film. It's been a long time since

54:10

we talked about her, I think. Her

54:12

is... It's a great film. It came out

54:14

in 2013, and that's a pretty banging year for

54:16

movies. Yeah. Yeah, her is really fantastic. It's

54:20

really soulful and relatable, and

54:22

I think, yes, a little

54:24

bit prescient. Yeah. I

54:26

think it does speak to... the way

54:28

that the world is getting more crowded

54:30

and yet we feel more isolated. That's

54:32

a film that was talking about it,

54:34

you know, over a decade ago. And

54:36

but the irony is that we don't

54:39

reach out for each other. No, yeah, we're

54:41

looking for sort of an idealized version

54:43

of a person that doesn't exist. And her

54:45

is kind of the fantasy, well, what

54:47

if that person did exist? What would that

54:49

look like? And how it does sort

54:51

of cure your loneliness, but also. It's

54:54

also a thing. Yeah, it's also it's also

54:56

false. Yeah, it's this it has no

54:58

physical body. It's in a cloud. I

55:01

think would want to rewatch to come

55:03

to think of it I think it probably

55:05

speaks a lot better to today than

55:07

he did even then at the time it

55:09

seemed apropos. And Scarlett Johansson plays the

55:11

voice of her. What was the name of

55:14

the computer? It's a man. like Eve

55:16

or something. I forgot what it was. But

55:20

evidently, they dubbed in her voice at the

55:22

last minute. Yeah, they switched it out. It

55:24

was Samantha Morton, who's a very good actress.

55:27

But evidently, Spike Jones is just like, eh,

55:29

not quite right. It wasn't right for

55:31

what I was trying to do. No, it was Samantha. was right.

55:33

Samantha, all right. But

55:36

yeah, I feel like it

55:38

probably hit a lot harder in 2025. Yeah,

55:41

I mean, yeah. I

55:43

think it's set in 2025, or maybe

55:45

it's 2029, but it's the near

55:47

future. Yeah, our

55:50

relationship to technology and how

55:52

technology changes the way

55:54

we relate to each other

55:56

is something

55:59

that her was talking about before we were

56:01

losing our minds on, well, I guess

56:03

we were already losing our minds

56:05

on Twitter .com, but even more so. Some

56:09

movies about technology are proving

56:11

to be weirdly

56:13

prescient in a post -COVID world. Because

56:16

COVID just accelerated a lot of

56:18

bad tech habits. A lot of

56:20

the way streaming operated, the way

56:22

films were kind of deteriorating. In

56:25

popularity, that is, not in quality. Anyway,

56:28

next. Back

56:30

to the letter here. Next on the opposite

56:33

end of the spectrum, I wanted to highlight

56:35

2001's Josie and the Pussycat. As

56:37

silly as that may sound, I do believe this

56:39

movie is better than it has any right to be.

56:41

It was deeply misunderstood upon its release. It's

56:43

my one go -to examples of what I showed

56:45

to my younger coworkers, what a

56:47

new millennium, but pre -911 looked like

56:49

for a brief moment. The

56:51

soundtrack is truly great. The performances are all

56:53

camp. Shout out to Alan Cumming and Perky. Parker

56:56

Posey. In my world, they should have had

56:58

Oscars for those roles. And this movie

57:00

is just an earnest, loving and playful spirit that

57:02

I don't see in too many films today. And quite

57:04

frankly, I miss. Josie and the Pussycats

57:06

has earned a cult following in the later years, but

57:08

I still feel like it's largely unseen and not discussed

57:10

as much as it, as I feel it should

57:12

be. This is one of those, is it greater where

57:14

you eat situation? That's a phrase coined

57:16

by Alonso D 'Arralde. But I truly love

57:18

this movie. For what this movie is,

57:20

it's the best version of that. And it

57:22

was, at least commenting on what our

57:25

capitalistic consumer culture was like in the late

57:27

90s and early 2000s. When at the

57:29

bare minimum, all that was asked was just

57:31

to be product IP slot. It

57:33

feels impossible to imagine a studio film being made

57:35

today that would even dare to step into

57:37

that territory. Anyway, thanks for reading my letter.

57:39

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. I enjoy shows, reviews,

57:41

mailbacks, all of it. I hope you two are doing

57:43

well. Cameron. Cameron, thank you so much. I

57:46

have never seen Josie and the Busy

57:49

Cats and I have attempted to

57:51

rectify this multiple times and it just

57:53

never quite works out or like

57:55

the article I'm writing to which it

57:57

would have been very relevant ends

57:59

up not getting picked up and

58:01

so I don't have the

58:03

time to prioritize it and

58:05

everyone I know whose

58:08

opinion matters to me. agrees

58:11

with you that it is

58:13

a great, capital G great

58:15

movie. So, probably

58:19

right. There will come a day

58:21

when it is on the Criterion Collection and only

58:23

then. Will you finally get

58:26

around to it? Well, no, no, I think

58:28

only then will people finally just admit, because again,

58:30

movies, some

58:33

movies are instant classics, everyone loves them right off

58:35

the bat. some movies

58:37

find their audience over time, but there

58:39

has to come a point, eventually, where

58:42

they go from

58:44

cult classic

58:46

to bona fide classic, where it's

58:48

not just a small group of people who

58:50

love it a lot, it's everyone appreciates

58:52

how great it is. And

58:55

we're not there with Josie

58:57

and the Pussycats yet, but

58:59

I do believe it's gonna

59:01

take some brave soul. Putting

59:05

it on the Craterian collection, making

59:07

a night event on Turner Classic

59:09

movies. Something. Someone's got to actually

59:11

step up and give it a

59:13

platform. I feel like, Josie and

59:15

the Pussycats, I feel like, is a film that

59:17

has been rescued. There

59:19

are certain films that are not

59:21

huge hits when they come out

59:23

or they're only modestly successful. And

59:26

within the years that follow, sort

59:28

of a very passionate following begins

59:30

to rally around it. Sometimes those

59:32

movies stay obscure. Only the passionate

59:34

followers like a very small group

59:36

of them are the ones talking

59:38

about it Sometimes they do get

59:41

rescued and they start actually getting

59:43

re -releases on home video and

59:45

retrospectives articles and vulture and and

59:47

then Yeah Live appearances at midnight movies

59:49

They get rescued the people do

59:51

start to appreciate those movies and

59:53

I feel like Josie and the

59:55

pussycats is one of those There

1:00:00

have been all of those things about

1:00:02

Josie and the Pussycats. It's not obscure anymore.

1:00:04

I don't know about obscure. My point

1:00:06

is, my point is, when will it achieve

1:00:08

bonafide plastic status as opposed to midnight

1:00:11

movie status? I feel like it

1:00:13

was touching on a lot of anti

1:00:15

-commercial sort of sentiment that was floating

1:00:17

through a lot of media in the

1:00:19

1990s. Sort of anti -commercial stuff was pretty

1:00:21

big. Selling out was considered a bad

1:00:23

thing. Yeah. There's that

1:00:25

whole sequence in Wayne's world where

1:00:27

they're they say they don't

1:00:29

want to sell out while they're like clearly holding

1:00:31

like Pizza Hut products and eating Doritos and

1:00:33

like smiling when they eat them. It's

1:00:36

like people only do things because they

1:00:38

get paid and it's just really sad he's

1:00:40

relaxing he's wearing all Reebok products. So

1:00:44

yeah that was, Josie and the Pussycats

1:00:46

was actually tapping into something that was

1:00:48

already kind of a big part of

1:00:51

1990s media. it

1:00:53

just did it in kind of

1:00:55

very bubbly, friendly kind of a

1:00:57

way. Right, and it's easy to

1:00:59

write that off. Yeah. Because serious

1:01:01

things have serious tones. And

1:01:04

that was almost a slapstick farce. There's

1:01:06

a scene near the beginning where a

1:01:08

bunch of characters are in a plane

1:01:10

crash, it's played for laughs. And

1:01:12

we get to see them later in

1:01:14

full body casts, like they're in a

1:01:16

cartoon, that kind of stuff. Got it.

1:01:20

And that's kind of hard for

1:01:22

a lot of critics just say, oh,

1:01:24

this is clearly some sort of

1:01:26

commentary on modern music slop. It can be

1:01:28

hard for some critics to want to

1:01:31

put their reputations on the line for

1:01:33

a film that's clearly silly. I'll

1:01:35

say this, the soundtrack is really good. Isn't

1:01:39

it canonically connected to Can't Hardly Wait? Isn't

1:01:41

like the band from Can't Hardly Wait in the

1:01:43

movie? Oh, I don't know. I've never seen

1:01:45

Count Hardley way. Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure there's

1:01:47

like DeJure was the boy band from Josie.

1:01:49

No, it wasn't a boy band. It was like

1:01:51

a garage band. It was like called like

1:01:53

Love Burger or something like that. Oh, I don't

1:01:55

know. I don't remember that. Anyway,

1:01:58

more? All right. Here's

1:02:00

a letter from Jesse. Hello, Jesse. Hello,

1:02:03

Bivs and Whitney. I'm a big

1:02:05

fan of the first Halloween movie. Yes. John

1:02:07

Carpenter's style always spoke to me both

1:02:09

in directing and writing. And I found that

1:02:11

first movie endlessly rewatchable. Now,

1:02:13

12 movies later, I

1:02:16

feel like Halloween is in a weird spot. It's

1:02:18

been so endlessly knocked off to the point that

1:02:20

it feels like the only thing setting apart the

1:02:22

new Halloween's from the knockoffs is that Michael Myers

1:02:24

is in the new ones. But

1:02:26

without the story of Halloween, is

1:02:28

Michael Myers even the same character? Getting

1:02:31

a little existential here. It feels like

1:02:33

the franchise is stuck between a

1:02:35

rock and a hard place. Change the

1:02:37

story and rely on the Halloween

1:02:39

name to differentiate itself from the knockoff.

1:02:41

Or keep the story and risk

1:02:43

feeling like a rehash of 13 other

1:02:46

movies. So is there a

1:02:48

way forward? for the Halloween franchise. Is

1:02:50

there some angle that I'm missing out on

1:02:52

here or should we let sleeping dogs lie and

1:02:54

let the knockoffs carry on Halloween's legacy? I'd

1:02:57

love to hear what you both think in terms

1:02:59

of what would make the best slash most

1:03:01

interesting movies and if there's some plan you think

1:03:03

the studios would actually go for. Love the

1:03:05

shows, Jesse. This is a great question. Halloween

1:03:07

is actually an interesting example of a franchise because

1:03:09

you look at the original movie. You

1:03:12

can look at the ending as sequel bait, but it

1:03:14

was never intended to be. No, it was supposed to be

1:03:16

sort of abstract. Just

1:03:18

the evil is still out. And if you only

1:03:20

watch John Carpenter's original Halloween, it's a perfect

1:03:22

standalone movie. It's a fantastic movie. It's one of

1:03:24

the great horror movies. We

1:03:28

cannot pretend that the sequels and remakes don't

1:03:30

exist. It

1:03:32

is now more than just that first film.

1:03:34

It is this huge franchise. It is

1:03:36

everything that it has ever been good and

1:03:38

bad. But what's

1:03:40

interesting about these horror

1:03:43

movie franchises is that

1:03:45

every single time a new film

1:03:47

comes out, with a few occasional exceptions

1:03:49

where they're very popular, there's

1:03:52

always people who say this sucks. Like,

1:03:54

oh my god, I can't believe Jason went to

1:03:56

Manhattan, but only in the last 20 minutes of

1:03:59

the movie. I hate this movie, ignoring the

1:04:01

fact that it's actually really entertaining. It's just

1:04:03

kind of a cop out of the title, you

1:04:05

know? Everyone

1:04:07

hated, Jason goes to hell the

1:04:09

final Friday. Now it's got

1:04:11

a cult following because it's really, really fun and weird

1:04:13

and we've just, we

1:04:15

grow to accept what

1:04:17

we have for better

1:04:19

and worse. So every

1:04:22

Halloween movie has been an attempt,

1:04:24

I think, to make a good

1:04:27

or at least entertaining Halloween movie. And

1:04:30

they're, you're right, they're stuck between a rock

1:04:32

and a hard place. You change it up

1:04:34

too much and people complain. You

1:04:36

don't change it enough and people complain. What

1:04:40

do you do? Do whatever. That's

1:04:43

my response to you. You're gonna

1:04:45

try doing some weird shit. It's not

1:04:47

gonna work. Sometimes it will, but

1:04:49

sometimes it won't. And then after you've

1:04:51

tried being weird, go back

1:04:53

to basics just for one film. Just

1:04:55

remind people, this is what you like, this is what we

1:04:58

all like. Now, psychic vampires, let's

1:05:00

do it. Let's throw something in there. Well,

1:05:02

this goes back to what we were

1:05:04

talking about, about filmmakers' legacy. Some

1:05:06

filmmakers are actually... to be conscious of

1:05:08

their own legacy as artists, whereas others don't

1:05:11

care, they just charge ahead. Yeah, something

1:05:13

very deeply about the legacy of a franchise

1:05:15

that they enter. I can

1:05:17

assure you 100 % that most of

1:05:19

the makers of slasher movies in

1:05:21

the 70s and 80s didn't give

1:05:23

a fuck. They were

1:05:25

doing a job. Maybe they

1:05:27

liked violence and gore, maybe they

1:05:29

liked horror movies, but they weren't.

1:05:31

They didn't have any idea that

1:05:33

this was going to be considered

1:05:35

a legacy. These things were cranked

1:05:37

out. Here's a tiny budget. We

1:05:40

don't fucking care. We don't

1:05:42

fucking care. Just put the

1:05:44

bad guy in it, kill

1:05:47

some people in the movie, bring

1:05:49

it in under 90 minutes and on

1:05:51

budget or under budget, and we're

1:05:53

happy. Then you can go nuts with

1:05:55

it. You're 100 % right. But

1:05:57

now we look at it like, yes, we

1:05:59

have take this legacy seriously and make

1:06:01

sure we pay homage to all of them.

1:06:03

And you know what? You can. But

1:06:05

after a while, that gets boring too. That's

1:06:10

the result of home video, isn't it? People would watch

1:06:12

these films over and over again, and they get

1:06:14

to know the details that the filmmakers weren't even thinking

1:06:16

about when they put them in those movies. Oh,

1:06:18

we just get accustomed to them, you know? It's just,

1:06:20

you know, warm blanket. But this goes to an

1:06:22

axiom I've been trying to coin for a while. Trash

1:06:24

plus time equals culture. Yeah. The

1:06:26

garbage of one generation informs the

1:06:28

artistry of the next. Yeah. And...

1:06:32

And I feel like that's happened with

1:06:34

Slasher Movies. Slasher Movies were

1:06:36

junk. They were made on the

1:06:38

cheap by studios who are just trying to make

1:06:40

a quick buck. They weren't ever meant to

1:06:42

be meaningful. But when you started to take them

1:06:44

as a whole, meaning began to emerge. Well,

1:06:46

it's also fair to say that different filmmakers, you're

1:06:48

given kind of carte blanche a lot of

1:06:50

the time, as long as you're bringing it on

1:06:52

budget and hit these bullet points. Some

1:06:55

tried harder than others. Wes Craven

1:06:57

never phoned it in. Wes Craven was

1:06:59

a philosophy professor, so he actually put

1:07:01

a lot of thought into his slatter movies. Even

1:07:03

the bad ones, you can tell there's big ideas

1:07:05

in them. Yeah, exactly my point. Yeah, some people

1:07:07

tried a little, little harder to make them feel

1:07:09

like real movies. Some people didn't care. John Carpenter

1:07:11

was a little bit more of a workman. He

1:07:14

just was such a natural master

1:07:16

of the craft that his movies

1:07:18

are just really gripping in that way.

1:07:20

Yeah. And a lot of...

1:07:22

filmmakers just didn't care. I find the Nightmare

1:07:24

on Elm Street series to be really interesting

1:07:26

because each one was helmed by like an

1:07:29

interesting director who actually did try to bring

1:07:31

some kind of Style or new ones to

1:07:33

it again. That's that was a premise that

1:07:35

unlike someone in a mask is killing people

1:07:37

Over those words we had a lot better

1:07:39

effects a lot more imaginative, but that's that

1:07:41

you have it It used to be imaginative

1:07:43

like we get to dream place and dreams. Yeah

1:07:46

dream sequences Everyone's gonna have some wild ideas

1:07:48

for that and you get again you have

1:07:50

carte blanche You can put whatever in that

1:07:52

you can afford right and and we have

1:07:54

time for it Just knock yourself out and

1:07:56

so even in the shitty freddy movies and

1:07:58

there is some shitty freddy movies There's neat

1:08:01

stuff fun dream

1:08:03

sequence. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So again, I

1:08:05

think the solution for the Halloween

1:08:07

franchise, just keep churning them out.

1:08:09

If you must make them keep churning them out,

1:08:11

stop. overthinking every

1:08:13

single one, just crank

1:08:15

them. That's how they did it in the 80s.

1:08:17

And it works. That's how you could do it. That's why we care about

1:08:19

it now. So yeah, make a shitty

1:08:21

one. Then make another shitty one. Make several

1:08:23

shitty ones. As long as you make them cheap,

1:08:25

they'll make money and then you can make

1:08:27

another one. But this is the reason why we

1:08:29

never got any more Friday the 13th after that

1:08:32

remake, which was a good remake. It costs

1:08:34

too fucking much. It costs too much and also

1:08:36

that... the movies have been caught up in

1:08:38

like a big right. But no, but like this

1:08:40

is just before that. Like they could have,

1:08:42

they had time to crank out one or two

1:08:44

more before that hit. My point is they

1:08:46

didn't because even though that movie made a lot

1:08:48

of money like on paper, it was a

1:08:50

weirdly expensive slasher movie. Your

1:08:53

slasher movie, even today, no slasher movie should cost

1:08:55

more than $10 million. No

1:08:58

slasher movie. That makes

1:09:00

no sense for a slasher movie

1:09:02

to cost more than $10 million. You do not need

1:09:04

it, right? So. when

1:09:06

you keep them jeep, even if they don't

1:09:08

do great, you'll break even. That's

1:09:11

it. And then, as long

1:09:13

as you can keep it alive, you can

1:09:15

keep that franchise valuable, you'll

1:09:18

have more opportunities for people to

1:09:20

come in, give them a

1:09:22

small budget, a short period

1:09:24

of time, and carte blanche, and

1:09:26

they might do something fascinating that

1:09:28

changes it forever. I guarantee you

1:09:30

that when Jason became a zombie

1:09:32

in Friday the 13th, part six, There

1:09:35

are people who were mad, and

1:09:38

now that's the default, Jason. It

1:09:41

is. The Undead Jason is the one

1:09:43

we think of. That was the sixth movie

1:09:45

that they did that. I am, however, you know,

1:09:47

we're thinking about, you know, just sort of make the

1:09:49

movie. And I feel like when you're making a

1:09:52

horror movie about a serial killer in a mask, yeah.

1:09:55

You're making driving entertainment at that

1:09:57

point. I feel, though, we are

1:09:59

so far removed from making that

1:10:01

interesting anymore. There's

1:10:03

a documentary film out there called Going to

1:10:05

Pieces, which is about kind of the rise

1:10:07

and fall of the slasher as it happened

1:10:09

throughout the 1980s. And how

1:10:12

we kind of, the genre ran its

1:10:14

course. When the slashers

1:10:16

were revived by Scream in the

1:10:18

late 90s, that was sort of

1:10:20

this self -aware wave of them that

1:10:22

was now being watched by the

1:10:24

people who had grown up seeing

1:10:26

a lot of slasher movies on

1:10:28

VHS. So they knew the tropes,

1:10:30

and now the characters in the movies were

1:10:33

commenting on the tropes. Because now they're us.

1:10:35

Yeah, their us and media

1:10:37

self -awareness was a big part of 90s

1:10:39

culture anyway. And

1:10:41

I feel like... that

1:10:43

wave petered out, we're kind

1:10:46

of done. Like we made them, we commented

1:10:48

on it and now we don't need them anymore.

1:10:50

They don't serve the same kind

1:10:52

of function anymore. They're not

1:10:54

speaking to the same kind of

1:10:56

generational fears. Now they're just

1:10:58

nostalgia of nostalgia. And I feel

1:11:00

like continuing to churn out

1:11:02

Halloween films is really just milking

1:11:04

a dead cow at this

1:11:06

point. So what do you

1:11:09

do with the Halloween series? Kill

1:11:11

it. It's okay to let things

1:11:13

down. Listen, I'm kind of fine with

1:11:15

that. My thing is this, if we, here's

1:11:18

your job, we own this, we

1:11:20

have to do it. That's the

1:11:22

job. This is our job. We

1:11:24

make Halloween movies. If you don't want to

1:11:26

make Halloween movies, don't work at our

1:11:28

company. And that's perfectly valid. This

1:11:30

is what we do here. If you must

1:11:33

do it, I have my own philosophy. If

1:11:35

you have an opportunity to stop, I

1:11:37

am fine with that. We've had a lot

1:11:39

of Halloween movies. Anyone who knows, maybe

1:11:41

later down the road, we'll do a

1:11:43

remake or something again and they'll be new and fresh. Who

1:11:45

cares? It's

1:11:48

okay to say goodbye. It's

1:11:51

okay to put things away, even

1:11:53

just for a while, maybe

1:11:55

permanently, but franchises do die. We

1:11:58

don't talk about it very often. But,

1:12:01

you know, the airport movies were huge blockbusters

1:12:03

in the 70s. When

1:12:05

was the last time you saw someone trying to exploit that

1:12:07

IP? Speed. Speed

1:12:10

was a huge fucking hit.

1:12:13

Immediately green lit a sequel,

1:12:15

right? The sequel, so unpopular,

1:12:18

they've never exploited it again. No,

1:12:20

you think that you'd think that

1:12:22

like 20 years later, you try

1:12:24

to get Keanu Reeves and Sandra

1:12:26

Bullock back, right? Yeah. You would

1:12:29

think that 20 years later, time

1:12:31

for a remake or a legacy

1:12:33

sequel, right? Dead. Speed

1:12:36

two fucking killed it.

1:12:38

And that's amazing that it

1:12:40

was allowed to die

1:12:42

because under normal circumstances, never

1:12:45

in a million. fucking

1:12:47

years. Would that have been

1:12:49

allowed to die? We

1:12:51

would still have like an

1:12:53

NBC procedural show about

1:12:55

doing cop things quickly in

1:12:58

any other situation. So

1:13:00

it is. Yeah, given that we

1:13:02

live in an age where everything has

1:13:04

to come pre -sold and the streaming

1:13:06

services are just trying to milk

1:13:08

whatever they can, what was it? Warner

1:13:10

Brothers just gonna bring back. They've been doing

1:13:12

like another gremlins or something. They've done like

1:13:14

a kids animated gremlins thing. They're doing that. They're

1:13:17

bringing back everything. Anything that

1:13:19

was popular 40 years ago. They're bringing back. Yeah, that's

1:13:21

what they do. But

1:13:24

you know what? Warner Brothers

1:13:26

putting... It is astonishing though that,

1:13:28

yeah, of all those things,

1:13:30

speed isn't one of the pots

1:13:32

they've been plundering. Warner Brothers,

1:13:34

to their credit, is also

1:13:36

putting out centers. Centers

1:13:38

is actually a unique film unique

1:13:40

new thing as much as it

1:13:42

can be you know, obviously no

1:13:45

film is completely unique But like

1:13:47

yeah, that's actually like not an

1:13:49

IP They just put their actually

1:13:51

like put their support behind an

1:13:53

interesting filmmaker gave him probably too

1:13:55

much money to do something completely

1:13:57

weird So it does happen question

1:14:00

as well people see it and we'll find out Anyway,

1:14:02

that is it for We've Got Mail. Thank you everybody for

1:14:04

listening. Thank you everybody for writing in. We

1:14:06

love reading your emails, even when they take

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That's how we grow. And

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a future episode, our email address is

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everybody. Have a great everything. Sincerely yours,

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