Strange Days with Emily Yoshida

[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check You know how I know it's the end of the world? Everything's already been done

[00:00:23] Every kind of music's been tried, every kind of government's been tried Every fucking hairstyle, bubble gum flavors, you know, breakfast cereal What are we gonna do? How are we gonna make another thousand years? I'm telling you man, it's podcast! I think that's true. I think he was right

[00:00:39] A pretty prescient opening Hello everybody, my name is Griffin and I'm David Sims This is Blank Check with Griffin and David, we are hashtag the two friends And this is a podcast about filmographies Directors who have massive success early on in their career

[00:00:54] And then are granted a series of Blank Checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want Sometimes those checks clear, sometimes they bounce Baby! This is a bouncer This is a bouncer And this is also a different kind of Blank Check than we've ever dealt with before

[00:01:10] This is someone kind of coming in as like a Lux Alptrum in our Point Break episode Pointing to New Term for us, the sort of guarantor The movie that gives you the cachet Right, right, right But this is a weird like Blank Check team up It is

[00:01:35] Yes, one person is sort of cutting a little bit of his Blank Check to another person To someone else who had like earned a partial Blank Check It's a weird set of circumstances making this movie But this check bounces I would say it's a strange set of circumstances

[00:01:53] Uh-huh This is amazing series about the films of Catherine Bigelow It's called Pod 19, The Widowcaster And today we're talking about the movie that almost completely ended her career Yeah It is called Strange Days It's called Strange Doss Thank you for the correction

[00:02:16] The man do I have egg on my face Thank you for the correction, unnamed guest The movie is called Strange Doss And boy do we have a guest today She is of course the mother of Blankies And number one title She's also a film critic for Vulture

[00:02:32] That's right Three times on Blank Check Three different jobs You keep bouncing from job to job The New York media world has been good to me baby It's been four at this point hasn't it Yeah sure tell her how many jobs she's had No, no, no, no, oh

[00:02:50] Four times on the pod Two with one job One with another one Once they come on We have our favorite guest or repeat guest And they come on and we have to list the same fucking credits Over and over again Keep us on our toes

[00:03:06] Yeah, no I'm like Lenny Nero I've gone from being a cop in one life To I don't know And you got a lot of fake Rolexes A lot of hats This is also your first solo episode It's your first episode Yeah that's true

[00:03:24] You're usually on our super sized Think that I'm worthy You think that I can you know hold an episode up on my own Cause I've really been working so hard for so long To deserve such a position So thank you guys from the bottom of my heart

[00:03:38] It was never an issue of that okay No one looks at Brad Pitt and goes Maybe he's not a leading man Because he's playing third fiddle in Ocean's 11 It's saying let's add even more juice to this Mixed do you know what I'm saying No I understand

[00:03:52] We were saying let's make some episodes blockbusters Let's throw a little Emily Ashina in the mix I appreciate it Hopefully this one doesn't bounce The episode Impossible Impossible for this episode to bounce This is one of your favorite movies It became my favorite movie about

[00:04:11] Or one of my favorite movies about three months ago When I saw it for the first time I saw this film at MoMA They were doing a series of some I think it was called series It was called Future Imperfect

[00:04:24] It was showing a lot of fantastic movies that I love And that was one where I was like Well I've never seen that before And this seems like a unique opportunity to get to see it on the big screen A film print nonetheless

[00:04:35] Because now I think the only way you can see it is legally Is by buying like a used DVD Yeah we're like buying like a German blue It's impossible This is one of several films in the series That I feel like is impossible to see

[00:04:49] Fucking driving me insane There's two that are literally out of print Right and so coincidental It's the first time you've done a female director It's true and can't watch your movies I know But yeah I saw this at MoMA By myself and about halfway through

[00:05:04] And it's a long movie There's a lot of movie here But I am watching one of my favorite movies right now It was like a really great feeling So you like dystopian future movies in general That's one of your And I like specifically dystopian future movies

[00:05:19] Set in future versions of LA Or like future past versions I guess in this case Yeah I mean this movie does ask a big question Which is what if in the future The whole world was LA Like I know this movie only takes place in LA

[00:05:34] We only really see LA represented But LA is presented to be such a hell hole And the state of the world is presented to be so bad That I just assume transitive property What's ruined the world is that everything's become LA

[00:05:46] Sure but I do like that this movie is not like 1999 You know America is now blah blah Like there's no explanation of anything going on We're just in LA It's very municipal dystopia I mean this movie is basically set on two blocks Right?

[00:06:03] Well they go to the valley at one point That's right that's true And they do drive into the My favorite club in the world is in the valley I'm not mistaken but yeah But it is This movie just kind of says Like an inciting incident

[00:06:18] There wasn't a giant like shift of like From here on out all blanks will be blank Blanks It's just kind of like things kept getting bad Yeah it just is like an economy thing There's a little bit of the classic exposition On a radio call in show about

[00:06:35] Like oh the economy's in the toilet And kids are killing kids And you know it's just like I mean there's nothing particularly unique there I mean look let's say it's economic anxiety This movie's about economic anxiety That's the only thing that went wrong

[00:06:48] That's the only problem in society's economic anxiety And if you want to say it's anything else You're wrong people just are stressed out about money Yup, especially cops Especially cops And you know what sometimes people accuse my grandmother Of being economically anxious And I find that offensive

[00:07:05] Because it's just you have to understand She comes from a more economically anxious time I get your joke She's not actually economic Your grandmother is not alive Considering her age this one is Oh okay this one is okay This one is

[00:07:20] One of them throwing onto the train tracks For the sake of this joke Well I have to say that I really hope that people Will listen to this episode Cause like I haven't listened to As of this recording you guys have put out One, two now Big stuff

[00:07:36] Oh yeah two But I haven't seen either of those movies Sure I don't want to watch that one But New Yorker's also another one It's very difficult to watch So I haven't listened to them Cause I want to watch the movies first

[00:07:52] But anyway I hope everybody listens to this podcast anyway Even if they haven't seen Strange Jays I mean look we're being completely candid This mini series is like a big test of our list Like we're doing a lot of We're doing movies you can't watch

[00:08:04] Not that this is the point We wanted to talk about Katherine Bigelow's movies But this mini series also functions as this test Of like how many people are actually watching The movie, the dance, in preparation If it's a movie they haven't seen

[00:08:16] How many people are listening even if they haven't seen the movie And how many people totally check out If it's something they cannot watch easily Yeah I mean But that's why we needed a superstar like you We decided to do Bigelow

[00:08:30] We said we gotta bring in the mother of blankies Is this my first one of like a real bouncer? No speed racer bounce Yeah speed racer bounce like hell Right And the other two episodes you've been on Are the two most successful movies of all time

[00:08:44] Literally one in three One in three Advertisers in the middle there Well we only kind of work in extremes too Mostly Strange Jays So post point break Which is for Fox And was a solid success And a movie that was very well liked

[00:09:05] She's got some heat on her She's got heat But also her ex hubby Is now the most powerful filmmaker on the planet Both of these things are true So James Cameron wrote this movie in 1986 Not this movie that we watched But like wrote Strange Jays Right he wrote

[00:09:26] He wrote a script Like his account he wrote a 90 page treatment Sure he wrote a very long treatment He writes these 90 page treatments that are like novels And he did this for Spider-Man You can read his like fucking 90 page Spider-Man And he's like a very good movie teenager

[00:09:40] Who's jizzing all over New York City basically It's very like It's very about puberty I think Mary Jane Fox.doc too I believe that's like a plot point Is that's like a love triangle thing I mean would that have been Cameron's most sexual movie? 100% That's true

[00:09:58] I mean and I'm not sure I want to see Cameron's most sexual movie Because Cameron's most sexual movie is probably Avatar Right I mean you know they do As we mentioned on the Titanic episode Oh that's true As which Emily noticed

[00:10:12] I saw somebody else actually make that claim So I was like I wonder if I had stole it from them Well no I don't remember that person said it before me or no But I do stand by that as being my own theory Yup Yeah correct

[00:10:25] He was also going to do an X-Men movie Sure I mean he was in the mix Or like he thought about it But he also wrote like a 90 page treatment for this They announced at one point that he was going to do X-Men and Spider-Man

[00:10:38] I think maybe he announced Spider-Man first Then he left Spider-Man for X-Men or the other way around But he has this thing when he has an idea for a movie He writes these like These treatments That are like longer than

[00:10:50] Or as long as the script would conceivably be Where he's just describing in novelistic terms What's basically happening and the vibe of the thing And so he writes one of these They're judging your novelization of Strange Days Of course Written by Orson Scott Card No I don't know

[00:11:06] He takes it to Catherine Bigelow Who I'm not sure at what point in their relationship this was But they may have been married at the time She likes the idea They talk the idea out right? And his basic idea

[00:11:20] The main thing he was going for I think was A. The Squid technology And B. He liked the dynamic of Three people on the verge of a new millennium And it's a woman in love with a man Helping him find the woman he loves

[00:11:33] They liked that emotional triangle Which feels very Cameron-y Like that's a real Cameron like emotional core kind of set up Which then Bigelow brought a lot of shit too All true So Cameron takes this They turn whatever Their dialogue turns into this thing

[00:11:50] He says it was like a big unwieldy novel He takes it to Jay Cox Who is a practiced screenwriter He usually collaborates with Martin Scorsese He wrote The Age of Innocence I'm sorry Marty Scorchies Marty Scorchies He wrote The Age of Innocence He wrote Gangs of New York

[00:12:08] He wrote Silence And he turns into a script And they like this script So the script is like hanging out And then in 92 there's the Rodney King Try I mean there's the Rodney King beating And the L.A. Riots And the Lorena Bobba Trial And stuff like that

[00:12:28] And Catherine Bigelow is like I want to weave all this into the script too She said There's something she's spending a lot of time in South L.A. I was involved in the downtown cleanup You're right and I was very moved by that experience

[00:12:41] You get a palpable sense of the anger And frustration and economic disparity In which we live She wanted to make a movie about That feeling that was hanging in the air At that time Which is not too dissimilar from the feeling

[00:12:55] That I think is hanging in the air right now Culturally, like cyclically Right there was a thing like in early 90s L.A. That is very much what's happening Right now Also Tupac was around It was a simpler time And I think at this point She decides

[00:13:12] That may have cast to be an African American character And she wants to like You know Make a movie about female victimization And racial oppression That's what she says in this interview So she starts taking what you know Probably was a kind of Clean, straightforward Cameron idea

[00:13:32] And she worked more of her own themes into it When they developed it further And now she's saying like This is my vehicle to say everything I want to say About the state of the world today Or at the very least the state of Los Angeles

[00:13:44] So he has this crazy light storm James Cameron makes T2 He gets this crazy deal And he It's $500 million? Sure but there's a big deal where he gets to split The true lives funding With another movie essentially So true lives cost more $30 million

[00:14:04] I think it ends up costing like 42 million I think the deal was they said You can split $100 million between true lives And strange days And they thought it was going to be 70 and 30 And then true lives end up being The most expensive movie ever made It costs like 115

[00:14:20] 100 to 120 million Unknown And then strange days which is supposed to cost 30 and it costs like 45 So they went way over on these two movies True lives worked for them And they did not and she didn't get to make them Away for five years

[00:14:36] Did you hear about the original cast That they had in mind? No Andy Garcia was going to have the lead role Angela Bassett was always their first pick For Mace And then they wanted Bono To play the Michael Wincott role

[00:14:54] Of the dirty boyfriend who's like a rock producer Which I think would have been tremendous That would have been fascinating I think he would have been really good And that's Bono just to That's like post-Octin baby Pre all you can't leave behind

[00:15:10] When Bono is like a real titanic fool Yeah He sort of at first it was like a character He was doing and then like the character Seemed to have disappeared And you were like I think Bono might just be An idiot right now

[00:15:25] Did something they did on the tour Where he played like Satan and videos And then he would do the TV tour Like where he would like Have you ever I mean I like you too So I've watched videos I've watched a lot of the zoo TV

[00:15:38] But you know where he had his characters Like the fly was the one with the wrap around Sunglasses and then he would do this devil Character called Mac Fisto Which has an English accent Which is fucking embarrassing It's so bad He goes to like hello

[00:15:54] And you're like oh my god I can't believe this was like A real Yeah it really was an extended multi-million Man TV reel But it is actually cool You know zoo TV that's when he would like Order pizza Like from the stage and he would like call the

[00:16:12] White House and be like It's the future calling or whatever You know and they Stuff like that Yeah so it was a half man TV half jerky boys Yeah but I mean no one had ever done shit Like that in like a stadium tour It was weird

[00:16:28] We all like It was like bad talking head shit I guess right Like how would you describe where he's sort of Making fun of consumerism but you're like How would you describe producer Ben? Um Ben do sir Well Ben Polo riot The haze Mr. Positive The peeper

[00:16:54] The tiebreaker Meet lover Not professor Chris No You are the poet laureate Yeah So David's answer Jesus just do it already come on Ben more you can say sorry No it's fine You graduate certain titles at the course of different Mays or just Kylo Benpruse or Ben Konova

[00:17:19] Ben Nitrom, Lon Benzay, Save Anything Ailey Benz with the dollar sign Warhawz And producer Bane Yeah so Bono in the 90s It's sort of talking heads I guess Sure Because it's got that kind of like Like we are all robots living in our boxes

[00:17:36] Right and sort of world music Yeah Kind of thing too going on there But man I don't know it's just a whole other level of corny It's very corny It's a corny or right I don't even know how to really just like I love it though

[00:17:53] I love Okton baby I love you too I was like so embarrassed Bono not incredibly funny Like talking heads were a funny band Right you don't think of Bono as like a A famed joker who is great at not taking himself seriously Right yeah

[00:18:08] Like there's no like sharpness or rhinoceros there I wouldn't say He's the one who like comes out on stage And is like let's talk about Nicaragua You know like he takes himself very serious And talking heads when they did Sort of comical things

[00:18:22] The master stroke was how much they underpinned And played it Like David Burns blankness Right whereas Bono does everything full tell Bono is not good at understatement Right So anyway he's not in this movie Bono is the person who's not in this movie Eventually

[00:18:41] Catherine Bigelow sees Schindler's list And she's like break me off a piece of this Ray Fiennes cause he's fucking awesome Which is fascinating though because this role Is written very much as like Andy Garcia 90s architect Definitely he is a leather jacket wearing Like sweaty American fairy

[00:18:56] Like yeah who's kind of like Yeah no I'm trying you know What can I tell you That was his whole thing was like I mean my take is he's Nicholas Cage and Snake Eyes But just like a little chiller But only a little chiller

[00:19:10] But Garcia was really good at being like a little too slick But still likable A little greasy but still compelling Yeah still reads as a protagonist Right I love Andy Garcia I do too I mean I love him now

[00:19:24] I mean I don't mean to beef with poor Andy Garcia these days But like But that's so weird that it was Schindler's list That's the point I'm making Because this is written as a Garcia type And then to see Schindler's list and be like That's my man

[00:19:39] We now know that Ray Fiennes is like one of the best screen actors In history Yes he's a chameleon And can do anything But if you haven't seen him do a ton of work And then you see him play a very clean cut To like chilling effect

[00:19:52] But there is humor to that performance I think that performance is so extraordinary I also think he's weirdly charming Like even though he's also really frightening Like that's why it's so good What do you think of Ray Fiennes? Emily In this movie? In general

[00:20:10] I mean great love Ray Fiennes I mean I was He was somebody Even before I think I had seen any film that he was in He was somebody that my mom really liked He was a masterpiece theater type Even if he wasn't a masterpiece theater type

[00:20:24] And you know I mean I don't know Yeah I like him, why not Ray Fiennes great actor In between this and Schindler's list He had just made quiz show which he's excellent in That was right before that was the year That's 94

[00:20:40] So in Schindler's list he plays a Nazi And really like top of the line Nazi One of the best Nazi In quiz show No Chris Cantwell this guy Sure In quiz show he's playing like the sort of ultimate wasp He's playing like this very preppy

[00:21:00] Professor type who's like The whole point of him is that he's very like Appealing in a broad way Which is why they fix the Sure both quiz show and Schindler's list He's essentially playing like very sharp knives Square jawed, yes right He's like very clean cut

[00:21:16] Composed tightly wound up And then the quiz show is that he's really He's holding on by a thread Like even though he looks like that He's really nervous about letting his dad down Because he's dead so anyway And then after strange days he makes the English patience

[00:21:31] So in the 90s like I think he's having a great run And then he kind of like runs into a wall For a little while Because it's like the Avengers Sunshine I do think he's one of the best screen actors of all time

[00:21:45] But I think he's a great actor And he was like oh he's really good at doing this thing Like by and large it was like Okay he's got his mode that he's really good in I'm never gonna you know discount that But I don't find it very exciting

[00:21:56] But like his weird like Ten years ago when he sort of reinvented himself As a character actor And now it's just been like zagging all over the place When he's popping up in things like in Bruges And right you're like oh And Grand Budapest

[00:22:10] And what was the other thing I think he's really good in the Bond movies You know what he's great in Is like sort of under sung And he's great in that movie I think he's weirdly sort of gotten freed up

[00:22:22] As an actor as he's become more of a supporting player And even when he plays lead roles Now they tend to be more character Which like Grand Budapest He doesn't have to, nothing, it relies less on his face And his physique I think now

[00:22:34] Well, except for bigger splash Bigger splash But not in a way where he has to be like a sculpture Or something Which he used to be the most beautiful in the world And like still there was a still like Yes

[00:22:49] Which is obviously like this is an outlier for that And he just has that like glass accent That he deploys so well in things like Shin-Liz List in the English patient But in this he's like I'm Lenny Veneto over here I was watching this like on my laptop

[00:23:03] And David, David Reese My roommate Big fan That host of Tar's Talk He walked by and he hasn't seen this film So he didn't you know know it I think David might get a kick out of this film I don't know, I don't know

[00:23:18] I was like you might have to watch this episode for me It's pretty, yeah It's got a pretty rude to this film But he walked by there was a scene I think it was like the scene in the bar Where he's pitching the one guy

[00:23:30] On the Sqoy technology And he's like is that Bradley Cooper I think that tells you everything about this He is kind of doing like Yeah, he's like Yeah, that's true Yeah, Cooper could do this right now Yeah, totally That would be who you would get now

[00:23:48] But she got Ray Fiennes She got Angela Bassett Who is now only a couple years removed from Her Oscar nomination for what's left to do with it Yeah, that was 92, 91 I think it's 92, let me look up Angela 93, 93 so very

[00:24:03] And everyone thought she was going to be a huge star And it never totally happened Which is a massive bummer She's fucking unbelievable I mean, but she's the best She remains the best And she's working She still has a career

[00:24:18] It just felt like she was going to kind of become Like one of the great leading ladies Can I say a couple more? I mean, how's Stella got her group back? Yes, that's a good move I don't want to obsess over this

[00:24:30] But I just want to plant a couple more little quick things about Ray Fiennes If I can very quickly do so One, I think this performance Was the outlier in the 90s Wishing to do And not just be the straight cut guys I agree with that

[00:24:45] And I also think now I find his straight cut performance Is more interesting because it's clear That that was more of a performance At the time it felt like, I guess this is his type He's emoting these roles well

[00:24:55] But that feels as much a character as the later stuff he does But the other thing that's interesting to me Is he seemed because of his very crisp addiction And his good posture And you know his nice face and everything Like one of these classically trained

[00:25:08] Like very technical British theater actors Right? And Wes Anderson said that he hired him for Grand Budapest Because he was like very technical movie Lot of words, I just wanted to hit his marks And he got to set and Ray Fiennes is like a crazy method actor

[00:25:21] Sure, so he's just That he's like not performative And that he had like a real difficult time Because in Grand Budapest when there would be voiceover He would make the actors hold still For like 30 seconds in the middle of the shot

[00:25:33] Where he would then place the voiceover later And Ray Fiennes would like flip out And be like I can't just be doing nothing for 10 seconds My character is living Wow, Ray I'm team Ray, honestly Yeah, the character is living

[00:25:47] I know, well because Wes Anderson sounds like a pain in the ass No, that's so annoying if you're an actual actor And you're trying to do a good job And he's like no I've got to do something tweet Well because Wes Anderson is his actor

[00:25:57] He wants to make stop motion Right, yeah, you know But I also think one of the reasons that movie like That movie is the Wes Anderson movie that I really love And I'm not that fond of it I honestly think that Guys, Isla Doggs though I'm so excited

[00:26:12] You're so excited I'm so excited I am not excited for that movie Oh, I'm sorry, you don't like movies about dogs that make trash planets? I mean I like that No, honestly no I'm so excited What I was going to say though is

[00:26:28] Grand Budapest which I think is maybe his best movie I feel like is elevated by Ray Fiennes Because Ray Fiennes probably pushed him in that kind of way So I think that's why I'm so excited That's why I'm so excited to watch those scenes

[00:26:38] And Ray Fiennes is doing shit Like Ray Fiennes isn't just being like I'm not going to fucking stand here like a doll Yeah Juliet Lewis Is writing fate really high at this moment It's true I mean you think about the fact that Juliet Lewis At age, whatever

[00:26:56] 1921 is an Oscar nominee And then she's in Husbands and Wives She's in What's Eating Gilbert Grape She's in California And she's in the middle of her inherent Juliet Lewisness You know it's like this is my star persona Again, Groty Like I'm a Groty star

[00:27:13] And it's also a complete And it's the 90s It's the early 90s She kind of represented something But she's also a complete dead end Like there has never been a movie star Like Juliet Lewis Before her or after her Like she's this total one-off

[00:27:31] Who is now as Juliet Lewis Cause even like your Kristen Stewart's Are not like in a vibe It's more like in sort of like Yeah and Kristen Stewart is like You know even though she kind I guess it could be argued that she does the same performance

[00:27:44] In every movie but she is acting Like she is really acting Agreed Is J-Law but like J-Law is like a nicer version Yeah if J-Law was Grotier Instead of just being like Like you Like Juliet Lewis Like anything you want to say about her

[00:28:04] She I don't think ever made an effort to be like I'm just like She's like some girl who hasn't washed her hair Who's like smoking behind the 7-Eleven Like that's who she is You know certainly that's her star persona

[00:28:16] I think everyone we're saying has like a bit of Juliet Lewis But I think there's like some jumbalaya Of what she represented And let's also mention She was dating Brad Pitt at the time She was dating the hunkiest guy in Hollywood

[00:28:28] And they hire her partly cause she can sing Or perform Didn't want to lip sync the songs She's performing PJ Harvey songs up there Including Ritimi which is like Sort of the definitive Yeah I mean that really That dates this movie in a weird way

[00:28:45] For a science fiction movie It does But it's kind of great And then for the fourth lead She reaches into the barrel And gets out one of her favorite actors Who's in Blue Steel And all roles in both But Blue Steel has first film performance ever

[00:29:02] She's the man She's the woman who put that man on the map And then she puts that wig on the man The man being Tom Siles more Yeah she sized him up Who is just another like king of Like Hollywood, Groty Yeah I mean

[00:29:18] And this movie is his masterpiece That wig is his masterpiece I was almost mad when the wig got pulled off And I was like no I wanted that to be his hair I was talking to my friend Hock And last night about Tom Siles more just because

[00:29:32] I've seen three Tom Siles more movies In the last week now Right cause he keeps fucking popping up And he's all over Twin Peaks Which he is wild in I was offering him I don't think I've gone to Siles more yet I'm woefully behind

[00:29:50] Yeah there's this scene he does That is insane Anyway carry on I was offering Tom Siles more as a counterpoint to Robert Downey Jr How in the 90s both of them were like These are these immensely talented Like naturally gifted actors

[00:30:04] And they can't get out of their own way They cannot get out of their own way Yeah Tom Siles more could not get out of his own way The difference was with Robert Downey Jr It always felt like he was like a victim

[00:30:14] Where he's like oh god he's like He can't defeat these demons And with Tom Siles more you're like Yeah it makes sense that guy is a drug addict He's a big redoubted but you watch him And you're like yeah that's like his entire

[00:30:25] Star quality was the fact that he looked Like a guy who just crawled out of the gutter You know? Sure I mean right no one's surprised to learn that Tom Siles more as He has a sheen You want him to get his shit together

[00:30:37] But also his sheen is a guy who can't get his shit together In this movie he plays Max Peltier? Is that how you put it? I don't even remember carrying his last name in that movie He's Max He's a PI I guess

[00:30:51] But he's sort of like a former LAPD guy It's sort of was right It's hard to track everyone Everyone is sort of used to work with the cops Yeah they used to work together I think Yeah they used to work together Now he's a PI And Lenny Nero

[00:31:07] Who's Ray Fiennes character is a club owner Owner Operator Wait what? Doesn't he sort of run that club? I can't even know Just a squid dealer Lenny get it together But his car is pretty nice Well yeah and then he's got a friend His apartment is terrible

[00:31:29] But he's got a great car Everyone's apartment in this is so bad Very L.A. I watch this movie And I'm like this is how I feel every time I step off the plane at L.A. Like this is what I see

[00:31:42] They live glasses show me this version of L.A. I'm like this is what everyone's suppressing The first time I ever went to L.A. My mother was on We Live Fortune Really? Wow Or was it 97 or was it 95? I can't remember

[00:31:58] I can't tell you when your mother was on We Live Fortune Oh yeah no it was 97 Did she win? She won some money she didn't win the whole thing But that I mean it was only a couple years later But like that I remember going to Hollywood Boulevard

[00:32:10] It was still really really grody And that was like always my memory Of L.A. Was just like this kind of icky feeling And I was like all there yet There wasn't anything for like a child to do So it's like get a screen printed t-shirt

[00:32:24] Cj t-shirts or whatever Did you get a screen printed t-shirt? I think I did I don't remember what I got I don't know I was very excited by all of it It was very electrifyingly grody And so is L.A. I don't know L.A. very well

[00:32:38] I'm always very excited when I'm in L.A. Because it is sort of this weird magical place to me But is it less I know it's less grody now But is it stripped of grodyness and high bowl of art? Basically the same

[00:32:47] That scene where there he's going down Hollywood Boulevard And like there are like flaming cars in the middle of street And people are like beating up Santa Claus on the sidewalk Like that aside from that activity It basically looks the same Hollywood Boulevard is still very grody

[00:33:04] And sections of L.A. have gotten classed up But I still think it's like a new coat of paint On a grody heart I mean they're still like they go by this store It's very recognizable called Hurricane It's like a very big neon sign

[00:33:17] And that's still there it's like a stripper store Yeah all that business is booming Okay so Lenny's a squid dealer Squids What does it stand for again? It's a real thing I think What? It is It stands for Superconducting Quantum Interference Device

[00:33:37] Which is a sensitive magnetometer used to measure magnetic fields And I think this is real technology that James Cameron Is theorizing like maybe one day this could be used to read our own thoughts Essentially digitize our thoughts They're essentially like VR documentaries

[00:33:55] Sure you put this cradle cap on your head It was like Paprika AKA Better Inception That's a Toshikon movie Yeah great movie Cause there's like a thing that can read your dreams It basically looks like a squid It's like a real thing Yeah You put this thing on

[00:34:15] You plug it into a mini-disc player As you do Of course And then you can record your dreams Or no not your dreams I mean your whatever You can make a movie But that's the thing they have to get real people to live through these real circumstances

[00:34:31] Record them so that other people can then live through them secondhand You want the rush of doing the things you would never have the courage to do in your real life That means that these people have to go put themselves in real games

[00:34:40] Cause early on we see Lenny choreographing a lesbian sex scene Where he's kind of giving advice on like how to make it feel real To the actors It's all the senses too we should point out It's not just seeing It's feeling like your whole experience

[00:34:54] It's plugged into your cortex And I mean it reminds me of when When they first came out with like 360 degree cameras And I was like so convinced that the new reality television Was going to be like Kim Kardashian would have one of these cameras on

[00:35:09] And you would just like plug in to her experience That's basically what this is except with non-famous people basically like porn stars Was that famous people like people like that who are famous for the sake of being famous Would essentially let their lives become being John Malkovich

[00:35:21] Yeah exactly You ride around on the inner head You once a month pay $7.99 to be able to watch Kim Kardashian at any moment in time I mean which is also like the Neuromancer thing too With the what's it called It has some other name

[00:35:37] But like the same thing or the Stim Sim that's what it's called Because it's also a thing that replicates Like neural activity so it's the whole experience This is embarrassing what you're thinking of is the Simpsons Emily That's a simpson from Gibson Right yeah right So family second

[00:35:59] Yellow people That is the tech Bart is a bad boy They do a really good job explaining Like there's like a scene that I feel like could easily feel clunky where they explain He explains the technology when he has the client

[00:36:15] It's like the lawyer or something like the very preppy dude And like they get everything out of the way They're like this was military technology That got put on the black market It's always military just like inception where they're like a military designer Like a military designer

[00:36:31] Don't worry about it anyway here's the squid thing No carry on carry on But I mean it's like a really good economic scene And you also get to see like a first time or not somebody like Lenny who's like Who knows this technology inside it out

[00:36:43] You get to see it first time or basically us experience it for the first time Which is great The thing I love about it is that scene comes like 15-20 minutes into the movie They've already shown us a couple of the videos

[00:36:53] They've shown people filming the things going through the actions She's doing a lot of showing not telling So you already think you kind of got it and then she's got this one scene where she just like connects all the dots and make sure you totally have it

[00:37:04] But the opening of this movie should talk about is like fucking unbelievable Go ahead Well there's what appears to be one continuous shot of a guy being chased by cops That lasts like four and a half minutes And it's from the dude's POV

[00:37:17] The way they shot these things was it was fucking hard It's 1995 Like it's hard to get a handheld camera to behave that way By all accounts that was most of the budget was that those sequences were really really complicated

[00:37:30] And they had to do some camera and ask pushing technology beyond where it had been It was a stripped down Arri that weighed much less than the smallest Amo I don't know camera stuff Arri lens, I believe they're talking about this

[00:37:44] And yet it would take all the prime lenses I love hearing all this camera sharing I mean why wouldn't I There were camcorders then though I think the quality would look so bad It looks a little bad But it looks pretty seamless I guess it's more dimensional

[00:38:01] And no one was using digital video at that point Like the only way you were going to do that is if there was a scene with someone's home movie And it was supposed to look bad And even then you were transferring the home movie onto a TV screen

[00:38:12] And then shooting that in 35mm It's so wild how much more stuff we figured out since 1985 It's true, because I think even when I'm thinking about camcorders back then I think it would just be too shaky if anyone moved There maybe was a little bit of that technology

[00:38:28] But do you remember when Michael Mann started shooting a digital video And everyone was like this looks fucking awful Like this doesn't look like a real movie Or you watched Spike Lee's Bamboozled And you're like wow this movie looks insane It immediately made a movie look low rent

[00:38:43] Everyone had this very literal sense of how a movie was supposed to look Which was tied to film But it was very hard The opening sequence which features the long jump He jumps between buildings Which was done without a safety harness

[00:38:59] And by a stunt performer was really really really hard Apparently according to what I'm reading It's really effective and visceral And the greatest thing about it is they make it look very seamless and easy Yeah, was it actually one long take? That's a good question

[00:39:15] There are no cheats in there It probably is isn't it? I don't remember I'd have to write, I don't know Have you guys like took a long time to coordinate? At this point in this podcast Which I already admitted I haven't listened to any of yet

[00:39:31] There's only been two episodes But have you guys dealt into the question of like why Catherine Bigelow is so hardcore? Like what is it that motivates her hardcoreness Because she is the most hardcore Like for better and for worse

[00:39:44] And this movie I feel like is a prime example of that She's like the most hardcore and doesn't quit She likes to push genre and medium into new directions I don't know, it's hard to get into She is a semi-autistic who went to Whitney Art School

[00:40:02] Like the Whitney Institute And was very interested in male violence From an early point in her career Like we don't have like the backstory on her That fills in the gaps and helps us understand I don't know if there's an easy line to draw

[00:40:18] She doesn't do as many interviews She's certainly the least public director of all the people we've covered so far Who all have larger personalities And I've been reading some of her interviews But she's very straightforward about how she makes things She's very cagey about her motivation

[00:40:36] Or whatever, she's just sort of like I don't know, the movie is the movie It's a lot of that sort of stuff Well it's just the polar opposite I think of now Especially young directors or new directors who are showing up Women directors Well especially female directors

[00:40:51] You're expected to have a thing of some political motivation That you choose the topics that you do Sure Growing up I was watching these movies and wondering X Or I was watching these movies and inspired by Y Karyon, sorry

[00:41:08] No but it's just like I didn't know if you guys had any insight on that Because this opening scene is such a like This scene is fucking hardcore Well I know you go crazy when I try to assign too much autobiographical baggage To movies by directors I do

[00:41:25] Well put But Blue Steel really does kind of feel like the air text to me Well Blue Steel is a great movie Right, but that movie, have you seen Blue Steel? No I think you would get a kick out of that movie

[00:41:37] It rules, but the whole movie is Jamie Lee Curse as this cop Who everyone's like you're really pretty Why do you need to be a cop? And she's just like this is what I want to do I want to bash people's head through

[00:41:48] There's a great scene where a guy is sort of like at a picnic Is trying to kind of pick her up Like trying to nag her a little bit where he says that And she says I like to bash people's head against a wall

[00:41:58] And his face just kind of falls And she just sort of smiles at him and like pats him on the head But A, the character has this like hardcore sense of morality She grew up seeing a lot of injustice around her And she wants to correct that

[00:42:09] Which you know, Catherine Bigelow is very clearly a very politically socially You know, activated person Sociopolitically rather than politically socially But also I think she's just innately a hardcore person Like as much as we want to find out that she fell into a radioactive vat of hardcore people

[00:42:29] Hardcore people? Yeah, my joke is that every Batman villain fell into a vat of radioactive Whatever they are Yeah, so she fell into a radioactive vat of X gamers or whatever She came out and she was like we're gonna strap a camera to this person

[00:42:49] But I mean like the Hurt Locker is a crazy hardcore movie We'll get to that where she's like put on that suit Jeremy It's 130 degrees right now Right now, like you know And she wants him to be sweating his ass off

[00:43:05] But even like the fact that she was actually doing like cleanup efforts after the LA riots I think speaks a lot about her because I don't think a lot of people who were directing studio movies At that point in time were going and doing right

[00:43:19] And like as far as I can tell it wasn't like it was for research or something Or like as part of a project it was just something that she cared about Which is just I don't know

[00:43:27] I think I mean it's also just generally hardcore to make this movie after point break Like after point break you could really jump into Hollywood's a list And there's no way she's making this movie and thinking like no I think this is gonna play

[00:43:42] Like this is definitely gonna be a broad hit I don't know I mean It should be We could get into it more later I just want to say two things before we like fully delve into it

[00:43:54] I think the point you're making is correct which is that like the easy thing for her to do after point break would have been To direct the next big blockbuster by any of the A list action stars at the time

[00:44:06] Like you imagine she could have directed the next Bruce Willis movie the next Schwarzenegger movie They said like welcome to the majors here you go Right and instead she makes like her real blank check movie And she cast Ray Fiennes as the lead

[00:44:18] No okay also I'll say that Ray Fiennes is probably the reason that this doesn't make sense Because I think if you did have a Bruce Willis in that role then this would have been a bigger

[00:44:27] Quite possible you could have gone a little more ordinary with your leading man commercially a very odd choice especially since and I love this poster But what a poster or it's just his face and then it says you know you want it

[00:44:41] And you're like you know you want what strange days Nancy from Schindler's list and now he's got a beard I do like the three the three up what the one of him and yes

[00:44:54] And Julia Lewis giving us a grody stare. Yeah, can I make my second point before we fully did into it Just because I'm a connoisseur context right and I think the table needs to be set properly Strange days strange days

[00:45:08] Okay, so we start with this opening sequence of the guy being chased by the terrific and then yes And then we realize this is replaced directly into it and a home comes with recording Because he dies at the end

[00:45:20] And Lenny's not into that he's like I don't like snuff We learn that our main character has principles And also it's like and I love that though. It's like he's got principles

[00:45:30] But I mean the second you see this guy you're like oh this guy has maybe a few principles But he's also like he's a squid dealer breeze also like kind of like a squid studio executive Like audiences don't like this when you do that

[00:45:43] Well, he needs good product. He's like a drug dealer. So he's a connoisseur of the product I guess not getting high on his own supply. He has his own yeah, or I don't know

[00:45:53] Not on what he sells people but on his own personal it's like you were saying about the future of reality TV that maybe will come Maybe won't where it's like there is something necessarily exploitative about these videos They have to involve people

[00:46:07] Yeah, and that's what he says too is just like you know that there's not a market for I think later on He's talking to somebody like you're not gonna like watch a video of somebody skiing You can ski yourself You could never do

[00:46:23] And you see one example of this technology used in a benign way which is the guy who has no legs getting a squid video of a guy walking down the beach

[00:46:31] Like that's pretty much the only time I think we see it used for what we could argue is like good Shits of avatar Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, but there's like altruism to that but apart from that it's like sex and violence

[00:46:44] But he does have his life like he views the snuff squid dealers derisively That's not what he stands for Yeah So at the same time as Lenny Nero is being a squid man Great name Lenny Nero Lenny Nero is a terrific name Perfectly it's so great

[00:47:07] You've got this procedure called Iris who's on the run from these LA cops played by Vincent DeNofrio and William Fickner A really good deal It's how you know that they're gonna be really nice guys Really good people Oh, they're LA cops? Well, who's playing them?

[00:47:25] I'm not sure how I feel about this Oh, Vinny and Billy? Oh, they'll be fine Those are two stand-up gents Emotionally balanced and a man Their faces don't look like cinder blocks I owe it, I need to look at this Wait, William Finchner is that his name?

[00:47:43] Yeah, I never quite know how you say his name because it's sort of a funny name I love that actor so much No, yeah, he's like so recognizable as he's like a classic guy This is basically his debut

[00:47:54] He's in a bunch of movies this year because he's in Heat which he's a lot of fun in He's in Virtuosity which is a classic mid 90s sci-fi movie that is bad But in kind of a fun way

[00:48:04] But was successful, it was kind of an interesting counterpoint to this movie It wasn't that successful Have you guys looked at his, because I looked this up when I was earlier His biography on IMDb Oh, I love overwritten IMDb biographies I'm just gonna read you the first line

[00:48:22] Please do A small town guy with a big heart William Finchner has been captivating the hearts of western New Yorkers for decades Only western New Yorkers? I don't know, I mean he's from Long Island but still Come on William, we all love you

[00:48:38] It's not like that's an old bio from his theater days or something This includes credits up to the dark night Like this is not an old bio apparently He's also from Buffalo I guess he was born on Long Island, grew up in Buffalo Like his family and friends

[00:48:55] You cannot use heart twice in one sentence like that That does not work Here are his three trademarks on IMDb Often portrays antagonistic characters Sure, looks like a guard dog Deeply gravelly commanding voice He's got a great voice Attached earlobes Those are his three qualities

[00:49:18] Cause he's got, you know that thing where the earlobes just sort of flow right into the face Right, he can't wiggle It's a recessive, it's a recessive gene Maybe there's a nice kind of humility to that bio because he's saying like

[00:49:30] Look, yes I've been working my way into the hearts of western New Yorkers The people I actually know I'm not egotistical enough to assume that audiences love me Billy is for western New Yorkers, everything else is gravy But that's the meat

[00:49:44] Look they might enjoy my work but they're not in love with me in the same way My family is, my friends are He's also just that kind of actor who has nine projects in production right now And he's a big fan of the M.D.B.

[00:49:55] Like he just works I mean that guy is just in a lot of stuff He's the guy who does like a guest spot on a TV show during his lunch break Of filming a day player role in a movie Exactly

[00:50:06] So Fickner's in it, we're like totally hyping up Fickner Who's in, you know, five minutes from the movie He runs and holds a gun in this movie I mean he does kill himself gruesomely on screen right at the end I guess they like Yeah, spoilers

[00:50:20] We're gonna get there Iris is being chased It's a Union Station metro Yes, they shot on the metro which I think was quite complicated too And yeah, and they pull her wig off and it turns out she's got a headset

[00:50:32] God damn it, one of these fucking kids causing this problem And then if you're watching this in 2017 You're like, oh it's about body cams too That's the thing Now there is a hopeful note to this movie which is interesting

[00:50:45] But I think that's something that Bigelow is thinking coming out of the L.A. Riots Is like capturing these images is vital And obviously the Rodney King beating is captured on a camera And that's why it's exposed and like right?

[00:51:02] Also speaks to Bigelow's whole thing which is like I'm not gonna give you lessons, I'm not making grand statements I'm trying to represent the way things are This thing we talk about that works in our favor when it really works And works against her when it doesn't work

[00:51:17] But it's just like these images need to exist And these things need to be told These things need to be communicated and then how you respond to it is up to you Right, well that's what I like about it

[00:51:28] Like the squid technology is kind of creepy and kind of She's not like presenting it as like some savior of the future But at the same time she's like Look at this like defining feature of this horrible future I've created Right, but she's saying like there is

[00:51:41] Like the camera is itself is unemotional Yes But what I love about the squid is that it is so emotional Like because you're feeling it as Ben pointed out And then later during the most harrowing scene in the movie

[00:51:54] The whole point is that this guy is using it to sort of Like transfer his emotions onto her But it's an art form if you can call it that That exists without any sense of like editorialization Like it's just experiential And then your emotions, you know

[00:52:11] Look man this is obviously what she's fascinated by In movies like Detroit I don't know Go please go ahead Well I just feel like this is more of a complete sentence than Detroit Yes it is I mean it just yes

[00:52:26] I'll say watching this and I had never seen it before I was like why would she want to make Detroit? Sure Like what is there of intrigue to her in making Detroit I think it was more of intrigue to Mark Bowle

[00:52:37] And he sold her on it because he's the generator of those movies But it feels like a very literal version Of much of what she's getting at in this movie But also on a much smaller scale With a lot less to say

[00:52:50] Right focusing on one very specific incident We're going to talk about Detroit We'll talk about it We keep on every episode slipping in one negative opinion of Detroit That's been like a runner throughout the season Just because it's frustrating because it just fucking came out

[00:53:03] We're talking about her all the time It's not like having Dunkirk to look forward to doing During Nolan And I like Catherine Bigelow in general more than I like Nolan But Dunkirk is such an exciting thing to get back to

[00:53:14] We committed to doing Nolan and Bigelow back to back And we were like man they each have a big movie coming out this summer And at the time it seemed I would have maybe bet a little more money On Detroit working artistically over Dunkirk

[00:53:27] I would not have but no A little more Detroit had red flags right from the start I would say But I was just trusting I liked her last few movies And I was certainly like hey you know Catherine Bigelow is a serious director

[00:53:41] And I want to see what she makes She was on a good run Strange days I'm sorry I keep saying it No thank you for the correction It's worth correcting Strange Doss DOS Ray finds We also get

[00:54:01] We get early on because he's not a guy who loves squitting himself You know it's his job He watches his disambles quite But he is watching these videos of Julia Lewis And he's like He's reliving his relationship He's reliving their nicer days Right It's really just one video

[00:54:18] Nice or Doss but yeah Can we talk about Julia Lewis' outfit? Can we talk about all her outfits? I mean but this one is Also sometimes her lack of outfit Yeah well But the fishnet you mean like No this is the roller skating one Where she's wearing

[00:54:36] I wrote it down because I did You know I kind of watched it cursorily Like a long sleeve Maybe like a Henley type shirt Or something without a bra obviously Right that goes sort of to A little bit above her belly button But it's like a long

[00:54:52] Underwear shirt or something It's a shirt where the sleeves End right above the elbow For some reason Right over the elbow And then she's wearing a very Not a thong but like a very High cut shirt Bikini bottom Leg warmers Well onto the thigh

[00:55:14] You know like halfway up the thigh This outfit Griffin if you don't Yeah no I remember And not only that they are in Public they're like a Venice beach Or whatever right She also like now This should be the new like substitute Instead of Kris Jenner

[00:55:32] Cause you know like the meme now Is like you're doing great sweetheart You're doing amazing sweetie That's all she's saying in the scene Like while she's throw a skating around in her bikini It's so weird Wild stuff But also you have these like two extended scenes

[00:55:49] You sing wild Strange You have two extended scenes where she just like Very casually takes off her clothes And remains undressed for a period of time That just becomes very banal She's often either nude or semi-nude In a weird kind of way

[00:56:06] Where it's like even when you're watching His squid video and it's obviously Of his that is sexual The way she's depicted is very non-sexual Because it's just like someone casually Being in their own home Living with your girlfriend or whatever And then the same thing when she's changing

[00:56:22] Right When she's changing backstage after the concert It's just like yeah it's like it's a dressing room This is just kind of what happens So she they used to date Now she's dating Philo Gant Gross record producer Played by Michael Wincott And by Nopana

[00:56:42] Who I think of mostly as the villain in the crow Oh right Where he has one of my favorite villain names of all time Top dollar Which is the crow is like if strange days was less restrained That movie is hysterical I love that movie

[00:56:59] I've never seen the crow One of those movies where every second My critical brain is like this is bad Bad, bad David Bad, bad, bad That's pretty great That movie is amazing It's a lot of movie When are we introduced to Philo Gant?

[00:57:17] We don't know that she's dating him till later All we know is like Right because Philo Gant's already We're already seeing him on screen Oh right because he's the manager of Jericho One He's the manager of Jericho One Played by Glenn Plummer

[00:57:32] Who's another actor where I'm like just like Camera zoom like crashing in my face And it's like I'm in 1995 Glenn Plummer in a movie Because Glenn Plummer, I mean he's in Menacea Society He's in Speed which I love him in

[00:57:45] He's in Show Girls which is kind of where the wheels come off the bus for him Sure, the speed bus Yeah He's weirdly one of the only people who recurs And is in Speed 2 Oh Because he's the Jaguar owner in Speed Who Keanu hijacks and then

[00:58:03] And he's in the car with them And he's like if you get a scratch on this car For some reason he's also in Speed 2 Which is weird because Keanu Reeves is not anyway Right, right, right His relationship is no longer in the movie I know

[00:58:17] Anyway so we're seeing on video only We're hearing about Jericho One Yeah it's on the news or something Who is a rapper slash activist Yeah It was kind of a two-pack analog In terms of His cultural cache But also what he represented politically And all of that

[00:58:38] Right and two-pack is not killed until after this movie comes out This movie is sort of eerily And not to say that two-pack was assassinated by the police Although I'm sure But there was definitely that narrative That was out there

[00:58:53] And he was certainly paranoid about that kind of thing Understandably Yeah So I guess so I think we're hearing about Philo Via that Right It's kind of a thing that everyone She says Philo And then other people say Philo There's so many movies where it's like

[00:59:13] The cast has not just been like briefed on how to pronounce somebody's name Right, right It's like kind of a pet peeve of mine I can't think of any off the top of my head But you're right And especially in like a sci-fi movie

[00:59:25] Where maybe a name is kind of made up Like let's all agree on what this name is I've had things like that where sometimes it's like really fucking hard When they don't give a fuck When they don't give you the advanced note

[00:59:34] So you're like working on your scenes And you like prep in your head And you think you know what the reading is And then you get to set and they're like Oh everyone's been saying it this way You practice at that time

[00:59:46] And then the take where you say it the wrong time You regress back to the way you practice it Is the best one performance wise There's a weird thing in the tick Where like it's mostly in the remaining six episodes That haven't been released yet

[00:59:58] That we have shot For people who keep asking What are they doing The rest of season one This season at least But there's a fictional country And a fictional language that becomes a bigger part Of the second half of the season And they cast like three different actors

[01:00:16] Who had to play people from that country And so the first actor kind of got to cast The die in terms of like his interpretation Of what it sounded like And then the second actor comes to set And it's like two episodes later

[01:00:28] And she's playing someone from the same country And you go like Like the first guy Or do you go like while they're regional accents Within a country And also every person has their own voice Like it gets into weird stuff

[01:00:42] Anyway in this movie they all say his name differently Thanks for that I know it's a thing I've been thinking about a lot So Lenny's got two best friends Just like anyone else His two best friends are Hashtag the two from Right, his former LAPD partner

[01:00:59] Who's now a PI and has a giant blonde wig And kind of looks like Brett Michaels That friend we all have We all have a guy like that in our crew Right, and then his other pal Is Mace Who is a limo driver

[01:01:12] Who's like the best dressed most amazing woman On the planet And you're kind of like Why is she a limo driver Which is never explained But she's like also kind of a bodyguard Because her limo is bulletproof Her limo is an awesome bulletproof limo But I'm like

[01:01:30] It's just her limo And she just does awesome limo shirt Well if you're a person who needs a bulletproof limo You go to her And it probably costs more than a regular limo So she's probably able to generate quite a bit of business from that

[01:01:42] The word that comes to mind whenever I see Angela Bass in a movie Both in terms of like her acting But also the character she's playing Regardless of the film is impressive Like anyone Angela Bass plays becomes An impressive person We're like wow, that person

[01:01:57] I love how she's styled like I love her outfits And she's got all these blazers and stuff Oh my god Just badass blazers I love her in this movie Her backstory is that she Like he was nice to her when she was a cop

[01:02:10] When he was a cop It goes beyond that Wait, no, she wasn't a cop though When he was a cop He was nice to her Her husband was abusing her or something Yeah, I think it's her boyfriend Who's like rested on drug charges Or something It's a little

[01:02:30] It's just a really brief flashback But it's like there to inform He's like a shithead And she has a very short fuse with him But then we see that flashback And understand why they hang out He was like their bondage Sure, but right

[01:02:46] Because so much of their relationship She's like I don't approve of you being a squid dealer Well if you don't I mean like then why you hang out Is he's a squid dealer That seems to be 80% of his life He's a soft-doss

[01:03:00] So now she's there for him during his strange doss Can I You can see my face right now Unhappy is how I described it Maybe offer a Maybe not I don't know a university grade upon Assessment of this Which is just that like

[01:03:18] I didn't really pick up on the fact that she was in love with him Until maybe the end of the film I don't actually disagree Certainly she's not hitting that hard Because she's such a badass She would not fake that Aside from the performance

[01:03:33] Just the facts of the relationship She's so much higher status than him Well right and like I love that in the first hour of this movie Which like nothing really happens For the first hour of the movie Things are happening but there's no plot for us to follow

[01:03:46] Two times he presents a fake Rolex As collateral to different people Who he is trying to like keep on the line He's so sweaty He's like running away No, no it's all fine Everything's gonna work out Yeah he's on his last poker chip

[01:04:05] However you want to put it But there's some point early on in the first hour I think where he says like Well you're in love with me Or something like that But you almost interpreted it as just like a fuck you And it's kind of him again

[01:04:19] With his inflated opinion of himself It takes a while to be like Oh literally she is in love with you And that like great bit that we all love When he points a gun at Lenny Oh it's so funny It's so funny and cool

[01:04:32] And screws up Lenny's drug deal And then he's like I'm so funny I'm just fucking with you Five comedy points to me Which again if you're gonna be friends with Tom Seismore Yeah that's probably what you have to put up with Right

[01:04:46] Where he points real guns at your head And he's like I'm the cops I do think it is interesting though That like the love triangle aspect The nucleus of Cameron's entire idea for this movie Kind of just becomes a thing

[01:04:59] Like she's so much more invested in the world That she's built Yeah it feels much more like when she's frustrated with him And when she's like frustrated with him still pining For Juliette Lewis It feels more like she just wants him to be a better person

[01:05:14] Than the fact that she's in love with him And upset that he's still in love with this other woman Which is like far more compelling to me Than if she just like wants to give him a smooch We also like

[01:05:24] We talked about this in the blue steel episode But I always like bemoan the lack of movies About just like a man and a woman who are friends And work together And it never crosses a line

[01:05:35] And I'm not like saying I never want people to end up together But I always feel that pang of disappointment Where like I make it through the first hour of a movie And it's like oh they're just peers They're just peers

[01:05:45] And then when they kiss I'm just like okay fine Fine but it would be nice if you just picked a male family for me Well I like when they kiss I like when they kiss My mother in law is always like Look if I want him to kiss

[01:05:56] I will shout kiss at the screen Which I do Which I literally actually do at home Which people who have watched movies with me at home can totally Also do that to all of your friends You have a better reputation

[01:06:09] I do yeah I tell them to make out When people have crushes on people Kiss kiss kiss He waves his arms around David does his muppet arms move He feels like this It sounds like Griff is like doing a bit I'm not

[01:06:24] That's that is a bit what I'm like That is always my dating advice too And like obviously it's often bad advice Oh yeah I think it's generally good advice But like sometimes the person's like Oh the person you think you know Like it didn't work out

[01:06:38] Like he doesn't like me and I'm like Oh well yeah it'll be okay And then you wave your arms to your partner No I feel like you get frustrated with crushes Yeah I'm not a big fan of long crushes I'm not a big fan of crushes

[01:06:50] And at our age I agree Right I'm like Which is what you hate me Cause I always am like crush and you're like kiss Yeah he's doing the arms again Crush or kiss You're right I am a little intolerant of crushes That's a good point

[01:07:07] I like romance and chemistry And people being cute But sometimes when a crush goes too far I'm like now it's just a complex You know now you can't break out of crush Yeah it's its own thing And like everything must be over analyzed

[01:07:21] And it sort of becomes like a sort of organism Which is why we're friends because I'm the exact Yeah you are You like crushes as long as they have a certain narrative propulsiveness Right but as I was saying and I think as Emily was saying

[01:07:34] In a movie when there's a moment when I think characters might kiss And I feel chemistry between them Obviously if you don't feel chemistry between them It's a bit of a bummer But like when you do it I'm just like yeah kiss kiss

[01:07:44] And when they kiss in this movie I think it's earned Yeah no 100% it's super earned I think she wants That's what I'm saying I didn't really pick up on that I don't think she's tacking it on

[01:07:55] And also I mean happened to see him end up with Bassett rather than Lewis Like that's what she's after he should do with They're gonna be good for each other And that's what you want out of that

[01:08:05] And we've got a lot of history it's not like a little fling They really know each other But one yeah yeah yeah for all true all true But another thing is Fuck oh yeah well you're saying in the first hour you're not picking up on it

[01:08:18] But the first hour is overloaded with sensory information You got like Skunk and Nancy and other great flash in the pan 90s bands Ben do you have any opinion on Skunk and Nancy I was a huge Skunk and Nancy fan when I was a kid

[01:08:33] Wait okay fine but we need to like Contact this with my favorite detail My favorite thing in the movie besides like the squid Technology itself Because they Mace and Lenny take one of her clients Or like pick up one of her clients

[01:08:51] Right and take him to a club I think that's in the valley Yes called retinal fetish I forgot about the name Which is the best name for this kind of club And I love this kind of club in movies in general Another hot That's actually my vaporwave name

[01:09:12] Retinal fetish It's a great vaporwave name Isn't retinal fetish just around the corner from Technoir I think they're on the same block Yeah I mean like I would love to make a list of I think after I saw this I was tweeting about it

[01:09:28] And I was like you know there are two kinds of Like futuristic clubs or like places where people are dancing In like this kind of movie Any kind of cyberpunk movie And there are cave raves like in Matrix And then there are cage raves

[01:09:41] And this is a cage rave This is a cage rave good point Yeah cave rave in the matrix is a great rave That I stick out for A series about a cave rave A never ending cave rave With those are south of butt

[01:09:55] Another good cage rave is in The Hunger That's an A plus We keep bringing up this movie on this podcast Really? We did it during New Year's Dark I was trying to think of like sort of vampire movies With like a bit of a genre twist

[01:10:10] And then we mentioned it during Blue Steel Saying that her style was kind of adjacent to Tony Scott Their visual sensibilities at this point in time Yes The hunger I gotta watch The Hunger Oh my god you gotta watch The Hunger That's a Tony Scott weird movie

[01:10:24] Yeah anyway I love this club I love everything about it I wanna go to retinal fetish I wanna take a Japanese businessman To retinal fetish They're building a strange days extension onto Disney World Right? That was part of Cameron's deal I just wanna read you some stuff here

[01:10:43] It's just called Los Angeles Cameron's deal was they had to spend $2 billion on Avatar land And $20 million on Strange Days land I'd go My god I would not go So Skunk and Nancy Ben Did you like Skunk and Nancy? I've never heard of them

[01:10:59] Oh my god am I the only person who's heard of Skunk and Nancy They were a British band so maybe that's why Why would you know about a British band? They were nobody's when they were in this movie Like they were just getting started

[01:11:11] But they were a big deal in the late 90s in Britain Their lead Like a leading woman was this Woman called Skin That is That's amazing It's this sort of like spindly bald lady Who has this like really intense voice Their second album which I love

[01:11:34] Is called Stoosh I'm just injecting 90s right into your veins Oh my god And their third album is called Post-Orgasmic Chill Geez Anyway so just to give you an idea Also Tricky does some stage performing Yeah I was gonna say the soundtrack on here Soundtrack is wild

[01:11:54] I keep saying wild Stop it David Deep forest I'm just gonna say the name Between takes because Bigelow just wanted to get as much footage And wanted the rave to feel like a real rave And a soundtrack album was released In addition 60,000 promotional CD ROMs

[01:12:13] Which contain clips music All kinds of stuff Was made available through the college special issue Of Rolling Stone Sold only at record stores Media Is this one of the first big like Post-Internet Dangerous of Technology movie Cause I feel like they're like dangerous

[01:12:32] Of technology is like a thing But they would often be like it's robotics It's AI, it's what have you Well the same year we have the net Which at the time was derided as a hilarious Sort of work of alarmism And now feels like basically just like

[01:12:46] A pression piece Of storytelling about the modern age Hackers has come out already by this point Hackers is 95 Same year For tech movie And my favorite movie In this genre Johnny Mimonic Also 95 So yeah It's the time Emily what do you got to say

[01:13:10] Oh I was going to also mention The other rave scene But we should wait till we get there Cause that one is real special Good facts about that one too Well keep me on plot check Cause it's very hard to remember

[01:13:24] A lot of things, there's a lot of balls up in the air That's right, he has the confrontation with Faith who was Juliette Lewis And she performs there too So it starts with them and then she has to do her performance

[01:13:35] And everything and then Lenny is like all upset about it Or something but he's there What are they doing at the club He rides with Mace And that's the only reason he wants to go to the club Is just to see her Cause he's hung up on her

[01:13:50] Mace is kind of like jeez You really gotta get over this But it's somehow He gets a disc from a contact He gets a disc left in his car Well that as well Oh wait, no that's the other one Iris drops a disc in his car

[01:14:06] But his car gets towed And Lenny tries to be like hey take a Rolex But he just steals the car So that disc is in the wind right now And he gets another disc At the night club So maybe that's also why he's going there

[01:14:20] Cause he's picking up a new piece of product And this disc is a horrifying scene Where like a, it's Iris is being raped and murdered And like squid recording it Like you know like we said There's this weird emotional transfer And there's an angle to it

[01:14:38] The rapist has put the squid on her That hooks her up to what he is seeing So that she's effectively watching her own assault And he's watching her like emotions Which he's getting a thrill out of it It's so fucked up It is such a fucked up idea

[01:14:54] I mean it's a fucked up idea Bigelow is obviously putting a lot of care Into depicting this like with as much sort of like Naked horror as possible It is horrifying It is really intense And that's what I'm saying when I'm saying Like she's not making this movie

[01:15:12] And thinking like this will be a blockbuster And you know like cause like that scene is She's just not holding back at all Like I don't know how else you could do This is a very angry movie And it's probably a point where

[01:15:24] There was a more straightforward version of this concept That she probably was hoping was a blockbuster Then she felt very riled up about the state of the world And started infusing all of that into it And then I think that became her priority

[01:15:36] I think at a certain point she was just like I have all this shit I need to say There's a lot going on Yeah and this is the part that Rebbed the critics in the wrong way Because I think a lot of people thought

[01:15:48] It was just purely exploitative Without really going anywhere With it or that I was just You know like dark and disturbing But you know didn't I guess pick up On more of what she was trying to do With this idea of like voyeurism And the horror of being

[01:16:06] Of just rape culture in general And the fact that like every you know There is that latent part of all of it Like why people are fascinated with stories About women getting attacked Yeah it feels like that's such a part Of what this is about that specific crime

[01:16:25] And not another one Although there's like another murder also But like it feels like that's so Why this movie exists I do find it fascinating that people were upset And felt like it was exploitative Because as you said it's such a popular

[01:16:41] Like storytelling trope which is so annoying And so gross that people use sexual assault As like a plot catalyst Or a motivator for someone else to get revenge You know or like this inarguable, horrible event But it's usually dealt with in a way

[01:16:54] Where you don't really have to engage With the crime itself And this movie is like the whole point it's making Is like you can't back away from this Like you have to acknowledge the shit's going on And then people said you shouldn't have shown this

[01:17:06] Right yeah and I mean it's sort of like I mean I think the side of this It doesn't work as like again like coming back to Detroit Like which is also just upsetting And visceral in a way that I think went too far For a lot of people

[01:17:19] Yeah But I and then the criticism around that is Very much the same it's like what you're just representing it Like and you're making you're making For a very unpleasant viewing experience Right yes why are you making us live through something We all agree is bad

[01:17:34] But I do think that those are such differently politicized Like acts of violence And the fact and I think that you see Like you see close up racial violence Much more in film Than you do like a rape scene Or like you see one that actually grapples with

[01:17:53] I was going to say you don't see a lot of rape scenes That are shot like this No I don't think that there are any other rape scenes That are shot like this Yeah no I mean like you know when I was leaving

[01:18:04] The screening of this at MoMA Like there's like an older couple leaving That was a nasty piece of work About the smell and it is it totally is I mean it's grubby But I feel like it's grubby with a purpose I do too

[01:18:17] But also like Detroit is like if this sequence lasted for The central 80 minutes of the movie If that was the only thing that was going on And this like the entire point is that the movie Is forcing a man to watch and grapple with what's happening

[01:18:32] And not letting him get away from it She's cross cutting with rape funds In the limo freaking out at the site of this And kind of narrating for us Like what these sort of the point of the Squid transference is

[01:18:45] Also I feel one part of this I thought was fascinating It was frustrating to watch And then I was like I know why though Like why she did this is like just take it off Take it off

[01:18:57] Like if you start to realize that you're watching a stuff film You turn that shit off I've never been in that situation before But I would imagine You may not but like on Twitter When some fucking news breaks And suddenly your video starts auto loading in your feed

[01:19:11] And for a second you don't realize what's going on And then you do and you go like At least I have always just been like Oh no, no, no, no But that's an experience we're now being confronted with Like that guy who shot those two news people

[01:19:24] You know and filmed it and posted it right to Facebook Or Twitter or whatever That's what's going anyways but sorry finish your point But yeah no but like he keeps watching And I think that that's an important character detail About him

[01:19:37] Like I think that that is what she's condemning also Is the fact that he keeps watching One because it's like his line of work But also because he's a man And I'm not sure that he's living in And I think that that's like very, I don't know

[01:19:49] I think that that is subtle and also infuriated I agree And then I do actually also think it's interesting That we then see Seismore not watching it right after And he has this more like canned line where he's like Well I don't want to eat lunch today

[01:20:05] Or you know and of course spoiler alert Tom Seismore is the rapist in the video I didn't pick up on that You know I know obviously he's very bad But I was still surprised by that It's a good reveal That video is very well shot

[01:20:21] The first one that like the moment where you see him Pulling the mask over yeah yeah yeah But I immediately as soon as it's revealed I remembered his reaction to that Because it stuck in my memory It's like that's a callous thing that an asshole would say

[01:20:34] Right yeah yeah it's a little canned That moment when it zooms in on her eye And you see the reflection of this mask Like Jesus Christ is that upsetting Yeah it's really really bad So they have this piece of evidence They just got to move us along

[01:20:49] And so Iris is They get to the hotel but Iris is already dead Right we see her being taken away So he takes it to Tick Richard Edson My friend I swear to God like the same characters In Minority Report which is another movie about

[01:21:06] That involves POV you know This is the one person that I've met And I'm like I'm like I'm like this is the one movie That I think contains too much paprika He's definitely got to take And I like Richard Edson I think he's a fun character actor

[01:21:22] I think he's in a different movie than everyone else That's fine I mean I'm not going to argue with you He's not in it much so it doesn't really matter He's really big Well he's in the very beginning So you start with him and I was like

[01:21:37] Okay so is this the tone of the movie Is everyone doing this kind of like He's getting away from And then it comes back and it's like Oh right now this fits even less But so they go to Tick Ticks like well Iris was looking for you

[01:21:51] So they go to the car in the impound lot To retrieve her disc which she dropped in there And then there's this sort of like fiery shoot out With Denofrio and Fickner Who tried to take down the limo But Angela Bassett's got one over on them

[01:22:03] Driving into the water Damn right We should mention at this point That's kind of like what this movie has The ending We should mention that Originally the budget was presumed to be Like 30 million was estimated That ended up going $15 million over budget Those extra $15 million were

[01:22:23] Catherine Bigelow invested Film funds into Mini discs She was trying to make mini discs Did anyone else own a mini disc player Because I had one No I knew people who had them I spent a lot of time recording Off the radio Transferring my CDs

[01:22:43] Like I really was like No this is gonna work It's gonna be good That was like a summer Yeah pretty much And you know obviously it was good Because I used to walk to school Listening to my disc man And obviously if you just sort of

[01:23:01] You know landed on your foot a little hard You know the CD would skip And with a mini disc it didn't happen And I was like oh I'll I'll give it to you But you really had to like throw those things To make them skip

[01:23:15] Did music get released on it? Yes I owned OK Computer on mini discs Oh my God Do you still have that Somewhere a problem If I ever found it I'll give it to you Guys we're watching a live Squid trade right But yeah no usually obviously

[01:23:33] No you just bought the blank mini discs And like transferred your CDs over to them Right And then I bought my OK Computer on mini disc It has like a label on it That's so cool Isn't it not to go all like Only 90 kids will get this

[01:23:49] But like isn't it weird to think That you used to have to like in the morning Pick out like okay what are the only 12 songs that you can be able to listen to today I'm gonna bring like two CDs with me today Or whatever

[01:24:01] And sometimes I'd like go to sleep And be like remember in the morning To switch out appetite for destruction With use your illusion too Emily do you have anything Unless you want to carry a CD wallet With you in your backpack Sure so you can flip on

[01:24:18] I don't have anything I wanted to add I wanted to make sure that I had the plot right That was all Thanks for talking about mini discs For a while so I could read it It's just they finally After all this action They watch Iris' discs

[01:24:34] Which is this political murder Essentially by the cops So like so Iris Was wearing She I guess she was just making She was just making a tape Or making a disc for Lenny To sell to Lenny The experience being what if you were

[01:24:51] Like one of Jericho ones entourage Or like a girl who like Was gonna fuck him or something And like hanging out and partying Apparently Yes right That is the only reason she was doing it As far as I can remember How are you gonna spend your gems

[01:25:09] I mean so it's unclear whether or not Anybody else there knew that she was recording it So you see like They're getting in the car They're gonna drive to the club or whatever And then they get pulled over By our two favorite cops And it escalates quickly

[01:25:27] And Jericho is killed And that's And so when we see Iris later Running away freaking out She's running away The squid thing they realized she was filming it So that's all true And It's all true But I mean again this is like the part that I was

[01:25:48] When I was watching it You know a few months ago How did we have this movie this whole time Right it's true 1995 guys It's so prescient on so many different counts And this feels like the most immediately Like just hit yourself over the head Like holy shit

[01:26:05] Like this is like It's so it still feels As current as ever as anyone would say But also it like deals with the situation Like deals with this idea in like Yes in sci-fi terms But I think in like a more hands on way

[01:26:19] Than anything I've seen recently And it's barely sci-fi I mean that's sort of another appealing thing about this movie It is very specifically set four years in the future She's not trying to depict a future world She's just like Taking right now

[01:26:33] And turning up the volume a little bit You know he came up with this idea in 1986 When it was like Okay we got 13 years until like the millennium Like he wanted to do a Y2K movie And then by the time they finally get it made

[01:26:45] It's like okay we got four years so Right but I mean But she's watching the LA riots or whatever And she's thinking like yeah the world is a little bit on fire Yeah I speak to this aesthetic really quick So I said before we were recording

[01:26:58] What excited me about seeing this film Is this is like pre-Apple Yeah I mean like You know and I just I don't know it's like I haven't even really like grappled with it 100% but seeing this pre-Apple U-Biquity you know obviously Apple is around Sleek clean feel

[01:27:17] Like I guess the example Strange DOS It's Strange DOS baby Exactly And then you think of like her Her is Apple aesthetic It's very design-y And sci-fi essentially exists in like two phases Which are like Like oblivion Right oblivion which is about a war with iPods

[01:27:40] Yes oblivion is about what if iPods Conquered the universe Conquered the planet at least And Tom Cruise had to fight them And Melissa Leo was the queen iPod The queen iPod that you must like fly into And yeah Spoilers she's an evil dodecahedron

[01:27:56] She won the Oscar for that right Yeah best dodecahedron You look at like the 70s sci-fi right Sure You go like two pillars are like Okay there's the Logan's run thing Right which is also sort of like the TX 1138 Which is like very sterile Very clean

[01:28:14] The future is we all wear like jumpsuits And But also like We all have like totally casual sex with each other Yeah yeah Because in Logan's run it's like You go to your apartment and you sort of like dial in

[01:28:28] Your name and like a lady pops up out of an elevator That's like light up cubes A lot of light up cubes But that's like a sci-fi universe Where there is one aesthetic that dominates everything Yeah Like the technology, the fashion, the architecture Like everything is one side

[01:28:45] And then you have like the Star Wars thing Which is like the very practical Lived in machinery kind of junk thing I don't even know if Star Wars counts In the conversation about like sci-fi aesthetics I don't know Like alien

[01:29:00] Like this idea of like a very like you see how it's built Hunksa junk I think Star Wars counts I guess so, yeah the Millennium Falcon for sure That kind of thing is dirty The dirty sci-fi And then this movie is in this weird space

[01:29:15] Where it's like mostly the world we know With like very practical just like elements of technology Not even like a technology that's changed The way the buildings look Or redress or anything like that But the stuff is just kind of been out looking

[01:29:28] Like it isn't like purposefully grody You know it's not hunksa junk And it's also not like Apple technology Like you said it's just like some shit Emily I want you to talk about the second club scene The second club scene

[01:29:40] You wanted to talk about the other club scene Take us to the club now Well I was talking about the end Because that's where we're at now No we're not Pretty much Well you give me the plot then Wait okay so I feel like

[01:29:56] Once they have the mini discs So we find out The tics brain has been like overloaded With squid Oh yeah he like kind of just goes Yeah He's not like dead but he can't see anything Except like static or whatever It's sort of like a quasi Brain dead

[01:30:17] So after all this For some reason I don't This doesn't say how that happens But Lenny does go to Mesa's house Or like they're like hiding out in like That's where they watch the Jericho one video They watch it at Lenny's I think it's at Mesa's brother's house

[01:30:36] Or whatever yeah yeah yeah It's like a family cook out or something Yes that is where they And they were going to just stay there And lay low but then they're like Oh shit We've got to go to this party Yes there's a big party at the western

[01:30:52] Bonaventure hotel One of my favorite places in Los Angeles Please tell us I don't know anything about the western It's such a, it's a storied It's a storied location It is the What do you call it? The headquarters and inception Wherever they start off

[01:31:13] Like where Michael Cain is Yeah it's like a mall It looks like a mall inside It is an incredible piece of You mean interstellar by the way Yeah interstellar that's what I meant It's yeah it's just this Insane completely Irrelevant like future vision

[01:31:36] Of what downtown LA was going to be like Because it's like okay well nobody walks in Los Angeles So we'll like replicate the idea of a city Within buildings Which is like a mall It's like five stories that's like in this atrium There are still businesses in there

[01:31:52] There's a really good Bon Mille place in there Sure But yeah it's in You know it obviously failed It was like not a good idea But it still is like this you know Like I guess not monolith like quadrilith In the middle of downtown LA Yeah Downtown LA

[01:32:13] It's kind of fascinating yeah Yeah it's incredible It was originally owned by Mitsubishi And now it's not I don't know It's run by like a hotel company But it's like a weird precursor to like I don't know if people have gone to the Grove In Los Angeles

[01:32:28] Oh yes umami burger Or was it that grove That umami burger I've been to umami burger But like this idea of like Like well we don't have the You know experience of what one would consider a normal city Or a normal like city experience

[01:32:45] Let's build a little fake city That we can replicate it in In his book Postmodern Geographies The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory Edward Soja Describes the hotel As a concentrated representation of the restructured Spatiality of the late capitalist city

[01:33:02] There's much more of this that I would love to read There's a really good clip I think on YouTube That's um he might have had it handed up But there's a clip that just highlights all Of the movies that this hotel made True lies shot in there too

[01:33:16] True lies yeah there's a plaque for true lies And there's when you enter in through the Parking garage there's just like a hallway And there's like a lot of movie posters That the hotel's been in That's cool that they have pride

[01:33:28] Yeah yeah I mean I love that place So and I was this I knew that I knew that it was in I knew it played a part In this film and I was thrilled That it was such a crucial part because it's great

[01:33:38] It's where Philo is throwing some big party For like L.A.'s rich To enjoy the millennium in peace I guess And the deputy commissioner is there Played by Joseph Summer Who's like always plays like presidents You know what I mean?

[01:33:54] He's like one of those anonymous old guys He doesn't play a president if your president Is an important character He plays your president if your president's in one scene And needs to just be watching a terrorist on the TV President have you made your decision

[01:34:06] Yeah cause he's an X-Men the last stand Is the president He's just a I could probably look how many Yeah anyway Or he plays your senators Your congressmen etc And this he's a police commissioner They want to get the tape to him

[01:34:22] Cause apparently he's one of the good guys X-Men has a weird series of like fictional presidents And real presidents Cause they have like people playing Nixon and Kennedy But then they also just have like a bunch of generic guys Like that who are just like

[01:34:39] That's only in first class though right Cause it's um First class has Kennedy One of them has Nixon But before then right they have fake presidents Right Because there's also a president in X-Men 2 That a night crawler tries to stab Yes So there's a lot of different presidents

[01:35:00] So we split into two Mace has to go to the commission Not Michael Chickliss No not And I got excited and it turned out a false flag Lenny is going to go up to see Philo But instead he finds Philo Essentially dead

[01:35:17] With another squid disc so he can get more exposition Which is that Max Fucking Sizemore and Julia Lewis have been having an affair And they've killed him It's kind of a brilliant thing at this point Like filmmaking wise That you have a flashback

[01:35:35] Like a device that is a literal flashback In the same physical space So he can take it off and he's in the same It's like having a VR That was shot in the room that you're sitting in Your main character is able to learn things conclusively

[01:35:50] That he was not there to witness It's like looking at a star Like the light is a year old or whatever Sure it will get to you eventually Yeah that's a nice way of putting it But right because he walks in Philo's basically dead

[01:36:04] He plugs in his mini disc First he watches the sex scene Then he realizes this is from the perspective of Tom Sizemore And then he realizes He listens to a couple tracks from OKCube Like a Cupid I was gonna lay in that joke Let's take it again

[01:36:21] Okay, cue me He's watching Then it turns out Tom Sizemore is having sex with Julia Lewis And then he listens to a couple tracks from OKGO God damn it No way The song wasn't that memorable The video is incredible Yeah And what is That's a one take

[01:36:44] I'll admit the dynamics at play in this Are a little I don't quite get it They killed Philo because he wanted to kill Faith Because she knew too much about Jericho or something Like I can't I honestly don't remember this entire thing It's like it's so complicated

[01:37:02] But the basic idea is like But she does not know That Sizemore is the dude No, why would she She's just entangled with this Yeah and I mean Like her character arc I will say is probably a little disappointing

[01:37:18] Because she ends up just being a piece of shit Like there's nothing She's not a villain She doesn't have any motivation either Her motivation is to suck She's kind of a red herring Like you're saying She'll be a femme fatale Maybe he'll get back together with her

[01:37:36] Nothing like that happens She gets basically sent out of the room And then Tom Sizemore kills Philo by shooting him And is like You watch the squid of like their happy times together She's not really talking much But you get the sense that they like each other

[01:37:52] And there's chemistry there or whatever And from the moment you're actually dealing with her As a character in the present she just sucks She hates him She's really cold And just like deliberately cruel And needlessly I mean I guess he is kind of stalking her

[01:38:08] So I guess that would be pretty annoying Yeah and like Right, you don't have to be nice to your exes And I'd like for her to like warm up a little bit And be like I'm gonna remind you why we fall in love in the first place

[01:38:20] But the whole movie it's just like oh no she sucks You never should have been dating her in the first place Yeah, yeah And I mean that's why The film is more about growth than most movies With that kind of dynamic Because it is like you know

[01:38:34] No you shouldn't Like should not go back to the thing that you like That you are reminiscent of Race is a step forward for him That's the kind of person he should be with He's just two boys throwing each other around a hotel room

[01:38:47] Right there is nothing choreographed about this And he kind of just gets him right I mean Just throws him over the balcony And Seismore grabs his tie And he's like taking you with me I think he sells that line really well Sometimes we're good at desperation

[01:39:02] Exactly where you're like Oh yeah this guy gets that he's going to die He just wants to be vindictive in his last moments Yes Yeah Wait so The only problem I have is you I was not surprised Not when I watched this movie

[01:39:20] With the first Seiman College and not now When it turns out Seismore's bad guy But he's Tom Seismore Yeah, I mean I guess you would hope that People are playing against type to a degree That's true And it's like you know

[01:39:34] Raphers you know maybe if you do something else It's the Wonder Woman thing Where the whole time you kept on leaning over And going like And my joke was is he the bad guy Right And it ends up like the movie is playing you in that way

[01:39:48] It would be nice if like Yeah Tom Seismore the only doubt you have About whether or not he'd be the bad guys Whether or not the movie would be that obvious To cast Tom Seismore as the bad guy She just loves Tom Seismore

[01:40:01] So what's going on in the rest of this party So there's like a fancy party for like The fancy people in the hotel I guess like on the Maybe not Maybe it's like the reason on the ground floor Is it inside the hotel I think it's on the

[01:40:18] I can't remember So there's that Then outside the people The pions of Los Angeles Are having a total rave In the middle of downtown Right in the streets Did you read about this? Oh boy Okay Wait okay so The scene where the crowd celebrates

[01:40:42] The event at an adventure hotel And the Los Angeles public library Over 50 off duty police officers Were hired to control an assembled crowd Of 10,000 people Who had to pay Ten dollars in advance to attend the event The filmmakers also hired rave promoters Moss Jacobs and Phillip Lane

[01:41:00] To produce performances featuring Apex Twin, D-Lite As well as all the cyber techno bands They could garner That's actually I gotta say really smart producing Extras have to pay to be in the movie But I like put on a real concert We're gonna have a concert

[01:41:18] It's gonna be the most techno-war concert There ever was I already forgot the name Retinal Fetish Even better than Retinal Fetish It was reported that a total of $75,000 was spent on the event And half of the 1,300 rooms In the Bonaventure were rented out

[01:41:36] The event started at 9pm on a Saturday night And it's shortly before it's scheduled And at 4am as 5 people They were the directors of the drug Ecstasy Oh, I'm stunned to hear this Yeah, really, 1995 10,000 people, there were some ecstasy odys I mean, I hope they were all okay

[01:41:52] I cannot believe they let her make this movie It's insane It is like how did they fucking let her make this movie This is a 20th century Fox film Just to be clear And they threw a rave in the middle of it It's not Fox search life

[01:42:06] No, no, no But it is, it looks fantastic It's wonderful It's like the people partying And these huge lights that say like 2,000 on them Like counting down the new year It's such a spectacle I love it And then there's this, I mean

[01:42:25] I find the finale finale really scary Where Mace is getting beaten up by the cops And no one sort of knows what to do You know, it's, I mean obviously She's just all by herself And Bigelow is trying to draw I think a straight line to real events

[01:42:40] It's just gonna happen again I mean, it's just so hopeful Maybe too easy but whatever I mean, it's a movie Note where the commissioner is like You know, arrest these men Like you know, until I guess he went off and watched He watched this tape Right, right

[01:43:00] I mean the tape's pretty incriminating Yeah But and I like that The same cops who are basically sanctioning Dino Free own Fickner whaling on her Or then like, oh okay They're just like, they're just like Okay, no, okay, I guess we'll arrest them And so

[01:43:18] Is it Dino Free reaches for a gun It gets himself shot and Fickner Cheats himself It's pretty gruesome Well, the bad cops They're no good guys No good, very bad, don't do it I will say this I found this movie so dense

[01:43:36] And I don't say that in a bad way There's just so much fucking going on In terms of the story There's just so much time Agreed There's a lot of stuff in it Agreed, but I'll say like this is the first time

[01:43:50] I think I've felt while doing a miniseries That I need to re-watch a movie Before we do our final rankings Like I don't feel I would be equipped To rank this within her filmography Just because I watched it when I was tired

[01:44:02] And I don't feel like I've fully comprehended Everything she's doing Right now I have no idea where I would place it Alright I liked the movie But I just feel like it's the kind of movie That you need to sort of keep coming back to

[01:44:17] To really reckon with in a lot of ways No, I'm a little disappointed I didn't even get to re-watch it before doing this podcast With you guys I mean I didn't watch all of it But like it takes a long time

[01:44:29] It takes a lot out of you watching this movie Oh, it does Yeah, this movie could do with intermission If I was seeing it in a theater You know, I'm not saying it needs an intermission That's ridiculous No, it's not It's a lot of cooking

[01:44:44] It's a lot of stuff It's saying to producer Bane for you guys came Produce her Bane but go on Produce her Bane, I'm sorry It's fine, don't worry about it You correct me on Strangetoss I correct you on Produce her Bane

[01:44:58] But we were just talking about the fact that You feel like it's got that thing of the false ending Or like a second ending Before they go downtown and go to the party But then once that starts

[01:45:08] I'm like, oh, I totally want to be here for this part Like this is going to be really exciting It doesn't feel like, oh god another act No, no, no But nonetheless this movie Because we're going to play the box I was doing now Was an colossal bump

[01:45:24] Huge failure It cost $42 million to make I'm sure it cost more money to market And so on and so forth Came out October 6th, 1995 It grossed $7.9 million That is bad It was a movie from one theater And did a pretty good purse screen average

[01:45:42] That's weird for them to release a movie like this Yeah The question I have is do you want me to do The one theater You know what We'll do the proper, they were actually very similar anyway So it doesn't matter This movie though, well we'll talk about afterwards

[01:45:58] Okay So what number does Strangetoss open up? When it expands, number 8 3.6 million dollars Bad, bad, bad, bad Weekend No, I was just going to say like I've seen those posters But I just can't even imagine what a campaign for this would be Well those posters

[01:46:19] As much as I like those images Those headshots they have with the actors Those posters feel like a shrug of a marketing department That's like I don't know how to fucking sell this movie Put the three actors on it Yeah, I mean I love that poster but yeah

[01:46:33] It's a well shot image But it gives you no context Like you know how they do all those like Like redesign posters, special edition posters A lot of those are things that already have great posters This one should have This could use like a Mondo

[01:46:48] My pitch it's a Lisa Frank Incorporates like that Design into the poster It's a trapper keeper Yeah totally With Lisa Frank's features on it One thing I want to say is Because I was going to say Our finest poster design Yeah He's the best

[01:47:10] One thing you want to say Is because when I was thinking about this I was like you know it's an R rated movie But then you look at the top ten Every single movie in the top ten is rated R Because it's October

[01:47:22] And it's back in the day when Hollywood was like Well the family movies have their place on the schedule The PG-13 movies have their place But like R rated movies are bread and butter And it was like you only released Populist

[01:47:32] I'm sorry there's one movie that's not R rated Okay that's crazy though So you released those four quadrant movies You released in the summer or over the holidays And then at this time of year You'd either have movies for grownups Or children's films Like cut and dry

[01:47:48] Yeah there was much more of like siloing Anyway so number one at the box office Is an out of the box Somewhat surprising hit Crime thriller a very hard R That in its fourth week And I think it's been like number one every week Seven Seven

[01:48:06] David Fincher is seven Surprising it stayed the fuck in there Huge hit made a hundred million dollars in 95 Nuts for that movie That movie is also Yeah very 90s Very 90s What do you think of seven Emily I have not seen seven any time recently

[01:48:24] Not since high school or something I don't know I don't think my opinion on it is valid anymore Yeah like I feel like I'm like totally fine with seven I think it's pretty hard It's also like hard to

[01:48:37] Put it in the context of what it must have felt Like coming out at that point in time If you've seen it in theaters opening weekend Like I watch it now and I'm like okay yeah it's solid It's well done

[01:48:47] Sure it's a much imitated movie these days as well But seven Okay number two is a cruddy action movie Starring like one super established star Who's maybe a little on the way And at this point And one up and coming European star Interesting European star

[01:49:06] Are they both male? And this movie was written by Some friends of ours Written by some friends of ours I mean you know People we've got Oh oh oh oh oh It is assassins Richard Donner's assassins Written by the Wachowskis Antonio Banderas

[01:49:28] And then who's the main person at Kurt Russell Sly Stallone Which was a bomb It was a really crazy movie I just knew it was Banderas and Wachowskis It's not a movie I don't think there's like A lot to that movie It's like What if there were assassins

[01:49:50] Never seen it Probably will never watch it Julian Moore's in it A young Julian Moore Alright number three Is a really crazy movie Which I kind of like Hot young directors who had like a surprise hit Two Yeah they're a pair Are they brothers?

[01:50:13] Are they the Cohen brothers? No Brothers I mean I'm sure you know it The Hughes brothers Dead presidents I've never seen it That's a pretty good movie Which is Is their blank check And they're the only ones who have Their blank check That's a really good movie

[01:50:38] I've never seen it It's like The White House But it's a really good movie It's a really good movie It's a really good movie It's a really good movie It's like It's a really good movie I'm sure it's a movie It's a really good movie

[01:51:00] It's a big movie I'm looking at October 13 Oh 13 Why Emily are you trying to cheat? No I just I'm not playing I would never get any of these So I just want to know what they are It's Columbus Day weekend 1995 This is what I'm saying

[01:51:22] Which is apparently just like R rated That's why like 7 at the time Was one of the only September movies To end up making a hundred million dollars Like a September release Or maybe we have September movies That open over a hundred Well that's a new phenomenon

[01:51:38] Welcome September baby So number four is a It's based on a I think it's based on a hip book Sort of like a weepy Drama I've never seen it It's got ladies in it Multiple ladies in it Like 400 ladies in it There's so many ladies in this movie

[01:52:02] No that's earlier I hadn't really thought about this movie It's from a female director Who has recently made a terrible movie Recently in our current day timeline Yes She made a terrible movie that came out this year No a couple of years ago

[01:52:20] I mean you wouldn't even remember it Or know who she was Is it Waiting to Exhale? That's a Faris Whitaker movie Oh right Isn't it? He was the king of the weepies for a couple of years then He made some good weepies

[01:52:37] It's got a lot of women in it Stars and actresses we both are very fond of It's just got the most goofy hilarious title Yeah It's a real like I feel like it's a bit of a punchline to like 90s Kind of soft core dramas

[01:52:54] How do you describe the real There is a genre of this kind of title Yeah Sam and Fishin in the Yemen So it's kind of like a sentence title like that Exactly Sam and Fishin in the Yemen is a good partner to this one

[01:53:11] Yeah if you did like a rep screening Serious movies with full sentence titles Or like full phrases Like an idea Full phrases Like the divine secrets of the I.O. sister hood I feel like I have the meter of the title in my head

[01:53:27] And I can't think of what the words are I gotta give it to you cause we're running out of time The actress Winona Ryder Oh fuck Oh wow if you don't have it from this Yeah yeah just give it to us How to make an American quilt

[01:53:42] Right of course of course of course America was asking Hollywood tell us How do we make an American quilt And then Hollywood answered everyone was like Oh actually I'm good Yeah I know it's fine It did okay Let me just tell the cast of this movie

[01:53:57] And then we have Ellen Birston who once told Griffin to try silence Kate Nelligan, Alphrey Woodard, Maya Angelou Kate Capshaw, Samantha Mathis And then Rip Torn is hanging out there Rip Torn the only person whose name is Two tenses of the same action

[01:54:15] You think you've made that joke before I'll make it as many times as I can Number five opening this week is a sex thriller That is a sexy sex thriller of 1994 Number five starring some of the sexiest actors What do you hear also? No good guess

[01:54:34] I thought it was whatchamacallit The Demi Moore, Robert Redford Indecent proposal Right it's not that No it's a real sex thriller Disclosure No good guess It was a movie made by a TV star who was making his first big jump into movies

[01:54:51] Oh is it David Caruso and Jade Jade Some fantasies go too far I'm gonna tagline two Jade William Friedkin joint Starring our favorite David Caruso Linda Fiorentino The queen of 90s pot boilers Sex pot boilers Still for my money the single best joke in 40 year old version

[01:55:14] Yeah yeah yeah to be like David Caruso and Jade That is a good joke Chaz Pallmentary, Michael Bean Some of our sexiest actors So that's the top five This has three movies opening If you count Strange Jays That are notorious Not sexy but like explicit R rated bombs

[01:55:34] I really like to take issue with Strange Jays being built as an erotic thriller I'm not real it's tough to lump them all together But I think Hollywood lumped them together Is these movies that were like too much Sexy grown up Too hard art Too excessive

[01:55:50] Jade the Scarlet Letter and that movie No we gotta reel it back We gotta make broader audience movies And you can't just like get him in the theater with like A big box office sea change happens A month later The top film of 1995 comes out

[01:56:05] And I would say it's one of the movies that changed the film industry Which is But you know what That's so interesting Right because once you make animated films that adults like No no I know what you're saying

[01:56:17] Some of the other movies in this are to Die For Which is another, it's more of a comic sex thriller That movie's awesome You got Devil in a Blue Dress Which is a movie I'm a huge fan of Yeah I've never seen that The Carl Franklin

[01:56:31] Sort of Neo Noir with Denzel and Don Cheadle who's so good Good actor Halloween Gonna say five The one with the Paul Reb Oh right yeah The Curse of Michael Myers Because H2O comes out a couple years after this right It's the sixth sorry

[01:56:51] Another interesting piece of context I don't think we've talked about it all for this film Please serve it up on the connoisseur That it came out a week after the verdict of the OJ Simpson trial Oh that's actually huge That's a huge end it was

[01:57:05] While they were making it When the Bronx Hatches happened Yeah that's crazy It's interesting to look at the post OJ box office Not that I don't think it probably actually had that much impact Yeah but I guess who knows maybe

[01:57:18] But like the fact that it's like all R rated movies in the top ten I know The week after that it feels very dark And Angela Bassett is married to Who can tell me In real life? Yeah Now I want to double check yeah Courtney B. Vance

[01:57:38] So wonderfully played Johnny Cochran I never know that They've been married for 20 years That's a fantastic couple There you go It is interesting though I mean you were saying like this movie is so primed for a revaluation

[01:57:51] But it also feels like the kind of movie where it's like how have they not like restored this and made this readily available Like you look at how the last two years there was like this OJ wave Yeah This is the cyclical thing

[01:58:04] This whole trial represented this thing that was going on in our culture And now it's reared its head again And reflects so many different aspects of like our relationship with the media And fame and wealth And race and success and power And gender dynamics and violence

[01:58:18] And this movie is like all of that shit One week later Yeah no Oh just literally I do think we've talked about this off Mike Like the light storm thing might be part of it James Cameron Movie he's produced

[01:58:33] He likes to make sure like the re-releases are remastered And like you know properly transferred or whatever You know what's he saying like why don't we have an abyss I think he takes forever on it I don't know if that's true of this movie because I don't know

[01:58:43] Yeah how handsome does he really want to be with it I have no idea I hear he's going to re-release Strange Days in 3D in one theater I mean I haven't actually not looked at all into what How she feels about it

[01:58:56] Her feeling about its legacy or anything like that I think she's very proud of it It's a great movie She seems to speak highly of it And thinks it was the movie she wanted to make And it totally was like an albatross around her neck

[01:59:09] It was I mean yeah cause you know she doesn't make another movie for five years And then that movie is The Weight of Water Which doesn't come out for two more years So she doesn't have a movie in theater for seven more years

[01:59:19] Two months after the release of her highest budget film Which is also her biggest flop Sure K19 I mean come on with it This movie's a pretty big flop though You're obviously experts and people who you know make bad movies And get punished for it

[01:59:36] And never get to make movies again Like it happens a lot right Directors make horrible mistakes and lose lots of money And then never get to work again That's what this podcast is about I don't know if you guys are picking up on this little note of sarcasm

[01:59:50] At the end of the story right She made straight up James bomb She made an indie, it bombed And then she did a big submarine blockbuster in bomb In all seriousness in the course of this podcast Has there been like a five year break?

[02:00:02] No, I don't think for people who made much worse You look at like Shyamalan who made like four bombs in a row He made a movie every couple years practically Cameron Crowe had a bit of a gap in there

[02:00:10] But I don't think it was as long from Elizabeth Town to We Bought A Zoo Is maybe five years? That might be Cameron Crowe's Cameron Crowe seems to have a lot of shit in his head Right

[02:00:22] Because Tom Cruise had to tell him to make We Bought A Zoo Which is a sentence that one rarely says You imagine that she was trying to make movies regularly And then there's even I don't know, she talks about the way to water

[02:00:33] It's hard to, we gotta wrap up Sure And then there's her locker as well Yes We'll talk about it on the her locker That's a long break And that is, I think that is her toughest period In terms of trying to get money together for a movie

[02:00:49] And then she wins a fucking Oscar She does, it's quite a story We'll talk about that another time though Emily thank you so much for being here Thank you for having me We're still, this neck and neck race Of you, J.D. Amato And Richard Lawson

[02:01:07] All being tied as our like three Yeah, recurring guests Our best friends of the show Our favorite guest, the fan favorite guest Of course you'll be back Is there a poll? We would never But if you want to start a poll you can do it

[02:01:24] Thank you, it's always fun You've been doing unbelievable work at Volter And I'm not just saying that I have been really blown away by a couple of your reviews I feel like you've had a couple things The one I cite all the time

[02:01:36] Your analogy in your fate of the furious review When I was trying to explain to people Why I was a little underwhelmed by that movie The idea that Jordana Brewster and Paul Walker Were the bread and the sandwich

[02:01:50] And you got a bunch of loose meat if you don't have them there How they were never the most exciting characters But they weirdly held the whole thing together They're the bread and the mayonnaise, I believe I just put it in sesame

[02:02:00] The best take I have read from a film critic all year All right, we're done, right? That's it We're done, of course Please remember to rate, review, subscribe Go to reddit.blankies.com Or the other way around Blankies.reddit.com For some real nerdy shit

[02:02:20] Thanks to Andra Gudov for her social media Jobbone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork Lame Montgomery for our theme song And as always this computer runs on strange dots Hey, just a quick note here at the end of the episode At the time of this recording

[02:02:41] Our garbage nightmare, horrible creativeness president Today tweeted about the U.S. not being able to aid Puerto Rico forever So we as fellow not terrible human beings Need to do our part in assisting with relief efforts

[02:02:56] And we're asking that our listeners donate to any of the proper organizations Such as the Hispanic Foundation The Puerto Rican Hurricane Relief Fund The Food Bank of Puerto Rico Now we have a fellow blankie in Puerto Rico named Emilio

[02:03:09] And on behalf of myself and hashtag the two friends We just want to offer our support and prayers to his family and loved ones