Empire of the Sun with Bilge Ebiri

[00:00:03] I can't remember what my podcast looks like. It's a really sad line from the movie. Yeah. Thank God we started out that way.

[00:00:29] Look, I mean, I was like, oh, you know, it feels like any line of dialogue is going to be sad. Maybe I should do the tagline instead. The tagline is to survive in a world at war, he must find a greater strength than all the events that surround him. I'd say also a bummer. I mean, just try not to think so much. Surely there's a there's a that's a good one. Maybe. Yeah, I feel like I've always struggled. Yeah. Do you want to bust out a mouth with Malkovich's? I feel like we have not covered a lot of Malkovich's.

[00:00:55] Our main Malkovich talk episode was Portrait of a Lady, which were like, that's a weird application of Malkovich and doesn't unbalance the movie in a way. I was less into the movie, but more into his performance, whereas I feel like you like the movie a little more and felt his performance was working a little against it. He is. He is. Look, casting John Malkovich is an aggressive thing to do. Repeat your line. Yeah, yeah. You had your great line in that episode. Oh, I don't remember it. You have to tell me. He's sun-dried tomatoes on a sandwich. That's what it is.

[00:01:24] I really agree with that. And it's like if you put five of those on a sandwich, you're eating a sun-dried tomato sandwich. Doesn't matter what else is on that thing. Now, I'm just let's forefront this. I think this is like a perfect application. That's obviously a great way to use John Malkovich is an American fagin, essentially. It's arguably one of his best performances, but it's almost inarguably one of the smartest ways a movie has employed him. Bill Gawain, I don't know your Malkovich take. I don't know where you are in Malkovich. You can speak. Malkovich in this movie? In this movie. I love Malkovich.

[00:01:54] I love Malkovich. Malkovich has shown up in some of my favorite movies of all time. What are some of your favorite movies of all time featuring John Malkovich? Well, I mean, he's in The Sheltering Sky. I bet you like that one. I love your Bernardo. Big fan of The Shelter and Sky. Secretariat, one of your favorite movies. I feel like you see... In the Line of Fire, one of the greatest action films of all time. One of the coolest Oscar nominations. In the Line of Fire is someone making you a ham and cheese sandwich and then like putting one sun-dried tomato on it in 1992 or whatever it is. Three.

[00:02:23] And you're like, what's this flavor? It's bold. Because like otherwise that movie is like pretty straight down the middle and really well done. And Malkovich is like, this is a new kind of villain. I feel like this is spicy. But that's almost like putting sun-dried tomato flavored potato chips on a sandwich. Okay. Bill, what was your response? No, I like that take. Right? Well, the other thing about In the Line of Fire is it's so much Clint. He's good though. It's such Clint. Like it's... No, no. I mean, it's great. I mean, that's the... That's, I believe, the same year as Unforgiven. It's the year after Unforgiven.

[00:02:53] It's a year after Unforgiven, but like when Unforgiven wins the Oscars. Correct. It's the summer of 93. And Unforgiven obviously has one of those like infamously long modern box office runs. Right. Where it's in theaters for basically a straight year. But In the Line of Fire is the same vibe of like Clint being like, should I hang it up? Should I do 30 more years? Right. I mean, everyone has said this, but it just is always interesting to talk about. I know we're nestling like conversation topic and conversation topic here.

[00:03:21] It is incredible that late period Clint Eastwood is going on 40 years now. That the demarcation point of when you're like, and Clint starts doing his like wind down sunset movies is like in its fourth decade. It's almost. Hilarious. Yes. I mean, and I mean, you read the reviews of those films at the time and not just those like the later ones. I mean, I'm a big fan of true crime and the absolute power. Well, no, I don't love. They do. I love blood work. I think that is interesting. Yeah.

[00:03:51] One of the best pre Mystic River. Oh, Clinton. Oh, Turagan. You also love having blood work done. You text me and you're just like, I'm right. They're taking six miles today. I true crime. I remember being kind of overwrought. That's the death penalty one. That's the death penalty one. It has it. It completely shits the bed at the very end. Like, yes, it does. The climax is just like, we got it. We got to finish the movie. Is that Linney and Daniels? Sorry, who? Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels. Am I right?

[00:04:19] Is I'm not I'm going to look it up because I think Laura Linney for sure. Have you seen? Laura Linney is in absolute power. That's OK. Well, all right. OK. Playing his daughter. Right. Yes. That's right. Hackman is the president who's getting his dick sucked. And Clint Eastwood is a capper. Yeah. Which is my favorite part. But true crime is the one where. Daniels is in blood work. Yeah. Daniels is really good in blood work. Yeah. True crime is the one where a major subplot is that Clint Eastwood, who's a newspaper reporter,

[00:04:48] I think, cucked Dennis Leary and cannot shut up about it. And when Dennis Leary is like, can I assign you a story? And Clint's like, sorry for fucking your wife. And it's like, Leary's like, I'm just trying to assign you a story. That should that specifically should be a plot point in two movies. Which one is James Woods in it? James Woods is in true crime. In true crime. Yes. I cannot remember. He might be either the good guy lawyer or the bad guy lawyer. It's it's been it's been a while.

[00:05:15] But anyway, anyway, these are allegedly a fan of and I can't remember who's in them. But but no, but if you read the reviews at the time and I remember the reviews were all kind of like. You know, harping on Clint's age and the fact that he's casting himself as I mean, it's not it's not really a romantic lead in those movies, but but there is. I mean, you sense that and it makes perfect sense that they said this and it's kind of like. Man, if you only look like that. You know, as hell is in the line of fire or whatever.

[00:05:42] But the same thing of like looking at stills of Crystal Skull now. You're like, this movie has jokes about him being old. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and like same with like Rocky five. Like, yeah. What are some other Malkovich's you love? Because I was obsessed with Malkovich as a young person because of being a Malkovich. Right. And like that movie, I knew him from like Con Air or when Rounders or whatever. But like that movie is introducing Malkovich is like the prepackaged like this is the most interesting character actor. Right. Well, I mean, this is a generation. This is another one of them.

[00:06:11] I mean, Empire of the Sun. Right. Which I didn't see until much later. Is it crazy for me to say I had this thought while I'd seen it before while rewatching. It's just now. I had the thought like if this movie were better received, I think he would have won the Oscar. I know he didn't even get nominated, but it feels like this is Malkovich has been nominated. Oh, he was not afraid in the line of fire. Yes. And the only one is in the heart. He has two nominations. Does he have two? Okay. I take it back. He was not nominated for Datero Seasons. Places in the Heart was like his breakout, right? That was yes. And he was nominated.

[00:06:41] And that was a movie where a lot of people just didn't know who the hell he was. Well, I think that's basically his first movie. Who is this guy performance and this coming after that. Right. And it's like on paper, this is a role that almost feels designed to win someone an Oscar. And he is so good in it. And it's like, is it a little too early in his career combined with people being a little tepid on this movie? But watching it now, and we'll get into who beat him. I was like, it's kind of extraordinary. He didn't get nominated, let alone win. Wasn't it Connery who beat him? Was it Connery? Is this the fucking?

[00:07:10] I think the Untouchable's year. Is that true? I could be wrong. Look it up, David. Wait, which year? Sorry. Who won Best Pornic Actor? Yeah. Is this the Connery? 87. John Connery. Okay. So then no one was going to fucking beat Connery. 87 was a big year for my sinophilia. And, you know, in terms of like the Oscars, you know, Last Emperor is one of my all-time favorite movies. This is what I was about to bring up. Okay. What I consider your favorite movie of all time. Am I wrong? Last Emperor? Or at least like the movie that sparked your sinophilia, you've seen a billion times.

[00:07:40] I've seen it a billion times. Yeah. I've seen it a billion times. And for you, that's, you've seen it even by Bilga's standards a lot. There was a period in 1987. You said a Bilga's doesn't. It's a billion. There was a period in 1987 when I was, and 1988 too, early months of 1988, when like alternating every week between going to see Empire of the Sun in the movie theater and Last Emperor. Oh, wow. It was in DC. They were playing in the two nicest theaters. Last Emperor was at the Uptown, which is an enormous fucking screen.

[00:08:10] It's where I think 2001 had its world premiere maybe. And then Empire of the Sun was screening at this place called, I think it was just called the Cineplex Odeon Cinema or maybe the KB. It might've been a KB cinema. But again, these like single screen old school picture houses. And after school, I would just, it's just every week or, you know, every other day it was kind of like, well, what should I see today? Yeah. Empire or Emperor. Yeah. And of course they were both shot in China.

[00:08:38] So I, look, I love how deep we are getting into multiple areas right off the bat. I do want to just quickly say this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby. This is a mini series on the first half of Steven Spielberg's career, repaying the balance of a thing we started seven years ago. It is called Podrassic Cast.

[00:09:07] Today we're talking about Empire of the Sun. One of his kind of infamous bounces. Would you call, I wouldn't call this a bounce, but definitely a, um, not, not the success movie he hoped for. A fully received at the time. And I remember, look, we, we mourn the death of the old box office mojo interface and features very often on the show. A thing I used to love to do was how easy their dropdown was to be able to adjust for inflation in various different ways in any year.

[00:09:35] And I remember at some point, probably in the late two thousands being like, if you adjust to modern dollars, how many Spielberg movies don't make a hundred million? And I was surprised by how many of the films that are considered flopped would have made a hundred today. And in my memory, the only ones that wouldn't have made a hundred were this always and Sugarland. That like 1941 would make a hundred million in today's dollars or whatever. This is off of a memory, a thing I cannot source.

[00:10:05] Well, there is. It didn't lose money. It was, it was, it was, it was coolly received. I mean, I remember this. Um, it, it had kind of an initial wave of appreciation because the National Board of Review gave it best picture and best director. Which is often a weird kind of death knell of like them being early. They call it, people go like, does that mean it's a serious front runner? And then the thing like Peter's like, I think of like Burton getting the Sweeney Todd best

[00:10:32] director award and people being like, holy shit, Burton's a player. And then you're like, wipe out. Yeah. Yeah. It's a strange thing. I mean, and I don't remember if the film had even opened by the time it won that award. Um, because obviously Spielberg at this point is, I mean, as far as box office goes, he's God, right? He's coming off, you know, a number of Oscar nominations and things like that. But there is this anticipation that he's eventually going to make something that, that wins.

[00:10:59] Um, and I think Empire of the Sun initially looks like the kind of film that could be that movie. Absolutely. Right. Uh, cause, cause, you know, Color Purple, I mean, I'm sure you guys have gone over all this stuff, but like Color Purple, you know, gets all these nominations. He doesn't get nominated even though he wins the DGA. It is this weird, uh, and we should say our guest today is Bilgo Beery, the great Bilgo Beery returning to the show. New York Magazine. Mm-hmm. And, and is this now Bilgo's induction into the Five Timers Club?

[00:11:29] Finally having been on this podcast the average number of times he watches a movie that he hates. The low end. Let's see. The fewest times he ever watches any movie. This is your fifth episode. Hell yeah. Dunkirk, Black Hat, Lorenzo Zoya, Ferrari, and now Empire of the Sun. I feel like these are all very, like, important. You've never been on a passive movie for you. Yeah, you guys don't ask me for anything that I'm, I'm, uh. They're all like your, your major guys, your favorite work by one of those guys or both.

[00:11:59] My guys. These are very much my guys. Your guys. My guys. Um, but, uh, what were we talking about? Oh, the color purple thing. Right. Because, yeah, it's like color purple is a big success at the box office, but it gets a ton of nominations. He is snubbed. And then it is historically up until that point in time, the most nominations without a single win. And this weird balance that we've been charting of like Jaws gets best picture nomination, doesn't get director. Close Encounters gets director, but not picture. Raiders is the first time it gets both.

[00:12:29] He's basically always only winning technical awards for his movies. Yes. And then it's like. He's seen as a great technician. Right. And he wins, uh, he wins the Thalberg at some point, sometime around now. That's true. Yeah. Kind of a, like the, again, thank you for the business from the Spielberg to Spielberg. And he almost drops it. I remember he almost dropped it on the podium. But color purple was like the first movie of his where they sort of did like the here's it's nominated in every category. Basically, we're treating it like a legitimate best picture contender, except for you.

[00:12:59] Yeah. Except for you. Steven Spielberg. I clearly had nothing to do with the quality. Every time they were sort of going like, not yet. Hold your horses. He won the Thalberg the year after color purple in the year before this. Right. So, yeah. Because I remember that was a, I remember that felt like kind of a consolation prize in a way. And there was this general vibe that somehow the Oscars didn't like Steven Spielberg. I mean, you know how these like memes take over.

[00:13:25] It's funny now because now there's this vibe that like any Spielberg film will like get an Oscar nomination, at least in the 90s, early 2000s. There was definitely that vibe. But even now it feels like they take him for granted a little bit where you like the only one film of his has ever won best picture. Yeah. And the Golden Globes, uh, that is crazy.

[00:13:46] The year of the post, uh, Seth Meyers comes out at the beginning and says like, uh, the post, a film Steven Spielberg made about the importance of journalism against presidential crime starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep. And then they have an actor come out holding like 40 awards and he goes, not yet. We can't give them all the awards yet. And then that movie blanks. Yeah. It doesn't want to see. By the way, I just rewatched it again. That movie rules. That movie does rule. I love it.

[00:14:12] I do feel like the reaction at the time was the reaction that he usually gets now. Kind of the reaction that John Williams gets. I watched that, uh, Disney documentary about John Williams where it's like, oh, he's so good. And he's got all his Oscars on a shelf. And it's like, he hasn't won an Oscar since 1993. Uh, because the Academy is always just like, yeah, you did a good job again. Fine. I mean, he did win a ton. He won a bunch. Yeah. But like the thing was that Williams won Oscars for, okay. Fiddler on the Roof, like a bit of an odd early Oscar where it's like adaptation of a song score.

[00:14:40] But then it's like Jaws, E.T. Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. Schindler's List. Where it's like, he won for big iconic scores. He should have won for Catch Me If You Can. That's, that's a, that's a miss. Like there's a couple other scores where like, I think at that point they were just like, well, we don't want to give it to him again. Well, it's, I mean, when Munich was coming out, there was this Time Magazine cover, uh, announcing that film, which he had made on such a quick turnaround. Like started filming it after War of the Worlds came out, already had it done by December.

[00:15:10] And he openly says in that, I kind of want the third best director trophy. Like he openly admits, like, I'm jealous of like, sort of like Hawks and Ford and the guys who have gotten more than two and being in that realm. And it feels like him saying that outwardly made the Academy go like, if you want a third one, you really have to fucking prove it to us. And Munich that year was like seen as the early front runner and then became like a picture director also ran. Munich is too alienating. Same thing with Lincoln though.

[00:15:39] Like a year out, people were like, well, he's going to win his third. Lincoln is the weirdest. He should have won for Lincoln. He should have won for Lincoln. I love Lincoln. And, and I, I was very mixed on Munich when it first came out. I've come to appreciate it more, but I do, it does feel like they shot the first draft of the script for me with Munich. Lincoln is extraordinary. Lincoln is, is wonderful. And I was really surprised that Lincoln got so little. But because it felt too obvious for them. I think they're like, really? We're going to give it to the sort of homework movie? They're sort of like, I disagree with that. It did get an Oscar nomination. It did.

[00:16:08] I was surprised that like, like it, it got so little run in like the critics awards. Yes. That was my first year voting in. At the critic circle? Yeah. That was my first year voting in the film critic circle. And there were almost no votes for Lincoln. Well, Lincoln, Lincoln, right. Daniel Day-Lewis won best actor. And that was the year Zero Dark Thirty one. Now I wasn't a member then, but I feel like that's a movie that came on very late. And just like American Hustle the year after, which we, in my opinion, shamefully gave Best Picture. I don't know what you're talking about.

[00:16:37] The movie's aged perfectly. Were you there for American? I have a good American Hustle New York Film Critics Circle win story for you. Which I can't share. I cannot share on microphone. We'll do this afterwards. Like two years in a row, the critic circle went for kind of the last movie to screen. Right? Like the movie that came in right at the end. Being like, get our attention. And it worked. Yeah. A strategy that I feel like doesn't really work anymore. It does not work anymore. They tried it with, I mean, it's so funny. Because we're always thinking, oh, they're scheming to do this.

[00:17:07] But in so many cases, the movies are like barely finished. But they tried that with Django Unchained. They tried it with Scorsese Silence. They did? I remember. I went to that screen. Yeah, I remember. That was a Sunday screen. That's a thinker. I saw it twice that day. That's a movie you need like five months to come around to. People were away for Thanksgiving. And then I think we were voting like the next day or two days later or something. And I remember talking to people and most people hadn't seen it. Because they were like, well, I was like, yeah, I was away for Thanksgiving.

[00:17:36] And it's just not a movie where you walk out being like, well, I'm sold. You know, like I love Silence. I think it's a great movie. I don't think it's a movie you need. You need like two months. But I talk about, we talk about this a lot. Like staring into a pool of water. I agree. We talk about this a lot. But like, you know, the limited pool of like people who've won the Palme d'Or twice or have won like more than two Oscars, right? I'm like, I feel like there's this, whether it's conscious or not, sort of feeling from those boards of like, or at least there should be the standard.

[00:18:04] If you've already won that many times, you know, it's like, it either should be, this is so clearly above and beyond what you've previously done. It's executed an exponentially higher level than the last time we awarded you. Or it is so different from what you've done before. We didn't know you had this in you. And I think at this point in our current day era, Spielberg is a little bit of victim of having proven that he could do anything. Like Schindler, they were like, you know what?

[00:18:32] We didn't know you could make something this somber and restrained. And then Saving Private Ryan, they were like, we didn't know you could make something this kind of visceral and like disturbing and, you know, but still with the uplift. Now, as opposed to the first half of his career that we're covering now, where it feels like you even just look at the 80s as a microcosm for him, right? He makes E.T. and the Indiana Jones trilogy, the like peaks of commercial cinema. And then in between those, he's like doing experiments that the public is like, you know,

[00:19:02] color purple always empire of the sun. Like it's a little like back and forth where they're like, we prefer you doing the Spielberg thing. By the time he gets to the 90s, people are like, you know what? He can do anything he wants. We don't question him. We're not going to like every movie, but there's no like guard up against. He shouldn't try to make a historical drama. He shouldn't try to make a film about adults, et cetera. There's there's I think part of it is also Spielberg is himself a little unmoored during this time.

[00:19:29] The other thing I remember from this period is, you know, Spielberg actually enters a period that I mean, I don't want to call it a period of decline, but there is a period when he's not kind of the king of the roost. Right. I mean, it kind of starts with this one. Always is always is terrible. I kind of like it. I just saw it for the first time. I kind of like it. I it does not. Every time I watch it, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to like it this time. I bet I'm going to like it this time. And I'm like, no, sorry.

[00:19:58] I've seen it three times. That's actually I know that that's that's really that's that's that's my equivalent of a Leonard Maltin bomb. That's like turning it off after 10 minutes for most people. First 10 minutes of always are really good. It always starts pretty strong. Actually, that's what it is. It's every time I put it on, it's like it starts and I'm like, oh, this is really good. I'm going to really like this. And then it just completely falls apart. Where do you stand on Last Crusade? Last Crusade might be my least favorite of the Indiana Jones movies because it's too

[00:20:27] kind of like straightforward and that's the one where the ending doesn't work for me. A lot of people have the endings of the other ones, but like the it just the cup. I like I like, you know, this is the cup of a carpenter. Like I like I love that. That sense chills up my spine. But like that whole finale and then with the night of the round table and all that, for some reason, also because, you know, there was this period where it seemed like there was

[00:20:53] such a kind of weird really religiosity in Spielberg's movies. And that one kind of just brought it home. I do like the movie. I've seen it many times. I've taken my son to see it. It's like whenever it's very, very enjoyable. It's a very fun movie. It is my favorite, but I'm also like I don't think it's particularly deep film. I think it's just exemplary Spielberg entertainment. Yeah. And it's very on my comedic wavelength. Yeah. And I mean, it is it is a comedy. It's actually maybe the only time he's really pulled off a comedy.

[00:21:22] You know, we were talking about this and that is a great take. That is this argument on 1941. Not argument. We I just sort of pointed out that like basically all of his worst movies are his cleanest attempts at comedies. Right. 1941, the terminal arguably always. Right. He can't do comedy and he can't do romance. No, we were just why always. We were saying what's weird is that he's really good at applying comedy to non comedy movies. Absolutely. But when the assignment is full comedy, it doesn't work. I think Last Crusade, you are right, is his most successful comedy.

[00:21:52] And I feel like a lot of Indiana Jones purists and people who are the right age to grow up with them talk about it in a kind of return of the Jedi way where they're like that one comes out when I'm 17 and it felt kiddie ish and I was over it. And I think a lot of that is it's very silly, but it's successful at being silly. At the time, it also felt to me like and, you know, whenever I have this kind of take about a filmmaker, I realize I'm totally talking out my ass because it takes him a long time

[00:22:21] to get these projects off the ground. But it did feel like he had had a couple of flops and he was kind of going back to what worked and he's all right. Here's an Indiana Jones sequel, which, you know, maybe there was some of that. But, you know, knowing how these films get made and how long it takes, it's, you know, it's more complicated than that. I will say I have this. I've probably I've probably talked to one of you guys about this, but I have this unified field theory of Spielberg. Let's do this.

[00:22:48] Which is the place to debut at our Spielberg miniseries. No, I mean, I've written about this in a couple of places, but I have this theory that early period of his career, you know, 70s, 80s, that his films really can be best be understood as being from the point of view of a child. And then there's this the back half of his career. They make a lot more sense if you see them through the eyes of a parent. I love this. And one of the reasons. I absolutely agree.

[00:23:18] And the fact that I know you guys are not fans of Hook, but I think Hook is the pivot point. Halfway through Hook, Spielberg realizes he's a parent. I must put away childish things. Yes. A little bit. That's what Hook is about. And I later found out because I had this idea and then later I found out or I was told that it's during the making of Hook or right around then that he reconciles with his dad. Right. And kind of gets a fuller understanding of Seth Rogen's role in his dad's, you know, marriage

[00:23:48] falling apart and all that. I think you are right. And we will spend our time debating Hook in a couple of weeks. I will say my exact problem with Hook is I feel like he makes that realization like halfway through making the movie. And that realization comes with I shouldn't have made this movie. I mean, he does not like that movie at all. Right. And Jurassic Park is about a guy learning to be a parent. Jurassic Park is the much better version of what the story that Hook is trying to tell. Because Hook is him like monologuing to his son being like, I should just play baseball with you. And I'm just like, can we have a sword fight?

[00:24:19] But like if you look at it. No, you're absolutely right. I mean, Jurassic Park, if you think about it. Yeah. I mean, it's all about Sam Neill learning to become a dad. Like that's really kind of the full flower of Spielberg's change in perspective. And it's also so crazy because it's like this roller coaster movie that he was like, can I slip in like 10% of an emotional spine underneath this? And it's so kind of underplayed and unspoken. And yet it's so personal and revealing and deeply felt. Ten years earlier, that movie would have been all about those kids. Correct. Right.

[00:24:48] And in fact, as I was rewatching Lincoln, there's that little moment I totally forgotten about where he where, you know, Abraham Lincoln slaps his son played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. And I was thinking about there are actually a surprising number of slaps in Spielberg movies. You could really do a fun montage. But then I was thinking as a huge one. Well, yes, absolutely. But I was thinking about the the slap in Jaws. Right.

[00:25:16] The mother who slaps at the hospital. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a great, great. I mean, great moment in Jaws, iconic moment in Jaws. But, you know, who do we identify with there? I mean, we identify with Roy Schroeder because he's obviously the protagonist. But really what we're identifying there is his humiliation. Right. So it's very much like almost like the humiliation of a little boy who's been slapped. And then the later films, it's like what are some other slaps? Well, watching the Joseph Gordon-Levitt scene, I was kind of like, you don't really feel his

[00:25:45] like you don't really feel Joseph Gordon-Levitt's humiliation. You feel Abraham Lincoln's. Yeah. You know, anxiety. That's a pivot point. Yeah. Yeah. God, Lincoln is so good. But I mean, I mean, everything about Lincoln is good. Every single thing, in my opinion, about Lincoln is good. But all the best stuff is just all his cabinet. I mean, I think I said this on our episode. Anytime they're like, what did we do? This is the most stressful shit in the world. And he's like, there was an old mill. And they're like, God damn it. Will you stop with your fucking stories?

[00:26:14] You homie, stupid lawyer. One time I found a pencil on a porch. I was watching it. What the fuck are you talking about? A man had a bucket of water and they're like, it's a civil war. Is this metaphorical or literal? I was watching with my son and he had such a great time watching it. It's so fun. It actually is. It's another. It's about dirt bags, you know? It's another instance of him applying comedy in a situation where comedy would not. I mean, that's kind of the old Spielberg coming through.

[00:26:41] The fucking spader, hawks, like three stooges, Tim Blake Nelson shit. Yeah, it's also the original. I mean, it's not the original Oppenheimer, but like it definitely has that Oppenheimer vibe of like. What if every single person is someone deeply important as an actor? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the thing you said about Oppenheimer, Griffin, on your episode. I think it was you where you said everybody in this movie has at some point been number one on a sheet. Yes, yes. Which is which is a great way to put it. Yeah, yeah.

[00:27:10] I love everything you're saying. And the sort of prism you're putting around this movie, because this is, I think, a big turning point movie as well. He has not yet done the perspective shift to that of the parent. But this feels like the movie of him trying to kill the child inside of him. Well, it's a movie about the. It feels like him being like, I need to move on from this. Well, it's a movie about the loss of innocence. I mean, it's a movie about the death of childhood, as is The Color Purple, but this much more explicitly.

[00:27:37] The difference to me is that in this one, it feels like he's recognizing I'm still like viewing this too much from the perspective of the child rather than being able to look back on childhood as an adult. And that's what he's really trying to change here. I feel like we commit to doing this. We put our schedule on the spreadsheet. I like type your name in for months before we even reached out to you where I was just like, that feels like a good fit.

[00:28:05] And I know Bilga is one of the big like this is his most undersung movie defenders. Well, it's also the formally the movie is so interesting to me because Spielberg has his vernacular. Right. I mean, Spielberg has his language. He has his his favorite shots. You know, he has the crane shots and the the you know, the tracking shots. And and this film feels to me like him.

[00:28:30] Asking himself, how can I tell this darker, more mature story using my stuff, using my language? And because there's a I don't know if you guys have ever seen there's a there's a there's a one hour making of of this movie of this. Yeah. Available on like the Blu-ray. I used to have this movie on Laserdisc. My digi book here, which also has a one I have Warner. Warner at War. I have not watched that. That looks really interesting. That is an Amblin production and 40, 47 minutes long. I bet it rules. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:59] But it in this documentary, you know, you see him like directing these scenes and it's really impressive. I mean, the way they completely, you know, made over Shanghai to look like Shanghai back then. But then, you know, you see him shooting the scene at the camp, which is the kind of the big emotional moment in the film where Jim sees the pilot, you know, the plane flying by. The sky. Yeah. The sky. The sky.

[00:29:36] The sky. The sky.

[00:30:05] And it is true. Right. It's what the him at the beginning of the film, which gets repeated in so many ways. Yeah. But then also like it's kind of this like it has this very jaunty, playful theme. But then under it are these sort of very dark chords running through. Like it really is Spielberg and his people, including John Williams, trying to take like what they know about how to put together a movie and like just tip it just a little bit so that the story becomes a lot darker. But then he makes Schindler's list.

[00:30:35] And that I feel like erases this movie in everyone's mind because that's a sort of more successful or more broadly like look back as this was the dry run before he totally cracked it on. But he also said, but the other thing I remember on Schindler's list was he really restrained himself. Like that's the thing that people would always say that. I know. He's a fucking liar. He is a liar. Schindler's list is so liquid entertaining even when it's so upsetting. It is. But I will say at the time it did feel really restrained. I get that.

[00:31:02] And they talked about how, I mean, he actually talked about how like technically speaking, he limited the amount of tracks he had. But it still has incredible runners. Well, especially compared to the shit we get today. Well, that's the other thing about Spielberg. My whole two wolves inside me thing. Well, but that's the, okay. Pin in that. But that's the whole wolves inside me thing about Schindler where I'm just like this movie is so goddamn entertaining. And like should there be entertainment about something like this? Well, this is the Hanukkah argument.

[00:31:33] But I mean the whole thing with that movie is and it feels almost like a reaction to people being like not quite on Empire of the Sun. And Schindler, the infamous thing is that he was like, I won't storyboard this. I need to like go there and be in the place and like engage with the emotions and feel it out rather than doing like a puppet show kind of controlling shit. And that's the part of it that I think felt very restrained to him is he didn't allow himself the time to like math it out in advance. We did our Color Purple episode very recently.

[00:32:02] Great Kniece Mobley as our guest. And she said this line I thought summed it up really well where she's like the weird cognitive dissonance in this movie is like him shooting sexual assault scenes like they're E.T. And to some degree it feels like the locker room bully confrontation with the Fablemans where he's just like I don't understand why I make everything look like this. Right. That like everything becomes too magical if I shoot it.

[00:32:29] This feels like the first movie where he successfully to your point of what you're getting at figures out how to shift his aesthetic a little bit so that it doesn't feel too like wonderful. And even just, you know, the most recent episode in weird record order we did right before this earlier this week was 1941. And 1941 has that thing where you're just like, Jesus Christ, this is too expensive. You can't stop thinking about how big the production is. Hyperactive. The resources, so much going on.

[00:32:58] This has these insane long oneers in like huge environments with hundreds of extras and planes flying overhead and knowing that stuff is logistically impossible. And yet I think it is the first time in his career he can orchestrate something like that and not make it feel like he's playing with toys, not make it feel like he's showing off, make it feel like it's actually just kind of like immersive environmental recreation. I'd seen this once before.

[00:33:23] Our friend Connor Ratliff had never seen it and they were playing it at Metrograph maybe like 10 years ago, a little less, very shortly after Metrograph opened and was like, this is what I want to do for my birthday. It is a very funny birthday movie. But he was like, it's a Spielberg blind spot. So everyone should come see Empire of the Sun with me. And we all were just kind of bummed out afterwards. But I was like, you know, I've heard this recent people are kind of revisiting and reclaiming it. And I saw it and I was like, yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting. I see what he was getting at. It doesn't totally work. Watched again today.

[00:33:53] Like 15 minutes in, I was like, is this a masterpiece? Do I now put this on his top tier? Which Spielberg top tier is like is ridiculous and also is big. It's like, how many tiers are you creating of like unquestionable masterpieces versus near masterpieces or whatever? But there were a couple of things that really like unlocked for me, especially watching 1941 and Color Purple recently in relation to this. But the like Spielberg face, right?

[00:34:23] The sort of famous image of the Spielberg wonder face, the overhead looking up at whatever. His O face. His O face. This movie, even like thinking about him directing Christian Bale in that way, you have those moments where Christian Bale is doing the Spielberg face at the plane overhead. And yet he is now shooting him from below. He's tilting up. You're not in the perspective of the thing that the kid is looking at in wonder.

[00:34:50] You are on the ground looking at a kid look up at something unseen ominously. And it's like, fuck, he's figuring it out. You're watching in real time him figuring out how to, as you said, shift his language a little bit, subvert a little bit, successfully create different types of emotion without just making everything feel magical and entertaining. It is the weird balance of him of like, he, he, it is hard for him to make something that is not entertaining. He has like such kind of like showman storyteller bones in him.

[00:35:19] That right. It's his Midas touch thing or whatever. It's like a bit of a curse sometimes. He wrestles with. And I think in this movie, to a certain degree, he's working so hard to fight against that, that that must have been frustrating to people at the time. David, you hear that? Boing. It's a boinging noise. No, that's a spring because spring has sprung. True. Spring movie preview, David. What do we got? We got some great stuff. Upcoming films.

[00:35:48] Coming to Regal Theaters that we want to direct our listeners towards. Minecraft. Sign up for Regal Unlimited and go see the Minecraft movie. Excuse me, a Minecraft movie. Ah, just the one. I think an interesting titling structure on that one. Do you know that film was directed by? Jared Hess. Isn't that bizarre? Sure. You're more struck by this than I am. I think we should all be talking about this. I think this should be front page news. Yeah, but you've also got Drop, getting great reactions out of South by Southwest, fun horror movies. Craig Carlandin. Yeah, exactly.

[00:36:18] You've got Alex Garland's Warfare. Okay. Have you seen that? I'm not sure I can talk about that. Well, interesting. Interesting. You've got the new Joan Colette Sarah movie, The Woman in the Yard is coming in late March. I'm very, very excited for that. Written by Sam Stefanik. Yes. The Amateur, a high concept Rami Malek thriller that seems to have the premise, what if Griffin Newman in action movie? You know, and that's directed by the guy who did One Life. It's really interesting. Really?

[00:36:48] Yeah. Interesting. We got Sinners coming. Ah, I'm so pumped for Sinners. Taylor and Jordan are back. Yes, that's actually really going to rock. And of course, friend of the show, Boneyang and The Wedding Banquet. A remake of a film we've covered on this show, written, co-written and starring a past and future guest. The Accountant 2. God, this is spring. You're boing-oing everywhere. Spring is for real. Spring is for real. So, well, why are we talking about it? Because of Regal.

[00:37:16] Because this is a perfect opportunity to sign up for Regal Unlimited. What's awesome about all this is that there's lots of interesting different kinds of movies in theaters that you can go see. And with Regal Unlimited, the whole point is you sign up and seeing three, four, five, six of those movies is easy and affordable. Sign up now on the Regal app. Yes. Or at the link in the description in our show notes. And use code BLANKCHECK to get 20% off your three-month subscription. And then you're going to be in the Crown Club.

[00:37:46] You're going to get rewards. You're going to build up points. You can get free popcorns and sodas and upgrades. 25% off candy on Tuesdays. 50% off popcorn. Discounted ticket. All this stuff. Go to the Regal Crown Club website. And as I said, it's a little deep. It's a little buried in here. There is a section where you can redeem your points for old promotional movie memorabilia like Red One Socks. Right. Follow the link in the show notes. Go to the Regal app. Click on the Unlimited banner. And then follow the instructions to sign up and enter promo code BLANKCHECK when prompted to receive your discount.

[00:38:16] And look, I'm just going to say it again, David. Signing up for Regal Unlimited or maybe gifting a membership to a moviegoer in your life. Sure. Great way to support the show. This is a dream advertiser. Yes. A dream partner for us. We want to keep this going. We think it could benefit everybody. Especially the movies. I want to resolve a few pins. Please take some pins out of the board.

[00:38:45] But I think this movie is excellent. I think John Williams should have won the Oscar for best score on top of his wins that he, I think, largely deserved already. I think he should have won for Home Alone over Dances with Wolves. That might be my most controversial take. John Barry, though. The John Barry score for Dance with Wolves is very, very good. And hey, by the way, let's put a pin in Kevin Costner. As we're taking some pins out, let's put some other ones in. Pin in Costner for later.

[00:39:13] The Home Alone score, I think, has endured in ways maybe people didn't see coming in 1991. Anyway. I agree. And also, you and I say that might be the single greatest power boost of a score to a movie ever. Right. It is a huge... Yes, you're right. It's a huge help to that movie. I don't think he should have won for Saving Private Ryan. I think that score is very good, very sort of stately and, you know... Hans Zimmer should have won for The Thin Red Line. That's what's crazy. Hans Zimmer should have won for The Thin Red Line, although I think that score is sort

[00:39:43] of oddly deployed in the movie. It's an amazing score. Or it's unusually deployed in the movie. Well, it's the classic Malick thing where it was like scored and then he recut it and put pieces where they weren't written. Right. And it's like, what the fuck did you do? But you listen to that as an album and it's one of the most unbelievable pieces. It's an incredible score. And it becomes like the go-to score for trailer. There's a funny story. I don't know if you guys have read this new biography of Terrence Malick that came out by John Bleasdale. I want to read it. It's great. It's really, really great. And he got a lot of access.

[00:40:12] But there's a very funny story in it about how Disney uses the score for The Thin Red Line when they do the Pearl Harbor trailer. It's what makes the Pearl Harbor trailer look like a fucking Best Picture winner. When people thought... Right. And they didn't get permission to do this. Oh, really? And then years later, there was something... I wish I remembered this specific part of the story. But years later, there's something Malick needs from Disney.

[00:40:42] And one of his assistants is like, you know, they're being pains in the neck about it. And he says... He's like, play the card. Right. He says to them, send them a message with two words, Pearl Harbor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And immediately, he gets what he wants. This is like the Ernie Sabella Pumbaa story I've told many times. As if Malick isn't just some wide-eyed innocent wandering through the weed. He knows how to play the game. This guy has been in the industry forever. Um, I just... Life is Beautiful won that year, which is like an odd win, in my opinion.

[00:41:12] Um, I think Randy Newman's Pleasantville score is better. I think Sabin Brever is better. I think The Nerd Line is probably your actual winner there. He... He, in my opinion... All right, he probably was never going to win in 2001 because Lord of the Rings wins. Uh, for best score then. Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring. And that was for AI score? He's nominated for both AI and Harry Potter. It's like the kind of one-two punch of like, Williams can give you an iconic theme for like a big family movie.

[00:41:39] He can also do his AI score, one of his most beautiful scores, so sad. But that was never going to win at the time with how much people hated that movie. And also, I would argue that the score isn't... Always that well used in the movie. In the movie, it's... Again, it's a score I love listening to. In the movie itself, sometimes it overwhelms. It overwhelms the ending, I think. In a way that I think caused people to misread the film at the time. A lot of people who thought, yeah, it was more... I mean, I was very mixed on AI when I first saw it. I... I... I... I...

[00:42:09] I like it a lot now. I still have some issues with how the two... The Kubrick sensibility... It's a very strange Frankenstein. It's a very strange... And that's what makes it so unforgettable in a way. Nothing like that. Still, whenever I watch it, I'm like, that one doesn't... That scene doesn't quite... That scene doesn't quite... We all agree he should have won for Catch. He lost to Elliot Goldenthal, the great Elliot Goldenthal, for Frida. For Frida, which is lovely and interesting and like sort of, you know, like... But this is ripple effect. If Elliot Goldenthal had won for Batman and Robin, then we wouldn't have been in this position.

[00:42:38] Batman Forever is his better Batman score. I prefer the Batman and Robin score. But that's an iconic year. The score's... Or Heat. Well, his Heat score's very cool. Although, who knows how much of it he wrote. Right, I was about to say. But Far From Heaven, the Elmer Bernstein score for that is amazing. The Hours, very divisive. But the Philip Glass score for the Hours is like... I love it. Philip Glass kind of... He's a king. Yeah. And Thomas Newman's Road to Perdition score... That's an incredible score. ...yes, Thomas Newman often kind of hits the same notes, but a really good score. Yeah, I agree.

[00:43:07] Not a fan of that movie, but I like Thomas Newman. I don't remember that score. I like that movie and that score quite a bit. I've only seen it once. Anyway. That's like not seeing it at all. Yeah, that's like me just pissing on a DVD of the movie. Do you like Mendes generally? Because I'm very up and down on this. You know, the Mendes I really do like is Revolutionary Road. Oh, I hate that. See, that I need to rewatch. Everyone hates that. And I like... I think Skyfall is... I think Skyfall is his best movie. He's kind of...

[00:43:36] Period. I should have just... There's some directors who I'm like, just do Bond movies. Yeah. He should have become... What's his name? Who was the guy who did like 10 Bond movies in the 70s? John Glenn? John Glenn? Yeah. Or Lewis Hamilton. I'm like, he should have become one of them. No, but the whole thing with Mendes doing Skyfall, which is a movie I love, is that helps Bond convince itself it's become a prestige genre. And it's like, maybe you guys actually need to chill out a little bit and go back to basics a little bit and not be like two hours and 45 minutes long and have these... Yeah, no, you're right.

[00:44:06] It's a poser movie, but it kind of needs... It's good, to be clear. A negative effect on the next two movies, though, maybe. One last pin. The list, the nine directors who've won the Palme d'Or twice is such a weird list of like masters and kind of like right place, right time guys. Okay, so Ausland. Ruben Ausland is a right place, right time guy in my opinion. Kusteritsa is one of my all-time favorites. I know you love him. Although he's like a monster now. Oh, has he become a monster? Oh, he has been for a while.

[00:44:35] Older European directors. It's always a crapshoot with them. I mean, it was... You don't want to give them Twitter. It was already evident in Underground, which is a film I love. But, you know, the breakup of Yugoslavia really sent him and... He's a little hard right on that stuff. Yeah, he's... Dennis Miller effect. I mean... Kusteritsa is... I've not seen When Father Was Away on Business. I have seen Underground. I don't know... Have you seen Time of the Gypsies? No, I have never.

[00:45:04] Time of the Gypsies is fantastic. That's the one that's really... I mean, Underground, I really love. I love When Father Was Away on Business, but it was seeing Time of the Gypsies, which I believe only won, like, Best Director, Grand Jury Prize or something. That really kind of knocked my socks off when I was a kid. And then... Okay, so Coppola, you mentioned, obviously, that he's up there. Can you name the others? Dardanz went twice. Of course. Visconti won twice, I think, right? No. Does, like, Zinnemann win twice?

[00:45:32] Isn't there an old Hollywood director who won twice? No. All right, I'll tell you the others. Yeah. Alf Schoberg, that barely counts. Miss Julie. Miss Julie and Tormund. Can Loach. Can Loach, that's right. Oh, yeah, that's right. Which, he's a great director, a great filmmaker. I think both of those wins are sort of viewed... It's Barley and Daniel Blake? Yeah. I mean, I really like When the Wind Shakes the Barley. I saw that film very late. I remember at the time, people were really upset about its win. When I finally saw it, I was like, oh, this is actually really good.

[00:46:03] I, Daniel Blake, I was there for that can. That was my first can. And I remember... And I like I, Daniel Blake. It's pretty good! But that was... That can... Those can awards were a war crime. And that was, you know, heartbreaking. George Miller's jury. George Miller, great guy. That was the year of Tony Erdman. That was the year of The Handmaiden. It was the year that Tony Erdman was obviously going to win, and clearly, George Miller, or at least a couple of people in the jury, were just kind of like not into it. Yeah. I mean, I was kind of... I was pulling for The Handmaiden that year. Another great pick. I mean, there were a lot...

[00:46:32] It was a great can, and none of the big films won. And none of the really good films won anything, if I remember correctly. I mean, Daniel Blake was fine. It's just, I would not have given... Fucking to nature. I was going to say, Tony Erdman, the character, the character in character, feels like he would fit in in the wasteland. Like, you would imagine George Miller would take to that. Yeah, sure. Like, this guy could be the mayor of fucking Bullet Town. That was... Yeah, because it's when Xavier Dolan wins the Grand Prix, and Mads Mikkelsen. We get the Mads Mikkelsen face. And, um... Oh, what was it?

[00:47:01] The guy who directed Son of Saul. Sure. Lazlo Nimesh. Yeah, Lazlo Nimesh. He was on the jury that year. And the Xavier Dolan film, everybody hated. Even the people who really liked Xavier Dolan. Xavier Dolan fucking hated it, probably. But then was also angry that he had to share the award with Godard. Or was that a different year? That was a different year. I hated that shit. But that, um... The, uh... At the press conference, somebody asked Lazlo Nimesh something.

[00:47:29] About that film, I think. But, like, the question was different, and he answered the question with the weirdest response. Which was, yes, I know that some people think that because, uh... You know, because Xavier Dolan was on the jury last year, and I won the Grand Jury Prize, that I felt the need to give him the Grand Jury Prize this year. But I assure you that that's not true. And it was kind of... No one was asking that. Yeah, it was very much that my t-shirt is asking... I did not fuck that cat.

[00:47:59] Yeah, exactly. I have never fucked a cat. Yeah, because everybody was like, wait, what, really? Oh my god, is this a thing? Um, I mean, I'm sure it wasn't. But it was kind of crazy that that movie won the fucking Grand Jury Prize. Wait, did we go through all the... The others are Billy August, who won very close together. And Best Intention is kind of a weird winner. Pell the Conqueror, more of a traditional winner. Shohei Mamura, who's a great filmmaker. And The Eel tied with Taste of Cherry, so like whatever.

[00:48:28] Yeah, and The Eel is such a strange... That is a very strange movie to give a palm to. Uh, and Michael Haneke. Um, you know, he's more in the, you know, master territory. Although, like, I don't know. Is he gonna make another movie? What's he doing? Is he old? Yeah, I guess he's pretty old. I mean, he had a career before he became kind of... What is he, like a carpenter or something? What do you mean? No, no, I mean, like, he had made, like, you know, films for television and stuff like that. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

[00:48:56] Um, I would love to hear that, like, John Carpenter style. He's like, yeah, no, he's on Xbox Live. I just fucking watch the Xbox, exactly. Right, I'm playing with Hanukkah all the time. We're doing Halo together. The last thing, and we'll say this as we talk about Empire of the Sun, right? But it is very strange that The Last Emperor and Empire of the Sun, these two movies that are, like, both kind of being sold with the, like, no one's ever filmed in China before, like, an American movie, or, you know, are happening kind of at the same time. And kind of about the same period in history, a little, like, 10 years at all.

[00:49:26] If I can add on to this, is this not also, is Hope and Glory not also this same year when he kind of eats this movie's lunch on this sort of war from the perspective of a child thing? Right, Kid in War. At least at the time? I mean, critics, you know, critics liked Hope and Glory more. Yeah, no, I mean, it's a big year for those types of stories. But I think China is also opening up during this period. Of course, that's why it's happening, right? I mean, that's what happens with Bertolucci in The Last Emperor, where... But Bertolucci's kind of getting one on Spielberg, or Spielberg's like, I'm shooting in Shanghai, no one's shot an American production here.

[00:49:56] And Bertolucci's like, I got into the Forbidden City. The name is Forbidden! And I got in, you bitch! The whole first hour of my movies, wait, yours is set in some bombed-out hellscape. Mine's in the most beautiful palace ever built by man. That was a weird press conference, too. Where Bertolucci calls Spielberg a bitch. At the weigh-in? He's holding up the belt? Ruthless aggression. I think The Last Emperor is a better movie than this movie. But I like both. I would agree, because I love The Last Emperor.

[00:50:25] You've never seen The Last Emperor? I've never seen The Last Emperor. You haven't seen a lot of the Tony 80s epics that won Best Picture. You've never seen Out of Africa. You've never seen... Well, Driving Miss Daisy isn't an epic, but another kind of like... Neil Brown, Best Picture Winners. The 80s Best Picture Winners, I'm weirdly kind of... Battle. Last Emperor much better than Out of Africa or... Yeah, I mean, Last Emperor I love. It's not my favorite movie of all time. It's not even my favorite Bertolucci movie, but I... Well, you know what, Belga? I just don't care. Fuck myself. Well, no, 87 is...

[00:50:54] But 87 is the year I discover, like, Bertolucci. I was like 14 and I discovered Italian cinema and French cinema. And then at the end of the year, The Last Emperor comes out and I'm just like in hog heaven. But also because... You were the only person in hog heaven watching The Last Emperor. I'm sure. I'm sure. I don't even have to talk about how many times I've seen that movie. Everyone else is like seeing Repo Man or whatever. You're like, I'm in hog heaven with The Last Emperor. Repo Man is 86. Yeah, I was close. 87 is also...

[00:51:22] I think 87 is also Alex Cox's Walker. Oh, very... A very chill and normal movie. Which is another favorite movie that... And that's a movie everybody hated. What was your immediate response walking out of Empire of the Sun? Knowing you ultimately would then alternate and see it every other week. I... I... I loved it when I first saw it. I mean, I remember... You'd probably seen most of Spielberg's big movies. Yeah, because... It was ubiquitous. In the 80s, we were growing up with Spielberg. Right, and he's kind of growing up with you. Yes, exactly.

[00:51:50] Like, he's making more adult movies at the exact age that you're ready to start seeing more adult movies. Right, that's the other thing. As I was re-watching Empire of the Sun, you know, in preparation for this, it dawned on me. I was like, oh, I, like, grew up with him, even though he's obviously much older than I am. But there is this, like, he's making movies for kids when I'm a kid. And as his movies grow up, I'm growing up with him. And that really, you know, that was really fascinating to kind of think about.

[00:52:16] But he, you know, first of all, the first 30, 40 minutes of Empire of the Sun are masterful. Even the critics who didn't like the movie were like, I mean, I think even Pauline Kael was just like, you know, the first 30 minutes, like the, you know, the invasion of Shanghai. I mean, he stages that with such, such great control. And it's so funny, you were saying it's like him learning to kind of give up his toys. And the scene is literally a boy dropping his toy and then trying to get.

[00:52:43] That's where I think this movie is like not self-critical, but like very self-aware and sort of like scathing of his whole persona and worldview. Like this movie is this kid literally getting slapped to be like fucking engage with the real world. Your chauffeur's not coming. You can't exist in your fantasy land of like Halloween costumes and toys. Yeah. Um, I think I can't relate to him. I'm going to actually open the dossier.

[00:53:11] In the 1980s, Steven Spielberg befriended David Lean. David Lean would have been what? I'm looking up his age. I mean, like, uh, very old at this point, like in his seventies. He died at the age of 83 and 91. So he's in his like early seventies. If I remember correctly. It's a terrible present. It's 16th of April. Yeah. Wow. Um, I, uh, no, but, uh, David Lean does, uh, he does passage to India in 84. And that's his last movie. That's his last movie. Okay. He's like working on Nostromo for a while.

[00:53:41] And then that doesn't happen. But this in theory would have been his last film. I mean, obviously not that he was planning it as such, but yeah. But like passage to India though, I do feel like his people at the time is received by, by people being like, he's, this is a, this is a film from a person from another age. Like, yes, of course it's impressive, but, uh, David Lean is not exactly with the modern. Yeah. I remember seeing passage to India with my dad is in brown face and everyone's like, why is that? Right. So my, my, my dad, you know, has always been a huge cinephile and I owe my cinephile to him.

[00:54:10] But I remember seeing passage to India with him and he was very mixed on David Lean. He was not a big David Lean fan. Um, he leaned back as a viewer. I was leaning in, he was leaning back. But, um, as we were watching, or maybe this was, we wouldn't have talked during the movie, but I do remember this exchange, which is the scene where, where the doctor is like on the train where he's walking on. Okay. I had seen the passage to you one time, like 15 years ago.

[00:54:39] There's a shot of, of, of the doctor, um, whose name I forget, sort of walking between train cars on the outside of the train. Uh, and it's an incredible shot. And, and I remember saying to my dad, how can you not like a movie that has a shot like this? And he, and, and I remember he said, I dislike it because there's a shot like this. Like, like he was like, this grandiosity is too much. Is that the essential divide between you and your father as like film viewers? Because you like grandiosity.

[00:55:08] I like grandiosity. He actually likes grandiosity too. Um, he just needs it to be earned. It was often, uh, we actually had a lot of really political disagreements over films. Uh, my dad was kind of a, at the time, I mean, he, you know, later changed his ideas on things, but he was kind of an old school communist back in the day. Um, and we actually had a lot of arguments over Bertolucci films over which ones were, were like true to the revolution and which ones weren't and stuff like that. Like he, he was very much a 1900 man.

[00:55:37] And I was much more of a last emperor man. And he felt like last emperor, he liked the movie, but he felt like it kind of sold out a little bit. It's too sympathetic to this imperial creature, right? Like, I don't know. Well, this is the thing I genuinely love about you as, as a critic is that you are very discerning in what you will like wholeheartedly endorse as a fully functional, you know, masterpiece or whatever. But I do like your transparency in sometimes being like, there is an element of craft in this

[00:56:04] or a performance or a theme or a feeling that I like, it elevates this movie, even if maybe the movie isn't great beyond some more functional films. I can't throw this out because there's something here that is sticking with me. Yeah. I mean, I imagine a lot of critics are like this, but there's like sometimes there's some, there's something you love in a movie and even if the rest of the movie doesn't work. I mean, you know, sometimes it's like, just like the score, you know, there's so many films I've seen where I'm like, oh, I love that movie.

[00:56:33] And then I watch it. I'm like, I think I just kind of like the score, but I like how the score is used in the movie. So I can't just listen to the score. I kind of have to see the movie. I'm not, I truly am not backhanding anyone in particular in my mind, but I do feel like, especially from like the experience of going to critic screenings and then reading those people's reviews, that sometimes you see people clearly enjoy a thing in a movie, but then they're like analytical brain comes on and they're like, I can't fully endorse this as a thing that works.

[00:57:03] I have, I have, I have said this about certain films where I, well, I did this about, um, that's my boy where I went. Have we had this conversation? No, but like when I went to see that's my boy at a critic screen, I sat in that room with all these critics laughing their asses off and I was sitting next to a couple of them. I'm like, you laughed, you laughed, you laughed, you laughed. And then the next day you see their reviews and they're all trashing the movie. I'm like, you guys are fucking lying.

[00:57:30] You, you just sat, you sat there for two hours or hour and a half or whatever it was laughing your asses off. And my thing with the review was, listen, objectively, this movie is, you know, probably a piece of shit, but I laughed my ass off. What can I say? Same thing with vacation, the vacation. You, you, you've always stood up for the vacation remake. Yes. But speaking of the vacation remake, David Lean, uh, no, he's interested in JG Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel, which had just come out in 1984.

[00:57:58] He asks Spielberg to check in on the rights for him. I guess Lean is just kind of like sitting in his estate being like, get that Hollywood guy on the phone. The sort of string of great older filmmakers who somehow, uh, collaborated with Spielberg only for Spielberg to wind up directing their movies. Right. Talk about the Billy Wilder Schindler thing in a couple of weeks. Right. Yeah. Or AI and Kubrick. Knowing that he was so high. Kubrick had good taste in these people. Well, this is what I was going to say. To seek them out. Yeah.

[00:58:26] Him being so high level, being such a king of Hollywood, and also these guys knowing that he was such a cinephile and had such respect for the masters. All of them are like, if Spielberg extends his like check to me, I'm good. And it's a little bit of like Jordan Peele being like, I'm going to hire Spike Lee to make Black Klansman so he can win an Oscar finally, you know? Yeah. So Spielberg checks in on the rights to this for David Lean. It's at Warner Brothers, Harold Becker, the not great, the okay Harold Becker. Yeah, that's a, that's a puzzling choice there.

[00:58:56] Director of Sea of Love and Taps is attached. A solid journeyman kind of studio guy. Uh, and so, uh, Spielberg says like, yeah, it's tied up. Like it's sort of spoken for. And then Becker drops out or whatever. Uh, and so Spielberg goes back to Lean, at least this is how Spielberg tells it and says like, hey, it's available. And at that point, Lean is interested, as you say, in, uh, Nostromo, an adaptation of the Joseph Conrad book, which never happened. I guess Lean just.

[00:59:22] Well, there was a, there was a, a BBC TV version of it made. And I don't know if it was, cause I think Robert Bolt had written a screen. I, I, I read that screenplay once, I think. I used to work at the BBC and I remember I would just like steal all this stuff from them. Uh. What did you do with the BBC? Lord knows what he did. It was like my first job out of college. I actually had a very funny job at the BBC, which we won't get into here cause it's, it's very, but I had to prepare like little dossiers for all the productions that they co-financed. You were the JJ. Yeah.

[00:59:51] Um, so Lean is like, you, you do it. You know, I'm, I don't want to do that anymore, but you go do it. Lean said he lost interest. A quote, quote, this is a quote from Lean saying, this is a bloody well-written and very interesting diary. I don't think it has enough of a dramatic shape. Yeah. But Spielberg also said from the moment that Lean brought it to him, he was like, fuck, secretly I kind of want to direct this. So I think he was thrilled when Lean threw it over to him. Right. Lean, uh, Spielberg also apparently was like, I'll produce Nostromo for you and started giving notes on a Christopher Hampton screenplay.

[01:00:20] That's the popular one I'm thinking of. And Lean was like, fuck you. You don't give me notes. And Spielberg was like, okay, okay, okay. I just backed off. It was just like, I don't want to piss you off. Um, so Spielberg, um, is, why do you think he's intrigued by Empire of the Sun? It's through the eyes of a boy. Like, you know. It's an opportunity for him to make his definitive, uh, End of Innocence movie. Right. Have you guys read the novel? No, I never have. I've read a lot of J.G. Bob, but never, uh, that one. And, and I've read no J.G. Ballard except for that one.

[01:00:50] The, uh, it's beautifully written. It is beautifully written. And it's so, you know, the landscapes and the action, everything is so vividly described. You can easily tell just by reading it, just through the language, why Spielberg thought, okay, I can, I can do something with this or for that matter of why David Lean thought he could do something with it. Um, it's very dark though. I mean, they have definitely sanitized it for, for, for the film. This didn't happen to him.

[01:01:17] He did grow up in Shanghai, but he wasn't separated from his parents. Like there is some dramatic. Yeah. No, it's, it's a novel. I mean, it is a novel, although it's, you know, autobiographical. He grew up in that period. And he suffered through the, you know. You know, the stuff described in the film and in the, in the, in the book is some of it is so gnarly and dark and, you know, you do wonder if, and I don't know if, you know,

[01:01:43] how the, the, the script, you know, um, transpired and how, what its journey was. But, you know, when we talk about how Spielberg is taking this like darker story and not doing some of the things that, that he's been accused of doing in the past, there is definitely a lot of sanitizing happening and a lot of kind of condensing of characters and turning them into more of a, more of a Hollywood-y plot element. But I'll say this, not having read this book and also not having read The Color Purple,

[01:02:13] shamefully, watching The Color Purple movie, you can tell in real time it's sanitized, even if you don't know the source material. This. Yeah, he dances around a lot of stuff. I'm not surprised to hear that, but I don't feel it while I'm watching it. Neither did I. I mean, that's, that's why I was so surprised when I, when I read the novel to find, you know, that it was, that it was so dark. But then there are. You can tell he's avoiding stuff. Yes. This, it doesn't feel that way. Ben, have you ever read me, JG Ballard? I feel like you would dig. Chris Urbana, aka Warhouse. Crash. Yeah, I read Crash. High Rise, you'd probably dig. Atrocity Exhibition.

[01:02:43] Like, these are Benny tales, in my opinion. What's the best one? I mean, I think High Rise is so cool, but that, it's a book that really. I feel like I'm the only person that likes the Wheatley movie. I didn't mind that movie. The Wheatley movie is what? Of High Rise. You made a movie of High Rise? Oh, with Tom Hiddleston. High Rise is like these people move into a really fancy new apartment building in like 70s Britain and it's like a weird nightmare zone that they can't escape from. It's very cool. As for society's collapsing. That doesn't sound like JG Ballard.

[01:03:11] But I feel like you would dig it. Yeah, you would. Yeah. I should check it out. There's so many fucking books I need to check out. Well, that's true. That's life, huh? You're a good reader though. I'm getting back to- In your 20s, you were a big- Yeah. I mean, I mistakenly went to school for creative writing thinking that was a smart idea that would lead to career opportunities. So I did a ton of reading then and over the years, I kind of fall off from time to time.

[01:03:41] But yeah, I'm getting back into the swing of things. Do you have a favorite novel? Ooh. That's a tough question. No, I know it's an absurd. I was like, what's your favorite novel? Grapes of Wrath, maybe? That's a pretty good one. I don't know. I mean, it's kind of my stock answer. Do you have a stock answer for a favorite novel? No. I mean, I would say it's embarrassing at this point to say like On the Road. On the Road, great. But I was such a huge fan of the beats.

[01:04:09] That was like a very important era for me when I was a young man. That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. It's a joke for two people. Everybody keeps telling me to read The Dharma Bums. Did you ever read The Dharma Bums? Sure. Yeah. How was that? Other Kerouac book? Yeah. I mean, all of the other Kerouac stuff can be hit or miss. Uh-huh. Trying to think. The Subterraneans is a great novel and very short, but I love them.

[01:04:41] David. What? This episode's brought to you by Mubi. Hello, Mubi. Once again, here we are in March of 2025, and we are so happy that Mubi continues to sponsor the show. They are a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema. From around the globe, from iconic directors to emerging auteurs. There's always something new to discover. With Mubi, each and every film is hand-selected so you can explore the best of cinema, streaming anytime, anywhere. And that's fine. You can go to Mubi. You can watch great movies. You can do that. That's fine. It's really great. It's not fine. It's great. Yeah, it's great.

[01:05:12] Fantastic. But they've also got Mubi. Mubi. Which are in theaters and then stream exclusively on Mubi. Such as? Yes. Academy Award winner. The Substance. Might have heard of it. It's quite a big breakthrough. Harley Farge's movie from 2024. It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress. Yes. Won for Best Makeup. Yes. If you, somehow, have not seen The Substance yet, the place you gotta go is Mubi. Yep.

[01:05:42] Yeah. It's streaming exclusively there. I think it's actually back in theaters for a short time because of the Oscars. But you've got Demi. You've got Dennis Quaid. You've got Margot Crawley. You've got this gonzo script. You've got this crazy lurid imagery. This, you know, insane satire. It's a wild movie. And proved. It's a must see. It's Griff's mom approved. Oh, fascinating. I took her to see it. I thought she was going to walk out and she gave it two grossed out thumbs up. So you can check all that out.

[01:06:10] And of course, to stream great films at home, you can try Mubi free for 30 days. That's Mubi.com slash blank check for a month of great cinema for free. Mubi. So, um, you know, Spielberg's interested. He obviously had been trying to make a Peter Pan movie for a long time. Hook is the eventual Peter Pan movie he makes.

[01:06:39] But he's kind of like, this is the opposite of Peter Pan. This is me getting to like strangle my Peter Pan movie. A movie that literally opens with like a kid trying to goof around and someone being like, Hey, stop it. Um, yes. Uh, so he's also a war nerd. You know, he's like a history nerd, like so many baby boomers. Uh. And the thing we've already touched on that he, he felt like, uh, being able to watch war films gave him an understanding of his father. Right.

[01:07:08] A vet who would not really talk about. And his father, I believe, was in the Air Force. Uh, so airplanes in particular interesting to him, I guess. Um, and, uh, he knows this isn't going to be a commercial project really. Like he's, uh, I guess sort of aware of like, I'm not about to knock out a big hit, but he's also kind of working on like another Indiana Jones movie. Uh, there's a Tom Stoppard script when he comes aboard.

[01:07:33] Uh, he gets Menomenehaz, Menomenehaz, Menomenehaz who wrote Color Purple to do a pass. Uh, but then Stoppard comes back in and, you know, does the other pass. Uh, he's the only credit on the movie. Right. And Stoppard is kind of like, it's a masterpiece. And I kind of learned how to write movies with Stephen helping me. Like, you know, like as much as Tom Stoppard is obviously, uh, one of the most famous playwrights of his generation. Like he becomes this kind of like Hollywood go-to guy, especially for rewrites.

[01:08:02] And he's kind of like, I learned a lot working on that in terms of like where you don't need dialogue, like writing screenplays where like you can let the pictures take over. What's up? Can I just sidebar very quickly here because now it feels too relevant to not bring up. Do you know what I'm going to say about? Uh, no. You were just talking about your creative writing degree and how you've moved away from that. You did recently announce to us in group text that your resi for 2025 is that you want to become a produced playwright. Yes.

[01:08:29] Uh, I always try to come up with a big, uh, resolution for myself. You might remember 2018 when Ben said he was going to become a Goog fell. Yes. He was going to get a Guggenheim fellowship. Yeah. That still hasn't materialized. But working on it. So, so these resolutions aren't always realistic? But they're big. No. They're always big though. Well, one year is to ride, ride on a horse and you did. Right dang horse. You did ride a dang horse. I rode the shit out of that horse. Uh, I also made a fashion brand. Yes. That you did?

[01:08:59] Some of these haven't achieved. Yeah. How's the sleep podcast coming? Let's not talk about it. Um, so. You could write a play about riding a horse. I mean, I, I'll add it to the list. The idea bank. But yeah, I'm very much, I'm trying to, I'm trying to pivot to being a playwright. That's awesome. That's, that's really cool. We still need you producing. Of course. Of course. Okay. Okay. Good. Um, so Ballard, uh, meets Spielberg loves him. Well, but wait, I think there's a reason why you're bringing this up. Oh, I'm sorry. Because we're talking about Tom Stoppard.

[01:09:28] It just, being brought up as one of the, the great, most beloved modern playwrights. I was like, here's, here's an inspiration, Ben. Here's someone for you to look to. Because I was talking about him though. Maybe this wasn't a conversation with you, Griffin. He technically produced like a spinoff prequel of Shakespeare. The Rosencrant and Gilderson. And he directed, he directed the film version of it too. Oh really? After this, a couple of years after this and won like the big prize. I want to say Venice. I think it won Venice.

[01:09:58] Venice, right? It's a play that I adore. Uh, I've never loved the movie. Uh. I saw it once. I don't remember much about it. But you're right. It's kind of the Lion King one and a half of Romeo and Juliet. It's just a, it's a, it's a text that does not make sense as a movie. Hamlet. It's fun to watch those guys do it. It's just funny. As you were saying, you were saying, that Tom Stoppard kind of learned how to write movies from Empire of the Sun. I'm like, well then he went and did Rosencrant and Gildenstern. But like doing your own play, it's often about it. And then he, right.

[01:10:27] Didn't he do like heavy uncredited passes on both Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith? He definitely, I think that's the thing. He's in those, in the Spielberg Lucas like hangouts. I thought you were going to say he's in those movies. He's in those movies. He played Darth Maul. People forget that. He's in the Galactic Senate. You didn't see Tom Stoppard in the Galactic Senate. And his character's name is Tom Stoppard. And he gets up there and he goes, Tom Stop. Stop Tomard. Hyphen ard. Amy Irving had worked with Christian Bale in a TV film called Anastasia, The Mystery of Anna. So she had...

[01:10:58] That was his first acting job of any sort? She recommends him to Steven Spielberg. And this is his first theatrical film. Now I... Spielberg still like auditioned 4,000 kids or whatever. But like, you know, obviously Bale is basically like the big find of the movie. Now I want to just, I need to say this. Go ahead. In a future episode that we've already recorded, I go on a long tangent about Spielberg's weird failure to identify and break new male stars. This is your bugbear with him, but it's a more recent bugbear.

[01:11:25] I don't hold against him, but I just think it's interesting that he has such a limited track record of it. And then I put this on this morning and I'm like, oh, right. He fucking found Christian Bale. This is the one huge exception to the rule that needs to be noted. So keep that in mind when you listen to me five weeks from now. Forget Christian Bale. He's astonishing in this movie. But it is one of those like Spielberg kid performances where you're like, what is the alchemy here? Is Spielberg just so good with children? But then obviously Bale became such a talented actor. I was going to say. But he also says that he hated making this movie and it made him feel like he never wanted to make a movie again.

[01:11:55] And there is a period where it is not a certainty that Christian Bale will become a star. No, I mean, in Newsy's he looks like he has guns trained on him. Christian Bale had a bit of a parallel Henry Thomas arc where for a while it was like he can't come out from the shadow of him being a kid that Spielberg discovered. Even though he had a little less baggage than Thomas did and a little more success. It's not really until Batman when people were like, he's safe as an adult actor. And he also, he takes on such risky material.

[01:12:25] You know, I mean, he does Velvet Gold Mine and he does American Psycho. He works with really interesting directors. A number of female directors, which is a thing that young male stars never do. Nope. And even when the films aren't that good, there's like this body of work emerges where he's doing like really interesting work. He is one of my favorite actors. Oh, he's, I recently, a couple of years ago, somebody asked me like, who's your favorite actor? And I couldn't, I was trying to think about it

[01:12:54] and I realized of actors working today, I think Christian Bale is maybe the one person I will watch him in anything. I agree. And he's in a lot of movies I don't like. He's obsessed with being in bad movies recently. Right. He's not had a great run recently, but I'm like, I do always find him interesting. And I do think he is a guy who is to a certain degree now just taken as a given for a guy who had such a hard time for a long time carving out his space. Now it's like, yeah, well, Christian Bale's good.

[01:13:23] And I'm like, he's always doing weird shit and oftentimes in service of bad movies. He's almost like there's, there's a bit of the Adam Driver thing going on. Yeah. Yeah. But I also, I think he is, if not more transformative, more flexible than Driver, who has such a specific, you know, energy and presence and all of this. What I do find interesting, paralleling out to Henry Thomas, who has also had, you know, I love a lot of his work as an adult. His career as an adult, but obviously not a Christian Bale type career. And it's also one of those cases

[01:13:53] where you hear about the making of that movie and there's a certain degree of this kid just being like an intuitive, emotionally intelligent, natural, and Spielberg creating the right framework for him and Drew Barrymore. And Drew Barrymore, someone who obviously has a major career, but you're like, this is a movie of like a little girl who's good on camera. And then later when she becomes an adult movie star, that's a different thing. Right? Henry Thomas, I feel like- And she has to go through the tortures of the dam. Totally. And I feel like Henry Thomas goes through a bit of a wilderness phase where what he's settled into as adult actor is very different than who he was as a child.

[01:14:21] What is fascinating about watching this movie is it is just like Muppet Baby's Christian Bale. You're like, this is the exact actor he still is today. As much as he talks about like having a difficult time making it, a thing I love about- I think it's just tough to be a teenager making a movie. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's the classic sort of child star pipeline where there was a lot of like his parents pushed him into it and he was like expected to sort of help support the household and all this sort of stuff. And he had to go through a cycle of learning to love it himself. And a thing I love about Bale

[01:14:51] is that he always talks about that he like deflates the idea of his sort of self-serious methodness. And he always just frames it as like, look, this is a thing I did when I was a kid. I had to go through an arc towards like respecting it as an adult because it kind of came to me naturally. For me, I just need to put that much into it to feel like I'm actually doing a serious job and not doing something that feels frivolous. Like he's like, it's my own justification of not being lazy about this in a way.

[01:15:22] But you just feel that sort of intensity in this. Obviously this in this film, I think it's a lot more makeup, but it's like when the second half you have the time jump and suddenly you're dealing with like gaunt haunted Bale. You're like, this is what we're used to. Bale shows up and he's lost 100 pounds and his eyes are dead, you know? And he has that like, he's got the looks and the feelings and like it is the first version of what if he has any default mode as a movie star,

[01:15:50] the pieces of it are in this from the get go. I agree with you. I think, right, it's, yeah, it's grown up Bale. It's, I'm, what's the, what's the best analog for this? He doesn't play a lot of like sweet relatable people anymore. I mean, my quiet favorite performance of his is, is the new world. I love him in the new world. Which I think is one of the all time great normal guy performances. From him. Right. But also it's like, it's a character who fundamentally exists to come in at the end

[01:16:20] and be like, I am relatively uncomplicated. Right. That's a movie with my favorite actor giving maybe his best performance. Colin. Yeah. I was going to make a joke. Why? Why? I mean, Ben Chaplin. Is he in that? He is in that. I totally forgot. I'm pretty sure he was on set for like six months and winds up in like 30 seconds. There are a lot of incredible, yeah. Cut me corn. I'll see you later. I believe he basically gets decapitated at some point. The, what was I going to say about Bale? Oh, the, when you were talking about

[01:16:49] Bale's experiences with this, it, it sounds almost a bit like what Jeff Bridges went through. Like Jeff Bridges went through this period after, I mean, he had actually like been nominated for an Oscar and stuff, but he, he actually was, was ready to quit. But he was like, I don't want to do this. talking about this too on his awards trail of like, I started doing this when I was four. I never really felt like I had agency in that decision. It came to me naturally. And because of that, I kind of didn't take it seriously. And it wasn't until succession that he was like, fuck,

[01:17:18] I think I actually want to be an actor for the rest of my life. Yeah, yeah. No, that is, I mean, with child actors, that's the thing, especially with child actors who come from an acting family or to whom it comes. I mean, Jeff Bridges' whole thing was like, this was like the family profession. And I lucked into it and I was easy around it. It worked. And he obviously does like last picture show and stuff. But then, but then he was like, I want to do something else. Like this, like, I feel weirdly worthless. I think, right.

[01:17:48] Because it's like, I think they feel like I'm playing pretend and people are like lauding me. And now I'm growing up and that feels childish. If I was good at doing it when I was 10, how can it be serious? I bet, I bet Joaquin Phoenix has a story like this too. Like, I wouldn't be so, I mean, he's, you know, you also just, he's a guy much like Bale who the angst just exudes off of every performance. relationship to the thing he's good at. And his methody shit is kind of similar even though he's not good

[01:18:17] at articulating it in the same way as Bale, but it's just like, right. And Bale also has like a weird sort of like family structure and childhood. Like, both of his parents were huge personalities without being actors in the film industry themselves. Yeah. I hope he's good this year in The Bride, which is his only upcoming project. But it does kind of feel like the kind of thing where he could just lay it on really, really thick and, you know, be fun. But, you know, maybe. You know what's an interesting thing that I think about

[01:18:47] a fair amount? I remember some interview with Kathleen Kennedy a couple years ago where they're probably talking about how Star Wars was good and normal and no one was complaining about anything. And she brought up how much she loved Ford versus Ferrari. Sure. She obviously worked on this film. Right. And said like, that is the closest to the real Christian I have ever seen on screen. Boy. She was like, obviously he's doing things as an actor, but she was like, that is the closest

[01:19:16] to his personality. That is his most revealing performance. He's really good in that movie. But that feeling of being so good at something and kind of fighting against it. That might be why, because, you know, Mangold, obviously, you know, when he gets the call to do the Indiana Jones movie, I asked him like, what do you, why do you think they called him? He's like, I think it was because of Ford versus Ferrari. Yeah, Kennedy like, loves them. So, they shoot this film in China, as discussed, 21 day shoot in China, which was completely unheard of back then. And it was really complicated.

[01:19:45] The most complicated thing being they couldn't process film there. So, they shot everything without access to dailies, which is insane to consider. And especially for Spielberg, I'm sure that like, felt scary to lose that part of the process. Right. Like, basically like, they would have had to like, ship the film off, get it processed in America, shipped back through customs, maybe get access to dailies two weeks later. at great expense. One thing I remember hearing this years ago, and I don't even know how it would have worked, but I believe sometime in the 80s, they sold,

[01:20:15] Technicolor sold all its labs to China. So, maybe it was, I mean, this film isn't shot in Technicolor, so that wouldn't have been an issue, but. Was this when, when Ron Perlman bought Technicolor? Does he still own Technicolor? I don't know. I don't know. This was a long time ago. Billionaire Ron Perlman, owner of Rev. Yeah. But, and there was speculation at the time of like, the fifth generation filmmakers of why those films were so vivid color-wise was because they had all these like, Technicolor labs. I'm,

[01:20:47] I'm probably sort of misremembering history here, but. Let's talk about the film, Empire of the Sun. Set during World War II, during Japan's invasion of China, Jim Graham. Slightly more thoughtfully than the way he depicts it in 1941. The same day as Pearl Harbor. It happened on December 7th? I believe it's the same day as Pearl Harbor. That's interesting. Yeah, certainly it was pretty much concurrent. Obviously, Japan had been mucking around

[01:21:16] in China for decades and, you know, invades Manchuria in the early 30s and all that. But, Jim Graham is a British boy, right? These are British expats living in the Shanghai International Settlement because Britain, you know, basically during the Opium Wars and I am not an expert on all this stuff was just kind of like, we just get to have stuff here now. And China was like, what? And they were like, this is ours right here and our boats go here and we're going to build some fucking schools and shit and like, you know, like that's just what Britain used to do.

[01:21:47] And post Pearl Harbor, Japan invades and they just don't get out in time, right? I mean, that's the sort of early part of the movie. But you're starting from the perspective of these kind of oblivious, out-of-touch colonizers in a country that is now being attacked that they feel ownership of but now the actual rightful sort of citizens are like, fuck you most of all, you know? Yeah. It is a movie that starts with kind of like immediately dismantling these characters. Yes. And I think

[01:22:17] there's that, the scene with the, where they're at the dinner party where the, the guy is kind of basically saying like, you know, you guys are just temporary here. Like, you don't, you don't seem to understand that about like the, you British, like, right? I mean, that's, they think that they're, I mean, that the British Empire will last for another thousand years, I guess, is sort of the vibe, the innocuous vibe, but not innocuous is the word I'm looking for. Passive. Oblivious. The oblivious. But also, like, the Bale character's relationship to what, from his perspective,

[01:22:47] feels like his homeland because it's where he's being raised. Right. He's never been to England. No. But also, he's this like, perfect little English boy singing choral music, you know, in his uniform. The version of China he lives in is like a weird bubble that is disconnected from the reality of China. And like, from the get-go, even just that like, choral sequence, you're cutting back and forth between like, him fighting the resistance to like, muck around, right? His like, you know, schoolmaster or whatever

[01:23:16] conducting the orchestra and telling him to focus up and then cutting to the reaction shots of like, Chinese citizens in the pews who are like, what are we fucking doing here? What are we watching here? Why are we being forced to engage with this? How much do you know about early 20th century Chinese history? Weirdly, we studied early 20th, we studied Chinese history in middle school. Okay. I don't remember a lot of it, but I- Boxer Rebellion. Boxer Rebellion, the, you know, Sun Yat-sen's revolution,

[01:23:46] Chiang Kai-shek, and then, you know, the Long March. I remember all this stuff, you know, I mean, I don't, you know, I haven't looked into it recently, but I remember I was, especially during this period, because, I mean, we'd studied Chinese history by the time 87 rolls around, and I see this movie and The Last Emperor. So when I watched The Last Emperor, I knew exactly kind of the context in which it was taking place. And you're watching it at a time when, like, Red China, you know, like, this sort of block is suddenly opening up

[01:24:16] a little bit to the Western world and, you know, whatever. Yeah, yeah, it's opening up, I mean, you know, I remember there was this, there was this kind of almost iconic time cover of Deng Xiaoping and, like, opening up China, you know. So, yeah, I mean, I have, you know, had some familiarity with the history at the time, but not as much familiarity with World War II history, interestingly enough. I mean, I mean, through osmosis,

[01:24:45] you learn about things from movies and stuff, and this is actually a thing I'm going through with my son now, because, I mean, he's 15, he's a sophomore in high school, but there's so much just like basic American history and world history that he just, he hasn't been taught. I don't know what you're talking about. We are really good at teaching our own history in an honest and unvarnished way to our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. We're not even good at teaching the sanitized version of it at this point. you're right. Yeah. But,

[01:25:16] you know, like, because, you know, now he watches some of these movies with me, and I'm like, I'm like, do you know what World War II was about? And he only has like a vague idea. But then I'm like, well, did I, had I studied World War II at this point? I don't know that I had at this age, but I, but I'd seen Casablanca, I'd seen all these other, but like, and obviously, the Hollywood version of history is like, is a monstrosity. It's not a thing you should ever use to teach anybody. But through osmosis, you kind of get this idea of what happened, you know?

[01:25:46] Like, my son is fascinated by presidential history, and I'm trying to explain Watergate to him these days. And I'm like, my wife keeps saying, oh, you know, show him all the president's men. I'm like, you don't understand. All the president's men is made for an audience that already knows what happened. All the president's men ends with like, and then Watergate. Like, it doesn't, it's not about Watergate like unfolding in Congress. Yeah, like, if you watch all the president's men and you don't know what happened at Watergate, you will be completely lost. This is why we were watching The Post because I was like, all right,

[01:26:16] The Post is a movie that actually does kind of explain what it's about, you know? I mean, it doesn't explain Watergate, but it, you know, the political stakes are explained in a kind of clear manner so you can actually understand what's going on. I mean, I always show him Nixon. I'm with Nixon. I'm going to show him Nixon. Actually, we're thinking maybe Dick might be the way to go for it. I want to show him Nixon too, but Nixon also like presupposes a lot of knowledge on the audience's part. Dick is a good entry point and really accurate depiction of exactly how everything

[01:26:45] went down. I always gently mock my grandmother for this, but her favorite thing to say is, you know, war is really important, especially World War II and no one ever talks about it. And I'm always like, what are you talking, it's the most talked about thing in global history. And yet, it's not like I'm having this realization for the first time. Most of my genuine understanding of World War II comes from me cobbling together the prism of depictions and movies and then being like, what if this is fake

[01:27:15] and what if this is real and what's the real info I need to like tie together the accurate pieces? I mean, our whole culture exists in the shadow of World War II. Totally. In this way that is like very... Understandably, to be clear, it was a world war. It was crazy. It was a massive, massive event in human history. And it's not even that it's like abstracted in the media, but it's like stretched in so many weird ways, you know? And it's also one of the things that I feel like very few Americans know about the Sino-Japanese War and like, you look at like,

[01:27:45] you just sort of like start delving into that and it's like, yeah, like five million debt, right? Like, and that's just like the Chinese theater, right? And it's like, no one even thinks about China in World War II. They think about like D-Day and like Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima and Nagasaki or whatever, you know, like they don't even think about like, yeah, there was a, this tiny thin island invaded like the most giant country on earth like for 15 years. Anyway. Right, which you, you know, you can make the argument of like, why is like the biggest Hollywood

[01:28:15] sort of attempt to tackle that as a piece of this, you know, historic period told through the prism of a young white British boy. But I also think that is the part of the movie that is Spielberg really trying to work through something, which is this character coming to realize where he stands in relation to this thing, which is especially interesting coming right after Color Purple where he's going through this whole thought process of like, am I the guy to tell this story? But that is him

[01:28:44] just trying to put himself in the headspace of a person he can't really directly relate to an experience. He's not really the guy to tell the Color Purple story, I would say. He's more the guy to tell this story, but this is certainly a story where like the Japanese characters are entirely abstracted. Like you're not, there's no characters there really that the kid he makes friends with at the end a little bit. Who's kind of a conglomeration of various characters in the novel. that Ballard encountered or Ballard's fictional alter ego encountered. And like, yeah, I mean,

[01:29:14] I do watch this knowing he's going to make Schindler's List being like, it's interesting that he finally did kind of maybe have that moment of like, maybe I should make a movie that more personally relates to my history versus like, I, Steven Spielberg, will dramatize the invasion like the fall of Shanghai. He's using the history almost allegorically to his own inner sort of life in this film versus Schindler and the reason why it is the one that finally connects with everyone of like, congratulations, you did it, you made a grown-up movie is that he's like pulling from something that is like a cultural trauma

[01:29:43] that feels personal to him. Oh yeah, and he has to go through the gauntlet of this movie to be able to make. I think that's right. Yeah. But there's like, in my opinion, very, very good. There's stuff just in the first 20 minutes where you're just like, he is like really taking the scalpel to himself of like this kid in his backyard setting a toy plane on fire and like whirling around and smiling. His like smile when he sees the submarine out his window rising,

[01:30:13] like all of this is fun. Look, it's like the movies, you know? And I think a lot of critics at the time or a number of critics at the time like misunderstood that. Yeah. Because they saw this stuff and they thought, oh, it's just Spielberg being Spielberg. I remember somebody saying something along the lines of when will Steven Spielberg give up making movies about children on bicycles? And I was like, did you happen to notice what he's riding the bike through? You know, totally. And it's like, it feels very, like not cynical,

[01:30:42] but very like, yeah, self-critical is the word I keep coming back to. You have that moment where he's standing in front of the giant Gone with the Wind poster, right? And we talked about that when he was meeting with Alice Walker on Color Purple. Yes, he offhandedly told Alice Walker, well, Gone with the Wind is one of my favorite movies. And she like wrote in her diary later, like note to self, talk to Steven Spielberg about that horrible opinion. And presumably had some long talk with him explaining why he couldn't make Color Purple in that image. And then just like on his following movie,

[01:31:11] he sets this scene where this little boy is being like, I need to stay in one place. My chauffeur is going to come to pick me up in one day. And people are like yelling at him trying to figure out like his actual value as like basically an object and a commodity. Yeah, there's just like shit like that. And even just like him playing pretend in a like husk of a plane on the ground while wearing a Halloween costume or, you know, a costume, a party costume of a different

[01:31:40] cultural identity that he is taking on that is interrupted by actual troops coming up from behind the hill and acting like war for real. And the movie takes like 45 minutes to actually disabuse this kid of like, no, you're living through something horrible. None of this is fun. You are no longer protected. All of your like creature comforts were an illusion. And it's like collapsing. He still is just like, well, I'm rich and I'm not American. I'm English and these things

[01:32:10] mean something and eventually all of this will come back to me. And it's interesting how at the camp so many of the other characters are trying to do that as well. They're trying to sort of maintain appearances, maintain some sense of the melody. Malkovich's you gotta watch after my stuff thing. Right. That's the whole thing that like not to jump way ahead but Bale going to his bedside to talk to him emotionally while he's recovered from his injury and they have this wonderful scene after five minutes he's like, wait, you said you were gonna watch my fucking stuff.

[01:32:40] Malkovich's pile of junk is like symbolically all he still has. So, right, Malkovich, who, I mean, we don't really know who Basie is except for like some expat who is already probably something of a hustler before the fall of Shanghai, right? He's a, he's a, well, in the, in the novel he's a plane steward. Interesting. I believe, I believe in the film they change it to a ship steward. It's, it's offhanded mention. But it's funny because he seems like such a badass.

[01:33:10] I mean, you see, you know, he's basically the, the, the picture of that image on the cover of that comic book that he has with his hat and his sunglasses and stuff. And that moment when, I mean, I'm getting ahead of ourselves, but that moment when Basie is beaten and his hat falls off and you see that he's totally bald, which is a moment of such vulnerability, you know, he doesn't seem like a stud in that moment. That's why Malkovich is such good casting because he is

[01:33:39] kind of unique, but he is also already, right, this kind of odd balding, like sort of, you know, I mean, he could already play the vulture for Sam Raimi if he wanted to. And he should have. No, and like, you know, I feel like the Malkovich superpower is the creepy calm, right? Where you're just like, why is this guy so quiet and unrushed and patient? And that can be equally well applied to having him play a menacing character or an endearing character.

[01:34:08] But in either case, you're just like, his energy's a little odd in relation to everything else that's going on. How many endearing characters has he played? Very few. I mean, of Mice and Men. Yeah. Sort of. Obviously sort of like a character tinge with, you know, some menace. I put his, a performance of his, I think is fairly underrated in a movie I don't really like that I know you've come around on. I think he's very good in Changeling and that is a movie where it's surprising how much he is actually a figure of warmth in an otherwise hostile world. Yeah. I mean,

[01:34:37] his character in The Sheltering Sky, I've never seen that. That is a movie where you see his floppy penis, right? You do see his floppy penis. I remember that very clearly because I watched that movie on the BBC. You see his Malkovich? You sure do. Like, you know, as a young cinephile being like, oh, well, this Bertolucci movie is being shown on the BBC. And I just remember his floppy penis very, very vividly. A lot of floppy penises in Bertolucci movies. But, but yeah, his character there is, I mean, tender isn't the word I would use, but,

[01:35:07] but, you know, you really feel for him. Well, at least I do. When he's playing villainous, the tenderness is the thing that makes it more interesting. yes, that's the thing about In the Line of Fire. it's the creepiness that makes him a little more interesting. The thing about In the Line of Fire is that you ultimately feel really bad for this guy. Yes. I mean, even though he's a total psycho. The hater weekend update impression where I feel like he describes it as like, I'm getting angry, I'm going to do a,

[01:35:38] a, a calm, bizarrely articulate rant, you know, like that kind of the Malkovich explainer thing. But the build even of just like, you know, you're watching like this kid's normal disappear. Him in denial about it for a big chunk of the movie. Him trying to like ride his bike like everything's normal. Like the kid still thinks he's in a Spielberg movie. He's ignoring what's around him, right? Then that Gone with the Wind scene where he's starting to like be seen as like,

[01:36:07] you know, as loot, as an asset is what scares him. Pantoliano pulls him out of that. Pantoliano is the first person in the movie to be like, kid, shut the fuck up. You are annoying, right? A thing that I think is really the value of Bale being such a good actor even at this young an age is that he can play someone who's annoying and oblivious and not actually be fully infuriating to the audience. And yet, when Pantoliano says that,

[01:36:37] it's like so cathartic where you're like, yeah, this kid needs to fucking calm down and get in touch with reality. And Pantoliano is like, Joey Pants, is like, you know, this like, this force transitioning us to the next level of the movie. So then when he brings him to Malkovich and it's like, oh, this is the real guy and Malkovich is so much more calm and confident than like, Motormouth Pants who has been the guy telling Bale, you need to fucking calm down. And he does such a great

[01:37:06] Spielberg kind of introduction of like, you know, we're sort of seeing Malkovich in the foreground as Joey Pants brings Bale up and you're just kind of hearing Malkovich do other stuff, his like body out of focus and then he turns around but for a big chunk of it his head is down, you mostly see the hat, you can't see his mouth. Like he builds up the reveal in a way that makes him feel so important as you said, as almost this sort of like two-fisted hero.

[01:37:36] Yeah, and there's so much in Spielberg's early films especially, you know, he's kind of a horror director at heart too, right? In terms, I mean, his, you know, so much of his style is so well suited to horror even though he doesn't do that much of it. But Malkovich, the way he reveals Malkovich is almost like a character out of a horror movie. No, you're right. It's the weird balance and it's getting at the Malkovich persona where he introduces him both like he's Jaws and like he's Indiana Jones

[01:38:04] which similarly has the like Spielberg taking five minutes to show you Indiana Jones in pieces before you really get the hero shot or three minutes, whatever. Yeah, and you don't, and like you said, I mean, we don't really know what Basie's ultimate aim is. No, which is this kid's perspective. It's kind of like, what's going on here? He's being brought to this guy. This guy is immediately sort of presented as like, here's your new surrogate father or at least this is your new family structure. And from the perspective of this child, it's like,

[01:38:34] I don't know whether to like valorize or like villainize this guy. You know, I don't know whether I should be afraid or comforted now. He is probably just going to abandon him. He wants to sell him. He's probably going to abandon and then realizes he has, uh, he's from a stately home. He's like, great, let's go to the stately home. Turns out the stately home is occupied by Japanese troops. That's the crazy sequence with the truck where they all start kind of like bashing the truck and Pantoliano's like, it doesn't have a reverse and they have to like go forward and,

[01:39:04] is this the slap in the face sequence or does that happen earlier? Slap in the face. When he goes back to the home and the sort of home staff, he's like bossing them around and, and the woman just walks up and slaps him in the face and basically just silently says like, yeah, that's not the structure of society anymore. She's carrying a trunk with somebody. They're, they're like walking down the stairs and, uh, and I, I don't remember what he says, but it is very much a kind of like, what's going on here, you know? Make me breakfast sort of vibe. Right. He was being such a brat to her. Yes.

[01:39:34] Oh yeah. So I don't feel necessarily in that moment very much empathy. But I think this is all by design. Like this is a movie that is like dismantling this kid and attacking his like weird kind of blinded naivete. But he's a kid. I mean, he doesn't know any better. I don't think it's villainizing him. How old is he supposed to be like 12, maybe 11 or 12? I think he ages from like 10 to 14. Sure. Yeah. He does light a plane on fire and is laughing and she's chasing after him

[01:40:02] like he's a little brat. Like that's exactly what he is. He's a little brat. I think that's also one of the reasons why this film didn't quite hit the way I think they wanted to. He's kind of not likable in the way that like the ET kid is. That's the thing. You're absolutely right. He's not, you know, Spielberg doesn't make him full on annoying or Spielberg and Bale don't make him full on annoying. But the idea is that we are a little alienated from this character even though we're kind of embodying his perspective. are ripped from him and it's so traumatic and you're like, who could, you know,

[01:40:32] not sympathize with this or whatever. But you don't put that scene in of the woman slapping him in the face unless that's the point of what you're going for. Right? Which is like this kid coming back and being like time to get back to normal and them being like, this has all been like a fucked up societal lie that we no longer need to go along with. The bubble is gone. Yeah. And when the character finally does become kind of relatable is when he's like hollowed out. It's when you do the time jump and you're like, this kid has just been beaten down. He's in pure survival mode.

[01:41:02] Yeah. But right. But first they go to the sort of, you know, it's not a camp, the processing kind of area and where they're all getting put on the truck and it's just, I think again, very elegantly told from his perspective of like, he doesn't really know what the truck means. Right? Like he doesn't know where it's going. He doesn't really know if it's good or bad. That's very scary to watch as a parent when you're watching this movie. Oh yeah, absolutely. And like, he doesn't even know if Basie is good or bad. Like, should he stick with him? Like, should he not? Like,

[01:41:31] no one's giving him like any guidance, obviously. There's that part where they're in like, I, whatever that shelter is and Basie says like, here, I got you a new pair of shoes. It's the civilian assembly center. Yeah, where, where, yeah, he stole them from a dead body and he's like, I don't want those shoes. He's seen it. Right. And, and everyone's just trying to say to him like, this is the reality of the world we live in. You need shoes. They will likely come off a dead child's body. Well, it's a woman's body. Oh yes. Sorry. Yes. Yeah. Very upsetting. But like that and also the scene where he's trying

[01:42:01] to resuscitate the woman. Well, yeah. I mean, there's a scene later where he's, I mean, that's echoed later in the scene where he's trying to resuscitate the Japanese, the pilot. Right. And that scene I've, I've always loved because of the way, you know, Spielberg allows the light to sort of shine through. I mean, it's beautifully shot. But that's, again, it's the kind of thing that in another Spielberg movie sort of been ridiculous, but like he would have succeeded in bringing them back.

[01:42:31] I mean, so, so many Spielberg movies turn on like almost a reversal of history, like Close Encounters, all the, you know, dead, all the missing flyers come back. Totally. You know? Yes. I mean, Justin Schoen at the end of War of the World is the thing I cite all the time. Yeah. Raiders of the Lost Ark, reverse Holocaust on the Nazis at the end, you know? Right. But it's like, first 30 minutes of this movie is like, here's a kid who like lives in a bubble and gets to like enact play scenarios as a safe version of war and like giggles his way, you know, all through it. And then there's like

[01:43:00] 30 minutes of him basically denying that his reality has changed. And then at like the hour mark, you have the sort of like, bail behind the barbed wire fence looking gaunt. Something has changed in this kid. Right. There is like a new normal. And even then, it still is him trying to fight it in these moments of like, I can bring someone back to life. I understand the stakes of the world I live in have changed. And the movie keeps and just, you know, the few Spielberg episodes that we have released

[01:43:29] at the time of this recording, a lot of the feedback has been like, it is fascinating to watch these early films, especially in a post Fableman's world and see how much really Spielberg is kind of about some amount of emasculation. Right. And this is happening to a boy, but I do think there is this chunk of the movie past the first hour where he's like, I get it. I need to grow up. I need to become a man. And he is continuing

[01:43:59] to live in a delusion of him thinking that becoming a man and growing up means that he can sort of fix everything. And he is constantly kind of being reminded, you're not the center of the story. You're not the most important person. You're not in that level of power. But he tries. He tries to kind of, you know, he becomes kind of the conduit through which everybody starts to get their stuff. I mean, he almost runs the camp in a way. Yes. Or at least imagines himself running the camp. And it's not a, like he tries to make the best of it thing. It's a,

[01:44:29] okay, I get it. I have responsibilities now. I'm going to do it really well. And yet he's constantly told like, you don't get how this works. Well, and that's the other thing about Spielberg and something he's always been fascinated by is the idea of sort of trying to learn to live by the rules of a world you don't quite understand. And I mean, we see that obviously in a lot of the films. But, you know, later on, during that period when he's making these kind of more socially important films like Amistad and

[01:44:59] Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan and Lincoln, you know, so many of those films turn on the idea of, I mean, Amistad and Lincoln obviously turn on the idea of like people as property. Right? And they all become about like sort of Schindler's List too. Yeah. I mean, they all become about sort of people as items on a ledger, even Saving Private Ryan. The idea that all these The whole point of Saving Private Ryan is like, this makes no sense what we're doing objectively.

[01:45:29] This is a war where thousands of people dying. Why the fuck would we commit any resources to this like lunatic like, oh, he has brothers who died? Who cares? But wouldn't it make a great narrative? But also just like, isn't that what being a human and like what the point of this war is, is to like have humanity? Also, War Horse is kind of this with a horse. Oh, yeah. I love War Horse. I struggle with War Horse, but I'm kind of, I'm feeling a temptation to give it another spin. I love one portion of War Horse so unambiguously.

[01:45:58] The Hiddleston. Which I think Hiddleston is just astonishing in the movie. And I think that whole, and I just, you know, that's his understanding of World War I so well where it's all these guys are going to, we're going to rock this war and then they charge into battle and are destroyed. Right. And my one section that I love is the Toby Kebbell horse, like the two men in No Man's Land meeting in the middle to save the horse. The whole movie is a process by which kind of the, you know, the old world, the old world understanding of war is replaced by the industrial

[01:46:28] machinery of war. And it's just this process of just like more effective ways to destroy humans. Absolutely. My problem with War Horse is mostly the beginning where it's like, is that horse for sale? And Peter Malamita and you're just like shooping down. But it has to be like that. It has to be like that so that the film can progress. And then the ending, you know, everybody was always, I remember there were some reviews at the time saying, oh, you know, it ends with like a, you know, John Ford sunset, you know, because it's like ending in red. I absolutely said that on our episode.

[01:46:58] Oh, did you say that? Yeah. I'm not saying you're crediting me for that. No, no, I haven't. I was one of the many people saying that. But it's like, well, I mean, a red John Ford sunset is a sign that something awful is about to happen. You're not wrong. Melancholy. Yeah. I mean, it's very much, I mean, you see that sunset in The Searchers right before everyone's massacred. So the idea that the film ends on that, you know, it's not, it's not the gone with the end. It's not the gone with the wind finale. It's the kind of, it's the what comes next finale. Yeah. But.

[01:47:29] Or horse good. I guess. I don't know. Horse. I should go back and listen to that episode. It's a lot of us talking about how everyone in the movie wants to fuck the horse. That it feels like everyone relates to the horse in a very sexual way. Well, they're just in love with that goddamn horse. What a beautiful horse. David. Yes. Do you mind if I try out some new impressions on you? I've been working on some impressions for my Mad TV audition. I think they're going to bring it back again. Okay, ready? Here's my first impression.

[01:48:02] What's that? That's me shopping for glasses in the past. Oh, it used to be so bad. Unhappy, stressed, miserable, angry. But. Here's a new impression. And why do you feel that way now? And describe my face. What am I doing? You're happy, smiling. I'm grinning because I'm shopping at Warby Parker. And what happened? Warby Parker changed all that. See, this is the impression. Grumpy guy. And Warby Parker changed

[01:48:31] all that into this. Um, yeah, so Warby Parker, uh, the glasses store. They use nothing but premium materials in every frame. Warby Parker designs every frame in-house. Their collection includes silhouettes, colors, and fits made to suit every face. This is true. I exclusively wear Warby Parker glasses. Made the jump probably 10 years ago. Glasses shopping used to be a thing that drove me crazy. And Warby has great options. They refresh constantly. But it's also,

[01:49:01] they are more affordable. They cut out the middleman. They're high quality, but you don't feel the same kind of pressure. I always used to feel picking glasses going, oh my God, I'm gonna have to stick to these for a decade. They're durable. But it's not just glasses. because I don't wear eyeglasses, but I wear sunglasses. Exactly. And I do have some great, a couple of great pairs of Warby sunglasses and I'm busting out now that the weather's good again. They, look, I will say, you go to any of their physical locations, they have incredible employees who are so good

[01:49:31] at genuinely just looking at your face and going, you know what would work? They understand the sort of, uh, the geometrics of the glasses and of the human skull. And you can get wide fit and wide bridge boxier, you know, whatever your type is. They provide eye exams. Many Warby Parker locations offer comprehensive eye exams starting at $85 and Warby Parker has over 250 retail locations across the U.S. and Canada where you can get styled by one of their friendly

[01:50:00] expert advisors. Look, you can get started with Warby Parker's virtual try-on. You can try on glasses and sunglasses seeing the realistic color, texture, and size of each style right from home right now. I currently am rocking the Duran and that's, that's been my, uh, my frame of choice for the last couple of years. But here's the thing I like. In the past, they've offered both the Griffin and the Newman. Oh, that's fun. Isn't that fun? Uh, and the Duran, of course, is named after character actor Kevin Durant. You know what, David? Every time I look at the glasses, I think that. That guy's great.

[01:50:29] He's incredible. Well, I gotta tell you, Griff, and I've said it before, glasses really compliment your face. Hey, thank you very much. It's that Warby Parker magic. And if you're not close to a location, you can do the virtual try on at home. They can send you a couple pairs. No risk, no cost. See how they look on you. Send them back. Get the one you want. You can try on glasses and sunglasses seeing the realistic color, texture, and size of each style right from home right now. Or, head over to warbyparker.com slash check right now

[01:50:58] to take the home try on quiz and pick five pairs of frames to try on at home for free. That's warbyparker.com slash check, warbyparker.com slash check. As I was saying, this idea of, you know, kind of learning to navigate the rules of a world that seems fundamentally kind of unjust

[01:51:28] or out of whack. You know, you see that here. I mean, the idea of learning to sort of navigate the camp, right? Even though he's not aware of it, like I think we're aware of it as viewers, but as a character, I don't know that Jim is aware of it. The time jump is interesting in that we sort of jump ahead to the end of the war where he's, you know, suddenly this much more gaunt, you know, hollow kind of boy, but like, he has now learned how to navigate the camp and he has this like alliance with Dr. Rollins, the Nigel Haver's character, who's like one of the most

[01:51:57] unambiguously good characters in the movie. And then he's an excellent performance. It is excellent. I mean, he's such a, that guy just gives you Englishman, you know, so well. And, but then you've also got like Ben Stiller with the crazy teeth and Joey Pan, you know, like, you know, all the little. Seeing it at the Metrograph, that was a true jump scare moment where the audience just was like, am I hallucinating here? It's crazy. Which of course, this is one of this movie's greatest like lasting legacies is that this, this is what inspires Tropic Thunder. Do you know this Ben? That Stiller, this is like one of his

[01:52:27] first things ever and he spends his time on this set and he's like, it is ridiculous, the actors on set who are trying to be like, I need to like get myself into the suffering of the character. I need to like get in the boot camp, like post-platoon kind of like, I need to really go through the gauntlet and being like, we're actors. We have trailers, there's craft services. You're never going to experience something as bad as being in proper war and he holds on to that for 20 years to be like, I want to make a movie lampooning actors who are faking war

[01:52:56] and taking it seriously and Tropic Thunder is directly from this. I can see the inspiration for sure. So it's just interesting that we don't, this is not a process-y movie about like life, like building up these alliances or the sort of the way the environment develops. The environment is fully developed by the time we jump forward. Yeah, I'm trying to remember And it's the end of the war so it's about to fall apart. I'm trying to remember if the book gets into, I mean the book obviously gets into this stuff more. But yeah, I mean the time jump is fascinating also because

[01:53:27] I mean it's always so hard casting kids in roles like this. It's like, he doesn't, I mean he looks different because he's gone. But he doesn't really age. You know? He's the right age. They figured it out I think. They sort of split the difference with whatever age he actually was and kind of, it works. So, I mean so much of Jim's growth he basically just has to convey through performance. Yeah. Which is really great. They found the right kid. He was ready to handle it. I mean here's, here's my big post-Fableman's take on this movie. Right? Um,

[01:53:56] when he sees Nagas, uh, the atom bomb that's like Seth Rogen cucking his mom? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. When he sees Seth Rogen holding hands with the atom bomb. Okay, go ahead. What's the take? You know, the sort of misread for many decades based on Spielberg's privacy over his family story, what was known publicly and what was held back until his parents passed away, you know, and he meant his relationships with them, was the notion like, oh, all these movies are just like him shattered in the wake of a divorce. Right? That it's just like

[01:54:26] his family unit was broken and he never got over it. What I think, first the Spielberg HBO documentary and then Fableman's really clarified is like, no, the core trauma of Spielberg's childhood, which is not on the scale of, you know, being a child in an internment camp in World War II, but is the thing that emotionally rattled him and he never got over, is that he observes this thing, right, through filmmaking with his mother and his father's best friend

[01:54:56] and in that is pulled into the world of adults that his mother basically acknowledges, you share this secret with me now. And now you have to kind of be an adult. And now I'm like elevating you to basically being the third adult in this relationship, if not fourth adult in this relationship and him having this disconnect from his siblings who are still sort of protected and being seen as children and there is a 60s minute, 60 minutes interview I keep citing that I pulled up

[01:55:25] and doing this series around the time of the release of Hook and I'm asking him like, why are you so fixated on childhood, fond memories? And he's like, I do not have a single happy memory of my childhood. And it's not like my childhood was sad once my parents split up. He was like, I felt sad and lonely and alienated my entire childhood. And then I was brought into the world of adults prematurely and was basically told, this is where you sit now, right? Which then accelerated Spielberg to this track of A, having this weird relationship with both the children and adults in his life,

[01:55:55] feeling neither fish nor fowl, and B, accelerating for him like, I just have to focus on work. I'm going to learn my craft. I'm going to be the youngest person to get a deal at Universal. I'm going to show up on the back lot when I'm 17, right? I'm going to like will myself into being an adult faster. But then doing this thing that's high level pretend playing and like, you know, toys and like giving a sense of control over the world that is false, that is illusory, but that he is able to sort of maintain.

[01:56:25] And him just being stuck in this space where it's like he keeps returning to childhood stuff, not because he's fixated on it, but because it was kind of pulled for him before he ever really got to have any handle on it. That he is trying to recapture something that he never really had. And I think the more success he has, the more it's like, Spielberg has an office full of arcade machines and he's buying the rights to Casper and the Flintstones is like, A, maybe these like superficial pop culture things were the only things that gave him some moment of happiness. But B,

[01:56:54] he's trying to like mend the child who never really got mended because it was like, hey, too bad, you're a grown up now. Which is, in a much more extreme way, what this character in this movie is going through and just keeps getting kind of knocked down over and over again every time he thinks, much like in this post-time jump, I got it, I figured out the camp, I'm in charge of everything. I can save people. I can still bring some morality. Fair enough. The world told me I need to be a grown up now. I'm a little grown up now.

[01:57:23] And when the plane flies in, the Mustang, he still has the childlike excitement, you know, when it comes in. And as you're saying, like Spielberg doesn't get mended until he resolves stuff with his father in the like Hook Last Crusader, which then opens him up to be able to make Schindler a different level of adult movie. No, but make Hook, his best movie about father. Sure. But this is the movie where it feels like he's finally kind of identifying all of the issues, if that makes sense, in himself. I think E.T. does have

[01:57:52] a lot of this too. I agree. Which we have not, for the listeners, is sort of the biggest psychological piece of Spielberg's puzzle, but we have yet to discuss it because we've been holding off on that episode. I will, I will, you will have heard my E.T. I think these are very paired films. Sure. I do think they're like him sort of like at the front and end of the 80s

[01:58:21] taking two stabs at a similar thing. And I think what's happened in the years in between is his own understanding of his own psychology has transformed a little bit. E.T. is, to me, the greater film. I think that is like his masterwork, period. But, but there's something really interesting in this as like a sort of dark twin to that. Sure, that's interesting. There's also this, you know, what happens with his parents. How fascinating is it

[01:58:51] that cinema is the crucible through which all of this happens? I mean, this is the whole fucking thing. And also, when he made the payments, I was like, you crazy motherfucker. This has been on your mind the whole time. He's like this anxious child who sees a movie that keeps him up at night and the only way he can conquer that demon is to like replicate it and learn film craft. And then that becomes his undoing because he recognizes in footage the dissolution of his family. Right. It's just like, so the idea that within cinema there are dark corners that can destroy you. Correct.

[01:59:21] And this is a thing that I think and also dark powers that makes the bully even angrier at you. And this is, I think, a thing that animates his career and also for a long time he's trying to avoid these dark corners. He can't avoid the dark corners. Yes. In fact, what's beautiful, I mean, we were talking about how he's kind of a horror filmmaker at heart. Yeah. You know, sometimes you wonder does he even realize that he's a horror filmmaker at heart? I think he, and I've said this before in multiple episodes, I think there is a part of him that is genuinely scared

[01:59:50] by how effective he is at manipulating people's emotions through this medium. Oh yeah, absolutely. That he can actually make people feel anything he wants and that he just kind of has that innately in him and that the movies of his that are criticized are often criticized for doing that too much and it's not something he's doing strategically. It is something he has to work to fight against. And I think in some ways it's why sometimes he, you know, he errs on the side

[02:00:20] of sentiment or, you know, syrupy-ness because he is afraid of, you know, the dark potential of cinema so he kind of almost overcorrects sometimes. Yeah. It happens in Amistad. It happens in Amistad. It happens in his endings as much as sometimes. I defend some of his later movies, you know, where people are like, why are there three endings to this movie? I do think that's sometimes him doing that. Being like, did you get it? Did you, you got it, right? I'll see you later. One more scene so that you got it? I mean, especially Lincoln, a movie I adore

[02:00:50] and I think is perfect. The ending is, uh, stupid. I think that movie is great. I love the ending. I think the ending is exactly what prevents it from being perfect. It's so therapy. It's just where they're all like, play. We love you, Lincoln. He's like, bye-bye. And he loves the theater. By that point, I'm so invested in it. Me too. I love Lincoln. I agree with you. But it is kind of crazy that like, up until a point, all of his movies, we've been realizing this and focusing just on the first half of his career,

[02:01:19] all his movies up into a point are like, man, he gets out at just the right time. This movie is a perfect example. He has the restraint of even. The final scene is so devastating. Muted, I would say, right? Like, not really laying it on too thick. Him just really, you know, being reunited with his parents. And then it is truly like, yeah, goodbye. Like, hope you like the movie. And there's a restraint of him being like, I don't need the coda. The audience knows I'm giving them the pieces and they can work out what the takeaway is. And arguably, the climax of the film is

[02:01:49] that one Japanese soldier getting shot. You know, which is such a kind of small, intimate, and, you know, uncomfortable little scene, which is not kind of a big, I mean, it's a war movie. You expect there to be some kind of big, big final sequence. But the bombast is kind of often happening in the fringes or the background. Seeing the Nagasaki, you know, a thousand miles away being the most obvious example. That scene is crazy. Like God taking a photograph, which, you know,

[02:02:18] brings back to the dark power of cinema. Yes. I think this movie rules. I think it's really good. I wonder what he thought of Oppenheimer. Spielberg? Yeah. That's a good question. Has he, has he talked much about like Nolan at all? Because the thing that was interesting about him was that he laid it on so thick for Dune and like did the DGA sort of talk back with Villeneuve being like, this is the best sci-fi movie I've seen in years, right? You know, where like, and Villeneuve is kind of like a cousin to Nolan

[02:02:48] in terms of like modern epic filmmakers or whatever. But yeah, have I ever heard Spielberg talk about? I don't, I mean, I feel like I don't hear Spielberg talk about new movies that much. But I'm sure during like awards season. I do feel like he tries to not put his foot on the gas too much in terms of like he knows, you know, whatever. I'll say I Googled and the first result I got and I think this was from the Nolan Villeneuve. Yes, where Nolan says he sent. You know, when I first got the 70 millimeter print, I showed it to Steven Spielberg

[02:03:17] of Oppenheimer. He was the first person he showed. He called me about something else. I just got the print as well and I hadn't shown it to anyone. I mean, the studio had seen it, but he screened it for him on his own. I sat behind him, watched him, watched the film. It was an extraordinary experience. It says he said some kind thing. The other part of it, obviously, also is that Spielberg was like, B plus, I'll see you later, Chris. That Interstellar was developed by Spielberg. That's right. By Jonathan Nolan and then he for Spielberg remains a producer, but I think mostly just because of his history tied on. I don't think he was going to talk about it. And also,

[02:03:47] that initial Jonathan Nolan script for Interstellar is interesting, but is more Spielberg. Very. It's him trying to write a Spielberg. And the beauty of Interstellar is that those Spielbergian elements are kind of... That it's got the AI thing. That it's got the... Yep. Yep. That's why it's Nolan's. But it is interesting because you're right. They do overlap and yet it doesn't feel like it is communicated loudly and you sort of imagine that Spielberg... It feels like Spielberg should be publicly saying he is obviously

[02:04:17] my heir apparent. Spielberg... We are doing events together. But they're very different. They are. In some ways. And like... Very different sense. I do feel like Spielberg, Scorsese, a lot of these kind of like benevolent old timers who make great movies still should just once a year go on whatever Charlie Rose is now. Not Charlie Rose, but whatever that is now. Fucking Marc Maron. I don't care. And be like, here are my like... Here are like the eight movies this year I really loved. I guess Tarantino could do it too. When I was on the set of the pilot or vinyl, the worst thing that Martin Scorsese's ever directed. Possibly true.

[02:04:47] By default. There's an argument for like Shine a Light. I've never seen Shine a Light. I'll say maybe worse scripted thing. Has the tide turned on Shine a Light? I did not like that movie at all. I just think of Shine a Light as him in a little bit of his... I'm kind of like Marty. There's nothing here. Yeah. Like, I like the Rolling Stones just as much as anyone, but like the, you know, Rolling Stones in their late 60s, there's nothing here. I think Doc is a different category. Anyway, but anytime he would be around set like sort of just like hanging out

[02:05:17] and it felt accessible and approachable, he would. And I would turn to my friend Ephraim Sykes who was also on the show and go like, I just want to ask him if he's seen like X, Y, and Z. I want to ask him what his top three movies of this year are. I want to ask if he likes Edge of Tomorrow. Like, what is he like in touch? What is he watching on TV? He's seen Den of Thieves 2. All of it. I was just like, I want to know his opinion on everything and what he is engaging with and what he isn't. I agree with you that like the 10 movie brats who are still alive and are ostensibly now

[02:05:46] in old master positions should be just, they should be doing a fucking Soderbergh list every year. Well, like Spielberg sees everything. Of course. Of course he probably doesn't. Coppola shares a lot of stuff on his Instagram. He does. Films that he's seen and like, you know, it's actually very adorable. But all of these guys should have. His Instagram is generally sort of adorable old man. Yeah. I sincerely doubt it's actually him. No, there's no way. I want a podcast that's like the five of them once a week. Paul Schrader

[02:06:16] What do you watch? Goes to see every single goddamn movie. Says normal things. Paul Schrader yelled at me for making him go see all we imagine is light. He didn't yell at me. He didn't yell. He did not like all we imagine is light. why did you make me go see that? But the email wasn't all caps. Yeah. Why didn't he like all we imagine is light? He didn't like it. I mean, you know, it's a different type of film for him, I guess, you know. Let's go a little bit of whatever. What did he love this year? Old Pauly. Pauly asks. He's posted about something. Oh, he really liked Conclave, I believe.

[02:06:46] Oh, Conclave rocks. He liked Onora, but he had that he had that sort of gripe with Onora that she that she that she negotiates for so little. He loved Twisters. That was. Oh, yeah. He went to see it in 4DX, right? Is that next? That might kill him. We don't need him in 4DX. No, no. He actually went to see it in 4DX. Really? Yes. He posted about it on Facebook. Oh, my God. He posts so much on Facebook. Pauly, he hated, right? Did he? He didn't even sit all the way through it. Right. That's right.

[02:07:16] He walked out of it. Yeah. Absolute. Are there any other sequences we want to talk about in Empire of the Sun, please, before we start wrapping up? Miranda Richardson. Very, very good. Wonderful actor. Yes. Interesting career. I was about to say, this is kind of right when she's beginning to emerge, right? Right. And I feel like in the early 90s of crying game damage is when she's kind of like has the most juices, like a big prestige actress. Did she win Best Actress It Can for Dance with a Stranger?

[02:07:46] Did I imagine this? You did imagine that. That's her first big movie, the Mike Newell movie. Did she win anything? Mike Newell won the Award of the Youth at the Cannes Film Festival. She won Best Actress at the Evening Standard Awards. Okay. No offense to them. Award of the Youth, that's like Cannes Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. Exactly. It's a big French blimp. They slime. Yeah, did Jacques Odiard get slimed? He's actually the MC. He has to do an interview with Stick Stickly. It's like coming up, like crying game is her big sort of

[02:08:15] breakout and she wins some critic awards and then like Damage and Tom and Viv or when she's getting Oscar noms. And then she's kind of three Oscar noms? Just two. Just the two because she didn't get crying game. She didn't get crying game? No. It is fascinating that she is the poster for the crying game. That's right. Because it's such an image her in that wig. I know, but of all the characters in that movie that she is the one on the poster. Crying Game is the movie that I think so many people who've only seen the poster turn it on and they're like, Forrest Whitaker is like the lead of this? No one told me

[02:08:44] Forrest Whitaker was in this movie. He's doing an Irish accent. That's a movie where like the cultural reputation, the memeing of it has morphed into something very different than what it actually is to watch it. Oh yeah. I don't remember one of the, you know, every two year New York different theater does a semi-complete Robert Altman retrospective and every time those happen I try to go see some of my blind spots. But one of them may be at MoMA like 10 years ago or at MoMe or somewhere. I went to see Atlantic City

[02:09:14] which I'd never seen before. And there was one of those like, You mean Kansas City? I'm sorry, Kansas City. Oh yes, very different. And a very different movie. I apologize. And a film that's much harder to like watch. Correct. Now finally has a good blur. Yeah, but at the time didn't. And it was one of those great like rep screening things where like a new audience of strangers all has the same response to a movie in the moment and is kind of buzzing from it. Or I forget who I saw it with, but I was just like, holy shit, the Miranda Richardson

[02:09:44] performance in this. How did she not win everything? And then I heard like 10 other groups of people all saying that. Like just kind of blown away and you realize even though that movie sort of had like more of a push for Jennifer Jason Leigh and for Belafonte particularly in terms of awards. It's also was not a successful film. No, was disliked. That, the movie's pretty excellent in my opinion. But also like that's the moment when she's kind of cresting in the 90s and she's almost getting taken for granted.

[02:10:13] And then she's become such a weird kind of like diffuse figure since then where she never has totally disappeared. No, she's a very, very good working actor. She'll pop up and you'll be like, oh right, Miranda Richardson's incredible. She's amazing in The Lost Prince which I think is one of the triumphs of British television in the Stephen Pollyacoff miniseries, The Lost Prince. Has anyone seen it? No. I've not seen it. Highly recommend. Have you ever seen any Stephen Pollyacoff? He is a guy who does not have a reputation in America at all. I know the name. What are the, what are the... Well,

[02:10:43] he hasn't done a lot of movies. Like the movies he made were like Hidden City and Close My Eyes in the early 90s and stuff like that. He's a big British... Close My Eyes, I saw it. With Clive Owen, young Clive Owen. But a big British TV like, you know, director and his best things are Shooting the Past, Perfect Strangers which I think had a different title here because of the sitcom. It was called Almost Strangers Here and The Lost Prince which is like this sort of triptych about like memory and stuff and I highly recommend all of them to anyone

[02:11:12] but they're hard to find I think. But The Lost Prince is the easiest to find because it like won an Emmy and it's about the youngest son of King George V who had epilepsy and was hidden away from the public and died very young. I think I heard about this. And she plays Queen Mary, she plays his mother and she's astonishing and it's so good. She's such a good actor and this is a movie where you see what she can do because she doesn't have a lot of screen time. No, she doesn't and you barely understand sort of like who she is.

[02:11:41] And she's so, the camera loves her. Like she's so beguiling and sort of mysterious and... She has like translucent skin. Yes, very British. I mean it's such a, you know, she's a very, yeah, and there's something very otherworldly about her whole presence in the film so much so that when she dies... In the movie. It's, yes, in the movie. When she dies it really does feel like suddenly she becomes real in that moment. Mm-hmm. You know? Like she's like

[02:12:11] as a corpse more earthly. Yeah, it's weird. Hmm. Yeah, and I don't know if there are any other... I mean Leslie Phillips as Maxton like he's, you know, he's a British legend. He's very good. He's like a big carry-on guy. Obviously Miranda Richardson's best performance is Mrs. Tweety in Chicken Run. I just think that needs to be stated. In Chicken Run? She's the villain. Mrs. Tweety. Yes. Yeah. Still haven't seen Chichota and my daughter. Oh. She got in.

[02:12:40] She liked the Wallace and Gromits. Yeah. Yeah, you know what movie sucks? Chicken Run 2, Dawn of the Nugget. But how do you feel about the new Wallace which I haven't seen yet? Liked it. What's it called again? It is called... It's got the chicken guy back. Murder Most Foul. Yeah, there you go. I will say basically all the Feathers McGraw stuff is great. That character just... He pops. Undeniable. He pops. Love that guy. You get the juice from like he hasn't been on screen in 25, 30 years. Penguin ass. He's great. Let me say this. He gives an incredible performance.

[02:13:10] You know what's so funny in The Wrong Trousers? Whenever he has a gun, it's just this little penguin suddenly produces like a sort of human-sized revolver. It's basically funny anytime he interacts with any object. And Murder Most Foul knows that and it gets a lot of mileage out of that. Boy, oh boy. It is incredible for how much people talk about like, oh, it's amazing that Aardman gets such a great performance out of Gromit and he doesn't even have a mouth. It's just his brow. And then Feathers McGraw doesn't even have a brow. No. He's got a beak that doesn't open

[02:13:40] and two beady eyes. And a little round head. Yes. And it's truly just tilting the head that gives him characterization. I think that film is in a weird space between feature and short. Sure, it's like 60 minutes long or whatever. Right. It's a little padded for a short without having enough space to make a denser narrative as a feature. It's also like the first post, what's his name? Peter Salas. Oh, right. He's dead. Right. The voice of Wallace. So it's Ben Whitehead who did a very good job. Right, but it's not quite. And Nick Park directed it

[02:14:09] but he co-directed it and he didn't write it. And there's a little bit of a feeling of like legacy sequel from other people. Have you seen the new Wallace and Gromit? I have not. I've heard it's fantastic. Yeah, Allison loved it. I think it is solid. I will say without like preloading a thing, my complaint about it is I think they fail to and you can tell they realize this at the end because they try to retrofit one. They fail to make the plot, the sort of like Indiana Jones-esque

[02:14:39] MacGuffin of what they're up against directly relate to Wallace and Gromit's relationship. Sure, which is usually the crux. Which watching it, that is the crux, is the parallel of like the device that goes wrong but really reveals something about how these two relate to each other and Wallace's sort of ignorance about what Gromit means to him and needing to learn that. They like kind of tack it on at the end and you're like it sort of hasn't been that up until this point. I still think it is better than most things. I really want to see it. It's,

[02:15:08] my son is at that age when he watches most movies with me. Yeah. But also he's like, you know, a busy young man going to school with homework and stuff like that. So it's, there's so many films where I'm like, oh, I need to watch this. Except for movies. I should wait until he can watch it with me. And you know, so it's like. So you're waiting to watch that one with him. Yeah, it's like, there's a lot of movies where I'm like, oh God, I should probably watch this for work. But yeah. It is much better than Dawn of the Nugget, which I think is basically wall-to-wall bullshit. Oh, the chicken run.

[02:15:37] Yeah, it sucks and it's for losers. Because Gibson's not in it. So you think, you know, because of woke. And here's the problem. They, they bumped him because of woke and they replaced him with some clean cut uncontroversial figure. Let me check my notes here. Zachary Levi. That's the funniest part is that they were like, okay, who's like a safer choice than Gibson? Empire of the Sun was given a plum Christmas release, awards-y sort of release, December 11th, 1987. It made only $22 million. It is the lowest gross

[02:16:07] thing Spielberg film at that point except for Sugarland Express. And I think Spielberg was a little, did not think it was going to be like Blockbuster, but was a little taken aback by how sort of tepid their general reaction was. Sarris loved it. Hoberman thought it sucked. Hoberman. Not the biggest Spielberg fan. No, and Hoberman called it the sorrow and the pity remade as Oliver, which is pretty funny. Eber really struggled with it, talked about that he thinks like the first 30,

[02:16:37] 40 minutes to hour is really strong and then it becomes like this kid playing games in the middle of a war with John Malkovich and I don't understand what he's getting at, which I feel like is the way a lot of people talked about this, that it's like, oh, he can't get over the childlike wonder thing. Paul Kale gave it the review, I feel like she gave a lot of his movies at this point where she's like, it's majestically made, I don't really know what it's about or if there's anything going on here. This was the standard line on Spielberg from a lot of kind of the high-end critics at the time. Spielberg, you know,

[02:17:07] says fuck you to the critics, you know, in this way of like, basically like, stop trying to tell me what kind of movie I should make, which I think is what the critics would often do. Like, they would often be kind of like, stop trying to win an Oscar, stop trying to make a serious movie, go make the movies you're good at, you know, but then he would make those and they'd be like, aha, this kiddie bullshit. It's how we do, David. It is how we do it, especially how they did. God bless the critical community of the 80s or whatever, but they were some snarky, snarky folks. Yes. And like,

[02:17:37] as Critic Circle chair, I went on a deep dive because it used to be like, you know, we didn't tweet out our winners, right? The chair would just call like the New York Times or whoever and be like, all right, here's who won. And especially if the chair was someone like Pauline Kale or Rex Reed, they would also sprinkle in a little bit of spice in terms of like, we got in a big fight about this, like, you know, and there's just a contentiousness to those days that there is not in our room when we vote. And I think, I think it was a smaller group. I mean, a much smaller group

[02:18:07] and they're meeting at the Algonquin and they're getting drunk. Right. And I'm not even thinking specifically of the New York Film Courage, but like the critical community is a smaller group. These like newspaper critics. And it's factionalized. Yes. Right. I mean, we talk about the Paulettes and stuff like that. People always talk about like Pauline Kale would be like, all right, this is the movie we're getting behind. And, you know, I mean, it wasn't sinister in that way. It was like, you know, it was clicky is what you're saying. It was clicky. Yeah. And we still do it, but less, less than a kind of overt clicky way. It's just, there are sensibilities

[02:18:36] that, that sort of gravitate towards each other. And yeah, I remember from the days of like Cinemasters and stuff like that, there'd be certain films that like, obviously all these people are going to hate this, you know, like everybody, everybody hates Lost in Translation. And it was like, you know, you step out into the real world where people actually seem to really like a movie like Lost in Translation. But like, my little pointy head friends were like, nope, you know, and that happened with Spielberg a lot. Let's also call out with Spielberg, there is this thing, and I think there are versions of this that still happen today. I think Nolan

[02:19:05] is sort of a version of this where it's like, hey, you know what, for better or worse, the kind of health of American films and the studio, like film as a commercial industry, kind of rests on your whims. Right. And there's this sense of like, you have a responsibility, which then turns into people saying, you should be doing this instead of that. Why can't you evolve into this? The sort of like push and pull of like, there's a health of this as a business that you're responsible for, but also, if you have everyone's ears and eyes,

[02:19:35] shouldn't you be using that to try to elevate understanding and the art form and whatever? And it's impossible to please everyone in those positions. I also think, you know, like when we come back and do new release Spielberg movies, which we've done over the last seven years, he and Shyamalan are the two people who have made the most films since we've covered them. Putting them out. Right. And very often people think that we're insane for liking Shyamalan movies more than most people do. And a lot of the Spielberg new releases we've covered, I have come off as like tepid

[02:20:05] to mixed on, right? And people will go like, why is he willing to forgive all of Shyamalan's like clear weaknesses and yet he's more critical on Spielberg? And I do think it is me falling into the same thing, which is like basically outside of Ready Player One, which I also rewatch. I like all of his modern movies, but I'm like rating them against the Steven Spielberg canon. And every time I sit down to see a new Steven Spielberg, I'm like, is this going to be the best movie ever made? It is hard not to go

[02:20:35] in preloaded with some version of that. And in this era, it's the most extreme version of that because I think it is this bifurcation between like half the time he makes the most culturally impactful blockbusters and then sometimes he wastes his energy trying to impress us that he is a grown-up so he can win a fucking Oscar. And I think people were really, really cynical about that. As much as they were also criticizing him for like infantilizing culture,

[02:21:04] they were even more critical when he tried to like wear a suit and play grown-up. It's a weird thing. Which is also why Catch Me If You Can is one of his greatest movies. Totally. Because that more than Fableman's to me is like the autobiography. Right, but it's like Schindler finally shakes that off of him where people are like, you can do whatever you want and we will judge it on its own merits. Maybe we hold you to a high standard, but whatever. You've proven yourself, you're in the room, you're settled. I really, it's Schindler,

[02:21:34] but I really think it's Saving Private Ryan because after, obviously Schindler wins him the Oscar and wins him so much respect, but then he makes Amistad and Lost World, which everyone's kind of like, eh. And then he makes Saving Private Ryan and everyone is like, you are now the Poet Laureate of Boomers. Like, that's it. You did it. I think there's the other part of it, which is like, Schindler is... And I love Saving Private Ryan to be clear. Yes. Saving Private Ryan is, in my opinion, the single biggest shift in his signature style up until that point, which then goes like, oh, he can now change languages,

[02:22:04] which then you get like Minority Report, Munich, and all these films that are very different than the usual Spielberg thing. That's like, to our earlier point of like giving someone a second Oscar, it's like Schindler's like, this is the best you've ever made a grown-up movie. And then Saving Private Ryan is, we didn't know you could do that. And once he's proven he could do that, people are like, you can do anything. Yeah. Saving Private Ryan to me is, my response to Saving Private Ryan is actually not dissimilar to some people's response to Empire of the Sun, where I'm like, you know, first 30, 40 minutes,

[02:22:34] obviously, you know, incredible. And then the rest is kind of like, I like it. I don't dislike it. That's another movie we're going to rewatch with my son so he knows what the hell D-Day was. Well, there's no better fucking movie to watch. I hate to sound like my, the weirdest thing, especially, is like, I was shown Schindler's List, Amistad, and Saving Private Ryan in high school. The Rock. Yeah. And they're incredible

[02:23:04] communications of, right. So speaking of World War II history, I have a little thing to share here. I have no idea where this is going. So, my grandfather is a veteran of World War II. Is he still alive? No. No, he's passed. Okay. He was a Marine. Sure. My grandpa was in the Air Force. He thankfully was really good at typing, and so he was assigned to someone in leadership and never really

[02:23:34] ended up having to see any battle. He was like, way back. Right, right, sure, sure. I think he spent most of his time, he always talked about just being like, stationed at a large base in Samoa. Sure. Yeah. Just like, acting as a secretary. I don't remember their rank, but with someone in leadership. My grandfather booked Talent for USO shows, which I've said before, sounds like a bit. The most Brayford Newman shit in the line. He could not have been more dissimilar for me in personality, and yet when I say that, people just picture me with a helmet. My, my,

[02:24:04] being like, let's get some stand-ups. My maternal grandpa was in the Air Force. He was in France, but I think he was not, he was not like on whatever, the front line either. He did a lot of like, but he was in France. I mean, I don't know, but anyway, carry on. And so, my dad, when he was cleaning out the house, which is a family house, and so, a lot of times, he'll discover stuff that my grandparents left at this house. Has been in your family for like 100 years, correct? Close to? Yeah,

[02:24:34] it was a cabin that was built in 1880, and has been in my family since. Wait, there's way more than 100 years. Yeah, yeah, pretty crazy. He discovered this Japanese flag, which was, I'm going to totally not be able to pronounce the name of this properly, Yoshigaki Hinomaru, but when Japanese soldiers were drafted into service, their family and friends

[02:25:03] would sign this. Say, good luck flag. This flag. Yes, it would look like this. Right, right, right, right. So, my dad discovered a flag, and we don't think it's from my grandpa. We think it's from a relative, but we found this really cool nonprofit called Oban Society, who is set up where they reconnect the flags with the family members, and we sent the flag in

[02:25:32] to Japan. Like, to find the person this belonged to. So, we just sent it in the mail and got confirmation true like a few days ago. That is fascinating. So, essentially, they found this, whoever was, found this flag, and took it home, being like, this is crazy. Right. And it's like, you know, in America, the flags were popular as badges of victory, often given to mothers, sisters, or town mayors. I just found that weird. Why would you give that to your mayor? Mayor's like,

[02:26:02] another fucking flag! What the hell? I mean, the person that belonged to probably die in the war. Likely, yeah. So, this would go back. I mean, but that's... That's fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating that that exists, that there's like a service that finds, you know, reconnects these artifacts. That's awesome. I think that's great. Interesting. My dad, my grandpa, I have a giant bag of his shit from the war, but it's all like weird money and like the weird stuff that was given to servicemen of like, here's how to like behave

[02:26:31] in Britain or in France of like, you know, the cultures might seem strange to you. Like, you know, UGI from New York City or whatever. Yeah. Which is fascinating. That is fascinating. Yeah, my dad's dad was too... He's like one of those in the middle guys. Like he was... Oh, too young for one. Of service age between the two world wars. My dad was born in 1941. His first memories, of course, were being bombed, as he would tell me as a child. That stuck with him? Well, honestly, his first memories were like his sister

[02:27:01] taking him into the shelter. Like... Like, yes, 100%. And then his real memories are like post-war Britain of like rationing and like all that shit. You know? We all grew up with these stories being told to us and Bilga is right that like the next generation right there, like, yes, the story is told to me by Steven Spielberg. Right, they're a little disconnected. Right. It's harder to be like, now I feel like I'll tell my daughter, like, oh yeah, did you know your great grandpa like was in France and it'll just sound like science fiction, right? Yeah. Like it's sort of, yeah.

[02:27:30] It sounds like you're begging for another world war almost, David. Like you're just... Take it easy. And we should just mention we're watching this movie, we're seeing these, this internment camp. Yes. Just a reminder, America did that to Japanese citizens. Well, Japanese American citizens. Yes. Yep. Sorry, Japanese American citizens. But Japan does not cover itself in glory in World War II, sir. No, it's just a whole mess of a situation. World War II, a real... Well,

[02:28:00] one of my favorite pieces of literature very hornily is Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I don't know if anyone's ever read it. Have you ever read it? No. Which is a book about Japan's ignorance. It's not a book, I mean, mostly it's a book about a weird horny guy who doesn't know what's going on, which is what all his books are about. Who like listens to jazz and is like, I can't find my cat. But it's really a book about Japan's ignorance of the atrocities it carried out in China, which like, as you read the book, you realize like, well, this is a book written

[02:28:29] in the 90s. And he's like, basically, he's trying to be like, we still don't talk about this. And like, it's such a trauma that like, it's buried in our collective unconsciousness. And it's fascinating to see, you know, that, but that's how I learned about that from a goddamn like fiction book. And like, remember, Come See the Paradise, the Alan Parker movie about the Japanese internment camps. I mean, that was, you know. What's that? That's Dennis Quaid, right? Dennis Quaid. Yeah. That's another movie with one of the Hollywood liberal Dennis Quaid.

[02:28:57] One of the most used scores in other trailers. Oh, really? Yeah, Randy Edelman score. But like, that's a, that's a movie that came out in America and America was like, we don't want to think about like Japanese internment. Like, we don't want to think about it. Like, sorry, we're not showing up for that. But very much a kind of, you know, mainstream American studio release, like, history from this. Right. Yeah. A homework movie. I mean, that's, you know, that's my joke about that movie that Ralph Fiennes is Odysseus or whatever.

[02:29:27] What's it called? The Return? The Return? That movie was created by the British government as homework. Yeah, but I, I kind of really want to see it. I reviewed it. It just feels like a movie where the British government was like, we decree that a new homework movie be made this year. but here's the counterpoint. The sell on that movie is also, what if Ralph Fiennes was fucking ripped? He's ripped? He is ripped. And he was very good in the movie. And he had nothing to lose. And traumatized. Yeah. But it was funny, though, when Nolan announced that he was doing The Odyssey and people were like, oh, what the hell is The Odyssey? And it's like,

[02:29:58] what a diss on that movie that is like literally in theaters. Who cares? Yeah. Empire of the Sun got many technical six Oscar nominations, but none above the line as they say. The nominees for Best Picture that year are The Last Emperor, Broadcast News, Fatal Attraction, which is the big box office movie, obviously, Moonstruck, which rules, and Hope and Glory in what one might imagine is the Empire of the Sun slot. I gotta say, that's a nicely rounded five. I do. I'm not saying it's a very solid five.

[02:30:27] But there's a good balance of shit there. It's a good year for movies. Full Metal Jacket also comes out that year. Another movie that kind of is, you know, underperforms. I would say if people are too hyped for it and people are kind of like underwhelmed by it at the time, that's a movie year that in my opinion is transformatively good because all those movies are good, but it's also the year of Raising Arizona. So it's like the Coen's exploding. It's the year of a little movie about a little metal guy with a heart of gold, Robocop. I mean, the great American film

[02:30:56] by a Dutchman. It's also the year of like Evil Dead 2, like, and, you know, so it's like a lot of these like young, you know, hungry, future kind of like, you know, whatever, poet laureates of American cinema like emerging. And that was, that's, oh, no, I was going to say, I mean, I have told this story many times. It's entirely possible I've told it here on this podcast too. But Raising Arizona is my gateway into like heavy-duty cinephilia because I had gotten into the habit of just like going to the movies after school and Raising Arizona,

[02:31:27] I went to see Raising Arizona in the theater. I come home and obviously it's Raising Arizona. I mean, what 14-year-old doesn't love Raising Arizona? And then I come home and we had a issue of film comment with Raising Arizona on the cover and I was like, oh, it's interesting. I'll read through this and I'm reading it and somewhere there's an essay in it called Praising Arizona and it's, you know, it's just a kind of an article about how great Raising Arizona is. Somewhere in it they mention

[02:31:57] that the self-conscious style of the Coens is not unlike the self-conscious style of Bernardo Bertolucci in The Conformist. I mean, this is the shit. We happen to have a VHS of The Conformist lying there. This is like... So the tools were there for you. Yeah, everything was there. It was literally all on the table. Yeah, like my parents are like off at work. I'm a latchkey kid. But you're able to like sort of connect the chain links at this moment. I take, like literally I take VHS of The Conformist I watch it that day and I'm just like or that night

[02:32:27] and I'm just like I don't know what the hell this movie's about but it's so gorgeous. I rewind it I watch it again twice in one day. Right. And by the end of the week I've watched it like six or seven times and I become obsessed with The Conformist which then leads to Italian cinema Bertolucci and then Last Emperor comes out later that year as I mentioned. And that's right. But yeah, like so like Raising Arizona is such an important movie for me in that sense. You know, that were I mean not to be overly sentimental about but I'm just like thinking about that Oscar field

[02:32:56] and the other things buzzing around here. Right. You have like some of the greatest examples of genre cinema ever. Like the highest level of genre filmmaking made by like emerging filmmakers. The Carpenters Prince of Darkness. Totally. But then like even just the films they're awarding there is a balance of like commercial entertainments that they are respecting and respected movies that now are being elevated to commercial entertainment through the Oscars where you're like the public was seeing all these movies

[02:33:25] and like the Academy wasn't too snobby to like acknowledge fatal attraction but also could like kind of anoint films and still be like if this gets nominated the public will see it. They'll go. And there was a little controversy at the time because of because The Last Emperor was not released wide because it had been greenlit under a different a different studio head for Columbia. Right. I think it was Putnam had been running Columbia. Right. And then and then was it Don Steele

[02:33:55] came in. And so there there was this kind of you know they didn't want to spend a lot of money you know focusing on the stuff from the old regime. I think Open Glory was also Columbia maybe. But but there was yes it was. So you awarded a movie that the public actually doesn't have any relationship to. Right. And there was actually I think it might have even it might have been at the Golden Globes or at the Oscars but one of the producers or somebody involved in Last Last Emperor was just like

[02:34:25] now please release this movie. Yeah. I mean it was in limited release. Yeah. Yeah. Good morning Vietnam that year. I believe that is the last time Sony Columbia won Best Picture. That might be true. I did a deep dive on that one. They have a long run. I think that was the last time. Yeah I think you're right. Every once in a while they come close and well to consider. Yeah. The box office that week. Griffin. December 11th 1987. It's opening at number nine at the box office on 225 screens. So you know not a super wide release.

[02:34:54] Number one that week is a film I think we will one day cover. It is a black comedy. It's the directorial debut of its director and star. Is it throw mama from the train. Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal in throw mama from the train. DeVito come up a lot in this miniseries box office game. He was. It's his era. He was around. Yeah. A very funny good movie. The Bradley Cooper of his day. And I do think so many ways. We will cover him one day. We will. As Sarah Rubin said

[02:35:24] short series for a little man. Yes. Number two at the box office is I think the highest grossing movie of the year. Of 87. If not highest it's it's the biggest American hit of the year or whatever. It's a comedy family comedy with a crazy premise. It is three men and a baby. Yeah. It was the it was the highest grossing American film based on a French film of course directed by Leonard Nimoy directed by Leonard Nimoy Gutz Danson Selleck. They have a baby.

[02:35:54] By the way actors directing. Yeah. That's right. Another example. But that's like a thing that actually just wouldn't make sense to like a budding cinephile now who's trying to understand like culturally the decades before them where you're like there was an era where the highest grossing film of the year could be handily outgrossing blockbusters and sequels. Right. Just like what directing had a baby two TV stars and a Midland comedy star in a very simple comedy premise. Juggernaut.

[02:36:24] Huge. Because everyone could see it was a four quadrant movie as they say. All three quadrants that three men end up a baby. Number three opening new this week is a film that you're kind of like well why wasn't that nominated for best picture. It was such a generational movie. It made a lot of money and it won best actor that year. And then you watch it and you're like oh because it's bad. It's not bad. It's pretty bad. Are we talking about Wall Street? We sure are. Oliver Stone's Wall Street. A very enjoyable movie that Michael Douglas is fantastic in.

[02:36:53] Not only but it's a bit obvious even by old Ali's standards. It is definitely obvious. It's a bit on the nose. So I think. He's followed up to Platoon. It was one year later. I know and that's another case where people had very high expectations for that movie. In between his two best director ones? Yeah. He also made talk radio. Yes pretty much. Wall Street. I remember at the time I was not a fan of Wall Street and then over the years Wall Street has become Wall Street and Any Given Sunday are the two Oliver Stone

[02:37:23] movies I rewatch the most. Any Given Sunday is a movie I will admit that at the time when I was a teenager I was kind of like this is a bit much and now I kind of have a quiet appreciation. Yeah it's like Wall Street is kind of like that for me. It's it's it's such a great popcorn movie. Not only was Wall Street not you know you're expecting that he makes Salvador he makes Platoon. Right. Wall Street is just kind of like. It's a it's a little bit of an indication of where things are going to go prematurely in his career. And then and then he you know. No then he drills back

[02:37:53] down but then you catch up to all his movies kind of become Wall Street. Yeah it's kind of like you kind of were always this director right. Yeah. He's had a little hack in him. Anyway. No not only not nominated for Best Picture but it wins Best Actor and that is its lone nomination. It is a weird like that movie was a big hit. It wins such a major award for such a major star. It was just blinked in every other category. He's also the star of Fatal Attraction which is Best Picture nominee. Oh God what a year. I mean that's for Michael Douglas playing really relatable chill dudes.

[02:38:23] Number four at the box office is a great comedy. comedy. A great comedy. Probably cover this guy one day too. We'll probably cover this guy one day too. The director. The director. It's a great comedy. It's not Tootsie. No because that would have been nominated for Best Picture and everything. That's earlier. I don't like Tootsie. Tootsie's in the E.T. Yeah Tootsie's I mean I have a lot of This is a movie you love. It's a movie Ben loves I'm sure. Is it Planes Trains? Planes Trains and Automobiles. Hell yes. The movie that should

[02:38:53] have won Best Actor this year. Oh for Gandy. Gandy's pretty amazing at it. Great movie. I didn't think to watch it for this holiday season. It's something I try to The classic Thanksgiving movie. Yeah. Yeah. Do you like Planes Trains and Automobiles? I do. We just got the 4K of it. Hell yeah. It's a weird transfer. I don't know if you put it in. I haven't watched the 4K yet. It's a weird transfer. Uh oh. The AI Steve Martin. They did a little bit of yeah. Oh boy. Upscale and smooth. Oh gosh. Um but but the thing

[02:39:22] is on there is the like hour of fabled deleted scenes that for so long were a rumor that are like you know because there was always this like there's a mythical three hour cut of the film and then it his children finally opened the vault and they were like look there was never like a functional three hour cut. He just had so much good footage of Candy and Martin that his first assembly he tried to use all of it and then he correctly whittled it down. Everything he cut out should not be in the movie but as just raw footage of Martin and Candy it is unbelievable.

[02:39:52] That's the thing you all I feel like that's usually the case when people talk oh there was originally a six hour cut. I'm like I'm sure most of that was just it was just a sem. Right. Yes. Yes. Assembly needs to be used more often than in describing these things or whatever. Yeah. Number five of the box office is the other biggest hit of the year we've mentioned a bunch of times is not for best picture fatal attraction fatal attraction fatal attraction which is a pretty good movie. It's pretty silly too. The roller coaster scene was it is funny how Adrian Lyne has

[02:40:22] become kind of a like sort of retroactively inserted into the pantheon. Imagine beaming through a time machine to 1993 and sitting down with the New York Film Critics Circle and being like you know Sliver is going to get like like critical attention and care. Like I bought the new 4K. So did I when Beatrice wrote an essay and I wanted to read it. We were talking about this in our news and deals thread. How much are you willing to spend on a Sliver 4K? And I'm excited to rewatch Sliver but Sliver fucking sucks. It's terrible.

[02:40:51] But it's fun. But I was like I have to have this. Yeah me too. But here's the thing like even at the time Adrian Lyne movies were getting nominated for best picture. I know. They were. Well that one was. Also being seen as like from the critics of like that's the Academy Academy and yet there was always kind of like one weird like okay this was a hit and like totally. If there were four Slivers coming out in wide release a year we'd be doing cartwheels. We'd be. I'm not just saying

[02:41:20] four fatal attractions four slivers and we'd be in Hong. Hong heaven. I was going to say hog heaven. We've also got the Running Man which is being remade this year. It's an okay movie a movie I've never loved. I was going to say that's a perfect example of a movie that should be remade. I want to love that movie. It's enough of a weird adaptation that there's a room to do a different one. And the original is not. It's not pretty good. It's just a cool premise. I mean I want to.

[02:41:50] Paul Michael Glazer is one of those guys where I'm like I really want to like his movies because of the the man background the Miami Vice stuff and every time I watch one of them like he just didn't quite have it. His aim. He directed his among other things. You've got a re-release of Cinderella a film I've now seen 400 billion times. My daughter is obsessed with Cinderella. Cinderella. Cinderella. Is that her favorite of the princess or at least the only princess one she's locked in with I would say she's not

[02:42:19] gotten to Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. Is there another one I'm missing? Those are the sort of big princess movies right? Cinderella is the most classic princess one of them all because it's about mostly about being friends with mice. That movie is like 80% mice. But then it's just yeah about like vibing in a party. Well that's the wild thing about Sleeping Beauty is like 95% fairie. Yes. Well I was so incredible. I mean it's gorgeous. Did you see that 70 millimeter print they showed? No I wish I had. I would love to see that. I don't think I've ever seen a movie look that good.

[02:42:49] It's such a great movie. It looked ridiculous. Astonishingly beautiful movie. They got amazing access to the 70 millimeter print that's rarely shown. Yeah it's like they bring it out every once every seven years. Right. And they ran at the Museum of Moving Image in Queens a couple times and I went to see it and there was a father who brought a daughter probably around your daughter's age David you know between three and five and at some point in the movie she like asked him a logic question as kids do during children's films. Right and everyone was like shh. So like one guy scolded

[02:43:18] her so hard and everyone in the theater was like let's step back. Right. And think about what we're seeing Sleeping Beauty at 11 a.m. on a Sunday. We're not allowed to wait. This is for her more than it is for us. Everyone chill the fuck out. But it was it became people yelling at the guy for yelling at the kid. She is not living in our world. Yeah. It was just really funny. Right. If you bring your daughter to like yeah to Miami Vice you know at 10 p.m. and she's like so wait where does Jose Yaro get off.

[02:43:47] Then you can show sure. Yeah. Eight is nuts. The Barbra Streisand Richard Dreyfuss film nuts about pleasant people. Promising to see in still. I like that movie. I haven't seen it in a long time. It's a classic to me. I'm at block or not but I'm at the rental store and I'm like what is this. I just take it off the shelf. Leslie Nielsen's final dramatic role. That is the last time he did drama. Yeah. Yeah. Number nine Empire of the Sun and number 10 one of the best movies in 1987 and one of my favorite movies. Dirty Dancing. Oh sure. Yeah.

[02:44:18] God. Another fucking another goddamn classic another movie that was dismissed by critics and now I watch it and I'm like again I wish there were five movies a year. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how you feel about Dirty Dancing. I like Dirty Dancing. I mean I wouldn't necessarily nominated for Best Picture. No I don't think I enjoyed it at the time. My five for 87 are Broadcast News, Raising Arizona, Moonstruck, Robocop, Maytawan. I mean. Maytawan. Yeah. John Sayles movie. Two of my 10 favorite movies of all time are released in this year and a couple others that are really close. When Jason Bailey does

[02:44:47] that podcast a very good year. I did 87. I don't remember which movies. I mean obviously I'm sure we discussed Last Emperor but I think we discussed Walker actually. Incredible year. Yeah. But yeah. Hellraiser, Ishtar, Maurice, the James Avery movie. Oh my God. Yes. Predator is 1987. Near Dark is 1987. Predator and Robocop. Yeah. Thank God. I'm like there's at least five of my top 25 in 87. Yeah. We didn't know how good we had it. Yeah. No we didn't.

[02:45:17] We used to be a proper country. Bilga thank you for joining us. Thank you. Now Bilga we've already gone long but I have to say this and I asked you before we recorded if we could talk about this and I do feel like there was a responsibility to our listeners. You have seen Horizon colon an American Saga colon part two. I have. You are in the limited pool of people who have seen it. It did premiere at Venice. It did. It's not it's not a 10 person pool but it is limited. We are here now six months plus from when

[02:45:46] our mini series on Costner ended with us saying hey and next week Horizon chapter two an American Saga we thought that episode would come out the following week and the movie still is at the time of this recording no closer to being released. It has had another sort of wind a third wind from being put up on Netflix and being the number one movie on Netflix after being the number one movie on Max and being the number one movie on VOD when it went to all of those places. Unsurprisingly his audience has shown up in the homebound ways that people

[02:46:15] assumed would happen and yet it feels totally stagnant and I just feel like I would be remiss if we did not allow you to talk at least briefly about the film you've seen that we're all dying to see in our unresolved minis. I think it's a really great movie. It is actually quite different I felt from Horizon part one. Less of a spectacle. This one focused more on the women and in fact Ella Hunt? Yes. She's kind of the protagonist. I mean that was my favorite narrative thread in the first one.

[02:46:44] And you know this one is so much darker than the first one. Oh cool. The first one wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs. No but this one is really dark. There's a scene where Luke Wilson rips someone's heart out of their chest. Make a joke about Templadoon being the darker. What's interesting is that the things you thought about a lot of the characters in Horizon one you start to think differently about them so he's kind of he's kind of playing off that. This is what I want out of this idea of the experiment. And one of the reasons

[02:47:12] why I put Horizon part one on my top ten list for the year and in fact in my mind it's I'm putting the two of them together but really it's like and as much as I liked Horizon part one actually part two made me think about part one a little differently. I mean I think I think it's great you know so Costner was at the screening that I was at it was kind of a private screening. The least intimidating man in the world. The least intimidating man in the world. And kind of a wallflower who just disappears.

[02:47:42] And I asked him beforehand I said so is it you know like have you shot part three or you know because I was curious like how far along he isn't just shooting the stuff. And he's like oh no no you know I have to I still have to shoot part three and four. And he said you know I'm looking for a studio. And then I don't even know if I'm supposed to say this but. If you need to cut out later. So part two ends much like part one does with like a montage of scenes from the next Horizon.

[02:48:12] Which I from what I understand that's basically what he shot for part three that he had said previously that he had done like seven days of filming on part three but it's basically that right. So afterwards I saw him again and I said well it looks like you shot some of part three and he's like yeah I only shot enough so that I could have that montage. And I was like that's that's weirdly adorable to me. Can you confirm to me I feel like I had heard or at least seen from other people who have seen it that a lot of the sizzle reel stuff at the end of part one is not

[02:48:41] really in part two or not in that form and that similarly it was him being like let me just get a taste of some stuff. There's a there's there's some stuff that I expected to see in part two. Yeah. That's not there based on what I'd seen in part one. Yeah. I don't remember the specific things but there were a couple of things where I'm like huh I vaguely remember a shot of this happening. The stuff at the end of part one promises a very different film than what part two actually is. The thing. How much how much for BC in the printing press do we get without

[02:49:11] spoiling anything. Very little. OK. So that's a great example of what you just said. It's kind of building up to more of that. He's the Thanos. He hasn't assembled all the infinity stones. No. It ends actually with more of him and there is the sense that OK now maybe now in part three got his hands on some more ink now he's really going to be able to fly her. The what was I going to say. It is you know it's such a I mean I love the movie. I love the project. It's it's such an

[02:49:39] interesting inflection point now because if he if he can't. Find a studio or if he can't find somebody to like. Allow him to make the rest of it. This thing is going to be I mean because it is I mean it's an incomplete movie. It is. It doesn't end there. There's no kind of there's no world in which you're like all right well whatever we got parts one and two and we'll just accept this. It's kind of like no no like the story isn't finished yet and it's just going to exist as such a weird little entity people can't finish

[02:50:09] were angry that when we did our part one episode that so much of our talk was like it's hard to talk about this because it's an incomplete object right and that we were sort of kicking the can on a certain degree of analysis. But it is it is and it's like it's incomplete but in a way that's by design because part of his notion was like make them simultaneously and release them close together and we did this episode and in like reality we were like it's going to be six weeks from when we're recording to when we see part two and do that but in release schedule they will be one week apart.

[02:50:38] So next week you will hear our episode with a more complete take and much like the reality of watching these movies that didn't happen. And I find it fascinating that part two also does not give you like a clean cutoff point. No. But that's what I was looking for is like a building sense of like the vision of where this is going. And it's yeah I mean it's a little hard to pin down watching the first one alone. It's also weird because you know we are in the age of sort of the you know the bifurcated

[02:51:08] blockbusters where everything's a part one or part two or whatever but those films do even the ones that to me sometimes do feel incomplete do feel like they have some narrative shape some kind of they try to have a mini arc so that there can be some sense of resolution at the cliffhanger part even if there's a bigger threat. Right. And Horizons refusal to do that doing that I think is is very off-putting in a way that's interesting. Right. And a lot of people have said you know understandably why isn't

[02:51:37] this just a TV series because it does have that it does have that quality and like it's not a TV series because he wants it big because it's a giant big screen Western it's I don't know I mean if he ever finishes it it'll be like no other movie ever. I agree. Now just wrap. Big if. An even bigger if than Krasinski got. That's a terrible joke. I want to end this episode by by requesting we have we've been lucky enough

[02:52:07] through various means to acquire a couple signed posters from directors of movies we have covered we have hanging in the office and Ang Lee and Seamus Hulk a Campion power the dog a Selleck Wendell and Wilde poster. I did win as a trivia prize at Nighthawk a Horizon poster. Now we obviously can't get Kostner to sign it but Bill good would you mind signing the Horizon poster and just writing I have

[02:52:36] seen chapter two. Are you doing this? I think this is worth doing. I think an immortalization of attention was this is the end of the episode. I said it was the end of the episode. You're pointing at the clock. It's the end of the episode. If if if what are we doing? This is funny and everyone's gonna like it. You can sign it off Mike. But if you ever get for Kevin Costner to sign your this is what I think is funny. Who's this clown that signed my poster? This is what I like. That's that clown Bill Gabbiri is one of our finest.

[02:53:05] And he put your movie on the top dead list you jerk. Yeah. We will. Yeah we'll do the signing after we wrap up the episode. I'm just gonna do it on your own time. Maybe Ben should finish your episodes. We should just like part of that. I think this is worth doing. I think people are gonna like it. And I think in fact the outrage at me doing it on Mike is gonna lend it's gonna add to the narrative. Yes. Because now it's a thing that needs to be resolved much like Horizon and American Saga. Bill good. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Anything specific you want to plug?

[02:53:35] When does this go up? This will go up in March? March 16th. I just hope I'm still employed in March. Hey. I'm always thrilled anytime a new piece gets published of any sort from you. It's always an exciting day. Always love to read what you write. We'll link to your articles in the episode description. There's a lot of them. You can link to my writer page on Vulture. Yeah, that's a good idea. That's what I was talking about. Okay, well then I'm stupid. I don't know.

[02:54:05] Oh my god. End the episode. End it. I want to, maybe you should end it. Maybe you think you're so good at ending episodes. Okay. Yeah. So let's just then quickly shout out here at the end. We're in the midst of our March Madness tournament. Oh, I suppose that's true. So please get involved if you want to impact the director. Rock the vote. If you're online, stay online. If we're going to cover that we're going to cover as well as Pokemon Go to the March Madness Poll.

[02:54:35] Participating on Patreon where we'll be voting for various different franchises. It's the Elite Eighters. It's, it's, you're voting on the past candidates who have gotten close but no cigar. We also are currently in the midst of our Star Trek Picard era commentary series. We're engaging with those films. Is our Insurrection episode. Yep. Yep. About the heroes of January 6th. Just a few days ago, we put out a Spielberg

[02:55:04] bonus episode. We're covering his segment in the Twilight Zone movie as well. Just that one. As amazing stories. Amazing stories. His amazing story segments. Yeah. Anyway, just get some housekeeping out. I know. Appreciate it. And thank you all for listening. Tune in next week for Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. Correct? Yeah. And as always, I think the poster thing was good and worth doing. Blank Check with

[02:55:34] Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to

[02:56:04] David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by BlankCheck Productions. In this montage, John Huston is getting an award for, I think,

[02:56:34] Sierra Madre? I think so, yeah. And in the introduction, and I forget already who's introducing him, but I think it's, the critic, I think it's a critic is saying like, and what a rare and interesting phenomenon. He wrote and directed the film. Like, we really need to celebrate the unique artistry of a director who wrote his own movie. It's being treated like he's some savant. It's being treated like he invented the camera. Like, really? And, because it was just so rare. That was a big deal. That was a big deal. Yeah. You know,

[02:57:04] part of what, you know, part of what gave rise to the auteur theory was, you know, these directors who actually exerted more control beyond just direction. And then it's John, Jack Houston just sucking our dick for two minutes being like, oh, I think the New York critics shine a light on. It's great. You know, he's so nice to us. I was, the person I was sitting with, I was like, that's John Houston, right? And he was like, he's like, is it? Doesn't sound like him. I'm like, you have to remember, in our minds, John, Jack Houston, right? In our minds, John Houston is still just like Chinatown, even though we've seen him

[02:57:33] in a million other contexts. But also in our minds, he sounds like the impressions of him. Yes. Right. When you listen to Connery and you're like, doesn't sound like him. And you're like, because it's Daryl Hamm and Conner. Right. He doesn't sound like the bug in Men in Black. Right. He was just middle-aged. Right. It's like watching young Michael Caine. Yeah. It's like young Michael Caine. That's a fine treat. I know. Oh, so hot. Yeah. Yeah. We might as well just kick off the episode reminiscing on my That's not how we kick off the episode. okay, fine. Well, we're recording it. I know, but you put it at the end of the episode.

[02:58:03] Things must be done in proper order. How about right in the middle? No context. Throw it right in. You want to place a 15 minutes in to give people time to finish their dinner? That wouldn't make sense for The Empire of the Sun because The Empire of the Sun is not a movie that's like, let's mess with the formal storytelling approach, really. This is a pretty traditionally told film, I would say. Okay, let me start the show properly. Okay.