# The Best of ATRM: Jan-Jun 2025

An episode of [All The Right Movies](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1471502633), 6 Jun 2025, 1 h 52 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO8758992291.mp3

We've done the hard work so you don't have to - sifting through the first six months of ATRM Classic in 2025 to bring you some of the best bits. This highlights compilation features our best moments of insight, funniest fails, and the conversations that somehow made sense at the time. From January' to June we've curated the cream of the crop (and a few disasters that were too good not to include). Perfect for new listeners who want to know what they're getting into, or loyal fans who enjoy reliving our greatest hits. Warning: May contain traces of insightful analysis buried between the chaos. Connect with ATRM: To support what we do, access our archive and listen to exclusive episodes, become an ATRM patron: Listen on Patreon Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Listen on YouTube Twitter/X: @ATRightMovies YouTube: Subscribe to our channel Instagram: @allthe_rightmovies Threads: @allthe_rightmovies Facebook: Join our movie group Bluesky: @alltherightmovies.com TikTok: @alltherightmovies Website: alltherightmovies.com

## Transcript

[0:04] All the right movies. Hi, everyone.
[0:11] Thank you for tuning in to All the Right Movies.
[0:13] I'm Luke. As we've reached the midpoint of
[0:16] the year, we thought it'd be a fun idea to pull together some
[0:18] of our best bits from our classic podcast so far in 2025.
[0:22] In that time, we've talked about our first and second Disney
[0:25] movies. We dove into not one, but two
[0:27] Denis Villeneuve films, got back in the saddle with Indy, went
[0:31] back in time to 60s Hollywood Tarantino style, entered the
[0:34] dark mind of David Lynch, and had our day in the dock with
[0:37] Oliver Stone. If you like what you hear, you
[0:40] can listen to the full episodes of these shows wherever you
[0:42] listen to podcasts. And to listen to all of the
[0:45] podcasts that we produced, you can become an ATRM patron.
[0:48] Listen to our entire classic Podcast archive by becoming a
[0:51] patron on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
[0:53] And for the full experience, you can sign up on Patreon and
[0:56] YouTube for all of the classic shows, plus the exclusive
[0:59] podcasts we've recorded for our patrons.
[1:01] That's over 80 additional podcasts, including brand new
[1:04] monthly shows of our podcasts, Double Feature, and the Watch
[1:07] List. But for the time being, we hope
[1:09] you enjoy looking back at the year so far with ATRM.
[1:15] Sicario. We open with the literal and
[1:21] metaphorical bang in Chandler, AZ were introduced to Kate and
[1:25] Reggie's world as the infiltrated drug ring and found
[1:27] a very nasty surprise hidden in the walls.
[1:31] Over to you to start us off, Westie.
[1:33] OK, well, I didn't mention Roger Dickens in the intro, and that's
[1:37] probably because I'm going to mention them all the way through
[1:39] everything. Else.
[1:40] And I was like, no, I'm just going to kind of push it down.
[1:42] I'm just going to repress that thought.
[1:45] But this opening shot is like, you know, when you're on holiday
[1:48] and you just sit in in the apartment for a little while and
[1:51] then you go outside and it's like, oh, how everything's just
[1:54] so like viciously bright. You can kind of make make things
[1:57] out, but it's not overexposed. And then you get them black
[2:00] figures walking into the shot. It's just beautifully
[2:03] contrasted. And I was just straight in.
[2:05] I was like, right, OK, this makes perfect sense.
[2:07] It's not an overused color palette.
[2:09] It's beautifully shot. Here we'll go.
[2:10] And then we'll cut it inside that vehicle, the SWAT vehicle.
[2:13] I've heard deacons on the podcast say that they couldn't
[2:15] really afford to get the spot vehicle and drive it through and
[2:18] have these shafts of light coming through that I just saw
[2:21] Enigmatic and just so quite the angels on our shoulders kind of
[2:24] thing, which is in the script. So that was actually needed to
[2:26] do that. So what they did is they built
[2:28] this, it's made out of cardboard and they put these strips in the
[2:32] cardboard and there's people rocking the set backwards and
[2:34] forwards and then they're just moving the light through and
[2:36] it's just catching it with the haze.
[2:38] Just like they did in Blue Velvet.
[2:39] Yeah, it's just unbelievable. But you can tell it's everybody
[2:43] firing on all cylinders here with a budget that they're not
[2:45] necessarily used to. I don't think they're used to
[2:47] something, this law, especially not deacons at this point.
[2:50] And I do think that this is the only of going to him and saying
[2:53] I've seen no country for old men.
[2:54] Can we just have a little bit of that or you know 85% of that
[2:57] maybe do? That.
[2:59] Just do that and it just goes from visually beautiful to just
[3:03] intense. It's just so loud and just so
[3:06] vibrant and that just going through the wall and you're
[3:08] thinking what's going on here? Absolutely crazy and that it's
[3:12] just this score that's just underneath like this, like the
[3:15] devil's heartbeat. It's just pounding, but just so
[3:18] distant. But it's just and it's just,
[3:21] it's just reminding you that there's just something not right
[3:24] before they even come through. We get that great shot of dust.
[3:27] And that's a recurring theme which I think kind of reflects
[3:30] them and their ghosts and the just turn up and vanish.
[3:33] And we've got that as a recurring visual theme by
[3:35] Volume, which works really, really well.
[3:37] But there's just this really great moment where it comes to
[3:41] the FBI. He shoots first, You know,
[3:42] everyone's in the right, There's only two guys there.
[3:44] What's he shooting that? There's nobody here.
[3:46] And then there's that moment where it's just then it's a
[3:48] horror film, it's what is going on and open the wall.
[3:51] And then it's just how they're disgusted by the smell.
[3:54] And then when that happens and then we get that score again and
[3:56] there's just the camera matches that note.
[3:59] It just creeps forward. Just do and people being sick
[4:02] outside. It creeps behind Emily, bloody
[4:04] creeps forward. It creeps towards the bodies.
[4:06] And you're like, I don't want to say that it's like you're being
[4:08] pulled towards are conveyable. You just don't want to come
[4:10] anywhere near it. It's like you're slowly getting
[4:12] pulled into this hell and then we'll get everybody on the
[4:15] scene. Everybody's looking through it.
[4:16] Yeah, the guys in the hazmat suit are looking through.
[4:18] You get the forensic team in there, which I definitely would
[4:21] have had Cate Blanchett in there to do another cameo, much like
[4:24] Hot 1st, just just for the hell of it.
[4:25] It would have been great. But that's just me.
[4:28] Everything, Everything I did. Hello.
[4:30] It would have been wonderful just to break up the tension
[4:32] here. That would have been just for
[4:33] the explosion. But then you see they need the
[4:35] bald cutters. Something else is going on.
[4:36] There's nothing over with. And then that explosion hits you
[4:39] like a tonne of bricks. Like the sound design on that
[4:42] volume just went. How loud can we make it?
[4:44] Well, that's about as loud as what we make before people go
[4:46] deaf, right? Just do that.
[4:48] Then we don't make anyone deaf, but just about there until they
[4:51] do, right? Great.
[4:52] It's just so powerfully done, so well played.
[4:55] If you don't want to watch the rest of this after the opening,
[4:58] you've got a serious problem. Without the dead bodies and
[5:01] without the explosion, it would still be a bloody good sequence.
[5:04] Oh, absolutely. Yeah, those two things under it,
[5:06] I love it when they we need the ball cutters and then it cuts to
[5:09] a close up of one of those bodies in the walls and you
[5:11] know, that's something really bad is going to happen.
[5:14] Yeah. A lot of the back end characters
[5:16] in this scene were taken up by actual SWAT, Navy SEAL, and DEA
[5:19] agents, so I think it gives it a certain amount of subconscious
[5:23] authenticity. Oh, it really does.
[5:24] Yeah. And then because this mission
[5:26] has gone so badly, Kate gets pulled in for what she thinks is
[5:30] going to be a debrief. And it's definitely got that
[5:32] waiting outside the teacher's office vibe, hasn't it?
[5:34] Because is this a good thing she's there?
[5:36] Is it a bad thing? Did Kate do anything wrong on
[5:39] that mission? And it doesn't seem like, but
[5:41] who knows for these people how they take these operations that
[5:44] go like this too. And it's interesting when they
[5:46] start talking about her suitability for the mission, how
[5:49] quickly Matt, which is Brolin's character, jumps to a positive
[5:52] opinion of her suitability. But he completely dismisses
[5:55] Reggie. My open accord about no lawyers
[5:57] on this train because even though Reggie would get totally
[6:00] sooner 2 of Iraq, the fact that he has a law degree and that's a
[6:03] negative for Matt, that's extremely telling what Matt
[6:06] knows they're going to be doing once they're crossing the
[6:07] border. He Matt's body language changes
[6:09] when he hears that, and he's shot from the back.
[6:11] And he just. Goes Oh yeah, that's.
[6:13] Yeah, he can't see his face. Brilliant.
[6:15] Yeah. And then when kid goes into the
[6:17] office and starts talking, there's there's such a definite
[6:19] Silence of the Lambs fields of this as well.
[6:21] When she stepped in that room and it's her POV and they're all
[6:24] looking at it's like that sort of Cleese going into the
[6:26] elevator, which is run by all the male FBI agents.
[6:29] And then those POV shots looking directly at her and it just
[6:32] continues to be disoriented and without no.
[6:35] And to see like all the information that gets thrown at
[6:38] all, she can say, well, I'm not Privy to that and I'm not Privy
[6:40] to that either. I don't know.
[6:41] Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, still has no idea why
[6:43] she's there. And then when Matt thoughts that
[6:45] question at it, if she's married or has kids, and I think it's
[6:48] such an interesting question because she bristles at it
[6:51] immediately. But isn't that being casually
[6:53] sexist here? Also trying to work out what
[6:55] kind of leverage the cartels would have over if they got hold
[6:58] of her. Or even more sinister, if she
[7:01] does disappear, who would be asking questions about?
[7:03] The implications, yeah. What are the implications which
[7:06] is never answered throughout the film, so I.
[7:07] Think it's all of them things. Yeah, quite possibly, yeah.
[7:11] I mean, would he ask if he did one Reggie Long?
[7:13] Would he have asked Reggie if he had a wife and kids?
[7:15] Maybe, maybe not. So it's left ambiguous, which I
[7:18] like a lot. And then it's just Kate set up
[7:20] for the rest of the journey. She's on the journey.
[7:22] She doesn't know what the journey is kind of idealistic
[7:26] blue eyed approach to. I want to get the people who
[7:28] created this mess that I was in this morning.
[7:30] Yeah. No questions asked or no
[7:32] questions answered, which I think that's quite important.
[7:35] Yeah, yeah. I mean, just putting trust in
[7:37] the people higher above her and I think that's a mistake and
[7:40] that's what we all do. You would do naturally.
[7:41] Wouldn't you? But you put trust in your
[7:43] government, don't you? That's what the whole, that's
[7:44] what the film is trying to say is you don't quite know what's
[7:46] going on, and you take an oath to it.
[7:47] You go, okay, yeah, I'll trust you.
[7:49] But behind the scenes it's a lot darker than you think.
[7:51] Very much. And then when she gets on the
[7:54] plane, I love that Matt, not this Matt.
[7:57] Matt Graver, played by Royal. But you do love me.
[7:59] Yeah, yeah, I love you as well, Matt.
[8:01] Yeah, don't, don't get that wrong.
[8:02] I love that Graver introduces Alejandro from afar to Katie.
[8:09] So that's my bird dog over there, Alejandro.
[8:11] But you don't know that it's del Toro until he comes on the
[8:14] plane. Yeah.
[8:15] There's nothing given by way of explanation from Graver, who
[8:18] just curls up and goes to sleep like a dog, and he leaves Kate
[8:22] in the presence of this stranger who tells her that they're going
[8:25] to Juarez, which basically means you're going into the war zone.
[8:29] Terrifying and very confusing from our point of view.
[8:33] Kate knows as little as we do. And in this scene, Alejandro
[8:37] wakes up in a panic, but we never specifically find out why.
[8:40] But in the original screenplay, there was a nightmare sequence
[8:43] where Alejandro was tied to a chair by his wrist while his
[8:46] daughter was being put in a VAT of acid and his wife's head was
[8:48] cut off. DMA, Yeah.
[8:50] Yeah, I mean, if you listen closely, you can hear the
[8:52] screams of his wife and daughter underneath the sound of the
[8:55] engines of the plane, which I didn't really notice until maybe
[8:58] 4th of it. It's very, very subtle, but it's
[9:00] there. Brilliant.
[9:01] It is. So pleased they didn't have
[9:02] that, though. I love the ambiguity of it all,
[9:04] the mystery of it. It's.
[9:05] Better left unsaid or unseen that.
[9:07] Definitely, yeah. That sounds like a soul film or
[9:10] something that's too much too gross.
[9:12] Yeah, but I mean, the way you would have done it, I don't
[9:15] know. I have absolutely no idea what
[9:16] that would have looked like. I think that the way that Taylor
[9:18] Sheridan wrote it though, would have been a little bit too on
[9:21] the nose. It would have been very, very
[9:23] much, yeah, very graphic. Yeah, when Alejandro wakes up, I
[9:27] love that he composes himself. Kate says, are you all right?
[9:30] And he takes a moment. He goes, yeah, fine.
[9:33] Yeah, just completely unflappable.
[9:35] Yeah. When Kate asks if there's
[9:39] anything she should know, you're quote at the top.
[9:41] Westie, I on this is you're asking me how a watch works?
[9:44] For now, just let's keep an eye on the time.
[9:46] Yeah, it's a great line. It could have been a little bit
[9:48] cheesy had it not been for the tone that Phil Nerve brings to
[9:53] the whole film, because there's a couple of lines like that.
[9:55] I think, well, that's really good, but it could have been
[9:57] judged very badly. It could have been.
[9:59] It could have backfired. And when he says that to Kate,
[10:01] she's completely incredulous. She just looks at him in silence
[10:04] for a while and it's almost laughable how much little
[10:07] information she's she's being given.
[10:08] She's like, really? OK.
[10:12] Yeah, and this is what we're going to expect for that,
[10:14] Alejandro, For the rest of the film, you don't say much, but
[10:17] what he does say absolute zingers, every one of them.
[10:21] Fantastic. So it's just immediate unease
[10:24] from the opening sequence. Something doesn't quite feel
[10:27] right and like it. We're completely in the dark.
[10:33] Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
[10:37] So with Henry nowhere to be found, Indian Marcus hop on a
[10:40] flight to Venice. How will they recognize this
[10:42] Doctor Schneider when they see it, Westie?
[10:44] Well, I mean, I recognized her straight away, and I still do to
[10:48] this very day. When I was a child, Marion was
[10:50] straight out the window. Forget about her.
[10:52] This is the new kid on the block, Willy.
[10:54] Nah. Not bothered, Elsa.
[10:56] Yeah, we're going now. We're talking fantastic
[10:59] performance from Alison Duty as well, very, very young when she
[11:01] took this role and I think she just absolutely shines in it.
[11:05] Just great. Loads of twists and turns of her
[11:06] character and she nails every single one of them.
[11:08] I think just keeps you on your toes constantly.
[11:10] And it's great how this talks back to the classroom sequence
[11:12] of 70% of archaeology is research and sort of the library
[11:15] and ex never marks a spot and it's not exciting.
[11:17] He's trying to convince his students the way he does or
[11:20] archaeology itself isn't exciting.
[11:21] Whereas us and audience kind of go, yeah, yeah, I'm sure it is
[11:25] fine. And she says, you know, I'm
[11:27] going to arrange for them to stay a little bit open a little
[11:29] bit longer. That's going to close in a
[11:30] moment. I'll.
[11:31] Be like oh wow. She's just got authority.
[11:33] Here she's just. Perfect.
[11:34] I just wouldn't have even bothered looking for the X
[11:37] Marxer spot. I would just be like, you want
[11:38] to just go and get a coffee and Marcus can go and have a look
[11:41] for something. I'll just, you know, let's just
[11:42] let's explore this relationship as opposed to the, you know, the
[11:45] grail thing. Let's know each.
[11:47] Other for two minutes. Yeah, you do.
[11:49] Right then, you know, you know, all right.
[11:53] But yeah, it's just wonderful. X never marks a spot, and then
[11:56] it does. And he's on top of the ladders
[11:57] and he points down. He can't even believe it. 10.
[12:00] What Spielberg does here, he cross cuts this with probably
[12:03] one of the funniest bits in the whole film of that librarian
[12:06] stamp in the book and that timing.
[12:09] It's so, so brilliant. It's it's almost like just
[12:12] really classic first book of like visual sound, humour, cross
[12:16] cutting film. And it's just that stamp and a
[12:20] bang. And then, you know, Ford's
[12:21] looking around and this guy's got no idea.
[12:24] And it's like back don't. It's just the noise of it's
[12:26] funny. It should even reverbs through
[12:29] the library just be really. Threatening, but it's like
[12:31] metallic and it's rock and it's perfect and it makes perfect
[12:34] sense and it's just the way he kind of leaves it on top of the
[12:36] little just. Like, I'm just going to leave
[12:39] that there, yeah. I think I've had enough today.
[12:42] Yeah, I feel like that the only most work days.
[12:44] Yeah. And they're going at the
[12:46] Catacombs, which is wonderful. There's a throwback here to
[12:48] Raiders, which I always love because it's that little subtle
[12:50] tint in the score. And he's like, it's the, it's
[12:53] the Art of Covenant. You sure?
[12:54] Pretty sure just he doesn't look at it for too long because he
[12:57] knows you can't look at the arc for too long at the end of
[13:00] Raiders. And I love that as well.
[13:01] And he just kind of moves past it.
[13:02] I've got a little bit of a problem with this petrol that
[13:05] The Walking through I always have and he just thinks it's a
[13:09] really good idea. A light, a massive torch, like
[13:11] if he drops that, we're in serious trouble.
[13:13] So just just keep a hold of that, Don't drop it.
[13:17] Just feel on edge because one, just one match and then you're
[13:20] just the fire sweeping through. The noise of that sweeping
[13:23] through the sound designs incredible underneath and say,
[13:26] how does that work? Why doesn't fire get underneath
[13:28] that? Didn't care.
[13:29] It would be really hot for a start.
[13:31] I don't care. And it's like, right, I found a
[13:33] way out, I'm going to open my eyes and petrol water.
[13:36] That's fine. No problem with that straight
[13:38] out. And then the day and it just got
[13:40] that great line again. Ah, Venice.
[13:42] And then we're into another chase.
[13:45] We're into another set piece. It just doesn't stop.
[13:46] It's just fantastic for even the smaller bits.
[13:49] There's humor, there's character development, there's great
[13:52] dialogue, there's great callbacks, and then you're into
[13:54] an action set piece and it's just one of the other all the
[13:56] way through the film. Fantastic.
[13:57] For a thing, it's just got everything.
[13:59] Yeah, and those rats in the tunnels, they were bad,
[14:01] especially for the film. And Spielberg went to the same
[14:03] place he did for all the rodents and the creepy crawlies he
[14:06] needed for the first two indie films.
[14:08] They did go a bit OTT and actually bred 5000 for him, but
[14:11] he did only need 2000 of those and the only stipulation he had
[14:15] was that they had to be disease free because standard rats are
[14:18] just riddled with diseases. Discussing.
[14:20] Yeah, DME rats I'm not that bothered about, but they really
[14:24] creep me out because you can feel them, then you know that
[14:27] they are real, real creatures. Yeah, when it's Nelsa's hair,
[14:29] Yeah. Oh God.
[14:30] Oh. Yeah, it's when they're crawling
[14:32] all over each other and it's like that massive.
[14:34] It's horrible. There's a one that he steps on
[14:36] as well but doesn't put all of his full weight on.
[14:38] And he starts to like lift his foot up.
[14:40] It's great. And those rats were substituted
[14:43] for mechanical rats when the fire whips through the tunnels.
[14:45] Yeah, nice. So there were no rats hurt
[14:48] during production of this film. You'd see because they're not
[14:50] not moving, they're not moving at all.
[14:52] Yeah, and like you said, Westie, following the subterranean
[14:56] chase, Indian Elsa make it above ground are Venice, and they make
[14:59] a run for it. And this sees the nearest
[15:01] speedboat that can find to make their getaway.
[15:03] You know, we've all been in a situation like this before.
[15:05] Yeah. Yeah.
[15:06] Yeah, it's very dawn again. Yeah.
[15:08] Yeah, it's. Exactly the same, isn't it?
[15:11] Yeah, it's what also than Julie Christie were doing.
[15:16] Imagine like 10 midgets just running out of there diving on
[15:18] speedboats. In red Max.
[15:21] In red Max yeah, get the fuck out of here.
[15:25] Well, this set piece is just a great companion to the tunnel
[15:27] sequence. The pace is ramped.
[15:29] Open, open, open, accompanied by some wonderful music by John
[15:33] Williams. Yeah, Indian.
[15:35] A fist fight on the back of a speed board on the Grand Canal
[15:37] in Venice with a guy brandish and a gun.
[15:39] Seems like all times. Yeah, doesn't get wonderful.
[15:42] Yeah. And then the head honcho called
[15:44] Kazim jumps on the board and absolutely means business.
[15:48] And this is the set pieces. Great moment when it looks like
[15:51] the board has been swallowed up by the propeller.
[15:53] It's getting closer and closer and I love that moment where the
[15:56] wood panel and roof catches and goes flying up in the air flips,
[16:00] Yeah. Really gives a sense of danger
[16:02] that and. That's really Harrison Ford
[16:04] isn't. It it is really Harrison Ford,
[16:05] Yeah. That's pretty close.
[16:07] Even from that lens, that's pretty close.
[16:08] But Spielberg loves a perilous propeller.
[16:11] You know what in Raiders? Love the guy getting hung in
[16:13] Temple of Doom and now this. Yeah, it's great.
[16:15] And. In this scene, the two boats
[16:16] that Elsa drives in between were cable together to keep things
[16:19] safe. So a speedboat full of dummies
[16:22] was launched from a platform in the water between the two ships,
[16:25] which is masked by the explosion.
[16:26] But they had to do the sun twice because the first one wasn't
[16:29] picked up effectively by the camera.
[16:30] All right. It's really cut well to
[16:32] emphasize the explosion. Yeah, and the noise of them just
[16:36] scraping out of there as well is.
[16:37] Great. Yeah, I love that Go.
[16:40] Between them. Are you crazy?
[16:41] Go between. Them, Alison Duty said in
[16:45] Venice. No one told me how to drive the
[16:46] boat. I had to go at speed towards
[16:48] another boat with a camera on it, and behind the camera were
[16:50] Stephen and the big honchos from the studio, then George Lucas
[16:54] and Frank Marshall all on the same boat.
[16:56] I was supposed to get a signal to via left, but I left it a bit
[16:59] late and I could see them all panicking now.
[17:02] Probably could have gotten away with taking Lucas out to be
[17:04] honest. Yeah.
[17:05] Yeah. Yeah, and camera trickery was
[17:07] used in this scene to make the action look a lot more dangerous
[17:10] than it actually was. They made the board extra long
[17:13] to keep a minimum safe distance between the actors and the
[17:15] propellers. Yeah, and it's shot us at a
[17:18] specific angle to make them appear closer to the blades and
[17:21] really scans on screen. It really works.
[17:24] Fantastic Cable Malik and plays a part of Kazim in this scene.
[17:27] A member of the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword.
[17:29] Oh yeah, Spielberg saw him in Midnight Express and really
[17:32] liked his performance. Now, if you're going to keep
[17:33] that light after Temple of Doom, don't cast anybody out of
[17:36] midnight. Malachian might have worked with
[17:40] Spielberg earlier. If Fiat hadn't intervened.
[17:42] He would have auditioned for the part of Salah in Raiders book or
[17:46] the traffic jam. So he missed his window.
[17:48] Oh wow, I think he would have been good.
[17:50] Yeah, he would have. Loved John Reese Davies but he's
[17:52] really really good. Myself is prepared.
[17:54] How's yours? How's yours?
[17:56] Great, Great. And on this Brotherhood of the
[17:58] Cruciform Sword, Who the fuck are these guys?
[18:01] I don't know. Great though.
[18:05] These are keepers of the grail who will kill to protect it.
[18:07] But just why? There's too many questions.
[18:10] But I mean, they're full blooded in their beliefs.
[18:13] How aggressive are they? Machine guns.
[18:15] That's an aggressive move. It really is.
[18:17] It's too aggressive. You're going to protect the
[18:19] grail, right? Let's.
[18:20] Do you want to be inconspicuous? That's probably a good idea.
[18:22] I'll just brand this on my chest and wear feathers around Vin.
[18:25] Yeah. The Brotherhood of Tommy Cooper.
[18:31] How do you get the grill just like that?
[18:37] It's the best thing you've ever said.
[18:39] That's the greatest thing ever.
[19:02] Well done. Yeah.
[19:05] These guys, I mean, they're so protective, but they're just so
[19:08] cavalier that they'll incinerate everything in the catacombs
[19:11] under the library. Yeah, surely that lawn.
[19:13] Do you just burn the whole building and ruin everything
[19:16] that is sacred underneath it? What are they playing at?
[19:19] Really immature. You can't have it, but burn it,
[19:23] yeah. So after this to get the
[19:26] location of any from Kazaim and that's when Indian Elsa get to
[19:30] that castle. And it's all about payoff at
[19:31] this point because Henrys being built up so much so far in this
[19:35] film, like he can't disappoint when you first made him.
[19:37] And I do feel that this part of the film, it just needs
[19:40] something extra because it's been incredibly entertained.
[19:44] But so far, it's just been now, this is kind of just the way
[19:46] this plot points really. Again, isn't, you know, this
[19:48] clue, this clue, he meets the woman and now they're going on.
[19:51] So they need something different here.
[19:52] So Henry's appearance comes to the perfect time and not
[19:55] chemistry between Ford and Connery.
[19:57] It's instantaneous. And it takes a hell of a
[20:00] performance to make Harrison Ford in the 80s in this role,
[20:04] make them to seem immediately bumbling in the net.
[20:07] And that's exactly what Connery does.
[20:10] I mean the first. Into play between them, Junior.
[20:14] Yes Sir. Like Ford immediately, just
[20:16] because his little kid. He comes to the ball so.
[20:18] Nervous. Stands to attention.
[20:20] Stands to attention and it's so well written because Henry's
[20:24] priority. He's hit in the over the head
[20:27] with his fast but his priority is clear by the fact he's
[20:29] completely ignored. What Indy saying about his head
[20:31] being OK. He's I've never forgiven myself.
[20:34] He's not talking about the head, just focusing on the Ross.
[20:37] Thank God it's a fake. I mean, it just tells you
[20:40] everything you need to know about them and these two
[20:42] together with that writing, the comic moments just pop off the
[20:45] screen one after another. The Nazis come in.
[20:48] Doctor Jones. Yes, in perfect Amazing Henry's
[20:52] whole speech about his son not being that stupid to bring the
[20:55] diary along with them. Contrasted to the facial
[20:58] expression you get from Harrison Ford here.
[21:00] Like, sorry, like. You have the diary in your
[21:05] pocket. I should have mailed it to the
[21:08] market. That line, that line's
[21:11] magnificent, and it's just incredible how immediately
[21:15] convincing they are as father and son and how quickly you
[21:17] understand that relationship. The whole thing is hilarious and
[21:20] it ends on such a great note when in the grabs the gun kills
[21:23] the Nazis and Henry said gas at it.
[21:27] What you did, you did. He's not what he expected his
[21:32] dad to be like at all. It's wonderful.
[21:34] What I love about the scene as well is that Indie has got scant
[21:37] regard for safety or cunning or anything like that.
[21:40] He's just bundles into this castle, tells some cock and bowl
[21:44] story about being a Scottish Lord Mickey Mouse.
[21:48] How? Dare you?
[21:51] So he lies about this story about being a Scottish Lord.
[21:54] He whacks the guy out to bust through windows.
[21:56] How on earth did he think he was going to get away with it
[21:59] without being caught? Immediately the guy in the door
[22:02] needs to just wake up and raise the yellow in the castle.
[22:05] Yeah, yeah, it's ridiculous. Yeah.
[22:08] There's great foreshadowing in this scene as well when he spots
[22:10] the fake, which is how they did, yes.
[22:12] So what the grail is at the end, you kind of spot the fake one,
[22:14] but also he spots out Elsa as a fake.
[22:16] And the moment when Henry says she talks in asleep about Elsa
[22:19] was completely unscripted. And when he said the line
[22:22] filming had to stop because everyone was rolling around on
[22:24] the floor laughing, Spielberg even conceded right there and
[22:27] then that line was definitely going to make the final cut out.
[22:29] Of course. See why it's amazing?
[22:31] Yeah, and that scene is amazing. The camera does this massive
[22:34] zoom into Indies face. It sweeps into her Indies face,
[22:37] he says. How do you know she was a Nazi?
[22:38] Talks in asleep and Spielberg leaves so much room for silent
[22:42] reaction and you can kind of tell that it was an ad Lib
[22:45] considering Ford's face and Connery's just a little smirk
[22:49] that he's trying to stifle. Yeah, it cuts there, doesn't it?
[22:51] Cuts it off to a separate angle. Yeah, it's great.
[22:54] It's wonderful. OK, what an opening.
[22:56] We're on a rescue mission. But in classic indie style, he's
[22:59] found himself at gunpoint immediately.
[23:05] Arrival. The director of Arrival, as we
[23:10] mentioned, was Denis Villeneuve, a Canadian filmmaker whose
[23:13] directorial debut came with 1998 drama August the 32nd on Earth.
[23:19] Arrival, with his eighth feature film overall, his fourth in
[23:22] Hollywood after A Prisoner's Enemy and Sicario, and his first
[23:25] foray, but definitely not last, into science fiction.
[23:28] Yeah, Denis Dinamat. How was his work on Arrival as
[23:32] director? Very reminiscent to me of Ridley
[23:35] Scott. I mean him in general, but
[23:37] particularly this one, Paul from Blade Runner.
[23:39] I think this is the most Ridley Scott esque film he's made
[23:42] because it's visually stunning. There's an epic scale to where
[23:45] that feels this very second age to him.
[23:47] You get the sense that he isn't put off at all by how big this
[23:51] film gets or how big any of his films get really.
[23:53] And like Ridley Scott, what I think Feeling Love does really
[23:56] well is he makes his films a huge canvas for everyone to come
[24:00] and do their best works. Or the soundtrack, the effects
[24:02] of the cinematography that act in Feeling of has that ability
[24:06] to harness the best people around him and make everything
[24:09] coherent to what he wants. And he builds worlds really
[24:13] effectively, and he builds a human world and an alien world
[24:16] here. But as with Ridley Scott, I
[24:17] think that there's a bit of a weakness there as well.
[24:19] I don't think he's the most natural of storytellers.
[24:23] I think there's a couple of moments here that are a bit
[24:26] muddled in their execution. They're a bit contrived, like
[24:29] the group of soldiers who go rogue just to advance the narrow
[24:32] of the thing. That's a bit bumpy.
[24:34] And I think he always seems to have this removed to his films,
[24:37] which means it's hard to get a lot of emotion from him.
[24:39] I think he's quite a cold film maker.
[24:41] So his work here encapsulates both his best qualities, but his
[24:45] flaws at the same time as well. Yeah, that's only with the Naval
[24:48] Nerve, where we said that he's wanting to make a science
[24:50] fiction film since he was 10 years old.
[24:53] So bit of a surprise that he took eight films to get there.
[24:55] But he's made-up for it now, hasn't he?
[24:58] That's indeed, yeah. I think one of his biggest
[24:59] strengths as a science fiction director is that background in
[25:02] drama. This feels like a fresh take on
[25:04] the first contract subgenre and as a piece of film making like
[25:08] art. A rival stands alone in that
[25:10] subgenre for me. I'm obviously a fan of Your
[25:13] Nerve when you see behind the scenes footage from his films
[25:15] and arrivals no different. He seems to always have a very
[25:18] calm, serene set and that shows on the screen.
[25:21] It's directed this with a very light touch I think, and I would
[25:25] say maybe because of that. I agree Matt.
[25:27] I'll find him slightly cold as a storyteller.
[25:29] He's not a filmmaker whose movies have a lot of heart or
[25:32] feeling for me sometimes. But I think he does have a lot
[25:35] of soul like James Brown. Yeah.
[25:37] His films always have meaning, and his mastery of the craft is
[25:40] just world class. And that said, I would say A
[25:43] Rival is definitely his warmest film.
[25:44] I think obviously the subject matter of the mother daughter
[25:47] Bond helps. Amy Adams helps, and we'll talk
[25:49] about her shortly. But I think in any science
[25:51] fiction film, that balance of the cold, hard science and the
[25:54] warmth of feeling is one that film makers don't always get
[25:57] right. But here Feeling Live nails it,
[25:59] and he's changed that balance from how he is in the book.
[26:01] So that's impressive. I think there's a piece of film
[26:03] making. Arrival is an art to say his
[26:05] best, and there's a piece of storytelling.
[26:07] It makes you think and it makes you feel, as the best science
[26:10] fiction usually does. Whether it's, you know, his best
[26:12] film would be a pretty lively debate, I think.
[26:15] But this is definitely my favorite film is.
[26:17] Right. Yeah.
[26:18] I mean, it's definitely up there for me.
[26:19] You guys have said it all. I mean, he is more of a
[26:21] handshake than he is a cuddle, isn't he?
[26:23] Yeah. That's kind of how I feel when I
[26:25] see his films. It's he's very much like of that
[26:28] ilk. It feels like a slow game of
[26:30] chess and you know every move and you're watching it and
[26:32] you're never bored by the game. It's subtly beautiful and it's
[26:36] simplify and the complex. And he does that really well.
[26:38] He does that with the June novels.
[26:40] He makes June accessible. He made Blade Runner, you know,
[26:42] he made that sequel. I don't think anyone else could
[26:44] have and he's not afraid of that pace.
[26:46] He's not afraid of that slow pace and taking his time and
[26:50] just fixating on certain things. He does have, I would say 70%
[26:55] more interest in the visuals than he does in anything else
[26:58] because the visuals will tell the story.
[26:59] I think his dialogue is always secondary I think in all of his
[27:02] films and everything does have a science fiction feel to it.
[27:05] I know you said there, John, it took him 8 films to get there,
[27:08] but Enemy for me feels very science fiction.
[27:10] But for me, it's just a joy to watch somebody who's just so in
[27:13] charge of the craft. And you can tell again that you
[27:16] guys have said that everybody on this film is in the same
[27:19] bracket. Nobody is is lower down.
[27:22] Cinematography is up there with score, with sound design, with
[27:25] production design, with art. Everything is just given the
[27:27] same amount of respect. I think that's what I get from
[27:30] Avila new film is he respects every single element that goes
[27:33] into these films and that's what makes his film so satisfying, so
[27:37] compelling and so perfectly judged.
[27:40] I think sometimes and really well polished, it might be cold,
[27:43] but I think it needs somebody who's had who has that coldness
[27:46] to go, this is what I'm talking about and take your kind of the
[27:49] emotion out of it a little bit. So he's getting the point across
[27:52] of like, look, live your best life.
[27:54] You haven't got a lot of time. This is what I'm trying to tell
[27:56] you. And he's like your dad sitting
[27:58] you down, not giving you a cuddle, but giving you a
[27:59] lecture. And I think that's what you need
[28:01] from this film. So the first person attached to
[28:04] a rival is directly I wasn't an evil nerve.
[28:06] Do you know who it was? Spielberg, George Lucas.
[28:11] No one anywhere near that well known.
[28:13] It was a film maker called Nick Matier.
[28:15] Nick Matier, right? No one knew your name on me.
[28:18] He was known mostly for commercials at the time,
[28:20] apparently and diddly. I directed a Netflix science
[28:23] fiction film called Spectral which is about invisible beings
[28:26] killing people. OK, although still quite a
[28:29] bizarre choice to get him in for a rival I think.
[28:31] But Dan Levine and Dan Corn from 21 Laps Entertainment, they
[28:35] wanted to adapt Story of Your Life and wanted being left as
[28:38] director because they'd loved Incendies and had a meeting with
[28:41] him. He talked about wanted to make a
[28:43] science fiction film, so the centre of the novella and when
[28:46] he liked it they sent Incendies to Ted Chang and said this is
[28:49] the guy we want to adopt your book.
[28:51] Yeah, Incendies is like a post war set film, but it's grounded,
[28:55] it's artistic and the story's also nonlinear.
[28:57] So they saw all that, I think. Yeah.
[28:59] Yeah, wonderful film, that brilliant.
[29:01] And Shang said that when he saw that, he realized that 21 Laps
[29:04] wanted to do it properly, as he put it, and that was a key
[29:07] reason he saw the rights to them.
[29:08] I think if you're a sci-fi author and they send you in
[29:10] Cindy's, you're going to be like, bloody hell, yeah.
[29:12] Yeah, that'll do. Eric Heiser was involved in the
[29:16] project before Vilniu had written drafts of the
[29:18] screenplay. He said the first time he met
[29:20] Vilni I was at a breakfast meeting where they talked about
[29:22] philosophy, science and religion for two hours.
[29:25] They did that every week and after about a month Vilni have
[29:28] called Heiser and said to him I've just signed on and direct
[29:31] the film and said now we are married.
[29:35] I'm not sure that's how it works.
[29:36] Didn't he, to be honest? It does for Vilniya think.
[29:40] Yeah, and we'll tell her a case of our story shortly, but we'll
[29:43] never said that. When he's making a film, he's a
[29:45] screenwriter as best friend and also their worst enemy.
[29:48] Yeah, which I think is probably kind of what you need to be.
[29:51] I guess so, yeah. You don't take the easy way out.
[29:53] You want to explore all avenues, which I would imagine he's very
[29:55] thorough. Oh yeah, you can tell when you
[29:57] watch the film. Yeah, definitely.
[29:59] And we've talked about how Viola brings crew members from his
[30:02] other films with him, and he did it on this as well.
[30:04] And he'd worked with the costume designer Renee April three times
[30:07] before as well, and he called her a master at creating
[30:10] Character 3 uniforms. And it was her idea to dress
[30:14] Louise more colorfully in the flash forward scenes and to
[30:17] reflect Louise and Ian's arcs by having them go from wearing
[30:19] civilian clothes to gradually wearing more militaristic
[30:22] outfits. Yeah, I always noticed those
[30:25] military boots Louis is wearing when she has the final
[30:27] conversation with Costello on the ship.
[30:29] Right. OK, pretty strike and that and
[30:31] she's barefoot when my first year at the start.
[30:33] So quite a big difference. Yeah, the main thing for me in
[30:36] the costume design though, is those orange hazmat suits.
[30:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah. The contrast between the bright
[30:41] orange and the kind of black interiors on the alien ship,
[30:44] that works brilliantly. Yeah, it does.
[30:45] Really striking. And Villeneuve said that the
[30:47] hazmat suits were the only time he asked for something to be
[30:49] changed from how it is in reality.
[30:51] He said normally the face of the person in the suit is mostly
[30:53] covered, but he had the visor changed so we can see the actors
[30:56] full faces and expressions. I think you have to do that,
[30:59] surely? Didn't.
[30:59] Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
[31:00] I think the orange as well reflects the flash forwards
[31:03] where it's all warmer and they've got the glue of the
[31:05] ships and it's like kind of almost predicting the future
[31:07] that you have to wear this to get there.
[31:08] I think that's a really good touch.
[31:09] Yeah, definitely. And have has much suits ever
[31:11] looked as good in a film? Nah, never.
[31:14] No, maybe I'll break, but apart from that.
[31:16] Yeah, yellow in that one, though I'll.
[31:18] Be yellow. Yeah, I think so.
[31:20] I can't remember. It might just be math study, I
[31:21] don't know. Before signing off on Denial
[31:25] Nerve, we have our first ATRM patron question.
[31:28] Okay, there are many benefits of being an ATRM patron, so you
[31:31] should definitely look into that if you've not yet.
[31:34] And one of the most popular is the chance to ask those
[31:36] questions that we will answer on the show.
[31:38] So we have the first of those now and it is about Denial
[31:41] Nerve. Lovely.
[31:42] Cool. So Matthew Williams is here.
[31:44] Hello, Matthew. Hello, Matthew.
[31:45] Hello, Matthew. And he has asked, where do we
[31:48] think the Neville Nerve sits as a director alongside all time
[31:51] great science fiction directors like Christopher Nolan, Ridley
[31:54] Scott, James Cameron and Stanley Kubrick?
[31:57] So what do you think, Matt? You know that bit in Family Guy
[32:01] when Peter Griffin's talking about The Godfather?
[32:03] Yes, he insists upon itself. Itself, Yeah.
[32:06] That's my general feeling towards feeling if he insists
[32:08] upon himself a little bit. But in terms of sci-fi, I mean,
[32:12] he makes big sci-fi films. Obviously they get people's
[32:14] attention. My favorite veiler film is
[32:16] actually Sakari. You're not one of the sci-fi
[32:18] ones, right? But what I put him up with you,
[32:20] the sci-fi grades. This is really good.
[32:23] I agree with Wesley. No one else could have even
[32:25] attempted to make a Blade, run a sequel and then pull it off with
[32:28] as much applause as he did there.
[32:30] But I'm in the minority when I said don't particularly care for
[32:32] the Dune films that much, right? So I'm kind of split down the
[32:35] middle on that. Not yet.
[32:37] I wouldn't put them up there with the all time sci-fi great,
[32:40] but I think he's definitely got the potential to get there.
[32:43] Yeah, I mean, for me, when we're talking science fiction, the
[32:45] navial nerve is already in the list of great directors.
[32:48] For me, I mean Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, the Dune films, I'm
[32:53] a fan of all of them. No one have brains, no one have
[32:55] a soul like James Brown. They're all films that people be
[32:58] watching, I think, after we're all gone.
[33:00] So already a bit of a science fiction legend alongside Ridley
[33:03] Scott, James Cameron and Christopher Nolan.
[33:05] For me, outside science fiction, he does some great films, but
[33:09] not enough to put him into the top tier, I don't think.
[33:12] Not that he's not good enough. You just need more of them.
[33:14] Yeah. Yeah.
[33:14] I like to seem director Weston at some point.
[33:16] Oh, yeah. So science fiction legend.
[33:18] Absolutely. Like all genre legend.
[33:21] Not yet, but I think he's got every chance.
[33:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Wesley, where is veal nerves
[33:26] place in the Hollywood Hall of Fame for you?
[33:28] I think what you have to do is look at the other directors who
[33:30] Matthews said here, there's Nolan, Scott, Cameron and
[33:33] Kubrick. I think Nolan and Cameron are
[33:34] right as they're inventors. They're world builders, veal
[33:37] nerves, not in that camp. And I think he's far more subtle
[33:40] than Ridley Scott and Stanley Kubrick.
[33:42] I don't think he's got the bombast of them guys where you
[33:44] just kind of who directed this and the reason for that and what
[33:47] was said before. I think he's just more of a
[33:49] collaborator than he is a standalone director.
[33:52] I think he brings everybody in as a team and for that reason,
[33:55] like you said there, John, people are going to be watching
[33:57] this long after we're gone. So I don't think we're ready for
[33:59] him yet, but the kids are going to love him.
[34:02] For his work on Arrival, then Evie Live was nominated for Best
[34:05] Director at the Oscars, and the film was nominated for Best
[34:08] Picture. Do you remember the winners that
[34:10] year? Matt well.
[34:12] Yeah, this was the infamous. Was it Moonlight?
[34:14] Was it La La Land? Which one won best play?
[34:16] Yeah, so. Damien Chazelle, best director
[34:20] for La La Land and best picture went to La La Land.
[34:23] I mean Moonlight as if you live in a rival though.
[34:27] No mix UPS. Yeah, and some great work from
[34:29] him as director. Absolutely.
[34:30] Definitely. Some of his best.
[34:35] Mary Poppins. Robert Stevenson was a trusted
[34:40] Disney figure at the time of Mary Poppins then, but the same
[34:43] isn't necessarily true of his actors.
[34:45] It's time for our three central players in the cast.
[34:47] That's Dick Van Dyke as Chimney Sweet Bird, and David Tomlinson
[34:50] is the uptight George Banks. Where should we start though, do
[34:54] you think? Well, where do you think?
[34:56] Yeah. So Julie Andrews plays Mary
[34:58] Poppins, a magical nanny who blows in the Cherry Tree lane on
[35:01] the east wind. The story follows Mary through
[35:04] her arrival at the Banks household, who had ventures with
[35:06] the children and birds, then departing after bringing the
[35:09] family closer together. She's practically perfect in
[35:12] every way. Apparently.
[35:13] Westie, self praise, no prayers, but how was Julie Andrews
[35:18] playing Mary Poppins? I mean, I've done very well up
[35:21] to now. We're a little bit into the
[35:22] podcast, right? And I haven't got into it, but
[35:24] Oh my God, she is perfect in every way, isn't she?
[35:28] She's fantastic. She's just an absolute dream.
[35:31] She's just a vision on the screen.
[35:33] No matter what outfit she's in, it works.
[35:35] No matter what she's singing, no matter what a dialogue is, she's
[35:39] just wonderful. She's absolute magic on the
[35:42] screen. She's one of the best characters
[35:43] realized by Julie Andrews. I'm confused about where Julie
[35:47] Andrews starts and Mary Poppins starts and where she ends and
[35:50] I've no idea. I literally have no idea.
[35:52] She's personified this character to a Daniel Day Lewis standard
[35:56] to a point where she's just disappeared into this character.
[36:00] She just owns it. Absolutely owns the character.
[36:03] It's believable jumping into which all painting is
[36:06] believable. The cheese in that world don't
[36:08] fall over and break the painting.
[36:11] I believe that I buy the entire universe.
[36:16] I buy it when she's got an animatronic Robin on her finger.
[36:19] I buy it when she's talking to a parrot that's at the end of an
[36:22] umbrella and she's hitting its little nose.
[36:26] No, that should not work. That should transport you
[36:28] somewhere else. But what she does, she just
[36:31] wraps her arms around you, pulls you into this universe, and it's
[36:35] just a hug from her and it's a safe place.
[36:39] She's extraordinary in this film.
[36:41] It's one of the best character players I think I've ever seen
[36:44] from anybody. And she'll always be remembered
[36:46] in this role. And she is like you said, but
[36:49] that would sound cliche. But it is probably perfect in
[36:52] every single way. Yeah, I think in the way that
[36:55] she's written, Mary's very much static.
[36:57] She doesn't have an arc. She changes everybody else
[36:59] around her. It's like the classic Christ
[37:01] like archetype. And short of the big JC himself,
[37:04] I'm not sure there's a more famous version of that, that
[37:07] Mary Poppins and Julie Andrews playing her.
[37:09] It is one of the most famous character actor relationships
[37:13] we've ever seen, I think. I mean, not an easy thing to
[37:15] pull off, being both stern governess and charming
[37:18] songstress at the same time, but Andrews does it without breaking
[37:21] a sweat. She manages to be both strict
[37:23] and a delight at the the same time, somehow.
[37:25] Yeah, obviously our voice is stunning, but you can act as
[37:28] well. There's one or two moments where
[37:30] Mary's math does slip slightly, like at the end, you're seeing
[37:32] Westy when she's talking to a pirate umbrella pal about the
[37:35] children. You can see the emotion without
[37:37] actually doing all that much. It's amazing.
[37:39] And what's insane is that she was a Broadway star, Julie
[37:42] Andrews, but she'd never been in a movie before.
[37:45] This was her first role in a film.
[37:47] Outrageous. If we could be abused, this has
[37:49] got to be it, right? Yeah, yeah.
[37:51] Surely it's got to be it. It's ridiculous.
[37:54] Leading a Mass. It's a Disney production and she
[37:55] basically turns up fully formed as if she's been doing it for
[37:58] years. And eclipses everybody on the
[38:00] production. Eclipses everybody.
[38:02] Yeah, to say she carries the film.
[38:03] She floats off with air in her bag.
[38:04] Because she does with ease. An enormous talent, she is
[38:08] Hollywood royalty basically nowadays, and that's mostly
[38:10] because of two legendary performances, The Sound of Music
[38:13] and Mary Poppins. Yeah, it's just hard to say
[38:16] something about Julie Andrews in this that hasn't been said
[38:19] before. But I think it's actually really
[38:21] easy to underestimate what a massive challenge this was for
[38:25] her. As we've said, it's her debut
[38:26] performance. She's the lead in this massive
[38:28] production. The film had huge expectations,
[38:31] and if this fails, that's going to hang around her neck for the
[38:34] rest of her career. Rightly or wrongly, Julie
[38:37] Andrews couldn't put it on screen.
[38:38] But she is just not perfect in this.
[38:40] And as soon as you see, you just think this is iconic, this
[38:43] character's iconic straight away.
[38:45] That costume, the way she holds herself, you don't think for one
[38:48] minute this is someone who's never, never set foot before
[38:51] film camera before. Like it sounds strange to
[38:54] describe it this way, but this performance is just fearless.
[38:57] It is, yeah. No worries from her at all.
[39:00] She has the feel of a veteran and she's only about 29, I think
[39:04] when she makes this. 28 I think she might have been right. 2829
[39:08] I mean. What were you doing at 29?
[39:10] Nothing. Exactly not Mary Bobbins.
[39:16] But she just has the aura of someone much older, much more
[39:20] experience, and that makes it perfect for the role.
[39:22] I mean, you talk about perfect custom choices and we all say
[39:25] our Harrison Ford is Han Solo or Indy.
[39:29] This Julie Andrews has been at the top of the list.
[39:31] She can sing, she can dance. She was really funny as well.
[39:35] It's just watching the birth of a *.
[39:37] And hot as toast. Let's not skip around it.
[39:39] I mean, yeah. Exactly trying to keep the tone.
[39:43] Yeah, of course she is. I mean, it is not an impossible
[39:45] to imagine anyone else playing her now, but Walt Disney
[39:48] considered many names to play Mary Poppins before Julie
[39:51] Andrews came along, right? Would you like to hear some?
[39:53] That's cool for it, yeah. So Mary Martin was one of the
[39:56] biggest Broadway stars at the time.
[39:58] She was in talks at one point. OK, Also, fasten your seatbelts.
[40:01] Betty Davis was discussed. Terrifying.
[40:04] Barry Davis as. Well, as more Hollywood royalty
[40:10] Elizabeth Taylor. Right.
[40:11] Right. OK, yeah, and apparently Angela
[40:14] Lansbury. Wow, okay.
[40:17] Solving murders. The broomsticks or.
[40:20] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she works the broomsticks.
[40:22] I can see how that works. Yeah, yeah.
[40:23] Fair enough, Mary, she wrote. Yeah.
[40:27] But Julie Andrews, she had been performing on stage since she
[40:30] was 13 and was a big name on Broadway already.
[40:33] So at this time, she was appearing alongside Richard
[40:35] Burton in Kamlot and they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show
[40:38] performing some of the songs. Richard Sherman saw that
[40:41] performance and said he called his brother Robert immediately
[40:44] and said, are you watching the Ed Sullivan Show?
[40:46] And Robert replied, yes, she's perfect.
[40:50] Yeah, apparently they went to see Walt Disney and his
[40:53] assistant Tommy Will accepted them.
[40:55] If you go in there saying this, Julie Andrews is perfect, you
[40:57] won't like her. That's how he is.
[40:59] You need to make him think that it's his idea, right?
[41:01] So they arranged for Disney to go and see Camelot.
[41:04] He met Julie Andrews backstage and basically offered her the
[41:06] part there and then, apparently. All right, like talking to look
[41:10] in it. Yeah, got absolutely played,
[41:14] doesn't it? But after all that, Julie
[41:17] Andrews wasn't keen on accepting the part at first.
[41:19] At the time she was pregnant but Disney said that's OK, we'll
[41:22] wait. And also she knew that Warner
[41:24] Brothers were in pre production on My Fair Lady.
[41:27] She won a Tony Award for player Elisa Doolittle and one of the
[41:29] player in the film. And Jack Warner thought she
[41:31] wasn't a big enough star and cast Audrey Hepburn obviously.
[41:34] So Andrews accepted Disney's offer.
[41:37] Yeah, 100 and Disney begging cover for the rights, begging
[41:40] Andrews to be in the film. Yeah.
[41:42] But then apparently, when Julie Andrews won a Golden Globe for
[41:44] Mary Poppins, she thanked Jack Warner in her acceptance.
[41:48] Cheeky. Yeah.
[41:49] Yeah. Do I have your pipe and smoke it
[41:52] Jack? In The Sweet and the Deal even
[41:55] more, Disney hired her husband, Tony Walton, to work on the film
[41:58] as costume designer and set designer.
[42:00] So he designed all of Mary's costumes, as well as the stripe
[42:03] jacket that Bird wears in the animated sequences and the set
[42:06] for Cherry Treat Lid. Great jacket that bird wears.
[42:17] And apparently Disney also gave Julie Andrews and Tony Walton a
[42:20] personal tour of Disneyland and told the animators on 101
[42:24] Dalmatians, which was in production at the time.
[42:26] They say designs of Anita on Julie Andrews, right?
[42:29] There's a definite resemblance. There is, absolutely, yeah.
[42:32] While the old fox Disney wasn't it, Yeah.
[42:35] He knew how to do it. Yeah.
[42:36] There was one more person that had to convince After she gave
[42:39] birth to her daughter, Emma Andrews took a phone call from a
[42:42] hospital bed from PL. Travers and Abdul was exhausted
[42:45] and Trevor said, well come on girl, talk to me.
[42:48] The smoke and Trevor's ended by saying you're far too pretty, of
[42:50] course, but you do have the nose for it.
[42:52] Imagine that you have the nose for it.
[42:55] So you're in. Yeah, by the sounds of my PL.
[42:57] travelers probably thought that was a nice thing to say.
[42:59] And you? In production the cast and crew
[43:03] was so blown away by Andrews that stories about her
[43:05] performance started to circulate in Hollywood and the director
[43:08] Robert Weiss visited the set to see her and then after watching
[43:11] just a few minutes of footage he offered her the lead role in the
[43:14] film. He was in pre production on The
[43:16] Sound of Music. Right.
[43:19] Pop was in The Sound of Music back-to-back.
[43:21] Boom, boom. I always thought Sound of Music
[43:23] was before this. Yeah, the year after she.
[43:25] Just looked younger in that, yeah.
[43:27] I bet Jack Warner was kicking himself a bit at that point if
[43:29] he wanted to. Start and Julia Andrew said she
[43:33] was a bit of a perfectionist on the film and when she recorded
[43:36] Stay Awake she did nearly 50 takes before she was happy with
[43:39] it. She later said it was too many.
[43:41] Dick did some of his songs in one take.
[43:44] Go on, Van Dyke. Of course he did.
[43:46] I mean, yes. Yeah, I know.
[43:48] We're not comparing apples with apples.
[43:50] That's not you. Come on Andrew, who's Van Dyke
[43:53] smashes out in 1 take. He's got a base from on his
[43:57] back, I'm sure he can manage. Boy performance as Mary.
[44:01] Julie Andrews won the Oscar for Best Actress on her film debut,
[44:04] beating out Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.
[44:07] A bit of poetic justice there, maybe.
[44:09] Yeah, there's a parallel universe where them roles are
[44:11] swapped though. Yeah, I can see it.
[44:12] I can totally see it. Definitely.
[44:14] Yeah, yeah. So yes, a well deserved Oscar.
[44:17] And by sounds of it, we think Julie Andrews is not practically
[44:20] absolutely perfect as Mary Poppins.
[44:22] Absolutely perfect. 100%, yeah. The lead male actor in the film
[44:28] is Dick Van Dyke who plays Bert, A cheerful chimney sweep and St.
[44:32] artist and one man band. We follow Bert as he joins
[44:36] Mary's adventurers, jumping in the paintings and dancing across
[44:38] rooftops, all while providing a musical narration to the
[44:41] transformation of the Banks family.
[44:44] A slightly controversial accent, Matt, But how's DVD Albert?
[44:49] He's sensational. I mean, there's no other
[44:52] performance in cinema like this. That's true enough.
[44:56] But it is like. Sensation I like.
[45:01] One of the fundamental aspects of any role, the accent is so
[45:04] disastrously blad, but it doesn't matter.
[45:06] It doesn't matter. It's so bad.
[45:07] It's become part of the reason we love the character and the
[45:10] performance so much. I mean, with AI these days, that
[45:13] could easily go back into just that accent, I'm sure, but
[45:16] there'd be riots in the street if that happened.
[45:18] And I think with Van Dyke, you've got someone who had just
[45:22] done it all by this point. He'd done radio, he'd done TV,
[45:25] he'd done vaudeville and Broadway, and then he just makes
[45:27] this step in the film effortlessly.
[45:29] In fact, I think as an actor, he's probably really underrated
[45:32] because of the nature of the films he's chosen.
[45:34] And he doesn't get enough respect for what he could do
[45:37] because he's just an absolute natural showman and everyone
[45:41] loves him. And you watch him this and you
[45:42] he realized why he's so funny. He's so lovable.
[45:45] He's so full of enthusiasm for the material.
[45:48] He nails the songs, He nails the dancers.
[45:50] He nails the jokes. Love the guy.
[45:52] And I just would not change that accent whatsoever.
[45:55] Yeah. Where to start?
[45:56] We're Dick Van Dyke. It's an outrageous performance
[45:59] in many ways. First off, I know it's a
[46:01] fantasy, but no Edwardian chimney sweep ever had teeth
[46:04] that white. Surely gleaming gnashes for Van
[46:08] Dyke. Unless their face was covered
[46:11] with soot and it looked like I might be that.
[46:15] And yes, the cottony accent we know.
[46:17] Everyone knows it's not good. This is what you might call a
[46:20] fortune. Vicious circumstance.
[46:23] And his dance moves running on the spot every time.
[46:26] That's it. But how great is he though?
[46:29] But. He's great.
[46:31] He's kind of the audience window into the world, the one that
[46:33] would relate to the most, probably.
[46:34] So we need to like him. And to say that the audience
[46:36] likes Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins is an understatement.
[46:39] Everyone loves him. How can you know?
[46:41] He's so warm, so enthusiastic about everything, always got a
[46:46] mischievous twinkle in his eye without ever being annoying
[46:49] about. Was like with a screen presence
[46:51] as he could get. I mean, in terms of musical
[46:53] talent, Van Dyke should get blown away, like those nannies
[46:56] sharing the screen with Andrews. But I don't think he does.
[46:59] Just charm. A charming fella, a charming
[47:01] performance. And I'm the same man.
[47:03] I wouldn't change the accent for anything now.
[47:05] It's all part of it. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree.
[47:09] If you don't love Dick Van Dyke in general, why are you so
[47:14] fucking miserable? Just just.
[47:16] All right, Don't worry about it. He's so wonderful in this and so
[47:20] warm and the bit that always gets me, you know, when the run
[47:23] away from the bank and the run into him.
[47:25] Oh, yeah. And the whole world's dark and
[47:27] horrible and cold and nasty and the run into Bert, I always feel
[47:31] like I could just cry because I'm just, this guy's going to
[47:33] take care of you. But he knows everything.
[47:36] He's got this wisdom about the life.
[47:39] He's not ignorant. He's not stupid.
[47:42] There's a real depth to this character, like he's been
[47:44] through it. You feel like he's been through
[47:45] things and he's just trying to make ends meet.
[47:48] But he knows who Mary Poppins is.
[47:50] There's one bit just before the whole color fragilistic
[47:54] outburst, and she says there is one word and she turns to
[47:57] Burton. He goes tell them what it is.
[47:59] Yeah, he gives out the floor. Just that moment.
[48:02] That is the character. He's just the best guy in the
[48:05] world and if you're going to be, anybody would need to just make
[48:10] T-shirts. It just says be more Bert and
[48:12] we'll just sell them out. Because.
[48:13] Let's do it. It's still timeless, it's still
[48:16] there, it's still relevant. Just be a good person and just
[48:19] look out for other people. He's just a wonderful,
[48:22] wonderful, selfless, lovable character.
[48:25] And I mean, the accent, I don't care.
[48:28] He's invented a new one. So why?
[48:33] There it is. Be like Bert.
[48:34] Be more Bert and we'll get them on to show.
[48:37] Yeah, there were loads of other acting names up for the part of
[48:40] Bert. As you might imagine, Walt
[48:41] Disney apparently considered Danny K, Fred Astaire, and Cory
[48:44] Grant. Right.
[48:47] Yeah, and PL. Travers wanted an all British
[48:49] cast and she suggested Richard Burton, Alec Guinness, Laurence
[48:52] Olivier, Peter O'Toole and Peter Sellers.
[48:56] All. The Heller is on set.
[48:59] I know anyone but Van Dyke. I'd rather be.
[49:03] Exactly, Yeah. Well, Van Dyke himself, he said
[49:06] many times he had no idea why he got the part and said actually
[49:09] Jim Dale or Ron Moody would have been better cast than him.
[49:12] But apparently Walt Disney had read an interview of that Van
[49:15] Dyke had done in the early 60s where he said his dream job was
[49:18] to work on a Disney film and that gave him the idea of
[49:21] customers. Burt.
[49:23] Right. Yeah, I know that he started.
[49:24] That was a mime, Dick Van Dyke. But film wise, he'd only been in
[49:27] Bye Bye Birdie and what a way to go at the time.
[49:30] But he was well known from TV. He had the Dick Van Dyke show at
[49:33] the time, Yeah. And he performed on Broadway as
[49:35] well. So to be fair, he was a pretty
[49:37] safe bet. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
[49:39] Not 2 accents maybe. Maybe not, but as a supporting
[49:42] actor in this role, he's perfect.
[49:44] Son and Dad's man He's a. Brilliant support.
[49:46] A brilliant support. Superb as well as good as you
[49:48] can get, I think. Yeah, definitely.
[49:49] Yeah. So here we go.
[49:51] The elephant in the room, right. Van Dyke's accent in the film is
[49:53] the most talked about accent in films.
[49:56] In 2003 it is. In 2003 Empire magazine voted it
[49:59] is the second worst movie accent ever, after, sorry, Matt Sean
[50:04] Connery's Irish accent in The Untouchables.
[50:07] You believe that? How do you feel now?
[50:10] Better or worse? So Van Dyke has apologised for
[50:15] it but said his Vogel coach Jay Pat O'Malley, had an even worse
[50:19] Cockney accent. O'Malley thrown right under the
[50:23] bus. Right under the bus, right under
[50:25] the number 4, the King's Cross. I actually thought this is what
[50:30] people in London sounded like, if I'm honest.
[50:33] And then I went to London to sound nothing like this.
[50:35] So it's good. If you grew up in the north of
[50:36] England, this is a perfect accent.
[50:39] Yeah, anyway, Except London, probably.
[50:40] Love it. Yeah, it's great.
[50:42] You just a view of the voices in the anime and sequence Pat or
[50:45] Murray like the Master of Hounds and one of the pearly band
[50:47] members that we'll talk about in a bit.
[50:49] All right, OK. Yeah.
[50:50] But after he was cast as Bird, Van Dyke also became interested
[50:54] in playing the part of Mr. Dor Senior, the boss of Mr. Banks at
[50:57] the bank. Disney wasn't keen on that idea,
[51:00] so Van Dyke said he'd do it for free.
[51:02] Disney still didn't want him, and said if Van Dyke made a
[51:05] $4000 donation to Cal Art, Disney's art school, he could
[51:09] play the part. And that works out at about
[51:11] $30,000 in today's money. Give us some money to be in my
[51:16] phone. He's already in there.
[51:19] Desperate to play him. We'll talk a bit about Van Dyke
[51:22] is Mr. Doors in a bit, but it's quite cool in the end credits
[51:25] where it says Mr. Doors seniors played by NAV Kid Keed and then
[51:28] the letters on scramble to say Dick Van Dyke.
[51:30] Yeah, I like that. Yeah.
[51:32] Dick Van Dyke wasn't nominated for any Oscars for his dual role
[51:34] as Bert and Mr. Dole. Senior winner of best supporting
[51:37] actor that year was Peter Ustinov for Tob.
[51:39] Carper right Heist movie. I love his Nov.
[51:42] OK, yeah, you're so. But despite the accent, we think
[51:45] Dick Van Dyke's pretty special as Bert.
[51:47] So he's wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful.
[51:50] And when he was asked decades later how he wanted to be
[51:52] remembered, Dick Van Dyke said easy for Mary Poppins.
[51:56] Nice, of course. Yeah, why wouldn't you?
[51:58] Yeah, I'd pay foreground to be in it as well.
[52:03] Blue Velvet. Jeffrey can't keep himself away
[52:08] from danger and is straight back to Dorothy's apartment, where he
[52:11] takes a deeper plunge Into Darkness and he starts a
[52:15] horrific series of events. Yep.
[52:19] As soon as this scene opens in Dorothy's apartment, I always
[52:22] let out this. I hope did it the last time I
[52:24] watched this Groan of despair. Like, oh, no, because there's
[52:27] just about to be some misery in there.
[52:29] Yeah. Oh God, this is where Jeffrey
[52:32] and Dorothy have sex for the first time.
[52:34] They do the wild thing. Dorothy couldn't be any more
[52:37] clear that this is a place where bad things happen.
[52:40] She asks if he's a bad boy. Do you want bad things?
[52:43] She's wearing a red dress, Alarm bells going off everywhere.
[52:46] But this doesn't stop Jeffrey, who resists the first.
[52:49] He doesn't want to hit Dorothy. Obviously.
[52:51] This urge is a just a little too great to suppress.
[52:54] The candlelight blows out heavy-handed from Lynch in the
[52:58] visuals, and Geoffrey has crossed over into the dark
[53:01] recesses of his psyche. He's now pursuing all the sexual
[53:04] desires. He's been trying to keep it
[53:06] bare. Dear me, yeah.
[53:09] Lot to unpick. Yeah, the lot to unpick.
[53:12] Does Dorothy crave the sexual violence because it's a link to
[53:15] her family? Has Frank tapped into her
[53:17] depraved sexual desires? Is this the only way that she's
[53:20] able to survive her life day-to-day?
[53:23] A lot of questions, no answers, and there's something
[53:26] animalistic at the end of this scene.
[53:28] Lynch moves to a slow mower, and the sound design is that of kind
[53:32] of like a lion's roar almost, with an unearthly shriek.
[53:36] And now there's no Turner back. Dorothy confirms that when she
[53:39] says to you, you have your disease in me now, which is not
[53:43] a pleasant term to hear. It's not great pillow talk.
[53:46] It isn't sexy. That's not sexy.
[53:49] In the aftermath, when Dorothy is protesting that she's not
[53:52] crazy like when they're in the living room, she then follows
[53:55] that up with I still have you inside me, Jeffrey, get out of
[53:59] this situation. Get.
[54:00] Out of it? Yeah, that's enough.
[54:02] We're nowhere on a knife edge from scene to scene in this
[54:04] film, and when he leaves and Frank turns up?
[54:07] Terrifying. Wonderful.
[54:09] The Heather's something magnetic about Frank.
[54:11] Do you want to go for a ride? No, thanks.
[54:13] No thanks. What does that mean?
[54:15] I don't want to go. Go where?
[54:17] For a ride. A ride?
[54:19] Hell, that's a good idea. Yeah, yeah, brilliant.
[54:23] What does that mean? Yeah, you go for a joyride with
[54:28] very little joy in it. There's no joy.
[54:31] During the scenes where Kyle and Isabella are naked, they
[54:33] questioned Lynch. Do I have to go that far?
[54:36] And his reply was yes, yes. Of.
[54:39] Course further if possible. Slowly no.
[54:46] Wesley mentioned police squad earlier and the next scene
[54:48] starts with a joke that could almost come from that.
[54:51] When Frank goes this is it and then it cuts the place which is
[54:54] called This is it Great it is. That could be from the naked.
[54:59] Gun, it's great. But then that's the only bit of
[55:02] light relief you get from this scene because one of the overall
[55:06] feelings have with Blue Velvet and why it's so disturbing when
[55:09] it's not actually that graphic, is it nails that feeling of
[55:12] someone being in a situation or replaced.
[55:15] This shouldn't be, but they can't escape from it.
[55:18] It's that helplessness, isn't it?
[55:19] It's the helplessness. Don't want to be there?
[55:21] Don't. Want to be there?
[55:22] You don't want to be in Dorothy's apartment.
[55:24] But this entire section with Ben, and I mean, it's so weird
[55:28] because actually very little happens in it, but all the same,
[55:32] my skin crawls out the whole thing because it's the implicit
[55:36] threat under the surface of what darkness is going to happen in
[55:40] this scene. And you look at Ben and I've
[55:42] already said, you know, the film.
[55:43] I can't decide when it's set. I mean, what era has been fallen
[55:46] out of without loungewear and cigarette holder?
[55:50] Like, he certainly doesn't belong in the AD.
[55:51] Certainly doesn't seem like he comes from the 50s even.
[55:53] No, no. And it's just question after
[55:55] question. Like who is he exactly?
[55:57] Yeah. What's the deal with all the
[55:59] overweight ladies hanging around with them?
[56:01] Who's the guy eating the big bowl of?
[56:03] I think it's pasta. Yeah.
[56:05] These are the people keeping hold of Dorothy Soon.
[56:07] Why? And it's a scene that just
[56:09] exemplifies to me the dream logic I've been talking about.
[56:11] Because nothing makes sense about this.
[56:13] No, But at the same time, it's got its root in some kind of
[56:17] reality. You know, the fact that the set
[56:19] design is so symmetrical, but it's slightly off at the same
[56:22] time because of the lightning that comes in the lamps and the
[56:26] implicit threat that runs throughout this, the toss that
[56:29] they make. The way that everything bends
[56:31] says to Frank has done with such likeness is if he knows how
[56:34] explosive Frank can be, but he also knows how to keep him under
[56:37] control by amusing him, taught him like he's a child.
[56:40] We'll have a beer with Frank the glasses.
[56:43] And because Dorothy and Jeffrey is so out of place and they're
[56:46] outnumbered, the whole scene just has this queasy feeling,
[56:49] and it just sits in my stomach throughout.
[56:52] And it's just summed up in that incredible moment where Ben uses
[56:55] that lamp light to mine to end dreams.
[56:57] Yeah. Why is the scene so disturbing?
[57:00] Why is it even in there? Why is it in there?
[57:03] Why does it happen? That's.
[57:04] Why? Well, I know, but yeah, exactly.
[57:06] We don't have the answers and we probably shouldn't mean why.
[57:09] Does the song have that impact on Frank?
[57:10] Did they do this on a regular basis whenever it comes around?
[57:13] Because they've got a routine going, isn't it?
[57:15] Yeah, but this is what we've seen under the grass at the
[57:17] start of the film. Yeah.
[57:18] Oh yeah, of course. Oh yeah, definitely.
[57:20] This you know, the surfs are being pulled back now.
[57:22] I mean, Brad Reef just dancing with a snake in the background.
[57:24] Where do you get that from? You know it's.
[57:26] It's. So it's just so weird.
[57:28] Classic nightmare logic. It is.
[57:30] It's absolute nightmare logic. I mean, this scene, it upsets
[57:33] me, and it just serves me on a level where I've never been able
[57:36] to quite work out why. This is the scene in the film
[57:40] that most feels like a nightmare to me.
[57:41] Like it's brilliant, but I just want to wake up and I just
[57:44] wanted around. One of the most peculiar scenes
[57:47] I've I've ever seen. I was just captivated when I
[57:49] first saw it. Yeah, but I didn't understand
[57:51] why. I still probably still don't.
[57:53] But there's something like primarily seductive about the
[57:56] whole thing. I don't.
[57:57] I don't know why I'm attracted to this.
[57:59] I don't know either, but yeah, it's true.
[58:02] Weird. Lynch didn't go directly to Roy
[58:05] Orbison for permission to use In Dreams.
[58:07] Instead, he obtained license for the song by other means, just
[58:10] went to the record company. So you can imagine Orbison
[58:12] surprise when he sat down in a Malibu movie theater to watch
[58:16] this new David Lynch Blue Velvet film.
[58:18] Yeah, let's watch it. And on comes one of the most
[58:21] revered songs in his back catalog, He said.
[58:24] I was mortified because they were talking about the candy
[58:27] colored clown in relation to a dope deal.
[58:29] I thought, what in the world? Gentlemen, he is.
[58:34] Yeah, the big. Orbison later said that he
[58:38] watched the film again and appreciated what the song gave
[58:41] to the film and vice versa. The use of the song in the film
[58:43] is attributed to a resurgence in Orbison's popularity, leading to
[58:46] a successful greatest hits package and him joining
[58:49] supergroup at the Travelling Wilburys.
[58:51] Strangely, this made his popularity saw, which is
[58:55] unbelievable considering this Roy Orbison.
[58:57] It's just a new demographic for the David Lynch mob.
[59:06] Well, this scene is what Lynch called the eye of the duck
[59:09] scene, IE the most important part of the film, Lynch said.
[59:12] The key to the whole duck is the eye and where it is placed.
[59:15] It's like a little jewel. If it's there, it's absolutely
[59:18] beautiful. What do you mean, David?
[59:20] I don't know what you mean. The fact that the club is called
[59:23] This Is It, I guess, is the cherry on that kind of obvious
[59:25] cake. This is the eye of the duck.
[59:28] Yeah. The light that Stockwell uses as
[59:30] a mic was not planned during rehearsals.
[59:32] He picked up this construction work light and used it as a
[59:35] stand in mic. Lynch loved it so much that he
[59:38] kept the light and Stockwell mime and the song when he
[59:40] originally was meant to sing it right.
[59:43] Works. Much better that way.
[59:44] It really does. It's much more sinister that
[59:47] way. It is so sinister and I don't
[59:49] know why. No.
[59:51] On the way out of this is it it's one of the me favorite
[59:55] transitions in cinema history. I think I'll fuck anything that
[59:58] moves and then bang. It just disappears from the
[1:00:01] frame. It's incredibly creepy and
[1:00:05] really powerful and just put straight into the car and you're
[1:00:09] like, what what is going on? Like the the the furious nature
[1:00:13] of that disappearance of that cut is so lynching.
[1:00:16] And then we're going to the car and then we'll see, you know,
[1:00:18] the road and I'm thinking this is lost highway.
[1:00:21] This is must be where he gets the idea of lost highway from
[1:00:23] this. This iconography of just this
[1:00:25] travelling to nothing, to darkness, that's where Jeffrey
[1:00:28] is. He's in this hell, in that this
[1:00:30] chariot, the hell with these horrible people.
[1:00:32] And nobody respects his privacy. No one respects his place.
[1:00:35] And he's just being exploited as a human being.
[1:00:37] The pullover and then nothing. And then Frank just, you hear
[1:00:40] the gas and then, oh, God, there's just that incredible
[1:00:43] shot of the dead. Like, you know, yeah, you've got
[1:00:46] Dorothy in the front, you've got Frank in the front, you've got
[1:00:48] the other guy behind that shot. And it just turns around.
[1:00:50] You've just that Freeman of that is just so imposing on the view
[1:00:53] because you feel like you're in the back seat with him and he's
[1:00:55] like, oh, and then there's the lever alone and he starts on and
[1:00:58] it's just that's really weird. But watch, the guy behind
[1:01:00] Isabella Rossellini just doesn't know what to do.
[1:01:03] Yeah. Even he's like, am I in the
[1:01:05] scene? I'm on the shot, Like what am I
[1:01:07] doing? He looks terrified.
[1:01:09] There's no ad Lib and whatsoever here because Hopper is just
[1:01:12] gone. Yes, he's just doing his thing.
[1:01:14] He snaps at this point. This is what he didn't do the
[1:01:17] first time he saw Frank act against Dorothy.
[1:01:19] Because he has more feelings for now.
[1:01:21] He has more understanding of who this is and he's going to stand
[1:01:23] up to this. It's evil and he just gets
[1:01:24] punished for it. I love that fist just coming in
[1:01:27] shot where he punches a man that's just wonderfully done
[1:01:30] here. But Frank, the way he snaps
[1:01:32] here, get him out the car, get him out the car, fuck, get him
[1:01:34] out the car. And it's just like curious about
[1:01:36] what's happened to him. He's like he's been touched,
[1:01:38] he's been violated and then he chooses to violate Jeffrey and
[1:01:42] just you're going to invade Myspace, I'm going to invade
[1:01:44] yours. And he's just all pretty pretty
[1:01:46] and he's just moved their lipstick on and then kissing
[1:01:48] him. And it's just a complete
[1:01:50] invasion of that privacy. And that emotion is disgusting.
[1:01:53] So you've got people in these crew, especially that woman
[1:01:55] who's gets on top of the car and starts to dance because she's
[1:01:58] just reassuring Frank that everyone's in on this.
[1:02:01] It's a good idea to feel this way.
[1:02:03] We are into the song, we are into the emotion.
[1:02:06] Dorothy isn't. She sat in the car that's going
[1:02:07] leave him alone. What on earth is going on with
[1:02:10] Brad Dourif again, amazed and casting when he's just stood
[1:02:14] with that knife against his throat.
[1:02:15] He is just completely committed to that, to that part, that
[1:02:18] role. You would think he is in that
[1:02:19] group. And it's just the way he's
[1:02:22] quoting the lyrics and his speech about a love letter is a
[1:02:26] bullet from a gun and it goes into your heart and you got a
[1:02:28] love letter for me and you are done for.
[1:02:30] And that is it. And he's using love as a weapon.
[1:02:33] He's using emotion as a weapon, he's using happiness as a
[1:02:36] weapon. And this person just couldn't
[1:02:37] get any more despicable. And he does, and you're along
[1:02:41] for the ride 100%. And then he just starts going
[1:02:43] for him and starts beating up Jeffrey and starts breaking him
[1:02:46] down. It's the worst possible
[1:02:48] behaviour towards another human being, how you can belittle them
[1:02:51] emotionally and then belittle them physically.
[1:02:54] And that's what he does all the way through this film to
[1:02:56] everybody and especially Jeffrey here.
[1:02:58] It's really tough to watch, but it completely reinforces Frank's
[1:03:01] character and makes you fucking terrified of him.
[1:03:04] That's one of the most terrifying scenes in any film.
[1:03:06] This even it just this stretch, Dorothy and Jeffrey psycho sex,
[1:03:11] this is it. And then this scene, the
[1:03:14] lipstick, the woman dancing on the huddle car, it's like Texas
[1:03:16] Chainsaw Massacre. Yeah, it's up there.
[1:03:19] Yeah, just the weirdest fucking scene ever.
[1:03:26] It's brilliant. So some of the most disturbing
[1:03:29] scenes of the decade of any decade in a stretch, which is
[1:03:33] strangely compelling. Yeah, very compelling.
[1:03:35] Yeah, Toy Story. So the screenplay for Toy Story
[1:03:44] was written by Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Corn, Not
[1:03:47] That one, and Alex Socolor, with a story by credit going to John
[1:03:52] Lasseter, Pete Doctor, Andrew Stanton and Joe Ranfs.
[1:03:55] A collaborative effort. Lord of them.
[1:03:57] Yeah. Yeah, massively.
[1:03:58] So, Matt, what do you make of Whedon, Stanton Corn, Socolor,
[1:04:02] Lasseter Dr., and Ranfs work in writing Toy Story?
[1:04:05] Well, I'm glad you said it and I didn't have to.
[1:04:07] That's going to save you go through them one by one, Matt
[1:04:10] the. Thing about the writing for me,
[1:04:14] and I'm sure Wesley will agree because we're both parents,
[1:04:17] because when you're repaired, you sit through so many kids
[1:04:19] films, yeah, great way to kill 90 minutes with them yeah.
[1:04:23] And when you've seen lot, it really stands out how
[1:04:25] predictable and obvious the writing is for a lot of them.
[1:04:28] It's like, here we go. He's the big moral of the story,
[1:04:31] the big speech at the end. This is the lesson that the need
[1:04:33] take away be nice right around blah, blah, blah.
[1:04:35] And that's all fine. But the flip side to that is
[1:04:38] then you really appreciate something that is as well
[1:04:41] written as this is for a kids animation.
[1:04:43] Because yes, there are lessons need for kids to learn, but
[1:04:46] they're never just hammered home like Woody's jealousy of Buzz
[1:04:50] arriving on the scene. That will resonate with so many
[1:04:52] kids who suddenly have to contend with a little brother or
[1:04:55] sister who's came along. But that's never overtly on the
[1:04:58] nose. It's never actually kind of put
[1:05:00] into the script in a line, the jealousy, it just powers the
[1:05:03] narrative instead. And you can tell they've gone
[1:05:06] over and over and over this with a fine tooth comb in a writers
[1:05:09] room, refining it to the NTH degree to the point where you
[1:05:12] go, yes, the plot points are predictable to a certain degree.
[1:05:16] Obviously Woody and Buzz are going to get over the
[1:05:18] differences and become friends, but they're written with such
[1:05:21] intelligence and such finesse and such a lack of talking down
[1:05:24] to the audience. You don't care if it's
[1:05:26] predictable because it just works superbly and every kid
[1:05:29] will recognise something in this.
[1:05:32] And having said that as well, I mean, Andy has got a new born
[1:05:35] sister. She's just a toddler.
[1:05:36] Yeah. And that's in there and that's
[1:05:38] obviously he's been relegated to the back seat when the moving,
[1:05:40] you know, you can see there's all these themes in there.
[1:05:42] It's amazing. Yeah, yeah.
[1:05:44] I mean Pixar CGI animation studio, obviously with a
[1:05:47] reputation as being the best there is and the design and
[1:05:50] animation work, it is world class.
[1:05:52] But the thing that sets them apart from other great animation
[1:05:55] studios, to me is the writing. That's where they're like a
[1:05:58] class above, I think, and it was there from the start in Toy
[1:06:01] Story. We talked about how they don't
[1:06:03] shy away from some big themes a tackle jealousy, betrayal,
[1:06:07] attempted murder, identity crisis.
[1:06:09] Sounds mad, but that's all there.
[1:06:12] The narrative, an outstanding buddy story, like we said, and
[1:06:15] we've seen through great explorations of friendships in
[1:06:17] movies, Stand by Me or Thelma and Louise or Shawshank, and I
[1:06:20] think this is right up there with them.
[1:06:23] I think where Pixar are like Master, right?
[1:06:25] As though it's creating relatable characters in an
[1:06:28] unrelatable world. Like I mentioned before, the
[1:06:30] concept's great, obviously. I mean, the idea of toys coming
[1:06:33] alive wasn't original. Babes in Toyland with Laurel and
[1:06:37] Hardy, that was like 1934, so not original.
[1:06:40] But Toy Stories now undoubtedly, I think the definitive version
[1:06:44] of that idea. And they're not presented as
[1:06:46] humans, the characters, they're presented as toys with the kind
[1:06:49] of motivations and issues toys would have.
[1:06:51] Their purpose is to be played with by a child.
[1:06:54] That's their biggest joy. Their worries come from being
[1:06:56] thrown away or lost. But Pixar relate all of it back
[1:07:01] to being human, being alone or not, wanted or unpopular.
[1:07:05] Those are all things that in a totally different way, we as
[1:07:08] humans can totally relate to. Yeah.
[1:07:10] I think it's just like, incredible writing, creating
[1:07:12] humanity in non human characters.
[1:07:14] It's something that picks our nail to the wall time and time
[1:07:16] again. Yeah.
[1:07:17] I think they teach children how to be good humans and adults for
[1:07:20] that matter. Yeah.
[1:07:21] While telling these exciting, funny tales.
[1:07:23] They're among the greatest cinematic storytellers we've had
[1:07:26] for me. Yeah.
[1:07:27] And it all started here. I think Toy Story still among
[1:07:29] their best pieces of writing. Yeah, I think there's so many
[1:07:32] layers to this. Like I've said over and over
[1:07:34] again, it appeals to so many people.
[1:07:35] It appeals to everybody because you can find something that you
[1:07:38] find familiar in this, if not everything for me really.
[1:07:41] But it's how close this is to the story of, let's say,
[1:07:44] Pinocchio. It's a toy that believes it's a
[1:07:46] human, but nobody references that.
[1:07:49] It seems to be so fresh and so new and so up to date that all
[1:07:54] of its influences are there. And the very clear sea.
[1:07:58] But the homages to this story, the kind of the building blocks
[1:08:01] to this story. Everyone can get something from
[1:08:04] this. There's the action set pieces.
[1:08:06] There's the humor that's written into it that doesn't feel
[1:08:08] crowbar in all the gags help move the story forward, help the
[1:08:12] characters develop. Shows their immaturity, then
[1:08:15] shows the maturity. All of the characters are
[1:08:17] lovable and they're all stand out, but they all work together
[1:08:20] and I think that's great writing as well.
[1:08:22] It's very much like Cuckoo's Nest in that vibe.
[1:08:25] Everyone's got a personality and everyone's stuck in the same
[1:08:27] position, but everybody's different and that's really
[1:08:30] clever. It's just really well handled,
[1:08:33] really multi layered. And like what Matt said, we've
[1:08:35] sit through so many of these kids films and it's such a joy
[1:08:39] for us to see something that breaks that blueprint.
[1:08:43] And it's also great for the kids because they don't expect it and
[1:08:46] they don't see it coming, and they know it's different and
[1:08:49] they know it's new and they know it's fresh, but they don't know
[1:08:50] why. It's for us to figure out when
[1:08:52] we're older. That's why I like this so much.
[1:08:54] It's such an innovation in its technique, in its animation, but
[1:08:58] also a real innovation in its writing.
[1:09:01] Absolutely, yeah. The reason there was so many
[1:09:03] credited writers on Toy Story is because of the Black Friday
[1:09:06] incident that we mentioned earlier.
[1:09:08] So the screenplay was originally written by Andrew Stanton based
[1:09:11] on a story by him, Lassiter, Pete Doctor and Joe Ranft who
[1:09:15] were all Pixar employees. But after Black Friday, Lassiter
[1:09:19] decided they needed some experienced screenwriters.
[1:09:21] So Joel Coen and Alex Sokolow were writing partnership and
[1:09:25] they had sent a spec script to Disney called The Wooden
[1:09:27] Policeman and based on that they were high to rewrite Toy Story.
[1:09:31] Right. Yeah, The Wooden Policeman was
[1:09:33] never developed into a film, but apparently the thing they've
[1:09:36] grabbed Pixar's attention in the script was a scene in there when
[1:09:39] a kid opens a Christmas present. He thinks it's a toy gun, but
[1:09:42] it's real, and he accidentally kills his entire family.
[1:09:45] Wow. What?
[1:09:47] Get those guys in to write Woody and Buzz.
[1:09:49] Yeah, that sounds about right, yeah.
[1:09:51] I mean, that's really good. So Corn and Sokolow wrote about
[1:09:56] 6 trafts. They took it much closer to the
[1:09:58] film we see now, and they're responsible for coming up with
[1:10:01] Buzzers, Catch Face to Infinity and Beyond.
[1:10:03] But Pixos still thought it was too dark.
[1:10:05] Yeah, apparently in Corn and Sokolow's version, after I, Buzz
[1:10:08] found out he wasn't a toy, he jumped off the balance.
[1:10:10] And not to fly, but to try and kill himself.
[1:10:13] Big grim. Wow.
[1:10:16] To Infinity and beyond. Or do you know where they took
[1:10:18] that from? That phrase.
[1:10:19] Nope, I don't. So it's from the 3rd chapter of
[1:10:22] 2001, the Space Odyssey. That's called Jupiter and beyond
[1:10:25] the Infinite. Right.
[1:10:27] And it took it from there, yeah. I was so pleased that wasn't
[1:10:30] more obvious. I was kick myself.
[1:10:32] Never noticed. Yes, Chapter 3 to Infinity and
[1:10:34] beyond. What?
[1:10:37] It's a great catch phrase though, isn't it?
[1:10:39] Yeah, it's brilliant. Yeah.
[1:10:40] Oh, it's great, yeah. So Corn and Sokolow left the
[1:10:43] project, and Pixar hired Joss Whedon, who had written Buffy
[1:10:47] the Vampire Slayer, and he'd also done rewrites on Speed and
[1:10:50] Waterworld. So he lightened the Torn, and he
[1:10:52] came up with Rex the dinosaur. And he came up with what sounds
[1:10:55] like a really good idea for the end of the film, which Pixar
[1:10:57] wanted to do but couldn't. So stick around for that at the
[1:11:01] end. OK.
[1:11:01] But yeah, I think he's probably the most well known of the
[1:11:03] writers. Joss Whedon went on to create
[1:11:05] the Buffy TV show and he wrote and directed a couple of The
[1:11:08] Avengers films later on. Yeah, that's right.
[1:11:10] He did. Yeah.
[1:11:11] The working title for Toy Story was Toy Story from the start,
[1:11:13] but Leon Krich later said that there were 200 other titles
[1:11:17] considered 200. Wow, that's a lot.
[1:11:19] Wow, like I said, there's probably loads of these on the
[1:11:22] shelf and they're just working through them.
[1:11:24] The Cowboy and the Spaceman sounds like an Elton John song.
[1:11:27] Great to Infinity and beyond. Made in Taiwan Bring me the arm
[1:11:34] of Buzz Lightyear and Toys in the Hood is my favorite.
[1:11:38] Toys in the hood, Yeah. I mean Toy Story, that surely
[1:11:41] taken from Tokyo Story, the classic Japanese drama, I think.
[1:11:44] Yeah. Maybe, yeah.
[1:11:45] They made the right choice. I think Toy Story is a great
[1:11:48] title, yeah. Joy story is bad, self
[1:11:52] reasonable. And we've talked about the books
[1:11:56] on Andy Shelf having inside references to Pixar, and there's
[1:11:59] lots of others in the film. So Andy is named after Andreas
[1:12:02] Van Damme, and he's an animation pioneer and he taught many of
[1:12:06] the Pixar animators at Brown University.
[1:12:09] Right. Yeah, no relation to Jean-Claude
[1:12:11] Van I mean, presumably maybe there is, I don't know.
[1:12:15] Hopefully not. And on the back of the Pizza
[1:12:20] Planet truck, there's a sticker that says Krat FM, and this is
[1:12:23] reference to TW Kratter who was a digital painter on the film.
[1:12:28] Yeah, her job description was imperfectionist.
[1:12:30] Apparently it was her job to make things look more realistic
[1:12:33] by adding scuff Marks and scratches and like, dirt to
[1:12:36] surfaces. Right?
[1:12:37] Something that everybody else started doing.
[1:12:39] Like straight away our. Best my dream job.
[1:12:41] That nice. Sits backpack had a message
[1:12:46] written on it. Julie Mcbaughle house cooties
[1:12:48] and this is reference to Julia McDonald, a camera manager, and
[1:12:52] she asked to be referenced in the film.
[1:12:54] Yeah, presumably she asked for it to be done in a playful way.
[1:12:57] Otherwise, Julia Mcbothell is a bit harsh.
[1:13:00] We've got you in there. Look out for it.
[1:13:02] And the Davis family cost license paid registration is
[1:13:05] A113, and A113 was the number of her classroom at California
[1:13:09] Institute of Arts. And that's where lots of Pixars
[1:13:12] animators studied. That's in lots of films that
[1:13:15] isn't it. There's loads of references to
[1:13:16] that. It's in loads.
[1:13:17] Yeah, John, last I studied there.
[1:13:18] Yeah, you're right. You're Finding Nemo, Monsters
[1:13:20] University, Wally. It's in loads of them.
[1:13:22] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:13:23] Yeah. And then lastly, the removal
[1:13:25] company who helped the Davises move, they are called Egg Man
[1:13:28] Movers and that's named after the art director Ralph
[1:13:31] Eccleston. And the license plate of the
[1:13:33] removal van is ML Y1K9 and that means Molly 1K9, a reference to
[1:13:38] the Pixar office dog at the time.
[1:13:40] Oh nice. And Molly's also the name of
[1:13:42] Andy's sister, isn't it? It is, yeah.
[1:13:44] So go work at Pixar. Not just a cool job, but they'll
[1:13:47] probably put you in one of the films as well.
[1:13:49] Yeah, yeah, I want to live with a musician.
[1:13:54] For their work in writing Toy Story, Joss Whedon, Andrew
[1:13:56] Stanton, Joel Corn and Alex Socalo were nominated for Best
[1:13:59] Original Screenplay of the Academy Awards, the first
[1:14:02] animated film to ever be nominated for that award.
[1:14:04] Which is some going. Yeah, wow.
[1:14:06] They lost out to Christopher Mcquarrie for the usual
[1:14:09] suspects. Right.
[1:14:10] Which right? Losing with style at least.
[1:14:12] Yeah, fair enough. Yeah.
[1:14:14] And for us, in creating the world, the characters, the
[1:14:16] narrative of Toy Story, the screenplay here is pretty
[1:14:19] timeless. Brilliant.
[1:14:20] Yeah, it's incredible. Last but not least, in the crew
[1:14:25] section, we are looking at the visuals of Toy Story, which, as
[1:14:28] we've been saying, we're breaking new ground.
[1:14:29] At the time, there was no director of photography as such,
[1:14:32] with it being a new venture, but some key contributors were
[1:14:36] lighting supervisor Sharon Callahan, supervising layout
[1:14:38] artist Craig Goode and director John Lasseter overseeing
[1:14:42] everything. Yeah, the visuals in Toy Story
[1:14:44] USD. How does it all look for you?
[1:14:46] I mean, it all looks great for me.
[1:14:48] I think it's just has a really bold, really colorful, really
[1:14:51] energetic look to it. It's really accessible.
[1:14:54] I mean, there's some frames you look at this and go, Oh yeah,
[1:14:57] Rex is a bit pixelated there or that desk doesn't look as good
[1:15:00] as it should. But anyone who does that, it
[1:15:03] would just be like, shut up, man.
[1:15:06] There's no room for that. Because at the time it was
[1:15:09] incredible. I saw this at the cinema and saw
[1:15:11] nothing wrong with it in 1995. It was absolutely flawless.
[1:15:16] It was so clean, it was so clear.
[1:15:18] There was whip pans, there was crash zooms.
[1:15:21] Everything felt very cinematic. And we grew up watching
[1:15:25] cartoons. If you watch Tom and Jerry, they
[1:15:27] run from left to right, right to left, and you go slightly there,
[1:15:31] but you're never in the world. The background just repeats.
[1:15:34] It's the running, Yeah. And you just, there's this need
[1:15:36] to get it done quickly. There's no laziness to this.
[1:15:39] Like everything in that frame is definitely there for a reason
[1:15:42] because it has to fill that frame.
[1:15:44] This is a lesson in miss on scent is like, if you're going
[1:15:47] to put something in front of the camera or behind the camera, it
[1:15:49] needs to be there for absolute reason.
[1:15:52] But they didn't overuse that. They didn't fill it with things.
[1:15:55] The backgrounds work really well, but it has its own look.
[1:15:59] And I'm always baffled looking back at this, that it wasn't
[1:16:02] done with the mix of live action because we've got who friend
[1:16:05] Roger Rabbit, you know, Stuart Little came out in 99.
[1:16:09] This could have been Stuart Little where you've got live
[1:16:11] action and then the toys are basically Stuart Little running
[1:16:13] around doing stuff. I'm amazed that that didn't
[1:16:16] happen and they just went, no, we are creating a whole world.
[1:16:20] Like we've said, we're going to probably say this about
[1:16:22] everything when it comes to the crew and when it comes to the
[1:16:24] execution is that everyone's created something water tight
[1:16:28] and the visuals needed to be as good as everything else.
[1:16:32] But I think everything stepped up because the visuals are so
[1:16:35] good. Yeah, I mean, the visuals of the
[1:16:37] time 1995 there were groundbreaking.
[1:16:39] Like we've been seeing the first fully CGI animated feature film.
[1:16:43] That's significant itself, but it's not just that no one did it
[1:16:46] before. That makes it special.
[1:16:47] I don't think it's that it's still kind of sets the standard.
[1:16:50] I mean, the animations evolved obviously with technology over
[1:16:53] the years, but in terms of just CGI animated storytelling, the
[1:16:57] Toy Story IP is still the benchmark.
[1:16:59] It is. One of the best decisions I
[1:17:01] think they made early on is that at the time, lots of CGI
[1:17:04] animators, like you said, Westie, they were using CGI to
[1:17:06] create things that looked real, like ILM used it.
[1:17:09] And Jurassic Park Terminator 2. Pixar didn't go that route.
[1:17:12] They leaned into making it look like an animation with the
[1:17:15] tropes and the rules and the limits that come with that and
[1:17:18] then work kind of towards realism from there that were
[1:17:20] sensible with how far they aimed.
[1:17:22] And that just made it look kind of like light years ahead of its
[1:17:25] competitors. Yeah.
[1:17:26] Nice. What are you?
[1:17:27] And Buzz don't look real necessarily, but they still
[1:17:29] didn't look like anything we'd seen before.
[1:17:31] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:17:32] And it picks out understanding of animation and visual
[1:17:34] storytelling just shines. I said Sharon Callahan was
[1:17:37] lighting supervisor. What?
[1:17:39] She overseas is incredible. The texture and the depth on the
[1:17:42] images is like nothing we'd seen.
[1:17:44] He just couldn't really do that to that level than hand roll
[1:17:46] animation. Yeah.
[1:17:47] And lighting can convey emotion, can't it?
[1:17:49] As we often talk about, No. Absolutely.
[1:17:50] Yeah. Pixar tapped right into that
[1:17:52] from the start. Yeah.
[1:17:53] Some of the visuals still blow me away.
[1:17:55] I mentioned the shot when Buzz first arrives on the bed.
[1:17:57] And also in that scene we get that Buzz POV looking out from
[1:18:00] inside his helmet. Yeah, yeah, it's great.
[1:18:03] It's amazing. There seems to be no sign of
[1:18:04] intelligent life anyway. Hello.
[1:18:08] It's just the sound of the breathing as well.
[1:18:10] Yeah, it's great. But I think it's the contrast
[1:18:12] ratios that they're really taking on board, and it looks
[1:18:14] like real life because you've got shadow in there that we've
[1:18:17] talked about. When Andy's holding up buzz and
[1:18:18] there's a silhouette, it's not a pure black silhouette.
[1:18:21] Yeah, yeah. You still see some detail in
[1:18:23] there, so it looks realistic. So there's them contrast ratios
[1:18:26] that really work. Absolutely, Yeah.
[1:18:28] I mean, the technology did obviously advance a lot in the
[1:18:30] years and the decades after Toy Story, Yeah.
[1:18:32] But I think that visual language, they established the
[1:18:34] kind of exaggerated cartoons with realistic elements like the
[1:18:38] shadows and the lighting, but defined pixels approach
[1:18:41] instantly. And CGI animation as a whole,
[1:18:44] everyone just followed suit. And I think it still looks
[1:18:47] great. It probably always will, yeah.
[1:18:49] Yeah. I mean ground breaking is the
[1:18:50] word, isn't it? And I completely agree with what
[1:18:52] you are saying, Yeah. If you look at later Pixar
[1:18:55] films, yes, you would definitely get better at animating humans
[1:18:58] in particular. I think maybe you could say some
[1:19:00] of the faces in this are a bit stiff and a bit generic when
[1:19:03] they kind of compare them to the other ones.
[1:19:06] But you know, the starting from scratch here.
[1:19:08] So any criticism you have, I think it's OK to kind of dismiss
[1:19:11] it like Wesley's saying. But for me, it's the way that
[1:19:13] they kind of replicate the way that the camera moves in the
[1:19:15] scene. You know, a lot of previous
[1:19:17] animations could be a bit static, but this one shots like
[1:19:20] the POV of Woody being pushed down the banister or going round
[1:19:23] and round and round on the swivel chair.
[1:19:25] You know, that's taking the idea of movement in animation to
[1:19:28] another level entirely. And it's also a film that's not
[1:19:31] just content to just have day and night animation, which I
[1:19:34] would guess is probably easy. You know, that's seen before
[1:19:36] Pizza Planet. It's dusk, and evidence is
[1:19:39] bathed in that orange glow, and it looks incredible.
[1:19:42] Yeah. So yes, he could argue they will
[1:19:44] improve the visuals as the developers accompany, but that
[1:19:47] doesn't take away anything from how good they are here.
[1:19:50] Absolutely, for sure. Yeah, and John Lasseter said the
[1:19:53] intentionally drew storyboards and created animations as if
[1:19:56] they're all being filmed by somebody with a camera.
[1:19:58] So the camera moves at times like on a crane, like said, and
[1:20:01] other times like it's on a Steadicam.
[1:20:03] Really, really excellently done. Yeah.
[1:20:05] Yeah, that shot we talked about with Buzzers duvet.
[1:20:08] Yeah, the camera kind of spins, but like it's on a crane.
[1:20:10] Yes, it's. Kind of strange because I think
[1:20:13] it kind of messes with us subconsciously a bit.
[1:20:15] It does with me. It does a little bit, Yeah,
[1:20:17] well. You're kind of thinking, I know
[1:20:18] this wasn't filmed by a cameraman, but it looks like it
[1:20:20] was. But it looks like it was.
[1:20:21] Yeah, and the camera going over the top with the Marines jumping
[1:20:24] down with the parachutes, it's just how did you do that?
[1:20:28] And one thing to mention is that Andy's dad has never seen or
[1:20:30] mentioned in the films and there's been a lot of online
[1:20:33] speculation about the reason why.
[1:20:35] Is he at work? Did he leave, Abandoned the
[1:20:37] family? Is he dead?
[1:20:38] And Andrew Stanton said the actual reason we don't see
[1:20:41] Andy's dad is actually very simple and not as interesting as
[1:20:43] the theories. It just would have taken too
[1:20:45] long and being too expensive to animate another human being.
[1:20:49] And for the same reason all the human characters have short hair
[1:20:52] and Andy's mum has her hair tied up in a ponytail.
[1:20:55] Yeah, it was. Woody won it.
[1:20:56] That's Andy's dad. That's why it's called Woody.
[1:21:02] Well, that's the same reason it's only 81 minutes long,
[1:21:05] presumably. Yeah.
[1:21:06] I mean, they're dipping the toes in the water a bit.
[1:21:07] I'll get cross. Yeah.
[1:21:08] Yeah. And similar to that is the
[1:21:10] birthday party we talked about. When we look through Sergey's
[1:21:12] binoculars, we'll see the kids. And if you look, you can see
[1:21:14] they all look very similar to Andy.
[1:21:16] Yes, they do. We just got different colour
[1:21:18] skin. Different colour hair.
[1:21:19] Yeah. Because they use the same model.
[1:21:21] Yeah. Time is money, I guess.
[1:21:22] Well, Disney did that. Didn't know with jungle boot
[1:21:24] Robin Hood so it's all repeated. Of course, Yeah.
[1:21:27] Of course it did. Yeah.
[1:21:28] The team that created Toy Story was relatively very small.
[1:21:31] Pixar employed 110 people in total to make the film.
[1:21:35] To make The Lion King, which came out in 94, Disney had a
[1:21:38] team of 800 employees working on it well.
[1:21:41] Yeah, this is before the days of the Internet has been No today.
[1:21:44] And because the team was so small, they didn't have runners
[1:21:46] like a big Disney production like The Lion King usually
[1:21:48] would. So when an animator finished a
[1:21:50] shot, apparently they would put it on a videotape and then
[1:21:53] someone would jump on a scooter and shoot from the Pixar office
[1:21:56] to take it to the editors. Not why there's people need to a
[1:21:59] plank award. Hopefully that would have been.
[1:22:01] Difficult I really didn't find on a moped though, yeah.
[1:22:04] Yeah, that's right. And Lassiter said that animators
[1:22:08] had to overcome huge challenges. Every leaf and blade of grass
[1:22:11] had to be created individually. The character of Woody alone had
[1:22:14] 723 motion controls, including 212 for his face and 58 for his
[1:22:21] mouth, and 300 computers we used to render the final movie.
[1:22:24] It took 800,000 hours and 114,240 frames of animation in
[1:22:30] total. That's about 91 days to render.
[1:22:34] And you've noticed as well, when the toys blink, their eyes
[1:22:37] always open and close one or two frames apart, which was to make
[1:22:39] it look more realistic. Yeah.
[1:22:41] Made your attention the detail in there.
[1:22:42] Yeah. Blades of grass individually
[1:22:45] don't. Know mental?
[1:22:46] Imagine that was, you know, W you're in charge of the grass in
[1:22:49] California Sound. No, no, no, no.
[1:22:51] No, the Toy Story grass. Computer technology and
[1:22:55] animation goes hand in hand today, but Lasseter said that at
[1:22:58] the time they were so different that find an animator who knew
[1:23:01] how to use computers was pretty much impossible.
[1:23:04] So they had to hire hand drawn or stop motion animators and
[1:23:07] teach them how to use technology.
[1:23:09] Andrew Stanton said he would regularly come across animators
[1:23:11] trying to draw on the screens or move the screen models by hand
[1:23:15] as it didn't really understand it.
[1:23:18] Like Armageddon teaching a bunch of drillers how to fly a
[1:23:20] spaceship. This makes more sense.
[1:23:25] You can't teach an animator how to draw, can you?
[1:23:28] Yeah. And the standards of Pixar last
[1:23:30] star setting, these people who are learning on the job are
[1:23:32] still like sky high. But I guess if you pull it off,
[1:23:35] you end up with greatness. And that's kind of what they
[1:23:37] did, yeah. Yeah, definitely, yeah.
[1:23:39] No direct Oscars recognition for the visuals on Toy Story.
[1:23:42] It didn't exist as a category at the time, but by 2002 there was
[1:23:46] a Best Animated Feature award, right?
[1:23:48] Sure, with no small part of Pixar, I think.
[1:23:50] Absolutely, yeah. The first winner, though, wasn't
[1:23:52] a Pixar film. Do you know what it was?
[1:23:54] Matt well. 2002. Shrek.
[1:23:57] It was Shrek. Some boy you like.
[1:24:01] Unbelievable. And in doing pioneering work,
[1:24:03] Toy Story did help establish a visual language that would kind
[1:24:06] of define computer animation for years to come.
[1:24:09] Oh, definitely. Oh, absolutely, yeah.
[1:24:11] So we've looked at some people who worked on Toy Story there,
[1:24:13] the writers, and there was a few of them bringing the script to
[1:24:15] life. Yeah.
[1:24:16] Randy Newman creating the famous soundtrack and the animation
[1:24:19] teams setting new standards. All in all, pretty impressive
[1:24:23] stuff from the Pixar crew. Very impressive.
[1:24:25] Usually, yeah, Once Upon a time in Hollywood.
[1:24:33] We've arrived the climax where the Mansons turn up.
[1:24:36] Yep. Tarantino mixes things up,
[1:24:38] though. The family arrived on Cielo
[1:24:40] Drive, but instead of targeting Sharon Tate's house, they go
[1:24:42] after Rick's after recognizing him for playing JK Hill.
[1:24:46] Ridiculous. Yeah.
[1:24:48] But. They picked the wrong house on
[1:24:50] the wrong night. Cliff and Brandy are waiting.
[1:24:52] Yep. What will we still worry about,
[1:24:54] Matt? It all turns out fine, doesn't
[1:24:56] it? God, exactly.
[1:24:58] And the first time you see this, the way the tension just raised
[1:25:04] its head, it's so effective because it's been such a lock up
[1:25:08] until now. You just hanging out with Rick
[1:25:10] and Cliff, and then you feel you just brought back down worth
[1:25:13] with a very big bump. That realization of shit, This
[1:25:16] is that night with these people and we all know what happened,
[1:25:20] which therefore makes that sense of relief when you realize where
[1:25:23] he's taking this now and they've got it wrong.
[1:25:25] It's so effective and you can relax because you think, oh,
[1:25:29] thank God he's not going there. And what I get from this is a
[1:25:32] sense of genuine kind of anger from Tarantino.
[1:25:35] He really wishes this had happened.
[1:25:37] Don't we all? We all do, obviously, But you
[1:25:40] can tell he he almost takes it personally.
[1:25:42] And it is kind of uncomfortable seeing this violence being
[1:25:44] dished out to them. But it's also kind of funny at
[1:25:47] the same time, the fact that Cliff is tripping out of his
[1:25:50] mind. So does he even think any of
[1:25:52] this is real? Does he know what's going on?
[1:25:54] I think that's the point, isn't it?
[1:25:56] Yeah, exactly, because it's not contrast of the danger he's in,
[1:25:59] but how funny he thinks it is. Like you are a.
[1:26:01] Horsey, really funny. I love the payoff with Brandy.
[1:26:05] You can see, you know, we've seen earlier she's controlled
[1:26:07] with just a hand movement and then the click of his tongue and
[1:26:10] you just think, yes, this is great.
[1:26:11] This is what what the deserved. But if I could go back in time
[1:26:15] and see your film again for the first time with no prior
[1:26:17] knowledge, it might be this one. Just for that scene of Rick's
[1:26:21] driving out of the garage with a flame.
[1:26:23] For first time I saw this, I lost it for about 5 minutes I
[1:26:28] was just helpless with laughter. So the whole thing, it could be
[1:26:32] ridiculous, but it works so well because underneath the OTT
[1:26:36] violence in the dark comedy, there's a genuine honesty to
[1:26:38] this. You think, yeah, this is how it
[1:26:41] should have gone down and I really wish I could have done.
[1:26:44] Yeah, I had the way the build up to the night with the montage
[1:26:47] and Kurt Russell narrating where everyone is and what time it is.
[1:26:49] That works really well. That's brilliant, yeah.
[1:26:52] Builds up the sense of dread because we think we know what's
[1:26:55] coming. Yeah, and somehow still funny.
[1:26:57] Rick's in the film called Kill Me Quick, Ringo, said The
[1:27:00] gringo. Ridiculous.
[1:27:03] Really funny when the mansions first turned up and the cars
[1:27:06] making a racket and Rick looks out the window when he's like
[1:27:09] bunch of God damn fucking. Yeah.
[1:27:12] And then storms out in his tiny room.
[1:27:14] Very quantum. I love the whole thing and
[1:27:17] there's more than I can talk about.
[1:27:19] I'm a huge fan of the Mansons talking in their car at the
[1:27:22] bottom of Cielo Drive. Yes, I'm a master fan.
[1:27:24] Austin Butler's text where he's like, he either said that or I'm
[1:27:28] a liar. Yeah.
[1:27:29] You calling me a liar? He's fantastic as always.
[1:27:33] And how good is Mikey Madison as Susan Atkins?
[1:27:35] Believable. She's a charisma volcano.
[1:27:38] William Shatner. Yeah, No surprise she went on to
[1:27:41] be an Oscar winner. Yeah, and then You Keep Me
[1:27:44] Hanging On by Vanilla Fudge kicking in as the Mansons
[1:27:46] approach the door. For a version that.
[1:27:48] That's a needle drop and a half, Yeah.
[1:27:50] And just about every that filmmaker in the world would
[1:27:52] surely than a parallel editing trick like Silence of the Lambs
[1:27:55] huddles thinking the mansions were at Sharon's door.
[1:27:57] And it turns out with Rick's cuties above all that, though,
[1:28:00] Yeah. But yeah, this is what we all
[1:28:01] wish. It happened, obviously, when
[1:28:02] these bastards turned up. Yeah.
[1:28:04] I'm not entirely sure why Rick turns Atkins and the Fried
[1:28:07] Sauerkra when he's got no idea what's going on, but I'm here
[1:28:11] for it, yeah. It's just a wonderful sequence,
[1:28:14] isn't it? First time I'd seen it.
[1:28:15] I was waiting for this moment to happen.
[1:28:17] And then when it did happen, the first thing I thought to myself
[1:28:20] was this is a Quentin Tarantino movie now this is a Quentin
[1:28:24] Tarantino film because nobody else could even touch this to
[1:28:27] this degree of the how acceptable this violence is.
[1:28:31] Then none of us have really touched about on how violent
[1:28:33] this really is. Massively.
[1:28:34] It's horrendous. Hitting a head off the
[1:28:37] fireplace, off the table, and it's just the corner of the fire
[1:28:40] and it's bang, bang, bang. Yeah, Yeah.
[1:28:42] A tin of dog food in a face smashes our nose in a dog
[1:28:46] ripping his balls off, basically.
[1:28:48] And then ripped her into bits. But you're there for it.
[1:28:51] Like John just said, you're there for it.
[1:28:52] Somebody set on fire in a swimming pool, like set on fire.
[1:28:55] You could tell it's real new tolling camera.
[1:28:58] It's horrendous. And we'll stay on it.
[1:28:59] Yeah. And we'll see the corpse.
[1:29:01] And we're quite happy to see the corpse.
[1:29:02] Yeah. I think that's Tarantino given
[1:29:05] the finger to any single critic and just said these movies are
[1:29:08] too violent because they're going to be punching the sky at
[1:29:11] the moment that this happens, watching this film, and it's
[1:29:13] going to be gone. Is it too violent now?
[1:29:15] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:29:15] You wanted this to happen. You're happy.
[1:29:17] It's this violent. You're happy.
[1:29:18] Wouldn't do this in cinema, aren't you?
[1:29:20] And they're going well, Yeah, actually, which is really,
[1:29:22] really Quentin Tarantino for me. The minute that Cliff walks away
[1:29:27] with Brandy and just holds that shot and then the car comes up.
[1:29:30] Oh. It's great.
[1:29:31] It's. Fucking so good.
[1:29:33] It's just like, wow, that that's tension again.
[1:29:35] And like you said, just Rick Maker margaritas.
[1:29:37] I kind of get more of that. I kind of get any more of it.
[1:29:40] Just shaking. He just wants it now.
[1:29:42] And just drinking it straight out of the mixer as he's walking
[1:29:45] back. Fantastic sequence, fantastic
[1:29:47] ending. I can't get enough of it, but I
[1:29:49] can't watch it by itself. I need them other two hours, 10
[1:29:52] minutes. Yeah, yeah.
[1:29:53] To really really make it appreciate how good this
[1:29:55] sequence is. Absolutely, Yeah.
[1:29:57] So as we know, Tarantino changed his history here, but there are
[1:30:01] still a lot of references to the real events that transpired.
[1:30:04] Firstly, don't worry, we're not that type of podcast.
[1:30:06] We're not going into any detail on the brutal and horrific stuff
[1:30:09] that happened. Yeah.
[1:30:11] Because it is genuinely horrific, not the kind of thing
[1:30:13] you expect to hear on a movie podcast.
[1:30:15] So we'll leave that. No, it's not going to happen.
[1:30:17] So. On the day though, Sharon is
[1:30:19] visited by her friend Joanne who brings her baby.
[1:30:21] This is Joanna Pettet, a British actress who was Sharons friend
[1:30:24] and did visit her on that day and she's played by Rumor Willis
[1:30:28] in the film who was daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis.
[1:30:30] Yeah. Nice.
[1:30:32] She was in the original Casino Royale.
[1:30:33] Joanne Pettet, also apparently Deborah Tate, who we talked
[1:30:36] about. She called Sharon that day and
[1:30:38] wanted to visit her that night, but Sharon said no because she
[1:30:41] was having friends over. Right, okay.
[1:30:43] Grateful for small mercies for 16 year old could have been
[1:30:46] there. Escape, yeah.
[1:30:47] And Steve McQueen. Well, I wish she was there.
[1:30:50] Yeah, you would have sold them out.
[1:30:51] Yeah. Captain Hills.
[1:30:54] And the car the Manson's turnip in was a recreation of their
[1:30:56] real Ford Galaxy. Steven Butcher was the Picture
[1:30:59] Corps coordinator and he was given access to the Manson's car
[1:31:03] and recreated it right down to having the same dents.
[1:31:06] Wow. Yeah, Also the truck from FBI,
[1:31:08] the show that Rick's in. Yeah, Butcher got his hands on
[1:31:11] the very truck from that episode of FBI.
[1:31:13] So it's the real thing that we see.
[1:31:14] I love that episode of FBI. It's great.
[1:31:16] Brad Pitt's voice, so I love that shot.
[1:31:19] Kill #2. I don't think we'll talk about a
[1:31:22] pitcher called coordinator before either.
[1:31:24] No, I haven't. But you kind of have to on this.
[1:31:26] Yeah, he did a pretty good job. And never will again.
[1:31:30] And the four Manson family members, all the same four that
[1:31:33] went to Sharon's so Charles, Tex Watson, Susan Sadie Atkins,
[1:31:38] Patricia Quinn Winkle, played by Madison Beatty, and Linda
[1:31:41] Kasabian, played by Maya Hawk, daughter of Uma Thurman and
[1:31:45] Ethan Hawk. Yeah, yeah.
[1:31:47] Then the Kasabian was the only one who didn't go to jail for
[1:31:49] the murders. Apparently she did try to stop
[1:31:51] them on the night and then testified against the others
[1:31:53] afterwards to put them away. That's right.
[1:31:55] So that's why Tarantino had to drive away in the car,
[1:31:57] presumably. Right.
[1:31:58] Nice. And there were four people
[1:32:00] inside Sharon's house who were killed by the mansions.
[1:32:02] Sharon JC Green, Abigail Folger, played by Samantha Robinson, and
[1:32:06] Voytek Frykowski, played by Costa Ronan.
[1:32:09] But there was also a fifth victim.
[1:32:11] Stephen Parent was sitting outside Sharon's house when the
[1:32:14] mansions turned up and Charles Watson shot him.
[1:32:17] Yeah, there's no reference to him in the film at all.
[1:32:18] Stephen Parent, But Abigail Folger was daughter of Peter
[1:32:21] Folger of the Folger Coffee Company.
[1:32:23] She was. She was pretty well known at the
[1:32:25] time as well apparently. Right.
[1:32:27] We also see Abigail at the piano singing Straight Shooter by the
[1:32:30] Mamas and Papas, and this is because when the police arrived
[1:32:33] the next day, they found the sheet music to the song on the
[1:32:35] piano. Right.
[1:32:37] And Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Pub has apparently
[1:32:39] had a thing with Polanski when he was with Sharon, which I
[1:32:42] guess is why she's at the Playboy party near the start.
[1:32:44] Right. OK, Wow.
[1:32:47] Voytek Frykowski, He did sleep on the couch like Sean in the
[1:32:50] film, and he was walking by Charles Watson pointing a gun in
[1:32:53] his face. When he asked who he was, Watson
[1:32:55] said I'm the devil and I'm here to do the devil's business,
[1:32:58] which is aligned Texas in the film.
[1:33:00] It is, yeah. Holding that, yeah.
[1:33:02] But the delivery of it is excellent, but terrifying when
[1:33:04] you know that's what he really said.
[1:33:06] Yeah, it is. And then the following night,
[1:33:09] the 10th of August, the Mansons went to the home of a
[1:33:11] businessman called Leno Lapianca and murdered him and his wife
[1:33:14] Rosemarie. It was the same 4 plus Leslie
[1:33:17] Van Houten and Manson himself. Linda Kasabian said Manson
[1:33:21] wanted to show them how it was done.
[1:33:24] Well, for that, Manson and the four family members went to
[1:33:26] prison in 1971. Four of them were never
[1:33:29] released. And Leslie Van Houten was
[1:33:30] released after 53 years, right. Was it worth it to be Evil
[1:33:34] Bastard for a couple of days? No, of course, no, no, bloody
[1:33:36] hell. So anyway, that is some nicer
[1:33:38] stuff. Please.
[1:33:39] Yeah. The creativity behind the film
[1:33:41] because he changed it. Tarantino left the end and out
[1:33:43] of the script that he gave to people.
[1:33:45] The only people apart from Tarantino who knew from the
[1:33:48] start what would happen were Tarantino, DiCaprio, Pitt and
[1:33:51] Robbie. And Robert Richardson didn't
[1:33:53] even know until like midway through production to allow him
[1:33:56] to prepare for it. He didn't know until he's got to
[1:33:58] prep for the end what happens. I think he also let everyone,
[1:34:02] Polanski's representative read the ending, right?
[1:34:04] I mean, that's a bit he's going to be concerned about.
[1:34:05] So you kind of have to I. Think yeah, of course, yeah.
[1:34:07] And there's a couple of other actors with Tyson Tarantino who
[1:34:10] show up in smaller roles. Rick's Italian actress wife,
[1:34:13] Francesca Capucci. Oliver Renko Russell says her
[1:34:16] name. Yeah, it's great.
[1:34:18] She's played by Lorenzo Izzo, and she's the wife of Eli Roth,
[1:34:21] famously 1 of Tarantino's film maker buddies.
[1:34:24] All right. And the girl who sells Cliff the
[1:34:26] cigarette dipped in acid for $0.50.
[1:34:27] That's Pearlie Heaney Jardine. And she played BB the Bright's
[1:34:32] little girl in Kill Bill Volume 2.
[1:34:34] Oh wow. Nice, Yeah.
[1:34:36] And away we go off his box. When the man sits, you can't
[1:34:43] even put the lights on. Licking the dog food.
[1:34:47] It's when he tries the dog food he's I'm really tempted.
[1:34:50] Yeah, he is tempted. Yeah, he is.
[1:34:52] And then it's all over. Cliff leaves in the ambulance,
[1:34:54] Francesca just goes back to bed somehow, and we get Rick left
[1:34:58] alone for the final moments. What do we think of the Den
[1:35:01] humor? I find it very, very poignant,
[1:35:05] and not just because Rick has been accepted as a real hero and
[1:35:08] he's in the Hollywood circle now, but because this is how
[1:35:11] that night should have ended. And the tragic thing is, we all
[1:35:13] know how it did. And the music suddenly becomes
[1:35:16] very melancholic and gentle. You get another one of those
[1:35:18] incredible crane shots. And I just think it's so
[1:35:21] notable. It's only now we get the title
[1:35:23] on screen because, yeah, sadly, this is only a fairy tale.
[1:35:26] I think this moment is the most heartfelt thing Tarantino's ever
[1:35:30] done, and in terms of his punch on for change in history, this
[1:35:34] lands 1000 times better than it did in Inglourious Basterds.
[1:35:39] I totally agree, I love it as a final scene.
[1:35:41] It's funny when she asked Rick if everyone's OK and Rick's
[1:35:43] like, well, the hippies aren't, that's for goddamn sure.
[1:35:49] And with the crane shots over Cielo Dr. obviously, as we have
[1:35:53] to, and it's one of the best ones.
[1:35:54] We get Miss Lee Langtry by Marie Shaw playing us out and the logo
[1:35:58] comes over the screen. It is perfect way to end.
[1:36:02] Yeah, except for one thing. OK.
[1:36:04] Right, so Rick's standing there alone on the drive.
[1:36:06] He has hello off screen. Turns around to see Jay Sebring
[1:36:09] at the gate. Yeah.
[1:36:11] Why or why is that not Sharon standing there?
[1:36:14] Yeah. I.
[1:36:15] Cannot fathom it as a storytelling choice.
[1:36:17] We've not seen them together. The whole thing's been set up
[1:36:19] since the first act, and the dialogue doesn't even need a
[1:36:21] change. Sharon going all the flame
[1:36:24] through our from 1450. McCluskey.
[1:36:25] How awesome would that be? Yeah, I said this about the end
[1:36:28] of In Glorious Basterds, and the only reason I can think of is
[1:36:31] that Tarrant, he was doing it to piss me off.
[1:36:34] It's mad. Or am I wrong?
[1:36:36] Is it better this way, Wesley? I don't know.
[1:36:37] I think it's good that she's on the intercom and she's asking
[1:36:39] what's happening from the safety, from the the safety of a
[1:36:41] house and he's coming out and try and play the big guy and
[1:36:44] find out what's wrong. She's heavily pregnant.
[1:36:46] She's entertainment. She's always the entertainer.
[1:36:48] She wants to find out who's there for her to investigate
[1:36:50] something that was could be bad news.
[1:36:53] That's not her character to do and never has been throughout
[1:36:55] this film or throughout this fairy tale, really.
[1:36:57] It does make more sense he'd be the one that goes out.
[1:36:59] You're absolutely right. Yeah.
[1:37:00] It's just seeing them together. We kind of need it, don't we?
[1:37:04] Yeah, I guess so, yeah. I know what you mean.
[1:37:05] Yeah, we do though. Get another scene where to cap
[1:37:08] you and Robbie share the screen. On the flight back from Italy,
[1:37:11] Rick has served a cocktail by stewardess at one point.
[1:37:14] We only see her arms and hear her say enjoys her, but that's
[1:37:17] Margot Robbie. Nice.
[1:37:19] Yeah, she made a name in America playing in a stewardess in the
[1:37:22] TV show called Pan Am Margot Robbie.
[1:37:25] So with all the references to TV in the film, I guess that's why
[1:37:28] they did it, which is a nice touch if so.
[1:37:29] Makes sense, yeah. And with that we fade to black
[1:37:33] and an end credit sequence featuring Rick advertising Red
[1:37:35] Apple cigarettes. So we are in the Tarantino
[1:37:38] verse. Here we are.
[1:37:39] And the Rick put you just cardboard cut out.
[1:37:41] I've got a double shit. Yeah.
[1:37:43] These cigarettes taste like shit.
[1:37:46] As for the climax that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino
[1:37:48] flips things on its head and gives us the fairy tale we wish
[1:37:51] we'd got. Absolutely, 100%.
[1:37:53] Absolutely. GfK.
[1:38:01] For a film of this magnitude, JFK went through production very
[1:38:04] swiftly. There were a couple of months
[1:38:06] prep, three months for the shoot and only three months in the
[1:38:08] cutting room. Considering the task at hand,
[1:38:12] it's a minor miracle Stone rushed it through without test
[1:38:15] screenings to avoid negative feedback, creating notes from
[1:38:18] the studio asking for reshoots. Obviously, yeah, Stone's
[1:38:23] original cut of JFK ran at 4 1/2 hours, he said.
[1:38:27] There was a lot of Clear Shore footage that was removed, along
[1:38:30] with a fantasy sequence of Oswald looking at the camera
[1:38:33] protesting his innocence. And I think that's what that.
[1:38:35] 'D be the. The original Cook came in at 3
[1:38:40] hours 8 minutes despite it being in his contract to be 3 hours or
[1:38:43] under. And the director's cut came out
[1:38:45] a few years later, clocking in at a whopping 3 hours and 25
[1:38:48] minutes. So we mentioned the two scenes
[1:38:50] at the talk show and at the airport, which were reinserted.
[1:38:53] And the rest of the extra footage is additional moments of
[1:38:56] dialogue, which are just added to scenes already in the
[1:38:58] theatrical cut. Yes, that's right.
[1:39:00] Yeah. But well before that, months
[1:39:02] before the film actually came out, it faced a huge backlash.
[1:39:07] The first moment of discontent came from George Will of the
[1:39:10] Washington Post, based on a leaked copy of the first draft
[1:39:13] of the screenplay. He claimed that the movie was a
[1:39:15] three hour lie and said that Stone may be an intellectual
[1:39:19] sociopath. True, it's fine.
[1:39:25] He's. Admitted that the Post later ran
[1:39:28] a story called Onset Dallas in Wonderland, How Oliver Stone's
[1:39:33] version of Kennedy assassination exploits the edge of paranoia.
[1:39:36] Dallas in Wonderland. That's genius.
[1:39:39] I love you, Yeah. Almost as good as Garrison Ford.
[1:39:43] So praise, no praise. Obviously don't get anywhere
[1:39:46] else. Do it.
[1:39:50] Newsweek cover story. Read why Oliver Stones new movie
[1:39:53] can't be trusted and chief exec of the MPAA Jack Valenti
[1:39:57] compared JFK to the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the
[1:40:00] Will. Wow, wow.
[1:40:02] See where he's coming. From views.
[1:40:04] So upon release, it was healed by mainstream media as the most
[1:40:07] dangerous movie in America. I mean, that would just make me
[1:40:10] want to say it all the more. Let's.
[1:40:12] Go 3 hours, absolutely get it in there.
[1:40:14] It's. Banned like Texas trade.
[1:40:16] So yeah, exactly more pleased. And it wasn't just media outlets
[1:40:20] who were outraged by what the source their irresponsibility of
[1:40:23] spreading and normalizing misinformation.
[1:40:25] The government went sense with their betrayal.
[1:40:27] A secret of murderers involved in nefarious plots, including
[1:40:30] defectors in the Mafia and Storm was also targeted by historians
[1:40:34] only interested in facts. Just rude to be honest.
[1:40:37] Yeah and like minded conspiracy theories.
[1:40:40] And they were frustrated because they didn't have the kind of
[1:40:42] platforms Stone did to spout their views.
[1:40:44] Getting it from all angles, Stone said.
[1:40:47] It was a hot potato from the get go, much hotter than I thought.
[1:40:50] I didn't realise it would hit the central nerve core of the
[1:40:53] establishment. That's what you want.
[1:40:55] Yeah, because he did. Because he did, and.
[1:40:57] When it opened in December 1991, there was a muted audience
[1:41:01] response to JFK and its opening week.
[1:41:03] It ended up at the disappointing 5th on the box office charts and
[1:41:06] was at the way to becoming a flop.
[1:41:08] Yes, but in the weeks that followed, which included a $15
[1:41:11] million ad campaign, JFK built up a huge amount of momentum and
[1:41:15] wound up earning A whopping $200 million at the box office, which
[1:41:19] made it a sixth highest grossing film of the year.
[1:41:21] Wow. I mean from rising from the
[1:41:24] ashes there. Yeah, for a three hour plus
[1:41:26] period piece this dense. Yeah, DMA.
[1:41:29] But I suppose there's no such thing as bad press.
[1:41:31] No. Definitely well when you got
[1:41:33] 15,000,000 inject. 15 I mean we'd be, we'd earn 200 mill if
[1:41:37] we were given the 15 mill marketing campaign.
[1:41:40] Absolutely. If we were the most dangerous
[1:41:42] pot in America, I think we are. We are.
[1:41:46] We are with this episode, yes. We are.
[1:41:48] They're going to come after us. After JFK came out Paul Short
[1:41:51] that 80% of the American public believed that there was a
[1:41:54] conspiracy behind JFK's death, which was up 10% from a similar
[1:41:58] poll conducted in the late 70s. Right.
[1:42:01] See, it was always there. It was always there.
[1:42:03] It was always there. It was polarizing with critics
[1:42:06] upon release. A lot focused on the spread of
[1:42:08] misinformation, The New York Times said.
[1:42:10] At what point does a studio exercise its leverage and blunt
[1:42:13] the highly charged message of a film maker like Oliver Stone?
[1:42:17] Never. Never.
[1:42:18] Don't do it. Not at.
[1:42:19] All However, there were critics who loved the film, but that was
[1:42:22] also highly controversial. Richard Callas in Time magazine
[1:42:26] said whatever one suspicions about its use or abuse of the
[1:42:29] evidence, JFK is a knockout. Yeah, part history book, part
[1:42:33] comic book, the movie rushes toward judgment for three
[1:42:35] breathless hours, lasso in facts and factoids by the thousands,
[1:42:39] then bundling them together into an incendiary device that would
[1:42:43] frag any viewers. Complacency, indeed.
[1:42:47] And what of our man Ebert Fellas out of four?
[1:42:50] He'd give it full, didn't he? Because he got some shit for it,
[1:42:52] I think. Yeah, I think he's all in on
[1:42:53] this. He'd love.
[1:42:54] It he's pure Cinema 4. Yes, yes, four of the best 4/4,
[1:42:59] he said. Oliver Stone was born to make
[1:43:00] this movie. He's a film maker of feverish
[1:43:03] energy and limitless technical skill, able to assemble a
[1:43:06] bewilder an array of facts and fancies and compose them into a
[1:43:09] film without getting bogged down.
[1:43:11] Yeah, even the critics suffered a backlash to the film as well.
[1:43:14] Though the Washingtonian movie critic Pat Dowell loved the film
[1:43:17] but had her mini review of it rejected because of the
[1:43:20] positivity she portrayed, she resulted in protest.
[1:43:24] Wow. For her, yeah.
[1:43:26] And as you said, Wesley Ebert later told a story about TV
[1:43:29] legend Walter Cronkite given him a dressing down because of the
[1:43:32] positive review the film picked up.
[1:43:34] Madness. Unbelievable enough.
[1:43:36] Very much at the Oscars. It was a big night for Silence
[1:43:40] of the Lambs, obviously, so JFK faced stiff competition in the
[1:43:43] categories it was nominated for, which were Best Picture,
[1:43:46] Director, Adapted Screenplay, supporting actor Tommy Lee
[1:43:49] Jones, Score and Sound. It did, however, pick up two
[1:43:52] awards that we've already mentioned.
[1:43:54] Best Editing? Best Cinematography?
[1:43:56] I mean, those got to be two of the most deserved awards.
[1:43:59] Editing and shooting this. Yeah, forget about.
[1:44:03] That's of the way you said, Tommy Lee Jones.
[1:44:04] There you go. OK, Burton.
[1:44:10] Best support Charlie Jones. It also got similar recognition
[1:44:17] at the Golden Globes, where it was nominated for Best Motion
[1:44:19] Picture, Best Actor Kevin Costner and Best Screenplay.
[1:44:23] Do that on every single episode now.
[1:44:25] Yeah. Love it.
[1:44:29] The Storm won best director of the Golden Globes and in his
[1:44:32] acceptance speech he said a terrible lie was told.
[1:44:34] It was 28 years ago. I hope that this film could be
[1:44:37] the first step in righting that wrong by telling around 32 other
[1:44:41] lies. Yes.
[1:44:43] But better lies, yeah? It received a similar number of
[1:44:46] nominations to the Baftas, and one for best edit and a best
[1:44:49] sound as well. Yeah.
[1:44:50] So a response rarely seen going beyond the confines of the world
[1:44:53] of cinema and in the public consciousness.
[1:44:56] The fact that it was Oliver Stone's most successful film
[1:44:58] that the box office is almost unfathomable, with some very
[1:45:02] positive reviews and awards recognition thrown in for good
[1:45:04] measure and unexpected success story.
[1:45:07] Yeah, possibly. There are no sequels to JFK as
[1:45:10] such. There were a number of
[1:45:12] publications and documentaries in the wake of the film.
[1:45:14] Isle of a Stone himself directed two key documentaries on the
[1:45:17] subject. JK Revisited through the Looking
[1:45:20] Glass A2 hour documentary from 2021 reinforces theories
[1:45:23] introduced in the film, backed up by new interviews and
[1:45:26] evidence, none of which is that credible.
[1:45:29] Laser beam. Laser beam.
[1:45:39] And he also directed JFK Destiny Betrayed, A4 part documentary
[1:45:42] released around the same time that goes into detail about the
[1:45:45] circumstances and political events leading up to the
[1:45:47] assassination and in the aftermath.
[1:45:50] That one is well worth a watch. OK.
[1:45:52] Nice. But one of the film's legacy and
[1:45:55] influence? Westie, where have you seen that
[1:45:56] in the last 30 odd years? Well, I mean, I've said when
[1:46:00] we're talking about the the closing speech there, I mean,
[1:46:02] it's every courtroom drama that's all evident in there.
[1:46:05] But I think if you're looking at something that's going to maybe
[1:46:08] address some kind of truth that was swept away, I think Zero
[1:46:11] Dark 30 owes a lot to this. The open and the Zero Dark 30 is
[1:46:14] very, very similar. The ones that were very similar
[1:46:19] and ones that remind me very much so In the Line of Fire I
[1:46:22] think wouldn't exist if it wasn't for this.
[1:46:24] Malcolm X came out the year after incredible and I think
[1:46:27] that has a lot to do with it. Even films like Milk I think has
[1:46:30] a lot to do with JFK and then 112263, Stephen King.
[1:46:35] I think I love that book and the series.
[1:46:38] The series is brilliant. Watch that as well.
[1:46:41] So that that was really good, but I think just a different
[1:46:43] kind of take on that guy goes back in time and can prevent the
[1:46:46] murder. Stephen King at his best for me,
[1:46:50] recent best, anyway, it's. Fantastic.
[1:46:52] Yeah. And what about you, Matt?
[1:46:54] Legacy and influence. Influence a big one on TV, The
[1:46:57] X-Files. Are they without doubt Chris
[1:46:59] Carter, creator of The X-Files. He obviously watched this and
[1:47:02] thought what if they were talking about aliens though
[1:47:06] instead of an assassination. In terms of cinema I'd be
[1:47:08] fascinated he offended his thoughts on this because this
[1:47:11] feels like it's a clear influence on Zodiac.
[1:47:14] Going down the rabbit hole and great spiracies, identifying
[1:47:18] people as being involved, laying out the evidence bit by bit by
[1:47:21] bit in the really compelling manner.
[1:47:23] And then legacy. I look at Oliver Stone himself
[1:47:25] and I think if you look at the rest of his filmography after
[1:47:27] this, it feels like this took so much out of him.
[1:47:31] I don't think he ever quite recovered.
[1:47:32] I mean, there's flashes of greatness after this and he
[1:47:35] given Sunday Nixon's worth a watch.
[1:47:38] Not robot killers are certainly interesting, but nothing on the
[1:47:41] level of what he achieved here. Or before that, either.
[1:47:44] Well, yeah, Platoon, Wall Street on the 4th of July.
[1:47:48] Those are all incredible films. I don't think he hit those
[1:47:50] milestones after this. He's made the ultimate Oliver
[1:47:54] Stone film. Yeah.
[1:47:55] So where else could he go? And that's its legacy for me.
[1:47:57] It's an ultimate Oliver Stone film.
[1:47:59] Yeah, I agree with a lot of what you fellas have said.
[1:48:02] Zodiac for certain. The way that film presents its
[1:48:04] evidence. Also a lot to JFK.
[1:48:07] Not as in your face as JFK, of course, but also not forget what
[1:48:11] you said in the line of Fire, Dick Donna's conspiracy theory.
[1:48:14] There are loads of examples. Yeah, conspiracy theory.
[1:48:16] Yeah, Mel Gibson actually been in that one.
[1:48:18] Yes, exactly. That's right.
[1:48:20] Yeah, It's been parodied in the likes of Seinfeld.
[1:48:24] It was solely responsible for a resurgence in huge public
[1:48:27] interest in the case, bringing it back into public
[1:48:29] consciousness. Countless documentaries and
[1:48:31] books have been made as a result.
[1:48:33] Stone's film made the subject of bankable piece of IP, and I
[1:48:36] don't think that Stone could have ever predicted the
[1:48:38] intensity of the interest in the film and subject.
[1:48:41] But I'm certainly was thrilled in one way with the scrutiny as
[1:48:44] it challenged the governmental position on the assassination,
[1:48:46] something that I believe was his ultimate goal.
[1:48:49] Oh yeah, yeah, definitely was. When the scrutiny of the film
[1:48:52] was at fever pitch, Warner spearheaded the campaign to free
[1:48:55] the files, urging Congress to release classified files on the
[1:48:58] assassination, which weren't planned to be made publicly
[1:49:00] available until 2029. And this was done to take away a
[1:49:04] slight focus from the film. And it ultimately led to the
[1:49:07] passing of the John F Kennedy Assassination Records Collection
[1:49:10] Act. And this led to the release of
[1:49:12] millions of previously classified documents held on the
[1:49:15] assassination, either directly or indirectly.
[1:49:18] In Stone asserted that the material people was under lock
[1:49:20] and key because there was something to hide.
[1:49:22] I mean, you talk about legacy and influence.
[1:49:24] Yeah. Wow.
[1:49:24] I. Mean.
[1:49:27] Yeah, it was also agreed that all the files will be
[1:49:30] declassified by 2017, something with Trump delayed by three
[1:49:33] years due to national security campaigns.
[1:49:36] Biden got the ball rolling again, and in March 2025, Trump
[1:49:39] ordered the declassification of 10s of thousands of pages, most
[1:49:42] of which revealed very little. Although Trump did weighed in.
[1:49:45] He said that he'd always agreed that Oswald shut JFK was he
[1:49:49] helped. I guess we all want to know
[1:49:51] that. Thanks, Donald.
[1:49:52] And you? Know that's the power of cinema.
[1:49:55] This is possibly the single most famous moment in 20th century
[1:49:58] history, and Oliver Stone has embedded it in public
[1:50:01] consciousness even further with this film.
[1:50:03] Yeah, what a legacy. That's unbelievable.
[1:50:12] Thank you for listening everyone, We hope you had a
[1:50:14] great time. All of the episodes featured
[1:50:16] today are still available for anyone to listen to wherever you
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[1:50:25] Podcasts, YouTube, and Patreon. You can listen to endless hours
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[1:50:31] movie community. We will be back in two weeks
[1:50:34] firing on all cylinders when John, Matt and Westie will be
[1:50:37] going behind the scenes on Stonewall classic The Bridge on
[1:50:40] the River Kwai and that will be followed 2 weeks later by our
[1:50:43] behind the scenes show on The Fugitive.
[1:50:45] And for our patrons, there's a brand new episode of The Watch
[1:50:48] List out next week. And two weeks after that we're
[1:50:50] talking about two classic Bond films on double feature From
[1:50:53] Russia With Love and The Spy Who Love Me.
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[1:51:44] a wrap. Everyone.
[1:51:45] Thank you for all of your support in 2025.
[1:51:48] Loads more to come for the rest of the year and beyond.
[1:51:51] Don't forget to come back in two weeks for the Bridge on the
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