Digger and Primetime, plus Chicago International Film Fest Preview | #1084

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Film Spot 26 to receive 15% off.

What kind of a show you guys put not here today?

You're not interested in art?

No.

Well, look, we're going to do this thing.

We're going to have a conversation.

From Chicago, this is Film Spotting.

I'm Adam Kempinar.

And I'm Josh Larson.

I'm Matt Gella.

Sugarcoated.

We're in a tight spot.

Now, do me a favor.

Imagine they're one of those people.

I think the Digger Rockwell is saving himself.

I want to send the harshest attacks I can expect from those folks who think that I'm

skill-mayors.

Tom Cruise joined forces with two-time best director Oscar winner Alejandro Gonzales

and Yari too for Digger.

And the result was one of the biggest box office failures of the year.

File this one under Failure's Worth Talking About.

We've got a review.

Miles Robert Pattinson in prime time, a preview of the Chicago International Film Festival

and more ahead on Film Spotting.

Welcome to Film Spotting.

Josh, we have two hometown Film Festival coming up, the Chicago International Film Festival.

In October, we will have a few picks, recommendations to have on your radar as we always do at this

time.

And then Iowa City's Re-Focus Film Festival coming up the following weekend in Iowa City

chances to see us.

Certainly there.

You're coming to Iowa City.

Michael Phillips may be here.

Matt Singer is going to be here.

Sam Van Hogren will also check in.

It's going to be a big Film Spotting family reunion.

How about that?

I'm going to wait to see you all in Iowa City.

And yeah, before that, I'll be hitting the Chicago Fest.

What a great month.

I mean, it's going to be a riches overflowing cinematically for me this October.

Some fest talk ahead.

Also your thoughts on Robert Pattinson in prime time regrettably.

I still haven't had a chance to see it yet.

We'll have poll results.

Your responses to our poll question that tied in with Matt Singer's new book, Funny Business.

It is out now and more.

A reminder that you can watch us talk Film Spotting is now a video podcast.

You can see the show over at youtube.com slash Film Spotting.

First up, Digger.

Mr. President, 55 minutes ago, my company informed me of the explosion on our rig.

Causing massive water displacement and triggering the tsunami.

What was this to make casualties in hundreds of thousands?

Now Digger here got us into the specimen.

Digger is going to dig us out.

What the hell is that?

A thing is huge.

For some perhaps many, Alejandro Gonzales in Yari to use new film Digger may mirror the

arc of his career as a filmmaker.

It begins one way, then becomes increasingly affected over stuff and overblown.

Sure, his 2000 debut Amores Perro showed some formal ingenuity linking three separate

stories via a car crash, but his work sense, including films such as Babel, Birdman, and

the Revenant, has increased in grandiosity and according to his detractors, Pomposity.

In his letterbox review of Digger, Isaac Feldberg writes, The joke is on us for seeking entertainment

from an artist who'd rather make art to endure.

Which speaks succinctly to my main issue within Yari to over the years, his apparent belief

in the wisdom that is born from suffering.

The more punishment he inflicts on his characters, the more edified and enlightened we are as an

audience.

But hear me when I say, I come to praise in Yari to not to bury him, at least for this

setup, because Digger is taking such a brutal beating at the box office that the story of

its failure could be fodder for a future in Yari to movie.

Just before taping, I saw this from deadline.

Tom Cruise's Digger to lose around 150 million.

The Washington Post, Digger is Tom Cruise's biggest opening weekend flop in almost 20 years.

And then there are critics like Feldberg and the Boston Globes Odie Henderson, also writing

on letterboxed, who gave it half a star, proclaiming note in all caps.

This is really a zero star review, but letterbox doesn't recognize no stars.

I didn't know that.

Okay.

I already know, Josh, that you have some positive things to say about Digger, which stars

Cruise as an aging oil tycoon whose recklessness may have set in motion a global disaster.

And that's about all I can say about the plot with getting into major spoilers.

Suffice it to say, the dig or die tagline on the posters is at best semi misleading.

And the official one sentence synopsis, the most powerful man in the world embarks on

a frantic mission to prove he is humanity's savior before the disaster.

He's unleashed destroys everything is completely so what I want you to tell me, Josh, isn't

just something you liked about Digger.

I want to know what you are grateful to in your E2 for.

What made this experience worth enduring?

What made this experience one that you would even recommend others should try enduring?

It's funny.

I just recommended it to my in-laws over the weekend.

There you go.

Was not tracking the box office.

That's fascinating to me in terms of, I mean, I'm not surprised this isn't a hit, but

man does it speak to the lack of pull.

Cruise has these days outside of a familiar IP project.

That's a conversation for another day, perhaps.

What did I like about Digger?

I did like Digger.

I wish I could be full-throated embrace that it's a complete success.

And the detractors don't know what they're talking about.

Unfortunately, no.

I was miserable for the first 20 minutes of this movie.

And I have had better experiences within Yari Two films than I would say most critics

in the past.

Not all of his films.

I think the criticisms you just quoted are overall probably fair.

But I didn't go in as an in-yari two-hater.

Man, did I feel like one for the first 20 minutes?

There is a twist, an affordable inversion.

We will get to after a little talk here.

So we won't spoil anything at the top.

And I think, you know, the framing of your question in Yari Two, how much am I going to

credit him for that?

He is one of the co-writers.

I believe there are three others.

Who's invention it was to make this break?

I'm not sure.

I do think it is one of the key strengths of the film.

Without it.

I would not have enjoyed this movie at all.

We'll get into why that worked for me when we discussed the twist.

Here are a couple other things though.

I would say Riz Ahmed is one of the supporting performers here.

He is the one who manages to nail the tone that this entire enterprise needed to really

work.

And as far as I can tell, he's the only one who is able to hit it.

And this goes for Jesse Plemons.

It goes for Sandra Hulair.

It goes for Michael Stulberg.

I would say it goes for John Goodman.

So much talent in this cast.

And there's a lot of flame.

But Riz Ahmed plays basically the scientist on Digger's staff who tries to sound the

alarm over this, you know, devastating catastrophe and is repeatedly ignored.

The way Ahmed moves from that alarm to panic to indignation to despair, he manages the

tragic comic tenor that I think Digger was going for.

And I think only Ahmed manages to really capture.

But he's in the movie Faramau.

So I enjoyed following him and that performance.

The real star of this movie for me is the production design.

And I want to look at the credits here.

In the credits, the production design is led by Dennis Gasner and Richard Johnson.

I was endlessly fascinated even when I was thoroughly annoyed at these sets, the again,

this tiptoes into spoiler territory.

But when the movie opens up, let's say, so does the production design in continuously

fascinating ways.

And the scene everyone is going to be talking about where Digger gives this speech to a United

Nations type assembly.

We can talk about in terms of Cruises performance.

We should probably turn to that next, actually.

It's not only his performance in that scene, but this theater in the round venue that it

takes place.

It's a single take.

So we get a full sense of the space.

This ashen color scheme that the seats are painted, the walls are painted.

Everyone casts to be in the seats is ashen.

It is, it's like something from the Swedish director Roy Anderson.

I have the same thought.

Yeah, it's just stunning in the lack of power, the height to it, the circular nature of

it.

It's depth even.

Yeah.

And there is so much work in almost every frame of Digger that your eye will gravitate

towards.

And it's also interesting thematically in ways we can maybe touch on about this.

Did you mention did I miss it?

Lubetski, Emmanuel Lubetski shooting it?

Of course it looks very good as you would expect.

It does look good, but it looks distinct.

It's almost also this speaks to the ashen quality.

It's like drained of color in a way that is not particularly attractive, but purposeful,

striking, consistent.

Yes.

So I would say there are production qualities in Digger that are quite compelling top

level craft work being done here.

Rizad Med's performance is really good.

And then that twist itself for me gave me enough to chew on where I was like, you know

what?

A lot of this movie doesn't work.

I'm glad I saw it.

It's making me think about a lot of questions pertaining to where we're at right now.

And it was worth my time.

It was, it was really angering me in my time.

And it turned out to be, I would say, worth my time.

Questions is going to be the word of the day here, I think, for this conversation.

Maybe people who were familiar with your review and knew that it was at least mildly favorable

thought that there was finally going to be a fight.

And Adam and Josh throw down because they know how I feel about Inyari too and all of

his previous films except for Amoreus Peros.

And Josh, it turns out I actually may have liked this film more than you.

Wow.

Okay.

I think that's the case.

And I want to come back to Ahmed and Cruz.

We'll certainly get into them a little bit more.

Maybe after we get into spoilers later in the conversation, I wasn't as miserable as

you for the first 20 minutes.

I was sure that I was going to be miserable if it was going to continue on that path.

And this is one of those rare movies.

We've talked about this before.

We don't generally read reviews or listen to reviews or even try to watch trailers or

know anything about movies before we go in.

Yet you can't help but have some sense of what a movie's general storyline may be or

what the overall tone may be.

And with Digger, it really is a mystery.

You really, at least I had no sense at all what I was in for other than maybe seeing

a picture of Cruz in his makeup and the prosthetics and the title.

And so for those first 20 minutes, you're just kind of getting your bearings and trying

to figure out, okay, what kind of movie am I watching?

And at first, you think I had the same thought you did.

Many others did.

Perhaps I thought, okay, I'm watching a movie in the same vein as Adam McKay's Don't Look

Up.

And after about 15 minutes, it becomes a movie that's Don't Look Up merging into something

perhaps like Dr. Strangelove, okay?

So where else is this going to go?

I'm still interested through these first 20 or 25 minutes.

I knew though, or I thought, that I was going to be miserable if it just stayed on that path

the entire rest of the film.

But then as you said, something happens.

There is a formal break and maybe not surprisingly for people who have seen the movie and for

people who know this show and know my interests, that is where I became much more engaged in

this film.

It is hard to get fully into, at least for me, it's definitely hard to get into all of

the questions I have about this movie.

Questions that I mean that very much in a positive way.

And all the praise I do want to say about this movie without getting into spoilers.

But I will do my best to dance around it.

I really did feel grateful.

That's why I'm using this terminology, Josh, because I was so surprised to actually be

thankful for once to and yari to walking out of the theater after seeing one of his films.

I was grateful that he made a movie that I actually wanted to see again.

Don't know when that will happen, but I would happily go see Digger again.

I would never imagine that would be the case.

I've had fun talking to people about it.

I have someone in my life in my wife Sarah who I know and she knows we'll never see this

movie.

So I can just talk at her about it.

I can spoil it for her.

I can sort of be a first round of this conversation because it will be incredibly one way, but

at least I can work some things out because she could be a sounding board.

She's never going to see it, right?

I want to talk to people about this movie.

How many movies, even this year so far, Josh, have I seen where I've been like, okay,

I really can't wait to talk about it.

It's mostly been the older films that we've been having Sacred Cow reviews of that I've

been dying to talk about, not newer films.

I'm grateful that he made a movie that not only provokes questions about the world and

yes, the times we live in and that future generations may inherit questions that I don't

have answers to and that are worthy of examination.

But also questions and this is where it speaks to my interest.

Questions about the function and the practice of art in bleak and hopeless times specifically.

And on an even more basic level, it has left me.

I've been doing this now for two days, 48 hours straight since seeing the movie.

It's left me thinking about all of those things and I'm going to later get into even more

direct questions within the ones I've mentioned here, but it's left me evaluating my own

judgment.

Josh, it's made me think about what really is a good or bad movie.

And I do know that that's good.

I know that that's good, not bad.

You've gotten to the heart of it and what I found compelling as well.

Who is determining what is a bad movie and what is their experience?

What are they bringing to a movie?

I mean, these are all things that digger touches on that I too find fascinating.

I think if you know, knowing your interests, maybe I was hoping there was a slight chance

you would be on board with this as well to hear that you like it more than I even expected

is really surprising, but I'm grateful for that.

You mentioned Dr. Strangelove and I think it's a fascinating comparison point not only

for the text of the movie itself, but also the reception because I should clarify a little

bit why those first 20 minutes were strident for me.

And it's because of the volume of the farce of the satire of the humor.

It is based, this is a movie that basically in that section and I should say to Adam, even

after the reveal, things change, but in scenes where it's going for farce, it still operates

at that volume level.

It's not like it turns that down.

And I still towards the end found it grading because it's every character detail, every

joke, every musical cue.

It's all turned up to 11, right?

And it gets to be overbearing.

The example to me that stands out about this, I mentioned Jesse Plemons.

They put a crazy wig on Jesse Plemons.

You don't need to do that.

You never Jesse Plemons has enough unnerving talent in the ability to stand still.

And to me, that's the representative misstep of digger is that they put away on Jesse

Plemons.

We, you know, it's, it's, we don't need it.

Can I, can I counter briefly though and say that although there is fundamental truth in

what you're saying, at the same time, at that point, we are in a state and we understand

enough about the world to know that that character might have a very weird haircut like that,

but even more importantly, at this point, Josh, I have no idea what Jesse Plemons' normal

hair looks like.

It doesn't look like that is my point.

Are you sure?

It's very obvious.

This speaks to, and yes, we will get to prove this performance, the prosthetics element,

right?

It's not only that cruise is wearing these prosthetics and the hair piece to make him

look like his, his hair is thinning.

It's that within the first 10 minutes he takes his shirt off and he goes and stands before

a full length mirror and there are long moments of his trying to pat his hair down.

We know.

We can see it's not Tom Cruise.

You don't have to like literally stop the movie and shove that in our faces.

Okay, I bring all that up to say partly why I resisted the movie at first, but also it

brings me back to the, the Strangelove thing and let me be very clear for people who are

going to lose their minds and not listen to me.

I am not saying digger is as good of a movie as Dr. Strangelove.

No.

It is not.

You do not have anyone working on the level of Peter Sellers.

Dr. Strangelove's production design outpaces and outclasses what we get here in digger.

The humor is sharper and I would say better delivered.

But one reason I do not adore Strangelove, even though I appreciate it greatly better

than digger, like most people do is because of the volume of the jokes and the insistency

of the jokes.

And to my mind, there is a strident quality to Dr. Strangelove that is very similar to

what we get here into picting an apocalyptic end of the world scenario as far as.

And so I was curious, you know, I wonder how Dr. Strangelove was initially received and

you know, didn't spend days doing research, but did find that you had critics like from

completely different vantage points.

So even Basley, rather from New York Times to Pauline Cale, both gave Strangelove mixed

negative reviews and had similar and other critics to had similar reactions that it raised

this terrifying question in a perilous time in history made fun of it and didn't offer

anything encouraging in response or an answer.

And that was curious to me because I'm seeing similar things about digger and that it's

making a joke about environmental collapse, calamity, having fun with it and not really

going anywhere with it.

And obviously, this is something we can talk about more about the twist, but I'm just

bringing that all up to say both what held me back a little bit about it, the style of

humor, not that different from Strangelove and makes me wonder if a movie like digger,

is it possible 30, 40 years from now is looked back similarly to Strangelove in what it

was trying to do about, as you said, the times we live in.

Yeah, I don't know.

The movies are closer to each other, I think, than those comparisons that have been made

recently.

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I'm really glad you brought that up and you talked about whether or not it's going

anywhere because that that actually brings me to the next thing I wanted to say, at least

before we get into spoiler talk.

What about these questions?

What about this idea of whatever it has to say?

I'm not calling out anyone in particular here.

It's just stuff I'm picking up in the ether.

I know I've done it myself, Josh.

I'm sure I have, but I can also tell you that at any time I may have said this, use this

phrase or come close to using it, I've thought about it very carefully because I do think

that this is a crutch that allows the critic a lot of leeway to lava a very damaging grenade

without really having to reckon with the ramifications.

That's when you use the phrase, I don't know that it really adds up to anything or some

variation, which I always interpret to mean you don't think the movie is as smart as

you think it is or as you think it thinks.

Right, right, right.

Big things, big questions, whatever, but doesn't do anything really smart or actually provocative

or edifying with the material.

When you say that, when anybody says that, I mean, my thought is okay, but why is that?

What do we actually expect from an inflammatory trying to be incendiary movie like digger specifically

or from satire generally?

Do we expect strict coherency?

Do we expect cogency?

Do we expect answers?

Do we expect new ideas?

Are we distinguishing answers from new ideas?

Especially when we're talking about things that don't have answers.

If they had answers, we'd have answered them.

Or are the questions enough?

I've seen the complaint, for example, oh, oh, rich people are bad.

Greed is destroying the planet.

We're too dependent on fossil fuels.

Gee, thanks for the enlightenment in your E2.

What about the adage, Josh, that it isn't what it's about, but how it's about it?

Does that apply here?

What if the ideas are, if you're one of those people who believes it, even if you think

the ideas are lightweight or generic or typical conventional, whatever, is the presentation

of those ideas here new and different?

See, the fact is, here I am asking more questions.

That's what I come back to with this movie, is I am constantly still interrogating.

I'm still asking more questions.

I'm happy to tell you, even more of the specific questions, this movie may be considered because

I have a lot of them.

It does just involve spoilers.

I guess I am saying that I refute on some level of the notion that this movie doesn't

add up to anything.

I don't think that's fair with a film like this.

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that's an argument I've used as well.

The movie is not as smart as it thinks it is.

That's also an experience of the beholder thing, too, because perhaps a movie is tackling

a subject that you have spent personally a lot of time thinking about and processing.

It doesn't say anything to you.

It doesn't mean it might not say something new on that topic to the person next to you.

These are the sorts of thoughts that apply to any work of art, honestly.

I think digger, to your point about one of the first movies this year, that's making

you process these questions, that is to its credit.

This is one of the movies that's one of the things it is interested in.

It came to my mind as well.

One of the programs I just finished, the Art and Theology Masters program, one of the things

we spent a lot of time talking about is both Affordance Theory and Affect Theory.

This idea of what does a movie afford to a certain audience, given who they are, where

they came from, but also what the movie itself, how it's constructed, and also how is

an audience member affected by passing maybe their intellectual responses, a more visceral,

not even emotional, but just like a subterranean response to a movie.

I think both of those apply, could apply in different ways to something like digger in the

ways you're talking about, about the movie not being as smart as it thinks it is potentially.

But it's also, these are questions.

Digger is asking, literally asking.

Yes, literally asking.

Is does this bad piece of art, will identify that bad piece of art eventually?

Does it have any value to some people, even though it might not have value to others?

Does the time this art is produced make a difference?

If the art sticks around long enough, does that alter?

You're spoiling some of my questions for spoils, Josh.

Yes.

So before we lose some listeners who don't want it to be spoiled, let's talk a little more about

crews.

I think we can do that.

Can I at least, yeah, can I say this because you brought up on med and this will,

this will probably allow us to transition or for me to toss the ball over to you with crews.

Because I might be higher on the crews performance and it sounds like you are.

We're on the same page with on med.

I think there's no doubt it's a standout performance.

He's very good.

And one of the reasons it's a standout performance is because he's by far the best member of the

supporting cast.

He's got the juiciest part of anybody in the supporting cast.

He gets to be the realist character of anybody in the supporting cast.

He gets to display the most range from having the most real internal emotions and getting to

be this kind of watchdog cautionary character, but also get to go, you know, full on into

drunken drunken buffoon territory at one point right.

And he gets to also rampage and and and make big proclamations.

He gets to do it all in this in this role and he does it.

He really nails it.

And you're right.

I didn't really enjoy John Goodman's character and his performance then so much.

I've never said that before about a John Goodman performance.

Sandra Fuller, who's an amazing actress, is largely wasted in this movie.

I think her character unfortunately, this is the limitation of the writing.

That character is just largely asked to be hysterical.

That that's kind of her only defining trait is just she's between moments of being hysterical

or angry most of the time.

So I didn't find her all that intriguing.

So Ahmed is by far the most interesting supporting character.

And he may be the most interesting character in the film.

If that's your feeling or if your feeling is he's giving the best performance in the movie.

I won't begrudge you that but I think we do also have to acknowledge

the degree of difficulty of that performance is not on the level of

of what crews has to do.

Oh sure of course.

As digger carrying the entire film and being in almost every frame of the movie.

And it's not just that though.

When we when we think about the scenes that they have together.

For example, I think one of the better scenes in the movie when they're on an airplane together.

Yeah, that's good.

Acting right across from each other.

A scene that does feel very much like it just occurred to me a scene out of a Wes Anderson film.

And maybe that's why I like it so much.

Both of those characters, both of those performances feel like they'd be at home in a

Wes Anderson movie.

It's not as if Riz Ahmed to me is giving a different kind of performance than crews is there.

Whereas acting crews under the table there.

Crews is absolutely holding his own if not being the dominant force in that scene,

drawing something out of Riz Ahmed.

So I do at least want to say that.

That I think what's being asked of crews here is still immense.

And I think he mostly delivers on that.

And I think where he may fall short, where he may fall short.

This is what we can dig into later.

That that either is a limitation of the script.

Or he's perhaps playing into exactly what the script is asking of him.

Yeah, we're getting into tricky spoiler territory here.

What I will say about crews is that the commitment it requires to pull off this high wire act.

I would never have doubted.

But it's still a thrill to see him pull it off.

Even if him hitting 11 consistently gets to be a little grading,

the fact that he's able to do it while holding the camera,

I'll go back to that single take speech he gives in front of the assembly.

It's mesmerizing to watch him hold the camera.

And he even he grabs a cell phone at one point and then turns it on himself.

And we see him performing to the cell phone.

It's just a high wire act.

You can't help but admire it no matter what you think of the entire film.

I do wish it had not been over and maybe this is more than a year or two thing.

Overinsistent in some ways.

Where it's hard because the character is overinsistent.

You absolutely see what they're going for and why they're pushing it this way.

The other thing I think it is lacking a little bit.

And this comes down to the filmmaking from Inyari too as well.

Is just the natural sense of comic timing.

You bring up less Anderson.

And the one thing you could never accuse his movies of lacking is precise comic timing.

You know, actors who are in his films know they're going to have to be able to hit these marks.

It's just precisely where it needs to be.

And I would say for a lot of the gags here, both crews is just a bit off.

Or the filmmaking is a bit off in landing those punchlines.

I think crews is at his best in moments that only exist because of the twist this movie takes.

I don't disagree about that Josh and I also don't disagree about the timing.

Though I do want to make clear at least from my perspective that I think it's

misleading to suggest that crews is performance.

And we may disagree on on the scale here and that's fine.

We often disagree on the scale when it comes to performances.

I think it's misleading to suggest that crews is at 11 or near 11 all the time.

I think the the plane example I gave is one such case, but that's not the only one.

I think even when he is being in the first 20 minutes, when he's being when we're being

introduced to Digger and it is comedic and it's a little, well, it's definitely farcical,

you're still seeing a relatively subdued character.

You you have to have somewhere to go with Digger.

It even within that sequence where he has to get bombastic and then the filmmaking has to get

bombastic with him and it turns into that that one or that that long take that follows him through

the the speech.

That has to have some some peak to scale and he he scales it like just when you actually think

he's hit 11. He then somehow dials it up to 12 or 13.

He doesn't he doesn't start there.

You know, he starts at seven or eight and he's he's previously been at three or four.

So I think he I think crews does know.

Know how to how to dial that performance and there is a modulation.

There's some modulation.

I do.

Let's take a moment to thank the film spotting family Josh and then we will come back.

We will dig into this movie a little bit more.

Yeah, good plan.

We do want to say thank you so much to our family members.

Membership is the largest source of support for the show.

It really keeps us doing what we've been doing for over 20 years now.

So thank you to family plus members Ricky Kendall in the UK.

That's a familiar name to listeners because Ricky is two time madness bracket champion.

Also, we want to thank another family plus member that would be Conan neutron in Milwaukee.

Now Kendall wrote in said he found the show when he heard me discussing film spotting with

fellow critic Mark Kermode.

And so decided to listen.

I think the first episode I heard was the terminator sacred cow and I've listened to every episode

since favorite part of the show as a double madness champion.

It should really be that.

However, it's really the sacred cow reviews and innovative top fives that keep me coming back.

A particular favorite was things we learned from podcasting about movies from August 2018.

A movie that Ricky credits with becoming a cinephile, seven samurai, and a book about movies

or movie making.

Ricky recommends Paul Schrader's transcendental style in film.

Did you notice how casually he had just how smoothly Ricky worked in being a double madness champion?

Josh, I like that very well done.

Very, very humble Ricky.

Yes, humble champion.

I mean, come on.

If I had won it two times and I think twice in a row,

it was 700 800 people entering somehow he wins it twice in a row.

You deserve to brag a little bit.

Conan says I found the show via a random review on letterbox that I agreed with.

I want to say it was RRR a movie I was ready to go to war for that year.

I'm very critical of movie shows and find most of them bland, safe, and as Douglas Adams says,

mostly harmless.

What can I say?

I'm part of a movie show myself and have stringent standards.

I was an early adopter for everything everywhere all at once and I love that you covered it in

depth back when it seemed like no shows were doing so.

Favorite part of the show?

I can't pick out a specific one off the top of my head, but I will say I listen

intently whenever Michael Phillips is on and look forward to the year and list from everybody

associated.

Review you got wrong.

Yeah, we've heard this before.

Superman 2025.

I can't remember listening to an episode of a show and more wanting to have an intervention

with the host.

Well, I wasn't mad.

He says I was just disappointed.

Oh, how much.

That's the best.

He knows that it's more.

Movie I credit with becoming a cinephile, M, and a favorite book about movies or movie

making is The Kid Stays in the Picture.

Thank you, Conan and Condole for joining the family for all those years of

listening.

You can follow Conan on Letterbox at Conan, Newtron.

Kendall is apparently too busy preparing for madness each year, not on Letterbox.

Just show that's that's how you do it.

You have to train and you have to be diligent.

Let it be a minute.

Don't we both rely and I know you and Sam do for planning the brackets on Letterbox

history and ratings and views to make so many decisions.

This is even more gallean that he wins.

Yeah, he's not even not Letterbox.

He doesn't even use that resource.

Maybe that's the secret actually.

Interesting.

More about joining the film spotting family is available at filmspottingfamily.com.

You can learn about all the benefits there like ad free and early listening,

the weekly newsletter access to the complete film spotting archive,

the film spotting family own discord monthly bonus shows and more again.

That's film spottingfamily.com.

Josh in addition to finally catching up with prime time,

the other mission I have at the theater these days is to catch up with

the social reckoning ahead of next week's show.

And those are both movies I might be able to see for free because I am a regal

unlimited member regal unlimited is the all you can watch movie subscription pass

that pays for itself in just two visits.

Regal is offering our listeners endless movies for less and it's definitely less

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Just use that code film spot 26 to claim your discount.

It's ridiculous and it's scary.

It's funny and it's stupid.

It's a lot of fun to watch.

I hope the one who's going to keep us all from shaking into chaos.

Let's get back to Digger Josh.

I've been teasing it.

I suppose I should actually share some of those questions that I'm thinking about.

But I guess we have to get into or at least mention even though people are listening to the

spoilers because this is spoiler territory.

Full on right now.

Don't listen to this unless you've seen Digger or you don't care that the movie is being

spoiled for you.

We should at least acknowledge even if people have seen it and they know the twist.

We should acknowledge that what happens about 25 or so minutes in is that we realize that

this is a play.

This is a theatrical production.

The president John Goodman is standing next to Digger and we realize that they're looking out at

not his not his land but a set that is showing his land and they are on a stage.

And this is all a theatrical production.

And I don't know Josh.

I can't really remember and it isn't necessarily relevant.

I don't know if we understand then or shortly after or down the road a little bit.

But at some point we do come to realize that this isn't a fictional production they are putting on.

But these events he is playing Digger a real person within the context of this movie.

And they are telling a story that really did occur.

We don't know for at least some of the running time to what extent these events occurred.

And we do know that they are taking some creative license as any production will.

But we understand that it is at least rooted in real events.

So once it gets meta that is unsurprisingly when I became more interested in the movie.

And we understand that Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise is playing an actor named Curtis Markson.

And Curtis Markson is playing Digger.

And the movie is cross cutting effectively between the world of the play Curtis Markson.

And the world of Markson playing Digger in which it becomes a movie world and the movie world

where the camera is taking on what seems to be then the movie is if we were watching the movie Digger.

Right, versus a theatrical production of Digger.

That is effectively it is the theater's version of events.

We have to believe that.

That's why he's got an animatronic cat in those first 20 minutes.

Right, because it's a fake cat.

But nevertheless, whenever we're seeing the movie world, one of the things we have to reconcile

is is this really what happened or is this is this the theaters the playwright's version of events?

And of course, I think we have to believe it is more of that.

Right.

Yeah, it's definitely a farcical recreation of events that actually happen.

And one of the things I did appreciate is how it would often, I think the best parts are when

it clearly moves us from the stage or backstage into this movie world that is still the stage.

It's working.

I think it's more sophisticated speaking of what say, understand in Asteroid City,

but it's making similar moves.

Similar.

And here's where the production design comes in.

I love it.

Absolutely.

This is a multimedia theater experience.

So it's very complicated with projected images.

There's there's cinematic lighting.

Minatures.

I think you mentioned matte painting backgrounds.

I mean, this is incredibly rich.

And part of the fun is seeing what theatrical elements are being employed to create this world

that is now the movie we're watching.

I think that is very creative just on a formal

aesthetic.

That's it.

The clever ways that we are brought in and out of the movie world back into the world of the stage

never ceased to amaze me.

The scale of the theatrical production and the design, you are absolutely right.

It's immense and it's impressive.

And it's one of the magnificent elements of this film.

Magnificence is the best word I can think of for it.

I would be shocked if this film isn't recognized for some of those technical awards

end of the year.

It certainly will be on my Chicago Film Critics Ballot.

In terms of the things that I am, I already mentioned some of them more broadly,

Josh.

But the things that I'm thinking about with this movie, and this will hopefully open up

some more lines of discussion for us.

The things that I've really been wrestling with since seeing this movie.

And why I'm ultimately recommending the film, even though I can definitely get into one aspect

of the movie where I think we see in Yari Tuz instinct come through.

And it did distract and ultimately hurt my experience overall.

One of the questions is, and this goes back to this aspect of climate change,

that some may find a little bit pedestrian.

But for me, hearing, hearing, Cruz's character verbalize at the way he did,

as emphatically as he did, and actually have to think about just how hypocritical are we?

How willing are we to sacrifice comfort and convenience for the survival of the planet?

I am thinking about that.

I mentioned earlier, does art have a purpose?

Does art actually have a purpose in a hopeless world?

Forget in a world like the one we feel like we're living in now,

where things don't make sense, and we feel like we're heading towards some kind of dystopia.

What if we're actually living in a dystopia?

I haven't thought of that before, really, Josh, to be honest with you.

That's a new question for me.

What if we're actually living in a dystopia?

What is the function and purpose of art then?

Can a play or any kind of art offer true, meaningful catharsis?

Is it, if it does, is it lasting, or is it fleeting, or does the length of the catharsis

even matter?

Is it enough that it's fleeting?

Here's the one that is verbalized in the film, and yes, does it bother me a little bit?

That it has to be verbalized?

Sure.

Yeah.

Do I still consider it something I'm glad I'm thinking about?

Where is the line between satire and farce?

Where is that line for a writer?

Where is it for a director?

Where is it for an actor?

Where is it for the audience?

What responsibility does the artist have when presenting tragic works of nonfiction?

To the audience, to the families involved, to any other direct

parties.

I think it's a powerful moment when Clarkson pushes back on the portrayal of Digger and

company as clowns to the director.

Yeah, to his director.

Yeah, and he has a line, something like not to them they weren't.

And what he's saying is not that they're worthy of more respect,

it's that they actually believed in what they were all doing.

That's what makes them all the more awful.

They in many cases, and this is the case with some of the characters in the movie,

not Digger.

He has a different ideology, but some of them they believe God is on their side.

Their cause is always justified.

There is an ideology driving what they do.

They aren't just evil and they aren't just buffoons.

That's what's so damn troubling about it.

And this speaks to the times in which we live, right?

And so for those saying, it doesn't add up to anything.

As if there wasn't anything at all to take away,

here's something else I took away, even if it does here again,

take a character to literally verbalize it.

When Kenny, the Jesse Pleumann's character,

intervenes in the argument between Markson and Hannah,

Sophie Wilde, the director, he says what?

He says, you're both right.

You're both right now go do the play.

And my read on that or the way I'm still thinking about that is think about how much time

and energy and resources are wasted on arguments that are mostly semantic in nature.

And it's not even right versus left or conservative versus liberal.

It's like Markson versus Sophie.

People on the same side.

It could be the heart of this show, Adam.

Maybe so.

People who are on the same side.

People who have the same super objective, they both think what they're doing is important.

They both want to serve the audience and serve a truth in some way.

But because they disagree on some part of the process,

on how they get there, they disagree on what satire is,

on what farces, how they should be performing it,

the ways they describe it,

the entire enterprise could collapse in that moment.

I'm sorry.

This is speaking to a fundamental truth of our time.

We can't get out of our own way.

Meanwhile, the entire enterprise may actually collapse around us,

may actually collapse.

That for me was something I hadn't been faced with watching in a movie before.

And that alone might be enough, but I've already read enough.

Eat other questions.

It's made me think about.

Well, now I've gone from happy that you like this movie along with me,

happily surprised to wishing you hadn't,

because we had the same exact thought process throughout this film.

The moral hypocrisy question.

Yes, of course, I've thought about that before.

It's been expressed before.

It's been pointed out before.

Yes.

But this is where Tom Cruise's performance,

the way he drives at home with that commitment and that passion was fresh and new

and made me think about those questions.

A new, the role of farce is a fascinating one.

This explores,

here's the clever element of all of that for me, though, Adam,

is the extra little bit where they acknowledge,

or at least some people involved,

that this might come in the conversation where Cruise's actor questions how his character has been

envisioned.

There's some acknowledgement by people involved with this,

that this might be a bad play.

They might be putting on a piece of crap.

And it's a 25th anniversary revival production,

I think it's referred to as a cult film.

It has its own reputation.

I thought that was pretty ingenious.

That digger got ahead of the bad reviews,

in a way, by acknowledging what we might be doing is going to be called bad.

Then the next question, does that matter?

Of course it matters.

This is why we have a show to debate if we think it's good or bad,

and why or why not.

So I'm not throwing that out, but it's a larger existential artistic question,

what is good or bad and does it matter?

And in the context of a society, as we see here, in the end,

when we leave the theater, this is a preview audience that we've been watching this with,

that hit me in the gut the way the movie ended.

Yes.

That way, because we've heard this argument that even bad art might serve a purpose,

because it's offering catharsis.

I think this is something Plemons character expresses as well.

You know, he says something about it's important to have this play for the historical record,

and then also it's important because some audiences find it cathartic.

I think he says even he did, even though it was about his family,

to laugh at these men who destroyed the world.

And just when you think, okay, that makes sense, and you see the audience responding,

we hear something level four over the loudspeaker.

They all quietly put on their gas masks and walk out into what we think of as a movie dystopia.

You know, armed guards, dark skies, just brutal city half falling apart.

And I don't know if that's good or bad, if that makes digger better or worse,

but I know it made me kind of have this thud, carry around this thud with me out of the theater,

that was more interesting to me and provocative to me and compelling to me

than if the movie had just wanted to say yes, see art is cathartic, and these people feel better now.

I think it's acknowledging things are not that simple ever.

Yeah, if it had ended that way, honestly, despite everything I've said up to this point,

it might have been just submarineed my entire reaction to the movie.

I think this is another tantalizing question the movie raises.

How are we supposed to read the end of the film?

The audience has everything you said is true, Josh, the audience has the moment that

Kenny describes to us they should have or that we think they they baby could have.

They then have to walk out into the real world and that real world is what you said, it's this

dystopia. It is it is one that has been irrevocably changed by the events that we saw depicted.

And it is a stomach punch because we know that real things have transpired, but we don't know,

at least I as a viewer had no sense that it was how bad it got. Yeah, there's no way we expect

that it looks like that. It obviously then undercuts any potential real uplift about the power of art.

And that does not only seem appropriate, it seems as I'm suggesting necessary.

But this goes back to one of my questions about catharsis and how important it is and the lasting

or fleeting effects of it. What we don't really know and I think I think this is one of the ambiguities

I'm ascribing to the movie anyway wanting us to think about is what we don't really know, Josh,

is you could just then go, oh, the movie then is intentionally being cynical or trying to even out

the inspiration with this cynical bleak ending or it's adding in an element of ambiguity by having

these people all walk out into this real world. And what we don't really fully know and what we have

to consider is what are they taking with them out into the world now? How have they or have they not

been changed at all? Is it different for some members of the theater than others? Is it for some

something that will have an impact on them for others will it be something that you know what,

they have their little bit of entertainment? They got to disappear. They got to disappear into

that world to escape for a little bit or they got to act out their rage, the fantasy of revenge.

And that was something too and that matters. And then you know what, they may never think about

that play or those characters again and then they'll just go on with their lives. It may be different,

like I said, for different people. I think we have to we have to think about that and that ambiguity is

is a strength of the film. Yeah, totally agree. It's very much about how art and even bad art maybe

affords different audiences, different experiences. Depends on who they are, what they've been through

when they're experiencing it all, all of that plays a factor. And I didn't find the ending to be

cynical in a sense of like a joke, like an ironic joke necessarily. Yeah. I found it to be more

thought provoking than that. And you know, this speaks going back to the strange love experience.

The only reason, not the only reason, I would posit a significant reason why strange love is so

revered today beyond the artistic value of what it adds on screen is that it is it can now be watched

and has been able to be watched probably since what 1970 through sweaty laughs, through laughs that are

like, you know what? We made it during that tense nuclear standoff era. And now it's it's not comfortable

to watch a joke movie about that, but we can do it because we survived. I think maybe part of the

visceral response to digger is that we are in the midst of it now. Yeah. This is like watching

strange love when it came out. Yeah. Right now. It seems raw to raw. It's raw because we weren't

wearing gas masks, but it wasn't too long ago. We were wearing masks everywhere. Different reason

than the scenario in the film, but still the sense of global upending of things, you know, has

been a real thing. Yes. And now add to that the political tumult that we've been enduring as well.

So, you know, I do think it's a very different thing to watch a movie like digger right now

when we're in the midst of it as opposed to having made it, hopefully we will, through this apocalyptic

era. I think that's all very accurate. I wonder if this might also be part of it. Another potential

difference. And here's part of the paradox of my response to the film that my favorite line in

the entire movie, the one I said was was so provocative for me about them both being right.

Now go do the play. That's the kind of line that you would never get in Dr. Strangelove. Right.

It's definitely on the nose here, but it is on the nose and it's so sincere. It's so earnest.

And you don't get that in a movie like Dr. Strangelove with its brand of satire. And I wonder if the

combination of how triggering this movie is trying to be while also simultaneously trying to be

sincere, like have elements of actual heart to it, which is something we don't expect or maybe want

from satire. That may be something that is is vexing people a little bit with this movie like

possible. It's another thing that just is a conundrum as people are trying to wrap their head

around this film. Yeah. And that sincerity brings me back to the point I never got to about

Cruises performance. And when I think he's at his best, it is when he is playing Curtis Markson.

And a very like minor subplot is that he and his wife, they're trying to track down their adult

daughter who has been flying by plane, I think from Jamaica. There's a storm. They can't find

her plane. And while he's going through this tech rehearsal, he's making these calls and trying

to track her down. It's, you know, you could say it's a bit of an easy way to lend some humanity

to the character. I think that's clearly the purpose. Cruises is excellent in those scenes. And

I'm probably over praising it only because, you know, what have we had four mission and

possible in the last 10 years? I don't know that we've had a cruise movie where he's a real human

in the last 10 years. And it was just especially in contrast with his performance as digger,

this caricature, purposeful caricature, to see him also scale, you know, below zero on the range

and just play a regular guy who's worried about his kid. It was just kind of refreshing to see

that cruise to be reminded. Reminded, we know cruise can do that. It's just been a while, right?

And, you know, it speaks to your point about the modulation. All the different scales he's

hitting from this normal concern dad who happens to be an actor to this, you know, insane clown

tycoon yet yet. Here's another paradox, perhaps. I too like those scenes and I like how cruise

performs those scenes. And yet you're speaking to one of my biggest issues with the film.

The injection of this plot element of this storyline. This is a little awkward. In Yari to

instinct to hammer us with something potentially tragic. And to be manipulative, I think comes in to

play. Unfortunately, this potential loss is something that hangs over that character and the play.

And then hangs over the movie. The actual movie we're watching digger for the rest of the film

after it's introduced. And I tried as I was watching it. I tried to justify it. I tried to think

as the screenwriters were thinking, Josh, and I thought, okay, there is an intersection as this

movie is blurring all these lines, these metal lines. There is an intersection with the plain

travel. And there's an intersection with the storms and the storms that are happening within the

the real events of digger, that digger world. And then the the flight out of Jamaica, I don't think

that the real world events that crossover and that overlap is enough. And there's also the overlap

with the Kenny character at the end. I don't know that any of that does pay off in a way.

Yeah, to quite justify the emotional manipulation of it. It didn't for me. It really rubbed me

the wrong way. I could with this movie. I think it's a bit clumsily inserted. I can see where you're

coming from. I think the connection for me is that it does make, and you said loss. You use the

word loss. I think it helps to make the abstract loss. We're seen in the play, which treats it as a

joke, this iceberg that's coming towards Europe and going to wipe out all these cities. And by

injecting an element of personal loss that people can relate to, like worrying about your kids

or a loved one. And you know, when they fly just it kind of makes it makes us feel what we're seeing

in the abstract a little more literal and personal again, not in very not very well handled. And I'm

totally with you along these lines. The unfortunate thing about digger is all these ideas that it is

provoking. So many of them are presented in a line of dialogue, as you mentioned. And I do wish

as visually inventive as this movie is they had found a way to also or just let them arise

from the filmmaking a little bit less than the dialogue. I think that's a fair criticism of the film.

The last idea I want to explore for a minute. And it's something you already touched on.

Josh, when you have a performance, this is another thing I'm still thinking about that sort of broke

my brain with this movie, but in a good way. And it's one of the things I want. It's one of the

biggest reasons why I want to go back and watch it again. And it does actually relate directly to

cruise performance. When you have a performance within a performance and the character giving the

performance is frustrated and questioning the performance he's giving. They don't like the direction.

They don't like the tone. They don't agree with the director. In other words, it's as if they think

they may be giving a bad performance or they think they might be stuck in as you said a bad play.

Then how are we as viewers to evaluate potentially the movie, but here just to be a little more

micro evaluate that performance. When is cruise? When is he when you watch the film? If you're

trying to keep score, when do you think he's giving a fully committed, fully invested three-dimensional

performance is digger? When is he giving a false, farcical portrayal where maybe those

dimensions aren't coming through and he's succumbing to the direction and he isn't bringing the truth

as he sees it. And it's breaking down a little bit in his performance is cruise actually bringing

that level of nuance to his performance that those things are happening at once. Maybe that is

happening. Maybe the truth is that cruise is as Marxon is intentionally at times giving

a bad performance and sometimes giving a good performance. And cruise is confident enough and

comfortable enough as an actor that he is willing to do that and he is willing to have viewers

look at moments and think those are bad acting moments because he knows that that's ultimately

serving this character. But then you said it as well, Josh. This is the main challenge good or bad

within Yari too overall in this film anyway. He's building in answers, rebuttals to all of the

potential challenges to his work, right? It's not funny. It's not funny. Well, that's because the

audience doesn't know whether it's satire or it's farce or it should be taking seriously and it's

really up to each viewer to decide anyway. Okay, audiences aren't getting it. Well, you know what,

they weren't going to get it anyway. I didn't expect it to make money because it's so complicated

and nuanced. Cruise's performance is too big at times. It doesn't really work. Whatever. Well,

that's because it's built into the performance. I guess overall I am saying I am positive on this

movie because I'm seeing these things as a little bit more of a feature than a bug. And the last

thing I'll say is just that at least on the cruise performance part, I wonder if this

very charitable reading, the very charitable reading would be that this potentially exposes where

audiences these days aren't great. And I'm hoping I like to believe I'm good at this or I'm

able to do it, but I know I'm not able to do unless I see it a second time and any of this has

an evil validity to it. Is I think we all struggle myself included at sitting with or handling two

truths at once. We want to see things as very black and white and cruise is either giving a good

performance or he's giving a bad performance. And I wonder anyway here if he is truly playing that

tension. If he is playing the conflict that were that were describing and are there are there

what I recall in my mind, Josh, I recall extended portions of the movie where we're in the movie

world. And very farcical things are happening. Everybody else, Michael Stullberg, the general

character who I should look up the actor's name because he's very familiar that guy character actor,

you know, Goodman, they're they're doing the big farcical moments and it's almost like the camera

when it catches digger when it catches cruise. It's it's like he's observing. It's as if it's marks

an outside of his body taking in the scene, trying to process what's what's happening and what

really happened. And it's like he's live interrogating everything. And I find that interesting.

That's possible. I'd have to watch it again as you said to know for sure and specifically look for

that. It struck me in the moment as there is a distinction between digger and the military and

the politicians. If you're if you're rating these people on level of clowns, clearly the movie sees

digger as a different sort of clown. Maybe a more dangerous one because he has a bit more

intelligence. I think we're made to to believe, but it could be what you're describing. I will say

that cruise is trying to give us hints of marks and beneath digger early on. I will say I ask myself

that question while watching it after the reveal because, you know, it's it's one of the interesting

things that pops in your mind. And I found that there wasn't a lot of that there. And I held it

against cruise because I didn't see him offering that level of critique. It was to me,

largely, he's not quite foaming at the mouth as much as the others, but he's still foaming at the mouth

in a lot of this. And even after the reveal, even after the conversation he has about his character,

we still get high levels of fires. Now, yeah, it's something I'd have to watch because I'm thinking

also about his final scene as digger and how that's played. Yeah. Right. Which is at a different

tenor. It is. Than what we've been getting before. But the entire play moves that way. We also get

just minutes before that though we get the the moment in the freezer where he says, deranged as

he's ever been having these delusions of grandeur about a miracle abundance of food. So

yeah, it's a good point. Josh is that high volume. Not the way he plays the scene is. So not to me.

It's a it's a good question to keep in mind and worth looking at on a second watch, which yeah,

I'm I'm positive enough. Yeah. Undigger as well to be interested in giving that giving it that

second. The only the only quick thing I'll add is I take your point about the distinction between

him and the military. But as I recall his disagreement with Hannah, he's not just worried about

the characters around him. He's worried that diggers being portrayed like a clown. Well, yeah,

it starts with him and his. Yeah. So she keeps saying, I can't deal with your insecurities. We've

talked about this. Like you're just she accuses him of getting cold feet essentially on the tech

rehearsal, you know, in preview night. So yeah, this is funny. A movie that when I when I glanced

at letterbox and obviously I did because I pulled a couple of the half star or one star comments

there, I saw I saw people I deeply respect. Josh, you had five star responses to this film. And I

saw people like Odin Isaac who had the complete opposite antithetical responses. So a few people

like you in the middle and we just talked about digger for about as long as any movie we talked

about in the show's history. So I think, you know, I think there is a second wave. It was hard to

when the embargo lifted to to not notice just the coming off the top rope slamming of this movie.

And yeah, there seems to be some more appreciation coming around now as more people see it.

Obviously though, based on the box office you quoted, not necessarily audiences, I am fascinated.

We could probably talk about this more when, you know, we start looking at Oscar questions. I'm fascinated

how this goes because the one element that a box this has so many elements that the Oscars love this

movie. But they do it they do tend to need either huge box office or critical acclaim. Yeah. And if

digger gets neither that's going to be to my mind tough to overcome for a movie that otherwise

is screaming, give me the Oscar. And you know, I say that a little derisively even though I like the film.

Good point. As someone who has certainly been angered by Injari to in the past, I do understand

the vitriolic responses that said, I can't imagine dismissing digger. I'll leave it at that.

Hopefully our conversation did encourage people early on if they haven't seen it to want to seek

it out. And if you saw it and you listened to the entire conversation, maybe you gleaned a few

new things. Maybe you want to see it again. Digger is currently playing in wide release,

though we don't know for how much longer. We would love to hear your thoughts about the movie.

Email us feedback at film spotting.net. I imagine Josh we will actually get some comments about

this one. We should. I don't really like your show. But America loves it. So I need to move you

to catch your predator 9 p.m. prime time. I'm going to be bigger than lost.

I'm going to be bigger than lost.

Lance Oppenheim's prime time stars Robert Pattinson as to catch a predator host Chris Hansen.

The movie comes a year after the documentary Predators, which covered some of the same ground.

But the new movie is less expose than it is. What? Morality play? We'll find out. Merit Weaver plays

the show's head producer and Skylar Gizando, who we've seen in Likrosh pizza and last year's

Superman is Decoydan, a young actor with his own ambitions. As I said, haven't seen it

eager to catch up with it. I was a fan. More of a fan than you of the documentary Predators.

And we do agree on Pattinson being maybe our most interesting actor going these days.

And I know there's been a lot of buzz about this performance. What did you think of prime time?

Yeah, acting is the key for me here. This is what I most most appreciated. What is this movie? I

would say it's a meditation on demonstration as well on of the craft of acting. It's very fascinating

if you look at it through that lens. I am less enamored or I should say I've grown weary with this

to catch a predator obsession we've had since these segments ran decades ago now on date line

and BC. I mean, we've had the documentary which yes, I had my issues with. We had a 2020

expose before that and just seems like this is something the country is obsessed with.

There are probably so many other stories that deserve more attention. But here we are with prime time.

What intrigued me given my biases that I just put out there was watching this as an

acting exercise and not only for Pattinson who is creepily dead on as Hanson doesn't need that.

But it is something he brings as well as just this dead eye solace quality that immediately

exposes or questions, you know, the the righteousness of this enterprise. He also makes him

this creepily excitable showman. One thing to watch we were just talking about Cruz's performance

and to watch for nuances. If you're going to see prime time watch for when Pattinson as Hanson

slips in and out of his on camera voice. He obviously uses it in the scenes where they're recording

these segments. But then he'll be talking to someone in real life and when he wants something

or he's trying to manipulate them, all the sudden you hear the cadence shift and he starts talking

as TV's Chris Hanson. Just a clever little ploy that Pattinson does there. Skylar Jisando,

I think it's just as good though. This was and this makes it something of a meta consideration

of acting because he has an audition scene. We talked about this in regard to Mulholland Drive,

audition scenes on film where he's auditioning for this decoy part and right away you see him as

an aspiring actor. Then you meet him as someone who's thrown into this crazy enterprise before he

really knows what's going on. He gets the part and the decoy who's supposed to be filming

on the day of his scene. I forget if they don't show up or something happens. They just throw him in

to a scene and entrapment scene with a potential predator. My name is Dan Plopp. Do you know what

your auditioning for? So you are praying is 13 years old? Is there time for a rehearsal? We're going

to shoot the rehearsal. Come in. I don't know. Love this.

Predator and his response. A couple of levels. The immediate acting, instinctually acting, he

does in the moment to make the quote unquote scene work and then his processing of what he was just

involved in when he goes backstage immediately after. Incredible moment from Jisando that is very

much about what it takes to be an actor. Just technically but also emotionally. So I think he's

great in it and you mentioned Merritt Weaver giving very much fade-done away vibes here from

network as this mercenary producer. I always appreciate her performances. She's great here.

Phoebe Bridgers Adam did not recognize really as another decoy on the team on the Ticaccia

Predator team very small part but she's incredibly effective like actually stood out to me

as one of the better performers performances in the film and it was afterwards I realized oh gosh

that was Phoebe Bridgers. That's pretty impressive. So yeah. I think people are fascinated clearly by

the legacy of this show. They might be seeing it for those reasons. Patents and fans might be

seeing it for him. I think you'll appreciate that but for me it was you know as this acting sort of

introspection piece that I did like prime time. Prime time out now in wide release. Let us know what

you thought of it. Feedback at film spotting.net. If you remember video games that sounded like

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month to month car lease Flexcar you drive everything. Hello Pasadena. As the seasons change it's

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Day conditions apply.

You do live what we might call an untraditional life. You know since you got here I've been feeling

better about myself. The 60 second annual Chicago International Film Festival opens next Thursday,

October 14th. Over 170 films will screen during the fest. It concludes on the 25th.

Jordan Firstman's Club Kid it's a film that has been well received premiered earlier this year at

Cannes. That is the opening night movie Josh and we like to highlight at least a couple of films

for people who will be in Chicago for the fest to potentially seek out maybe they're on your radar

maybe they're not and we do like to put films on their radar that they may be overlooking

that aren't the bigger titles when we go to fest when we have had the occasion to go to film

festivals in the past we know that there are going to be and certainly this is the case with the

Chicago Film Festival. There are going to be movies that you're going to have the opportunity to see

before they open but they might be coming out later this month or in November. You'll have a

chance to see those and it might mean something to you to get a glimpse of them early but what about

the films that this may be your only chance to see them or it will be very difficult to see and I

know you've got a couple on your list that they fall into that latter category. Yeah let me get to

those I've got two here and the first is a documentary called Citizen Osama. You know as as an

international fest we you have an opportunity in at the Chicago Fest to experience fictional

narratives from all around the world right but you also get a chance to watch these documentary

accounts that take you behind global headlines that's absolutely what we're getting here with

Citizen Osama. We're about three years now into Israel's war on Gaza launched in response to

the Hamas terror attack of October 2023 and a number of documentaries have emerged sense including

this one which is an underground account. It follows an artist whose son was born during the

eighth month of the war despite you know at this point resources support systems pretty much

obliterated. Baby is born and part of his response is to become something of a makeshift war

photographer to go out there and just document daily life under assault trying to keep this you

know his young family going. So that Citizen Osama it screams Sunday October 18 at 615 pm and

Monday October 19 at 2 30 pm. Don't just take my recommendation of it however I heard about Citizen

Osama last week because I was at a screening for another documentary about the war on Gaza and

that was introduced by a programmer for the Chicago Fest. He mentioned Citizen Osama said to his

mind it was one of the Fest highlights. I do want to spend just a quick minute here though on the film

I was there to see the one he was introducing because it is on the same topic and it is playing

in limited release right now. It's going to be playing at the music box here in Chicago October 10

and 11 another documentary and it's called Naza. This is basically a series of anonymous interviews with

about 24 members of the Israel Defense Forces. So in these conversations these intelligence agents

they basically detail the systematic bombing campaign of Palestinian targets in Gaza including

domestic residences even though they're known to have children in them at the time. So it's pretty

damning stuff it's chilling numbing to hear fairly straightforward mostly of these interviews which

are our anonymous but there is a creative touch that just keeps sticking with me. The interviews take

place at night on a rooftop in Tel Aviv and in the background you see all these other high rises

around and between interviews often they'll just cut away and get shots through people's windows

from a distance you can't really see who they are but basically Tel Aviv residents in their high

rise apartments just going about their nightly routines making dinner putting their kids to bed

you know unpacking from work and basically enjoying you know this relative domestic piece that

the Israeli military is from their very city targeting not that far away. Just a juxtaposition

that made the documentary even more haunting for me. One more thing about Naza if listeners

remember the documentary No Other Land from 2024 pretty sure Mariah Gates it was her number one

film of the year and once she joined us for our top 10 show some of the same filmmakers behind No

Other Land are involved in making Naza so it's coming from that team. So yeah Naza in limited

release now and then if you're interested in another angle on what's happening in Gaza check out

citizen Osama at the Chicago International Film Festival. Okay I'm going to highlight one film that

you'll hear discussed or will at least come up next week on our show. So it is one of the bigger

titles but here's the thing Josh it's not coming out until December 11th when it gets a wider release.

So I am curious if I was in Chicago and I had a chance to see it this is one I would almost surely

see at the fest because I don't think I could wait until December 11th after hearing the buzz out

of Toronto and this is a movie I mentioned briefly during our recent conversation about Mulholl and

Drive we were talking about famous audition scenes in movies or performance scenes in movies so the

one I'm talking about that's playing at the Chicago International Film Festival on Tuesday October

20th at the music box and then Friday October 23rd at AMC New City is the debut starting Juliane

Moore and Paul Giamatti this is the new film from Jesse Eisenberg I am curious to see it partly

because it's the new film from Jesse Eisenberg as someone who wasn't as big of a fan of a real

pain as most people were I would like to see if this is one I'll be more drawn to the subject matter

is more in my wheelhouse because it's about a theater production and Josh it just sounds so

delicious because you have Juliane Moore playing an actress but based on the description she's

playing a housewife not not an actress just a housewife who decides to try out for a play she gets

cast it seems like she gets cast in a role that is not one of the bigger roles and yet somehow

turns into a method actor and that's that's not even a descriptor meant to suggest she gets

overly serious about it I think she really does become perhaps a method actor she gets very into

her part and starts to butt heads with Paul Giamatti who plays the the director

everyone can take the rest of the day off except for Mona

every single thing you are doing is not working I'm Miss Danielle thanks for coming by on such short

notice what seems to be the problem Barnaby sorry is that um is that how she's gonna do it so you've

got two heavy weights there and I I am really excited to see this movie which is being built as a

comedy so the debut is one to check out at the Chicago film festival if you have to change another

element of audition as I was talking about with a primetime in Skylar Jisando so there you go

they're crazy audition scenes have to be catnip for for really good actors when they get a chance

to do it on screen and I'll remind people what I said during wall on drive apparently at Toronto

the audition scene in the movie is so good or so captivated the audiences that people stood

up and cheered at the screening Josh we'll see what happens at the Chicago screening

all right my other pick is called eight bridges and this this one is a little avant-garde

atom but it is a chance to bring some attention to a filmmaker who I only recently became aware of

but is actually well known in experimental and uh eco cinema circles that's James Benning

and the film as I said is eight bridges the festival program describes it this way eight bridges

is composed of eight ten-minute static shots that invite audiences to look at listen to and contemplate

these structures in all of their astonishing harrowing complexity so I learned about Benning

this past spring as part of the film studies course I took for my master's program at the

University of St. Andrews we did a section on eco cinema eco cinema landscape cinema and we

watched Benning's desert from 1995 for that which they're Benning basically paired static shots of

landscapes in Utah with single sentences from New York Times reports about the state going all the

way back to the late 1850s it was an entrancing just fascinating way to consider history to consider

place and yeah landscape now eight bridges it seems to be part of a series from Benning that I've

not explored so he's also made ten skies 13 lakes I think one or two others this one eight bridges

bit of a deep pick but if you're familiar with Benning's experimental work you won't want to miss

his latest and if you're new to him like me I mean what better way to start than to see something on

the big screen eight bridges screens at 3 30 pm Sunday October 18 5 15 pm Monday October 19

and Benning is supposed to be at both screenings here's one I'm excited about and it also will have

the director available at both screenings the director is an Italian filmmaker named Alina

Mirazi the movie is called The Girl with the Lika it's about a war photographer Josh that I

should know about but until reading this description and looking into the film a little bit more I

didn't know about her name is Gerda Taro she was escaping or trying to avoid Nazi persecution she

was a German born war photographer she was covering the Spanish Civil War I believe she was the first

woman war photographer to die in the field and the girl with the Lika does document is effectively a

biopic is is documenting her life and I'm gonna stick I suppose with the the theme of films here

that are exploring the life of artists so being able to learn more about Taro and her work

is one of the reasons why I would be excited to see the girl with the Lika and then also having

the filmmaker Alina Mirazi there on October 22nd that's a Thursday night and also on the 23rd Friday

night both at AMC New City that's that's one of the reasons why you go to Fest like Chicago and

Chicago is really good about having filmmakers there and and people associated with the movie to

talk about it and give you perspective we will list these titles and link to more information in

our show notes I will also mention that a filmmaker were fans of on this show Andrew Hague his new

movie along winter is also playing at the Chicago International Film Festival and if you don't see it

there and you happen to be in the Midwest you'll have another opportunity to see it if you come to

Iowa City because our great theater film scene is having its fifth annual refocus film festival the

unifying theme of refocus is that every movie that's playing has been adapted from something

there is some kind of source material for every movie that's playing and Hague's film along winter

is the opening night film on Thursday night October 22nd but his movie 45 years is also playing on

Friday and he will be there on Friday receiving the Fest Cinema Sevant award so if you come to the

Fest you can see Andrew Hague he's doing a Q&A after the Thursday night premiere of along winter

but as we alluded to earlier Josh you're going to be there we're going to do a live taping of film

spotting on Friday the 23rd actually right before 45 years and we've decided to tie our top five

into the Thursday night premiere of along winter and we're going to do our top five winter movies

with Matt Singer who's going to be at the Fest yeah that'll be a lot of fun I have not yet started

on that list I know you have some preliminary notes out to peek at those because we might be doing

a joint list but a great topic that's where I'm going to see along winter I'll be there for

opening night excited about that and hanging out with you all and also I hope to squeeze in

be able to get to their screening FW Mournaus Faust which I've never seen with live musical

live music yeah so that would be pretty cool and yeah Matt's got a book talk as well so it should be

a couple of a couple of great days with everyone at refocus and we haven't even mentioned that in

addition to Matt doing a reading Jane Shownbrun will be at the refocus film festival doing a reading

that right after Matt of their new book public access afterworld so that's fantastic the Shownbrun

will be there and then the Fest closes out Sunday with how about this another great podcast blank

check Ben and Griffin from blank check will be at the inglor on Sunday night doing a a screening

and doing what blank check does best of the garbage pale kids I'm finally going to get to see it Josh

I get to cross off my my most embarrassing blind spot yeah now be honest before you heard about this

event if someone had asked you is there an existence a garbage pale kids movie would you have been

confidently able to answer yes yes I had heard of it you had heard of it okay I would have been

I would have been a bit flummoxed I think I was just I'd aged out you know I think so I think I'd

aged out garbage pale kids I feel like there were younger kids into it when it was a big thing than

me so yeah I was surprised to hear that there was a garbage pale kids movie and of course excited

that blank check was going to be showing it yeah if you would like to partake in the festivities

you can learn more at refocusfilmfestival.org you play jazz flute I dabble would everyone love

to hear wrong burger please some jazz flute speaking of film spotting SVU's Matt singer he joined

us a few weeks ago for our top five comedy boom movies his book funny business is out now we

asked you to pick one and only one frat pack movie so we did restrict this to seven movies that

Matt suggested as defining of this genre or this subgenre I suppose the options are the 40-year-old

version anchor man old school star ski and hutch step brothers super bad wedding crashers or you could

oh I forgot zoolander so eight options or you could write in other Josh how did it come out

well I was feeling bad and I didn't really bring it up when we had Matt on about my very

tepid experience with star ski and hutch he seemed to to revere it quite a bit and rank it highly

himself but maybe I'm not alone last place here one percent of the vote went to star ski and hutch

as a matter of fact other received more votes with three percent then tied at the bottom here

each got five percent of the vote old school and wedding crashers step brothers received eight

of the vote the 40-year-old virgin and zoolander both tied with 12 percent of the vote in second place

however a jump up 25 percent of the vote went to super bad which means anchor man won the poll with

28 percent of the vote Andrew or Aaron Gordon I should say right somehow this all of the deeply

flawed film spotting polls that ever flawed so deeply is the one that made me go wait I cannot

actually pick one I think it's because this era precisely overlaps with when I was in high school the

peak age for frat pack comedy appreciation on the one hand my high school class made a wedding

crashers quote our official class slogan rule number 76 no excuses play like a champion on the other

hand wedding crashes is probably the third most quoted movie on this list of my high school years

in terms of sheer cultural relevance it has to be anchor man but zoolander is the best movie of the

bunch and holds up the best but best movie is not best comedy for idiots which is me a high school

boy an idiot and the answer to that is anchor man man Aaron really put himself through the ringer

there I'm glad you found an answer for Nick principle listen to your front billy zane the choice

is clearly zoolander steven says super bad was released one year after I graduated high school

I remember watching it in the theater with my friends that I only saw while home from college I don't

see any of those friends anymore but I'm glad that we saw this movie at that time together oh yeah

and it's really funny to Jonathan Anderson in Denver said stepbrothers doing this poorly means a lot

of film spotty nation won't be invited to the Catalina wine mixer in that it's very very sad

VV says had to go with other to give some love to my favorite aptile film for getting Sarah Marshall

one of the first and only films this ill to make the main characters actually well-rounded and

believable human beings where you actually understand why these people hang out with and like each

other all while not slacking on the humor yeah that's that's pretty dead on I like forgetting Sarah

Marshall lastly here is sarab kakani walk hard the dui cock story gets my vote criminally underrated

and under scene john c riley makes the most out of his all too rare leading man time in the spotlight

a true comedy classic that deserves way more love will nothing but grains of sand that was freaking

transcendent on palm and kerney don't you agree john linnie yes dui cox with meditation there's no

limit to what we can imagine what do you think George Harrison of the Beatles walk hard is in the top

five of movies reviewed on film spotting I need to revisit and reconsider because oh you didn't like

I didn't love it I think I was I was pretty mixed on it actually the first time I saw it and

I'm so into biopics and everybody I know they might have too close to home at them maybe it did and

I say did I say love biopics I'm generally disappointed by biopics I just like watching them so

I don't know why I didn't go harder for it I need to see it again we think everyone who voted

in that poll and who left a comment the new deeply flawed film spotting poll asks you not to choose

Sam Sam's getting really crazy now I don't know if we ever should have made him aware of this

ability within our poll platform Josh but he can rank you can you can rank yes vote so rather than

just having everybody pick one we I guess we want to be more definitive we we really want to know

your level of interest in these films we are going to do a fall preview later than normal

but we're going to do a fall preview next week on the show so we went with some big options here

there's no other because it's ranked choice so you can you can submit a comment at the bottom

you can submit feedback just as you always do here and you can write it in another there if you

want but you do have the option here with this poll to rank just drag the boxes move them into

the order top to bottom in terms of your interest in seeing these films Josh their options first I

just have to say I think what's really going to happen with this ranking option is now Sam's going

to torture himself usually tortures himself with the options for polls and and how we should go

now he's just added another wrinkle every every time he's going to wonder should I make this a

ranked poll or a straight vote I don't know don't write don't do this to yourself so don't do it

another another calculation another calculation to angst over anyway your options for this ranked

poll avengers doomsday dune part three the further misadventures of cliff booth which will remind

you is being directed by David Fincher we're wolf from Robert Eggers mart mcdonn is wild horse nine

and you can see everything which is the Elizabeth Holmes doc from Nathan Fielder and Lance

Oppenheim should we should we have fun here we're either going to spoil partly our picks next week

or I should say we could end up spoiling our picks next week but we could have some fun with this

and rather than saying our answers we could pick each other's vote predict predict predict

or I mean it's not much of a prediction because after I say you're going to tell me if I'm right or

wrong I mean I think we should turn this into a 45 minute segment and rank and how would we rank

okay Josh let's do it each one of these oh man oh I like me able to do that actually for you

I think I could you are clearly you are ranking first um yeah yeah clearly what

I've got a very clear how about we start here I've got a very clear top three

yeah but that's I mean I'm you do that's obvious okay I'm going to say your number one is you

can see everything you would rank that first you are you are incorrect but close oh okay how do you

know I'm close what is it what are you gonna rank for all you're close because it's second and it's

vying for first okay um I am dying to see it is it cliff booth yeah yeah I'll go Fincher

okay I'll go Fincher number one there's a new feature it's number one wait I have to choose mine

before you predict um yeah go ahead guess I got one your number one is obviously Robert Ager's

where will yeah yeah yeah I mean you know I yeah it's funny he's not like my favorite filmmaker

but everything he's done has given me so much to think about and chew on and for me that's why

I would go where I'm gonna propose that we actually share the same number two you can see everything

yes okay which I'm seeing tomorrow okay very wow excited for except I think it's three hours

yeah yeah I believe it is long so we have I predicted your first two correctly let's see if I can

get number three number three is is hard because you don't you definitely don't feel the same way

about McDonough that I do you you don't love Fincher as much as I do and I don't I don't know

that you care that much about the misadventures of cliff booth and then we're getting into Dune and

Dune's day territory but Wild Horse 9 has gotten has gotten such buzz that that maybe that bumps it

up for you wow this is tough Josh I honestly think it could be any one of Dune booth or Wild Horse 9

I just know it's almost certainly not Dune's day I think if you had to only see one

I could easily second guess myself here but I'm gonna say just based on the Oscar buzz you'd have

to see Wild Horse 9 so you're right about not liking McDonough as much as you do though I loved

Banshees of Insharing so it's in the running but I'm going to go with Dune part three see that was it

I knew it was a very bizarre reason for this I have liked both films I'm not crazy about them

but like them enough to be interested in the third installment but I've kind of had Dune has

been burrowing literally in my mind we're taking care of you know younger daughter back at school

which means we're responsible for taking care of the leopard gecko in her room the thing was

supposed to be dead like two years ago I don't know what I tell you about it I got a tortoise I'll

be taking care of until that I mean that could have been predicted I mean you could have researched that

that's true we did the research this things I don't she's taking too good a care of it it's still

still living now it's our job sometimes crickets some mornings it's the mealworms I got to get the

the thing of mealworms get the little pinchers dig in the sand for the mealworm and find one

no thanks wriggling around pinch it and drop them in the every time I'm digging around in the sand

oh that's right Dune Dune part three is coming out I'm kind of yeah I'm excited for that

I'm a little reminder so there's been like a micro marketing campaign in my house for Dune that has

it's effective I'm excited now I'm ready okay great we want to know what you think we want to

know your exact ranking go please do that now on the main page of film spotting dot net where you

can also leave a comment and we may share your comment in a couple of weeks that's our show Josh

if you want to connect with us on social media you can find Adam and the show on Instagram Facebook

letterbox YouTube and blue sky he's at film spotting I'm at larson on film we are independently

produced and listener supported you can support the show by joining the film spotting family

at film spotting family dot com you can listen early and add free you'll get monthly bonus episodes

a weekly newsletter and access to the show archive for show t-shirts and other merch go to film spotting

dot net slash shop Sarah and I just started slow horses on apple tv so we're getting inundated

so fun isn't it well it the first episode was a doozy that's that's as far as we've gotten

got we're we're now getting inundated with messages about match box the movie with john

cina and that's on apple tv out now streaming in limited release Josh the film you recommended

earlier playing at the music box the documentary nasa boyd holbrook and Kenneth brana star in

atonement this is a different atonement than my beloved 2007 film it's about a former u.s marine

who seeks reconciliation with an Iraqi family reny harland's the beast is out now with Samuel

l jackson playing the part really he was destined for the president of the united states we we can

hope for such a world he fights back against an enemy militia with his armored limousine a k a the

beast well i hadn't gotten to that part yet in wide release Jessica chastain is wow other mommy that

trailer is kind of creepy josh i'm not gonna lie oh yeah i would love to read the movie

air in sorkin is ready for the wage the way sam mis typed it oh no i were not because let me let

me put it this way what sam i'm not going to say it but what sam type is the eventual porn title

it's the eventual porn title for this movie and it might be a more interesting film we don't get

well yeah i did see it last night you don't get those e explicit things for podcasts too do you know

for absolutely well you can if you mark it well this yeah don't yeah don't say it because we'll get one

then Jeremy strong mickey madison and Jeremy alan white star in the film i will not name

single week re-released our dolly parton in nine to five catch it if you can next week in the film

spotting feed we will have a new edition of the movie racket with michael philips Tuesday film

spotting sv is covering mic flanagan's new carry limited series on prime video the next picture

show will continue its pairing of prime time and the sweet smell of success and we will have our fall

going into winter it'll be the rest of the year yes movie preview and i think we're also going to

try to talk about okay i'll say it correctly we're going to try to talk about the social reckoning

as well yes let's talk about that one not the other place film spotting is produced by golden

Joe diso and sam van hogren without sam and golden joe this show wouldn't go our production

assistant is so fichempanar area on martina is our marketing and social media assistant special

thanks to everyone at wbec chicago more information is available at wpec.org for film spotting i'm

josh larson i'm at him kempanar thanks for listening this conversation can serve no purpose anymore

goodbye