Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to another show in the next
Speaker 1: real family of film podcasts, I.
Speaker 2: Want to skip those ads and get early access.
Speaker 3: Become a member at true story dot fm, slash Joint
Speaker 3: and discover all the other great perks that come with it.
Speaker 2: Exterior a moderately obscure European airstrip day. The camera dollies passed,
Speaker 2: a series of neatly arranged suitcases, a broken harmonium, and
Speaker 2: a pigeon holding a classified microfilm in its beak. We
Speaker 2: hear the narrator. The film board gathers. This week a
Speaker 2: gang of thugs don their finest pastels to unravel the
Speaker 2: Phoenician scheme.
Speaker 4: Back this moment, rescue workers are laboring to recover and
Speaker 4: identify the remains of Jaja Korda, international businessman maverick in
Speaker 4: the fields of armaments and aviation, among the richest men
Speaker 4: in Europe. This was Corda's sixth recorded airplane crash. He
Speaker 4: is survived by ten children, boys, one nun, his daughter Lisa.
Speaker 1: I've appointed you sole heir to my estate, which you
Speaker 1: may come into sooner rather than later.
Speaker 4: Why it's been six years since our last meeting.
Speaker 1: I have my reasons, which are what my reasons I'm
Speaker 1: not saying I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying, Quarter our land and sea, Phoenician infrastructure scheme,
Speaker 4: my most important project of my lifetime. Our objective disrupting, obstructing, impeding,
Speaker 4: crippling quarters enterprise in any manner possible.
Speaker 2: Get the hand grenades.
Speaker 1: Today, tonight, and tomorrow.
Speaker 4: We're rendezvous with every titan and pretend we agree what
Speaker 4: we already agreed, but in fact we don't.
Speaker 1: We can call it heads heads is it supposed to
Speaker 1: be here? Who was under the lunch? Oh dear, we'll
Speaker 1: shut you terros from out of town. Help yourself to
Speaker 1: a heliday.
Speaker 4: You're very kind. Could you imagine falling in love with
Speaker 4: a manliney by the ray? Not pathetically?
Speaker 1: You're drunk on three beers. Why are you shooting my silly?
Speaker 1: This is a robbery on behalf of I understand that
Speaker 1: I'm asking about my sily.
Speaker 2: You idiots are destroying a magnificent lightclock in the spring
Speaker 2: of a year that could be nineteen sixty three or
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, depending on one's taste. In Lapel with
Speaker 2: a man named Anatole Korda call him Jaja, boarded a
Speaker 2: luxury aircraft bound for divine reconciliation. The plane crashed, his
Speaker 2: soul did not. What followed was a spiritual espionage caper
Speaker 2: involving one nun, one bug collector, something like twelve failed assassins,
Speaker 2: and possibly God himself. Brian Doyle, Murray's father's son. Tonight
Speaker 2: on the film board, we unpacked the Phoenicia Scheme, the
Speaker 2: latest addition to the Wes Anderson Cinematic diorama. We'll ask
Speaker 2: is this a caper, a confession, or an elaborately constructed
Speaker 2: dream about guilt and redemption? And how many Pastel duffelbags
Speaker 2: does one arms dealer really need? Sitting patiently against an
Speaker 2: undecorated pink wall, waiting patiently for whatever comes next. I
Speaker 2: welcome Tommy Mets the third Tonight. He's here to help
Speaker 2: us decode the emotional frequencies of Michael Sarah's accent and
Speaker 2: determine whether Benicio del Toro can in fact act with
Speaker 2: just his nostrils. Welcome Tommy, it.
Speaker 1: Is an absolute pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2: And Steve Sarmento, equal parts philosopher and puzzlebox technician. Steve
Speaker 2: Sarmento spends his spare time diagramming narrative symmetry with a
Speaker 2: fountain pen. He's here to explain why the Phoenician scheme
Speaker 2: is actually a morality play disguised as an Air France
Speaker 2: safety video.
Speaker 3: Welcome Steve, good evening, help yourself to a hand grenade.
Speaker 2: You can't do You can't do that long like that
Speaker 2: whole bit, you can't. It turns out human beings have
Speaker 2: more emotion than I think Wes Anderson can do an attack. Hi,
Speaker 2: what a what a fun opportunity. We have to talk
Speaker 2: about our first, our first Wes Anderson film on the show.
Speaker 2: Why have we never done Wes Anderson?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Why is that?
Speaker 2: It's JJ's fault? And JJ was supposed to be here
Speaker 2: to interest help us resolve this conundrum, but got sick,
Speaker 2: and so it is us carrying the torch of Wes Anderson.
Speaker 2: Can we start with a little table setting? Where do
Speaker 2: we stand on the films of Wes Anderson? Steve there.
Speaker 3: I think the best comparison I can make is to
Speaker 3: like a very light and sweet dessert. It's something that
Speaker 3: you enjoy while you have it. In ten minutes you've forgotten.
Speaker 3: Remember it was good, but it's gone and there's nothing
Speaker 3: enough to stay with you and you will go back
Speaker 3: for more, but still be just as unsatisfied. Shortly thereafter, Ouch,
Speaker 3: I think, ouch, but maybe I didn't feel the sting Tom.
Speaker 1: I have not seen a lot of them. I saw
Speaker 1: a bottle rocket, I saw Rushmore, I saw the Royal Tenenbaums,
Speaker 1: and then at some point I just sort of stopped
Speaker 1: going and they kept coming, and the cast got bigger
Speaker 1: and the colors got brighter. But I just didn't and
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I saw an Asteroid City Asteroid
Speaker 1: City last year, two years ago, whenever it was I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed that, and much like this movie. Yes, I
Speaker 1: agree with Steve that it is a beautiful situation, and
Speaker 1: I love seeing it in the theater, and by the
Speaker 1: time I'm in my car, I'm starting to forget large
Speaker 1: parts of it. That being said, having really enjoyed the experience.
Speaker 2: That may make it difficult to talk critically about the
Speaker 2: film that we just saw, don't you think a little bit,
Speaker 2: because I'm in that same space. I walked out of
Speaker 2: the theater, and I know I didn't go to sleep
Speaker 2: during the movie, but I felt like I had just
Speaker 2: awoken from a dream. Like the whole thing feels so
Speaker 2: much like a dreamscape, and it's that sort of ephemeral too, right,
Speaker 2: It's like the images are there and then they're not,
Speaker 2: because I might have dreamed something very much like this,
Speaker 2: Like when I dream, it's very much top down camera
Speaker 2: over a bathroom, and that I find comforting to the
Speaker 2: point that I'm I'm lulled to a sense of calm
Speaker 2: and comfort and that the memories don't stick. So it's
Speaker 2: interesting to talk about. I think I'm probably on the maybe,
Speaker 2: just judging by how you talk about it, I'm on
Speaker 2: the deeper end of Wes Anderson. I'm a big Wes
Speaker 2: Anderson fan. I loved Bottle Rocket and Rushmore and ten
Speaker 2: and Bounds. I hated for some reason, Steve's Easy The
Speaker 2: Life Aquatic. I hated it. I don't know why, and
Speaker 2: it's it's so irrational that I feel like I need
Speaker 2: to watch it again because I really struggled with it.
Speaker 2: But Darjeeling Limited, I didn't care for Fantastic Mister Fox either.
Speaker 2: Apparently that should be growing on me. I need to
Speaker 2: watch that again the rest of them. With the I
Speaker 2: have not seen The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar on Netflix,
Speaker 2: but the rest of them I've seen and deeply appreciate,
Speaker 2: and I love the experience of watching them because the
Speaker 2: level of precision in the art and craft of this
Speaker 2: filmmaker is extraordinary. It is extraordinary. So I feel like,
Speaker 2: whatever we think of the film, man, is there a
Speaker 2: lot to appreciate about this guy and the attentiveness he
Speaker 2: puts to his film. So all of that said, why
Speaker 2: the Phoenician scheme? What did you? How did the movie?
Speaker 2: Let's do our opening thoughts, initial thoughts on the film?
Speaker 1: How?
Speaker 2: I mean, however much you remember? What did you think?
Speaker 3: There was more to this one for me to hold
Speaker 3: on to than Asteroid City, which I did not enjoy
Speaker 3: that much. One of my favorites of his is Dargene Limited.
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot for me the grasp ound
Speaker 3: of this one and this one I felt like there
Speaker 3: was a through line that I could hold on to
Speaker 3: that there hasn't been in some of the previous ones.
Speaker 3: And maybe it's that that mid century, you know, titans
Speaker 3: of industry versus the government type of thing. I got
Speaker 3: the sense of the self made man that's that's out
Speaker 3: there to accomplish something and now faces a bit of
Speaker 3: a crisis. Moment with you know, the assassinations and his
Speaker 3: bringing his daughter into the fold, trying to build the
Speaker 3: relationship with her, And I thought, okay, I it's not
Speaker 3: that I can relate to this guy, but I get
Speaker 3: a sense of what he's trying to accomplish. There's still
Speaker 3: a lot of, you know, things that I can't explain
Speaker 3: what the gap is. I don't know what the whole
Speaker 3: scheme is. I know there's there's something. There's the trans
Speaker 3: monument or the trans Mountain or the trans Oceanic. There's
Speaker 3: all kinds of things coming together as part of his
Speaker 3: big plan. Don't ask me to explain it. I don't
Speaker 3: think I can. I don't think it matters. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of talk about things that I don't think. There
Speaker 3: are a lot of mcguffins all over the place to
Speaker 3: just keep things moving. But I'm not bored by it.
Speaker 3: I went along with the ride. I had fun. There's
Speaker 3: there's quirky characters, but there's a consistency to them, and
Speaker 3: it was enjoyable. And I thought it was we have
Speaker 3: a character that could carry the story well in this one.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the thing that was the strength
Speaker 3: for me, is that I've got a character that I'm
Speaker 3: interested in, so that when we get to the final
Speaker 3: confrontation at the end, there was there was something to
Speaker 3: you know, things came together, it came to a head
Speaker 3: meaningfully and reasonably that I thought, ah, okay, it wasn't
Speaker 3: just story story story, and then it ends there was
Speaker 3: there was something that happened that was significant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree with all of that. I think
Speaker 1: the engine that keeps this moving and that makes it
Speaker 1: work is the trio, especially the nun and the father,
Speaker 1: but then with Michael Sarah in there also with who's
Speaker 1: a character that actually has a twist at one point,
Speaker 1: which is fun. If they weren't compelling, then the whole
Speaker 1: movie would fall apart. Because the movie's pretty episodic. It's
Speaker 1: kind of he came up with a reason to or
Speaker 1: away or a device in order to just have a
Speaker 1: bunch of character sketches. Like we go to a place
Speaker 1: and we have this little character sketch and everyone kind
Speaker 1: of talks like but a little bit different, just different
Speaker 1: enough to be interesting, and so he just sort of
Speaker 1: has a bunch of sketches. The beating heart through it
Speaker 1: with them does make it work, and I really again
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really funny
Speaker 1: at times. The fact that there is no emotion, that
Speaker 1: no one really has any emotion to it. You can't
Speaker 1: hide the jokes that don't work, you can't hide the
Speaker 1: bits that don't work. There's nowhere else to look. He's
Speaker 1: so controlled that it either works or doesn't. And there
Speaker 1: is one sequence in the movie that I thought was
Speaker 1: a disaster. We can get to that later, and it
Speaker 1: almost like took down the movie a half star for me,
Speaker 1: because it was the film came alive in order to
Speaker 1: fall over its own feet, in my personal opinion. But
Speaker 1: until then, I mean, that's the reason why it's so ephemeral,
Speaker 1: I think, is that no one's really allowed to have emotion.
Speaker 1: That's why we've been saying things like admire like I
Speaker 1: admire the film, I enjoyed the film, versus like this
Speaker 1: is a film that will stick with me. I also
Speaker 1: agree with Steve. At some point I realized, I bet
Speaker 1: all of this incredibly important fast talk is not as important.
Speaker 1: It's important to the style and not the story because
Speaker 1: I didn't understand some of the story either, other than
Speaker 1: we're just going to meet all these people and at
Speaker 1: the end, they'll tell me if it worked or not.
Speaker 1: The end. That's it. That's kind of what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well it's interesting. I want to I want
Speaker 2: to take a sidebar a little bit on Wes Anderson's
Speaker 2: directorial style, because I mean, you mentioned the sort of
Speaker 2: lack of emotion, this sort of deadpan direction. What does
Speaker 2: that do for you when you watch one of these movies,
Speaker 2: because it it feels to me whenever I sit down
Speaker 2: and watch one of these movies, I'm watching like through glass,
Speaker 2: like they're like there, it's going on in a cage
Speaker 2: in a zoo, the Wes Anderson Zoo and their entire
Speaker 2: films happening at scale behind this terrarium, and I that
Speaker 2: emotional terrarium is distancing. And yet here I am going
Speaker 2: to all the movies and watching them. I wonder how
Speaker 2: you sort of what's your mental model for approaching character
Speaker 2: stakes when the characters don't demonstrate any particular emotional stakes.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel any character stakes, and yet I still
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. That's why it didn't stay with me. I
Speaker 1: was never worried about anyone. I was never concerned about
Speaker 1: what happened. I mean, they win and they lose. He
Speaker 1: loses spoiler alert, he loses his entire fortune. They're back
Speaker 1: to that same room with the dripping ceiling that we
Speaker 1: saw teased from the beginning. But at what cost. But
Speaker 1: you know what the good cost is he gets his
Speaker 1: daughter back. He sort of gets his motivation in life back.
Speaker 1: But I didn't care. I was just happy to be there.
Speaker 1: I was happy to be there, like sort of strolling
Speaker 1: through an art gallery. Whenever the camera would move, it's
Speaker 1: always on a dolly. There's a couple whippans, usually just
Speaker 1: left and right, and I'm like, oh, I'm excited to
Speaker 1: see what the next composition will be. And it's never surprising,
Speaker 1: but it's always pretty. Because he likes everything. He's like
Speaker 1: one of the only directors that puts people right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the frame, right, which is something that
Speaker 1: they tell art you know, film students don't ever do.
Speaker 1: It's in the thirds. Putting someone in the middle of
Speaker 1: the frame is like what we used to do when
Speaker 1: the train would come at the camera. But instead he
Speaker 1: just loves symmetry and he loves all of those things.
Speaker 1: So to be able to enjoy that amount of control
Speaker 1: and confidence is really winning. But not staying it's just
Speaker 1: not that deep and so there weren't really character character
Speaker 1: stakes for me, and I didn't really realize that until
Speaker 1: you ask the question. So I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's this was one and I haven't
Speaker 3: watched you know, many of them recently, so I don't
Speaker 3: know how much blood or death there is and a
Speaker 3: lot of them. But it did really shock me early
Speaker 3: on the first plane crash where his assistant is, you
Speaker 3: know that there's an explosion of the plane and the
Speaker 3: assistant is, you know, his top half is gone and
Speaker 3: there's a blood smear all along the wall, and I
Speaker 3: thought that is not typical of a Wes Anderson filmed
Speaker 3: And I thought, okay, But coming back to the emotional stakes,
Speaker 3: it's it's played very cartoony. It is it's an event
Speaker 3: that happens. It's sudden and drastic, and there is not
Speaker 3: really an extreme emotional response to that. And I think
Speaker 3: that's that's really the stakes is. It's it's it is
Speaker 3: one step removed. It's a very hyper real world. It
Speaker 3: reminds me of if you've ever you know, when you
Speaker 3: go to a theme park, the newer rides, where as
Speaker 3: you go through the line, you're sort of slowly entrying
Speaker 3: the world, and it has to get you in the
Speaker 3: atmosphere and can convey all this information about the world
Speaker 3: to you very efficiently and very quickly. So like the
Speaker 3: Indiana Jones, right, you're gonna go through, you're gonna see
Speaker 3: these things that all these things that are set up
Speaker 3: that are supposed to be real, but they're beyond the
Speaker 3: reel because they've got And that's what this entire movie
Speaker 3: feels like, is all these documents, all these things are
Speaker 3: there to create this sense, but they're all they're all props,
Speaker 3: they're all fake. There's there's no substance to them, there's
Speaker 3: no meaning behind besides creating the sense of the world
Speaker 3: that you are going to be sitting in for the
Speaker 3: next hour and forty minutes. And so there's no emotion
Speaker 3: to it because it is really just taking you on
Speaker 3: a ride that you exit at the end.
Speaker 1: It's a really good point about all of the props
Speaker 1: and stuff. One of my biggest feelings about the movie
Speaker 1: is I would like to walk around all the sets
Speaker 1: and open like as if it was an immersive haunted
Speaker 1: house or something, and open up all the drawers because
Speaker 1: everything would be real and beautiful and fun and like
Speaker 1: old time all those books that he's d Yes, I
Speaker 1: would love that maybe more than like sometimes you can
Speaker 1: just yeah, like the fact that they're painting. It's just
Speaker 1: like set up the shot and get rid of those
Speaker 1: pesky actors, Like.
Speaker 2: I want a Wes Anderson wolf right, yes, yes, and
Speaker 2: it does you bring up the books like I can't
Speaker 2: wait to see this on streaming because I want to
Speaker 2: pause it and write down every title of every book
Speaker 2: because some of them are hysterically funny and and I
Speaker 2: didn't catch them all. It's interesting to think about these
Speaker 2: characters because I sometimes think they're all I mean, every
Speaker 2: character in I can't think of a character in a
Speaker 2: Wes Anderson movie that isn't an emotionally stunted person trying
Speaker 2: to learn to feel again. Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2: I kind of feel that way here. Look, she's trying
Speaker 2: to feel her way out of religion and doesn't even
Speaker 2: know it until she is Her commitment is her sacred
Speaker 2: commitment is annulled. He is trying to feel his way
Speaker 2: into fatherhood again and figure out what that looks like
Speaker 2: free from the you know, the trappings of arms dealing.
Speaker 2: There is a lot of that. And when you go
Speaker 2: back through the other you know, some of the other
Speaker 2: in the catalog of Wes Anderson films, they have all
Speaker 2: of this same style. It's like it's it's emotionless, but
Speaker 2: mostly because every character has turned is turned inside out,
Speaker 2: like they're all, you know, I'm I'm so sad without
Speaker 2: crying because inside they're crying I love you without like
Speaker 2: it's they're like saying, it's also cold outside, right. And
Speaker 2: And I think that is an interesting thing about Wes
Speaker 2: Anderson movies that makes that makes them appeal to me
Speaker 2: because they allow me to sort of be the emotional
Speaker 2: litmus test of a scene. That allows me to participate
Speaker 2: in an interesting way because I can put myself in there.
Speaker 2: It's like generic beans. I get to put the flavor in.
Speaker 2: That's a weird I don't know why I brought up beans.
Speaker 2: Let's talk just really quickly about violence, because you brought
Speaker 2: it up. I think this might be Wes Anderson I
Speaker 2: probably arguably Wes Anderson's most violent film. There were some
Speaker 2: things in if did you guys say you've seen Budapest Hotel?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, So there was like a throat
Speaker 2: slitting and some fingers cut off, and there's a prison shive,
Speaker 2: but they're so absurd that there were probably more absurd
Speaker 2: than any of the violence that was here. Isle of Dogs,
Speaker 2: of course had some really brutal dog fights, but they're animated, right,
Speaker 2: so that was different. Everything else is just really I think,
Speaker 2: really emotional, like like emotional violence, right. Everybody else is
Speaker 2: just really not very nice to each other. And if
Speaker 2: it's violent, I guess French Dispatch had its share of deaths,
Speaker 2: so I think this one was the most bold. And
Speaker 2: I'm wondering how that impacted your viewing of it, Like
Speaker 2: not what you expected. Did it add something to the
Speaker 2: story watching this guy get beaten up as he did
Speaker 2: and other people around him get beaten up? Did it work?
Speaker 1: You've already said, But the opening shock meeting and the
Speaker 1: opening probably bought me, probably bought him a lot of time.
Speaker 1: Interesting just sort of like shook me awake from this
Speaker 1: isn't exactly what you're thinking about it going to be
Speaker 1: a Wes Anderson movie, as the rest of the movie
Speaker 1: was absolutely exactly what I was thinking it was going
Speaker 1: to be as a west As movie. But it was
Speaker 1: always like, well, just you wait, maybe something else and
Speaker 1: it never does, and not in a complaining way, but
Speaker 1: it just never reaches that kind of surprise again on purpose.
Speaker 1: It doesn't want to.
Speaker 3: I think the most graphic for me was, you know,
Speaker 3: when he gets shot and it's just you know, pluck
Speaker 3: the bullet out, and it's he's sitting there with this wound,
Speaker 3: just bleeding out, and I'm looking at that thinking, this
Speaker 3: is unlike other things that are very you know, flat
Speaker 3: or caricature or whatever, this is a very realistic, you know,
Speaker 3: looking wound with blood, you know, slowly trickling out of it.
Speaker 3: And I thought, I don't I don't know what to
Speaker 3: make of this in this film. But when you have
Speaker 3: a character that is there are multiple assassination attempts on him,
Speaker 3: something has to happen. But I thought, okay, how straight
Speaker 3: how serious were you playing this? And then it gets
Speaker 3: the pluck it out and it's just the fingers digging
Speaker 3: there a second pop it out because his all his
Speaker 3: documents had sort of slowed the bullet, so that sort
Speaker 3: of took it back to the typical Okay, no emotional
Speaker 3: stakes to this. It's well and it's in there, just
Speaker 3: take it out and I'm fine. But throughout the film,
Speaker 3: his arms in the sling all that, so he's injured.
Speaker 3: So it was something that did stand out to me,
Speaker 3: And I guess it fits in when you have a
Speaker 3: character where the world is trying to destroy him, but
Speaker 3: then all the other attempts are so you know, oh
Speaker 3: that assassin, I think he worked for me before, you know.
Speaker 3: And even the confrontation at the end with his with
Speaker 3: his brother, I think, you know, Bennett Cumberbatch, it's so
Speaker 3: much acting with his eyes and eyebrows. It was like
Speaker 3: a German expressionist film of just you know. That's that's
Speaker 3: where the evil was. There was no true menace in it.
Speaker 3: Everything is cartoonish. Even his threat is not so I
Speaker 3: I yeah, that's why those two sort of moments at
Speaker 3: the beginning and the Bulow wants stand out because they
Speaker 3: are so distinctly different from the other assassination attempts, you know,
Speaker 3: throughout the film.
Speaker 2: And yet still even in all those assassination assassination attempts,
Speaker 2: it is that deadpan, emotionless experience. He feels no pain.
Speaker 2: I couldn't help but that. I haven't seen the movie yet,
Speaker 2: but I'm very interested in the Jack Quaid movie. Novacane Novacate.
Speaker 2: I kept thinking of that, like this, what if Wes
Speaker 2: Anderson directed Novacane? I think we might get this.
Speaker 1: Yes, because he himself feels very safe.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, all right, the that's a great line too.
Speaker 2: I actually think that's probably the mic drop line that
Speaker 2: I will internalize and use in my life the most.
Speaker 2: From this. Myself feel I myself feel very safe, and
Speaker 2: I will not. It'll a year, maybe two, I'll forget
Speaker 2: that it's from this movie, and in ten years I'll
Speaker 2: watch the movie again and I'll be so surprised that
Speaker 2: I've been cribbing from it for a decade. That's how
Speaker 2: it works usually, I myself feel very safe, all right,
Speaker 2: the story, So I feel like it should be we
Speaker 2: should make this like a game to try to piece
Speaker 2: together what the hell happened in this movie and why
Speaker 2: it exists.
Speaker 1: He was too powerful and had too much money in
Speaker 1: his fingers in too many pots, and so the government
Speaker 1: works to do something to his something in order to
Speaker 1: put him at risk of something. And so he has
Speaker 1: to go around to all five different business partners, including
Speaker 1: his strange brother, in order to get something from them
Speaker 1: that was a percentage. And it doesn't work, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't work, but it kind of works. The end. Is
Speaker 1: that pretty good? That was in the middle he has
Speaker 1: assassinated a bunch and seemingly going through some sort of judgment. Ye,
Speaker 1: periodic judgment in heaven.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, okay, I'm so glad you did it the
Speaker 2: way you did because what you did was a plot
Speaker 2: summary mad lib. And now it's up to Steve to
Speaker 2: figure out the words that fill something.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And honestly, Steve, like truly, I'm really interested in your
Speaker 2: perspective on the judgment, the divine reconciliation. Yeah, this thing,
Speaker 2: because I have a feeling that that gave you something
Speaker 2: to think about.
Speaker 3: It did, because the first time that happened, that was
Speaker 3: the other thing that I do not work. It seemed
Speaker 3: very uncharacteristic of a Wes Anderson film because it's this
Speaker 3: there's this bold edit and the images in a black
Speaker 3: and white negative, and then it flips back and now
Speaker 3: it's black and white and we're in a very again
Speaker 3: like mid early twentieth century depiction of some type of
Speaker 3: heavenly round with just cotton fluff around and people sitting
Speaker 3: on benches and all that. And I wasn't sure what
Speaker 3: to make of it learns to his is it his
Speaker 3: mother or his grandmother that is there? And you know
Speaker 3: she's like grandmother and she's like, I don't know you.
Speaker 3: And I thought, oh, okay, this is this is interesting
Speaker 3: because it's playing around with this. Does is this a rejection?
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 3: What is this back and forth? And as we keep
Speaker 3: coming back, it's it's giving him some information. It's somehow
Speaker 3: enlightening him as to something, because it seems like he
Speaker 3: takes something from each vision or out of you know,
Speaker 3: near death experience. There's something that he gets from that.
Speaker 3: I don't know that it's clear. I didn't. I couldn't
Speaker 3: make a clear connection of like, oh he got this nugget,
Speaker 3: he's going to use that to leverage or it's going
Speaker 3: to help him develop his relationship with his daughter. So
Speaker 3: I couldn't track those points. I don't know that I'm
Speaker 3: supposed to other than there's an assassination attempt. He has
Speaker 3: a near death experience. Weird things happen, and he take
Speaker 3: he's taking some knowledge from that, because I could not
Speaker 3: parse out what was going on other than we get
Speaker 3: to Bill Murray is God allegedly, I guess. So I
Speaker 3: mean there as with everything else very interesting looking, lots
Speaker 3: of talk with not a lot of substance. I can
Speaker 3: peg anything to. But again, I don't know that it's
Speaker 3: for us as the audience. It's the meaning for the character,
Speaker 3: for him to take something from here.
Speaker 2: We have ostensibly a Cain and Able story where we
Speaker 2: have the marked man, right, we have this guy who's
Speaker 2: metaphorically guilty of spilling blood. That's Zaza. He's an arms dealer, right,
Speaker 2: He's he's struggling under the weight of past choices. And
Speaker 2: we have his brother, whose moral stance seems to be
Speaker 2: the most righteous of them. And because it's Wes Anderson,
Speaker 2: at the end, it's inverted and instead of Cain slaying Able,
Speaker 2: he's trying to make amends. Is there any room?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I watched the Vanity Fair interview le Wes Anderson explained
Speaker 3: his films. Oh I watch that, and it's but he
Speaker 3: gets a little bit into a story. And because I
Speaker 3: wonder about how tightly structured things are, because I think
Speaker 3: visually things are very tightly choreographed, where you know, things
Speaker 3: have to enter frames at certain times and all that.
Speaker 3: But the since I got from that interview that story
Speaker 3: he's he's got the story. There's clearly some improvising that
Speaker 3: goes on. Even says, you know, the art of writing
Speaker 3: itself is improvisation. You're you're starting from nothing so great,
Speaker 3: something you have to improvise, you have to make it up.
Speaker 3: And he talks a little bit about the sort of
Speaker 3: the process is the movie revealing itself. So it's not
Speaker 3: that he's got a specific finished product. I think he's
Speaker 3: willing to say, oh, well, this seems to be working. Well, okay,
Speaker 3: let's that. Let's go towards that. So I think that
Speaker 3: maybe some of these things we try to pin something
Speaker 3: specifically on might just be a well, it seemed to
Speaker 3: fit the story well and it resonated at some level.
Speaker 3: We'll go with that, not that there was any intentional
Speaker 3: I'm doing this. You know, he's going to see the
Speaker 3: three former wives there and that's going to represent this
Speaker 3: or that. I think it's a oh, it seems to
Speaker 3: feel right for this guy to go through these things
Speaker 3: to sort of how I'm now taking that information of
Speaker 3: It's like the exact opposite of a David Fincher of like,
Speaker 3: you know, this movie is built to every second in
Speaker 3: my head and I'm going to do that, and he's
Speaker 3: sort of like, well, we'll discover it a bit as
Speaker 3: we go through.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. And I wonder you said he
Speaker 1: doesn't truck an allegory. I think this is these are
Speaker 1: very allegorical, yeah, scenarios, And I think that the idea
Speaker 1: that his own family does not recognize him, that he
Speaker 1: sacrifices something in the forest and opens it up and
Speaker 1: it's just filled with money. That it looks like in
Speaker 1: the beginning, the very first one, someone is opening the
Speaker 1: book of his life in order like a Saint Peter,
Speaker 1: in order to be judgment. But then instead of opening
Speaker 1: a book, opens a casket where maybe him is as
Speaker 1: a child.
Speaker 3: As a child.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so I'm interested in that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: It is a little alarming to try to use. I
Speaker 1: desperately need it to be allegorical, because this film doesn't.
Speaker 1: I don't feel this film allows any kind of like
Speaker 1: David Lynch dream logic, because everything is so tightly wound
Speaker 1: that's almost like it just makes me think it's like
Speaker 1: pretentious or out of ideas or something, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Just like it makes me angry if it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean something, because everything in this movie is so.
Speaker 2: Well taught out. Yeah, yeah, well that's what's so interesting
Speaker 2: about it. For me, It's like this whole movie is
Speaker 2: walking that tightrope between this one character's exploration of like
Speaker 2: the vengeance thread in the Old Testament while also trying
Speaker 2: to navigate toward the grace thread of the New Testament, right,
Speaker 2: And it's like, it's like I find that fascinating because
Speaker 2: I don't expect it from Wes Anderson movies. And and
Speaker 2: it just felt like it was screaming, Tom, you've now
Speaker 2: dropped the hint twice. We have to talk about your
Speaker 2: least favorite sequence.
Speaker 1: The fight. The fight at the end between him and
Speaker 1: what's his name, what's his name? Cumber Man. It didn't
Speaker 1: make sense stylistically, it didn't match anything. I thought it
Speaker 1: was ugly. I thought it was weird. I thought it
Speaker 1: was hard to decipher. It was weird. The one time
Speaker 1: when his camera dared to be hand held and dared
Speaker 1: to be not nailed down to a rail, I thought
Speaker 1: it was terrible. I hated it, and it deflated so
Speaker 1: much of the movie, all of this control. It could
Speaker 1: have been cool to have this crazy, but it's like
Speaker 1: he didn't know how to do it. I don't know,
Speaker 1: like he's just not trained that way. I know this
Speaker 1: is the first movie that he hasn't used his longtime
Speaker 1: cinematographer in a long time. I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: mean it looked until that sequence, it looked exactly like
Speaker 1: everything else. But I thought it was so weird and
Speaker 1: I don't mean to use this word, but like cringey.
Speaker 1: Like I just thought the fight was so everything's leading
Speaker 1: up to that, and it was such a disappointment, and
Speaker 1: it really like put through the movie down a peg
Speaker 1: for me hugely. Obviously I am alone on that.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, it reminded me of things from like
Speaker 3: I think of it, like the Marx Brothers, where it's
Speaker 3: just like somebody's running around and they're hiding behind things,
Speaker 3: they're popping out in different places, and it's exaggerated actions
Speaker 3: and it's sort of you know, I guess Screwball's any
Speaker 3: of things, and what's doing in this movie is throwing
Speaker 3: the little vial right at him. All of that it
Speaker 3: felt felt like that. So I was along for the ride.
Speaker 3: It didn't feel like such a jarring shift for me.
Speaker 3: So it didn't bother me as much because this is
Speaker 3: every other attempt to kill him has been you know,
Speaker 3: this assassin where now he's he's dealing with a face
Speaker 3: to face his enemy on this. So I just took
Speaker 3: that as okay, now sort of the charade is gone,
Speaker 3: We're going to deal with this directly. Does that justify that?
Speaker 3: I don't know that necessarily would say that, But I
Speaker 3: just took that as okay, We're entering a different phase
Speaker 3: of the story here now. So because everything else, the
Speaker 3: other thing was all the design and everything was very
Speaker 3: Middle Eastern, that whole Phoenician thing, everything, Once we get that,
Speaker 3: we're in a completely different place than we have been
Speaker 3: for you know, the entire movie, so the book was different.
Speaker 3: So for me, I just accepted that.
Speaker 2: I guess I think I accepted it too. I think
Speaker 2: you actually might be on an island all out. And
Speaker 2: there were a couple of things. First of all, I
Speaker 2: was I really enjoyed I might be an island. I
Speaker 2: enjoyed the the actual diorama of all of the lands
Speaker 2: having come together, with the waterfall and the trails going
Speaker 2: back and forth. That was really fun. And so the
Speaker 2: satisfying umber Batch Godzilla moment where he climbs up to
Speaker 2: and then the grenade. He explodes with the grenade. I
Speaker 2: was really satisfied by the way his arc came to
Speaker 2: an end and how everything like the tower falls, and
Speaker 2: that was I guess maybe I've just stuck so deeply
Speaker 2: into the biblical arc. But the other piece is, you know,
Speaker 2: our cinematographer Bruno Doubleell done a lot of Tim Burton done,
Speaker 2: some Cohen's done, Joe Wright, Alexander Sukarov, David Yeates did
Speaker 2: The Half Blood Prince. So I feel like this had
Speaker 2: like this was his first Wes Anderson film, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't really his first Wes Anderson film. Like he's done.
Speaker 2: He's done incredibly opinionated visualists before, and so I give him.
Speaker 2: I give him some credit there this And in fact
Speaker 2: he did and his Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the
Speaker 2: Tim Burton adaptation of the book, and I think you
Speaker 2: could see a lot of parallels between the lensing of
Speaker 2: that movie and this one, which is strange to say
Speaker 2: because it's so unique and iconic in its own way,
Speaker 2: but especially that final sequence was interesting to me.
Speaker 1: So I've said, and I like the Godzilla Part two
Speaker 1: and I love the model thing. It was just that
Speaker 1: fight scene, It's like they it felt like if it
Speaker 1: wasn't this director and it wasn't this movie, I would
Speaker 1: go to see this movie and be like, oh, they
Speaker 1: really ran out of time. Interesting, like they ran out
Speaker 1: of time to film that sequence, or they just they
Speaker 1: burned so much time on all of these excruciatingly controlled things.
Speaker 1: Then it was time for the fight. They were just like,
Speaker 1: all right, just chased me around with the camera and well,
Speaker 1: if we get in trouble, will Benny Hillett speed it
Speaker 1: up slightly, go broad, give the people what they want.
Speaker 1: And it's like there's an one I want it at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's really interesting. I totally get it. Especially
Speaker 2: went like I was from the moment like the opening
Speaker 2: credits sequence. I you know, I was just like I
Speaker 2: had chills because I was so fascinated with the layered
Speaker 2: outlines around each letter in the typography as it appeared,
Speaker 2: and the way the color mimicked the outlines in the
Speaker 2: tile floor, and I felt like I was playing Where's
Speaker 2: Waldo with words like when's the next word? Show? Yes?
Speaker 2: That was like the helpers are moving in slow motion
Speaker 2: a little bit. I thought that was so great And
Speaker 2: if you you're going to spend the time to make that.
Speaker 2: Then yeah, I think you're right. Then let's not Benny
Speaker 2: Hill the final sequence. Right, Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: But again, so much of this stuff I feel like
Speaker 2: it it just demands a second viewing just to see
Speaker 2: it again. Okay, do we have any sort of thematic issues?
Speaker 2: You know, we've talked a little bit about the biblical
Speaker 2: stuff about transactional relationships versus transcendence and finding the end.
Speaker 2: The gift of hand grenades, I think is an interesting
Speaker 2: one to keep coming back to. I don't know why
Speaker 2: that was a thing. I obviously it's rooted in his
Speaker 2: arms dealership. Is there something else to it that I missed.
Speaker 3: Other than early on? He says it's what they're cheaper
Speaker 3: than bullets or something like that. It costs them less
Speaker 3: than actual bullets. But they're in a little like fruit crate,
Speaker 3: you know, something that's been repurposed. But yeah, no, I
Speaker 3: was wondering about that because when we get to you know,
Speaker 3: his brother, he's like, oh, would you like a hand
Speaker 3: grena He's like, oh, got my own. It's like okay,
Speaker 3: so there's something. But again, I don't know that you
Speaker 3: can abscribe, meaning to it other than it was consistent
Speaker 3: throughout it and it was of a piece of itself
Speaker 3: and it just fit that that world. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: it's as I said, it's that hyper real world. The
Speaker 3: other thing I think of is the quicksand we're in
Speaker 3: the air where quicksand is a thing that is, you know,
Speaker 3: a danger just and it's like hand greanades, you know,
Speaker 3: that's that those are the things that are out there
Speaker 3: because they're this sort of existential threat that's funny, Whereas
Speaker 3: a bullet is something that's very real and I think
Speaker 3: very relatable to today versus no one's throwing around thankfully,
Speaker 3: no one's throwing around hand grenades. So it is is
Speaker 3: something that that's the only sense I could could make
Speaker 3: out of that is it represents something without having a
Speaker 3: real strong emotional resonance or connection to anybody in the
Speaker 3: audience that might feel that, you know, bullets or guns
Speaker 3: made you know, trigger some things.
Speaker 1: Although the end.
Speaker 2: Right, speaking sort of symbolically, the hand grenade is a
Speaker 2: representation of, you know, we are the architects of our
Speaker 2: own destruction. Yes, I think is an interesting thing, especially
Speaker 2: because the whole thing's anchored in him as an arms Dealer. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I thought it was nice, especially like that they were
Speaker 2: painted so beautiful. Yes, so Wes Anderson hadads are the best.
Speaker 2: Shall we talk through our favorite performances? Oh? Benicio captivating?
Speaker 2: Oh he always yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1: He can do. He's one of those actors that can
Speaker 1: just do very little and it's just always interesting to
Speaker 1: watch one.
Speaker 2: He's such an interesting performer that he can go back
Speaker 2: and forth between things like this and Marvel and twenty
Speaker 2: one Grams and Big Top Pee wee and be just
Speaker 2: absolutely captivating as a performer. Yeah. I think I think
Speaker 2: it was. I think the movie set us up with him,
Speaker 2: you know, after the crash when he gets up and
Speaker 2: we have that extreme close up on his face. I thought,
Speaker 2: this is gonna be a move. I'm gonna have to
Speaker 2: close my eyes through a lot because that, I oh,
Speaker 2: was horrific.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we get several of those throughout the film.
Speaker 3: It something else I don't recall in prior films. I know,
Speaker 3: we're always centered in straight on but this was full
Speaker 3: just face filling the entirety of the frame. And that's
Speaker 3: not something I recall seeing done often or as frequently.
Speaker 3: Because I want to say it's probably occurs like three
Speaker 3: or four times, but it's his story to tell, and
Speaker 3: I think I think the performance works. I think he
Speaker 3: really keyed into who this guy was. You know, the
Speaker 3: bit about he doesn't have a passport because he doesn't
Speaker 3: need human rights, you know, associated anyone country tells you
Speaker 3: that he's a unique person, and I think that, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's it's somebody that I don't know that I would
Speaker 3: ever want to meet or know someone like him. But
Speaker 3: the performance, I think he found the right person for
Speaker 3: this this character.
Speaker 1: And that I the close up of that horrific guy,
Speaker 1: I think does help you side with him because if
Speaker 1: someone always feels safe and believes they're safe and never
Speaker 1: has any emotion for something, then there's no one to
Speaker 1: back but the fact that you've seen him hurt and
Speaker 1: when he hilariously shows up during the news interview, how
Speaker 1: would you like to, Oh, there, he is slightly off.
Speaker 1: That was really awesome. Yeah, that's fine. It makes you
Speaker 1: It makes him a little bit devilish, but also vulnerable.
Speaker 1: I know I said there was no real stakes to feel,
Speaker 1: but at least you know that he's not invulnerable, because
Speaker 1: then you're at risk of just walking watching like a
Speaker 1: Forrest Gump. Or a mister Magoo just sort of travel
Speaker 1: through life and just accidentally stand on the crane at
Speaker 1: the very last second instead of falling to his doom.
Speaker 1: Right right.
Speaker 2: I think he was the perfect face to lead this thing.
Speaker 2: Really really liked him. Then we have to turn our
Speaker 2: attention to Mia Freepleton.
Speaker 1: She was great.
Speaker 2: Had you seen her in anything else before?
Speaker 1: Have I a good question?
Speaker 2: That is a good question. She hasn't been too much.
Speaker 2: She was on television. She did six episodes of Dangerous Liaisons.
Speaker 2: She was in I Am and the Buccaneers. She was
Speaker 2: in the main cast of the Buccaneers. She was in
Speaker 2: a couple of shorts Scoop in twenty twenty four Firebrand,
Speaker 2: she was Joan of arc I think in Firebrand, Shadows
Speaker 2: and a Little Chaos. Going back to twenty fourteen, she
Speaker 2: is the daughter of Kate Winslet. Oh can you see
Speaker 2: it now?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: I can't see it?
Speaker 2: Yes, Okay, yeah, there it is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was kind of wondering what else I'd seen her
Speaker 1: in because she looked familiar. The answer is no, I haven't,
Speaker 1: but that's why.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, she hasn't been in much. I imagine
Speaker 2: she'll be in plenty more. I thought she was quite good.
Speaker 1: I thought she was great. And that's a rough role
Speaker 1: because she's not allowed to be as expressive facial wise
Speaker 1: as Benicio del Toro, and yet she has to have
Speaker 1: the same deadpan kind of arc and I thought she
Speaker 1: was arch kind of attitude. And I thought she was
Speaker 1: really extremely watchable. Their relationship was one of my favorite threads,
Speaker 1: and it's probably what the movie really is about, yes,
Speaker 1: but I liked you could see it step by step
Speaker 1: and especially by the end, sitting back and watching them
Speaker 1: go through things. Wes Anderson was really good about doling
Speaker 1: out little connection, little things, Oh you armed yourself, good
Speaker 1: for you, Like little moments of them slowly, slowly coming
Speaker 1: together of two people that can't actually talk to each other.
Speaker 1: I thought that was really satisfying. I like that.
Speaker 2: I did too. I think the moment, there's that little
Speaker 2: moment besides them at the end serving food together and
Speaker 2: playing cards at the very end, which I thought was
Speaker 2: just the icing on the cake for their emotional art.
Speaker 2: Starting from the table where he's giving over airship to her.
Speaker 2: My favorite moment was when she had pulled out her knife,
Speaker 2: which was absurd, and he traded her.
Speaker 3: With the new knife.
Speaker 2: I thought that was such a weirdly loving moment and
Speaker 2: a real mark in the fact that he'd made a
Speaker 2: turn on their relationship.
Speaker 1: And tellingly he offered it to her. He didn't she
Speaker 1: took it, yeah, from this, so he offered it on
Speaker 1: her level. She made the decision that's them communicator, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Which is neat really really special kind of relationship. So
Speaker 2: I think she was I think she was great. She
Speaker 2: was a great nun. I like the arc of her
Speaker 2: sort of trying to feel her space in the Wes
Speaker 2: Anderson world and helping him her father, find find grace, right,
Speaker 2: find a relationship that he can count on, which wasn't
Speaker 2: much before. Okay, Michael Sarah Beren, where do we stand
Speaker 2: on Michael sarah our loyalty, loyalty and a bug boy energy.
Speaker 3: When you cast Michael Sarah, I never know what I'm
Speaker 3: gonna want to expect or what I'm going to get
Speaker 3: out of him. So I mean it's interesting because the
Speaker 3: I thought, Okay, he's playing this character, but then when
Speaker 3: we get the twists in the reveal and he's like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is who I really am. I just thought that transformation,
Speaker 3: you know, the tie comes undone and everything, and I thought,
Speaker 3: and we get another character out of Michael Sarah. I
Speaker 3: just love that so much about it, about how he
Speaker 3: was used in this movie, all of that sort of
Speaker 3: the you know, the unknown mole at the beginning of
Speaker 3: the movie, to becoming you know again part of the team,
Speaker 3: really be getting accepted in as part of that team.
Speaker 3: It's sort of like the the misfits that sort of
Speaker 3: are able to and I guess he has that with
Speaker 3: Lisel as well, of like these moments of like transparency
Speaker 3: with each other whereas everything is so as Tommy said,
Speaker 3: behind the Glass, they have these human moments with each
Speaker 3: other to the extent possible in a Wes Anderson movie.
Speaker 3: I mean, you don't get them, you know, the emotional
Speaker 3: residence to it, but the characters have those moments where received, oh,
Speaker 3: there's connections going on here. And I thought that was
Speaker 3: handled really well and it made sense and it worked
Speaker 3: well with him in that role.
Speaker 1: Has Michael Sarah ever been in a Wes Anderson MOVI before?
Speaker 2: Not?
Speaker 1: Because if not, he is he has made for it
Speaker 1: that he is. Wes Anderson is going to adopt him
Speaker 1: like he adopts actors. Michael Sarah's going to be in
Speaker 1: every single Wes Anderson movie from now. Uh. He's perfect
Speaker 1: for it. And I really like Michael and Michael Sarah.
Speaker 1: Even when he's not doing a lot. I also think
Speaker 1: he's very interesting. I loved the turn of the trick
Speaker 1: of the You know that he is playing a different person.
Speaker 1: The only thing that brought it a little bit not
Speaker 1: as fun for me, as I've seen him do that
Speaker 1: trick before. Did you guys see the movie Youth and Revolt.
Speaker 1: Oh no, he plays his own alter ego like his
Speaker 1: It's like a super cool spitting on the floor smoking
Speaker 1: guy when the normal hymn is that. It's almost these
Speaker 1: kind of reverse So I've seen him do that before,
Speaker 1: so it didn't strike me too crazy. But I thought
Speaker 1: it was really fun. I like him a lot.
Speaker 2: I did. I did think it was fun, and I
Speaker 2: did think at the beginning, when we first meet him,
Speaker 2: I thought, I wonder how long I'm going to be
Speaker 2: able to put up with this accent. I hope this
Speaker 2: isn't Jit. And so the turn was really nice, and
Speaker 2: and finally seeing him settle into the head of the
Speaker 2: class role at the little coda at the end with
Speaker 2: the bug on his hand, I was like, this is
Speaker 2: that they played this perfectly. They played it absolutely perfectly,
Speaker 2: and it makes the early Sarah that much funnier. I
Speaker 2: think it was. It was really really well earned. From there,
Speaker 2: we have a coterie of extra little performances, I think
Speaker 2: the big ones that stand out. I think the pairing
Speaker 2: of Brian Cranston and Tom Hanks was of particular delight.
Speaker 2: Did you take them on two on two first to five?
Speaker 1: The most American?
Speaker 2: I think that Cranston's calling the shots, calling his shots
Speaker 2: in particular, maybe the most, but both of them. I
Speaker 2: think that sequence was written so well. It was so
Speaker 2: funny that that there happened. Their meeting happened sort of
Speaker 2: illicitly at the place where the two train tracks don't meet,
Speaker 2: like by fifty feet. I thought that was really really
Speaker 2: perfectly architected, and it was really fun to see them.
Speaker 2: Thoughts on them or any of your other favorite stunt
Speaker 2: casting bits.
Speaker 1: I was really pleased by how they didn't overlap too
Speaker 1: much that I talked about before the episodic struck that
Speaker 1: were and I mean Wes Anderson. You can think that
Speaker 1: he writes the same characters over and over again, but
Speaker 1: that's wrong. They are weirdly distinctive. And it's not just
Speaker 1: their weird hats that they wear or weird choices of
Speaker 1: like eyeglasses, like they're just they're all deadpan and weird.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, there's just something really interesting about
Speaker 1: all of them. And he picked the right people. And
Speaker 1: Rais Ahmed was really fun and I would think that
Speaker 1: maybe he would be an interesting maybe wouldn't fit that
Speaker 1: world as much. Maybe I haven't seen enough of him,
Speaker 1: or maybe I'm mixing up up with Robbie Malleck. That's
Speaker 1: very possible. Either way, he he formed into that world
Speaker 1: perfectly like everyone. Yeah, I believed everyone in the world,
Speaker 1: which is always invited.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's funny about those guys? So Rezamed and Matthew
Speaker 2: Almarek and Jeffrey Wright let's see I.
Speaker 1: Think jeff run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so fun and they were really those guys were
Speaker 2: allowed to emote in the ways that the other characters
Speaker 2: were not, Like of all the emotion that interesting that
Speaker 2: is missing from everyone else. We got some real spasmodic
Speaker 2: experiences of emotion from those guys as they were dealing
Speaker 2: with trauma. Matthew al Marek when pulling the bullet out
Speaker 2: right he was he was downright anxious, which is saying
Speaker 2: a lot for a Wes Anderson movie.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's the fact that we only get
Speaker 3: them for those just few minutes. But they are not
Speaker 3: forget you know. They do. They do stand out, but
Speaker 3: not in a way that's like, I don't want to
Speaker 3: say it, like they're flat, one dimensional. I get a
Speaker 3: sense of like, oh, I could see them again in
Speaker 3: another film, because there is there is something to them.
Speaker 3: There is a history. There's something hinted at with each
Speaker 3: of them, whether it's you know, the brothers, or we've
Speaker 3: got the nightclub that the ceiling is getting shot up
Speaker 3: and it's like, oh, what is this nightclub place? And
Speaker 3: what is going on in this country? We've got the
Speaker 3: rebels coming in. I thought, okay, there's there's something interesting
Speaker 3: and intriguing that a good writer can get across, versus like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is just a generic type X character that is this,
Speaker 3: Oh he's a business man, he's the nightclub guy. I've
Speaker 3: seen a thousand of these before, but these are all
Speaker 3: unique and they get that and quickly efficiently. And yeah,
Speaker 3: the emotion piece is coming back to the whole the
Speaker 3: whole scheme is he's you know, he's backed out of
Speaker 3: the deal, he's changed the terms on them, and so
Speaker 3: it's like these are guys that have money. So it's
Speaker 3: like we get to see because again, our main character
Speaker 3: is just very emotionless. It's like, this is business, this
Speaker 3: is my plan, this is how I'm going to.
Speaker 1: Go through things.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, when you when you screw over the partner
Speaker 3: in your plan, they're going to have a reaction to that.
Speaker 3: And so it is interesting to see how they each
Speaker 3: sort of handle the betrayal that he's trying to downplay,
Speaker 3: you know, like oh, no, no no, we'll just we'll take
Speaker 3: that back, right, Like no, no, no, no, no, you don't
Speaker 3: you don't just get to take that back and all
Speaker 3: is good and done.
Speaker 2: There are consequences, Yes, there are consequences, and they're laid
Speaker 2: out so plainly. It just maybe because it's a Wes
Speaker 2: Anderson movie. It feels like I think, you know, Clippy
Speaker 2: pops up and says, would you like me to outline consequences? Yes,
Speaker 2: it's very very clear. I would love to see a
Speaker 2: movie where Tom Hanks and Brian Cranston get shared top billing,
Speaker 2: and I don't know, it's got to be like a
Speaker 2: bosom buddies kind of a thing, an odd couple. I
Speaker 2: don't care what it is. I want those two guys,
Speaker 2: those two faces on screen together. They deserve each other.
Speaker 2: That was one of my favorite sequences. Okay, I can't
Speaker 2: I can't believe it, but I think we're I think
Speaker 2: we're reaching the end of our time together here in
Speaker 2: the Phoenician scheme. And yeah, I know, and that means.
Speaker 1: Been very pleasant. And I will not remember a moment,
Speaker 1: not a minute of it.
Speaker 2: I've already forgotten anything before the last ten minutes. So
Speaker 2: let us transition if we can to letterboxed, letterbox dot com,
Speaker 2: slash the next world. That's where you can find our
Speaker 2: h Q page. And now we have to apportion our
Speaker 2: hearts and our stars. As you know, the rules that
Speaker 2: are never obeyed. There is a fixed number of stars
Speaker 2: in the world, and if you place stars here, you
Speaker 2: have to take them from something else. No one ever
Speaker 2: pays attention to this rule. It is key to the
Speaker 2: entire system. I feel like the damn's gonna break. That's
Speaker 2: the rule. Go ahead, break it, Tom, What do you
Speaker 2: think never understand?
Speaker 1: I've taken so many hearts away from the finest hours.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It is in a hole. It is
Speaker 1: in a hole, just like she did. When the movie ended,
Speaker 1: it was a strong four. By the time I got
Speaker 1: to my car, three point seventy five and now three
Speaker 1: point five.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, sure we talked about it, it got worse.
Speaker 1: Well, just because you guys brought up sequences that I forgot.
Speaker 1: I forgot about him getting a shot. There's just not
Speaker 1: enough sticky. So I love the experience. I will see
Speaker 1: his next movie, and I'm really glad that this exists.
Speaker 1: I am. It is so ephemeral. It's a great word
Speaker 1: for it. I mean, I can't. I'm going to give
Speaker 1: it a heart, absolutely, and if I see it again,
Speaker 1: I better it'll go back up to four. And then
Speaker 1: I'll see and I'll see what it is three days
Speaker 1: later because I just cannot remember. I'm going to give
Speaker 1: it a three point five. I can't give it a
Speaker 1: four because that's what I gave and sinners. I still
Speaker 1: think about sequences from every day since I've seen it.
Speaker 1: What sequences am I remembering from this movie? Well, I
Speaker 1: can remember my favorite part. You to my actual favorite part.
Speaker 1: It was in the closing credits. This is the how
Speaker 1: do you know that you're seeing a Wes Anderson movie
Speaker 1: because there was a P knuckle consultant that was an
Speaker 1: actual credit towards the end of the thing's P knuckle
Speaker 1: consultant that was like Wes Anderson.
Speaker 2: Like, if you just told me that, I'd be like Western, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Of course, yeah knuckle three point five, huge heart, And
Speaker 1: it will always as soon as I see the movie again,
Speaker 1: it will go back up.
Speaker 2: I like that, Tom. Your rationale for rating applying stars
Speaker 2: needs like a five year moving average. You think that's funny.
Speaker 2: It's like a stock pick.
Speaker 1: Yes, things are looking up. I would just yeah, I would.
Speaker 1: I would put a price checker on my track.
Speaker 3: It is tricky to rate these these movies because, yeah,
Speaker 3: you asked me, like, as I'm walking out of the theater, like,
Speaker 3: what did you think of the movie, it's like fresh,
Speaker 3: it's right there, and then over time like, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: things fad. But then again we have this conversation and
Speaker 3: I knew this was one that I had, I had
Speaker 3: really enjoyed because there was something more to it, and
Speaker 3: so I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go with four
Speaker 3: stars because I think it is above some of the
Speaker 3: others and Tommy, I hear you about comparing, but it's
Speaker 3: like I'm looking at in terms of the scale of
Speaker 3: Wes Anderson movies, not comparing it to like a movie
Speaker 3: like Sinners, which was an amazing film. So I never
Speaker 3: could put four star films against each other. I could say,
Speaker 3: let me within the world of Wes Anderson, where it
Speaker 3: does this fall four stars in a big old bleeding heart.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love it.
Speaker 2: I think I'm glad you brought up Sinners. I just
Speaker 2: watched that again today. Wow, it's very timely is it streaming?
Speaker 1: It is? Well.
Speaker 2: I knew when I saw that I was going to
Speaker 2: want to own it, and so I put in the
Speaker 2: pre order for the top outwit. But I do sometimes
Speaker 2: when I think of movies like these, I go back
Speaker 2: to Ebert right, like, you have to judge the movie
Speaker 2: against what it's against, what it's trying to do, how
Speaker 2: well does it do what it's trying to do, Because
Speaker 2: there is no comparison for me between Sinners in this
Speaker 2: movie and in terms of Wes Anderson movies, in terms
Speaker 2: of the esthetic that he's going for. This is very
Speaker 2: near the top. I frankly, one of the great things
Speaker 2: that this movie inspired me to do is to start
Speaker 2: going back through other favorite Wes Anderson movies because I
Speaker 2: really love the aesthetic. And if that's one thing that
Speaker 2: comes out of this experience right now, is that I'm
Speaker 2: going to dive into to Wes Anderson a little bit harder.
Speaker 2: That's great. So I land on a four star with
Speaker 2: this one, and a great big heart as well. That
Speaker 2: averages out to a three point eight. It'll be a
Speaker 2: four on our letterbox channel. This was a really fun movie.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad we did it. I'm so sorry JJ
Speaker 2: was not able to make it since it was his pick,
Speaker 2: And man, don't you agree it was better than Why
Speaker 2: two K? I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: What a horrible legacy.
Speaker 3: Okay, but in two years, which film will you be
Speaker 3: able to summarize and recall better?
Speaker 1: Y two K?
Speaker 3: Or Phoenician scheme?
Speaker 2: Absolutely hy two K? And the emotional weight that Tom
Speaker 2: carries forever because of it. Look, that allows us to
Speaker 2: put to transition to what our coming attractions? What are
Speaker 2: we going to do next month? Tom? Will you do
Speaker 2: the honors?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? We're going to see a movie. And I got
Speaker 1: two words for y'all, maybe tries there atoms? We are
Speaker 1: getting the Dino getting back together. We are going to
Speaker 1: see Jurassic Park Dominion. Why says the world, We don't know,
Speaker 1: because we love these movies and we have been burned
Speaker 1: and burned and burned, and we're going back for more.
Speaker 1: Gareth Edwards is helming this one. Hopefully Scar Joe's in it.
Speaker 1: We're going back to back Scar and hopefully this one
Speaker 1: will dig out the dino hole that we have been
Speaker 1: in for a while. I am for all things dinosaur.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited.
Speaker 2: I'm excited because I hope there's a dinosaur garage again.
Speaker 2: Remember one of these movies, the dinosaur uh Modetizer elevator.
Speaker 1: There was the Dinosaur Model Walk You remember that? Y?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yes, yeah, we have a lot to look forward to,
Speaker 2: is what I'm saying. So, yes, that's coming up for
Speaker 2: our July pick uh. Go see this movie because it's
Speaker 2: a movie that probably needs more theatrical attention. Spend some bucks,
Speaker 2: go see it.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's it's worth it to see it.
Speaker 1: Not always do you need to go to movies just
Speaker 1: because they're big and loud and scary. I don't know,
Speaker 1: like dark Dominions. But instead, this movie is a visual feast,
Speaker 1: and so it's so much fun.
Speaker 2: To watch for sure, worth it in the theater. Don't
Speaker 2: bother d Box though, it's just dollying back and forth
Speaker 2: across the theater so much Dolly track. Do you agree
Speaker 2: like I wish I could have invested de.
Speaker 1: Box would be funny if you tried to look at
Speaker 1: like one half of the frame and it would slide,
Speaker 1: so you've had to look at the middle of the
Speaker 1: frame all the time. Sorry.
Speaker 2: Thank you everybody for downloading and listening to this show.
Speaker 2: We appreciate your time and your attention. Whether you agreed, disagree,
Speaker 2: or just came here to shout at your phones, we
Speaker 2: appreciate you. Whatever you do. Now, watch more movies, don't
Speaker 2: let them get you angry, and remember just because it
Speaker 2: has just because it has a post credit scene doesn't
Speaker 2: mean it's not wearing pinstripes and wide lapels. Meeting adjourned