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

0:21 Film Spotting is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. See any standard 2D movie, anytime, with no blackout dates or restrictions. Sign up now on the Regal app or at the link in our description and use code FILMSPOT26 to receive 15% off.

0:45 What kind of a show are you guys putting on here today?

0:48 You're not interested in art?

0:49 No.

0:50 Well, look, we're going to do this thing.

0:51 We're going to have a conversation. From Chicago, this is Film Spotting. I'm Adam Kempinar.

0:58 And I'm Josh Larson. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. We're in a tight spot.

1:03 Now, do me a favor. Imagine they're one of those people who think that Digger Rockwell is Satan himself.

1:08 Now, what are some of the harshest attacks I can expect from those folks who think that I'm a scum of the earth?

1:14 Tom Cruise joined forces with two-time Best Director Oscar winner Alejandro Gonzalez and Yari Tu for Digger, and the result was one of the biggest box office failures of the year.

1:25 File this one under failures worth talking about? We've got a review. Plus Robert Pattinson in primetime, a preview of the Chicago International Film Festival, and more ahead on FilmSpotting.

1:49 Welcome to Film Spotting. Josh, we have two hometown film festivals 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 Refocus Film Festival coming up the following week. 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 holgren will also check in it's going to be a big film spotting family reunion.

2:24 How about that i can't 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 uh riches overflowing cinematically for me this.

2:36 October Some fest talk ahead. Also, your thoughts on Robert Pattinson in primetime. 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.

3:10 President, 55 minutes ago, my company informed me of the explosion on our rig.

3:14 Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. What was this to make casualties in the hundreds of thousands?

3:23 Now Digger here got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us out! What the hell is that? That thing is huge.

3:32 For some, perhaps many, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu' s new film Digger may mirror the arc of his career as a filmmaker. it begins one way, then becomes increasingly affected, overstuffed, and overblown. Sure, his 2000 debut Amores Perro showed some formal ingenuity, linking three separate stories via a car crash, but his work since, including films such as Babel, Birdman, and The Revenant, has increased in grandiosity and, according to his detractors, pomposity. In his Letterboxd 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 with Iñárritu over the years, his apparent belief

4:17 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 Iñárritu, 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 Iñárritu movie.

4:43 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 Globe's Odie Henderson, also writing on Letterboxd, who gave it half a star, proclaiming, note in all caps, this is really a zero star review, but Letterboxd doesn't recognize no stars.

5:12 I didn't know that. Okay.

5:14 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.

5:53 I want to know what you are grateful to Inyari to for. What made this experience worth enduring? What made this experience one that you would even recommend others should try enduring?

6:07 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, you know, 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, what, 20 minutes of this movie.

6:47 And I have had better experiences with Iñárritu 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 Iñárritu hater. Man, did I feel like one for the first 20 minutes. There is a twist and a formal 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, Iñárritu, how much am I going to credit him for that? He is one of the co-writers. I believe there are three others.

7:24 Whose 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 discuss 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 of 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 Hulaire. It goes for Michael Stuhlbarg. 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

8:18 to sound the alarm over this 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 a fair amount, so I enjoyed it. 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 Gassner and Richard Johnson. I was endlessly fascinated, even when I was thoroughly annoyed at these sets. Again, this tiptoes into spoiler territory, but when the movie opens up, let's say, so does the production

9:12 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 Cruz's 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.

9:36 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 cast to be in the seats is ashen. It's like something from the Swedish director Roy Anderson.

9:52 I had the same thought.

9:53 Yeah, it's just stunning in the lack of pallor, the height to it, the circular nature of it.

10:01 The depth even, yeah.

10:02 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 the spoilers.

10:14 And did you mention, did I miss it, Lubezki, Emanuel Lubezki shooting it? Of course, it it looks very good as you would expect.

10:21 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.

10:38 Yes.

10:38 So I would say there are production qualities in Digger that are quite compelling, top level craft work being done here. Riz Ahmed'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.

11:07 It was really angering me in my time, and it turned out to be, I would say, worth my time.

11:14 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 in Yari too, and all of his previous films, except for a Morris Peros and Josh, it turns out, I actually may have liked this film more than you.

11:43 Wow. Okay.

11:45 I think that 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

12:31 sense at all what I was in for other than maybe seeing a picture of Cruise 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 then after about 15 minutes, it becomes a movie that's don't look up merging into something perhaps like Dr. Strangelove.

13:08 Okay.

13:09 So, 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.

13:40 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 Inari 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. Never imagined that would be the case. I've had fun talking to

14:31 people about it. I have someone in my life, my wife Sarah, who I know and she knows will never see this movie, so I can just talk at her about it. I can spoil it for her. She can sort of be a first round of this conversation because... it will be incredibly one way, but at least I could 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

15:17 made a movie that not only provokes people, 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 interests, 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

16:11 really is a good or bad movie. And I do know that that's good. I know that that's good, not bad.

16:19 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 fascinating. is really, it's 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.

17:03 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. This is a movie that basically, in that section, and I should say too, 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 grating because it's every character detail, every joke, every musical cue, it's all turned up to 11. And it gets to be over bearing. The, the example to me that stands out about this, I mustn't mention Jesse Plemons. They put a crazy wig on Jesse Plemons. You don't need to

17:52 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 a wig on Jesse Plemons. Just we, you know, it's, it's, we don't need it.

18:07 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.

18:34 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 Cruz's performance, the prosthetics element, right? It's not only that Cruz is wearing these prosthetics and the hair piece to make him look like 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 him trying to pat his hair down. We know, we get it.

19:02 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 strange love 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.

19:31 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 in depicting an apocalyptic end of the world scenario as farce. 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 Bosley Crowther from New York

20:25 Times to Pauline Kael, both gave Strangelove mixed negative reviews. and had similar and other critics did too, 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 in that it's making a joke about environmental collapse, calamity, having fun with it and not really going anywhere with it.

21:03 And obviously this is something we can, 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 strange love and makes me wonder if some, if a movie like digger, is it possible 30, 40 years from now, is looked back similarly to Strange Love 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.

21:41 The Doomsday Machine. What is that? A device which will destroy all life on Earth. I'm really glad you brought that up and you talked about whether or not it's going anywhere because that actually brings me to the next thing I wanted to say, at least.

21:56 Before we get into spoiler talk. What about.

22:15 These questions? What about this idea of whatever it has to say? And I'm not calling out anyone in particular here. It's just stuff I'm picking up in the ether. And 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.

22:41 Because I do think that this is a crutch. that allows the critic a lot of leeway to lob a, a very damaging grenade without really having to reckon with the ramifications. And that's when you, 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 it is.

23:12 Right, right, right, right.

23:13 Big, Big things, big questions, whatever, but doesn't do anything really smart or actually provocative or edifying with the material. And when you say that, when anybody says that, I mean, my thought is, okay, but why is that?

23:33 What do we.

23:34 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.

24:04 Or are the questions, are the questions enough? I've seen the complaint, for example, Oh, rich people are bad. Greed is destroying the planet. We're too dependent on fossil fuels. Gee, thanks for the enlightenment, Iñárritu. What about the adage, Josh, that it isn't what it's about, but how it's about it?

24:27 Does that apply here? Even 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, you know, the fact is here I am asking more questions and that's what I come back to with this movie is I am constantly still interrogating. I'm still asking more questions and I'm happy to tell you even more of the specific questions this movie made me consider because I have a lot of them. It does just involve spoilers, but I guess I am saying that I refute on some level the notion that this movie doesn't add up to anything. I don't think that's fair with a film

25:20 like this.

25:22 Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that's an argument I've used as well. The movie's not as smart as it thinks it is. And 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, and it doesn't say anything to you. doesn't mean it might not say something new on that topic to the person next to you. So these are the sorts of thoughts that apply to any work of art, honestly. And 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, right? That this is one of the movies that that's one of the things it is interested in. And it came to my mind as well.

26:06 One of the In the program I just finished, the Art and Theology Master's Program, one of the things we spent a lot of time talking about is both affordance theory and affect theory. So 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 bypassing maybe their intellectual responses, a more visceral, not even emotional, but just like a subterranean response to a movie. And 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,

26:51 these are questions Digger is asking, literally asking.

26:54 Yes, literally asking.

26:56 Is, does this bad piece of art, we'll 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 its value?

27:21 You're spoiling some of my questions for spoilers, Josh.

27:25 So before we lose some listeners who don't want it to be spoiled, let's talk a little more about cruise. I think we can do that. Yeah.

27:31 Can I say this because you brought up Ahmed and this will, this will probably allow us to transition or, or for me to toss the ball over to you with cruise, because I might be higher on the cruise performance. And it sounds like you are, we're on the same page with Ahmed. 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.

28:07 He gets to display the most range from having the most real internal emotions and getting to be this kind of watchdog person. cautionary character but also get to go you know full on into drunken drunken 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 Huler who's an amazing actress is largely wasted in this movie.

28:50 I think her character, unfortunately, this is the limitation of the writing, that character is just largely asked to be hysterical. 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 or if you're feeling 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 what Cruise has to do as Digger, carrying the entire film and being in almost every frame of the movie. And it's not

29:41 just that, though. 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.

29:52 Yeah, that's good.

29:53 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 movie. 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 Cruise is there, or is acting Cruise under the table there.

30:17 Cruise 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 Cruise 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 either is a limitation of the script or he's perhaps playing into exactly what the script is asking of him.

30:52 Yeah, we're getting into tricky spoiler territory here. What I will say about Cruz 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 grating, 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.

31:27 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. It is. And 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 an Iñárritu thing, over-insistent in some ways, where it's hard because the character is over-insistent. 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 Iñárritu as well, is just the natural sense of comic timing. You bring up Wes Anderson, and the one thing you could never accuse anyone his movies of lacking

32:17 is precise comic timing that, you know, 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 Cruz is just a bit off or the filmmaking is a bit off in landing those, those punchlines. I think Cruz is at his best in moments that only exist because of the twist of this movie takes.

32:45 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 Cruz's performance and we may we may disagree on on the scale here, and that's fine. We often disagree on the scale when when it comes to performances.

33:11 I think it's misleading to suggest that Cruz 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

33:57 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 Cruz does know, know how to, how to dial that performance. And there is some modulation.

34:16 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.

34:30 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. 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

35:14 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 moviemaking, Ricky recommends Paul Schrader's transcendental style in film.

35:39 Did you notice how casually, just how smoothly Ricky worked in being a double madness champion, Josh?

35:44 I like that.

35:45 Very well done.

35:46 Very, very humble Ricky. Yes. Humble champion. I mean, come on.

35:49 If I had won it two times and I think twice in a row.

35:52 It was.

35:53 700, 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 Letterboxd 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

36:32 to the year-end lists 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 hosts. I wasn't mad, he says. I was just disappointed. Oh, ouch.

36:51 He knows that hurts more.

36:53 Movie I credit with becoming a cinephile, M, and a favorite book about movies or movie making is The Kid Stays in the Picture.

37:00 Thank you, Conan and Kendall, for joining the family for all those years of listening. You can follow Conan on Letterboxd at Conan Neutron. Kendall is apparently too busy preparing for madness each year, not on Letterboxd.

37:15 There you go. That's how you do it. You have to train and you have to be diligent.

37:19 Although, wait a minute. Don't we both rely, and I know you and Sam do, for planning the brackets. on Letterboxd history and ratings and views to make so many decisions. This is even more galling.

37:33 That he wins.

37:35 He's not even on Letterboxd. He doesn't even use that resource.

37:38 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 spotting family.com. Josh, in addition to finally catching up with primetime, 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 that, 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

38:27 itself in just two visits. Regal is offering our listeners endless movies for less, and it's definitely less when you use the Regal Unlimited special code. For our listeners, film spot 26, you get 15% off. You can see any standard 2D movie anytime, no blackout dates, no restrictions. And that doesn't just go for tickets. You also save 10% on all non-alcoholic concessions. You can sign up now. We put a link in our podcast description. There's a link over on our website as well at filmspotting.net. Just use that code filmspot26 to claim your discount. It's ridiculous. And it's scary.

39:15 It's funny and it's stupid. It's a lot of fun to watch.

39:19 I'm the one who's going to keep us all from sinking into chaos. Let's get back to Digger, Josh. And I've been teasing it. I suppose I should actually share some of those questions that 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.

40:01 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 character. 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, and 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

40:47 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 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, where the camera is taking on what seems to be then the movie is if we were watching the movie digger, right.

41:41 Versus a theatrical production of digger that is effectively, it is, 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, we have to reconcile is, is this really what happened or is this, is this the theaters, the playwrights version of events? And of course, I think we have to believe it is more of that, right?

42:13 Yeah. It's definitely a farcical recreation of events that actually happened. 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 the this movie world that is still the stage. It's working. I think it's more sophisticated, speaking of Wes Anderson, in Asteroid City, but it's making similar moves. And here's where the production design comes in.

42:40 I love it.

42:41 This is a multimedia theater experience. So it's very complicated with projected images. There's cinematic lighting, miniatures. 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.

43:06 That's it. The clever ways that we are brought in and out of the movie world back into the, 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, it's immense and it's impressive and it, It's one of the magnificent elements of this film. Magnificent is the best word I can think of for it.

43:32 I would be shocked if this film isn't recognized for some of those technical awards come 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.

43:58 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 Iñárritu' s 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 Cruz's character verbalize it the way he did, as emphatically as he did, and actually have to think about just how hypocritical are we?

44:46 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? If it does, is it lasting or is it fleeting? Or does the length of the

45:40 catharsis even matter? Is it enough that it's fleeting? Here's the one that is verbalized in the film, and yes, it's Does it bother me a little bit that it has to be verbalized?

45:52 Sure.

45:53 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?

46:18 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.

46:32 To his director, yeah.

46:34 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.

47:02 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 Plemons 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.

47:42 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.

48:06 It could be the heart of this show, Adam.

48:08 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 farce is, 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.

48:47 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 rattled off eight other questions it's made me think about.

49:00 Well, now I've gone from, you know, 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 it home with that commitment and that passion was fresh and new and made me think about those questions anew. The role of farce is a fascinating one. This explores. Here's the here's the clever element of all of that for me, though, Adam.

49:41 is the extra little bit where they acknowledge or at least some people involved that this might come in the conversation where Cruz'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.

50:11 So it has its own reputation. I thought that was pretty ingenious that Digger got ahead of the bad reviews in a way by acknowledging that 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 an, 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.

51:02 That hit me in the gut the way the movie ended 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. 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. Yes.

51:30 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

52:30 not that simple ever. Yeah.

52:33 If it had ended that way, honestly, despite everything I've said up to this point, it might have then just submarined 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 maybe 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 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.

53:21 At least I, as a viewer, had no sense that it was that bad.

53:23 How bad it got.

53:24 There's no way we expect that it looks like that. It obviously then undercuts any potential real uplift about the power of art. Yes. 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.

53:52 What we don't really know, and 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?

54:29 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 had 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 think about that, and that ambiguity

55:15 is a strength of the film.

55:17 Yeah, totally agree. It's very much about how art, and even bad art maybe, affords different audiences different experiences. It depends on who they are, what they've been through, when they're experiencing it. 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.

55:43 I found it to be more thought-provoking than that. And, you know, this speaks going back to the Strangelove experience. The only reason, not the only reason, I would posit a significant reason why Strangelove is so revered today, beyond the artistic value of what it adds on screen, is that it can now be watched and has been able to be watched probably since, what, 1970?

56:09 Mm-hmm.

56:11 Through sweaty laughs, through laughs that are like, you know what? We made it during that tense nuclear standoff era. And now 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. This is like watching Strange Love when it came out. Yeah, it seems raw, too 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. And now add to that the political tumult that we've been enduring as well. So,

57:06 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.

57:20 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 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?

57:50 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 strange of 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 vexing people a little bit with this movie.

58:28 It's possible.

58:29 It's another thing that just is a conundrum as people are trying to wrap their head around this film.

58:35 Yeah. And that sincerity brings me back to the point I never got to about Cruise's performance. And when I think he's at his best, it is when he is playing Curtis Markson and a very 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.

58:53 Yes.

58:53 They can't find her plane. And while he's going through this tech rehearsal, um, 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. Cruise is excellent in those scenes. And I'm probably over praising it only because, you know, what have we had for mission impossibles 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

59:38 who's worried about his kid. Um, it was just kind of refreshing to see that Cruz to be reminded, reminded, we know Cruz can do that. It's just been a while. Right. And, and, you know, it speaks to your point about the modulation, um, All the different scales he's hitting from this normal concerned dad who happens to be an actor to this insane clown tycoon.

1:00:02 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. Yeah, it's a little awkward. This is where the Iñárritu instinct to hammer us with something potentially tragic and to be manipulative, I think, comes into 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,

1:00:54 and I thought, okay, there is, there is an intersection as this movie is blurring all these lines, these meta lines, there is an intersection with, with the plane travel. And there's an intersection with the storms and the storms that are happening within the, the real events of, of Digger, that Digger world. And then the, the flight out of Jamaica.

1:01:16 I don't think that the real world events are, 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 to quite justify the emotional manipulation of it. It didn't for me. It really rubbed me the wrong way with this movie.

1:01:38 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 used the word loss.

1:01:46 Mm-hmm.

1:01:47 I think it helps to make the abstract loss we're seeing 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, 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.

1:02:25 So many of them are presented in a line of dialogue, as you mentioned. And I, 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.

1:02:46 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 Cruz's performance. When you have a performance within a performance, um, and the character giving the performance is frustrated and questioning the performance he's giving.

1:03:22 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.

1:03:38 Right.

1:03:39 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 performances 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, it's breaking down a little bit in his performance is, is Cruz actually bringing that level of nuance to his performance that those things are happening at once. Maybe, maybe that is happening. Maybe,

1:04:35 maybe the truth is, is that Cruz is, is as Markson 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 2 overall, and this film anyway. He's he's he's building in answers. Rebuttals to all of the potential challenges to his work, right?

1:05:24 It's not funny.

1:05:25 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 taken seriously. And it's really up to each viewer to decide anyway. OK, 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.

1:05:44 Cruz'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 Cruz performance part, I wonder if this, the very charitable reading, the very charitable reading would be that this potentially exposes where audiences these days aren't great. And, and I'm hoping I like to believe I'm, I'm, 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 any validity to it is I think we all struggle myself included at, at sitting with

1:06:37 or handling two truths at once. we want to see things as very black and white and Cruz 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, that we're, that we're describing and, and are there are, 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 Stuhlbarg, the general character, who I should look up the actor's name because he's a very familiar that guy character actor, you know, Goodman, they're doing the big farcical moments. And it's almost like the camera, when it catches Digger, when

1:07:32 it catches Cruise, it's like he's observing. It's as if it's Markson outside of his body taking in the scene, trying to process what's happening and what really happened. And it's like he's live interrogating everything. And I find that interesting.

1:07:52 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 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 believe. But it could be what you're describing. I will say that Cruise is trying to give us hints of Markson beneath Digger early on.

1:08:31 I will say I asked myself that question while watching it after the reveal, because it's one of the interesting things. pops in your mind and I found that there wasn't a lot of that there and I held it against Cruz because I didn't see him offering that level of critique it was to me a 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 he We still get high levels of farce. 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.

1:09:21 It is.

1:09:22 Than what we'd been getting before. But the entire play moves that way. We also get just minutes before that, though, we get the moment in the freezer where he's as deranged as he's ever been having these delusions of grandeur about a miracle abundance of food.

1:09:39 But is that high volume, Josh? Is that high volume? Not to me.

1:09:44 The way he plays the scene is.

1:09:46 Not to me.

1:09:47 It's a good question to keep in mind and worth looking at on a second watch, which, yeah, I'm positive enough on Digger as well to be interested in giving it that second look.

1:10:00 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 Digger is being portrayed like a clown.

1:10:16 Well, yeah, it starts with him and his, because 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, and preview night. So, yeah.

1:10:30 This is funny. A movie that when I, when I glanced at Letterboxd and obviously I did because I pulled a couple of the half star characters or one star comments there. I saw people I deeply respect, Josh, who had five star responses to this film. And I saw people like Odie and Isaac who had the complete opposite antithetical responses. Saw a few people like you in the middle.

1:10:55 And we just talked about Digger for about as long as any movie we talked about in the show's history.

1:11:00 So I think there is a second wave. It was hard to, when the embargo lifted, 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 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 tend to need either huge box office or critical acclaim. 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,

1:12:00 I say that a little derisively, even though I like the film.

1:12:03 Good point. As someone who has certainly been angered by Iñárritu 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.

1:12:39 We would love to hear your thoughts about the movie. Email us feedback at filmspotting.net. I imagine, Josh, we will actually get some comments about this one.

1:12:48 We should.

1:12:51 I don't really like your show, but America loves it. So I need to move you to catch a predator. 9 p.m. primetime.

1:12:58 I'm going to be bigger than Lost. I'm going to be bigger than Lost!

1:13:02 Lance Oppenheim's Primetime 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.

1:13:17 What?

1:13:18 Morality play? We'll find out. Merritt Weaver plays the show's head producer, and Skylar Gazzando, who we've seen in Licorice Pizza and last year's Superman, is Decoy Dan, 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...

1:13:47 actor going these days. And I know there's been a lot of buzz about this performance. What did you think of primetime?

1:13:56 Yeah. Acting is, is the key for me here. This is what I most, most appreciated. What is this movie? I would say it's, it's a meditation on, um, demonstration as well on, of the craft of acting. It's very, it's 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 Dateline NBC.

1:14:23 I mean, we've had the documentary, which yes, I had my issues with, we had a 2020 expose before that. And, uh, just seems like this is something the country is obsessed with. Um, there are probably so many other stories that deserve more attention, but here we are with primetime. 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 Hansen, doesn't need that, but it's something he brings as well as just this dead-eye soulless quality that immediately exposes or questions the righteousness of this enterprise. He also makes him this creepily excitable showman.

1:15:13 One thing to watch, we were just talking about Cruise's performance and to watch for nuances. If you're going to see primetime, 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 of a sudden you hear the cadence shift and he starts talking as TV's Chris Hansen. Just a clever little ploy that Pattinson does there. Skylar Gisando, I think is 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

1:15:54 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, an entrapment scene with a potential predator.

1:16:26 My name is Dan Plum.

1:16:27 Do you know what your auditioning for is?

1:16:30 So you are playing a 13-year-old?

1:16:32 Is there time for a rehearsal?

1:16:33 We're going to shoot the rehearsal. Come in. They're going to love this.

1:16:38 Creditor. And his response, a couple of levels. The immediate acting, instinctual 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... that is very much about what it takes to be an actor, just technically, but also emotionally.

1:17:05 So I think he's great in it. And you mentioned Merritt Weaver giving very much Faye Dunaway vibes here from Network as this mercenary producer. I always appreciate her performances. She's great here. Phoebe Bridgers, Adam, did not recognize as another decoy on the team, on the To Catch a Predator team. Very small part. but she's incredibly, if 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.

1:17:43 So yeah. You know, I think people are fascinated clearly by the legacy of this show. They might be seeing it for those reasons. Pattinson 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 Primetime.

1:18:05 Primetime, out now in wide release. Let us know what you thought of it. Feedback at filmspotting.net.

1:18:16 You do live what we might call a non-traditional life. You know, since you got here, I've been feeling better about myself.

1:18:25 The 62nd 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. It premiered earlier this year at Cannes. That is the opening night movie, Josh.

1:18:49 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 fests, 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.

1:19:25 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.

1:19:41 Yeah, let me get to those. I've got two here. And the first is a documentary called Citizen Osama. You know, as an international fest, you have an opportunity 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 since, including this one, which is an on-the-ground account. It follows an artist who's Son was born during the eighth month of the war, despite, you know,

1:20:30 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's Citizen Osama.

1:20:54 It's screened Sunday, October 18 at 6.15 p.m. and Monday, October 19 at 2.30 p.m. 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.

1:21:20 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.

1:21:37 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.

1:22:02 So it's pretty damning stuff. It's chilling, numbing to hear. Fairly straightforward, mostly of these interviews, which are 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.

1:22:32 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, unpacking from work. and basically enjoying this relative domestic peace that the Israeli military is, from that very city, targeting not that far away. Just a juxtaposition that made the documentary even more haunting for me. One more thing about Naza.

1:23:01 If listeners remember the documentary No Other Land from 2024, pretty sure Mariah Gates, it was her number one film of the year, Adam, when she joined us for our top 10 show. Some of the same filmmakers behind no other land are involved in making Nasa. So it's coming from that team. So yeah, Nasa in limited release now.

1:23:20 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.

1:23:28 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 Mulholland 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

1:24:14 at the Music Box, and then Friday, October 23rd at AMC New City is the debut, starring Julianne 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.

1:24:44 And Josh, it just sounds so delicious because you have Julianne Moore playing an actress. But based on the description, she's playing a housewife, 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.

1:25:09 A method actor. And 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 director.

1:25:28 Everyone can take the rest of the day off, except for Mona.

1:25:32 Every single thing you are doing is.

1:25:36 Not working out.

1:25:37 I'm Miss Danielle. Thanks for coming by on such short notice. What seems to be the problem, Barnaby?

1:25:43 Sorry, is that how she's going to do it?

1:25:46 So you've got two heavyweights there, and I am really excited to see this movie, which is being billed as a comedy. So the debut is one to check out at the Chicago Film Festival. if you have the chance.

1:26:02 And yeah, another element of audition, as I was talking about with Primetime and Skylar Gisando. So yeah, great scene. Audition scenes have to be catnip for really good actors when they get a chance to do it on screen.

1:26:15 And I'll remind people what I said during Mulholland 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.

1:26:31 All right, my other pick is called Eight Bridges. And this one is a little avant-garde, Adam, 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 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 10-minute static shots. that invite audiences to look at, listen to, and contemplate these structures in all of their astonishing, harrowing complexity.

1:27:07 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 ecocinema, ecocinema, and landscape cinema, and we watched Benning's Deseret from 1995 for that, which there, Benning basically paired static shots of landscapes in Utah with 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.

1:27:50 So he's also made 10 Skies, 13 Lakes, I think one or two others. This one, Eight Bridges, a 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 p.m. Sunday, October 18, 5.15 p.m. Monday, October 19, and Benning is supposed to be at both screenings.

1:28:19 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 Mirazzi. The movie is called The Girl with the Leica. 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 in She was a German-born war photographer. She was covering the Spanish Civil War.

1:28:55 I believe she was the first woman war photographer to die in the field. And the girl with the Leica does document is effectively a biopic is, is documenting her life. And I'm going to 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 And her work is one of the reasons why I would be excited to see The Girl with the Leica and then also having the filmmaker Alina Marazzi there on October 22nd.

1:29:30 That's a Thursday night and also on the 23rd Friday night, both at AMC New City. That's one of the reasons why you go to fests like Chicago. And Chicago is really good about having filmmakers there 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 we're fans of on this show, Andrew Haig, his new movie, A Long 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

1:30:18 its fifth annual screening. 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 Haig's film, A Long Winter, is the opening night film on Thursday night, October 22nd.

1:30:39 But his movie, 45 Years, is also playing on Friday, and he will be there on Friday receiving the Fest Cinema Savant Award. So If you come to the fest, you can see Andrew Haig. He's doing a Q & A after the Thursday night premiere of A Long 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.

1:31:04 And we've decided to tie our top five into the Thursday night premiere of A Long Winter. And we're going to do our top five winter movies with Matt Singer, who's going to be at the fest.

1:31:17 Yeah, that'll be a lot of fun. I have not yet started on that list. I know you have some preliminary notes. I'll have to peek at those because we might be doing a joint list, but a great topic. That's where I'm going to see A Long 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 F.W. Murnau's Faust, which I've never seen with live musical accompaniment. So that would be pretty cool. And yeah, Matt's got a book talk as well. So it should be a couple of great days with everyone at Refocus.

1:31:51 And we haven't even mentioned that in addition to Matt doing a reading, Jane Schoenbrunn will be at the Refocus Film Festival doing a reading right after Matt of their new book, Public Access Afterworld. So that's fantastic that Schoenbrunn 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 Englert on Sunday night doing a screening and doing what Blank Check does best of the Garbage Pail Kids movie. I'm finally going to get to see it, Josh. I get to cross off my most embarrassing blind spot. Yeah.

1:32:31 Now be honest, before you heard about this event, if someone had asked you, is there in existence, a Garbage Pail Kids movie, would you have been confidently able to answer yes?

1:32:41 Yes, I had heard of it.

1:32:43 You had heard of it.

1:32:43 I didn't know it existed.

1:32:45 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 Pail 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 Pail Kids movie. And of course, excited that Blank Check was going to be showing it.

1:33:05 Yeah, if you would like to partake in the festivities, you can learn more at refocusfilmfestival.org.

1:33:13 You play jazz flute? I dabble.

1:33:16 Would everyone love to hear Ron Burgundy play some jazz flute? Speaking of film spotting SVUs, 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 sub-genre, I suppose.

1:33:49 The options are The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Anchorman, Old School, Starsky and Hutch, Step Brothers, Superbad, Wedding Crashers, or you could, oh, I forgot, Zoolander, So eight options, or you could write in other. Josh, how did it come out?

1:34:11 Well, I was feeling bad, and I didn't really bring it up when we had Matt on, about my very tepid experience with Starsky and Hutch. He seemed to revere it quite a bit and rank it highly himself. But maybe I'm not alone. Last place here, 1% of the vote went to Starsky and Hutch. As a matter of fact, other received more votes with 3%. Then tied at the bottom here, each got 5% of the vote, Old School and Wedding Crashers. Step Brothers received 8% of the vote.

1:34:42 The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Zoolander both tied with 12% of the vote. In second place, however, a jump up, 25% of the vote, went to Superbad, which means Anchorman won the poll with 28% of the vote.

1:34:59 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 Crashers 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 Anchorman, but Zoolander is the best movie of the bunch and holds up the best. But

1:35:38 best movie is not best comedy for idiots, which is me, a high school boy, an idiot. And the answer to that is Anchorman.

1:35:47 Man, Aaron really put himself through the ringer there. I'm glad you found an answer. For Nick Principe, listen to your friend Billy Zane. The choice is clearly Zoolander.

1:36:00 Stephen says, Superbad 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, too.

1:36:15 Jonathan Anderson in Denver said, Stepbrothers doing this poorly means a lot of film spotting nation won't be invited to the Catalina Wine Mixer. And that makes me very, very sad.

1:36:25 Vivi says, had to go with other to give some love to my favorite Apatow film, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. One of the first and only films in this ilk 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.

1:36:42 Yeah, that's pretty dead on. I like forgetting Sarah Marshall. Lastly, here is Saurabh Kakani. Walk hard. The Dewey Cox story gets my vote. Criminally underrated and underseen, John C. Reilly makes the most out of his all-too-rare leading man time in the spotlight. A true comedy classic that deserves way more love. Well, nothing but grains of sand.

1:37:05 That was freaking transcendental, Paul McCartney. Don't you agree, John Lennon? Yes, Dewey 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 FilmSpotting. I need to revisit and reconsider.

1:37:24 Oh, you didn't like it?

1:37:25 I didn't love it. I think I was pretty mixed on it, actually, the first time I saw it. And I'm so into biopics and everybody I know.

1:37:35 It might have hit too close to home, Adam.

1:37:37 Maybe it did. And I say, did I say I 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 thank 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.

1:37:58 I don't know if we ever should have made him aware of this ability within our poll community. platform Josh but he can rank you can you can rank vote so rather than just having everybody pick one we I guess we want to be more definitive 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 and You can submit a comment at the bottom. You can submit feedback just as you always do here, and you can write in an other there if you want, but you do have the option here with this poll to rank.

1:38:46 Just drag the boxes, move them into the order top to bottom, enter. of your interest in seeing these films. Josh, their options.

1:38:57 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 he tortures himself with the options for polls and how we should go about things. Now he's just added another wrinkle. Every time he's going to wonder, should I make this a ranked poll or a straight vote?

1:39:16 Oh, no. You're right.

1:39:18 Don't do this to yourself, Sam. Don't do it.

1:39:20 Another calculation.

1:39:21 Another calculation to angst over. Anyway, your options for this ranked poll. Avengers Doomsday. Dune Part 3. The Further Misadventures of Cliff Booth, which we'll remind you is being directed by David Fincher. Werewolf from Robert Eggers. Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse 9. And you can see everything, which is the Elizabeth Holmes doc from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim.

1:39:49 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.

1:40:04 Predict.

1:40:04 Predict. Predict.

1:40:06 Predict.

1:40:07 Yeah, well, I mean, it's not much of a prediction because after I say it, you're going to tell me if I'm right or wrong.

1:40:12 I mean, I think we should turn this into a 45-minute segment and rank. How would we rank?

1:40:18 Okay, Josh, let's do it.

1:40:20 Each one of these.

1:40:22 Oh, man. I might be able to do that, actually, for you. I think I could.

1:40:27 You are clearly, you are ranking first. Yeah, yeah, clearly.

1:40:36 I've got a very clear top. How about we start here? I've got a very clear top three.

1:40:41 Yeah, but that's, I mean, you do. That's obvious. I'm going to say your number one is you can see everything. You would rank that first.

1:40:49 You are incorrect, but close.

1:40:52 Oh, okay. How do you know I'm close? What is it? What are you going to rank first?

1:40:56 Well, you're close because it's second and it's vying for first.

1:41:00 Okay.

1:41:02 I am dying to see it. Is it?

1:41:06 Cliff Booth? Yeah. Yeah.

1:41:08 I'll go Fincher.

1:41:09 Okay.

1:41:09 I'll go Fincher number one. There's a new Fincher. It's number one.

1:41:14 Um, wait, I have to choose mine before you predict. Um, yeah, go ahead. Guess. I got one.

1:41:23 Your number one is obviously Robert Ager's werewolf. Yeah.

1:41:29 Yeah.

1:41:29 Yeah.

1:41:29 I mean, you know, I, yeah, it's funny. He's not like my favorite filmmaker, but, 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 werewolf.

1:41:45 I'm going to propose that we actually share the same number too. You can see everything. Yes.

1:41:54 Okay. Which I'm seeing tomorrow. Okay. Very excited for, except I think it's three hours. Yeah. Yeah.

1:42:01 I believe it is long. So we have, I've 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 doomsday territory, but wild horse nine has gotten, has gotten such buzz that, that maybe that bumps it up for you. Wow, this is tough, Josh.

1:42:36 I honestly think it could be any one of Dune, Booth, or Wild Horse 9. I just know it's almost certainly not Doomsday. I think if you had to only see one, I could easily second-guess myself here, but I'm going to say just based on the Oscar buzz, you'd have to see Wild Horse 9.

1:42:57 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.

1:43:09 See, that was it.

1:43:10 I knew it was those two. I have 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.

1:43:37 I don't know what's happening. Yeah, tell me about it. I've got a tortoise I'll be taking care of until I'm 80.

1:43:41 That could have been predicted. I mean, you could have researched that.

1:43:44 That's true.

1:43:45 We did the research. This thing's, I don't, she's taking too good a care of it. It's still living. Now it's our job. Sometimes crickets, some mornings, it's the mealworms. I got to get the thing of mealworms, get the little pinchers. dig in the sand for the mealworm and find one.

1:44:06 No thanks.

1:44:06 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.

1:44:18 A little reminder.

1:44:20 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.

1:44:31 What you think. We want to know your exact ranking. Go please do that now on the main page of filmspotting.net where you can also leave a comment and we may share your comment in a couple of weeks. That's our show, Josh.

1:44:45 If you want to connect with us on social media, you can find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, Letterboxd, YouTube, and Blue Sky. He's at filmspotting. 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 filmspottingfamily.com.

1:45:01 You can listen early and ad 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 filmspotting.net slash shop.

1:45:14 Sarah and I just started Slow Horses on Apple TV, so we're getting inundated.

1:45:19 So fun, isn't it?

1:45:20 Well, the first episode was a doozy. That's as far as we've gotten. We're now getting inundated with messages about Matchbox, the movie with John Cena. 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.

1:45:40 Boyd Holbrook and Kenneth Branagh 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. Rennie Harlan'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 can hope for such a world. He fights back against an enemy militia with his armored limousine, a.k.a.

1:46:07 The Beast.

1:46:08 Well, I hadn't gotten to that part yet. In wide release, Jessica Chastain is other mommy. That trailer is kind of creepy, Josh. I'm not going to lie. Oh, yeah. I would love to read the movie Aaron Sorkin is ready for the wage, the way Sam mistyped it. Oh no, because we're 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.

1:46:42 We don't get a, well, yeah, I did see it last night. Uh, you don't, Get those explicit things for podcasts, too. Do you know?

1:46:50 Well, you can if you market.

1:46:52 Well, this. Yeah. Don't.

1:46:53 Yeah.

1:46:53 Don't say it because we'll get one then.

1:46:55 Jeremy Strong, Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White star in the film. I will not name single week re-release 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 Phillips. Tuesday, Film Spotting SVU is covering Mike Flanagan's new Carrie limited series on Prime Video. The next picture show will continue its pairing of Prime Time and The Sweet Smell of Success.

1:47:25 And we will have our fall going into winter. It'll be the rest of the year 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.

1:47:41 Yes, let's talk about that one, not the other, please. Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe DeSoto and Sam Van Hogren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Ariana Martinez is our marketing and social media assistant. Special thanks to everyone at WBEZ Chicago. More information is available at WBEZ.org. For Film Spotting, I'm Josh Larson.

1:48:07 I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore.

1:48:13 Goodbye.