Wes Craven’s Scream at 30 | #1087

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. We're going to have a conversation. From Chicago, this is Film Spotting. I'm Josh Larson.

0:58 And I'm Adam Kempinar.

0:59 Do you like scary movies? What's the point?

1:02 They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act, who's always running up the stairs, and she should be going out the front door. It's insulting. There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a scary movie.

1:14 After a decade of diminishing returns from the likes of Jason, Freddie, and Michael Myers, the slasher movie got reanimated in 1996 with Wes Craven's Scream. Our 30th anniversary review of Scream.

1:28 Everybody's a suspect! Ahead on Film Spotting. Welcome to Film Spotting. The only trouble with attending film festivals, Josh, like the one we were both at here in Iowa City last weekend, the Refocus Film Festival, is that you often are seeing movies that many people won't see ever or won't see for quite some time. So we'll tell listeners to gird their loins for some FOMO. I am hoping that some of the films we'll touch on later, they will get to see in the coming months.

2:10 Yeah, yeah, definitely. I know one of the ones I saw is coming out in November, but sometimes it's the atmosphere to the unique experience you have at festivals, so we'll touch on that as well.

2:22 Also later in the show, Massacre Theater. Appropriate for Halloween and our topic this week. A reminder that Film Spotting is available as a video show. You can watch us talk over at youtube.com slash filmspotting. First up, Wes Craven's Scream at 30. There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie.

2:46 For instance, number one, you can never have sex.

2:53 No, no.

2:54 Big no-no.

2:54 Big no-no.

2:55 I'm a dead man.

2:56 Sex equals death, okay?

2:58 Number two, you can never drink or do drugs. As you know, Josh, this semester I'm teaching a first-year seminar called Movies That Change Us, exploring how movies shape or reflect our identity. As first years, my students are all considered late-ish Gen Zers. And one of the course's endeavors is to determine their defining generational movie. So we've spent some time considering criteria, including authorship. Was it created by members of Gen Z?

3:27 Character.

3:28 Does it focus on characters who represent Gen Z?

3:31 Audience.

3:31 Does it meaningfully express the experiences or worldview of Gen Z? Impact. Did it become culturally significant? for Gen Z, and Legacy. Will people still reference it years from now, specifically in the context of Gen Z? Gen Z is the cohort between 1997 and 2012, which makes Scream, released just before Christmas in 1996, a curious generational product. Director Wes Craven, 46 when the movie was released, belongs to the silent generation, post-so-called greatest generation and pre-baby boomers. Born in 1965, Screenwriter Kevin Williamson is just barely an early Gen Xer. As for all the teenagers being hunted by Ghostface at Woodsboro High School, including Drew Barrymore's short-lived Casey Becker, Rose McGowan's

4:21 Tatum Riley, and Nev Campbell's Sidney Prescott, still recovering from the rape and murder of her mother one year prior, they're straddling the line between Gen Z and millennial. Made for a scant $ 15 million, Scream didn't fare particularly well opening weekend, coming in fourth at the North American box office.

4:40 But thanks to strong word of mouth, it became a hit, bringing in over $ 100 million domestically. The demographic makeup of those audience members? Largely, other teenagers, other Gen Xers and millennials, of course, who spoke the same pop culture-obsessed language that Casey, Tatum, Sidney, and especially Billy Loomis, Stu Mocker, and Randy Meeks did. Billy, Stu, and Jamie... are played by Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard, and Jamie Kennedy, respectively. Specifically, they spoke the language of horror movies, such as Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Prom Night, movies that were released around the time they were born, or horror classics like The Exorcist and Psycho, which their parents' generation would have had a strong connection to. These kids

5:24 weren't the audience seeing Wes Carpenter's Halloween in theaters in 1978. They were the audience that grew up with VHS players, blockbuster video, and the ability to watch and rewatch and quote their favorite horror movies incessantly. Josh, we belong to that generation too. Take us back to 96, and I'm going to throw a lot at you here, but I know you can handle it. What was your relationship to horror then? Would just graduating from college Josh be able to wrap his head around the idea of future Josh writing a book about horror movies. Were you excited for Scream?

6:05 Did you feel like the horror genre was in desperate need of subversion and revitalization, as Craven and Williamson clearly did? As we've well established here on the show, you wouldn't likely be found hanging out with Billy, Stu, or Randy, surely finding their constant movie quoting insufferable, and you're not notably drawn to movies that call attention to themselves as movies or other such meta-works. yet I know you are a fan of Scream.

6:33 Why?

6:34 And why do you think the movie has resonated with the generations that followed us, like the Millennials, whose gen group ends when Scream was released, and Gen Z, whose group begins the year after?

6:49 Yeah, the second half of that question is going to be more interesting to speculate on than the first. I don't have a good Scream story. I don't remember if I even saw it in theaters at the time, Adam, because horror for me was not a genre coming out of college that I turned my nose up at all. But I wouldn't say at the same time it was elevated in my mind movies that I was interested beyond, say, science fiction or a bunch of other genres. Already being a cinephile as much as you can be just out of college, I wouldn't say I was horror angled in my cinephile interests would have had no idea that I would end up writing a book on horror. It's definitely a genre I've come to appreciate and love more as

7:33 I've gotten older, which is interesting. I don't know if it always works that way. It seems to be a young person's game, horror generally. And it certainly was with Scream, as you said, becoming such a huge hit and having the long life that it has gone on to have. I just watched the seventh film to be a completist in this series, which is crazy. Adam, not very good.

7:59 But I can now say I've seen them all. But most of them are pretty good to really good, I would say. This is a strong... So one answer I would give for why has it... Why did it catch on with audiences initially and why has it persisted is because for the most part, I would say these are pretty good films. I do think this first Scream we're going to talk about and its sequel are far above all the others. The first two movies are really great.

8:24 And They probably are the best, this is related, at that meta quality of being... Here's the distinction. It's not just about movie making, that it's a movie about movie making. We have gotten those well before Scream in 1996. You could go all the way back to Buster Keaton's The Cameraman and maybe earlier, right? Where there are movies that are about the act of movie making, the magic of movie making. What Scream did on top of that is.

8:55 Make it a movie. And I'm not claiming it's the first to do this either. Wes Craven himself, just two years earlier, made Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which, you know, original star of Nightmare on Elm Street, Heather Langan plays herself. So Scream wasn't the first to do this, but it was one movie that did really well and fairly early, I would venture to guess, to be a movie about movie going. And that's where the rules come in of What is a slasher need? What actions result in certain developments in the story? You know, that whole speech that Randy gives, that Jamie Kennedy gives. My sense is that those sorts of things probably happened in movies beforehand, but the timing was just right for where horror was. Not

9:47 that it needed to be rehabilitated by a new monster. I mean, Ghostface, let's face it, cool mask, But as a killer, there's not really a lot there, I feel like. So a new monster isn't what the Scream movies gave. But it did rehabilitate things by saying, let's catch our breath and think about what it's like to go to horror movies, to experience horror movies, how they work, how we respond to them, and have fun with that. And so I think being about the movie going experience is one reason. And that's, and then that's something that is doubled down on in Scream 2. And then I also think it's lasted because at least this first film, I feel like I'm eager to hear what you think is doing both things well at once. It is, yes, this

10:38 meta movie about movie going and movie going at horror movies, but it's also a really good horror movie. It's scary. It's got a mystery at its heart. It keeps you guessing. And here is where the combination of Williamson and Craven is so perfect. I think Williamson is bringing a lot of this meta stuff, even though Craven had dabbled in it before. And Craven is bringing the experienced horror filmmaking chops.

11:01 And you put those two things together and you get a horror movie that's working in both ways, to my mind. and well enough to sustain itself. Why is it popular now? Well, because we've had so many. I mean, it's just, you know, it gets to a certain point where it just soaks, when you have seven films, it's soaked itself into the culture and maybe is now on its last gasp if Scream 7, which came out earlier this year, is any indication.

11:28 My experience with Scream, I suppose, is somewhat similar in that I don't remember when I saw it either or even what the circumstances were. I know I didn't see it in theaters when it came out in 1996. I, as everyone who has listened to this show for a while knows, I was not into horror growing up. I was scared of horror movies. And even though this movie maybe didn't look from the commercials and trailers that I saw overly scary, I was always scared more by supernatural monsters and demonic presences. Those films really got to me.

12:05 Movies like The Exorcist, movies like Rosemary's Baby. So this one maybe didn't look as terrifying, but it was still horror. And I was definitely right in the prime of my arthouse Adam early cinephile phase at this point. So going to some teeny bopper horror movie at this point was not, and yes, I did just sound like a baby boomer there intentionally. That was not what I was really looking for from a theater going experience. And I knew later that, A short time later that there were lots of cinephiles and friends that I trusted and other critics who really responded to this movie and were into it. It just didn't intersect with my interest. I don't remember when I saw it later. I do know that it was on DVD.

12:52 I haven't seen any of the sequels. And I have only seen this movie once before re-watching it for this conversation. I remember enjoying it. I did enjoy it even more watching it. this time and really having to consider it and having to process it and process it a little bit through this lens that I brought up during my setup.

13:15 I agree with you that in addition to being legitimately scary, being a good horror movie at times, it absolutely is. And I know Craven has touched on this here and there too, that, that his goal and what he thinks hasn't worked so well with some of the sequels, for example, to a nightmare on Elm street is that he does try to make these movies about actual people, characters who actually have some depth to them, characters who you view as people first. And I think that's fundamentally here. That's on display with these characters, certainly on display with Nev Campbell's Sidney Prescott. And that generational lens was interesting to me because doing some academic research for my course, there's

14:03 a scholar named Timothy Sherry, who says something that when everybody hears it, it will sound incredibly intuitive probably, and maybe perhaps obvious, but it was very helpful. He says, if you look at teenagers on screen from the very beginning of teenagers being on screen to now, you'll notice that the concerns that are being dealt with on screen don't fundamentally change. teenagers don't fundamentally change. What changes is just the context. The technology certainly changes. Yes, of course, there are going to be then certain themes and ideas that expand, certain ideas that contract. But guess what we're still dealing with at the end of the day? Family issues, friendship issues, romantic relationships, fitting in, right? Coming to terms

14:58 with your identity. All of that is what's going on in Scream as well. All of this is what's playing out in the form of Sidney Prescott's character and what she is struggling with in her mind. So I think that that's something that any generation can relate to. They can see themselves in this material. They can see themselves in Sidney Prescott and others, even if the exact terms, if you will, the milieu doesn't directly connect to their experience.

15:32 And I think you touched on an element of that in your setup as well, when you were referencing the pop culture referencing. I think that's where at the time, those of us who are maybe just on the older edge or even teenagers, that was the experience of pop culture that they were having. I feel like, and I'm just doing this off the cuff, but my sense is Perhaps it was in the 1990s when that became more commonplace for movies to reference other movies. Maybe we can tie it to the Tarantino boom a little bit. Pop culture.

16:08 Movies referencing pop culture. You have Tarantino doing that right away with Reservoir Dogs. And you have it in Pulp Fiction. I'm even thinking of, this is on my mind because of Matt Singer's new book, Funny Business, about later comedies. But he talks about, in the 90s, the Ben Stiller show being where some of those comedians got their start.

16:30 That was so self-referential about pop culture. And so it does strike me that this may have been in the air for teenagers in the pop culture they were consuming, where it was starting to eat its own tail already. But at that point, maybe in a fresh and exciting way, I think we've gotten... inundated with that 30 years later, and we can find it maybe tiring at times. But here, to have something like the line you quoted, which is one of my favorites in this, when a minor character, when Tatum makes the mistake and says, you sound like you're in a Wes Carpenter movie. I feel like in 96, that was maybe fresh, but also in the air. It's just how people were talking with throwaway references. And it

17:24 might've been at the dawn of that sort of vernacular. Yeah.

17:28 Well, to that point, there is a reference later in the film where Randy, the Jamie Kennedy character in blockbuster, I think it's in the blockbuster scene where Kennedy is talking to Matthew Lillard's character and one of them calls the other character Alicia. And then right, right after that, or a short time after that, another character in the scene says, as if, and they're clearly referencing Clueless, which would have been tremendously popular at the time, having just come out in 95. But that film, like this film, is one that had its own and largely created its own vernacular. And even though that movie may have utilized new terms or created new terms, and this is a movie that is referencing phrases from the past and relying

18:20 on references to the past in these older films, it is still using them in a way that feels new and fresh. These characters are talking in a way that other high school kids have not talked before. And oh, by the way, the characters in Clueless are also making pop culture reference after pop culture reference, right? That's what they're doing. So yes, 95, 96, this is the heart of this when teenagers are speaking in a way that teenagers probably haven't really spoken before.

18:51 Were you surprised that I, in my memory, and I've seen it, you know, a couple of times since 96, but in my memory, the screen time given to these conversations though, is a lot more than what's actually there. Like Randy has maybe three or four scenes, but they're the ones that we all remember because it is the video store one. It's at the party where he's laying out the rules.

19:18 Of course.

19:19 And then it's at the great, the great, great, great horror sequence.

19:23 Agreed.

19:23 Where he's watching Halloween alone and we're watching him from the camera that Gale Weathers has snuck into the later.

19:30 Getting Halloweened.

19:32 Getting Halloweened. So it's, you know, it's, it's also, yeah, I just, I just think that the reason the second film is, so good is because there's room yet to explore after Scream in this sort of self-referential meta, consider the genre territory, because there's not really a ton of it here. Of course, there's the prologue with Drew Barrymore, which we should talk about. I want to talk about more. Yeah, maybe we should move to that. I guess I'm just thinking, were you surprised that there was not quite as much of the meta self-referential stuff, or was it about the mixture you would have expected? from your memory?

20:12 Well, I suppose I would say that there was as much as I thought there would be, if not more, because what I'm thinking of is all of the references, not just the, the explicit ones, maybe like you're bringing up with Jamie Kennedy, but there are so many. movie references here.

20:31 Yeah, like throwaway references for sure.

20:33 Yeah, throwaway references, but I very much include those, Josh, and those also include things like Linda Blair just showing up for a hot second in the movie, right?

20:42 Sure.

20:43 Like Craven, of course, appearing like Freddy Krueger in a scene. We could list like 10 of these, right? All of the abundant references to Psycho that are in this movie, the quoting of Psycho at one point directly. There are so many of them, honestly, including Billy Loomis character just openly monologuing about what they're doing and how it's directly derived from these movies that I truly felt like there was a lot of it. So maybe I'm just seeing it slightly differently.

21:15 Yeah, I know. That's fair. If you're counting every horror reference, you're right. It's wall to wall. I think I was thinking more of the explicit conversations about Or like a formal set piece that's built on it.

21:26 A formal set piece that's calling attention to the movie within the movie.

21:30 Yeah. I get that. Before wall to wall nods, for sure. Adam, who would have guessed a couple months ago that the must-see movie of the fall was not, you know, an early Oscar prestige title that people had been anticipating all year long. Not some big franchise installment, a superhero or sci-fi installment. But no. A three-hour documentary primarily consisting of Nathan Fielder interviewing Elizabeth Holmes. That is, you can see everything.

22:01 And pretty much everyone I know who regularly sees movies has or wants to see it and definitely wants to talk about it. If you had Regal Unlimited, you could see. You can see everything for free. Regal Unlimited is the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. And right now, Regal is offering FilmSpotting listeners endless movies for less. If you sign up for Regal Unlimited using code FILMSPOT26, you will get 15% off. Now, Regal Unlimited is the only truly limitless movie subscription pass.

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23:02 Before we get into the opening scene, just piggybacking off that, I do want to say that the meta element for me that I think I appreciated the most, and I'll give thanks to Matt Singer and also to you For the encouragement here, when we were at Refocus this past weekend, we were having a show meeting and Matt was sitting in on it. We were planning what we were going to talk about. As listeners may remember last week, we had teased that we might have discussed Carrie for its 50th anniversary. And then we just said, well, are there other options? Are there other films, perhaps horror movies having an anniversary? Maybe those would be more interesting to discuss.

23:44 Maybe our audience would be more interested in hearing us discuss them. We did land on Scream. And I don't remember if Matt just threw it out or if I asked something. I think the sequels came up and I said, well, I'm definitely not going to watch the sequels. Or, you know, I think what I said was that I really haven't seen much Kraven at all. I think Red Eye is about all I've seen from Wes Kraven. And Matt said, well, the one you should see if you watch one, or certainly if you watch a Nightmare on Elm Street sequel, the only one you really need to watch before Scream is the new Nightmare. And at some point in my life, I was aware of this movie and had heard of it, but it was long gone until he brought it up

24:25 and then you also echoed that. And I did watch it ahead of watching Scream. And I am really glad I did because I also really enjoyed it. Who would have thought? I enjoyed the movie that's about making a movie within it. And what it's really about though is about storytelling, which I respond to. And where I'm going, Josh, is that That film, what Wes Craven, I think, is trying to get at, and it's pretty explicit, but it's also implicit, is that storytelling is this powerful force. It is this force that's been diluted by these sequels, right?

25:06 And now by him reclaiming the genre and reclaiming Freddy, this power has now been unleashed. And it makes us think about the standing that these stories have in our lives. You watch a film like Scream, and you realize, for example, not only the ubiquity of these horror films and how much they do drive our lives, not only our enjoyment, but in some ways, just the way we view the world.

25:43 But it's also a sense... For me, watching Billy and Stu, and yeah, we're going to spoil Scream here, let's just be clear. We're at that point, I think, where it's fair to say it's been out for 30 years. If you haven't seen it, you should watch it. Doesn't it seem to you, Josh, when you get to the end of this film, you realize that when Billy and Stu lay out exactly what they were trying to do, what their grand design was, what they've done is... create a horror movie they've created their own horror movie within a horror movie they have they have if if they were just screenwriters instead of actual deranged killers they would have just written this all down into if they just had Final Cut Pro they could have put all the derangement

26:37 in their heads to good use and they would have concocted this entire story of this mom who slept around with someone and and then got murdered, and then the wrong guy went to jail, and then these kids staged this whole thing around the one-year anniversary of her being killed, and killed all these people, all these other teens, and framed the father. It would have been a perfect horror movie narrative that they could have positioned, that they could have concocted. And that's what they've tried to do, is they've tried to create a story. And their story, in this case, is thwarted. Their horror movie is mostly carried out, but thwarted, fortunately, at the end. You see, Sid, everybody dies but us. Everybody dies but us.

27:32 We're going to carry on and plan the sequel. Because let's face it, baby, these days, you've got to have a sequel.

27:39 Yeah!

27:41 Yeah, one of the disturbing things about the climax where this is all being laid out in classic villain style, as you said, is when they make that switch and start talking as if they're in the movie now. It's almost like the planning has led them to this. And the performance, I think, particularly of Skeet Ulrich gets creepy there because he kind of switches from being Billy to being...

28:08 this director in his own mind and actor, you know, he's, he's like directing the scene and performing the scene, which of course is, as I think someone says at some one point, this is, but this is real life. Um, so yeah, that's, that's another, I think, effective, um, horror sequence in the movie that just works on the pure level.

28:27 It has the meta element, but it also works on the pure frightening level.

28:31 Yeah. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about the opening scene, which I know was so memorable. When the film came out, it's been parodied, but it has also been imitated by many since. There is a reason, Josh, that this scene stood out, that so many people responded to it and I think dialed into this film in the moment after this, what, 12-minute sequence played out. How do you look at it now? What do you attribute that to?

29:05 I mean, it's just the movie in miniature. It's doing what I said at the top where it's functioning at once as this self-referential meta variation on a horror sequence. And it's also a really expertly crafted and scary horror sequence. And it's not borrowing or it's not stealing from one of those elements so that the other works. They're both so in sync. You have Barrymore giving a performance that it's almost like a pre what screen is really going to be because she has a lack of self-awareness in that performance that I feel is purposeful because she is meant to be the pre-screen horror character, if that makes any sense. After we get the title, everyone else we meet feels different than Barrymore's character feels. They feel more,

29:58 it's almost like, yes, she knows she's going to watch a horror movie. She knows answers to what two of the questions or the first question, but she doesn't really feel as pop culture aware as all the other characters we go on to meet.

30:12 Right.

30:13 That's why she gets the one wrong.

30:15 Name the killer in Friday the 13th. Jason! Jason!

30:19 Jason!

30:20 I'm sorry.

30:21 That's the wrong answer.

30:24 No, it's not. No, it's not.

30:25 It was Jason.

30:26 Afraid not?

30:28 No way.

30:29 Listen, it was Jason.

30:30 I saw that movie 20 goddamn times. Then you should know Jason's mother, Mrs.

30:35 Voorhees, was the original killer.

30:36 Jason didn't show up until the sequel.

30:38 Barrymore's performance is crucial, the way she handles that. And it's distinct from the others. It's the fact that she dies. I mean, you know, that's key to reminding us or to jarring us in the audience. But it's also inviting. This goes to the movie-going experience. By quizzing her, the movie is quizzing us. And all of a sudden, we're thinking about what it's like to go to these sorts of movies. What have they meant to us? What are our memories of them? And it's a construct. That works because it's creepy, but it's also getting our brain working on that pop culture referential and movie-going relationship level. And then in terms of the filmmaking, I'll just say that the cinematographer here, Mark Irwin, working with Craven, they're using

31:27 these widescreen anamorphic lenses so that the edges are a little blurry, a little woozy as she's walking through this house. And One of these simple choices, but so effective, the popcorn ballooning on the stove. Right? It's all you need is something like that to make a horror sequence work where we see it's ballooning, we see her forget about it, and no matter what existential threats are going on, there's a little part of our brain that is like, but the popcorn's going to burn. Right. And Kraven uses that so effectively.

32:01 Yes.

32:02 It's ingenious.

32:02 Yes.

32:04 What's that noise?

32:05 Popcorn.

32:06 You're making popcorn?

32:07 Uh-huh.

32:08 I only eat popcorn at the movies.

32:10 Well, I'm getting ready to watch a video.

32:12 Really?

32:13 What? Oh, just some scary movie.

32:16 You say that about Casey getting the questions wrong, but in fairness, if you remember the questions, Josh, every single one of us, even those of us who have seen those movies and whether we're horror experts or not, those of us who consider ourselves cinephiles, we all would have said Jason in answer to that question about Friday the 13th.

32:39 Pre-Scream, absolutely.

32:41 Yeah, I mean, only the most hardcore horror nerds would have said, oh, actually, it's Mrs. Voorhees, right? I mean, that is a diabolical question in that case. More on the opening scene and how great it is from Wes Craven's Scream, but Josh, let's take a moment to recognize the tremendous support we get from our FilmSpotting family members.

33:06 We always like to take some time to do this because membership is the largest source of support for the show. So this week, let's thank family members Caleb Ward in Atlanta and Michael Marinelli in Canberra, Australia. Caleb found us via our 2021 Wong Kar Wai Marathon. Oh, that was a fun one. Now, we asked about his favorite show topic, and he wrote this, I loved the top five movies for graduates. That discussion not only introduced me to Columbus, but also prompted me to reconsider my own relationship to films that have ushered me into different eras of my life.

33:42 Caleb's current letterboxd for favorites, he has Strange Days, the Catherine Bigelow film, Raw from Julia Ducournau, Everybody Loves Jean, that's from 2022, a Celine DeVoe film, And his fourth is Nicole Hall of Center's Enough Said, a movie he credits with becoming a cinephile. Wong Kar-Wai's As Tears Go By, that was the first film in our Wong marathon, and a book about movies or moviemaking, Matt Singer's previous book, the one on Siskel and Ebert, Opposable Thumbs.

34:16 Hear, hear Matt Singer, his new book, Funny Business, out now wherever you get your books. Michael Marinelli writes, I was desperate for a film podcast that balanced new releases with past cinema and one that did it without gimmicks. I don't know, Massacre Theater and top fives are a bit of a gimmick, but Michael will take it. Film spotting kept coming up over and over online. Favorite show topic?

34:37 I love the top five Gene Hackman scenes episode. All your retrospective top fives for the people we've lost are terrific, but this one stood out for me. Beautifully done and five amazing scenes from a favorite actor. We did enjoy putting that one together and reflecting on the brilliance of Hackman. Movie that made me a cinephile, Kubrick's Paths of Glory.

34:57 As a young teenager first getting into film in a serious way, Paths broke my brain. The shots following the soldiers out of the trench and over the battlefield somehow gave me an epiphany that there was no such thing as old movies. There were just movies. This internal revelation immediately seemed to break down the walls of I had about a lot of films, foreign films, silent films, black and white. I don't even usually register the difference now unless I'm with someone and they comment on it. I think that might be what becoming a cinephile is, the breaking down of walls. That's great stuff, Michael. We're going to have to pull that out and keep it. Book about movies or movie making, Michael Caine's The Elephant to Hollywood.

35:35 It was catnip to a teenage cinephile who is developing a deep love for old Hollywood.

35:41 Well, thank you, Caleb and Michael, for joining the family and for all those years of listening. If you're on Letterboxd, you can follow Caleb at Paradigm Watcher, and Michael is at Gliding Goose.

35:53 You can learn more about joining the Film Spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com. You get early ad-free listening. You get other benefits like being part of the Film Spotting family-only Discord, access to the complete archive monthly bonus shows. We actually did just complete... our draft for October with Maria Marquezini, an Italian listener living in Kent, UK had a very fun draft of the best films of the 2020s movies from 2020 through 25 that have a Metacritic score of 90 or above. And I said at the beginning that it would probably be a little cutthroat and it got a little cutthroat.

36:34 But would you have expected Sam to come out with the biggest knife?

36:37 Sam, Sam had a switchblade on him and he cut me and he might've cut Maria even deeper. So you can look forward to that in your film spotting family feed soon. Plus other benefits that come with being a family member. We also do love ratings and reviews. Who doesn't love getting positive feedback, Apple podcasts, especially Spotify, wherever you listen, every five-star rating just might help us get a new listener.

37:12 Who's there? Who's there? I'm calling the police.

37:20 Back to the opening scene of Scream. Obviously, on board with everything you said, Josh, and the popcorn, right? It is. It's like Craven is saying, I'm going to expand the tension. I'm just going to increase the tension of the scene as we go. I'm going to draw it out. And so I'm going to give you this, this bubble, right?

37:45 This analogy for a bubble.

37:47 Yeah.

37:47 I don't think I've ever seen. I mean, that's a real thing. The jiffy pop.

37:50 I'm sure it's a real thing. I just, I'd never done it myself.

37:53 No, I've never done it that way either. But, but to know you're right to know that that's on the burner, that that's always there, that it's expanding. and that it's going to pop just like the tension in this scene eventually is going to pop is a little bit of brilliant meta filmmaking. And you're right about the cinematography, the way the camera moves so swiftly throughout the house, I think is really, really effective. I love right from the beginning too. We don't know this from the opening scene, but we know it at the 12 minute mark that this whole thing, of course, is a reference to Psycho in and of itself with Drew Barrymore, wearing the blonde wig and being the character who is on the poster

38:36 of the film and is featured here in this opening of the film. Anybody watching it has to assume unless they've had it spoiled for them. Anybody watching it has to assume she's the main character of the film. She's the star of this movie. Just like we think Vivian Lee is surely the star of psycho and the movie is going to be all about her. And what happens at the 12 minute mark? she's gone. Just like we lose Vivian Lee at a relatively early point in Psycho.

39:05 Janet Lee.

39:06 Janet Lee.

39:06 Thank you.

39:07 Not Vivian Lee. No, thank you.

39:08 Just didn't want any letters.

39:09 No, no. I absolutely appreciate that. It even sounded weird. It always sounds weird when you say the wrong name, too. So that part, I love. I love the way she's dressed, how perfectly intentional the jeans, that beige or cream sweater she's wearing, where they're saying, we're already going to take Drew Barrymore, who... At this point, we think of as America's little sister from E.T., and we're going to put her in this cream sweater like she's just the girl next door who has now unfortunately run into this terrible experience, this slasher. How casually playful Barrymore is on that. call is so great. But what I think Craven and Williamson do so well there, Josh, and this kind of gets back to the jiffy pop too, is the way that

40:05 scene escalates is so effective because they start out with that banter that almost sounds like it could be out of a romantic comedy, and that seems to be the direction she even thinks it's going, right? But then what happens? Even as it gets more intense, even as it gets eventually more violent, it just starts with the line by the slasher, I want to see who I'm looking at.

40:34 So you got a boyfriend?

40:37 Why?

40:37 You want to ask me out on a date? Maybe.

40:41 Do you have a boyfriend? No. You never told me your name. Why do you want to know my name? Because I want to know who I'm looking at.

40:51 What did you say? When she knows she's being watched, when we hear that she knows she's being watched, that sends shivers down our spine just like it is clearly sending shivers down her spine. But that still seems like she's not in any real danger yet, right? But then where does it go up from there? When that voice is no longer being playful back and starts yelling, when that voice yells and starts swearing and is using terms like gut you or whatever it says, okay, now we know something's really wrong. When we see the boyfriend, the boyfriend's just tied up. That's bad enough. That's then a real threat. But then the glass breaks, right? All these things, it just keeps getting worse and worse until we get

41:38 to the culmination, which- We really can't imagine from the very beginning of the film of her putting the popcorn on to the closing of that sequence that we're going to see Drew Barrymore hanging from a tree with her insides coming out. That is the escalation. It's perfect in its own demented way.

42:00 You're right. And it's probably the, I don't know. I mean, there is a lot of violence in this film, but I don't, that might be the most grotesque the movie gets. in this beginning sequence. And it just reminds you that, again, that Craven has done this before and there's a sadistic streak in him as a horror filmmaker. I think maybe the touch that reveals this is not anything, you know, grotesque in terms of gore, but the fact that when Casey's parents come home, find everything in disarray, don't find her, pick up the phone to call the police. How about this touch? They hear her. Yeah. Screaming on the phone because she has the mobile unit still in her hand.

42:44 We cut to while she's being dragged through the lawn. And at that point has been stabbed at least once. Casey!

42:52 Casey, you upstairs?

42:53 Casey, baby.

42:54 Where is she?

42:55 She's here. Oh my.

42:59 God, I can hear her.

43:02 I think it goes back to the way Scream is working as a real horror movie.

43:07 Yes, that's it.

43:08 Is because there's so much of the meta stuff in that opening, but then you get not just the gore, but you get that sadistic touch of the parents hearing their daughter's screams from their own phone, which is, they don't know why they're hearing them. So just think of what that does, this brain-scrambling experience that is for the parents, wondering where their daughter is, picking up the phone to get help towards that question by calling the police, but instead all they get is more... uncertainty, but explicitly awful uncertainty. Yes.

43:41 It's a really, it's like that opening gets you.

43:45 It really does get you. And I think the grounding of that, the reality of that is really important to this film. You're right, because it is going to be funny at times. It is going to have all these meta elements, but right from the beginning, we also know that it could be grisly. And more than that, Josh, and we know that this slasher can get ugly and really do some damage. And those forces have to be at play. They have to be in dialogue with each other for this movie to really work. But I also think it goes back to what we were saying about Craven understanding that for the movie to be a really good movie, not just a horror movie that's checking boxes and and nailing the tropes. And maybe it's a decent

44:36 time at the movie theater. You got your few bucks worth.

44:39 Yeah. Like a straight parody basically.

44:41 Or not even a straight parody, just a straight checklist of doing what horror movies do, which is what most sequels try to do.

44:49 Right.

44:50 Is the characters have to feel like real people. And now you have in that moment, you have a mother and father. It would be one thing. I still think it would be very effective, but, It'd be one thing if we just saw Casey Becker as the high school girl who's victim. But now when we see Casey Becker as high school girl victim, but also daughter of that mother and father. And we're now processing it through their lens and you're watching it as a son or daughter.

45:24 thinking about it, how your parents would feel if something like that was happening to you, or you're a mother or father watching it, thinking about how you would be feeling and reacting in that moment. It, it takes on much, much greater meaning in that moment. I think that's what, what Craven does fundamentally understand.

45:44 I would echo, you know, what you've said a few times about Nev Campbell being strong here, bringing that real character quality to, the screenplay gives her time to do that, but also I think it's a strong performance. And she's gone on to pop up in a good number of the sequels and always at least brings that to it, even to Scream 7. She's the most interesting part in a lot of ways. And what did you make of seeing this anew, but Courtney Cox and David Arquette? Because I kind of found them really adorable just as, as do you not, you know, the deputy and, and Gail Weathers, the cutthroat, just even though I've got to say they're in their own movie in a lot of ways. It's like this, it's like when the two of them are

46:35 talking to just to each other, it's like they've stepped out of scream and into maybe that romantic comedy that you were, that you were referencing. And it's, I kind of felt like that's a romantic comedy I might actually watch. I think it's, Totally down to the chemistry between them.

46:51 Yes, it's undeniably there.

46:54 They just seem to be enjoying each other so much in those scenes. So they were a delight. They are.

47:00 I do want to talk about a couple other characters before I get to maybe the biggest subversion, I think, that's on display here, or certainly one of the biggest, and one of the biggest revelations, I think, for me watching it this time. But you mentioned Courtney Cox as the journalist. And the movie, as we've established, its reputation is being this subversion of the genre in so many ways, and mainly just in its meta-ness. But think about how it upends our expectations, not just of horror films, but of movies, period, when we see a character like the tabloid journalist that Courtney Cox plays. We immediately feel about her the way Neve Campbell's character, Sydney, feels about her, partly there too, because we're seeing her through the lens

47:56 of that character. She's our protagonist. But we know from other movies what this type of journalist is like and what happens as the movie goes on. Let's be clear. She's very much interested in her own career. She's very much interested in her book sales. She will bend all sorts of ethical rules rules to get what she wants.

48:20 I am not saying that she should be held up as a paragon of virtuous, amazing journalism. That said, we do get the perspective on her, Josh, that she is a real journalist who is in the end, right. She is telling, she's telling the right story. She was right about the mom. She was right about the killer who's in jail. She was right about Sidney Prescott. That does cause us to rethink certain things about the film, certain expectations that we have. I think also fitting into that is the slasher himself or itself, however you want to view it. From the very beginning, when we first see Ghostface appear fighting, chasing down Casey, My sense as a viewer is I can't help, but especially because the film

49:22 has put Ghostface in this context directly. I'm thinking of Ghostface like Michael Myers. I'm thinking of Ghostface like Jason, like Freddie, this supernatural force. Now, it doesn't sound like a supernatural force on the phone, of course, and because it's referencing those characters, that's already chipping away at that image and that portrayal. Yes, but it certainly chips away at it even more when Ghostface starts chasing Casey, and Casey so easily kicks him in the groin. And he groans, and he's pushed away often throughout the film and hurt very easily, right? It's just so clear. It's so clear from the beginning that this is a high school kid or some other adult, real person. It's just a man,

50:21 most likely, who is playing dress-up and is acting like a killer. And in some ways, although... that's not the type of onscreen villain onscreen monster that scares me. It actually does make him somewhat more terrifying because you can kind of say that Michael Myers and Jason and Freddie, they don't really have any choice. That's their nature. That's, that's who they are. They're fundamental. They're like sharks who can only move forward and do what they do, which is kill teenagers or whoever is in front of them. But, this thing, this ghost face is just killing and terrorizing by choice.

51:03 Yeah. I think, you know, it is one of the things, whenever I watch these, I laugh at, and I wonder, should I be laughing this much at ghost face?

51:11 I think we should be.

51:13 And I love that. Clearly they've made the choice because there are some slapstick elements there, but I think it also relates to one quality that I like about these movies. And some of them handle this better than others. But these are also murder mysteries. I mean, they're very much whodunits. Yes. And it's one of the other sort of sleight of hands that this series pulls is that it's 1A, it's a slasher movie, but 1B, these are whodunits. And so part of the fun of them is that whole gathering the suspects together or pointing out who could be the suspects.

51:47 And there's the red herring, you know, who you think that's got to be him. So it can't be him. And that's part of the fun of this series as well, which I think does make it unique. And that does relate to Ghostface then, because you have to have it when it's someone different every time. And when they're quote unquote amateurs, if you consider, you know, like Michael Myers, the pro, these are amateurs. So it makes sense that, you know, they can, they can do a few pratfalls here and there.

52:15 Do you think it's a strength of the film? Ultimately, if you had the same reaction I did, upon rewatch or rewatches that it seems so incredibly obvious who the killers are when you watch it with the knowledge. I'm going to answer my own question, Josh, and say I think it is a strength because I know for a fact that when I saw it the first time, I didn't know. I was surprised. And I think it's because the script is tight enough that we go on the same journey that Sidney goes on And other characters go on, which is we're convinced. I have to put myself back in the mindset of our or try to of when I saw it the first time. And the movie fairly neatly sets up that, oh, it's got to be Billy, the boyfriend. But then it can't be Billy.

53:04 Right.

53:05 For obvious reasons. So then it really seems like it seems like it has to be Stu. He he leaves the room all the time just as other people get killed. And then he shows back up after a murder. And we never– we're not really smart enough maybe, or at least I wasn't as a viewer, to think, oh, it was two of them working together. So I was tricked and surprised at the end. And I do also like the explanation they give at the end, that whole non-motive thing that then turns into an actual motive. And the reason I like it, Josh, the reason I particularly like it is because I love the look that we cut to on Matthew Lillard's face, which– I'll be honest, there are lots of moments where Lillard's very big performance doesn't

53:51 quite work for me.

53:51 It's rough, yeah.

53:53 And then there are moments like this one that's very subtle, and there's another bigger moment like when he says something like, oh, I'm fading here. Whatever he says when he's really about to go, I kind of lose it laughing. It's very funny. But the moment where they've said, there's no motive, and that's great. And then Billy says, or maybe there is, and explains what it's really all about. And the camera cuts to Stu. And the way I read Matthew Lillard's face, the suggestion is that he doesn't know any of this.

54:30 That he's been going along with this the whole time. And we could get into this if we wanted because of things I know that Kevin Williams in a sense said since. He's been into this because of his relationship and feelings for Billy in addition to his own desires to kill, obviously, whatever, whatever is driving him, whatever lack of motive is ultimately pushing him to try this, but he's had no reason to. And then all of a sudden he's finding out that, oh, wait, we've had a reason that's, that's new to him.

55:04 Right?

55:05 So when you, when you watch it now, you go, oh, how did we not pick up on that they were doing this. But I think that just speaks to how tightly constructed it is.

55:16 Yeah, it is tightly constructed. I also think, you know, for me, I'm not very sharp at whodunits. It's more like I'm usually going along for the ride. So someone who thinks that way, I'm sure maybe could see this as a weakness. I don't either. I think because it's tight enough for me, and it goes back to the 1A, 1B, is that I do think the whodunit element is ultimately serving the purpose of the 1A, which is, I would say, slasher and meta. And it's, therefore, if you know who they are, figure it out earlier, or if you're watching this movie again, then part of the meta movie-going experience is to filter that knowledge through everything that the movie does, which is very fitting for a movie like Scream, which

56:05 is constantly having you interrogating your own movie-going experience. So I think it only adds, even knowing who the killers are, only adds more to that stew of what does it mean to watch a movie like this that second time around.

56:20 The last thing I did want to touch on is what I was alluding to earlier in terms of a revelation for me this time and something I got to do just a little bit of research on that I've always wanted to and I really don't have a good excuse for not doing it. I think, like a lot of people, this was the first time for me that I was exposed to the idea of the final girl and this whole notion of really being confronted with, Oh, how exactly horror movies work, right? Having the rules laid out like they are here and, Oh, it's always the good virginal girl who is left at the end and you're punished for doing drugs and you're certainly punished for having sex and all of those things. And then as I considered that more, uh, I always saw that through

57:08 or imagined everybody was seeing it through this lens, this patriarchal lens, that that was part of it, that the whole idea of the final girl and the final girl being rewarded for surviving was tied to the notion of patriarchy. Then when you look into it more and you realize, okay, this whole idea of the final girl and how horror movies work and the notion of how gender functions in horror movies. You know, this goes back to Carol Clover in the earlier 90s. I think it was 92 when her book, Men, Women, and Chainsaws, came out. And let's also be clear about something here, that there's absolutely elements of the patriarchy at play in horror movies. Women are objectified.

58:00 They're victimized. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma explores this in really fun ways. One of the things that Clover talks about is that it's not for nothing that serial killers in these films, and also in real life, it seems, more often than not, they don't kill with guns, right? They kill with knives. They kill with things that penetrate women.

58:23 But I always thought, and one of the things I wanted to watch here, Josh, not remembering exactly how it played out or what the movie did with it, I always assumed that the final girl then was a direct... Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it turns out I'm certainly not an expert on Clover and her book, but it turns out it's way more complex than that. That's not how really Clover lays out this notion at all. She actually suggests that horror movies are these interesting morality plays, and she talks about them as places where the way gender is represented is– the word I think she uses is really destabilized. Because if you watch them, of course, who's the audience for these films? It's mostly young men. And young men aren't

59:38 going to go and watch other young men. Like, they don't want to go watch Steve, Casey's boyfriend, battle other horror or battle slashers. So why is it that they are willing to watch women in these movies? And she has theories. She has ideas about that. And she says that's why we have these characters who eschew traditional femininity.

1:00:06 And then as the movie goes on, they assume a more masculine role by traditionally masculine role crossing gender lines. and using these weapons to battle the monsters. She doesn't necessarily see it. It's just so much more complex, Josh, than simply this idea of Puritanism, oh, you're virginal, and so you get rewarded in the end. That's not what the final girl is about, according to the person who effectively defined it, but it is how it has been co-opted because we, so many people, including critics, conflate horror movies as punishing and often rightfully so punishing towards women.

1:00:55 And in this movie, I'll just say what's in this movie that doesn't, none of what I just said changes the fact that Craven is subverting the convention of the final girl in a really fun way by having Sydney have sex completely of her own volition with clear consent and And she still emerges victorious in the end. In fact, it's two women who ultimately defeat the slasher in the end, very clearly by design.

1:01:22 Yeah, I think, yeah, Clover's concept of the final girl is not to be directly equated with what I've talked about on the show and when at length when we did Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, the horror conceit of sex equaling death. Um, you know, I don't, yeah, I don't think it would be fair to equate those two, even though they're very directly related and you, you know, you can go all the way back to the Turner film cat people, which is very much about sexual desire and, um, what that means in terms of if you allow it loose, if it's unleashed. Um, so this is, you know, integral to the genre. Um, in terms of scream, I noted the same thing you did. I think it's fascinating and probably not the first time, but that the final girl

1:02:17 does get to choose after careful deliberation. I mean, there are many conversations about, she doesn't feel like she's ready or she's not in the right emotional state and finally feels like she is. And she makes that decision clearly. But I also think it's fascinating in both of these conceptions, final girl or sex and death, to think about the fact that it's not just that she's having sex with her boyfriend. She had sex with a killer.

1:02:47 No doubt.

1:02:47 That is, that's a whole other wrinkle.

1:02:49 She doesn't know that at the time, though she still may have some lingering suspicions. Yes.

1:02:53 But think about like all the implications and how that also subverts.

1:02:58 Some of the, right? In retrospect, how do you process that? You're killing this person a short time later, a very short time later. Yeah.

1:03:07 So I do think that is a very, um, yeah, subversive or just, um, A wrinkle that Craven and Williamson add to a lot of the stereotypes or the artifacts that have carried through this slasher genre for generations. They're finding almost so many ways to tweak it and play with it, subvert it, and just give us, again, going back to the movie-going experience, another way of thinking about these things we've seen in so many movies so many times.

1:03:37 Yeah. Real quick, I watched The New Nightmare and Scream with FilmSpottingPA. Sophie Kempinar, who was back from school for the Refocus Film Festival. And she said, I obviously can't, she texted me later. She said, I obviously can't speak to whether it's a thing in Elm Street, but the two movies from tonight suggest Wes is quite taken by the figure of the phone call. And it's so true if you think about, of course, how important the phone is in both The New Nightmare and in Scream. But also, I know it, factors prominently in i think the first nightmare in elm street and then red eye isn't it isn't it in red eye too i feel like even though that's on a plane it is in red the phone factors in there somehow right so i i would

1:04:26 love to do a deeper dive on on the phones of west craven the phones of west craven someone's probably done it i haven't googled it yet but That, for me, I wonder if it's just tied to the mystery, Josh, of the phone. Think about movies from the 40s, 50s, and 60s and how the voice, not just in horror films, but the way the phone was used, the analog nature of the phone and that voice and not knowing who was on the other end of the phone. The way we always know now and we know whether or not we should answer it or not. But there was real mystery and something a little scary about that. the voice being disguised the way it was, the identity being disguised.

1:05:09 There's something to it with Craven that he very clearly likes to play with.

1:05:14 A lot of phone, of course, they're mobile cell phones now in Scream 7, but a lot of phone work, it's not quite as compelling. And Craven, though, not involved at all with that one, I don't think so.

1:05:25 Scream is currently streaming on Hulu, Paramount Plus, and Peacock, as well as VOD. If you have seen the film or seen it recently... and agree or disagree with anything we had to say, we'd love to hear from you. Feedback at filmspotting.net. The fifth annual Refocus Film Festival in Iowa City opened on Thursday, October 22nd, with Andrew Higgs along Winter at the beautiful Englert Theater in downtown Iowa City.

1:06:07 The fest closed Sunday night with Blank Check and the Garbage Pail Kids. Yes, Griffin Newman was there, Emily Yoshida, Ben Hosley, the producer, and I was in attendance along with, well, I'll tell you who was there. via this little anecdote. At one point, just before the credits began, the lights went down and the credits began, Matt Singer, sitting next to me, turned to the person directly behind me and said, Michael, how many viewings of Garbage Pail Kids will this be for you? Michael being Michael Phillips. So Matt Singer, myself, and Michael Phillips did all attend together the Garbage Pail Kids from 1987. And I will give Griffin and co a lot of credit that it, it lived up to the terrible hype and their conversation about it afterwards was

1:07:11 hilarious and justified the screening of that awful, awful film, which actually I think Griffin knows it's terrible, but also genuinely adores it.

1:07:22 And it's one, I've never seen it. I had left the festival at that point.

1:07:25 Oh, you're missing out.

1:07:26 But it's one I have a sense you can't look away from.

1:07:28 You can't.

1:07:29 Like, I think, what's the animatronic Disney, the Disney Bears one? Yeah, yeah. I remember having to read.

1:07:35 I know what you mean.

1:07:35 Country Bears.

1:07:36 Country Bears.

1:07:37 I remember having to review that. And my guess is it's somewhat similar. It's just like, this exists? I mean, Josh. How does this exist?

1:07:44 So they made the Garbage Pail Kids using little people in costume. With these animatronic heads. But I think Griffin said that at one point that they only had enough budget for like three animatronic devices at any one time. So sometimes you just see the heads. And so their eyes are just these gigantic wide open eyes and the mouths.

1:08:09 And sitting next to Matt Singer was really a trip, the whole film. Because every time these two characters in particular were cut to and you'd get these close-ups of these faces, he would just go, Like you would, you would literally see and hear him recoil in his seat. That's the experience you get with the garbage pail kids.

1:08:33 It's something.

1:08:34 Matt is, Matt must be a visceral responder to films because I had a chance to sit next to him for something a little tonier, a little headier. And actually, interestingly enough, Michael Phillips was right behind us for this as well. It was the 100th anniversary screening of F.W. Murnau's Faust.

1:08:53 Little headier.

1:08:54 Yeah, a little headier. I know I mentioned this when I saw you afterwards, but it really, I mean, the film's incredible. I'd never seen it before. And just the stuff that Murnau was doing. If we saw these images today and were told no digital work was used on this, I think we couldn't comprehend it. To think of it happening 100 years ago is just, you know, astonishing. It was shown a new venue for the festival at a Masonic lodge. And so it's this room with a lot of like old wood furniture and paneling these torch lamps.

1:09:28 Now they were like fake electric, but very convincing that would flicker, um, on the walls and the music live accompaniment from a group. I've already started listening to their music outside of that 10,000 lakes, this ambient electronic score they offered though. There were, there was a drum kit there and some guitars as well. And as the lights went down, I just started thinking, what are they going to do about all these lamps that like, are they going to, and then I realized, Oh no, we're watching a demon movie. And this is, this is perfect setting.

1:10:03 And it absolutely was. But yeah, Matt, even there would, would just like, Whoa. But one of the images. So you love, you love to be seen a movie with someone who responds like that. But yeah, it was great. It was great to hang out just with Matt, with Michael.

1:10:18 Sam came down on Saturday. Yeah.

1:10:20 It'd been a while since the three of us had been able to meet. The whole gang. Sophie was there. Our PA Sophie and our social media assistant Ariana. So we had like every, the whole film spotting hive was there. And really good just to hang out, see some of these movies, and catch up with so many folks.

1:10:40 Of course, part of the fun for me, genuinely, is just having all of these people descend on Iowa City. Some who've been here a couple times or once before. Some who have never been here before. And all weekend, I just get to hear how much people love Iowa City. How much people love my town.

1:10:59 It is nice. It's so nice.

1:11:01 Yeah, it warms my heart.

1:11:03 And how about bring people to town... In October, where we had, what, four perfect days.

1:11:10 Sunny and 70 every day.

1:11:11 And the colors are turning. And yeah, it was pretty glorious. And the other thing about the fest that I appreciated is, you know, the events we did, of course, with Matt, our top five winter movies, we recorded that live. But also Jane Schoenbrunn came in. to talk about their new novel, Public Access Afterworld. Which we have signed copies of now.

1:11:34 We do. Massive novel that they wrote and so just open and introspective about their, just how they see the world, which, you know, knowing and appreciating their movies, it still was illuminating to hear how they get to some of those images and some of those stories and how just deeply inside of their psyche they're coming from. So, so that was incredible. That was a great talk to go to.

1:12:04 And the one film I would put on people's radar that is coming out is the new Ruskay Hamaguchi film, All of a Sudden. I think November, late November, it should be coming to theaters. And this is the drive my car filmmaker. This, I, I'm still wrestling with this one, Adam, in terms of one element that, that I'm questioning, but, until then I was pretty overwhelmed. Like this was a tears welling multiple times movie. It's a, it's set mostly in Paris about the director of a senior care facility who strikes up a relationship with a Japanese theater director, um, there.

1:12:44 And this question of care and how, who deserves care and what it takes to give care is, um, it's deeply thoughtful and emotional, quietly emotional film. That's all of a sudden. So keep an eye out for that. But I was happy to see that at refocus.

1:13:02 Yeah. I will just briefly mention that Andrew Sherburn, who's the executive director, Ben Delgado, who's the programming director, they just do an exceptional job. And everyone who is part of putting the fest together, everyone who volunteers, all the workers at film scene, they certainly deserve some gratitude for putting on such a great festival. I really do encourage, I mean, none of this is hyperbole. It's a great festival.

1:13:29 We had a great time. You're hearing the names that come to the fest. People like Andrew Haig, people like Jane Schoenbrunn, people like everybody from film spotting, if that matters to you. Right. So come hang out sometime. It's every October, usually the third week in October, and they do plan to do it again next year. I'll mention that in addition to thanking them, we recorded film spotting live on Friday and Tying in with A Long Winter, we did our top five winter movies. We will share that top five later in the year. Matt Singer joined us for that. We had a great time. Crowd was into it. They shared some of their picks. They were very lively. And I saw some interesting films too that I'll just briefly mention. Films that you should be able

1:14:11 to see later this year. The documentary Once Upon a Time in Harlem. The William Greaves film or the William Greaves compilation where you kind of get to go into a time capsule. Josh and be a witness to a 1970s party where all of the key luminaries from the Harlem Renaissance are invited by Greaves to attend a party at Duke Ellington's house. We never do, as far as I'm aware, see Duke Ellington himself. I'm not sure that he was even alive at that point. I haven't researched that, but it's at his house and we hear their conversations.

1:14:49 We reflect on the movement. all of the key artists and art. And it's, it's kind of a stunner. Another movie that actually two other movies I saw that are both kind of stunners. I just got very lucky at this fest and Chicago's film festival. Look back the new film from Hirakazu Kureda, Josh, it's one when that comes out, we probably need to talk about on the show. And now that I've seen it, I am absolutely going to go back and watch the anime that came out before it and was the source material. I'm sure there's source material for that as well, but I'm definitely going to watch the movie. The last film I saw, well, just right before Garbage Pail Kids, was a documentary about Lebanon that is spliced together from who knows how many different sources.

1:15:47 It's called Do You Love Me? In 77 minutes, it effectively gives you the contemporary history of Lebanon and specifically, but not entirely, Beirut. Because as it says at the beginning, Lebanon, its contemporary history isn't taught in school. And it doesn't get into the reasons why, but you can kind of understand the reasons why potentially after you watch this film.

1:16:17 And just watching the way the director, whose name I want to make sure I get here as I talk about the film, the way the director, Lana Deher, and the editor make this footage match and structure the film to reveal the identity of the Lebanese people and their history and their resilience, it's a film that definitely needs to be seen. So two really interesting takes on a documentary in Once Upon a Time in Harlem and Do You Love Me? And then Kureta doing something, Josh, that feels entirely like Hirokazu Kureta, exactly what we would expect from him until it becomes something we couldn't expect from Kureta maybe at all. And that's where the discussion gets really fascinating. So a lot of fun at the Refocus

1:17:14 Film Festival. If you'd like to check it out, you can go to their website, refocusfilmfestival.com. Time now for Massacre Theater.

1:17:23 This is where Adam and I perform a scene and you get a chance to win a film spotting prize. Last time we massacred a scene from Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men. Excuse me.

1:17:32 I wanted to talk to you about Corporal Dawson of Private Downey.

1:17:36 Say again?

1:17:37 Dawson and Downey. Those names sound like they should mean something to me.

1:17:42 Dawson, Downey, your clients.

1:17:45 The Cuba thing. Yeah, so Dawson and Downey, right.

1:17:48 Let me show it.

1:17:49 Let me show it.

1:17:51 Done something wrong again, haven't I?

1:17:53 That was Tom Cruise and Demi Moore. A Few Good Men was written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Rob Reiner. That Massacre was part of our fall movie preview show. We also reviewed Sorkin's The Social Reckoning. That's probably enough to explain why we chose the scene, but listeners usually come up with a few more.

1:18:11 Here is Jeff Clark, and I don't know if I've ever acknowledged this before. He's from Carrboro, North Carolina. Some listeners, Josh, we wish they would provide us with their pronunciation. Jeff Clark always writes, Jeff Clark, in parentheses, pronounced Jeff Clark.

1:18:26 Hey, we'll take it. We will. He knows we could possibly screw that up.

1:18:32 And Jeff likes to get a little wacky with his explanations, so we're going to feature it. This scene is from the movie A Few Good Men that was made around Jack Nicholson yelling that Tom Cruise couldn't handle the truth. The connection, of course, is to your anticipation of the release of Brad Bird's Ray Gunn with its voice acting by Alan Tudyk.

1:18:50 Mm-hmm.

1:19:01 Cruise, particularly in its use of squeaker sound effects. You also mentioned something about another Aaron Sorkin film, but I was on Facebook and didn't catch it. Personally, I prefer Michael Cera's face block app from Arrested Development.

1:19:17 Yeah, that was good. All right. This is Casey from South Lebanon, Ohio. The film that was massacred on the most recent film spotting episode was from A Few Good Men. The scene was Lieutenant Caffey having a go with batting practice instead of working on Private Dawson and Downey's case. This was written for the stage, Digger Connection being a play, by Aaron Sorkin and then adapted for film, most recently writing and directing The Social Reckoning. A Few Good Men was recently revived for the stage. Bradley Whitford, who plays Josh Lyman on West Wing, written by Aaron Sorkin, has been cast as Colonel Jessup. I didn't know that. The film stars Tom Cruise, who was just in Digger, Demi Moore, who was just in I Love Boosters, and James Marshall,

1:19:57 played Private Downey, who starred in Twin Peaks, to continue the David Lynch conversation.

1:20:02 That's right.

1:20:03 Yes. Okay. Thanks for all the hard work you both put into the podcast, says Casey.

1:20:09 You're welcome, Casey. And you know what? Great work, Casey. We were not thinking at all about the fact that there's the Sorkin-Bradley-Whitford connection to A Few Good Men being revived, even though I'm very much aware- that bradley whitford is in a few good men currently on broadway just didn't think about it at all but that is a great tie you know how you know it is a scene that included private dawson and downey being mentioned because we left in the names private dawson and downey yeah sam didn't think we needed to change the names for that one and yet even though we had more entries than usual still 99.99999 percent of our audience didn't feel compelled to write in with.

1:20:51 The answer Oh, man. You're still unhappy?

1:20:55 You know, it's just Massacre Theater. It's just always on a thread there, Josh.

1:21:00 Thank goodness we included those names, though. That's right.

1:21:04 How bad would it have been otherwise? Next time we'll go with You Can't Handle the Truth. Will that make you happy, everybody? Let's go ahead and reach into the semi-brimming, semi-brimming film spotting hat and pick out this week's winner.

1:21:18 Our winner is Paul Ranolo from Titusville, New Jersey.

1:21:21 Congratulations, Paul. Email feedback at filmspotting.net. We will set you up with your very own Film Spotting t-shirt, tote bag, or trial membership to the Film Spotting family.

1:21:32 What happened to the canola line?

1:21:34 You're supposed to say forget about it, Sanchez. The old man likes his canola. Look, I made a mistake, all right?

1:21:39 It didn't make any difference anyway. Hey, I'm letting it go.

1:21:42 But don't say it doesn't matter.

1:21:43 Every line matters.

1:21:46 We move on now to this week's edition of Massacre Theater. I'm going to go ahead and say it's a quasi funny voice edition of Massacre Theater. No pressure, Josh.

1:21:56 I mean, how do you think that actor, the actor that I'm going to be mimicking would feel about that characterization, Adam?

1:22:03 The actor doesn't think they're doing a funny voice at all. So you have to play it straight, but we're going to laugh at you.

1:22:10 Well, that's fine. That's why we're here.

1:22:13 I started off, you're going to give me the action and you, listener, will have to ascertain what scene this movie is from and how it does directly tie into whatever we talked about on this week's show. I don't think it's going to be a mystery.

1:22:27 All right, here we go. You ready? And action.

1:22:32 Nothing's going on except kids playing pranks, trick-or-treating, parking, getting high. I have a feeling that you're way off on this.

1:22:41 You have the wrong feeling.

1:22:43 Well, you're not doing very much to prove me wrong.

1:22:47 What more do you need?

1:22:48 Well, it's going to take more than fancy talk to keep me up all night crawling around these bushes.

1:22:52 I watched him.

1:22:56 For 15 years, sitting in a room, staring at a wall, not seeing the wall, looking past the wall, looking at this night, inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret silent alarm to trigger him off. Death has come to your little town, Sheriff. You can either ignore it or you can help me to stop it.

1:23:19 More fancy talk and scene.

1:23:24 Now, I know you had the boring part, but were you like putting on a character at all?

1:23:30 You're asking me that after that performance? You had the nerve to ask me that if I was performing.

1:23:38 I thought that was just Adam Kemp and I are, you know, doing his nightly walk around the block talking to the neighbors.

1:23:43 How dare you?

1:23:44 How dare you? Sorry, I take it back.

1:23:46 I think that was one of my better Massacre Theater performances. You know, if the work is just too textured for you, Josh.

1:23:52 I mean, it was the subtlety. I usually need. Yeah, you're right. I probably just didn't pick up on it.

1:23:57 Sorry about that. I didn't massacre it quite enough for you. I thought it got really good when you when you said watched and it was like almost hard to get the word watched out like someone's compressed compressing your chest. That's that's how it has to sound to play this character.

1:24:13 So I was there. I was in his head. We need we need more.

1:24:16 Entries for this. This one than a few good men. Okay. We didn't give you a character name, but we almost did. If you know what film we just massacred, email the movie's title, your name, and location to feedback at filmspotting.net. The deadline, Monday, November 9th. We'll select the winner randomly from all the correct entries and announce it in a couple of weeks. Josh, that's our show.

1:24:37 You can connect with us on social media by finding Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, Letterboxd, YouTube, and Blue Sky at Film Spotting. I'm at Larson on Film. We're independently produced and listener-supported. Please consider supporting us by joining the FilmSpotting family at filmspottingfamily.com. You can listen early and add free. You'll get monthly bonus episodes, a weekly newsletter, and access to the show archive. For show t-shirts and other merch, go to filmspotting.net slash shop.

1:25:05 Go through these quickly here. Streaming, you can see SCTV now, the greatest show you've never heard of. It's a Netflix doc featuring interviews with surviving members of SCTV. In limited release, La Bola Negra, a movie that played at the Refocus Film Festival, winner of the Best Director prize at this year's Cannes, Spain's entry for the Best International Feature Oscar, featuring Penelope Cruz and Glenn Close. Also, a movie I am very eager to see, have to check if it's playing near me, Josh, the only living pickpocket in New York, Giancarlo Esposito, Steve Buscemi, Scream Queen herself, Jamie Lee Curtis, but more significantly, John Turturro, that's Turturro, as the aging petty thief who struggles to ply his trade in a

1:25:49 changing world. This is a guy who was a mid-level gambler in poker player and rounders, a mid-level billiards player in The Color of Money, and now he's a pickpocket hustler and the only living pickpocket in New York. I'm ready for it. Out wide, Christmas at the Kringle's. We'll leave it there, except we do want to say that our guy David Wayne is among the cast in Christmas at the Kringle's. Liam Neeson is a falsely accused war hero with nothing to lose in The Mongoose with Marissa Tomei and Ving Rhames. The 90s are back, baby.

1:26:25 I feel like I was hearing a trailer.

1:26:28 Wicker is expanding. I'm available for voice work. Olivia Colman stars as a lonely fisherwoman who commissions a husband made from the titular wicker. So let's be clear. She commissions a husband made from the titular wicker.

1:26:43 The material.

1:26:44 Yeah. He's Alexander Skarsgård. And based on the trailer, my notes tell me he is incredible at sex.

1:26:52 Okay.

1:26:53 Well, I would commission him too then. Next week in the Film Spotting Feed, movie death match is back. It's our Noirvember Baddie Orson Welles edition. The third man represented by Matt Gourley up against Touch of Evil represented by Ann Thompson from IndieWire. Nice. You will want to check it out. Two masterpieces led by or co-starring two heavyweights, no pun intended, being advocated for by two heavyweights. Tuesday, Film Spotting SVU with Matt Singer and Jordan Hoffman. They've got a Godzilla show and their guest.

1:27:34 Oh, that's fun. It's appropriate.

1:27:36 Aaron Neuwirth, longtime Film Spotting listener, a critic.

1:27:39 Of course. Yeah. It has to be Aaron.

1:27:40 He's from the two black guys who talk Godzilla. podcast to black guys taught Godzilla is the official name. That is a show that's going to be about the best Godzilla movies available to stream because Godzilla minus zero is coming out Thursday. The next picture show we'll have part one. What a great pairing. I haven't seen it yet, but I know it's a great pairing part one of their combination.

1:28:03 You can see everything and Albert Brooks real life, which is a great film and crossover programming. I will now that refocus is over. and screens open up here at FilmScene, I will finally get to see. You can see everything, and that means we will finally get to review it.

1:28:23 FilmSpotting 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 FilmSpotting, I'm Josh Larson.

1:28:43 And I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.