June 27, 2025 • 56 mins
An estimated 50,000 films were made worldwide in 2009 alone. Many are surely clunkers, but in this episode Chuck and Josh talk about the ones that emerged throughout cinema history to change the course of all movies that followed. Get your popcorn and lean back while you enjoy this classic episode.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Continuing the Stuff You Should Know Summer movie playlist, This
episode from February twenty fifteen focuses on some movies that
changed filmmaking from the very beginning of the film industry
up to Star Wars and beyond. All these movies pushed
the whole thing forward that much more and got us
to where we are today. And as a bonus, Mystery
Science Theater three thousand makes a nice little cameo in here. Enjoy.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles w Chuck Bryant aka Siskel, and.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Ebert save us the I'll see.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
And Jerry's over there. I guess she's Gene Shallatt. That's
the Stuff you Should Know triumph It.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I don't know why that tickled me so much, because
Jane's Oh, it's a funny looking I guess, yeah, Jerry's not.
I'm just picturing her with a big afro and a
mustache and like a tweet jacket and bad opinions about movies.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Jean shell It had a look for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Still though, he's around right, Oh yeah, I think so. Yeah,
rip both Ciskel and Ebert so sad. I know. Have
you seen the Roger Ebert documentary?
Speaker 3 (01:22):
No, I've heard nothing but good things.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Really really good, very touching. Yeah. What is it?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Something Life, Life like mine, Life with Me, Life on Top,
Life Itself, Life with thumbs, Life itself, Life.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Itself, Life with thumbs. It was really great. And I
watched it and made the mistake of watching on a plane,
and I was just like, my allergies were acting up.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I was. I was watering because
of your allergies. No, because it was sad. I was crying.
Do you want me to say it? Oh? Yeah, crying
on a plane.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I was confused there for a second.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
That's better than when I watch other movies that are
on my laptop that are like have like bad violence
or nudity or something. I'm always just like oh, and
I kind of lower the laptop and it's like I
didn't realize this was in here. And the lady next
to me, he's just like, ugh, you disgust me, Yeah,
because I don't. I want to be sensitive to people
around me. You know, I'm not one of those jerks
(02:18):
just like just lives in my own bubble. It's like
watching some sex scene on a plane. You're like elbowing
the ladies. So yeah, no, I hate it. That's it
was so embarrassed. That happened to me a couple of times.
I'm like, I needed to start going PG on movies. Yeah,
like airplanes.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Judd Apatow huh am, I right, he's unpredictable.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, all right, So Chuck, this is your episode to
shine Man, is it? Yes, you're a movie guy too, though.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I like movies, but I've I almost consciously don't let
myself watch movies on a like.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
A film aficionado level. Oh right, you pure enjoyment.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yeah, I don't ever want to see the individual shots
and just be like, oh well that could have been
better whatever, Yeah, and just missed the movie as a whole.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah. I fall somewhere in the middle of that. I
try to let go. But like our our video producer
director Casey is is pretty bad about that, and our
buddy Scotty who shot our TV show, Uh oh he's
the worst. Yeah, he's just the camera working that lighting
in that scene.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Scott's awesome. Hey Scott, Hey Casey, they're all.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
In here with us in spirit, and hey, this is
the last show in the studio. Yeah, last episode in
the old office. Yep, the murder Room.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Couldn't feel more neutral about it.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I actually feel less than neutral, less than zero. It's
it's weird. That was a good movie. Thank you, great shots. Yeah,
I say thank you as if I directed it.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
A lot, right. I not only directed it, I also
played Andrew McCarthy.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Uh. Yeah, I'm ready to get the heck out of here, man.
I can't wait to get in that new office and
that Yeah, it's gonna be good, tiny little dedicated studio.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Whole new world.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
All right, let's do this.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Okay, So, Chuck films, you've seen one or two of
them in your time? Sure, have you seen any of
the ones in this list? I know you've seen a
few of them, but have you seen like some of
the early ones I've seen.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, we'll just go piece by piece because I have
not seen Battleship Pataken Okay, but I do love Mandy Patankin.
It's a little.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Different, yes, in spelling pronunciation meaning the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
But it's close, I guess.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
But we're talking, of course, about films that change filmmaking
somewhere or another, and the first one on the list
is from nineteen twenty five, Battleship Patamkin. That's hard for
me to say.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Which is not the first movie, by the way. The
first screen movie was Workers Leaving the Lumieer Factory, which
is forty seven seconds long and the most boring piece
of celluloid anyone's ever put together.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
But it was the first, that's right.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
This was many years. That was a full thirty years
before Battleship Potempkin. By the time thirty years had passed, like,
we were doing like narratives and there was banning and
all sorts of great stuff. Yeah, and Battleship Patinkin fell
under both of those umbrellas. It was a narrative story.
It was a silent movie, that's right. But it told
a pretty clear story. And it was a bit of
(05:11):
Russian propaganda as well.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, it tells a story of a nineteen oh five
uprising in where there were Russian sailors. Basically, there was
a mutiny aboard a ship and then the bad guys,
the Cossacks, came in looking for revenge.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, nineteen oh five that would have been rising up
against tyranny, would have been rising up against the Romanov monarchy.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I guess nice.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
But it was made in nineteen twenty five, so this
is a time when you know, Lenin and Trotsky and
all those dudes were running around trying to do the
great experiment. Yeah, and it ends up it turns out
that the Battleship Potemkin was banned in some countries. Some
countries are like, we don't want this Rusky propaganda, right,
(05:57):
But Russia itself later on banned when Stalin came to
power because he was a self aware dictator.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Was that the deal? Yeah, Okay, he knew this.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Could be a metaphor for rising up against my dictatorship.
So I'm going to just ban this, uhh yeah, even
though it's Russian propaganda.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Well, filmatically, I need to bring the history, by the way.
Filmatically speaking, it was a landmark film because of the montage,
most notably the Russian or Soviet theory of montage, which
is basically that your impact is going to come from
juxtaposition of shots and not necessarily a smooth sequence of shots, right,
(06:39):
and it should be rhythmic instead of necessarily being tied
to the story. It was like a rhythmic series of
shots and this one is popular. It was the Odessa
step sequence as one of the five acts, and it
is huge because it has been aped in mimic and
(07:00):
mocked and homaged probably more than about more but a
lot of times in film history.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Well, yeah, the montage, it's like a go to editing technique, right.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Oh yeah, well the montage in general, but specifically the
Odessa Steps. Oh. There are two notable parts in that sequence.
One is the you know, it's basically a big charge
on these these grand steps leading up to a building
in a big battle in Odessa, Odessa, Texas. And there's
a part of it where there's the old the old
baby carriage going down the steps. You know what's going
(07:33):
to happen to the baby And it sounds tired because
we've seen that in uh, you know, the Untouchables. Yeah,
notably that I did not find it tiresome Naked Gun
thirty three. And the third everything is Illuminated the Great
movie by leav Schreiber. That was from directly from the
(07:54):
Odessa Step sequence in Battleship Patinkin. The baby carriage. Yeah,
and the old shot through the shot in the eye
through the glasses, Oh cool, that comes from this movie too.
They were the first ones to do it. Yeah, and
you've seen that in Woody Allen's Love and Death and
Bananas and of course The Godfather. The great sequence where
Moe Green's getting the massage and he looks up and
(08:15):
puts on his glasses during a montage. Yeah, that's exactly
the whole sequence montage. Yeah, because there was an assassination
on the steps as well.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Oh yes, that was definitely was a double Who was that?
That was Francis Ford Coppola. Oh yeah, he was clearly
aware of battleship put tempkin clearly. I was trying to
think of other examples of montages and the only thing
I could come up with was the a team building something.
But that counts as a montage, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It's like some related in some way related shots that
are kind of put together that a little bit transcend like.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
A story in itself. Yeah, like Rocky training for a fight. Yeah,
that's another good A lot of times to set to music. Yeah,
I love that. That's the only one you can think of. Yeah,
and the Great movie Brazil Too has the shot through
the glasses bit, as I like to call it.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
So that's Battleship of Tenkin, doesn't one of the Nazis
and Raiders of the Lost dar gets shot through the glasses.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Maybe that wouldn't surprise me. It's been it's been off homaged,
you know.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah, so Battleship to Tempkin was a It made a
pretty big splash in nineteen twenty five. In nineteen twenty six,
the following year, the next movie on the list. It
wasn't his first, but it really solidified I think his
stardom buster Keaton stardom.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, the general rightfully so too. Yeah, he was one
of the great well some people calm, the greatest stuntman
to ever live it.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
He's done some stuff that I think earns him.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
That, Yeah, because I mean this is back in the
day too, where he was legitimately risking his life, right,
you know, like.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
That the very famously where he's standing on the street
in front of a house and then the whole front
of the house falls over him and the window just
goes right around him.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I watched that again today. Yeah it is. I can't
believe he did that. And there's actually a half of
a second where his arm jerks up because he's startled
as the house finally makes its way like into his
peripheral vision. Yeah, and it has to be one of
the most dangerous things that human beings ever done on film.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, I'm sure the whole time before that was like
we did the math, right, he did the math. Do
the math again, do the math again, Show me the
math right, show me the math, because that's all it was.
It was math in measurements, right. But yeah, he could
have been squashed and killed very easily.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
And he had a lot of faith in everybody who
was pulling off the stunt with him. You know, he
had to just stand there. That was his whole thing.
He had to just stand there, and his bit was
that he was he played it straight constantly. He was
a stonefaced actor.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, deadpan. Yeah, he kind of started that whole thing
because his big I was about to say rival, but
I guess just contemporary Charlie Chaplin, while similar in some ways,
was completely different because Chaplin was constantly mugging for the
camera and like asking for the audience sympathy, right, raising
his eyebrows or yeah, like look, what's happening to me?
(11:09):
Come on, come on, whereas Buster Keaton would just he
had that dead pan look the whole time.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, he would go from like a house falling around
him to jumping on a train or something like that
with just the same blank facial expression.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah. And the reason this is a highly influential film
the generals because it kind of showcases the best of
both the amazing stunts that would be mimicked and throughout
the years and built upon, and then the deadpan style
that influenced everyone from obviously Bill Murray is one of
the great deadpan actors of all time. Yeah, Like you
(11:43):
can count the number of times Bill Murray even smiles
in a movie on like two hands, sure, much less
like apes or laughs or anything.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Michael Sarah's mentioned in here, and I'm like he, I
think he might have Bill Murray beat as far as
the dead panpan actor goes.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, well, Zach galafanactis is on the list. He's soon
for deadpan, Yeah, Leslie Nielsen, of course, Amy Poehler, I
think is Uh is a woman that's a very dead
pan has a deadpan style. Jason Swartzman, Yes, but people
say this is this all is a direct descendant of
Buster Keaton's work.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Yeah, And if you think we're overstating this, go watch
any Buster Keaton movie. Yeah, you will be thrilled and delighted.
And if your attention span has been shredded to ribbons
by the Internet, just go onto YouTube and type in
Buster Keaton and it'll bring up all sorts of clips
of his awesome stunts.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Pretty great.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
He will be thrilled in a mace, I promise.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah. And I think I made a note here by
the way, that we have a fatty arbuckle retraction to make.
Remember when we we called him out as the rapist murderer,
I didn't say murder, well, we said rapist at least, right,
but we were taking the task by fan he was.
He had, he was acquitted of all that stuff and
apparently didn't do either act and his career in life
(12:59):
and family name were room forever. So he was evidently
done a grave miss justice, and we sort of cavalierly
just still called him that to day.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, I need to look into it more, all right.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
So next up we have the Jazz Singer, the nineteen
twenty seven edition, not the Neil diamond one. No, And
there was one in between two with Danny Thomas. I
believe I like Neil Diamonds. It's good.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I never saw.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Do you ever see it? No, No, it's not bad.
But this is the original from Alan Crossland, and it
is notable because it was the first feature link movie
that was at least twenty five percent spoken dialogue, right,
Does that make sense? Yeah, it's totally new. Yeah it was.
(13:46):
It wasn't the first talkie because they had short films
that were talkies, and there was a movie the next
year I'm sorry, Yeah, in nineteen twenty eight called Lights
of New York that had one hundred percent full spoken dialogue,
but the jazz singer had a mix of of music
and spoken dialogue. Right, the first big, big daddy feature
length film to do.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
So right with substantial dialogue, right, Yeah. And they did
it in the most roundabout difficult way that you could
possibly do it, which is to record the audio and
the soundtrack, both the dialogue and the music, onto vinyl
records probably wax records really, and then the projectionist had
(14:27):
to sync the record up with the film strip so
everything was in sync.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah. It was a device called a vitaphone that Warner
Brothers sunk about half a million into this company called
Western Electric who invented it, and it was actually physically
connected to the projector's motor, so they did while they
did have to sink it. It was a physical connection
between the phonograph player and the projection real, I guess.
(14:56):
And it went on to gross three and a half
million bucks for nineteen twenty seven and then Man, a
lot of dough.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's a ton of dough. That's like five six million
dollars today at.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Least, yeah, at least, but was ineligible for the Best
Picture because they were just like, you can't compete with
the rest. It's not fair. Oh wow, because everything else
is silent and everyone's going to vote for you. Yeah,
So that changed the whole game for sure.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
We will continue on with our awesome and engrossing list
right after this, So, Chuck, if you'll notice the first
(15:50):
three movies in our list, the first three films that
changed everything happened in nineteen twenty five, twenty six, and
twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Things were changing fast, they really were.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
I mean we by leaps and bounds, sure, but you
can also make the case that there was a lot
of new ground to cover. So just about anybody who
did anything new that was noteworthy of the innovation. Yeah,
it was a big innovation yeah, harder to innovate these days,
it is, and if you'll notice on the list, So
the earliest ones were like technical editing innovations. Now, starting
(16:24):
with Citizen Kane from nineteen forty one, we started to
get into innovations and storytelling, which is a lot more
nuanced than you know, doing your own stunts or using
a montage or something. It's figuring out how to tell
a story in a much less linear narrative fashion. And
(16:45):
Citizen Kme was one of the early ones to pioneer
a non linear narrative.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah did you you saw this?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah, I didn't see it untill I mean it was
probably like probably about fifteen years ago, but like way
later than you would think I would have seen. This
is a big film buff.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I saw it in college at a in a film class.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah. Sure, often. Yeah, if you sign up for a
film class, you're going to study. Citizen came exactly pretty.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Much, and I finally found out what Rosebud was.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Don't ruin it.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I won't.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
But it is a landmark film in every way, and
it has often been top of best Films of All
Time lists for great reasons, one of which, like you said,
the non linear narrative was a really unique thing at
the time. Although flashback wasn't brand new, it was the
first time it had been this extensive and effective in
(17:40):
the story.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, because I mean it's substantial enough that it really
cuts up the flow. Oh yeah, you know, it's not
like a quick flashback and they come back and the
actors like staring off into space to transition back.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Into the present again.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
I mean like it was all over the place.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah. Some of the more concrete cinematic landmarks. One was
using deep focus. Director of photography Greg Toland legend used
he had used deep focus before on a movie called
Long Voyage Home, but it's all over the place in
Citizen Kane. And that basically means if you see a
(18:17):
shot where something very far away is in focus in
the shot basically where everything's in focus, or.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
The background in the foreground or yeah, in focus, so
you can press pause and look around exactly like you're
sticking your head into a box.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah. That's called deep focus, and it was brand new
as far as Citizen Kane goes, is how extensive it
used it. One of the other things was off center framing.
It was a big, you know, pretty common thing to
just center whatever the main action was either the character
or the object, and Citizen Kane had a lot of
(18:53):
things where the main focus of the scene the character,
maybe even off screen, which was really weird at the time.
People didn't know what to think of it, right, expressionistic lighting,
uh back then everything they just lit it. They're like,
make sure everything's well lit.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
But it was an auto premenger also like a big
pioneer with that.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
With Dalin for Murder, I think he directed that.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Was that Hitchcock? I think that was Hitchcock? Was it? Okay?
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Well, auto premature directed stuff like that, though, right, he
was very He used moody lighting and.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Chats and stuff a lot. I probably messed that up.
People are gonna be Dalin for Murder, I think it
was premiter okay, but orson Welles of course. I don't
think we even mentioned that who wrote, directed, and starred
and produced, and I think he even edited a Citizen Kane. Yeah,
I just assumed everybody knew that, you know. Yeah, he
(19:46):
came from the theater where you create mood with lighting
only certain parts of the stage, so he brought that
into the movies and it was very evocative and set
the mood well, and people like, man, why we lighten
everything all bright all the time? Look at Citizen Kane.
It really worked. Yeah. A couple of other things, One
(20:09):
of which I know you will appreciate, sir, is that
he pretty much invented the wipe. Oh the star wipe,
not the star wipe, but it followed. Yeah, the star
wipe followed, okay, which I know is your favorite transition
in cinema. Oh, it's all star.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Wis star because it almost makes a sound, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
And by the way, I want to say, you're right, dall,
I'm for murderer. It was Hitchcock, Oh was it?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah? Okay, what was premature? Did you look that up?
Speaker 3 (20:36):
He did one called Laura the Man with the Golden Arm.
It's not who I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of a
director named Auto who directed in like the twenties or thirties,
and he directed like moody, like like moody movies.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Like yeah, murder movies. Yeah, like fil noir, Yes.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Film noir. That's exactly what I was going for. And
I don't remember who it was.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Maybe his name was a film noir He's French. And
then one final thing of course you could study Citizen
Kane for a week in the film class, so this
is an overview. But the low angle shots. People didn't
use a lot of lower high angle shots back then.
It was kind of just shot from straight on and
Orson Wells even dug out cut out the floor a
(21:20):
lot of times to get the camera lower. And for
the first time we saw ceilings in view in a movie,
because quite often things were shot on a sound stage
where you don't have ceilings, and he wanted those low
angle shots, so they used fabric most times to act
as a ceiling, but very effective shots of from below
of Orson Wells. As I mean, it wasn't exactly William Randolphurst,
(21:46):
but it was an approximation of William Randolphurst, so very
effective low angle stuff that now, I mean, we take
for granted all these things, but you know, there would
be no pulp fiction in that non linear story telling.
If there was no well maybe somebody would have done it, but.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Maybe eventually, but even first he did the first and
that's why it was innovative.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
It's Fritz Lang.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah, there you go, Yeah, Fritz Lang Metropolis and am
just m that's okay, Yeah, it's all making sense now,
I get confused. Yeah, but you were right, You were
right there.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Fritz and Auto are not close.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I mean they're both German, but that's about it. Yeah,
but you know the difference between M and dial M
just a telephone. What's up next, Chuck Breathless one of
my faves.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
So I am going to rely on you mostly for
this one because I looked up what the French New
Wave really did, what it accounted for. Yeah, and like
all of the essays I found were hard to they
were dense. Yeah, and I didn't really understand. I understood
that the French New Wave like changed everything, and that
(22:56):
a lot of the movies that I know and love
today are the offspring of the French New Wave, but
I still didn't get exactly specifically what the French New
Wave did.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
And you're gonna allow me to summarize this, yeah, no pressure, No, Well,
for me, the French New Wave basically ushered in an
era of what now I think most people might associate
with indie filmmaking.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Okay, okay, like.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Handheld camera work and what some people at the time
considered amateurish camera work movies where maybe not a lot
seemingly happens. You know, nothing grand happens, which was the
case in Breathless. A lot of people didn't like it
at the time because it was like, you know, not
much happens. You know that the two leads in the movie,
(23:46):
Jean Paul Belmondo and Geene c Berg, weren't really like,
didn't show express a whole lot of deep love, and
there weren't these big moments of love and affection and
these huge action sequences. And it was described as flat
by a lot of people. And I think a lot
of indie movies do that, just kind of show life
as it happens.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, So without Breathless, who wouldn't have, like Bottle Rocket.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Maybe Wes Anderson's definitely a big French New wave guy,
Yeah for sure. But uh godar John lu Goodard who
directed it, and Trufau and some other French New wave
forefathers were film critics at first. Oh yeah, yeah, and
they decided as a group, like, we want to look
at cinnamon a new way and do something different, So
(24:33):
they went and started making their own movies.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
That's like James Fenimore Cooper, Oh yeah, the guy who
wrote Last of the Mohicans. Oh really Yeah. He apparently
used to complain that, like nobody wrote good books anymore,
and so I think his wife or something said, well,
why don't you do it, big shot?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
And he did.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
In the books he wrote really weren't so great, but
he went and wrote him and he wrote a bunch
of them too.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
One of my favorite foresides ever, is the second to
the to the Mohicans. It's just a line of Native Americans.
In the second to the last one, they're online facing away.
You just sort of turning around and waving a camera
I guess the camera at Gary Larson's hand. So Breathless
is notable for those reasons. It kind of kicked off
the French New Wave. But the use of jump cut editing,
(25:19):
which we see so much now, it was the first
movie and it was very jarring at the time to
see jump cuts in a movie. And that's when you're showing,
like I guess the best way to describe it as
multiple shots of the same subject or thing from different angles.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Right, It's like you indicate the progression of time or
movement or something by just cutting quickly rather than focusing
on somebody walking down the street for five minutes. Yeah,
you cut a couple of times and all of a
sudden they're just closer to the camera, then closer and closer,
and then they're past the camera.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It's a jump cut, yeah, or even as simple, something
as simple as like you're going to leave the house,
so you go and pick up your keys and you
put on your coat. Instead of showing all that you
come out of the bedroom, Boom, you're putting on your coat. Boom,
you're putting the keys in the door.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Right exactly, You're just showing the high highlights of this
progression of stuff where that would otherwise be boring to
watch the whole thing. But it also is used to
create tension too, because it's it's jarring. I guess it's
probably why it creates tension. And Scorsese famously used it
in Goodfellas. Oh yes, at the end when Henry Hill
(26:29):
is like trying to sell some guns to Nero. Yeah's
coat to the gills, right, and he's like trying to
sell some guns to Nero but they don't fit the silencers,
and like he's the helicopter's following them. He's got the
sauce going and all this stuff is being represented and
compressed in a very short amount of time by the
use of jump cuts.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah, very effective, and for budding filmmakers, it's a great
way to hide mistakes of things you may not have
gotten that you thought you got. Jump cutting is a
really easy way to just sort of, yeah, to hide
your errors. Yeah. I did it a lot. In other words,
when I was making.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Those shorts, I I was I realized that in my head,
I was referencing the shot in Soul Taker. You know,
have you ever seen that mystery Sigence three thousand with
uh it's his last name is Estevez is Martin Sheen's brother,
and he is a soul taker and he's next to
this guy who's a soul taker.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
You just have to see this.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
But anyway, they're they're walking down the road in this
jump cut, like has this progression of them right, It's
so unnecessary, but it's like a great use of jump cut.
You could tell the director was like, I can't wait
to use a jump cut, and that's what she did.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
She used it on.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
But go watch the MSc three K it's a good
one man.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
You did you see every single one of those episodes?
Speaker 3 (27:54):
No, it's still I still run across ones that I
haven't seen.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, nice, hey, and then shout out to Bill Corbett,
who I know is a listener.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Oh yeah, he is, isn't he.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I don't know if he's going to hear this one,
but the great Bill Corbett, So take here. Next week,
are gonna move on to Frederico Fellini's Eight and a half.
Have you ever seen this one?
Speaker 3 (28:19):
No?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I haven't.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
It's good now I understand why it's called that though.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Yeah. It was one of the first, although not the first,
movies about movie making and starring the great Marcela Masteriania
Mastroiani from La Delceavita, a muse of Felini's over the
years too. And this one, this one really kicked off
the surrealist filmmaking and sort of saying you can play
(28:44):
around and shoot a dream sequence where the guy's in
traffic and then he leaves his car and floats up
in the air and is, you know, being pulled down
to the ground on the beach from a rope tied
around his ankle, just like go nuts.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, and successive filmmakers did go nuts, like Gondry did
Eternal Sun, The Spotless Mind.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Oh yeah, he's hugely influenced.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Darren Aronofsky did some weird stuff here or.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
There, Yeah, David Lynch and Terry Gilliam of course. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Just basically surrealism is what I'm taking Fellini introduced.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Into this, Yeah, for real. And besides the surrealism, that
opening sequence of Eight and a Half where the director
of he's the director in the movie Guido is stuck
in traffic. It's really claustrophobic feeling, and that's why he
floats away and escapes. You know that, that traffic jam,
(29:37):
but that was directly mimicked in like Rams Everybody Hurts video.
Oh yeah, and the beginning of the movie Falling Down.
Do you remember that huh that started with the traffic jam. Yeah,
Michael Douglass just left.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
He doesn't float, he gets like an oozy.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
I saw that again the other day. Most of it
to hold up. It's weird. It alternately felt way ahead
of its time and also very dated. Yeah, because the
stuff that Michael Douglas is doing felt way ahead of
its time. But then there was I just forgot about
that whole weird subplots with Robert Duvall retiring and he
(30:15):
had this wife that was Hnpecking them and like this
retirement party they were trying to throw them.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
I forgot about that too.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah. It was just so unnecessary and felt really weird
and out of place. The other day when I was
watching it was.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
There like a jump cut montage where he's putting on
his watch, his gold retirement watch.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
No, but then too, the Barbara Hershey, you know, is
in venice at home with the daughter, and he spends
a whole day coming there to grab them, basically, and
the whole time she just keeps calling the cops like no,
he's coming, and now he's coming. And I was watching
the other day it was like freaking leave. Oh, yeah,
what are you doing there?
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah, that's a movie character thing.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
That's just bad writing, bad directing when you just walk
right past the ability to you missed a huge step.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Where were we falling down? Yeah? I think that pretty
much sums up eight and a half.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
I think so too, falling down boom, so chuck. We
got a little more left, we got more films. Is
this making you want to watch films?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah? Me too.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
I feel like eating ice cream watching a film and
scratching from Poison ivy.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Lately, Yeah, and burning this office down.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
You know, if that happens now, suspicion is going to
fall on you for saying that. That's all right, we'll
be right back after that. All right, So we're back
(31:52):
with our awesome jingles, which, by the way, we have
to thank John began, John begin begin. He even emailed
with the pronunciation on his name. But he the original
guy who did our jingle, the first jingle ever, Rusty
Mattias or Matthias Man, I'm not good with the pronunciation.
(32:13):
Uh well, anyway, Rusty who's banned the sheep Dogs are
on tour right now.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah. Just because his.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Work was so original, we contacted him and said, hey,
we got this other guy who's done like covers of
your work. Can we use these It's like totally mash
it up. Yeah, and John's been making awesome like versions
of it ever since.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah. They're both great and talented.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Thanks to you both.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
And go check out I think that what you say.
They're on tour right yeah, the sheep Dogs. Yeah, go
check out the sheep Dogs. Yeah, in in town near you. Yeah.
All right, let's finish with these two in reverse order. Okay.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Toy story was a big one, hugely innovative, huge. And
again it's one of those things where now almost everything
about it seems pedestrian.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Su or what it did. Yeah, you see, it's still a.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Great movie, I'm sure. Oh yeah, but the innovations that
it undertook are it just seemed pedestrian. But at the
time it was totally groundbreaking.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, game changer.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
It was the first, the first CGI movie, all CGI
movie ever. Yeah, that was enormous.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Well yeah, and I remember at the time seeing it
and just being like, Wow, this is the future of
animated films.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
What's the best all CGI animated film you've ever seen?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Visually? Uh, well, I haven't seen a lot of them
these days because Emily doesn't like those. So I probably
wouldn't be the best person to ask Holly from Stuff
Sovius in history class, she'd probably be the one to
ask for my money.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Have you seen The Adventures of ten Tin?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Oh? Yeah, that was amazing, mind blowing. Yeah, I saw
that on your recommendation. Really really liked it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
The story was great, the action was great, the characters
were great. But the CGI, the computer animation, is I
think possibly the best ever done.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, and that's a bit of a different style than say,
like up or The Incredibles. It's not nearly as cartoons.
It's like the I. I think it's the motion capture. Yeah,
I think that's what they did for that.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Oh yeah, with UP, it would strictly be totally just animation.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Right, yeah, but I mean they're both animation, right. But yeah, Man, Tintin,
that was really good. It was good. I was surprised
how much I like that.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
But UP was good too, and Toy Story was good too.
But all of these things came as a result of
the ground that Toy Story.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Broke absolutely in nineteen ninety five. Like you said, what
seems like a common thing today. I mean, you don't
see cell animation anymore. It's almost I know, I kind
of miss it. I totally miss we Like the new
Mickey Mouse is all weird in CG like stuff from
our generation should have just been discontinued. Yeah, and then
you just come up with all new stuff that's CGI.
(34:50):
Strawberry Shortcake not supposed to be CGI. It just all
looks weird. Now. Yeah, I wish there would have people
would have done a little bit of both still, because
I think sell animation, like I think the Iron Giant
came out after Toy Story, and they did sell animation
and that was great, great movie. I haven't seen that.
Oh it's really good. You'd like it, like it's a
(35:12):
movie for grown ups. And Toy Story sort of laid
the way for that because it was one of the
first movies, I guess cartoony kids movies to really have
a lot of dialogue that flew over kids heads that
adults got a little nod in a wink. What Toy Story. Yeah,
not like dirty humor, but it's not like Fritz the Cat,
no no, no, but a little entendre here and there
(35:32):
that adults might appreciate the kids won't understand. Those are
the best.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Jokes, right.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
And now we have you know, best Animated Feature in
the Oscars, which definitely came straight out of the original
Toy Story. Because movies started being considered before they created
its own category. Up and Toy Story three were actually
nominated for regular Best Picture, and I think everyone was like, oh,
we need to get to their own category, because yeah,
(36:01):
you can't have an animated movie when best Picture it came.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Well up would have come after the Best Animated Picture
category came out. Oh really, So that kind of GHEs
as a testament to just how amazing that movie is.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, that's right. That was that.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
It was still for Best Picture.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Oh, it was both.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
I don't know if it was up for it probably
was up for Best Animated as well, but it was
definitely also up for Best Picture. Wow, while there was
an animated category.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, I never considered that. Bam, that was a good movie.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, I was sweet.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
So I got nothing else on toy story.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Well then what about the last one?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yeah, two thousand and one of Space Odyssey. Man, quite
a film.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
You sent this essay on Criterion I think Criterion dot com,
but you know the Criterion collection.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
It was written, I guess in nineteen eighty eight. Even
though it says posted in nineteen eighty eight. It's like
there wasn't an internet to post it on in nineteen
eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Maybe it means posted like in the mail.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Maybe. But I realized, like I can read film essays
about Stanley Kubrick's work all day long.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, me too. Like I love that.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Documentary Room two to two seven. It was two three seven,
two four six, you know, the one about the shining
conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, the number of the room is amazing. I can't remember,
though I read a bunch.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Of articles is I think two thirty seven. I read
a bunch of articles around the release of that documentary,
which we're basically like film essays on the shining. I
read this one amazing one from several years ago about
Eyes Wide Shut about how it's like a masterpiece of sociology,
(37:47):
studying sociology.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
A lot of people hate that movie.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, and then now this like two thousand and one.
I'm sure there's tons out there to consume, but I
can just read that stuff all day long because that
guy was so just amazingly detailed as a director.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah, I agree. I can read more about his work
critical essays on his work than any other director. Right,
it's just unbelievable. It's almost like it's its own genre.
It is, you know, Kubrickian. Yeah, it's got a word
named after it, and well it should so. Two thousand
and one. A Space Odyssey nineteen sixty eight blue minds
back then blows minds today one for it's just the
(38:26):
amazing look and the technical achievement ages really well. I mean,
if you see a movie from nineteen sixty eight about
outer space, it still looks like the future. Yeah, he
don't expect it to hold up well, but it totally does,
so much so that a lot of the you know,
George Lucas and Ridley Scott were just like it's done right,
Like we might as well give up.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Yeah, George Lucas when Star Wars came out, said Star
Wars is technically comparable, but for my money, two thousand
and one is by far the better movie.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, everyone was sort of intimidated, I think by how
talented Kubrick was.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Well. Plus all, so you have to take into account
that he made this movie at a time when other
sci fi movies were just pure shlock. So not only
to make the movie in this way this visually amazing
and amazing with an audio soundtrack and just totally innovative,
(39:20):
it also took like that mindset can just completely go
in a different direction that everybody else has as well.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yeah, of course I think about Ridley Scott saying that,
and then he goes on to make Alien and Blade
Runner after that. So I mean he helped Prometheus. Man.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah, people don't like Prometheus.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I don't care. It's a cool movie. No, I liked
it too, I thought, Okay, one flaw, the big flaw
to me was.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
And I'm sure it's like part of the subtext or
the context or one of the texts, but the engineer
coming back to life or coming out of hibernation after
however long and just immediate, like inflicting violence on these
pea brained humans who are showing him no threat whatsoever. Yeah,
(40:07):
I just thought it was a little, uh, it wasn't
explained well enough, I think for my taste.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yeah, I think i'd agree with you.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
But when I'm watching a Ridley Scott movie, I just
assume if I'm missing something, he has an explanation for it.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
I'm just not catching it. Yeah, I know what you mean.
I'd like I think I read some stuff about how
it tied into the alien cannon and realized I need
to go see it again with all this knowledge that
I wasn't really thinking about. Yeah, and maybe i'd like
it more. Yeah, but I haven't done that yet. So
back to two thousand and one. Oh Yeah. It was
(40:42):
also notable for being bookended basically with thirty minutes of
silence on both ends of the movie. The first thirty
minutes or and when I say silent, I mean no dialogue, right,
and the last thirty minutes have no dialogue. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
The last line comes like a full thirty minutes before
the end.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Yeah, And over the one hundred and forty six minutes,
there are only forty minutes of dialogue and the whole thing.
And that's why I just when people compare something like Interstellar,
then call it Kubrickan. I just want to smash do
you know like Interstellar? Not really?
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Oh, I liked it.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
I was super letdown.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Despite McConaughey doing Waterson in the future. I still liked it.
I even liked him in it.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I liked a lot of the parts of it. But
to me, it's anti Kubrickian because every ten minutes they're
explaining everything that's going on over again. That was a
thing just like Inception.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Ellen Page's entire character was written in to explain what
was going on every ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah, and I felt like Interstellar was the same way.
It's like Christopher Nolan needs to just trust his audience
a little bit like kubrick did, and so you figure
it out or don't. Yeah, no, I'm not going to
stop every ten minutes just to explain everything. Yeah, here's
just going on. I remember if you didn't get it right.
Here's what's going on again.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Well, I think if they are labeling something like Interstellar
is Kubrickian, right, one of the ways that you can
interpret that is that he was he rooted his two
thousand and one in science fact right, So like the
stuff that the astronauts are like dealing with and the
things that are going on and the conditions of space,
(42:22):
it was all factual. Whereas with Interstellar, same thing. They
went to really great lengths to do what they could
to make everything scientifically factual. Aside from the fact that
the idea that you could go into a black hole
and then come back out or something like that, Sure,
drifting in space that's not gonna happen. But for the
most part, Interstellar was scientifically accurate. So maybe that's what
(42:44):
they meant when they called it Kubrickian, because you're absolutely right,
like they did explain a lot and went to great
links to explain a lot, whereas with two thousand and
one you just watch it the first five times like
what just happened? And apparently Carrie Grant had that same
reaction as well.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
That was Rock Hudson, Rock Hudson, that's right. Yeah, the
original screening that Roger Ebert was at in La Rock.
Hudson just left and said, can somebody tell me what
the hell that was about? Yeah, and it wasn't even
over yet. Yeah. Yeah. Well the reason it it has
science fact and not science fiction is because Kubrick and
Arthur C. Clark, who it wasn't actually a book that
(43:24):
was made into a movie. It was a movie or
book made after a movie, and they collaborated on both.
And they went to Carl Sagan of course of Cosmos
and said.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
He said, you're going to make billions And that was
pretty good, was it?
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Yeah, that sound a lot like them. They went to
Carl Sagan said, hey, we want to portray these extraterrestrials.
Are they maybe the Star Child is or they turned
Dave into the Star Child? Are they humanoids? What are
they going to look like? And Sagan was like they
were very unlikely to be humanoid. So Kubrick did the
(44:02):
smart thing and was just like, well, we just won't
show him right at all, instead of making a fool
of myself like signs and making some dumb looking out
Oh man, man, let me just not show the aliens.
Very smart move. Getting back to the story of two
(44:22):
thousand and one.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Although I think the Village is underrated.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, I can stomach that one. What about well, you
like the sixth sense? Right?
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Everybody like the sixth sense? Sure, I guess that was
it for him.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
I loved Unbreakable.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Unbreakable, Yeah, that was one where like, yeah, I think
it was maybe even better the second time.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, I still like that movie. But then he also
made that Lady in the Water movie and the the
one with Marky Mark the people were jumping off.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Four brothers, no, three kings? Is it the one in
the Elevator?
Speaker 1 (44:59):
No, he just produced that. Oh I know what you're
talking about, the one where people like jumping off of
buildings and stuff inexplicably. Yeah, I didn't even I didn't
see that. You couldn't get through ten minutes of that movie.
So two thousand and one Back to Good Movies had
a three acts, three part structure, but not a conventional
three act structure that you might be used to in movies,
(45:20):
which is why it confounded people like Rock Hudson. The
first they call the movements. The first movement was the
Dawn of Man sequence with the apes with a Monolith,
and he has that great part where he throws his
little bone tool up in the air, right, and then
it morphs into all lot morphs, but it maybe is
(45:42):
a dissolve into the spinning in outer space.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
It's called the match cut.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, match cut, and of the rotation of what we
now know was a nuclear warhead. Because I read that
little article twenty Things you Didn't Know about two thousand
and one, I didn't know those were nuclear heads necessarily
in outer space. They made it a little more vague,
and initially it was going to be more explicit and
they were going to explode it in outer space, right,
(46:09):
but he said, now it's a little too close to
the ending of Stranger. Yeah, so let's not do that. Yeah,
probably good choice.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah, But as a result, some people have taken it
to mean that like it was. That match cut was
supposed to show how far humans have come from using
a bone to murder somebody to satellites in space. But
if you know that the satellite is actually loaded down
with nuclear warheads, that match cut demonstrates how little humans
(46:38):
have changed from using a bone to murder somebody to
using satellites to murder somebody. The motif is still the
same and it's murder.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, he was going for some deep things. Oh yeah,
a lot of metaphor happening. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
I mean supposedly in every single shot, because he started
out as a still photographer, right, Yeah, supposedly every frame
of a Kubrick movie. You there is nothing that isn't
unintentional in placed there by him. He did a lot
of his own set decorating.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Yeah, Like the pencil holder on the desk in the
office of the guy at the Shining Hotel, right was
where it's supposed.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
To be, right, and if like if it has like
a picture of a goat head inscribed on it, that
means something, right, it's not accidental.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Yeah, although we'll say room two thirty seven, which I
think may have been the point is a little bit
like these people are crazy, not like, oh man, I
just see what they're saying in all this, Right, I
was just thinking, these people are nuts.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Right, It's it was just kind of enjoyable to hear
their interpretations of it well, and.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
I think it had It was a comment on obsession
and fandom more so than the Shining.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
For sure, But there I thought there are some of
their ideas were oea interesting, totally. I said, room too
two seven, didn't I like one with conspiracy theorists like, may.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
What in room two two seven? Like a sitcom?
Speaker 3 (47:57):
Yeah, it was just called two two seven.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Okay, yeah, gotcha. I remember it was Jack Kay.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
She'd be like me, oh, okay, that's what my impression was.
What'd you think I was doing? Well?
Speaker 1 (48:06):
I wasn't sure what she meant being a weirdo. Yeah, yeah, okay.
The second movement was, of course the House sequence, the computer,
the how was it? The How nine thousand? Yeah, really creepy,
and How ended up being a lot of people's favorite character,
even though it was just a voice the supercomputer on
the Discovery ship. Rememberies like what are you doing today?
(48:28):
It's so creepy. I had the Mad Magazine spoof of
two thousand and one when I was a kid. It
was great. Yeah. And then the third movement is when
Dave moves on to the next stage of human development
with these extraterrestrials that you only hear, and basically it's
when it comes full circle the third movement.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
And the third movement is the one that has almost well,
it's really just the second movement that has a dialogue.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Yeah, some of the alternate titles for two thousand and
one Journey Beyond the Stars terrible, Universe not bad, Yeah, okay,
Tunnel to the Stars so great, Planet Fall that sounds bad.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
It sounds like a James Bond movie.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
And then How the Solar System was one as a
play on how the West was won.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Yeah, which, like movie geeks would find that appealing, but
everybody else would say, that's you ruined everything.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Yeah, And Kubrick was this is the last thing I have.
He was so obsessive with protecting his material that he allegedly,
I don't think allegedly. I think he did have all
the sets and props and miniatures destroyed after he shot
it so they would never be reused, which is a
common thing at the time. Yeah, okay, we're doing a
space movie. Go get that Go get that space ring
(49:49):
from Stanley set. Yeah, let's reuse it for Planet Fall.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
He also destroyed all of the footage that didn't make
it into the original theat release. Yeah, destroyed it's gone.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Yeah, so they wouldn't one day after his death recut it,
which they invariably probably would have done.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Yep, he's a smart man.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, I could. We should just do a podcast on Kubrick.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Okay he was I'm down for that challenge.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
He'd be a dude. Yes, one of my heroes. Yeah. Cinematically,
you got anything else? I got nothing else.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
If you want to know more about movies. If you
like this one, you probably also love our exploitation episode
Exploitation movie episode fun one. What else have we talked
about movies and Cannonball Run?
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Oh yeah, I had a lot to do with the movie. Yeah.
Our James Bond episode. Yeah yeah. We've had a few
of these, and people always respond to these real like
you guys should have a spin off.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Should do an all movie podcast. Sure, maybe one day.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Maybe.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
Remember if you're looking for any of these, press control
F or Apple F in your web browser and search
that way. On our podcast archive page. You can also
search for the article on how Stuff Works by typing
movies in and seeing what comes up. And since I
said how stuff works, it is time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
I'm going to call this Mike coul DuPont really clear
something up for us on scientific method. Hey guys, it
was a great well, actually, he doesn't say it was great.
I think I just made that up. Hey, guys, your
scientific method podcast has a consistent misuse of what a
scientific law is in relation to the working of the
scientific method. It appears that you believe that a law
(51:31):
e g. Newton's law of gravity is held in higher
esteem than theory, that eventually a theory matures into a law.
I think I probably did think that because of politics. Right,
you know, bill becomes a law, right exactly, he says,
when in fact, theory is considerably more robust than a law.
A law is a mathematical model that describes observed behavior,
(51:52):
does not answer the why. Theory does answer why something happens.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Did we not say that? I thought we did well,
Like I knew that. I remember finding that out from
the research. I just can't believe it didn't come out
of my mouth.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
He claims. We did not, And I feel like I'm
learning this so I definitely did not. Okay, go ahead,
but you may have. For example, Newton's law of gravitational
attraction describes the action of two bodies that can be
used for pretty much everything. It is perfect for describing
what happens, but it cannot tell you why the two
items are attracted or drilled down to the underlying mechanism.
Speaker 3 (52:25):
Yeah, A law is like much more succinct.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
It just is what it is, Nor is the law
even universal, and could not be used to explain the
Parahelian procession of Mercury's orbit burn. In comparison, Einstein's theory
of general relativity was eventually used to solve the mercury issue.
Oh yeah, the mercury issue and the standard model, along
(52:49):
with the recent discovery of the Higgs boson my cern can
answer the why do these two masses attracted to each other?
A question? I think what you mean is why are
these two mass is attracted to one another? Mike, it's
pretty teleological theory is considerably more developed and richer than
a scientific law, which is more of a tool that
(53:09):
is applicable to a wide range of applications. Keep up
the good work that is, Mike DuPont.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
Thanks Mike, thanks for that of the Valley Forge.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
DuPonts. I think, so, huh have you seen Fox Catcher?
Oh no, I've heard it's good. Is it good? No? Really?
I don't think so. No. I've heard it's kind of slow.
Speaker 3 (53:27):
It's beyond slow.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
Really?
Speaker 3 (53:29):
Oh yeah, I can understand why the Academy loved it,
or sure a lot of people I'm sure do like it.
I was not a fan of Fox.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
I think people generally seeing like a turn by an
actor like Steve Curl doing something really different, they're knocked
out by that. No, I still can't believe you didn't
like Birdman. No spoiler alert for people who have not
seen Birdman. The following conversation is full of spoilers. Yes,
what didn't you like about it?
Speaker 2 (54:00):
So?
Speaker 1 (54:00):
I thought?
Speaker 3 (54:01):
I thought Michael Keene was good?
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Okay? Who plays his daughter Emily Blunt? Is that? Who
that is? Emma Stone? Emma Stone? Excellent? Okay?
Speaker 3 (54:12):
Ed Norton even pretty good?
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Okay, so the acting was fine? Who is Naomi Watson
was in it? Yeah? She did great?
Speaker 3 (54:19):
Okay, So yes the acting. The acting was fine. Sure
that the acting was fine. I thought the photography was amazing.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Yeah, the whole seemingly one take thing kind of knocked
you out.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
Probably I didn't even pick up on that, but yes
it did. It was more the uh the for me,
the juxtaposition of the story, which was pretty boring and
realistic in everyday life. Even though it was about a
Broadway production, it was still about the everyday.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
Life of it.
Speaker 3 (54:49):
Sure, against the surrealism that's like threaded and embedded in
it throughout the whole movie. I didn't like that. Okay,
it was like choose one or the other man?
Speaker 1 (54:59):
Gotcha? It irked. And then just so that.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
One part with the critic where Michael Keaton tells off
the critic.
Speaker 1 (55:06):
I thought Michael Keaton.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
Did a wonderful job, but just the whole point that
it was in there of like the director, you know,
using Michael Keaton's character to tell off all the critics he's.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Ever wanted to tell off in his movie.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
Yeah, I just thought it was pretentious and I thought
it was kind of clumsy in that sense too, and
it was enough that it.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
It attainted it. Yeah, and then the ending. I did
not like the ending at all at all. That'll ruin
a good.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
Movie because it was it completely went contrary to all
the other stuff that he went out of his way
to point out was fake or fraudulent or not real,
and then all of a sudden, it is what Yeah,
no choose one or the other. The director refused to
make very important decisions, and I think that that ruined
the movie.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
That is a very well thought out the criticism.
Speaker 3 (56:00):
Thank you, thank you very much. Sure, uh man, that
was the end of listener mail even, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (56:06):
Yeah, Because now I'm not like Chez Josh is weird
he didn't like Birdman. Now I'm like, just didn't like Birdman.
He has good reasons. Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
I like justifying my opinions, don't we all? So if
you want to get in touch with Chuck and I
or Jerry who I apparently just spoiled Birdman for, you
can contact us via Twitter at s ysk podcast. You
can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you
Should Know. You can send us an email This Stuff
podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com, and as always, joined us
(56:35):
at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know
dot com.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Continuing the Stuff You Should Know Summer movie playlist, This
episode from February twenty fifteen focuses on some movies that
changed filmmaking from the very beginning of the film industry
up to Star Wars and beyond. All these movies pushed
the whole thing forward that much more and got us
to where we are today. And as a bonus, Mystery
Science Theater three thousand makes a nice little cameo in here. Enjoy.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles w Chuck Bryant aka Siskel, and.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Ebert save us the I'll see.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
And Jerry's over there. I guess she's Gene Shallatt. That's
the Stuff you Should Know triumph It.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I don't know why that tickled me so much, because
Jane's Oh, it's a funny looking I guess, yeah, Jerry's not.
I'm just picturing her with a big afro and a
mustache and like a tweet jacket and bad opinions about movies.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Jean shell It had a look for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Still though, he's around right, Oh yeah, I think so. Yeah,
rip both Ciskel and Ebert so sad. I know. Have
you seen the Roger Ebert documentary?
Speaker 3 (01:22):
No, I've heard nothing but good things.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Really really good, very touching. Yeah. What is it?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Something Life, Life like mine, Life with Me, Life on Top,
Life Itself, Life with thumbs, Life itself, Life.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Itself, Life with thumbs. It was really great. And I
watched it and made the mistake of watching on a plane,
and I was just like, my allergies were acting up.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I was. I was watering because
of your allergies. No, because it was sad. I was crying.
Do you want me to say it? Oh? Yeah, crying
on a plane.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I was confused there for a second.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
That's better than when I watch other movies that are
on my laptop that are like have like bad violence
or nudity or something. I'm always just like oh, and
I kind of lower the laptop and it's like I
didn't realize this was in here. And the lady next
to me, he's just like, ugh, you disgust me, Yeah,
because I don't. I want to be sensitive to people
around me. You know, I'm not one of those jerks
(02:18):
just like just lives in my own bubble. It's like
watching some sex scene on a plane. You're like elbowing
the ladies. So yeah, no, I hate it. That's it
was so embarrassed. That happened to me a couple of times.
I'm like, I needed to start going PG on movies. Yeah,
like airplanes.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Judd Apatow huh am, I right, he's unpredictable.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, all right, So Chuck, this is your episode to
shine Man, is it? Yes, you're a movie guy too, though.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I like movies, but I've I almost consciously don't let
myself watch movies on a like.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
A film aficionado level. Oh right, you pure enjoyment.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yeah, I don't ever want to see the individual shots
and just be like, oh well that could have been
better whatever, Yeah, and just missed the movie as a whole.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah. I fall somewhere in the middle of that. I
try to let go. But like our our video producer
director Casey is is pretty bad about that, and our
buddy Scotty who shot our TV show, Uh oh he's
the worst. Yeah, he's just the camera working that lighting
in that scene.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Scott's awesome. Hey Scott, Hey Casey, they're all.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
In here with us in spirit, and hey, this is
the last show in the studio. Yeah, last episode in
the old office. Yep, the murder Room.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Couldn't feel more neutral about it.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I actually feel less than neutral, less than zero. It's
it's weird. That was a good movie. Thank you, great shots. Yeah,
I say thank you as if I directed it.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
A lot, right. I not only directed it, I also
played Andrew McCarthy.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Uh. Yeah, I'm ready to get the heck out of here, man.
I can't wait to get in that new office and
that Yeah, it's gonna be good, tiny little dedicated studio.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Whole new world.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
All right, let's do this.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Okay, So, Chuck films, you've seen one or two of
them in your time? Sure, have you seen any of
the ones in this list? I know you've seen a
few of them, but have you seen like some of
the early ones I've seen.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, we'll just go piece by piece because I have
not seen Battleship Pataken Okay, but I do love Mandy Patankin.
It's a little.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Different, yes, in spelling pronunciation meaning the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
But it's close, I guess.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
But we're talking, of course, about films that change filmmaking
somewhere or another, and the first one on the list
is from nineteen twenty five, Battleship Patamkin. That's hard for
me to say.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Which is not the first movie, by the way. The
first screen movie was Workers Leaving the Lumieer Factory, which
is forty seven seconds long and the most boring piece
of celluloid anyone's ever put together.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
But it was the first, that's right.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
This was many years. That was a full thirty years
before Battleship Potempkin. By the time thirty years had passed, like,
we were doing like narratives and there was banning and
all sorts of great stuff. Yeah, and Battleship Patinkin fell
under both of those umbrellas. It was a narrative story.
It was a silent movie, that's right. But it told
a pretty clear story. And it was a bit of
(05:11):
Russian propaganda as well.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, it tells a story of a nineteen oh five
uprising in where there were Russian sailors. Basically, there was
a mutiny aboard a ship and then the bad guys,
the Cossacks, came in looking for revenge.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, nineteen oh five that would have been rising up
against tyranny, would have been rising up against the Romanov monarchy.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I guess nice.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
But it was made in nineteen twenty five, so this
is a time when you know, Lenin and Trotsky and
all those dudes were running around trying to do the
great experiment. Yeah, and it ends up it turns out
that the Battleship Potemkin was banned in some countries. Some
countries are like, we don't want this Rusky propaganda, right,
(05:57):
But Russia itself later on banned when Stalin came to
power because he was a self aware dictator.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Was that the deal? Yeah, Okay, he knew this.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Could be a metaphor for rising up against my dictatorship.
So I'm going to just ban this, uhh yeah, even
though it's Russian propaganda.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Well, filmatically, I need to bring the history, by the way.
Filmatically speaking, it was a landmark film because of the montage,
most notably the Russian or Soviet theory of montage, which
is basically that your impact is going to come from
juxtaposition of shots and not necessarily a smooth sequence of shots, right,
(06:39):
and it should be rhythmic instead of necessarily being tied
to the story. It was like a rhythmic series of
shots and this one is popular. It was the Odessa
step sequence as one of the five acts, and it
is huge because it has been aped in mimic and
(07:00):
mocked and homaged probably more than about more but a
lot of times in film history.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Well, yeah, the montage, it's like a go to editing technique, right.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Oh yeah, well the montage in general, but specifically the
Odessa Steps. Oh. There are two notable parts in that sequence.
One is the you know, it's basically a big charge
on these these grand steps leading up to a building
in a big battle in Odessa, Odessa, Texas. And there's
a part of it where there's the old the old
baby carriage going down the steps. You know what's going
(07:33):
to happen to the baby And it sounds tired because
we've seen that in uh, you know, the Untouchables. Yeah,
notably that I did not find it tiresome Naked Gun
thirty three. And the third everything is Illuminated the Great
movie by leav Schreiber. That was from directly from the
(07:54):
Odessa Step sequence in Battleship Patinkin. The baby carriage. Yeah,
and the old shot through the shot in the eye
through the glasses, Oh cool, that comes from this movie too.
They were the first ones to do it. Yeah, and
you've seen that in Woody Allen's Love and Death and
Bananas and of course The Godfather. The great sequence where
Moe Green's getting the massage and he looks up and
(08:15):
puts on his glasses during a montage. Yeah, that's exactly
the whole sequence montage. Yeah, because there was an assassination
on the steps as well.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Oh yes, that was definitely was a double Who was that?
That was Francis Ford Coppola. Oh yeah, he was clearly
aware of battleship put tempkin clearly. I was trying to
think of other examples of montages and the only thing
I could come up with was the a team building something.
But that counts as a montage, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It's like some related in some way related shots that
are kind of put together that a little bit transcend like.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
A story in itself. Yeah, like Rocky training for a fight. Yeah,
that's another good A lot of times to set to music. Yeah,
I love that. That's the only one you can think of. Yeah,
and the Great movie Brazil Too has the shot through
the glasses bit, as I like to call it.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
So that's Battleship of Tenkin, doesn't one of the Nazis
and Raiders of the Lost dar gets shot through the glasses.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Maybe that wouldn't surprise me. It's been it's been off homaged,
you know.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah, so Battleship to Tempkin was a It made a
pretty big splash in nineteen twenty five. In nineteen twenty six,
the following year, the next movie on the list. It
wasn't his first, but it really solidified I think his
stardom buster Keaton stardom.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, the general rightfully so too. Yeah, he was one
of the great well some people calm, the greatest stuntman
to ever live it.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
He's done some stuff that I think earns him.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
That, Yeah, because I mean this is back in the
day too, where he was legitimately risking his life, right,
you know, like.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
That the very famously where he's standing on the street
in front of a house and then the whole front
of the house falls over him and the window just
goes right around him.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I watched that again today. Yeah it is. I can't
believe he did that. And there's actually a half of
a second where his arm jerks up because he's startled
as the house finally makes its way like into his
peripheral vision. Yeah, and it has to be one of
the most dangerous things that human beings ever done on film.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, I'm sure the whole time before that was like
we did the math, right, he did the math. Do
the math again, do the math again, Show me the
math right, show me the math, because that's all it was.
It was math in measurements, right. But yeah, he could
have been squashed and killed very easily.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
And he had a lot of faith in everybody who
was pulling off the stunt with him. You know, he
had to just stand there. That was his whole thing.
He had to just stand there, and his bit was
that he was he played it straight constantly. He was
a stonefaced actor.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, deadpan. Yeah, he kind of started that whole thing
because his big I was about to say rival, but
I guess just contemporary Charlie Chaplin, while similar in some ways,
was completely different because Chaplin was constantly mugging for the
camera and like asking for the audience sympathy, right, raising
his eyebrows or yeah, like look, what's happening to me?
(11:09):
Come on, come on, whereas Buster Keaton would just he
had that dead pan look the whole time.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, he would go from like a house falling around
him to jumping on a train or something like that
with just the same blank facial expression.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah. And the reason this is a highly influential film
the generals because it kind of showcases the best of
both the amazing stunts that would be mimicked and throughout
the years and built upon, and then the deadpan style
that influenced everyone from obviously Bill Murray is one of
the great deadpan actors of all time. Yeah, Like you
(11:43):
can count the number of times Bill Murray even smiles
in a movie on like two hands, sure, much less
like apes or laughs or anything.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Michael Sarah's mentioned in here, and I'm like he, I
think he might have Bill Murray beat as far as
the dead panpan actor goes.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, well, Zach galafanactis is on the list. He's soon
for deadpan, Yeah, Leslie Nielsen, of course, Amy Poehler, I
think is Uh is a woman that's a very dead
pan has a deadpan style. Jason Swartzman, Yes, but people
say this is this all is a direct descendant of
Buster Keaton's work.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Yeah, And if you think we're overstating this, go watch
any Buster Keaton movie. Yeah, you will be thrilled and delighted.
And if your attention span has been shredded to ribbons
by the Internet, just go onto YouTube and type in
Buster Keaton and it'll bring up all sorts of clips
of his awesome stunts.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Pretty great.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
He will be thrilled in a mace, I promise.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah. And I think I made a note here by
the way, that we have a fatty arbuckle retraction to make.
Remember when we we called him out as the rapist murderer,
I didn't say murder, well, we said rapist at least, right,
but we were taking the task by fan he was.
He had, he was acquitted of all that stuff and
apparently didn't do either act and his career in life
(12:59):
and family name were room forever. So he was evidently
done a grave miss justice, and we sort of cavalierly
just still called him that to day.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, I need to look into it more, all right.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
So next up we have the Jazz Singer, the nineteen
twenty seven edition, not the Neil diamond one. No, And
there was one in between two with Danny Thomas. I
believe I like Neil Diamonds. It's good.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I never saw.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Do you ever see it? No, No, it's not bad.
But this is the original from Alan Crossland, and it
is notable because it was the first feature link movie
that was at least twenty five percent spoken dialogue, right,
Does that make sense? Yeah, it's totally new. Yeah it was.
(13:46):
It wasn't the first talkie because they had short films
that were talkies, and there was a movie the next
year I'm sorry, Yeah, in nineteen twenty eight called Lights
of New York that had one hundred percent full spoken dialogue,
but the jazz singer had a mix of of music
and spoken dialogue. Right, the first big, big daddy feature
length film to do.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
So right with substantial dialogue, right, Yeah. And they did
it in the most roundabout difficult way that you could
possibly do it, which is to record the audio and
the soundtrack, both the dialogue and the music, onto vinyl
records probably wax records really, and then the projectionist had
(14:27):
to sync the record up with the film strip so
everything was in sync.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah. It was a device called a vitaphone that Warner
Brothers sunk about half a million into this company called
Western Electric who invented it, and it was actually physically
connected to the projector's motor, so they did while they
did have to sink it. It was a physical connection
between the phonograph player and the projection real, I guess.
(14:56):
And it went on to gross three and a half
million bucks for nineteen twenty seven and then Man, a
lot of dough.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's a ton of dough. That's like five six million
dollars today at.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Least, yeah, at least, but was ineligible for the Best
Picture because they were just like, you can't compete with
the rest. It's not fair. Oh wow, because everything else
is silent and everyone's going to vote for you. Yeah,
So that changed the whole game for sure.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
We will continue on with our awesome and engrossing list
right after this, So, Chuck, if you'll notice the first
(15:50):
three movies in our list, the first three films that
changed everything happened in nineteen twenty five, twenty six, and
twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Things were changing fast, they really were.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
I mean we by leaps and bounds, sure, but you
can also make the case that there was a lot
of new ground to cover. So just about anybody who
did anything new that was noteworthy of the innovation. Yeah,
it was a big innovation yeah, harder to innovate these days,
it is, and if you'll notice on the list, So
the earliest ones were like technical editing innovations. Now, starting
(16:24):
with Citizen Kane from nineteen forty one, we started to
get into innovations and storytelling, which is a lot more
nuanced than you know, doing your own stunts or using
a montage or something. It's figuring out how to tell
a story in a much less linear narrative fashion. And
(16:45):
Citizen Kme was one of the early ones to pioneer
a non linear narrative.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah did you you saw this?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah, I didn't see it untill I mean it was
probably like probably about fifteen years ago, but like way
later than you would think I would have seen. This
is a big film buff.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I saw it in college at a in a film class.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah. Sure, often. Yeah, if you sign up for a
film class, you're going to study. Citizen came exactly pretty.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Much, and I finally found out what Rosebud was.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Don't ruin it.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I won't.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
But it is a landmark film in every way, and
it has often been top of best Films of All
Time lists for great reasons, one of which, like you said,
the non linear narrative was a really unique thing at
the time. Although flashback wasn't brand new, it was the
first time it had been this extensive and effective in
(17:40):
the story.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, because I mean it's substantial enough that it really
cuts up the flow. Oh yeah, you know, it's not
like a quick flashback and they come back and the
actors like staring off into space to transition back.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Into the present again.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
I mean like it was all over the place.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah. Some of the more concrete cinematic landmarks. One was
using deep focus. Director of photography Greg Toland legend used
he had used deep focus before on a movie called
Long Voyage Home, but it's all over the place in
Citizen Kane. And that basically means if you see a
(18:17):
shot where something very far away is in focus in
the shot basically where everything's in focus, or.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
The background in the foreground or yeah, in focus, so
you can press pause and look around exactly like you're
sticking your head into a box.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah. That's called deep focus, and it was brand new
as far as Citizen Kane goes, is how extensive it
used it. One of the other things was off center framing.
It was a big, you know, pretty common thing to
just center whatever the main action was either the character
or the object, and Citizen Kane had a lot of
(18:53):
things where the main focus of the scene the character,
maybe even off screen, which was really weird at the time.
People didn't know what to think of it, right, expressionistic lighting,
uh back then everything they just lit it. They're like,
make sure everything's well lit.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
But it was an auto premenger also like a big
pioneer with that.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
With Dalin for Murder, I think he directed that.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Was that Hitchcock? I think that was Hitchcock? Was it? Okay?
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Well, auto premature directed stuff like that, though, right, he
was very He used moody lighting and.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Chats and stuff a lot. I probably messed that up.
People are gonna be Dalin for Murder, I think it
was premiter okay, but orson Welles of course. I don't
think we even mentioned that who wrote, directed, and starred
and produced, and I think he even edited a Citizen Kane. Yeah,
I just assumed everybody knew that, you know. Yeah, he
(19:46):
came from the theater where you create mood with lighting
only certain parts of the stage, so he brought that
into the movies and it was very evocative and set
the mood well, and people like, man, why we lighten
everything all bright all the time? Look at Citizen Kane.
It really worked. Yeah. A couple of other things, One
(20:09):
of which I know you will appreciate, sir, is that
he pretty much invented the wipe. Oh the star wipe,
not the star wipe, but it followed. Yeah, the star
wipe followed, okay, which I know is your favorite transition
in cinema. Oh, it's all star.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Wis star because it almost makes a sound, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
And by the way, I want to say, you're right, dall,
I'm for murderer. It was Hitchcock, Oh was it?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah? Okay, what was premature? Did you look that up?
Speaker 3 (20:36):
He did one called Laura the Man with the Golden Arm.
It's not who I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of a
director named Auto who directed in like the twenties or thirties,
and he directed like moody, like like moody movies.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Like yeah, murder movies. Yeah, like fil noir, Yes.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Film noir. That's exactly what I was going for. And
I don't remember who it was.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Maybe his name was a film noir He's French. And
then one final thing of course you could study Citizen
Kane for a week in the film class, so this
is an overview. But the low angle shots. People didn't
use a lot of lower high angle shots back then.
It was kind of just shot from straight on and
Orson Wells even dug out cut out the floor a
(21:20):
lot of times to get the camera lower. And for
the first time we saw ceilings in view in a movie,
because quite often things were shot on a sound stage
where you don't have ceilings, and he wanted those low
angle shots, so they used fabric most times to act
as a ceiling, but very effective shots of from below
of Orson Wells. As I mean, it wasn't exactly William Randolphurst,
(21:46):
but it was an approximation of William Randolphurst, so very
effective low angle stuff that now, I mean, we take
for granted all these things, but you know, there would
be no pulp fiction in that non linear story telling.
If there was no well maybe somebody would have done it, but.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Maybe eventually, but even first he did the first and
that's why it was innovative.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
It's Fritz Lang.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah, there you go, Yeah, Fritz Lang Metropolis and am
just m that's okay, Yeah, it's all making sense now,
I get confused. Yeah, but you were right, You were
right there.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Fritz and Auto are not close.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I mean they're both German, but that's about it. Yeah,
but you know the difference between M and dial M
just a telephone. What's up next, Chuck Breathless one of
my faves.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
So I am going to rely on you mostly for
this one because I looked up what the French New
Wave really did, what it accounted for. Yeah, and like
all of the essays I found were hard to they
were dense. Yeah, and I didn't really understand. I understood
that the French New Wave like changed everything, and that
(22:56):
a lot of the movies that I know and love
today are the offspring of the French New Wave, but
I still didn't get exactly specifically what the French New
Wave did.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
And you're gonna allow me to summarize this, yeah, no pressure, No, Well,
for me, the French New Wave basically ushered in an
era of what now I think most people might associate
with indie filmmaking.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Okay, okay, like.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Handheld camera work and what some people at the time
considered amateurish camera work movies where maybe not a lot
seemingly happens. You know, nothing grand happens, which was the
case in Breathless. A lot of people didn't like it
at the time because it was like, you know, not
much happens. You know that the two leads in the movie,
(23:46):
Jean Paul Belmondo and Geene c Berg, weren't really like,
didn't show express a whole lot of deep love, and
there weren't these big moments of love and affection and
these huge action sequences. And it was described as flat
by a lot of people. And I think a lot
of indie movies do that, just kind of show life
as it happens.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, So without Breathless, who wouldn't have, like Bottle Rocket.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Maybe Wes Anderson's definitely a big French New wave guy,
Yeah for sure. But uh godar John lu Goodard who
directed it, and Trufau and some other French New wave
forefathers were film critics at first. Oh yeah, yeah, and
they decided as a group, like, we want to look
at cinnamon a new way and do something different, So
(24:33):
they went and started making their own movies.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
That's like James Fenimore Cooper, Oh yeah, the guy who
wrote Last of the Mohicans. Oh really Yeah. He apparently
used to complain that, like nobody wrote good books anymore,
and so I think his wife or something said, well,
why don't you do it, big shot?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
And he did.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
In the books he wrote really weren't so great, but
he went and wrote him and he wrote a bunch
of them too.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
One of my favorite foresides ever, is the second to
the to the Mohicans. It's just a line of Native Americans.
In the second to the last one, they're online facing away.
You just sort of turning around and waving a camera
I guess the camera at Gary Larson's hand. So Breathless
is notable for those reasons. It kind of kicked off
the French New Wave. But the use of jump cut editing,
(25:19):
which we see so much now, it was the first
movie and it was very jarring at the time to
see jump cuts in a movie. And that's when you're showing,
like I guess the best way to describe it as
multiple shots of the same subject or thing from different angles.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Right, It's like you indicate the progression of time or
movement or something by just cutting quickly rather than focusing
on somebody walking down the street for five minutes. Yeah,
you cut a couple of times and all of a
sudden they're just closer to the camera, then closer and closer,
and then they're past the camera.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It's a jump cut, yeah, or even as simple, something
as simple as like you're going to leave the house,
so you go and pick up your keys and you
put on your coat. Instead of showing all that you
come out of the bedroom, Boom, you're putting on your coat. Boom,
you're putting the keys in the door.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Right exactly, You're just showing the high highlights of this
progression of stuff where that would otherwise be boring to
watch the whole thing. But it also is used to
create tension too, because it's it's jarring. I guess it's
probably why it creates tension. And Scorsese famously used it
in Goodfellas. Oh yes, at the end when Henry Hill
(26:29):
is like trying to sell some guns to Nero. Yeah's
coat to the gills, right, and he's like trying to
sell some guns to Nero but they don't fit the silencers,
and like he's the helicopter's following them. He's got the
sauce going and all this stuff is being represented and
compressed in a very short amount of time by the
use of jump cuts.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah, very effective, and for budding filmmakers, it's a great
way to hide mistakes of things you may not have
gotten that you thought you got. Jump cutting is a
really easy way to just sort of, yeah, to hide
your errors. Yeah. I did it a lot. In other words,
when I was making.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Those shorts, I I was I realized that in my head,
I was referencing the shot in Soul Taker. You know,
have you ever seen that mystery Sigence three thousand with
uh it's his last name is Estevez is Martin Sheen's brother,
and he is a soul taker and he's next to
this guy who's a soul taker.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
You just have to see this.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
But anyway, they're they're walking down the road in this
jump cut, like has this progression of them right, It's
so unnecessary, but it's like a great use of jump cut.
You could tell the director was like, I can't wait
to use a jump cut, and that's what she did.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
She used it on.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
But go watch the MSc three K it's a good
one man.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
You did you see every single one of those episodes?
Speaker 3 (27:54):
No, it's still I still run across ones that I
haven't seen.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, nice, hey, and then shout out to Bill Corbett,
who I know is a listener.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Oh yeah, he is, isn't he.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I don't know if he's going to hear this one,
but the great Bill Corbett, So take here. Next week,
are gonna move on to Frederico Fellini's Eight and a half.
Have you ever seen this one?
Speaker 3 (28:19):
No?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I haven't.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
It's good now I understand why it's called that though.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Yeah. It was one of the first, although not the first,
movies about movie making and starring the great Marcela Masteriania
Mastroiani from La Delceavita, a muse of Felini's over the
years too. And this one, this one really kicked off
the surrealist filmmaking and sort of saying you can play
(28:44):
around and shoot a dream sequence where the guy's in
traffic and then he leaves his car and floats up
in the air and is, you know, being pulled down
to the ground on the beach from a rope tied
around his ankle, just like go nuts.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, and successive filmmakers did go nuts, like Gondry did
Eternal Sun, The Spotless Mind.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Oh yeah, he's hugely influenced.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Darren Aronofsky did some weird stuff here or.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
There, Yeah, David Lynch and Terry Gilliam of course. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Just basically surrealism is what I'm taking Fellini introduced.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Into this, Yeah, for real. And besides the surrealism, that
opening sequence of Eight and a Half where the director
of he's the director in the movie Guido is stuck
in traffic. It's really claustrophobic feeling, and that's why he
floats away and escapes. You know that, that traffic jam,
(29:37):
but that was directly mimicked in like Rams Everybody Hurts video.
Oh yeah, and the beginning of the movie Falling Down.
Do you remember that huh that started with the traffic jam. Yeah,
Michael Douglass just left.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
He doesn't float, he gets like an oozy.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
I saw that again the other day. Most of it
to hold up. It's weird. It alternately felt way ahead
of its time and also very dated. Yeah, because the
stuff that Michael Douglas is doing felt way ahead of
its time. But then there was I just forgot about
that whole weird subplots with Robert Duvall retiring and he
(30:15):
had this wife that was Hnpecking them and like this
retirement party they were trying to throw them.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
I forgot about that too.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah. It was just so unnecessary and felt really weird
and out of place. The other day when I was
watching it was.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
There like a jump cut montage where he's putting on
his watch, his gold retirement watch.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
No, but then too, the Barbara Hershey, you know, is
in venice at home with the daughter, and he spends
a whole day coming there to grab them, basically, and
the whole time she just keeps calling the cops like no,
he's coming, and now he's coming. And I was watching
the other day it was like freaking leave. Oh, yeah,
what are you doing there?
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah, that's a movie character thing.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
That's just bad writing, bad directing when you just walk
right past the ability to you missed a huge step.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Where were we falling down? Yeah? I think that pretty
much sums up eight and a half.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
I think so too, falling down boom, so chuck. We
got a little more left, we got more films. Is
this making you want to watch films?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah? Me too.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
I feel like eating ice cream watching a film and
scratching from Poison ivy.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Lately, Yeah, and burning this office down.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
You know, if that happens now, suspicion is going to
fall on you for saying that. That's all right, we'll
be right back after that. All right, So we're back
(31:52):
with our awesome jingles, which, by the way, we have
to thank John began, John begin begin. He even emailed
with the pronunciation on his name. But he the original
guy who did our jingle, the first jingle ever, Rusty
Mattias or Matthias Man, I'm not good with the pronunciation.
(32:13):
Uh well, anyway, Rusty who's banned the sheep Dogs are
on tour right now.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah. Just because his.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Work was so original, we contacted him and said, hey,
we got this other guy who's done like covers of
your work. Can we use these It's like totally mash
it up. Yeah, and John's been making awesome like versions
of it ever since.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah. They're both great and talented.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Thanks to you both.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
And go check out I think that what you say.
They're on tour right yeah, the sheep Dogs. Yeah, go
check out the sheep Dogs. Yeah, in in town near you. Yeah.
All right, let's finish with these two in reverse order. Okay.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Toy story was a big one, hugely innovative, huge. And
again it's one of those things where now almost everything
about it seems pedestrian.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Su or what it did. Yeah, you see, it's still a.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Great movie, I'm sure. Oh yeah, but the innovations that
it undertook are it just seemed pedestrian. But at the
time it was totally groundbreaking.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, game changer.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
It was the first, the first CGI movie, all CGI
movie ever. Yeah, that was enormous.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Well yeah, and I remember at the time seeing it
and just being like, Wow, this is the future of
animated films.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
What's the best all CGI animated film you've ever seen?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Visually? Uh, well, I haven't seen a lot of them
these days because Emily doesn't like those. So I probably
wouldn't be the best person to ask Holly from Stuff
Sovius in history class, she'd probably be the one to
ask for my money.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Have you seen The Adventures of ten Tin?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Oh? Yeah, that was amazing, mind blowing. Yeah, I saw
that on your recommendation. Really really liked it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
The story was great, the action was great, the characters
were great. But the CGI, the computer animation, is I
think possibly the best ever done.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, and that's a bit of a different style than say,
like up or The Incredibles. It's not nearly as cartoons.
It's like the I. I think it's the motion capture. Yeah,
I think that's what they did for that.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Oh yeah, with UP, it would strictly be totally just animation.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Right, yeah, but I mean they're both animation, right. But yeah, Man, Tintin,
that was really good. It was good. I was surprised
how much I like that.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
But UP was good too, and Toy Story was good too.
But all of these things came as a result of
the ground that Toy Story.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Broke absolutely in nineteen ninety five. Like you said, what
seems like a common thing today. I mean, you don't
see cell animation anymore. It's almost I know, I kind
of miss it. I totally miss we Like the new
Mickey Mouse is all weird in CG like stuff from
our generation should have just been discontinued. Yeah, and then
you just come up with all new stuff that's CGI.
(34:50):
Strawberry Shortcake not supposed to be CGI. It just all
looks weird. Now. Yeah, I wish there would have people
would have done a little bit of both still, because
I think sell animation, like I think the Iron Giant
came out after Toy Story, and they did sell animation
and that was great, great movie. I haven't seen that.
Oh it's really good. You'd like it, like it's a
(35:12):
movie for grown ups. And Toy Story sort of laid
the way for that because it was one of the
first movies, I guess cartoony kids movies to really have
a lot of dialogue that flew over kids heads that
adults got a little nod in a wink. What Toy Story. Yeah,
not like dirty humor, but it's not like Fritz the Cat,
no no, no, but a little entendre here and there
(35:32):
that adults might appreciate the kids won't understand. Those are
the best.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Jokes, right.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
And now we have you know, best Animated Feature in
the Oscars, which definitely came straight out of the original
Toy Story. Because movies started being considered before they created
its own category. Up and Toy Story three were actually
nominated for regular Best Picture, and I think everyone was like, oh,
we need to get to their own category, because yeah,
(36:01):
you can't have an animated movie when best Picture it came.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Well up would have come after the Best Animated Picture
category came out. Oh really, So that kind of GHEs
as a testament to just how amazing that movie is.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, that's right. That was that.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
It was still for Best Picture.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Oh, it was both.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
I don't know if it was up for it probably
was up for Best Animated as well, but it was
definitely also up for Best Picture. Wow, while there was
an animated category.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, I never considered that. Bam, that was a good movie.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, I was sweet.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
So I got nothing else on toy story.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Well then what about the last one?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yeah, two thousand and one of Space Odyssey. Man, quite
a film.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
You sent this essay on Criterion I think Criterion dot com,
but you know the Criterion collection.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
It was written, I guess in nineteen eighty eight. Even
though it says posted in nineteen eighty eight. It's like
there wasn't an internet to post it on in nineteen
eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Maybe it means posted like in the mail.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Maybe. But I realized, like I can read film essays
about Stanley Kubrick's work all day long.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, me too. Like I love that.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Documentary Room two to two seven. It was two three seven,
two four six, you know, the one about the shining
conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, the number of the room is amazing. I can't remember,
though I read a bunch.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Of articles is I think two thirty seven. I read
a bunch of articles around the release of that documentary,
which we're basically like film essays on the shining. I
read this one amazing one from several years ago about
Eyes Wide Shut about how it's like a masterpiece of sociology,
(37:47):
studying sociology.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
A lot of people hate that movie.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, and then now this like two thousand and one.
I'm sure there's tons out there to consume, but I
can just read that stuff all day long because that
guy was so just amazingly detailed as a director.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah, I agree. I can read more about his work
critical essays on his work than any other director. Right,
it's just unbelievable. It's almost like it's its own genre.
It is, you know, Kubrickian. Yeah, it's got a word
named after it, and well it should so. Two thousand
and one. A Space Odyssey nineteen sixty eight blue minds
back then blows minds today one for it's just the
(38:26):
amazing look and the technical achievement ages really well. I mean,
if you see a movie from nineteen sixty eight about
outer space, it still looks like the future. Yeah, he
don't expect it to hold up well, but it totally does,
so much so that a lot of the you know,
George Lucas and Ridley Scott were just like it's done right,
Like we might as well give up.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Yeah, George Lucas when Star Wars came out, said Star
Wars is technically comparable, but for my money, two thousand
and one is by far the better movie.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, everyone was sort of intimidated, I think by how
talented Kubrick was.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Well. Plus all, so you have to take into account
that he made this movie at a time when other
sci fi movies were just pure shlock. So not only
to make the movie in this way this visually amazing
and amazing with an audio soundtrack and just totally innovative,
(39:20):
it also took like that mindset can just completely go
in a different direction that everybody else has as well.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yeah, of course I think about Ridley Scott saying that,
and then he goes on to make Alien and Blade
Runner after that. So I mean he helped Prometheus. Man.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah, people don't like Prometheus.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I don't care. It's a cool movie. No, I liked
it too, I thought, Okay, one flaw, the big flaw
to me was.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
And I'm sure it's like part of the subtext or
the context or one of the texts, but the engineer
coming back to life or coming out of hibernation after
however long and just immediate, like inflicting violence on these
pea brained humans who are showing him no threat whatsoever. Yeah,
(40:07):
I just thought it was a little, uh, it wasn't
explained well enough, I think for my taste.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yeah, I think i'd agree with you.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
But when I'm watching a Ridley Scott movie, I just
assume if I'm missing something, he has an explanation for it.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
I'm just not catching it. Yeah, I know what you mean.
I'd like I think I read some stuff about how
it tied into the alien cannon and realized I need
to go see it again with all this knowledge that
I wasn't really thinking about. Yeah, and maybe i'd like
it more. Yeah, but I haven't done that yet. So
back to two thousand and one. Oh Yeah. It was
(40:42):
also notable for being bookended basically with thirty minutes of
silence on both ends of the movie. The first thirty
minutes or and when I say silent, I mean no dialogue, right,
and the last thirty minutes have no dialogue. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
The last line comes like a full thirty minutes before
the end.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Yeah, And over the one hundred and forty six minutes,
there are only forty minutes of dialogue and the whole thing.
And that's why I just when people compare something like Interstellar,
then call it Kubrickan. I just want to smash do
you know like Interstellar? Not really?
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Oh, I liked it.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
I was super letdown.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Despite McConaughey doing Waterson in the future. I still liked it.
I even liked him in it.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I liked a lot of the parts of it. But
to me, it's anti Kubrickian because every ten minutes they're
explaining everything that's going on over again. That was a
thing just like Inception.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Ellen Page's entire character was written in to explain what
was going on every ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah, and I felt like Interstellar was the same way.
It's like Christopher Nolan needs to just trust his audience
a little bit like kubrick did, and so you figure
it out or don't. Yeah, no, I'm not going to
stop every ten minutes just to explain everything. Yeah, here's
just going on. I remember if you didn't get it right.
Here's what's going on again.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Well, I think if they are labeling something like Interstellar
is Kubrickian, right, one of the ways that you can
interpret that is that he was he rooted his two
thousand and one in science fact right, So like the
stuff that the astronauts are like dealing with and the
things that are going on and the conditions of space,
(42:22):
it was all factual. Whereas with Interstellar, same thing. They
went to really great lengths to do what they could
to make everything scientifically factual. Aside from the fact that
the idea that you could go into a black hole
and then come back out or something like that, Sure,
drifting in space that's not gonna happen. But for the
most part, Interstellar was scientifically accurate. So maybe that's what
(42:44):
they meant when they called it Kubrickian, because you're absolutely right,
like they did explain a lot and went to great
links to explain a lot, whereas with two thousand and
one you just watch it the first five times like
what just happened? And apparently Carrie Grant had that same
reaction as well.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
That was Rock Hudson, Rock Hudson, that's right. Yeah, the
original screening that Roger Ebert was at in La Rock.
Hudson just left and said, can somebody tell me what
the hell that was about? Yeah, and it wasn't even
over yet. Yeah. Yeah. Well the reason it it has
science fact and not science fiction is because Kubrick and
Arthur C. Clark, who it wasn't actually a book that
(43:24):
was made into a movie. It was a movie or
book made after a movie, and they collaborated on both.
And they went to Carl Sagan of course of Cosmos
and said.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
He said, you're going to make billions And that was
pretty good, was it?
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Yeah, that sound a lot like them. They went to
Carl Sagan said, hey, we want to portray these extraterrestrials.
Are they maybe the Star Child is or they turned
Dave into the Star Child? Are they humanoids? What are
they going to look like? And Sagan was like they
were very unlikely to be humanoid. So Kubrick did the
(44:02):
smart thing and was just like, well, we just won't
show him right at all, instead of making a fool
of myself like signs and making some dumb looking out
Oh man, man, let me just not show the aliens.
Very smart move. Getting back to the story of two
(44:22):
thousand and one.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Although I think the Village is underrated.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, I can stomach that one. What about well, you
like the sixth sense? Right?
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Everybody like the sixth sense? Sure, I guess that was
it for him.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
I loved Unbreakable.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Unbreakable, Yeah, that was one where like, yeah, I think
it was maybe even better the second time.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, I still like that movie. But then he also
made that Lady in the Water movie and the the
one with Marky Mark the people were jumping off.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Four brothers, no, three kings? Is it the one in
the Elevator?
Speaker 1 (44:59):
No, he just produced that. Oh I know what you're
talking about, the one where people like jumping off of
buildings and stuff inexplicably. Yeah, I didn't even I didn't
see that. You couldn't get through ten minutes of that movie.
So two thousand and one Back to Good Movies had
a three acts, three part structure, but not a conventional
three act structure that you might be used to in movies,
(45:20):
which is why it confounded people like Rock Hudson. The
first they call the movements. The first movement was the
Dawn of Man sequence with the apes with a Monolith,
and he has that great part where he throws his
little bone tool up in the air, right, and then
it morphs into all lot morphs, but it maybe is
(45:42):
a dissolve into the spinning in outer space.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
It's called the match cut.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, match cut, and of the rotation of what we
now know was a nuclear warhead. Because I read that
little article twenty Things you Didn't Know about two thousand
and one, I didn't know those were nuclear heads necessarily
in outer space. They made it a little more vague,
and initially it was going to be more explicit and
they were going to explode it in outer space, right,
(46:09):
but he said, now it's a little too close to
the ending of Stranger. Yeah, so let's not do that. Yeah,
probably good choice.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah, But as a result, some people have taken it
to mean that like it was. That match cut was
supposed to show how far humans have come from using
a bone to murder somebody to satellites in space. But
if you know that the satellite is actually loaded down
with nuclear warheads, that match cut demonstrates how little humans
(46:38):
have changed from using a bone to murder somebody to
using satellites to murder somebody. The motif is still the
same and it's murder.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, he was going for some deep things. Oh yeah,
a lot of metaphor happening. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
I mean supposedly in every single shot, because he started
out as a still photographer, right, Yeah, supposedly every frame
of a Kubrick movie. You there is nothing that isn't
unintentional in placed there by him. He did a lot
of his own set decorating.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Yeah, Like the pencil holder on the desk in the
office of the guy at the Shining Hotel, right was
where it's supposed.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
To be, right, and if like if it has like
a picture of a goat head inscribed on it, that
means something, right, it's not accidental.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Yeah, although we'll say room two thirty seven, which I
think may have been the point is a little bit
like these people are crazy, not like, oh man, I
just see what they're saying in all this, Right, I
was just thinking, these people are nuts.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Right, It's it was just kind of enjoyable to hear
their interpretations of it well, and.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
I think it had It was a comment on obsession
and fandom more so than the Shining.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
For sure, But there I thought there are some of
their ideas were oea interesting, totally. I said, room too
two seven, didn't I like one with conspiracy theorists like, may.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
What in room two two seven? Like a sitcom?
Speaker 3 (47:57):
Yeah, it was just called two two seven.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Okay, yeah, gotcha. I remember it was Jack Kay.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
She'd be like me, oh, okay, that's what my impression was.
What'd you think I was doing? Well?
Speaker 1 (48:06):
I wasn't sure what she meant being a weirdo. Yeah, yeah, okay.
The second movement was, of course the House sequence, the computer,
the how was it? The How nine thousand? Yeah, really creepy,
and How ended up being a lot of people's favorite character,
even though it was just a voice the supercomputer on
the Discovery ship. Rememberies like what are you doing today?
(48:28):
It's so creepy. I had the Mad Magazine spoof of
two thousand and one when I was a kid. It
was great. Yeah. And then the third movement is when
Dave moves on to the next stage of human development
with these extraterrestrials that you only hear, and basically it's
when it comes full circle the third movement.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
And the third movement is the one that has almost well,
it's really just the second movement that has a dialogue.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Yeah, some of the alternate titles for two thousand and
one Journey Beyond the Stars terrible, Universe not bad, Yeah, okay,
Tunnel to the Stars so great, Planet Fall that sounds bad.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
It sounds like a James Bond movie.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
And then How the Solar System was one as a
play on how the West was won.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Yeah, which, like movie geeks would find that appealing, but
everybody else would say, that's you ruined everything.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Yeah, And Kubrick was this is the last thing I have.
He was so obsessive with protecting his material that he allegedly,
I don't think allegedly. I think he did have all
the sets and props and miniatures destroyed after he shot
it so they would never be reused, which is a
common thing at the time. Yeah, okay, we're doing a
space movie. Go get that Go get that space ring
(49:49):
from Stanley set. Yeah, let's reuse it for Planet Fall.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
He also destroyed all of the footage that didn't make
it into the original theat release. Yeah, destroyed it's gone.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Yeah, so they wouldn't one day after his death recut it,
which they invariably probably would have done.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Yep, he's a smart man.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, I could. We should just do a podcast on Kubrick.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Okay he was I'm down for that challenge.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
He'd be a dude. Yes, one of my heroes. Yeah. Cinematically,
you got anything else? I got nothing else.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
If you want to know more about movies. If you
like this one, you probably also love our exploitation episode
Exploitation movie episode fun one. What else have we talked
about movies and Cannonball Run?
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Oh yeah, I had a lot to do with the movie. Yeah.
Our James Bond episode. Yeah yeah. We've had a few
of these, and people always respond to these real like
you guys should have a spin off.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Should do an all movie podcast. Sure, maybe one day.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Maybe.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
Remember if you're looking for any of these, press control
F or Apple F in your web browser and search
that way. On our podcast archive page. You can also
search for the article on how Stuff Works by typing
movies in and seeing what comes up. And since I
said how stuff works, it is time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
I'm going to call this Mike coul DuPont really clear
something up for us on scientific method. Hey guys, it
was a great well, actually, he doesn't say it was great.
I think I just made that up. Hey, guys, your
scientific method podcast has a consistent misuse of what a
scientific law is in relation to the working of the
scientific method. It appears that you believe that a law
(51:31):
e g. Newton's law of gravity is held in higher
esteem than theory, that eventually a theory matures into a law.
I think I probably did think that because of politics. Right,
you know, bill becomes a law, right exactly, he says,
when in fact, theory is considerably more robust than a law.
A law is a mathematical model that describes observed behavior,
(51:52):
does not answer the why. Theory does answer why something happens.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Did we not say that? I thought we did well,
Like I knew that. I remember finding that out from
the research. I just can't believe it didn't come out
of my mouth.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
He claims. We did not, And I feel like I'm
learning this so I definitely did not. Okay, go ahead,
but you may have. For example, Newton's law of gravitational
attraction describes the action of two bodies that can be
used for pretty much everything. It is perfect for describing
what happens, but it cannot tell you why the two
items are attracted or drilled down to the underlying mechanism.
Speaker 3 (52:25):
Yeah, A law is like much more succinct.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
It just is what it is, Nor is the law
even universal, and could not be used to explain the
Parahelian procession of Mercury's orbit burn. In comparison, Einstein's theory
of general relativity was eventually used to solve the mercury issue.
Oh yeah, the mercury issue and the standard model, along
(52:49):
with the recent discovery of the Higgs boson my cern can
answer the why do these two masses attracted to each other?
A question? I think what you mean is why are
these two mass is attracted to one another? Mike, it's
pretty teleological theory is considerably more developed and richer than
a scientific law, which is more of a tool that
(53:09):
is applicable to a wide range of applications. Keep up
the good work that is, Mike DuPont.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
Thanks Mike, thanks for that of the Valley Forge.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
DuPonts. I think, so, huh have you seen Fox Catcher?
Oh no, I've heard it's good. Is it good? No? Really?
I don't think so. No. I've heard it's kind of slow.
Speaker 3 (53:27):
It's beyond slow.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
Really?
Speaker 3 (53:29):
Oh yeah, I can understand why the Academy loved it,
or sure a lot of people I'm sure do like it.
I was not a fan of Fox.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
I think people generally seeing like a turn by an
actor like Steve Curl doing something really different, they're knocked
out by that. No, I still can't believe you didn't
like Birdman. No spoiler alert for people who have not
seen Birdman. The following conversation is full of spoilers. Yes,
what didn't you like about it?
Speaker 2 (54:00):
So?
Speaker 1 (54:00):
I thought?
Speaker 3 (54:01):
I thought Michael Keene was good?
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Okay? Who plays his daughter Emily Blunt? Is that? Who
that is? Emma Stone? Emma Stone? Excellent? Okay?
Speaker 3 (54:12):
Ed Norton even pretty good?
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Okay, so the acting was fine? Who is Naomi Watson
was in it? Yeah? She did great?
Speaker 3 (54:19):
Okay, So yes the acting. The acting was fine. Sure
that the acting was fine. I thought the photography was amazing.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Yeah, the whole seemingly one take thing kind of knocked
you out.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
Probably I didn't even pick up on that, but yes
it did. It was more the uh the for me,
the juxtaposition of the story, which was pretty boring and
realistic in everyday life. Even though it was about a
Broadway production, it was still about the everyday.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
Life of it.
Speaker 3 (54:49):
Sure, against the surrealism that's like threaded and embedded in
it throughout the whole movie. I didn't like that. Okay,
it was like choose one or the other man?
Speaker 1 (54:59):
Gotcha? It irked. And then just so that.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
One part with the critic where Michael Keaton tells off
the critic.
Speaker 1 (55:06):
I thought Michael Keaton.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
Did a wonderful job, but just the whole point that
it was in there of like the director, you know,
using Michael Keaton's character to tell off all the critics he's.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Ever wanted to tell off in his movie.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
Yeah, I just thought it was pretentious and I thought
it was kind of clumsy in that sense too, and
it was enough that it.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
It attainted it. Yeah, and then the ending. I did
not like the ending at all at all. That'll ruin
a good.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
Movie because it was it completely went contrary to all
the other stuff that he went out of his way
to point out was fake or fraudulent or not real,
and then all of a sudden, it is what Yeah,
no choose one or the other. The director refused to
make very important decisions, and I think that that ruined
the movie.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
That is a very well thought out the criticism.
Speaker 3 (56:00):
Thank you, thank you very much. Sure, uh man, that
was the end of listener mail even, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (56:06):
Yeah, Because now I'm not like Chez Josh is weird
he didn't like Birdman. Now I'm like, just didn't like Birdman.
He has good reasons. Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
I like justifying my opinions, don't we all? So if
you want to get in touch with Chuck and I
or Jerry who I apparently just spoiled Birdman for, you
can contact us via Twitter at s ysk podcast. You
can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you
Should Know. You can send us an email This Stuff
podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com, and as always, joined us
(56:35):
at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know
dot com.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.