Seth Hey everybody, I'm doing another one of these catching up with previous guests episode I previously did one of these with Keith law after he finished reading all the Hugo Winners. Um, and I've got more of these planned where I'm going to just follow up with people that I I miss talking to and um, not all of them will be science fiction related not all of them will be book related. Um, in this case, it is science fiction related but not books. So. In this case I'm catching up with Adrian and Matt from Spectology Adrian Hi Matt Hello. Adrian I know we're also catching up which is you know, very good. Seth Yeah, exactly no and it's just one of those things where like I miss hearing from you guys and so I thought hey what's a way that I could I could get you guys back on and I figured let's do a reunion from our Underrated Science Fiction Films podcast that we did on your show because there was at least one movie that each one of us hadn't seen off somebody's list unfortunately Adrian we had seen all your movies. But that's okay Adrian That's right right? because because Sunshine wasn't actually mine right? You managed to steal it from me. Yeah I remember that now I remember that now come on my podcast and steal. Ah. Matt Theft. Oh yeah, theft theft occurred. Seth I have to admit that I've listened to that episode exactly I've I've listened to the episode quite a bit just because like I said I'm missing from you guys and and it was just such a fun experience. Um, and I've listened to that moment so many times Matt Ah, your your greatest triumph. Seth Where we're kind of going okay, who should go first and I'm like I don't want to say that I'm the guest here but and then I pick it and Adrian's like no, that's my pick. Matt Ah, revisiting the scene of the crime. Seth Yeah I almost grabbed I almost grabbed audio of that to play for you. Matt That would have ruled. Adrian Ah, that would have been great that would have been good. Seth I will invite listeners to to check out that episode it. It doesn't look like your web site is up anymore. But the feed still is still active Adrian Really oh, that's actually good to know because I still pay the money to have that website up So I'll go I'll go see who I yell at to get that back back and running. Matt Yeah, that is good to know I would say the same thing Seth it is super cool to to reunite and do this. um we of course don't do the podcast anymore. But we still love each other and talking about the stuff. Adrian Mm It is true. It is true. No I do thank you for for putting this together because we wouldn't have on our own but this is this is a lot of fun for me Seth yeah yeah yeah um yeah I mean we we've talked about it for a while. It's been three years since we did that podcast you guys. Matt Yeah, yeah I don't really believe you But sure. Adrian Yeah now I believe you it's been. It's been like 20 minutes like 10 years and also 3 years Seth Right? Exactly? Yeah um so just just to kind of set the the ground rules here. So not the ground rules. But what we're going to be talking about. Um I had picked Sunshine that I sniped Adrian on Matt had never seen it. Matt then picked Dark City which I hadn't seen and Adrian you'd seen once and then I also picked Ladyhawke which Matt had seen but Adrian hadn't seen so that's what those three movies are we going to be where we're going to be talking about and we're just going to go in alphabetical order. Um, before we do any of that anything to catch up with you guys on anything you want to talk about that you're doing or? Adrian No I'm so offline these day I've like turned into Matt in terms of being terminally offline. Matt Oh man, that's a that's a hard one? Yeah yeah, exactly Terminally I don't think it's the terminal condition. Yeah. Adrian Well I used to be terminally online and you know I feel like the the death sentence hasn't changed I've just changed my behavior. Matt That is that is true. Yeah, um, now. Seth Um, nice. Okay, so no, no secret podcast projects out there that that nobody knows about. Adrian Now when I moved at one point I had this like idea of a project if I was going to start streaming this video game called I think the long wait. And one of the things you can do in the video game is read the entirety of Moby Dick and I was just going to essentially read Moby Dick on stream by playing this game but I didn't I just didn't I couldn't follow that like it was too good of a pun but not good enough of an actual project to follow through. Seth Wow. Matt That's a great idea. Matt I don't know I mean there's that substack. That's just Dracula you know I mean people do do stuff like that. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay so why don't we go ahead and start with Dark City and I do want to mention to people like seriously go listen to the episode. https://www.spectology.com/e/in-conversation-our-favorite-underrated-sf-movies-with-seth-heasley-of-the-hugos-there-podcast Seth It's a lot of fun and that's where you're going to get the like spoiler light version of this podcast because we we don't, since since it was a draft and we each picked three movies, we don't spend more than five or six minutes talking about each one. Adrian Yeah, and I think we tried to be relatively spoiler free at the time this we're just going to talk full on about the whole movie for all of them right? Seth Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Adrian Okay, cool. Matt Yeah I mean I I know I appreciated it back then because of course I had not seen Sunshine and I knew I wanted to eventually see it. So yeah. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay so Dark City. Matt do you want to introduce this one since you picked it on the draft? Matt Sure Dark City, well I gotta remember the basic facts I don't have in front of me I think it's from around 1998 ish yeah the film facts I don't I don't have in front of me because I'm not prepared because I'm not doing this anymore. But I think. Adrian Um I can I know it was film. It was released in like 1998 a year before The Matrix actually The Matrix is filmed on some of the same sets as Dark City. Um. Seth Mmm, interesting. Matt Yeah. Adrian Both filmed in New Zealand for the most part for budgetary reasons. Um Dark City was directed by the same guy who directed I, Robot and Gods of Egypt most recently Seth And the crow right? Adrian And the crow, yeah Matt Ah, The Crow. The Crow people might know if they're into Seth Yeah, if you think about visual style. It's closer to the crow than I Robot certainly. Matt Yeah, definitely. Adrian Oh absolutely? Yeah yeah, no I was sort of ah sort of being a stinker. Yes, no, it's definitely the Crow -esque um sort of right film noir. Seth Yes, it's Alex Proyas Matt Yeah, and and yeah, it's it's sort of ah a film noirish story set in this mysterious Edward Hopperian kind of nameless American city which is very dark a lot and we'll get into sort of what's quote unquote really going on shortly. Um, but I just want to say ah a bit. There is a a director's cut and ah original theatrical release and you know you asked me Seth which to watch and I just didn't process that I think the answer is the Director's Cut. Um the director's cut cuts out a voiceover in the beginning that in particular is like pretty dumb compared to not having it so Directors cut I think is like people generally agree better. So. Seth Yeah I mean I I'm generally opposed to a voiceover. Whatever um, with film Noir you know you you kind of expect some but but yeah, it basically spells out stuff they could have told you through the rest of the movie. Matt Um, yeah, yeah. Seth Kind of gives away that like the main twist of the movie. So so I I would say to people who are are out there and wanting to watch the movie watch the director's cut just to just to hold onto the mystery a little longer because it's you know, then it starts with this guy waking up in a bathtub with no memory of who he is and what's going on. Matt Hundred percent a hundred percent I love the beginning I love the beginning so much. Adrian I watched the director's, I had ah essentially zero memory of watching it the first time because it was probably ten years ago um and I watched the director's cut and so I did not remember the full mystery and what was going on I found it very very affecting. Actually I think probably the first time I saw it I did not watch the director's cut and like I enjoyed it more this time than I did originally. Matt Yeah, yeah, it's actually a kind of classic example of like Hollywood Bullshit The the Hollywood Bullshit move of treating the audience like they are idiots in a way that ruins the art. Seth Sure, yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, it should probably mention stars. Ah Rufus Sewell is the main character you have Kiefer Sutherland in there just chewing scenery. Um Jennifer Connelly Matt Oh yeah, pre back back when he was like oh Donald Sutherland's kid is an actor like that era of keep yourself. Seth I mean this is this is way post like Young Guns and stuff. Um and Flatliners and all of that. Matt Yeah, okay, fair enough. Seth So it's not like he wasn't known he he definitely went for something here and we'll we'll talk about that and William Hurt is in here as well. Um. So this is the first time watch for me Adrian you said you had watched it before and and yeah, yeah, and I remember you saying on the previous episode. You're like I watched the movie like yeah okay I get why that one didn't do much at the box office. Adrian Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah I think I think still you know I think it's interesting to pair it with The Matrix because they're doing a lot of the same thing. It's really hard to to not think of this in context of like The Matrix came out a year later and this feels like a decade previous to The Matrix in terms of filmmaking acting Matt Oh my God That's so different from? no oh my God No no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no oh my God No no way. No way I think this movie is doing some things quite differently from The Matrix. Seth All right, go ahead. Matt. Adrian Okay, okay, okay, yeah, let's let's hear this defense. Matt And I think that to me it doesn't feel a decade early like the effects are very different. It's It's not a Kung fu action movie. It's not about fighting in the way that The Matrix is it's not about bullet time and it doesn't obviously have any of those kinds of things. Um. Adrian Well no, of course not. Matt It's very analog. Ah, it's very um, it leans heavily on like shadows and darkness to like obscure. You know what you might otherwise be able to you know, kind of poke fun at um so in terms of. Adrian One thing I will say about the director's cut is that it's like like the reprint of it I just watch it on Amazon and it's beautiful like it's clear that they remastered it with the like original film grain. It looks so so good in HD and it's like actually rare for movies from that time period to look good like that I will give you like it actually the visual style is great. Matt Yeah, no yeah, that's what I would say exactly I think it's just stylistically even though it is about kind of this this sort of expression of a kind of paranoid worldview that there's like some sort of secret mystery going on around you that explains everything. In a way that's very Matrixy and even though there is a kind of like you know there's this sort of there are well several kind of grand reveal moments where you see like behind the curtain of reality or whatever even though it has that obvious thing in common with The Matrix and the kind of Noirish Dark City, um, it's a very different movie actually in in many ways I think it's it's beautiful like you said it. It is really pretty. It doesn't look anything like The Matrix. It doesn't have any of the kind of Chrome or like ah. Adrian But the green like there's no green in the film stock actually like and Matrix is so green colored. Matt Yeah, there's no green. It doesn't have the the um what are the the lights and offices. What the hell is that word the fluorescent light. There's no like fluorescent lighting in this movie. It's all like lamps you know, um and ah. Seth Yeah, right. Adrian Um, yeah, hundred percent a hundred percent Matt There is definitely no Kung fu which is a big thing. It's more. It's a lot closer to like the Maltese Falcon than it is to like Ghost in the Shell if that makes sense and in terms of the larger themes and like defending it in terms of the story and stuff like what I would say is one of my favorite things about this movie is the way that there is no red pill and there is no Neo like there is a Neo kind of but there's no, um, there is no real world. There's no real world. There's no real world that they return to. Adrian Well, there's no Prophecy you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seth Um, sure right. Matt there's no, there's no not only is there no real world or no utopia but there's no real world at all. One of my favorite moments the moment that sticks with me the most from the first time I saw this movie is when they're finally like going to go find shell beach and they get to that like room that dead end room where there's this poster on a brick wall. Seth Right? The brick wall. Matt And they're so enraged they like rip down the poster and they start hacking at the wall with hammers or whatever and they break through and what do they see just f**king empty space. There's nothing. There isn't anything that they can get to behind the curtain really behind the curtain. Yeah, there's machinery. There's stuff going on. Matt But there isn't really anything. There's no additional resources that they ever find. There's no additional world that they ever find. It's all the same place still even at the end and and this sort of solution is that you just have to decide what you want to make out of it once you figure out how to make stuff out of it. You just have to figure out something to make. I love that as ah as a message. It's very different from the way the Matrix sees things. Seth Right? It's yeah it it looks like it's going to be like the Truman Show moment right when when the when the ship punches through the the edge of the stage right? and then then you're like nope there is no real world on the other end. It's very Twilight Zone-y in that in that sense. Adrian I was actually just going to say I was I was when I watched it I I told a couple of friends like oh actually this was really good and you should see it and 1 of them the pitch I made was it almost felt like an episode of the Twilight Zone or of like the second half in particular feels like either the Twilight Zone or like so a Star Trek episode about like the holodeck or the Borg or something you know it's like it has these kind of like science fiction Space Opera-y almost tropes Seth Yeah, yeah, well the look of the Strangers almost evokes the Borg as well. Right with that kind of pale pallor. You know when you you find out that they're essentially using the dead um to to walk around in. Adrian Yeah, a 50s Golden Era Science fiction aesthetic to it. Matt Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's yeah yeah I like that? Yeah yeah, yeah for sure. Adrian Yeah, hundred percent I think so. Well also they have the whole Borg thing of like they're a single hive mind. Not you know and they're and they're they're sort of I unlike the Borg they're not trying to assimilate everyone else. They're trying to figure out like how do these people have individual individuality and how can I have it. Matt I like it as a motivation. It's not my favorite part of the movie. But I think it like as far as 50s sci-fi villain motivations go it's like pretty good. Yeah yeah. Adrian Yep, yeah, well it fits thematically right? like these these not always do the motivations fit thematically and to me that's more important than like do they make so right like going back to The Matrix like the explanation there of like batteries and like that doesn't make any sense either right. Matt No, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seth Um, no. Adrian Doesn't matter like that's not the point is that it makes sense like from a worldbuilding perspective but that it makes sense from a thematic perspective and I thought that that did a really good job there since the whole movie is, I mean much more like The Matrix obviously has these questions of identity at its core. But there's sort of like different kinds of questions about identities and I think the um Dark City is raising, you know that like the things that Dark City kind of reminded me of almost more when it came to its themes was like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Vanilla Sky or that kind of thing Matt Sure Yeah memory. Yeah yeah. Adrian Right. Like memory and just like who who are we how much are our memories who we are if we change those does that change who we are. Seth Right. Okay, so this brings me to a question is what is what is the main character's name I can't even remember um it's John right? Yeah, like the most generic name. Adrian Does he have a name John right? Oh right? There's the whole plot about his name Matt John Murdoch Adrian Of course of course John Murdoch Seth Yeah Murdoch yeah, ah. Is he actually a killer? Matt Ah, no, no, he's not he didn't actually do it. They failed to put the memories in that he did. Adrian No no the Ah yeah, yes to see if he would again right? Seth Ok, but they put the memories in that he did right right? They end up putting him into one of the Strangers. Matt Yeah, yeah yeah I I love that I love that so much as a resolution to a waking up in a bathtub next to a corpse like opening I love it like that's one thing I really like with this movie too. Is it it it obviously also owes a lot to like Raymond Chandler stories and Raymond Chandler's story. You know if you think about like The Big Sleep. Matt Um, that's a movie I Think about with this movie too because it's so much about The Big Sleep is ah in some ways. Also a kind of movie about like these vast forces, beyond our ken, like what is really going on like sort of paranoid vision of you know. A single person looking up and out and just seeing weird giant dark shapes moving around them. You know and how do you respond to that and what do you do you know in the world when you're that when you're the ant and and and the shadows that are you know could easily crush you but like maybe don't even notice you I think I like thinking about like these old noir thrillers in the same way and the and one of the things that the The Big Sleep does the the Humphrey Bogart version is it. It gives you an actual plot resolution. It's kind of crazy and you know you have to think about it before you sort of realize that it actually makes at least some kind of sense. But it's not it doesn't hand wave. It actually does give you an explanation like although the explanation may be insane or or it may be kind of like it's like you you it might not have total verisimilitude but it's like it does actually connect dots and that's what I like also about this movie. It's like you may not like everything that they tell you but they do actually construct a machine that that could theoretically like fit together. You know, even if it's you know I love that about this I Love that and and the and the thing is pretty original I I you know the idea that you know he was set up. But this is how he was set up and this is why I mean it's I Love it. Seth Right? Well so one of the things that cracks me up in in like a movie like Signs the M Night Shyamalan movie which I like the movie but one of the things is like the aliens can't handle water I'm like why would you come to Earth. Adrian Yeah, right right. Matt Ah, classic. Yeah yeah. Seth If if you can't handle water where here you have that same question because because Ge for Sutherland's character is like swimming around in pool. He's like they don't like it here because the moisture I'm like why why they come to Earth and like oh they did not! Matt Ah, they did not. Adrian Yep yep. Seth I mean somehow they got the people but but that's like the movie does not care about that part of it. Matt Ah I love that the movie doesn't care about where these people are from Adrian Right me too me too. Matt I love when they ask they ask each other like Kiefer Sutherland and and um I forget who those 2 guys they ask ask each other or they somebody's asking somebody like can you remember before Like what happened to us before where are we from and he's like I don't know no one knows Adrian Yeah, right, they're at yeah John is asking Kiefer Sutherland because key for Sutherland has like some amount of individual identity and memory. But then it's revealed that like he doesn't remember where they came from because he doesn't he had to remove all of his own memories before the point you know it's like. Seth Right. That's a great twist. Yeah yeah, he had to delete his own memories. Yeah. Adrian All he knows is this like hell he's been living in since then which is yeah I think there's you know the word that comes to mind which is obviously overused but to me is like Lovecraftian horror right? like there's this very especially with the um. Matt Oh yeah Adrian With the with the kind of retired policeman who's like seen behind the veil and goes slowly insane for it like I think that in particular, it's something I really enjoyed about this movie and and this was something that you were saying where it's like they don't get to go home again. In fact, there is no home I mean this idea that like. Adrian Like how do you respond to learning that right and like for some people it's you know, not not well, especially when you don't have the whole picture. All you can see is that it's hopeless and so I thought I thought it did a really good job of that kind of sense of like this isn't something that people just be like oh cool I have superpowers and I can fight now it would be like psychologically draining in a very real way. Matt Yeah. Seth Yeah, yeah, well and you can you can kind of imagine where this story goes from here because it's not like he can just go hey everybody by the way we're on a disc world flying through space. So be happy. Matt Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no, there's no Evil Empire or I mean there was in a way an evil empire to destroy. But there's no, um, Adrian But it wasn't like a rebellion that had political goals that did it. Matt Right it like it's so much more complicated politically than The Matrix in some ways it's different I mean I don't want to say like I love The Matrix but it's it's just kind of not exactly the same thing although it has a lot of similar trappings. You know. Adrian Right? I will so to be clear the The Matrix now like I don't want to say it's exactly the same thing I mean there are a few weird like scenes that are almost beat for beat the same in a very strange like you know getting called by the psychologist versus getting called by Morpheus and like having to like run away from the agents and all that like. Matt Yeah, yeah, yeah. Adrian There's a few just like Wow I can't actually believe that because clearly it wasn't like they were influenced by each other they were like in production at the same time. So maybe there was some amount of like they knew about each other's work. But I think a lot of this was you know. Matt Do you know what I read actually about Dark City is um I think it was partly inspired by the Blade screenplay at least they'd said that in like Wikipedia I don't know it. It's one of those things like you know it's too good to check. But. Seth Um, interesting. Adrian That's really interesting. Actually yeah yeah, too good to check. Matt Um, it's It's funny that does bring up something to me though which is it's cool to think about this kind of story. Ah pre-Matrix and like think about obviously everybody if you've listened to me talk about stuff before you know that I love like lineages like trope lineages and like genre lineages. I love thinking about okay twilight's own. Okay, you know, classic noir but also there's some obvious things you know David Lynch like we were talking I mean you know Twin Peaks was big on TV only a few years before this and you have um, you know you know I think like aesthetically we we were talking I haven't seen the Alien movies. But I think the sort of claustrophobic analog affects aesthetics and of course the way that the strangers look you know under the hood of the corpses that they're in. There's some, there's some influences all over the place from from 80s sci-fi um. Adrian Oh yeah. Matt I think it's really interesting, especially to think about the the the paranoia the the millennial paranoia aspect I was wondering what do you guys? think? um, fed the 1990s millennial paranoia thing in America there's a lot of. Seth Other than just the big round number I blame Christianity personally. Matt I yeah I could imagine a lot of answers I mean but you've got you know you've got yeah but in the 90s you've you've got Matrix you got Equilibrium you got Dark City you got Twin Peaks you've got all kinds of these sort of conspiracies and. It was almost like a moment where conspiracy you know they're all out to get me became the center of ah like it became a lot more central to the culture than obviously there had been these sort of things before Invasion of the Bodie Snatchers is a classic example. But um. Seth Oh yeah, yeah. Adrian Yeah. Matt Or like oh They Live they live was like late 80s right I mean that's another huge huge one. What do you guys? think of that. Adrian Yeah, so it's it's it's funny I actually I if you I if you don't mind me jump in I was talking to my friends about exactly this after I watched it in fact and like I think like. If you look at the 90s right like especially the end of the 90s you're at like the end of a decade of sort of like peace like the world has never seen right? like the the Soviet Union has fallen like America is in this very like you know triumphant kind of mood. The economy is doing incredibly well at that point there's no like. Big foreign like outside kind of scary influence and so what influences? Well, there's there's the internal one right? like instead there's this sort of like you know giant monoculture a real sort of like like you get into the end of the 90s and like the monoculture is really starting to. Become but like just just bereft of all that much cultural value. You know, like but looking back on it. The 90s are not like the most culturally relevant like moment in American history and I think. Adrian Also there's this rise of like corporatism which I think both of these like this The Matrix all these other movies right? like really play into this paranoia of like The Man you know like this kind of like Bureaucrat Quasi government Quasi you know, corporate sort of like Overlord that is behind the scenes running everything I mean. Seth Right. Adrian Obviously They Live buys into this as well and I think that there's this this element of like well at this time culturally like we were a little bit like decadent and stagnant right? like for for lack of better words we kind of hit this moment of like well we have everything and no one's happy. And 9/11 happens. Seth Right, changed everything. Yeah Adrian It's yeah yeah, now we have an enemy and everyone's happy again. Seth I yeah I sure sure sure I I mean like you know I'm a little older than you guys and so like I remember in the 80s we just kind of assumed eventually, we're going to have a nuclear war and so that was what all the fiction was about you know from even from before then you know during the whole Cold War period. It's like okay, what what's going to happen. Well all our fiction is going to be set post-nuclear apocalypse. So then all of a sudden the Soviet Union falls and you have to come up with something else and and and I feel like that's where a lot of like the teen dystopian things came in where it's like okay, it's not going to be a big conflagration of some kind. It's going to be societal changes that lead to dystopia. Matt Um, yeah I like the sort of you know our society's eating itself thing I like that a lot I Also like I Also you know there's I think um I think in a way it it has to do with, well one other way to I think all that I sort of agree with everything that you guys have said already and maybe one other thing that also could could be relevant is like the Gen like kind of you were alluding to this stuff this generational change. You know some of the people coming up in the late 80s and the 90s making some of this stuff were um, you know they were Boomers or Gen X people instead of older than that. So Alex Proyas is doing this movie. He's doing a you know, ah 1940 s noir Twilight Zone movie but he wasn't around for either of those things really like not it as an adult Seth Mmm, right. Matt You know so it's ah you you get something very different where you have another new generation coming to to make quote unquote the same things again, you know I mean there there obviously were there were movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You know a previous generation's look at a previous generation's version of you know 1 person against the world or or like Soylent Green. Maybe you know you know one person against the world like 1 individual against the machine or the man you know it's not like that had never been done before but sure. Adrian It's like the Running Game. What was that that movie. Matt Um, Running Man. Matt Yeah yeah, right Running Man that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah of course there are those but it's like what do you? What happens when you do that again, but it's the 90s you know. Seth Sure, Yeah yeah I do want to talk about Kiefer Sutherland here because it like I I vacillate between that's absolutely brilliant and like that was a garbage performance and I'm I'm not sure which side I land on because he I like I wrote down one of the lines and the way he spoke it right? "It seems. Absurd. But wha other. Explanation. Is there?" It's like he can't get out more than 3 words at a time without taking a breath in between them. Um, and it's not. It's not quite an accent that he's doing um I mean he's his almost like. Matt It would be very generous to call it an accent. Seth Yeah, it's it's like ah he's evoking like Dr Mengele almost right with with the round glasses and everything and and the scar like he looks like a DC comics Nazi character. Adrian Yeah. Matt Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Matt Um, yeah, or like Dr Strangelove Adrian It feels like acting I mean it feels like acting from the 50s when it's like pre method and things are a little bit more stagey and a little bit more like you know, larger than life on film. It also is just tonally all over the place. He can't actually like land on 1 thing like sometimes he's fighting the aliens and sometimes he's super scared like I will say my feeling on Dark City is that the thing that really brings this movie like like the why it crashed at the box office and why it's not like a bigger cult classic now. Adrian The acting the performances are just across the board shit, like Jennifer Conley is the only person putting in a decent, no and the and the police chief he or the detective guy Seth Um, yeah I thought William hurt was ok. Adrian When the two of them are on screen you feel like humans are having human emotions and when either the lead actor or Kiefer Sutherland or unfortunately all of the you know the the clicky hissy alien guys like you know they're they're playing their roles well and not having human emotion but you know it does I feel like put the other lead male characters in sort of like oh well, they also don't have emotion in a way that makes any I don't know I found it really hard to emotionally relate to any of the characters and like that really that was. That's the biggest detractor to this movie. Beyond Some of the politics stuff that I want to talk about later. Seth Sure sure and I I don't think the movie cares about the character parts right? It's it's mood and story. Um, and and reveal right more than more than the characters. Matt It's such a tough thing too like you know what they're trying to do is not have these people have any real pasts like they're all amnesiacs you know in a sense, not really but Seth Um, yeah, sure. Yeah, what would you expect from them. Yeah, they're just all ciphers. Yeah. Matt But you know the movie wants to be like Okay, if you're all if everybody was like if memory if no memories were maybe real like who would we all be well I mean what do you tell? the actors like, to try to Adrian Okay, like sure but this is the problem. The movie wants to have its cake and eat it too with this thing because like you know oh but also they're truly in love and their love like transcends. All that like like he end of the movie is kind of hard I actually want to talk about this a little bit like the gender politics of the end of the movie like actually the movie as a whole because 1 there's a lot of naked dead hookers in this movie and it's not a great look frankly like I I think actually it's it's noticeable to me here in the 2020s like sure and everything but I don't know there's a lot of there's a lot of like mutilated dead sex workers that I think you know it's a bit of a trope and then at it is. Seth Um, I mean it is a noir thing to write that like that. Adrian It is but it's still you know, played for the per into interest in a way that is I don't know again of its time but it's time like wasn't that long ago. Um, and then the other thing was at the very end when you know like she has her memories wiped and he like just deserves her anyway because he is like the new kind of like God Matt Um, that that's the weirdest part of the movie for me too. Adrian I did not I don't like the end of this movie I'll I'll just put it like like wholesale. Matt Um, I Yeah I think I do like the end of the movie but that's a problem for me too like that specific thing like the specific thing of where you know he's like the new you know mini God of this world and she doesn't have any memories of any of it and they're just going to go hang out now like that's kind of. Seth Right he's gonna be the new Zeus right. Adrian Yeah, yeah, yeah, now it's like it kind of makes me want to see a sequel where it's like the dystopian that he rules and he's the bad guy of the city. You know like I Feel like there's no sequel in which he's the good guy at the at that point. Matt Right. Like that's super weird. Sure that would be cool or honestly the end Seth Right? right? Yeah, he he ends up saying I just wanted to give you people a good quality of life and they're like you could have just told us the truth. Matt exactly exactly I know but actually the movie that I want to see is the movie where they all have their memories of what happened at the end and they all have to sort of decide What they're going to do collectively and like they have that awkward conversation like okay, what do we do now I would love that. That's what I wanted at the end, was that that kind of moment of like what the hell do we do now like. Adrian Right. Well like what does everyone just have the just like the last memory they happen to be imprinted with and that's who they have to be now you know. Matt Um, yeah, maybe something like that. Yeah yeah, like maybe something like that and that that would I would love that because my favorite thing about this movie is the way that is the way that it it it asks the question, you know, Okay, so you're a person that's just sleep walking through your life and you don't really know who you want to be but what are you going to do about that like it. It doesn't quite have the the courage to kind of go all in on that. But that's kind of my favorite thing about it. Seth Um, yeah I I will say I feel like we didn't really talk about much about what the movie's actually about So if I want to apologize to anybody who's listening to this who's like I thought I'd get a you know a good sense of what the movie's about, Um, no go go read like the Wikipedia synopsis before listening to this. It'll all make sense I promise. Adrian Ah. No yeah, Yeah yeah, I mean honestly I feel like it's one of these movies that like the sum is greater than the whole of its parts like it's something that I would mostly recommend that people see in fact, like like I actually really enjoyed it I I think absolutely watch the director's cut both the the one just like my understanding is they actually restored and like remastered the film for the director's cut and it's Matt Yeah, it looks better for sure. Adrian It looks phenomenal. Actually I was really blown away with how good it looks um and I don't have even a like nice TV or anything like I was very into the style and you know I also I think the the police character the detective character that we haven't talked about at all like. He's great in such a grounding presence in the movie too like like there are these characters that each have not just their own motivations but character journeys and like personal changes throughout the movie in a way that's really interesting and good I thought. Matt Totally. Seth Yeah, yeah, um I I really did like the symmetry between I mean you were talking about the the dead sex workers where they had the things carved into them and then you get the the symmetry at the end where it pans back and shows the Cloud Pattern That's exactly that which I thought was cool. Adrian Yeah. Matt Yeah I like the spirals too I Also love the um, the previous detective I Love the interaction between the previous detective and the current detective I think there's a lot of there's a lot of um stories that that have that. Adrian Yeah. Matt This one is one of my favorite versions of that You know you have this guy who you know at the beginning It seems like he's gone off the deep end or something and he's He's literally got the sort of strings on on you know on the wall in his room connecting the dots between the things in the conspiracy. But of course you know as as is sometimes the case nowadays like he's actually totally right and like he's the only one that noticed it first and what I love is that they never really explain that. But it's it's um, you know he didn't have any help from Kiefer Sutherland he just put it together. He didn't have um he wasn't the chosen one or whatever, he was a good detective and he paid the ultimate price. Adrian Well one thing I love about that too is he doesn't have the vocabulary to be able to communicate what he's seen right? like he's doing his best and he just doesn't have a way to communicate it which becomes clear the further on you go the more you pick up on. Oh he was telling us from the very beginning like the twist but I couldn't understand it just like you like you mirror the detective in that way of like understanding post talk what he meant like an hour ago in a way that was really well done and really cool for this kind of thing. Matt Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seth Yeah, yeah, it's I mean it's a classic character too where you like have the town drunk who who is the only one who knows about the you know secret Alien invasion but everybody thinks he's crazy. So so he drinks right? Yeah yeah. Matt Right? Ah yeah, right? Cassandra yeah Cassandra it's it's it's. Adrian Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, the the the drunken monk in ah and ladybird Matt Ladyhawke sorry like you calling it Ladybird which is a different movie. Ladyhawke the Greta Gerwig movie that's a weird crossover. Adrian Yeah I know I know you know you know that's that that way was that not what we want I watched I watched 2017's Lady Bird what I what did you guys watch? No, kidding I'm kidding. Seth You're waiting for Saoirse Ronan in to pull out a sword. Adrian Yeah, but I love the scene where she jumps out of the car wait. Why. Matt So realistic. Um. Seth Yeah, well I mean um I think it's a great pick though Matt in terms of underrated because's like underseen definitely since I hadn't seen it I I can I can attest that it's underseen Matt What did you think Seth what's your like takeaway. Seth I liked it I I would kind of like to give the directors cut ah watch I watched it on Kanopy which is like the library streaming service I'm not sure you always get the best quality. Um on that. So so I may I may give it another watch and just just kind of let it wash over to me and now now that I kind of know what it is um, be able to kind of appreciate more than the noir aspects of it. There There was one frame I I'd paused at some point to leave the room and I came back in I'm like oh my watching Blade Runner because it was like it was a frame straight out of that movie. Adrian Yeah. Matt Ah, yeah, we haven't mentioned that that obvious influences you know? Yeah yeah, yeah, cool. Adrian Yeah, no Blade Runner is clearly a huge like the Noir the identity stuff like a huge influence on this. Yeah. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, it was. It was definitely worth watching though. Adrian Yeah, no definitely fun. Matt Good stuff. Glad you guys enjoyed it Seth Yeah, how about we move on to Ladyhawke? So so this is what Matt you you confessed before we started recording I think that you hadn't rewatched Ladyhawke. Matt Yes I have seen it before but I haven't seen it in a bit. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah I I also did not rewatch it immediately before this podcast just because I I watched it recently enough. Um for for and I want to direct people I Yeah I did a panel on it and so like if you want to see a deep dive into Ladyhawke go watch that I thought it was terrific. (link to the Ladyhawke panel: https://youtu.be/2XGBq6c6mk4?si=vz6oEypYd-V_tRRR) Adrian Yeah I still I still haven't listened or or to that specifically because I wanted to come into this fresh but I plan on listening to that after. Seth yeah yeah yeah I mean yeah, we we grab onto a bunch of the themes and and like the you know the the parts that we've always kind of identified with there was only 1 person on the panel who hadn't previously seen the movie. So yeah, yeah, um. Adrian Oh cool. So it's like a panel of fans. That's great. That's really cool. Well I guess this time I was the only one who hadn't seen the movie before so I can. Seth So so I will set up the premise of this one in case in case, anybody ah has has not watched it. Adrian Yeah yeah, yeah, please and what a great premise to this one. Phenomenal. Seth Yeah yeah, and and so it's I think it's 1985 Richard Donner directed starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Rutger Hauer, um Matt Matthew Broderick Seth Matthew Roderick and Leo McKern those and I guess John Wood those are like the main 5 characters. There's also the guy who plays Marquet and I can't remember his name Hutchinson something? Um, but but yeah, the premise is that you you have this character who escapes from a prison and found and finds himself embroiled in this mysterious magical thing that's going on where he he finds this mysterious, he gets rescued by um, a man in black who says I need you to get to break me back into the city since you broke out I know you can get me back into that city because I need to kill this guy because he's put me and my lover under a curse, now he doesn't explain all of that. Um. Seth The curse is all explained through through other characters. Um, and you know going in without knowing that I think would be fun like not knowing what the exactly what the mechanics are where where all of a sudden This woman appears like where where did she come from and and where'd the dude go and who's this wolf. Um. Matt Yeah, it's so cool when stories do that when you when you don't actually like I mean that's one of the reasons I Love our previous discussion topic. But yeah. Seth Yeah, yeah, and so like if you want my full thoughts on this one I like I said um I'll put a link in the show notes to to that previous panel and there's a video of it too if you want to watch the video version. Um, but you know this is a first time watch for you Adrian. So You know how? how did it go for you? Adrian Yeah, well well I'm I'm actually curious because because Seth this is a movie from your childhood more or less right? like you and your family used to watch this Seth Yeah, yeah, saw it in the theater. Yeah. Adrian And Matt what was your previous experience with this? Matt Oh um, to me this is a movie that ah's ah to me I cannot separate this from being a gamer movie that is like tabletop roleplaying game gamer movie to me. This is a movie that ah in like the 90s or the early aughts Adrian Oh. Matt I was getting into Dungeons and Dragons and you know older people that were into Dungeons and Dragons were like yeah this is you know there's some great gamer movies. This is one of them. You know Ladyhawke. Adrian Yeah, that makes a ton of sense to me. Yeah know the team gets all together. Seth Um, interesting I mean yeah, you you have a like ah a warrior and a thief and a you know cleric and. Matt Um, yeah, it's very D and D. Adrian It's also you know it's a sort of like swords and sorcery low fantasy kind of thing that I I love so let me first say what I loved about this film one was the premise of the like 2 lovers like set to be like animals and and only being able to see each other for the split second while they're both like. Like just damn what a what a heartbreaking premise just like I like can't can't say enough how good that is like this is the kind of thing that like for a D and D campaign would you know like destroy people you know, um. Matt Yeah, yeah, yeah. Adrian I Also I rather enjoyed a lot of the performances on this one like there can't be but in that kind of like 80s fantasy like you you got to love it sort of way at times a little bit hammed at like like I think this that the, my big problem with this movie was the the tonal inconsistency where like it's doing that 80s Hollywood thing of like well every scene has to have both like a bad joke and a huge moment of danger and like. Adrian Nothing can ever just breathe and just be what it is for some amount of time and I found that extremely frustrating as someone who like like what I wanted out of this was just like a tragic and sad story with like even the ending being kind of bittersweet you know and that's not just not what you get That's just not what you get. Matt Oh man, No no, that's not yeah, that's not it. Seth If you want to know more what Adrian wanted out of it. Go listen to that previous episode Upstream Color and The Fountain. Adrian But yeah, right, exactly exactly? No no I mean like did to be clear. This is I have a type of movie that I like and we will talk about that in the next movie we talk about. Ah. Seth Yeah, yeah. Matt Ah I Love that tonal inconsistency that exact thing is something I Really like about this movie. Um, because I mean you know it reminds me of role-playing like it's, this maybe is not how it was received when it came out I don't know but um, it captures so well. Adrian Yeah, yeah. Matt What a like really good D and D campaign could be especially back in the day before a lot of before role-playing was so big. Um, which is weird to say but when it was still really niche. There weren't a lot of movies where you watched the movie and you felt like oh this is the thing. This is the thing I like you know because in a roleplay campaign you're hanging out with your friends you know in the middle of a fight somebody is definitely going to crack a joke. That's just how it is like that exact mix of things is what you're doing. Adrian Yeah, yeah, it's I mean it's funny. It's like Mouse you know is sort of I hesitate to say praying a lot because he's not really praying. He's just kind of like chatting at God's general direction a whole lot in the movie. And you almost get this fourth wall like talking to the GM kind of you know, energy out of it. Matt Totally you've had it out for me from the beginning you asshole. Adrian Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what sometimes I lie and it works and sometimes I'd like what do you try? What's the theme here come on. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah I do like that. Yeah, how how can I learn any moral lessons if you keep confusing me like this. Adrian Ah, yeah, yeah, which which actually was something I wanted to ask you about Seth because I know I know that you're a Christian and like you know the Christian themes in this were were strong stronger than I expected and I also I really liked them and I was kind of curious from your you know like point of view of not a heathen like me of how how that all worked together for you. Seth Yeah I mean that that part's definitely always always worked for me. Um, and you know the idea of the corrupt clergy right? It's I mean it's a classic thing at this point it's it's a trope right? Um, you know when we would come out of the abuse scandals and all that kind of stuff now I feel like back in the 80s, there were hints of that but it wasn't as widely known or accepted and so having like a really really corrupt bishop who's the evil character being like the religious leader of the area was really interesting. Adrian Right. It almost seemed like a very Protestant movie in that way of like God's real, but these Catholic dickheads are. Matt Right. I was gonna say there is a long tradition of of people who aren't Catholic attacking the Catholic Church that's definitely a thing. Seth True. Yeah, but I mean you you have almost the the Vader and Obi-wan thing where where the Bishop is Vader but imperious is is Obi-wan right? He's the good priest. Um, who, you know made a terrible mistake and now he's you know in his cups all the time because he has such regret. Um and he's sort of I mean kind of almost going back to Dark City He's almost like the the retired police person where Navarre doesn't believe him when he says look I've been studying the stars and there's going to be an eclipse and he doesn't say eclipse. Um. Seth And I'm not sure why the mechanics of that work hurts the curse but whatever I don't care. Matt You're not a Magician You don't like. Seth Yeah, yeah, exactly I'm not a natural philosopher. Um. Adrian Yeah, that that is that is one thing that another thing I'll say about this movie that and again I think this is like my modern like audience sensibilities but it was very hard like right? Your audience like participation character is Mouse right? like Mouse but Mouse is also kind of a dimwit like he's not a very smart or sharp person. He's really like street smart but he can't like he's He's kind of an idiot and so. Matt He hasn't seen a lot of fantasy movies. Adrian Right, exactly but like the degree to which they would sometimes be like ooh this is a big mystery and you don't know what it is. It's like no I know exactly what it like I'm sorry I know exactly what's going on. There's no mystery to this whatsoever and like you know the eclipse did it for me especially because immediately I was like oh there's going to be an eclipse and then it's like. You know an hour later It's the big reveal I'm like I know I know it's the eclipse guy. So granted this is again. This is me I feel I feel bad coming on to you and now I'm on your podcast Seth talking bad about your movie. Matt Um, talking about how it's ridiculous that a fantasy character wouldn't know what an eclipse is what an idiot. Adrian No, it was. It's more. It's more the problem is less like oh the characters are you know it's It's more of a scripting thing of like I felt like at times the script really tried to like and again it's this weird tonal inconsistency where in my head I'm like. Yeah, but this is a movie for kids. So of course like that's going to totally work when you're like you know a preteen or whatever. But then it's a movie about these like like these tragic lovers who can't like see each other like that's not a movie for kids like. Matt Oh no, but sure it is why not kids Love tragic romance though, they they totally do Adrian Do they? Okay I don't know from Kids. So. Matt Why do you think all the tragic romance is huge huge like y a theme. Adrian Oh damn, you're right? Interesting. Seth I mean you know I saw this in theater when I was 12 and it totally worked for me. So I mean mostly it was Michelle Pfeiffer I have to admit Adrian Okay, she is a dream. Matt Ah, it's a great. It's a good cast Got to admit. Seth Yeah, and but but you know I do love that moment where you can't have you can't have the characters understand the the thing with the eclipse because because you have that moment where the helmet gets thrown up through the the window and then you can see the eclipse and Navarre realizes I just told him to kill my girlfriend or my wife I got to get back out of here right now and then Marquet won't let him. Um, and and that the bell rings and he thinks all right. It's over now I just got to kill this dude. So. Adrian Yeah, totally. Matt Yeah, that worked for me I didn't mind the eclipse thing just because you know my feeling when I watched it was just ah, okay, you know I know what's going on. It's dramatic Irony like I know what's going on but like these people don't and let's see what happens you know that kind of that kind of a vibe. Adrian Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seth yeah yeah I mean you you know when I was 12 like I didn't know I mean I I think I knew what an eclipse was but when it came on screen. Oh that's what he was talking about and and you know Navarre literally goes. Ah. Night without a day a day without a night like he you know, really puts his finger on it. Adrian Yeah, yeah I know I do like that Navarre's like oh shit I get it. You know that that was I like that I did overall enjoy the performances in this movie. Matt Ah, we haven't mentioned the score yet. Adrian Oh my god I texted Matt like 2 minutes into the movie like it's the titles you know and I'm just like Matt this is the most 80s shit I've ever heard like I can't believe it. The thing was it actually faded into the background pretty quickly and and was you know like it's emotionally resonant and good. It's just like the specific synth is is so synth so synthy Seth Um, what we have not mentioned the the since Synth Pop Score What do you think. Matt So good. So good. Seth It's something. Yeah. Matt That's actually something I love I think I'm like realizing what I like about this movie so much I think it's exactly the 80s camp the particularly 80s campiness of the movie because you know you could have this story and play it really really really straight. And I feel like if it got a dark reboot. That's what they would try to do and it would be bad. It would not be as good a dark reboot a gritty reboot or whatever of this where you play it straight and you don't you have like I don't know. Ah. Adrian Sure a gritty reboot. But I think I think you could do this as like a tragic reboot or like like I think you could you could fit into the like bathos a little bit more. Matt Okay, yeah I bet that there's a good thing there somewhere but that would be such a different movie. No the campiness is the 80s campiness is like the core of what makes it sort of unique and fun and not just another so many I've seen so many sword and sorcery movies. Most of them are probably from the 80s because of the Conan boom and other than like some of the OG Conan stuff, you know so many of them don't don't understand their own campiness. They don't they don't like lean into the the very thing that like people love about it when it's good. Matt When you get it to work right? I feel like the way that that works in a sort and sorcery context is you know it's like Conan's final monologue. It's very affecting like Conan's final prayer to Crom or whatever is very affecting scene if people haven't seen that you should go on YouTube there's like all kinds of videos which's just that part of the movie. Seth Crom, I've never prayed to you before (in an Arnold accent) Adrian I've I've actually never seen the Conan movies. So I might I like I might go check this out. Matt You definitely should watch it yes, see the original Conan. It's so good. Watch the whole movie. Adrian Okay, okay, cool. No I Will That's good to know. Matt But but when it works It's like they're able it. Ah it allows them to combine these sort of you know, played very, it allows them to surprise people by playing it straight sometimes like the Crom monologue but then at the same time you can you can transition like since you've established this this kind of fun campy vibe. You can transition directly from Crom Monologue to this like ridiculous fight scene that involves like you know I mean absolute nonsense and ah you know Ladyhawke does that with a lot of the banter and this and the soundtrack you know that you're watching it. It clues you into the fact that you're this is theater like the sort of the thing that campiness does is is it just like it it. It doesn't try to get you to you know forget that you're in a theater watching theater happen. You know it just like leans into the theatricality of the thing and you know it's sort of you know? Ah, the classic example is like Rocky Horror the audience interaction and Rocky Horror. Matt You know all the little things that they want from you or when the actor says something. When when you have this moment of the actor of breaking the fourth wall kind of you know and the audience is expected to sort of. Maybe there's a call and response thing or maybe there isn't and whether there is or not is this kind of question. Adrian Right. Or I mean like the ultimate 80s version of this is like that one liner right? like the action one liner you know, like like asta la vista baby right? like to go back to to to the greatest one liner deliver ever. Matt Yeah, and like you know that's become such a trope that it's It's sort of people don't even like see it for what it is anymore because it's just such a trope. You're interacting with the meta. Adrian Yeah, yeah, right? Well now it's been fully like Joss Whedonized to the point of you know, like meaninglessness. Matt Yeah, well I don't you know he he definitely contributed but I don't know there's many others as well. Adrian Oh yeah I don't I don't mean to like blame it on him just like his style I feel like you know it's like Soulslike games like no, they're not all from software but they're all Soulslikes. Matt Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But you know originally if you or not originally. But if you if you. If you do camp right? Or if you do that kind of theatricality in ah in a good way I think you get something where the audience gets to feel like they're playing along too like they're part of the game. It's a collective game and not just ah, not just the story. You're immersed in as a passive observer you're in the game. And and that's another reason I think of this as like such a gamer movie. It's ah it's like it feels like a story where it it wants you to kind of feel like you're participating. You know you can identify with mouse. Um, but you also you know can know things that he wouldn't know you know. Adrian Yeah, yeah. Seth Um, yeah, and you know I for one? Yeah, even though this is a beloved movie for me. You know I have it on the shelf behind me. Um I would 100% welcome a remake you know I I I would love to see it. Um I don't know if I would like it but I I would like to see it So I'm totally open to it. Adrian Who would you cast? Seth Who's my cast. Oh I have no idea that's a good question but I haven't I haven't even given any thought Matt Um, yeah, yeah, Timothy Chalamet as every single character. Seth He would make a stunning Isabeau I will say. Matt Haha Adrian Ah, yeah, it was. It was really interesting seeing such a young like young and sort of like unsure of himself Matthew Broderick like I did get some of the sense of like Mouse's unsureness is almost his unsureness and vice versa in a way that I really enjoyed I will also oh another thing I did want to say about this movie. Um that you guys remind me of you know like you both talk about seeing it with other people and I didn't I like watched it here home alone on my like movie screen you know and so the one person I did watch it with the person was my cat who just loved it. She was she like never she doesn't like watching movies who she like she always goes into my bedroom when I watch movies or TV and stuff. No, she was sitting beside me but just like staring at the movie the whole time. So I think you know like her. Matt It's so awesome. Amazing. Adrian Like most most animals in the movie. Definitely I Can only assume that's why it was she heard the hawk noises and was like what's this. Seth Yes, oh that sounds tasty. That's funny. Matt So good. The the meow seal of approval it. Adrian I mean the hawk would destroy her she would get eaten by the hawk in a second. Matt Ah, well, she's she's participating in the fantasy you know like she she wants to believe that she too could be a warrior for for good. Seth Right? Um I I think I lent the movie to my co-host from Take Me To Your Reader James who's who' was born in 1980s so he's he's a little younger than I am um and he and his wife watched and I like yeah now didn't work for us like okay, that's fine I guess. I'm never speaking to you again, but fine. Matt Ah, yeah I I was just looking at how old Matthew Broderick was for this movie and this was right after he did War Games but right around the same time as Ferris Bueller which is kind of wild so wild. Seth Um, yeah, yeah, a year or 2 before Ferris Bueller so I think so yeah. Adrian Okay, yeah, that's about right? Yeah, so he's like early 20s or something like that. Then yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's ah it's a I I will say I did enjoy the movie and I think that it's, like it's mostly like I actually wish it were condensed a little bit because it's about 2 hours long I think it's the the longest of the movies we watched actually um and I think it it could have like a little bit of like condensing and editing also I will say the and this was. Seth Um, it is yeah um. Adrian Coming right off of Dark City and watching this also on Amazon the print is terrible. It's like there's scanlines like it's clearly like the deinterlacing process didn't work properly clearly, it's ripped from a VHS like it's just like a really like unfortunate state of affairs. Um. Matt That's too bad that sucks. Adrian Because there's some of the cinematography in this movie is really really gorgeous like there's all these like landscape shots and shots of wildlife and stuff That's really beautiful and you know didn't get the chance to shine the way I watched it unfortunately. Seth I will say one thing that I that I ah misspoke in our original conversation on the movie or maybe maybe it was on the the panel that it did recently was I mentioned that it was set in France but actually shot in Italy. It's set in italy so it's totally fine. Adrian Oh is it? Okay I was trying to figure out I thought it was maybe Spain I couldn't tell which language it it was because Isabeau is a French name. So oh but Navarre is okay, okay that makes sense that makes sense right. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah, it sounds French right? Yeah um, Aquila you know I don't know all the all those romance language sound the same to me. So yeah. Adrian Yeah, same Matt you're the language guy what what accent should they have had. Matt What accent should they have had Well there's. Seth This This is one of my highest praises for the movie that nobody really went for an accent I mean like I I do not need a fake British accent in a movie set in Medieval Italy. So yeah. Adrian Oh yeah, it's so much better that way. No ah completely agreed completely agreed. Matt I know I know I do really like the hamming it up stuff and that's actually something I liked about the Dark City as well like I actually did like the Kiefer hamming it up thing Adrian So I think one thing that would be interesting to analyze like I did a little bit of on Dark City but like why is this movie underrated like what makes it such that it's not the classic. We think it should be. Seth Yeah I mean we we talk about it a bit on the on the panel and to some extent I just feel like it's a little forgotten like you you think of Excalliber, Dragonslayer, Beastmaster you know, Conan the Barbarian are the the 80s fantasy movies and people forget about this one entirely. Matt Um, yeah, it's stupid that Beast Master is better known than this movie because Beast Master sucks compared to this movie I mean look you know nothing against Beast Master. It's fun, but it's not nearly as good as as Ladyhawke. Seth I just participated in a discussion panel of ah V that had Marc Singer from Beast Master in it. So me. Matt Oh cool hey that's cool I do like Beast Master don't want to come out against Beastmaster It was this very fun movie. It's very insane if you like sword and sandals or whatever you should watch it. But it's not at the same level of quality. Seth Yeah yeah, I mean so to answer your question Adrian I'm I'm not sure you know why this one ends up underrated I mean was a little underseen as well. At the time it. It's not like it scored at the box office I don't know what came out against I looked it up at some point but it it was not a good time for it to come out. Adrian Interesting that makes sense that makes sense. Yeah I guess at the time too. It probably it was not a star studded cast at the time. Yeah. Seth sure sure I mean you know Rutger Hauer was ah was a big name after you know, um I guess he was never quite a leading man I mean Wanted Dead or Alive was kind of his big star vehicle in the in the late eighty s which is an awesome movie, actually. Matt That's funny to think of? yeah, but this was before that this was before that I think Ladyhawke was like like wasn't Ladyhawke like the mid or early eighty s maybe it wasn't before that I don't know. Seth It's 85 all right like now I got to know now. Adrian Yeah, but but also you know like like Matthew Broderick and Michelle Pfeiffer at the time are both kind of like up in comers. You know like there's there's no, you know like this is not a movie that has ah ah a Tom Cruise or whatever in it. Matt Um, yeah, yeah, no, that's true I like think I like your question was that I I like your question Adrian like what makes it underrated. Um, because I also think Ladyhawke is underrated and kind of forgotten. Um, the funny thing is just. Comparing it to what people do think of I think sword and sandals in general is a little bit underrated nowadays Adrian I agree. Matt I think I mean you know it would be possible to do with with a modern you know with modern. Ah. Technical specs or whatever it would be possible to make such a cool sword and sandals thing. But I think part of the problem is so much of it so much of the fun of it relies on this difficult to pulloff low-fi thing a combination of like Lo like. So much of what makes it good I think is number one shooting on location a number two um, not taking yourself too seriously number three um, a lot of like like analog effect I don't I just don't know how you do camp. With digital effects like like what's a good example of ah of a campy movie with a lot of digital effects I don't know Seth Jupiter Ascending Matt Okay, that's good. That's fair. That's fair. That's a good example. Adrian I mean I feel I was gonna say I feel in some ways like that's a lot what like Disney is trying to do with modern star wars and it's failing pretty pretty drastically. Matt Um, I just think like the Mandalorian I enjoyed it I had sort of fun with season. 1 of the Mandalorian but I didn't think that it really pulled off that vibe at all. Um, yeah. Seth Yeah or like the Boba Fett show was very campy and it did not work for me. So. Adrian Now a thing a thing I kept thinking the whole time through watching this was I wish they made movies like this still right? like kind of small doesn't have to be a huge budget like you know, knows what it is to your point is shot on location. It was shot in the U K and Italy and, you know is very good looking for it. You know it's like they're able to get these cool sets and everything because of that. Matt Yeah I mean the castles I mean it's just like they're real castles. That's so cool. That's so cool. You can't you can't you know I mean it would be so easy to do like a background even and even an analog background. That's like a pretty painting of a castle or whatever but it's just like. Adrian Yeah, Bingo. Yeah. Matt Okay, there are okay, there is an older generation if you go further back movies like Court Jester stuff like that you know where you can do camp without doing it on location or whatever you know and and then it can be really good. Court Jester is a super underrated movie nowadays. It's amazing. It's Danny Kaye. Seth oh yeah. That's Danny Kaye movie it's it's like Danny Kaye's best movie other than maybe White Christmas. Adrian Never heard of that. Okay. Matt It is Danny Kay's best movie I've never actually seen White Christmas that's the only one that's his biggest movie I've ever seen. It's I know it's blasphemous. but but yeah yeah yeah I mean it would be a pretty good idea. Ah. Seth I grew up on Danny Kaye so I keep joking with my sisters I'm like I'm going to start a Danny Kaye podcast eventually and we're going to work out all the way through his filmography. Yeah Court Jester's a musical as well. So because you got Danny Kaye in there. Yeah. Matt But as another reason you couldn't yeah I mean how would you even do that nowadays. But anyway there's ah, there's a way to do camp. It's still all analog. Of course it's like these like exactly it's theatrical. Adrian Um, but it's theater camp right? like it's that if that right. Matt Yeah yeah I think like either doing it theater or doing it. Um, you know in in sort of on location either 1 of those ways I mean the the core thing about camp is the like. The real thing is the low fi-ness and the low fineness you can get in different ways. But you can't really like you could do low fi digitally if you like. Adrian It's just yeah, but low-fi digitally just looks bad as the like you know, like like it doesn't look interestingly bad. It just looks like you had less time and money to spend on making a good product and I think that you know that's one of the downsides of everything being vfx these days is that you know you don't you don't get a gradient of like oh well if you get better film stock. It looks better, but the old film stock like also has like a grainy kind of like style like you know there's a style and you can work with that style and I feel like that is you know much less true when everything is green screen and visual effects and. Seth Yeah, it's funny because I I think back to like the star wars prequels and everything being on digital sets and and green screen and that kind of stuff and how Lucas thought this was just going to be the wave of the future and then then we get to the Mandalorian where they have the Volume right? where it's a projected uh, digital digital set that works a lot better. Um, but eventually like all the sudden people have come around to go. You know what? there's these digital sets we can use that don't have any technology. It's called on location So it's it's coming back around. Matt Yeah, yeah, yeah, and or it's if think think about like think about some of the scenes from like old movies especially old epics where you have like thousands of extras in a single shot just just does not look like or or even Lord Of The Rings movies Adrian Oh my God I know I know. I was just going to actually say lord of the rings versus the hobbit movies are very good of like how in just 10 years this went from like oh well, the digital stuff can augment the practical stuff and it's all stitched together and like honestly original Lord of the Rings movies like pretty campy right? like Peter Jackson was like a campy horror filmmaker at the time like like camp all the way there. Oh yeah, absolutely not to mention just like stoned hobbits running around the for you know I mean like it's really fucking I love it. They're they're great movies. Matt Um, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, there's some jump scares that people forget? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I know it's great and that really it really adds a lot. That's one of the reasons those movies work so well and are so beloved I think Adrian Oh you know I just had another thought though I mean I wonder if another reason that we can't We don't get movies like this anymore is is because of Lord of the Rings like is because all fantasy is Tolkien now and has to be this big and not just, like everything has to have like orcs and elves and also everything has to be this kind of like big epic scale instead of just like these 2 people are in love and this douchebag of a you know Bishop doesn't want them to be and like that's it. That's the conflict. It's not world ending. It's not even City ending. You know it's like a very personal beef between like minor political players. Seth Yeah I do think that when you have something of the kind of staggering influence like Lord of the Rings or even like The Matrix right? things that are produced around them just naturally get smaller and I think I think that did happen with with Dark City. Matt Yeah, got overshadowed and it also doesn't have a lot of action I mean you look at it's instructive to compare it to Equilibrium, another movie that got overshadowed but Equilibrium has the benefit of having like camp action instead of Camp noir. Seth all anybody could talk about was The Matrix and yeah Adrian Oh yeah. Seth Yes, that's another one of my favorite moments from that episode when we were talking about that and Adrian's like I haven't seen this and then we mentioned Gunkata. Yeah, it's like oh yeah, I've seen that movie. Matt Yeah, yeah. Adrian It's like oh oh yeah holy yeah I loved that I loved that 14 year old Adrian was all about that shit. No um I do I do actually agree with that point though, although I do want to say Dark City does try to do some action and it's truly terrible. It's probably the worst part of that movie unfortunately is the like fight scene. Yeah that that was one of the few things that just didn't work it. Matt Ah, ah you you mean the like the the psionic battle at the end or whatever. Ah oh I love but see that's the thing I love I love how absurd it is for the same reason I like Kiefer Sutherland's absolutely ludicrous way of speaking. Um I you know I say like like this is you know it also explains why I've seen so many terrible Conan rip-offs. Ah. Adrian All for me. Totally. Matt Like that's the the other thing we forget of course is like when there's a big paradigm shifting piece of work. Um, you know a lot of the things that follow in its wake are terrible and we just forget them and and they should be forgotten. Adrian Oh a hundred percent very much so very much so right? Oh yeah, yeah, excellent, excellent. Yeah. Seth Yeah, yes, yeah, big time. Seth All right, we should move on to Sunshine. We've been going a while and I want to go at least an hour on Sunshine. Adrian Excellent, excellent! Seth So um, Adrian do you want to lead this one off, Since since I stole it from you in the original episode? Adrian Yeah I was going to say I can I and I you know I've memorized everything about Danny Boyle and um Alex Garland's lives so I can yeah so Sunshine is the third collaboration between Danny Boyle and um Alex Garland wrote the novel the beach which Danny Boyle turned into a movie. Ah they enjoyed working together so he then wrote a screenplay with zombies call that ended up you know, being released by Danny Boyle as 28 Days Later, like a huge kind of like milestone watershed moment in the whole zombie thing where it became a little bit more dramatic and acceptable and also just being like the score in that movie is insane. Good One of the best movie scores ever, especially for an action film like that. Um. Adrian And so Sunshine was them working together again. They actually um, my understanding is that they they essentially co-wrote the screenplay and and co-directed that like Garland gets the screenplay credit and um Boyle gets the directing credit but they were very collaborative across both of those things and in fact. Matt That's interesting. Adrian Uh, they were very collaborative with their um actors too. So it's it's the thing about this is it's ah it's an insane cast. It's like this star-studded cast but in a really kind of like understated way you know like Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Matt Chris Evans Adrian Ah, Benedict Wong is in it Chris Evans is in it like and at the time a lot of these actors were known in the west but were sort of like like well-regarded character actors right? Seth Um, yeah, yeah, right? Hiroyuki Sanada yeah Adrian Like since then some have gone on to become movie stars and some have stayed at the kind of like well-regarded character actor level. But um. Seth Yeah, yeah, like Cliff Curtis is still still like not typically a leading man but he's my favorite character in this movie, Searle the the psychologist. Matt Yeah, he's so good. Adrian Right? He's so good. He's so good. Um, yeah, no I mean I think even Cillian Murphy is you know he I know he knew he is Peaky Blinders but that's sort of like you know, semi prestige TV and I feel like otherwise you know he's been in a lot of these sort of right? Oh he's so good in that he's so good in that. Seth Um, he's been all and in most of Nolan's films Matt Um, well he was in the The Wind That Shakes the Barley He got a ah sort of starring starring vehicle and then Seth Oh that's a rough movie. Adrian Yeah that's a very I love that movie. But it's a very rough movie I the the Irishman in me like has to love it bound by blood to love that movie. Um, no, so so the movie was released in 2007, it was actually shot on like a $40,000,000 budget so really small budget for the um for the kind of movie that it is and it made $32,000,000 worldwide wop womp it made like $13,000,000 in the US it was just like a huge crater impact of a bomb of of a science fiction movie. Unfortunately, um, there's some things in the script that hold the movie back I think a little bit like we we can get to that a little bit later but um, just the the to me like I Love the performances. Adrian But the most powerful thing about this movie is the sound editing I think it's probably the best sound editing being in any movie I've ever seen. Matt Yeah I actually noticed that I I don't always notice things like that. But like it was obvious to me oh the the sound editing is like stand out above the score and above like some other stuff that's going on like the sound editing is ludicrously good. Seth Yeah, yeah, and I mean and the visuals look fantastic too. So. Adrian It's It's just simply the best. Oh yeah, yeah, it's actually surprising how little the visual I mean again, speaking of like it's a combination of practical and digital right? like the the the vfx look really, really great because it's mostly practical with the smattering of like tying it together on top of it. Yeah. Matt Yeah, and just enough artistry that you don't get bored of the same like you know I mean it's like easy to do spaceships stupidly even with like nice models you know, but they don't. Adrian Yep. Seth Yeah, yeah, well and I do want to say ah on this one you know like it's not the most accurate scientifically movie right? right? There's they're they're not in freefall the whole time, right? Everybody's walking around like there's artificial gravity and I'm totally fine with it. Matt Yeah, yeah, yeah, also what are they doing? Adrian Yep yep. Right? No, they're wrote Matt they're they're they're they're delivering a nuclear weapon to the heart of the sun so that the sun can turn on again. Matt In person? Seth Right? Yeah no, you want the personal touch. You know. Matt And it's humanity's last hope that's really important. Adrian What what would you call like the premise of the movie is absurd. Matt It's wonderful, but it's wonderful. Seth Yeah, in our original episode I said this is a B movie premise from the 50s. Matt Yeah, it's a wonderful premise and and and I love because I love that sort of thing. Yeah, um I want to just really quick before we get into the movie itself the market like one dimension like the marketing. This is a movie. This is my first time seeing it this that you know I think like five days ago was the first time I'd ever seen this movie and part of the reason for that is I I literally had never heard of it like I never heard about it and I can't help but wonder you know how much that there was a real sort of decision to not market it. You know that that is factored in here. Seth Ah, yeah yeah I wanted to ask Adrian about this about how you first encountered it because for me I was I think I watched I saw a Youtube video that was like you know 10 classic underrated science fiction films. And it it had another one that was on my list that I put in my honorable mentions Colossus: the Forbin Project which I still think is fantastic movie but Sunshine was in there and I'm like what is Sunshine that sounds cool. You know and and looked it up and you know just loved it. The moment I saw it? How did you come across this one. Adrian Yeah I honestly have no recollection of how I came across this movie. Probably my old roommate in college Angie had it and put it on some time because as Matt as Matt knows like because he used to hang out with us all the time. Seth Okay. Adrian Angie loved movies. She was a visual artist and she'd often put movies on in the background while she worked so we always had like movies playing guess Matt That's how I saw 28 Days Later so it's very believable. Seth Um, yeah I don't think this movie got a hugely wide release either. So I don't even know if it played in my area. Adrian It didn't no no unfortunately I've never seen it I would pay very good money to see this movie in theaters. Yeah yeah, I'd make a whole movie just to see this. Um, no, it's it's a so yeah I actually don't remember how I how I came across this first I'm curious Matt since you were like you know you're the one who hadn't seen it before like general thoughts. Matt Amazing. I loved it. It was so fun I expected it to be a lot less thrilling, especially the first half I went into this movie thinking like oh this is like we're to be like a low key kind of like fun camp sci-fi bullshit and it definitely it's not like it doesn't have like you know Camp sci-fi bullshit. It's just it's not low-key. It's very thrilling. It's very tight like the especially the beginning. Adrian No, no, no, it's very sincere too like it wears its heart on its sleeve the whole time. Matt Yeah yeah, totally and I was absolutely like compelled I was just like oh my God and I was surprised at how compelled I was be just not not because I thought it was going to suck but just because I didn't think it was going to be that kind of compelling that kind of propulsive narrative energy. Um, yeah. Seth Well it just it keeps raising the stakes right? Just when you think you? Okay I think we I think where we can breathe here. Nope. Matt Yeah, yeah, totally and I love the acting like I loved how you know yeah sincere I Guess is what you say like it's it's they're not playing it. They're taking this B movie premise and they're ah making a movie that is like not a B movie about that premise. Ah, it's it's It's so crazy. How good the performances are I don't have any complaints about the performances. Adrian Exactly exactly. Matt I think ah if I think about sort of what worked for me and what didn't work for me a lot of things worked. Sound editing was amazing. The acting was great. The visuals I really liked. Um, you know I agree with what you were saying about the script I can I can see how like there are some script things that would hold this back I Thought the ending was weak. Adrian Yeah, yeah, the final third of the movie turns into like a slasher movie and it's you know, not as good as the first 2 thirds of the movie. Matt Um, and that's kind of yeah yeah I Basically as soon as ah, the what's his name. Seth Um, Pinbacker. Yeah. Adrian Pinbacker. Yeah yeah. Matt You know he's like Freddy from horror like it's like it's like it's bizarre his his whole they don't ever show him, you know head on his body is all burned or or something. Um, yeah, ah he's you know, either. We're supposed either. It's just entirely that. Um. Seth Um, it's all distorted too right. Adrian Yep. Matt Everybody's like scared of him and it's just scary or he's like been you know, affected by the Quantum power of the Sun you know or something it's with something like that I mean it's just and it's just sort of like it. It's not a compelling resolution to a lot like it's like. Adrian Yeah. Seth Right right. Matt They built up a lot of they asked a lot of interesting questions in the beginning they they set up a lot of really really interesting threads and then they tried to answer them instead of leaving them hanging that that that felt to me like um the the core sort of thing I would change is like maybe don't try to answer every mystery you know. Seth Yeah yeah I I think the more I watch it. There's the moment when they have that one of my favorite scenes in any movie when the risk assessment scene, where Searle puts to them hey it it might be worth the detour if we can get a second payload right? It's a great scene. Matt Um I Love I Love that scene I Love that scene. Ah. Seth Um, and you know Pinbacker is almost like the the logical endpoint for Searle because you see Searle through the movie. He starts off his skin is all clear and everything and by the end of the movie. It's just peeling and because he's just been basking in the the observation lounge right? Seth Um, but once ah, Capa finds out that it's his call right? and and I love his reaction to that where like you know. Adrian Shit. So I haven't even rewatched I haven't seen this movie in like a few years and I like. Seth Yeah, precisely. Um, right? Yeah yeah, well, um. Matt So good. So good that scene is absolutely incredible. It really is one of the best scenes in the movie in a movie that has many good scenes just because it's so incredibly believable. It's like such an incredibly believable version of a scene that I've never seen done correctly before. Adrian Yeah I mean I think it's a general thing. This movie does really well is the characters like have beliefs and they argue for them and the movie doesn't like vilify that like everyone is doing their best to save humanity here at any disagreements there or because they have different beliefs about the best way to do that? Matt Yeah, and that's why that's one of the reasons Pinbacker is such a weird character because he doesn't make sense. Yeah, like the the thing. Adrian Yep exactly right? because he breaks that ability for everyone is kind of you know against each other even on the safe side. Seth Yeah, let's hey let's have a religious extremist somehow inject it in here. Adrian Yeah, right exactly. Matt Yeah, but you don't see how that there's nothing that you're given that makes that makes sense to you like if you look at Searle Searle you know you can kind of see him embarking on the beginning of this sort of weird mystical journey. But when the chips are down. He makes the like rational decision the rational and very noble decision to sacrifice himself. Adrian Yeah, yeah. Matt For the good of humanity. Yeah, he wanted to martyr himself. Seth Oh yeah, you know he wanted that right because when when when yeah when Kaneda is dying right? He's he's what do you see? What do you see I have to know? Matt But that's yeah exactly I I love that I Love that too that was funny. It's like a little bit over the top. But I'm I'm fine with it. Seth Yeah yeah, sorry okay, let me let me get back to they go through the whole simulation part where where Capa is breaking down, okay here's here's what's going to happen you know and and it's nice for the for the viewer right to to get to see how the process is supposed to work for the injection into the Sun. Um, but then it all starts to distort and he says that right with the gravity and the speed everything will distort everything becomes unpredictable and. That's what happens at it end the movie right? You start to see that distortion and so that's why sometimes I'm like Pinbacker isn't even real. Um. Adrian Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Matt I know I know that's I had that thought as well. But it's. Adrian But that's the the problem is that's not can't like to the movie Pinbacker is clearly real and I do wish it had been more. You know like is Pinbacker actually just you know Searle gone insane and off the deep end is Pinbacker like all of them just afraid of each other and like unable to trust each other is Pinbacker like something else, you know agreed? yeah. Matt Yeah, it exactly it wasn't actually ambiguous enough I think you know I mean it it. It was too clean in a way. It wasn't it didn't go nuts enough in a way. Seth Sure. Yeah, well,, there's that there's that great moment where a bunch of people have died. You know they've they've come back from the Icarus One after doing that you know shooting out the airlock thing right. Matt Also why would you name I mean obviously I know that they this is this is how you name spaceships but like what an in so like don't name it after like a really famous failure like don't do that call it like. Seth Name it after something that burned up in the sun. Adrian Right. Seth Yeah yeah, so they they get back from the Icarus One and they're you know lots of people have died right? and so now they're like okay now we have enough Oxygen where we can complete the journey and then. Matt Why do they have to be alive again? That's the that's the thing I kept coming back to yeah right? Some things can't be automated. Seth To push the button man to push the button but there's that scene where Icarus says Capa you're dying, you are all dying and and he says you know, no ah Corazon said there's enough for us for 4 people and she says correct, but there are 5 crew members I might drop in at some audio of that just because it's such a good moment when when he says Adrian It's so chilling I'm getting chills now hearing you say it's that. But yeah. Matt Um, yeah I love that it was really fun. It was really fun. It was really fun. Yeah. Seth Icarus, who is the fifth crew member? Unknown. where is the fifth crew member observation lounge. Yeah. Adrian Yeah, no, that's the unfortunate part about the whole Pinbacker thing is how good that one scene is like you would lose that scene if you lost the like you know, but but I think it would be where I think it would be worth to lose I don't know like the very end of the film when I first watched this film back when I was in college and I I remember seeing the very end and being like like that also the the whole quantum thing I kept being in my head about like well that's not what quantum means and that's not how it works but like. Seth Mm, right. Adrian Now as an adult watching like the the very end of the film and like kind of reality breaks down around them and they have that last moment of humanity together in the midst of that is actually hugely affecting to me like I Really like the way that that works and yep. Seth Um, well and it's ah it's a moment of transcendence when he's inside the bomb You know to like obviously that's not, you're not taking that at face value. Adrian Yeah, exactly. Matt Yeah, no I feel like I got the idea of it and I just wished it had been executed better. You know I think it was like a good idea like if you're if you're sort of outlining the the story and like the final beat is this beat of reality breaking down. Okay. Adrian Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seth Mm, yeah. Matt Great I like it but it wasn't built up to well enough and it didn't quite I think 1 example of this like a micro example, this would be the scene where Cillian Murphy is facing that wall of fire. That's slowly going to overtake him when he's inside the bomb at the very very end. Seth Um, yeah. Matt You know it just reminded me of the scenes where they're in the observation deck which were better scenes. You know, um there were several of them and and like like the 1 with Pinbacker was cool also just like Searle in the very beginning that was so cool Seth Um, yeah, or the transit of Mercury I Love that. Matt Yeah, the transit of Mercury was amazing. Adrian Or or even when the captain does die like like other moments of like the sun as the enemy in this wall of sort of death coming like even that moment. Also I think you know, kind of poorly reflects on the finale right. Matt That was so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got like 10 exactly you've got like 6 or 7 firewall. You know, overtaking person moments and the. Worst one is the last one. It's like okay well. Adrian Yeah I mean I think some of it is that they did go a little bit heavier on theCGI thing towards the very end like they're clearly doing a 2001 thing right? like like they're clearly very directly calling back to 2001 A Space Odyssey's like final scene of like kind of like abstract explosion and you know one. It's not executed as well as 2001 A Space Odyssey um, but I think also yeah, it's like it's such a thing of like I want it to work I really personally like abstract symbolism in my science fiction like that's what gets me going you know and so I think part of like if I'm being very honest like my love for this movie is as much love for the movie that it could have been or that it is in my head as it is for the movie itself like I essentially forget about the whole Pinbacker thing until I watch the movie and then I'm like oh yeah, that's right, there's this like f**king 45 minutes like that I have to deal with sorry I'm good sorry I keep swearing on your podcast set I'm sorry okay, okay, that 1 makes me actually upset though because like it could have been good. Seth Right? yeah yeah I don't care yeah, thought about it. Yeah, the first hour of the movie is so strong that if you just mirror that. Matt It's so yeah mirror it yeah, that would be sick. It does make me want to go watch Annihilation now which I I kind of bounced off of when it came out I like watched the first five or 10 minutes and was like yeah but I feel like. Adrian I liked Annihilation a lot I'll say that I liked it more than the book and you know, but that's ah going to be a very contentious statement but I think Annihilation is very good for for for listeners. It's the same author who who's become a director since so so the writer of Sunshine, Alex Garland. Adrian Garland became a director and start directed a few movies including Ex Machina and Annihilation. Matt Yeah, and the reason I say Annihilation in particular is because I know that that is a story that involves a lot of reality being questioned and maybe breaking down and and kind of strange perception doors being opened and stuff. Adrian Yeah, so you haven't seen the movie at all Matt ah, okay, all right? Matt No, but I've read the book So you know I I have some idea at least. Adrian Yeah but I'll still all all avoid talking about the very end of that movie in that case, um the way it's handled is really cool. Matt Yeah, basically I would love to see Alex Garland like take another crack at reality breaking down and so for that specific reason I'm motivated to go watch to try out Annihilation. Seth Yeah I will say you know we've we've been dwelling on the ending of the movie and that's you know we mentioned it in the previous thing. The reason this movie is is not universally beloved is that that last act. Um. Adrian Yeah, is that ending. Yeah, definitely. Seth But the opening is so strong where where it comes off the Fox logo and then it fades out so that there's just the sun and it's this kind of orange sun and you get the voiceover which normally I don't like but I like that it's sort of whispered and it's it's simple. It's not not overdone and then you know the sun starts getting larger and larger and larger, and then you realize it's not. It's the heat shield on the ship and it pans around it. It's such a great. Yeah, it's so good. Yeah. Adrian It's a reflection because you can't look at the f**king sun, my dude Matt Um, it's so can we talk about how the sun is treated in this movie as a character like I I don't think I've ever seen a movie that treats the sun in this way. It's really cool. It's It's basically. Adrian Right? I mean it's treated as like a God right? It's treated as like a and a and and a dark unknowable Old Ones kind of God Yeah right right. Seth Yep, Well well or even like ah Mount Sinai right in in the Old Testament right? You know, stay away from the mountain or you will die. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's this wonderful thing of you know this is a movie ostensibly about um humans using technology to achieve their aims you know vis-a-vis the natural world. But if you do the classic kind of man versus Nature. You know, look at this movie nature is super scary. Super powerful. Super not something we can really handle and we are like desperate we humanity are desperately trying to just like poke it in just a certain slight subtle way so that it won't kill us and it might kill us anyway and. Adrian Yeah, no I Just the beginning is like the sun got like just like imperceptibly colder. No one really expected it and knows why and now we're all dying. Now the world is ending because the sun had a look like the sun didn't even notice anything different is happening. You know like that is just such this like powerful sense of dread. Seth And I like the fact that the the like the ending scene of the movie is it doesn't tell you where it is and then it pans away and you see this Sydney Opera House in a snowy landscape you're like okay it was getting real if if Sydney's that way. Adrian It was yeah was was bad. Ah. Matt Um, oh man. Yeah, the the beginning of this movie is so good and the stuff about um, like Searle's relationship with the sun is is really interesting because you know he he's he never completely loses his rationality. He doesn't especially the scene in the beginning where he's at they're all like like at dinner and Searle is sort of trying to make his pitch for why everybody else should also do the thing that he's doing Seth Right? I recommend it. Matt And like go to the it's such a, it's like all the scenes of people talking and of people doing anything in this movie are so good because the acting is so good, but it's. Adrian Well I love it because he's like yeah, you're not like you know it's obliterating yourself, but it's not like that bad I was like all right? Dude yeah. Seth Um, it's not like sensory deprivation. Yeah, right. Matt Um, it's like this amazing meditative experience. You know he basically sounds like he's talking about you know drugs to try to get people people to take a drug with him and but it's so believable and he so has this. He has this like picture perfect, ah, attitude of a ah smart person who is doing something cool that they don't understand but like just thinks it's cool. Anyway, it's it's perfect. Ah, but. Seth Right. Yeah well I like to Mace comes over and he's like now what's strange here, Searle, is you're the psych officer and I'm clearly a lot saner than you are. Matt Yeah, that was a good line that was a good line. Um, but I love the the particular way. Basically that they integrate mysticism into the character's interactions because often like ah like take 2001 for example, none of the characters really go all mystical in that movie. Even though mysticism is happening around them or mystical things or something like that. Um whereas in this movie you have ah like there's ah, there's a stand-in for any audience member who's who's like yeah this is wild. Matt You know if if any audience member is is really getting into the kind of ah beyond reality, aspect of what's going on they have ah they have a crew member that they can identify with I thought that was a really interesting touch like that's not not something and I expected necessarily like what I expected when the after the introduction of Searle was for Searle to become Pinbacker like I I sort of was like from the beginning I was like oh it's going to be one of those. It was much more interesting the way they the way they handled Searle. Seth Yeah I I like some of the little character things like um like Cassie the Rose Byrne character she doesn't get a lot to do and there there was evidently in this screenplay like a sex scene between her and Capa I'm like yeah we don't need that. Adrian Yeah I read that I'm I'm glad they did away with all the romance stuff. Yeah. Matt I'm glad they cut that too. Yeah. Seth But she's like the super compassionate character right? when they're doing that whole risk assessment. She's like are you are they still alive. Matt Yeah, oh my god. Adrian Yeah, right captain we need you on the decks. There's there's an overdoses of men happening. Seth Yeah manliness, but but I like when when they get down to where where they're like we need to lose a couple more breathers and and they're like we're going to so are we going to execute somebody and ah Mace says look. We need a unanimous vote here and Cassie says I know the argument but you can't have my vote, you're telling me you need my vote and you can't have it. Matt That was such a good scene. Ah, that's so good. So good. So good. That's how you do principled disagreement between like adults like on film. That's that's. Adrian Yep. Matt Yeah, like 100% that scene that scene is amazing that scene if if this movie only was that scene and then like 45 minutes and then like an hour and a half of Pinbacker like it would still be a good movie. Seth Yeah, yeah, well I love all the interactions too between Capa and Mace because like it builds up the antagonism between them where like he spends too long sending his message to his sister and so Mace can't send his and they have the fight and left when Mace comes in and it's like no Capa look I'm the one who's apologizing and then there's like a beat and Capa's like was that the apology. Matt Um, that was so good That was so good That was so good. Seth Yeah, but um, but but then you know that that sets it up for. We can't We shouldn't go off mission this is stupid. We shouldn't do this but then you know when they end up completely screwed on Icarus One and there's one suit. Mace is analytical enough to go Capa is higher priority. He gets the suit. Um and I admire that about him and that doesn't end the antagonism either. Matt Um, yeah, oh yeah, no, it doesn't That's that is one of the best things like wait the way that that doesn't end. The antagonism is such a mature choice. Ah. Seth Yeah, but then even at the end when Mace is dying you know which is is really well acted I I'm curious how cold he had to get himself to do that. Yeah, but but where he's like he's now he's depending on Capa to just just finish the mission. Adrian Yep. Seth You know make it worth it. Matt Chris Evans did he did a great job. Adrian Yeah, no, again, it's it's the thing where there's no villain amongst the crew right? like people make mistakes you know Benedict Wong's character right? Seth Oh he breaks your heart in that one scene though. Yeah I mean that's a failure of leadership when when that happens right? There's no reason he should be flying solo on that. Matt He does. It's so believable too. You know well I Definitely just like there's no reason these humans should be doing this just alone. Adrian It's so believable. Yeah I Well I do I do think I I Honestly it was something I was going to bring up and ask you about I Do think the movie is actually kind of comes down that like the Captain's a really good person and also kind of a bad captain and like and like sort of makes that apparent the ways in which he's like his leadership has like failed and that's why they get into this. Matt Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I think that's right. Seth Mm, yeah. Adrian Which which is really interesting because I feel like so much of science fiction. Usually you know like the Star Trek captain. It's the you know it's the captains the protagonist like the Captain's always the good guy and like here to be like yeah no, the captain is the good guy and even doing his best and it's you know he like everyone else makes mistakes and fails here. Adrian And I do I do really love the antagonism between Cillian Murphy and ah Captain America I think it's quite so it's so weird to watch in hindsight. Matt I Know it's it's they they do such a good job. Their their wrestle fight I Love their wrestle fight where they're both bad at fighting and they just like are out of breath instantly and it's just like so perfect. Seth Right. Right? Michelle Yeoh steps over them and is like, air's low. We need to limit our exertions. Adrian Right? yeah. Matt The exact it's like a great depiction of an actual fight between people. Adrian Where like neither actually really wants to get hurt or even particularly wants to hurt the ah like it's getting out aggression as much as anything else right? Matt Yeah, and they they're like not in shape and they're just they're just you know. Adrian You know I think it's worth looking at too of like they're both actually trying to do their best as well. Like like they disagree about things and like you know, frankly Capa is kind of absentminded and and selfish in the way that he doesn't really think about how his actions perform like to the rest of the group. Matt Yeah I Actually this is interesting to me because in a way Capa is the character who I least understand by the end of the movie I feel like you know he's a little absentminded obviously cares about his family or something like anyone would, but I don't feel like Capa. You know there's a couple of scenes where we're supposed to get more of Capa's personality where Capa is talking. Ah, who's the woman. What's her name? Adrian Cassie. Matt Cassie yeah Capa and Cassie are talking you get a couple scenes. Yeah about whether or he's afraid or not and he's like no I'm not afraid and it's like, okay, ah I don't really understand why you're not afraid I Also don't understand why you know what you are thinking is so cool about this I I basically didn't quite feel like I got enough from Capa to feel like I knew who he was whereas it's a subtle thing right? because I it's not like he didn't make reasonable actions I I can I can believe that somebody in that situation maybe wouldn't be afraid I just don't quite understand why he in particular was giving those answers to Cassie or why he in particular you know in a way he was a little bit blank. Um. Adrian Yeah. Matt Compared to some of the other characters I feel like the other characters I could predict what they would do and give in certain situations that I didn't see them in but with with him I have a harder time predicting you know. Adrian Yeah, he sort of has like protagonist syndrome or like audience character stand-in syndrome of like being a little bit you know blank slatish so that you can project onto him a little bit easier. Um. I think that's very fair I realized actually just just this morning when I rewatched the first fifteen minutes that I had always sort of thought it was his wife and children on Earth not his sister. Seth Not his sister. Adrian And like like there's just this kind of weird blankness even about his backstory right? where it's all a little bit like handwavy like there's some like important people and stuff you know, like not no big deal. Um. Matt Right. Yeah, but even with Chris Evans we don't ever see Chris Evans talking to his family but that thing with the waves where he's in the where he's like recovering trying to get a little sense of it's a beautiful character moment I really feel like I got a lot out of that. There's no corresponding and and it's so short too. It's like you know 30 seconds or whatever on screen. Adrian That's a huge character moment. Yeah, one thing I loved is that neither the psychologist nor the AI argued with him. He was just like no the waves are calming and they're like oh okay, cool good. You know like yeah, yeah, exactly. Seth Yeah, let the patient tell you what helps? yeah. Matt Um, so great I love that scene something else I thought was ridiculous that I just wanted to mention is kind of random but why is ah. Cillian Murphy the only one who can push the button again like why? Why did they bring only one person who like can do the most important thing sure and also it doesn't look that hard like ah. Seth Right? You do need some redundancy on ah on a ship right. Matt Sure, and also, it doesn't look that hard! Adrian Hahaha. Like that's the thing about this movie being like a 50s B movie is that you do just have to accept like why because the plot needs it. You know like that's why. Adrian Yeah, oh we could the same thing for Dark City. It's like why does this guy end up just like in the right place to see the thing he needs to see every time a thing happens because that's what you need for the story to happen and I do think I do think this like like loving this movie for me is loving. Adrian Like the the aesthetic of it like this way that it can just make you feel like the sun is going to destroy you through the visuals and the score and like we said, especially the sound editing the way it just ties everything together and the human interactions right? like you get the sense you forget that they're actors at some point or like that's why I keep calling them by their actor names too because there's just like, one interesting thing. None of them are wearing makeup to the whole movie right? Seth Yeah, yeah, nobody nobody's glammed up at all I mean of course Michelle Yeoh still looks beautiful, but. Matt They look great. They all they all look great. They're very attractive humans. Adrian Like yeah right? No I mean like when I first saw this movie part of why I love this movie is I like fell in love with Cillian Murphy when I first watched this movie. It's like oh my god um, no I say it. But but you you do you get the sense of like. People in a really tough place making really tough decisions and you know running away from a little bit of a CGI slasher monster towards the end. Unfortunately. Matt So so one thing that I love here. So we've we've gotten a bunch of things about Adrian's like perfect movie. So it seems like the sun you know being evil and wanting to destroy you tragic doomed lover romance what if we combined all of these into one movie to make the perfect movie that Adrian would think was a hundred percent out of 100% yeah well that is an amazing movie Adrian Isn't that just Tarkovsky's Solaris? Isn't that literally just what that is Seth See that's one I haven't seen yet so I need to do that Matt I think Tarkovsky really lives up to the hype. Like Stalker is one of the most amazing things anybody's ever made like all of these movies are unbelievable. They're all look. They're all really art though. So they're not not necessarily the kind of thing you can sit down with popcorn and kind of you know, relax after a long day of work unless you're feeling in that mood but they're incredibly beautiful. Seth Unless you're Adrian. Adrian Yeah I was going to say sounds like how what I do at night Matt. Matt Ah, yeah, yeah, incredibly beautiful. Seth And yeah I you know I think um, going back to why the movie is underrated I Think when you say Sunshine people will be like do you mean Solaris? Adrian Probably all right because there's a there's a George Clooney version too huh also I've never seen that weirdly so it feels like like. Matt Yeah, yeah, yeah, they remade it. Yeah I've not seen the George Clooney version um Seth Um, yeah, yeah, yeah I haven't either. Adrian Do everyone does everyone is everyone in agreement that these are indeed three like underrated films that should still be Matt Yes, yes, I'm very very happy to have seen Sunshine. Seth Yeah, yeah, good for us to have picked them. Matt We're great. That's the message. That's the message. Adrian Yeah, yeah, good us, Good job us. Seth Yeah, yeah, unfortunately we didn't get to to talk about any of any of the ones Adrian actually picked because we had we'd seen them already but that was just because I sniped him. Adrian Right? Ah I don't I don't remember which ones I actually picked honestly in retrospect oh right? Yeah, that's right because those were my three Sunshine, Upstream Color, and The Fountain were gonna be my three and they're all the same movie. Matt That makes sense. The Fountain is underrated for sure I think people I like I watched that movie with my dad and he hated it and I've gotten that reaction several times to the to the Fountain specifically I don't know why some people it just doesn't work with them at all. Um, yeah. Seth Um, yeah. When I first encountered it. It was a punching bag every place that I had heard about it was was like oh this is this terrible overwrought movie and I watched him like I thought it was cool. So. Matt Yeah, yeah I think it's cool I don't know. Adrian yeah yeah I I that one I think I did see in theater I remember I was very into it coming out because it was Darren Aronovsky and I had been really into Requiem for a Dream in high school because you know me yeah of course I was of. Matt Um, oh of course you were dude. That's so that's like the most you thing I've ever heard. Adrian Course I was right? And yeah so I was like just absolutely in love with it I think that 1 right like the problem is that it's 3 interconnected movies but actually no one of them actually makes a full movie at all like there's not a beginning middle and end to those three stories individually as stories. But overall when you miss them all together. The movie has a beginning middle and end and that is I think a really kind of like in some ways like awkward narrative like kind of Meta narrative thing to do. Matt I'm going to say a thing about it which agrees with you but it's maybe less polite version of that I think it doesn't fit into this like cookie cutter 5 x structure and like people like you know blew a gasket that's that's my impression that I got but whatever. Adrian Um, yeah I mean yeah I see yeah. Matt It's like the same thing you just said, but like that's polite. Seth I think it's fun that we we set out to talk about these 3 movies and we've talked about like 9 different movies. Adrian Well movies you know movies don't exist in vacuums right? Seth So it's awesome it's true. Yeah. Adrian Like it's It's one of the beautiful things about the film like you know science fiction as a genre obviously like it talks with itself a lot like both like. Seth Yeah, yeah, big time. Adrian Explicitly with like blogs and the Hugos and stuff and also just implicitly like all these authors are in conversation with each other and like with film you get that but across just like all genres you get that in the filmmaking as well as in the genre conventions Seth Yeah, there's a language of it right? Adrian And I think that is something that's really cool about it is like, Lord of the Rings can influence. You know like the the like the whatever Drama movie or whatever blockbuster right? like you you can have stuff like Titanic or or Avatar right? like something that just came out like like these movies making billions of dollars and like also what are they even like what is Avatar. Seth Um I I did by the way, uh Matt one of the other ones I think maybe neither Adrian or I had seen from your list was Godzilla King of the Monsters. Um, and I I loved your description of it. He it's just the most glorious trash. Matt Yeah I Love glorious trash. So there's a lot of have either of you guys seen Shin Gojira like the the one that's directed by yeah, that movie is has no right to be as good as it is. It's so good. Seth And so on your recommendation I did I did watch that one and I totally agree. It was perfect. Yeah. Adrian Yes I love that Yeah I know I Absolutely love that film. Yeah, completely completely right? right? I mean you say no right? it is it is directed by the guy who like you know. Seth I think Adrian mentioned it in the last last one. Matt The Evangelion guy. Yeah Ano Hideki. Yeah. It's not trash. It's just great Seth Um, now I'll add that to my list for next time. Seth Nice. Well we haven't talked about one of the actual 3 movies in some time. So how about we wrap it up. Adrian That's probably for the best you can decide how much of this goes into the podcast. Seth Um, no, but I I mean it it. Thank you guys for for agreeing to do this and being patient while I kicked it down the road six months Adrian Oh no, thank you and thanks for keeping up with my schedule I know my schedule was kind of nuts there for a while too. So I don't think it was just you. Matt Thank you Seth. Seth did the hard work of making this actually happen and ah I feel like I didn't make it any easier. But I'm really glad that you stuck with it. Seth Yeah, and you know and and it's 100% worth it just because because like I said at the beginning like I I miss hearing from you guys and and so it's it's it's weird like the the whole podcasting thing where you like have got these friends I've never met in person. Adrian Same. Matt Likewise Super fun. Yeah, yeah. Seth The podcast you know comes out regularly like oh I get to keep up with what's going on with them. You know and then when you go dark I'm like dang it I got I got to figure a way to talk to these guys. So. Matt I Know it's so weird. Parasocial interactions are super weird and they're weird from every angle they're not. They're not like not weird from a certain angle. They're just weird period. Adrian Well especially I feel like being the podcasters where it's it's not like I actually do have relationships with like you or the Jennys or like these other people that feel you know don't just feel like real relationships but are an actual 2 way relationship Seth Um, yeah, hundred percent right yeah Adrian But there's also the parasocial relationship like they exist in parallel with each other which is really interesting. Yeah. Matt Yeah, it's just all combined into one thing. That's what I mean it's like you know like Seth I enjoy listening to your stuff but it's it's like a weird thing because those are not like real conversations. It's like you're having a you're having a fake add on to a real thing. Ah I mean the real conversations you had with someone else. Adrian Mm right? right? right? But and even though I know you it feels like a real one but it's not to me. Yeah. Seth Yeah, I think the best podcasts are ones where where you do kind of feel included and it's it's harder to do that when you're in on a structure like I'm on where you're talking about a book with a particular person. So. Matt You also have inspired me to try to read all the all the yeah, all the Hugo winners I haven't done it yet. But I'm making progress. Adrian Really interesting because listening to his podcast inspired me to do the opposite of like I actually don't have to read all of these. Seth Exactly that's awesome. Matt Ah, ah well, we both got something out of it. Seth We've been rambling here for a while just because I don't want to hang up so it's ah it's always great talking to you. So thanks for doing this Matt Super fun. Thank you so much for having us Adrian Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for letting us like get back together again too. This is this is fun. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah of off to start thinking about the next one all right bye guys. Matt Yeah yeah, please do. Bye.