Sardonicast - Sardonicast #75: Mank, King Kong (1933 & 2005)

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

The crew discuss Mank and Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong. Support the Show for $2 a month and receive all future episodes early at https://sardonicast.com and https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast. Buy Sardonicast T-Shirts, and other merchandise at https://teespring.com/stores/sardonicast. Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/sardonicast Website: https://sardonicast.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Ralph's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ralphthemoviemaker Alex's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/IHEOfficial Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/YourMovieSucksDOTorg Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Ralph's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ralphsepe Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Adam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YMS Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkindnessvideo Fanart: https://twitter.com/URABY01/status/1337311574252343296/photo/1 https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/comments/k883ud/i_have_some_regrets_fan_art/ Timecodes: 0:00 - Intro 1:13 - Warner Bros will be releasing all of their 2021 films both on HBO Max and Theatres 19:44 - Mank Discussion 47:04 - King Kong (1933) 1:02:13 - King Kong (2005) 1:30:53 - Q&A 1:31:04 - You wake up tomorrow, look in the mirror, and see Neil Breen looking back at you. Much to your surprise, you’ve become a clone of Breen, possessing the same supernatural abilities he displays in his films (the ability to freeze time, hack government servers, hook up with bad actresses half your age, eat tuna, etc.) How would you use your otherworldly abilities to help mankind? Or would you instead use your powers to help yourself? 1:33:48 - What’s your opinion on the New York Times 25 greatest actors of the past 20 years list? I know at least Adam has taken a look at this, so who do you think is too high/too low? Any notable snubs? And finally anyone who definitely shouldn’t be there? 1:44:53 - Since you're talking about King Kong, I would like to ask this: What is a movie you like that has really weird sexual implications? King Kong being attracted to the blonde lady for example. Another example, and more famous, is Slave Leia in Return of the Jedi. The whole Leia being enslaved by Jabba has to me really weird sexual implications. Can you think of any others? 1:47:10 - Who is your least favorite actor based on their work and acting style? 1:51:26 - What would you consider to be the most terrifying non-horror films. I would say Seven seeing it is more of a crime thriller than a pure horror film. 1:52:46 - Is it important to stumble into a so-bad-it’s-good movie? Does the reputation of something like The Room or Neil Breen movies actually go against the enjoyment of first time viewers? Next week's recommendation: Bicycle Thieves (1948) (Timecodes by christian larson)

three two one my god it's full of star donacast hey everybody it's sarah i'm adam from your movie sucks i was thinking about doing a quote from king kong and then i realized all of them are kind of just like really problematic so not that that wouldn't be funny it was sardonicast that killed the beast yeah oh there you go yeah i just started thinking about it about, I don't know, 30 seconds ago and then gave up. Yeah, I figured you were going to do like an old-timey one. Like, because we're watching like a lot of classic kind of movies like for this episode. The King Kong, the old one.

Yeah, 2010 in the year we make contact, a classic film. Who else is here? Oh, I'm YouTube.com from Ralph the MovieM. Oh, hi YouTube. And I'm Alex from I. H.E. there's some news that is a bittersweet you could call it is this the end interesting possibly yeah yeah it's interesting implications warner brothers has announced that they're going to be releasing all of their 2021 films in theaters and hbo max simultaneously meaning that they'll be on hbomax for a month

and then taken off hbomax and then brought back on at some point which is very strange. Christopher Nolan is probably in shambles right now, but what do you think? Well, he doesn't have a movie next year. I know, but I was thinking like if there was one director that they made an exception for, that would just be him in like 2023 or something because he has a lot of power. But if they continue it, they could continue that in the future. And in that case, he could just release his films in theaters as well, and that's fine. But I mean, it seems like people want that. Yeah, Seems like people kind of want to just watch the movies on VOD at this point in time. Yeah, I mean, especially now.

So like Wonder Woman is going to there, right? Wonder Woman's going right to Dune. Yeah. I'd imagine Christopher Nolan would protest even if it's in theaters simultaneously. Because otherwise he would have done that with Tenet. But no, he insisted. Like, he's like, no, people have to be forced to watch it in theaters. Like, we can't give them a digital option.

And if that's the case during a fucking pandemic, then what do you think he's? gonna do next to you. There's one way for it to be seen, Tenet, in his mind, and that's like in an IMAX theater. Any other experience is inferior, even though I just watched Tenet, like, on a TV, and it was fun. I know. Oh, really? Cool. I think a lot of directors assume that everybody watches movies on their phone or has, like, the shittiest

TV setup. No, I have a good sound set up, and I had people over, so I turned it off. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, we enjoyed it. There's nothing wrong with watching movies at home. It blew their mind. Yeah, I mean, like, there's, there's a lot of people now. Like, I know, the number keeps going up of people that I know that just like,

that have like a 50 inch 4K TV or something because they're getting more affordable. They're like $100. You can get one. Yeah, they're like, they're getting cheaper and cheaper every day. And, you know, getting good sound is like another step to that. But like, still, I mean, even if you watch something with headphones. Does it replace the experience though? That's the question.

There's a lot of doom and gloom about this subject. like seeing people react on social media. I don't know. I'm not really sure if it's enough quite yet, you know, to really say that it's over. I love film festivals because the audience usually doesn't fucking suck ass in film festivals. Every movie I see not in a film festival, not everyone, but like I'm always worried because there's a high likelihood of somebody just being a stupid piece of shit and ruining the movie for everyone.

They're not there to watch a movie. They're there because they were at the mall anyway. way sort of thing or they're on a date and they want to prove how not scared of the horror movie they are and make a noise whenever that happens in hereditary. You know, like, people are just so, so fucking annoying in movies. And it seems like film festivals are the only experience where people are like actually there to just watch the movie, which is great seeing a movie in an audience in that sense. But like, otherwise, I'd just rather watch it at home.

That's a good argument for it. However, I think most audiences are fine. They're not annoying. I feel that way. Okay. I don't know. Yeah. I feel like most theater experiences I've had have been good.

Mm-hmm. And to make movies like Tenet that costs like $200 million, you need to release them in a theater and charge like $15 a person to make your money back. Otherwise, like, I don't know if you could even sustain those kinds of movies, you know. I'd be very interested to see the economic side of it. Yeah. It's the subscription model thing, though, that every business is shifting to. If you're subscribing to HBO Max, that's like ideal for them, right?

Yeah. If you forget about that, they're getting confirmed money every month from you as opposed to exactly. And the odd movie a couple times a year. I just feel like you're losing money releasing a movie that you spent like $300 million on just on VOD. If it was just an iTunes rental sort of thing, then perhaps. But, I mean, Netflix has already proven that it's a very lucrative business model, right?

They make shit tons of money. That's why every other studio is doing it now. I mean, even before COVID, Netflix is like raking in billions upon billions of dollars. Like, the shows that they fund are... I don't know. They were in debt too. They were in debt a long time ago, weren't they? That was like when they were trying to get sold to Blockbuster.

That was quite a while ago, I'm pretty sure. Yeah? Yeah. I'd like, they've been a very profitable company. Otherwise, they wouldn't have so many, like, first-party titles and, you know, all these crazy releases working with. with like Martin Scorsese and shit, you know. They're all kind of forced to do this now, Disney and HBO.

This year, yeah, but I... Yeah, because of the situation. Yeah, they're kind of forced to. I think they would have preferred to release it in theaters. I mean, Aladdin did very well in theaters. True. Yeah. What's the first movie they're going to try it with?

Oh, HBO Max? Yeah. I guess what the fuck's coming out in January? I don't know. Is it going to be... Tom and Jerry, what are we I don't know what their release scheduler. Wonder Woman's a big one.

Yeah? Yeah, I feel like Wonder Woman will be the testing ground because that, the original one was a pretty big success, wasn't it? So people are, and they're ready for a new super era movie. Yeah. You know, like, it's been a while. I think studios are really, really warming up to the idea of just like, oh, someone can just pay you money forever and forget that they have an account, right?

Why not? Yeah, so you're a tweet about an Intent. Nintendo Online. Exactly. It's like, the same thing. People just have Nintendo online and forget that they have it and they're still paying for it even though they don't use it.

Or a Spoonie's Patreon. Yeah. Ouch. Shots fired. Damn. Still on. Oh, yeah? Oh, wow.

Go check it right now. Yeah. There's a few of those out there. Eesh. It's supposed to the video like, whatever. Six years? Yeah. Anyway.

Unless you want to. count that car accident video i haven't been keeping up as as well as you have apparently oh yeah there's a video that came out of like a year and a half ago and it's like spony got you know in an accident and like the comments were like is this a spony movie we've been waiting for no you know like as you can imagine there hopefully he was okay yeah yeah i think he i think he caused it oh like if you watch the video oh and he's like arguing with the officer he's like did you check the dash cam because the other people were saying like he he had like caused the accident like the other witnesses whoa okay very interesting yeah I just keep up with all the I know people

like keeping up with the channel awesome stuff that's why yeah okay you can be our expert then yeah on that like you're the expert on like a cool cat and like yeah I'm the expert on like the channel awesome stuff yeah I'll keep everyone up to date yeah one thing I'm concerned about with the Macs thing is that it's not available in every country. Oh, okay. Yeah. So they, I mean, like, I think they'll make, I don't know, because it's weird to have this as your test pilot thing when you're not even offering the service everywhere.

Well, guess what? The torrents are being offered everywhere. So if you're trying to make this test of like, how will we compete with torrents, if we release digitally, will people pirate instead, you don't really have a good sense for that unless your platform is widely available. everywhere, right? Because then there's going to be entire markets that are forced to torrent it

unless they want to go to a theater, which is much less convenient. But if they had the convenience of just using HBO Max signing up for it, they gladly pay for it. This has been proven a billion times. It was proved with steam in Russia. Gabe Newell was told never to enter Russia's market because they just pirate everything anyway.

What does he do? He launches steam there and they become like one of the biggest demographics. You know, they're like all the Dota people there. Fuck. Jesus. Yeah, it is convenient. It's just like they wanted to pay for it the whole time. It was just like they didn't want a less convenient version that was filled with DRM that they couldn't actually play that wasn't even being sold to them until two months after the American release.

It's like, okay, you got to expect that people will pirate it, just like they will with these HBO movies, these Warner Brothers movies, if it's not actually available properly at a reasonable price in their jurisdiction, in their demographic and their geographic location. That's the word I was looking for. Yeah. Yeah, I just searched it up and in the UK, it looks like it's not going to be here until the second half of 2021. So that's a huge market. Like, all of Europe is not going to have it. So that is a considerable market for these movies. And I feel like that's a good argument for theaters too, because there's not as much, like, work you got to do to get it out to everywhere at once.

Like, you could just release it to all the theaters at once. And like, like, all those Marvel movies relatively come out at the same time in theaters. and everyone gets to have the same experience around the same time. To some degree, yeah. The bigger the movie, the bigger the studio, the easier it's going to be for them. For big theaters, yeah. I mean, for big movies. There's like tons of movies, though, that get, like, weird delayed releases,

even from these major studios for seemingly no reason. And it's always really weird what it happens, like even in theaters. It's a lot of weird things. The countries have restrictions, too. I know. It's just this stupid mess. I hate it. Exactly.

Yeah. Which is why I like the idea of internet publishing, but... Yeah, just get it out there. Yeah, but, I don't know. And something like YouTube where the platform is already designed in a way where you can just upload it and it's available everywhere, except maybe where, you know, governments individually will censor it like China or something. Exactly.

But that's on China. That's not really on YouTube, right? And so, like, if you have a model like that where it's widely available globally, and, you know, anybody can buy YouTube premium or whatever. I don't see how that's any different than just, like, signing up for HBO Max in terms of, like, I'm getting a subscription. There's something that I'm getting for this sort of thing. But it's weird because, like, every single one of these shows and films has to go through so much more of an ordeal when it comes to, like, licensing and rights and all that nonsense. Yeah.

It's just like, it's not as simple as just uploading a YouTube video, but we know that this is possible. we know that with Netflix, every show that they own, they're hugely widely available globally. And any show that they actually own that is a Netflix exclusive, they're just like, yeah, fuck it. It's available everywhere. And something that I've started to notice now, which is really pissing me off, is that there's several shows on Amazon Prime that they own the rights to that they're not doing globally. What? And maybe it is another weird licensing issue where, because like I've noticed these more shows that they've picked. picked up. So one example would be Sound of Metal where it was a festival movie. They bought the

rights to it. Now it's on their platform. And I guess when they bought the rights, they only bought the rights to like American distribution. Whereas when Netflix buys the rights to something from festivals, Netflix every single time, it's just like, oh, it's across our entire platform and everybody can watch it no matter which country, which is really nice. I want to see more of them doing that. It's really annoying. Like, of course people are going to torrent things and pirate things. if you don't make it available for them easily. Like, why do they, why do they get it three hours drive south from me? If I literally just get in my car and then turn on my computer there, you know, it's so annoying.

It's going to be a fascinating few years, I think, because it is so unpredictable. The whole business model is built around everyone's sardining in this room and buying popcorn and it's all the extra stuff that keeps the business alive. I know. Just the movies, you know, so I really don't see how they can. sustain themselves. Yeah, without the food and, you know, the drinks, because that's the real moneymaker for the actual, you know, the physical place, right?

Yeah. And charging $20 per person to go, like, you know, in an extra cool theater, like, advanced speakers and, like, a big screen. Like, that's a lot of money that now it's, like, I don't know if it's as lucrative. I think that large chains, like AMC that were already, like, going bankrupt before the pandemic, depending on how you, like, struck. sure your business is also a huge thing and a lot of these large companies just like, they don't like to keep rainy day money.

They would just rather get a bailout sort of thing. But there's a lot of, I'd imagine theaters will still exist, even if everything gets a digital release simultaneously. I don't see any reason why, why theaters as a whole will just disappear, but I do see large chains deciding, like, it's not as profitable as we want it to be. So we might as well file for bankruptcy and the CEOs will get some. some massive bailout and all the workers get screwed sort of thing. And the reason why I believe this is because, like,

there are tons of theaters that survive right now that don't even really play new movies. Like, the drive-in theater that I went to for Tenet didn't even get that until, like, a couple months after it's, like, official release. And that was, like, a rarity for, like, them having, like, a new movie. They usually just play old shit. There's, like, a bunch of different theaters that just have good vibes and are kind of like indie theaters that, you know, they're ran by the people that like manage

that location and there's only one of them sort of thing. And they survive and they're doing good and people like them. And then things like Alamo Draft House where they're providing a much better service than something like AMC, where it's actually a positive environment and a good, you know, good food, good drinks, good policy. They kick people out if they're being noisy, you know? Like, I want to see a movie there. Exactly.

No downside to it. You know, there will always be people that want to see things in theaters, I think. It's a good social, fun experience. Sometimes you don't have the right setup to be able to invite like six or seven or eight friends over. You'd rather just have a business do that instead and have people wait on you and be fed, you know? So I'm not, I don't think this is the death of cinema. I don't think this is the death of theaters. If anything, I think it'll get rid of a lot of chain locations, but maybe not their brand entirely.

and possibly force other businesses to improve their services to make them more appealing instead of just, I have to see this movie here. So it's the only way I can. So I'm forced to, right? Which is not something I like. You know, you shouldn't force someone to take a less convenient, less desirable option if there's other things available. It's like it's like the taxi cabs trying to stop Uber from happening, you know? It's just like, improve your service.

Make us want to do it. the business transaction with you. Yeah. Yeah, they go to compete with that convenience. Exactly. Like, if you can just whip out your phone and watch anything ever, you have to make it worthwhile to go out and make a evening of it or whatever. Yeah, like, you can, there's tons of shit you can do at home,

but, you know, if the real experience is better, the outdoor, the outside your home experience is better, then you'll want it, you'll, there will always be a market for that. If they can't find ways to make it better, then that's on them. I think the chain theaters can survive on. just like the Marvel movies and the Star Wars movies. I don't know if Disney's going to keep going though. I think Disney is going to be the one to not even do it in theaters.

Disney can open their own theater. Warner Brothers is doing it simultaneously. You think the days of releasing like a movie in like 2,000 theaters at once, you think that's over? I don't, I think if any one of these studios is going to pull a ha fuck you to theaters, it's going to be Disney and they've kind of already done that. Yeah, I agree. I think Disney would rather open their own theaters like 3,000.

If they find it lucrative. I guess. Yeah. Well, yeah, all the theaters that are closing down, they could mop up and just make them Disney theaters. Yeah. They make a billion dollars on each one of these like Lion King Aladdin. Like, I think it is lucrative.

I think they're losing money right now on, by releasing Mulan, like on Disney Plus. Not that they're not, obviously they're making money off Disney Plus. Also, nobody saw Milan. Yeah, it's not the right project. They'll make it back with Soul on Christmas, actually. Which is a really smart time to release a kids movie. It's like directly on Christmas. people will have a little bit of extra Christmas money to justify signing up for Disney Plus.

They might have opened up like a Roku or Amazon's fire stick or some shit on Christmas. There's a bunch of kids around. You got to entertain them somehow. Oh, Disney Plus is a thing. Soul, I might as well sign up for this for a year. They're going to make a fucking killing on Christmas. Yeah, yeah, I think it depends how successful that is. And yeah, I could see them shifting with certain projects.

Because like the Moulin thing, it is the wrong project for something like that. And they tried to charge extra, didn't they? Oh, yeah. I'm glad that's the one they tried it with because now they think it won't work. Yeah. When maybe if it were a better movie, it would have worked. So I'm glad that they've now abandoned that as a concept. Yeah, I think Pixar or Marvel might, people might have actually paid more for that, but not

Moulin. Yeah. They would have paid 30 bucks for Mandalorian. They should have done that. Yeah, probably. Mandalorian's their biggest thing. I'm glad it didn't work out. And I hear it's quite good.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, micro-transactions in a subscription. subscription service. Yeah. Disney's always going to find ways to be slimy. Never expect... Don't hold them to any sort of standard of expectations. They'll always try to pull some slimy shit.

Yeah. Interesting news. I'm excited to see how it goes. Matrix 4 Suicide... Sorry, The Suicide Squad. Dune. These are all films that are going to be released on HBO Max simultaneously, it seems. Because those are all 2021, right?

Yeah. I'm excited for Dune. Yeah, they just need to get on Europe, man. Oh, my God. I think that's a mistake. Sorry, I just, this article calls it Timotee Chalameh's Dune. Like, fuck off.

Really? Danny Villeneuve. This is the wrap.com. Yeah. I said it right, right. I understand why, and yes, he did say it right. I understand why they do that. That name's popular, but fuck, it's not his movie.

God damn it. Just put both names in, why don't you? So, speaking of streaming services, we all saw Mank. Yeah. Netflix released a new movie. Finally, a new Fincher movie. Yeah, boy.

Yes. What'd you think? A new Gary Oldman film. Gay Oldman. Gary Oldman as the screenwriter Herman Mankowitz, who is the screenwriter for Citizen Kane. And the movie takes place around that time, like the 40s, 30s. And also his relationship with William Randolph Hearst, who's played by Charles Dance, who's, of course, the inspiration for Charles Foster.

Kane and Citizen Kane. And the movie even has like an old-timey look with the black and white and like the muffled sound. Yeah, the audio was cool. Like it was really, yeah. It was all audible too, which was good even though it sounded muffled. It wasn't distracting. But yeah, we can talk about it. But I just want to say that I thought it was really fucking great.

And one of Fincher's finest, I think, really entertaining. I really enjoyed it. I wouldn't quite put it up with his finest personally. Just because, I don't know, I think it's just a personal preference thing. I usually prefer more, you know, like a cinema, paradiso, and stories like this, where it's all about celebrating old Hollywood, old cinema, and this kind of thing. I like it to a degree, and I do appreciate it.

But I just feel like that there's a line where they reference the script for Sitsyn Cain, and they describe it as something like, it's very complicated. And it's quite a dense, complicated movie Mank as well. Lots of characters and names to keep track of not being American. There's a lot of American politics in there. A lot of stuff to keep up with. And that was actually my favorite side of it was the historical angle and the way I'm seeing a lot of, yeah, a lot of kind of reflections of what we're going through now with the way World War II was affecting, you know, salaries of people and, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, the working industry and just everything that comes with like huge world's altering events just

like we're going through well we went through this year with COVID and with the election being a huge part of the movie too and the election being this year there's a lot to relate to and that does bring it back around and make it feel very relevant even though I think it is just quite an obscure harder to sell story it doesn't have that wide stream wide wider appeal that some features other movies have it's definitely a movie for kind of film fans in that way that's why Like when I opened Netflix on the day it came out, normally when there's a new huge original production, it's like all over the advertising.

It was like hidden. I had to search way deep to find it. Yeah, I saw it on the front page, but yeah, it was just one of those little blocks. Like, it wasn't like huge.

Yeah, because it's not really accessible. It might be dependent on region, but it wasn't front page for me. I think the film's definitely enhanced by seeing Citizen Kane, like 100%. I think if you haven't seen Citizen Kane,

you can still really enjoy the film. I watched it with my brother. He hadn't seen Citizen Kane. It's, yeah, there's just so much. like nuance and like little references to Citizen Kane like even the way uh who who's the guy who plays Orson Wells in this he was great yeah I forget his name but it was a really great impression yeah

I'm gonna look up his actor like while we're talking um book he's cool oh okay yeah especially with the old timey kind of sound mixing it's sad it's just like Orson Wells and Citizen Kane really great and those great Finch's really got a skill for that in mind him to the the casting for some of the the like serial killers and actors and everything they're really like Charles Manson. It was like the same actor that Tarantino used for Once About Time in Hollywood. Oh. Yeah.

But even the way like the Orson Wells like was stormed out of the room toward the end of the film. Like it was just like how like he tore apart the room and Citizen Can like sloppily like, you know, throwing his body around. Like a lot of little things like that that were just I really appreciated. You said Alex there like a lot of self-referential lines like having to do. with the scripts like yeah the story's complicated the time frame jump is all jumps all over the place the changing perspectives yeah i i noticed that too i thought it was funny i thought it worked it's yeah it's clearly like a labor of love and a passion yeah for that time period and i do i do like the critical angle too where it's obviously a huge part of citizen kane where when it was first released

awesome wells was kind of panned as a communist and all of that and that place is kind of a large part of the movie, saying that political tone of the time. And I just find American politics quite fascinating. So seeing it is way back in the 30s, 40s, just seeing the reactions and the way people communicate with each other and talk about the times is just quite illuminating to me. Yeah, it's, um,

my favorite aspects about this film would be its presentation elements. The visuals, the sound design, especially. Not everything I found to be, like, incredibly consistent in the sound design, because, like, the audio being muffled. And also, I found, like, really echoy with the dialogue. Was a really cool way to do it. Yeah, sometimes. I liked that. I wish that the same could be said for the soundtrack, which I loved the music.

But, you know, comparing the audio quality of the score in this film to older films. Like, even films in the 70s had, like, a bit more of an age. quality to the just how the music sounds not how it's composed but how it actually sounds and so I found in this this film the music came across as a bit too clean to be you know it was it was a little too contrasting or conflicting I would say with the audio of the soundtrack between the audio of the dialogue still loved the music it was very well composed and very fitting for the movie but I thought it would have been cooler if it sounded a bit more aged I think it's a stylistic choice like I feel like a lot of the film is like

clearly paying homage to those films in the sound like I mean it wouldn't be the only modern element yeah it feels like a Fincher film too like there's very modern elements there's CGI in the film like they're like you said with the mixing like some of it sounds clean it doesn't sound exactly like an old film but I feel like they were just trying to find a balance between you know making it work in a modern day

like watching on Netflix because it could get annoying and just you know making it sound like one of those old movies I think it was a, I think they struck a good balance. Yeah. And I see what you're saying, though. I don't know, because I watched, there was a movie that came out, I might have mentioned this movie before, but there was a movie came out that came out, I think 2019, maybe 2018 called Bate.

And it was a British film. And the whole thing, basically, rather than, like, replicating older film techniques, the guy just shot on, like, really old film and did everything in post-dub with some really shitty mic from the time period. And, like, so there was nothing to. recreate he just basically just did it and that was an interesting enough watch for me even though I wasn't like 100% into the story that one was something where you know the the visual and stylistic presentation of that film is very much like

super interesting just basically seeing a a super old shitty looking film but like today basically right right just watch the trailer for it you'll know what I mean yeah it sounds up my alley though yeah I'm gonna watch that okay cool yeah like I don't I don't think they were going for that like as much with this. I think it's shot digitally. Like it just feels like a fincher film with these these subtle like homages to that kind of stuff. And I think it worked.

And I think again, it helps a lot with the Orson Wells impression. Like it makes it sound just like. Oh yeah, exactly. And in pain or even what's the other one? What's the one Matthew Johnson recommended? Oh,

F for fake. Yeah. He's kind of like just like that. And he's even like he's wearing like the like the black code and the hat like in this. movie. Yeah, there's a lot of good references. Yeah. I thought Gary Oldman was really great. Oh, yeah. He's yeah. I wanted to get your thing to him. Oh, yeah. I think he was probably the best actor, maybe other than Orson Wells, but like he didn't, the Orson Wells actor, what's his name, Tom Burke,

he didn't have as much of an opportunity to shine outside of just like the impersonation sort of performance. Whereas Gary Oldman, there were moments like especially closer towards the end with his like drunk acting that's always something that's like a really key thing to point out in terms of what's acting skill is like can they drunk act that's that's a very complicated one and he pulled it off really well yeah well he had to you too because the character's obviously an alcoholic it's a huge part of his character he's a very flawed character um but he's also like a smart aleck he's always got something to say he's always got a quip for the moment and he's he's cool the way he kind of, I didn't really like him at first, like intentionally, I think,

and the way he was coming across, but they gradually reveal with the, you know, saving some of the Germans and bringing them over. And there's more to him than meets the eye at first. He's, I mean, it's Gary Oldman. You know, you don't really have to sell his performance. He does a great job fleshing it out. Yeah, the deterioration of his character was like very believable. Yeah, I used to see how the alcoholism just kind of destroys him, because you see he's a brilliant man like the way he's presented in the movie manks like a very smart person never one likes being around him but yeah like even his like long monologue he gives at the end where he's like drunk rambling if you can decipher it he's like basically describing the plot of citizen cane and it's you know

fuck you to the people in the room and it's it is kind of brilliant but he's a drunk fool also and he's like vomiting which kind of like deflates his point so it was just it was It was an interesting story of how alcohol just kind of destroyed this really brilliant guy. And there's also the parallels between him and Citizen Kane, like him in the bed at the beginning. There's a shot where he drops like the alcohol bottle. It's like the snow globe. Oh yeah, the timeline thing. Yeah, they were trying to like show the parallels between the end of this guy's life

and the end of Charles Foster Kane's life. Yeah. onion piece. It goes together very well and it doesn't completely rely on a bunch of like pointless reference stuff to the original. It's all so core to the story because that was my concern when I heard about it that it was going to be like mostly like an over the top drama with Orson and Mank like going at it or something but it is way more about Mank I think and his struggles of getting that script done. Yeah. And it's more about him and William Randolph Hearst and the Warner, the head of Warner Brothers.

Yeah, and like their kind of chemistry. And I thought the three of them were pretty fucking excellent in the movie. There's two like huge set pieces where there's like a lot of people kind of talking like in a large room. There's like one like 40 minutes in. And then there's like a big dinner scene at the end. And I thought those scenes were really impressive how they were executed. Yeah. Like clearly very complicated.

Lots of like really good acting and, you know. complicated framing. Like, there's a lot going on in those scenes that I thought were, it made me want to rewatch them multiple times because they were so good. Yeah, he makes it seem effortless, despite how complex the, like, scene construction really is to break it down. Yeah, there's a lot of shots, and it's quite complicated. The editing's really good.

I really love a lot of what's going on technically. I love conceptually. I love presentation-wise. In terms of story, what I love most about that is what Alex mentioned is, like, things to do with the time period and political environment. And aside from that, there are, you know, there's at least one sequence that really sticks out to me, that whole drinking and smoking thing I thought was like a really great sequence.

But aside from that, a lot of this movie I felt like pretty detached mostly because I just didn't give a shit about what was going on story-wise. And it's, you know, it's just a personal thing because like I really, all the elements of the film work together well, but the story they're telling is just something that's not super appealing to me. I really just wasn't like I like the movie overall. It's just like I probably won't see it again anytime soon. I might see it a second time before I make my list of 2020

in fucking 40 years I guess. I don't know because there's other, I feel like the whole love letter to classic cinema thing has become a bit of its own cliche in a way. And in terms of films that have done it, I wouldn't say that this ranks among my favorite. not to say that films can't do it anymore, but I didn't really feel like this one, aside from just being a really finchery movie and being really clean and well presented, other than that, I didn't

really feel like it stood out in terms of the overall catalog of like love letter to classic cinema films. There's another movie I watched from 2007 called The Ariel or the original title La Antenana, A-N-T-E-N-A, and it's an Argentinian film that's basically a love letter to like early German expressionist films like Metropolis and shit like that. And that one's a fucking trip. And it's like really engaging throughout the story is more interesting, more goofy and more out there. And so like I, you know, there's other examples I can think of of just like love letter to

old cinema that I connected with more. And so this one is just like I respect it and appreciate it more than I actually enjoy it is what I'm saying. Which is funny because I feel that. that way about a lot of older cinema. So I guess it did its job. Right. Manx's like a love letter to old Hollywood in many ways clearly, but I think it's also a fuck you to Hollywood. I think this is like Fincher's fuck you to Hollywood because he made it outside of the studio system. It's made it with Netflix. It's shot digitally. Like, and it's

written by his dad, like in every way. It feels like... It was supposedly written a long time ago. That's true, yeah. It is very critical. It is very critical. And I feel like it's very critical of these old people, like this, this old system. like it makes it look all dazzling, but these people were actually kind of sociopathic, um, ignorant, like the way they talk about Nazis, right? They're like, oh, we don't have to worry about this Hitler fellow. Like, they're clearly, you know, full of shit. And again, that's not like incredibly new or anything. It's not like a revelation. I don't know. This is, this is something that he was writing, or sorry, his dad wrote, like it was a script that he was going to do. I read on the

Wikipedia page, but it was like really early Finchers when it was supposed to come out. I was supposed to have Kevin Spacey and somebody else. like I guess around the like fight club sort of yeah that's ringing a bell area right and then the script got reworked apparently they found that that it was like a little too critical of orson wells and a lot of people got mad like some historians were just like or like wells historians were mad at the implication that like apparently the original draft of the script made script made it like really clear like he doesn't deserve any screenwriting credit here sort of thing and they took offense to that so i don't know like we don't know how

accurate the film is in that regard. But again, I love a lot of what it's going for. I don't connect with it as much as I do a lot of other stories that Fincher has tackled. And I don't connect with it as much as a lot of other love letter to old Hollywood or critical of old Hollywood or love letter to old cinema or any one of those. Right. There's a bunch of other examples I can think of where I'm just like so much more into it that I love a lot more. This one, I just found myself like, I respect and appreciate most of this. And there's a couple sequences and a couple moments that really stick out to me and are memorable, but the rest of it, I'm just going to forget. I guess it's because the hook of the movie is kind of obscure. It's about the making of Citizen Kane in 2020.

I mean, the average person isn't going to be as invested in that than like seven. It's easy to sell. There's like three timelines going on in this movie, right? Yeah. There's him writing Citizen Kane in bed with like Lily Collins and then his brother comes to visit him. There's a lot of like Netflix actors in this. Like that's the, the guy who plays his brother is

Laura Lenny's brother in Ozark. I think Lily Collins is in a lot of Netflix stuff. Yeah. So they just kind of Tupin's, Tupin's Middleton. She's in Netflix stuff, I think. Like, just a bunch of Netflix actors.

Then there's a, the second timeline, which is like William Randolph Hearst and like Warner and all that bullshit. Right? And then there's the third one. Yeah. Most of this movie is flashbacks.

Yeah. It even like there's a bunch of like a little like the typewriter kind of time stamps to remind you what's going on. Yeah, there's a lot of those. I like that. It's very hard to keep track of that. I do too. Yeah. And I think in a lot of the fades, they just faded the light naturally in the room.

Either that or it was done like with some digital effect, I don't know. I love that. But it looks really cool either way. I like that a lot. Very old timing. Yeah. I love that too. Yeah.

Most of the performances were really great. I don't think that Amanda Seafre did that much to make me think that she's like a really great actor or anything. I thought she was really good. She's been in a lot of bad movies before this and I didn't really see her as doing like much different. And apparently like she's quoted, I don't even remember where I read this, but she was quoted as like, there are scenes that took me an entire week to film because David Fincher wanted to get it right. I'm like, holy shit. It doesn't really show.

It's not like she was bad in the movie. I'm like, you didn't fucking, you didn't do anything. like Oscar worthy here you just had to like for this for doing that kind of stuff yeah she's she's been in like red riding hood and like a bunch of shit been in a whole bunch of shit but but but she's never the worst part of those films like she's always okay she's always done a solid job and at this I thought she's always she's done she's just a lot of like there's a lot of silent acting especially toward the end at that dinner scene where she's kind of looking at William Randolph Hurst and you know this you could tell there's like a lot of there's a lot going on there

And yeah, I think it was more subtle. I liked her performance a lot. I think she embodied, I don't know who the real woman is in real life. But I'm guessing she's similar to the character in Citizen Kane, the one who Charles Foster Kane marries and makes that play for or whatever. That sucks. She tries to be like an opera singer. I assume it's like similar to that.

It makes me want to look more into the history of these people, which I guess is a good thing. I didn't even know about this guy at all, Herman Bankowitz, you know, and I guess that's a good thing about the film is it kind of exposes this screenwriter who, you know, wrote one of the most important films of all time. Yeah. One of my favorite moments was that kind of bittersweet, well, not bittersweet, the tragedy of the guy who's given a chance to direct, but he's kind of forced into the propaganda stuff with the, you know, and he winds up killing himself as this horrible, like, yeah. Yeah, feeding into that anti, you know, old Hollywood kind of stuff with the... Yeah, drawing parallels today, too. Yeah, where it's all about just like the bottom line and winning and just making money. It's reminded me of like madmen in that way where it's just a bunch of suits in a room with like, you know, like the girls with their tops off and stuff.

And they're very arrogant and they just, it's all about making money. Exactly. And I feel that drives him further into his alcoholism, the main character. Yeah, it's a depressing place for him to exist. Like, especially toward the end, like the death of his character, the death of that other character who kills himself. Yeah. I think that really drives him crazy toward the end. And that's what kind of results in his outburst at dinner.

Like, that was just such like a, he didn't even give a fuck at that point. Yeah. And I feel like it made, it made sense for his character to act that way in that point. Yeah, because he was always the one who was basically speaking out of line when no one else would. Like, criticizing the ideas of the room where everyone else was like circle jerking it, he would whip out and the other side of it. Exactly. And they just beat him down so much. And when you watch this in Kane, I was kind of thinking like, why does whoever made this movie fucking hate William Randolph Hearst this much that he would write such a scathing portrait of him? Yeah. You know? And this movie kind of gives you some context. Like this is, look what they did to this guy. Like he fucking hates William Randolph-Rus for this reason. And you're like, yeah, I get why he would write a story that's so critical of, you know, these kinds of people that abuse their power and how it kind of this kind of. This kind of. greed leads nowhere in life and how you kind of just weather up and die very cynical but also kind of drawing parallels with what's going on in his life too how he's coming you know he was reaching

the end of his life as well um yeah it's sad and i think it's pretty brilliant like like how they constructed this story yeah and the way it kind of expands the original citizen kane in that way getting to understand the way the writer was feeling and what he went through does have a lot of textures of that first movie right it's not a documentary necessarily but you know a lot from and i that's why like mine hunter too because you learn a lot about kind of that period and the serial killers and you know how how psychologists at that time yeah it puts in the research so that you're getting a little bit of like education along with you know entertainment and i thought you know it's like fruit for the soul it's it's really i felt great watching this i guess it's pandering to me

Because like you said, Alex, I love cinema paradisio and like anything that's a love letter to cinema, critical. Like embracing those kind of elements. But I think this is really well done. I thought like it's pretty fucking perfect. Yeah. Like everything just fit really well. Made sense to me. Yeah, I think I'm slightly more with Adam where I wasn't connecting with it on an emotional level in that way with the plot just because I just felt so detached from it.

And it wasn't until maybe after the first half, now was really over where I was starting to really get involved and into the dynamics of the story and where it was going and what was happening. But yeah, I can't put it above some of his other work personally. Yeah, it's out there. I probably like it as much as something like Zodiac. It actually reminded me the most of social network just because of how it's a character study focused on one guy. There's no crime element really, like no, I guess there's shooting, but there's not like it's not like fight club or anything it's like you know fucking crazy it's like pretty straightforward drama i think fincher does that really well i like that i like when he just

makes a drama you know he clearly the level of sophistication in which he directs those scenes it's like someone oh yeah like who could direct an action scene you know it's like it's like a michael bay movie yeah yeah directing is always super clean and tight and really clean is the best way i would do the best word I would use to describe Fincher's directing. It's just, you can tell, you can tell he knows what he's doing. Like, that's for sure. Yeah, I love it. It feels so, like, refined and...

Yeah, it feels almost, like, storyboarded, like, a, like an animation or something. I'd love to see him do an animated movie. And I think just the production design, too, of the period piece elements was very detailed. Oh, yeah. Great production design. Great makeup. I love the shot with, like, the Hollywood land sign in the background. Yeah, can't forget those elements.

Uh-huh. It made the people look like. they really did. Did you guys mention it was Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross? Oh yeah. I heard about that before and then forgot about it as I was watching. Yeah, we talked about the score, but yeah. I thought it was, yeah, because it's like an old-timey score.

I thought it was really great. I liked seeing that range from them. Because, you know, there's normally a certain sound. It's like, oh, this is clearly like Trent and Atticus. Yeah. I like that they were trying something a bit fresh in new with this. Yeah, they also scored Birdbucks and that was a massive piece of shit. They got tons of range.

Yeah, yeah Like that movie was awful Their score for mid 80s Yeah, that was bad There's ones where it's not as like In the forefront And what I like about Fincher is he kind of uses Like Trent Resner Atticus Ross to their best

Like I feel there's a lot of points in this movie Where the score is very pronounced And I like It was very like A huge part of the scene Like when he drops the handkerchief Like in that dinner scene And there's like this boom

Like you know there's like Or the drums like the old-timey kind of drums like when they're pulling into the theater. Yeah, I think the score was really great. And I looked at the score like on iTunes or like Apple Music or whatever, there's like fucking 50 tracks or something.

It's like so many. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah, it's like a huge amount of tracks. That's not surprising. It was very like musically oriented. Yeah. So, you know, and I didn't feel maybe some of it was like quieter in the background or dietic.

But yeah, I thought it was just really well done. tone. Yeah. I love them. This is clearly like pandering to me because I love Fincher and Anacus Ross and like the old Hollywood and pandering cinema, whatever. But I still think it's great. Like, I still think it's really well done.

Yeah. All right. I'm giving this one a seven out of ten. I'll give it another chance in the future, but I'm not rushing to see it. Appreciate it a lot about it. Just wasn't as interesting of the story as I would have liked, but that's about it. Yeah, I think I'm exactly with you, Adam. This would be our really high seven for me.

I was three and a half. Maybe in the future I'll give it another shot and connect with it more. It took me a bit to get into like Zodiac too, so it took me a couple tries. Yeah, no, Zodiac's one of my favorite films of his now. So there's a chance I'll rediscover it at some point. But for now, I'm happy with my experience. I really have nothing to complain about even. So it's, you know, it's basically just your opinion.

All right. All right, guys. I think you guys are crazy. Yep. I think this deserves at least... I think this deserves at least an eight. That's right. I'm really there.

I only watched it today, so I'm still... Okay. I'm going to give it a five out of five to balance you guys out. Okay. I saw you rated on Letterbox earlier. It wasn't to balance us out. You're going to rate it that anyway. Yeah, I was.

I was. Yeah, I love the film. I might rate it a nine, like, upon free watches. you know who knows but I think it's fucking great I would rate it at 10 out of 10 at this point I've seen it twice also yeah I had a feeling you'd like it yeah nothing wrong with that oh good yeah I'm glad I'm glad we all watched it though yeah it definitely like it definitely didn't suck like none of us were like oh it was awful always keen to see a new new fincher yeah yeah I was looking through finchers like all of his films and the lowest rated alien three

like even that has an average of a three and you can't even put the full blame on him. No. Even his worst films are okay, like solid. The game is pretty good. Yeah. He's a really consistent director. The game?

Yeah, he's pretty good. It's very old from memory, but enjoyable. All right. So there was a film recommendation from last episode by me, and it was 2005 King Kong. However, I decided I would also watch 1933 King Kong, and I believe both of you did as well. Yeah, that's great. Were you, like, thinking about Mank and, like, the old-timey? Oh, yeah, I was like, there were some comparisons in my head.

Yeah, they did mention King Kong, which is kind of funny. It was, like, directly after in the timeline, the guy was like, well, this is not going to be, this wasn't no King Kong. And obviously, you can tell you in context that was, like, the standard at the time of, like, fantastical, huge, wildly successful, awe-inspiring filmmaking at its finest sort of thing. Like, that's what King Kong was considered to be, which is really nice. And it totally makes a lot of sense. I had seen little bits of King Kong on TV at random points in my life, but never the full thing.

Seeing the full thing now, it was pretty wild. I liked it a lot. I liked it a lot more than I was expecting, actually. The original one? Yeah, it's 1930. Yeah, yeah. I fucking love that movie. It's just one of my favorite films.

Awesome. James Rolf said it's one of the movies that made him want to make movies I think that's like a great way to describe it because it's just even like the the stop motion effects feel so inspired yeah and the way it's integrated with the the actors even is very sophisticated actually yeah like obviously it's not real but watching it you're so impressed like you're just dazzled by it also you have to understand something like the context of when a film is made these special effects are going to be a lot more convincing for people because people are less familiar

with the process of how things actually work. So like early CG, you could put fucking CG the rock and the mummy and people would watch it and be like, wow, that's cool. But you look at that today and you're like, that looks like shit. So same sort of ideas with any sort of effect, claymation or anything like that, stop motion. You know, a lot of people are more convinced of these things because they aren't as familiar or with filmmaking techniques or any kind of special effects. Apparently the birds scared the shit out of people

when that was released. So... Yeah, it's very interesting how it was done. And you can tell there was a lot of like passion and craftsmanship going into a lot of these sequences and shots and effects. Yeah, really impressive. Yeah, it's it's a wild movie.

It's basically an animated movie. Yeah, basically. The amount of stop motion is, yeah. Yeah. with like the incorporation of some live action sequences yeah of like actors I just love the violence of it I didn't remember it being as violent as it is like the like the dinosaurs coming out the water whipping people out the boat and like throwing them around oh yeah king Kong like killing multiple people it is awesomely violent it's more violent than the 2005 version

yeah way more violent yeah it's like more brutal would the guys like fall down that canyon it's like Oh man the screams and their bodies fucking screams like half of the dialogue Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, but not just screams like wailing like like like like high-pitched Really loud screams from from male characters and the other half of the dialogue was just sexism It was a really fucking entertaining movie honestly Yeah, it's a product of the time yeah Yeah, it's a very 30 movie in that way It's so funny

30s, yeah. When King Cog's not stop motion, it's like a giant, it's like a giant gorilla. I love his smile so much. It's so funny. Robot. Yeah. What do you like? It's kind of goofy looking. Yeah, yeah. It has a vibe, like a cheesy vibe that I think works much better than a, the sentimental vibe of the Peter Jackson one. I like that he's just like a goofy gorilla. Yeah. And he's like run around the city tearing up shit. He's just like, he's just an animal. Like he's just, you know, I felt bad for him. Like he didn't like, I felt bad for him. Like he didn't, like, I felt African con because he didn't know anybody. Yeah, because he is just an animal.

Every time he kills something, he plays with a corpse and, yeah, he's just a big monkey man. Oh, yeah. And the new one, they're like trying to make him like, he has emotions and stuff. I'm like, yeah, that's fine. But I like the kind of wild animal in the middle of the city. He's totally helpless. But he's also tearing shit up. It was awesome.

I love how, I mean, obviously, this is just a product of its time and this was an intent. but I love the old dialect there's lots of like swell and scram and I love just being transported back to like where these words were more commonly used and then obviously the you're a nuisance you can't have a woman on a ship

stuff just like it's so constant and it happens so often that it's just like a really really funny movie to me like even before it gets to the action, it's like, it's so entertaining. It really sets the standard for the time. Hell yeah. It makes you feel.

I think that's what they were talking about when they want to make America great again. I think that's, this is about the time. Right, right. They want to make more like King Kong. They want to go back to King Kong. Hell yeah. They want to go back to Kid Kong time. Yes.

You talk about the sexism, there's also a little bit of, you know, the portrayal of the Skull Island. Oh, yeah. Can be seen as a bit. Yeah. like problematic. Yeah, we shot the grounds at them and they ran away scared. They won't be coming back. King Kong kind of killing them.

Like, doesn't King Kong stomp his foot on one person, like in the village? Oh, yeah. Oh, right, yeah. Yeah. My favorite character was, what was his name, Charlie? Where, like, every word that he mispronounces is not even something that, like, a regular Asian person with a thick accent would say. but it's clearly just something

that the producers of this film thought that Asian people would mispronounce. He called it Blackfist. Some eggs for Blackfist. It's so bad. It's pretty funny. It's so bad.

Oh yeah. And then I wrote down one of his other lines. Me likey go to. Me want to catch Missy. Oof. That was a good moment. Oh my God. This is an exhilarating movie for me.

I'm glad you touched on that. do see this almost as a comedy. Oh, yeah. I laugh at it. Yeah, I laugh at those things. I obviously, yeah. Yeah, it's like a time capsule maybe. Yeah, it's a time capsule.

And I find those things funny. Well, I'm laughing at those things, but I also do appreciate the craft of making this kind of film. It's got everything. The King Kong. Yeah, it's got a little bit of everything. Right. It's got something for everyone. Had a budget, apparently.

I mean, obviously, there's inflation or whatever. It wasn't even a million dollars. It was like $700,000. Yeah. I mean inflation. but yeah yeah but like it was like fucking fucking fucking crazy you could buy a car for like seven bucks yeah and then it made like five million in the box office because you know everyone paid 25 cents to go fucking see it's such a different time oh yeah crazy yeah that's awesome though yeah it is it is cool

to watch is something like this and yeah unlike age cg age stop motion always has a certain charm to it i find with the very charming yeah with the way like each frame like all the hair is kind of movie in a different way. I just like that style a lot. It makes it scarier, too. Yes, yeah, it makes it way freaky. It is freaky. Like, Jason, the Argonauts, Clash That Titans, those kinds of movies.

Yeah, they're fun. It's fun to watch, like, stop motion. And King Kong's like one of those. Fucking Ray Harryhaus and shit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe not every kind of film. Like, the thing has some stop motion toward the end.

I think that kind of looks goofy. That's because the thing is like a, like, I feel like the vibe of that movie is much more realistic. Yeah. No, I agree with that. Yeah. I prefer, like, the practical effects. But in this movie, I think it works great, the comedic tone.

Yeah, because it was the only way to achieve Kong. Yeah. Yeah. They make Kong's face like very goofy. Yeah, he can't remind me of, like, Donkey Kong or something. Yeah. Can I fucking, like, who, why donkey? Was that a lost in translation thing?

He's a monkey. He's a fucking alien. Donkey Kong. I don't know enough about Nintendo law to know that, to be honest. I think it might have been like they thought that they were. were just doing like Gorilla Kong or something and then there was a they just mistranslated because they didn't have internet. Oh, I just googled.

Miyamoto used donkey to convey stubborn in English. The name Donkey Kong was intended to convey stubborn eight. Thanks for looking at that. Okay. That's awesome. Okay. Stubborn Kong. You know, I was thinking like they had to keep changing the name because like they would get sued

because of King Kong. It was too soon. Fine. He's a donkey. And eventually they just change a, Donkey Kong like and donkey Kong was okay for like the lawyers passed that like yeah that's fine yeah That's what I was thinking yeah I mean who knows with this shit this the structure of this film is also pretty crazy It's almost like climax

Gaspard does like a very similar structure Yeah it does actually it's like and go For the rest of the movie it gets fucking crazy like about halfway through it once they get on the island it gets pretty crazy yeah Yeah, I like that. But the stuff on the boat, like them getting to Skull Island doesn't take too long, which is probably my biggest criticism of the newest one. The movie's very snappy. It's got a good pace.

Like the characters are fun. Like you said, they got a bunch of dated misogynist dialogue, like stupid shit. But it's very entertaining. And then it's basically a monster movie. So then you watch all of them get killed, like thrown off fucking bridges. It's really funny. Yeah. It delivers what you expect and what you want and doesn't stay too long.

No, not all. In many ways, this movie feels like kind of like a tech demo for the time period. Because it seems like once they get to the island, every single action set piece is basically just an excuse to either show off or try some sort of filmmaking technique. And a lot of them could even be interchangeable. You're basically just making like a compilation of all these little different fight set piece sequences or action sequences and seeing like, okay, how can we film this one? What can we do for this, you know, sort of effect at the time? And a lot of it's really creative and really well done. And so, like, no shit, it was a huge success because, like, when you see so many of these sequences, one after the other, of just like, wow, that's a cool effect.

That's a cool effect. Especially for the time period when people had no idea how it was done. And they didn't know about these, like, backlit projector backgrounds and matte paintings and, you know, stop motion, blah, blah, blah. But, yeah, it very much feels like a tech demo in a way while not feeling. like a soulless tech demo like John Fabros, Lion King 2019 or anything like that. Yeah, a lot of VFX shots in this. It's the equivalent of a Lion King like that or an Avengers movie of today. It's just so much complexity.

And yeah, it's really impressive. Yeah, yeah, but it's just consistently entertaining. It's just very entertaining and it doesn't slog. Yeah. Yeah. The most impressive things, I think, are like, when the people and the animals are in the same shot, or like the dinosaur weather. Yeah, I agree.

And that was apparently done with like, they took like film of the actor separately and then they put the template in with the stop motion. And then frame by frame, they would like remove the frame of the actor and put a new one in and like, like, you know, capture that and then keep doing that like until, you know, they had the whole scene. That's great. And basically it would take like a second to do like, it would to do a second took like a fucking week or something. Yeah, that is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Turned out really well.

It turned out fucking awesome. Yeah. A lot of crazy action and a lot of problematic shit. And basically, like, every character is just trying to capture the white woman. Mm-hmm. There's a really fucking awful line in the movie that I was shocked was in there. Somehow shocked was in there. I hear it's something like a gorilla.

Hey, ain't we got enough of them in New York? Jesus fucking Christ. Oh, my God. Awful. I must have missed that. Fuck. That was bad. That was with the boogeys when they were sitting down to watch.

Kong. Oh, yeah. That's pretty bad. I mean, it gets visceral, emotional reactions out of me in more ways than one, you could say. I am very attentive watching this film. And it's a monster movie. You see those people get killed. Oh, yeah.

That's where it's, I feel like it's almost you can interpret it as being critical of that time and of these people. Yeah, possibly. You know, these kind of capitalist ideals, like them going to the island, like, oh, we'll bring back this. I show attraction back to New York City. Like, it's all, it's critical of that. He was a king in his land. Now we paid 25 cents for our amusement. Yeah, exactly.

They took this innocent creature and, you know, they destroyed him. You can say it is a pro-environmental, pro-animal rights movie. It might be why Hitler liked it so much. He was a vegetarian. Did they show this one in Germany? Yeah, he mentioned things like that in Manc.

Yeah. He's got good taste. Like that in Manc, like, publishing films. Yeah. They're so... It's a funny time period. It's like in 1930s. I mean, not funny at the same time, but funny to think about now.

It's funny because they're removed from it now. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, very not... I wouldn't survive. I'd be fucking lynched. Yeah. In this film, like, in this context, it's quite funny. Yeah.

Yeah. It's kind of harmless, I feel, in this film. Oh, yeah. It's still very funny to think about now. Yeah. That's how I feel about it, yeah. I mean, we should obviously watch it knowing that with that context of what it is. You can't really miss it.

It is really funny. Yeah. You can't miss it. Yeah. At times, yeah. What do you think about the last line of the film? Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beattie that killed the beast.

It's very profound. Yeah, maybe for the time. Yeah. I mean, it's on the nose, but it's kind of an on-the-nose movie. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like in the tone of this film, it perfectly encapsulates the story. It's pretty cheese. It is very cheese, but the whole movie's very cheese.

Yeah. Yeah, it's goofy as well. I think it works better than in the new one. Agreed. Yeah, we'll talk about that. Delivered by Jack Black. What would we give 1933 King Kong out of 10? Five out of five.

Yeah, I think I'd give this a four, four stars. Okay. I'm giving this one an eight out of ten It's a classic piece of cinema history Yes it is everyone should see it It's fucking wild It's crazy it's crazy yeah We also saw Peter

Peter Jackson King Kong his version 2005 and it was his attempt To bring the old movie to a new generation of people but also his own thing And this is fresh after his massive success with Lord of the Rings

and there are some things about it that I understand and feel like justified logical sensible changes there are other things about it that don't what did you think? I'm really torn I really dislike half the movie and I really quite like the other half

but they just pull each other down yeah because I don't see ultimately why it was necessary to Lord of the Rings King Kong. I don't see why that runtime needed to be three hours plus. This film is way too long. Like it's actually absurd. But when you're like two and a half hours in, or even at the beginning, it takes like an hour to get to the island. Why? Why?

Half an hour max, come on, to get to the island with the giant monkey. I hear that criticism so much. It seems like everybody complains about the time it takes to get to the island. But I feel like I have the like somewhat of the opposite problem. I feel like the movie only really gets exhausting for me when it's action after action after action and all these different action set pieces that like go on for too long without really much happening in the story developing. Like sure, they're interspersed with like some Naomi Watts juggling for Kong or whatever, but that's about it, you know.

I found like the part on the boat not to be a slog really at all. I found that to, you know, there's some elements of cheese there. But the entire trip to the island, I really didn't, it didn't feel slow for me. It didn't, I wasn't getting impatient. Perhaps if in my mind I was thinking like, but I want to get to the island sort of thing, then maybe I would have felt a little differently. But I kind of liked what was going on with the characters and with what they were setting up. And I found it to actually be a bit better than a lot of what happened on the island, honestly.

I guess the problem I have is that all the characters they set, they set up this whole ensemble in the first hour. and then it's mostly abandoned and pointless. Like the whole the Jimmy character and with the... Yeah. It's always named Jimmy, the young one. I just don't understand why that was a necessary part of the movie.

And even the same with the actor guy, the actor character, like there isn't much payoff to him. Yeah. He was kind of Bruce Baxter. Like that whole character was kind of like they could have cut all that shit out of the movie and feel him look. at the posters of himself like I don't know if that's just the extended cut I guess that

also does feel like pretty Lord of the Rings II is like the entire ensemble you know just having like so many characters yeah I think it's the wrong project it's not necessary Lord of the Rings has more time to justify all of these characters but yeah they invented characters for this like Jim's just more interesting I feel a lot of these characters are just very corny and unbelievable like I didn't buy any of them as real people and I think that works better in the other one where it was just completely corny and over the top and all the characters it's just like a dumb monster movie

and this is just it's trying to be something a little more and it's like it's like an hour long because he's like I want to develop these characters but at the same time the characters are just not that interesting and it's kind of cliched a lot of the stuff going on. They just have a beginning but no middle or end really right

aside from Naomi Watts I guess and Jet Black those I guess those the two kind of most developed ones but the rest of the ensemble is kind of irrelevant There's a lot about this film that feels really conflicting in that sense. Like there's parts near the beginning where it almost seems like they're going to do the same thing I was talking about with the 30s movie, which is the dialect. Whereas in that one it was like natural and this one they would have to put a bit more effort into it. And it almost seemed like that was kind of happening at the beginning.

And then they just forgot about it. Maybe as soon as Jack Black entered, who he pulls off the asshole character. but he doesn't pull off the I believe you know you're in the 30s character and then at that point I have to wonder why is this film set in the 30s Why wouldn't why wasn't this film set in like 2005 or any other time period like it's not like it's not like the original king Kong was a period piece There's nothing that's inherent to that period that justifies Yeah the anything really in the in the first king Kong film so it's weird that they decided to make this one a period piece but also didn't fully commit in terms of not only just acting, which is a big one, but also in terms of like a lot of the visuals, like even when you're in New York before you get to the island, it feels very computery in some

shots. Like some of these are like obvious green screens of like New York. And it's like even in the real physical environments, like sure, you have to do some digital shit obviously to make it look like it's from the time period. But like it's just, it shouldn't feel this fake while you're pretending like it's old at the same time because it's a modern fake and it feels very conflicting. It felt like a video game almost. Yeah, I was watching Mafia, like a Mafia cutscene.

Yeah, it remind me of some of the worst shots from the prequels. Yeah, that kind of look. It's just unnecessary. Like the world building at the beginning, there were all these shots of like the city and there's these construction workers. And yeah, like he said, this bad green screen. It's like, why do we even need to see this? Like, I get we're in 1930s New York City.

Like, I know, like, we saw the original King Kong. It's just like so padded out And then I think this was cut out of the theatrical cut but Naomi Watts and her whole like theater production like getting closed down and then her old friend moves out of out of the state or whatever like it was so fucking cordy and not like interesting I think that that's you know how like the new Disney movies are kind of like trying to address the issues of like the older films as they remake them I think that's kind of the same thing that was happening here is because in the original king's Kong her care like she wasn't really given much agency or character or back story and so I think that they were trying to make up for that she literally just gets fucking like adopted off the street first movie like hey I'm trying to steal an apple come with me yeah they literally spin this one they had to like give a bit more of like a justification and they still had the like

the apple thing too but it's weird because it's like it's in one sense they're trying to recreate it In another sense, they're trying to basically contradict it or address and change and update it. And it just feels like kind of a conflicting experience at times. Yeah, because in the original one, there's the scene when the guy first picks her up and she, like, automatically loves him and, like, wants to screw him, I guess. And then they spin it in the new one where Jack Black seems to be coming onto her and she's kind of creeped out by it. And that's kind of flipping it to be a bit more progressive in that way. as you'd expect from you know the crew making it yeah it still just develops into like a generic love story with Adrian Brody and just the goofy scenes of like them on the ship she thinks he's someone

else it's like it's like a it's like a be cute like yeah yeah it's fucking yeah it's fucking you know one of those bookie you know little fucking nerds who never talks to anybody and got a big fucking nose oh oh he's right behind nice legs so sea legs I don't know. I think it was tonally inconsistent in that way too, where it does have the goofy comedy like that, but then when they get to the island and one of the crew members is executed,

it's like really vicious and violent. There's all these kind of horror themes. And then it does feel very, like you're being pulled around a lot. Speaking of conflicted and progressive, this film handled the native tribes people much worse than the film 80 years beforehand. Which is saying a lot

It was like holy They're just zombies Like what's going on? It seemed like he was going like full Horror movie with stuff like that He was like directing it like a horror movie Yeah which I mean like he has experience in that And like I started to think of like the opening scene

And like brain dead dead alive When I was watching some of this shit you know Yeah It's pretty scary What movie are you making Again if feels like really conflicting and weird. Especially because it's not really that necessary, to be honest.

Yeah, it really is. Yeah, that's not what is interesting about the island. It's the giant dinosaurs and the giant. Yeah. Because like this latest Kong Skull Island movie that came out, I think it's actually a lot better than this movie. It's a lot more consistent tonally, at least. And it kind of knows what it is a bit more.

And it's set like, it's more like a Vietnamy kind of thing that is going to fall. Yeah, okay. I don't know if I'd agree with you, it's better. but I would agree it knows what it is more. Yeah, it knows what it is and it isn't three hours long. Yeah, that film doesn't take itself that seriously, which is something I do like about it. No, it's goofy and it knows what it is.

Something I do like about this one, though, is like Peter Jackson clearly has a love for the original film and he wanted to pay homage to it in many ways that I think are respectful. Like, he clearly, it's not like a studio cash grab, this movie. It actually feels like a passion project. And that's also frustrating about it to me because there are parts of it. I really love, like the early scenes of Jack Black and the movie producers and stuff and him saying like you can trust me I'm a movie producer and all that kind of

stuff I do enjoy that a lot and where it starts but as you say once you get to that island and you just get to like these action scenes where a bunch of dinosaurs are like running down a cliff and running under them and it's like the so silly I thought was pretty cool fucking fucking running kick a velociraptor I thought the movie got much better once once king con comes in and he starts fighting dinosaurs and that shit like I thought all that was pretty great I think I think the dinosaur fight's pretty impressive, actually, that whole sequence, as well as King Kong at the end in New York City. I think both those scenes were pretty well done. Yeah, I think the action scenes that rely on humans being a part of the action, the ones that don't work.

Like, I really think that chase is just awful. The dinosaur one, where like the... Yeah. It's like the giant, what's the called the long-necked ones, that eat, the herbivore ones. Those dinosaurs that are like herbivores with the long-macket. Yeah, it only works if it's able to well-werex ones. with the kind of excess of it and the visual effects but now the visual effects of age

and it doesn't even look that good anymore it looks terrible and there's no excuse for it because Jurassic Park came out like 10 years before it looks so much. I would argue even when it came out it looked fucking weird yeah it looked bad yeah like even in that time period like there's a stark difference between

the human characters and the dinosaur characters and the proportions sometimes feel weird and inconsistent like you're just like like you're dragging them along with like your mouse in the scene sort of thing. There's a lot of weird shit and it's really present in that scene in particular. Yeah, some things feel rushed like some of those effects. And I think it's because the movie's just too long.

They just had so much shit to do. But I think the parts where they really focused on like that dinosaur fight, like those those are pretty detailed and I thought all that was great. And the sound is on too. It was like an update of, you know, the original. original one. It's a groundbreaking, spectacular dinosaur fight with King Kong. And I

think in that way, it is a great update. Yeah, and this is what I mean about the torn thing, because while I really dislike that chase scene with the dinosaurs, I kind of really like that bug scene. It's like the most horrifying hellish, like imagery.

The penis worms. It's got a lot of tension to it. Yeah, there's weird worms that was apparently inspired by like a dream, like a nightmare that one of the animators kept having or something. It does feel like a nightmare that sequence. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

But actually, I think it kind of fits more. Andy Circus. How do you guys feel about Andy Circus? He played two characters. He was also the chef, yeah. You got eaten by the cocks or, yeah. Oh, yeah. I thought he was fine in that role.

King Kong, it's him playing a CGI character again. Another groundbreaking performance. and there's like a lot of more emotion you get from the gorilla yeah and they give him a bit of like history when they when he goes back to his cave and he's got all the like skeletons of his whole family or whatever

it is it is like it's presented as more of a love story where like Naomi Watts is falling in love with this giant ape or whatever it's very weird I'm like what the fuck is this that's why I prefer the other one where it's just a it's just a goofy gorilla yeah and like

I think King Kong just likes having around like kind of like a Barbie doll like I don't think he feels one way yeah in the original film he like looked up her fucking dress remember yeah it was like that element but it was like that was funny more rapy than the original I guess and now it's like she loves him yeah and king Kong's much more self-aware like there's the scene at the end where they're on the ice and like they're going around that's so weird yeah it's like come on with this shit because they had to like give a bit of like a moment so that like the audience I guess was reminded of their love or something before the end.

Yeah, they were trying to make you sympathize with King Kong, but in a way that was too, it was just too much. It was a lot. It was a force fed. Yeah. How did you think the effects held up for King Kong specifically? Because I felt it was kind of all over the place. Some of it look really good still.

But there was the odd moment where it does look like a 2005. like CG movie Yeah most part look like I'm not taken out of it a whole lot for that Yeah I don't think The only part that looked like pretty bad to the point where it was distracting Was the dinosaur chase scene part like that part's just really weird looking Everything else like they could have cut that out of the movie in the penis worm scene like the animation looks about A billion times better in that scene somehow like it looked like way more modern

I don't know if you noticed this but like yeah it was so so much I think it's like cleaner animation. It looked really good. Yeah, I don't, I don't know what. I just put more work at it. Something to do with like their textures and like it was like kind of slimy and shiny and stuff and maybe that helped rather than like fur and insects. Yeah. Insects are quite good for CG on there. Yeah.

Yeah, that that looked fantastic despite being 2005. So yeah. I mean, there's some parts of the CG that look great and some that didn't. I didn't really find too much inconsistent about just King Kong himself though, or at least not to my memory. Yeah, I thought I looked fine for the most part. I thought I needed Andy Circus was good. I'm not sure if there were like performers like as other CGI things, like the dinosaurs or... I'm not sure.

The film is just too long. It's just too fucking long. The whole middle of the film is just a blur to me. Like I don't even remember like everything after the dinosaur fight to when they get to the city. It's just so like long. There's a lot of it. The movie could have just been two hours. Yeah, there is a good two-hour movie.

Yeah, the dinosaur chase and like the whole opening so many scenes on the ship with backsterns It's like all this shit could be cut out. He had Jimmy and the captain like he's like oh I'm reading now Who the fuck cares about Jamie Bell like yeah I really don't give a shit about Jimmy It's not about being brave Jimmy yeah his whole story didn't need to be there that was weird the core of the movie should have been Naomi Watts Adrian Brody and and Jack Black yeah and Jack Black I don't think he was great but you know he was trying I like that he would be good for a certain tone

it wasn't typecast yeah he wasn't typecast I like that but yeah because I was enjoying his character and how smarmy he is and how he's just like lying to everyone because he's basically the villain of the movie and but again it doesn't it doesn't give enough time to the interesting characters it's more interested in the action kind of like it is torn in that way

where it's like yeah we want to make this a more modernized kind of of in-depth movie where the characters go through more stuff and the visual effects and the action is just like next level but the way it all comes together it's like it is conflicting with itself in so many different ways yeah yeah that's how I feel about it what would you say is improved because I can think of like a couple things improve I don't know if anything's improved but I think things are updated in a way that justify it existing like like the dinosaur fight Like that scene is really impressive and I could see a modern day audience really enjoying that as compared to the old one Which is great in in some respects, but I don't think it's as visceral or immersive as like this one where he's fucking like smashing his jaw and like giant like

bass and sound like it's like really impressive I that's what Peter Jackson like really wanted to do with this and I think those scenes are really good Mm-hmm there's there's a couple tiny things like you know, in the boat, you can tell that the boat's actually moving in the scenes. They have a lot of objects like swaying back and forth to imply the movements and the way the camera is, whereas in the original film, it's like stationary. It's like, oh, they're in a boat, but it looks like any other room. It's the most sturdy boat of all times.

It's like there is no swaying. It's like the most calm sea of all time sort of thing, right? So I would call that an improvement. I would also, this is a tiny one here, but I would call it an improvement in terms of like how King Kong got distracted by the flash photography. Because in the first one, there was a bunch of photographers that lined up to the side of King Kong that got apparently the worst angle of all time. And then he just freaked out, but they were photographing King Kong.

In the remake, they were like, okay, that looks stupid. And so they had Jack Black and actor man being photographed in front of King Kong. So it's like that way you get to retain the whole, oh, the flash photography is right next to him but it justifies why they're there rather than getting a better angle out in the audience. Yeah, that is better. That's true. The whole King Kong after he escapes that point and he's like picking up all these random, random girls on the street and checking like, is this one?

Nope. Tosses them to the side. I found that part to be like hilarious. And in the original film, although we kind of get that with the really, I guess, iconic scene of King Kong's fist going through a window and like grabbing different girls. In that film, I didn't really feel like I got much of a sense for like how many that he would have like grabbed and checked. It really just seems like he got it like on the second try and it's really coincidental

sort of thing. Literally just like grabs her. Whereas despite being maybe arguably as cheesy, there is a bit more of a justification for Naomi Watts seeking out King Kong and going there rather than him just happen. to find the right window or something, right? Yeah. So there's a couple things that are improved from like a bit of a presentation perspective and a bit of a logical perspective, I guess.

Mm-hmm, definitely. So like they put thought into it. I don't hate this movie at all. No. There are just some things that maybe felt better on paper and didn't translate as well. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

They needed to go further. It needed to just, like, choose what it really wanted to be, I think. Yeah. Because, yeah, is it like a modernized version of the old... Like, he could have gone for, like, a different tact where it was more like a, like, a Lying approach where it was more like shot for show almost. But I just... I've seen this, for some reason, I've watched this movie twice this year.

I happen to watch it during the first quarantine. Oh, I'm sorry. So, so... So watching it again, it. it really was like a kind of a slog for me because it's just so long and as much as there are things I like about it I just can't with that length it's just three hours and I just don't feel like the payoff is there and I remember really liking the movie when I first saw it at the cinema but I would have been like 11 and a lot has changed in the industry now and we've been

blown away in new ways so going back to movies that are built around trying to implement impress you with the excess. If they're not done in a certain way, they don't tend to age as good as, you know, some more thoughtful interpretations of like special effects. So, yeah, I just, I can't really connect with this movie. It just drives me insane after, once I get to about two and a half hours, I'm so desperate for this to end at this point because you've kind of shown me everything that you have to offer and you know how the film is.

ends so everyone knows how King Kong ends. Yeah, we know the whole story. And then it ends with the Jack Black line and, I don't know, it just doesn't work for me. It just doesn't come together. Yeah, it's the middle. It takes too long. It takes too long to get to the goods.

And there's that whole section in the middle where it's like set in broad daylight. And I don't know if it was just my TV or whatnot, but that section specifically is where the chase sequence is, is the worst looking section. Because the other parts of the, the other scenes in the movie are kind of set in parts of the day where the lighting is a bit more forgiving for CG, you know, like the New York sequence. Yeah, we'd have a light to the earth that, I guess.

Yeah, New York's like foggy too. Yeah, they, there's like mist and other things, right? Yeah, so that whole daylight section is, it stands out to me. Yeah, like, it's going to look like shit, yeah. Yeah. So you see the effects, yeah. I have a, I have a lot of issues. Yeah, a lot of action in service of action.

Mm-hmm. I mean, the action's pretty excessive, too. I'll give it that. That's just the whole movie's just too long. That's just my biggest complaint with it. It could have been less than two hours easily. Mm-hmm. And it takes too long to get to Kankang. It takes too long to get to the island. It just takes too long to get from A to B when you know what's going to happen the whole time. And it's the same movie. It's really, in essence, the same movie. It even takes place in the 30s. So, I feel like Blade Runner 2049 or something like that is a much better update. of like an original film.

It takes the good stuff, it tells a new story. It's not predictable. Yeah, it's not too long. It's not indulgent. It delivers on what you want. And this just takes too long to deliver on what you want. I don't even think that dinosaur fights till like two hours into the movie, right? It's like it takes so long to get there.

And I feel like that's the scene. I feel like that's what you watch the movie for. Yeah, exactly. That should have been an hour in. Yeah. Because it's awesome. It's like the misuse and, of action where it takes some of the punch away when you've been just given so many action scenes

like the action scene on the boat where they're like dodging rocks and then you've got the chase scene with the dinosaurs it's just like never-ending bombardment so when you actually get the stuff you want you're almost like yeah i mean i've already seen like crazy stuff how much crazier could this possibly get yeah tired yeah it's like overstimulation almost uh-huh yeah it's exhausting yeah i mean i would argue it it could be even two and a half hours long and still be and like not like feel like it's dragging on way too long because remember this is like this isn't a three hour movie this is a three and a half hour movie basically like the yeah the director's cut isn't that much longer than the theatrical it's still like what did they

add because i didn't watch that version and i don't think there's only like two scenes that stuck out to me is different there's one where there's like you know the scene in in lord of the rings where there's like the bog or whatever and frito falls into the water it was like kind of like that except there was like a half-life fish they were running away from and then Adrian Brody's like walking under the water really slowly and it looks kind of shit

it really doesn't look good and it's really drawn out for what that is yeah it's a really weird scene and then there's um oh yeah they'd like kill an ostrich or something and which is weird because like in that scene yeah yeah um

they actually used like a like a puppet animatronic thing it looked like a Jim Hiddish in like dark crystal. They like shot an ostrich and then they see it on the ground. It's dawning. No, it was like a creature, but it was like a good one. Yeah, it was a weird looking ostrich thing.

And it was like not CG. It was like practical. And that was interesting. So wait, all that stuff with Naomi Watts in the beginning, that's in the other cut too? I didn't recognize anything different about like the entire first part of the movie. My immediate thought was like half of that stuff could be cut out of the movie. I thought that was just the ecstatic about like her show being closed down and stuff No that was in the yeah that was in the original cut that's in both yeah oh my god

Yeah, that was in the one I would have removed all that It's just so pointless it's just like that could have been explained in like two lines of dialogue And then we could have moved on with the story Yeah, I don't mind I still don't mind the first however long of the movie I really still feel like it it only gets to be a chore in the middle I do like the angle of like how they change changed up the justification for why they're going to the island and why the film was being made and how Jack Black's like in debt like right away from these yeah and he's like tricking everyone that's fun that's cute I like it and it like also justifies the urgency of it

you know there's tiny changes like that that I kind of like but yeah I I would agree it's too long for what it is although not complete torture for me I'll still I'll still rewatch this film every five years or something just to peak my curiosity of the experience. It doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth overall. I feel the same way. I like it. Yeah, there's so many parts I feel like a go. I wish I liked it more.

Yeah, I'm glad Peter Jackson that he got to make it. It's like his favorite film or something. It's like a pure passion project. But, yeah, it's just aged way too long. I just wish that first act, had some kind of payoff at the end and I'd be fine with a length, honestly. If you just earn it, that's all I'm asking for. But it just feels like wasted time.

Otherwise, the whole Jimmy thing is just, it's like laughably bad, the Jimmy thing to me. And it's like such a, there's so many scenes dedicated to it. And it makes it seem like it's like a focus. It really doesn't matter. A real part of the story, but it doesn't. It doesn't. It's just finished. Yeah.

And like, there's all this, like, trivia about how the guy played Jimmy was like staying an accent the whole time. he was on set and stuff. I don't get what they were going for with that because it goes nowhere, and he's not even in the last section of the movie. Well, I'm glad we got to talk about it. It was a fun discussion. And I'm glad I got to, you know,

it justified me watching the whole original movie, which is pretty fucking wild. Yeah. What would you guys give King Kong 2005 out of 10? Oh, that's hard. I don't know. You guys rate it first. Easy.

Six out of 10. Done. Yeah, I'm right down the middle of two and a half stars. Five out ten. I'm leaning more toward liking it, so I'd do six out of ten like Adam, like three stars. But there's so many problems with it. Yeah. I can understand people who don't like it at all.

Yeah. If I saw it twice in one year, I might give it a five instead of a six. Sorry, Alex. I would definitely recommend the regular cut, too. The theatrical cut's shorter, so watch the shorter cut. If you could find a cut that's even shorter than that. It's barely short. I would I honestly like it's it's like three hours ten minutes yeah it's still too

yeah so it doesn't really make a difference maybe there's a fan cut out there somewhere that wouldn't be a bad project right that's the only thing a fan cut we think to the island half hour in yeah yeah they should have been on the boat ready to go 10 minutes in okay let's do some questions from the Saldonica subreddit if you want to leave your own questions head over there and leave whatever you like in the suggestion thread let's start with this one from GigiG 370 five who says you wake up tomorrow, look in the mirror and see Neil Breen looking back at you. Much to your surprise, you've become a clone of Breen, possessing the same supernatural abilities

he displays in his films, the ability to freeze time, hack government servers, hook up with bad actresses half your age, eat tuna, etc. How would you use your otherworldly abilities to help mankind, or would you instead use your powers to help yourself? That was the most upvoted comment. Wow. Probably the same way Neil Breen does in his movies. I just play God and execute half the population or some shit, Thanos Snap. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, freeze time, collect all the tuner in the world. Collect all the laptops. Yeah, collect all the guitar tuners. I would steal every laptop and iPhone, make it so people have to go outside. Yeah, that's something Neil Breen would do Makes no sense And heck the news Be like

Everybody stop being bad And no more corruption please Or else I'll kill all you To teach everyone a lesson I was thinking like a ready player one kind of thing Like reject technology Go outside Yeah

Reject modernity Embrace tradition That's what I'm going for We're banning it on Tuesdays Exactly That's what I do is Gleprin Oh god

I don't know I would start a fucking crowdfunding campaign fucking first thing Start a cult I don't know I just make a fucking I want to know how much

He would get in a crowdfunding campaign I think he would do really well It's weird how he just refuses to As if it's attached to some sort of like Unprofessionalism in movies Because he's like It's not a midnight movie I want actual producers. I can't do crowdfunding

But at the same time it's like fuck I don't know Charlie Kaufman did some crowdfunding for anomalisa, you know like Suck it up Like there's there's there's legitimate films made with crowdfunding help come on People want to support you dude I would want like a really great filmmaker director to wake up his Neil Breen like I want I want like Chris Nolan to wake up his Neil Breen And then like he makes a great movie, but everyone thinks Neil Breen made it like that's what I want to happen I think that'd be really cool and Neil Breen's finally like an actual like respected Oscar.

Oh, that's probably what happened with Tenet. Oh, what? Just the other way. Just like the reverse. Yeah. Yeah, that's an insult to Tenet. Okay, Adam, you'll like this one. From Glesger underscore Kamo.

What's your opinion on the New York Times, 25 greatest actors of the past 20 years list? I know at least Adam has taken a look at this. So who do you think is too high? too low, any notable snubs. And finally, anyone who definitely shouldn't be there. And I feel like those answers obvious if you've seen Adam's Twitter. I don't know.

There's some actors on here that I really like. And what's interesting about this is this article is written by two different people. It's written by Manholadargus. I butchered that name, I'm sure. And A.O. Scott, who is a much more recognizable name. You can see his quotes on DVDs and shit. There's a lot of actors on here I do like, and there's some choices on here that I just find to be, like, absolutely nonsense.

Like Melissa McCarthy, and then also, Keanu Reeves, on the number four spot, I think. Let me just check this out. Above Joaquin Phoenix, yeah. However is you saying. Meaning that these two people could not name five actors that are better than Keanu Reeves in the past 10 years, right?

Which is nonsense. And you read the justification and A.O. Scott's writing things like, can you name one film that has not been improved by his presence? And my answer is yes. Have you seen fucking knock knock by Eli Roth? His performance is terrible. Have you seen the Lakehouse? Like, there's other people you could have cast in those movies and they would have been better,

not just like, oh, yeah, I love Keanu. Hashtag Big Chungus, Reddit, meme face like wholesome 100 like it seems like that's what he's doing but he's a professional critic you know it's like Jesus Christ yeah it is I was glad to see Tilda Swinton and willem defile on there at least yeah that was a good one I was glad to see some non-American actors that I really like on there like Song Kang Ho yeah yeah it seems like yeah you never know you never know how many of these are on there because they're like trying to make

it seem like they pay more attention to foreign films than they actually do sort of thing I don't know. Right, it's kind of like a pandering. Yeah, I feel the same way. But like there's good choices. Viola Davis is a good choice. Yeah, like I wouldn't necessarily agree

but I'm happy that they know about them sort of thing. But there would be better actors to fill those same spots if there is some sort of like quota that they're looking for is what I would say. Get rid of Melissa McCarthy, though. Yeah, that's the most bizarre one.

Like really? Melissa McCarthy. 25 greatest actors of 2020, where the whole decade, Jesus Christ, she's great at falling down in movies. That's what she does. And even in her films where she's like,

I'm a serious actor now, like, can you ever forgive me? She was fine. That was about it. Like, I'm sorry. She's not like a, a great actor or anything. Like, Wilm Defoe is 18.

He should be higher than 18. I think he should be in the top 10. Yeah. Like, Melissa McCarthy, I can't not see as Melissa McCarthy. She's not even, like, an actor in the same way. In the same list as, like, Tilda Swinton. Like, you know, it does seem a bit silly. Yeah, there's some things on here, like Ketrin de Neve.

Oh, yeah, Mahershala Lee was on there, I think. Oh, yeah, Viola Davis, Viola. I forget. I always forget which way. Yeah, Viola, I think. Oscar Isaac, Tilda Swinton's one of my favorite of all time. Joaquin Phoenix, I'd be mad if he wasn't anywhere there. I don't think Sersha Ronan's

one of the 25 greatest actors of the past 10 years or whatever. I really don't. She's fine. She's good. But I feel like every single movie I've ever seen her in, there's always like one or two lines where a bit of the Irish comes out and I notice it and I'm reminded that she's an Irish actor. Like every single movie I've ever seen her in

where she's not playing an Irish character. Like there's a bit that slips out. I'm like, mm, you almost had it she's she's okay She could be Jordan like how do you feel about I don't know I'm trying to think of like some great ones that I've seen him in really I don't think yeah I I'm sure these been in things that I haven't seen that maybe Are just that much better but again. Yeah, yeah, he wasn't Phantforstic yeah unless he's like that's not a good one insane in Fruitvale station then I don't think I would put him on the list of

crew fail station but i've never seen him like take on a role that's really out there yeah you know like how samuel jackson takes on like a bunch of different really interesting roles yeah true he could play glass and the guy from king's man and then he's also like you know this is a bunch of weird guys i don't know if michael bjordans is true it'll et jifor on the list he should be on here yeah like what the fuck he should be awesome yeah gal Garcia bernal that's a go more yeah like he was in a barra's a bad he bail i'm glad she's there and then number one one Denzel Washington I kind of disagree with number one yeah number one I don't know I feel I feel like I could probably name 25 better actors than Denzel Washington anyway Denzel Washington's a good actor he's good

number one's weird somewhere on the list yeah he definitely deserves a spot somewhere on the list especially because the list is like of the past 10 years or whatever right or like what is what is this supposed to be like exactly like I love training day yeah training days a while like his Best performances certainly aren't recent. Yeah, man on fire. Like yeah, I love those movies. Those are old. In the last 20 years they say.

Yeah, so everything from 2000 to now. Yeah, that doesn't work. Yeah, recently is like Equalizer 2, Magnificent 7. Like, I don't know, he's been in something recently that's, I mean, fences he was good in, but fences isn't one of the greatest films of the decade, I don't think. Yeah. Yeah, I just, yeah, I don't know about this list. It seems pretty dumb, honestly.

It seems really fucking... Of the 21st. Century. Okay. So those movies are in the past 20 years. Yeah. So those movies did come out. It just feels like they farted this out. That's clickbait. It's just something about lists is just irresistible to people. They're like the most discussed like concepts that humans have come up with and we like just share lists on the internet and argue and get annoyed about it. I think they wanted to play it very safe. It seems like a very safe list. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100% you can tell. It feels like a very safe list. Yeah. Because they know a lot of people are going to see it. They don't want to raise a lot of controversy. Yeah. But there's a few. choices on here. I mean, if you want to go by like biggest movie stars, yeah, Keanu Reeves deserves a spot.

He's a huge movie star, but like, are we talking like the craft of acting or because like Daniel D. Lewis, you know, he's fucking pretty great. He's better than Keanu Lewis, I think. He is in there. He's, I think he's ahead of Keanu Reeves. Yeah, but they're like, it's like Keanu Reeves, Daniel DeLois, neck and neck. Like, I don't know. Yeah. Keanu Reeves is a, I bet he's a great guy, a great person that's not a lot. He's a movie star. I mean, his craft. The craft of acting. The Melissa McCarthy and Keanu Reeves being on the list is just enough to tell you what the list is, you know? It's enough to tell you how serious they are.

Yeah. It would be weird if I found out that A.O. Scott genuinely believes that Keanu Reeves is the fourth greatest actor of the past 20 years. Of the century so far. Yeah. And like have seen more than one of his movies or something. Like, I don't know. Maybe if you count like Action

Yeah he's good at fighting It's the it's the like dialogue part that Yeah The greatest actors Yeah That's the list It's the acting part that we're And then and then yeah

The justification is just stardom It's like that's not the same thing as actor You can say fucking Logan Paul You know like You can say that about any famous person Like oh fucking Paris Hilton. Maybe I should pick a more recent one, so I don't seem like as much of a boomer.

I don't know. The Rok. Yeah, I would say the Rock's a better actor than Keanu Reeves. Honestly, I mean, Rock's not even a great actor. He does one thing very well, like Keanu. But he's never chosen roles that have been like so embarrassing like Keanu has. Like Knock Knock. By the way, if anybody doesn't believe me or hasn't seen this awful film called Knock Knock,

which the entire fucking thing is basically just Eli Roth's like. weird porn fantasy sort of thing it's like a fan fiction it's so bad somebody uploaded the entire ending of the movie on on YouTube and a couple other moments from the film where Keanu does a terrible job acting

so I encourage you to check out these clips on YouTube just search Keanu Reeves Knock Knock and I'm sure you'll find some good clips because it's really embarrassing right Knock Knocks on Netflix my parents watch her recently they fucking hated it so bad wow that was fucking terrible I'm like really

Who watched it recently? Did you say your parents? My parents. Oh, God. My parents watched it because they like Keanu Reeves. Oh. They're like, it's Kenna Reeves. And they're like, this is fucking terrible.

It's terrible. It's like, it's worse than I could expect from Eli Roth, which is saying a lot. That says a lot. Yeah. I know. He made a Bruce Willis movie. It's just so embarrassing. A very safe list.

I don't know if they can't have like, I don't know if they do a list every century and they don't want to do repeats. But there's some actors on here that I think they're seriously missing. Like Colin Firf. or Colin Farrell like any Colin. Yeah, all the Collins.

All the Collins. They're missing all the calls. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of good people. Rami Malick. Maybe he hasn't done enough yet. There's a billion.

Like, if I honestly put my mind to it, I could name a bunch. Yeah. Philip Seymour Hoffman. There's a bunch out there. Like, I don't know.

Fucking Mickey Rourke has done a better job than Keanu Reeves in the past 20 years. The wrestler is very good in the wrestler, yeah. That's an awesome one.

Even Iron Man 2. He's better than like John Wick. He's better at Iron Man 2. Just like pick any random cast member from a fucking Hanukkah film like just like one of the kids in the white ribbon. Like that's better than Keanu. Like come on. Leonardo Caprio.

Yeah, where's he? I don't know. Fuck it. Brad Pitt. It's better than Keanu Reeves and Melissa McCarthy. Fucking, I don't know. There's a billion. The list goes on.

Yeah, that's what I mean. There must be, I don't know. There's some. that they just don't want to put on there for some reason. They're just like pretending those actors don't exist. It's the most logical explanation. They should have done a list of 50. They should have done a list of like 50 actors.

Make everyone happy. 100, I don't give a shit. 100. Yeah. Yeah, that's what they usually do. Fucking Lupita Nyongo. She could have been on the list. Yeah.

She was excellent. Yeah. In Star Wars, the Force Awakens. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, that's the one. That's the one. He's known for it, right? Yeah, that's...

All right, next question. Vince is depressed, has one for us. Since you're talking about King Kong, I'd like to ask this. What is a movie you like that has really weird sexual implications? King Kong being attracted to the blonde lady, for example. Another example, and more famous, is slave layer in Return of the Jedi. The whole layer being enslaved by Jabba has, to me, really weird sexual implications. Can you think of any others?

Shape of water, Coal Cat. Done. Shape of water is a good one. Yeah. The ones you mentioned the question are pretty gross. Do I even need to go further? Everybody knows. Shape of water and Cool Cat.

What about Avatar? The Avatar was the first thing that puts into my head. Oh yeah, they like fuck with their hair or something, right? It's like a human going into like an alien body than fucking... Are the aliens? It's quite weird. It's a... That is really...

You can do the shit in VR now or something. James Cameron's just too far ahead, yeah. I've never thought about a movie in such a way, so I can't even answer this question. Fucking vanilla. The King Kong one's weird, yeah. It's like she's attracted to him, too. It's like they're falling in love.

That's what makes it so weird. Yeah. It's like, yeah, like a romance plot, but with a fucking giant CGI gorilla. It's like so silly. God, when you put it like that. Because that's not the way it is in the other one. He's just like a big oaf.

It's a very weird thing to add to the Because like her character is just a fucking weirdo now Like what is wrong see ya I think it relatable and sympathetic to modern day audiences. That's that was their justification So she barely fucking knows the guy too Yeah, she just met Tom Yeah, they should have dinner first That would have been a funny scene

King Kong like sitting at a restaurant He's like yeah it's like a normal restaurant like yeah it's like a normal restaurant like a little table and he's like in a giant yeah he's like whatever does that happen in the 70s one oh yeah in the 70s one he's actually on the twin towers instead of the oh really instead of uh yeah instead of uh the empire state building yeah oh okay uh mobile association eight has one that's a bit less sexual who is your least favorite actor based on their work and acting style if you guys need a moment to think of, I've got one. I can throw out there.

That being Marky Mark. I'm just, I am. Yeah, I, there's something about him that I, it's kind of the Melissa McCarthy problem where I just can't not see Mark Wahlberg. What? No. Yeah, I'm so glad you did that because, but it's just what he is to me there. Yeah, I know, right?

That's why it's happening so good. Any other actor, it wouldn't be as good. That's a good one. The thing with like, even Melissa McCarthy, I think they're good in a certain role. Like, spy, she's good. Or Mark Wahlberg is good as like a cop or like a plumber. It's just when they,

you try to proclaim them as like one of the greatest actors of the century. It like starts to become like annoying. It's when they become really, because like Mark Wahlberg's like considered one of the greatest actors in Hollywood. We're like, he's, I think he's the highest paid. Those are different things. Definitely.

Yeah, that's too. He has been good movies. He works with a lot of great directors. Yeah, Scorsese and all the money in the world. People pay money to watch movies that he's in. And that gets you more roles, which is why The Rock is the biggest. Because every movie he's in is a guaranteed success except Baywatch. He's good in Bogie Nights, Mark Wahlberg.

Because of that, what? No. I guess that kind of works for that character. Yeah, exactly. There's some roles that work a bit better. Like, if it says something that doesn't take itself as seriously sort of thing. I would say Vince Vaughn is a pretty fucking bad one I got reminded of his existence in the film Freaky

that just came out a Blumhouse joint from the director of Happy Death Day And it was his best performance in like probably 20 years Which is not saying much, it still wasn't good Did you see the season of True Detective with him? I saw half of the first episode And then never watched any further And I watched the whole first season

As soon as the fucking Vince Vaughn season happened I was like, this is bullshit and just never looked back it's tough to get through I watched that second season's pretty bad and yeah basically ruins it he's not good the first season's really good yeah I love the first season psycho remake Vince Vonn there's uh Jurassic Park Vince fun yeah he should just be in like shitty comedies like the watch and front of him like that's where he belongs like yeah but people got sick of him because he was just doing the same thing over and over it's why you don't see Michael Sarah in movies anymore like you know you can if you can only play one

character for so long before people are like well, Adam Sandler's been doing the same shit for 30 years, people love him. He takes the occasional uncut gems. Yeah, but he's the genius behind the films. That's true. He is a genius. James Corden.

That's just too easy, though. I mean, I really don't like Jai Courtney, because he just kind of, were like, Sam Worthington. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Sam Worthing. When you said Joe Courtney, I actually had Sam Worthington in my mind. Right, because they all kind of mess in your brain. They're like the generic

lead just like blank slate audience can imprint themselves on to him they look like default shepherd in a mass yeah

default characters it's like in like a video game yeah and like a Bethesda game it's like the default ignored character yeah yeah

Sam Worlington Jai Courtney you're absolutely right they're not there's nothing to them I even saw him in a pretty good series

Netflix about the Unabomber but he was like the main character and it was like why is he the main character in this like the show would just be automatically better if they got a superior actor in that role feels bad to say like would I be given the guy chance Sam Wetherington lucked out holy shit avatar one through five like Jesus Christ he got Avatar yeah he got Terminator he got cooler duty what's really funny is like he's listed in all five of them so I know he's going to survive that long in the movies unless they do a jigsaw a flashback thing, I don't know. Maybe he'll die.

Yeah. You never know. I feel like there's other actors I'm missing out on. I think he listed some pretty good ones, to be honest. Insofarne is a good one. Artistic Celist 435 says, what would you consider to be the most terrifying non-horror films? I would say seven, seeing as it's more of a crime thriller,

than a pure horror film. I would say the Dark Crystal, I remember we've talked about before, is so creepy. beat to me. There's some documentaries that aren't horror films. Like any nature documentary as in like the ones that talk about how we're like moving towards death.

Corporation's a good one. Jesus camp. Yeah, anything that really gives a good version of reality that's like, oh, this is happening. The depressing reality. Yeah. Yeah, it's just something like creepy that's not a horror movie. Existentially terrifying What about like requiem for a dream?

Yeah like killing of a sacred deer I think is very Disturbing yeah yeah that's just like a drama I think it's going a lot for that though You could call that a horror movie You could definitely call that a horror film Yeah I think it's like I think it's very subtle The horror elements like midsomer flat out horror film It's got like yeah

Goofy killing and like guys dressed in silly suits or whatever This was just like a family drama you know There's nothing about it that's that, like, out there. Aside from the concept. Willow Tree 13 has one then. Is it important to stumble into a so bad it's good movie? Does the reputation of something like the Rome or Neil Breen movies actually go against the enjoyment of first-time viewers? Only if you see them in a packed theater where everybody's spoiling every single line.

Like, you shouldn't have your first experience watching the room in a theater of other people who have seen. in the room because you're not going to hear the fucking movie. Yeah, and spoons are flying all over the summer. So in that way, yes. But I would also argue that, I don't know, the reputation of the room is interesting and unique in a way where it was like one of the first like really break out kind of like so bad that it's good for like this genre, you know, like it felt like, you know, best worst movie of all time sort of thing.

And it's always going to have that crown when I feel like Neil Breen deserves a lot more respect and recognition and more tension in that sense. Tommy Weizzo is really just like a one-trick pony in that sense. He's got like that one masterpiece, yeah, but I think Neil Breen films will age very well. I think in like 20 years he'll get the recognition he deserves. Like it took Tommy Waiso some time. Yeah. To get that respect. There is something special about finding like that weird, obscure golden nugget, you know, that no one's seen before. And so you could be the one to, to, to release it into the world. I think if you're going to make like a review, put it out there.

It's better to find something obscure. Yeah, then just make the same points everybody else is made. Yeah, and then find something, yeah, that everyone else is covered. It's good to find something new. And there's a lot of shit out there that hasn't been discovered. Oh, yeah. Tens. Tens, you just got to dig.

Yeah, and like three clicks on IMDB, you can find some crazy stuff. Yeah, you'll find it. There's movies that no one is seen that one day someone will find and exposed to the internet. And everyone will love it. Yeah, people love that shit. I think it's good to, you know, hop on a bandwagon, though. Like, if something's gaining momentum, like, you should talk about it. Like, the Nutshack was one I kind of jumped on the bandwagon for, like, oh, the show, people

fucking hate it. It's getting memes. Redacted. My friends are, yeah, redacted, right. Sorry, we're going to get copyright claims. But my friends are telling me about it. I'm like, I got to check out the show. So, like, that's something.

You should ride the wave sometimes, too. I kind of rode the wave with Doug Walker and like the wall like all that shit Yeah Yeah take advantage of it Yeah because like the rim meme is dead now At this point Not to Normies Well I suppose there's always people still discovering it now

Yeah well now it's become mainstream now it's a legend It's like it's the type of thing you'd expect like a politician to talk about at this point You know like Hillary Clinton would just be like What a story mark To the polls You know? Oh my God. Exactly.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It is that to you now. It's like the Gungnam style of so bad that it's good movies. Yeah. All right. I believe it is time for a film recommendation from none other than Seppi man.

What have you got for us? Okay. I'll recommend an old movie called Bicycle Thieves from the year 1948. It's Italian. Victoria de Sica. So you guys check that out. Really good. Okay, it is on my watch list already.

Cool. Cool, cool. Awesome. Hope you guys enjoy. So if you don't want to be spoiled for 1948 bicycle thieves, check it out for the next episode. These episodes get released every two weeks. You can hear these episodes early as they're edited.

If you go to sardonicast.com, $2 a month. Sign up for premium. You can get them early. Also, Patreon.com slash Sardonicast. Also, we got merch and Christmas is like right around the corner. No guarantee it would show up for Christmas, though. You might be a little late. I have no idea.

Check the shipping. Get a day stop. Yeah. And now. All right. Twos beauty that killed the bicycle thieves. I don't know. Sometimes I just feel like I have to like reincorporate something at the end.

You know, just make it like, Oh, that was good. It's like poetic in a way. A bit of so open payoff, yeah. You delivered it better than Jack Black did at the end. Yeah, true. True. Yeah.

Anyway, thanks for listening. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Thanks for doing. I'm sorry, Jack Black, if I hurt your feelings. I'm listening.