Sardonicast - Sardonicast #85: Godzilla vs. Kong, Mortal Kombat, Chinatown

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

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 Ralph's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ralphthemoviemaker Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkindnessvideo Fan art: https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/comments/mykd86/im_sorry_everyone_but_i_saw_adam_tweet_amogus/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/comments/mw3497/just_a_fanart_i_drew_hope_you_like_it/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/comments/mulxw0/was_so_happy_that_my_fanart_got_used_so_i_made/ Timestamps by Jake Ram Intro - 0:01 Oscars - 0:48 Promising Young Woman - 7:00 Dingle vs Kong - 18:12 Mortal Kombat - 35:43 Chinatown - 50:21 Q&A - 1:27:44 What are your thoughts on Tarantino’s next film possibly being his last? - 1:27:54 What words does Alex say that sound weird to Adum and Ralph? - 1:30:43 Favorite so bad its good video games? Aka Mass Effect Andromeda discussion - 1:34:12 What are your thoughts on epic film director James Wan? - 1:41:39 What are your favorite and least favorite movie trailers? - 1:44:50 Whats was your most radical change in a films score? - 1:51:12 Ralph recommends Face/Off

Three, two, one. Forget it, Jake, it's Sardonicast. I'm Adam from your movie sex. I'm Ralph, Ralph, the Movie Maker. I'm Alex from Aichi, and what was that one? You're going to catch me up. My brain is frazzled from watching so many movies. It's only like the most quoted line from the film recommendation of today, the end of the episode.

That's all right. I forgot the first word. I had to look it up again. I was like, why? It's just one of those days. The Oscars just does it to me, man. It's just one of those days where everything sucks. Everything is fucked.

I don't even know how that song goes. Oscar's happened yesterday from the date of recording this. We loved it, right? The Duster fire. No, I didn't watch it. I was working. It was the most boringest Oscars of all time, and then a couple funny things happened near the end.

So you're the only one that watched Adam. I know Ralph and I didn't bother. Oh, yeah. I did a whole commentary. I can't stand that shit. We made it bearable, I guess. Good. What I heard about was Anthony.

Yeah. Yeah. So they changed around the order without saying they would beforehand. It was just a complete surprise. There was so much about the Oscars this year that was just like out of nowhere. Best picture just showed up. before Best Actor and Best Actress. And that was really weird.

And they didn't say they would do that. It was just like, what? Are they, did they forget Best Actor and Actress? Like, are they not doing it? And so it's like, oh, Best Picture, Nomad Land. Okay. I guess that was the one they were going to pick and they're just going to be predictable about it.

All right. And then so everybody's thinking like, okay, well, why would they possibly do that? Oh, it's probably because they just want to end on Chadwick Bowman and have some sort of like, I don't know, like tribute play or you know some uplifting moment or I don't know like clearly that's what they were leaning towards and then and then it was like best actor goes to the father Anthony Hopkins and then it just ended and Anthony Hopkins didn't give an accepted speech he wasn't there he didn't

send any video in like it was just it just the whole thing ended and nothing happened it was like really weird but yeah Anthony Hopkins post a belated acceptance speech to his Instagram. It was very short. He was like, oh, I didn't expect this. Thank you. Also, Chadwick Bozeman's great. Thanks, bye.

It was like really quick. Because he doesn't like the Oscars. He doesn't give a shit about it. He's spoken negatively about the whole thing before. Well, that's awesome. He got one. Yeah, I mean, it was easily one of the best performances of the year. So it's not undeserved.

I don't think Chadwick Boseman would have been undeserved either. He did a great job. He was the best part of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. my opinion. But yeah, it seems like everybody, including the producers of the show, expected that to happen, and then it just didn't. And it was really awkward and weird. And it was so fucking, I guess, yeah, I'll just rant about this for a little second because I'm the only one that saw it, but it was so fucking weird. At the beginning of the Oscars, they did the screenplay categories, and they didn't show any clips of the movies. We didn't even realize that that was happening. Usually

we do this thing where we try to guess which ones it is before they say the answer. And it caught all of us off guard. They already said there was like, oh, and best original screenplay goes to Promising Young One. We were like, what? It was happening? Like, they didn't show any clips from the movies.

And then, like, they did for a lot of other categories, but just screenplay, they didn't. And then it's like, oh, I guess this is a pretty tight ear. They won't waste any time with any nonsense. And then in the middle of the show, they do this, like, we're doing some Oscars song trivia. And it was this whole fucking staged, complete, bullshit, annoying thing.

Where they just, like, they, they were like, okay, we're going to play some songs, and then we're going to ask one of you celebrities, is this an Oscar-winning original song, or was it nominated, or did it not get nominated at all? And so the first two reactions looked genuine. He asked like somebody, and then Daniel Kaluya. And it was all clearly leading to Glenn Close, and this one was so fucking stage. And I don't know, maybe perhaps she had some sort of like PR move where it was like, Okay, I got to brighten up my image to make it seem like I'm not like super conservative racist just because I appeared in like, what was that movie?

Hillbilly elegy that people are taking issue with. Like, I don't even understand the big controversy behind it. But like, yeah, I haven't heard of this. Yeah. And so they go up to her and it's like, oh, what's this song? She's like, she pretends not to know for a second. And she's like, oh, it's this one. And it's like clearly, you know, like not a white song.

And then he's like, oh, but do you know the dance? And she's like, hmm. And like pretends not to know. And then she gets up and starts like basically twerking. And it was like, oh, this is just the fucking cringiest shit. And so obviously staged. Like, it was the most unbearably fake, stupid thing. And I was so mad.

I'm like, can you just spend one year not doing something so ridiculous and just proving to everybody that you're a bunch of dishonest assholes? Like, just, I got mad at that point. But yeah. And how long is the whole thing? How long does it take to sit through? It was like three hours. Yeah, man.

All the points are saying of the exact reason I've never watched it. Three hours of just celebrities jerk themselves off. I can't be doing with it. You can just watch two of the nominated movies in that time. Yeah, we'll just read the list when the winners are revealed that day. Yeah, as they're coming out, do something else. Yeah, yeah, it was annoying and cringe, but, you know, cringe is my bread and butter.

That's how I make a living, so. There were some good movies in there, nonetheless. Yeah, like, all but a couple of them were, like, the most predictable things in the world. The short film categories were sadly predictable in ways where it's like, okay, it's obvious that they're going to. I don't care about those. I saw all of them, and I knew which short film that they were going to pick for live action

because it was so bad, but so pandering, I was like, yeah, they'll pick this one. And they did, and they do that every year, and it's so ridiculous. I don't know. It was, like, easily the worst one by, like, anyone's measurement, but the Academy probably didn't watch them. I don't know. Yeah. I'd only seen a few of the nominated movies.

I haven't seen promising young woman, so I have to see that. I have to see the father. Yeah, I'm interested to hear what you think. I'm very happy Tenet won best special effects or visual effects. Because Tenet won something, right? So that's good. Yeah, I was happy about that. At what point are they visual effects in Tenet?

And at what point are they just storyboarding and editing decisions? Well, you don't really know. That's what makes some good visual effects, right? Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. I'm just thinking of the music. music and cars going in reverse. Alex, what did you think of promising young woman? Oh, you did see them.

Well, yeah, I was interested in the movie because I saw your negative reaction to it. Yeah. So I hopped in and I can't say I love it, but I did like it. Okay. I was quite, I was quite intrigued by it. I don't think it fully worked by the end, but I was kept along by the story. It had enough going for it. I thought it had some.

twist and turns that kept me going but it was more the the tone i was getting confused on because the movie's kind of structured around actually i don't know if i can really say without spoiling i guess i shouldn't really spoil it in our oscar's discussion because we want people it's it's structured around a politically charged event that is in the main characters past some 10 you know related way yeah it's obviously very relevant um with the whole me too kind of stuff that's going on but I was more from the trailers and the poster and everything I was kind of

I was interpreting it more as a more B movieish almost like Dexter but for sexual assault people like kind of movies but it's and the first half of the movie almost kind of tries to convince you that it is going to be one of those and then the second half it kind of

winds down a different direction and I was finding fun in the way it was twisting and turning and you weren't really able to guess where it was going but where it was letting me down was the presentation in the script because I found so many bad sequences of just unconvincing dialogue and there's I think one of the best examples of what I'm talking about is there's a scene in the movie I won't be spoiling anything major but there's a scene with a lawyer played by Alfred Molina and I was excited because Alfred Molina a great actor begin to him showing up and I mean a lot of the actors in the movie are great but um it's the material they're working with because in that scene with the lawyer it does boil down into this kind of really

oversimplified over-explaining or so much of the movie works on these mysteries that you don't know or aren't supposed to know yet so a lot of the conversations are about oh I remember that time this thing happened I remember that detail

and there are pros and cons to it because the intrigue and the mystery of it is what keeps you interested but then by the end of the story it all unfolds, you know, like, well, I can't say ever necessarily want to sit through that again. And I don't know if the message of the movie... It kind of boils down into a more simplistic revenge tale about an important subject matter.

But it was unfortunately messy in its execution, I found. Yeah, I agree. Still entertaining. I didn't absolutely hate it. I just thought it was the worst of the nominees. And honestly, I don't know. It did feel. more like a B horror movie than an

Oscar's movie. Well, yeah, I've got to say it does stand out Yeah, just for being different, I guess. Yeah, it definitely stands out. It's one of those fucking things where I'm like, okay, if you're going to start nominating like weird horror movie type

things, like this is the one like, oh, fuck off. You know, like, it's just one of those things where I would rather it, I would rather hereditary have gotten like a nomination or something. You know, there's like more recent like things that you wouldn't expect the Oscars to put in their roster. But they did this one, probably because of the politics behind it.

Maybe they thought it was a great movie too, I guess. Carrie Mulligan was great. But like, I'm a type of person where even if I agree with the political messages in the film that doesn't necessarily make it a good movie to me, that doesn't mean that it can't be like sloppily presented. That doesn't mean that I can't consider it preachy. And this film did feel pretty fucking preachy, despite me agreeing with the messages in the film. It's like when Get Out won best original screenplay.

I would say Get Out had a better screenplay than promising young woman. Yeah. And I guess they both won. And better presentation too. Yeah, they both won screenplay, so. Yeah. How about Nomadland? Because that's another one that's like a controversial choice.

Some people don't like that one. Boring. Well, close out one best director. Yeah. For that. Yeah, I liked what I saw a bit. I only watched half of it because I was trying to cram in as many of the nominations as I could. Oh, really?

I was enjoying it in that kind of slow exploring people who've been forgotten or left by, you know, society and economic crashes kind of like Leave No Trace or I Daniel Blake, that kind of movie. I Daniel Blake's awesome. Yeah, yeah. Leave No Trace I wasn't big on, though. Leave no trace is all right. Yeah, I didn't really get to see where it went. I was enjoying the performances and the naturalistic kind of style of it and the environment. Man.

Okay, well, let me know when you finish the rest of it. Yeah, I definitely will check it out, but yeah. Yeah. Again, it wasn't striking me the way the father or Judas and the Black Messiah did. Yeah, those are my two faves from the Best Picture nominees. Yeah, Judas and the Black Messiah was good. Minari, I think, deserved more. It got best supporting actress, which is good.

I thought Minari is probably the best movie nominated. Yeah, I wouldn't have been mad if that took home Best Picture instead of Nomad Land. It also feels a bit more like an... Oscar movie. Nomadland, I have no idea why there's so much hype around it. Honestly, I really don't get it. Chloe Zow. She's going to direct the Eternals for Marvel. Yeah. Yeah, that's why there's a lot of...

That's a lot of hype for it. It's okay, but who cares? Yeah, exactly. The movie itself is, probably nothing special. Yeah, it is that cynical. Yeah, because I had the same thought flip my in my head and I was like, surely no, come on. There's no doubt my brain, it's that cynical, now. Yeah, fucking Shaka

King didn't even get a nomination for Black Messiah. And I thought his directing was fantastic. And I also thought that Sean Bobbitt probably deserves cinematography. Although Mank still had good cinematography too, but I love Sean Bobbitt. Yeah. A lot of my favorite ones won the technical awards like Mank won cinematography. Yeah. Costume design for Maureenis Black Bottom and all that stuff. The tannet for visual effects. Yeah. How about animated feature? I mean, it was obvious. Everybody already knows. A surprising one. A lot of people loved Wolf Walkers, but knew it was never going to happen. Was it surprising? No, it wasn't.

It was the least surprising thing ever It is kind of surprising in that You know they keep choosing the same shit It was the least surprising What do you how does that make it not How does that make it surprising that they I'm waiting for them to just finally pick one It's like maybe this is maybe wind walkers is the one

Where they finally let it go to not Pixar If so wasn't that it would have been a more interesting list But yeah I'm not surprised by it at all It's the one that their kids saw And also it was nominated for two other Oscars and Wolf Walkers was not. Yeah, that's a shame. Do you guys like looking at like the outliers,

like the movies that didn't, they got nominated, but they didn't won anything, they're actually kind of like frowned upon. One of them is News of the World with Tom Hanks. I don't know why that was nominated for anything. Honestly. Right. That's what I mean. It's like nominated, but no one likes it. And then another big one, I think, is

the trial of the Chicago 7, which is like Aaron Sork had written. And I saw a lot of negative things written about that one. It won nothing. Good. And it was nominated for a lot. But everyone saw as like a... Everyone saw that one as the kind of Oscar Bate film. That would have been the Green Book of this year. Kind of, right.

And that's why they kind of steered away from that one. Yeah. I don't know if it's bad. I haven't seen it, but it seems like kind of that film. It's... It's fine. Minare is like much better suited for the Oscars, but it's not an Oscar Bate movie.

That's why I really like... It's like a straightforward drama. Yeah, it's a personal... A really great character. It's very personal, right? The filmmakers. Uh-huh. And I feel the themes of it are like very relevant now,

and it has a lot of meaning to, like, a lot of people. Right. And trial Chicago 7 is like, whatever. I'd like to take a moment to complain about zero nominations for I'm Thinking of Anything's, which like, yeah, whatever, Charlie Kaufman fanboy over here. I get it. But you look at some of the list of nominations, some of the categories, they had a best adapted screenplay nomination for Borat 2. That's what you do when you can't think of anything else to nominate. is nominate an ad-libbed movie

like a movie where like you don't really have a script and like you seriously couldn't think of something to nominate and I'm just here sitting like oh fuck come on come on like Tony Colette David Thulis easily could have had nominations makeup and hair styling

that one seems so fucking obvious to me like that it was they they paid attention to the character's teeth as they aged like fuck you know it was so incredibly realistic The performances were great. Editing, that's a big one. They're intentional editing choices for the film in terms of, like,

what points are the cuts made? Like, right after a word will say something about, like, the story and the characters, right? The whole dream-like pacing to it, that's, like, such a clear editing choice, and it's just like, ah, fuck. And then they have editing nominations for, like, promising young woman and the father, which, I mean, I liked The Father a lot. I don't know what about the editing was so special. though. They just threw in a bunch of

movies that were nominated for Best Picture. And promising young woman won best original screenplay, which I find strange out of the list. I was expecting that. It seemed like that would be what it won. Yeah. Anthony Hopkins.

How many Oscars is that for him? Two, right? At least two. It's been like 30 plus years since his last one. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, production design,

instead of News of the World being nominated, they could have nominated Charlie Kaufman's movie. And yeah, I mean, pick a category, pick a shitty movie. You could have just squeezed that one out to make room for like a really good movie. To make room. Yeah, exactly.

That's what they're for anyway. Like half of these awards they're getting nominated for are relevant. Yeah. Like I think all of these movies have good production design. Like if the production design was bad, then they would ruin the movie, right? Like how does a movie get best director, best actor, but not get best picture? Because that happens all the time. If a movie has like the best everything, how is it not getting the best picture?

That's why the awards just don't make any sense to me. I don't know. It's just, it's what they vote for. So there's like more of an agreement on some than others maybe. Usually the best screenplay movies win. But like the ones that win, I think those are the best films overall of that year. In this case, I think it was like Mank and Minari. Hmm. I just noticed Mulan is on here.

Yeah. Once. Really? Costume and effects, I think. Yeah, best costume and effects. It's like the worst movie ever. Yay, yeah, yeah. It's back to your point, doesn't it, Ralph, about the Disney?

They buy everything. Well, Suicide Squad won for that one year. Oh, yeah. True, but at least Disney doesn't own that. Uh-huh, that's true. Oscar winning Suicide Squad. Well, we all watched some other movies that are sure to win. some Oscars. Thank God. Good, Bruns.

Yeah, this is for next year. I want to hear what Alex has to say about, what did you call the, versus Kong? What did you call the movie? I've been calling it Dingle versus Kong. Dingle. That's funny. Yeah.

Just guys. Dingle. Just because, yeah, just because the word dingle's just been stuck in my vocabulary lately. Yeah. And it's fitting too because this movie is just a big piece of shit to me. Yeah. I do have to preface. I've never been one for these Kaiji movies that I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for.

You're supposed to have a boner because the big thing is crushing the buildings. And there's an off-screen desk. You know what? In saying that, in saying that, I can get down with Pacific Rim. I can get down with Shin Godzilla from a few years ago. I like those. Oh, yeah, there's something a bit more to it. Some creativity.

Yeah, exactly. Pacific Rim, they've got those, the action sequences, the kind of fun, the fun, you know, just ideas being played around. Those are far more modern, like, monster action movies you're talking about. Those are, like, exciting. Those are inspired by the movies like Godzilla from, like, the 50s. But if you go back and watch those movies, they're really slow. And I got exactly where you're saying. They're slow as fuck. They're really boring. There's a couple scenes where you see them like crush a miniature town. But it's mostly just shit. Like terrible acting, plots that make no sense, bad effects. I'm more alluring to the fact that this is supposed to kind of be the Avengers for this universe they've been building up, starting with Gareth Edwards Godzilla from 2014. So that's a part of it. And yeah. Okay. That's the first one.

That's like the Iron Man of this universe. So this is Universal, right? Warner Brothers. Yeah, most people, Warner Brothers. It's on HBO. I know Universal is trying to do the same thing. Remember, they were trying to do it with the mummy. Yeah, that was funny.

Frankenstein, like those guys, the Universal Monsters. Yeah, but I mean, like, the Godzilla Kong shit, I mean, it makes more sense because like throughout all the Godzilla movies, there's been like Godzilla versus the fucking Mantis thing or Becca Gods. Like, there's been a billion of those already. So it's like, it's not out of the question for them to have like a. And Godzilla versus Kong is already a movie, 1962. There's, I saw the Japanese one, which is really, yeah, it's terrible.

I don't know if I would even consider this, them forcing an extended universe. this just seems like a logical thing to do if you're doing Godzilla movies and Kong movies. Sure. And they set it up at least. The reason I bring that up is because it does actually tie in to the previous movies. You got the strange, Millie Bobby Brown coming back, who have other returning characters. Does it tie in any meaningful way or is it just, hey, I recognize the character? Meaningful, no.

There's nothing meaningful about it. None of the human stuff in any of these movies, whether it be Kong Skull Island, the one from a few years ago. go that had Millie Bobby Brown again. I can't even remember the name. Gods and Monsters or whatever the hell it was. They're all just a blur. And honestly, it feels like they're just getting worse and worse with each one. Garrette-Edwoods, Godzilla, it had some okay ideas in it. He's got, he's a good visual director. I can remember

moments from that movie. And the same of Skong, Skong, Skong, Dingle Island. You know, where that was, it's not, it's not great or anything, but again, it has some creativity there's some action sequences i remember the kind of stuff you want from that relatively self-aware it seemed appropriate it was forgettable too but yeah then you go into the next one which was gods and monsters and honest i can barely remember anything about that one and then you didn't watch it you move on to godzilla versus kong well they've kind of reinvigorated the aesthetic this time where it goes full cartoon craziness where it's all about like hollow earth and exploring underground and Kong

finding like a throne and all this crazy stuff. Yeah, very bizarre. The King of the Monsters was setting up a lot of things but in this movie it doesn't pay off any of them. It's just a bunch of really boring character development and the kid from

hunt for the Wilder people, isn't it? Oh yeah, yeah. I introduced Skux Life Skux Life chose me and they got like nothing going on he has nothing to do and like while they're fighting this like while the two monsters are fighting they just cut to them in a lab somewhere. It's not interesting What the hell is it with Warner Brothers and doing these movies that are supposed to connect with each other, but their tones are all radically different because they're just different directors that don't have the same plan.

Yeah, well, I was going to mention the director of this one is Adam Winder. The DC shit, like the Zett-Snyderverse and now this converse, this dinkleverse. The converse. The dingleverse. Yeah, because like, obviously, dumb Wingered loves his 80s. aesthetic. He did this whole neon like buildings fight scene and

you know all that scent music throughout the film so it's like yeah this is a this is a dumb wingered film for sure. Rebecca Hall is in it like doing nothing like that's what I mean about the characters they're so like they get good actors and they do nothing these good actors are just along for the ride because

it it says in their contracts that they have to be in sequels and they have paid a lot of money to be in them but they don't do anything. Millie Bobby Brown's in it because she's the stranger things kid. No one cares about the humans. It's just about the fights. Yeah, it's just about the fights. It's all in service of just the fights, which are about a minute long, and they're not that great, honestly. I'm just saying. There's a lot of fights in that. So I'll give it some credit. I don't know. For me, they kind of was like a blink and you miss it. It was mostly just boring character.

In Godzilla versus Kong? I mean, they were terribly boring, and I agree with you in that sense. Yeah, exactly. The fights suck, and they were stupid, and I wasn't invested at all. But they made up a good chunk of the movie, thank you. I might be exaggerating. They made up more of the movie than fucking Mortal Kombat, which we'll talk about either later today or next. Mortal Kombat's much shorter. And Mortal Kombat's funnier.

I don't know. What's the runtime on both of these? Let's see. Can you type for me? I've got wrist brace on. Can you look this up? I'm trying to heal. Yeah, so Godzilla versus Kong is one hour 53.

And Mortal Kombat's one hour 50. Yeah. So about the same. Really? They're the same. For me, Godzilla versus Kong felt like it was three hours long, and Mortal Kombat flew by. So I guess that says something about the dumb fun of Mortal Kombat. Did you smoke weed before Mortal Kombat?

No. No, I swear. Just checking. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like, they were both stupid. I felt like Moral Combat had much more, like, filler, though. Okay, but at least you're watching real people fight in that film. This is two CGI things that I guess they're trying to develop.

I mean, in Mortal Kombat, there was a lot of CG nonsense, too. They fought the lizard. It was so stupid. Yeah, but the humans are fighting. The humans are fighting. It's two people. Like, in this, it's literally just like watching a video game. You got King Kong Godzilla fighting all in a totally CGI environment.

Then they try to develop these CGI monsters by giving them some kind. Like, King Kong has a little deaf girl. Oh, yeah. That was so funny. Brought up. Because, you know, in the old Godzilla, he has like a hot woman that he carries around, like in rags. then they can't do that in a modern day movie because that's misogynist.

So they give him like a, you know, like a deaf person like to care about. And like King Kong's like a sensitive person. She taught him sign language. And nobody else noticed until the perfect dramatic moment where it was revealed. They were also going for Rampage, the movie with Dwayne Johnson,

where he does sign language with that gorilla and then, you know, that gorilla grows 50 times. I don't know if I would trace it back to Rampage to find the origins of teaching sign language to a gorilla in films. but I think it's a pretty... Trophy thing, honestly.

I think Rampage is the first movie to do that. But going back to the action, I mean, to me, that was the biggest shock because it's the only thing I was really expecting and hoping for with some good, memorable creative action. And the only thing I really remember is they, like, fight underwater and there's a robot.

Really forgettable stuff. Because the aesthetic, there's nothing really to break it up. It's so, it's like a visual blur. of blue and orange the whole thing. There's some purple in there. Sorry, yeah, a bit of purple, a bit pink. Yeah.

It's not taking risks. But I just, there's nothing for me to connect to. I just, I was sat there just wondering, like, okay, when am I going to care about any of this? I guess you already have to be invested in the imagery of Godzilla punching King Kong. You have to have a boner for Kaiju's. That's a prerequisite.

Apparently a lot of people do. But I do have a boner for Kaiju's. That's the thing. I do. I just like it when there's a bono punching. bit more going on, you know. Yeah, there needs to be more going on. There needs to be, I don't know, for me, the fights flew by. Maybe I just prefer the guys in the suits. That's just my preference. Or maybe a blend of both, because Shin Godzilla was a, it was a guy in a suit, but they put

CG on top of it. And actually, it was it nice. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it looked unique. It looked cool. I like the CG in that. It's just something about the effects in this. It reminded me at the Pacific Rim sequel, the bad one. Yes. Yes. Because it's not. Like, there's something about the first Pacific room. Those robots had weight to him. Yeah, weight. And the fights felt really very real. The scale, right.

And even the first Godzilla, Gareth Edwards, one. Like, the way they build up Godzilla to be this fucking behemoth, it actually works. And in this, the way the camera would move, like, a camera can't move a hundred miles in a second, like, the way in this movie does. But within the scale, it's trying to capture these fights, they have to do that. And it just doesn't look good. It looks fake to your eye. It looks like a cartoon. Yeah.

It looks like a cartoon. And maybe that's what they were going for, but I also just think, Adam Wingard's a bit of an idiot, and he doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to. Right? Just coming to this, you know, multi-million dollar. I mean, even we've dissected as like two million dollar movies, and they're not, they're a bit flawed. This one, I don't know. I don't think he could direct scenes like that.

It's no Lord of the Rings in that regard. I feel like he is where he belongs, though. Making Schlock. As long as he stays. out of, like, properties that I like, death-doubt, if he wants to keep making dumb kaiju shit, whatever, I'm happy. Because he's getting work no matter what.

So I'd rather have him do Godzilla movies than Death-Node. Yeah, I'm glad people are enjoying it. I'm just, I just don't know what it is that I'm missing, you know? I was hoping you guys, like, I saw your rating, Ralph. I was hoping you'd be able to explain. Well, I'd seen all these two, and I don't know. It doesn't stand out

particularly, yeah, it's the best film of the year. I think it gets nominated next year for the Oscars. I don't think it's like particularly worse than any of the other ones. It's very, uh, it's just bad. It's stupid shit if you like that kind of thing. Blan. Is it any worse than King of the Monsters?

I don't think so. Yeah, I didn't see it, so. Definitely, Gareth Edwards movie is solid, the Godzilla one. Yeah. I guess it just bothers me the way it, so it just jumps around if it's supposed to be this joined universe and there is just absolutely no cohesion at all. It's very cynical, the commercialness of like, we got to connect with it. it all to the different movies.

Yeah, I understand that. It's just not the worst film I've ever seen. It's no goddy. Yeah, it's not that good. Yeah. Yeah, nothing is. Yeah, I don't know. It's just, I understand that a lot of people apparently got what they wanted out of it.

They just must have really loved the fight scenes. But I didn't care about the fight scenes, and they weren't, like, impressive. I didn't find myself going like, whoa. at any moment, right? I would have loved to have. That would have been ideal. Or any of the humans. Yeah, I don't like, why are they fighting?

Does that matter? Am I wrong for asking that question? I don't know. Yeah, I think that's what it was because like, for example, in Kong Skull Island, the whole movie is paced in a way to kind of build up the island, the intrigue, the monsters of the island, and it all kind of concludes with this fight with this like skull creature. And that is satisfying because you haven't really seen anything like that

the rest of the movie. Yeah. It's just like one emotion for the whole thing. Yeah. One style of intensity for the whole thing. Yay, they defeated Mecca Godzilla, a villain that showed up 15 minutes ago. Yeah. It's a big, dumb movie that references a bunch of blockbusters like Batman versus Superman is one of them.

Because, of course, King Kong loses, I guess I'm spoiling it. Spoilers, King Kong loses and dies. But they bring them back to life because they both need to team up to fight Mecha Godzilla. like Batman versus Superman Well Batman wins And then they're like Well Apocalypse is coming Or some kind of giant monsters coming

So you guys need to team up to fight this thing Yeah I was so disappointed by that It's so predictable that that is what's going to happen And the fight is so Okay it was fine But Mecca Godzilla kind of looks stupid I prefer the old one This is supposed to be the same Godzilla

From the 2014 movie right? Yeah Why is it so fucking anthropomorphize like why is Godzilla smiling when he like punches King Kong hard enough you like see these close-up shots of him he's like hey-ha-ha bring it on bitch like that's not that i don't remember that from the 2014 god this is the same character right like it makes sense on con because he's like a humanoid animal like a primate primate or whatever right that makes sense guerrillas smile right that's how they emot sometimes fucking godzilla what why are you like

Why do we have these close zoom shots of like your facial expressions here? It was so weird. Yeah, they do treat the kaiju's a bit differently. Because what was the previous one? Gods and Monsters, did you say? I can't remember what the titles are. King of the Monsters, right? King of the Monsters.

Yeah, but I remember them treating them a little bit differently. They weren't like big cartoons. They were kind of big monsters that were intimidating and actually felt like the size they were and that they were a huge challenge to take down. But I guess that's because they didn't have the giant lizard and giant monkey that had to fight. I don't know.

Yeah, maybe. Yep, there was... Giant monkey. There's a lot of stupid shit in it. It wasn't good. No, sadly it wasn't. I thought I was gonna love the new Adam Winger... Those fights even.

I mean, you could just watch the fights on YouTube. People will re-upload them on YouTube and watch them there. Yeah, I noticed one of them just floating around on Twitter. Mm-hmm. That's all it's for. It's for the monster fights. which is what the old ones are for. But that was a different time

where you couldn't just clip two minutes of a movie. You had to go to a theater and watch the whole thing and they had to develop characters. Now, you could just, you know, find it somewhere. There isn't charm is different. There isn't charm to, like, the 2021

CG mind fuck compared to the guys in, like, costumes like rolling around on a set. They should have uploaded the whole movie to just Snapchat. Yeah. Just upload the monster fights. Yeah, as TikToks.

Park. Sorry, it's barking. Yeah, shut out. I agree, that's my rating. Yeah, sorry. That's all right. Here's people outside. What would we give it out of ten?

I mean, when I came to sat down to watch this movie, I got my notes ready. I was ready for this, and within about five minutes, I just put my note pad away. I think I know what we're dealing with here. And, yeah, I was just uninterested from beginning to end. I know it's like a gut. emotional reaction to rate it what I did on Letterbox. He gave up. I gave up.

I never want to see this again. I forgot about it. Not even five minutes after it ended. I'm never going to think about this again. If I was being like properly fair, it would probably be one or two star, but I'm sticking to my half stuff. Fuck this film. Yeah, totally.

Two star is, is my rating. It was two and a half, but yeah, Moral Combat kind of made me realize that this is, this isn't dumb fun. This is kind of just dull. And I want to just human characters to care about. And there's none of that. Awesome. I think we might have slightly opposite opinions on this in Mortal Kombat.

So yeah, let's talk about that. I'm giving Godzilla versus Kong three out of ten. Adam Wingard found his calling. He's exactly where he needs to be away from properties that I like. So before we move on to Mortal Kombat really quickly, I just forgot about one tiny thing about. the Godzilla thing. So where they,

when, when the, they were going to get Kong and it was like half upside down world, was that like the center of the earth? Yeah,

hollow earth theory. Where the fuck was the light coming from? Because there was like sunlight everywhere. That's why I was, I was like, is this the center of the earth?

Like, I don't know what was happening. It was like they would show, like the, lens flare from the sun, but not the sun itself. Like, if you just move the camera slightly over,

but it was like, well, because there is no sun because it's the hollow earth, right? So that's why I was really confused. It was funny how they tried to do a shitty little 2001 of Space Odyssey thing on their way there. That was cringe. That was bad.

Yeah, another reference. Yeah. Well, Godzilla has a reference to that too. Ralph and I saw Mortal. Mortal Kombat. You got to yell it. Yeah, I love the movie. I thought it was awesome.

I give it five star, yeah. Maybe not five star, but it is a very guilty pleasure. It might be one of the stupidest films. I've ever seen in my life. But it's very funny. And like, if you're even going into it, knowing what Mortal Kombat is, like, it totally, I think, like, for a fan, it would suit their purposes, right? Like, it's got fights.

It's bloody. It's got all the lines from the show where it's got all the lines from the game. I'm sorry. Fatality, finish him. Get over here. It's fucking dumb, campy shit. Get over here, brother. The action's great.

I thought the action was fucking great. I saw this in a theater, by the way. and the sound was great really great effects the effects on subzero phrasing people and whatever it was fun yeah I don't know for a video game movie especially it's really exciting

especially compared to I'd seen recently the hitman movie not the Timothy Oliphant one the hitman agent 47 which was fucking boring and again hitman's about stealth in that movie he's like in the middle of Times Square fucking shooting a thousand people it doesn't make any sense

and then there's Assassin's Creed with Michael Fassie Bender and that was boring as shit clearly made by people who have no like passion for that game when like well I don't know who does for Assassin's Creed because it's fucking boring and then now you have moral combat and it's it's they got Asian people to be in it unlike that 80s one where it's a bunch of white people like Raid is a white guy like here it's like I kind of want to see the people they speak Japanese and Chinese it's funny it's it's I like that one I would love to see that one you have to buy it and that one's a PG-13 because it's made for two teenagers ultimately.

They weren't going to put out a rated-dard movie because then no one would see it back then. Now it's different. Everyone loves violence in a movie as long as it's fun. And yeah, the theater had a bunch of people in it. Like there was like a little girl to theater. Like tons of people of all ages, old man. There is enough violent.

It's violent, but it's funny as fuck. Like it's funny violence. Like a guy, I don't know. I don't want to spoil anything. But it's really funny. Violence is an American pastime, Alex. You wouldn't understand. Oh, right.

Well, as long as it's fun. Yeah, same issue that I had with King Kong. This film is hyping itself up to be, or sorry, Kong. Sorry, Dinkle versus Kong. This film is hyping itself up to be this like, oh, we're not like the other video game movies. We're R-rated. And then I watch it and it's like, damn, you really, like, you fucking cowards couldn't even show the death of like the woman and child at the beginning. You fucking cut away.

right off screen and then it's like oh they're dead again you need to see that yeah you're gonna take off points for that yeah no they're fucking cowards it goes against their marketing they're not cowards this movie is so violent they're not even okay I'm spoiling the movie sorry yeah first of all they show them frozen to death like you see a kid we never see their death we never see their death and then they do the exact same thing with the main the main characters uh wife and child

at the end of the movie and it's like oh I turn my back and they're frozen now And then in this instance, it's like, oh, they're actually just fine. They just needed to be thawed up a little. It's like, oh, fuck off. You cowards. Yeah. It's really stupid. And I just like, I couldn't even get into...

Well, that and Scorpion had his firepower. Yeah, that was stupid. That was fucking horrendous. Okay, the whole movie's stupid. Like, it's different from all the video game movies in that it totally understands what it is and it embraces the stupid, stupid campiness. It's a lot of fun. I mean, so did Space Cop.

And I didn't feel the length of it at all. So did Space Cop, Ralph. Space Cop is dog shit. Space Cop is... so lazy. Like, there's shots in that movie aren't even exposed correctly. The frame rate isn't correct. Like, it's so cheap. This is really polished. Like, I love the visual effects in here. I think the action scenes are great. I wouldn't call it polished. I wouldn't call it polished. Go back to... I think it's awesome. There was a, there was a moment, at the end of the

the fight scene where they get on thawed, like near the end of the film. Look at the, uh, look at the overhead shot and look at where their feet are. It's really, really funny. You can see the the indentations as they're walking of this like obvious like rug or mat that they're using instead of like snow or ice. It was like it was not good looking. There was a lot of it that just like, sure, there are some good effects here and there. Like it's, I don't know if I would say that they're monumentally better than

Dingle versus Kong or anything. I would say that they're probably about the same. And I mean, I watched both of them in the same setting. I watched both of them on the same projector. I don't know if you watched one in the theater and one not. I watched him just a theater I don't know I was wondering if you watched both this

and the Dingle versus Kong in theaters Oh Dingle versus Kong I saw on my TV I'm sorry yeah I had an opportunity to see in a theater I just wasn't interested in that movie This I was like okay I've seen these games Yeah I don't know to me this is so It embraces what it is I think it's a lot of fun My biggest issue with it is the second act

mainly is Once they're not fighting when they're not fighting and they're just kind of like talking in Earth realm. There's a lot of the fuck they're supposed to be. There's not a lot of that. Yeah, how's the exposition? It's so long. It's bad.

They dick around so much. And the story sucks. And the characters are ridiculous because you have Jacks, who is this guy with like metal arms, sonia blade. There's like a birth mark. They got to earn their like cutie marks or whatever. Uh-huh. They have to earn their little tattoos.

Yeah. Yeah, the K marks. That's the logo of the Mortal C-Marks. with the moral combat. Yeah, they have to earn that. It's somehow given to you at birth for some people, but other people they have to earn it. Yeah, like Sonya defeats someone,

and then she gets one. Like, it just appears on her arm. Ryden could just teleport any character anywhere, so that kind of breaks everything. And he can also teleport everyone to the void, which is this place where no one can get to you. So I'm like, why aren't you in the void, like, all the time? Because, you know, a huge parties.

They're trying to get to the tournament, but they can't get to the tournament, because Shao Khan keeps sending fighters to come kill them, so they can't even get there. But then Raiden just teleports them all to avoid that, like, you know, keeps them safe. It's like, okay, so why didn't you just put them all there before? There are a lot of plot holes, yeah. They're not supposed to think.

It's stupid. And nothing matters because, A, the deaths at the beginning didn't really happen because he just comes back. Well, no death matters in this universe because they just come back. The entire movie doesn't matter. All the characters that die in the entire. movie or just like at the end you see the the big main bad guy he's like well i'll bring them back even more powerful and we get a shot of each of them like turning into smoke it's like oh they're gonna get transported to hell and come back or some shit it's like no one's ever really gone like

it doesn't matter nothing matters what was the whole movie then what was the whole movie yeah well the stakes are the tournament the tournament was they have dad nine wins the shout con team and if they got one more win they were going to take over earth realm and destroy it so these guys had to come in and defend Earth Realm. So that was the point. If they didn't defend Earth Realm in this movie, Earth would have been destroyed. So that is like,

the movie had stakes. It's just, yeah, once people are killed, it's, they just come back anyway. They just come back in the next movie. Because next movie, you'll see Gore again. You put in another coin. But who cares? The characters are so stupid in this movie.

Like, Kano is fucking ridiculous. He shoots a laser out of his eye for no reason. Oh, yeah, it's stupid. Like, it's because he just gets really angry in one scene. He shoots a laser out of his eye. I found my thing. it's a laser. In the video games, I thought it made a bit more sense

because he's like a robot kind of cyborg in that. So he shoots a laser out of his eye because he's got a metal face. And same with Jacks. Like, he's got weak metal arms, but then he kind of evolves into like mega arms. Yeah, but he just evolves in one scene

for no reason. He just transforms into Super Jacks. And it's like, how the fuck did that happen? Then he's like, I don't know, through the power of love or something, he sheds a single tear and then his arms grow three times that day. Like, what?

I don't know what the fuck they're going to go for us. I'm sorry if I'm spoiling, like, major plot things for you, Alex, but these things aren't, like, the parts that you're going to remember. What you're going to remember are the action scenes and the fatalities, and I think all that stuff is really good.

That's worth seeing... Yeah, I was going to say, how do you even spoil this? You can't. Because the plot's dumb. It's Sonia Blade, like, just the character's names. She was, she was great.

Like, that character was ridiculous, and the actor fucking sucked. But the, like, I don't know. It was funny as hell. Just watch on that. What is the balance of that fun to boredom though? Because that is what these kind of movies ride or die on. There's a lot of not fighting in this movie.

Like, I'm willing to bet money that the ratio of fight scenes to not fight scenes is worse in mortal combat than Godzilla versus Kong. Yeah. It felt like they cut a few corners in that regard. Because they're setting this up also for sequels, clearly. Like, that's what they're going for. And since this was a huge success, they're going to. No one dies.

They're gonna make sequels, of course. The next movie will be much more eventful. They'll have more fighters. They'll have like, you know, a ton of CGI. It was a pretty big success, especially for like the quarantine stuff. It made a lot of money, which is good. I mean. They didn't even come out.

How long? It's just one weekend, right? Yeah. It came out Friday. Shit. Okay. So it's doing good. So they'll definitely make sequels if that's what they want to do.

I think it's doing well. Maybe in the sequel, they should, yeah, definitely make the, make the set pieces more spectacular because this felt like kind of Dragon Ball evolution at times where it was cheap, it felt skilled back. The main character of the film isn't anyone you'd actually know. It isn't Sub Zero Scorpion. It's just some guy and he's like living with his family in some small town.

The fight with Goro is just him like near his house. Yeah. Like it's not anywhere, it's not Earth realm. It's not like, I don't know, the shadow realm or whatever the fuck. I don't know Mortal Kombat that well. But it should have been something cooler than that In that way the movie feels Kind of skilled back

And there's a lot of scenes, yeah Where there's just exposition Padding out with dumb jokes But I still thought it was fun I don't know Here's my issue is that like I would have loved to have had An experience where I thought that like

The whole film was like Self aware, it knows what it is And it's like yeah you can argue that for parts of it I guess but like There's so much not just like boring exposition But like unironic like pretending to be cool music and pretending to be super serious and sad music and scenes that

accompany it where it's like oh my like it's the tone of this film and especially the music and so many scenes are just like screaming to be taken seriously which i find just completely contradictory to what the film is telling us in the marketing that it's trying to be and telling us in some of the scenes you know like yeah it's so inconsistent They're trying to make you care about these characters. Which is stupid. That's a stupid idea. But they have to do that somewhat because it's a movie.

Otherwise, there's absolutely no reason to even watch it. So I at least appreciate the attempt. I don't necessarily agree with that. They give Lou Kang and who's the guy with the metal hat? Like they give them some kind of, they're like family members or something. They're related in some way. So they have like some kind of a relationship and that gave them, I don't know, it made it more interesting.

I didn't feel like those scenes totally. away from the movie. Yeah, I'm just, I never play button mashing games unless it's like fucking, I don't know, smash brothers or something. I suck a Mortal Kombat. Yeah. I play it with like people who really love

it. It's fun and the fatalities are great. That's the trademark. You can watch those on YouTube. Like, I can't stand fucking street fighter and a lot of shit because it's so, I don't know, so boring. I like the fatalities. I like watching people get sliced in half or whatever. Yeah. It's more satisfying to do them in person, by the way, too.

I don't like watching them on YouTube. Oh, I don't even... It makes no difference to me, honestly. It's a very satisfying way to end a fight. I recognized a couple things that are so obviously pop culture that you can't have lived on this planet without hearing them. It was like, get over here. It's like, oh, he said the thing.

And then when the Mortal Kombat music comes on, it's like... It's constant. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. For like a little bit. Yeah, the Mortal Kombat theme is in it. Modern rendition of it was kind of funny. But yeah, I'm not enough of a fan of the game. to be excited and clap when I see the thing, you know, like when they say it.

And it's like, I recognize it. It's just a bunch of references. Yeah. They reference some, well, there's some characters in here that you'd probably know, like, Cano, Sonia Blade. But then there's, like, obscure ones. There's this woman with flying, like, she flies or whatever. She has wings.

That's like a PS2 era, PS1 era, Mortal Kombat character. So I'm like, oh, that's interesting. They threw that in there. And they have, is it cabal, I think? the guy with the, he has like these giant blades and he curses a lot. That character was fun. I don't know. I thought this movie was a fucking blast.

I'm very happy for you. I wish I could have felt that way. As David Eyre would say, it's a movie made for the fans. I wouldn't grade at anything highly, but I don't know. I didn't think it was going. Yeah. I would take one point off. I don't know.

I would say three stars for this. I'd like to talk about it again with Alex. Yeah. I'm still interested But speaking from like From other fans of Mortal Kombat They thought it was fun I don't think it's a great movie

They need to make a sequel And definitely make it Like they need to give it 200 million dollars And make it like Avengers end game Like really fucking crazy Like then I would give it like a high rating It needs to be like Mad Max Fury Road Or something like that

But this is like a good start I think I thought this was a lot of fun For what it was Not high art Won't be getting any Oscars though Get used to it man I mean This is the start of the onslaught

of game movies. I heard they're doing a Ghost of Sushima movie. There's this Uncharted movie that's coming out. The Ryan Reynolds one, free guy. That's not based on anything. That's like a video game movie. That's more of a Reddit movie than a game movie. Yeah, that's a Reddit movie.

It is in a video game. It's like, isn't it like Groundhog Day? Yeah, it's like that. Groundhog Day for gamers. And I'm giving Mortal Kombat a 2 out of 10, and I would love to hear what you think about it, Alex, if you want to watch it before next time. Yeah, I'll check out.

Yeah. Lots of exposition. There is lots of dumb shit. Film recommendation for the one, the big one, this time, I picked Chinatown by noted, uncontroversial good guy Roman Polansky, starring Jack Nicholson and Fay Dunaway. It's a 1970s film, 1974, I think. But it's set in the 30s. so it's something that kind of creates a

kind of like a noirish film without going completely noirish and using a lot of a lot of 70s kind of writing you know something that wouldn't have been exactly as available if you made this film earlier or I guess like socially available for what you could do with the story is like an investigation private detective

Jack Nicholson he's trying to figure out the water and power chief engineer's secret love life. He thinks he's being hired by the wife and then he finds out it was not the wife and then he unravels a lot of crazy things and this is a spoiler discussion. What did you two think of it? I really enjoyed it.

Great detective story. Yeah, yeah, really good stuff. I've never seen the film. It is very good. Yes. It's regarded as one of the best films of all time, so I'm glad I finally got to see it. Jack Nicholson in this movie, first of all, is incredible. It's like one of the best. He's an incredible actor, given many my favorite performances, but in this movie, he's just amazing. And I really believed his character. And I don't know, it's like a different era for him. This is basically like when he was on fire. Cuckoo's Nest was around this time. And of course, The Shining. Like, yeah. It's a talented guy. You see his like, he's got a charisma that chines through in it, I don't know. I don't know how to even describe it. Yeah. I love his, uh, I love when he gets his nose fucked up too,

and he has to wear a bandage, because it just gives him such a unique look. Yeah, and they do it for so much of the film, too. Yeah, there's a visual representation of how much he's getting beaten down by all of this shit that he, he just kind of stumbles onto. And he persists through, whether or not that's a good idea, yeah.

Yeah, he's shown to have a lot of attitude, doesn't he? He doesn't like, whenever he's challenged, he goes at 110% back, like, in the barbass scene where he really feels the need to justify his job. He feels a bit insecure about it. Great character. There's just those are cool details like that with his character, and he's, he's ingenious, too, and his approach to his kind of detective work. I loved the way he put a watch behind the car tire, so he knew that when the watch face was destroyed, that that was the time the car left, and just the kind of detective work that had to be done back in the 30s, you know, the things you don't even think about nowadays

where just detective stories are not the same in contemporary times because of the technology and just all the stuff he had to do to solve the mystery and Eric Gates especially. Yeah, super creative. Is this based on a book or is this an original? No, this is an original screenplay. The writer was... Really, that's even more impressive.

The writer was offered, like, an... a crap ton of money, especially for the 70s. It was like, I don't know, like $100,000, $150,000 to, like, write an adaptation of the Great Gatsby. And he was like, I don't want to do that. He decided that it was, he didn't want to be known as this unknown screenwriter who just ruined a literary classic. He didn't think that he could, like, do it justice. And so he's like, you know what? I'd rather just work on an original story that I'd like to tell.

So he took a lot less money from a producer. It was like $15,000 or something. It was like a tenth of what he would have. made doing the Great Gatsby. And he just wrote something that I'm trying to remember the personal nature that there was to it. But he was very familiar with like L.A. and just how, you know, the city transformed into something that he wound up not liking as he grew older and tried to like capture that, I guess, feeling in his screenplay.

And then Roman Polanski wound up altering a good amount of, it, but not like, not entirely. They were mostly collaborative, except for two scenes, one of which I really like Roman Polanski's edition, and one of which I really do not, that being the ending and the sex scene. So the ending, Roman Polansky was very insistent to have Faye Dunaway's character die, and that, I think, turned out to be a great ending. The sex scene itself, the fact that he needed to be in like a romantic sexual relationship with this other character.

Roman Polansky was very insisted about that. I don't know if that is necessary for the movie. Perhaps people in the 70s really needed to see that in a movie. I didn't think that added anything to it and was kind of stupid. I agree. The whole get-the-girl trope, you know. Would you say she's a bit of a femme fatale? You could classify her as that in ways.

Yeah, I think I would. And that's why that was fine for me, because, you know, femme fatale, that's part of the character. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, like... I think she has a lot more depth than that, though, as a character. Yeah, of course she does. And, like, what we learned about her, you know, she's clearly motivated and not necessarily

through, like, evil motivations or anything. Yeah. Well, every character is just, I mean, Jack Nicholson's the Hard Bowl detective, but he's obviously much more developed than that. Just that stereotype. At the heart of the story is this kind of story of corruption, which is all. based around this water business, which fans of Ranga will recognize that film. Oh, yeah.

A hell of a lot of inspiration from Chinatown. But you can very clearly see the line where they stop taking inspiration because the places that Chinatown goes are extremely dark towards the end, and it really havers home the kind of, you know, when the abuse of power is around a resource like water, you know, that everyone needs, that everyone is pining for. It's such a base level resource. something extra heinous about the abuse of power just to build up strength using a resource such as water. I think that's a really good choice just in terms of the base story.

I love the whole villain character because his design is stolen in Rango too with the turtle guy with the suspenders and the half of it. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of Rango similarities. Fuck, we should rewatch Rango. Even like the hillbilly group, he comes across. Well, there's the scene Jack Nicholson goes in the. field, you know, and he's driving his car around. It's kind of a little car chase.

That was very similar to the scene in Rango where he comes across the hillbillies. You guys have Rango so much, so much more clear in your memories than I do. I haven't seen it since it's released. Yeah, I just happened to watch it about a year ago. Oh, wow. Yeah, the water stuff. Yeah, it's so similar. That's a, it's more of a Western though.

I definitely see what they took inspiration. Still made their own thing out of it. Yeah, yeah, definitely. There's just so much that's great. about the writing and directing combined in terms of like how to start and stop a scene, how to communicate information so that it's not stupid and obvious.

I believe one of the changes Roman Polanski made to the script was there used to be like voiceover narration and he wound up changing it so that as we see the film now, we are discovering information in pretty much the same way that Jack Nicholson's character is. so the audience has as much information as the main character that supposedly wasn't in the original script and it was presented a bit differently

and even ignoring like the mystery elements to it I think that there's a lot of great information communicated not just about the plot but about the characters in very very tight very neat ways which is something that Polanski is really good at doing so like even just considering like the opening scene I didn't know what the fuck was going on at the very beginning. It's like, oh, there's a man crying.

He's like hit the blinds, right? I think that's the guy that shows up later that he gets a ride from. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was a good reincorporation. Oh, yeah, that was great reincorporation. And then, like, immediately in the next scene, it's like, there's a woman. She's like, I want you to figure out what my husband's doing. It's like, oh, it clicks.

It's there. You didn't need to over-explain it in the first scene. They're, you know, the element of like what is going on with the, you know, shows some naked pictures, blah, blah, blah. It's subtle. it's not like completely incomprehensible but like it's so clear very quickly in the next scene already it's like oh 100% of the information is there it's just it's a really neat and nice way of of communicating information i love it when it's not just it doesn't feel

stupid you know yeah i mean it honestly almost shocks me that um it wasn't based on a book because i thought the writing was such top tier i almost just wrote it off like yeah i've course it's this good. This must be based on some classic novel or something. Because, yeah, I found the dialogue to be amazing all round. Yeah, the forget, it's Jake line going back to just the way that they're so efficient with the way they build up the main character where in those early scenes where he's talking about where he doesn't want, you know, the last dime.

And he's kind of a good guy, but kind of not at the same time. He's got his own motivations. He's a complicated character, but just he's such a. a fun way to go to go through this mystery with because he's so motivated and he won't stop at anything and yeah it's just a great adventure from beginning to end yeah it's classic it's one of the best noirs ever something that i found a lot of enjoyment uh in from this film was a lot of the um and i guess a lot of this boils down to just like the character of that jack nicholson is playing and how he delivers it but also just just

just the way it's written in terms of like, there's so many funny insults and so much profanity. And then I love how like later in the film you can, you know, piece together that I don't know, also possibly because this is the 30s and just more because of his character, that he kind of like has

to have a filter in certain situations. Like he was about to say my ass or something. He was like, they, oh yeah, wait, I have it written down. Well, frankly, Ms. Mulray, you saved my neck. You saved my neck. You know, he changed it. So he has to like consciously remind him. himself to put that filter on because he's like just so much more profane than every other character

in the movie and it's like that moment where it contextualizes just like how different he is from those around him. I really liked that and obviously you know the character dynamic where he's like trying to be nice to her and be polite and just you know he's I guess trying to get in her pants too but you know yeah there's that um comedic be early in the movie where he's telling that that rude joke and he doesn't realize the woman's right behind him. That kind of establishes his mind quite well. Oh, yeah. I love the guy next to the elevator, and he's just like, he's just completely insulting.

They shut off the water. How'd you know? You didn't drink it. You don't take a bath in it. They must have sent you a letter. But then you'd have to be able to read. And just like, slowly walking towards him, like, expressionless. Like, holy fuck.

I loved that moment. That was so funny. Yeah. It's a perfect blend of comedy. comedy and then basically every scene in this movie serves a purpose there's no fluff true the pacing is perfect yeah the amount of information doled out mixed in with that levity yeah it's perfect every scene moves the story forward except the sex scene kind of well i don't know it needs to be in there for the for the new orness it wouldn't be a new or about it yeah but i mean like this you can

break conventions i'm just making an argument for that back then yeah yeah yeah i mean if there's anything to critique, yeah, but this is like classic noir. It's fucking perfect. It's so, yeah, it's exciting. The dialogue's great. The actors. It's made in that time period where, you know, there was nothing else like this really. Like, you can't even make a film this good again. I don't think.

In this way. Like you were saying, just the way it blends in that period and the technology. It's so original and exciting. Yeah, I mean, like, for the time, and I might be mistaken, but this is what I heard. is that it was kind of unconventional to do a noir where it wasn't just like some sort of like murder mystery where it was like it was more of a corruption and water supply thing it's like that's kind of like a new spin on it. The corruption of the city. Yeah.

And that eventually led to like LA Confidential, which is the same kind of thing. It's about corruption, Los Angeles. That's much higher scale, I think. But that movie's awesome. I love that movie. And it's building off this. Yeah, you're right. It's much more interesting than just like.

someone got murdered. It starts with like my husband's cheating on someone. Can you go stick him out? And then it kind of, you know, like you said, it falls apart. And you find out this, it uncovers, he uncovers this whole spider web of conspiracy. Yeah, there's a lot of everything that gets revealed as the story continues is just so interesting and engaging. It's like, yeah, the puns.

I love that. Yeah, you can't just, you can't like shut off the movie at any point, even if you didn't like something about it. It's like you kind of have to figure out where it's going. going, right? At least leave it on. The movie looks great, too. There's exciting set pieces in it.

Yeah, the action I was not expecting to be in there as much. Yeah. Like the scene where he's investigating the water and he gets swept away and pushed up against the fence. That was awesome. I love that moment. Yeah. The car chase. I mean, the water just comes out of nowhere, like the way the camera pans over. Yeah.

And the way he climbs up the fence, that shot's great. Yeah, they're like orange feel with the car. Yeah, the farmers. I was going to mention. It's nonstop. Like, right after that, he gets his nose fucking ripped off. Yeah. The farmer chase is fucking great.

Yeah. That reminded me of Rango a lot, those characters. There were points in that chase scene that reminded me of, like, no country for old men. Like, it was, like, weirdly exhilarating and dark at the same time. Or I was like, holy shit. Yeah, really well blocked out. You're going to die. Reminded me of stalker, too.

Because there's, like, a car chase in that where they keep, you know, it's kind of slow-paced. They're going reverse, down alleyways. it's like this and again it was very locked in his perspective too you were in the car the whole time and the whole movie's kind of locked in his perspective you're only figuring out information along with him you know what he knows he's basically in every scene of the movie right

yeah I don't think these are single scene and that's you know that's great I think that engages me much more oh yeah I don't want to know what he doesn't know I'm with the character yeah yeah lots of uh lots of clever you see of mirrors and reflections.

There was that great shot. The car mirror lights perfectly centralized in the shot, which I thought was great. Yeah. Yeah, the scene where he... Oh, man, I guess this is leading into another point I'm trying to make is that so many great movies that I see,

like the best of the best. And I think that part of what helps me define them as such is when there are characters that are not even essential to the story. They are side characters that you'll see for a scene and never see them again, but they have so much character, you know? So, like, I'm going to relate this to,

like, Cohen Brothers movies again because they do this a lot, where it's like the guy in a scene in this film where he was getting, like, the ruler from the desk, like, not just his visual style. You can read a lot about the character from that, but the way he behaved, and the way that he was kind of blocked to behave.

So not just even the acting, but like the specific directing moments. Like he didn't he didn't just pull out the desk and grab the ruler. He pulled out the desk, fished around for a bit, and then like kind of like in his body language, you could see him like, oh, I guess I got to open it all the way, pulls it out even more, and then grabs the ruler sort of thing. It's like, man, there's just so much character to soak in from all of these minor characters that like so many writers, so many directors would not pay. as much attention to and they wouldn't fully

like you don't need to flesh them out to the point where like I need to know their life story and motivations right but they're they're interesting to watch on screen even though we don't have anything more than just a cup a minute with them right that that's that that's what makes a lot of the greatest movies stand out for me is like I've noticed that that's a really common trend in them yeah characters are very distinct and memorable Because you have to remember a lot of them because, you know, it's a noir. It's a lot of mystery. Who's doing what?

Who's behind it? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I guess it would kind of spoil it if there was only one interesting side character and the rest were boring, right? Because then you'd be like, is that guy? He's like, he's sticking out to me. He's the only interesting looking with.

And, yeah, the way the story converges at Chinatown, too, I get thinking on my head, how's this going to come together at the end? And the way it does is so satisfying because they establish early. on in the movie that the main character used to be a carpanyo's connections. It's Chinatown. So when the kind of conclusion happens there in the shootout and the spine-chilling scene where the granddad is like grabbing it, the daughter, grandchild, whatever combo it is. Great ending, great conclusion.

Just the dramatic payoff of it all coming together there is so excellently built up to and achieved. Yeah, it's crazy. It's fantastic. Really dark ending, but... Uh-huh. This is awesome. It's perfect.

Yeah, it kind of should be. I like that, again, to stay in line with just, like, how information is presented, it's like, we go back to the guy at the beginning, you know, we're at his house, Curly, or whatever he is, and his wife answers the door, and she's got a black eye, and he's, like, so kind of, like, jolly. he's like, hey, that's the guy that, and she's like, I know. And they continue. It's like, holy crap.

Man, I love that little moment. It says so much. It's so funny. Yeah. Oh, yeah, another thing about this kind of connected me with Rosemary's baby is, like, the drink she ordered is like a little, well, well, distinct. I've never heard of someone ordering a Tom Collins with lime instead of lemon. I was like, you can do that. Now I just want to try it, which is funny.

Yeah, that you do it. Yeah, that's so specific. When I was watching Rosemary's Baby, they were like, oh, vodka blush. I'm like, I need to know how to make a vodka blush. I don't know. There's lots of character in the film. Yeah, this is like Rosemary's Baby, that kind of level of quality, classic. I would say I like Rosemary's Baby more overall.

I do, too. It's up there. Slightly. Yeah, these are both great. Very different tones. And similar at the same time. Mm-hmm. It's classic.

Jack Nicholson's excellent. Because they both kind of like unravel mysteries and they're both kind of dark. But this one just has a lot more comedy to it. They both have good cocktails in it. Yeah. Do you think Rosemary's Babies is your favorite from him then? I think it's better than the pianist. It might be, but I haven't rewatched the pianist still in a long time.

And I think I have both of those rated as a 10. So I think. I would have to watch the pianist again. Yeah. I would probably rate this a 10. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Chinatown. Yeah.

Yeah, it's so good. I'm struggling to even come up with points. It's my first watch. I'm eager to actually go back and experience it again. Yeah, sure. There's just something so addictive about these detective stories and just the efficiency and the elegancy, the way it's told.

Like, yeah, all the setups and payoffs and the acting and the surprises, the genuine surprises, that moment when she's saying daughter, sister, and getting said. Oh, yeah. It's like, what does she mean by it? What do you mean? You can't seriously mean what I think you mean. And then it actually goes down that road.

It's so dark. It's so so enthralling. Mm-hmm. And great casting, too. Like the grandfather or whatever we want to call him, he was just, I was cringing in a different kind of way, you know? In a good way. He made me very uncomfortable, which is what it's supposed to be, right? Mm-hmm.

And Nicholson plays off all these people so well. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, very tough to watch. And just think, like, the complexity of the story, and I'm guessing, I don't know if it was shot in order or not. But the way, it seems like, you know, he's retaining all this information and he's slowly learning, you know, over the course of the movie. Like, you believe it. You believe it in his expression.

Yeah. And it's awesome. He's just so fucking fantastic. How he decides to interact with each person. Yeah. Uh-huh. Even though he's just a guy, you get the sense that he has a lot. a lot of ability to do, you know, to, I don't know, solve the crime or whatever, because he's just

very smart. He's a very smart, capable person. Yeah, and even with the complexity of everything that's going on, you always are able to keep up. And when there are things you don't understand, it's purely intentional because you're about to find out. Yeah. And it's a lot of fun for a movie back then.

It's a lot of spectacle. Like you said, it's exciting when the water comes down the, comes down the pipe or whatever, The canal, the car chase, shootouts. Yeah, it's great. It's exciting stuff. You mentioned the nose thing earlier. That is, like, one of the best blood practical effects I've ever seen. Yeah, I was really impressed by that.

I rewatched that part. It's just as convincing on the second time. It's not because I was, like, unexpecting it and just, like, looked away or blinked. It's like, holy shit, that's just a great effect. And it makes sense that, like, Roman. Polanski would be the one to play the dude because if you're trying to convince Jack Nicholson

as an actor, like how this is going to work as the director you're going to be the one that's probably going to want to operate that and get the right movement. It would probably be just a little too difficult to try and communicate that to somebody else and have it like just be the way that you envision it in your head. So obviously

you know, fake knife was probably made out of like I don't know plastic just not unsharpened paper something yeah. But then blood tube behind it and because it was like in his nose and just like the right perfect speed and motion and like the moment that the blood comes out it's like holy crap it's like it's so convincing and then the entire costume or makeup or both that we want to say is his like bandage on his face the entire movie for a lot of the movie for much more than i would have expected because this happened so early i'm

like oh i guess this is like his character now i'm glad that they didn't put him that way on the poster. I'm glad that the poster version of him was not bandage face because that would have spoiled that moment. And I wound up watching the original trailer. The original trailer kind of spoils it, but whatever. I didn't see that before the movie. And then, you know, as the film goes on, I'm like, oh, wow, like there's some nice consistency and continuity to how his character looks. That's cool. But then they take the bandage off. And I'm like, wow, the effects make up underneath the bandage is actually great. Because like, in my head, I'm thinking, well, that's a nice way to cover up what you might, what might look goofy

if you took it off. But then they take it off and it looks perfect. I'm like, holy shit. Well, God, that's some really great makeup work. Like, I believed that there was, like, these stitches there and the dried, you know, like darker looking dried blood around his nose. Like, it looked super real. And I was really, really happy with that.

You mentioned earlier the kind of love scene. I was like one of the only moments to pull you out and I was exactly there with you you reminded me a little bit of in the original Blade Runner some of the awkward love scenes that this is something not right to them it doesn't feel like the chemistry is quite there

like nose all fucked up it was like the beginning of faithful findings exactly and on top of it right after he's you know he starts making out with her and he's like pushing his nose that we know he's sliced

I would love for him to say ow once yeah yeah yeah that's what I was It was waiting for. It was weird. Aside from that, that was the only time I was pulled out. Great costumes.

Some interesting stuff, especially going on with Fay Dunaway. A little fishnet thing on her face. I don't know what to call it. A lot of good variety in her costumes and a lot of cool-looking stuff. Really added a lot to the character. All the authentic vehicles, like the 13th vehicles with the wood paneling and stuff. I loved all those kind of details. Yeah, it's a great authentic.

period piece type movie. Yeah, really super, super well-crafted, well-done movie that you don't often see, and it's just, it's a little annoying, a little sad that one of the greats is also kind of a monster. There was a line near the end of the film.

Let's see if I wrote this one down. That just really stood out to me. Oh, yeah, so the fucking, the villain in this film, when justifying, when, you know, Jack Nicholson is saying, I know you raped your daughter or whatever, he didn't say that verbatim, but the response line was something along the lines of, most people don't have the opportunity to realize that at the right time and the right place, they're capable of anything. And that's how he justified it. I'm like, holy shit. That sounds bad in retrospect now. That sounds like a weird justification. It's definitely a villain's motivation. Yeah, yeah. And also, like, the crime, the Roman Polanski raping a 13-year-old or whatever, that happened at Jack Nicholson's house. And that's all always brought like a weird layer to it of just like, what the fuck

are you doing? Yeah, what is happening? That's such a shitty thing to do. Because then you've implicated Jack Nicholson in a crime too, right, as if the raping a 13-year-old isn't already bad enough, I guess. The whole thing is just so fucking. Yeah. And then so now, I guess, like, where would we be right now in the conversation of Roman Polanski if he had served time in jail and that was it?

Because, like, there's arguments that people make, and I don't necessarily agree with them, but there's arguments that people make of saying, like, oh, the victim has already said that she forgives him and just wants the controversy to end or whatever. It's like, yeah, but it's still pretty bad. I wonder where we would be right now if we had both that and him actually serving time in jail. Because then at least you could argue he was like, oh, he did his time. Yeah, because he fled to the country, didn't he? Yeah, he kind of just dipped to France and then won an Oscar and then started in Russia or three. It would be the same conversation. It doesn't excuse me did.

He's still a fucking piece of shit. Yeah. He could fuck himself. Yeah. No matter whether he's in jail or not. Polanski, for me, was the first kind of artist that really made me start struggling with that. because I watched the pianist, and then when I was researching after, this was a long time ago, was when I, you know, read into his history and then started that kind of art versus artist conflict in me.

And it was also why I've kind of avoided his other films too, because I just wasn't really sure I'd feel about it. And yeah, it is such a strange thing when he's undeniably a great director, you know? Yeah. He's made very great movies. He's been, yeah, the director of a few great movies. film is a much more collaborative art form than I think we even were giving you credit for there's a lot of people who worked on Chinatown or Rosemary's baby that being said you cannot deny his specific his contribution yeah yeah of course yeah he he is one of the greats he truly

is not great human beings but great no that doesn't excuse his actions at all yeah he just happened to make he happened to direct a film that was very good yeah i always find these things a lot more simple once the artists involved have died and died in history. Because it's when they're alive and they're still profiteering of the work and everything that I think it gets No matter how many copies anybody buys of his older films right now or doesn't buy, it's not going to affect them really.

It's going to affect his estate. Like he's rich either way. He's not going to run out of money unless he just mismanages his finances. and even then that's like completely independent. Yeah, well, France doesn't extradite their citizens, so. Yeah. That's why he's there. Perverts.

Oops. They keep giving him Caesar awards, too. Of course they do, perverts. French. Well, yeah, I was looking, he released that movie in 2019, because I wasn't sure if he'd actually retired before that. Yeah, he's still going. Did you guys see that, an officer in a spy?

I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, he won best director at the Sears. I don't know. The last one I was. saw from him was carnage. I remember liking carnage. I also remember liking carnage. It didn't make my list, though.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm of the mindset that, like, generally it doesn't matter if, like, the art is worth it. Not saying it, the crime doesn't matter, or whether or not somebody else decides to support them doesn't matter. But, like, I don't judge somebody for writing him off completely in terms of saying, like, I'm going to boycott all of his movies and never watch them,

even though I think that there are some, like, legitimate math. masterpieces in there. I'm not going to judge somebody for that. That's up to them to make that decision. You can vote with your wallet. Sure. But yeah, I also don't judge people for taking my perspective, obviously, of just saying like, yeah, he's an awful person. So is Jeff Bezos, but I keep buying Amazon. Nike uses like what sweatshops. Like every chocolate bar that you ever buy is is using slave labor. Disney, you know, recently with the Milan controversy. Yeah, like, but I still watch Marvel. Nestle. Nestle is It's probably abused more children than Roman Polanski.

Let's be fucking honest. But that doesn't, yeah, I mean, it's up to you to decide whatever you do. You know, whatever. Yeah. You could say that about anything. I think that these films are more valuable than a chocolate bar. So that's where I'm kind of at with it. I don't think that I'm making a gigantic change in his life whether or not I decide to watch some of his older films.

I think that the damage has been done both in terms of the longevity of his career and finances and also the crime that he committed and the victims associated with that crime. So you can't really undo any of that. It doesn't really affect the writing of the characters in the movie or anything because the movie's just still solid. Oh, yeah. Death of the artist. It's just really well done.

You can't really take away from that. That's why I hope he dies because then we could appreciate Chinatown a little more. I mean, everybody dies, so. whenever. Yeah, I hope he dies soon. He's really old too. He doesn't have to be physically dead for him to be dead to us, you know, like, death of the director, death of the artist, you know, it's like the concept where somebody can make

something and you can interpret whatever the hell you want out of it. You can get something out of a movie that the director didn't intend because at the end of the day, interpreting art doesn't necessarily require the director's approval. It doesn't require the director to be alive. it doesn't require the director to explain their intentions about what the art should be. So, I don't know. In that same sense, I don't really feel like him being physically alive or dead is going to change how I feel about any of the movies that I watch from him. It's like, yeah, these are great movies.

He's a very talented rapist. We're talking about him like he's the sole artist of this movie, which he isn't. We could say the producers had just as much of an influence on this movie as he did or the actor. I mean, he works with a lot of different people throughout his. career and consistently made a lot of masterpieces. Consistently, his movies are very good. I'm just talking about Chinatown on its own or Rosemary's Baby. It's a huge collaborative film.

No, yeah, I know. But the director's at the helm. And as I pointed out earlier, there are like a lot of specific changes he made to the screenplay, some that I agree with and some that I disagreed with. And if you listen to. Sex scene. Interviews and behind the scenes, featureettes and stuff about not necessarily just from him, but other people that worked on the movie.

you'll learn really specific things that he's responsible for and that he's not. And I think that overall he's responsible for a lot of really, really fantastic stuff in art. A lot of really great filmmaking decisions. And whether or not he's a asshole child rapist that deserves to be in jail doesn't really conflict with that. These are two different conversations today. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I'm with you. They are different. Yeah. But important conversations. In the same way that a pandering Oscar film that touches on legitimate social issues that I agree with isn't necessarily a good movie. They're separate conversations. You can be the most perfect person with the best intent, the best intentions, and be talking about serious social issues that deserve to be talked about right now and still make a shit movie.

In the same way that you can be an actual fucking pedophile and make really great movies. Right. separate conversations to me. But I'm glad we had this conversation. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, Robo Polanski, controversial figure. I mean, it's a necessary thing to talk about.

It's the elephant in the room whenever he comes up. If you ever talk about a Polansky movie, you have to give a little bit of the, by the way, he's not really a good guy here. I just don't give him the full credit. Yeah. I don't know if I film is much more collaborative art form than that. Well,

okay. Yeah, it's his movie. Then you're not allowed to hate Wes Anderson because it was all the other people on set. They definitely brought something to it. Yeah. Yeah, fantastic writing, fantastic directing, fantastic editing.

The music was great. I really liked the music in this because it started out really subtle. Perfectly matched. tone and the buildup of the film as it went along, the energy of the soundtrack and the rhythm of the score built up with the information that was coming out. And so all these new transitionary scenes reflected that and they reflected the energy of the character. And it was just so, so appropriate and well done. Yeah. I love the opening credits too. Just the style them. It's like a little thing to mention, but it sets the tone very perfectly. For me,

like an opening of a film is very important. Yeah, I don't know. There's no flaws with this film. I think it's excellent. Masterfully made looks excellent. Jack Nicholson fucking kills it. Faye Dunaway kills it. Yeah. Would we all go 10? We're five out of five stars, I'm going to say, if we're going to do ratings now. Yeah, I'm torn on nine or 10. I normally need a couple watches for to probably solidify how I fully feel. But I'll settle on nine for now. Yeah, four and a half star.

I'm on nine also. Potentially a 10. Yeah. Nine out of ten. Love it. There are ten out of ten elements to it. Overall, my experience is just a little short of being one that I would consider up there. Although I totally understand people that rate at a ten.

Yeah, Rosemary's Baby and the pianist are better than this in my opinion. But I would like to rewatch the peonage. because I haven't seen it in a long time. Yeah. Awesome, awesome movie. Check it out. I don't think I would rate the film lower because the director's a predator. Because how do you even measure that?

It would just be a zero. So let me just go with the rating a full. Yeah, like you can't even measure something like that. So don't even try. Yeah, he's a sick person. He deserves to die, hopefully soon. Rotten hell. Death comes sooner than you think, Ralph.

We'll all get there eventually. don't you worry. And that's China Town. Okay, let's do some questions from the Sardonicast community. If you want to leave your own questions for us to answer in future episodes, head over to the subreddit. Will there be a suggestion thread? You can ask whatever you like.

Let's do this one then from Alex Kool. So, Quentin Tarantino said he's going to retire after he directs his 10th movie. He's directed nine if you count the kill bills as one movie. Do you think you'll actually retire? Sorry, A, do you think he'll actually retire? And B, do you think his film will finally connect the Tarantino's Cinematic Universe built around Red Apple Cigarettes, Samuel L. Jackson, and Feet? So he's said this for a long time, a very long time.

I feel like I've heard this. And I've never really known whether to believe it or not. Is it a gimmick? Or how do you guys feel about it? He sees it as a way to cap himself off. Like, I'm going to make 10 movies. before I make shitty movies because a lot of directors do that in their late career.

Yeah. If he wants to stick with that rule that he's made for himself, cool. If not, then whatever. I'm sure he'll make good films after. And even regardless, if he doesn't make films,

he'll make plays, he'll write books, he'll do something else. But I don't think he's going to stop making films. Maybe in Hollywood, because I don't think they like him there. But whatever. I mean, they like that he makes money.

Yeah, surely that's why they keep him around. Yeah. They don't like his language, his potty mouth, or the amount of violence or, you know, any number of things, controversial elements in his movies. I could see that being the reason why he'd want to end his career now, because like these fuck of people are crazy coming after him. Yeah, maybe. And he's fairly finicky, isn't he? With like when, um, Hateful Eighth Leaked, he almost didn't make the film. Oh, yeah, the script.

Yeah, the script leaked. So, I don't know. He's just a weird guy. I don't really trust what he says in terms of this kind of stuff. I mean... See what he feels like. It would be cool. Conceptually, if he just makes the ten and then moves on to maybe just writing or, yeah, plays or something.

Acting? Please don't do acting. He becomes a foot masseuse. Foot masseuse. Yeah. His real dream. Fuck movies. Open a foot massage.

Yeah, what if his tenth movie is like a, like a Norbit-style? Quentin playing. Isn't he trying to do some Star Trek movie? I heard about that, but I don't know if it ever, like an R-rated Star Trek. Is that supposed to be his tenth? Like, I don't know. Like, his tenth would be his next one, right? Is that what the implication?

I suppose so, yeah. I don't know, because a lot of directors say that they'll retire and then they don't. Cough Miyazaki cough. I don't know. And Kill Bill is two movies, so. It's not. Whatever. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Whatever happens happens, he'll make a decision either way. I don't know. It's weird to speculate on that kind of thing. I don't know him. I'm not his friend. Ray Shell underscore Rawl Butz was a quick one. Alex, as I've been watching your videos, I've noticed you pronounce the word,

frustrated differently than how others might say it. The A seems to be held longer, like, frustrated. What are some other words that you guys say? I say frustrating. I say frustrating. They may sound out of the ordinary to other people. Have you guys noticed that? No, not really.

They're both right. You just put more emphasis on one. Frustrated. Frustrators. You say it, Adam? Just so I can get a point of reference. Frostituida. That's how I'm getting it wrong.

This is the Canadian way. Does it sound weird? Does it sound weird to you? What if yours is the normal one, though? Yeah. I would argue that I'm normal. I say water weird. Well, I say water.

That's like the New York It's water We're gonna get into this conversation My roommate wanted me to ask you Alex Do you say doing the washing up Or to do the washing up Instead of just saying do the dishes Yeah I'm gonna go do the washing up

Oh that's great That is a thing But yeah we still call it a dishwasher I mean It's just When you hear the perspectives Of people from other countries It's just because my whole world is

collapsing around me like biscuits my jammy dodges my aluminium it's all this fight biscuit aisle the hundreds of millions or hundreds of thousands or whatever the hell oh yeah so if I if I as a North Americaner would

say if I would compare two things and be like this slash that you would say this stroke that am I mistaken well I don't know with that one because I'm extra fucked because I was

I'm my like my dad is from New Zealand and they have a bunch of Americanisms so they say like pants instead of trousers and they say like chips instead of fries I guess I'm confusing myself on my head so yeah so growing up like I would just say just whatever one my gut told me so my whole life has just been like thrown off course so

to be honest I'm not in between two worlds We got a bit of that in Canada. We do like... We use like metric and imperial depending on what it is. Like, I mean, not like in school. We use metric, but like, I don't know. If we weigh ourselves, we're going to say how many pounds we are.

We're not going to say how many kilograms. It's weird. But if we're weighing like food, if we have like a kitchen scale, we're going to weigh that in like grams. So we just like pick and choose. I know my weight in stone. Stone. Oh yeah, you're weird.

That's like an exclusively UK thing, isn't it? I don't know if it's relevant anymore. Because like kilograms is like every other like European or Commonwealth, right? Yeah, I think most people have adopted that, but I'm still on stone. What is that? Just actual rocks. Yeah, you just pile up rocks and you just see if you weigh the same. It's better than feet.

Everyone's foot's different. Oh, whatever. All right, that was fun. I'm glad we cleared that up that you'd You grab the fairy liquid To be doing the washing up Like

M-night needs an Oscar Has well before us Is there such a thing Is it so bad it's good Video game If so, what are some of your favorite examples? Life is Strange, done Every don't-not game

I want to contest that slightly Because I'm with you for I think I tried the first Life is Strange until, I think it's episode three. That's this point where you're on like an abandoned train station or something. I've got to find these five items or some shit. Oh, it was in the junkyard? It was so boring.

Yeah, in the junkyard, yeah. Yeah, and Chloe's too fucking lazy that you have to do all the work? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I got to. Yeah, she's supposed to be like your best friend. Just pissing me off. Yeah, but I'll agree otherwise. Yeah, I was having some great laughs from that. Oh, it was so silly.

Can't wait. hyped for the third game. Have you played a way out? It's like a co-op prison escape game. I've heard about it. That's a guilty pleasure. It's very funny. You're supposed to play it with someone else.

It's so silly. Their new game's actually a lot better. It takes two. I would recommend it's longer and more fun. The maps are so much more varied. The story's fucking stupid. So don't get discouraged when you see an opening cut scene. Yeah, the story of a way out stupid too.

Yeah. But the story in It Takes 2. is it's stupid but doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It's a fun game. It's not a great name. It takes two, baby. For me, whenever I need a good guaranteed laugh, I just install a Mass Effect Andromeda

and just play like the first hour or two. Okay. That sounds fun because I still haven't. Yeah. Yeah, I think enough time has passed where you can go in. and just fuck around with it. And it's genuinely so broken. And if you just wiggle the stick in a certain way when you're walking around,

it looks like your main character's shit at self. That's great. That's awesome. It's actually so funny. Scoot hasn't seen any of the Mass Effect stuff, so I'm probably going to play through the remastered shit and introduce him to that. Yeah. In that case, don't start with Andromeda if he's never seen Mass Effect again.

We'll see you. Yeah, yeah, because it's not a good first impression for that. that universe. Yeah. Andromeda's pretty funny, just from clips I've seen. I'll play it one day. It'll be on discount

probably for like 10 bucks. Have you played the other Mass Effect games? Yeah, the other ones are good. Two and three are really good. It's got the end of three. The end of three sucks, but most of three not into one? One I haven't played now.

Oh. Okay. Yeah. I started with two on the 360. Yeah, I started with two, but went back to one. Then three came out. Yeah.

Yeah, those are really good. I'm like Andromeda. Yeah. Yeah, I'm curious to see how they hold up with this re-release that's coming out soon. Yeah, we'll see. Fucking BioWare, pretending that they're a game company. Yeah. But also, they're doing that thing where they might be towing with the art direction a little bit.

Might be changing the mood. No more butt shots. Sorry, Miranda fans. No more butt shots. It's real. Yeah. I mean, there's one that's really. really gratuitous.

I was like, ah, whatever. You can still play the old game. I don't care. But yeah, like, I don't know.

I don't know. There's always, like, there's always something that you can fuck up in a remaster, even if it's just cosmetic upgrades. There's always,

there's always weird decisions that would make you go, why did they change that, you know? We see this in the Silent Hill HD collection. We see this in, they better not remove the gratuitous

sex scenes or the romance option. You know what's weird is They have the ability And I don't think that they'll actually do this But they have the ability to have a Male-on-Mail romance option with Garris And I don't think they're...

Yeah, I was going to say, can't you fuck Garris? You can as a woman, but since you all All of the lines of the game Are recorded by both voice actors They don't specify it like the two actors Jennifer Hale and what's his face show up and they read the exact same lines they don't separate any of the lines

just so it's all consistent. And so some of the romance options, if you actually look in the files of the I think it was the second game, there are male shepherd takes for the romance options for Garris. And so somebody was actually, they recreated

they basically just hacked the game a little, just changed one thing in the code, and then they were able to do the romance with Garris as a dude. So I wonder if try that in the remake. Sure. The only reason they didn't do it.

Like they had all the voice shit. So the only reason they didn't do it is because like I guess Fox News would have made another segment about them. Like yeah. Like yeah, alien relationships. That's fine. But not if they're dudes, right? So.

Yeah, that Fox News thing. Whenever I need a good laugh, I go and watch that. Oh yeah, the Mass Effect. It's so funny now. Because things are so different. Yeah, the sex scene they show with that like Leara and Masfit one. the tamedess, like, this terrible-looking,

day-to-day and the cellophones about it. That's what I mean. They better not cut any of that out because that was the best stuff. Like, I want to see Miranda's ass and HD in this thing. They better not change any of the cinematography

of the cutscenes. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Yeah. I actually haven't seen a... Let me see this Fox News clip. Oh, it's pretty funny. I'm gonna pull up.

Yeah, they could fuck things up. I don't know. I still, even if, even if I can romance garris as a dude i'll probably stay as the woman because i like her i like her voice acting better male chef's really annoying it's got sex box that's the that's the that's the tagline of fox news sex box oh that's funny because now we actually have sex box it's the xbox series x yeah it's like a you know there's like a close-up on her ass and it's censored like but it's a video game yeah it's pretty funny you can't fucking break

That's ridiculous. Consistently. Yeah, that's really funny. They were making, like, a video game look like it's, I don't know, snuff.

You know? Like, the worst thing. Like, something you'd find on the dark net, like, horrible. Like,

can you believe this? Yeah. They're like, kids play this stuff? Yeah. It's like two seconds. It's so funny. It's really funny.

Because now kids just have access to the internet. It's like, well, oops. I wonder what they're going to find. I guess we'll find out in 20 years

when every, Everybody's fetishes are like even weirder than they are right now. It's like the, what's that movie? The kid from a, is the guy from Peter Pan, the main actor. And it's like an LMN movie, life type movie where he's addicted to pornography. Oh, that's funny.

It's like that. Yeah, it's ridiculous. But it's that kind of mindset. Yeah. All right, what was the question? So bad that it's good games, life is strange. Done. That's right, yeah, yeah.

Yeah? We start going on about Mass Effect. Yeah, that's right. My name was Andromeda. I mean, yeah, I was just trying to get back to what the question was. Yeah. I guess next question. Yeah.

Yeah, I think you're okay for. R-slash Jarmedia has one for us. Oh. What do you boys think of James Wan's filmography, apart from Aquaman? Some of his movies like Insidious, Saw, and the Conjuring are widely regarded as horror classics, but they seem to get a lot of negativity in film communities. How do we feel about James One? I love James One.

I don't love all of his movies. but I love him as a director and I think that he brings a lot of passion and personality to his films even the bad ones even something like what was it called death wish with fucking Kevin Bacon

was that what it was called? What was it called? Death silence was dead silence was the stupid doll movie that he made between saw and Oh it must be death sentence then death sentence okay yeah so that that movie boring bad stupid

but there's a really great oneer in the chase scene. He puts his effort and he puts his passions into it. Dead silence, boring, bad, stupid, but you can tell he has a love for the fucking creepy puppet animatronic things. Obviously, Jake saw that that was like, you know, I love that I can watch a movie of his, and even if I don't like it, I can tell that there's some passion there,

and I can tell that he loves what he's doing. For the most part, Conjuring was decent, Aquaman, epic, you know. So, yeah. Yeah. Even his, he did the best Fast and Furious movie. If you attach him to these big, dumb, like, Hollywood movies, I feel like he, he knows how to handle them really well. He makes crowd-pleasing movies. They're not that deep.

Yeah, crowd-pleasing, dumb. The energy is what keeps me going. I'm rarely bored in his movies. Yeah. I do genuinely like his soul movie. And I don't really remember. I think I've seen both insidious and both conjurings, but it's just a blur. of insidious conjuring nonsense.

I don't like insidious at all, actually. I hate insidious. That would be the, yeah, I don't. I thought that was pretty bad, yeah, Darth Mall. Yeah, Darth Mall's in it. It's stupid and bad. Yeah, yeah, I don't love that one. I just wanted to mention, he produced a new moral combat.

Yeah, which is probably why they were like actually Asian people in the new moral combat, which was a good thing. Unlike the, you know, the 90s one were with old white people. Yeah, love him. Yeah, he's fine. He makes crowd pleasers. Well, yeah, here's the thing, though, is like you, it seems when you watch a movie like Aquaman or Fast and Furious, whichever one he made, you know, you can appreciate it as like, oh, it's dumb, fun, but you forget that, like, most directors would have dumb, not fun. Like, I think that there's something to appreciate about him making something dumb and fun.

He knows how to make something fun. Yeah, because there's still an art to that, you know. There's talent there. You can tell when they're not connecting with the, you know, like Fast and Furious, like, A, or some bullshit. Like, there's no energy there. There's no passion or creativity behind that. He doesn't make things.

He shines through. Yeah, he actually leaves his print on it, which is more that can be said for a bunch of filmmakers. Yeah, most directors. Whiskey Food has one for us. What are your favorite and least favorite movie trailers? My favorite would be, and I know I'll get shit for this, the trailer for Joker.

I just think it's so well put together and set the mood in turn so well, I can't help but love it as well as the film. And my least favorite trailer would be for the Cohen brothers, Hail Caesar and Clune News, Suburbicon, also written by the Coen's, because they completely misinterpreted the movie.

Though the trailers themselves are fucking fantastic, I highly suggest you check them out just to see how manipulative the marketing was. Also thanks to Adam's Twitch chat for giving me the idea for this question. Least favorite trailers would be ones that spoil the movie. like Death Prove

Yeah, your blade runners I like the movie Don't ever watch the trailer It's just the whole movie Perhaps there's You know Perhaps it's satirical Older trailers were like that

Indiana Jones They spoil everything Yeah perhaps Perhaps we thought about those recently I wanted to mention One of my favorite ones Was like the Dark Night Rises Dark Night trailers

I thought all those were great They didn't reveal too much Great music Yeah I love those Those were like exciting epic movies It's the new Batman movie. You get excited for that thing.

You want the trailer to be good. Sadly, most trailers aim to be in the middle because they don't want to, I don't know, blow people away or offend people or something. Yeah. So they're just kind of bland. That one stands out. I love Mad Max Fury Road also.

That's a really good trailer. Yeah, that's a great trailer. Yeah. Least favorite. I liked the Man of Steel trailers. I thought they were way better than the movie. Yeah. Using like the Lord of the Rings score

and that imagery. in the narration. It seemed like it was like, oh, maybe Zach Snyder. It's all been building to this. But it was actually a Justice League it was building to. The CGO mustache. Yeah, that was a big dud. Man of Steel.

I remember liking the trailers, too. Yeah, and as far as like worst trailers, just another Zach Snyder movie, BBS. That one that had that green Shrek thing, like, slammed down. It's like, so bad. That's one I just checked out, so I'm just never watching. trailers ever again. That's funny. Remember the Battle Los Angeles trailer?

I thought that was a pretty good one. And then the movie just sucked. Oh, yeah, yeah. Nothing happened. No, because, like, I know what you're saying there, but, like, I don't have a lot of respect for trailers that are only good because of the tone of the music that they put in, and the tone of the music doesn't match the film. That would be one of those trailers. Right? Yeah, exactly. I don't have a lot of respect for that. It's dishonest and manipulative. and misleading and also doesn't take a lot of skill

where it's like oh this made the movie seem a lot better than it was I don't think that there was a lot of skill involved in that I think that they were just manipulative about it my favorite trailers come from the directors of the films themselves not out of principle but just because they happen to work out that way rather than a marketing team so a good example of this was there will be blood where PTA made his own trailer and leaked it onto the internet

and and this without the studio permission and then it got like a bunch of hype and the studio was like mad but they were like well I guess I guess you did a good job marketing the movie it was literally just like this weird you know it had like Daniel Playview's monologue where he was like sitting next to the fire or whatever and then just like you know a bunch of different clips from the movie encapsulating the tone without really giving away too much and really communicating just how weird it is where it's like this kind of like horrory thing but also kind of like exciting fun weird character driven stuff where it's like the best trailers in my opinion are ones where you get the tone of the movie without being spoiled of the movie it's an accurate representation

of what you're supposed to expect from the film the white ribbon is another great example and this this one is not one where it's because honica went against a studio's wishes and and uploaded a film trailer on the internet that he made himself. It's because I think this has something to do with him living in Austria or whatever organization he works with to distribute his films. But he has a lot of control over his trailers and it really shows. So I was I was just starting the Michelle Hanukkah hype train. I decided that he was my favorite director and this was shortly before the white ribbon was coming out. And so this trailer I watched like a hundred times and I was so young and so hyped for the white ribbon and it explains everything that I am to expect about the experience

of the movie without spoiling the whole movie. It's like it's perfect because I get to know what to expect without spoiling the experience. I just get hyped for it. So yeah, those are my two examples both made by the directors of the films that they're marketing. I wish that there was more control given to directors in terms of how their films were marketed. Because then we wouldn't see nonsense like fucking Blade Runner 2049, spoiling that Harrison Ford is in it in the poster and the trailer. Fuck you, Sony. Yeah, Terminator Genesis.

They spoiled John Connor. Oh, awful. Terminator. Inception's quite a classic trailer, isn't it? It kind of changed the game a little bit. Yeah. I think Chris Nolan has a lot of involvement. I don't know if he literally edits them himself,

but I'm sure he has a lot of collaboration with the marketing department. Yeah, when you're that big. They're usually really good. Yeah, his trailers are usually really great. Interstell has got a good trailer. J.J. Abrams basically relies on trailers to get people to see his movies. Yeah, he's a dishonest prick. He's all about the marketing.

Yeah, exactly. Fuck yourself. I think, yeah, I think he has a lot of control over his trailers in terms of how dishonest they are. Because he loves doing that. He loves just tricking people into watching his shit. What was his first huge success? Lost or Cloverfield? Lost.

Lost was attached to that, wasn't it? Lost was much earlier than Cloverfield. That's right, yeah Yeah Blue balling the show I'll check out Lost one day I actually hear Lost isn't I mean it blue balls you a little bit

But it's still a great show I think Yeah Like I hear Left him with great things about it One day His movies suck though Okay Let's end on this one from Alex Cool Who says

What's the most radically Your opinion on a film has changed Has there ever been a film You've hated The first time you watched it that you now love. You're cool, Alex. Just referencing the name of the guy.

I don't know. I'm trying to think. Not really. I feel like I'm pretty cemented on my ratings. I've never swapped on a film that much. Maybe minor, like a point. Like half a star.

But that's it. Yeah, for me it's more when there's been a huge time jump, like being 16 years old watching 2001 and thinking it's shit and then going a few years later and being like oh my god what's wrong with me yeah you're a different person at that point so yeah fuck that guy yeah get out of here yeah my um my ratings don't i wouldn't i wouldn't call any of my rating shifts to be radical sure they can jump over time especially from child to adult like that's a big one like I don't think Richie Rich is a good movie in this current year.

Yeah. I don't know. I never gave it a rating when I was seven years old or whatever that was. So I don't know if there was a radical change there. But yeah, I think over time, the most that I think something has jumped for me would be like four points. So if I loved something when I was like 13, then I could have given it a 10 on IMDB and then maybe like today I give it a six or something. Maybe. I don't know if there isn't an example of that specifically, but that seems like the most it could happen.

I guess that's it. Yeah. We got it. We did it, boys. Another one in the can. We got him. and now it's time for a recommendation from Ralph? Yeah, I believe it's my turn to recommend a movie.

So I'll recommend something a little fun, a little light from the director, John Wu. The movie came out in 1997. Oh, no. It's called Face Off. I knew. I knew it. Okay. John Travolta and Nicholas Cage.

All right. All right. Let's check that out. I guess I'm watching Face Off again. Yeah I don't want to be spoiled For face slash off Or

Yeah it's a slash in there Yeah what Hold on Let me check my notes I'm gonna take a Or as Alex would say Face stroke off Face slash off

Stroke You don't want to be spoiled For face off 1997 John Travolta Nicholas Cage John Wu Watch it before the next episode comes out

These episodes come out every two weeks You can listen to these early, go to sardonicast.com, sign up for premium, $2 a month. Also, patreon.com slash sardonicast. Also, we got merch. Also, we didn't do any sponsorships because those are stupid and so give us money instead. Thank you. I was going to make a joke when I rated Chinatown and then I forgot. I was going to be like, Chinatown, more like 9-0-10. Is that a good place to end? That was a pretty good joke either.

You got it back in. You got it in there. Yeah. Yeah, I'll go back in time. I'll edit it. But I won't. Just edit in like four times. Forget it.

Jack. Forget about it. Jake. Jake, it's Chinatown. Oh yeah, there was a, I just want to mention right before the sense. There was like a sequel called the Two Jakes directed by Jack Nicholson in the 90s.

that I was sequel to China. Yeah, it's not very well received. I didn't bother watching it, but yes, we are aware of it now. The two jakes. I don't know if I'll ever see it. The two jakes. Interesting. Couldn't imagine it being that great.

Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye, bye, bye, everyone. Bye.