The Big Picture - ‘Bullet Train’ and the Top 5 Movies Set on a Train

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

‘Bullet Train’, a new movie set—you guessed it—on a Bullet Train, hits theaters this weekend. Van Lathan joins Sean to discuss the star-studded Brad Pitt action vehicle, and then they share their top five favorite movies set on the railway (23:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Van Lathan Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is the big picture a conversation show about bullet train it's a new movie set you guessed it on a bullet train we love movies set on trains on this podcast so we're going to share our favorites and break down this new Brad Pitt action vehicle on the show today joining me to do so a bullet train of podcasting van lathan what's up man what's up my brother so van you and i saw this movie together we have a new tradition going where we check out these films at these screenings at the amc century city and we get all excited for them and then they end and we're like eh was that good i'm not so sure was bullet train thinks it's good and i think the hubris of the movie at times is just enough to make the movie entertaining uh if you were to ask me binary is bullet train good no but that's not being fair to Bullet Train because there are some entertaining moments in the movie enough to get you through to the credits.

But in the end, it probably fails. Yeah, I think we're in agreement on this one. So this is the new movie from David Leitch, who is unofficially the co-director of the first John Wick film, who also directed Hobbs and Shaw. He directed Deadpool 2. He directed Atomic Blonde. He's been a guest on this show in the past. He's really one of the foremost action directors in Hollywood right now.

And it's an interesting project because Brad Pitt, as I mentioned, is the star of this movie. And for many years, David Leitch stunt doubled as Brad Pitt in movies. So this is a kind of a reunion for them. And it's interesting to see them blended in this way. I must say, this is a very odd movie for Brad Pitt to have started.

And hopefully we can get into that a little bit and why he chose to make this movie. In the movie, he plays this kind of unlucky assassin nicknamed Ladybug. And he wants to give up the life, but he's taking on one last job, as so many assassins often are, before turning over a new leaf. And he is attempting to acquire a case on a bullet train. And also on this train are a great number of deadly people who everybody needs to be very wary of them. Among them, Brian Tyree Henry, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Joey King, Andrew Koji. A number of other well-known...

Bad Bunny, at a certain point, appears in the film. Zazie Beetz Bad Bunny at a certain point appears in the film Zazie Beetz appears in the film there are also a number of very notable guest spoilery guest appearances that I don't want to ruin for people in this conversation at least not at the outset very star studded movie and yet

Van I was kind of thrown off by the fact that this movie was so jokey and silly in tone that it had me feeling like it never had an inch of stakes to it. And I was interested to learn that it's based on this novel by the Japanese writer, Kataro Asaka, and that the novel is pretty serious. And that the development of the movie originally, which was developed by Antoine Fuqua, the great Antoine Fuqua, was meant to be a serious drama about this ladybug character. And then when Leach came on,

he and Brad Pitt kind of changed it to a comedy. And that struck me as kind of the issue with the movie. Just the tone seemed a little bit too loose for my taste. What did you think? So I agree. And I think that people are always looking for different ways to do violence now. I think John Wick does, I think the marvelization of film think that people are always looking for different ways to do violence now i think john wick does i

think the marvelization of film in a way has made people look for different reasons to to have intense violence like john wick is very violent but it's so stylish that it doesn't feel that way right it's it's so like oh he flipped around and put the gun in his ear and blasted it and hit the bullet came back to the other guy. I think Bullet Train is trying to mask the fact that this is a really incredibly violent movie through humor, almost like Deadpool.

Hint, hint. And so it fails. You know what I mean? You're trying to be, it doesn't feel all the time you're you're trying to be it doesn't feel all the time but you're you're trying to

stay on track with who's trying to kill who and their jokes just flying at you one after another like so many jokes

and really in order for jokes to really be funny they gotta kind of land in a very specific way, either through, you know, some dramatic pretense or from some otherworldly,

talented comedic performer in a movie who's given them to you. And the movie doesn't have either. And I think we talked about this after. Brad's comedy in the movie is off. And that ends up being a reason, a little bit of the reason why the tone of the movie doesn't

quite feel uh like it like it really uh like it really hits the mark yeah he plays a character who's been recently therapized and so a lot of his character is kind of consistently talking in this therapy language that feels like a joke that we established 25 years ago in gross point blank like it's a very unfresh joke and it's the whole character the whole movie and i'm trying to wrap my head around why the hell what about to do this yeah exactly like we know this so like pitt you know he's very choosy and he has a really high hit rate you know we did a hall of fame episode about him years ago i think around the release of Ad Astra. And it was hard. He's made a lot of good movies, especially

in the last 20 years. His taste is really strong. As a producer, his taste is really strong. I love Brad Pitt. This just felt like a lark. And maybe he just wanted to have some fun with an old friend who is now a big time director and bring in this great cast of characters and just play around for a while. I could see that. But, you know, it's a big

swing from a big studio, a very expensive movie, a summer tentpole blockbuster, and an original story. And yet, I don't know, it feels, like you said, off. Why do you think you wanted to do it? Any sense of the decision-making there? I do not know. I think that people get to a situation like this. You know, Brad just had a major career milestone,

something that i never got the feeling that brad pitt was chasing the academy award but i did get the feeling that he at least would feel like he hadn't had that accomplishment if he didn't get it because he's an actor of such stature so i think maybe he just wanted to have a little fun and the movie reeks of reeks of that the movie you definitely get that feeling in the movie some things we talked about we don't want to spoil anything for anybody but you can tell in the movie that these were a bunch of people that wanted to have some fun and it looks like a movie that they probably had a lot of fun making um and the movie itself is not devoid of fun i'm not saying it's

not fun um and so i think that probably has to do more with it more uh has to do with it has to do more with that should i say get my words straight um than anything but i it wasn't challenging for him in terms of his performance he was kind of coasting it wasn't actually even showing that physically challenging for him it's true you know what i mean like it wasn't like brad pitt broke out his best kung fu or he was you know in fight scenes, but they were kind of beating potatoes, punching and kicking, if you're really asking. So I just think he wanted to, like you said before, take a load off and make something that probably got a nice check for it. Maybe it does some decent box office you know there's this really funny historical trend of actors after they win their academy award the film that follows immediately afterwards often being a really

mediocre genre movie you know like charlie's there on after she won she made a on flux scarlett johansson had a big genre movie immediately after winning her oscar you know brad in the aftermath of once upon a time in holly saying, I just want to have some fun with my boys and be in a stupid action movie. It makes sense. And it's tricky because I kind of wanted to situate this movie alongside The Gray Man, which Chris and I talked about last week on the show, and which is a very similarly very expensive, very noisily mounted movie with a bunch of movie stars that after you finish watching it you feel really empty you're just like okay that happened it wasn't the worst thing i've ever seen but it

certainly didn't get me excited and tonally they're both very very glib they're both very satisfied with themselves and there are things about it that are fun and funny but they don't really feel they feel like they're operating beyond the audience. And when you said Marvelization of action earlier, it also had me thinking about just the general Marvelization

of tone across any movie that has explosions and fight scenes. One of the reasons why Wick has been so cool in the last few years is because it's not winking at you ever.

You know, there are some funny lines in the John Wick films, but it's deadly serious. And I really... I appreciate how seriously they take that story this one and the gray man put together it just feels like a bunch of movie stars like trying to create memes in real time do you know what i mean when i say that are we stuck in this as a as a as like a mode for action movies right now i feel that we are And we've had this conversation before. And I think that there's two things going on. The first is a little bit different than the second.

The first one is that as these studios more and more morph into financial entities and as social media and conversation starts to drive uh art and we get more fan service vehicles than we get like actual like fucking art you remember back when they were guys who directed action and they made it seem like every action film was the mona lisa yes like you go back and watch The Predator, I don't give a fuck what you say. They took that motherfucker seriously.

They weren't trying to sell no toys. They were telling a story about an alien in the jungle who wanted to kill you. They took that motherfucking movie seriously. You can fucking tell. They took it seriously, right? So I think that the reason why bad bunny shows up in the movie like this is nothing against bad bunny the reason why bad bunny shows up in the

movie like this and really doesn't do anything is because hey bad bunny's in a movie that might get somebody out to see a movie that might expand us to a different quadrant because this is r-rated the audience might be a little smaller right the reason why there's a cameo a second is, hey, did you know he was in this blah, blah, blah? All of that stuff, whatever. Secondly is this, is our version of the movie star has changed to the point to where we don't

rely on their charisma as much as we used to. Like, the old action movies, think about an action movie like Cobra. Cobra's not the best movie in the world. But you are betting on Stallone to get you through that movie.

Stallone is such a big fucking deal. Hey, Stallone is a cop. He's Cobra. Fuck it, let's give it a shot. And he's going to Stallone you like through that film. I always bring up Tango and Cash because the movie shouldn't be any good, but I love it.

Russell and Stallone are going to get you through that film. Bruce Willis is going to get you through Die Hard, which is a fantastically made and written movie. Don't get me wrong. But these guys could do that. I think now they more, I think now we're looking at more of a situation to where

the movies need to discuss our stupid stuff, Sean. Maybe it's a little simpler. Maybe they need to dumb themselves down just a tad. Charismatic hero, odds, odds backstory bad guy go yeah that's it we've been telling that same story since medieval times they tell that story in the restaurant medieval times so so so so so so what i'm saying is it's's like, bullet train is cool, but bullet train is doing a lot, man.

Like, a lot. And if a movie does that much, you want it to be for a reason. And there is no reason. So it's like, you know what I mean? Yeah. You make a great point,

which is that this movie could use some simplification and it could use some... A little bit. It could use a dose of seriousness and it could use, um, I think, uh,

like a little bit of a lack of self-awareness. I think that that's something there, there is, there are self-aware movies that I really like. And I really like movies that have an, an awareness of the history of movies. But what I don't like is movies that are overwhelmingly interested in nodding at the audience. And this is a tricky one because I feel like if we went down the list of the

stars of this movie, and we probably should because there's some really fun performances, but if you look at what Joey King is doing or what Aaron Taylor Johnson is doing or Brian Tyree Henry, kind of some of the more interesting parts that they've had a chance to play, maybe not the deepest characters, but some of the more fun characters that they've been given the opportunity to play. And I liked watching them on screen some of the more fun characters that they've been given the opportunity to play. And I liked watching them on screen and I was kind of engaged in their stories and yet I never really,

I certainly never really felt like they were real people and I also never really felt like they were a meaningful part of this story. You know, like they were players in the game but they were nothing less than supporting players, or nothing more than supporting players, I should say. And so that's another thing that just sort of felt like it's a rogues gallery movie. Rogues gallery movies are fun, but they often lead to a very inevitable also being a problem of the 21st century self-aware movie business. So it's like it's kind of both like it has a lot of the old fashioned problems and it also has a lot of the new fashioned problems.

And so it just feels like a little bit hung up somehow. And I don't know if this is, you know, strictly like a script problem or like the tone thing that I keep referencing. But it's unusual because like Hiroyuki Sanada for example he shows up in this film he's like a great um japanese actor people might have seen him probably most recently in mortal combat but he's been in a lot of movies over the last 20 years and he's a very serious and grave performer almost always you never see him doing laugh lines and he's pretty grave and serious in this movie but when he shows up in the movie, the tone of the movie completely changes. Like Aaron Taylor Johnson and Brad Pitt can be doing their shtick when his character's on screen.

So there are so many odd decisions like that throughout the movie. Even Brian Tyree Henry, who half the time is playing a very serious character and half the time is playing a full blown joke character. I don't know. What did you think of the way that they put this cast together is essentially what i'm asking you so joey king was fantastic um she's really good uh she's really good in a way he's just rounding out growing up to be a fantastic young performer uh aaron taylor johnson for me was the best thing about the movie um the thing about it is her character's motivations and the character itself was so absurd.

You know what I mean? Just the amount of carnage that when you find out at the end of it, it never makes any sense. You never feel connected to her motivations and desires. This is the anarchist for the sake of it. You never fall into love with anybody.

You never fall in with anyone. And that's hard for a movie that's doing this. There's wildlife in the film that just has nothing. It's just another thing. They just keep adding things. Just a new thing. Everything is just a thing. These stories aren't.

It's just a thing. The recurring joke about Thomas the Tank Engine. Just a thing no these stories aren't it's just a thing the recurring joke about thomas the tank engine just a thing a thing a thing a thing more things i'm not saying these aren't story points they don't work themselves out the end but they never seem to be particularly compelling interesting or important right and even at the end of the movie when we find out there's a spoiler alert there is a handler who talks to Brad Pitt the entire film and is almost like a friend to him a friend and a handler

that tells him about what he has to do you find out who the person is at the end of the movie it should be a cool little moment it's not because it doesn't fucking matter you know what I mean like who cares um so the characters in the movie were cool you know to be honest with you i thought bad bad bunnies uh montage that explained his history was actually kind of fun it's not like it's not fun i mean mean, some of this stuff is fun, but it's just,

it's just big and silly and stupid. So it's like, there's not much else to say. You know, if you got an extra couple of bucks and you want to go and just watch a lot of shit happen, go fuck with it. You're not going to be mad,

but it's not, you know what I'm saying? It's not, it's nothing to, it's nothing to talk about ever. I'll never watch Bullet Train again. Yeah. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Here's the thing. There's nothing to it's nothing to talk about ever i'll never watch bullet train again oh yeah bullshit bullshit bullshit here's the thing there's a chance i talked to you about this there's a chance that three years from now on a sunday afternoon that bullet train will be four hours on tnt and i might i might watch it you know what i mean like that type of movie yes yes and it's funny to that you say that because i feel similarly

my i have no immediate desire to revisit it whatsoever but it's an expectations game and all movies like this are an expectations game you mentioned tango and cash when tango and cash came out people were like all right it's kind of a hit it's like a mid-tier hit we've got two big movie stars doing their thing certainly not a critically celebrated movie by any means. No. But it had its admirers. And then over time, a kind of like cult of fandom grows. And then kids, when they're nine years old, see Tango and Cash. And they're like, that's the coolest movie I've ever seen.

And then they get to be 40 years old. And they're like, I don't know why, but this is one of my favorite movies. And this is that kind of movie in a way. It's like maybe if you see this at the right age or you get emotionally connected to it at the right time, you might say, what the hell is wrong with Sean and Van on that pod? They were so down on this movie. That is actually a lot of fun.

It's more like when we're in the midst of this complicated moment in theatrical movie history, when we're desperate for a new big action series with a new star like Brad Pitt, then the expectations get high. And then you watch the movie and you're like, this is kind of a big bag of nothing. It's like a fun bag. It's like a bag of confetti, you know, and you throw it all over the

place and then once it's over, it's just on the ground and trash you got to clean up. That's really all that the movie is. The Bad Bunny thing in particular is funny that you bring that up. They barely let him speak in this movie, which I thought was kind of a fascinating decision. I don't think he had any lines. And maybe that was like a character choice.

Yeah. However, his sequence, which I agree was very stylish and cool, felt very Kill Bill inspired. And then it had me thinking about how this movie is very Kill Bill inspired. And Kill Bill, of course, is very inspired by lots of movies that have teams of assassins and team ups and people on a revenge mission, much like the characters in this movie. And so Kill Bill was this sort of like homage laden, super mega genre, fast paced action epic 20 years ago. And now we're still just kind of iterating on the same genre mashup stuff 20 years later. There's nothing new about it, I guess, is ultimately the point that I'm trying to make. And so it's not bad.

It's not great. Can I ask you one last thing about it? Can I say one thing about Kill Bill before you ask me that? Of course. I did an experiment one time. Okay. I watched Kill Bill and I skipped every single fight.

Did it work? Did it still work as a movie? Yeah. Yeah. It absolutely has zero effect. It absolutely has zero effect on the movie like zero effect like this think about it in this film right here if you skipped every action sequence what would you be left with a lot of conversations about thomas the tank engine honestly i mean right you know what i mean and that's not to say that the action doesn't Thomas the Tank Engine. Honestly. I mean, right?

You know what I mean? And that's not to say that the action is not narrative. It doesn't tell a story in a lot of action movies. Of course it does, right? But the reality is there's a part of it.

That movie has a fastball that this one doesn't. So if it's an homage to Kill Bill, it's certainly a poor one. You know, the whole point of this conversation is to talk about movies on trains. And this is a movie on a train.

It's on a bullet train. That's racing through Japan. Did it, did it feel like a true train movie to you? Uh, yeah. And I'll tell you why it did, because the fact that we're on a train is,

um, the driving catalyst for a lot of what's happening, right? The train itself, a train, I don't know how many people have actually taken a train. It's a funny little place where, you know, you're walking back and forth. Every single train car has its own ecosystem. Different people have made different alliances. I used to take the train. There was an observation deck. People would just be looking out along the train.

And so it is a true train movie. the train means a lot to the film so i wouldn't take that away from it what are your thoughts well it has one cool convention which is i don't know how realistic this is or not but they're the train car doors only open at every stop for one minute and so there are all of these sequences where characters are sort of desperate to get off the train or to get back off the train if they've gotten on the train if they've gotten off the train and so this idea of this thing that continues to hurdle forward no matter what anybody has to say about it is a smart way to frame a story and a smart way to push a story forward so i liked that aspect of it and there are a couple of close calls that are pretty cool i don't know that i necessarily got a real feel for what a luxury train experience is like not that i needed that

per se but it kind of presents like it's going to be like that you're right though that like train life is very distinct and very specific and as i was thinking about movies like this there are some movies that have iconic train sequences right like north by northwest has an iconic train sequence but you wouldn't really call that like a train a train movie for example um is there something that is there anything that you're looking for because like i asked you to put together a list i put together a list our list kind of share movies honestly when when we talk about the films i think there's going to be a lot of crossover here but like what are you looking for in a train movie um i'm looking for a movie that the the plot of the film is matching the trains the plot of the film is matching the trains.

The plot of the film is matching the kinetic energy of the train. Most train movies have a destination. And the train is moving along at the same point our characters are moving on to whatever destination that they're getting to and a lot of movies they don't as much as we think about them as films that go somewhere they don't quite not not as much as a movie on the train because there's a finite time when all of the fucking hijinks are gonna be over at some point we have to get something done or do something by the time we get to this spot or whatever. And then all chance of having movie are over. Movie in here.

No more movie. So that's what I like about a train movie. There's this feeling of urgency to a lot of them that kind of guides you through it. With one notable exception being one that we're going to discuss where the train obviously never stops but but um for the most part it's people have been forced to deal with something in very very creative ways because they're in a confined space um and it's not going to last forever so they only have a set amount of time. That's for most train movies that I like. Yeah, I like that description too.

It was funny when I asked you about doing this, you came up with your list like in five minutes. Like you didn't even, you didn't blink. Like I don't think I really knew how prepared you were for this. Do you want to do your number five? All right. So these are my train movies.

Okay. Number five is silver streak it's literally one of the first movies i've ever seen did you catch it on hbo i caught it i can't remember where i caught it but my grandmother was going through a a whole wilder slash prior phase do you remember this era of course i do i saw this movie on hbo which is why i ask yeah wilder and prior um and it was like uh they did another one what was the other one that they did they did uh see no evil hear no evil do you remember that yeah and they did and they did stir crazy as well they did stir crazy as well so yeah. So, Leon Spinks is in the movie. It's a lot like kind of one of those big type of stuff. It's not that dissimilar from Bullet Train if we're looking at it in terms of how the movie kind of tries to go. But I liked this when I was a kid.

Source code. So, I thought about putting this on my list. Uh-huh. I like this movie. I don't love it. Can you explain the premise for anybody who's not familiar with source code and why you love it? First of all, let me just say something about source code.

Source code is, it's a mix of, first of all, source code is super underrated to me but it's a mix of a groundhog day type of situation um with an intriguing sort of uh train i don't know why i'm blanking with an intriguing train related uh it's a murder on a train if i if i remember something like and and jake gyllenhaal is in the situation he kind of has to find out but it ends up being about much much more than that um much much more than that and the movie to me is really underrated and i'd be i'd be i'd be curious as to why you didn't dig it that much well it's one of those movies with an amazing premise right so it's like the jake dylan hall character i think he's in the army and he keeps replaying this sequence on the train which i

think is like related to a murder and like an espionage thing and then the train crashes and explodes right right and it's it's like he's in a simulation that is being repeated over and over again so that the government can determine what really happened, who was really responsible, why did this event happen, who are the people who are not to be trusted on the train in this eight-minute sequence. And it's a little bit of science fiction, it's a little bit of an espionage film, directed

by Duncan Jones, who had previously made Moon, which was a big debut that everybody loved. Duncan Jones is David Bowie's son, and he's gone to make a lot. You're not going to get to you got to do the David Bowie's son. And it's gone to make a lot. You're not going to get to, you got to do the David Bowie's son thing when you're talking about Duncan. I mean, God bless.

Duncan is very talented. Maybe not as talented as his father, but he's talented. Super talented. Yeah, I love Duncan. But this is like, it's got a little bit of a third act problem. You know, a lot of these high concept

science fiction action movies, their resolution is like, it's all right. It's cool. Like, I like it, but I'm not desperate to revisit this film is something I'll say. Let's litigate this one second. Name me

one great science fiction movie besides Empire that doesn't have a little bit of a third actor problem. The Empire Strikes Back? I said besides Empire. Oh, besides Empire.

Planet of the Apes? Okay, I'll give you that one. Actually, yeah, I'll give you that one. That's actually a money one right there. Well, you know, we used to be a proper country and we used to know how to end our science fiction movies. And I would say in the 70s, a lot of our sci-fi movies ended well.

I liked how The Omega Man resolved and logan's run and all these other mega man bro i was so fucking scared of logan's run then i could not handle logan's run as a kid bro logan's run the premise of logan's run was way too fucking much for me like just like just knowing that that was a thing and you were just going to be out of here and nobody fucking survived the carousel or whatever the fuck it was. I could never really appreciate the movie because I was so scared. It played with my anxiety.

God damn, Logan's Run. But that's you, sir, source code, or no, Logan's Run is really the point that I'm trying to make. It's not bad. It's not bad. I haven't seen it in a long time. It's a symptom of more of a,

more of like a 21st century sci-fi issue, I think, is that it's really hard to end some of these movies, in part because a lot of these stories have been told over and over again. Do you want to keep going through your five? Do you want to hear any of mine?

Yes, I will. Oh, well, how about I go through mine and then you go through yours? Is that cool? Great. Perfect. Number three.

I like your number three. Yeah, go ahead. Under Siege 2, Dark Territory territory this movie's fire no shame like i don't i don't care what anybody says hardly anybody watch under siege two under siege one is good too hardly anybody watch under siege two i fucking love under siege two man you know what i mean it was and i remember this was this there was the subject of some back and forth because bruce willis actually did this movie he was like they basically just fucking under siege and this movie is just basically taking die hard and doing when he was he was promoing uh one of the diehards that was coming out it's like

we've obviously seen the under sieges and the diehards in a diehard honor type of situation. Under Siege 2 Dark Territory is basically diehard on a train, basically. That's what it is. That was one that I wasn't sure if you were going to be able to dig it. There's one very specific

reason why I like this movie and it's Eric Boghossian as the evil computer genius who is threatening casey ryback the steven seagal character i'm not the biggest steven seagal guy i'm not even the biggest like ironic steven seagal guy personally but the under siege movies have great premises and this is also at the high time of like speed and many other movies that were doing that thing that willis was talking about where it was basically just like if you don't

reach a certain thing or a thing goes under a thing then everyone's gonna die or I'm not gonna get my money or like you know

these high concept low execution or low concept high execution action movies again we didn't know what we had they were very special

I like Under Siege too no shame there Morris Chestnut that's right I forgot he was in it yeah Catherine Heigl young Catherine Again, we didn't know what we had. They were very special. I like Under Siege too. No shame there. Morris Chestnut. That's right. I forgot he was in it. Catherine Heigl. Young Catherine Heigl.

Young Catherine Heigl in that. Number two, obviously Snowpiercer. Snowpiercer was a movie that Kalika and I, Kalika and I, we would go to, I think I've told you about this, I'll tell you about our I-Pick thing, is that we decided one time that we had to go to the IPIC every Saturday, no matter what. Can you explain to the listeners what IPIC is, who don't

know what it is? So the IPIC is this chain of theaters that serves, obviously a lot of theaters serve food now, to your table, but when we first stumbled upon the IPIC, the first movie I saw at the IPIC was the OG Avengers. You go to the IPIC, press a button, pick was the OG Avengers you go to the I pick press a button

they come out there you order all kinds of food you sit back you eat the food it's maybe it's only maybe like 40 seats in the theater you're in a recliner it's just dope and we liked the I pick and the food at the I pick and the drinks at the I pick so much that we decided we were going to go to the I pick

every Saturday no matter what unless it was a movie we really had to have a theater going experience for. And then we got to go to the arc light. Right. Okay. Okay. And so snow piercer, I didn't know much about it before it was coming out.

I didn't at all at all. And I was like, Hey, Chris Evans, we'll go to the I pick to see this. She, she was like, cool.

Kalika was so grossed out by Snowpiercer. She could not handle Snowpiercer. I remember she was so disturbed by Snowpiercer. And everything, she did not expect it to be that serious. She did not expect it

to be that violent. The part where they're about to fight and the dude takes the knife and he cuts the fish just to let you know how sharp his shit is. And then they get about stabbing each other. She wasn't expecting a commentary on the environment or on classism. I was like, yo, this shit is crazy.

And she was like, this ruined my Saturday. And so Snowpiercer is still one of my favorite movies and it's so weird i watch snow piercer all the time i really enjoy snow piercer but it's a very very intense movie set on a train very intense i love it it would have been on my list if it wasn't on yours um i think this is the movie that most people in the states really got out to Bong Joon-ho from and in part frankly because Chris Evans took that part and a lot of people I think have the same experience you did which is oh

Captain America's in this action movie I should check this out and what they got was this you know extremely violent satire of our culture and wealth and capitalism and power structures and all these things it's also really funny

as all Bong Joon-ho movies are. It's got a very twisted sense of humor and it just has legitimately incredible action. This is the movie we're referencing about the train that really never stops rolling.

I assume that most listeners of this show have now seen Snowpiercer. If you have not, please correct this. Please watch this. The TV show is alright the the movie is fantastic um yeah the whole premise of the fucking movie is that the train never stops we're not spoiling anything by telling you the train the

train don't fucking stop society lives on the train it's too fucking cold outside um what's your number one from russell woodluff i am a ridiculous bond head um you got specter all in this movie i bond having to be bond on a train the whole thing is not on the train the whole thing is not on the train most most of the most of the second and third act is most of the second and third act is on the train and uh i enjoy because you know this was bond when bond was really more about the uh the energy of the spy stuff than it was about big huge stunts and events it's more about how smooth he could be you know and he did cool shit don't get me wrong but as bond went on the stakes like went up and now with what Tom is doing with Mission Impossible,

fucking Bond's going to have to jump into a volcano to keep up with the stuff that they're doing over here, but this one is very cool, very sleek, very sexy, and rest in peace to Sean, but I love the movie. I like this one for a couple of reasons.

The number one reason is probably Robert Shaw who I feel like is the most one of the more credible less cartoonish Bond villains it's really like

right after this one where I feel like it becomes much more about like world dominance and we start getting into the the Goldfinger era and then all the way

up through you know Hugo Drax and all that stuff and that stuff is fun but to your point about it being a little bit more scaled down i feel like red the robert shaw character is also kind of a scaled down villain and he's good and he's nasty and he's brutish and you feel like he can really go toe to toe with bond so i like that about it too um

i didn't know you were a bond head i wish i had known when we were doing bond episodes in the fall i like them a lot um i i love bond and i love bond films like i love the living daylights i know that's not like a bomb movie that like a lot of people dig that much but i i love but i love dalton as bond like i'm a big bomb fan it was a big part uh big part of my filmmaking palette when I was a movie palette when I was growing up, for sure. Is Brosnan your Bond, or is Craig your Bond in terms of the one that you identify with your era?

I would identify with my era. It's definitely Brosnan. Craig is the Bond, but it's definitely Brosnan for me. What's your power rankings for Bonds? Number one, Connery. I just have to. I respect that. I have to.

Number one, Connery. Number two, Craig. I'm going to go with Roger Moore as number three. Okay. Because Roger Moore doesn't get his love and his credit. Being in that many bonds just matters. So I'm going to go

with Roger Moore at number three. Dennis Dalton, Dennis Lazenby. Am I missing one? Brosnan. Oh, got to turn.

It's Brosnan, Dalton, then Lazenby. I feel like there's just not enough Lazenby love. I know he only made one movie. I know he's Australian. But, I don't know. I really like

his Bond movie. I really feel like he was a pretty credible Bond. I don't know why he wasn't asked back, but on Her Majesty's Secret Service, I've said it before on this show, one of the best action movies of the 60s. Great action sequence in that movie. I can't really quibble

with your rankings I feel like that is for most people now we've all we sort of have arrived at if you want to flip Craig and Connery depending on how old you are you can but most people feel like

that's yeah that's that that's really the power rankings who do you want for your next bond death Mattel man I agree I pitched that once upon a time that would be really good def patel a lot of people would be like like i think def patel first of all def patel has turned into a much more sexy

man than anybody thought and so i think def patel would do a lot to dust bond off and get him into the uh into the to the next to the next phase of it. Dev Patel would be great. Let me give you some train movies, okay? You might be up on some of these. You might not be up on others. I'm going to make my case. Number five, I was originally planning to go with Murder on the Orient Express, which is the Sidney Lumet 70s adaptation of the Agatha Christie story.

And then I rewatched it last night, and I was like, this is a good Agatha Christie movie, but I don't really care about its train aspect. And I think as I was watching this, I started to feel like all great train movies need to have some action element to them. And you'll see, as I go through my list that that is definitely the case. So number five is detective dude on that.

I've never seen that before. He's Belgian. Hercule Poirot. Yeah. Yeah. And he, on that i've never seen that before he's belgian uh ericul poirot yeah yeah and he so he's recently been um a figure in the kenneth brana adaptations he made a murder on the orient express himself about five years ago which is okay um the original you know the 70s version was oscar nominated and was hugely celebrated and was a hit in the time in its time as well and has a pretty incredible cast like laurenall, Richard Widmark, Albert Finney plays Poirot.

It's a cool ensemble movie and a fun mystery movie, but it's not as good as these next five I'm going to give you. So number five is called The Train. Are you up on The Train from 1964? Never saw it. Okay, this is important.

The Train is directed by John Frankenheimer, which is the name I know you know. Of course. This comes in what I think might be the most underrated five-year run for any director in the second half of the 20th century. Okay. Here's what...

Oh, let's... Okay. So, Frankenheimer, if you're listening to this show, they'll know him from Ronan,, they'll know him from Ronin and they'll know him from things like The Disastrous Island of Dr. Moreau and he made a lot of very good movies in the 90s. I think he made Reindeer Games, the much maligned

Ben Affleck movie. In the 60s... I love it. I'm sorry. It's okay. Reindeer Games. It's fine. Yeah. But in the 60s, he directs Birdman of Alcatraz in 1962 the manchurian candidate also in 1962 seven days in may in 1964 which is this great kind of nuclear era paranoid thriller and then the train also in 1964 and then he makes seconds a really interesting

science fiction kind of what's it with Rock Hudson and then Grand Prix, this amazing racing movie that was hugely inspired Ford versus Ferrari. Six movies in four years. Two movies in 62, two movies in 64, two movies in 66. Many people will say Manchurian Candidate is the best of those. There's a case that

The Train is the best of them. Interesting. I was not super familiar with it before, but it's really, really good, man. It's about a group of French resistance fighters, essentially, who work on the trains. And at the end of World War II, the Nazis are trying to get invaluable art

out of France and into Germany and essentially steal it at the end of the war. We've seen this in movies before. And Burt Lancaster plays one of these French resistance fighters. Please forgive the fact that Burt Lancaster is as far from French as any actor has ever been. And it's all about the sort of construction, the rebuild, and the stalling of this train to move from Paris to a part of Germany where they're going to deliver the art. Shot in black and white, beautiful movie, incredible train sequences, real trains crashing into each other in the 1960s.

Amazing movie. I highly, highly recommend it. You should check it out after we finish recording this. I definitely will. I definitely will. Sean, you've sold it. I'm definitely going to check it out. Okay.

I hope other people will too. The next one that is on my list, I think you've probably heard of. It's called Unstoppable. It was directed by Tony Scott. It stars Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. It was Once Upon a Time, an entry on the rewatchables with Quentin Tarantino.

You're up on Unstoppable, right, man? Actually, I should have had it on my list. I enjoy the movie a lot. I'm a big Tony Scott fan. Like a big Tony Scott fan. Bigger than most. So I dug the movie a lot. I'm a big Tony Scott fan. Like a big Tony Scott fan. Bigger than most. I dug the movie. It felt like kind of a joke movie when it first came

out for whatever reason. But when I watched it, it actually was better than I thought it was going to be and I enjoy it a lot. I wonder if Unstoppable is the kind of movie like the conversation we're having about Bullet Train where we went in and we were like, alright, a big movie with Denzel Washington, but it feels like kind of a ridiculous premise.

And then people, you know, it did pretty good business, but then people just completely forgot about it. And then 10 years later, everybody was like, you know what's amazing is Unstoppable. Like the lifespan of movies is really interesting because at the time, no one was really touting this. It was one of the great action movies of the 2010s, right? No. The movie, I remember there was a Saturday Night Live sketch about it.

You know what I mean? Like the movie, people were making, the train, it's unstoppable. It was just, it was funny. We can't stop the train. Like, you know what I mean? Like that was the whole thing. And to have Denzel, to have Chris Pine, and Denzel went through this phase where,

I guess it's not a phase, he only did it a couple of movies, maybe three where they pair him up with a younger, sort of hotter white male actor. You know, he did one with Ryan Reynolds. He did one with Chris Pine. And I think that some stalwart Denzel fans were kind of getting sick of that shit.

You know what I mean? And so, there wasn't as much fanfare as a Denzel movie for this film. But, I liked it. By the way,

not only did I like this, I like Safe House with Ryan Reynolds. I like that one too. Yeah, it's okay. Chris Ryan rides for it too. You know what? The one I don't ride for is Two Gun and that was him with mark walberg i didn't think that one worked with mark walberg

yeah i did like i saw that one the one time it just kind of was it it never really got anywhere you know um unstoppable is also related to a movie that's a little further on my list but i'll wait till i get to that number three kind of a controversial pick, even for myself for years and years, I thought that Darjeeling limited was the weakest of all the Wes Anderson movies. And it always kind of rubbed me the wrong way. It never really worked. It felt like him kind of revisiting stuff we'd seen before in Tenenbaums and in Rushmore. And then I've seen it a couple of more times since it first came out and I've gotten more

and more interested in it. And it's also, it's a great train movie because obviously Wes Anderson is a master of production design and framing and blocking in all of his movies. And he makes you really feel like you're on that train. You know, it's very intimate. It's very cramped at times, but also the train in the film has this really intricate system. We see all of these shots of the camera kind of moving along the train tracks as it tracks what's happening in each car. It's a real, real, real train movie. And there's real purpose to it and integrity to it in terms of the way that it's made.

Very good performances, I think. Especially Adrian Brody, I think, is really, really good in this movie. And I'm starting to come around on it the way I often come around on maligned movies by filmmakers I love and then spend more and more time thinking about how they made it. Are you even a Wes Anderson guy? I don't know if we've ever talked about Wes. Love Wes. Never seen The Darjeeling Limited, though.

Oh, interesting. You should check that out. Never seen it. I don't know what about this movie just didn't get me going to where I had to see it. I know people are going to be like, oh, he says he's a big fan, but he hasn't seen all of the director's movies. I just never had any interest in the movie for some reason.

I'm not sure what that was about. And I've never seen it to this day. I'm curious for you, though, what made you come around on it? Was it a change in your life? What made you come around on it after you were out on it at the outset? Can I be really honest with you? Sure. I think when I saw it and in the ensuing years, I had a lot of problems, and this probably has more to do with self-loathing than it does any kind of critical analysis, that it just felt

like a white savior movie. And it felt like a white guy goes to India and tries to tell a story about this place, but he can only center the story on these white protagonists and that in retrospect. And it's something I've thought about a lot as I think about criticizing films and stories and where I'm at now versus where I was even five years ago. It was just a really facile reading of that movie and asking Wes Anderson to more accurately reflect the Indian characters in the film. That isn't the story that he was trying to tell. He was trying to tell a story about these three brothers going on a trip. And he does that really well. And I think he portrays India very respectfully. And I think there is a little bit of white saviordom in the movie, but also it's kind of an indictment. The sequence that I'm talking about, which you'll understand when you see the movie van, is much more nuanced than I was willing

to understand at the time. And so that's the other thing too, is as time goes on, maybe you have a little bit more empathy for what a filmmaker is trying to do with something. Maybe you understand a little bit more clearly what they wanted and you're not so reactive. I'm trying to get a little bit less reactive in the way that I think about these things. And so once I started to give up on that hang up, I started to appreciate the movie a lot more for it, for a lot of its beauty and a lot of its humor. So that's, that's basically what's changed. Wow. Well said. Well said. Okay. A couple more for you. The first one is the one that's related to unstoppable, which is runaway train, which is an absolutely amazing movie i don't i don't it's very similar unstoppable in that it is about an unstoppable runaway train and also that

the train is like the third character in the film and it is a a domineering force of nature in the movie it's directed by um andre konchalovsky the russian filmmaker it stars john voight and eric roberts eric roberts kind of right at the start of his is this guy going to be a big movie star figure. And it's about two escaped convicts who jump aboard a train out of Alaska to get back to safe harbor

in the United States. And in doing so, the train sort of has a malfunction. The conductor jumps off of the train. The brakes sort of break. And then this train is just hurling through the earth as quickly as possible. And it is a thrilling show. It is like one of the better movies of the 1980s. It's one of the more forgotten action epics of the 1980s.

Both John Voight and Eric Roberts were nominated for their performances, despite the fact that this is not really the kind of movie that usually gets Academy Award nominations. I think it's one of the very first movies that Rebecca De Mornay was in. It's probably the most well-known movie that Konchalovsky directed in the United States. He's still active. He made a film in Russia a couple of years ago that was pretty acclaimed. But if you Google Runaway Train right now, the first thing that you get is Unstoppable and Your Return. You don't get the movie Runaway Train, but it's because it feels like they're very much,

they're sister films, they're brother films, they're related to each other. But the one interesting little tidbit too about Runaway Train is it's based on a story that Akira Kurosawa wrote that was meant to be

one of his big movies in the 60s and he could never really get the money in place to do it. And so it was eventually adapted in the United States by Golan and Globus and Canon Films. And it's also one of the best movies that Canon ever produced.

They produced a couple of cool movies and a lot of stinkers over the years. But Runaway Train is just an absolute banger if people have not heard of it. Wow. I hadn't heard of it, and I'm going to check it out because I have to see the movie that

eric roberts was nominated for an academy award for you know you forget about the eric roberts that was shot out of a cannon to be the next star like my beginning the beginning of my eric roberts knowledge begins with best of the best and it kind of he had an interesting career to say the least after that but you know when you know more about him, he was going to be that guy. I mean, he has a great career, but I'd be interested to see how this movie, because I've never seen this movie before. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people think he is very difficult to work with. And so he had this run in the 80s where he was in Star 80

and then the Pope of Greenwich Village and then runaway train and then best of the best and those were i think like his big like i'm here announcements but also right around the best of the best time is when he really started taking on like a tough reputation and so he never really made as many well respected i guess for lack of a better word movies but his performance and voice performance are on a thousand. They're like, they both win Dion Waiters going away. They're such heat check performances, but they're fun and they're kind of appropriate. It's like if you were on a

runaway train and you would just escape from prison, you probably would be screaming at the top of your lungs the whole time too. So I like that movie. I think you should definitely check it out. The last one I'm going to recommend is called The Taking of Pelham 123. Not the Denzel Washington and John Travolta version, though that version is okay. But the original from 1974, simply one of the best movies of the 70s. It's a crime drama. It's also a subway movie. It's not an external train movie. It's an underground train

movie. And it's a movie that if you look at Reservoir Dogs, if you look at Heat, if you look at some of the best kind of crime and heist movies of the 1990s, you can see a lot, a lot of the taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3 in it, in the way that the dialogue is written, in the way that the characters have these kind of hidden identities, in the way that they seem somehow related to bigger plots, but they're not always necessarily fully explained. And also in the way that the characters, the actors that are cast seem like real people. It's not a movie full of beautiful movie stars. It's Walter Matthau. It's Martin Balsam. It's Hector Elizondo. It's guys who seem like you would see them on the streets in New York City. And the dialogue is crisp.

It's directed by Joseph Sargent. It's just a wonderful movie. Have you seen the original Pelham 1-2-3? it makes you curious about its predecessor. That's happened to me numerous times. And I watched it, and when I realized that it was a remake and I saw the cast of the previous film, because I told you, you know, Tony Scott, I'm going to watch everything that he does, I went back and watched it, and it was really great. And it's a really good movie, and a movie that reminds you of just how rich a

movie decade that the 70s actually were because when you talk about great movies of the 70s not that many people say would would bring this movie up but it definitely is one of

the better movies from that decade for sure so 1974 just to give you a little taste of what was happening in the world of movies that year um the aforementioned murder on the orient express the longest yard young frankenstein blazing saddles towering inferno little movie called the godfather part two freebie and the

bean the texas chainsaw massacre chinatown death wish Wish, and this movie, among many others, frankly. We didn't, man, we had it so good. I wasn't even alive, but I long for those days when I was negative eight years old. That was a hell of a time in American movies. Any closing thoughts on train movies? Any honorable mentions you want to shout out? You wanted to put on Throw Mama from the Train. Can you speak on that?

So I wanted to put Throw Mama on the Train. Shout out to my own mother and the Billy Crystal, Danny DeVito phase that we had in our life. Love Throw Mama from the Train. Love a great black comedy. Black comedy is so hard now in the world that we live in where people don't think that killing someone is a joke. But done correctly, killing someone can be very funny or the want to kill someone can be very funny.

You know, if we take our foot off the gas and breathe and have a little fun for a second, throw my arm from the train, it's a movie that at the end, I didn't feel like took place enough on a train, but I enjoyed it. I wanted to put on planes, trains, and automobiles. And that movie, when I enjoyed it. I wanted to put on Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. And that movie,

when I went back and watched it, very little of it takes place on a train. But it still has the DNA of a train movie because of the way the film kind of moves. They're always on the road.

Just another one of my favorite films, heartbreaking ending. God damn it, they did that movie well. But other than that, I had a problem thinking about other movies set on trains that uh that i would that i really really loved but i did realize one thing there hasn't been a great black movie set on a train and i wonder what that is about because when i've taken the train all the way, Sean, we haven't talked about

our personal train experiences. When I was still, had aviophobia when I didn't want to fly my first couple of years in LA, I would take the train from Los Angeles to Baton Rouge.

Really? Yeah. You're like John Madden. Multiple times. Yeah. I don't think I realized that you struggled with that. For a long time, I did. Not now, with that. For a long time, I did.

Not now, obviously, but for a long time, I did. 48-hour train ride. What's the sleep car like? I've never done the sleep car. So I've never done it either. You can do a sleep car, but I didn't have sleep car money at that particular time. I had the recline back as far as you could car.

Like, that's what I had. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. You would do a 48-hour trip with no sleep car, just sleeping in the seat. Sleeping in the seat. And I remember

I had an epiphany. Because the train obviously takes a lot longer to get anywhere if the train is stopping. I had an epiphany we because the train obviously takes a lot longer to to get anywhere the train is stopping at an epiphany left la one time and we got to i feel like we got to like palm springs or something there's a stop in palm springs or nearabouts that area and it had been three hours and i thought if i'd have flown, I'd be home by now. As it stands, I got 45 more hours until I get home

and I have to work through it. You know what I mean? That is brutal. I've never done anything even close to that. I've taken long train trips just up and down the East Coast and I always enjoy it. I always like riding on the train. Obviously, I also spent 12 years of my life riding the damn subway every day.

And I absolutely despise the subway. Um, and I spent my youth riding on the long Island railroad going into New York city frequently, multiple times a month. So I have a train. I've had a train lifestyle in the past. I don't, I don't really miss trains. I don't use the trains here in Los Angeles. Perhaps I should, but this is a driving town and I drive everywhere. past. I don't really miss trains. I don't use the trains here in Los Angeles. Perhaps I should, but this is a driving town and I drive everywhere. I don't know. Maybe I should take a cross-country trip. I don't know if my young child would be into that. That sounds like kind of a nightmare

honestly. I think you're past it, Sean. I think you're preaching the gospel about the subway in LA. Yeah. It's a good thought. I believe in public transportation. Unfortunately, I'm a selfish asshole who wants what I want. Dan, this was fun.

Thank you, man. Thank you for sharing all your train truth today. Thank you, bro. Thanks for having me. A lot of fun. Can't wait for the next one. Thanks again to Van. Thank you to Bobbyagner for his production work on this episode we'll see you next week on the big picture when me and cr will be talking about the new predator movie and all

the predator movies i'm talking about prey it's on hulu right now check it out and we'll see you next week