Talking Pondo: The Changeling and The Shining with Ben Haslar

 In this episode, Big Ben Haslar (from Reels of Justice) joins the podcast. He brings along the movie The Changeling. Marty and Clif give Ben the movie The Shining to watch.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to season two of Making Pondo and Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty give each other a film to watch and talk about them in detail. Some episodes will include a special guest. Making Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty talk to people they have worked with and discuss their experiences on set. Alright, we're back, Marty. Here we go.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Once again, got another killer guest. Talking Pondo with guest. As you may have guessed by now, this is going to be the replacement format for making Pondo as we move into the next season. Because we're we enjoyed that one, but we kind of talked to everybody that wanted to come on the show anyway. And so now we're enjoying, you know, bringing a guest on for the movie discussion. Especially the last few we've done, I feel like it's just been really good.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

It's been really good.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

And it yeah, it opens it up in a completely different way, you know, as it would because you bring somebody on and they have different viewpoints because they're not you.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Well, and these guys, these last, I mean, these these guys we've been bringing from Reels, these guys watch a lot of movies and they got a lot of opinions and usually are pretty thoughtful about it. So who do we have today?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Today, at long last, we have Big Ben Haslar from Reels of Justice.

SPEAKER_04 1:20

Hey guys!

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Good to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on, Ben.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Good to be here.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Oh, this this chair's warm. Ryan must have must must have just left or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, giving away the secrets that would record them all in a row.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

One right after the other. Yep, Ryan just left, door slammed. Here comes Ben. Boom, right back in there. So he didn't even finish his episode. It was so rude. He's like, Ben's here, I'm out. We had to go catch an aura today at four. So I've noticed you guys don't want to be around each other very much. We see each other every week. It's like enough already.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

So I've I've been asking uh everybody so far, is it kind of a grind or is it fun to watch a movie every week that you probably don't want to sit through and then do a court case about it? Because I know you've been at it for a while.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

Honestly, for me, it's a bit of both. Uh I do like our show, I do like our format, and I do like how mostly the guests sort of bring films to us so we get kind of a nice variety going that way. Um, but it does eat into like I have a watch list like 300 long. Uh, and like it does eat into that. That's that's sort of my my problem with it. It's like, oh, you know, there's a whole lot of stuff I'd like to watch, but oh, I gotta watch Twilight, I gotta watch, or you know, and some of the some of these things are things I've seen before, but you have to re-watch them because you you kind of want to be fresh if you're gonna be talking about it. Um so yeah, I gotta watch Casper again. Cool, cool, cool, cool.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

I think we watch at least two a week, and I'm I'm I'm there with you. It's like you know, I I maybe have time for maybe one more, but usually I don't, you know, I'm not getting through the the stuff that I want to watch, and instead I'm watching things that are kind of that I'm being handed, which is also kind of also kind of cool. I mean, I am getting exposed to things I haven't seen before. I haven't seen I hadn't seen the changeling. So I was pretty excited about it. Oh, you haven't? Oh no, my first time viewing it. So I was pretty excited about that. And it's got fucking George C. Scott in it, and he's a killer actor, so I was pretty excited about that too.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah, and he's great in that movie. Yeah, I've been I've been using the format of uh talking pondo to uh get things off of my watch list. Like, oh, I've been waiting to watch it here movie this week, and so it's kind of you get kind of the both. You get backed up and you uh get to knock things off the list at the same time.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

Maybe I need to start taking the recruiting abilities and like here's my watch list. This is you have to pick from here. Yeah, I like that.

unknown 3:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yeah, because I mean you don't necessarily have to, and and you haven't in the past subject yourself to necessarily terrible movies. You've had things on like Silence of the Lambs and whatnot that people would argue, well, but but that's supposed to be a good film. Like some people even said Cocaine Bear was a good movie. So you could have all sorts of different films on your show. They don't necessarily have to be the uh some people who show remain nameless. That cocaine bear law still stings, doesn't it? Oh, of course it does. That's what happens, right? That's that's the nature of the program. I just have a good way.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

We'll get hot takes every now and then, but mostly uh like for our show, it works best if like they're in that middling ground where it's just like, yeah, there's there's a bit of bad, there's a bit of good, uh, and that gives it kind of gives both sides something to like sink their teeth into.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah. And so for today, uh we have two movies from 1980. And speaking of uh movies that you watched a million times and wanted to refresh yourself on, uh the first one was The Shining. Yeah and the second one was The Changeling, a movie that I've only seen maybe three or four times throughout the years. But Cliff, you said you had never seen The Changeling before. No, I never had.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

My my wife, I was I was talking to my wife, I was like, I gotta watch this movie, The Changeling, and I looked it up on IMDb and I was like, it's got a good cast and uh made in 80, same year as as The Shining, the other movie I'm gonna watch. She's like, I remember that movie, I've seen that, and she goes, I haven't seen it for years, so she actually sat down and watched it with me.

SPEAKER_04 5:15

Um guys, there's a theme to this. Uh, because I, you know, you picked one, I picked one. I saw The Shining on there. Uh I also suggested another one uh that that Marty Mart Marty picked the Changeling, which is the right choice. Uh, but I also suggested poltergeist. Uh my idea being the theme is these are all horror movies that are based on things that happened here in Colorado, in my home state of Colorado. Uh so the Shining uh in the Stanley Hotel and Estus Park. Uh The Changeling uh was based on a story about a composer who um rented a mansion in Chessman Park here in Denver. They they they it's Cheeseman Park here in Denver. They called it Chessman in the movie, even though they moved it to Seattle for some reason. Um and then Poltergeist, uh, there's a Cheesman Park in here in Denver, used to be a cemetery, and they like just you know kind of bulldozed over it and made it a park. Uh so that line in poltergeist, like, you you moved the the headstones, but you didn't move the graves, is based on on that true story. Uh so there's kind of a trilogy here, I think, of interesting movies, but we'll be talking about the two better ones for sure.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

That's interesting because that because neither film is actually shot in Colorado.

unknown 6:19

No.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

Yeah, one in British Columbia and one in England. And I think Poltergeist, like they said it in California and then Changeling said it in Seattle. I think because uh Changeling is a Canadian film, so it's probably easier just to like go across the border and get establishing shots rather than fly the whole crew over here.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

I literally said that 20 minutes ago to Marty before we started this thing. I was like, I I I bet you that's because British, like you said, British Columbia and Seattle, Vancouver, they're so close. You just hop the border, boom, get your stuff, jump back over to the studio where it's cheap. Yep, yep. Alright, so so which one do you guys want to talk about first?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

I think we should probably do the changeling. I feel like we're already in that movie.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Okay, all right. Um, well, let me run down the uh the quick synopsis. Oh, so we've got a quick uh synopsis on IMDB and then I'll give you the storyline. So after experiencing the tragic personal losses, a user professor rents a Seattle mansion haunted by a slain boy. And then the storyline is it was the perfect family vacation for composer John Russell and his family when a freak automobile accident claims the lives of his wife and daughter. Consumed by grief, John at the request of friends rents an old turn-of-the-century house, a mammoth in size the house seems all the room that John needs to write music and reflect. He does not realize that he's not alone in the house, so he shares it with the spirit of a child who is honed who is honed in on John's despair and uses him to uncover decades of silence and deceit. But with the help of Claire Norman, the one who aided John in procuring the house, they race to find the answers, and soon learn that a tedious and very powerful man guards them.

SPEAKER_04 7:57

And the real story is very similar to that. Uh there was a composer uh he for CBS, uh, his name was um Russell Hunter. Uh, and he uh yeah, rented, he he moved, moved here to Denver for a while, needed a place to live to kind of compose his songs, ended up in this mansion, he was renting it. Um and what he claimed is like behind a closet there was a staircase that led up to this attic uh where a boy had lived. Um, and he claimed to have found like papers and stuff that that showed that they like switched one for the other. Uh however, there is no evidence really beyond his word for it. Uh so he's not like the Amityville. It's like the Amityville horror, right? It's exactly like that. Yeah, it's a great movie, great story. Uh, but yeah, do you trust him? Do you not? It probably didn't happen, at least not to the level that he said.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

One one of my first notes on this was I feel like um this movie is cashing in on the Amityville horror kind of possessed house thing. Because in 79, Amityville comes out, it's huge, it's pretty big for a horror movie, and then here comes the changeling. Um but I just I felt like it was like, yeah, I haunted house movie, let's go, let's do it. That'll be great. We'll get a lot of money for it, you know. Yeah, this is a great example of one. I think it like hits all the notes. I agree. I I was one of my other notes later on is this is a pretty good ghost story, which is kind of a lost art of horror. You don't see a lot of these sort of ghost in a house, haunted house type of movies, and especially one that doesn't have any gore, that doesn't have any blood. Um, but it's super.

SPEAKER_04 9:29

There's a mystery to it. You're kind of peeling the onion to get to like what actually is going on here.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Yeah, and it's super fucking creepy. There's parts of it that are just super creepy. Oh, whoa, that's really creepy. Well done.

SPEAKER_04 9:40

Uh what got you, like the the drowning or the when he when he grabs the kid's legs and drown him, I was like, wow. It's so sudden, yeah. That is such a swift movement. Fucking no. Um the first time the clown, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Yeah, the first time that the fucking wheelchair actually starts moving, I was like, oh, that's well done. Like you know, you kind of expect it, but they do it in a way where it's really well done.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

Um the cobwebs and everything like really accentuate like that movement. Yes, I think.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Very much. Um uh they I mean, obviously, this is a fake house that they reproduced, but they did it in a really in a great way so that that camera moves so well through that house and gives you this sort of ghost perspective, right? Like there's just scenes where you're like, it's just ghost perspective. Like I'm looking in the eyes of the kid, or I'm you know, it's a I'm I'm pulled out of the movie to see it from a completely different perspective, which gives it a very creepy feel. Um it's uh it's uh really well done.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yeah, I think like like you mentioned, uh one of the big differences between the two movies is the changeling feels like it's more of a classic on the towel story, while very much so. Shining's more of like more of the modern, grosser war effects. It's very interesting they both came out the same year, and one seems to be kind of pass leaning and the other's kind of forward. Yeah, I agree completely. Uh The Changeling is the first song on the Doors LA Woman album, which is the last Doors album. And now that I know more about what a changeling is, it makes sense, right? Jim Morrison was gonna go to Paris and they're gonna put a fake gym here, kind of like Paula's dead and the Beatles, right? We're gonna switch the person out, you know. I didn't realize that. Okay, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Kind of weary. I'm not a big Beatles guy. Uh but yeah, yeah, that's uh sort of the plot of the movie where like the kid is like, oh, he's uh we're not gonna get this inheritance and we're gonna uh like switch him out for like some other person we come back 10 years later, and like no one no one would know, like I wouldn't, you know. I like everyone looks different than they did 10 years ago. Yeah, um and yeah, that that senator now, like he's like like it's it's all taking place in present day. I kind of like that where he's like he he probably has some vague recollection of what happened to him as a kid, like these people kind of coming in, but he doesn't really remember it. So this guy coming in and like sort of trashing like your dad's name and and like even like your own empire and stuff. He has I got a good reason to be upset by it, even if you're just like okay, I'll just buy off. Um, I don't know why he wears a robe over his suit, though. That always like hits me every time I watch the movies.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

It's I mean 1980 is still the 70s, so that I think that aesthetic is still holding on a bit, in my opinion. What do I know?

SPEAKER_04 12:28

Well, like it's gotta be just as uncomfortable, right? Like, how does the robe make you feel? Like, oh, I'm more I'm more at home now.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

There's a lot of dual nature going on in both of these films, you know, the replacement of one kid for the other and the changeling. And then if you look at the shining, just to jump ahead momentarily, we have everything from the twins to uh the uh character uh what was his name? Scatman Cruthers character's name. He has two paintings that are similar, yeah. And then uh what were the other there's a lot of twos. There's there's two mazes. There's the maze outside, there's the small miniature maze inside. I'm not sure what all the duality stuff is supposed to represent, but there's a lot of it in there. At least that's what uh Wikipedia was telling me earlier. I thought that was kind of neat.

SPEAKER_04 13:15

Um and there's a lot of that in like sort of Kubrick's work where it's just like he likes to sort of just like put things in, uh, and he doesn't like to explain it. You know, he likes like like he likes you to feel it, whatever, whatever he's going for.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Well, and that's I think that's I think that's why you get so many weird interpretations of his films, like so many varied, like right. Like, was it reincarnation? Was it yeah, we'll come back to the shining, but there's so many interpretations of the shining from respected film critics who disagree with each other on what what's that mean? You know, and they're like, well, it means this. And the other one's like, no, it means this. Well, yeah, but he allows you to, like, he leaves it open-ended, I think, on purpose.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

Like that's good art, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Cliff, this is that weird piece of information I was going to tell you about about the changeling. I hinted before we got on. Uh, the director of the changeling is the director of Zorro the Gay Blade. Oh my fucking god, that's amazing. Strangely enough, it was that was the next movie he would make if you don't count the TV movie he made in between. And Zorro is about dual nature as well, isn't it? True, true. In both of these movies, I thought took about 40 minutes to get going. So I was like, it's just this director that I'm having issues with here. But you would never really know that those two movies are made by the same. I mean the director's name, but he was quite a journeyman, different genres all over the place.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

So I mean, other than the use of a lot of like um I don't know if I don't know, he uses like a lot of wide shots and masters in both films. Um, like he he doesn't tend to do a lot of close-ups, um, and he tends to kind of keep the camera uh fo unless it's moving through, trying to imitate moving through the house. A lot of those shots are pretty static. So I don't know. Maybe that's part of his style, or um, maybe it's the DOP. The DOP was um he shot the Osterman Weekend, Garrett and Billy the kid. He worked a lot with um Peck and Paw, he did straw dogs. Um, so pretty good cameraman.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like yeah, I liked how creepy the changeling was overall. Like I'd seen it as a kid, and I think I was too young to process that movie at maybe seven or eight. And so seeing older, it was like, oh, now I see what's going on. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Um, I love that there's a phone booth. I love in the very beginning shot there's a fucking phone booth in the middle of nowhere on a snowy road in the mountains. Right. Where I'm just like, it's before cell phones. Of course there'd be a cell phone, I think there'd be a phone booth somewhere. Somebody's gonna break down and need to walk to the phone booth at some point, right? It is a different time.

SPEAKER_04 15:53

And it's gonna circle back like Futurama like has like our cell uh uh phone booth there, and they're like, What? We have phones and booths now? I don't have to carry this cell phone around anymore. This is great.

unknown 16:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Oh, uh, you asked me what I thought what I thought was creepy. Uh, I had another note here about the the song that he's composing, and then he picks up that music box and it's the same song. I'm like, oh, that's really creepy and well done. Like it it really starts to lend towards the psychological aspect of the movie.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Yeah, and it has like that real world explanation that they give like right away too, that allows you to have that doubt, which I think most great horror movies do, where it's like, is it is it real or is it psychological? Where it's like, well, you know, this is if it was popular enough to make a music box out of it, you probably you probably heard it somewhere before.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Um and he's like, well, I I guess so, but yeah, I don't remember ever hearing it. This is one of those movies where the not knowing is scarier than knowing, where the unseen makes it scarier. Like it's it's one of, you know, it's kind of yeah, kind of like the old thing of hey, you know, a girl shows a little bit of leg, is way sexy than a girl that shows all the leg, you know. Yeah, yeah. But to me, this this this is where we talk about that older form of horror where you know you you show just enough to make it scary, but you also leave a bit unseen to make your to let your mind play with it.

SPEAKER_04 17:03

And you're like the poundings when the guy's like, well, furnacers do this, they have their own personality. It's like, I guess, I guess, but it doesn't seem like that's what was going on at exactly 6 a.m.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Yeah, and if I if I find a boarded up fucking door, I'm not tearing the boards down and immediately opening the motherfucker with a hammer while the house is while the house is screaming at me and then going up the stairs. No way in hell. No.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

I'm a I'm a skeptic, I would. Uh but I I I still love horror movies. Yeah, I'd be screaming like and I'm like, uh, I gotta know, I gotta know.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

It's definitely more of the older style of horror because the victims are more of the upper class people as opposed to the more modern where it becomes teenagers. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Yeah, even an Exorcist, she's uh she comes from a pretty wealthy family that got money.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

And I like what you're saying about the uh the furnace, and one of my favorite parts of it is you know, things get old, they they make noises, they do shit. I'm like, yeah, so do people and everything like that. But it reminded me of the African Queen, what what that we watched a few weeks ago for the show, where uh he had to kick the engine to get it to get it going, you know, because machines get personalities and quirks the older they get.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Well, that's I mean one of the one of the things they cut out of the shining was the boiler. Yeah. And in in the book, the boiler is extremely important. In the movie, not so much. Yeah. The mini-sperry has that life of its own, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah. Um, you you've seen the miniseries? I I watched the Shining mini series after I read the book just to see. And it's very close to the book more than the book. But you kind of go, Well, that was a fun experiment, but I can see why Hubert changed stuff to make it more, you know, more theatrical, more of a movie.

SPEAKER_04 18:55

Yeah, and to shift to the shining, we can go back and forth. Uh, but like that one, you know, Stephen King had stayed in the Stanley Hotel, uh, and he was like the only one in that hotel uh just before they closed for the winter. So he had that experience of just being completely alone in this isolated place. Um and he had a dream about a fire hose uh chasing his kid around the hotel. And that line for me is where like King starts getting a little unbelievable and unscary for me, like a fire hose. And like in the miniseries, they have like uh a CGI like fire hose with T to my recollection. Uh if you cut that stuff out and just go minimalistic like like Kubrick did, uh, it is a bit more effective for me. Like you said, the unknown. Like that's where you're like getting more into the atmosphere and you're not sure what you know and what you don't know.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

I mean, for me, I think the biggest the thing that the shining loses that Kubrick's version version loses is the humanity of Jack Torrents. Jack Torren's.

SPEAKER_04 19:53

Yeah, he's like creepy from the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

He's creepy right from the fucking beginning all the way through. And you know, King said this book is kind of semi-autobiographical. He was going through alcoholism, he had a lot of rage towards his family that was built up inside of him along with the alcoholism, and he put it into the book. And so that stuff isn't really there in the movie. I mean, it's it's some of it simmers under the under under you know, in subtext.

SPEAKER_04 20:17

Only because it's in the source material, though. I don't think that's because nothing that Skubrick wanted. He liked that idea of like that reincarnation, or maybe it's not reincarnation, but like it was the reincarnation. Uh, either way, like that's what he wanted. Like, that's why he's creepy from the beginning, is because he was always a part of this. Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Well, and King King King begged him to King begged him to to cast Martin Sheen or um somebody John Hurt, somebody else. Oh, they wanted more of an an everyday man who you could watch go crazy.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Well, listen to these other people. It was Robert De Niro, Robin Williams. Robin Williams would have been fucking great. Harrison Ford. Yeah, I would have watched that too. And the backup, if Nicholson had declined, Chris Christofferson. Interesting. Yeah, but there was also John Voigt, Michael Moriarty, and Martin Sheen in the mix, too.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

So yeah, those well, those were the ones that that that King wanted, from what I read. He wanted Michael Moriarty, John Voigt, Sheen. And I I mean, you look at I think Sheen would have been an interesting choice. He would have played that kind of more normal type of guy who slowly goes crazy.

SPEAKER_04 21:23

But there's scenes you would lose. I mean, you only in the multiverse would you know what you would have gotten. But Nicholson, like at that bar talking to the guy, like that scene just gives you chills. Or just the way he stares out the window, or the way he torments Wendy. Like, I don't see any of those guys doing it to that level.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Yeah, yeah. Well, and you've got, you know, that's that you know you've got Wendy is a much much more meek and kind of ineffectual character in this movie than she is in the book, you know. Um so there's a lot there's big differences, but I I mean I I wouldn't change Kubrick's version at all. Like I think I think what he did is Is singular and kind of seminal in horror and in his work. I think it's probably one of his best movies, in my opinion. Um it just hits so many great notes and it leaves so much to the interpretation of the viewer that you can just have conversation after conversation about what you think it means or what the you know implications are. It's fucking great.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

And I think George C. Scott is uh oh, excuse me. No, no, good. Uh I think George T. Scott's like the perfect casting for the changeling, even though some people said he's kind of more aggressive towards it. But that's kind of his character, though. He's he's like sem semi-skeptical and where he's like, What do you want? What do you want me to do? You know, what do you want from me? It's kind of like uh I I know what you did last summer.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

What do you want from me?

SPEAKER_04 22:47

He feels a little older to like have these younger women so interested in him, like even his wife that he was married to, like in the beginning, it's like, oh and I think that's his real wife.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Is it yeah? I think uh I was watching the the version on Shudder with that Joe Bob Briggs hosted, and some of the trivia was that uh she was in every movie that George C. Scott made after they got married. Oh, that's nice. But he brought up that married couples never seem to have uh chemistry on screen. It's like something like once they get married in real life, they're not hot on screen anymore. What happens? You never see Daniel Craig and Rachel Vise together.

SPEAKER_04 23:23

Very true. But uh in the shining, like I like like they had they had that new uh overhead, like steady cam. Uh I feel like that's kind of there in the in the changeling a little bit, like where it's like sort of like you're saying the ghost observer. Uh, but there's like a different technology going on there in in the shining uh that just adds to that eerie feeling that the changeling would have benefited from, but they probably couldn't quite accomplish that in that smaller space given how huge that mansion is. That's kind of ironic to say.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Well, I mean, they built the mansion, so I mean they can they can you know fly out walls and stuff like that, but I think I mean I think the steady cam just offers a smoothness and an ability to because you you know you don't operate it with your hands on it. And in I noticed several times during the changeling during either either pan up, you know, tilt up or tilt down or a zoom in where the camera just shakes just a little and you can tell like that's a manual operation. That's you know, and that's just the that's just the uh the danger of doing it manually, and that's you know, that's part of the reason that you know you end up doing 40 takes sometimes is because the camera operators you're asking them to do something pretty crazy. You know, in the shiny, you get these beautiful I mean right from the beginning, you got this steady cam on a helicopter flying the fuck around and it's smooth and it's gorgeous and it gives you a completely different feeling.

SPEAKER_04 24:38

Because some people just do that like to be off kilter and weird, but he does it where it like kind of then tilts to be like right and then wrong again. Um yeah, such as and he gets away with it.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

And um, I read that the uh the guy who invented the steady cam was the guy who did most of the operating of the cam in the production, and he shot with like a 16 millimeter, something super flat, so they could turn these corners and get real close to these doors and and and uh move through them and make it look like you were right there and make them smooth. That was really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

And then that overhead footage, they would uh recycle some of that into Blade Runner.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

That's right. Yep. Yeah, the ending seats of Blade Runner are some of those opening outtakes from those scenes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Now I haven't read Doctor Sleep or seen it, but I'm kind of curious now. So I saw it.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

It was good. I I quite enjoyed it. I thought it was a I mean I thought the smartest thing they did.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

It's not the level, but yeah, it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Yeah, I I I think the smartest thing they did is not try to chase making a fucking Kubrick movie. Like, don't you don't try to, you know, imitate the style and the feel of the shining because you're just gonna fuck it up. Just make your own movie.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Especially because the story takes place uh uh out of the overlook and then they kind of get into the overlook at the towards the end of it. Uh they did do a good job of like recreating at least that aspect of it, like of the hotel.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

True, true, true, true. But they didn't they didn't try to use Kubrick's tones, his his lens choices, any of that stuff. They just they made their own movie.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

Or ambiguity, like it it goes, I don't remember there being ambiguity.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

No, it's pretty straightforward as compared to the yeah, compared to the uh the uh the one that Kubrick wrote. Very true.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

And and both of these movies are kind of well, one of them's actually about killing children, and the other one they're trying to kill kids. And it's so funny that now the Ferrifier 3 comes out, what are they doing? Killing kids in a horror movie, and it's like uh what is the saying, hold my beer? You know, these these other movies have been doing that forever. I mean, if you go all the way to the unsettling, they're not like Night of the Hunter we watched a few weeks ago, and that's totally about stocking children, you know.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Yeah, yeah. He stocks those children's over the over hundreds of miles trying to find them.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

I could see some influence on that in into the shining as well. But, anyways, do we have any more thoughts on the changeling? We seem to have a lot to say about the shining.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Uh yeah. Uh let's see here. What I say here. Um, I love how they move they tie the name of the movie into the plot in Scott's dialogue. That's kind of an old school thing where you know that the name of the movie is actually used. Oh, that's yours a changeling.

SPEAKER_04 27:12

Um yeah, and you don't know that revelation until like sort of maybe the two-thirds mark, which is like oh, that's that's why yeah, that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

That's why it's so great. It's like, oh, the title really has something to do with this story, and it's a kind of a pivotal plot moment. Um, the film's got that really bleak 70s kind of film look where it's sort of the the color grading's just a little washed out and the lenses make it look a little funky, um, which really lends to the again the creepiness of the movie. I I I quite like that.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Yeah, Joe Bob was calling it Oscar bait.

SPEAKER_04 27:45

I can see that. Um there's just one thing that really irritates me about it because I'm I'm a I'm a plot guy. Uh he's like in this, in this uh he's trying to figure it out. Like, what's what's going on in this mansion? And this this woman seems to know like everything he wants to know. Like, oh, that house doesn't want people. And like he's out smoking, and like she walks away and it's like, why why aren't you following up with her a little bit? It's like, oh, you need the plot to be spaced out a bit more. I I get it, but still.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

No, yeah. I mean, if you were telling me the plot house doesn't want to be there, I'd be like, all right, lady, spill. Well, I'm living in that house, so yeah, tell me what to do. Spill, spill, let's go talk. Um, oh, did you guys catch the uh cameo, the big or the the uh I'm Marty, I'm I'm I'm assuming you caught it.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Um the guy who is is helping the girl doing the seance.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Oh, it's Eric Christmas. Uh-huh. That's the he's the principal in Porkies. Yes, yes, he is.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Yes, he is. The minute I saw him, I was like, fuck yeah, the principal from Porkies is in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

This is awesome. Mysties will might remember him from his very bit part, I think, as a priest in the uh what is it called? Codename Diamond Head episode. The pull that weird bit of trivia. Yeah, Eric Christmas. I'm the guy from Codename Diamond Head. That's such an odd last name, Christmas. So every time every time I see it pop up in the in the credits, I'm like, oh, here's another one that he's in. That's great. The guy who played the old man in the changeling, uh, which one? Uh you know which one I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Yeah, the senator, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

He's been in a lot of stuff. Yeah, his career goes all the way back to like the vampire bat and I think the 30s.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

So he's been a very long time. Long time character.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

He's been a character in Ghost Story after this, so he was working right up until the end. Ghost Story is a weird one, too. So I guess there was a bit of a ghost thing going on in the early 80s. Like you said, the Aminuville picked it off, and then all everybody's like, we gotta get in on that.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

And then yeah, it really felt like and and Kubrick, it felt like Kubrick was like, Yeah, I'll do it, but I'm gonna I'm gonna fucking master it here.

SPEAKER_04 30:00

Yeah, you know, and it's kind of like the ring came around in 2000, and all of a sudden everything like sort of had that weird that vibe to it.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

It almost fucking killed that kind of. I mean, I don't remember a lot of ghost house haunted movies after The Shining. It was I mean, uh you know, you had House and a few others, but they were very, you know, and then also Slashers had taken off and taken over everything as far as House is kind of funny in a way. So um, I didn't expect that that bag he threw into the river was gonna show back up like immediately. Like I thought, oh, that's that's gonna have something that's gonna have some you know relevance, but like literally the next fucking scene, bam, here's the bag.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Oh shit. That's why you start charging admission. You're like, oh do this magic trick. Look, guys, we're gonna go throw this ball in the lake, and then we're gonna back to my house.

SPEAKER_04 30:48

He's got his own prestige thing going on here. He's climbing balls.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

What the heck?

SPEAKER_04 30:55

You think it's some scheme to make a pro um I screwed up the screwed up the verbiage, but yeah, maybe they made more than one of those balls to make a profit. Alright.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

But it's what? Well, yeah, you know, I doused it under the sink before I threw it down the stairs. The April Fool's Day version of the Changeling, where it was all a joke on George C. Scott. Because see, we had to we had to pull the prank on you because you were just too depressed about what happened.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Yeah, hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

That was a part of what he uh accounted, though, in his like real experiences that like he found a ball up in the attic. It wasn't his daughter's, but like that very evening the ball bounced down the stairs. Really? Okay, according to him, yeah. Uh uh, along with all those noises at exactly six. He also claimed like when the house was getting demolished, because now it's a high rise, uh, he he was there to visit it because he's like, this is an evil house, uh, and that it somehow exploded when it got to his bedroom and killed the operator uh of the bulldozer. Um so again can't be can't be verified, but good story.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Right right till the end, that house was pissed off.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Um I for me the mar the movie kind of falls apart in the last in the in the third act a little bit. Like it's it's builds to this great creepy level, and then we kind of find out what's going on, and you know, for a while it's just him battling the house and the spirits and this girl's helping him, and then we just keep introducing more and more people into it. And to where the kind of the I don't know, they they have to keep introducing people to kind of bring the story to its culmination and finish the movie.

SPEAKER_04 32:32

Um you don't think like him like giving everything to the senator, like here, do do what you want with it, uh like as trying to get him to like come to his own morality, and the senator having to like kind of confront the kid as the right play, or I I yeah, I just I I felt like it it kept bringing people in, and it sort of for me it let me down on the whole like for me, the premise was this kid, this this spirit, this house, this guy, his own personal past.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

I would have loved to have seen some tie-in to his like loss of his daughter and this kid at the same time, and and sort of tie that together. I did too, I really did, and then instead we veer off to the senator. And I did I did like the idea of reconciling his past and saying, Here you do with this what you will, for sure. I thought that was a the right play. I just I don't know, it just seemed like we kept adding people and adding people and adding people to the to the third act until finally it was over, right? Weird.

SPEAKER_04 33:27

My only else did they add beyond the senator, though. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Well, it's like you know, suddenly you've got like secret services everywhere, and then you've got you know, you've got other people. I mean, it's just like okay, there's just people and more people. Where it was it was really just a tight story about him and this house and this woman that he'd helped, you know, and this of course this weird creepy lady, and then then the senator, right? And then suddenly it's I don't know, it just seemed like there were a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 33:49

Yeah, it does get busy there, like hey, you you're trying to bribe our senator, and then he goes off and drives in the car, and the kid, I guess, just kills the guy in the car. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

Yeah, like why would we don't do we really need that? You know, anyway. Um, I it that's the part that kind of let me down. And again, when they go into the well in the house, and now they got to deal with the lady and the kid, and all the cops show up and this and that, and uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Well, that's kind of when it starts to get going for me, I thought. Like it's like that's the changeling. That's like that's the title. Yeah, I know what you mean. The only part I was really confused is how are they back at the senator's house at the end of the movie when they're taking him away on the stretcher? I'm like, weren't you just escaping? Oh, you were just up the street from the the senator can buy and locate. You didn't know that. That's what I thought, right? Because you see him walking in the I'm like, wait a minute, how is he in the house?

SPEAKER_02 34:39

Oh, he's projecting himself to be yeah, he's well, he's looking at that medallion, and it must be that he's in two places at one because the medallion's glowing and the whole thing. Yeah, spiritually.

SPEAKER_04 34:48

He's looking at the medallion. But George Scott sees him too, so that's weird.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

But yeah, it is a little, it is, it's it's just a little bit off. Um the other the other part of it that I kind of was I again right at the end was she shows up and it's like, where are you? And immediately it's like, well, I guess I'll just wander this whole house and go up to this attic that's really creepy.

SPEAKER_04 35:12

Yeah, I know. You know someone's in the house, though. You're gonna you're gonna investigate. You're just gonna leave the noises alone.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Like you know someone's in the house with you. Honestly, if I'm investigating a house that I've you know established probably has some sort of spiritual problems, no, I'm not gonna go wandering it by myself. I'm gonna wait in the living room and be like, hey, where the fuck is everybody? You're like, hey, that ninja down the street's looking on near a door in a window that is open, period. That's so if the door closes, I'll dive out the fucking window. Either way, I'm not gonna play around and go wandering around in some crazy ass house. That's just me, I guess. That would be a different move. Well, what if you were in the overlook? What would you do? If I was in the overlook, I honestly my wife has asked me several times to go and rent a hotel room there, and I I just I won't do it. I don't like I I'm not the biggest uh um uh like superstitious guy, but I also don't believe in like pushing things to a little stichious. Yeah, I'm a little sticious. It's like it's like I'm not gonna I I don't totally believe in it, but at the same time, I'm not gonna go wandering into a graveyard, you know, screaming, come get me, right? Like I'm not fucking stupid. So uh well, what do you think about you, Murdy?

SPEAKER_04 36:21

What would you do if you were in both of these movies?

SPEAKER_01 36:23

What would I do? Uh well, I always try to feel like you gotta make friends with the ghost, right? Because then then when it starts killing everybody else, uh no, but then that you end up like Danny Treo in Halloween. I was nice to you, Mikey. The real ghosts were the friends I made along the way. I throw the ball back and be like, he just wants somebody to play with him, see? You know, yeah, he's a kid. I probably wouldn't let someone in that scenario. No, the the correct thing is get out, get out of the house. The house doesn't the house doesn't like people. Okay, that's enough for me.

SPEAKER_04 37:01

At least George C. Scott had options. Like in the overlook, they're kind of isolated, you know. They they do have limited options being snowed.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

That's true. They are trapped. Yeah, there's no option at all. That's you're absolutely right about that.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Yeah. The shining is kind of like the follow-up to where'd you go burn a debt? You know, it's down at the South Pole for uh a long time. That sounds like the perfect situation I've been looking for.

unknown 37:25

Oh my god, that's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Well, anyway, what did you give the changeling on the scale of one to five? Whereas Rye explained to us last time, can I refer to him as Ryan's gentleman's the gentleman's scale, which I quite a good kick?

SPEAKER_04 37:40

Uh for me, it is a gentleman's eight. Uh it's uh which is a film that I love, has flaws that I see, but still can go back to anytime.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

Nice. So I'm gonna say, well, we do our one through five, a two and a half, which would be a gentleman's five, I guess, right? I'm I'm learning, I'm figuring it out. Uh I it for me, anything above two stars, uh, I'm I'm enjoying the movie. And the three is kind of like these are really good, and four and up is like the all-time classics. Uh so it's not 2.5 is like 50-50, right? Like it's got just as many good things as bad. Yeah, right. It had a few slow spots. It was disengaging for me for a bit, but then once it once they found the well, which is like Cliff says the part where it got too busy for him, where I was like, oh shit's starting to happen, and then then I really got more invested in it. And there's there's enough genuine creepy moments throughout it that keeps me coming back to it, thinking about it. And it's like, yeah, that's not two stars, that's gotta at least be two and a half, leaning towards a three, probably. How many times did you see have you had you seen this, Marty? Out of curious. Not very many, maybe three or four. Okay, okay. And this is the first time I really genuinely like sat down and tried to analyze it instead of having it kind of passively on.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Gotcha. Okay. So I'm I'm the only one who's first-time viewer. Uh, and I'm kind of right in the middle of where you guys are at. I'm gonna go three and a half. I think it's I think it's good. I'll probably watch it again. I think it's got a few technical flaws and a few little you know, plot flaws that I kind of keep it out of the you know, really top, but I do think it's for what it's doing and for the genre that it's living in, it's fucking again, George C. Scott. It's gotta be three and a half, gentlemen seven. Yeah. Nice little spectrum. Yeah, a little ten year ten years after Patton and he's still kicking some ass. You know, also I started digging into his his just his back catalogue. I'm like, fuck, I gotta watch a few more George C. Scott movies. He's got some stuff in his catalog that I really need to see.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

In our second movie today.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Uh Patton I need to see. Um Patton's Patton's Grey, written by Coppola.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:52

Yeah, that's a good one. But then most of these are movies I haven't seen and have no intention to see. Fear on Trial, I have no idea what that's about. The crucible.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

I'm like jotting things down to suggest as future reels episodes.

SPEAKER_04 40:07

You know, yeah, I probably should have come in like and just like picked a movie at random, like hit the shuffle on something. Like, I haven't seen it. Let's let's let's see what we get.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

So moving into the shining.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yeah, it's a 4th of July movie, The Shining.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Um right away, I have probably the I mean, I have a few things about this movie that Well, do you want to tell us what it's about?

SPEAKER_03 40:34

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Because I don't know. Yeah, we've been talking about The Shining. Okay. The Shining, uh, a Stanley Kubrick film written by Stephen King, released in 1980. A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter, where a sinister presence influences the father into violence. At the same time, his psychic son sees horrifying forebodings from both the past and the future. Uh, storyline. After landing a job as an off-season caretaker, Jack Torrance, an aspiring author and recovering alcoholic, drags his wife Wendy and gifted son Danny to snow-covered Colorado's secluded overlook hotel. However, writer's block prevents Jack from pursuing a new writing career. Everything has its time, however. First, the manager must give Jack a grand tour, then Mr. Halloran, the facility's agent chef, chats with Danny about rare psychic gifts. The mysterious employee also wants to bore about the cavernous hotel's abandoned rooms. Room 237 especially is off the limits. That's all very well, but Jack is gradually losing his mind. After all strange occurrences and collectual visions have trapped the family in a silent gargantuan prison, hammered by endless snowstorms. And now incessant voices inside Jack's head demand sacrifice. However, is Jack capable of murder?

SPEAKER_04 41:49

Is he? You know, another thing as you were reading that uh comparison between the two films is they're both like kind of semi-autobiographical. Like this uh the guy is a composer who came up with the idea. This is Stephen King, who's obviously a writer.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

Yep. Well, and he and he admits he was a he was he was drinking heavily and had a lot of rage towards his family during when he wrote that book. So it it it's it's semi-like you said semi-autobiographical for sure.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Uh both movies feature people falling down the stairs.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

That's very true. Both women. No, wait, one's a man. I'm sorry, my bad. Nope.

SPEAKER_01 42:26

I thought that was both women. Um you know, when when I was a little kid and I saw the trailer for this, and it was just the hedge maze that freaked me out. I must have been about six at the time, and just this the trailer was terrifying. But then about a year later, when this came onto cable at the time, I remember watching it endlessly and still being scared by it, but I think the fact that it had a kid who was about my age in it made it tolerable to sit through for some reason. Hmm. Representation on screen. You're not supposed to be watching this movie at that young of age, but if you do, you know, you're focused on dating.

SPEAKER_04 43:10

I I love this movie. Uh it's it's one of my favorites, if not my favorite, uh horror films. Um, it's it's just that atmosphere is like I have not seen it replicated anywhere else. Right. Uh how closed in you feel. It it dominates. Like you might think you're putting it on in the background. You're not. It will absorb you. Yeah. Uh especially if you like have the like any type of the lights down or anything like that. Um, I want to see it in the theater. Haven't had the chance to. Oh, you haven't? Oh, I've I've seen it twice in the theater.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

It's great.

SPEAKER_04 43:39

It's yeah, it's gotta be better. I could just tell, just like based on the way that camera work feels. Like, oh, that's gotta be amplified.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

Yeah, the the scene where where it drops into Danny on his on his little three wheeler and he's riding around and that noise, and I mean the theater, it's amazing. We're just jay, so fucking good.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Now, for years there was a debate that the proper format ratio was uh full frame for this movie. But really, what it came down to was Kubrick had prepared a full frame version for television. Because he didn't want a uh pan and scan. But now that we have widescreen TVs, it's okay to watch a 1.85 of the Shining at Home. So he so he shot over now.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

Yeah, so he shot open mat, but he made sure to keep all the like the uh the lights and the microphones out of that open mat so that you can show that on the TV, but then crop it correctly for one. Okay, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Yeah, I guess full metal jackets the same way from what I heard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

I like that he's thinking ahead. He's a very thoughtful filmmaker, Kubrick. Um I mean I I don't know that he's elucidated every reason he's made for making shots, but I know. If anything, he doesn't. I think he likes to keep his well, but I think if you could pin him down and say he why did you do that? he'd tell you why. You know what I mean? It's just like he but he all he and might even be like you said, where he's just like, I did it to be ambiguous. I did it purposely for that.

SPEAKER_04 45:14

Like I didn't know. Why my reason? What did you think?

SPEAKER_02 45:16

That's what I did that for you. What did you think? You know. Um, I used to know a guy who was a pretty well-known painter, and I asked him you he had hung a new painting up, and I said, Well, what is it? And he goes, Well, what the hell do you think it is?

SPEAKER_04 45:30

Which a lot of artists like that irritates me. Like, I say something. It irritated me too, because I was like, I don't fucking know.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

You dated it.

SPEAKER_04 45:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

I was hoping you did know, because I don't know either.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

It's a word effect test. If it's if if it's interpretive art, especially, like if it's not something where it's like, oh, still life or this or that, like, give me a clue, something.

SPEAKER_04 45:54

At least a level at Kubrick's level, like that's that's a whole different thing. Because well, he he is someone who's able to do ambiguity well, because he does not he does say things, he just like leaves what he doesn't say, like sort of at the edges, like almost at the beginning and the end of his pictures, uh, for you to sort of then go outwards and and try and make sense of.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

No, I completely agree with that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:20

Like he wouldn't say, What's the shining about? Well, you know, he he could give you an answer about what the shining's about rather than just being completely ambiguous, like uh someone like Ridley Scott might, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

Mm-hmm. But I but again, I think there would be certain points where he you would you would go, why did you do that? And he'd go, I did it just because I it's and I wanted to do it. There's a feeling there that's fairly fair, and and I'm not gonna describe it, but what did it do for you? You know. Um the the only the only things I don't like about this film are the opening credits. I don't like the credit scroll.

SPEAKER_04 46:49

I don't think it fits what the movie feels so dated.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

It feels it's just weird, and the way they they don't stop, they just roll through constantly. I don't like it.

SPEAKER_04 46:58

Um in the font that they chose, like they could not have chosen like a more 80s looking that weird blue color, it's just not it's not good.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

I didn't like it.

SPEAKER_04 47:08

You don't care for the um what I don't like about it is kind of that stuff behind the scenes, like him apparently like torturing uh Shelly Duvall. Uh like I I don't care for that sort of thing. I don't either need to enable an actor to have the tools that they need from the script, and then they can give you the performance you want. Don't like try and wring it out of them like that.

SPEAKER_02 47:27

Well, and it it feels like he I I feel like I I'm not a huge fan of Shelly Duvall's work. Um I don't I think she's very limited in her range and stuff. And I feel like but she's got a very unique face. She's a face, right? And I feel like he cast her for a face and then kind of because it yeah, from what I read, they were pulling lines away from her, and she's arguing with him on set about lines and about reads and all this stuff constantly. And he's you know, apparently there's sixty or seventy odd takes of her backing up those stairs at minimum. Some claim 120 is that, and she's yeah, it's a rip that's yeah. I mean, some some people refute that record, some people say it, but but there's no doubt that there were a shitload of shots done, and Kubrick definitely harassed her on that set. Well, and later on in life, thinking that's what he needed to get the the to get the performance out of her.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

You know, she she went on record later on in life saying that no, we had a good relationship, it was tense and we'd get in each other's face, but I totally respected the craft and everything, and she loved the fact that it came out the way it did, and she still has it all memorized, too, all these years later. I think she said when Kubrick makes you do that many takes, you you commit it.

SPEAKER_04 48:35

You can't back up the stairs 120 times and not know your lines for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_02 48:39

It reminds me of like Billy Wilder. There's a famous uh I can't remember which movie it is, but he made Marilyn Monroe lean into a shot and knock on a door something like 86 fucking times. Oh, that's right. Yeah, she stormed off the set over it several times. It took them three days to shoot it.

SPEAKER_04 48:55

Those are low numbers compared to Fincher, I hear.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

Right, right. And that's and then some directors work that way. And then there's the opposite where you've got Clint Eastwood who's like, you get two takes and then you're wasting everybody's fucking time and we're moving on. Surely there's a happy medium here, guys.

SPEAKER_04 49:10

James Cameron, maybe, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Where the where the artist is happy, you know, the actor's happy, the director's happy, you know.

SPEAKER_04 49:17

Um the book didn't land exactly like right in frame, but just up to the corner, like you had to do that a hundred times over there.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

Jesus, I can't imagine that shit. Yeah, I mean, usually if you don't, I think anyway, if you don't get it by the like take five or something, then you I mean it's in there. Maybe block a different shot. Like don't don't keep going.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

If you're if you're shooting six or if you if I'm up to six or seven takes, I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna pull in my I'm gonna pull in keys and the actors and go, what the fuck is wrong? What are we doing wrong? Troubleshoot the scene, let's go. I'm not gonna sit, I'm not gonna waste a half a day or a full day or two days, 80 takes, but money to get it. We didn't of course I'm not Kubrick. Yeah, they can I'm not Kubrick, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:58

They had four you guys have made films though. Like, have you like had a shot you're just unhappy with? Like I see it in my head and it's just not happening. Sure. What do you what do you do with that? Do you just like have to live with it or do you just try and reblock it? You live with it.

SPEAKER_02 50:09

I mean, well, I mean the best you can with yeah, you you try to troubleshoot it and do the best you can, but there comes a point where you know, like I'm already come to me and said, We're we're out of time, you gotta shoot it. Like we don't we can't spend any more time on this.

SPEAKER_04 50:24

You have to now when you watch your movie, are you like bugged every time still?

SPEAKER_02 50:27

Like, man. Sometimes, yeah. But that's we've got over time we've gotten better and better about mitigating those to where they're fewer and fewer, right? Like the first movie has way more of them than the last movie does. Way more. The last movie, I'm pretty much I'm very happy with most of what we shot because I figured I've figured out how to make sure, you know, Marty and I have figured out how to make sure that that doesn't happen to us too often.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

And you want to make I mean our serve the movie too, so you can't just throw anything in there, you still have to find something that fits, if even if it's not the original uh intention. But that's why uh planning is your best friend. The more time before you get on set, the better, I think. Because if you get on set and then you're trying to figure it out, which is inevitable sometimes, especially when you don't have a lot of time or money, that's where you start, like you're saying, half a day can disappear on one shot. But thankfully we've never had anything quite like that happen. Just a few shots here and there, or more snafoos of somebody was sick one day and you have to work around it. Work around it.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

Yep. Yeah. Um I know people, like I said, I know people like Shelly Duvall, but uh, she's just for me, I would have I would have liked to have seen somebody else cast in the movie.

SPEAKER_04 51:44

Um she is annoying, uh very annoying. And she's supposed to be, at least like from Jackson's perspective. True. I mean she she feel him is the best performance they can. Yep. Yep. Yeah, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

Yeah, it would have been a different movie with Jessica Lang, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 52:09

Sure, absolutely. I mean, he uh that that story she tells the doctor where she's like, Well, you know, he was drinking and he grabbed his arm like you do and just dislocated it, and but he stopped drinking for five months, so everything's fine. I'm just like, oh god.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

But that's still such a convincing, like she's so codependent. Yeah, she's telling herself that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Yeah, also like this is 80, where like this idea of calling out your abuser and stuff in a relationship, that shit doesn't that just yeah. Um, no, it's not like today where where a woman says that and everybody's like, okay, what kind of help do you need? And how do we we divorce the bastard or whatever? Yeah, now back then it was you know shit, even being divorced. I mean, this is what five years after women were allowed to have credit ratings and sign loans.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

And also when Wendy sees the magical mystery tour, as I call it, at the end of the movie, that's pretty convincing too, her freak out when she starts seeing all the ghosts and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family skeletons all spread out and and the uh I'm the walrus sequence, where I'm like, hey, furry rights, man. Why is that scary? But still, it is a pretty effective sequence.

SPEAKER_02 53:20

To me, that's a that's a that's a logical flaw for me in the movie. Like she because she goes through the entire thing not seeing any of this and now she's seeing it, right?

SPEAKER_04 53:30

And now slowly. Like Danny is like he sees it from even outside of the hotel, right? Because he's he's got the shining, um, where it and Jack is a part of the hotel, so he like kind of gets it right. Exactly. But the hotel like is is encompassing in on people. She's she's a complete outsider, like like Jack and Danny have like have different levels of being a part of the hotel, and now like at the end, we're like aware, like, yeah, it's the hotel. Because before then, there's a lot of doubt going on, which is what makes the film great. Like, is Jack drinking? Is is it psychological? You know, you don't completely know up until that moment where she starts seeing things.

SPEAKER_02 54:07

I I I guess um it seemed a little ambiguous, uh, and it and a little bit of a weird because again, it's not like that in the book. That's Kubrick's that's just Kubrick's.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

So is that why King didn't like it? Is Ellen's like that?

SPEAKER_00 54:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

I also thought that you know King was barely in his early 30s and he'd only written like three books. He didn't know what a bad adaptation of one of his movies was yet.

SPEAKER_04 54:30

Well, I mean out of all King's adaptations, come on, most of them are bad. Like this is like one of the ones that really shine, for lack of a better word.

SPEAKER_02 54:37

The the closest adaptation you're gonna get for a King movie is Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

Green Mile. Green Mile.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

Those are the three. Those are the three where somebody actually trust trusted his literature and just put it right on right on the yeah, all good call there, yeah. 1408. Um, but early on, people were like too close. Early on, we need to let the director adapt the work. Yeah, and I think I think what happened is people started realizing if you adapt King's work, you lose a bit of what makes King's work special.

SPEAKER_04 55:05

And just you say a fire hose is like chasing someone through a hotel. Like there's very limited ways you can visualize that and have it convincing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

Very true. That's hilarious. Oh my god, that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Carrie does a pretty good job. The original Carrie captures them both pretty good. But it is thinking of like, you know, you're right, I'm not gonna dream catcher one. There's tons of children of the corns out there and the manglers and yeah, Cujo, you've got um Silver Bullets, pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 55:36

Yeah, Christine, yeah. There's some things. They do change stuff, yeah. They always seem to change elements or this or that or characters. Um and I think uh I read that that's another problem King had was the fact that in the books Torrance and uh uh Jack and Danny are very close, and he prefers his dad to his mom. And it you know in fact his mom is kind of jealous over their close relationship. But it's spun differently in the movie. Right, it's completely different where Jack uh in the movie doesn't really seem to give two shits about his kid. And in fact, one of those really or his wife, yeah. And he's so mocking of his wife, it's just it's like oh. Um, but there's that one scene where Danny goes to get his fire truck and he thinks his dad is asleep, and then it's of course Jack's just sitting there staring out the fucking window like like the madman he is, and hey, come in here. Uh you know I'd never hurt you. That is a creepy ass. That is very, very scary scene. Especially if you're a little kid watching that, you're like, oh, what is wrong with this?

SPEAKER_01 56:35

And he's mirroring the forever and ever, and it's like, that's what I just heard the joy.

SPEAKER_04 56:39

I just got that this time. I'm surprised it like took me so many watches where he says forever and ever. It's like that's what the girls say. How did I miss that the first couple of times?

SPEAKER_02 56:48

There's that duality again.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

Yeah, yeah, there's so many of them I couldn't remember them all. Uh, the current Guinness Book World Record is 148 takes for the scene where Danny and Dick Holleran discuss the ability to shine.

SPEAKER_04 57:06

So for the most takes of any scene, this movie has it?

SPEAKER_02 57:10

And of any production ever made, of any film ever made. Wow. This this is 148 takes, is the most takes on a scene ever.

SPEAKER_04 57:16

And it was not even the one I thought it would be. It was it was of those two talking about how to shine.

SPEAKER_01 57:20

Yeah, but the Jack fending off Jack with the baseball bat, that's 128.

SPEAKER_04 57:28

That's surprising because like that that scene, while it is great and they they nail it, it doesn't seem like there's no that much like that you want to vary, you know. Whereas like, you know, the action, like the bat, like there's movement, you're going up the stairs, like that those two are just sitting on a counter. Like, how how did you screw that up? Unless the actors did.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

Well, I read that when um when they were doing again that scene where Danny's riding the big wheel through the you know the hotel. Um that Kubrick actually installed a speedometer on the cart that they were pushing behind Danny so that he could know exactly how fast Danny was going and how fast the cart needed to go to get the to so they could redo the scene over and over again and match the cuts. I mean, that's that's obsessive behavior. That's really that I get though.

SPEAKER_04 58:12

Like that's what makes that scene so the cart stays like right there fixed in the center view as he goes around in the sound like a carpet hardwood floor, carpet, hardwood floor. Uh you can't if it's so good.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

Yeah, Joe Turkle, uh Lloyd the bartender, who also I also share the same birthday with, not the same year, and I also love his performance as the beatnik uh male milkman character in the MST classic Tormented. But we also know Joe Turkle from Blade Runner and other movies. He stated that they rehearsed the bar scene for six weeks, and the shoot day lasted from 9 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. Good lord. He said it was one of his favorite movies, the scenes in the movie. So yeah, they had a lot of time to uh make this film. I also enjoy this bit of trivia. Jack's typewriter pages are in different languages for different countries, and different phrases translates to different phrases, like the German translates to never put off till tomorrow what may be done today. The Italian is the morning has gold in its mouth. And Spanish is no matter how early you get up, you can't make the sunrise any sooner.

SPEAKER_04 59:31

And now it's like all the staff like just type these pages all day. Like we we need a whole box of them, guys.

SPEAKER_02 59:36

Just art department jobs, yeah. It must have sucked to be a PA sitting there typing those fucking because it's like not only did you have to type them out, but they're formatted to like it looks like a book could be is being written, so you you have to you know work on your formatting, paragraphs, all is that must have been a well they do vary, like I could kind of tell like maybe different people did them because like like some people did have different ideas, like how to like put a stanza in here or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

Yeah. Like to have one of those pages, that'd be a fun prop.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

I think that if this if this movie, if this book had been if if King had written this book now, I think quite possibly he would have had um he would have had her finish Jack off when he falls down the stairs and you know knocks him knocks her, she knocks him out, just go down there and bash his friggin' brains in. Movie over, you're good to go. And then it's just her and the kid trying to get out of the hotel, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:30

That would be a different take. And in to today's movies, they wouldn't have somebody typing out up the other pages, it would just be like blank and then they'd just CG in the CGI page, the whole thing. But backstroke. Yeah. Uh what else did I have to say here? Uh oh, I thought this was kind of bizarre, but I guess it makes sense. Why is Wendy running around with a knife in her hand after she locks up Jack? Maybe she thinks there's somebody else in the in the hotel because she's flailing running around with that knife. And I'm like, you locked him up. You can put the knife by your side right now. Oh, he could get out.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:07

He doesn't, she doesn't. I mean, that's true. You know, like he can't throw his body weight against it or something and knock it loose. I figured she was just quite frazzled at that point anyway. And by the way, oh, I still am holding that knife.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

Weird. I'll put it down. Unlike having been noticeed she keeps the knife. Having been locked in a walk-in before as a prank at work at a at a kitchen I've worked at. Um, yeah, you're not getting out of that. There's that because once they once they once they run the pin through the lock, I mean you can push that fucking button all that that you know, that release interior emergency release.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:38

If you're only in there for five seconds, let it go, man. I was in there for longer than that, and you know it. They find you just like eating like the frozen waffle, just like shivering. I had to go into fight or flight mode. Why are all the whipped cream canisters flat? I had to have something to do while I was in here.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:57

That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:59

Let's see.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:00

Um, I I so one of the things I was gonna say here is um Diane Johnson, who was the other writer that wrote this with Kubrick, she basically said that this book is not a part of great literature. Oh, yeah. And basically, which made it easier to tear it apart and destroy it so that they could create the masterpiece that they that they created, which I found to be such a fucking pretentious thing to say. Where I was like, are you fucking kidding? You're shitting all over the guy who crimmed came up with the idea. Well you didn't come up with it, you were just brought in to fucking rewrite it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

They were probably still like, oh, this book's only a couple years old, and it's derivative of the film burnt offerings anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:41

So imagine Peter Jackson saying that about Lord of the Rings or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:44

Right, right. That's exactly well, fuck. I mean, you know, it's not high art, but I mean I made it that.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:49

Fuck off. Anything good about it came from me. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:55

I think more people today know the Here's Johnny reference from this movie than from Carson on the Tonight Show, which is it's crazy how time passes like that. And uh, by the last 20 minutes of this movie, it's kind of turns into a full-on slasher. It starts to function at one, too. But I think the moral of the movie is always practice the maze. You know, there's not even a warning that hey, maybe you might not want to go in here if it's snowing, you know. There's no signs or anything. But what if Jack have actually stopped and read the sign anyway? Probably not.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:31

Just make all right turns or all left turns, you know, just like keep be consistent and you'll find your way out.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:36

Yeah, I mean, you would you would think some some spirit would show up to help him. Hey, yeah, are you missing the kid? He's back there. Take a right.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:43

No, they helped him once, they already helped him once. They're like, You're on your own, dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:46

Yeah, they let you out of the freezer. They'd let him out of the freezer, that's true. Use the axe, chop some hedges. But of course the hedges were alive in the book, so that's another good point.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:56

Up until that point, there's no physical manifestation other than on Jack from that hotel. Like, you know, Danny sees spirits, Jack, you know, gets a drink and has these interactions, but but there's a woman in 237. True, but but that's again Jack. Danny just sees the manifestation and runs, right? Jack interacts with her, right? So Jack's having these interactions, but the only actual manifestation that in that affects both the kid and the wife are is this pen being pulled. This that's the only real sort of thing in the movie that's actual physically done, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

Yeah, because everything else is just like pictures in a photo book.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:35

It's gets ghosts, it's past, yeah, it's this, it's past uh, you know, yeah, it's old movies that are still playing in different rooms.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:41

It's not real. So the whole the whole earth is haunted by that respect, then, because some died in every corner of the world by now, but just some some things still want to hold on to the room. Nope, never happened. It's like battling of the the ghost where it's like, well, I was killed here 300 years before you were, so you gotta go, new ghost. Now we're talking about Casper again, I guess. So that was pretty much all the thoughts I have on it. I've always enjoyed it. I've always enjoyed this movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:17

It's classic for a reason. You know, I mean you it's and that I was kind of thinking when we took this movie on, I was like, Jesus, are we gonna have anything new to say? Because everybody's everybody's talked about it. I could talk about the furry rights. Uh that's something new. Furry rights is very true.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:33

That's that's that's a new take. It was cool. That was scary back then. Now it's just a guy wearing a Walrus costume. Maybe you guys have seen this in your research.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:44

Um, but the room Stephen King stayed in was room 217, not room two three seven. I don't know why they changed it. Like, why why was that so important?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:52

The hotel asked them to create a hotel asked them to create a fake room because they were worried that people would want to stay primarily in that room. But of course, people know it's two. And it's still the most requested room by the hotel. Yeah, of course. Which is so silly. I mean, watching. Oh, go ahead, Claire. Go ahead. I was just going to ask Ben, have you seen that room 237 kind of documentary about all the about all the weird stuff that's that's kind of tied into the symbology? Yeah, all the symbology of it. It's supposed to be really, really, really, really good. I think I may watch it after this if I can find a copy of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:28

You'd be like, dang, if only I would have so many more things to say if only I would watch it first. That's it. We'll call Ben up.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:35

We're re-recording. Get on in an hour. Shining part take do, part du.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

I mean, I've never actually seen any ghosts per se, but I've I feel like I felt presences or energy. You know, I I don't know really know what to believe, but I feel like there's something going on sometimes because the coincidences are just line up too much. But who knows the mysteries of the human brain? Have have either of you ever had any paranormal touches?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:07

Oh, I used to be a ghost investigator, like you'd see ghost hunters on the sci-fi channel. I used to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

No way.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:12

Um yeah, in Oklahoma. Um Oklahoma, where I live?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:16

Where?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:18

Uh I lived in Oklahoma City for like uh uh about it about two years. So did I. So do I. Where in Oklahoma City? Uh where did I live or where did I see stuff? Where did I investigate?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:29

Both, both. I'm I'm extremely curious now. Both.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:32

Uh I lived um kind of on the on the south side of that of that interstate, uh, around Sheridan, I think it was. And um yeah, kind of kind of off by that airport. Um gotcha. Uh I worked at Teker Air Force Base for a while. Okay. Um and I did uh community theater at a place called the Stage Door, uh, which is where I met the ghost hunting crew. Um I I I think that was in Norman. Um but yeah, uh got a investigate like a haunted sanatorium in in Arkansas. Um that was a lot of fun. Uh we've investigated, of course, the stage door. People have said it was haunted. Like every old school turn theater is haunted, of course.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:09

Um because there's a there's some haunted stuff there from the the race massacres and stuff up out like haunted theaters and shit up there that are no, I've never set foot in Tulsa.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:21

I'd like to, uh, but no, never had a chance to.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:24

Um lots of like a community.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:28

Yeah, before about two years. Uh but I've I've mostly been a Colorado guy for most of my life, um, which is why I picked a Colorado themed. Um uh horror movies. Um, but anyway, I I'm a skeptic. I'm I'm I'm not really a believer in anything, I'm not a religious person. Um, I have seen things I can't exactly explain, but I'm sure an explanation exists. You know, it's like just because I can't come up with it, it doesn't mean it's not there. Um, but yeah, I was the guy that like the the organizers liked because I could like debunk stuff. I'd like, oh, the air conditioner, you know, the um electrical boxes on the other side, all that sort of thing. Um you know, give them sort of credence, you know, as as an organization. But the people in these houses just hated me for that reason because they wanted to believe that their houses were haunted.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:14

Of course, yeah. Um I've I think I've seen maybe one thing that was just un unexplainable in my entire life. Um my wife and I, we lived in this house and we had a cat, and the cat uh we taught the cat to fetch. Um and so, and the and the cat loved it, loved to fetch, and do it for hours. And so we had these foam balls that we would just throw in our our living room connected to our dining room, connected to our kitchen in one long throw, almost like a shotgun shack. And so I would just sit on the couch with my wife and we would you know play with the cat and throw this ball into the kitchen, and he'd run and go get it and bring it back. And this one night we were doing it, I threw the ball and he just looked at it, needing to get it, and about five seconds later it came back, thrown back out of the kitchen. Ooh. And this was like comes bouncing down the stairs. My wife's like, Did you just fucking see that? It's it's just a it's a single story. Uh I was like, Yeah, I did what the hell? And she's like, I'm telling you, there's something here, there's something here. I'm like, eh, surely there's something. Maybe it just hit something and bounced back, but it was like a long pause. It wasn't like you know, it wasn't.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:21

I didn't hear it like dum, thumb thump, thum, dum.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:22

No, exactly. I didn't hit I didn't hear it hit a wall and bounce back. And it was it was like um like a light ball. You would have had to have thrown it. It wouldn't have had the the physics the to bounce. It wasn't like rubber where it was going to give that um um real good bounce back and come back. Anyways, that's the only thing I've ever seen. But it was like We were like real nice house, too bad I have to move. Yeah, well, and we found out later the landlord was like, yeah, there's a guy here, and he lived here and he died in that garage, which is this old garage that nobody we didn't use because it was creepy as hell. We're like, okay, that makes sense. And we moved soon after.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:56

You whippersnappers, get your ball out of my garage. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:03

So what do you guys give? What do you guys give the shining?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:06

Well, I'm gonna give it a four out of five. I mean, um there's no reason why I shouldn't give it a four and a half or a five. I think I've just seen it so many times that its effectiveness does wear a little on me, but I still absolutely love it. And I would like to see it in the theater one day, too.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:25

I've never had that option. I don't know, Marty. The fact that you can like watch it so many times and still talk for like about an hour about it, didn't that say something?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:33

That's true too. But see, it's the funny thing is like it'll be my review, my rating this week, but maybe like in two months from now, I'll when we do, or however it is when we do the season finale and we reflect on the movies, I might be like, you know, I've been thinking about even more, and maybe what was I thinking a four and a half or a five. I've already felt that way about a few of the movies that we've talked about already on this show, where it's like, oh, I think I was a little too harsh, like it didn't hit me right that week, but now that I've lived with it and I keep thinking about it, and you know, it grows on you some movies.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:08

So I think it's a real thing that that you can catch a good movie in a bad mindset and just think it's terrible and then watch it later, and you're like, fuck, what was I thinking? That's actually a pretty good movie, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:20

Yeah, yeah. Ben, what about you? Um, well, I have nitpicks about this movie, and if I have nitpicks, I typically would give it a gentleman's nine or a four point five. But this is one I'm willing to round up uh to a perfect horror movie because it it it it just I'm stuck in it every time I watch it. It's like it stays with me the whole next day. Uh, you know, if it does that, then I'm I'm I'm willing to round. So yeah, I I'm gonna uh gentleman's ten or a or a five.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:48

Oh yeah.

unknown 1:12:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:50

Um I have I have problems with Kubrick. Uh I have problems with his pacing, um, and in general the way he worked with people, like we talked about earlier. Um, but those put putting those aside and just judging the film based on its merits, which I try to do. I try not to let my nostalgia like, you know, I'm not gonna watch the Goonies be like five stars, I was 12 and I saw this amazing, you know. Um I'm gonna go four and a half. Gentleman's nine. Nice. There's there's just enough, just the credits and a little bit of Duvall brings me out of it. But it's such a fantastic movie. So well fucking made. Yeah, it's and again, it's probably, in my opinion, one of Kubrick's best movies. 2001 moves too slow for me. Uh Barry Linden's pretty good. Um he did some noir that was okay, but this one just seems he just seems to have brought all his powers to bear on it, and it was fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:40

Marty, what's with you waiting down the the curve here on both films?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:44

It is kind of weird, huh? But I still put it in my Stone Cold classic era. You know, anything for up is yeah, you can't really Yeah, we don't give a lot of we don't give a lot of fours and fives out on this show, so if you get a four and a five on this show, it's a four or five is really a perfect rating.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:58

It's a pretty it's it's pretty good. It means that not only is it rewatchable, it's something that needs to kind of probably like film archive or go down in history, that type of lives. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:07

If I'm if I'm just saying, yeah, it is, of course.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:12

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I again it's one of those movies where you're like, you want to watch a good horror movie, you want to watch something that you'll think about, you want to watch something kind of scary? Fucking watch The Shining. Oh, yeah. And I'll say this on the big screen, it has a much bigger impact. It's like watching The Godfather on the big screen. If you've never seen The Godfather on the big screen, go watch it on the big screen. You'll sit there watching, going, every fucking frame is perfect. Even the even Sonny getting the fake beating uh in the in the in the you don't care because it's so perfectly framed and so beautifully shot and so well, everything's so perfectly lit that you're just like it's per it's it's fucking perfect. And it's you lose you lose that at the 50 at the 50 inch or the 60 inch, 80 inch TV level. You just lose it. It's not the same. I've got real lucky there's a uh uh movie theater here called Flix Brew House, and uh they run what they call Flix Picks free. I don't know, and I love the place, so I'm gonna give them a free plug, but um they run old movies constantly. So I've seen Shining um I just saw Lawrence of Arabia last month there. Four and a half hours in C to watch that movie, and it was spectacular. If you have a flicks, go to Flix. It's fantastic. Well, Ben, thanks so much for coming on, man. We appreciate you. Yeah, this is a lot of fun. Thanks, guys. Good conversation. Always always like talking to you guys because like like I said at the beginning, you guys are all you have good opinions and you're knowledgeable about what you're talking about, so it's always leads to a good conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:40

Yeah, so sorry. Sorry, I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm I'm glad you you came on. Uh is is there anything you want to plug?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:49

Uh well, it's been mentioned a few times, but I'm uh uh co-host on a podcast called Reels of Justice. Uh both Cliff and Marty have been on a few times, uh, so you could uh any listeners uh to this show can can come over and check those out at the very least. Uh you guys have done like Star Wars uh versus Empire Strikes Back, you've done uh Twilight uh together, and Marty, you've done a handful on your own uh cocaine pair and quite a couple movies. Um but yeah, it's it's it's sort of a fun show where uh we kind of have a different view on on how to compare movies. We have all the positive arguments on one side of the court and all the negative on the other side of the court. So then you can kind of listen to that as a juror and sort of see like which side of the scale you think like uh does uh has the most weight to it. Um but you know, overall we're just giving our opinions. We're just like trying to make like the fact that it's a courtroom and a jury like dividing the arguments, I think makes it a more a little bit more of an interesting view on on the on the movie discussion.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:48

Agreed. Agreed. I I love the uh I love the premise, it's great. Um it's always fun to see somebody to hear somebody come in and passionately defend what they know is a bad movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:59

Yeah. Uh that's always a lot of fun. Even the guests have to. Well, uh it's the other way too. It's like like most of our movies are in that 50-50 range. So at some point, if you're like saying, but no, this you have to defend like this movie is 100% great or it's 100% terrible, like you're gonna be saying things you don't necessarily agree with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:17

Gotta play the part. Or is uh some people will say anything to win. It's one of some of the win, Rob.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:30

It's not about saying something that's wrong, though. You know, it is about like, okay, how can I defend around that that great point that the prosecution just made?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:37

Um, it's fun. I look, I it's I look forward to it every week. It's uh first podcast I listen to on Thursdays. So yeah. And uh keep going, guys. Yeah, uh and strap in for Eclipse because they had fun with that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:54

Okay, good. I felt I I felt like we did a really good job, tearing Twilight, a new one. And and and honestly, I felt like the defense did a really good job defending it. Um, especially because I'm pretty sure the defense didn't like that movie, but they really leaned into finding it, you know, at least finding reasons why it was a good movie and defending it.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:13

So uh I don't want to give anything away, but after after we recorded Eclipse, uh that defender, Dylan Schlender, is like, that's it. We have to do all of them now.

unknown 1:18:23

I knew it!

SPEAKER_04 1:18:24

This is the way the conversation's going.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:26

I knew it.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:29

That's great. Maybe we'll have you guys back to do like the last one, the finale.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:34

Sure. Yeah, we would love to come back on. Yeah, yeah, we could we could uh yeah, definitely prosecute or defend whatever you guys would like. We'd love we'd love being on the show. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, it's a blast. All right, guys. Well, I think that wraps us up. Yeah, I'll do it for another week. All right, guys. Dylan next week. We'll see ya. Right on later.