GoodFellas Review, Lurker, The Roses

18:49Adam Kempenaar:But he's he's less psychopathic than Tommy and and he's not as crazy as Jimmy. Right. But that doesn't mean he's a better guy. I mean, maybe he's a slightly better guy. He doesn't want Maury to die. But I think that's just because it it kind of just means a little more stress for him because Maury's wife is going to be hanging around the house. He doesn't actually really care that much more about Maury. He's not actually a more compassionate human being. he's always just looking out for himself. So it's, it, it, I'll just use the word interesting again. It's interesting to me that in this movie and in this gangster movie milieu, where we've seen him so many other times have characters that are really struggling with this notion of sin.

19:35Adam Kempenaar:We have a character here who is not struggling at all.

19:39Josh Larsen:Yeah, completely agree. And that is a distinction of something like Goodfellas. Think about even the Irishman where to my mind, where we end up in that nursing home with the De Niro character. And he is at least, if he's not sorry or regretful, he's pondering the weight of his actions. And I don't think Henry Hill ever does that. He is completely, the way you were talking about him psychologically, he is amoral, right? There's just a disinterest in the morality of any situation.

20:11Adam Kempenaar:Yes, that's a good way to put it.

20:12Josh Larsen:And this connects with Liotta's performance, which, you know, it's that box, the VHS box, when you're describing it, it instantly comes back to me. And my first thought as you started describing it is how bizarre, I get the marketing reason, but how bizarre that Liotta isn't in the center, right? Instead of, because the way he drives this entire film. And the one thing that stood out to me that was completely fresh on this most recent viewing, Adam, was the quality of his, the definitive quality of Leota's performance to me connects with what we're talking about. Eagerness. Henry is so eager to be a part of this lifestyle.

20:49Josh Larsen:He doesn't give a second thought to the repercussions for his family, for his education, for anything when he's a boy, when he's a teenager, this is. Think about the smile. on. And I think it's Christopher Saron playing the young Henry at this point. What a great match for Liotta as an adult too, just physically, but also the way he carries himself, the way he has that eagerness. He has this beaming smile while he's watching these guys get away with it. And it just gets bigger once they bring him into the fold. And that carries through every scene I think that Liotta is in. Even the famous Joe Pesci, you think I'm a clown scene?

21:28Josh Larsen:notice how hard Henry Hill is laughing at those jokes he said no you're gonna tell me something

21:35Adam Kempenaar:today tough guy I said all right I'll tell you something go your mother

21:46Adam Kempenaar:now I'm coming around you know I start to come out of it all I see in front of me this big brick again he says oh what do you want to tell me now tough guy I said hey what are you doing here I I told you to go.

21:58Josh Larsen:He is so eager to be in that group laughing at him in a, in a supportive way. You know, I know that's what they get into an argument about. He's also, he's eager for the violence too. Um, you brought up Maury that moment when Jimmy wraps the cord around Maury's neck, Henry's there laughing, you know, he, he does eventually I think try to count things down, but his immediate instinct is to laugh. He's eager for the violence. He even takes a slap in the face from Pauly, one of those affectionate slaps, he, he receives that eagerly. It's like, slap me again, Pauly, because that means I'm in. And so that was a distinctive quality to this great Ray Liotta performance that stood out to me that I think connects exactly with what you're talking about.

22:40Josh Larsen:This, this amorality of the character.

22:43Adam Kempenaar:And it could have something to do with the fact like, like Jimmy, he is Irish. He is not Italian. So he's an outsider. He is someone who may have to exhibit, or at least early on exhibited some of that eagerness and it just sort of stuck, he has to ingratiate himself into this world because he is not the same as everyone else around him. I'm going to go back. Let's see if I can say it twice. We can say it for a third time in the show. Kinetic dynamism. The pantheon may need a pantheon for the movies that scene to scene moment to moment deliver the most thrilling filmmaking. I didn't go through the list, but do the right thing would be in it.

23:27Adam Kempenaar:And Goodfellas, Goodfellas would be in it. That's how good every scene is and how good every choice is. And unlike some of our recent revisits, we've had a bunch of sacred cows and Pantheon project reviews recently. It hasn't been 20 or 30 years since I've seen Goodfellas. So I really was a little nervous and I didn't know what to expect from this conversation. I don't know the last time I watched it in one sitting, but I'll borrow a phrase from Billy Bean and Moneyball, the movie anyway. I've certainly recreated it in the aggregate. I don't know how many countless times I've watched scenes from it or picked up, you know, wherever it was on TV.

24:07Adam Kempenaar:I know this movie well, but even if there weren't going to be, or I didn't expect there to be any capital R revelations, there did still end up being aspects to discuss that I hadn't strongly considered before. And you used a word earlier, just a short time ago, talking about Leota. You said watching. And I said in my setup, the intoxicating allure of the gangster life as Henry sees it. And there's two parts there. We may talk about the intoxicating allure of the gangster life part. But for me, the more important part is, is as Henry sees it, because if we, if we go back to, and we consider the opening with Billy bats in the trunk as a sort of prologue, and that's how I'm going to refer to it.

24:56Adam Kempenaar:How does that culminate? It culminates with that incredible. It feels to me just like John Wayne in stagecoach like introduction, the rushing tracking shot that stops in a freeze frame on Leota's face in close up, his eyes looking past the camera. And that's where we get the famous line as far back as I can remember. Right. And if it wasn't for the credits in between, it would it would be almost a match cut from that close up on his eyes, those piercing Ray Liotta eyes to Henry Young Henry's eyes looking at the gangsters across the way from from his apartment, looking at them down on the stoop.

25:40Adam Kempenaar:And that great shot, the cinematography, the, the beam, the reflection beaming in the iris of his eye. Right. So yes, of course he's the narrator. This is his telling his tale, the retelling of events, but I had never fully paid attention to just how much Scorsese leans into that point of view. How often we watch Henry, who, as I said, is an Italian, isn't born into the mob. How often we watch him watching, like when he's worried about Maury getting whacked. He's watching the dynamic the entire time. That's true. A bunch of examples of that. Right. Or more directly, you take a shot like. The steady cam introductions, the classic, you know, I'm going to go get the papers, get the papers when he introduces us at the restaurant to everybody.

26:32Adam Kempenaar:And it's amazing. I guess if you wanted to somehow take a shot at Scorsese for just showing off, you'd be like, well, that's what he's doing there. But actually, that's Henry's point of view, walking through that restaurant, introducing us to those characters as if we're seeing it through Henry's eyes. Or how about the other great scene where he wakes up to find Karen pointing the gun right at him slash us? Or one of my new favorite shots that I just never appreciated before. which is when he gets out of jail. Think about how simple this is, Josh, like how subtle this is, because I think it's so easy to miss.

27:15Adam Kempenaar:Again, I don't know how many times I've seen Goodfellas, but I just never thought about it in these terms before. And it's not a bravura camera moment, but I still think it's ingenious. And it's a choice. It's still a choice that's being made. And it's an atypical filmmaking choice. when he gets out of jail and he goes back to the apartment or whatever space Karen has the kids currently living with the bunk beds and they're the bunk beds and smashed in. Yeah, I believe it's it's a single shot and you hear a door open and you hear the kids say something like, what do you think, daddy? You know, I made that picture or something.

27:57the camera is looking at the room we are seeing the camera it's almost like it does a 360

28:07Adam Kempenaar:turn about the room and then as it scans across the room it finally ends ultimately on henry and he says like karen get everything packed yeah we're getting out of here right so it doesn't it It doesn't start on the door. Any other filmmaker or a lot of other filmmakers would have started that sequence with the door opening and Henry walking in and then cut to him seeing the room and then cut back to his reaction shot. Scorsese in one shot doesn't show us that it's his point of view. In fact, allows it to be our point of view. The audience's point of view. First, we we get to process the room almost as if we're seeing it before Henry does.

28:51Adam Kempenaar:we have to take in the relative squalor of the conditions. We get to react with our eyes before he even does. It's kind of like we're seeing it through his eyes, but we're also in a way, it feels like we're seeing it before he does. So it's not just a POV shot. It's our perspective in a way aligning or superseding his perspective. And then Josh, the capper to that for me, from the point of view perspective here, what really just blew me away this time watching it is then you get to something like the Copa, the famous steadicam shot there, where Scorsese is graciously allowing us to experience in real time the rewards of Henry's chosen profession, the access, the glamour, though it's mostly what Karen is experiencing.

29:41Adam Kempenaar:Because for Henry, we have to assume it's old hat, but for Karen, it's new, it's exhilarating. and I always just thought about it in those terms. We get to follow them in and we get to follow them in real time. It's a literal film school textbook version of how to use the Steadicam and I say literal because yesterday in class, I used it, right? Even before it was just coincidence that we were talking about Goodfellas this week, I used it last fall too. It's the textbook example of how to use a Steadicam shot But until I watched it this time for our discussion and was really thinking about how he was using point of view, I didn't fully pick up on the fact that the real genius is in how the sequence ends.

30:27Adam Kempenaar:We stay tethered to them the entire time. We are following them the entire time, except at the very end where we see the staff bring the table out. And then what happens? Henry and Karen actually step slightly to the right out of the frame. and the camera, I think, moves forward a little bit as the table gets placed down. And, you know, Henry and Karen, they're going to take their seats in a second. But just for a moment, that table has been placed down just for us. So it's a it's another moment where our point of view is is both aligning with, but also, again, for lack of a better word, superseding Henry's point of view.

31:12Adam Kempenaar:And that's the perspective that we feel throughout the entire movie as we relive this gangster life, this saga that Henry has experienced.

31:25Josh Larsen:Yeah, the point of view thing brings up an interesting question I'll ask you in just a second. But as far as that Copacabana shot, the thing that stood out to me on this viewing is related to the religious ritual. I had never noticed that table being lifted up in the air. and you're right, we suddenly focus on it rather than them. And it has a white tablecloth and it's moving briskly through the crowd back and forth. It's almost like some sort of robe that is flowing or there's this angelic sense to it. You could envision something like that going down a church aisle and being placed down as some sort of sacred object, which is the reverence that the camera is giving it.

32:08Josh Larsen:So yeah, as far as the point of view thing goes, you're right. This movie is interestingly aligned with Henry Hill's point of view, though not technically the same way all the time, but it's absolutely his story. And so what did you make on this viewing of the choice to allow Karen's narration to have some space in this narrative? We always did everything together, and we always were in the same crowd. Anniversaries, christenings, we only went to each other's houses.

32:45Adam Kempenaar:The women played cards, and when the kids were born, Mickey and Jimmy were always the first at the hospital. And when we went to the islands of Vegas for vacation, we always went together. No outsiders ever. It got to be normal. It got to where I was even proud that I had the kind of husband who was willing to go out and risk his neck just to get us the little extras.

33:06Josh Larsen:Lorraine Bracco here as Karen. And I think, oh man, I should have marked this down. There are maybe three sections dedicated to her in terms of voiceover. But I think the performance is dynamic enough that she also brings a presence and makes it her story when she's not delivering a voiceover. but it is a break from this very specific choice to align us at the movie with Henry Hill. So how did that play out for you on this viewing?

33:37Adam Kempenaar:Well, it made sense because there are certain things that obviously only Henry can know and have seen and experienced. And those are the things we see only through his point of view, but there are things that she was witness to. And those are the things that she gets to articulate that she was part of. It worked for me, Josh, because not only that, but this whole sense that it is a memory, that it's something he is retelling, it feels like it's going back into the past until we get caught up to the quote unquote present day. And where we know we're in the present day officially, I think anyway, is when they're having the conversation with the FBI guy about whether or not they're going to go into the witness protection program.

34:25Adam Kempenaar:That for me is the moment where the story has now caught up. And so I think that the dual voiceovers, how I reconcile that is it's as if they are both putting their stories on the page. On the record. Yeah, on the record, whether it's for the FBI or it's for some other storyteller. Nevertheless, it's in the present day. it's officially on the record. And she now is entering that part of the story officially through that route. So I love that we get her perspective and I love Lorraine Bracco's performance.

35:01Josh Larsen:Oh my gosh. Yeah, I mean, I've always been favorable on it. It's just interesting to think about it as the years go by and in context of what you were talking about. I think for me, it's definitely justified practically in the ways you describe, but also it is, I mean, the performance justifies it. The way it's written, the material that she's given justifies it. And right from the first instance we see her, how about the line she delivers? This is on their double date. The first thing she says to him, have some coffee, it'll wake you up. I know. She doesn't really know who this guy is yet. Right.

35:39Josh Larsen:But still, you have to imagine that's not the demure way to approach a first date, even if it's someone who you're not really that interested in. And what is really interesting about Karen, I think, and this again has been, you know, it wasn't necessarily a revelation, but how entirely complicit she is in all this. I think that's fascinating and more interesting than making her a victim. This clarifies, and to me in a new way, perhaps with the scene where he does take his gun and with the butt of it, beat her neighbor nearly to death for, from what we understand, And the neighbor has assaulted Karen.

36:21Josh Larsen:And he just says, hide this. We get an insert shot. So many crucial key insert shots in this movie. Close-ups of the bloody gun. And she grabs it. I know there are women like my best friends who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide.

36:38Adam Kempenaar:But I didn't. I got to admit the truth. It turned me on.

36:43Josh Larsen:and i think what that moment shows to me is that in that voiceover i think once or twice she talks about how sexy he is and so she's kind of turned on turn me on she's turning me on right turn me on yeah which is one ingredient sure that's that's interesting but this scene with the hide this and the gun shows that it's not just his sexiness it's not even necessarily his connections um for the you know the favors they can get it's that he can be a protector that's part of what appeals to her about Henry. And in a way, Henry offers Karen the same sort of quote unquote protection that Paulie offers the neighborhood, right?

37:24Josh Larsen:He describes that. That's what the is really doing, right? Yes. Yeah. And he describes it as a positive thing, right? Yes. But all we see are the costs of that. And Karen is in a similar position where she makes a deal and is in some ways coerced, but she makes the choice to pursue that protection and it costs her as well. Um, and yeah, and Bracco just, um, you know, with the dynamism and the ferocity that she has from beginning to end, um, is the performance earns this diversion from the single point of view that we otherwise were getting.

38:02Adam Kempenaar:And she is all those things you describe. And then to show the complexity of the character and Bracco's range. Maybe my favorite single word reading of hers watching it this time is that night where right after they're just married, Henry stays out too late and she's sticking up. She's standing up for herself and Henry to her mom, right? Sounding like the independent woman. I don't care what Henry does. Stay out of it, mom, all those things. But then after, after he comes back and then turns around and goes back out. She says, dad, like she sounds just like a child, like, like she needs dad's help with mom, but also maybe dad can give some advice about Henry.

38:45Adam Kempenaar:And it's, it's just perfect that, that, that little, that little girl is still inside her at the same time. Right. Even though she is all those things, she's not this demure girl, but she also still kind of is. And I, I wanted to talk about this because I think you set this up nicely. And I don't want to create any straw men here. So you can tell me if I'm heading down the wrong path. I haven't read any detailed arguments along these lines, but you, like me, and I'm sure most people listening have certainly seen tweets and different arguments come up on social media here and there about people taking shots of Scorsese for romanticizing.

39:26Adam Kempenaar:This goes back to the intoxicating allure part, romanticizing this type of lifestyle or at least romanticizing or glorifying a certain type of toxic masculinity that we often see in these types of gangster characters. And I have to imagine that Goodfellas is an exhibit in that case. and I here, Josh, I don't want to, this isn't just me disagreeing with it. I honestly watching it this time, I really don't see any basis for it at all. And I'm not trying to be obtuse about it because I've seen this movie enough, as I said, that I didn't expect any major surprises. And I would say overall, I didn't have any huge shocks, but if you would ask me before rewatching it, how Goodfellas began.

40:17Adam Kempenaar:How does Goodfellas start? I think I would have mistakenly said, well, it starts as far back as I can remember. I always wanted to be a gangster. It starts with Henry in the past saying I wanted to be a gangster and it starts in the fifties. I would have bypassed the prologue. I forgot about the prologue, but you can't bypass the prologue. Scorsese doesn't bypass the prologue. Why does he open the film the way he does with the first sound we're hearing and the first images we're hearing being the car rolling down the road, the highway, the early hours of the morning, two guys, two mobsters sleeping in the car, Henry barely awake, right?

41:00Adam Kempenaar:They've just done something really wrong, really bad. We don't know that yet. We as viewers don't know that yet, but the guys in the car do. Certainly the driver knows. And what's happening? We're about to find out that there's a guy who should be dead bleeding profusely in the trunk of the car. And when they open it, that's when we get, that's when we get the hellscape. That's when we get that color red coming out from the trunk. And so this is all within like the first 90 seconds of the movie, Josh, we're going to watch Joe Pesci take a gigantic knife and stab into Billy Bats and the blood is going to start gurgling out of him.

41:41Adam Kempenaar:Right. So right away, right away, we get a sense of what this life is like. And even though, even though we're going to then get that shot, we're going to get that wonderful editing moment of him closing the trunk and on that action and sound that heroic it is heroic i think scorsese is being deliberately ironic here it's a heroic stagecoach ringo like shot where it tracks forward in a hurry and it stops on him but it's ironic because nothing we've seen up to that tracking shot is heroic and the look on ray liota's face that it freezes on nothing about his face suggests heroism. He looks scared as hell actually in that moment, right?

42:30Adam Kempenaar:And everything about the red is telling us whether we know anything about Martin Scorsese's other films or not, the color red is making us very, very uneasy. I actually think I was looking at this, Josh, and I don't know if he did something technique wise or super imposing it over it, but there's a moment when that trunk opens where the, it actually looks like they do something almost like a technique out of Vertigo where the color red seems to impose over the white sheet. It feels for a second like red just kind of starts to absorb over the body and it gets even bloodier for a second. And everything about that suggests that there's nothing heroic going on.

43:11Adam Kempenaar:So when he actually says, as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster and the music and the horn start, you could actually, you could just immediately burst out laughing. It's that funny, right? So I think that's intended to be that hilarious. And he is saying, and as we watch the film, even if you take the Copa, that might be the only real moment. And even that's a performance. Even that's a performance for Karen. Ask yourself how many moments in the film you genuinely feel like you would want to trade places with Henry Hill, even for a moment, or even that you feel a vicarious rush of adrenaline.

43:57Adam Kempenaar:I don't know that I could come up with one or two. And look, I'm not a saint. I think you have to acknowledge, and I think Martin Scorsese understands that there is an element within all of us where we are like Karen. We can get turned on by bad behavior. I still say you can't count the number of moments on maybe more than two fingers if you're lucky, where you really feel that. They mostly have here, and you were getting at this earlier, Henry and the mob characters here mostly just have power. and they maintain their power through force. And with that comes a lot of ugliness. And it's just the power that he's drawn to, but that power isn't romantic and it's not sexy really ever in this film.

44:46Josh Larsen:By the time we get to the helicopter sequence, which I don't think we've touched on yet, that is where it's absolutely clear this guy is living a nightmare. And he's got it worse off than any schnook. He's putting in, forget nine to five, He's putting in 22 hour days and he's paranoid for every second of them. I read the film the same way you do. And, but I will also say this is a conversation that's worth having. And I think Scorsese throughout his career has tiptoed along these lines of being deliberately ironic. And, you know, this is part, not entirely, but part of our split on the Wolf of Wall Street.

45:26Josh Larsen:I do question sometimes, how much fun are you going to have before you tell the audience this isn't fun, even if you're being deliberately ironic? And in the case of Goodfellas, I find him to be walking that line quite convincingly and with dexterity and a moral clarity, a tone management. This is where he is doing that at his best, for me, at least.

45:56Adam Kempenaar:To be clear, I'm saying if you want to have that argument, I think it's tough to include goodfellas in that argument.

46:03Josh Larsen:I mean, yeah, I wouldn't hold it up as an exhibit either. But when you use the word heroic for that push in to Henry, that's completely apt. It's also purposeful. I think that is a clear choice that he is making to be deliberately ironic. That does not negate its heroic effect. and this brings to mind that prologue has another kinetic element that I don't think I'd noticed before that adds to this sense of excitement and counters that shot of them where they're sleeping and bored and it is the way the car when we first it might be the first shot of the film the car with the cameras behind the car zooming down the freeway and the camera all of a sudden revs up, swings to the next, next to the car that Henry's driving and almost passes it.

46:57Josh Larsen:And it's, it's as if Scorsese is saying, let's go for a ride. Huh? I actually, I got a different effect. And it zooms around them and, and pulls ahead of them. And this is what I loved about it, Adam, the credits that come on the screen, they're moving. And if I'm remembering correctly, they appear, they almost rev up and move the same direction across the screen from right to left. All of that is, it's that word we keep using. It's kinetic. It's exciting. It's sexy. It's heroic. And so I am not saying that I read the movie any differently than you are, but these are the deliberately ironic or how high are we meant to be getting?

47:42Josh Larsen:This is always the question with script therapy. How high are we meant to be getting in moments like this. Now, I agree with you. I don't think Goodfellas is, you know, ultimately a movie that you could use as an argument for that. I have others that I've used, but it's there.

47:57Adam Kempenaar:It's there. Again, just think about most scenes in this film, sitting around at a restaurant, getting yelled at by Tommy, what, getting a few free drinks. Like most of their life is pretty banal, right? Like it's not, it's really not alluring. They get to, they hang out on the corner in a pizza joint, like great. They get to take whatever they want. Like that's not actually that, that exciting ultimately what you see in this film. And even I was going to say how nuanced the beginning is you're right. The way the credits move, how it moves in sync, even the sound with the car. But my feeling watching the car because of how the car is kind of moving at a steady speed and you get the sense, you see the guys and the way they're sleeping and how the car is moving.

48:41Adam Kempenaar:It's not a very fast pace. It suggests to me that everybody's drowsy and it's almost like the car could go off the road at any minute. Like it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel thrilling to me, but the, but the way the credits are in sync with it almost feels like it is right. So there, there are these opposing forces at play, but that's, that's what, that's what makes the

49:03Josh Larsen:filmmaking exciting. Yeah. He loves to play. He loves to play in that tension. And yeah, As you're describing, you know, how banal their lives are. This comes back to the supposed freedom they've found by being above the law. Right. When actually they've trapped themselves in this bubble that constricts them more than if they were a schnook. Exactly.

49:24Adam Kempenaar:It's a great point. So just a few other things. I don't know if you had a list of other things or other items that you wanted to touch on, but I love what I think is intentional humor anyway of, We'll go back to Maury. The fact that we get the commercial, we see that entire commercial where Maury's wigs stay on, right? You can jump in the water, the wind, there could be a storm, right? Maury's wigs never come off. But what happens then in the very next scene, turns out the wigs can handle everything but Jimmy Conway. Of course. You know, like that feels like a great joke embedded in there because as soon as Jimmy Conway gets his hands on Maury, the wig starts to come off, doesn't it?

50:07Adam Kempenaar:Isn't it Jimmy watching the commercial like in disgust?

50:10Josh Larsen:Yeah, I think he is, right?

50:10Adam Kempenaar:It's almost like, you know, he's been thinking about it. He's getting primed for it. I'm going to get that off. Chuck Lowe. Chuck Lowe as Maury, by the way. Those editing touches, the way we elide moments, and here some of them are thrilling too, but we've already seen the prologue so that we don't have to relive moments and revisit them again. when we leave the house, we actually get what is essentially a match cut on sound. As the camera is in the house, we see the car in the background. We hear bats in the trunk. In the very next shot, they're out on the road. And it's as if, well, did the sound come from the previous shot when he was in the driveway?

51:02Adam Kempenaar:Or is the shot, is the sound from the road? it doesn't really matter they're they're from the same moment but that's how he bridges that gap in time right it brings us there there are such wonderful little moments like that um another example of that is the the time where i think he's he's fighting with karen henry's fighting with karen and she i think it's right after she pulls the gun on him and she goes into the closet it and she yanks the clothes. So again, action and sound combined, right? She yanks. And at the same time she yanks, you think she's yelling in anger and maybe she is, but on the next frame, the next cut, he's out with the guys or something.

51:48Adam Kempenaar:And it's a cut to his face and he's yelling, right? So is he screaming? Is she screaming? Those cuts are, are, are cut together in that moment as if they are one moment that that is happening together. There are so many examples. Oh, I got to give you one more that is the same kind of thing here, but not with sound with with movement in editing. It's when Karen is complaining about that first date and how the moment he was, you know, he was pushing me into the car and then he was pulling me out. And so then we see that enacted in the editing where just with one cut, it's as if in one fluid motion, it's like she was pushed in and then literally taken out.

52:29Adam Kempenaar:It's just, that's how, that's how fluid the editing in this movie is.

52:33Josh Larsen:Well, and it creates this cohesive, coherent experience where the two and almost two and a half hours, you know, all feel of a piece they're propulsive because that's it. There's movements like that from one moment to the other. Uh, just, yeah, a couple of last quick things I'll say. We probably haven't talked about Joe Pesci much at all because it's such an iconic performance, what's left to say real quick. When I notice here, you know, the little things you notice when it's the umpteenth viewing and everyone's talked about this and impersonated it to death. When Billy bats insults him by talking about the shoeshine story, he's, it's not just that Tommy gets psychotically mad.

53:11Josh Larsen:Pesci gives us a few beats where he is genuinely hurt. You can tell. He's a real human being who is feeling like, hey, I'm here, I'm almost a made guy, and I still don't have their respect.

53:24Adam Kempenaar:Hey, Tommy, if I was going to break your ball, I'd tell you to go home and get your shine box. This kid was great. I used to call him Spit Shine Tommy.

53:34Josh Larsen:I swear to God.

53:35Adam Kempenaar:He'd make your shoes look like mirrors. Excuse my language. He was terrific. He was the best. He made a lot of money, too. Saloon, Tommy. No more shines, Billy. What? I said no more shines. Maybe you didn't hear about it. You've been away a long time. They didn't go up there and tell you. I don't shine shoes anymore. Relax, will you? What's got into you? I'm breaking your balls a little bit. That's all. I'm only kidding with you. Sometimes you don't sound like you're kidding. You know, there's a lot of people around. I mean, I'm only kidding with you. We're having a party. I mean, I just came home.

54:04Adam Kempenaar:I haven't seen you in a long time, and I'm breaking your balls, and right away you're getting fresh. I'm sorry.

54:09Josh Larsen:I don't mean to offend you. I'm sorry, too. It's okay. No problem.

54:17Adam Kempenaar:I'll go home and get your shine box.

54:21Josh Larsen:And the fact that, you know, this Pesci isn't just doing the, you know, below your top moments here. This is a really good performance. De Niro. I love how comfortable he is just to be mostly in the background. I know Jimmy comes into the focus a little more in the final third, but I almost like the beginning better where you're watching this dynamic scene of violence or yelling or talking. And, and De Niro's kind of like the fourth guy in the scene. And he's just kind of, you know, chuckling or grinning or doing something with his hands. That's on point and brilliant. And he's so relaxed here.

54:56Josh Larsen:You can just feel like there's no weight to carry this whole movie. And so he's just having as much fun as he can in the corners. Um, and then the last thing is a little more technical, but that famous Dolly zoom shot, um, at breakfast at the diner at the diner with Jimmy and Henry, where Henry realizes he's going to set him up. Yeah. It's, I think it appears to be zooming in on them while dialing away. Right. So you're, so things are a little unsteady. What I noticed this time about it, I think that's the first time we realized Jimmy who's older now has these giant 1980s thick glasses, which are comical and kind of undercut him as a threatening figure.

55:39Josh Larsen:But also in that scene, they have a similar effect to the dolly zoom where you're a little disoriented by the thickness of him and his eyes are a little blurry. So that's just, yeah, one of those brilliant little flares of techniques Scorsese puts in here that works thematically as well. They all work thematically.

55:57Adam Kempenaar:None of this is showing off. I'll say this about Tommy and the famous scene, You Think I'm Funny, is I never really thought about the fact that even though we have met Tommy before, we've met that character before, we haven't really gotten to know him. And we don't know yet that he's a psychopath. So that's our introduction to the real Tommy. And in that scene, he actually is he's not playing a psychopath. Right. Or he is acting like a psychopath, but it turns out he's being good-natured. It's a joke. He's pretending. But that is setting up. We get enough of a glimpse of how scary he really is in the performance within a performance, right?

56:44Adam Kempenaar:That we do know or have enough of a sense of who he really is underneath. That once we start to see his actions later, we see how he really does behave in some of these situations later. We're not surprised at all because we've seen the crazy come out. We've seen the crazy come out even though it was a comical situation and he was performing. What do you mean funny? Funny how? How am I funny? I'm not just – do you know how you tell a story? No, no, I don't know. You said it. How do I know? You said I'm funny. How the f*** am I funny? What the f*** is so funny about me? Tell me. Tell me what's funny.

57:31Adam Kempenaar:Get the f*** out of your tummy. You mother f***. I almost had him. I almost had him.

57:36Josh Larsen:And I think it's the archetype for the, you know, the gangster hothead psychotic. This is a very familiar type, but Heshi gives it all these layers we're talking about, which is why it's why it makes it like the piece de resistance of this particular figure.

57:53Adam Kempenaar:Here's my closing question. the thing I do I do want listeners to come in and give me an answer maybe it's in the book presumably all of the men who were part of the Lufthansa heist like Henry I don't really know enough about the dynamics to say whether or not Jimmy definitely reports to Pauly or not as part of his crew but Henry certainly does don't all of these guys probably belong to Pauly's crew So when Jimmy just starts whacking everybody, doesn't, doesn't Pauly maybe say, Hey, what's, what's happening to all my guys? All of a sudden I've got no muscle anymore.

58:35Josh Larsen:Yeah. It's a good question. Jimmy seems to be operating on his own towards the end there, but even Henry even says at one point, like we can't touch those guys. That's part of them not being a hundred percent Italian. Right. Is, is that they can't even get in a fight with the wrong guy. If they're made, those guys might not be made. But he also kind of says, we're held back. So it's a good question. It also opens up, how rogue has Jimmy gone? That's kind of what I'm saying. He lost it at that point.

59:05Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I'm curious about that. Maybe someone has the answer. It was fun talking about Goodfellas. Goodfellas is currently available at VOD and via quotes in your group chat. If you agree or disagree with anything we had to say, or you have any other thoughts about our show, you can email us feedback at filmspotting.net. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. With real-time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time.

59:41Adam Kempenaar:Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Tread Plus at OnePeloton.com.

59:50Josh Larsen:Listening is the number one thing you can do to support an independently produced show like ours. A couple more things you can do. Take a minute to give us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It doesn't matter if you're brand new or have been around for 20 years. Every new review helps us reach new listeners. The most substantial way to support us, however, is to join the FilmSpotting family. And you can do that at FilmSpottingFamily.com. Thank you very much to Family Plus member Wyatt Espelin from Hiawassee, Georgia. Wyatt's letterboxd handle, if you want to follow him there, is W-E-S-P-A-L-I-N 75.

1:00:27Adam Kempenaar:Okay, so it looks like Wes Palin 75. Wyatt writes, I toured the country performing as a singer-songwriter and always in a vehicle. I discovered film spotting during the Christopher Nolan oeuvre view or oeuvre reviews and have been listening ever since. I became a member for the 1999 draft as that was the peak of my movie watching years. That was bonus show number 53 last July. I had to hear if any of you would pick Boys Don't Cry or The Green Mile. Two of my favorites from that year, we did not. I'm also happy that I can listen to archive episodes. Currently enjoying your revisit of Silence of the Lambs for its 30th.

1:01:04Adam Kempenaar:A favorite review or segment. I love the year end and Oscar episodes. and I was all in on the Jane Campion oeuvre review marathon. I love Josh's comments on the piano, which is one of my favorite movies of all time. I love all the rankings of director's films, and I like it when Josh and Adam catch up on some of their blind spots. I don't like it when they disagree and the tension can be felt. It broke my heart when I found out Siskel and Ebert never really seemed to like one another. LOL. Okay, I do confess, I like the tension a little bit. Mrs. Miniver, anyone? I hope to hang out one day. at a live event of all the movies.

1:01:42Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, no kidding. Nice, lovely Mrs. Miniver. What a wonderfully entertaining show. Most of the time, more entertaining than the films being reviewed. Thanks for having me. Letterboxd Top 4, mostly representing my favorite directors, The Color Purple, Hannah and Her Sisters, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Nixon. That's got to be the first Nixon appearing in a Letterboxd Top 4. I think so. More Oliver Stone, favorite movie. he revisited recently why it's his natural-born killers. A random film that he loves is The Butcher Boy from Neil Jordan. A movie he credits with becoming a cinephile. How about this?

1:02:19Adam Kempenaar:When I watched my first Scorsese at 15 years old, Goodfellas and The Last Temptation of Christ in the same week. There you go. A book about movies or movie making. I have all of Roger Ebert's review books. We thank Wyatt for joining the family and all those years of listening. In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, Your support comes with perks. You get to listen early and ad-free. You get our weekly newsletter. You get exclusive opportunities like being part of the so thoughtful FilmSpotting family discord and monthly bonus shows. We did just talk about Akira Kurosawa's stray dog. Guess what?

1:02:55Adam Kempenaar:Pretty great movie. This month, we will be having another edition of Trivia Spotting, and we love playing that fun little game with all of our Film Spotting family members. There are still slots available. We will put a link in the notes for this show and the Film Spotting family episode anyway, if you would like to sign up and be part of Trivia Spotting. Can I actually, can I just brag real quick on the trivia front, Josh? Our Discord folks may have seen this, but can I brag for a second? Yeah, go for it. So it was, it was an anniversary for Sarah and me last week. And so we decided it was a Wednesday night.

1:03:35Adam Kempenaar:We decided to, to have a drink. So we, we went to just the nearest bar to us to sneak out and have a drink. Turns out it was trivia night. We didn't even know this place had a trivia night, but it was trivia night, pub trivia night, only like maybe five teams playing.

1:03:55Adam Kempenaar:and we show up round four is about to start. I don't know how many rounds there are. I just know round four is about to start. So obviously we've missed a good part of the game, but they say it's the entertainment round. And so we're not going to play because we missed most of the game, but then they ask the first question and I know the answer. So it's like, okay, it's on. I'm going to go get, I'm going to go get a sheet and we're going to play. And so we start playing and there were nine questions And I think I knew all nine of them. Sarah may not have been a lot of help on entertainment, but I knew all nine of them and we, and we got them.

1:04:31Adam Kempenaar:Right. So, so we had a good round. So then we're in, turns out there are seven rounds, right? So between Sarah and I, we have two very different backgrounds, educationally and interests. So we ended up being a pretty good team. And in the end, with only having played four rounds and missing the first three, we only ended up losing. We ended up finishing second and we only lost by four points. Hey, I know what you're going to be doing next Wednesday night. Exactly. It's penciled into our calendar now. And the thing is, the team that won, they were like these really inebriated bros who I think were totally oblivious to the fact that we joined in round four and only lost by four points.

1:05:24Adam Kempenaar:And they were like over-celebrating. And it was just like, so you know what? We're definitely coming back. We're definitely coming back. This is a rivalry. This is like West Side Story. Could be. Sharks and Jets. I hope they ask a question about West Side Story. I think we'll get it and they won't. I could be wrong. Hey, this is about the Film Spotting family, though. Not my trivia prowess. You can learn more about the Film Spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com.

1:05:57Josh Larsen:So where did he find you at? Meet and greet or something? Uh, no. He came into the store I work at. You make music? Yeah, sometimes, bro.

1:06:08Adam Kempenaar:You should come to the show tonight.

1:06:13Adam Kempenaar:That's from Lurker, a debut feature from director Alex Russell. As the title suggests, the innocuous sounding encounter between a musician and a fan takes a turn for the worse. But just how bad does it get, Josh? You caught up with this one and you are nominating it for the Golden Brick, which we award to our favorite film of the year by a new or emerging filmmaker. tell us what you liked about Lurker. It does get dark.

1:06:39Josh Larsen:I think maybe what I liked less was the direction it goes at the end. It kind of spins in different directions and the darkness is part of that. But man, is this a movie that hooks you with its opening scene? I'm not going to describe it in detail, but this is where the sales clerk, Matthew, played by Theodore Pellerin, encounters There's this pop star Oliver played by Archie Medequi. And again, won't give it away, but the way he entraps him and the way his eyes lock on him like he's prey, you realize, oh, we're dealing with someone really nefarious here. And the performance from Pelerin digs into that and is consistently to the end fascinating and unnerving.

1:07:26Josh Larsen:He is, there's just a desperation to this, a neediness to the performance that is electric in a strange way. It is very talented, Mr. Ripley. There are definitely shades of that. But I think the writer director here, Alex Russell, making their debut is he's also doing a character study that serves as a meditation on celebrity in some ways that Ripley didn't and authenticity, I think, in some interesting ways. That's what I really latched into are the questions where it explores authenticity. It's something that comes up in terms of Oliver's music and who he wants to be as an artist. What is authentic?

1:08:09Josh Larsen:So it's not just about the Matthew character, the sales clerk character. So there are a lot of interesting layers here. The last thing I'll quickly mention that I think makes it interesting as a golden brick too. You know, we're looking for a strong vision here, interesting choices. It is the music, Oliver's music. What's the difference between love and obsession? I don't know, but I know I want you. Kenneth Bloom, I guess also known as Kenny Beats, composed the score, but also worked with a variety of artists to bring out these songs. I would say Oliver is kind of a weekend-like figure to me.

1:08:51Josh Larsen:the music sounded like that. There's these sleepy, seductive songs that he performs. They really grab you and fit the character well and what the character is exploring. Again, this authenticity question and Madaque performs them brilliantly. This is a really believable, convincing, rising pop star you've got here. So the use of music is something that makes Lurker stand out as well. I'll leave it there so I don't spoil anymore. Okay.

1:09:18Adam Kempenaar:Lurker is out now. I think just playing in limited release, in wider release, you can see The Roses, which you did. This stars Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch as a well-off married couple whose marriage goes bad, but it's comedy. So it's either going to go hilariously bad. Well, that's the idea. It should go hilariously bad. SNL alums Kate McKinnon and Andy Sandberg are also in the film. Jay Roach of Austin Powers and Meet the Parents fame directs. How was it, Josh?

1:09:49Josh Larsen:I imagine most folks are going to go see this because they're interested in Coleman and Cumberbatch. That was our situation and we weren't disappointed. They're brilliant together. I could have just taken a movie of only the two of them together, whether they're, you know, deeply in love at the front or, you know, deeply in detest near the end of the film. The repartee here, it's they're just zipping along and you're kind of you're dazzled even when they're being horrible to each other. Sure. One, I would rather live with her than a wolf. Did you say wolf? Yeah. Wow. One, he has arms. Well, I saw a documentary once about a man without arms, and it looked like a difficult life, particularly for the partner.

1:10:39So I like that he has arms.

1:10:42Josh Larsen:Yeah. They're almost too good for this movie because I don't remember much about The War of the Roses, the Turner, Kathleen Turner, and Michael Douglas one. But I remember them pretty much being at each other's throats the whole time. And a good part of The Roses is about the romance of these two characters. And there's more back and forth from, you know, they disappoint each other, they get back together. And Cumberbatch and Coleman are so good at these elements, these dramatic elements, that they make this more serious of a movie than I think Jay Roach possibly wanted it to be. So there is a little bit of tension there that isn't always worked out.

1:11:24Josh Larsen:But again, Cumberbatch and Coleman are so good that if you're a fan, even if you're just a fan of one of them, I'm probably more of a fan of Coleman than Cumberbatch. You know, you'll still be glad that you saw The Roses.

1:11:37Adam Kempenaar:Okay. The Roses currently out in wide release. Again, Lurker out limited. If you see either film, have thoughts? You can email us feedback at filmspotting.net.

1:11:48Josh Larsen:quick note about our sister podcast the next picture show looking at cinemas present via its past their new pairing is one that yeah they had to do i can't wait to hear this spike lee's highest lowest and of course 1963's high and low from as spike put it in the credits to his movie the master filmmaker akira kurosawa so yeah they'll look at high and low first then move on to spike's film. New episodes of The Next Picture Show drop every Tuesday, and you can find them wherever you get your podcasts.

1:12:21Adam Kempenaar:Vultures Movies Fantasy League is back for season five. Josh, catch the excitement. Sign-ups are open now through Thursday, September 24th. I mean, I am excited. I say that because I know you have no idea what I'm talking about. Here's the deal. You get to draft eight 2025 movies. You earn points based on their box office performance, critical reception, and awards season haul. Now, if that sounds complicated or you think it sounds simple, but you still don't really know how it all works, I don't know either. I just know that if it gets good reviews, if it wins some awards, and if it does well at the box office, whatever the formula is, then the movie did well and you'll do well.

1:13:09Adam Kempenaar:But I've played this two years in a row and I've done terribly. So clearly I don't know what I'm doing. It's still fun though, because we get to have our own film spotters league. So we get to compete against each other and all the other film spotting listeners who want to be part of our league. But then we're competing against the wider movie loving public as well. and there are prizes involved. So Sam and I are part of it. We're part of the Creators League. And last year, Sam, he didn't know what he was doing, but guess what? He finished 10th in the Creators League. How about that? Yeah. So, you know, if you've had any experience in fantasy sports, this might make sense to you.

1:13:52Adam Kempenaar:If you haven't, maybe not. But if you like movies, just give it a try. They give you all the films that have come out this year and all the films that are coming out. And obviously, if it's already come out, you can pick it, but you're not going to earn points for how it did at the box office because you already know how it did at the box office. So you're taking a risk there if you go with that film. But you could still earn points based on the awards season haul effectively, right? So that's part of your calculation. But the competition is obviously everyone who signs up and you can compete in our film spotting mini league.

1:14:27Adam Kempenaar:All you have to do is enter film spotters in the league name field. When you sign up, we've got a lot of people already there. It would be fun to have more involved. So we will put the fantasy league sign up in the notes for this episode, or you can go to movie game dot vulture dot com movie game dot vulture dot com. Josh, there are two deadlines to play. September 24th, that's the last day to sign up before the contest starts. You can also sign up through the end of December. That catch, though, of course, is that you won't be able to draft any films that have already started earning points. I don't know why you would wait until December.

1:15:09Adam Kempenaar:I mean, the deadline is September 24th. Sign up by then and have some fun. All the best to you, film spotters. Good luck. But Josh says good luck.

1:15:19Josh Larsen:He is a no-go. My therapist has told me no activities that involve spreadsheets. Next week.

1:15:28Adam Kempenaar:Okay. Here's what your therapist should be warning you against. Ideas. Top fives. They're the brainchild of producer Sam. I came around to this one. I came around to it. Somehow. I know you did.

1:15:39Josh Larsen:Once I realized it didn't involve a spreadsheet.

1:15:42Adam Kempenaar:Well, it won't involve one for me. I don't know about you. Yeah, it might for me. That's the problem. I think I even tried to talk you into it. And now I'm the one who is struggling to to actually fulfill it. This is the brainchild of producer Sam. He is calling this top five. That's not really a top five, even though it has two fives in it. He's calling it. Five years, five movies. So what you have to do is select a five year period. This is a little misleading. Here's how Sam has written it. You have to choose a five-year period, like, say, 1971 to 1975. And it's important to note, not 1970 to 1975, because that would be a six-year period, Josh.

1:16:28Adam Kempenaar:Now you laugh, but I need that. I mean, that seems a very directed comment, Josh.

1:16:33Josh Larsen:I think, hey, hey, I think it actually came up in the Discord for Filmspunning family members where this has been a trial run. And I was looking at that. I think a family member had a list that was 70 to 75. And so I would have done that as well. So I'm just glad we're getting this out of the way now. Okay.

1:16:53Adam Kempenaar:So then it says, once you have selected your five-year period from all possible five-year periods in the history of film, you next need to pick five movies that were released during that five-year period. And these are the movies you get madness incinerator rules activated. Now that all seems fine, but the instructions don't actually make sense because the goal here is to not randomly pick or even selectively pick a five-year period and then pick the five films from that period the goal is to pick five films yeah i'm starting it's actually reversed you have to pick the films and then and then in reverse land on a five-year period yeah i mean i think that's the process but someone might want to go about instructions are confusing well i got it i mean that's because you know what the goal is i'm just saying if if you literally put this in front of someone who didn't know it would be confusing you're not you're not starting with a five-year period the the goal is to come up with basically you're saying that you have to land on five films like if you would be left with only five films ever these are the five films that you you would only have these five films to watch for the rest of time right and the the hook is is that they have to come from the same five-year period right yeah now they could two of them

1:18:14Josh Larsen:could come from the same year they could it doesn't have to be all like consecutive years

1:18:19Adam Kempenaar:right exactly okay yeah all right okay so now we're we're good we're on the same page Okay. So if you do understand the ground rules as I've explained them, not how Sam has explained them, then we would love for you to submit your picks and your reasoning feedback at filmspotting.net. We may share some of your picks along with ours next week. I think it's diabolical. diabolical. Yeah.

1:18:48Josh Larsen:I'll explain next week how I wrap my mind around this. Great.

1:18:52Adam Kempenaar:What arbitrary criterion did you come up with to get yourself through this, Josh? Next week, I will share. So that you could spend as minimal amount of time worrying about this. What did you come up with? Right. It's the non-spreadsheet strategy. Okay. Okay. Also next week, I'm told that we are going to have a report. Michael Phillips will be back on the show. He is going to report on the Venice Film Festival. That should be wonderful. He'll talk to us about the top prize winner, the Golden Lion. That went to Jim Jarmusch's latest father, mother, sister, brother, Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett, Vicki Kreps, and Tom Waits in that one.

1:19:35Adam Kempenaar:That's scheduled to come to theaters in December. We'll hear all about what Michael Phillips has been up to for our current show schedule and more. Visit filmspotting.net slash episodes.

1:19:48Josh Larsen:Look, I can see daylight. We're going to be okay. I don't think that's daylight.

1:20:01All right.

1:20:02Adam Kempenaar:It is time for deeply flawed film spotting poll results and a new poll. A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to choose one and only one animation studio, Pixar or Studio Ghibli. It wasn't daylight for Woody and the gang in Toy Story 3, and there was no daylight for Pixar in this poll either. Josh, how did it come out?

1:20:26Josh Larsen:Studio Ghibli took it surprisingly to me with 64 % of the vote, Adam, 37 % going to Pixar. I may have guessed Ghibli would win, but I really would have thought it was going to

1:20:40Adam Kempenaar:be closer than this. I'm going to correct the math there slightly. I guess that must be 64 and 36 %? Yeah, that would work out a little better. Yeah, that'd work out a little better. But yes, Studio Ghibli handily won the poll. Daniel says, wait, I didn't realize we were talking incinerator here. Much like the climax of Toy Story 3, I'm going to have to change my mind at the last second and switch my vote from Ghibli to Pixar. Ghibli has probably been more consistent, but Pixar movies were literally made for me. I'm Gen Z. My first movie I saw in the theater was A Bug's Life, and we had those early Pixar movies on constant replay.

1:21:16Adam Kempenaar:Not that we didn't also enjoy Ghibli. Castle in the Sky is one of my earliest movie memories as well. But Pixar is just a little closer to the heart for me. Fair enough, Daniel.

1:21:26Josh Larsen:Vote with the heart. Here's Frederick from Norway. First of all, your latest poll question is just cruel. If given the choice between throwing the entire filmography of Pixar or Ghibli into the incinerator, I may just jump in myself. Bit of backstory. I'm a huge animation buff. Growing up in the 90s, my entry into the world of cinema was in large part through the Disney animated classics. The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and particularly The Lion King were my favorites. And they led me to seek out older classics like Snow White, Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, and others. That, of course, led to a devout following of Pixar.

1:22:00Josh Larsen:Their streak from Finding Nemo through The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Up was such a sustained period of excellence that it should be enough to make this poll question a no-brainer. From 2004 to 2007, I completed a bachelor's degree in animation. And the Pixar versus Ghibli was a frequent topic of debate. Things could get heated. And while it never came to fisticuffs, some bad language was thrown around, and I usually cowered in the corner, not wanting to take sides while mommy and daddy were fighting. Since then, both studios have only added more masterpieces to their resume. Pitting The Wind Rises or The Boy in the Heron against Coco or Inside Out is equally impossible.

1:22:39Josh Larsen:All that being said, I eventually came down on the side of Pixar. My reasoning? Pixar has a movie I could pop on regardless of the mood I'm in. I want to laugh? Toy Story 2. I want to cry? Up. I want some great action? The Incredibles. I want to be amazed by visual flair and fantastic music? Coco. I want to watch something with my kids that may help them emotionally, inside out. And perhaps the thing that finally tipped the scales for me, can you name any other studio that could successfully have the climax of their movie center around a fruit critic eating a stew and not only make it work, but also make it emotionally resonant.

1:23:18Josh Larsen:Man, I don't know, Frederick, now you're making me second guess my choice.

1:23:22Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Here's Bob McHugh. I watched the most regarded works of each studio as a teenager and thought they were fine. It's only now watching them with fresh eyes as a parent nearly two decades later, I realized that I had it all wrong. I was too young to truly understand or appreciate them. Unfortunately, that reevaluation applies wholly to Ghibli, but only for Pixar's golden age. The worst Ghibli films still feel like an artist following their muse. The worst Pixar films barely feel like films at all. They're craven products. When a studio's decisions about what stories they tell have more to do with branding and title contingency, what hope is there?

1:24:00Josh Larsen:See, and this is where I wish I was a Ghibli completist as I am for Pixar. I wonder, are there titles that leave viewers wanting from the Ghibli catalog? I don't know. Maybe listeners who are completists can tell us that. But do they feel like Craven products? That would be the question. Well, that too. I'm just curious, from their vast catalog, what sort of range there is. We also heard from Jeffrey Overstreet. You asked a complicated question. Here comes a complicated answer. Pixar's Golden Age was a remarkable run of all ages storytelling with groundbreaking animation. Those films are to cinema what books like Charlotte's Web and The Secret of NIMH and The Phantom Tollbooth are to children's literature.

1:24:43Josh Larsen:Works that reward the parents reading to their children as much as they reward the children themselves. Having said that, Pixar films came to seem somewhat formulaic and predictable fairly quickly. I was always bracing for what would become a frenzied action hysterical finale, probably involving a crazed pursuit. Miyazaki, however, isn't even playing the same sport. Miyazaki is in Tolkien territory, world-building such rich mythologies that I believe all kinds of other stories are unfolding just off-screen, while showing remarkable restraints so that the stories and their finales emerge from characters and environments, and less from an obvious drive to provoke emotional responses and stir things into a frantic finale.

1:25:22Josh Larsen:I encourage everyone to read the essay Towards a True Children's Cinema, On My Neighbor Totoro, by Lauren Wilford, published by Bright Wall Dark Room. And then, because it is so great, republished in a booklet that comes with a 30th anniversary Disney Blu-ray edition. Wilford writes more insightfully than anyone else I've read about what makes Miyazaki's storytelling for children so distinctive. Almost all of Ghibli's films and all of those by Miyazaki himself are gifts that keep on giving, inviting us into new questions, mysteries, and revelations every single time. And I'm so grateful to the geniuses at Pixar who appreciated Studio Ghibli enough to invest in bringing that work to big screens in America.

1:26:02Josh Larsen:My life is so much richer for the work of both great studios.

1:26:06Adam Kempenaar:We are getting some very passionate, very thoughtful responses here. We have a couple more for you. This one from Mark Friedman, a testament to the passionate subjectivity of our individual connections with art and entertainment. My slap on forehead response to this poll is Pixar. No contest. Now I read these comments from my film spotting family siblings and find the exact opposite sentiments in favor of Ghibli.

1:26:29Josh Larsen:Let's close out with this from Andy Bukati. Sounds like we need an animation March Madness to rightfully settle this. not just to determine champion, but to see who's better represented in the Sweet 16, Elite 8, et cetera. There could be some amazing and heart-wrenching matchups, plus some bonus Linklater, Tim Burton, and Wes Anderson. Who wouldn't enjoy that? And that's been on the table for Film Spotting Madness, hasn't it?

1:26:54Adam Kempenaar:It's been on the table. It's been discussed. I think that Sam and myself, the selection committee, might have... I don't know if we said this out loud or not, we definitely thought it. We're not the most passionate, generally, animation fans compared to some of the folks. I think compared to you, Josh, and also compared to all the people who have written into this poll. So it wasn't maybe as inspiring for us as a madness topic, but I think we also just worried about the number of titles and how much passion it would inspire in the largest number of participants, but I'm intrigued and seeing how passionate everybody was about this poll.

1:27:35Adam Kempenaar:I wonder if it is something that, that could be settled with madness. And so I'm going to throw this out to Andy and maybe some of the other commenters put together a bracket. Let me see what your bracket would look like. I will, I will take a look at it. Sam and I will review it. We'll see if you can make your case. Okay. Feedback at filmspotting.net. Now, a new deeply flawed film spotting poll, a new one. We're asking about 60s musicals because The Sound of Music is back in theaters for its 60th anniversary. And of course, Josh, literally everyone in the world has seen this movie. Literally.

1:28:11Adam Kempenaar:So you've seen it now. Literally everyone has seen this movie. Let's move on to the options. The options are that Sam is giving you, Producer Sam, Funny Girl, and then I'll turn it over to you with Barbra Streisand directed by William Wyler. That was part of last year's Wyler marathon. What else are we letting them consider?

1:28:33Josh Larsen:Mary Poppins, of course, the other Julie Andrews 60s musical. I don't know, Adam, if you know this, Julie Andrews is in The Sound of Music. My Fair Lady is an option. That one with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison directed by George Cukor. The Sound of Music is an option. Jacques Demise, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is another. and our last choice, West Side Story. Of course, you can also vote other if, I don't know, you prefer Demise The Young Girls of Rochefort or Best Picture winner Oliver, The Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie, Sweet Charity. That's one I'm unfamiliar with. I'm also unfamiliar with Dr.

1:29:10Josh Larsen:Doolittle, the 1968 Best Picture nominee, but you don't need that. Worry yourself. I can skip that one. Okay.

1:29:17Adam Kempenaar:No one's voting for Dr. Doolittle. All right, we'll see. You know, I'm an Iowan, so of course, The Music Man is one I should be considering. And I, of course, have seen The Sound of Music, so I am strongly considering that for my pick. Okay. I'm strongly considering it for my pick, Josh. I know the correct cinephile answer, the one you're going to say, the one Sam's going to say, is the umbrellas of Sherbor. But I'm still in the bag for West Side Story, and it's my pick.

1:29:49Josh Larsen:okay fair enough i think you'll have plenty of people with you yeah i i just think you know none of these are in the league of sherborne when we did our top 10 of all time our sight and sound lists i think in 2012 i did have it on that list we did it again in 2022 and i think it got bumped i forget for what but to the you know 11 to 15 range but it's it is an all-timer to me so an easy, easy FilmSpotting poll this time around for me.

1:30:17Adam Kempenaar:Okay. We would love to get your pick and possibly read your comments. You can participate in the poll at FilmSpotting.net. We will share the results and your feedback in a couple of weeks. Josh, that's our show.

1:30:31Josh Larsen:You can find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, Letterboxd, and YouTube, all at FilmSpotting. I'm at those places as well as Larson on film. We are independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the Film Spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com. You can listen early and ad free. You'll get a weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes, and access to the entire show archive. For show t-shirts and other merch, you can go to filmspotting.net slash shop.

1:31:02Adam Kempenaar:In that Film Spotting archive, you can find our conversations about Killers of the Flower Moon from Martin Scorsese, episode 942. Plus, we did a little Scorsese ranked, even though I'm sure we acknowledge that we were not at the time, nor are we both now. Scorsese completists, right? No, and we've talked about doing a marathon of our Scorsese blind spots. We share some. We don't share some others. It makes it a little tough, but I know some listeners really hope we do that one, and I hope we do that. I'd love to do it at some point, for sure. Yeah. The Irishman was episode 751, The Wolf of Wall Street.

1:31:39Adam Kempenaar:Boy, that was a tense one. Episode 474. No, Mrs. Miniver, that's for sure. Shutter Island, episode 293. The Stones concert film Shine a Light, episode 205. The Departed, episode 129. Out in limited release, The Baltimoreons, directed by Jay Duplass. In wide release, Code 3, Rainn Wilson is a burned out paramedic trying to survive his last 24 hours on the job while training a new recruit. Sam, maybe just catering to you, Josh, says, think bringing out the dead, but funny. Okay. I don't know if that's going to sell me on it, but good try. Also, Downton Abbey, the grand finale. I know you cannot wait for that.

1:32:23Adam Kempenaar:The Long Walk, based on the 1979 Stephen King novella, Walk or Die. Simple enough with Cooper Hoffman and Charlie Plummer. Good cast directed by Francis Lawrence of the hunger games, catching fire and mocking Jay. How about spinal tap to the end continues the sound of music? Yes. 60th anniversary re-release and toy story 30th anniversary re-release. We are next week hoping to have the Michael Phillips fest update. I'm hoping I'll get to Spinal Tap 2 at minimum and be able to talk about that next week and yes the diabolical five years, five movies I'm somehow going to wrap my head around what that is before our next show better start working on it right now

1:33:14Josh Larsen:Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe DeSoe and Sam Van Halgren without Sam and Golden Joe this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempenaer. Special thanks to everyone at WBEZ Chicago. More information is available at WBEZ.org. For Film Spotting, I'm Josh Larson. And I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening.

1:33:34Adam Kempenaar:This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

1:33:55Adam Kempenaar:film spotting is listener supported join the film spotting family at film spotting family.com and get access to ad free episodes monthly bonus shows our weekly newsletter and for the first time all in one place the entire film spotting archive going back to 2005 that's a film spotting family.com Panoply.

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