Stand by Me at 40: Why It Still Hits Hard | '40s Madness Round 1

17:40Josh Larsen:Yeah. So that was that was definitely a nostalgia hit with that. And I think the other thing is that it started explained to me, you know, when we've talked to music and growing up with music on this show, I've mentioned this odd thing that middle schools where I got into oldies. So at that point it would have been like fifties and sixties music. I always attributed it to my, my best friend at the time's older brother who was obsessed with the Beatles and had, you know, the double album, best of cassette tracks. And we listened to those over and over. And I thought that was why I was listening to, you know, magic one of 4.3 with Dick Biondi here in Chicago, it was probably stand by me as well.

18:17Josh Larsen:Just all of these classics that are walled wall in this movie must've fed that interest. And so I feel a little less weird now about being obsessed with oldies as a middle schooler. Now that I've located one of the other reasons. So yeah, just nostalgia. It's an interesting as a nostalgia piece, you know, for different eras in different ways. So, so we have, you know, oldies fueling kids in the eighties, fueling this story that's set in the fifties and the lingo, you know, being passed on to another generation. It's, it's like stand by me was this, this jump, this bounce from one generation over to the next that should have never been using any of this

19:00Adam Kempenaar:lingo. You know, I I've mentioned this a couple of times on the show over the past year. And I even said at one point that I didn't realize until now that I'm that I'm 50, that that looking back and that, of course, I'm a parent, that in the 80s, we were really living our parents' childhoods. And that's the case. We were in some ways we didn't know it at the time, but we were living a boomer's childhood because we were enacting all of these 50s rights and we were listening to their music. And that's because that's what dominated for a lot of reasons that we won't get into now. That's what dominated the time.

19:38Adam Kempenaar:Boomer culture dominated the time. And so I was, of course, thinking about that, Josh, as I watched this film and I was trying to think about where this movie fit into that scheme, where it fit into this discussion, because you can't separate it from this 80s industry of nostalgia, this boomer, as we're saying, this boomer longing to return to the simpler, innocent days of the 50s. And it was a hit. It was a critical and commercial success. It was made on a very low budget. So it made, even though at the time it seems modest, it made a lot of money. And it was so comforting to boomers. I'll give you a story.

20:23Adam Kempenaar:that I heard just yesterday. Someone told me, someone close to me told me this story that their mom, who was someone who was very prudent, very pious, you know, there was no swearing in the house, church every Sunday. And this may have been familiar to you, Josh, you know, no going to rated R movies ever, that kind of thing. And Stand By Me was rated R. Yeah, yeah. They, the parents went and saw Stand By Me and then came home and said, I want the kids to go see this movie. It's okay. You can go see it. So I heard that before I rewatched the film and I'm watching it and I know this, I know this parent and I'm thinking, wow, I kind of can't believe that, that they were okay with some of these conversations and some of the activities that occur in it.

21:15Adam Kempenaar:But that's how powerful the nostalgia was. And this parent, it's the mother. And I bring that up because this is a very boy film. This is the boy in The Princess Bride who thinks he wants the swashbuckling and all that stuff, not the kissing stuff. These are boys doing boy things, singing army songs and all of those types of activities. And certainly, Certainly, they're already starting to think about girls and talk about girls in a sexual way. And even this mother saw so much of her experience from growing up in the 50s in this film and wanted her kids to experience that as well. That's something really important.

22:03Adam Kempenaar:It's significant.

22:04Josh Larsen:And it could very well have been that. I mean, I'm psychoanalyzing a stranger here. So this is all speculation. It could have been a nostalgia hit. That makes a lot of sense to me. I think to the movie's credit, maybe, you know, this mom saw something that I think is unique to it as a nostalgia picture, which is it's not entirely glossing over the realities of the difficulties of that era, whether, you know, their references, these are troubled families that we meet. Um, war is a troubling thing in the past and looking ahead in this film. Um, it's honest about that America at war. Uh, this is a movie that recognizes the, the cost of that.

22:56Josh Larsen:Um, so I think that it in its own way, both fuels nostalgia for an earlier era and complicates that earlier era that is rare for this, this period that we're talking about for the eighties, for some of these boomer movies.

23:10Adam Kempenaar:We're on the same page, Josh. Yeah. That's what I think stands out to me about this film. And that's at least my initial hypothesis about this movie. And one of the reasons why it still stands up or it stands up to the test of time, it feels different to me for the reason or the reasons that you're saying. It's that it's not just that it's so insulated and how intimate the movie is, right? Or that's a big part of it. It's not just focused on one town that we really barely see or one year, but it's one weekend. And it's so intensely attuned to these four boys, right? And their experience and often what's going on internally and how that's manifesting in their behavior.

24:01Adam Kempenaar:And it isn't suggestive or as suggestive about what this period as a whole may or may not have been like, even though there are those illusions, those direct illusions to some of the troubling things that you mentioned. But there's something else that I at least want to throw out there, and that's that so many of those 80s films that this was their milieu or their stock in trade was nostalgia. So many of these films function to, to borrow a phrase from Terrence Mann, and feel the dreams to remind us of all that was once good and could be again. We can do it, America. Our country was once great.

24:45Adam Kempenaar:That was the model, an illusion. We can make it great again, also an illusion. And look, Stephen King even says in the New York Times article, in the first paragraph, he's describing the setting, saying, you know, I think it was fall of 85, Beverly Hills Hotel He says he can hear a rock and roll band playing somewhere in the distance. And he says that band was pure 80s. The movie allowed me entry to another more innocent time, 1959. Now, whether or not he's being a little coy, he knows we all think of it that way. So maybe he's winking at us a little bit or maybe he's being completely sincere, Josh.

25:25Adam Kempenaar:And that's how we seize it. as it was a more innocent time. That would make sense. It was his childhood, and it would make sense considering the movie we see on screen taken from his book. So even he sees it as a more innocent time. But there's just no triumphant spirit here. There's no victory. There's a melancholy about this film that isn't just at the end, that runs through the entire movie. Whatever this once was that we see in Stand By Me, it's not coming back it's not mourning in america this this feels like a eulogy by the end why did he have to die chris why did denny have to die why

26:10Josh Larsen:i don't know it should have been me don't say that it should have been me don't say that man yeah i think there's a morbidity to it there's a wistful maybe a better way to describe its nostalgia nostalgia its brand of nostalgia is that it's more of a wistfulness than pure nostalgia hit. And again, to go, go back to this, you know, this mother who wanted her kids to see it when it came out, um, you know, maybe she's picking up on that more realistic sense of the American past because, you know, women at that time were shut out of the good old days in ways that men weren't. And so maybe there's someone who has a more clear eyed memory of it and appreciates the clear eyed memory that, that, um, stand by me offers.

26:58Josh Larsen:And I also wanted to throw in, in terms of what someone like this person might've been thinking about is as a mother of boys, this is a unique depiction of boys at this age that in today's terms, we would say you would not describe these kids as toxic males in waiting. Um, the amount of honest emotion shared between these boys also, you know, the sort of stuff that could build into what I would call locker room toxicity when they get older is that the teasing could turn, you know, sour and get into bullying. It could, it could maybe go that way. But the fact that these kids have such heart to heart, honest conversations between each other, some more than others, but you think of Chris and Gordy in particular, and, um, you know, Chris comforting Gordy, Gordy comforting Chris at various points and what they share.

27:55Josh Larsen:This is, these are the kinds of kids that you would want your boys at that age to see and know that it would be okay for them to be that. Yes, they can have fun causing trouble running around, but they could also share their feelings with their friends. They could talk about what's bothering them with their friends. And so I could see as a mother, whatever my other concerns, seeing a movie like this and like, let's get these kids in front of my kids for what's possible in terms of emotionally relating with others, because you don't see that in a lot of other movies. So I think that's something that is, again, probably to the credit of King and including that in the original story and Reiner in making it kind of where we started a point of emphasis in allowing this young cast to have moments like that.

28:47Josh Larsen:And then these young actors rising to the moment.

28:51Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. And how, how about that dinner scene where we do glimpse what the gender dynamics are like in that house where the, the father is saying, you know, don't interrupt me when I'm talking to our son, you know, it's right there on screen. And that is a very dysfunctional family unit. And I, I, I definitely take your point. I think certainly Chris and Gordy are more in tune with their sensitive sides. And I, I might worry a little bit more about how Teddy and Vern might turn out, especially as you know, because of the, because of the bullying that, that they're already experiencing and are certainly going to experience even more.

29:32Adam Kempenaar:They may feel a need to try to assert themselves in life in a way that, that may not go well for themselves or for others. And, and also that, that dialogue, I'm not going to suggest that it's false. That's, that's part of what makes the movie so great. But when we're talking about what we see in our own lives or when we think back on it, what, what resonates, I don't know that I can find a corollary Josh in my life. Now, Fortunately, I can say at that time, I never had a tragedy in my life like a sibling dying. I never had anything like the level of Gordy. So I can't directly relate. I don't know that I remember a moment when I was 12 where any of my group of friends shared something that personal with each other, right?

30:28Adam Kempenaar:Where we really bared all, where we cried in front of each other. I don't know that that ever happened. It it it could have happened. I think it it probably could have because we were that close, but it didn't. And and that's that's one of those examples, I think, where this film feels in the best way, like a movie and it feels true to those characters. It feels heightened emotionally. And I think actually this film, one of the things I noticed watching it is that in considering other Stephen King things that I've read and other adaptations that I've seen, what I love about it in a way, honestly, one of the things I really appreciate, Josh, is how it balances, how truthful, how rooted in in real events.

31:14Adam Kempenaar:You know, it seems like I can believe that someone who conceived this based this off of things from their life. I can I can believe all of that watching it. And at the same time, a lot of it feels like fiction, like the way we think of the 50s. Like, think about the adventures they get into the train dodge. The train dodge scene is like something out of Indiana Jones. they have to they have to escape chopper right there's a gun there's a body when they when they go into the forest the prince's bride is going to come out one year later when they go when they go into the forest they call it the royal and they stop the four travelers stop and they look at the the forest and they go you know behold the royal and it's ominous and they're like are we really going to go in and Vern doesn't want to go in.

32:08Adam Kempenaar:And then what happens? There's a swamp and it's treacherous and there's leeches. You know, it's like out of the Princess Bride. It's the fire swamp from the Princess Bride. And Josh, there's characters named Ace and Eyeball. And there's a game of chicken on the road that's actually really intense, you know? And I mean, I don't know how many people grew up in the 50s actually knowing anyone named Ace and Eyeball. That's straight When Gordy calls him a cheap dime store hood at the end, that's what he feels like, like a cheap dime store hood out of a pulp novel from the time. So it feels both exactly like a 50s that really existed and also a 50s that only existed in fiction and in our imaginations.

32:53Josh Larsen:Yeah, and I think maybe it's the balancing act there that I was talking about earlier in terms of tone management, where we do get that heightened, broad, almost juvenilia. And then we get this very mature adult perspective. I think Princess Bride actually Reiner, Reiner threads that needle a little bit better in, in, in making a storybook movie for adults that is consistent to its own self all the way through. Um, I agree with you, what you said about, you know, as close as you were with those friends, um, at that age, you don't know if you would have those conversations. I don't think I did.

33:27Josh Larsen:I think in that sense, the movie is aspirational, um, in ways, but not unrealistic. I'm sure other people probably could say that they had those conversations at that age. Um, and so, yeah, there's an aspirational element to it. The reason it works in the movie for me, I think goes back to those performances. So I don't know if we've mentioned yet, will Wheaton by name as Gordy, um, river Phoenix. I know I mentioned as Chris, but yeah, Corey Feldman as Teddy and then Jerry O 'Connell as Vern. I do think they're all doing excellent work, but to see River Phoenix here, the word that came to mind watching him is that he's incandescent in this role.

34:10Josh Larsen:And somehow, and this goes back to what I was saying about it being believable, you never feel like, even though you recognize your brain, you're processing the acting, recognizes he's working at another level, you never feel like he's anything but this real kid. So he has this incandescence and this ultimate believability. And for me, a lot of it, some of it is in the line readings and the conversations. A lot of it is just in how Phoenix moves. If you watch Chris carefully, every motion he makes is an impulsive one. Part of that is by character. Chris is probably the boldest of them, right? And so he knows this character.

34:55Josh Larsen:He imbues this character. It's also how a lot of boys that age move. Thinking sometimes comes a little bit after acting when you're that age, no matter who you are. And that is just how Phoenix embodies Chris, which gives him this rootedness in a kid we maybe were or knew or have raised, but then the level of interior aliveness that Phoenix manages, it is what also brings that incandescence. And you're like, man, this guy was such a talent that, talking about morbidity in the back of our minds now is that he died at the age of 23 in what, 1993. I mean, think about how quickly that was after this, which adds this meta layer to what I think the movie is honestly already interested in is like a hundred percent.

35:48Adam Kempenaar:That was, that was a little bit of a surprise. And I know that may seem silly to say when the movie is based on a novella called the body and the entire premise of the film is, is that they're, they're looking for a body. But I was I was a little bit surprised, Josh, by how much death hangs over this film. And it really makes sense when you think of this truly as a coming of age film, not just as a, hey, we're young kids. It's our last kind of summer adventure before this transition into junior high. No, they're really wrestling with the big existential subjects over this weekend. Right. Psychologically, internally, but also externally, as it comes out in a lot of the conversations and the incidents and events that happen with each other over the course of these three days.

36:39Adam Kempenaar:So it is about morbidity, and that startled me a little bit. But Phoenix then adds just that meta layer, as you said. He has such – incandescent's a great word – he has such a regal quality about him. And I think it comes down to why I why I say Regal is there is something about especially in those dramatic scenes, the way he holds himself. There's just an emotional maturity. And I wondered if actually he was older than all the other boys. And I didn't look up all their ages. He was 14. But Wil Wheaton was 14 as well. So it's not just that he's like more mature age wise than than the other kids.

37:27Adam Kempenaar:Believability is the word you use. And I think. That believability and that maturity comes back to the fact that I believe that the character, not just River Phoenix, the actor, I believe that the character has earned that maturity based on what Chris Chambers has witnessed in his life through. Yes. What he's been through, what he has experienced. And and it's enough that he he has he has a certain composure about him that the other kids don't have. And and you wonder now some of it that that regal quality you say, well, well, that is that is just that's the character. That's how it's written.

38:11Adam Kempenaar:yes to an extent but how many how many young actors could play it the way phoenix does could

38:18Josh Larsen:be aware of that quality being necessary and right and not just thinking i have to be natural on on screen but i have to naturally be this specific character on screen that's what right is doing

38:28Adam Kempenaar:and and and believably pull off moments like those campfire scenes and others where he is the same age as his friend Gordy and he becomes he takes on the role of father he becomes he becomes a father figure to him and we as viewers believe that we understand that he has that kind of emotional maturity so there is the way the camera and and it's not because the camera itself it's not that Reiner is doing anything different with him that he doesn't do with the other actors. But the camera, the way it beholds Phoenix, the way it holds Phoenix in the frame and the way we watch him is different. It is different.

39:16Josh Larsen:Just suppose that I told the story, me, Chris Chambers, kid brother to eyeball Chambers. Do you think that anyone would have believed it? Oh, and do you think that that would have dared tried something like that if it'd been one of those douchebags from up on the view if they had taken the money? No way. I don't know. But with me?

39:41Adam Kempenaar:Beyond the obvious big release this weekend, which I am very excited to see. Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling. We will talk about it here on the show soon. Two movies I want to highlight. And look, one of them, I know by the time you hear this, it may not be available. But it's the kind of programming that Regal Cinemas is doing more and more. fun to see these types of films on the big screen when you can. And it's one of my favorite Miyazaki films, maybe an underrated Miyazaki film. I hope some of you had the chance to see that film and it's worth going to regmovies.com to learn more about that kind of great programming.

40:22Adam Kempenaar:And in terms of other special programming, of course, you heard us talk about it. Stand by me for its 40th anniversary. And with Regal Unlimited, you might just be able to see that movie or one of the other movies I mentioned for free. Regal Unlimited is the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Right now, Regal is offering film spotting listeners endless movies for less. And with the code film spot two, six film spot 26, you will get 15 % off Regal Unlimited. The only truly limitless movie subscription pass. You see any standard 2d movie anytime with no blackout dates or restrictions.

41:01Adam Kempenaar:And with Regal Unlimited. You don't just save money on tickets. You also save on snacks. Regal Unlimited members get 10 % off all non-alcoholic concessions. Sign up now in the Regal app or at the link in our description and use code filmspot26 to receive your discount.

41:23Okay.

41:23Josh Larsen:Can I ask you a question? Um, cause I feel like I need to back up why I said at the start a little bit more, why I would give this a Goonies downgrade in that, you know, the nostalgia watch was enjoyable, but maybe it didn't hold up like something like Back to the Future might. The voiceover narration, we've cited it a couple of times because it is so well-written. It had to have been irresistible to Reiner and you almost had to use it as a framing device at the very least. I did find here that it became a crutch and again, understood the impulse to do it, but it is a classic example for me of the telling rather than showing as a movie.

42:08Josh Larsen:And if Reiner had been able to find ways to reveal the interiority that these lines speak of filmically, that might've made Stand By Me a movie that would hold up even more for me looking at it again now as an adult. And I was thinking, Adam, it's interesting, you know, as I was trying to process this, I thought about, well, you know, we have this whole sequence, the Gordy story of the boy who's the bullied boy who gets his revenge at the pie contest by making himself sick and throwing up so that everyone in the crowd throws up on everybody. Right. Highlight as a 12 year old highlight of the movie.

42:47Josh Larsen:And, and I was thinking in terms of this narration element, you know, that's a good example where Reiner is showing us, not telling us. And maybe more of the movie could have been like that. But then I realized actually that whole sequence, which is entertaining, don't get me wrong, actually doubles down on the voiceover narration because we have young Gordy narrating what we're actually seeing in this imagined story. So it almost kind of further proved the point to me or the instinct that I had is the narration is maybe a little bit much. And there's a whole other element tied to this where I do think this relates to your setup where you're talking about King describing how this was his wrestling as a kid at this age being a writer.

43:31Josh Larsen:I did find the whole writer framework to be a bit self-aggrandizing here in that so many scenes about Gordy needing to be encouraged about what a good writer he is and how he's going to do great things when he grows up. I do feel like that's a little tangential to what is best about the film and almost unnecessary. And so it's all wrapped up in this ball of the voiceover narration that maybe, you know, maybe it worked better for you and you didn't find it to be as much of a crutch.

43:59Adam Kempenaar:Well, of course, I'm a sucker for meta stories about burgeoning artists, and I would defend it. I would try to defend it a little stronger, Josh, by saying that, you know, he asked Chris at one point, am I weird? Everybody has the thing that makes them weird. and I suppose you could argue that one of the things that makes Will stand out, Will Wheaton, I'm sorry, Gordy stand out, is that he's got a brother who everyone, it seems, in town and his parents preferred, who has died. But the other thing is what really makes him weird is that he's an artist. And so he needs that thing that makes him different.

44:38Adam Kempenaar:And so that feels appropriate to the story to me in a way that doesn't just feel tangential. I think I'll let you try to explain what you mean by the interiority and maybe we're on the same page. So I'm going to agree with you potentially on where the narration maybe doesn't completely work or where it isn't applied as well as it could be perhaps. but since I know you're going to be negative on it, I'm going to say something very positive about the narration. Okay. There is something so here's, here's the nostalgia part for me. I suppose there is something so comforting to me about Dreyfus's voice.

45:23Adam Kempenaar:I think he was my first narrator. I was 12 going on 13. The first time I saw a dead human being. It happened in the summer of 1959. a long time ago, but only if you measure in terms of years. I was reflecting on this. I was searching for movies that were notable for their use of narration that were released in the window that I was born in 1986. And I was definitely too young for Days of Heaven, Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, Rumblefish, Taxi Driver. And, you know, before my time, but I could have seen on VHS, Badlands, A Clockwork Orange, nope, too young, wouldn't have been able to see those. Obviously, that goes for classics like Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity 2.

46:11Adam Kempenaar:Now, I would have seen A Christmas Story a dozen times. I would have seen Fletch a dozen times. But I think if you asked me even before this rewatch and before thinking about the narrator and how it functions here. If you asked me to just kind of close my eye, do an exercise, close my eyes, and just imagine the sound in my head of what a movie narrator sounds like, it wouldn't be the cliche answer of Morgan Freeman. It would be Richard Dreyfuss. I would hear his voice from Stand By Me in my head. And yes, it would be partly because of him just being my first, it would be because of him being my first narrator, but how he employs his voice as well.

46:57Adam Kempenaar:I think there is real talent in his voice acting, but it's something about, I mentioned this earlier, the wisdom, right? There is that omniscient narrator role that he serves, and he's not there like those other narrators I just mentioned to entertain. He's not there to add punchlines. He's not there to just push the story forward. He is adding oftentimes, right, or most often, I would say, adding poignancy. He's telling truths. He's providing the lens through which we understand the weight of events. It's about perspective. And I think Dreyfus is nostalgic without being sentimental in his voice.

47:40Adam Kempenaar:I'll use your word. He's wistful without being burdened by regret. I think it's a really great performance and it's, it's for me, maybe the ultimate narrator voice. And on that level, I love it.

47:56Josh Larsen:Yeah. So it, it really hits the nostalgia button hard for you. And I agree the delivery of it is on point. I mean, it's a case where you, you cast someone for their ability to perform in that way, not just, you know, for name recognition or something like that. I would also agree it's necessary for what this movie wants to do, that you need this narrator. You need the framework. For me, it's a matter of how often and exactly how he's employed. And maybe just the one example I would give since you cited it already is again, around that campfire scene, one of them, I think where it's introduced, and I forget exactly the moment you called out, but he's describing what you talked about at that age before you talked about girls or discovered girls, right?

48:42Josh Larsen:Just a line like that. You could have, again, because these performances are, I think part of it for me, why it feels like a crutch is because it's all right there in the performances and the way Reiner is guiding them, that there could have been a way to show us that with perhaps even the camera, doing something interesting with the camera, but certainly with the performances rather than have the narrator spell that out for us in that sequence. But yeah, I don't think overall it's a mistake. I think it's a necessary framework. It's just how often and in what ways it's actually employed.

49:17Adam Kempenaar:I think I like that line so much, partly because I think that's an example of the narration doing what you're saying. It's redundant, but it's so poetic. That line is so good and it's so succinct and so succinctly poetic. That's what you read the story for. That it works. And also, he is doing show and tell at the same time because it's a montage. It's editing with little dissolves going between each boy, sharing those moments, talking about Goofy and they're going between those different conversations. So he's doing both at the same time, which is why I said it's redundant. But I love the line and it's just pithy enough that I think that's what good narration can do.

49:58Adam Kempenaar:I also don't think when I watched it this time, I didn't feel like it was overused in the sense of just like how much narration there is in the film and how often we hear it. There are fairly long stretches, I was surprised to find, where we don't hear from the narrator. And when we do, like I was just saying, it's pretty punchy. It's not long soliloquies. And generally, I don't think it's too revealing. Now, there are times where the narration is supplementing work that the screenplay is doing, but that you wish the actors were doing as well. And I don't mean that the actors couldn't do it, but they don't seem to be asked to do.

50:43Adam Kempenaar:and and i'm thinking specifically of moments for gordy that are obviously crucial to the story because it's his story and this is his through line from beginning to end but the screenplay will give gordy moments where he has to confront his brother's death the nightmare for example that he has at the campfire but when we hear him say in the narration at the time i didn't know why i I needed to see that body so badly. Even if no one had followed me, I would have gone on alone. Or earlier, where we haven't seen the nightmare, for example, yet, with our stomachs rumbling, we pressed on toward the Royal River.

51:25Adam Kempenaar:The reality of Ray Brower was growing and kept us moving despite the heat. For me, the idea of seeing that kid's dead body was starting to become an obsession. Now, in the book, that's a main line into his psyche. And we need that. we buy that completely on screen. I did feel like I needed to see that obsession. I need to see it exactly to believe it. We can't just hear it. And we don't, at least I didn't, I didn't, I didn't feel Gordy's obsession quite the way the screenplay, the script in those moments suggested we should be. Yeah.

52:03Josh Larsen:It was a shortcut. Yeah. I think there's, yeah, there are, yes. Shortcut is a good way to describe it. I think there's a lot of those. But again, they're irresistible lines. So I can see why Reiner was very tempted to include as many of them as he could.

52:18Adam Kempenaar:I have more that I wanted to get to in terms of just new things, kind of surprises, including the framing device. But we do have more show to get to. And we are on fairly limited time with this recording. So let's go ahead. I think we've had a pretty decent discussion, lengthy the discussion about Stand By Me. And, you know, we have more shows to record, Josh. So there will be more podcasting to do, and we can talk more about Stand By Me if we would like in the future. We will go ahead and call it there. Stand By Me is available, VOD. On most platforms, it is getting a limited re-release next weekend on the 27th.

53:01Josh Larsen:You know, Adam, when we talk about the film spotting family and thank those people who have decided to support the show that way, which we're going to do here in a moment. We want to thank advisory board member Sean Kelly from Goodyear, Arizona. I don't know if we explain well enough what a good deal the film spotting family is. I mean, for as little as$4.99 a month. I mean, we got to sell this. $4.99 a month. Here's what you're going to get. Bonus shows, ad-free listening, not an ad in your experience of film spotting. The family discord you can communicate and connect with and talk about staying by me all you want with other film spotting listeners.

53:41Josh Larsen:The newsletter Sam writes every week and then pre-sales and discounts a little more about how that comes into play later in the show. Coming up soon here for us. Now, that price,$4.99 a month for all of that, it could actually be less because it's discounted if you decide to pay the annual price.

53:58Adam Kempenaar:That's it. And if you want even more value. Now, I really sound like a salesman. for just$69, Josh, or$5.75 per month. So we're just going from$4.99 to$5.75 if you price it out. You get complete archive access as well. So over 1 ,000, and actually with all the bonus shows, additional content that's in there, going back to the old app bonus episodes we used to do, we're talking like 1 ,200 episodes. You get access to all of that in Spotify or Apple or whatever podcatcher you use. So for just 76 cents more per month with an annual family plus plan, you get the archive access and all of those benefits.

54:39Adam Kempenaar:If you're interested, go to filmspottingfamily.com commercial over.

54:45Josh Larsen:But we still want to thank Sean Kelly. Yes, we do. Goodyear, Arizona for being not just a film spotting family member, not just a film spotting family plus member. That's right. Sean is actually an advisory board member. He's our boss. He's essentially our boss, gets to tell us what to do. And yeah, at that highest level, Sean also shared with us how he found the show. Browsing the iTunes film and TV charts back in 2008, when I discovered the wonderful medium known as podcasts. I can't remember the exact episode that got me started, but the show instantly stood out as a place for serious film criticism.

55:22Josh Larsen:Anywhere you can talk Pineapple Express and Le Cirque du Rouge in the same episode is a place I want to hang out. that's before my time, Adam. So we're talking like episodes probably in the 200s or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

55:36Adam Kempenaar:Sam looked it up. August, 2008, episode 222. How about that? There's, there's film spotting in a nutshell, his favorite show segment, the top five lists were one of my early favorites because I love lists ever since the first AFI top 100 introduced the concept of ranking movies to my adolescent brain. I've been a sucker for discussions about what should be included in the best of the best. In fact, it was the latest Pantheon project. They got me to finally sign up and be a family member. The idea of having some autonomy and what the best film podcast includes in their hall of fame was too much to pass up.

56:10Adam Kempenaar:So he's talking about when this was initiated, the inaugural Pantheon project last year, he sent this even before the new one that we started up this year's Pantheon project. And it was the best years of their lives, Josh, when you nominated it and how it didn't make the cut. It actually didn't get officially inducted. He was really glad to hear you nominated. He was hoping it would get nominated again. And did you nominate it again? You did. I think that happened. So you made him happy.

56:40Josh Larsen:I didn't even know that this was Sean's desire.

56:44Adam Kempenaar:That's right. And I was just updating filmspotting.net slash Pantheon. I was just updating that page over the weekend to make sure that you could see all of our 2026 nominees. And there it is. Josh, how green was my valley? The battle of Algiers, the best years of our lives. So you made him happy.

57:01Josh Larsen:I do. Sean's our boss. I do what he says. There you go. Sean also shared a review. We got wrong on the spectrum of good and evil. Josh's love for Furiosa, a Mad Max saga, and Adam's disdain for wicked are both evil. Whoa. Yes. Films can be good or evil. Furiosa had the one problem a good prequel must overcome. If you're going to tell me how something happened, it had better be worth telling. There are great moments and action sequences in Furiosa, but the first 10 minutes and the saga of Furiosa's mother were more compelling than anything that came after. As for Wicked, I literally gasped in the theater when Cynthia Erivo hit the note in Defying Gravity.

57:42Josh Larsen:Come on, Adam. You got to forgive the bloated runtime and saccharine nature of the production because she hit the note.

57:47Adam Kempenaar:You know, all I hear there is Adam was right twice because I said that Furiosa never overcomes the first 10 minutes. And I said that Cynthia Erivo singing Defying Gravity almost saves Wicked. So there you go.

58:03Josh Larsen:That's not what Sean's looking for, I'm afraid.

58:05Adam Kempenaar:Well, you know, close enough. Finally, the film Sean credits with becoming a cinephile. Speaking of narrators, The Usual Suspects. It's been my favorite film since I first saw it at home video in 1996, and it was the first movie I rented over and over and over again from Blockbuster. Ah, yes, the sweet, sweet days of Blockbuster. The thing that kept me coming back was how much I rediscovered on every rewatch. Clues to the overall mystery I'd missed on the first or second or third viewing. Small character moments from Benicio Del Toro's Fenster. The amazing score from John Ottman. Most of all, though, it was the ending.

58:38Adam Kempenaar:I refer to it as a magic trick when explaining it to people, but really it's that feeling of electricity you get when Chaz Palmitary drops the coffee cup and you realize the story is not over. That feeling of epiphany when the hairs on the back of your neck stand straight up and you get chills down your spine is what I've been chasing with every film I've ever seen since.

58:59Josh Larsen:Thank you so much, Sean, for being an advisory board member and for all those years of listening. If you'd like to follow Sean on Letterboxd, which I just did this earlier today, you can find him, surprisingly, Kaiser95. So you can probably put that together. Kaiser95 there on Letterboxd. Now, in addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, membership, Film Spotting Family membership comes with the perks that we mentioned earlier. You can listen early and ad-free. You can get Sam's weekly newsletter, exclusive opportunities, including that film spotting family discord. And of course the monthly bonus shows, Adam, with me being still in Scotland and struggling with the time zones, I can't make trivia spotting, but it's going on.

59:48Josh Larsen:You're afraid to face me. You're afraid to face me in trivia spotting. I know. That's, that's, that's why I moved here. Actually, March 19. Is that when you, uh, you're all getting together?

59:57Adam Kempenaar:Well, it means that by the time people hear this, it will have happened.

1:00:02Josh Larsen:That's right. It will have happened.

1:00:04Adam Kempenaar:So thanks everyone for a great time. It was wonderful as always. Yes, we're living in the past at the moment. But yes, another trivia spotting will have occurred. And it I'm sure was grand. And those are the types of special events that you get to be part of as a film spotting family member. More about joining the Film Spotting Family, as I mentioned earlier, is available at filmspottingfamily.com. And we also love ratings. We really love, well, we only love five-star ratings. You can go and do that at Apple Podcasts or Spotify. What happened? You had an accident. An accident, huh? We dug you up.

1:00:48Adam Kempenaar:We brought you back to life.

1:00:52Adam Kempenaar:Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride has failed to come to life at the box office, Josh. But with the talent involved, Gyllenhaal herself as writer and director, newly minted best actress, Jesse Buckley, and Christian Bale. We couldn't ignore it. I still haven't been able to get to the theater, but you did there in Scotland. And you're a fan?

1:01:15Josh Larsen:I'm a fan. I had a lot of fun with this. I can't wait to hear what you think of it because I have no idea which way you'll go. It's that kind of movie. It is, it's a quasi musical. It's a feminist revenge flick. It's a comic horror romance. And maybe I enjoyed that last quality of it the most, the comic horror romance. It was just the wild swing I appreciated here and the performances, which I'll get to, but I probably have to give just a little bit of a sense of what's going on here, which will give listeners an idea of why it's a wild swing. And I can talk about the performances in particular, because you have Buckley playing Ida, who's this gangster mall in 1930s Chicago.

1:02:02Josh Larsen:And she gets possessed by the spirit of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley. Buckley, in sort of a framing device, also appears as Mary Shelley in these really claustrophobic black and white. She's kind of stuck in purgatory of a sort after death, and she's narrating the movie and tells us she's going to possess this woman's body. So from there, and trust me, this is like the first 10 minutes. I'm not really spoiling everything about the film. From there, Ida becomes unruly, a little less placating, and ends up getting killed for pushing back by her gangster boyfriend. That is when she's resuscitated by a guy named Frank, played by Christian Bale.

1:02:43Josh Larsen:who's been around for about 100 plus years and is very, very lonely. He finds a mad scientist played by Annette Bening and they bring Ida back, who then is sort of still possessed by Mary Shelley. So Buckley goes back and forth between this Ida persona, this Shelley persona, and this kind of third persona of who this woman is becoming now, while kind of falling in love with Frank. Okay, so you can already get a sense why there's no way this could totally work, and it doesn't. I'm not going to get into what doesn't work. I'll leave that for the detractors. I admit that there are plenty of things that don't.

1:03:20Josh Larsen:Penelope Cruz, I'm never going to say I'm disappointed to see her in a movie. I can't quite say I understand what she's doing here. but Bale, Adam, I think this is my favorite Bale performance. Really? A decade because he's an actor who I've probably underappreciated, but hasn't always jumped out at me as someone who really gets me excited. There is something he's doing here. I don't know. I said when it came to, you know, Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, how Elordi was so good in what has got to be one of the hardest roles to ever perform. Now we have Bale being so good. Maybe this is one of the easiest roles to ever perform.

1:03:57Josh Larsen:And I was totally wrong.

1:03:58Adam Kempenaar:I mean, Bale's one of our all-time great talents, but I take your point.

1:04:02Josh Larsen:Okay. Yeah. Maybe not anyone could do this. It's just, there's something about, he has the scars and the stitches and all that, but there's something about the performance here where Bale is performing as if he doesn't. So he's not really leaning into that. He's almost just playing him as this lonely guy who comes to appreciate this kind of deranged woman that's been revived. and the wildness that she brings to his life. So he's really good. And yeah, what to say about Buckley? I mean, you know, in the career retrospective, it's going to start with Hamnet, but it has to make room for this because it is so bonkers.

1:04:40Josh Larsen:It's full of this performativeness that, you know, you would maybe normally say is not necessarily great acting, but the technical dexterity that she's bringing to it and the sense of humor she's bringing to it. this is an incredibly funny character and the switching back and forth between these personas is also funny and very impressive. I'm sure Mary Shelley scholars will have a lot to say about envisioning Shelley this way, both as author and as a performed character. But man, if you're an admirer of Buckley, which who isn't at this point, I kind of think The Bride is a must-see.

1:05:19Adam Kempenaar:You do not want to get caught up with me. People love a monster. There is going to be a mob. Really?

1:05:29I've been through this before.

1:05:32Adam Kempenaar:It is terrible. Go. Go. Get out of here. Go home.

1:05:40Josh Larsen:I don't know where I live. Can't wait to hear what you and others think about it because it'll leave you in a bit of a daze. Whether that's positive or negative, it could go either way.

1:05:51Adam Kempenaar:Between the Frankenstein movies and Wuthering Heights, what a year for literary scholars at the cinema. No kidding. All these radio hits, I'm sure, having to comment.

1:06:01Josh Larsen:Probably. You're not right. And maybe getting up in arms about it. I mean, this one in particular, I think is perhaps, I'm going to guess not very orthodox, but that's what the movies are for, Adam.

1:06:13Adam Kempenaar:The Bride is still playing in wide release. If you see it and agree or disagree with Josh's take, if you're one of the detractors, or if like Josh, you're a defender. Let us know. We'd love to hear it. Feedback at filmspotting.net. I haven't yet listened to part one of our sister podcast, The Next Picture Show, their recent pairing. Great pairing. I can tell just from the trailer to The Bride that this makes sense. They've paired the bride with 1967's Bonnie and Clyde. They're calling it couples getaway. I don't know. They'll probably be split on it. I'm guessing we'll get some defense and probably a lot of detraction as well.

1:06:53Adam Kempenaar:It'll be a good spirited conversation like you get on the next picture show.

1:06:56Josh Larsen:Can't wait to hear that one. And that's a whole other thread I didn't even mention, the Bonnie and Clyde thing, which is thrown into the mix as well.

1:07:03Adam Kempenaar:You can hear the next picture show every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. next week here on Film Spotting. We'll talk about one of the year's most anticipated and much buzzed about movies, Project Hail Mary. That opens this weekend in wide release. What's your sense so far? Do the Scots love Ryan Gosling as much as we do here stateside?

1:07:23Josh Larsen:I haven't done a poll. I can tell you that they're getting Project Hail Mary on the same opening weekend as the states. So that, I guess, indicates something. It is, however, just wanting to appreciate my dedication, Adam. It's going to be a two-bus trip to the theater for Project Hail Mary. What you do for our listeners. Yep, I know. Occasionally, I can walk. Usually, it's a one-bus, but I got to take two for this, and I'm going to be holding that against Project Hail Mary. It's going to really have to—

1:07:54Adam Kempenaar:It's got to deliver, doesn't it? Have to make that trip worth it. Yeah. Also next week, talk about two very different frontiers we're crossing. another look at Kelly Reichert's Meeks Cutoff celebrating its 15th anniversary this spring. It has also been nominated by us for the Film Spotting Pantheon, specifically by me for the Film Spotting Pantheon. That is why we are revisiting it. The two of us have never reviewed the film. We've talked about a fair number of Kelly Reichert films over the years, Josh. We have never talked about Meeks Cutoff together. That is why we have to talk about it now.

1:08:31Adam Kempenaar:and I'm excited about it.

1:08:34Josh Larsen:Yeah, that one squeaked in 2011. So just before I joined the show and I know Meek's Cutoff, both of us love it, has come up here and there, referenced over the years, but this will be a great chance to really dig into it together.

1:08:50Adam Kempenaar:More about the Pantheon and the Pantheon Project, all the movies nominated, it's available, filmspotting.net slash Pantheon. We try to make that really simple for all of you to find. We have some big news to announce, Josh. Save the date. Film Spotting Fest 2 Money Never Sleeps. That's what I want to go with. I don't know. I was just trying to come up with goofy sequel names, and that was better than the squeakquel. So I went with Money Never Sleeps. June 27th and 28th are going to be the dates. We decided, hey, you know, March made sense for Film Spotting Fest 1 when we're celebrating the actual anniversary of the show.

1:09:34Adam Kempenaar:But do we always have to do it in March, late February? Why not do a fest in the summertime in Chicago? Yeah.

1:09:42Josh Larsen:Love Chicago. Crazy idea. Great city. I love Chicago more in June than I do in March.

1:09:47Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, I think our listeners who may travel there will feel the same way. It's going to be a little bit of a pared-down fest. We are thinking that we're going to save the bigger festivals for the milestone years. three movies on Saturday. That also means it won't be just back to back to back to back films and no time to do anything. That's right. Be more spread out. It'll be more laid back and it'll be a lot of fun. Three movies on Saturday at one venue, one movie Sunday morning at another. Just like last time, we'll close out with a Sunday morning kind of matinee. Who will be there? The two of us.

1:10:22Adam Kempenaar:Josh will be back from Scotland. He's promised me he'll be back from Scotland. Absolutely. Still keep into that. Okay, Producer Sam, Golden Joe DeSoe, PA Sophie Kempinar, Michael Phillips, Mariah Gates. Now, I haven't officially invited her yet, so I'm throwing this out there now that I'm going to officially invite her. Other friends of the show and other special guests that we can't announce at this time. Now, you mentioned this earlier or you alluded to this earlier, Josh. Remember those special benefits we were talking about for film spotting family members, pre-sales and discounts? you will for film spotting fest to electric boogaloo you will get access i like that better you will get access to tickets before everyone else you will get a discount on those tickets that others won't get and family members only they'll get a special meet and greet opportunity

1:11:18Josh Larsen:with us and our guests so there you go two things to do join the film spotting family film spotting family.com so that when tickets go on sale, you can get them early and get the discount cheaper. That's, that's number one, number two, mark your calendar, June 27 to 28. We have a lot of information to share yet. The films obviously in particular, additional guests that we'll be bringing in, but for now it's those dates, June 27, 28. Can't wait to see as many of you as possible there.

1:12:18Adam Kempenaar:11 years of driving people movie mad, Josh. And despite this being year 11, Sam and I were still on the phone with each other two days ago, figuring out when exactly do we put the polls live and when do they close? I don't know. I think we've got it down now. I hope so. Yeah. Round one of Film Spotting 40s Madness is live. You can vote now. FilmSpottingMadness.com. There's also a link right on the main page of FilmSpotting.net. It is truly, I can tell you now. I was a little confused last week. It's as simple as this. Each round closes on Monday at 1159 p.m. Central time. Yes. So think of it as midnight, 1159 p.m.

1:13:00Adam Kempenaar:Monday at that central time. Each new round opens the following day, Tuesday at noon. So you have a week. You have a week. Tuesday at noon is when voting closes. Right now, you can vote in the round one matchups as you're listening to this. as long as it's before Monday at 1159 p.m. Central Time. And you can enter the Madness Bracket Challenge. But you do only have until Monday, March 23rd at 1159 p.m. to get the Bracket Challenge in because obviously you can't predict the winners if the round has closed and we've announced the winners of round one. So the prize, there are other prizes in the Film Spotting Prize Pack, but the big prize is the winner will join us for a top five of their choosing.

1:13:47Adam Kempenaar:We'll record an episode. That will be a future bonus show. Or as Sam has noted here in the fine print, or at least have the right of first refusal to join us.

1:13:57Josh Larsen:You're not duty bound. We're not going to force you. No. Have we also, have we banned Ricky from being able to win this year? Has the committee done something to take care of this situation? I am dying.

1:14:10Adam Kempenaar:Everybody is dying. Now, I haven't looked yet. I mean, I could. Sam could. We could look, go into the back end and see the predictions if he's entered. I don't know if he has yet. What Josh is talking about is we have had the same person, six, seven, 800 entries. We've had the same person win two years in a row. How that has happened still boggles our minds, but Ricky Kendall in the UK has done it. And if he pulls off a third, there will be an investigation scotland yard josh get scotland yard on it are they in scotland

1:14:49Josh Larsen:i don't think so it sounds like he's in our jurisdiction i believe that's right that's right

1:14:54Adam Kempenaar:we'll get on it so we're gonna dig into round one a little bit here but why the 1940s we started with the 90s back in 2018 went on to do the 2000s and 2010s so we went forward then we went back 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s in order, then jumped back ahead. Best of the 21st century so far last year felt right. It was 2025, 2025. Yep. Now we had to keep it going. It's the 1940s. It may be the end of the line. I know some people are sad to hear that because they really, really, really want us to do the 1930s. The selection committee will ponder this and we'll kick it around even with you, Josh, if you want to be part of that conversation, we'll see.

1:15:35But here we are right

1:15:37Adam Kempenaar:now at the forties. So as we transitioned around one, a couple notable play in results, we were talking last week about Fantasia and Dumbo. Do you go with the head or the heart? Well, the head won out. Fantasia crushed Dumbo 67 % to 33%. Would not have predicted that one.

1:15:57Josh Larsen:I'm already, I'm already off to a bad start in the challenge.

1:16:01Adam Kempenaar:In the classic Monsters matchup, the Wolfman over Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. Josh, by only 17 votes. Okay, tight. Back-to-back best picks. How Green Was My Valley did beat Mrs. Miniver, but only by 15 votes. And this one went down to the wire a few hours before the other movie was up by 10 votes. And then at the last minute, Psycho Thrillers, qu 'est-ce qu 'est-ce? say spellbound over suspicion. The Hitchcock thrillers spellbound beat suspicion by one vote to advance.

1:16:34Josh Larsen:See, so this is your annual lesson for film spotting madness. Every vote matters. Your vote matters.

1:16:41Adam Kempenaar:Okay. So what we're going to do very quickly, we're just going to run through as we look at the round one bracket, not go through every matchup. You can do that yourself. You can go to filmspottingmadness.com, see the bracket, enter, and you can also vote there in the polls, but we like to highlight a few that stand out to us, Josh, difficult to pick for you personally in terms of the matchups, a couple, and then maybe a couple that were difficult to predict when you filled out your bracket. And then if you had any wild cards, just start with any that were difficult to pick, which ones vexed you?

1:17:14Josh Larsen:Yeah, I've got, I've got one for you here. When I was going through pondering, making my votes, I don't think this is going to be difficult for a lot of people. And for me, it's only because we have recent history with one of these films. But Casablanca versus Meshes of the Afternoon is actually a tough one. Wow. What? Okay, it should be a no-brainer, right? The number two seed against the 63. I'm just saying personally. You're tough. I'm just saying personally, toughest for me to choose because you do have, okay, Casablanca, You have a masterpiece that might be the most entertaining film of all time.

1:17:52Josh Larsen:Okay. Okay. Granted. Yep. Complete other end of the spectrum, a very different kind of masterpiece. Maya Darin's meshes of the afternoon. This is avant-garde short film. I think it was part of our, was it our overlooked auteurs marathon? Yes. Our recent one. Yep. And it's a movie operating in a different way, but at the same level as Casablanca for me. Casablanca, you may be the Hollywood machine in its most finely tuned. Meshes is kind of like this masterful wrench thrown into the machine of classical filmmaking. For me, that's for me, that's a tough one to choose. I'm still sitting with that one.

1:18:31Josh Larsen:Okay.

1:18:32Adam Kempenaar:Okay. I love it. That is that is a bold statement, Josh. Okay. Toughest to pick for me. I'll run through them quickly here. And it's really a matter of just having not been able to revisit these films and not having seen them in a long time. So I'm just going off memory. And I really, I like all of these films. I like to love all of these films, but there's just not a clear preference. The Great Dictator, Chaplin versus my darling Clementine, John Ford. How do I choose? The Grapes of Wrath versus Rome Open City. I know Rome Open City, the Rossellini, is the film school movie. I watched it as a film studies student.

1:19:13Adam Kempenaar:But The Grapes of Wrath is still a very powerful movie, right? The shop around the corner, Lubitsch, The Lubitsch Touch, it's all there. Versus The Magnificent Ambersons. Yes, it's a failed or not quite what it should be as an Orson Welles film. It's still a pretty damn good Orson Welles film. Rebecca, pretty great Hitchcock. versus pretty good to great Howard Hawks, Red River. And then this one is actually, I don't think this is going to be tough. I think for our listeners, this movie is going to dominate, right? But for me, especially with the recency bias, it's actually a tough choice, Josh, for me to choose between How Green Was My Valley and Treasure the Sierra Madre.

1:20:00Josh Larsen:Okay.

1:20:01Adam Kempenaar:It is. I love that. It is. I mean, I know it's bogey. I know that Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a great film. John Houston, it's an all-timer. I think it's going to do well in the tournament. But for me, it's not one I put on a pedestal. So it's a difficult one. It's difficult to choose. Those were five that stood out to me. What stood out to you in terms of tough to predict when you filled out the bracket?

1:20:28Josh Larsen:Yeah, I have got my one here is one that you just listed as difficult to choose. so maybe I'm onto something here. It is Rebecca versus red river. I feel like, and maybe this is just personally for me, but Rebecca is a Hitchcock that has a growing reputation. Um, and you know, Joan Fontaine, Lawrence Olivier, legendary performance by Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers in it. Um, I do feel like I hear more and more about that movie in recent years. And maybe it's just a matter of people who've gone through the other Hitchcocks and are getting to it and are realizing it's top tier as well. Red River though.

1:21:07Josh Larsen:I mean, how do you compare something like that to a Howard Hawks Western with John Wayne? This is, you know, and I feel like I'm leaning towards the fact that the Hawks pedigree and the Western iconography might give it the edge over what might others could consider lesser Hitchcock, but I'm not sure. So for me, when I'm looking at this first round grouping, that's the hardest for me to predict. Yeah.

1:21:39Adam Kempenaar:I have another Hitchcock in tough to predict for me and it's rope rope versus letter from an unknown woman where that Ophuls film, I think is a masterpiece. I do not think rope is a masterpiece, but I think letter from an unknown woman is far more under seen than rope definitely i think people who have seen letter will vote for it over yes but i don't think enough people have seen it so i still have it in my tough to predict because rope isn't i don't think rope is considered it's probably considered the the least worthy hitchcock of all the hitchcocks in our bracket so that's why i think that's fair yeah right so that that's why i have it here we talked about disney and fantasia before i think it could be a sleeper.

1:22:22Adam Kempenaar:I think it could be, how appropriate is this, the Cinderella of the tournament, Josh. And nevertheless, it's up against a pretty damn great Archer's film in a matter of life and death in round one. And I just don't know if the Disney pedigree and the nostalgia for Fantasia will beat out for our hardcore cinephiles an incredible Archer's film. a truly incredible film. I don't know where people will go with this one.

1:22:55Josh Larsen:I think that that Dumbo thrashing was revealing. Um, so I think what you say about it, having sleeper potential is something to keep in mind, but yeah, when the archers come up is matter of life and death, like the second film that's always mentioned, no third or four, third, but third or fourth. So there's, you know, there are other films, maybe even in this tournament that are more beloved, but you do hear a lot of praise for that one. Fantasia is really, I'm just not sure. There's clearly more affection for that than I was aware of. And so, yeah, that is a tough one to weigh those two against each other.

1:23:39Adam Kempenaar:So Lubitsch and Wells, the shop around the corner and the magnificent Ambersons. I have no bearing on how those two would fare against each other. I also don't really know how meet me in St. Louis will do against the lost weekend. The lost weekend is not considered usually for people in the top five or seven of wilder Billy Wilder films. But also I know meet me in St. Louis is the more popular or more well-known title of the two, but I don't think most people listening love that film as much as our producer, Sam Van Hahlgren does. So I'm putting it in this category. And then the last one I'll mention, Josh, I worry a little bit about how the Ozu will do late spring up against a Hitchcock in round one with Spellbound.

1:24:26Josh Larsen:Remind me of the lesson I learned last time, because one of the strategies that I used to employ in predicting these was, you know, if a director has multiple films in the tournament. And I think I've learned over the years that doesn't matter. And I think I've also learned it especially doesn't matter this early on. So my guess is Ozugos.

1:24:51Adam Kempenaar:it could happen so last last mention here the committee regrets i figured this out that i figured this out within minutes after the bracket went live and it couldn't be changed somehow the selection committee failed to pit hamlet against to be or not to be in the first round wow i mean what are you guys doing it should be off the whole tournament should be off well you know i withhold

1:25:15Josh Larsen:all criticisms of the selection committee for fear that I might be placed upon it. So I actually take that back. I think that's fine.

1:25:22Adam Kempenaar:The upset I'm rooting for the most is letter from an unknown woman over rope. I that's the one I'm rooting for the most. I don't think it'll happen, but I would love to see it. It's, I don't know.

1:25:33Josh Larsen:It's the correct choice. And honestly, you know, a litmus test for our listeners. So I think if that doesn't happen, you guys, you guys want to failed the test. Can I, I love it. Speaking of Josh. Yeah. Speaking of, um, you know, putting these in classroom terms, can I do some homework reporting? Because you know, this, this is the prime reason for many of us to do madness is to excuse to catch up with films. It also falls into my unfortunately easiest to pick personally category. Okay. I watched Frank Capra's arsenic and old lace for the first time settled in for a fun night was looking for something light.

1:26:11Josh Larsen:um, Cary Grant, um, beloved farce screwball comedy. Oh, it was a bit of a rough go. I have to say a bit of a chore saved by Cary Grant. He is the reason to watch this movie. The double and, you know, triple takes he offers really throughout are something to behold. He's not on the screen nearly enough, even though the movie runs almost two hours, it's maybe the loudest screwball comedy I've ever seen. And I allowed for volume going in. I know, I know what I'm getting and I usually like what I'm getting in that degree, but this one left me a little wanting. And so you put it up against speaking of archers, the life and death of Colonel Blimp.

1:26:56Josh Larsen:And I personally, you know,

1:26:58Adam Kempenaar:that's not even my favorite archers, but I was going to say, even though you don't think that's the masterpiece that I behold it as. That's an easy pick for you now.

1:27:06Josh Larsen:Certainly enjoy it more than arsenic and old lace.

1:27:08Adam Kempenaar:Okay. So we can't wait to start seeing the results pour in and get to round two. A reminder, round one polls and the bracket challenge live right now. They close 11 59 PM, Monday, March 23rd. That's central time round two polls open Tuesday at noon central time and all the madness can be found at filmspottingmadness.com. Josh, that's our show.

1:27:29Josh Larsen:Share all your madness consternation with us on social. You can find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, Letterboxd, YouTube. He's at FilmSpotting. I'm at those places as well, Larson on Film. We are independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the FilmSpotting family at FilmSpottingFamily.com. You can listen early and ad-free. You'll get monthly bonus episodes, a weekly newsletter, and access to the entire show archive. For show t-shirts and other merch, go to filmspotting.net slash shop.

1:28:29Adam Kempenaar:Not directing, but with him in the cast. Okay. And yes, Ryan Gosling and Lorden Miller's Project Hail Mary, which we'll talk about next week in addition to Meek's cutoff. And we'll have to share some of our favorite matchups in round two of Film Spotting Madness.

1:28:46Josh Larsen:Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Dissot and Sam Van Halgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Special thanks to everyone at WBEZ Chicago. More information is available at WBEZ.org. For Film Spotting, I'm Josh Larson.

1:29:04Adam Kempenaar:And I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

1:29:19Adam Kempenaar:This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. After the big game, like most people, I kept thinking about the commercials, and there was one that stayed with me. It was from the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, and it wasn't loud or flashy. It showed a Jewish kid being targeted at school and another student who chose not to ignore it. As someone who is Jewish, that moment felt very real to me. Not dramatic, just familiar. And what struck me was how clearly it showed that hate doesn't always announce itself. But the impact is still huge. If you saw the Blue Square spot during the big game, it's worth thinking about.

1:29:52Adam Kempenaar:And if you want to show support, sharing the blue square is one small way to do that.

1:30:22Adam Kempenaar:Carlos King, and yes, Drink Champ will be in the building. Plus, you know we're going to have a lot of guests, so you need to join us. And we got the Black Effect Marketplace, the picture podcast, and everything you expect from the Black Effect Podcast Festival. Tickets are on sale right now. Go get yours at blackeffect.com slash podcast festival. Don't play yourself, okay? Pull up.