Top 5 Needle Drops (Pt. 1) and It Ends | #1078

17:07Adam Kempenaar:And then I started looking around. I'm looking at some different lists online. I found one from fader, the fader.com. They had the 100 best needle drops in film and television history. And I'm looking at the list and I'm thinking, I'm seeing some here that didn't strike me as what I thought was maybe a needle drop. And then I read their, their definition and it seems so broad. And this is what they said, a piece of diegetic or non-diegetic music that enhances the mood flavor and or narrative of the film slash show and i'm like okay so a needle drop that's wrong i mean it's just so it's just any it's any pre-recorded music and and and that that kind of seems to be what a lot of a lot of sites were were going with it going with and i i almost josh went with or it was going to force myself to go with a needle drop being it had to be had to be completely non-diegetic that a needle drop for me was a filmmaker is the one dropping the needle right like they're they're dropping it over the film is the way i almost thought of a needle drop not that that was the the right definition but that was going to be my definition i didn't end up setting that restriction and i actually only ended up with one, I think that was truly completely non-diegetic.

18:27Adam Kempenaar:So we'll see as we get through our list. How did you end up defining it?

18:31Josh Larsen:I had a very similar experience where I thought we didn't need to think much about this one. It was obvious. And then when I sat down, I realized, yeah, the non-diegetic diegetic question came up. The opening credits sequence came up to me. Do I set those aside? And as usual, what happens is I needed boundaries to window down my list to just justify for me setting some things aside. So I largely did avoid opening credits. I think, um, I also went in search of a handy definition. I found one Adam that's maybe not quite as specific, but I did use as a guideline for not only my choices, but organizing the order of my list and thinking about how these songs were actually working in the context of the film.

19:18Josh Larsen:So this comes from the Hollywood Reporter, a 2025 roundup of the top 40 appropriately. I think they probably chose that top 40 of all time, they said. And this was co-written by Scott Roxborough and Patrick Breske. Here's their definition of a needle drop. The use of a preexisting track that complements, collides with, or completes the images on screen, creating something bigger than either alone. so I love that I like that narrowing in on compliments collides with or completes because it just gave me a way in to think about the use of the song didn't really restrict me from choosing an opening credit sequence if I wanted to wouldn't be surprised if the two of you might have that sure so yeah it just it painted a way forward I don't think it's the end all be all definition but it was helpful to me because this is a massive topic with so many amazing choices yes I just needed something to cling on to.

20:18Josh Larsen:Well, I don't know that that actually helps you narrow anything down.

20:21Adam Kempenaar:That still opens you up to almost the entirety of great needle drops.

20:25Josh Larsen:It's not more specific, but it does. The way it helped me narrow down is, you know, there are great songs that are dropped into a movie that we love. To me, if it didn't really do one of those things distinctly and compliment is a little broad, right? I mean, obviously every song chosen, we wouldn't make our list if it didn't compliment it in some way. In some way. But I understand. But I do. Yeah, I do think the notion that a needle drop can work differently was helpful to me. Okay.

20:56Adam Kempenaar:Rico, you're our expert. How are we writing? How did you define it? How did you approach your top five? I don't think I get the final say on any of these things. You're both perfect gentlemen and very wise. And I think that there's legitimacy to both your approaches. If that's as wishy-washy as it sounds. This is why we love having you on the show, Rico. You know what? You guys are great. Your hair, if anyone could see it. Oh, my gosh. Keep going.

21:27I like that. Life Itself, great movie. I see that movie poster behind you, Adam.

21:32Adam Kempenaar:Impeccable taste in decor. Excellent choice in docs. Yeah, wait. One thing, though, Adam Bruce, can you reread yours? It was a piece of diegetic or non diegetic music that enhances the mood flavor and or narrative of the film slash show because they included television as well. Okay. The problem that I have with that is that it's got to be I go more with Josh only in the sense that I do think it has to be preexisting. The idea is that you're taking something that existed outside the world of the movie beforehand and now you're using it to bring into the world of the film. And quite frankly, maybe if I look back at the list that was spelled out somewhere before that, but I'm quoting from the list and it's not said in the definition.

22:18Adam Kempenaar:That's ridiculous. Which would be crazy because that is part and parcel of needle drop. That's all music. Yeah. That's all music in cinema, for God's sake. A score could be defined as that. It could be, right? But other than that, I think anything goes pretty much. Okay. And I think I probably think of a great needle drop along the lines of Josh's. My favorite, though, being, and actually, as I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure that this applies to any of the ones I actually ended up choosing. Because I chose a lot of them based on some nostalgia, although I can make great arguments for all of them as well, I think.

22:52But I really like the contradiction. A piece of music that has dropped in contradiction to what's going on on the screen. Colliding is really a nice term. Yeah. I feel like that is a vast majority of, say, Martin Scorsese's use of music. He loves putting something that may be era appropriate over a sequence that otherwise has nothing to do with the music that you're listening to. Interesting that you say that.

23:20Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Really? You may return to that notion. You may return to that. And I think as we get through my list, you'll have a couple that directly complement and some where there may be a little bit of a collision. I'm with you though, Josh, I love this topic so much. I as well. And I had so many good options. I felt that I needed some, I really needed to set some boundaries as well. So I went, I want to step further than, than you. And I started thinking about, could I, could I approach this where do I narrow my list down to a top five where I'm thinking about who are the most frequent and adept purveyors of the needle drop?

24:00Adam Kempenaar:and do I pick maybe a favorite from each of them? And I came up with a top seven, and I will share the top seven later, but I did end up having four of those represented. I didn't go that route, but I still ended up having four of those top seven represented. And I think you would probably guess who the top seven are. But then here's where I did end up. I thought, you know, arguably part of what makes needle drops so effective very often anyway is familiarity that we usually recognize the songs and our relationship to them not always but our relationship to them can inform our connection to the scene and i wanted to go the other way and focus on something that i often go to the movies for which is surprise and discovery what's better with music than when Josh, you, or Rico, if we're hanging out and you say, I've got a song you've got to hear.

25:00Adam Kempenaar:Have you ever heard this band before? Have you ever heard this track before and you play it for me and my mind is blown and then I'm the biggest fan of this band now and I can't wait to go hear all of their songs? What's better than going to see a movie, hearing a song you've never heard before? You love the scene. You love the song. And now you just can't wait to hear more. And I said, you know what? I'm going to pick five where the filmmaker was introducing me to a song. And in some cases, a song and a performer that had me had me not only engaged as a movie viewer, but as a music listener. And I left the theater wanting to hear that song again.

25:38Adam Kempenaar:And I wanted to discover more of that artist's work. So so all five of the cases, I'd never heard the song before. And even if I was familiar with the artists, I in the moment, I couldn't connect the song to that. to that artist. So, you know, a good example of that would be in the Royal Tenenbaums. She smiled sweetly when Margot drops the actual needle drop on the record player in the tent with Richie. How many stitches did you get? I don't know. Do you want to see it? Of course, I know the Rolling Stones, but I've never listened to that album and I didn't know the track she smiled sweetly i know ruby tuesday that was on the radio i didn't know she smiled sweetly and i i i was like i love this song this is an incredible song now i might have picked that except rico we have this thing on film spotting called the pantheon which is our our little valhalla of movies and for us those picks from those movies are ineligible so even if i wanted to pick yeah the royal tenenbaums i can't you know what else i can't pick good i can't pick i was gonna get there because that's the craziest one i can't pick the end from the doors from apocalypse now i can't pick hotel california from the big lebowski the sound of silence from the graduate or these days from the royal tenenbaums i can't pick layla from goodfellas or sunshine of your love from goodfellas or any other track from goodfellas you could do an entire top five just from Goodfellas.

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29:52Adam Kempenaar:Let's go ahead and get into our list. We're going to let you as our guest start. Rico, what's your number five needle drop? Oh man, this is like starting a negotiation. You always want somebody else to go first to set the floor. so then I'm going to start with I did not say that opening credit sequences were verboten I did go with an opening credit sequence that's fine I'm looking through here I don't think I picked any others but this is to me one of the greatest opening credit sequences ever and it's to Ghost World the 2001 movie and that opening sequence is set to a interestingly a piece of film music from the past and from a different country

30:42it's a song called yan peh chan ho i hope that i'm pronouncing that correctly and it's sung by and it was created by the team of shankar jakishan or jakishan who are one of the greatest songwriting duos in indian film history and i say all that like i know a ton about indian film history the fact of the matter is if I know anything about Indian film history, it's because of first hearing that song in that movie. It was probably the first piece of Indian film music that I was exposed to that I somehow got. I always thought it was cool, you know, like Indian film music is interesting, but I never felt it in my gut or I never had a way into it to understand it.

31:25And for those who don't remember the movie it is uh the character of enid dancing uh that's thora birch playing the character and she's dancing happily and crazily in her room while watching the original indian film from the 1960s that featured and the sequence that featured that song and she's dancing like crazy in a room while we actually see around her the cameras panning in and out of windows in the suburbia that she's living in and everybody else is in this kind of dan clausian uh just kind of zombified form they're just existing in their little rooms doing nothing watching television being very bland and she is dancing wearing her cool clothes to this really cool track from this really cool movie and it sounds like both an indian piece of music but also it has this surf music component to it, which is probably why I got into it.

32:23It's like, there's this one Western element to it that makes me realize that there's some way that it jibes with my world in a way. And I just, it's a great track. I also, many moons later went to the Netherlands and went to a dance club and they were playing it. And there were all these Dutch people dancing like crazy to that song. And the fact that it has that effect on people is just wonderful to me. That sequence is incredible. And it also sets up exactly what the movie is about in a way. It's kind of like this bland environment where you've got somebody who's desperate to break out of it and is a unique individual trapped in this world.

33:03Her only way out is through music and images and film. You get it right away. It's a beautiful sequence.

33:09Adam Kempenaar:As soon as you said the title, I could hear the song. I could picture the scene precisely. That's how you know it's a great needle drop.

33:18Josh Larsen:That multicultural aspect, too, reminds me, Rico, of your Bend It Like Beckham episode, where you talked about the use of music there. And obviously, there's the connection with Indian culture. But even beyond that, that's what makes it a discovery, as you said, for yourself and in the way Adam was talking about in his setup looking for music. for music discoveries. So I can probably place, I didn't think about that as a definition or a category, Adam, but I can probably place my number five pick there as well as a discovery. One thing I did try to resist doing is going, Adam, to our wrap party picks for music moment of the year.

34:00Josh Larsen:Rico, this is a show we do every year. Just kind of look back at different categories like funniest moment, music moment. And a cheat way of doing this list would just be go back to the years of all those and maybe picking those. And I thought that would be too easy. So I tried to resist that. But I did have to cheat a little bit because I am starting here with a discovery song that ended up being a scene of the year pick I made in 2020. And really I picked it because it's all about the music. And this is the acapella sing-along to Janet Kaye's Silly Games in Steve McQueen's Lover's Rock. I've been wanting you

34:41Adam Kempenaar:Hold on! For so long it's a shame I want the thing, I want the thing

34:49Josh Larsen:A song I'd never heard before, Janet Kaye completely unfamiliar with until it was employed a couple of times in this movie, actually. It's not just the one sequence. This was Adam and I, we shared it as our number one film in 2020. It is one of the installments to McQueen's Small X Anthology, which was set among London's Caribbean community. And Lover's Rock dramatizes one night at a 1980s house party. So obviously with that setting, music is crucial. The title itself refers to a slow groove romantic subgenre of reggae that emerged in England in the 70s. So yeah, Silly Games, you hear it a couple times throughout this party.

35:29Josh Larsen:and throughout the movie. But the moment I'm picking specifically is late in the party and the DJ turns off the speakers.

35:49Josh Larsen:And the couples who are dancing just continue singing Silly Games acapella for I think it might be like 10 minutes that this goes on. And it really is a distillation of, of lovers rock. So in that construct, I was talking about compliments collides or completes. I see this one as completing the movie, what it is trying to do. This is a movie all about creating this space for, for freedom. It's trying to especially create the space for these particular young people in this particular time in history in this particular place i love how the dancers become a choir here it's like a needle drop still has a bit of distance between even if it's even if it's diegetic, right?

36:56Josh Larsen:Even if it's something that's in the scene and the characters press play on the CD or literally drop the needle, there's still a bit of distance because they're listening, right? They're still receiving it as listeners. And this does something special where the characters actually become the performers. So naturally, as might happen at a party like this, and suddenly they're the ones sharing the music. So they're this choir delivering this expression of community and unity, and they're creating this protective communal space. I also love, I mentioned this during that wrap party show, but it's kind of cool that Dennis Bovell, who wrote Silly Games, does have a cameo on the dance floor during this sequence.

37:38Josh Larsen:So that's where I'm kicking my list off with a relatively recent pick, Janet Kaye's Silly Games from Lover's Rock.

37:44Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, almost made my list. In fact, for a while, had it at number five, and that's because it checked the box for me, had not heard the song, had not heard of the song or the artist until we saw Lovers Rock. And you're so right. It's communal. There are a lot of people dancing. It's so intimate. It's so sensual. And there's something about them all starting to sing on their own. It becomes like they're under a spell and we just, we fall under the spell of it too. It's such a scene. It's such a good movie. I mean, I have at least one pick on my list that is someone in a movie listening to music.

38:28And I wonder what that's about. Because I have a feeling there'll be more as we go through our list. and I yeah in the same way that at some point I recognize that a lot of my favorite scenes in movies are people playing some sort of game either a playful game with each other a verbal game actually and now that I think about it there's a scene like that in one of the movies I'm gonna I have on my list um and there's something about watching somebody fall in love with a piece of music while you're falling in love with a piece of music that's uh I'd have to think about what what is the attraction of that?

39:05I mean, maybe it's obvious, but it is beautiful. And if it can capture it, I mean, I think also we're, we're, you know, music lovers, I think. So in a way, it's kind of evoking that experience that you know, and have such a deep affection for, I guess, that gives it that little extra layer when you watch somebody fall in love with a piece of music. Yeah.

39:29Adam Kempenaar:My number five, I do have to say it, it wasn't a complete introduction, a little bit of a reintroduction, but you'll, you'll abide my inclusion. I think because I had never heard the version of the song by this band, by the original group. And the group is the Delphonics. The song is Did Nigh, parentheses, blow your mind this time, from Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, of course, Quentin Tarantino, one of those top seven and maybe in the top two or top one of those purveyors of the needle drop. But you know who did perform Did Nigh, blow your mind this time? You guys probably don't know, but I'll tell you who did perform.

40:23Adam Kempenaar:Didn't I blow your mind this time back when I heard it in 1986, the new kids on the block. Yeah. If my wife was here, she would have slapped me. I gave my heart and soul to you, girl. Now, didn't I do it, baby? I have, well, I've, I had four younger sisters, but my sister, Melissa, the one directly below me was a new kids on the block fan. And I remember her having a friend over at the house and they were watching hanging tough live, the new kids on the block live. And, and I, I was curious, you know, I was, I was starting to get into music and I'm a year away from starting a band with my junior high friends.

41:07Adam Kempenaar:And so I'm, I'm starting to get a little pretentious, even though all I'm listening to is hair metal. So I I'm judging the new kids on the block as I'm watching this concert. And this isn't, this isn't revisionist history. I was not a fan of the new kids on the block, but they, they start performing this song. I don't know which songs are they wrote or didn't write. And of course they didn't write any of them, but they start performing this song. And I, I'm like, something about this song is different. The song survived. This has survived new kids. Like this has a beautiful melody. It's got that, that call and response structure.

41:44Adam Kempenaar:It's got a really great bridge. It's got rich harmonies. It's got that incredible key change that happens in it. Like, this is just a great pop song. I'm like, I remember thinking, am I liking a new kids on the block song? It's okay. It turns out it's okay. How can I be enjoying this? And so, you know, I didn't investigate it any further. We didn't have the internet back then at this point, right? Flash forward 11 years. I'm in the theater watching Jackie Brown and Robert Forster's Max Cherry, the bail bondsman, has just taken Pam Greer's Jackie back to her house after a night in jail. And she decides to put on some music, puts on a record.

42:22Adam Kempenaar:I should get some extra points here for having an actual needle drop in my top five needle drops. She puts it on, puts the record on, Quentin Tarantino shows us the extreme close-up of the needle going on the vinyl. They're listening to music. Yeah. And the moment the opening lines come in, I give my heart and soul to you, girl.

42:48Adam Kempenaar:I'm simultaneously thinking, holy crap, it's that New Kids on the Block song, and it's not a New Kids on the Block song. And I'm, if not slowly falling in love with Jackie like Max is, I'm absolutely mesmerized by Jackie.

43:05Josh Larsen:Now, Adam, are you sure you didn't say New Kids did this way better?

43:10Adam Kempenaar:No, I did not think that. and and you know tarantino's just so he's so smart the the first thing max says about the music is it's pretty and it is pretty but the camera is on jack yeah when he says it and and it's not only that it's max's point of view it's his angle looking up at her from the kitchen table that he's sitting at you know it's it's because tarantino shoots it all from max's point of view When she kneels down in front of the records, the camera tilts down just like Max's head would if he's looking at her when she kneels down. And then it just stays static. There's just cross-cutting between him and him looking at her from the kitchen table, static point of view, exactly as he would.

43:56Adam Kempenaar:And he's just watching her in her bathrobe. And those two shots, it's two shots, one cut. As the music starts playing, Jackie lighting a cigarette. She's lighting a cigarette in this kind of dingy apartment in a bathrobe against the sunlight of her shades. And the cut is to Max staring intently, just slightly tilting his head. And it's all just to the opening notes of of that song, the Delphonics. And it's romantic as hell. And thankfully, Max, you know, asks Jackie who it is. So I, as a viewer, understand that it's the Delphonics. I didn't have to think about it the rest of the movie. I got the answer to my question.

44:40Adam Kempenaar:And I also figured out that it wasn't the new kids on the block. It's okay that I loved it back in 1986. It's great. By the way, I mean, like, kudos to you for picking like the least obvious Quentin Tarantino needle drop that exists. There are so many that immediately leap to mind. And that is like deep. Yeah, I guess I know most of those songs, but I didn't know Little Green Bag. That was a discovery. good good song but this scene's amazing it's distinct to your point rico it's it is another

45:09Josh Larsen:example of characters choosing the music for themselves so the director is choosing it of course but in the reality of the movie the characters are choosing it and even in tarantino those move us differently i'm thinking of in pulp fiction right when uma thurman put puts um the songs not coming to me, but like there, there are many characters choosing in Tarantino movies, the music, and those feel differently than when he drops them on us like a bomb, which are thrilling as well, because this is a skill he has. They operate in very different ways. So that's why, I mean, not only do I like this pick because it's my favorite, favorite Tarantino, but I think it is, he's working in a different gear here, even though it's a tool he often employs.

45:55Josh Larsen:Yeah.

45:56Adam Kempenaar:And the layers, the layers to it as well, like Jackie, Jackie's the kind of person and they're adults at this point where she's the kind of person who doesn't need to play any games and is just going to pick a song that she loves and she's going to play it because that's what she's in the mood for. It's not for him. Exactly. But she also is precisely the kind of person who in this movie is playing games and everything she does is a precursor to another move that she's establishing. And she does need Max on her side and she knows what she's doing when she puts on one of the most romantic, pretty songs of all time and stands there in her bathrobe and lights the cigarette in front of the shades.

46:41Adam Kempenaar:Right. Like she doesn't know what she's doing. I think both things can be true. Uma Thurman putting on a girl. You'll be a woman soon. And Pulp Fiction. Think about the difference between those two movies. One comes right before, right? It's Pulp Fiction and then Jackie Brown, right? Am I out of my mind? Yeah. And it's like - Mm-hmm. Yeah. 94 and then 97. And it's like, this actually almost perfectly illustrates something that at first was disappointing to me. Now I don't care. But at the time, I love all those movies. I loved Reservoir Dogs. I love Pulp Fiction. I love Jackie Brown. But I remember seeing, even when I saw Pulp Fiction, I remember thinking there are certain scenes, I always think about the moment in that movie where she comes back from the bathroom in the burger joint and says, don't you love it when your food, you go to the bathroom, you come back and your food has arrived, which is a thousand percent true and has never been in a film before.

47:33And I was like, this guy is an incredible observer of life. He like is this guy. Yes. Yeah. People think of him as this bloody action guy. There's actually not that many shootouts in his movies there's just the threat of violence hanging over a lot of his movies he's actually got this really incredible you know insight into people and he's going to be doing you know any kind of movie he wants he can do and then he did jackie brown i was like see like look at that you can see so much more of the kind of new wave french influence you know in that movie and everything and then it doesn't do as well and then he doesn't do anything for a while and then he comes back with kill bill and at first i was very disappointed it was like you just gave him what they said you were man like they they want you to be this guy and you're more than that dude but i i i don't care anymore and i actually did like especially when kill bill 2 came out it was like ah it's all for a reason but the at that moment i was kind of like you could take those two scenes and those are the difference there's one where he's got uma thurman puts on greg will be a woman soon and she's like literally floating around the room she's like dancing and doing all this stuff In this movie, she puts it on and she just sits there smoking a cigarette in her dingy bathrobe.

48:47It's like the total opposite kind of vibe. Yeah. Still amazing.

48:50Adam Kempenaar:Pick. Josh, in a few weeks here on film spotting, we're hoping to give the sacred cow treatment to T2 judgment day. Hopefully we'll get a chance this weekend at Regal Cinemas to see that movie, to revisit it on the big screen. It's like we're back in 1991. 91. We're back in high school seeing that film on the big screen. Check regmovies.com. See where that film is playing near you. And if you can make it to that one, or even if you can't, maybe you can see the dog stars, the new film from Ridley Scott. That's a film we're hoping to see this weekend and maybe give a few minutes to next weekend.

49:31Adam Kempenaar:Certainly the movie that's inspiring our top five or our draft next week devoted to the films of Ridley Scott. It's also available in IMAX if that is an option near you. You may be able to see the Dog Stars for free if you are a Regal Unlimited member. Regal Unlimited is the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. If you sign up for Regal Unlimited using the code FILMSPOT26, You get 15 % off. You can see any standard 2d movie anytime with no blackout dates or restrictions. And with regal unlimited, you won't just save money on tickets. You do also get 10 % off all non-alcoholic concessions.

50:13Adam Kempenaar:We encourage you to sign up now in the regal app or at the link in our description and use code film spot 26 to receive your discount. Rico, we are at your number four. Really? I got to top that. That's a really good cut. um i'm gonna go with this is a tie we can i because i think i know you're gonna say that this is cheating but i think we can talk about them in tandem um mainly because they had the exact same impact on me when i saw them and they're kind of used in the same way which is in wings of desire then vendors 1988 movie one of my favorite movies of all time and uh it's both well i'll do them in uh chronological order in the movie crime in the city solutions six bells chime and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds from Her to Eternity.

51:01Both of these are actual performances within the movie. They were both songs that existed before the movie came out, but in the movie you see the band sort of lip syncing as though they're performing them. They're both in nightclub sequences. They're both in these kind of very, how do I put it? They're like faded glamour nightclubs because it's being shot and is in a lot of ways about that movie. the Berlin of that period, which is just before the wall comes down. So it's a city that has a lot, you know, it's still kind of in semi ruins from World War II somewhat. It's still a kind of walled city.

51:40There's like all sorts of, and therefore it's very bohemian. It blew my mind at the time because I was in college radio at the time when this came out. And a lot of people were into goth. And I actually liked the cure a lot, but the cure kind of more poppy side of goth, particularly as I was getting into them. I thought of goth music as horror rock in my mind. It's people dressing like vampires and some of it was pretty noisy and spooky. And I kind of felt like it was kitschy maybe in some way. I didn't totally get what it was that attracted people to it. And that movie and these two scenes put it in context for me so that I understood the romance of goth music.

52:24It's about finding beauty in decay and darkness. And it so changed my aesthetics in like 30 different ways. It changed my musical aesthetics because I got that. I understood that there was something could sound maybe scary or gritty or something, but there's actually something totally different going on underneath it. And it did the same thing about places for me. It actually made me want to travel that movie, which is not unusual. Vendors movies are a lot about travel in a way, but it made me want to do a certain kind of travel, which is to find spaces like that, where music like that would be appropriate.

53:05that it's like a place that is beautiful, but decaying that has history to it and is still got, you know, and it's still being used in a modern way. The kind of collisions of different eras, the fact that it was in, you know, this faraway place that people spoke a different language and just did things slightly differently. And it's all got this ethereal overlay to it. Because if anybody knows that movie, it's about an angel who falls in love with a woman. And in both of these scenes the angel is with the woman and she doesn't know it yet she's immortal he's an angel watching her in the first scene with crime in the city solution and this music is playing and she's swaying like all sort of gently at one point he this you know non-corporeal being takes puts his hand over her hand and pretends he's holding it and kind of follows the arc of her hand down.

53:59It's this totally beautiful, graceful, ethereal moment. It just epitomizes so many things for me, those two things. And it's a great example of what you were talking about is going in and not knowing a song or not knowing, even for me, really getting a genre and having it put in context for you so that it's like, not only do you get it, but now it's essential. I listen to that kind of music whenever I travel now. Yeah.

54:24Josh Larsen:And Nick Cave, if a voice can be cinematic, he has one of those. So it's just any use of him probably would work on some level in a movie, but certainly does here.

54:37Adam Kempenaar:I don't think I've seen Wings of Desire since the 90s, since I was becoming a cinephile. One of the movies that transformed me. It's been that long and you've made me now extremely eager to revisit it. I can't believe it's been that long. Talk about a movie we need to do the sacred cow on. It's one of the most beautiful movies ever. I would love it. Like no movie, literally physically, like, I mean, visually, no movie has looked like that since that film came out. The black and white in that film is insane. And paired with that music. And by the way, that's the other thing. If you listen, like the soundtrack for that movie is pretty popular because of tracks like that.

55:15And actually, if you listen to it, it sounds like pretty grim in certain ways. There's a lot of like sadness. There's like one song called Pas Attend. I can't even remember who does it, but it's got like clanking kind of, you know, industrial sounds. I think because a lot of that music was what was being made in Berlin at that time. And that movie is a love letter to Berlin, but it's bizarre that I now associate all those things with this beautiful love story that has a spoiler alert, a happy ending. I just, that's the power of music. You can totally recast music like that.

55:48Josh Larsen:And you need the visuals to recontextualize it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So for my number four, I'm going to go from a surprise to a nostalgia pick. I think, you know, it's only fair that nostalgia comes into play here for a list like this. And I realized I needed to have a track from a John Hughes movie. And this isn't necessarily because I was a little young for his run as a director and producer in the eighties with teen movies. So we've got 16 Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science. I think the first one I actually saw was probably Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but these were in the air.

56:27Josh Larsen:So even as a kid who's just a couple years behind going with friends to the theater to see these movies, you knew about them and you knew they were the thing to do. And absolutely, you knew the music. I mean, just from the radio, from the television commercials, from whatever, you knew the music. So even if you were too young to see the films themselves, you are aware of them and talk about an embarrassment of new wave, early alternative riches. This is what you got in these John Hughes movies. I'm going to go with a song that I remember hearing the most from the movie. I wanted to see the most, but couldn't.

57:08Josh Larsen:And that was 1985's The Breakfast Club, specifically Simple Minds, Don't You Forget About Me, used during the final moments.

57:20Josh Larsen:I try to stay away from opening credits. Do I stay away from end credits? Do I stay away from final scenes? But this one is interwoven into the final scene well before the credits. So we think of it, at least I do in my mind, as being a final credits song, but it's not. It starts a lot earlier in this sequence, which is after the group we've been hanging out with all day separates. They leave detention. For those who need a reminder on Breakfast Club, it's basically a Saturday detention movie. Cross-section of high school humanities who are hanging out with here, Prom, Queen Claire, Molly Ringwald, Jock Andrew, Emilio Estevez, Burnout Bender, Judd Nelson, Nerd Brian, Anthony Michael Hall, and then Loner Allison, played by Ali Sheedy.

58:06Josh Larsen:So they've, you know, against all odds, they've bonded over the course of the day across these social classes and they're getting picked up in the final sequence by their parents in the final moments. And yeah, don't you forget about me as we watch them leave the building, get into their separate cars and, you know, Hughes gives them each distinct moments with their parents, who's picking them up. And then, and then interestingly, if I'm remembering correctly, there aren't edits from one kid to the next. It's a lot where like the next car will pull up in the same frame.

58:40Adam Kempenaar:Yes.

58:41Josh Larsen:So it's kind of still holding them together as we're seeing them pulled apart. And the song playing over all of this is of course also holding them together with their wish. The wish they have at this moment is that this is what they're hoping. It's what we're hoping. I think it's what we know isn't going to happen. They want to remain friends. come Monday morning, right? We dug into this when we did our sacred cow review of Breakfast Club, right, Adam? And if I recall, I think we were both kind of pessimistic, a little cynical about that. But for this moment, for this moment, that's what everybody wants, right?

59:15Josh Larsen:And it's what the song is asking for. So yeah, just incredible use of simple minds. And I was glad I did finally get to see the Breakfast Club. And of course, that revisit, the revisit we did, it really holds up. I mean, it does it's a it's still a great movie it's been a while actually i think it might be like 10 years since i revisited that movie but i was expecting a hundred percent to you know roll my eyes at it and there is there's some pretty eye-rolly stuff it's simplistic at points for sure and also by the way molly ringwald has since you know said that she had some discomfort with some of the sequences in that movie so we gotta i think we should probably mention that but it does like Like, yeah, I think we did, but it does still carry a lot of emotional, like, you know, it's like pretty, it has some beautiful things to say, you know, these kids really open up to each other.

1:00:07You can tell that they were feeling it in the moment. I know. I remember even when it came out, all of those actors, there was like an article in, I think like Newsweek that I read at the time that it came out or something. And it was like all of those actors, every young actor in Hollywood wanted to be in that movie. They like would have killed to be in that movie. And you can tell they all just like gave it their all. and it's really it's like it's pretty beautiful i do have some bad news though i think that song was written for the movie so i'm not sure it qualifies good thing we didn't go by your

1:00:35Adam Kempenaar:definition oh yes see this is why i don't make rules for myself yeah not hard and fast rules i i would have never thought that i just always assumed this was a simple mind song i believe it was i didn't know that by like a writing crew for somebody to do and it was brought to simple minds and simple minds was like, we don't do like, we're going to do our own music. We don't do other people's music. I suppose the title makes sense, especially considering what you just said, Josh, about the end of the movie. When do you think then that you finally, do you know, when did you finally see the breakfast club?

1:01:09Josh Larsen:I think, I mean, it had to be like a VHS catch up, right? Once, once VHS became more popular and common and you were going, hanging out at friends houses, it's like, okay, this is one that I'm going to get to see. unless I'm misremembering that. And it couldn't have been the first time for our sake.

1:01:27Adam Kempenaar:Okay, I just, by 85, it wasn't uncommon for people to have VHS. I mean, in 85, I'd already seen this 100 times and had it memorized. That's how often we watch this film. So I love that this is on your list. It's such a great pick. And I don't want to downplay at all that you are positive on this movie. You did give it four stars when we revisited it, according to Letterboxd, out of five. But I gave it five out of five. That's how nostalgic I am for The Breakfast Club. So I'm so happy. Should be on your list. I'm so happy that you put it there. I'm actually going, so it's so funny, you're going with a pick from a movie that in grade school in junior high, I probably would have said was the greatest movie ever.

1:02:13Adam Kempenaar:at least in grade school, I would have said it was the greatest movie ever made, maybe when I was in sixth or seventh grade. And now I'm going to go to a pick that is a song from a band that I never in junior high or high school would have admitted to liking. Now, in fairness, I didn't listen to them then. And you set me up nicely for this pick, Rico, with your number four. and this is this is a choice this is another this is a director who I would I would consider another heavy needle dropper and I like the choice because heavy is a really appropriate word for the song as well there are a lot of options to go with from Sofia Coppola's catalog there's a lot to go with just from Marie Antoinette but my favorite happens to meet my criteria for this list, my main criterion.

1:03:08Adam Kempenaar:And 2026 me really digs the cure. And 2006 me was curious, but as I was suggesting just a few moments ago, I wasn't a listener at all, even in 2006. And I didn't know when I saw this movie and reviewed it here on the show, I didn't know what song was playing when I heard it. I just knew I thought it was a banger and I had to look it up when when Marie becomes queen and she and King Louis the 16th walk down the descend the staircase and everyone's clapping for them. That moment, I just had to know what that was. There's no no lyrics to it, but it was incredible. And the song is the cure. Plain song.

1:04:03Adam Kempenaar:We don't see a needle drop here, but part of what I love about it is that it feels like there's a drop. There's an illusion. It's just so heavy the way the song comes into that scene where King Louis XV has just died. And there's a series of shots where we see Schwarzman's Louis XVI being crowned his successor. And then a sound comes in on the soundtrack that it seems like it could be diegetic almost. It's kind of confusing. Like it seems like chimes and maybe they're coming from inside the church or maybe it's non-diegetic, but it's like part of a score. It doesn't sound like a pop song, but it'd be totally appropriate for a score for a scene where something so regal and sanctified is occurring.

1:04:53Adam Kempenaar:And we hear those chimes as we hear or as we see this gorgeous close up of Kirsten Dunst looking on at her at her husband being crowned. And the camera is just ever so slowly tracking forward on her and her face is betraying very little, but it's suggesting perhaps some reverence for her husband, maybe some pride, but also as I read it, some trepidation, maybe some anxiousness. And then the heavy part is we're still hearing these chimes, but then there's the cut from her face to the stairs. It's official. He's the king. She's the queen. And it is on a cymbal crash and we get that huge synth bass sound.

1:05:40Adam Kempenaar:and it really does feel like the sound has just completely dropped and we see them moving to that great adulation. And of course, like the rest of the movie, it's totally anachronistic. It feels like it could be the score from a prom scene, Josh, from an 80s movie like The Breakfast Club almost would be more appropriate for that. But the rhythm of it, the momentousness of it, it sounds sweeping. it sounds grand like it should be it it's just it's perfect for the scene and then if you if you do go and listen to the song if you listen to plain song you realize that the chimes are part of the song it isn't just this the bass synth stuff the keyboards or whatever it's the the chimes are actually leading into it and that cymbal crash that that then uh is the precursor to the to the synth, it, it's all part of the song and, and that it's just such an elegant choice for that scene.

1:06:43Adam Kempenaar:It was like, it was truly like it was made for that moment. And I suppose it makes sense that the reverse is true, that Sofia Coppola just knew how to perfectly execute the visuals around the music. And, and maybe that's exactly what she had in mind is, is the way she actually did execute it. I love it. I think that may be also why that, because it presages a party sequence. It segues from this regal thing into a party sequence all within the same song. And it maybe is partially why that is one of the great party sequences of all time, because it gets across how a great party feels when you're young.

1:07:24It feels like more than a party. It's like, this is where it is at. it's very almost famous yes and you know that she knows her music because it's a rare song that's going to be able to do that where you can pivot from something that grand into something that youthful and i mean it's interesting because when i first saw that movie i could have sworn because she's the kind of person that would do this and has in fact used bands like new order and i thought for sure this must have been early factory records like how's the new plays get your

1:07:55Josh Larsen:Wi-Fi figured out? I got T-Mobile 5G home internet and I'm loving it. It's the fastest 5G home internet. My old provider was so slow. Mine is slow. And only 35 bucks a month. Do I need to try this? Try it for 15 days. Love it or get your money back. I love it already. There are over 250 reasons to join T-Mobile. Find yours and check availability at T-Mobile.com slash home internet. That's this according to Oculus B test intelligence data second half of 2025 all rates reserved for money-back guarantee within 30 days of cancellation. Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts. Why did I search the internet for answers to my cold sore problem?

1:08:32Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care, fast. Health care just got less painful.

1:09:21Josh Larsen:Grand Appliance. Appliance experts since 1930.

1:09:51Adam Kempenaar:slash premium. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube premium.

1:09:57Josh Larsen:Hi, I'm Sean Evans from Hot Ones, and I want to tell you about YouTube premium. It has offline downloads, so you can watch without Wi-Fi. Background play, so you can lock your phone, and it still plays, baby.

1:10:09Adam Kempenaar:Oh, and it is completely ad-free. Yes, I said it, ad-free. Try YouTube premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel any time. A much earlier song. I thought that it was like maybe one of those deals and it's actually a late model 80s tune. It's like, for me, it's a deeper cut. It's a deeper cut. Cura song and a pretty astute one to use. Yeah, Adam, you're warming my heart here.

1:10:39Josh Larsen:Is this, is this your first Sofia Coppola top five pick? It might be. It's possible.

1:10:47Adam Kempenaar:It's I went with The Breakfast Club and I went with Sophia Coppola. I know. We've switched bodies here for this top five.

1:10:52Josh Larsen:Apparently. And The Cure, I mean, listen, I'm not going to claim I was listening, you know, disintegration era, but Wish was kind of my like, oh, why have I not been into The Cure? And yeah, the way it works in this sequence and Coppola uses it is absolutely brilliant. So what a win these lists have been for me so far already. By the way, Gang of Four kicking off that movie is a total genius choice, too. I thought for sure when you were starting to talk about that movie, I was like, oh, it's going to be that tune because it's crazy. Like I said, so many options.

1:11:27Adam Kempenaar:So many.

1:11:28Josh Larsen:And also, you know, you're talking about seeing a character actually like drop the needle. That would not have been out of place in that movie. Like we have the Converse sneakers. You're right. I mean, so we might as well have somebody, you know, dialing up the cure on a record player or something like that. The problem of a leisure. What to do for pleasure. I do love a new purchase. So a reminder, we will have picks three through one coming your way. Look for that in the feed on Sunday. Right now, let's take a few minutes to thank some members of the Film Spotting family. Membership in the family is the single source of support for the show.

1:12:12Josh Larsen:We are independently produced. And so the support we get from our listeners is how we're able to keep doing this. This is the last weekend. If you're listening to this, as soon as the show dropped, this will be the last weekend for you to get our 20 % off discount that we are offering for family membership. We're doing this through August 31st. All you have to do is use the promo code summer at filmspottingfamily.com and you can join the family for 20 % off. we want to thank family members Michael Shaw who's in LA and Mikey Rogers in Nashville

1:12:46Adam Kempenaar:okay Michael and Mikey we start with Michael who says he found us on a colleague's recommendation American fiction and what Siskel and Ebert got wrong were among early listens but I went back at least as far as Josh and Michael's review of Sorry to Bother You reviews we got wrong almost every blockbuster slash superhero movie that could have been devoted to a potential golden brick nominee apologies to the blockbuster aficionado. So he wants more art house stuff. Yes. Doesn't mean he wants a wrong. Just a golden brick show is what Michael wants. It sounds like not a bad idea. A movie he credits with becoming a cinephile.

1:13:23Adam Kempenaar:I'm not sure I've earned genuine cinephile status, but A Clockwork Orange was the first film that made me in awe of the power of film.

1:13:31Josh Larsen:Mikey says, Josh's book, Movies, Our Prayers, was recommended to me by a friend. I found the book to be really encouraging, both as a person of Christian faith and as a cinephile, this led me to check out the podcast. Though not an official film spotting review, I got to attend part of Cinema Interruptus for Phantom Thread on a trip to Chicago last December. Hearing how Josh facilitated discussion of the film inspired me to become a more regular listener of the show. Well, thank you, Mikey. Thank you for getting us some listeners, Josh. I mean, I do what I can. I'm out there on the streets, Adam.

1:14:03Josh Larsen:For Mikey, a review we got wrong, Dune and Dune Part 2. I think with enough patience, these movies are aesthetically rich and thematically profound. Though Josh and Adam didn't deride the films, I didn't get the enthusiasm I was hoping for towards such a top quality fantasy blockbuster.

1:14:22Adam Kempenaar:Not much enthusiasm, no.

1:14:24Josh Larsen:I mean, I feel like I'm getting roped into your lack of enthusiasm, Adam. I do appreciate - I don't know how you feel, really. I can't remember. I'm saying I'm not enthusiastic. I know you are, and I'm taking the blame for it. I'm positive on both films. Maybe I'm not quite as enthusiastic as Mikey, I guess. Okay. As for a movie that Mikey credits with becoming a cinephile, Captain America, The Winter Soldier, saw it in theaters when I was 12. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Mikey, for joining the family and for listening. You can follow Mikey on Letterboxd at MikeyRogers58. This response to the questionnaire we got from Michael said, not on Letterboxd yet, but may bite the bullet soon.

1:15:08Josh Larsen:You should do that, Michael.

1:15:09Adam Kempenaar:It's a lot of fun. If we're throwing out cliches, bite the bullet, take the plunge, do whatever you have to do, Michael. It's worth it. More about joining the Film Spotting family is available at filmspottingfamily.com. You get to listen early and ad free. You get access to that Film Spotting family only feed that lets you listen ad free, whether it's on Apple, Spotify, whatever platform you choose. You get our weekly newsletter. You get access to the Film Spotting Family Discord. You also get access to our monthly bonus shows. We have not yet taped it, but coming soon, you will hear our August Blindspotting discussion of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure from 1997.

1:15:56Adam Kempenaar:That's an interesting film. Will be an interesting one. Put me through the ringer. Yeah. to have a dialogue about. That's streaming on the Criterion channel and available VOD. We plan to drop that in your family feed on August 30th. And in September, trivia spotting exclusive for family members. So if you would like to play trivia spotting, you got to be a film spotting family member. Check your email. You should have an invite in your email. RSVP for that. If you would like to play, remember the promo code is summer And it is only available through August 31st to take 20 % off filmspottingfamily.com.

1:16:36What if we're supposed to suffer here? Happy birthday! What if that's the point? I'll do it. For you.

1:16:49Adam Kempenaar:It's time for some golden brick spotting. It ends is new in theaters this weekend. Again, a car full of recent grads heads out for a final hang before they go their separate ways. A wrong turn puts them on an unfamiliar road that seems to never end. The plot description available online, Josh, refers to it as a two-lane hellscape. You have seen It Ends, which is from first-time feature writer, director Alexander Ulam. producer sam suggests that i should ask you if hellscape is an accurate description but what producer sam doesn't know and what you don't know is that i have a pretty good idea whether or not hellscape is accurate because it turns out that just prior to sitting down to record this show with you do you fit it in i managed to fit in it and nice now i do feel like i am still processing this film.

1:17:46Adam Kempenaar:I want to leave the review officially up to you. But I can co-sign any recommendation of this and do feel like it is deserving of any golden brick nomination that you may give it. This is a really good film. The question I'm most eager to ask you is, is Gen Z okay?

1:18:14Josh Larsen:No, no, they're not. And they shouldn't be. Think of what they're going through. Now, here's the other question. Does It Ends directly address specifically what they're going through in this moment in time? Does it address what anyone graduating from college is going through? I think for me, it's maybe somewhere in the middle, which is partly why I think it's a really good movie is because it's topical but universal.

1:18:46Adam Kempenaar:Yes.

1:18:47Josh Larsen:Specific but universal enough. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To the hellscape question, I think what I would tell people, I do not want to spoil anything because I had no idea beyond that basic premise where this was going. It definitely begins like a waiting for Godot type puzzler. existential, you know, vaguely allows you to ruminate on these big questions. And just before the title drops, takes a, shall we see a zombie movie like turn, though this is not a zombie movie. It is not. I want to be clear about that. But it makes a turn that brings it a little closer to maybe a hellscape. but really what I loved about this is it's a malleable metaphor movie, but it's not so vague that it means nothing, but it could precisely mean a lot of things to different people because of the care that a Lomaz writer-director making his feature debut puts into this and the details of this constricted world that he provides.

1:19:55Josh Larsen:I think it allows you to think that this could be about a number of things. For me, most richly, it is about the obvious question of, am I now going to enter the monotony of responsible adulthood? That's the universal part, right? At the same time, I'm eager to see what other interpretations people have, specifically moviegoers of the age of these characters and see how it resonates with them because I think it has that power. I also want to call out the lead performance. Well, it's not a lead performance. It's maybe the lead of this ensemble. I think it is. Which, yeah, Phineas Ewan as James, who is this cynical, sarcastic, very funny, the kind of guy who says no offense to his friend, and then you know is going to follow it with something quite offensive.

1:20:49Josh Larsen:He's a cervic.

1:20:50Adam Kempenaar:It's a sharp performance.

1:20:51Josh Larsen:It's a sharp performance, but then on top of that, he finds ways to layer it with gestures that speak to the deep emotionality going inside this young man as well. The one that comes back to me, and maybe this was written to the script, but it's where he writes in marker his name on the headrest at one point, and then just slowly smudges it out. and the sense of sort of resignation and loss and the loss of yearning. It's not even that he's yearning. It's like the loss of yearning that that communicates. It's an incredible performance, I think, in this movie. And Olam as director, too, manages ways.

1:21:37Josh Larsen:I think here's where it's golden brick worthy is not only the idea, the sort of clever visionary idea, But the filmmaking here really manages to make this constricted setting compelling. I keep thinking of a shot, which we've seen a million times, the cameras inside the car looking outside as they're just driving past these woods continually, right? And in the same shot, you see the trees blurring by outside the window, but he also has the side mirror, which is capturing the trees blurring from another angle. And it's on the same shot. And the way that just, you know, evokes their experience of the bizarre passing of space and time is it's just a really visually insightful touch that I think this movie is full of.

1:22:28Josh Larsen:So, yeah, but what did I totally, you know, you having just seen it, I can't imagine the way your mind is worrying, not because it's so puzzling, but because it opens so many possibilities, I feel like.

1:22:39Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, no, I had a similar reaction, I think, to you in that the Yoon performance stood out very much to me. I do think the overarching metaphor of it seems very malleable. I think that's the right term. I think a lot of different people could attach their own significance to it. At the same time, it feels very much of this generation. I have to imagine that people graduating like these characters are going to have are going to feel a bit more potency are going to feel a little bit more indicted the wrong the wrong word because it's not an assault on them necessarily. But they're going to feel a little bit more of an attachment, if you will, to these characters.

1:23:24Adam Kempenaar:The the thing that surprised me about it is that it is a high concept. there's no doubt and it's a minimalist type film and so as a viewer if you're captivated enough by it if you're intrigued enough by it as i was you can't help but think where is this going how is this journey going to end i don't know that any ending can be 100 satisfying And I don't know if it is 100 % satisfying, but at the same time, watching it, I was so pleasantly surprised with how effectively Ulam kept it feeling vibrant, kept it feeling like there was always something new. that there was not only something new always to look at the way these characters were finding ways to pass the time finding new ways to emotionally challenge themselves to have new ways that they were that they were in tension with each other and intention with themselves that that's that's one of the the challenges as a viewer watching the film is just thinking how are we going to pass the time with these characters and keep it interesting and keep it from getting monotonous.

1:24:55And it didn't feel that way.

1:24:57Adam Kempenaar:It never got to that point for me with these characters.

1:25:02Josh Larsen:Yeah. I'd agree. And to your point about the ending is, yeah, when you come up with a high concept like this, you're setting yourself up to fail with an ending that's going to be completely satisfying for everyone. I kind of loved where this ended with a mixture of mystery and humor.

1:25:18Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. And without undercutting anything that came before, I feel like.

1:25:25Josh Larsen:So that is, again, for a emerging filmmaker, that is a challenge you set for yourself. not only the box visually, physically you've placed yourself in, but also having to come up with a resolution to this concept. And I think Ola manages both pretty impressively.

1:25:46Adam Kempenaar:We really can't get into this because it would be spoiler, but I'm just going to ask you this generally anyway. The number 90 seconds has significance in this film. Yeah. Do you have a theory on that? Have you researched that?

1:26:00Josh Larsen:I haven't why why exactly that amount of time no I've I've researched other bizarre things related to this movie but not that so you've piqued my curiosity do you have something

1:26:14Adam Kempenaar:I think I have something okay it can't be random right no it just it just cannot be why would it be that why would it be that number it can't be right no it just it simply can't be And so I think I have a theory. I don't think it's that incredible, that remarkable, but it seems kind of obvious to me or it just pedestrian, if you will, but I don't know what else it could be in relation to this film and the state that these characters are in. But I'm just curious and I'll have to run it by you off air and see what you think. Oh, because it would spoil. It would spoil. It would it would give away it would certainly give away the state these characters are in, which I don't think we want to get into those kind of details.

1:27:05Adam Kempenaar:OK, fair enough. At this at this point for for people who are coming to this this movie, this movie fresh. And we are recommending that people see it ends. And we are we are going to add it to our list of golden brick nominees over at filmspotting.net. It opens in limited release this weekend. What are you doing here? I'm coming with you. No. Please get out. I can't. I made a double bet with Ken. And you can't make me look uncool in front of Ken. Ken's not cool! He is to me. Time to take a look at some poll results. A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to choose a director's third feature that was released since 2020.

1:27:44Adam Kempenaar:I said this wasn't arbitrary. It's not arbitrary. But now you're going to have to remind me what the tie-in to the show was.

1:27:55Josh Larsen:oh my gosh um what third feature were we discussing on the show a recent wow adam you're

1:28:03Adam Kempenaar:really you're really putting us both on the spot it's it's too late as we're recording we're failing our producer sam we are failing oh jane schoenbrunn of course in teenage sex and death at camp of course the of course the answer is that obvious the movie the movie that we both think is the best of the year so far that we just reviewed two shows ago is the tie-in for this poll question

1:28:26Josh Larsen:sometimes doing this show is like being in a car on a road that just never interesting and you forget you forget like what what show you did when and they blend together josh and

1:28:37Adam Kempenaar:where where is the turn we miss it i think we missed it so your options were these greta gerwig's barbie ari astor's beau is afraid brady corbez the brutalist olivia wilds the invite chloe zhao's nomadland jordan peels nope robert agers the northman or you could go other right in a candidate that we failed to include in the poll josh how did it come out always notable when

1:29:11Josh Larsen:other is not in last place and in this case it is not last place goes to ari astor's beau is afraid with 4 % of the vote. Other did get 5%. And then right there with those two is Robert Eggers, the Northman with 6%. Chloe Zhao's No Man Land, 8 % of the vote. The Brutalist, 9%. A little jump up here for the invite. Obviously the most recent option in this poll. The invite still received 12 % of the vote. I mean, that's pretty impressive actually, but it was going to come down to these two nope and barbie barbie took it 31 of the vote for the win that means 26 went to nope

1:29:50Adam Kempenaar:but yeah greta gerwig for the win here almost a third going to greta gerwig and barbie here's andy bucati he says when you factor in the degree of difficulty of taking the general concept of freaking barbie and turning it into a film actually i'm i'm not familiar with that version of barbie freaking barbie what what store is that available at and turning it into a film that appealed to all ages and genders, appealed to the masses and the arthouse crowds and the critics, was the highest grossing film domestically the entire year, and garnered copious end-of-year accolades, including eight Oscar nominations.

1:30:22Adam Kempenaar:What an accomplishment. And yet, despite all that, it's still her third best film. What a filmmaker.

1:30:28Josh Larsen:I mean, freaking Barbie, clearly weird Barbie's sister, Adam. Good point. You're right. All right. Devin Suber wrote in, most filmmakers would kill to have a scene half as good as the Star Lasso experience. Incredibly, it's not even the best sequence in the film. Gordy's home, raining blood. And don't even get me started about seeing inside jean jacket. Still one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen. Nope was my number one film of 2022 from the moment I saw it. Practically as soon as those scenes hit. And nothing could ever even begin to dislodge it. Along with Schoenbrunn, Peel is one of those filmmakers you only need to mention to get my butt in that seat.

1:31:07Adam Kempenaar:Here's Rob Steger. It could be recency bias, but the invite really knocked me flat, so I'm giving it a slight edge over nope today. And Josh, you know this. I didn't think there was well, it's not that I didn't have good or high expectations for the invite after your high praise and all the good buzz. But it didn't seem that likely that a feature by Olivia Wilde was going to fare well in any poll that I'm voting in after my mixed take on Booksmart and my very negative take on Don't Worry Darling. but having now had the pleasure of catching up with the invite, it's one of the films of the year.

1:31:48Adam Kempenaar:Love it. Very easily.

1:31:49Josh Larsen:You're on board. Very easily. And I imagine if it came out a year ago and we did this poll, it would be giving Barbie some pretty tough competition. Yeah, maybe so. Here's Patrick. The esteemed Sam Van Halgren gave No Man Land five stars on Letterboxd, which is my vote. That is all. The defense rests. Okay, Patrick.

1:32:10Adam Kempenaar:It, you know, it gives me no pleasure to, to ridicule Chloe Zhao or Francis McDormand. But, but Patrick, you know, that, you know, that Sam is wildly incorrect sometimes, right? Just wildly off base.

1:32:24Josh Larsen:But, but usually not positively, right? I mean, well, you're right. Wait, that's no way. I forgot about Temple of Doom. Nevermind. Take that back. Sam, Sam, cut that out.

1:32:37Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Good point. Here's Kyle Cresce. Bo is afraid without question. So Kyle somehow made up all 4%, just hitting the vote over and over again. Bo is afraid without question. So deeply unhinged and chaotic, but Astor is always in control. It's one of the most overlooked films of the decade. And as time goes on and Astor's career continues, it will be looked back on as a masterpiece. Well, now we at least know what Kyle's, or I should say, what Ari Astor's gnome to plume is. It's Kyle Cricé.

1:33:09Josh Larsen:That is bold, Kyle. We shall see. You may prevail in the end. Here's our friend Jeffrey Overstreet. It's between Gerwig and Peel. Both third films delivered on the promise of the previous two and made me all the more eager to see what comes next. But wait, we're forgetting someone. Doesn't director Tom Moore qualify? The master of Cartoon Saloon's innovative animation studio directed The Secret of Cowles in 2010, then Song of the Sea in 2014, and then Wolfwalkers in 2020. I'd argue that Wolfwalkers is the most visually enthralling of the three. We find him elaborating on the stylistic strength of the first two.

1:33:44Josh Larsen:If I learned that new films from Moore, Peel, and Gerwig were opening next weekend, I'd buy tickets for all three, but I'd go for Moore's first and maybe more than once. Okay.

1:33:57Adam Kempenaar:I love the take. I love it. Anytime someone's advocating for a filmmaker that certainly is not getting enough attention, but I have a feeling if we included Tom Moore in the poll, he would have gotten less of a percentage than Ari Aster.

1:34:13Josh Larsen:I think that's probably true. It's, it's just, you know, a little bit of an animation bias or should I say animation awareness? Those are all great films, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I could put them up against Nope or Barbie.

1:34:26Adam Kempenaar:A few more here, JP Aguirre. I will definitely have to vote for other for B. Gon's masterpiece Resurrection. I don't think any film has blown me away in originality and ambition as this one. Not only do I think it's one of the best films of this decade, but for me, might be one of the best of all time. The others are Kaylee Blues. Is that is that Kaylee Blues, Josh? That's what it looks like as it's spelled in front of me. I haven't seen it, nor have I seen Long Day's Journey into Night from 2018. I am sadly deficient when it comes to that filmmaker.

1:34:58Josh Larsen:JP is shaming us both here. So I'm afraid I can't help you out. Mark Friedman says this Todd field deserves this nod for tar. He moved out of the small slash searing family drama and into a different realm of epic, big personality tragedy with tar. And he guided an already great actor Blanchett toward her all time greatest performance. and yeah Todd Field in the bedroom and little children before this didn't he come up when yeah

1:35:25Adam Kempenaar:there was discussion of the poll we certainly knew that he qualified we just all felt like it was a different poll with Todd Field in it it yeah it didn't feel like the same generation of filmmakers and that is certainly the case if we're including RMP's vote which is Victor Orise, who also has just three, The Spirit of the Beehive from 1973 and El Sur from 1983. And amazingly, 2023's Close Your Eyes, he has my vote for that last one and my gratitude for them all. I've only seen The Spirit of the Beehive. So thank you for reminding us.

1:36:01Josh Larsen:I like where RMP is going. I've seen that and Close Your Eyes made my top 10 list that year. So, but again, yeah, again, it's, um, it's a situation of the space between those films is just different than the experience we were thinking of when we look at who was in the poll where these are filmmakers who were had in succession, building excitement, building expectation. Um, little different there in the case of Erise, but close your eyes.

1:36:27Adam Kempenaar:Great film. I knew close your eyes sounded familiar and I'm, I'm trying to kind of quickly. Yeah. I'm trying to look up to see whether or not I had actually seen it and I was speaking out of turn and I, I have seen it and I was very favorable on it. So we must've talked about it on the show. And it turns out only El Sur is one or the one of those three films that I have not seen. Thank you to everyone who wrote in and shared your feedback and everyone who voted in that poll. The new deeply flawed film spotting poll is inspired by this weekend's re-release of T2 judgment day. We're asking you to choose one and only one nineties movie villain.

1:37:08Josh Larsen:Josh, the choices are agent Smith from the matrix, Annie Wilkes. I should pause between each of these. So, so listeners can get a chance to, you know, who's Annie? Oh, misery. That's right. Okay. This one's obvious. Hannibal Lecter, the silence of the lambs. How about John Doe? That's seven scar. Of course the lion King T 1000, obviously Terminator two judgment day. And yes, we will have the category of other, a lot of suggestions on the film spotting discord, which is a benefit for film spotting family members. people there threw out Nicholas Cage's Caster Troy from Face Off, Billy Zanes, Cal Hockley in Titanic, Warden Norton, Shawshank Redemption.

1:37:54Josh Larsen:Wow. How about this? Shooter McGavin, the villain, Adam, of Happy Gilmore. Guys are so safe, of course, usual suspects. And I don't know, Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs, is he a villain? Are you going to bark all day, little doggy? Are you going to bite? I mean, I guess. Yeah. I guess. I wouldn't want to hang out with him. Unforgiven. We could also include little bill someone suggested. So yeah, I don't know. Do you have an obvious answer from the official options?

1:38:21Adam Kempenaar:It's tough because all of those choices feel pretty good to me. And if you look at, like I hadn't looked at this list before we put this poll, but as I Google it and you look at the AFI 100 years, 100 heroes and villains list, you've got naturally as you'd expect hannibal lecter's number one so you've got a 90s movie villain at number one you've got i'm sure there's other a few other 90s 1990s villains on there uh you know who actually one of them is that isn't on this list annie wilkes is on the list number 17 amon goath from schindler's list oh interesting wow so i could see that the these feel like pretty iconic intense scary movie villains from the 90s it depends on how you're approaching it obviously as always going back to what you said though if you are taking that to heart i am only taking that to heart because josh when i first saw for example agent smith it's kind of easy for me to write off agent smith because there's nothing really compelling about agent smith it's just a machine and that's kind of true with the t2 now t2 is more interesting to me the t1000 is more interesting to me for whatever reason maybe it's just nostalgia then you know i was younger and i feel like he's visually more interesting too yeah and i just have i was younger when i saw the movie i have a stronger attachment to the film there's something about that that character that i'm drawn to more but something about agent smith is just kind of i don't really care that much i i'm more interested in john doe i'm more interested in hannibal lecter even because hannibal lecter at least is provocative hannibal lecter at least makes us question things about us right and the nature of good and evil and and and we're drawn to him even though we're also terrified by him and we we find him repulsive in so many ways whereas agent smith is just whatever he's just there to stop us from doing that's fair good thing so good performance great like sure you know yeah but yeah i see what you're saying and and scar kind of similarly is like scar is just a bad lion or whatever who cares whoa whoa

1:40:53Josh Larsen:and i love jeremy irons but okay now if we go with the construct the theory that i said at the top that a good villain you can sim have sympathy for or you can understand the motivation car josh that's scar right that's scar he's i haven't seen it he's the overlooked brother like you know So I can sort of understand where Sky is coming from. But this is, I'm going to go your way. You often feel like there's a clear answer. Like there's, you know, there's a Mount Rushmore, right? A singular, in this case, there's only one face that should be on the 90s villain. Cockadoodle answer. Yes.

1:41:38Adam Kempenaar:Is there? Did I guess right? There's Hannibal Lecter. Oh, okay. I thought you were going to go with Andy Wilkes. No, yeah, it's Hannibal Lecter, of course. It's Hannibal. I mean, this is - It's like, what is this? What are we doing here?

1:41:49Josh Larsen:What are we doing? I know. And I don't even, I have no sympathy for Hannibal Lecter or even want to understand his motivation. So I'm going against my own reasoning here.

1:42:00Adam Kempenaar:Most interesting character, most interesting performance. It's, yeah. Okay. Iconic, unquestionably the most iconic. Let's proceed anyway and let's see if we're both wrong. We'll pretend this is actually a poll question and we'll, we'll mock everybody who voted for someone else. And we'll, that sounds like fun. We'll pretend to read their comments with interest. Exactly. Okay. I could do it. Okay. Vote and leave a comment at filmspotting.net. We'll share the results and your comments in a couple of weeks. Josh, that is our show.

1:42:31Josh Larsen:If you want to connect with us on social media, you can find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, Letterboxd, YouTube, and Blue Sky at filmspotting. I'm at Larson on film. We are independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the film spotting family at film spotting family.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 film spotting.net slash shop. Bad lion is definitely the next name of my band.

1:43:06Adam Kempenaar:American doctors playing at the gene Cisco film center. That's documentary about three American doctors saving lives while risking their own in Gaza. Colony is the latest from the director of Train to Busan. Idiots, it's about two idiots of the title, Dave Franco and O'Shea Jackson Jr. They're hired to transfer a rich teen to rehab. It's written and directed by Macon Blair. The Sun Never Sets is the latest from Joe Swanberg. It stars Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson, and Corey Michael Smith. It ends also out in limited release and recommended by both of us in wide release. You can see buddy kids, TV star, buddy, an orange unicorn starts to crack when a kid refuses to play along.

1:43:46Adam Kempenaar:Our friend, Isaac Feldberg says, good God, this goes so much harder than you're expecting. The cast includes Kristen Milioti, Keegan, Michael key, Michael Shannon, and Patton Oswalt. I I'm in. We've got a, we've got a congratulate Isaac too. Oh, I saw that new gig at letter letterbox. So very exciting news. Congrats, Isaac. Yeah. Coyote versus Acme is being seen by people on screens. Wile E. Coyote, Sue's Acme Corp. With Will Forte and John Cena. T2 Judgment Day, 35th anniversary re-release. We'll go ahead and tell people now. We will be late to this because it's coming out in theaters now. But we do have this penciled in a few weeks from now to revisit this as a sacred cow.

1:44:32Adam Kempenaar:So it should be fun if that does indeed come to fruition. Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars with Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley, and Josh Brolin is also out. Next week in your film spotting feed, The Movie Racket with Michael Phillips returns. Here is the law of motion pictures they will be wrestling with. It's a Samuel Golden quote. I love it. It's going to be a great show. Pictures are for entertainment. Messages should be delivered by Western Union. I like that one. They'll debate it. Tuesday on FilmSpotting SVU, it's Desert Warrior on Hulu, a seventh century Arabia set epic with Anthony Mackie, Sharon Copley, and Ben Kingsley.

1:45:13Adam Kempenaar:It's directed by Rupert Wyatt, who made Rise of the Planet of the Apes. On Thursday, it's part two of the next picture shows pairing with The End of Oak Street and Steven Spielberg's The War of the Worlds. And then this is going to be great. on Friday, film spotting, a draft, me, you, Roxanna Haddadi, drafting Ridley Scott films.

1:45:35Josh Larsen:You know what I just picked up from the library today? What? My DVD of G.I. Jane. Oh, I haven't seen it. I've never seen. No. There you go.

1:45:44Adam Kempenaar:I do have maybe three other Ridley Scott films I kind of want to watch ahead of G.I. Jane.

1:45:52Josh Larsen:Yeah, I get it.

1:45:53Adam Kempenaar:I don't know if the draft will actually go that deep that I need to watch these films, but I kind of want to watch them. And you never know.

1:46:01Josh Larsen:You're saying I'll watch G.I.J. You're saying Roxanna or maybe I'm not going to take G.I. Jane, number one.

1:46:07Adam Kempenaar:I don't know. Not number one. I have a pretty good feeling about that. So we do have to find out who's going to draft first, what the order is going to be. Yes. Who's going to be so unlucky as to not get Alien or Blade Runner? Who's going to have to pick G.I. Jane third? that's what we'll have to find out with the draft order look forward to that draft coming Friday

1:46:26Josh Larsen:Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Desso 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 and I'm Adam Kempinar thanks for listening this conversation can serve no purpose anymore goodbye

1:47:13Adam Kempenaar:We'll see you next time.

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