What Is Hulu’s Desert Warrior and Who Is It For? | SVU

19:24Matt Singer:I think I was more impressed with the visuals than you were. I mean, there's shot of like there's all these wolves and they get the rods and cones reflecting in their eyes. And then like when they go to the bazaar and there's like a guy with a giant blue fish on his head and all the women have veils and all the ancient coins and stuff.

19:42Jordan Hoffman:It's like they spent a lot of money on this movie and it looks like it on the screen. It does not sound like they spent a lot of money on like the script. And that is the other big issue.

19:57Matt Singer:They did not. They went into production too soon or something. Or who knows. They just didn't have – I don't understand how they would do that.

20:05Jordan Hoffman:I think this is the problem is that it is a – just a total muddle of – I don't know that they ever figured out who are we making this movie for. Because as you're saying, we do not know this history, but it could potentially be a very fascinating story to learn. It seems like from what we see and what we as ignoramuses can gather from this movie, it seems like a potentially fascinating story. You have this like queen uniting these disparate tribes in a battle against this emperor. That could be pretty interesting. But the – you know, you compared it to like an AI film in terms of the construction of it.

20:49Jordan Hoffman:The screenplay, yeah.

20:50Matt Singer:Yeah.

20:50Jordan Hoffman:The comparison that I made as I was watching it, and maybe this is a very personal comparison, but sometimes I have these nightmares where I am in a play that I have not rehearsed and I do not know the lines. And I am told, well, the play is starting. Get out there and perform your part. And you just have to wing it. And watching this movie, I just had the feeling of being in the middle of that dream. It's like I don't know who anyone is. I don't know how any of these tribes relate to one another. The movie assumes that I know who everyone is. And there is a brief kind of like series of title cards at the beginning that I guess is supposed to explain it.

21:35Jordan Hoffman:Not enough. But it feels like the information or the knowledge you're supposed to bring, it feels like it was made for a Saudi Arabian audience that already has a base level of knowledge. But on the other hand, they've cast all these American actors doing ridiculous Saudi Arabian accents, you know, talking. And I'm almost insulted on behalf of the Saudi people. Our tribes had killed each other for centuries. I know they are not your favorite neighbors, but they are good fighters. How do you beat an empire? We fight this battle together. Are you with me?

22:16Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The Friends and Family Sale is here at Apple Vacations. Book by September 24th and save up to 50 % on all-inclusive vacations with instant savings. Whether it's a getaway with friends or a family vacation, there's always a reason to make more memories with your favorite people. Travel through August 2027 and start planning your getaway today at AppleVacations.com or with your trusted travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. On Big Lives, we take a single cultural icon. People like Jane Fonda, George Michael, Richard Pryor. And we pull apart the story behind the image.

22:57And we do this by digging through the BBC's vast archive. We're talking iconic moments in broadcast history. I'm not just a boxer. I'm educated. I can talk all week on millions of subjects. And forgotten interviews that change how we see these giants of our culture. Well, if changing the system from the ground up is revolutionary, then I'm revolutionary. We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes. I mean, when I go on stage, I like to dress as slutty as possible because it makes me dance better for some reason. I'm Emmanuel Jochi. I'm Kai Wright. And this is Big Lives.

23:32Listen to Big Lives on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get podcasts.

23:40Dear honeys, this is goodbye. In February of 2024, celebrated illustrator and children's book author Petra Mathers and her husband Michael mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know that they had died by suicide. By the time you get this letter, both Petra and I will be dead. Next stop, Wonderland. Petra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they do it? And what did it do to the people they left behind? I would have given a million reasons to not leave this world had I known. I keep coming back to, I truly hope that Petra was a thousand percent on board with the plan.

24:23Do you think of him as having killed her? Yes, I do. I hold Michael responsible for my mother's death. I'm Leon Nafok. And I'm Alice Gregory. Together, we set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael's letters. As one married couple, trying to understand another. Listen to Death of an Artist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That call was really pivotal for me. Hey, it's Emily Tisch-Sussman, and this season on She Pivots, the podcast where women share bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything. I sit down with culture-shifting women who share their pivots, like Paralympian Allie Truitt.

25:02I was like, I'm a month out from a shark attack. There's no way in 11 months I'm making the Paralympics. Advocate Elizabeth Smart. I still feel that drive that I can still make a difference, so I'm going to keep going. Celebrity chef Carla Hall. Was that scary to walk away from such a stable career after just two years? No. I was more afraid of being unhappy than I was broke in a dead-end job that I didn't enjoy. And feminist legend Gloria Steinem. All of us were trying to express women's real lives. We need a meeting place of our own. And if I can contribute to that, I'd like to maintain that and leave this house for that purpose.

25:40Listen to She Pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

25:46Matt Singer:Shout out to Redcliffe because that was a history and a group of tribes that I had no knowledge of. I sat down to watch that movie and I got it, you know. And so it can be done. But Rupert Wyatt and Jeremy Bolt and David Self, they all failed here. I mean, or the Saudi financiers who were really in charge, they all failed. And it's upsetting. But I do want to say, I've already said the nice things about the look. There is one sequence in this movie that really does kick ass. Okay. And that's truly the only sequence with Ben Kingsley. Ben Kingsley's in one extended sequence, then he shows up at the very end for like a shot.

26:28Matt Singer:Yeah. And it took me a little while to realize this scene is 100 % ripped off from Return of the Jedi. It's the scene at Jabba's Palace.

26:36Jordan Hoffman:He is. Oh, well, he is the emperor. I mean, you mentioned Braveheart, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was a movie that was thrown out by these screenwriters. because they're clearly trying to use Western storytelling tropes in this historical fiction. And I thought of Star Wars too. You've got – I mean, Anthony Mackie is basically like Han Solo, the charming – the charming bandit who gets mixed up with the princess or the queen. And at first he's a mercenary, but then he kind of becomes a hero. Yeah.

27:13Matt Singer:But you're underselling it. Oh, sorry. Ben Kingsley is sitting there. I mean, he is not an obese man. So that's why I didn't immediately say Jabba. It's as if Jabba went on Ozempic. That's when he would become Ben Kingsley. So he's sitting there and beneath him is a pit. And they have his Rancor monster. I forgot. I think, I don't know what it was, but they throw his - His enemy. His enemies into the pit. Yeah. And this monster comes and crushes his skull. And then there's another guy like Salacious Crumb, who's just like giggling. And then there's somebody else. That's my Salacious Crumb impression.

27:55Matt Singer:If you remember, Jabba grabs like a frog and eats it. An alien and eats it.

28:00Jordan Hoffman:Yes. Out of like a big goopy jar. Yeah.

28:02Matt Singer:Yes. In this sequence, somebody not Ben Kingsley. He probably, it was probably originally supposed to be him. And he's like, no, no darling. No darling. That shan't be me. somebody else grabs a live turtle rips the shell off and starts licking the interior of the shell and i'm like that's cinema baby that's that's the saudi money you know when we when we go to gulf oil and fill up our subaru that's where it's going to finance this and it's worth it i'm telling you um no i felt pretty good about about that sequence and i'm like oh is the rest of the movie going to be Ben Kingsley, you know, in Jabba's palace.

28:42Matt Singer:And then we never went back there. And I'm like, bring back Ben Jabba Kingsley.

28:46Jordan Hoffman:I was surprised that he didn't have at least one more scene. I mean, it is a.

28:51Matt Singer:And they must have paid him so much.

28:53Jordan Hoffman:He must have been paid a fortune.

28:54Matt Singer:Yes. Four million. I bet you he got paid four million to fly, to do, you know, a day of. This was like a true. A day of costuming and a day of shooting.

29:03Jordan Hoffman:This was a true, like when Bruce Willis was cranking out those movies and he was basically just paid an obscene day rate. And you would go, why would he make these movies? And of course, later we learned he had health issues and whatnot. But literally, it was because he would show up and they would pay him like whatever, hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. And he would shoot like two days. And here probably, yeah, Ben Kingsley probably did one or two days max on this movie.

29:27Matt Singer:And stayed, I'm sure, at a very nice hotel. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. You could just imagine. So anyway, should I tell you my Ben Kingsley story?

29:35Jordan Hoffman:Can I say one more thing about the movie before you give us an absurd anecdote that goes on for minutes on end? Yes, darling, of course. I do want to – you said that you were – the thing you complimented was the look of the movie. And there are aspects of this movie that do look good. But I do want to ask you and complain about the big climactic battle. The whole film leads to – it's not an assault on the Death Star, but it is this – it's more Braveheart. It is this epic battle in the desert. And there are some moments that are cool. There's like tactics involved and flanks and strategy. and there's catapults.

30:16Jordan Hoffman:Poison, good use of poison also. Good use, very good use of poison actually. But then there is like sword fighting and hand-to-hand combat. And at that point, there is so much dirt and schmutz in the air. And it becomes this movie that the only good thing about it is the visual quality. I was just very disappointed that we get to this big battle at the end. And so much of it is, you know, and it's shot in broad daylight. But they are in a desert, so there's going to be a lot of dirt. I mean, come on. It gets a little dirty. Jordan, I thought about this too. I'm like, I'm sure that this is the kind of thing that perhaps could happen.

30:57Jordan Hoffman:I didn't Google this one like I Googled the eyeliner. I didn't care that much. But if this is accurate, this is one of those times where accuracy is not the friend of the filmmaker. I've sat through two hours of this movie for this battle. Let me see what is going on. And if it's because that you can't afford special effects and digital effects good enough to hide the seams, that's not a good enough excuse in a movie that's a visual spectacular that you spent 150 million bucks on. I was just so disappointed that I sat through this movie, which if it was not for doing this for the podcast, I honestly probably would have turned it off eventually.

31:35Jordan Hoffman:I make it to the end. It's the big battle. and you can't see what's going on because they're fighting in a giant dust cloud. I was slightly infuriated.

31:45Matt Singer:But I mean, what they were, they had used, there were elephants like tanks. They had these giant stomping elephants straight out of Lord of the Rings.

31:53Jordan Hoffman:Which you can barely see because of the dirt and the schmutz.

31:56Matt Singer:Because these elephants aren't real. They're computer generated. So they had to cover it a little bit.

32:01Jordan Hoffman:I was really annoyed.

32:03Matt Singer:But they would cut to the interior and you're like, where is the interior? Then you see they would build these huts on the top of these stomping elephants that were like smushing the bad guys. I gave it a pass only because it was an elephant. Oh, and then there's another bit where they have a catapult and they fling. Yeah, I mentioned the catapults. Yeah, but you didn't mention what they did. I don't want to spoil it for people. Nobody's going to watch this movie. They fling meat at the bad guys. And you go, why are they flinging meat? Right. And then once there's enough meat around the bad guys, they release these jaguars or whatever the hell they are.

32:39Jordan Hoffman:Jackals, maybe hyenas. There weren't tigers.

32:41Matt Singer:They were big.

32:42Jordan Hoffman:No, they were smaller.

32:43Matt Singer:I thought they were jackals. Whatever they were, they had claws and fangs and they ripped the bad guys apart. Or maybe hyenas. Yeah, and it was pretty great.

32:52Jordan Hoffman:They stole that from RRR, though, a little bit. That was the highlight of the film. Then it got too dusty. I just think it's worth mentioning. In a movie where you're like, this movie looks spectacular. It's like there's an asterisk here, which is that, you know, spectacular until it really needs to look spectacular.

33:06Matt Singer:And then it falls apart. All right. Fair enough. Well, the movie stinks.

33:09Jordan Hoffman:Yeah. Tell me your Ben Kingsley story. I'm going to time it. Go. Oh, God.

33:18Matt Singer:The year was 2018. And Ben Kingsley was doing promotion for a movie, which actually I thought was pretty good, called Operation Finale. directed by Chris Weitz, Weitz, you know, real director, Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Melanie Laurent, others, Hayley Lou Richardson. And Ben Kingsley plays Adolf Eichmann in this movie. It's about how Eichmann was captured. Anyway, I go to interview Ben Kingsley and you've done a million celebrity interviews over the years. Nowadays, more of them are done over Zoom, which makes life a little easier. But back in the day, you used to have to go to a hotel and they would, you know, put, they would, the studio would rent two rooms and there'd be the room where you'd wait for your turn and then you'd go into a room and you'd sit in a hotel room with Ben Kingsley.

34:07Matt Singer:And a lot of times you do this and like you see other people, you know, because we're all in the same biz. Very, I think probably one of the funniest was Alan Alda was doing interviews for the movie Bridge of Spies. And I remember being in the room room with our mutual friend Mike Ryan. And we're both like, we're about to talk to Hawkeye. This is insane. And then I went first. So then he sat outside the room to listen to me talk to Hawkeye and then was live tweeting what I was talking about, which I thought was very funny. Anyway, so the point is this. I'm the only guy to talk to Ben Kingsley.

34:42Matt Singer:There's nobody else that wants to talk to him. And they put me in a room and it's like, usually it's like a hotel suite where there's like, you know, a table and multiple chairs. But this time there really wasn't. There was like the bed and there was like a chair at a desk. So I'm sitting on the chair. I immediately go to that. I'm like, I'm not sitting on Ben Kingsley's bed. So I sit on the desk chair and he's sitting on the bed. Now there's a little couch there. And that midway through, he goes, darling, let's continue this conversation over there on that couch. I'm like, all right, That does make sense.

35:19Matt Singer:So I do the conversation with Ben Kingsley side by side, like in a small little couch in the hotel room, like tiny, like my butt cheeks are touching his butt cheeks. That's how close we are on this couch. And all I can think about is like, who set this up? Nobody's comfortable right now. I mean, he's an actor, so it's his job to pretend that everything's fine. But I'm like, this is not normal. I should not be this close to Gandhi right now. Get me the hell out of here. And that's my Ben Kingsley story. I don't know. Maybe it's not that good of a story. Maybe Sam will cut that out.

35:56Jordan Hoffman:You sat next to him on a couch?

36:02Matt Singer:When was the last time your butt cheeks touched an Oscar winner? When was the last time?

36:08Jordan Hoffman:I, on the advice of counsel, I choose to invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege, is all I will say. You talked for two minutes and 55 seconds, and the punchline was, I sat on a couch with Ben Kingsley. That was the most Jordan moment of the podcast yet.

36:26Matt Singer:It's weird to be side by side having a conversation with Ben Kingsley. He's like centimeters from your face. And he's Ben Kingsley's impressive actor. Of course. The Mandarin from the MCU.

36:38Jordan Hoffman:And I bet he was paid a lot less to talk to you than he was to appear in this film, which is Desert Warrior, currently streaming on Hulu. Do not pay$6 to watch it like I did. If you're going to watch it, it should be on Hulu.

36:53Matt Singer:It does look nice. Watch clips on YouTube. But John Woo's Red Cliff is on Prime Video.

36:57Jordan Hoffman:Yes, we mentioned that a bunch.

36:59Matt Singer:And Operation Finale, which I just mentioned, is on Prime Video.

37:01Jordan Hoffman:Good movie.

37:01Matt Singer:That's right. I apologize to the listeners. I wasted a little bit of your time with my desultory story. Usually my stories are great. They're about Mario the Plumber. I don't know about that. That one you love. Sam loves Mario the Plumber. Mario the Plumber was a good story. It was better than Ben Kingsley.

37:18Jordan Hoffman:I'll give you that. Go back to episode three and listen to Mario the Plumber. Tell us your favorite Jordan story. Email us. Feedback at filmspottingsvu.com. It's time you become who you might be.

37:34All right.

37:35Jordan Hoffman:It's time for some recommendations. This is the recommendation segment, also known. Recksegg! Recksegg! The Recksegg! Recksegg! Jordan's taking off a sweatshirt. He's getting comfortable here. I can't wait to hear. He's got to be in total comfort. Disrobing, right? You're disrobing. Talking about sitting on a couch with Ben Kingsley is getting him a little warm, a little hot under the collar.

38:02Matt Singer:All right. Our thighs were touching. Every part of us were touching. as he's telling me about his process to play Adolf Eichmann, which is weird, weird on every level.

38:13Jordan Hoffman:All right. So our movie this week is Desert Warrior. You need something inspired by or related to Desert Warrior. Jordan, what do you got?

38:21Matt Singer:Well, obviously, I wanted to recommend Lawrence of Arabia, but I didn't do it. So what I said was, what's something else? And here's a movie that I've only seen one time. And I did not revisit for this because it just lingers so well in memory. Years ago, the year was 2002. I'm going to let you try to guess what movie this is. Early 2002, wintertime, February. And I was working, I was working a terrible job. I don't even want to tell you what I was doing. But a guy there was in the movies and he knew I was in the movies. He goes, have you seen the new movie directed by so-and-so? And I said, oh, you know, I kind of fell off.

38:56Matt Singer:I haven't watched his movies in a while. Is this one good? You got to go. I'm like, oh, what's it even about? Don't, just buy a ticket and go. And for some reason, I listened to him. I went downtown to, I believe, the Angelica Film Center in New York City, if I'm not mistaken. And I bought a ticket to a movie set in the desert that was unlike any film I'd seen before. The director's name is Gus Van Sant. Ah. The film stars Casey Affleck, who I'd probably, who I didn't know. Maybe I'd seen him in something beforehand, probably, but I didn't know him yet. And Matt Damon. They're both playing a guy named Jerry.

39:38Matt Singer:Maybe. We don't really know what their names are. We don't really know what the word Jerry means to them because they throw it around a lot. They use it like the Smurfs use the word Smurf. They just use the word Jerry a lot. The movie's called Jerry. Jerry is a movie about two schmucks who decide to go for a hike without bringing enough water or a good map or a compass. and they get lost and oh man, does it not work out for them. And it is what you call experiential cinema. And it just captivated me when I saw it. I really felt like I was dehydrated and going to pass out. That's how into it I was.

40:14Matt Singer:There's very little dialogue. And what I only learned a few hours ago when I was Googling this was that it's actually based on a true story, which I did not know and Gus Van Sant and the actors they knew they didn't learn too much about it they said we don't want to know too much about the case we just know that these two guys were hiking and they got lost and it didn't work out so well and I don't want to learn anymore because I don't want it to influence our process the other thing I learned is that originally they had intended it to be a traditional movie with dialogue and backstory and all that and then at some point along the way they said no There's going to be almost no talking.

40:54Matt Singer:And if there is talking, you don't have to really know what – it doesn't have to be about their lives. It can just be like, ah, shit, my foot hurts, that sort of thing. It was not – they didn't go into it saying we're doing a non-narrative experiential, hey, man, let's just go into the desert and film, man. And also originally it was going to be shot on digital video, which would have been – in 2002 it would have been pretty bad digital video if you ask me. they shot it on a 35 and it looks it looks great i mean we started going back the same way and then we stopped and we said that it didn't look right and then we went to the right for a little while so we were going east all right which is a total jerry because that's and when we're going east okay right and that's because we came up over the thing and we saw that whole layout and that must have been there was nothing there we didn't see anything for a while and then in the morning.

41:49Matt Singer:I wonder what it's like to watch Jerry at home on streaming, which you can do. I think if you dim the lights, man, and get all loose and maybe it'll work. The good news is that Jerry is streaming everywhere. Jerry is streaming. If you have a Amazon Prime subscription, you can watch it there. You can also watch it for free with a library card at Canopy and Hoopla. If you have none of those things, you can watch it for free on places like Pluto and Plex, although there will be ads. And I think that this might be one where you really don't want to have ads.

42:25Jordan Hoffman:Yeah, that could affect the spell it casts.

42:29Matt Singer:Yeah, yeah. You know, if anybody listening doesn't have a Hoopla or Canopy yet, just your library will take care of you. One or the other. It depends where you live. It might be that you're either a hoopla library or a canopy library. Some are both if you're in a very nice town. But if like in New York City, for example, they don't do – you can't do canopy in New York City, but you can do hoopla. I live – I have access to two counties in central Jersey and one is one and one is the other, blah, blah, blah. But hoopla and canopy are basically the same thing. And you can watch it without ads. That's my Jerry wreck.

43:05Matt Singer:Matt Singer, have you seen Jerry, Gus Van Sant's Jerry? It's part of a trilogy of movies with no story. It's this, it's Elephant, which is sort of about Columbine, but not really, which has a little bit more of a story. And then Last Days, which is about Kurt Cobain, but not enough that the lawyers get involved. It's about Blondie Mick guitar player who shoots himself in the Pacific Northwest. But he did a thing, man. He said, I'm going to make three movies about nothing. And he made it work.

43:33Jordan Hoffman:Jerry Seinfeld was very envious of that approach. yes i have seen jerry it is a good i don't know it's gonna that would be a tough one i don't know about watching it at home i've never seen it that way i don't know how well that would work but then again maybe it would what did you say get turn the lights off and get loose is that what producer sam

43:54Matt Singer:can you producer sam can you as you did some weeks ago cue up the opening music to riders on the storm by the doors again because that's that's what you need in your house you need to have your house suddenly go do do do do do do do and then the lights get low wind chimes maybe

44:15Matt Singer:and then yeah then the rain coming in and be like jerry on the storm it's jerry with a g by the way if you're googling your canopy and whatnot if you're googling your canopy hello are you googling your canopy over there if you're doing that it's jerry with a g get riders get sam to call you up and play Riders of the Storm. And that's right. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, you see it in the... That's why I haven't seen it since. I saw it in 2002 and I haven't seen it since. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The Friends and Family Sale is here at Apple Vacations. Book by September 24th and save up to 50 % on all-inclusive vacations with instant savings.

44:53Whether it's a getaway with friends or a family vacation, there's always a reason to make more memories with your favorite people. Travel through August 2027 and start planning your getaway today. at applevacations.com or with your trusted travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. On Big Lives, we take a single cultural icon. People like Jane Fonda, George Michael, Richard Pryor. And we pull apart the story behind the image. And we do this by digging through the BBC's vast archive. We're talking iconic moments in broadcast history. I'm not just a boxer. I'm educated. I can talk all week on millions of subjects.

45:34And forgotten interviews that change how we see these giants of our culture. Well, if changing the system from the ground up is revolutionary, then I'm revolutionary. We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes. I mean, when I go on stage, I like to dress as slutty as possible because it makes me dance better for some reason. I'm Emmanuel Jochi. I'm Kai Wright. And this is Big Lives. Listen to Big Lives on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get podcasts.

46:06Dear honeys, this is goodbye. In February of 2024, celebrated illustrator and children's book author Petra Mathers and her husband Michael mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know that they had died by suicide. By the time you get this letter, both Petra and I will be dead. Next stop, Wonderland. Petra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they do it? And what did it do to the people they left behind? I would have given a million reasons to not leave this world had I known. I keep coming back to, I truly hope that Petra was a thousand percent on board with the plan.

46:48Do you think of him as having killed her? Yes, I do. I hold Michael responsible for my mother's death. I'm Leon Nafok. And I'm Alice Gregory. Together, we set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael's letters. As one married couple trying to understand another. Listen to Death of an Artist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That call was really pivotal for me. Hey, it's Emily Tisch-Sussman. And this season on She Pivots, the podcast where women share bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything. I sit down with culture-shifting women who share their pivots, like Paralympian Allie Truitt.

47:27I was like, I'm a month out from a shark attack. There's no way in 11 months I'm making the Paralympics. Advocate Elizabeth Smart. I still feel that drive that I can still make a difference, so I'm going to keep going. Celebrity chef Carla Hall. Was that scary to walk away from such a stable career after just two years? No. I was more afraid of being unhappy than I was broke in a dead-end job that I didn't enjoy. And feminist legend Gloria Steinem. All of us were trying to express women's real lives. We need a meeting place of our own. And if I can contribute to that, I'd like to maintain that and leave this house for that purpose.

48:06Listen to She Pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

48:13Jordan Hoffman:Okay, here's my recommendation. Now, I did not like Desert Warrior. If that was not clear from the review. I feel like it makes previous film spotting SVU low watermark in the hand of Dante look like a taut thriller. Oh, no, this is better than in the hand of Dante. I don't know that I agree with that.

48:35Matt Singer:You just like seeing, what's his name? Jason Momoa? Yeah. You just like seeing him with an Italian accent saying, I am a pussycat. Like the pussycat. Quite curious.

48:50Jordan Hoffman:and in the case of Desert Warrior the fact that I did not like it is all the more frustrating because as we did say during the review this guy has made some good movies movies that I liked he made as we mentioned he made the first of the recent Planet of the Apes cycle Rise of the Planet of the Apes which is one of the more successful prequels in history I think great movie introduced you know I think the later ones are probably better and I think they got a lot more kind of praise. But the sort of foundation of that whole franchise was introducing Andy Serkis' mo-capped ape in the first one and was absolutely, especially for that time, just spectacular in terms of special effects and melding them into a film and creating this character that feels real, even though it's a totally digital creation.

49:43Jordan Hoffman:So I don't know, maybe he doesn't get enough credit for that. And then he also made the movie that I'm going to recommend. Oh. The 2014 remake of The Gambler. Now, this is...

49:57Matt Singer:Oh, wow.

49:58Jordan Hoffman:Wow.

49:59Matt Singer:I forgot about this.

50:00Jordan Hoffman:The original film was made in 1974, directed by, I guess it's probably Carol Reese. Carol Reese, yeah. And written by James Toback. The original one starred James Caan as a college English professor with a gambling addiction. And Rupert Wyatt's version has the same premise with a script by the departed screenwriter William Monaghan. And it's got Mark Wahlberg in the James Caan role. William Monaghan is not dead.

50:30Matt Singer:He wrote the movie The Departed. No. He wrote the movie The Departed.

50:35Jordan Hoffman:Yeah, but the way you said it, it made it sound like he was dead. Made it sound like he was departed? Okay. Yeah. Fine. The movie The Gambler got a 43 % on Rotten Tomatoes, has a 2.9 average on Letterboxd. Nobody likes this movie, but I like this movie. I do too. And, you know, Wahlberg's character is this failed novelist turned professor turned gambler. The nature of writing and writers is baked into the movie. And Wahlberg's character teaches his class in the film. We see him giving these long, pompous lectures to his students about the nature of genius and how if you're not born with God-given talent, you should not try to be a writer or anything artistic, really.

51:24Jordan Hoffman:and the movie itself it does have some writerly flair the dialogue i guess by monaghan or maybe by tobac or both has some real bite some real snap you get it's it's one of those fun movies that's fun to listen to people talk in and you've got these great supporting performances around mark wolberg you have guys like john goodman who looks like he's having a fabulous time really relishing. He plays this heavy who, after Mark Wahlberg goes deeply in debt, he needs to find someone to basically loan him the money to pay back the first people that he owes. And he has to turn to John Goodman's character, who is a guy you do not want to mess with.

52:08Listen to me. Listen to me. I'm not your doctor. I'm not your cognitive therapist, but let me be your uncle. You have to pay 10 % a week. I know what I have to do. Where are you going to get my money? I'll get the money. How much you want? I am$260 ,000 all in. When's the last time you had money in your hand to pay a debt and paid it? Don't f*** with me.

52:31Matt Singer:This will be your first time when you pay, am I right? That's right.

52:37Jordan Hoffman:John Goodman, physically imposing, but doesn't often play characters like this that are really kind of scary. And I have to say, I think Mark Wahlberg, a guy who, I don't know, doesn't do a lot of interesting projects anymore. I feel like a lot of what he does is just kind of, let's put it this way. I wouldn't be shocked to see Mark Wahlberg in Desert Warrior 2. It would not surprise me at all. But he is very good in this movie. And we see him giving these classroom speeches. and I think that as moviegoers you know movies about teachers they're almost always about an inspirational teacher someone who's great at their job someone who uplifts these young lives and I think the movie kind of plays into that stereotype where it's Mark Wahlberg he's handsome he's charismatic he's gotta be a great teacher right well maybe not maybe he's a self-destructive addict and a narcissist and a jerk and maybe he's full of shit and maybe he's as bad at teaching as he is at gambling and i think it's the way the movie especially in the beginning of the film presents him is very interesting because you're kind of put inside this classroom and you are trying to get a read on this guy is he cool is he smart or is he just a dick is he you know like it really allows you to kind of put yourself in the shoes of these students and try to get a read on that.

54:06Jordan Hoffman:And I think we've all had teachers like this where you're like, is this guy smart? Should I listen to this teacher or is he just an a-hole?

54:14Matt Singer:You're right. Those are the best parts of this movie are the teaching parts, which is what differentiates it from the original. And the only thing that really that differentiates from the original. Now, Matt Singer, you may not be aware of this, but I actually, and I'd forgotten that Rupert Wyatt did the remake. You touched thighs with Mark Wahlberg on the set of The Gambler? No, about a year ago, I actually, I wrote a DVD booklet for the original. Oh, I did not know this.

54:40Jordan Hoffman:Who released it, if people want to check it out? Okay, you're fired. You don't know who you did this for.

54:47Matt Singer:Who does Justin LaLiberty work for? Vinegar Syndrome? Yeah, Vinegar Syndrome. I wrote it for Vinegar Syndrome. Okay. And I'm very proud of the piece I did. And I watched the film. And I even read the book written by a writer by the name of Fyodor Dostoevsky, which is what The Gambler is based on. Yeah. You know what the name of the book is called? The Gambler. It's called The Gambler. It's called The Gambler. It's loosely adapted when James Toback did the adaptation. The problem is the original is really just out of control. It's got Vic Tabak and Bert Young and Paul Servino in it. I mean, come on.

55:24Matt Singer:You get those three guys together, you're ready for a party. So that's part of the reason why I think critics were unkind to the remake. But there are some elements to the remake that, and I will say, between the two, the original is by far superior. The original is a masterpiece. It's one of my favorites. That's why I was very happy to write that essay. But the remake does have some merit, and it's exactly what you touched upon. It's the scenes of Wahlberg teaching, which I think are expanded on from the original. James Caan in the original. He does some talking about Dostoevsky and whatnot. But yeah, it's an odd little curiosity because it didn't really connect.

56:03Matt Singer:I also think it was put out by like CBS Films or something. It was like a studio that didn't – It says Paramount here.

56:11Jordan Hoffman:It may appear to be a major film studio.

56:14Matt Singer:A little studio called Paramount. It shows you that. All right. So I clearly don't know what I'm talking about. But yeah, the movie didn't really connect. But it's worth looking at a second time, I think.

56:23Jordan Hoffman:So yes. Yes. And I haven't seen the original in a long time, but I will take your word for it that it is far superior to this one. I don't think this film is a masterpiece, but I do think it is a good movie. Compared to Desert Warrior, it is a masterpiece. Yes, yes. That's for sure. And I think what I like about it, looking at it, and I revisited it this week, is that, yes, it is a remake of a 1970s movie. and while it has been updated in some ways, it does still have the soul of a new Hollywood character study where you could make a movie about a charismatic jerk and that's not the kind of movie we see much nowadays.

57:02Jordan Hoffman:Certainly not with this many good actors with a big budget that was put out in theaters. So I recommend it. It is The Gambler. It is currently streaming on Prime Video. You understand the gravity of your situation. I know what I have to do. All or nothing, all the money down.

57:22Matt Singer:All right. It's time for the listener request segment of the Rex Seg. And I just got to throw out, I was looking at my notes here. I forgot to mention everybody. Desert Warrior. There's a part where like in, you know, this is set 1500 years ago. And there's like a guy with a scimitar and he goes, let's go. Like it's 2025. I mean, give me a, or 2023 or whatever. Lame. Sucks. Anyway, request is like this. Hey, Matt and Jordan. I wanted to write in because my girlfriend got me a six-month subscription to the Criterion channel. Six months? She couldn't shell out for a year? I was just about to say, what a good girlfriend.

58:06Matt Singer:Jordan's not impressed. Go for the year. You save, probably you save in the long run. Anyway, I was hoping I could get some recommendations for things to watch with her. She didn't watch many movies before we started dating. She was much more of a TV gal, but has been fairly open to suggestions in the past. I was hoping you guys might have some Criterion Channel recommendations for someone who loves stories about sad men. And for this, this means movies like Blue Moon, Good Will Hunting, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and shows like BoJack Horseman. But she's not a fan of period pieces. Now, that's an asterisk, because if the movie's old, is it a period piece?

58:48Matt Singer:Because the one I picked is old. This is a good question. My movie's from the 50s. Oh, shit. It actually is a period piece, because it's set there in World War II. It was made in 57, but it's set there in World War II. All right. All right. I failed. All right. Anyway, blah, blah, blah. What do you got? So, Matt, we're going to go to you first. What do you got for listener? What is listener's name? Danny. Good old Danny. Danny boy. What do you got for Danny?

59:15Jordan Hoffman:The pipes, the pipes, they are calling. Thank you for the email, Danny. And I, well, my movie is now about 20 years old, so there's that. But it is not a period piece, or at least it wasn't when it came out. So this is a tricky request, though, Jordan. I don't know if you felt this when you were looking, because while the Criterion channel kind of has an effective monopoly in streaming on sad men movies, These are largely period sad men movies, as I guess we'll find out when Jordan gives his pick in a little bit. And Danny specifically said that his girlfriend is not a fan of period pieces. And that does narrow the options a lot.

59:56Jordan Hoffman:But I looked around on the Criterion channel and I found another, kind of like The Gambler, another movie that I really enjoyed. A 21st century movie that I may be the only person that likes. but that I think fits the bill here as a movie about a sad, sad man, if not sad men. And it is Art School Confidential directed by Terry Zweigoff. Zweigoff, of course, the director of the great documentary Crumb, perhaps the knee plus ultra of sad men movies. But sadly, that is not streaming on Criterion at the moment. And then he made Ghost World, which did very well. And then he made Bad Santa, which actually is another incredible exemplar of the sad man genre, a very funny, very dark sad man movie, but a sad man nonetheless.

1:00:47Jordan Hoffman:That is on HBO Max right now, by the way, if you want to watch that. And then his follow up to Bad Santa was Art School Confidential, which is based on another comic by Daniel Klaus, who's the cartoonist who wrote and drew Ghost World. And in the film version of Art School Confidential, an aspiring young artist played by Max Minghella goes to college to study art and he becomes disillusioned with what he finds there. The way the art school world and the art world more broadly is just filled with hacks and leeches and untalented people and it punishes the true artists and it kind of rewards the sycophants and the hangers-on and the barnacles.

1:01:30Jordan Hoffman:And, oh, by the way, there's a serial killer lurking around the school, killing people on campus. And, look, if you were a struggling art major and there was a serial killer at your school, you'd probably be pretty sad too. So I think it qualifies. The film has an awesome supporting cast, Adam Scott, Jim Broadbent, Angelica Houston, and giving one of my favorite performances in his entire career, John Malkovich. This is another connection with the Gambler. He plays a professor who, you know, he's kind of lost the thread, but he is fabulous as this professor. Who did this? Oh, it's mine.

1:02:12Jordan Hoffman:where have you been all my life the movie came out in 2006 and when i saw it then at the time i was only a couple of years removed from uh graduate school going to you know study film studies cinema studies and that's a different slightly different milieu than art school but i don't know i thought that it really was a very perceptive takedown of higher education and the world of art and shallow fame-obsessed people you sometimes find in certain corners of it. And everyone hated this movie. They just thought it was angry and mean and dark. And it is those things. But I think if you're in the right mood, it is all those things in a good way.

1:03:05Jordan Hoffman:And it bums me out that this is the last movie to date that Terry Zweigoff has directed. He has not made another feature in 20 years.

1:03:13Matt Singer:And he's been trying, too. He did some Amazon TV stuff. Yeah, he does stuff. He did a pilot. I think he did some episodes of some TV. But he has not made a feature. It's not for lack of trying. He just can't get it together. I mean, nobody will invest in it.

1:03:28Jordan Hoffman:This movie seemed to break his career in a really depressing way. But in some ways, the fact that it did only proves what it's saying about the world of art.

1:03:36Matt Singer:He is a very, you know, it's his way or no way. And that's what it is. I actually, I did an interview with him, which is on Vanity Fair. How close on the couch did you sit with him when you interviewed him? We were over the phone, which was better because I got to hear him get frustrated. I swear to you, it was like talking to Seymour from Ghost World to periodically put down the phone, open his window and yell at people. There were like workmen. I swear. There were like workmen who were like cutting a tree in his yard. And he was like, you're supposed to come back at noon. Come back at noon. It's just amazing.

1:04:11Matt Singer:You know, he was part of Amazon did a gimmick early days of streaming.

1:04:17Jordan Hoffman:Oh, the pilot thing where you could vote on the pilots.

1:04:21Matt Singer:Yeah, where people would vote on a pilot. So he shot a pilot for a show called Budding Prospects. And Budding Prospects is based on a novel by T.C. Boyle, which I've actually read. It's not one of T.C. Boyle's best, but it's OK. It's actually and it could have made a good show. It's about these guys who like go up to Northern California to start a to start growing marijuana. And they're not like crime guys. They're like a bunch of hippies and they get involved in the world of drug sales. And so he shot the pilot. And it was like that's why he wanted to talk to me because he was trying to like get.

1:04:59Matt Singer:Get people to vote for his pilot. Get me to vote for me. Vote for me. And it didn't get voted for. And I don't know what did get voted for. So it might have been the man in the high castle or whatever was one of Amazon's early successes. And it was a dumb thing for Amazon to do in retrospect. I mean, of all the companies to make these people jump through hoops, they got the money to finance Zwigov and this show. It's just kind of dumb. So anyway, the point I'm making is I need to see this movie again because I am one of those people who thought this movie was terrible when it came out. I had such regard for him, Crumb, Ghost World especially.

1:05:43Matt Singer:I mean, Ghost World is just perfect. It's a perfect movie. And then the new Terry Zweigoff or Zweigoff, however you pronounce his name, I'm there. Opening night. And I'm just like, this doesn't work for me. It just sort of collapsed. So I was disappointed. And it's been, when did it come out? You say 20 some odd years ago? 2006. It's 20 years old now. Yeah. So I have not seen it in 20 years. And now I know I can, along with listener Danny.

1:06:07Jordan Hoffman:That's my pick. It's on, it is on Criterion channel right now. It's definitely about a sad man. I hope it goes down better for Danny and his girlfriend than it did for Jordan. But this is one of my all-time favorite, like, nobody likes this movie but me movies. What's your pick, Jordan?

1:06:24Matt Singer:Well, Criterion, I remember Criterion. It was DVDs and it was Laserdiscs before then. And one of the foundational Criterion films for me is a movie that I never heard of until I learned about it by borrowing discs from friends of mine who were wealthy enough to buy Criterion discs. So the film is from 1957. I guess I already spoiled this. It's from 1957. It's set during World War II. It is, and I want to pronounce his name correctly. So give me a moment when I say unto you, Mikhail Kalatozov's The Cranes Are Flying. And I don't know what the spine number is on The Cranes Are Flying, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was like 22 or 23.

1:07:10Matt Singer:It's like one of the early Criterion collection discs. Like number one, I think, is the grand illusion, right? It's number 146. So it's not that. Shows you what I know.

1:07:25Jordan Hoffman:It's not that low. Well, they're up until like the 12 or 1300s now. So comparatively, that's pretty early.

1:07:31Matt Singer:All right. It's pretty early. So The Cranes Are Flying is a beautiful movie from the Soviet Union, a country that does not exist anymore. And when you sit back and think about the Soviet Union, it really does feel like science fiction. the whole thing. Anyway, this is the only Soviet movie that won the Palme d 'Or at Cannes because Soviet movies can be fantastic. They truly can be, but a lot of times they're a little heavy handed with the propaganda, more so than most national cinemas. The Cranes Are Flying is when they reeled it in a little bit, and it's just a story about people. It's set during World War II, and it's about how brave the soldiers were, but it's really just a love story.

1:08:18Matt Singer:The basic premise is World War II. You got a man and a woman. They're deeply in love. The war breaks out. He goes off to war, so he represents the sad man, but we kind of stay with her more, so maybe this is more of a sad woman film. Sorry about that. And she's sad, but she ends up shacking up with her boyfriend's cousin and marrying him, and he's a bit of a schmuck, And now she's really sad because she's with this guy who's not the greatest. But the thing about the movie is it was way ahead of its time in terms of its cinematography. I mean, just the look of it, the stylized, high contrast black and white, absolutely gorgeous.

1:09:00Matt Singer:But it's really remembered for its use of camera movement in ways that now, I mean, you watch a movie like Desert Warrior, the camera's flying all over the place. But back then, it was a lot more difficult to make a camera move and keep everything in focus. So there are some sequences going up and down staircases. There's a famous sequence at a train station. There's battle scenes. There's a moment when the house collapsed, when they're in an apartment building and they get bombed and all that. And also very creative use of editing to characters in different places and experiencing things at different times.

1:09:34Matt Singer:It's a really very innovative movie for its time. but it's also very, very sad. I don't want to get away. It's all about loneliness and longing and regret. There's a lot of regret, and it's all visually stylized. It's one that Martin Scorsese has always listed as one of his faves, and I think Steven Soderbergh also has listed it as one of his faves. It's not, you know, when you think about, like, the great foundational foreign films, you think about, like, you know, I don't know, Rashomon and Seventh Seal and 400 Blows, and those are the big, big mamas. This is not in that ranking, but I think it should be.

1:10:11Matt Singer:And it's pretty damn cool. Now, the other thing about The Cranes Are Flying is that it is on Criterion Channel, so Danny and his girlfriend can watch it. But if you don't have Criterion Channel, the Russian film agency, Moz Film, M-O-S Film, has a YouTube channel where they have uploaded for free without ads the greats of their archive in high, high, high res. And that includes movies by Andrei Tarkovsky and other Russians of the Soviet and I would imagine post-Soviet era. I'm not 100 % sure about that. But one of the films they have on there is Mikhail Kalatozov's The Cranes Are Flying, so you don't have to pay a penny.

1:10:57Matt Singer:And I think that Maz Film's YouTube channel resolution is as good as what's on a criterion, having poked around at it just today. So that's my recommendation.

1:11:07Jordan Hoffman:I like that. I have to admit, I've never, I mean, I've certainly, I know The Cranes Are Flying. I have never, I've never watched it. That's one of those vaunted world cinema classics I have not gotten around to. Sam, have you seen The Cranes Are Flying? I have. It's incredible. I was just, I saw it back in just fairly recently, 2023. And I just looked at my note on Letterboxd and I said, it was the end of 2023. and I said, there are shots in Cranes are Flying that dwarf anything I've seen this great movie year. I mean, it is truly, truly stunning stuff. Okay.

1:11:40Matt Singer:Yeah, God knows how they did it. I mean, back then, much like Desert Warrior, where it was funded by the Saudi Arabian Film Council, a lot of these Soviet movies, peasants were dying from Minsk to Pinsk, but they were letting their production of War and Peace, which is, I think, 15 hours long or whatever the heck it is. I mean, it looks amazing because they recognize that cinema was a good propaganda tool. So they really did fund their movies quite well. So they did enough takes to get those crane shots to work. Those cranes were flying over there in the Soviet Union. And as a result, they have a lot of great movies.

1:12:22Matt Singer:I mean, that's no secret to anybody who knows world cinema. There are a lot of great Soviet movies. And this one really does work without, you know, you don't have to feel like you're, that Stalin is telling you what to do when you're watching this.

1:12:33Jordan Hoffman:Okay, so to wrap up our recommendations in the Rex Egg this week, Jordan recommended Jerry on Prime Video, Canopy, Hoopla, Roku, Tubi, YouTube, and VOD. There's a lot of options for Jerry, which is nice. and then I recommended The Gambler which was on Prime Video, Paramount Plus and VOD and if you want to throw in Rupert Wyatt's Rise of the Planet of the Apes as well that's on Hulu or you could also rent that on VOD Can't hurt Can't hurt and then our listener recommendation for Danny I suggested Terry Zweigoff's Art School Confidential on the Criterion Channel he wanted a Criterion Channel recommendation but you can also watch it on Prime Video, MGM Plus, Roku and Tubi and Jordan recommended The Cranes Are Flying, again, also on Criterion Channel, but it is also streaming on Roku, on VOD.

1:13:29Jordan Hoffman:And then what was the YouTube channel? Because I think that's another great recommendation, Jordan. Moss Film.

1:13:33Matt Singer:Yeah, we should do a whole - How do you, is it MOS Film? MOS Film, all one word. And they've got a lot of cool stuff in there. I should also point out that Mikhail Kalatozov, he later did I Am Cuba about five years later. Yes, I've seen that. That's a very famous one. And so you know the visual appeal to IMQ. Famous visual, yes. Yeah, and so you'll see that in The Cranes Are Flying also. It's definitely from the makers of.

1:13:59Jordan Hoffman:Okay, and just remember, if you want your own personalized streaming recommendation, if you would like us to give you some stuff to watch, send us a note, feedback at filmspottingsvu.com. Tell us what kind of movie you like or things you don't like. Tell us what streaming services you're using right now, and we'll try to help you out. And if you want to see a full list of all the titles we have talked about and recommended on FilmSpottingSVU, go to Letterboxd and search for the list now streaming on Bazooka. It's in the notes for the show. We're up to over 100 titles we've already talked about and recommended.

1:14:39Jordan Hoffman:And I saw the comments are open on that list, and I saw someone recently posting, like, what the hell is Bazooka? And I was like, you got to go back and listen to the very first episode of Film Spotting SVU 2.0. It was invented on the very first episode. It is a proprietary streaming service that we invented and does not actually exist. But I think it came about when Jordan couldn't think of the name of the goofy. Voodoo. Yeah. Let's talk about Voodoo. Every streaming service has such a goofy name. And he just produced out of thin air the word bazooka. And we said, well, that should be a streaming service.

1:15:14Jordan Hoffman:And so we've taken that name. I think we've copyrighted it. We've trademarked it. We're going to put it on T-shirts. It's going to happen. Bazooka, it's important to note, is the cream. It is the cream of the crop.

1:15:28Matt Singer:That's right. That's right. I would like to confirm I'm on Moss Film, and they definitely have some post-Soviet Russian movies on here. but um it's mostly like you know all all the all the hits of uh soviet cinema and then plenty that i've never heard of that are probably very good or at least interesting how far back do they go

1:15:49Jordan Hoffman:do they have like the great silent soviet stuff as well yeah yeah i'm looking at i'm looking at

1:15:55Matt Singer:uh what's a strike sergey eisenstein strike is on here got some eisenstein on there they got and then they got plenty of stuff that i've i've really never heard of and man with a movie camera

1:16:06Jordan Hoffman:on there?

1:16:07Matt Singer:Well, that would be German. No, you're right. That is Russian. It probably is on here. I mean, there's a million movies on here. This is the great unknown service.

1:16:21Jordan Hoffman:You can find Man with a Movie Camera on YouTube regardless, whether it's on there or not.

1:16:26Matt Singer:I mean, I don't know how good... I mean, you click on this, maybe you're giving some money to the Soviet... to the Russian government. I don't know. I don't think they're getting any money out of us by clicking on it, so I don't know. Anyway, but that's what's happening on Moss Films' YouTube channel. Bazooka When you gotta stream Bazooka It's cream Of the crop It's right at the top of your favorite streaming house

1:17:29Apple Vacations or with your trusted travel advisor.

1:18:02Elizabeth Smart. I still feel that drive that I can still make a difference. So I'm going to keep going. Celebrity chef, Carla Hall. Was that scary to walk away from such a stable career after just two years? No, I was more afraid of being unhappy than I was broke in a dead end job that I didn't enjoy. And feminist legend, Gloria Steinem. All of us were trying to express women's real lives. We need a meeting place of our own. And if I can contribute to that, I'd like to maintain that and leave this house for that purpose. Listen to She Pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:18:41On Big Lives, we take a single cultural icon. People like Jane Fonda, George Michael, Richard Pryor. And we pull apart the story behind the image. And we do this by digging through the BBC's vast archive. We're talking iconic moments in broadcast history. I'm not just a boxer. I'm educated. I can talk all week on millions of subjects. And forgotten interviews that change how we see these giants of our culture. Well, if changing the system from the ground up is revolutionary, then I'm revolutionary. We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes. I mean, when I go on stage, I like to dress as slutty as possible because it makes me dance better for some reason.

1:19:22I'm Emmanuel Jochi. I'm Kai Wright. And this is Big Lives. Listen to Big Lives on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get podcasts.

1:19:34Dear honeys, this is goodbye. In February of 2024, celebrated illustrator and children's book author Petra Mathers and her husband Michael mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know that they had died by suicide. By the time you get this letter, both Petra and I will be dead. Next stop, Wonderland. Petra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they do it? And what did it do to the people they left behind? I would have given a million reasons to not leave this world had I known. I keep coming back to, I truly hope that Petra was a thousand percent on board with the plan.

1:20:16Do you think of him as having killed her? Yes, I do. I hold Michael responsible for my mother's death. I'm Leon Nafok and I'm Alice Gregory together we set out to interview everyone who got one of Patra and Michael's letters as one married couple trying to understand another listen to Death of an Artist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts

1:20:40Jordan Hoffman:it's time for our game on FilmSpotting SVU Sam won last week which means he is now the host of this week's show Sam what are we doing this week on our game I am so excited for this. The game is called Mark My Words. Mark My Words. I'm guessing this might be... Oh, no, I don't know. Okay, go ahead. Okay, there is a long subtitle. I apologize. Okay. Mark My Words, colon. Movies of the summer of 2012, according to a transcript of an AOL instant message debate published at Screen Crush on September 3rd, 2012, between Jordan Hoffman and Matt Singer. Oh, boy. It was published almost 14 years to the day that this show will be published.

1:21:28So, again, the films will be the films of the summer of 2012. Wow. And the clues will be your very own words.

1:21:37Jordan Hoffman:Oh, my gosh. Sent via AOL Instant Message in 2012.

1:21:41Matt Singer:Dig ups to editor Mike Sampson out there in the internet. Do you remember, Matt, when Mike Sampson had us both see The Dark Knight Rises and then go, I don't know where we were, a restaurant somewhere and co-write a review? Yes.

1:21:58Jordan Hoffman:Or maybe we each did our own review, yes, but published simultaneously.

1:22:02Matt Singer:I remember him lording over us, like, write your reviews while I feed you nachos. It's just very weird. Yeah.

1:22:09Jordan Hoffman:I think the movie was at Lincoln Center, and I think we went, I don't know if it was nachos. I think we went to that place. I don't know that it's open anymore. Is it like Ollie's, the noodle place right across the street? I think that's where we went. Anyway. So we're time traveling here. I hope this is the way we're going to do it. So there are, I think, nine total films. It'll be your combined top fives of the summer of 2012. If it's your film that was on your list, the other person is going to get a first chance to kind of buzz in. I'm going to read a sentence. I'm going to give, like if it's Jordan's pick for a film of the summer, I'm going to give Matt the first sentence.

1:22:46He's going to have a chance to weigh in, and then it'll be Buzzer. Two films you guys shared. Okay. Okay.

1:22:51Jordan Hoffman:So these are summer movies of 2012. Correct. And we have to guess them based on the other person's description of them. Is that, do I have this? Again, I'm taking the transcript of your conversation. Right, right. This is something that is published.

1:23:04Matt Singer:I don't even remember, like 2012, that might have been Avengers. I'll give you other clues. There'll be plenty of clues along the way.

1:23:09Jordan Hoffman:All right. This sounds very fun. Okay, so first film. This is Matt's pick. So Jordan, I'm going to read the first sentence. You will have a chance to guess, and then we're going to go to buzzers. Okay. I'm quoting Matt here. My number five pick was a lot of folks' most anticipated movie this summer, but I kind of expected it to be a disaster. Okay, that's the first clue.

1:23:33Matt Singer:I mean, I'm trying to remember what came out in 2012, and it's a bit, you know, the specifics of that year are blur. All right, well, we're just going to move on to buzzers here. We're going to move on to buzzers. Now I can answer if I...

1:23:44Jordan Hoffman:Okay, I don't know yet, but I'm... Matt continues, and so when the movie was a total mess, albeit an interesting one, I think they were more disappointed than I was. Jordan says, I also ultimately disliked it in an effort to appear mysterious and deep. They wound up just throwing a lot of junk on the screen and hoped it would all come out in the wash. I don't think the movie works as an adventure or as a think piece. looked great started many a bar argument but ultimately not on any sort of best list for me i will start reading cast names okay benedict wong my former college roommate logan marshall green

1:24:23Matt Singer:guy pierce idris elba oh wait wait wait wait i know was this pacific rim numi rapaz it is not Pacific Rim. Oh, I know. It's Alien Prometheus. Prometheus is correct, Matt Singer. Guess what? It's Alien Prometheus. I agree. That movie stinks. I watched it again fairly recently and it's no good. People passionately defended it. I think people do and they do. People are wrong. I definitely prefer

1:24:54Jordan Hoffman:Alien Covenant to Prometheus.

1:24:56Matt Singer:Well, that's the thing. There's a big argument which is better, Prometheus or Alien Covenant. The answer is they both kind of stink. You know what's better than both of them? is Alien vs. Predator. The first one, Paul W.S. Anderson. To bring it back to producer Jeremy Bolt of Desert Warrior fame, that is a better film than either of those. No, that's heretical. Matt has one point. One point for Matt. Okay, number two. So Matt, I'm going to read the first sentence. This is Jordan's pick.

1:25:20Jordan Hoffman:So this is a Jordan pick now. Correct. Okay. Jordan says, my number five has almost no visual ambition and is equally nonsensical, but perhaps due to low expectations was a really fun time at the movies for me. And he names the movie and you say, wow. Wow. Well, I probably wouldn't be able to guess it. So let's go to buzzers. Buzzers. Jordan says, yeah, gotta be me. Matt says, I have to assume that General Redacted is standing behind you holding a gun to your head, demanding you make this pick. Otherwise you're insane. And I'm going to recommend you a good psychiatrist. Jordan. General. There's a wide variety, wide range of comedy in there.

1:26:05The shock gags, the political gags, the Brooklyn vegan stereotypes, and then just absurdist silliness. Remember the part with the three bananas? I'm still laughing about that.

1:26:17Matt Singer:Oh, I know what this is. Yes. This is The Dictator. That's correct. The Dictator. That's right. General. Terrific movie. I don't know. Terrific movie. He was a general something or other. I think we can all agree that this movie is vastly superior to Prometheus. Still, to this day.

1:26:36Jordan Hoffman:I'd have to revisit it. I have very little memory of it. But - It's pretty funny. Sasha Baron Cohen, I do like. He is covered at length in the book Funny Business. Oh, very good. Coming to bookstores on October 6th. Pre-order your copy now. All right. Yeah, back in 2012, Jordan, you said, Jason Manzoukas is the next comedy titan.

1:26:56Matt Singer:Jason Manzoukas is very funny. And he's very funny. He's funny, but he didn't, he's not, yes, we're still waiting for that to happen. He should be the next guy.

1:27:04Jordan Hoffman:You know what he's really good in is the movie, another unloved movie that I love is The House with Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler. Oh, yeah. Jason Manzoukas plays like their friend and their neighbor, and he is, he is a titan in that movie. He absolutely steals that film.

1:27:20Matt Singer:People hated The House. I gave that a positive review and got a lot of flack. Very fun. I like that one, too.

1:27:24Jordan Hoffman:Very underrated, funny movie. Okay. number three this is this appeared on both your lists so this is a buzz we could either okay just anybody can buzz okay all right matt names his fourth movie of the summer of 2012 jordan says fourth that's only four what's the matter with you oh my gosh matt the first 20 minutes are horrible the last 20 minutes are amazing but the first are horrible it's a really fun movie but there are three others i enjoyed more jordan all these quibbles you mentioned are more than made up for by some of the best big whiz bang beats in popcorn cinema in perhaps two decades.

1:28:00Wow. Wow. In two decades, are you snorting pretzel nuggets? Jordan, this has whiz... We never got to the bottom of that question. I think I know what the whiz...

1:28:11Matt Singer:I think I might... Can I guess? But if I get it wrong, I can't guess again, right? No, go ahead. It's fine. Go ahead. Guess. I think this is Valerian and the City of 1000 Planets or whatever the hell that movie is called. because I didn't like that movie. Jordan says, This has whiz bang on a level of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The characters has fun too. Maybe not as iconic, but you know, there's more of them. So it balances out. Matt, you just put this movie next to Raiders of the Lost Ark, which you've previously called one of the greatest movies of all time. Jordan, I don't think it's as good as Raiders, but it plays in the same pool.

1:28:43Jordan Hoffman:He's still doing the same schtick. Today he compared Desert Warrior to a Sergio Leone movie. What could this be? Jordan says, I don't think it's as good as Raiders, but it plays in the same pool. Matt says, what is this movie's running from the boulder moment? Jordan says, the moment when the cop does what blank orders him to do will be in every great movie montage from now until we're all living underwater. Matt says, at which point, this will be a clue, at which point Namor will become the star of blank eight. Namor will become the star of blank. Oh. Yes.

1:29:19Matt Singer:is it is it the avengers it's the avengers wow i mean i listen the avengers actually is pretty

1:29:27Jordan Hoffman:good i mean it's very good well it's not as good as raiders it was your number of the summer of 2012 matt it was your number i'm surprised it's that low i'm curious to see what what was higher i guess we're gonna find out this is gonna get even tougher because you may even help conjuring up some of these titles uh of course the avengers what was i talking about a cop a cop does something Well, it will be played in every great movie montage until now, until we're living underwater. It was the movie when the cop does what Captain America orders him to do. It's when Captain America, it's like, he's like, the cop is like, you can't go in here or whatever.

1:29:59Jordan Hoffman:And he just, Captain America, you know, Chris Evans is like, you need to set up a perimeter. You have to go over here and do this and that. And he runs away and the cop is like, okay, everybody, here's what we're going to do. Like he does exactly what he says.

1:30:09Matt Singer:You need men in these buildings. There are people inside and they're going to be running right into the line of fire. I need a perimeter as far back as 39th. Why the hell should I take orders from you?

1:30:22I need men in those buildings. Lead the people down and away from the streets. We're going to set up a perimeter all the way down to 39th Street.

1:30:29Jordan Hoffman:I don't know that it winds up in montages, but it's a nice little moment for sure. No, yeah. All right, so we're moving on. Matt, we're going to start with you. This is one of Jordan's picks, his number four. Jordan describing his number four movie of the summer 2012. It's fun. It's funny. It's a little sad. That's not going to do it. That's not going to do it. Let's go to the buzzers. We're going to the buzzers. And it wears its craft and exuberance on its finely designed sleeve. It isn't as good as The Nightmare Before Christmas, but it has a very similar attitude. Oh. It is purposely handcrafted and really charming and sweet, and it is one of the better animated films to come along in a really long time.

1:31:11Matt Singer:Is it Coraline? No, 2012 was too late. Coraline was 2009. I don't know why I know that. It's directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler. Butler's most recent film was 2019's Missing Link. Fell's 2023's Chicken Run, Dawn of the Nugget. I'm going to see if I can... Of course, this is animated, so I can give you some voice actors here in a second. Let me see here. as you continue to think.

1:31:44Jordan Hoffman:I mean, I can just keep throwing out names of movies, but I feel like Jordan should get to guess since I guessed incorrectly.

1:31:49Matt Singer:So it's the guy who made Chicken Run made a movie in 2012 that I love that's animated, and it's not Fantastic Mr. Fox, obviously. Voices by Cody Smith-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz Plus. This is sounding familiar. I will start reading the plot. Okay, go ahead.

1:32:06Jordan Hoffman:I have a guess, but I want to give Jordan a chance to guess.

1:32:10Matt Singer:I can't remember. I'm just going to guess. There's no penalty for guessing.

1:32:13Jordan Hoffman:I'm going to say, is it Paranorman? That is correct. Oh, it is Paranorman.

1:32:18Matt Singer:Yeah, you're right. That is a good movie. Paranorman. That is a good movie. Okay. All right, Matt, you're up 3-1. All right. Jordan. How many movies do we have left? I mean, we may have to stop early. I've got nine here, but where are we at? Timing-wise, we've gone at least 15 minutes already. So I might go to seven. Maybe go to seven. Oh, my God. All right. Okay. Just go enough that I can win. I want to go to the last one because that will reveal how I even came up with this game. Okay. So we're on a number. This is Matt's number three pick. So, Jordan, you will get the first shot here. Okay.

1:32:56I'm going to get it. Matt says, my number three movie is definitely the one you're going to get angriest about. And Jordan says, uh-oh. Okay. We're going to go to the buzzers. Matt names the film. Jordan says, does that count? Is that a summer movie? Can the judges weigh in? Matt says it was released wide by a major studio in the middle of July. How is that not a summer movie? Also, there was a great scene where Redacted fought a robot dinosaur. Also, I know you didn't see it because when we got the invite for the press screening, you made 18 different excuses and pawned the movie off on me. But you screwed up because this was a surprisingly well-made marital drama.

1:33:37What?

1:33:37Jordan Hoffman:What movie is this? Jordan says, well, I'll allow it, but I don't know. Summer movie is action, adventure, sci-fi, broad comedy, but you get one allowance. For the record, I only...

1:33:47Matt Singer:There's that one with that weird movie with Anne Hathaway that involves kaiju that was made by...

1:33:53Jordan Hoffman:Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't remember what it's called. Oh, I think...

1:33:57Matt Singer:But I like that movie, but I like that movie, so I would not have pawned that off. That's the one, it's Nacho Vigalando made it, right? And it's... It's got a one-word title, right? Oh, I know what it is.

1:34:07Jordan Hoffman:Jordan, you've told me what it is if it's that.

1:34:09Matt Singer:I can't remember the name of the movie. Okay, it's not that. Let's move on. It's not that. What's that movie called? Gargantuan or something? Colossal. Colossal, Gargantuan, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Jordan says, for the record, I only pawned it off on you because I had tickets for Cirque de Soleil that night.

1:34:27That's very funny because I've actually never seen Cirque de Soleil. Here are some clues. Hopefully this will help. I have Jordan saying, I have no malice toward director David Frankel. I enjoyed Devil Wears Prada and Miami Rhapsody and I, like all like-minded people consider Meryl Streep to be a national treasure Meryl Streep is in this movie this is a movie that time forgot Robot Dinosaur?

1:34:52Jordan Hoffman:didn't I? wasn't that in there? okay, I will tell you the Robot Dinosaur the scene was Steve Carell also in this film fought a Robot Dinosaur Steve Carell plays this movie does not exist plays a marital psychiatrist or counselor in this film. Yeah, all right.

1:35:09Matt Singer:Oh, wait, wait, it's coming to me now. It's Meryl Streep. It's Tommy Lee Jones. It's Dan in real life? Dan in real life? Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones. It's, this is, Matt, your number three movie of the summer. I have no memory of this film. You like this more than Avengers. This means more to you than Avengers. I love this. I don't know what else I can tell you here I think we give up Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones directed by David Frankl

1:35:41Jordan Hoffman:it sounds like a good movie but I don't know what it is Gene Smart is in this Maren Ireland is in this film it is called it's called Hope Springs Hope Springs Eternal Hope Springs I do know that title it's your number 3 movie of 2012 I think you were right to raise an objection Jordan I don't know what this guy was talking about in 2012 all right okay so no points there it's still three one uh this next film made both lists i think okay good this is not hope springs this is a movie people know buzzers are acted activated jordan says i'm a little bit afraid to see my number three movie of the summer of 2012 a second time because i'm worried that the silliness of redacted and the huh who what aspect of the plot may shatter the illusion, but I still applaud the propulsive filmmaking style.

1:36:32Matt, it's your number three. Matt writes, it's your number three, it's my number two, and what I would describe as a really timid summer with lots of recycled, rehashed, remade, rebooted properties, and very few original ideas other than Hope Springs, of course. Here was a sequel that went for broke. Jordan, I'm still not 100 % sure if I liked it or I quote liked it.

1:36:55Matt Singer:I mean, is this the Dark Knight Rises? Yes, it is. It's The Dark Knight Rises. Well done. Woo-hoo. Well done. Yeah, and I still feel that way. I watched The Dark Knight Rises within the last couple years, and I'm simultaneously loving it and thinking it's terrible. It's my favorite of The Dark Knights, personally. Wow. Because it's the most ridiculous? I think it's because it's the most straightforward plot, and I don't get a lot of Nolan and his ethical dilemmas. It's just a fun ticking time bomb movie. I do love Bane. I love Bane. And Bane is hilarious. he's so good and and and Anne Hathaway in the cats and Hathaway underrated Anne Hathaway performance as incredible yeah I'm thinking more about the costuming than her performance but it's still very good all right we're moving on it's three two uh let's do let's do one more and then we'll do the final one we'll do okay if Jordan yeah sure well if Jordan okay this is you be your chance to tie Jordan okay but this is Matt you get the first shot because this is Jordan's pick.

1:37:54Jordan writes, my number two... I'm trying to see what this movie is. Okay, I think it should be like... My number two is a film that was hardly on my radar before sitting down to watch it. In fact, it comes from a creator that I've been somewhat hostile to for most of his career. Ooh. Damn. I don't know what... Okay, buzzer's activated. Okay. Jordan continues, I'd like to think it was a meddling studio producer's notes that was the magic element because the director's renegade outsider, in quotes, persona is so tired. I hope it was a bland market research and audience testing that made this movie so good.

1:38:29That would be the ultimate punk rock slap in that guy's face. See, I'm still hostile to him. Even though I loved his movie, I clearly have some problems. Matt, so the number two movie of the summer was a movie you kind of didn't like, made by a guy you hate. Got it. Jordan, now you see how hard it is to be me. The star of this film has come up, was in the recommendation, Matt's recommendation, the star of his - Is it a Mark Wahlberg movie? It is. That is correct.

1:39:03Matt Singer:Okay. So what did Mark Wahlberg do in - Oh, it's Pain and Gain. Pain and Gain. It is not Pain and Gain, which I think is the following year. Very good guess. I think that's 2013. This is a comedy.

1:39:16Jordan Hoffman:Oh, is it? No. I'm trying to think of a director that would be a... The creator, he directed this, but the creator of it also voices the co-star.

1:39:28Matt Singer:Ted! Yes, it's Ted. We've got a tied game. And you know what? I'm right. Ted is great. I think Ted has held up. I mean, it's got a spinoff TV show now and everything, right? And Ted 2 is great, too. Ted, okay. All right. All right. But yeah, that guy, what's his name? Seth MacFarlane. Seth MacFarlane is a pain in the ass. I've actually mellowed on him over... I thought that his Star Trek ripoff was not that bad. The Orville is pretty good, actually. I like the Orville. All right. So we're tied at three apiece. All right, good. Now we got a game. One more. This is it. This will be the final one.

1:40:00For all the marbles.

1:40:01Jordan Hoffman:And this is - This was the movie that you said made you want to do this game. Well, it's how I found this transcript of your AOL conversation. Okay. And it is one of your least favorite movies of the summer of 2012. Oh, so we're off the top 10 list now? We're on the bottom list. Bottom. This is the least favorite. Okay. Got it. Okay. I'm just going to say this is buzzers activated right away. All right. Good. Jordan writes, this is mostly Jordan here. My least favorite movie did something that is almost impossible to do. It offended me. You see, I strongly support insulting people and being inappropriate, yet I felt that this movie was disrespectful to history oh not because i'm so stuck up that i won't allow for a tall tale but because this movie did nothing with it it was a bore it wasn't exciting it wasn't funny

1:40:57Matt Singer:yes it's tarzan it is not tarzan oh didn't that come out around 2012 history of tarzan well no that movie was pretty disrespectful to which tarzan are we talking about the one with

1:41:12Jordan Hoffman:skarsgård oh that's the legend of tarzan that's later that's like 2015 or 16 so movies that offended do we need that list at some point you know tarzan is on it and this film which is yet to be named okay it wasn't exciting it wasn't funny and it mocked someone who was by all accounts somewhat notable it's a vapid ramrodding of what some oafish idiots think the kids will want to see in a movie trampling over history that was already plenty interesting and important. Damn it, I'm not afraid to say it. This movie is a disgrace. Wow. Here comes the big clue. Okay. Okay, so get ready. I need to see if I can see both of you.

1:41:52I'm mom. Matt, with the punchline, plus it killed the market for your movie, Rutherford B. Hayes Zombie Babysitter.

1:42:03Matt Singer:oh i know what this is this is is it abraham lincoln zombie hunter no no no it's abraham lincoln vampire killer oh wow jordan coming from behind with the wind yeah okay so that movie did piss me off and actually um matt you know i'm a guy i really admire is a critic by the name of keith ulick um is one of the nicest guys in in in america just sweetest nicest guy a mensch a mensch a true mensch i remember being coming out of the press screening and just fuming for whatever reason this lit a fire under my ass and he was like yeah that was kind of cute and i just yelled at keith and keith is like the sweet he's like the kindest sweetest guy and i shouted at keith and i immediately felt so guilty and i remember sending him an email i'm so sorry i shouted at you and he's like it's okay i mean i'm pretty sure he got over it.

1:43:01Matt Singer:I'm pretty sure he does not remember it. But I always feel, not that this movie ever comes up, but if it does, I think, oh, that movie made me yell at the nicest man in the world, Keith Ulick. Keith, if you're listening, I still love you.

1:43:12Jordan Hoffman:I don't even know if I ever saw it. It's terrible. Did I see it? It's not clear from what I was saying. No, I don't think you did see it. I don't think so. I don't think I ever saw it. Who's in it? Who plays it? Let me just explain. So this was, what's his name? He's like a theater actor. He was in the Bloody Andrew Jackson stage production. hasn't done a ton of... I'll let you look that up because I want to explain how I... I'm looking it up. I'm looking it up. Benjamin Walker played... Benjamin Walker. Oh, but I see the connection. Anthony Mackie was in this film. Anthony Mackie appears in the film.

1:43:43I was going to do a letterboxd thing, Anthony Mackie. Okay, and then I saw he was in this, and I'm like, I wonder if either Matt or Jordan actually reviewed Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter back in the day, and suddenly one of the top links was to this conversation. And I was like, well, I know what we're doing now. I don't know if we'll ever do Mark My Words again, but it was a lot of fun to find that. That was fun.

1:44:09Jordan Hoffman:Memory lane. I'm going to revisit Hope Springs. I got to see. I looked up, I was looking at the - Is it streaming? It is, let's see. I didn't check that yet, but I was looking up the plot description. I didn't see no robot dinosaur in there. I don't know what the hell that was about. I got to - He's a marriage counselor. I think he probably uses it to illustrate something. It's a toy robot dinosaur, maybe? Oh, yeah. I don't think it's like... I was thinking this was like a kaiju description. That's what was throwing me off. Yeah, that was an helpful. It was just a joke.

1:44:37Matt Singer:That's why I thought about Colossal. Right, right. Colossal, but who's counting? Anyway.

1:44:42Jordan Hoffman:Anyway, there it is. All right, Jordan, you won. You win again. I will host in the next game. The Games Master is back on top.

1:44:48Matt Singer:All right. I can do it. I can make it happen for next week. I'll think of something good. All right. I'll think of something good. history remembers the battle but forgets the blood however history remembers me before i was a president it shall only remember a fraction of the truth matt singer that was a great game especially because i won can't wait to see what i'll do next week but before we get to it let's talk about new movies and old movies and movies movies these movies that are coming to bazooka and by bazooka i mean the streaming video sphere uh theatrical releases that are available to rent or buy so these are movies that were just in theaters may even still be in some theaters you can in the comfort of your own home watch olivia wilde in i want your sex that could be something you'd rather do in private olivia wilde wants your sex listener and she also wants Cooper Hoffman's sex.

1:45:53Matt Singer:Now, by the way, that's my last name too, so that's exciting. Greg Araki's film that critics loved and now you can see it at home. Also, ooh, Eva Green and Olivia Wollett. What a week. You got Eva Green. Calm down. Eva Green. I love her. And Samuel L. Jackson are in a movie directed by Martin Campbell who has made good films. He certainly has. Called Just Play Dead. and honestly I never even heard of this movie I heard of the Gregoraki movie I just heard of it like a day ago

1:46:23Jordan Hoffman:until a day ago I had not heard about this motion picture but now I have

1:46:27Matt Singer:I mean Eva Green's Martin Campbell he did Zorro right

1:46:30Jordan Hoffman:he did Zorro he did GoldenEye he did Casino Royale he's a action director of high regard it's been a while though since he's done something good and you know what else I think he directed what's that Green Lantern perhaps the greatest sci-fi spectacle i don't have the energy to get into that right now all

1:46:51Matt Singer:right yes we won't get into it kristin stewart and alia shawcott in the stoner comedy the wrong girls this is crazy i really do feel like this just came out in theaters like like 10 days ago so there's a brief window for the wrong windows are shrinking yeah kristin stewart alia shawcott um i once uh never mind i'll tell you my alia shawcott story another day we got the ben kingly

1:47:13Jordan Hoffman:story this time. We'll get the Aaliyah Shawkat

1:47:15Matt Singer:story the next time. These are all coming to streaming. Premium rental by Tuesday the 2nd. Theatrical releases to streaming channels, so you don't need to spend $14.99 or whatever. If you get, for example, Criterion channel, you can watch...

1:47:32Jordan Hoffman:If you're Danny and his girlfriend.

1:47:34Matt Singer:Right. You can watch Romeria. Romeria by director Carla Simon. It's a movie from Spain. Simon made the 2017 movie Summer 1993 and the 2022 movie Alcarus. And then that's coming Wednesday, September 2 and then also Wednesday, September 2 on Disney Plus, a movie that everybody didn't see at the theaters because it tanked, Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu. And you know, The Mandalorian and Grogu is meant for streaming. If ever, because it's a TV show in a movie and this is where it was meant to be. Disney Plus. Do you think that's right? Do you think you'll revisit The Mandalorian and Grogu? I don't know.

1:48:17Matt Singer:Maybe your kids are into Grogu. My kids really like

1:48:19Jordan Hoffman:Grogu, yeah. I have a feeling they will want to watch it again on streaming, actually. Yes, I do. And it'll be fine. It'll be better. They liked that movie. They had a good... Oh, they saw it already. They both saw it, and they both liked it a lot, and they both adore... My younger daughter especially loves Grogu. And so I have a feeling, yes. If we open up Disney Plus and it's sitting there on the home screen, she'll be like, let's watch Grogu. Yeah.

1:48:44Matt Singer:And why wouldn't she? And why wouldn't she? Direct to streaming. These are movies that never played a theater. The Runner. And this stars Gal Gadot, who's actually pronounced Gal Gadot. Everybody mispronounces her name. Gal Gadot races through London following the cryptic commands of a mysterious caller in order to save her abducted son. And this is directed by Kevin MacDonald. Kevin MacDonald tends to make good movies. So maybe, I mean, I don't know. So does Rupert Wyatt, though. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, Gal Gadot has not exactly been anything good since, well, maybe the death on the Nile was okay.

1:49:25Matt Singer:I don't know. She got a bad rap for that one. But anyhow, Kevin MacDonald made Last King of Scotland, State of Play. He also does a lot of good documentaries. He did the John and Yoko documentary from last year, which was very good. That's on Prime. Good old-fashioned Prime, September 2. and then on September 4th on Apple Plus or Apple TV or whatever they call it these days, Mayday. Mayday is the latest from Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daly. We love these guys. They did the Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves with Chris Pine, which rules. They did Game Night. Which are also rules.

1:49:58Matt Singer:Yeah, and they're allegedly doing a new Star Trek, but who knows? They've been in development on it for a while. Yeah. The premise of Mayday, when a US Navy pilot on a top secret mission during the Cold War gets trapped behind enemy lines, his only chance of survival is to form an alliance with an eccentric ex-KGB agent. And the secret flyer, the pilot, is a fellow by the name of Ryan Reynolds. And the ex-KGB agent is Kenneth Branagh, who is not Russian but tends to play Russians.

1:50:32Jordan Hoffman:He loves playing evil Russians. I was thinking, like, you know, Tennant is like, this guy's a Shakespearean actor. He's like, oh, what I love is chasing moose on squirrel.

1:50:44Matt Singer:Mayday sounds like it could be pretty damn good. Apple movies come out of nowhere. It's like there's never any anticipation. And then it's like Wolves with Brad Pitt and George Clooney. And that turned out to be a bit of a dud. But maybe this one will be good. Who knows?

1:51:01Jordan Hoffman:They've had a couple of decent ones. And once in a while, they'll have something where people start talking about. I think it was also with Ryan Reynolds. Spirited, that holiday movie. People like that movie. And with Will Ferrell as well. That's another one. That's an Apple movie that people talk about.

1:51:20Matt Singer:The one that Tom Hanks did on the submarine was pretty good.

1:51:24Jordan Hoffman:Greyhound? Is that what it is? Yeah, not bad. Which I think they acquired from someone else during the pandemic. Nonetheless. All right. So that's a rundown of what's coming. We think next week we have a few options we're talking about. Maybe doing Mayday. we are also talking about we didn't mention it here but it's uh shh the whisper man with robert de niro and adam scott that's on netflix uh as of the day we are recording this by the time you hear this it will be out on netflix and then netflix also has which i know jordan is very excited to see the untold which is their ongoing series of sports documentaries untold ray gun about the Olympic breakdancer of much infamy.

1:52:04Jordan Hoffman:So we're not quite sure what next week will hold, but it will hold one of those titles. We're still quite pinning it down. Mayday, Untold Raygun, or The Whisperman will likely have one of those. And it's very possible the week after that, we will record another one of those movies because there's a few decent options in there that we're sorting out.

1:52:23Matt Singer:Let us know what you would like us. If you're like, oh, you got to do Mayday or you got to do Raygun. Or something else. Send us an email. yeah tell us send an email to feedback at filmspottingsvu.com and those emails come to all of us to me and to matt and to sam and uh we appreciate your emails uh even when they're

1:52:46Jordan Hoffman:critical but they usually are positive that's it that's all you have to say yeah for once i have

1:52:52Matt Singer:nothing more to say other than thank you for thank you for listening other things you gotta say here what else i'll say i said it all say all right all right hold on don't forget you can also

1:53:00Jordan Hoffman:follow us on social media you can find me on instagram and letterboxd at super pulse jordan is on all of these places at jay hoffman we're also on blue sky you can follow us there uh jordan if this is not enough jordan if you want to hear more stories about him touching body parts with celebrities perhaps jordan also hosts the star log podcast or you can get the Starlog newsletter in your email, right? You can sign up. Yeah. Go to Starlog.com. Starlog.com. I mentioned I have funny business coming out, the book. You can read me on Screen Crush, ScreenCrush.com, of course.

1:53:40Matt Singer:I'll tell you who's the next guest. Oh, spoiler alert? On Starlog. So normally SVU launches on a Tuesday morning and Starlog launches on a Wednesday morning. So if you listen to this the minute it comes out, tomorrow the guest on Starlog is Dean Devlin.

1:53:59Jordan Hoffman:The big shot Hollywood producer.

1:54:01Matt Singer:And he was pretty cool. Countdown to Geostorm. That's right. We didn't talk about Geostorm, but we talked about other things.

1:54:08Jordan Hoffman:FilmSpotting SVU is produced by Sam Van Halgren, and we are a part of the FilmSpotting family of podcasts. You can find out more about all of our shows at FilmSpotting.net. Is that sale going on still? The FilmSpotting family sale? Well, by the time people are hearing this, it'll just have ended. But that's all right. You can always join the family. You're always welcome. Join the family. Join the family. All right. For FilmSpotting SVU, I'm Matt Singer. And I'm Jordan Hoffman. Thanks for listening. You didn't want to say the last little bit.

1:54:45Matt Singer:I was going to let you do it. You had a nice time.

1:55:19Apple Vacations Vacations, where your story starts.

1:55:50you must reach out in the U.S. and primary usage must occur in our network. Visit T-Mobile.com. Hey, y 'all. What's up? This is Lauren LaRosa from the latest with Lauren LaRosa, the podcast. Remember Varnell Hill from the 90s sitcom Martin? He's back. And now on Paramount +, more than 30 years later, Tommy Davidson is stepping back into the spotlight in an all-new Martin spinoff, The Varnell Hill Show. And Varnell has just one question. Did you miss me? Now he's got network execs, a wild writer's room, family drama and everyone telling him he's passed his prime. Varnell isn't slowing down, bringing raw, unfiltered jokes every step of the way.

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