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

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
In 7th century Arabia, warring tribes join forces against a
ruthless emperor. Anthony Mackie, Captain America to you, stars in
this year's forgotten epic Desert Warrior. It's on Hulu. And
I'm Jordan Hoffman.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
And I'm Matt Singer. Is it on Hulu? I paid
to watch it.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
It's on Hulu today, but as of now, last night
it was not on Hulu.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I paid six bucks for this focaccia. All right, anyway.
With more movies, more series, more stuff going straight to
streaming than ever before, it felt like the right time
for a podcast that keeps track of it all, and
that podcast is Film Spotting SVU. Woo! Thank you. This
week we've got a review of Desert Warrior, plus some

(00:55):
deep cut streaming recommendations.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Woo!

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I can't wait to see what Jordan goes with. Maybe
movies set in the desert? Movies with armored elephants? Movies
where men wear a lot of eyeliner? I can't wait
to see. What could it be? What could it be?
Listen and find out. We'll also tell you about this
week's new to VOD and streaming titles, and we will
play a game.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
It's all coming up on Film Spotting SVU.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Welcome to Film Spotting SVU. I'm Matt Singer. Later in
the show, Jordan and I will have the rec seg,
the recommendation segment. We will recommend. Thank you. Boy, that's
a good idea. We should do that every time it
comes up. We should just yell it like that. I
bet your wife would love it.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
Oh, yeah. Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
So we will offer some streaming recommendations inspired by our
main review this week, which is, once again, Desert Warrior.
It's going to be very fun to see where we
go with Desert Warrior. And we also got a request
for a recommendation from a listener. And this is a
good one. I had a little fun with this one.

(02:05):
We're going to see what we can offer to this
listener to enhance their streaming movie lives, watching movies at home.
Can we help them? Can we improve the streaming experience?

Speaker 4 (02:19):
We will try.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
I think we're saving marriages because there have been several
emails from listeners saying, oh, you know, my husband disagrees
with X and my wife doesn't like that. And what's
something that we'll all agree on? And I know for
a fact that, you know, Jacoby and Myers is going
out of business. There are fewer divorces as a result

(02:42):
of film spotting SVU.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
If we keep people together, And then children are produced.
I think we should get the naming rights.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
That's right. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Or just mandatory if Matt or Jordan should be the name.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
And 10% of all their earnings going forward. That's right.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Should we start the show? Well, yes.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
And I will just mention one more time, we do
have a game coming up later in the show. Sam
was the winner. Producer Sam was the winner last week,
which means he is in charge.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
This week.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I can't wait to see what he's come... I hope
he just makes it more portmanteaus. That's always my favorite,
is when we do portmanteau games, because I just like portmanteaus.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Portmanteau to toe. What was the big winner last... It
was eight Crazy Nights of Cabiria. That was one of them, yes.
That was definitely one of them. I think we're going
to start selling bazooka t-shirts, but if they do well... Well,
maybe on the back of the bazooka t-shirt, there should
be some.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
A list of the most popular titles, and they're all portmanteaus.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Is that a legal area we're okay with? If it's
a fake title that's made out of two other titles,
are we okay?

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Let them come.

Speaker 5 (03:50):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Let them take it. This is the First Amendment. So
Bazooka on front and on the back will be a
list of the.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Top 10 titles on streaming this week.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
It's not a bad idea, actually. Number one is Eight
Crazy Nights of Kiberia.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah. All right. Well, that's to come later. But first up,
Desert Warrior.

Speaker 5 (04:10):
It was a legend told for generations. The forgotten warrior.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Desert Warrior is the kind of movie that makes you
think things like, wait, did Anthony Mackie get canceled and
I did not realize.

Speaker 6 (04:44):
It?

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Why is the star of Avengers Doomsday, surely one of
the biggest movies of this or any year, Appearing in
this visually lavish, but dramatically a little lifeless Saudi Arabian production.
Why are Charlton Copley and Sir Ben Kingsley in this movie?
Do they all need a gig this badly? Well, apparently

(05:06):
they do. Or at least the producers of Desert Warrior,
which reportedly had a budget of something like $ 150 million dollars.
Apparently that was enough money to make them an offer
they could not refuse. Mackie's involvement makes a little more
sense when you learn, as I did after I watched
the film, that he shot this movie five years ago

(05:28):
and that it only finally got released after a long
and tortured post-production process that, at least according to an
article that was published on Deadline, involved a creative dispute
between director Rupert Wyatt and the producers. Frankly, if I
directed this thing, I'd have some creative disputes as well.

(05:50):
The same article quotes an unnamed film distributor who works
in the Middle East releasing movies who said, quote, I'm
not sure who it is targeting. It looks like another
big budget Hollywood film that just happens to have been
filmed in Saudi Arabia. And Anthony Mackie stars as Hansala,
a bandit who gets mixed up in a battle between

(06:12):
various emperors and kings and leaders in the region, including
the vicious Emperor Kisra, played by the aforementioned Ben Kingsley,
and I guess as also was aforementioned, Ben Kingsley's eyeliner.
He wears a lot of it in this movie.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
He's not the only one.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
No, and this is, again, the kind of movie that
makes you think, did Anthony Mackie get canceled? It also
makes you think, is this accurate? Did men of this
period in this region wear this much eyeliner and I
Googled it afterwards? And the answer is maybe. We're not
entirely sure, but there is a name for this sort
of eyeliner. It's not just decorative. It's essentially the same...

(06:58):
concept as wearing eye black as a baseball player.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Right, to absorb the sun.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
It absorbs the sun. Look at that. See, this film,
it is educational.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
It is, it is, yes.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Jordan, there is certainly something important about learning about wearing
eyeliner in the desert. I will never forget that. And
there is also certainly something newsworthy about, you know, Saudi
Arabian financiers trying to kind of boost the local film industry.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
By putting $ 150 million into this lavish calling card of
a movie with Hollywood movie stars, with a big director.
But Newsworthy is not the same as successful. So my
question to you is, can you offer any explanation why
Anthony Mackie at all... is involved in Desert Warrior besides

(07:53):
the fiduciary benefits.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Well, that's the problem. I mean, listen, mostly that. Mostly.
They backed up the money truck for him. And I mean,
also there's the, Anthony Mackie's on the poster, but he's
not the star of the movie. It's this British Arab
actress named Ayesha Hart who plays Princess Hind. And in fact,

(08:18):
she is the Desert Warrior, the titular Desert Warrior, as
we will discover. And this guy, Geza Rohrig, who's in
movies periodically, he's in this as well. But the star
is the look. And I can understand why you would be,
if a producer were to present this opportunity and they

(08:41):
showed you, what's it called? Sketches, what are they called?
Concept art of what this movie is going to look like.
Shot on location in the desert in these gorgeous vistas
that have never been really used before for movies. Because
there was no Saudi film industry X amount of years ago.
And then, you know, these ancient caves and all these

(09:03):
amazing looking places. And then the few interiors they have,
they really made it look incredible. The ancient city of.
Which I'm mispronouncing, I'm sure. Looks great. So, yeah, why
wouldn't you give it a chance? And it's not, you know,
it's a real director. Rupert Wyatt, you know, he did
the most recent... He did one of the... Dawn of

(09:25):
the Rise of the Planet.

Speaker 5 (09:25):
Of the Apes.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
He did Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The
first of the recent kind of reboots or prequels.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
Right.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
The movie was written... by David Self. And David Self, well,
it's actually been a while since he's had a good movie,
but Road to Perdition, 13 Days. Then he did The
Wolfman in 2010. That's his last credit, I think, is
The Wolfman, the one with, I think, wasn't it?

Speaker 2 (09:49):
That's the one with Benicio Del Toro.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Right, with Benicio. It didn't really work out.

Speaker 5 (09:52):
No.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
But he's a real guy in Hollywood. And then the
producer is Jeremy Bolt. Now, Jeremy Bolt, that's... where the
red flag comes. Because Jeremy Bolt is very prolific. But
he's Paul W.S. Anderson's guy.

Speaker 6 (10:07):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
So he does all the Paul W.S. Anderson movies and
other movies like that. And he kind of pumps them
out on the rig, as they say. And most of
them are, you know, questionable, but sometimes there's a work
of art in there thrown in. But, you know, he's
the producer of the 2014 Pompeii, for example. You know,

(10:28):
that's who you're getting with Jeremy Bolt.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Anyhow, it's a real movie, so maybe it would come together.
And I think the point is this. If you were
to watch any 80-second clip of this movie, truly any,
just drop in randomly 80 seconds on a crisp, high-res
YouTube clip, and you'd say, wow, this looks gorgeous. This
looks incredible. I want to know more about the story.

(10:55):
It really is enticing. The problem is this. The movie
is an absolute confounding bore it was the 28 minute
mark and I shouted at my screen when is this
movie going to start like when and finally when and
what was the answer When she's like in the prison
and they're about to kill her and they're like, oh, okay.

(11:16):
Now I feel like, like, I don't know who any
of the characters are. No. And it's not just because
I'm ignorant of the history here. And we'll get to
that in a moment. It just was, it was inept.
It was, it was like made by people who've never
made movies before. And that's not true. Say what you
will about Jeremy Bolt's oeuvre, you know, his other movies,
at least, you know, they don't feel so beamed in

(11:38):
from outer space. This was like, it was like watching
an AI film. But it looked, I truly can't say
enough about the look. It was gorgeous. Every shot in
a picture, really, really, really beautiful. And the action scenes
are cool. And the editing is good too. There's a
lot of cool stuff done with sort of like use

(12:00):
of silence and like rapid fire editing, almost in kind
of a 60s, 70s way where you see somebody's point
of view. And then like, you know, I don't even
say Sergio Leone style because it was more.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Dear God, please don't compare this movie positively to the
works of Sergio Leone.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
I will say that certainly they tried. They didn't succeed,
but they tried. But everybody tries. Anyway, the editing is cool.
And I got to say, I was fascinated by this.
But of course, the real impetus of this movie is
the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is a questionable place.
has a boatload of money, and they've been trying to

(12:38):
become more westernized. They got this golf league of theirs.
They have a film festival also called the Red Sea
Film Festival.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Right.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
And they've been trying to get that off the ground,
and they're trying to get a film industry off the ground.
Why wouldn't they? I mean, they have a background like this.
I mean, look, there are scenes in this movie, I
swear to God, that are as beautiful as Dune. I mean,
Dune has the edge because it's the future or whatever
the hell time it is, and so they got spaceships
and whatnot.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
But the scenes, I mean, clearly they're like, let's try
to do a real Dune. I mean, that was the idea.
And it's, you know.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
We have Dunes.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Look out there.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
There's Dunes everywhere.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, there's Dunes. We got real Dunes.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
So it looks phenomenal. And then the other thing is this,
which is disappointing, is I don't know anything about this
time period. I like to think of myself, and I
think you do too, Matt, as a fairly educated... individual.
I think I feel like I know more than the
average bear about history. And I realized when I was
watching this, I know a lot about Western history. I

(13:40):
know about the Plantagenets, and I know about the, you know,
the Tudors, and I know a lot about Europe, you know,
when I see an old movie, you know, a movie
about European history, I know that. You know, it was like,
I remember feeling this way when I saw the, what
was it called, Red Cliff, the John Woo movie, is

(14:04):
it called Red Cliff?

Speaker 2 (14:05):
I think that's correct.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Let me see.

Speaker 4 (14:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
There's a movie about that. If I knew more about
China or if I was Chinese, it would be- Yes, Redcliffe.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
I remember watching Redcliffe going like, I don't know any
of this. I feel like an idiot. And I blame
the education system I was brought up in. Similarly, I
don't know a whole heck of a lot about Pre-Islamic Arabia,
which is when this is set. I know a little
bit about the history of the Abbasids and the Umayyads,
which is later, but this is before that. And there

(14:35):
are all these empires that I'm learning about, and I
jotted some of them down, the... the Sassanids and the, uh,
I'm going to mispronounce the Lockmids and all these places,
the city, the ancient lost city of Cepheon or Cepheon.
And I got to admit, I'm like, I don't really

(14:56):
know much about that. And I'm like, okay, cool. Let's
get into it. What makes this tribe? There's like, you know, these,
there's like five different tribes. They all come together. A
la Braveheart, a Western story that I know about fighting
the British. It's all the tribe, you know, the Scots
and the Irish get together to kick the British ass.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
In this, the, the, The tribe A and tribe B
get together to defeat the– To beat Ben Kingsley. To
beat Ben Kingsley, the Sassanid Emperor. Would that there were
a film that would educate a moron like me.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
I wish that– and unfortunately, Desert Warrior is not that
film because it is so, so, so boring. Well, and it's–
Even though– it looks cool. And this is my summation. Matt,
do you agree with my summation?

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Well, yeah, for the most part. I mean, you lose
me when you start comparing it to things like Leone
and Dune.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Well, they tried. They tried and failed.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
We all try. Everyone's trying. I'm trying right now. That
doesn't mean I'm Sergio Leone. I'm sorry. I'm not quite.

Speaker 6 (15:56):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Everything you're saying, though, otherwise is correct. I think there's
a fatal flaw here, though, for our purposes. Well, there's
a couple. But You said the movie looks good, and
it does. The movie does look good, for the most part.
It has a beautiful backdrop. These deserts and these vistas
and these mountains, yes, they could make the backdrop for

(16:18):
an absolutely spectacular film, and the movie does look good.
The problem is, we are the streaming video unit. We
are watching this movie at home. This movie did play
briefly in theaters in April, very briefly, and disappeared... almost
as quickly. So people are watching it at home, right?
I guess it's just about, as people are listening to this,

(16:41):
they could watch it on Hulu. I had to pay,
I paid to rent this movie, which, you know, I
regret it almost instantaneously, but I did pay my own
money to see this.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
At home, though.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
And at home... I think there's a ceiling on how
much enjoyment you can get from a movie, how good
a movie looks, if that's the only good thing about it.
Unless your movie looks like the most beautiful movie that's
ever existed. And we're not in that territory. This is
a good looking movie, but this is not, you know,
this is not a David Lean film. This is not

(17:15):
a Sergio Leone film. This is, it's not in that league.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
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 the rods and cones
reflecting in their eyes and they're like, When they go
to the bazaar and there's a guy with a giant
blue fish on his head and all the women have
veils and all the ancient coins and stuff. They spent
a lot of money on this.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
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 the script.
And that is the other big issue.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
No, they did not go... They went into production too
soon or something and... They just didn't– they didn't have–
I don't understand how they would do that.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
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

(18:21):
as ignoramuses can gather from this movie, it seems like
a potentially fascinating story. You have this 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

(18:43):
of it.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
The screenplay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
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

(19:06):
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

(19:28):
explain it.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Not enough.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
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.

Speaker 5 (19:53):
Our tribes have killed each other for centuries.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
I know they are not your favorite neighbors, but they
are good fighters.

Speaker 6 (20:01):
How do you beat an empire?

Speaker 5 (20:03):
We fight this battle together.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Are you with me?

Speaker 5 (20:06):
Yes!

Speaker 1 (20:11):
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.
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

(20:32):
all failed. And it's upsetting. But I do want to say,
I don't want to... I've already... said the nice things
about the look. There is one sequence in this movie
that really does kick ass.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
And that's the, the truly the only sequence with Ben Kingsley.
Ben Kingsley's in one extended sequence that shows up at
the very end for like a shot.

Speaker 4 (20:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
And it took me a little while to realize this
scene is is 100% ripped off from Return of the Jedi.
It's the scene at Jabba's Palace.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
He is, oh, well, he is the Emperor. I mean,
you mentioned Braveheart, and I don't, I wouldn't be surprised
if that was a movie that was thrown out by
these screenwriters, because they're clearly trying to, you know, use,
I mean, Western storytelling tropes, In this historical fiction. And
I thought of Star Wars, too. You've got, I mean,

(21:23):
Anthony Mackie's basically like Han Solo, the charming, you know,
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.

Speaker 5 (21:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
You're underselling it. Oh, sorry. Ben Kingsley is sitting... 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.

Speaker 5 (21:52):
So.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
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.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
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.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Else- That's my Salacious Crumb impression. If you remember, Jabba
grabs like a- frog and eats it.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Out of like a big goopy jar.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
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 And I'm like,
that's cinema, baby. That's the Saudi money. When we go

(22:50):
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. No, I felt pretty good about that sequence.
And I'm like, oh, is the rest of the movie
going to be Ben Kingsley in Jabba's palace? And then
we never went back there. And I'm like, bring back
Ben Jabba Kingsley.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
I was surprised that he didn't have at least one
more scene. I mean, it is a.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
And they must have paid him so much.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
He must have been paid a fortune.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Four million. I bet you he got paid four million
to fly, to do, you know, a day of.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
This was like a true.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
A day of costuming and a day of shooting.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
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... 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

(23:51):
this movie.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
And stayed, I'm sure, at a very nice hotel.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, oh, I'm sure.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
With, you can just imagine. So anyway, should I tell
you my Ben Kingsley story?

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Can I say one more thing about the movie before
you give us an absurd anecdote that goes on forever?
Minutes on end?

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yes, darling, of course.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
I do want to, you said that, you know, 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, you know,
it's not an assault on the Death Star, but it
is this, you know, it's more Braveheart. It's this epic

(24:30):
battle in the desert. And there are some moments that
are cool. There's like, There's tactics involved and flanks and
strategy and there's catapults. Poison.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Good use of poison also.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Very good use of poison, actually. But then there is
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

(25:04):
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.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
I mean, come on. It gets a little dirty.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Jordan, I thought about this too. I'm like, I'm sure
that this is the kind of thing that perhaps could happen.
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 waited– I've sat through
two hours of this movie for this battle. Let me

(25:38):
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 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

(25:58):
turned it off eventually. 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.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
I mean, they were. What they were, they had used,
there were elephants like tanks. They had these giant stomping
elephants straight.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Out of Lord of the Rings. Which you can barely
see because of the dirt and the schmutz.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Because these elephants aren't real. They're computer generated. So they
had to cover it a little bit.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
I was really annoyed.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
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 meat at the bad guys.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, I mentioned the catapults.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, but you didn't mention what they did. Well, 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? And then
once there's enough meat around the bad guys, they release
these jaguars or whatever the hell they are.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Jackals, maybe hyenas.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
There weren't tigers.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
No, they were smaller. I thought they were jackals.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
Whatever they were, they had claws and fangs, and they
ripped the bad guys apart.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Or maybe hyenas.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, and it was pretty great. They stole that from RRR, though,
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
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.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
It looks spectacular until it really needs to look spectacular,
and then it falls apart. All right, fair enough. Well,
the movie stinks, yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Tell me your Ben Kingley story. I'm going to time it.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Go.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Oh, God.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
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. Haley
Lou Richardson. And Ben Kingsley plays Adolph Eichmann in this movie.

(28:06):
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, the studio would rent two rooms

(28:26):
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. And a
lot of times you do this and like you see
other people, you know, because we're all in the same biz.
I think probably one of the funniest was Alan Alda
was doing interviews for the movie Bridge of Spies. And

(28:47):
I remember being in the 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. Like there's nobody else that wants

(29:09):
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, like a chair at a desk.
So I'm sitting on the, I immediately go to that.
I'm like, I'm not sitting on Ben Kingsley's bed. So

(29:31):
I sit on the desk chair and he's sitting on
the bed. Now there's a little couch there. And about
midway through, he goes, darling, let's continue this conversation over
there on that couch. I'm like, all right, that does
make sense. So I do the conversation with Ben Kingsley
side by side, like a small little couch in the

(29:53):
hotel room, like tiny.

Speaker 6 (29:55):
Tiny.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Like my butt cheeks are touching his butt cheeks. That's
how close we are on this couch. And all I
could 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.

(30:16):
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.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
You sat next to him on a couch?

Speaker 1 (30:27):
When was the last time your butt cheeks touched an
Oscar winner? When was the last time?

Speaker 2 (30:34):
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.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
It's weird to be side by side having a conversation
with Ben Kingsley.

Speaker 4 (30:56):
Sure, sure.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
He's like centimeters from your face. And he's Ben Kingsley.
He's a impressive actor. Of course. The Mandarin from the MCU.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
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.

Speaker 4 (31:15):
Never, never.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
If you're going to watch it, it should be on Hulu.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
It does look nice. Watch clips on YouTube. But John
Woo's Red Cliff is on Prime Video.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yes, we mentioned that a bunch.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
And Operation Finale, which I just mentioned, is on Prime Video.
Good movie.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
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.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
That one you love. Sam loves Mario the Plumber. Mario
the Plumber was a good story.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
It was better than Ben Kingsley. I'll give you that.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
Go back to episode three.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Tell us your favorite Jordan story. Email us feedback at filmspottingsvu.com.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
It's time you become one.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
All right, it's time for some recommendations. This is the
recommendation segment, also known. Rex egg.

Speaker 4 (32:06):
Rex egg.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
The Rex egg.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Rex egg.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Jordan's taking off his sweatshirt. He's getting comfortable here. I
can't wait to hear. He's got to be in total comfort.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Disrobing right now.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
You're disrobing. Talking about sitting on a couch with Ben
Kingsley is getting him a little warm, a little hot
under the collar. All right.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
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.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
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?

Speaker 4 (32:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
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

(33:11):
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, blah, blah, blah. He goes,
have you seen the new movie directed by so-and-so? And
I said, oh, you know, I kind of fell off.
I haven't watched his movies in a while. Is this
one good? You gotta 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,

(33:33):
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.

Speaker 5 (33:48):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
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.

Speaker 4 (34:02):
Maybe.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
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,

(34:23):
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 gonna pass out. That's how into it I was.
There's very little dialogue, and what I only learned a
few hours ago when I was Googling this... was that

(34:46):
it's actually based on a true story, which I did
not know. And Gus Van Sant and the actors, they
knew it was something, but 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.

(35:07):
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. 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

(35:28):
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, you know, 2002. It would have been
pretty bad digital video, if you ask me. They shot
it on a 35, and it looks great.

Speaker 4 (35:50):
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.

Speaker 5 (35:56):
So we were going east.

Speaker 6 (35:57):
All right, which is a total, Jerry, because that's... And
when we were going east.

Speaker 4 (36:02):
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.

Speaker 5 (36:08):
We didn't see anything for a while. And then in
the morning.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
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

(36:36):
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. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
That could affect the spell it casts.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
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,

(37:16):
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 rec. 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,

(37:39):
which has a little bit more of a story. And
then Last Days, which is about Kurt Cobain, but not
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.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
Jerry Seinfeld was very envious of that approach. Yes, I
have seen Jerry. It is a good, I don't know.
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? Turn the lights
off and get loose?

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Is that what you said? 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 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.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Some wind chimes, maybe.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Little wind chimes. And then, yeah, then the rain coming in,
you'd 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.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
Hello?

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Are you Googling your canopy over there? If you're doing that,
it's Jerry with a G. Get Sam to call you
up and play Riders of the Storm. Yeah, it's tough.
I mean, that's why I haven't seen it since. I
saw it in 2002, and I haven't seen it since.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
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.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
Oh, no, this is better than In the Hand of Dante.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
I don't know that I agree. with that assessment.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
You just like seeing, what's his name? Jason Momoa?

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
You just like seeing him with an Italian accent saying,
I am a pussycat. Like a pussycat.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Quite curious. 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

(40:04):
successful prequels in history, I think.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Great movie.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
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

(40:36):
totally digital creation.

Speaker 6 (40:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
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.

Speaker 5 (40:47):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
The 2014 remake of The Gambler. Now, this is.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
I forgot about this.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
The original film was made in 1974, directed by, I
guess it's probably Carol Rees. Carol Rees, 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

(41:16):
the departed screenwriter, William Monaghan. And it's got Mark Wahlberg
in the James Caan role.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
William Monaghan is not dead. He wrote the movie, The Departed.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
No, he wrote the movie, The Departed.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Yeah, but the way you said it, it made it sound.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Like he was departed.

Speaker 5 (41:33):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (41:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Fine.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
I do too.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
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

(42:08):
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.
And the movie itself, it does have some writerly flair.
The dialogue, I guess by Monaghan or maybe by Toback

(42:30):
or both, has some real bite, some real snap. 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 Wahlberg. 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,

(42:53):
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.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
Listen 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.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
I know what I have to do.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
Where are you going to get my money?

Speaker 3 (43:16):
I'll get the money.

Speaker 4 (43:17):
How much you want?

Speaker 3 (43:19):
I am $ 260, 000 all in.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
When's the last.

Speaker 4 (43:22):
Time you had money in your hand to pay a
debt and paid it? Don't f * * * with me.
This will be your first time when you pay, am
I right?

Speaker 2 (43:31):
That's right. 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.

(43:55):
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.

Speaker 6 (44:14):
Someone.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
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 got to 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.

(44:36):
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?

Speaker 5 (44:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
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 this. 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?

Speaker 1 (45:09):
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.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
You touched the eyes with Mark Wahlberg on the set
of The Gambler?

Speaker 1 (45:26):
No, about a year ago, I actually, I wrote a
DVD booklet for the original.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Oh, I did not know this. Who released it, if
people want to check it out?

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Okay, you're fired.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
You don't know who you did this for.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Who does Justin LaLiberty work for?

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Vinegar Syndrome?

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yeah, Vinegar Syndrome. I wrote it for Vinegar Syndrome.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
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

(46:12):
the original is really just out of control. It's got
Vic Tabak and Burt Young and Paul Sorvino in it.
I mean, come on, 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

(46:34):
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

(46:57):
because it didn't really connect. I also think it was
put out by like CBS Films or something. It was
like a studio that didn't... It.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Says Paramount here. It may appear to be a major
film studio.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
A little studio called Paramount 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.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
So 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.

Speaker 6 (47:31):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
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

(47:55):
not the kind of movie we see much nowadays. 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.

Speaker 4 (48:07):
You understand the gravity of your situation.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
I know what I have to.

Speaker 5 (48:13):
Do. All or nothing, all the money down.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
All right. It's time for the listener request segment of
the Rec Seg segment. 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.

(48:38):
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?

Speaker 2 (48:58):
I was just about to say, what a good girlfriend.
Jordan's not impressed.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
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 physically open
to suggestions in the past. I was hoping you guys

(49:23):
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? Because

(49:44):
the one I picked is old.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
This is a good question.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
My movie's from the 50s. Oh, shit. It actually is
a period piece because it set during World War II.
It was made in 57, but it set during World
War II.

Speaker 4 (49:56):
All right. All right.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
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?

Speaker 6 (50:06):
Danny.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Danny.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
Good old Danny. Danny boy. What do you got for Danny?

Speaker 2 (50:10):
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...

(50:34):
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 um
and danny specifically said that his girlfriend is not a
fan of period pieces and that that does narrow the
options a lot but i looked around on the criterion
channel and i found another kind of like the gambler

(50:57):
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,

(51:17):
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

(51:39):
man movie, but a sad man nonetheless. 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,

(51:59):
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 and untalented people, and it punishes the
true artists, and it kind of rewards the sycophants and

(52:23):
the hangers-on and the barnacles. 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,

(52:45):
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.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
Who did this? Oh, it's mine.

Speaker 4 (53:07):
Where have you been all my life?

Speaker 2 (53:10):
The movie came out in 2006, and when I saw
it then, at the time, I was only a couple
of years removed from 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

(53:34):
higher education and the world– the world of art and
shallow fame obsessed people you sometimes find in certain corners
of it. And, uh, everyone hated this movie. They just
thought it was, it was angry and mean and dark
and it is those things. But I think if you're

(53:54):
in the right mood, it is, it, it, it, it
is all those things in a good way. And it,
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.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
And he's been trying, too. He did some Amazon TV stuff.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
Yeah, he does stuff.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
He did a pilot. I think he did some episodes
of some TV. But he has not made a feature.
And it's not for lack of trying. He just can't
get it together. I mean, nobody will invest in it.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
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.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
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.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
How close on the couch did you sit with him
when you interviewed him?

Speaker 1 (54:42):
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 to you,
there were like workmen who were like cutting a tree
in his yard and And he was like, you're supposed
to come back at noon. Come back at noon. It's

(55:05):
just amazing. You know, he was part of– Amazon did
a gimmick. Early days of streaming TV.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Oh, the pilot thing where you could vote on the pilots?

Speaker 1 (55:17):
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 called by TC Boyle,
which I've actually read. It's not one of TC Boyle's best,
but it's okay. It's actually, and it could have made
a good show. It's about these guys who like go

(55:37):
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 taught, he wanted to talk
to me because he was trying to like get Um,
get people to vote for his pilot, get me to
vote for me, vote for me. And it didn't get

(55:58):
voted for. And I don't know what did get voted for. So,
you know, it might've been the man in the high
castle or whatever was one of Amazon's early, uh, 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've got the money, you know,
to finance the zwig off and, and this, this show,

(56:20):
you know, 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. I mean,
Ghost World is just perfect. It's a perfect movie. And

(56:42):
then the new Terry 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?

Speaker 2 (56:55):
2006. It's 20 years old now.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
Yeah. So I have not seen it in 20 years,
and now I know I can, along with listener Danny.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
That's my pick. 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?

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Well, Criterion, you know, 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

(57:41):
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

(58:01):
The Cranes Are Flying, but I wouldn't be surprised if
it was like 22 or 23. It's like one of
the early.
Criterion Collection discs. Like, number one, I think, is The
Grand Illusion, right?

Speaker 2 (58:14):
It's number 146, so it's not bad.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
It's... Shows you what I know. It's not that low.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
Well, they're up until like the 12 or 1300s now.
So comparatively, that's pretty early. All right.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
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

(58:50):
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

(59:12):
really just a love story. The basic premise is it's
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. Um, and, uh,
she's sad, but she ends up shacking up with her

(59:34):
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, not the greatest. Um, 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, uh, high contrast black
and white, absolutely gorgeous, but it's really remembered for its

(59:57):
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,

(01:00:18):
where they're in an apartment building and they get bombed
and all that. And also very creative use of editing to,
you know, characters in different places and experiencing things at
different times. 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.

(01:00:39):
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

(01:00:59):
and Seventh Seal and 400 Blows and those, the big,
big mamas. This is not in that ranking, but I
think it should be. 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

(01:01:24):
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

(01:01:46):
they have on there is Mikhail Kalatozov's The Cranes Are Flying,
so you don't have to pay a penny. And I
think that Mozfilm's YouTube channel resolution is as good as
what's on Criterion, having poked around at it just today.
So that's my recommendation. I like that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
That's one of.

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
Those vaunted world cinema classics I have not gotten around to.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
Sam, have you seen The Cranes Are Flying?

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
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,

(01:02:56):
15 hours long or whatever the heck it is. I mean,
it looks amazing. because they recognized 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. I mean, that's no secret

(01:03:18):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Okay, so to wrap up our recommendations in the Rick's
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

(01:03:50):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Can't hurt.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Can't hurt. And then our listener recommendation for Danny. I
suggested Terry Zwagoff'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

(01:04:21):
Criterion Channel. But it is also streaming on Roku, on VOD.
And then what was the YouTube channel? Because I think
that's another great recommendation, Jordan.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Moss Film.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Yeah, we should do a whole- Is it MOS Film?

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:04:41):
Yes, I've seen that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
That I've seen.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
It's a very famous one.

Speaker 5 (01:04:43):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
And so you know the visual appeal to I.M.

Speaker 6 (01:04:47):
Cuba.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
Famous visual, yes. Yeah, and so you'll see that in
The Cranes Are Flying also. It's definitely... from the makers of. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
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

(01:05:16):
want to see a full list of all the titles
we have talked about and recommended on filmspottingsvu.com, 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. And
I saw the comments are open on that list. And

(01:05:36):
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

(01:05:57):
couldn't think of the name of the goofy... Voodoo.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Yeah. I remember Voodoo.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
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. 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.

Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
Bazooka, it's important to note, is the cream.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
It is the cream.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
Of the crop.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
That's right. That's right. I would like to confirm I'm
on Mossfilm and they definitely have some post-Soviet Russian movies
on here, but it's mostly like all the hits of
Soviet cinema. And then plenty that I've never heard of
that are probably very good or at least interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
How far back do they go? Do they have like
the great silent Soviet stuff as well?

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
I'm looking at, um, I'm looking at, uh, what's it?
A strike. Sergei Eisenstein.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
I was going to say, you got some Eisenstein on there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
They got, and then they got plenty of stuff that I've,
I've really never heard of. And, um, man with a
movie camera on there. Well, that would be German. So no, no,
you're right. No, that is, that is Russian. So let's,
it probably is on here. Um, I mean, there's a
million movies on it. This is the great unknown service.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
You can find Man with a Movie Camera on YouTube regardless,
whether it's on there or not.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
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 Film's YouTube channel. Bazooka!

Speaker 6 (01:07:40):
When you got a stream Bazooka It's cream of the
crop It's my favorite of your favorites But it's streaming.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Apps It's time for our game on FilmSpottingSVU. Sam won
last week, which means he is now the host of
this week's show.

Speaker 4 (01:08:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
Sam, what are we doing this week on our game?

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
I am so excited for this. The game is called
Mark My Words. Mark My Words.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
I'm guessing this might be... Oh, no, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
Okay, go ahead. Okay, there is a long subtitle. I apologize.

Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Oh boy.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
It was published almost 14 years to the day that
this show will be published. So again, the films will
be the films of the summer of 2012. And the
clues will be your.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Very own words. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
Sent via AOL instant message in 2012.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Big 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?

Speaker 4 (01:09:28):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Or maybe we each did our own review, yeah, but
published simultaneously. I just remember him like, I.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
Remember him like lording over us, like write your reviews
while I feed you nachos. You know, it's just very weird.

Speaker 4 (01:09:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
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 that, Um, it'll, it'll be your,
you know, 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.

(01:10:12):
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. He's going to have a chance to
weigh in and then it'll be buzzer, uh, two films
you guys shared.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
So these are summer movies of 2012. Correct. And we
have to guess them based on the other person's description
of them.

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):
Again, I'm taking the transcript of your conversation.

Speaker 5 (01:10:33):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
This is something that is published.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
I don't even remember 2012. That might have been Avengers.

Speaker 3 (01:10:37):
I'll give you other clues. There'll be plenty of clues
along the way.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
This sounds very fun.

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:11:02):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:11:04):
That's the first clue.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:11:10):
All right, well, we're just going to move on to
buzzers here. We're going to move on to buzzers.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
Now I can answer if I... Okay, I don't know yet, but.

Speaker 3 (01:11:16):
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

(01:11:40):
a bar argument. But ultimately, not on any sort of
best list for me. I will start reading cast names.

Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:11:49):
Benedict Wong. My former college roommate, Logan Marshall Green. Guy Pearce.
Idris Elba.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
What? Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. I know. Was this
Pacific Rim?

Speaker 3 (01:12:03):
Numi Rapace. It is not Pacific Rim.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
Oh, I know.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
It's Alien Prometheus.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
Prometheus is correct, Matt Singer.

Speaker 5 (01:12:11):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):
All right.

Speaker 4 (01:12:12):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
It's Alien Prometheus. I agree. That movie stinks. I watched
it again fairly recently, and it's no good.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
People passionately defended it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:21):
I think people do, and they do.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
People are wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
I definitely prefer Alien Covenant to Prometheus.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
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 versus 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.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
No, that's heretical.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
Matt has one point. One point for Matt.

Speaker 3 (01:12:48):
Okay, number two. So Matt, I'm going to read the
first sentence. This is Jordan's pick.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
So this is a Jordan pick now.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
You say, wow.

Speaker 3 (01:13:10):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Well, I probably wouldn't be able to guess it, so
let's go to buzzers.

Speaker 3 (01:13:16):
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, there's a wide variety, wide range of
comedy in there. The shock gags, the political gags, the

(01:13:38):
Brooklyn vegan stereotypes, and then just absurdist silliness. Remember the
part with the three bananas? I'm still laughing about that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:48):
Oh, I know what this is. This is The Dictator.
That's correct.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
The Dictator. That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
General, terrific movie.

Speaker 5 (01:13:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
He was a general something or other.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
I think we can all agree that this movie is
vastly superior to Prometheus. Still, to this day.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
I'd have to revisit it. I have very little memory
of it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
It's pretty funny.

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
But Sacha 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.

Speaker 5 (01:14:22):
All right.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
Yeah, back in 2012, Jordan, you said Jason Manzoukas is
the next comedy titan.

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):
Jason Manzoukas is very funny.

Speaker 3 (01:14:29):
And he's very funny.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
He's funny, but he didn't... He's not... Yes, we're still
waiting for that to happen.

Speaker 3 (01:14:34):
He should be the next.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
People hated The House. I gave that a positive review
and got a lot of flack.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
Very underrated, funny movie.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):
Number three. This appeared on both your lists. So this
is a buzz.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
So we could either, okay, just go straight to buzz.

Speaker 3 (01:15:03):
Anybody can buzz it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:03):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (01:15:04):
All right.

Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 6 (01:15:06):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:15:07):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:15:32):
Matt, in two decades, are you snorting pretzel nuggets? Jordan,
this has whiz- We never got to the bottom of
that question.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
I think I know what the whiz- I think I might-
Can I guess, but if I get it wrong, I
can't guess again, right?

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
No, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:15:45):
It's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
Go ahead. Guess.

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):
I think this is Valerian and the City of 1,000 Planets,
or whatever the hell that movie's called. Can't be that,
because I.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
Didn't like that movie.

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
Jordan says, this has whiz-bang on a level of Raiders
of the Lost Ark.

Speaker 5 (01:15:58):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:15:58):
The character's as fun, too. Maybe not as iconic, but
you know, there's more of them, so it balances out.

Speaker 4 (01:16:05):
Matt?

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
He's still doing the same schtick. Today he compared Desert
Warrior to a Sergio Leone movie.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
What could this be? Jordan says, I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:16:22):
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 ever. 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

(01:16:43):
star of blank eight.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
Namor will become the star of blank... Oh!

Speaker 4 (01:16:50):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
Is it the Avengers?

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
It's the Avengers.

Speaker 4 (01:16:55):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
I mean, listen, the Avengers... actually is pretty good.

Speaker 6 (01:16:59):
It is good.

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):
It's very good.

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):
It's not as good as Raiders. It was your number
one movie of the summer of 2012, Matt. It was
your number four.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
I'm surprised it's that low. I'm curious to see what
was higher. I guess we're going to find out.

Speaker 3 (01:17:10):
This is going to get even tougher because you may
even help conjuring up some of these titles. Of course,
The Avengers was.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
What was I talking about?

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
A cop?

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
A cop does something?

Speaker 3 (01:17:17):
Well, it will be played in every great movie montage
until now, until.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
We're living underwater.

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):
It was the thing with Captain America? The movie when
the cop does what Captain America orders him to do.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
It's when Captain America, it's like, he's like, the cop
is like, you can't go in here or whatever. 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.

Speaker 3 (01:17:35):
Oh, right, right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
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. It's a pretty good scene.

Speaker 1 (01:17:41):
You need men in these buildings.

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
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?

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
I need men in those buildings. Lead the people down
and away.

Speaker 6 (01:17:56):
From the streets.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
You got it.

Speaker 3 (01:17:57):
We're going to set up a perimeter all the way
down to 39th Street.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
I don't know that it winds up in montages, but
it's a nice little moment for sure.

Speaker 5 (01:18:03):
No. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:18:04):
All right. So this, we're moving on. This, Matt, we're
going to start with you. This is one of Jordan's picks,
his number four. Jordan describes his, describing his number four
movie of the summer 2012. It's fun. It's funny. It's
a little sad.

Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
That's not going to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:21):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:18:32):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:18:33):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):
Is it Coraline?

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
No, 2012 was too late. Coraline was 2009. I don't
know why I know that.

Speaker 3 (01:18:49):
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

(01:19:09):
some voice actors here in a second. Let me see here.
As you continue to think.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
I mean, I can just keep throwing out names of movies,
but I feel like Jordan should get to guess since
I guessed incorrectly.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:19:28):
Voices by Cody Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck. Christopher Mintz.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
This is sounding familiar.

Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
I will start reading the plot. Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
I have a guess, but I want to give Jordan
a chance to guess.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
I'm just going to guess. There's no penalty for guessing.
I'm going to say, is it Paranorman?

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
That is correct.

Speaker 1 (01:19:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:19:49):
Oh, it is Paranorman.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
Yeah, you're right. That is a good movie. Paranorman.

Speaker 2 (01:19:51):
That is a good movie.

Speaker 4 (01:19:53):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:19:53):
All right, Matt, you're up 3-1. Jordan.

Speaker 2 (01:19:58):
How many movies do we have left?

Speaker 3 (01:20:00):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:20:13):
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
Okay. Just go enough that I can win.

Speaker 3 (01:20:15):
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 to number... This is Matt's number three pick. So, Jordan,
you will get the first shot here.

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
Okay, I'm going to get it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:27):
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

(01:20:48):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:21:08):
What?

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
What movie is this?

Speaker 3 (01:21:10):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):
There's that one with that weird movie with Anne Hathaway
that involves kaiju. That was made by... Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I don't remember what it's called.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
Oh, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
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?

Speaker 3 (01:21:34):
And it's... It's got a one-word title, right?

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
Oh, I know what it is. Jordan, you've told me
what it is, if it's that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
I can't remember the name of the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
Okay, it's not that. What's it called? Oh, it's not that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
What's that movie called? Gargantuan or something?

Speaker 6 (01:21:46):
Colossal.

Speaker 3 (01:21:46):
Colossal.

Speaker 1 (01:21:47):
Colossal, gargantuan, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:49):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:21:49):
Jordan says, for the record, I only pawned it off
on you because I had tickets for Cirque du Soleil
that night.

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
That's very funny, because I've actually never seen Cirque du Soleil.

Speaker 3 (01:22:00):
Here are some clues. Hopefully this will help. I have,
Jordan saying, I have no malice toward director David Frankel.
I enjoy 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.

Speaker 5 (01:22:19):
What?

Speaker 3 (01:22:20):
This is a movie that time forgot.

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
Robot dinosaur? Wasn't that in there?

Speaker 3 (01:22:24):
Okay, I will tell you the robot dinosaur, the scene
was Steve Carell, also in this film, fought a robot dinosaur. What?

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
This movie does not exist.

Speaker 3 (01:22:36):
Steve Carell plays a marital psychiatrist or counselor.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
In this film.

Speaker 3 (01:22:39):
Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Oh, wait, wait, it's coming to me now.

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):
It's Meryl Streep. It's Tommy Lee Jones.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
It's about Dan in real life. Dan in real life.

Speaker 3 (01:22:48):
Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones. It's... This is, Matt, your
number three movie of the summer. I have no memory
of this film.

Speaker 1 (01:22:58):
You like this more than Avengers. This means more to
you than Avengers.

Speaker 3 (01:23:03):
I love this. I don't know what else I can
tell you here.

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):
I think we give up.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
I think we give up.

Speaker 3 (01:23:09):
Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, directed by David Frankel.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
It sounds like a good movie, but I don't know
what it is.

Speaker 3 (01:23:14):
Gene Smart is in this. Meryl Ireland is in this film.

Speaker 2 (01:23:18):
It is called... Okay, yes.

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
It's called Hope Springs. Hope Springs Eternal. Hope Springs. Hope Springs.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
I do know that title.

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
It's your number three movie of 2012. I think you.

Speaker 2 (01:23:29):
Were right to raise an objection, Jordan. I don't know
what this guy was talking about in 2012.

Speaker 3 (01:23:34):
All right. Okay, so no points there. It's still 3-1.
This next film made both lists. I think this is
not Hope Springs. This is a movie people know. Buzzers
are 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

(01:23:55):
redacted and the huh, who, what aspect of the plot
may shatter the illusion, but I still applaud the propulsive
filmmaking style. Matt, 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,

(01:24:17):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
I mean, is this the Dark Knight Rises? Yes, it is.

Speaker 3 (01:24:29):
It's the Dark Knight Rises. Well done. Well done.

Speaker 1 (01:24:35):
Yeah, and I still feel that way. I watched the
Dark Knight Rises within the last couple of years and
I'm simultaneously loving it and thinking it's terrible.

Speaker 3 (01:24:43):
It's my favorite of the Dark Knights.

Speaker 1 (01:24:45):
Personally wow because it's the most ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:24:48):
I think it's because it's the most straightforward plot and
i don't get a lot of nolan and his like
ethical dilemmas it's just a fun ticking time bomb movie
and i do love bane i love bane is hilarious
he's so good.

Speaker 1 (01:24:59):
And and and anne hathaway and the cats and hathaway nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:25:02):
Underrated anne hathaway performance as incredible Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
I'm thinking more about the costuming than her performance, but
it's still very good.

Speaker 3 (01:25:11):
All right. We're moving on. It's three, two. Let's do,
let's do one more and then we'll do the final one.
We'll do. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:25:17):
If Jordan, yeah. Well, if Jordan, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:25:20):
This is you be your chance to tie Jordan. Okay.
But this is Matt. You get the first shot. Cause
this is Jordan's pick. Jordan writes my number two. I'm
trying to see what this movie is.

Speaker 4 (01:25:29):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:25:30):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
Ooh.

Speaker 6 (01:25:40):
Damn.

Speaker 1 (01:25:41):
I don't know what.

Speaker 3 (01:25:41):
Okay, buzzers activated.

Speaker 1 (01:25:43):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:25:44):
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. That would be the
ultimate punk rock slap in that guy's face. See, I'm

(01:26:04):
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

(01:26:25):
the recommendation, Matt's recommendation, the star of his.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
Is it a Mark Wahlberg movie?

Speaker 3 (01:26:33):
It is. That is correct.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
So what did Mark Wahlberg do in- Oh, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
Pain and Gain. Pain and Gain.

Speaker 3 (01:26:38):
It is not Pain and Gain, which I think is
the following year. Very good guess. I think that's 2013.

Speaker 1 (01:26:43):
This is a comedy.

Speaker 3 (01:26:44):
Oh, is it- No, it's not a creator.

Speaker 2 (01:26:51):
I'm trying to think of a director that would be a.

Speaker 3 (01:26:53):
The creator that, the creator, he directed this, but the
creator of it also voices the co-star.

Speaker 4 (01:26:59):
Ted!

Speaker 3 (01:27:00):
Yes, it's Ted. We've got a tied game.

Speaker 1 (01:27:03):
And you know what? I'm right. Ted is great.

Speaker 3 (01:27:06):
I think Ted is held up. I mean, it's got
a spin-off TV show now and everything, right?

Speaker 1 (01:27:10):
And Ted 2 is great too.

Speaker 4 (01:27:11):
Ted.

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
All right. But yeah, that guy, what's his name?

Speaker 4 (01:27:15):
Seth MacFarlane.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
Seth MacFarlane's a pain in the ass. I've actually mellowed
on him. I thought that his Star Trek ripoff was
not that bad. The Orville.

Speaker 2 (01:27:23):
I kind of like The Orville. I like The Orville.

Speaker 3 (01:27:26):
All right, so we're tied at three apiece.

Speaker 2 (01:27:28):
All right, good. Now we got a game.

Speaker 3 (01:27:30):
One more. This is it. This will be the final.
For all the marbles. And this is.

Speaker 2 (01:27:34):
This was the movie that you said made you want
to do this game.

Speaker 3 (01:27:37):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:27:49):
Oh, so we're off the top 10 list now? We're
on the bottom list?

Speaker 4 (01:27:54):
Bottom.

Speaker 3 (01:27:54):
This is the least favorite. Got it. Okay. I'm just
going to say this is buzzers activated right away.

Speaker 4 (01:27:59):
All right. Good.

Speaker 3 (01:28:00):
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.

Speaker 5 (01:28:20):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:28:21):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:28:27):
I know what it is.

Speaker 3 (01:28:28):
It wasn't funny. I know what it is.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:28:30):
It's Tarzan.

Speaker 3 (01:28:32):
It is not Tarzan.

Speaker 4 (01:28:34):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:28:34):
Didn't that come out around 2012? The history of Tarzan? Well, no,
that movie was pretty disrespectful. to.

Speaker 2 (01:28:40):
Which Tarzan are we talking about?

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
The one with Skarsgård.

Speaker 2 (01:28:44):
Oh, that's the legend of Tarzan. That's later. That's like
2015 or 16.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
That movie is pretty offensive to history.

Speaker 3 (01:28:48):
So movies that offend me. Do we need that list
at some point? You know, Tarzan is on it. And
this film, which is yet to be named.

Speaker 4 (01:28:55):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:28:55):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:29:17):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:29:18):
Here comes the big clue.

Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:29:20):
So get ready. I need to see if I can
see both of you. Matt, with the punchline. Plus, it
killed the market for your movie, Rutherford B. Hayes' Zombie Babysitter.

Speaker 1 (01:29:35):
Oh, I know what this is.

Speaker 2 (01:29:37):
Is it Abraham Lincoln Zombie Hunter?

Speaker 1 (01:29:40):
No, no, no. It's Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer.

Speaker 2 (01:29:44):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 3 (01:29:46):
Jordan coming from behind with the win. Oh!

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):
Yeah okay so.

Speaker 1 (01:29:52):
That movie did piss me off and actually um matt
you know him uh 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 um a mensch a true
mensch i remember beat coming out of the press screening
and just fuming for whatever reason this lit a fire

(01:30:13):
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. I'm pretty sure
he does not remember it. But I always feel, not

(01:30:36):
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 Hewlett.

Speaker 3 (01:30:40):
So Keith, if you're listening, I.

Speaker 1 (01:30:42):
Still love you.

Speaker 2 (01:30:42):
I don't even know if I ever.

Speaker 3 (01:30:44):
I saw it. It's terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
Did I see it? It's not clear from what I
was saying.

Speaker 3 (01:30:47):
No, I don't think you did.

Speaker 2 (01:30:49):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:30:49):
I don't think I ever saw it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:51):
Who plays Abraham Lincoln in this? 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 uh i'll let you look that
up because i'm.

Speaker 2 (01:31:04):
Looking it up i'm looking it up benjamin walker played
benjamin walker oh but the reason i see i see
the connection okay anthony mackie was in this film anthony.

Speaker 3 (01:31:13):
Mackie appears in the film i was going to do
a letter box sting 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

(01:31:35):
we'll ever do a mark my words again, but it
was a lot of fun to find that was fun.

Speaker 1 (01:31:41):
Memory lane.

Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
I'm going to revisit Hope Springs. I got to see.

Speaker 3 (01:31:44):
Apparently.

Speaker 2 (01:31:45):
Is it streaming?

Speaker 3 (01:31:47):
It is. Let's see.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:31:54):
He's a marriage counselor. I think he probably uses it
to illustrate something.

Speaker 2 (01:31:59):
Oh, it's a toy robot dinosaur, maybe? I was thinking
this was like a kaiju description. That's what was.

Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
Throwing me off. That was just a joke.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
That's why I thought about Colossal.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
Right, Colossal. But who's counting?

Speaker 3 (01:32:12):
Anyway, there it is. All right, Jordan, you won.

Speaker 2 (01:32:15):
You win again.

Speaker 3 (01:32:16):
I will host in the next game.

Speaker 2 (01:32:17):
The Games Master is back on top.

Speaker 1 (01:32:20):
All right, I can do it. I can make it
happen for next week. I'll think of something good. All right.

Speaker 2 (01:32:25):
History remembers the battle, but forgets the blood.

Speaker 3 (01:32:31):
However history remembers me, before I was a president, it
shall only remember.

Speaker 4 (01:32:40):
A fraction of the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:32:43):
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, movies that are coming
to Bazooka. And by Bazooka, I mean the streaming video sphere.
Theatrical releases that are available to rent or buy. So

(01:33:04):
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. Now, by the way, that's my last name, too,

(01:33:26):
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 Wilde. 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.

Speaker 2 (01:33:45):
He certainly has.

Speaker 1 (01:33:47):
Called Just Play Dead. And honestly, I'd never even heard
of this movie. I heard of the Gregoracki movie.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
I just heard of it like a day ago. Until
a day ago, I had not heard about this motion picture.
But now I have.

Speaker 1 (01:33:59):
I mean, Eva Green's... Martin Campbell, he did Zorro, right?

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
He did Zorro. He did GoldenEye. He did Casino Royale.
He's an action director of high regard.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
It's been a while, though, since he's done something good.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
And you know what else I think he directed?

Speaker 3 (01:34:15):
What's that?

Speaker 2 (01:34:15):
Green Lantern.

Speaker 1 (01:34:17):
Perhaps the greatest sci-fi spectacle. I don't have the energy
to get into that right now.

Speaker 4 (01:34:21):
Since Star Wars.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:34:23):
We won't get into it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:24):
Kristen 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 10 days ago.
So there's a brief window for The Wrong Girls.

Speaker 2 (01:34:36):
The windows are shrinking.

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
Yeah, Kristen Stewart, Aaliyah Shawkat. I once– never mind. I'll
tell you my Aaliyah Shawkat story another day.

Speaker 2 (01:34:44):
We got the Ben Kingsley story this time. We'll get
the Aaliyah Shawkat story the next time.

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):
These are all coming to streaming. Premium rental by Tuesday
the 2nd. Theatrical releases to streaming channels. So these are–
you don't need to spend $ 14. 99 or whatever. If you get,
for example– Criterion Channel.

Speaker 4 (01:35:02):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
If you're Danny and his girlfriend.

Speaker 1 (01:35:05):
Right. You can watch Romeria. Romeria by director Carla Simón.
It's a movie from Spain. Simón made the 2017 movie
Summer 1993 and the 2022 movie Alcarras. And then that's
coming Wednesday, September 2. And then also Wednesday, September 2

(01:35:26):
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 +.
Do you think you'll revisit The Mandalorian and Grogu? I

(01:35:47):
don't know, maybe your kids are into Grogu?

Speaker 2 (01:35:49):
My kids really like Grogu, yeah. I have a feeling
they will want to watch it again on streaming, actually. Yes,
I do. And it'll be fine.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
It'll be better.

Speaker 2 (01:35:56):
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 +, and it's sitting there
on the home screen, she'll be like, let's watch... Grogu.

Speaker 5 (01:36:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:36:15):
And why wouldn't she?

Speaker 2 (01:36:16):
And why wouldn't she?

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
Direct-to-streaming. These are movies that never played at theater. The Runner.
And this stars Gal Gadot, who's actually pronounced Gal Gadot.

Speaker 2 (01:36:27):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:36:47):
So does Rupert Wyatt, though.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:36:56):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
She got a bad rap for that one. But anyhow,
Kevin MacDonald made The 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

(01:37:17):
is the latest from Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daly.
We love these guys. They did the Dungeons & Dragons
Honor Among Thieves with Chris Pine, which rules. They did
Game Night, which are allegedly doing... Yeah, and they're allegedly
doing a new Star Trek, but who knows? They've been
in development on it for a while. The premise of Mayday,
when a U.S. Navy pilot on a top-secret mission during

(01:37:40):
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... is Kenneth Branagh, who is not Russian,

(01:38:02):
but tends to play Russians.

Speaker 2 (01:38:03):
He loves playing evil Russians. I was thinking like, you know,
Tennant is like.

Speaker 1 (01:38:06):
This guy's the Shakespearean actor.

Speaker 2 (01:38:09):
He's like, you know what I love is chasing moose
and squirrel.

Speaker 1 (01:38:15):
May Day 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?

Speaker 2 (01:38:32):
They've had a couple of decent ones. And once in
a while, they'll have something where people start talking about it.
I think it was also with Ryan Reynolds. Spirited, that
holiday movie.

Speaker 4 (01:38:45):
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:38:45):
I didn't see it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:46):
People like that movie. And with Will Ferrell as well.
That's another one. That's an Apple movie that people talk about.

Speaker 1 (01:38:51):
The one that Tom Hanks did on the submarine was
pretty good. Greyhound?

Speaker 2 (01:38:55):
Greyhound?

Speaker 1 (01:38:56):
Is that what it is? Yeah, not bad.

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
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 May Day. We are also talking about, we
didn't mention it here, but it's Shhh! The Whisper Man
with Robert De Niro and Adam Scott. That's on Netflix.

(01:39:17):
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 Gunn about the Olympic
breakdancer of much infamy. So we're not quite sure what
next week will hold, but it will hold one of

(01:39:40):
those titles. We're still quite pinning it down. Mayday, Untold
Ray Gunn or The Whisper Man. We'll 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.

Speaker 1 (01:39:54):
You can let us know what you would like us,
if you're like, oh, you gotta do Mayday, or you
gotta do Raygun.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
Or something else.

Speaker 1 (01:40:01):
Send us an email.

Speaker 4 (01:40:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:40:03):
Tell us.

Speaker 1 (01:40:03):
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 we appreciate your emails, even when
they're critical. But they usually are positive.

Speaker 2 (01:40:20):
That's it? That's all you have to say?

Speaker 1 (01:40:22):
Yeah. For once, I have nothing more to say other
than thank you for listening.

Speaker 2 (01:40:25):
But there's all these other things you've got to say here.

Speaker 1 (01:40:27):
What else do I have to say?

Speaker 2 (01:40:28):
I'll say it.

Speaker 1 (01:40:29):
I said it all.

Speaker 4 (01:40:29):
I'll say it.

Speaker 1 (01:40:29):
All right. All right. Hold on.

Speaker 2 (01:40:30):
Don't forget, you can also follow us on social media.
You can find me on Instagram and Letterboxd, at SuperPulse.com.
Jordan is on all of these places, at Jay Hoffman.
We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow us there. Jordan,
if this is not enough, Jordan, if you want to
hear more stories about him touching body parts with celebrities, perhaps,

(01:40:54):
Jordan also hosts the Starlog podcast, or you can get
the Starlog newsletter in your email, right? You can sign up.

Speaker 4 (01:41:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:41:01):
Go to Starlog.com. Starlog.com. And I mentioned, I have Funny
Business coming out, the book. You can read me on
Screen Crush, screencrush.com, of course.

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
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. Okay. So if
you listen to this the minute it comes out, tomorrow,
the guest on Starlog is Dean Devlin. Ooh, that's a
good guest. Big shot Hollywood producer. And he was pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (01:41:33):
Countdown to Geostorm.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
That's right. We didn't talk about Geostorm, but we talked
about other things.

Speaker 2 (01:41:39):
Film Spotting SVU is produced by Sam Van Halgren, and
we are a part of the Film Spotting family of podcasts.
You can find out more about all of our shows
at filmspotting.net. Sam, is that sale going on still, the
Film Spotting family sale?

Speaker 3 (01:41:57):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:42:02):
Join the family. Join the family. All right. For FilmSpottingSVU,
I'm Matt Singer.

Speaker 1 (01:42:09):
And I'm Jordan Hoffman.

Speaker 2 (01:42:12):
Thanks for listening. You didn't want to say the last
little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:42:16):
I was going to let you do it. You had
a nice time.

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

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}What Is Hulu’s Desert Warrior and Who Is It For? | SVU