H.Y.S.T? | S2E13 | The Last Samurai & Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

The Last Samurai

Directed by Edward Zwick

Written by John Logan, Edward Zwick, and Marshall Herskovitz

Starring Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, and Billy Connolly

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

Written and Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Starring Forest Whitaker, Henry Silva, and John Tormey

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to H.Y.S.T? I'm Bradly Hackworth joined by Jonathan Ems, otherwise known as Doc.

(00:06):
Greetings fellow humans.
And this week is our Samurai Week.
We are covering The Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise and Ghost Dog starring Forrest Whitaker.
And...
Ghost Dog, Way of the Samurai. Full title is Ghost Dog colon Way of the Samurai.
Okay.
Give it it's due.
Okay. Fine. Full title Ghost Dog THE Way of the Samurai.

(00:32):
There we go. Yeah. Yeah.
But let's just jump right in. I mean these are two absolutely incredible movies for wildly different reasons.
The Last Samurai, great film, great great great film.
Ghost Dog, The Way of the Samurai, a film specifically made for Forrest Whitaker.

(00:54):
Yeah.
And a lot of people have said without his level of acting, his heartwarming like nature, all of this, the role was...
Who else could have done this role?
Right. His very specific Forrest Whitakernes.
Yes.
Because yeah, like anybody else would have...

(01:16):
Because he kind of has always held that balance of the...
What I guess you would call the gentle giant.
He's a pretty big guy, but he's not huge.
But he always had that sort of like presence of gravitas, but knowing his greatness and therefore being very gentle in the way he speaks and talks.
It's always kind of been his calling card.

(01:39):
I think anybody else coming to this role, they might have gone too far in one direction.
They might have tried to make Ghost Dog a little bit too much gangster or tried to make him a little too heartfelt and emotional.
The sort of very specific balance that Forrest Whitaker applies to every role he takes was what made this role work so well.

(02:02):
I'll agree.
All right.
We're going to get started.
This week, we're going to hit it with...
Let's see.
The last Samurai first.
It's been a little bit because of everything that's been kind of shaky with the move changing my studio setup and just quite literally all the physical pain I've been in.

(02:24):
Because not just the move, also got a very interesting injection into my knee, which...
Oh, right.
You mentioned that before.
That is not fun, but good God.
When we were at the premiere of The Activated Man and talking to one of the producers, somebody that I've known for like 13 years, I found out he thought I was lying about my leg pain.

(02:51):
Really?
Yeah.
Because you remember me walking around with my cane, my leg popping like popcorn all the time.
Yeah, I remember that.
Yeah.
I knew that was coming way in advance, and when I was on set for Beta Test, a movie that he helped write, and I can't remember how big of a role he had in that one.
We were talking about it, and at the premiere of The Activated Man, he told me that he thought I was lying back then.

(03:18):
So in my mind, I'm like, wait a minute, you thought I was lying about this and you've been my buddy for this whole time?
That's so weird, right?
What?
Yeah.
Okay, this guy, I have clocked this person as the type of person who would fake an injury for whatever reason, which is just beyond weird.
Right.

(03:39):
But hey, I'm okay with that.
I'm not going to worry about it.
I'm just going to be like, yeah, he's got a full of shit leg pain.
All right, well, he's still a good poker buddy.
I don't get that.
If I thought that that was the kind of person someone was, if I saw someone...
I guess we're still in the preamble.

(04:06):
I guess it still kind of is, but there was this uptick of people wearing glasses with no lenses in them because they looked stylish.
They thought it was stylish to wear glasses.
Oh, right.
Yeah, I remember that.
I think that might still be going on, but not as much.
How many people do it for film so the lights don't reflect?
But other than that, I don't...

(04:27):
Right, yeah.
But yeah, I had a friend who actually started doing that.
Friend is a loose term.
She was dating my barista, basically.
And so we were both hanging out at the same coffee shop.
But yeah, she started wearing glasses with no lenses in them as a fashion statement.
And I'm sitting here going, so you think that's funny, huh?

(04:51):
You think being blind, fucking I need these.
Oh, God.
Take a look.
I gave her a ration of shit for it.
Probably more than I actually cared about for sure, but that's...
One of those things that once you start it, it's like, all right, I'm committed.
We're going.
Yeah, exactly.
Now I get it.
It has started and now I got a yes end myself here until the end of time.

(05:13):
Yeah, I've done that more times than I'm proud of.
I've done that more times than I'm proud of.
But still, it's weird that someone would sit there and go like,
this guy's totally full of shit.
Let's hang out.
That's how I took that.
It's like, wait a minute, if somebody told me that they were injured and XYZ,
and I thought that they were faking it just to...

(05:37):
But the setup in the scenario seems like he thought I was making it up to elicit sympathy and to get more gigs or something.
Okay.
Which that particular case, I definitely wouldn't want to hang out with somebody like that.
Right, yeah.
So I was a little bit taken aback by that.

(05:59):
Moving forward, you want to get into it?
Yes.
All right.
The Last Samurai, directed by Edward Zwick, written by John Logan, Edward Zwick, and Marshall Herskovitz,
starring Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, and Billy Connolly,
with way too many side characters to really actually go into.

(06:22):
For sure.
But I will get into it as we go along.
Now, if I remember correctly, didn't Ken Watanabe win an Oscar for this one specifically?
Oh, damn it. That is definitely something I should have checked out.
I do remember that he was nominated for it. I don't remember if he won or not.
Okay. Four nominees for Academy Awards with no wins.

(06:44):
Three Golden Globe nominations with no wins.
Let's see. Five Satellite Award nominations with two wins under Best Original Score by Hans Zimmer,
which, I mean, it's Hans Zimmer.
Right.
And Best Cinematography.
And then other awards. Japanese Academy for Best Foreign Film,

(07:06):
Saturn Award for the Best Action, and then three nominations for Critics' Choice Award.
This did not win a lot of awards.
No, but it's rather heartwarming that the Japanese appreciated it, you know, considering.
Definitely. I completely agree.
I mean, it did not, you know, I mean, granted, you know, it made the old empire look bad, not the current regime.

(07:30):
So I guess there were I guess that kind of made it go down easier.
All right. So Ken Watanabe was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, but he didn't win.
Okay.
And I got to say, being nominated like, and Gila Dixon being nominated for Best Costume Design for this film makes a lot of sense.
Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah.
This film was extraordinarily beautiful.

(07:54):
Okay. I really enjoyed this kind of opening narration as we get our first look at Katsumoto played by Ken Watanabe.
I bet they say Japan was made by a sword.
They say the old gods dipped a coral blade into the ocean and when they pulled it out, four perfect drops fell back into the sea.
Those drops became the islands of Japan.
I love that kind of narration.

(08:16):
Yeah, that's very, that's very cool. Yeah.
But what is what it is. Yes.
But an additional detail on that one is that was close.
It was not a coral sword, but a jeweled spear called Ameno Nuhoko.
That is from the Kojiki, the Book of Shinto Faith.
Like, so they went close, but they were like, okay, no, no, no.

(08:39):
It's this is for Americans. We got to make it more magical.
Like it can't just be bejeweled. It has to be from the ocean and made of coral and yeah.
Right, right. Throw it like this is for American audience.
So we got to throw a little Greek in there.
Exactly. We got to make it a little bit, little bit more.
Yeah.
Flashing from the tiger to the expo dump via stage intro into this movie's tiger, a drunken captain, Nathan Algren played by Tom Cruise and

(09:10):
when is William Atherton not a dick?
That kind of is a kind of is, you know, his I wouldn't say typecast as much as I would call it his calling.
Really? He's so good at it.
Yeah. It's I mean, all the all the way he was he was for a lot of us, too.
When you go back to Ghostbusters, he's kind of our first asshole.

(09:34):
So, you know, it's kind of apropos.
Oh, Ghostbusters or Die Hard, which one came out first?
I don't know which one came out first, but I definitely saw Ghostbusters first.
OK, that is that is fair. I saw Ghostbusters first as well.
But man, he was horrible and Die Hard.

(09:56):
Just oh, I hated him.
Putting on a show to pitch the Winchester rifle gets way too real for the crowd and went like as soon as he starts talking about Little Big Horn, he starts having that flashback.
And I'm sorry. Did you ever watch Billy Connolly's stand up comedy?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, all the time.

(10:18):
He was incredible.
Oh, no. Yeah, I was always blown away because it's like
because we see this happen a lot with comedians who will they'll they'll go start doing movies and yeah, they'll start being doing comedy roles, but they will eventually get into the serious shit.
Connolly going directly from stand up comedy to doing serious shit was mind boggling for me and especially considering how good he did it.

(10:44):
So, you know, for those who don't know and what might possibly be his most famous role, the comedian we're talking about played the dad on Boondock Saints.
Mm hmm.
Or in Boondock Saints in the movie.
And like he was a freaking monster.
Like this goofy Scottish comedian comes on the screen as the fucking devil himself in this movie and it was amazing.

(11:09):
Yes, it was.
Here, though, he's just the best buddy you want to have with you.
He's out in there and he's playing the character Zebulon Gant as Zeb and he sees who Nathan has become and that line from him when Tom Cruise is looking at that kid.
This whole could this could blow a hole in your daddy's six inches wide.

(11:33):
Like just as he's looking down the kid just like, huh?
Right.
Well, it's interesting to you because like and this is our first start of it because he's talking about Little Big Horn.
As far as I can tell throughout this, he appears to have just sort of a general PTSD about, you know, not just, you know, the, you know, your general like I was in war and saw my friends die.

(12:01):
But he's also kind of haunted by the atrocities he's committed.
But it seems like for him, the inciting incident is a little big part his buddies.
I think it's about what they did.
Well, and that that seems to focus on that.
But it seems like his major inside thing, he's constantly talking about Little Big Horn, even though he wasn't there.
It seems for him, the news of Little Big Horn is for him is just like, we're fucked now.

(12:27):
Like we had it coming because he's constantly talking about Little Big Horn without appearing to have actually been there.
He wasn't there.
I don't think so.
I'm pretty sure everyone died at Little Big Horn.
That was the point.
Well, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, that's true.
Damn it.
All right.
I did have that a little bit mixed up.
I thought there was something additional there.

(12:49):
But okay, Gantt takes him to see Colonel Bagley played by Tony Goldwyn, another professional asshole, while explaining how he survived the Battle of Little Big Horn.
He wasn't there.
And I like that as he's going, he's like, that custard comes and tells me talks to me about little about us going to Little Big Horn.
And I say, what's this we thing?

(13:11):
I got my marching papers and I walked on out of there.
Just out.
Just perfect Billy Connolly.
Perfect.
Just absolute.
I mean, when is he not perfect?
No, that's the Billy Connolly was amazing.
He nails it every time.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
John Koyama wants white men to train the Japanese army for $400 a month.

(13:33):
Tom Cruise kicks it up to five and just drunkenly mocks and laughs his ass off about being genuine heroes.
Dude, that like that.
I feel like that really kind of the beginning of this movie sold you this movie so fast.
Yeah.

(13:54):
That is one thing that I really have to celebrate about this one.
Who were we fighting?
Samurai.
They talk about his research being crucial to defeating the Cheyenne and the laughter in the face of it being his fault as he leaves.
Because that was the thing.
Like the guy said, he's like, without, you know, Tom Cruise's research and everything that he learned about them, we wouldn't have been able to do what we did.

(14:20):
And he just starts laughing his ass off like.
Yeah, lucky he wasn't holding a Winchester in that moment.
Traveling to Japan, finding peace in the vast emptiness of the sea until he sees Japan and has the realization that he's been hired to suppress yet another rebellion and a tribal leader.

(14:41):
Apparently, this is the only job he is suited for.
Yeah, it's kind of like, like a lot of heartache.
You're right. You're right. You're right.
You're right. You kind of like you start this movie off going like, ah, you know, the wondrous beauty of the, you know, the time of the samurai.
And now let's just get depressed and more depressed and more depressed.

(15:05):
And let's just watch. Let's just first of all, connect with our main character and then we'll go down into the abyss with him and just.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
With the uniform comes those memories and he shakes that uniform off so fast.
The first look and second introduction to Simon Graham played by Timothy Spall, which went.

(15:30):
Okay, my wife is like many people just a few years younger than me.
A huge Harry Potter fan when she was a kid.
Okay. Okay.
Stretched into her adulthood pretty well. We've watched Harry Potter a couple of times.
She saw Timothy Spall and she went, oh, my God, is that scabbers?
Ron Weasley's rat.

(15:52):
I was like, yep. Yep. She's like, oh, I hate him.
I'm like, not by the end of this movie.
That just goes to show you Timothy Spall does an incredible job in whatever he does.
You watch a movie. He plays a good character. You love him.
You watch a movie. He plays a crappy character.
You hate him. He is good at getting you.

(16:14):
Oh, yeah. Feel about him the way he wants you to.
He's one of those consummate British actors who kind of doesn't look like anything.
So he can therefore play anything.
That is a nice way to describe that.
Yeah. And then that's kind of, you know, that's one of the things that major differences between American film and basically the rest of the world is that we do branding in our actors.

(16:40):
Like, you know, you've talked before about how, you know, you kept getting, you know, you wanted to do comedy.
You wanted to do this or that. But everyone was like, no, you're Mr.
Romantic Lead. That's American branding applied on.
I was the romantic lead. I was the douchebag.
I was the guy who had to have his shirt off.
Those were those were my roles. Oh, I groom.

(17:05):
I made so much money modeling as a groom with I bought one suit and all these other women had to wear like, oh, my God, I showed up five minutes of getting into a suit, a half hour of getting my picture taken good.
All those women that I.
OK, side note and a horrors like a little horror note about the wedding industry and those magazines.

(17:29):
Oh, sure. Yeah.
I was just about 30 years old and they had me standing next to a 13 year old girl in a wedding dress.
Whoa.
Yes.
Grown ass women are not supposed to look like what those pictures and those like wedding magazines are.
Those are not grown ass women.

(17:50):
Those are children.
Like it was like it was awkward.
I did not like that was actually the like when I like that was the last one that I did.
I was like, I don't want to do this anymore.
That was weird. Yeah.
Like I said, kind of a horrific side note.
I mean, I guess that's the thing is it's one of those like I'm shocked to hear it.

(18:12):
But at the same but I got over it quick because I really wasn't that surprised.
It's not surprising when you like actually take a second on it.
Yeah.
Like it's modeling.
It's not supposed to be real or anything like that.
They take the ones who have the most ideal bodies for these dresses and then that's it.
Which strangely which strangely enough is as like featureless as possible because yes.

(18:37):
You know if you want if you want it to be a good fitting dress features only mean having to make alterations.
And that's that doesn't work in the fashion industry.
No.
All right. Moving forward.
Oh yeah.
Right. We're talking about Timothy Spall.
I love this aspect of his character.
I have a rather unfortunate tendency to tell the truth in a country where no one ever says what they mean.

(18:59):
So now I very accurately translate other people's lies.
I fell in love with that line.
Yeah. That's a great line.
Yes.
That is a fantastic line and it perfectly encapsulates an entire character in two sentences.
Mm hmm.
That was fantastic.
Meeting the Emperor Shishinosuke Nakamura actual name Emperor Mutsuhito Meiji was his Nengo a name given to the emperor after his death.

(19:31):
This is what I love about getting into movies.
I love like just by kind of learning what they did right what they did wrong.
I get to learn more about like these cultures and their eras and all of this stuff.
I love it.
This is just my jam.
Because I know because on top of this you've been doing research into a lot of this like Shinto mythology for your book.

(19:52):
And so this is like I'm sitting here going like all right.
I walked in going all right.
The difficulty of tonight is going to make sure that Brad keeps talking about the movie and not his book.
All right.
Which I guess you brought it up.
You're doing great so far.
I'm just being encouraging here.
Like congratulations.
I'm feeling better about all this so far.

(20:16):
Yeah.
The first couple chapters of my book.
Real.
Yeah.
Real heavy.
When the Emperor is asking those questions and all of this and they want to know a little bit about the Native Americans and all of this and all that Tom Cruise says is because they were like were they really this hardcore.
Were they really this savage.
Were they really all this.

(20:37):
All he says is they were very brave.
There was a lot in that moment.
Yeah.
Like no matter what you have to say about Tom Cruise he is outstanding in the fact that he does his own stunts and everything like that and he brings that realism.
And he is a fantastic actor.

(20:58):
Yeah.
I got to say it.
Now it's it's one of those you know the great separations we talked about this before about separating the person from the art and that's it's you know it's like whatever rumors you know or confirmed stories about him here you can't deny motherfucker is talented it's really hard to look away you know.

(21:19):
That's the thing.
Yeah okay Connolly going off in drill sergeant style in English just you will fall in line or I will personally shit kick every far eastern but talk in front of me.
I didn't even need to write that down that like seared into my soul.
No yeah no he like that that's yeah he shows up you know to take a bunch of like Japanese farmers and just literally go Dick army on them is basically what he did you know so.

(21:48):
Yeah, and the way he screws them they all fall into line and Tom Chris is looking like.
Well done.
Yeah well when you understand the language sir everything falls into place.
God damn it Billy Connolly why are you so perfect.
Three years of training to three years of training work to teach orientals to soldier, and we meet General Hasagawa played by Togo Igao who informs on Katsumoto, and he knows, because he is also samurai.

(22:21):
Yeah, so where it got like the way the lines landed like that, like, because spas like, he is samurai. And then that music note that goes over just as you land on Igao, and it just, I get I get why he was nominated for the cinematography on this.
No yeah and it's, it's interesting because like, and this might be a little hyperbolic to say, but the dialogue in this movie is Shakespearean, who a certain degree, because people are.

(22:53):
It's not natural dialogue per se, as much as it is people are informing in everything that they say, and they are saying it in very eloquent ways that nothing you know there's nothing natural about it, but it's all like you know, we was that thing that you were talking about
is it the Veronica problem.
The Tiffany problem. I thought I kind of like associated it with something along those lines, like because this isn't, this is a period piece, I just like we have to change the way people talk, at least a little bit.

(23:27):
That might have been part of what what influenced it yes for sure I bet but I mean it's like you say you know, bits like, like the line you know I'm, you know, destined to translate other people's lives like that whole thing like, love to, oh god I love
that great line and I'm just sitting here thinking like, like, of all the conversations that I've ever had to ever introduce myself to anybody. No one would ever have sat and listened long enough for me to say that entire line, if I said that like they would have all,

(23:58):
they would have all stopped me like halfway through and there'd be like really no one here, no one here says what they mean or what are you talking about in Japan, no one like they would have like demanded confirmation something like that like no one ever stops and listens to you
explaining anything in real life you know so.
Then we switch over to that private, like that private moment between Spall's, Connelly and Cruz, and Connelly says, oh well the captain will be here will be speaking the language in no time, and Spall's excitement, fellow linguist, no capital.

(24:32):
Dude, I want to learn how to do this man's voice so much because it is so everything he says has comedy in it with the way it sounds. And I don't know if that's the voice itself or just how well Spall did.
When he started just, oh my god and Kelly pointed this out to me. He's going too far there buddy, because he sets the PTSD off and Tom Cruise is like sitting there describing about scalping and all of this.

(25:02):
And the fascination of scalping does not work out. Blashing back to a punitive mission against an innocent village.
And he just, yeah, Cruise is not there anymore. He is in a different place. And that moment from Connelly is like, I think we best be getting some rest now darling.
Like, he knows he knows that things have gone too far and it's about to get dangerous. Right. Yeah. And it's interesting because again this is this is a time before we are aware that PTSD is a thing.

(25:34):
We are watching a character who dealing with an extreme case of it and basically being told time to get back in the shit because this is all you're good for.
Yes.
That cute me scene before like because the railroad was attacked and they're saying that we need to go.
Right.

(25:55):
Tom Cruise puts the gun and that puts a gun to the man and he says, tell this man if he does not shoot me, I will kill him.
Right. The example of this scene was to show that under high pressure situation, these farmers, villagers, these local regular people turned soldiers.
It's not going to work out. Right. But while he's in there and he's having this man, he's just shooting at him over and over trying to prompt him, trying to panic him.

(26:22):
He whispers to us and himself, just shoot me. Damn it. Right. Cruise does not want to be alive in this film.
No, he really we kind of get it. He's put himself in a situation where he figures either this guy is going to shoot and miss and I'll prove my point or he's going to shoot and kill me.
And that's fine, too. Yeah. No, that was a win-win scenario for there for him.

(26:45):
Yeah. No time wasted as we're now marching down the tracks and cut to getting attacked by Katsumoto.
When Cruise stays at the front line and that line from Connolly in response to being told to bolt, no disrespects intended, sir, but shove it up your ass.
That's your buddy. That's the guy you want with you.

(27:08):
And Connolly did an... what did he have? Like 10 lines in this movie and it was like his character was perfect?
Yeah. I mean, I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said. We don't get enough of them. I miss his stand-up comedy, too.
Yeah. The only thing that I have to say that I haven't said is there are no small parts.

(27:34):
No, that's true. Yeah. No, very good point. Very good point.
Journey... oh, the samurai attacked. Barely trained soldiers versus disciplined warriors goes about how you would expect.
Connolly goes down and Cruise loses it and starts showing the tiger.
And which reflects back to the beginning of the film where Matsumoto was meditating and then he envisioned the white tiger from afar.

(28:02):
Well, there you go. He sees it, decides it was some sort of premonition or something, I guess, and then takes him prisoner.
Tom Cruise being taken... I mean, and I'm not gonna lie, that moment where he has that spear and he is defending himself, he is keeping his life going, just extending it by a couple seconds so that he thinks just, no, he's got that dog in him.

(28:26):
There's no fight until there's like no fight left. Right. He goes all the way to the end, which is what makes him seem like such a warrior to this warrior.
Right. I absolutely loved it. And then taken away and witnessing seppuku. Right. Yes. Oh, you were saying?

(28:47):
No, I was gonna say that it kind of does show that sort of like, you know, the agony of a character like Tom Cruise of someone who is so, so sick of war and so guilty of everything that he's done in wars past and everything.
And yet once the battle starts, he's right back into winning, surviving, not going down with the fight.

(29:10):
And so, you know, there is a sort of like, yeah, an instinctual demand that he can't turn off and that's part of it is the fact that he can't turn it off.
Even when he wants to die, he still can't let himself get killed, you know, and so that's part of what pisses him off about everything he's done is that in the heat of the moment, he can't stop himself, you know.

(29:31):
That is very fair.
Journey to the Mountain Village, Brighid Hirayuki Sonata, you absolute legend.
You want an amazing swordsman in your film. You get Hirayuki Sonata.
It's playing a simple, the, ooh, ooh, ooh, I'm blanking on it. Twilight Samurai or Midnight Samurai. What was that called?

(29:55):
I don't remember.
Oh, okay.
That's not ringing bells for me.
Okay. Next season. Another Samurai next season.
I feel like both of those movies have to exist at this point because there's somewhere out there is a movie called Twilight Samurai and another movie called Midnight Samurai.
Which one you're talking about, I don't know, unfortunately, but I'm sure considering how wide and vast the samurai movie industry is, those both have to exist, I'm sure.

(30:24):
The Twilight Samurai, a 2002 Japanese historical drama directed by Yoji Yamada.
Okay.
That is the one I'm talking about. That is the one I was thinking of. And yeah, he is in that.
Okay. And what is Midnight Samurai?
We'll get into it another time.
No, just making samurai porn jokes.

(30:49):
Right.
Shin Koyamada with that Jolly Good as he gets dropped off in his village.
You can see this badass looking badass samurai just came from a war, like a battle and all this stuff. Barely speaks any English. What does he know? Jolly Good.
Right. Yes.

(31:10):
And he says it with a face that's so badass.
That's the thing. Yeah.
I love it.
And I've done that too. It's like anytime I know that I'm in a crowd that only speaks Spanish, I'll just be like, bueno.
Same thing in China. People would sit there and just say a whole bunch to me and I'd just be like, how?

(31:38):
All right. Fair enough. That's all I have in that position.
It was the local dialect for good was how and so I'm just like, how?
No, I mean, fair enough. Tom Cruise gets dropped off at his new home to be cared for by the wife of the man he killed, Taka, played by Koyuki. One word like Madonna or God.

(32:01):
Yeah, I noticed that too. I'm wondering. I'm wondering. Probably should have looked her up to see what her deal was, but I'm going to maybe she was like one of those one of those girl band type stars beforehand.
Oh, maybe. Yeah, maybe. I definitely had enough time to look this up. But when we pushed this out a week, I was like, no, I'm relaxing. This is what I'm doing. I'm catching up.

(32:24):
I did the same thing. I told myself I was going to watch both these movies again to make sure I was fresh and I did not. So I am, you know, I am existing entirely off of your notes right now.
Oh, hey, fair enough. Yeah. All right. Time passes and Matsumoto decides to learn from him in spite of the other saying that he should come in spite of the other saying that he should commit seppuku.

(32:45):
But Matsumoto says it's not their way. That's our way. And I love the respect over culture, even when the culture isn't yours. I think that is something that I truly, truly respect or admire.
It was it was always kind of one of those interesting things that I always appreciated in a lot of movies too.

(33:06):
Like, I think there was a there was some of that in what was it? The 13th Warrior when we watched it last year when they talked about how, like, you know, the two different culture, the two different gods, two sets of gods.
And oh, yeah, the polytheism versus the monotheism. Right. And it was very much like, OK, look, you know, it's like we have our gods, you have your god.

(33:31):
You know, if you want to talk to your god and see if he wants to get along with our gods, that's fine. Like they had no desire to be just like your god doesn't exist.
Our gods know they were like, no, no, no, it's cool. We've got our gods. You've got your gods. You know, you kind of one of the things if you if you are monotheistic and that is like your whole practice and you're really into it, then yeah.
Anybody else having a different god is like, yeah, you can kind of take that as an insult. But if you're looking at a polytheistic culture, they're like, right. Yeah. Oh, you have 500 gods. That's cool. We have 30. Right.

(34:04):
Yeah, they should get together and have a party like right. Exactly. Yeah. It's a way different level of acceptance because it doesn't break the belief of the other person. Right. Exactly.
That's a lot easier to go that way. Cruz has the shakes and he keeps screaming for sake and they the way they watch him look at each other as he just drinks.

(34:26):
They're like, okay, this dude's messed up. All right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We need we need to kick up the distillery. I don't know how you make sake.
It's gross. I oh I I I drink it. I enjoy it. I don't know how it's made. Right. Yeah. But also nowadays it's probably a hot dog. I've been learning how things are made right.

(34:49):
It's probably different now, but I have seen a couple of things on how it was made like back before like, you know, industrial distillery was started and it's fucking gross. Okay, fair enough. The flashbacks show that he drowns his memories in the alcohol.
Taka withholds the alcohol and endures his screaming screaming until he successfully detoxes. And that moment that he that she gets from the actual like, what is it, the leader of the village, the owner of the village, like whatever looks like, what is his name?

(35:23):
Shin. Yeah, Shin Toyomata. Whatever his position in that village, like he is the master of the village. He's like, but this is my village. And she looks and just goes, well, this is my home.
Right. That's a mom move right there. I like that.
But he successfully detoxes and then goes for a walkabout with the village with his new buddy, the silent samurai Bob played by size. Oh, Fukumoto.

(35:52):
Yeah, thank God he named him Bob. A great a great bit of levity. This film did not need because this film just didn't need any levity at all. It was not it was. And just as he's walking, he's like, I'm going to call you Bob.
You ladies man, Bob. I knew a Bob once. God, he was ugly.

(36:15):
The shit you might say if you're the only one who speaks your language. And it makes me it's kind of one of those things where you got to wonder like, like, was that in the script or was that Cruz improving?
Was there a guy on set named Bob that he just got done talking to and decided to fuck with him while they were filming? Okay. Of all the things you just said, I just really hope it wasn't the third one.

(36:37):
Oh, I'm sure it was all in good fun. I mean, he knew it was a mic on him. I'm sure. Oh, God.
To the temple that was built by Katsumoto's or Matsumoto's family a thousand years ago for introductions and the idea of practicing English and learning of their enemies.
Alluding to Sepikko and Matsumoto. Warriors in your country don't kill your enemies. Like, oh, you really shut him up with that one.

(37:06):
Like, what do you do? Right. And the oh, yeah, the way he says that has always landed on me in a very particular way. Slightly comedic, condescending and suggestively enlightening.
Right. Yeah. Yep. How did I write that note? That seems too fancy for me to have written.

(37:27):
I must have just like been coming from the book. Or maybe when, yeah, or maybe when you're exhausted, that's when you really shine. You're just like, I'm in the zone, man. I'm not even thinking.
You know, there you go. I was exhausted. I was watching a samurai be poetic and I'm like, this is me now.
I'm just a vessel.

(37:50):
Get your shit together, Brad.
Constantly showing his back to Cruz to prove a point. I'm curious if you actually caught that.
So as Cruz and Watanabe were talking, Watanabe kept walking past Cruz and just keeping his back to him and then turning around to deliver a line.
Like, he just kept keeping his back to him.
I didn't did not catch that. No. But then now that you pointed out, I'm like, holy shit. Yeah, that's that was a that was a gangster ass move, man.

(38:18):
That's like, yeah, you're no fucking threat to me, dude. Yeah. He just kept advertising that to him.
And I was like, oh, I am loving this.
Of course, that could be me projecting onto the scene. I don't know. But I can't I can't understand why else he would do it.
I mean, yeah. And I mean, with everything else that happens in this movie, it's hard to imagine it not being deliberate.

(38:41):
You know, it's every every moment of this was deliberate.
I have a note here that says Cruz finding out who his host is. Oh, OK. Oh, yeah.
So then that's where he learns that the chick who's been taking care of him this whole time is the is the wife of the the mighty samurai he felled in the in the battle.
And he looked and he just looks back to his like killed her husband.

(39:03):
And he looked back and was like, it was a good death. And Cruz is like, what the fuck is going on here? Right. Yeah.
And it's like, yeah, it's like it's it's almost like he does kind of see it for what it is, which is like not so much,
you know, putting him in her hands and hoping that she doesn't kill him.

(39:25):
It's almost like a humiliation to a certain degree. Like like this is the dude who killed your husband and you have to be the one to take care of him.
You know, and so he's kind of like that's just so fucked up.
That's so messed. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's not he's not even sitting here going like my life was in danger the whole time.
No, he's just like, why would you do that to someone?

(39:48):
Yeah. Like, wait, this is your family. Yeah. Like, dude.
And then over to dinner with this family for one of the most awkward family dinners ever.
And then Taka, like the way they're like, he smells like the pigs and Shin like laughing it off to like act like they're not having this conversation.
I'm like, dude, I am so happy to see this in another language because the amount of times I swear I have watched people do this in English.

(40:17):
Like, I love seeing I love seeing it go both ways.
The sword practice and those kids out there with their fake swords, little bit of an accuracy when it comes to kids training with swords.
The swords are actually kid size. They would not think you would not be able to interchange them from their size to like warriors of Tom Cruise size and Hideo Yuki Sonatas.

(40:46):
Because there because there's a certain level of balance and and yes feel that you got to get used to.
And so if the sword you're using is real sized when you're little, then you're going to lose all your ability to do your balance right once you grow up.
You know, so yeah, it's it's an important thing to keep all that proportional.
So just a little bit of the more you know.

(41:07):
Right.
Uh.
You try Shin tells him and man, Hideo Yuki Sonata does not like it.
Tells him to put down the sword, but Cruz thinks he's being told to step up.
He thinks he's being given a challenge.
And that's where the language barrier comes in.
You got the one guy saying put your weapon down.

(41:29):
Don't do it.
And then Cruz is like, well, he just told me to try.
So.
The the way that situation came about and happened made 100% sense to me.
Yeah.
OK.
Yeah.
Is is mainly the thing that I'm kind of celebrating on that one.

(41:53):
I without it being without it being like spoon fed that there was.
We didn't we didn't have translator guys sitting there going like, so what he's what is happening now is, you know, he said this, but because he doesn't speak his language, he thinks it means this.
And there's a cultural bit like we didn't we didn't need English translator guy there to break it down for us.
We saw it all take place.
Yes.

(42:14):
This was a movie that did what I celebrate.
It does.
It did trust the audience a lot.
Yeah.
I really loved that.
I was due.
Cruises to nasty doesn't help him not get what and talk.
It looks like she's taking pity.
But the weird thing is, very shortly after the scene, she's like she's looking at him.

(42:36):
She's taking pity and she feels bad for him.
But because she feels bad for the man who killed her husband, she says in like the next scene, I can't bear it.
Like, please let me take my own life.
And Matsumoto won't let her, which definitely adds some layer, some details and layers to this.
I think that's that's part of, you know, that's part of the unbearable miss of it is the fact that this is this is the guy who killed her husband.

(43:02):
And she's seeing him as a person.
She's seen him detox.
He's seeing him get his ass beat.
He's feeling for him as a person.
He's supposed to be the enemy.
And he's becoming not.
He's becoming someone that she actually gives a shit about.
And to her, that's just an agreed not like not just an egregious insult to her husband, but just an emotional situation that is very, very, very difficult to reconcile.

(43:31):
And so, yeah, she's just very much like, no, please, just I'd rather kill myself than feel these feelings, please.
A little bit understandable, I gotta say.
They have a conversation because Matsumoto finds Cruz's journals about the Native Americans.
So they have a conversation about the Native Americans.

(43:52):
And he asked him, like, were you a general?
He's like, no, I was a captain.
He's like, oh, this is a low rank.
And the insult on Cruz's face, he's like, it's a middle rank.
Not a lot of comedy, but because these are just A-list actors just having a conversation, it winds up being hilarious.

(44:17):
Talk about Custer being a good general or a brave murderer.
And that's a conversation that has been had throughout history many, many times and still is.
Cruz gets mad and Bob steps up.
Oh, you're here until spring, buddy boy.
Like the snow pass, like the passes have to melt and all of this and you're stuck.

(44:39):
Yeah.
And that's then that basically becomes a big premise of this is he is trapped there just to be learned about and to learn about them.
Right.
And I like the fact that he was returned at the end.
It's an interesting kind of setup.
And you kind of think that maybe with Watanabe's character, too, like that was intentional.

(45:00):
He's like, this is the alien that needs to learn about us in order to, you know.
I don't know.
Okay.
Which sides?
I was wondering where you're going.
You know what?
I take back what I said.
No, it's a little too much.
But yeah, no, he's...

(45:21):
But it makes for an interesting kind of like journey of this character because, yeah, it's not just he's not there for two weeks, falls in love and then switch sides.
No, he's got to live there for like a year and a half, learn how to become a samurai.
And now he gets it.
Well, like four months, like throughout the winter.
Wasn't he there for over a year?

(45:42):
I seem to remember there being a part where he says when he's doing his journaling, he says, I've been here a year now.
When he's doing his journaling, he says, this is the longest I have stayed in one place since I left the farm at 17.
Yeah, and that wasn't he prefaced this by saying this marks one year.
And that was still like before the attack came.

(46:03):
So he's still staying there longer than that.
Yeah.
But I think it was just over that winter.
I don't think it actually stretched over into because we didn't see two winters.
We didn't see two springs.
We didn't see two anything.
We only saw the one.
When the cherry blossoms fell, we only saw that scene once.
No, that's true, but he was there long enough to get good enough at the sword to have a draw with Watanabe.

(46:27):
So that's suspension of disbelief.
I'm willing to suspend like giving him a year to do that is a suspension disbelief.
Four months, no fucking way.
Well, he did also I mean, because the initial battle when the samurai attacked the train, he did already have sword skills and he was going against the samurai on horseback.

(46:49):
So it wasn't like he was coming into it brand new.
OK, just all right.
The swords girls were different.
I'll check it out.
I still stand by.
I'm like pretty sure he mentions in that journal that he'd been there a year and that marks the longest I've ever been in one place.
I'm not upset at going to back and going back and watching this one again.
So, you know, I'll let you know.

(47:13):
All right.
More time passes and Cruz gets a bit more accustomed as he admires their discipline.
Hideyuki forced to train Cruz.
And when Cruz gets a kimono and starts action posing with a whoah, whoah.
How relatable is that shit?
Yeah, I'm sorry.

(47:34):
I don't know.
When I'm when I'm 60 years old, if you put me in anything like that, I'm still going to whoah.
Like, I'm still going to do it like that's that's just the kind of idiot that I am.
And I'm never going to let go of.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, every year when, you know, wrapping the Christmas presents, you know, and then you get once you finish off the the roll of wrapping paper, you got yourself a big long there.

(47:59):
That's that's a sword time.
It's like you got to start off making the noises and everything like that.
And then you got to have a sword fight.
That's just tradition that never never stopped.
I'm 40 something years old and still still not even not even close.
When Tom Cruise goes to have like that grappling moment with the one guy and because it was like too many mind like you mind this mind this mind like you're thinking too much is basically what he's saying.

(48:30):
But I like that he said it too many mind.
I like right.
There's something about when something is almost lost in translation, but when you have to pick the absolute specific words, it's like somebody who doesn't speak the language as a first language can oddly wind up saying something that makes it makes even more sense.

(48:52):
Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a fun thing to see happen in a lot of a lot of literature, a lot of a lot of movies.
It's a perfect example of in real life of me done with this.
I was in an Uber.
I was in LA and this guy had a picture of a little girl up on his visor and I just looked up.
I was like, oh, is that your daughter?

(49:14):
And he whipped his head back around to look at me with like the most pride in his face that I had ever seen on a person's like just holy crap.
And he looked at me and he went, yes, she is love.
And I was like, she is love.
And I sat back and thought about that.
I was like, that's better.
That is better than anything else I have ever heard.
I have never heard a dad described there like the way that they have said it when they speak my language as a first language never has been described as beautiful as saying my daughter is love.

(49:48):
Yeah, no, that's very cool.
I like that.
I really love that.
Like, and that's exactly what I'm talking about.
The way they all celebrate he spoke Japanese at that dinner table except Taka.
Yeah, everybody else going around having introductions and all of this.
And then everybody introduces themselves except Taka.

(50:11):
And then he looks at her and goes, Taka, it's like, maybe leave her alone, dude.
You killed her husband.
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Like, just thank her for the food that she's forced to give you and leave her.
I don't know how I could treat that moment.
The establishing shots in this movie are Lord of the Rings level.

(50:35):
Yeah, no, this is one of those things like there are like, there are, you know, in the industry, there are people out there who all they do is location scout.
That's their whole job.
They take they take pictures, they get information, they find out who owns it and who, you know, all the licensing also.
There are a like maybe one movie a year where you can really, really see like, all right, this this person, this random kind of like almost almost secretarial type job is just as much art as the rest of it.

(51:08):
Oh, my God. They popped off in this one.
You know, I'm not gonna lie.
Location scouting can be a lot of fun, too.
Oh, I'm sure it's super fun.
Where you're just driving down by the river and like you gotta be like, okay, we have a river scene, so you're just driving like 20 miles a river just going into every entryway that you can find every approach.
And it's like, ha, we found the one. Who does this belong to?

(51:29):
Right, yeah.
We've done that before.
But the the shot in particular that I'm talking about is the winter shot where the super slow moving snowflakes are like because the snow is so light and the air is so calm there that an up drift in this particular area.

(51:50):
Actually, some of the snow is dropping down.
Some of the snow is kicking up.
That is especially in a windy ass place where I come from.
Not a lot.
You don't see that very often, but I did get to see that in Portland a couple of times and it is freaking beautiful.
It is absolutely magical when that happens.
Yeah, the slow slow most snow is probably one of the probably one of the coolest things.

(52:13):
Yeah, it is remarkably beautiful.
Moving quickly through winter and Cruz adapts enough to apologize and it was for the death of Taka's husband.
Right.
It was a good scene.
Short scene, good scene.
When spring arrives, he sleeps in peace for the first time in years and then they have that sword fight and then you get like the the warrior.

(52:37):
I'm going to play out the thing in my mind and I'm going to look for the perfect weakness and all that.
Right.
And it's a draw.
The gambling samurai sitting off to the side.
Great moment.
Yeah.
Absolutely great moment.
Kabuki comedy hour leading into the ninja attack.

(52:59):
Yeah.
Cruz giving that warning to save Matumoto's life and then happens in a lot of movies.
You know this, the outside battle music versus the inside where there is no music just giving a perfect juxtaposition to the scenes to let people know where the anticipation belongs.
Right. Yeah, exactly.

(53:20):
Outside is a battle inside is building suspense and the music perfectly told you this.
Always love that.
Higin. Oh, the kid Higin grabs his father's sword as Cruz is facing getting his throat sliced.
Right. Yeah.
I was worried for that kid, man.
No. Yeah, me too. Yeah.

(53:41):
Because this is not this is not one of those movies that gives plot armor to children.
So it's.
Nope. God no. We found that we found that out with the Native Americans early in the film.
Right. Exactly. Yeah.
Cruz and Watanabe survive and that look from Watanabe at the end where he's looking at the man who saved his life like my enemy just saved my life.

(54:04):
Like that's what the look said.
No words were needed.
Right.
That cherry blossom scene, I don't care if it is at this point cliche in Japanese film.
I don't care.
Right. It's beautiful.
No. Yeah, it is.
I swear to God is needed.
Yeah, no. I mean, that's the thing is like we got a we got a row of cherry blossoms on the Riverside Park in Portland, man.

(54:30):
Every year it's like I don't I don't give a shit.
Like it's fucking dope. Yeah.
It is absolutely gorgeous.
In this scene, we find out that Matsumoto will seppuku if the Emperor asked so he will take his own life and talks to Cruz about not fearing death but wishing for it and admits that he is the same.

(54:52):
We see this kind of like that that that sort of weird conflict we've got going on and we see some of that touched on a bit and Ghost Dog 2 about this the way of the samurai being one, you know of loyalty above all.
And where he's saying like, yeah, I'm fighting against the these industrialists that are given the Emperor bad advice. It seems like I'm I'm betraying the Emperor, but I actually am doing this for him.

(55:23):
I genuinely believe this is in his best interests.
And if he ever turned around and said kill yourself, I would like this like that's and yet at the same time he here he is, you know, yeah in locked in this battle where the Emperor is is basically sending.
Mercenary armies made up of farmers and Americans to go kill him and he's just like doing my best.

(55:49):
Now I get that returns Cruz's books to him and says he is going to return the next day.
And that good from both of them is like, because it gets the book days like you'll be returning tomorrow.
Good and then Matsumoto kind of like a sassy buddy who just doesn't want to admit that is like a five year old who doesn't want to admit that he likes his best friend like yeah, you're leaving.

(56:13):
Good.
That's honestly how I saw that scene.
I can't I can't deny it.
Saying goodbye to the bathing Taka and Higgin runs and gives him a gives him that scroll.
Just it was really weird for the man who killed this man to like kind of take over his family the way that he did.

(56:34):
Right.
And yeah, no matter how many times I watch this movie that that never actually gets better with me.
In fact, the older I get it gets a little bit worse.
Right. Yeah. And like you can kind of sit there and go like well, you know, a lot of country a lot of the these countries back in the old days they had weird traditions, you know, you know,
like to my knowledge, there was never never anywhere was there like if you kill a guy, you have to marry his wife like I.

(57:04):
Yeah, no, that seems like a story element you would write into something to like kind of horrify the like social politics.
Right. Exactly. Yeah.
You know, oh yeah, you can see it now because it's like you have these duels and it's like that's how they keep that's how they keep the duels from turning lethal because if your opponent dies, you're now responsible for his family.

(57:26):
You got to marry his wife, take care of his kids and it becomes one of those just like all right, we're going to go my God.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
We got to write a comedy about a guy who wins every duel because the rules of the nature is if you kill him, you have to be with his wife.
But everybody hates this man's wife so hardcore that nobody will actually kill him.

(57:51):
So he winds up becoming the most like the deadliest duelist in all of Europe because every because everybody forfeits or throws the fight or something.
Yeah, that's the most fucked up thing I've ever thought of.
Okay, moving beyond that.
I actually don't know if I'm gonna move beyond that.
I've actually might write that short story.

(58:16):
Arriving in the wired up Tokyo and Spall is astounded to see him.
Everyone bows before them with this incredible respect for the samurai slash fear.
Right. And then just parting ways with a nod.
I didn't realize this until this time of watching this film.
The reason that they only gave each other a nod is because they didn't want anybody to like see how close all grin had become with the samurai because they don't want him to be viewed as an enemy to them now too.

(58:50):
Right.
Dude, the honor in this was huge.
It was incredible. I loved it.
Oh, Cruz takes in the military upgrades and Goldwyn shows up to Chekhov's Gatling gun.
Right. Yep.
Now that literally is Chekhov's gun.

(59:12):
Yeah, the lawn mowing machine that they imported. Yeah.
The Emperor and Matsumoto scene where the Emperor wants guidance and Matsumoto just can't and he tells him you are a living God. You must find the wisdom for all of us. I can't give it to you, which
Oh, that's where tradition really can fuck you.

(59:35):
Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
You have a thousand super wise super educated people around you that could give you all the advice but tradition dictates that they can't.
Yeah, tradition can kind of screw you right there.
Yep.
You never watched the Walking Dead. I'm pretty sure of this.
I watched up to the end of season three.

(59:57):
So you saw the farmer like the farm scene.
Oh, yeah.
The farm art.
Scott Wilson shows up and like he was the farmer in the Walking Dead as the greedy white man who gets put in his place by, well, crap. What was his name? Oh, Omura.
Okay.
I like how just good crotchety. He was such a such a good 19th century white man.

(01:00:24):
He was great.
Cruz won't give any details of the samurai. And it looks kind of like he's sober now because when Omura offers him a drink and he's like, no, thank you. He's like, huh?
Right.
He's full Scooby Doo like face on that. Right. Wait.
A former soldier that don't drink. What's happened? What's going on? Not just that one, but this one. Right.

(01:00:50):
He hung out with this guy.
Talks about the news weapons and Cruz is demanded to lead and Omura is pushy as hell.
He's like, our contract was for this. He's like, we'll make a new contract then.
And I'm not going to lie, Omura. This is later on. I'm actually jumping the gun on this a little bit, but he has one word that might be my favorite line of this whole movie.

(01:01:17):
Nonsense.
The way he says it.
Spall and Cruz witnessed the police harassing the samurai. And this is what I was talking about earlier that Kelly pointed this out to me that I never noticed until this viewing because she pointed it out.
Cruz steps up to help because the police are cutting like threatening to cut off Nobutada's hair and harassing him for carrying a samurai sword.

(01:01:48):
Right.
They rip his hair back and they cut his ponytail off. And then Tom Cruise looks up to Spall and like with no words, just for the look goes, you still curious about scalping?
Mm hmm.
That was a call back to an earlier scene. I never noticed.
Oh, okay.
I never noticed that. I just thought it was there. But the fact that Spall was there is what made it the call back to an earlier scene. And I never caught it.

(01:02:16):
Okay.
But yeah, the look on Spall's face. He's like, yeah, I feel bad about asking about the scalping thing now.
No, that was, I felt a lot, a lot in that.
Oh, yeah. And then once again, Shin, jolly good, sitting there with his hair had been cut off and all this stuff just looking depressed. Oh, man, I felt for him.

(01:02:39):
Mm hmm. Masumoto at the council meeting has to remove his sword and is told we are a nation of laws, responds with we are a nation of whores selling ourselves.
And I'm like, oh, you sassy bitch.
I love that.
And he says, if anybody, there's only one man who can tell me to remove my sword and it is the Emperor. But in this chamber, apparently the Emperor can't speak.

(01:03:07):
Or the Emperor can't speak in front of regular people. I'm not 100% sure what the rules are.
He was kind of pointing out a weird sort of contradiction, self-contradiction in the rules in which they were trying to tell him what to do.
And he was saying the only person who can tell me what to do for some reason isn't allowed in the room.
Well, isn't allowed to speak in the room.
Right.

(01:03:28):
Because he was right there. But the fact that he couldn't speak gets a smirk from Omura and then he gets arrested.
Cruz gets paid and he's back to drinking again.
Leaves the dagger from, oh, yeah, those guys sneak in and like look like they're about to kill Matsumoto, but instead they leave the dagger and say, like, save us the trouble.

(01:03:51):
And realistically, yeah.
Would you like, okay, you got a man this much honor, this deadly, everything like that.
Do you want to be the guy known for taking him out like that?
Right. Yeah. Or I mean, truly, do you even want to take the chance?
I mean, he may be disarmed and in a cell, but it's like you got to ask yourself, how many guys did you bring?

(01:04:16):
Because he is kind of he is kind of also known for being a badass.
Right. He's kind of known for being a consummate badass.
So can how many guys can you fit in the cell?
Ask.
He goes to help or Cruz goes to help and winds up getting ambushed.
And I didn't feel like this scene was actually needed for the film.

(01:04:41):
Like Cruz did. I don't think Cruz needed to have this badass moment in the film.
Because the last samurai, I don't think like I'm pretty sure Cruz was not the last samurai.
Right. Yeah, no, that's not what he was the one who was there.
He was the storytelling element for us to be there.
Right. No, Matsumoto was the last samurai.
That's OK. I'm glad we take that the same way, even though we both might be wrong.

(01:05:06):
I'm not sure.
May actually been that kid whose hair we just got got cut, you know.
Oh, no, he dies before Matsumoto does.
Oh, right. That's right. Yeah.
Photographing the traitor and spoke like as Wagnum is like, all right, just whatever you do, don't stop.
He's like, this is the president of the United States.
Like you insolent dog is like, did you just call me the president of the United States?

(01:05:30):
He's like, I'm afraid we might be in trouble.
Loved it. Nobutada with those bow skills.
And yet he gets a got anyway.
His sacrifice was one of those that.
It was OK in this movie, that sacrifice was wildly unnecessary.

(01:05:51):
However, based off the principles that they had in the past, that sacrifice may have actually gone on longer.
So Nobutada like just such a tragic ending for Nobutada.
Yeah. He was a good character and just damn.
The talk by the fire between Matsumoto and Cruz, 900 years of success from my ancestors and I failed.

(01:06:17):
And he's like, I will die by my sword or by my enemies.
And the we'll do it together behind getting a good sized army.
Loved it, man.
It was like that was a scene that did not require action.
It was just two warriors talking about is it the end or is the end soon?

(01:06:42):
Right. Yeah.
That was a moment I really, really enjoyed.
OK, Cruz telling tells them what has happened.
The kid is scared and Cruz goes to comfort.
And the army was not far behind.
They got all these people climbing numbers.
They got howitzers now and Cruz Cruz basically advises using the 300 strategy.

(01:07:09):
The Battle of Thermopylae, but you know, right.
Yeah. They like, you know, and they he literally says like, oh, yeah, no, this was the thing that happened.
And they were like, and what about the guys?
Well, they all died. Oh, they all died.
But they yeah. But but they succeeded in what they were aiming to do.
So, you know, no, I like like it was kind of that moment where like Tom Cruise's character like changed his mind on Custer for some like in a weird way.

(01:07:33):
But we never actually talked about it.
And if you ever would have said Custer, he would have been like, oh, never mind. I hate everything I'm thinking. Right. Yeah.
But we just didn't get that prepping for battle montage and then a very sad and very sensual getting dressed scene.
I'm very glad it didn't go much. It go any further than that.

(01:07:56):
I just I just am this movie didn't need that and it would have killed a lot of stuff if they did it.
No, no. Yeah, no. It was one of the one of the few times I've been like, I'm glad they didn't fuck.
There you go. But they do they do smooch and then they have a little bit of a scared snuggle.
And I'm just I'm glad it ended there. Right.

(01:08:19):
The reveal of Tom Cruise in armor and Hiryu Kasanata is kind of cool with it.
Kind of checks him over. He's like, all right, warrior. Right. Yeah.
Gets a sword that gifted to him that says, I belong to the warrior in whom the old ways have joined the new.
They all rally at his joint, but at least it wasn't Tom Cruise who made the rallying call.

(01:08:44):
You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Like I didn't like that they all were in front of his house and he was the last one.
It put too much importance on him, but at least he wasn't the one to do the rallying call.
That is right. Thank you.
Oh, the forces stand off.
Goldwyn cannot believe how Cruz is dressed.

(01:09:06):
And did you notice that guy got kicked by Cruz's horse?
No, I did not see that. No.
After they go and you have like the American soldiers and the Japanese soldiers,
like the negotiation between the samurai and Tom Cruise,
they go back and right before Tom Cruise gets off his horse, the horse turns and kicks an extra.

(01:09:28):
Oh, wow. Okay. I totally missed that.
And the classic they won't surrender joke from the underdog.
I think it's in every situation that they have like that.
But I mean, why wouldn't you make that joke? No, of course. Yeah.
You laugh in the face of tragedy.
Cruz gifts his journals to Spall and then Spall heads on to a hill to watch.

(01:09:53):
The cannon fire versus straw shields, which this is why the old ways meet the new.
The cannon fire hitting those shields was going to create a smoke screen,
which they used and it tricked them into his false confidence.
And even Goldwyn tells Omura, no, no, no, we should draw them out, we should hold back.
And then we get that fantastic one word line from Omura.

(01:10:17):
Nonsense. I love that so much. Right. Yeah.
I guess whatever.
But my last line of the film, I'm going to deliver it.
Hell yeah. Lure and ambush with fire on the reload.
And then I like that. What happened in 300?

(01:10:39):
They all died to the last man. Big old smile like, let's go die.
And then right into the attack and then Bob got got.
Not ugly Bob. Right. Like man.
But again, no small parts.

(01:11:00):
Sonata comes in on horseback, horseback, lots of tingin and a big old bang.
It's like, oof, everybody gets gunned down and they kick on the Gatling guns and they just,
like you said, they brought the they brought the grass cutters and they mowed everybody down.
Yeah. That was just a gut wrenching scene.

(01:11:25):
Cruz does gets his promised kill, though.
He does. You know, he tells Goldwyn is like, I'll see you on the field.
He does take some out.
Matsumoto gets his end where he gets to commit supicu sepuku with help from Tom Cruise.
Probably good that Cruz didn't cut his head off.

(01:11:47):
Although it might have been good if he did.
That could have that could have upped a little bit for that scene, but I don't think he needed it.
No. And it was more intimate the way it was.
I think an execution has distance, but that sort of like face to face, shoulder to shoulder, you know,

(01:12:09):
supicu kind of thing that had more.
Yeah. But the point of the sepuku is that you do the strike that will kill.
But you have like but the fact that you were willing to do that,
but the fact that somebody else stands beside slash behind you to make sure that you don't suffer after having done that.

(01:12:32):
That's the whole point of it.
So it actually would have been more or the actual act.
But it definitely the what we would have seen on screen would have changed it for the audience.
That's the thing. It's like they it's yeah.
So having having it just as the visuals made it more of a intimate moment than than.
And Ken Watanabe's like eyes as he passed into the netherworld.

(01:12:56):
It was good. Like he sold that moment very, very well.
Everyone bows and Amura is freaking out because why aren't you taking him out?
Why aren't you doing this? And they're like, shut up, bitch.
Right. Yeah. Like we want to. Yeah, we're done.
Yeah. Negotiations get interrupted and Cruz talks to the emperor who actually talks back this time.

(01:13:20):
Amura is shamed.
And then I like that the emperor offers him a samurai sword and he's like, if your shame is too great, you can do something about it.
And then he just shuts up and looks down. He's like, yeah, bitch.
The argument about how this man stood against the emperor and then Cruz, if you command me, I will gladly take my own life,

(01:13:44):
which what we know about Cruz in this film, he would gladly take his own.
Oh, yeah. That is true. He's been trying to die for a while now.
Yeah. Amura gets his stuff sent to the people and then the emperor kneels down.
Tell me how he died. And I like that Cruz says, I will tell you how he lived.
Yeah. The ending narration by Spall and Cruz found peace as he returned to the samurai village.

(01:14:12):
I and that's and that's the last samurai. This film is incredible.
So real quick, before I get into why I brought it, final thoughts. Go ahead.
Final thoughts. Well, most of my final thoughts kind of lead into our next film because I feel like there is a long history,

(01:14:33):
not just samurai themselves, but with literature by and inspired by the samurai. And this was a very solid chapter in that,
in that taking apart the balance between living in war and finding peace in the moments that you can.
And I really appreciated how I felt this was a good good installment with all with all of the great samurai references

(01:15:00):
that appeared in Ghost Dog. If last samurai had come out before Ghost Dog did,
there would have been lots of references to this movie as well. Oh, yeah, probably.
It definitely it definitely holds up the tradition of warrior poetry in this movie. And I really appreciated that.

(01:15:21):
Also, it was just kind of one of those like it took me a moment because I realized that the the westernization of Japan,
as it's called, has I have had a lot of wrong thoughts about it.
For me, I always thought it originated with our occupation after the war. According to this, it started way before that.
And so that's kind of that's kind of one of those like, but it also wasn't us.

(01:15:45):
Like, right. We think this movie said that it was the Americans.
But the only reason that it was the Americans because it's an American made film.
But this was actually the Prussians and the oh, what is it like the the man that actually this kind of a true story ish.
But the character Nathan Aldrin was actually a French soldier.

(01:16:07):
Bene, I think. Right. Well, I mean, that's not even what I'm referring to specifically.
What I'm based like when I say westernization, I don't I don't mean America.
I mean, like literally like, you know, European influence and stuff.
You know, and you know, but it was industrialization, whether it came from America or or Europe or both.

(01:16:28):
You know how, you know, they're all they're all wearing bowler hats and suits instead of, you know,
and and there there there is an active attempt to shave away what is traditional Japanese way of life.
And that's what this that's what this whole conflict is about.
This isn't just, you know, right now today, we've got an interesting integration where thanks to the Internet,

(01:16:49):
there's a lot of spillover between America and Japan.
So we're seeing a lot of, you know, they love Marvel movies.
Anime is very popular here. So we're seeing this crossover.
But back then there was a deliberate like there were powers that be who liked industrialization,
who liked capitalism and decided to just adopt the whole Western way of life and force it upon the Japanese people.

(01:17:13):
And there and that started a big conflict, apparently, all of which I was completely unaware of this whole time
because they don't teach you this shit in American high school.
Well, no. OK, now I'm going to get into why I brought this one.
But OK, the the actual real life person that Nathan Algren was based off of was the French military officer,

(01:17:37):
Jules Brunet, who was sent to Japan to train the Shogunate's troops in Western military tactics,
but chose to stay and fight alongside the samurai during the Bochon War.
So this is true adjacent.
Like that way, the reason why I brought this one is because a lot of story as they say.

(01:17:58):
Yeah, sure. You go. Yeah.
The reason that I brought this one in is because there's a lot of conversation over the white state, like the white savior.
Sure. And all this. This movie is literally immune from that.
The white person comes in as a part of the story and the narration happens because it is their perspective that the story is being told.

(01:18:20):
It is where they were is what happened to them.
There was no savior shit in here. No. Yeah.
This white man was there. And because he was there, like a lot of more Native Americans died
because he went to like help train the samurai and all that.
He gave them a startup. He got them going. He did all this.

(01:18:41):
And even though he got taken, a lot of what he did wound up being effective.
He was the tragedy. He was kind of the vessel for tragedy in this.
And I really enjoy that because it just pushed the story, but it didn't make him the hero.
And there was no point in this story where you could say if Tom Cruise's character had been deleted from the story,

(01:19:05):
that it would have turned out much differently, except maybe a couple parts.
Yeah. Just a few small sections. But the samurai would have gone down.
That still would have happened. Everything. No. Yes. Like Indiana Jones right there.
Right. Yeah. This was a story about this piece of history that was taking place that Westerners did not know about.

(01:19:27):
But luckily, there was a Westerner there to witness it so that he could tell us about it in our own language.
That's the point of him being there. But the other.
But one of the other reasons why I really love this one and why I brought this one in is because I'm fascinated by the fact
that the culture that it does dive into loves this film.
This film is widely accepted throughout Japan, which when Americans make films about other cultures and other countries,

(01:19:53):
that rarely happens. So I thought this was kind of a must see for the fact that American films just don't succeed in that way.
No, for sure. Yeah. No, I would have to agree.
And you mentioned at the beginning that, yeah, I got Best Foreign Film Award in Japan.
It's widely appreciated. So, yeah, by the very nature of the fact that, yeah,

(01:20:17):
this is a movie that Americans made about Japanese history that the Japanese like and enjoyed and really appreciate.
That says a lot. And so, yes, probably it would make it a must see because that almost never happens.
All right. Did you want to take lead for the second half?
I'm not prepared for that. All right. All right.

(01:20:40):
I got I got too frantic and breathy last time and I don't.
But seriously, dude, go watch our first 10 episodes of our podcast.
And you can watch me be frantic and God, what do I do now? Oh, shit.
We ran out of stuff to talk about. What do I do? Yeah, no, I get it.
I complete right there with I generally I generally such things like I would generally skip over a bunch of stuff, too,

(01:21:07):
because like my my whole thing is that I would I would like be like instead of like breaking down every scene,
I just kind of jump to the next thing that I wanted to talk about instead of just describing everything that happens
and then stopping where we want to discuss. I would just jump straight to the discussion like that.
That is that and that and that is kind of something that I was thinking about discussing during the after hour.
What I was kind of thinking like maybe during this after hour kind of discuss if we should change the formula for the show.

(01:21:35):
OK, because yeah, I mean, if we want to do like maybe our 15 favorite things about this or X, Y and Z, something like that.
Yeah, that could be the kind of change.
A little bit less of a recap episode and a little bit more analysis.
A little bit. Yeah.
But if we did that, we would like I would definitely want way more research to go in and like really kind of dive in over a lot of these things.

(01:22:02):
But other than that, seriously, when I'm kicking back, laying down to go to sleep and looking for something to listen to.
It can be hard, like hard to find.
And the reviews that we have got is that we are entertaining enough to listen to the full show.
And we are also pleasant sounding enough that we can be fall that week that people can fall asleep to us.

(01:22:27):
So I love that. I kind of like what we have.
Yeah. So I am I am totally cool as someone who has trouble sleeping.
I have been a lifelong insomniac to know that I am I am helping others to fall asleep.
I love that. I absolutely adore that.

(01:22:49):
I am OK with it. One hundred percent. All right. Fair enough.
All right. And we're back in for part two of tonight's episode, which is going to be Ghost Dog, the way of the samurai.
As I said last week, when we were talking about.

(01:23:10):
Let me like real quick. OK.
Doc, why did you bring this to the show?
We have a format, people. We got to stick to it.
It's right there. Right.
As I said last week, when we when we were touching on this, but, you know, lost the plot because because you were exhausted.

(01:23:33):
And I wasn't really feeling like fighting on that. I wasn't exactly in the best place either.
This movie, if I if I were if I were a media studies professor, I could do an entire semester on just this movie.
It is so thick, so deep, so full of references and themes and messages and ideas that that go back hundreds of years.

(01:24:02):
And I would say that I could do a doctoral thesis on this movie, except for the fact that I'm pretty sure the movie itself is a doctoral thesis.
There is a long standing tradition in and they aim this directly at a samurai culture,

(01:24:24):
but they do plant in to let you know that this is not just a Japanese thing.
There is plenty of Western culture references that follow the same plot of this.
The the the great warrior finding, you know, surrounded in a life of death, finding a meaning to life in these these rules and these these machinations of death.

(01:24:49):
Poetry written by samurai paintings painted by samurai warriors.
Samurai literature is its own thing of finding the beauty in the ugliness.
And this movie is basically a mile marker of that. It draws that through line perfectly of hundreds of years of this type of message of this type of art of the samurai story.

(01:25:17):
And they do it so freaking well and they find a way to just insert as many different random little things to let you know.
This is samurai and this is samurai and this is the same thing here and this is what we're talking about.
I mean, jumping ahead, they have a reference to an itchy itchy and scratchy cartoon.
It's never been done before in movies. If you have people watching TV, watching cartoons, it's always like black and white Betty Boop or something like that, something that's cheap.

(01:25:49):
But not in this movie. In this movie, they're watching an itchy and scratchy cartoon, which means they went out and got the rights to a fucking Simpsons episode to plug into this movie for five seconds to make their point.
That that's a big fucking deal.
That's that's not that's no it's no small small potatoes when it comes to how detailed you want your messaging to be in the in a movie.

(01:26:13):
So all right. Fair enough.
You ready to get into it then? Let's do this.
All right. Ghost Dog, The Way of the Samurai written and directed by Jim Jarmusch specifically for Forrest Whitaker.
Right. He has gone on to say that if Forrest was not able to do this one or if like the studio turned it down, he wouldn't have made this movie.

(01:26:37):
Sure. Yeah. Starring Forrest Whitaker, Henry Silva and John Tormey.
Now, something that keeps happening throughout this film is they reference the Hagakuri, which is and when I say they do it a lot in this film, they do it a lot in this.
Yeah, they're they like they're literally quoting it's the rules of the Hagakuri are the rules by which Ghost Dog lives and he quotes from it constantly.

(01:27:05):
It's not a this is not a hidden thing. This is not a nod and a wink.
This is this is a movie about you said hidden when you said when you went into that because the Hagakuri is a spiritual and practical guide for a warrior compiled by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, a former samurai in the early 18th century.
The title translates to hidden by the leaves or hidden leaves.

(01:27:32):
And it is considered one of the most influential works on Bushido, The Way of the Samurai.
Right. So there was nothing you could have said that would have like led me into saying that better than that.
Fantastic. Yeah. Did you have anything you wanted to say else before we jumped in on the actual film?
No, I guess from here on out, it's basically kind of like, yeah, scene by scene thing about about all the different bits. So yeah, let's let's let's get started.

(01:27:58):
Fair enough. Let's get into it. Opens on a pigeon's POV flying over Jersey to which, by the way, it took place in Jersey, but they never actually said where this took place in.
No, I like when movies do that. Like the setting doesn't matter. Right. Exactly.
Like sometimes it just doesn't matter where the setting is. The story is universal. I really like when they do that.

(01:28:21):
To Ghost Dog, played by Forrest Whitaker, reading Hagakuri before heading to the roof and bowing to the city.
Like a lot of these. By the way, did you did you realize that it was, I think, 27 or 37 minutes into the film before Forrest Whitaker says a word?
I did not notice. That's interesting. Yeah, because it's not like he wasn't doing anything.

(01:28:47):
No, he was in everything. He was interacting with people he had a lot, but he did not speak a word until like over a half hour into this film, which was kind of impressive.
Yeah, no, I guess I didn't notice that. Yeah. Walking past the cemetery and blowing a kiss and continuing on through the city until he finds a car and say it.
Okay. Right before he steals that car, when he like drops down that like that, that that ninja sound effect that they threw in there, which by the way, it cracked me up so many times.

(01:29:18):
And every time he did the twisty little thing with his gun before putting it away and they gave the little like sounds.
That was so cringy, but I'm like, God, you had to do it. I get it. You had to do it. Yes.
Very, very specific to this genre. Yes. And to what they're trying to do here. Yes, they had to do it. Absolutely.

(01:29:41):
You had no choice. And it was cringy. It was funny. And it did not ruin any moment in this film.
So because it kind of is the point because here's the thing. How dumb is it? The fact they do it anyway.
When we see those movies and they're waving the sword around, you hear the little sound that does not belong there either.
When it's the sword. Sure. Because that makes that sound in real life when it's not that loud.

(01:30:03):
No. But when it's your hands or something like that, they don't make that sound in real life. So no.
But that's the idea is that this is just some goofball shit. Yeah. But that's it's part of the artwork.
That's the thing that they're pointing out is that this this artistic rendition of the violence and the weapons is ridiculous.

(01:30:24):
And it's made and it's made the more obvious by the fact he's doing it with the gun because it's just as ridiculous with sword, with hands, with broomsticks, whatever we've seen Jackie Chan use in the room.
Like it is just as ridiculous every time. We always accept it, though, because that's the artwork.
And they're planting a flag on that fact when he does it with the gun here. I'm going to 50 percent agree.

(01:30:48):
Not the swords, but yes, Jackie Chan doing it with a vase. Yes. So like I said, I'm going to 50 percent agree.
Yeah. Did you notice that every time that he popped in music, he would always kick the volume up specifically to 21?
I did not notice that. No, I was curious why and I couldn't find why he did that.

(01:31:09):
But yeah, no, it was like different cars. He would steal a car and he would kick it up. Same CD. But it would go to 21 every time.
I was curious why, but I didn't get that. OK. Then we get over and over.
We got narration from the Hagakure.
Looks like guys are trying to pay off the bookies. They're like, yeah, you'll get the rest tomorrow, which became a running gag for this film.

(01:31:38):
And I'm wondering, like. I was wondering if you had any insight to why they did the running gag of these are gangsters, but they're broke gangsters.
They're really bad ones. No, well, I think and it's kind of like they really they really kind of bring it to bear.
It's like, yeah, it seems to kind of like keep going. Like it's a running gag almost.

(01:32:00):
We'll get you tomorrow kind of thing until we get to near the end where we find out that these guys are, you know, have a landlord.
They're paying rent on their on their hideout and their landlord is not part of the gang.
And he's like, what the fuck kind of gangsters are you? You never you're eight months late on your rent.
Like, it's basically showing that these guys are are old school gangsters, but their time has passed.

(01:32:23):
They are not succeeding at what they used to do. So I was weirdly taking it a different direction.
I thought this was a wannabe mobster like set up and because there was that line towards the end of the film where they were the one guy gets got.
And he's like, we're going out, buddy, just like real gangsters.

(01:32:46):
And I'm like, so you guys really fucking aren't because I literally thought that so much of the movie.
And they were like, yeah, we actually were doing it right.
You know, and that's the thing is I took it like I caught that that too.
And I took it more of like that sort of like callback to the good old days.
Like, because now because nowadays, you know, their type of gangsters aren't gangsters.

(01:33:10):
Because remember, this movie came out in the 90s during the during the rise, especially in in media of the more like hip hop gangster types, you know.
And so they're the the the old school like.
Oh, I didn't see that. I didn't take it though.
Yeah. So the old the the old school kind of bootleg, you know, Al Capone type monster mobsters, your your good fellows.

(01:33:36):
They were kind of falling out of favor.
You know, we were getting more of the, you know, don't be a menace was was kind of more what was in vogue now.
And so this was kind of like basically saying like, you know, the old school mobster is losing their relevance.
And that's what these guys were feeling.
They weren't making any money. They didn't have any influence.
They were paying rent on a hideout and their landlord was not scared of them at all.

(01:33:59):
He's shit talking them right to their faces.
And this last hurrah, this big battle between them and Ghost Dog that's basically taking them all out there, they're seeing it as like in Last Samurai.
This is a good death.
This is how guys like us were supposed to go.
Not not just be not just wasting away to irrelevancy like we have been for the last couple of years.

(01:34:21):
This is a full on. This is like real gangsters.
That's how I took it.
Okay.
Again, with independent film, they don't actually tell you they let you assign whatever you want it to be.
So if it's done well, yes, I don't know if either of us actually get to have any ground to stand on with those.

(01:34:44):
Ghost Dog arrives at a house to get a full expo dump about why Frankie's probably going to die and messing with the boss's cuckoo daughter.
Right.
So they'll kick off the inciting incident for this whole fucking thing is that this gang of old school deadbeat loser mobsters, one of them is fucking the boss's daughter.

(01:35:11):
And so he's got to die.
Which is Louie and Sonny played by John Tormey and Cliff Gorman discussing literally all of this just sitting in the car.
Right. Yeah.
And I hired my special guy.
My special guy. Yep. Yep.
And that's Ghost Dog.
Yep.
I'm sorry, but Louise and Frankie are a film student senior project.

(01:35:38):
You know exactly what I mean.
Yes. No. And you know what? Here's the thing. That is that is Jim Jarmusch. Yes. That is basically most of his movies are are his senior project.
I some of some of them come off better than others, you know, but no, but literally this very specific scene.
It's like this was what he did.

(01:36:00):
Like I swear to God, it was good God.
And then two in the heart and one in the mind of Frankie.
Yep.
And for some reason, Louise is reading Rashomon. Right.
Which OK, do you want to explain what Rashomon was? Rashomon was a graphic. Yeah, it's a it's a graphic novel.

(01:36:22):
I'm trying to remember if I ever actually read it. I don't think I did. I read Ronan instead, which was also Rashomon is good.
Yeah, but it's about the rape of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband. And they recall and the whole story is recalled from the perspectives of a bandit, the bride, the samurai's ghost and a lumberjack.

(01:36:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. Yeah. And like a woodcutter lumberjack.
Like I think the story calls it a woodcutter.
And then she gifts it to Ghost Dog.
Right.
Just so happens, the samurai gets gifted a samurai book. Just right. Huh?
Because why not? Yeah. Which is which that's one of those to me first clues because basically Ghost Dog because she's not supposed to be there.

(01:37:13):
Like as far as they know, when she when he's given the assignment, she's supposed to have been put on a bus out of town for whatever reason.
And then they're going to kill they're going to kill a handsome Frankie while she's out of town.
She gets off the bus, turns around, and so she's there. She's not supposed to be there.
That's where the problem lies, because Ghost Dog is supposed to kill handsome Frankie.
But the girl is there. He was not told to kill the girl. So he leaves her alive. So now she's a witness.

(01:37:38):
And while and while there while he's there, she she saw him kill Frankie.
And her reaction is, would you like to borrow my book?
The fact that it is a samurai graphic novel and she does not seem that broken up about about handsome Frankie being killed in the first place.
This was to me was my first clue that maybe she planned some of this.

(01:38:02):
But also at the same time, the end of the movie definitely indicates that it definitely suggests.
Yes. But there's there's too many things on here that were not in her control to suggest that this was some grand master plan.
It just sort of seems like maybe she's a little too in the know sometimes.
So I don't know. That's another one of those, I guess, leaving it up to the audience kind of things.

(01:38:23):
Yeah, I agree with that. So she'll so she sits there.
She's reading she's reading the Rashomon graphic novel, watches Ghost Dog kill her boyfriend and then gives him a free book for his trouble.
There you go. And then right into more narration from the Hagakuri and chasing a carrier pigeon through the apartment.

(01:38:44):
Which was just funny. It's like, God, get that thing over here. We got to get the note and all this stuff.
Like, you never really think about the aspect that, yeah, if the bird doesn't like you, that would be pretty tough to get that message off its foot.
That's a good I like that bad feeling about this bird.
And yeah, Ghost Dog is reading Rashomon.
Mm hmm. Because I kind of figured like the fact that it was such a big deal.

(01:39:11):
I kind of thought that that might have something to do with this movie and it had literally nothing to do with it.
No, yeah. Yeah, it seems like the main point of that book was to basically kind of be an excuse for Ghost Dog to interact with a couple other characters that otherwise didn't really need to be there.
Yeah, which I mean, he didn't have to do that. He didn't have to give the kid the Rashomon or Rashomon.

(01:39:36):
He could have given her the Hagakuri. Like, yeah, there was I really don't understand why this book was there other than just this exchange between Cuckoo Louise and Ghost Dog.
Right. Yeah. He's meditating on, I guess, his trauma and the bird shows up and there's a problem.
Again, more from the Hagakuri as we read the flock for exercise and you see a happy Ghost Dog up there with all the red flags and all this stuff.

(01:40:05):
Just a very peaceful moment, like kind of one of those things.
The mafioso is being messed with by a kid whose mom locked him inside while she went to work.
You know what I'm like, you don't know what I'm talking about.
I'm forgetting that. Yeah. Yeah.
There was that there was that one kid who was like stuck inside because his mom left him inside, locked him inside and she went to work.

(01:40:31):
He's like chucking stuff out of his window at the gangsters. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yes. Yeah.
More. Yeah. Again, more more to show that these guys aren't the badasses in the neighborhood that they that they used to be.
Yeah. No one gives a shit about them. They're they're like everybody messes with them.
Like they're they're nothing but jokes. And I want to say that there were bloods as the gang members that were credited like as like what's up Ghost Dog?

(01:40:58):
What up GD? Like the stuff thing. But they're just credited as gangsta in red.
I'm really curious as to why, because they're dressed as the bloods. I don't know why they I don't know why they did that.
That's a good question. That's a very good question.
Because we did that movie. Not that Rusty Kim D.F. movie. Who did Meteor. Who directed Meteor Man. Wait, wasn't it?

(01:41:23):
Oh Townsend. That was Townsend. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So that was Robert Townsend that he directed that.
Yeah. He credited the Crips. He credited the bloods. He credited like everybody.
So I was curious why this movie like they decided to go that route with this one.
Maybe because the the guy in red wasn't an actual gangster.
You can't credit the the the Crips of the Bloods if it's an actor dressed as one that would then it would be disrespectful.

(01:41:47):
But no, it's not. It's the actor acting like a like the thing that he's acting like. That doesn't make sense.
I've heard of these things being an issue amongst the gangs like where where and where are the colors without actually being a gang?
Even if it is an actor as an actor, they take issue with that. I've heard. I don't know.
I've never lived in gangland, so I don't know for sure. You know, but I love clothes, but I've never been involved.

(01:42:11):
Yeah. All right. Let's see.
But they showed the dog respect and that one.
OK, the guy was literally like credit as Kung Fu master because some dude was sneaking up on him and an Alan.
He drops his groceries and he does like a tornado kick and like catches the guy on the side of his face.

(01:42:36):
And I'm like, OK, well, this is going to be another character in the movie.
No, right. No, no. What what? Why did you? Why did you do this?
Like. But we have talked about this were like independent filmmakers.
They can ruin films by throwing shots to their buddies and stuff like that.

(01:42:57):
This was one of those kind of shots for me. It's like, why was this there?
This is so weird. It doesn't enhance the story. It doesn't tell us anything.
I took it. I took it as like so this the best example I can think of.
To kind of think of it as kind of like a sort of else world's building, like, yeah, it takes place in Jersey, but we never say it's Jersey because it's not technically supposed to be the real Jersey.

(01:43:26):
Oh, so this is just like a like what Japan won World War Two and now we have more ninja stuff and samurai stuff in America.
I like I don't know what specifically they're basically just saying this is not the same thing as you know.
It's not that weird that we have samurai ghost dog walking around, you know, and an example like the guy got to disagree because the movie tells us that that's not the case because everybody's like, OK, that's true.

(01:43:56):
But no, here's an example. And this is kind of one of my personal favorites because I thought this was like it was both like clever and funny to me. But in Kill Bill, when she's flying to Japan and you can see she's got her samurai sword with her on the airplane.
And at first it's just it's just right away. You're just sitting there going like they let her take that on the plane. And then later on, like her last scene on the plane before, you know, anything else happens.

(01:44:26):
And then it slowly pulls back and we see the rest of the plane and all of the airplane seats on the plane she has have holders for swords next to them. And some of them have swords in them. So Kill Bill takes place in a world where people regularly travel with their samurai swords on the plane.

(01:44:47):
I haven't seen Kill Bill since I was 13, 14.
I don't remember the movie that well. That to me, I think was one of the better parts of the movie was that bit where it basically just Tarantino going like, look, don't take this shit too seriously. I know this is dumb. Look.
All right. That is fair. And I feel like this might be one of those things. Like it's not so much that like maybe, yeah, maybe he had a friend that he wanted to give him a scene or something like that.

(01:45:17):
But it may have also coordinator or something or something like that. Yeah. But also at the same time, it might have been like this just kind of sets the vibe. We have a vibe here, you know, and this is part of it.
See, that's the thing. Like the way that the the mafiosos respond to the story of Ghost Dog and everybody, everybody responds to Ghost Dog. And so at that they're like, no, like the movie does tell us that he is an out, like out of the ordinary character.

(01:45:47):
If the end of the movie, we do see there is another samurai. Yes. OK. So yeah, the movie tells us there are more like him, but they but the movie also still tells us that it is a very rare thing for them to be there.
We really were learning a lot about the Haka Kuri in this movie.

(01:46:10):
I should have went back and actually like the movie should have been inspired by the Haka Guri. No, it kind of was.
But I mean, but what samurai movie isn't inspired by Bushido?
That's true. Well, I mean, sorry, hold on. I meant to bring these with me. Hold on.

(01:46:31):
All right, we're holding. What's going on?
I don't have the Haka Guri, but I do have the Book of Five Rings and the Art of War. So, you know, similar, similar references.
Yes, of course. Well, I don't know.
It's funny. It's funny. Like that's the household I grew up in.
Like I told like I told you, I told you mentioned before how my father was a sensei and then, you know, my mother is just generally a very literary person.

(01:46:57):
Like I remember like when we were getting ready to do this show, I even like was like, oh, I'm going to bring the Book of Five Rings and like reference it along with the Haka Guri references and stuff like that.
I could not find my copy, so I borrowed my mother's.
Nice. I mean, it's nice.
That's the kind of household I grew up in, man. It's like it's just like that kind of just constant stream of multicultural weirdness.

(01:47:24):
Not a bad thing. No, not at all. To the Mafia meeting and expressing sorrow for Frankie and they whacked him.
What are you going to do? Great.
Just that's that's a pretty solid acceptance right there, buddy. Sure.
Yeah. Yep. There's a problem.
And we already talked about this. There's a problem.
The daughter was there at Frank's whacking and they got to get Ghost Dog.

(01:47:47):
Yeah, because because Frankie was a maid guy. So and it was possible to just blame his death on a rival gang.
But now that we have a witness that can point to the actual trigger man, they got to go find him and get him.
They are they are blood oath. They got to avenge him now that they know who did it.
And that's the problem, because he's technically their guy.

(01:48:09):
Yeah. And now we find out a little bit more about Ghost Dog. He gets paid only on the first day of autumn.
And the one guy. Wait a minute. Am I hearing right about the bird?
That seems funny. Everything about it is just yeah, it's just amazing.

(01:48:30):
And when we get to the point where we get that N word drop and then the look from I think it was Louie
and they go and he goes into the story of how they met.
Well, and well, that. And this is like and before we get into all that, actually, no, this does come later.
But that's the part where it's like you get the really like first big clue.

(01:48:53):
Like there's been a lot of interesting stuff happening, but the first big major drop clue of what this movie really, really is about
is in this conversation between these gangsters as he's telling them about Ghost Dog.
And they're like, yeah, and he and they're saying, what's this guy's name?
Ghost Dog. And they're just like, Ghost Dog, Ghost Dog.

(01:49:17):
And they're like, what's and then finally the really old racist bastard goes like, you know, with these, you know,
and that's where he drops his first N bomb of the movie.
He's like, they always got to have these weird names, the Snoopy Dog and the and the Fat Ice.
And, you know, they're always with the weird names.
And immediately after that, the boss goes, yeah, you're right.

(01:49:40):
They do all have weird names. Go get Fat Louie and Jimmy the Snake.
Tell him we got a job for him. Fucking mic drop right there, man.
Like that right there tells you what this movie is about.
What? Really? Seriously? Seriously?

(01:50:02):
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's I mean, that's the racism that's kind of like the hit.
How is that not embarrassing?
Because what because because what he compares them to is I had this note a little bit ways down here,
but he compares the names Vargo compares the names and rap culture to the Native Americans like Yellow Bear.

(01:50:23):
Oh, yeah. You call. Yeah. Things like that.
So, yeah, like that's where I was like. So no, he's basically it's it's that through line of the the title of the name.
Basically, in the same way that he has Ghost Dog in the same way that we have like these gangsta rap names of, you know, Dr. Dre and Ice T and all the all these guys, you know,

(01:50:47):
it goes right along with, you know, the gangster, you know, Prohibition Days, Fat Tommy and Big Head Sal and, you know,
I can't remember Al Capone. I know had one, too, but I can't remember what it was. He was like he was like called, you know, Big Al or something like that.

(01:51:08):
But, you know, and but this does go, you know, this is a through line.
The the the the name that isn't just your given name, it's a title. It's a it's an icon.
It's, you know, you're not you're not just you're not just what I thought. Yeah. Al Capone was Scarface.
Oh, he was Scarface. That's right. I was like, this is a little too obvious.

(01:51:29):
I can't I can't be wrong about this. Right. I did know that. I forgot. OK, right.
But but yeah, it's that's the thing is like it's these it's these monikers, the gnome de plume, as they as they say, where you're not just, you know, you're not just Brad Hackworth.
You're, you know, Brad the bone. Yeah. But how is that the through line of the movie?

(01:51:51):
The through line of the movie is showing that this that this little that this type of literature, this war story, basically these these story of criminals, gangsters, warlords, samurai.
This is all the same thing like the gangster movies that, you know, Goodfellas is a gang is is a samurai story when you boil it down.
Fucking The Godfather, samurai story like all of these old school gangster movies are exactly the same in their spirit as the Kurosawa, you know, epic gangster samurai stories.

(01:52:28):
Like, that's the through line that they're saying is how this concept that begin that begins with the legend of the samurai continues on in different forms.
And they and they, you know, and there's also and they basically in very small hints dropped down that this is also Star Wars and Westerns, the same thing.
I look forward to it. I look for I look for the tick tock you make on that, like clarifying and jumping in on that because I am wildly confused.

(01:52:56):
I I'm I saw this because I saw this as a way of the warrior more mentioned and I was looking at as the like the racist people like dogging like on people because they like the way that they would give themselves names.
I wasn't like I didn't take that. So but well, yeah, I mean, and it kind of is it is partially the way of the warrior and it's the literature, the literary representation of the way of the warrior along with it.

(01:53:24):
And yeah, and it's in but the point being is the fact that right after he they go, you know, these gang, you know, these black gangster guys, they got to have these weird names, by the way, call these two guys that work for us to have these weird names.
You know, that Tony and Jimmy the snake bring them, you know, it's like it's basic. They're basically saying like this is literally all the same thing.

(01:53:47):
Yeah, I just thought it was I thought it was more of a joke of them being too dumb to realize that they were doing the same shit.
Oh, I'm sure that it was part of the inspiration. But that was, you know, because once you catch that that's a through line. Once you see that, then you catch all the references of where they're saying this is also samurai.
This is also samurai story. Everything can be traced back to a samurai legend from like 200 years ago, at least if not more.

(01:54:13):
Start pointing them out as we go.
Okay. I mean, I'm not as as, you know, up to date on my samurai knowledge as I should be. But, you know, we'll do this is your point. That's why I'm like, that's why I'm saying I can't see it. That's why I'm asking you to point it out to me.
Okay. All right.
A whole new century is coming and Mr. Vargo wants every member of the family to go after this weirdo. And like, yeah, okay, well, we way covered that.

(01:54:45):
Sonny goes off about how he likes Public Enemy and loves Flava Flav, which is something that Jim Jarmusch like when he was learning about mafioso's and he found out that the arrested ones who were in prison actually really loved gangster rap and hip hop.
Yeah.
So that is just kind of a real world connection there for just.

(01:55:07):
And it did make for some great, you know, humor to imagine 80 year old mafioso's jam into Dr. Dre in like right now.
Well, you don't have to imagine that we have a couple scenes of it in this movie.
Well, fair.
And with him dancing that one was cracking me up.

(01:55:29):
Over to the ice cream truck and in English. Okay, so this character, Isaac de Banco Lay. Right. Yeah.
I probably butchered his name and I'm very sorry for that.
I recognize this guy all over the place every time I see him. He's got such a distinctive face.
Now that he is the giant disc lipped village elder in Black Panther, I no longer like like that is the definitive reference for everybody.

(01:56:00):
Like, remember that guy in Black Panther with the lip?
Like, oh, yeah, that's the guy I'm talking about. Hard to miss. Yes.
I'll tell you, I was really mad because this this being my second viewing, I made a point to turn on subtitles to watch the movie this time.
They did not translate his French in the subtitles when he's speaking French.

(01:56:22):
The subtitles just pop up in parentheses, speaking French.
I'm like, you mother at least it says speaking French because when like when we watch movies and I have the subtitles on and like what they do is they speaks foreign language.
Come on that at least it said French.

(01:56:43):
A fun like a little fun fact about this one is the ice cream the ice cream truck driver in the English version of this movie.
Everything that he spoke was in French, but in the French version of this movie, they made an outstanding decision to make everything he said, you Ruben.
Oh, I don't think it kept correcting your Ruben to your ruba.

(01:57:06):
So I don't think your Ruben is a word, but interesting. I didn't bring up anything about my book with the last samurai, which is where you thought.
But on this one, I I never knew anything about your Ruba culture.
Since I started writing my book, I was like, OK, my character walked across Nigeria.

(01:57:30):
I have learned I've learned so much about your Ruba culture and like now it's starting to pop up and I'm like, why have I never recognized this word in my life?
And now I see it all over the place. It happens, man.
We hear about it is one of those things. Yeah, it is.
The freestyle in group shows respect to Ghost Dog 2.

(01:57:53):
And a young Camille Winbush as Perline or Perline.
You remember how she said it? I don't think they ever said her name out loud. Yeah, they did.
They did at the end of the movie. But I just can't remember then.
Yeah, I can't remember how he pronounced it as a wildly upfront kid asking why he's got no friends.

(01:58:16):
Kids, kids, man. Right. Harry's books in her lunchbox, The Wind and the Willows, The Souls of Black Folk.
Night Nurse. Right. She's got a reason for each one of them.
She's got like, I like this story. This is a story.
This is a story that that someone told me to read and I like it.

(01:58:39):
This one haven't read it, but I just like the cover. That was Night Nurse.
And then we get Frankenstein. Frankenstein, yep.
And he goes right into and reads a passage from that one and decides to gift Rashomon from his most recent murder.
Right. Hey, man, pay it forward. Of course. Yes.
Which I'm still waiting for Ghost Dog 2.

(01:59:00):
The weirdest lending library, little library transaction.
It is a little more than weird and I'm about to get into it.
He lures this child to an ice cream truck, which never go to the second location.
Like, are you kidding me here? Technically not a second location.

(01:59:23):
You can see you can see the ice cream truck from where they were sitting.
Like, it's technically still a park. Yeah.
And you can see the van from the park as well. It's still a second location.
Don't go. She gets free ice cream, also a red flag, and the French ice cream man explains how Ghost Dog is a bear.

(01:59:46):
Right. Yeah. Like, what's he talking about? Bears, I guess.
And leaves the girl to be whined at in French about how he can't learn any other language.
Basically, every scene with that ice cream truck character was solid gold.
It was amazing. Yeah. You can't understand a word the guy says.

(02:00:07):
They don't translate it for you if you get the subtitles version.
But you still get the gist of everything he's trying to say.
Maybe not the exact words, but you're just like, oh, yeah, no, he's pissed at Ghost Dog because Ghost Dog won't bother to learn French so they can talk.
Even though they're like really good friends. They've known each other for years, apparently.
Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Oh, God. And then cutting to the rooftop goon scene.

(02:00:31):
By the way, OK, this one did kick up that another movie that got added to my list.
Stupid fucking white man by nobody.
Like that is what this actor's credited as is nobody is the same character name and line of dialogue.
Gary Farmer, the actor who has this line, had in Jim Jarmusch's other movie, Dead Man, starring Johnny Depp and Gary Farmer.

(02:00:59):
That movie was fucking bizarre. Yes, it was.
I watched it. I watched about 15 minutes of it and I went, well, I'm going to save the first time seeing this one for another time.
Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I wouldn't mind covering that. I think there's a lot to cover there.
I don't know if I'm going to enjoy seeing it a second time, but there is definitely a lot to cover there as far as maybe we can do a Gary Farmer episode or week.

(02:01:27):
Oh, yeah. With Dead Man. And have you ever seen the movie Smoke Signals?
Yes. Great movie. Yes. One hundred percent.
That is the one that got added to my list, because as soon as I saw Gary Farmer, I was like, fuck, go Smoke Signals.
Yeah. Shit, I haven't seen that in forever.
OK. Yeah. I'd be down for that too. Yeah. Both of those are movies that I don't think I've seen in like 20 plus years or more.

(02:01:52):
And I don't even know where I'm at in here. Oh, right. Ghost Dog is making a suppressor.
Which. This channel is not going to care about the difference between a suppressor and a silencer.
I mean. Yeah. OK, fine. A silencer literally does exactly that.

(02:02:16):
It silences a suppressor will like it the way that it's designed, it makes it so when you pull the trigger, there's less kickback from the gun and it actually reduces.
So there's no muzzle flash either. So a silencer gimmick suppressor.
What you actually want your character to use if you're trying to go for that kind of detail.

(02:02:41):
Random ass again, I need to I need to get a little button that every time I do something like that, I can just do the more you know.
Yeah, I need the more you know button.
I'll get my my on air sign and then you can get a little light up sign that says like for your information.
Yes, I'm actually OK with that. Yeah.
And well, but the crazy that is important. I'm going to I'm going to say that that is important information specifically because and I know, you know, I've been ranting, you know, about not talking politics.

(02:03:10):
But this one I'm going to point as an example of why these things piss me off is because one of the reasons why nobody takes the left seriously when it comes to gun control is because we do stupid things like trying to make laws to outlaw suppressors because we don't know the fucking difference between a suppressor and silencer, which just makes us look so fucking dumb that now we can't say shit.

(02:03:37):
So thank you, Brad, for informing us.
That's that's fun.
Clebert Ford gets got in place of Ghost Dog.
Even if he looks like him, shoot him right. Whoa.
What a commentary, right? Yeah, that is.
Yeah, that is a commentary that yes, technically I did just bring it up, but we can't get into that on the show.

(02:04:02):
We'll go for it. We'll go forever.
The slow motion look between Sonny and Ghost Dog and the visible thinking on Whitaker's face.
Fourth Whitaker, you are an actor, sir.
You just damn Ghost Dog sneaks up on Louie and drops that he knows all about the organization.
I'm better me than you, Louie.

(02:04:25):
He's like, and then Louie right now, I'd have to agree on that.
Again, if you're facing death and there's somebody standing in front of you, go like, hey, better I die than you do.
It's like, OK.
I'm having some moral issue here, but yeah.
And I'm pretty sure that that was a Terminator joke from Forest Whitaker from Ghost Dog.

(02:04:53):
Like, oh, come on, like Terminator 2, like, why did you do that? Why did you like break his arm?
Because you told me to.
Like, I'm pretty sure like, why do you that? Like Ghost Dog, you told me to.
I'm your retainer. I'm like, that's a Terminator joke.
Possibly. Probably. And I don't know for sure.
I mean, it is kind of like a general, you know, it's a good solid humor.

(02:05:16):
But yeah, I mean, probably because yeah, Terminator is samurai story as well, you know.
Right, right. The time traveling samurai. I forgot about that one.
Protect the kid who has a destiny.
OK. All right.
The warrior traveling to protect the child with a destiny. Yes.

(02:05:41):
Samurai story.
To put the gun away.
This cracked me up every time.
And the mafia boss watching Felix the cat.
Yeah. I loved Felix the cat as a kid, and I had not even seen a reference to Felix the cat in so many years that that was a wonderful piece of nostalgia for me.

(02:06:03):
And it used to be and it used to be kind of a staple.
That's like I said, like a lot of times you'll see a lot of these movies if they've got a scene where someone is watching TV because of the whole like rights and distribution thing.
Usually what they're watching is something really, really cheap, like a rerun of a game show or an old cartoon nine times out of 10.

(02:06:25):
It has now become the Powerpuff Girls.
Right. Yes.
That is the one that everybody chooses or SpongeBob. Yes.
Which in Blade 2, watching Scud, watch Powerpuff Girls, I'm like.
That is the perfect just the perfect offset.
I'm loving everything about this.

(02:06:46):
Oh, this is the moment you were talking about with the landlord stops by to threaten to kick him out because they're three months behind.
And then like Sonny turns around because he's humiliated by the landlord coming by and just looks across the room for somebody to tear into.
And then he finds Louie. Right. And there's like everybody's looking down even lose like I got shot man with the fuck you want for me.

(02:07:09):
Like ghost dog did you solid. Right. Yeah.
When the bird flies in and that old man shouts, Austin, Joe, pigeon.
That old dude was yeah, no, he was he was the life of the party really for being half dead for most of it.
Yeah, there is that.

(02:07:30):
I thought that he was alluding to seppuku in this moment, but then nope.
With enough determination, even with a head cut off, a samurai will not die.
I was like, huh? Yeah.
You might he must be he must be determined enough so that even with his last breath, he's still able to make a strike of some kind. Yeah.

(02:07:51):
Well, no, he's saying even after death, like the whole that section of the Haga Kuri says.
Oh, right. Like even death must not stop a samurai.
I'm paraphrasing. I don't know. I don't know what that will.
That universal key would definitely come in handy just walking around town and picking up whatever car you want.

(02:08:12):
That'd be nice. CDN and up to 21 again.
What by the way, 21.
Did you notice the sound that his little you know, every every time he steals a car, he's got a little special key fob that basically disarms everyone's car alarm.
That's how he does it. He's it's a you know, and did you notice the sound of it makes every time he presses the button?

(02:08:35):
No, what was it? It was R2D2. Oh, Jesus Christ.
His key fob that he steals. There's the Star Wars one.
The Star Wars reference. Yes, that well there's a second one later on, but that was the first one because no, I didn't catch any Star Wars references.
I don't think I did.
The reggae song that he kicks on perfectly pairs with the situation with the lyrics from the song.

(02:09:01):
That was fantastic. And I'm glad I had the subtitles on so I actually could catch that.
Right. That was good.
Strips the John and the working girl in the alley.
Okay. Yeah, that was weird. Yeah, just stops him steals their clothes and we understand why he steals the guy's clothes.
He needs a suit. Why he took her clothes too.

(02:09:24):
I don't know. Maybe just so it wouldn't be too weird for him.
Yeah, I didn't really understand that.
Like, yeah, picking a fight, humiliating the mafia, doing all this. I get all of it.
Why did he leave him with that many clothes was the question I had.
You're trying to humiliate a dude and all this stuff and you leave him with more clothes than he would go to the beach on?

(02:09:48):
I mean, come on. I thought that but okay. You know what? Movies have their moments. Whatever.
That's it. Yeah.
More Hagakuri about powdered rouge as he switches license plates.
Now, when you talk about sending the audience into a moment of disbelief and like are suspending their disbelief and all this.
What the current era has done to me has made that moment completely impossible.

(02:10:16):
Black dude rolls up to a white family in a park and then like 20 feet away from them is doing activity around their car and nobody said anything.
I'm sorry. That's just not the world we live in.
Unfortunately, no. But like, I mean.
No, that was like that was that was a scene that just completely doesn't work. That is completely detached from reality.

(02:10:42):
I feel like it was.
Set aside from that, it doesn't really matter.
Right.
Everybody knows. Like, even if the parents aren't facing the car, you got three kids facing that car.
One of those kids is going to go, hey, somebody's messing with something.
And it would have been an easy fix instead of going to the park, go to a parking lot where there are many, many cars where exactly easy to do that without anybody seeing like that.

(02:11:06):
That's the thing.
That was that was a moment that the movie just wildly failed because of I don't know why.
Maybe again, maybe again, just tossing.
Maybe that's the that family is a friend, like a family that's a friend of the director or things like that.
Like, whenever I see something that just literally doesn't make sense, that's always where my mind goes to now.

(02:11:29):
If I were to guess and given if I were to give the director a lot, a lot of credit, I would say it might have been a location issue.
Like they already had the park as a location and they couldn't get a parking.
They couldn't get another location to shoot at.
So they basically stuck with the parking lot at the park.
They already had a permit for.
So I could I could easily see that.
I just that would be my guess.

(02:11:50):
I mean, if that's your situation, just change it to a street location or something.
Yeah, like I mean, that was just like I really think that was a really bad decision.
But personal preference.
Ghost dog gets into a sniper's nest and then gets interrupted by a woodpecker.
And then they're watching Woody, the woodpecker on TV.
Come on. I mean, just come on.

(02:12:14):
Vargos, the Vargos arrive and Bird gets in the way and we're on to Plan B.
That moment where he was sitting with the birds is kind of showing his good nature and like all of this.
It was a very important.
It was weird right after a scene that was really garbage for the film.
We go right into one which has like maximum importance for the film.

(02:12:38):
Yeah, yeah.
Kind of weird how those were back to back.
That's kind of where you kind of got to sit there and think about things like that,
because if you can see the director and the writer and everyone can pull off a moment like that,
it sort of tugs at you to give some benefit of the doubt.
Like, OK, so this failure of a scene we saw before, is there something there that I'm not getting?

(02:13:01):
Because clearly they have the capabilities.
We know that they know what they're doing because they did this great thing here.
So why did this thing fail over here?
Was there just something out of their control?
Is it me? Is there a reference I'm missing or something like that?
And I do get that.
But as you say, you should trust your audience.
At the same time, these filmmakers do kind of have a responsibility there.

(02:13:25):
If that's not being communicated to me, it's kind of on them.
So, you know.
And I do get that.
Even more Hagakuri as Ghost Dog, as Mr. Solo.
OK, I get the Star Wars reference.
Not only that, I can't remember, but the first name he says to like the guy, the guy gives it.

(02:13:46):
He gives a full name, something solo.
I can't remember what the first name was.
But apparently that first name is the same first name as another character played by Harrison Ford.
I think in American Graffiti, I want to say.
So no clue. I didn't get the first name.
Both names he gives are Harrison Ford references.
Yeah.
And this is what makes it begin.

(02:14:09):
And I like that.
Jesus, it's the fucking Birdman!
Not Ghost Dog, the fucking Birdman.
Right.
And then the guy gets a heart attack.
This is the old man.
Just, huh!
Right.
Alright.
Doesn't even get shot by Ghost Dog.
He just grasps his chest and dies before.

(02:14:31):
And I liked the moment where Vargo's like, I've been expecting you.
And he probably had a speech prepared, but no, he got shot right there.
Like, no, you don't get to give your speech.
This isn't that kind of movie.
This isn't that kind of story.
You're just, you're done.
Right, yeah.
And Louie gets shot in the same place.
Well, don't want to put too many holes in you, Louie.

(02:14:52):
It's like, that might be worse.
Louie comes out of the bathroom, which may or may not have been a Pulp Fiction reference.
Which is also a samurai story.
And as soon as he walks out of the bathroom, Ghost Dog sees him, shoots him again.
Because the whole ploy here is that he's got to shoot Louie so Louie doesn't seem like he's on the take to Ghost Dog on Ghost Dog's side.

(02:15:16):
So he's got to injure him.
But he shoots him in the exact same spot he shot him last time.
And that's Louie's, Louie walks out of the bathroom and his first line is, ah, you shot me in the exact same place.
And I still stand by the fact that's probably worse for the person.

(02:15:40):
The Bear Hunter racism metaphor scene.
Black led film, black directed film.
You're going to have that scene.
I don't want to sound like I'm being stereotypical or anything like that.
But that, it's in too many.

(02:16:04):
Things like that. They just kind of toss things randomly in there.
But at least this one was properly set up.
Yeah. If it's part of the story, it's part of the story.
And especially, you know, yeah, if that's one of your influences growing up in life, then of course it's going to be an influence in your art.
There's no reason not to take a nod to it.

(02:16:25):
Yeah. But where we have kind of discussed a little bit, that is a thing that tanks it in a lot of studios' eyes.
And a lot of those scenes do get removed.
I'm glad that this one just didn't.
I like it when the directors get to have the films made that they want it to make.
Yeah. Well, and there's a middle ground between like, because I think this is one of Jarmusch's earlier films.

(02:16:48):
I know it's not his first, but it's definitely one of his earlier ones.
So it's like when you're low enough in the totem pole that the studio doesn't bother paying attention to you, you can get away with shit.
And then when you're high enough on the totem pole where you basically call your own shots, then you get away with shit.
It's all that middle ground that sucks for most of these guys.
Jim Jarmusch got started in 1980.

(02:17:12):
Oh, wow. He's a lot older than I thought he was.
And the last thing that he directed was a music video called Cat Power, A Pair of Brown Eyes.
Okay. I'm sure it was a banger.
The last movie I saw that I saw of his, I think, was this the last one of his I saw? Because I know he did The Dead Don't Die and I hated it.

(02:17:38):
So. Well, yeah, that was only like six years ago, too.
Yeah. Between Ghost Dog and Cat Power, A Pair of Brown Eyes. Not a lot, to be honest.
Coffee and cigarettes, Broken Flowers, The Raconteurs, Limits of Control.
Coffee and cigarettes was great.
Patterson, Gimme Danger.

(02:17:59):
Oh, Only Lovers Left Alive. I wanted to see it, but I haven't seen it yet, but I've heard really good things.
I did not realize that was one of his.
Maybe that'll be one that gets tossed on the list.
All right. Moving forward.
More from the Hagakuri as they kind of celebrate going out in the old way like real fucking gangsters.

(02:18:20):
Like that was the thing I was like, man, are these guys just like the wannabe remnants?
I mean, I don't know if they were wannabes. I think they used to be the real thing.
But yeah, like I said before at the beginning, like this is, you know, talking about how they're losing relevance as old school gangsters.
Here's why I'm sticking to my guns on this one.
If that was what they were, then the line would have been something like going out the way we're supposed to go out.

(02:18:49):
Not going out like we are real gangsters.
Like that line, like that line is like it really sells that.
It's how he started it. It wasn't just that he's taken us out like real gangsters.
He says we're taking he's taken us out the old fashioned way.
The old way. Yeah. Yeah.
He's taking us out the old way like real gangsters like that's that's how he says it.

(02:19:12):
Like he's basically, you know, in this in the same.
Like I said, it's the same way as you know, in in Last Samurai.
It's a good death. He's giving us good deaths is what he's saying.
I know I hear I hear exactly what you're saying.
I am just telling you, I disagree.
Like I think I'm looking at it way more in the light of these guys like, oh, my God, I get to die like a real one.

(02:19:40):
Like because they've been one. That's how I'm like, I'm just.
And when it comes to indie films and stuff like that, we've talked about this.
They they let you see what you want to see.
I suppose that's true. Yes. But I took it as they OK, maybe they're wannabes now, but they used to be the big they used to be the big guys.
But they're but that's the thing is like they're not they're not in charge anymore because their type of gangster.

(02:20:03):
Because I put I put them as like like goon goons.
Right. Like the guys that they're working for were like the lowest echelon of the real gangsters.
So whoever works for them are like the punks of the punks. Right. OK.
Like because they're broke, they don't know shit.
Their network is crappy. Their cars are like breaking down and all this stuff.

(02:20:28):
Like nothing about them is any kind of good. But we also see it in their houses.
We see two of their houses. We see we see the boss's house.
And then I can't remember who owns the second last house in the last scene.
But we see it there that these are very, very nice, very, very expensive, very.
That's a good point. But with, you know, some of the furniture is missing or packed away like they've they've been like hard times, you know, like like imagine the idiot kid brother that was like the one who survived.

(02:21:01):
That's who I looked at as like the mafia leader on this one.
Like everybody from like the main family and all this. But this is like the extended mafia cousins.
Like the family got wiped out in a mob war a few years back.
And these are just all the other guys left over who. Yeah.
All the guys that are like, look, man, I don't want you to come to this fight with us because honestly, you being there is probably going to get me killed faster.

(02:21:26):
Like because everybody was an idiot or not an idiot, but just not good. Right.
But again, that is possible. Indie films, they let they give you permission to do those types of things.
Vanessa Hollingshead as the sheriff shows up only to get God and then a gag on chauvinism, which I feel like this.

(02:21:52):
The people who laughed at that are the exact people that we wanted to laugh at what we did.
Yeah. Yeah. No, you're probably right. Yeah.
Because, yes, that scene did not sell to everybody, but I guarantee it sold to a lot of people.
And I feel like what we did is exactly the same. We just didn't get a big enough audience.

(02:22:14):
No. Yeah, that's true. Because it did sell to a lot of people.
They just weren't willing to laugh in the theater. I got told afterwards that they thought it was funny.
But from what I understand, crickets in the theater. No, yeah, dead silence. Yeah.
I was genuinely afraid that I might not make it out the theater alive. That's how quiet it was.

(02:22:37):
Yeah. Oh, God, I hate when people are that judgmental about their own sense of humor. Right. Yeah.
The ice cream truck reunion. And it's honestly really great to see how they're always saying the exact same thing.
Understanding without understanding and a friendship that kind of just crosses without.

(02:22:58):
Without. I mean, nothing stopped it. Right. Yeah. I just like that.
City walk by moonlight to see and listen to the dogs steals that car.
And why would you honestly. OK, when the lady comes out of that shop after her Jaguars been stolen.
And I know it's a Jaguar because she comes out, she's like, my Jaguar.

(02:23:19):
Like, why would you leave your Jaguar running in literally any neighborhood?
I know. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah. That's one of that. Yeah. Just don't be dumb.
I thought that was banging on the trunk before the horn kicked in for the music. You know, I'm talking about.
As he's driving that Jaguar and he's heading to that home, you hit the.

(02:23:45):
And I was like, right. I thought that he stole a car that somebody was like being like tucked away in the trunk in for a second.
I was like, what's this? What's what's about to happen here? What just happened?
Lady kidnapped the guy, stopped for a coffee, left the car running.
Ghost Dog comes in and he ruined. You just got done dealing with one snafu ghost dog.
Now you got a whole new one to get into. That's how you start a movie. That is not what you do.

(02:24:09):
Like three quarters of the way through one. Great way to start a story, by the way, too.
Yeah, I might steal that more.
Haga Kuri about acceptance in the current generation, which I'm not going to lie.
I fell in love with that sentiment, but I feel like that's the sentiment that people say.

(02:24:32):
If you have that sentiment, you're not all the way with a cause.
And if you're not all the way with it, you're kind of an enemy of it.
It is. It is a difficult. Yeah.
But that's the way I view life. And I'm not going to lie to find out that I look at it in the way of Bushido.
I'm OK. Well, I mean, OK, seriously, a strange way to park the car in a garage like that,

(02:25:00):
where you have it backed in and like the garage door just comes over like right over the windshield.
That's like that's like being chased by a monster and you only put your like and you jump under the covers.
I can't see it happening. So it's not happening.
I thought it was odd, too. I don't know what the plan was there. But, you know, they made a decision.

(02:25:21):
Yeah. A not OK. Did you notice that that the one who was credited as the samurai in camouflage was the composer for this film, RZA?
I did not notice that. No, that is RZA.
Names spelled RZA, but pronounced RZA. And that was our composer for this film.

(02:25:44):
And we got a nod to him as the samurai in camouflage.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't RZA a member of the Wu Tang Clan?
You're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, yeah. Wu Tang Clan.
And since then, he has also done solo work under the alter ego Bobby Digital.

(02:26:05):
Bobby Digital. I have not heard that. That's a porn name. That is not a that is not a that is not a music producer.
That is a porn name. Like you chose weird there. Maybe that's who he's composing for.
Ah, that's funny. Porn needs music, too, folks.
Yeah, but it's all the same music. Like we got it. We got porn music. We don't need new. We have it. It's there.

(02:26:27):
French buddies got a bad feeling about a white guy with a sling, which sets us up and prepping the truck with that swinging pistol again,
stowing away his stuff to give to the ice cream man. And then we get a different version of the story of how he and Louie met,
which the cutaway that we got to earlier when Louie was explaining the story of how they met, it was.

(02:26:52):
You know, the guy put a gun to Louie first and then Louie responded and then shot him in this story.
That guy didn't even get a chance to put a gun to him. He put a gun to Ghost Dog and then Louie shot him.
So when Louie was telling the story to the mobsters, Louie was saving his own life.
But the real version of the story from Ghost Dog's perspective is that Louie just straight up saved his life for no reason.

(02:27:17):
Right. Yeah, exactly. Which kind of movie, which does lend into the whole like why of all the people in the world, why does Ghost Dog subscribe?
Rashomon! That's why it's in this movie. We get the two different perspectives from the retainer and that took me too long.

(02:27:38):
If I had read Rashomon, I might have caught that. Maybe. Maybe.
But yeah, like the story, like the Rashomon is a story over different people's perspectives. Yeah.
OK. That's I have read it. That was really dumb of me.
Herlane returns and liked the story Nobunonaka and then he gives her the Hagakure.

(02:28:00):
Louie calls Ghost Dog and the bell tolls, mocking the final shootout scene as dramatic.
Because every and they do it like they do the high noon and even and Louie even says is this high noon now because every Western is a samurai movie.
Some of the best Western movies out there are direct adaptations of samurai movies and stories.

(02:28:26):
My personal favorite is The Magnificent Seven, which was adapted from the the seven samurai, both phenomenal movies in their own right.
I would not I do. I would be hard pressed to tell you which one was the better one. They're both so very good.
That is a really good point.
Screaming in French that the gun isn't even loaded and this he gets shot a bunch of times and he's like, just still walking up like,

(02:28:55):
so now you're going to be the boss of your own clan now, huh? Right. Yeah, not exactly.
And we find out. Yeah, no, not exactly.
Because, yeah, after he finishes Ghost Dog off and gets in the car, who's there sitting next to him dressed to the nines and looking like she's in charge.
Holy shit. It's the daughter. Like, yeah, that's where you go. Like, wait a second.

(02:29:19):
Wait, one goddamn minute. Like he like so. OK, so Ghost Dog gets all up to him and then he hands him the book Rashomon.
And then he takes the book, gets back into the car with Miss Vargo and then she gets her book back.
She's like, that's my book. He's like, no, it's not Miss Vargo. It's I guess.
She's like, yeah, no, I gave it to him. This is my book. You should read it. I was like.

(02:29:46):
It's a weird movie. I loved it. Weird movie. But then she turns the cartoons off.
It's time to grow up. No more cartoons passed on to the next generation.
And there's something in the Kagerkuri about a lunchbox and using it for flowers that they would trample at the end.
And we're still waiting on the sequel. Yes.

(02:30:10):
All right. Final thoughts on Ghost Dog, dog. I don't like my dog, Doc. Right.
What else is there to say other than you have to see this movie? You have to see this movie.
Everyone out there, I don't care who you are. You have like it is literarily important.
It's cinematically important. It is phenomenal.
And like if you have ever enjoyed any piece of literature or any movie ever, you have to see this movie.

(02:30:36):
It is it is a like I said before, it is a mile marker of four hundred years worth of literary history that we need to that needs to be observed.
So, yeah. That's it. That's it. Yeah, I don't. OK, so I don't know.
Like, I'm definitely going to put it on the must see list.

(02:30:59):
I just don't know how to fully justify it.
I do agree with a lot of what you said.
I think it's just some of those cringe moments in there and some of that goofy shit that just kind of gets in the way, because I like I like having must sees be damn near perfect films.
Sure, I hear you. Yeah.
But this one is not bad, but I do very much see it as important.

(02:31:23):
Yeah. I mean, I would call that a Jim Jarmusch kind of thing.
Like he has a lot of cringy shit in his movies like Jim Jarmusch is a good filmmaker.
He's not a great filmmaker. OK. All right.
Hey, not everybody can be Jeff Probst.
I still can't believe the dude has directed two movies and one of them is finders feed that it is.

(02:31:44):
Dude, it really makes me want to watch his other movie, but at the same time, he never made another one after that.
So maybe maybe one and done was just how that one went.
All right. Do you have any final thoughts for this week's episode before we kick it over to the after hour?

(02:32:06):
No, I mean, I guess my overall things is that there is there is a historical, cultural and even evolutionary importance to the entire concept of the samurai story and everything that's influenced over the years.
So even if you're not into the whole warrior aspect of it, there is importance to it.

(02:32:28):
And so you need to give a nod to it, not just the two movies that we covered today, but, you know, look at the paintings they've done,
the poetry they've written and everything that's influenced them after that is a remarkable amount of influence from samurai culture worldwide.
And I think you'd do yourself a favor to look into that every once in a while.

(02:32:49):
That's a good point. All right.
Well, as you guys have learned by now, we will be back on Thursday, 7 p.m. mountain time.
Beyond that, I hope you guys keeping your sanity a little bit extra, you know, a little bit of time, a little drop of whiskey every once in a while, whatever you got to do to actually just keep it good.

(02:33:16):
Self care is the best care.
There you go. From now until then, stay safe and stay sane.
Did you sign off at all? Nope, I gave up.