December 10, 2024 • 63 mins
Shoplifters (2018)
This movie wrecked us. We adored it in a way neither of us knew our hearts were capable of and we spent an hour trying our best to put that into words. This is only broken up by Doug admitting he has fond memories of shoplifting himself after a lovely listener call in by a local Rhinebecker, who told us some pretty interesting facts about our local arthouse theater.
About The Movie :
Shoplifters
On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by loyalty, a penchant for petty theft and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence.
(Japanese: 万引き家族, romanized: Manbiki Kazoku, lit. 'Shoplifting Family') is a 2018 Japanese drama film written, directed and edited by Hirokazu Kore-eda. Starring Lily Franky and Sakura Ando,[2] it is about a family that relies on shoplifting to cope with a life of poverty.
Kore-eda wrote the screenplay contemplating what makes a family,[4] inspired by reports on poverty and shoplifting in Japan.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
You're listening to Radio Free Reinkliff.
Welcome to Studio Property, the cinema podcast for people like you.
I'm Doug Wartell.
And I'm Devin Irby.
And this week we'll be discussing the Japanese film Shufflefters circa 2018.
(00:21):
And who directed that?
This is a written, directed and edited by situation Hirokazu Koreeda.
Now, before we get into it, I need to ask you, were you ever like a shoplifter?
Did you ever shoplift?
No.
Never once.
I mean,
Maybe lipstick when I was 11.
Right.
And I felt really bad about it.
(00:42):
So, but no, shoplifting was not.
Really?
Yeah.
I just.
You felt bad about it.
Was it at a department store?
Or was it a mom and pop shop?
It was like a local drug store.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She had to like make eye contact.
Yep.
With the person you were stealing from.
Which is probably why I never was into shoplifting because.
(01:05):
I loved it.
I loved shoplifting.
fond memories of shoplifting.
I did have a neighbor kid a few years older than me who had a big shoplifting problem thatturned into like, he actually really A successful, he's now a kingpin.
No, no, no, but he got into trouble.
He got into trouble with the cops.
(01:26):
He actually got into fairly big trouble and he sort of regaled me kind of embarrassinglylike what happened and I think that helped.
me not wanna do it either.
Cause I was like, I don't, no thank you.
no, I loved it.
was like, I had a, yeah, I'll tell you about it like later on, yeah, I had a special coatfor it.
(01:48):
I had equipment.
Like, no, no, listen, like we're on, you know, like community radio.
So I don't want me like, you know, shop owners in Rhinebeck or Rhinecliff to think like Imight get just like when I'm wandering in their store, like I'm talking about like I was a
teenager, right?
Right.
I'm just saying I have fond memories of it.
it.
If you have done it, it should be a childhood rebellious activity that doesn't, as yousay, result in you becoming a kingpin of any sort.
(02:20):
Yeah, we'll circle back to it.
Okay, okay.
In the meantime, you want to hit the theme song?
Absolutely, let's roll it.
(02:53):
shoplifters, it's a very unique experience.
To say That's way to put it, yeah, to say the least.
That's one way to put it.
The structure of the film, which ultimately is about the family you choose.
Yes.
I gotta tell you, my experience watching it going in, even before we get into the actualfilm, I had to do two passes because I was anxious watching it the first time.
(03:22):
because structurally it reminded me of an old punk rock film from the 80s called Suburbia.
Because you're sort of lulled into this chosen family dynamic, right?
And you're doing unusual things with them.
In case of Suburbia, you're going to gigs, you're acting a fool in stores, almost likeshoplifters, right?
(03:45):
You're getting into fights, you're writing graffiti, but there is an adorable kidinvolved.
ends tragically.
So the entire time I'm watching shoplifters, I'm like, you're not gonna do this to meagain.
I was concerned about that.
I mean, it ends bittersweet in a way.
(04:10):
We'll get to that.
Well, actually, there's no way to not talk about the ending.
I don't think we can skip it.
But it's not a cute little kid with a mohawk getting
know, mowed down by a car.
It's not that.
damn.
Okay.
Yeah, that's how suburbia ends.
Lord.
That's...
So the whole time I'm watching this film, I'm like, every car that passes, every like, youknow, when the thing that happens happens, I'm like, this guy.
(04:39):
But yeah, ultimately, the children are, we'll say they're physically safe.
The children are physically safe?
Question mark?
Right.
So we'll come back to that.
Okay.
Shoplifters is about a group of grifters who are really poor.
Yes.
Super poor.
(05:01):
Super poor.
Yeah.
Like, really poor.
I mean, they're really poor.
Pablos is what we call them.
Well, and I mean, we, you know, we meet this, grifter family.
They're living in a very tiny house.
Interestingly, though,
Japan isn't known for huge obnoxious American houses.
(05:21):
They are known for generally speaking smaller spaces.
So them being in a smaller space isn't a huge thing.
But what we obviously figure out right away is, like you said, they have nothing.
Mom has one pair of pajamas all winter.
She's in same flat flannels all winter long in the same fleece jacket.
(05:42):
Yeah, it's kind of a little one bedroom.
You've got essentially five people in one room Well four people in one room because we gotone kid that kind of sleeps in a cupboard with a little door that closes So he's got a
little privacy Let's establish the family.
There's a man and a female one boy a grandmother and another young lady who is kind ofalmost presented as
(06:09):
Mom's sister.
So the couple kind of come across as mom and dad and the boys got to be 10, nine, 10maybe.
And then the sister, it looks like a teenage, she's like the teenage sister of the mom.
And then grandma is grandma, because they all call her grandma.
And we're not clued in on their actual origin until much later.
(06:34):
So we're just sort of invited into this poor,
family's house.
And we see that the grandmother establishes right away that the granddaughter does not doany grifting.
Yes.
She has a job.
She has a job and she's allowed to pass.
(06:54):
Right.
For some reason.
And she's doing like only fans in person kind of work, right?
Like a peekaboo booth.
Yes.
Paris, Texas sort of situation.
Yes, yes.
It's a little old school almost.
Yeah, like you said, like a peekaboo booth, which doesn't really seem like a thingnowadays.
(07:17):
Yeah, so maybe it's like a charming, like a retro sort of thing.
Maybe that's what it is.
Maybe it's charming.
Maybe there's like a patina to it.
Look at us trying to put a nice spin on.
I'm doing my damnedest.
Yeah, right, a nice spin on.
(07:37):
not exactly sex work, sex work.
Right, but you know, sex work is work.
It is work.
You know, so.
To each their own, I guess.
Yeah, I mean, I don't, who am I to judge?
Yeah, I mean.
judging anybody, right?
Nah.
She seems okay, she seems kinda happy.
Yeah, she's doing it, she goes, she gets up, she goes to her job, she comes home, to the,you know, she's got a kid sleeping in the cupboard, it's a whole, you know, she's better
(08:03):
off at work.
Maybe, maybe.
She does probably get a bit more space at work.
So anyway, the sort of mom and the patriarch, is that appropriate?
The patriarchs of this family.
Yeah, that's what I'd say.
They're out in the wintertime and they come across this little girl.
(08:23):
Well, remember originally, he's actually, the patriarch is with the son.
They're the ones who initially come across the little girl, because they're coming backfrom.
because the movie opens with them shoplifting at a store.
We literally start with shoplifting.
Right, it's just right out of the gate.
It's like, boom, shoplifting.
Shoplifting and you're like, the title of the movie's correct.
(08:44):
Right, we told you.
We told you.
So yeah, they're on their way back to the house and they come across a little girl.
But they hear this sort of abuse going on.
Yes.
Well, they hear a fight inside of the apartment.
She's standing outside in the cold.
Yeah, there's like a little enclosed patio and she's out there and it's very cold out.
(09:09):
And you hear the mother yelling at, who you assume is the father, I didn't want to haveher either.
Yeah, it's, yeah.
And I mean, and also what doesn't help is the girl's like really like aggressively cute.
Yeah, she's like four, doesn't say much, super flippin' adorable and does a really good,shoot.
(09:32):
Who's the little kid Jackie, from the little kid who had his parents steal all his money.
He was like the original, is it Jackie?
Jackie Coogan?
Thank you, Jackie Coogan.
Okay.
And from Chaplin's the kid and he grows up to be Uncle Fester.
Yes, yes, exactly.
Okay.
She is like a Japanese Jackie Coogan.
(09:54):
Cause she looks also like, please sir, may I have some more?
You know, cause she's cute, but then she looks like she's like.
Super sad eyes, like major puppy dog eyes.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
There's no way they were gonna walk by her and be cold-hearted and be like, forget thatadorable child in the cold.
So they take her in and they start feeding her, what was it, gluten cake?
(10:19):
Yeah, what on earth is gluten cake?
I don't know.
I don't know either.
But here in America, aren't we taught to be afraid of the glutens?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So then it made me wonder,
Is gluten cake just what they call it for us or is it called gluten cake?
What is it actually called?
Is it gluten?
I don't know, but that's what they call it and it's supposed to be evil.
(10:40):
Gluten's evil.
Gluten is the enemy.
I mean, that's what I took it as.
Like, know, like, you actually eat the thing we're afraid of.
Yeah, You don't have any freaking gluten allergy.
Apparently not.
Yeah.
I mean, I know people with actual gluten allergies.
I'm not saying that it's, you know, not a real, I mean, it's a real thing.
And for them, it's a terrible thing.
(11:01):
But these people are just gobbling down gluten cake in 2018.
They are.
Just chucking it right down their throats and then feeding it to strange children.
Right?
Who apparently love it because she was into it.
They got the good gluons.
Maybe that's what it is.
Yeah.
Maybe just better gluten.
You know, sort of.
You need to barter and trade with them.
(11:24):
See, we almost want to make a political joke, but I don't do that here, because our showdoes not exist in that universe.
It does not.
We're going to tariff the Glutons.
they feed the little girl and sort of like fall in love with her.
mean, because how can She doesn't want to go home.
(11:44):
You know, she's given the choice several times.
Yes, and although she's little, they do clearly ask her.
You know, they're like, it's cold, it's too cold, we're not gonna take you home tonight,we'll keep you here, but we'll bring you back in the morning.
We fed you, we kept you warm.
And then they go back to the house and they just hear fighting and they're like, do justwanna come stay with us?
(12:07):
And they even said like, hey, you know, this is probably not good.
then as they're trying to talk it over, what are their names, what are their names?
Osamu is the man and Nobayo is the woman.
And we say man and woman like the kind of dad, kind of mom, since that's, we don't exactlyknow, kind of dad, kind of mom.
(12:28):
Right, so they sort of talk it over, like, hey, this is probably super illegal.
And the other one's like, know, like the parents aren't really gonna report her missing.
Right, right, right.
They clearly don't care.
Yeah, Osamu, I think is the one who says, we kind of, aren't we kind of kidnapping thiskid?
And Nobayo is, or Nobayo is like,
(12:51):
No, because they don't, they don't want her.
We literally heard them say they don't want her and we're not asking for money or anythinglike that.
We're just, right.
We're not holding her for ransom.
not holding her for ransom.
We're literally just providing her safety because she clearly doesn't have it.
And I guess that would be the other element we didn't mention is, you know, grandma verygently right away starts kind of talking to her and you know, she's got marks on her.
(13:18):
She's clearly been abused.
And you know, like it's immediate, it's immediate that you see this.
And so your heart is broken from the word go.
Cause you're like, geez Louise, who are these monsters?
She's way too cute.
That just sounded like I implied ugly children are it's acceptable to abuse ugly children.
(13:40):
is not at all what I meant.
That is not.
feel like that's exactly what you meant.
And you let it slip and reveal yourself just now on a microphone.
that's out there now.
It's out there now.
Everybody heard me.
You're I am a monster.
I am a monster.
They definitely see that she's marked up.
And she starts bonding with the family.
(14:02):
And at first, the brother's a little bit uncomfortable with this, but this quickly getsresolved by the father who establishes, the father figure who establishes, hey, listen,
that's your sister now.
So they start taking her out and teach her how to shoplift.
which is weird and not okay.
(14:24):
But yes, they do.
they're basically.
It's It's not okay.
It's cool.
Yeah.
But like they're like using her cuteness as a distraction to help them in theirshoplifting gig.
It's.
It's.
Isn't it different than Chaplin did in the kid when he used Jackie Coogan?
I mean, you're you're not wrong.
I think the difference is that Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan, they're both supposed to becute and funny the whole time.
(14:49):
and this is not cute and funny.
It's serious.
And they're using this tiny adorableness as like a little, here, distract these people.
Now we should also mention right about here, the brother has this weird hand signal.
Yes.
That he does, that I don't quite understand.
To me, it almost presented as though it was like an OCD kind of, before he makes hisactual shoplifting move, he's kind of got to do is like,
(15:18):
like a baseball signal, you know, he's like, okay, brush off my shoulder, you know.
Yeah.
Steal second.
It's a little bit itsy bitsy spider, a little bit.
It's a little spider, and then like a little forehead scratch thing, it's, yeah.
But he does it every time, so it's, like you said, it's established early, and he does itevery single time.
And eventually the little girl picks up on it.
(15:39):
And eventually the little girl picks up on it.
And it's kind of cute, but in a not good way?
Here's the thing that makes the structure very deceptive, right?
Because these are adorable moments that keep happening.
And we're lulled into the family dynamic because this isn't, I mean, I don't know if youhad this experience, you forget you're watching a movie after a while.
(16:05):
It feels almost like a documentary in places and then there are other, because you're so,the cameras are so in their lives.
Like, we're dropped into that house, we're in their lives, and that ensemble cast isremarkable.
I would not, I'm assuming this won oodles of awards.
I'm assuming this film won oodles of awards.
(16:25):
it the Pabdior, which is like the highest award at Cannes.
I mean, I'm not surprised.
said, like every single one of these actors, including the children, the two littlechildren are, I mean, it's insane how...
good they are together.
And like you say, it comes across almost like a documentary, almost a little too realbecause they're just having their little family shoplifting grifter family dynamic.
(16:52):
And Lily Franke gives one of the most incredible performances that I'm not just singlingout because it's the only name I can pronounce.
she is unreal in this.
yeah.
It's definitely one of those films where I was like, I need to look her up now becauseshe's
and now I need to see everything she's ever done.
Because she was that amazing.
(17:13):
Yeah, I'm like, please tell me she's done something that won't break my heart.
There's gotta be something, she's gonna be amazing and I'll love it and it won't make meall sad and broken inside at the end.
Like, it'd be one of those things like we come across like one of, like, you know, a filmthat we hadn't seen, because neither of us, we should point out, neither of us have seen
this before doing it for the show.
So like, I'm imagining like her name coming up and us being very, very excited, but let'sbe honest, already,
(17:38):
her IMDB and us are BFF forever.
for sure.
We are definitely BFFs.
my God.
Honestly, I'm gonna go ahead and say it.
She's on my Gary Oldman list.
What's your Gary Oldman list?
It's the list of actors that I do not give a crap what the film is or is about.
(18:03):
If they're in it, I absolutely will watch it.
And Oldman's at the top of that list where I don't give one hoot as to what it is.
I don't care.
I will watch it.
And it's not a huge list, but I call it the Gary Oldman list because he's the one that'sat the top of it.
(18:28):
So now, Lilly Franke is clearly on that list because I was like, my God, I will watch herin anything, absolutely anything.
So what happens to the audience as you're watching this?
let me know if this happened to you.
You're lulled into this family in a way where you can't look at it objectively.
(18:48):
And there's an attempt to make you do so when the news reports that the little girl ismissing.
Yes.
But it wasn't the parents that reported it, it was her school.
Right, right.
geez, yeah.
Okay, I'm gonna be honest.
I was very suspicious from the word go because I think that's just how my brain works.
(19:14):
And the fact that they were sort of rescuing her, we, okay, so we meet them while they'reshoplifting and then they rescue a kid that obviously needs to be rescued, right?
So even though I'm, like you said, I wanna wholeheartedly be supportive of them.
I'm on their side.
I'm also highly reserved, cause I'm like,
(19:35):
is this gonna go bad?
And then you're right.
Then they give us that moment where it's literally on TV.
They're watching TV and the mom and dad are outside and the kid, you know, the little kidboy runs out and he's like, my God, she's on TV.
And they're like, crap, she's on the news.
But yeah, and at that point we learned, like you said, the parents didn't report hermissing, the school did, and the parents are now suspected of her murder.
(20:02):
Like a whole John Benet Ramsey sort of thing.
It's crazy.
yeah.
Well, now what's her original name?
So when they get out of her, her name is, she says her name is Yuri.
But as they're watching the news clip, it turns out her name is actually Juri.
But of course she's four, because she is able to tell them she's four at the beginning,you know, when she first meets them.
(20:25):
So they're like, okay, so it's Juri.
So then they're like, Juri, you want us to take you home?
And she's like,
Like, are you sure?
So cut her hair.
They cut her hair and they have her help pick out her new name.
That's right.
So she helps pick out, they make suggestions and she picks Lynn and they, yep, they cuther hair and they give her a whole new disguise and the whole family's excited about it.
(20:50):
They're all helping.
They're like, my God, you're so cute with your new short hair.
Look at it.
Like if you let that fly, right?
it can now run on autopilot because you've now accepted this premise because of her.
blatant abuse, right?
Her obvious abuse.
Right.
So, And there is no, there's no, sorry to interrupt, but there's like no, there's nohiding it.
(21:15):
Like they flat out, like not only do you see, you like you said, you hear the birthparents arguing and whatnot, but you know, grandma's finding the marks on her.
She eventually admits a couple of like, literally she's got like a curling iron burn onher arm, you know?
So like, it's obvious.
They're not hiding it.
They're letting you know.
This kid is being abused.
(21:36):
Well, as this is going on in the whimsical shoplifting scenes, because all of them aremore wonderful than the next.
Yes, they are.
One of the shop owners catches on to what's happening, and just sort of, you know, like,just sort of, like, lets the brother know, like, hey, don't get your sister in this.
it's a very heartbreaking moment.
(21:58):
Yeah.
So it's like a little whatever the Japanese version of a cornered bodega is.
So it's a little corner bodega and the brother's doing their little routine where he'skind of blocking the little sister so she can do her thing and she does the gesture.
She does the little itsy bitsy spider and the little forehead rub and it's pretty freakingadorable.
And I think she actually steals like candy.
(22:19):
It's not even like she stole anything useful for the family, but she like steals candy.
And then you're right.
And then the shop owner, they go to leave and the shop owner comes out and literally like.
He gives them free stuff.
He knows they're poor as hell, but he gives them free stuff.
He's like, don't do, stop this now and don't get her involved.
Yeah.
He's like, don't, don't, don't let her do this.
(22:42):
And you can see, and I guess we haven't said it, but the, the boy, his name is Shota andShota has like a real, he has a real moment there where he's like, is this, is this bad?
Is this bad that one not just that she's doing it is about that we're doing it.
And you can see him start to kind of.
Process it.
Process, process the reality.
(23:03):
But now this has now become a routine.
And we're in this routine with them day after day.
And we've sort of fall in love with the family as people and how they relate to eachother.
And some of the things they do to get by.
There's a situation with the grandmother.
wait, know what, hold on a minute.
(23:26):
I'm getting a call.
Why don't you answer it this time?
You answer it this time.
All right.
Hello, Radio Free Reinkliff.
Hello, yes, this is Studio Properties.
Yes, it is.
Who is this?
is Devin.
My name is Martin Schoenbaum.
(23:46):
I'm calling from Reinbeck.
I've been listening to you for the last few weeks.
I think you guys are delightful.
I think you're just great.
I love listening to the program.
Thank you so much.
I love listening to you discuss these films.
And I want to say I just wanted to...
point out that I really appreciated that you mentioned last week, but you're gonna watchthis week because I saw this film when it came out, was very, very poignant for me.
(24:16):
I felt that it was one of those films that just spoke to me at the time.
And now that you're discussing it, of course you're speaking about the same exact kind offeelings and emotions that I got, but I wanted to ask a question.
Maybe this is a little too premature in your conversation, but I wanted to know.
Do you feel that there were some aspects or maybe I had the feeling later on after Iwatched it that maybe this film was inspired by Oliver Twist.
(24:46):
I just had that feeling as I watched it.
It was days later that I think I was working on something in the kitchen.
You're not really paying attention and just letting your mind go free.
I was just thinking that maybe this was
this was because the father, he's a lot like a Fagan character and a lot of the kids,they're a lot like a bunch of urchins from, you know, that period Victorian times and, you
(25:20):
know, and they just transposed it to a different country.
And I, that's what I felt.
you, do you feel, did you have any sense of that?
Or am I just kind of quacking like I do and my friends say, my, just shut up.
Well, first of all, you are calling into our show, Martin.
We would never tell you to shut up.
For starters.
Thank you, thank you very much.
(25:41):
And thank you for the kind words.
That's very nice.
Thank you.
I would say, yeah, there is, I would agree that there's a very Dickensian feel to this,right?
Yeah.
There's definitely a...
I think actually earlier I did say, please sir, may I have another at one point?
Yes.
But I believe that's from an animal house.
(26:03):
Wasn't that Kevin Bacon getting paddled on the butt?
In Oliver, it was little Mark Lester who said, please, sir, may I have some more?
Although I would like to have seen him paddled in the butt at that point, because again,that would bring comedy to it.
(26:23):
I love any kind of comedy or parody, but I'm sorry, I cut you off.
Go on.
Nope, you corrected me and I deserve to be corrected.
How did you feel about the movie when you saw it?
you, did you see the theater?
I saw it at Upstate Films here in Rhinebeck, New York, a beautiful, beautiful location, anold building, the Star Building.
(26:45):
Some of you might not know that that Star Building was the community building back in the40s and 50s.
It was built to be the town library.
And the town library was in that building.
And in that building, they had all sorts of community activities.
There was a bowling alley.
upstairs in a pool.
(27:06):
There was a pool in the building.
wow.
Is it still there?
Is the pool still in the building?
No, no, no, no, no.
They've changed that all.
Now they are made into separate apartments and things.
But you can go downstairs and underneath the floor, downstairs, you can see signs of whatthe old building was.
It's a fascinating, fascinating building.
(27:28):
wow.
I did not know that.
I just learned something about my own town.
Little history lesson tonight.
I love it.
Yeah, shout out to Rimeback.
So my apologies about this Oliver Twist connection.
It was just something that went through my mind and I can remember seeing that little thatyou are already talking about.
(27:48):
What a charming little girl.
She was very cute, adorable.
But there were two times that she turns and the camera kind of catches her in that waythat made her look a lot like
one of the kids from that movie.
Well, let me ask you something.
You're from Rhinebeck.
Did you ever have this experience where maybe you're going in the supermarket and you'refeeling really good about yourself?
(28:12):
You look great, your clothes are on point, and then you accidentally bump into JeffreyDean Morgan.
I have not had that.
No, no, there are.
because I run into them all the time and it's it's annoying.
There are some celebrities in this area.
(28:33):
Yes.
This town has certainly nurtured a celebrity kind of culture underneath everything else,but it hasn't always been like that.
okay.
I'm assuming that you, Doug, feel like a street urchin at that point after you bumped intoJeffrey.
That's exactly how I feel.
(28:53):
Yep.
Yeah, that should be flogged with a paddle.
No less.
He actually is known for hitting things with a baseball bat.
So so that might be a story to the same same thing.
He he was in the walking.
What's the name of that show?
The Walking Dead?
(29:16):
No, that's not it.
yes, that's it.
The Walking Dead.
I'm sorry.
I'm thinking about something totally other.
You know what I'm thinking about?
I'm thinking about Oliver.
because that was a fascinating movie.
I thought you'd be thinking about walking tall is what I thought.
I thought you were going to go with that.
Maybe that's how I was distracted.
That was very, very good.
So anyway, I just wanted to thank you for focusing, featuring this film this week.
(29:41):
That's one of those movies that I saw and I really didn't know what I was going to beseeing when I first went in to see it.
I saw the
poster, of course, and that gives you a little idea, but it was definitely not what I hadbeen expecting when I came out.
And the friends that I was with, they were expecting a lot more tips on how to shoplift.
(30:05):
And they didn't get it.
Yeah.
Well, keep tuning in.
Cause I might give a few of those.
Well, thank you.
Thank you very much.
You're very welcome.
And also,
If you're around on Christmas Eve, we'll announce what we're doing next week later in theshow, but on Christmas Eve, we're going to be doing a holiday disco extravaganza for
(30:32):
Jesus.
And which we are talking about Saturday Night Fever.
A great Christmas film.
Yes.
That's what we thought.
Well, we thought it'd be good in the spirit of Christmas, we would reach out to likewhatever weird
Chewbacca religion John Travolta's into.
He is Santa Claus in a commercial for, I believe, a credit card.
(30:59):
And they're parodying the opening to Saturday Night Fever.
He's dressed as Santa doing Tony Manero.
doing Tony Manero moves as he walks down the street.
Remember in the Saturday night theater, he was delivering paint from the hardware store.
This is him being sent and delivering presents as he goes down the street.
(31:24):
It's a fascinating commercial.
I've seen said commercial and you are right.
It is fascinating.
Well then you'll tune in on Christmas Eve then.
Yes, I'd be very interested.
I'm not doing anything this year for the holidays.
keep it lay low, or I'm not going anywhere.
(31:46):
So I should be on hand to listen to the show.
Thank you so much for calling in.
Yes, thank you.
when you say you're laying low, you're not laying low from the law.
No, no, no.
OK.
I'm just going to be taking it easy for the holidays.
Nothing fancy, nothing special.
OK.
(32:06):
Well, thank you so much for calling in.
Yes.
Thank you and keep the show going.
It's great.
It's just fantastic.
I love hearing the two of you discuss the different levels of whatever's on and thanksagain.
Bye.
Thank you.
that was a really nice call.
It was.
How do you feel about answering it?
(32:26):
It greener.
You know, I'm still scared to talk to strangers, but it was fine.
Well, now we're at the beach with our family who we've now spent a lot of time with.
And it's a beautiful day.
They're playing in the water together.
grandmother and the mother figure are bonding.
(32:49):
They're bonding on the beach.
and they've bought little girl a bathing suit, a real cute bathing suit.
But what's interesting is the day before, the grandmother went to
yeah.
family's home.
Yeah, so that's when we like pick up grandma's backstory.
So up until now, we think grandma's just been bringing him money from a pension, right?
(33:13):
Because grandpa has died, apparently.
But apparently, she's also got her own grift going because her husband apparently cheatedon her and had a son and it sounds like maybe left.
Grandma for this other lady or I don't they never really say if they like got togetherpermanently But basically he has the son by this lady.
(33:40):
So she regularly goes and visits the son Her husband's son with the lady he had an affairwith and they always give her cash because they feel guilty that And it's almost like sort
of like a dishonor of the family.
Yes, like a disorder the family thing and he and they constantly apologize for his mother
Yes, they're constantly apologizing.
(34:02):
Although at one point we do get to hear the wife, like they're in the kitchen and she'slike, do we really have to keep being nice to this lady?
And he's like, yeah, we do.
But the other tidbit is.
Yeah, I'm debating.
I'm debating.
There's like another little secret we pick up in that moment.
And we're like, just like another little little moment is dropped.
(34:23):
Yeah, I don't know.
It's up to you.
But I was like, I'll just say I'll say this.
They say, you know,
one of their daughters is away and hasn't come home for the holidays.
Yes, she's like in college abroad in Australia is what they tell us.
Right, so following day they're at the beach, the whole family.
(34:43):
The little girl has a bathing suit.
Again, we're with this great ensemble and it is just a beautiful day.
And it's, you know, if you look at the movie poster, that's the day we're looking at.
This is the moment that like, you know, we're sort of, this is the fam.
The following morning, the grandmother dies.
(35:03):
they're too poor to bury her or too poor to give her a proper funeral.
Right.
So they bury her in the house.
Yeah.
You want to get into that a little bit?
I don't know.
Okay.
First of all, can I say when they were at the beach and it was so gorgeous,
(35:25):
and grandma has a moment where she's by herself and she's like, this is fantastic, I'm sohappy.
She's, right?
And I was like, it's gonna hit the fan now.
She can't be happy.
They're not allowed to be happy.
That's kinda how I felt at that point.
So then when grandma passes away, when basically she doesn't wake up the next morning, Iwas like, I knew.
(35:46):
It was like when the roller coaster chain goes quiet.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they don't have the money to do really anything.
Father figure is going, know, should we try to bury her?
Should we cremate her?
He wants to call, you know, the authorities, what you would normally do when somebody haspassed away in your house.
(36:07):
And mother figure is like, nope, nope.
We can't do this.
There's nothing we can do.
Let's sit for a minute.
And so they kind of all just almost kind of have their own wake in a way.
Yeah.
To say goodbye to her.
And yeah, and then like you say, they literally like dig up, they pull up four lowerboards in the kitchen and they dig up the dirt and that's where they put her.
(36:31):
And then we run into mom and dad getting cleaned up afterwards and dad drops a bomb on usand says, yeah, I can't believe we had to do this again.
And we're like, what?
Do we find out for the first time?
Yes, at the end we do find out.
It turned out.
Or should we wait till the end?
We should wait till the end.
(36:52):
We should wait till the end.
But we do find out, we do find out.
But in that moment, all we get is, I can't believe we had to do this again.
And of course, I don't know about you, but my brain was like, do they do this?
Do they kill little ladies?
Right.
At this point, you're a little bit frazzled.
Yes.
You're like, wait, what's happening?
(37:13):
Because again, you've been lulled into this wonderful family dynamic.
Yep.
Well, the boy goes out shoplifting.
the following day with his sister.
And this time he gets caught.
But he doesn't just get caught.
Well, he breaks his leg.
He breaks his leg, but no, he realizes she's gonna shoplift, the little girl's gonnashoplift, and she's gonna get caught.
(37:38):
And so instead of letting him get caught, he makes a scene.
He purposefully gets himself caught to make sure she doesn't.
So he gets pulled in.
And of course he has to tell the authorities where he's living, which they know he's goingto do.
(37:59):
So they take the little girl and try to leg it out.
So the mother figure, the father figure, and the little girl try to get out.
And the sister.
And the sister.
And the sister.
Well, and I was like, mom, sister.
Because again, we still don't grand, right, slash granddaughter that we thought was thegranddaughter.
(38:20):
immediately the cops are waiting for them and they all get dragged in.
They get dragged downtown as it were.
It's rough.
And then it all comes out.
We find out that the granddaughter was actually the daughter of the family that thegrandmother's been getting money from.
somehow for some reason she's staying with her.
(38:41):
Which we had kind of figured out because when grandma had gone to see the parents, we seea photo of
of her there at the house.
And so we're like, yeah.
So like you said, so number one, we know that she is kind of the grandmother of that girl,not, I mean, not really, but kind of, kind of.
(39:03):
And she's there willingly.
We find out that the other person that was killed or buried or whatever is that apparentlyour mother father couple, she was married.
The two of them were having an affair and the husband tried to kill them.
(39:23):
they literally, it was self-defense.
We find out that it did in fact actually go to court and it was real self-defense.
He tried to kill them.
So they basically killed him.
And obviously our little cute little girl, Lynn slash Yuri slash jury.
(39:44):
is clearly gonna have to go back to her parents because they know who she is because she'sbeen on the news and she's been missing.
But we also find out that the little boy, Shota, has been with them for so long that he'sclearly not their child.
They also quote unquote rescued him and he doesn't actually remember his family at all.
(40:07):
He was taken out of a car.
Yeah, so they give us a bit more and they say something about it was outside of her.
like outside of a mall or something.
they're like.
Yeah, and he was stealing the car and the kid was in the car.
Yeah.
So they ended up just taking the kid with the car.
Yeah.
So he goes to like a foster care sort of situation.
(40:30):
Like a group home.
Yeah.
but the mother figure takes the blame for all of it.
Yep.
She cops to everything.
But just herself.
and lets him off the hook.
Yep.
so she gets what, five years?
(40:50):
Yeah, which is kind of impressive.
Like why only?
I mean, he was kidnapping children.
You know, you can't even track down where the one kid's parents are.
Right, I mean, five years, yeah.
I don't know about you, in the moment, I had this moment in the, like watching it goinglike, I feel bad that I wasn't more objective about this.
(41:12):
Like because the family was so cool, it was like, man, the cops came in and ruinedeverything.
Yeah.
Which is what the film is about, right?
It's about your chosen family.
And obviously she gives a number of lovely, she has a number of lovely monologues whereshe's talking about, maybe a chosen family is more important than the one you're born
(41:34):
into.
And you get the feeling that she didn't have a good childhood and that she didn't have agood mom.
and that she is a bit heartbroken over finding these kids who aren't being taken care of.
Because arguably we don't know the details about what happened to Shota, but there's areason he was in that car by himself.
(41:54):
Because they weren't out carjacking.
We do know that.
They weren't out carjacking.
They just broke into a car to steal stuff and found a baby in there, or found a kid inthere.
Yeah, so things weren't going great with him to begin with.
No.
Yeah, if he was in the car by himself.
Right.
So the boy goes to the foster care.
(42:17):
Mm-hmm.
And before the little girl's returned, and this is the most heartbreaking thing in theworld, but I have to bring it up.
Mm-hmm.
I'm seeing you shaking your head, you know what I'm gonna bring up.
Yeah.
It's the moment where the police are talking to the little girl and she's drawing apicture of the whole family on the beach.
And at this point, we've also figured out, I mean, the kid, she's been with them for...
(42:41):
almost a year, right?
Because we're starting to get back into chillier weather, right?
So they, and they say we've had her since like February, right?
So it's been like six, nine months, something like that.
So they've had her for quite a while.
And yeah, like you said, you want to be objective, but you realize these weird littlegrifters have given this poor little four year old a stability, not just stability, but
(43:04):
true care, love.
Like they've given her a family.
in a way that she did not have.
And she's literally getting sent back to the shitty parents, sorry, you'll have to beatme, the shitty parents who were abusing her.
Yeah, somewhere in all of this debacle, it's mentioned that the Lilly Frankie charactercan't have children.
(43:27):
yeah, so the cops trying to make her feel bad.
Did you just take the kids because you can't have your own?
Yeah, it's weird because the police are...
The interrogation is where we learn their stories, but they're not correct about all ofit.
And this is where, when you said you wanted to be more objective, this is where I foundmyself not wanting to be more objective, because the cops have created their own
(43:53):
narrative, and they've created a narrative that works for them, and they've created anarrative that works for them via the law.
And obviously that's important because we can't live in chaos.
Arguably, we can't live in chaos.
Arguably, we currently live in chaos.
Again, we're not political.
But they don't necessarily correct everything.
Like you said, Little Frankie's character, Nobuyuu, AKA kind of our mom.
(44:16):
And of course, at this point, we understand she's not actually their mom.
She and Osamu are not actually married.
But you know, there's all these things.
So we understand all this, but for all intents and purposes, she is their mother.
And here you have this lady detective who's like...
Well, I mean, I'm sure it feels terrible that you can't have children.
(44:36):
Is that maybe why you took these kids?
No, it's not.
And we know it's not.
it's.
It's vicious.
It's vicious.
I already fell apart when.
Like you said, when when little Lynn slash jury slash Yuri drew the picture when she'scoloring the picture and it's of them on the beach, I already had a hard time there.
(45:02):
But when they say that to Nabayu, I, I had a really hard time.
Yeah, yeah.
I had a really hard time.
Yeah, it's not easy.
No.
But the most, but yeah, as we go on with Nabayu's sentence, she gets visited.
(45:26):
yeah, by Shoda and Osamu.
So father, son, go see her.
Yeah, and he's, guess, because he's at this foster care center, but he can leave.
Okay, this was something I did not understand, and I'd like to understand more aboutJapanese law.
So the kids got a lot of freedom, because he's basically in a group home for foster kids,right?
Right.
(45:47):
But because Osamu, because Nobayu took all the blame, and Osamu didn't get in trouble atall, they literally get to hang out.
So we see the two of them go fishing, and I'm like, no, that wouldn't be allowed.
How would they go?
They can't hang out.
Yeah.
Like legally.
America that would not fly.
America that would not fly.
(46:07):
And I was like, what on, no, this can't be right.
Yeah.
But yeah, so literally they kind of hang out sometimes and you can see them enjoying theirhangouts.
And then Osamu takes Shota to the prison to go see mom.
And she tells him that, Hey, listen, I remember the make and model of the car.
(46:29):
And
this is what it is, do you wanna find your parents?
And he's like, no.
And of course Osamu in that point is like, is this why you asked me to bring him downhere?
And she was like, yeah, cause he deserves the opportunity.
And also in this mess, Osamu, is that his name?
Yeah.
You find out that he gave that boy his real name, because that's not his real name.
(46:51):
Right.
But he gave the child his real name.
And there's this of back and forth about the child calling him dad.
And then, you know, of course at the end they confess a couple of things to each otherregarding the situation like the circumstances around the boy getting caught and also them
(47:12):
Packing up and leaving without him, right?
So he doesn't want the boy to come back to see him.
The boy turns around and calls him dad Privately while he's in the bus.
We all lose it again.
A lot of crying a lot of crying from us, right?
Yep
And he goes away and the last shot of the film is the boy looking back.
(47:40):
You get to the daughter on the porch, the little girl, and she's looking outward.
And that stays with you.
I got news for you, because I saw this before you.
It's gonna stay with you for a couple of days.
And it's a bittersweet, but when you look at it this way, he's looking back and she's not.
She's looking outward.
(48:02):
So I took that, yeah, to me, like this has changed her and she's going to now chase that,whether it's them specifically or choosing her own family.
So of course it's way bittersweet, but again, lots of tears.
Lots of tears.
(48:22):
Well, and you should add to, again, I feel like this one is so interesting because
We literally have just kind of gotten to a spot where we're not like going through play byplay the entire film.
But with this one, it's hard not to like throw in a bunch of those details because it's sosignificant.
So when she, when little Lynn first goes back to the mom, we actually see her for thefirst time actually not be so complacent.
(48:51):
And she's, she kind of annoys the mother.
And then the mother's like, please, you need to apologize.
And Lynn's like, no.
I'm not.
And the mom's like, I'll buy you an outfit if you apologize.
And Lynn's like, yeah, I don't care.
And these are all little tidbits that we've picked up from earlier that Lynn's been verycomplacent because this is her world.
(49:13):
And it's like now she's been introduced to something more that she has something of anunderstanding of what it means to actually be loved.
Right.
So something to look forward to.
Something to look forward to.
why looking outward.
Which is why she's looking out.
Yeah.
The other thing I guess we should throw into is Aki, our sister, the granddaughter-ishperson, like the kind of sister-in-law character.
(49:40):
Her ending was also so bizarre because basically, because again, the cops are giving themtheir own narrative.
She thought the grandma wanted her to stay with them and they're like, no, she was justgrifting your parents.
And so she's led to, and of course the grandmother's dead, so grandmother can't correctanything.
Even though the whole time, especially when grandma's sitting on the beach by herself, weare led to believe grandma picked them.
(50:09):
Grandma was like, nah, I don't want to die alone.
I don't want to be lonely.
I made this weird little family around me.
I love them, they're mine.
This is how I'm living the rest of my life.
That's what I meant when I said that the police don't have everything right.
Right, yes.
And so poor Aki is left not knowing.
That the grandmother actually loved her.
(50:32):
That the grandmother actually loved her.
And we don't know where she, so, and she's, so feel like she's in the middle of Lin andShota, right?
So you said like Shota, our last scene of Shota is him looking backwards.
Our last scene of Lin is her looking outwards to the future almost, or what she wants.
And then Aki,
(50:52):
we see her go back to the little house.
And so we see her sort of, I don't see it as looking backwards.
It's almost like stagnant because she doesn't know.
She doesn't know what to believe and she doesn't know what to do.
And so we, feel like of the three younger people, one's gonna hit it.
One, we're not sure if he's going to go backwards.
And the other one is just, I don't know what to do.
(51:15):
Yeah.
It's almost land everywhere.
It's just shrapnel at this point.
It's just emotional shrapnel.
It is emotional shrapnel.
I loved this movie.
It's one of those things that sound hard to listen to because this isn't a yuck yuck festdescribing it.
Like we're talking about this because we're affected by it.
(51:38):
But also, I love that I seen it.
I love that that's in my memory.
I love that I had that experience with them.
So that's what movies are supposed to do.
Like I said, the last shot is the
the boys looking inward or behind him, the girls looking out, right?
Do you know how an American director would have handled this?
(52:02):
Like, say it's like a Penny Marshall movie from like the 90s or something.
Right?
and I'm not saying anything disparaging about Penny Marshall, it's amazing work, but like,how do you think that would have ended?
Not the same.
Right.
Or even like a Spielberg family sort of affair without aliens or anything, right?
Like, you want me to tell you how it would end?
(52:22):
Yeah.
Please.
Because I'll tell you how an American director would have handled that.
Yep.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
We would have gotten a few years away from that moment.
The boy would have ran into the girl, the two, or both of them, depending on the director.
Yep.
Ran to both of them.
(52:43):
They would have seen each other and they would have smiled.
and they all would have done the itsy-bitsy spider hand signal at each other to verifytheir identities to each other.
Right, because the American version were not allowed to have a sad ending or like anunknown.
It can be sad, but you have to know the answer.
(53:05):
Right, you can't fill anything in with your imagination or even be left to ponder thepossibilities of your characters.
Right, right, right.
my God, no, you're absolutely right.
So it...
I'm not at all sad that I watched it.
was, it truly is probably one of the best films I've ever seen.
(53:28):
It's one of the best modern films I've certainly ever seen.
Definitely.
you know, without question.
Am I wrecked because I saw it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, I'm a little worse for wear because I saw it, but I'm not sad that I did.
And like you said, sometimes it's not meant to be perfect.
(53:53):
Sometimes it's not meant to be, you're just changed.
Yep, you just feel different and something's different because you sat through it, becauseyou did it.
Are you ready for me to ask you the question that is the biggest challenge of this entireexperience?
All right, go ahead.
How do you sell this to Susan?
(54:15):
crap.
I forgot about Susan.
so you're gonna start, by the way, we introduced this segment in the last episode.
We both have a mutual friend named Susan.
I've known her a lot longer, but you guys now might be a little closer.
Yeah, yeah.
If we're being fair.
If we're being fair.
I mean, I know her well enough to, ugh, how am I gonna sell Susan?
(54:38):
When it comes to things like this, she can be very dismissive and not the biggestattention span.
I know how I will sell it to her.
I'm gonna ask for your answer first.
You know, I don't know.
I really don't know.
I think I'm just gonna have to go the kids are adorable route.
I cannot think of any other way that I can get her into it.
(55:01):
Just gonna be like, they're adorable, don't worry it's subtitled.
And as we learned last week from that guy that called in, just find the version withAustralian, like that's done by Australians.
Like that's probably what I'll tell her is be like,
They're super cute.
And then just get that version.
All right, I'll tell you how I'll sell to her after I tell you this story, because I needto cheer you up immediately.
(55:24):
OK.
So I need to tell you about my shoplifting coat.
yes.
Please tell me about your shoplifting.
OK, so I can't say I was a great shoplifter because I had, like I said, I had the rightequipment for it.
I had a coat built for shoplifting.
was this long coat.
It was wonderful.
It was like the sort of overcoat that I put over the leather jacket, right?
(55:46):
The pockets though had holes in it, holes in them, right?
And then anything I put into the pockets would just fall out of the pockets and then downthe lining of the jacket.
And the seams were super reinforced.
So you wouldn't see a bulge or anything.
And I could wipe out like entire candy bar boxes if I needed to, right?
(56:10):
Just boop, boop, boop.
I would like just pick up I could pick up like a whole ramen noodles at a 7-eleven likeDrop it in the pocket and it would just like off to Narnia for a while, right?
then like you wouldn't like So you can put ramen in there it's so great No, but with thegreatest thing ever is like if they were to ever check my pockets be like, hey What do you
(56:36):
got your pocket?
I could pull out the pockets and they would be empty because
There were just no bottoms.
This thing was magical.
You know that Dolly Parton song, the coat of many colors?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, it's a very sentimental song.
I think of my old shoplifting coat.
(56:58):
As your coat of many colors?
Yes, I love this coat.
The thing is is that we had good times, the thing that I wonder is, because I probably
wasn't great at actual shoplifting.
Like, Batman Batman without his utility belt?
(57:20):
Is a question that, you know, it comes to mind, right?
But man, when I had this coat on, I could wreck 7-Eleven.
Like, I knew I was gonna eat no matter, because I had my first apartment when I was like17, you know.
So like sometimes you need to get, just grab some food, right?
(57:40):
So sometimes you need to, you know, so like I would just wander into a 7-Eleven and justwith my magic coat and it wouldn't even be a thought, it'd be so quick because, you know,
and I think because sometimes when you're fearless or when you're confident, something'sgonna go your way, you might become good at something, like, you know I mean?
(58:02):
Like, just cause you're not.
worried about cameras, you're not worried about being seen because you know you're gonnaslip out of it, right?
Right.
Hyperbole, but like, there was one day, there was a bunch of us because it became like athing.
Like my friends and I would sort of just shoplift and it was funny, right?
(58:24):
At this point it was like sport, right?
Okay.
Again, I don't do it now.
I'm an adult, right?
yes.
I'm not gonna have a relapse.
you know, at the local candle shop, right?
But like, what happened was like, so it was me, my friend Mike, I don't know if the soundwas there, but so we're going into a 7-Eleven and we're gonna shoplift, we know going in,
(58:50):
we're gonna shoplift, right?
And Mike had already hyped up my shoplifting acumen.
Right?
okay.
Yeah, so like now I gotta go big.
Right, of course.
So I gotta be like the man, but I'm wearing my super magic shoplifting coat.
(59:10):
Of course.
So I go in and I go to the freezer and I'm grabbing everything.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
There's like a whole distraction going on at front.
Not quite as successful as a little girl doing itsy bitsy spider, but we got a whole thinggoing and I'm hitting it.
I grab a Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
(59:30):
a whole pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, shove it, rip the pocket just completelybottomless, get it, it slips down my coat, and then I can turn it, can pick, sort of the
way I would swing the front of the coat would make the fall into the bottom of the coat,but behind me.
(59:52):
So you would see, not even see a bulge.
in the bottom of the jacket.
was, I'm telling you, was like magic, thing, right?
So yeah, it was like a supernatural when I had this on, right?
So like now I can't wait to get out.
I can't wait to like present the bounty that I have, because you're never topping this,right?
Of course.
(01:00:13):
I get outside.
and I tell everybody what I got.
We got away with it.
I'm two blocks down and I'm like, guys, you're not gonna believe this.
And we're gonna watch movies.
And incidentally, this was the first time I saw Dog Day Afternoon.
Yeah, we went back to my friend Mike's house and we watched it.
yeah, so it's like a movie night and I'm making like a midnight picnic at this point,right?
(01:00:35):
So, know, everybody's pulling out their stuff, but of course I got the magic coat on,right?
So anyway.
A girl was with this stuff, my friend Mike used to date, and she had a jacket on, like anarmy jacket over one shoulder.
So she takes the jacket off and she's holding a two liter bottle of soda that she hadwalked out of 7-Eleven with.
(01:01:05):
then when she took the jacket off and put it down on the kitchen table,
All kinds of shit fell out of it.
I had been beat.
I had been topped by Mike's girlfriend.
Do you know what her name was?
Susan.
(01:01:26):
son of a bitch.
Yeah, I'll beep it.
But, so when you ask, how do I sell this movie to Susan?
I'll just remind her who she was.
Anyway, Devin, you're my chosen family and I hope you love that story.
Aw, you're my chosen family too and I absolutely love that.
(01:01:48):
And I'm a little mad I didn't know that about Susan, because that is not a story I'veheard before.
Definitely bring it up when you tell her about the movie.
you bet I will.
What are we watching next week?
What are we watching next week?
we are watching A Slightly Pregnant Man.
I've never seen it.
Me neither, I'm very excited.
1973, it's...
(01:02:10):
It's one of our Criterion channel finds and I'm delighted.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of our little show.
We're your studio property.
I'm Doug Wartell.
I'm Devin Erby.
Kick it Devin.
What's the new catchphrase?
Burn the popcorn.
No, no, we're not using that.
(01:02:31):
No.
Also that was really aggressive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't like it.
Studio Property is mixed at Spillway Street Content in Red Hook, NY and syndicated onRadio Free Reinkliff.
Theme song by The Corner Bodega.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and follow us on Instagram at Studio Property Show.
Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next week.
(01:03:03):
Spareway Street!
You're listening to Radio Free Reinkliff.
Welcome to Studio Property, the cinema podcast for people like you.
I'm Doug Wartell.
And I'm Devin Irby.
And this week we'll be discussing the Japanese film Shufflefters circa 2018.
(00:21):
And who directed that?
This is a written, directed and edited by situation Hirokazu Koreeda.
Now, before we get into it, I need to ask you, were you ever like a shoplifter?
Did you ever shoplift?
No.
Never once.
I mean,
Maybe lipstick when I was 11.
Right.
And I felt really bad about it.
(00:42):
So, but no, shoplifting was not.
Really?
Yeah.
I just.
You felt bad about it.
Was it at a department store?
Or was it a mom and pop shop?
It was like a local drug store.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She had to like make eye contact.
Yep.
With the person you were stealing from.
Which is probably why I never was into shoplifting because.
(01:05):
I loved it.
I loved shoplifting.
fond memories of shoplifting.
I did have a neighbor kid a few years older than me who had a big shoplifting problem thatturned into like, he actually really A successful, he's now a kingpin.
No, no, no, but he got into trouble.
He got into trouble with the cops.
(01:26):
He actually got into fairly big trouble and he sort of regaled me kind of embarrassinglylike what happened and I think that helped.
me not wanna do it either.
Cause I was like, I don't, no thank you.
no, I loved it.
was like, I had a, yeah, I'll tell you about it like later on, yeah, I had a special coatfor it.
(01:48):
I had equipment.
Like, no, no, listen, like we're on, you know, like community radio.
So I don't want me like, you know, shop owners in Rhinebeck or Rhinecliff to think like Imight get just like when I'm wandering in their store, like I'm talking about like I was a
teenager, right?
Right.
I'm just saying I have fond memories of it.
it.
If you have done it, it should be a childhood rebellious activity that doesn't, as yousay, result in you becoming a kingpin of any sort.
(02:20):
Yeah, we'll circle back to it.
Okay, okay.
In the meantime, you want to hit the theme song?
Absolutely, let's roll it.
(02:53):
shoplifters, it's a very unique experience.
To say That's way to put it, yeah, to say the least.
That's one way to put it.
The structure of the film, which ultimately is about the family you choose.
Yes.
I gotta tell you, my experience watching it going in, even before we get into the actualfilm, I had to do two passes because I was anxious watching it the first time.
(03:22):
because structurally it reminded me of an old punk rock film from the 80s called Suburbia.
Because you're sort of lulled into this chosen family dynamic, right?
And you're doing unusual things with them.
In case of Suburbia, you're going to gigs, you're acting a fool in stores, almost likeshoplifters, right?
(03:45):
You're getting into fights, you're writing graffiti, but there is an adorable kidinvolved.
ends tragically.
So the entire time I'm watching shoplifters, I'm like, you're not gonna do this to meagain.
I was concerned about that.
I mean, it ends bittersweet in a way.
(04:10):
We'll get to that.
Well, actually, there's no way to not talk about the ending.
I don't think we can skip it.
But it's not a cute little kid with a mohawk getting
know, mowed down by a car.
It's not that.
damn.
Okay.
Yeah, that's how suburbia ends.
Lord.
That's...
So the whole time I'm watching this film, I'm like, every car that passes, every like, youknow, when the thing that happens happens, I'm like, this guy.
(04:39):
But yeah, ultimately, the children are, we'll say they're physically safe.
The children are physically safe?
Question mark?
Right.
So we'll come back to that.
Okay.
Shoplifters is about a group of grifters who are really poor.
Yes.
Super poor.
(05:01):
Super poor.
Yeah.
Like, really poor.
I mean, they're really poor.
Pablos is what we call them.
Well, and I mean, we, you know, we meet this, grifter family.
They're living in a very tiny house.
Interestingly, though,
Japan isn't known for huge obnoxious American houses.
(05:21):
They are known for generally speaking smaller spaces.
So them being in a smaller space isn't a huge thing.
But what we obviously figure out right away is, like you said, they have nothing.
Mom has one pair of pajamas all winter.
She's in same flat flannels all winter long in the same fleece jacket.
(05:42):
Yeah, it's kind of a little one bedroom.
You've got essentially five people in one room Well four people in one room because we gotone kid that kind of sleeps in a cupboard with a little door that closes So he's got a
little privacy Let's establish the family.
There's a man and a female one boy a grandmother and another young lady who is kind ofalmost presented as
(06:09):
Mom's sister.
So the couple kind of come across as mom and dad and the boys got to be 10, nine, 10maybe.
And then the sister, it looks like a teenage, she's like the teenage sister of the mom.
And then grandma is grandma, because they all call her grandma.
And we're not clued in on their actual origin until much later.
(06:34):
So we're just sort of invited into this poor,
family's house.
And we see that the grandmother establishes right away that the granddaughter does not doany grifting.
Yes.
She has a job.
She has a job and she's allowed to pass.
(06:54):
Right.
For some reason.
And she's doing like only fans in person kind of work, right?
Like a peekaboo booth.
Yes.
Paris, Texas sort of situation.
Yes, yes.
It's a little old school almost.
Yeah, like you said, like a peekaboo booth, which doesn't really seem like a thingnowadays.
(07:17):
Yeah, so maybe it's like a charming, like a retro sort of thing.
Maybe that's what it is.
Maybe it's charming.
Maybe there's like a patina to it.
Look at us trying to put a nice spin on.
I'm doing my damnedest.
Yeah, right, a nice spin on.
(07:37):
not exactly sex work, sex work.
Right, but you know, sex work is work.
It is work.
You know, so.
To each their own, I guess.
Yeah, I mean, I don't, who am I to judge?
Yeah, I mean.
judging anybody, right?
Nah.
She seems okay, she seems kinda happy.
Yeah, she's doing it, she goes, she gets up, she goes to her job, she comes home, to the,you know, she's got a kid sleeping in the cupboard, it's a whole, you know, she's better
(08:03):
off at work.
Maybe, maybe.
She does probably get a bit more space at work.
So anyway, the sort of mom and the patriarch, is that appropriate?
The patriarchs of this family.
Yeah, that's what I'd say.
They're out in the wintertime and they come across this little girl.
(08:23):
Well, remember originally, he's actually, the patriarch is with the son.
They're the ones who initially come across the little girl, because they're coming backfrom.
because the movie opens with them shoplifting at a store.
We literally start with shoplifting.
Right, it's just right out of the gate.
It's like, boom, shoplifting.
Shoplifting and you're like, the title of the movie's correct.
(08:44):
Right, we told you.
We told you.
So yeah, they're on their way back to the house and they come across a little girl.
But they hear this sort of abuse going on.
Yes.
Well, they hear a fight inside of the apartment.
She's standing outside in the cold.
Yeah, there's like a little enclosed patio and she's out there and it's very cold out.
(09:09):
And you hear the mother yelling at, who you assume is the father, I didn't want to haveher either.
Yeah, it's, yeah.
And I mean, and also what doesn't help is the girl's like really like aggressively cute.
Yeah, she's like four, doesn't say much, super flippin' adorable and does a really good,shoot.
(09:32):
Who's the little kid Jackie, from the little kid who had his parents steal all his money.
He was like the original, is it Jackie?
Jackie Coogan?
Thank you, Jackie Coogan.
Okay.
And from Chaplin's the kid and he grows up to be Uncle Fester.
Yes, yes, exactly.
Okay.
She is like a Japanese Jackie Coogan.
(09:54):
Cause she looks also like, please sir, may I have some more?
You know, cause she's cute, but then she looks like she's like.
Super sad eyes, like major puppy dog eyes.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
There's no way they were gonna walk by her and be cold-hearted and be like, forget thatadorable child in the cold.
So they take her in and they start feeding her, what was it, gluten cake?
(10:19):
Yeah, what on earth is gluten cake?
I don't know.
I don't know either.
But here in America, aren't we taught to be afraid of the glutens?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So then it made me wonder,
Is gluten cake just what they call it for us or is it called gluten cake?
What is it actually called?
Is it gluten?
I don't know, but that's what they call it and it's supposed to be evil.
(10:40):
Gluten's evil.
Gluten is the enemy.
I mean, that's what I took it as.
Like, know, like, you actually eat the thing we're afraid of.
Yeah, You don't have any freaking gluten allergy.
Apparently not.
Yeah.
I mean, I know people with actual gluten allergies.
I'm not saying that it's, you know, not a real, I mean, it's a real thing.
And for them, it's a terrible thing.
(11:01):
But these people are just gobbling down gluten cake in 2018.
They are.
Just chucking it right down their throats and then feeding it to strange children.
Right?
Who apparently love it because she was into it.
They got the good gluons.
Maybe that's what it is.
Yeah.
Maybe just better gluten.
You know, sort of.
You need to barter and trade with them.
(11:24):
See, we almost want to make a political joke, but I don't do that here, because our showdoes not exist in that universe.
It does not.
We're going to tariff the Glutons.
they feed the little girl and sort of like fall in love with her.
mean, because how can She doesn't want to go home.
(11:44):
You know, she's given the choice several times.
Yes, and although she's little, they do clearly ask her.
You know, they're like, it's cold, it's too cold, we're not gonna take you home tonight,we'll keep you here, but we'll bring you back in the morning.
We fed you, we kept you warm.
And then they go back to the house and they just hear fighting and they're like, do justwanna come stay with us?
(12:07):
And they even said like, hey, you know, this is probably not good.
then as they're trying to talk it over, what are their names, what are their names?
Osamu is the man and Nobayo is the woman.
And we say man and woman like the kind of dad, kind of mom, since that's, we don't exactlyknow, kind of dad, kind of mom.
(12:28):
Right, so they sort of talk it over, like, hey, this is probably super illegal.
And the other one's like, know, like the parents aren't really gonna report her missing.
Right, right, right.
They clearly don't care.
Yeah, Osamu, I think is the one who says, we kind of, aren't we kind of kidnapping thiskid?
And Nobayo is, or Nobayo is like,
(12:51):
No, because they don't, they don't want her.
We literally heard them say they don't want her and we're not asking for money or anythinglike that.
We're just, right.
We're not holding her for ransom.
not holding her for ransom.
We're literally just providing her safety because she clearly doesn't have it.
And I guess that would be the other element we didn't mention is, you know, grandma verygently right away starts kind of talking to her and you know, she's got marks on her.
(13:18):
She's clearly been abused.
And you know, like it's immediate, it's immediate that you see this.
And so your heart is broken from the word go.
Cause you're like, geez Louise, who are these monsters?
She's way too cute.
That just sounded like I implied ugly children are it's acceptable to abuse ugly children.
(13:40):
is not at all what I meant.
That is not.
feel like that's exactly what you meant.
And you let it slip and reveal yourself just now on a microphone.
that's out there now.
It's out there now.
Everybody heard me.
You're I am a monster.
I am a monster.
They definitely see that she's marked up.
And she starts bonding with the family.
(14:02):
And at first, the brother's a little bit uncomfortable with this, but this quickly getsresolved by the father who establishes, the father figure who establishes, hey, listen,
that's your sister now.
So they start taking her out and teach her how to shoplift.
which is weird and not okay.
(14:24):
But yes, they do.
they're basically.
It's It's not okay.
It's cool.
Yeah.
But like they're like using her cuteness as a distraction to help them in theirshoplifting gig.
It's.
It's.
Isn't it different than Chaplin did in the kid when he used Jackie Coogan?
I mean, you're you're not wrong.
I think the difference is that Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan, they're both supposed to becute and funny the whole time.
(14:49):
and this is not cute and funny.
It's serious.
And they're using this tiny adorableness as like a little, here, distract these people.
Now we should also mention right about here, the brother has this weird hand signal.
Yes.
That he does, that I don't quite understand.
To me, it almost presented as though it was like an OCD kind of, before he makes hisactual shoplifting move, he's kind of got to do is like,
(15:18):
like a baseball signal, you know, he's like, okay, brush off my shoulder, you know.
Yeah.
Steal second.
It's a little bit itsy bitsy spider, a little bit.
It's a little spider, and then like a little forehead scratch thing, it's, yeah.
But he does it every time, so it's, like you said, it's established early, and he does itevery single time.
And eventually the little girl picks up on it.
(15:39):
And eventually the little girl picks up on it.
And it's kind of cute, but in a not good way?
Here's the thing that makes the structure very deceptive, right?
Because these are adorable moments that keep happening.
And we're lulled into the family dynamic because this isn't, I mean, I don't know if youhad this experience, you forget you're watching a movie after a while.
(16:05):
It feels almost like a documentary in places and then there are other, because you're so,the cameras are so in their lives.
Like, we're dropped into that house, we're in their lives, and that ensemble cast isremarkable.
I would not, I'm assuming this won oodles of awards.
I'm assuming this film won oodles of awards.
(16:25):
it the Pabdior, which is like the highest award at Cannes.
I mean, I'm not surprised.
said, like every single one of these actors, including the children, the two littlechildren are, I mean, it's insane how...
good they are together.
And like you say, it comes across almost like a documentary, almost a little too realbecause they're just having their little family shoplifting grifter family dynamic.
(16:52):
And Lily Franke gives one of the most incredible performances that I'm not just singlingout because it's the only name I can pronounce.
she is unreal in this.
yeah.
It's definitely one of those films where I was like, I need to look her up now becauseshe's
and now I need to see everything she's ever done.
Because she was that amazing.
(17:13):
Yeah, I'm like, please tell me she's done something that won't break my heart.
There's gotta be something, she's gonna be amazing and I'll love it and it won't make meall sad and broken inside at the end.
Like, it'd be one of those things like we come across like one of, like, you know, a filmthat we hadn't seen, because neither of us, we should point out, neither of us have seen
this before doing it for the show.
So like, I'm imagining like her name coming up and us being very, very excited, but let'sbe honest, already,
(17:38):
her IMDB and us are BFF forever.
for sure.
We are definitely BFFs.
my God.
Honestly, I'm gonna go ahead and say it.
She's on my Gary Oldman list.
What's your Gary Oldman list?
It's the list of actors that I do not give a crap what the film is or is about.
(18:03):
If they're in it, I absolutely will watch it.
And Oldman's at the top of that list where I don't give one hoot as to what it is.
I don't care.
I will watch it.
And it's not a huge list, but I call it the Gary Oldman list because he's the one that'sat the top of it.
(18:28):
So now, Lilly Franke is clearly on that list because I was like, my God, I will watch herin anything, absolutely anything.
So what happens to the audience as you're watching this?
let me know if this happened to you.
You're lulled into this family in a way where you can't look at it objectively.
(18:48):
And there's an attempt to make you do so when the news reports that the little girl ismissing.
Yes.
But it wasn't the parents that reported it, it was her school.
Right, right.
geez, yeah.
Okay, I'm gonna be honest.
I was very suspicious from the word go because I think that's just how my brain works.
(19:14):
And the fact that they were sort of rescuing her, we, okay, so we meet them while they'reshoplifting and then they rescue a kid that obviously needs to be rescued, right?
So even though I'm, like you said, I wanna wholeheartedly be supportive of them.
I'm on their side.
I'm also highly reserved, cause I'm like,
(19:35):
is this gonna go bad?
And then you're right.
Then they give us that moment where it's literally on TV.
They're watching TV and the mom and dad are outside and the kid, you know, the little kidboy runs out and he's like, my God, she's on TV.
And they're like, crap, she's on the news.
But yeah, and at that point we learned, like you said, the parents didn't report hermissing, the school did, and the parents are now suspected of her murder.
(20:02):
Like a whole John Benet Ramsey sort of thing.
It's crazy.
yeah.
Well, now what's her original name?
So when they get out of her, her name is, she says her name is Yuri.
But as they're watching the news clip, it turns out her name is actually Juri.
But of course she's four, because she is able to tell them she's four at the beginning,you know, when she first meets them.
(20:25):
So they're like, okay, so it's Juri.
So then they're like, Juri, you want us to take you home?
And she's like,
Like, are you sure?
So cut her hair.
They cut her hair and they have her help pick out her new name.
That's right.
So she helps pick out, they make suggestions and she picks Lynn and they, yep, they cuther hair and they give her a whole new disguise and the whole family's excited about it.
(20:50):
They're all helping.
They're like, my God, you're so cute with your new short hair.
Look at it.
Like if you let that fly, right?
it can now run on autopilot because you've now accepted this premise because of her.
blatant abuse, right?
Her obvious abuse.
Right.
So, And there is no, there's no, sorry to interrupt, but there's like no, there's nohiding it.
(21:15):
Like they flat out, like not only do you see, you like you said, you hear the birthparents arguing and whatnot, but you know, grandma's finding the marks on her.
She eventually admits a couple of like, literally she's got like a curling iron burn onher arm, you know?
So like, it's obvious.
They're not hiding it.
They're letting you know.
This kid is being abused.
(21:36):
Well, as this is going on in the whimsical shoplifting scenes, because all of them aremore wonderful than the next.
Yes, they are.
One of the shop owners catches on to what's happening, and just sort of, you know, like,just sort of, like, lets the brother know, like, hey, don't get your sister in this.
it's a very heartbreaking moment.
(21:58):
Yeah.
So it's like a little whatever the Japanese version of a cornered bodega is.
So it's a little corner bodega and the brother's doing their little routine where he'skind of blocking the little sister so she can do her thing and she does the gesture.
She does the little itsy bitsy spider and the little forehead rub and it's pretty freakingadorable.
And I think she actually steals like candy.
(22:19):
It's not even like she stole anything useful for the family, but she like steals candy.
And then you're right.
And then the shop owner, they go to leave and the shop owner comes out and literally like.
He gives them free stuff.
He knows they're poor as hell, but he gives them free stuff.
He's like, don't do, stop this now and don't get her involved.
Yeah.
He's like, don't, don't, don't let her do this.
(22:42):
And you can see, and I guess we haven't said it, but the, the boy, his name is Shota andShota has like a real, he has a real moment there where he's like, is this, is this bad?
Is this bad that one not just that she's doing it is about that we're doing it.
And you can see him start to kind of.
Process it.
Process, process the reality.
(23:03):
But now this has now become a routine.
And we're in this routine with them day after day.
And we've sort of fall in love with the family as people and how they relate to eachother.
And some of the things they do to get by.
There's a situation with the grandmother.
wait, know what, hold on a minute.
(23:26):
I'm getting a call.
Why don't you answer it this time?
You answer it this time.
All right.
Hello, Radio Free Reinkliff.
Hello, yes, this is Studio Properties.
Yes, it is.
Who is this?
is Devin.
My name is Martin Schoenbaum.
(23:46):
I'm calling from Reinbeck.
I've been listening to you for the last few weeks.
I think you guys are delightful.
I think you're just great.
I love listening to the program.
Thank you so much.
I love listening to you discuss these films.
And I want to say I just wanted to...
point out that I really appreciated that you mentioned last week, but you're gonna watchthis week because I saw this film when it came out, was very, very poignant for me.
(24:16):
I felt that it was one of those films that just spoke to me at the time.
And now that you're discussing it, of course you're speaking about the same exact kind offeelings and emotions that I got, but I wanted to ask a question.
Maybe this is a little too premature in your conversation, but I wanted to know.
Do you feel that there were some aspects or maybe I had the feeling later on after Iwatched it that maybe this film was inspired by Oliver Twist.
(24:46):
I just had that feeling as I watched it.
It was days later that I think I was working on something in the kitchen.
You're not really paying attention and just letting your mind go free.
I was just thinking that maybe this was
this was because the father, he's a lot like a Fagan character and a lot of the kids,they're a lot like a bunch of urchins from, you know, that period Victorian times and, you
(25:20):
know, and they just transposed it to a different country.
And I, that's what I felt.
you, do you feel, did you have any sense of that?
Or am I just kind of quacking like I do and my friends say, my, just shut up.
Well, first of all, you are calling into our show, Martin.
We would never tell you to shut up.
For starters.
Thank you, thank you very much.
(25:41):
And thank you for the kind words.
That's very nice.
Thank you.
I would say, yeah, there is, I would agree that there's a very Dickensian feel to this,right?
Yeah.
There's definitely a...
I think actually earlier I did say, please sir, may I have another at one point?
Yes.
But I believe that's from an animal house.
(26:03):
Wasn't that Kevin Bacon getting paddled on the butt?
In Oliver, it was little Mark Lester who said, please, sir, may I have some more?
Although I would like to have seen him paddled in the butt at that point, because again,that would bring comedy to it.
(26:23):
I love any kind of comedy or parody, but I'm sorry, I cut you off.
Go on.
Nope, you corrected me and I deserve to be corrected.
How did you feel about the movie when you saw it?
you, did you see the theater?
I saw it at Upstate Films here in Rhinebeck, New York, a beautiful, beautiful location, anold building, the Star Building.
(26:45):
Some of you might not know that that Star Building was the community building back in the40s and 50s.
It was built to be the town library.
And the town library was in that building.
And in that building, they had all sorts of community activities.
There was a bowling alley.
upstairs in a pool.
(27:06):
There was a pool in the building.
wow.
Is it still there?
Is the pool still in the building?
No, no, no, no, no.
They've changed that all.
Now they are made into separate apartments and things.
But you can go downstairs and underneath the floor, downstairs, you can see signs of whatthe old building was.
It's a fascinating, fascinating building.
(27:28):
wow.
I did not know that.
I just learned something about my own town.
Little history lesson tonight.
I love it.
Yeah, shout out to Rimeback.
So my apologies about this Oliver Twist connection.
It was just something that went through my mind and I can remember seeing that little thatyou are already talking about.
(27:48):
What a charming little girl.
She was very cute, adorable.
But there were two times that she turns and the camera kind of catches her in that waythat made her look a lot like
one of the kids from that movie.
Well, let me ask you something.
You're from Rhinebeck.
Did you ever have this experience where maybe you're going in the supermarket and you'refeeling really good about yourself?
(28:12):
You look great, your clothes are on point, and then you accidentally bump into JeffreyDean Morgan.
I have not had that.
No, no, there are.
because I run into them all the time and it's it's annoying.
There are some celebrities in this area.
(28:33):
Yes.
This town has certainly nurtured a celebrity kind of culture underneath everything else,but it hasn't always been like that.
okay.
I'm assuming that you, Doug, feel like a street urchin at that point after you bumped intoJeffrey.
That's exactly how I feel.
(28:53):
Yep.
Yeah, that should be flogged with a paddle.
No less.
He actually is known for hitting things with a baseball bat.
So so that might be a story to the same same thing.
He he was in the walking.
What's the name of that show?
The Walking Dead?
(29:16):
No, that's not it.
yes, that's it.
The Walking Dead.
I'm sorry.
I'm thinking about something totally other.
You know what I'm thinking about?
I'm thinking about Oliver.
because that was a fascinating movie.
I thought you'd be thinking about walking tall is what I thought.
I thought you were going to go with that.
Maybe that's how I was distracted.
That was very, very good.
So anyway, I just wanted to thank you for focusing, featuring this film this week.
(29:41):
That's one of those movies that I saw and I really didn't know what I was going to beseeing when I first went in to see it.
I saw the
poster, of course, and that gives you a little idea, but it was definitely not what I hadbeen expecting when I came out.
And the friends that I was with, they were expecting a lot more tips on how to shoplift.
(30:05):
And they didn't get it.
Yeah.
Well, keep tuning in.
Cause I might give a few of those.
Well, thank you.
Thank you very much.
You're very welcome.
And also,
If you're around on Christmas Eve, we'll announce what we're doing next week later in theshow, but on Christmas Eve, we're going to be doing a holiday disco extravaganza for
(30:32):
Jesus.
And which we are talking about Saturday Night Fever.
A great Christmas film.
Yes.
That's what we thought.
Well, we thought it'd be good in the spirit of Christmas, we would reach out to likewhatever weird
Chewbacca religion John Travolta's into.
He is Santa Claus in a commercial for, I believe, a credit card.
(30:59):
And they're parodying the opening to Saturday Night Fever.
He's dressed as Santa doing Tony Manero.
doing Tony Manero moves as he walks down the street.
Remember in the Saturday night theater, he was delivering paint from the hardware store.
This is him being sent and delivering presents as he goes down the street.
(31:24):
It's a fascinating commercial.
I've seen said commercial and you are right.
It is fascinating.
Well then you'll tune in on Christmas Eve then.
Yes, I'd be very interested.
I'm not doing anything this year for the holidays.
keep it lay low, or I'm not going anywhere.
(31:46):
So I should be on hand to listen to the show.
Thank you so much for calling in.
Yes, thank you.
when you say you're laying low, you're not laying low from the law.
No, no, no.
OK.
I'm just going to be taking it easy for the holidays.
Nothing fancy, nothing special.
OK.
(32:06):
Well, thank you so much for calling in.
Yes.
Thank you and keep the show going.
It's great.
It's just fantastic.
I love hearing the two of you discuss the different levels of whatever's on and thanksagain.
Bye.
Thank you.
that was a really nice call.
It was.
How do you feel about answering it?
(32:26):
It greener.
You know, I'm still scared to talk to strangers, but it was fine.
Well, now we're at the beach with our family who we've now spent a lot of time with.
And it's a beautiful day.
They're playing in the water together.
grandmother and the mother figure are bonding.
(32:49):
They're bonding on the beach.
and they've bought little girl a bathing suit, a real cute bathing suit.
But what's interesting is the day before, the grandmother went to
yeah.
family's home.
Yeah, so that's when we like pick up grandma's backstory.
So up until now, we think grandma's just been bringing him money from a pension, right?
(33:13):
Because grandpa has died, apparently.
But apparently, she's also got her own grift going because her husband apparently cheatedon her and had a son and it sounds like maybe left.
Grandma for this other lady or I don't they never really say if they like got togetherpermanently But basically he has the son by this lady.
(33:40):
So she regularly goes and visits the son Her husband's son with the lady he had an affairwith and they always give her cash because they feel guilty that And it's almost like sort
of like a dishonor of the family.
Yes, like a disorder the family thing and he and they constantly apologize for his mother
Yes, they're constantly apologizing.
(34:02):
Although at one point we do get to hear the wife, like they're in the kitchen and she'slike, do we really have to keep being nice to this lady?
And he's like, yeah, we do.
But the other tidbit is.
Yeah, I'm debating.
I'm debating.
There's like another little secret we pick up in that moment.
And we're like, just like another little little moment is dropped.
(34:23):
Yeah, I don't know.
It's up to you.
But I was like, I'll just say I'll say this.
They say, you know,
one of their daughters is away and hasn't come home for the holidays.
Yes, she's like in college abroad in Australia is what they tell us.
Right, so following day they're at the beach, the whole family.
(34:43):
The little girl has a bathing suit.
Again, we're with this great ensemble and it is just a beautiful day.
And it's, you know, if you look at the movie poster, that's the day we're looking at.
This is the moment that like, you know, we're sort of, this is the fam.
The following morning, the grandmother dies.
(35:03):
they're too poor to bury her or too poor to give her a proper funeral.
Right.
So they bury her in the house.
Yeah.
You want to get into that a little bit?
I don't know.
Okay.
First of all, can I say when they were at the beach and it was so gorgeous,
(35:25):
and grandma has a moment where she's by herself and she's like, this is fantastic, I'm sohappy.
She's, right?
And I was like, it's gonna hit the fan now.
She can't be happy.
They're not allowed to be happy.
That's kinda how I felt at that point.
So then when grandma passes away, when basically she doesn't wake up the next morning, Iwas like, I knew.
(35:46):
It was like when the roller coaster chain goes quiet.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they don't have the money to do really anything.
Father figure is going, know, should we try to bury her?
Should we cremate her?
He wants to call, you know, the authorities, what you would normally do when somebody haspassed away in your house.
(36:07):
And mother figure is like, nope, nope.
We can't do this.
There's nothing we can do.
Let's sit for a minute.
And so they kind of all just almost kind of have their own wake in a way.
Yeah.
To say goodbye to her.
And yeah, and then like you say, they literally like dig up, they pull up four lowerboards in the kitchen and they dig up the dirt and that's where they put her.
(36:31):
And then we run into mom and dad getting cleaned up afterwards and dad drops a bomb on usand says, yeah, I can't believe we had to do this again.
And we're like, what?
Do we find out for the first time?
Yes, at the end we do find out.
It turned out.
Or should we wait till the end?
We should wait till the end.
(36:52):
We should wait till the end.
But we do find out, we do find out.
But in that moment, all we get is, I can't believe we had to do this again.
And of course, I don't know about you, but my brain was like, do they do this?
Do they kill little ladies?
Right.
At this point, you're a little bit frazzled.
Yes.
You're like, wait, what's happening?
(37:13):
Because again, you've been lulled into this wonderful family dynamic.
Yep.
Well, the boy goes out shoplifting.
the following day with his sister.
And this time he gets caught.
But he doesn't just get caught.
Well, he breaks his leg.
He breaks his leg, but no, he realizes she's gonna shoplift, the little girl's gonnashoplift, and she's gonna get caught.
(37:38):
And so instead of letting him get caught, he makes a scene.
He purposefully gets himself caught to make sure she doesn't.
So he gets pulled in.
And of course he has to tell the authorities where he's living, which they know he's goingto do.
(37:59):
So they take the little girl and try to leg it out.
So the mother figure, the father figure, and the little girl try to get out.
And the sister.
And the sister.
And the sister.
Well, and I was like, mom, sister.
Because again, we still don't grand, right, slash granddaughter that we thought was thegranddaughter.
(38:20):
immediately the cops are waiting for them and they all get dragged in.
They get dragged downtown as it were.
It's rough.
And then it all comes out.
We find out that the granddaughter was actually the daughter of the family that thegrandmother's been getting money from.
somehow for some reason she's staying with her.
(38:41):
Which we had kind of figured out because when grandma had gone to see the parents, we seea photo of
of her there at the house.
And so we're like, yeah.
So like you said, so number one, we know that she is kind of the grandmother of that girl,not, I mean, not really, but kind of, kind of.
(39:03):
And she's there willingly.
We find out that the other person that was killed or buried or whatever is that apparentlyour mother father couple, she was married.
The two of them were having an affair and the husband tried to kill them.
(39:23):
they literally, it was self-defense.
We find out that it did in fact actually go to court and it was real self-defense.
He tried to kill them.
So they basically killed him.
And obviously our little cute little girl, Lynn slash Yuri slash jury.
(39:44):
is clearly gonna have to go back to her parents because they know who she is because she'sbeen on the news and she's been missing.
But we also find out that the little boy, Shota, has been with them for so long that he'sclearly not their child.
They also quote unquote rescued him and he doesn't actually remember his family at all.
(40:07):
He was taken out of a car.
Yeah, so they give us a bit more and they say something about it was outside of her.
like outside of a mall or something.
they're like.
Yeah, and he was stealing the car and the kid was in the car.
Yeah.
So they ended up just taking the kid with the car.
Yeah.
So he goes to like a foster care sort of situation.
(40:30):
Like a group home.
Yeah.
but the mother figure takes the blame for all of it.
Yep.
She cops to everything.
But just herself.
and lets him off the hook.
Yep.
so she gets what, five years?
(40:50):
Yeah, which is kind of impressive.
Like why only?
I mean, he was kidnapping children.
You know, you can't even track down where the one kid's parents are.
Right, I mean, five years, yeah.
I don't know about you, in the moment, I had this moment in the, like watching it goinglike, I feel bad that I wasn't more objective about this.
(41:12):
Like because the family was so cool, it was like, man, the cops came in and ruinedeverything.
Yeah.
Which is what the film is about, right?
It's about your chosen family.
And obviously she gives a number of lovely, she has a number of lovely monologues whereshe's talking about, maybe a chosen family is more important than the one you're born
(41:34):
into.
And you get the feeling that she didn't have a good childhood and that she didn't have agood mom.
and that she is a bit heartbroken over finding these kids who aren't being taken care of.
Because arguably we don't know the details about what happened to Shota, but there's areason he was in that car by himself.
(41:54):
Because they weren't out carjacking.
We do know that.
They weren't out carjacking.
They just broke into a car to steal stuff and found a baby in there, or found a kid inthere.
Yeah, so things weren't going great with him to begin with.
No.
Yeah, if he was in the car by himself.
Right.
So the boy goes to the foster care.
(42:17):
Mm-hmm.
And before the little girl's returned, and this is the most heartbreaking thing in theworld, but I have to bring it up.
Mm-hmm.
I'm seeing you shaking your head, you know what I'm gonna bring up.
Yeah.
It's the moment where the police are talking to the little girl and she's drawing apicture of the whole family on the beach.
And at this point, we've also figured out, I mean, the kid, she's been with them for...
(42:41):
almost a year, right?
Because we're starting to get back into chillier weather, right?
So they, and they say we've had her since like February, right?
So it's been like six, nine months, something like that.
So they've had her for quite a while.
And yeah, like you said, you want to be objective, but you realize these weird littlegrifters have given this poor little four year old a stability, not just stability, but
(43:04):
true care, love.
Like they've given her a family.
in a way that she did not have.
And she's literally getting sent back to the shitty parents, sorry, you'll have to beatme, the shitty parents who were abusing her.
Yeah, somewhere in all of this debacle, it's mentioned that the Lilly Frankie charactercan't have children.
(43:27):
yeah, so the cops trying to make her feel bad.
Did you just take the kids because you can't have your own?
Yeah, it's weird because the police are...
The interrogation is where we learn their stories, but they're not correct about all ofit.
And this is where, when you said you wanted to be more objective, this is where I foundmyself not wanting to be more objective, because the cops have created their own
(43:53):
narrative, and they've created a narrative that works for them, and they've created anarrative that works for them via the law.
And obviously that's important because we can't live in chaos.
Arguably, we can't live in chaos.
Arguably, we currently live in chaos.
Again, we're not political.
But they don't necessarily correct everything.
Like you said, Little Frankie's character, Nobuyuu, AKA kind of our mom.
(44:16):
And of course, at this point, we understand she's not actually their mom.
She and Osamu are not actually married.
But you know, there's all these things.
So we understand all this, but for all intents and purposes, she is their mother.
And here you have this lady detective who's like...
Well, I mean, I'm sure it feels terrible that you can't have children.
(44:36):
Is that maybe why you took these kids?
No, it's not.
And we know it's not.
it's.
It's vicious.
It's vicious.
I already fell apart when.
Like you said, when when little Lynn slash jury slash Yuri drew the picture when she'scoloring the picture and it's of them on the beach, I already had a hard time there.
(45:02):
But when they say that to Nabayu, I, I had a really hard time.
Yeah, yeah.
I had a really hard time.
Yeah, it's not easy.
No.
But the most, but yeah, as we go on with Nabayu's sentence, she gets visited.
(45:26):
yeah, by Shoda and Osamu.
So father, son, go see her.
Yeah, and he's, guess, because he's at this foster care center, but he can leave.
Okay, this was something I did not understand, and I'd like to understand more aboutJapanese law.
So the kids got a lot of freedom, because he's basically in a group home for foster kids,right?
Right.
(45:47):
But because Osamu, because Nobayu took all the blame, and Osamu didn't get in trouble atall, they literally get to hang out.
So we see the two of them go fishing, and I'm like, no, that wouldn't be allowed.
How would they go?
They can't hang out.
Yeah.
Like legally.
America that would not fly.
America that would not fly.
(46:07):
And I was like, what on, no, this can't be right.
Yeah.
But yeah, so literally they kind of hang out sometimes and you can see them enjoying theirhangouts.
And then Osamu takes Shota to the prison to go see mom.
And she tells him that, Hey, listen, I remember the make and model of the car.
(46:29):
And
this is what it is, do you wanna find your parents?
And he's like, no.
And of course Osamu in that point is like, is this why you asked me to bring him downhere?
And she was like, yeah, cause he deserves the opportunity.
And also in this mess, Osamu, is that his name?
Yeah.
You find out that he gave that boy his real name, because that's not his real name.
(46:51):
Right.
But he gave the child his real name.
And there's this of back and forth about the child calling him dad.
And then, you know, of course at the end they confess a couple of things to each otherregarding the situation like the circumstances around the boy getting caught and also them
(47:12):
Packing up and leaving without him, right?
So he doesn't want the boy to come back to see him.
The boy turns around and calls him dad Privately while he's in the bus.
We all lose it again.
A lot of crying a lot of crying from us, right?
Yep
And he goes away and the last shot of the film is the boy looking back.
(47:40):
You get to the daughter on the porch, the little girl, and she's looking outward.
And that stays with you.
I got news for you, because I saw this before you.
It's gonna stay with you for a couple of days.
And it's a bittersweet, but when you look at it this way, he's looking back and she's not.
She's looking outward.
(48:02):
So I took that, yeah, to me, like this has changed her and she's going to now chase that,whether it's them specifically or choosing her own family.
So of course it's way bittersweet, but again, lots of tears.
Lots of tears.
(48:22):
Well, and you should add to, again, I feel like this one is so interesting because
We literally have just kind of gotten to a spot where we're not like going through play byplay the entire film.
But with this one, it's hard not to like throw in a bunch of those details because it's sosignificant.
So when she, when little Lynn first goes back to the mom, we actually see her for thefirst time actually not be so complacent.
(48:51):
And she's, she kind of annoys the mother.
And then the mother's like, please, you need to apologize.
And Lynn's like, no.
I'm not.
And the mom's like, I'll buy you an outfit if you apologize.
And Lynn's like, yeah, I don't care.
And these are all little tidbits that we've picked up from earlier that Lynn's been verycomplacent because this is her world.
(49:13):
And it's like now she's been introduced to something more that she has something of anunderstanding of what it means to actually be loved.
Right.
So something to look forward to.
Something to look forward to.
why looking outward.
Which is why she's looking out.
Yeah.
The other thing I guess we should throw into is Aki, our sister, the granddaughter-ishperson, like the kind of sister-in-law character.
(49:40):
Her ending was also so bizarre because basically, because again, the cops are giving themtheir own narrative.
She thought the grandma wanted her to stay with them and they're like, no, she was justgrifting your parents.
And so she's led to, and of course the grandmother's dead, so grandmother can't correctanything.
Even though the whole time, especially when grandma's sitting on the beach by herself, weare led to believe grandma picked them.
(50:09):
Grandma was like, nah, I don't want to die alone.
I don't want to be lonely.
I made this weird little family around me.
I love them, they're mine.
This is how I'm living the rest of my life.
That's what I meant when I said that the police don't have everything right.
Right, yes.
And so poor Aki is left not knowing.
That the grandmother actually loved her.
(50:32):
That the grandmother actually loved her.
And we don't know where she, so, and she's, so feel like she's in the middle of Lin andShota, right?
So you said like Shota, our last scene of Shota is him looking backwards.
Our last scene of Lin is her looking outwards to the future almost, or what she wants.
And then Aki,
(50:52):
we see her go back to the little house.
And so we see her sort of, I don't see it as looking backwards.
It's almost like stagnant because she doesn't know.
She doesn't know what to believe and she doesn't know what to do.
And so we, feel like of the three younger people, one's gonna hit it.
One, we're not sure if he's going to go backwards.
And the other one is just, I don't know what to do.
(51:15):
Yeah.
It's almost land everywhere.
It's just shrapnel at this point.
It's just emotional shrapnel.
It is emotional shrapnel.
I loved this movie.
It's one of those things that sound hard to listen to because this isn't a yuck yuck festdescribing it.
Like we're talking about this because we're affected by it.
(51:38):
But also, I love that I seen it.
I love that that's in my memory.
I love that I had that experience with them.
So that's what movies are supposed to do.
Like I said, the last shot is the
the boys looking inward or behind him, the girls looking out, right?
Do you know how an American director would have handled this?
(52:02):
Like, say it's like a Penny Marshall movie from like the 90s or something.
Right?
and I'm not saying anything disparaging about Penny Marshall, it's amazing work, but like,how do you think that would have ended?
Not the same.
Right.
Or even like a Spielberg family sort of affair without aliens or anything, right?
Like, you want me to tell you how it would end?
(52:22):
Yeah.
Please.
Because I'll tell you how an American director would have handled that.
Yep.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
We would have gotten a few years away from that moment.
The boy would have ran into the girl, the two, or both of them, depending on the director.
Yep.
Ran to both of them.
(52:43):
They would have seen each other and they would have smiled.
and they all would have done the itsy-bitsy spider hand signal at each other to verifytheir identities to each other.
Right, because the American version were not allowed to have a sad ending or like anunknown.
It can be sad, but you have to know the answer.
(53:05):
Right, you can't fill anything in with your imagination or even be left to ponder thepossibilities of your characters.
Right, right, right.
my God, no, you're absolutely right.
So it...
I'm not at all sad that I watched it.
was, it truly is probably one of the best films I've ever seen.
(53:28):
It's one of the best modern films I've certainly ever seen.
Definitely.
you know, without question.
Am I wrecked because I saw it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, I'm a little worse for wear because I saw it, but I'm not sad that I did.
And like you said, sometimes it's not meant to be perfect.
(53:53):
Sometimes it's not meant to be, you're just changed.
Yep, you just feel different and something's different because you sat through it, becauseyou did it.
Are you ready for me to ask you the question that is the biggest challenge of this entireexperience?
All right, go ahead.
How do you sell this to Susan?
(54:15):
crap.
I forgot about Susan.
so you're gonna start, by the way, we introduced this segment in the last episode.
We both have a mutual friend named Susan.
I've known her a lot longer, but you guys now might be a little closer.
Yeah, yeah.
If we're being fair.
If we're being fair.
I mean, I know her well enough to, ugh, how am I gonna sell Susan?
(54:38):
When it comes to things like this, she can be very dismissive and not the biggestattention span.
I know how I will sell it to her.
I'm gonna ask for your answer first.
You know, I don't know.
I really don't know.
I think I'm just gonna have to go the kids are adorable route.
I cannot think of any other way that I can get her into it.
(55:01):
Just gonna be like, they're adorable, don't worry it's subtitled.
And as we learned last week from that guy that called in, just find the version withAustralian, like that's done by Australians.
Like that's probably what I'll tell her is be like,
They're super cute.
And then just get that version.
All right, I'll tell you how I'll sell to her after I tell you this story, because I needto cheer you up immediately.
(55:24):
OK.
So I need to tell you about my shoplifting coat.
yes.
Please tell me about your shoplifting.
OK, so I can't say I was a great shoplifter because I had, like I said, I had the rightequipment for it.
I had a coat built for shoplifting.
was this long coat.
It was wonderful.
It was like the sort of overcoat that I put over the leather jacket, right?
(55:46):
The pockets though had holes in it, holes in them, right?
And then anything I put into the pockets would just fall out of the pockets and then downthe lining of the jacket.
And the seams were super reinforced.
So you wouldn't see a bulge or anything.
And I could wipe out like entire candy bar boxes if I needed to, right?
(56:10):
Just boop, boop, boop.
I would like just pick up I could pick up like a whole ramen noodles at a 7-eleven likeDrop it in the pocket and it would just like off to Narnia for a while, right?
then like you wouldn't like So you can put ramen in there it's so great No, but with thegreatest thing ever is like if they were to ever check my pockets be like, hey What do you
(56:36):
got your pocket?
I could pull out the pockets and they would be empty because
There were just no bottoms.
This thing was magical.
You know that Dolly Parton song, the coat of many colors?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, it's a very sentimental song.
I think of my old shoplifting coat.
(56:58):
As your coat of many colors?
Yes, I love this coat.
The thing is is that we had good times, the thing that I wonder is, because I probably
wasn't great at actual shoplifting.
Like, Batman Batman without his utility belt?
(57:20):
Is a question that, you know, it comes to mind, right?
But man, when I had this coat on, I could wreck 7-Eleven.
Like, I knew I was gonna eat no matter, because I had my first apartment when I was like17, you know.
So like sometimes you need to get, just grab some food, right?
(57:40):
So sometimes you need to, you know, so like I would just wander into a 7-Eleven and justwith my magic coat and it wouldn't even be a thought, it'd be so quick because, you know,
and I think because sometimes when you're fearless or when you're confident, something'sgonna go your way, you might become good at something, like, you know I mean?
(58:02):
Like, just cause you're not.
worried about cameras, you're not worried about being seen because you know you're gonnaslip out of it, right?
Right.
Hyperbole, but like, there was one day, there was a bunch of us because it became like athing.
Like my friends and I would sort of just shoplift and it was funny, right?
(58:24):
At this point it was like sport, right?
Okay.
Again, I don't do it now.
I'm an adult, right?
yes.
I'm not gonna have a relapse.
you know, at the local candle shop, right?
But like, what happened was like, so it was me, my friend Mike, I don't know if the soundwas there, but so we're going into a 7-Eleven and we're gonna shoplift, we know going in,
(58:50):
we're gonna shoplift, right?
And Mike had already hyped up my shoplifting acumen.
Right?
okay.
Yeah, so like now I gotta go big.
Right, of course.
So I gotta be like the man, but I'm wearing my super magic shoplifting coat.
(59:10):
Of course.
So I go in and I go to the freezer and I'm grabbing everything.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
There's like a whole distraction going on at front.
Not quite as successful as a little girl doing itsy bitsy spider, but we got a whole thinggoing and I'm hitting it.
I grab a Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
(59:30):
a whole pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, shove it, rip the pocket just completelybottomless, get it, it slips down my coat, and then I can turn it, can pick, sort of the
way I would swing the front of the coat would make the fall into the bottom of the coat,but behind me.
(59:52):
So you would see, not even see a bulge.
in the bottom of the jacket.
was, I'm telling you, was like magic, thing, right?
So yeah, it was like a supernatural when I had this on, right?
So like now I can't wait to get out.
I can't wait to like present the bounty that I have, because you're never topping this,right?
Of course.
(01:00:13):
I get outside.
and I tell everybody what I got.
We got away with it.
I'm two blocks down and I'm like, guys, you're not gonna believe this.
And we're gonna watch movies.
And incidentally, this was the first time I saw Dog Day Afternoon.
Yeah, we went back to my friend Mike's house and we watched it.
yeah, so it's like a movie night and I'm making like a midnight picnic at this point,right?
(01:00:35):
So, know, everybody's pulling out their stuff, but of course I got the magic coat on,right?
So anyway.
A girl was with this stuff, my friend Mike used to date, and she had a jacket on, like anarmy jacket over one shoulder.
So she takes the jacket off and she's holding a two liter bottle of soda that she hadwalked out of 7-Eleven with.
(01:01:05):
then when she took the jacket off and put it down on the kitchen table,
All kinds of shit fell out of it.
I had been beat.
I had been topped by Mike's girlfriend.
Do you know what her name was?
Susan.
(01:01:26):
son of a bitch.
Yeah, I'll beep it.
But, so when you ask, how do I sell this movie to Susan?
I'll just remind her who she was.
Anyway, Devin, you're my chosen family and I hope you love that story.
Aw, you're my chosen family too and I absolutely love that.
(01:01:48):
And I'm a little mad I didn't know that about Susan, because that is not a story I'veheard before.
Definitely bring it up when you tell her about the movie.
you bet I will.
What are we watching next week?
What are we watching next week?
we are watching A Slightly Pregnant Man.
I've never seen it.
Me neither, I'm very excited.
1973, it's...
(01:02:10):
It's one of our Criterion channel finds and I'm delighted.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of our little show.
We're your studio property.
I'm Doug Wartell.
I'm Devin Erby.
Kick it Devin.
What's the new catchphrase?
Burn the popcorn.
No, no, we're not using that.
(01:02:31):
No.
Also that was really aggressive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't like it.
Studio Property is mixed at Spillway Street Content in Red Hook, NY and syndicated onRadio Free Reinkliff.
Theme song by The Corner Bodega.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and follow us on Instagram at Studio Property Show.
Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next week.
(01:03:03):
Spareway Street!
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