Movie Talk: "Jay Kelly" and "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery."

T Lo pay tribute to Rob Reiner and give an update on their holiday and publishing plans before launching into extensive discussions on "Jay Kelly" and "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery."

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:23):
We're Tom Lorenzo.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
And this is the Pop Style Opinion Fest. Helegans. Welcome
back to another edition of the Pso. I am the team.
You're Telo, Tom Fitzgerald, and I'm here with the low
and you're Telo Lorenzo, my cousbin, I the husband. How
are you husband?

Speaker 1 (00:36):
I'm very wonderful and busy and excited.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
I now we're once again late with this podcast, but
a lot of that had to do with just Christmasing.
Lorenzo's family is coming to spend Christmas with us. We've
never had these many guests over for this length of time, right,
And it's just a lot of planning.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, I mean, because we like to make everything look
perfect and feel perfect, and we like to Yeah, we
just like to make everyone welcome. So we had to
do a lot of pennies.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
We went in book Christmas bedding for everyone, so everyone's
bed will be Christmas theme, because that's the kind of
homosexuals we are. Yesterday, we went on a grocery shopping
run unlike any I've ever gone on in my entire life.
And you know, if you're like a parent of kids
or whatever, this you'll roll your eyes at this because

(01:30):
you probably shop like this every week, but you know,
it's the two of us, and Lorenzo's a vegetarian, so shopping,
you know, it's just not the same as shopping for
a family, a larger family. But his family are all
a bunch of meat eaters, and I oh, and his mother,
who has spent Christmas with us, keeps raving about my

(01:53):
cooking to Lorenzo's brother. So, like the every item, I
am on the hook to do a lot of cooking, which,
believe me, I love I love it. But one thing
I really was committed to was we are not going
out to buy any food while they're here. Everything has
to be in the house. I have to have a

(02:14):
planned menu otherwise they're gonna I very much have the
opinion that when you have a house guest, you treat
them like a king, but you never let them see
the effort. Like you don't let them see that you
have to do all this work, that sort of thing.
You hide as much of that from them as you can,
because then they feel it just raises their tent. They're
not relaxing, They're like, can I help? Should I do something?

(02:37):
So it's things like food shopping. Oh no, we need
a fully stocked pant. And I have never bought this
much food in my entire life. I bought, you know,
two weeks worth of food four or five people, right,
and not just food, but like fancy food, snacks, desserts,
all that stuff, all the holiday stuff. That is the

(02:57):
most meat I've ever bought my entire life.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I actually text my mom and my brother and I said,
we're at the supermarket right now, and tell me it's
very happy by all the meeting. Yeah, I mean I bought.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
I bought a roast, I bought stew, meat, I bought chicken,
I bought sausages, I bought a neat loaf mix and
what else did I bought? I mean, I've never bought
all of that. At the same time, most people are
listening to this like that's my daily right. But for us,
for these childless homosexuals.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Food anyway.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
And the place is decorated, although it's a bit of
a mess at the moment. We have a lot of
They arrive next week, so we have a lot of
cleaning to do and we're just busy, busy gays. We
are going to get one more podcast in before the
holiday comes. We're going to do our year end fabes,
you know, our picks for best TV shows and movies

(03:50):
of the year. Maybe maybe best red Carpet looks, but
I think that's better for safe for this.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
I also want to highlight two things we've been doing
and thank you for all the emails and you know
people are loving it. Which is our Christmas movie dress
ed van Kelen to Day, which we're doing a movie
every day, And thank you so much for the lovely comments.
I mean, we we appreciate it because it's a lot
of work, but we love doing that because it's costumes

(04:15):
and and it's a great idea. I have to say,
I did have a great eyea. I know that was
all Tom. And also we're also doing, as we always do,
the Ornament of the day and on our Instagram account
every day. But because we bought so many and just
a reminder, these are all new all the stuff that
we bought that we haven't you know, photographed yet and

(04:37):
post it on the Instagram. And because we have so many,
I'm doing two a day because yeah, we have that
many new ormage but that's on the Instagram every day.
Go check.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
I do want to bring up we're going to talk
about several things today, but I do want to talk
about a little blog business and it's a little inside
BASEBALLI and if you want to fast forward for the
next I really don't blame you at all, but I
just wanted to take a moment and say yeah, us, yes,

(05:08):
and thank you. And I don't expect anyone else to
notice this, any reader to notice this, because you know,
why would you. But the volume of our content has
risen dramatically in the last year. One thing you might
have noticed, if you're a regular reader of ours is
that we really don't do Friday leftovers anymore. And I'm
kind of sorry about that because those posts were very popular.

(05:32):
But the reason we don't do them anymore is because
we don't have any leftovers at the end of any
week anymore. And I just want to briefly explain that
if you know anything about online publishing on the media
at the moment, it's it's in free fall. Things like
digital advertising are not producing the money that they that

(05:55):
it used to back in the day, and the relative
destruction of Google has made it much much harder for
especially independent sites like our own to gather eyeballs. So
our readership is fine but we I mean, we're twenty
years into this, and yes we're still thriving, we're still

(06:17):
doing okay. But we made the choice earlier this year
and going into this year into twenty twenty five, that
we were going to increase the number of posts on
our site rather dramatically, and every month in twenty twenty
five we have broken a record for a number of
posts for that month, and we broke our December record

(06:40):
like three days ago, which is insane, but we have
posted more in December twenty twenty five than we have
posted in any December previously in our twenty year career.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
You have to understand how we operate here. It's we
see a lot of stuff and then we have to
decide what we're going to post because sometimes we see
stuff that we have nothing to say about, you know,
like that. You know, that's why we don't pick certain things,
because we feel like there's nothing here to add to
the conversation. Right, That's why we and so that's our

(07:11):
daily routine that we have to look for stuff for
the site every day, and then we have to make
sure that we have pictures, we have permission to use
pictures or video or whatever. So that's the conversation. That's
the constant and the constant you.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Know task of our work is sorting through and finding
stuff to talk about that fits with our brand and
fits with the state of goals of our site. So yeah,
when when stars don't do, don't pose for pictures on
the record, we can't really cover them if they're not
you know, cooperating in that way because we have set
ourselves up as a certain type of site. We're not

(07:48):
We're not a gossip site, We're not a celebrity coverage site.
We are a celebrity red carpet site along with things
like movies, movie costumes and that sort of.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
It's a whole world working together, photographers taking picture to
make up people and hair people and and style. It
is working together and we showcasing them so everybody, you know,
it is part of the whole you know, conversation ego system.
There you go, and so but anyway, I also want
to thank you guys very much because it's been such
a shitty, complicated year. It's a stressful year for any

(08:18):
stressful year for everybody. So I appreciate all the comments saying,
you know, I'm so glad I have your site to
go to and get a little bit of distraction. So
we appreciate that very much. And that's how we also feel.
I mean to me, our site right now is work, obviously,
but but it's also escape. It's my way of, like,
you know, focusing on something else.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
I agree, So yes, I just wanted to you know,
in case you didn't know this, our style of blogging
did change this year, and you know, I hope you
didn't notice it. It was meant to be a subtle shift.
But the other thing is that, you know, the reason
I'm proud of this is because you know, we could

(08:57):
have looked at our numbers. We could have looked at
the way the end is blowing and said, you know,
we just need to churn out volume, just just churn
it out, just you know, it doesn't matter what it is.
It's just numbers, numbers, numbers. But we increased our numbers
in a way but without I think, I mean, you
guys are the final call on this. I think we

(09:18):
increased our volume in a way that didn't force us
to decrease our our value, the quality of what we're
putting out. We're not I don't feel we're just churning
out shit, but we are putting out a lot more
than we used to, and a tremendous amount for a
two man operation. So thank you, thank you for following along.

(09:40):
And I just thought you should know that. And yeah, us, okay,
before we get into the two movies that we're going
to talk about this week, which are j Kelly and
Wake Up Dead Man, which are both on Netflix now,
and we're going to do, you know, little deep dive
into the two of them. Jay Kelly, that conversation, it

(10:05):
might get a little spoilery, but that's not exactly a
film with twists and turns. But we'll try and keep
that one from going too deep into where it goes
wake Up Dead Man. I mean, if we want to
have an in depth conversation, we're going to have to
spoil it. So what we'll do was talk about that
in the general sense, and then the second half of
that conversation we'll get into the actual resolution of the mystery.

(10:28):
But before we do that, I think we should take
a moment. And you know, remember Rob Reiner and his
wife Michelle, who were really shockingly brutally killed this week,
And it just feels like all the entire culture is
reeling from it. I had to say in the first

(10:50):
few hours after it was announced, I was a little
surprised by the intensity of the public mourning for him, right,
although I do think in retrospect a lot of that
had to do with the manner of his and his
wife's death. I mean, it's truly awful, and especially who
did it. Well, that's what I mean, killed by his

(11:10):
own by their own son. And it does sound incredibly
tragic because it sounds like that guy has just been
fighting demons and they as a family were trying to
help him for many, many years, and it's just you
just don't know. You don't know what's happening behind closed doors,
or what happens in families, or what they're all dealing with.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
Every time I read this story like that, I mean,
I'm not a parent. I just feel very sorry for
parents going through that, because you know, it's your kid,
it's your son or your daughter, and it's just a
horrific thing to go through.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
And I think more importantly, though, rather than lingering on
the manner of his death, I think it's been important
to look at his work this week, and I do
think that's part of the reason why people have of
this outpouring of grief has been so intense is because
the man really did put out some classic American films,

(12:07):
and there was a run there in the nineties where
you just simply couldn't find a wrong step in his work.
Everything he did was as pretty close to a masterpiece
as a as a studio film can be.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah, not just a great movie, but movies that became
part of the culture.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Part of the culture. The fact that we so many
of his movies have lines that just or that have
become you know, you know, memes, and and they mean
something much larger than what was originally And that's someone
who really understands how movies shape the culture. And also
I think as a director it speaks really well because

(12:44):
he always surrounded himself with very good writers and so
his films were always very well scripted, very witty, very quotable.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
And all the political and sociu stuff.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yes, of course he's been a political I'm sorry, I mean.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
No, no, that's it. I mean, uh, you know l
I here, I mean.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
Major queer ally and just always been a fire brand
from progressive clauses and typically you know, uh, the President
went after him in his typical classic manner. But I
think it only revealed how how powerful a man Rob

(13:24):
Ryner really was. If you're going to get someone like
the President to spit out that kind of anger at him,
well then you really must have done something in your life.
You really must mean something to the rest of the world.
And it's just sad.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, it is sad because I think he was great
all around.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, he sounds like a really nice guy.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
Even as an actor. I enjoyed him.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
He was funny as an actress, as an act of
Wall Street.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yes, so he he was great. It's one of those
great people from Hollywood doing good things.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Doing good things, and he certainly didn't deserve that. I
keep thinking this week of Gene Hackman's death. I mean
both of those two of the most tragic celebrity deaths
I could have imagined, and they both happened in the
same year, in different ways and for different reasons, but
just terrible ways for people to go. You really hope

(14:18):
that no one in your life is going to go
like that. Yes, anyway, that's sad, And I feel terrible
for his surviving children because what a mess they have
to deal with, Like they got a brother that they
have to.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Deal with us.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yes, yes, So we just felt like we needed to
put that out there. We talk about celebrit I mean,
Rob broden Is in someone that we covered a lot,
but it's just this is what's happening in the world.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
And you know, I posted a few articles in the Lounge,
but we want to make sure that you guys know that, Yeah,
we we know about it, and we think it.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, it's terrible.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
It's a terrible loss.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
All right, why don't we take a short break and
we'll come back, And before we get into j Kelly,
I just won't have one bit of business to thank
you all for it, But we'll do that when we
come back. We're back, and I actually wanted to take
a break after that last segment because I didn't want
to jump right into something a little self serving after that.

(15:15):
But I did want to let you all know that
the Harlow feature article in the Philadelphia Inquiry that we
have been talking about for quite some time came out
on December sixth. We linked it on all of our
socials and on our site. And the response, I have
to say, as I said to Rachel herself, after all,

(15:38):
you know, the furor over the article died down because
it really was quite the response. It went viral, which
is what I wanted, and that's what I said to
Rachel is you know, as you know, Rachel, very few
things in life turn out exactly as you would hoped
and planned for them. But this article is exactly what
I wanted. Part of the reason we did the article

(16:01):
was we needed to drum up some interest in publicity
in Rachel herself. We are pitching a book. There are
people who are trying to put together although we have
nothing to do with this project, but we have been
in contact with them. There are people who are trying
to put together a movie, and they.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Were also excited about the article.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yes, but as we may have said before, the problem
with Rachel Harlowe was she had a fascinating life. She
did a lot of things. She was covered extensively by
the media. She met a lot of famous people. But
then she dropped completely out of public life in circa
nineteen eighty nine, and virtually none of that was on
the internet. There was like five pictures of Rachel on
the internet. People if you googled her, you'd find blog

(16:44):
posts from ten years ago that were and where the
people the comment section was like, is she still alive?
Does anybody know where she is? So trying to pitch
a book to publishers about someone that you have to
convey those publishers. No, really, she really was fascinating, but
you but you don't have the evidence to show them.

(17:07):
It was difficult. We did a first round of proposals
earlier this year, and you know, nobody bid, and I
think part of that was because Rachel isn't well known.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
They had a ton of notes and the comments and stuff,
but you know, no.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
We got a good response on it, but we could
tell that we hadn't sold her story effectively. So then
this fell into our laps. And because an editor at
The Inquirer, Kay Taily, got to shout out Kay Tailey
because she had the foresight to contact us, and then
she got out of our way, which I can't thank
her enough for. And then she went the extra mile

(17:43):
to find all of these pictures of her, of Rachel
in the archives. So Kay Taily came to us, she said,
are you guys interested in doing this article? And we
laid it all out for We're like, we need to
drum up publicity, we need to tell her story So
the original pitch was for something like I believe it
was three thousand words, and I believe the article is
closer to five thousand in the end because I pushed

(18:06):
and pushed and.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Pushed, which is insane because most newspapers they always most
of the time they want less.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
They want less. But Rachel's story is really that interesting.
And even I'm even more grateful to the inquirer and
to Kate herself because she physically went into archives that
were not on site. She had to go to Temple
University and look through fifty year old physical files to
find photographs of Rachel, and there were tons of them,

(18:35):
very glamorous ones, and including the only picture I know
of with her and Jack Kelly, her boyfriend at the time.
So the response has been great. The response has been viral,
which is exactly that's what I mean about. I was like,
if we tell this right, if we do this correctly,

(18:56):
the interest will instantly be generated. And sure enough, there
have been article like Harlow's Speeds, Harlow's getting a biopic,
Harlow's working on her memoirs. There have been threads on
places like Reddit and meta filter, and again, we want
it that is exactly what we wanted. But more than
anything else, I almost feel like I can end the
year on a high note because this happened. Is Rachel

(19:18):
Harlow has a Wikipedia page and it is an extensive
and well researched one. And that because she had nothing,
she didn't even have a wiki that we could send
people to. And we didn't do it. Someone at Wikipedia,
you know, in Wikipedia editor took it upon themselves to
use our article as a launch pad. But it isn't

(19:39):
the only article that they cite. They went back and
researched articles in The Inquirer, in the Daily News from
fifty years ago in order to build this entry. And
I just I cannot tell you how proud I am
because I literally was, like I told Rachel this. She
was like, why are we doing this? We need to
work on the book, and I was like, we need
to get you a Wikipedia entry. That's what we need
to get you. So yes, thank you for the response,

(20:03):
Thank you for the response.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Go read it.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
It's yes, I'm as proud of it as you know
legendary children.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
It's honestly, it's.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Probably one of the it's not probably it is one
of the best things I've ever.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Read it's it's a beautiful piece. It's a wonderful story,
and we're very happy for Rachel, for everybody, for trans
people out there, especially now. And the response, as you said,
it's been amazing. People on Instagram everywhere, people from Philadelphia
saying that they remember her or never heard of her.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
And my understanding is that the numbers on The Inquirer's
site they were like, very high, very high. I won't
quote what I was told because I don't know if
it's true, but it was very very high.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Everyone there is very please.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yes with the Enquirer, very please. So yes, I just
want to do a shout out and thank everyone for
their support, and please go look at this article because
I'm very proud of it and we are going to
use it as a launch pad for our next proposal.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
There's also a video, so oh right.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yes, the U inquire social media team came to our
loft and shot us talking and we weren't thrilled about
that because we know there's a reason we don't do
a video podcast.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Absolutely I hate but as I.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Said on social media, when I posted it, I was like,
I will put my big belly all over social media
just to get this woman's story told. You know, I'm
happy with the video. I'm actually Rachel called me up
when it went live and she was like, yeah, she
just loved what we said about her. So it's been
a good couple of weeks because of that very and

(21:32):
that was something we've been working on since July. So
it's really nice to have it see the light of day.
And oh my god, we're talking about ourselves way too much. Story.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
But this is all to thank you, guys as usual,
for your support for listening, you know, yeah, for listening
to us all the time talking about these projects and
having these projects.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
You know, let's talk about that culture. Sorry about that, Okay, So, Kelly,
this was a hard cell for Lorenzo because he really
can't stand George Clooney. I say, let me just say this.
I placed George Clooney in the same pantheon that I
would place like Julia Robertson, Brad Pitt and even to

(22:17):
a certain extentp someone like Gwyneth Paltrow, who they're good
movie stars. They're very good at being movie stars, and
that means that they can do a certain style of
acting that only really a good movie star can pull off.
I have enjoyed some of George Clooney's films, and some
of them I shrugged that. But he's got a legitimate

(22:37):
string of classics under his belt, and it wasn't hard
for me to sit down and watch this film. Although
it was. I was like, Lorenzo, please just put aside
everything and pretend you're a critic for two hours and
let's let's watch it cold. That's all. So I am
gonna I've been doing way too much talking, so I'm
gonna sit my tea and you can launch right into

(22:59):
whatever you want to say about Jake Kelly.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
J Kelly, I'm I'm I am interested in that kind
of story because we write about celebrities and we kind
of understand Hollywood, you know, better than a lot of people.
But I feel like this kind of movie, Ja Kelly,
it's it. I don't know, it's for a very specific audience.
I mean, people will watch it because the cast is insane,
you know, you know, all these incredible people, so yeah,

(23:25):
they're gonna watch the movie. But I feel like that
kind of inside story. It's like the studio, the show studio.
If you're not interested in finding out how horrible these
people are, you know, and how horrible Hollywood is. You
don't really enjoy that kind of story. I so I
was like, all right, I'll watch it. I can't stand

(23:45):
George Glooney. I think he's a professional line reader. He's
not an actor. In my opinion, He's always the same.
I mean, even down to the close ups and angles.
If you watch the movie, is the same, face, expression
is the same everything. But he's a star and he
has made a ton of movies. So yeah, all right,

(24:05):
but I can't stand him. I feel like he's always
playing himself, especially in this movie, because this is.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
He's quite literally playing himself in a lot.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Of respects because it's about an actor in his life and.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
George Clooney, j Kelly. It's really meant to. And then
at the end there's a montage of quote Jay Kelly's
films at a tribute to him, and it's all it's
all shots of George Clooney's film like very recognizable shots
from George Clooney's films. So there's a there's a meta,

(24:40):
you know, feeling to the film that you know, sometimes
sometimes works to its benefit and sometimes cripples it. Uh.
And here's why can I talk or did you want
to say more?

Speaker 1 (24:53):
No, I just want to say it. It's the story
worth telling because, like as I said, a lot of
people don't know about those stories that right, Yeah, maybe, yeah,
I mean I and I mentioned to you, excuse me,
a movie that I absolutely adore with Christen Stewart and
Juliette Binoche is a movie called Clouds of Seal Maria,

(25:15):
which is about an aging actress and her young assistant
played by Christin Stewart and Christen Dreuer does phenomenal job
about being her assistant. And it is about that, you know,
famous actors, famous people, having all these people around them,
you know, babysitting them the entire time twenty four to seven.
So that's what Jay Kelly is about. And so it's

(25:36):
it's an interesting topic.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yes and no, I feel like this topic has been explored.
And we talked about this before the mics. We flipped
on the mics that there's uh, when Hollywood makes a
film about ors TV show like The Studio about Hollywood,
it tends to be very very I agree, gratulatory, even
when it's skewering Hollywood. There's this certain sort of wink

(26:01):
at the audience like, well, we're not like that, because
we're the ones telling this story. And this is where
I kind of got annoyed with Jay Kelly as a
movie because there were so many winks to George Clooney.
And you know, J Kelly is the story of a
man who is, you know, in the twilight of his

(26:23):
life and he's realizing that he's made some very very
poor decisions about how he has lived his life that
has left him alone in the world and.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Kind of sucks, like it sucks as an actor. The
character not that great of an actor.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Oh I didn't get that impression. You know, I got
the impression that he was a good actor. He was
considered a very good actor. So I guess that's part
of what it's like this. Oh, you know J Kelly,
he's he's made terrible choices, and he's vapid, and he's shallow,
and he's you know, he's obsessed with his looks and

(27:04):
his youth and while so on and so forth. But wink, wink, wink.
None of the story actually tracks with George Clooney's own
personal story. In J Kelly's life, he had multiple marriages,
multiple children. They're adults now, they resent him. George Clooney
famously remained single until he was in his late middle age,

(27:25):
and is only became a father in his late his
children are still children. So and I just felt like,
you can't have it both ways. You can't pretend like
you're showing me some version of George Clooney, like who's
actually bravely revealing how shallow and awful his life is.

(27:46):
But then you you create a life for him that
has nothing to do with George Clooney. So why are
you layering all this stuff where you're trying to blur
the actor and the character. And again it's that very
sort of self cong gratulatory We're supposed to congratulate George
Clooney for understanding that celebrity is shallow and meaningless, because

(28:09):
Jay Kelly learns that lesson too, And that's I'm sorry,
go ahead, you.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Go no, no, that's and they present that, you know,
the publicist Adam Sandler, who does a phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Job Laura darns and Adam Sandler is like his agent and.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Agent, right, So Laura Dern also does a great job
as the publicist.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
And they until she doesn't until she's a really stupid scene.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Yeah, well that's why, because then you don't understand. I mean,
a real publicist would never do what she did.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Never do what she did.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
But anyway, they're trying to present these people and how
much they dedicated their entire lives to how they dedicate
their entire lives to celebrities, to the actor care about
them who don't care about them, which is most of
the time true. And uh, then they present an agent
having more than one client. Uh. The other client is
is played by Patrick Wilson. So they tried to show

(29:02):
that that. You know, sometimes an agent has to you know,
juggle a ton of you know, several clients and egos
and all that. So it's interesting to show all that.
But if you don't, I don't think so. I was
just about to see it's interested if you show all
that if you are part of the world or if
you know how that world, you know it works, right,

(29:23):
But if you're just someone watching a movie because you
like George Clooney, I don't know. I don't know if
you get all that.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
I just feel like, like that opening scene on that
set where everyone's walking around and talking in the phones
and it's all multiple conversations. Again, it's one of those
scenes that is skewering something but also congratulating it. So
it really is one of those scenes that gets into
like the magic of the movies, where you know, everyone's

(29:54):
walking around and suddenly, when the lights are in place
and the director says action, we're in a totally different
magical setting. Fine. I love movies too. I love Hollywood,
and for a while I wanted to get into filmmaking
in my life. So I don't hate. I don't find
that uninteresting. I just find like I said, these things

(30:14):
can get very self congratulatory. And the quote unquote magic
of the movies type thing has We've been telling those
stories practically since movies were invented. I mean, that's what's
Singing in the Rain is about. But at the same time,
all of those conversations that are happening in that scene
are so vapid and everybody sounds like such an asshole.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
And I get it.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
If you work in Hollywood, that is the dichotomy. You're
all making magic, but you're all shallow assholes at the
same time.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
I don't I don't.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Disagree with the filmmaking that point. I just find it
sort of a stale, banal sort of observation about Hollywood, like, oh, okay,
you're all creating magic, but you're all assholes. Yet we
know the public kind of knows this anyways, And I
think that was part of my problem with the film.
Aside from the there's some major structural issues and the
way it's plotted, which we'll get to in a bit, but.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
And some scenes are some scenes are ridiculous, the way
on the train, for example, with all the passengers.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
We'll get to that, and then the one in the forest.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
My main point here that I'm making right now is
that there's nothing wrong with doing the style of film.
I just feel like everything about this one was stale.
I did not see a new idea or observation. And
at the end of it, I was like, well, yeah,
all right, whatever, Like it just wasn't there for me.
It didn't pull together. Do you want to talk about that,

(31:45):
the structural stuff now, the various scenes.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
I also want to just want to bring one more
thing that bring up one more thing is that the
I hate these movies that you know, show how horrible
everything is and then at the end, you know, in
the end, you see the line.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
I don't necessarily think that's with this movie. I don't
want to spoil it, but I do think the ending
is ambiguous. I do think I think the ending is sad.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
He doesn't.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah, he realizes that he made mistakes, but he can't
fix those mistakes. So it is a genuinely tragic story, right.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
I think the only character that feels a little real
is Adam Sandler's character that let's.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Briefly talk about the performances before we get into the
rest of it. I think Adam Sandler deserves an Oscar nomination,
so I think he's very, very good in it. He's
heartbreakingly good in it. I also think George Clooney, the
reviews are correct in that this is probably the performance
of his career.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
There are.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
George Clooney, like a lot of movie stars, especially like
the aforementioned ones like Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, they
rely on certain ticks and tricks in their acting, and
he was pulling all of them out for this one,
And in a certain sense, I think he was doing
it deliberately, like I'm going to give you the full Clooney.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Sorry, it's just we're moving things around on the.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
T because tab Hunters, Big sat Ass is on our
table and we have to move everything in the middle
of talking into our microphones. Anyway, sorry, tap on her
art cat. He's not our houseboy, so I completely forget
where I was.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
I'm sorry. Now you were talking about how certain actors
excuse me, so he Clooney.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
He gives all the clooneyisms and sometimes it borders right
on Okay, you're just relying a bit too much on
your star power here. But at the same time, that
is what the role calls for, and you are supposed
to look at Jay Kelly moving through the world and
see that he has real star power. And I think

(33:53):
Clooney pulls that off. And that is why you have
someone like Clooney in that role, because he does have
to appear like a star are to people have that
charisma that makes people stare at him. At the same time,
he manages some real subtle emotional stuff and when he's
watching that tribute of himself, it's brilliant work. It's beautiful

(34:13):
work because it's silent.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Oh I guess yeah, I'm yeah, I don't know. I
feel like he was just playing himself and those emotions
you just talked about it's as you said, it's him
watching his own movies.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
But he wasn't watching his own movies. He was sitting
in a seat with a camera on him, pretending acting
like he was watching.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
His own Get it.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
I get that's he was acting. And I mean when
people say he plays himself, he does. That doesn't mean
he's not acting. That just means he plays a certain
title of character all the time. And there was a
George Clooney type of character.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
But that's not an actor an actor.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
That's not true. I disagree with that entirely.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
And that's the case.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
John Wayne wasn't an actor. Marilyn Monroe wasn't an actor.
That's not true.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
They probably weren't.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Okay, lost the audience at this You're just talking bullshit
at this point.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
There's I mean, we we had this conversation about Kathry Hepburn,
you know, like, are you a good actor or not?

Speaker 2 (35:11):
There's a good movie store and yeah, I would say
that there's at least five excellent on screen like legendary
on screen performances from Katherine Hepburn.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
Because he gets to a point where you get better
no no, yeah, you get more experience and you get
better anyway.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Nonsense anyway. So those two were great. The scene where
they are holding hands, I really did tear up. There was, uh,
you know, this lovely sense of male love and not
not sexual or romantic love, but to what it's like

(35:50):
when two men love each other who are not in
love with.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
It and have experienced a lot together and have.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Yeah, have been down a road to get so it's
almost a marriage. And they conveyed that rather be beautifully.
It did make me tear up. The stuff with his daughters,
Oh good, it's just cliches, just cliches. Why weren't you
there for me, daddy? You know that kind of I'm like,
I get it, but haven't we seen this story in
this scene a million times.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Especially the one on the train. I'm like, get over yourself, girl, please.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
At least I thought that one had a little complexity
to it, the one Riley Ko playing the daughter that
never wants to talk to him again, Like all right,
I mean, okay, everyone's fine. In these scenes, I just
didn't think any of it was interesting.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
They didn't add anything.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
I thought the flashbacks were interesting. They got a little
heavy hand at a time where he would like walk
off the train, into some scene from his past life.
But the younger actor who played him was very very good,
very good looking and looked like him.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
And then Billy crut Up is his former colleague in
the mood that he has a really fantastic scene that
bar scene. The acting in that is very very good.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Nom uh.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
And then Lewis Partridge plays him as a young man
and that's very good. I have this thing about when
you when you cast younger versions, especially of well known actors,
you have got to get their eyes correct. That's the
only thing that matters. You don't have to get the nose,
you don't have to get the mouth, you have to
get the shape of the eyes correct. Interesting and both

(37:23):
of those actors they managed it. They would cut from
a scene of them young to their older versions, and
it was very very jarring because for a split second,
it really does look like the same person suddenly aged.
So that kind of stuff is good. Now let's get
into the plotting, uh I. And this is where the

(37:44):
movie is. It's just a mess. The story is an
absolute mess. It keeps going in directions and you're like,
why are we here. At one point, there's a long
scene around the dinner table and everyone's talking, and I
turned to you and I said, who are the who
are these people?

Speaker 1 (37:59):
Who are these people?

Speaker 2 (38:00):
No idea who they are or what they mean to anything.
There's just oh, well now we're or on the countryside
in Italy and you know, and oh, that's the other thing.
His father, his father was mean. Okay, your daughters don't
like you when your father's mean. And these are the
most boring cliches to explain a person. We're gonna explain

(38:20):
his psyche, mean father, distant daughter, okay, whatever, This is
very very nothing so and then I don't want to
start ticking off plot points. But one character just abruptly
leaves in the middle of the film right in a
way that simply does not make sense for that character.

(38:41):
It just does not. That person would not do that,
And you haven't actually explained why that person is doing that. Now,
all of a sudden, that person is just running off.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
No, And.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
It the fact that character never comes back, and you're like, well,
why did we spend so much time on that character
That was clearly just a side character. But you made
that person. I don't want to give anything away. You
made that person into a main character, and then just
abruptly dropperr from the Oh I just said who it was?

(39:15):
Drop them from the story anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
No, I think the whole point of the movie is
to show all these people working for him and how
everyone was affected by dedicating an entire life, you know,
right to him, to his service. But at the same
time is he makes a point, you know, and people
should know that, you know, they all take fifteen percent
of whatever he made blah blah blah, the Asian at least, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(39:39):
and that is true, that is true. But the shit
that these people have to put it up with, yeah,
it should be fifty percent, not fifteen.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
So then there's that there's a scene on a train
through the Italian countryside that you hated.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
I hated it too, my god, soone because it was unreal.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
It was the Hollywood movies st being among the little
people and they're all on a train together and he
charms the hell out of them and they all love him,
and there's nothing awkward or weird about it. The whole
it feltful, very fake and stagy, and it didn't feel
like anything people would actually do in that situation. So

(40:19):
I hated that scene. And then the scene on the
side of the road, which it just doesn't make any sense.
A bunch of cars pull over on the side of
a road in the middle of a forest. Literally everybody
gets out of those cars. Why don't know? And then

(40:42):
three characters have a conversation by the side of the road,
and then one characterist and this is at night, in
the middle of a forest. Why are you all doing this?
Why are you all standing in the middle of the
forest having this conversation? And it was not an urgent
intens it was almost like small talk, like why are
you all having this conversation right now? And then one
character turns and starts walking into the woods in the

(41:05):
middle of the night in a suit, and the other
characters are like, oh, okay, well let's go, and they
all get in their cars and they drive away, and
I'm like, nobody, nobody has acted like a.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Human being in this entire scene. Do you need a rite? Nothing? Nobody, nothing.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
And I realized we're getting into like sort of metaphorical stuff,
because you know, he walks into the forest and then
he's walking with his daughter, and it still doesn't work,
because again, I did not feel like anybody in this
story was acting like a human being recognizably, and that
that is the main problem with it when you talk

(41:40):
about the plotting or the fact that it's stale. But
at the end of the day, except for Adam Sandler,
I did not feel a connection to any person in this.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Sp Now it feels like a bunch of very famous,
very talented actors in a movie exactly.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
It, you know, and they move in and out and
then the movie's over.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
You're like, oh, okay, Riley here, okay, hear Greta yea
hey Eve, Laura yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
I mean it is stacked with faces, and that's part
of the pleasure of watching it, I guess, And I,
like I said, I don't think anyone gives a bad performance.
I really truly don't. I just feel like, well, a
lot of these characters don't really interest me or make
much sense or have anything interesting.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Well, most of them have ten minutes, you know.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yeah, it's one of those films. It's all George Clooney yes,
and a lot of Adam Sandler yes, and about half
of Laura Dern and then that's it. Like everybody else
gets ten minutes.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
I have to say, the only character that I felt
for felt you know, and it kind of felt that
it was real. It was Adam Sandelis's character. Oh that
felt real. That felt like what what an Asian go through.
Everything else is it's their own version of what they
think happens. Right, Yeah, anyway, but people are gonna love it.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
People now I don't think so. It's I mean, that's
gotten very mixed, really not great reviews. I can't say
I recommend it. I didn't feel that it was all
that enjoyed it. Like I said, it was stale, no
interesting observations about anything, not even about fame. It's you know,
just stuff that has all been said before.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Right. It had some interesting moments, but that's about it.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
It had some interesting moments, and I do think Clooney
is good in it, but like I said, it's that
very winking sort of you know, I'm above this because
I'm you know, satirizing it, but are you? Are you
really above it?

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Anyway?

Speaker 2 (43:34):
That's our take on Jay Kelly. You want to take
a break and we'll come back and we'll start up
with a non spoiler take on Wake Up dead Man,
But then we're going to get it into the spoilers.
We'll be right back. We're back, and now we're into
Wake Up dead Man, a Knives Out mystery, Ryan Johnson's
latest entry in his Knives Out franchise of films, starring

(43:57):
Josh O'Connor always Dyed and Daniel Craig, Josh O'Connor, Glenn Close,
Josh Brolin, Kerrie Washington. Who else is in it? It's
the usual all star cast.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
Mille.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
You know, Melacuna surprisingly good in it. She was very good, Okay,
so ah. I love Ryan Johnson's films because they're very
smart and sharp. Yes, and the filmmaking is very tight,
so you are always delivered good product with with Ryan Johnson. Uh,

(44:35):
and this is more of the same with him. It's
just a very very well done film all around. I
have some observations more so than criticisms, although I will
note this comes under observation because I really do feel
that this is delivered on Ryan Johnson's part. All of
his Knives Out films are great films and terrible terrible

(44:57):
mysteries in terms of how that mystery is constructed and
how it resolves it. So all of the films tend
to reference Agatha Christie openly, and she was referenced openly
in this one, and you can see that this is
where where Johnson gets a lot of his inspiration from

(45:20):
from Christy. But I'll say this, Agatha Christie's mysteries, she
wasn't she wasn't the greatest writer in the world, but
she knew how to construct a mystery, and she knew
how to convey the information the reader needed that they
could potentially solve that mystery, yes, if they pay attention.

(45:42):
And none of Ryan Johnson's films are like that that
you can't possibly solve these mysteries.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
I had an aunt she was like that. We used
to read two books together. Yeah, and she would solve
all of them. I would be surprised, how I mean,
because they're that that kind of story. I mean, I mean,
that's kind of a joy, right, and it makes science,
it makes sense, the story makes sense.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
But these films, and I think this film more so
than any of them. And like I said, we will
not get into spoilers until later in the conversation, but
this film, more than any of them, really just didn't
care about giving you the information. If anything, it cheated
a couple of times by presenting information that was false

(46:24):
and then you find out later that it wasn't what
you thought it was. And I don't mean in a
red herring sort of way. I mean the same scene
was shot differently in two different ways, and that's a cheat.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
I actually, as you said, I actually like him. I
was listening to him on NPR talk about the movie
and the whole Catholic church thing that his family is
very Catholic.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Core of family's evangelical.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Oh yeah, ev Angelica.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
But then HEAs I want to get into that was
so not Catholic.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
Yes, he didn't know much about No, I'm sorry I
spoke He Yes, he grew up Evangelica, but then he
had family members of somebody that he could rely. I
want to get the all the information.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
She went to a priest friend to get information. The
film is a surprisingly beautiful examination of the power of
faith and what it can do for a community, and
a surprisingly respectful view of the priesthood and is what

(47:24):
is required of them when they are doing their jobs correctly.
There is an absolutely beautiful scene with Josh O'Connor and
Bridget Everett halfway through the film where the entire story
comes to a halt at a moment where you really
need it to progress. People are waiting for information to
be conveyed, and it stops so that he can pray

(47:45):
with her do his job because she is distraught about
her dying mother. And the scene isn't short. It takes
its time, and it's a really lovely, lovely scene. There
is also a scene where he hears a character's confession.
I'll get into it later as to who that person is,
but again, that scene brought tears to my eyes. And

(48:07):
I am a lapped Catholic. I am not someone who's
big on those kind of stories. I'm very much a
Benoi Blanc. I did love that Daniel Craig's ben Win Blanc,
who is a gay man. He had very he was
I want to say this in a way that doesn't
sound condescending, because certainly you can be all of these

(48:30):
things and still be of the faith. But he is
a worldly, educated, middle aged gay man, and I felt
his response to the church and his response to religion
was exactly exactly on point for that character. Anyway. So

(48:51):
the Catholic thing, so I'll get into a couple of
I have some minor quibbles, and that was one of them.
Was the minute I saw that church, I was like
that is not only not a Catholic church, that is
clearly not an American church. Yeah, it was so very
clear interested in Anglican church in England. It didn't look
anything like any American Catholic church I had ever been to,

(49:16):
and that was really glaring to me. Again, maybe that
doesn't matter to you. Again, I'm not here to defend,
you know, correct portrayals of Catholicism or whatever. But because
the movie is about it, it is about faith, it
is about a specific parish, it is about the priesthood.
In a lot of ways, it really did take me

(49:38):
out because I immediately I didn't know Ryan Johnson's religious background,
but I was like, not a Catholic. I can tell
that immediately, because I could tell a Catholic did not
make this film interesting. Church didn't look like a Catholic church.
There no statues of any saints, no crucifix is you know,
And I mean they explain why there's no crucifix, it's

(49:59):
part of the story point. But even so, and at
one point Josh O'Connor says, you know, we're in an
American church. It's only this is like Disneyland. It's just
made to look like a European and I'm like, no,
come on, that's bullshit. This is your The entire inside
of the church was marble. Like the entire.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Inside of it.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
I was like, yeah, no, there's not many Catholic churches
in America that.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
The movie does look pretty I thought it's pretty. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
But going further to the point about about that church,
the only reason I'm going to harp on it is
because I the one major failing for me of that
story is that if you're doing a story about a

(50:44):
slightly cult like parish church in a small community, and
then you never show the community at all, you never
show anybody but the same like seven parishions.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Like, it felt weird.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
It didn't feel churches are, especially in small towns, they
are the seat of the community. The whole community tends to,
you know, revolve around the church. And this is some
weird English looking church out in the woods that has
seven parishioners and apparently there's no town at all nearby.
There's no community at all. It's just this closed setting.

(51:20):
And closed settings are great for mysteries, especially Agatha Christie
style mysteries. But it literally it kept taking me out
of it. I'm like, what does anybody else live here?
Or are there any shop?

Speaker 1 (51:32):
Like?

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Where are we not establishing that sense of place? It fails.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Yeah, it does feel like a book, you know, like you.
I guess it would work for a book. I guess
it would work for a book if you only had
those characters and didn't mention anybody else. But you know,
if you're looking at a church, you know, and then
you'd see only those characters sitting there, you wonder isolation.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Yeah, and nothing looks American. And that's not a major point,
But I do feel that lack of community when you're
trying to tell this rather convoluted story about these parishions.
I got kept thinking, how's all this going on? And
nobody else in the community feels anything about it? Nobody cares,
nobody talks about it. That's just me, right, I agree. Uh,

(52:22):
the performances, I thought we were great. Everyone is fantastic.
Dinner Craig, my god, the men connect. He's so awesome.
He's sidelined in this. It's all Josh O'Connor's as far
as I'm concerned.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
He is. And also, my god, he looks incredible.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
He does his hair looks great.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
I know he looks awesome.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
In beautiful suit through the whole movie, and.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
I think everybody else, like you know, I don't want
to mention every single one of them, but I think
all of them do a fantastic job.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
I can't go that far. I don't think any of
them do a bad job, but I do think most
of this cast is.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
Wasted because they don't have much to do.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Andrew Scott, like, what's the point of casting him? I
mean she had some scenes Kerry Washington, she made a
meal out of her one she's not one scene where
she she really made a meal out of it, but
she's not given much.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
No Glenn Clothes is awesome. I thought I saw someone.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
I'm not sure where I saw this, but I don't
know if it was A critic or on a forum
somewhere said if this movie was made fifty years ago,
Betty Davis would have played that part, like.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
When I get like those crazy old ladies, like horror
old lady, and she is. She choose the scenery in
a way only Glenn Close can and she's great.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
Again, I would I think Josh O'Connor's performance is nomination worthy.
I genuinely do. I think Glenn's is as well, even
though it's very hammy and and I don't know, it
eats up a lot of it eats the scenery, so
to speak, but it.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Kind of looks like the stuff that she's been playing.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Yeah, but god damn, the woman deserves to ask her,
that woman freaking oscar for Christ's sake. If it has
to be for this, you know, Betty Davis Burnt Offerings
part fine, do it.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Josh Arkhon, I want to talk about him a little
bit because I absolutely love the man. I think he
is a fantastic actor. I fall in love with him
when I watch God's Own Country, which is a fantastic movie.
Kind of a queer movie. I hate to call movies queer,
but it is sort of a queer story anyway. I
don't like to tag everything it's queer anyway, but it's

(54:30):
a beautiful story about two men falling in love. It's
called God's Own Country. Is a one of my favorite
movies of old time, and he is phenomenal. That's when
I found in love with him. I think he's a
great actor. Everybody was talking about his performance on Saturday
Night Life that he did a fantastic shop Live He
is great, and I think he is just phenomenon in

(54:51):
this movie. You cannot stop looking at him and.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
Listening and intense and vulnerable and heartbreaking in a way
that he carries the entire film. And it's interesting because
I don't feel like the previous Knives Out films spent.
I mean, I guess you could say Anada Armis was
the center of the first one, but that performance didn't

(55:15):
anchor the film the way Josh O'Connors does. It feels
like everyone is acting around Josh O'Connor. He is the same,
even Daniel Craig.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
He sort of seeds the spotlight to him. And it's
very smart on all of them to let that actor
be the center of attention because he really does hold
the whole film together. Josh Brolin's great.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Yes, he is. Actually he's very very good in it.
You know.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Thomas Hayden Church it's kind of a small part, but
he's actually very effective in it as well. I really
it's not that I think that people gave bad performances.
I just feel like a lot of the actors only
had about ten minutes of screen time, and some of them,
like Andrew Scott and Jeremy Renner. They were barely characters
at all. They really didn't. We were told what those

(56:02):
characters were more than we you know. Let then we
got to see them act that way. So you know,
those are my Again, another movie with a bunch of
famous and talented people working and they only have five
minutes each. That's just kind of the problem with these
Knives Out films, and I do feel like if he

(56:22):
wants to continue them, I feel like the next one
should should really be something different instead of these overly
stacked casts which are starting to get so big that
none of the characters get enough time on screen. It
would be better for him to change direction for the
next one.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
I think he's doing it. I agree.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
I also, as I briefly shouted out, Melaconis is great
in this.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
She is good. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
I don't dislike Miliconis.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
I don't. I think she's limited.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
I think she's limited, and I can't really point to
any of her performances where I was like, that's a
great Melaicunis performance. But I thought she was really good
in this. I thought she was She's just enough, just
sharp enough. Again, she wasn't given a lot to do,
but she did something with it, unlike a lot of
some of the other actors who I don't think could
really find their characters as well.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
I think of all of them, of those minor performances,
Carry Washington, it was my favorite because she's where.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
She loses her ship with so Derek, so damn So
she's very good, like when the way she curls her
lip in disgust is like nobody else she is. All right,
do I want to get into anything else before we
get into Uh no, I think so from this point

(57:41):
we're going to start spoiling, okay, or do you want
to take a break?

Speaker 1 (57:44):
No? Yeah, we can take a little short break.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
All right, We'll take a break, and then after this
it's all spoilers. We're back and we're going to spoil
the hell out of Wake up that man.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Now.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
Uh So, going to my earlier point about these being
terrible mysteries, Let's start with the setup. And this was
somewhat true of the earlier Knives Out and films, and
they became increasingly so over the time, Like the second
film was more complicated than the first one, and then
this one. The setup is so complicated, and I recognize

(58:19):
that for what it was because if you complicate the setup,
you can't you can keep fooling the audience.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
Right.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Everything is so confusing that you can throw anything at
the audience right, and they won't be able to figure
out who the killer are if you load them with
a ton of Some of that is I consider a cheat, right,
But again, I don't think his goal was to do
a classic Who Done It? Well? He's he's doing social
commentary films that are dressed up like Who Done Right?

(58:49):
But even so it does tend like the first I
don't know, twenty five minutes of the film, I was like, what,
there's a diamond that went missing because it's Eves what?
And then the priest died, but the priest had a
slutty daughter who had a son, like what? And then
he's buried in a tomb with a door that can

(59:09):
only be opened from the inside. And all of this
setup set up, set up, and you have to you
are ostensibly expected as the viewer to keep track of
all this stuff, but like I said, you weren't. You
can't keep trackable at all. It's so rapid fire. There
are so many details that it just washes over you.

(59:31):
And Johnson is a very entertaining and adept filmmaker, So
these scenes are very entertaining to watch. I wasn't like
angry sitting because because the script is funny, right, some
funny intelligent lines, you know, like you laugh because something
is it's intelligent and funny exactly so, but I did
recognize that during those scenes, I'm like, he is just

(59:53):
throwing shit at us because I will never be able
to figure out who this is. And that's the other
aspect of all of these knives out stories is that
in almost every instance, the killer is exactly who you
thought it was, but he always makes it the He
points out the most obvious person and then the most
obvious person did it, And I guess that's sort of
subverting the trope a little bit. But now you've done

(01:00:14):
it for like three films, right, And I will say
that the thing about Jeremy Renner being involved in this
and actually killing two people that he hadn't planned, you
know whatever. I didn't figure that part out. But when
it was all revealed that Glenn Close was them, I'm like, yeah,
who didn't see that coming? She was like this evil
witch character in the whole movie, and surprise, surprise, she

(01:00:37):
masterminded all these.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
Murders, you know, from the first minute.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
So again, I loved the film, so it's hard for
me to say, Okay, here's a criticism. But at the
same time, I do like looking back on I'm like,
all right, well, there were a lot of cheats here
and a lot of very expected outcomes, and I think
the only reason these things don't bother me so much
just because the acting was so good. The scripting was like,

(01:01:03):
for instance, Glenn Close being revealed as the killer, it's
kind of an eye roll, or at least one of
the killers. It's kind of an eye roll, because, like
I said, she was this evil witch through the whole movie.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
But her explanation is that scene is so beauty beautiful
when she explained why should.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
She was staged as a confession and Josh O'Connor was
so just heartful and it's just a beautiful, beautiful like
that's where they both probably aren't, in my opinion, or
not potential nominations because it is such a fantastic scene
and and that's the beauty I guess of these films
is that they're terrible mysteries, right, and the plotting and

(01:01:43):
the storytelling is sometimes very hard to follow, but they're
so entertaining and they he pulls out these moments from
these actors that that'll take your breath away.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
They are incredible. And Josh O'Connor he does something that
he tells a lot with his eyes. I mean he
his eyes are very expressive as an actor, and you
just you just eat the whole thing. I mean, you
just love it, you know. I just love the scene.
And they're great. They were great together.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Yeah, I I'm trying to think about it. I mean,
the the actual explanation for how everything happened, I mean,
it really doesn't make sense. It just doesn't make sense.
Like why did she I understand why she killed Jeremy
Renner at the end, but why did she stage it
so that it looked like the dead Grace was strangling him?
Like why would you do that? There is literally no

(01:02:32):
reason to do that, and it's pretty much physically impossible
for her to have done that. But the scene of
Jeremy Renner's body sliding down the basement steps was really
really funny.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
That's the thing. It those there are so many funny moments,
you know, like and they're they're just ironic and hysterical
and you just laughed because they're so absurd, right right,
And that's that's the director. He does a very good job,
like the whole whos who recommended these books, obrah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Right, stuff like that, you know, Like that's what I said.
It's social commentary more than anything else. I mean, there
was stuff about right wing influencers on the stuff about
social media in there, and there was an overriding theme
about misogyny and organized religion and how this the what

(01:03:24):
was it, the Harlot Horr, the Harlot War, and it
took the entire movie for characters to realize that she
was actually a victim, that woman, and she had been
terribly treated, and the commentary on that is was very
powerful and very sad. So he's capable of doing so
so much. And the fact that you know, the plotting

(01:03:47):
is weird, or the resolution comes out of you know
whatever or what you could figure it out or you
couldn't figure it, None of that matters. It's not technically
a who done it? It's a mystery, but it's really
about so she'll commentary, and it's really about acting because
he is an actress director.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
I agree when I watch these movies. It's all about
me sitting there and just watching people act and really,
well yeah, really well, the script laugh with some of
the funny lines, and you know, that's that's about it. Yeah,
the mystery is really not there.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
At the end of the day. Jay Kelly, I can't
really recommend unless you're a big, big George Clooney fan, and.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
I think you're. If you like him, you will like
the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
You enjoy you'll enjoy the movie, but it's a deeply
flawed movie. Whereas I can't recommend Wake Up Dead Man enough.
It's a great, great it's actually a great Christmas watch.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Yes, it's it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
Watch it over the holiday.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
I actually enjoyed it very very much.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
I did too. There's some very touching scenes, some very
funny scenes, and yeah, very much recommended. So I believe
that's it. Yep, we will have one, like I said,
one more podcasts before the end of the Well, we'll
happen before Christmas, right, and then after that we'll be
back at the beginning of the year with all kinds
of stuff. We're actually planning on interviewing Harlow Yes for

(01:05:13):
the podcast, but that'll be in January, all right. Until then, enjoy,
go back. Yeah, we'll be back next week with whatever
crosses our eyes acrosses our desks.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
Until then, take care of yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Love you mean it, but love you