Aaron Mahnke on The Village

Aaron Mahnke is one of the great podcasting success stories in recent years with his smash hit LORE. Turns out Aaron and Chuck have a lot in common and became fast friends during Aaron's Atlanta visit. Listen in to their chat about Aaron's movie crush, M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to the movie Crush. Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Here the home studio, Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. And
this week I had the great pleasure of sitting down
with Aaron Mankey, podcasting superstar Aaron Mankey of lore Fame. Um. Aaron,
as it turns out, is a great dude. And I

(00:45):
knew this because he is working with us. Now. UM,
I know we've announced this already, but we're very excited
that Aaron has joined the Stuff Media family and is
going to be doing some shows with us starting pretty soon. Actually, UM,
I don't think we're announcing exactly what the shows are yet,

(01:06):
but he's got one coming out soon, and then we
got another one coming out with him this fall, and
then hopefully another one to follow. And uh, we're all
super excited because Aaron came into town and I uh
was was tasked. I guess that's not even the right word,
because it was a pure pleasure, but I was asked
to uh kind of hang out with Aaron and and

(01:27):
his production team here and oversee what they were talking
about and doing, and and took him out to a
nice dinner. And he's just a great guy. He's super smart,
he's funny, he's engaging. Uh, he's he's all the things
that fit with our network, and it was it was
just a a match made in heaven. So I know
you're gonna enjoy the shows that we have coming out

(01:49):
with Aaron. And I asked him to be on Movie
Crush when he was here, naturally, because I can't have
someone of his talents in the building without getting him
in the old booth. And he was happy to do so.
And when he picked his favorite movie, The Village from
m Night Shamlin, it all sort of clicked into place
and I was like, of course that's his favorite movie.

(02:09):
And he goes deep on this one. Um, well, I
won't spoil it, but um let's just say that he
has a Village theme party every year at his house.
That's how much into this movie he has. So here
we go, without any further delays. It's me and Aaron
Manky on the Village. It's funny. I've had like a

(02:32):
lot of questions for you throughout the day that I've
been holding sticking him in a box. Yeah, personal questions.
I was like, oh, nope, I can't ask him that yet. Um,
but I was curious about your how I've never heard
the lore, uh story, like the origin story. Yeah. The
brief summary is that it's a complete mistake, which is

(02:55):
always fun to tell people. Yeah, it's a happy mistake,
but it's a mistake. The longer story is I was
working as a graphic designer. I did that for almost
a decade, and because that was my one pressing question
was what you did before design work? I was mostly
branding like logos, business, stationary kind of stuff, and I
was writing in my spare time. I'd always been a writer,

(03:17):
so just as a hobby, yes, And the last few
years I've been writing what I called supernatural thrillers, you know,
the kind of thing that Stephen King might write a
little bit on the spooky side. But when I wrote them,
I would always go research great New England folklore that
people didn't know about, like Mercy Brown and Exeter, Rhode
Island and digging her body up and cutting her heart
out and stuff like that, and it's such a rich

(03:38):
area for that stuff. It so is. Yeah, So I
you know, starting a novel, I'd go and I'd research
stuff and I'd find a dozen really need ideas and
use one or two in the novel, and I just
kind of tucked the rest away and ever note and
say out, I'll use it someday. And when you're self
publishing stories, it's it's an uphill climb, almost vertical, to

(03:59):
to sell stuff. And I was making about five bucks
a month, so it wasn't really it was. And when
you when business is fine design wise, you can justify
spending your evenings writing stories that don't sell. But when
the business started to do really poorly in the fall
of two dozen fourteen, I was really looking at everything
that I spent my time on critically, you know, is

(04:19):
this the most efficient use of my type and writing?
Just it was gonna get cut. So I thought, you know,
the thing that the kids do these days on the
internet is like they have an email list, right, you
sign up from my email list that I can market
stuff to you. And I thought, if I could get
to people on my list, I could I could sell
our books. So how do I get them on my list? Well,
I'll give them something for free. And I was going

(04:40):
to write up my five favorite New England like myths
and legends, and I wrote four of the five. I
realized I was going to ask people to read a
PDF on their iPhone and it just wasn't going to
be a valuable thing, and they wouldn't give me their
address for it. So I it sounds super cliche, but
I clicked the icon on my desktop and I dragged
it to my trash can, and as I'm ready to

(05:02):
let go, I realized, this isn't how I read like.
I don't read PDFs on a phone. I listen to audiobooks.
So maybe what would be valuable is to give these
email subscribers a ZIP file with with MP three's for
these stories. That was as far as I went with this.
And I took the first one and I recorded it
and sent it to a buddy. This was after learning

(05:23):
that the room I recorded and which was not like
this um was horse hair plaster, angular walls, hardwood floor.
I did it in front of a glass monitor with
the with the mic on my desk, all the mistakes,
and so I I put some music underneath it, like
an Instagram filter to kind of make it better. And
I sent it to a friend and I told him
my grand scheme and he said, don't do it, and

(05:44):
that's that's it. He said, no, no, this is this
is a podcast, And I kind of fought him on that.
I'm like, now a podcast is this was it was
actually three years ago this month. It was March of
its March. It feels like it's yeah, I've just been
part of my life. Um. Yeah. So I took him

(06:05):
at his word, and in about forty eight hours, I
branded it. You know, being a logo designer, it was
pretty easy for me. Called it lower, set up a
website simple, you know, it gets it across and uh,
and I hit launch and three years later, I'm still
doing it, which is it's pretty fun, too great success.
Let's be honest, you're being very modest. Like, if I

(06:27):
want to brag, most podcasts, I don't know if you've
heard this, most podcasts, like somebody starts a show and
they do multiple episodes over the course of their show,
we'll get about a thousand downloads like for every episode
added together over lifetime. And it was sometime in the
fourth month of the show that I was I was
getting I was in the hundreds of thousands of downloads

(06:48):
and was able to sell ads and by the you know,
the time those checks came in, I was full time.
You're able were able to quit the dying design business
and go full time into this. Um. That was June
or July of two fifteen. A month later, I started
getting TV offers. That fall, I started getting publishing offers,

(07:09):
I started doing live shows, and then it's just been
that crazy downhill like roller coaster ride ever since. Uh,
that's nuts, because Josh and I you can definitely trace
a through line too, being the beneficiaries of getting in
super early, when two unknown dudes could get away with

(07:31):
just putting their voices out on the air and people
would take a listen. The discover ability issue was not
around back then. Um, but you're like, that's a true succes.
I mean we obviously like we're good at whatever we did.
Ye gone away. I mean, I think you're a huge
success story. Like a few years ago, there was tons
of podcasts out there, so for you to get found

(07:52):
like that as someone who didn't have a name before
right in the podcasting world, you know, this was like
really great, that's shows what a great Storytell what you are? Oh,
I appreciate that, you know, Um, I always tell people
on making it up as I go along, right, And
evidently some of this stuff is just kind of hardwired
into me. So I'm I'm okay with that. But I
think Serial came out like its first season and the

(08:15):
fall of fourteen, and I think so that was really
the beginning of that new wave. And you were after
that and I was March of fifteen, so a few
months later, and there were more shows popping up. I
think people had they caught on months before podcasting might
be the place to make new content. I hadn't been
thinking about that. I just I fell into. I leaned
against the door, not knowing it was a door, and
I fell in, you know, like like some sort of Mr.

(08:38):
Bean episode? Was that you ask me? Okay? It was?
Um so so yeah. I I feel like I did
get ahead of I came after the Serial bump, but
it was certainly before what we've seen over the last year. Yeah,
which is sort of crazy when when podcasts start left
and right announcing TV options and things like that, which
I you know, I'm very proud of me one of

(08:59):
those like, uh well in a way, in a way, yeah, um,
I had a brief run. I maybe there's only there's
one of the comedy show that's that's been picked up
multiple seasons. I think mm hm Comedy Bank Bang Comedy
Bank Bank five seasons, I think, yeah, and Man had
a nice little run. I think he's three or four seasons.

(09:21):
But you know, going into a second season to a
TV show based on a podcast, I feel like I've
reached a like a new level of that's totally amazement. Yeah,
so I'm pretty happy about that. But nowadays there's just
so many shows, so much out there. Yeah, good, well,
and we're trying to grow as a network, so it's always, um,
we're having to learn as we go too, as far
as like, now, how do you get attention? Right? Everyone's

(09:44):
spread thin as listeners, but hopefully the audiences built too,
like in lock Step. Yeah, absolutely, I know. It's it's
interesting now that, like my family now listens to podcasts,
and I think for a while everyone's like, yeah, Chuck's
doing that thing that he has to explain to everybody
what it is. But now I'm just hearing from kind

(10:05):
of everyone either listening to mine or other ones. I'm like, okay,
it's officially kind of crept into the masses. Yeah. Yeah,
you know, when I first started, my wife wasn't listening
to podcasts at all. It wasn't how she did things.
She's a book person. Yeah, same with Emily. She doesn't
still doesn't listen to it's on a podcast. Yeah, but
there's there's a number of shows now that she she
listens to, you know, um mine, which is weird when

(10:28):
I walk into the house and she's upstairs quilting and
I can hear my voice coming out of the room.
It's very weird. But yeah, Emily listens to Movie Crush
a little bit now. Um never really listened to stuff
you should know, which is fine, Like I always thought,
why the hell would you want to listen to me? More? Right,
But she listens to movie Crush some now, and she's
on Movie Crush some now because we did our pre

(10:50):
Oscar special and then our Oscar Special and everyone is
like more Emily. So see, we're gonna figure out a
way to get her in there more someday to be
like the cry is less, Chuck, Right, that's great. Uh,
So you grew up in the greater Boston area. No,
I actually grew up in Illinois. Oh yeah, I'm a
Midwestern boy. I did not know that. Um. And then

(11:12):
in I moved out to the Boston area and um,
a couple of hours so I grew up in a
little town that's about an hour north of Bloomington's in
that middle of Illinois range where every city is thirty
minutes away from each other on a nice northwest east
south grid. Um and uh, a little town called Streeter. Nice. Yeah,

(11:35):
small town guy, small town guy. Yeah. I think they
were about twelve thousand people in my town. The siblings,
two younger brothers, my parents. I was pretty quick to
answer that. Yeah, I'm pretty close with my younger brother.
But my parents went and and had us all four
years apart, which meant that we were never in the

(11:55):
same schools together essentially. You know, once I was out
of middle school, and it might the way that my
school's worked. This great school went through fifth and then
you went across town to a six, seventh, and eighth place,
and then the four years of high school in different place.
So every time I moved to a different school building,
that's when my other brother would come in, and and
then after him, the last brother would come in. He
just replacement mankies. Yeah, yeah, there was always a manky around, right,

(12:18):
It just wasn't me. Uh So yeah, we did. We
did that, Um, and that meant that we had our
own circle of friends, our own interests four years apart.
Your different fads different, you know, like my middle brother
was really in a skateboarding but I never was. I
was playing comic books, and my youngest brother is born
to hunting. Like, It's just it's very very different. Interesting.
How did your parents feel about having three very different kids?

(12:42):
I think my mom wanted a girl all along and
kept hoping and hoping. Eventually we just got a dog
in my made sure it was female dog. Yeah. Uh.
As far as movies figuring in um, I've kind of
run the gamut in here with people that either I
mean some grew up in New York City with access
to every thing. Other people were suburban mall kids. Other

(13:03):
people grew up in towns where they had to drive
to another town to see a movie. Yeah, was that?
What was your deal? So we had a we had
a majestic in town, which was it's glorious, and I
think at this point it's been closed up for good.
It's it's been brought back a couple of times. We
go back periodically and sometimes it's opens, sometimes it's not right,
but it's always there. I've just if I think about

(13:24):
a theater that's that's my deep memories. Is that movie
theater Majestic single screen, two screens? Actually, I think yeah,
and I saw a lot of my early movies there.
But I I think, like you, I grew up in
a more conservative family, so I was I was pleased
a bit more about what I could and couldn't see,

(13:44):
and as I got older, I was able to explore
and branch out. But uh, yeah, I've also had the
gamut running here with guests as far as it's always
interesting to me to see what was allowed, because when
you grow up like we did in a little more
restrictive content household. Yeah. Um, I was always super jealous,
of course, of kids who could do anything. But I

(14:05):
know Roman Mars is a mutual friend, and he listened
to his episode and he could he could watch anything
whatever at a very young age. Didn't he say he
saw something Clue Lagoon at like four? It's crazy? And
someone else who was it that I interviewed? Uh? I
think that one of their first memories of seeing a

(14:25):
movie was like The Shining when they were eight or two. Well,
I wouldn't be surprised if that was Hodgman. I mean,
he was very autonomous, as a kid. Yeah, he very
famously like grew up in this giant house full of
empty rooms with his with his own suite. Yeah. Yeah,
I love John. Yeah, he's the best. Just saw him
in New York last week. Actually, yeah, we put a

(14:46):
hurting on a on a Keen steakhouse. Nice. I have
yet to hang out with him, but we've connected online. Yeah,
I'm sure at the point. Well, and he's a reclined guy,
so you guys can catch up on all things massages.
He's always at the at the Bellhouse doing stuff. But yeah,
Jean Gray, Jean Gray, Um, and I've I've played the
Bellhouse before. Yeah, it's a great place. So um. Yeah,

(15:08):
it's funny to see different families and how they how
they let their kids jump. What was it like? My
house was at a very fundamental Christian mom So like
on the music side of things, as an illustration, the
most mainstream I could get was Weird al You know

(15:28):
I could get you. I did. I did a couple
of nights ago with the Meat right now. It was fantastic.
He's doing this this tour right now. Have you heard
about this? Do you know Weird Elves music much? Well,
when I was a kid like the popular stuff, but
I never like delpt In as a fan fan. So
like you'd buy an album of his and there'd be
a bunch of parodies on it, you know, eat it
instead of beat it, things like that, but there would
also be originals that he wrote. I did not know

(15:50):
him and his band. There are amazing songwriters and and
he's when you're not tied to making sure you match
the rhythm of of beat it to write the words like,
he can just be about the more creative. So I
think some of his originals are even better than the parodies.
So his tour right now is all the original material.
It's like the non parody tour, the stuff he's not
famous for. The Yeah, the deep cuts for the fifth right,

(16:13):
and he did to sellout shows at the Wilbur on
Sunday matinee and evening. And I worked with the folks
at the Wilbur for my life tour stuff, so I
managed to get a little, a little inside access. But
you know, that was my that was my connection to
popular music. If weird I'll covered Nirvana. I got to
listen to the baseline and you get that rough version

(16:35):
of the guitar. Interesting, but not but not in Nirvana,
and I couldn't bring that in the house. Yeah, So
so that was it was a little bit more held back,
but there were you know, I'm thinking back to one
of my early movie memories. When I was ten or eleven,
I think it was eight six, I must have been eleven.
My birthday party was me and a bunch of neighborhood
friends going to see Annie, that original eighties version of film.

(16:59):
It is great. Yeah, so that's that's that's my earliest
movie memory. And that was pretty safe for my mom,
Like she was okay and he was all right, and
he's all right. And I still love that movie. Um,
I know that. I mean it probably always gets thought
of as a as a little girl's thing, but I
don't know why. Maybe it was one of those HBO
things that I just saw over and over. But I
still love that original that eighties Albert Finney, Carol Burnett,

(17:24):
Tim Curry. Yeah, I can't I can't remember who played Annie,
but she was so iconic for me. I would also
look into that. I wonder if she's gone on to
do other things. I know the name well, I mean
I've even looked out recently and she she still looks
the same and still it is like, you know, very
much capitalizing on being Annie. Well, I mean it's something
she should yeah, yeah, um yeah, that that's my I

(17:45):
think my it's one of my earliest memories. I don't
have my dates right, but but I also remember seeing
Empire Strikes Back at It at the drive in that
used to be outside my hometown. I think the only
film I ever saw there, but it was it was big,
big on the big screen Space Battles and so that
was great. Yeah. I was able to get the original

(18:07):
Star Wars in as a six year old. So, uh,
what about movies? Is like in the house and did
you do like family movie night you had the VCR
going or was mom kind of like really it's weird.

(18:29):
Um My dad was was the kingpin of entertainment in
the house. If he wasn't watching it, we didn't watch it.
You know. He held the control. Yeah, he held the
control all the time. So you know, if I didn't
want to watch Night Court and Cheers at night with him,
I'd be upstairs reading like he just you can't ask
him to change the channel. That's fine, that's it was

(18:51):
his house. He was at least in the Yeah, yeah, um,
but he had a lot of VCR He actually had
two beta Matt players as well, but early, yeah, earlier after,
but I remember him having a lot of videotaped copies
of Burt Reynolds movies, Cannonball nine to five. I don't
think Burt Reynolds is at nine five, but but that's

(19:12):
got a lot of buzz lately because they're I think
they're remaking. Yeah, I just saw that. I don't know
quite how to feel, because that original nine to five
is so great. Well there, The talk is that the
three gals will come back in Dully Parton, Jane Fonda
and Lily Tomlin. I think we'll come back and be
in it. It said it would be just other parts.
I don't know. I don't know. It's it's interesting, interesting.

(19:34):
I like it when that happens, Like the new Mary
Poppins movies. You know, Dick van Dyke is going to
be in it. No, and I saw that the trailer
for that just dropped, but I haven't seen it yet.
It's like one of those little teasers that doesn't give
you much. But I love Emily Blunt and I think
that's inspired casting as and why not because it's not
a remake it and it's like a Further Adventures of
kind of thing, like a weird sequel thing. Yeah. So, um,

(19:57):
it's funny because those aren't the cleanest movies. Cannonball Run
is not a no, it was It would be like
a PG thirteen today probably Caddi Shack, you know, things
that fall into this realm. My dad would have watched,
and so I love it. So Mom probably did not
approve of that, Probably not, but it was okay with Dad. Yeah,

(20:17):
because Dad was okay with it. I got to watch
some of it, right, Yeah, I gotcha. Um, well, man,
let's start talking about the village. Yeah, let's let's let
me say this too. When I got in touch of
you about doing this um in your life here in
Atlanta to point out to everybody, um, you said the

(20:38):
village and being a lord listener, Immediately I just thought, oh, well,
of course, of course it's a village. What if you
would have said nine to five? I would have been shocked, right,
But it just seemed to fit, um, kind of everything
about you, especially after hanging out today and hearing just
kind of what you're into. This is like the ven

(20:59):
diagreem am like, as you said earlier, aligns perfectly in
one circle and the village I think, wouldn't it a
circle on the cover? Why do I want to say
the movie poster I can was like to the circlers
I've got on my iPad right here. But this is
from two thousand four from M Night Shamlan starring William Hurts,

(21:21):
Corney Weaver, great cast, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrian Brodie, Bryce Stylis Howard,
Brendan Gleeson who was always great, She's so good, a
young Judy Greer, and I noticed even a young Jesse
eisen Yes, like in the background almost he doesn't have
a last name. I think his character is just Jamison, right,
but he's in there and he has some dialogue and yeah,

(21:42):
and I mean I know he's younger, but it just
looks like Jesse Eisenberg is ing out in the cast. Yeah,
it's great. It's a little uh Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, yeah,
I didn't realize until rewatching it last night that he
was in it. Um And this is the one two
output from M Night Shamelin. Yeah, and I think it

(22:03):
helps like we're going to frame this in the context
of his career as we go. I think, yeah, because
he's a really interesting filmmaker and that he's done some
He started out so strong and then I think most
people agree at some point made some pretty bad movies,
and I think most people agree he's kind of come
back now lately. So I haven't seen Split, so I

(22:25):
can't I can't comment on the comeback stuff, but I've
heard really good things about it. It was definitely better
than the ones that preceded it. Yeah, I I've watched,
you know, I think it was what was the first
Bruce Millis movie with him, six six Cents. That was
that was kind of set the tone, and that was

(22:46):
It's a hard act to follow. It was so brilliant
with that twist at the end that nobody was expecting.
I think the idea of the twist at the end
has become a lot more used. It was very novel
at the time. It was not that a twist had
never been in a movie, but to that degree, it
was all the buzz right for sure. Yeah, So when
the twist happens and it reframes the entire movie, when

(23:08):
you at that point, you almost have to go back
and rewatch it, you know, which is a kind of
a great little director's trick. It is as far as
getting people to see your thing twice exactly. Yeah, you
should make podcast because then you get twice the downloads exactly.
Um so so yeah, I remember watching all the way
through up until um is the Lady in the Lady
in the Water. Lady and Water was right after the Village. Yeah,

(23:31):
and I think by most people's accounts, that's kind of
when the slide started. I liked that movie. I didn't
say lad in the Water. That's it has a lot
to do with belief in folklore and how we keep
things alive through our belief in the um, which is
you know, you've got American gods echoing that theme as
well these days from New Gameman and the TV show

(23:53):
that the gods draw their powers from those who believe
in them, and the new gods of media have supplanted
the old odds of the old world. And I haven't
seen that yet. Good Um, I haven't seen the show.
Although anything Jillian Anderson makes is brilliant. Yea, the novel
is amazing if if if you're not a paper book person,
the multicast audiobook of that is absolutely amazing. Yeah, you're

(24:17):
into the audiobooks. Huh, I am, yeah, but I'm an
audio guy. Well, but you are too write, you know.
I think I've only listened to one audiobook in my life,
on a road trip years ago. Yeah. I don't know
why I should because it's a great Because I mean,
I went through a couple of years where I read
a ton like literally read like twenty five or between

(24:38):
books in a year, and then I didn't read for
eight years at all. Well, so I need to kind
of find a nice balance where I read five or
six books a year. Yeah, I'm in I'm in a
drought right now. You can't read while you're writing, and
I write all the time these days, so it's it's
really and and my brain is tired after reading research

(24:59):
and all that. So I might throw on a fiction,
you know, just some sort of a novel that it's
more like candy. Like right now, I'm listening to Artemist
by Andy Weirs and it's great. Yeah, it's good. Um,
Rosario Dawson does the narration. She's just some great accents
and it's just the one person audiobook. But it's good.

(25:19):
But for the most part, I'm kind of I'm kind
of dry right now. Alright, so six cents, good movie. Unbreakable,
really really good. Unbreakable is so great. Yeah, and I
think for fans of his that's sort of like one
of the tops, if not the top. Yeah, and they're
continuing that story too. Yeah. Again, I haven't seen Split,

(25:42):
but I've heard it's continuation in some sense, like right,
I think the world gets extended in some way. And
then he's wrapped up editing on Glass, which if you've
seen a Breakable that the name resonates well with Mr Glass. Yeah. So, um,
I'm excited to see what he does with it. Okay,
so he's he's shot that, then I think he shot

(26:04):
and edited it, but they're holding onto it for a
few months. Interesting. Yeah, Okay, well I'm excited about that.
Signs bugged me, yeah, yeah, just in the asking a
bit too much, in the suspension of the belief department.
I think I haven't seen it since then, so if

(26:26):
I remember correctly, I ended up being a little bugged
by all of the um, the way it wrapped up
so neatly, with all the little things coming together, like
the little girl's water glasses that she wouldn't finish playing
into the the way it resolved its story, and it

(26:49):
just felt like everything was a little too cutely packaged.
Resolution wise, you like some loose ends, not even that.
I just it might have been starting my burnout on
in my chapel in at that point. Yeah, if I
remember correctly, did you love it? It's not a favorite
of mine. I didn't think it was a bad movie.

(27:12):
But then again, I jump on and look at the
Village reviews online, even if you know they're fourteen years old. Um,
evidently not a lot of people like that one either. Well,
why all right, well's get into the Village. Then do
you remember your first experience with it? I don't, actually,

(27:33):
and there's a reason for that, because I think I
enjoyed it so much that we've incorporated it into family tradition.
To me, the Village is an autumn movie. It feels
like the Fall, the coloring, the setting. So every autumn
we have a Village viewing party and we invite friends over.

(27:56):
It's kind of potluck. Everybody brings a dish, dessert and whatever,
and we've got like sticks with red berries on them,
great the table, and it's it's great. And then we
all get quiet and we play the movie. And then
afterwards consistently for a decade. We've done this for ten years. Uh,
there's about a good hour hour and a half of
conversation afterwards about the movie. Really always a new layer

(28:19):
that unfolds where we see things people before. There are
some who have been there for most of them, but
then there's always you know, that new couple that you
meet or a friend of a friend who has heard
the movie as good but has never seen it. Becomes
this place where people come to see it for the
first time among people who love it and like the
conversation is is is bolstered by having fresh takes and

(28:44):
then run on the across the room. You've got people
who have seen it sometimes and they've also seen a
new thing, but they're all different and wow, yeah it's
really cool. How do I get on that list? Man?
We'll put you on. You got a kind of Boston though,
which I live closer. Um, what what do you call
that is? Does have a name? Just the village party? Okay, yeah,
I got you nothing fancy, not the village people. Nobody's

(29:06):
dressed up as a cop to be confusing. Um, So,
like I said, great cast, I mean William hurt like
I could. You don't get enough of that guy anymore,
you know, Yeah, I mean he's just I feel like,
growing up he was in a lot more stuff, and
I just wish he was still all over the place. Yeah,
And in him in the Village, that role, and especially

(29:31):
the last third of the movie, he where he just
comes alive as this passionate, um torn man, and it's
I don't know that I've ever seen him that powerful
in a role before. There there's a there's a scene
in the movie later on and I don't know how,
how do you want to go go into this? But

(29:51):
all of these are gonna this whole movie is gonna
be or this whole episode is gonna have spoilers. So
I think most people know that, but just check out
now if you don't want to be spoiled. But there's
the scene at the end where he is imploring the
other elders. He's presented his plan Ivy is going to
go off and do this, and they're, you know, they're pissed,

(30:12):
and and he just there's his speech where he's he's
just preaching to them about why this is the It
might not be a good idea, but it's the only
idea and it's the best idea, and that there's there's
a difference there, and either right before or right after.
He's also having the same conversation with his wife, and
they're kind of they're not having the same conversation as

(30:33):
each other. He's he's trying to defend his choice and
she's trying to get a message across without actually saying
the words. And he's so good. It's such a masterful performance. Yeah,
And I think, Um, I think because this movie, like
I tried to watch it through fresh eyes last night.
I don't think I had seen it since back in
the day, and I don't think I saw in the

(30:55):
theater then. Um, So I tried to just like you know,
be larassa my brain and going with fresh eyes. And
I think I liked it more good last night than before.
For sure. Yeah. In fact, I know I did, because
I started paying attention more just to sort of the
craft of the movie. Um. And I think before the

(31:18):
whole twist thing, it was starting to bug me from
m night, So I was I was. I think I
went into it looking for this twist and thinking this
is what this guy does, and so I think I
figured it out early on and that bothered me. Had
you forgotten the twist last night like before when you
sat down last night to watch it? Oh, I knew

(31:40):
you remembered it, sure, Sure, So I was able to
sort of put that annoyance aside and go into it
and just say, hey, let me look at the craft
of this movie. Um. And I started noticing, like the
cinematography and the great use of color, the color palette
in this movie, and it's just so atmospheric, moody, and
he really really set a tone that I appreciated last night,

(32:05):
whereas I didn't before. I think, absolutely, yeah, there's a
m There are the tools that were used to seeing
Filmmakers used to get across a mood or um or
a conflict, and it's usually dialogue and music. And I
think he dips into deeper dimensions in this film where
colors that you might you know, they set up early

(32:28):
that red is the bad color. You see the two
young ladies, you know, just goofing off while they're cleaning
and they notice a red flower and they pull it
up and they bury it in the yard and then
they they're kind of so disturbed they just go back
to cleaning with no play Uh. And and that's almost
immediately sets that tone for for red being the bad color.
And then that way later on he doesn't even have
to point out the red or they don't even have

(32:49):
to have the bad you know, the creature, the bad
guy or whatever dressed in red. You can just have
the protagonist standing in a forest and red is around
her dread as as a viewer creeps over you. Nobody
has to tell you, Yeah, the color does it for you. Yeah.
It's like he sort of sets these rules, um, for

(33:12):
the colors, like the the good color was the sort
of goldish yellow. Um. And you know there's obvious allusions
to like little red riding hood going on as the
story progresses. One of the great great stories. Um. But
he says he's rules up a with the kind of
the colors and be with the rules of the the
What was the place called that they lived? Um? Something

(33:33):
can not Connecticut woods. Uh, Covington Covington Woods. Um. You
know that they have this arrangement where they are these
um creatures, these monsters that live in the woods. We
live in this clearing. They don't bother us, We don't
bother them. Essentially, don't go in the woods. Everything will
be fine. So he establishes those ground rules and then

(33:53):
it's fun to see that sort of get undone and
the tension build as it plays. Yeah. Um, I feel
that one of the biggest themes through this movie is
the idea of community and maintaining the balance of community
versus going off, going rogue, going going on your own

(34:17):
and setting your own path. And in the community of
Covington in this movie is built around this idea that
everyone is a team player who works together and we
we we do what's always been done because that's what's
always been done, and we just this is tradition, so
respecting those we don't speak of and that kind of thing. Um.
And then and and and so one of the viewing

(34:40):
parties that we had, we had a couple they were
there only were for one year, but the husband and
wife and and m Catherine Um. She had a master's
degree in piano, high level music education with an understanding
of an ear and understanding for what's going on in

(35:01):
a film that most people don't pay attention to. But
the person who scored the film, you knew was paying
attention to that stuff. And at the end of the
film she said, you know, throughout most of the movie,
and I don't remember the term she used, which is
going to ruin part of this, but she said, a
lot of the music that was used was it was
just melody. It was it was everybody kind of playing along.
But whenever Um Ivy was on screen or Lucius was

(35:24):
on screen, UM, and to some extent when Noah Percy,
Adrian Brodie's character was brilliant. When they're on screen, the
music becomes more independent and solo oriented. It goes off
script essentially. And with the music, she said, it's like
they were trying to tell you that there's people playing
along as a community, and then there are people who

(35:46):
are bucking the system. And we learn with the movie
that that's both good and bad. You know, bucking the
system worked great for you know, Ivy leaving the town
and going to get the medicines and all that kind
of thing. But at the same time, bucking the system
led to Adrian Brodie's character of screwing everything up right, which, yeah,
we'll get to that in a little more detail. I

(36:07):
think it's really interesting too that with this viewing party
to get perspectives like that from these people who have
various whatever professional backgrounds or interests. Yeah, it's really interesting.
It's it's been neat. I mean we've got a number
of social workers who are friends of ours and so
they come into that with that Lens. Having a musician
in the room has been great. I'm a professional storyteller,

(36:28):
so I'm always looking for other things in different than
other people in the room are. It's like running a
really long term, very tightly focused focus group. Yeah. You know,
every year we get maybe four or five new responses
to to the movie. That's so awesome. But but it
presents the movie in a very new way. Every time

(36:48):
I just I see something else. Somebody says, did you
notice this? And I'll say, no, I I've seen it
ten or eleven or twelve times, but no, I've not
seen that part. I noticed that detailing. Do you know
who would love this in my channeling? Yeah, the fact
that you're doing this. Do you know him? Have you been?
Does he know about this? I've I invited him over
Twitter once. I don't know him. He doesn't know me.

(37:09):
So I was just some I was some rando on Twitter.
Maybe will get out there. Yeah, I mean you're in
the business now, Yeah, you're in the TV bizz uh So,
I mean, I think everyone's seen the movie by now,
but you know this community of people in the woods,
the monster dwells, um, things start falling apart when Lucius

(37:30):
Joaquin Phoenix, who's great and everything ever, Um, there's there's
a truly creepy stabbing scene where who's Adrian Birdie's character. Yeah,
we're no h stabs Lucius. But it's done in such
a it's it's done in a way that I've never
seen a stabbing done on screen, which is say, off camera,

(37:54):
very quiet, and you just see this sort of Joaquin
Phoenix turns around and then makes a sort of face
and looks down and there's a knife in his belly. Yeah.
Would you don't hear anything? No, it's so unsettling the
way he did that. Yeah, I've never I've never sat
down and processed why Shamalan would present the stabbing in

(38:16):
that way. But it's it's it's I feel like it's
like on the back of my brain. I can feel
the symbolism on it. I just haven't nailed it down yet.
There's just something about that that you never see the
knife going you don't you don't even hear a response
from Lucius that he's been stabbed. You just you see
his face and it kind of twists and then he
looks down and then that's when the camera does a

(38:38):
shot down and it is it is because there was
no warning. Um. Yeah, Well I've got some questions too,
since you're you're clearly the man to go to. Um,
why did he stab him? I didn't quite get that,

(38:58):
So he's uh fully challenged. Was it because he loved Ivy?
I think it was. It came directly after the announcement
that Ivy and Lucius were to be married, and I
thought it. Yeah. And there's a lot of scenes of Ivy,
who is blind but also the daughter of kind of

(39:20):
the leader of the community, so she's in some ways
she is more empowered than anyone else in the village.
In other ways she's less empowered because of her, you know,
lack of sight. She makes claims of being able to
see the colors in certain people. Um, some sort of
sixth cents that she might have. Yeah, I see that.

(39:46):
But when you see her interacting with the community the most,
she's actually just playing with with Noah Percy, who's you know,
because of his disabilities. He's like a large child. We
see them playing hid and sea in in tag and
things like that, and and she acts like a mother
in some ways, but in other ways she's just really
good friend. I think right after hearing that they've been,

(40:07):
you know, they've planned to get married, I don't think
there was actually an engagement. I keep wanting to use
that word. You know, they just announced their intentions to
get married. Um, that's when he stabbed Lucious. Yeah. It
felt to me like a just a very innocent um
like he didn't he doesn't know why he did it,
but just like I want to make this I want

(40:28):
to stop this thing. Yeah, and and I don't know
how to do it other than to put this sharp
thing and and make him go away. Yeah, you know.
And there's the there are. What we learned later on
is that when the creatures step out of the woods,
creature singular I guess, steps out of the woods into

(40:48):
the village and there's actually Noah. He's found to costume
one of the outfits, and he is kind of creeping
in and acting out the stories that he's heard all
his life. Right, And I want to go back and
watch it again with this notion of does he do
it in response to interactions between Ivy and Lucius. You know,
there's the scene on the porch at night where they finally,

(41:10):
you know, express their love for each other. And it's
a beautiful scene because it's shot from behind and there's
a lot of long, quiet shots as to turn the
volume really high up to hear that scene because they
talk so low and quietly. Um, it's a very um
it's a scene with space visually audibly, there's a lot
of space. And I want to say it's directly after

(41:33):
that moment that it's like the next day or the
next night or something that that Adrian Brodie's character puts
that costume on, does that big thing like where he
goes door to door and then walks. She's waiting in
the doorway for Lucius to come help her, and at
the very last moment he slips in and then they
see the creature's hand and yeah, I love that scene. Yeah,

(41:54):
that's a great scene. One of the other just creepy shots.
I mean, I will say this about m Night is
he will he can he can compose a shot that
just for some reason makes the hair on your next
stand up. And one of the ones was when when
the three of the teenagers boys or whatever we're um,

(42:15):
one of them was standing on the stump, yeah, by
the edge of the woods, playing the game by firelight
with his arms outstretched. And there's something about the composition.
I've got chills right now. There's something about the composition
of that shot lit by the torches. Maybe it's the
distance of the camera away. Uh, I mean, it's literally
the composition of that shot is creepy. It is because

(42:36):
the camera's kind of far back and you're just waiting
for something to just very quickly snatch that guy off
the log, right, which doesn't happen. But it's all about
that build up of the anticipation of that. Yeah, there's
nothing that happens quickly in that movie, but you're constantly
thinking that something will because our our modern horror brains

(42:57):
are wired for the monster's gonna grab and run really quickly,
and it never happens. Um. There's the scene when the
one of the one of the young men is up
in the watch tower, and so many of the scenes
are shot at night at the edge of the forest
with this torch is burning, and it's there's a lot
of darkness. Of course, it's a as it's intended to
be like a nineteenth century village, and so there's no

(43:19):
electricity and everything's just dead black. And he hears the
thump at the base of the either at the base
of the watch tower or as if somebody had come
up and thumped on the door, and he's frightened out
of his wits for a second. And finally he peels
that trapdoor up to look down at the ground, and
instead of something like lurching up into the opening or

(43:43):
showing its face right, you just see the creature at
a medium pace just passed through the opening down below,
like it's just it's walking along the ground and you
just see it passed by. And that's that's that's that's
as frightening as it gets. But it's it happens. It's
so shocking, and then he has to step back and
and process that for a moment before he can even

(44:04):
do what he's supposed to do, which is ring the
bell and alert the village. It's okay, yeah, I mean
you could tell that that he was definitely it was
almost like, hey, let me try and experiment and like
twists and turns aside, let me try and experiment with
color and sound and in pacing. Uh, that you don't

(44:25):
see a lot of So I have a lot of
respect for for him doing that. Very cool. So after
the stabbing, Um, that kind of sets the what ultimately
will resolve the movie in motion that whole third act,
and William hurt As as the father of Ivy lets
her in on what as an in night fan, you think, oh,

(44:47):
here's the twist. There is no creature. They have made
this story up to keep people from leaving the community. Um,
and there is no creature. So as the first time
viewer who knows there's probably some twist coming, think all right,
well that's probably it. Now we got to the twist.
It was kind of a clever little bait and switch.
It is. I've ever thought of it that way though,
I never thought of that as the twist. Yeah, but

(45:09):
you're right, it is. It is the twist you think
you get. It is a twist. It is a twist,
but it's not twist, capital capital T twist. Yeah, that's
a good way to say it. But that starts her
in motion too, uh, in a very red riding hood
way to set off into the woods. Um, it was
about say by herself, but Originally she has two dudes

(45:30):
with her yeah yeah, drop out out of fear right,
one of them right at the start one people walk
in the woods with her um the other one. It's
interesting because William Hurts character not only reveals to her, look,
we've invented those we don't speak of, and has her,
as a blind woman touch the costume right and which,

(45:53):
by the way, the costume is truly great. I want
to get back to that earmark that um the monster
and general, but also the costom. So she's in on it,
but nobody else is in on it, right except the elders.
The elders know the handful of adults who started the community.
So now she's going to go into the woods and walk,

(46:14):
following his instructions to go find the villages or the
towns as they call it, the towns um and and
there are people coming along who are not in on it,
and so they've had to invent new folklore to give
the others confidence. So she has this bag of rocks
and it's the most clumsy folklore. And I don't know

(46:35):
if it's clumsy intentionally, Like Shamalan thought, what's a very
not believable bit of folklore to throw at these people
because we need them to not believe it, or if
it's just unintentionally, it's just stupid. But it's a bag
of rocks that they're supposed to be magic that keep
those we don't speak of a way, Well, why didn't
we know about these rocks before? Why weren't we using
them as a weapon before? Can't me whatever? And so

(46:56):
one of them won't even come in, just doesn't think
it's right. But the other comes in and I think
they like sit in the rain overnight and it's freezing,
and and and he he questions the rocks and you
know why, I've never heard of this before. And the
moment he leaves and abandons her, she just kind of
dumps that bag out, you know, and it's it's almost
like all the hope was false. But but all the

(47:19):
hope is gone. Now she's on her own. There's no companionship,
there's no help. We can just have a blind woman
in the woods in the winter and making her way
to an uncertain place. Never it's the place she's never
been before, right, it's not mapped out in her mind,
like she knows most of the village as a blind
woman and you know the number of steps and all
that stuff. Um real quick though with the first guy

(47:40):
that drops out, sort of had another shot that was
composed the way he shot that scene where he won't
even enter the woods, so he's sort of in the
distance and they're talking to him. Um, that was a
creepy shot that I felt very much felt like the
way it was just set up, like someone's gonna run
and grab him. Yeah in the second now and then
of course never happens. Shanalan does a lot with that

(48:01):
border between the edge of the woods in the open
field through the movie, where you you really do feel
that you're standing on the border between safety and danger.
And there's that scene earlier on in the movie where
Lucius is kind of testing the boundaries because he's one
of those independent rogue He walks and he walks in
a bit, and I love how that's shot where he

(48:24):
hears sounds like we can see his face and he
hears cracking in the woods. So clearly either an elder
is patrolling the area in the costume or Adrian Brodie's
characters out there for the costume, and you do you
only get enough to know that he is stepping back
out of the woods at the right time, because if
he had stayed in there, he would have encountered the creature. Um,

(48:47):
I can't remember if we see we see something past
behind a tree, like you catch a glimpse of red,
and he just kind of there's no nonsense on us face.
He just turns around and just as slowly as he
came in, he walks back. Now he doesn't run, He
just he walks back out, very calmly. But there there
are a lot of shots where you're looking on that

(49:08):
tree line right where the forest is on your left
and the mist filled field isign your right. It's just
it's creepy, it's beautiful. I love it. Yeah. Should we
talk about the monster in the costume? I want to. Yeah,
those we don't speak of. And what I love is
that they create this folklore and and this is what
it is. I mean, it's folklore. It's new, but it's

(49:31):
it's stories told to teach, to warn, to guard people
from certain things. They've gone as far as to um
base it on drawings that they found on rocks on
the outskirts of the community, because the drawings were there
before them. I think he goes on later when he's
explaining this to Ivy that they had they had found

(49:53):
the drawings and they used them to kind of fuel
this folklore. So Jama films all of his movies in Philadelphia, outskirts,
in town, in town, and whatever. Like he's a Pennsylvania guy,
which I find creatively very intriguing because it creates limits.
You can only do so much in one place. But

(50:13):
that's where he loves to do it. Pennsylvania falls into
the the realm of Native American tribes called the Algonquin,
and the Algonquin nation has a lot of like a
lot of like every culture, they have a lot of folklore.
And one of the creatures in their folklore this is
this is what I do it for a living, right? So,

(50:34):
um is this this little creature called the puckwag. And
a puckag is supposed to be half the size of
a human, kind of humanoid in shape, but pig like
in the face, and often has porcupine quills on it.
It's how it's often described Native American folklore. And this
would have been you know, puckagi territory in a sense, right,

(50:56):
And so to find a creature drawn on a rack,
I just wonder like somebody I want to be all
to pin Shamalan down and say, here's the story of
the puck Wedgie. Did this influence the creation? I mean,
we're talking about a hog like face with tusks quills
on the back that come through the red cave, and

(51:17):
it totally feels like it. You know, it's just if
you're gonna put a grown human inside of a costume,
it has to be human sized and not half sized.
So that that's always been my working theory. I've never
read it anywhere. I've never never had it confirmed, but
you're right. But I love the outfit, like that whole costume,
and I've never seen a costplay version of it. I've

(51:38):
never seen anybody create their own don't think costume, and
I would love I would love to see that. Somebody
out there's kind of seen Helloween a couple of comic
con It's a creepy costume. I would love that. Yeah,
so why have you made one? I'm not good at that.
Someday I'm going to meet Adam Savage and I'm just
gonna be like, all, look, this is this is your

(52:01):
white whale. You don't know it. This is the one
you're looking for. I've met him a couple of times,
all right, connect me. I've been to that his layer.
Oh I'm jealous, dude. It's amazing. And uh kind's surprised
that he doesn't have one of those hanging out in
the corner. It's it just it looks like the costume
that requires the skills of somebody who has has done
this many many times. He's the candidate for that. But

(52:23):
that that's my do a shitty version. No, I don't.
It'd be like me in in you know, brown sweatpants
with the red cake, you know, and so you want
to sun any morning and yeah, exactly, yeah, and a
pig shaped mask. Um. That's my theory on that is
that that that there's actually some local folklore, real life
playing into the creation of that creature. And I bet
this is no accident. Yeah, it can't be. I bet

(52:45):
you're gonna get your answer one day too, I hope.
So that's what I see. Uh So, Ivy makes her
way to the wall that she is told by her father,
you know, he gives her directions basically on how to
get out of there. She finds her way to the
wall and makes her way over and climbs over the
ivy that that's true, um, And actually I kind of
forgot as this is going on, he's sort of inter

(53:07):
cutting U. The big reveal, um, which is that they
it is modern times. They have formed this community because
each of the elders or the adults there um had
suffered some sort of violent trauma in their life and
met at a at a group counseling session, and William
hurt through voiceover, we learned his hats this idea to

(53:30):
remove themselves from the threats of the modern world. Which
it's kind of a great twist it is. It bugged
me at the time. I don't know why. Maybe it
was my age of the mood I was in that day.
But last night I was like, you know what, this
is pretty great as a reveal. Absolutely, it's a community
of people who are so hurt by the world around

(53:51):
them that they choose to withdraw from that world and
create their own fantasy. Yeah, and live in that like,
and live in that family in generational levels. Yeah, but
not only live in that fantasy, like I get. I
think what struck me last night was not only like,
of course they have to keep it up when they're
around everyone else. But when they're in the room just together,
they don't go, Okay, so what are we gonna do here?

(54:14):
Like things are getting weird, Like they stay in the
in the So that's a lot it is, you know.
I think it speaks to the amount of pain they
went through. You know that that's the the impetus for
for running away. Did this giant cosplay game because they
didn't have to go back in time necessarily, although that

(54:36):
really makes it full proof as far as no communication
on the outside world. Yeah, I get the impression from
the photo they show in that cut scene that it
was maybe mid to late seventies when they met up
and they hatched this plan. So you're talking about a
world that was pre internet, you know, pre personal computer.
But we have electricity, we have automobiles, you know, so

(54:58):
it eight cents. I think they went back to the nineties.
The opening scene is a funeral, yeah, for um, the
son of Brennan Gleason's character, and the tombstone. I think
it says something like or whatever. It's just kind of
off screen. Yeah, I mean, so they're visually lying to

(55:21):
you right away, right that it's not that they hinted
at it with costum in tradition. No, they put a
date right there on the on the you know, the tombstone.
So yeah, like the only he didn't do is put
the chiron on the bottom of the screen that says like,
here's the year right right. Yeah, maybe that was what
you know, a bridge too far. I don't know. Probably
he got it in there though he did, so they

(55:41):
revealed this kind of great reveal and then in inter
cutting it, I think it was pretty smart the way
he did it, intercutting it with Ivy getting over the wall,
the ivy wall, and hearing a car siren from this
park ranger right, which immediately like she knows the one reveal,
which is there are no creatures, but she's still doesn't
know that it's modern times. Yeah, and well, what we've

(56:02):
missed between her leaving the village to walk into the
woods and reaching the ivy colored covered fence is that
she encounters the creature. Oh well, of course that that
Noah Percy has he's been imprisoned in his like quiet
room at his parents house, but that's the room where
in a trapdoor beneath the floor they keep the costume,

(56:23):
which he has found. He's then escaped the house and
he's off in the woods following after her. Essentially. Yeah,
so that was my question for you is is he
is he trying to kill her? I think just keep
her from leaving. I think he's trying to keep her
from leaving. I think he's playing. When he puts that
costume on, he really believes he's he's the creature, and

(56:43):
I think he's playing with her. But to her, she's
being chase. She's blind, she can't see anything, so she
can't see it's clearly a human in a costume, right,
But she hears very odd noises, she's being chased, and
at some point is able to kill the creature. Although
I don't think she knows she's killed it. She knows
that there's a hole in the ground and uses that

(57:06):
mental map in her head to lead it back to
that hole where it falls in. And she has they
touched on this at the very end. She fought the
creature in one and so even though she's been told
by her father that there are no creatures, everybody's going
to believe now that while Ivy was out doing this

(57:29):
amazing task, she encountered the creature and she made it real,
and she made it real, She lived it out completely. Yeah,
so when she by the time she reaches that ivy
covered fence that separates the reserve from the road. Um,
you don't know where she's at mentally, right, because she,
you know, everything has been her world has been upended. Yeah,

(57:50):
what did you think? Do you think that she because
she was being stalked by creature that she was just
told didn't exist. Yeah. I sort of thought, as someone
who hasn't seen it, you know, fifteen times, that maybe
she thinks the creature is real and that her father
may have been lying to her to get her just
to go do this thing. Yeah. I've never thought of
it that way, But that's actually because they don't express that.

(58:11):
But I can see her believing that that maybe he
gave me the false confidence that it was safe to
go through the woods. But she's lived her whole life
believing in this thing, right, and it's just told that
it's not real. But then is clearly being stalked by
this thing. Yeah, kind of a uh kind of mind sex. Yes,
I don't want to say yeah, yeah, the bad word,

(58:33):
although I do curse on here don't a wine? That
felt weird to saying that it's really strange. Mind Sex.
That's my new band name, mind Sex. So she gets
over the wall, she is found by the park ranger guy. Um,

(58:53):
this is kind of one of my only big beefs
with the movie. Is I thought that that casting of
that guy, I thought he was not too great. And
then the the the gratuitous insertion of m Night into
his own movies always has bugged me, is it really? Yeah,
it's the same with Tarantino. For me, I don't mind.
I never minded Hitchcock, but I don't know. It always
takes me out of the movie. I think that that's

(59:13):
what bugs me about it because that's the point every
time I watch it that I'm looking back at the
people around me and I say, that's the guy that
wrote and directed the movie. You know. If you don't
know that, then it's fun. Yeah. Um, but he's not
a good actors and always in the same with Tarantino,
it always just immediately sucks me out of the movie.
I can see that, but that's just my personal Yeah.

(59:35):
I Um, I respect that desire to be in the
story to some degree. It's it's it's a bit part
I can see from the cast team perspective, you know,
do we want to bring in pay somebody, you know,
to do what? It was like two minutes on screen,
hold a newspaper and give a couple of warnings to

(59:56):
the junior park ranger. Yeah, and you never see his
face except in the reflection of the medicine cabinet. Yeah. Yeah,
and you're always wondering, is it gonna look up and
notice what the guy's doing and he doesn't. Yeah, that
was a little Yeah, but I he guys like four
ft away stealing like vials of of injectables. Yeah. He
was a very awkward That character, the junior park ranger

(01:00:18):
was very awkward. I feel like so awkward that I
wouldn't have I wouldn't have been able to keep the
newspaper up and just talk through it. I would have
had to put it down and be like, dude, why
are you high? What are you doing? So another question here?
Then um he said something about um. I think the
exposition gets a little clumsy there, but it was the

(01:00:40):
wrap up, so I'll forgiven for that. But he says
something about it being a no fly zone that some
rich guy had paid like that. That's the part I
never quite understood. William Hurt's character the his his story,
his tragedy of getting in was that his father was
killed by a business associate. Okay, his father was a

(01:01:01):
billionaire because the reserve is named after him, right right,
gotcha Walker the Walker Reserve. So William Walker, William Walker,
Edward Walker, Edward Walker's father, William Hurt, Edward Walker. Whatever. Um.
I would assume that he inherits his father's billions, and
he uses that money to set up the trust, set

(01:01:23):
up the reserve, and then whatever other political mechanisms need
to go in a place like no fly zones reserve
that place. Okay, I think I missed the money party,
because then it all makes sense. Yeah, money, you can
do whatever, you can do whatever. Yeah. Um, that's that's
the world. They wouldn't have been able to live for
much longer because at some point satellite photography jumps into

(01:01:46):
our world Google maps, and how do you how do
you manage that keeping people from you know, satellites go
around the Earth constantly updating their photos. It's got to
be like wakonda, have you seen panthere? I haven't seen
it yet. Did they cover that degree? Well? There? You know.
The idea is that there's a false jungle canopy. Okay,

(01:02:09):
it keeps the cameras from seeing things. Yeah, they wouldn't
have been able to do that because they were like
out in the middle of an open field. So I
think at some point the jig was up. Uh. Yeah,
the jig was definitely up. But she gets the medicine,
she goes back, she's able to save and well, there's
also that powerful moment when she's gone and Adrian Brodie's

(01:02:30):
Noah has been killed and the parents is a very
sad scene that I can't remember the actress's name. She's
great though, she's been in a bunch of stuff over
the years. Which one that plays Noah's mother, Brindan Gleason's wife. Oh,
she's terrific. She's yeah, she's been all over the place
over the years. But um, where they basically are like
is this is this the end of it? Here? Like

(01:02:51):
what do we want to do? And um, it's it's
a pretty powerful scene where they all cast their vote
by standing with uh, with Walker or with William Hurt. Yeah,
and Sigourney Weaver's characters the first to stand up. Yeah,
and basically like no, you know, we're gonna we're gonna

(01:03:11):
keep doing it, right, and at this point they've sacrificed
human life to maintain the facade, right, so it's even
more important to keep going. And she gets back with
the medicine, right, and then we never know what happens? Well,
we don't know. Well that's true. Fair point. I thought, well,
of course he saved. But yeah, it ends on a
on a bit of an ambiguous note. Yeah, what it

(01:03:33):
was her sort of last thing. I think she just
says I've returned, and then and then it cuts Yeah,
I would, I mean, you're complaining against signs I think
was too many things buttoned up? Yeah, they certainly didn't

(01:03:54):
button up enough things, or to button up everything with
the village. And I like that. I like that there's
that open ended what happened? Does does the marriage and
future of Ivy and Lucius? Do they become the new Elders?
Did they maintain the forest, they patrol in the costume,
keep the secret? Yeah, because you do get a sense
of like, how long can this go on? Right? Um,

(01:04:16):
there's got to be an end point at some point.
But they've managed to raise one generation through there. I
mean some of these they look like late teens, early
twenties at least yeah. I mean Lucius is a baby
in the photo from them in the seventies. He looks
like he's who knows how old he's supposed to be
in the story he's but you get the feeling like
seventeen to twenty years have passed. Yeah, probably, I think

(01:04:39):
so a couple of decades. I have questions about, like
the practical nature of their community. Where did they get
this done? Like there's a lot of stonework in these houses,
beautiful beautiful stone, you know, so did they hire somebody
who is skilled in in in you know, mid to
late eighteenth century stonemasonry, and then she didn't forget about

(01:05:02):
then or knock them off, you know and dump them
in the woods, Like how did they handle this? Yeah?
I think this is one of those movies where you
definitely like you don't need to look too closely, right
because the cracks might show a little bit. Yeah but sure,
yeah there's some stuff like that, right, but who cares, right,
it's a movie. Yeah? Uh, well, great man, that was awesome.
So we finished here with a couple of segments. Um

(01:05:24):
actually I had usually do trivia. The only bit of
trivia I have in here was that um Ashton Kutcher,
was originally cast as Noah, really dropped out due to scheduling,
and I think we can all be thankful for that.
We can be very thankful. Uh. There were some other
actors that they named that may have but I think
he was actually um going to shoot the movie, which
would have been pretty bad. So leading up to the promotion, well,

(01:05:46):
I guess part of the promotion leading up to the
premiere of this movie, the Sci Fi Channel ran this
like two hour special on m night Shamalan that it
involved a documentary team that was getting access to go
to the the site, which now looking back, I knowe
it was like the open village community area. You know,
all the houses were around. They were going to go
there to interview him, and they did, and he was

(01:06:08):
very cranky and elusive and they were They are also
interviewing people in Philly who were like fans of Shamalan
who watched him come and go from his house. And
these kids were also doing weg board stuff at home.
It was it was a really bizarre, kind of spooky
mockumentary about Shamalan to lead up to the launch of

(01:06:30):
this movie, and it was I liked it. It was
on the Sci Fi channel. It was kind of like
they there was some story about him almost drowning in
a lake as a kid, and and maybe he got
maybe he's touched in some way after that experience, and uh,
these kids messing with other worldly forces with the Ouiji board.
And then of course the film crew coming back to

(01:06:50):
their hotel room to find that all of the research
that they've done for this documentary has been stolen or destroyed.
And it was it was well done. And you saw
that back then, night before that. I think I saw
it before the Village. In fact, if I don't remember
when I first saw The Village, but I can remember
watching this special, so setting it up for me. So
were you a fan of his back then, as in, like, oh, boy, man,

(01:07:11):
his next joint is coming out, I can't wait to
go see the Village. Not in the sense that like
a lot of people we know who would say, oh,
a new Star Wars movie and watching teasers and the
trailers and counting on the days, I wasn't. I wasn't
religiously tracking the next movie. But it was on my
radar that he had something new cot And this was
two thousand and four. Um being on social media wasn't

(01:07:34):
really a thing. Then this is pre twitter. So yeah,
all right, um, so this part you're not gonna like.
But I always go back and see what Ebert said
about all these movies. This movie is a complete disappointment.
Um this is on his one of his most hated

(01:07:56):
movies list. Really, he hated it. He gave it one star,
and he had this to say, I'm sorry, you have
to hear this, man, I feel so bad. The Village
is a colossal miscalculation, a movie based on a premise
that cannot support it. The premise so transparent it would
be laughable for the movie not so deadly solemn. To
call the ending an anti climax would be an insult,

(01:08:17):
not only to climaxes, but to prefixes. It's I'll give
him credit for that. That was it was. It's a
crummy secret about one step of the ladder of narrative
originality from it was all a dream. It's so witless
in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we
want to rewind the film so we don't know the
secret anymore. Oh man, that's harsh. That's super harsh, you know.

(01:08:44):
I guess it depends on how you approach film, and
he was in a bad mood that day, clearly probably
I mean parking ticket. Yet something you know, there's there
is a suspension of belief that you it's the price
of an mission. And this is a drama. It's not
a documentary of something where all the facts need to

(01:09:08):
be buttoned up and nice and neat um, some of
those things you could say about you know, the Lord
of the Rings movies, right that it's it's a barely
believable world where things aren't well. Of course, what you
buy into or not. Yeah, And what I say is
if the filmmaker wants me to buy into the fact
that they've actually been able to pull this off, and

(01:09:29):
I'm going to buy into that and let him tell
the story within that framework. But I think what he's
saying in his little review there is that the framework
is flawed. So I'm not going to play along. I
don't know that I go that far. I'm curious this set.
This reeks to me of that he has a bone
to pick. It does in general with Chamelain, I'd love
to see his reviews of previous I thought we could

(01:09:49):
do a little research and find out what's going on
here and then Finally, we in with Five Questions with
Aaron Mankey. First movie you remember seeing in the theater?
Is it? Annie? I I get to Annie, Although, um,
what was the data on Empire Strikes Back? I want
to say eighty two, so it might be it might
be that at the driving Yeah, because Annie was EIGHTI six,

(01:10:10):
I think, Okay, well that's good. Yea. So my first
movie and outside of the house was a Star Wars movie.
That's pretty great. First R rated movie. I believe it
was the Last of the Mohicans? Was that our Okay,
I need to find out. I'm not challenging, I just yeah,
I mean it's got it's pretty violent. It's got a
lot of violence. Yeah, I want to say that it

(01:10:31):
would be. I could be wrong, but that's that's the
first It's the first movie I saw in the theater
that I think my mom would have said, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah,
Daniel day Lewis, I saw. That's the first movie I
ever saw multiple times in the theater. Oh really, so
you were into that one? Huh? Was when the Last

(01:10:52):
of the Mohicans came out? All right, So you were
how old were you then? I need to I was seventeen.
It's pretty late for your first star rate a movie
you were a good kid. I don't have a member.
I mean there were stolen half an hour's here and
there of what was playing on Cinemax or or or

(01:11:13):
Showtime or something, you know, Halloween type movies. But I
think like actively going out and seeking out a movie
that was pushing the boundaries of what I've seen before.
Last Mohicans A love it? Uh, will you walk out
of a bad movie? I really walk into movies that
all to begin with. So, like I mean, you you're
a parent, we barely get out of the house to

(01:11:34):
watch movies. I don't know that I've ever walked out
of one because I I'm really sure I want to
see them when I go in. That's been a recurring
theme here, especially with parents, Like we have so little time, right,
we don't say, let me check this out. Two hours? No, no, no, yeah,
I know that this is going to be a good movie.
Two hours or two hours in a bad movie with
a babysitter at home is still better than being at home.

(01:11:55):
But I remember the good old days when you could
take a flyer on a movie that looks the name
sounds cool, let's do it the old days. I used
to do that with bands in college. Really yeah, like
this name sounds interesting. Let me go see a show, right,
five bucks gets the end? Yep? No more? Uh? Guilty pleasure?
Do you do? You have one? Like films that are

(01:12:19):
guilty pleasures? It could be TV though we've been the
rules so keeping the theme of movies that I like
that a lot of people don't. I love The League
of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Okay, I just it's a fun I
candy movie. Yeah, you know, Sean Connery as Alan cortermain

(01:12:39):
and a lot of mythical creature kind of things going on.
I love it. And that was a comic, right, yeah,
based on a comic. Okay, I've never read that, but
I remember, and I don't remember liking that movie or
very much, but wanting to love it because the idea
of throwing all those fictional characters together, I'm a man,

(01:13:01):
that's a that's a great idea, so cool, and and
all that steampunk stuff. I still love it. Oh yeah,
everyone with probably Nemo and his inventions. Yeah, I'm sure
it's kind of played out to most people now, but
I don't see it a lot. Yeah, because I'm not
in that in the world of the cons. Yeah, but
I think it's awesome. Yeah, I'll take give me a
breath dull brass instrument any day of the week. It's

(01:13:23):
been a lot of time since I've seen it, but
it's one of those movies that I just like, if
you want to to not watch a movie. While you're
watching a movie, it's just something to had on. It's
a great it's a great movie. It's fine. Maybe the
best definition of guilty pleasure I've ever heard. And then
finally movie going, one on one, when you would go
to movies, Um, what's kind of your movie going Richard?
I like to sit center if possible, and and not

(01:13:50):
not in the not in the middle, going from bottom
road to top row on like a tiered movie theater setting, right.
I want to be a little bit below, halfway up
on the stadium seating. Yeah, so I might go up,
you know, six or seven rows and then then grab
a seat. Yeah. I like having enough of the screen
above me, but being eye level with the bottom six

(01:14:13):
ft or so that screen. It's you know, instead of
being way way up there, I feel like I'm closer
to the screen, and I like that. More than I
liked having my eyes at the middle of the screen,
so I won't go all the way up. I saw
a movie just last week. I went and saw Annihilation,
and uh, you know the reserve seating when you pick
out your seat, but you haven't been in the theater.

(01:14:36):
I thought I picked out, like, all right, this is
my sweet spot, right, But when I got in there,
I was It was a stadium side, but I was
level with the top six ft of the screen, so
I felt like I was kind of looking down. And
luckily it wasn't busy, so I was like this one too,
So I kind of went down to more of the
middle section and it was changed everything. Yeah, it's weird
how it sometimes that it's at Yeah, makes all the difference.

(01:14:59):
But they will sell seats up there. Yeah, And I
feel bad for those people or the ones that come
in five minutes left at the trailers start and they
have to sit in the front row. I wouldn't do it.
You spend the whole time looking up? No way, Yeah,
I would just I would just turn around and walk out.
What about concessions anything? What do you into? We we
do the smuggler approach, bringing something we like you know,
instead of filling out the refinance paperwork at the counter

(01:15:23):
the twelve dollar bag of god Stoppers. I love it,
all right, thanks a lot, man, this is great, awesome,
all right, everybody, another fun one in the can. It's
always fun to have people right here in the studio.

(01:15:44):
And I got a new appreciation for The Village after
watching it under a critical eye and talking about it
with Aaron and uh, just hearing his insights on it
really kind of brought me around to a movie that
I didn't love initially, but uh, I really have a
lot of respect for this film now and I liked
a lot more of this time around many years later.

(01:16:04):
So I hope that came across. Um, I want to
come to that party, and we talked about a little bit.
I'm certainly invited. I can just find my way to
uh to suburban Boston. I can be on that guest list,
and man, the ultimate goal is to get m Knight
there himself. I would like to think that he became
for something like that at some point in the future.

(01:16:27):
So I hope you all enjoyed it, and um, until
next time, don't take a walk in the woods by yourself,
because there might be a monster, or the very least
Adrian Brodie dressed as a monster nearby. Movie Crush is produced, edited, engineered,

(01:16:54):
and scored by Noel Brown from our podcast studio at
Pond City Market, Atlanta, Georgia,