Episode 761: Pelísky (1999)

Czechtember 2025 kicks off with Cosy Dens (AKA Pelíšky), Jan Hřebejk’s bittersweet 1999 coming-of-age dramedy adapted from Petr Šabach’s novel Hovno Hoří (Shit on Fire). Written by Petr Jarchovský, the film unfolds between Christmas 1967 and the Prague Spring of 1968, chronicling the warmth, absurdity, and heartbreak of two neighboring families caught between tradition, rebellion, and history itself.



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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
Oh gez, folks, it's showtime.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
People say good money to see this movie when they
go out to a theater. They want clothed sodas, hot
popcorn in. No monsters in the projection booths.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Everyone for tend podcasting isn't boring.

Speaker 4 (00:36):
Got it off.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
OSCA then just actually nanso for slash diac smo of
oda shall yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
M every day you remainder me snaps laps.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yaku, bait, takuruda so pakamash coskati.

Speaker 6 (01:39):
Rasa to guitarus go blutop.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
A sma san soda do.

Speaker 7 (01:59):
Plan play basic.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Noish love babyropa ah be a girl, Yes, jerosla via
blissa you know the love of Yes, clinics lesser.

Speaker 8 (02:38):
Shark y ven.

Speaker 9 (02:42):
Naru stab heaven, she erected.

Speaker 7 (02:57):
Tastyam set dream.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, let's be shsta bistromashnapay.

Speaker 6 (03:27):
A.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White,
join me once again as mister Rob Saint Mary. I
give the Bolsheviks a year two with the most Also
back in the booth is mister Philip Marinello.

Speaker 8 (03:44):
You said we'd always choose dads together.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
We are kicking off Cheptember twenty twenty five with cozy Dents. However,
there's no fiddle faddle here. Also known as Palishki, it
is based on a book called Why Do I Do
This to Myself?

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Guys?

Speaker 1 (03:59):
It's based on a book called joven no hori, which
translates as the very simple title shit on Fire. Directed
by Jan Erbecht and written by Peter Jarchowski, the film
is a bittersweet coming of age tales set in the
months from Christmas nineteen sixty seven up to the nineteen

(04:21):
sixty eight Prague Spring, which, if you weren't paying attention,
that was January fifth, nineteen sixty eight. We will be
spoiling this film as we go along, so if you
don't want anything ruined, turn off the podcast and come
on back after you've seen the film, we will still
be here. So Rob, you were actually the one who
brought this film to my attention. When did you first
see it and what did you think when you first

(04:42):
saw it?

Speaker 4 (04:44):
It was about two years ago around this time of year,
so August September, and I have a friend of mine
who's from Detroit, and I decided to go visit him
in Prague.

Speaker 7 (04:53):
He always had this.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
Hey, anyone wants to come visit. I got extra bedroom.
I was like, I raised aunt. So I got to
spend ten days in Prague, who was lovely and just
had a really wonderful time there. And as part of that,
my friend Rick was showing me some movies. He's watched
some check film. He's an American and he doesn't speak
the language, he knows the culture. He traveled there when

(05:16):
he was a kid. He's got friends and stuff like that,
and he went there to go work with an artist
originally who's pretty well known. But anyway, so we watched
closely watch Trains, which I believe I had seen before
and I think you've done on the show. And then
he watched showed me this movie. Now what was funny
is when he showed me this movie. The next day

(05:36):
we went to go visit some of his friends and
they're like, why are you showing him Christmas movie. They're like,
that's like the progue national Christmas movie, Like it's August
tell you doing. And so because of the Christmas themes,
you know, as we get into it, and if you
get a chance to see it, you'll understand why that is,
because half the film is takes place in Christmas time.

(05:57):
And so this has become looking at letterbox, I'm on
letterbox now and looked at the reviews for this, and
most of them are in Check. But there's those who
put an English review in who are either Americans or
they have some tie to in the English speaking world,
and they say, yeah, this is just a holiday classical.

Speaker 7 (06:17):
Family gets together and watches this, which.

Speaker 4 (06:19):
Is really interesting when you consider that the movie kind
of jokes about suicide three times, to which my friend
Rick would say, you know what, the check they have
a really dark sense of humor, and they do, but
in a way, this one is kind of light. And
I really enjoyed it, and I thought, hey, I don't know,
if you know this movie, maybe you should.

Speaker 7 (06:36):
Do it for your check series.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
And Philip, was this a new one for you?

Speaker 8 (06:40):
Yeah, this was absolutely a new one. I was telling
you before I recorded as a long Time Projection booth listener.
I have added many chick films to my watch list
over the years, but I've never watched along. Some are
harder to find than others, but I just never had before.
So when you're like, hey, this is what we're doing.
I went into it relatively blind. I knew that it
was about families over a holiday, but that's about it.

(07:03):
And I loved it. This was quite a discovery.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
This was also a new one for me, and yeah,
I'm glad that you brought this to my attention.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Rob.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
I really was not familiar with the writer, not familiar
with the director. They I think had aired up a
few times and also adapted another one of the author's stories.
I want to say for an earlier film. I now
need to go back and see some of these other things.
But I can see why this is a holiday classic,

(07:33):
not just because it's set at the holiday time, right
at this very critical moment, but also it reminds me
a lot of a Christmas story. It reminds me of
a whole bunch of vignettes strung together. We don't have
a narrator, we don't have that what was the guy's
name that the gene shepherd that did those.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
It's been a minute since I've seen a Christmas story,
but I used to watch that ever Christmas pretty religiously,
and I can see watching a movie like this because
it has that same flavor of dysfunction amongst the family.
But with this one, you've got a few families and
just seeing the dysfunction amongst them, and how everyone interacts

(08:16):
or doesn't interact, who hates each other, who gets along,
how things change, alliances move, because not only do you
have the family aspect, but then you've got the political
aspect as well. Who's going to come out on top,
who's on the bottom. Like you said, I give the
Bolsheviks one year, maybe two tops. And this is right

(08:37):
before the tanks roll in, and we actually have the
scenes of not necessarily seeing the tanks, but hearing the
air raid sirens and all these things, and just shit
gets real.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Real at the end of this, And yeah, it's a
real eye opener.

Speaker 8 (08:53):
For me and Mary Christmas, God bless us everyone.

Speaker 4 (08:58):
The thing is, there is a narrator. There's a little
bit at the beginning and the end.

Speaker 7 (09:02):
If I take it, it's the kid.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
And like I said that, I have a problem with
the names of the characters. I just say that the
one boy who's the boy in the communist family who
in the very first scene is trying to hang himself
our protagon. Yeah, and so you get the feeling that
everything is viewed through his lens and because he's oh,
I was almost sixteen when this happened, and that really

(09:26):
you only get him voiceovering in the very beginning of
the very end.

Speaker 7 (09:30):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (09:30):
There's not all this commentary through the rest. And then
there's really only one other scene that I can think
of off the top of my head where we get
his interiority, where it's this is what he's feeling or
thinking in the moment.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Oh yes, oh god, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
I kind of like that because one of the things
that we often talk about is and voiceover can be good.
I'm a big fan of when I know we've debated
this and go back and listen to the Blade Runner episode,
I really like the voiceover Blade Runners. But a lot
of times a voiceover in a movie is a crutch.

Speaker 7 (10:03):
It's I don't know exactly what they do. So we're
going to tie it all together with a voiceover.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Just to clarify, I was not the one who doesn't
like the voiceover in Blade Runner, so it was our
third person who I believe doesn't like that.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
So I'm with you.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
You know, Sushi cold fish. That's why my wife always
calls me. That's a classic.

Speaker 4 (10:24):
The other thing that's interesting in here, and I don't
know if I think Mike, obviously you may have a
little historical background. Philip, I'm not sure about your historical background.
I don't know how much you need to know about
check as the area, yeah, or the prog spring. I
think it adds. There's a scene later I'll talk about that.

(10:45):
It really adds if you get it. But as long
as you understand they're under communism, they're under socialism, that's
really all I think you really need to know. I
don't think it really goes that far in depth. They
and of course the audience they're expecting you're going to
bring that anyway.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
The first blush too, I mentioned a Christmas story. The
other thing this really reminded me of was better Off
Dead with that suicide attempt at the beginning, or maybe
even a little bit of Harold and Maud when he's
laying in bed and his sister's coming in, like lifting
his arm up and it keeps flopping down, and then
he eventually sneaks up on her and scares her half
to death. But yeah, it's got that great dark humor

(11:23):
that I love so much.

Speaker 8 (11:25):
It was so funny, Like I can see why this
would be a regular and if there was a good
addition around. I don't know if i'd watch this every year,
but I'd watch this. This would be such a fun
movie to have people or be like, hey, let me
introduce you to something, because I'm sure, like in Letterbox
only not that many people have seen it.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
I was really confused when it came to the name
of this movie being calling Cozy Dends because it's actually
in English title. I did not know that because cozy
in this case is spelled cos y, so we've got
the English spelling of cozy. So for me as an American,
I'm like, oh, cozy, coz y. So when I see

(12:07):
Cozy Den's, I'm just like, oh, Cozy Dens, like putting
an accent on it.

Speaker 8 (12:12):
I thought it was a foreign title too. It's like,
all right, whatever, I'm not sure what this means, but okay, I.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
Like shit on fire. Shit on fire would be good.
I think maybe that would cross over and be like, oh,
shit on fire?

Speaker 8 (12:25):
Was that on fire?

Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yeah, well, sign me up for that movie. Two tickets please.

Speaker 4 (12:30):
But when you talk about cozy dens, it makes sense
because most of it takes place in one building. I
don't want to call them capitalists so much, but the
anti communist family lives at the top and they have more.
And then there's the guy who's body in his family,
who's where the narrator comes from, and he lives in
the middle, and then in the bottom floor. I believe,

(12:51):
if I'm remembering the architecture of the building, the bottom
floor is the sister of the communists, and she's the
single mom teacher at the school where all the kids go.
If you look at it, it's three little animal dens.
And that's how I looked at it. These are our
little worlds, and we build our little worlds. And the
thing that I find interesting is the crossover between the

(13:14):
worlds that happen from time to time. Obviously they all
become interlinked by the end, and also the fact that
there's certain things it doesn't matter what strata you're in,
it doesn't matter what if you're a communist if you're not.
Especially those guys, the fathers and those two households, they
both have a problem with their kid and they think

(13:35):
that they're like leading to the downfall of society because
this one's got a mc jagger poster and the other
one wants to call dumpling something else and is dating,
you know, a hippie boyfriend.

Speaker 7 (13:46):
Yeah, that was funny.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Oh the speech that he gives is so good.

Speaker 4 (13:51):
And there's a lot of really like beautiful set pieces
in here, in the way that they're written. And then
the crossover between the three because it's like they're each
having a Chris Missus demial and they cut back between
the three of them and what's going on and then
what's going on within each one. There's certain dynamics depending

(14:12):
and that's why I really loved it is I'm just
like it's just really well done. It's like really well
written and acted and directed, and it's so for me,
it just really comes together really nicely.

Speaker 8 (14:23):
Yeah, the relationships, like everything felt so like universal, like
you can show anybody of this. It's not i don't know,
like ten and up, Like it's pretty there's a very
small amount of profanity, but there's the full spectrum of life,
like you've got kids who've got parents who got middle aged,
like all the single mom stuff like hilarious and heartbreaking,

(14:47):
her trying over and over to find somebody, either finding
weirdos or being sabotaged by her son, like that scene
where he puts on the record player like that killed me.
But it also gets funny, but it's also really sad,
and it's sad for everybody involved, Like this woman is
trying to find stability for her and her son, and

(15:08):
in that scene that guy was trying, like not a
great guy, but just all the humanity was bare. And
you've got the love triangle with the young people, and
you've got as a movie with movies featured well in it,
the cinema that he has that the whole like square
of people come out to watch him project on the sheet.

(15:30):
There were so many beautiful and universal moments in this.
I feel like this be watchable at any time. Obviously
it's a great Christmas movie, but this is immensely watchable
I think at any time.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
The whole influence of the West, with the like you said,
the McJagger poster, all the needle drops in this. It's
got a fantastic soundtrack and that I found pretty easy.
There's a website called I Think It's Super Fun, and
that's usually where I go when I want to buy
music from some of these movies, which is great and

(16:07):
pretty reasonably priced too, as long as I'm figuring out
my international exchange rate.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
And it's interesting I mentioned how these guys had worked
together before, the writer, director, and then even the novelist
who was alive at the time that this was made.
The novelist was the three of them. I don't know
how many times they worked together, but they had worked
together on a film from ninety three called Sakka le Leta,
and that is a musical comedy. So it's in the

(16:38):
fifties and just the changing face of the times.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
With the whole rock and roll thing.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
And yeah, the needle drops in this and all of
the musical moments in this are just fantastic and some
great songs. I really appreciated that they were not just
using Western songs that had made it through the Iron Curtain.
These were actual real people from the time. This was

(17:04):
almost a little American graffiti esque. When it came to
the soundtrack.

Speaker 4 (17:09):
And this is where if you understand a little bit
of history it's helpful, is that you know, Czechoslovakia was
kind of left alone. He had a little bit of openness.
It could run its own affairs as well as it
could go so far but not too far. And that's
what happened with the Prugu Spring was it was finally
like Russia was like, no, y'all gone too far, and

(17:29):
then that's why they rolled the tanks in. So the
fact that it is a little bit looser and hipper
and feels a little more quote unquote West than maybe
what you might be used to for living under communist
movies from the East, I think it gives a perspective
for Americans who don't understand or maybe would like to

(17:51):
learn more. Not to say it's a documentary, there's historical
aspects in there.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
It's nice. Yeah.

Speaker 8 (17:57):
I think American graffiti is actually a really great parallel
for it, where it's like it's a place in time
and then just people bumping into each other living life
like vignettes like in a movie like that really is timeless.
Each person has their own arc and many of them
are fulfilling, but there's just really great lines. I don't

(18:20):
know how accurate the subtitles were that I saw, but
I laughed several times, like good, well written jokes and
really good delivery.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
That's a good parallel I hadn't thought of because in
a way, American graffiti is using Vietnam as the catastrophe.

Speaker 7 (18:36):
It's gonna pull people apart.

Speaker 8 (18:38):
Yeah, it's like the change in time and how the
change in culture also impacts people going through life.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
And that's really what the prug Spring ended up doing.
Was it ended up being after that clamped down, and
you have to get to nineteen eighty nine, the early
nineties before all of this finally breaks apart and they
get back to where they were in that period right
before this. So there's like a twenty year period of

(19:07):
darkness that kind of follows right after this. So in
a way, like you were saying, that's very stupid, makes
a lot of sense in that way.

Speaker 7 (19:14):
I read it that way.

Speaker 8 (19:15):
Yeah, probably were not playing John Wayne movies in public
during that time.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Now, and when it comes to the chickness of it,
I mean, there are definitely some very check things. And
here the whole thing with the carp and the bathtub,
I remember watching the Cremator, and I was.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
Just like, what is this thing?

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Why is Copper can go like going out and getting
this Pike or sorry Pike.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
I was thinking of Psycho Pike.

Speaker 8 (19:41):
You've been in fact, I've been infected by the fights.

Speaker 7 (19:43):
We've gone from Psycho Pike to Christmas carp So there
you go.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
And yeah, he would he had this pike in his
bathtub and I was just like, what is this whole
thing is? Oh, it's the Christmas meal.

Speaker 7 (19:54):
And then I like this whole thing.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
There's a few jokes that play into this whole thing
of said an.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
Uncle, like the father and the uncle that the two brothers.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
Okay, yeah, so he is back.

Speaker 8 (20:07):
And forth was hilario. When we first saw the fish,
I thought, I was like, is he hallucinating? What is this?
I'm I am not a check a fishinado? And I
was like, oh, is he did he? Is he like
having a hallucination? Did he pass out underwater? Is this
fish gonna talk?

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Like?

Speaker 8 (20:24):
I had no idea what was happening.

Speaker 4 (20:27):
I didn't know that either, like I said, until I
watched the movie, and then I like, I said. My
friend Rick, who lives in Czech Public explained to me,
he goes, it's a Christmas tradition, that's the old Christmas tradition.
And what it was is they would take they would
catch a pike, now like a car a carb. Carp, yes, pike, yeah, carp.
Pikes and carbs are off in bottom feeders anyway, So anyway,

(20:48):
they take the carp and they put it in the
bathtub for a few days. Now, the reason for this
is that it's supposed to clean out the fish because
usually they're gritty because they're down there feeding among the MUCKs.
So they say it helps it to taste better. So
that'sthom for you.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, inside and out.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
But the brothers, so the one is the father of
the narrator, who is the guy who's I guess he's
a commissar or something and he's something in the Communist party,
is what you get. And his brother, who doesn't agree
with him, just are at each other. So like the
brother and the mother that comes over, so the grandmother

(21:30):
of the boy, and he also has a little sister,
so like the whole family. And then it's like the
two men in the room, they're just at each other
to just constantly trying.

Speaker 7 (21:39):
To one up some oh, I know this, and I
know that, oh do you? And then it's oh, you
can't do this, and it's just.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
Ridiculous, and the mother is that the grandmother is, oh, God,
come on, guys, don't do this.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, and they get to do this whole thing about
holding their breath, and then that ends up with him
in that bathtub holding his breath underwater because he would
be cheating otherwise seeing that carp and then it's the
whole thing. If that carp is here, what were we
just eating? And then finding out that the dad is

(22:11):
too chicken to kill the carp.

Speaker 8 (22:13):
Well, and I also love the payoff of like bickering,
like sibling rivalry. Of the original bet was hey, like
up to sixty seconds, I owe you if you can
hold your breath for over a minute, like I'll pay
you whatever per second, and after the whole thing is out,
sixty one seconds, I owe you one. So like he
put him through this whole ordeal and then like he

(22:35):
gave him like the smallest amount possible. I thought that
was hilarious.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
All these characters are very at times you're like, oh, God,
really gotta be that way. But that father character, the
I really love him because he's such a believer, like
he wants to believe, Like the whole scene with the glasses,
So he gives the wife this box full of unbreakable GLAMs.

Speaker 7 (23:00):
He's like, we've done it.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
He is so all about that technology that we have
here in Europe. Fucked those Americans.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
Yeah, he's we've done it. We're one up on them.
We've made these unbreakable glasses. And the kid throws it
and it shatters, because of course they're unbreakable to a point.
But anyway, and then later in the movie, there's a
whole thing with the spoons, which is the poster art
for the movie. They're these spoons, and he gives everyone

(23:30):
these spoons and he says, oh, this is great, great
socialist technology.

Speaker 7 (23:35):
And they put the.

Speaker 4 (23:35):
Spoon in their tea or their coffee, and they're just
like disintegrates and melts. And that's what In the end,
there's this his arc is. It's just like he wants
to believe in this what he wants to say. It
may not be a perfect system, but I believe in it.
I care about it, and and I want my kids
to grow up in it, and I want good things.

Speaker 7 (23:57):
Out of it. And so he's bought in. He's really
bought in, and.

Speaker 4 (24:02):
There's a part of me that just I know he's
a little deluded, but I just want to give hi
a hug. I'm like, sorry, dude, Okay, I can see
your I can see you're a good guy.

Speaker 7 (24:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Like you said, these characters are all they're like little
thumbnails of these people, but you feel like you know
them so well by the end of this, and you,
just like you said, you want to give him a hug.
You love all of these guys, even the cantankerous guy
who loves those dumplings so much. But when they're explaining

(24:32):
Yoki and he's just getting so mad every time she
says Yoki.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
Here, and with him too, it's and you get the
feeling with all of them that it's like they've all
been through something, and especially him, like when he's pushed
far enough, he'll fucking tell you he's I was in
a camp, like the fucking Nazis tortured me.

Speaker 7 (24:50):
I wrote that line.

Speaker 8 (24:51):
Now he says, I was interrogated by the Nazis. You
can't beat me with something like Nyaki. And that's all
the layers of good cinema. That's right, really funny, it's
the climax of the scene. But like Rob, you're saying
that belies like a very deep, like human truth and
like his pain in that.

Speaker 4 (25:10):
Moment, And that's really what this is if you understand it.
It's like these people in this period are dealing with
the aftermath of World War Two and they're dealing with
the aftermath of what came with Soviet occupation and it's
coming out in these twisted ways because they can't deal

(25:32):
with it straight ahead. They're stuck, so they have to
figure out a way, like the birds, like that last
image in the film, like the birds in the Little
Bird Cake. It really is that they're just stuck and
trying to make the best out of whatever the hell
they got to deal with.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
There's that line about we had to have this grit
the spirit, otherwise we would have been Germanified like forever ago.
And through watching so many of these check films, it's like, yeah,
they've had problems for centuries. It's not just over the
last eighty ninety years. It has gone on for so long,

(26:08):
Like the Czech language itself almost perished from the earth
because of all of these other countries that were infringing
on them, what be at Austria, be it Germany, wherever.
Even the term Czechoslovakia is three things all being forced together.
They didn't want to be forced together, and eventually they
broke apart. At least they didn't have the whole Bosnia

(26:31):
Herzegovina kind of thing where they're fighting each other. I
think the breakup was a lot more amenable than that.
But yeah, these folks have been through the shit all
the time, and yeah it just the one guy, Yeah,
tortured by the Nazis and then he's going to go
from the frying pan into the fire with the Communists
in just a few days. Like we watching this film,

(26:52):
whether you know it or not, whether you do have
that knowledge of the product spring or not, when it happens,
you're just like, oh, okay, yeah, this doesn't sound like
it's very good at all. And you get those things
like the communists. Who's presenting to the kids in the classroom,
and he's just like, yeah, we do a lot of paperwork.
Sounds like you have a fascinating life there, sir.

Speaker 7 (27:14):
But not only that. He then goes in to tell
this story about how to the kids. He's like, oh,
we heard there.

Speaker 4 (27:20):
Was a spy and he was rolling down a motorcycle.
They had a leather backpack, and we waited for him
and we shot him, so heroic. But then there was
another guy on a motorcycle with a leather backpack, so
we had to shoot him too because we didn't know
which one spy. So that kind of thing just shows
you this kind of callousness, this kind of we're following orders.

(27:42):
Maybe we didn't get it right, but and he's the
last one. He's the last one who comes to dinner
for the single mom teacher and her son, and they
toss him out.

Speaker 8 (27:54):
Very funny, very dark because like he's telling a group
of I don't know, thirteen fourteen, fifteen year olds. We
definitely at least killed one guy who was just a
guy out in the countryside.

Speaker 4 (28:07):
I was thinking about Diamonds in the Night because you
were talking about the Germanification and all of that stuff,
and there's dayton Land but the Nazi takeover, and I
think the links are on that episode.

Speaker 7 (28:19):
But I talked about the.

Speaker 4 (28:24):
Museum that I went to when I was in Frague
to the to the Hydrich Terror, the memory of the
Hydrich Terror in Operation Anthropoid, which were the Czech Partisans
who killed the number three Nazi in the whole system,
who was the He was like the governor of that area.

Speaker 7 (28:43):
And he was a right bastard.

Speaker 4 (28:46):
Ryan hart Heidrich, depending on the biographies you read, was
so into it, like Key scared Hitler, Like Hitler's like
oof that guy. And he was like one of the
architects of the Final Solution and the extermination camps and
all that stuff to use the right. So the Czech
Partisans killed him, and then there was horrible reprisals that came.

(29:08):
They came and took out like a whole village, like
several thousand people or for taking him out, And so
just remember, like when you're watching this, it's like, this
is the kind of shit these people lived through, these
characters and the kind of darkness, so you can understand
why and when this is what my friend Rick would say,

(29:29):
who lives there, he goes that's why they have this
dark sensibility. It's whether it was a dark sense of humor,
is because they've been through just fucking horrible suffering in
the twentieth century.

Speaker 8 (29:39):
But in among that, I don't think we've said this yet.
The protagonist at the very beginning, his suicide attempt is
not because of existential disparates, because he's in love with
his neighbor who is not returning his affections. And that's
the heart of the movie that sets its off that
like we can all get behind and understand, Like immediately

(30:02):
he's looking at his neighbor and she even comes by
in it, what are you doing?

Speaker 4 (30:06):
Helps him out of the rubble, Yeah, out of the
rubble of the little goda or whatever they got back there,
the gazebo that collapses in them a little bit.

Speaker 8 (30:14):
Not sturdy enough for a child to hang themselves on.
Thankfully well that his.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Dad does that at the end and has very similar
results too.

Speaker 8 (30:23):
And I think and that was the fascinating parallel. So
like the main kid being into his neighbor and just
failing and failing, and two different suicide attempts for unrequited love.
But then his father the suicide attempts, after all the
stuff we're talking about, he realizes, oh, this is all happening.

(30:47):
The world is the bad. So like he goes to
do it for a completely different reason but also fails.
So that all these different layers of humanity and history
on top of each other and it's it turns now
just incredibly well.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
I thought that his on the end was an unrequited
love for the ideology.

Speaker 8 (31:07):
There you go. That's beautiful.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
That he was so upset that the Russians came in.
He was like, like, he was perfectly happy being a
socialist in the way that socialism was, but the fact
that the Russians had to come in and impose on
top it was like, that was a fucking bridge too far.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
He was like, no, too much for one man to take.

Speaker 4 (31:30):
But his son doesn't die, he gets he collapses the
entire yes, because he's a grown man.

Speaker 7 (31:38):
Yeah, his brother comes and helps him dust him off
out of the rubble.

Speaker 8 (31:43):
So his father and his brother, that was a great relationship,
as well as so many of them. I loved how
the film showed in the cozy dens like something we
often don't have as much anymore, like physical proximity with
affect and intertwinement with people who you have strong ideological

(32:04):
disagreements on. Like now recording this in twenty twenty five,
it's a lot harder to go through the holidays with
people who are drastically ideologically different than you. But that
was really, really refreshing to see. Even though they rib
each other, they harass each other, they yell at each
other whatever, but their family and that was a nice
thing to see.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
Well, not only are they family, but they become like
the whole building becomes family by the end because the
single mom who's constantly looking for guys, she falls for
the old thing where it's like you'll find love when
you stop looking for it kind of thing. So she
ends up with the man up in the top floor

(32:46):
who sadly becomes a widower because his wife dies.

Speaker 8 (32:49):
Yeah, the girl who does not return the protagonists love,
her mother dies and then her father marries the But
that first suitor, I was cracking up, like the kid was.
I was harassing him the whole time.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
I'm read teacher, his idea he's referred to I'm read teacher.

Speaker 8 (33:06):
I could not believe. And I'm sure that this is
thinking about the process of writing this and shooting this.
I just thought I came with the offer of quality sex,
bamboo chopping, the milk and water position, long hours of homework,
all in vain, like he just wanted to get a
little bit and this kid would not let him. And

(33:28):
just his frustration the milk and water whatever, like I
was dying.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
It's funny the lead up too, where the like the
little boy sitting at the table and he's playing with
his erector set or whatever it is.

Speaker 7 (33:42):
He's playing with her, screwing these little things again, and.

Speaker 4 (33:45):
He's watching this guy try to mac on his mom
with the paper weight he's looking at he's gazing at
her and paperwaight and all this stuff and just trying
to If the kid wasn't there, I'm sure everything would
have been very successful. Every thing seemed it was going well.
We had a little dance, they had a little music,

(34:06):
they had a they had a little danger because he's
got that box free of which to me reminded me
of an E meter like the scientology. But he's like
holding onto these cans. He's like, all right, hit the
button and it's the kid. Let him go for a
while too.

Speaker 7 (34:22):
Oh yeah, like them.

Speaker 4 (34:23):
Yes, well you could tell the mother's frustrated too. It's
not just comrade teacher that wants to get laid like mom's.
I'd like to get laid too, So is it okay
that we do it on Christmas? Takes the boy back
to his room and it's keep messing around. I'm going
to take your microscope away from you, which was his
Christmas gift. Of course, his revenge, as you said, was

(34:45):
a massively loud needle drop.

Speaker 7 (34:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
I love the scene with the electricity. I love the
speaking of cultural things. I want to know that whole
story of the very harsh dead the Yoki dad. Why
he's pouring that it looks like pewter or something into water.
It almost seems like a decoration or like even fortune

(35:09):
telling because when he looks at it, then he says
his line about the Bolsheviks again, because that's like his refrain.

Speaker 4 (35:17):
I think that is a kind of divination. It may
be a cultural thing. I don't know, but basically, he's
pouring which looks like silver metal into a bowl of
cold water, and it sizzles, and then he pulls the
this weird pattern out and he looks at it.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
What is it?

Speaker 7 (35:34):
What is it telling you?

Speaker 4 (35:36):
I think is what the mother assays to him. So
to me, I feel like that's like in line with
I don't like reading tea leaves or something.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
You know, That's what it felt like.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, But at the same time, just maybe because it
was Christmas, reminded me of like a snowflake or something.
So I'm like, is this what you do at Christmas time?
To make a decoration?

Speaker 8 (35:56):
Well, he was so practical too, like it was an
odd thing because he was such this like intense guy,
and then they had this that scene did come out
of the.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
Blue a little bit for him.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
He's a very intense guy. In that whole scene of
him and his family when his wife is doing the
Lord's prayer and he's got that nationalistic song on. I
don't know if that was the Czech national anthem. I
wanted to shazam that to see what was going on there.
And especially the daughter has this very pained look on
her face, and the mother's just like it's okay, kind

(36:31):
of like giving her the little looks.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
Like it'll be all right because it'll be okay.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
The family dynamic with them, with all of these families,
but just the tension and especially that little thing that
happens when he goes to try to sit down and
she hasn't sat down yet, and he says, would you
sit down first so I can follow the korum basically,
and then she sits on.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Then he gets to sit down.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
And it's just so tense everything with that family gets
really tense a lot.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
Like I say, I didn't know my grandfather. He died
when I was two, but my mom's from Scotland and
my grandfather lived through the Blitz and was sunk by
the Germans at least twice, maybe three times, well in
the Merchant Navy and in Scotland, and he was very
like proper by the rules. My mom would say if
she's if I looked at my dad wrong, like at

(37:22):
the table, he would just lean over.

Speaker 7 (37:23):
And just smack me out of the blue like he
he was just fucking angry.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
And there's just like when you go through that kind
of trauma and you don't know how to deal with it, right,
it comes out like that. It comes out as just
the scene that comes later where like on what is
it on Christmas? They're being loud downstairs, so he comes
down and starts yelling at Yeah, he's just fucking yelling
at each other and he's shoes a yeah, and over

(37:52):
what I hope you have another heart attack?

Speaker 8 (37:55):
Oh god, vicious And.

Speaker 7 (37:57):
It's like over what it's like you could be like, hey, dude,
can turn it down.

Speaker 8 (38:02):
The music was a little bit loud.

Speaker 4 (38:04):
Yeah, it's part they're celebrating, yeah, and it's like it
didn't have to escalate that far that fast. But those
kind of guys who survive that kind of trauma sometimes
have that kind of way of reacting where it's just
shut it down, fucking now.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
I was with this movie hardcore as I'm watching it.
But the scene that you made mention of a little
bit earlier on it happens around I think maybe the
change from the first act to the second act where
we do get into our main characters. Had Michelle I
think it is Michael m I c ch e L.
So there's no a in there, so is somebody named Michael.

(38:43):
I don't know how to how you pronounce that.

Speaker 7 (38:45):
He's the main character.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
He's the main character, and he is part of that
love triangle that we mentioned where you have that very
hip dude and that hip dude. They're at like the
I don't know if it's the post office or what.
But he gets this box and he shows up off
these brand new slick shoes that he's got early on
in the movie, and they are these pointy boots, these
like rock and roll boots, right, and our main character

(39:10):
starts making fun of him, like Oh, how freaking girly
these boots are. They look terrible and the girl's better
than your shoes, and he's really ashamed of these clunky
shoes that he's got. So here we are Christmas morning
kind of thing, waiting for that red rider baby gun
or in this case, a crossbow, which was amazing that
they give a crossbow as a gift.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
It was just the little girl, it was amazing.

Speaker 8 (39:34):
And here's the sun.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Here's our main character opening up the Christmas present. He
opens it up and there's those fucking boots and he's just, oh,
this is great, and the dad's just, oh, I love you, son,
and they have this wonderful moment. Looks are exchange. Everyone's
warm and happy and then hut, and you get here's
what's actually in the package, and it's these Yeah.

Speaker 8 (39:57):
That got me.

Speaker 7 (39:58):
Oh it was so got me.

Speaker 4 (40:01):
It totally got me, because the rest of the movie
we haven't had that.

Speaker 7 (40:05):
That is the only time that we have that in
the movie.

Speaker 4 (40:08):
And so when it hits you're like, oh god, it's
such a laugh and it's gutting at the same.

Speaker 8 (40:15):
Time because the cool kid like you don't he's not
like a crummy guy. So it's not like we are
on the protagonist's side, but it's not like, oh, this
guy he ran him off the road a little bit.
But that's also they were being rivals a little bit
for her affections, so he never like crosses any lines

(40:36):
or whatever. But we do want this kid to do well.
And when he that scene, I was like, yeah, like,
nice work, and then the cut to oh no, they
not these cool cues.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Here's these brown socks and these brown clunky boots that
I got.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
And instead of his dad just being like starting to
sing a.

Speaker 8 (40:57):
Rock and roll song and his dad's like, isn't that great?

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah, he gives us same words but such a different inflection.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
The cool kid has his families in the States. It
seems like they maybe send him back to the home
country for school or something, or to be near grandma.
He's the one who also has the film projector so
he's the one projecting the movies out of bed sheet
and the neighbors come.

Speaker 7 (41:21):
Out and watch and is it Jean Caban? Is that
who it is? I think it is in the Grand Illusion.

Speaker 4 (41:27):
So the kid Michelle or Michael, he's the one who says,
oh yeah, he's uses a homophobic slur to say that,
and he looks like your boyfriend. He goes, oh, yeah,
because he's just like him. So there becomes this kind
of making fun of each other rivalry thing, which leads.

Speaker 7 (41:45):
To the poster.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
I know that it's Mick Jagger, but he so looked
like the main character for Velvet.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
Gold Mine because it's very psychedelic colors mc jagger. He
tacks it up on his dad's communist corkboard and was
with all the information and the the weekly dinner schedule.
Of course, because everything is very regimental, it was typed out. Yeah,
so he tacks up the mid Jagger posters fuck you
to dad.

Speaker 8 (42:13):
The very genuine and very hilarious line. I also wrote
that down. He said, I wanted to pass this bullet
for this bulletin board down to you, you bastard, like
like this is the order, this is I was hoping
that you would carry on our traditions of posting the
schedule of family schedule.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
But apparently it's not good. Oh man, it's not good
enough for you, son. You gotta be a rebel and
tack this poster up on my beloved bulletin board.

Speaker 8 (42:44):
And that was funny too, because when he tore it up,
he's like, it's whatever this is from this guy who
like is my friend, but I'm trying to get one
over on him anyway. So that was also great. I
loved the moment where they're playing John Wayne movie North
to Alaska. Oh yeah, Mikhale's mom comes and just the

(43:05):
very simple line delivery of I haven't been to the
cinema in fifteen years. I haven't seen a movie and
it's just as a movie lover like that was that
really landed with me, because like, the cinema is magic.
They're in such a hard time and going like, oh, like,
I remember what it was like.

Speaker 7 (43:25):
To go to a movie.

Speaker 8 (43:27):
That was devastating. Imagine going fifteen years without seeing a movie.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
The only other person I can think of that did
that he may have watched it on TV. But it
was a little bit of trivia on our second episode
that in the movie Seconds Rock Hudson plays a character
called Wilson, and Brian Wilson was so out of it
when he saw that in the late sixties in the
theater he thought it was about him. He was so

(43:52):
paranoid that he never saw another.

Speaker 7 (43:53):
Movie in the theater.

Speaker 4 (43:54):
They said until Et, because of course he had that
whole period in there where he was a little off.
So he next movie, Sound the Feord was et allegedly.
This is the story there.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
This movie is just filled with one great scene after another.
While we're talking about this, I've got the movie up
in the background, and I'm just like, Yep, this was great, Yep,
this is great. And they all run together like we're
doing like the greatest hits as we're talking about this,
But they're all of these just amazing things that are
just strung together and really play well with one another.

(44:27):
It just it builds and it weaves and waxes and
waynes through this whole thing, and it is just so
frickin funny and sad and melancholy and just so many
fascinating things that are going on here.

Speaker 8 (44:40):
How about the magician suitor.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
That was great. I was about to say, that's so funny.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
I was just about to say, yeah, when they get
to the mom doing those dates, and yeah, you get
that guy in there with that amazing hair.

Speaker 8 (44:53):
Oh my god, he.

Speaker 4 (44:54):
Looks like a Kmart discount version of Seventh or Dali.

Speaker 7 (44:58):
I He's got this mustache.

Speaker 8 (45:00):
It's greasy, stranglery wha, he was Scott, what did he say?
He had a great line like about being lonely because
he's performance artist or whatever, like he chooses it, but
it's lonely and it's hard, like he makes it out
to be like he's sacrificing for this great thing. And
he pulls some ping pong balls out of his mouth

(45:21):
and he legitimately scares her when he pulls out the
fake snake and she like screams. She does like a
Sarah Palmer type scream when that snake comes out. It
was just again like so many good parts.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
I am so glad you brought this to us, Rob.
This was such a delight watching this.

Speaker 8 (45:43):
How about the scene where the widower walks into the
classroom when they're talking about the students using profanity and
she's got the their version of the F word on
the board and he just looks at it and she
like goes to stand in front of it because she's
got a room full of all these educators and it's
just that word written on the board in their language,

(46:05):
and he looks at it like really perplexed, and she
moves her body in front of it. Like again, that's
like everybody gets that. That's that will be funny to
anyone who you show this to.

Speaker 4 (46:17):
The other thing that it becomes that you have these
families and these characters are so connected. Where I was
talking about like the commissar or whatever, the narrator's dad
who's the socialist, and the Christmas dude, this is the
second Christmas, I guess, or is it. No, it's right

(46:37):
before the prug spring.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
Yeah, it might be in New Year's dinner.

Speaker 7 (46:40):
No, it's the wedding. It's the wedding dinner.

Speaker 4 (46:42):
The teacher, the antie of his gets married to the
guy upstairs who's the I was tortured by the Nazis.
So he's feeling depressed because the girl he's still pining
for the girl who's now literally a cousin now and
by marriage, so he's still pining for her.

Speaker 7 (47:00):
He's like really upset, I can't really show it or whatever.
He decides to stick his head in the oven.

Speaker 8 (47:06):
Yeah, he gets hammered on like the gift wine.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
Yeah, suicide another suicide joke.

Speaker 7 (47:12):
Sticks his head in the oven.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
And the man because they're upstairs in his place, and
he's what in the electric oven, So they pull him
out and he ends up having heat stroke and he
has to go to the hospital, but when they first
pull him out, his dad faints, Like his dad is
so overcome by the fact that his son tried to
kill himself because he obviously didn't know about the first
one or he was like, whatever you find, but this

(47:35):
one really fucked him up. So he ends up fainting,
And that to me really shows, Yeah, I give my
son a lot of shit, but I give him a
lot of shit because this is the attitude that I
grew up in at times with my folks, especially my mom,
where it was just like I care about you, I
want you to do good things, I want you to
be on the right path, be tough for the tough world,

(47:57):
and all that. In my mom's case, it's packed two suitcases,
we're leaving and we're going to the States.

Speaker 7 (48:02):
You gotta be on it.

Speaker 4 (48:03):
So just the fact that he like falls over and
faints and then he's like, oh great, he talks on
the phone to the hospital. He's gonna be okay. They're
gonna keep them a day or two. But it's a
simple thing, but it really shows that connection.

Speaker 8 (48:18):
It was also very darkly funny that scene at the
at When they hang up, they all start laughing about
how silly he was for like how poor of a
suicide attempt that was. They're like laughing so hard, like,
h what a goofy little kid he tried to do
this way, and like they're all four of them are
laughing at his suicide attempt.

Speaker 4 (48:41):
And then about ten minutes later he's on the end
of the road follow and.

Speaker 8 (48:46):
His brother's doing the same thing for him. It's like, oh,
come on, brother, I think about this.

Speaker 4 (48:51):
And there was something recently with went onw a writer
that I read where it was she was talking about
Heathers and how people were like incensed by teenage suicide
stuff and Heathers and it's, oh, it's a different time,
like you could have those kind of jokes.

Speaker 8 (49:08):
Even in the old This is just a silly one
office side. I remember not too long ago, what was
it the old version of I think it was like
the old version of You Got Man, like the Shop
around the Corner, which I think also was a Christmas movie.
There was a big old suicide attempt in that, and
I was like, whoa, it's dark for studio Hollywood, but
I mean it's this is probably the Christmas movie with

(49:29):
the most suicide attempts, though.

Speaker 4 (49:30):
Well, it's a wonderful life. There's our American Christmas movie.
It's got a suicide in it, so.

Speaker 8 (49:37):
Like a knowing to girl suicide attempt.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
Yeah, you can't cut around that one very easily at all.

Speaker 4 (49:43):
Exactly. So what is it with Christmas and suicide? Let's
look at that Christmas and suicide movies.

Speaker 8 (49:49):
It happens a lot around Christmas because it's like you're
supposed to be happy, and when you're not, it just
feels very discordant.

Speaker 4 (49:58):
I just find it funny that the Czech National Christmas
movie as suicide in it in the American National Christmas
Suicide great double feature.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
I've heard that a lot of suicides take place in
the spring or like I've heard specifically February, because it's
like you just sludge your way through the holidays and
then it's okay, nothing's gonna get better.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
I'm just gonna end it now.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
But I would think, you know, go out on Christmas,
ruin everybody's lives.

Speaker 4 (50:29):
And that credit card bill, that credit card bill, and
go Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Oh, don't worry, Rob, We're gonna make so much money
with these tariffs, We're gonna all get refund checks.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
It's going to be great.

Speaker 4 (50:41):
I'm just sad I don't live in Michigan anymore. You
all have the ten cent bottle return. At least I
could be making some money. So Michigan, you get ten
cents ten cents?

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah, wait a minute, you mean you get five cents
here and ten cents there. You could round up bottles
here and run them out to Michigan.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
Doesn't work. What a minute, It doesn't work. You get
enough bottles together.

Speaker 4 (50:59):
Yeah, you overload your you're invertory and you blow your
margins on gasoline.

Speaker 7 (51:02):
Trust me, it doesn't work. Now you're not talking that
Michigan deposit bottle scam. Now now I'm off that anyway.

Speaker 4 (51:08):
If anyone thinks we're joking about suicide, we're not.

Speaker 7 (51:12):
It's a very serious topic.

Speaker 4 (51:13):
I've had friends who died from it, and there have
been times in my life where I've been suicidal. But
everything I always say, you can always talk about something
in art, and it's all about context.

Speaker 8 (51:25):
And again, like you said, that's touched all of our
lives in one way or another, and we can see
the humanity in that.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
And that's what Ultimately, this movie is about it's about
the humanity. It's about these folks.

Speaker 7 (51:40):
Even if you didn't.

Speaker 4 (51:40):
Live through this time and you don't have the historical context,
I think you can really understand who these people are
and what they're trying to do. Speaking of a historical
piece in here, the little mock up that he makes
of the monument to the Pilots in World War Two.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Oh yeah, that's fantastic.

Speaker 4 (52:02):
And this was already torn down by then as part
of de Stalinization. But they show you a photo of
this thing, and if you ever look up the historical
thing as the Stalin prog Monument, it is a It
was a massive granite monument of Stalin and a bunch
of workers, and it was made on prison labor. Is
horrible history of this thing that was made. As a

(52:23):
matter of fact, the guy who designed it, I think
it was either the day it was unveiled or right
shortly after, decided to kill himself because he just didn't
feel good about what he was tasked to do by
the Communists and the fact that his characters we're honoring
these murderers and these horrible people. Actually it was blown

(52:44):
up in nineteen sixty three or something like that as
part of destalinization. It was like after Stalin died, they said, oh,
Stalin was so awful. When krus Steff came in and
said this is he was terrible and look at all
the stuff that he did, and we got to be
honest about how awful that time was.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
That monument looks so similar to one that's in Portugal,
but rather than all of these like soldier and a
farmer and all these things, it's all of these people
that would go off to basically colonize other places. And
I don't know, but the people who led the tours,

(53:24):
let me just say that out of Portugal it was
just like, yeah, we went to this place and they
have these huge maps where they show like all the
expeditions to all these places. I'm like, we're talking about
slavery and colonization and all of these horrible things. And
they're just like, like we say albrigado when we mean
thank you. And that's why the Japanese people say arigato.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
They got it from us.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
And I'm like, oh my god, like they the Japanese
people I hated, you get.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
It's funny you bring this up because I just watched Silence,
which is the Scorsese movie about the fortune. He's pretty
such man.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
Yeah, I'm looking at a picture of the Stalin Monument
right now and it is amazing, like just the scale
of it, and it's yeah under an article called the
monument that destroyed its creator?

Speaker 4 (54:13):
So holy shit, do you ever go you get a
chance to go to Prague? They have some beautiful, beautiful things.
One of the things that was lovely because of the
Nazis loving the check so much and believing they were
part of the Greater German project. It didn't get bombed
all that hard, so there's a lot of beautiful architecture

(54:36):
that's still there that other cities didn't have. And they
have a lot of beautiful monuments and castles and such.
So it's a very beautiful city.

Speaker 7 (54:44):
Prague.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
There's a movie I've been trying to remember through this
entire conversation because it also had rock and roll in it.
It was from probably a little bit earlier, definitely earlier
than this came out, what ninety nine, So this was
I was in college, so it was probably late eighties,

(55:05):
and I'm thinking it's when father was away on business.
And I want to say there's a whole rock and
roll subplot in that. But ironically it was a lot
to do with the t Do Stalin breakup and just
how that affected I want to say it was Yugoslavia.
So I would like to go back now and watch
that and see how it compairs with Cozy Denz, just

(55:28):
because I could see those two things kind of lining
up a little bit more. Even though once Czechoslovakia, one's Yugoslavia,
but both these countries that were really ravaged by communism
and also countries that produced movies with some really dark
humor to them.

Speaker 4 (55:45):
There's a couple of movies that I think I've talked
to you about over the years about trying to do
from the Balkans that I would love to do that
definitely some dark humor working through their trauma.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
So we've talked about this before, or as far as
seeing people's trauma on screen and just making that universality
of it. Just like you were saying before, Philip, you
don't have to know about the prog Spring to enjoy
this film. You don't have to know all of these
ins and outs. You don't have to know about Christmas
carp in order to figure.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
This movie out.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
It is very universal and it's just great to see
something from another country from twenty six years ago and
just that speaks to us so loudly today.

Speaker 8 (56:31):
It's also crazy ninety nine is that long ago? Hearing
you say that out loud. Yeah, it's got just over
a ten thousand letterbox log. This is right for a
like a Radiance or potentially Criterion, but like this would
be a great clean it up. I mean, it's got
a really good restoration. Put it together, do some interviews,
get a commentary like this would be great. This would

(56:53):
be a great discovery, like in addition to the international canon.

Speaker 4 (56:58):
One of the things that I try to do when
I after I watched this movie and Mike decided you
wanted to put on the show was I was trying
to coordinate with a friend of my friend Rick in Prague,
who actually would have been like the sister in here
of the of like the Commissar's daughter, because my friend Rick,

(57:22):
his friend Yika, grew up her dad was part of
the party and all of that stuff, and so there
was part of me that was hoping we could have
an interview with someone whould bring a little history to
it and explain this is what this is.

Speaker 7 (57:35):
And why do I like this movie? Why does check
people like this movie? Let me tell you what it
speaks to.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
But us being three guys who are not from there
and not connected to the culture in that way outside
of the cultural exports. It's really about families. It's really
about understanding who these people are. I especially think of
myself at my age. I have kids, but I can
understand friend's money do I can see my parents, I

(58:03):
can see myself. I can see just humanity in general
in a lot of these characters.

Speaker 7 (58:09):
And that's what makes it beautiful.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
I didn't fuck up, did I did? I like, eliminate
this possibility? What's that of having your Rick's friend on here?

Speaker 4 (58:19):
I asked her to do it, and I thought she
would be hip to do it, and she's like, it
would be nice, but I don't think so I don't
feel like doing it.

Speaker 7 (58:27):
And I was like, oh, it's too bad.

Speaker 8 (58:28):
She didn't want to speak for an entire nation.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
The novelist of this, Peter Sabach, he passed away in
twenty seventeen, I believe. But the director and the adapter,
the screenwriter, they're still going strong, still making.

Speaker 8 (58:42):
It like they're still making stuff. I'm just I just
looked that up.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Exactly, and they're both working at Barndov.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
So I emailed both of them a couple times to say, hey,
you want to come on the show and do this stuff,
and never got any responses. There was again only quote
unquote twenty six years ago. But yeah, they both have
been making films for quite a bit. A little while here, we.

Speaker 4 (59:05):
Were talking before we were rolling, and Philip was saying, oh,
I haven't seen a lot of Czech film. I'm like,
usually the place that people come in or closely watched
trains Uri Mensol because of he won an Oscar, and
then Milosh Foreman because we know the American Foreman films.
Obviously the Cuckoo's an Nest and amideis just those at least,
and then all the other stuff.

Speaker 8 (59:26):
I didn't realize Cremator was Check. That's very high on
my life.

Speaker 7 (59:28):
Oh, it's so good.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
The thing that's interesting about Check and this is film.
And this is what I was alluding to earlier about
the architecture is that starting in like the nineties, basically
as soon as Communism fell, there was a lot of
American and European English speaking productions that went there because
it could fill in for any really old European city,

(59:51):
you know, it could be Berlin or Vienna or whatever,
because Berlin and Vienna don't look like they used to
because they got bombed a shit and rebuilt with modern architecture.
So it became Czech Republican specifically, product became a place
for a lot of English language production films. So it's
always been, especially i'd say in the last thirty years

(01:00:13):
or so, really a hotbed of people coming there to shoot,
but also their own productions, and they're usually pretty high quality,
like this one. Like I said, it looks as good
as something that you would see an American film.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Yeah, the director of this really started his career right
around the.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Time of Velvet Revolution.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
I imagine that that opened up new filmmaking avenues for both,
Like you're saying, people coming into the country but then
their own homegrown directors again. And yeah, I think he
hopefully didn't have to make a lot of films under
that regime and was able to prosper after that because
he's according to the source of all truth IMDb, he's

(01:00:55):
directed at least fifty four things between TV and movies, more.

Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
And a lot of his stuff is available, and I
don't know if this is connected to any of this
at all, but I was just thinking about the fact
that out of the Velvet Revolution at the end of
communism in Czechoslovakia was BLACKSHAWF Hovel and Hovell was a
poet and a playwright, and he was very much into
the Western arts. So he was like, like, he loved

(01:01:21):
Frank Zappa, and he loved the Velvet Underground, and he
loved rock and roll music, all of this stuff. So
a lot of these guys came to visit, like Zappa
became like unofficial cultural attache to Czech Republic until he
passed a few years later. But there was always this
connection back in that way. And one of the great things,
like I say, if he ended up getting the Prague

(01:01:43):
and we can put this link in the show notes,
and I think I may have talked about this during
when we did Diamonds in the Night is the Museum
of Communism. And in Prague there's a thing called the
Museum of Communism, and it shows you what life was
like from nineteen forty eight when everything collapsed, talks about
the product spring and talks about all the things that
happened all the way through to the revolution to today,

(01:02:06):
and it's a great museum and if anyone goes, and
if you have an interest in that and learning more,
it'll really give you a sense of what the day
to day life was like and some of the challenges
of living under that regime.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
And if you mentioned that you came from listening to
the projection booth, they'll give you a ten percent discount
on tickets.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
At the door.

Speaker 4 (01:02:25):
Maybe, Hey, it doesn't hurt to ask. It doesn't hurt
to ask. I heard about it on the projection booth.
They're like, oh, really, okay, Joe Breden.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
All right, We're going to take a break and play
a preview for next week's show. Right after these brief messages,
bring home the all new The Naked Gun on digital
Now see Liam Neeson like you've never before as Frank
Dreben Junior as he leads police squad in this outrageous
comedy also starring the iconic Pam Anderson by the film

(01:02:58):
critics are calling one of the funniest movies of the decade,
and get nearly an hour of gut busting extras, including
deleted scenes, outtakes, and more. Available at participating retailers rated
PG thirteen.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
From Paramount Pictures.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Looking for something superior to streaming a place with more
than five times a selection available on all streaming services combined.
Check out Scarecrow Videos Rent by mail service. Select from
an unparalleled collection of over one hundred and fifty thousand
films and get Blu rays, four k's and DVDs delivered
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scarecrow dot com and rediscover the wonders of physical media.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
At ammond an Arizon scap.

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In your.

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Speaker 7 (01:04:24):
Who shoos on tissues? Eigo keep su Chi by two, Prince.

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Chi Ado hog Fogo, Dravanad's disas is in applesder in garuolad,
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Barzila best no whiskuit.

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And you we m s saviss.

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As to plan cuts, memory.

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Approach, became champion and the duck Badman my the p
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Speaker 4 (01:05:48):
Enata.

Speaker 8 (01:05:56):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
We'll be back next week with a look at the
old rich Slipsky Cam, the Lemonade Joe. Until then, I
want to thank my co host Rob and Phillips. So Rob,
what is going on in your world, sir?

Speaker 7 (01:06:07):
Not a whole lot.

Speaker 4 (01:06:08):
Let me say, I've just been writing. I'll have got
a couple of novels that I ranked down the last year.

Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
Just a couple of novels. Yeah, nothing too hard, Yeah,
nothing too difficulty.

Speaker 4 (01:06:20):
Yeah, I don't do anything. It's just me and my cat.
This is what happens. And I'm going to be on
the show more this over the next few months. You've
missed me in the past. I don't know who's missing me.
But I'll be back for a couple more episodes coming
up over the next year. And yeah, just enjoying myself.
And I'll give you the link because I've gotten off
of all the social media, but I am on a

(01:06:42):
letterbox now so you can look at my silly reviews
of movies that I've watched.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
So I will be sure to link to your name
in the show notes with your letterbox link.

Speaker 7 (01:06:53):
Thank you, mister Mike. I hope you're doing well as
long as.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
You send it over to me, otherwise I'm not going
to go search them.

Speaker 7 (01:06:58):
For it, we'll do.

Speaker 4 (01:07:00):
And also good to be on here with Philip. It's
good to talk about Karp after talking about Pike.

Speaker 8 (01:07:05):
Philip, what's new with you? Sir? Can find me over
at the Substance and Rob, I just found your letterbox
followed you there. That's always great when we get people
to join the very best social media community podcasting over
at the Substance, Mike, is probably about time to have
you back again some point. When we do a lot
of films under our Substantive Cinema banner, but then we

(01:07:26):
also do like our brand is the Substance, it's pretty broad.
Recently we've had on New York Times film critic Alyssa
Wilkinson talking about her book on Joan Didion and John Wayne.
We recently had British American poet David Gate on his
new book of poetry, A Rebellion of Hope. Wide variety
of stuff here. We actually just covered our second abs

(01:07:48):
Kuristami movie of the Year, and on our first one,
The Wind Will Carry Us had not been announced and
we're like, man, it'd be great if they put out
the Wind Will Carry Us. The next month they announced it,
so then we did Wind Will Carryus episode and at
the end of that we're like, man, it'd be great
if Criterion put together a package of the early Kiristami
shorts and documentaries. And then a couple of days after

(01:08:09):
we posted that episode, big that announcement came the return
of Eclipse, which I'm so excited for. So we got
to figure out with that guest Martin George Vich, Samy
nooras Martin McFly, We've got to plan our third oar
hat trick, Like, what are we going to call into
being for our next episode? So find me over there.
I'm on letterboxed and you can find me at the

(01:08:29):
Substance Pod on whatever social media is. We're still on.

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
Thanks again guys for being on the show. Thanks to
everybody for listening. Do you want to support physical media
and get great movies by mail, head over too scarecrow
dot com and try Scarecrow Videos incredible rent by mail service,
the largest publicly accessible collection in the world. You'll find
films there entirely unavailable elsewhere. Get what you want, when
you want it, without the scrolling. If you want to

(01:08:56):
hear more of me shooting off my mouth, check out
some of the other shows that I work on. They
are all available at wirdingwaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to
our Patreon community. If you want to join the community,
visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we
get helps the Projection Booth take over the world.

Speaker 7 (01:09:18):
It's a money and he said jelly stable, so spooking.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
Do yeah money? Oh my god, spooky.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
What's that?

Speaker 4 (01:10:45):
Jes said, I so shop do thus stay lushing go.

Speaker 9 (01:11:31):
So God loveing.

Speaker 5 (01:11:36):
And basks.

Speaker 7 (01:11:41):
Yeah love me. Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (01:11:49):
This has got.

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