September 22, 2025 • 59 mins
Original Release Date: Monday 22 September 2025
Description: Phil is hitting the road, but before doing so, he recorded a great deal of material for the next two installments of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour! This week, he and Marc Hershon discuss the following television series: "Your Friends and Neighbors", "The Studio", "Alien: Earth", "Chief of War", "Peacemaker", and "Code of Silence". Dean reveals whether or not he is participating in a Winnipeg-themed art show, and talks about why any nostalgia he has for the city where he grew up is gone. Then, good pal of the show, purveyor of excellent theme songs, and frequent on-air contributor, Jon Lawlor finally weighs in on Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest answering a longtime loyal listener's question about the movie's use of music.
Description: Phil is hitting the road, but before doing so, he recorded a great deal of material for the next two installments of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour! This week, he and Marc Hershon discuss the following television series: "Your Friends and Neighbors", "The Studio", "Alien: Earth", "Chief of War", "Peacemaker", and "Code of Silence". Dean reveals whether or not he is participating in a Winnipeg-themed art show, and talks about why any nostalgia he has for the city where he grew up is gone. Then, good pal of the show, purveyor of excellent theme songs, and frequent on-air contributor, Jon Lawlor finally weighs in on Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest answering a longtime loyal listener's question about the movie's use of music.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody, this is your friend in podcasting, Phil Lerness,
coming at you from Los Angeles on I guess it's
the twentieth of September or the twenty first of September.
Sorry as I record these words, So you are going
to be hearing this starting Monday, the twenty second year
nineteen episode twenty of Your Chill Pac Hollywood Hour. I
(00:26):
am heading out of town for a while to go
deal with some things that my late sister left for
me to deal with, and so we've had to pre
record a bunch of stuff. Next week's show is already
in the can, and it's pretty straightforward, and we deal
(00:48):
with some things from this past week. I mean, we
remember the great Robert Redford, and we talk about the
closure of an iconic building that once figured prominently in
this very podcast some twelve thirteen years ago. And oh yeah,
(01:11):
and I saw Superman finally. So those are the topics
and those are all covered next week. This week is
a bit of a pastiche. I cut together one of
my own almost monthly conversations about the latest in television
with Mark Kershawn with some of Dean of my weekly
(01:31):
discussion with John Lawler that pertains to some ongoing topics
of discussion, including Spike Lee's Highest to Lowest, and Dean's
painting and whether or not he's participating in a new
art show. So a little bit of a mad jumble,
but I think you'll enjoy it. Hopefully I will cut
(01:54):
these together artfully, be good to each other, and we'll
be back with a new show two weeks hence. But
like I said, we do already have a good show
recorded for next week.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
And now your Chill Pack Hollywood Hour with Dean Hagland
and Phil Lareness.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Mark Hershawan Welcome back to your Chill Pack Hollywood Hour.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Always a pleasure to be here, Phil.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Quite the appropriate day for us to be recording this
because the final installment of the Primetime Emmy Awards are
being broadcast tonight. Believable, can't we on network television? Of course,
so many Emmys are given out that there have been
multiple ceremonies already at this point. So we're not going
(03:13):
to talk about really what's nominated, what's not, what the
winners are, or anything like that, except that I was
reminded to ask you about a show that I have
not watched, and a friend of mine, very dear friend,
lifelong friend of Lily's. A really talented musician, Hamilton Lighthauser
(03:33):
was nominated in a category that was given out on
a previous one of these ceremonies, and that's for best
Theme Song.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And he did the theme song for a show it's
called Your Friends and Neighbors with John Hamm.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yes, you've seen it. In fact, I think we talked
about it in one of our installments.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I think, Okay, maybe we did. Maybe we did. I
was I didn't do enough research to go back.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I thought it was. I thought it was. It was
very entertaining. I thought that ham did a great job
with the character. And yeah, it was a really interesting,
interesting show and funny and dark and kind of kind
of in his ballpark, because I think they try to
(04:22):
make him they oftentimes he'll do a property that he's
trying to be too funny, and because he dearly loves
comedy so much, you know, he hangs out at the
comedy shows. He's ever since bar I think it was
bar M in Hollywood used to do the shows that
are now at the Coronet. What's where the Cornet was,
It's what is the Largo?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Largo yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
And so he has always been a big fan of
comedians and comedy, and I think he's always wanted to
really get his teeth into comedy and he's good at it,
but it has to be the right tone. And I
think Friends and Neighbors really is the tone that he's
definitely kind of made for.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
What was amazing about the story that you just told
to me was you said you kept referring to him
as ham Yes, and he used to hang out at
what is Largo And we call our friend Hamilton, who
does the theme song for the show ham Oh, that's how
he's referred to in the last time we saw him
(05:23):
was at Largo.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Oh funny. That's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
What to make of this, I don't know nothing, probably,
but we do have an hour of free podcasting to
fill each week each week. But tonally, you're saying that
it genuinely is dark.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Oh yes, okay, oh yes, yeah. So I mean the
setup is that he's this corporate yuts basically who's just
kind of full of himself and he gets fired and
he doesn't know what to do with himself, and there's
all sorts of weirdness behind his being fired. There's like
a sexual harassment thing that really it didn't happen, but
(06:00):
it kind of like was foisted upon him as a
reason to get him out, and so he's had a
loss as to what to do. He's divorced, lives in
the same community as his ex wife, and he turns
to I'll just say, he turns to petty crime to
try and just sort of fill the empty hours.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I'm curious also, and you're probably are going to tell
me that you've already told me about this. The Studio
with Seth Rogan, created by and starring Seth Rogan.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yes, have we talked. I don't think we've talked.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Okay, good man, thank goodness.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
I don't know. So you watched this, yes, yes, loved it,
loved it. I think I think there are elements of
it that you may think are too because you're just
that way about Hollywood. You're going to go, oh, this
is too much or too inside or something. I don't know,
but there go ahead.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I stayed away from it because I found that it
was both a little too inside, like do we need
this we tell an actual story, but also too jokey,
like not realistic. So it's both really inside without being realistic,
And that was a really hard hurdle for me to overcome.
This is not the Larry Sanders show, for example, if
(07:15):
you're going to go inside, I want it to be real.
But then I got to the point where I realized,
you know, I don't hold that against cop shows like
I don't. I don't. I don't hold it against Shrinking,
I don't hold it against any other workplace.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Right, just because you're more familiar with this work.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah, most so, it just was a hurdle for me
to overcome. I will also say now having seen a
few of the episodes and finding it, yes, very very
funny and surprisingly stressful and tense.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Well, you know what they did. It's that drum beat
thing that they do. That that they basically was the
exact same thing that was in Birdman, where there's this
relentless crumb beat that goes on when the tensions starts
building and they just keep it going.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
But one of the things, and like Birdman, there's one
episode that's all a a you know, through post production
and CGI and other techniques, a the illusion of a
master shot the whole.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
And that's that's one of the things I really like
about the show is Every show is thematically different. There's
there's a pot boiler PI episode where her Seth Rogan's
character is talking into his cell phone recording his thoughts
because his psychiatrist said he should do this. So it
plays like a detective voiceover during the show, which is
(08:41):
just it's just genius and they're trying to find the
lost real from this movie that's disappeared.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Each episode really does gravitate towards some kind of filmmaking
trope and uh and and trope has such a negative connotation,
doesn't need to The tropes can work right like a
master shot. But but it embodies the very thing that
it's about, and that's pretty cool storytelling. I will also say,
(09:08):
in defense of the hurdle that I had to overcome,
the show doesn't do itself any favors by overtly referencing
like the Player, by having a character name dropped repeatedly,
that's a character in the Player, Griffin Mill And then
you think, oh my god, is this going to be
(09:29):
Tim Robbins. Is he bringing his character from the Player,
And no, it's just a winking nod. Yeah, But those
winking nods are problematic to me because you then have
it be played by Brian Cranson, who won an Emmy
and who I found to be just awful, just awful,
as I find Brian Cranson to be most of the
(09:51):
time now, Like the last time he played someone realistic
was when he played criminal high school teacher who the answer.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Well, that's what's interesting. He can either play kind of drama,
I mean, you know, hard drama, and he does that
very well. Or he can play the sitcom Dad on
Malcolm in the Middle, and he does that very well.
But when he tries to get that tone where there's
a there's a comedy that's well a comedy that that show,
you know, uh, the studio is trying to be I
(10:22):
don't think he quite gets it dial right.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And yet he wins an Emmy and he support and
he's rewarded for it, so we know we're gonna get
more performances like this and uh. And that again went
back to, you know, from the very first episode going
this is this is not real in any way? Like
that was the character that really was so out of
(10:45):
bounds of any kind of realism that I went, I
don't even understand why you're setting this in a business.
You know, the details of if you're gonna use things
that are just not are kind of hackneyed, and and
I almost wonder a lah later episode if it's because
seth Rogen and none of his team felt comfortable giving
(11:07):
Brian Kranston a note.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Possibly possibly they.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
The other though reference that I wanted to talk about
in this And it only dawned on me because I
went to see one of these films at the Academy
this weekend. The name of the studio is Continental. Yes,
Continental Films was a studio owned by Germany and it
(11:39):
was a French the only French film studio that was
allowed to produce movies during the German occupation of French
during VSHI. Yeah, so it's it's theoretically propagandistic, but it
also and many of these films are really really good,
(11:59):
really good, like even great, because Germany wanted French cinema
to compete with Hollywood interesting, and so they got the
best talent to make these big budget movies. And so
I saw one of these. But anyway, the idea that
(12:20):
they named the studio and these people know their history.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
That's what I'm thinking. It certainly was not an act.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Thatth Rogan knows yeah, that this was a vshy Nazi
backed company. Yes, and he names the company for that. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know what his backstory
is in wanting to do that, but it's certainly it
was not done in ignorance. I don't believe much of
it though. It's very layered, and it's one of those
shows that if you miss anything, they're going so quickly
you can just easily miss jokes and things like that.
But the idea that they they're doing this big jonestown
(13:01):
movie with Martin Scorsese directing it called kool Aid as
because they want to get the money from kool Aid
as the sponsor, is just it's just so laughable because
of you know that, because they can't they don't want
to do the kool Aid movie as a Barbie movie
with like the animated kool Aid picture, and so he's
(13:21):
trying to leverage it so that try and get Scorsese
to rename his picture kool Aid. Is just it's delightful.
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
You know, the the guest actor Emmy that went to
Brian Cranston. I've already seen a couple episodes where I
felt that people supposedly playing themselves would have been worthy,
except that I still think that there's probably this, even
within the industry, this feeling that, oh, if you're playing yourself,
it's somehow easier. But Anthony Mackie playing himself in the
(13:55):
Ron Howard episode. I've always been a huge Anthony Mackie fan.
Go back to hurt Locker and seeing him on Broadway,
and I have started to wonder, am I ever going
to get to see a great Anthony Mackie role again?
And damn if playing himself the studio didn't give him
a great role. And I one of my favorite actresses
(14:16):
of all time who became one of my favorite filmmakers
of all time is Sarah Paully, and I was genuinely
sad that I was never going to get to see
her act anymore. Dean and I had tried to get
her into a project and we got a lovely note
back that she simply cannot act anymore. And I thought
there's some trauma.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Related to it.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
But I got a Sarah Pauley performance again because she
played herself, Sarah Paully, the filmmaker, and her performance is great.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
In that episode. Yes it is, Yes it is.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
All right, one other thing that I wanted to ask
you about, and then I want to hear your recommendations.
I've been just extolling this show's virtues to both Dean
and John Lawler, and I can't get either of them
to see their way clear to watch it Alien Earth
from Noah Holly, because I know you admired Noah Holly's
(15:12):
work on Fargo.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yes, and I've watched the first two episodes so far,
and I mean, I'm enjoying it. I just have an
a chance to get into it just because there's so
much else going on, but I'm enjoying it.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I really appreciated in those first two episodes all the
thematic terrain that Noah Hawley carved out. You know, it's
obviously we're gonna have our monsters stories and we're gonna
have our horror elements, but he is making a show that,
(15:50):
just in terms of ideas, is great sci fi.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
And oh, definitely definitely.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Anyway, there is a there's an episode though, episode five
called in Space No One dot dot dot because we
can all fill in the blank, and it goes back
to the first episode and it goes back to what
was going on on that ship prior to the crash.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Oh, and I can't wait to get to it now.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And it's every bit as good as like the original age.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I can hardly wait.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I'm so excited anyway. Just he's wonderful, Noah, Holly, Like,
what a skill set if you have a franchise and
you need to figure out a way to expand it,
let's say, in this case to the small screen, like
with Fargo. But as I keep saying to Dean, you know,
(16:42):
he was hired to do a Star Trek film and
that's exactly the guy that they need, yes, and they
just could never pull the trigger on anything. All right,
what is Mark hershean been watching.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Well, getting back to Apple TV, And I don't know
that I can recommend this. I'm only sort of partially
enjoying it because some of the guest actors are so good.
But it's Chief of War. It's to me because I
love Hawaii first of all. So the idea you can
kind of see this flash back to the way Hawaiian
islands were when they were still like separate islands, with
(17:18):
separate you know, groups on them fighting each other and
then kind of banding together to fight the incursion of
The White Man and it's it's interesting. I think they
took a page from the remake of what was the
big hit the last couple of years, the Japanese.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Show oh A Shogun Shogun.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
So they speak in native Hawaiian in much of the show,
so a lot of subtitle just because it's in Hawaiian.
And then as The White Man enters the story, Jason
Momoa's character at one point, and I don't I don't
think I need it to put any spoilers in, but
at one point he's put in a situation where he
learns English, and so when he returns, he begins sort
(18:00):
of speaking in the pale face language as they call
it on the Islands. But it's it's good, but it's
not as good as they thought it was going to be.
I don't know, I don't know how to I'm not
exactly sure how to critique it because some of the
actors are amazingly good. You know, they've got some some
(18:20):
old hands in it, like what's his name, he's actually
a maor reactor.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, Tamara Morrison, Cmaram and Curtis Cliff Curtis Yeah, okay,
but Tamara Morrison, who's also a Maury actor. Yes, right,
who was he was Boba Fett.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
In the Yes, Yeah, yeah, he's I mean they are
really good. I just I just think Jason Momoa is
biting off a little bit more than he can chew.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Well, this is what I wanted to ask you. I mean,
I'm not saying he hasn't been in things that delight
or entertain or are successful or popular. But the next
Grit eight thing Jason Momoa is in will safely be
the first great thing Jason Momoa has been in. And
(19:08):
at some point do you wonder, well, is that because
of him that these things are only at a certain level?
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I mean, I mean it's he brought this story to life.
He's been pushing this thing since at least twenty fifteen,
and the originally it was going to be a feature film,
and he co wrote it, and I just I don't know,
maybe he just maybe he needs I don't know, I mean,
his his heart is definitely in the right place, because
(19:41):
I mean, this is a story you kind of want
to see. At least I want to see this story
come to life. And I think a lot of it
is really good and a lot of it is kind
of like it feels like it should have been a
feature film.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Okay, so a mixed a mixed bag for the Yes,
Chief of War and I knew of the show without
actually knowing its setting for its history, believe it or not.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Now a show that's in its second season, which I
totally loved the first season and I'm totally enjoying the
second season. As Peacemaker on Max, the spin off from
Suicide Squad, the second Suicide Squad by James Gunn, and
I mean this is really a labor of love for
gun because he's written every episode himself whoa, and he
(20:31):
directs most of them. His wife is one of the
main characters in the show. And John Cena, this is
this property with him as Piece Baker, I think is
the best thing I've seen John Cena in. I mean,
he really has figured out this character and it's actually
a pretty layered character, as goofy as some of this
(20:53):
show can be. And a lot of people just they
just because it's a comic book show quote unquote, people
just don't even want to look at it. And it's
incredibly vulgar, incredibly I mean it's really dark, really violent,
So you really need to have a taste for this
kind of show.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But compare it to me really quickly like again tonally
to like The Boys, because it seems, based on your description,
it has some avert similarities.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
It does have a lot of overt similarities to The Boys.
I think part of the the part that's different is
that it's peripherably Cannon to DC. So a lot of
the things that are mentioned and a lot of the
characters that some of them actually show up in the
show are based on canon, whereas The Boys is all original.
(21:50):
It's all based on the graphic novel series, so they
can do whatever they want. There's nobody going you can't
do that with Superman, or you can't do that with
Greenland whatever, yes up in arms right.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Or with the world. See. I've been as we're approaching
the final season of The Boys, right, I was wondering
about because I found myself actually describing it despite the
fact that I enjoyed the last season, I found myself
describing it as if I didn't and acknowledging how tortured
(22:25):
it's becoming. And what I have gone to with this
is that when The Boys started, never mind it's comic
book origins, but when it starts as a TV series,
it could be our world, yes, and it is addressing
a lot of things. And this is why you recommended
(22:46):
it to me. This is like a show that kind
of addresses a lot of the issues I have with
comic book culture and with fantasy and the need for
fantasy and the need for heroes writ large. But these
developlipments that they depict in the first several seasons end
up requiring so much world building of a world that's
(23:12):
alternate to ours, very much so, but at the same
time needs to afford the opportunity for the showrunners to
express the messaging about our world that they want to.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
That's a great way to look at it.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And so the worlds are growing, you know, separately, while
they want to make messaging increasingly that ties into our
own and our world, and I find that to become
kind of really sort of intellectually tortured and no longer
(23:51):
they just telling a story.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Yeah, what I like. What I like about Peacemaker is
it is on the peripheral of the DCU.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And so there are restrictions for them, Like you pointed out,
not only you know, can they not mess around with
canon characters, but to a degree they can't mess around
with the world that it's all set in, because oh boy,
we're gonna have to address this, right, But.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
There's a ton of stuff because of those restrictions. You know,
it's like getting notes from an executive at a production company. Okay,
those are my guardrails, Okay, But within that, James Gunn
has this tremendous liberty to create his kind of world
within a world. Right, So the whole first season was
this threatened alien invasion which nobody knows about. They can't
(24:39):
even get the regular superheroes to show up to help,
so they're just stuck at using these losers to try
and stop it from happening.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Well, are you getting back to Alien Earth here? How
much canon is there? And this TV show is set
a few years prior to what we consider the first
Alien movie. It was the first one released to no
longer timeline wise is it the first one because there
have been prequels, but so they are. There are definite
(25:08):
guardrails and restrictions in place of what you can and
cannot do. And yet what Noah Hawley does is carve
out within this a lot of rich terrain for storytelling
and sometimes the limitations help you, because the ground can
be fertile if you just pay attention to the ground.
(25:29):
But like I said, with the boys, I'm thinking that
the reason I felt the way that I did was
because they had to increasingly go, Okay, how is the
world outside unfolding because of everything that's taking place?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I think in this case, James Gunn,
now that he's the co head of DC Studios, is
he can not only decide what should or shouldn't be cannon,
but he can change if he needs to. Although he
sticks I mean, he's a huge comic book fan, right,
so he sticks very much to a lot of the
traditional cannon, but there's a lot of waffly canon. In fact,
(26:10):
he's doing a podcast now where they do a rewatch
the first season and they have a segment at the
end that they talk about canon not cannon, because they
mentioned a lot of superheroes during the show that never appear.
But you know, Peacemaker has all these weird rumors he's
read on the internet about like Aquaman, So they have
to decide whether what Peacemaker says about Aquaman is that
(26:32):
canon or is it not canon. It turns out that no,
he's just kind of an idiot and he believes whatever
he reads online and so it's not canon. He just
thinks it's real. Can I talk about one more show? Yes?
Because I had heard about this and I go, ah,
sounds okay, and then I actually heard Michael McKeon talking
about it on a podcast. And it's an English show.
(26:55):
It's on brit Box, which you can get to through
Amazon on Prime and it's a nineteen sorry, a twenty
twenty five British crime drama called Code of Silence, and
it stars a fairly well known actress Rose ailing Ellis,
(27:16):
who is a hearing impaired actress. She was in east Enders,
she was in Strictly Come Dancing, she was in a
show called Reunion, and she was in an episo or
season of Doctor Who. But she's deaf and she plays
(27:38):
a deaf woman in this series. She works in a
cafeteria at a police station and they need a lip
reader to look at these surveillance teams nice and all
their regular lip readers, as they say, are all out
on other assignments and so they get this girl from
the from the canteen and she ends up getting embroiled
(28:04):
in the mystery and I think it's really enjoying it.
I think it's really good.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I have a couple of BritBox shows that I need
to avail myself up that you have recommended in the past.
So now you've given me three. This really this really
makes it worth the subscription, I think.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Yeah. So the Department Q I think was that we
talked about last time, which was also really good.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Yeah, which has been renewed for a second season. All right,
Mark Krshawan, As always, I salute you, thanks for all
you do for Chillpack Hollywood out.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
It's my pleasure. Philm have a pleasant day, won't you.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
So you're back home now, Dane, I am back home.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yes, Winnipeg came and went and or you did maybe
I did. Yeah, Winnipeg still technically but yeah, you know,
it just crushed the last Nostale driver head for that place.
I know I'll run down sidewalks breaking. But there's cool stuff.
(29:14):
I mean there's an outdoor, permanent outdoor beer.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
Fountain garden.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Oh so, Dean, are you going to be participating in
this Winnipeg Artists in Hamilton, Ontario art show?
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Yeah? Well, the curator finally said, well, if you had
something more Winnipeg oriented.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
And again don't want the artistic elements of it. They
want actual landmarks.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Yeah, it's called Winnipeg and Hamilton, so it's like.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Draw some cracked sidewalks that smell that smell like skunk unk.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yeah. Well he's he doesn't even know how much wall
space he has. He's in New York. He's going to
be there Monday. So if I were going to go,
I would be driving next Monday with all my artwork.
But it's not gonna happen, So no art show. I'm out.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
And I've heard the Winnipeg is only cracked sidewalks and
horseshit beer gardens that close in the winter.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
But we love Phantom of the Paradise.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
What's that?
Speaker 4 (30:24):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
No, oh my god, the greatest movie ever.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Oh oh.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
I saw it four times and it was packed every time.
And you know, when I got to La there was
the seminal movies of your childhood, right et Raiders of
the Lost Arc and Phantom of the Paradise, And everybody
said that to me, What the Fuck's Phantom of the
Paradise got. Paul Williams, he wrote all the music for it.
(30:53):
Brian DePalma directs. It's a story of like Faust Meats
Phantom of the Opera, where a guy is making a
rock cool. I mean, the songs are amazing. I have
the album and and Germo del Toro has the mask,
but he's having an auction. Isn't he raised money for
a movie? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yeah, I mean Dean who couldn't have cared less about
Germo del Toro. I come back from the Academy Museum
exhibit of or lack my exhibit of his stuff, and
I go, you know, he owns the mask for it,
and Dean's all I've always loved Giermo del Toro.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
I tried to make the mask. I had the wire
coat Hager wire frame of that bird mask, and then
I actually had one smoked piece of glass for the eye.
Are you looking at it now?
Speaker 5 (31:44):
Yeah? It looks like it's.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
It looks like it's a.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
Like a weirder version if that's possible of Rocky Horror
Picture Show.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
But all of this talk about how you love the
music is the segue we've been looking for into our
revisitation of Highest to Lowest. Oh, Greg Vincent did appreciate
us discussing it last week. He was the loyal listener,
a great musician who wrote in to us about it
(32:16):
and believed that John Lawler would have thoughts, and I
let him know we would bring it up again because
you had seen it. So he wrote a little bit
more in case we want to use that to frame
the discussion. He literally to him the music was quote
(32:37):
editorializing all over perfectly good scenes such as the father's
son discussion in the son's bedroom. So weird. It's like
those early thirties movies where they're so infatuated with the
new sound capability that there's soundtrack music wall to wall
that Yeah, we wrote was.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
It wall to Wall? I haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
There was a Spike Lee film can be Yeah. This
is the thing is within the context that Spike Lee.
It's not the amount of music or even the editorializing
what I say, commenting on it. Uh, there are there
have been movies in the past of Spike Lee where
you wish you would just could you just tell the
(33:22):
story instead of telling us or leading us to the
mythological ramifications of the scene we're watching, you know, through
some sort of cultural defining process. The music is serving
as in his stuff, and I do feel like there's
(33:43):
an attempt at that. But again, as I said last week,
it does sound like a film that's trying to sound
like a Spike Lee movie.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
So you saw it, yeah, yeah, I I was really confused.
It does stand out like without I don't think you
could have anyone watch that movie and not go something
something is different here, And I am having a hard
(34:13):
time putting my finger on it, and I would probably
say it's the music. The music is the thing that's
making you feel strange and unusual. There is it does
feel like there's too much of it, which is weird,
but I think that may just come from the fact
that you're so aware of it. I think when like
I'm watching some movies right now that I'm just thinking
about like how they're using the music now that I've
(34:34):
seen Highest to Lowest, and I was like, yeah, I
mean there's music in other movies, but there definitely seems
like the thing that I that hit me the most
was that it felt like the music was keeping me
from the movement of the film. So it was like
the movement of the film had this kind of pace
(34:55):
and this kind of there was concern I think it
even bills itself as a thriller, and the music was
not that At any point in the movie.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
It was almost like, now, John, is there a distinction
for you. I don't mean in general, I mean within
this film between score and soundtrack selections. Yes, because I
found that when there were the needle drops. If you
don't know, Denzel Washington's character in this remake plays a
(35:32):
executive record executive, but famously all a long career in
music with supposedly the best years, so music has been
his life, and it makes sense that there would be
so many needle drops. In fact, I would argue this
is a film where you could get away with more
wall to wall music than most films can provided we're
(35:57):
hearing the world that he hearing, which is all this music,
all these songs, all these needle drops, and if you
did that, oh my god, the moments of silence would
be so powerful.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
As a result, but again to me, and now I
want to hear your thoughts on this, John, there's there's
not just this tension between the music score and the movie,
but a tension between the music score and the song score. Yeah,
the soundtrack score. That doesn't feel like an intentional conflict there.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
That's what I was wondering, because I thought the same
thing about the soundtrack. I was like, well, the soundtrack
is awesome because it makes sense within the context of
this film's story. It's actually amazing, and it's I was like,
I'm actually surprised they didn't use more. And I know
that that sometimes can be you know, a bit of
a uh yeah, just sort of like a I'm going
(37:00):
to give up and just use a bunch of this,
you know, soundtrack music. But the reality was that that
it made perfect sense for the story, and I thought,
I'm really surprised they're not doing this more. And and
it was and the music was cool, and like they
did use it at times that were that was just
so really well done. And then yeah, and then that
(37:22):
score would come back and I would just be so
confused as to what I was seeing because first of all,
the main theme piece sounded almost identical to the score
from UH for First Night. Yeah, oh no, no, sorry,
Night's Tale, A Night's Tale. Uh. If you if you
(37:43):
watch A Night's Tale, there's like this whole bo and
and it's like night.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
There's a K, there is a K.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
There is one in there and no, but it was that.
So that was also just to me because I was like, well,
I know that this isn't the same person that did
that score, and that one makes sense because it's like
fanfare sounding like the time that it's sort of taking place,
kind of with the way horns and so forth were,
(38:13):
you know, supposedly used to fanfare the different events at
a tournament, but this was not that. This wasn't that
at all. So it was it was really really distracting
to me. And I think the scene with his son
was so good and the scene in the studio was
(38:33):
so good, and I felt like in both cases the
music was kind of making it worse that well, I
mean it's like this is really good. Everyone in the
scene is doing a great job. Like I'm so like,
this is a great, great scene. Both of those scenes
especially were fantastic, and the music was distracting.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
It really again, just this movie in and of itself,
because I'm so familiar with and fond of the original,
Just this movie in and of itself. If I weren't
a Spike Lee fan, even I would just find it
to be so disturbing that some of these scenes, like
(39:20):
you're describing, there is this effort to comment on them
in such a way that we're not commenting on when
we're using the soundtrack the songs. Then I feel like
we're being immersed in a world, and we're living in
a world, and we're experiencing a world. In other words,
(39:41):
we're getting a movie. And again, some of what I'm
describing is pitfalls that Spike Lee has fallen into in
the past, in that he can't leave a movie well
enough alone. He needs to issue his commentaries. What strange
(40:02):
is now, calling upon my knowledge of Spike Lee, where
these things come. They're so often in like father son
scenes or domestic scenes or scenes of drama, not scenes
of polemics, which is where he used to comment in
the past. So that's odd. And as I said last week,
(40:25):
I think that it's not only music. I find a
lot of times, well, this is like a movie trying
to look like a Spike Lee movie.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
And that was another thing that was sort of odd
that kind of took me out of it. There were
some color shifts that I was just kind of confused
about because I thought, like when they go down into
the subway, just like random scene with like epic yellow hue,
it really, it really took it.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Oh go either way. My favorite rapper in it, Epic
Yellow Hue.
Speaker 5 (40:57):
He was really like I thought it was just I
thought it was gonna do some kind of reason why
they did that, and there was gonna be a moment
where it splits between sort of two colors to kind
of understand what two different story elements are happening at
the same time, but they're they're happening for different people
or different parts of the story.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
And it didn't.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
It didn't do that.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
It just every now and again just cut to these
oddly colored scenes that were they looked awesome, but they
looked so cool that it sort of took me by
surprise that I was like, wow, that looks awesome, but
it doesn't look like the rest of the movie looks.
So it's just there were a lot of things that
it just kind of bounced me around the movie watching experience.
(41:42):
But yeah, I watched well in the use of the
last song was great, like that was in the movie,
right where she sings the song.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
That was so cool to be able to be like sorry,
what spoiler, no, no.
Speaker 5 (42:00):
No, yeah, but anyway, like that, since there was it
was a I don't know the original movie.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Okay, So, like I.
Speaker 5 (42:08):
Can clearly say that I have no idea what what
was switched and how they changed things around and so forth.
But as far as how they use that last scene,
I thought that was awesome and I thought maybe there
was going to be more of that, And it was
sort of surprising again to then compare that use of
music to the use of the score that did feel
(42:32):
very like it was trying to stop the movement while
the movie was trying to like build up the tension,
and the music just kept the tension very very low,
very interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Now you say the original Kurtala one.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yeah, So this is where I want to come back
to because I keep saying, Okay, why does it feel
like sometimes a Spike Lee movie, sometimes somebody else. Sometimes
at it's worst, it's trying to feel like a Spike
Lee movie. And as I said last week, I think
it comes back to Spike Lee's serving two masters. He's
trying both to serve the master Kurrosawa and serve himself.
(43:15):
And I think a remake is a tricky proposition. You know,
not that it was one of the greatest films of
all time, but there was a reason coming off like
No Country for Old Men and a serious man. That
true grit from the Coen Brothers was so well received.
(43:37):
I mean, it got lots of Oscar nominations, and at
a different time or by a different filmmaker, I'm not
sure that receives that kind of love. But I think
that there was this awareness that, dear Lord, they made
a truly functioning worthy remake that was fully their own
(44:02):
right and it's and that's not easy, and he Spike
Lee makes some decisions from the get go that so
for people who aren't familiar the original High and Low
from nineteen sixties, based on a Western novel by an
(44:23):
author who was calling himself Ed McBain for this series
of novels called King's Ransom. Well, it might be my
favorite curis El film, but oh and one of my
top twenty five of all time. But it tells the
story of a shoe executive who gets blackmailed after an
attempted kidnapping by the of the executive's son reveals that
(44:46):
they grab the Sun's friend by mistake. Okay, so we're
still in the world of highest to lowest. Okay, A
friend who happens to be the executive's chauffeur. Right, Okay,
the truth is it is literally just an employer employee
relationship in the original, not really much of a friendship.
(45:10):
But the boys are friends, right as boys will be,
because boys at that age don't know social classes. Right,
we've already changed that from highest to lowest. The men
are best friends. So that changes the emotional content already,
the emotional stakes of it.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
But in both movies. Suffice it to say that this
kidnapping gone wrong or kidnapping of the wrong child happens
for the executives in both films at the worst possible
time for them. The large money demand will devastate in
both films, the power full executives' finances and their play
(46:00):
their business plans, so their careers. Uh. And they're both
you know, men of great honor and acclaim, so this
is the this is setting up their third act of
their lives, their last great accomplishment. So those are similar.
But this emotional tenor already is different, and so therefore
(46:21):
the impact of having innocent blood on their hands is different. Right,
It's hard to make a case in the Denzel remake
that Denzel's character should not be doing this, should not
be paying this, you know, because he has such an
(46:41):
emotional investment. It's his own godson. Yeah, for crying out loud,
and so all the arguments about oh I can't do it,
we got to take care of our own and stuff,
they ring hollow because because the the emotional stakes have
been piled so high against him, unlike in the original
where it really becomes a question of just pure morality
(47:04):
and honor. Yeah. So, uh, there's another change now. I
kind of like the idea of who do you get
to play a Tashiro Maffuone role in a modern remake?
Denzel Washington like, that's pretty good. Yeah, Maffune is great
(47:26):
as the executive. That would surprise no one. But it
is a surprising performance if you know Maffune, if you're
a huge fan of Maffuone, if you loved all the
Samurai films because or the drunkards or the bums that
he played so larger than life. This is buttoned down
intensity and utterly somber charisma that Maffune unlike what anyone
(47:52):
knew him.
Speaker 4 (47:53):
As he's executive.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
And it's a film whose scenes are often photographed like
stage plays, allowing the viewer to soap in that internalized
work Mafune is doing rather than the larger life work
that he does in all those movies that made him
a star. Once the ransom's paid, the film follows the
(48:17):
investigation led by a police detective, so the detective becomes
the lead character at that point. We are totally afield
from highest to lowess now at this point, and that
detective is played by an actor who would become the
(48:38):
other great Kurasawa leading man and who played one of
the best baddies in any film when he was the
murderous psychopath in Kurrasawa's Yojimbo tetsu Yanakadai. And here's these
two guys getting to play both decent men as kind
of co leads. And it is the live, sort of
(49:00):
lean and serious Naka Dye showing hints of great compassion
as the cop that uh manages to match the charisma
and intensity of Muffuone. And that's what makes the film sore,
that pairing of these actors. Okay, so you gotta you
got you got a real task ahead of you. You
(49:21):
cast Denzel Washington as Muffuone. Yeah, good for you. You've
You've got a head start, Spike Lee, Uh, you're focusing
it on two people, making them kind of quasi co leads,
though not enough. I don't think it's always Denzel's movie,
even when it's also Jeffrey Wright's movie. And Jeffrey Wright
(49:43):
is a great actor, an actor of great stature. I
think you know you're doing a great in trying to
replace Tatsuya Naka dae as is possible. But Spike Lee's
need to create a genuine, a genuine emotional connection to
the possible death of the boy right again it's his
(50:05):
godson makes him make choices about who the characters are
that really are to the film's detriment. Oh. Not only
does it make the executive sacrifice for again less noble
because he literally has no emotional choice in the original movie,
(50:26):
what's great by having the secondary lead be not the
chauffeur as Jeffrey Wright is the father of the son
and come on, honestly, we know what the father of
the kidnap boy is going through. We don't need to
see it. But what about what the cops are going
through when they see this sacrifice this great man has
(50:50):
made for an innocent boy, literally sacrificing his whole future
and his own fortune just to do the right thing
by a boy who's not his own responsibility. Oh my goodness,
that hap what happens to the cops in that case,
who realize they've failed him and they now have to
(51:10):
go and make amends and do right by this man.
That's a fascinating second story that we're led into.
Speaker 4 (51:21):
But that's not in Hys and Lows. They've cut that
all up, no.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
So, And I was thinking about that when I was going, wait,
when are the cops gonna start working smarter and harder
than they ever have? Like, when do we see a
shift in the cops in this movie from how they've
been And we don't. Oh, it's not that they're idiots,
it's not that they're bumbling, but it's that they always
know best and they have a way of doing things.
(51:47):
And it stays the same throughout, whereas in in Again
Hi to Low the original, they're shamed into working harder
and better and smarter, inspired to save this great man
who's no risked anything. And so in doing that, Chrisau
was able to depict the possible path to greatness for
(52:08):
a cop. And it dawned on me when this wasn't happening.
Oh that's the sort of thing Spike Lee would never do. Oh,
no decent cop is ever going to be a major
figure in a film of his. So we shift the
(52:29):
secondary lead to be the chauffeur, again played brilliantly by
Jeffrey Wright, who does share a rapport bordering on intimacy
with Denzel.
Speaker 5 (52:38):
Yeah, it's a really good I really love that relationship,
I thought, but.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
I never thought anything less than Jeffrey Wright deserved better.
He deserved to be an equal, at least morally, and
instead he only gets to be an equal emotionally until
one could argue me be the very end the d
newm wir but it you know, so again I guess,
(53:06):
long story long, the morality play of the original is
utterly missing. Wow, it is interesting the by a guy
who loves wrestling with morality.
Speaker 5 (53:22):
Well, it was interesting because you did mention like the
idea that in the original they didn't have quite the
relationship with this person, and in this one I didn't
note that, where I was like, well, dude, he's like
your best friend, like you can't say no. The interesting
(53:43):
part of it was this idea that maybe he could.
But what was scary. Was then you really start disliking
Denzel's character. And I was like, well, wait, no, you're
clearly like he's clearly a good person like that. There's
never a part in the movie where you see like
how he got to where he is and he seems
(54:04):
like a total jerk. He seems really cool the whole
time in the beginning where I'm just like, gee, you
that motherfucker is awesome. Uh, he's got all this you know, success,
But he does seem like he really is just a
really kind human. He talks to the people when he
when he walks in and is like, hey, this is
a person that is looking to maybe get some love
on your label, and and he talks to the girl
(54:26):
and the girls. So it's just it's so like he's
such a cool guy. And then that happens and you're right, like,
I'm like, dude, he's your best bud, Like of course
you're gonna give the money. You have to give the money,
and and so they there was that this is not musical, but.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
No, but you're you're pointing out actually another big shift,
and I hadn't thought about it. You're right, he's so
cool and he's so likable and he seems like such
a genuine guy, and then all of a sudden, I
don't have to pay the money for my godson. So
that's so it's like Spike Lee is saying that as
opposed to hide to low, where Tashira Mafuni is decidedly
(55:02):
not a cool dude. He's a button down serious, as
Dean said, boring shoe executive. He's not a hero, he's
not likable in any way. He makes a great shoe
and yet that they're both I hate saying this, but
(55:23):
this is not without intent. I'm sure on the part
of the filmmakers. They are both involved in the occupation
of soul. Both products are full of soul. But he
reveals himself to have a real depth of soul in
that Well, I have to do this. It's not my son,
(55:45):
it's not my responsibility, but I have to risk everything
because it's the noble, right, moral thing to do. And
it's as if Spike Lee is saying that doesn't actually exist.
You know, the highest are full charm and charisma, but
when it comes down to it there what's their own
is their own. And I'm not saying he's wrong as
(56:10):
that as a commentary, it means that we're the lowest.
Our cultures become the lowest as opposed to the villain
being the lowest. Highest to lowest. It's we've gone from
this ideal to what we really are, and that's highest
to lowest. I love that as an idea, but again,
maybe you make a different movie altogether because you seem
(56:35):
stuck and some of the choices you've made have now
weakened the structure, weakened the material, weakened what was there,
and we're left feeling you trapped between a weaker version
of what you usually do and a weaker version of
(56:55):
what Kisawa did.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Did because wasn't. The major moment in Kirosawa's High to
Low is when the executive sees his son come through
the door and goes, oh, you're not kidnapped, ray, And
right beside him is the limo driver who is then
suddenly realized it's his son that's been kidnapped, and that
dilemma of him being oh, thank god, we're out of
(57:18):
this and hooray, and the family gathering around, and then
in the same shot that limo driver comes to the
realization that it's his kid and he's breaking down at
the exact same time the elevation. It's like this amazing class.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
I can't even I can't even get behind the idea that,
like Spike Lee might say, you know, what are you
talking about my film? Basically the word we're walking around
a lot is how schizophrenic sometimes the film feels. And
but he might point out in Curisau's film, it starts
(57:52):
out like I said, this like stage play, and then
it opens up in the second half and becomes this
boots on the ground. You are there through Tokyo and
on the train, and that's too stylistically two different types
of films. And I would say, yes, and as we
shift our focus and our protagonist changes, we get to
(58:14):
see the worlds as those protagonists experience it. We never
shift protagonists in this movie. It's Denzel's story all the
way along. And that again is why I say Jeffrey
Wright deserved better. You had an actor who could absolutely
hold his own with Denzel, while at the same time,
(58:37):
like we said to their credit, though, build genuine rapport
on screen. So in those scenes they are very much equals,
but they are not equals within Spike Lee's movie. And well,
there you go.
Speaker 5 (58:57):
I'm not gonna say it sucked. I want to say
it just was. It felt like two different movies. It
really was like.
Speaker 1 (59:04):
I and Somehow High to Low, which is two different
movies buttoned at the end by a prison visit, ends
up coming together like, oh yeah, that's a cohesive hole.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
Yests of viewer chillpack Hollywood Hours stay at the Baldwin
Hills motor end promotional consideration paid for by Empire State Gas.
From farm to pump, We've got great gas.
Speaker 3 (59:37):
Belated spoiler alert
Hey, everybody, this is your friend in podcasting, Phil Lerness,
coming at you from Los Angeles on I guess it's
the twentieth of September or the twenty first of September.
Sorry as I record these words, So you are going
to be hearing this starting Monday, the twenty second year
nineteen episode twenty of Your Chill Pac Hollywood Hour. I
(00:26):
am heading out of town for a while to go
deal with some things that my late sister left for
me to deal with, and so we've had to pre
record a bunch of stuff. Next week's show is already
in the can, and it's pretty straightforward, and we deal
(00:48):
with some things from this past week. I mean, we
remember the great Robert Redford, and we talk about the
closure of an iconic building that once figured prominently in
this very podcast some twelve thirteen years ago. And oh yeah,
(01:11):
and I saw Superman finally. So those are the topics
and those are all covered next week. This week is
a bit of a pastiche. I cut together one of
my own almost monthly conversations about the latest in television
with Mark Kershawn with some of Dean of my weekly
(01:31):
discussion with John Lawler that pertains to some ongoing topics
of discussion, including Spike Lee's Highest to Lowest, and Dean's
painting and whether or not he's participating in a new
art show. So a little bit of a mad jumble,
but I think you'll enjoy it. Hopefully I will cut
(01:54):
these together artfully, be good to each other, and we'll
be back with a new show two weeks hence. But
like I said, we do already have a good show
recorded for next week.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
And now your Chill Pack Hollywood Hour with Dean Hagland
and Phil Lareness.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Mark Hershawan Welcome back to your Chill Pack Hollywood Hour.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Always a pleasure to be here, Phil.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Quite the appropriate day for us to be recording this
because the final installment of the Primetime Emmy Awards are
being broadcast tonight. Believable, can't we on network television? Of course,
so many Emmys are given out that there have been
multiple ceremonies already at this point. So we're not going
(03:13):
to talk about really what's nominated, what's not, what the
winners are, or anything like that, except that I was
reminded to ask you about a show that I have
not watched, and a friend of mine, very dear friend,
lifelong friend of Lily's. A really talented musician, Hamilton Lighthauser
(03:33):
was nominated in a category that was given out on
a previous one of these ceremonies, and that's for best
Theme Song.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And he did the theme song for a show it's
called Your Friends and Neighbors with John Hamm.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yes, you've seen it. In fact, I think we talked
about it in one of our installments.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I think, Okay, maybe we did. Maybe we did. I
was I didn't do enough research to go back.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I thought it was. I thought it was. It was
very entertaining. I thought that ham did a great job
with the character. And yeah, it was a really interesting,
interesting show and funny and dark and kind of kind
of in his ballpark, because I think they try to
(04:22):
make him they oftentimes he'll do a property that he's
trying to be too funny, and because he dearly loves
comedy so much, you know, he hangs out at the
comedy shows. He's ever since bar I think it was
bar M in Hollywood used to do the shows that
are now at the Coronet. What's where the Cornet was,
It's what is the Largo?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Largo yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
And so he has always been a big fan of
comedians and comedy, and I think he's always wanted to
really get his teeth into comedy and he's good at it,
but it has to be the right tone. And I
think Friends and Neighbors really is the tone that he's
definitely kind of made for.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
What was amazing about the story that you just told
to me was you said you kept referring to him
as ham Yes, and he used to hang out at
what is Largo And we call our friend Hamilton, who
does the theme song for the show ham Oh, that's how
he's referred to in the last time we saw him
(05:23):
was at Largo.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Oh funny. That's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
What to make of this, I don't know nothing, probably,
but we do have an hour of free podcasting to
fill each week each week. But tonally, you're saying that
it genuinely is dark.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Oh yes, okay, oh yes, yeah. So I mean the
setup is that he's this corporate yuts basically who's just
kind of full of himself and he gets fired and
he doesn't know what to do with himself, and there's
all sorts of weirdness behind his being fired. There's like
a sexual harassment thing that really it didn't happen, but
(06:00):
it kind of like was foisted upon him as a
reason to get him out, and so he's had a
loss as to what to do. He's divorced, lives in
the same community as his ex wife, and he turns
to I'll just say, he turns to petty crime to
try and just sort of fill the empty hours.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I'm curious also, and you're probably are going to tell
me that you've already told me about this. The Studio
with Seth Rogan, created by and starring Seth Rogan.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yes, have we talked. I don't think we've talked.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Okay, good man, thank goodness.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
I don't know. So you watched this, yes, yes, loved it,
loved it. I think I think there are elements of
it that you may think are too because you're just
that way about Hollywood. You're going to go, oh, this
is too much or too inside or something. I don't know,
but there go ahead.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I stayed away from it because I found that it
was both a little too inside, like do we need
this we tell an actual story, but also too jokey,
like not realistic. So it's both really inside without being realistic,
And that was a really hard hurdle for me to overcome.
This is not the Larry Sanders show, for example, if
(07:15):
you're going to go inside, I want it to be real.
But then I got to the point where I realized,
you know, I don't hold that against cop shows like
I don't. I don't. I don't hold it against Shrinking,
I don't hold it against any other workplace.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Right, just because you're more familiar with this work.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah, most so, it just was a hurdle for me
to overcome. I will also say now having seen a
few of the episodes and finding it, yes, very very
funny and surprisingly stressful and tense.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Well, you know what they did. It's that drum beat
thing that they do. That that they basically was the
exact same thing that was in Birdman, where there's this
relentless crumb beat that goes on when the tensions starts
building and they just keep it going.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
But one of the things, and like Birdman, there's one
episode that's all a a you know, through post production
and CGI and other techniques, a the illusion of a
master shot the whole.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
And that's that's one of the things I really like
about the show is Every show is thematically different. There's
there's a pot boiler PI episode where her Seth Rogan's
character is talking into his cell phone recording his thoughts
because his psychiatrist said he should do this. So it
plays like a detective voiceover during the show, which is
(08:41):
just it's just genius and they're trying to find the
lost real from this movie that's disappeared.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Each episode really does gravitate towards some kind of filmmaking
trope and uh and and trope has such a negative connotation,
doesn't need to The tropes can work right like a
master shot. But but it embodies the very thing that
it's about, and that's pretty cool storytelling. I will also say,
(09:08):
in defense of the hurdle that I had to overcome,
the show doesn't do itself any favors by overtly referencing
like the Player, by having a character name dropped repeatedly,
that's a character in the Player, Griffin Mill And then
you think, oh my god, is this going to be
(09:29):
Tim Robbins. Is he bringing his character from the Player,
And no, it's just a winking nod. Yeah, But those
winking nods are problematic to me because you then have
it be played by Brian Cranson, who won an Emmy
and who I found to be just awful, just awful,
as I find Brian Cranson to be most of the
(09:51):
time now, Like the last time he played someone realistic
was when he played criminal high school teacher who the answer.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Well, that's what's interesting. He can either play kind of drama,
I mean, you know, hard drama, and he does that
very well. Or he can play the sitcom Dad on
Malcolm in the Middle, and he does that very well.
But when he tries to get that tone where there's
a there's a comedy that's well a comedy that that show,
you know, uh, the studio is trying to be I
(10:22):
don't think he quite gets it dial right.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And yet he wins an Emmy and he support and
he's rewarded for it, so we know we're gonna get
more performances like this and uh. And that again went
back to, you know, from the very first episode going
this is this is not real in any way? Like
that was the character that really was so out of
(10:45):
bounds of any kind of realism that I went, I
don't even understand why you're setting this in a business.
You know, the details of if you're gonna use things
that are just not are kind of hackneyed, and and
I almost wonder a lah later episode if it's because
seth Rogen and none of his team felt comfortable giving
(11:07):
Brian Kranston a note.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Possibly possibly they.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
The other though reference that I wanted to talk about
in this And it only dawned on me because I
went to see one of these films at the Academy
this weekend. The name of the studio is Continental. Yes,
Continental Films was a studio owned by Germany and it
(11:39):
was a French the only French film studio that was
allowed to produce movies during the German occupation of French
during VSHI. Yeah, so it's it's theoretically propagandistic, but it
also and many of these films are really really good,
(11:59):
really good, like even great, because Germany wanted French cinema
to compete with Hollywood interesting, and so they got the
best talent to make these big budget movies. And so
I saw one of these. But anyway, the idea that
(12:20):
they named the studio and these people know their history.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
That's what I'm thinking. It certainly was not an act.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Thatth Rogan knows yeah, that this was a vshy Nazi
backed company. Yes, and he names the company for that. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know what his backstory
is in wanting to do that, but it's certainly it
was not done in ignorance. I don't believe much of
it though. It's very layered, and it's one of those
shows that if you miss anything, they're going so quickly
you can just easily miss jokes and things like that.
But the idea that they they're doing this big jonestown
(13:01):
movie with Martin Scorsese directing it called kool Aid as
because they want to get the money from kool Aid
as the sponsor, is just it's just so laughable because
of you know that, because they can't they don't want
to do the kool Aid movie as a Barbie movie
with like the animated kool Aid picture, and so he's
(13:21):
trying to leverage it so that try and get Scorsese
to rename his picture kool Aid. Is just it's delightful.
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
You know, the the guest actor Emmy that went to
Brian Cranston. I've already seen a couple episodes where I
felt that people supposedly playing themselves would have been worthy,
except that I still think that there's probably this, even
within the industry, this feeling that, oh, if you're playing yourself,
it's somehow easier. But Anthony Mackie playing himself in the
(13:55):
Ron Howard episode. I've always been a huge Anthony Mackie fan.
Go back to hurt Locker and seeing him on Broadway,
and I have started to wonder, am I ever going
to get to see a great Anthony Mackie role again?
And damn if playing himself the studio didn't give him
a great role. And I one of my favorite actresses
(14:16):
of all time who became one of my favorite filmmakers
of all time is Sarah Paully, and I was genuinely
sad that I was never going to get to see
her act anymore. Dean and I had tried to get
her into a project and we got a lovely note
back that she simply cannot act anymore. And I thought
there's some trauma.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Related to it.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
But I got a Sarah Pauley performance again because she
played herself, Sarah Paully, the filmmaker, and her performance is great.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
In that episode. Yes it is, Yes it is.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
All right, one other thing that I wanted to ask
you about, and then I want to hear your recommendations.
I've been just extolling this show's virtues to both Dean
and John Lawler, and I can't get either of them
to see their way clear to watch it Alien Earth
from Noah Holly, because I know you admired Noah Holly's
(15:12):
work on Fargo.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yes, and I've watched the first two episodes so far,
and I mean, I'm enjoying it. I just have an
a chance to get into it just because there's so
much else going on, but I'm enjoying it.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I really appreciated in those first two episodes all the
thematic terrain that Noah Hawley carved out. You know, it's
obviously we're gonna have our monsters stories and we're gonna
have our horror elements, but he is making a show that,
(15:50):
just in terms of ideas, is great sci fi.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
And oh, definitely definitely.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Anyway, there is a there's an episode though, episode five
called in Space No One dot dot dot because we
can all fill in the blank, and it goes back
to the first episode and it goes back to what
was going on on that ship prior to the crash.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Oh, and I can't wait to get to it now.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And it's every bit as good as like the original age.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I can hardly wait.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I'm so excited anyway. Just he's wonderful, Noah, Holly, Like,
what a skill set if you have a franchise and
you need to figure out a way to expand it,
let's say, in this case to the small screen, like
with Fargo. But as I keep saying to Dean, you know,
(16:42):
he was hired to do a Star Trek film and
that's exactly the guy that they need, yes, and they
just could never pull the trigger on anything. All right,
what is Mark hershean been watching.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Well, getting back to Apple TV, And I don't know
that I can recommend this. I'm only sort of partially
enjoying it because some of the guest actors are so good.
But it's Chief of War. It's to me because I
love Hawaii first of all. So the idea you can
kind of see this flash back to the way Hawaiian
islands were when they were still like separate islands, with
(17:18):
separate you know, groups on them fighting each other and
then kind of banding together to fight the incursion of
The White Man and it's it's interesting. I think they
took a page from the remake of what was the
big hit the last couple of years, the Japanese.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Show oh A Shogun Shogun.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
So they speak in native Hawaiian in much of the show,
so a lot of subtitle just because it's in Hawaiian.
And then as The White Man enters the story, Jason
Momoa's character at one point, and I don't I don't
think I need it to put any spoilers in, but
at one point he's put in a situation where he
learns English, and so when he returns, he begins sort
(18:00):
of speaking in the pale face language as they call
it on the Islands. But it's it's good, but it's
not as good as they thought it was going to be.
I don't know, I don't know how to I'm not
exactly sure how to critique it because some of the
actors are amazingly good. You know, they've got some some
(18:20):
old hands in it, like what's his name, he's actually
a maor reactor.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, Tamara Morrison, Cmaram and Curtis Cliff Curtis Yeah, okay,
but Tamara Morrison, who's also a Maury actor. Yes, right,
who was he was Boba Fett.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
In the Yes, Yeah, yeah, he's I mean they are
really good. I just I just think Jason Momoa is
biting off a little bit more than he can chew.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Well, this is what I wanted to ask you. I mean,
I'm not saying he hasn't been in things that delight
or entertain or are successful or popular. But the next
Grit eight thing Jason Momoa is in will safely be
the first great thing Jason Momoa has been in. And
(19:08):
at some point do you wonder, well, is that because
of him that these things are only at a certain level?
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I mean, I mean it's he brought this story to life.
He's been pushing this thing since at least twenty fifteen,
and the originally it was going to be a feature film,
and he co wrote it, and I just I don't know,
maybe he just maybe he needs I don't know, I mean,
his his heart is definitely in the right place, because
(19:41):
I mean, this is a story you kind of want
to see. At least I want to see this story
come to life. And I think a lot of it
is really good and a lot of it is kind
of like it feels like it should have been a
feature film.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Okay, so a mixed a mixed bag for the Yes,
Chief of War and I knew of the show without
actually knowing its setting for its history, believe it or not.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Now a show that's in its second season, which I
totally loved the first season and I'm totally enjoying the
second season. As Peacemaker on Max, the spin off from
Suicide Squad, the second Suicide Squad by James Gunn, and
I mean this is really a labor of love for
gun because he's written every episode himself whoa, and he
(20:31):
directs most of them. His wife is one of the
main characters in the show. And John Cena, this is
this property with him as Piece Baker, I think is
the best thing I've seen John Cena in. I mean,
he really has figured out this character and it's actually
a pretty layered character, as goofy as some of this
(20:53):
show can be. And a lot of people just they
just because it's a comic book show quote unquote, people
just don't even want to look at it. And it's
incredibly vulgar, incredibly I mean it's really dark, really violent,
So you really need to have a taste for this
kind of show.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But compare it to me really quickly like again tonally
to like The Boys, because it seems, based on your description,
it has some avert similarities.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
It does have a lot of overt similarities to The Boys.
I think part of the the part that's different is
that it's peripherably Cannon to DC. So a lot of
the things that are mentioned and a lot of the
characters that some of them actually show up in the
show are based on canon, whereas The Boys is all original.
(21:50):
It's all based on the graphic novel series, so they
can do whatever they want. There's nobody going you can't
do that with Superman, or you can't do that with
Greenland whatever, yes up in arms right.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Or with the world. See. I've been as we're approaching
the final season of The Boys, right, I was wondering
about because I found myself actually describing it despite the
fact that I enjoyed the last season, I found myself
describing it as if I didn't and acknowledging how tortured
(22:25):
it's becoming. And what I have gone to with this
is that when The Boys started, never mind it's comic
book origins, but when it starts as a TV series,
it could be our world, yes, and it is addressing
a lot of things. And this is why you recommended
(22:46):
it to me. This is like a show that kind
of addresses a lot of the issues I have with
comic book culture and with fantasy and the need for
fantasy and the need for heroes writ large. But these
developlipments that they depict in the first several seasons end
up requiring so much world building of a world that's
(23:12):
alternate to ours, very much so, but at the same
time needs to afford the opportunity for the showrunners to
express the messaging about our world that they want to.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
That's a great way to look at it.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And so the worlds are growing, you know, separately, while
they want to make messaging increasingly that ties into our
own and our world, and I find that to become
kind of really sort of intellectually tortured and no longer
(23:51):
they just telling a story.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Yeah, what I like. What I like about Peacemaker is
it is on the peripheral of the DCU.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And so there are restrictions for them, Like you pointed out,
not only you know, can they not mess around with
canon characters, but to a degree they can't mess around
with the world that it's all set in, because oh boy,
we're gonna have to address this, right, But.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
There's a ton of stuff because of those restrictions. You know,
it's like getting notes from an executive at a production company. Okay,
those are my guardrails, Okay, But within that, James Gunn
has this tremendous liberty to create his kind of world
within a world. Right, So the whole first season was
this threatened alien invasion which nobody knows about. They can't
(24:39):
even get the regular superheroes to show up to help,
so they're just stuck at using these losers to try
and stop it from happening.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Well, are you getting back to Alien Earth here? How
much canon is there? And this TV show is set
a few years prior to what we consider the first
Alien movie. It was the first one released to no
longer timeline wise is it the first one because there
have been prequels, but so they are. There are definite
(25:08):
guardrails and restrictions in place of what you can and
cannot do. And yet what Noah Hawley does is carve
out within this a lot of rich terrain for storytelling
and sometimes the limitations help you, because the ground can
be fertile if you just pay attention to the ground.
(25:29):
But like I said, with the boys, I'm thinking that
the reason I felt the way that I did was
because they had to increasingly go, Okay, how is the
world outside unfolding because of everything that's taking place?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I think in this case, James Gunn,
now that he's the co head of DC Studios, is
he can not only decide what should or shouldn't be cannon,
but he can change if he needs to. Although he
sticks I mean, he's a huge comic book fan, right,
so he sticks very much to a lot of the
traditional cannon, but there's a lot of waffly canon. In fact,
(26:10):
he's doing a podcast now where they do a rewatch
the first season and they have a segment at the
end that they talk about canon not cannon, because they
mentioned a lot of superheroes during the show that never appear.
But you know, Peacemaker has all these weird rumors he's
read on the internet about like Aquaman, So they have
to decide whether what Peacemaker says about Aquaman is that
(26:32):
canon or is it not canon. It turns out that no,
he's just kind of an idiot and he believes whatever
he reads online and so it's not canon. He just
thinks it's real. Can I talk about one more show? Yes?
Because I had heard about this and I go, ah,
sounds okay, and then I actually heard Michael McKeon talking
about it on a podcast. And it's an English show.
(26:55):
It's on brit Box, which you can get to through
Amazon on Prime and it's a nineteen sorry, a twenty
twenty five British crime drama called Code of Silence, and
it stars a fairly well known actress Rose ailing Ellis,
(27:16):
who is a hearing impaired actress. She was in east Enders,
she was in Strictly Come Dancing, she was in a
show called Reunion, and she was in an episo or
season of Doctor Who. But she's deaf and she plays
(27:38):
a deaf woman in this series. She works in a
cafeteria at a police station and they need a lip
reader to look at these surveillance teams nice and all
their regular lip readers, as they say, are all out
on other assignments and so they get this girl from
the from the canteen and she ends up getting embroiled
(28:04):
in the mystery and I think it's really enjoying it.
I think it's really good.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I have a couple of BritBox shows that I need
to avail myself up that you have recommended in the past.
So now you've given me three. This really this really
makes it worth the subscription, I think.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Yeah. So the Department Q I think was that we
talked about last time, which was also really good.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Yeah, which has been renewed for a second season. All right,
Mark Krshawan, As always, I salute you, thanks for all
you do for Chillpack Hollywood out.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
It's my pleasure. Philm have a pleasant day, won't you.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
So you're back home now, Dane, I am back home.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yes, Winnipeg came and went and or you did maybe
I did. Yeah, Winnipeg still technically but yeah, you know,
it just crushed the last Nostale driver head for that place.
I know I'll run down sidewalks breaking. But there's cool stuff.
(29:14):
I mean there's an outdoor, permanent outdoor beer.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
Fountain garden.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Oh so, Dean, are you going to be participating in
this Winnipeg Artists in Hamilton, Ontario art show?
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Yeah? Well, the curator finally said, well, if you had
something more Winnipeg oriented.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
And again don't want the artistic elements of it. They
want actual landmarks.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Yeah, it's called Winnipeg and Hamilton, so it's like.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Draw some cracked sidewalks that smell that smell like skunk unk.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yeah. Well he's he doesn't even know how much wall
space he has. He's in New York. He's going to
be there Monday. So if I were going to go,
I would be driving next Monday with all my artwork.
But it's not gonna happen, So no art show. I'm out.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
And I've heard the Winnipeg is only cracked sidewalks and
horseshit beer gardens that close in the winter.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
But we love Phantom of the Paradise.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
What's that?
Speaker 4 (30:24):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
No, oh my god, the greatest movie ever.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Oh oh.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
I saw it four times and it was packed every time.
And you know, when I got to La there was
the seminal movies of your childhood, right et Raiders of
the Lost Arc and Phantom of the Paradise, And everybody
said that to me, What the Fuck's Phantom of the
Paradise got. Paul Williams, he wrote all the music for it.
(30:53):
Brian DePalma directs. It's a story of like Faust Meats
Phantom of the Opera, where a guy is making a
rock cool. I mean, the songs are amazing. I have
the album and and Germo del Toro has the mask,
but he's having an auction. Isn't he raised money for
a movie? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yeah, I mean Dean who couldn't have cared less about
Germo del Toro. I come back from the Academy Museum
exhibit of or lack my exhibit of his stuff, and
I go, you know, he owns the mask for it,
and Dean's all I've always loved Giermo del Toro.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
I tried to make the mask. I had the wire
coat Hager wire frame of that bird mask, and then
I actually had one smoked piece of glass for the eye.
Are you looking at it now?
Speaker 5 (31:44):
Yeah? It looks like it's.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
It looks like it's a.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
Like a weirder version if that's possible of Rocky Horror
Picture Show.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
But all of this talk about how you love the
music is the segue we've been looking for into our
revisitation of Highest to Lowest. Oh, Greg Vincent did appreciate
us discussing it last week. He was the loyal listener,
a great musician who wrote in to us about it
(32:16):
and believed that John Lawler would have thoughts, and I
let him know we would bring it up again because
you had seen it. So he wrote a little bit
more in case we want to use that to frame
the discussion. He literally to him the music was quote
(32:37):
editorializing all over perfectly good scenes such as the father's
son discussion in the son's bedroom. So weird. It's like
those early thirties movies where they're so infatuated with the
new sound capability that there's soundtrack music wall to wall
that Yeah, we wrote was.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
It wall to Wall? I haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
There was a Spike Lee film can be Yeah. This
is the thing is within the context that Spike Lee.
It's not the amount of music or even the editorializing
what I say, commenting on it. Uh, there are there
have been movies in the past of Spike Lee where
you wish you would just could you just tell the
(33:22):
story instead of telling us or leading us to the
mythological ramifications of the scene we're watching, you know, through
some sort of cultural defining process. The music is serving
as in his stuff, and I do feel like there's
(33:43):
an attempt at that. But again, as I said last week,
it does sound like a film that's trying to sound
like a Spike Lee movie.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
So you saw it, yeah, yeah, I I was really confused.
It does stand out like without I don't think you
could have anyone watch that movie and not go something
something is different here, And I am having a hard
(34:13):
time putting my finger on it, and I would probably
say it's the music. The music is the thing that's
making you feel strange and unusual. There is it does
feel like there's too much of it, which is weird,
but I think that may just come from the fact
that you're so aware of it. I think when like
I'm watching some movies right now that I'm just thinking
about like how they're using the music now that I've
(34:34):
seen Highest to Lowest, and I was like, yeah, I
mean there's music in other movies, but there definitely seems
like the thing that I that hit me the most
was that it felt like the music was keeping me
from the movement of the film. So it was like
the movement of the film had this kind of pace
(34:55):
and this kind of there was concern I think it
even bills itself as a thriller, and the music was
not that At any point in the movie.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
It was almost like, now, John, is there a distinction
for you. I don't mean in general, I mean within
this film between score and soundtrack selections. Yes, because I
found that when there were the needle drops. If you
don't know, Denzel Washington's character in this remake plays a
(35:32):
executive record executive, but famously all a long career in
music with supposedly the best years, so music has been
his life, and it makes sense that there would be
so many needle drops. In fact, I would argue this
is a film where you could get away with more
wall to wall music than most films can provided we're
(35:57):
hearing the world that he hearing, which is all this music,
all these songs, all these needle drops, and if you
did that, oh my god, the moments of silence would
be so powerful.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
As a result, but again to me, and now I
want to hear your thoughts on this, John, there's there's
not just this tension between the music score and the movie,
but a tension between the music score and the song score. Yeah,
the soundtrack score. That doesn't feel like an intentional conflict there.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
That's what I was wondering, because I thought the same
thing about the soundtrack. I was like, well, the soundtrack
is awesome because it makes sense within the context of
this film's story. It's actually amazing, and it's I was like,
I'm actually surprised they didn't use more. And I know
that that sometimes can be you know, a bit of
a uh yeah, just sort of like a I'm going
(37:00):
to give up and just use a bunch of this,
you know, soundtrack music. But the reality was that that
it made perfect sense for the story, and I thought,
I'm really surprised they're not doing this more. And and
it was and the music was cool, and like they
did use it at times that were that was just
so really well done. And then yeah, and then that
(37:22):
score would come back and I would just be so
confused as to what I was seeing because first of all,
the main theme piece sounded almost identical to the score
from UH for First Night. Yeah, oh no, no, sorry,
Night's Tale, A Night's Tale. Uh. If you if you
(37:43):
watch A Night's Tale, there's like this whole bo and
and it's like night.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
There's a K, there is a K.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
There is one in there and no, but it was that.
So that was also just to me because I was like, well,
I know that this isn't the same person that did
that score, and that one makes sense because it's like
fanfare sounding like the time that it's sort of taking place,
kind of with the way horns and so forth were,
(38:13):
you know, supposedly used to fanfare the different events at
a tournament, but this was not that. This wasn't that
at all. So it was it was really really distracting
to me. And I think the scene with his son
was so good and the scene in the studio was
(38:33):
so good, and I felt like in both cases the
music was kind of making it worse that well, I
mean it's like this is really good. Everyone in the
scene is doing a great job. Like I'm so like,
this is a great, great scene. Both of those scenes
especially were fantastic, and the music was distracting.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
It really again, just this movie in and of itself,
because I'm so familiar with and fond of the original,
Just this movie in and of itself. If I weren't
a Spike Lee fan, even I would just find it
to be so disturbing that some of these scenes, like
(39:20):
you're describing, there is this effort to comment on them
in such a way that we're not commenting on when
we're using the soundtrack the songs. Then I feel like
we're being immersed in a world, and we're living in
a world, and we're experiencing a world. In other words,
(39:41):
we're getting a movie. And again, some of what I'm
describing is pitfalls that Spike Lee has fallen into in
the past, in that he can't leave a movie well
enough alone. He needs to issue his commentaries. What strange
(40:02):
is now, calling upon my knowledge of Spike Lee, where
these things come. They're so often in like father son
scenes or domestic scenes or scenes of drama, not scenes
of polemics, which is where he used to comment in
the past. So that's odd. And as I said last week,
(40:25):
I think that it's not only music. I find a
lot of times, well, this is like a movie trying
to look like a Spike Lee movie.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
And that was another thing that was sort of odd
that kind of took me out of it. There were
some color shifts that I was just kind of confused
about because I thought, like when they go down into
the subway, just like random scene with like epic yellow hue,
it really, it really took it.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Oh go either way. My favorite rapper in it, Epic
Yellow Hue.
Speaker 5 (40:57):
He was really like I thought it was just I
thought it was gonna do some kind of reason why
they did that, and there was gonna be a moment
where it splits between sort of two colors to kind
of understand what two different story elements are happening at
the same time, but they're they're happening for different people
or different parts of the story.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
And it didn't.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
It didn't do that.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
It just every now and again just cut to these
oddly colored scenes that were they looked awesome, but they
looked so cool that it sort of took me by
surprise that I was like, wow, that looks awesome, but
it doesn't look like the rest of the movie looks.
So it's just there were a lot of things that
it just kind of bounced me around the movie watching experience.
(41:42):
But yeah, I watched well in the use of the
last song was great, like that was in the movie,
right where she sings the song.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
That was so cool to be able to be like sorry,
what spoiler, no, no.
Speaker 5 (42:00):
No, yeah, but anyway, like that, since there was it
was a I don't know the original movie.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Okay, So, like I.
Speaker 5 (42:08):
Can clearly say that I have no idea what what
was switched and how they changed things around and so forth.
But as far as how they use that last scene,
I thought that was awesome and I thought maybe there
was going to be more of that, And it was
sort of surprising again to then compare that use of
music to the use of the score that did feel
(42:32):
very like it was trying to stop the movement while
the movie was trying to like build up the tension,
and the music just kept the tension very very low,
very interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Now you say the original Kurtala one.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yeah, So this is where I want to come back
to because I keep saying, Okay, why does it feel
like sometimes a Spike Lee movie, sometimes somebody else. Sometimes
at it's worst, it's trying to feel like a Spike
Lee movie. And as I said last week, I think
it comes back to Spike Lee's serving two masters. He's
trying both to serve the master Kurrosawa and serve himself.
(43:15):
And I think a remake is a tricky proposition. You know,
not that it was one of the greatest films of
all time, but there was a reason coming off like
No Country for Old Men and a serious man. That
true grit from the Coen Brothers was so well received.
(43:37):
I mean, it got lots of Oscar nominations, and at
a different time or by a different filmmaker, I'm not
sure that receives that kind of love. But I think
that there was this awareness that, dear Lord, they made
a truly functioning worthy remake that was fully their own
(44:02):
right and it's and that's not easy, and he Spike
Lee makes some decisions from the get go that so
for people who aren't familiar the original High and Low
from nineteen sixties, based on a Western novel by an
(44:23):
author who was calling himself Ed McBain for this series
of novels called King's Ransom. Well, it might be my
favorite curis El film, but oh and one of my
top twenty five of all time. But it tells the
story of a shoe executive who gets blackmailed after an
attempted kidnapping by the of the executive's son reveals that
(44:46):
they grab the Sun's friend by mistake. Okay, so we're
still in the world of highest to lowest. Okay, A
friend who happens to be the executive's chauffeur. Right, Okay,
the truth is it is literally just an employer employee
relationship in the original, not really much of a friendship.
(45:10):
But the boys are friends, right as boys will be,
because boys at that age don't know social classes. Right,
we've already changed that from highest to lowest. The men
are best friends. So that changes the emotional content already,
the emotional stakes of it.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
But in both movies. Suffice it to say that this
kidnapping gone wrong or kidnapping of the wrong child happens
for the executives in both films at the worst possible
time for them. The large money demand will devastate in
both films, the power full executives' finances and their play
(46:00):
their business plans, so their careers. Uh. And they're both
you know, men of great honor and acclaim, so this
is the this is setting up their third act of
their lives, their last great accomplishment. So those are similar.
But this emotional tenor already is different, and so therefore
(46:21):
the impact of having innocent blood on their hands is different. Right,
It's hard to make a case in the Denzel remake
that Denzel's character should not be doing this, should not
be paying this, you know, because he has such an
(46:41):
emotional investment. It's his own godson. Yeah, for crying out loud,
and so all the arguments about oh I can't do it,
we got to take care of our own and stuff,
they ring hollow because because the the emotional stakes have
been piled so high against him, unlike in the original
where it really becomes a question of just pure morality
(47:04):
and honor. Yeah. So, uh, there's another change now. I
kind of like the idea of who do you get
to play a Tashiro Maffuone role in a modern remake?
Denzel Washington like, that's pretty good. Yeah, Maffune is great
(47:26):
as the executive. That would surprise no one. But it
is a surprising performance if you know Maffune, if you're
a huge fan of Maffuone, if you loved all the
Samurai films because or the drunkards or the bums that
he played so larger than life. This is buttoned down
intensity and utterly somber charisma that Maffune unlike what anyone
(47:52):
knew him.
Speaker 4 (47:53):
As he's executive.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
And it's a film whose scenes are often photographed like
stage plays, allowing the viewer to soap in that internalized
work Mafune is doing rather than the larger life work
that he does in all those movies that made him
a star. Once the ransom's paid, the film follows the
(48:17):
investigation led by a police detective, so the detective becomes
the lead character at that point. We are totally afield
from highest to lowess now at this point, and that
detective is played by an actor who would become the
(48:38):
other great Kurasawa leading man and who played one of
the best baddies in any film when he was the
murderous psychopath in Kurrasawa's Yojimbo tetsu Yanakadai. And here's these
two guys getting to play both decent men as kind
of co leads. And it is the live, sort of
(49:00):
lean and serious Naka Dye showing hints of great compassion
as the cop that uh manages to match the charisma
and intensity of Muffuone. And that's what makes the film sore,
that pairing of these actors. Okay, so you gotta you
got you got a real task ahead of you. You
(49:21):
cast Denzel Washington as Muffuone. Yeah, good for you. You've
You've got a head start, Spike Lee, Uh, you're focusing
it on two people, making them kind of quasi co leads,
though not enough. I don't think it's always Denzel's movie,
even when it's also Jeffrey Wright's movie. And Jeffrey Wright
(49:43):
is a great actor, an actor of great stature. I
think you know you're doing a great in trying to
replace Tatsuya Naka dae as is possible. But Spike Lee's
need to create a genuine, a genuine emotional connection to
the possible death of the boy right again it's his
(50:05):
godson makes him make choices about who the characters are
that really are to the film's detriment. Oh. Not only
does it make the executive sacrifice for again less noble
because he literally has no emotional choice in the original movie,
(50:26):
what's great by having the secondary lead be not the
chauffeur as Jeffrey Wright is the father of the son
and come on, honestly, we know what the father of
the kidnap boy is going through. We don't need to
see it. But what about what the cops are going
through when they see this sacrifice this great man has
(50:50):
made for an innocent boy, literally sacrificing his whole future
and his own fortune just to do the right thing
by a boy who's not his own responsibility. Oh my goodness,
that hap what happens to the cops in that case,
who realize they've failed him and they now have to
(51:10):
go and make amends and do right by this man.
That's a fascinating second story that we're led into.
Speaker 4 (51:21):
But that's not in Hys and Lows. They've cut that
all up, no.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
So, And I was thinking about that when I was going, wait,
when are the cops gonna start working smarter and harder
than they ever have? Like, when do we see a
shift in the cops in this movie from how they've
been And we don't. Oh, it's not that they're idiots,
it's not that they're bumbling, but it's that they always
know best and they have a way of doing things.
(51:47):
And it stays the same throughout, whereas in in Again
Hi to Low the original, they're shamed into working harder
and better and smarter, inspired to save this great man
who's no risked anything. And so in doing that, Chrisau
was able to depict the possible path to greatness for
(52:08):
a cop. And it dawned on me when this wasn't happening.
Oh that's the sort of thing Spike Lee would never do. Oh,
no decent cop is ever going to be a major
figure in a film of his. So we shift the
(52:29):
secondary lead to be the chauffeur, again played brilliantly by
Jeffrey Wright, who does share a rapport bordering on intimacy
with Denzel.
Speaker 5 (52:38):
Yeah, it's a really good I really love that relationship,
I thought, but.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
I never thought anything less than Jeffrey Wright deserved better.
He deserved to be an equal, at least morally, and
instead he only gets to be an equal emotionally until
one could argue me be the very end the d
newm wir but it you know, so again I guess,
(53:06):
long story long, the morality play of the original is
utterly missing. Wow, it is interesting the by a guy
who loves wrestling with morality.
Speaker 5 (53:22):
Well, it was interesting because you did mention like the
idea that in the original they didn't have quite the
relationship with this person, and in this one I didn't
note that, where I was like, well, dude, he's like
your best friend, like you can't say no. The interesting
(53:43):
part of it was this idea that maybe he could.
But what was scary. Was then you really start disliking
Denzel's character. And I was like, well, wait, no, you're
clearly like he's clearly a good person like that. There's
never a part in the movie where you see like
how he got to where he is and he seems
(54:04):
like a total jerk. He seems really cool the whole
time in the beginning where I'm just like, gee, you
that motherfucker is awesome. Uh, he's got all this you know, success,
But he does seem like he really is just a
really kind human. He talks to the people when he
when he walks in and is like, hey, this is
a person that is looking to maybe get some love
on your label, and and he talks to the girl
(54:26):
and the girls. So it's just it's so like he's
such a cool guy. And then that happens and you're right, like,
I'm like, dude, he's your best bud, Like of course
you're gonna give the money. You have to give the money,
and and so they there was that this is not musical, but.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
No, but you're you're pointing out actually another big shift,
and I hadn't thought about it. You're right, he's so
cool and he's so likable and he seems like such
a genuine guy, and then all of a sudden, I
don't have to pay the money for my godson. So
that's so it's like Spike Lee is saying that as
opposed to hide to low, where Tashira Mafuni is decidedly
(55:02):
not a cool dude. He's a button down serious, as
Dean said, boring shoe executive. He's not a hero, he's
not likable in any way. He makes a great shoe
and yet that they're both I hate saying this, but
(55:23):
this is not without intent. I'm sure on the part
of the filmmakers. They are both involved in the occupation
of soul. Both products are full of soul. But he
reveals himself to have a real depth of soul in
that Well, I have to do this. It's not my son,
(55:45):
it's not my responsibility, but I have to risk everything
because it's the noble, right, moral thing to do. And
it's as if Spike Lee is saying that doesn't actually exist.
You know, the highest are full charm and charisma, but
when it comes down to it there what's their own
is their own. And I'm not saying he's wrong as
(56:10):
that as a commentary, it means that we're the lowest.
Our cultures become the lowest as opposed to the villain
being the lowest. Highest to lowest. It's we've gone from
this ideal to what we really are, and that's highest
to lowest. I love that as an idea, but again,
maybe you make a different movie altogether because you seem
(56:35):
stuck and some of the choices you've made have now
weakened the structure, weakened the material, weakened what was there,
and we're left feeling you trapped between a weaker version
of what you usually do and a weaker version of
(56:55):
what Kisawa did.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Did because wasn't. The major moment in Kirosawa's High to
Low is when the executive sees his son come through
the door and goes, oh, you're not kidnapped, ray, And
right beside him is the limo driver who is then
suddenly realized it's his son that's been kidnapped, and that
dilemma of him being oh, thank god, we're out of
(57:18):
this and hooray, and the family gathering around, and then
in the same shot that limo driver comes to the
realization that it's his kid and he's breaking down at
the exact same time the elevation. It's like this amazing class.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
I can't even I can't even get behind the idea that,
like Spike Lee might say, you know, what are you
talking about my film? Basically the word we're walking around
a lot is how schizophrenic sometimes the film feels. And
but he might point out in Curisau's film, it starts
(57:52):
out like I said, this like stage play, and then
it opens up in the second half and becomes this
boots on the ground. You are there through Tokyo and
on the train, and that's too stylistically two different types
of films. And I would say, yes, and as we
shift our focus and our protagonist changes, we get to
(58:14):
see the worlds as those protagonists experience it. We never
shift protagonists in this movie. It's Denzel's story all the
way along. And that again is why I say Jeffrey
Wright deserved better. You had an actor who could absolutely
hold his own with Denzel, while at the same time,
(58:37):
like we said to their credit, though, build genuine rapport
on screen. So in those scenes they are very much equals,
but they are not equals within Spike Lee's movie. And well,
there you go.
Speaker 5 (58:57):
I'm not gonna say it sucked. I want to say
it just was. It felt like two different movies. It
really was like.
Speaker 1 (59:04):
I and Somehow High to Low, which is two different
movies buttoned at the end by a prison visit, ends
up coming together like, oh yeah, that's a cohesive hole.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
Yests of viewer chillpack Hollywood Hours stay at the Baldwin
Hills motor end promotional consideration paid for by Empire State Gas.
From farm to pump, We've got great gas.
Speaker 3 (59:37):
Belated spoiler alert
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