Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to five minute film finder, brought to you by Pioneer library system.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of five minute film Finder, brought to you by Pioneer library system. I'm Ben, and today with me is Darren. Hey, Darren, how's it going today?
[00:00:23] Speaker B: It's going pretty great today. I'm excited to talk about some movies.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's been a while since we did an episode. Have you been watching many things lately?
[00:00:34] Speaker B: I mean, I'm constantly watching movies. Of course.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Sure. Any favorites recently? Yeah.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Oh, that's tough.
Put me on the spot.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Oh, sure. I'll talk about mine. So, recently saw poor things.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: So weird, so good. Have you seen it yet?
[00:00:48] Speaker B: No, I have not seen that one.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: So good, so weird.
Have covered the lobster by the same director whose name I'm forgetting right now, but he's really found his groove, I think, with the last two of his movies, the favorite and poor things. It's just like, the art direction's incredible. It's a really beautiful, very surreal space and just a weird Frankenstein story that touches a lot of spaces that you wouldn't expect it to, but, yeah, that's what I've seen recently. That was exciting.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Very cool.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Have you thought anything? It's okay if not. No.
Always just like, to check in on what people are watching, as we haven't gotten to do as many new releases on the podcast lately.
So today we have some incredibly disparate movies.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Like, couldn't be more different. And I really didn't like. I was looking at stuff. I was like, oh, okay, there's some actors that are in both of these. It's like, oh, we'll pair them together. Yeah.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: Always very kindly picking out episodes for me, since I am not as timely about it.
And the connection between these two movies are they both include Jennifer, Jason Lee, and Jude Law.
Not leads in both movies. They're both the leads in one.
But today, Darren will be kicking us.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Off with, we're going to talk about road to perdition.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: All right, so if Wilhelm could start the timer, we will kick off road to perdition.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: All right. Road to perdition is a 2002, call it a crime drama starring primarily Tom Hanks and his son, Tyler Hoechlin, who's recently become famous for playing Superman on the CW shows.
He took a small break from acting in the middle there to play baseball in college or something like that, and has recently become, you know, famous again, kind of. But this was one of his early film roles, debut or something like that.
Pretty powerful role from him. We also had like we said, jude Law, Jennifer, Jason Lee, early appearance from Daniel Craig.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Oh, yes.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: Who would go on to play Bond for this same director, Sam Mendes, in a couple of different Bond films.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: One of my favorite bonds.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: And. Yeah, so we got a great set of actors here. It's a great Depression set film. Mobster stuff. This is a irish mob that, you know, some stuff happens, and Tom Hanks and his son have to go on a road trip, kind of.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So over overall impressions of this movie.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: So really, it's a, it's an interesting movie because it's pretty quiet. You know, there's not a lot of dialogue. You had a lot of scenes of, like, you know, characters looking at each other and different stuff like that. So they really kind of played into the, the emotions of the characters and stuff like that in shooting the movie in that way.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Feels like a lonely movie, right?
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Even though they're together, the characters spend a lot of time insulated from each other.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. My partner was talking to me and she's like, I think of that movie and I think of falling asleep. And I was like, that's weird for a mob movie. But then I was watching it. I was like, no, I get it. It is a very somber paced film.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: And, like, the beginning, it starts, it's dark. There's a lot of dark scenes where it's at night, it's snowing, you know, stuff like that. Yeah. And kind of sets that tone.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: And if you don't get through that first portion to where, like, Hank starts to warm up, you start to see his classic charm and, like, very gruff.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: At the start of the movie. Absolutely.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: And starts to fill that father role that he's, like, kind of being portrayed against.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: In this film to begin with.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Yes. Tom Hanks plays a mob tough. He's a, he's a hitman, an enforcer for this irish mob guy, which pretty.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Disparate role from a lot of his career. Like, it's not often he plays, like, a tough bad guy, like, quote unquote bad guy.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Right. Anybody who's, who's on the side of could be considered bad, basically, that's generally avoided by Tom Hanks or, you know, whether it's on purpose or not. But, yeah. Yeah, I think he did a great role.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Playing that, you know, kind of torn between his family and his family, you know.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: Yep. The family and his family. Exactly.
So as we mentioned, Jennifer, Jason Lee is also in this movie. She plays his wife, and she's not.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: In the movie a lot. Kind of a small role for even, you know, at the time, you know, she was relatively popular, you know, actor and stuff. And so it was interesting to see her in that role. Pretty understated. Like I said, she's mostly there to look at her kids and kind of provide that reason why Tom Hanks is fighting those two sides of himself kind of thing.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Absolutely. And then we also have Jude law in.
We discussed how these movies are only three years apart. But, like, in my movie, he looks like classic Jude Law. Very pretty, very well groomed and just that very shining, golden, handsome face. And this one very intentionally.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: A creep, right? Very creepy, even so much so. They messed with his hair and give him a little bald spot. He's got nasty teeth, but the makeup work that they did on his face, he was a little more angular and stuff like that.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: And how he holds himself too. Like, he, like, almost holds himself in a slight grimace and, like, hunched and just, like, there's, like, a menace to him that it goes to show as, like, he's not just, like, a pretty face. He's a very competent actor.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: The great scene where they're in the diner when they meet for the first time, Jude Law, Tom Hanks character. And Tom Hanks doesn't know that he's a bad guy yet, that he's, you know, the Jude law is there to do him harm. And there's. There's the. The bit with the sweat. It was such a good scene. So good. And he was. He just quietly menacing, you know, the way he talked and stuff like that. It was.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: You just felt like. Like sharp teeth behind.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Viewers knew that he was bad, but, like, you know, seeing Tom Hanks, like, realize that as the scene plays out. Yeah, it was really fun.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
I'm trying to think. We didn't mention the tooch is in it.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Stanley. Stanley. Stanley tooch.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: Also a light role, but as, like, one of the higher ups in the mob. But, like.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah, Frank Nitty. He played Frank Nitti, who would go on to, like, take over the mob from Capone. Yes, eventually. He's played here as, like, the guy who's in charge ish of everything that's going on with crime. And so they can check.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Oh, and that's our time. So that was the road to perdition. Would you suggest this movie for any fans of other certain movies? Any.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Well, I think it's good pairings that you think it's a good.
It's not like a strong mob movie because it's mostly about Tom Hanks and his son and the family. Stuff, like with mob adjacent stuff.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: I absolutely agree.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: It is definitely like a drama film.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Yeah. It's more like a period drama than it is a mob movie. Cause it doesn't have that tone of, like, the glorification of the violence or like, the excitement of the violence. It's like, when it's violent, it's bad.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: And it's over quickly. Generally, there's no long extended. Even, like, the couple of fight scenes, they were very short.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Yeah, they don't play up the horror of the violence. They play up the impact of what happens after.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Yeah. To the characters and stuff. Yes, absolutely.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: So, yeah, if you enjoy a nice family drama with crime tie ins, I think that's a good one. Oh, what is that movie that came out recently? I think it's called the tailor.
Anyway.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Yes, yes, I believe it is. Yeah.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Very similar vibe. Like mob adjacent, period adjacent. Just really well written. Lots of just, like, interesting, like, scene building and character building without having to do a ton of, like, violence.
Good movies.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yes, good stuff.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: So we'll take a quick break, and then we'll be back for our second movie.
And we are back. So that was the road to Perdition. And now we're going to talk to about a very starkly contrasting movie. It is 1990 nine's existenz with a capital z at the end. If Wilhelm will start a timer, we'll start talking about existence.
All right, so, as I said, this film came out in 1999, just three years prior to the road to Perdition. It is a David Cronenberg film, if you're not familiar. He is probably most famous for the fly, among other films.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Kind of known as the Godfather, grandfather, whatever, of body horror. He's like a big body horror guy.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: In the eighties, and that is on full display in this movie. I wouldn't call this movie a body horror movie, but I just don't think he can help himself. I'm like, if he could put it.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: In there, it's there. Every point in this movie, you could put some of it in.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: It is absolutely. And, like, he's clearly got his chops up for those things. So ostensibly, this is a Sci-Fi film.
Kind of relevant right now with all the stuff with VR, VR, AI, the vision pros coming out. So this is a movie about a new game console system.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: System, yes. Game end system, yeah.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: So it is a biological system that Jack's like, you touch it and it squirms, you know, and I'm starting to talk about this, and this. The whole point of this movie is that it has you constantly questioning. And I don't know if that thing actually existed because of where you end up in the movie because they end up with a different system that they are using. And I don't know if that's part of the.
Suffice it to say yes. This movie will leave you with more questions than it answers.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: That is true.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: It's fantastic. In just like, there's so many things you never thought you would see almost from the start.
Yeah. There's no easing you in. It very quickly is just like, this is the world we're in. It's weird. Get used to it.
So you're introduced in a focus group, early access to a game console release.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: It looks like it is being held in like, a country.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: A country church. Yes.
And the game console is a squirming flesh sack.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: Yeah. With like an umbilical cord thing that you plug into your bio port that's in your spine.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
And the whole rest of the movie, you are then forced to figure out whether or not you're in the game, which is kind of a classic one of, like, matrix y kind of vibe of like, are we in the Matrix? Is this real world? But, like, so much weirder and so much less concerned with you finding out.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Right, exactly. No, I just. To do it for the effect. Right. You know, not really as important to the story as, like. Yeah.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: So as we were talking about the body horror, like the, like, silicone and practical effect work on this movie is just off the charts. Like, we clearly are upset by some of the things we saw. But, like, that's kind of speaking to the quality of it is like they.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Perform surgery on one of these things.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Scene. And it's like, that's.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it's upsetting. There's a weird bio gun that shoots the tooth gun. Yeah.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Yes. It's like. And like, you could see that it's made up of, like, body parts ish stuff. And then, like, you know, he pulls the magazine and the magazine is a little row of teeth.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Yeah. It's just like somebody's jawbone.
So Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Lee are the two leads of this movie.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: The ones experiencing this game from the outset.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Jennifer Jason Lee is presented as the game designer of the game that is being released. Jude Law is the PR person who.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Was roped into a security guard gig I think is the gist.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: So that's how we enter. Those things may or may not remain true throughout the movie. I don't know. I don't have answers for you. All I can tell you was it was a wild ride.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Very wild. Yes.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: And, like, so many points at which you're just like, I don't know what's happening, but I want to keep watching because I want to know where they're gonna take this.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: It was only, like, ten minutes into the movie when you get the. Not even, but eight minutes into the movie when you get the flesh gun.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: It's weird from the start, right. And you don't know every step of the way. You're like, okay, they're gonna do this. And then, nope, that's not what happens.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Yep. It's lots of hard, hard 90 degree turns.
And I think it was. It felt like to me that David Cronenberg, like, saw somebody playing some, like, video games and was just like, I'll show them video games.
Like, I can do something with this. This seems like a fun thing to play with, you know?
[00:15:05] Speaker B: And it's interesting. Cause there's never any scenes in the movie of digital. A digital representation of a video game.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: Right. There is no, like, video games in the movie.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Yes. It doesn't make the mistake of a lot of, like, mid nineties movies of being like, we've got virtual VR.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Right? Like, they just. Yeah, it's just there. You're just in the system.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: A real feeling.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: The characters can't tell, really.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: You know, the body horror plays into that, which is a lot of character, you know, freaking out a little bit.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: There's. I don't believe that there's any visual effects. It's all practical effects. So stuff that was all happening on set. So in that sense, it's like, it feels all very tactile and, like. So it left me not thinking about it being a game very much and just being like, this is a weird story.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: It almost doesn't feel like a classic nineties Sci-Fi movie because it doesn't have those things. It feels older. David Cronenberg making. It almost feels like it's.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: It feels like a late eighties. Yeah, yeah.
But what can I say?
We're almost out of time.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: But Willem Dafoe.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Oh, Willem Dafoe. In a bit part, he shows back up. But good stuff. I just want to talk about the acting because, like, I think it was very intentionally, like, heightened, weird acting because they're like, it's a video game. All of it's kind of hokey, which at the time may have been true.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: Back from. After watching some of it and looking back at the beginning, I was like, at the end, I was like, ah. Because at the beginning it was weird.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Yeah, they were weird from nothing naturalistic.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: And yeah, everybody was just like these heightened, like very, like, overwrought lines and performances of the lines and then it like. Anyway, who would I suggest this for? If you like weird horror movies that like, have a lot of like, creature work is probably for you. I think we've gone past our time. But how about you? Who would you suggest this for?
[00:17:13] Speaker B: Eighties, like, Sci-Fi weirdness movies? Anybody who's into that kind of stuff.
Like I said, it is a ride. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: It's like, I don't know that I would call it a good movie, but it was absolutely a fun movie to watch.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: It is definitely worth a watch. Anybody who likes any kind of weirdness in their movies.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: Absolutely.
So that was all for our episode today.
Thank you for joining us. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns or requests, you can email us at podcastion eyeoneerlibrarysystem.org. and until next time.
Bye.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: See you later.
