SHOW NOTES - Tucker Stone and Sean Witzke talk movies! We love doing it! And being recorded doing so! For internet broadcast!
00:00 - 04:15 - INTROS! We love you disembodied Jamie Lee Curtis voice! Also there is some lead-in discussion from Tucker on Without Limits (1998) and Die Hard and Predator. You don't need links for those if you're a person who is listening to this.
04:16 - 12:28 - HOMEWORK! Tucker had Sean watch Warrior (2011) directed by Gavin O'Connor and starring an insanely jacked Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, and Nick Nolte. Also mentioned - Lockout (2012), Animal Kingdom (2010), and Affliction (1997).
Tucker describes this movie as a "male weepie" and it's incredibly
accurate, and it is clear that the two of us are dancing around the "wow
this movie actually made me feel things" the entire time.
12:29 - 21:28 - HOMEWORK! Sean had Tucker watch The Fortune Cookie (1966), directed by Billy Wilder and starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. Tucker's use of "schticky" not associated with products Vince Offer. Tucker's homework nearly brings us to tears, Sean's homework assignments are "well that was well made".
21:29 - 26:36 - Sean watched the Amazing Stories episode "Mirror, Mirror", directed by Martin Scorsese for the tv series Amazing Stories. starring Sam Watterston. In this section we make reference to Tim Robbins being dressed as Terror Inc. and Scorsese on Scorsese. Sean then goes on about Scorsese on Scorsese once again, talking about professionalism which is pretty great. But he does a shit job at describing how amazing that book is, and how inspiring it is for someone who loves movies so much his entire life is nothing but movies, to get to the point where he could be talking about things he's made or things that inspired him, and he speak about them with the same passion and sensitivity. Scorsese is an absolute treasure to hear this man talk about movie that aren't even his best. It's not just the stuff about Mean Streets and Taxi Driver that are the money shots of the book, it's all great - him talking about giving lectures is amazing. Him talking about going to dinner with Schrader, Deniro, and De Palma, yeah of course that is what you came for, but you really can't understate how huge this book is as a resource and as a reminder that film can be endlessly inspiring. In a way that's not - "well this is a story that will help me to move through hardship" or "fasttrack to epiphany" cliche inspiration. Instead it's more like a contagious passion for the art form in all it's facets.
26:37 - 27:44 - Tucker saw Looper (2012) again. Seriously if you haven't seen this movie yet, Tucker and Sean have both seen in in theaters twice, run and see it. Seriously we don't like to promote things, it must actually be great.
27:45 - 41:10 - Tucker saw Amour (2012), directed by Michael Haneke and starring Jean Louis Tritignant and Emmanuelle Riva; at the New York Film Festival, and saw Haneke do a Q&A afterwards. Also mentioned A Man and A Woman (1966), and Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), the recent Woody Allen PBS documentary for American Masters, and the commentary track for Aliens (1986) -- because Sean is a pedant -- and the Dogme 95. The worst question Michael Haneke was asked during the Q&A was when a grown man who should know better asked "How do you think of your ideas", the question Tucker would have asked if he had been called on would have been a deep geek question about working with Darius Khondji, and if you ever want to see elderly people in New York go into a full Hulk rage, point a flash light in their eyes when they are 15 minutes into a movie at Lincoln Center. I saw an usher learn that lesson, and I have no doubt that he will remember it as long as he lives.
41:11 - 51:12 - Sean watched the Roman Polanski version of Macbeth (1971), starring John Finch and Francesca Annis. Also mentioned are Mike Nichol's Day of the Dolphin (1973), Polanski's What (1973), Kuroswa's Throne of Blood (1957), Lynch's Dune (1984), and and Gosha's Three Outlaw Samurai (1964). All of this to distract that the guy we're discussing is horrible human being, no doubt.
51:13 - 59:04 - Tucker watched Dead Man's Shoes (2004), directed and cowritten by Shane Meadows and cowritten and starring Paddy Consindine and starring Toby Kebbel.
Also mentioned: Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999) and Tyrannosaur (2011).
59:05 - 1:03:20 - Sean watched Blow Out (1981), directed by Brian De Palma and starring John Travolta, Nancy Allen, and John Lithgow. And gushes over it, as he's doing too damn much of lately. Also here is the excerpt from Bruce Campbell's autobiography about De Palma and Raimi that was mentioned.
1:04:21 - 1:11:40 - Tucker watched the classic NEW JACK CITY (1991), directed by Mario Van Peebles starring Wesley Snipes, Judd Nelson, Ice T, and Chris Rock.
Also mentioned are Wesley Snipes classics Blade (1998) and King of New York (1990).
1:11:41 - 1:22:12 - And finally Tucker watched Deja Vu (2006), directed by Tony Scott and starring Denzel Washington, Jim Caviezel, Paula Patton, Val Kilmer, and Adam Goldberg. Yes, we will do the Tony Scott director themed episode we keep teasing, just maybe gonna be a while until we feel cool enough with the format to do director-themed episodes. Tony's up first.
1:22:13 - END - And that's Nina Stone, pluggin the next one. Thanks so much!
You gents certainly and successfully identified the two "point of no return" moments within Die Hard and Predator. If you get to those parts, it's over. You're not going anywhere.
Posted by: Jon Burr | 2012.10.16 at 04:08
I've been trying for years to place where I had seen "the thing with the guy who sees the killer in the mirror", as it was that and Poltergeist 3 that made me afraid of what might look back at me in a mirror when I was a kid. Who'd have guessed it was from an Amazing Stories episode by Martin Scorsese.
Just added another five movies to my queue thanks to the podcast. Really excited to check out DEAD MAN'S SHOES, as Meadows other stuff has always been quite good.
Posted by: Troy Olson | 2012.10.16 at 11:06
Jim Caviezel was the keynote speaker at my college graduation; we were a Catholic-affiliated school, and it was right after he'd finished shooting on The Passion of the Christ. He began his speech by having us all sing happy birthday to the Pope, and then he dropped probably the most personal information about Terrence Malick I've ever heard from any one source, like anecdotes about saying the rosary and stuff. All of my understanding of The Tree of Life I owe to Jim Caviezel. He wound up shouting at the top of his lungs about how we were soldiers of Christ, like literally bellowing, screaming, eyes bugging in the auditorium. I will always have a soft spot for that dude, because I couldn't have hoped for a better introduction to the post-graduate world.
Posted by: Jog | 2012.10.16 at 20:06
Dead Man's Shoes is a transcendentally good film.
Posted by: ant | 2012.10.17 at 09:46