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In this episode, all gentle friends bow down the Holy Father: VIOLENCE. First, the boys--Joe McCulloch, Matthew Seneca, Christopher Mautner and Tucker Stone--discuss what happens when human destroys human, both in purpose and in rage. Schedule!
The Punisher, as character, oft published by Marvel.
The Boys, recently concluded, published by Dynamite.
Black Lung, by Chris Wright, from Fantagraphics.
Barrel of Monkeys, by Florent Ruppert & Jerome Mulot, published by Rebus.
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00:00 - 03:55 - INTROS - Time square movies? Gentrification. Explanation of rules.
03:56 - 16:10 - Tucker's Homework this week was Catch-22 (1970), directed by Mike Nichols, written by Buck Henry, cinematography by David Watkin, starring Alan Arkin, Bob Balaban, Buck Henry, Art Garfunkel, Jon Voight, Orson Welles, Charles Grodin, Bob Newhart. There's also a lot of talk about the awesome commentary track by Mike Nichols and Steven Soderbergh. Mentioned in this section - Grand Illusion and M.A.S.H.
16:11 - 26:49 - Sean's Homework was Moonrise Kingdom (2012), directed Wes Anderson, starring Kara Hayward, Jared Gilman, Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Bob Balaban, and Tilda Swinton. Tucker brings up Edward Norton's early career - including Primal Fear, American History X, and Keeping the Faith. We also discuss Wes Anderson's other work, Francois Truffaut and Owen Wilson. Double Balaban. THE BALABANCAST.
26:31 - 37:50 - Taken 2 (2012), directed by Olivier Megaton, starring Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Rade Šerbedžija. Tucker talks about the utter incompetence of the action and the hamfisted misogyny of this movie, and we're the guys who liked the first one.
37:51 - 56:21 - SKYFALL (2012), directed by Sam Mendes, cinematography by Roger Deakins, starring Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Ben Whishaw, and Ralph Feinnes. We start this section by discussing Bond as a concept, and Ian Fleming's novels that they are based on. Tucker talks about Quantum of Solace and how he feels like it's unjustly overlooked as a nasty no-bullshit revenge movie. And in discussing Skyfall, both of us go on about Bond Villains and how Raoul Silva is a hell of a good Bond Villain. Then how this might be the first good Sam Mendes movie...ever? and the Chris Nolan influence on the film, and how much we love Daniel Craig. FIND HATE ELSEWHERE, she said.
56:21 - 1:05:28 - The Watch (2012) directed by Akiva Schaffer, starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade, Rosemarie Dewitt, Billy Crudup, and Will Forte. Also mentioned in this section - Garth Marenghi's Dark Place, Submarine, Office Space, 21 Jump Street (which - since we haven't talked about it yet on the podcast - is a sleeper great movie of the year). Oh and not mentioned on the podcast - Ben Stiller runs in this like T-1000 Robert Patrick and it is extra creepy and great.
1:05:29 - 1:20:41 - We run out of movies, but WE KEEP GOING. Because we love doing this and letting you listen to some of it. Tucker continues to talk about reading Pauline Kael, going to see Speilberg's Lincoln out of obligation, and we discuss Toni Morrison, Tyler Perry, Rob Cohen, the XXX franchise, the Fast and the Furious franchise, the World War Z trailer, the Stand Up Guys trailer, and Colson Whitehead's Zone One, and the two competing Hitchcock biopics neither of which seem to have ever even entertained the idea of Hitchcock as an artist let alone his own art and Sean gets his panties in a bunch about it. FEELINGS.
TRAVIS BICKLE WILL RETURN with the Bebop/Sandra Bullock episode after Thanksgiving, this episode required less editing and felt more timely while Bond was still in theaters, so next week - Sandy Bullock stops racism and Spike Speigel stops germ warfare, and Tucker & Sean stop in the name of love.
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00:00 - 10:01 - INTROS and we go into an un-planned on section on George Lucas, his career, his charity work, his fans, and Tucker's utter disinterest in Star Wars. One correction - it was Irvin Kirshner who directed Empire Strikes Back, not Irwin Winkler, who produced Goodfellas. Although both of them are pretty interesting guys you should look at beyond those two movies, and it was Richard Marquand who directed Return of the Jedi. Also mentioned David Cronenberg (whose long-running dp Peter Suschitzky also shot Empire and Cronenberg's suggestion), David Lynch (who told Lucas he didn't "get" Wookies), David Fincher (who figured out the speeder chase effect on his own before he was hired to work on Jedi), Joe Johnston (who did elephant rotoscoping for the AT-ATs in Empire), and Tommy Lee Jones' Forrest Gump impression in Captain America.
10:02 - 32:26 - HOMEWORK - Sean's homework was to watch The Grey (2012), directed by Joe Carnahan, starring Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, James Badge Dale, and Dermot Mulroney. We talk Carnahan's other films, and Tucker brings up 24 as has become traditional for the podcast (as is Sean mentioning The Thing and Richard Gere), this time to discuss James Badge Dale (whose show we mention but can't remember the title of is Rubicon).
32:27 - 44:40 - HOMEWORK - Tucker's homework was The Tenant (1976), directed/co-written by/starring Roman Polanski, co-written by Gerard Brach, starring Isabel Adjani and Shelly Winters. Also mentioned in this section - a few David Lynch films including Eraserhead (more Lynch further in the podcast), Possession, Herzog's Nosferatu, and Polanski's Ghost Writer (which Sean doesn't mention, but he should have - Kim Catrall is the unsung hero of that movie).
44:41 - 53:20 - Sean watched Lost Highway (1997), directed and written by David Lynch, starring Bill Pullman, Robert Blake, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Gary Busey, Robert Loggia, and Richard Pryor, with a soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Angelo Badalamenti. Mentioned in this section - David Foster Wallace's essay about David Lynch, feminist theory on Mulholland Drive.
53:21 - 1:02:32 - Tucker watched Darkman (1990), directed by Sam Raimi, starring Liam Neeson, Francis McDormand, Larry Drake, and of course getting murdered in a spectacular way Ted Raimi. Tucker talks about The Shadow as a character, and The Shadow movie directed by Russel Mulcahy. Sean is completely wrong about mentioning Scott Spiegel who didn't work on Die Darkman Die at all, for crap's sake. We also talk about John Woo's Hard Boiled and the emo Spidey section of Spider-Man 3.
1:02:33 - 1:10:52 - Sean watched The Man With The Iron Fists (2012), directed by the Rza, co-written by Rza and Eli Roth, starring Rza, Lucy Liu, Russel Crowe, Rick Yune, David Bautista, Gordon Liu, Cung Le, Byron Mann.
Sean keeps saying "Chinese" like it's a language, because he's sleep
deprived when they recorded it and wasn't sure if it was Cantonese or
Mandarin. This is no excuse, and it's fucking shameful.
1:10:53 - 1:15:42 - Tucker watched Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), directed by Tony Scott, starring Eddie Murphy, Paul Reiser, Bridgitte Neilsen, Judge Reinhold, and Jurgen Pronchow. We rep Reiser hard on this podcast. Reiser for life. More talk of Hard Boiled, too, and Sean goes on a barely coherent tear about the Paranormal Activity movies being ugly boring shit, and chooses Shivers, a David Cronenberg sexual revolution panic movie that is barely indefensible at best, to make his point.
1:15:43 - 1:20:43 - Sean watched Le Noveau Monde from the omnibus film RoGoPaG (1963) directed by Jean-Luc Godard (along with Rosselini, Pasolini, Gregoretti). Which is entirely available on youtube in two parts here and here. Sean talks about the use of real locations in science fiction movies, and mentions The Trial, Alphaville, THX-1138, Play Time, and once again Universal Soldier Regeneration. He doesn't mention Stalker or La Jetee, which would have been a better example for his point.
1:20:44 - 1:30:51 - And finally (shut up already, Francis) Sean watched Little Murders (1971), directed by Alan Arkin, shot by Gordon Willis, written by Jules Feiffer, starring Elliot Gould, Marcia Rodd, Doris Roberts, Donald Sutherland, and Alan Arkin. The other narrative movie directed by Alan Arkin is Fire Sale. Also mentioned - Carnal Knowledge, also written by Feiffer, Alan Arkin on the Kevin Pollak Chat Show, and the first mention I ever saw of the movie was not on This Recording, but it was from Molly Lambert.
Here's Jean fucking Renoir on Little Murders, in a letter to Arkin,
found on the internet somewhere. Apparently Arkin reads it on the movie
commentary.
"Dear Alan Arkin,
!!!!!!
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NEXT WEEK - Homework assignments are Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (aka Knocking on Heaven's Door) and The Blind Side.
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The Uncanny Avengers!
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story!
The Hobgoblin?
And more, basically. It's all about Marvel Comics. You know the drill.
[download link will be available asap]
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Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby
By Charles Hatfield, 2012
While it isn't the smoothest reading experience, due mostly to Hatfield's apparent disinterest for the sort of stylish flourishes that can make dryer subjects more exciting, leaving one in the position where every sentence could work as a final one--the book essentially stops rather than reaches an end--there's far too much original thought put into Hand of Fire to dismiss it for problems that revolve around ease-of-use. Over and over, Hatfield goes to Kirby's comics with an eye for both exploration and explanation, and if some of what he describes is familiar, none of it is discussed without care. From looking at the extensive list of cited works, it's clear that an extensive bit of synthesis is on display, and yet Hand of Fire never feels like a game of hopscotch amongst fanzines and thesis papers; if any title is necessary, it's easiest to call him a cartographer. Ultimately, this isn't the book that will convince doubters of Kirby's value--if Kirby's work can't do it, I have a hard time imagining what kind of book would--but it is an excellent primer for those of us already living in the temple, but incapable of turning wonder into words.
Black Dogs
By Ian McEwan, 1992
This is about as terrible as a smart, well-written book can get, a listless cruise through the shitty marriage of a couple of selfish intellectuals, courtesy of their obnoxious son-in-law, one of those personality-vampires that populate these sorts of novels. McEwan can do unlikeable people in wholly fascinating ways, but this time around he forgot to give them anything to do but complain about one another--then again, even at his best, McEwan seems incapable of playing the smart and self-righteous for laughs, which is really the best possible way to handle those people. For those interested in seeing how the multiple award winning movie adaptation having guy got where he is now, there's little evidence of it here, but I would still recommend this to the me that lived alone in Jersey City back in 2002. That depressing asshole would have binged on this bland sophistication and begged for more: oh that we can't go back and kill him now!
-Tucker Stone, 2012
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