Episode 144:
Twilight is upon us! Thankfully our own expert on all things Twilight, Marina Antunes, drops by our virtual studio to offer her thoughts on the film as the guys in the row fell asleep or watched disaster flicks instead. And by popular demand, we also bring back time track listing (in the show notes below) so that you can skip over the stuff you don’t want and know right where to go to hear all about Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. We managed to catch some other stuff in theatrical release including 2012, Surrogates and the latest in the Oprah archive, Precious. Add to this our doomsday marathon, weekly DVD picks and some other bits of goodness, we hope you enjoy the show and be sure to drop us a line either by email or in the comments section below.
Thanks for listening!
Click the Audio Icon below to listen in:
http://www.rowthree.com/audio/cinecast_09/episode144.mp3
TIME LISTINGS:
Intros/Opening: :00
Twilight New Moon: 3:55
2012: 29:16
Precious: 51:13
Bad Lieutenant: 59:11
Collapse/doomsday marathon: 1:12:16
DVD picks: 1:22:37
What we’ve been watching: 1:38:43
Closing thoughts: 2:10:24
Outro music: 2:10:24
MAIN REVIEWS:
Twilight: New Moon (Marina’s review)
– Marina’s Twilight Exclusive Web Site
2012 (Andrew’s review)
OTHER REVIEWS:
Precious (Marina’s review)
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Kurt’s review)
DVD PICKS:
Marina, Andrew, Kurt (unanimous!):
– Three Monkeys
BLU RAY:
Andrew:
– Ink (our review)
Kurt:
- Way of the Gun
OTHER TOPICS:
Collapse/Doomsday marathon
The Room
Surrogates
– Matt’s new theater
Duplicity (Andrew’s review)
Official Rejection
F for Fake
Kurt, you picked 2012 over An Education? Boooo!
Oh, and thanks for the timecodes for each review Andrew. I missed those.
Once again, great podcast!
Ashley! “It’s not my fault!” only kidding. I’ll get to both, just the stars aligned for 2012′s longer run time that Sunday. As anyone who has been listening to the cinecast for the past years know, I generally skip the disaster fests because I dislike the genre. I was beside myself that this one was fairly entertaining.
Kurt I am right with you, and am actually surprised that Andrew and Marina are not more appreciative of 2012. It is by far Emmerich’s best film, it hits the notes it needs to hit, great set pieces, and all with the unbridled enthusiasm of a kid playing with his toys.
This movie is ALL about the characters though. And the 2012 characters lack charisma or anything interesting about them (save for a little bit Ejiofor). I’ll take Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Robert Loggia, Bill Pullman and Dennis Quaid over the lifeless antics of Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson and Amanda Peet any day of the week… particularly the week of July 4th.
sorry I am listening and commenting at the same time, but Kurt what are you talking about 2012 doesn’t kill off characters, there are at least 7 of the main characters killed off! I was actually quite surprised at how harshly they dealt with the one, who drowns, after building up some kind of sympathy for her.
hm, I don’t see anything mentioning me in the show notes. I’ll have to gie it a listen.
its NOT about character, character in 2012 is a means to an end, the end being how to flesh out the experience of awe in the face of Armageddon. They are mostly caricatures in a cartoon, and on that level it works fine. I particularly found the Russian guy hilarious. Oliver Platt’s character wasn’t someone you are supposed to enjoy, he is representative of pragmatic politics at odds with Ejifor’s moral idealism, they are all ciphers like that.
“They are mostly caricatures in a cartoon, and on that level it works fine.”
Exactly. Except we spend way too much boring time with them in a bunch of action sequences we’ve really basically seen a million times. The more smart people like you and Kurt actually praise this movie, the more it makes me hate it for manipulating good people like yourselves into thinking this is quality film making.
It’s not high art, but then the sandbox it is playing in is one of the low-forms of cinema “The Irwin Allen Zone” and within those boundries, it is above average, certainly. Hey, I’m the last guy I would have thought would defend something like this.
When I agree with Rot that it is Emmerich’s best film, keep in mind that he makes really, really shitty films, ID4, but moreso Stargate being the worst offenders.
I find it hilarious that you knock ‘boring’ or moralizing in this film, but get-off on the cheap sentimentals in ID4. Perhaps it is a Canadian thing, but any time we see flag waving in an American production, eyes start rolling. At least (in a ham-fisted way) 2012 has a world perspective in its disaster mongering.
I know you’re not saying you loved it or anything, but praising a re-hash of films you hate just baffles me. Maybe it’s simply your character actors you like or whatever, but this movie is no different than any of his other disaster films. It takes all of the shenanigans from every other picture he’s done and mashes them all together in a supposedly “worldly” destruction movie. Perhaps MORE hateful things makes it actually fall to the other side of the spectrum of likable?
And you guys ra-ra Candian movies ALL the time here, so what are you talking about? What’s wrong with making a movie that shows a little patriotism? And 2012 is pretty damn “America are the good guys, the smartest guys and the ones in charge” if you ask me. 2012 just tries to hide it a little bit better – which should be even more irksome to you than a from a movie titled INDEPENDENCE DAY!
thank-you Marina, you are the first person I have encountered since TIFF who is actually at least partially saying the emperor has no clothes with respects to Bad Lieutenant 2. Everyone coming out of TIFF was saying its batshit crazy, and I kept saying I wish I caught THAT film.
The one I saw was pretty dull, and took its procedural aspects far too seriously, and no, colouring outside the lines does not adequately describe what Herzog did here, because that labeling does not allow for an opportunity to say maybe he failed, maybe he experimented but experimenting alone does not make a good movie. There is a point where Modern Art has to be called out for being bullshit… its not enough that something merely deviates from the norm, breaks rules, defies classification, it has to amount to something, and the something of BL2 is NOT batshit crazy, its dull.
On Collapse: let’s disclose, Marina, that you knew all of the stuff Ruppert was talking about because your husband is into conspiracy theories, I don’t think the stuff he talks about is common knowledge, anyone I have brought the topic up to has never even heard of Peak Oil. Which I admit is weird, because there have been some four documentaries on the subject prior to this, and there are a few books on the topic that are popular, but the difference is they often preach to the choir, they are categorized as eco-politics, and the fringe flock to them. What makes Collapse different is it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you go in for a character study and come out bombarded with eco-politics that by the reviews, virtually all of the critics have never heard of before.
Emmerich did Stargate? Aw, I kinda liked that one. But it’s been a while.
I saw Primer at TIFF and the director in the Q&A called it Pr-I-mer like climber.
If the director calls it that, then that’s what it is. I kept trying to say we should email the director or writer and ask them the proper pronunciation but kept getting cut off.
Someone draw a diagram of how to pronounce Primer.
OK, that settles it. I’ve been meaning to ask Shane Carruth to possibly join us for a show. I have never met him, but anyone who makes a movie like Primer, should fit right in.
Carruth: That’s funny. I called it “Primer” [with a short "i"] for the longest time, and people kept asking me how to spell it. But if I called it “Primer” [long "i"], they didn’t ask. So I just started calling it “Primer” [long "i"].
@rot – So who knew hubby’s fascinations with conspiracy theories would eventually pay off? I did still really enjoy COLLAPSE – the ideas were all laid out in a cohesive way, it all made sense and felt well flushed out but most of all it was compelling. Ruppert is a fascinating character and a compelling subject – he could probably sell oil even if there was none left.
Kurt, you know Shane, or have a contact? You got to get him on the show, that would be great.
“The one I saw was pretty dull, and took its procedural aspects far too seriously” – rot
““The crime story is uninteresting. It is a marginal event in the film. It is more about an attitude of evil — or the bliss of evil, as I call it.” – Werner Herzog
Herzog didnt take the procedural seriously, he just took the filmmaking seriously, and in my opinion it balances out Cage’s performance. I didn’t think BL2 was nearly as cartoonish or crazy as I expected, but its a very fine film.
I mentioned this on the FJ podcast, but after the Collapse trailer in front of BL2, some old dude tapped me on the shoulder and says “I heard that guys a real faggot”.
I assume/hope my stunned reaction is what put him into silence for the rest of the showing. Though I’d love to know how/through whom he would have heard such a thing, and in what context he meant ‘faggot’.
I’m well aware of Herzog’s repeated phrase ‘bliss of evil’ and as I said originally at TIFF, there is not enough bliss, and virtually no evil in BL2, Cage is just high most of the film, and behaving indiscreetly. A more apt phrase would be ‘mirth of indiscretion’ which sounds as bland as the film actually is.
not surprised, at the TIFF showing of Collapse one guy was quite vocal about what a loon Ruppert is. He’s the kind of guy that gets people’s backs up. I am surprised there was a trailer of it before BL2, its not even guarenteed to be coming out yet, except to the Royal for a week run.
“America are the good guys, the smartest guys and the ones in charge”
I don’t know, lately considering most of the country seems to make it clear they have no idea what socialism is but will march in the streets about it anyways, and that state after state is stepping up against gay rights, the last couple months I’m feeling like a typical anti-American hater.
I guess I’m looking for a 2012 movie where the public fight the earthquakes by calling them secret Muslims. Seems more accurate right now.
I’m tracking him down. Yes.
So I listened to the episode. Why is it named after me?
Because We’ll make our readers listen to the podcast one at a time, even if we have to name episodes after them. Nah, we were a couple weeks without a show and Andrew dropped the show notes back into the program, perhaps that is the joke.
The next one can be called Everyone Loves Henrik.
Because you threw such a fit about the time tracks. I took the extra time to mark them all out for you.
I think I *coughed* your name somewhere right at the beginning of the show.
Nice, Rusty. I was trying to figure out the reference myself. I’m betting on the show notes.
I think you’re a little over sensitive to feedback Andrew.
NO, no, andrew is just surly, pay it no mind. ALL FEEDBACK IS WELCOME!
well then this was a very nice episode. Although I haven’t actually seen any of the film you discussed. The show notes made it easy to skip over the Bad Lt segment. Hopefully that movie will open at a theater near me one day.
There could’ve been more Rusty James.