Episode 152:
SPOILERS ALERT!
We take last week’s negativity and turned it upside down in an old school show between Kurt and Andrew complete with our signature tangents in which we keep it fairly positive (except for The Lovely Bones which sadly is a sizable disappointment). There is a lot of unconditional Gary Oldman love in the under appreciated Book of Eli. There is also some kudos to Jeff Bridges both his long career and his recent turn as a grizzled country singer in Crazy Heart. Some really fun DVD picks this week as well as a look back at a time when Robert Zemeckis was awesome. Thanks a bunch for downloading/streaming. Enjoy!
Click the Audio Icon below to listen in:
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http://www.rowthree.com/audio/cinecast_10/episode_152.mp3
TIME LISTINGS:
Intros/Opening: :00
The Book of Eli (SPOILERS!): 5:15
The Lovely Bones (SPOILERS!): 37:25
Crazy Heart (SPOILERS!): 58:40
Young Victoria: 1:08:51
Back to the Future: 1:16:04
DVD picks: 1:22:01
Outro music: 1:36:56 – 1:39:38
Cutting room floor: 1:39:36 – 1:42:20
MAIN REVIEW:
The Book of Eli (Kurt’s review)
OTHER REVIEWS:
The Lovely Bones
Crazy Heart (Andrew’s review)
Young Victoria (R3 review)
DVD PICKS:
Andrew:
– Kingdom of the Spiders [sp. ed.] (IMDb)
Kurt:
– Kingdom of the Spiders [sp. ed.] (IMDb)
BLU RAY:
Andrew:
- Boogie Nights and Magnolia
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Kurt:
- Che [Criterion] (Andrew’s review)
OTHER TOPICS:
Back to the Future
I can’t participate in any kind of lengthy discussion about Lovely Bones, there are just so many more things I would rather be doing… but on your point Kurt about voiceover narration hammering things home… how about its reference to the title of the movie… My God. The film is a train wreck, it is wrong in so many ways.
I would really dispute the greatness of Stan Tucci’s performance.
I guess it’s not his fault, but he looks like he’s dressed as a child molester for halloween.
Yeah I agree, Tucci is creepy just to look at in the film but when he starts putting on his awkward creepy guy routine, its a bit lame. But compared to everything else in the film its fucking genius!
@ But compared to everything else in the film its fucking genius!
mm. I think people just like the actor.
I hate to say this but I’ve pretty much stop listening to you guys since you are now doing spoilers. I usually end up catching movies a week or two after they come out and by that point you’ve already talked about it. Its too much “effort” to skip over the review as I always listen to podcasts while walking and don’t have the times in front of me.
So am I right in thinking neither of you have upgraded to blu-ray yet? I seem to remember some time ago, maybe even a year ago Gamble talking about how blu-ray wasn’t going to last, what’s the point of buying it, and I am wondering what now is the point not to buy it? The dvds and the player are cheap, I don’t see it leaving anytime soon.
Lost blu-ray and Lost regular dvd is a world of difference.
I won’t say that Blu-Ray won’t last. My concern is, and I’ve already started going this way, is that it just won’t be necessary to have a blu-ray player. Everything will be available in HD online or digitally. You won’t even need DVDs anymore. My hard drive is already beginning to fill up with digital copies of movies.
Once Netflix (or some other service) is 100% streaming everything (including special features), why would I spend $30 on a disc, when I can just click play for $7/month… and have over 30,000 titles at my finger tips?
Now, for collector purposes and artwork and all that, I get why you’d want the disc (I still consider myself a collector), but I said that about LPs and CDs back in the day too (I had like 1000 CDs in college). Now I can’t remember the last time I bought a physical CD. It’s likely that for me, DVDs will eventually go that way too – like it said, in some respects it already has.
Just waiting for the bulb to go in my projector, then it is 1080p and BluRay upgrades. But I’m not spending money until I have to. (and my budget mercifully thanks this projector bulb holding onto DOUBLE the rated life and still looking great)
I like having the physical discs, also with a looming energy crisis on the horizon I don’t want to rely on the internet ether to be where my access to films comes from, like most things in such a scenario the more local something is, the more affordable it will be.
I get your first point. On the second, are you being facetious?
If this “looming” energy crisis becomes big enough that the internet and/or my hard drive ceases to work, the last thing I’ll be worried about is wishing I had a hard copy of Flatliners on Blu-ray.
PS – You’re awesome dude. Out of curiosity (and I don’t mean this as a mock or sarcasm, just general interest), were you one of the Y2K doomsday-ers as well?
Flatliners
not being facetious at all, if you think about the fact the energy is almost certainly going to become more expensive and requiring conservation and greener approaches. The same way that transporting watermelons from Guatemala is no longer going to be a cost-effective solution to getting the food you want, the energy costs in storing and transferring large amounts of data across the world will become more expensive if not unreliable.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/susanwatts/2008/10/two_go_mad_in_silicon_valley.html
regarding “looming” energy crisis, if that is you saying we are good, 10, 20, 30 years down the road, that our energy usage is not going to be effected, sorry but you are seriously deluded. That has nothing to do with conspiracy, thats reading a newspaper occasionally.
I had nothing to do with Y2K, I wasn’t sober then.
The reason I bring up Y2k is because that too, was just a matter of picking up the newspaper and simple math and they’d never possibly be ready for the looming disaster that was coming. Then 12/31/99 11:59:59pm came and went and the lights were still on.
I am not even talking about a collapse scenario here, rather I am talking about rising energy costs, finite resources + population growth.
The moral of Y2k, to me anyways, is not blanket dismissal of anything bad happening in the future, but rather that you should look critically at the issue at hand. The housing bubble crash was predicted by many people who cried wolf and were right.
this article sums up the problem pretty succinctly:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/03/internet-carbon-footprint
Fun podcast, I’m glad Book of Eli was discussed in such detail. I wasn’t planning on seeing it, but now I pretty much have to.
You asked for opinions from those of us who’d read the Lovely Bones. I haven’t seen the movie (and definitely do not plan to), but I can tell you that I was surprised that it was being made into a movie. It doesn’t read like a book that would fit as a movie. What’s good about the book isn’t the plot, but is more about the writing itself. The author’s voice is what makes it enjoyable, and it sounds like the voice-overs failed to convey that.
It’s also just not that good as a whole. The book takes a dark premise, but somehow manages to cover it with fluffy pillows. There is good writing and a fair number of excellent moments, but just doesn’t hang together. It’s also not particularly visual writing, which I don’t think helped it make the leap to film.
That’s perhaps overly critical. It is not a terrible book. I’d say it is flawed but enjoyable. It is just not as good as its success would suggest.
Really, really surprised at how much you guys dug Eli. Also that you’ve got yourself a spoiler show yet restrained yourself from talking about the biggest one…which happened to pretty much ruin the rest of the movie for me. I have an easier time swallowing the twist of Orphan (which of course I did not see) than the end of Eli. That said, you did make a number of good points as to why you enjoyed it.
Eli works out to a number of scenes that worked for me versus a larger number that had me rolling my eyes. Waits was great to see yet again, though Gambon was totally wasted. They might as well have gotten Charlton Heston (think about it).
Other than a bit more religious metaphor (and prophet cliche) the supposed twist at the end (which is as much of a magic trick of film misdirection as a twist), it doesn’t add all that much to the conversation, other than that it further cements the comic-book vibe into the film.
And Gambon in the film is kinda baffling considering how little he actually does. But the set-piece of that scene is pretty damn good.