The Drama: A Split Decision | ’40s Madness Elite 8 (#1059)

Film spotting is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. See any standard 2D movie anytime with no blackout dates or restrictions. Sign up now on the Regal app or at the link in our description and use code FilmSpot26 to receive 15% off. What kind of a show are you guys putting on here today? You're not interested in art? No. Well look, we're going to do this thing. We're going to have a conversation. From Chicago, this is Film Spotting. I'm Adam Kempenar and I'm Josh Larson. Alright, so before we got married we did this thing or we said the worst thing we've ever done. Okay, I'll tell mine if we all do it. Promise? What did you do? This doll. Beer bottles and porn. You left an hour of an eye. Yeah. What's the worst thing I've ever done? Ice! Okay, I um... Are you serious? Zendaya and Robert Pattinson are a soon-to-be-married couple whose perfect relationship gets turned upside down in Christopher Burgle's The Drama. We have a review. And the Elite Eight Round of 1940s Madness. That and more on Film Spotting. We are at the Elite Eight of Film Spotting 40s Madness, Josh. And I don't know that you can call a number nine taking down a number eight much of an upset. But it is technically an upset and it is technically our first upset of 40s Madness finally. We'll take it. I mean, we've been desperate for something like this. So that counts as an upset for sure. Will it be our only upset of Film Spotting Madness? We'll talk about that. We'll speculate about that and more ahead. We do like to tell you at this point in the show if you just can't wait for the Madness talk and you want to jump right in. You want to get your picks in. You can go to FilmSpottingMadness.com or go right to the main page of FilmSpotting.net. You'll see a link there. You can vote. We're going to talk through the sweet 16 results and those Elite Eight matchups just a bit later. Quick reminder, Film Spotting is available as a video podcast. You can watch the show at YouTube.com slash Film Spotting. And for a link to video episodes and all of our episodes, you can go to FilmSpotting.net slash episodes. First up, the drama. So you're saying Charlie is your first love? Yeah. First love or your first crush? Both, I think. What does that say? Authority. When your movie is titled The Drama, it's reasonable to suspect that writer-director Christopher Borgerley isn't making a film so much as running an experiment. When our story opens, Robert Pattinson's Charlie is trying to figure out the best approach to hit on Zendaya's Emma while she is reading at a cafe. His gambit ultimately works because as we soon learn this isn't really the beginning of our story. It's Charlie's story, the one he's planning to recount during his speech at their upcoming wedding. In other words, it's his framing, his narrative account of the beginning of their relationship. Borgerley will go on to employ framing, flashbacks, fantasies, confounding sound design, and moral and ethical provocation after provocation to poke his audience into the same fragile state as his unraveling lovers, following a surprise revelation that abends their wedding planning and perceptions of each other. All of this is to say, the drama is decidedly more Prandello than Pinter or at least a combination of the two. Josh, when we throw around the word experiment or exercise in relation to a movie, it usually conjures a work that is cold and detached, which would be ironic here as we're supposed to be talking about two young people madly in love who plan to spend the rest of their lives together. Was there a scene or a moment in the drama where you recognize that Borgerley's experiment was or was going to be a success purely on a clinical level? And was there a moment where it transcended the lab and got to the heart of the matter? Boy, you've probably pinpointed for me why I was so disappointed in this movie because to my mind, it fails on both of those accounts. I didn't really engage with this as an experiment because it was such an experiment and it felt to me very contrived and framed in that way, which wasn't successful on its own terms. And then if you want to ask the second part of your question for me about the emotional connection, I think it was the formal nature of the experiment that kept me from making that emotional connection. And it was also the choice. We're not going to get into spoilers here, but it was also the choice of inciting topic for that revelation that kept me at a distance as well. And the only thing I would add is I'm not saying that that topic is out of bounds for a filmmaker to include. And I'm also not saying that I'm against narrative experimentation in these ways. As you were talking, Adam, you know, towards the end there, I'm thinking of the films of your ghost, Lanty Mouse, which, you know, right? I always describe his experiments and some of his maybe not the most recent, but in his strongest run to my mind, they were all about construct, all about high concept in a intellectual, not blockbuster way. So I'm completely something like the lobster. You can't get more high concept than the lobster. My favorite of his films. So I can be completely on board with something like that. But here with the drama, maybe it's because I appreciate these performers so much, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, and was just so excited to see them working together. For me with the drama, it felt like the movie was inflicting its contrived construct on them, and they just could never escape it. There were moments where you saw that they are both capable of a really bitter relationship exploration, a provocative one. But overall, I saw them struggling against what Borglie had placed them in. And really, they weren't, they didn't feel in conflict to me with each other as much as they felt in conflict with the form of the movie and the screenplay. So yeah, that's where it left me. I came out of this, I was excited for this one and felt frustrated because I felt I fell off board pretty quickly on and struggled to get back on board. Okay. So I am going to defend the movie. I'm ultimately pro. You, you guessed right, as you suggested on our show earlier in the week, the episode we dropped, you guessed right about how I would feel about this movie. And I guessed right. It turns out, as you heard in my intro, how, how you felt about the movie or how you would feel about the movie. But I am, I am going to split the difference a little bit, Josh, because I'm not enamored with the movie and I'm not enamored with the movie for, for some of the same reasons that, that you are, though, the specific contrivance of the, the part of Emma's past that choice isn't, isn't the issue for me. So let me start with where I'm defending it. And in terms of my, my question that I posed to you, the, the moment where I, I knew it was going to be a success and then maybe even or, or where it, where it worked, where it worked enough, right? And then the moment where it got just enough to the, the heart of the matter or, or where it, it combined the two, it mixed the clinical and the emotional enough for me to make it work. I'll, I'll, I'll try to give you that. And it, it does start with the sound design. Okay. You, you recognize pretty quickly from, I mean, the opening shot of the film, isn't it? Of, of Emma's ear. Her ear. You recognize, right. Yeah. How pretty quickly the, how significant the sound design is. And you understand that it seems largely connected to Emma's experience of the world. She can hear out of only one ear, which makes it motivated. It doesn't make it particularly effective motivation, but at least it was, it was something. And then where it, where it clicked for me, where the whole movie then clicked for me was in the immediate aftermath of the big reveal. And it is where Emma confesses something from her past that sends everybody reeling. There, there are two other people that are friends of theirs that are, that are the maid of honor and best man, Mamadou Achi, who's just fantastic in everything he shows up in. And, and Alana Heim, who I really like in almost everything she's in, but I, I, I wasn't as big a fan of her performance here. And that could be the writing as much as it is the performance, but they're, they're close, obviously. And it sends them reeling in, including Charlie, obviously her, who's soon to be husband. And when she wakes up, Charlie is gone. And what we see, we see Charlie talking to Mike, his, his best man. And they both, I think they're like at a park or something and they have coffee in their hands and Mike is saying, I'm very paraphrasing and making good sites, but he's saying something like, she's a psychopath and whatever you need me to do, I'll do it. Clearly the wedding's off. You're not going to get married to her and, and all that kind of stuff. And then we cut back to Emma. And that's where we realized that this is her fantasy of what must be playing out right now. If he's not there, that must be what's happening, right? And then, then there are many more sequences like that that follow. And so what, what you realize or what I realized in that moment is that that choice to focus on the sound design and how, how, you know, based on the character's position within their environment and the volume and the quantity and the quality of noises coming at them. There's this, there's this disorientation that heightens their already precarious grip on reality. And that then plays tricks on us as audience members as well. And I think what Borgerley is doing then from the, you know, from the very beginning, and I'll come back to this specifically. But what this movie then, what he's doing from the very beginning is he's, he's playing with this notion of perception. And of course he is, right? That's where it all clicks because it's called the drama. And that opening conceit, as I said, is that Charlie is telling us the story of their relationship by telling his best man, what he's going to say in his speech about Emma. He's trying to figure out the right frame for their story. And he's thinking about how was, how is this version going to be perceived? Mike's telling him how he perceives it, how the crowd is going to perceive it. You can't say it this way. You should say it this way instead. And as I, and here's maybe where you were going with how, why you thought I would like it more than you. Maybe you just think I like experimental movies of this nature, meta movies more than you. And that's generally true, right? But as I often like to reiterate on the show, the way we make sense of our lives is through narratives. It's how we perceive who we are and our place in the world. And Charlie and Emma know exactly who they are and their place in the world until that narrative gets a twist. And that's why the other most powerful and resonant moment in the movie for me is where he starts changing the words of that speech. And do you remember this? Like at a very heightened moment, he doesn't just start changing the words, Josh, of that speech that he has previously written about her and used to describe her and his love for her, but erasing words and then lines and then whole paragraphs. Metaphorically, he might as well be cutting off parts of her body. It felt that tangible to me. It felt that invasive. It felt that wounding. It then also felt that brutally true to me. If nothing else, what Borgley expresses incisively is how shattering that is when the narrative you've ordered your life around gets rewritten. I think I would have been more on board in the way you are and particularly in the ways you're describing if the precision and the discipline of that fantasy sequence you described where she wakes up or we sense that she's imagining this conversation Charlie's having with his friend. If the many other instances where something like that happens to my mind, we're as disciplined and it's completely possible that I just wasn't keeping up with this movie. But I found a lot of these. Let's just call them dreams slash memories slash visions. We're not quite as sophisticated as that one you described. Part of my problem is that it's rarely not. I don't want to. I didn't measure it. I didn't count these. So I'll be careful with these words. To me, it was not always clear whether it was a dream, whether it was a memory, whether it was. Awaking fantasy. Those are all very important distinctions to this question of perception that I think you're rightly raising. And so one I will bring up which comes later on and I'll have to talk around this a little bit. But basically we see Charlie and again, I tried to write these down in my notes. Perhaps I have this wrong, but we see Charlie standing alone on the main floor of their townhouse, right? Where their kitchen is in their main room. Then we get this image of Emma that is a very provocative image doing something related to her revelation. Then the next image we get is of her in bed, I believe, waking up. That's just an example to me and maybe Borgley doesn't want it to be clear. And this is purposely his intent. I find that I find that a bit of a cop out if that's the case. But to me, that was an image, an instance of, okay, not only is this a dream, is this a memory, is this a vision, but who's is it? And I think this movie wants to scramble things in interesting ways in the way you described. And I think as a meta narrative about narratives and all that, that has potential. But I found myself things getting scrambled. The sound design is part of this in such a way that it almost became meaningless. And by meaningless, I will say meaningless in terms of their relationship. One reason I was disappointed and this as a vehicle for Patentson and Zendaya is that their relationship just got chopped up by these snippets. And if no one really knows what anything is or who's remembering what or fantasizing what, like we have no rooted relationship to be invested in that. That's where I was. And I did find I haven't seen Borglis Norwegian films, but his previous film was his first English language dream scenario with Nicholas Cage. Again, a high concept movie, Nicholas Cage just starts appearing in people's dreams all over the world. I love it. Yeah, I was I went to see it for the concept, not for Borglis and not necessarily for Cage. And it kind of petered out that concept petered out in that movie. It's also interestingly has a very discursive editing scheme that is similar where it's playing things fast and loose, which can be provocative and fun. And in a roundabout way, informative. My experience of the drama was that it was ultimately ultimately distancing, not saying it failed every time. I agree with you. The sequence you talked about does work, but ultimately the overall effect to me was distancing. Listen to Laugh With Me, a podcast with Jeremy Odom right here on the iHeartRadioApp Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm J.O. I'm your host, baby. And here's a little taste of what you are going to find on Laugh With Me. And they're like, what happened? I'm like, I got pepper spray. And everybody's like, oh my God, what happened? I got pepper spray. I just told you. And listen to Laugh With Me on the iHeartRadioApp Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I don't remember like you struggling in the moment at all. And maybe it is because I was more engaged by this concept and the conceit and overall into and excited by the experiment. I don't remember struggling in the moment with distinguishing fantasy from flashback from memory. The perspective to me, it felt fractured in a very purposeful way. Now, in terms of what you said, this this idea of their relationship being chopped up. It wasn't for me being chopped up because of the editing and the snippets or the relationship not feeling rooted enough, being grounded enough in anything substantial. That I think lies in maybe other things that I do want to talk about. But the the other main main point I want to make in in praising the film is that once you realize that it is about narrative and it's about perception, you can see how clever Borgerley is and how he has been playing tricks on us since the very beginning of the movie to put us into this state. It's yes, discombobulating us with the sound design. It's the meta nature of the speech and what version of their story he should offer, as I mentioned. But more than that, Josh, we're never on solid ground at all when it comes to the actions or the choices of the characters on screen. We're effectively ping ponging between right and wrong, true and false, good and bad, any dichotomy and various levels of those dichotomies, depending on your individual perspective and perception of the world. Go back to the very beginning of this film. If and you we are in this position, we're watching it, we're just observers watching it play out. If and if I just casually if we hadn't seen this film and I just presented this scenario to you and or I presented to 10 or 100 different people, we might all get different reactions, right? But if we saw a guy taking a picture, a young woman is sitting at a at a at a coffee house reading a book and she gets up to go get her coffee. And a guy walks over, takes a picture of the cover of her book and then goes and sits down, regardless of any other context. We assume something very creepy was happening. Then he goes over and talks to her and lies and says that he read the book when he didn't to try to pick her up. Also kind of creepy. Okay. Except now the context of this story is you're hearing it for the first time as a guest at their wedding. And it's coming out of the mouth of someone is charming and handsome as Robert Pattinson. And he's telling you the story of how he convinced his brand new bride to go out with him for the first time. You'd be laughing. You'd find it charming. You'd be thinking, oh, you rascal, right? It's just it's storytelling. It's it's perception. It's context, right? So if we can rationalize the lie about reading the book, let's say that to get the date and he gets the date. Then I'm thinking, well, now you read the book, right? Like you read the book. You have to do your homework now when you go on the date, don't you? And sure enough, when Charlie reveals as he's recounting the story to Mike that he never read the book, what does Mike say? Wait, you double down. You didn't. Why didn't you just read the book? And what does Charlie say? Charlie says something like, no, that somehow seemed worse. And I thought in the moment, Josh, watching the movie, I thought, wait, Charlie's crazy. I cannot believe he didn't read the book. And then I sat with him for a second and I thought, wait a second, maybe Charlie's right. Isn't he already lied once is then reading it frantically to be prepared for the date in a way actually even more dishonest? It's the kind of question we could sit here for 15 minutes and just talk about that as sort of an ethical dilemma. And we could hear again, get 50 listeners to discuss. And the point is, the more I reflected on it, the more I realized that almost every scene in the movie presents one of those quandaries. And we haven't even gotten yet to the major stuff. Like, how would you deal with something like learning what Charlie learns about his partner the week of your wedding? Like, that's that's what this that's what Borglay is doing in almost literally every single scene of this film. And I like the way I like as I reflect on the movie. I like the way that that unsettles us throughout. Yeah, I think I might have liked it if it stayed in that realm. And it sort of starts to me, the conversation where the reveal happens, which is with with this other couple is where I started seeing the frame being built of the movie there around us. And so, you know, what you described is maybe the first 10 minutes, something something like that. And and I think it starts to prioritize running us through the experiment than thinking about this actual relationship within the experience. It loses the experience of being a couple for the sake of the experiment for me. And it just kind of keeps ratcheting up that way as the movie goes on. It certainly keeps ratcheting it up. And that that was something I as a viewer struggled with. And and I had to I had to sit with myself a little bit and wonder, am I is it is it fair that I'm that that I'm just feeling am I just feeling overwhelmed by it? And is that the movie's fault? Or is it or is it my fault? And I'm still wrestling with that a little bit. I ended up in a similar place as you just not the way I got there wasn't so much because of how it ratcheted it up. When you talked about it being contrived. That scene in particular, I'll say this and then I can go back to something with with the the relationship that that is is really holding me back with this movie. Borgley goes to great lengths to convince us in that scene, the revelation scene that she is really drunk and that the alcohol is to blame for her saying this. And I don't find that or anything about that scene itself, how it plays out convincing at all. That character obviously understands the severity of what they're revealing and and and how how terrible the fallout could be if this is set out loud, even in front of the person they're going to spend the rest of their life with. And these two friends who she thinks that she's very close with and the again, I didn't buy the alcohol explanation. So we either have to understand that there is a part of her that either deep down wants to confess it, right, which could be interesting. Or she feels so comfortable with these people that she's she's compelled to do it or their revelations because they're playing a little game where they're all saying something terrible about themselves. Their revelations are so awful that she feels obligated to reciprocate and that element is somewhat there. But I didn't feel that at all within Emma herself within Zendaya's performance, Emma, the character. It's just all too casual, Josh, the way it's handled the way it's staged and within the psychology of the characters specifically Emma. And she's the only character that matters there in that scene. That I mean, that is the most important scene in the film. And it's not convincing. It's not convincing. And it's also frustrating to me is because once that moment passes, I agree with you. I think that scene fails on a multiple of levels and it's it's a major flaw in the film because everything hinges on it. But the performances have not yet failed. And I say that to to emphasize that I think the movie fails the performances. The performances have not yet become ineffective. Let me rephrase that. I think Zendaya is excellent in that scene trying to negotiate a very contrived setup because she still allows Emma some mystery and some conflict. I don't think the drinking adding that helps with it. I think just in her performance, you can see in her face, she's the last to share something of the four, the way she's processing the other stories. Something deeply ambivalent is going on within her. And that is an end Zendaya is just doing an incredible job of of communicating all that as a passive participant in the scene. Right. Once sort of like the card has been played by the movie screenplay, I feel like it loses interest in either of them as real people. And unfortunately, there's a great moment where they try to pose for their wedding photos in a rehearsal with a photographer. And you can see their perform the potential in those performances as they both try to conjure up their fake smiles. Yes, it's not just performing a fake performance. The way they're reacting to each other. That that's the scene where I was like, see, these two could have been in a such a better movie about this. Anyway, there's still a hint of that in this conversation scene and Zendaya is capable of it and it gets snuffed out basically because now the game begins. It's kind of how I felt after that point. But yeah, go ahead. You were going to say more about the relationship aspect, which which maybe is where you could say more about the acting too, if you wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. And I see your point about that being sort of the fulcrum after which for you, it falls apart for me, even within that scene. That's also I don't think leading up to it. I believe I believe the point of of departure for her as a character. And then I don't really believe I don't really necessarily believe her her behavior and her actions, her further explanations after that moment within that scene itself. That just everything about that scene did not unfortunately work very well for me and give me enough revelation or insight into that character, which leads into the fact that and I'll get to I'll get to Zendaya and the reality and the realness of the characters in relationship. But I do want to say this about Pattinson first. OK, I am waiting for someone to write in because inevitably this happens and it it makes sense. There shouldn't be universal adoration for any artist, director or actor. But and say, you know, I just don't see it with Pattinson. What is it with you guys always praising him? But you know, if you're that person and you thought maybe the drama was going to be the movie that would make me anyway, see the light. It's not happening here. I I do think now this is a this is a movie that favors Pattinson more than Zendaya. He gets he gets more of a life, more of an inner life than she does. And I I think this is a really, really good and really strong performance. And one of the moments for me, Josh, in particular, that I've just I've still just stunned by thinking about it, right? Is is one near the end of the film where I can't provide it. I won't provide any of the context. But we we do learn something about the couple earlier. And the importance of a of a song to them. And and he's sitting down in a chair just beleaguered. And he plays this song. And the way he gets himself out of the chair, the way he forces himself out of the chair when the music plays. It's it's not like it's this dramatic Buster Keaton-esque movement. That's the whole point. It's it's actually more subtle. It's remarkable because of its subtlety. But the way he lifts his head off the table and gets himself up from the seated position to standing and then dancing is still somehow like he's being controlled by a puppeteer. It's like he's connected to strings. It's like he's not in control of his body somehow. And I don't know. I actually don't know how he does it. It's it's it just perfectly demonstrates how this character is completely beaten down and yet forcing himself to fight against his own will in that moment. I don't know how many actors could pull that off. And I do. I give patents and a lot of credit for that. But and I know you'll you'll you seems like you want to you want to think that the you want to argue that the screenplay doesn't help him either. And that may be fair. But let me say this about Zendaya. I think she's especially good. And I think that's because one of the key things as I've suggested that keeps this movie from being great for me. One of the main things is that neither Pattinson fully nor especially Emma neither Charlie nor Emma feel fully like real people. There's just they do their best to make them feel like real people when there's very little on the page that suggests that they are. It's it's just even more true with Emma. And that is what keeps the movie in the realm of provocation. Very exciting for me at times provocation but provocation. There's just no sense of any life for her career education passion interest interest in anything at all outside of this relationship. And this wedding she's just not a person. She's she's just this you know beyond this moral and ethical perception game that she is a pawn in. That's all she is. She is she is just that Pattinson gets more than that. He has more weight. She is just that. And it's not that I needed her to be a a a stronger character. And I mean stronger is in she just exerted more will that she's too weak. I can understand this character being someone in this moment to feel as if her entire world is being shattered and that her wedding and this this the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with may no longer love her anymore and to react the way she does. It's not that I just needed her to be more strong willed. It's that I just needed there to be more of a person there. They're just needed to be more depth. It's it's it's just like there's she could be blown away by the wind. I think I think that's all fair. And I think the real you know, inditing thing about this is tied to Emma's revelation. We get flashbacks to an earlier part of her life where a lot of that shading could have been provided. But the Emma we see there, I would say is equally generic in some ways. And yeah, I'm dancing around things, which is why I'm pausing. But I do think it's tied to Borgley's choice of going back to the topic of the reveal. And I just want to say one more thing about it because I think it's connected to why that the performance might not work for you, Adam as well, especially in that crucial scene, the dinner conversation about admitting the worst thing you ever did. To my mind, the people around the table have this outsized horrific response to it, right? And I use the word outsized because the topic is very serious. Here's what I can't quite get my mind around with this movie. I feel like it at once takes the topic it chooses to be the inciting topic too seriously in the sense that the characters respond to it in outsized judgmental way that I at least was took me aback. Not that they shouldn't have been surprised, concerned, but it instantly turns to towards like really extreme condemnation on the friends parts and on Charlie's part. Rather than you could argue learning something like this, one could respond with care and concern and say something like, tell me more about that. You know what I mean? Like it's almost like the movie takes it too seriously, like wants them to act like she revealed just something fill in the blanks that I would say is more appalling. Okay. Now, at the same time, I want to say I don't think the movie takes its choice of topics seriously enough because I do think it's disturbing what she reveals very disturbing. And yet at the same time, the movie wants it to be this appalling thing that it then uses frequently and I can't give examples because it will spoil for comic effect. And I think this is where I was held a bit back by Borgeley's choice when he could have chosen endless amount of things to be this inciting topic. When you choose what he chose to my mind, others might not agree. That's a burden you're taking on as a filmmaker. And I think you need to you need to give good reasons why you specifically chose that. And I don't think the drama to my mind justifies its choice in the specifics. It's it doesn't. It's not the only reason I had a problem with the film. I do think it's a weakness of the film. I'm not writing it off completely about that. And it's also interesting when I think of another movie that I have had a similar issue with on this specific topic. This is purely speculation, but it is also a filmmaker from outside of the United States making an American set film about this topic. And I can't also give that example because it would be a spoiler. But it's just something in my head wondering if you do possibly as a international filmmaker find this subject matter easily provocative and and maybe not be close enough to it to treat it with treat it with seriousness in one way, but not enough seriousness in another. It's a real puzzle. It was a real mind bend for me thinking about the drama in this way. And maybe that's maybe Adam. That's I've just been provoked and I should just. Yeah. Say, you know, I've been provoked, but I do. I do think to me I want to be provoked to an end. And when it comes to choosing this particular topic, I didn't find that the drama is provocative to an end where it needed it to be that topic. Well, I didn't think it provoked me enough to an end in the sense that when I literally get to the end of this film and here, no spoilers. But when it is wrapping up this story and we're also talking about the relationship that is at the core of the story, because I don't really care about these people as real people. There's there's no poignancy in its final moments. I have nothing invested in this and that's for sure ambiguity of the final moments and there is supposed to be ambiguity. There's nothing there that I'm parsing or caring about at all as I'm leaving the theater that that said. The provocation of this of this revelation and the outsider's view of it, that perspective, perhaps I do disagree with you, Josh. I I liked that perspective and accepted it. And I I do think that not justifying the choice, as you said, and using it for comedic effect. And I think you probably agree with this. I just want to point out there's there's nuance within that, right? And there are moments. I will grant you. I can think of a couple where you could argue he's lightning the moment or it's used for comedic effect. But it didn't it didn't bother me. And I don't think he crosses the line into the grotesque. I don't think it's offensive. I think he treats it seriously enough for the overall tone of this film, which is this experiment with which is this provocation. For me, tapping into this idea that it is ultimately that provocation that it is this film that is about perception that is from the very beginning, trying to put you into this state of from the from the smallest thing from the very smallest sense of what's the right thing to do here. It has to give you something that makes your jaw drop. Now, you said. It didn't really make your jaw drop. And that's interesting, Josh. And you know what? You can say that. But I'm going to tell you right now that I might be with you and that I tried to put myself in the position of the people hearing that what she says. And I guess I I like to it's hard to know. Obviously, I like to think of myself. Someone sitting in the theater is someone who would be empathetic and enlightened enough who would be very caring and compassionate and who would try to understand that person and not be judgmental and not condemn. And this is part of the reason why I don't love actually the the Alana Haim performance and the writing is I found it. I did find it extremely. I found it extreme in its condemnation. I thought it just could have been condemning without extremely condemning. But that said, I don't think there's any doubt that if you get a lot of people in a room and ask them to really visualize being the person who male or female doesn't matter what the gender is. You or who's getting married, your your partner, the potential spouse, you learn this about them. Are you regardless actually even of what your your reaction is going to be in the moment as it lingers with you? Are you going to be able to get that perception out of your mind as you get closer to your wedding day? And what kind of havoc is it going to wreak on your mind in your perception of them and your potential life together? I think it's going to do damage, irreparable damage. Josh, I think I think this I think this topic, I think Borgley was savvy as hell about picking a topic, especially for Americans as an outsider, picking a topic that he knew would be exactly the right push button one for this philosophy class. But but push button in the right way for this that it needed to be that it needed to be. And you just nailed it. Here's the example, though, Josh, here's the perfect test of it that you know works. Here's why you know it works is because there is a point in the film where Charlie needs reassurance and he here's the metaframing within framing. Right. He poses the plot of the drama, the plot he's experiencing to someone within the drama to see how they'll respond. Right. Like they're basically in a philosophy class together. He says, what would you do if this would happen to you? And guess what? She responds the way I think 90 out of 100 people would respond to it. You can say you wouldn't. I think 90 out of 100 people. That's not what I'm saying. Okay. Well, that's fine. Okay. Well, I think that's how people would respond. So they this I completely agree with you, which which is my problem is that later seen. He's telling it to someone who has no idea who the person is. It's a completely hypothetical. When you describe it as a push button philosophy 101. That's my problem with the movie is it wants us to be invested in these people as characters who would really deal with these sorts of situations. Which real people do, right? And I feel like it's been chosen precisely as you describe it because it is a push button topic. In America. Now, the reason it fails to me is not just because that topic is taboo and no filmmaker can ever explore it. I can think of other filmmakers who have very artfully. It is because it's being forced upon these characters who never register as human beings. And so I think it plays out. I think it would play out very differently if you had that conversation with people who were genuinely in a relationship that had gotten to the point of marrying each other and you were sitting across from the table with people who are genuinely close enough to stand up in that wedding. Then it would play out. I think yes, people would. I'm not saying it's not my jaw wouldn't drop. I wouldn't need a moment. I wouldn't need days. I wouldn't need how to process it. But I do think it would play out on a human level where there would be there were there would be more concern for who Emma now is as she is befriended and loved than there is concern for who Emma was. And this movie is only interested in who Emma was as a figure because that gets the gears churning of the film. And that is where I was left out is because we're no longer talking about a human situation here. We're talking about a constructed philosophical argument. And that's just less interesting. And I said the same thing like ultimately I said the same thing. She's a pawn in this construct upon and she's not she's not is real fully realized as she should be to take this film to the level of greatness. I guess where we're only disagreeing is or where I think I'm trying to depart from you a little bit is I don't think that has anything to do with the topic of the revelation itself. I think the topic of the revelation itself is incredibly effective. Yeah. And for me it just it just makes the flaws more glaring because of the chosen topic. OK, we will end there without further drama. The drama is currently playing in wide release. If you have seen it and agree or disagree with our thoughts, you can email us feedback at filmspotting.net. Well, folks, you heard it a split on the drama. And as we discussed the sound design, such a crucial element of the movie, that means you need to not only see it, but hear it in the theater with the best possible sound, perhaps at a regal cinema near you. And you'll also hear us discuss this briefly at the end of the show with this movie now coming out this weekend has been off my radar until now. Faces of death. I remember those covers at my old cinema as a kid, the video rental portion of my cinema and seeing that VHS cover of the multiple iterations of it being terrified, a little titillated as a young kid to being intrigued, wanting to maybe rent it being too young and terrified to rent it. Now there's a version of Faces of Death out and, you know, I might have gone completely past this and I wouldn't be mentioning it all here on the show. Except that it's Daniel Goldhaver, the director behind How To Blow Up a Pipeline. And I've got at least one film spotting listener texting me and saying, it's great. David Erlich is giving it a very positive review. I saw his tweet about it. Maybe that's one that you need to go see this weekend at a regal cinema and with regal unlimited, you can see maybe one or both of those movies for free. Regal unlimited is the all you can watch movies subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Right now, Regal is offering our listeners endless movies for less. If you sign up for Regal unlimited, just use the code film spot to six to get 15% off. Regal unlimited is the only truly limitless movie subscription pass. That means you can see any standard 2D movie anytime with no blockout dates or restrictions. And you do also save 10% on all non alcoholic concessions. Sign up now in the regal app or at the link in our podcast description. And that code again is film spot to six to receive your discount. And we are very grateful for the film spotting family. Those listeners who have chosen to become members and monetarily support the show. If you haven't taken that step yet and are thinking about it, let me give you a couple of reasons why you might want to. First off, it's really affordable for 99 a month. That is the basic tier to join the film spotting family. And for that for 99 a month, you get bonus shows every month. You get ad free listening every episode. You can jump on the family discord whenever you want and participate in conversation with other listeners and with us. You also get a weekly newsletter written by producer Sam and then pre sales and discounts on our live events of which we have one coming up this summer. So also that price for 99 a month is discounted if you decide to pay annually. That is true. You can learn everything you need to learn about the film spotting family and all of those benefits at film spotting family dot com. We want to thank our film spotting family plus members this week, Steve Mesa, Pembroke Lakes, Florida. And also we have a family member, Cache Ellsworth in Milwaukee. Steve says he's been a fan of film spotting since 2012 has not had time to join the film spotting family until now. Cache says a film friend recommended the show during COVID and fell in love with the end of the year episodes first. And we're going with Cache. I was struggling with this when I peaked at this note. Cache. Cache. I don't know. We'll have to find out. I think later we have a note here. Eric is Cache Eric. When we get to our letterbox user names, we have cash. I'm very confused. It's really confusing, but we want to give Cache or Cache the credit here. Cache C A C H E E I I believe is the letterbox username as for Steve, a little bit simpler here on letterbox. Steve is cinematic. 85. Yeah, I mean, wow, we've got we've got Sam has Eric with three question marks after it and you said Cache E E and then you said I I it could be LL. We are we are a hot mess this week with this segment. And did we mention that the movies that that Cache credits with becoming a cinephile Clockwork Orange Steve says Jaws book about movies or movie making Steve recommends Rebel without a crew or how 23 year old filmmaker with $7000 became a Hollywood player. Robert Rodriguez. I mean, that's that's if you were, you know, I remember when I was thinking I was going to be a filmmaker that was one of the first ones I read that that inspired me. So it was the playbook names are what's that? It was the playbook that was going to be made if you had that whatever your names are. We know Steve. That's all we know. And you know what? Well, we'll link to your letterbox in our show. No, there you go. I'm wants to follow you. How's that? Make it simple. We thank you for your support of the show. We do have our April bonus show coming up soon. Ask us anything. We have a form for that. But you know what? If you have a question you'd like to submit and potentially have us answer and that will be answered exclusively for our film spotting family members. You can email us feedback at filmspotting.net more about joining the family at filmspottingfamily.com. We love reviews, ratings, Apple podcasts or Spotify is where you can do that. We kind of treat these filmmakers in the 70s like they were just kind of wild and crazy, a rational irresponsible overspending over schedule geniuses who then had to be kind of rained in. But I like the idea that all three of these guys came in going, No, actually, we know what's wrong with the system. We have an idea of how to fix the system. We have a deliberate plan to fix the system. And it worked in a way that not fully backfired, but you kind of get the good and the bad with it. Some very exciting announcements to share. We've got a plethora of them this week, Josh, including coming next week in the film spotting family feed on Monday. You're going to hear a conversation between Michael Phillips and Paul Fisher. He's the author of a book that's been getting a lot of pub. And rightfully so, I've been listening to the audio book and the book is fantastic. The Last Kings of Hollywood Coppola, Lucas Spielberg and the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema. The publicist reached out to me. I said, this sounds incredible. Of course, I want to read it. Of course, I would like to talk to him. And then I had a thought, you know, maybe Michael Phillips would want to talk to Paul Fisher. And I kind of feel like our listeners might actually prefer to hear Michael Phillips interview him instead of me to win for everybody. And that's how it played out. Yeah, this will be great. I mean, you know, Michael did so many great interviews when he was with the Tribune, with filmmakers and writers as well. This book sounds absolutely fantastic and cannot wait to hear Michael talking and digging into it with Paul Fisher with the author. Yeah, we taped that last week. Good 45 minute conversation, which you'll be able to listen to wherever you get your podcast. You will also be able to watch that over on our YouTube, youtube.com slash film spotting. Here is the big announcement. We have been keeping this under wraps for a good five or six months at this point. It is it has been something that we've been discussing behind the scenes and we are are very excited to finally make it official. Yeah, we're bringing back film spotting S.V.U. The crime fighters, the crime fighters are back on the beat. Film spotting streaming video unit. Now, as you may know, Alison Wilmore, she got transferred to another department. She can she can currently she can currently be heard on on Blank check's critical darlings podcast with Richard Lawson. So she got she got moved over. And so we had to we had to find someone to pair with Matt Singer. And there was this perfect fit with Jordan Hoffman. Long time, long time film critic and someone who is a long time friend of Matt's. And we did a pilot with the two of them and their their chemistry and their knowledge was off the charts. So Matt and Jordan will explore the boulevards back alleys and the outer boroughs of the streaming ecosystem. It's it's just in such a different place. You know, it is one of those things where we can look back now and S.V.U. started when when Sam and I pitched that actually I'm trying to think now I might have pitched that before Sam even came back into the film spotting fold. But when S.V.U. started in 2011 or 2012, streaming wasn't what streaming is now, you know, no. And and now it's it's in a very different place. And it feels like more than ever, you need guides like Matt and Jordan to walk you through every week. What you should be considering, what you should be looking for and where you can actually find it. I think the evidence of that is an occasional conversation that comes up among you, me and Sam. And I'm sure others are having this with their movie, Watching Friends is they'll they'll say, did you see that pop up on named streaming service and that has major stars in it? And the other people are like, never heard it even existed. Right. There's just it's a tour. It's a flood of in the past, maybe when S.V.U. started, you know, movies that might have sounded interesting, but you didn't know any of the filmmakers. You weren't familiar with the stars. Now that's not the case. There is a lot of stuff that sounds intriguing and how to keep up with it. What to prioritize. You do need guides. I think Matt and Jordan's first episode is a good example of this. It's the perfect example. This is what we're talking about. Jonah Hill directing outcome. This is starring Keanu Reeves. He's playing a grown up child star Cameron Diaz. Also in the cast, this one in this case is going to be on Apple TV Plus. So yeah, there are a lot of titles along these lines that are coming out and that's what Matt and Jordan are going to be keep an eye on. They'll have a review of a brand new title that is exclusive to streaming on each episode. And then they'll also share some related streaming recommendations to hopefully help you line up that streaming plan you have for your home viewing. Yep. And you can find that every Tuesday in the film spotting feed. So you can expect that moving forward every Tuesday right here in your film spotting feed. So excited to bring that back. Then on Friday after you get our archive drop on Wednesday, you will get our new show still. You know, as we're looking at the calendar, we're getting closer to that time, Josh, where you can expect regular new movie reviews from us. But we're not quite there yet when we look at the calendar. And we're we're happy to do this episode and finally get to pay proper tribute to Robert Duvall with our top five Robert Duvall scenes. Yeah, and that gives people a little bit of time to prepare. I think we've mentioned this before. So some folks might have already been doing this. I try to catch a title or two that you haven't seen of Duvall's. I know we've been trying to do that, Adam, for me to my shame. I had never seen Tender Mercies, which is maybe the place most people say you should start with. Duvall and I will only report at this point that they would have been right. You must see Tender Mercies before listening to this episode. Tender Mercies was one somehow I was sure I had seen. I think I even had it marked on Letterboxed as watched because I just thought it was one. I grew up having seen on HBO and then I watched it. I watched it maybe a month ago at this point and I knew pretty quickly. Oh, no, no, this is new to me and this is really good. And I knew right away. Yeah, yeah. And we we even talked about it briefly off air because I had a moment watching it where I went. The it was almost like, you know, the clouds parted and a rave of light came down upon me. And I knew exactly what scene was going to make my top five. But I also had that moment where I went. I think Josh is having the same epiphany with me whenever he sees this. If he hasn't seen it yet, he's going to have the same epiphany and we might have some overlap. We may. Yeah, we'll have to see. We'll see how that played out. But yeah, that's so funny. You say that because I thought that I thought something similar. Are they into the first maybe five minutes? I was like, did I see this? You know, it's what 83? I think. Yeah, right. Around. That's right. It's like, did I see this as 85? Maybe somehow. I think it might have been just memories of clips played here or there over the years and know the complete experience was new to me. And I'm so glad I had it. Yep. So we have been doing some homework where we're going to get finished preparing for that. Robert Duval scenes and maybe you're doing some homework as well. We'll also have our forties madness final for earlier this week in the feed. You hopefully heard the very good news about our 2026 Pantheon inductees. Good job. Film spotting family. Good job. Josh and Sam pat ourselves on the back getting Cleo from five to seven and. Kurosawa's Rashomon in there. Also, I think we've got a really exciting dissident cinema marathon lineup to look forward to. You can see all of that at filmspotting.net slash marathons or slash Pantheon or go to slash episodes to see what we have in store. And you know, there's always more content, Josh, by checking out our sister podcast. Don't forget about the next picture show looking at cinema's present via its past. Also a great show. And right now they are on to part two of their in a lonely space pairing. So it's their discussion of Project Hail Mary, which they'll do in the context. Yeah, of 1972's Silent Running. I'm in a little bit of a of a bind here, Adam. You know, I love to hold onto these SV SVU. Look, I'm already doing it. Hold onto these NPS conversations. So I've seen the movies Silent Running still a blind spot to me. I think this is one you saw way back. I'm going to say my time for a marathon. Not a blind spot for me because it was part of a filmspotting marathon just for your time. Seventy sci-fi and one I think one I think I liked. I mean, some of those 70s sci-fi are, you know, you're glad you saw them. You're not so sure they're great movies, but it has its rewards. That's for sure. Well, if you want to see what the NPS folks thought of Silent Running, catch up with that previous episode right now, the one available as part two where they're talking about Project Hail Mary. And you can find all of the episodes every Tuesday when they drop wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we have for the past few weeks been highlighting film spotting Fest to Fest to film spotting coming up. We've given you the date June 27 June 28th in Chicago. We've told you that it's three movies on Saturday. One movie on Sunday. We've told you that the three of us will be there with producer Sam Golden. Joe to so will be there. Michael Phillips will be there. And of course, family members, other listeners, other people from the Chicago film community and some special guests. We haven't told you who those special guests are. We haven't told you the films. We haven't even told you the venues yet. And over the next two weeks, all of that information will come out. We are we are actually at a point where we are going to be ready to announce the lineup and announce the ticket on sale. And we're yeah, we'll just leave it there because it's it's all coming. How much film spotting news can one person take in one show? Adam, seriously, there's so much special episode with Michael. I got the return of S.V.U. We got the introductions. Come on. I mean, really, we need we need to just settle it down over here at film spotting HQ. What we will just tell you this week is that our venue for Saturday is going to be the Athenaeum Center here in Chicago. And on Sunday, it will be at the music box. We will close out at the music box on Sunday morning, an 11 or 11 30 screening just like we did for film spotting fest last year where we closed out on Sunday morning. What we what we like about this and we loved being at the Jean Ciscou film center last year. I mean, they could not have been better. Great place to see a movie. The Athenaeum Center is bigger. The Athenaeum Center is also kind of just down the block from the right box. Same neighborhood. Yeah, same neighborhood. So we get to we get to centralize the film spotting fest location. And we also have more food options in that neighborhood. And there's just a little bit more sites to see there in that neighborhood. So for people who are coming in for the fest when we have time and we will have more time built in around the movies, you need to venture out. You need to get get a drink, get some food, do whatever you got to do. Just get some fresh air between movies. You can do that and it it's going to be fun. I can't I can't wait to unveil the full the full lineup for film spotting fest to and a quick reminder to film spotting family members. This is where some of your benefits come into play. You will get access to tickets before everyone else. You also get a discount on tickets. And yeah, we're planning a meet and greet opportunity as well for family members right now. That's right. It will be right before the big Saturday night showcase screening. That will be fun. You'll get to hang out not only with us, but our guests and the discount that you'll get. You'll get early access to the tickets, but the the festival pass that we'll be putting on sale last year. That's another thing I will mention. And obviously we'll talk about this with the ticket on sale coming up. But last year because of the way we were spread six movies over the two days and two venues, we couldn't do sort of a festival pass and now we can. We have three movies in one day at the Athenaeum. So we have a Saturday you can buy individually or you can just buy a pass and everybody gets a discount on the festival pass. The film spotting family members. They get an even bigger discount and it's not insignificant. In fact, it's it's then significant, Josh. And it's a real it's a real benefit. So if you would like to learn more about that, we remind you filmspottingfamily.com and much more coming next week in the week after about film spotting Fest 2. Nobody else has ever danced the red shoes since you left. Nobody else ever shall. Like I probably should have told you this before, but you see. Well, insanity runs in my family. If I could only get inside that brain of yours and understand what makes you do these crazy twisted things put on the red shoes, Vicky and dance for us again. This is. Smarter. It all seems so daunting when we're launching filmspotting madness. And here we are. We're getting right down to it. Forty's madness. The elite eight. It's live. You can vote now. Filmspottingmadness.com polls close Monday, 11 59 p.m. central time. And then the new round opens Tuesday at noon. We have our sweet 16 results. And yes, as promised, we've got a minor upset. So we'll highlight some of these here very quickly. Josh, not a surprise. Casablanca took down Hitchcock's notorious not close. 88 percent, 12 percent. Joseph Carr said Ingrid Bergman drunk and notorious is so, so good. But I didn't have to worry. Ingrid Bergman sober and Casablanca is just as great and Casablanca is better overall. That all tracks, Joseph. Thank you very much. Another easy win here with this matchup. Double indemnity over. Yes. Hitchcock another Hitchcock loss here. Double indemnity over Rebecca. That one was 85 percent to 15 percent. Same exact percentages, Adam, for this next faceoff. Citizen Kane over the Philadelphia story. So Kane took that one 85 percent to 15 percent. We heard from Maria from Kent, UK on this. Kane is good, but it is not fun. Philadelphia is a great comedy and a very rewatchable film with a yummy Jimmy Stewart pity that Kane will bulldoze it. Well, yeah, it did. It did. Now, I do want to take a quick moment here before we continue to point something out. So just, you know, if we have very astute watchers of film spotting madness, we are taping this. We're in the past as you're hearing this as we always are, but we're really in the past. We are taping this a little bit earlier than we normally tape. In fact, we're taping this before polls have officially closed. Now, there are no shenanigans here. These are all they're done. Nobody can win. The it appears that way. Yeah, there's too much disparity. So maybe the percentages could change one percent. I doubt even two percent will see, but but none of them were that close. I think the closest one is is six or seven percent. And we feel comfortable calling these matches at this point. Glad you said that in case there's an audit. Yes. Thank you. There you go. And I think we could with some of our listeners, right? They love the numbers, Josh. The third man over the Maltese Falcon, 71 percent to 29 percent. James Burton says an impossible choice. Can't believe I voted down three Bogart pictures in one round. Oh, the humanity at least will always have Paris. Indeed. For a while anyway, we'll see how about it's a wonderful life up against the best years of our lives. Well, wonderful life took it 69 percent to 31 percent. How about the red shoes facing off against the treasure of the Sierra Madre? Another easy win. This for the red shoes, 62 percent to 38 percent. Dave Allen chimed in on this one. Didn't know anything about the red shoes before this year's madness. I was just kind of going with the flow for the first hour. And then it went full David Lynch on me and I was transfixed. Like if someone's inner monologue during a ballet performance was portrayed as a ballet on acid. I think Dave's Dave pretty much nailed it there. I mean, if you haven't seen the red shoes now, how do you how do you not watch it? Right. And you know, Josh, I could completely let this go and people could just think the selection committee was brilliant. And I don't want to think first. I don't want to speak for Sam, even though I am going to say this never came up between us. We like to be clever. Sometimes we manipulate the bracket. If we're not knocking it way out of whack with the seeds to make it so we have clever what we think are clever matchups or intentional matchups like the next one we're going to get to where we have two Howard Hawks films lining up against each other at this point. We wouldn't have two Howard Hawks films in round one or round two. But here in the sweet 16 that makes sense. I have to admit right now. Somehow it never occurred to me through any of this that we had. It's a wonderful life versus the best years of our lives. I also I also never placed that we had drunk Ingrid Bergman versus sober Ingrid Bergman. That's a good one. I like that. I I I just didn't even place that we had Ingrid Bergman against each other. You know, I mean, period. I somehow how did I miss? I mean, obviously, I know she's in both films. I'm saying we didn't plan it that way and we should have and I feel dumb. You should have just pretended you did taking the credit. Exactly. I blew it. The Howard Hawks double feature his girl Friday versus the big sleep as you would expect and as we did expect this was close. But his girl Friday took it 53 percent. Tony Cervela says few directors have had 10 equally strong years at such a relentless pace as Howard Hawks between 1938 and 1948. That's bringing a baby to Red River with only angels have wings. His girl Friday, Sergeant York ball of fire to have and have not in the big sleep in between few have also been able to move as effortlessly between comedy and thriller as this director that we now pit two of his finest works against each other truly feels like madness. But even though the big sleep is one of the greatest film to ours, his girl Friday is probably the most outstanding screwball comedy. And for that very reason, I think Kerry Grant emerges victorious from this duel and Tony called it. There you go. Thank you, Tony. All right, here is the upset matchup. It took place with a pairing of brief encounter against the bicycle thieves. A note from Jerry. The magnificence of the bicycle thieves is embedded in its simplicity against lean's expert direction exemplifying the power of minimalism. Cruel, just cruel. And yeah, apparently this was a tough one for a lot of voters. The winner was brief encounter with 56% of the vote bicycle thieves got 44% and so a technical upset. Yes, because of their exceeding. It is. That's it. Our elite eight then is set Casa Blanca. Wow. Forbidden love unrequited Casa Blanca versus brief encounter double indemnity versus the third man citizen Kane versus his girl Friday. It's a wonderful life versus the red shoes. Josh, we have four matchups. We have three categories. I thought we would play a little game. We'll see if they fall into these categories or if there's some overlap of those four matchups. Do you have a clear easiest to pick? Easiest for me to pick. Yes. Is Kane versus his girl Friday? I mean, it's, you know, it's conceivable to vote against Kane, but I don't know if it's conceivable for me this early and necessarily against his girl Friday as much as I do love that movie. That's where I'm at. Okay. I am with you. That brings us to toughest to pick. And for me, it is very clearly and I wonder if it is for you as well. It is Casa Blanca versus brief encounter. And I just think it is. I just think back to the seating a little bit here. I don't want to get into the minutia. But his girl Friday is a seven seed and brief encounter is a nine and I know why we did it. And I think we were probably right. It's just crazy to me as I look at these eight that I have to feed brief encounter to the slaughter and it may not get slaughtered, but it's going to lose when Friday is and I'm saying this about a movie I love. Easily the worst movie of the elite eight for me. It just it's brutal that I have to feed brief encounter to Casa Blanca. And Josh, I'm telling you honestly, remember the last two weeks I've said this that I have picked against brief encounter, even though I'm pretty sure it's in my top 10 of the entire bracket. It just keeps running up against other films. I like more. I may actually prefer brief encounter to Casa Blanca. I may. I think there's probably people who feel that way. I just, yeah, I mean, it was a discovery for me as I think we talked about last episode just seeing that lean could work in this register. So it's no slight against it. But when I lean on Casa Blanca for people saying, you know, what is one of your favorite films of all time? And, and I just feel completely comfortable suggesting Casa Blanca. I just, I just think like that's that that's a can't lose claim to make that Casa Blanca is among the best of all time. So then for me, if it's coming up even against brief encounter, I've got to lean that way, but I think this is going to be tough for people. So we'll see. I could, I could see, I could see brief encounter pulling it off, which, you know, would do my bracket and many others, I imagine. So what's your toughest to pick? For me, it was double indemnity versus the third man. And this is a case. This is why it's so tough. I wish I had the time to do that third man rewatch. You know, we talked about madness being great for filling in blind spots. It's also great for catching a movie a second time. You haven't for many years. I wish I could do that with third man because right now I feel like I'm colored by seeing double indemnity. What was it? We talked about in the show two years, three years ago now, maybe something like that. Yeah. Stand with marathon. So yeah, there you go. So, you know, absolutely loved it. Do I love it more than I love third man? My memory is hazy on this count. So yeah, I've got to sit with this one a bit. Yeah. And I will confess, no, I did not get the third man rewatch in for this week. Show again, we're recording earlier than normal, but I am vowing to rewatch it before the end of 40s madness before I even vote in this matchup. Now, as I did say, is it going to beat double indemnity, which is probably my favorite movie in the entire bracket? Probably not. But I am going to rewatch it. That one is my toughest to predict. I I have double indemnity seated. We put it just higher four versus the five. I obviously then think double indemnity will win, but I think it will be very close and I wouldn't be shocked if the third man wins. I wouldn't. Yeah. So what's your toughest to predict? I'm looking at it's a wonderful life versus the red shoes. And I think, you know, you try to wrap your mind around these things and how people are thinking as they're voting, what they're doing, what they're watching. I wonder if people will be going by memory for something like it's a wonderful life and going by recent homework watch for the red shoes, which might give the red shoes a recency bias bump possibly. That's the only thing I can think about now. On the other hand, as I'm saying this, I could conjure it myself and say, how many people watch it's a wonderful life every year, you know, as a family tradition and in that sense, it's very recent. So these are also very difficult movies to think of up against each other. You know, fantasy is involved in both. Absolutely. They have that in common, but other than that, yeah, they're just working in different tones, different palettes. Yeah, this one was tough for me. Wonderful life or red shoes. Okay. Again, you can vote now over at filmspotting.net or filmspottingmadness.com. Some updates. The bracket prediction contest. Again, the caveat that it's always easier when we've actually updated the bracket and I can see the math here. I've had to do a little bit of work. I've had to actually go and look at the brackets, but I want to go ahead and put this information forth, Josh. Anthony Reich and Matthew Emory are two leaders who had perfect brackets up to this point. They did in fact each split. They got their first match up wrong. Anthony correctly called the brief encounter upset, but he incorrectly called the red shoes to get upset by the treasure of the Sierra Madre. Matthew scenario then was the opposite. He got the red shoes, but he didn't get brief encounter. They have the identical Final Four. They have the identical winner, Casablanca. They even have the same third place winner. Remember, I asked for the tiebreaker. Of course, they both picked it's a wonderful life. So what was it? The arm wrestling match? Yeah. How's it looking? Are we going to get one? Well, I think, I think the Godfather, Mike Merrigan suggested when he heard your your thought, he suggested that we do it lie that film spotting fest to see. This is why he's the Godfather. He's got a flair for the spectacle. We we just sold out. I know. Now, the thing is, though, I don't know if we have it in the budget for that to get them to fly because they like one of them, I think is in Mexico City and the others in Canada. So if only they were called Chicagoans. Yeah. No, it's not. It's not working out in our favor. Now, I did incorrectly suggest last week that it was a lock for it to come down to those two. I was focusing on on on challenge how, you know, they had perfect brackets to date and challenge showed them as having the highest possible scores remaining. Well, of course they would if they got all of the matchups correct. Josh, if you go a little deeper, Maria Marchesini, I hope I'm saying that right. Maria, I'm sorry. Only one miss in the entire turning up to this point and it was in round one. And how about this? I mean, one of the toughest matchups, the 33 seed versus the 32. She thought gaslight would beat black narcissus. She called for the slight upset, but the archers advanced. She nailed the the sweet 16, right? She got the elite eight set. So she looking ahead, she does depart from Anthony and Matthew because she has the third man beating double indebted. So if that happens, the plot thickens, you know, everything is coming up Maria, but we also have another co-leader, right? So at this point, I'm pretty sure that when people are looking at the bracket after it officially switches, it's going to show Maria and Lewis in the top spot. And like Maria, Lewis has one miss and it was in round one. He had the magnificent Ambersons over the shop around the corner. He got the elite eight perfect. So if it plays out with the favorites advancing like Matthew and Anthony have the one through four, the final four and the top two are in the final and Casablanca beats Kane, then Lewis Hill will be the winner. Uh-huh. Because even though he and Anthony and Matthew all lost only one match, the entire tournament, Lewis's lost was it his loss was in round one where it was only one point and Anthony and Matthew lost theirs in the elite eight where the points or in the sweet 16 where it was worth four points. Right. This this is like a soap opera. If every character was a math professor, there you go. That's that's my kind of drama. So, you know, there there is also here's the thing last last note on this. There is also at least one and maybe more because I just could not go through more brackets, Josh, which you're you're grateful. There is also at least one, maybe more entrant who had 62 points. So they only had two misses so far. Okay. Who are also now ahead of Matthew and Emery in the standings, Matthew and Anthony in the standings. But a lot of the people I saw at 62 had had different brackets, different picks ahead. Like a lot of them had the red shoes going into the final four. So who knows? Maybe they're right. Possibly. Or maybe they're way off track. We'll see. We'll see how it plays out. More drama ahead is what you're telling more drama ahead. It will be fun to to document and to report back on now our bracket challenge update. I will stay in first. I don't know where I stand exactly, but I overall, but I will stay in first because I picked the elite eight correctly. Well, Mike Marrigan. Thank you. The Godfather was ahead of Sam and third and ahead of you and fourth. But here's the thing. You and Sam each only missed one. You didn't call the upset. You had you had bicycle thieves over brief encounter. Okay. But Mike Marrigan missed two because he also had the bicycle thieves and he thought the big sleep would beat his girl Friday. So it is possible, depending on how the math, math's that he'll he'll drop behind the two of you. Aha. We will hear as well. Have to see going down to the wire. We all though have the same final four and we have the same championship match again. The reminder only I departed and picked Citizen Kane to beat Casablanca. I think I'm going to lose that one. I don't think I'm going to stay in first, but we don't know the future. Josh, what if Casablanca gets kicked out earlier? I mean, you never know. You really don't. I don't think brief encounter is going to be the one to take it down. But that is what you film spotting listeners get to decide this week. The lead eight polls are open now. They close Monday, April 13th at 1159 p.m. Central time film spotting Madness.com. Josh, that's our show. If you want to connect with us on social media, you can find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, Letterbox and YouTube. That's at film spotting. I'm at those places as well as Larson on film. We are independently produced and listeners supported. You can support the show by joining the film spotting family over at filmspottingfamily.com. You can listen early and add free. You'll also get monthly bonus episodes, a weekly newsletter and access to the entire show archive for show t-shirts and other merch. Go to filmspotting.net slash shop out streaming and VOD this weekend. And Keanu Reeves is a grown up child star reef hawk in Jonah Hills outcome. Cameradillas co-stars. That's on Apple TV plus a category five hurricane decimates a coastal town bringing devastation chaos and I mean, of course, hungry sharks in their rash. That's on Netflix in limited release. Calle Malaga. That's the latest from Moroccan director. Mariam Tuzani, who directed the blue captain, Robert Daniels says it's damn near perfect. Okay, I'm interested. That's at the Jean Cisco film center and we do have Riz Ahmed in the new adaptation of Hamlet out wide is faces of death. Now friend of the show, longtime listener, family member, Josh Youngerman out in Brooklyn sent me a text about this last night. It's the latest from Daniel Goldhaver who made how to blow up a pipeline. And I think my response was before I knew who the director was, I was just looking at like the poster in the name and I think my reply was Yikes. A woman comes across a series of violent videos reproducing death scenes from the film and Josh said it was excellent. It was great. Okay, so yeah, surprise director there. But but who knows what to see. We also have a new one. You me and Tuscany with Halle Bailey. Halle Bailey, a little mermaid herself, right? Wonderful. Okay. Next week, lots of things in the film spotting podcast feed. Michael Phillips interview with the author of the last Kings of Hollywood Coppola Lucas and Spielberg. That is Paul Fisher. The return of film spotting SVU with Matt Singer and Jordan Hoffman. And then Friday our top five Robert DuVall scenes and 40s Madness final four film spotting is produced by Golden Joe DeSau and Sam van Hogger and without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempner special. Thanks to everyone at WB easy Chicago. More information is available at WB easy.org for film spotting. I'm Josh Larson and I'm Adam Kempner. Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.