Requiem for a Dream

0:00They've watched Citizen Kane a combined two hundred times. Elliot's first words were, I personally thought the use of Dutch Angles was derivative in the 400 blows. In Nathan's favorite historical figure is Fritz Lang. Rather bringing that snooty-ness to you with Magellans at the movies. Okay. Welcome to Magellans at the movies. We are trying a new recording sort of system, so hopefully this goes very well.

1:03And we can use this forever. Welcome listeners, fans, everyone else. I am Nathan Moggoyeins. You are co-host. I'm joined as always by Elliot Moggoyeins. Co-host to the co-host. There is no real host. It's just two co-hosts. Elliot, I had, firstly, Project Hill Mary out right now. I believe you're seeing it tomorrow. I'm hoping to see it sometime this week. It's getting great reviews. It's getting... That's an understatement. It's getting great reviews. Yeah. Very positive reviews. It's doing very well for itself. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to ask you a question about a comment that Ryan Gosling made while on the press tour. The press tour. In my mind, the worst possible thing about being a celebrity is being on a press tour.

2:05Because it seems like they always be saying stuff. That's a little funky. This isn't that funky. But Ryan Gosling said that it is not the job of the fans to save theaters. It's the job of Hollywood to make movies that fans want to go to. And I have... Not a few. I have one specific thought on this. But I just wanted to know, you know, how do you feel about this sort of, you know, who should we blame for the death of cinema in the year of our Lord 2026? I'm perfectly comfortable blaming everyone except myself. Of course. Obviously, I'm completely blameless in this. No, I mean, I think that... I, a point taken, absolutely point, point well taken. That is literally true. Yeah. That's the... Like, fortunately, it's no one's responsibility to save theaters.

3:07I do think... I mean, people are going to watch what they want to watch in the formats that they want to watch them in, which is fine. I'm not sure. I think that blame is kind of... The word blame is kind of complicating things unnecessarily here. I don't look at it first as much as I joke and I do joke around about blaming people. I don't really blame anyone. I just lament the fact that people are not interested in the theater going experience. I feel like... I think you may have talked about this before that... The idea that the problem is that there's nothing worth watching is kind of called into question

4:07by the fact that so many movies that flop go on to do absolute gangbusters on streaming. Yeah. So it's not that people are not interested in watching things. It's just that I'm right. There's certainly dozens of cultural forces that I'm not even remotely qualified to diagnose or describe that cultural and economic forces that are making an outing to the movie theater less appealing to people. And the question of what they see at the theater is not entirely separate, but in the Venn diagram, it's not a perfect circle. No, I think that's very fair. I definitely would echo your lament of people maybe not... I don't want to say putting in the work because it's not that much work. But, you know, people, you know, trying showing up for movies that they would definitely love or that, yeah, like you said,

5:13they end up watching on Netflix and laughing. And it's like, hey, you know what would have been a cooler experience? If you had seen this in the theater, it would have been sick. You know, so because I talk to... I think if you're the kind of person to say... at the end of a year, don't good movies came out this year. And then when someone presents you with a good movie that came out this year, you're like, oh, I've never heard of that. I had no idea. It's like, okay, well then, you know, recognize where the crux of the problem is. Are you going to stop up by your roadstrap? Well, I just... there was a thing from some anonymous director sent an email to like GQ or something to say. I honestly thought you were going to say sent an email to us. No, no. And in it, they said, hey, I'm not voting for any of these movies for best picture,

6:16because I refuse to watch modern movies because they suck. And I'm spending my time watching like seven samurai or something like that. The searchers. I can't remember what specific movie, but they were like, I'm watching the old stuff. And it's just like, come on, dude, you didn't even try. I mean, especially for last year, which I feel like was, maybe I say this every year, maybe cinema is just very alive in my mind, because I'm like young and excited about the world still. But I feel like last year was just continuing this trend of very successful pop culture, like culturally relevant movies that do really well and then go on to do very well at the Oscars. I know sinners didn't win best picture, but like it was the most nominated movie in Academy history. And so many people watched it and were supporting it.

7:21And yeah, I think... I mean, Adora is kind of the odd one now. But if you look at the movies that have won best picture recently, I mean, Oppenheimer was... Come on now. It's a huge success for Phil. But... Yeah. I mean, people still watch things. People still watch movies. But more and more people watch, I think, TV shows are where it's at. TikTok YouTube. Apparently, I just learned about this today. Oh boy. Is this something you've read about? I can't remember what's called, like vertical shorts or vertical dramas or something that are shot on vertical on the old cell phone device. And they last like one minute, one minute long.

8:21And apparently they've just... Well, I guess according to this one video that I watched, so... Who knows. They've blown up. They've exploded in popularity. And people watch four hours worth of them. So... I don't know. It sounds like Quibi was just a little bit too soon. If Quibi had come around just a couple of years later, they could have made millions. Well, the safe money... Let me tell you something, Nathan. The safe money is always on attention spans getting shorter. That is... That's... That's the biggest wisdom for you right there. You know what to do. Yeah. Sure. Well, hopefully the audience's attention spans stays pretty good,

9:27because we're going to continue doing episodes at the length they are. And we're going to continue talking about movies. We're not going to switch to reviewing vertical shorts. Yeah. I do have to say, speaking of movie news, that Stephen Colbert writing a Lord of the Rings movie, it sounds... Let me mediate myself a little bit here. It does not sound appealing to me, but as Tolkien would say, none of us can tell the future. So who knows, we've had a spree of comedians moving into film, making some good stuff, Jordan Peele, Zach Fregger, others whose names I'm forgetting. So, yeah, the idea, if you haven't heard, is it's a sequel to Lord of the Rings. Sam Mary and Pippin are retracing their steps

10:31to Mordor or something. I don't know why, that sounds terrible. Maybe they're doing like a defy blood type thing, where they're looking for something in particular. And Sam's daughter learns a horrible secret about how the journey to Mordor almost ended it before it began. And it's based on like the first nine chapters, or early chapters of the Fellowship of the Ring. I can't remember what the start is, but it's ending at Fog on the Barrow Downs. So the chapter with the Barrow White and the preceding chapters with Tom Bombadill. So here's what I expect is going to happen. You'll have the A-plot of them walking and shooting the breeze, I guess. And the B-plot will be flashbacks to digitally deaged Elijah Wood, Sean Aston,

11:35Dominic Monahan, Billy Boyd, fleshing out the stuff that you didn't see in Fellowship of the Ring. Oh, well, they did. The stuff with the Barrow White and Tom Bombadill did happen. They just didn't mention it. That's so, it's just a thing. I saw that this was happening. I didn't read into it extensively. I did see in passing this discussion of the premise and it looked so bad of a premise. I assumed that was fake that it was like AI hallucinating and giving me some garbage. So yeah, that's a, I don't know. That's all that. Stephen Colbert is famously a gigantic Lord of the Rings fan. So it is interesting that he signed on to it. Signed on to something that it seems a lot of other Lord of the Rings fans see as ridiculous and a bad idea. But I mean, if nothing else,

12:35congratulations to him. I bet this is a dream come true. He's probably very happy. God bless him. Godspeed, sir. Because if he succeeds, we all succeed. It's so true. He's like Neil Armstrong. It's all our hopes now rest on two little, one little late night show host. And it is writing. Also Harry Potter trailer watched it. Confused man. Because this is not a remake of the movie, right? This is a new adaptation of the same source material. It looks exactly the same as the movie. Like I haven't seen the movies in a long time. But like, I was thinking, a dang, are they reusing sets here? I don't know. It confuses me because the books,

13:37they get excessively long eventually. So like in the goblet of fire, there's tons of stuff for you to adapt that the movies left out, and a long form format like a TV show. But starting out, it's just going to be the exact same thing that we got. Well, I guess like only 25, 25 years ago, that is a while. But still, I, I, my Hollywood standards, they waited an eternity. They had the patience to wait. That's true. I'm, I'm not going to watch it. I mean, I don't have HBO plus, but even if I did, I, my Harry Potter fandom is far behind me at this point. Yeah, I agree with everything you said about it. I had all the same emotions and feelings watching it. Anyway, Elliott, let's jump over to movie reviews.

14:39That's what we do. That's our bread and butter. We're doing Requiem for a Dream. Darren Aaronovsky's sophomore outing from the year 2000. My, Elliott, my first question before we even start talking about quality, why on earth did you pick this movie to review? I wanted to do an Aaronovsky movie. Come on, man. I have, I mean, you sure I look, I have my own opinions about Aaronovsky's work. But he's made at least two good movies, or I thought going into this, I was like, oh, the two good movies we could review are the wrestler or Requiem for a Dream. He made the wrestler, okay.

15:40Yeah. And I know you haven't seen the wrestler, but we did talk about it. Oh, you have? I watched it for you. Oh, that's right. That's right. And you didn't, but you didn't really connect with it. I did. At least not the same way that I did. No. Okay. Well, then my mistaken reason was because I thought that I hadn't seen the wrestler, but yeah, just because we had already talked about the wrestler a bit, I wanted to do something completely fresh for the podcast. And I had only seen Requiem for a dream the once. And I remembered enjoying it. And the Resident Evil 9 Requiem. So a little bit of SEO there. All right. That's basically it. That's basically it. That's fair enough. That's as legitimate a reason as I ever have for choosing what movies we were. So let's get this started.

16:40I guess I'll maybe go a little bit first. I think we have similar sort of stories with this movie. I watched it way back in high school. I was trying to watch movies on IMDB's top 250 movies list. I'm pretty sure this is still on there. Let me verify. Yes, 94. It's in the top 100. That's crazy. Wow. I remember watching it. I remember feeling emotions during it. But it has not been one of the movies I watched in that period that has stuck with me has like kept me coming back thinking about it, mulling over it, encountering new movies that make me reflect back on how good that movie is. So I had not thought of it. That combined with my distaste for Noah and my assessment of mother in the whale just from reviews, not from watching them.

17:44I kind of put me in a place where I was not all that interested in watching air and off ski movies. So going back to this, I was very interested to see how much how much it hold up and what my thoughts were. Is that pretty similar to your experience? Yeah, I will actually I. I remembered a lot about this movie's plot and the beats and stuff and obviously the refrigerator. But I feel like the movie kind of when I first watched it kind of washed over me a bit. I don't remember responding to it on any sort of deep level. And honestly, just to not to give too much of a preview into my thoughts here. But while I was watching it this time around, I was like, I guess I was just feeling a bit sociopathic on the day that I watched it because I certainly had a reaction this time.

18:53But yeah, I didn't remember really feeling anything about it like enjoying it, recognizing the craft and the talent, but not really having much of a potent emotional reaction. So I guess that's my first question to you because honestly, when I was watching this, I was starting to feel a little bit bad because I like for you because I was like, oh, man, I don't think Nathan's going to like this very much. And I, Nathan, your, your sensibilities are not that sensitive, but I think it's fair to say that they're a little bit more sensitive than mine. And so I was getting a little uncomfortable. And I was like, oh gosh, I kind of feel bad about making Nathan watch this. Also, one last thing, just a bit of housekeeping. I watched the unrated directors cut. That was an accident. I didn't realize that I, that's what I rented from Amazon Prime. What version did you watch?

19:58I watched the normal version that was on peacock, although a lot of times saying with movies that are old enough, like every version is kind of the director's cut, just because like, I think if you watched like Blade Runner on Netflix, it's going to be like Ridley Scott's version. I think don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure some of these old movies, like Amadeus, the only thing you can really watch for Amadeus is the director's cut of Amadeus. I think. Yeah, well, if we start talking about, if I start talking about something that you don't recognize, we'll know that that's just unique to the director's cut. But anyway, let's, let's have it. Nathan, let's hear your position. Yeah, I, I enjoyed this movie in a sense. It's, it's a weird movie to say you enjoyed because it is, we've kind of a dancing around it, but if you're not familiar with the movie, it follows four characters sinking deeper and deeper into addictions for three of them.

21:11It's a drug addiction to, I believe, heroin for one of them. It's an older woman getting addicted to some kind of pill, something in a pill that she's taking. Doesn't Harry call it speed? Holy cow. I don't know if he's right or if I'm remembering that correctly, but I seem to remember when he confronted her about it, he said like it's speed or something like that. I guess I would, I would trust you to be correct on that one. But yeah, four characters, obviously the title, Requiem for a dream, Requiem being kind of a something you would play at a funeral. So it's kind of the end of the thing is a very depressing sort of movie. It has a very famous, I would say final 15 minutes famous in the sense that it's deeply bleak and depressing. And I think it's, I think it's good in that it's well acted. I think the story is well told. I think it definitely has more than a few moments that really

22:26are plugged at my heartstrings. I do think the movie kind of fails to say anything all that profound about its subject that it is kind of just let's watch some characters be miserable for an hour and a half and not, you know, what does this say about the human condition or what does this say about addiction. There's a lot of different roads that would be more interesting for the movie to go down. As well as the movie does at times kind of have the feel of like a really, really hard core, just say no to drugs, PSA from the 90s. But I think overall I feel very similar to how I felt the first time I saw it that it's a well done movie that I think doesn't have that kind of secret sauce to put it over into like this is a great movie or this is a movie that regardless of how it affects me emotionally.

23:36I want to keep seeing it or rewatching it because I'm like this is so well done. I just, you know, the joy of watching a great movie supersedes the miserable experience of watching the movie. Well, I think I'm, I think I'm in a similar space, but probably a bit a bit warmer for the movie, a bit more complimentary. I definitely, I thought this is a good movie of the very good movie. It's well done. I thought the performances were great. I actually thought this time around. I'm definitely not going to say that it radically expanded my understanding of addiction or the human condition.

24:44But I definitely felt the humanity this time more than I did the last time, which I think probably accounts for my more potent reaction is because I was more invested in the characters. And so their various stresses hit me a lot harder. But I think that there is, I definitely could see at least an attempt. And I would say a relatively successful attempt to say something about say something more than addiction is rough and it in this movie. I think specifically of the scene with between Harry and his mother when he comes to see her. I think for the last time in the movie, and she explains why she's taking the drugs and it's not just for the pure fact of the high.

26:00It's because the drugs offer her access to something that she profoundly wants. And, you know, I can feel it coming. And it just escaped from me, dang it. She says that like, it's not about the drugs themselves initially. Obviously, once you become addicted, all other concerns are secondary, if not, just non issues. But initially the drugs are her, her passage from her normal mundane life into being someone that she says the drugs there, she's prescribed them for weight loss. And so she has been losing weight. She says, people like me, when I sit with my friends, I'm paraphrasing here, by the way, when I sit with my friends, I'm in the center. And when I get on TV, people are going to see me. And I'm going to talk about you.

27:14And I'm going to, everything's going to be okay. And so it's not that she's in, right, she's starting in one place and wants to move to pleasure. She's starting in one place. She wants to get somewhere else in her life. She wants to change her personality, change her circumstances, change her prospects, and the drugs initially are what is connecting her or what she thinks will connect her, will bridge the gap. And I do think that the same or a similar motivation is that that level of care is not equally applied. I think there's definitely some of it in Harry that for him, drugs specifically selling drugs are his way of achieving success. I mean, he does say, like, this is how everything is going to be all right. And then it sort of comes in degrees, like the most motivation and characterization, I think, is given to his mother, his nurse Sarah, is her name.

28:32Yeah. Then Harry, then Mary. Gosh. Oh, really? You would say Mary. Oh, interesting. Because I was going to say Marlon Wayans. But I do think they're, they're pretty similar. Okay. They're definitely at the bottom in terms of they seem more like they're just like, yeah, it's nice to get high. Yeah. I would agree with that. And I think even going further, the best scenes in the movie to me are when we're seeing the characters play off of each other. Because in my mind, the two, my two favorite scenes where the scenes where I felt the most pulled into the story and the emotional state of the characters were that seemed that you were talking about where Harry visits his mother. And it's a great scene because we can see his hopes for himself and her hopes for herself as well as their hopes for like each other.

29:41And fighting with this addiction that they're both dealing with. And I think even afterwards we see some of what you're talking about that it's not just, you know, I have to get high because I'm addicted right when Harry is driving back. He's all upset and he looks frustrated and he's, you know, clearly emotional. And they do their fun little thing of doing heroin and then he's fine. Like he he's using it not just because he has to get high, but because the stresses of his life are too much for him to deal with. I think that's so great seeing the way these things connect them or seeing the way they interplay between the two characters and then the other scene that really got me is when Marion calls Harry right at like the tail end of the movie where she's about to go to Keith David who I forgot was in the movie very upsetting.

30:45That was so upsetting. I was like the opener would never do this. But there at the end when she's about to go to this party hosted by him and she calls Harry and they're both, I mean the implication from the end of the movie is they're both, you know, minutes away from the lowest point of their lives. And just the performances were really great and just the object despair of both of them, kind of like meaningless retrying to convince themselves and each other that this is going to turn out OK, right, the Harry saying, oh, I'm going to, you know, I'm definitely going to be there tonight. Definitely not and he knows he isn't. He knows there's no chance of fixing this. And again, I think that really gets me much more than when it's just isolated characters experiencing something horrible.

31:47The movie really drove me in when it was the characters interacting with each other much more than this final sequence where I was just like, yeah, that's, that's horrible like that's awful to see people go through that. But it kind of feels the same is right when you see like the commercials of, you know, this puppy was just saved from an abusive household, don't you want to donate money to the puppy that it's like, it feels very, it feels a little coy to in a way that's artificial as opposed to these scenes of them talking with each other where it feels like I'm really entering into the human pieces of this as opposed to just like isn't that horrible that that's happening to someone. Yeah, obviously. No, I agree. I definitely agree. I think my biggest concern in going into the movie was that it would be just kind of exploitative.

32:48And we talked about in the father, so good, incredible movie and about how the father is the father, despite there being so much suffering in the father, the character and the movie, the movie is always keeping you grounded in the humanity of these characters and what's happening to them. And I do, I definitely think that this movie is at all times wanting that to be front and center, the humanity of the characters to be front and center. I don't think that it is always successful. And especially in that last section, which is absolutely impactful, like no doubt about it, that got a reaction out of me. But there was a point when they're just like cross cutting between the just like indescribable debatement that Marion is experiencing.

33:52Sarah being subjected to electro shock and Harry and I'm sorry, Marlon Wayans, what the heck is his character's name? Tyrone, is it? I thought it was just somebody else. I just looked on the IMDB. Okay, Harry and Tyrone, Harry having his arm cut off and Tyrone experiencing withdrawal in prison, where I was like, this is getting a bit. This is verging on if not just fully embracing suffering porn. Yeah, I agree. I think the one character that maybe that's not true for it. I think maybe the most interesting character in the movie because she is in such a different situation from the other three is Sarah Ellen Burstein's character.

34:53I think it's how you pronounce your last name. I think it's just such a great part of the movie. I think her pieces are the best because it is very compelling and cut. Yeah, kind of like the father has all of these other notes of aging and being neglected by the people you cared for your whole life and just a really great performance. I think that portion of the story is so great that when I go to the other portions where especially I put Mary and above Tyrone in terms of care because it just feels like Tyrone has such a... It feels like he has the least amount of screen time. It feels like the movie puts the least amount of effort into like getting us to care about him that he's got like two scenes with his girlfriend or significant other.

35:53And that's like it and she doesn't even show like she's not even in sort of the closing parts of the movie or... You know, she's not really a factor. It feels just like the movie is like, yeah, dude, someone loves him. So like, you should be really sad. I'm like, you don't have to do that. I'm sad regardless if people are unhappy. But I think of the four. Yeah, Sarah is just so great and has so many different things going on and then Mary and Harry I really like just because of their connection to each other. And then Tyrone's just kind of there for me. I feel like. Okay, yeah. I would say you've convinced me. I would change my order and put Tyrone at the bottom because you're right. Mary and she's... She and Harry are kind of like if this was Star Wars, they would be a forced dyad. They're connected. They're...

36:55I don't understand how it works. They're connected in some way. And the obviously watching the drugs produce such a strain on their relationship, which is initially happy and a bit overplayed, I would say. I think this movie's biggest weakness is probably overstating things. Like, they're not just happy. They are... They're exact. They are so... I mean, in love doesn't even come close to the depth of their affection for each other. And that's a little bit... again, a little bit clawing, but it does produce the desired effect where watching them drift apart is difficult. And I mean, you can... I can maybe see how the scenes with Tyrone and his girlfriend are at least like the first steps towards establishing this...

38:03Absent connection with his mother because though she figures very prominently in one of the scenes and then obviously his last shot of Tyrone sort of like briefly fades into a recollection of him with his mother. But of course we don't know if his mother is dead or doesn't approve of it. We don't know why he can't ask, hey, can I have a phone call? Call his mother and get some help. So he's definitely the most underdeveloped. But yeah, Sarah absolutely comes out on top. And I just go back to that scene with her and Harry. And it's a combination of a lot of things, the technical elements of the movie, the cinematography and the lighting which just perfectly accentuates all these really gross things that are happening on screen.

39:05We had just the tight-in angle on her face as she's like almost crying and just going through all the things that the drugs make possible for her. Social acceptance, fame, feeling validation, feeling good about herself, about her relationships, all that kind of stuff. I mean, that happens in real life, the kinds of things that people want in real life. That's a deeply human desire, all of these things that she's laying out. And so it's even though I've ever personally done drugs, it's the most relatable part of the movie because you're like, it's a real, but for the grace of God, there go I. A moment where you're like, oh man, I like being accepted. I like self-validation. And if there's a shortcut to that, that's an extremely tempting voice.

40:19Yeah, it kind of reminds me, while you were talking, it kind of reminds me of the substance, which I think you've seen. And just this idea of, I'm going to kind of destroy myself because it's the only way I can be loved and cared about in the way I want to, which I thought was the best pieces of the substance for me. Anyway, we're not reviewing the substance. I did want to ask since you brought it up, this movie is very early 2000s in terms of the style. Gosh, absolutely. Holy cow. I mean, we are, we are still squarely in the blast, the blast radius of the matrix detonation plus the just innate late 90s early 2000s obsession with grunge and grit and all that kind of stuff.

41:19So this movie, it's a poster boy for this era of filmmaking. I wanted to ask, you know, what do you, what do you think of this? Because I think we've reviewed some 2000s movies. I'm thinking of like city of God where you did not like the technical elements of it because it was so aggressively 2000s, but maybe this movie struck your fancy a little bit different. Did you like the split screen? Okay, I did not like the split screen. I was indifferent towards the crash zoom. The thing that always gets me, it's always just the color grading. I hate the desaturated colors. That's not really in this movie, but definitely the aesthetic of grunge makes sense for the type of story that's being told and the very anxious camera movement. Lots of cuts. I think this movie has like over a thousand more cuts than the average movie has or some ridiculous number.

42:24Yeah, stuff like a crash zoom, lots of motion in the camera, but a very jittery, anxious motion that I think is very well complemented by the jittery, anxious characters. No, I agree. I also think the split screen is a little goofy. And I don't know if I've ever seen, but I guess when Harry met Sally has a really great split screen scene. That's really fun. But I think a general split screen in like normal filmmaking practice should be issued at all costs. It kind of looked like the way Lego games handles split screen or handled split screens back in the day when you could, when you, if you stood together, the screen would look normal because there's no need for split screen. But if you moved apart, it would dynamically divide the screen for you. So if you stood like just within the range of the black bar appearing, then stuff would be the same stuff would basically be happening on both sides of the screen, but at slightly different angles.

43:39So that scene with Harry and Mary and in bed, which is very, again, very overstated. And there that's happened, like Harry will reach across the screen and you can like see his arm, but it's not quite in the right place. I was like, oh, this just, this takes me back to playing Lego games. Funny, not really the intention of the filmmaker. No, to predict how Lego was going to handle split screens, probably not. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, interesting. Also, I want to give a shout out to the music. Great music. Oh, Nathan, Nathan's not in the same place. I thought that the, like, the violins, they're so sad, the violins are so, they're like wailing for what's happening on screen. They're like a Greek chorus, saying like, oh, man, stuff is going down here.

44:42And also the, I guess the word for it is just the grunge music playing when, when things are going well or when something gritty is happening. I thought it all worked really well. Nathan, I take you to a different reaction. I didn't, I mean, I kind of rolled my eyes at a lot of the music because it did feel so 90s feel so similar to like the matrix music of just Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here. But done with like, you know, a bad amp and a guitar that's turned up to loud or something. I don't know how you create the grunge sound of my Nirvana. accomplish, I think it's just somewhat a matter of aesthetic taste that I'm like, it's a little, it's a little dated, but I

45:43think in terms of, if I think of like the most dated and terrible looking 2000s movie, this is not close to that. This is in Saw 1, this is in Omelette, this is, you know, well, I think this is close to the city of God where I'm like, this is the best pieces of 2000s filmmaking techniques. And it's paired with, I think, crucially, a story that fits. Because like, fight club kind of has a similar vibe. And I think it also has a story where you're just like, you, ah, that's horrible. Don't show me that. Well, also, I think that there's, there are some, some big swings being taken. And in the, the filmmaking side of it, such a pretentious way of putting it. But yeah, I, I absolutely do not get the sense from this movie that it's like, oh, well,

46:45grunge is in right now. So let's just do all the grunge things. Let's make it borderline black and white. Let's have the camera, let's give the camera his own drug problem and see what happens. Um, and yeah, there were some, there were some times again, in Sarah's part of the story, where I was like, this is actually, this is a really creative, cool way to handle this, like when her apartment gets turned into the set of this, this are game show, infomercial, I don't know. Yeah, I thought that was great when they start like people, a bunch of true hands come in, start tearing down the walls and the set of the show, like is bleeding into her reality. And I thought the refrigerator, it was a powerful image. It's a little goofy. But

47:45when it's like, I think it's played very straight. So if they had been even a little self aware of how unusual it was, I think it would have fallen flat, but they played completely straight. So when the refrigerator is just like rattling and moving towards her, I thought it was, it was very impactful. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I think we've talked about pretty much anything you have. We haven't really talked about the acting, but I think all of them are doing a very good job with whatever material they have. Again, I think Alan Burstein is really great. And I think Jared Leto and Jennifer Connolly in that one scene that I love is again, is also very, very good. And Marlon Wayne's is doing as good as he can with the mega sort of apportion of the character that he's given for this film.

48:46Yeah, I thought I thought all the actors were really good. Is this the only good performance Jared Leto has ever given? I don't know. He's alright in Blavor in the 2049. He's terrible at Ron Aries. I mean, he's good in Blademar in 2049 because it's like a perfect pairing of actor and role. It's, you know, it's kind of like Ben Asselick and gone girl that I'm like, he's good in it. But that's also because the casting director is a genius. That is true. Should have won the casting Oscar if it existed at this point. Did you clock Hector Salamanca at the beginning of the movie? Really? He's the guy who buys or shelters or somehow exchanges money for Sarah TV with Harry. He's only in the one scene, but I was really tickled. I was like, wow, he's not

49:47in the wheelchair or anything. No, I didn't, I didn't recognize him. Well, I thought it was nice. Great. Then let's get to ratings. This has been a pretty pleasant sort of review. No, in fighting and name calling like we usually have, which is great. I can go first terms of ratings. I enjoy this movie. I think it sits firmly in the tier of movies that if someone came to me and was like, this is the movie, like, this is the best movie of all time. I'd be like, I get that. Like, I can see why you would think that. Just for me, there's some stuff that's missing. It's a little over the top at times. I think it's kind of the classic, like 7.4 and a 10 sort of movie. Yeah, I think this movie is really good. I would probably say, I like the wrestler a little more from Aaronovsky. We didn't really talk about Aaronovsky in this review.

50:48We also failed to mention this movie is based on a book, which I have not read. But the author did write the screenplay or collaborated on it. So most have been pretty pleased with it. I mean, there's no really need to talk about Aaronovsky other than to say that this is the kind, this is clearly the kind of movie that he likes to make. And he's clearly very drawn to the extremes of human psychology. Nathan's rolling his eyes because I'm being generous and I am being generous. But I think that he's clearly drawn to these kinds of self-destructive hyper fixated characters. So Aaronovsky, good job. The movie goes, it's a bit much at times. And not every character gets the same level of care as Sarah, who's I think MVP from our review at this point.

51:49So yeah, I'm going to give it a B+. Strong B+. Nice. That brings us to the point in our review when we do recommendations. I was juggling between a couple different things, but I think if you want another movie that's about addiction and is a little more specifically character focused, as well as focused on a different sort of addiction. I'm going with Steve McQueen. Wait a second, oh. I was going to predict that it would be hunger before I heard Steve McQueen. It's not hunger. It's Steve McQueen's shame. That's what I mean. That's what I meant. The one with Michael Fastbender. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was like hunger. They're decided, I mean, they're addicted for like freedom and justice. Well, I always get the names mixed up. I know. He shouldn't have named all of his movies after like primal emotion. But anyway, shame, yes, as Elliott already

52:53mentioned, features Michael Fastbender in the central role as a very successful New York businessman who has a crippling sex addiction. And this is truly one of the most miserable movies. I mean, if you're thinking regularly for a dream, I would put shame very much in that same sort of tear. The movie is so uncomfortable at so many points. It's so interesting to see the ways the characters addiction bleeds into every relationship he has, no matter how innocent the relationship is in reality, how he just can't deal with these things that he's feeling. It has probably, besides maybe like Schindler's list, the most powerful uses of like nudity in a movie ever, decidedly not a movie to watch with your parents. But I think if you want another movie about

53:53addiction that's coming at it from a bit of a different angle about a different sort of addiction, I would say shame very good. I haven't, well, I have stopped thinking about it, but it has been a movie that comes back in my mind just because it's very powerfully emotional about what the characters going through. So that's my recommendation. Yeah, I haven't seen that. I've come close to watching it a few times, but knowing what I know about the movie and for what you've told me about the movie, I'm sure I'll watch it eventually, but I've always been in the place of like, am I in the right headspace for this? Maybe not. Yeah, I'm trying to remember if it, I can't, I think the movie is so miserable. I can't even remember if it has like an uplifting ending or something like that. Everything that leads up to the ending, I'm just like, oh, he's going through it. So I don't know. Well, yeah, my recommendation is going to be much more of a one-to-one recommendation

55:00for, gosh, recommend for a dream, just completely forgot the name of the movie or a viewing. That's going to be Danny Boyle's, or Danny Boyle presents, I should say, along with the help of many people, train spotting, very famous drug addiction movie, kind of it. What did that come out? Wasn't that, it's like the 90s, I think. That's what I was going to say, trains, 1996. Oh, sick. Yeah, so in a similar era when people are, when people were always aware that drugs can be harmful, but when addiction is becoming more and more prevalent in society, obviously in this case, Scottish society. So if you didn't know, this is about a group of young men in Scotland struggling with heroin addiction, specifically heroin. And yeah, it's the same sort of

56:09not a rise in fall story, but a story of like, yeah, it's at the beginning, it's bliss, you take it to feel good. And then at the end, you take it to keep from feeling bad, to keep from feeling like you're dying. So yeah, a very powerful movie about the, the horrors of addiction, the things that it can make you do. And great performance by E1 McGregor, pre-OB1, E1 McGregor in his natural accent, his natural habitat. How about that? So yeah, if you like feeling miserable and you like the misery that recommend for a dream gave you, I think, train spotting will give you a similar feeling. So have fun with that. And you, for those people who fall into that category, you probably already know life is our full disappointments. Yeah, that's a good recommendation that is another

57:12really miserable movie. Movies to feel bad about, I'd say is the genre we're talking about this week. But anyway, thank you so much for listening. That brings us to the end of the episode. We're going to be back next week with another brand new movie review. We're going to keep doing this until we've reviewed all movies. So we're moving at a bad clip to catch up to the old boys in Hollywood. But we're very happy to do this. Thank you so much for listening. We're going to be back next week. So look forward to that. And you'll be able to have a great week in between.