Join me as I join John Pavlich of Sofa Dogs for a long, hard look at Rian Johnson’s wobbly time travel thriller. We both like it (he more than I) and both have problems with it (I more than he). We look at Confused Matthew’s take on the film, and Rian Johnson’s himself. John had a Twitter conversation with him that I gamely try to retroactively explain Johnson’s side of. Regardless, it’s a fascinating film or two films squooshed together, depending on your point of view and, possibly, your current location in the space-time continuum.
Note: John drops out at a few points due to Internet/Skype issues, but it’s not too frequent or too bad. Unfortunately, he lost his recording of the call. We may provide a fixed version in the future.
We’re watching the Blu-ray. Start the film on the countdown after the End Game logo.
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Great Commentary Could you consider doing a commentary on The Departed ?
Great commentary, as usual.
Two comments:
1. Anyone who watches a movie can have an opinion about it. Every piece of criticism can be used to inform future filmmaking. The idea that the only opinions that matter are those of producers, directors, writers is a great way to get inbred, routine movies. Actually, isn’t that what most of our media is?
2. “Why does he have to answer to you? Why does he have to answer your questions?” How about this: I can return a faulty lawnmower. I can complain about bad food for a refund or dish replacement. I have NEVER gotten my money refunded for a bad movie. We all pay for these movies in the form of ticket sales, rentals, purchases, promotional tie-ins, commercials, etc. We have no creative inputs, no votes, no refunds, nothing. So, when The Phantom Menace or Indy 4 is released, we get screwed. Much like politicians, while movie makers work for the movie viewers, we pretty much have to take what we get…except when an audience member manages to have a productive conversation with someone who is open-minded enough to listen.
Again, great podcast!
John
I’m rarely a commenter on anything online, but wow.
Not everyone enjoys every movie, but this wasn’t really a movie commentary at all; it was one participant going on about the director and an exchange between the two of them, with very tangential reference to the movie at hand.
Having listened to several of your two-person commentaries and really enjoying them, I feel confident in declaring this one a miss that shouldn’t have been posted.
“Looper” has a ton of interesting details to it that were ignored here because one person on this recording had an axe to grind, and grind, and grind.