Car Chase Movie Draft (w/ Dave Lester) & My Neighbor Totoro Review w/ My Son

Eli Price (00:00.544)
Hey, welcome to the Establishing Shot. I'm your host Eli Price and I'm here with my son. Ezekiel? Yep, Ezekiel is here with me because we recently watched a really good movie. What movie did we watch? My Neighbor Totoro. Yeah, My Neighbor Totoro. It was good, huh? Hold up what you got there to show the camera. What do you have here? Show the camera. Yep, it's a little cat bus and who's in there? Totoro.

Totoro, you got that for your birthday, huh? Yep. All right. Well, Ezekiel, let me ask you this. What was your favorite part of My Neighbor Totoro?

Eli Price (00:43.808)
Yeah, when cat bus came, why did you like cat bus?

Be good. Because he's cool. He's cool? Would you want to ride in Cat Bus? You got to say yes. Yes. So people can hear you. All right. Well, let me ask you this. What was your favorite character?

Eli Price (01:13.444)
May May why did you like May? You don't know She's kind of funny, huh? Why what? I thought she was did you? You did Why did you think she was funny? Speak up

Eli Price (01:37.568)
Because I remember when that part she said she was going to run some errands. She's going to run some errands? Yeah, I do remember that part. Why did she say that? I think she was pretending, huh? Yeah, that was funny. And who did she go who did she find when she was running errands?

Yeah, Totoro. Well, let me ask you this. What was something that you thought was interesting about my neighbor Totoro?

Eli Price (02:19.744)
here again because that's not appropriate for the podcast. You ready? All right, let me ask you this. What was something you thought was interesting about My Neighbor Totoro?

When Totoro came. Why did you like Totoro? He's cool too. He's cool too? What's so cool about him? He's just kind of silly. He's silly. He is silly. Do you remember what part we thought was really silly?

Eli Price (02:57.568)
Yeah, that is silly, but that's not the part I was thinking about. I was thinking about when it was raining. He had a leaf on his head. That was funny, huh? All right. Was there anything else you wanted to say about my neighbor Totoro?

Eli Price (03:17.342)
Um...

Eli Price (03:21.032)
He was what oh, yeah, he was telling mei his name. That's true. Yeah All right, would you want to watch Totoro again? Yeah, maybe one day we will huh maybe after we finish the book we're reading the novelization of

My neighbor Totoro. What do you mean? We're reading the book version. Yep, there's CatBus. Alright, tell everyone bye. Bye! See you later. See you later.

Eli Price (00:01.928)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot a podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmography fees. Uh, I am your host Eli price and we are here on episode 33 of the podcast. And, uh, yeah, today we're doing a car draft, a car chase draft. Um, we actually are a little bit out of sequence. Uh, me and Dave Lester.

Uh, who is joining me today. Um, just got done recording a conversation about dual, uh, Christopher, I mean, I'm in Christopher Nolan. We just mentioned him. And so he's on my mind, Steven Spielberg's, uh, first, uh, kind of feature length movie. It was a TV movie. So, um, we just got done recording that that'll actually be releasing next week, a little different than normal. Usually we release the drafts, um, after.

the talk that inspires them. But, uh, but yeah, this, this time we're doing a little out of sequence, but, uh, uh, yeah, Dave, um, welcome to the podcast. Um, it's a little behind the curtains, uh, of podcasting. It's, it's weird when you record out of sequence, um, and releasing things out of sequence because, um, I've already introduced Dave. So it feels weird to introduce something. Yeah. Uh, yeah.

Dave Lester (01:11.859)
I think that's the perfect.

Dave Lester (01:16.691)
Yes.

Dave Lester (01:24.147)
Here I am again, and this is technically my third time on the show now. I have the trifecta.

Eli Price (01:29.16)
Yeah, so technically second time if you're going by release, but if you're going by production sequence, it's your third time. So it's kind of like a CS Lewis, do you go by publication release or chronological or for Chronicles of Narnia?

Dave Lester (01:35.731)
Oh right.

Dave Lester (01:41.883)
Gotcha, okay.

Dave Lester (01:47.635)
Okay. Yeah, that's right. Magician's nephew or the line the witch in the wardrobe. Gotcha.

Eli Price (01:55.944)
Right. Yeah. But yeah, Dave is joining me. Dave is a podcaster himself. He has a podcast he co -hosts called Veterans of Culture War and also a pretty fairly new one called Does the Bible Say That? where he kind of goes through passage by passage of scripture kind of for

Christians and people that are just interested in learning about the Bible, whether they're Christian or not. Yeah, really great. Two really good podcasts. I've enjoyed listening to both of those. So I'll, I'll definitely drop those in the episode description links to those so you can find them there. But yeah, we are doing a car chase draft inspired by our discussion of Steven Spielberg's duel.

Dave Lester (02:27.667)
Absolutely.

Eli Price (02:51.464)
which of which the whole movie is a car chase. And we're going to kind of call that the honorable mention. This can be the dual honorarium car chase draft, I guess could be the official title of it. But I don't know if you planned on drafting dual, but I was thinking we would take it off the board since we were going to spend a whole

Dave Lester (03:10.579)
Sounds good.

Eli Price (03:20.61)
episode next week talking about it. But yeah.

Dave Lester (03:24.083)
It was not on my list, but if we were going to allow it, you could certainly make a case for some of these scenes and how they were set up for sure.

Eli Price (03:27.368)
Good, good.

Eli Price (03:32.232)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, I think it'll be good to do. Let's see. This will be a short episode. We're going to kind of run through these real quick. But yeah, let's jump in. I think we'll try to knock out five each. So yeah, do you have enough?

Dave Lester (03:57.715)
Oh, okay.

Dave Lester (04:01.875)
I do.

Eli Price (04:02.472)
We don't. OK, good. It's hard not to. There's a lot of good car chases out there.

Dave Lester (04:04.755)
On this one, I have to beat you on your own show. So I did some research into this one.

Eli Price (04:12.872)
Oh, good. Yes. Um, I love it. Uh, so the, the thing about that is usually my tradition is if you're a first time guest, you get the first pick in a movie draft. But if you're returning, um, uh, I claimed the first pick, uh, so, but, but don't worry. Cause if you come on again in the future, you'll have the first pick again. It's only, it's only fair. It's only fair. Yeah.

Dave Lester (04:37.555)
Okay, this goes back and forth. All right, cool.

Eli Price (04:42.824)
So the first, I've got the first pick. I'm going to go with, it's really hard because there's some really, really fun car chases out there. And until this moment, I haven't actually thought about what I'm actually going to go with number one. So this is by the seat of my pants. I'm going to go ahead and, I mean, you could take.

Dave Lester (04:57.331)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (05:12.616)
any number of sequences from Mad Max Fury Road. But I've got to go with the sequence, like the, you know, the kind of iconic sequence with the guy hanging with the guitar and Max. Yeah. Yeah. Max in the mask and like getting like finally taking over the car. And yeah, it's, it's just so good. So fun. And just in a crack.

Dave Lester (05:26.419)
For the beginning, the rock band, the fire, yeah, okay.

Dave Lester (05:35.347)
Solid, solid.

I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Eli Price (05:42.28)
I've always claimed that Mad Max Fury Road is one of the best action movies of all time. I stand by that and that that sequence is just so fun. So incredibly shot. Yeah. Well done, George Miller and George Miller, by the way, that you can see kind of like peeking behind me. This is one of my main sources for my Spielberg research. It's called.

Steven Spielberg, all the films. It's actually pretty new. It just released at the end of last year. But George Miller wrote the kind of preface for it. So yeah. So shout out to George. But yeah, you've got the next pick. I took the big boy off the board. Where are you going to go?

Dave Lester (06:26.483)
Right on.

Okay.

Dave Lester (06:33.683)
That is indeed a big one. I am going to go in keeping with something that we talked about in the forthcoming Duel episode. Spielberg is a fan of this movie. And as a matter of fact, if you go to IMDB and look at Spielberg's filmography, I think he is at least thinking about, or maybe it's in pre -production, he is doing a sequel to this movie. It's gonna be Bullitt with Steve McQueen.

Eli Price (06:43.688)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (06:54.246)
Yeah.

Eli Price (06:59.368)
Mm -hmm.

Dave Lester (07:01.715)
And mostly just for the San Francisco car chase, just amazing.

Eli Price (07:06.76)
Man, it's incredible. And I was kind of hoping I could get away with maybe getting that with my second pick. I was hoping you would go somewhere else. And that was the other one I was thinking about. I was like, do I take Mad Max or do I go bullet? Oh man, that is such an incredible car chase through San Francisco. Queen does a lot of the driving in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't do all the driving.

Dave Lester (07:27.091)
Yup. And the figure was in late 60s. Oh, I did not know that. That's amazing.

Eli Price (07:35.464)
There was a, there's a point in time where everyone thought that McQueen did all the driving. Um, but it's come out, there were a couple of stunt guys that, that did some of the stuff, but he did do most of it. Um, which is really impressive. Um, and I also read that, um, that was not actually in the original script. McQueen was like, we've got to do a car chase. Um, and so he's the reason that it's in there at all, uh, which is cool, but.

Dave Lester (08:05.043)
These bonkers, wow.

Eli Price (08:05.48)
Yeah, I thought the movie was, I actually watched this leading up to this for the first time. And the movie is, it's fine. I think it's okay as a whole, but that car chase is just, it's probably, you could argue it's the best car chase in a movie of all time. It's incredible. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah.

Dave Lester (08:25.299)
Maybe purely, yeah, without CGI, it's got like a pure car chase, absolutely.

Eli Price (08:31.784)
And I want to say Bradley Cooper is tied to the Spielberg one that you can see on IMDB. So that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I'm coming up next with my pick. And I think I'll follow your lead.

Dave Lester (08:40.915)
Okay, yeah. We got some developments.

Eli Price (08:55.784)
and go with the years was late 60s minus 70s. I'm going to go with another famous old time car chase and go with Jean Hackman following the train in the French connection. This is this is another one I caught up with recently for this draft. I love these drafts because they're an excuse to catch up with movies that I know I need to see. And man, that that scene is so it's the tension is so good. Yeah.

Dave Lester (09:08.371)
Bye.

Eli Price (09:25.574)
Gene Hackman is driving under a subway, like a risen up train car with the bad guy that he's trying to catch in the train car. And he's under the train following it in the car. And it's just like, it's so good. Yeah.

Dave Lester (09:45.715)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I love Gene Hackman. That movie is fine for me. It's pretty good. That scene though is amazing for sure.

Eli Price (09:51.208)
Yeah, he's

Eli Price (09:56.456)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I liked it a little bit more than bullet just as an overall movie. Um, but yeah, it is, it is, it's, I don't like it as much as some people seem to like it. I'll, I'll say that. Um, um, but I do think it's good, but yeah, you, you're, you've got the third overall pick now.

Dave Lester (10:11.923)
Yeah, right.

Dave Lester (10:19.219)
Alright, okay, well with my second pick, I'm gonna go with the movie Ronin, The Paris Street Chase. So Ronin directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Robert Vigaro and a few other people in there. It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, but that car chase scene is amazing.

Eli Price (10:33.48)
Okay, yeah.

Eli Price (10:41.48)
OK, that's one I have not seen. So yeah, I'll definitely have to check that out.

or at least pull up the car chase scene on YouTube if I can find it on there. Sometimes you can. Yeah, Ronan. Frankenheimer. And Frankenheimer is a big Spielberg influence too. So there you go. We've got all kinds of Spielberg tie -ins. All right. I'm going to go with a very recent one next.

Dave Lester (10:56.819)
It's worth it. Yeah, it's worth it.

Dave Lester (11:04.435)
There you go. I am viewing this schematically. Yeah.

Eli Price (11:21.96)
Just like it's a it's a one that I think is both likes incredibly well made and also like pretty funny has some some good comical touches and I'm going to go with the Rome chase sequence and Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning part one. Yeah, I loved that. That was one of my favorite parts of the movie. It's cruises in.

Dave Lester (11:43.283)
Nice.

Eli Price (11:52.04)
Uh, his Ethan hunt is in handcuffs. And, um, so his, uh, uh, I'm, I'm blanking on the coast are, um, Haley at well, um, they jump in, uh, jump in the car and she has to drive some, and then he finally gets in the driver's seat and then they switched to a little fiat, a little yellow Fiat at some point. And they're like tumbling down steps in Rome and.

while they're rolling down the steps. It's the Mission Impossible disguised car is the Fiat, which is just a joke in and of itself. And then they roll down the hill, and then somehow Haley Atwell is back at the driver's wheel again. And it's just a great, and I want to say it's like nine minutes long. It's a long action sequence. Yeah.

Dave Lester (12:46.067)
It's a lengthy chase, for sure. Yes.

Eli Price (12:49.096)
But I just loved it. It was one of my favorite parts of the movie. I thought it was just... I was like, I want to do a Mission Impossible car chase, and that was my favorite one, I think.

Dave Lester (13:01.459)
Right on. Yeah, that's a great movie, actually. Mission Impossible, franchise is very quality in the action throughout. I don't really care for number two, but I think the rest of them are solid to great. Yeah. So for my third clip, yeah, I'm gonna, maybe this will be a surprise to people, but if you go back and watch this scene, it is fantastic.

Eli Price (13:05.992)
I think so too.

Eli Price (13:14.984)
Right.

Mm -hmm. All right, where are you going?

Dave Lester (13:28.795)
And it's from the Matrix Reloaded, the freeway chase scene. I think it's absolutely incredible what the Rokowski brothers were doing with that. An amazing sequence.

Eli Price (13:31.878)
You

Eli Price (13:41.864)
Yeah, it was on my list for sure. I had it noted and I was considering taking it later on. It's a fun scene too. There's a lot going on. A lot going on there. Yeah, that's a really good pick and fun to get a Matrix movie in one of these drafts for sure. Okay.

I'm going to go, this is where it gets like, I'm not sure where to go. So maybe I'll just go with the one that might get me the most votes. That I do love. It's not that it's not like top notch. But it also is crowd pandering. And I'm going to go with the Dark Knight, the Batmobile.

And the semi truck with the Joker in it, I mean, it's just top notch. It's a great chase scene. And you get the Tumblr Batmobile at its peak in that sequence. Very, very, very fun, great scene. Yep.

Dave Lester (15:06.643)
Love that movie. For number four, this may be kind of unconventional to you. I don't know how many votes I'm gonna get for some of these, but I think I'm going to go with Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof just for that ending car chase sequence with the woman on the hood of the car. I think they didn't use a lot of CGI either. I think a lot of that was actual stunt work.

Eli Price (15:08.614)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (15:21.032)
Okay, yeah.

Dave Lester (15:34.739)
And it is seriously impressive. I mean, this is a, it's a lesser known movie in the Tarantino canon. And that's probably for good reason. I mean, this isn't pulp fiction. This isn't once upon a time in Hollywood. This is kind of his, you know, horror grind house, as they call them, kind of entry. And, but the, the scene is amazing. If, if y 'all want to go watch it again.

Eli Price (15:46.696)
Right.

Eli Price (15:57.256)
Okay. Yeah, this is, um, that's one of my Quentin Tarantino blind spots. So I think there's only two Tarantino movies. I haven't seen that one. And I've, I've actually never watched a Kill Bill volume two is the other one. I don't know why it just, I just haven't, it's just one of those where I haven't gotten around to it. Um, but he does have. Okay. Good.

Dave Lester (16:16.083)
Oh, okay.

Dave Lester (16:21.939)
Okay, volume 2 is better than volume 1.

Eli Price (16:26.376)
Um, I'll have to rewatch both, um, together at some point. Um, he has, um, the movie critic coming out sometime. And so I'm sure I'll, I'll fill in those blind spots before I see it for sure. Um,

Dave Lester (16:37.875)
There you go. And I think Brad Pitt is maybe attached to the movie critic at this point, and they're also talking to Tom Cruise. So that would be impressive for... If this truly ends up being Tarantino's last movie, those would be two big leading actors, I guess, to go out with.

Eli Price (16:43.88)
I think I heard that. I heard that, yeah.

Eli Price (16:57.224)
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah, this is the this is my last pick and I'm going to go I'm going to highlight one of my just like all time favorite movies. I think it's. Just an action packed fun 45 for is it 45? Yeah, it's 45 minutes on the dot, so just cutting in the feature length.

And I'm going all the way back to 1924 with Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. So there's the scene where he's being chased by all the gangsters. It's in the, you know, spoiler alert, most of the movies in like a dream sequence. But he's being chased by all the gangsters and he ends up.

Dave Lester (17:33.747)
Oh, nice touch.

Eli Price (17:54.504)
on the front of a bike, like a police officer motorcycle, and they hit a bump and the police officer falls off the back and he's just sitting on the front of the motorcycle over the handlebars thinking the guy's still there and like talking to him and like, you just got to go, even if you don't watch the whole movie, which I recommend going and watching it. Cause I think it's a masterpiece. I love Sherlock jr. Um, but, uh, just pull up the, just,

Go on YouTube and put Sherlock Jr. to car chase. Watch it. It's incredible. I started to, before we jumped on, before you hopped on, I started to Google, like, how did he do the scene, like the shots where he's on the, there's nobody on the back, but he's on the handlebars and it's still like steering and driving and stuff. But then I was like, no, no, no, I don't want to know. I think it's like the movie magic. Let's just leave the mystery there.

Dave Lester (18:49.163)
Yep. Oh, that old cinema master, man. Leave it alone.

Eli Price (18:52.006)
But yeah, Sherlock Jr.

Dave Lester (18:56.723)
All right, my final pick, I'm gonna piggyback on your Dark Knight and I'm gonna go with The Batman with Robert Pattinson. I'm a big fan of Batman as well. And that is also an incredible car chase sequence that was in. That movie came out last year or the year before? Two years ago. So look forward to the sequel on that one. But yeah, enjoy that tense car chase as well.

Eli Price (19:03.304)
Yeah.

Eli Price (19:08.424)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (19:12.84)
It is. Two years ago, yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (19:24.392)
Yeah, I love that one. I probably like it just as much as the one in The Dark Knight, to be honest, personally. But The Dark Knight will get the votes.

Dave Lester (19:35.411)
Yeah, The Dark Knight is a better movie. It is a better movie. I'll give The Dark Knight's, that's gotta be a free four star movie. The Batman I did like. It's a four star movie maybe for me, but yeah.

Eli Price (19:44.09)
Sure, sure. Yeah.

Yeah, I think I actually have them both at four and a half. Yeah, I would probably still slot the Dark Knight in just like if I had to pick one, maybe I would go the Dark Knight. But I loved the Batman Matt Reeves version. Yeah.

Dave Lester (19:53.999)
Okay.

Dave Lester (20:10.483)
Nice. We have somebody made to choose. Gotta put the Dark Knight there.

Eli Price (20:14.92)
Yeah, you just have to. But yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (00:04.374)
Hey, I did want to hop on and give a few honorable mentions that we didn't get to in my discussion with Dave on our car chase draft. So yeah, I will jump back in in a second and finish that discussion out. But yeah, there's a lot of really great.

car chases that we didn't draft that I did want to mention just because well, it's it's fun. But yeah, let me jump in here to my notes. Obviously, obviously, dual is is a great one. There's some good stuff with that in the movie that, you know, sparked this this movie draft. But others I did want to mention.

One that I think is really good and really fun is the opening scene in Baby Driver. The way the soundtrack is used and some really great stunt driving in that is, and the way it's shot is just really good. Another one that we didn't draft would be Terminator 2.

Um, the, the kind of sequence where, um, uh, you know, they're in the kind of like underpass thing and, uh, got Arnold on the bike and the, uh, the bad guy, the baddie in the big tractor trailer chasing, um, chasing buddy in his bike. Um, that one's really entertaining and really fun. Um, as well. Um, of course I have to mention, uh, the movie drive with Ryan Gosling. Um,

It's, you would think there would be more car chases in this, but there's really only one main one. And it's pretty good. It's kind of a more subtle and it's like bombasticness, I guess, and stunts, but definitely some cool moves done there. Others, I mean, you have a lot of good car chases in kind of the...

Eli Price (02:28.342)
The action, I guess, franchises you would think of like a born identity has a good one. You have some good ones in bond. There's the tank one in golden eye. That's really good. I really enjoy the one at the beginning of no time to die where you have, you know, he gets kind of stuck in circled and then the machine guns pop out of the headlights and he does a little donuts and.

Uh, yeah, that one's fun. Um, then you have, uh, tenant. Um, I had a friend mentioned the, the kind of backwards car chase and tenant, which is really inventive and really cool. Uh, we didn't draft it, but, um, but I think that was definitely one I had in consideration that and baby driver were probably next up, uh, for me. Um, and, uh, yeah, there, there's also a lot, um,

that I just haven't seen as well. Just thinking about off the top of my head, like their original, the Italian job has a really good one that I've kind of seen some clips of here and there. You have the one in Raiders of the Lost Ark. That's fun and enjoyable. Shot really well too. There's, you know, we drafted.

the Mad Max for your road, but obviously there's there's some great ones in the original Mad Max movies to Vanishing Point is one I haven't seen that is kind of like one big long car chase the whole movie that apparently has some good stuff in there. And yeah, just kind of going down the list. There's a good one.

That I've seen a clip of in the movie the rock Michael Bay's movie And we did cover We did cover the French connection William Friedkin's movie, but he also has a great car chase In a movie I haven't seen but I've seen the clips of the chase and to live and die in LA Yeah, there's there's a lot of really good ones gone in 60 seconds the original

Eli Price (04:51.862)
Um, apparently has a really good one and long one at that. Um, yeah, you could probably go on and on. Um, the fast and furious movies aren't really my thing. Um, uh, no, no hate towards, uh, the people that, that love those movies, but, um, but there is the, the, the really entertaining one in, in fast five where they're pulling, uh, I think they're pulling some safes or something. Um,

So yeah, there's a lot of really great car chases and movies that are, they're always really fun. Uh, so, uh, enjoy doing this draft, but, uh, but yeah, I am going to get back to that with Dave.

Yeah, that's a great. This is a great list. So I'm going to read out the final picks. I ended up with Mad Max Fury Road, The French Connection, Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning Part One, The Dark Knight and Sherlock Jr. And Dave ended up with Bullet. That's B -U -L -L -I -T -T for those of you that don't know this movie.

It's the name of the detective bullet He ended up with bullet Ronan the matrix reloaded Death Proof and the Batman. So yeah some Batman love today Some old classic car chase love. We've got some good variety here. I think a little bit for everybody. Yeah, so yeah, go check out these movies check out the car chases and

Dave Lester (20:46.355)
grateful.

Dave Lester (21:05.395)
sure.

Eli Price (21:12.872)
Get ready for a conversation next week on Steven Spielberg's duel. I think, yeah, I think I might also attach on a little extra with recording with my son. I'm going to let him give his thoughts on my neighbor Totoro for the podcast. So I'm going to put that on.

right after this, but that's it for the car chase draft. But yeah, that was fun, Dave. Thanks for coming on and doing this with me and talking Duel, which will come out next week. I really appreciate it. And I'll make sure to put all those places to find you. You're on Twitter. I'll get your blue sky on there, too. I don't have blue sky personally, but I might need to jump on there with you.

Dave Lester (21:55.411)
Thank you.

Eli Price (22:09.106)
If I can, so yeah.

Dave Lester (22:10.867)
This is my backup plan if Twitter goes to put, yeah.

Eli Price (22:14.16)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I'll put all that in the episode description where you can find Dave. But yeah, thanks for coming on, Dave. I enjoyed it.

Dave Lester (22:24.371)
Thank you. Thanks everybody. Take care.