Isle of Dogs (w/ Chase Ables)

Eli Price (00:36.162)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Establishing Shot podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmographies. We are here today for episode 11 where we are covering the ninth film, if I'm not mistaken, in Wes Anderson's filmography. I hope you enjoyed last week our little break from the series to kind of look at some best movies of the year.

If you missed that one, go back and check it out because hopefully there's some good recommendations that you haven't really heard of or gotten a whole lot of buzz to go check out. But yeah, I'm here with my brother-in-law, Chase. Hello. He's here with me. We're actually recording in his apartment. Usually I'm in my closet doing kind of a video chat with him.

with my guest, but it just kind of worked out for us to record in the same room. So yeah, a little good little change of pace for me anyway, but a little less cramped. Yeah, it's a little less cramped, a little more room to kick back. But yeah, so shouldn't really mean anything for people on the podcast audio form, but I'm sure the people that

might tune in on YouTube might notice the difference. Probably. But yeah, so, yeah, I'm excited to get into Isle of Dogs, but first, Chase, do you wanna just kind of tell people a little bit about yourself, what you do, and then maybe how you got into movies, what kind of sparked your interest in film? Sure, so I'm a house painter here in Lafayette, Louisiana.

where we live. As far as movies goes, I don't know, I always kind of liked movies. My dad's kind of a movie buff, so he, you know, kind of raised me watching movies all the time. And then just as I got older, a lot of the friends that I surrounded myself with, like, were really into, I don't know, like more like indie, kind of art, like...

Eli Price (02:59.562)
artisanal movies, I suppose. Sure, yeah. So, uh, kind of got into, uh, kind of got more into, I don't know, like film, if you, you know, however you want to... Cinema. Sure. Um, uh, so, uh, I, I can remember with, uh, Wes Anderson in particular, the first movie that I saw was, uh, Fantastic Mr. Fox. Mm-hmm. Uh, I've actually got, uh...

My friend Carrie Campbell to thank for that probably. She recommended that movie to our family over and over again back when it came out, till we finally all watched it and loved it. And then years later, probably 2016 or so...

the apartment I was living in, I had another friend who lived in the same complex, and we would go have movie nights at his time all the time, like, almost unannounced. We would just kind of like show up and make ourselves at home and watch whatever he was watching. And so that's when I really got into Wes Anderson. He showed me Life Aquatic, Grand Budapest.

you know, just a bunch of his films and really started to love him, love his work then. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's always fun to hear people's introduction. I feel like a lot of my guests have watched Grand Budapest as their first Wes Anderson movie. It's a good place to start, I don't blame you. Yeah, yeah. And so I'm kind of coming, I kind of shared...

on that episode that I'm kind of coming around on the idea of that being a good like starting off point, diving off point into Wes Anderson. I guess just when I was first thinking about it, it was kind of like there's so much going on in Grand Budapest. You've got the different aspect ratios, you've got the different timelines, you've got like

Eli Price (05:01.27)
the stop motion animation. Yeah, then you got narration, you're cutting back and forth between different characters and different time periods. And so I was just like, I don't know if that's a good starting off point, but having rewatched it again and talked about it recently, especially the big chunk of the movie that's in the 30s, it's just so fast paced and exciting. Then I can kind of see like, oh yeah, this is a good spot for people to jump in.

But I have always thought that Fantastic Mr. Fox is like the perfect medium for Wes's style. And so it comes across to me more palatable. It's so charming. Yeah. It really just grabs you and makes you want to watch, you know, every frame. Yeah. So I want to say that I saw Fantastic Mr. Fox for the first time. I had seen a few of his films by then.

I saw it with Robin, my wife, your sister. I think I watched it with her the first time I watched it. And yeah, we've kind of made it our Thanksgiving tradition. But yeah, so...

Yeah, I love Fantastic Mr. Fox. And but yeah, and so today we're getting into his second animated film, stop motion animation with Isle of Dogs. And I want to I'm pretty sure this is the first Wes Anderson film I went and saw in theaters when it was released. I don't think I actually caught it in. It barely showed like it was maybe out for a week or two here. Yeah, I don't think I actually caught it in theaters when it came out,

came out on Blu-ray. Right, right. Yeah, and so, and yeah, I've talked before on the podcast about the problem of like good movies only being out in theaters for just like a week or two. It's true. But yeah, that's unfortunate, but yeah.

Eli Price (07:04.394)
Yeah, when this came, so Grand Budapest came out in 2014, and that was like really a time where I was really, really digging more into movies. And I remember seeing Grand Budapest, I didn't see it in theaters, but I saw it, you know, either like end of 2014.

maybe beginning of 2015 when it was, you know, getting Oscar buzz and stuff. But I didn't see it in theaters. And yeah, so it was four years. Because this came out in 2018, Isle of Dogs. And it was so it was like four years. And when it came out, at that point, I loved Wes Anderson. So I was like, oh, I've got to have a chance to go see one of his films in theaters. Yeah, I think I didn't catch French Dispatch in theaters. I didn't either.

I still need to see French Dispatch. I'll catch up with French Dispatch. I guess, you know, as this is coming out, you know, probably that week, I'll probably catch up with it for the podcast the following week. Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure people know by now, we usually record well ahead of time, but so yeah. That's the way to do it. Oh, yeah. But yeah, so, yeah, High Elf Dogs is the only one I've seen in theaters.

Which is odd because of how much I love this director, but it's just a lot of his movies just weren't on my radar when they were coming out just because I wasn't into that sort of cinema film, I guess, at that point. But you know, it is what it is. Hopefully I'll get to catch Asteroid City.

Coming out. It's at this point. It's not out yet. It's coming out next weekend. I believe yeah I think you're right at the time of this recording, so I'm hoping to sneak out and watch that Try to scribble some notes in the dark for the podcast That'll be I've never really done that before so that'll be interesting to see how if I'm out

Eli Price (09:08.61)
bad handwriting is already pretty illegible, so. So in the dark, surrounded by people just trying to scratch it out, yeah. See how well you can read it afterwards. We'll see. Maybe it'll make it better, who knows. But yeah, I really.

I really enjoyed digging into a little bit of the behind the scenes stuff with this one. So this is the first Wes Anderson movie that doesn't have a Criterion edition. So from Bottle Rocket all the way through Grand Budapest, they all are in Criterion collection and I have all of those discs. And so I just had this plethora of extra features to dig into.

Eli Price (09:57.76)
out on my own because it wasn't just like given to me you know with a fork and spoon on the criterion disk but yeah I enjoyed kind of scrounging YouTube and Google for some good stuff for this one so I did the same thing yeah there are some like little feature X on the you know the blu-ray

They're only a few minutes long though. It doesn't give you the depth that I'm sure the criterion ones do. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, usually in criterion you have like, you have some of those that are like little featurettes. Like promotional featurettes is basically what they are. But yeah, you usually have like one or two longer form. You know, kind of like short film documentaries.

basically like 20-30 minutes worth of stuff. Yeah, I didn't get that with this, but that's okay. The other thing that I didn't have for this one, there is actually a Wes Anderson collection book for Isle of Dogs. That's out, but I don't have it. I have the one that covers, you know, bottle rocket through moonrise kingdom, and then I have, Grand Budapest has its own book, and I have that one, which I didn't even scratch the surface of everything in that.

I've seen that book on your bookshelf. Yeah, it's a lot for one movie. Yeah, you know, it's looking at it next to the The one for all the movies leading up to it. Yeah. Yeah, it's got a lot in there And I assume Isle of Dogs is similar It's not by Matt Zoller Seitz who did the other ones I think he did like the foreword for it And maybe helped edit it But I guess he let some other people take on that one

I don't have it. I just wasn't able to get it in time for recording the podcast. So yeah, this will be this will be my first one with my research all just being like, well, what can I find? Let's see what's out there on the old intro webs. Your your journalism is being put to the test. Yeah, like, um, Oh, who's the student the student journalist character? Oh, yeah, uh, tracy tracy. Yes. Yeah

Eli Price (12:18.016)
Yeah, the only thing I'm missing is I do have some freckles. I'm missing like the blonde fro though. It's the only thing I'm kind of missing. If you grow your hair out, we could probably make something work. You know, maybe get a little perm. Yeah. We'll see. Maybe one day. That character actually, I read somewhere that, have you ever seen an angel at my table? It's directed by Jane Campion. She

I don't guess I have. Yeah, she directed Power of the Dog, which was really popular with Benedict Cumberbatch, kind of western. I've heard of that. Yeah, it came out a couple years ago. That was one that got a lot of buzz. And she's had some other really, the piano is probably her biggest one. But yeah, An Angel at My Table is about, I'm trying to think of the author. It's a...

She's a New Zealand author, I think. I just can't think of what her name is. But in the movie, Carrie Fox plays that character. And basically, Tracy is based off of her.

Yeah, I'm pulling it up right now. Janet Frame. She's a...

Yeah, a Kiwi author. Fair enough. And this is kind of like a biopic about her life. It's a really good movie. But yeah, apparently Tracy's character, the way she looks is kind of based off of that younger version of Janet Frame in that movie. Which is, it's just like a random little tidbit. Yeah, that's fun trivia.

Eli Price (14:21.296)
But yeah, so when I was looking into this I was like, man, I wonder how this movie got started in Wes's mind. Because usually in an interview he'll kind of talk about just how the idea came about. And really it's kind of like almost the same old story, but with a more funny way that the…

premise came about. So they did this movie.

at Three Mills Studios in East London, which is where they did Fantastic Mr. Fox. When they were doing the animation for Fantastic Mr. Fox, they were driving to the studio every day and there's this sign that he kept seeing that said, Isle of Dogs. I didn't look into this, so I don't know if it's true, but apparently there's a place

Eli Price (15:24.42)
dogs on. Yeah I heard that same anecdote in one of his interviews. Yeah. Yeah and so I don't know if that's...

true or not. I mean it sounds plausible. It does. But yeah, so he just kept seeing that sign and he was like, I need to make a movie about dogs on an island. And so he even early on just had names picked out. Like the five names of the dogs in the film. You know, King,

Eli Price (16:04.428)
about dogs on an island. He had this idea, he kind of like talked about it with Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola who he wrote Darjeeling Limited with. I think Roman Coppola has

helped with writing on something else too that I can't remember off the top of my head. It might have been Graham Budapest. Maybe. I think Graham Budapest was a guy named Hugo Guinness that co-wrote with him. But yeah, anyways, he kind of was talking about this idea with them and they did obviously

Darjeeling Limited is set in India. This one set in Japan, they obviously have a thing about making movies set in other places. And so they had, I guess, talked before about making a movie in Japan. And yeah, they were like...

oh we want to make a movie about dogs on an island, oh we want to make a movie set in Japan, and it's just kind of like this melding of ideas together, which is kind of like how a lot of his movies come about.

Like I remember when I was looking at Moonrise Kingdom, he, it was like one of the biggest just random ideas that kind of melted together for that one. And I guess this is a similar thing with just less ideas. Sure, yeah, just kind of two simple, two simple, you know, desires. Right. Make this, you know, dog movie and make a movie in Japan. Yeah. Put them together. Just put them together. And yeah, I think we got a good one.

Eli Price (18:01.564)
Yeah, he kind of talks about four, Wes that is, talks about four major Japanese artist influences. So film-wise, he talks about Akira Kurosawa as a big influence and then Hayao Miyazaki. So two very different Japanese filmmakers, I think. For sure. You know, Kurosawa was like kind of a master of epics.

in a way. Like I've seen a handful of Kurosawa films and they're all very big, epic, not really fast-paced. They kind of take their time. And then Miyazaki obviously is making like...

very charming animated, hand-drawn animated movies. And so... I would qualify a few of his as kind of epics too though. Yeah, yeah. Adventure epics for sure. Like you think of... Especially like Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa. They're just kind of these larger than life, grand scale movies. Right, right.

Yeah, they definitely are, they definitely have more epic proportions for sure. Yeah, I guess I can see that relation between the two. But they're still like, a lot of, I wouldn't say that Kurosawa is charming in the way that Miyazaki is even in, you know, Mononoke is the one that's like, I guess the least charming.

Um, just because like it gets pretty, there's some pretty savage, Oh, definitely. Parts of that, which like, I guess you can see come, come out in Isle of Dogs. There's some pretty savage. There are, yeah. Parts in it. Yeah. There, there's ears being torn off and spit on the ground. Yeah. There's, um, you know, pieces of an airplane going into a little kid's head. Yeah. There's, um, there's, uh, surgery. Yeah. There's.

Eli Price (20:20.824)
all the component animals of the sushi meal, kind of coming onto the butcher block, still alive. Yeah, and so, yeah, it is like he kind of brings together, like, I guess that maybe that is where Miyazaki really has some influences, like that meld of charming and savage. So yeah, it's interesting. Kurosawa, I think...

What I see, have you seen much Kurosawa? I haven't. It's a real area that I need to fill in. Yeah, so obviously Seven Samurai is like one of his big masterpieces. Right. I've seen Ran, which is his version of Shakespeare. I wanna say it's his Japanese adaptation of...

man I can't just I just can't even think of what it is I think it's I want to say Hamlet but I think you're right yeah it's epic I'm trying to think of what else I've seen by him I've only really seen a handful but what I have seen is

The influence I see here for this film is, obviously you have like nods all throughout the movie, probably like way more than I noticed, with just like little Easter eggs and stuff like that. But as far as like actual filmmaking, I think...

something that he pulls from Kurosawa is the stillness before action. So I think that's something that Kurosawa really takes his time with.

Eli Price (22:19.77)
settling in on a character and some dialogue and slowing things down. And then there will be some big action where something's more fast-paced and then it slows down again and builds character again. And I kind of see that in Isle of Dogs. I do too now that you're saying that. Yeah. You'll get these really slow moments where you're just kind of building the characters

There'll be like a cloud of cotton dust in a fight with the dogs. And then more like still slow moments. It's a little bit more fast paced than a Kurosawa film. I guess just probably just the nature of.

the sort of movie it is. But I do see the influence, for sure. There's a certain pace that Wes tends to use. He'll let things have their moment, but he won't let them drag. He keeps like a wittiness to...

Eli Price (23:28.286)
the pacing of his films. Yeah, I would say he's efficient is the way that I think is maybe the best way to say it. He gives you what you need, but he doesn't just drag you along. He doesn't tell you what you need to know about a character and then keep telling you. I guess he's like...

I've told you what you need to know about this character, it's time to move on to the next thing now. Right. And you should know by now what's going on with this character. Which I appreciate. But yeah, the other two artistic influences were, they're two woodblock, you know, Japan is a very like...

Unique to Japan type of art is like the woodblock paintings and so probably two of the most well known are Hokusai and Hirishige Hirishige, I'm probably butchering the Japanese. I would be too. I'll let you handle the Japanese pronunciation Hokusai, I heard Wes say so I'm saying it like he says because if I were to pronounce it It it would not be that I would not pronounce it that way

Eli Price (24:45.428)
Hiroshige sounds right to me, but it's probably not. Please forgive if there's any there just happens to be any Japanese speaking listeners. Please forgive my terrible pronunciations. But um yeah the

I didn't really recognize anything from Hiroshige when I kind of looked him up on Google. But Hokusai has the very, very famous painting of the wave. That's his. And so, you know, hopefully when I say that, when I say Japan, the painting of the wave, most people can like think in their mind of what that looks like. And if not, you know, you can look him up.

But yeah, go look at these artist paintings and you can really see the influence on the backdrops and the art style of the film. And definitely with all the shots of televisions where they have more traditional 2D animation, it's kind of really got that woodblock feel to it as well in that. Yeah, yeah, I could see that. I didn't think about that, but yeah.

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, that was really interesting. One of the things that Wes said when he was talking about that was that if you were to ask him what exactly he's pulling from these four Japanese artists, he kind of said, I couldn't really put my finger on it. It's just he kind of said he just kind of soaked in their work and just went from there.

Which makes sense to me. I'm sure like...

Eli Price (26:34.078)
you know, and he kind of admitted there's probably people that will notice things that, you know, I took from this artist or this artist or this filmmaker or whatever, he said, but it's more it's less like I'm looking for things that I can use and more just like taking in a lot of their work and then using what I've just as kind of like in me, I guess, when I'm making it. So I thought that was pretty cool to.

to kind of hear about how he, you know, I guess you kind of see that in a lot of his work. You know, I would say Rushmore and some of his other work has that kind of French new wave kind of influence, but it's not necessarily like he's directly like...

copying or taking from them. It's just kind of like he's just seen a lot of that work and so he wants to make that style of movie and the influence is there sort of thing. Right. Yeah. But yeah, another thing that I thought was kind of like important for this film in particular was that he brought on a Japanese

I guess, well, he's not exactly like a filmmaker or anything, but he's a writer and editor and designer to kind of help him with this movie. His name is Kunichi Nomura.

So like if you were to go into the credits on IMDB or Letterboxx or whatever, he's listed as one of the writers. Got you. Yeah, and so really like he came in and helped so much that it earned him a co-writing credit is basically what happened. But yeah, he does a little, I think some of the main things he does just apart from doing this.

Eli Price (28:46.846)
Which this is kind of like a more of a blip in this guy's career than anything else is Writing and editing so he does I think he has some like publications that he edits for and writes for and then apparently he does like a lot of like interior design and even like architectural design So like I really kind of like yeah wide-ranging I guess

He's kind of wide-ranging in the fields that he is creative in I would say I guess Now is he the fellow? That when I was listening to the interviews What's had mentioned

meeting one of the Japanese guys that was helping them through Sophia Coppola and Bill Murray whenever they were working on Lost in Translation. Yeah, yeah. So this guy, because he does...

so much like interior design and architectural work. He helped Sofia Coppola with Lost in Translation, which is set in Japan. He helped them with locations. So, you know, I guess they would kind of describe to him what they were wanting out of a scene, and he would help find a good location to shoot for them. And so...

Wes is friends with Sofia Coppola and obviously Bill Murray. Right. And I'm pretty sure Roman Coppola. And that's Sofia's brother. Right. So you know there's that kind of circle of friends there. But yeah, Wes apparently was visiting Japan and when they were shooting it. He probably. Yeah, he probably went to like or I don't know if it was when they were shooting

Eli Price (30:47.218)
I'm kind of like assuming that because Sofia Coppola basically like asked Nomura to kind of show Wes around Japan and it's funny like I read

It was actually like a Japanese website and article that Google translated for me. So I was like having to decipher the translation. But it seems like Nomura was kind of saying that he didn't realize that it was Wes Anderson at first until they like Wes started talking about like film with him and he realized like oh I know who this guy is I like his movies. That's cool. Yeah. And he was just like doing so.

a copula favor I guess like this is her friend yeah sure I'll show him around yeah a little did he know that you know he's you know helping a director find his eye for a movie yeah and so and yeah it wasn't apparent to me if like Wes was necessarily like trying to get ideas for a movie at that point yeah I got the feeling that he was just like visiting okay

And so, because I think it was like years later when they started working on Isle of Dogs that he called Nomura and asked him to come on to help. I guess they kind of had.

built a friendship just from him showing him around Japan and yeah that was the Japanese connection that he had to reach out to but yeah so he brought him on to help with this movie and yeah and the war kind of talks about like basically like they would be working on something and West would say like here's what I want to do here is this like accurate to

Eli Price (32:42.686)
Japan? Like is this, does this make sense like for...

I guess this setting or is this what a Japanese person would do? Is this the sort of thing you would see? All those sorts of questions that obviously are going to come up if you're trying to like make a movie set in Japan. Make sure it feels authentic. Right, right. And so he would run all of that stuff by Nomura and you know he would say yes. He kind of talks about like I would tell him yes or no. But also like.

he would kind of like, I guess give input of like, yes, uh.

Or it seemed like maybe sometimes it would be no, but also like this is also an imaginative world. So he tried to like not stamp out all the imagination. That was something that he kind of said that I saw that he had said in a couple different interviews was he wanted to make sure he wasn't like getting rid of the imagination just to make everything like completely 100% authentic I guess.

Eli Price (33:53.101)
Oh, no. Yeah. But yeah He and he kind of talked about too, which makes sense He talks about how he felt like his

I guess intuition and the way he works and his attention to detail really meshed well with Wes when they were working together. Because Wes obviously has a lot of attention to detail and because of his work both writing and editing but also with interior design and architecture, he has a really keen eye for detail. And so when they were working on things together, Namor just talked about how well they fit

They worked together just because of that. I guess like common sensibility So that was kind of cool to hear Yeah, Nomura even like reworked

the Japanese portion of the script. Gotcha. Yeah, they would write it out and I guess get it translated to Japanese, but then he would send it to Nomura and Nomura would read through the Japanese translation and he didn't just make it more accurate. He talks about he tried to make it have a Wes Anderson feel in Japanese, which is really cool.

That's something that like, I don't know.

Eli Price (35:21.642)
I don't plan on learning Japanese in my life, but who knows, maybe one day I will. Yeah, and if you did, going back and watching the movie and listening to that Japanese dialogue would be really cool. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it makes me, you know, I'd be curious to hear from, you know, a Japanese viewer, like, oh, does the dialogue in Japanese, does it have that Wes Anderson sort of like wit and style to it?

Which, you know, that's what Namora said he tried to do with it. So I thought that was pretty cool and thoughtful too. To think like, I don't want to just make this an accurate translation. I want to actually give it Wes's style. Really letting the fan and the love of Wes's movies come out through his work on the project. Yeah.

in the English but in the Japanese. But yeah, who knows if he did it well or not, I don't know, because I don't speak Japanese. And so like because he was doing that, because he was reworking the script for the Japanese portion, he would record him like, I guess like reading out the dialogue.

for the Japanese portion, just so the people working on editing and...

I don't know, the animators and all that would have a good feel of what it was supposed to sound like and the kind of cadence and all that sort of stuff. And then they liked his mayor, the way he read for the mayor so much, they just kept it. So he's actually credited, he's a co-writer but he also is the voice of the mayor in the movie. That's cool. Yeah. And it makes me wonder, did they make him re-record the mayor or did they just use the

Eli Price (37:26.936)
he sent them. I kind of hope they just use the original recording. That's kind of the sense I got. Which was really funny but also like cool. Yeah. But he did help with Japanese casting too. That's something that I appreciated was that if you go through the cast list, obviously you have like Bill Murray's and Jeff Goldblum's, has like the dogs.

Greta Gerwig as the American foreign exchange student. All the Japanese character are Japanese.

People yeah, I really appreciate that too. Yeah, and so Even if they're Japanese American, they're still you know, Japanese like I think Kim Watanabe is in there I'm not sure if he's from Japan or from America, but I know he is in a lot of like American and British movies He is yeah, so I don't know where he actually like is from and resides But he is a Jack he is Japanese heritage. So right

But yeah, I kind of wrote down a lot of the Japanese culture details that I thought were cool. Was there any that stood out to you just from watching this film and seeing things that – I don't know how familiar you are exactly with Japan. I know you are a big fan of Miyazaki and stuff like that.

Yeah, was there anything that you were watching it and it was like, oh, that's a cool way to incorporate Japan in that?

Eli Price (39:12.462)
I mean, there's all kinds of stuff. One thing that really, like, I don't know, just kinda, I noticed that I don't think I had noticed before. So I watched the movie twice in the last couple days just to kinda... Okay, yeah. And on my second watch through, I noticed that Atari's shoes, his sandals, are like the old...

Japanese like wooden sandals with like the two blocks on the bottom that you know, I'm sure Hardly anyone actually wears anymore, right? But at the same time I was like, oh hey, that's That's I hadn't even noticed that but that's cool that yeah through this whole movie You know the main characters, you know, just wearing these old-fashioned, you know wooden sandals Yeah, and I think they were made of they seemed like they were made of metal. Mm-hmm Um, and I almost wonder I was actually wondering this when I was watching it um

Did he like lose his shoes when he crashed the plane? And did he just kind of like make these from some of the scraps? Huh, I wonder. Um, because he didn't have any shoes? It did look like it kind of matched the rest of the jumpsuit. Okay. But...

Maybe. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. That was just something that was like popped in my head as I was watching because they looked like they didn't look like they were made of wood to me. They looked like they were made of metal and they even like sort of had like when he would be walking on metal it kind of had a metal on metal kind of sound when he was walking but that could just be I could just be like totally theorizing on that. Sure. Who knows what Wes had in mind.

as far as that goes. But yeah, that is like, and that is one of the smaller details probably. You know, you have a lot of big details. Like obviously the art in general is just the main one you see.

Eli Price (41:10.614)
The drum number at the very beginning. Yes, the those are called taiko drums and he actually they actually had a Japanese musician record that and then they liked it so much that when him and Dispilow were working on the score they incorporated that like all throughout the score too Which I really like I love that. I

those drums have. I do too. Yeah. One of the things that I thought was

was kind of like just like an interesting like sort of trivia thing. So you have the sumo little sequence that's just kind of like a setup for something happening with the mayor. But he's watching a sumo match and they throw like you know the one sumo wrestler like you know tosses the other guy out and all of a sudden all these things start like people are from the audience are like throwing these things out there.

They're actually like small seat cushions apparently. They're called zabuton, zabuton. Again, I don't know how to pronounce it. But that happens when Yokozuna, Yokozuno, yo. I'm saying this terribly. Yokozuna, which is like the, it's basically like.

think of like a world champion boxer, that's what the Yokozuna is. Okay. In sumo wrestling, they're like the best of the best. The best of the best at that time. So those like seat cushion things get thrown up when the Yokozuna is beat. And so, and then you know, you have the corrupt mayor sitting there. And like there's like, I guess like maybe a fan theory that it's some reference to

Eli Price (43:14.876)
Apparently in 2011 there was like a match fixing scandal in Japan for Sumo And so there's like a fan theory that was a reference to that 2011 Sumo match fixing scandal which like Would make sense in the context of the corrupt mayor who is like using everything he can to like Make money and build his own industry, right? Oh

like little like cultural detail since you're talking about like the mayor and corruption. Yeah, yeah. His like big back piece tattoo whenever he like comes out of the tub. You know, like...

It's, I guess, a little bit more of like a stereotype these days. Like it's like start the culture around tattoos is starting to change in Japan. But for the longest time, especially like those big pieces like that were like associated with like the Yakuza, the Japanese, like mafia. Right. And so like him having that back piece is almost like a, like a, an outward sign of like his like inward corruption. Right.

supposed to be moving to Japan soon. And you still get told today, as foreigners, like, yeah, you want to be careful when and how you show your tattoos. Because a lot of, especially for middle-aged and older people, it's still kind of associated with that. It'll kind of give them a distaste towards you if they see that you have tattoos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a detail that I didn't even notice. And that's the thing.

many in this that's like man it's hard to like keep I mean you're not gonna be able to keep track of them all it's one of those things like if you really enjoy Japanese culture I'm sure there that you just see so much awesome stuff in this movie that like someone like me that you know I enjoy some Japanese filmmakers but other than that like I don't know a ton about Japanese culture

Eli Price (45:27.682)
like I'm just never going to catch all that stuff. So like, yeah, and it's, it kind of has, I feel like it, it brings that West's like traveler sensibility to it where like, you know, I've listened to or read interviews, just him talking about how when he travels, he actually like,

Like his first time going somewhere, like he obviously enjoys, but he actually enjoys more like returning to places After you've like built relationships somewhere and like basically like kind of Becoming more like accepted not just like as a tourist but like as someone that you know, oh they're coming back you know, you know that person and so like

It kind of brings that traveling, like, I want to return here and see all these details again, kind of sensibility to it. You know, there's a lot of like obvious stuff like the sumo and the sushi. But then there's like a lot of other like smaller details that comes from, I guess, like that more

frequent I guess visiting sure That he talks about Yeah, yeah, there's so much stuff. I mean you have like You know the kabuki theater reference that's going on at one point. There's the little stage plays And then you know to Atari has some haikus That he says that are great

Uh, oh, yeah, uh, so tracy her it her

Eli Price (47:18.57)
where she lives is called the Kikichiyo residence and he is a major character in Seven Samurai. Oh, okay. And so that's like, that's one of those things that's kind of like an Easter egg. Yeah, just something. For Kurosawa. Yeah. And then, you know, the little sad song that plays, I think it plays more than once, but I think the...

The scene I remember is when they're burying the dog that he thought was Spots, but is actually Sport. There's a song that plays that's from Seven Samurai, the score of Seven Samurai, during that scene. The only other big thing that I thought was interesting was there's a reference to Toho Mountain.

At some point I think it's in one of the like little monologues where one either the narrator or like Jupiter somebody is given like a monologue of a backstory on something They reference Toho Mountain And Toho is a film studio in Japan and they're famous for working doing a lot of like Kurosawa films and also like the Godzilla franchise

So that's like a kind of like just a I guess a reference of like appreciation for that studio Japanese studio, so I thought that was cool, too Especially with I guess, you know Godzilla's, you know history with you know puppet animation, right? Yeah. Yeah and I Was looking that up cuz I was like what's Godzilla stop-motion and if they originally were gonna do stop-motion for Godzilla But they ended up

I can't remember if it was like for budget reasons or there was some sort of like constraint where they couldn't exactly do stop motion. And so they did like, I think people call it like suitamation or something. But there's like actually a guy in the suit kind of like doing the kind of replacing that inner skeleton. Right. Yeah. So that's fun.

Eli Price (49:39.166)
But yeah, there is definitely, you still have like the puppetry going on there. Definitely. And so that's fun to kind of think about. But yeah, there's just a ton of Japanese culture details. You know, I mentioned the sushi sequence, which is just, it's fun and it's also like, I feel like it really like captures what's like.

so unique and just like kind of for a lack of a better word just cool about like Japanese cuisine. It's just so unique and interesting and

To me, I feel like that scene, that little short sequence of making that sushi box, was just like showed a great appreciation for the art form of making sushi. Definitely.

I haven't seen the documentary Eurodreams of Sushi. I've wanted to. It's good. I recommend it. Yeah. But it, from what I understand, like the appreciation for like the art form that is making sushi is like, it comes out to me in that little sequence. Me too. Yeah. It makes you hungry for fish. Definitely. Yes. But yeah. Yeah.

What did you think of the voice casting? Were there any characters that their voices, their vocal performance stood out? I think just while you're thinking of that, the new edition,

Eli Price (51:31.83)
that really like I felt was really well done was Brian Cranston as chief. Yes, I agree. He really brought a gruffness to the character that was needed for it. Yes. And he's done, I kind of looked up, he had done some other voice work.

before for some other animated stuff. And I think something, even maybe another stop motion, I can't remember. But yeah, I felt like he was a great addition to Wes's, I guess, rotating collaboration cast. Yes. But yeah, were there any others that stood out?

Ed Norton's performance really stood like, I thought he, the nervous energy that he brought of just like this dog slowly, just slowly losing, you know, its grip on, you know, like he says at the beginning, like, I think I'm going to give up right now. You know, like him just like slowly losing his, his...

What's the word I'm looking for? I guess his domestication. Yeah. Um, but you know, just trying to cling to it It's a petness. Yes Clinging on to his pet Petness as much as he can Yeah, yeah, I really liked he was a Rex I think was his character. I think so yeah, he kind of is the chief you kind of get the feeling is like

Eli Price (53:14.126)
I don't know you get the feeling that there's like a power dynamic going on there between chief and Rex Which is a fun dynamic really? It's with all of and I mean it I guess it's kind of in the names like they're all named like chief Duke Rex King boss like yeah, but they're all they're all trying to co-alpha their little pack Yeah, it's I don't know. I kept trying to find more of a theme with the names But I can never quite put my finger on it

to me that like they've all got like Bryan Cranston says and like when he there he's introducing them in that first scene with them like you know we're all like alpha dogs but like if you're in a pack yeah all being alpha dogs just doesn't work right and every time they try to take a vote like it doesn't work yeah and you know that's one of those things that I bet like if you ask Wes like why they were all named and like that kind of

like alpha dog, leader, different names of different sorts of leaders, he would probably just say, I just thought they were fun dog names. Because, you know, out of like all the interviews I've like read and listened to, that like, that just feels like an answer he would give. Like, yeah, they were good dog names. I didn't really think about that beforehand. Yeah, one of the interesting

the making of the film was that they all, so like for Fantastic Mr. Fox, you know, he took Clooney and some of the other actors, like they went and recorded like...

out like in a farm and got a lot of like extra sounds. Well for this one, he didn't really do anything like that. It was all like studio work. But he didn't like necessarily bring people in. Like I know Jeff Goldblum talked about like, he was in LA and Wes was in New York. And he was in a studio in LA recording his. And even like, they even got a lot of like, so whenever...

Eli Price (55:28.874)
Wes would need something extra, he would just tell them to record it on their iPhone and send it to him. Yeah. And so like, he even said like, in one interview I was watching, he would, I guess, call or text him back and be like, I think there was a little bit of noise in the background, could you do that one again? Which even with that, there are a few places where you kind of feel like, okay, are they animating around like, some noise that was in the recording? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I don't think this is really speculation. I think this is exactly what happened, but the little feature of all the cast interviews where they like animated it with their characters afterwards, you can tell that like each of those settings, the reason they put them in that setting is because of the quality of the voice recording and like trying to match the tone of whatever they had on hand to record with. Yeah, yeah. That's gotta be what was going on there, which is a really fun, like if you,

can find that on YouTube. I think you can. Yeah, so if you don't have the disc, the physical copy of Isle of Dogs, like see if you can find the...they, yeah they did these like, there's a featurette of the cast interviews that where they just animate them as their own dogs. So it's, you know, it's Brian Cranston talking as Brian Cranston, but they don't put him on the screen. They

Eli Price (56:58.988)
are all in different settings. Yeah. Yeah, probably. And they probably did record those on their iPhones and just send it to Wes. Like I know for Ed Norton's like that like it keeps being like scratchy and like it you hear him like hitting the mic a few times so they animate his dog like in this like warehouse with this boom mic coming down and he keeps like running into it and stuff. Like poking his nose on it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I really loved that. That was

But yeah, I mean they really like the voice recording is something that they do like really early on because they…

What they'll do is they'll go ahead and record all the vocal performances. And then obviously, like I said, Goldblum talked about, like, oh, Wes called me and said he needed another line here or there. So obviously, if you're kind of making adjustments to the script, you'll need something extra. But most of it was done, like, they would spend a day or less in the studio, record, and they were done. Yeah.

Because what they do is when they start animating they take the storyboard and they do the animatic of it, which is We talked about it on fantastic. Mr. Fox is the first time he did an animatic But it's basically like taking these rough sketches and animating them, right? and then they put the voices over that and it gives that and it gives the animators like a really good look of

have the camera for this shot or do I like what

Eli Price (58:42.89)
what scale of the puppet do I need to use? It really gives them a good feel of the frame for that shot, which is really cool. And actually, Wes, when he did that for Mr. Fox, it was so helpful that he actually started doing it for live action movies too. Oh wow. Yeah, so he did it for Moonrise and he did it for Grand Budapest. They made animatics. That comes through in Grand Budapest. Oh yeah. Like you can, now that you, now that I know that,

that it's all kind of, he already had it all kind of sketched out and they were really able to build everything to his vision, that makes sense. Right, yeah. Which is really cool. And it's funny, like, a lot of stuff that Wes...

like starts doing that you start like seeing results from is just like sort of like happy accidents sort of things. So like, oh, like normally you do make an animatic for a stop motion film. So he that's what he did. And then he was like, oh, I like this. This is very helpful. I'm going to keep doing it. It is similar to like we talked on the Rushmore episode, I think of how like he wasn't planning on doing like that dolly shot.

of Pan's tracks like walking but it was the field was muddy it had rained and so that was the only they had to like rework the whole like shot and they did that and he liked it so much that like that's become one of his like signature like things that is in all of his films right including stop-motion ones like you have that a lot in this one oh yeah it's cool watching him learn new tools and add them to the tool belt and keep them around yeah and it shows

a filmmaker he's always like learning. He's always like willing to make adjustments and like kind of learn on the fly like try to try new things to try to capture what he has in his mind and then like if it works like he's like okay yeah like you said add that to the tool belt.

Eli Price (01:00:50.05)
So I think that's pretty cool. Oh, one thing that I thought was cool too was they actually had a bunch of dogs on set. Oh yeah, I saw that too. Like running around. Yeah. They would strap the camera, and I mean.

Knowing that now you can see it in the animation whenever you see the dogs running, it's as though you're a camera's perspective on the back of a dog watching it move around and interact with other dogs and other people. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So they did capture a lot of dog movements. I think I wrote down, they had a, oh yeah, I don't have the number, but they did have a database of dog movements that they worked from when they were animating.

running around set like that just kind of belonged I think to different people that were working on the film and they just kind of kept them around not just like they didn't just like get the database of dog movements they just kind of kept them around for that feel of having dogs around for the movie which I thought was really cool and yeah

Puppetry like the puppetry and this is great again. Just like in fantastic. Mr. Fox you have I think I Think I read that there were like yeah 7,000 faces so you know they instead of like

There's more human, obviously way more human characters in this than there was in Fantastic Mr. Fox. Right. And so like when you have, I guess, like your stop-motion human characters, their faces kind of pop, will pop out to replace with different faces. So that you can get different emotions without having to build a whole new puppet every time. Right, exactly. And like there's only so much like that the little face, like the face muscle gadgets that they build into the wire can do.

Eli Price (01:02:51.848)
that like the different like sculpted faces can capture better I guess. Right. And so yeah, they said that there were like over 7,000 different faces made for the characters and yeah even like so the lady that worked on Tracy she

Eli Price (01:03:21.068)
And I think she said there was, I think she knew the exact number, there was 297. I wrote down freckles on each Tracy face that she painted. And yeah, she painted them all like by eye, like I guess like mashing the last one. It's so impressive. Yeah. And so I think she said she had done, she had painted over 22,000 freckles, which is crazy. But yeah, I think

There were 12 sculptors, which is a big, apparently.

I'm not familiar with what usually goes into stop motion animated movie, but apparently 12 Sculptors is a lot of sculptors for a stop motion animated film. And obviously, just like Fantasimus de Fox, they use like real animal fur. I think Al Paco Wool was that. I think I read that somewhere. Yeah.

I don't remember the source for that. So I'm not sure like, I don't think it was on one of the featurettes, but I think I did read it somewhere. So yeah, I mean it makes sense. Like they just dye it all kinds of different colors. Sure. And but yeah, they poke, they have to poke all those hairs into, into the mold, like of the, the animals, which is just, I don't know, that's crazy. It's so much work. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:04:52.338)
Yeah, so I mean the puppets are amazing and then like once you get into the animation they had a huge team of animators they had 27 people animating and then like 10 assistant animators too. So really like 37 people working on animating this movie and I think like

They would usually, I think somewhere I read or heard, they would have like up to or usually about 12 sets going at a time.

Which is a ton. One of the producers said that there was over 240 sets total that they used for this. And even some of them are like, some of the sets are even only for like 3 to 4 seconds.

like sequences. Like the big city shots that you only see maybe two or three times. Right, right. Yeah. And that actually like, so the big, there's two scenes that have like the Japanese skyline kind of like in it. And they actually built, I think he said like 150 or so buildings for that set to make like the Japanese skyline. And they used it in just those two sequences. Which is crazy.

Um.

Eli Price (01:06:16.534)
But yeah, I mean, one of the coolest things, I think, as far as like the design, like the production design, like, and the way they did the sets was the island itself. Trash island. Oh yeah, with all like the different environments. Yeah, yeah. So like, it's like it's sectioned off, like, or like sorted. Like the trash is sorted on different parts of the island. So like one part of the island is just like a bunch of paper.

Eli Price (01:06:47.308)
It feels like rusty car pieces everywhere. And so like each part of the island like you move through is like a different sort of trash. And so it has a different like color palette and a different like feel and yeah I thought that was really cool. It is yeah. Just all the different visual information.

Eli Price (01:07:15.39)
I don't know if it's necessarily actual trash, but they're using real that stuff for real. Oh yeah, I saw, I think it was on one of the featurettes where the animators were just going out and just dumping, making little messes with real garbage so they could see how it would scatter and how different things would interact and move on the wind and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was, yeah.

I don't remember if I saw that or not, but that's really cool. It just goes to show the amount of work that goes into it. I mean, even if you watch this movie and you don't really go for the story, you can't help but just be amazed by what they're able to capture with this stop motion animation. It's really incredible. One thing that like...

stuck out to me too with just like the shot compositions I guess with this one that I didn't really see. I don't remember seeing a lot of maybe one shot in Fantastic Mr. Fox's the use of like silhouettes against like a brighter background. There's some really like beautiful shots of like.

You know, a character silhouetted against a background. In this one. There are. Yeah. And then even like some that are more nefarious, like we mentioned the sumo match, when it pans down to the mayor, it's just his silhouette and his advisor like whispering into him. And it's just their silhouettes. And you know, there's something evil going on. So it's not beautiful in that way, but it looks beautiful nonetheless.

or like in the initial press conference whenever he's talking about banishing Spot, the original guard dog, and it pans over to the little compartment where they're going to put him on the trolley to get shipped over. And it's just like the operator in shadow and silhouette with the room lit up behind him. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of that. It was something

Eli Price (01:09:37.676)
notes as I was watching because I kept seeing those like silhouette shots and I was like man they're these are all like they look so good but yeah one of the I guess like

As far as just like Wes signatures, like he goes back to that kind of anamorphic widescreen, the 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio, that really widescreen in this one, which I thought was like, you don't get that in Mr. Fox.

and you know obviously Grand Budapest, Moonrise was not in that wide screen format. You get the 60's section of Grand Budapest is in that but that's not a big part of the movie. And so I was happy to see him going back to that format that he had used all the way up until Mr. Fox. Just because like it feels more Wes Anderson to me I guess.

for like those landscape shots you get. Oh yeah, you really get to appreciate the full like beauty of these sets. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I really I thought that was like a good choice and you really get a lot of those dolly tracking shots where you know you're following characters on a dolly just like you know you're still kind of like

you still have that perpendicular shot composition that he uses. That is, you call it planometric composition. It's where like, you know, you're face on to the characters. So like, he obviously uses that a lot when he's doing like, dialogue. Or like, they're perpendicular to the background, I guess, behind them. The way the camera faces the characters. But he also uses that.

Eli Price (01:11:37.266)
I guess they're more like parallel when you're doing the shots where you're following them walking. You're kind of like parallel between them and the background. So I don't know if that would count as saying like it's planametric composition, but you get the same feel out of that. And that's definitely like a Wes signature. Yeah.

One of the only other things that I really wanted to point out was that Wes really doesn't use needle, he uses one needle drop kind of like moment in this one. It's the I Won't Hurt You song kind of after Chief is starting to come around to

being domesticated by Atari. Right. Yeah, you have that I Won't Hurt You song, which I think works really well in that scene. But yeah, he doesn't really use... It's kind of like he's moved away from that. I guess you got some of it in Moonrise.

But yeah, he doesn't use a lot of Grand Budapest. He didn't really do it at all. And there was only one here. So.

I haven't rewatched French Dispatch yet, but I don't remember him really using it there either. But I could just not be remembering. That's fair. Yeah. So yeah, I wonder if Asteroid City will bring back that signature West Neal drop moment of the song matching up perfectly with the scene sort of thing. Maybe so. Yeah. I would like to see that come back. Yeah, I would too. You know, at the same time, I get it.

Eli Price (01:13:34.568)
If it doesn't work for the story that you're trying to tell if you can't find that moment then by all means Yeah, and that's a good point like just knowing how Wes makes films He's not gonna force something that doesn't work like if it if it worked it he would have it there Yeah, because obviously like he enjoys that but yeah Yeah, I don't know what just getting more into like the story of this movie what's

What's something that really stood out to you, like, story-wise or thematically as you were watching this? Hmm. Um... I'm not sure.

Eli Price (01:14:27.23)
Sorry for all the dead hair.

Eli Price (01:14:31.698)
I guess...

Eli Price (01:14:41.966)
I mean I can jump in. No, sure. Yeah, you start us off. Yeah, so I guess like one of the things that, I guess one of the like biggest like things happening in the story is like Chief's transformation. Obviously like this story in a way like on the island, on the Isle of Dogs sort of centers around Chief.

and his both his relationship to the other dogs and then his relationship with Atari and you kind of get You kind of he's similar but different I guess to some other like Wes main characters in the sense that like he

you know, in this film, he's a dog, and so like he doesn't want to be domesticated. Right. Um, but also, you get the sense as you keep watching that, it's less because, um, it's less because of this like, rebel nature in him.

or this wild nature, that's definitely a part of it, but it's more of him being self-aware of who he is and the problems he has. So you think of Max Fisher or Royal Tenenbaum or Steve Zissou, all these characters have these similar dynamics where they are...

for sure rough around the edges. Like they have these issues, but they're self-aware of them. Like they're not...

Eli Price (01:16:31.818)
I guess what I'm trying to say, the comparison I'm trying to make is he's like those characters as a Wes sort of character in the sense that his problem is something that he's aware of but doesn't know how to fix. All those characters I named, they know what their problem is.

But they don't exactly know what to do about it.

Yeah, I can definitely see that with him. Yeah, so like with Chief, you know, the thing that he keeps saying is, I bite. And at first, like you think like, oh, that's like a threat. But it's not really a threat. You kind of learn as you go along that that's not so much a threat as like a warning. Right. It's almost he's, he's almost afraid of himself in certain ways. He like...

uh, later on, whenever he, uh, whenever they find spot and they find out that they're from the same litter and you know, his first question is, you know, like, what was I the runt? Yeah. Um, you know, it's, uh, his, his insecurity, he's, he, he doesn't, uh, he doesn't know how to react to himself. Yeah. And I think part of that comes from

It's kind of that stray nature. Like he doesn't know, he doesn't know how to, you know, just thinking about like broken relationships. So like.

Eli Price (01:18:17.298)
Oftentimes when you think of broken relationships, you think of like broken relationships with your family or with your friend group or whatever. And so that's there with him as a stray. Like he's spent a lot of time alone. He spent a lot of time like not having like good and healthy relationships with dogs or you know people. And so like those are definitely there. But like part of the result of that.

Maybe not like a result. It might be like a simultaneous thing like There's that broken relationship with the people going on, but there's also like a growing broken relationship with himself That is like that has grown to the point where like he doesn't Yeah, he doesn't even know like why he's rebellious. He doesn't know why he doesn't want to not obey anymore

There's not really a reason behind it. He's just kind of like this is what I do and you get the sense that like He's not sure why he does it but he also like He's not sure if he wants to Change or not. I don't know like it's hard to get a feel for him

for like how he feels until later in the movie. And I'm not sure if like that was there the whole time, like that sense of like I am this way but I want to change or if like the want to change came later on. You know, through his relationship with Atari. You know you have this scene where I think the pivotal scene for Chief is like the slide

You know, you have Atari, they passed the Pagoda slide, which is named after Kumar's character in Royal Tenenbaums. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. And put that together. Which he had passed away.

Eli Price (01:20:36.126)
I think before Grand Budapest came out. So I think that was kind of like a little tribute to him. But yeah, you know, Atari really wants to go on this slide. And uh...

you know, Chief is telling him like, you know, I wouldn't do that. Like, it's not a good idea. And then Chief tries to like walk away, like he doesn't care, and you know, obviously Atari slides anyways and kind of like crashes. Then he's sitting there like, he doesn't know where Chief went. And so he's sitting there whistling and then finally like, Chief kind of like grumbles and turns around and goes back. And like...

returns the whistle and it's like this pivotal moment and you almost get the sense that like he thought his nature was that stray mentality but you almost get the sense that like that's his real like nature is to be kind and caring and like compassionate.

But his circumstances made him have that stray personality, mentality that pushed him away from his true nature. Which when you think about a dog, a dog's nature is to be loyal and to be caring and to be really like… Yeah, a dog's just like…

they love you unconditionally. That's just kind of like how dogs work. And so it's almost like Chief's stray rebel mentality is actually not his true nature. Atari somehow, his interactions with him, starts bringing him back to what his true nature is.

Eli Price (01:22:42.974)
If it's just like he's just supposed to be a dog, then it's not really, it's sweet, but it's not as interesting as when you think about how these dogs are very much like stand-ins for humans. Yeah. And it makes you like think about like how all of our problems are actually like not how we're supposed to be. You know, our, we talk about like our nature is...

Oftentimes we talk about our nature as like we have tendencies toward all these bad things. And that's true, I think, to a certain extent. But it's...

We also know it's not how we're supposed to be. We're actually supposed to be kind and compassionate and empathetic. The coldness and the distance and the ferocity, it's almost like learned behavior. It's something that gets instilled in you interacting with the world and not...

Eli Price (01:23:51.33)
just not knowing who to trust and having trust betrayed and things like that. Yeah, yeah. And two, seeing yourself, you have that interpersonal but also the relationship with yourself, seeing yourself fail and seeing yourself not live up to something.

Eli Price (01:24:13.555)
like you start to not trust yourself too. I think that's where Chief is. And it takes this kid who's showing him the sort of love that normally a dog would also return.

like caring for him, like trying to pet him, like, and not giving up to like, keeping on trying to care for this dog that doesn't want him to care for him. Like, it brings him back to his nature. And I think that's like, when you, when you like remove the dogness and like insert like, this is a stand-in for humanity, you know, it makes it like a very like...

humanistic, I guess, theme going on there. No, actually, if we will show kindness, then others will be kind too. You get those returns.

Eli Price (01:25:24.766)
It's like an investment, you invest kindness, you get more kindness in return sort of thing. Right. And so, yeah, that's something that I really appreciated with Chief's character. His kind of character arc is like, knowing that it is a stand-in for humanity, you do get that very sweet kind of outlook.

You know, a very hopeful outlook, which is a nice change of pace after like Grand Budapest. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know, was there, were there other things that kind of like, I don't know, talking through that made you think about? I guess just like feeding off of that, kind of the thing that pushes him to change, I guess would be like almost like...

I guess pity and like care for Atari like in that scene like after he's come off the slide and he like he tries to get him to like fetch right like he like he finally goes okay well I'm not gonna do I'm doing this because I feel sorry for you right um and it's like you know this kid who like yes is you know like a human yes is like a master but this kid who's like helpless and doesn't know where to go doesn't know what to do has had brain you know brain damage.

Done to him that is kind of like in chiefs care and it's kind of this position where You know the human interactions he had before, you know people trying to domesticate him You know, like he would have been the one receiving the help and the care But you know this time it's they're depending on each other for you know, healing like he's Atari as much as Atari is teaching him to You know to trust humans again and

Yeah, yeah to let you know, let him in and you know, let himself, you know learn that domestication. He's also like helping Atari with you know, the The the hurt that he's feeling, you know having lost his dog and you know The betrayal of his uncle and literal guidance. Yeah, I'm literally trying to go it's that mutual care Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point and it kind of shows like why

Eli Price (01:27:45.65)
relationships are important because like we are like if you isolate yourself like you get stuck in a loop of you know you can so easily get stuck in the loop of like self deprecation and like but like we are like humans are made like to be interacting with each other in relationship with each other and it helps it's not just like

It's not just like because that's the necessity of like how things are, which you know, obviously it is, but it's also because like that's how we grow and that's how we like learn and that's how we, that's how we're made to be. You know, you can see it if you isolate yourself, like you're worse off than if you're like

interacting with people and like exchanging love and care with other people. And so yeah, that's definitely like another like I think good aside of like chief

Chief is forced to go back to his true nature because he's in a situation that's making him. It's almost like he says, I don't want to fetch, but I'm going to do it because I feel sorry for you. But it's almost like that act of, sometimes it works from the outside in, changing and being more caring. Oftentimes we're like, oh, you just have to make yourself care.

then you do the caring act. Well like yeah sometimes but sometimes like doing the caring act like makes you care like it works from the outside in sometimes like I think about like sometimes like I really don't want to like you know clean up after like my kid again or like

Eli Price (01:29:46.058)
you know, that sort of thing. And like, I don't want to, and I have like a bad attitude, but I have to do it, and so I do it. And like, in the act of doing it, like, you know, you grow the empathy for like, this kid that like doesn't.

maybe doesn't know any better or didn't mean to. In the act of caring, you actually start to care. And I think that's part of what's happening with Chief, why he's changing. It's because he is put in this situation where he's kind of being forced to care, even if he doesn't want to, which leads to him wanting to.

Eli Price (01:30:34.304)
Thanks for watching!

like hands over Atari's like hands over Atari to him to care for is like a really emotional scene like there's a bunch of scenes, not a bunch, but there's several scenes where like you have dogs with like teary eyes and I like that caught me every time. I don't know what is it. But like you would think just like the emotional dog face would be enough but you had the teary eyes in there and I'm like, oh man, so emotional.

Eli Price (01:31:06.477)
There's almost a wedding-like feel to that scene, like an exchange of vows. It's a powerful scene, definitely. I agree for sure. One thing I feel like we do have to talk about, and this is as good a time as any, is this film...

like just like an appreciation of Japan or isn't an appropriation of Japan. I know when this came out that was like a lot of the talk around it was that. And so you know I think it's something you kind of do a deep dive on this you do have to like address. But yeah there's one of the more popular reviews that came out I think in the LA Times.

that was kind of negative on that aspect of this film. Some of the things that talked about was like the lack of subtitles for the Japanese characters which you know is a part of this film. It was a decision that Wes made to not subtitle the Japanese characters when they talk. This guy, his

The way he felt about it was that it reduces what they're saying down to simple statements that aren't as meaningful because you have to make it to where you can understand from facial expressions and context what they're saying. I guess the way he felt about it was it kind of dehumanizes them in a way.

And then like I think one of the lines he said was that like you You almost end up reducing the people of Megasaki which you know We haven't named talked about the name of the city Megasaki. What a great name for the city. Yes He said it reduces the people of Megasaki to like foreigners in their own Like in their own city

Eli Price (01:33:24.118)
Which, you know, I understand where he's coming from for sure. And like, it is like, he did feel like that was underscored by having Tracy, who is like the American from Cincinnati for an exchange student, kind of like be the leader, in a sense, in this like student revolt against like the mayor and his like, you know, fascist regime.

Which, you know, I totally get, I totally understand that perspective. I don't know that I agree with that, but also I am a white American, so my perspective only goes so far in that. I can't tell someone who is Japanese how they should feel about it. And so like...

Yeah, did you have any thoughts on that kind of discussion around this movie? One thing that I did think of, so I watched the movie, I think probably Friday night.

And then I watched it again today and I had already looked over your outline a little bit. So I had seen that this section was coming up. And one thing that stood up to me was with Tracy specifically was like, yes, she's like...

She's the one that you're thinking of as the hero the whole time, but then at the end of the film, she's not the one that saves the day. For everything they try to do, they actually end up failing, and it's the hacker kid that actually saves the day. And would have regardless, because he was able to infiltrate them and sabotage them. Even if the plan had gone off without a hitch, his plan still would have worked. He still would have saved all the dogs.

Eli Price (01:35:30.128)
I think the other thing with her character too is like, so like part of the reason her character existed is because of the nature of like not subtitling the Japanese characters. You know, you've got to have someone that like is making sense of it in that certain section. But also like even in the revolts like...

You know, it's not, you know, the students are, they do like, they push back on her.

at the beginning I feel like the other students, the journalism students, they're like, well, you need to prove your, it's just a conspiracy theory, you need some proof. And so she feels strongly about it, she goes and gets some proof, and then they're like, okay, yeah, we're in on the revolt. And then when you have her be the one on the megaphone, I guess from a filmmaking perspective,

Well, it's easier to do that than to have one more thing translated. But I get how that can come across from just a viewer perspective as, well, why is she the little white girl, the one coming in with the megaphone leading the revolt, screaming at these Japanese people in English?

Eli Price (01:37:06.214)
it kind of creates a better foil between her and the mayor too though, I guess in a way. But yeah, I can understand the perspective for sure of how it can feel weird. Yeah. And I guess that's really all I can say. To me, obviously, like, if...

There was so much about this movie that felt like appreciation. That part of it wasn't enough to make me say like, oh, this is appropriation. You know, to like put that label on the whole film, the film as a whole. Right. And like, too, like knowing like how much, um, uh, Kunichi Nomura had input on this and like was...

like making sure the minutest of details was like accurate to Japanese culture. I'm just like, well, like, I don't, I really think like this is a film that really appreciates like Japanese culture and Japanese. Like I mean, I think the sushi scene that we talked about earlier is like a really good example of how like, you just see the.

appreciation for that art form coming through it doesn't feel like a joke you know doesn't feel like it's making a joke of sushi which you can eat like it would be very easy for an American director to like just make stereotypical jokes about everything like ooh like you know raw fish you know whatever you know but you see an appreciation for it I think

And I think you do with a lot of the stuff going on. I agree, yeah. Care definitely comes through. At the end of the day, you know, at the end of the day, Wes is an American, trying to make a movie set in a foreign country. There's only...

Eli Price (01:39:12.93)
There's only so much you can do, but the care comes through. Right. I feel like, yeah. Right, and I think something that, so I listened to another film podcast called Film Spotting, and I went back and listened to their review on this when it came out, and...

One of the co-hosts there, I'm pretty sure it was Josh Larson, is one of the hosts of that show. He was saying that he felt like the Japanese setting was like crucial to the political aspect of this film. And so like, he basically like is, you know, basically he's saying like…

What it almost feels like what Wes and like the way they wrote this is they're flipping like America and Japan.

And really like when you're watching like things happening with the Japanese, you're really watching like America. And so he said like you can't watch this. I guess you can but like for him like it was like in the back of his mind of like the Japanese internment camps in World War II here in America. Oh, I could see that. Yeah. So like you have like the dogs are.

They're humanized in such a way where they feel human. And so like you have them exiled onto this island for all these like very like not real reasons. Right. Just like excuses. Right, just being rounded up and. Yeah. Being, you know.

Eli Price (01:40:57.838)
The fear of the other right? Yeah. Yeah, and so you have that and I mean and it's because it's in a Japanese Setting, you know that As an American is something that like should come to mind It didn't necessarily for me, but when I heard him say that I was like, wow, yeah, like that makes sense And and really like it's funny because you almost like

you watch this and you almost feel like emotionally associated with like the heroes of the story. But really like as an American, like watching it, you feel like emotionally associated with the heroes. But really at the end of the day, like America as a whole, like as a nation, like really identifies more with like the mayor and the corrupt government. Sure. As far as like...

the internment camps going and whatnot. And even like one thing that kind of, one parallel that kind of stood out for me was with, like, you know, the dog flu in particular with like, like the AIDS crisis back in the 80s. And like the way that it was almost like, it almost got weaponized into like this, you know,

this thing of like, oh, well, we're not going to invest in the research. We're not going to invest in like educating people on this, you know, to promote that, you know, that fear of like, you know, oh, well, we have these groups that, you know, we want to associate as like, you know, you know, being scary and that we want to otherize and, you know, saying like, uh, so we're, we're going to suppress this information and we're going to, you know, suppress treatment and, you know, deny that, you know, treatment works and stuff like that.

Right, and even moving forward in history from this movie to COVID, I mean you don't have suppressing of medical advancements and trying to find a cure for COVID, but you do have we need to deport people, we need to close off other countries, we need to...

Eli Price (01:43:22.556)
of like how politics works in history and Wes even kind of talked about that. You know, you get like...

So he was talking about how like when they were thinking about like the revolts and the civil unrest, they were actually thinking more of like in France, there's like the May 1968, like civil unrest, that's like a big thing in history for France. I didn't know much about that going into it. I looked up, I read like a little bit of the Wikipedia article earlier today because I had seen that in an interview too.

Eli Price (01:44:07.632)
Yeah, I didn't either but that was apparently like part of the influence there and so like they were making this and they just like that they actually like they started making the film in 2015 like the fall of 2015 and then October 2016 they started filming it. So this is like they're starting to write and like come up with what this movie is gonna be like before like

election stuff really starts picking up steam. And then like, by the time they're starting to like, actually like film and animate it, like you have the presidential election coming up. And like, just imagine like making this film with these political themes in it of just like, xenophobia, like, fascism, like, you know, that, that's like,

Demagogic strain of like American politics like you're making this film You had already written it like you're starting to animate it and like just the headlines that are coming out Like an interview Wes was like, you know, we just had no idea that the headlines would match What you know, we're speaking out against in this Movie politically like as we're making it, right?

Like the movie comes out in 2018, you know, two years into a presidency that like has a lot of, you know, these

that brings out a lot of these strains in American politics. Did you watch the Lincoln Center interviews? I think so, yeah. At the end, they're kinda talking about the political situation at the time and the coincidence of it kind of lining up. He's like, yeah, actually, during the screening, the headlines came out that our, I think it was our

Eli Price (01:46:16.42)
Affairs administrator like got let go because of corruption. Yeah. Like while they were actually like screaming. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's just it's like it's just one of those things where it's like we had no idea this would happen but also like it's not surprising because this sort of thing there's a cycle of this in like human politics. Yeah. Unfortunately I just found it very like interesting.

Um...

Eli Price (01:46:50.731)
I did want to mention, we'll jump back to something that I think needed to be said about the appropriation thing and then jump back into the politics. The whole language and subtitle thing.

To me, to not subtitle when I'm watching a film as, you know, this is just from my perspective, if I'm watching a film and it's not subtitled, I get the sense of an appreciation of the language and the humanity of like…

watching someone else from a different culture speaking a different language interact and not understanding the words that are being said, but still understanding the common humanity. Just because I can't understand what you're saying, it doesn't make you less human and it doesn't make what you're saying less valuable. Right. And it's... Really, the only time that happens in the movie where you have no idea what they're

human and dog interactions. So like, you know, there's even like a little joke at one point, like I wish someone like spoke his language. Yeah, sort of thing. The dogs saying that. But yeah, it seems like every time there's like human interaction going on.

There's a translator or there's like, you have this scene where like the little machine is actually like speaking in English what's going on. You know, you have like the science lab where like it's.

Eli Price (01:48:37.842)
instead of like them saying like, oh, we've, you know, we've cured it. Like we've made the, the antidote or whatever for the flu. They have the little machine printing out so that you can read, um, in English that it's like good to go that like they've cured it. Right. Um, which that scene I love, like the mechanics of like all the, the lab, the science lab stuff going on was really fun. And the little punchline at the end where like, it looks like they're going to do another treatment.

But it's actually just like them pouring shots into test tubes to celebrate. Yeah. So like, you have all these like creative ways to like get across to the English speaking audience like what's happening with the human interactions. But then like, really like the human to dog interactions, like where the human's talking to the dog. Like it makes sense that...

you're not going to understand one of them. Yeah, it's like a perspective reversal. Right. And so, I don't know, to me that doesn't come across as like appropriating. It comes across as one like...

being creative in the way you translate. Instead of subtitling, I'm gonna let you hear in Japanese what's being said and then have a translator translate for you, which is how it would happen in real life, really. If you were there.

Or, you know, I'm going to let you hear this person talking Japanese. You're from the perspective of the dogs now. You don't know what they're saying. There's no translator around. So I don't know. I just didn't, I get the sense more of like an appreciation for the language than I did like an appropriation of the culture and language as far as that goes. But yeah, you know, jumping back into the politics of everything.

Eli Price (01:50:35.23)
I think one thing that stood out to me, you have the mayor. It's funny because thinking about where we were politically when this movie came out.

you have a mayor saying things blatantly in his speeches that you would think no politician would ever say things so blatantly in their speeches. And yet, we've now had at this point a couple of years of a president that is blatantly saying terrible things in his speeches unapologetically. And I don't know. It's almost like...

when they were writing this movie, like little did they know it was like prophetic in a way of what was coming. But then like, which is something that's like very like American in the way like that the politics are for this like mayor and everything. But then like something happens that feels very un-American as far as like politics go, which is…

When Atari comes and he gives his speech and his haiku there like at the final rally or whatever, you know, the mayor is so touched by what he says.

Which Atari even thanks him for bringing him in when he was astray, which is a sign of compassion and love for who should be your enemy in that situation. And that extension of compassion and love and grace for someone who is your enemy actually touched the mayor. And he repented there on stage. He says,

Eli Price (01:52:34.764)
and he reverses like everything he did. And it's like I was like I was I was fairly moved like I guess like I was moved more thinking back on it than I was in the moment. But like it is very like hopeful and moving. It's kind of like Wes and

you know, the other guys that wrote with him kind of like giving you this hope that we are like, just like Chief, like Chief has his moment of transformation, like the Mayor has his moment of transformation where like, he's touched too by Atari just like Chief was and he has this moment where like...

maybe he's returning to who he really is in this moment. Like he's realizing I've had no honor because of my ambition to succeed. And I need to become, I need to go back to who I really am, which is a person that is caring and loving and human. And I don't know, I just felt like that was very prescient, I guess.

for the American viewer to see like the politician actually like change. It's just, it felt very hopeful, I guess. That does. I don't know that I have that much hope for our politics, but... Same.

It's a message I wish I could resound with if it doesn't actually resonate with me. I wish it would. Yeah. Yeah, and I guess like, obviously, like, it's hard to believe that would actually happen in American politics, but it also like speaks to the longing that we have for that sort of like, for that sort of like owning of, you know, someone owning what they've done.

Eli Price (01:54:41.354)
that's such a big leader, you know, and a politician. It speaks toward like that longing that we have that our leaders would be trustworthy and that sort of thing. So I appreciated it in that sense. But I think like

What's even more prescient watching as an American viewer is like the question that Atari asks in his speech, which is he asks, who are we? I want to say it right. I have it written down over here. Yeah, he asks, who are we and what do we want to be? And so he says that as Tracy's translating into her little recorder.

I guess for herself for her journal, her journalism. She's translating his speech like as he's saying it and he says in Japanese, who are we and who do we want to be? But then he pauses and the camera shifts to him and he in English says, who are we? Which is just like, I don't know, thinking back on that. It's very...

It's very apparent and very like powerful like a question for the American audience. Like you're watching this film that's reflecting back to you, um, allowing, and this is part of what Wes Anderson does with his movies. Part of why he makes such like fantastical like dollhouse-esque movies is because this idea of like pulling.

pulling you out of it where you can look at it, you know, from afar. So that it's almost like.

Eli Price (01:56:25.93)
counterintuitive. Like you look at it removed from yourself so that you can see it better. Instead of like forcing you into the story, you're able to like hold it out here and like really look at it so that you can see what he's trying to get across like even better than you could if it was like more realistic. And so like watching it in this Japanese setting as an American, and then all of a sudden like he's speaking in English to you.

you know, it's that close-up of his face and he's looking right at you, like through the screen, and asking, who are we? And I think as an American viewer watching that, I think that's a very prescient question that we have to ask, like, who are we? Like, are we going to be...are we a nation that's divided? Are we a nation that's going to tolerate you know, dogmatism and...

fascism and that sort of stuff. Like who are we? And it doesn't necessarily give an answer. You know, Wes isn't trying to answer that question. No. But he is asking the question. Yeah, it's just the giving of the challenge. Right. Which I think is important and I think is a big part of what this movie is. But yeah, going off that, just like the final thought

off of that question of who are we is, you know, I think about watching this movie and we talked about how like there's such like moving, a couple like really moving scenes with the dogs and like you grow this huge empathy for these dog characters. And like even like just thinking about like the empathy we have for our pets. You know, why?

I don't know, it begs the question to me anyways, of why are we such able to, in this story, extend such empathy to these dog characters, as humanized as they are, and also to our pets, but yet it's so hard for us to extend empathy and grace toward actual real fellow human beings.

Eli Price (01:58:50.606)
I don't know, that's just something that like really this I was thinking about after watching this. Because I was moved by the dogs. Sure. And like I have like had pets that like I was very moved by and like you know when they were hurt or I was like you know able to show pity to when you know they did something they weren't supposed to do.

Eli Price (01:59:21.162)
it's so hard for us to do that with other human beings. I don't know, do you have any thoughts at all on why that is? I guess there's something about the, maybe the helplessness of the animals in our lives. Not helplessness, but that sense of...

uh you know responsibility i guess that we have towards them and they're i guess like not you said not helplessness but maybe like dependence yeah um that sense like they depend on us right like it you know if i don't feed my cat he's gonna starve you know whereas um and you know there is something to say you know for that with you know other people of like

Yeah, if we don't look after each other, if we don't care for each other, like...

Like you were saying earlier, we're made to be in relationship and in community. If we don't look after each other, we're so much worse off. But it's the, I don't know, I guess there's something we expect people to have things together I guess more than we do with animals. With an animal we're like, oh well. It's an animal. Yeah, it's an animal. It's helpless. I've got to look after it. I've got to take care of it.

Eli Price (02:00:47.528)
well, you know, why don't you fix all your problems? Right. You know, why is it my problem? Right. Yeah. And, yeah, I think for one thing that feels like a very Western mindset, but also like our world today is so like melded together like all the cultures that like it feels like

Like it could just be a human problem that we have in general. Like we feel like why should I be responsible for something that you did? I should only be responsible for what I've done.

And we have that mindset and I think that's one of the reasons why it's so hard for us to extend empathy. We feel like, you know, the problems that have happened in your life are largely the result of, you know, choices that you've made, not choices that I've made. And so why should I be responsible for something that you should have been responsible for? But like at the same time, like we...

you know, we have our own, like, we would want that sort of help if we were in that situation and so it's like, I guess like the hypocrisy of our like, tendency toward that sort of thinking. And I think you're right, I think you nailed it, like, the reality is like we do need each other. Like...

we do, we should be willing to extend empathy towards someone else. Like, because at the end of the day, like, our pets depend on us, like for life and for like care. When we have a pet, like, we're expected to feed them, take care of them, make sure they live a good, cared for life.

Eli Price (02:02:51.458)
Well, the reality is like, our fellow human beings depend on us too.

and we depend on other human beings too. It's just the extent of how much we can deceive ourselves into thinking like everything we are and everything we have is all because we got it and we did it. And I think that's where the deceit comes in, in our own minds. Like we deceive ourselves into thinking like I've made myself who I am, I've gotten myself like where I am, whatever success

or whatever like accomplishments or whatever it may be like we do we deceive ourselves into thinking that's all just because of me. Yeah we don't think about you know all the all the other work that goes into goes into our lives. Right yeah we have we've been influenced by other people we've had opportunities because of other people we get paychecks because of other people like we you know if

If you have built yourself up from the bottom and have a business, you're paid because people are consuming your product. And so at the end of the day, there's no person on earth that's not dependent on other people. And so, I don't know, just thinking about this.

Why is it so easy for us to show empathy to pets? And I think it's just because it's easier for us to see the dependency there. And I guess like, it's harder for us to see how much we really depend on other people. Just I guess because we've.

Eli Price (02:04:44.534)
Deceived ourselves into thinking that like we have made ourselves who we are, right? And I think that's something like good to reflect on coming off of this film like Who are we as a nation? like, you know the question that tar is asking us as Americans, but also like Who like who are we gonna be as like?

individuals as communities, like starting with like yourself and moving out, expanding like to neighborhoods and communities and cities and you know states and countries and whatnot. You know you can ask that question at all of those levels. Right. And it's a question I think we have to, it's just a good question to ask ourselves like am I...

Am I being the kind of person that I'm really supposed to be? Like Chief realizes he's supposed to be and like the Mayor realizes he's supposed to be. He even gives his kidney to Atari in the end. I had seen someone had written an article I had read that it's almost like...

the inverse of seppuku which is you know the samurai you know falling on his own sword right to you know I guess like die in honor or

I don't know exactly what it's supposed to mean, but it's almost like a life-giving version of Sapuku, which I think is a cool way to think about what the mayor does. That is. Yeah. But yeah, just this idea of reflecting on who we are as a nation, but also just as humans. Being

Eli Price (02:06:50.326)
being a human and being willing to show empathy to other humans because we too are human. You know. Yeah, that was my final thought on this film. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, just to wrap things up, I like to do the meaningless ratings. Sure. Because ratings really are like meaningless at the end of the day.

But yeah, what would you rate Isle of Dogs? Let's see, let me pull up my Wes Anderson letter box list real quick. Okay, while you're pulling that up, I'll say this. When I first saw this movie, I gave it 4.5 stars, 9 out of 10. And it was pretty high up on my Wes rankings.

Eli Price (02:07:47.406)
I...

I think I appreciate it in different ways now than I did when I first saw it. And so originally I thought I might move it down to an 8, but then I was kind of going through the different aspects of the filmmaking and everything and I was like, no, I think it's staying a 9. But it did move down a little bit in my rankings. I still have it as like...

about 6 in my Wes Anderson rankings. Gotcha. But for me it is just reflecting on it afterwards. I think there's a lot more depth to it than I necessarily felt in the moment when watching it this time around. So yeah, it's a really good...

Wes Anderson movie. A lot going on here that we didn't even like touch on, you know. Definitely. But, but yeah. Yeah, so I have it. I have it as, I guess an eight. I've got it as, you know, four stars on Letterbox. It's actually fourth on my Wes Anderson list at the moment, behind Mr. Fox, Bob Rockett, and Graham Budapest. Great, yeah. There's still a couple that I haven't seen.

Moonrise Kingdom, I'd still need to see, which I'll be catching up for on the podcast episode that's already came out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And French Dispatch, I still need to see. But yeah, at the moment it's fourth in my list. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. And I think it was that high for me at one point, and just rewatching these, going through this series, I just like really...

Eli Price (02:09:34.358)
really love some of these other ones. Oh, I've loved everything so far. I'm just, I'm a big animation nerd, I guess. I love animation and just the work that goes into it and that kind of thing. So I guess it's a little bit higher on my list because of that, probably. That makes sense. I get that for sure. But yeah, so yeah, that's Isle of Dogs. I hope you enjoyed the discussion. We'll be talking about the French dispatch next week.

which

at the time of this recording is the last film Wes Anderson released, but by the time this recording comes out there will be Asteroid City. His 10th film, The French Dispatch, we will touch on next week, so I'm excited to have that discussion on that film. But for now we're going to take a break and come back with a little bit of movie news and a stop motion animation.

Draft just spoil our alert I usually don't let you know ahead of time, but that's what we're gonna do when we come back So we'll see you in just a minute

Eli Price (02:10:53.262)
I'm glad I don't have a ton to say about movie news, cause... UGH! We talked a long time. Oh yeah, it's dinner.

Eli Price (02:11:07.19)
Did you see this picture? Oh, shit. When did she get a Madeline doll? I think my mom sent it to her a while back. My mom shops at Kohl's, and they have these Kohl's cares, like stuffed animals or dolls and books that come with them. And so it was like a book and...

and the Madeline doll. Nice. Yeah. Uh, now is that a smile or is she upset? No, she's happy. Gotcha. Yeah. She has like that scrunchy nose. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:11:48.714)
I'm gonna run to the restroom real quick. Yeah. Sorry that I just went blank whenever you asked me about things, I was like, I know I have things to say here. It's fine, I'll just like, cut that little section out.

Eli Price (02:12:06.306)
Thanks for watching!

Eli Price (02:12:11.734)
Uh-uh.

Eli Price (02:13:44.806)
How many do you want to draft? I don't have a ton on my list, so maybe...

Eli Price (02:14:05.642)
I was thinking five originally. Five works, because we'll probably steal some from each other. Yeah. I have some. I have a couple. I have enough to draft six or seven, technically, on my list. But I don't love some of the ones on the bottom of my list. So I think five is probably a better number.

Ahem.

Eli Price (02:14:54.702)
I probably could have even like gotten into it more like on the theming with like Like when he's like talking about like, you know, oh I bite and like I don't know why I bite Yeah, and like you saying like it

Like that never really changes in him of like, that's not something he like, he ever really examines or does work with. But then by the end, you know, he's a bodyguard dog and it's like, you know, yes, he, he bites and yes, he's still got like that, that non-domestication to it, like domestication to him. But like that's almost incorporated into like how he cares. Right. Like, and like, that's part of what makes him valuable.

Eli Price (02:15:40.05)
Yeah, that's cool.

Eli Price (02:15:47.854)
Good. Well, if you're ready, we can just jump back in. Sure. We'll pause for a second so that I can see it in the sound waves where to cut it.

Eli Price (02:16:10.122)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for sticking around. Hope you enjoyed the Isle of Dogs talk. But yeah, now we're back. We're gonna touch on some movie news. Yeah, the weekend that this podcast is releasing is also gonna be the weekend that...

The new Mission Impossible comes out. So Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1, the first of the last two Mission Impossible movies allegedly. Allegedly. At least with Tom Cruise. So yeah, for movie news I was just thinking about like Tom Cruise is in his 60s now, still making these like wild action movies. And I was just...

trying to think of how many actors in their 60s or older are still making these sorts of action movies and how long can they go about doing that sort of movie. I was thinking, when was the last time Denzel Washington was actually doing action in an action movie?

And I feel like it's been a while for him. But maybe not. Maybe it's just like the stuff he's done. Yeah, he's definitely shifted. Not that he didn't do more dramatic work. But he's really kind of honed in on that lately, it feels like. Yeah, and he's always had that. It's almost like you think of like,

I guess like an athlete, you know, I watch a lot of football, so like, I think about like an athlete as he gets older, has to start relying more on like.

Eli Price (02:18:11.926)
the technique and what not more so than like just the pure athleticism. Just because like, well their body's wearing down so they have to rely more on like their football knowledge to like really compete well. Right. Than like just their pure, just athletic ability. And it's almost like, at what point as an actor like do you have to just start relying more on like.

your acting prowess and ability to do different roles than just your ability to do your own stunts or just be an action hero, have that kind of persona about you. Yeah, I don't know. Tom Cruise is for sure pushing the limits, I think. Oh, sure. Yeah, I mean, he tries to do as much of his own stuff as he can.

Whereas, you know, like, uh...

I guess there's a little bit of a difference with Tom Cruise doing that versus Harrison Ford is coming out with Indy Five later this summer. And he's even much more older than Tom Cruise is. But he's not going to be... I'm sure he does some of that stuff, but he's not trying to do everything himself.

He's not out there learning to fly helicopters and fighter jets. Yeah, and that is something like that, like is for sure to be said about Tom Cruise is like he really like just enjoys the endeavor of like making a movie and like doing cool things like in capturing like.

Eli Price (02:20:02.154)
Himself doing cool things on film. Yeah, I get yeah. Yeah, which is totally like respectable and like And and cool a lot of it is cool You know to see like a man actually hanging off the side of the airplane is like it's pretty cool. It is You know, uh, yeah, I don't know I just it just makes me think how

You know, in actors, like, different actors are going to have different kind of breaking points, but like, I mentioned Denzel, and really like the only things he's done recently where he's doing like, I guess what you would call like action is, you know, he's done the equalizer films, which I haven't seen, so I don't know how much he's like...

doing in those. Yeah, I haven't seen those either. But like, you know, some of his more recent stuff is, you know, Tragedy of Macbeth, Fences, the Roman J Israel Esquire. You know, you have Flight, which, you know, I guess he's doing a little bit more...

I don't think he's doing a whole lot of action stuff in flight. I don't think so. If that's the movie I'm thinking of, I don't think he is either. Yeah, but really like, I mean you have some like the Two Guns movie that came out with him and Mark Wahlberg. That was 2013. Yeah, he's just not doing a ton of action heavy stuff anymore.

I'm not sure exactly how old Denzel is. I guess I can type it in as I talk. But 68. So yeah, he's got a few years on Tom Cruise. I think Tom Cruise is like 60 or 61 at this point. That sounds right. But yeah, I don't know. I guess there comes a point to where like...

Eli Price (02:22:16.386)
So like for Tom Cruise, like Tom Cruise doesn't look like he's 60, you know? No. He looks like, he looks maybe like a weathered like late 40s kind of like, you know? But he doesn't look 60 and I think part of that, that's part of it too. You know, just as much as like your ability to like...

like move as an action hero is like, do you still look like an action hero? Sure. Yeah. And I, you know, for something like that, being Tom Cruise and, you know, having the money to devote to keeping yourself in, you know, peak condition, you know, going into, you know, that later stage of your life, that has to help a lot. Right. But also, you know, like devoting those resources towards that, you know, that's...

time and resources that you don't have to put towards other things. So I guess it's, you know, where are your priorities? What are your commitments? Yeah. I was thinking about like...

So for instance, like Keanu Reeves, like with John Wick, you know Keanu Reeves is in his fifties and he's, I don't know if you've seen John Wick 4. I haven't seen 4 yet. So in 4 he falls a lot. And I don't know if it's actually Keanu falling a lot. But he is doing a lot of the stunt work. Oh yeah, most of the fighting definitely in the John Wick movies.

That's the type of thing that I would almost expect them to switch out with a step double. Yeah. And like when I say he falls a lot, I really mean he falls a lot. I'm just like, how many times is this guy going to fall in this movie? I mean, he's falling off of bridges and out of windows stories. I mean, it's just like... Why are they like...

Eli Price (02:24:19.018)
What is their thing with him falling in this one? But the thing about John Wick to me is part of the character is how tired he is. It's kind of part of what's going on with that character and the feel that character has is he's tired. So there is a degree to which like...

I think you can be old and look old and still do some action movie work if that's the feel for the character you're going for. I want to say Clint Eastwood has probably done a few movies in his later life where he is.

it is sort of like action going on, but like he's old and he looks old and he's but he's supposed the character supposed to look old. And you feel that coming through in the character. Right. And so like there is still like I guess a place for that. Yeah just kind of something fun to think about like how long can an action hero actor like keep being an action hero actor you know?

uh... be i don't have any like profound thoughts on that just something fun to think about as long as the insurance companies will right among for gets but i'd be a mall for tom cruise you know if this gets to you know don't stop and they're off of airplanes respects the craft as long as you can't uh... but yeah uh... so

I guess we can go ahead and move into our movie draft. I'm kind of excited. Yeah, me too. We did, we've done Fantastic Mr. Fox stop motion, we've done Isle of Dogs stop motion now so let's do a stop motion animation draft. Yeah. We're going to draft five each.

Eli Price (02:26:32.342)
I really like, I have enough to draft more on my list, but also like the ones at the bottom I don't really love a whole lot, or like they're just okay to me, so I don't really want to draft them. So we're going to stick to five so that we can get a really good, you know, two lists of five, ten total for you guys to maybe check out some if you haven't. But um.

Yeah, you're a first time guest, so I concede the first pick to you, that being the case. So yeah, if you want to go ahead and jump right in with your first pick. Sure. So, my first pick, and I guess the way I ordered my list, I don't know that I'm necessarily trying to win. But I don't know. I kind of went...

part way for like, oh, these are like good movies that I wish more people would see. Right, right. And also like just a little bit of like, I think these could win me some points. Yeah. So for my first one, I'm gonna go with Kubo and the Two Strings. Okay. Which is one of my favorite movies of all time. I love this movie. It's absolutely gorgeous. And it also kind of like sticks on the theme of I Love Dogs of like this,

you know American animators, you know trying to pay tribute to Japan that's true guys. Mm-hmm Yeah, I've seen it once. I think I actually watched it with you. I think that sounds right. Yeah, watch it kind of as a family And I remember enjoying it I didn't I didn't like

I love it, but I did really enjoy it. Really well made and impressive animation for sure. Oh, it's a gorgeous movie to look at. Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's a good pick. I think, and I didn't mention it at the beginning, but I try to not draft the movie that we talked about. So obviously like...

Eli Price (02:28:39.066)
I love dogs would probably be high up on both of our lists, but yeah, we'll set it aside. I was going to say, I even did that, I left Fantastic Mr. Fox off my list, kind of for the same reason. I feel like it's a Wes Anderson episode, you just talked about Fantastic Mr. Fox a few weeks ago. I feel like people know Fantastic Mr. Fox is fantastic. It's fantastic. We don't need to draft it. Yeah.

off drafting this fantastic Mr. Fox, but I do feel the same way. Let's get some other stuff in here. So I'm going to just start off right off the bat just drafting probably the stop motion animation movie that I've seen the most and just love watching. I watch it every year and that's Nightmare Before Christmas. I love that movie. The music is great.

Eli Price (02:29:39.701)
the way that cellic just captures like...

I don't know, just like the horror of things and things that are kind of gross with his stop motion. I just love it. And so Jack Skellington is like just an A plus character, like top notch. So yeah, that's one that I've just loved for a long time. You know, whenever I watch it, I'll have like the song stuck in my head for weeks. Yeah, that's going to be my number one.

one choice, Nightmare Before Christmas. So yeah. It's a great choice. Yeah, where are you gonna go with your second pick? My second pick is going to be GDT's Pinocchio. Oh man, okay.

I'm really upset now because that's the one I really wanted to get. I figured it would be somewhere on your list so I went ahead and put it kind of high up so that I would have a better chance of getting it. But yeah, it's like...

I don't know, just watching it, it's really amazing. It's just an amazing movie to watch. Like all the different...

Eli Price (02:31:01.218)
all the different ways of doing the puppetry and just the attention and the backgrounds and I don't know. It's a fantastic movie. If you haven't seen it, it's only a few years old, so if you haven't seen it, I think it's on Netflix. Yeah, I think it actually came out last year, didn't it? That's right. Yeah, it was last year. And this isn't like the bad Disney movie with Tom Hanks Pinocchio that came out last year. No, no, no.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, which I think he had to name it that because there was that other one coming out the same year. Right. Disney's kind of been doing this thing where with their, you know, live action remakes of their movies, there have been a couple of them, Jungle Book being the other one, where there were kind of these, you know, art or filmmakers coming out with like their versions of these classic stories. And Disney going.

Oh crap, we want to make that money. Yeah. So they kind of rushed out their live action version, right. Uh, because they already had, you know, that in their repertoire from back in the day. Right. Yeah. So yeah, that's definitely something that. I don't know. We, we've talked about it before on the podcast, but, um, but yeah, I loved, um, Del Toro's Pinocchio. It's, it's very, very like.

emotionally, what's the word I'm looking for, like just like the depth of emotion in that one and like yeah it's just an incredible movie and then you know the animation like I think of that shot like going through the circus like the camera like you have like

really interesting camera movements happening alongside like the, you know, obviously like the puppets moving for the animation. But yeah, that incredible, really incredible scene. And movie. Yeah, so that really like throws me for a loop. Sorry. I was really hoping to get that one. But yeah, that's part of the game. So

Eli Price (02:33:19.43)
I'm gonna go ahead and draft.

Eli Price (02:33:26.477)
Oh man.

Eli Price (02:33:31.986)
I guess I will draft, I guess I'll stick with Henry Selig and go ahead and draft Coraline. Oh, good choice. Yeah, Coraline is, for one, like Neil Gaiman, he's a great author. He does, you know, he has a lot of novels. Coraline is actually a children's book that he wrote.

And he does some comic stuff too with the Sandman and stuff like that, which I think there's a Netflix series based off of those comics now too. Gotcha. I didn't realize. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, Coraline is, Coraline is, I read the book years ago. It's a great little book. And the way that Selick captures that...

like the creepiness of it, like I was saying with Nightmare Before Christmas, it's just like really great. The buttons, which is part of the book too, like the kind of inverse world, there's the parents have like, the people have button eyes, and the way like that, that's just perfect for stop motion. It's like if you were to write a book with hopes that stop motion was going to be made

stop-motion movie is going to be made of it. That's like a detail that you would definitely put in there. It works so well. But yeah, Coraline is a great one. So yeah, I guess I've got this Henry Selig draft going here. Fair enough. So I guess for my number three I'll go with Chicken Run. Okay.

Chicken Run. Yeah. It's a classic. It is. And it's so much fun. It is. And also has a little bit of a Wes Anderson through line with George Clooney, Mr. Fox himself playing the rooster. Yeah, yeah. I didn't think about that. It's been a while since I've seen Chicken Run. It was on my list because it's a great movie, but it has been a long while since I've seen it. So, you know, it's not like totally fresh on my mind. That's fair. It's been a couple years since I've seen it too.

Eli Price (02:35:49.27)
But yeah, just a charming, good time of a movie. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, my third choice, I'm gonna go with, yeah, another movie. So like, Pinocchio was one of my favorite movies last year, but this one I liked even more. And I don't know if a ton of people saw it, but I'm gonna go with Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.

I need to catch up on this. This is one that's on my list. I would have honestly taken it first overall. It's probably my favorite movie on my list of stop motion movies. That's good to know. It was such a breath of fresh air of a movie. It's very gentle and quiet and sweet.

I don't know how they took these viral YouTube videos that came out over a decade ago and made this very sweet, precious movie that somehow made me cry at a talking show. But yeah, they pulled it off. It's fantastic. Yeah, I highly, highly recommend.

watching Marcel Deschel with shoes on. And it's funny too, it's very funny. It has to be with a name like that. Yeah. But yeah, okay, your fourth pick. Where are you gonna go? Okay, my fourth pick, I will go with...

Eli Price (02:37:37.062)
Okay, I'm gonna go with a movie called The Tale of Renard. Okay. Or The Tale of the Fox. It's a French movie from 32. It's the second stop like...

Not the second stop-motion animation movie, because there was like a bunch of like shadow puppetry stop-motion movies before this. But it was this and a movie from the USSR that came out at the same time. This one's a French movie. It's based on these old French, you know, folk tales, fairy tales, kind of a-shot fable-like stories of this kind of, you know, trickster-like fox named Renard.

Eli Price (02:38:24.178)
And it's a really fun watch. It really is. You can find it for free on YouTube. It's like an hour long. And it's a really good time. And kind of behind the scenes. So.

this past week's episode of your podcast was Fantastic Mr. Fox. So this was actually kind of a double feature for me because I knew that the show was, this recording was coming up and we were gonna be doing this draft. So I was just kind of like going through, looking at stop motion animated movies to like see, you know, what else was out there. And I saw that this was like, you know, a really early on really like kind of important movie for the craft. And I was like, oh, well it's another Fox movie. I should watch and it's short. I should watch this.

it on at lunch at work the other day and it kind of ended up being a double feature of watching that and Mr. Fox back to back. And it was a really good time. There's a lot of Mr. Fox in at least their version of Renard, I feel like. Okay, yeah, that's really cool. It's funny that like you have two great Fox related stop motion movies. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'll have to check that out. I like going back and like...

Definitely like I like doing these drafts to like get stuff like that you can go back and watch for sure But yeah, I guess like for okay for my fourth pick I'm gonna go with one that it kind of also is Kind of a it's um, I can my mind is blank on the word I'm looking for

It's a movie with three actually different like short, shorter like stories within it. Like a, like vignettes? Yeah, well not so much vignettes but like they're like full, full like short complete stories. But yeah, it's a movie that came out, I want to say like either, it might have been last year too. Which

Eli Price (02:40:29.066)
man last year some great stuff from movies last year. It came out on Netflix, went just straight to Netflix called The House. Okay, I don't think I've heard of this. Yeah, so.

I'm going to pull it up so I get the details right on the film. But yeah, it's called The House. It has three stories told by three different directors. Actually, there's four directors listed. I'm not sure if a couple worked on one or something like that. But yeah, it's these three stories all centered around like...

Not the same house like they're all like different settings and all that but they all like have a house in some way as like an important part of the story and like so the first one is like this like poor family that like the dad sort of like

you get the sense that he kind of sells his soul in a way and they end up in this really nice house and the house starts like, I don't know, the parents start becoming part of the house sort of thing. It's like, and it's super creepy. The way it's shot is very eerie. I'm almost, I'm picturing like, in this, like.

second to like the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies where Davy Jones is like crew becomes part of the ship Yeah, yeah Yeah, it definitely has a different like visual look Okay, just because I guess of the nature of like the stop-motion animation that it uses. It's very like there's a lot of like Especially like the people are like felt

Eli Price (02:42:28.782)
filthy kind of looking, at least for that first story. But then you have a couple that are animals, like the last two stories have animals as the main characters. You have one where there's this house with roaches taking over and the third story is

The first two feel more like cautionary tales and the third one feels like a little bit more hopeful. But yeah, I loved this one. It was a really fun time and you also get a little bit of eerie, creepy feel in there, which is becoming a trend I guess in my, other than Marcel the Shell, is like a trend with my picks is like the eerie creepiness that I guess stop motion is just like really great for. It can be, definitely.

But yeah, that's my fourth pick. This is your last pick. Yeah, you're gonna go so for my last pick I'm actually I'm gonna cheat just a little bit. Okay, so this movie is It's probably it's probably only one third of it is probably in stop-motion animation But it's a it's actually another French movie. It's a version of The Little Prince that came out in 2016 Okay and

So it's got like a framing narrative. I say framing narrative. It's honestly, it's the story of like most of the movie. Is this framing narrative of like this little girl and her neighbor who's an old man who was the pilot in the Little Prince story. And then a third of the probably about a third of the movie is him telling the story of the Little Prince. And all of that is done in stop motion animation. It's some of the most gorgeous stuff.

motion animation I've ever seen. Just the way like the models work and like the way they light them and the way they do space and everything. It's so good and it was actually my introduction to that book and like I like the framing narrative is it's good it's charming the animations done well but I just I fell in love with the story of the book as being told in the stop motion and I went

Eli Price (02:44:50.756)
Yeah, and just fell in love with it and I guess I'm almost more recommending the Little Prince As a thing, you know just in general. Yeah, but also watch the movie because it's gorgeous. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I agree. I didn't love this one because of like the

the extra stuff they put in to frame the narrative. I don't know, it felt added on, I guess. It does, yeah. And so- It feels unnecessary. But yeah, the actual Little Prince story part is very good in that one. And the book, The Little Prince, which is a little, it's like a French kid's book, is very, very good. Actually like...

picked it up at Barnes and Noble years ago and read it and went sitting in the store. Were you just crying in front of strangers by the end? Yes. It's a very, very good book. It is. But yeah. So yeah, go watch the movie, but even more so read the book for sure. Okay, well since you did a little bit of a cheat with a movie that's only partly stopped

and stop motion animation. I'll do the same with my last pick and I'll go with the original King Kong.

Obviously, a lot of this movie is not stop motion animated. Sure. But the main character is, though. King Kong himself is animated, and he's stop motion animated. And it's an iconic use of that art form. And a lot of techniques that they developed for that, a lot of his internal skeletal structure, that's the same techniques they're using to this day for stop motion.

Eli Price (02:46:48.144)
And so it's pivotal just for the way it looks, but also, like you said, just for the art form and how they do it in general. And this movie came out in 1933. So it's one of those things where painting, there's only so many like.

ways you can change the art form, but like it's still beautiful. Like it's not like you have to innovate and do something like totally new with like painting techniques to make like a beautiful painting and it feel fresh and new and it feels like similar with this sort of art.

Eli Price (00:02.794)
Yeah, so your last pick, your fifth pick, where are you going to go with that? Okay, so for my number five, I think I'm going to cheat just a little bit, and I'm going to go with the 2016 version of The Little Prince. So actually another like French stop motion animated movie. Which so The Little Prince is like a

French children's novel from back in the 40s or 50s. And it's a fantastic book. Highly recommend, highly, highly recommend the book. And this movie is actually what introduced me to it. So it's cheating because it's probably only a third stop motion animation. Only the book itself is done in stop motion animation.

And then the rest of it is like a framing narrative with like one of the characters from the book, the pilot, like kind of grown up as an old man. And it's like him interacting with this young girl that has moved in next door to him. And as part of that, he tells her the story of, you know, him meeting the little prince. And the stop motion work for like him telling the story is just gorgeously done. Like the...

the models and like the way the light interacts with everything and the way they do space and stuff. It's so pretty. It's so nice to look at. And they really, they even like do a really good job just like communicating the story and communicating the emotion and the themes of the story and it really resonated with me and like made me go out and read the book like immediately afterwards. I don't know, I just really fell in love with that story and even though like the framing narrative part of the

the movie isn't as great. It's still good and it's still charming and well animated and stuff. But yeah, I just can't recommend that story enough of The Little Prince. I love this movie because it introduced me to it. Yeah, yeah. And I remember seeing that movie when it came out. The stop motion part where they're actually telling the Little Prince story is really great.

Eli Price (02:26.846)
And I feel like they do it pretty well. I wasn't a huge fan of the framing narrative that you were talking about that isn't part of the book at all. But not because like, not really because I didn't like it because it wasn't in the book. I don't really think about movie adaptations in that way. I just didn't think it was that great. But yeah, it's still fine.

and good enough and maybe there is something to doing the two different animation styles where the older part of the story is stop motion and the newer part, like a more updated CGI kind of animation if I'm not mistaken, or was it? It wasn't hand drawn, right? No, yeah, it was CG animation, you're right. Yeah, so, but yeah, that's a good pick. The book...

I actually read the book a few years ago, I think, or more, in a Barnes and Noble. I just sat down with it and read the whole thing in the Barnes and Noble. Were you just sobbing in front of a bunch of strangers trying to buy books? Probably so. Yeah, it's definitely a very touching story. So yeah, definitely recommend the book. But the movie I enjoyed too, I think it's a good pick. It's definitely worth seeing. Oh yeah.

Yeah, so for my last pick, I am going to go, since you cheated a little bit and picked one that's not fully stop motion animated, I'll do the same. And I'm going to go with King Kong. You know, obviously a ton of this movie is not animated at all. It's, you know, live action. But King Kong, the titular character, is very much stop motion animated.

And it's really impressive, like the character work they pull off with this puppet, you know, going up against the live-action actors. Right. And you know, it's 1933, this movie came out, and so it really set, I guess, a historical precedent for what you can do with animation in general, but also with stop motion animation for sure, too. For sure.

Eli Price (04:49.23)
So yeah, I think it's an important film in that way for stop motion animation and it's just a good movie. I watched it not that long ago. I probably watched it a couple years ago and it has its flaws just narratively and the way it handles certain things I think. But man, just like what they were able to pull off with that movie and that character of King Kong.

It's just super impressive. Yeah, and I mean a lot of those techniques that they used on Kong, like those are still like the same techniques that are being used in stop motion right to this day. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, you know, it makes me think of like, the art forms like might not necessarily change in their techniques, but can still like do, you know, breathe fresh air into the art form like, you know, painting like how many like...

new painting techniques at this point are people coming up with but there's still beautiful paintings being made and you know stop motion animation like there's not a whole lot of like new techniques. I mean every once in a while you get something but there's not a whole lot of new techniques coming out as far as like how to capture stop motion animation but you still get beautiful works of art with it. And this movie was definitely with that.

giant ape, a big part of the art form for sure. So yeah, I'm glad we both decided to cheat a little bit with our last pick. Yes. Because yeah, I didn't, there's some other ones that I like, but don't love. There's probably one more that I really love, more for nostalgia than anything else, which is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, the Rankin and Bass. Yeah.

See, I didn't grow up with this, so I don't really have the nostalgia for it. And so while I can appreciate the claymation of it, I don't know, the story itself doesn't really work that great for me. But I mean, I can understand growing up on something like that. Right. So my list wasn't super long. I have a lot that I wanna catch up with. I did see...

Eli Price (07:12.718)
I think it was last year, Selick put out Wendell and Wild, which I saw and wasn't a huge fan of, honestly. You know, I think the animation was still great.

but just the story-wise, not my favorite. Sure. That reminds me of like, Leica Studios who did Kubo and Coraline and Corpse Bride and stuff like that. Their most recent movie is called Missing Link. Yeah. And like, it's gorgeous to look at. Like it's like, it's probably their best looking movie. Okay. But the story's just kind of nothing. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. But there's, I mean, it's,

Wendell and Wilde is interesting. It's Yeah, it's an interesting story, but I just don't think it's like pulled off super well like good idea really interesting But yeah, no Jordan Peele is actually part of that one. Okay, thank you Thank you Helped with the writing it and stuff. Gotcha. Yeah, and he's I want to say key and peel like

actually voice a couple of the two main demon characters. That's fun. But yeah, there are some other ones that I wanted to point out that I have not seen that probably deserved to be on.

a list like this. One is Fantastic Planet, which is a French film. I've seen Fantastic Planet. I don't guess it clicked in my head that that's Stop Motion. Yeah, so I didn't think it was either, but it kept coming up on list when I was looking at it because I haven't seen it, but I've seen clips of it. It looks like it's hand-drawn animation, but they're actually moving hand-drawn pieces in stop motion.

Eli Price (09:11.272)
is like 2D, it's like 2D stop motion animation. That makes sense. Which is really cool. Another one, Anomalisa is one that I haven't seen. It's Charlie Kaufman, which I've...

I've seen enough Charlie Kaufman to know that I don't know if I want to see what he does with stop motion animation. Really bring out the surrealism of the art form. The surrealism and depression maybe. So I haven't seen Anomalisa. It's not one that I'm really itching to see either, but it is supposed to be a very good film. I haven't seen it either, but it is one that I would like to catch up on.

Mary and Max is one that

that I've seen and really want to see. It seems like a very endearing and charming movie. It actually, the stills that I've seen of it, it has a black and white. I don't know if it was shot in black and white or just lit that way and designed that way to look like it's in black and white. But yeah, it looks like a really charming story. The Wolf

Eli Price (10:35.576)
chilling and creepy. I've never heard of this. Yeah, it's a Chilean I think. Okay. It's set in Chile and I think they speak, I mean they're speaking Spanish. Obviously the original title is in Spanish but the Wolf House. I don't know the concept of it. I've looked at it before. I just can't think of it off the top of my head but it's very well highly rated and like the little short

pieces of the trailer and it looks very like eerie and the way it's like lit and I want to say like the guy that made it just like had all these like arbitrary rules that he put on himself like I think it's shot all in one take well like so obviously it's not one take because it's stop motion animation so it's a bunch of pictures but the way like the camera moves and like the whole

Eli Price (11:37.377)
And like he had kind of like these, I guess philosophical rules too, like we're not, you know, this isn't a set, it's like a work area sort of thing. Just kind of like these mindsets he wanted to have, which is really interesting. That is. I mean a lot of times that's, you know, when artists like put those arbitrary rules on themselves, like you really get something special.

So that's one I definitely want to see and then the last one I wanted to mention is called mad god Which came out I think I think it has like a 2021 release when you like look it up, but I think it actually like Released here in the US last year. Okay It is I'm looking up so I don't get the director's name wrong. It's got by a guy named Phil Tippett And it's kind of this apocalyptic story

I've heard really good things about it. Apparently it's one of those where it's just like a trip of a movie. And so you just have to be in the right mindset to know that you're getting into something kind of wild and fever dreamish before you watch so that you're not so caught off guard that you can't enjoy it sort of thing. So that's definitely one that I want to try to catch up with sometime.

from it that looked really cool. But yeah, stop motion animation is really cool. It is. I definitely want to watch more. Same. I had pulled up a list of stop motion features and I mean...

You know, it's not like live action movies or hand-drawn animation movies or CG animation movies. Like, there's so much work into it that, like, there really is just a limited number of these things. You could watch all of the, like, stop-motion animated, like, feature-length movies, probably pretty reasonably. Like, there's a... I think there's less than a hundred. There's more than that, I think. There's a... I think there's a good bit more than that, if I'm not mistaken.

Eli Price (13:50.422)
Like some of the letterbox lists that I looked through were pretty extensive. But you know, I would have to vet how many of those are like fully stop motion animation or not. But yeah, it's definitely something that I would like to dive into sometime. Yeah. Yeah, let's go ahead and end with some recommendations of the week.

I'm about to be winging it. Do you have something prepared? Uh... Hmm.

Eli Price (14:25.002)
Let me think. I guess the thing that I would recommend the most, like just off the cuff at the moment, like if you're into video games, this probably doesn't need a recommendation at this point, but the Tears of the Kingdom, the new Zelda game, is some of the craziest game design that I've ever played and it's, I don't know, it's really fun. I'm having a good time with it. If you like, I don't know, just like...

puzzle solving, you know, like if you like living in that brain space, like it's a fun game. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that that's still an integral part of like the Zelda world. From the get go, that was like a big piece of it. It was like kind of strategy puzzles to figure out, you know, when it was kind of a 2D, you know, you know.

Omni-directional moving, but still like 2D game that it originally was. But yeah, I grew up in the N64 era playing Ocarina of Time and Mask of Majora and those games but kind of stopped playing video games.

I played Wind Waker 2 on Gamecube, but after Gamecube I really didn't play video games much. So I haven't played the newest Zelda games, but I've seen stuff from them and it looks really cool. That would be the number one thing I would be going after if I was still playing video games a lot for sure. So I am envious a little bit of people that...

do still play a lot of video games than like are playing those new Zelda games because they do look really fun. But yeah, it's just not something that I really make time for anymore. No, yeah, that's fair. I do like, every once in a while though I will like hop on.

Eli Price (16:29.002)
like a little emulator and play some old Pokemon games, just because, I don't know, that's, it's fun, it's, you know, it's kind of mindless at this point, just this, like, especially like if I go back and play like...

red or blue, like the original two, just because like I've played them so many times that like I don't really have to think about what to do. So it's kind of like something mindless to like jump on and do. But yeah, I just don't play a whole lot of video games anymore. Yeah, it's really hard for me to do...

sometimes I don't think of what my recommendation is going to be before handing just wing it. And usually something comes up in the episode that I can recommend. So I guess this time I'll recommend the podcast that I mentioned, another film podcast that like has been a big part of my just journey into loving film more and that's a film spotting podcast. It's hosted by Adam Kempinar and Josh Larson.

great job with like making sure they cover like a wide variety of movies. They do they do like reviews of new films but they also go back and like do marathons of older films whether it's like a director or a style or like you know a country or an era that they just like they cover a lot of stuff and so it's helped me to like fix blind spots like

along with that podcast. So I'd recommend that. It's one of my just favorite overall podcasts that I listen to. So yeah, I recommend checking out FilmSpotting. Yeah, that's really all we have for this week. I hope you enjoyed our talk and our draft. I don't think we read back through our draft. So I'm gonna do that before we leave.

Eli Price (18:40.684)
Chase drafted Kubo and the Two Strings, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, Chicken Run, The Tale of Renard, and The Little Prince. And I drafted The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, Marcel the Shell with shoes on, The House, and King Kong. Both ending with our little cheat picks. But um, but yeah that's um...

We'll put that up for a poll and see. You probably have me beat right from Nightmare Before Christmas. You probably have me beat. Nightmare Before Christmas is my pull, but Chicken Run too. I think a lot of people really love Chicken Run. That's fair. I haven't seen any Wallace and Gromit, so that's like the quintessential argument, but I feel like Chicken Run's a good second string argument. Yeah. I feel like I've seen some shorter.

Wallace and Gromit, but maybe not a full length.

But, Sean the Sheep too. Those movies look great, but I haven't seen any of the Sean the Sheep movies. Me neither, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, that's all we have for this week. We'll see who wins that poll. I hope y'all enjoyed the Isle of Dogs discussion, and yeah, we'll see you again next week for discussion on the French Dispatch. And yeah, I've been Eli Price, and for Chase Abel's...

This has been the establishing shots. We will see you next time.