Tenet (w/ Andrew Fossier)

Eli Price (00:01.155)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Establishing Shot podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmographies. I am here today, I'm Eli Price here with Andrew Fosier for episode 27 of the podcast and almost done with Nolan. Talking tenet today. Or

Also, Tenet, if you say it backwards, if you say the title backwards, Tenet, um, you can say it either way if you want. Um, uh, yeah, uh, I'm excited. Uh, maybe we'll, maybe we'll play this podcast backwards. Maybe like I'll impose production. I'll like edit it to where it plays completely or maybe put out two versions. You can listen to it forwards and backwards. Um,

But yeah, unfortunately, I've put Andrew on his first episode with us through already too many bad jokes. So. But yeah, Andrew, it's great to have you on. How are you doing?

Andrew Fossier (01:09.682)
Oh no, they're landing for me.

Andrew Fossier (01:16.882)
Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Doing well, man. I'm really looking forward to talking about Nolan and more specifically, Tenet.

Eli Price (01:23.979)
Yeah. Um, so you're, uh, you're in Medary, Louisiana, just down the road from where I am in Lafayette, um, used to live here. We, uh, used to go to church together and hang out and yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:31.181)
Yes.

Andrew Fossier (01:39.306)
Yeah, we've known each other for a bit. We were just talking about that for the show. Yeah, so I work for CGI Federal. I'm a DevOps engineer. And so I'm around technology, doing technology things, and I work fully remote. So this feels very familiar actually, although I don't normally talk to Eli, but yeah. We've lived here for coming up on our first year, full year here. So...

Eli Price (01:56.847)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:08.057)
Okay, yep.

Andrew Fossier (02:10.067)
Sorry, no, we're approaching our second year here. Brain fog. But yeah.

Eli Price (02:12.87)
Yeah.

Yeah, cool. Yeah. So I always love to ask my first time guests to share a bit about just kind of their journey into loving film. Like where did that? Where was the inception of that for you? Good Nolan term for a known series. Yeah, like, you know, a lot of people starts with childhood, sometimes people really get into it in college, what

Andrew Fossier (02:33.326)
Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Ha-ha.

Eli Price (02:45.124)
What was that like for you?

Andrew Fossier (02:47.35)
Well, I definitely have always liked movies, enjoyed the medium, but what really got me into loving them and appreciating them more deeply was my wife Hunter, because she loves movies extremely deeply. And so that got me to look at movies for more than just like entertainment value or feeling, you know, paying attention to directors and cinematographers and like...

Eli Price (02:50.254)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:02.128)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:11.588)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:15.754)
getting into the, you know, meat of the background stuff. And that's all super important things that I really enjoy knowing now. But she was what accepted that for me actually. But as far back, oh no, no. Well.

Eli Price (03:19.91)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:29.655)
against your will or in your dreams. Uh, well, as far as you know, anyway.

Andrew Fossier (03:37.946)
Yeah, well, the first just a funny, you're right, a funny movie, I guess story if the first one of the first movies we saw together. Actually, I guess it was the first movie we saw together. For our first date, I guess is why I said we went to see. Oh, my goodness. I can't think of the name right now. I'm just panicking.

Eli Price (03:52.079)
Okay, yeah.

Eli Price (04:02.247)
and what's it about.

Andrew Fossier (04:06.546)
It's the dressmaker who gets poisoned. Yes. I know the name, I'm just talking. And so, Phantom Thread.

Eli Price (04:09.991)
Phantom Thread.

Eli Price (04:16.303)
Man, that was good. That was, what game would that be that we just played? Feel like that's a board game.

Eli Price (04:26.091)
Uh, like you can't say the name of it, but you describe it, I guess. Yeah. We just killed it with that one. So.

Andrew Fossier (04:27.598)
charades. Yeah. Buzzword maybe. Yeah, well, so we went to see Phantom Threat and I walked in and I asked, oh, so is this like an action movie? Because I didn't know. I didn't know what it was about. And she remembers thinking, oh, God, this guy is like just not going to enjoy. And it was, it was new. It was interesting. I enjoyed it. We talked about it. And that was kind of

Eli Price (04:41.947)
Ha ha ha!

Eli Price (04:52.359)
Uh-huh.

Andrew Fossier (04:56.45)
beginning, you know, that was just how we started engaging with movies in a deeper way. And so, yeah, it was a fun movie to see together.

Eli Price (04:57.741)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (05:07.107)
Yeah. A very interesting first, like early date movie to see. A deeply, a deeply unsettling relationship in that movie. But yeah, that's, that's awesome though. Um, yeah, it's always fun to think about like who got you into movies, like who was, um, just like vital in that.

Andrew Fossier (05:11.742)
Yeah, yeah. If you know the plot, I kind of gave stuff away. Sorry.

Yes. Yeah.

Eli Price (05:36.043)
that journey for you, you know, for the, at least for those of us who have had that journey into like loving film or on a deeper level. But yeah, yeah. Yeah. I've always, I feel like we've, you and me and Hunter, your wife have had a few, at least a few like fun, deeper discussions on movies in the past. So yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I was excited. I was excited to

Andrew Fossier (05:42.84)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (05:59.767)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (06:04.571)
to get you on for the podcast because of that. Because I know you're gonna bring some fun discussion. But what about Nolan? Do you remember what your first Nolan movie was?

Andrew Fossier (06:17.266)
I do, so first Nolan movie and then first in theaters as well. Um, so first Nolan experience, I was in high school and I don't want to paint speech and debate in a bad light. I loved it, but the in class time very frequently, if a sub was there or something, we would end up watching movies. And so I think I saw the first 30 minutes of elf like

Eli Price (06:21.486)
Okay, yeah.

Eli Price (06:26.587)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (06:40.88)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (06:44.418)
40 times in high school. But so that's actually the place that I first saw the first 30 minutes of the dark night. And I had speech in the morning and so walked in, watched the first 30 minutes of the dark night and then had the rest of the day of school till I got home and finished the movie because I started the movie over because I really loved the first 30 minutes. That movie starts out just right in it and really fun.

Eli Price (06:46.2)
Ha ha ha.

Eli Price (06:54.289)
Mmm.

Eli Price (07:07.595)
Yeah. Oh, yeah, it grabs you.

Andrew Fossier (07:14.882)
So that's my first Nolan experience was the Dark Knight after it had been out, obviously on DVD. And my first in theater Nolan experience was the Dark Knight Rises. And I actually didn't see Dunkirk in theaters. So Dark Knight Rises, I didn't see Interstellar, I didn't see Dunkirk.

Eli Price (07:18.983)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (07:29.85)
Okay.

Andrew Fossier (07:43.958)
So my second in theater experience with the Ole Miss Tenet. So, yeah.

Eli Price (07:47.223)
Yeah. Which, uh, which that's a whole nother, a whole nother thing is tenant being in theaters, um, you know, I, so that was like for sure the first movie that I saw like after kind of lockdown pandemic stuff in theaters, um, and I don't know. It was one of those things where like,

Andrew Fossier (08:07.118)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (08:15.711)
I feel like it was this weird thing with like, I was so excited to get to theaters to see a movie again. And so like, I don't know if it's like, expectations are so high. And so there's like, when you see a movie, that's not like a masterpiece. It's like, which I don't think Tenet is. Obviously, like, obviously, a lot of people don't. But

Andrew Fossier (08:25.24)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (08:37.774)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (08:44.547)
It's kind of almost feels like a disappointment, but then at the same time, I almost wonder if like, I like it more because it was that first experience and you're just like so happy to be watching like a movie and a movie on the scale of Tenet, that's like, yes, this, I need to watch this in a theater. So it's this weird thing where it's like, maybe it's like better than I thought it was on my first viewing, but maybe not.

Andrew Fossier (08:53.975)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (09:11.895)
Maybe it's worse than I thought it was on my first viewing. I just don't know what to do with it because of that, because of that experience. But yeah.

Andrew Fossier (09:18.934)
Yeah.

Yeah, I can relate to that in a way. I know one of the things people always reference in talking about the movie is the audio. And I don't wanna go, we don't have to go super far into it, but just kind of a funny story about it. We saw it, my wife and I watched movies multiple times. It's just something we love to do. And we saw the first date reviewing.

Eli Price (09:32.135)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (09:49.438)
And then we actually were on our honeymoon where there's a Dolby theater. And so we decided, oh, let's go see it in Dolby. And we got to the boat scene after his death. And he's talking to his former handler. And the S's in his speech were so overpowering. I leaned over and I said,

Eli Price (09:58.343)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (10:04.474)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (10:18.134)
the dubstep heist scene is gonna kill me, we should probably leave. So we left, it's disappointing, you know, cause it was just the mixing for that in that scenario at least, did feel overpowering, but didn't bother us the first time. It just really was that volume in the Dolby theater.

Eli Price (10:25.2)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (10:31.659)
And that format. Yeah.

Eli Price (10:39.323)
Hmm. Yeah. It's, uh, when you see them and those like hyped up theaters, like, I don't know, like I've seen movies in IMAX and it's usually mixed. I've never had a bad experience with sound and IMAX. It's like, it's loud. Um, but it's like mixed well, usually, um, where it's not like, where it doesn't like hurt to listen to it. If you know what I mean.

Andrew Fossier (10:57.155)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (11:07.764)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (11:09.211)
But, um, yeah, I feel like most of the time here at the theaters in Lafayette, it's like the opposite. It's like, can y'all like turn this the volume up a little bit? Like, why is that? I'm in a theater. Like, why is the movie so quiet? Um, but I don't know if y'all had that experience when y'all, when y'all lived here, but that's, it's not always the case, but every once in a while, I'll like go to the theater, like kick back. And I'm like, I feel,

Andrew Fossier (11:19.246)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (11:25.416)
Yeah.

Eli Price (11:38.919)
I should, I feel like I shouldn't be wondering if the movie is too quiet when I'm in the theater, you know what I mean? Like I have it too quiet at home because like there's other people that live in my house and I can't like Blair the TV all the time, but in a theater, like that's, that's where I go to the like here, like louder, but also like not be in pain like the Dolby mix obviously was.

Andrew Fossier (11:45.143)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (11:54.21)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (11:58.43)
Yeah, it'd be blown away.

Andrew Fossier (12:03.222)
Right, well yeah. We gotta be somewhere in the middle. Are you a subtitled person or no?

Eli Price (12:07.828)
I am. I'm a subtitle person.

Andrew Fossier (12:09.87)
Okay, I was not before I met Hunter and now I am. I can't watch something without subtitles. A funny little caveat, if you rent the theater out and watch a movie that way, you can choose subtitles or no subtitles. So that's fun if you really want subtitles.

Eli Price (12:13.763)
Yeah.

Eli Price (12:19.803)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (12:25.547)
Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. I've never, I don't think I've ever seen subtitles like on a big screen. Well, I take that back. I've seen some foreign language films that obviously have subtitles, but not like a English language film. Um, but yeah, like, like pair, I saw a parasite in theaters. That was a, that was a fun experience. Um, but yeah, I'm a subtitle guy. I,

Andrew Fossier (12:37.691)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (12:48.333)
Yeah.

Eli Price (12:54.935)
It's one of those, it's like, um, Hmm. It's one of those things where I just really like to know what is being said, I guess. And so the subtitles just like help so much with that. Um, but at the same time, there's sometimes where like, I'll like, I'll like rewinds a movie, like if I'm watching at home, like

Andrew Fossier (13:09.171)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (13:22.374)
and then

Eli Price (13:22.639)
I'll turn it back some because I'll realize like, man, that was so dialogue heavy and I was just like reading the whole time and like the whole point of watching a movie is taking the visuals. So it's like, I need, I need to go back so I can like see it. Um, which yeah. Uh, yeah, it's one of those kind of like, uh, pros and cons in the same thing kind of thing, but uh,

Andrew Fossier (13:34.966)
Yeah.

Eli Price (13:52.311)
Yeah. Yeah, I did. I did really enjoy tenant when I saw it in theaters. And I guess we can we can dive into to that discussion. Yeah, ten, tenet. Does have like this weird. Background and kind of like history because of when it came out and when it was made, really like there's like a whole like

few years of movies really that have like the, I guess, like the pandemic stamp on it of like, yeah, this movie is weird because of the pandemic or, you know, this movie like bombed because of the pandemic or whatever. Or like this movie never came out. We've got, we've got some of those too, I guess. But yeah, this one definitely like is one of the ones in the forefront of that just because of.

Andrew Fossier (14:31.062)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (14:41.875)
Yeah.

Eli Price (14:51.555)
Um, I don't know, Nolan being such a, you have to have the cinema experience for my movies sort of guy. Um, like a, um, you know, a very like powerful voice for celluloid film. And like, you have to see it in the theaters and, you know, he's just that sort of filmmaker. And so like, they just kept pushing the release of this back because

Andrew Fossier (14:59.598)
I don't know.

Eli Price (15:19.299)
A lot of movies just went ahead and got released streaming, um, or VOD rather. Um, and like Nolan just wasn't going to let that happen with, with tenant. Um, so it's it, you know, it just has this weird history that I think, um, Oh no, I wonder sometimes if this would have come out just in normal years.

Andrew Fossier (15:24.451)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (15:47.927)
If it would have, I just kind of wonder like, what would the reception have been like, would it, would it have been worse because like more people saw it and didn't like it or would it have been like so much better because people were like loving it is it's kind of hard to say because the reception is so split on it already. Um, yeah. I, and then I know like at the time there was like a few pieces of people like, you know, critics kind of like.

Andrew Fossier (16:08.233)
Yeah.

Eli Price (16:18.303)
guessing that this would become like a cult favorite in the future. Like once more and more people see it, um, you know, I guess at their, in their, in their houses, on their TVs streaming it or whatever. Um, which, which I could kind of see, I could see that like eventually down the road, maybe being the case, um, but yeah, it, it really, the idea for this started, um,

Andrew Fossier (16:33.142)
Yeah, I have heard that since then as well.

Eli Price (16:46.231)
with just like the concept of just that image of film moving backwards, which you can, you know, for Nolan, it goes, it goes first, like back to Memento. Have you seen Memento? Okay. So, so this, so this isn't a spoiler for you, but the whole, or it's not a spoiler. It might.

Andrew Fossier (17:01.87)
Actually, if not, it's on my list of things I need to see.

Okay.

Eli Price (17:14.871)
It might take away like a, oh, moment for you, but it's like in the very like first, like two minutes. Um, so the whole opening is in reverse. Um, so yeah, it's, so you see stuff happening and it looks kind of weird. And then like, you start seeing things where you're like, Oh, this is going in reverse, um, even to the point where like you see a bullet go back into a gun that's been fired in reverse.

Andrew Fossier (17:18.423)
Uh huh.

Andrew Fossier (17:25.678)
Okay.

Andrew Fossier (17:40.578)
Mm.

Eli Price (17:42.275)
And so like that image goes all the way back to me, which was his first, like movie with a real budget, um, and his second feature, um, and it goes back to that, but then like, go back further. And it goes back to him, like playing with film editing in college, um, under the theater at university college of London, um, they had this like editing machine and he would play with it and taught himself how to edit.

Andrew Fossier (17:44.725)
Yeah.

Eli Price (18:12.419)
edit film down there and just like the idea of running film forwards and running it backwards. And then like you go back even further and he tells a story about being, I think he was like 16 and he's staying with a family in Paris and the father of this family was working on some sort of documentary and he was editing it.

Andrew Fossier (18:34.667)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (18:42.343)
through whatever editing machine he was using and seeing like, wow, the film, like the image is crisp and clear, whether you run it forwards or if you run it in reverse, it's just as crisp and clear, it's just moving in the opposite direction. And so he even like, so he traces like this idea of like, I don't know, that time, that playing with time and film going backwards all the way back to that like experience.

when he was like 16 years old. Um, and, uh, which I think is, it's cool to see, you know, to read, I was reading about this, um, in a book and just like hearing, you know, filmmakers, um, artists in general, really like tracing like ideas they have for a current thing they've worked on, like all the way back to like.

Oh, it's just this idea that I've had in the back of my head since I was 16 of like film moving forwards and backwards. Like, um, I don't know. I just think I just find that fascinating. Um, how those ideas can just like stay in your mind and like bounce around until they like come out into something tangible. Um,

Andrew Fossier (19:44.065)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (20:01.35)
Yeah, well, and especially with, I mean, where Nolan is now with the amount of like influence he has in Hollywood, like say what you, you know, your opinion about Tenet be what it is, right? But it's what he wanted. Like, it's really, there's no other power rivaling his vision. And I think that is, to me, what's so cool about Tenet, especially watching more of the behind the scenes stuff in preparation.

Eli Price (20:08.561)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (20:15.834)
Right.

Eli Price (20:22.619)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (20:29.91)
you know, for this podcast, it's really what he wanted. And to draw, like you said, to draw that back to the mind of a, you know, 16 year old seeing the film go back and that's, that's a really cool, uh, line to draw.

Eli Price (20:33.436)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (20:42.672)
Yeah.

Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. And then, you know, the, the cons as far as like the concept of the movie, I think it was, I think I read in 2014. Um, he started thinking about it as like this, um, like fictional reality of like moving backwards in time, like, or like being able to turn time like backwards and forwards. Um, and that was kind of like, I guess the, the inception for like the story. Um,

of that ends up being Tenet. And he even talks about having folders full of notes and drawn diagrams and the era of time going different ways on graphs that he's drawn out. And then eventually, with all that, he decided to wrap this kind of, because it is a sci-fi kind of concept. And he decided to wrap it up in a spy movie.

And so that's where like it, and that's something that I've, that I've noticed, um, doing the, the West Anderson series and then going through this series is like, oftentimes like a movie is not. Sometimes it's like one idea that leads to it, but often it's like, you have these different ideas as a creator kind of rattling around in your mind and then they kind of like emerge at some point. And that's.

Andrew Fossier (22:08.471)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (22:11.555)
That's how I imagine this happening. Like he's got this idea of like this sci-fi concept of like being able to turn time back and forth. And he's like, I also really want to do a spy movie. I wonder if I can put those together, you know, um, cause he loves bond. And so he's always wanted to, um, he's, you know, and you can kind of see that in his other, a lot of his other movies too, his kind of love of bond. Um, but this is definitely his most bond movie. Um, and so like.

Andrew Fossier (22:22.126)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Andrew Fossier (22:26.69)
Uh-huh.

Andrew Fossier (22:39.914)
Oh yeah, definitely.

Eli Price (22:41.359)
And then like, usually there's this kind of like imminent danger in a spy movie, obviously, like, and he just liked to the idea of when you merge those two ideas, it's like this weird retroactive danger is what he called it, which I thought was like an interesting way to phrase kind of the, I don't know, like the conflict in this movie is retroactive danger. Um,

Andrew Fossier (23:08.941)
Yeah.

Eli Price (23:10.055)
But yeah, and then like, he was kind of too imagining like this cold war between the future and the past or present or however you want to put it. Um, which it does kind of feel like that once you really like get deeper and deeper into the movie. Um, uh, you know, the enemy being a Russian kind of helps with that, I guess. Um, uh, but yeah, and then, uh, this, I thought this was cool too. The title of the movie, uh, tenant.

Andrew Fossier (23:24.771)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (23:32.012)
Yeah.

Eli Price (23:40.119)
actually, um, you know, the, the palindrome off, obviously being like the jumping off point for just like the concept and all that, but the title comes from there's this, I don't, I don't remember if I read like where Nolan saw this, um, but obviously he did. Um, there's this like Latin artifact, artifact from the ruins of Pompeii, um, that has, it's like this square. Like.

stone artifact that has five words kind of in Latin, I guess, written out. Um, one on top of the other, and it's a, and it's just one big palindrome. So, and it, and all of the words in it are used in the movie, including the center one, which is the title tenant. It's a say tour, a repo tenant opera rotas. And all of those words are like used at different points in the movie.

Andrew Fossier (24:15.086)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (24:35.075)
Whether it be like a reference to them being at the opera house or Sator being the name of the villain. A repo is kind of like this code thing used at some point. I'm pretty sure. Um.

Andrew Fossier (24:35.307)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (24:47.434)
It's the name of the broker that she sold the fake to.

Eli Price (24:49.963)
That's right. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, I don't remember where rotas was used, but it was because the book I read said that it was.

Andrew Fossier (25:01.026)
Uh, is Rotos the name of the free port? I don't remember. I remember seeing it in text in the movie, but I don't remember.

Eli Price (25:08.443)
I don't know. Okay. Well, yeah, I'm glad you did. Cause I don't remember. That's the one that where I was like, I don't remember seeing rotas, but yeah, I'm glad you confirmed confirmation from Andrew on rotas. Um, but then not yet tenant being the, the center of that. And it's the title of the movie. Um, which, you know, it's cool. Cause like, it's this weird, like artifacts that they're pulling from. And it's.

Andrew Fossier (25:22.382)
Yeah

Eli Price (25:36.547)
the palindrome working with the concept of going back and forth in time. And then tenet, the word tenet itself being this side, this word that's like about, um, a belief that drives what you do sort of thing. Um, or as a principle that you live by, um, just all of that like kind of culminates into like, okay, like, this is actually like a cool, like even just like the story behind the title is pretty cool.

I think, um, at the very least interesting, you know, um, but yeah, he, so he, some of the things that, um, Nolan does is he'll, he's really a big believer in bringing on as much of his crew as possible as early on in the, the process as he can. Um, so he, Nathan Crowley has.

Andrew Fossier (26:06.89)
Yeah, definitely.

Andrew Fossier (26:27.938)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (26:33.655)
Especially like with the Batman films, they would be like working while he was like still working on the script. Nathan Crowley, his production designer would be like working with him on the design, uh, for things. Um, and so like that was especially the case with the Batman movies because. The design is so integral to like how things are written in the script. Um, and this was a similar movie. Like he brought.

Andrew Fossier (26:58.612)
Yeah.

Eli Price (27:02.215)
Crowley on because it's such a visual concept that's hard to like, like I would, I would love to like read some of this script to see how he explains what's happening on screen in a script. Um, but that's partly why he brought Nathan Crowley on so early. Just like the Batman films is cause like, Hey, let's start working on the design. Cause we really need to be able to see this to really wrap our minds around it.

Andrew Fossier (27:30.47)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, to visualize, that's one of the things that I saw in some of the behind the scenes things that I watched about Tenet is they needed to know who was where and where was, like which protagonist was doing what incredibly, as complex as a movie already is, knowing that there's four versions of a character, potentially.

Eli Price (27:32.6)
Um

Eli Price (27:41.776)
Mm-mm.

Eli Price (27:46.395)
Right.

Eli Price (27:59.842)
Right.

Andrew Fossier (28:00.33)
Um, yeah, it's a lot of production focus on that.

Eli Price (28:03.224)
Yeah.

Eli Price (28:07.679)
Oh yeah. Yeah. And, uh, the, so the working title of this was merry go around, which feels so very, uh, appropriate for, uh, for the movie. Um, I love, uh, I love when you can find like what the working title was. Cause sometimes it's like really, really interesting or like funny or to me, the merry around working title was funny. Um, just cause I feel like

Andrew Fossier (28:14.759)
Okay.

Eli Price (28:34.647)
I've gotten off sometimes like in this, you watch this movie and you feel like you've gotten off of a merry-go-round that was going way too fast. And yeah, and like I also made me think of the image of a merry-go-round like going backwards, which I feel like I've seen before either in person or like in a video or movie or something. I feel like I've seen a merry-go-round going backwards before.

Andrew Fossier (29:05.238)
Yeah, I feel like I have an image of that too, but I can't place it.

Eli Price (29:08.335)
Yeah, it must be a movie that maybe we've both seen, but can't recall what it was. But yeah. Yeah, so, and then with this movie too, I really feel like.

Andrew Fossier (29:13.155)
Yeah.

Eli Price (29:27.275)
Inception without inception, like I don't know that he would have been able to make this movie, which is kind of the case like all through his career. It's like he he'll make a movie and like it gets him like the green light for whatever next movie he wants to make. And at this point, it's just kind of like, well, I mean, you've you did it. You did it. You've done all these movies that have been so successful.

Andrew Fossier (29:33.294)
Mmm.

Eli Price (29:55.767)
You just can kind of do whatever you want, but at the same time, like the concept, I think, I think the concept.

is what makes me say Inception more than anything else. Like the success of Inception, and it's like really weird out there concept. Cause I mean, Inception is like sci-fi wrapped into a heist movie, and this is basically sci-fi wrapped up in a spy movie. So yeah.

Andrew Fossier (30:08.809)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (30:13.378)
Well, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (30:20.486)
Yeah, well, and they're both, I mean, I think, I feel like Tenet is more complicated because the concept is, Inception is very complicated, but it's much more linear, I would say, because it's just you dream within a dream within a dream. So we're slowing down, you know, it's not two characters at the same time. Yeah.

Eli Price (30:29.567)
Yeah. It is, but yeah.

Eli Price (30:36.984)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (30:42.167)
Yeah, you're slowing down time, but you're not. Yeah.

Yeah. And yeah, the just like wrapping up that sci fi concept and this like kind of like grand scale, um, sort of movie, uh, is, is kind of like, okay. Yeah. Inception you did inception. We don't really understand this, but we'll, we'll give you $200 million anyway. But, uh, but yeah, as far as influences go, um, I'll bond. Obviously we already mentioned bond.

Andrew Fossier (31:08.756)
Yeah.

Eli Price (31:17.183)
Uh, I mean, this movie has, it has the gadgets. It has the exotic locations. It's got the really like speechy baddies, um, that, uh, that probably talked too much. Uh, and then like, I even wrote down that, uh, Michael Caine kind of has him, uh, vibes. If you, uh, if you're familiar with the bond franchise, the, the kind of, um, is kind of like, he's the guy that's giving the directives and all that. And then.

Andrew Fossier (31:36.896)
Mmm.

Eli Price (31:46.567)
Uh, posies character, uh, Clements posies, uh, I think it's Barbara's name of her character. Um, she kind of gives off Q vibes, which Q is always the guy that's like. Teaching you about all the gadgets and teaching like that sort of thing and the bond movies. And so she kind of gives off, so there's like all these little things that are kind of like, okay, yeah, this definitely got the bond vibe. And then obviously like international spy espionage, like it's got all that there now, like.

Andrew Fossier (32:01.378)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (32:16.098)
Definitely, yeah.

Eli Price (32:16.823)
I will say it's got, I feel like the Bond influences, I don't know, maybe we'll get into it more later in our discussion, but I can't figure out if the Bond influences more like superficial stuff like that, like just kind of homages to it. Or if there's even more influence in the fact that like in a Bond, a lot of times in a Bond movie,

It's about like the experience of just like enjoying the experience of watching this guy go around the world and try to like stop a really, like a really obvious villain. And I almost wonder if like, if this movie is kind of trying to mimic that idea of, Hey, this movie isn't very deep, but I, I don't think that's the case with this movie. Cause I think it.

It is trying to struggle with some deeper things. Um, but I have heard other people, um, in podcasts or that I follow, uh, kind of like pitch that idea that this movie is just like about not thinking about it, but just like experiencing it, which is fair because that is a line in the movie.

Andrew Fossier (33:17.207)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (33:32.532)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (33:36.038)
That's, I was gonna say, that's a direct quote from the movie. Like, don't think about it, just feel. Um, when he's learning about, you know.

Eli Price (33:39.952)
Yeah.

Which it the problem for me the problem for me with that is like, okay You're telling us that but then like you're presenting all these Interesting concepts that you obviously think is interesting. And so like how can we not think about? How can we like not think about these concepts and these ideas when you're like throwing them in our face You know

Andrew Fossier (33:57.751)
Uh-huh.

Andrew Fossier (34:07.346)
Yeah, well, the way I interpreted that was like the mechanics, because that's something that in any sci-fi, there is some level of just turn your brain off. Because my favorite to reference is Ant-Man. How is he communicating? This is not the biggest problem with Ant-Man in reality, but how is he communicating with...

Eli Price (34:21.283)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Eli Price (34:32.993)
Right.

Andrew Fossier (34:34.902)
people over radio if he's smaller than radio waves. Like that doesn't, you know, how is he breathing if he's smaller than us? You know, but so you kind of just have to turn your brain off. And so that for those things. And so I think that's how I interpreted, don't think about it, just feel. And so it's like, okay, this works. Just go with it. Yeah.

Eli Price (34:47.79)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (34:51.867)
Just go with it. Yeah. Which that's fair. And I think that's one, I think that's a perfectly fine way to experience this movie. Like I really do. And I feel like I go back and forth within the movie of how I'm enjoying it. And sometimes I am just enjoying watching something like really interesting visually happen on screen and just experiencing it.

So yeah, you know, I totally understand that, that way of experiencing it. Um, and like we, we said, it's, it's right there as a line in the movie. So, um, it's just like, I don't know. Yeah. Uh, other influences, um, going through these, uh, these few that I have written down, um, uh, Jean Le Carre, I don't know if I'm saying his last name, right. Um,

Andrew Fossier (35:21.356)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (35:32.928)
Yeah.

Eli Price (35:50.235)
But he's, um, he's a espionage novelist sort of, um, from, I don't know from what time period I didn't, I didn't write that down. I should have. Um, but his, um, the description I read of like his work is it's this like realist fiction, which sounds very Nolan, um, already with, and I loved this. It said with a plot lingering out of reach, which totally feels like no one. So I'm like,

Andrew Fossier (35:54.392)
Mm.

Andrew Fossier (36:17.663)
No.

Eli Price (36:20.127)
Okay. I can totally see if that's the description of this guy's novels. I can totally see no one like reading this guy's novels and like, just taking that sort of atmosphere of realist fiction. It's like, um, I know I can't remember what podcast I heard this on, but they, they were talking about how it's almost like a mix of like, um, Michael Mann and his like very like.

grounded and realist sort of movies mixed with like the Kubrick kind of like out there concept experience sort of movie. And I was like, Oh, that's interesting that I can see like that mix there in Nolan for sure. And Nolan himself is like referenced both of those filmmakers as like big influences on his, his filmmaking. So it makes sense to me.

Andrew Fossier (37:02.542)
Mm.

Andrew Fossier (37:19.99)
Yeah.

Eli Price (37:21.039)
Um, but this is interesting. He said Fritz Lang, Nolan, uh, I wrote down this quote. He said he Fritz Lang is probably the most important filmmaker to what my idea of film is, which I thought was really interesting. Um, and I have, I want to say I've only seen one Fritz Lang film. Um, I have seen metropolis, uh, which I think is an incredible masterpiece of a movie. Um,

Andrew Fossier (37:32.744)
Hmm.

Eli Price (37:51.895)
And, but that's the only Lang film I've seen. I actually have the criterion disc of M. I just haven't gotten around to watching it. Um, and I need to rectify that soon. Uh, but, but yeah, Fritz Lang, German filmmaker. Um, I think so. He has like, obviously like he there's an influence because he has a 28, 1928 film called spies, which, um,

Andrew Fossier (38:04.301)
I'm gonna go.

Eli Price (38:21.351)
kind of like was at the beginning of, or maybe even like itself created the espionage genre within film. Um, it has like an international spy ring deploying technological threats. Um, and this is like where, so this is where Fritz Lang I think does influence Nolan is Fritz Lang was very into like geometry and architecture in his movies. And Nolan.

I feel like very much so is interested in like the, the shapes and geometry you see on screen and how architecture interplays with that and then how architecture kind of implies or plays with like the theme of the film. So I'm not sure. So I've only seen one Fritz Lang film, so I'm not sure how that maybe plays out in other Fritz Lang movies, but I know in Metropolis we talked about.

Andrew Fossier (39:06.296)
Yeah.

Eli Price (39:19.939)
on the dark night rises episode, how like dark night rises really, I, I personally, because I've seen metropolis can see the huge influence of architecture and theme from metropolis to dark night rises because they both have this idea of an underbelly of society being literally down and then people on the upper echelons of society being like up high and high rises.

Andrew Fossier (39:34.55)
Mmm, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (39:42.612)
Uh-huh.

Eli Price (39:48.555)
Um, and it's literally like architecture displaying visually the theme that it's working on working within. Um, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (39:57.174)
Yeah, and that immediately brings to mind, I don't know if you've seen the TV show, Arcane, that has a very literal connotation as well. Like they live on top and the under city is the bad place or the bad place, yeah.

Eli Price (40:11.727)
Gotcha. Yeah. I haven't seen that. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I definitely need to see more for it's Ling movies for sure. Because mainly just because like I watched metropolis and was like blown away about how good I thought it was. Um, and so I'm like, man, I need to watch more of these, but yeah. Um, Oh yeah. And in, in Lang's movie spies, um, the hero is referred to just as a number.

Number third, three 26, um, which also relates to, uh, the, another potential influence in this sixties British spy series called the prisoner, um, where the lead for that series is known only as a number, um, and you know, I guess like there's bond influence there too. There's, there's often bonds character. I mean, bond is.

You know, he's James Bond, but like he's often referred to as double Oh seven agent double Oh seven or, and you have him and Q and stuff. And so, um, I guess no one took those ideas and went a step further and called his protagonist, the protagonist, um, which is, which is fun. I guess it's like homage to all those things all at once, just kind of referring to your lead as just the protagonist, um,

Andrew Fossier (41:11.315)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (41:34.854)
Yeah. Well, and it just fits with him. It fits with the idea of the spy genre because you're, you're remaining, you know, anonymous and it's not.

Eli Price (41:36.783)
But uh, but yeah.

Eli Price (41:42.407)
Sure, yeah.

Eli Price (41:47.755)
Yeah, you really don't have your own identity in a sense. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (41:51.746)
you're taking on all the identities. Which that is one thing, I was gonna say this earlier, when the classification of it being a spy movie came, it almost, in my mind, when I first saw this, was like, oh, it's a time travel movie. Because time is being affected, but it really is a spy movie that has time travel elements in it. It's not...

Eli Price (42:11.44)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (42:15.173)
Yeah.

Right. It's that sci-fi wrapped up in a spy movie, like intertwined with it, but like the basis for everything is for sure a spy movie, I think like the

Andrew Fossier (42:22.062)
Right. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (42:29.842)
Yeah, and not to, not to wrap a shell too far on this whole idea, but like the, I think the time travel we see in most movies, it's almost comparing it to Tenet, it's like a flippant decision. Like, okay, I'm going to this date, boom, I'm there. You know, I punch it into a computer, I'm there. Whereas with Tenet, when they're going back a week in time, they are living a week in time and then exiting the time stream there.

Eli Price (42:48.134)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (42:54.599)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (42:59.446)
So it's very decided and precise. It, I don't know, I guess you could argue punching into computers more precise, but their decision to travel through time comes with a cost of their waiting to get there. It's not an instantaneous jump. Yeah.

Eli Price (43:16.175)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. You even, I mean, you have like the, even like the sequence where like he's waiting in that windmill tower or whatever. And he's just like, well, I guess I'll train in here. Sort of like, it was, it was kind of reminiscent of like, uh, Bruce Wayne in the pit and dark night rises. Um, but yeah. And then like to, uh, on that note,

Andrew Fossier (43:38.656)
Yeah.

Eli Price (43:43.395)
Um, Nolan himself insisted that this is not a time travel movie. Um, which it's one of those things where it's like, you can say like, okay, Nolan, like I get where you're coming from, but you're also like playing with time travel, even though you don't define it. So like he, he insists it's not a time travel movie because you're not making leaps in time, you're just like changing the direction of time.

Andrew Fossier (43:48.419)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (43:57.923)
Hehehe

Andrew Fossier (44:09.186)
Uh-uh.

Eli Price (44:10.903)
And in his mind, I guess, like that's not time travel. You're still experiencing time the same way. You're just going backwards, the same speed. And I'm kind of like, yeah, I get that Nolan, but like, that's just how you've decided to define time travel. Like I could just as easily say like, no, it is a time travel movie because.

Andrew Fossier (44:17.959)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (44:30.907)
Uh-huh.

Eli Price (44:37.135)
You're traveling backwards in time, even if it is not make you go leap in time. You're still traveling backwards in time. Uh, but I do get where he's coming from. It's not. He, I guess he's like hesitant to call it that because it's going to give people a certain idea of what to expect. And he's like, no, it's not a time travel movie because this is what time travel movies always do, and I'm not doing any of those things with this one.

Andrew Fossier (44:40.907)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (45:03.235)
Hmm.

Eli Price (45:04.623)
So I get it, but at the same time, I'm like, well, it does sort of still have time travel in it. Like.

Andrew Fossier (45:11.502)
Yeah, well, yeah, but I really, I really like his, I guess, you know, distinction there, because I mean, he does, you know, obviously has Interstellar, which deals with not time travel, but again, in the same in the same idea of like the effect of time, but there's no agency on the character's part where they are in time. It's just the effect of

Eli Price (45:17.702)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (45:26.809)
Yeah.

Eli Price (45:32.901)
Right.

Andrew Fossier (45:38.838)
decades going by and losing time with their family. And so, yeah, I feel like it's not as much of a time travel movie as Back to the Future or Avengers Endgame where they're choosing to go fast through time.

Eli Price (45:45.379)
Yeah. You could.

Eli Price (45:50.045)
Right, sure.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I think it's just because we kind of have this idea of, uh, a sub genre that is called time travel movies. Um, and this definitely doesn't necessarily fit into that idea of a time travel movie, quote unquote that we have in our head. But yeah, I would even say like interstellar, like technically like

Andrew Fossier (46:06.822)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (46:24.507)
When he's in the Tesseract, he's literally traveling through time in three dimensional space. That's literally what the Tesseract is, is this three dimensional representation of time and he's moving through it. But yeah, it's, it wouldn't be really as time travel movie either. But yeah, going back to.

Andrew Fossier (46:32.933)
Yeah.

Eli Price (46:53.183)
The only other thing I had for influences was just kind of like the real world research he did Which did you know that free ports were a thing before you watch this movie because I did not

Andrew Fossier (47:03.894)
You know, I, well, no, I don't have any art in limbo myself, but, or a private jet, but, no, yeah, I had not heard of that.

Eli Price (47:07.719)
Yeah, me either. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a really, it's really like, I mean, I haven't like done any extra research since I've watched in it, but like, I didn't realize, I probably didn't even realize it was a real thing. Even after I watched it for the first, this is only the second time I watched it was for this podcast. And so, um, I haven't watched it until this past week since I saw it in theaters. And so I had never really thought about like, Oh, our free ports real.

I just like, I guess you kind of assume, I guess I should have wondered that because like Nolan does base so much stuff in reality. Like, oh, of course he researched these free ports and like included it in his movie as a real thing. And then the other like real world research kind of influence was the secret like Russian cities. Like those are real, that's a real thing.

Andrew Fossier (47:52.984)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (48:09.215)
Mmm.

Eli Price (48:12.911)
Um, and a lot of them did have like, we're like tested on radioactive stuff and have like, yeah, it's, it's a, like based on a real thing that happened. Um, and so, but yeah, uh, influences, I really didn't have a ton of influences that I kind of found in my research for this one. Um, some of his movies, I feel like the list of influences that I find go like on and on.

Andrew Fossier (48:26.337)
Yeah.

Eli Price (48:41.815)
And there probably are more than I found in my research, but those are really the main ones I found. Um, uh, but yeah, this movie, um, like we said, $200 million budget, which is a crazy, crazy budget for this. And, um, I know at the time, uh, it was, I don't know if it was the most expensive, but it was definitely one of the top.

Andrew Fossier (48:55.851)
Yeah.

Eli Price (49:09.591)
most expensive original movies of all time. Um, which makes sense. Um, most of the time, if you have a 200 plus million dollar budget, it's like an IP, um, movie like, like the dark night trilogy, obviously. Um, and then I also saw or read somewhere that it was.

Andrew Fossier (49:27.837)
Yeah.

Eli Price (49:35.711)
At least at the time that it was made, the most expensive movie with, um, a person of color in the lead role. Um, which is, I think actually pretty cool. Um, um, I guess like it would be less cool if John David Washington, like. Didn't make a lot of money too, which I didn't research that. So maybe it's not cool because maybe they didn't pay JDW a lot, but, uh, but I didn't research that. So.

Andrew Fossier (49:43.068)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (49:46.858)
Yeah, definitely.

Andrew Fossier (50:00.098)
Mm.

Eli Price (50:05.231)
can't really speak to that. But I did want to throw that caveat in there just in case someone listening was like, no, it's not cool because they didn't pay the person of color enough money. And I would agree with that. But yeah, just with that context that I do have, I think that is kind of a cool little tidbit at least. Yeah, a six month shoot this movie had starting May 2019.

Andrew Fossier (50:15.154)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (50:20.448)
Yeah.

Eli Price (50:34.831)
So, um, they, uh, yeah, they, I mean, they shot the movie, um, over six months in 2019, so it's, it's pretty like pandemic that they shot this in, which is crazy. Cause when you think about it, like a lot of stuff that happens in this movie, like, I mean, you have people running around in masks and stuff, and it feels like you're watching it coming out of a pandemic and it feels very prescient, but

Andrew Fossier (50:58.109)
Yeah.

Eli Price (51:03.107)
It's this weird thing where no one seems to make these movies that like, oddly like line up with what's happening in society when they come out. Um, just, I mean, the dark night rises, they had written the movie, they were shooting it and it just so happens that like Occupy Wall Street, um, was happening like at the same time they were shooting in New York. Um, and it's not like they wrote.

Andrew Fossier (51:15.47)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (51:32.527)
that idea into the script based on Occupy Law Street. The script was already written. So they're just, they're just filming it at that point. So it's just kind of these like, this is weird that this is like, feels so prescient, but it was written before this happened. Um, but I don't know, maybe no one's been doing, getting some messages from the future. Um, yeah, future Nolan's sending, uh, sending, uh, containers buried in.

Andrew Fossier (51:37.471)
Yeah, wow.

Andrew Fossier (51:54.462)
Future Nolan.

Eli Price (52:01.375)
secret cities in Russia, in Russia back to, back to the current Nolan. Um, you know, who knows, you know, where else would you come up with this idea from, if not from the truth? Uh, Oh man. But yeah, uh, one of the things that's really cool about this movie and maybe a reason why, like it was cool to watch it, like coming out of the pandemic is because it's.

Andrew Fossier (52:16.472)
I'm sorry.

Eli Price (52:30.695)
filmed on location and so many different like places all over the world. Um, so it just feels like it feels really fun to like travel the world in the movie. Um, similar to like how bond films can feel or mission impossible movies can feel. Um, but yeah, they, so like, I mean, obviously they did some soundstage stuff in LA. Um,

Andrew Fossier (52:56.515)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (52:57.915)
I think they started production and ended production in LA. I want to say, um, and, uh, yeah, I think they actually began production with the. The protagonist, like, uh, self fight sequence. Um, which is a crazy thing to start with, but, um, I guess, I guess you've got to start, well, I guess it makes sense too. Cause you kind of like, that's like the center part of the movie and you can kind of work out both ways from there, since it is like a palindrome movie.

Andrew Fossier (53:15.486)
Yeah.

Eli Price (53:28.403)
I hadn't really thought about that until just now as I was saying that, but I guess that makes sense. Like you're making a movie that goes forward and backwards. So like, let's start in the center and work out from there. Like, Oh, I guess that makes sense. Um,

Andrew Fossier (53:28.63)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (53:44.134)
Yeah, well, I think one of the things that with the, you know, talking about the complexity of the type of movie this is with the, it's something I specifically heard Nolan talking about was that they didn't want to just have the fight scene and then play it reversed. Like they didn't just want to have the fight. And then when it's from, you know, the masked protagonist point of view.

Eli Price (53:50.449)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (54:08.423)
Sure.

Eli Price (54:12.464)
right.

Andrew Fossier (54:12.574)
it just be reverse footage. And no one specifically said, because, you know, it's gonna be out on like streaming services and people can stop it and fast forward it and watch it. And so they actually...

Eli Price (54:23.448)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (54:28.65)
learned the fight, I think, four different ways, right? They learned it forward and then as themselves backwards and I might be jumping the gun on, I don't know if you want to talk about this later, but yeah.

Eli Price (54:32.475)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Eli Price (54:39.823)
No, yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah, they, so they, it was four variations, I think is how the, the stunt, the stunt coordinator George is George Cottle for this. And, um, I remember him saying that John David Washington, uh, which I'll probably refer to as JDW from here on out. Cause that's easier. Uh, he had to learn this fight in four different variations.

Andrew Fossier (55:02.751)
Mm.

Eli Price (55:09.691)
Um, and, um, really the reason for that is the way they shot this movie, which we can jump into that. Um, they, so they shot this movie, um, in like kind of four variations for all this, for a lot of the sequences, especially this, well, I say a lot of them, all the sequences where there are people going.

in both directions in the time stream, which isn't like, you know, I don't know how much of the movie has people going forward and backward in the time stream. But um, but it seems like there's just like select sequences that are that way. Um, but yeah, so all of those sequences where there are people going forward and backward in the time stream, they shot those, um, forward and backward.

It's hard to, it's hard to explain. So one of the techniques they use was they would shoot, they would do a take and they would shoot it with the film running forward through the reels, through the camera. And then they, they actually had to get IMAX to work with them to build magazines where they could run the film backwards. Um, IMAX had, you couldn't really do that with the IMAX camera until this movie. They got it, uh, that, that kind of thing, especially done.

Andrew Fossier (56:19.278)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (56:34.829)
Yeah.

Eli Price (56:37.679)
so that they could run the film backwards through the, um, through the camera. So, which is, which is how Nolan did it in memento. Um, when he shot that sequence, um, all of the things he shot in that were, um, just by running the film backwards through the camera and shooting it that way. And then you play a forwards and it's like plays out kind of in reverse. Um, and so

Andrew Fossier (56:59.377)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (57:04.664)
Yeah.

Eli Price (57:06.283)
They did that. So that was one technique they used was shooting. They would shoot a sequence with the film running forward, and then they would shoot the same sequence with the film running backwards to the camera, but also they would shoot it. They would have like the people in the scene, whether it be the actors or the stunt, um, the, the stunt people, they would learn the sequences forward and backwards, they would learn like the choreography of the scene, um,

or their movements through the scene or whatever, forwards and backwards. And they would like practice making their backward movements look as much as they could like their forward movements too. Um, so then they would like shoot it again like that with you doing your, your part backwards, uh, I think both ways. So I think that's where the four variations comes in. So like he's.

Andrew Fossier (57:49.312)
Yeah.

Eli Price (58:02.851)
Or at least for the fight scene, I guess, like he has to be, they have to film him. Like they have to film their original him doing it forwards and then the original him with the film running backwards. And then they had to do it again with him in the mass suit after he's come out of the turnstile and those two ways too. So I guess that's where the four variations comes from. Um, which is really crazy. I, I do want to read.

Andrew Fossier (58:22.848)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (58:29.246)
Yeah. Explaining it doesn't, explaining it really doesn't make sense.

Eli Price (58:33.751)
Yeah. Which I have something that's really fun. You're going to love this. Um, which if you watch the special features on the Blu ray, you probably heard this, but, uh, I wanted to read this quote I wrote down directly exactly what George Cotter, uh, George Cotter, the stunt coordinator said. This was. Yeah. Um, so he's, you know, he's in his first meeting with, with Nolan and, uh, some other people on the crew.

Andrew Fossier (58:37.62)
Uh-huh.

Andrew Fossier (58:51.466)
I was gonna say, I can't remember the quote, but this'll be good, yeah.

Eli Price (59:02.179)
Uh, and they're around the table and Nolan is explaining what he, to George Cottle, what he needs him to do as the stunt coordinator. And this is George Cottle speaking. He's, he says that no one asks him, or this is Nolan. This is him recalling what Nolan said to him, quote, put a fight together of one guy fighting another moving forward and then play that backwards, then take the other guy away and have the guy who was.

Andrew Fossier (59:19.56)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (59:31.515)
who was first attacking watch the video of him doing it backwards then have him do the routine perfectly backwards then have somebody attack him as he's going backwards and then flip that film and that's your fight scene. This is no one this is well this is at least like him recalling what Nolan said to him and he said like he like.

Andrew Fossier (59:47.874)
Yeah.

Eli Price (59:58.635)
He was like taking notes and it got to that point and he's just kind of like looked up really confused. And he said like everyone around the table just started like laughing and no, no one said, I lost you did not. And he was like, yeah, I, I don't know. Like you're going to have to give me more than that. Um, and it is, it's, it's so like, it's confusing. It's, it's very difficult to like understand.

Andrew Fossier (01:00:12.696)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:00:28.863)
Exactly like what's happening. And so one of the things which no one said that the, the frustration of that, the, the way they had to shoot it was really exciting for him. I guess it's that, that idea of like friction and creation, like providing like, um, or just like that challenge, like your challenge, he's doing something he's never had to do before and having to think about it and that.

Andrew Fossier (01:00:41.586)
Mmm.

Eli Price (01:00:55.491)
challenging of yourself as an artist and as a creator pushes you forward in your craft and helps you to think about it in new ways and new perspectives and have to innovate, which is something that really I love from Nolan Films is it seems like, especially in this back half of his career, it seems like every film he puts out, there's some sort of technological innovation in

that him and his crew come up with to be able to capture the idea that's in his mind. Um, with, I mean, an interstellar, the, what they were doing with like actual like physics and, uh, visualizations of black holes, which had never really been visualized, you know, Kip Thorne had said like, that's the best visualization of a black hole he's ever seen. And he's a, I mean, he's a top.

Andrew Fossier (01:01:31.648)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:01:52.768)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:01:55.343)
like physicist in gravity and black holes. So, I mean, in Dunkirk, they're like creating rig. We talked about that in the last episode. They're like literally creating these rigs to put on boats so that they can have an IMAX camera in this rig, right alongside another boat from the boat that the rig is on. And it looks crisp and clean and smooth because it's like on this like gyroscope that's keeping the camera steady. Like they...

Andrew Fossier (01:02:13.319)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:02:24.575)
literally made that for that movie. And like here again, like they're getting IMAX to come up with new camera magazines so that they can run the film backwards. And like, they're just, it's just like, I'm, I really like appreciate that challenge that he gives to himself. Like, I, this is the idea I have in my head of what it's going to look like. Let's like innovate so that we can make it happen. And like,

Yeah. And then like Hoyta van Hortema, his, uh, cinematographer has talked about how, like he's loved working with Nolan and especially like working with IMAX because, um, it's pushing him in his craft and helping. He feels like he's paving the way for more people to be able to shoot in IMAX just because they're doing things with IMAX that had never been done before. And that is totally doable. And so they're kind of like.

Andrew Fossier (01:03:18.579)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:03:22.123)
let's just do these things that are totally doable with IMAX, like me lugging around this 50 pound camera, getting handheld shots with it. And like, so that people can see, oh, I actually can do these things with IMAX or do this thing with film, you know, which I really appreciate. I love that him and his crew.

Andrew Fossier (01:03:42.146)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:03:47.671)
are innovating within the film. They're not just putting out blockbuster movies, but they're paving the way with, I don't know, creating these technologies so that other people coming up behind them will be able to utilize them. So I just think that's cool.

Andrew Fossier (01:04:08.938)
No, yeah, well, it's very, it's very cool. And the thing that we kind of talked about, we kind of talked about this earlier about like, you know, how big Nolan is about the experience. And, you know, just, justifying that really with his love of IMAX, because it's not, I'm not gonna explain it effectively over audio, but just the amount of,

Eli Price (01:04:22.692)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:04:39.566)
film physical size difference that IMAX is, meaning that much more information it can capture from the camera, it's a higher detail than typical film. And it's, it just, his words are, it puts you in the story or it centers you in the story. And then to take that idea of, okay, well, I wanna use IMAX, how do I get an IMAX camera in a Spitfire? You know, like how do I?

Eli Price (01:04:43.013)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:05:07.211)
Right.

Andrew Fossier (01:05:08.19)
you know, get those shots, which I actually didn't know the length of that they went to for Dunkirk with the plane filming. I just didn't think about it when I saw Top Gun because I don't want to rub a trail on that too far. I can talk about that all day, but the incredible cinematography getting, you know, up in an F-16. But yeah.

Eli Price (01:05:19.663)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:05:25.668)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:05:33.591)
Yeah. And I know the Dunkirk episode isn't out as we're recording this quite yet, but you know, when that episode comes out, um, we talked about, like, I think I even said in the episode, like everyone's freaking out about like what Top Gun Maverick did and I'm like, no one did it first, like no one was mounting these cameras on and, and they didn't even, Top Gun Maverick didn't even use, um, I mean, these are IMAX film cameras that they're mounting on these planes.

Andrew Fossier (01:05:38.207)
Okay.

Andrew Fossier (01:05:49.782)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:05:59.84)
Right.

Eli Price (01:06:01.863)
Uh, top gun Maverick is digital. It's, um, they used like a Sony Venice, uh, which is a, which is a, it's, it's like an IMAX certified camera, but it's a digital camera. It's not this huge IMAX film camera that, so I'm like, well, no one did it first. And like, like maybe he didn't actually have like, uh, Tom Hardy flying the plane like Tom Cruise is, but like, just, that's just because he didn't have Tom Cruise, who was like, I'm going to fly the plane.

Andrew Fossier (01:06:02.734)
Well, it's right. Limeax, as I said, wait a minute.

Andrew Fossier (01:06:15.082)
Right, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:06:24.279)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:06:31.347)
Right.

Eli Price (01:06:31.395)
Like what there's only like one Tom cruise that's actually going to get up there and fly the plane.

Andrew Fossier (01:06:36.878)
Well, the stunts, yes, the stunts that Tom Cruise is pulling off, no stunt coordinator would allow a stunt person to do. It only exists because, because he is a producer and he could say, I'm going to jump off this mountain. I'm going to, I'm yeah. Yeah. I think that's an incredible franchise.

Eli Price (01:06:41.612)
Mm-hmm.

Right, you because yeah.

Yeah. Which there's that funny, there's that funny story of, I think, I can't remember who tells it, but I've seen a clip of it where he's talking about, like asking Tom Cruise about like, um, how it is like doing stunts or whatever. And Tom Cruise starts on the story of how like he was telling his stunt guy or safety guy or whatever, I think it was a safety guy, like, Hey, there's, here's what I'm planning on doing. And like, I was like, Hey, we can't do that. You know,

And so Tom was like, okay, and then, you know, I got a new safety guy and, uh, I just, I think that's a hilarious story, but, uh, um, dudes like literally like firing a safety guy. If he doesn't let him do what he wants to do. Um, but yeah, but yeah. So one of the, you know, going full circle back to this, the way they had to shoot this.

Andrew Fossier (01:07:36.611)
Well...

Eli Price (01:07:48.203)
early, you know, we talked about Nathan Crowley come came on early. Um, they, they worked a lot on, on the design and how that things were going to look, they even kind of like flew around and scouted locations, um, him and Nathan Crowley, um, but then like, they also hired on, uh, this previs technician, which previs is just short for previsual pre visualization. Um, that is a harder word.

Andrew Fossier (01:07:51.512)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:08:18.339)
than I thought when I first started to say it. But yeah, this Previz Tech, they hired on to kind of create these 3D computer-generated visuals of sequences that they were planning on filming. And so it was kind of like this, I guess, in between from the script to the actual shooting that they would do.

Andrew Fossier (01:08:19.138)
Hehehe

Eli Price (01:08:47.575)
If there was a sequence where, you know, like say like the sequence of them, uh, going in and out of the, like the turnstiles, like, so they would like do a 3d visualization of that sequence. Um, because really like if they were to have just started trying to film what was on the script, it would be like, okay, where do you even start? But then, but putting it into this program and like computer generating it, you kind of have like.

a visual to go off of, which they just had to have. They couldn't. It was one of those things where it's like, even I remember Hoytav and Hordema, I think in one of the special features, things saying like, he remembers reading the script and being like, OK, how are we going to do this? He was like, I don't know how we're going to capture this. I hope no one has a plan or whatever.

Andrew Fossier (01:09:21.011)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:09:40.014)
Thank you.

Eli Price (01:09:45.671)
Uh, which he knew he did, but yeah, it's just the, and then they, they had to check. So the, those, those previous things came in handy because they could shoot and then they could check it against it to make sure, because really like you're trying to keep like this multi-dimensional continuity going because you have like people going forwards and backwards and like, you've got to make sure like the continuity matches up. So you really like have to have like.

Andrew Fossier (01:09:47.743)
Yeah. What?

Andrew Fossier (01:10:06.552)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:14.859)
a visual foundation to line that up with.

Andrew Fossier (01:10:21.954)
Yeah, well, definitely. And I think also I heard them talk about like the, for the editing after the fact, like the amount of continuity checks that they did. And just to give an example of something that like I noticed when I saw, don't judge me, the Meg too. Like that's the simplest shot of like the end of the movie is he gets, he makes three harpoons because there's three things he has to kill and he puts three things on his back.

Eli Price (01:10:30.657)
What?

Eli Price (01:10:41.351)
Hm. Back to you.

Andrew Fossier (01:10:50.878)
and I'm not even really paying attention to it. And I notice, okay, he just killed one of them. Why does he only have one spirit is back in the shot? Because the editing just missed. And it's like, is it really important in that movie? I don't think so. But this is a Nolan film and the amount of attention to detail is there and you don't get those kinds of little, honestly, the attention to detail is called out a lot of times in the film because they'll be like,

Eli Price (01:11:04.78)
Yes, it is.

Eli Price (01:11:17.956)
Yeah, sure.

Andrew Fossier (01:11:19.618)
Why are you bleeding, you know, when he's about to get stabbed in the fight scene or the windows, the side view mirror is cracked because it's about to get hit by the oncoming car that's reversed. So, yeah, it's very thorough with those kinds of things. And there's not little...

Eli Price (01:11:24.76)
Right.

Eli Price (01:11:31.555)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:11:36.611)
Yeah. I remember seeing, I remember seeing the, um, the busted side mirror. Like when they're first starting that scene and being like, Oh, I bet that's like something that's, that's gonna, that's gonna happen going the other way. Um, but yeah, yeah. Like even so like going off of what you're talking about with the editing. Um, I get, we can kind of talk about how really like this is an interesting

Andrew Fossier (01:11:48.839)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:12:05.095)
movie and Nolan's career, because he's kind of, partly like just by the nature of like people working on other things, but he's kind of like shifting gears in his collaborations. So like for forever Lee Smith was his editor. And I don't remember why, but Lee Smith was doing something else or like not available. And so he...

Andrew Fossier (01:12:22.593)
Mmm.

Eli Price (01:12:34.775)
He had to find an, an editor to work with and he found Jennifer lame who, um, she had worked on a decent amount of stuff. Um, I want to say, uh, let me just, let me just pull it up. I know what he, uh, what he had seen that really like drew him to her as an editor was Manchester by the sea, uh, which I'm not sure if you've seen that.

But, um, yeah, um, it does a lot with like, especially like in the editing, uh, dealing with like memory, I guess, and like the effect that memory has on you and the president sort of thing. Um, and a lot of that, I guess, no one saw coming through in the editing. And, um, so he, you know, he was drawn to her, but she's done, she's done a lot of, um, uh,

Andrew Fossier (01:13:04.942)
credit card.

Eli Price (01:13:34.435)
A lot of bomb back stuff like Francis Ha, Marriage Story, some of his other stuff too while we were young. And then she edited her editor, her other one that wasn't bomb back was before this was Hereditary. Which yeah, I mean, that's a very interesting career to because a lot. Well, so a lot of her stuff is like more like.

Andrew Fossier (01:13:40.59)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:13:58.751)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:14:03.419)
more mellow, smaller scale drama. Um, cause that's what a lot of bomb back films are. Right. Um, and then like Manchester by the sea is, is very similar. It's, it's a smaller scale, like drama. Um, and then hereditary is an interesting jump. Um, uh, and then after that, uh, tenant. And so it's kind of like, um,

Andrew Fossier (01:14:22.351)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:14:30.763)
Yeah. And then she, he kept her on and she did Oppenheimer too. Uh, but yeah, she, it, it's just interesting because like he, he was looking for a new perspective and he went with someone who's up to this point, other than hereditary, which I guess you could say in a sense, hereditary, uh, is smaller scale. It's a different genre, but it's still like the same, a similar scale. Cause like in a horror movie, you're.

kind of playing with drama elements in the way you're building characters and whatnot. And so, yeah, it's just interesting. He's like looking for a new perspective and he goes after this person that really is only done like small scale dramas to do this like big epic international espionage spy action movie.

Andrew Fossier (01:15:21.517)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:15:25.442)
Which yeah, in the behind the scenes thing, Nolan was talking about like the, I guess the distinction, which I'll admit, when I hear editing, I think of my experience with editing, which is literally just the technical act of cutting a clip, cutting a clip, finding where they go together. And I don't really think about the artistic.

Eli Price (01:15:44.215)
Mm-hmm. Right, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:15:52.974)
vision side of it, because it's not something that, you know, in my experience with anything with editing, it's been very straightforward stuff. It's not, I'm not telling a story, like, you know, of course an editor for a movie like this is. And so her...

Eli Price (01:15:54.211)
Yes.

Eli Price (01:16:01.839)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:16:08.348)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:16:11.946)
vision for what's going on and how to, even having all the shots and then putting them together the way they end up in the movie, it's a very much deeper process, I guess, than you think when you hear editing and you don't think deeply about it.

Eli Price (01:16:26.935)
Yeah. Yeah, it's. And I, yeah, I remember seeing the same, the same thing you're talking about of Nolan talking about that. And, um, I remember along those same lines, he, he was saying something to the effect of like, I don't know that he said, like the, the technical aspect isn't as important as, but he said something along those lines, like, but like the storytelling aspect of editing is what's most important to him. Um, anyway.

Andrew Fossier (01:16:49.325)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:16:56.359)
Uh, and I guess like you could, you could say like the test, the technical aspect of editing really is just like a servant of the storytelling aspect. Um, which, uh, which, yeah, you, yeah, you, most people probably do think just about the technical part of editing, but, um, but it's like, like I even saw a clip recently of a interview with Martin Scorsese and he was talking about how like he's

Andrew Fossier (01:17:08.17)
Yeah. That's a good way to say it.

Eli Price (01:17:25.351)
always thinking about editing as he's like shooting a movie. Um, because he's thinking about like how these images are going to be put together to tell the story and to convey the themes and to convey the ideas that he's trying to get across. And so like, as he's shooting, he's always thinking about how this is going to be edited together to tell the story that he's trying to tell, um, and you know, convey the ideas he's trying to convey. Which that's

That's all done. Like, yeah, it's all captured in camera and it's all there, but it's not a reality until it's edited, um, until it's like put together and lined up. Um, just so, and editing can, can ruin a movie too. Um, thinking about this movie, like this movie is, I will say it's, it can be pretty confusing, but I would say at the same time, like

Andrew Fossier (01:18:05.441)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:18:25.215)
You can, if you just kind of like watch it, um, and don't like, like we were talking about earlier, don't like really try to think too deeply, like it's pretty like comprehensible. I would say I felt like when it was coming out, it kind of had this. Add rap of being an incomprehensible movie. And I remember knowing that going in when I saw it for the first time and coming out thinking, no.

Andrew Fossier (01:18:38.509)
Okay.

Eli Price (01:18:52.983)
I think I get the general gist of what, what happened in this movie. I don't know why people are so like caught up on the sound design and saying they can't understand because they can't hear anything. And I'm like, even, I mean, I agree that there was a lot of dialogue that I couldn't hear, but I still like, even with that was able to grasp like. The concept of what's happening and follow the plot line pretty well. Um, which

Andrew Fossier (01:19:01.107)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:19:18.439)
Right.

Eli Price (01:19:20.831)
I think says a lot about the editing because this movie could with bad editing could so easily just be a total mess.

Andrew Fossier (01:19:24.266)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:19:30.254)
Definitely. And bringing up the sound reminded me, I wanted to say this earlier, but I think it's really telling when, because one of the first things that I remember hearing was, is this intentional? Is this a mistake? And that's very easily spelled now, hearing Nolan talk about it and stuff after the fact, but.

Eli Price (01:19:47.631)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:19:57.826)
The first thing we hear the protagonist say, and it's only the third line of dialogue in the movie after wake up the Americans, somebody grunts, and then this is the third line. The protagonist says, we live in a twilight world, and the guy he's saying it to doesn't respond, so he repeats it. And I don't know interpreting it. Is that because he didn't hear him? But it's like, yeah, he's got the mask on and he's talking like this, and the guys just saw him shoot someone.

Eli Price (01:20:13.127)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:20:16.919)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:20:27.358)
And so that's part of the point is it's not always crisp, clean, perfect audio. And I don't know, kind of get into the opinion of was it a good decision or bad. I liked the movie and I think that was a good, I feel like it was, I trust Nolan. I liked the decision, but it definitely was not a mistake. And that's pretty apparent three lines into the movie that it's going to be harder to follow than.

Eli Price (01:20:43.78)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:20:51.352)
Right, right.

Eli Price (01:20:55.627)
Yeah. And and like I said, like, I just think that all of that, even more so, just like amplifies how well this is like put together in editing. And yeah, the sound thing is this weird thing for me where I'm like, yeah, like. I understand some of like the intention behind it, but also like. As a viewer of the movie, because like first and foremost, like that's

Andrew Fossier (01:20:56.915)
movies.

Eli Price (01:21:25.411)
That's what I am. Like as a viewer of the movie, I'm like, I personally like to be able to hear what people are saying. And so like for me, the viewing experience can be a bit frustrating when I can't hear what people are saying. So like, it's this weird like conflict like inside of myself where I'm like, okay, I want to trust the decision here.

Andrew Fossier (01:21:35.)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:21:55.363)
Um, and I want to trust that there's like an intention or a point or, um, you know, something like that going on. But at the same time, like I'm also kind of frustrated cause I can't like, especially like the one that I remember most not being able to hear there to, there's two sections that in my memory, I recall like not being able to heal, hear well when I watched it for the first time in theaters. Um, and those are when they're on the catamarans.

Andrew Fossier (01:22:09.664)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:22:25.239)
out in the ocean, like I couldn't really understand anything that was said out there. Um, and so there was that. And then when they're in the cavern at the end, even, and like they're speaking through the walkie talkie. And so like the sound is terrible. And like, I felt I was frustrated because I was like, I want to hear what they're saying and I just can't understand it. And so it's kind of like, yeah, I get the intention, but at the same time, like

Andrew Fossier (01:22:25.623)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:22:44.173)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:22:50.518)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:22:54.755)
Maybe there is something to, uh, the system of like your production company giving you notes of like, Hey, like, uh, we can't hear, you know, this part of the movie, you know, you need to fix that before we release it. And sometimes like when you have a guy like Nolan that just like has full creative control and a huge budget and it's just like, do whatever you want to do and we're not going to question it. There's a degree to which it's like, okay. Like.

Andrew Fossier (01:23:09.89)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:23:25.211)
But like your audience is a little frustrated because we can't hear what's happening. And for me, what seemed like it was a crucial moment to be able to hear what was happening like in the cavern when they're like, that's literally like the climax of them saving the world. And I, I don't know what's being said. Um, so it's like, yeah, for sure. There's

Andrew Fossier (01:23:35.726)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:23:45.739)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:23:52.391)
probably some intention there and some decisions that were made with creative intent, but also like it is still something that like is made for the viewer to experience. And when that experience is frustrating, it can be, it can kind of take you out of the experience that you're wanting people to have. So yeah, that's my like sound design rant on Nolan.

Andrew Fossier (01:24:20.782)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:24:21.219)
for this movie and it's a, it is like, it honestly is something that like, makes this movie not quite as good as it, as it maybe could have been for me, especially that first viewing, that first viewing, the second one, like obviously I had subtitles on, like we talked about earlier. So like, I didn't, I didn't miss any of the dialogue, but like, but yeah, I mean, when you, when you make a movie and like, you can't hear dialogue that feels as a view.

Andrew Fossier (01:24:31.265)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:24:39.228)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:24:50.775)
Maybe it's not an actuality crucial for you to hear what's being said, but as a viewer, there's these moments where it feels crucial, like it feels like it should be crucial. So it feels like I should hear it and I can't. It's like, ah, like, uh, but yeah, that's, I guess like I'll step off my sound. Does that like that? That is honestly like when I first saw it, I, I remember I went back and watched my rip.

Andrew Fossier (01:25:02.401)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:25:12.855)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:25:19.811)
watched. I read the review I had written on Letterboxd and I was kind of like defending Nolan in that but it was kind of based on what I said, what I was saying about the editing. I didn't mention the editing there but I was just kind of talking about how like, yeah maybe the sound isn't great but I still understood what was happening for the most part and so I don't

Andrew Fossier (01:25:23.736)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:25:49.219)
I did, I was kind of like challenging the, all of the like, Oh, it's confusing because you can't hear anything idea that was being spouted. I don't think that's the case, but I do think it's the case that you can get frustrated as a viewer when you feel like you should be hearing something and you can't. So, right. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:25:57.688)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:26:10.143)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:26:11.93)
Um...

Yeah, the, the editing too, like, I will say this too, about the, the sound design. Like a lot of that work, like a lot of times, like the sound mixing and stuff is some of the last stuff that gets, gets finalized in post-production. And so by the time they're like doing the sound mixing, it's in lockdown. It's it's 2020 they're in lockdown.

Andrew Fossier (01:26:39.414)
Hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:26:47.233)
Um, like, it's like pretty significantly smaller for, for all of that work. Um, and then at the same, on top of that, it's in lockdown. They're having to do social distancing. Um, and so there's a degree to which I wonder, like, if that factors into why the sound mixing wasn't so great is like just the, and

Andrew Fossier (01:27:04.342)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:27:11.883)
And that's why I like, that's another reason I want to give it the benefit of the doubt is like, maybe Nolan and his press was like defending it because like, yeah, it's your movie. You're like, you've got to defend it, but like maybe at the end of the day to like, he knows like, well, yeah, I guess it's not great, but like under the circumstances, like we did the best we could maybe sort of thing. Um, I don't know. Benefit of the doubt.

Andrew Fossier (01:27:16.002)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:27:40.308)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:27:41.135)
Benefit of the doubt given. But yeah, another new collaborator he had was Lugwood Gordon-son doing the score.

Andrew Fossier (01:27:49.974)
Yeah, I liked, I liked, I guess I first became aware of his work on Black Panther was when I first like connected who he was. But yes, excellent, excellent score here.

Eli Price (01:27:58.807)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:28:07.787)
Yeah. He had worked. So he had worked on a black Panther, but he had worked on, um, uh, Cree the first two Creeds also, um, he did the score for those, um, and venom, which I haven't seen venom and I don't have, I don't necessarily have plans to see venom, um, but so I don't know anything about the score in that, but yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:28:17.023)
Okay.

Andrew Fossier (01:28:26.999)
Oh.

Andrew Fossier (01:28:30.862)
Mm-hmm. Heh heh.

Eli Price (01:28:35.707)
The score in black Panthers fantastic. I love the score for black Panther. Um, so yeah, but yeah, definitely like he's, it's definitely like another kind of change for Nolan in a sense. Um, there's a, there's a sense of which like this Gordon's score is like. It's like similar and different to like the Zimmer scores before it's similar in the sense that it's very like propulsive.

Andrew Fossier (01:28:38.954)
Yeah, very, very good as well.

Eli Price (01:29:05.363)
and like in your face. But it's that in a different way. Like it's, he's utilizing different sort of like.

Andrew Fossier (01:29:08.183)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:29:17.007)
music making than Zimmer usually was. But like it's very like drum and synth heavy electronic music for the most part. And then, you know, you have some guitar, you have some electric guitar that kind of feels like homage to like Bond, like the Bond theme. But yeah, even this score, like how I think it's really

Andrew Fossier (01:29:27.657)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:29:44.399)
good and like it fits the propulsiveness of the movie. Like it's very like punchy and like in your face but like so is like the action of the movie. So I think it's a good score. It's not like I don't think it's like oh this is like top notch. Like Interstellar is one of my favorite scores just like ever. I love the Interstellar score and it's like nowhere near that level but it's good and it works with the movie I think.

Andrew Fossier (01:29:58.353)
Amen.

Andrew Fossier (01:30:12.685)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:30:14.519)
Um, yeah. And I mean, it is also like the product of lockdown. It's it's they, I think I want to say they recorded everything, like everyone separately, like the whole orchestra, everyone was recorded separately because they couldn't like, they couldn't get a whole orchestra together to record. It was locked down. Like, um, it was like.

Andrew Fossier (01:30:30.964)
Oh wow.

Andrew Fossier (01:30:39.554)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:30:43.127)
not okay to do that for them. So, yeah, I did write down to one of the interesting things about the score was like, he was using these distorted sounds. The most notable one is for Sator's theme. He had like recorded Christopher Nolan breathing into a microphone and like distorted it, which is like, it's like, okay.

Andrew Fossier (01:30:44.907)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:31:06.726)
Ooh. Wow.

Eli Price (01:31:11.479)
It's there always seems to be like some weird Nolan thing worked into like in Dunkirk, you have it's one of his like stopwatches that's the ticking in Dunkirk. Um, and then like, and now in this one, you've got like, I want it like, I need to go back and listen to say towards theme to see if I can hear what sound is supposed to be like Nolan's breathing distorted, but I can just imagine.

Andrew Fossier (01:31:15.36)
Uh-huh.

Andrew Fossier (01:31:21.175)
Mmm.

Eli Price (01:31:37.331)
Nolan going into the studio and being like, what do you need me to do? Just breathe into this mic. Okay. Like, I wonder if it was like exaggerated breathing or is he just like, does, is Nolan allowed to breathe there? Like, how are you? What do you tell them to do? Hey, can you breathe into the mic, please?

Andrew Fossier (01:31:45.786)
I'm sorry.

Andrew Fossier (01:31:57.253)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:32:00.938)
Maybe he's... Well, I mean, I have a deviated septum, so I breathe pretty loud sometimes, but other than most people breathing, it's not very loud. So I don't know. Yeah, I'm interested too now. We need to see if there's more information on this.

Eli Price (01:32:07.95)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:32:12.336)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:32:19.002)
Yeah, I just thought that was funny. The other cool thing about the music, this is the first like, you know, it ends in the credits with the Travis Scott song, the plan. And it's the first like time Nolan's used hip hop in his movie, but it's also the first time he's done like a single, like, you know, a music single like released, you know, in tandem with his movie. Like he's never done that before.

Andrew Fossier (01:32:29.794)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:32:43.591)
Oh. Yeah. Huh.

Eli Price (01:32:44.975)
Um, and so this is interesting. Uh, I was kind of wondering if that too also was homage to bond movies, which every bond movie kind of has its own single that's released with it. Um, and so I didn't read that anywhere. Um, I, I didn't get through very much of the chapter on tenant and the Nolan variations. So maybe they, they might talk about it in there cause it's the most detailed resource I have. Um,

Andrew Fossier (01:32:59.499)
Yeah, that's true.

Eli Price (01:33:14.755)
But yeah, as I was thinking about it, I was like, I wonder if that's like kind of homage to a Bond movie, but in reverse instead of it being in the title sequence. Of course it's at the end. Which another thing with that too is a lot of Nolan movies have the title card come in at the very end of the movie. I know all the Batman movies are like that.

Andrew Fossier (01:33:26.962)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:33:39.704)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:33:44.399)
with intention, but it feels like a lot, it feels like a lot of his movies are like that, um, and this antenna, it's towards the beginning. It's like after that opening sequence, you get the title card.

Andrew Fossier (01:33:46.251)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:33:55.178)
It's, yeah, it's right. Yeah, it is. Well, cause that is, that is true with like the way they come in at the end. Not to go talk about too much, but I actually, there was for Batman Day in this year, I was able to see The Dark Knight in theaters for the first time. And man, the Gordon's monologue at the end, The Dark Knight.

Eli Price (01:34:11.089)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:34:20.982)
The music swells and then it's just the dark night. It's like, oh, it's such a good, such a good rap. But yeah, they're always at the end. It doesn't come in and say, you're watching the dark night by Christopher Nolan. And then start to just straight into the action.

Eli Price (01:34:23.577)
Yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah.

Eli Price (01:34:29.927)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah. And it is that way here as far as straight into the action, but it is. I was wondering, like, I saw the title card pop up and I was like, Oh yeah, I know Nolan likes to put his title card at the end. I wonder if this is like some sort of like, Ooh, it's reversed now. Uh, kind of thing going on, but yeah. Yeah. For sure. Um, I did. Yeah. Let's, let's talk a little bit about like some of the

Andrew Fossier (01:34:38.752)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:34:48.847)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:35:00.347)
how they did it sort of stuff like the production design and the special effects. This movie surprisingly only has 200 or at least like this might be an approximation. I can't remember the source for this but only 280 special effects shots which is really impressive because this movie seems like it should have tons of special effects shots.

Andrew Fossier (01:35:02.624)
Okay.

Andrew Fossier (01:35:19.031)
Wow.

Andrew Fossier (01:35:26.858)
Yeah, it definitely does.

Eli Price (01:35:30.483)
is wild that it that's all it has. But a lot of that is, you know, a lot of that has to do with just like the way Nolan shoots things, he tries to capture as much as he can in camera. And like he does that here, like we talked about, like.

Andrew Fossier (01:35:33.57)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:35:56.891)
They are running film backwards and forwards through the camera so that they're not having to do CGI work in post. They're literally capturing it that way in camera where you're not having to do some sort of special effects.

Andrew Fossier (01:36:14.263)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:36:17.566)
I think that was one of the first like bits of information that I learned about Nolan. I actually don't remember the context. I think it was in relation to Inception with the amount of like reality. Like the one thing everyone talks about this like the train. It's a real train built on top of an 18 wheeler and they really plowed cars you know they didn't CG in a train.

Eli Price (01:36:29.862)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:36:39.991)
Any tool. Uh-huh. Yep.

Eli Price (01:36:45.707)
Yeah. It's like a, it's like a, they literally like built a moving set of a train basically on the 18. But yeah, even inception, uh, I pulled up this, um, it's a Reddit graphic that I found. So like take this with what you will. I'm, I, I would bet that these are pretty close cause it has the 280 tenant thing that I mentioned, but like inception has 500, uh, VFX shots.

Andrew Fossier (01:36:47.734)
with like a live movie sort of.

Andrew Fossier (01:36:53.651)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:37:10.275)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:37:14.675)
Wow.

Eli Price (01:37:18.856)
Um, the only, the only one with less is Oppenheimer with 200. Um, so the most are as a tie for dark night and interstellar at 700. Um, which makes sense, uh, especially for interstellar. Um, but yeah. And I will say to like a lot of people, they might hear like VFX or SFX or whatever, and they might think.

Andrew Fossier (01:37:18.951)
What? Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:37:24.142)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:37:32.749)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:37:44.303)
their mind might immediately go to a seat like computer generated and that's not what VFX means. It just means like, so for instance, when the, when the opera house blows up, like that's a VFX shot. They're, they're creating the illusion of an explosion. Um, it's a visual effect, like it's, um, and so, you know, that's

Andrew Fossier (01:37:52.075)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:38:12.283)
That's what a VFX shot is. So it's not, or like, so for instance, in the final battle scene, the building that blows up. Well, that's a miniature. It's a one third scale building that they've built that they're using to capture the footage of the building exploding and then like rebuilding and then exploding again. That's not, that's a visual effect shot because

Andrew Fossier (01:38:33.901)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:38:40.395)
It's not, they're not just like filming a building explode. They've built like this miniature of it to capture like the, the effect visually of a full scale building exploding. Um, and so like, uh, yeah, I just wanted to make that clarification. Cause I feel like a lot of people, when they hear VFX, they, their mind immediately goes to CGI and like, not, not this, yeah, not the same thing. Um,

Andrew Fossier (01:38:50.871)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:39:04.394)
Yeah, like full green screen, fake environment.

Yeah.

Eli Price (01:39:10.667)
And I don't think they did any sort of green screen scuff with Tenet. Like some of his movies they do, like there's parts of like the Dark Night and stuff where they had to use some green screen. But yeah, I don't remember seeing anything in the special features with green screen in there when I was watching through the Tenet stuff.

Andrew Fossier (01:39:15.79)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:39:36.554)
Yeah, well, there were some surprising things like, his first, I guess, interaction with, I can't think of the character's name, the scientist who's explaining how reverse-entry works to him. And when he's like, the shot of him standing in front of the file cabinets, that's actually like a forced perspective painting behind him. It's not a full...

Eli Price (01:39:52.644)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:40:02.156)
It is, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:40:05.942)
That's that's incredible. It's you know, it's not a it's not an it Yeah freehand apparently as well Incredible. Yeah, so There's a few

Eli Price (01:40:07.287)
Yeah, they had someone come in and paint that.

Eli Price (01:40:13.263)
Uh huh. Yeah. I saw that. And even after they told me that it was like painted and to make it look like that, I was like, yeah, it still looks like it to me, even though I know.

Andrew Fossier (01:40:26.482)
It still looks, yeah, which I was aware of, some of the earlier Star Wars movies doing stuff like that as well, but I didn't realize that was something that movies would do. Maybe that's just a Nolan special, I don't know.

Eli Price (01:40:32.943)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:40:39.811)
Yeah. I mean, a lot of movies do, I mean, all movies have those sorts of things going on, it's becoming more and more common to do it in post production instead of pre-production. That's the difference. Um, adding it in computer generated. Um, right. Yeah. And that's kind of like one of the Nolan, uh, I guess, like, uh,

Andrew Fossier (01:40:51.39)
Yeah, okay.

Andrew Fossier (01:40:56.042)
Right, a lot of movies that would have just been a green screen and that's a wrap, yeah.

Eli Price (01:41:10.183)
My mind is like lost the word. I guess like something that Nolan does that, you know he's kind of like become known for is Just and it's something that like has come up again and again doing this series is Just this idea of like well instead of putting in all this work in post-production. Why don't we just put in that? Switch it up and put that work in pre-production where you can actually like capture stuff on

Andrew Fossier (01:41:26.295)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:41:39.783)
camera instead of like, you know, that's, and it's something that like you hear, like when you hear actors, whether it's in like the special features on the, the Blu ray or in interviews, you know, on red carpets or whatever, um, something that you hear actors and Nolan movies talk about is how, like, how much they appreciate having actual tangible things to spaces to work in. Um,

as actors is so helpful for them to be able to like fill them, like even an interstellar. So like, obviously like they've got these computer generated images of black holes and wormholes like they didn't film wormholes. There's not, there's no wormholes out there to film. Um, and so there are these computer generated images, but they're projecting them. So like they're in this soundstage and they're sitting in the little spaceship set.

Andrew Fossier (01:42:10.423)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:42:24.854)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:42:37.775)
that they've built and through the window, they're literally looking at a projection of that wormhole and that's captured in camera as they're looking at it. So like even like even when he is like doing a lot of CG work because of the necessity of I can't film a wormhole, like he's still giving it putting it in the space literally with a projection so that it can be like acted off of.

Andrew Fossier (01:42:46.583)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:43:08.983)
Like Anne Hathaway had talked about like, yeah, when you're seeing our reaction on screen to seeing the wormhole for the first time, we literally are seeing the wormhole for the first time. And it's kind of a genuine reaction of like, whoa, on our faces. And you kind of hear similar stuff like, John David Washington and Robert Pattinson and these interviews kind of just talking about like,

Andrew Fossier (01:43:24.907)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:43:38.443)
Yeah, it was crazy to be on set and like we're actually like crashing a real plane into a warehouse. Like they were just talking about like acting off of that is like an incredible experience and like so helpful for me as an actor. Um, I just think that's really cool. Um, yeah, that, that sequence, I mean, it's a decommissioned seven, literally a 747. Like they could have gotten.

Andrew Fossier (01:43:44.162)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:43:52.96)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:44:00.854)
Yeah, same.

Eli Price (01:44:07.363)
smaller planes and made it, you know, forced perspective to look bigger. But no, they literally got a humongous 747. Um, and it's kind of that sequence is kind of comical. Like you're watching it and it's like going so it's going so slow, which is kind of funny, but at this, but like, it's one of those things where you're like, yeah, I guess it would be going that slow in real life and like, who's going to stop it? Like,

Andrew Fossier (01:44:22.183)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:44:35.023)
Right.

Eli Price (01:44:35.743)
It's a 747. It's not like just because it's going slow, you can stop it. And then the gold's like dumping out of the back, which is kind of funny too, in a way. Like there's a little like little things in this movie that like, I have to wonder if like, no one thought it was funny too, because I'm like watching this gold, like get thrown out of the back of a 747 and I'm like, this is kind of funny.

Andrew Fossier (01:44:43.342)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:45:02.484)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:45:05.551)
The I mean, it isn't I mean, they crashed at 747. They did it at a working airport, too. Like. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:45:13.906)
Yeah, that surprised me. I thought they would have interlaced shots of the 747 and then moved it off campus or something. But yeah, no, it's not.

Eli Price (01:45:25.203)
Right, right, right. Yeah, I mean, that's like, yeah. Yeah. And I just like only no one, only Nolan could get clearance to crash a 747 on a in a working airport like site.

Andrew Fossier (01:45:29.454)
Can you imagine if someone didn't get the memo that they were shooting a movie?

Andrew Fossier (01:45:47.519)
Yeah, it's truly amazing.

Eli Price (01:45:49.431)
Oh man. Yeah. I mean, this movie has, I mean, other stuff that's incredible is, um, like just the visual of that wind farm. Um, that's that those, that's a real location in the world. There's a, this wind farm off the coast of Denmark. Um, that you're not, that's not CG that you're really looking at a wind farm in the ocean.

Andrew Fossier (01:46:06.946)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:46:18.435)
off the coast of Denmark. Um, they actually shot at the location, some for, um, Dunkirk and they took the windmills out and post, um, and Nolan remembered it and he was like, I want to go back there and shoot. So he did, cause why not? I have a $200 million budget. Why not?

Andrew Fossier (01:46:18.956)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:46:38.51)
Uh, yeah, I feel like, well, yeah. And I feel like, I mean, of course this applies to other movies too, but the VFX shots in the films, like I know Inception, it was just removing rigging on like one of the shots of the staircase, you know.

Eli Price (01:46:55.351)
Right, right. Yeah, that's a lot of the Batman ones too.

Andrew Fossier (01:47:01.834)
Yeah, it's just removing things that are for safety. And yeah.

Eli Price (01:47:06.371)
Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, other cool visuals I had written down, like, I mean, you have this the icebreaker ship that's at the wind farm is like really cool looking. The that's that black and yellow and really cool looking. The yacht it's called the Planet Nine that they used is actually like a world traveler yacht,

Andrew Fossier (01:47:26.359)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:47:34.894)
Mm.

Eli Price (01:47:36.675)
You know, that's a whole world that I have no idea about. So they're like, Oh yeah, it's a world traveler yacht. Like, okay. I don't know anything about yachts. I guess there's yachts that are like, I'm going to hang out right here and there's yachts that can kind of travel the world. I guess, I don't know. Um, but yeah, one thing I did think was funny about the yacht was like, I mean, it's like a legit expensive yacht that they borrowed for, for this production.

Andrew Fossier (01:47:41.227)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:48:04.317)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:48:06.503)
And, um, like the inside is so like delicate and everything's so expensive. Nolan. Um, I remember he, the, he said literally it's like shooting in a China shop. Cause they like, I think I saw in the special features, they like added all this like padding and tape and stuff to make sure they weren't like gonna mess something up. Um,

Andrew Fossier (01:48:18.888)
Oh, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:48:30.084)
Yeah, yeah, some the boom like scratches the irreplaceable wallpaper or something.

Eli Price (01:48:33.123)
Yeah, right. Hmm. Even the catamarans. I mean, they did a lot. There's a surprising amount of like ocean work done this movie, but the catamarans they bought in it brought in this like it's called sell GP. It's like this, um, team of professional, like, um, selling racers, uh, like those, those selling catamaran things that they were on like are literally only built to be able to go to do that.

Like go fast on the ocean. Like you can't just like float around in them. They're literally just built to just go fast and they go like over 50 miles per hour. Um, yeah. And yeah, so they like.

Andrew Fossier (01:49:07.965)
Oh wow.

Andrew Fossier (01:49:13.95)
Yeah, that's insane. I don't understand. I mean, I heard that they're like the F1 for sailing, F1 formula cars for sailing.

Eli Price (01:49:21.503)
Right. Yeah. It's really cool. Like the, I'm sure like the, the physics of it is really interesting too, of how that, like that works. Like they literally like lift up at there. It's like they're flying almost. Um, but, uh, but yeah, it's, it's interesting. The, they had a guy that's from that team, like interviewed on one of the special features and like, he was just saying like, they're like,

Andrew Fossier (01:49:36.778)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:49:50.167)
One to throw a guy out of one of the boats. And we were like, no, you can't do that. Like they didn't, they didn't want to let them throw people out of the boats. Like no one's like, yeah, we're going to figure out a way to do it. Um, but yeah. And then there were some of the, those sequences too, where they, they like. Those boats kind of like come apart. So they like took part of the boat. Cause they, like I said, they, they can't just like float around. They literally are only for racing. And so they.

Andrew Fossier (01:49:54.466)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:50:01.837)
Oh no.

Andrew Fossier (01:50:19.223)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:50:19.375)
They'd come apart so that they can be like transported and stored. Um, and so like they took part, part of the vote and like, would put it on a rig of some sort on the side of a, a boat and like film that way too. Um, which is a cool, I guess, uh, cool little trick that they found, but yeah, really like to me, um, to me, like

Andrew Fossier (01:50:33.282)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:50:48.787)
One more visual thing the turnstiles. I thought the turnstiles were really cool. There was actually So there's three different turnstiles there's the one at the free port and That one is like a smaller one if I'm not mistaken that like it's Yeah, it's the it's the horizontal one like they turn horizontally and it's a little bit smaller

Andrew Fossier (01:50:51.448)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:51:10.798)
I think so, yeah, it's a little more.

Eli Price (01:51:18.147)
And then there's one, I can't remember where the big one is. There's one somewhere else.

Andrew Fossier (01:51:23.646)
I think the big one is in the... Oh, I actually don't know the location of it. It's got the red light, blue light. That's the big one, I think.

Eli Price (01:51:32.971)
Yeah. And it's, it's like, it's, it kind of has the feel of like, Oh, you can move bigger stuff back and forth through, through time in that one. And then there's the one like towards the end at the like final battle where it's like this vertical, um, turnstile where they're, they're kind of like filing into it and they're all like turning, like they're rotating vertically instead of like horizontally. Yeah. Which that one was a cool.

Andrew Fossier (01:51:39.444)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:51:51.369)
Oh yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:51:58.582)
Yeah, they're like going, mm-hmm, yeah.

Eli Price (01:52:01.999)
like design too, it's like a, um, assembly line feel to it. Cause they're like filing it. All the soldiers are like filing into the turnstiles. Um, right. Yeah. So I thought the turnstiles were cool and the design of like just the idea of like these two turning things, mirroring each other, kind of like portraying like the changing and direction of time sort of thing. Um,

Andrew Fossier (01:52:10.802)
Yeah, you need to move a lot of things fast, not one big thing slowly.

Andrew Fossier (01:52:29.614)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:52:30.659)
I thought that design was pretty cool and pretty, like, yeah, tangible, you know, it's like, you see it, like you can see, oh, he goes in here, it turns and then he comes out over there like going the opposite way. It's like, oh, okay. You know.

Andrew Fossier (01:52:33.59)
Yeah, same. It was very...

Andrew Fossier (01:52:48.043)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:52:52.931)
Yeah, I just thought it was, it was really cool. Just, and just like crazy, like the crazy amount of stunt work that went into like learning choreography forwards and backwards to make these sequences work. Cause when you watch it, you literally are like, how did they do this? Like when you, like you watch the, um, you know, the self fight and him with himself, when he comes out of this turnstile, uh, JDW that is.

And you're like, how did they do this? Because visually it's like, it, it's like it messes with your mind because you know, one person's going forward and the other person's going backwards and it actually like looks like that and it's very like mind boggling. And it makes, it is one of those times where you're sitting in a movie, like wondering how they made it, which I think is fun. Um,

Andrew Fossier (01:53:39.01)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (01:53:49.83)
Yeah, it is.

Eli Price (01:53:51.011)
I like it when movies make you wonder that.

Andrew Fossier (01:53:54.602)
Yeah, well, and then like all the people say with Nolan, how are we gonna do this for real? But that is one of the places that the technicality kind of loses me. Cause like, okay, like the end, like when it's red team, blue team, blue team goes through, like red team goes through the battle and then blue team goes through it after them.

Eli Price (01:54:01.016)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:54:10.459)
That's fair, yeah.

Eli Price (01:54:19.632)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:54:23.222)
but then red team has the knowledge that they got. So it's like, they're both going through at the same time. Like that at least makes some tactical sense to where it's like, okay, they know the enemy is going to do this thing because blue team told them. So they defend for that. Like that makes sense. But when it's like him fighting himself, that did kind of confuse me. Really.

Eli Price (01:54:36.526)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:54:46.171)
See, it's the opposite for me. Yeah. When he comes out and he's like fighting himself, like I can wrap my mind around that, but like, I'm told, like, uh, honestly, like I'm totally lost as to what's happening in that final battle scene. Like, I understand the concept that you are expanding, like, Oh, the blue team is going back through it. And they're like, they've got, they it's kind of like, they're the recon team. Really? Like they're getting the information by going backwards through the fight.

Andrew Fossier (01:55:01.195)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:55:15.843)
so that the red team going forward through the fight, you know, has the information they need to pull off the mission successfully. Like, I understand that concept, but watching it visually, I'm like, I don't know, even with the red and blue signifiers, I'm like, I don't know who's who, who are they shooting at? Did you even see anyone that they were shooting at? Like, it's so confusing. Like. Who's firing on who? Like.

Andrew Fossier (01:55:34.51)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, and then.

Andrew Fossier (01:55:43.282)
So, right. Well, and I think the idea is, and I don't know this for a fact, but I don't think the people that they're fighting have as big of a pincer movement team as they do. I think they are basically defending this area and they have a couple people like the

Main henchman sets the charge. Yeah, yeah, well, but he goes backwards and that's one of the people that Neil sees when he tries to stop them from running. And so that guy, I think was one of the pincer movers but it's not like red team, blue team. It's more, you know, I think they're just all defending the area. But.

Eli Price (01:56:12.535)
Yeah, yeah, he's down in the cavern. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:56:33.079)
Right, yeah. It's just confusing to me. It's like, I don't know, I don't think there's a certain amount of times I can watch it and understand it. I think I'll always just be like, I don't really understand what's happening here and I'm just gonna have to roll with it. Like it's cool visually, but this doesn't mean I understand it.

Andrew Fossier (01:56:49.018)
Yeah, I guess from a practical standpoint of you have a group of people trying to accomplish a goal, so you have the other team move backwards through time to get all the information which is instantaneously given to Red Team because they've already gone through it, makes sense.

Eli Price (01:57:05.424)
Right.

Eli Price (01:57:10.751)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (01:57:18.55)
like the building explosion, like it looks cool, but I don't get that either. Honestly, like, you know.

Eli Price (01:57:24.707)
Yeah. Why is it exploding and then rebuilding and then exploding again? Like, what's the point of that? Like it other than like it just looks really cool, which if that's all it is, then like awesome, like because it does. It does look really cool. But I'm just like what? And that's the thing with this final battle sequence, which like it's just so very complicated. So many different moving parts. They shot.

Andrew Fossier (01:57:32.188)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:57:53.307)
three weeks to capture that sequence. And it's the last thing they did. And I always wonder if they're just like, we've got to get, we've got to just be done with this movie. Because usually, I am not so confused about space and time in a NOLA movie.

Usually he's pretty good with geography. So, like, to the degree that I would make the comparison with a lot of his... The Dark Knight Rises is, I guess, maybe similar to this. They're like that last sequence where they're chasing the thing through the city. And then you have like, you're shooting in like...

Andrew Fossier (01:58:23.457)
Mm.

Eli Price (01:58:51.735)
You're shooting in three different cities, like the same like sequence. Uh, and like it's, you lose this sense of space sort of, um, I feel like it's a similar thing here where like, usually Nolan is pretty good at like the geography of his, of his like shots and the blocking and everything that goes into that, but like.

Andrew Fossier (01:59:15.615)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:59:18.767)
I don't know in this, I'm like, I don't know what's going on. I don't know. Like when they're way zoomed out, I can kind of see everything. But like when you're in the middle of it, like you don't know what's going on. And maybe that was purposeful, but like it kind of takes me out of the movie personally, where I'm like, I don't know where they are. I don't know. I don't know when I'm in the middle of it. I don't like I know they're trying to get into the cavern. But like I can't.

picture like I have no sense of space when I'm watching that sequence.

Andrew Fossier (01:59:52.826)
Yeah, especially compared to something like Inception where I feel like one thing Inception does very well is explaining the rules of the thing. Like that whole sequence, you know, of Leonardo DiCaprio explaining, okay, you're in a dream. This is the rule. Like, oh, if you die in a dream, it's okay, you wake up, but you can't die in limbo. And then that comes back in the end, like they're in limbo, they can't, you know, it all the rules.

Eli Price (02:00:04.251)
Sure, yeah.

Eli Price (02:00:10.359)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:00:19.685)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:00:23.506)
of the system being explained pretty concisely. Then there's like the training montage of them building the world, and then they go on the heist. And that's, you know, the third act. Whereas with this, it was, and I think what you said about it being intentional potentially, I think that's the idea. I think with, because even, I might be mistaken with this. I actually don't know how

Eli Price (02:00:31.757)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:00:45.019)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:00:53.502)
it's referred to, but when it's first explained to the protagonist, it's explained as reversing entropy and not reversing time. And that is where it gets interesting because it's trying to be.

Eli Price (02:01:00.843)
Right.

Andrew Fossier (02:01:10.998)
more scientifically plausible than just.

Eli Price (02:01:12.067)
Yeah. Well, Kip, he did have Kip Thorne come back and like advise on like the science stuff of this, which kept corn was, you know, involved in interstellar. So, but yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:01:19.426)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:01:23.418)
Yeah, okay. But like the idea of the entropy of a system being reversed, so that it's tending towards order. So like then it's going, it's getting, you're getting 10 weeks younger, you're getting a week younger when you're going towards this thing. And then you exit time going forward and you're normal. I think the idea of entropy and chaos

Eli Price (02:01:31.227)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:01:52.838)
is kind of the point of some of that. Like you're not really supposed to understand. I don't know. Maybe that's a defense, but.

Eli Price (02:01:52.865)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:01:56.343)
Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, I yeah, I can see where you're coming from.

Eli Price (02:02:06.799)
I will give like, I don't know, just for me, like, so like at the end of the day, like, this feels like a, like, kind of like, the thing that diminished, and I like this movie overall, like I'm positive on this movie. So it's just like the movie that I have the most like problems with out of like most of Nolan's films.

Andrew Fossier (02:02:25.196)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:02:35.18)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:02:35.567)
Like even though like I think I'll, I might like this more than insomnia, but I have like very little problems with insomnia. Like I do with this one. Um, and like, it's just like, man, pick a lane. Do you want us to be like in deep thought about, about like the concepts of what's happening or do you want us to just experience it? And if it feels like.

Andrew Fossier (02:02:44.312)
I don't know.

Eli Price (02:03:01.963)
every scene, it's like he wants you to do both. And I'm like, you, you can't do both. Like I either need to understand what's going on or you just need to like, cause it's like he teases you with what's going on. It's like you got Ives and Taylor Johnson coming on to it's like temple or pencil movement. And you're like, okay, like, what does that mean? We're just going to do it. They're going to go this way and we're going that way. Let's, let's go. And you're like, okay.

Andrew Fossier (02:03:05.994)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:03:16.44)
Uh-huh.

Andrew Fossier (02:03:27.502)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:03:29.915)
but I still don't understand exactly what's going on. Okay. I guess I'm supposed to just watch it and experience it. But then like you've been teased with this idea and you're like, that's so that's in the back of your mind. I don't know. I'm just like, man, pick a lane. Do you want us to experience it? Or do you want this to be some sort of like intellectual exercise? Like, cause like a lot of his movies are both, but this one to me just doesn't work as both. Like inception is both. Um,

Andrew Fossier (02:03:36.663)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:03:46.134)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:03:58.52)
Right.

Eli Price (02:03:59.767)
Interstellar is both sort of like, uh, but this one is like, man, it just doesn't compute to, for it to be this intellectual exercise and an experience at the same time for, for my mind. And that's, that's just certain sequences. I think that's why, like, I can still say, like, I really enjoy this movie and like it overall is because it's really just like particular sequences that applies to. It's not.

necessarily the movie as a whole that applies to. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:04:31.626)
No, yeah, I definitely agree. I mean, I think a very good point to make as well is that Nolan is really good at action. Like in getting you, to start the opening of the movie is a great example of that. The opening of the movie, you have this swarm of police going towards the building, and then you got your four guys that you know are up to something.

Eli Price (02:04:41.924)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:04:46.937)
Right, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:04:58.506)
and you see them move across that crowd in a tight unit. One guy peels off, one guy peels off, then they start opening doors. It's like, it's so, every time I watch the movie, it's like, I'm just there in it. Same thing with the opening of The Dark Knight. I mean, Inception's got incredible action sequences that just are very narrative driven. And so my honest assumption about Tenet is it.

Eli Price (02:05:06.957)
Yes.

Eli Price (02:05:13.039)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:05:25.418)
it's going over my head and I'm not catching something I should be because it is so great in so many areas. But yeah, I think conceptually, you can get very confused quickly because it doesn't lend itself to explanation like all of his other films really do. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:05:35.203)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Eli Price (02:05:43.82)
Yeah, yeah. There's a certain degree to which, like...

You, I guess like for stuff like, I guess with interstellar, like black holes and warm holes, there's kind of like this pop culture, like general understanding of those concepts that you can kind of like play with and like maybe dig into deeper, like the actual science of it. And there's they have, I mean, you have, you have scientists literally that you're following around, so it makes sense for them to talk about the science of it and how it works.

Andrew Fossier (02:06:03.438)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:06:18.423)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:06:19.075)
And in this movie, you're just like following this. Pro like no named protagonists spy around and like, you really don't have a full grasp on like the, the logistics of how everything's working exactly. And again, this is, it really just applies to certain sequences. And I do feel like I understand. I understand intellectually, like I guess.

Andrew Fossier (02:06:37.605)
Mmm.

Eli Price (02:06:47.131)
the concept of everything that's happening. It's just sometimes visually, like this is maybe why it's a problem for me is because like the movie literally tells you in the dialogue, like don't think about it, just experience it. But there's certain sequences that like I have to think about for it to make sense. Cause if I'm just watching it and not thinking about it, I'm like super confused. That final battle sequence being a big one, a big example of that.

Andrew Fossier (02:07:03.714)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:07:09.115)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:07:17.123)
Like I have to think about, okay, I have to reorient myself intellectually in the middle of it. Because if I'm just experiencing it, like I have no idea what's happening.

Andrew Fossier (02:07:17.536)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:07:28.434)
Yeah, and I think something that this movie does answer for me or does accomplish for me is something that has just been kind of a growing thing that I've noticed. And I mean, in some cases, like, I'm not going to get into deep technical analysis of The Fast and the Furious because I've only honestly seen the last two that have come out. I'm not deep into the movies, but it's like a plot point in the...

Eli Price (02:07:47.632)
Hehehe

Andrew Fossier (02:07:57.422)
10, I think, or nine, where they say like, we're indestructible. Like your character is either Superman and cannot die or somewhere on the other end of that, so adept at what they do that nothing is a threat to them maybe. And that kind of is one of the things in spy movies is like, I like the precision action guy that action that happens.

Eli Price (02:08:13.325)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:08:26.626)
But at some point I'm like, how are they that good? And this movie is like, not only is the protagonist a very good, very good at what he does. Like you see, man, the kitchen fight scene is so good. Oh, the cheese grater to the face, the whole, yeah, I could talk about that.

Eli Price (02:08:38.183)
That's so good. Yeah, I love that scene. That's one of my favorite in the whole movie because of this because of the swagger that J.G.W. has, like where he's like, oh, man.

Andrew Fossier (02:08:48.75)
And the power, like, anyway, yeah, that he is a very, he is extremely good at what he does. But I think where the movie starts kind of going off the deep end to let you know that like he is not going to accomplish what he wants to do unless he embraces his tech is the high scene, because they did everything they could to keep it tight. And Sader had a pincer movement going on. And so I think for me.

Eli Price (02:08:56.091)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:09:17.89)
But all this to say, I think for me, what this does is it gives a tangible reason that someone who is as proficient as the protagonist is at what he does would have an ace in the hole because he's got a pincer move going on. And it's not just because he staked the place out and was ready in our terms, he had help from

Eli Price (02:09:36.295)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:09:47.394)
the future. I don't know. I actually don't know. But the point is like he has a time travel accomplice that can get these things. So yeah, I don't know.

Eli Price (02:09:49.339)
Right.

Eli Price (02:09:55.055)
Mm hmm. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I mean, he is like. He is very obviously. Very adept and proficient at his craft of, you know, taking guys out and being a good spy. Oh, yeah. But yeah, and I think I think overall like.

Andrew Fossier (02:10:14.686)
Yeah, cheese graters to the face and all.

Eli Price (02:10:25.079)
I, like I said, I do understand everything overall. And so the, it's just like, there's just moments where I'm kind of taking out of the experience, which I feel like is the opposite of what Nolan was wanting. But, um, but yeah, I still enjoy those sequences. They're like a lot of fun, but I don't really kind of taken out of them at points. Yeah. You know, kind of like.

Andrew Fossier (02:10:38.956)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:10:55.491)
wrapping up this section, one of the things that I really love about Nolan is Just that he how involved he is in all of these things. He's a director and a lot of times the director you think about the director kind of standing there either at the camera or like with his monitor and like giving direction to the actors and the camp and the Camera operators the DP and stuff, but no one really like he directs

Andrew Fossier (02:11:21.428)
And yeah.

Eli Price (02:11:23.159)
every department. It's, it feels like, like he's, he's working hand in hand with like the stunt guy on the coordination there. And he's working hand in hand with Nathan Crowley, like in the production design and everything that goes into that. And he's working hand in hand with, uh, with lame as she's like working on editing and putting it like he's like, he literally is like a director with a capital D he's directing everything. Um, which is really impressive.

Andrew Fossier (02:11:50.229)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:11:52.899)
And it's, uh, I loved it. This, uh, JDW was talking about how Nolan's energy and deter determination is infectious. And I loved that. Uh, I loved that kind of thought of like, when you have this creator, that's so like involved and determined and like excited and has this energy, it's like infectious to the whole crew, um, and cast, you know, um, yeah. And he, he said, it makes you want to keep going and to do.

Andrew Fossier (02:12:02.551)
Mm.

Andrew Fossier (02:12:17.963)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:12:22.255)
You know, to do better and to like to get to accomplish it. And, um, so yeah, I really appreciate that about Nolan. Yeah. Um, yeah, just like with the wrapping up of this, like, uh, the, the timeline of this movie and being, being made, like it was released, like we've kind of already touched on, like when this movie was released, it was released. Like.

Really like before lockdown was kind of totally done here in the States anyways. Um, it, uh, I mean, I, I want to say New York and California were still like totally closed down, um, when this movie came out, um, I'm like, I'm fairly certain of that, um, so it really didn't have a great opening here, but it was one of those things where a lot of places in the world, like

Andrew Fossier (02:12:53.472)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:13:14.729)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:13:18.039)
weren't that bad off as far as COVID goes. And they're kind of like begging for movies. And they're like, hey, you know, please send your movies here. You know, we're doing all right. And so this movie is an example of this period where domestically, it really didn't do that well. But worldwide, it did OK. It made the eventual $363 million.

worldwide, which like, honestly, like isn't very good a return on a $200, $200 million dollar movie. But under the circumstances, it's kind of like, what can you expect? You know, what, what could you expect it to do?

Andrew Fossier (02:13:56.147)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:14:06.131)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:14:08.143)
But yeah, but the big thing with this coming out was no one's like fallout with WB with Warner Brothers Because they announced after this movie was 2020 I'm pretty sure released 2020 and They had announced Or I guess at some point later in 2020 that they were planning on releasing

Andrew Fossier (02:14:14.524)
Mmm.

Eli Price (02:14:36.843)
All of the films that they're distributing to theaters on HBO max the same day. And that was a big no, no for Nolan. I wrote down this quote. He said, some of our industry's biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out that they were working for the worst streaming service. He was mad.

Andrew Fossier (02:14:42.57)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:15:03.736)
Well, that's a way to put it.

Eli Price (02:15:05.871)
He was not happy. And yeah, I mean, he did, he ended it. He left Warner Brothers, which is crazy because he had so much freedom at Warner Brothers. It's like, yeah, it's just crazy to think that he's had his whole career there, all the way back to Insomnia, his first studio movie was with Warner Brothers and yeah, this.

Andrew Fossier (02:15:12.363)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:15:29.282)
Wow, yeah.

Eli Price (02:15:34.787)
There that does that announcement they made was just like, no, I'm not, I'm not doing that. That's not the sort of movie. The, the movies I'm making are not made for that. Um, but yeah, and I'm pretty sure he went on, he, uh, I think universal is the one that picked up Oppenheimer, um, and did the production and distribution and stuff for, for Oppenheimer. So, um, yeah, so yeah, I mean, he moved on.

Andrew Fossier (02:15:55.319)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:16:05.59)
Yeah, wasn't the, wasn't the, I heard like a rumor that the reason, uh, Barbie got released on Oppenheimer day was kind of a Warner Bros. Like.

Andrew Fossier (02:16:21.238)
It's purely speculation, but like an attempt to be kind of attack Nolan. I don't know the right way to word it, but basically like in other words to compete. And it ended up, I think it ended up helping both. That's a whole concept to discuss, but.

Eli Price (02:16:30.343)
Hmm, yeah, I don't know.

Eli Price (02:16:37.667)
Yeah, I did. It, yeah. It's like it, that's like the most genius accidental marketing scheme ever. Cause like there's no way they could have predicted like what, what became of Barbenheimer, but yeah, that's a whole nother podcast for sure. Um, yeah, this, this movie released 2020. They have the 2021 Academy awards.

Andrew Fossier (02:16:47.586)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:16:55.562)
No.

Eli Price (02:17:07.839)
Um, you know, for the 2020 movies, which was like a weird, that whole, those whole like two or three years there with the Academy Awards was kind of weird because like you, you don't have like a ton of movies that have come out and then like they're doing, it's like not in person, so it's kind of weird. Uh, yeah, it was a weird, I remember that those one, I think it was like one or two.

Andrew Fossier (02:17:29.416)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:17:36.779)
instances of the, the Oscars was like, kind of like weird. They were like trying to do different stuff with like bringing people in video conference and it was just kind of weird. Um, but yeah, it did, uh, it did get nominated for two, uh, categories. Uh, production design was one. It didn't win that, but it did win visual effects for visual effects, which

Andrew Fossier (02:18:03.95)
Mmm.

Eli Price (02:18:05.219)
I think it totally deserves like visual effects and this or it's just incredible. And like I said, like innovative, they're doing something like this is the, this is one of the big reasons that this movie is still like, I really, really enjoy. And like, even with all my problems and issues with it is man, I watched, I went to the theaters and I watched this movie and I was like, I've never seen anything like that before, like ever.

Visually, I've never seen a dude fight his backward self before on screen, and it looked like a real. Guy fighting himself backwards, like incredible, like, right? Like, um, like literally no, no one has ever done that before. Um, yeah, just, just really cool. Like, I mean, people have like done backwards film before, but never like.

Andrew Fossier (02:18:35.662)
Hmm, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:18:48.25)
Right, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:18:56.041)
Definitely.

Eli Price (02:19:02.739)
Action set pieces with like forwards and backwards running at the same time. Um, right. Uh, but yeah, cast, um, uh, one of the things I had written down was like, Nolan really like avoided a list actors for this. Like, obviously he brought Michael Cain back in, but like, if you think about it, like John David Washington wasn't huge at this point, Robert Pattinson w had been just

Andrew Fossier (02:19:07.494)
Yeah, and not to this extent for sure.

Andrew Fossier (02:19:21.655)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:19:32.375)
He had just mostly been doing like, um, kind of indie, these indie art house, more like films for a while after Twilight. Um, so he was kind of like a little bit. He was kind of at a point where he wasn't, he had kind of waned on his, like, uh, pool from the Twilight movies. Um, and, um, so I mean, he's.

Andrew Fossier (02:19:57.41)
Mmm.

Eli Price (02:20:01.839)
All that to say like, he's not pulling in a Matthew McConaughey or a Leo to do this movie. He's pulling in the two like main guys that you're, you're going through this movie with really like, I mean, John David Washington, I guess, kind of has like his dad's kind of like cache. Just because his dad is Denzel Washington, but like, you know, he's still like, they're not a list actors.

Andrew Fossier (02:20:07.765)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:20:24.6)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:20:29.603)
Which I thought was interesting. I guess it brings a bit of anonymity and Anna, man, that's a difficult word. And, and anonymity, there you go. Right. Um, to, I guess like to that intrigue spy kind of feel like it's these guys that you're not like overly familiar with, I guess is where I'm going with that. Um, and so.

Andrew Fossier (02:20:39.368)
Anonymity.

Andrew Fossier (02:20:50.025)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:20:55.358)
Yeah, that's something I, that's something I experience. I mean, even liking the actor in one role, anytime I see Chris Evans, he's Captain America. You know, he's just, he's linked to that in my mind. And even in Knives Out, it's like, oh, Captain America's being a jerk, what's going on? You know, and that's not his fault at all. You know, it's just the roles, but, and that's the way.

Eli Price (02:21:04.23)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:21:09.911)
Right, right. Right, sure.

Eli Price (02:21:20.873)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:21:25.39)
You know, our minds work sometimes. But yeah, I think that's a really good point. He was a fresh faced protagonist in this movie and to us.

Eli Price (02:21:32.741)
Right.

Eli Price (02:21:37.875)
Yeah. Nolan, uh, Nolan liked John David Washington. He saw a premiere of a black Klansman. He was like, man, I liked that guy's charisma. And so that's why that's what drew him to, to casting him. Um, and like, uh, and to like, he has a, so he was, um, an aspiring, like pro football player, um, for a while he, he played, uh, more house college running back.

Andrew Fossier (02:21:46.966)
Hmm

Eli Price (02:22:07.107)
He was drafted. He wasn't, he was not drafted into the NFL, but he got picked up as a UDFA, which is a undrafted free agent by the Rams. Um, and he, he got dropped before the season, I think. Um, but he did play in the UFL, which is like, it's kind of like a minor league pro, uh, football league. Um, he played like, I want to say four years as a running back in that.

Andrew Fossier (02:22:23.01)
Mmm.

Eli Price (02:22:37.359)
Um, so all that to say, like he's got the athleticism needed for this sort of part. And it really comes across like, and especially like the standout for me is still that, that kitchen scene that we talked about earlier, like his physicality and athleticism is just like incredible on screen. Um, I think even, even that opening sequence of just him like running around, like, uh,

Andrew Fossier (02:22:42.357)
Oh yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:22:52.171)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:22:57.214)
Oh yeah, I agree.

Andrew Fossier (02:23:02.661)
Uh...

Eli Price (02:23:03.323)
Like when he first comes into the building, he's like running around that curved like lobby. Um, he just like looks awesome running.

Andrew Fossier (02:23:08.927)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:23:12.922)
Yeah, he's not quite the like Tom Cruise run because he seems more powerful, I would say, when he's running. He seems more raw and like strong, I guess, but you know.

Eli Price (02:23:18.599)
Sure.

Eli Price (02:23:22.584)
Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:23:26.947)
It would be interesting. Like I think after, I wonder like if they'll keep, I wanna try to keep Mission Impossible going after this next last Tom Cruise one. It'll be interesting to see if they keep it going and if they do who they use. Cause I think John David Washington could actually do the Ethan Hunt part. Like obviously he would, yeah. He would be, like you said, a little different, but he has a similar like.

Andrew Fossier (02:23:48.772)
I think he would be a very good choice as well.

Eli Price (02:23:57.079)
Um, charisma and like athleticism to him that like, I think he could do it. I don't know if he's gunkho about stunts like Tom Cruise is, but yeah, not yet. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:24:02.647)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:24:10.938)
Maybe not yet. He's And I did not mean to disparage the Tom Cruise run by the way, I'm a fan. I think it's great I think it's so cool that he like trained the way he looks running on screen and he runs Incredibly fast and it looks good. It's just different. Yeah

Eli Price (02:24:18.696)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (02:24:24.223)
Yeah. Oh yeah.

Yeah, I know what you meant. I know what you were saying though. Like it's, it's the, the power that, I mean, he was a running back. Like he runs with, with power. Like, uh, it's a different sort of run than like Tom cruise sprinting. Like it's just different. Um, but yeah, one of the things was interesting was like this. He brings it like he's got charisma for sure, but he also brings like a warmth.

Andrew Fossier (02:24:35.83)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:24:43.234)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:24:54.575)
a little to the spy character, which Nolan had mentioned at some point too, which I thought was interesting. I think he's really good in this movie.

Andrew Fossier (02:24:56.864)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:25:08.455)
I don't know. I've heard people be like, Oh yeah, John David Washington was incredible in this movie. And I feel like he's just like, yeah, he was really good. I wasn't like blown away by his performance. There's like times where he kind of feels weirdly stiff. And I wonder if that's more on him or more on like the script, because it does feel at times that like, because of how like

no identity this guy is. There's no backstory. There's no, he's just, he's like the man with no name, like Clint Eastwood, like just rolling into the middle of the plot. And it's like, I don't know, there's a degree to which I wonder if like, that's just the nature of that sort of character, where at times they feel wouldn't because like you don't have any like character connection to them. So like when they are like,

Andrew Fossier (02:25:45.023)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:26:08.827)
kind of warm and loving and then they're switching back and forth between that and like action spy hero. It kind of like is a little off putting, but it might just be the nature of, it might not be his performance. It might just be the nature of that sort of character. Um, not really sure honestly, but yeah, Robert Pattinson though, that dude is so cool in this movie. He really is. Um,

Andrew Fossier (02:26:17.152)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:26:28.317)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:26:35.411)
Yeah, he definitely is.

Eli Price (02:26:39.063)
Like, uh, and you know, Nolan had, uh, talked about like his, he's, he saw like a compelling present. I think good time is the main one. He referenced like the, his, he said he had a compelling presence in that movie, but I think he did. I want to say he mentioned like other ones, like high life in the lighthouse too. Um, but yeah, the, I heard this anecdote. Um, so I know part of it's true, which is that

Andrew Fossier (02:26:49.166)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:27:08.039)
Pattinson had a long conversation with Nolan before he was cast, like a three hour conversation. And the anecdote that I don't remember the source, so I don't know how trustworthy this is. So, but I heard that he, as the interview was like going on, he felt like his blood sugar was dropping Robert Pattinson. And so like towards the very end, he had like, asked Nolan if

He had kind of mentioned that and asked Nolan for like a candy bar that was on his desk and Nolan was like, Oh yeah, you know, here you go. And then just kind of like ended the meeting and like, he had, he hadn't mentioned anything about the film. And so Robert, Robert Badsam was like recalling, like talking to his agent afterwards and then being like, how'd it go? And he's like, yeah, it was good. And he's a really nice guy and we had good conversation. He's like, but you didn't.

Andrew Fossier (02:27:51.396)
Oh.

Eli Price (02:28:08.527)
mentioned the film at all. So I don't know. I don't know that I got it. But apparently that was good enough for Nolan. Um, I just thought that was a really funny anecdote. He thought he had like ruined his chance at the movie by asking for his candy bar. Uh, but yeah, he's, uh, I guess to like Pattinson in this movie feels like the Nolan's, it feels like a lot of Nolan movies have like a Nolan stand in like

Andrew Fossier (02:28:22.558)
Yeah. Ehh

Eli Price (02:28:37.883)
DiCaprio is kind of the Nolan stand in, in Inception. He kind of like looks and dresses like him. And that's kind of how Robert Pattinson feels in this, like in this one too. Yeah. Elizabeth Debicki is pretty good. That's how I feel about most of the acting in this movie. It's all pretty good. Positive, but not like...

Andrew Fossier (02:28:38.612)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:28:47.192)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:28:51.35)
Yeah, I can see that.

Andrew Fossier (02:29:06.847)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:29:07.163)
Fantastic. I don't I don't I don't look at anyone in this movie and be like man. They really knocked it out of park It's all like yeah, really good you know, it's like it's somewhere between serviceable and It's like it's better than serviceable. It's like it's good But it's not like You know knock your socks off acting. I don't think happening in this movie for me I've heard other people express a different opinion on that as far as like

Andrew Fossier (02:29:23.785)
Mm.

Andrew Fossier (02:29:32.418)
Perfect.

Eli Price (02:29:36.587)
especially JDW and Robert Pattinson goes really love their performances. And I think they're good. I think they're good, but yeah, but yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:29:46.895)
Yeah. I thought she did a good job as well. And it's such a like tricky role too, because I mean, she's not only

Eli Price (02:29:49.284)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:29:54.777)
It is, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:30:01.578)
I mean, abused, but then it's also like she's going back.

Like she's having to act like a part of the character I don't, we hadn't seen, right? So I don't know. It's just, I could see how it could be a very complicated thing for an actor to say, okay, how would she be acting?

Eli Price (02:30:14.247)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:30:18.85)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:30:24.647)
I'm acting backwards.

Andrew Fossier (02:30:26.666)
Well, about there's actually a funny quote that she had one of the behind the scenes things about the well, I think actually, it was when Kenneth Braun was talking about playing Seder and then talking backwards with a Russian accent. And that was something she said is like there's kind of a joke. I thought, how good you've been doing your homework? Can you speak backwards in a Russian accent?

Eli Price (02:30:45.933)
Oh yeah yeah.

Eli Price (02:30:54.955)
Yeah. I mean, she was, she was really good. There's some interesting things she has to do as far as acting goes that I think she pulls off pretty well. Like, like again, pretty good. Um, Branagh is like full ham. Um, and this one, which is funny because he, he had this like air of nobility in Dunkirk.

Andrew Fossier (02:31:07.455)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:31:15.179)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:31:19.895)
And in this movie, it's like totally inversed. It's like, he's like this, this spiccable guy, um, that like, really like he makes it. I think no one had said this in an interview, like, or in a, or in the making of, or whatever he's like, he really makes it hard for you to sympathize with that character. And like, you really do like, I don't sympathize with, with Sader at all, which is odd because usually like. No one's like.

Andrew Fossier (02:31:23.542)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:31:45.761)
Yeah, I know.

Eli Price (02:31:50.075)
protagonist and antagonists kind of like even I mean you think about I mean Bane kind of has a little bit of sympatheticness to him built into his character

Eli Price (02:32:05.687)
You know, it's, I don't know. I just feel like there, his characters are normally more dynamic with that than that. But with this being like a spy movie, that's like bond. Ask if, I mean, he's straight up a bond. Villain like over the top, uh, like pure evil villain.

Andrew Fossier (02:32:12.947)
Yeah, even if...

Andrew Fossier (02:32:19.787)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:32:24.706)
But a good thing to me is that it doesn't feel like kind of the cookie cutter, evil for evil sake villain. Like he just portrays like this violent, angry, greedy man that's, if I can't have the world, then no one can. Like that's a horrible opinion to have obviously, but it's such a...

Eli Price (02:32:34.087)
Sure, yeah.

Eli Price (02:32:41.593)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:32:53.554)
understandable opinion for a violent, horrible person to have. Like it's not just, I don't know, maybe I'm splitting hairs, but it's not just I'm going to destroy the whole world because I have the capability to. It's I'm going to destroy the whole world because I'm not going to be here anymore and that's just, it's despicable, but it's despicable. You can't sympathize with it because it's awful, but it's somehow like believable.

Eli Price (02:33:05.872)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:33:18.394)
Right.

Eli Price (02:33:23.839)
Yeah, I get, I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying. I, you know, I've never really, I haven't really thought about it in those terms before, but yeah, I get, I guess I get that. Um, I was, I guess in my mind, I was thinking of it more of like over the top bond villain where like, it's just this evil dude that's like, that wants to like destroy everything. And you just kind of go with it because

Andrew Fossier (02:33:25.021)
I guess, for a villain.

Andrew Fossier (02:33:34.071)
Anyway.

Andrew Fossier (02:33:50.74)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:33:53.143)
Yeah, it's yeah, it doesn't have to be Thanos where like there's this like, there's this like logical justification for what he's doing. It's just like, no, this guy's bad. We've got to stop them. And it's like, OK, let's go. Let's stop the bad guy. And sometimes I think like, yeah, that's cool. Like, it's cool to have like a very easily distinguishable bad guy that you don't have to sympathize with. But yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:33:53.774)
There has to be somebody.

Andrew Fossier (02:34:05.208)
Hehehe

Andrew Fossier (02:34:08.994)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:34:22.574)
And he does play that role really well as well.

Eli Price (02:34:23.751)
Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Other, other acting. You have a dimple cup, Padilla playing Priya. I thought she was good again. One of the things she said was that she loved apparently for her audition. Nolan was like operating the camera for her audition. She was like, I love that. I was like, oh, that's cool. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:34:35.447)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:34:46.75)
I cannot imagine that, huh?

Eli Price (02:34:50.339)
Yeah, I thought she was good. I thought Hamish Patel was good in his likes very small role. We already talked about, um, a little Aaron Taylor Johnson jumping in and saying temporal pins are like, okay guy. Um, uh, yeah, good. Uh, Michael Caine, of course you have to have the Michael Caine appearance in the Nolan movie. Um, I loved. Go ahead.

Andrew Fossier (02:35:11.542)
Yes, which he is. Well, I guess he is retired. He is retired now, right? Isn't that official?

Eli Price (02:35:19.659)
I don't know. I maybe so. I want to say now that you say that I think I do remember something about that. But yeah, I loved, um, in the, the special features, uh, JGW had said he was like acting across from Michael Caine and he's like super nervous and like, he was like, I guess, I guess he like really likes Michael Caine as an actor cause he was like nerd now. Um, and uh, he said I was

Andrew Fossier (02:35:22.378)
I saw something about his last movie.

Andrew Fossier (02:35:27.511)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:35:44.675)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:35:48.719)
really nervous and I was trying to like, uh, I was like, concentrated really hard on my acting. He said, but at some point I just, uh, the quote I put was, he said, I'm just going to watch for a minute. So he says basically like just saying like, okay, I'm going to sit right here across from Michael Caine and watch him act for a minute. Cause he just, I thought that was really, uh, I thought it was like a sweet little like thought, uh, that he had shared there. Um,

Andrew Fossier (02:36:00.226)
Hahaha.

Andrew Fossier (02:36:08.78)
with.

Andrew Fossier (02:36:16.856)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:36:19.335)
But yeah, everyone else is kind of like very side character. Like, you know, we mentioned Clements Posey as Barbara, the kind of Q stand in. You have Martin Donovan playing apparently his character had a name, Fay. Uh, he's kind of the guy that like, uh, he wakes up when he wakes up in the boat after apparent, after supposedly having taken cyanide, he's the guy that like sets him on he's the one that first tells them tenant gives them the

Andrew Fossier (02:36:36.066)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:36:48.995)
motion. But yeah, Martin Donovan was also in insomnia. So a little call back there. I thought the little, I mean the side, the sidekick, the Russian sidekick guy, he was fine. You know, he was really good at falling into that hole there in the capper. But yeah, you know, like I said, overall.

Andrew Fossier (02:37:13.937)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:37:19.495)
good acting, not phenomenal in my opinion, personally. Yeah, I guess like, let's touch on, we've already hit a few of these like kind of technical or thematic points that I wanted to talk about. We've talked about experiencing it in our kind of like my struggle with that.

Andrew Fossier (02:37:37.976)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:37:48.171)
Uh, other critiques we kind of, we've touched on character development. I didn't want to say like in the movie like this, is it important that there's character development or not? Like what, what do you think? Cause I don't think there is a lot of character development, but at the same time, I, I like kind of question like does, should there be like, does there need to be? I don't know.

Andrew Fossier (02:38:03.882)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:38:13.246)
Yeah, I don't feel like... I don't know, I mean we all...

Typically, you want an arc or you want, there's lots of focus on the character having a need and either, what's their need, what's their desire? And I think with, I've heard some people say that as well. Like, he didn't have it. There wasn't a strong, like an emotional core or, again, not to beat a dead horse and compare it to Inception, but you have a very clear.

Eli Price (02:38:26.776)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:38:48.894)
motivation for your main character. He's not with his kids. He misses his kids. He's torn away from, yeah. And his.

Eli Price (02:38:54.576)
Yeah. And his wife is dead and tormenting him in his dreams.

Andrew Fossier (02:38:58.694)
Right, right. And so there's like all this emotional core for the main character, but I don't know. It didn't feel like it wasn't there because he was not an interesting character. It felt like it was not there because that wasn't the story being told. And the story, I don't know. I think

Eli Price (02:39:05.071)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:39:23.845)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:39:28.546)
for me, the thing that just like tie, because there's always the, Nolan has very good, like wrap ups, you know, the final sting, and you realize what the hats are there or something, you saw that in the beginning, it's very subtle sometimes, but then it's also in your face. And I think for me, the whole thing that wrapped up really well was Neil being in the end. And that's...

Eli Price (02:39:43.067)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:39:53.412)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:39:55.87)
unfortunately, like right at the end of the movie. And so it's not, you don't get the deep character connection. You don't get to see the relationship. You know it's the start of their relationship.

Eli Price (02:39:57.893)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:40:10.027)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:40:11.078)
And so that didn't really bother me. I didn't feel like, I felt like he portrayed an agent doing what he needed to do to save the world. And I didn't really need it to be a perfect character arc. I mean, he's great at the beginning, he's great at the end. The thing he needed was this complicated.

Eli Price (02:40:29.735)
Sure.

Eli Price (02:40:34.181)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:40:38.134)
pincer maneuver and he used that in the movie. I don't know. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:40:39.279)
Yeah. To get the algorithm, which is a weird, like, I don't understand what the algorithm exactly is. Um, like I, I don't know what it is exactly or what exactly it does for one thing, but I also don't understand why it looks the way it does, like it's just these weird pieces of metal.

Andrew Fossier (02:40:48.494)
Hmm

Andrew Fossier (02:41:00.266)
that the first part I feel like I know. Yeah, the first part I feel like I know. The second part I don't. And this is interesting as well. You probably

Eli Price (02:41:07.253)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:41:10.959)
Like, can it just be USB drives? Like, why is it this weird, like chunks of metal?

Andrew Fossier (02:41:16.813)
Yeah. The explicit call out to Oppenheimer that occurs in Tenet, which, yeah. So, um, mm-hmm. So, I wonder...

Eli Price (02:41:24.439)
Oh yeah. Yep. Manhattan project. There's a theory that, uh, Barbara is the, the one that made the algorithm and the turnstile stuff. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:41:40.046)
I have heard that. I think that's a good, I think that's good. There's all kinds of, yeah. Well, there's also, okay, well, I'll wait for bringing that up then.

Eli Price (02:41:43.855)
Perfectly fine theory. There's another one I want to talk about we'll get to it. Don't it? Yeah

Andrew Fossier (02:41:54.486)
Yeah, so my implication of what the algorithm does, which again, I don't know why the boxes look that way either, but it basically sends, it's like a bomb that blows up the past. Like it sends radiation backwards in time that will kill us today to save the future. And that's something that was brought up that Neil talks about is the grandfather paradox.

Eli Price (02:42:08.078)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:42:14.999)
OK, right.

Eli Price (02:42:23.362)
Right.

Andrew Fossier (02:42:23.778)
And basically, I do like Neil's character, because Neil is like, what's happened has happened. What's happened has happened. All that matters is the people in the future think that they can kill us and survive. So they're gonna kill us, so we gotta stop them. And so that's kind of another way the movie is like guiding you through the thought process of like, but what happens if you kill your grandfather? Wouldn't it kill?

Eli Price (02:42:28.851)
Yeah, I do too. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:42:40.743)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:42:52.42)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:42:52.982)
Don't think about it. They think they can. We gotta stop them.

So that's what the algorithm does, kills us through some means, either nuclear or otherwise. I think it's just basically radiation. I think the movie says that at some point, but.

Eli Price (02:43:07.044)
Yeah.

which is fair, but again, this is another like, just problem I have is like, the writing isn't always great. Like usually it's in his movies, like with the exposition, you get very clear, like are the concepts complicated sometimes? Like, yes, but like it's explained clear enough where you're like, okay, I've got it. I'm on board. Let's like, let's move. That happens. I feel like that's very much the case in Inception.

Andrew Fossier (02:43:34.126)
I'm out.

Eli Price (02:43:39.559)
It's very much the case in Interstellar. You're like, yes, complicated scientific thing, yes. But the general concept of it was exposited clearly enough where we can move into the action now. And in this movie, I feel like it's never clearly explained where I felt like I could now be like, OK, confusing, yes. But I've got it. Let's jump into the action. It was always like, whoa, wait. And then you're in the action set piece. And you're like, wait.

Andrew Fossier (02:43:54.123)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:44:05.216)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:44:09.423)
It's like disorienting. I just feel like that's a problem in the writing. And maybe just the nature of taking on this such a complicated concept that, you know, the writing also, other places isn't great. Like it's gonna destroy like, you know, the whole world if we don't stop it. And, and, and.

Andrew Fossier (02:44:12.995)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:44:23.954)
Yeah, no, I agree. And I mean,

Eli Price (02:44:37.287)
Uh, what's her name? Uh, uh, the Bickey's character's name is cat. Uh, she says, including my son. Like, yes, lady, like the whole world, including your son.

Andrew Fossier (02:44:48.874)
Yeah, that felt that because I rewatched it. I rewatched it in preparation for this again. And as well as like, you know, montages of certain things that were important. And that did stick out to me. Like, that was like such a hammering in what's important about this character. What is this character's motivation? What is this character's driving need? Her son

Eli Price (02:44:58.64)
Right.

Eli Price (02:45:17.479)
like, it's like, no lady, the whole world's going to explode and your son's going to be still alive. It's like, what do you want me to say? Yeah. But I don't know. I, I don't know. Like at some point I'm just like nitpicking the heck out of this movie and I don't want to just do that the whole episode. So I mean it, it's, it is like.

Andrew Fossier (02:45:19.586)
Yeah, that felt...

Andrew Fossier (02:45:24.022)
Yeah, I didn't understand that.

Andrew Fossier (02:45:38.442)
No, yeah, I can do that too. So let's check each other.

Eli Price (02:45:44.271)
So there is the question of, does this movie actually have thematic heft? And for me, the answer is yes and no. Because I think it's all there. But I think you have to do a lot of work after the movie to get there. Whereas I think a lot of Nolan's other movies,

you can get there while you're watching the movie. And I think that's the main issue with this one for me is like, I can get there. I can, I can wrap my head around. Eventually these thematic concepts that he's working with, but like, and Nolan does enjoy like the lingering effects of a movie and thinking about a movie. Like I get that, but

Andrew Fossier (02:46:23.534)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:46:42.895)
But like with Inception, with Interstellar, with the Prestige, like there's stuff you wanna talk about and think through afterwards. But like the general thematic heft of the movie is like felt and seen and experienced while you're watching it. And with this one, it feels like even with the final like moment with protagonist and Neil.

Andrew Fossier (02:47:02.316)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:47:09.975)
It's like you kind of have to think about it for a while afterwards to kind of find the thematic heft of what, what that really means. Um, I don't know. Like, that's why I say like, yes, it's there, but also like, no, it's, it's not there, you have to do extra work afterwards to find it. Um, and maybe that's just a personal thing. Maybe it's cause I was so like, um, lost in the minutia of

Andrew Fossier (02:47:29.986)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:47:38.851)
the plot mechanics that like.

More so than his other movies that like I couldn't quite, um, get there thematically, but I don't know. Um, what, was there a big thematic theme that stood out to you? Like as a takeaway, as something that like you really took away from this film?

Andrew Fossier (02:48:05.674)
Yeah, I think...

Andrew Fossier (02:48:09.972)
I mean...

Andrew Fossier (02:48:14.462)
I don't know if this is a good way of saying it. I haven't thought about this. This is just kind of straight off the top of my head, but I think kind of.

This is gonna sound really lame, but it's like, it'll all work out or like, it's like the end, the future will take care of itself. Like you can only really focus on your next decision or maybe also maybe a better way of saying that is like what Neil said several times is what's happened, you know, move on, make your next decision and you know, don't get caught up in the

Eli Price (02:48:29.285)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:48:32.583)
Sure.

Eli Price (02:48:37.124)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:48:41.167)
What happens, happens. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:48:52.878)
paradoxical things that Occur just focus on your next decision. I don't know that doesn't feel like a clean answer because

Eli Price (02:48:54.459)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:49:01.047)
No, yeah, I agree. You know, I agree. It's, it's almost like the opposite optimistic version of the Irishman. It is what it is. Uh, I don't know if you remember that line from that movie, if you've seen it, but, um,

Andrew Fossier (02:49:11.019)
Mm.

Andrew Fossier (02:49:15.931)
No, I've seen that.

Eli Price (02:49:17.843)
Okay, well there's like a line where like, you know, one character says to another, it is what it is, but it's like a very like a bad thing in that movie. And in this movie, it feels like a similar line, like what's happened to happen. But it's like optimistic in this movie. And it is, I think it is exploring.

Andrew Fossier (02:49:40.48)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:49:45.027)
You know, that idea and the whole grandfather paradox thing, which I can totally wrap my mind around, it's this idea of like, well, you know, if they kill us, then they exist. And if they do kill us, then how could they exist to kill us? It's like that whole thing. That whole like, yeah, it's confusing because we don't really know how time could work in that way.

Andrew Fossier (02:50:04.473)
Mmm.

Eli Price (02:50:15.327)
and fun to think about, but all of these, I think, are tools to explore that idea of fate versus free will. And it does seem to be, I don't know, I think there are instances of exploring that where this feels kind of like, I don't know if a response to, or maybe like just a different perspective than Inception.

Andrew Fossier (02:50:24.183)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:50:44.199)
Because in Inception, I feel like it deals with this idea a little bit more from a subjective point of view. Like, you know, your life is what you make it, what you decide it's going to be. You know, just exploring that idea within the dream space and that sort of thing. But in this movie, there really isn't parallel realities. Like there's not. There's one reality.

Andrew Fossier (02:51:04.619)
Mmm.

Eli Price (02:51:13.787)
And it doesn't matter if you're moving backwards or forwards through it. Like, you don't change. They don't change anything. Like, even when you get to scenes where they're going backwards through the scene, they don't change anything. It happens exactly like it did when it was going forwards. You learn different things because you're getting a different perspective. But the same things happen. They don't change anything when they go back through time. Because it's already happened. What's happened, happened. And so.

Andrew Fossier (02:51:14.178)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:51:28.298)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:51:41.222)
Yeah, it's kind of like the, it's kind of like the, don't go through the turnstile if you don't see yourself exit concept. Like if you don't go through, you can't exit. But if you don't exit, you didn't go through. Yeah, I don't.

Eli Price (02:51:47.62)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:51:52.651)
Yeah, and it but it is exploring that idea of fate versus free will and Whereas like in a movie like except inception like that idea is kind of like it's a more subjective reality And in this movie, there's like totally an objective truth There's an exact an objective reality that doesn't change no matter what you do To it. It is what it is. It what's happens happened and

Andrew Fossier (02:52:11.426)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:52:20.675)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:52:24.227)
And yeah, it's interesting because when you... It's interesting to just explore those ideas of, OK, so what does that mean for like fate or predetermination? Or what does that mean for free will? Do we actually have free will? It's like in the context of this movie, it's kind of like they don't really answer that question, but they take action on it.

which I think is very like...

I don't know, it feels very real and palpable to reality. Like, we might ask those questions of ourselves. Like, when you dig into like our DNA or nature versus nurture or like cause and effect and how that happens in the universe and like, you know, are we truly, do we actually truly have free will or is everything just determined by nature or by God or?

Andrew Fossier (02:53:25.981)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:53:26.255)
whatever, whatever thing you want to put that's the term doing the determining. It doesn't really matter, uh, to explore that idea, but like what, what kind of comes across from this movie is like, well, maybe, maybe we don't have free will. Maybe we do, but the reality is we have to take action and, and do something with what we've got in front of us. Um,

And I think that is, I think that speaks to our lives. Like, you know, we can get maybe wrapped up in that idea of determination versus free will, like what sort of free will do we have? But the reality is at the end of the day, you have to take your life and your circumstances and act within it. Um, it doesn't really matter if it's an illusion of free will, you still have to do it. Like.

Andrew Fossier (02:54:25.314)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:54:25.687)
Um, and so I think that's an interesting thing to think about, um, that this movie kind of speaks to, um, but yeah, I don't know if that made any sense. It does to me, but.

Andrew Fossier (02:54:38.89)
No, yeah, it definitely did. I think maybe...

Andrew Fossier (02:54:47.854)
the difference for me.

Andrew Fossier (02:54:52.802)
How should I say this? I think with this movie, it's, all the pieces are presented at the end. Like, you know what Neil did. You know Neil was the guy in the beginning. You know Neil's gonna die when he goes down to, you know, when he leaves talking to the protagonist. But it's not, that's not the focus. The focus is like,

what happened and so much less about the journey of how all the pieces got to the final picture, but the final picture and the final picture is the protagonist knows what he has to do next in starting Tenet and meeting Neil. And so yeah, I think that's a.

Eli Price (02:55:24.4)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:55:35.185)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:55:40.932)
Right.

Eli Price (02:55:46.583)
Yeah. And I think, I think that, I think we're speaking along the same lines. Like it's, it's almost the sense that they know they've won, but they still have to continue doing what they have to do and like the determination to do that. Even, you know, it's almost like they can't let senioritis kick in. Like.

Andrew Fossier (02:55:51.67)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:56:04.544)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:56:14.479)
They know like the end is there and that they know the end results, but. They've got to keep, they've got to like push through and keep going and, and determine what within themselves, whether it's an illusion of free will or not. It doesn't really matter. Like they have to keep moving forward and doing what they're supposed to do. What's happened because you know, it's that it all like plays into each other. Um, and yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:56:15.229)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:56:30.498)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (02:56:37.247)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:56:44.231)
It, yeah, it's interesting to think about it. Some other things I had written down. Um, I mean, I think there are like some vague political themes. I mean, scientific hubris and environmental catastrophe are kind of like tossed about within the movie. Um, not really more just as plot device than like actually explored though. I would say, um, it's definitely like.

Andrew Fossier (02:57:00.715)
I don't know.

Andrew Fossier (02:57:10.815)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:57:14.311)
It's definitely maybe the idea of like, oh, an interstellar. They didn't. No one saved them. But yeah, I mean, that stuff is like there, but not really explored, I don't think. I did write down this quote from Nolan. He kind of says, in a sense, it's about the notion of belief. He says, we are imprisoned in our own view of the passage of time, objective reality.

is a leap of faith. Um, and I guess like, I guess that, you know, I should have quoted that earlier, cause I think that does speak to what we've been talking about. Oh, fate and free will. It's like at the end of the day, like there is an objective reality in this movie that doesn't change, but they still have a leap of faith that they have to do to like live within that. Um,

To actually like live and move and make choices and do things within that objective reality. It takes like a leap of faith because of what you're doing with playing with time. Like you know the end results and you know like the past, but like in the present moment, you still have to like take a leap of faith and do the things that you know that you're supposed to do. But yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:58:26.562)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (02:58:37.549)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:58:39.131)
Um, another idea that I thought was interesting was this idea of like reverse entropy. Um, it, it sort of in a way being like a critique on nostalgia and nostalgia, not being like these like fond memories of the past, like, oh yeah, I remember. This in the nineties, like not really that idea, but more of the idea of like the good old days, like, oh, if only we could get back to when things were like this.

Andrew Fossier (02:58:52.29)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:59:08.859)
Um, maybe like a critique on that because it is that idea of like what's happened, and like really the past contains the seeds of the present. There's not, it's that idea that like nothing changes under the sun. Like when you go back, it's just the same thing. Um, it's not like you can get back to a better time. Um, things move forward. Um,

Andrew Fossier (02:59:09.661)
All right.

Andrew Fossier (02:59:27.415)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:59:33.207)
And so like even when you reverse entropy, it doesn't change anything. It's all the same and it contains the seeds of what we're experiencing now. Um, and so like it's yeah, I guess in a sense, a critique on that idea of like.

that nostalgia of like, oh, if only we could get back to when things were like this. It's like, well, no, like for one, that's not how things work. Like what's happened happened. And two, like, it's all the same. It's all the same, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:00:00.128)
Mm. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:00:08.106)
Yeah, I don't know if you're specifically meaning like good old days within a person's experience, like my childhood or...

Eli Price (03:00:15.523)
Just that idea of like, oh, if only we could get back to when things were like this, the world would be a better place. It's that idea. And it's like that sort of nostalgia stunts growth and forward movement in a way. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:00:20.982)
Yeah... That...

Andrew Fossier (03:00:29.314)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Well, and then, and then there also kind of is, I don't want to go too far down this line of thinking, but there, there is that kind of way of like, Oh, if we could get back to this certain thing, um, it's kind of almost mirrored in the idea of like, well, if you don't like this, then leave maybe, or I don't want to get too far into the political idea of that. But it's like, I've always kind of disliked the good old day mindset myself, like of

Eli Price (03:00:43.985)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:00:51.751)
Sure, yeah.

Eli Price (03:01:00.015)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:01:01.382)
saying like I don't mean my experiences like there are times that I'm like oh man you know I miss being a carefree much younger person right but the idea of like oh if we could get back to this we romanticize things really and I think it doesn't work like that like it's there were times that we can see positive things.

Eli Price (03:01:10.235)
Right.

Eli Price (03:01:18.632)
Right, right.

Eli Price (03:01:30.867)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:01:30.998)
but there were lots of negative things too. And it's like, I'm honestly very glad I live today because there are things, there's so many technologies that I'm like, I cannot imagine living before like air conditioning or, I mean, that's a silly one to list, but it's like.

Eli Price (03:01:49.918)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:01:51.962)
Where do we draw the line? Like, yeah, these were the good old days, but we didn't have air conditioning. It's like, what? So yeah, that's a silly example because there's obviously lots of horrible things in history, but yeah.

Eli Price (03:01:57.997)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:02:01.899)
Yeah, but I know, I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, I think that's a bit in there. Maybe, um, just that, that minor critique. Um, yeah, I don't know. There's other things. I did want to talk about the Neil theory. I'm sure that's what you were about to reference earlier. So I really liked this theory and I think it's real. I think it's, I think it's in there. Like, so it's,

Andrew Fossier (03:02:21.762)
Hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:02:30.863)
It's this idea basically that Neil is Cat's son, Maximilian. And even like, I want to say in the casting list, it's spelled. Let's see if I can find it right here, right on. No, it's just listed as Max. He's just listed as Max. But there's this idea that his full name is Maximilian.

Andrew Fossier (03:02:53.464)
Mmm.

Eli Price (03:02:59.695)
But instead of being spelled I a N like L I a N at the end, it's L I E end. Um, and so Neil is like short. It's like the backwards version of short for, yeah, yeah. So you take those last four letters of Maximilian spelled that way and it's Neil. And so that's one thing. And then, you know, there's. There's just like the idea of.

Andrew Fossier (03:03:08.119)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:03:15.443)
Yeah...

Eli Price (03:03:30.695)
I don't know. I like this theory because the movie, the movie doesn't end with Neil, like the Robert Pattinson Neil like walking away and, and you know, and then that's that the movie ends with him watching cat walk away with max. Um, and I don't know, there's a bit of connection there, like, cause he kind of has this same look of connection with Neil as he's walking away that he sort of has.

Andrew Fossier (03:03:50.05)
Mmm.

Eli Price (03:04:01.091)
while he's watching cat walk away with Max. And I almost wonder if he's made that connection and realizes like, oh, that's him. And he's like, this is, I don't know, just appreciating that in the moment of, this is like the beginning of my friendship with this guy who's cat's son right now.

Andrew Fossier (03:04:18.967)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:04:26.782)
Yeah, there's a few reasons I like that as well.

Eli Price (03:04:29.752)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:04:32.846)
I think the first most obvious one is the movie begins. The first like three minutes, four minutes into the movie, when the protagonist is saved by Neil, and then the movie ends with the protagonist saving Neil and his mom. And then the other one is in the end of the movie when Neil is like leaving, but he says, you're not gonna go check on her, right?

Eli Price (03:04:48.935)
Saving nil. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:05:02.846)
not even from afar, like almost hinting that he knows, like, you can just infer that he then knows that he's like almost hoping he does, because if he doesn't, then they won't survive. But yeah, anyway, that's kind of another way you could read that. And I think that's a good, I think that's a good interpretation.

Eli Price (03:05:21.835)
Yeah. And it makes it, and this is another thing. It's like, this is way more interesting and like brings more to the movie than is actually like there when you're experiencing it. Like you really have to sit down and think through all this stuff, which is like fun to do. And I guess like, um, anyway, yeah, it makes that those moments there at the end way more like meaningful too. When you, when you think about it in that light, because

Andrew Fossier (03:05:33.675)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:05:52.027)
For one, one thing that actually in both viewings, I didn't quite catch, but finally caught when I was either listening to another podcast or reading or something, but Neil basically sacrifices himself for the mission because he's lying there dead while they're in the cavern on the other side of the gate.

the locked gate that they can't get through where, you know, um, henchmen guy is like getting the algorithm together to explode or whatever. And he's, he's like, he's dead or so it seems. I mean, and, but it's an inverted him. It's an inverted Neil there. And so like he's dead, but then he like comes back to life just because he's going backwards. Um, and so like,

Andrew Fossier (03:06:22.55)
Mm.

Eli Price (03:06:52.791)
Neil knows, like, I'm... when he's walking off there at the end, he knows, like, I'm going back. I'm going back and I'm going to end up that guy that inverted me and they're dead. And that's super meaningful. Like he's... I don't know, it just brings a lot of meaning to think like that they... you know, he walks off and he's, you know, he has the...

Andrew Fossier (03:07:06.581)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:07:19.919)
You know, for me, I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship. And it's like thinking about like the idea of the protagonist. You know, being there a part of like this kid's life and training him and them like becoming really good friends and like figuring out this whole mission and everything and executing it and then it

It culminating like at the beginning for, for a protagonist and at the end for Neil is like a really interesting idea. And I do want to say like, as far as like the acting goes, like they're the chemistry, the friendship chemistry before, between like, between JDW and Robert Pattinson as the protagonist and Neil is like really good, um, really, really good. Like you really feel like they enjoy each other and are like,

friends and have good chemistry together. Um, and it's weird because like they kind of have it from the get-go, but they, they've supposedly just met as far as our perspective. Um, and it just like, right, right. Um, right. And yeah, it's just, it's like this cool, like thing that retroactively like makes a lot of the movie, like have a little bit more warmth to it.

Andrew Fossier (03:08:30.117)
Yeah, like even Neil knowing he likes dye coat more than soda water.

Eli Price (03:08:47.595)
I don't think the emotion landed in the moment for me. And like, again, like it's this thing where like, I feel like no one wants me to just experience it, but like, really like it only makes sense to me if through an intellectual exercise after the movie. And at that point, like I'm out of the movie, like, I'm not really getting emotional about it, I'm just thinking about it and thinking like, Oh, it's cool. Like

Andrew Fossier (03:09:08.771)
Hmm.

Eli Price (03:09:16.471)
and sweet and, um, and like a good, like thing that he explored there of this friendship, but like, it doesn't emotionally impact me while I'm watching the movie, which to me, like, is not like necessarily a good thing. I feel like it's, I don't know. I enjoy thinking about it afterwards and like, we are talking about it at the same time I'm like, but like, I should be experiencing this in the movie. Not like.

Andrew Fossier (03:09:17.078)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:09:27.982)
Mm.

Andrew Fossier (03:09:35.733)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:09:46.875)
having to think so hard about it. And at that point, the emotion is totally out of the picture. I'm just thinking about it intellectually at that point. But I don't know.

Andrew Fossier (03:09:56.066)
Hmm.

Eli Price (03:10:00.535)
I don't know. I don't know. I feel like I have like made it seem like I don't like this movie and I do like this movie.

Andrew Fossier (03:10:10.651)
No, I get what you're saying. I think it's a...

Eli Price (03:10:12.279)
Yeah, I'm frustrated with it because I do like it. That's it's coming from a place of fresh. It's a loving frustration.

Andrew Fossier (03:10:15.896)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:10:20.19)
No, yeah, I definitely understand it. I mean, I kinda nitpick the things that I really love because it's like, they're so close to being perfect, you know? But yeah, I definitely can see what you're saying. If it takes away from the emotional experience of the movie, then it doesn't hit that. What I would say Nolan does very well in a lot of his films is like, not only...

Eli Price (03:10:27.083)
Mm-hmm. I wish it could be better. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:10:45.051)
Mm-hmm, right. I agree, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:10:49.434)
wrapping up the plot, but just hitting you right in an emotional scene in the end. And yeah, I think it's a very, yeah.

Eli Price (03:10:52.239)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:10:57.135)
Yeah, totally agree.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, final thoughts. I wrote down this question. What is the tenet of tenet? Hey, hey, see what I did there? Yeah, you know, and tenet just being a tenet is a profession or a, just something that, an idea that you believe in and live by, basically.

Andrew Fossier (03:11:11.431)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (03:11:31.703)
And, um, I was kind of thinking about just from different things I was reading, um, this idea of kind of what we were talking about earlier, like. There's this idea or there's this sense that they kind of already know they've won, um, they already know they've accomplished what they're going to do, but they still have to do it. So what is the tenant they're living by that allows them to do that?

And like, this isn't necessarily in the movie. A lot of my final, final thought takeaways aren't necessarily like drawing specifically from the movie, but just like me thinking about it afterwards. And just the idea of like letting love guide you in those months. Cause here's, here's the thing. This, this is going to, this might be one of the cheesiest final thoughts I've ever had, but the thing is like.

Andrew Fossier (03:12:09.422)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:12:31.831)
In those moments where you're caught in this weird spot of like, how do I keep moving forward and not just getting caught up in my mind in life? Like caught up, you know, caught up in your mind of like, what am I going to do with this situation? What am I going to do with this relationship where you feel stuck? Um, what am I going to do with, you know, this job that, you know, I'm caught up in the middle of like,

And you can get caught up in these like loops of thought that are like a merry-go-round, the working title of this movie that build up anxiety and build up anxiety and build up anxiety because you're like stuck in this moment. And I think something that like is maybe like subconsciously in this movie is the idea of like in those moments.

I guess like it can kind of draw back from interstellar the idea of love being a force, but in those moments where you get stuck in those like anxious loops, love is something that can like drive you forward out of it. And I think that's in this movie, but just not felt very well. Like I think that, and I think you kind of see it in the warmth that John David Washington brings to this character is like.

Andrew Fossier (03:13:37.635)
Thank you.

Eli Price (03:14:00.919)
He does seem to have this warmth of love and care about him. I think you see it even better even in Neil, the warmth that he has towards John David Washington. But yeah, it's basically just this idea that's rattling around in my mind that love can push you out of those anxious loops that we can get stuck in.

that they could have easily gotten stuck in this movie. But it pushes you out of it because love is active. Like love does things. Very, I guess vulgar way of putting it, but like love does things. Love is not like complacent or like love isn't happy with the way things are. Love isn't...

Andrew Fossier (03:14:47.469)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:15:00.555)
Love isn't neutral. Like love is a force, again, drawing that idea from Interstellar that pushes you forward to be active, to do things.

Andrew Fossier (03:15:08.795)
Alright.

Andrew Fossier (03:15:14.646)
think what you're looking for is love as a verb. DZ talk. I've no, yeah, just, yeah. I was being funny, but no, you're making really good points.

Eli Price (03:15:17.295)
Sure. Yeah. Um, no, yeah. Yeah. Just that act, that idea of it being this for this active force that pushes you forward. And so, um, you know, even when something is incomprehensible or illogical, like it can, it can force you to like keep going. Um, because of, you know, love.

I mean, love is applied in very many different ways, whether it be something that's religious and spiritual for you or whether it's the love of the people in your life, whether it's the love even of yourself to accomplish something that you feel made to do. All those different ways that like love applies to our lives can like push you forward out of those anxious loops.

And so, yeah, I don't know. It's, it's kind of like Neil could so easily get stuck there at the end of the movie in this like anxious loop of like, we've done this, but now I know I still have so much more to do. I still have so much more to do. I still have so much more ahead of me in my journey in this thing. Um, it gets stuck in an anxious loop, but he's like, no, this is, this is the end of a beautiful friendship. I know what I've got to do. I'm going back in.

Andrew Fossier (03:16:31.49)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:16:45.095)
Um, and it's his love of the protagonist. I think that pushes him to keep moving forward in that plot, in that scheme that they have to, to accomplish what they're accomplishing. Um, so yeah, that's, that's kind of my takeaway. Let love be a force in your life. Think on the things that you love and the people that you love when you get stuck in those anxious loops to, to help push you forward.

Andrew Fossier (03:16:58.701)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:17:10.594)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:17:14.331)
to take action, to move forward in your life.

Andrew Fossier (03:17:20.374)
Yeah, well, and I think a really good example of that too, in like very early in the film when the, like the charges are set in the opera. And he, one of the CIA guys even says, it's not our mission. And he says, well, it's mine now. It's like, he's, or no, the CIA guy almost says, it's not our mission. And then like something like, it's just the cheap seats. And it's like,

Eli Price (03:17:31.495)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (03:17:37.447)
Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (03:17:48.887)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:17:51.094)
That's almost more, I'm not advocating, you know, that it would be okay if it was the rich seats, but it's like, that's almost like more of an incentive. Like, like, why is that in the calculation? There's more people in the blast radius. Anyway, and he takes that on and says, well, it's my mission now I'm gonna. And I mean, he does that. My, my confusion. This is a confusion point for me. And maybe I'm just misremembering.

Eli Price (03:18:05.269)
Right, yeah.

Eli Price (03:18:11.206)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:18:19.894)
But when he goes to the Freeport, the painting is not there or do they fail to get it? It seems like he, it seems like he leaves Kat out. Right, but well, because Sader already has it. So it's not, it's not the protagonist's fault. He doesn't do anything wrong. Yeah, he doesn't do anything wrong, but Sader just had a time.

Eli Price (03:18:26.507)
Yeah, that's another confusing thing.

Eli Price (03:18:31.611)
They don't get the painting, I think. I think Sator had taken it out. But yeah. But it is still confusing in the movie. Even, yeah, right.

Andrew Fossier (03:18:50.56)
almost at time-high, temporal pincer maneuver, ready to take the painting out.

Eli Price (03:18:57.632)
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, another very confusing aspect of the movie for me is like, what is going on with this painting? How does this blackmail work? Why doesn't she just be like, screw it? I'm leaving this evil dude. But anyways.

Andrew Fossier (03:19:14.878)
Yeah. Well, I think that's well, in terms of like why she doesn't leave, I think that's, that's clear to me.

Eli Price (03:19:21.159)
It's like her son. It's clear but it's also like, I don't know, a little too convenient.

Andrew Fossier (03:19:27.882)
Yeah, I think it's just the power dynamic too of, I mean, not only is he obscenely rich, he's got time at his disposal as well to do whatever he wants. And so it's like, even if she would successfully blackmail him, that wouldn't work because he would find a way around it, you know? But yeah, but yeah, I think that just shows his...

Eli Price (03:19:40.002)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:19:48.399)
Yeah, you could fix that in reverse.

Andrew Fossier (03:19:57.57)
control and his obsession with it. It's thematically relevant too, because it's how he is viewing the world. Like if I can't have you, no one can. Well, he says that to her about her, because she even says, why don't you let me go? But then he says that about the world too. Like that's just his sick mindset about he controls everything in his vicinity and he's the protagonist, you know, in his own story. So.

Eli Price (03:20:10.765)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:20:22.48)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:20:26.903)
Yeah. And I guess like the whole love pushing you forward can apply to cat too, in a way, like her love for her son, keeping her moving forward. It's not felt there very well. And I don't think it's written very well.

Andrew Fossier (03:20:28.758)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:20:36.686)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:20:46.158)
It's also a very, very short amount of time with her son too. I mean.

Eli Price (03:20:50.643)
Yeah. You know, I mean, you never really see him. You see him in the distance, but like, or I think there's one, there's one shot where like she says something to him. Like for a second closer up and he walks away with somebody, but like, yeah, he's not really a character. Or is, or is he, he's Neil. He's Neil the whole time.

Andrew Fossier (03:21:04.418)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:21:08.862)
Yeah. Or is he? We get tons of time with her! What am I saying? There's so many scenes with her son.

Eli Price (03:21:17.823)
Yeah. I guess that is one thing that could destroy the whole near nil theory. Well, maybe not. Maybe he doesn't want to reveal to her that he's her son. Cause that would like be to just the same way. He doesn't really reveal to JDW that he's his friend, I guess. It feels like it would mess with time and stuff, but yeah, that is maybe one thing that could destroy the.

Andrew Fossier (03:21:31.071)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:21:39.391)
Right, yeah.

Eli Price (03:21:47.307)
Max's Neil theory is like, there doesn't seem to be any sort of indication with how he interacts with Dibicki that he would be her son.

Andrew Fossier (03:21:58.302)
Well, I seem to remember, I seem to remember like him taking care of her when they bring her in with the inverted round. There's a few things, there's a few things that it doesn't scream taking care of mom, but you know, if he's trying to remain.

Eli Price (03:22:05.819)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:22:19.778)
Secretive. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:22:20.363)
Yeah. Yeah, I'll go with that. Because I still like the Neal is Max theory. So I'll go with that explanation. Where does this movie lie for you as far as a Nolan film? Amongst his other his filmography.

Andrew Fossier (03:22:26.768)
Yeah, I think it's a good theory.

Andrew Fossier (03:22:32.93)
Yeah, um, honestly, okay, so just to be just to be clear, I've not seen Insomnia Memento or Falling, so I've not seen his first three, but I've seen everything else.

Eli Price (03:22:42.981)
Okay.

Eli Price (03:22:46.723)
Yeah, you definitely should see Memento. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:22:50.498)
Yeah, I definitely, I watched you talk about, I think it was in maybe like Dark Knight, you talked about really liking it. Yeah, I wanna see it. I wanna see all of them. But for me, I feel like, I think I would put it above.

Eli Price (03:22:57.703)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:23:15.65)
Maybe Dark Knight Rises, I don't know. It's lower for me, honestly. But that is not saying anything about Tenet. That is just how much I love the rest of his movies. So I think I would put it right above.

Eli Price (03:23:17.647)
Hmm. Yeah.

Right, yeah.

Yeah, no, I get that.

Andrew Fossier (03:23:33.942)
Dark Knight Rises. And then, Batman Beginning. Yeah, that sounds really bad, but that's just, yeah. That's where it falls for me.

Eli Price (03:23:37.799)
So like Dark Knight Rises is last and then yeah. No, yeah, no, that's fair. A following is last for me, but Dark Knight Rises is second to last. So, um, but I S I like, I like following too. Um, I, I don't have any of his movies rated on letterbox, less than three and a half stars, so tenant is three and a half stars for me. Um, and I struggle with.

Andrew Fossier (03:23:50.102)
Okay. Again, that's also a great movie. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:24:01.226)
I was gonna say I don't, I definitely wouldn't. Okay.

Eli Price (03:24:09.311)
I have it right now. I have it above following dark night rises and insomnia, but I feel like. I could easily move it down to the bottom or it could flow around. It's just, I feel like maybe freshness on my mind is why maybe I put it up. Up there, um, above insomnia and dark night rises, but I feel like there insomnia feels like the least Nolan.

Andrew Fossier (03:24:21.891)
Hmm.

Eli Price (03:24:37.783)
movie of all those movies, but it's still a really good movie. Um, and so like, I feel like if I was going to, it might be like tied right there with insomnia reason being because I think insomnia explores its themes a whole lot better than tenant does its themes, but also like tenant is such like an incredible spectacle that I'm like, I still really enjoy watching it. So it's like.

Andrew Fossier (03:24:39.726)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:25:04.258)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:25:07.303)
I don't know, maybe there's a tie there. A still mate between Tenet and Insomnia. But yeah, it's definitely a low, like last tier Nolan movie for me. Like all, like Batman Begins, Dark Knight Rises, Memento, Inception, Prestige, Dunkirk, Endersteller. All, I like all of those a lot more than Tenet, but yeah, that's kind of where it lies in my...

Andrew Fossier (03:25:18.092)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:25:29.495)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:25:34.987)
meaningless arbitrary rating and ranking. Yeah. But yeah, the, um, I will say next week. So I have not actually seen Oppenheimer yet. Um, and so for the podcast, I'm going to be skipping Oppenheimer for now, going straight to the epilogue, hopefully coming back around to Oppenheimer. Um, in the future.

Andrew Fossier (03:25:38.678)
I have a lot of good movies.

Andrew Fossier (03:25:49.351)
Okay.

Eli Price (03:26:02.207)
Um, but yeah, next week we're going to be doing, um, uh, I like to do a bit of an epilogue to my series, um, and just kind of talk about some, um, you know, some takeaways that I've had from going through of all of the directors films. I really enjoyed doing it for Wes Anderson for that series. Um, and so yeah, I'm, uh, I'll, it'll be a solo episode and a little shorter, uh, a lot shorter than.

most of the episodes and so Yeah, I'll be I'll just kind of be sharing my thoughts and my takeaways overall from the series Next week for the Christopher Nolan epilogue And then I have some other things planned for the future just to be looking for I'm planning on doing maybe a solo episode

Andrew Fossier (03:26:42.999)
Okay. Cool.

Eli Price (03:26:58.663)
talking about the Wes Anderson shorts that came out since I did that Wes Anderson series, kind of add those to it, talking about all those shorts, which I really liked all of them. And then we'll see, I have some other ideas that I'm working on trying to get done before a holiday Christmas break.

for the podcast, but yeah. And yeah, who knows, maybe next week I'll be able to announce what director I'll be covering in the new year. Hopefully I'll have that nailed down by then. But yeah, we're gonna take a quick break and come back with a little bit of movie news and a really fun movie draft. So we will see you in just a minute.

Andrew Fossier (03:27:39.882)
Nice.

Andrew Fossier (03:27:45.118)
Okay, cool.

Eli Price (03:28:00.167)
Sweet.

Andrew Fossier (03:28:03.078)
Sorry for my light started freaking out for some reason. I just reset it.

Eli Price (03:28:07.723)
No, I'm surprised mine hasn't turned off, honestly. Cause usually by now it's like turned off once or twice. No. Yeah, my lighting is weird today. I don't know. I feel like I have the same setup that I usually have, but it feels darker than it usually does. I don't know. Maybe I'm like farther away from the camera than usual. I don't know. Anyways.

Andrew Fossier (03:28:11.881)
Oh yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:28:16.29)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:28:37.707)
If you need to take a quick break, you can.

Andrew Fossier (03:28:42.783)
Okay, yeah, I'm gonna grab some water and like five minutes or so.

Eli Price (03:28:46.819)
Yeah, I'll be here. Cool.

Andrew Fossier (03:32:00.077)
Ahem.

Andrew Fossier (03:32:05.718)
Hey, hey.

Eli Price (03:32:06.494)
Yo.

Andrew Fossier (03:32:13.806)
Okay.

Andrew Fossier (03:32:21.934)
Okay, well, so I got me a list, let's see.

Andrew Fossier (03:32:29.558)
I have 13 on my list. Um, and Albert. Okay.

Eli Price (03:32:31.647)
Okay, cool. That should be good. Let's do. Let's, um, let's plan on.

Andrew Fossier (03:32:38.358)
And do you like five, six.

Eli Price (03:32:42.635)
Yeah, let's go with, let's do six. I usually do, I don't know if I've ever actually done six before, I usually do like five or seven, but six works just to be sure that we don't have too much crossover, which I don't feel like we would, but you never know.

Andrew Fossier (03:32:47.947)
Okay.

Andrew Fossier (03:32:57.301)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:33:07.456)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:33:11.751)
I mean, we could go, we can just plan on doing seven and then like, if you don't have any left, then we can just stop. Like we, I usually don't announce, like we're going to do seven at the beginning of the draft.

Andrew Fossier (03:33:22.452)
Yeah

Yeah, I would prefer doing six, I guess, just because some of the ones, and I'll repeat this when we're recording, I'm giving you dealer's choice, you know, host privilege, because some of these, I don't, some of these are absolutely unquestionably spy movies, but there's a few that's like.

Eli Price (03:33:28.58)
Okay, that's fine.

Eli Price (03:33:49.447)
fair.

Andrew Fossier (03:33:50.238)
open to interpretation, I guess. I'm not trying to be unfair.

Eli Price (03:33:51.919)
that, but that makes for good, that makes for good conversation. So we'll talk about it. No, no worries. Um, okay. All right. Uh, I will in a second, I'm going to give like a quick audio break so that it's just easier for me to find and post for, for editing, and then I'll jump in and we'll just kind of talk through these recent slash upcoming releases and then it

Andrew Fossier (03:33:56.082)
Okay.

Eli Price (03:34:21.187)
I mean, we'll probably be there for just like a few minutes and then we'll jump into the draft. But yeah, okay. Let me give the audio break and then we'll jump in.

Eli Price (03:34:39.107)
Hey everyone, welcome back. Uh, hope you enjoyed our conversation on tenant, uh, Christopher Nolan's palindromic movie. Um, yeah, if you're, uh, if you're coming from the other way in the podcast, I hope you enjoyed, uh, the movie draft and the movie news, you know, I don't know which way you're coming through the podcast, but, uh, either way, hope you enjoyed what you've listened to so far.

Um, I just wanted to run through for our movie news section. Um, just some like recent and upcoming releases. Um, this, uh, by the time this episode releases, uh, the Marvels will have been out for a week. Um, I, and I have, I don't know. I have no, literally no excitement about the Marvels. I don't know if you.

Andrew Fossier (03:35:38.007)
Hmm.

Eli Price (03:35:38.471)
feel the same way but I have

Andrew Fossier (03:35:40.782)
I mean, I'm interested to see how they bridge. Is this, I might be wrong. Is this the first, no, I guess Wandavision was the first TV series that went back into movies. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but they're bridging Ms. Marvel into the MCU now. And...

Eli Price (03:36:00.612)
Oh, okay. I haven't seen that.

Andrew Fossier (03:36:05.534)
I can't think of the name. I don't know her superhero name. She gets powers at the end of WandaVision. She has like light powers and, or she can change. I don't, she is also, she's also going to be first time in the MCU. So I am interested to see how that goes. Um.

Eli Price (03:36:12.82)
Yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about

Eli Price (03:36:20.432)
Okay.

Eli Price (03:36:25.967)
Yeah. Right.

Andrew Fossier (03:36:27.51)
But yeah, I don't know. I'm not like super hyped for it. I'm kind of cautiously, I'm kind of cautiously excited, I guess.

Eli Price (03:36:33.519)
Okay. Yeah. I have like, I'll probably watch it because like I'm stuck in the Marvel trap that everyone else is and which is like, you have to keep watching our movies now that you've watched so many of them. And so, but I honestly like probably won't get around to seeing this in theaters. If I, if I had more time to go to theaters, I probably would, I just don't. Um, so I'll probably end up streaming it.

Andrew Fossier (03:36:42.805)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:36:49.648)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:36:59.547)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's fair.

Eli Price (03:37:03.655)
home. Yeah, the one on November 10th released that I'm actually excited for is The Holdovers with Paul Giamatti directed by Alexander Payne who got some really good movies. Nebraska is one I remember really enjoying from 2013. But he also directed

Andrew Fossier (03:37:13.252)
Mmm.

Eli Price (03:37:31.747)
downsizing, which didn't have that great reviews. Uh, but also election, the movie election with, um, uh, Renee, uh, Reese Willish boom, Matthew Broderick from 1999 is, I've never seen it, but it's apparently a good movie. I don't know. I'm excited. It, it's a fun concept. The holdovers. Hey, do you know anything about it?

Andrew Fossier (03:37:55.946)
Yeah, yeah, I've seen the trailers. I don't know a whole lot.

Eli Price (03:37:58.327)
Yeah, the teacher and the kids that stay back during Christmas break sort of thing. I don't know. Maybe it'll make for a good holiday movie. Yeah, that's the one I'm excited about that weekend. The next weekend is the Hunger Games ballad of songbirds and snakes. I've only ever seen the first Hunger Games movie, so I don't know. Have you seen all of them?

Andrew Fossier (03:38:02.603)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:38:23.47)
Hmm. We actually, well, so I had only seen, I think I'd only seen the Hunger Games before this, but over the summer, like, Hunter's cousins were in town. And so we did like a couple of movie marathons and one of them was the Hunger Games. And so I saw all the Hunger Games movies. Um, and I mean, I like the Hunger Games. I don't know if I'm going to like this. It seems kind of.

Eli Price (03:38:34.032)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:38:50.073)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:38:53.55)
Toss up for me.

Eli Price (03:38:55.241)
Yeah. So you're more excited about trolls band together.

Andrew Fossier (03:38:59.122)
Oh yeah, that's where I'm throwing down for that. We're going to see that in the concert movie version as well.

Eli Price (03:39:02.627)
Uh...

Eli Price (03:39:08.931)
I've seen the, I've seen the preview for that movie way more times than I want to see it and one would be more times than I want to see it. So, um, next goal wins is also that weekend, which Taika white tee. I like, I like a good Taika white TD comedy. So, Oh, I don't know. I don't know if this.

Andrew Fossier (03:39:16.939)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:39:21.88)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:39:27.758)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:39:32.108)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:39:37.411)
I guess it'll be in theaters. I don't know, movies like this, I always wonder like, is it gonna make it to theaters where I am? You know, I don't know. The next goal wins, the Taika Waititi movie. It's just kind of like, maybe it'll end up actually showing here, maybe it won't. It's just that sort of movie.

Andrew Fossier (03:39:48.11)
What was one?

Andrew Fossier (03:39:52.007)
Oh, okay.

Andrew Fossier (03:39:56.328)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:39:59.874)
We're pretty fortunate here with like a couple of independent theaters. So they play off the wall stuff. And then we still have access to like AMC. So we have all the big stuff too. So.

Eli Price (03:40:02.756)
Yeah, yeah.

Right.

Eli Price (03:40:10.565)
Right.

Eli Price (03:40:13.895)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. Not just have the Grand Theatre here in Lafayette two of there fine, but Yes, they I did. Yep Which it you know, it had even less theaters than the Lafayette one So it wasn't like it was showing things that the Lafayette ones weren't But yeah, November 22nd Napoleon I'm I actually am excited for that

Andrew Fossier (03:40:20.322)
Mm. Yeah, the celebrity shutdown. And Bruce Hart.

Andrew Fossier (03:40:34.527)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:40:42.511)
Cause for one, it's Ridley Scott. Like does Ridley Scott make bad movies? Not usually. Um, usually makes good movies. And then on top of that, you have Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby. Yeah, I'm excited. I don't know what to expect. I, I saw killers of the flower moon and I used, um, the Napoleon trailer as the opportunity to, uh, go.

Andrew Fossier (03:40:45.262)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:40:56.01)
Yeah, I'm excited. I...

Eli Price (03:41:11.955)
to the bathroom so that I could watch a three and a half hour movie and not have anything spoiled by watching the trailer. So yeah, I've not seen the trailer for Napoleon and don't plan to. I don't like watching trailers.

Andrew Fossier (03:41:14.402)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:41:19.241)
Uh-huh.

Andrew Fossier (03:41:25.838)
So, you know, I knew, I think I knew you avoided trailers from something we saw together a while ago. And I like pretty recently have started, I don't actively avoid them. Like I won't get up and leave necessarily, but I really don't like them.

Eli Price (03:41:31.909)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (03:41:42.622)
I only do for movies I really am looking forward to. So like. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:41:47.926)
Yeah, Hunter avoids, but I don't, but I have growing frustration with the amount of stuff that's revealed in movies.

Eli Price (03:41:58.155)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Uh, yeah, my bro, my brother-in-law chase will just like not come into the theater until the previous or time. Like, I'll just stand out there. Uh, so I'm like, all right. You know, uh, like I'm all for it. Wish is also that weekend, the new Disney movie, which, you know, I like Disney movies. So

Andrew Fossier (03:42:01.224)
trailers.

Andrew Fossier (03:42:09.137)
Yeah...

Andrew Fossier (03:42:18.516)
Mmm.

Eli Price (03:42:24.568)
It's a fun enough concept. The other one that weekend is Dream Scenario. Have you heard of this movie?

Andrew Fossier (03:42:33.61)
No, I don't think so.

Eli Price (03:42:34.643)
I don't know a whole lot about it. The Sonata, the little thing says a hapless family man finds his life turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. When this nighttime appearance, when his nighttime appearances take a nightmare's turn, Paul is forced to navigate his new found stardom. And this character is none other than Nicholas cage. And that's really the reason that I'm excited.

Andrew Fossier (03:42:45.89)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:43:02.118)
That's great.

Eli Price (03:43:02.411)
Even though the concept sounds really interesting in and of itself. Right. But as soon as I say the words, Nicholas and cage put together. Yeah. This director did have a 2022 movie, sick of myself, which I never saw, but did hear pretty decent things about. Yeah. Dream scenario. Maybe we'll be fun. And then December 1st, silent night, the new, the new John, John Woo.

Andrew Fossier (03:43:05.97)
I'm my interest is peaked now.

Andrew Fossier (03:43:29.314)
Heh.

Eli Price (03:43:32.214)
Um

Andrew Fossier (03:43:32.686)
Okay, so is this related to the silent, violent night from...

Eli Price (03:43:37.448)
No, I don't think so.

Andrew Fossier (03:43:40.078)
Okay, violent Christmas movies seem niche, but coincidentally, did you see that one? Did you see Violent Night?

Eli Price (03:43:41.447)
I think that's just coincidence. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:43:47.9)
I did not see Violin 9. Was it?

Andrew Fossier (03:43:51.206)
Okay, well, it was pretty good action, and it was a pretty interesting take on Santa, I have to say. I went in expecting just Christmas puns, and you've been naughty, but it was pretty funny. It was funny, pretty good action, and interesting take on, I don't wanna give too much away, but just a different take on Santa, I guess.

Eli Price (03:43:55.319)
Okay.

Eli Price (03:44:03.559)
Sure, okay.

Eli Price (03:44:16.955)
Sure. Yeah. I don't know. I like. Yeah, I don't know. John Woo is always fun. So I feel like it's a movie that I'll probably try to see, but not like expecting like this phenomenal cinematic experience, but just like a good time. I mean, when you make a movie like Face Off, it's like.

Andrew Fossier (03:44:20.246)
But I like, I like Joel Kinnaman, so I'm excited for this.

Andrew Fossier (03:44:37.96)
Mm.

Andrew Fossier (03:44:41.335)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:44:45.614)
I'm going to go to bed.

Eli Price (03:44:48.263)
But yeah, that's... That's fair, yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:44:48.83)
I think Joel Kinnaman for me is the draw though, more so, because I really liked him in The Killing, and then he was incredible in For All Mankind. These are TV shows, just switching gears on that. But yeah, For All Mankind, he's a really good character as well. That's what kind of got me on a Joel Kinnaman kick.

Eli Price (03:45:00.315)
Okay.

Eli Price (03:45:05.487)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, sweet. Yeah. I don't, I don't know any of those. So it'll be probably fresh for me if I see this one. Yeah. I didn't have this on the list, but there's a couple of like big ones coming out December 8th to, um, poor things has a lot of buzz. Um, and also probably one of my most anticipated movies of the year. So excited that it's getting us distribution and I'm going to try my hardest to see it in theaters is the boy in the hair.

Andrew Fossier (03:45:22.665)
Mm-mm.

Eli Price (03:45:38.287)
So excited. The new Miyazaki movie, December 8th, supposed to get a release here in the US. Super excited.

Andrew Fossier (03:45:39.207)
Oh, I... yes.

Andrew Fossier (03:45:45.642)
I saw some things about, yeah, I saw some things about the voice cast decisions that got me excited as well. I don't, I haven't seen, yeah.

Eli Price (03:45:53.748)
Okay, yeah.

Yeah. I haven't seen anything really about the voice cat. I'm assuming they did like an English dub. Um, yeah. Okay. Cool. But yeah, I'm, I'm excited about that either way. I prefer subs, but, um, uh, but yeah, if, if it's released in theaters and it's the dub version, I'll probably go see it. Cause yeah, I love Miyazaki. One of my favorites.

Andrew Fossier (03:46:03.938)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:46:07.874)
Which, I will say, yeah, same.

Eli Price (03:46:23.275)
Um, but yeah, that's, that's really it. I just kind of wanted to run through a bunch of things because we really haven't had a lot of good movies to talk about in the movie news section. And I'm kind of wrapping up this, this series, like I probably won't do movie news next week for the epilogue. And so I just wanted to run through a bunch of them, uh, here, which ones you were excited about too. But yeah, we can jump into the movie draft. Now. Are you ready?

Andrew Fossier (03:46:33.075)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:46:41.739)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:46:50.279)
Alrighty, yeah, I think so.

Eli Price (03:46:50.439)
I haven't mentioned what we're doing. We're doing a spy movie draft to go along with our tenant discussion. I didn't tell you the rule I usually do. So if you were planning on taking tenant in the draft, that's fine if that was on your list, because I didn't tell you ahead of time that we usually don't. But if you were planning on it, then I'm totally cool with that. No worries. I'm not going to ruin your draft.

Andrew Fossier (03:47:11.116)
Okay.

Eli Price (03:47:19.183)
by taking it away. But yeah, we're going to draft spy movies. And so Andrew has informed me that he might have some stretches. So maybe we'll get into some discussion on that. We'll see.

Andrew Fossier (03:47:32.337)
Yes.

Eli reserves dealer's choice host permission to say that's not a spy movie. Move on. I won't argue too hard.

Eli Price (03:47:42.179)
No, like if, if you can have, if you have, if you have a halfway decent argument for why it is, then you know, I'll probably allow it. But, uh, but yeah. Um, yeah, my first time guests always go first. And so, uh, you get the first pick in the spy movie draft. Uh, yeah. What are you going with? Are you going to start with a stretch? Are you going? Okay.

Andrew Fossier (03:47:57.07)
Okay.

Andrew Fossier (03:48:04.682)
I am... Oh no. If I get first pick, I got my first pick locked in. I'm gonna go with Mission Impossible Fallout.

Eli Price (03:48:10.444)
Yes, let's go.

Eli Price (03:48:14.239)
Okay, the best Mission Impossible movie, for sure.

Andrew Fossier (03:48:19.549)
I had dead reckoning on so I shouldn't have said that was my second choice, but I'm not gonna do to mission impossible

Eli Price (03:48:26.575)
Yeah, fallout is. Fallout is the best Mission Impossible movie for sure. Yeah. OK. It's a great movie. I don't even think we have to expound upon that. It's just it's a great movie. I will say. OK. I know what I'm going to do.

Andrew Fossier (03:48:34.378)
It's yeah, it's so good.

Eli Price (03:48:54.479)
You've got your Mission Impossible movie, Mission Impossible Fallout. I'm going to go with my favorite Bond movie, and I'm going to go ahead and pick Skyfall. It's the best Bond movie to me. I think it's great. Great villain, great character development. Just all around great. Great action. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:49:05.955)
Okay.

Andrew Fossier (03:49:20.204)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:49:22.719)
Um, yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. Where are you going to go with your second pick?

Andrew Fossier (03:49:26.815)
Good pick.

Andrew Fossier (03:49:33.602)
So my second pick, I'm glad I got this. I got the two top picks, I think. Although, I don't know. I was conflicted about this when I asked Hunter what she thought. Black Klansman.

Eli Price (03:49:49.003)
Okay. Yeah. I did not have that on my list, but you're saying it and I'm like, yep. He's a spy. He's totally a spy.

Andrew Fossier (03:49:59.054)
he's a spy and also it's John David Washington. I mean, we gotta respect that. Yeah, okay.

Eli Price (03:50:01.627)
John Doe? Yeah, you've got the perfect tie-in.

Eli Price (03:50:08.611)
And now that you're saying that, I'm remembering another movie that I, that I didn't throw in this list that I meant to, um, that I'm not going to pick right now, but I might pick it later. We'll see. Um, I'm adding it in just so I don't forget. Yeah. But it's a similar like movie that you might not think of as

Andrew Fossier (03:50:14.185)
Mmm.

Eli Price (03:50:36.715)
at first as being a spy movie, but is. OK, let's see. I.

Eli Price (03:50:47.323)
So there's movies, there's a couple movies that I really love that I think I'm going to stay away from, not because they're not spy movies, because they totally are. They totally are spy movies, but I've also like, they've been picked in drafts already before, which doesn't deter you. If you pick one of these, great. And I'll be happy that you picked them because I do love them.

Andrew Fossier (03:51:01.073)
Mm.

Andrew Fossier (03:51:07.197)
Okay.

Eli Price (03:51:17.223)
personally picked these movies in the past. So I'm going to get some variety in here. And maybe that'll hurt me, but I don't care. Getting some recommendations out there. I'm going to go with The Conversation. Francis Ford Coppola's movie starring Gene Hackman, John Cazelle. Have you ever seen The Conversation? It's a really, really good movie. Like, um.

Andrew Fossier (03:51:21.176)
Okay.

Andrew Fossier (03:51:31.611)
Mmm. Okay.

Andrew Fossier (03:51:40.726)
I have not.

Andrew Fossier (03:51:45.006)
Okay.

Eli Price (03:51:46.127)
Just like incredibly crafted, um, very like, very like anxiety driving sort of movie. But yeah. Um, yeah, it's, it's a great movie and Gene Hackman is so, so good in it. Um, yeah, definitely highly recommend the conversation. Of course, cause I'm taking it here with my second pick. Um, yeah, conversation.

Andrew Fossier (03:51:55.989)
Hmm

Eli Price (03:52:16.155)
Where are you gonna go with your third pick?

Andrew Fossier (03:52:19.682)
So I am gonna go, this is marginally questionable. I don't know, I mean, if Black Plainsman fit, I feel like this definitely does. Born Supremacy.

Eli Price (03:52:30.935)
Okay. Yeah. I mean, all of those, I think all the Bourne movies count. He's a, he is a spy. Absolutely.

Andrew Fossier (03:52:32.812)
Okay.

Yeah. Though the thing is, he is a former. Yeah, he's a former spy. Disavowed.

Eli Price (03:52:42.405)
Yeah. Okay. Supremacy is the second one, right? So the second one. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:52:48.235)
Yes.

Eli Price (03:52:51.343)
born supremacy. So is that your favorite born movie? I'm assuming.

Andrew Fossier (03:52:56.878)
I think so. It has been a bit since I've seen all of them in order, but they were movies, yeah, they were movies that my dad and I actually liked. We watched, we actually watched Born pretty, I didn't grow up watching James Bond. My, you know, it just, it didn't, it wasn't something my parents were super into and I never watched James Bond until I was a little older, but my dad liked.

Eli Price (03:53:02.467)
Yeah, it's been a long time for me.

Eli Price (03:53:21.698)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Nice. Yeah, it's a very dad movie for sure. Like my dad loves the Bourne movies, too.

Andrew Fossier (03:53:25.11)
Jason Bourne. So I saw Jason Bourne.

Andrew Fossier (03:53:31.062)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:53:35.15)
Uh-huh. I can picture the VHS three pack of the movies.

Eli Price (03:53:44.7)
In fact, I'm pretty sure I got my dad like the DVD pack of it one time for like a Christmas or Father's Day or something. Of the Bourne movies. Okay yeah. Bourne yeah it's been so long since I've seen those is my thing. Okay I'm gonna go with.

Um, man it's so hard.

Okay. I'm going to go with one that I actually just caught up with because usually I use the, these drafts as an excuse to catch up with a movie that I've wanted to see for a while. I'm going to go ahead and go with the popularly called a Bond movie before there were Bond movies, North by Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. It was really, really good. Really, really enjoyable movie.

Andrew Fossier (03:54:26.926)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:54:38.999)
Hmm.

Good tech.

Andrew Fossier (03:54:45.066)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:54:45.435)
kind of like a, it's definitely more in the vein of like an experience like there's not really a whole lot intellectually going on. It's just a really, really fun, thrilling experience. But yeah, have you seen it?

Andrew Fossier (03:54:56.309)
I don't know.

Andrew Fossier (03:55:03.646)
So I'm smiling and nodding because I wanted to say, I have not seen it, but I think it says a lot about a film if, maybe this is over exaggerating, but I can see the plane scene from it. Like I've seen that so many times in like either clips and stuff. And it's just, it's kind of like a, just a pervasive image that.

Eli Price (03:55:19.068)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:55:23.173)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:55:30.149)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:55:30.602)
has made its way, even though I haven't seen the movie. I know that's from that movie. So I've not seen it, but yeah.

Eli Price (03:55:34.007)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's a really fun movie. It had the ending threw me off because it was very abrupt I was like, whoa that was the end um But uh, and then like I was reading another person's review that I follow in letterbox And they like said something similar and I was like, okay, it wasn't just me um Yeah Yeah, I really enjoyed it and I feel like you've got to get some alfred hitchcock in to the spy movie draft um, so Yeah

Andrew Fossier (03:55:42.303)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:56:01.293)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:56:03.711)
Alright, where are you going? This is your fourth pick.

Andrew Fossier (03:56:07.126)
Yeah, so I know I said, did we say five or six? Okay, six, good. Okay, I was gonna say, I feel like I, you were gonna push back on some of these, but I didn't know about, you know, Black Landsman, but let's see about this one. I don't know. It's not, I like it a lot and I think it fits the genre. Captain America Winter Soldier.

Eli Price (03:56:11.399)
I think we said six, doing six.

Eli Price (03:56:22.84)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (03:56:35.819)
Okay, a spy movie Captain America Winter Soldier. I don't know, explain how it's a spy movie because it's been a while since I've seen it. I do love Captain America Winter Soldier.

Andrew Fossier (03:56:46.954)
Okay, so it is in my contentious category, just to give you, to ease your conscience if you wanna pull the trigger at any point. It's more, it fits more into the rogue category, rogue spy, it's not really like, they're not working for the CIA. But I mean, intelligence is kind of a focal point. Like they're trying to figure out where the, you know, organization is coming from and that's when it's revealed that S.H.I.E.L.D. is part of, or Hydra is,

Eli Price (03:56:53.137)
the

Eli Price (03:57:01.294)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (03:57:16.878)
part of shield, right? No, I'm getting my movies mixed up, I think. Winter Soldier is when they figure out, I was thinking of New World Order or something, I was not thinking of Winter Soldier. Winter Soldier is when they find out Bucky's still alive and he's following them around and he and...

Andrew Fossier (03:57:42.038)
Black Widow have to go on like a spy. It's the most espionage-esque Marvel movie, I would say. Okay, okay.

Eli Price (03:57:48.439)
Yeah. Okay. I'll give it to you. Um, yeah, I don't, it's been, I've seen it like more than once, but it's been, it has been a while, so I just needed, uh, you to ease my mind about allowing it. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:58:05.067)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:58:08.75)
Yeah, well, I guess in a way, it is the most focus we get on other than her own movie. The most focus we get on Black Widow. Yeah, and it was after, you know, I was torn on that because I wanted it to be more than it was. But anyway, it's the most focus we got before that when she was still in the MCU, officially, I guess, on her being a spy and her kind of teaching.

Eli Price (03:58:16.855)
Yeah, yeah, which wasn't very good.

Eli Price (03:58:32.487)
Sure.

Andrew Fossier (03:58:37.634)
you know, Captain America, hey, you don't have to punch your way to everything. Just subvert, you know, attention and stuff. Yeah. So, okay.

Eli Price (03:58:40.772)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:58:46.117)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (03:58:47.726)
Cool, cool.

Eli Price (03:58:48.439)
All right, I think it's finally time for me to...

Eli Price (03:58:56.431)
I don't know, for me to choose my Mission Impossible movie. And I'm really actually trying to figure out which one I want to take. Because a lot of them are hard. There's a lot of good ones. I'm trying to find my personal ranked list. And.

Andrew Fossier (03:59:02.83)
Hmm

Andrew Fossier (03:59:21.07)
Definitely.

Eli Price (03:59:28.199)
I don't know. So I've got to figure out if I want to go with my personal ranking or go for what the people would choose. Because either way, I'm choosing a movie that I like. You know? You know, I'll do this. I'll choose the movie for the people and then say my favorites.

that are maybe, I think I have two that I like. I'm gonna choose, I'm gonna just go with the original Mission Impossible, which is a fantastic movie, I think. And it likes so many iconic shots and, I don't know, just really, really very good. I personally like Mission Impossible 3 a little bit more.

And, uh, I like the emotional thread and in mission impossible three, and then actually like dead reckoning part one, a little bit more than both of those. I thought it was really good. It's my second favorite behind fallout. Um, but I'm just going to go for the draft with the original mission impossible. I feel like it should be in the spy movies draft. I feel like it deserves that spot. Cause without the first one.

Andrew Fossier (04:00:36.15)
Mm-hmm. I really I really enjoyed it. Yeah

Eli Price (04:00:52.847)
we wouldn't have had any other ones.

Alright, this is your fifth pick.

Andrew Fossier (04:01:02.154)
Yeah, I was thinking in my head for some reason I had two more yeah, um Okay, so for five I'm gonna go You know what? I feel like I want to because I got a few other ones on here that I was expecting like to not get to or Have more contention or more out over picked already. Um So I'm good with that I'm good with that, um, so for five I want to go Argo

Eli Price (04:01:08.667)
We can go to 7 if you want.

Eli Price (04:01:20.495)
Hehehe

Eli Price (04:01:28.299)
Okay. Argo. It's been a long time since I've seen Argo. I remember I really, really liked it when I first saw it. So yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:01:38.818)
Yeah.

It's been a while. I mean, I saw it when it first came out. I saw it in theaters and then I think I've seen it.

Eli Price (04:01:44.315)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (04:01:48.762)
once at least once since then. But yeah, it was a little less like spy go on a mission-y, like around all the world. It was more contained, but the fact that it's based on real things, and I'm a sucker for that. Like if it's based on a real, or it's at least loosely based on a real story, I really like that.

Eli Price (04:01:58.187)
No, yeah, sure.

Eli Price (04:02:04.196)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (04:02:09.751)
Yeah. Yeah, no, I get I totally get that for sure. It's and it's. From my memory, it's a really good movie. I just haven't seen him forever, so it's hard for me to. Yeah, I mean, you got Shaggy hair, Ben Affleck running around. Yeah. OK.

Andrew Fossier (04:02:24.598)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:02:32.494)
Hehehe

Eli Price (04:02:38.959)
So this is my one, two, three, four, fifth pick. And okay, I've got my Bond. I've got my, which I didn't mention this. I like the Daniel Craig Bonds a lot, but I don't really, I'm not a big Bond fan. I've watched probably like five or six of the older Bond movies, kind of different Bond eras. And I just like, none of them really do a whole lot.

me honestly. But I really like the Daniel Greg ones a whole lot. Just thought I'd throw that out there. I forgot to mention that earlier. Okay.

Andrew Fossier (04:03:10.956)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:03:21.775)
Huuuuuuhhh

Eli Price (04:03:26.191)
You know?

Eli Price (04:03:30.655)
I could go with my own kind of maybe a bit of a stretch pick. If we're going to, it depends. Are we deciding right now we're going to seven?

Andrew Fossier (04:03:43.79)
I would be down. I think that's a good call. Okay.

Eli Price (04:03:44.151)
Alright, let's go to seven. Because that's going to depend on what I'm what I'm willing to take. Yeah, I'm going to go with. Yeah, I'll go ahead and go with us. Pick that might be a stretch and go with Hell Caesar, the Coen Brothers movie. It's I feel like.

Andrew Fossier (04:04:05.322)
Mmm. Okay.

Eli Price (04:04:09.827)
It's one that I want to rewatch because I feel like I would enjoy it more than I did the first time, which I did enjoy it the first time, but it's got, um, it's hard to explain why it's a spy movie because it's not on, on the surface. But if you talk, if you explain it too much, you're kind of spoiling things that are like reveals. But, um, but yeah, I mean, Clooney is this, uh,

Andrew Fossier (04:04:32.671)
Yeah, OK.

Eli Price (04:04:40.347)
Hollywood star Baird Whitlock that goes missing mysteriously from the set. Um, and there ends up being some, there ends up being some like spy stuff going on. I'll just leave it at that. Um, have you not seen hell Caesar? No.

Andrew Fossier (04:04:54.314)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

I have not, I feel bad I haven't, I would have to watch your draft.

Eli Price (04:05:02.143)
Okay, yeah, Hell Caesar is good. It's not like top tier Coens, but it's still a Coen's movie, so still very good. But yeah, I'm trying to diversify my list, you know. We'll see, it's hard to diversify a spy list. All right, two more picks.

Andrew Fossier (04:05:23.626)
Yeah, well, I'll also attempt to diversify a little bit. And I don't think this is a stretch, but it might be an odd choice. But it's also pretty nostalgic because I watched this a lot growing up. The Rescuers.

Eli Price (04:05:29.403)
Let's do it.

Eli Price (04:05:39.891)
Okay, yeah. Yeah. That's fun.

Andrew Fossier (04:05:42.41)
I think it fits. They're not working for the CIA. They're working for like the protects, yeah, the will the, yeah, the protects adopted kids. What is it? There's a name for it. I haven't seen it in a long enough time, but yeah. And it's like, I really liked that movie as a kid. And I think it's got a soft spot for me and it feels like a spy movie.

Eli Price (04:05:47.42)
Yeah, the rat CIA.

Eli Price (04:05:54.675)
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (04:06:02.309)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:06:08.459)
Yeah, yeah, I didn't I didn't do a whole I usually try to see if there's a good animated movie The I'll I think the rescue is just fine. It's not my favorite Um, but it's definitely fits in the category, but I forgot to like really look and see if there were some Animated movies that would fit into the spy category because I like to try to pick an animated movie when I can But I did not Yeah, I didn't do that research

Andrew Fossier (04:06:21.762)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (04:06:37.931)
So I probably won't be picking one, unfortunately. There's that movie Spies in Disguise, but I haven't seen that.

Andrew Fossier (04:06:47.414)
Yeah, that's I was giving her a hard time earlier and she said, oh, that's the that's the bird movie. And I was like, no, that's Red Sparrow. And she's like, no, that's, that's not that's the Jennifer Lawrence movie. I was like, no, that's the Hunger Games. So yeah, I was just giving her a hard time. But yeah, spies in disguise. That's Tom Holland and who's the other lead? I can't remember.

Eli Price (04:06:47.911)
I'm sorry.

Eli Price (04:07:07.398)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:07:11.175)
I don't know, I've never seen it and I don't really know.

Andrew Fossier (04:07:14.974)
I want to say like, uh...

Andrew Fossier (04:07:23.574)
Will Smith, yeah. Will Smith is...

Eli Price (04:07:24.575)
Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. You know what? I saw this movie close to when it came out. Uh, really enjoyed it. Haven't seen it since. So it's hard for me to say a definitive like great movie, but I do remember really enjoying it. Um, I apparently rated it.

Andrew Fossier (04:07:39.736)
Okay.

Eli Price (04:07:53.659)
four stars out of five back when I saw it in 2015. And I'm going to go with Steven Spielberg's bridge of spies. I think it's a really good movie. Um, Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, uh, it's, it's sort of based on a real story, I guess, similar to Argo, um, of like a cold war Soviet, uh, Soviet captures a U S pilot sort of thing. They're.

Andrew Fossier (04:07:56.769)
Yeah.

Yeah

Andrew Fossier (04:08:13.989)
Mmm. Okay.

Eli Price (04:08:23.323)
They send a CIA operative. They're like, there's, you know, I mean, it's, it's in the title. There's, there's a spy and there's a bridge. Yeah. There's, you know, there's the wall, um, there in Berlin sort of thing going on. Um, people getting caught on the wrong side of the wall sort of thing. Yeah. It's, it's a good movie. Um, Spielberg good, uh, I guess.

Andrew Fossier (04:08:29.341)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's hard to argue with that, right?

Andrew Fossier (04:08:40.206)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (04:08:52.039)
Twenty-teen Spielberg movie Yeah, I do need to rewatch it I haven't seen in a long and since then so Yeah, this is this your last pick one two three four five six. Oh Pressure Good honor honorable mentions

Andrew Fossier (04:09:04.79)
Okay, this is my last pick.

Andrew Fossier (04:09:10.338)
So I have more left than I was anticipating. Yeah.

Eli Price (04:09:17.487)
You can mention them honorably after you make your pick. Ha ha ha.

Andrew Fossier (04:09:22.798)
trying to decide which way to go with this. Cause I have a fun one. I have a fun one and I have a serious one.

Eli Price (04:09:25.391)
This might decide your draft.

Eli Price (04:09:30.681)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (04:09:36.918)
You know, I think I'm gonna go fun. I think I'm gonna go fun. I'm feeling good about it. So, I'm gonna stay true to Nick Cage and pick the unbearable weight of massive talent.

Eli Price (04:09:38.747)
Do it.

Eli Price (04:09:50.091)
Man, that's a really good choice. I wasn't even thinking about that being a spy movie. I thought it was a really fun movie.

Andrew Fossier (04:09:53.196)
Really?

Yeah, it was fun. Well, not only is Nick Cage growing on me, I don't know. I just, I find him fun. I really like Pedro Pascal as well. So that was just a fun, that was just a fun experience.

Eli Price (04:10:07.556)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (04:10:13.247)
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I, um, yeah. And it graced us with the Paddington two joke. Um, just great. Um, which is a really actually wonderful movie. Um, but yeah, uh, Nicholas cage. I did, um, actually I did what I call it a cage athon, uh, leaning up to

Andrew Fossier (04:10:22.85)
Hmm.

Eli Price (04:10:38.835)
uh, unbearable weight of massive talent. And I was basically just kind of filling in a lot of Nick cage blind spots. I, I think I ended up watching like 11 Nick cage movies leading up to the unbearable weight of massive talent, which was a wonderful experience. I highly recommend. I do have a book that I haven't, I haven't read yet called age of cage. Um, and it's like an exploration of like different areas of movies through Nick cage's career.

Andrew Fossier (04:10:41.656)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:10:49.098)
Wow.

Andrew Fossier (04:10:55.594)
Mmm. Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:11:01.827)
I dunno.

Eli Price (04:11:08.343)
Uh, which I'm really excited to eventually read it. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Um, yeah, great pick. I didn't even think about that, but yeah. Uh, and it really is a fun pick. Uh, I thought you were going to go a different direction when you said fun, but it's good, but maybe we'll, we'll say in honorable mentions. Um, I'm not gonna, I guess go fun route. Um,

Andrew Fossier (04:11:12.746)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:11:27.444)
Oh, okay.

Eli Price (04:11:37.611)
I could go with a movie that I haven't seen since I was a kid. Uh, but I'm not going to, I'm going to go with the one you reminded me of with your black Klansman pick. And I'm going to pick Judas and the black Messiah. Have you seen that? Oh, such a good movie. So freaking good. And, um, and of course.

Andrew Fossier (04:11:54.103)
Ooh, yes, that was a good, that's a good pick. Ooh.

Eli Price (04:12:03.451)
Now I get to, uh, fawn on Lakeith Stanfield, who I think is an incredible actor. Daniel Kaluuya is a phenomenal actor too. And he gets a lot of credit for his portrayal of Fred Hampton in this movie. But I think Lakeith Stanfield as Bill O'Neill in this movie is actually like. Sneakily phenomenal acting. Um, I'm a sucker for actors that are acting while they're acting. Um, which is what.

Andrew Fossier (04:12:12.893)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Fossier (04:12:27.013)
Mmm.

Eli Price (04:12:33.059)
Stanfield's doing here because he's kind of like infiltrating, you know, the black Panthers and Fred Hampton's crew. Uh, and so he's acting as, while he's being an actor and acting, uh, I'm a sucker for that and I think his, it's like, um, it's like the Amadeus style of biopic where you view, um,

Andrew Fossier (04:12:41.653)
Uh.

Andrew Fossier (04:12:49.188)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:13:00.547)
someone who would be considered the protagonist through the antagonist's perspective. Which if you've never seen Amadeus, that's what it is. It's viewed through the perspective of the composer that didn't make it big because Mozart came along, whose name is slipping my mind in the moment, unfortunately. But yeah, that's what this one is kind of doing. And I think that's probably like, to me, one of the most...

Andrew Fossier (04:13:06.616)
Okay.

Andrew Fossier (04:13:11.327)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:13:16.878)
Hmm

Andrew Fossier (04:13:27.618)
Okay.

Eli Price (04:13:29.163)
If not the most interesting way to do a biopic sort of film, um, is that perspective, but yeah, Judas and the black Messiah, phenomenal, really great movie.

Andrew Fossier (04:13:34.004)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:13:39.35)
Yes, very good pick.

Eli Price (04:13:42.219)
But yeah, and that's a wrap on the draft. What were your honorable mentions?

Andrew Fossier (04:13:48.31)
Yeah. So I had these on the list, but I just didn't feel it. Snowden was my serious pick. Feel like that would have, I don't know. Yeah, I saw it when it came out. And I mean, I don't remember being blown away. It went the very literal route. It was very, like retell the story. And I mean, so did Argo, but it just, Argo was more fun, I think, I don't know.

Eli Price (04:13:57.899)
Okay, yeah, I've never seen it, but yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:14:17.982)
uh, Eagle Eye, which I think that I remember liking it. I don't really remember. It's Shia LaBeouf. So I just, my mind just goes, it's Transformers, which I know talk about actor imprinting, um, the imitation game.

Eli Price (04:14:20.131)
Yeah, I remember that movie. Yeah.

Eli Price (04:14:26.513)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:14:31.192)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:14:35.811)
Yeah, that would have been a really good pick. I thought the imitation game was really well made. Yeah. I had it on my list too, but yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:14:38.957)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:14:42.386)
Um...

Andrew Fossier (04:14:46.002)
I had a contentious pick, which I felt like was a little too unfair to do. So now, yeah. The Matrix, because it feels like a spy movie. They're acting like spies and they're being...

Eli Price (04:14:59.419)
Hmm. Yeah, I wouldn't. I don't know if I would have allowed the matrix.

Andrew Fossier (04:15:04.106)
Okay, well then I'm glad I left it out because that yeah, that's just a little too it's not that it even Arguably is unfair. It's just like such a good movie to list. Yeah, and uh, the penguins of madagascar because Of course, right

Eli Price (04:15:11.423)
Yeah, I know where you're coming from. Yeah.

Eli Price (04:15:18.927)
Hahaha.

Yeah. You gotta get, you gotta mention the penguins. Smile and wave. Yeah. So, so the two that I mentioned that, that I was not going to pick that definitely are spy movies. Um, and our beloved by a lot of people, the, the departed, um, is definitely. A spy movie. Um, and in glorious bastards, another movie that's definitely for sure. Spy movie.

Andrew Fossier (04:15:25.534)
Yes, 321 penguins. What were your...

Andrew Fossier (04:15:49.666)
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (04:15:51.979)
I think. So I didn't pick those two. I've picked them in past drafts. So yeah, I'm glad you didn't pick them because I feel like they might have tipped the scales if one of us would have picked one of those because a lot of people love those two movies. Yeah, we do. Yeah, as far as Bond goes, I mean, any of the Daniel Craig's, maybe not Quantum of Silas, but Casino Royale, very good.

Andrew Fossier (04:16:03.744)
Yeah.

I feel like we have a pretty good, pretty good lineup.

Andrew Fossier (04:16:19.807)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:16:20.531)
I had, um, the Manchurian candidate. Have you ever seen that? Um, it's a 1962 movie. It's about, um, it's like, uh, at the end of the Korean war, there's these guys that are like taken by Russians and brainwashed basically, and they become like these kind of like sleeper cells. And so like, there's this, yeah, there's.

Andrew Fossier (04:16:25.526)
No, I'm not.

Eli Price (04:16:49.591)
Yeah. One of them is like activated or something. It's a really interesting movie. Um, uh, and obviously deals with kind of like spies and whatnot, but yeah. Um, really into it. I, I probably liked it a little less than consensus. It has a 4.0 on letterbox, which is a really high score, but, um, I liked it a little less than that, but not much. Um, a most wanted man.

Andrew Fossier (04:16:56.398)
Hmm.

Eli Price (04:17:19.167)
Which I did not pick because I don't really remember a whole lot about the movie. I just remember I liked it. So, I mean, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Willem Dafoe, Rachel McAdams, it's hard to go wrong with that cast. Um, a couple of other, uh, Hitchcock, uh, the lady vanishes is very good. Um, and also the 39 steps. Very good. Um,

both 30s Hitchcock movies. Both are really good. I really enjoy both of those. Zero Not Dirty, I guess, is technically kind of a spy movie in a way, but yeah. It's like one of those that's like a stretch, but not really a stretch, but sort of, I don't know.

Andrew Fossier (04:18:00.8)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:18:09.774)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I can see that.

Eli Price (04:18:14.571)
I did have a few fun ones on my list. I think the Kingsman Secret Service movie was a fun one. Not a great movie, but pretty fun. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I feel similar. Not phenomenal movie, but pretty fun. And then obviously like Austin Powers. Any of the Austin Powers movies would have fit into this category.

Andrew Fossier (04:18:22.623)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:18:30.542)
Mmm.

Andrew Fossier (04:18:34.644)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:18:38.542)
Mmm.

Eli Price (04:18:42.787)
I feel like I haven't seen, I've maybe seen the original, but I haven't, I don't know that I've seen any of the other ones. And then the one from my, my childhood, uh, spy kits. I mean, come on.

Andrew Fossier (04:18:54.746)
Yes, I was contemplating. I don't. Yeah, yeah, that was like, that was like, one of the ones for it's like it's in the title. It's super obvious. I feel like everyone's seen it. But yeah.

Eli Price (04:18:59.911)
I feel like I would have gotten a lot of votes if I would have picked Spy Kids.

Eli Price (04:19:12.947)
Yeah, but it's good to get in the honorable mentions. Yeah, I'll read out our final draft results. Andrew ended up with Mission Impossible Fallout, Black Clansman, The Bourne Supremacy, Captain America Winter Soldier, Argo, The Rescuers, and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. I ended up with Skyfall, The Conversation, North by Northwest,

Mission Impossible, Hail Caesar, Bridge of Spies, and Judas and the Black Messiah. Two really good lists. I think you have some popular picks though that might get you the win there. People love Fallout, people love the Bourne movies, you've got the Marvel movie. Yeah. You might, I don't know, you might eke this one out. We'll have to see.

Andrew Fossier (04:19:56.138)
Yeah, I don't know. I feel like it's a really good. Yeah. That was my

Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:20:10.382)
Fallout was my number one pick. Well, if you'd gone first, what would you have picked?

Eli Price (04:20:15.863)
I probably would have picked fallout to be honest, because the, the departed, like, I mean, you can see my list of the departed and, uh, and glorious bastards are at the top and then fallouts right after, and then skyfall. So.

Andrew Fossier (04:20:20.329)
That's what I was thinking.

Andrew Fossier (04:20:28.218)
Yeah, yeah. Mm hmm. Well, thank you for the courtesy of going. Let me go first.

Eli Price (04:20:36.857)
Yeah, no problem. Of course. It's my pleasure and honor. Yeah, did you happen to think of a recommendation of the week to help close this out here?

Andrew Fossier (04:20:53.846)
Um, well, I'm really struggling to think. I was looking at, I feel like I haven't seen a whole lot of movies recently, honestly. Um, but, well, yeah, you did say that earlier. Um, I'm still, I'm still, I still have Joel Kinnaman on the brain, I guess. Um, and I really would suggest for all mankind because it's, it's

Eli Price (04:21:03.055)
You can recommend whatever doesn't have to be a movie.

Andrew Fossier (04:21:18.99)
Probably harder to access, I guess, because it's on Apple TV, and I know that's kind of a, you know, you either have it or you don't. But it's like a alternate history space movie, where the opening shot of the first episode is, the Russians get to the moon first. And so the space race continues and.

Eli Price (04:21:22.215)
Hmm.

Eli Price (04:21:26.704)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (04:21:37.979)
Gotcha.

Andrew Fossier (04:21:43.574)
We just keep going and going in space and the technology advances quicker. And then each new decade is like each season is a decade advanced basically. And so there's like real world, real history, tie-ins and space, which is always, always a fun. I always like space movies, space TV shows. So I would probably recommend that even though it's, it's been out for a while. Um, and I don't know how the writer strikes and

Eli Price (04:21:52.252)
Gotcha.

Andrew Fossier (04:22:12.074)
you know, stuff affected the new season coming out, because I think it was supposed to come out soon, but there's a couple seasons out already. So it's a good movie, I mean, good TV show.

Eli Price (04:22:14.747)
Gotcha. Gotcha, yeah.

Eli Price (04:22:22.595)
Yeah, yeah, cool. Yeah, definitely we'll put it on the list. I don't watch a lot of TV shows to be honest. I watch mostly just movies. But yeah, every once in a while I'll get in the mood and watch through a show. So yeah, I'll have to add it to the list. My recommendation of the week is kind of a, just a little fun thing that...

Andrew Fossier (04:22:31.17)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:22:50.839)
I do just like it's kind of one of those like in between little games to play And but there's like, you know, a lot of people know Wordle, but there's also like a bunch of like fun little film related games like that like daily games The two that I like the most are framed one of them is called framed

Andrew Fossier (04:23:09.047)
Mm.

Eli Price (04:23:17.311)
Um, and that one, I actually send, um, back and forth with my family. Like we all send what, like our frame scores every day. And it's kind of like a fun little thing that, that we do with our family. And, um, yeah, that one's fun. It's basically just shows you, uh, you get six frames from a movie one at a time and you, you know, you can guess with each frame and so, you know, hopefully.

Andrew Fossier (04:23:30.126)
Hmm.

Eli Price (04:23:45.187)
It's, it's fun. You try to guess the movie frame by frame, you know, and a lot of times it'll start off with like more obscure frames from the movie and then get to more like noticeable ones as you go along. Um, that one's fun. The other one that I actually recently started doing, um, just, you know, again, it's just kind of like, Oh, I'm sitting here waiting for this, you know, Oh, I'll pull this up and play this game. It's called movie grid.

Andrew Fossier (04:23:48.95)
Uh huh.

Eli Price (04:24:15.171)
And so it's basically like there's a, like a X and Y axis. So there's six, there's no nine, nine squares. And it's basically like, it'll have like, this column is one word titles, or you can ignore the word the, and then this, this will have like, you know, some actor's names or maybe a couple of actors and a director.

Andrew Fossier (04:24:16.526)
Hmm.

Andrew Fossier (04:24:40.91)
Hmm.

Eli Price (04:24:42.627)
Or it'll say movies between 2000 and 2015 in this column. And similar, it'll have directors or actors or whatever. And so you have to try to, you have nine guesses, nine total guesses to try to fill as many of the nine squares as you can. So it's fun. It's a fun little movie grid game. But I'll try to remember to link those in the episode description.

Andrew Fossier (04:24:59.118)
Huh.

Andrew Fossier (04:25:03.351)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:25:11.915)
So if you want to, if you don't want to have to search those, uh, we'll throw them in there so that you can just go down to the description and find them. The links to them there. But yeah, that's, that's my recommendation. Yeah. Frames. One frame is fine. There's, um, there's a few others, movie doll poster doll.

Andrew Fossier (04:25:23.542)
Yeah, frame does a lot of fun. Frame does a lot of fun. There's one that, well, there's, yeah, post-dirtal is crazy, and Hunter is very good. She gets it first tick every time. Her color recognition is just ridiculous. To connect a super pixelated movie poster, if you don't know.

Eli Price (04:25:37.361)
Ha ha ha.

Eli Price (04:25:43.736)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:25:49.465)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:25:50.914)
what person poster to let it pixelates the movie poster to a crazy, like basically four pixels almost. And then it slowly gets more clear. And she gets it. Uh, she gets it almost every time the first

Eli Price (04:25:52.944)
Uh huh.

Eli Price (04:25:58.18)
Yep.

That's impressive, yeah.

Yeah, I would say my average is probably like over 10 seconds.

Andrew Fossier (04:26:10.211)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:26:11.175)
Yeah. Yeah, those are, those are really fun. And it's, it's fun too. If you have like some people that you like, you know, it has where you can share, you know, copy and paste how well you did. It's, it's fun. It's fun to like send it, you know, around and to some other friends that love movies, but yeah, um, yeah, I'll link those, but yeah, other than that, we're, we're pretty much done. Andrew, did you want to share maybe where people can follow you?

Andrew Fossier (04:26:24.199)
Yeah, that's nice.

Eli Price (04:26:40.989)
Um, uh, social media, letterbox, anything like that.

Andrew Fossier (04:26:46.017)
Yeah, so Letterbox is probably the place I am most active.

I don't honestly even know. I don't wanna drag us further, but I don't even know how to share my...

name on letterbox, is there like a username?

Eli Price (04:27:04.215)
Yeah. I mean, I'll have, um, yeah, there is like a, an app, whatever, but yeah, I'll, I'll definitely have your link in the, um, in the episode description. Um.

Andrew Fossier (04:27:08.515)
I can send you my link to that.

Andrew Fossier (04:27:12.978)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then, uh, I mean, that's the only place I'm meaningfully active. If yeah.

Eli Price (04:27:19.191)
Yeah. Well, I'll, yeah, I'll for sure link your letter boxed and you can follow Andrew there, um, his wife Hunter is on there too. And she's always, I always, I always like to see what y'all have to say about, about the movies. If you, uh, I'm not going to link Hunter's letter boxed. Uh, but you know, it's all, it's one of those things like, well, if you go and see who follows Andrew, you can probably, um,

Andrew Fossier (04:27:35.287)
Yeah.

Andrew Fossier (04:27:48.207)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:27:49.327)
The letterbox is a fun, fun place to be. But yeah, for sure. That's all we have for this episode. I am looking forward to the Christopher Nolan epilogue next week, and I hope to see you then. But I have been Eli Price for Andrew Fosier. You have been listening to The Establishing Shot. See you next time.

Andrew Fossier (04:27:55.383)
It sure is, yeah.