The Grand Budapest Hotel (w/ Jean-Pierre Boudreaux)

Eli Price (00:39.557)
Hello and welcome to The Establishing Shot. It's a podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmographies. Yeah, I'm excited to have JP Boudreaux back again. JP's back, back again. And yeah, we had JP on for the Steve Zissou episode and we're back today for Wes Anderson's eighth film.

Jean-Pierre (00:48.514)
Why do we?

Eli Price (01:08.905)
Probably his most acclaimed most well-known film I would say in the Grand Budapest Hotel, so Yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, I'm excited to have you on again JP. I hope you're excited to be on again Yeah, yeah Yeah, so You know since Everyone should have hopefully listened to the Z issue episode

Jean-Pierre (01:16.29)
It's definitely my favorite, for sure.

Jean-Pierre (01:23.234)
I am, yeah. We talked for almost three hours last time, so let's beat the record, I guess.

Eli Price (01:38.893)
We got into you know who JP is what he does all that there so If you want to know more about JP, and you haven't listened to that you can go back to it And it was a great conversation, so you should just go back in fact if you're just jumping into this like I would recommend like jumping back to episode 1 and listening through an order just because Yeah, yeah watch through them

Jean-Pierre (02:02.27)
definitely an episodic podcast you know like there's a story going on.

Eli Price (02:08.009)
Take your time. I've been releasing these weekly, but if you're not watching each movie and taking your time going through, that's the ideal way to do it. Take your time. You don't have to listen to them as they come out. If you can only watch one of these and listen every other week or whatever, that's how I recommend doing this.

so that you really get the most out of the movie and the discussion and all that. But yeah, if that's not your cup of tea and you just want to jump into the movie you like, cool. I'm glad you're here for the Grand Budapest Hotel discussion. Yeah, JP, I know we talked last time. This was your first like, man, I love Wes Anderson kind of movie.

Jean-Pierre (03:04.554)
Yeah, definitely. Like I said last time, I'm fairly certain Moonrise Kingdom was the first one I saw, which I do like Moonrise Kingdom as well. But I think that I don't I'm sure we'll get into it. I'm not sure what exactly the formula is with this movie. But this is the one movie that I just I think the jokes hit. I think the way that you know, West Anderson's like specific cinematography.

Eli Price (03:12.251)
Right, right.

Eli Price (03:22.696)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:32.982)
really hits well in this movie and just overall, I just think this movie is a great time. And the last time I said I feel like this is his most approachable movie. You said you said that was interesting because you feel like this is like the most Wes Anderson, Wes Anderson movie. But I just feel like, you know, if no one's ever seen a Wes Anderson movie, I think this is the one that I would suggest them watch because I feel like this one just, you know, it's, it just, it just feels a lot different than some of the other ones I've seen.

Eli Price (03:41.767)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:56.328)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:01.873)
Yeah, I'm coming around a little bit to that idea of I think so I'm kind of Coming to the conclusion that I think it depends on the person So but yeah this one we were kind of talking a little bit before we started recording on Just like the pace of this one. It's just like Once you hit the 30s portion. It's just like really fast really engaging. So yeah, I can definitely see that but yeah, I've got

If you're watching, you can see I've got my copy of Romantic Poetry Volume 1. I've got my print of A Boy with Apple. And yeah, I'm ready to get going. Yes. Now these are just like booklets from the Criterion Collection disc. The little booklets that come with it. Yeah. They're decorated, of course, with the artwork from the movie. So.

Jean-Pierre (04:39.895)
Oh wow.

Jean-Pierre (04:43.534)
certified fanboy over here.

Jean-Pierre (04:51.524)
Oh, I need to get that.

Jean-Pierre (04:56.938)
I'm basically at a point where any movie that Criterion Collection has that I like, I want that version of it.

Eli Price (05:02.313)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah, you should you should definitely get a Grand Budapest Criterion collection, but uh, yeah, so we're ready to jump into this discussion and Yeah, I figured we'd start talking about The influences for this because this is something that was really interesting to me When I started like doing my research for this film and Yeah, so

Jean-Pierre (05:13.806)
Let's do it.

Eli Price (05:32.017)
One of the main, you know, West would say this is like the primary influence for the film is this author named Stefan Zweig or Zweig. I'm probably like butchering how to say it. Zweig. He's an Austrian author from the kind of 20s, 30s. I guess maybe even I'm not sure how long.

Jean-Pierre (05:47.964)
Swag maybe?

Eli Price (06:01.585)
what his span of writing was, but maybe into the 40s. I'm not sure. But yeah, he was a writer from he lived in Vienna, Austria during that time period. Very, very popular, not just like in Austria in that area, but around the world, really. His his writing kind of was well known during that period. And he.

had an interesting life himself. He fled Vienna and Austria in 32, I believe, 1932, when the Nazis were kind of coming in. And I'm pretty sure they even like burned a lot of his books and work there in Vienna.

Jean-Pierre (06:50.574)
It sounds like the von Trapp family from Sound of Music. I haven't seen that movie in forever, but don't they leave Austria at the end of that film, get away from the Nazis, basically.

Eli Price (06:56.165)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Eli Price (07:03.501)
Yes, yeah, there's something yeah something like that happens for sure Uh, but yeah, he left he went to england and then New york, I believe and then eventually ended up in brazil Um, and I think you know lived the rest of his life there but yeah, um, so a very interesting guy and um he uh the yeah, the influence there is not so much like

Wes Anderson adapted some of his work. It's more like his style, his just like kind of who he was and what he represented. And then his writing style is kind of like the influence there. And so, so like, for instance, I wrote, I wrote down a few things like one, one way that, I guess you could say that Wes kind of like,

Jean-Pierre (07:46.915)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (07:59.825)
was influenced by a style is that often, Zweig would write in kind of the format of, the storytelling, I guess, format would be like, he has a person who meets someone and that person tells them a story. And that's the story of his novel or his short story that you're reading.

Jean-Pierre (08:19.391)
Mm.

Jean-Pierre (08:25.302)
Yeah, this kind of reminds me of The Great Divorce, the CSUist book. That book is basically, like he basically meets a bunch of people and they kind of like tell him a story, you know, kind of a very similar style.

Eli Price (08:36.445)
Yeah, yeah, and his little visit to kind of like pre-heaven sort of. Yeah, yeah, and so that's that kind of you can see that influence because that's kind of like the whole setup here where F.A. F. Mary Abraham, the character Zero as the older Zero, he, you know, he.

Jean-Pierre (08:42.486)
like purgatory kind of thing.

Jean-Pierre (08:51.889)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (09:04.217)
Meets an author that's staying at his hotel in the 60s and tells him a story. It's actually you start off with the author Yeah Jude law, yeah

Jean-Pierre (09:12.606)
Yeah, Tom Wilkinson, great actor, and then his younger versions, Jude Law, another great actor. Also, I love F. Murray Abraham. I feel like he's kind of like underrated. I don't think he has like a ton of like really, really major roles that people know. Oh, yeah. No, I can't help but see him as Salieri every time he does something. But he's even good in that one.

Eli Price (09:24.91)
Oh yes.

Have you seen Amadeus? Yeah. Uh-huh. He's incredible in that.

Jean-Pierre (09:37.074)
not so great Star Trek movie where he's like the villain I want to say it was Star Trek generations he wears like he's got like a mask on the whole time because he's like an alien but no he's

Eli Price (09:41.725)
Yeah, I'm not sure.

Eli Price (09:46.481)
Yeah, you know, Amadeus is actually like very not like very similar but like his the way he His role he narrates kind of Amadeus as his older self looking back at You know his interactions with Mozart as a younger self Right, right

Jean-Pierre (09:54.774)
Yeah, you know, you're right.

Jean-Pierre (10:01.238)
Well, because it's his perspective too. Like it's the same thing here. Like you watch Grand Budapest, it's like, you know, obviously it's a movie, but if you think about like the reality of the story probably didn't happen exactly the way that Zero narrates it, but from his perspective, that's how it happened. Same thing with Amadeus, like Salieri paints himself the victim of Wolfgang Mozart, you know, and that he was driven to madness to.

Eli Price (10:19.249)
Right.

Eli Price (10:27.581)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (10:30.998)
to kill him, essentially. A great movie if no one's ever seen that.

Eli Price (10:32.897)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great one. And this is similar. It's F. Murray Abraham looking back, not with such malicious intent as he was. And it's more of a nostalgia, but actually kind of a sad nostalgia in a way, which we'll get into that. But yeah, that's definitely influenced

Jean-Pierre (10:47.57)
Definitely not.

Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (11:03.177)
I guess the style of writing or story maybe the style of storytelling that is why I would use So I thought that was really interesting another thing that Matt Zoller sites pointed out in an interview with Wes was that Zweg was like really good at lists. So like kind of like taxonomical kind of lists So he would be talking about coffee shops in Vienna

back in like the 20s and he would like just list out very like eloquently like all the things that like would happen in the coffee shop and it makes you think of like the like Mazur Gustav kind of telling um telling uh Zero you know about what a lobby boy should be like or listing off all the things that have like

Jean-Pierre (11:38.251)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (11:51.255)
Mm-hmm.

Uh-huh.

Eli Price (11:57.565)
How do you think I can get this so quickly or like take us to here like.

Jean-Pierre (12:00.502)
Or even like, I mean, the very first thing he says to Zero where he gives him the very specific instructions about the candle, you know, even that it's like, it's like literally like to the most minute details is exactly how to go through this process.

Eli Price (12:07.493)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah listing that like that like rapid fire list

Eli Price (12:17.273)
Right and that's kind of like you can see some influence from Zweig and that and there's probably like a lot of ways that you see it um but then there's kind of like the The less like writing style Influence and more of like a thematic influence just from Zweig's life and his outlook on the way things were um, you know he He fled like

You see kind of his influence a little bit in Zero, where Zero's kind of in exile. He's a refugee, and just like Zweig was, you see Zweig hated passports. That was something that I liked. His perspective was, you know, passports became something that came along, like I guess during his lifetime, and he saw it as like,

Jean-Pierre (13:08.855)
Yeah.

Eli Price (13:13.237)
kind of like the world saying, you have to prove your identity, you have to justify your existence. And it's like men drawing lines and telling you, you can't be here, you have to justify your existence for being here. Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (13:30.826)
Yeah, that's really interesting to kind of think about how the, I mean, because even, I mean, I'm sure we'll get more into the plot, but even the scene where they're on the train and the obviously like kind of like the low key like stand in proto-Nazis almost are asking for papers, like, it's like some of the ubiquitous and almost any movie from that time period is, oh, eat your papers, please. And I think, you know, when you look at it today, obviously, passports are seen very differently. But at the same time, it's like, you know.

Eli Price (13:45.489)
Right.

Eli Price (13:51.761)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (14:02.027)
It's kind of sad because it's like an American passport. You go to some countries and just because you have that, you're looked at like the greatest thing ever. Other places you go, you're looked at very negatively. But it still can kind of be a thing of like, like there's certain countries where if you have a passport from that country, like you can't go to other countries. Like they won't let you in. Just because your passport says you're from somewhere that for some reason or another, they don't want you in their country, which is...

Eli Price (14:10.801)
Yeah. Right.

Eli Price (14:21.862)
Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (14:30.261)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (14:30.914)
really sad. So it's interesting to kind of see that there's been somewhat of a shift, but there is still some of that same having to justify your existence negativity that he was very against for very good reason, obviously.

Eli Price (14:43.397)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I thought that was, I've never thought about that before, just because like you said, it's a given today. Like, oh yeah, I need my passport and go into another country. But yeah, there was a time when that wasn't a thing, and it did feel like an infringement on your humanity, I guess, in a way, of someone that doesn't know you, over who you are and where you are.

Jean-Pierre (14:52.449)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (14:58.787)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (15:13.321)
telling you have to justify your existence for being where you are. Yeah, I, you know, I can put myself in those shoes and understand that perspective. And really like to another thing is that, you know, is why obviously from Austria brought a very like European perspective into his writing and really like the perspective here of this, like. There's a, there's a sense of like.

history You know the sense of history in Europe is very different than an American sensibility of history Europe is

Jean-Pierre (15:50.588)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (15:55.725)
Not, I wouldn't say desensitized, but probably like more cynical about the cycles of war. You know, America's probably moving towards that path. You know, we kind of follow Europe and those cultural things, but yeah, it's a way of life in Europe. It was kind of like a cycle of, you know, civilization, war, post-war, build things back up, you know, good civilization,

Jean-Pierre (16:10.306)
Well, they've been around a lot longer.

Eli Price (16:25.86)
And it's kind of like a...

Not you know a given that like zwag was very upset about And he could see the impending You know coming of that next cycle of war which ended up being like the worst Cycle of it probably ever But yeah, um Yeah, so that like zwags influences is huge on this and i've never read any stephen zwag

This is all just from our research, but man, I'm really intrigued to go read some of his work now. Like the world of yesterday, I think is the main one that is referenced when talking about the influence here. And I know in that one, Zweig does a lot of like kind of reminiscing on like 20s Vienna and like just like kind of in that nostalgic.

Jean-Pierre (17:10.766)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (17:25.681)
Wishing he could still be their way that I would assume someone that's a refugee from somewhere They loved would think about it. So Yeah, I really want to go find some of his work and read it now Yeah

Jean-Pierre (17:40.446)
Right. Yeah. Now, he said he sounds like a really intriguing person in general. You know, I'm sure his stories, if the way he wrote his stories influenced this movie, I'm definitely interested in checking out what he wrote himself.

Eli Price (17:48.585)
Yeah.

Eli Price (17:55.949)
Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And then like Gustav is kind of like a combination of how, I guess, Wes saw Zweig as a person. But also he's very much the character he said him and he co-wrote this with a guy named Hugo Guinness. That's kind of a friend of his that he, yeah, great name.

Jean-Pierre (18:10.69)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (18:22.805)
name.

Eli Price (18:26.653)
But he co-wrote it with him. And I'm not sure if he's listed as a credit in the movie, but he is like in the credits. But he is like on Letterboxd. And Wes talks about, you know, he basically like wrote it with that guy. But they have a mutual friend that they based Gustav on like hugely, which I thought was hilarious because it's not like, yeah, so like the things that they talk about is like,

So for one thing that's not really funny but more interesting is that this guy that's a mutual friend of theirs will just meet someone and instantly kind of like, just start a mentor-mentee relationship with them. Like one of those kind of people, let me take you under my wing kind of people, which you definitely see in Gustav with Zero. And then, but even.

Jean-Pierre (19:14.646)
Hmm.

Jean-Pierre (19:18.404)
Mmm, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (19:22.817)
So, yeah.

Eli Price (19:25.757)
But funnier things like the little quip about like Zero telling him like, but she's 80 years old when he's talking about his like sexual encounter with this lady. Yeah, he's, I've had older, that line they said is from this guy. Yeah, and then the darlings, like all the darling that he throws in, like when he's addressing people, that's this guy.

Jean-Pierre (19:36.718)
She's 84. I've had it all day.

Jean-Pierre (19:44.526)
That's phenomenal.

Jean-Pierre (19:54.136)
Yeah.

Eli Price (19:54.969)
And then the thing that got me the most that I thought was great was that this mutual friend of theirs will just like start exp- like expousing poetry. I think the way Wes described it as is that like he sees that as a way of getting from point A to point B. Yeah, so it's not so much that he just like likes to recite poetry, but he actually sees it as a way to like-

Jean-Pierre (20:06.179)
Mmm.

Jean-Pierre (20:13.73)
interested.

Eli Price (20:22.573)
move forward a conversation or get a point across, I guess. Just kind of like Gustav does.

Jean-Pierre (20:26.422)
Yeah, I would say Gustav, and it sounds like this other gentleman as well, is what the kids would call in 2023 a Riz Lord or Riz King. You know, he knew how to put on the moves, so to speak.

Eli Price (20:37.371)
Okay.

Eli Price (20:42.757)
Yeah, yeah, I guess so. And then Wes just kind of says this guy, and he has said as much, would just make one of the best concierges there ever was. Just that kind of guy, which I thought was really fun. Wes always talks about how he takes kind of like snippets of different people he knows as influences for characters, and it's...

It's fun to hear him go into more detail of what exactly from these people he knows has gone into this character. This is the first one I've really seen him do that with. But yeah, so one of the things in the Criterion booklet, it includes in the back is this appendices.

Jean-Pierre (21:21.697)
Yeah.

Eli Price (21:38.709)
from a writing that Mark Twain did, kind of covering a trip around Europe that him and one of his friends took. It's called The Portier. It's like an appendix from this Mark Twain work. And I read it and it's Mark Twain basically like, just like going, basically like a love letter to the European concierge of this period.

like this like early 1900s periods, which he calls it the portier, which I guess is just like another word for concierge basically. But yeah, so like, it is, yeah. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, he basically like lambasts American hotels and concierges and like lauds what...

Jean-Pierre (22:10.807)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (22:20.238)
probably where we get the word Porter from which is kind of a similar job description.

Eli Price (22:37.537)
you the way it's done in Europe. Um, and so like you can definitely tell like, oh, I guess criterion included this because this was probably another thing that influenced the way that West kind of like built this like world around the concierge because they're this during this period in Europe like with these hotels like the concierge was the guy like He was the one that got you everything you needed

Jean-Pierre (23:04.471)
Right.

Eli Price (23:08.257)
You know you didn't and like people would stay in these hotels for like Months and months like they would stay in there for seasons So by the end of your stay, you know the concierge like you wouldn't even have to ask him for things anymore He was like just doing stuff for you and And that's like the kind of like way that Gustav is in this movie It's really like It's one of those things that's like

Jean-Pierre (23:22.26)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (23:29.066)
Mm.

Eli Price (23:35.813)
Man, I wish I could go back and experience something like that. Cause it seems like just something that doesn't exist anywhere anymore. Um, yeah. And so, um, which I guess just builds into the nostalgia of this movie. Um, just that era of like someone like this is just not a thing anymore. Someone like this character just doesn't exist today.

Jean-Pierre (24:00.876)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (24:05.166)
It's a very old world. I mean, I would say even well before 2023, I don't think, I would say probably since post World War II, I don't think this kind of a person like Gustav exists in the same way. You know, I think that just had too much of an impact on the culture in Europe.

Eli Price (24:05.221)
in 2023. Yeah.

Eli Price (24:12.231)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (24:15.977)
Probably.

Eli Price (24:29.041)
Mm-hmm. I mean for sure And you know, we'll talk a little bit about that but yeah some more influences, you know, I Wrote I was I Didn't even know this. I've you know, I've done research into West but like I haven't done a ton of research like into his like very Personal life just because this more of my research has been about like his work

But he does have a wife. I think at the time she was, they weren't married yet at the time of Grand Budapest, but she is his wife now. They have kids together. Her name is Juman Malouf. I'm probably butchering that. She's from Lebanon, but he kind of mentions, or I read somewhere, I don't know if it was in an essay or in an interview with him, that Zero's kind of like.

refugee story is based on like his wife's family history. They left Lebanon and went somewhere and so that's kind of like part of a story there. And so I thought that was you know cool that he kind of has that homage to his wife and it kind of built into Zero's story.

But yeah, there's a lot of, there's probably like a lot more influences that we could get into, but those are like some of the main ones that I wrote down that I thought were interesting. But yeah, I guess like moving on more into like the movie itself. Man, the sets and the production design and this is just... Yeah, top notch. I mean, there's nothing like it.

Jean-Pierre (26:03.382)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (26:18.03)
It's out of the level. I mean, it's absolutely gorgeous.

Eli Price (26:24.689)
Really? Like, honestly, there's nothing like it.

Jean-Pierre (26:26.19)
I feel like this is... Yeah, I really feel like this is... I mean, I think a lot of Wes Anderson movies are this way, but this one specifically, I feel like this is one of those movies where you could stop on any single frame and have just a beautiful single image, you know? And also, I think the way in which he utilizes the set design in this movie is just so well done. You know?

It feels a lot different than some of the other ones. I feel like he almost like, it almost feels like he kind of designed, like he kind of created the idea of the hotel first and then figured out how to incorporate a scene into that space second. You know?

Eli Price (26:58.6)
Right.

Eli Price (27:12.549)
Yeah. Yeah, it's probably like. So I know he does like a lot of scouting before his movies. So he talked he kind of talks about how like they were looking all over the place for somewhere to do it. And they actually like landed in this little small German town. It's actually like partly in Germany and partly in Poland.

Jean-Pierre (27:29.377)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (27:41.001)
So it's kind of on the German-Polish border. In fact, in one of the extra features, Bill Murray was kind of taking you around the little town. And he was looking down a street, and he points down. He's like, right around the corner is Poland. And he's like, if you go over there, and they're asking for your papers, you're just like, oh, I'm staying at the whatever hotel they're staying at. And they're just kind of like, oh, OK.

Jean-Pierre (27:44.43)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (28:11.497)
And they let you go. Um, yeah, but uh, yeah, it's this like kind of quaint little German Polish town, um, that you can definitely tell was on the other side of the Iron Curtain. That's something that Wes kind of talked about is, um, like once you get to that kind of east side of Germany, um, you, it's almost like there's

Jean-Pierre (28:12.366)
Thanks for watching.

Jean-Pierre (28:35.136)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (28:39.229)
big portions of it that are like preserved in that time from before the World War.

Jean-Pierre (28:44.203)
Yeah, I've been to Heidelberg. They have a university, I think it's the University of Heidelberg. I think it's the oldest college in Germany, don't quote me on that. But I spent some time around there on a mission ship, you know, like hanging out on campus. And like some of the buildings on, because they have like a campus.

Eli Price (28:47.774)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (29:08.65)
And then with the science and mathematics, and then they actually have a bunch of areas in the downtown area. That's like the buildings are like offices, but also some of them are classrooms. And that's more of the liberal arts side of the college. But the mathematics, science, and stuff like that, some of the buildings that they have there are some of these old buildings from the Soviet era. And they definitely stick out like a sore thumb.

Eli Price (29:20.524)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (29:38.339)
It's just, I think, I don't know if the architecture style is called brutalism, I want to say, maybe. But it's just very like gray, concrete, box, you know? So it's very interesting to see.

Eli Price (29:43.387)
Yeah.

Eli Price (29:49.893)
Yeah, yeah, and so that's definitely the, that's the influence on the 60s version of this hotel, which is where we kind of see the older Zero talking to the young author, giving him the story. It's this, Wes kind of says that the idea of the way the hotel looks for that, the outside of it, you know, look, and even the inside some is very much influenced by the result of

communism on architecture. It's very bland. In the 30s, the hotel is bright. It's pink. It's flamboyant. And then you see it in the 60s, and it's kind of all gray, very square. The reception, there's not the grand heights of the lobby from the 30s. They put a ceiling in there. And like,

Jean-Pierre (30:36.91)
It's all brown and yellow.

Eli Price (30:48.981)
fluorescent lighting and Yeah, and so That's definitely like the idea behind the differences between The 30s and 60s hotel looks here is there the results of communism on the architecture? but he what he's talking about for gorlitz is more of like This kind of small town that was untouched by all that And somehow is preserved like that pre-world war look

Jean-Pierre (31:11.837)
Mmm.

Jean-Pierre (31:18.614)
It's very unique and iconic, like just the look of the European, kind of like the Eastern European architecture and a lot of those small towns throughout Poland, Czech Republic, all those kinds of places.

Eli Price (31:22.374)
Yeah.

Eli Price (31:28.912)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (31:33.413)
Yeah. Yeah, so some of the outdoor scenes where they're in the streets, for instance, like when Sorcha Ronan's Agatha is riding the bike through the street, that's that town of Gorlitz. Right. And so it's really like, so in this little town, they were scouting it out. And the.

Jean-Pierre (31:48.034)
good old cobblestone street. Love a good cobblestone street.

Eli Price (32:01.917)
They found several things in this town that they could use so that they didn't have to travel a whole lot. So they found some thermal baths for that little section of the movie where the author meets the older Zero. They found, it's actually a department store. So the lobby of the hotel in the film, both the 30s and 60s version.

Jean-Pierre (32:15.415)
Love that scene.

Eli Price (32:32.089)
are done in this old department store that was kind of like emptied out that they used in this little town. And they, so one of the things they did was they made, so all the places, all the real places where they shoot, Wes said, were real places that they just kind of like added set stuff to.

So that lobby area, the stained glass skylights are actually real. The stairwell and the stair handles and all that, that's just real. That was just the way it looked. And all they did was added plywood walls for set stuff with the different colors that they wanted. And they built onto the little desk area.

Jean-Pierre (33:00.026)
Mm.

Jean-Pierre (33:06.985)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (33:23.798)
Yeah.

Eli Price (33:30.597)
in the middle of the lobby To make it look the way they wanted to but it's like it's real Like that's a real place like they didn't Make they captured some of the real architecture that was in this just department store. That's just beautiful and then to like the big dining room area where You see them eating as

Jean-Pierre (33:37.73)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (33:47.275)
Right.

Eli Price (33:58.129)
Zero's telling the author his story. That's just like a big ballroom that they used there and gorlets to film in. And so, yeah, they really like utilize these real places and just kind of built sets into them.

Jean-Pierre (34:12.079)
Yeah.

It's really interesting that like that kind of like some of those like different stylistic choices like never really made their way over across the ocean over here. I mean I feel like there's probably some like you know older hotels you can see in some major cities like you know probably New York places like that. Even here in New Orleans like there's like you know we have a there's like one.

Eli Price (34:32.241)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (34:39.582)
a really old hotel that the lobby area is like really nice but certainly nothing even close to coming close to that you know.

Eli Price (34:48.881)
Yeah. And this was a department store. Like, it's like we're-

Jean-Pierre (34:52.35)
Right, yeah. Well, you got to think at the time that was built, that was like the, it was supposed to be like an experience, you know. It's like, it's like, I feel like it's like, you know, it's like how malls felt in like the 80s. It was like, it's like, oh, we're going to go hang out at the mall. And like, there was like, it was, it was like a thing to do because that was the place to be, you know. Same thing with this department store probably built in the

Eli Price (35:00.957)
Yeah, it was a big deal.

Eli Price (35:15.143)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (35:19.742)
early, you know, late 1910s, early 20s, I would imagine at the very earliest. It was, you know, I mean, because department stores back then, you know, nowadays we think of like Macy's or Sears or something like that. But it's not the same thing. It was like a meeting place, you know, it offered multiple different, you know, things to do. It wasn't just like going and buying clothes or something.

Eli Price (35:22.131)
Right.

Eli Price (35:30.641)
Right. It's not like that yet.

Eli Price (35:39.049)
services and yeah

Right, right. It was an experience and it was a... Like you went there to do things and to be with people and to have... Yeah, to have an experience, not just to grab some clothes and go home. Yeah, I mean... I think too, the way that they did this really helps the atmosphere of the movie. To match the tone of what he's going for.

Jean-Pierre (36:11.607)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (36:11.901)
Like that nostalgic tone of like looking back and like thinking about the way things used to be, the way the world used to be. Like since these aren't like just fully built sets, they just added on the minimum of that they needed to, to make it work like they wanted to, but most of it's just real. It adds to that because it's in this kind of like preserved in time little town.

As far as like architecture goes and it like the that choice I think that choice is important because it does add to the tone and the atmosphere of the movie so much I think like subconsciously like you're not necessarily thinking about that while you're watching it But it it's like it's built into the whole world That you're looking at

Jean-Pierre (36:42.391)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (37:00.158)
Yeah, well, I think the other thing too is much like the department store. I think another thing that kind of adds to the hotels, like the pre-World War II hotel idea of Europe, one of the reasons why they were so extravagant is it was like a status symbol. It's like, kind of like it is in this movie in the 30s, like all the rich and famous people, you literally go vacation at the hotel because it's that level of notoriety.

Eli Price (37:11.071)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (37:17.745)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (37:21.064)
Yeah.

Eli Price (37:26.888)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (37:29.27)
You know, even today, you know, if you go to Europe, especially a lot of these older towns in Europe that aren't quite as touched by modernity, you know, so like you go to like a quick little German town like this, there might be like the one big hotel that takes up a whole, you know, city block or half a city block. And like, like every hotel has like a cafe or something. And I feel like not so much nowadays. I mean, most hotels nowadays have like a Starbucks lobby or something. But you know, at the time, like...

Eli Price (37:46.623)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (37:49.992)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (37:58.954)
much like the department store, that was like, oh, let's have lunch at Hotel de Chateau or just come out with some random name. It was a place of business. It was an establishment, not just for people to stay for various different reasons. This is also a time where people would take up residences and hotels as well, which is I think that especially is probably extremely rare nowadays. I think only the...

Eli Price (38:04.666)
Right.

Eli Price (38:18.931)
Yeah.

Eli Price (38:23.387)
Oh yeah.

Jean-Pierre (38:26.35)
The biggest hotels might have a couple floors at the top where they have like, you know, permanent tenants, but it's not, but this is like a time where people would stay in hotels for extended periods. So definitely, definitely a lot of that old school.

Eli Price (38:37.297)
Yeah, yeah, it makes me think of...

Yeah, it makes me think of, um, I've read a book called a gentleman in Moscow by Amore towels, um, which I think I recommended for the recommendation section at a previous episode. Um, but, um, it's this guy, um, kind of is in resident at this hotel and like, he's actually kind of on house arrest or hotel arrest, if you will, by, um, by the Bolsheviks in Russia, um, when they took over, he was.

Jean-Pierre (38:51.726)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (39:10.829)
Anyway, beside the point, but the everything he knew he wasn't allowed to leave the hotel, but he didn't need to Like there was there was a rest. There was a restaurant. There was a barber there was you know someone like tailoring his clothes like At the at this hotel like everything he needed was in the hotel and like what's interesting there is He's stuck in this hotel and the world is changing all

Jean-Pierre (39:18.227)
Right, everything you need is there.

Eli Price (39:39.833)
Outside of it, but he can't leave so all he gets of how the world is changing is from inside this hotel and like I guess like the Obviously it being a similar type of hotel is that You know you are in this hotel and then you go out and you get glimpses into how the world is changing outside of this

Jean-Pierre (40:08.394)
Mmm. Yeah, that's a good point, yeah.

Eli Price (40:08.465)
like self-contained little world of the hotel. And I think that's, and even like jumping, when you jump back and forth between the 30s section of the movie to the 60s section of the movie, it's kind of like disorienting to see how different the hotel is and how different the atmosphere is, like it's bustling, it's like.

There's movement and action going on in the 30s like constantly In the 60s you go to the dining room and is this I mean it's a massive dining room that you can only imagine was just like full of people back in the 30s and there's like literally probably at Yeah, I mean there's like probably a hundred tables 50 to a hundred tables set out but there's yeah, there's like ten people

Jean-Pierre (40:40.61)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (40:45.454)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (40:52.79)
like five or six tables with people at them, very muted conversation.

Eli Price (41:03.781)
all like by themselves sitting at tables. And it's just like that in and of itself, if you just kind of pay attention to those details is sad.

Jean-Pierre (41:14.358)
Yeah, well, I mean, on the whole idea of like the hotel being its own world, you know, I mean, even think about, you know, the point where, you know, Zero brings up the newspaper, he's like, look, and it shows like the big headline is wars breaking out. And then the camera jumps to, you know, one of the rich, you know, women, the Madame D that he was, Gustav was infatuated with.

Eli Price (41:20.821)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (41:31.635)
Right.

Eli Price (41:37.01)
Madam D.

Jean-Pierre (41:41.626)
is dead and that's what he's focused on and we have no idea it's not until they actually leave and get on the train that then we get our first experience of what life outside of this very specific hotel is because I mean you know this is also a time point where all the staff like pretty much lived in the hotel as well like for a season so exactly

Eli Price (41:44.563)
Right.

Eli Price (41:59.397)
Right. Yeah, they have their own quarters. There's like the there's like and they do capture that in the movie. There's the front end of the hotel, but then there's the back end where you see like them going into the luggage room where the safe is and stuff like that.

Jean-Pierre (42:05.953)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Jean-Pierre (42:13.31)
Right, which, you know, having worked in hotels, like doing audio visual work, setting up for events and things like that, pretty much any hotel is going to have those back corridors. But I think it's very, very unusual for staff to live there. That's more of like a resort thing. Like if you go in like, probably like a beach resort or I know a lot of like mountain resorts might have like a staff area. But it's also much more of a exclusive

Eli Price (42:19.995)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (42:32.212)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (42:37.297)
Yeah. Right.

Jean-Pierre (42:43.622)
area kind of off to itself. So like staff comes in for a season and the hotel shuts down for six months because it's like snowed in or something. So it is a very different vibe but we're not, you know, so but it's yeah I just I don't know it's just really interesting to think of all the different dynamics of how the Grand Budapest operated like in the 30s in this film and just thinking about how those were things that were commonplace and now it's like it's almost like weird to think about like

Eli Price (43:01.529)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Jean-Pierre (43:11.026)
It almost feels a little dystopian to say, yeah, I work at the hotel and I sleep there and like I literally don't, I don't leave, you know, between shifts and I'll go home. My life is here. You know, it just it feels a little dystopian to us now. Right.

Eli Price (43:19.762)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, and in the 30s, that would be exciting. Like that would be an exciting place to work and to be. But yeah, then you jump to like the 60s and it's like. Like everyone looks so bored. Like Jason Swartzman is the plays the concierge in the 60s, and he looks so bored. Like he's so bored that you see him kind of like he sits them out down at the table to for dinner, zero in the author.

Jean-Pierre (43:30.498)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (43:42.082)
Mm.

Eli Price (43:51.801)
and you see him like kind of lean back into the frame to like look at what they're doing. Like he doesn't have anything to do, so...

Jean-Pierre (44:00.062)
Well, even when they introduce him, I think he describes him as you got the sense that at once he was incredibly lazy, but also rather adept, or something like that. So it's very lazy, but also knows how to do the job well when required. But as a child of circumstance, there isn't much for him to do, exactly. So I mean, also, I think about this, too. You've got to think, I think, pre-World War II,

Eli Price (44:10.374)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (44:14.713)
Right. Which is rare.

Jean-Pierre (44:27.338)
The hotel was a meeting place. It was a place of business. It was experience. And then once you start getting into the Cold War era, it's like a hotel is a place of espionage. It's a place of secret conversations. It's like, oh, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna like, you know, it's a place where it's like, we're trying to get this person to have a conversation with one of our spot. And so I feel like maybe that's part of it too, is that these hotels became places where it's like.

Eli Price (44:29.819)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (44:40.629)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (44:53.45)
I don't think anyone here can be trusted. The staff can't be trusted. The people I meet there may not be able to be trusted. If you're someone that has information that you're not wanting to get out, how many great films that are set in the 60s and 70s or in the 80s during the Cold War, thinking of things like Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy, these great spy films we have, in a lot of ways, usually revolve around these secretive meetings, trying to catch someone in the act. And a lot of the times it's like...

Eli Price (44:55.973)
Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (45:13.783)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (45:23.178)
a hotel or something like that that's taking place at. So I wonder if that's also part of what kind of added to this change in perspective of what a hotel is, where it's no longer seen as this big experience and this grand thing. Now it's more of just a place you go out of convenience, where now most people would just prefer an Airbnb to a hotel. So it's definitely a very interesting shift, cultural shift for sure.

Eli Price (45:47.141)
Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (45:53.233)
Yeah, and I think it harkens back to something that I didn't mention, but it was in my notes about Zwaig, the way he saw things. He kind of like talked about how he saw the rise of interest in sports and nationalism as like the beginning of the end for the world that he knew and loved. And I think it has to do with just like

The way he described it was like, you have teams. And so like in his world, which was like art and philosophy is what he was interested in. There's no such thing as teams. Like they're not interested in teams or taking sides. They're just interested in exploring and learning everything you possibly can, no matter who it's from, who's making it, where they are. It doesn't matter because it's an endeavor of intellect and knowledge and growth.

Jean-Pierre (46:26.811)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (46:31.482)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (46:41.356)
Yeah.

Eli Price (46:51.637)
And he saw the rise of interest in both sports and natural and a nationalism as related in that they're interested in taking sides choosing one team and not caring about You know the other side the other teams And actually like not just like not caring about them, but actually like building vitriol or like rivalry between them

Jean-Pierre (47:12.159)
Yeah.

Eli Price (47:21.001)
And he saw that as anti-intellectual in a way, or just like, I guess, something that was leading towards the world not being the way that he thought was best for it, I guess. And like, yeah, yeah. And you do like, it just relates to like, what you were talking about with.

Jean-Pierre (47:37.27)
Yeah, it's definitely an interesting perspective for sure.

Eli Price (47:48.361)
the way that the atmosphere changes with these hotels from the 30s to the 60s and on, is just like that air of mistrust. You can see, well, maybe Zweig was onto something. Like there was so much trust and so much just belief in humanity and progress and stuff happening back there in the 30s that the world wars just kind of like obliterated.

Jean-Pierre (48:08.302)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (48:16.106)
Yeah, it's definitely a delicate balance.

Eli Price (48:16.637)
You can't trust people from other countries. You can't trust your neighbors. You can't trust the stranger you're passing in the hall at the hotel. Like, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (48:24.206)
Yeah. I mean, even you think about jumping over here to America and like the Red Scare of the 50s, which was a huge thing in Hollywood. Like, you had creative people getting blacklisted because they thought they were communists and all that stuff. But it's definitely a delicate balance because when I think of talking about a marriage of sports and nationalism, I think of something like the World Cup, which I think is one of the most beautiful things.

Eli Price (48:32.042)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (48:41.542)
Right.

Eli Price (48:52.452)
Yeah, yeah, I love it.

Jean-Pierre (48:53.306)
I'm a bandwagon soccer fan, and I love seeing everyone out there repping their country. But I feel like the difference is that in that environment, there's a respect across the board for everybody. It's a friendly rivalry a lot of times between different countries, but even when another country loses the game, you still respect the fact.

Eli Price (48:56.049)
Yeah.

Eli Price (49:17.068)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (49:22.298)
their athletes that are out there doing the best they could to represent their home. Whereas obviously the opposite end of the coin when you're talking about nationalism is examples like the Nazi regime, where especially the Olympics at the time became very politicized because they were trying to utilize their athletes to prove their superiority of Nazism, of Germanism. So I definitely can see.

Eli Price (49:34.76)
Right.

Eli Price (49:38.24)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (49:50.314)
why someone in Zwegg's position in the environment that he was being exposed to and escaping from would kind of draw that conclusion. But I also think that we're far enough removed now to where we can see that there are certain beautiful and good versions of these concepts that we can look at, as much as there are also negative ones as well.

Eli Price (50:19.109)
Right. And I think that's like, that is all epitomized in the character of Gustav, who like was holding on to this world that was like slipping out of his fingers, like out of his control, like, you mean you just think about in the hotel he's, he's in command, like everything kind of revolves around him, but also, but in a very like, you know,

Like, you can tell everyone that works for him respects him and wants to work for him. It's not like a totalitarian kind of control he has. It's more of like a, he's in control and he's going to tell you what to do. And if you get out of line, he's going to tell you. But there's this like mutual respect and there's this civility there in the atmosphere. And when he leaves, you can tell like he wants to hold on to that.

Jean-Pierre (50:52.066)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (51:01.108)
Right.

Eli Price (51:14.865)
but it's kind of being stripped away from the world and the history around him. And...

Jean-Pierre (51:19.85)
You'd rather leave than see something he sees as beautiful be destroyed, so to speak.

Eli Price (51:25.861)
Right, right. Yeah, and there's that quote that Zero says He says I think his world Had vanished long before he ever entered it, but I will say he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace You know he that's kind of towards the end of the movie he says that and Yeah, it's it that quote kind of epitomizes that whole this whole idea that we're talking about you know of

wanting to hold on to a world that's slipping away. And maybe we'll get into that a little bit more as we talk through some of the themes at play. But yeah, I did want to hit on, as far as production goes, the production design. So the miniatures are great. So the hotels, the wide zoomed out looks at the hotels is just amazing.

They're miniatures. They're like little models they built of the hotel, both the 30s and 60s version are that. Even like the little stag at the top of the peak and the little elevator thing that like goes up the side of the hill, those are all miniatures. They're based on like...

Jean-Pierre (52:38.391)
Mm.

Eli Price (52:48.969)
They took influence from a bunch of stuff while they were traveling around looking for a location. So like a lot of the, there's this town called Karlovy Vary or something like that in Czech that has like several hotels that they took influence from as far as like what they look like, the atmosphere, that sort of thing. There's this, there's like a small German town that has this hotel across the river that had that little elevator thing.

So it looks like very fantastical, but it's actually based on a real elevator that they saw. It's kind of like this trolley elevator that goes up the side of the mountain that takes you up to the hotel. Even the stack, so there's this, I think it's in that Czech town, Karlovy Vary, there's this thing called Stag's Leap, and it has a stag up on top of a thing like that we see that they built, modeled off of a real.

Jean-Pierre (53:22.335)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (53:29.153)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (53:44.353)
Yeah.

Eli Price (53:48.477)
thing. And then the backgrounds are paintings. So they kind of set the miniatures up in front of these paintings. And the paintings are based off of where's his name? They're landscape paintings based on Caspar David Friedrich's work, which in the Wes Anderson Collection, Grand Budapest edition, it kind of shows a

Jean-Pierre (54:10.838)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (54:17.785)
a couple of his pieces and they are very much like in a similar vein. They're like very, um...

Like very spiritually infused looks at a landscape. Very like you look at them and you can tell he really thought of looking at a landscape as something, as a transcendent experience. And I think you can kind of see that if you pay attention in detail too. I mean, just like painting across, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (54:49.431)
Yeah, I mean...

Well, I mean, I can say I've definitely, you know, I like, I think one of the most incredible things I've ever seen is, you know, I was able to go to the Rockies quite a few years ago and get up to Pike's Peak and there was a point where my two friends and I would just get out of the car and we're like looking out and yes, I definitely can attest to the effect that looking at a beautiful landscape can have on you. It's unlike anything else.

Eli Price (55:02.562)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (55:16.229)
Yeah, and so it's really cool. Like he, the way they even use the miniatures like in green screen. So like the scene where Agatha is like hanging from the balcony with the painting, with the boy with apple painting. So that's like actually like a built little set that she's hanging off of.

the whole like balcony and stuff, but everything around it is like it's green screen, but it's actually like a shot of the miniature that they like matched up with the set that she's hanging from, which is really cool. But but Wes talks about like, if he can avoid using green screen, he does. So an example of that is like, so for the train scenes where, you know, Gustav. Yeah, for real.

Jean-Pierre (56:11.726)
Christopher Nolan of him.

Eli Price (56:16.813)
For the train scenes where Zero and Gustav are traveling in a train, they built that set in the ballroom where they shot the dining room stuff. So the whole train scene, like little set is built in there. They shot those the way they... Bob Yeoman, the DP, lit it in a way where he basically washed out and whited out.

Jean-Pierre (56:30.36)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (56:45.245)
The window for most of it because it's supposed to be snow so you can't really see anything It's just kind of like white out the window They didn't green screen that it's just the way he like lit it to look that way But there are scenes where you are supposed to see like something coming up into view Through the window like when the soldiers stopped the train The Nazi esque soldiers and come on you see them kind of come into view in the window

Jean-Pierre (56:51.391)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (57:12.269)
Okay.

Eli Price (57:13.157)
And what they did was they took a piece of the set from the ballroom and instead of like going out and shooting that on a dolly and then like green screening it and adding it in and post production, they just took a piece of the set from the train. They took it out to where they were gonna shoot that little piece. They put that little piece of set on a dolly, had the actors sit in the little set.

on the dolly and like they move the dolly.

Jean-Pierre (57:44.01)
Yeah, I've seen the video from behind the scenes and if anyone listening to this you haven't, you have to look it up because it is one of the greatest things that I've ever seen in my life. It's literally, they're in the middle of a snow covered field and it's literally like a track of Dolly, a little wooden box, like literally a little tiny wooden box, just enough to where the actors look like they're sitting in their chairs and there's the fake and there's the window and the camera is like hanging off the edge and cameraman sitting on it.

Eli Price (57:50.577)
Yeah.

Eli Price (57:55.76)
Uh-huh.

Eli Price (58:00.33)
Uh huh. Yup.

Eli Price (58:07.441)
in the compartment yet.

Jean-Pierre (58:11.934)
And it's literally like in the middle of this giant field, this little tiny wooden box on wheel. It's absolutely amazing. And I think it's interesting seeing the train set being built in the ballroom. One of the things that I've learned working in the film industry that I don't think a lot of people realize is like 99% of the time, if there is a scene set in some kind of interior, it's almost always on a sound stage.

Eli Price (58:12.35)
Uh-huh.

Eli Price (58:16.329)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Eli Price (58:25.127)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (58:38.864)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (58:42.602)
And then there's a lot of movies where they make this obvious. Like if you've ever seen a shot where you follow someone through a door, there's a wall in the way, there's a false wall that's there. But even something like a train scene, someone might be like, why are they just filming on a real train car? It's like, well, because it's a lot easier to control your sound and your lighting and all these other aspects if you just fake it. Also, you're able to give things impossible.

Eli Price (59:02.408)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (59:10.966)
dimensions that actually gives you space for crew and things like that as well. So, you know, it's not always the rule, but a lot of times, even something like, you know, somebody having a meal at a dining room table, 99% chance it was probably, they probably built a fake dining room on a south stage and there's no ceiling, there's no ceiling, like whatever is above where the camera sees, it's like lights hanging off of some rafters or something. So it's.

Eli Price (59:31.26)
Hehehe

It's lights.

Jean-Pierre (59:39.374)
It's one of those things that once you know about it, you can't really unsee it. And it's always a little humorous to me to think about. But then also, right, also, you know, yeah.

Eli Price (59:44.345)
Yeah, yeah, but this is in a real ballroom. It does still have lights hanging, like when you watch, because you just have to light it correctly. But but yeah, it's in a real place.

Jean-Pierre (59:52.83)
Right. But you know, obviously, you know, at the same time, like sometimes like, like the ballroom set they actually use, they film that in the building. Real ballrooms. It's not always the rule because something like that would be way too difficult to build just for like a couple of times that we see it, you know what I mean? So, but, but it's always, it's always something to think about, like, hmm, they're inside. I wonder how they filmed this, you know what I mean?

Eli Price (01:00:08.266)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:00:15.717)
Yeah, yeah and something that was you know, obviously Wes loves like that handmade feel to his movies And so that's part of it of why he avoids green screen why he like finds real places to film in to give it like that handmade feel to it, but also like There's an economy to it too. There's like an efficiency to it so like he talked about like well, why didn't you just wouldn't have been easier to like

just put a green screen in the window and like add in what you wanted to do. And he said, well, I would have had to go shoot that still. I would have had to go shoot what I needed to shoot to put on, to add in press production for the green screen for out the window. And he said, and it might not match up the way I wanted it to. So like he. Yeah. You. So he's like, so why not just go shoot it once.

Jean-Pierre (01:01:02.366)
Exactly, if you shoot it for real, the lighting is going to be perfect.

Eli Price (01:01:09.145)
and not have to add anything post-production, and I can see it in real time and know that it's the way I want it to look. And I was like, that's a good point. It's not, so in a way, it's not necessarily easier to do green screen because it might not turn out the way you wanted it to.

Jean-Pierre (01:01:15.726)
I will say, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:01:23.682)
I will say things have changed ever so slightly with like the volume and like, there's a lot of film starting to utilize like LED walls and things like that. Like I didn't realize on the Batman, they use a lot of them and it's absolutely flawless. And because you're actually projecting like an image or a video that's gonna be set in front of you, you're getting the proper lighting and exposure and all that stuff, which, you know.

Eli Price (01:01:32.627)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:01:46.472)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:01:53.09)
is one of those things that I mean, I'm sure we can all think of instantly think of a time where you see someone you're like, they very obviously were not filmed in this environment or they weren't here when the scene took place. And because like the lighting's off or there's like a little fuzziness around them. So most of the time, especially when you're someone like Wes Anderson, like, if you have the opportunity to shoot it for real, like he said, you got to go shoot that plate anyway, might as well just do it in the moment.

Eli Price (01:02:19.445)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:02:21.654)
with your actors there for that like little like brief moment it's seen because then like your exposure is perfect, your lighting is perfect and you know especially when you're working with like more classically trained actors they would almost always prefer a real thing to react to other than whether than trying to imagine you know I mean I think there's that I don't know if this is like a real thing or not but there's like this picture of

of Ian McKellen on the set of The Hobbit and he's surrounded by blue screens basically and he just looks so incredibly depressed and supposedly he like they're like he broke into tears because of how fake everything was I'm like I don't know if that's true or not but you know someone like that like you can tell like I feel like you can also tell the difference of his performance too between Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit films when everything was real and practical and tangible It just it just allows actors to do their jobs better, you know

Eli Price (01:02:55.765)
Ha ha ha.

Eli Price (01:03:11.017)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:03:17.093)
Yeah. And there is some interesting, too, just ways that he did like. So the ski chase scene is very like old fashioned the way they did that. So for one, there are some miniatures in there, too, where he did stop motion, like with the with the sled, like going down the hill and like going up in the skier of Willem Dafoe, like that stop motion actually that they added in, which like.

Jean-Pierre (01:03:17.409)
So.

Eli Price (01:03:45.197)
Works so well. It's not like jarring to jump from live action to stop motion somehow He made it work, but also like when you're on the sled with them. They're using like a like rear projection of like the background behind them, which is very like uh old-fashioned it felt to me when Yeah Well, it fit it fits like the 30s because and it feels like a 30s

Jean-Pierre (01:03:48.108)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:04:04.446)
It fits the vibe of the time period too.

Eli Price (01:04:13.189)
Action piece is what I kind of wrote in my notes while I was watching it. I was like this feels like I'm watching like um, like a keaton or chaplain gag um, like chase in the in the 30s And so like which made me smile It was like I love that he kind of gave this scene this feel because it fits the time period and it's so fun Which that's one of the main reasons he does most of what he does is because he says it's fun

Jean-Pierre (01:04:24.311)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:04:42.853)
And he likes doing it that way, which I really appreciate. But yeah. And then part of the talking about the actors, there's the camaraderie there. When you're shooting all in this little town, they're all staying at this little hotel together in this town. And so they're having meals together all the time there. And that's something that is.

Jean-Pierre (01:05:00.279)
Okay.

Eli Price (01:05:09.849)
been a thread through all of these movies with Wes is, you know, even Moonrise Kingdom, they were staying in this hotel in Rhode Island together and like, you know, driving out, carpooling out to the where they're shooting and stuff every day. And it's the same thing here. They're all in this in gorlets in this hotel and, you know, going to whatever set they're going to that day all together. And which I think is a really cool thing. Like,

In an interview with F. Mary Abraham about this film, he says everyone wants to work with Wes. He was like, I was really happy to do this. And I guess he kind of gets the feel from his circle that everyone would love to be in a Wes Anderson movie. And part of it is that kind of like community that he builds where everyone is working together, which I thought was really cool.

Jean-Pierre (01:06:06.678)
I think that's one of those things too that, you know, it's interesting when you hear things like that, because a lot of times, like, if you have an actor that's playing like a more villainous character, like they'll purposely kind of avoid being around the cast between because they want to kind of keep the vibe the way that they needed to play. But I feel like when you have an ensemble cast, again, like kind of going back to War of the Rings, thinking about, you know, the whole fellowship.

Eli Price (01:06:23.039)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:06:35.65)
all the actors who play the members of the fellowship, like all hanging out in New Zealand together for like a couple of years making these movies. I feel like when you have an ensemble cast, I think they're always better for it when they are around each other that much, because I think it just helps them, it helps them develop better relationships as people, which I think then they're able to translate into their characters as well. So especially,

When you have a movie like this where Gustav and Zero are together the entire time, I'm sure Ray Fiennes, and I forget the gentleman's name, he plays Zero, but I'm sure they were able to take some of that camaraderie into their, Tony Reviluori were able to bring some of that camaraderie into their performances. And they're a great duo, for sure.

Eli Price (01:07:15.569)
Yeah, Tony Revilori.

Eli Price (01:07:23.577)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, they have some good chemistry and I think so like Wes in an interview like kind of like talked about several of the actors which I thought was fun So like he kind of talks about Tilda Swinton and Wilhelm Defoe in a similar light He's the way he describes them is that they are not so much actors as performing artists So like they just have a way that when they're performing it's

It's not so much about saying the words, but about the movements and the way they do it. Willem Dafoe is a very physical presence in this movie, but he kind of is that way in most of the movies he's in. Yeah, he hardly says anything.

Jean-Pierre (01:08:06.766)
I don't think he even has a line in this film, does he? I can't remember. Yeah, he's like the hired muscle, which is a very interesting character for him to play because you don't think of him as that because I mean, he's not like the most brutish, you know, super muscular person that there is, but yeah, he, right, right.

Eli Price (01:08:13.928)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:08:26.897)
Mm-hmm But he has this like physical presence about him that makes him menacing You know you think about him as Green Goblin or even in there's a movie David Lynch movie wild at heart Where that he pops up in and he's like super menacing and in both of those and he's kind of doing something similar here Yeah Yeah, the White House is a whole nother something

Jean-Pierre (01:08:36.601)
Mmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:08:51.09)
Even like the lighthouse. Don't you?

Eli Price (01:08:57.32)
Uh... That, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:08:58.862)
It's one of those movies where I finally got around to watch again. I was like, I'm glad I finally did it, but I probably could have gone the rest of my life without seeing that, to be honest with you. But all right.

Eli Price (01:09:03.162)
What did I just watch?

Eli Price (01:09:08.898)
Yep Yeah Yeah, he talked about Goldblum like how Goldblum just has this these great like dramatic instincts like he knows so basically like he's like we can give like I got him for this role because I knew I could give him like a stack of Like legal things to read

and he can make it like sound interesting and dramatic. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:09:37.298)
I mean, I mean, it goes without saying, Goldblum has a very particular way of speaking. That I honestly, I almost feel like, especially when you go back and you watch some of his like earlier roles, like you're talking about the fly or Jurassic Park, I feel like he, I feel like at some point he realized.

Eli Price (01:09:46.317)
Oh yeah, for sure.

Jean-Pierre (01:10:00.706)
this the caricature version of him that people think that he is and he's kind of like leaned into it more and more to where like Jeff Goldblum today is way more Jeff Goldblum than Jeff Goldblum in like the 80s and 90s I feel like.

Eli Price (01:10:07.592)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:14.87)
Yeah Yeah, yeah, I thought that was cool. He talked about Sorceron in who at the time of filming was less than 20 years old Yeah, she was

Jean-Pierre (01:10:25.058)
which is crazy. I feel like she's been the same age for 10 years. Her face does not change.

Eli Price (01:10:29.401)
Yeah, she, yeah, but she, at this point, she had been acting since she was like, I wanna say like nine or 10. She was in some TV shows and some movies as a kid. And so Wes talked about how like, when you get these young actors that have been acting for a while, he said it's almost like they're fluent in acting is the way he described it. So like she got there and they were filming the scene

Jean-Pierre (01:10:40.642)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:10:59.313)
The very first thing she did when she got there was the scene where she gets the painting out of the safe and is like running from Demetri, Adrian Baroti's character, who's the son of the madam, Madame D. She's like running from him. And that's the very first thing she shot. And, you know, Wes said he kind of like briefly explained to her, OK, here's what's happening. You know, you've taken this. They, you know, they're trying to catch you.

And he said it was like no big deal for her. She like turned it on, like the fear and everything and like knew exactly where to go. She had studied her lines and like the storyboard or whatever and like, yeah, it's so just incredible like to have someone like that. And she's just gotten even better, I feel like.

Jean-Pierre (01:11:42.412)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:11:51.818)
Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen a bad performance from her, to be honest with you. I feel like, you know, personally, like I feel like I don't think I've seen her do like the most. I feel like she plays a lot of the same kind of vibey characters a lot of times. I think it's just the way that she looks, she just gets kind of typecast. But but she always does a great job. Like I've never seen anything from her where I was like, well, I was a bit strange, you know, unless it needed to be strange, which, you know, then it fits.

Eli Price (01:12:08.009)
Sure, yeah.

Eli Price (01:12:11.813)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:12:18.954)
Yeah right Yeah, and we already talked about f. Murray Abraham like his voice is perfect for this narration and then his face to I feel like his face is just like It has this like Yeah, it's

Jean-Pierre (01:12:27.15)
iconic.

Jean-Pierre (01:12:30.616)
Love you.

Jean-Pierre (01:12:36.146)
It's got a texture to it. I don't know if that's a weird, or I don't know if there's some story about why, but his cheeks specifically literally have this roughness to them, you know?

Eli Price (01:12:48.621)
Yeah, it's the way I was going to describe it is very relates to that description is that he looks weathered um Like he looks like and it's perfect for this role because of this character's past like he's been through it um, and so when you look at his face Yeah, when you look at his face because like tony revior revelori is like very like he's baby face like smooth like

Jean-Pierre (01:12:57.491)
Yes.

Jean-Pierre (01:13:04.579)
Right. From a very early age, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:13:12.822)
babyface. He literally draws on his mustache.

Eli Price (01:13:16.549)
Yeah, he draws on his muscle, which is just a hilarious little thing to throw in. But yeah, and then you jump forward to the 60s 30 years later, and yeah, he just looks like he's been through, you know, a life and a half, you know, which is perfect. I mean, for this character that's been through what he's been through to have this just kind of like sad.

weathered look on his face.

Jean-Pierre (01:13:49.902)
his introduction to where he walks in and he's noticed and he's got like these sunglasses on he's really mysterious and then just the scene in the bath I think it's one of my favorite parts of the movie where Jude Law is in the bath and you just hear I'm a big fan of your work and he's like what and then like he's literally on the other he's in the

Eli Price (01:13:52.316)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:14:07.621)
Yeah. Who said that?

Jean-Pierre (01:14:12.214)
Absolute in bath that he leans up. He's like, oh, I'm just a big fan They're like having this entire conversation across like, you know, three or four other bathtubs You know, so it's just yeah, but it's great. It's great. He's so good in this I mean, he's good in everything. But yeah, I agree just iconic Iconic like just his voice just it's very unique, you know the way the way that he vocalizes so definitely fitting

Eli Price (01:14:20.197)
Exactly. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:14:25.487)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:14:34.933)
Mm-hmm.

Right. And you have then you have like some more like method acting going on with guys like so Kaitel Harvey Kaitel is in this who's very much like a method actor like he took when he got there. He plays the guy in the prison. You know, at some point, Gustav is imprisoned and for he's suspected for murder of

Eli Price (01:15:07.389)
head guy of this little group of prisoners he joins that do the escape. Well, Keitel took those fellow inmates to the prison where they were shooting. They stayed in there for 48 hours and came up with their backstories and rehearsed. And so very much method. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:15:29.27)
very crazy. You hear stories like that sometimes. There's certain things where it's like, oh, these actors are in a military movie so they went and did training for three weeks. I'm like, okay, that sounds kind of fun, but it's like Harvey Keutel wants to take you to prison for 48 hours. I don't know if I would have done that one, man. I don't think I want to stay in jail for 48 hours, guys. I'm going to be honest.

Eli Price (01:15:42.034)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:15:45.735)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:15:52.761)
Yeah, but Ray Fiennes is actually that way too. He, you know, and Wes even says like, he's always kind of wanted to work with a method actor. And so he was excited to get to work with Ralph Fiennes, who, you know, although this character was very much based on him and Guinness's mutual friend, he said, like, from the very beginning, he kind of had Ralph Fiennes in mind for Gustav.

Jean-Pierre (01:16:20.074)
Yeah, I don't know if I could see anyone else playing the character. I think like, Ray Fine's voice, like his voice and his face just fit the character so perfectly. Like he's got like this, this like classical suavness to him and his voice. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:16:30.759)
Mm-hmm.

They do.

Eli Price (01:16:36.537)
Mm-hmm, and he's his timing it's that's the big thing is like he is so precise and like his timing is so perfect Like and he does stay like in general like in his character You know Wes was talking about how you know the way that they would do some of the lines is like they He would be if they're if they were shooting like his part, but the other person wasn't there

Jean-Pierre (01:16:50.647)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:17:04.161)
Or maybe he's on the phone or something So he would say his line and then Wes would the way Wes usually does it is he'll say the line of the person That's you know responding to them so that space is the right amount of time Yeah, yeah And so he said that he started doing that with Ray Fines for one of the scenes and he looks over and he says What are you doing, darling? like in character to Wes like not

Jean-Pierre (01:17:15.662)
Mm-hmm.

So I still have the same partner, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:17:29.366)
Hahaha!

Eli Price (01:17:33.569)
And then he's like basically asking like is that necessary like can't I just like imagine what they're saying? And he said like normally he would probably push. Yeah. Yeah professional after all like and uh Wes I guess Wes kind of was like normally he would probably like still do it But for route but for Ralph finds like he's so precise in his timing That he actually didn't really need to do it for him like he could actually like time it just right

Jean-Pierre (01:17:36.748)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:17:41.358)
professional.

Jean-Pierre (01:18:00.758)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:18:02.789)
Which is so impressive. And Wes even said, he doesn't even know, Wes is very like, what's the word I'm looking for? He's very learned and well-read in film. So he knows a lot of film throughout all of film history. And Wes said he doesn't even know who to compare this performance to. He's just a forceful presence in the movie.

Jean-Pierre (01:18:30.753)
Right.

Eli Price (01:18:32.573)
But yeah, so I mean, they're just an incredible performance. And then it's really fun to get the Society of Crosskeys, because it's kind of like a roll call of all the West's actors. You know, Bill Murray, Bob Baladan. Oh, man, who else is in there? There's some other guys, too, along the way. But yeah, really cool.

Jean-Pierre (01:19:00.554)
He just caught up all of his buddies. He's like, hey, I need you to be in the movie for a couple seconds.

Eli Price (01:19:04.121)
Yeah. Can you shoot this one scene?

Eli Price (01:19:10.405)
Yeah, which is a very and then that little montage is very like very much like a signature west sort of montage where you have You have like a pattern like going like they get the call The call the like lobby boy comes up to him interrupts him from something. He's doing with the guests He puts the lobby boy in his place. Then he goes and takes the call kind of answers it

and passes on to the next one the same way with the little like Spotlight thing they do that west does in this one where like zooms in a spotlight on them. So yeah, just really fun Yeah I guess moving on into some of the key points One of the main things that you kind of have to talk about with this film is the different aspect ratios And it's something that

Jean-Pierre (01:20:01.46)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:20:06.513)
Don't know how you could watch it and not notice it. It's but

Jean-Pierre (01:20:10.538)
No, yeah. I mean, to be honest, I don't know. I mean, again, I think my first time watching this movie was on a monitor on the back of a seat on a plane. I'm fairly certain, but I feel like I didn't. It's not like it's definitely obviously noticeable. It's like literally like kind of a plot point almost. But I don't feel like it's as distracting as it could have been. And I think a lot of that's due to the performances and the script, you know, things like that. We can kind of talk about more depth.

Eli Price (01:20:19.706)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (01:20:38.033)
Yeah. And the way it's used.

Jean-Pierre (01:20:40.354)
But it keeps you, yeah, it keeps you, because I feel like it's like they almost, it's like every time it changes aspect ratio, it's like part of the story. And like they kind of, it's either narrated into a change or when it changes, it like will have like a date or something to kind of make it not so sudden. You know, I think it flows really well through the various different aspect ratios.

Eli Price (01:20:52.465)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:21:08.701)
Yeah, and I think there's, so like, in an interview, Wes kind of talks about how like, he didn't really need different aspect ratios because you do have like the annotations where it tells you like the date and the place. You know, you obviously have different actors in the different time periods. Like, so like, you don't necessarily need the different aspect ratios to differentiate between the time periods you are in, which there are four different time periods.

This is really like a story within a story within a story within a story. There's because you have the four, you have the present day, which is kind of like the bookends of the movie with the girl going to the statue of the author. Um, and she has like the grand Budapest hotel book that the author wrote based off of zero's life, um, or the story that he told her mother. Um, and then you have the 85.

period, which is the author as an older guy kind of given a little monologue about why he wrote the book and that sort of thing, why it's important. And then you have the 60s, which is where Older Zero tells the younger author the story. And then you have the 32, 1932, where the main thrust of the story, where the story that's being told is shown. And um.

Jean-Pierre (01:22:31.214)
the story plays out.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Eli Price (01:22:36.913)
So it is like this like, you know, Russian nesting doll kind of storytelling method, which has a lot of layers to it. But yeah, the aspect ratio. So like the present day is like a 1851 aspect ratio, which is a pretty like typical modern aspect ratio. And then the 85 version is just a smaller. It's like it's still 1851 to one, but it's like shrunk a little bit.

Jean-Pierre (01:23:07.105)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:23:07.281)
I guess to still differentiate. But then you go to 68 and it's that typical West aspect ratio, the kind of 2.4 to one anamorphic widescreen ratio. And then the 30s is the, I think technically it's like 1.37 to one.

But it's meant to be like the 1.33 or the 4 to 3 aspect ratio, which is like the Academy ratio. It's a very boxy, almost square ratio, a little taller than it is wide, actually. Uh.

Jean-Pierre (01:23:49.962)
why Zack Snyder shot Justice League in that ratio, which I still don't know how I really feel about it, but I do love Zack Snyder and Justice League.

Eli Price (01:23:56.857)
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. So, so like, really, like, honestly, like for the present day section in the 85 section, I don't think the aspect ratio adds a whole lot. It's just kind of like, I guess, meant to represent the era that they are. But I do think like something that there's like a video essay in The Criterion where he talks about

the four three challenge West takes on. And it's actually like in a written version in the Wes Anderson collection book on Grand Budapest. But he kind of points out that in the, so the widescreen aspect ratio in the 1968 hotel kind of like emphasizes the emptiness of it, which I thought was like a very like good observation.

Because it really does. You have that widescreen. You have so much in frame. And it's just there's nobody there.

Jean-Pierre (01:24:54.9)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:25:02.634)
Well, yeah, especially the opening shot of the ballroom with all the tables.

Eli Price (01:25:06.417)
Right, exactly. But then you have the 4-3 ratio, the Academy ratio, and it's square, but it adds like, it actually, so where it takes away from the sides as far as the width of the frame, it kind of adds some in the height. And so it's kind of like, so it's almost like Wes was like, I've always wanted to do this and it's something fun. And it's almost like it is a challenge.

So it's how can I use this different aspect ratio for different things and he really does You know I would challenge the listener to go back and watch the movie again sometime after listening to this and Just pay attention to how he uses the height to do some of the things he normally does with width so like There's gags using the height he adds detail like to Kind of the height of the frame

So I mean, you think about like in Madame D's house with like the painting on the wall and like having like kind of prop details up kind of like on shelves and stuff. There's like instead of having that detail in the wide frame on the sides of characters like you normally does, it's like above characters. And then like you've.

Jean-Pierre (01:26:18.974)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:26:28.772)
It also helps add to the grandioseness of the hotel itself.

Eli Price (01:26:33.305)
Right, it adds height to that lobby for sure. It makes it, it gives it the feel of the era and the feel of how the hotel felt when you walk in. It feels like high and tall and big and vast. And you kind of do lose that with the widescreen aspect ratio and gain it with the more square ratio for some reason. But then you have gags too like.

When you're thinking about like Agatha's quarters where Zero visits her sometimes, he kind of will pop in from the ceiling, from the little hatch that leads into her room, which is kind of like a height gag that like looks, I would imagine looks better and is more funny in the way you visualize it with that ratio than it would be with the widescreen.

Jean-Pierre (01:27:12.974)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:27:26.207)
everyone.

Jean-Pierre (01:27:30.306)
Red.

Eli Price (01:27:31.325)
So yeah, it's just interesting and fun the way adding limits, new limits to your frame can bring different and new possibilities to a director like Wes. So I thought that was really cool. But yeah, I guess what's something that really stood out to you as far as like,

Jean-Pierre (01:27:46.527)
Right.

Eli Price (01:28:00.477)
a key theme or a key point for this film.

Jean-Pierre (01:28:06.026)
Well, I think this movie, as opposed to most of the other Wes Anderson films I've seen, outside of maybe his two stop motion films, I feel like this movie is intentionally funny. Whereas I feel like when you look at like a Steve Zizou or like Moonrise Kingdom, the comedy just kind of comes in passing. It kind of just kind of thrown at you. But like, I think of like the opening, like the opening when we meet Tom Wilkinson's version of the author.

and he's like monologuing and then like, and like all of a sudden you just talk, he's like, no, don't you do it, don't you do it. And the kid like shoots him with like a little dart or something and then it cuts back to him and he's talking and the kid comes up, he's like, I'm sorry. And like literally, then monologue, he's like, it's fine. And he keeps going. And like, so I feel like, I don't know, it's just something about the way this script was written, the way that he filmed this movie. I feel like this movie and why I think it's so.

Eli Price (01:28:36.063)
Mm-hmm.

the kid.

Eli Price (01:28:44.373)
Like, uh-huh.

Jean-Pierre (01:29:03.002)
Why I think it's more approachable to some of the other works is that I feel like the jokes in this movie are a little more obvious Like they're a little more I don't want to say intentional because I think he always tries to intend some comedic elements but you know just thinking about this compared to something like Steve Zizou being the last episode I was on I feel like that movie kind of relied a little bit more on like the Cringiness of the situation where this movie kind of relies a little bit more on the absurdity the slapstick, you know

Eli Price (01:29:08.895)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:29:24.597)
Sure, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:29:32.366)
And I'm a big fan of very random humor. And you know what it is, I kinda, when I was rewatching some of it, I almost feel like this movie feels a little Monty Python-esque, you know? Just in that the jokes are a bit absurd, they're a bit random, you know? And also I think just because the movie is, does feel very fast paced. Like one of the things I noticed is like,

Eli Price (01:29:37.019)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:29:45.414)
Okay.

Eli Price (01:29:57.578)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:30:02.63)
Pretty much the moment we hit the 30s, you know, we're in this big bustling hotel I think one of the reasons one of the ways that he's able to sell that is that the character like Gustav speaks fast He moves fast, right? Like when we when we're first introduced to Gustav and it's zero like zero is like struggling to keep up with him and Like the first like five ten minutes where he's like giving zero all these lessons and interviewing him. I mean, it's like

Eli Price (01:30:23.101)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:30:30.43)
he's going, barely giving Zero a chance to respond. And I feel like all of that really helps to sell the fact that this is a very big, bustling establishment. It's an institution, as Zero says, in the elevator. And so that's definitely something I noticed as well, is that until the plot starts to continue, and it slows down a little bit, but especially the opening is just very, very quickly paced, which I think

Eli Price (01:30:44.153)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:30:59.33)
you know, really works and maybe that's, I feel like that might be another reason why the jokes are a little more over the top because if a movie is moving that quickly and the jokes are as subtle as some of his other movies, in fact a lot more jokes would be missed. But this is a movie that I legitimately like laugh out loud at moments, whereas some of his other films I might be like, that was funny, or oh, you know, that's cute or that's, you know, whatever. But this movie it's like you can't help but be like, like actually.

Eli Price (01:31:19.055)
Oh yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:31:29.11)
you know, actually chuckle and things like that. So that's, that's kind of the main thing I noticed for sure.

Eli Price (01:31:30.737)
Yeah. Yeah, and it is it's very fast paced once you get back to the 30s part of the movie and then you do like so basically at that point the only time you jump out of the 30s again is at the end of the film. But obviously like you have these like little hiatus is in the middle. Yeah. Where you jump back to the 60s where like, you know, either like Jude Law's.

Jean-Pierre (01:31:50.286)
Just a couple of interludes in the 60s and things like that.

Eli Price (01:31:59.501)
young author will kind of interrupt to ask a question or even there's a point where the older Zero stops and he can't really... He has to bring himself to move forward with the story because of the pain of reliving it, telling the story is going to bring him as it relates to both

Jean-Pierre (01:32:01.81)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:32:17.451)
Mm.

Eli Price (01:32:29.413)
Yeah, it's... and it is like very...

You know, we've talked a lot about the production design and the way this thing was made and the differences between those 30s and 60s parts of the movie. But all of that really is just to play into or emphasize that different emotional beats between those two eras. Whereas in the 30s, like,

It's fast-paced, it's quick, it's funny, it's very like, like you said, like bustling, just like the hotel is. There's action, there's heists, there's chases. It's just like, there's so much going on. And then you jump to the 60s, and it's that empty dining room with a sad old man telling a story.

And it you know it really like you really need that because when you're in the moment I Guess there's there could be a version of this story where all you get is the 30s version of the story and But it would be a very different movie because the whole point of this movie is about someone thinking back on something And so if you were just to get the straight 30s story

Jean-Pierre (01:34:00.238)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:34:04.701)
without having that jump back and forth between, you know, older Zero telling it, then you really wouldn't get the feel for what it's like to be an older person thinking back on a tragic life. You would just see a character arc that might have like a sad ending and it would probably be emotionally affecting if done well, just like many movies that take that standard linear approach are.

Jean-Pierre (01:34:18.423)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:34:33.23)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:34:34.449)
but it would be a very different movie. And I really appreciate the way that Wes kind of like juxtaposed these worlds, both like in the way they look and the way they feel emotionally. And so, yeah, and I think too like,

Jean-Pierre (01:34:54.449)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:35:02.605)
really like this nostalgic look back that you get from jumping between the periods, the eras, whatever you want to call it. It is tragic. And, you know, the comedy and the quick, the fast paced nature of the thirties, like, you know, the comedy is the overtone. It's what you're seeing. It's what you're feeling for most of it. But you get that tragic undertone. Because of.

those 60 scenes that you get before and during and after. And so yeah, it's just really well done. Something that's not easy to pull off, I don't think. Just with having narration. And that's one thing that I appreciated when I was reading

Jean-Pierre (01:35:51.06)
Right.

Eli Price (01:36:02.897)
He kind of, they're talking about narration in films and how Wes kind of talks about how usually when narration is bad, it's because it's added in after to kind of fix things. He said, but if you have narration as part of the whole concept, then that's how you make it work. And that is part of the whole concept of this film is it's a narrated film by a older.

Jean-Pierre (01:36:23.915)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:36:31.989)
character looking back on his younger self and what happened. And that adds to that tragic undertone that you get. Like man when it's

Jean-Pierre (01:36:41.551)
Right. Well, I think...

Eli Price (01:36:44.893)
I was just gonna say when it jumps to him where he stops because he's Gonna have to talk about Agatha and you just it jumps to him you know you jump from the 30s to that empty room and it's just center frame in this wide empty screen of F. Murray Abraham's weathered face with just like his face is wet with tears It's very it's jarring

Jean-Pierre (01:37:11.019)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:37:13.733)
And it's very emotional and really like snaps you back into the reality of what's going to happen. What's on its way. Yeah, very emotionally affecting in that way.

Jean-Pierre (01:37:23.595)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:37:29.79)
What? Yeah, and I think, you know, if one of the themes is the idea of like nostalgia, you know, looking back to the past about the ways in which you perceive it to be great, I think it also like I think that especially our culture nowadays, we tend to get really caught up in nostalgia.

think about how things used to be. I think it's every generation has their own version of it. You talk to a lot of older people, they'll talk about how great the country used to be or whatever, or even like our generation. Everyone has their own version of that. I think the danger of nostalgia is that it's great to look back and think about the good times. But also, you can get stuck in that. I think if someone like Uncle Rico in the movie Napoleon Dynamite, he...

Eli Price (01:37:57.897)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:38:23.278)
cannot get past the one football season in 82 where he missed a throw. He's always talking about it. And I feel like Zero, he almost falls into that a little bit because there's a line that he says near the beginning where he says something along the lines of like, yeah, this hotel used to be something really great. But you know.

Eli Price (01:38:29.502)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:38:50.659)
the ambiance of it couldn't keep up with the times, you know, what happens or something like that. Or something along those lines, like obviously there's a lot of like outside, we've already kind of talked about the effects of like, you know, communism and the Soviet Union, all that kind of stuff. A lot of outside influences on it in the context of the story, but at the same time, you know, he sounds like someone who...

Eli Price (01:38:54.001)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:39:02.032)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:39:11.958)
he views the past in this very romanticized way, but he was almost too caught up in keeping it that way that he didn't try and take the opportunity to figure out how can I offer that similar experience, but also do it in a way that keeps up with what's happening now. And so I think there is a little bit of that in it as well in that he's thinking back about how beautiful what everything used to be, and then you cut to.

Eli Price (01:39:31.976)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:39:39.606)
you know, the sad state of the hotel in the 60s. And as he says, you know, he says, we learned from his monologue about in 85, he says, eventually gets torn down because, you know, in some ways I wonder if that was part of it where it's like they were so caught up in trying to keep it what it was. They forgot to also try and take the time to adapt and try and find how can they offer that same experience but in a new way.

Eli Price (01:39:51.196)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:40:08.094)
and keeping up with the times at hand, you know what I mean?

Eli Price (01:40:11.305)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think that I think that part of it is I think I think that's part of it, but just like thinking about zero's life like He's already had like a tragic tale before you even meet him in this movie which he reminds Gustav of at some point when After Gustav escapes jail and he's kind of go going off on him. He kind of says like well, my family was murdered, you know zero, yeah and

Jean-Pierre (01:40:35.114)
Well, even at the very beginning where he's like, family. Yeah, when he gets interviewed, he says, family? None.

Eli Price (01:40:41.125)
Yeah, yeah, none and uh, he already has this tragic life and then he Tries to reinvent himself and does in a way but also like that comes with a new tragedy. And so it's like it's this is Him telling this story is almost like a necessity for him like Before he goes like it's almost like he's telling the story because he has to tell it to someone

in a way to try to master in a way this tragedy that's occurred to him. So you think back to other West characters that do this, you have Max Fisher. He tries to tell stories to master his situations. Same thing with Steve Zisou. He tells these documentary stories to try to master his...

Jean-Pierre (01:41:19.671)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:41:40.953)
grief about losing his friend. You have, uh, oh, uh,

Jean-Pierre (01:41:43.159)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:41:50.085)
I'm blanking. I mean you have like Royal Tenenbaum and the Tenenbaums He kind of like comes up with these Farsical stories to try to like get you know weasel his way back into his family They're all like telling these stories To kind of like master the situation they're in or their feelings and I think that's Sort of what's going on here for zero But like

And part of like what adds on to him not being able to move past this tragedy is the way that like history like imposed itself on his life and his attempt to reinvent himself. Like, you know, you you. The movie is going along and you have all these little hints of like the impending war, whether it's the newspaper, the stops on the train, you know, whatever.

Jean-Pierre (01:42:32.012)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:42:47.337)
there's all these little hints of basically this idea that history forces itself into these private lives, but also in this case, it's a story being told and history is forcing its way into this very personal story. So much so that those things that feel so big and personal to these characters is so small and minute and a blip in the, you know.

Jean-Pierre (01:42:59.007)
Right.

Eli Price (01:43:17.669)
length of history. And so like it even comes through when, you know, he finally like gets to Gustav's death, you know, you it's kind of which maybe that's why it's black and white. That's the one section that's black and white in the movie is leading up to Gustav's death. You know, it's a recreation of the scene where there's a new there's a new like, you know, totalitarian.

force like asking for Zero's papers and wants him to come out and Gustav like defends him and then you know he's telling the story and he just says in the end they shot him. Like he doesn't go into detail about it he just said it's like he's become a blip and a victim to the force forcing of history on his like his little world.

Jean-Pierre (01:44:10.143)
Right.

Eli Price (01:44:13.093)
And same thing with Agatha, you know, he says in the end she died of grip. It's you know Kind of a ironic or I can't remember the way he puts it. It's like this nasty little disease That she and their baby got and they were gone and it's these Big things that happened in history like forcing their way into his life that he doesn't have control over and so it's and then the ending is just you know

He even keeps the hotel, you know, he's the author's asking him like why He's he's kept it and you know, is it because of his memory of Gustav and he says no, you know Actually kept it for Agatha And you know, he says the line We were happy here for a while And that's why he's kept the hotel this long and it's really this tragic Ending and I guess we can move in

Jean-Pierre (01:45:01.364)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:45:04.981)
and

Eli Price (01:45:11.673)
into like our final thoughts and the thing I wanted to kind of reflect on as we're ending this discussion is that idea of for one like this is probably to me is Wes's most tragically ending movie um in his whole filmography, um You know, he has darkness in all of his movies. They're all comedies until they're not Um at a certain point

You know, but this one You know, there's no so most of the time like there's this moment of reconciliation between characters this moment of hope That happens like for pretty much all of his movies and That you don't really get that here you that story ends Gustav dot is shot

Jean-Pierre (01:45:51.02)
Right.

Eli Price (01:46:08.093)
He loses Agatha and their baby to a disease. And here he is over 30 years later, and he really doesn't have anything except for the shambles of what's left of this hotel and the boy with apple, you know, painting that priceless painting that was left for Gustav and then to him when Gustav died. And it's very tragic and very sad. And...

Jean-Pierre (01:46:23.617)
Amen.

Eli Price (01:46:39.121)
it's very different in that way from his other movies. And what I, so, you know, my kind of thing that I was thinking about was, okay, why is this movie bookended with this girl who has this book about, that this author wrote about Zero's story? You know, it starts off with her walking up to the statue of the author, hanging a hotel key on it, and then it ends with her

looking down at the book and sitting down and opening it up. Why is that like the bookend of the movie? And I think, so something that I was thinking about is maybe it has something to do with the fact that there's these tragic tales that become sort of legends.

you know, in real life, but also like fictional, you know, where you have this person that has such a tragic story that they're never really able to get over it. But perhaps those stories exist so that those so that, you know, people can hear those stories and be able to learn something from them to carry into the future.

that this person, because they were so weighed down by their own story, wasn't able to do. And so, like, it made me think about, like, this nostalgic look into the past, like, wishing things could be this way again, which you do feel when you're watching those 30s things, scenes, you're like, man, I would love to live in this world. But sometimes, like, that nostalgic look back into that, knowing that tragic undertone,

Jean-Pierre (01:48:25.027)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:48:28.642)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:48:35.529)
helps us to look into the future and take the way of tragedy that happened because of history and think, reflect on how does this story inform the way I should live moving forward. And I think, I really do think that this is not just like a nostalgic look back at this period of Europe, which it very much is.

Jean-Pierre (01:48:51.604)
Right.

Eli Price (01:49:04.573)
But I think it's also a, just a testament to the power of storytelling. Like what is storytelling for? Why do we tell stories? Well, it's because some people's stories, however big or small they may be, are so powerful that they can inform the way we live moving forward. The way we, when we hear these stories, we can take something from it and make the world.

Jean-Pierre (01:49:11.69)
Hmm.

Eli Price (01:49:34.237)
better in the future with whatever we've taken away from that. And so yeah, that's kind of like my theory of that bookend of the present day of why those scenes are part of this movie. But I don't know, did you have any thoughts on that kind of idea?

Jean-Pierre (01:49:57.994)
Yeah, well, I just think it's interesting to see the gravestone with all the keys on it, because it shows that while... Because obviously in context of the movie, the story that we watch is the book, right? And so I think it just kind of goes to show that while...

Eli Price (01:50:09.183)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:50:17.521)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:50:23.802)
Ultimately, it does feel like a bit of a downer. It's a bit cynical. It's a bit depressing, especially learning about how many like Zero's life started very tragic and continued to be tragic his entire life. I think it shows that in context of the film, there is obviously, his story resonates with a lot of people. And so kind of what you were saying where it's like even tragic stories like this can still inspire people. And I-

Eli Price (01:50:38.581)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:50:46.971)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:50:53.894)
It's weird because there is a lot of tragedy there, but also I wonder if it helps provide people hope in some way as well. Obviously, again, within the universe of the film, this book is very beloved, the author is very beloved. And so I wonder if that's part of it. And I also wonder if like... Because also, again, the previous episode I did with you with Steve Zizzo, Steve Zizzo

Eli Price (01:51:01.725)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:51:23.286)
you know, he does this whole thing where he connects with his son, Owen Wilson's character, then he, Owen Wilson's character dies, you know? And so there is, it is kind of this major downer where, yeah, he gets to finish his film and people kind of like him, but like he, you know, he lost his son and we're not even ever sure if it really was his son or not, you know, that's never really like a hundred percent, uh, you know, so maybe it wasn't, but still like you could tell it really impacted him. So it's like, I feel like very similar to this movie where it's like, you know,

Eli Price (01:51:30.355)
Right.

Eli Price (01:51:43.323)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:51:53.994)
For better or worse, life doesn't always have the happiest endings, but you still have to learn how to work through that. So yes, Zero went through a lot of tragedy, but even losing his wife and his young child, but he kept pushing forward, he kept moving forward, and he found the will to continue to live. And I think that maybe that's part of it as well, is that even through tragedy, being able to find.

Eli Price (01:51:59.978)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:52:04.702)
Right.

Eli Price (01:52:18.301)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:52:23.042)
find that strength.

Eli Price (01:52:26.545)
Yeah, and I think too, like, you know, just thinking about, you know, hearing you say that and thinking more about this, you know, he actually, the older Zero sought out the author to tell the story. Like he, the author didn't come to him. He didn't start begging him to hear his story. Like he, he like talked to him first in the baths. He started the conversation and then he said, like, I want to tell you my story.

Jean-Pierre (01:52:40.075)
Yeah, keep that.

Eli Price (01:52:56.017)
you know, basically that's what he said, like, let's have dinner. I want to tell you my story. And so he's got, he's like at the end of his life and he's realizing, looking back, I guess, like it's too late for him, but it's not too late for his story to have an impact on others. Like he has the wisdom to see my life as ignis insignificant of, in the blip of history, as it may seem from a zoomed out view.

Jean-Pierre (01:52:56.045)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:53:25.833)
There's power in the story that I have as he's reflecting on it and telling it. He sees my story needs to be told, which I think is...

Jean-Pierre (01:53:35.678)
Right, I think there's...

Eli Price (01:53:39.985)
Yeah, go ahead.

Jean-Pierre (01:53:40.194)
Well, I think there's a very subtle implementation that he may have some kind of illness and he may know that his time is up because in the beginning Jason Schwartzman's character says like, oh, he never comes during this season. And so I feel like there is.

slight eagerness for him to tell his story because I feel like maybe he's aware of the fact that his time is coming soon and I like how he phrases it he's Right. He says he says unless you know You know if you weren't merely being polite and please tell me if you were if you're genuinely curious you know, I'd love to tell you the story and You know, but I but I guess you could also look at it as

Eli Price (01:54:05.417)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:54:09.309)
Maybe he wants it to end there.

Eli Price (01:54:21.662)
Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:54:29.974)
Maybe he somehow knew that author was going to be there and wanted to tell the story, because that's kind of how he starts to go. I don't know. It's just it's an interesting. I'd like to know a little bit more about the circumstances that. Right, right, right. I'd love to know a little more about the circumstances.

Eli Price (01:54:36.337)
Yeah. Well, he notices him at the beginning.

Eli Price (01:54:42.837)
So I don't know if he knew he was gonna be... Yeah, I don't know if he knew he was gonna be there or he just like recognized him. You see him like lift up his shades and he's like, Oh, this guy.

Jean-Pierre (01:54:48.098)
You're right.

Jean-Pierre (01:54:54.643)
Yeah, so I think there is a certain subtlety of like, he knows that there's an end coming soon, and he seems to be eager to share his story. And I think it's one of those things where sharing your story is very therapeutic for a lot of people, like being able to kind of verbally process and tell other people.

Eli Price (01:55:15.767)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:55:21.887)
what it is that you've been through, I think is very healing, both for the speaker and for the listener as well.

Eli Price (01:55:30.365)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and it's just, like, there's a lot, we could probably spend another, like, 30 minutes, at least, digging into, like, the storytelling aspects. Like, you know, you might, some people might say, like, oh, like, the female character in Agatha doesn't have enough time in this movie, but I think that's purposeful because he can't bring himself to talk about her too much, and he's the one narrating, and so, yeah, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:55:55.978)
He literally says, we won't speak on that when he first mentions her. Also, in context of

Eli Price (01:56:00.593)
He finally does talk about her because he has to, but yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:56:04.646)
Right. And I think also in context of his life, she was a brief moment. Like, you think about, you know, trying to think of the exact ages is kind of hard. But, you know, thinking about when we lobby boys, Zero is probably a young adult, like late teens, early twenties. And then when we meet older Zero as the owner in 68, you know, he's probably, you know, upper sixties, seventies.

Eli Price (01:56:13.339)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:56:26.135)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:56:34.158)
I don't think those dates exactly match, but it's obvious that he's like much older. And so in the span of his life, like it was only a couple of years right there in the middle where he and Agatha were together, you know, before she passed away. So, I think it kind of also adds to that, you know, yeah, she doesn't get as much screen time in the context of the film, but also in context of his life as the narrator, he does have an apprehension to talking about her, but also she was a brief moment.

Eli Price (01:56:38.29)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:56:47.085)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:57:04.028)
life compared to space.

Eli Price (01:57:05.125)
Yeah. And yeah, it's just an incredible film. And, you know, just thinking too about, you know, he finishes telling him the story. The author walks him to the elevator. He kind of that's where he kind of tells them, like, I've kept this for Agatha because we are happy here for a little while. And he kind of gives the blurb that I quoted earlier about how, you know, Gustav was holding on to a world that was probably already gone.

Jean-Pierre (01:57:07.362)
So.

Eli Price (01:57:35.985)
But he did it, he held the illusion with style and grace basically. And then like after he gives that line he steps into the elevator and it's like a visual closing of the book, like with the elevator doors closing. And that's like we move on to, yeah, which I love. But I guess with that we'll also close the...

Jean-Pierre (01:57:40.069)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:57:50.716)
Mm-hmm.

It's a finality to it.

Eli Price (01:58:03.837)
the book on our discussion as far as the movie goes. Is this like a five star, 10 out of 10 for you or four, I would say at least four, huh?

Jean-Pierre (01:58:16.622)
I would say...

Jean-Pierre (01:58:20.526)
I would say as far as comedies go, I would give this an easy five star, like ten out of ten. It's definitely one of my favorite comedies. I'm pretty picky about comedies. It's like hard for me to find a comedy like Actually Funny. I just double checked my letter box rating and I had it at a four stars and I don't know why so I just bumped up to five stars and added it to my five star cinema list which you got to check out.

Eli Price (01:58:41.308)
There you go.

Jean-Pierre (01:58:47.134)
Anyway, yeah, I think Easy Five Stars, 10 out of 10. I think this is Wes's best movie. I think it's his most approachable. And like I said, if someone's like, I've never seen a Wes Anderson movie, I would probably recommend this movie every single.

Eli Price (01:58:50.63)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:59:01.873)
Yeah. Watch it.

Yeah, and it's just, I feel like it is a fantastic film. Like it's been a five star movie for me since the first time I saw it. And you know, five star, 10 out of 10, however you wanna do your ratings. Some people do four stars, like as a total, which is weird to me, but.

Jean-Pierre (01:59:05.966)
for sure.

Jean-Pierre (01:59:20.834)
I think, also, I think, yeah, the one last thing I'll mention is I think this movie has some of the most iconic moments, like memorable moments. I think my favorite scene, other than the shootout in the lobby where Edward Norton's character is like, wait, everyone stop shooting. Who's shooting who? And they're all trying to talk about who is who. My favorite scene, and it's in the trailer, is where he's like, it's like Gustav's like, oh, I see. She died.

Eli Price (01:59:37.731)
Hehehehe

Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:59:51.338)
And he just starts running and everyone kind of pauses for a second. And then they start running after him. And I think that moment is just so iconic in my mind that, yeah, I don't think I've ever met anyone who said they didn't like this movie, you know? So I don't know. I don't know. I think compared to all of his other works, this is like one of the ones that just everybody can enjoy it, you know?

Eli Price (01:59:51.821)
Yeah, just runs.

Eli Price (02:00:01.384)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:00:15.033)
Yeah. And I think for me, like having like being at this point in the filmography of Wes, um, rewatching all of these movies right now for me, I think this and the Royal Tenenbaums are like sitting at the top. Um, they're like, I don't know if I could say one, I like more than the other. Um, but they're definitely like the top tier for me.

Jean-Pierre (02:00:36.302)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:00:41.485)
With like Fantastic Mr. Fox and Rushmore are also five star movies for me that I just love and adore um, but these those two Tenenbaums in Grand Budapest are like they feel like just Emotionally and what they're doing and the scale of them is just like on a different level that Is just amazing. So those are

Jean-Pierre (02:01:03.01)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:01:06.585)
At this point in watching through these, those are my two favorites, and I don't think that's going to change. You know, Asteroid City has a big seat to fill as far as that goes if it wants to make it up there. But I trust Wes, you know?

Jean-Pierre (02:01:18.354)
Yeah, we'll see. I don't know. I think they had some quote in the trailer like, it's his best movie. I'm like, we'll see.

Eli Price (02:01:24.717)
Yeah, yeah, we'll see but uh, but yeah with that, um, you know, well Uh, i'll quote, um something that matt zoller sites wrote in his essay as he ended it and that's life destroys But art preserves and I think that's an appropriate ending for the talk on this movie um, but yeah next we have uh Isle of dogs as far as the west movies go, but actually next week Yeah, um

Jean-Pierre (02:01:44.91)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:01:50.126)
I saw that one in theaters.

Eli Price (02:01:53.937)
Yeah, next week I'm actually not covering Isle of Dogs. I'll be covering that in two weeks. Next week I'm gonna take a quick hiatus as it'll be the first week of July, halfway through the year, and I'm gonna kind of talk about some of my favorite movies of 2023 so far. So I've seen just under 20 movies from this movie year. And so I'm gonna talk about some of my favorites and.

Yeah, that'll be a much shorter, just kind of like little hiatus from this series. So you can look forward to that, and then the next week after that, yeah, we'll be covering Isle of Dogs. So yeah, we're gonna take a quick break. Oh, wow. We're gonna take a quick break and come back with our movie news and movie draft segments. So we'll see you in a minute.

Jean-Pierre (02:02:32.729)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:02:52.495)
Oh, sweet.

Jean-Pierre (02:02:55.67)
Wow, look at that. It's a lot better that time. Ha ha.

Eli Price (02:02:56.69)
this.

This will be long, but I think this movie deserves it for sure.

Jean-Pierre (02:03:05.762)
Well, it's still not as long as our previous one, I don't think.

Eli Price (02:03:10.149)
No, we talked longer on that segment for sure. I haven't hit the two hour mark on. I could have talked about that movie for even longer. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:03:13.714)
Oh, well, I think I had a lot.

just the movie section. I guess the rest of it'll probably be a lot shorter this time around, but I feel like I have a lot, I had a lot more to say about this movie, because like I said, again, I hadn't really taken the time to really watch it, unfortunately due to my schedule, but it's a lot more memorable in my mind. So anyway, I'm gonna use the bathroom real quick.

Eli Price (02:03:27.307)
I do too, yeah.

Eli Price (02:03:35.549)
Yeah. Yeah, cool, no worries.

Jean-Pierre (02:07:20.366)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:08:32.341)
Thanks for watching.

Eli Price (02:08:58.389)
tweet.

Good grief, I have a lot of text messages.

Jean-Pierre (02:09:04.831)
Uh, hello.

Jean-Pierre (02:09:11.446)
Yeah, I got a, I've been, got this last music video I got hired to do. I've been editing and I'm like, looking at all the footage, I'm like, oh my God, this looks so freaking cheesy. It does not look how I wanted it to look at all, but you know, it's fine, it's whatever.

Eli Price (02:09:27.545)
Yeah, yeah, I know how that goes. It's it sucks when you have like a vision for something, but it just doesn't work the way you want it to.

Jean-Pierre (02:09:36.364)
Yeah.

What I saw video recently was like, you know, 10 dirty secrets, like filmmakers don't tell you or whatever. And like the first one that he said is, you know, everyone who says to just quit your job and start doing filmmaking. You know, they don't tell you how it's going to take a long time for you to be able to get from the way that you visualize things to being able to actually be able to do that. Which I've, you know, it's like my number one issue. But you know, I don't know. So.

Eli Price (02:10:02.709)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:10:08.974)
I was like, it's just nice to hear someone else talk about that. But again, everything, this whole thing was like super last minute. So it's, it is what it is. He'll, he'll like anything. So.

Eli Price (02:10:17.173)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:10:20.709)
Yeah, and then like the tediousness of fixing like technical problems in post and stuff is just like our last recording. So typically like I'll be able to like just export it all as one file. Everything's synced up. Everything's good. But for some reason, like, I don't know why. But when I exported our whole file together, like

Jean-Pierre (02:10:27.17)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:10:50.737)
about like 45 minutes to an hour in, like we got like out of sync for some reason. So like I would be finishing a sentence and you would be like starting a sentence and like it would happen like every time. So it wasn't like, there was a case or two where like one of us started talking over the other, which happens sometimes. It was like, I could tell it was out of sync. So I had to go back in and like download each separately and like go through and like.

Jean-Pierre (02:10:58.934)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:11:04.671)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:11:13.143)
What?

Jean-Pierre (02:11:19.286)
fix it yeah well I don't I don't know how I look on your end but on my end you I mean I've definitely seen a lot of really bad splotchiness and buffering with your feet though okay

Eli Price (02:11:19.301)
make sure like that the yeah, which was so tedious and.

Eli Price (02:11:32.497)
Yeah, and you don't get that in the recording. Now my lighting is terrible, so I just have my closet light straight above me. And so you do, there is some, when I get closer and then when I pull away, the adjustment that this little webcam makes is bad, but yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:11:50.41)
Are you... do you record this on a laptop?

Do you have it on desk? Or what do you have it on in your closet?

Eli Price (02:12:01.601)
Oh, it's just... well, like, it's on a little bench with a stack of books.

Jean-Pierre (02:12:07.506)
Okay, I was gonna say Right, well I just I was like I know you have like a little table or something cuz they're you know There's definitely some pretty cheap little panel lights you can get if you have like a you know, and you can get like a I Have one that I have I have this whole Like tree branch looking thing where it's like a central pole then has like three different arms that screw on to it

Eli Price (02:12:08.765)
Like I'm literally in my closet, so.

Eli Price (02:12:21.233)
Yeah, and I'll get some eventually.

Jean-Pierre (02:12:33.538)
So you have a light, you have one for a camera, you have one for your microphone. I have it all at my house, I just haven't set it up yet at my new house, but eventually we'll get around to that.

Eli Price (02:12:45.681)
Yeah, I'll probably buy just something cheap on Amazon to get some better lighting, but it's just not really a priority in the budget right now, so. Hardly anybody will like that.

Jean-Pierre (02:12:55.126)
Yeah. Like I'd say, dude, if you, if you, if you threw up like, like some L E like an L E D strip, uh, like around like the ceiling in the closet. And then you got like, uh, even like a ring light or something. And you turned off the actual closet light, you know, and you can get both of those things are probably less than 50 bucks and still have something different decent, you know.

Eli Price (02:13:03.295)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:13:18.161)
Right, right. Yeah, I will eventually Yep for sure But yeah for now. This is how it is so All right, hopefully so I wasn't able to do so hopefully my It doesn't do what it did last time and like Make me refresh the page because that's a pain in post to fix also But uh, we'll see

Jean-Pierre (02:13:20.59)
and bring it to the next level.

Jean-Pierre (02:13:44.83)
What?

Eli Price (02:13:48.037)
It happened with my Phantasmister Fox recording too. So we'll see. But yeah, I guess we'll jump into this. I'll kind of, we'll pause talking for a second so I can see it in the recording easier and then I'll jump back in.

Jean-Pierre (02:13:53.262)
Thank you very much.

Jean-Pierre (02:14:02.67)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:14:15.473)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Establishing Shot. I hope you enjoyed our discussion on the Grand Budapest Hotel. I know me and JP enjoyed it. You don't mind if I speak for you. But, terrible discussion. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:14:26.55)
Definitely.

Jean-Pierre (02:14:30.474)
No, I hated it. I hated every second of it. Just kidding. Just jokes.

Eli Price (02:14:38.993)
Yeah, we're gonna jump into some movie news. So this week that this is releasing is gonna be the weekend release of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. And so I figured we'd talk for a minute about that, kind of maybe a briefer movie news section, just sharing some thoughts a little bit about it. But yeah, one thing that...

Jean-Pierre (02:14:41.844)
Woo!

Eli Price (02:15:08.125)
I didn't even realize, I don't know, maybe I've just been living under a rock and I haven't been like super excited anticipating this so I haven't been like scouring the letter box and IMDB pages for it, but I didn't even realize that Spielberg is not directing this. Yeah, it's not even, Spielberg's not directing it. He-

Jean-Pierre (02:15:20.359)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:15:26.836)
Oh wow, okay.

Jean-Pierre (02:15:31.107)
I mean, I knew it was James Mangel, but I'm just surprised that you didn't know that.

Eli Price (02:15:36.005)
Yeah, so which I maybe I did and I just forgot Because when I think Indiana Jones, I think Steven Spielberg and so like it's pretty natural to just assume like oh he's directing this but yeah, he He got kind of stepped out away from the project in 2020 to work on which i'm glad he did because we got his west side story adaptation and uh

Jean-Pierre (02:15:41.751)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:15:46.251)
Right, of course.

Jean-Pierre (02:16:03.254)
I really love that. That's the first Spielberg movie in a long time that I really loved since probably I still haven't seen the fabled minst. I'm sure I'd like it. I haven't seen the fabled minst but I like I don't think I've like really loved anything he's done since maybe War of the Worlds. He's probably maybe done a couple of movies since then that I probably would have liked but Most of his recent stuff like Ready Player One stuff like that. Ready Player One was fine

Eli Price (02:16:10.193)
Yeah, it was good. And the Fableman's, the Fableman's was really good.

Eli Price (02:16:24.431)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (02:16:31.682)
You know, but, but yeah, no, I, I'm a big fan of, of the, you know, when I'm growing up, we had the original version, the original film version on DVD, big fan of that. And I thought that the, the version he did, I thought was like a really good way to update it. And I thought they still, they still kind of had a lot of, it still felt very like, fantastical like stage plays, presence. And I just think, I just think it was,

Eli Price (02:16:31.901)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:16:50.291)
Right.

Eli Price (02:16:57.173)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:16:59.774)
a better adaptation. There was a little, a couple little moments here and there that I felt like you could kind of feel the 2020-ness, so to speak, of it. But for the most part, I thought it was a really good adaptation. I really enjoyed it. I'm sad it flopped, but I had a good time.

Eli Price (02:17:09.076)
Sure.

Eli Price (02:17:18.021)
Yeah, yeah, and to me like the though the ways that he updated the updated it for his adaptation from The what was it 50s version? of West Side Story 60s 50s

Jean-Pierre (02:17:33.19)
I think the play might have been, the play might have been, it's, yeah, the movie is from the, it's like kind of like mid to late 60s, so the play was probably around that time, but I think it's set in the 50s.

Eli Price (02:17:47.173)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's right Yeah, 61 was the original film version of which I wasn't a huge fan of when I watched it Honestly, and all the problems that I had with that one It felt like spillberg fixed. So that's why I really liked his adaptation Because I felt like he fixed a lot of the problems that I had the old one so

Jean-Pierre (02:17:51.294)
Yeah, I... I'm...

Jean-Pierre (02:18:03.006)
Yeah. I find them-

Jean-Pierre (02:18:08.198)
I feel like it's a little hard to compare because it's just a completely different time period, different technology, different filmmaking techniques, you know. But yeah, as far as... Yeah, I see that. As far as Dial of Destiny goes, firstly, ever since they announced it, not a huge fan of the title, I think it sounds kind of dumb.

Eli Price (02:18:12.597)
It is. Different era, yeah.

Eli Price (02:18:19.013)
Yep. But it was I'm thinking more of like the story. But yeah, anyway.

Eli Price (02:18:35.881)
But yeah, it's Indiana Jones, you know. Rangers of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom.

Jean-Pierre (02:18:38.41)
I don't know, because I mean, I just... But that sounds cool. That sounds cool, you know? The Last Crusade sounds really cool. Even Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I kind of get behind, but I'm just like, I don't know. I feel like everything I've seen from it, I'm like... It just feels like a movie. I'm just gonna wait for it to come out on Disney Plus or some streaming service. Like, I haven't really seen anything that like really makes me wanna like go see the theater. And I...

Eli Price (02:18:44.509)
dial of destiny. It fits the mold, I think.

Eli Price (02:19:03.279)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (02:19:08.666)
So my whole philosophy is I love going to movie theater. It's like my favorite thing to do. If I really want to see a movie, that's how I want to see it first. But every year I always have a list of, these are movies I want to go to the movie theater for, these are movies that I still want to see, but I don't know if I want to commit to like paying movie theater prices to go see. And as much as I love James Mann called, I think Logan's one of the best, you know, superhero films ever made. Excuse me. But,

Eli Price (02:19:12.198)
Yeah, right.

Eli Price (02:19:25.457)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Eli Price (02:19:35.155)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:19:39.086)
And I like Harrison Ford. I haven't seen it, but it did look really good. I'm not even a car guy, but the cinematography looked great. And also, I love Matt Damon and Christian Bale. And he's done some other stuff. Even the Wolverine I like, but I'm a big fan of Sam Ryan's and Japanese cinema and stuff. And there's a lot of inspiration from that there. But obviously, I love Harrison Ford as his character. He's iconic.

Eli Price (02:19:39.559)
Ford vs Ferrari was good too.

Eli Price (02:19:44.134)
Yeah, it was enjoyable.

Jean-Pierre (02:20:09.118)
I love Matt Mads Bippelson as another villain. He just has a thing for playing bad guys. Antonio Banderas, I think, is in it too, which I haven't seen him in anything too crazy recently. He's started doing a lot more like... He's done some really good direct-to-streaming action thrillers. There's one called...

Eli Price (02:20:12.795)
Oh yeah.

He's a great actor. He is.

Eli Price (02:20:29.565)
Well, he's also been doing like... Oh, go ahead, sorry.

Jean-Pierre (02:20:33.334)
Well, there's one called Security, which is kind of like a die-hard-in-a-shopping-mall kind of vibe, and it's actually really, really good. But, uh, I just haven't seen a lot of stuff.

Eli Price (02:20:39.189)
Gotcha. Yeah, he's also doing more work with like, he's doing some more work with like all tier directors like Pedro Almodovar. Like I saw a movie, I think it was Pain and Glory was the name of it, that he was in just like a, and you know, it's foreign language, you know, so you know, we just don't really hear about that stuff. But he is, he has been doing some good movies. He was great in that movie. So, but yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:20:50.761)
sets.

Jean-Pierre (02:21:00.767)
Hmm.

Yeah, I just...

Jean-Pierre (02:21:07.725)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:21:08.701)
There's some good names here as far as like Mickelson and Banderas like So, you know at least like at the very least, you know, like you'll probably get some really good performances

Jean-Pierre (02:21:22.23)
Yeah, I think it's just my apprehension to the Disney-owned era of Lucasfilm. You know, as much as I love... I feel like, you know, as much as I love the sequels, I have just as many reasons to not like them as much. Despite the fact that The Last Jedi is probably my favorite of the three. I think The Force Awakens is really good. You know, Rise of Skywalker has some really cool moments, but has a lot of problems.

Eli Price (02:21:29.33)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:21:44.137)
same.

Jean-Pierre (02:21:49.33)
I just, Disney is as a conglomerate nowadays. You know, I know this is like beating a dead horse and you know, I'm not apprehensive for the same reason. A lot of like people online are apprehensive, but I just don't feel like they're really like the quality and the pinnacle of entertainment like they used to be. I just think they just, you know, so I think that's part of it too. It's just that I'm just like, I don't think I really trust Disney to do this character justice.

Eli Price (02:22:09.982)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:22:18.906)
even for like his last ride, his last hurrah, we'll see. You know.

Eli Price (02:22:22.521)
Yeah. Now, some of the co-writers with Mangold are the Butterworth brothers, I guess, who worked with him on Four Versus Ferrari. But they also wrote, they were writers on Get On Up, the James Brown biopic, which I saw and I remember really thinking it was, the storytelling was really well done in that. And also Edge of Tomorrow, the Tom Cruise kind of sci-fi action.

Jean-Pierre (02:22:31.918)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:22:48.974)
I saw that recently actually and I finally got around to watching it and I thought it was great.

Eli Price (02:22:51.569)
Very good Yeah, so that does give me a little bit of hope that guys that to me Seem to write pretty good movies are co-writing this You know with Mangold who has directed some good movies that I do like a good bit And so I do have some hope because of that like if it was I Don't know. I can't even think of an example of a director

Jean-Pierre (02:23:10.871)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:23:20.441)
where I would say like, oh, like I don't really, I've lost almost all interest now, but.

Jean-Pierre (02:23:27.662)
I think Phoebe Waller-Bridge also got a little involved with the writing for this as well, which that's kind of the aspect that worries me a bit more, just because I think a lot of projects I'm aware of that she's been involved with writing have a very particular voice so to speak. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that per se, but I'll say it this way. I saw something on Twitter where somebody was like...

Eli Price (02:23:34.064)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (02:23:56.47)
There an actual line of dialogue in the movie is Indie goes I fought Nazis, you know And then her character says and you stole from indigenous people too, which I'm just like There's a lot there to unpack if I don't know this is true, you know, it's just a random thing I saw on Twitter but You know, we live in a world where I 100% can believe that that's possible. I'll get around to watching it eventually but

Eli Price (02:24:13.413)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:24:20.497)
It sounds like something... It sounds like some of the lines you would hear like in She-Hulk that were coming out, that were like...

Jean-Pierre (02:24:27.916)
It... I, you know, and I... Yeah. I think she helped write that show, actually.

Eli Price (02:24:30.377)
that were like not... Yeah. Which is like... No, yeah. But it's like, it's like, yes, what you're saying is good and true and meaningful, but also like, can't you write in a way that's more meaningful also to actually... But yeah, well, I guess we'll find out. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:24:34.282)
You know, nothing gets her. I mean, get that bad girl, you know, but.

Jean-Pierre (02:24:50.931)
Right, right.

It just feels so forced and out of place. Yeah, I don't know. So that was kind of always been my apprehension from the very beginning. How is a character like this gonna be handled because it is such an iconic character? The first three films are all great. Even Keen of the Crystal Skull, I'm not gonna say I'm a defender of that movie, but I definitely don't hate it as much as a lot of other people do.

Eli Price (02:25:04.853)
bright.

Eli Price (02:25:14.645)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:25:21.386)
I think mostly because I was a kid when it came out and I first saw it and I like Shia LaBeouf in that movie. That, like, that, you know, mid, early to mid 2000s Shia LaBeouf is my favorite Shia LaBeouf. I mean, like Transformers, Eagle Eye, that movie. I mean, that was like, I've not seen it, but I think I actually had some dysterbia like a long time ago. But just when he was just running around, like screaming, freaking out all the time, like

Eli Price (02:25:33.307)
Oh yeah.

Disturbia.

Jean-Pierre (02:25:48.67)
in movies like that's like peak Shia LaBeouf in my opinion, although he has become a really great actor even now in his own right. Not to say he wasn't great then he just kind of played the same character a lot of times but yeah very different. Yeah so overall I'm you know I think I'm gonna I'm gonna wait on this one I know though not that I take Rotten Tomato scores very seriously but it's like a 50% critic score last time I checked so

Eli Price (02:25:56.23)
Right.

Different.

Eli Price (02:26:15.205)
Yeah, that's rough.

Jean-Pierre (02:26:16.31)
You know, I don't know. It's sad to see it. It's sad to see it, but we'll see what happens. I liked, I liked, and I will say, I really... This is a little bit of a hot take. Personally, I really liked how Han Solo was handled in the sequel trilogy. Because, you know, Harrison Ford is like, he's like a tired old man. He's just like...

Eli Price (02:26:22.725)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:26:37.733)
Okay, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:26:43.114)
Because Han Solo was supposed to die in the very first movie. And ever since then, I feel like Harrison has always been very apprehensive about returning to that character. But also the way it was woven into the story, being this very iconic moment of Kylo's way of fully giving over to the dark side. But then you go into The Last Jedi, and it's like every time he's on screen, you just feel the tension within himself over that. And I even liked how he comes back as like not a force ghost,

Eli Price (02:26:48.243)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:27:06.997)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:27:13.29)
the scene in Rise of Skywalker where he comes back as like this like memory speaking to him. I think it's like the most beautiful part of that movie. I absolutely love that scene. And also there's the reflection of I know what I have to do but I don't have the strength to do it. He repeats that line and this time he throws a lightsaber instead of you know using it to strike down his father. I personally think I don't know what else you could have done with that character without recasting the role because Harrison Ford is an old man and can't.

Eli Price (02:27:18.069)
voice, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:27:42.122)
be doing a bunch of action movie stuff. So even in this movie, I'm sure it's gonna be pretty noticeable when it's a stunt double, you know, I don't know. But yeah, that's true. That's true. I saw some of that.

Eli Price (02:27:49.934)
Well, they do some de-aging on them too. And that might work into the critics' rating too. For some reason, critics hate the de-aging technology, I feel like. That's why the Irishman, that's all people wanted to talk about. And I'm like, can you just get over the de-aging technology and see how awesome of a movie the Irishman is?

Jean-Pierre (02:28:00.99)
I sound Kenny Bradley, man.

Jean-Pierre (02:28:08.546)
They were like, it's like the best we've ever, it's like the best it's ever been. And I'm like, they still look rubbery, man. Like, you know, I just, it was all right. I don't know. I don't, I'm not a big into movie guy, but anyway, we don't have to talk about that. But yeah, but overall, I think I'm gonna sit this one out, wait and see what happens. I'll watch it at some point, but it's just not one of those movies where I'm like freaking out to go see, you know what I mean?

Eli Price (02:28:15.629)
Yeah, but the story is amazing, so who cares? Like...

I love the Irishman, personally, but.

Eli Price (02:28:35.301)
Yeah, I'll tell you this, if anything makes me want to go see it, it's just to support Harrison Ford. Like, there's stories coming out of, like, its premiere at Cannes where he's, like, tearing up and just, like, very emotional. You know, apparently he said that this is going to be his last movie. And so if there's a reason for me to go to...

Jean-Pierre (02:28:55.682)
Well, maybe it's Henry, maybe it's Andy Jones, but he's gonna be in Brave New World, the new Captain America movie. He's now the Thunderbolt Ross of the MCU.

Eli Price (02:29:06.109)
Gotcha. Well, that's what I heard is that he's kind of done. Maybe it is with the Indiana Jones, but maybe I was understanding it as like he's kind of just stepping down from acting, but maybe I read that wrong. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:29:20.374)
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure he's getting to a point where, you know, unless it's him having to just sit in a chair for the whole movie, it's just hard to physically... because not even like, not even the physicality of the role, but just having to like, be on set for 12 to 14 hours a day. Once you get to a certain age, that's just hard, you know, and it's just how our bodies are. So, yeah, which is crazy. It's... I feel like it's...

Eli Price (02:29:38.634)
Yeah.

Yeah, he's 80.

Jean-Pierre (02:29:48.898)
We're at a point where there's a lot of actors that we grew up with that I think we're gonna start to see pass away and it's gonna be really sad. Like people that have been there my entire life. The entire 27 going on 28 years I've been on planet Earth, I've been seeing certain people in movies and even now there's like new people starting to pop up and be talked about. I'm like, I'm not like.

Eli Price (02:29:59.177)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:30:14.938)
uh... all that's got to keep your every talk about it like i do that guy it's like uh... you know i'm still i'm still i'm still infatuated with like walking phoenix will defoe all these kind of people so you know you did so washington's like unlike monday he's like it is not make any more movies you know i mean he's getting he's getting older i think he's kind of slowing down to it just like is like one of literally one of the best if not the best you know uh... so yeah anyway i just you know

Eli Price (02:30:19.814)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:30:25.404)
Right, right.

Eli Price (02:30:31.325)
He's up there, man. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:30:44.118)
I didn't really mean to get all sentimental, but I watched like half of it and haven't had a chance to go back and watch it. But I did like it. I mean, I'll, you know, people say, people say they can make a movie where he just sits on a toilet with constipation for two hours and people would watch it. And absolutely I would. So anyway, yeah, I'll get around to it. But I feel that you like wanted to support Harrison for one last ride.

Eli Price (02:30:44.797)
Did you see Tragedy Young Macbeth?

Eli Price (02:30:51.001)
Oh man, he's incredible in it. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:31:01.705)
That's great. Yeah, that's.

Eli Price (02:31:09.729)
Yeah, yeah for sure and you know if I do go see it that'll probably be the main reason why it's just like I want to go I want to go see Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones one more time Uh, which I want to watch I want to rewatch all of them. Actually Um, I think I talked about on a past episode. I haven't seen Keno the Crystal Skull so um and uh, you know, I have a feeling that my uh, personality is going to like

Jean-Pierre (02:31:25.966)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:31:30.999)
Oh wow.

Eli Price (02:31:38.493)
force myself to like it just to be like different than everyone else. To have a different take than everyone else. But, but yeah, I want to rewatch all of these before I see the new one, just because it'll, it'll be fun to rewatch, watch through all of them.

Jean-Pierre (02:31:53.578)
I mean, the most noticeable thing is going from like doing everything as practically as possible to a lot more CGI, which I think one of the things I heard about Mangold doing for this movie is they were trying to go back to doing a lot of stuff practically in camera, which is like the one thing I'm like, okay, like I can respect that. Like I feel like people always would prefer to see that, you know, kind of on that I've actually been rewatching all the Mission Impossible movies. I haven't seen anything past Ghost Protocol.

Eli Price (02:32:01.949)
CGI, yeah.

Eli Price (02:32:10.556)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:32:21.61)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:32:22.862)
previously, so I haven't seen five or six. So I've been watching those in preparation for Dead Reckoning Part One. So, you know, excited for that.

Eli Price (02:32:31.593)
Yeah Yeah, sweet well, let's uh let's go ahead and move into the movie draft and This week we are drafting movies with hotels Because this is the Grand Budapest Hotel episode. We've got a draft movies with hotels and So I don't know if you had planned on trying to draft Grand Budapest Hotel But I was gonna kind of set it aside as undraftable

Jean-Pierre (02:32:46.641)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (02:33:00.938)
Yeah, I feel like every time I come into these, like, I feel like the right, right when I you know, when I don't know, I can't speak for every other guest, I think I saw one of your other guests like draft for the movie you guys are talking about. But in my mind, it just kind of go it's like, it's like, the baseline rule is you can't draft the movie you're talking about an episode. So no, I was not planning on drafting Grand Budapest Hotel.

Eli Price (02:33:02.109)
Um, you know, obviously it's the 101 hotel.

Eli Price (02:33:20.969)
Ha ha ha.

Good, yeah, yeah. Okay, well let's just say it's the, I mean it's the namesake for the, it's the number one in our hearts. It's undraftable because it's just so good. So, but yeah, we're gonna draft some hotel movies and since you are a returning guest, people should know by now that you drafted first last time. So.

Jean-Pierre (02:33:30.143)
number one in our hearts.

Jean-Pierre (02:33:38.25)
Right. Absolutely.

Eli Price (02:33:53.401)
I am taking the first pick this time because I was so gracious last time. I think I deserve it, right? Yeah, so

Jean-Pierre (02:33:56.076)
point.

I wasn't prepared for this. Okay. Alright.

See, what I did last time is I tried to play the game in my head and think what were the ones you were going to pick and then try and pick ones that you wouldn't think of. But with this kind of movie, surprisingly, I think it was even harder to find films. So we'll see. We'll see how this goes.

Eli Price (02:34:13.362)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:34:19.909)
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I found a lot of them. But we'll see. I'm sure there's some overlap because there's just some really iconic ones to choose from. But I think my for my number one.

For the number one pick overall, I'm going to go with Psycho. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Just like the Bates Motel. Just iconic, classic. You've got the shower scene, which everyone who's seen Psycho knows the shower scene. And oh, really? I did not know that. That's great.

Jean-Pierre (02:34:41.835)
Mm. Classic.

Jean-Pierre (02:34:57.398)
The first shot of a fleshy toilet.

Yeah, yeah. As far as I know, it might be one of those like random film things that isn't actually true, but I'm like 90% sure. That was, that's like the other big thing is like the, yeah, I think. Cause isn't there the drain to the toilet flushing, like just like match cutter, just position where, anyway, doesn't matter.

Eli Price (02:35:09.301)
Hahaha.

Eli Price (02:35:22.961)
Yeah, yeah, so, um, yeah, psycho. That's what I'm going to go with just because of how iconic it is. And I mean, when you say Bates Motel, like, you know exactly what I'm referencing. Like, it's kind of one of those things that's just part of the culture now, that movie and really like what it did for for. Really, you're just more in general, what Alfred Hitchcock did for cinema. So I think he.

He deserves to be towards the top of this list with that movie. So yeah, Psycho. Where are you going? Number, the second pick, number one for you.

Jean-Pierre (02:35:59.554)
My first pick, speaking of iconic hotel movies, I got to go with 2004's Hotel Rwanda. I mean, it's not the easiest watch in the world, but I feel like it's a movie that we watched when we were in school and has always really sat with me and it's a true story. Don Cheadle puts in a still to this day, probably his best performance he's ever done. And yeah, it's just one of those movies that I feel like is super iconic.

Eli Price (02:36:08.292)
Okay.

Eli Price (02:36:19.201)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:36:28.934)
impacts you, you know, in a way where it tells this very tragic story, but also tries to pull some hope and, you know, inspiration and, you know, the way the human spirit can triumph out of the situation as well.

Eli Price (02:36:43.909)
Yeah, yeah, I've actually never seen Hotel Rwanda. It's one of those movies that like I know is going to be a hard watch and just kind of like has probably like sat on the watch list for a long time. And I've just never gotten around to watching it. So.

Jean-Pierre (02:36:59.946)
I mean, it's definitely not on the level of like Schindler's List, but you know, obviously, because like the actual, like the hardest parts of it, you know, is kind of towards the beginning of the movie and the main focus is on Don Cheadle's character whose name escapes me, trying to focus on, you know, keeping everybody safe as he can, but it's more on the drama around the situation, but definitely highly recommend it.

Eli Price (02:37:04.765)
Sure.

Eli Price (02:37:20.211)
Right, right.

Eli Price (02:37:27.205)
Okay, yeah. Yeah, okay, so number two for me, number three overall, I guess. This is tough.

I have at least one that I think I can wait on and take with my last pick, so I'm gonna risk it. And I'm gonna go with... There's definitely one that is also iconic that I'm just... I don't love as much as others, so I don't know if I'll pick it or not. But I'm gonna go... I guess I'll go with Memento in this pick.

the Christopher Nolan film that really like, well, like he lives in a hotel, and he has all of his little Polaroids kind of posted around the hotel. It's kind of like, it's where he goes back to kind of like recollect who he is. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:38:11.054)
I mean, I know the movie, I'm just trying to think of how.

Jean-Pierre (02:38:17.631)
Uh-uh.

Jean-Pierre (02:38:27.534)
All right, I'll give it to you. I'll give it to you. I don't remember it being especially stated it was a hotel, but you got it. All right.

Eli Price (02:38:34.673)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's very, it's very obviously like a little motel that he's living in. Like, it's unmistakably a motel. But yeah, I think Memento is a really interesting film in general. And, you know, I think that, you know, if you watch it, you know, that his memory and the way his, like, lapses in memory work.

Jean-Pierre (02:38:40.672)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:39:04.657)
routine is very important to him and his little hotel room is a part of that routine. So it does play an important role as far as like the story goes too. So yeah, and it's just a really good movie. So yeah, Memento.

Jean-Pierre (02:39:16.588)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Jean-Pierre (02:39:22.098)
I'm just trying to figure out the rules here, man. OK. All right, so my next pick is going to be a movie that I saw in theaters and I thought was really good, even though I think, critically speaking, I don't think it did as well as it should have, featuring a fantastic, against type performance from Chris Hemsworth. I'm talking about 2018's Bad Times at the El Royale. Really great ensemble.

Eli Price (02:39:48.445)
That's what I wanted to see and haven't gotten around to. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:39:50.81)
Yeah, it was great, man. I was really interested in it when it came out, so I went and saw it in the theater. Really great kind of neon noir, you know, a bunch of different characters end up in the same place, and you know, things happen. But yeah, no, it's good. And Chris Hemsworth is kind of the bad guy. He's almost like a Charles Manson kind of like cult leader kind of guy, but very, very charismatic.

You know, he's got like, he's either shirtless or his shirt is like unbuttoned the entire film. I mean, but like you can understand why people would follow this guy. But yeah, no, great, great movie, great performances from the ensemble cast and Chris Hemsworth, gosh, who's the other guy, the guy from like True Grit, his name is escaping me right now. I always get his name mixed up with somebody else, but Jeff Bridges, Jeff Bridges is in it as well.

Eli Price (02:40:45.161)
Jeff Bridges?

Jean-Pierre (02:40:49.234)
Um, you know, a little cameo from, you know, guys like Nick Offerman, things like that. But yeah, no, highly recommend that one as well. It's good. It's a good, uh, it's a good little, little two hour time killer. Yeah, definitely. If you like, if you like Neo Noir, you know, you like kind of like a, it's got an old school vibe, you know, so it's, it's definitely, it's definitely good watch.

Eli Price (02:40:49.254)
Okay, yeah.

Eli Price (02:40:57.349)
Yeah, yeah, it looked like a really fun movie Yeah

Eli Price (02:41:08.041)
Cool. Yeah.

Yeah, okay, so this is my third pick. Here's what's tough, we're drafting five movies and I have more movies than just 10 that I wanna draft. And you've already picked two that I haven't even seen. So, you know, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:41:30.814)
Oh wow, I'm feeling good then because I was like, I was sure we were gonna have the same exact movies on our list, so. Trying to hit you with a quick draw here.

Eli Price (02:41:38.513)
Yeah, so that's what's fun about this you get you get some variety, but yeah Hi when I draft I like to have some variety in my list But uh There's just some that I love so much that I might not have as much variety as far as like genre and whatnot goes But yeah, so one on that this one that I'm gonna draft. There's actually like more than one of these

directors movies that have scenes in a hotel And there's actually a movie that I love more than the movie. I'm gonna draft that has one but the hotel and this movie is like a huge part of the movie and So I'm gonna draft Barton Fink from the Coen Brothers This stars John Turturro and the lead role and

John Goodman as the kind of like supporting role. And John Tutero is, yeah, it's great. He's kind of this like snooty writer who's writing this like wrestling movie. It's kind of in like the golden age of Hollywood era, set in that era. And he's like this snooty writer that like is self-absorbed in his own thoughts and his own world.

Jean-Pierre (02:42:39.894)
Love that combo.

Jean-Pierre (02:43:04.738)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:43:05.521)
and is writing this like wrestling movie and So he's like, oh well, I'm gonna be the common man and check into this common man hotel and kind of like starts talking with his neighboring The guy neighboring his Room who is John Goodman's character who is like a traveling salesman kind of character And yeah, it's the hotel becomes

Jean-Pierre (02:43:15.128)
Mm.

Jean-Pierre (02:43:28.126)
Interesting. I've not seen that one, so...

Eli Price (02:43:35.737)
Let's just say...

Eli Price (02:43:40.201)
There's an impending doom for John Turturro's character in this hotel, and Jog Goodman's character might be more than just a common man. A common man, a traveling salesman, who is going to help bring this doom along with the hotel into John Turturro's self-absorbed self. So it's one that...

Jean-Pierre (02:43:44.374)
Love that.

Jean-Pierre (02:43:49.867)
traveling salesman.

Jean-Pierre (02:44:06.19)
Interesting. Okay.

Eli Price (02:44:07.845)
It's more, it's gonna be better to see it without me spoiling it. One of those sorts of things. So yeah, Barton Fink, it's a really good movie. And it's early Coen Brothers, I think it's their fourth film. 1991, really good movie.

Jean-Pierre (02:44:12.703)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (02:44:24.622)
OK, all right, all right. My next pick, I'm going to go with an entry from a series. All the movies in this series feature a hotel very prominently, but the one that I think utilizes it the most iconically is going to be John Wick, Chapter 3, Parabellum. Because the entire third act of that movie takes place at the Continental in New York.

Eli Price (02:44:46.947)
Yes.

Eli Price (02:44:52.17)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:44:52.67)
There's a big section of chapter four that takes place at the Continental in Osaka, Japan. But for me, I just think that the entire, which was great, but I think it's just the sequence at the end of John Wick chapter three, Parabellum and the Continental with him and Kyros, the Concierge fighting side by side. It's just great. I love the scene where they...

Eli Price (02:45:00.369)
Yeah, Wasaka, I think that's right.

Eli Price (02:45:16.341)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:45:20.91)
They go out and kind of fight the first wave, and then they come back in when they realize, like, we need different bullets because these guys are armored. They go back into the safe and they're all, like, reloading. It's just great. It's just great. Great action, I'm sure. That's probably the one of all the ones I think I'll pick. I think that that's probably the one everyone's likely seen, but I got to go with it. It's iconic, the Continental. I'm excited for the show, actually.

Eli Price (02:45:28.755)
Right.

Eli Price (02:45:41.337)
Yeah, it's a great one. Yeah, and I was I was thinking and I was thinking like man if Which one do you draft and I was thinking like I guess

Jean-Pierre (02:45:54.909)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:46:08.698)
Hi everybody, it's just me now.

Jean-Pierre (02:46:17.282)
There he is. Yeah, I was thinking that Chapter 2, the ending of that one, is that the Continental in Italy. That's where he kills that dude. But again, I just think the way that the Continental

Eli Price (02:46:29.476)
Yeah.

Three is like.

Yeah, three is epic. Yeah, and that's what I was thinking too. Like, the first one is my favorite still, and the fourth one probably my second favorite. Yeah, but everyone has like different favorites as far as that goes. Some of the, I think some of the action choreography and three is probably some of the best in the whole series for sure. But yeah, great. That's a great pick.

Jean-Pierre (02:46:44.014)
I think three is my favorite.

Eli Price (02:47:01.859)
And yeah, that was on my list. I'm not sure if I was gonna draft it or not, but definitely on my list. So that was your third pick, right? So this is my fourth pick. And man, I am struggling. I think...

Eli Price (02:47:25.415)
Hmm so I think to get a little bit of variety maybe I'm gonna go with Lost in Translation Sofia Coppola's kind of drama comedy with Bill Murray

Jean-Pierre (02:47:40.654)
I've also not seen this, but I've always wanted to get around to it. One of these days.

Eli Price (02:47:44.139)
Yeah, yeah, it has stars Bill Murray and yes, Scarlett Johansson. My mind was like searching. I was like seeing her face with no name. Yeah, Bill Murray and Scar Jo and yeah, it's a really you I guess you could call it like a heady film. There's a lot of like just discussions between these two characters at different.

Jean-Pierre (02:47:49.87)
Starr Johansson.

Eli Price (02:48:13.095)
places in their life, just about who they are, what they are doing with their lives. And you know, it's very like, it is, I would say it's a comedy as well as a drama, but it's a very like dry, not like laugh out loud comedy, more just kind of like humorous points of discussion. But yeah, it's a really good.

Jean-Pierre (02:48:38.21)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:48:43.047)
film that I think utilizes both of those actors very well too in this kind of confined space of the hotel that they're living in Tokyo. And they're kind of both, you know, Bill Murray's much older and she's really young as characters, but they're both kind of in this like lost, I don't know what I'm doing with my life. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:48:53.054)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:49:07.775)
in translation.

Eli Price (02:49:12.139)
Yeah, so that's a really good movie. It's been a long time since I've seen it, but I feel like them being in that hotel together kind of is an important part of the story, so yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:49:23.458)
Right. See, I think I'm starting to learn that, you know, in this whole game of drafting, that I take it a little too literally. I'm thinking like, okay, it has to be like in the hotel for the majority of the film. I need to, right, right. But I just think I need to open my eyes a little bit more. But anyway, okay, all right. So for my number four, I wanna go with another entry into a bit of a franchise, so to speak,

Eli Price (02:49:37.211)
Which Lawson translation is. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:49:53.656)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (02:49:53.794)
When it came out, it was very popular with my peers, but it was not a movie I would have been allowed to watch at the time it came out. But since within the last few years, I've actually gone back and watched and found it to be actually surprisingly really good and not nearly as raunchy as I thought it would have been. I wanna go with The Hangover from 2009.

Eli Price (02:50:16.356)
Yeah, okay.

Jean-Pierre (02:50:17.07)
I, you know, I'm very picky about comedies, as I've kind of said, like I don't really like raunchy comedies, I'm a big fan of sex comedies. And I think for a long time, I just assumed this was what this would be based on the type of people I knew who really liked it because that's the kind of stuff that they found funny. But I think within the last few years, I took time to watch it. And I almost, it's almost like sweet and endearing, like just seeing these guys, like kind of walk through this, the

Eli Price (02:50:20.891)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:50:41.326)
Uh huh.

Jean-Pierre (02:50:44.206)
the transition one of their friends is going through and getting married. And I think I've heard the other two kind of like, just get really stupid. But this one I found really good. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was like really smart. It's like this movie and like the interview are two of like the most surprising comedies I've ever seen that I thought are really well done. But yeah, I mean, obviously the majority of the movie takes place in and around this hotel in Las Vegas that they're at. So yeah, I think it's a good time.

Eli Price (02:51:10.115)
Mm-hmm Yeah, it is it's a great and kind of iconic in that era although like that era of comedies which last week it hasn't released at the time of our recording but Last week's episode our draft was two thousands comedies And there are so many to choose from we actually drafted ten each And there were still like we didn't draft the hangover. It just like

Jean-Pierre (02:51:27.394)
Mmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:51:38.754)
Keeps your minds interested.

Eli Price (02:51:38.951)
Neither one of us had that high up off our list But it is an iconic two thousands comedy. There's just so many good comedies in the two thousands And so yeah, the hangover is definitely one of the good ones Uh from that era, I think Yeah, this is man it's my last pick Drafting five. I still have a lot of them on the table that I think are really good

Jean-Pierre (02:52:03.885)
I'm coming for the win this time around, dude. I'm trying.

Eli Price (02:52:07.887)
But I'll do some honorable mentions. But yeah, so this movie is one that I watched a few years ago. And just like, correct me, just like very moving, very like different sort of movie. It's a.

Yeah, it has Willem Dafoe is in it in a small role. He's really the only recognizable person in the movie. But I'm gonna go with the Florida Project from 2017. Sean Baker directed it. It's like this, so it takes place in a little motel in...

I can't remember if it's Orlando or LA, but there's like a Disney World, Disneyland, like not far away. So it's, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:53:08.67)
I think it's Orlando because it's called the Florida Project. I've not seen this, but I want to. And it is on my list, actually. I did have this on my list.

Eli Price (02:53:13.655)
I'm so dumb. Yes, it isn't it is in Orlando But yeah, it's this is it's an incredible movie It's like so like there's the famous quote from Roger Ebert that says that movies are empathy machines And this is like one of those movies that like just captures that quote to like the nth degree of like

You see these people who, it's this mom and her like six-year-old daughter, they're living in this motel. Kind of like, you know, month to month are we going to be able to pay for the next like rent for living in this motel? Willem Dafoe plays the kind of like manager of the motel. And his character is fantastic. Very different role than you probably have ever seen him in because it's different than anything I've ever seen him do.

Jean-Pierre (02:53:54.743)
Okay.

Eli Price (02:54:10.175)
Um, and I don't know, just like the, the empathy you build for these characters is just incredible seeing what they have to go through, what this mom does, what she puts on for her kid, what she does so that they can just like survive. And then like, and then the way that the, like the little girl, there's this point where she's with a friend.

in this field and there's like this dead tree like falling over and there's stuff like growing on it and um she's like basically says like this is my favorite tree because it's broken but it's still like things can still grow on it um which is a line that kind of like

Jean-Pierre (02:54:55.908)
Hmm. That sounds like one of those things where it's like, the joke is like, wow, my kid just said this, and they type in something super, super deep. And they're like, your kid didn't say that to you. Like. Ha ha ha.

Eli Price (02:55:03.915)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And they did. But yeah, it's a really incredible movie. And I had to make sure that I that I drafted it for this for this particular draft just because of how much I love it. And then you also get like, you know, not it's not really a spoiler. It's just kind of like the book and the closing of the movie.

You know, you see right around the corner from this, these people living this, this type of life where they don't even know, like if they're going to have somewhere to live the next day, right around the corner is Disney world where people are paying like boo-coos of money to, you know, ride rides.

Jean-Pierre (02:55:44.267)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:55:50.614)
Yeah, I've again not seen it. It's on my list mostly because it's Willem Dafoe and I'll watch anything he's in. But you didn't mention it. I don't know if you were fully aware, but like 90% of the people in that movie are not actors. Like they just filmed at this real motel where people really live that kind of life. And I've seen some interviews with Willem Dafoe. I think he did like a breaking down of his career recently and he was kind of talking about it, about this portion of it. And

Eli Price (02:56:06.062)
Right, yeah.

Eli Price (02:56:11.472)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:56:20.462)
He just really loved just being around the people that live there and talking to him and he actually used their story. I think he even said that he shadowed the real maintenance man and used a lot of his mannerisms as part of his character. He lived there with them while they were filming and everything and it seems to be one of his favorite projects that he's done.

Eli Price (02:56:34.864)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:56:38.811)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:56:44.695)
Yeah, Sean Baker's a great he hasn't had a lot of movies like he did tangerine And then he's done this movie the Florida Project Yeah tangerine was yeah, and then a red rocket I think was his most recent one and those I think are there's only three like at least feature lengths But yeah, he does use that sort of style of like there's a documentary aspect to it even though it's fiction. It's because he uses like

Jean-Pierre (02:56:51.362)
famously shot on an iPhone, I think. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:57:13.902)
It's light fiction. Yeah. What's it like? Like Nomadland? Wasn't that the Chloe Zhao movie where besides What's Your Face, everybody else wasn't an actor in that movie. Francis. I can't remember. Yeah. Great. Okay. So for my last draft pick, we're throwing it back a little bit.

Eli Price (02:57:15.027)
non-actors. Yeah. So.

Eli Price (02:57:21.516)
Yeah, Chloe Zhao. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:57:28.331)
Yeah, it's similar with the rider, Chloe Zhao's other one. McDormand, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:57:43.246)
to the golden age of film noir cinema. My last pick's gonna be 1948's Key Largo. I watched like two thirds of it recently, I need to finish it, because I had to go do some other stuff, but I was watching it recently, and you know, features one of the greatest named actors of all time, Humphrey Bogart.

Eli Price (02:57:55.502)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (02:58:11.702)
love that guy's name. Playing the same kind of character he plays in every single movie, very like, you know, Sam Spade-esque or his character from Casablanca. But from what I remember, essentially, and like literally I watched this the other day and I'm still like, what happened? But yeah, basically, he is a former army officer and he goes to see the family of someone that served under him that owned this little...

Eli Price (02:58:12.583)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:58:17.927)
Hehehehe

Jean-Pierre (02:58:41.454)
kind of bed and breakfasts in Florida. And there's a hurricane coming. And there's also a bunch of criminals in the hotel. And they have to kind of contend with that. I will say there's like a brief little scene with some like Native Americans in the film, which obviously looking back, culturally speaking, a bit off putting. But other than that, if you like...

Eli Price (02:58:44.484)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:59:07.536)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:59:10.198)
you know, classic 40s, 30s, 40s, 50s film noir. I mean, it's hard not to like Humphrey Bogart doing what he did best. So yeah, I'll throw that one in there for a little classic, you know, bow on my list.

Eli Price (02:59:21.146)
Okay.

Eli Price (02:59:25.847)
Yeah, yeah, I had there was one classic that I was really like wanting to get in, but just didn't quite make the cut with the five. That was Top Hat with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Great little musical takes place in a hotel. Funny, of course, really fun. So, yeah, Top Hat was one that I wanted to draft. But yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:59:38.018)
Mm.

Jean-Pierre (02:59:49.534)
I feel like the most obvious option that I was sure you were going to pick, other than you know, Grand Budapest Hotel, the other most obvious hotel set movie I think would be Home Alone 2, Boston, New York. Oh yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (03:00:03.768)
Mm-hmm.

Oh, see, I wasn't even thinking of that. That was on my list. But the one that we didn't draft that, I just like, I appreciate the movie and I think it's a good movie, but it's just not my favorite is The Shining. What

Jean-Pierre (03:00:20.718)
Hmm. Yeah, I Stanley Kubrick and I have an interesting relationship. I'll say

Eli Price (03:00:28.412)
But yeah, I mean it's not it is an iconic hotel movie for sure That I just like it wasn't my favorite. Maybe if I rewatched it, I would appreciate it more, but

Jean-Pierre (03:00:36.158)
Yeah, I really want to watch Doctor Sleep. I've heard that's really good. Like I like some of Mike Flanagan's work. Like I really liked the show, Midnight Mass on Netflix was great. Yeah, we should do a whole episode talking about that show. I could talk about that show for hours, bro. I mean, but yeah, so I, you know, I saw on Twitter recently some like behind the scenes footage of like Stanley Cooper talking about The Shining.

Eli Price (03:00:49.376)
Oh, that was great. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:01:03.838)
surprised at how much he was laughing because I just feel like this image I have in my head. He was a very like depressed negative person. Also, he was absolutely annoyed with his British crew on the set of Full Metal Jacket because they kept taking tea breaks. It's like this clip of him sitting in a chair. And it's like he's like, you guys have already you guys already took a tea break at like five, why would he take another one? And he's like, you can just tell he's so over it. But I don't know. It was just

Eli Price (03:01:12.218)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:01:21.607)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Eli Price (03:01:32.218)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:01:32.926)
It's interesting to see a different side of Stanley Kubrick, someone who I feel like has made a couple of those movies where I'm like, this should never have been made. This sick, depraved man. Clockwork Orange? Why? I don't know. Anyway, but yeah, no, obviously The Shining, very iconic in the horrid space for sure.

Eli Price (03:01:42.599)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Eli Price (03:01:52.311)
Yes. Yeah. And like I'm going to rapid fire some other like honorable mentions that either like have a very like prominent hotel throughout or maybe just like some of them are just like some really great scenes. Like so like no country for old man has that scene. Barton Fink and that's the other one I had in mind, which I.

Jean-Pierre (03:02:11.562)
Oh yeah, I was thinking about that when you were talking about Barton Frank being a co-op of those movies. That seems iconic.

Eli Price (03:02:18.995)
No Country for Old Men is a much better movie in my opinion, but that scene... Jeez. Yeah, Eight and a Half, which I caught up with not long ago. It's a Frederico Fellini, Italian, you know, very like, I guess, influential Italian director from the 60s. Eight and a Half is a movie that there was some like

Jean-Pierre (03:02:22.858)
First Blu-ray ever, but...

Eli Price (03:02:47.159)
It was hard for me to understand it. I kind of had to read a little bit about it afterwards. I guess just like the cultural distance sometimes can be hard and I can appreciate those movies more if I can kind of like read to understand what was missing afterwards, which I'm OK with. I don't think I think sometimes you just need that for a movie, but it's a very good movie. And you could it's you know, you can tell his influence in cinema for sure.

Jean-Pierre (03:02:59.433)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:03:17.303)
in that way. But it takes place at a hotel of sorts. Oceans 11, I mean really any of the Oceans movie, you know, the heists of yeah, casino hotel.

Jean-Pierre (03:03:26.654)
Yeah, casino hotel. I was going to say, I don't know if, well, if you're going to count casinos, I would say what is a cruise ship but a hotel at sea? But even better than a cruise ship, what about a cruise ship in space? So I would say The Fifth Element would count as a movie. That takes place in a hotel because the majority of that film is set on the space liner.

Eli Price (03:03:40.426)
This is true.

Eli Price (03:03:49.547)
Okay, sure, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:03:56.014)
whatever, Flosten Paradise, whatever it's called, which, you know, it's obviously a hotel basically in space. So, okay. Well, if I would have known, that would have been on my list.

Eli Price (03:04:03.095)
Yeah, we could make that stretch to allow it, you know.

Eli Price (03:04:10.119)
What? Have you seen One Night in Miami?

Jean-Pierre (03:04:12.374)
I've not seen that yet, but again, I heard it was really good.

Eli Price (03:04:14.731)
Oh man, it's yeah, so it's based on a you know, a stage play and it's after Muhammad Ali has you know, I don't remember if he like one heavyweight or like Kept it with a fight Yeah, but he was he was still Cassius Clay at the time And it's this kind of imagining of it's a real thing that happened But obviously like the conversation is imagined

Jean-Pierre (03:04:30.446)
wrecks somebody in the wing.

Jean-Pierre (03:04:42.146)
fictionalized version of it, yeah.

Eli Price (03:04:44.815)
It's him It's a Cassius Clay Before his it's actually like right before he's going to announce like the next day His his conversion and that his new name as Muhammad Ali him Sam cook and Malcolm X and I'm trying to remember the other guy is less well known but he was a Pretty like well-known football player at the time

Jean-Pierre (03:04:58.414)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:05:14.855)
I'm looking it up. I'm stalling by dragging out my sentences. Jim Brown, who was a famous football player at the time. It's them four like in a hotel room the night after Cassius Clay's fight. And it's just like basically a conversation around like.

Jean-Pierre (03:05:17.358)
That's... Okay.

Jean-Pierre (03:05:33.259)
everything going on.

Eli Price (03:05:34.891)
Just yeah, just like the pivotal point of that. They're all in history and like their roles to play with the influence that they have. And it's really, really good. And Leslie Odom, Jr., I feel like stills the show as Sam Cook. He's incredible, just absolutely incredible. So, yeah, that was one that I thought about, too, that I wanted to get in there.

Jean-Pierre (03:05:41.111)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (03:05:51.374)
I uh...

Eli Price (03:06:04.103)
But then you have like some that are just like really great scenes like Ghostbusters with Slimer in the hotel. Like that's a great scene that takes place in a hotel. Beverly Hills cop where he shows up and he's like he's acting like he's a Rolling Stones magazine reporter and like starts yelling in his Eddie Murphy way like great. I mean just great scene.

So there's a lot of hotel related things, but yeah, I guess we should read back our picks to solidify them, which I'm gonna get you to read back yours because I missed writing down a couple in the middle. I was just so engaged by what you were saying.

Jean-Pierre (03:06:45.762)
Wow, yeah, I went, I did, I did, yeah, so my five were Hotel Rwanda, 2004, Bad Times at the El Royale, 2018, John Wick Chapter 3 Parabellum from 2019, The Hangover from 2009, and then Key Largo from 1948.

Eli Price (03:06:54.735)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:07:06.535)
That's the one I missed.

Eli Price (03:07:10.651)
great. Yeah, I mean, really a good great list. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:07:14.562)
Good mix. Didn't get, unfortunately there wasn't enough monster movies set in hotels for me to pick from. So. Ha ha ha.

Eli Price (03:07:23.036)
That's true. But yeah, I had Psycho by Hitchcock, Christopher Nolan's Memento. That's M-E-M-E-N-T-O, memento. Barton Fink by the Coen's Lost in Translation and The Florida Project. So yeah, great draft. We'll see. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean.

Jean-Pierre (03:07:44.942)
I think I got a chance this time. Maybe. We'll see. Unfortunately, I picked too many sharks on the last episode, so.

Eli Price (03:07:53.596)
Yeah, that's um, I think I think I had texted you my sister had voted for me and her reasoning was that the that yours had too many sharks.

Jean-Pierre (03:07:57.046)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:08:02.63)
She should know that she is now like my main enemy in life. Like, you know, too many sharks. He doesn't like sharks, okay? Anyway. Oh!

Eli Price (03:08:08.895)
Okay, I'll let her know to watch out, watch her back. Which by the way, harkening back to the Spielberg talk, the art local theater does like flashback cinema, which is like showing old movies. And I saw that Jaws is going to be playing in July at some point. So I really want to try to make it to the theater to see Jaws and theater.

Jean-Pierre (03:08:28.194)
jealous.

Jean-Pierre (03:08:31.678)
I did one of those, I went and saw Die Hard on Christmas Day in the theater for like one of those flashers. It was like literally me. And it was like 10 o'clock in the morning. So it was just me and like, there was like two older dudes that were probably my age when they originally came out. And it was great. It was a great time. Great way to spend Christmas.

Eli Price (03:08:39.076)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:08:48.279)
Yeah. Which let's go ahead and transition into recommendations of the week. And I guess that's going to be my recommendation. Off the cuff, totally winging it. And that is if your local theater ever shows like really good old movies, then like go watch an older movie in theaters like one. Like I saw The Godfather.

in theaters a few years ago. And that was just a great experience to be able to like see a movie that I never would have had the chance to see in theaters when it came out. But to see it on a big screen is really cool. And I wanna do that with Jaws. So hopefully I'll be able to make it. We'll just have to see, but that's my recommendation.

Jean-Pierre (03:09:32.67)
Yeah, I mean, you know, pretty much any movie before the mid-80s when home video became a thing, that's the only way you could see them. So, you know. Yeah, well, kind of sticking with the theme of Ralph Fiennes.

Eli Price (03:09:42.651)
Right. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:09:49.13)
My recommendation, if you love Ray Funtz, you'll really love this movie because he stars in it and directed it. I'm going to recommend 2011's Cory Elanus. It is a film adaptation of the Shakespeare play, Cory Elanus. It's him and Gerald Butler. And I remember the first time I saw this movie, I found it mesmerizing. I think really well directed. It's, it's, the pacing's great.

And it's kind of like a lot of action too, like just in the nature of the play, the way the plot plays out. Like it's really easy to digest Shakespeare play. It's kind of like a Macbeth. I feel like of all Shakespeare's play, Macbeth is the one that's like the easiest to read, people like the most. But there's also 20 million adaptations of Macbeth, Throne of Blood being the best. But yeah, Cory Laneis, 2011.

Eli Price (03:10:25.434)
Mm-hmm.

Jean-Pierre (03:10:45.338)
He stars as the Coriolanus. He directed it. Joe Butler also gives a great performance. I think people think he's a bad actor, but I'm like, he can be really good when he's in a movie that requires him to be good. He just also happens to be really badass when he's fighting people, so he does a lot of cheesy action movies. But yeah, no, it's great. I have it rated as a four out of five. I haven't seen it in a hot minute, but I'm sure I would still like it.

Eli Price (03:10:57.37)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:11:07.469)
Yeah, for sure.

Jean-Pierre (03:11:15.37)
Yeah, that's my recommendation.

Eli Price (03:11:16.035)
Yeah, I'm gonna have to check that out, because it feels like a perfect fit for Ray Fiennes to do some Shakespeare. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:11:20.774)
Very, very different Ray Fine's performance. He's much more serious obviously. But it's uh, oh yeah, no, he's phenomenal. I mean, it's like, it's like he feels like he was taken straight out of like Shakespeare's era, the way that he just performs all the words so well. So, uh, and it does, it does have one of the more...

Eli Price (03:11:25.859)
Right, but I could see him in it, right? Yeah.

Eli Price (03:11:40.355)
Yeah, that's great.

Jean-Pierre (03:11:46.242)
like famous, I feel like the line cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war or whatever the line is. It's like kind of one of those little Shakespeare, you know, mannerisms people kind of know. I feel like if I remember correctly, it's from this movie, but there is one really famous monologue that, you know, people, it's like one of the monologues people perform for auditions and stuff that's from it. So there might be a couple moments that people recognize, even if they've never read the play directly, just if you know anything about Shakespeare, but it's a good time.

Eli Price (03:11:55.323)
Hmm.

Eli Price (03:12:13.351)
Cool. Yeah, sweet. Well, great recommendation. This has been really fun. Grand Budapest Hotel offered a lot of great discussion. We, when we took our break, we were just talking about how we probably could have talked for another couple hours on that movie, just so much in there. But yeah, just a reminder that next week, we're gonna take a short one week break hiatus from the West.

series that we're doing and do a best of the year so far for 2023 and pick back up with Isle of Dogs the week after that. So yeah, look forward to those episodes and yeah, I appreciate you for coming on again JP. Yeah, it's been a great discussion and that is it for today's episode.

Jean-Pierre (03:13:04.47)
problem anytime.

Eli Price (03:13:12.891)
I've been Eli Price for JP Budreaux, this has been the Establishing Shot. See you next time.