The Prestige (w/ Jacob Phillips)

Eli Price (00:40.065)
Hello and welcome to the Establishing Shot, a podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmographies. I am Eli Price and I'm here with Jacob Phillips, our guest for today, returning for his third episode with us. And we are going to be jumping into our, let's see, fourth, no, yeah, fifth, fifth Christopher Nolan episode.

Jacob Phillips (01:06.155)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:09.225)
Man, no six. Gosh, man, I'm so off on this. Yeah, six Christopher Nolan episode, because this is his fifth movie and we had the overview. So yeah, six episode, episode 21 of the podcast overall, broke the 20 mark last week. Yeah, I'm excited. Jacob was on with us for our very first two episodes.

Jacob Phillips (01:21.29)
Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:32.788)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:36.971)
Yes.

Eli Price (01:38.025)
where we, uh, we did our West Anderson overview and, uh, bottle rocket episode with Jacob. Oh, Jacob's the OG guest, I guess. Uh, yeah, yeah. So I'm excited to have Jacob on. I will say you're the third three Pete. I've already had two three Pete guests. Um, but you picked the prestige. You, you know, you could have picked the overview and been the first three Pete, but you picked the prestige. So.

Jacob Phillips (01:43.496)
Star rocket, yep.

Jacob Phillips (01:47.862)
That's right.

Jacob Phillips (02:06.954)
I had to pick, I had to pick, in my opinion, the best, well, my favorite Nolan film, I'll say that.

Eli Price (02:14.169)
Sure. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Um, yeah, Jacob, if you, you want to remind the listeners, maybe they're jumping in for the first time, kind of a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, and, uh, you have another podcast, not a film podcast, but you can share a little bit about it.

Jacob Phillips (02:31.294)
Not a film podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So me, my name is Jacob Phillips. I live up in Northwest Louisiana. I work for a campus or a camp ministry called Camp Fuego. Love movies, love sports. So love hopping on for this podcast. And then I co-host a podcast with a couple of my other buddies that we all play fantasy football with. And that's the Committed Football Guys podcast. So.

with the NFL in full swing, you definitely want to check that out. And we're on Apple, Spotify, you know, all those places.

Eli Price (03:09.685)
Yeah, yeah, you name it. They're there, I think. They're at least... I use Pocket Cast and y'all are on there, so I imagine y'all are probably most places. But yeah, I play fantasy with those guys. It's fun. We have a lot of interesting banter, I guess you could say. Yeah, I haven't listened to... So we were recording this before...

Jacob Phillips (03:13.322)
We're there. I think. Yeah. OK. OK, sweet. That's good to hear. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:29.586)
Oh yeah, a lot of trolling.

Eli Price (03:38.417)
I guess like the Thursday night game happened last night. So it's, it's just the start of week two of NFL. So I haven't listened to the week one review episode that came out today yet, but I plan to. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:42.571)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (03:51.346)
Yeah, it's a really fun episode. Hopefully, I mean, by the time this comes out, we should have another episode out, but yeah.

Eli Price (03:56.953)
There'll be a few out, yeah, into the season at least.

Jacob Phillips (04:01.022)
Yeah, but this week one review is definitely one to still go back and listen to because it's very entertaining. We mess around a lot and it pokes some fun at our, one of our co-hosts is Colby who's a big Broncos fan so we always got to poke at him for that.

Eli Price (04:08.501)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:16.94)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:20.273)
Yeah. I, uh, as a Chargers fan, I'm perfectly fine with, uh, poking out the, the Broncos fan. Yeah. Um, yeah. So you, you know, you've been on before, so you've shared a little bit about like your background with film and all that, um, but why don't you tell us, uh, about your introduction to, to Christopher Nolan, do you remember the first one you ever saw?

Jacob Phillips (04:27.588)
True, true.

Jacob Phillips (04:37.538)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (04:46.41)
Yeah, for sure. I think it was Batman Begins, which is like, it is a Nolan film, but it doesn't feel like a Nolan film at the same time. Like when you think about Nolan, like obviously you think about the Dark Knight, but you usually don't think about like IP when it comes to Christopher Nolan movies.

Eli Price (04:53.823)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (05:04.797)
Yeah, I kind of shared in the first episode that like that's, I'm pretty sure that's the first one I saw, but I wasn't like seeing it because it was a Nolan movie. I was seeing it because it was a Batman movie, you know? Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (05:13.538)
Exactly. Right. Yeah. But I remember I'm pretty sure that The Prestige was the second one I saw. Batman Begins came out when I was eight and then obviously The Prestige came out the following year and it was a movie that like my sister loved and so I remember like watching it and you know I was either I was probably 10 or 11 and it just like

blowing my mind, like I was like, what? And then like, as I grew up, I just kept watching it over and over and it slowly has become, I mean, on the right day, it's my favorite movie, that or La Land. And it's one of, I think, two movies, two or three movies where I've watched and you don't have to do this with DVD, but rewound it and watch the whole movie again, like.

Eli Price (05:45.659)
Mm.

Eli Price (06:10.953)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (06:11.03)
within like a few minutes, very few movies. But that was one, I think that was when I first watched it when I was like either late middle school or early high school and I was like, there's so much I forgot like I need to rewatch it right then and there. But yeah, I love this movie, it's incredible.

Eli Price (06:25.353)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (06:32.073)
Yeah, yeah for sure and you know we can we can jump right into to prestige talk. You know, it's Um, I can't remember if I've shared this. I think I did but for a long time So I saw this when I was in college, um, it came out. Uh, oh What year did this come out? Oh six. That's right um, and so I didn't see it when I was in high school I was I guess I was a

Jacob Phillips (06:50.861)
06

Eli Price (07:01.765)
sophomore in high school when it came out or so. But I didn't see it until I was in college. So after I saw this movie, I probably watched it like a couple of times within a week sort of thing. And it instantly became like the movie that I, my go-to like, what's your favorite movie answer. And that's changed since, but that-

Jacob Phillips (07:16.02)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (07:25.622)
Yeah.

Eli Price (07:30.753)
for a long time like in college, that was, it was the prestige. So, you know, this movie does hold like a special place in my heart, which is, you know, it's fun to talk about those sorts of movies. Yeah, and you know, I can analyze it objectively and see like why some people might not like it or whatever, but for me, it's just one of those like, man, I love this movie.

Jacob Phillips (07:34.751)
Oh yeah.

Jacob Phillips (07:46.262)
100% yeah.

Eli Price (08:00.809)
It's got so much like nostalgia and like, yeah, just thinking back on watching it for the first time, like having your mind blown. But yeah, horror. Oh yeah. Um, yeah, hopefully people know this is a spoiler podcast. Um, when they, when they see how long the episodes are, hopefully they don't think we're talking like spoiler free for that long. Um, but, uh,

Jacob Phillips (08:10.33)
Oh yeah. Yes, probably spoiler alerts ahead for anyone.

Jacob Phillips (08:21.366)
I would hope so too.

Eli Price (08:30.273)
That would be, that would be impressive if we could do that. If we could talk for like two hours on.

Jacob Phillips (08:33.362)
Yeah, I mean, and this movie came out, what, 17 years ago now at this point, something like that. So, I mean, if, if we're talking spoiler free for a movie that's 17 years old, that's yeah. Like you said, that's pretty impressive.

Eli Price (08:38.147)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (08:48.793)
But yeah, this, I mean, you can't really like, I would, I would wonder how much you could even like talk about this movie well without spoilers, just because so much of what it is, there's a wrapped up in the twists and the reveals and the magic of it all, if you will. But yeah, it, it's, it's a, you know, it's a really fun film and it is for sure one.

Jacob Phillips (08:55.282)
Yeah. Right.

Jacob Phillips (09:05.33)
Yeah, absolutely.

Eli Price (09:14.549)
that calls for like multiple watches. I think even in the special features on the DVD, Christian Bell in one of the little, you know, cutaways to the interview of him, he was like, he basically was like, yeah, this is a movie that you have to watch twice sort of thing. I'm like, oh yeah, Christian Bell gets it, you know. But yeah, so this movie.

Jacob Phillips (09:17.354)
Absolutely.

Jacob Phillips (09:34.858)
I fly.

Eli Price (09:44.317)
You know, at this point in Nolan's career, he's kind of, um,

He's kind of been like a can't miss, uh, kind of guy. So like he, he does, like he makes a pretty good movie that gets him on the scene with no budget and then gets like a four and a half million dollar budget, um, making a kind of indie movie, uh, basically in memento and then gets his first studio movie with Warner Brothers, with insomnia that was $44 million. A dollar budget.

Jacob Phillips (09:55.691)
Yeah, no doubt.

Jacob Phillips (10:04.258)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (10:20.401)
And then like jumped way up to 150 million for Batman Begins. And so like, and he's just like making hit after hit. Really like, so I mean, Batman Begins, like no one kind of talked about how like it wasn't as successful as they thought it was going to be. Probably partly because people were like, oh, we're doing, we're already doing more Batman movies. It wasn't.

Jacob Phillips (10:24.162)
Oh yeah.

Jacob Phillips (10:47.615)
Yeah.

Eli Price (10:49.265)
so common at that point to like be pumping out superhero movies.

Jacob Phillips (10:53.566)
Right. And I think it was probably coming off mostly off the heels of Spider-Man and its success from 2002, I think is when Spider-Man came out.

Eli Price (10:57.941)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and

Eli Price (11:02.377)
Yeah, yeah, you had Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Blade trilogy was pretty successful too. David Goyer that co-wrote with Nolan for Batman Begins wrote those. So yeah, you know, he's really, so I mean, it wasn't like as successful as they thought it was going to be, but it still like made a good profit. Like it still made a bunch of money.

Jacob Phillips (11:06.047)
Yep, X-Men.

Oh yeah, true. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (11:29.09)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (11:31.473)
And so it's, it's one of those things where like, he's kind of built up the trust of the studio and this like, so like, we'll get to it when we, when we talk about inception, uh, because I think that ended up being his, like, this is the movie for me kind of thing. This is like my movie. Um, and kind of what became, what kind of like alongside the dark night, I guess, kind of like defined Christopher Nolan.

Jacob Phillips (11:50.615)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (11:58.742)
Yeah, and it's.

Eli Price (11:58.977)
But this movie really feels like already, like the personal, like this is the movie for me. Like this is the Nolan movie already here with his, what, fifth movie. Yeah, what were you gonna say?

Jacob Phillips (12:05.909)
Oh for sure.

Jacob Phillips (12:16.166)
I was just saying an inception like is like a totally original, you know, film and concept for him. Whereas I think most everything else has had been like a either remake or adaptation or something like that. Yeah, following.

Eli Price (12:21.523)
Right.

Eli Price (12:28.541)
Yeah, following in following in Memento were original or completely original. Memento, he so he wrote, you know, he wrote that his brother wrote a short story called Memento Mori, but they wrote them at the same time based on the same idea. So it's not really an adaptation. It's just like a shared idea sort of thing. But yeah, Insomnia is a remake and he didn't write

Jacob Phillips (12:34.859)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (12:41.772)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (12:45.153)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (12:53.462)
Now that's a good point.

Jacob Phillips (12:57.163)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (12:58.069)
write the script for that even though he doesn't have writing credit but everyone's pretty sure he did some of the work on the script.

Jacob Phillips (13:04.514)
That was a Swedish remake, wasn't it? Yeah.

Eli Price (13:07.145)
Yeah, it was a remake of a Swedish or Norwegian movie with a Stalin's Garsgard. And I watched it, by the way. It's the same, basically, it's basically the same plot, but has a completely different feel. So it's worth a watch. It's, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (13:14.25)
One of the two.

Jacob Phillips (13:18.317)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (13:29.911)
Mm.

Eli Price (13:37.269)
Batman Begins obviously is comic book property. It is, I will say this, like he did like, alongside Goyer, he did really like, obviously you have to use like the lore of Batman, but he did write a Batman story unlike any other Batman story, like ever, you know, he did something with the origin that had never been done before. And that's like the whole first half of the movie basically.

Jacob Phillips (13:57.479)
Oh yeah.

Jacob Phillips (14:07.102)
Yeah, and he uses his way of like telling the story nonlinear and all that, which is pretty predominant feature in most of his films.

Eli Price (14:07.704)
Um.

Eli Price (14:11.956)
Riot.

Yeah. And this one really like you jump, I mean, you like dive right into it. Memento, he kind of warms you up to it. Um, especially like even with the opening sequence, you know, it kind of runs in reverse. So he's kind of like warming you up to the concept. Uh, but this one, like you just like jump right in and you're like on a train with Hugh Jackman and like you're jumping back to flashbacks. It's like.

Jacob Phillips (14:19.992)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (14:24.108)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (14:39.31)
Mm-hmm. He's reading. Yeah. What is he reading? Why is he reading it?

Eli Price (14:45.537)
Yeah. But yeah, you know, so he's coming off of all that when he gets to this movie. And it, it does feel like, um, although it is an adaptation, which we'll, we'll talk about, it does feel like a very personal, um, you know, every director it seems, every director like Nolan seems to have that movie that's like their personal movie. And I think until he made Inception, this one could have been that movie for him.

But yeah, so he gets, I think it's during promotion for Memento and pre-production for Insomnia, because he worked on those pretty quickly, back to back. He gets a script, well, he gets a book. Valerie Dean, who's a producer, gave him, kind of in the middle of these two movies, gave him this book, which was called...

Prestige. It's a 1995 book by Christopher Priest. And the quote that I had that she said to him was you'll find a film in this, which I think is pretty cool. Like, she's just like, she read the book. And she was like, I've got to get this book to Christopher Nolan, I guess, based on his movies that she'd seen, like, oh, he could he can make a film out of this. And so Nolan

Jacob Phillips (15:57.167)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (16:12.813)
no one obviously reads it or he wouldn't have wanted to make a movie out of it. Um, and, uh, he gets, uh, Aaron writer, who's, um, a producer at new market films who did, um, they're the ones that like got memento made and distributed and all that, um, he got him to buy the option for it, I guess, like the rights to the story. Um, which, um, it's funny. So.

The other person that was interested in it was Sam Mendez. Sam Mendez and Mendez. How do you say his last name? Do you know Mendez or Mendez? Yeah um So like I guess priest christopher priest the author, uh had the choice of who he wanted To let buy the rights for the I guess and he chose nolan over mendez um

Jacob Phillips (16:43.913)
Oh yeah.

Something like that. I think it is Mindy's.

Jacob Phillips (17:01.974)
Yeah.

Eli Price (17:07.433)
I think because he had seen Following, I think is what I read. And he even, I think, and yeah, he, I think it was on a special feature. He was just like in one of those making of kind of special features on the, on the Blu-ray. Christopher Priest kind of said like he had seen Following and kind of felt like Nolan adapting his book would be like a meeting of minds sort of thing.

Jacob Phillips (17:12.502)
Wow.

Jacob Phillips (17:36.904)
Yeah.

Eli Price (17:37.513)
I guess he felt like no one had a similar thought process that he had, which I guess is very technical and mechanical and coming up with very logically sound and interesting structures to your story, I guess, which I thought was cool. And he also said that his intrigue for his book, the reason he wrote the book was...

Jacob Phillips (17:48.408)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (17:56.15)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (18:07.493)
to kind of like explore the ideas of it. Quote, obsessive secrecy and obsessive curiosity in these performers that are the magicians and like obsession, obsessive secrecy and curiosity sounds like Christopher Nolan to me. So so yeah, I mean, I can see I haven't read this book. I think it might be an interesting book to read.

Jacob Phillips (18:13.358)
Mm.

Jacob Phillips (18:18.954)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (18:26.925)
Oh absolutely.

Jacob Phillips (18:33.312)
Yeah, me either.

Oh yeah.

Eli Price (18:36.745)
But, but yeah, I don't know, it would definitely be interesting. Nolan actually, there's a, I read somewhere, Nolan said, don't read the, don't read the book before you watch the film. It'll spoil everything. And he was even able to, I read he was able to like delay. So usually books will get like a new edition with like the movie poster tie in.

Jacob Phillips (18:54.291)
Yeah, no doubt.

Jacob Phillips (19:05.118)
Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (19:06.705)
And he was able to delay that until, I guess, like well after the movie had come out. Um, because he didn't want people reading the book before they saw the movie. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (19:12.118)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (19:16.334)
Oh yeah, I mean I don't blame him for this, because I mean the book, The Prestige, is definitely not as big as, you know, I don't even know if it would have been marketed as like, it's probably more so a book that's marketed like, this was made into a movie book instead of like, go see the film adaptation of this movie, if that makes sense. Like it wasn't like probably a best seller that got made and boosted, you know, it's definitely one of those that I'm sure gained more notoriety because of the movie.

Eli Price (19:35.691)
Yeah.

Eli Price (19:40.522)
Yeah.

Eli Price (19:44.861)
Yeah, maybe. So I really have no idea, to be honest. You know, I wasn't like, aware of that sort of thing back then when it came out. So yeah, I mean, that might be an interesting thing to kind of look into. But yeah, so Nolan meets up with his brother. I always feel weird because it's like Jonah is like what his family calls him. But like, if you it's Jonathan is his name. And that's what he gets like.

Jacob Phillips (19:47.949)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (19:53.089)
Right.

Eli Price (20:27.908)
He's in pre-production of Insomnia. He's promoting Memento and he wants to make this movie, this and like, he wants to write a screenplay for the Prestige, but he doesn't have time. But he wants to get it rolling. And so, I think that's the thing about the movie. It's a little bit of a

because he did actually plan on after insomnia doing this movie. But then he ended up getting Batman Begins. And so, yeah, right. But yeah, he asked Jonah to write the screenplay. And he's he kind of said, like, he really only trusted his brother to write it because he trusted that he had the right kind of imagination. But.

Jacob Phillips (20:48.469)
Oh really?

Jacob Phillips (20:54.05)
Well, I mean, pretty solid choice.

Eli Price (21:12.669)
Yeah. So I guess it ended up being a happy accident that he ended up having to wait to make this because it took, it took Jonathan Nolan like five years to finish the script, which Nolan Christopher Nolan, um, I guess I have to specify since they're both technically Nolan. Uh, so Chris Nolan, like, you know, they were kind of sending drafts back and forth, like Jonathan would send him a draft. He would like.

Jacob Phillips (21:17.045)
Oh yeah.

Jacob Phillips (21:31.937)
Yeah.

Eli Price (21:42.241)
change some things in it and send it back and back and forth sort of thing. But yeah, it took them five years to really like get it, get it solidified. So really like it was a good thing. He had another movie to make in the meantime, I guess, so that they could get this the way they wanted to. But yeah, you know, it's just one of those things where, you know, I guess like with a book like this, there's so many different directions.

Jacob Phillips (21:51.682)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (21:57.557)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (22:10.901)
that it's taking, and then trying to think through the challenge of conveying magic in a movie and how to... They probably had to restructure the story a bit to get it to work better for film. So I can imagine it's a lot of work to get that right, to get the adaptation right.

Jacob Phillips (22:18.571)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (22:34.035)
Yeah, absolutely.

Eli Price (22:37.065)
which that's a whole nother conversation that would be interesting. Um, is just talking about like what it takes to adapt a book into a film. Um, but, uh, yeah, I'll, I'll have to maybe try to get somebody that knows more about that in the future, um, on to talk about that.

Jacob Phillips (22:46.432)
Oh yeah.

Jacob Phillips (22:53.708)
Yeah.

I think a funny way of looking into it would be with Stephen King's adaptations because he's notorious for hating all of his adaptations except for the two that are not horror movies. I think Stand By Me is one of his and there's one more that I forgot that recently I heard that he was like, yeah, he actually does like this movie, but The Shining, he absolutely despises.

Eli Price (23:14.55)
Yeah.

Eli Price (23:24.714)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (23:25.934)
curses and everything like that. But yeah, that would be an interesting look, deep dive.

Eli Price (23:33.181)
Yeah, for sure. Uh, yeah, I would definitely have to get a guest on here that like could speak into that because I don't, I don't have any idea. Um, but yeah, uh, yeah. So no one, uh, this is a quote from Nolan. He said, we decided to use the narrative itself, the story to create a sense of magic, um, which really does like ring true. Like when you watch this movie, like the tricks.

Jacob Phillips (23:58.499)
Oh, absolutely.

Eli Price (24:02.221)
The magic tricks that you're watching on screen aren't really the interesting thing, because you know what they're doing. It's not really about that. You get the behind the scenes of how they're doing all of the tricks. The magic is in the way the story is told and unveiled, which I think is cool. I mean, in this movie, you have two twists. And you have kind of a

Jacob Phillips (24:07.831)
now.

Jacob Phillips (24:11.38)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (24:18.732)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (24:29.45)
Right. And those are the illusions.

Eli Price (24:31.953)
Yeah. And you kind of have, you have like two, I guess, like four different timelines kind of like that you're jumping between with flashbacks and like the diary readings and all that. And then, you know, you have like this three act structure kind of wrapped up into the three parts of the magic tricks, you know, with the pledge and the turn and the prestige.

Jacob Phillips (24:43.938)
right.

Eli Price (25:01.897)
Um, there's just like the magic trick is the story, like the way the story's told, which I think is a cool way to think about it. Like they were like, how can we convey this? We have to do the magic trick with the, like the plot structure or like, yeah, the way the story unfolds.

Jacob Phillips (25:19.638)
Yeah, because like, I mean, just in general, like you're saying, like the illusions themselves, like you see them on screen in a film and you're like, okay, well, I can probably figure out how they did this. But you know, when you get to the actual story of it, that's what is interesting.

Eli Price (25:26.187)
Yeah.

Eli Price (25:30.269)
Yeah.

Eli Price (25:35.549)
Yeah, yeah, that's where the magic lies. Yeah, as far as like influence on this, obviously, like it's an adaptation. So the book is the major influence. A few others that I noted, though, are so he mentions Nolan mentions Chariots of Fire, which have you seen Chariots of Fire? Yeah, I've actually never seen it.

Jacob Phillips (26:01.302)
It's been a long time. I know my mom really liked it. And we watched it when I was like pretty young, but, um, I mean, the thing that's lasted from it is, is the song, you know.

Eli Price (26:08.095)
Yeah.

Eli Price (26:12.989)
Yeah, sure. Yeah. So, um, I've never seen it, but it is like, I do know the story it's based on. Um, and he, he kind of mentioned the, like the fierce Olympians that are like opposing each other from different walks of life sort of thing, being like, I guess, like an influence on the way he approached, like these two magicians, uh, which they are, they are like, you know,

Jacob Phillips (26:20.289)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (26:28.29)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (26:38.665)
uh, Jackman's Angier is from like a wealthier status. Um, and you know, Bell's, um, Borden is kind of more of a common man, um, kind of guy. Um, so I, and then, you know, obviously they're rivals. So I guess I'll totally get how that's an influence. Um,

Jacob Phillips (26:43.107)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (26:58.462)
Yeah. And I love the dynamic too. I know we'll probably talk about this more too, but the dynamic of like, Jackman at first sees him as a guy who'll do anything to get ahead. He'll risk things and do whatever, but he ends up, Jackman himself ends up becoming that character as well. So, you know, but anyway.

Eli Price (27:11.446)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (27:23.549)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, all that's very, we'll definitely get into all that stuff. He, he mentions. So obviously David Bowie is in this movie, which we'll talk a little bit more about, but he saw Bowie in Nicholas Rogues, the man who fell to earth, where I'm pretty sure Bowie plays like some sort of alien or something, which makes total sense.

Jacob Phillips (27:51.47)
tracks. Yeah.

Eli Price (27:53.873)
So that was his inspiration to get Bowie in this movie, the way he played that. So you could say that was a bit of an influence on how he saw the way that he wanted to portray Nikola Tesla. He mentioned The Duelists, which is Ridley Scott's movie, where you have the two sparring officers,

Eli Price (28:23.021)
which I've never seen. And then of course he mentions his go-to influence for pretty much every movie, which is Blade Runner. I'm pretty sure, like, I don't know if he would say it's his favorite movie, but like every time I'm doing research for each new Nolan movie as I'm going through these, like, they all like mention Blade Runner. So I'm pretty sure it's his favorite movie.

Jacob Phillips (28:24.342)
I haven't seen it either.

Jacob Phillips (28:45.404)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (28:52.081)
Which I get. It's not my favorite movie and not anywhere close, but I do get why it might be someone's. I mean, obviously there's like a lot of Renaissance art in this movie and a lot of the things that are portrayed are based off of Renaissance art. And then like, I guess the thing that's...

Jacob Phillips (28:57.182)
No.

Eli Price (29:21.321)
I think the thing that's really the most, I guess, visible is just the way they kind of take the influence of the look of the Victorian age, that era and kind of like meld it with this like, almost like steampunk in certain ways kind of visuals.

Jacob Phillips (29:45.865)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (29:49.577)
It's really interesting. Um, like, you know, um, Nolan said when he was making this, that he like, never really saw this as a period piece, even though it is like the setting is of a period piece. Um, but yeah, he, like, he never saw it as that. Um, and he really like, he felt like the Victorian era was sort of like.

Jacob Phillips (30:02.85)
Definitely. Yeah.

Eli Price (30:16.945)
It's it's he feels like it's sort of misremembered. And so like he wanted to kind of like take what was actually going on during that era, which a lot of people feel like the, when you think of the Victorian era, you think of it like repression and like, uh, I don't know that sort of thing, but he was, he's kind of talks about how like, it's full of like intellectual curiosity and adventure, um, and like intrigue and like.

Jacob Phillips (30:32.564)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (30:46.457)
even like deceit and, uh, and it's really like an era of science, like obviously like Tesla and Edison are in this era. Um, P he talks about how like people are like traveling the world for the first time, just for the sake of traveling the world. Um, yeah. Um, yeah, for sure. Um, which is an influence on just like, what was what

Jacob Phillips (31:04.394)
Yeah, and we see some of this and some of that in the movie.

Eli Price (31:15.473)
Nolan in his research saw that was going on this and then like another thing he mentioned from his Uh, you know, I guess I would say it's an influence because he says he found it in his research was just the idea of um Or not really the idea but just the fact that a lot of early filmmakers were actually like magicians They that was their background magicians or illusionist. Um

Jacob Phillips (31:39.374)
Interesting.

Eli Price (31:43.657)
George Melliz is a main one that I saw mentioned. He was kind of, he's seen as like the inventor of special effects. So his background was as an illusionist or magician, whatever you want to call it, and became like a filmmaker. And yeah, he's kind of like, I guess, in film history, seen as like,

Jacob Phillips (31:59.97)
Interesting.

Eli Price (32:11.893)
the inventor or maybe you could say like the grandfather of special effects, which is pretty cool to, to have that, that title. Um, but yeah, I mean, he, it is like cinema, he, it cinema kind of became like the new magic, like, so, you know, magicians and illusionists and that those, those sort of acts were like what people went for. What?

Jacob Phillips (32:16.714)
Yeah. Oh yeah.

Jacob Phillips (32:31.837)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (32:40.277)
people went to see for entertainment, but when like films started like to get big and people started making films, it was, that's what it kind of switched to. And there was even a lot of early, like I think, Mali's, I was reading like he was doing these tricks, these like illusion tricks, but it was on film. But at that time, like now we watch, if we were to watch an illusion,

a video on YouTube you're like okay like doesn't yeah it doesn't mean anything because there's so much you can do with video editing like we all everyone has like a working understanding of how like video works like you it's not just like you're not just seeing something right in front of your face there's editing and stuff that in special effects that you can employ but then

Jacob Phillips (33:12.156)
Yeah.

Whatever.

Jacob Phillips (33:27.415)
Right.

Eli Price (33:40.813)
working concept of what that was. And so they're watching like, I think I've read, like he put a woman under, you know, a blanket, or a drape or whatever, and then like, took it off and she was gone. And then like put it back and took it off and she was like, it was like a skeleton. And then like, so forth. And then she was back.

Jacob Phillips (33:41.996)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (34:03.528)
Yeah.

Eli Price (34:07.549)
And like now you're like, okay, yeah, he just edited the film to make that. But people back then were like, oh, this is magic. This is like real magic. Um, and like it was, it was, it was like they were watching real magic before their eyes, um, which, which is kind of a phrase that's used in the movie, right? Um, you know, it's this, what he's doing isn't magic. It's real. Um, and so like that.

Jacob Phillips (34:10.56)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (34:15.555)
Oh, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (34:27.615)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (34:37.281)
Idea of cinema being the new magic I think was a big influence on No, like some of the thematic and like ideas some like the thematic things and ideas that no one was Influenced by an interested in putting in this which I think like really come through when you like start to Dissect the movie and what it's doing Yeah the other like

The other thing that he found in his research was, you know, obviously like commercials and like internet ads weren't a thing back then, but visual ads were very much, I mean, like it was basically like streets filled with spam emails. Like the visual ads were just everywhere, like posted on walls and like light posts and

Jacob Phillips (35:16.204)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (35:22.975)
Yeah.

Eli Price (35:34.753)
just everywhere there were ads of shows that were upcoming or I guess businesses or yeah, which is funny to think about like, we like to think we've progressed or like, or we either think like, oh, we've progressed as a society or our society has gone downhill, like, whatever extreme you fall into, but really like, it's the same.

Jacob Phillips (35:40.831)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (35:58.794)
Yeah, just a little bit of technological advances.

Eli Price (36:02.937)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, man. But yeah. Yeah, so production of this, obviously, he's got his, his BFF Warner Brothers on board for with them for this. He, the budget for this was actually 40 million, which is a little less than insomnia was like 44, I'm pretty sure. And so,

Jacob Phillips (36:19.182)
Let's go.

Eli Price (36:32.169)
I would imagine going from a $150 million budget to a 44 back down to a 44 is a pretty big like you have to like adjust readjust back to what you're used to. Disney actually also was part of the production of this and it Disney's the ones that ended up distributing in the US but they were also I'm pretty sure you don't always have like

Jacob Phillips (36:45.202)
100%

Eli Price (37:01.385)
necessarily the distributor also producing, but I think I'm pretty sure I read Disney was also like Co-producing this with Warner Brothers Yeah, so obviously like going down to the budget so His wife, you know is also a producer been with him from the very beginning and She she's always had like a mind for stretching a budget

Jacob Phillips (37:21.579)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (37:30.929)
And so, uh, she had just had their third child, um, Oliver, I think, uh, is, is his name. Um, and he's actually in the movie. He's, uh, the baby when, uh, Borden's, when Borden's daughter is a baby, um, that's their third son who had, who had been born not long before. Um, which is a cool little, uh, thing. Get your baby in the movie. Um, uh, but yeah, so no one eventually like.

Jacob Phillips (37:44.583)
Okay. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (37:50.934)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (37:56.425)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (38:01.665)
She was wanting to kind of like, you know, obviously take a step back. She just had a baby But no one was like hey, I need you like I really need your help here So she did come on board and like help them like stretch the budget and all that kind of stuff Yeah And another thing she did which I thought was interesting and we can talk about this a little later I had read that she kind of pushed him to give the female characters more credibility

Jacob Phillips (38:16.43)
Nice.

Eli Price (38:30.965)
And I think he did do some adjustments in the script based on her notes, which is interesting. I would be interested to read what exactly that he did, what he changed.

Jacob Phillips (38:43.442)
Yeah, especially because that's like, like female characters are pretty much his biggest criticism in all of his movies, basically.

Eli Price (38:49.778)
Yeah, yeah.

For sure, yeah. Yeah, I read that she did that, but it didn't have any information on what he changed. So that's just kind of up for speculation. But yeah, they shot this for, I think it was a three month shoot starting at the beginning of 2006. And so did this release in 2006?

Jacob Phillips (39:00.938)
Yeah, what specifically? Sure.

Jacob Phillips (39:21.482)
I'm pretty sure, yeah.

Eli Price (39:22.813)
Yeah, man, so they really got this out there quick, because they shot it at the beginning of 2006. I'm going to see what the release date was, October 20. So that's a pretty quick turnover these days.

Jacob Phillips (39:34.967)
Wow.

Jacob Phillips (39:38.482)
Especially for like how I feel like how edited this movie is too and spliced

Eli Price (39:46.295)
Yeah, there's a ton of editing work for this, for sure. But yeah, that's pretty impressive. That was like on-air research happening before your eyes or ears if you're watching or listening to this. Yeah, that's impressive. Maybe it's not that impressive. Maybe it's just like,

Jacob Phillips (39:49.25)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (40:01.454)
There you go.

Eli Price (40:11.077)
impressive relative to how long it takes for movies to go through their whole cycle these days. It feels like movies take forever to get like released these days. Even without like the strikes like which maybe it has a little bit to do with like what COVID did to the industry but yeah it doesn't feel like movies feels like they rarely are like

Jacob Phillips (40:16.718)
for sure.

Jacob Phillips (40:20.899)
Oh, yeah, I mean, it's at least.

Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (40:32.066)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (40:39.689)
shot and released in the same year these days.

Jacob Phillips (40:42.334)
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, thinking about Nolan's last film, Oppenheimer, like I remember seeing the trailer a year before the movie came out. You know, I mean, like that was the first trailer came out a year. And so like and under that time span, he had already filmed and, you know, came out with the prestige, you know, in that same time frame. So that is that is it is impressive.

Eli Price (40:51.189)
Yeah.

Eli Price (41:00.853)
Yeah.

Eli Price (41:05.865)
Yeah, for sure. BSO, one of the things I thought was funny was, so Batman Begins is obviously like set in an American city, but they shot it mostly in London. And this movie is set in Victoria in London, but they shot it mostly in LA. Which none of it was shot in London.

Jacob Phillips (41:17.002)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (41:25.383)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (41:31.01)
which is really interesting too. Like.

Eli Price (41:32.693)
Yeah.

Eli Price (41:40.481)
Are you saying something? Oh, OK. Sorry, I thought you were going somewhere. Yeah, so I say mostly shot in LA because some of it was shot. There's some other parts of California that it was shot in. And then the Tesla layer scenes were shot in Colorado. They weren't shot in Colorado Springs. I think I read that it was like Redstone.

Jacob Phillips (41:41.766)
Oh no, that was, I was just saying it was interesting. Yeah.

No, no, no.

Jacob Phillips (42:02.133)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (42:10.285)
Colorado. But yeah, they were actually shot in Colorado, which is cool. And I guess like, you know, that's part of like, just Nolan, Nolan loves to shoot like on location. And so like, I guess he was like, Well, I can't really get the Colorado feel anywhere in California. So I guess I'll just go to Colorado.

Jacob Phillips (42:10.53)
Okay.

Jacob Phillips (42:23.244)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (42:33.046)
Yeah, and maybe because of, you know, like we were talking about the budget, that might be why he filmed mostly in LA on, uh, in these, you know, sort of back lot type things. I'm sure that's way cheaper than sending a whole crew out in London building sets or, you know, um, you know, trying to adjust sets, uh, in London itself. So

Eli Price (42:39.712)
Yeah.

Eli Price (42:43.094)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (42:55.589)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he, yeah, they did like turn. So all a lot of like the street shots, there's, you know, several sequences where those there's like, uh, you know, the London streets with, you know, carriages going by and, um, you know, all that sort of stuff. Uh, those were like, they basically like transformed a universal back lot into that, like London Victorian streets. Um,

Jacob Phillips (43:09.981)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (43:25.141)
And it looks great, I think. And then they found, so it's kind of like, works really well for them to have shot this mostly in LA because LA is one of the few places, apparently, this is what I heard, that has like, so they have a Broadway district and there was like four run down theaters in their Broadway district that weren't.

Jacob Phillips (43:26.574)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (43:48.183)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (43:54.537)
I guess just weren't really being used that they used. They used four of them for this film, for the stage sequences. Um, and then, yeah, I want to say like the, the behind the scene, like the under the stage and behind the scenes kind of sections were just like part of the universal backlog. Like there was, there was like those were actually filmed in like.

Jacob Phillips (44:14.765)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (44:24.457)
behind the scenes areas. Yeah, so even like his behind the scenes are sort of like on location behind the scenes. Yeah, but yeah, so Nathan Crowley who has, I want to say has been his production designer since Memento. Obviously, like, he didn't have one for following. He was basically all the things for that movie.

Jacob Phillips (44:26.079)
Oh yeah, that's cool.

Jacob Phillips (44:32.285)
Yeah, no doubt.

Jacob Phillips (44:51.608)
Yeah.

Eli Price (44:53.109)
But I'm pretty sure since Memento, Nathan Crowley has been his production designer. And yeah, so the story with Batman Begins was like Crowley was meeting with him and Goyer as they were writing the movie to work on the design of the film. And it seems like it's the same sort of thing going on with this movie.

Jacob Phillips (45:14.037)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (45:22.505)
meeting with him and Jonathan in their garage to kind of like work out the details of the design and the sets of this movie. And man, like, I feel like this movie may be, it might be his like best designed movie of all of his. I mean, if you just even think of like

Jacob Phillips (45:44.886)
Yeah, I mean, there's an argument for sure.

Eli Price (45:51.489)
the rooms, like the little rooms that they are in, like all of the details and textures and everything just feel so perfect, I guess.

Jacob Phillips (46:04.926)
Right, and especially those behind the scenes areas that we're talking about, there's so much stuff just because that's what it would have been like with behind the scenes stuff. But yeah, so I mean, it's very, there's very minute details everywhere and nothing feels out of place throughout this movie, which is just a touch to Crowley and everything he was doing here.

Eli Price (46:09.441)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (46:13.377)
Yeah.

Eli Price (46:20.813)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (46:30.813)
Yeah, and mate, like, so, I am jumping ahead a little bit in my notes, but just thinking about like all the iconic, like, just like memorable pictures, like that you can like conjure up in your mind of this, like, even just thinking of like the birds. So there's all those shots of like all the cages of birds, like you kind of like you get in that kind of opening section where.

Jacob Phillips (46:45.24)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (46:59.969)
Michael Caine's cutters like showing the little girl the trick. Um, and you get those shots of like the line, like the lines of cages with the birds in them like that. I can picture that in my mind. And I think part of that is just because of how well designed and laid out it is. Um, but yeah, that like, all right, thinking about like the light bulb filled, like what an incredible, like.

What an incredible like just picture. Um, like just take a still from that scene and it's just like really cool and incredible to look at. Um.

Jacob Phillips (47:31.521)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (47:37.338)
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think that's definitely one of those like, you know, memorable, just like, like you said, pictures of from movie that you can think of, you know, that's definitely top four.

Eli Price (47:43.521)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (47:47.249)
Yeah. Oh yeah. The hats even, like the very opening shot of the hats, like that's memorable. Which by the way, like what, I still can't get over the fact, like I guess if you're gonna nitpick something like, like Tesla, like dude just look out your window bro. Like they're right there. They're not even that far.

Jacob Phillips (47:51.831)
Buh-huh.

Jacob Phillips (47:55.721)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (48:09.784)
Yeah, like how far away were these hats? Yeah.

Eli Price (48:12.713)
It seems like he walked like, I don't know, 30 feet and he was like, Hey guys, have you seen all these hats over here? Hello. It was working all along. It's like, yeah. And Ali's like always walking around the property. Like surely Ali would have seen these hats.

Jacob Phillips (48:18.795)
He's like, hmm, I wonder what's...

Jacob Phillips (48:26.71)
Yeah. Also another just random nitpick that's like only if you've seen this movie as many times as I've seen it. Will you notice but like when he's walking around with the shotgun when he first meets him, he's like literally like just flailing it around like he would be of no use if there is an actual like intruder. He's just he's literally just like flopping the shotgun around like willy nilly. It's so funny.

Eli Price (48:51.757)
Yeah, I guess maybe his take was like, this character has no idea how to hold a gun. Oh man. Which might be a fair assessment of the Ali character. But yeah, I just like, I think this is designed incredibly well. One of the things that Crowley had said, like in a-

Jacob Phillips (48:57.65)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (49:06.257)
Sure.

Eli Price (49:18.397)
in a behind the scenes he said that he wanted it to be a victorian version of Tokyo which is interesting. I don't know that I got that necessarily.

Jacob Phillips (49:30.526)
Yeah, it's more of like when you think about it, like yeah, you can kind of put that in, but yeah, like, I mean, it doesn't feel like, you know, I guess it could kind of feel like a New York style if you really thought about it, but yeah, I don't think of any other city, if that makes sense, like when I watched this movie.

Eli Price (49:35.167)
Yeah.

Eli Price (49:51.281)
Yeah, I mean, yes, I will say this about it. They wanted like Nolan and Crowley to, I think, both together kind of wanted to have a modern feel. Like they didn't want to like make a period piece and it like feel like a period piece.

Jacob Phillips (50:11.998)
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Eli Price (50:15.573)
they wanted it to kind of feel like a modernized version of a period piece. And I think that does come through in the way it's designed, which is probably like a pretty fine line to walk. But I feel like it does pretty well with that. And then like, yeah, I guess other things that kind of go along with

with the lower budget, he went back to using a lot of natural lighting, kind of going back to his roots. You know, if you watch following a memento, there's a lot of shots where like, light coming through a window is like what's lighting the scene. And there really is like a lot of that in this movie too. And then obviously, like, when you're outdoors, like, just like using the natural lighting to do the work.

Jacob Phillips (50:49.989)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (51:13.681)
I'm sure that like cut a lot from budget just like using that as much natural lighting as possible which I kind of noted that it actually like sort of is a good thing for the look of the movie because it kind of emphasizes the era that it's in. You know, electricity isn't yet widespread. And so like if you have a lot of electric light lighting, it might it might actually

Jacob Phillips (51:29.537)
Yeah.

Right.

Jacob Phillips (51:40.735)
Right.

Eli Price (51:43.617)
disingenuous or something like that. So the natural lighting actually even works alongside the design of the film, I guess. But yeah, I kind of noted Lee Smith is back from Batman Begins as the editor. And I think between those two films, he does, between Batman Begins and this film, really incredible job.

Jacob Phillips (51:46.603)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (52:03.985)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (52:13.805)
Um, you know, he, there is a lot of, um, I think because Nolan started off his filmmaking, like really being involved with the editing and learning how to do it himself, you can definitely see the Nolan influence in the way it's edited. Um, but it's, it feels like Lee Smith works with him very well. Um, as, as far as that goes and like the, you know, I think

Jacob Phillips (52:29.11)
Yeah.

Eli Price (52:41.173)
probably one of the notable ways Christopher Nolan edits his films is he has a lot of like quick cutaways to either objects or even flashbacks. It's almost as if a character is remembering a moment and it'll cut to that just really quickly and back. And the way it... I feel like that could so easily be terribly edited and jarring. But they...

Jacob Phillips (52:47.558)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (53:01.131)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (53:07.402)
Absolutely.

Eli Price (53:11.597)
Nolan and Smith seemed to work well in making it not like jarring and badly edited. So, and then yeah, do David Julian. This is his fourth collaboration as the composer. Um, and actually kind of was reading like a lot of critics felt like this was like the main, like one of the main weak points of the movie was the score.

Jacob Phillips (53:34.89)
It's definitely not something that you like remember. I don't think it's definitely not a memorable score. Um, for sure.

Eli Price (53:38.28)
Right.

Yeah. I mean, and I think part of that might've just been because the Zimmer, man, I'm blanking on the guy that did the score with Zimmer. There was a guy that, it was like a kind of dual composed score. I'm just blanking on the other guy's name. But that became such an

Jacob Phillips (54:00.494)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (54:09.525)
perhaps maybe people were let down by this one. To be fair, it's not a very like memorable score and I'm not so sure that it adds a whole lot to the movie. It's just kind of there. I don't find it bad, but I don't find it like, like fantastic either, I guess.

Jacob Phillips (54:21.634)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (54:25.634)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (54:29.01)
Right. Yeah, there's, and if you think about, as I'm thinking about, like when you think of other iconic Nolan scores, like there's a lot of silent parts, like silent as far as like no dialogue, where the score gets to like really cook, you know? And so, you know, of course, like Inception and Interstellar, and I would say Oppenheimer now as well. But like there's really not like a lot of

Eli Price (54:37.505)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (54:59.118)
parts of the movie for the score itself to really show out, if that makes sense. Like when I think about it, and like some of the more impactful moments of the movie are like, there's no sound at all, you know? Or the score is really just very subtle, so.

Eli Price (55:04.109)
Mm.

Eli Price (55:13.591)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (55:18.985)
Yeah. And so like, I would, I would probably like take issue with saying like that this was a weak point of the movie or bad. Um, but at the same time I'm like, it's also not like a strong point of the movie. It's just kind of there and it, I guess it feels kind of utilitarian. It does its job and it's fine. You know? Um, but yeah, one of, I think one of the

Jacob Phillips (55:29.282)
Yeah, right.

Jacob Phillips (55:35.414)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (55:41.393)
Yeah.

Eli Price (55:49.205)
main things that we haven't touched on as far as like the production goes that really like gives this movie its feel and atmosphere is the fact that it was shot mostly with handheld cameras which again goes back is another way that he's kind of going back to his roots like following is like shot fully with handheld except for like there was the one shot with the

Jacob Phillips (56:03.342)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (56:18.453)
where he's being interrogated, that shot on a dolly, but everything else is handheld. And so he's really going back, he really is going back to his roots with this movie, stretching the budget out, getting as much as he can. And like he did, I think I had written down a quote from him where he said it ended up being a way bigger movie than he expected it to turn out to be. And I think a lot of that is from all of these ways that he kind of like...

Jacob Phillips (56:42.423)
Yeah.

Eli Price (56:47.389)
stretches the budget and gets the most out of it. Which in turn, I think is the reason he gets movies like the Batman movies and like the kind of inception Blake check, you know, from the studio, because he makes these movies that really do get the most out of his budget. Um, and like, which is just like good business, I guess, in that world.

Jacob Phillips (56:57.852)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (57:13.142)
Absolutely.

Eli Price (57:14.281)
Like if a studio feels like you're wasting their money, then they're gonna be less likely to give you a bigger budget. If anything, they're gonna give you a smaller budget or reject you. And Nolan is one of those directors that, if nothing else, even if you don't like his movie, it's hard to argue that he doesn't get the absolute most out of this budget. So, yeah. And...

Jacob Phillips (57:21.879)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (57:39.19)
Absolutely.

Eli Price (57:43.557)
You know, the handheld cameras is one way to do that, I guess. Like you're not having to like build a lot of tracking and like, um, all that sort of stuff. Um, it's kind of like that gorilla way of shooting. Um, and it goes back to his like idea of really like being as a director, like really having a mindset of three-dimensional space, um, and not like.

Jacob Phillips (57:57.387)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (58:09.491)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (58:11.825)
not watching monitors while you're on set, like really being in the space. And, um, yeah, you know, uh, I think it was Christian bell was, uh, in a special feature was talking about how this movie is, you know, shot with handhelds. And he's, he's kind of talks about how it's a messy way of shooting, but it's his favorite way of shooting because as an actor, like you really have to be, um, in

Like you have to really be in it because you never are sure if like you're on camera or not. Um, and so like it's a very, like the whole space, um, that you're in is like active for the scene. Um, there's not like people on this side of the camera that are like acting and on, on camera and people on this side are kind of like standing there, crossing their arms, like watching. It's like the whole space is active. Um,

Jacob Phillips (58:45.578)
Right. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (58:53.943)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (59:02.092)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (59:06.359)
Yeah.

Eli Price (59:11.109)
which I think comes through in the movie, like these feel like real spaces, like even these like tight little rooms that they're in for certain scenes, like they feel like real spaces because the camera is moving around these spaces.

Jacob Phillips (59:14.486)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (59:24.043)
Yeah, and they're...

Jacob Phillips (59:28.054)
Yeah, yeah, and it doesn't feel static ever in this movie. There's really not a part of this movie that I feel like, that I can think of at least, where, and part of this is due to the editing and the quickness of all of it, but it's just, everything flows so well and it's not static. And like you said, all of the handheld, and it doesn't nauseate you with.

Eli Price (59:32.077)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (59:54.462)
you know, the motions and things like that, you know, cause I hate like shaky cam footage. That's one of my things I hate the most, but the handheld is still smooth and makes everything just flow really, really well.

Eli Price (59:55.011)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:00:04.863)
Oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and I think probably like maybe some people when they hear handheld do think of like shaky cam but like there's There's like plenty of hand-held camera work. That's not like shaky following does following does have some of that and it's kind It is kind of like disorienting And not my favorite. Um But uh, I guess like if it's used with purpose, i'm okay with it. But if it's just like

Jacob Phillips (01:00:16.494)
Sure.

Jacob Phillips (01:00:23.825)
Oh yeah, absolutely.

Eli Price (01:00:37.729)
there to be there and like, oh, no, thank you. Um, but yeah, I really, I really do feel like the camera work really gives this movie that the right atmosphere. Um, but yeah, so really like, so Disney, like I said, distributed this in the U S um, and when it was, so I guess when it was in post production, there was like kind of talk around the movie.

Jacob Phillips (01:00:39.39)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:00:52.226)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:01:07.913)
I guess within the distributing and studio space and maybe even like kind of like seeping out into like the critic world, like with people thinking that this was gonna be Nolan's first flop. The thoughts were like the subject matter is kind of strange, like are people gonna be into this? It's dark, there's not a real protagonist like to get behind and to follow.

Jacob Phillips (01:01:20.814)
Hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:01:27.351)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:01:33.867)
Right.

Eli Price (01:01:35.729)
And so the thought behind this movie was like, man, this really is probably going to be Nolan's first flop. Um, and, uh, Nolan again, uh, defies expectations, but in prestige, uh, debuted at number one at the box office. Um, and you know, it's probably because people had caught up with Batman begins and we're like, man, this is incredible. And, um,

Jacob Phillips (01:01:47.339)
comes through.

Jacob Phillips (01:01:59.138)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:02:02.589)
maybe had even gone back and seen like Memento and Insomnia, which had like pretty good reception in their own rights. But like, once you make a Batman film, people are like, oh, let me see what else this guy's done. Yeah, and so, you know, at this point, I guess like he's starting to be a guy that is on, not just like film people's radar, but like probably the more the general public even.

Jacob Phillips (01:02:12.374)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:02:17.526)
Right, the big blockbuster.

Eli Price (01:02:32.562)
And so yeah, it opened as number one in the box office and ended up making a hundred and nine million worldwide so not quite but almost Quadrupling or not quadrupling tripling its budget

Jacob Phillips (01:02:49.714)
And like you said, like the like, because I love like when I tell people if they've never heard this movie, like the prestige and like, oh, what's that about? And you tell them and they're like, really? Like that? Like, and it is true, like the subject matter and like the plot of the movie just you kind of look at and you're like, oh, yeah, on its face, it doesn't sound like it sounds interesting, I guess. But it doesn't sound like a movie that would be successful at the box office. And also, it's it's.

Eli Price (01:02:59.817)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:03:10.637)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:03:14.951)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:03:16.406)
I mean, released in a really weird time for movie, like, you know, October, you don't think about a lot of October release date movies, you know? And so for the fact that it did as well as it did it, I think it's pretty impressive.

Eli Price (01:03:18.966)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:03:23.797)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:03:31.049)
Yeah. Yeah, I guess like, um, so today, like, well, I guess like in modern day, like really like award season movies really start releasing more November. Um, this was late October and there are some, some movies that are like Oscar buzz, um, awards kind of reaching movies that do release late October. Um, I mean, we have killers of the flower moon.

Jacob Phillips (01:03:43.308)
Right.

Eli Price (01:04:00.569)
late October coming this year. But yeah, at this point in time, yeah, it was definitely like kind of a more of a dead period. Which, you know, the idea of when a movie needs to come out to win an Oscar is like totally morphing, which I love. You think about like the run, everything everywhere all at once went on.

Jacob Phillips (01:04:02.476)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (01:04:22.823)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:04:27.613)
last year and it released in the spring. You know, I remember I saw it in theaters and like, I don't remember March or April, whenever it came out. And just like kept the momentum going like all the way through award season, which is impressive. So I think

Jacob Phillips (01:04:28.49)
Right. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:04:38.025)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:04:45.462)
Yeah, and I mean I hate that the idea of that a movie, and not that like everything ever were all at once didn't deserve the Oscar, like when I say this, because there's a lot of movies that like, they just get momentum right in the award season stuff, and I hate that. Like I want the best picture to be a movie that is going to have some staying power, you know? Exactly, and that's what everything ever all at once.

Eli Price (01:05:06.845)
Yeah, no matter when it came out in the year.

Jacob Phillips (01:05:12.674)
is that, hey, this is a movie with staying power. Like, when's the last green book conversation you've had? You know what I mean? Like, there's just a lot of movies like that get that steam right at the end. And I think it's a lot of times the wrong choice, not the most impactful movie or the best movie from whatever year it was.

Eli Price (01:05:13.325)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:05:23.54)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:05:33.673)
Right. Yeah. So like one movie, just like a, since we're following this bunny trail, one movie that I really hope has moment keeps momentum going, like through orange season, um, is past lives. Um, I was able to catch that in theaters and man is it, it's just an incredible movie. Um, and I'm just like, I'm really like hoping, cause when it came out, it has like, uh, it was like people were like, oh yeah, this is going to be

Jacob Phillips (01:05:48.676)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:06:03.653)
This is going to get some nominations. But it came out again like it came out in the spring and it's like it's kind of a half English half Korean like Korean language movie And it's like man is this movie really gonna hold momentum. It's just one of those things It's like I hope it does because it's an incredible movie, but it's hard to say, you know

Jacob Phillips (01:06:17.686)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (01:06:29.942)
Right. Yeah, that one's been on my list. And it's also just interesting, too, like we have two really successful filmmakers that came out with very big commercial success movies in Oppenheimer and Barbie. And then you have Scorsese's movie coming out and, you know, Michael Mann's movie, Ferrari, I'm sure will be, you know, considered just because that's, you know, an Oscar bait type of movie along with Ridley Scott's Napoleon. Like, there's just a bunch of different.

Eli Price (01:06:40.998)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (01:06:49.665)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:06:59.286)
types of movies coming out that, but I really wanna see past lives and I've heard just great stuff about it.

Eli Price (01:07:07.226)
Yeah, it's hard for a movie like Past Lives because it is a very quaint movie. It's not exciting and it's not like, I don't mean that in a bad way, but it's not like the movie that's going to get people excited about getting to the theater to see this big movie about like...

Jacob Phillips (01:07:13.31)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:07:21.238)
Yeah!

Jacob Phillips (01:07:31.566)
Sure.

Eli Price (01:07:33.809)
Napoleon or, you know, or whatever, or Ferrari, you know. Um, but yeah, you know.

Jacob Phillips (01:07:39.016)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:07:45.465)
guess like yeah I guess we can end that bunny trail but yeah this made nearly tripled you know its budget which again is just no one like knocking it out of the park with a movie that like you wouldn't think would be doing that well but yeah let's talk a little bit about the cast

Jacob Phillips (01:07:49.077)
Yeah, sure.

Jacob Phillips (01:08:01.708)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (01:08:07.566)
for sure.

Jacob Phillips (01:08:13.934)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:08:14.749)
talking through the cast because There's a lot I think there's a lot of cool stuff to talk about as far as the cast goes and You know, he one of the things Nolan said was that he wanted with this being a big like we like we talked about a kind of Victorian age movie that's kind of like trying to be modernized in a way He wanted to get actors that hadn't done a lot of like period work

Jacob Phillips (01:08:39.796)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:08:43.869)
in their filmography. And I think that rings mostly true. The only thing I could think of was Christian Bell being in Little Women in the early 90s, Little Women as a lorry, which I guess you could consider a period. I'm not sure exactly when Little Women is set.

Jacob Phillips (01:08:43.958)
sure.

Jacob Phillips (01:09:00.94)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:09:13.853)
Yeah, so that would be period. But yeah, other than that, I wasn't really sure about Michael Caine's filmography because he has such a big one. I'm sure he's been in some period pieces at some point just because he's been in so much. But yeah, really, I thought that was a smart way to.

Jacob Phillips (01:09:16.462)
for sure.

Jacob Phillips (01:09:27.095)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (01:09:30.978)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:09:39.917)
to get that modern feel for a period movie is just like cast people who aren't known for their period pieces.

Jacob Phillips (01:09:47.094)
Yeah, and I think that all these characters, other than I would say probably Rebecca Hall, who plays Borden's wife, is like none of them really look like of that era, which helps with the modernizing. I think Rebecca Hall does kind of, you know, she looks like that, but everyone else, you know, pretty much has like a modernized look, I would say, which I think part of that is also too, like you said, they haven't been in a lot of period pieces. So.

Eli Price (01:09:53.325)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:01.069)
Sure. Mm-hmm. She does, yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:11.789)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:10:18.373)
You don't equate them with those roles.

Eli Price (01:10:22.053)
And even like I was watching the behind the scenes and there was a couple of like little parts where Scarlett Johansson was talking about like the outfit she was wearing for one of the stage production pieces where she's the assistant for the act. And the costume designer talked a little bit about it and she was talking about how she didn't want like Scarlett Johansson was kind of like, you know,

Jacob Phillips (01:10:39.854)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:10:50.965)
None of my outfits are like have these like, you know, tight neck, like all that kind of like stuff that you kind of typically think of for that period. Um, and the costume designer, which I don't remember her name. She was talking about how, you know, she was really going for with, you know, just specifically about like Scarlett Johansson's outfits, like she wanted women watching it to be like, Oh yeah, like I, you know, if I looked like that and wore that.

today, like I would look, you know, beautiful or I can't remember exactly what she said, but basically like making it feel more modern so that modern women would like think like, oh yeah, I could wear, someone could wear that today and look, you know, good in it sort of thing. But yeah, a lot, so it's like, it's just everything going, working hand-in-hand. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:11:36.376)
for sure.

Jacob Phillips (01:11:45.808)
Mm.

Eli Price (01:11:48.917)
But yeah, just like going down the cast list. So like Hugh Jackman obviously plays Robert Angier and also Gerald Root, um, the drunk version of himself, which is very underrated as Gerald Root. Um, yeah, it, uh, it's almost like, it's kind of funny. It's almost like he in that role is sort of making fun of his own persona.

Jacob Phillips (01:11:59.458)
Mm-hmm.

Very underrated.

Eli Price (01:12:18.557)
Um, which is always fun to have actors kind of like that are willing to kind of poke at themselves. Um, yeah, I don't know if he saw it that way, but it definitely comes across that way, uh, cause he's like, oh, very emphasizing like, and he has like the line where he's like, I've been Caesar and Faust, um, and yeah, it feels like he's kind of poking at himself a little bit, which is always fun. Um,

Jacob Phillips (01:12:23.81)
Yeah, be a little meta.

Jacob Phillips (01:12:38.422)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:12:47.381)
But yeah, so when he was talking to Nolan about it, he obviously, I think obviously, preferred the Angier character and wanted to play that character because who is Hugh Jackman but the greatest showman? He...

Jacob Phillips (01:12:57.928)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:13:05.478)
Right, absolutely. Yeah. Just a little over a decade later, he was playing in a... He's a great showman.

Eli Price (01:13:10.181)
Yeah, he was the greatest showman. He the greatest showman himself plays the showman in the prestige. But yeah, you know, he has his Broadway background. And yeah, I think he fits really well in the role. You know, I think if you compare him and Bell.

Jacob Phillips (01:13:20.364)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:13:30.859)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:13:36.617)
in their respective roles, I would have to choose Bell. I think he really nails the Alfred Borden character. But Jagman is great. I think his weakest points are where he's having to be like, where he's not being like a showman and is like having to really like deal with some sort of like relational emotion or maybe, but even those like, it's not like

Jacob Phillips (01:13:48.564)
Oh yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:13:56.989)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:14:06.717)
It's not like he's bad, he's actually still really good.

Jacob Phillips (01:14:09.706)
Yeah, he definitely is going for it in the scene where he's like under the water, like testing himself and stuff. Like he's definitely, there's a little bit of overacting there, but even his like line deliveries when he's yelling, which I feel like he yells more than you would think in this movie, which that can, like I feel like that's like, you either think that when a person yells, that's like the best acting or.

Eli Price (01:14:17.671)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:14:29.358)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:14:38.334)
It's like the most overacting, but I really think he delivers those really well. When he yells at him, like, how can he not know? And things like that, so yeah. Right.

Eli Price (01:14:45.565)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, like at the funeral. Yeah, I think that's I think that's a very impactful like moment for sure that he that I think he nails. And then like so a lot of times Jackman when he does an American accent it can come across kind of like I'm not sure the right word to explain it.

It's almost like, uh, so I'll explain it by explaining why I think it works here. It's because he is like being like a showman and he's talking in this, like very like refined and like, uh, you know, fancy showman sort of voice. And so like, I think when Jackman is doing that sort of role, and I think it, it can work, I guess with Wolverine too, because he is like a cartoon, like he's a comic character. Um,

Jacob Phillips (01:15:23.632)
Mmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:15:27.901)
Yeah!

Jacob Phillips (01:15:41.741)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:15:44.149)
But for a typical role, sometimes he can come across a little strange with his American accent. But I think it actually works here. I think it adds to the quality of the sort of role he's playing, the guy that's a showman. It's all like everything he's doing is like an act. And to be the great Danton or whatever.

Jacob Phillips (01:16:00.195)
Definitely.

Jacob Phillips (01:16:06.462)
Yeah, right. Yeah, there's a lot of gravitas to his performance.

Eli Price (01:16:12.449)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's a like it's for sure and exaggerated American accent, but it comes but it works for What he's doing like what this character needs for him to be so Be a bail Christian bail I think is incredible in this movie Like

Jacob Phillips (01:16:20.556)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:16:34.026)
Yeah, he really is.

Eli Price (01:16:37.665)
So he's kind of known for being a bit of a method actor, not in the same way that you typically think of method actors though. Like he's not, like a lot of, yeah. Yeah, so like typically when you think of a method actor, you think of people who are very like, almost like snooty about it, like.

Jacob Phillips (01:16:42.423)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (01:16:46.87)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:16:51.138)
He is with his weight.

Jacob Phillips (01:17:04.778)
Yeah, I know for sure.

Eli Price (01:17:06.217)
I am very serious about the craft of my but when you like when you Kind of do some research into Bell and like his philosophy His kind of philosophy is I make too way too much money to not be like putting my whole self into this Like and that's that really is just like what his perspective boils down to he's like I'm just like I'm making tons of money. Like I want to I want it to feel like work I don't want to feel like I'm just like

Jacob Phillips (01:17:22.013)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jacob Phillips (01:17:32.684)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:17:34.633)
doing nothing and getting paid massive amounts of money. And so he like really does like put a lot of work into what he's doing.

Jacob Phillips (01:17:43.294)
Yeah, and it shows because I mean, throughout his filmography, he doesn't like other than obviously Batman, like he doesn't really play like the same type of character usually, like you don't really typecast him. I don't think at least during this stretch, because I mean, you go from the more notable roles like you have American Psycho, which is totally different from the machinists, which is totally different from Batman, which is totally different from.

Eli Price (01:17:46.797)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:18:10.186)
this character, which, you know, I mean, and you go on and on and he's just, he really is like, I think so underrated as an actor now because, you know, I think people obviously love The Dark Knight and they love the No One's Batman trilogy, but I don't think he always gets the full credit that he deserves for really diving into all the roles that he does and just pretty much always knocking out the part.

Eli Price (01:18:11.168)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:18:37.097)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And it even like works for, I think this character, because this character is very much like interested in his life being, um, you know, you know, it's, it's all about like, my whole life is a sacrifice for the, my craft, you know, the art that I make, um, I have to like, you know, it's, it's like, you know, when they're standing there watching the, um,

Jacob Phillips (01:18:43.607)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:18:57.258)
Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:19:07.969)
the Chinese magician, you know, going to his car and he's like, this is the performance, you know, acting like he's crippled so that he can carry the goldfish bowl between his legs sort of thing. Like this is the performance, this is the sacrifice he, you know, he has chosen to make for his art. And you know, you don't really, if you've never seen it before, like you don't really understand at that point that like Borden gets it because that's what he's been doing.

Jacob Phillips (01:19:09.582)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:19:26.593)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:19:36.46)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:19:37.129)
Um, but like, but yeah, Bell's like dedication to his roles and like really like, you know, working hard at like the craft and like even like, you know, his infamous like weight changes and all of that. Um, it's all like all of that about his personal character, like really adds to him playing this character that has a similar mindset.

when it comes to how he does his art, how he does his job. But yeah, I wrote down on the notes, is this the best Bell performance or one of the best? I don't know, I think probably so.

Jacob Phillips (01:20:27.806)
I think it is for me. Now, I'm not as well versed and I need to, there's definitely some blind spots that I wanna watch, but I love, and especially because this is like, it really is such an understated role for him. He's not traditionally what you would think of when, like this performance wouldn't be traditionally what you think of, but I mean, really, when you watch it, you're like, oh my gosh, this dude is.

Eli Price (01:20:31.754)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:20:57.898)
is really getting after it. And one of the things that I love is that, like Hugh Jackman with his character, like we said, he already has the gravitas. So like that scenario that you're talking about where they're going to the Chinese theater and stuff, like he's just like, all right, well, how do I get this to work now? Like, how do I get this to work so that I can do this? But Bale's character, he has to work double time, because he has to get the trick to work, but then he also has to work on being the showman

Eli Price (01:20:59.818)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:21:28.074)
himself too, which early on in his career, you see him that he's not the best showman. So him working extra hard to get this ultimate illusion is really his goal.

Eli Price (01:21:28.359)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:21:43.185)
Yeah, yeah, and you know, just like the sacrifice, obviously, of, you know, him like being switching between being bored and in Fallon, like going back and, you know, they take turns, you know, he says, is just like a huge sacrifice for the art that you're making.

Jacob Phillips (01:21:47.18)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:22:13.369)
I would, I guess like if I had to choose, I would say that this is the best Bell performance. Now like some like blind spots I have that, you know, I don't know what people would, what people think of these, but like, like I haven't seen The Machinist. I haven't seen The Fighter, David O'Russell movie.

Jacob Phillips (01:22:33.302)
Yeah, that's been on my list for a while.

Jacob Phillips (01:22:39.97)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:22:41.361)
I haven't seen Vice, but I know that's kind of controversial, just on whether it's a good movie or not sort of thing. He is good in the big short, but I don't feel like he's just phenomenal like he is in this movie. And obviously, he's great as Batman, but also, you know, it's...

Jacob Phillips (01:22:44.484)
He's good in that one, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:22:51.008)
Yeah, right.

Jacob Phillips (01:23:07.523)
Batman.

Eli Price (01:23:08.461)
Yeah, you know, and he's even really good as Bruce Wayne, like, but man, I feel like he's just like, I think this is his best performance.

Jacob Phillips (01:23:18.998)
Yeah, I think in the big short too, he's more of a character actor in that movie, rather than like, because he's playing such a specific person, I guess, if that makes sense. Like you don't really, you think of him more so as a person rather than like, you think of his performance in that role, if that makes sense.

Eli Price (01:23:33.657)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:23:43.933)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:23:48.949)
going down the list, let's see, we have Michael Cain as Cutter, which I realized like I was looking at the like the credits like he'd he's just cut or like it there's not another name like most of the people are called mostly like by their last name or whatever and but they actually have first names not Michael Cain he is just cutter

Jacob Phillips (01:24:01.342)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:24:18.589)
I kind of noted that it's kind of like the meta idea, I guess, going on with his character. He's kind of like the production designer. As the, how do you say, engineer? So the, you know, the engineer is the guy that's like making all the contraptions that make the illusions possible. And you know, he's so like, he really is sort of like

Jacob Phillips (01:24:27.775)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:24:42.295)
Right.

Eli Price (01:24:47.605)
the production designer for these magicians in a sort of meta way, which we'll get into a little later, but talking about this as a commentary on filmmaking. I feel like there's two characters that really ground this movie morally and emotionally even. He's one of them. Not so much emotionally.

Jacob Phillips (01:24:52.041)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (01:25:10.851)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:25:17.737)
Um, so like, so like his role is Alfred and the, the dark night trilogy. Like he grounds the movie both like morally and I feel like emotionally, like he's kind of the emotional and moral epicenter of those movies. You know, even. Yeah. And really in Batman Begins too. Um, uh, and in this movie, I feel like maybe not so much the emotional, but definitely like a moral.

Jacob Phillips (01:25:23.618)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:25:31.118)
right? Especially in the third one.

Jacob Phillips (01:25:37.771)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:25:46.037)
grounding in his character. I'll say he's a little more edgy than he is as Alfred. Like he's willing to like push, especially like Angier, like into you know, there's a line where he says like you have to be willing to get your hands dirty. Talking about like the bird, like killing the birds. And then you find out like he doesn't, he's figured out a way to not have to kill the bird.

Jacob Phillips (01:25:47.352)
Yes.

Jacob Phillips (01:26:00.643)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:26:15.359)
Right.

Eli Price (01:26:15.625)
with the contraption But he still like is pushing him into that idea of like being willing to get your hands dirty And so like he's a little bit more edgy in that way. I think He obviously doesn't want Angier to like go down the road. He ended up going down And like, you know, he can't really follow him into that obsession as far as he goes but yeah, he I think he does like

Jacob Phillips (01:26:27.662)
for sure.

Jacob Phillips (01:26:34.834)
Oh, for sure.

Eli Price (01:26:44.333)
I think he is a moral kind of grounding, like whenever things are getting out of hand, he's like the one that kind of pops up in the movie and is kind of like, hey, like, you're getting a little out of hand here, you know. But yeah, and then like to like he kind of is not exactly but is a bit of a narrator for the movie.

Jacob Phillips (01:26:56.366)
for sure.

Jacob Phillips (01:27:02.283)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:27:14.429)
Um, so yeah, I guess in that way, he's kind of like grounding the movie and moving it along in that sense too.

Jacob Phillips (01:27:22.686)
Yeah, because he has the opening and the closing lines of the movie, if I remember correctly.

Eli Price (01:27:26.765)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so. Kind of opens and closes in a similar way.

Jacob Phillips (01:27:36.01)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:27:39.269)
And then, yeah, yeah. And he's also like the one like, like basically telling you what, what all the tricks are, um, but you're like, kind of don't believe them like and Jira doesn't believe them. Um, uh, but yeah, I mean, you have just kind of going through the list, like Scarlett Johansson as Olivia. I don't feel like this is her best role. And I think, I think part of it is like her accent is just.

Jacob Phillips (01:27:48.631)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (01:28:04.482)
Definitely not, yeah.

Eli Price (01:28:08.569)
off. It definitely feels like a fake English accent. I don't know if I noticed that necessarily before, but I don't remember. But when I watched it this time I was like, she doesn't quite have the accent down. It definitely feels fake. She's still like a very good in this and like

Jacob Phillips (01:28:09.724)
Yeah, it's pretty. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:28:28.683)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:28:34.978)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:28:35.393)
Definitely like a captivating presence that, you know, her, you know, she becomes even more of in future roles. But, yeah, I'm not sure exactly why she's not the best in this movie. It feels like something's missing and I don't know if I can put my finger on it quite.

Jacob Phillips (01:28:43.527)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:28:59.966)
Yeah, I think part of it really is like the accent probably holding her back in what she can do. But also you don't really as I don't know if she's really not off the top of my head. I can't think if she's done another like period piece since you know that just might not be her jam. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:29:17.021)
Yeah, she does feel very modern. She feels like a very modern actress. So yeah, it might be a combination of things. It might even be a little bit of the way the character's written.

Jacob Phillips (01:29:31.474)
Right, because I mean her character is really just supposed to be, I mean for lack of a better term, like eye candy, you know, for... Right.

Eli Price (01:29:37.457)
Yeah, and a plot device too. Yeah, like to, you know, a way to get, to get Angier the diary, a way to like, you know, create more like, I guess like disruption in the rivalry and, and so like, you know, it's, I feel like part of it is she's just not written the best, which isn't her fault.

Jacob Phillips (01:29:47.509)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:29:54.542)
correct.

Jacob Phillips (01:30:03.606)
Yeah. Correct.

Eli Price (01:30:07.929)
But you know, it is what it is. I don't think she's terrible. I don't think she like ruins anything about the movie. It's, you know, it's passable.

Jacob Phillips (01:30:12.286)
No, no.

Jacob Phillips (01:30:19.07)
No, for sure. And especially because she's not in it so much. Like you said, she really is sort of like a furthering along for both the diary and for Borden and his downfall with his wife and everything like that.

Eli Price (01:30:35.021)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so like part of it may be to like you're comparing her to the other two like main female characters. And you know, the first being Angiers, is she his wife or his girlfriend?

Jacob Phillips (01:30:50.378)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:30:59.214)
I'm pretty sure that's his wife.

Eli Price (01:31:01.117)
Yeah, I thought that's what I was thinking. But, uh, the character name has like a different last name. So I was questioning that one after I finished the movie and was looking like at the, the credits. Um, but yeah, I think it was his wife, but, uh, Julia, um, paid played by Piper Parabo, um, man, like. So I was thinking about how, like, how much of the movie rides on. Like the connection that Angier had with Julia.

Jacob Phillips (01:31:15.351)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:31:30.998)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:31:31.193)
and how little time she actually had to make that come across in her acting. And how, I don't know, I feel like she was really actually a very underrated piece of acting in this movie. Because you do really feel her...

who she was and her presence and why she meant so much to Angier just from like the little bit of that she's in it. Because really she's only in like the beginning for just a little while. It's not like she's in the movie a ton. But her presence kind of like rides throughout the movie. And

Jacob Phillips (01:32:04.705)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:32:08.343)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:32:17.846)
Yeah, and they have pretty, again, it's short, but their chemistry is pretty evident. Nothing really feels forced between the two. And it has to be, like you said, for it to be believable, the road that he goes down. You know?

Eli Price (01:32:23.222)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:32:33.069)
Hmm. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I don't know. I don't really know any much of anything else she's in. Um, I was looking. Okay.

Jacob Phillips (01:32:43.582)
Yeah, she was in that TV. She was in a TV show. What show is that?

Eli Price (01:32:51.657)
I don't know. I don't keep up with a lot of TV.

Jacob Phillips (01:32:52.566)
We're doing some more on the fly investigation.

Eli Price (01:32:57.909)
So she was in Looper, but I don't really remember her much in Looper. Um, and she was, um, I do remember so cheaper by the dozen. She was like the oldest daughter. Um.

Jacob Phillips (01:33:01.546)
Yeah, I don't either.

Jacob Phillips (01:33:07.038)
Yeah. Isn't that the one that dates Ashton Kutcher in that movie?

Eli Price (01:33:11.461)
Maybe so. That either her, maybe Hillary Duff. I don't remember. Hillary Duff is in that movie too.

Jacob Phillips (01:33:20.856)
Yeah. So she was in a TV show called Covert Affairs that had a decent run. I mean, it was five seasons, 75 episodes.

Eli Price (01:33:29.993)
Okay. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:33:32.01)
And that was from 2010 to 2014. So that was probably where she was for a lot of that.

Eli Price (01:33:38.097)
Yeah. I mean, Piper Parraba was in Beverly Hills Chihuahua. So I mean, there's that in her filmography. And the adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle apparently from the year 2000. Um, so, you know, I forgot he was in that. Um, but yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:33:44.8)
Okay?

Jacob Phillips (01:33:52.008)
Oof.

Jacob Phillips (01:33:56.251)
a dark spot for Robert De Niro's career.

Jacob Phillips (01:34:03.33)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:34:06.561)
I don't know. I feel like she, I don't know what happened to her, but I feel like she should have been in more movies because she was really good in this one.

Jacob Phillips (01:34:14.634)
Yeah, I feel like she is like so much like Rachel McAdams that maybe they just, I feel like they were probably up for a lot of the same parts if I had to guess, you know what I mean? And then Rachel just kind of had that and then so she went the TV route. I don't know, but like if somebody was like, oh yeah, Rachel McAdams is in the Prestige, I'd be like, oh yeah, for a second. And like, no, wait, it's so indifferent.

Eli Price (01:34:28.073)
Maybe. No. Yeah, maybe so.

Eli Price (01:34:42.717)
Yeah. You know, it's just one of those things where it's like, who knows, she might have just been done. It might have been just her own choice. But yeah, Rebecca Hall is the other main female character. She plays Sarah Borden, which is obviously Belle's character's wife. And man, I feel like she's incredible. I feel like she...

Jacob Phillips (01:34:51.882)
Right. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:35:00.171)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:35:05.954)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, she's really good in this movie.

Eli Price (01:35:10.961)
She is the emotional epicenter of this movie. She's the one that grounds the emotion that makes you really feel, I think, the weight of everything that happens. Even with, so, I mean, we've already said that we're spoiling, but even if she hadn't had the suicide scene, even without that, I don't feel like you.

Jacob Phillips (01:35:13.705)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:35:38.133)
necessarily needed that scene. Now no one does. He had said that like there was nothing else for her to do but that he felt like she He felt like that was like the only the inevitable Result of just everything that had happened to her Which I don't know that I agree with that necessarily just personally, but um, but even like

Jacob Phillips (01:35:46.542)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:35:56.076)
Right.

Eli Price (01:36:06.441)
that aside she just is emotionally grounds like especially everything that happens like i would say like in the second half of the movie um because i think there is like a uh a switch at some point like in the middle of the movie where your sympathies kind of switch between

Jacob Phillips (01:36:17.845)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:36:32.106)
Yeah. And she's just a great like, you know, example of and this is mostly what her character is for. He said the emotional is the, you know, when someone gets so obsessive, this is what happens to that person's family. And you see that too in Scarlett Johansson's character as well, to an extent, but where she turns on Angier. But but you see like

Eli Price (01:36:47.222)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:37:01.962)
you know, Borden has Borden Fallon have like this sort of idyllic lifestyle that Angier becomes so desperate to have and becomes jealous of. Um, but it's still even not enough for, for him, you know, um,

Eli Price (01:37:17.969)
Yeah, well, you know, he says at some point, you know, we each had half a life. And he said, and that was enough for us, but not for them. Kind of talking about his wife and his daughter and Olivia, which I think rings really true. Like, you know, there's, it's interesting because like her, Sarah, you know, at the beginning of their relationship, you know, she kind of starts the whole thing of like,

Jacob Phillips (01:37:23.214)
correct.

Eli Price (01:37:48.165)
He says, I love you, and she says, not today. And it's kind of interesting to her at the beginning. It's something intriguing, and she can deal with it. It's just kind of like a quirk, maybe, about his personality, which obviously it's because he's two people, and one of them loves her and one of them doesn't. But she can see the difference.

Jacob Phillips (01:37:51.392)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:38:09.003)
Two different people, yeah.

Eli Price (01:38:17.921)
can but then like you just think about like the half the half of a life that each of the Borden's have isn't enough for her and it's because like you just think about like at some point that quirk of you love me today you don't love me today becomes less interesting and more like of a problem

Jacob Phillips (01:38:46.463)
Yeah, exactly.

Eli Price (01:38:46.773)
Um, because you're, when you're in a, uh, um, like marital relationship, your affection is supposed to grow and not like diminish. Um, or. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:38:56.422)
Right, and that's what you see over time in this.

Eli Price (01:39:00.893)
Yeah, yeah, and maybe not even diminished, but definitely like the extremes of each Borden grow more, I think. And it's just like it destroys her. And it's just like she's, she, I think she is like one of the main ways that you feel like the destruction of that obsession. And that kind of like what that does.

Jacob Phillips (01:39:25.71)
Correct, yeah.

Eli Price (01:39:30.781)
Yeah, she's just incredible here. I think she's like the main reason that this movie works emotionally for me. I think without her, it would be pretty emotionally dry, honestly. You know, even, you know, Jackman has a few scenes that are emotional, but not to the degree that Rebecca Hall pulls off, I think.

Jacob Phillips (01:39:47.95)
Correct, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:40:00.03)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because I think you need the beginning of Jackman's, you know, emotion with his wife dying and all of that to fuel him. But if you only have that, like you said, like we build up that time that we have with Rebecca and with Bale's, you know, relationship and we see that kind of grow and then go downhill and you need that, like you said.

to have that emotional weight, that realistic emotional weight to not just like, hey, this is written in the script, so you need to also see this audience. But like, it's actually believable because you watch that whole thing unfold. Whereas at the beginning with Jackman and his wife, like, like we said earlier, we just see like they have really good chemistry.

Eli Price (01:40:49.265)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (01:40:56.181)
Do you mind taking a break real quick? I'm gonna go help... I'll just be a second. I'm gonna go help Robin put Elsie down. If you need to do anything, feel free. Yeah, I'll just be a sec. I'll be right back.

Jacob Phillips (01:40:58.604)
Yeah, no problem.

Jacob Phillips (01:41:03.499)
Yeah, you're good.

Jacob Phillips (01:41:09.718)
Yeah, I'll probably go use the restroom real quick.

Jacob Phillips (01:42:28.386)
Jason!

Jacob Phillips (01:42:41.955)
Thank you.

Jacob Phillips (01:43:34.421)
Yo.

Eli Price (01:43:37.865)
Yo, cool.

Eli Price (01:43:47.681)
Please.

Eli Price (01:43:50.921)
Sweet. OK. I'm going to. Uh.

jump back in with Bowie.

Jacob Phillips (01:44:02.147)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:44:04.245)
So I'll give a little short, silent, so I can find it in the, when I'm editing.

Jacob Phillips (01:44:11.982)
for sure.

Eli Price (01:44:17.309)
Yeah, moving down the list you have, obviously, the other two, I think, major characters would be David Bowie as Nikola Tesla and Andy Serkis as his assistant, Ali, which we touched on them briefly already. But yeah, Bowie, it's funny, Nolan, like, had approached Bowie for this role.

And Bowie like kind of politely declined like just wasn't interested and then No one kind of sat with it for a bit I guess and then called Bowie's agent and like begged him to get a meeting with Bowie so he could talk to him more about it and eventually like one Bowie over and Nolan kind of says to this day that like

Jacob Phillips (01:44:50.901)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:45:10.909)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:45:16.597)
the end of the day it was just like no one else could do this role he had to have Bowie he kind of kind of laughs at himself like you know I've never done that before or since really that was the only time I've ever like gone back and like tried to convince an actor to come play a role and I guess it's odd because he's

Jacob Phillips (01:45:38.912)
Right.

Eli Price (01:45:46.309)
He's so absent really in this movie. He's, he's kind of, um, but maybe that's, that works for the, the feel like he, he kind of feels. So we, you know, we talked about how he was like kind of an alien and that the man who fell to earth movie, and he kind of feels like that in this movie, like he kind of feels like distant and, um, kind of other worldly.

Jacob Phillips (01:45:49.762)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:46:06.665)
Right.

Eli Price (01:46:15.561)
So the kind of aura I guess kind of works for the character But also I'm like but like he has such little Screentime like did it really have to be Bowie? Like I'm glad it was Bowie It's it's kind of like a cool thing to have David Bowie in your movie but I'm like it no one's like

Jacob Phillips (01:46:21.014)
Yeah, no doubt.

Jacob Phillips (01:46:35.657)
Right.

Eli Price (01:46:43.941)
It had to be Bowie and I'm like, did it? Did it have to be Bowie? Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:46:47.498)
Yeah, it's one of those just like random obsessive things. I think that we see so many directors go through because yeah, I think definitely like, like now that I'm thinking about it, yeah, I don't know who else could have played Tesla. Like if we were doing, you know, recasting or whatever, but yeah, like.

Eli Price (01:46:54.369)
For sure.

Eli Price (01:47:02.962)
Right.

Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:47:08.706)
I don't know. Yeah, it probably could have been someone else.

Eli Price (01:47:11.997)
Yeah, like no one necessarily like comes to mind. So maybe it did have to be Bowie, but it just doesn't feel like it had to be Bowie. But yeah, I think he's really good here. You know, he is pretty distant and like, he's not like.

Jacob Phillips (01:47:18.868)
Yeah

Jacob Phillips (01:47:27.02)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:47:36.417)
I think part of maybe why it feels off is because he's not like... He's wearing a suit and a hat and he's like... Really like when he appears on screen, you don't think David Bowie. Like you're not like, oh, there's David Bowie. Because he doesn't like bring that David Bowie kind of like atmosphere. He's playing Nikola Tesla and he's wearing a suit and...

you know, slicked back hair and like very proper looking.

Jacob Phillips (01:48:10.89)
Yeah, like he exudes confidence, but there's it's a very also like it's another understated role where he's just kind of like, which he which is, I mean, impressive for David, but he plays like, kind of the quiet inventor genius, you know, pretty well where he's not going to be super loud and boisterous and showy but which is what makes it I think off like you said, because you're not expecting.

Eli Price (01:48:17.877)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:48:33.055)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:48:39.138)
David Bowie to play a part like that. And you wouldn't think you would want David Bowie to play a part like that either.

Eli Price (01:48:44.829)
Yeah, it does work though. So, you know, kudos to Nolan and Bowie for, for making it happen. Um, you know, I think too, like he, he does deliver some pretty good lines. Um, you know, there's a lot of like great lines in this movie. Um, but like his, um, his like lines about obsession are really good. I feel like, um, and I think they kind of really ground that.

Jacob Phillips (01:48:47.201)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:49:01.854)
Absolutely, the dialogue is really good in this.

Eli Price (01:49:15.029)
theme in the movie and kind of But yeah Circus as Ali I think was really good, too. He has like a I'm not sure what accent he's going for in this movie But it's consistent. It's consistent at least and so it works, you know Yeah, I thought Ali was good sir it's a fun like sir Andy circus appearance

Jacob Phillips (01:49:27.88)
Fair enough. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:49:43.641)
I guess it's a similar thing. It's like he's not like necessarily like You think of a role like this you think Andy Serkis, you know, it's not his typical Fair but you know, he does really well with it You know and he's

Jacob Phillips (01:49:51.607)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (01:50:01.942)
I mean, immediately when I think of Andy Serkis, I just think of motion capture, you know. But this is, I think really one of the few times that he actually just gets to act. Because you know, when he's in the MCU movies, which I really think are some of the only, you know, movies where he's actually just an actor, and he's like so over the top, and such like a comic book villain in those that, you know, it's just like.

Eli Price (01:50:05.673)
Right, sure, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:50:31.638)
whatever. Yeah, I think I think he plays he plays this role really well.

Eli Price (01:50:36.425)
Yeah. The other examples, him as Alfred in the Batman, which I think he's like phenomenal as Alfred, kind of a, I think he's a, underappreciated for that. Yeah. That's, that's really like, there's everyone else that those are the main roles and that's what we get. Most of the screen time goes to those.

Jacob Phillips (01:50:42.167)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:50:46.786)
Yeah, I think he's really good too.

Jacob Phillips (01:51:02.461)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (01:51:06.221)
characters. Yeah, you know, we kind of talked about getting more into like, you know, these important things in this movie, like we kind of talked a little bit about like those images that you can recall from this movie. Did you did you have any that we didn't mention early? Like we mentioned the hats and light bulbs and the bird cages. Did any come to mind for you when you

Jacob Phillips (01:51:23.735)
Right.

Eli Price (01:51:35.329)
just thinking about the movie.

Jacob Phillips (01:51:37.118)
Yeah, definitely. I mean, that ending shot is, I mean, that one, it just sticks with you. So when you see the tanks, you know, that's one of those things. I think that's one of the one of the main ones, you know, that's like a consistent thing that you see throughout the movie. And that's what I like is there's a lot of things that you just see consistently throughout the movie, you know, with yet cages.

Eli Price (01:51:40.225)
Hmm. Yes.

Eli Price (01:51:54.635)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:52:01.525)
Yeah, the objects.

Jacob Phillips (01:52:05.622)
whatever type of cage that is, the hats, light bulbs, machines and stuff like that.

Eli Price (01:52:11.465)
Yeah, yeah, and that's something that Nolan is good at is having these objects that kind of carry different meanings. So like, I mean, the tanks, the water tanks that are part of the trick that kills his wife become a recurring theme. And really, there's a lot of symbolism in this movie that comes across visually like

Jacob Phillips (01:52:18.527)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:52:26.988)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:52:32.962)
Definitely.

Eli Price (01:52:35.125)
So, you know, when you watch this movie the first time, like, I remember when I watched this in college for the first time and you know, you see the tanks at the end, you're just like blown away. Like this is insane and like demented and like, like just absolutely nuts that he, that this is what he's gone down this road and ended up doing. Um, you know, killing himself in a water tank over and over and over. Um,

Jacob Phillips (01:52:49.508)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:53:02.203)
over and over again.

Eli Price (01:53:04.529)
And so that's kind of like what's on your mind. But then like the more you watch it, the more you realize, you know, you start to think about like, he's killing himself every night at his show in the same way that his wife died. And it's like this symbol of like compounding grief and like the obsession with his work that's like come out of his grief, that's really fueled by his grief in a sense. And it's like this symbol of that.

Jacob Phillips (01:53:16.782)
Correct, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:53:20.875)
Yes.

Eli Price (01:53:33.117)
And it becomes this recurring image. And I think that's something that Nolan is really good at, you know, with, with where, where we are in his filmography. And, you know, I can only imagine, you know, as I'm doing, you know, diving deep into, you know, upcoming movies that I'll probably find this to be true is having those recurring objects that you see in his movies that carry like, that aren't just like

Jacob Phillips (01:53:58.635)
Right.

Eli Price (01:54:02.857)
visually captivating or visually appealing or whatever sort of visual aspect is really great about it, but also carries some sort of emotional or symbolic weight to it. And I think the tanks as a great example of that for sure. That ending shot is just haunting.

Jacob Phillips (01:54:14.015)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (01:54:28.11)
Absolutely.

Yeah, it really is. And then you have Radiohead kicking in, which is... Like, it works, but it's so weird, too.

Eli Price (01:54:32.773)
Um, yeah, Tom York. Uh-huh. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Um, I had, uh, I think it was, I want to say for me, memento, um, Nolan talks about how he was listening to radio heads, okay, computer. Why? Uh, like the whole time he was writing this, uh, writing memento, um,

Jacob Phillips (01:54:53.836)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:54:59.581)
And I think this is his only movie that has like, uh, like a actual, like soundtrack song that comes on for the credits, like everything else is just score, I think for his, for his films. Um, so it, it feels a little off, honestly, just that it's like, what's happening with Susan Nolan movie. Why is Tom York singing right now? Um, yeah. Uh,

Jacob Phillips (01:55:07.746)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:55:12.014)
I think so, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:55:18.187)
Yeah!

I'm gonna go to bed.

Hehehehe

Eli Price (01:55:28.125)
The other object, let me see if, so I mean, obviously like the machine is pretty memorable. The Tesla machine, like all the electricities. I had noted that like even, and we talked a little bit about like how well the rooms and the workshops are designed that you can like almost like imagine, like picture them in your mind after watching them, watching the film. The other like image that like has stuck with me

Jacob Phillips (01:55:34.955)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:55:46.263)
Right.

Eli Price (01:55:58.589)
that I think the past like I watched this, I remember I watched this a few years ago was the last time I watched it. And watching it again this time, like I think that image of the first time he has his double like come out to do like, you know, the prestige and is the one that gets the applause. And he's like, it's that shot of his back as he's like standing under the stage, listening to the applause and you know, he lifts his arms out.

Jacob Phillips (01:56:03.563)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:56:18.871)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:56:24.286)
Yeah.

He lifts up his, yeah.

Eli Price (01:56:28.297)
and he does like the bow like under the stage, that image is like, man, that's a powerful image and it's so good. It's so well like framed and shot. Yeah, that's definitely one that I think stands out. And I really do feel like that's one of the strong points of this movie is just like the amazing like set pieces and shots that you get.

Jacob Phillips (01:56:31.615)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:56:56.919)
Definitely.

Eli Price (01:56:58.465)
Um, and then like, you know, we've talked a lot about this being a Victorian, uh, age thing. Um, and what's funny is like that. Really at the end of the day, what Nolan did with that is he used it as a misdirection. Um, he, he talked about, um, I remember he talked about like how, uh, people kind of trust period pieces. It's there's this like.

kind of built in trust that, you know, it's going to be, I don't know why or what that trust is rooted in necessarily, but I do know what he means, you know. You watch a period piece and you're like, oh, I trust that this is like presenting the period to me and everything that's happening is kind of like, you know, whatever. And, you know, there is a bit of mystery. Like I wrote down this quote from a,

Jacob Phillips (01:57:40.17)
Yeah, definitely.

Jacob Phillips (01:57:46.766)
Correct.

Eli Price (01:57:55.789)
critic Darren Mooney and he said, no one has fooled us into believing we were watching a period mystery, a parlor game, but this is a story device right out of sci-fi. And so like he, you know, he's kind of saying it's kind of just saying that at the end of the day, this being a Victorian age, like period setting is all just a misdirection.

Jacob Phillips (01:58:08.069)
Mm.

Jacob Phillips (01:58:23.358)
Yeah, absolutely.

Eli Price (01:58:23.689)
It's just a part of the magic trick of like misdirecting you, misplacing your trust. Misplacing like, you know, he talks about, we, and we talked about how he said, you know, people think of this age as being repressed and like conservative, but really like it was very like a lot of intellectual adventure is what he said. And so, um,

Jacob Phillips (01:58:42.006)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (01:58:49.644)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:58:51.645)
So it's like this big misdirection, just even with the setting. And I think what you find is like that the entire film is just a magic trick. That entire film is just like filled with misdirections and sleight of hands to get you to look somewhere and like where you don't know what to trust or who to trust or even like who to sympathize with.

Jacob Phillips (01:59:02.572)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:59:20.255)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:59:22.753)
But what's, I think the funniest thing about this movie is that no one from the get-go with the opening shot, with the opening lines, literally tells us everything we need to know. He tells us what the trick is gonna be. He tells us, like he's not, I mean, he is hiding things with like,

Jacob Phillips (01:59:41.163)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (01:59:49.089)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:59:50.761)
these misdirections and this misplaced trust. But he's literally telling us what.

Jacob Phillips (01:59:58.102)
Yeah, and there's those little nods to everything throughout the movie that you really pick up on rewatches that I love. And they allude to some of them, like whenever he's like, whenever she says, oh, this is bleeding like it did the first day, or just some of the ones that they don't talk about, like him hiring a blind stage crew from the beginning of his final act and stuff like that, that it's like, oh, yeah.

Eli Price (02:00:02.486)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:00:19.369)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:00:24.608)
I mean...

Jacob Phillips (02:00:26.37)
That makes sense now. So yeah, there's just so much cleverness.

Eli Price (02:00:28.373)
Yeah. And, you know, thinking about, so, I mean, obviously like, you know, we talked about how the story structure itself is sort of like a magic trick. That's where the magic is found. And it's because like, he clues you in so much to what the first reveal is, which is that Borden has a twin and you know, there's trading places. You know, you, you kind of get clued into that and like,

Jacob Phillips (02:00:49.766)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:00:57.761)
If you're like a sharp viewer, which I'm usually, honestly, I'm not great at figuring out what twists are. I know people that like, some people are, I think you're either one type or another of movie watcher. You're the kind that really wants to figure out the twist or you're the kind that just wants to be surprised. And I'm the second kind. I think there was a period in my life where I wanted to be the first kind.

Jacob Phillips (02:01:05.494)
I'm not good at twists either.

Jacob Phillips (02:01:15.201)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:01:26.397)
And I've just resigned myself to be like, I don't, I'm not, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:01:26.399)
Yeah.

No, I'm the same exact way with that too. Yeah, like I'm just like, cause that's one of the, you know, like we talked about movie magic, you know, that's one of the best parts about movies is the actual surprise. And you know, you always hear people talking about like, oh, I wish I could watch this movie for the first time again. Yeah, it's not as fun like watching, like Fight Club I had spoiled for me the first time I watched it. And I wish I hadn't cause like,

Eli Price (02:01:40.185)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:01:50.378)
Okay.

Jacob Phillips (02:01:57.718)
the twist in that movie is phenomenal, you know? And I wish I could, you know, watch it and actually have the reaction of like, oh my gosh, you know? So yeah.

Eli Price (02:02:00.246)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:02:08.285)
Yeah, that's like my kids, like I don't want to talk about Star Wars too much in front of them because I want like, I want them to find out that like Vader's Luke's father like on his own on his own terms. That sort of thing. But yeah, that is the movie magic and it's but yeah, you know, he clues you into that reveal.

Jacob Phillips (02:02:14.935)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:02:21.628)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:02:35.001)
only so that you can think you're in on the trick, but really like there's another trick coming. That's just the turn. The prestige is still coming. And he's like telling you that the whole time. He's telling you, you think you know what's going on with the turn. He's revealing to you something outstanding and fantastical and you think you know what's going on, but really the prestige is yet to come. And he's like, he's telling you, he's telling.

Jacob Phillips (02:02:43.266)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:03:04.781)
He's telling us and we're just so, you know, we want, you know, there's the, um, what's the line I have, I have it written down. Um, yeah, the Angier line, the audience knows the truth. The world is simple, but if you could fool them even just for a second, then you can make them wonder and you get to see something very special. Um, and you know, it's, it's just that idea that like, we want to be fooled. Like that's.

Jacob Phillips (02:03:05.003)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:03:19.961)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:03:34.741)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:03:35.509)
And I think that is like a kind of a stand in for movie watching. Like the audience wants to be fooled. We want like, that's what we're going to the movie for. Like that's what we're, that's what the audience is going to see these magic tricks for they, they want to be fooled. Like, so if they know the secrets behind everything, like you, you kind of let yourself be fooled so that like there's an enjoyable aspect to it. Um,

Jacob Phillips (02:03:39.926)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:04:04.779)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:04:06.617)
And I don't know, I was kind of like, laughing to myself a lot watching it through this time, just at how many lines Borden has that clues you in that he's got a twin, he's living a double life. I think one of the first ones I noticed was, Sarah's kind of announcing to him that she's having a baby and Fallon has just left.

Jacob Phillips (02:04:20.369)
Oh yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:04:35.732)
Uh huh.

Eli Price (02:04:36.313)
And I think the line, he says something to the effect of, you know, wow, we should have told Fallon, we're having a baby. And it's like, it has like a double meaning, like we're like me, Borden and you, Sara, are having a baby, but also the meaning of me, Borden and him, Fallon are having a baby, as like the shared Borden.

Jacob Phillips (02:04:46.012)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:04:51.124)
Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:04:59.873)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:05:04.629)
Yeah, there's a lot of lines. And then of course, like the, I love you, which I think you mentioned, like, I love you today, today you love me, today you don't. Oh yeah, there's so much. There's so many like lines that you said that I was just like, it's just, you know, you have cutter like, it's a double, it's, you know, it's simple.

Jacob Phillips (02:05:08.934)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:05:32.501)
And and here's like no, it's the same man And cut is just like I don't know what to tell you man, it's a double like Like you're wrong And he but he won't believe it like Because he you know, he wants to be fooled. He wants to know what that I mean, he wants to know what like the secret is but like He's letting himself be fooled too. It's too obvious. He doesn't want it to be too obvious

Jacob Phillips (02:05:40.103)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:05:51.807)
Yeah, exactly.

Jacob Phillips (02:06:01.482)
Yeah, because then he feels foolish for not buying it or not believing it in the end. And I think that's like one of like Angier's faults throughout the whole movie is that he thinks he is and he wants to be way smarter than he is. Like his whole thing, he's trying to figure out Borden and everything. And so when he reveals to him at the end, like, no, it was, you know, we lived.

Eli Price (02:06:02.174)
Um.

Eli Price (02:06:06.399)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:06:21.845)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:06:31.038)
the same life and even as he's explaining it, he's like, so one of you did this one. He said, no, we both did it, you know. And meanwhile, Borden basically has Angier totally figured out the entire movie. But because the rivalry keeps getting amped up, he gets kind of just thrown into to everything. So it's really interesting his character because it does feel as if Borden has the upper hand almost.

Eli Price (02:06:39.328)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:06:59.754)
the entire time. The only time it feels like Borden doesn't is when he's, he's like, I saw you dead on that table and, you know, and all that, which is a really great turn there as well.

Eli Price (02:07:11.833)
Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Uh, yeah. And we'll, we'll for sure talk more about that as we go along. Um, I was gonna, uh, I was going to mention too, like even like the diaries or tricks, like each diary is written knowing that the other man is going to read it. And so you're listening to, so like Nolan's typical way that he does that he like provides unreliable narrators is like, he really like puts you deep into their perspective.

Jacob Phillips (02:07:26.07)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:07:41.717)
So that's what you get in following. That's what you get in memento. That's what you get in insomnia. Like you're very deep into that character's personal perspective. Not so much in Batman, but that's a whole, kind of a different thing. And here what he does is he tricks you into thinking you're getting an objective perspective. Because typically like if you're reading a diary, it's like you're hearing like,

Jacob Phillips (02:07:47.406)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:07:53.805)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:08:11.881)
you're hearing these objective things about what's going on. You're getting extra information, whereas when you're more deep into a person's perspective, you're not getting that extra information that we don't know yet. And the diaries feel like you're getting extra information, but they're a misdirection in and of themselves for each character, which is just another layer of like,

Madden from like story magic going on, which is great

Jacob Phillips (02:08:43.59)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because like that whenever he's at the end and he's like, and you sitting there in your cell, you know, that line reading, that line reading from Jackman is just so good.

Eli Price (02:08:53.741)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:08:58.265)
Yeah, yeah for sure. And that's actually, I don't know if I mentioned this, that was, so when they were writing Back and Forth, you know Nolan and Jonathan, Chris and Jonathan, that was something that Jonathan in a extra feature interview said like, oh yeah Chris wrote that part back in. I had taken the diary stuff out and he put it back in.

Jacob Phillips (02:09:08.526)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:09:23.918)
Mmm. Hehehe.

Eli Price (02:09:28.857)
into the film for like the final draft, which I thought was fun. And I think it's works. I think it's, it was wise of him to put it back in there just because of that, like misdirection, that extra misdirection that it gives. And yeah, I mean, this is a movie that like, it's, it's one of those, that's like never the same film twice. Like you, you see and hear different things and new revelations.

Jacob Phillips (02:09:31.604)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:09:35.255)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (02:09:57.541)
Um, your, your sympathies like are constantly shifting throughout the movie. You know, you, I, I really feel like you start with sympathizing for engineer. Uh, and you, you end with sympathizing more for, um, for bored and there's parts where like most of your sympathies lie with either like, um,

Jacob Phillips (02:10:03.787)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:10:11.246)
Yeah

Eli Price (02:10:24.725)
Rebecca Hall, Sarah, or even like Cutter at certain points. Like you really feel for Cutter, like with how like Angier uses him there towards the end. And so like your sympathies are just like being yanked all over the place. And I had gone back in my letterbox to the last time I had watched this. And I was saying like,

Jacob Phillips (02:10:26.418)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:10:55.361)
I kind of said like, you know, it's, it's that idea of, you know, that you want to be fooled kind of thing. And how we like we are being fooled. One of the tricks that Nolan is pulling in this movie is we're being fooled into rooting for men that are like so consumed and obsessed with themselves and they're like what they're

Jacob Phillips (02:11:04.666)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:11:25.365)
what they're trying to accomplish that like, we end up being tricked into like rooting for like men that have become monsters. Um, and so like, even like, I think, um, my perspective has changed a little. And that's a, that's just another example. Like it, every viewing is different. Like I think this viewing, um, I came away a little bit more sympathetic than with Borden at the end.

Jacob Phillips (02:11:26.821)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:11:34.058)
Right, absolutely.

Jacob Phillips (02:11:44.888)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:11:54.321)
not necessarily seeing him as still being a monster. Yeah, it's just interesting like how your, you know, your sympathies change like on each viewing, you know.

Jacob Phillips (02:11:54.388)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:12:10.958)
Oh yeah.

Yeah. And I don't know about you, but each viewing, cause I usually don't watch this movie, especially for some of my favorite movies. I try to watch them maybe once every two or three years or something like that, just so that it doesn't get too old for me. But every time I throw it on, it feels like somebody went in and jumbled the scenes up, cause I'm like, oh, this part is this part. Yeah, it is so.

Eli Price (02:12:27.969)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:12:40.906)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:12:43.102)
so funny how it changes on a reviewing like you're saying.

Eli Price (02:12:45.813)
Yeah, I had the same experience. It was a little bit jarring. I had forgotten just how jumbled up the timelines are in this movie. And so I think I watched it in two sittings, which isn't my ideal way. I don't think it's the ideal way to view a movie, but it's usually with where I am in life, how I end up having to watch movies. But yeah, it's just like...

Jacob Phillips (02:12:55.182)
Oh yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:13:11.434)
Right. Yeah, no doubt.

Eli Price (02:13:16.957)
I like I jump you jump in and you're like, like I said earlier, like you're jumping around and like to flashbacks and like reading diary, their diary and like visiting Tesla and like, what is happening? And not in a bad way. Like it's not like you're you catch on to what what's going on pretty quickly, which like we've mentioned, like has a lot to do with how it's edited. And

Jacob Phillips (02:13:32.63)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:13:47.845)
It could eat very easily be like just absolutely confusing. But it's not convoluted. But it is kind of like, whoa, kind of like not convoluted, but kind of catches you off guard. Yeah, and I definitely had forgotten how much it was like that. But yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:13:53.502)
Yeah, super convoluted and all that, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:14:07.022)
for sure.

Eli Price (02:14:15.257)
Yeah, if you were to have asked me before I rewatched it, I would have thought like, oh yeah, this is a pretty, this is one of Nolan's like more linear movies, but it's not at all. Yeah, I had, I had written down to, there's a guy, Elijah Davidson, who is actually, he'll be coming on for the inception episode.

Jacob Phillips (02:14:25.33)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:14:41.149)
I've kind of mentioned him a few times because I've been reading through. He has kind of a, um, movie by movie little, uh, ebook that I have, um, called, uh, Trans Ending Time, um, kind of looking at Nolan's movies. And it's almost like a devotional form, um, that he does it in, which is pretty cool. Um, and he was talking about how, um,

Jacob Phillips (02:15:02.966)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:15:07.381)
More views reveal more emotional depth to the intellectual pursuits. So like that's one of the things that no one gets criticized for a lot is he, you know, his movies feel like intellectual endeavors and that lack emotional depth. Um, and Davidson kind of is arguing like, well, actually like for this move, I guess for this movie in particular, like.

Jacob Phillips (02:15:12.798)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:15:33.665)
the more you watch this movie, the more emotional depth it gains on top of the intellectual pursuits. And he says, like, it teaches you to learn not just to think with our hearts, which is what people tell you a lot, like when they're trying to tell you to have empathy, you know, think with your heart in this situation. But he says it also, it teaches us to like, feel with our minds, which he explains as like

Jacob Phillips (02:15:49.774)
You're right.

Eli Price (02:16:03.489)
building life-giving systems. And I think that's a really cool way to think about this, what this movie can show you is like, it's not just important to like think with your heart, which is to have empathy with people, but also to feel like to feel with your mind, so that like your obsession doesn't become like these guys obsession, your obsession can be outwardly focused and built focused on like,

Jacob Phillips (02:16:06.049)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:16:28.588)
Right.

Eli Price (02:16:34.349)
aiming your intellectual pursuits towards something emotionally valuable. Because you're allowing both your heart and your mind to work together. I thought that was a really cool insight. Because like, I think part of the criticism that Nolan gets along these lines is because

Jacob Phillips (02:16:49.462)
Yeah, absolutely.

Eli Price (02:17:04.069)
is sore, it can be a bit of an overreaction to the intellectual coldness that our society has. You know, our society is more focused on like, how you feel, what's in your heart. And it even comes through in our speech, like our generation, I think, it's built into our speech to say, I feel like blah, blah. That's kind of like the way we talk.

Jacob Phillips (02:17:07.999)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:17:11.406)
for sure.

Eli Price (02:17:33.633)
Um, and you know, that might seem trivial or, or whatever, but, but it is, but it is built into the way we talk and there's meaning behind that. And so, you know, I think sometimes Nolan's movies maybe are a bit of an overreaction to that into like that coldness toward the intellect, um, uh, and like the over-focus on like the emotion in the heart. Um,

Jacob Phillips (02:17:38.126)
Sure, but...

Jacob Phillips (02:17:43.361)
Absolutely.

Eli Price (02:18:03.429)
And so like, but because he has that maybe intellectual overcorrect, it can kind of bring you back to the center, which is to have like your heart and your mind working together, which is what I think Borden and Angier kind of have lost in this, in this movie, their, their heart, like they're not allowing their emotion to

Jacob Phillips (02:18:13.131)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:18:32.049)
Yeah, their heart and their mind are in sync. Their intellectual pursuits are not grounded in what they should be emotionally. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:18:41.614)
Correct. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:18:46.505)
Yeah, I just thought that was a cool insight that he had. Yeah. Um, yeah, no Nolan. One of the other things, um, that we've kind of hinted at a little bit is Nolan. Uh, I have this quote he said, uh, talking about the prestige. It's very much about filmmaking. It's very much about what I do. Um, and you know, that got me thinking about how like, no one kind of does. He is a very like.

Jacob Phillips (02:18:49.962)
No, yeah, I love that.

Eli Price (02:19:14.641)
dualistic man, like he is a very like pulled between two things kind of dude. He's, he's got the British and American pool, like the two halves of himself. Um, the London, uh, Chris Nolan and the Chicago Chris Nolan, you know? Um, and he really does like, feel like he is half of Angier and half of Borden because

Jacob Phillips (02:19:16.871)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:19:24.78)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:19:31.511)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:19:42.409)
There is the aspect of Nolan that is very precise, very dedicated to the technical aspects of his movies and the, the precise and detailed structure of his stories that feels more like Borden. But there's also like the very showy and like, yeah, the, the gravitas and the like, let's like, if you're going to give me a big budget, let's blow some stuff up and let, let's yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:19:59.074)
gravitas.

Jacob Phillips (02:20:06.826)
Yeah, let me flip this 18 wheeler completely on itself. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:20:11.101)
Yeah, and even in Batman Begins, like, oh, I have $150 million. Let's go film in Africa and, uh, and Asia, like, let's go around the world and get some location shots, like. And so there's, there's a bit of like showman in him too. Um, and, um, you know, I think there's so much like filmmaking parallel in this movie that goes back to the fact that, you know, that, that influence he had.

Jacob Phillips (02:20:23.054)
for sure.

Jacob Phillips (02:20:26.987)
Absolutely.

Eli Price (02:20:40.209)
and from his research of just knowing that like the first, a lot of the first filmmakers were, had a background in magic and in illusions. And the way that magicians during this period had an insight into what an audience wanted, in the same way that like the best filmmakers have an insight into what the audience wants when they sit in a theater.

Jacob Phillips (02:20:49.646)
Yeah, right. Right.

Jacob Phillips (02:21:03.02)
Right.

Eli Price (02:21:09.865)
when they sit in front of a screen. And so, yeah, I think there's a lot of parallels. Like I was even, I mentioned the shot of him bowing underneath the stage earlier. And I'm like, man, I wonder if that's how filmmakers feel. Like it's the actor on, it's the actors like that are in front of people and like, you know, people are applauding, you know, Christian Bale and they're applauding Leo DiCaprio and...

Jacob Phillips (02:21:22.804)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (02:21:27.678)
Yeah, like, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:21:38.972)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:21:39.597)
They're applauding Robert De Niro or whoever it may be. And here's Christopher Nolan, like the man behind the movie that made it really happen, like under the stage bowing. And he even talks about how he sneaks into premieres and he loves just like hearing the audience react. It's like very...

Jacob Phillips (02:21:41.951)
Yeah.

Right.

Jacob Phillips (02:21:50.09)
No doubt, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:22:04.502)
Yeah. And that's one thing that Angier talks about too is like, you know, it was it was the look on their faces at the end, you know. And so, yeah, like just what you just said, that's seen. It sounds exactly like no one as well.

Eli Price (02:22:09.524)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (02:22:19.493)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that you know, that's something that um that Borden Didn't get you know that he didn't quite understand that aspect to what Angier was after Which you know, you know, he just felt like he was cheap and he just cheated his way to success and that he was in it for the wrong reasons, but really like really at the end of the day like Borden the

Eli Price (02:22:51.769)
the thing that propelled both Borden and Engier's obsessions, which, you know, on Borden's side was just like the artistry, the, you know, you think about artists being just as interested in how something is done as in what is actually done. And that's kind of what is encapsulated in Borden and who he is as a

Jacob Phillips (02:23:09.23)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:23:19.605)
as a magician and a character. And in Gere, the thing that propelled him was just the spectacle of it all. The fact that the audience would have the reaction that they had. And that's what propelled him and his obsession. Obviously, like we talked about, it's more than just that. I think also his grief fueled his obsession.

Jacob Phillips (02:23:19.822)
Correct, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:23:38.935)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (02:23:47.734)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:23:48.949)
But as far as just thinking about it from purely that filmmaking parallel, it's the audience reaction that fuels what he's doing. And you could make the argument that Nolan is saying, man, you really have to have both to be a great filmmaker. You need to be obsessed with how the audience is gonna react, but also obsessed with...

not caring what the audience thinks and focusing on the artistry of it all. It's kind of like a paradox in a sense of what it takes to be a good artist and a good filmmaker.

Jacob Phillips (02:24:17.706)
Right. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I think.

Yeah, and I think that lends itself to, and basically, he wants to make movies and stories about what he wants to make movies and stories about. And for the most part, like you said, he also has the way of being like, hey, this is a story that I really want to make, and hey, this is about some magicians rivaling each other. This is about people stealing dreams within dreams.

Eli Price (02:24:37.332)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:24:56.226)
And these are just odd off the wall concepts and I don't even know how to describe Tenet, but these are odd off the wall concepts. But yet I'm gonna, yeah, exactly, yeah. But I'm gonna display it in a way that you're going to love, basically. And so yeah, it is really cool just seeing all that he does through these, I would say all the ones that aren't Batman movies.

Eli Price (02:25:04.961)
Backwards James Bond.

Eli Price (02:25:14.07)
Right.

Eli Price (02:25:24.477)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:25:29.957)
Yeah, you know, I'm really like growing to a pre, I really feel like, um,

I really feel like people that like hate Nolan movies and I feel like they should listen to this podcast and really like dig deep into his like philosophy and like what he does with us. Cause I'm really like, cause I feel like for a while I had a period where I was like, well, I guess maybe a lot of these people have a point with Nolan's films and his movies and their critiques of them.

Jacob Phillips (02:25:51.742)
Yeah, absolutely.

Eli Price (02:26:07.861)
But man, the more I dig into it, the more I'm like, I don't know, I feel like no one's really bringing something that is needed in the film world that like, yeah, but anyways, one of the last things that I kind of had to talk on thematically was that this, the idea of the devotion to art bleeding into obsession. You know.

Jacob Phillips (02:26:12.712)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:26:18.028)
Absolutely.

Jacob Phillips (02:26:34.368)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:26:38.289)
just thinking about the two characters, you have Borden who's willing to sacrifice and live a lie for his art. And that's part of his obsession. And Angier is willing to steal and cheat and buy his way to the top for his art, which is, we've already kind of made the distinct, we've already distinguished between what they're interested in.

Jacob Phillips (02:26:58.446)
All right.

Eli Price (02:27:08.757)
But like what it, but it ends up making them all like kind of less than human in a way. Um, they follow it down this line. And so like, you know, Borden, you know, we, we talked about his line. He says, you know, we, we each had half of a life, me and my twin, which, you know, and really like neither of them were fully bored and are fully Fallon.

Jacob Phillips (02:27:17.451)
Absolutely, yeah.

Eli Price (02:27:38.273)
They were, they, they took turns. Like, so, you know, even like it's weird, like talking about them because, uh, I like, as we've been talking, there's been several times where I've been like, wait, what do I call him? Because he's both, you know, Borden is just like the, you know, it's just like the way to the all encompassing.

Jacob Phillips (02:27:53.547)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:27:59.019)
Yeah, I think so too.

Eli Price (02:28:00.881)
Um, but yeah, but he's, he's a half, he's really like a half of a man. Like he can't, he can't even have like a full relationship with the woman he loves, whether it's like the one that's in love with Sarah or the one that's in love with Olivia, um, which is like just deeply saddening, like when you think about it. Um, and then Angier like.

Jacob Phillips (02:28:06.382)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:28:23.44)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (02:28:27.337)
becomes unable to even distinguish who he is. Like, you know, that's kind of where the sci-fi aspect comes in of like the philosophical question, you know, of, you know, am I the man in the box or the man in the prestige? And you don't know, like, you know, you have the first scene where he clones himself and he has the gun and he has to shoot himself.

Jacob Phillips (02:28:31.231)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:28:35.799)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:28:43.007)
Yeah. No.

Eli Price (02:28:54.273)
But like even in that scene, you don't know if the root, like the original HEM is the one that's still standing in the machine or does it trans, you know, cause there's the possibility that what the machine does, cause we don't fully understand, even Tesla doesn't fully understand the machine and what it does. Like is the machine transporting the original one?

Jacob Phillips (02:29:05.932)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (02:29:12.942)
That's right.

Jacob Phillips (02:29:16.427)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:29:22.481)
over there and the copy is right there or vice versa. Like we don't know and neither does Angier, neither does Tesla or Ali, you know? And that's what, like he's become less, he's become kind of half a man. He doesn't know even like who he is anymore. And yeah, I don't know. It's just like that idea is...

Jacob Phillips (02:29:23.712)
Right.

right? Yeah.

Eli Price (02:29:53.409)
Very interesting. I don't know. Did you have any thoughts on just like the theme of obsession?

Jacob Phillips (02:30:00.406)
Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's the overarching theme of it, other than, you know, just kind of, which at the end of the day, which, you know, if we talk about like Angier's just really trying to get back at Borden and that's his obsession. Like that's like the underlying theme. Like, yes, of course he wants to be successful. He wants to be a great magician and all of that, but it's kind of almost undercut because he is so

Eli Price (02:30:04.118)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:30:23.488)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:30:30.482)
obsessed and that's one of the things that Scarlett Johansson's character says to him is that she's like, that's all you care about. You just care about getting back basically at him. I think that's part of kind of you touched on earlier just the idea of dealing with the grief and it's almost like he doesn't want to come to terms with or he can't come to terms with his wife's death.

Eli Price (02:30:38.954)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:31:00.702)
Um, and so there is like the, uh, the symbolism of like the self sabotaging by getting in the box every night, you know, um, wit with all that. So yeah.

Eli Price (02:31:07.257)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:31:13.237)
Yeah. Yeah, I did. I did, too, want to bring up like so the ending for one, like the ending is very like a different filmmaker making a making this movie in a different way would have like made the ending more like resolved feeling as

Jacob Phillips (02:31:37.495)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:31:38.893)
is so I'm thinking specifically of like the Borden arc. So like, obviously, like, um, you know, I think Borden's like last trick is his resurrection, you know, which is a fun, um, a fun little final, like, uh, magic trick, I guess, in the movie. Um, you know, obviously it's one of the, it's, I think it's, so I think it's the Borden that, um, pretty

Jacob Phillips (02:31:42.708)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:32:08.781)
pretty sure it's the Borden that loved Olivia that is the one that's hanged. That's the impression I got. And so it's, you know, and then like the other Borden is allowed, you know, now he's, you know, he tells them, you know, go live a full life, you know, talking to himself, I guess, in a sense. But yeah, it's.

Jacob Phillips (02:32:14.254)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can see that too.

Eli Price (02:32:38.633)
You know, so like to that, up to that point, but when he's, when he's, you know, we haven't even talked about like Angier, like literally like just frames him for his own murder of himself, which, you know, is, you know, that Angier obviously, like, I think by the end of the film, it's really hard to sympathize with him other than like,

Jacob Phillips (02:32:51.991)
Right.

Eli Price (02:33:08.353)
the sort of sympathy, it's more of a pity you have, cause you know what drove him down that road, but also he went way too far. You're literally trying to steal this man's daughter, you framed him for your murder when you weren't really, I mean you were murdered, but you weren't. Yeah, and so it's hard to, at the end of the film, he's just like.

Jacob Phillips (02:33:13.416)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jacob Phillips (02:33:23.35)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:33:29.791)
Right.

Eli Price (02:33:37.505)
He's just like too far gone, almost. But Borden, like, it's almost like part of himself is willing to take the fall.

Jacob Phillips (02:33:39.678)
Yeah, absolutely.

Eli Price (02:33:56.365)
for, and that's something else that I didn't even realize until just now thinking of it. You know, Sarah hung herself and the Borden that was too harsh to Sarah because he's not the one that loved her ended up getting hanged as well, which is another parallel that I just now realized.

Jacob Phillips (02:34:02.478)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:34:10.57)
Yeah. There's that.

Jacob Phillips (02:34:18.974)
Yeah, because both Angier and his wife both died the same way as well. But the one that gets to live is not necessarily punished, I guess. I don't know if that would be the correct wording.

Eli Price (02:34:23.101)
Right. I didn't even realize that until just now.

Eli Price (02:34:37.514)
Yeah, so the one that lives is the one that loves Sarah. And I get the impression that, you know, it's probably his actual daughter.

Jacob Phillips (02:34:42.11)
Yeah, and I think so.

Jacob Phillips (02:34:48.37)
Right, and that's why I think if you think about it that way, it seems a little awkward when he sees his daughter or when that Borden sees his daughter in jail. He's kind of very quick and probably more so worried that the man who would miss out on it. And he's the one that's always bringing his daughter to see him like the other...

Eli Price (02:35:08.29)
his other half, yeah.

Eli Price (02:35:17.485)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:35:18.099)
I guess Fallon in that instance. So yeah, that is interesting. Right.

Eli Price (02:35:20.349)
Yeah. To keep up the illusion. Um, but yeah, you know, yeah, obviously there's a degree to which it technically is his niece, so there's a degree of affection that he doesn't really have to fake for her. But, um, but yeah. Um, so my, my whole thing when I walked away this time is so up to this point, he's been willing to sacrifice everything for his illusion and here at the end.

Jacob Phillips (02:35:34.519)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (02:35:48.354)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:35:50.197)
He's willing to sell all of that facade so that like his daughter can have her father. And to me that like, I feel like that character is a little bit redeemed in that way because he's where Angier never like really realizes or like reckons with the error of his ways. I think Borden finally does.

Jacob Phillips (02:36:06.443)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:36:20.993)
And, um, you know, I kind of wrote down that Angier is never really able to climb out of his grief and he suffers, suffers the ultimate fate for it. But Borden like Borden is able to get out of that because he's finally to, he's finally willing to make a sacrifice that's not inwardly focused. And so, yeah, just like as a final thought, uh, I just want like,

Jacob Phillips (02:36:44.043)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:36:49.941)
So I usually like to try to take away a final thought from these movies when we do these discussions. And my final thought for this movie is any obsession that is inwardly focused is going to lead to destruction. And so that's what we see with Angier. His grief, which is based on the outward love and affection he had for his wife, it turns in.

Jacob Phillips (02:36:53.708)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:37:06.803)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:37:18.689)
Like he turns so much in on himself and his own grief and his own Obsession to like please the crowd that like He I mean it leads to destruction but Borden when Borden is very inwardly focused and it does lead to destruction but the destruction in his case Actually leads to the destruction of someone that he did

Jacob Phillips (02:37:23.308)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:37:32.31)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:37:47.949)
half of him did love. And so it's almost like her death kind of awakens something in him and he ends up sacrificing half of himself based out of love. Instead of a sacrifice that's inwardly focused, he in the end makes a sacrifice that's outwardly focused.

Jacob Phillips (02:37:49.767)
Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:38:18.333)
And I think that like...

Just that idea of like, having become so inhuman, I think that's what an obsession that's inwardly focused does. When you become so focused on yourself, like you keep turning back, folding back in on yourself, and it leads to you becoming less than human, because really like humans, whether you wanna put...

Jacob Phillips (02:38:41.407)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:38:50.641)
a spiritual bent on it or just even like a psychological, more scientific bent on it. However you want to view it, humans are built for relationship and community. Like we're not built for to be inwardly focused and focused only on ourselves. We're built to be focused on not just like loving ourselves, but loving others just as much and focusing on that community. And you know, your community can...

Jacob Phillips (02:38:58.049)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (02:39:07.466)
Right. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:39:15.498)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Eli Price (02:39:21.161)
ground you. These are two men that pushed that away. And it led to like terrible things happening. And, you know, the inhumanity that final shot shows with Angier is just haunting. And I don't know why Nolan chose to end with that.

Jacob Phillips (02:39:22.488)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:39:41.022)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:39:50.597)
instead of with the, you know, the now full Borden being with his, being able to have a life with his daughter. Um, maybe just because it was a better image and, uh, and this stays with you. Right. Maybe it's as simple as that. Um, but I, I do think there's, you know, a different movie where we get an image of, of Borden.

Jacob Phillips (02:40:05.418)
Yeah, I mean, it's a striking image just as a, like a filmmaking technique, yeah.

Eli Price (02:40:20.021)
with his daughter having a full life. And maybe it's just Nolan wanting to remind you, don't be like this. But yeah, I think at the end of the day, love and community can pull you out of that inhumanity that comes from being inwardly focused. And...

Yeah, I think that's something that is in the film and I think, you know, something that we can kind of take away as a final thought. But, uh, yeah. Yeah. So, um, just kind of ending this, what, uh, is you, I think you already hinted at it at the very beginning, but this is how I'm imagining. This is your favorite Nolan.

Jacob Phillips (02:40:56.779)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jacob Phillips (02:41:05.984)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:41:10.666)
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. This is, I wouldn't say, like I think, I think there's an argument to be made that Oppenheimer's is like best movie, just overall. Like, but this is definitely my favorite and just my favorite, like I said, on the specific day, it's my favorite movie.

Eli Price (02:41:25.098)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:41:31.521)
Yeah, yeah, so for a long time, like I said, I would say this was my favorite movie. I wouldn't ever say that anymore. And this isn't even like my favorite Nolan at this point. For a while, I think it was. And really like, I had it rated,

Jacob Phillips (02:41:48.043)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:41:59.817)
with five stars for a long time. And I think with this viewing, I think I've bumped it a half down. I think I have it as a four and a half. I would put it at four and a half now, just because I do feel like.

Jacob Phillips (02:42:10.045)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:42:18.557)
There's so one of the one of the things that makes a five star movie for me is either just one like it is and Just a technical masterpiece like it's undeniable this movie is just like uh An incredible like vision of like craftsmanship and filmmaking and I don't know that prestige is really that sort of film um

Jacob Phillips (02:42:31.991)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (02:42:44.267)
Yeah, I think that's fair.

Eli Price (02:42:46.005)
But another thing that really like bumps movies up to five stars for me is just like the personal, like emotional impact that it has. And I do think that that's one thing this movie kind of lacks. And maybe I'm being a little bit unfair because I did say earlier like that no one's like intellectual overreaction probably is a good thing in a way. But for me, like.

Jacob Phillips (02:42:54.574)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:43:08.458)
right. Sure.

Eli Price (02:43:14.189)
The emotional impact of a movie is pretty important, just for me personally. Um, so yeah, I don't know. I could watch it again and bump it back up to five stars. Who knows? Um, but yeah, it's a great movie. I love this movie. It'll always have a special place in my heart, even if I bumped it down half a star.

Jacob Phillips (02:43:25.282)
Sure.

Eli Price (02:43:41.89)
you need to refresh your page.

Eli Price (02:43:48.158)
It'll bring you right back.

Jacob Phillips (02:44:02.957)
That was weird.

Jacob Phillips (02:44:08.527)
Okay. I was like, is it user?

Jacob Phillips (02:44:19.925)
Okay.

Eli Price (02:44:45.233)
Yeah, I think it's a browser thing. I think it's what I've determined. Just like how much is your browser able to pull all the power from your computer for long enough? Because I think just like uploading this video constantly for two hours, really like after a while your computer's like, OK, let me do some other stuff for a second.

Jacob Phillips (02:44:47.885)
Okay.

Jacob Phillips (02:45:03.519)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (02:45:13.432)
Give me a break. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:45:15.525)
Let me like let me fix some other stuff that's going on and then it's like, okay You're now we're gonna mess up your recording Like oh great Yeah I'm going to wrap that sec. I This sucks because I really just needed to do the what's next and then be done. So I'm gonna do that and then we'll We'll move into the last part

Jacob Phillips (02:45:25.232)
Thank you.

Jacob Phillips (02:45:41.922)
Sweet.

Eli Price (02:45:47.621)
Yeah, so, uh, really I think that wraps up everything with the prestige. Uh, great talk. Um, next week, uh, we are going to be talking about, uh, the dark night, the second Batman Christopher Nolan movie. So I'm excited about that. Um, uh, I have a good friend coming on to talk about that with me. So.

Jacob Phillips (02:45:59.864)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (02:46:11.589)
Yeah, you can look forward to that next week, but we're gonna take a quick break right now we'll be back in just a minute with a little bit of movie news and the favorite of Most people which is the movie draft So yeah, we'll be right back. See you in a second

Jacob Phillips (02:46:28.088)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:46:35.973)
Okay, do you need a break or you want to just jump right in and knock this thing out? Let's do it. Okay, I'm going to do a quick silence and then we'll jump in.

Jacob Phillips (02:46:40.436)
Nah I'm good, let's go.

Eli Price (02:46:53.321)
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Establishing Shot. I'm Eli Price here with Jacob Phillips. We had a good, long, I think really fun and good talk about the Prestige. Hope you enjoyed that. But yeah, we're gonna jump in. We were talking kind of about some random stuff before.

Jacob Phillips (02:47:07.318)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (02:47:18.825)
before the show and I didn't really have anything on the docket for movie news, but we were like, oh, maybe we can talk about our like letter box tabbits a little bit for the movie news section just because we were discussing it before and we were like, oh, we'll fill a little bit of that in there. But yeah, one of the things we were talking about is how we use the like, the little heart. Yeah. So we were, I don't know.

Jacob Phillips (02:47:29.186)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:47:36.449)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:47:49.093)
My... really like if a movie... if I rate a movie seven or above it always gets a heart and then like if it's under seven it has to be like a weird movie where I'm like it wasn't that great but I still enjoyed it a lot so I'm like oh it's a six or I'm well a three star but it still gets a heart sort of thing. But yeah we were talking about it and

Jacob Phillips (02:48:09.933)
Yeah.

for sure.

Eli Price (02:48:18.885)
Yeah, I don't know what it's kind of fun. I think everyone has their own little way that they like use their ratings and their hearts and all that.

Jacob Phillips (02:48:26.424)
For sure. Yeah, for me, it's weird. I forget to do it sometimes. Like, I don't know, like, I just watched the most recent movie I've vlogged is Die Hard, and I should probably have a heart next to that one, just truthfully, just because I really enjoyed it so much. But then there's some movies that I think are just kinda all-timer type movies for me that I'm like.

Eli Price (02:48:34.002)
Yeah

Eli Price (02:48:43.037)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:48:56.388)
I need to put a like by it. But then I think there's sometimes too where I have a movie kind of rated almost lower, kind of like you said, it's like, I don't really think this movie is that great of a movie, but I really, really enjoyed it, so I'm gonna throw the heart on it. So yeah, mine is, it's kind of all over the place with how I use it. It's not as consistent as it probably should be, but yeah.

Eli Price (02:48:58.054)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:49:23.909)
Yeah, yeah, I, um, I try to like build like, uh, when I log, for one, I'm the kind of person that like, I'll keep a note on my phone of like the movie and the date I watched it. And then I'll like, I'll get to log in this eventually, but then I'll build up like 30 movies and then I have to sit there for like two hours catching up on my movies. Um, so that's an unfortunate character trait. Uh,

Jacob Phillips (02:49:38.519)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:49:43.015)
Hehehe

Jacob Phillips (02:49:46.702)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:49:54.085)
that I have a defective character trait but yeah we were we were saying like one cool way maybe to use the heart is for like rewatchability which I don't know if I'll do this because I've been doing my heart the way I like my like movies the way I've so long it's like it's a system now but like maybe

Jacob Phillips (02:49:55.362)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:50:08.056)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:50:15.318)
Yeah, for so long.

Eli Price (02:50:23.185)
talking about like, so maybe if a movie is a sort of movie like the prestige where it's like, man, I want to watch this movie again sometime. Um, maybe those are the sorts of movies that you give the like to. Um, and, uh, you know, maybe there's a movie like, um, I don't know, like, so I think of

Jacob Phillips (02:50:33.278)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:50:48.113)
When I think of movies that I'm like, man, that would be really rough to rewatch. I think of movies like 12 years of slave, which is like an incredible movie. Like it's a five star. I gave it five stars when I watched it. Um, I watched it in theaters and I have not revisited it since. Um, and I don't know if I'm not honestly not sure if I ever will just cause it's such a tough watch.

Jacob Phillips (02:50:51.948)
Yeah.

Sure.

Jacob Phillips (02:51:02.732)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:51:07.477)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:51:15.441)
There's images of that film that are still like burned in my brain And so like maybe that's an example of a movie that like doesn't get the heart If you're using it in that sort of system because you're like, I don't know if I want to watch this movie again But yeah, yeah That might be a fun way to use that like button because then because then you can go to your profile and go to your likes and then you can like scroll through your likes and be like

Jacob Phillips (02:51:18.884)
for sure.

Jacob Phillips (02:51:34.199)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:51:41.086)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:51:41.885)
these are all the movies that I want to rewatch. Oh yeah, I'll rewatch this one sort of thing. But yeah, I have some other like letterbox tab. It's like I like to, I've been trying to note like when I see a movie in the theater in my tag. So I'll like, I have a tag that's like theater viewing or something like that, so that I can like go back and like look at that tag and see all the movies I've seen in theaters.

Jacob Phillips (02:51:44.324)
For sure. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:51:58.995)
Okay, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:52:04.429)
Nice.

Jacob Phillips (02:52:10.946)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:52:12.153)
I've been trying to like, I actually went back recently and like backlogged all since I got Letterboxd like and added that tag to the ones that I could remember that I saw in theaters.

Jacob Phillips (02:52:23.18)
Yeah, I don't use tags as much as I should. I've used them on a few movies, but I haven't done it recently. But I'm one of those people that is like, I wanna log everything, even if it's a re-watch. And I'll pretty much every time now, right? Even if it's like just a couple of sentences, like I'll write something about the movie, even if it's a re-watch.

Eli Price (02:52:28.145)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:52:31.784)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:52:46.511)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (02:52:51.28)
on it but I think my only real, I guess, kind of interesting way of using one of my Leatherbox habits is for my favorites, I had it as my top four favorite movies or whatever. But I also just made a top 10 list and then now I use my favorites are, I have it in my bio, favorites are my favorite new to me movies I watched the previous month.

Eli Price (02:53:05.679)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (02:53:18.473)
Hmm. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:53:18.996)
And so then I updated the first of every month. So like last month August I watched my four favorites were Chinatown 2001 a Space Odyssey Blue Velvet and then Ghost Dog Way of the Samurai so That those are my those are my favorites from August

Eli Price (02:53:28.393)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:53:33.099)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:53:39.837)
I'm happy to know that you're getting some Jim Jarmusch in your life.

Jacob Phillips (02:53:42.42)
I know, no, I, yeah, I really, really enjoyed that movie. So I want to get some more.

Eli Price (02:53:46.009)
Yeah. Um, uh, there, he has a couple of like, um, movies that are just a bunch of like vignettes or short stories that are really good. Like there's, um, night on earth, I think is what that one's called. And then coffee and cigarettes, they're like really strange and, uh, like, I don't know, they're just fun. They're, they're fun in a weird way. His movies.

Jacob Phillips (02:53:57.284)
Sure.

Eli Price (02:54:16.501)
My favorite is Patterson. Patterson is my favorite genre's movie. So Adam Driver. That's all you really need to know. Adam Driver plays a bus driver that is also a poet. A really good poet that's unrecognized at all. Yep, it's an interesting movie. Yeah, Letterboxd. Letterboxd is a really good tool.

Jacob Phillips (02:54:18.442)
Okay.

It's good to know.

There you go.

Jacob Phillips (02:54:34.276)
Nice.

Jacob Phillips (02:54:43.307)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (02:54:46.077)
I try to get as many people on Letterboxd as I can. But yeah, I probably need to be better at using my tags too. For a long time, I have tried to add as much as the cast as I can bear to add as tags, like the actors and actresses. But recently I was like, why am I doing all this extra work of adding actors as tags when

Jacob Phillips (02:54:50.468)
Same here.

Jacob Phillips (02:55:07.354)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:55:16.069)
It's built into the app that I can just go to the actor and like see all the movies that I've seen by them like fate, like fade watched or whatever, you know, I don't have to do all this work. Like I can just there's no like reason for me to tag all these actors and actors.

Jacob Phillips (02:55:19.653)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:55:25.912)
Right.

Eli Price (02:55:36.705)
So that's definitely a habit I'm gonna change just because it's extra work. That's like unnecessary But I had like done it for so long. I felt like I needed to keep it up, you know that sort of thing man, yeah Yeah, you should if you don't have letterbox it's a great little tool to log your films. You should go get it Mine and Jacob's letterbox links will be in the show notes so you can go

Jacob Phillips (02:55:39.234)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:55:47.294)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:55:56.42)
Absolutely.

Eli Price (02:56:04.469)
click on those if you want to follow us. Um, but yeah, we're going to, uh, go ahead and move into our movie draft, which I'm excited. We were kind of going back and forth on, um, what we were going to draft this time, I had suggested at first that we do like a magic movies draft, which. At first I was like, cause Jacob's reaction when I sent that was kind of my own reaction when I was like, maybe I can do this.

Jacob Phillips (02:56:05.444)
Yes, sir.

Jacob Phillips (02:56:29.197)
Hehehe

Eli Price (02:56:32.821)
I was like, I don't know if there's going to be enough movies that I've actually seen. But then I was like digging into it and I was like, well, like when you think about like what magic is and like how it can be applied, like there's actually a decent, there's actually like a decent amount of movies in that, that I could like, that you can kind of fit in that category of movies that have magic. But

Jacob Phillips (02:56:44.548)
Sure.

Eli Price (02:57:01.585)
Jacob suggested that we do revenge movies. There's a lot of revenge going on in the prestige. They're back and forth. Um, I was listening to the, uh, the blank check podcast episode on the prestige. They did a known series, um, years ago and, uh, I'm pretty sure it was in that podcast, they were saying like the whole movie is basically like one big prank war.

Jacob Phillips (02:57:08.173)
Oh yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:57:27.432)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:57:28.289)
I'm bored in an engineer, which is a funny way of thinking about it. Prank wars that like maim each other. Yeah. But yeah, so yeah, I was like, you know what? Revenge movie draft would be really fun. Let's do that. So obviously no one movies are off the table. Well, we'll take movies like Memento and.

Jacob Phillips (02:57:33.683)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:57:37.532)
Literally.

Eli Price (02:57:57.365)
prestige off the table since Nolan is the series we're on which I did make an exception for the DC movies draft last week because you can't have a DC movies draft and take like Dark Knight and Batman Begins off the table but um but yeah for revenge movies yeah for revenge movies it makes sense so yeah Jacob was

Jacob Phillips (02:58:12.748)
Right, I mean, yeah, there's just not enough there.

Eli Price (02:58:24.901)
He kind of texted me and was like, hey, how strict are we going to be about revenge movies? And I was like, well, we'll just argue it out on air. So I don't know where this draft is going to go. But but yeah, Jacob, last time you were on, I had the first pick. So it's your turn to have the first pick again. A lot of pressure. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (02:58:46.952)
That's a lot of, it is a lot of pressure because like I can't screw it up. I'm gonna try not to screw it up. This is one of my favorite movies and I think it's one of the better ones about Revenge, especially because, you know, if you haven't read the book or if you haven't seen the movie, like the twist in it really is like jarring and shocking. So I'll go with Gone Girl as my first pick.

Eli Price (02:59:14.205)
Hmm. Okay.

Jacob Phillips (02:59:16.864)
Yeah, that like, I mean, spoiler alert, but that like section where she starts narrating and you realize, oh my gosh, this is, this movie is just a big revenge plot and she is so meticulous through everything is like, I remember just sitting there like jaw dropped, like this is awesome.

Eli Price (02:59:19.945)
Ha ha ha.

Eli Price (02:59:29.47)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:59:38.225)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

I might have seen this in theaters when it came out, but I haven't seen it since. So it's not very fresh on my mind, but yeah, it's definitely a good one. It wasn't super high on my list, but it was definitely on my list of movies to consider. Yeah, I'm going to go with one of another movie that's a classic.

Jacob Phillips (03:00:00.409)
for sure.

Eli Price (03:00:11.709)
Answer for one of my favorite movies And and probably still my favorite movie by this director I'm gonna go with inglorious bastards Yeah, yeah, I mean you've got The What's-her-face I don't really know the actress how to I guess her name is just Melanie Laurent She plays the yeah, she plays

Jacob Phillips (03:00:22.604)
Nice. It was on my list for sure.

Jacob Phillips (03:00:38.26)
Melania, right? Yeah. Shoshana.

Eli Price (03:00:40.593)
The Shoshana getting revenge on the Christoph Waltz character and, and just Nazis in general. And really like, it feels like every Tarantino movie is a revisionist history revenge movie in some way or another. But yeah, and Glorious Basterds is. It's just a great, I just love that movie.

Jacob Phillips (03:00:46.753)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:00:55.652)
for sure.

Jacob Phillips (03:01:04.68)
Yeah, I recently rewatched it and showed it to my wife for the first time. And she really loved it, which was exciting because I think I really was introduced to it really late in the game just because Tarantino was not someone that was watched a lot in my household. So I watched in my first year, my freshman year of college. And I remember one of my buddies at camp and I he and I like

Eli Price (03:01:13.245)
That is, that's great.

Eli Price (03:01:24.841)
Hmm.

Jacob Phillips (03:01:34.028)
both loved it and just like quoted it back and forth all the time and then like just every now and then I'll think in my mind like touch me again Krautberger like just lines like that from dried pits characters so great so yeah that's a good pick.

Eli Price (03:01:37.395)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:01:43.337)
Hehehehe

Eli Price (03:01:46.917)
Yeah, I actually have like built into my vocabulary. I very often when I'm like telling someone goodbye, I just say adios. And, uh, that's like built into my vocabulary from Brad Pitt's character.

Jacob Phillips (03:01:58.48)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:02:01.728)
It's true, yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:02:06.973)
Alright, where you going next? Break- go ahead and break my heart.

Jacob Phillips (03:02:07.284)
Alright, so I'm gonna go with, this is like just a classic, we talked about this director earlier, really good movie that I feel like people still love but I don't think people talk about as much and that's Gladiator.

Eli Price (03:02:29.653)
Hmm.

Jacob Phillips (03:02:31.096)
Gladiator with Russell Crowe. I think it's Arguably his best performance. Yeah early Joaquin Phoenix Who's now gonna be playing Napoleon for Ridley Scott? so But yeah, I mean just a just a classic movie. That's About it all Yeah

Eli Price (03:02:36.473)
and early walking Phoenix.

Eli Price (03:02:43.718)
Hmm.

Eli Price (03:02:53.414)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:02:56.789)
Yeah, there's a lot of directions I can go. Gladiator, I mean, it was on my list. It wasn't super high up. I will say that. I feel like there's one that...

kind of has to be taken, but it's also like super obvious. And so I'm like, I don't know, do I go ahead and take this? Cause it's like one of the best films ever made probably. I guess I will. Yeah. I'm going to go with The Godfather because you don't mess with the family. Yeah. I mean, it's that tagline. I mean, you don't mess with the family.

Jacob Phillips (03:03:31.405)
I say do it.

Jacob Phillips (03:03:35.524)
Nice, yeah.

Right, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:03:45.668)
You don't mess with the family. Right, yeah.

Eli Price (03:03:45.841)
It's the revenge is built into the movie. The very concept of the movie. Um, uh, I mean, yeah, there's not really anything to say about the Godfather. It's just, it's the Godfather. Everyone knows.

Jacob Phillips (03:04:00.788)
Right. Yeah, absolutely. No, that's it. It's a great pick. Yeah, no doubt. I'm going to go with the with the modern action masterpiece that has I think really been one of the most I haven't watched all of them, but one of the most highly rated just franchises in terms of just its quality and technicality and I'm going to take the first John Wick.

Eli Price (03:04:04.053)
And one of the best revenge movies ever. For sure.

Eli Price (03:04:28.425)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, great pick.

Jacob Phillips (03:04:33.529)
And I'm a big dog person, so I totally sympathize and recognize that he was acting in the right in what he did in that movie.

Eli Price (03:04:36.491)
Hehehe

Eli Price (03:04:42.813)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's on my list. I was kind of hoping to get that. But yeah, I probably should have known that it would be hard to get it even with just two of us picking. OK, I'm going to start trying to make my list a little more diverse in the sorts of movies. I'm going to go with a great movie.

Jacob Phillips (03:04:58.712)
Hehehe

Jacob Phillips (03:05:06.869)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:05:13.946)
that would be in the comedy and adventure category and I'm gonna go with Inega Montoya

Jacob Phillips (03:05:23.624)
Yeah, that was on my list. That's a great pick.

Eli Price (03:05:25.997)
and the princess bride. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. My name! It's...

Jacob Phillips (03:05:32.96)
Yeah, prepared to die. I mean, literally, you know, literally kind of like what you said with the Godfather have the tagline, like the most memorable line from that movie is a line of revenge. So no, it's a great pick.

Eli Price (03:05:47.109)
Yeah, absolutely. And then like even like very comically shows like the futility of revenge like he like kills him and he's like, all right. That's it.

Jacob Phillips (03:05:57.217)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:06:00.965)
That's it. Yeah, that's a great pick. Man, I don't know what direction to go here either. Like, do I go more obvious? Do I go more diverse? Do I start an argument? Like, what do I do here?

Eli Price (03:06:16.433)
You do what your heart tells you to do.

Jacob Phillips (03:06:21.032)
I'll do... because I think...

Jacob Phillips (03:06:27.96)
I'll take another series movie. And I don't know if this was on your list or not, but I'm gonna take Skyfall. Because, because, you know, obviously the villain, his whole thing is revenge in that movie. I think it's one of the, if not the best James Bond movie. It's arguably up there. And, you know, Javier Bardem is such a

Eli Price (03:06:38.189)
Okay, it wasn't on my list.

Eli Price (03:06:47.603)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (03:06:57.764)
great bad guy in it. And yeah, so I'm going to go sky fall. I think it's great.

Eli Price (03:07:05.941)
Cool. I think we'll do seven, by the way. I don't think we established that, but yeah, we're drafting seven. Just because there's so many good ones to choose from. But yeah, so I think, so I'm gonna keep going diverse. There's one genre that I have two in that I would be happy with. So I'm gonna wait on that.

Jacob Phillips (03:07:16.213)
Yeah, absolutely.

Eli Price (03:07:34.777)
I've got some strategy going here for my draft. There's one, I don't know if, I don't like to call this a genre, because it's not really a genre, but most people do, that I only have one movie in. And that's an animated movie. I don't feel like there's a lot to choose from in animated movies. And so I'm going to choose one where.

Jacob Phillips (03:07:37.032)
Yeah, I like it.

Eli Price (03:08:00.321)
just like in Skyfall where the villain is the one seeking revenge and I'm going to go with Syndrome and the Incredibles.

Jacob Phillips (03:08:07.272)
Nice. That's a great movie. It wasn't on my list, but that's a great choice. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:08:11.865)
Yeah, I mean Syndrome, he just wanted to be part of the team and poor guy went to a life of villainy. Yeah, okay. I'm happy to have the Princess Bride and the Incredibles on my list.

Jacob Phillips (03:08:21.796)
Fly home, buddy.

Jacob Phillips (03:08:28.557)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, that's great. All right, I'll go with a... I can either go...

I'll go with another Tarantino, I'll go with Django Unchained. Just another great revisionist history sort of movie. Yeah I mean like Jamie Foxx and Kristoff Waltz just deliver rock star performances and then you have...

Eli Price (03:08:44.558)
Okay.

Eli Price (03:08:52.973)
Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, it's it would have been my next pick for as far as Tarantino goes

Jacob Phillips (03:09:10.056)
Leo coming in throwing 100 miles an hour. So it's just a yeah, it's a it's a great movie.

Eli Price (03:09:13.403)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (03:09:17.829)
last like shootout is just like wild. Yeah, it's absolutely wild. Completely wild. Okay. Let's see how many so that was your fifth pick. So I still have three picks. So let's see. Let's see if I can get this as diverse as I can. There's, there's one that like, I kind of doubt you thought of.

Jacob Phillips (03:09:19.361)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:09:22.845)
I count six shots.

Jacob Phillips (03:09:28.034)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:09:35.18)
That was my fifth pick, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:09:41.4)
Hehehe

Eli Price (03:09:48.849)
And if you want to dispute it, you can. But I'm going to save that because I don't think you've thought of it. And if you surprise me, then that's on me, I guess. I think. So what do I have? OK. Let's see what category we can go with next. I'm going to go with like a.

Jacob Phillips (03:10:00.921)
Hehehe

Eli Price (03:10:18.717)
kind of a Classic action movie that I caught up with recently that was like super fun and like Pete Harrison Ford and I'm gonna go with the fugitive

Jacob Phillips (03:10:31.828)
Okay. The fugitive, yes, that's a good one. You switch the samples.

Eli Price (03:10:36.581)
Richard Kimble.

Eli Price (03:10:41.304)
Oh man, it was great. I was like, man, this movie should be like the cheesiest movie ever. And I'm just having such a good time. I'm loving every second of it.

Jacob Phillips (03:10:49.94)
It's so good. Yeah, I recently watched it for the like I think I'd watch it when I was like my parents watched it on TV one time when I was little, but I recently within this past year watched it for the first time just all the way through and I was I was thoroughly enjoying it as well. I was like this is this is great. I love Harrison Ford, man. He's he's so good.

Eli Price (03:10:57.662)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:11:08.809)
There's so much great, like Tommy Lee Jones quotes in this movie too. Uh, you know, just like the, you know, search every farmhouse, outhouse, warehouse, like that, that whole little monologue is just fantastic. Uh, oh man. Um, okay. Where are you going to go next?

Jacob Phillips (03:11:12.654)
Oh yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:11:22.028)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:11:26.026)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:11:33.145)
I'm gonna go with this one. Man, I could get more diverse. I could...

Eli Price (03:11:43.517)
It's tough, huh?

Jacob Phillips (03:11:44.832)
It is? There's so many good ones.

Jacob Phillips (03:11:52.288)
All right, I think I'm going to go ahead and pick a more traditional revenge movie. It's a little basic probably, but I recently watched it for the first time. Um, and was honestly really shocked by it, by how good it was. Um, and I'll go with first blood, the first Rambo movie. Um, I was, I was really shocked. It was surprising. Like if you've never seen it because like

Eli Price (03:12:10.437)
Okay, you made me nervous for a second there.

Eli Price (03:12:19.305)
Yeah, I have it.

Jacob Phillips (03:12:19.468)
You know, you think of Rambo movies, you just think of like, oh, it's like a cheesy action shoot them up. But there's actually like a lot of depth in like, like Sylvester Stallone, like honestly delivers a really good performance in it, like shockingly. Like it's not just some cheesy action shoot them up. Like there's, it's an intense thriller. So I highly recommend it.

Eli Price (03:12:40.425)
Okay. Yeah. I haven't seen First Blood. I haven't seen any of the Rambo movies, to be honest. I just haven't ever gotten around to them.

Jacob Phillips (03:12:45.568)
Yeah, they were, so I'm not, yeah, I'm one of those that like stays away from action movies just because they're typically pretty, they don't really surprise you typically and stuff like that, like unless it's like a technically great movie like a John Wick or something like that. So like that was just my initial thought of Rambo movies, but then I was like, oh, I'll give First Blood a shot and it was, it was surprising.

Eli Price (03:12:57.301)
Sure.

Eli Price (03:13:01.577)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:13:09.713)
Yeah, I've heard great, great things. I just never gotten around to it. Okay, so I have a category, which is the Western, that I have two movies that I would love to get, but I'm only gonna pick one of them, and it's gonna be one that I caught up with this past week specifically because...

Jacob Phillips (03:13:27.62)
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Eli Price (03:13:38.257)
It's been on my watch list for forever. And this was like my excuse to finally like put it on, catch up with it, see if the hype lived up. And it did. And I'm gonna go with Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven. Fantastic movie.

Jacob Phillips (03:13:54.537)
Nice. Yeah.

Yeah, I've never seen it, but it's on my list.

Eli Price (03:14:00.857)
Yeah. Man, it was...

I think there's just there's so much that's great about this movie. I mean, Eastwood and Hackman are both like, just like putting up these like late career like fantastic performances. And definitely like a critique on it's almost like Clint Eastwood critiquing everything that

Jacob Phillips (03:14:23.958)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:14:36.661)
people loved about his characters in past movies and like the futility of violence and revenge and like the horror of it all. Yeah, it's a great movie. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:14:39.826)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:14:48.309)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (03:14:52.48)
Yeah. It's definitely on my list. I'm excited. What'd you watch it on by the way? Or did you rent it?

Eli Price (03:14:59.285)
Um, I, I think I have the DVD, but I was, I didn't watch it on the DVD because I was like watching it kind of on the move. Um, and it's streaming on Tubi. So you get the ads, um, which is unfortunate, but it also is free. So yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:15:04.93)
Okay.

Jacob Phillips (03:15:16.11)
Okay, cool.

Jacob Phillips (03:15:25.884)
Alright, so I could either take this like a really serious route or... I know. So I'm either taking a really serious route or a really not serious route. And I think I'm leaning... I'm leaning not serious. So I have a soft spot for some of these types of movies, not all of them, but like some of them are like really fun and well done, quote-unquote, I would say.

Eli Price (03:15:30.141)
This is your last, this is your last pick by the way.

Eli Price (03:15:39.337)
Do not serious.

Yeah, do it.

Jacob Phillips (03:15:54.932)
and I'm gonna go John Tucker Must Die. I mean, The Revenge is in the title. It's not a movie that everyone has seen, but it's one of those like, it's one of those teen movies that like, you think on its surface is like, okay, this is just really stupid and it is, but it's also a lot of fun, like honestly, like it's a good like, sort of coming of age, like kind of coming to grips of

Eli Price (03:16:03.981)
I have not.

Jacob Phillips (03:16:24.268)
Um, you know, like it's a bunch of girls that hate this guy because he's dating all of them. Um, and so they're just wanting to get back at him, but then they realized like, oh, like we have, there's more to us than this guy, you know, type of a thing. So it's, it's a good, uh, it's a good movie. There's, there's Brittany Snow, Taylor Kitsch is in it. Some, some random people that were famous in the mid 2000s, but, um, there's also a ridiculous scene where

Eli Price (03:16:49.895)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:16:53.696)
they switch out his underwear with thongs. And because he's such a good basketball player, the rest of the team decides to also wear thongs. It's just ridiculous. Yeah, like there's just ridiculous stuff like that in the movie, typical teen movie stuff. And it's not like super, super raunchy or anything like that, like an American Pie movie. So it's a fun movie.

Eli Price (03:17:04.541)
Like that's a secret.

Eli Price (03:17:18.917)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Totally not on my radar at all. I love it. Uh, yeah, I love it. I love the, the hard pick the go with your, your heart pick, even if, even if it kills your draft, that's what I, that's, that's what I often do. I often like go with my heart and it just like kills my, my chances at winning. Um, uh, yes. So, um,

Jacob Phillips (03:17:23.498)
Not shocking.

Jacob Phillips (03:17:33.288)
Right, and that, it probably will.

Eli Price (03:17:47.389)
This is the last movie I'm going to go with, still kind of stretching my versatility. I'm going to get into the horror category. Probably not what most people would think of when they think of revenge in the horror, because there is a lot of good like revenge themes in horror movies. A lot of them, I honestly just haven't seen. But I'm going to go with.

Jacob Phillips (03:18:11.085)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:18:16.981)
one of my favorites, uh, poor directors, uh, new horror directors in Jordan Peele. And I'm going to go with us because okay. Yeah. I'm glad you thought of it. Cause I was like, I thought, I thought I was having like a sneaky pick, um, to have that on my list because you wouldn't, it's not what would like necessarily come to mind when you think of revenge, but the whole movie is, I don't well.

Jacob Phillips (03:18:25.556)
Yeah, that was on my list actually. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:18:35.895)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:18:41.846)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:18:45.317)
I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't say anything of why I think it's a revenge movie, but I'm glad you agree. So watch the movie. It's one of those, you know, I try not to spoil too much for movies like this in the movie draft. We're not doing a deep dive on Jordan Pills, us, maybe one day. But yeah, it's a it's a fantastic movie. I go back and forth on whether I like.

Jacob Phillips (03:18:50.836)
No, I agree it's a revenge move for sure.

Jacob Phillips (03:19:05.772)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:19:14.105)
or whether us or nope are my favorite Jordan Peele so far. I like them both more than Get Out. But yeah, it's a great movie and I'm happy to have it on my list. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:19:18.007)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:19:27.54)
Yeah, that's one I saw in theaters that was a really fun theater watch. I feel like most horror movies are fun to watch in theaters just because sometimes you get the crowd interaction and stuff like that. So that was fun.

Eli Price (03:19:33.297)
Hmm, I didn't see it in theaters.

Eli Price (03:19:39.929)
Yeah. Yeah, that was the one that I caught up with at home, unfortunately. But yeah, before I reread our final results, did you have any like honorable mentions or maybe even some that you didn't get around to catching up with before the draft?

Jacob Phillips (03:19:45.153)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:19:59.88)
Yeah, so some honorable mentions. Prisoners, another Hugh Jackman movie was up there that I really, really like. But it's so dark. That's a movie that I don't know if I'll re-watch, but I think I will at a certain point. Another one that probably isn't on a lot of people's radar, but Election with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. I watched it.

Eli Price (03:20:05.298)
Hmm

Eli Price (03:20:25.693)
Yeah, I've never caught up with that.

Jacob Phillips (03:20:29.268)
It was not what I expected, but I think that there's definitely some revenge in that movie. And then my other fun pick that I was going to go with if I didn't pick it at some point was, and I don't know if this would have started an argument or not, but Face Off, I think has some revenge elements to it just because they're both mad at each other for stealing each other's identity. But I think that's more of...

Eli Price (03:20:48.681)
Hmm.

Eli Price (03:20:56.53)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:20:59.056)
It's not baked into the movie. It's more of a read on it, I guess.

Eli Price (03:21:01.401)
Yeah. Yeah, I guess you could make the argument there.

Jacob Phillips (03:21:05.731)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:21:08.477)
Yeah, I don't know. Face Off isn't my favorite. It's definitely a fun watch, but it's not a very good movie. What it does show is that Nick Cage is a superior, a much superior actor to John Chavolta.

Jacob Phillips (03:21:11.349)
No, yeah.

No, it's not at all.

Jacob Phillips (03:21:22.4)
Absolutely. And John Travolta is just creepy.

Eli Price (03:21:27.013)
Yeah. Yeah, I had I had a lot of movies that like I would have loved to grab that, you know, just we only draft so many movies. Obviously, you have a couple like there's more Tarantino movies in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. You could argue is revenge. The Kill Bill movies. Yeah. I.

Jacob Phillips (03:21:38.594)
Right.

Jacob Phillips (03:21:44.459)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (03:21:50.368)
Yeah, Kill Bill, yeah.

I'm not big fans of them, truthfully.

Eli Price (03:21:56.665)
I'm not as high on, I've actually only seen the first Kill Bill. I think the second Kill Bill and Death Proof are the two Tarantinos I haven't seen. But yeah, I'm not, it's one I need to revisit, honestly, Kill Bill. The other Western I was thinking of grabbing was True Grit, the Coen's remake.

Jacob Phillips (03:22:00.887)
Mm.

Jacob Phillips (03:22:20.196)
You're great, yeah.

Yeah, that's a good movie.

Eli Price (03:22:24.837)
It's fantastic. I love it. The Revenant is a good one.

Jacob Phillips (03:22:30.208)
Yeah, I had the Northman on there, which I feel like those two are both similar.

Eli Price (03:22:35.621)
Yeah, I like The Revenant more. The Northman, I wasn't as high. I was a little disappointed. Like, I was still positive on it, but I was pretty disappointed in it relative to Eggers' other two movies. I think you could argue the Shawshank Redemption is a revenge narrative. He's kind of getting revenge on the warden. I had Pig on my list.

Jacob Phillips (03:22:57.665)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, that's one that I haven't watched yet, but...

Eli Price (03:23:03.861)
Man, I love pig. I wanted to draft it but I was like, oh I'm gonna stick with Yeah, I'm gonna go with some other heart pick. I'm not gonna go with like all heart picks for this a Couple of Scorsese's I had listed were gangs of New York and Cape Fear Too great both fantastic movies I

Jacob Phillips (03:23:15.576)
Hehehe

Jacob Phillips (03:23:23.869)
Mm-hmm.

Eli Price (03:23:33.629)
with either of the West Side stories. There's some revenge kind of in the narrative there, especially towards the end. And then like one that, now in hindsight, one that I wish I would have left room for was to get an old movie in was The Lady Eve with Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. He kind of like,

Jacob Phillips (03:23:57.238)
Mm.

Jacob Phillips (03:24:00.963)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (03:24:03.337)
Uh, it's the plot is sort of like, she is a kind of a con woman with her dad. They kind of like con rich men and they get money off of them, but then she falls in love with them. But then he finds out that she's, she was conning him and, um, and like sends her away and then she's trying to get revenge on him and like puts on an accent and like comes back and he, Henry Fonda's character is very like, kind of like.

Jacob Phillips (03:24:12.748)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:24:33.145)
a himbo in this movie. Uh, and like, he's like, surely it's not the same woman, even though she looks exactly the same because she has an accent and is like putting on this acting like she's the lady Eve or whatever, but it's a great movie. It's very funny and, uh, and really fun. Um, main on fire, Robo cop oceans 11 even has, has that in there. Um, yeah, there's, there's a lot of good.

Jacob Phillips (03:24:34.528)
Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:24:39.928)
I'm sorry.

Jacob Phillips (03:24:46.282)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:24:55.329)
Yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah.

Eli Price (03:25:03.089)
Revenge movies, a lot that I haven't seen. The Crow was one that kept coming up on lists that I haven't seen. The Count of Monte Cristo is one that I really wanted to try to catch up with but didn't have time to.

Jacob Phillips (03:25:11.361)
Yeah, I haven't seen the crow either.

Jacob Phillips (03:25:18.644)
Yeah, I haven't, that was one of my mom's favorite movies and I just haven't rewatched it in so long.

Eli Price (03:25:22.237)
Hmm. Yeah. I've heard good things about, um, promising young woman, which was a couple of years ago. Um, Carrie, if you're going to go horror. Um, and then there's a couple of like Park Chan Wook movies and old boy and the handmaiden. And there, I think there's even a couple more of his that would be considered revenge movies, but that I haven't seen, but yeah, there's a lot of good ones.

Jacob Phillips (03:25:28.224)
Yeah, yeah, that came up on a lot of lists.

Jacob Phillips (03:25:35.37)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Phillips (03:25:39.48)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:25:51.481)
Yeah, just to read off our final list, I have, well, I'll read yours off for Jacob Took, Gone Girl, Gladiator, John Wick, Skyfall, Django Unchained, First Blood, and of course, to top it all off, John Tucker Must Die. Yeah, for sure. Definitely the one that has the most obvious revenge title.

Jacob Phillips (03:25:54.573)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:26:12.196)
course, the most obvious pick.

Jacob Phillips (03:26:21.958)
That's true.

Eli Price (03:26:25.238)
Yeah, and I so I went with inglorious bastards the godfather the princess bride the Incredibles the fugitive unforgiven and us a lot of the titles in mine Yeah, hopefully I can be the winner of the movie draft Yeah, like that Yeah, that was fun

Jacob Phillips (03:26:37.144)
Very nice. Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:26:46.618)
Ooh, I see what you did there.

Jacob Phillips (03:26:52.458)
Oh yeah.

Eli Price (03:26:52.681)
That was a really fun draft. Did you happen to have a recommendation of the week? Were you able to think of anything? OK, yes. Gives me more time to think of one.

Jacob Phillips (03:27:00.468)
I did. Yeah. So something that I so I just recently moved and found a gym that has a sauna and I've been using that sauna and man I'm telling you it really is I looked into it too because I was like I wonder if this is just one of those things that like people use that but like there might be mixed you know reviews on whether you should use it or not.

But like there's so many different health benefits to it. And it really does like, I feel great afterwards. Feels, it relaxes you and helps you really throughout the day and recovering too if you go to the gym and stuff like that. So helps you cardiovascularly as well. So, you know, helps with any, it helps to get ahead of any potential heart problems that you might have in your family.

Eli Price (03:27:43.133)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:27:59.792)
So, yeah, that would be my recommendation. It's definitely daunting at first, and just because it's like super hot. But yeah, you get used to it at a certain point, and the more you use it, I love it.

Eli Price (03:27:59.814)
Mm.

Eli Price (03:28:06.032)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:28:16.869)
Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, I've never, uh, never done the whole sauna thing. So, yeah. Um, yeah. Uh, I'm going to make my recommendation of the week. Uh, I honestly don't know if I've done this or someone's done this as a recommendation before. So if I'm repeating a recommendation, you know, oh well, um, you know, it's, it's my show. I can repeat a recommendation if I want to.

Jacob Phillips (03:28:44.937)
Exactly.

Eli Price (03:28:46.349)
I'm gonna, in light of our movie news section, recommend building some habits in using Letterboxd. It's a really great tool for making your movie watching structured and meaningful. But also, especially if you subscribe for pro...

Jacob Phillips (03:28:52.859)
Mmm, yeah.

Eli Price (03:29:15.889)
or patron, which I'm a pro subscriber and I want to say it's an annual fee of just like 20 bucks or something like that. It's not much at all. I don't even know what that comes out to. It comes out to less than $2 a month, I think. And so yeah, you get features like you're able to clone lists. So like if someone has made...

Jacob Phillips (03:29:24.328)
Yeah, yeah, something like that.

Jacob Phillips (03:29:43.648)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:29:45.053)
someone has made a list of certain movies that you want to watch through or rank, you can just clone their list and make your own ranking. Or it allows you to filter by different streaming services if you're a pro subscriber. And so it's really easy for me to find, oh, this movie's streaming here, there, whatever. I don't have to go to multiple sources to find where it's streaming. It's all in one spot.

Jacob Phillips (03:30:12.448)
Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:30:15.133)
Um, you know, there, and then just like having the, the diary and a watch list and, um, uh, yeah, it's just a really good movie watching tool that, you know, it, I couldn't recommend enough. Um, yeah. And they're, you know, they're really growing and adding new things and, um, you know, they're all over, they're all over the, the film space now.

Jacob Phillips (03:30:31.04)
Yeah, I'm with it.

Eli Price (03:30:42.685)
Um, they've got their, you know, acting, asking, uh, actors and directors, their four favorite films and stuff on, on their like Instagram and Twitter's. It's really fun. But, uh, be a letterboxed, uh, they're doing their own, you know, they're on the up and up good stuff. Yeah, that's, uh, that's our recommendations of the week. And, uh, we are going to wrap up this episode. Um, it's been a good one.

Jacob Phillips (03:30:48.009)
Yeah.

Jacob Phillips (03:31:00.789)
Oh yeah, highly recommend it.

Eli Price (03:31:12.189)
Great talk on the prestige really fun revenge movie draft and Hopefully whoever Went whoever loses doesn't seek revenge on the other No promises on my part Yeah Yeah, I hope you enjoyed the show looking forward to talking about the Dark Knight next week

Jacob Phillips (03:31:16.844)
Absolutely.

Jacob Phillips (03:31:27.674)
Yeah, that's a good point. Fair enough.

Eli Price (03:31:41.065)
Um, and yeah, this has been fun, but, uh, for Jacob Phillips, I've been Eli Price and you've been listening to the establishing shot. We will see you next time.