Topic: Christopher Nolan’s Following (1998)

This week a very passionate Topher Mac talks Christopher Nolan as he deep dives the filmmaker’s first film. This episode is packed with opinions and theories and contemplations related to Nolan’s work and the arts in general.  This is a can’t miss episode!  

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

I am so excited right now. Yes, I am. That's right. Because this is it. I've been waiting for this moment for quite a while. As a matter of fact, I've been waiting for this moment since Oppenheimer because this week, not this moment, but I mean this week, this week is when we finally get the Odyssey. Yeah, buddy. Christopher Nolan's 13th film, The Odyssey, premieres this week. Tomorrow, if you're listening to the episode as it drops on Wednesday morning, um in uh two days for me because I'm recording very late at night on a Tuesday night. What are we going to do to celebrate? I decided it's finally time to look at one of my favorite directors. In fact, Christopher Nolan is tied for my favorite living director. Only seconded this tie of people by my favorite all-time director, uh Stanley Kubrick, which is great because the movie that we're going to be talking about today has a little nod to Mr. Kubrick. What movie is that we're going to be covering? It's Christopher Nolan's first ever feature film, Following. Released uh in, well, let me not get ahead of ourselves here. It's a 1990 film, uh, a 1999 film, though. We'll get into all that. That's what I was gonna say. Uh, you know, uh, as I'm a little chaotic here, I want to remind everybody that I, uh, in my uh grouchy anti-establishment sort of way, uh, continue to do my podcast with no editing. Season one, we'll have no editing to the podcasts. Uh, and I hope that you're enjoying it. It I feel like it's a more human experience in a world that where we're getting all this crappy AI garbage, okay? And I'm over it, I'm done with it, and I'm not gonna continue with it. That's the fact of the matter. So, anyways, 13th film 27 years ago, America got their first taste. Oh, actually, um 28 years ago? I don't know. Math, math ain't nothing right now, but following was the first thing. It it was he came to us through the independent film circuit. Uh, because of following, we got memento. Memento is something uh you've more likely heard of. But before that was this movie following. Okay, before we get in deep with Mr. Nolan, I first want to take a minute and tell you what I've been listening to. By the way, I'm Topher Mac. That's right, I'm Topher Mac. Uh, you can see me uh on my YouTube channel, Topher House. Uh, I'm a stand-up comic who is currently in hiatus, but not for too much longer. I'm gonna come out of come out of my shell and start doing some stuff in the very near future. Uh, additionally, working on uh some projects, uh finally starting to get active again in the industry, and I'm excited about all that stuff. But I'm here today with Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast. Shadows That Shine is my brand, uh, it's my baby, it's my love child. Uh, we've been coming to you since February 13th of this year. That was our first uh, I mean, we had a trailer a couple days before that, but February 13th, we dropped three episodes, and I have really enjoyed presenting this to you. All right, this is a big episode for me. I'm doing this episode by myself. Uh, sometimes we have co-hosts, guest co-hosts come in, do the show. So if this is the first time you're ever listening to us, and it might be because I mean, I'm gonna promote this one. I really care about uh Christopher Nolan, so yeah. All right, um back on track coming soon. I mentioned to the February 13th to let you know that on July 13th, we started work on YouTube content. Now, our podcast is still not available on YouTube's platform as of right now. Um, trying to decide how I want to handle that as it comes along. Uh, but we're gonna actually start dropping like video essays, uh, possibly either film reviews or uh different kinds of content. We're still sketching everything out. Um, and so not only will you be able to see me uh at uh Topher House uh on YouTube, but now you'll also be able to see me. Shadows That Shine has a YouTube channel. You can go right now, you can subscribe to it. I would really like it if you did. Uh right now we just have a little like quick intro thing um coming up soon. We're gonna have our first video essay. We might drop two or three of them at the same time. I haven't decided yet. There's a very strong chance you're gonna get that first video this week. Okay, I have a date that I'm aiming for, it's a date that has significance to me, which is why I want to drop it. If I don't drop it on that date, it'll be a few days after that on another date that has significance to me. Blah blah blah blah blah. Who cares? I'll tell you what I do care about movies, and recently we have been watching movies. I hope you've been watching. I say we, it's me. I've been the one watching the movies, and I want to tell you what I thought about some of these more recently. Um, looking real quick at the last time that we had this conversation, which Jews gays. There we go. Um, oh no. I don't remember if I mentioned this in the last episode, but my 4th of July movie was Jaws. After that, I watched Married to the Mob. Uh, I I did not care for Married to the Mob much. Two and a half stars on Letterboxd. That's right. STS Pod on Letterboxd. If you want to see what we're uh what we think of the movies that either we review or that I'm watching kind of to get more knowledge. But also, again, I just love movies. Now this week I watched For All Mankind, the 1989 documentary about going to the moon. I gave it three stars. I also watched Cat People, the 1982 version. I gave it three stars. Those movies were okay, like some stuff in it I liked, some stuff I didn't like. I feel like for certain audiences you'll like it a lot. I don't think they were necessarily bad movies, they were middle ground movies. That's what we give our three stars is like, you know, it's not gonna change, you know, it it might be your thing for the general audience or for people who sh have the same taste as me. It's gonna be an adequate movie to watch. Uh, a little bit more than adequate though was a movie called Clockwatchers, 1997 release, has a lot of famous people in it. Uh, some of them right before they got famous, some of them uh right as they were at their peak. Uh, you'll notice the the woman who was the lead in heredity, hereditary, she is the lead in clockwatchers, which is sort of like a dramedy. I th I th I would call it a dramedy. Anyways, I liked that movie. I only gave it three and a half stars because there's a little bit of weakness to it, but uh it was still good and I still enjoyed it. Uh it's compared in its description to Office Space. I don't think it's a fair con uh I think the restlessness of office culture is comparable, but I don't think anything else about that movie is comparable. It is interesting that this predates office space, so it does make me think if I took a deeper look, we could probably find a subgenre of office culture, uh office culture movies from the late 90s into the early 2000s. Uh that might be a fun conversation to explore one day through some genres. Anyways, last night I watched the Fun House Massacre, or maybe that was last night. Might have been uh no, that was Sunday night. Anyways, Funhouse Massacre, 2015 horror film that was just not good. There were some redeeming moments, so I gave it two stars. Um, it is one of the lowest things I've rated so far. I've watched some other movies that are not on the list because I'm still wrestling with whether or not I uh what what I would give them as a rating. Uh there are movies that will be covered by the podcast most likely this year. Movies like um Silence of the Lambs is a movie I watched in the last you know few days. Another movie that I watched in the last few days, Forced Gump. Um, you know, these are movies I'm still contemplating and chewing over what I would rate these at. Uh they're high ratings, but I I don't know how high I want to go. I have still never given a five-star review. We here at Shadows That Shine, uh, haven't given any five-star reviews. Um I feel like I need I'm getting close to doing one. Will today be that day? Because today we're going to be covering following. Yes, following Christopher Nolan's first film. Uh once again, I am Topher Mac. If you're uh so inclined, you can follow me at on Instagram. Uh not only does Shadows That Shine at Shadows That Shine on Instagram have a page, I have a page at Topher TV. If you you know want to laugh, want some silliness in your life. Shadows that shine can be a little pretentious, but I try to not be too pretentious. I try to be a little I try to inject some of that silliness that I got into me. Certainly, some of that sloppiness is there. Just to remind you that the the you know, yeah. I got distracted. Let's get going, okay? Let's start this baby off. Uh, again, you're listening to Shadows that shine, a movie podcast. And let's get right into one of my favorite topics to talk about. I hope that you enjoy it, but just in case you don't, we're gonna speed on through the box office. Well, that's not the box office we're going for. Here we go. The box office. This would be for the latest weekend, July 10th to the 12th. And just like I thought, Mona ain't delivering. People did not want that movie. I thought people didn't want that movie. I seem to be right. Now it's doing better. It's doing a little bit better than I thought it would do, but not much better. I was expecting like a $30 to $35 million weekend, but it actually domestically did a $43 million weekend. Internationally, $52 for a total of $95 million. That's right. $95 million spent on what looks like a very bad remake. I'm not gonna know. I don't plan on watching it. Uh if I wanted to see Mona, I'd go watch the animated version. This is not a sequel from what I've been reading that justifies I'm not sequel, not a um live action remake that seems to justify its existence. Uh second place, minions and monsters adds another $20.5 million to its coffers for Universal Pictures. By the way, I'm sorry, I skipped over Walt Disney Studios produced Mona. I just figured it was obvious. Uh, Universal Pictures, who released Minions and Monsters, should be very happy. Domestically, 108.3 million dollars, 171.8 million dollars internationally for a total of 280 million dollars. I mean, that is something to be proud of. Hey, that those math that that math doesn't math all the way. It should be more money. No, it shouldn't. I do a rounding thing, all right. It makes sense if you use my rounding system. Um, this movie's done really well. I do, even though I'm not big on animated films and I don't care for uh minions, I think I'm gonna watch this very soon. Uh primarily because Trey Parker, one of my favorite directors, is an actor in this movie. George Lucas, another one. By the way, still have not recorded the Marsha Lucas episode. It is going to happen. If I gotta do it on my own, I was gonna do it with a friend. That may happen still, that may not. I'm trying to make the schedule work. Uh, because you guys, I think, will be very interested to know about the the life and career of Marsha Lucas. That'll be a special episode when it comes out. Uh, hopefully, not too much longer for that. Third place, the third family film. All right, the top three this week have all been family films. In fact, uh arguably four out of the five films this uh in in this weekend was was family films. Third place, Toy Story 5 added another $18.5 million dollars, bringing their total to $403.8 million dollars domestically. That's a fantastic place to be sitting at. All right, $475.3 million internationally for a total of $879 million. Walt Disney Studios might be disappointed with Mona, but you know that they're loving this Toy Story uh movie that I've heard very positive things from the people that have gone to see it that I know. Opening weekend for Evil Dead Burn. They managed to bring in $13.7 million. Okay, they did this for the Warner Brothers uh New Line Cinema. You know, Warner Brothers owns New Line Cinema, and that's who uh released is the distributor for this movie. $13.7 million domestic, $27 million internationally for $40 million. I checked and it looks like they've roughly made uh about broke even. So if they have a few more good days, this film will have turned a profit. Uh that's very good for this franchise. I want to cover them uh this spooky season. Uh I've watched the original for the first time ever a few weeks ago, and I'm gonna I'm gonna try to bring in a friend of the show that you guys seem to like a lot because you show up when he does episodes, that's John Paul Edmondson. Uh, we've talked about doing Evil Dead uh and talking about that, and I want to, and we're going to. Young Washington, fifth place, 6.4 million dollars that they have added for Angel Studios. All right. Uh that's a PG 13 movie about, you know, young George Washington. 33.1 million dollars that that movie has made so far. Now, I mentioned this before, I want to mention again. Angel does this weird thing where they um give you like tickets to the movie if you're subscribed to their streaming service because they have a streaming service, and so I don't know how that affects these box office results. I'm not gonna keep mentioning that all the time because they don't pay me. I'm not a spot, I'm not being sponsored by them. Probably wouldn't be because Angel is uh from what I gather uh a little bit conservative. Uh and and I don't mean politically conservative, I mean like religiously conservative sort of outfit. Maybe I'm wrong. Uh maybe they would sponsor me. You know what? Sponsor me, Angel. Sponsor me.

SPEAKER_04 16:56

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Um, anyways, the blah blah blah of that brings us to uh uh why did you zoom in? Paperwork, July 10th to 12th. Overall's gross was 123 million dollars. That's up 4.5 percent from the previous weekend, and they did that with only 29 releases, only 29 releases through the week. All right, the top 10 gross alone was 119 million of that, so you know, uh normally for the last few weeks there's been um mid-50s to early 60s uh in terms of releases. We don't normally talk about that, but I figure, you know, let's mention it today.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Let us mention it, mention it a today. Um, um, I got a case of the um so there we go.

SPEAKER_03 17:58

That's your box office for the weekend that just occurred. I'm very excited about the upcoming weekend. Do you think that this movie can pull in Oppenheimer money? They're not paired with Barbie, it's not some special event like that. In fact, everyone is scared to compete with this movie. I think it's gonna be the movie of the year. I'm extremely excited. I'm going to the absolute very first showing that is possible for me to go to. I've had my tickets for weeks, uh, and I'm talking The Odyssey, which is not in a genre that I like. It is not a genre I normally care about, but here is the reality of things. Christopher Nolan has never failed. He has stepped up to bat and knocked it out of the park over and over and over and over again, even his first film.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Even his first film. Hold on, everybody. Okay, we're still good on that.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

Um which is what we're talking about today. That is following. Uh, released in America for the first time in 1999, uh, late 1998 was its uh premiere. It has it's the only one of Christopher Nolan's movies that his wife was in as a performer. Emma um Emma Thomas. I know words. Emma Thomas, Thompson Thomas. Have I mentioned that I'm bad with names? Of course I have Make Fun of Me. Emma Thomas is who produced it along with Christopher Nolan and Jeremy Theobold. Normally we don't talk about produced by, but all right, so I've never been shy to uh say over and over again that I subscribe to the Artur theory. I've been doing research lately for YouTube videos that we uh are looking at doing, and because of that, I'm a little bit nervous. Uh I mean not nervous, I need to come up with a name for what I actually believe because what I've been describing as Arthur theory is not exactly auteur theory, it's a modified version of it, okay? So I'm gonna have to do more contemplation on that. I want to tell you guys more about what that is. We'll get to that at some point. I wasn't super off of it if you've listened to previous episodes and I've discussed it. Anyways, the point is this is a director-focused podcast. But you cannot for you can't say Christopher Nolan without Emma Thomas. It is his wife, and it has been his producing partner for the entirety of his career. Every single feature film he has, she's been there. You cannot ignore a contribution like that. He is probably as great as he is because she's as great at her job as she is. A great director has a great support system. They use the best people that they can use for the vision that they have. But when you're first getting started, what are you working with? You're doing the best that you can with what you can. Okay, and I I mentioned that to say Christopher Nolan did that with this movie. He wasn't dealing with the best of the best of the best. This is the the last time he would do things, uh, would do most of the things either by himself or practically by himself. This is before Hollywood, uh the Hollywood system of doing things starts to come in and starts to play ball. All right. Let's talk some statistics. Uh while we're here, of course, I did mention the premiere in April. Uh I did mention that uh Christopher Nolan directed this film. He also is the sole writer of this film. He often writes or co-writes his movies. That's been from the beginning. Um and uh I got distracted for a moment because I was thinking about I think I also want to cover a short film he did a cup that came out a couple of years before following called Doodle Bug. So at some point, just know we're gonna circle back to that, and it's another thing that's in that uh it's a three-minute short film, uh and it will be worth talking about as well. The budget for this film, six thousand dollars, okay. And what did six thousand dollars uh give us? Well, you know, it gave us Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker, officially. Once you have that first film, okay, that's what people are looking at and going, should we give this guy real money to do uh a movie? Clerks, Kevin Smith, $33,000 in credit card debt, made that movie. It's 33 or 36. Uh, I'm doing this off the top of my head. That means that Christopher Nolan came in, and Christopher Nolan inspired by, I've heard it out of his mouth in interviews, inspired by Kevin Smith, inspired by uh the L what's his name? Robert Rodriguez. Okay, and and also sort of inspired even by uh uh um oh he's an asshole. What's his name? Uh Quentin Tarantino. I mean, come on, he's a great filmmaker, but lately he's been being an asshole. That's why I said that. No offense, Mr. Tarantino. If you hear this, you won't hear this, but if you do hear this, just know that I love your work. I just think that you've been saying some out-of-pocket shit about people, and I don't think that you have a right to judge actors like that, uh, especially the actors that you're judging who are better actors than you, even though you are a brilliant filmmaker. Why am I saying all this? It's like I hate my career already. It's like, hey guys, never let me work in Hollywood. Am I right? I, Topher Mag, am not only a comedian, but uh I am looking to be a director. I have never directed a feature film of my own. Yeah, I know this is scattered. Just come on, come for the journey, guys. Come along with us. All right, I want to be a film director. It's why this is director focused. Uh, I do I am partial to directors that write or help write, uh, because that is a part of the process that I like doing. I'm more like Kubrick in the sense that I like to write with someone if I can help it, but I've never really got to produce anything that I wrote with somebody else. Everything so far has just been me. Uh, and one day I'll make something that's worth sharing with you guys. Back to following. Following made $128 million and 40. 128, sorry, not million, thousand dollars. All right, and that doesn't sound like much until I remind you it only had a budget of about nine thousand dollars. Okay, so that's not bad, yo. That's a that's a return on investment. He shot the movie. I don't know if you know this, he shot this uh movie on weekends, had a full-time job, shot it over the weekends. Uh, everybody that was working on it had full-time Monday to Friday jobs, and then he shot it 15 minutes at a time. 15 minutes at a time.

SPEAKER_04 26:08

All right.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

Um, and it was filmed from like 96 to 97. Uh, it was filmed in uh England, and uh the thing is, I'm going through his biography right now, and I don't have everything because I'm still working my way through it. Uh Christopher Nolan seems to be a person who uh split his time growing up between England and I think Chicago, if I'm not mistaken. So he he's mixed in terms of how he grew up. His younger brother has no British accent, he's just a little bit older than him, and I guess spent a little bit more time in England, which is why he has that uh British sounding accent. He has uh I heard in interviews lately talked about how he's a person of two identities, uh, because he he definitely identifies with both and has trouble choosing between the two countries. Uh so there's a little little thing about him. Uh he has been a film-centric director. Everything that he does is film. Uh, when he him and I have this in common. When I was a kid, I used to shoot uh little movies on our camera that I had. Mine was all like tape. I shot my stuff on mini DV, high eight, uh, stuff like that. He shot his stuff eight millimeter, then 16 millimeter. So he's been film from the beginning. He's a film diehard. I wish I I don't have the guts to shoot film, if I'm being honest with you. And so there's that. All right. Following, as I mentioned before, you know, today, uh, since I have it pulled up, I'm gonna tell you who's in this movie: Jeremy Theobald, uh, Alex Hall, Lucy Russell, and uh John Nolan, who is his uncle. And uh Lucy and John are both in Batman Begins. They both have small parts in those movies. So you've seen some of these people's work before. I think Jeremy was in it too, but I can't remember off the top of my head, and I don't want to say for sure. Following uh what is the following? You know, I'm sure this is one of those times I'm like nobody listening to this has seen this movie. I'm assuming that right off the bat. So let me tell you what following is about. I think I've said all that, I said the budget, I said uh writer, I said the director, producer, I said the actors. Um and uh oh well here's something. If you do want to watch it, I have the DVD uh Blu-ray for it. I got it through the Criterion Collection. I'm a big fan of Criterion movies. Uh I think that they curate great films, uh sort of like how people will often say A24 curates great movies, and they have. I'm very heartbroken over their decision to side with AI because it makes me not really want to support them the way that I was. I am one of those people. Call me pretentious if you want, but it is what it is. Um, Criterion, I love the way they curate. I've been taking advantage of the Criterion channel, their streaming service. They didn't pay me to talk about this, but it's a good service, and following is on that service. So even if you just download it for a month, check out you know, Christopher Nolan's first film. Additionally, Doodle Bug, one of his first uh publicly released, I believe it's his second short film that was released to the world. Uh this is a good time, actually. We'll go into what the following was about in a minute. Doodle bug is an exercise in special effects, and it is very uh existential, very um uh uh you have a guy, and he's like it looks like he's trying to kill a bug in this like small, cramped little room. It's like almost like a little dorm room, okay? Rooms uh easily no bigger than my bedroom, and I don't have a big bedroom. She's going around trying to kill it, and then all of a sudden you see it's like this little person that he and now he's trying to kill a little person. Well, when he finally does, spoiler alert, kill the person, his little like doodle bug, is it which uh I think it's like a type of insect doodle bug in uh England. I'm not all the way sure off the top of my head. But he kills his bug, and when he does, all of a sudden you see right behind him a giant version of him is now looking at him, mirroring what you just saw him do. Then you see the shoe come down kasplat. Fascinating, interesting, a real think piece. Short films, I think, are best when they uh are either uh mood when they're when they're some sort of a mood-based thing or extremely simple point that you're trying to make. This is not a simple point, this is a profound point that Doodle Bug does. It was released in '97. If you want to see it, uh, I don't know if it's on YouTube. I imagine you could probably find that one on YouTube, but I know for a fact it is also on Criterion Channel. Back to following. Uh, according to IMDB, they say a young writer who follows strangers for material meets a thief who takes him under his wing. And I mean that's one way that you could describe it for sure. It is it has all the hallmarks that Nolan's gonna be known for later, in the sense that it doesn't have all the hallmarks, but it has one of the big ones. Uh, the movie bounces around in time a lot, it tells the story it wants to tell by constantly jumping back and forth. Uh, I think I read somewhere 37 times. 37. What's up, Kevin Smith? Uh he's this writer, and he's we open up and he's telling this story uh to what looks like a police officer, and he's explaining what he's been doing, and he's basically like, I've been following people, and it's like not a perverted thing. I'm doing it because I'm bored. I'm doing it for this reason, I'm doing it for that reason. This is why I've been doing everything I've been doing, okay? And then he then we watch him follow some people, he starts talking about how he screwed up, you know, he had rules for himself, he starts breaking the rules, and that's when things get real messed up. Well, that's when we get introduced to the other character, the Cobb character, which is fun because Cobb is also the name that Christopher Nolan chose for Inception's character that Leonardo DiCaprio played. Uh, both of them were Cobbs. I think that's an interesting and very unlikely that it was on accident. Uh, I don't, I'm not over here saying that they're the same uh person, same character, but it is an interesting theme. Uh let me get you as far as I can get you non-spoilery before we get into spoiler uh conversation. So I almost went into spoiler conversation. So following uh then he like meets a girl and you see all this stuff going on, yada yada yada. The point is it feels very much like a first film for a lot of it, except it looks interesting. It's uh if you've ever been to film festivals, which we've covered one uh on the show before, but you go to these things, and a lot of the movies are just not good, and even the ones that are good have some sort of an issue with it. It's something because it's the first time someone's come out, so there's gonna be a pacing issue, it's gonna be some sort of something that's wrong. And in this case, I think the pacing is not quite as tight as Nolan will get. I think it actually took Christopher Nolan two or three films uh before he really, really got pacing down. Uh but not bad overall. I mean, by the time you get to the end, you're in. Speaking of which, it's like you come in, it's a black and white film. All right, let's let's go ahead and uh I'll just say this before we get into spoilers because I'm ready to start spoilery stuff. I I want to be able to free-flow my thoughts without having to censor anything. So before before spoilers set in, here's what I'm saying: I think following is worth watching. Um, I uh have not put the information in yet, but I fully plan on giving it three and a half stars. I think it's a pretty good movie. I think for a first movie, it's a good, uh, uh, a very good first movie. Very good first time out the bat. All right. It's Christopher Nolan, he delivers every time. If you like all of his movies, you'll probably like this. This is what they call a film noir. That's the genre that it fits into. Um, and you know, it's a good example. You can see his influences in it. We're still not in spoiler uh uh zones here, but you can see that he loves Stanley Cooper probably as much as I do. You can see that he likes Quentin Tarantino, you can see that he likes uh even like you can see a little bit of Kevin Smith in there. I believe I think so. Uh even though he is not, you know, over there running his mouth about yay, I love Kevin Smith. But like you know for a fact that there's uh an immediate shout out to Kubrick because you have pictures still from The Shining in this movie and other movies too, but that movie very much jumps out, and then he even uses as his fake name later in the movie. Uh he'll give a fake name. I guess that's sort of a spoilery thing. He's referencing a character, uh he's referencing the actor who was in uh The Shining, the little boy, uses his name. Alright, so just to wrap everything up in a bow in terms of the spoiler-free part of this, this is worth your time. It's not a very long movie, it's an hour and ten minutes and five seconds. I think is absolutely uh, if you're a film nerd, I think it's absolutely worth your time. If you're a casual film audience member, you may or may not like it. If you like film noir, I still think you'll like it. Now he doesn't get super fancy with lighting like Kubrick does. He doesn't get super fancy with some of the aspects that I've seen in stronger film noir. But again, this is his first time out. He does very good with what he has. And there is uh the ending is a very strong ending. Everything it goes to set up pays off in dividends, and that's as that's as far as I can take is spoiler-free. So now's your time that you like run to turn the thing off if you're wanting to avoid spoilers. Because next up is that while we wait for you to hit stop, on uh you'll you come back and revisit us when you're done. I am Topher Mack, and you're listening to Shadows that Shine, a movie podcast. And I again very excited. This week is the week that the Odyssey comes out. I didn't bother looking up what else is coming out. Last time I looked, it was like really not good movies. Like, I hate to be judgmental like that, but like no one's trying to compete. This isn't, you know, like later in the year when Dune and um Avengers are gonna go head to head. Everyone saw this and said, My man's doing the Odyssey. Let him cook.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

We'll we'll come back to work next week. That was me taking a swig of water right there.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

Alright, everyone's out that's uh concerned about spoilers. Here's the thing this twist ending is fucking gangster. Yo, he like sets it up, and I'm not gonna lie, like a little bit of me. There's like that hair of you that's bored where you're like, What is this? Like you're you're just telling a story at me, all right. And that way it seems weak on this watch. It's the only second time I've seen the movie, and I forgot all about the twist ending, and I'm over here and I'm like, okay, like it it's interesting enough to keep watching, but I just don't know, man. Like it maybe I'm wrong, maybe he doesn't knock it out of the park every time until we get to the twist at the end, and you find out that everything's a giant setup, and everything is a giant setup, not just for one, but two of the characters, and at this point you've been seeing double cross, double cross, double cross, double cross, double cross, double cross, double cross, and you couldn't like you weren't sure who was in charge at this point until you finally find out in the very end that there's this masterful, I'm gonna plant the seeds of your destruction situation, which is why this movie pairs great with Inception. Because in Inception, it's a movie about uh, and I'm not saying this is like an original me thought. I've I'm pretty sure I've read or seen this somewhere, uh, the gist of what I'm saying. Uh Inception is pretty much a movie about implanting an idea into the mind of somebody else. Well, this is one that is the same kind of manipulation, but it's not dreams, it's reality. He tricks this man into doing everything he wants to do. He's playing chess with this dude. He's setting him up and kind of just knows he's an easy mark, sends him, uh, knows that he's gonna go to the police, like can sense that this is the kind of guy that's gonna go to the police, and he's just setting him up, setting him up for murder to murder a couple different people. It was all the time, it was always gonna be this giant fucking setup. And it ain't it ain't a happy ending for our protagonist, it's not, but it is a happy ending if you're on the side of what's good and what's bad. You know, if you want morally just to get what's coming to them, well, there's no morally just people in this movie, everybody's shitty, and so everybody has bad things happen to them. Except except Cobb, except the the main criminal in this thing, the guy who's setting everybody up, he gets to just disappear. He's just a master and gets to go. Hey, I tricked everybody, I killed, I'm I'm going to the next day.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Fascinating to me. I found it fascinating. How are we doing on time? Alright, we're doing good.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

I thought some of the like you really start to see what he's cooking with. You know, he doesn't have fancy tools, so he's doing uh what I've heard called one way or another, I've heard called discipline. You have to have certain disciplines, sometimes your limitations, that's another way of putting it, uh, sometimes your limitations pull out the best of you with what you got. And here's an example that he understands something. If you're a young filmmaker or new film, if you're somebody that that's on the come-up, all right, the reality is sound is extremely important. Like we don't talk about the you would think it's moving pictures, it's movies, and that these shadows shine because of the visual aesthetic. Man, the visual aesthetic is is the bow on the present. The meet and taters of movies is sound. Sound has to be good, and at the very least, it has to be good enough. Okay, and I got to watch some interviews that he did talking about this movie, and he talks very clearly about. I knew this was going to be an issue. I knew that we had limitations. So I wrote the movie around the problems. I knew we had access to these certain different types of sets that we could do. I knew that uh film and war and black and white were going to be the right choice because we were limited budget-wise, so our lighting was limited. A lot of the scenes sitting right beside a window. But here's the thing that I'm getting to about the beginning of the movie. He starts with voiceover. So right away you have great sound. And then he immediately goes into the police officer and the main character talking in a controlled environment. Not only that, but he's presenting the camera on uh the most professional access to equipment that he has. It was on a camera dolly. And so he's setting everything up to look great at the beginning, which uh which is the way that great art is. You have to hook them at the beginning, you have to deliver at the end. Everything in the middle can be mediocre. As long as you hook them at the beginning, you don't lose them in the middle, and you'd be surprised what you can get away with in the middle. I have learned this from experience. It's not what the goal should be, but it's the truth of performance because you can't always be great all the time, okay? But you have to stick to the ending. So at the beginning, you know, it's uh it's very uh specifically shot, it has professionalism to it and it sounds great. So then once you get into them on the streets and you get all this extra sound and you get muffling going on and you get mistakes, and he intentionally shot most of the film handheld. Most of this film is handheld, which uh is great for the mood that he's going for. I think in certain parts, there's a part of the beginning of the movie uh where it actually genuinely adds a feeling to the shot. It adds uneasiness to the character. You feel the character's uneasiness because the camera has a very seem to me controlled shake to it. All right, not this is an earthquake, but enough that it's like, oh, there's uneasiness here. And then it plays really well with the really good performance coming from the actor in that moment because it's a subdued performance, but it's a pretty good performance. Actually, I think all the actors do a pretty good job. I mean, no one's winning an Oscar for this thing, but like for what they are, where they are, and the story they're telling, I think they all get the job done. And I think they all do do nice, subdued performances, but subdued that works. All right. This uh so I was talking before about this like theory that I have. I had this argument with someone uh recently, which is why it's fresh in my mind about the the beginning has to be solid and the end has to be solid. You know, I learned that because my background, uh I studied musical theater in college, and musicals are the first things that I did, and everyone knows that's how it is. Like you start and you end your acts with strong numbers. Try to say something along the way, but you have to deliver, especially at the very beginning, and at the very end, you have to, and and the endings are even more important than the beginnings. Um and honestly, there's this other thing with musicals. This is kind of a tangent here, but like the beginning of the second act is not something that has to be profound and brilliant, it has to be something that reorients the audience back into the show. So if you're somebody that's promoting a live show of any sort, or if you're doing a movie that's gonna have an intermission in it, because movies used to have intermissions in it and sometimes they still do. It's rare, but sometimes they still do. You have to do something to bring people back into it. And it that's not when you do fancy, all right. That's when you ease them back in. But you don't, I don't think it's good to ease people at the beginning. I think you gotta grab them at the beginning, and you gotta you gotta uh finish the job strong at the end. All right. Examples of this in musicals are uh, I mean, even the simplistic loud sound at the beginning of Sweeney Todd. And at the very end of Sweeney Todd, you have that twist ending, you have patty cake, patty cake, all that stuff going on, okay? Sweeney Todd, uh, arguably, my opinion, the best musical Broadway's ever seen. I think it's I think it's a perfect musical. I do. Um it's not my favorite musical, it's in the top 10 for me, but it's not my favorite. Into the Woods is my favorite, Hamilton is my second favorite. You didn't ask these things, but I'm telling you. Uh I mean, at the end of the day, as the host of this show, the primary host of Shadows That Shine, I'm a tastemaker, so I'm telling you what my taste is. That's where I think it's relevant. Now, back to movies. Uh, this movie grabs you by saying, here's a man setting up the premises movie, talking to a uh what appears to either be a police officer or you know, when I watched it, whether it was obvious or not, I was like, he's either a crime boss or a cop. I couldn't tell which of the two it is because the way the guy looks. Because let's face it, detectives and crime bosses sometimes look a lot alike, you know, if you're not wearing officer clothes. Uh so it does that, and then you have that twist inning at the end. Then you have that whole thing of you see a villain get away with it. Which is so fascinating, especially like when you see and you think about Kubrick's. Uh, if you ignore Kubrick's first film, which I want to cover uh pretty soon, because I'm actually very fascinated with people's first movies. Um I'm very interested to see where they come from and where they're going. That's why this week we're doing film one for Christopher Nolan, next week we're doing film 13 for Christopher Nolan, 13 being, of course, uh the Odyssey. Especially because he's already talked about with the Odyssey that every movie he's ever made is in the Odyssey. You shot Don Kirk on water, we got scenes on the water. You did this sort of special effect in this movie. I had to bring it here. It's his masterclass, it's uh possibly going to be his masterpiece, which it's hard to say that because he's made so many incredible, incredible movies. So it's a I'm curious to see if he pulls it off. Back on point to uh start strong, end uh strong. I had this conversation uh with a stand-up comic a few times. He's uh a dear friend who I uh respect a lot, who completely disagrees with me. And and this um system that I was taught, I was frankly taught it by people who had far more experience than I even still have. I've been in the entertainment industry now for uh 24 years. I mean, I'm sort of the last couple of years, I've been no, no, because of stand-up. Yeah, so I've been going uh I'm actually at 25 years in the entertainment industry. Uh in either in serious pursuit, like with learning and studying and and making short films or uh doing high school theater, even all the way into uh actual pure working as a professional in the industry, I have 20 years experience as a paid uh person in the industry.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

I'm not an expert.

SPEAKER_03 52:58

Uh I I think of myself as uh starting to become an expert in cinema and film because I want to be a film historian, so I've been watching so much stuff, I've been studying so much stuff, uh and so all that stuff is paired in it, and then I'm talking with this guy who totally disagrees with me, and he's like, that's bullshit, everything has to be good. And I'm like, everything, first of all, if every moment of something is good, I promise you it's bad. A great example for that is uh AEW wrestling. When I got to my burnout point with AEW wrestling, they I remember going to see a show, and I remember getting tired of how good it was because there was no downbeat, it was all up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. You can't be up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up all the time. I hope that you guys, uh, if anybody listen to this, I hope you're in entertainment. If you disagree with me, disagree with me. Come on to Shadows at Shine, write comment under the this show's episode. Hell, I'll have if you want to have uh the conversation and you're in the entertainment industry, we'll we'll put the debate on a podcast if you want. We'll have a special episode where we argue back and forth the merits of this.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

All right.

SPEAKER_03 54:18

Um, I think what I think this person thinks up up up, but that I was saying the AEW thing because frankly, I went to the show that they did in the tennis stadium in New York, and I was exhausted. I was completely exhausted, and we weren't even at the main event. So by the time the main event happened, I'm like watching this going, well, objectively it's good, but I don't want to fucking shout anymore. I don't want to say yay anymore, I don't want to boo the bad guy anymore. I'm tired. You have tired me out by giving me too much. You always leave the audience wanting more, and that doesn't mean you make the show bad in the middle, you just, you know, vary the show up. If you have like in the case of doing stand-up comedy, if you have weaker material, you don't open with weak material, you don't end with uh weak material, you do that stuff in the middle. And in a movie like this, Christopher Nolan knew, I mean, he went out with the best that he could do, but he knew he had to start strong and he did. And he knew he had to finish strong and he really did. Because by the end of the movie, those last 15 minutes, you're looking at the Christopher Nolan.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

Excuse me, you're looking at the Christopher Nolan who was going to be our Christopher Nolan, the one that we all love and respect. Some of the stuff in the middle drags a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 55:57

I think Memento has some of those issues in it. If you when you get to Memento, I think there's little moments that drag. I don't think it's all the way there yet. I think he's still figuring it out there. He still delivers on all these films. He's still like this is an in-the-park home run. If if we're talking baseball metaphors, this isn't back when it's you know line drive over the fence every time. It I think it took until maybe Batman begins for that to be the case. And even then it was sort of shaky. I mean, by dark night, he's a master of the craft. And then I think I'll just say it, I think that uh the worst movie that he's made uh probably The Dark Knight Rises because it has plot holes in it and and they're big enough to notice. But that's still a movie I watch several times a year. It's a very good movie. When your worst movie is better than uh a lot of professionals' best movie, you're doing something right. I know a lot of other people don't like tenant. I think uh tenant was very good. I think people didn't like tenant because they watched it in the wrong environment or they had some sort of a bias or expectation. I mean, tenant did follow, if I'm not mistaken, followed Interstellar, which is one of the best movies ever made. Um not the best movie ever made, but you know, it's it's up there, it's a top 50 of all time kind of movie.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

Anywho we're here at following.

SPEAKER_03 57:33

I wonder, as I sit here talking to you, if there's something else to this. Like, are we talking about a are we talking about why why is he doing this movie? Some of his movies, the themes are very obvious, like everything else has something to do with filmmaking, like even the magician movie, that's a movie about making movies. Inception is definitely a movie about making movies, all right. And then later in the career, you have him dealing with uh consequences of what he did. It can be argued that uh Oppenheimer is him talking about how what he did with the Dark Knight sort of led to the end of cinema as we knew it. I mean, it wasn't just him, excuse me. Iron Man was coming anyways. Okay, in fact, Iron Man came out I think uh a couple of months before that, but Batman Begins was brilliant. And by the time you get to Dark Knight, which is I mean, a nearly perfect I mean it's 99.9% perfect movie.

SPEAKER_01 58:58

And yeah, I don't know. To me, all of that stuff is filmmaking.

SPEAKER_03 59:07

And so that being said, following what is he trying to say in it? Now I didn't come in prepared for this. I'm presenting this uh question to you guys right now. I don't have a strong answer. I have wondered if it's like uh an apprentice uh like an apprenticeship movie of looking at looking towards someone to set you up for success and finding out that they set you up for failure. Or finding out way too late. I think maybe this is a movie that's talking about schooling. I think maybe he's talking about um the people who he looked up to letting him down in the same sort of way, like if you go into a job interview, that first job interview, and you realize everything that you thought you knew, you don't know shit. And I'm not talking about job interview to some bullshit job you don't really care about. I'm talking about a job interview to something you actually care about. Oh, I really do want this job, and you go in thinking you know how it's gonna turn out and thinking that you've learned something and you've been prepped and prepared, but just like uh, spoiler alert, whiplash, uh just like in whiplash, it is a mentor trying to fuck over a mentee. And I wonder if there's personal elements attached to that in this movie. I haven't seen anything yet that says that's what it is, but I I can't help but think that that's gotta be part of it. It's gotta be part of it. I apologize. I've coughed in yours, uh I've coughed in your ear a couple of times now. All right. Uh you can tell I'm a lot more passionate on this subject than I've been on a lot of things recently. I love Nolan's work. I mean, he even made me like there's an actor that everybody but me seems to like uh that he worked with, and he pulled a performance out of him that I liked. Um I'll leave it for you to hear about who that is later. I'll let you sit and think about that one. And you know, I'm I I turn now to this week. I'm excited about something for the first time in a long time. I did get excited for that weird owl concert I went to a few weeks ago. Um, and uh that weird owl concert exceeded my expectations. I was already excited and I liked it. And I'm really hoping that this week I'm gonna go to the movie theater and I sit back in this IMAX screen. It's not like the appropriate IMAX screen, but it's you know what they get to call IMAX in my hometown market. I'm gonna sit here, I'm gonna look at this giant screen. I'm gonna hope they fix the sound issues in this terrible fucking AMC that we have in town. And I'm I'm looking to love this movie. I might see it more than once uh that day, if depending on how I feel about it. And I haven't done that in a long time. And one of the very first movies I've ever done that with, in fact, I think the first movie I ever did that with was The Dark Knight. I mean, I I watched the hell out of that movie. And superhero movies so far have been the only movies that've been able to grab me like that, and now you have a genre I don't care for. I, you know, I don't like anime. This isn't anime, but I'm just telling you that so that you can hate me. Um, I don't like fantasy, and I'm not big on sci-fi either. And this is definitely a fantasy film, there's gods in it, there's all this, but you have it coming from a filmmaker who loves to ground things in reality, and I love things grounded in reality, so let me see what grounded in reality looks like for the Odyssey, which is a good story. Homer wrote a great fantasy story, and and since we're leading into this, a lot of y'all, a lot of y'all have seen these articles. People, not just articles, like people coming, they're bitching because a Helena Troy is the Lapita Nyonga. All right, I'm sorry. If you're bothered by that, you're an idiot. Lapita Nyonga is one of the most beautiful women to ever live. I I fully believe that. She's the perfect choice for Helena Troy. I wouldn't have thought to cast her. That's how fucked I am. Great fucking choice. And I'm sorry, but I would desperately go against the uh the the tyranny of the gods to come home to um oh fucking name. Uh Anne Hathaway. Because I think Anne Hathaway is a dream. Great casting. Tom Holland is a son. Oh my goodness. And then we get Tom Holland as Spider-Man in two weeks, and then we get to have the conversation of which was the best Tom Holland film this year. Tell me there's no new movie stars. If Tom Holland isn't a movie star after these two movies that are about to come out, then then yeah, then there'll never be another movie star because he's got everything. I mean, hell, he's got Zandaya, who now I hear Xandaya's in the fucking movie. Which is awesome because she's earned my respect over time. I find her a very talented actress. Another thing that people have been outwardly against for the Odyssey, they have a problem with um Paige is the last name, and the only reason I'm not saying the first name is I can't remember what they changed their name to. Uh it's a trans actor who went from Ellen Page to I think Ethan Page or something with an E. It was like close. Not Edgar. Uh maybe it was Ethan. Um, so Page, Mr. Page. Uh I had uh people I care very much about complaining. Oh, they have this person playing this god, and and it's unrealistic because you know, how am I supposed to believe that this person can do that? Man, I got fucking trans friends. Um, I mean, they're non binary, but they've they've done a lot of things like. One of my best friends is is non-binary. Beat the fuck out of me. Was uh went from female presenting to non-binary with a very uh masculine appearance to them now. More of a man than me. That's a that's a tough bro, you know. But I mean they don't really because of the whole non-binary thing, which uh I'm not afraid to publicly admit, I don't fully understand. But hell, I mean, you know, whatever makes them comfortable in their skin. And the same with the trans thing, like it doesn't really fucking affect us. And I think at the end of the day, you got people being racist and got people being transphobic.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:34

All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:35

I've heard some valid arguments against the Mr. Page thing. Uh, but I said to them, what I'll say to you right now, let's see what they do in the fucking movie because Christopher Nolan hasn't let us down yet. Every time he steps up to the plate, he says, I'm gonna present the best thing that I can present. And every time I think he does better than the time before. Now, I might like certain older projects of his more because the the source material or the just in general, what that movie is about is more meaningful to me. I mean, Dark Knight Interstellar pop up. I haven't sat and actually thought about what my favorite Christopher Nolan film is yet, but you know, gun to the head, I probably would say the Dark Knight. I mean, that movie is one of the only movies I've learned lines from on purpose. Uh, but I also, you know, every time I revisit Interstellar, I'm like, that's up there too. I used to love Inceptionalite, uh, I don't love it as much as some people do. I think it's a little too on the nose in the metaphor, and that is hypocritical of me because if you ever get the chance to see my works or read my works, you'll really learn what on the nose is. Uh I'm trying to be better. I'm trying to be better. You know, I appreciate you all sitting down here and letting me blabber on for an hour. I hope that this has been an entertaining episode for you because it definitely comes from a place of passion. I enjoyed re-watching following, I enjoyed talking about one of the greatest uh people to ever do the job of director, Christopher Nolan. He's a pretty good writer, too. Pretty good writer. All right, and I can't wait to see what he does. I can't next week you're gonna hear all about it. I may or may not have a guest with me. I'd like to, but you know, scheduling is what scheduling is. And uh thank you. I'm not gonna hold you up any longer. Uh do have uh some announcements. Uh, I want to remind you that uh friend of the channel, Zach Blackfire, and friend of the channel JP Edmondson, uh, they have a podcast called Zach and JP. Uh yeah, Zach and JP's Burnout Hijinx. Uh, it is a YouTube exclusive every Wednesday as of the recording of this. Hopefully, at some point they expand out to other formats. If you just want some uh goofy people talking about random stuff, some of it does tend to lean a little more into comedy because they're stand-up comics and that's their primary things. Uh I think it's uh worth listening. They didn't pay for me to mention it. Uh, I just appreciate their art. And uh, you know, I also believe uh we're getting close to uh friend of the channel, uh Graham uh Graham Mitchell Taylor. He's gonna be performing in uh North Carolina in Roberts County. Go uh look up his information. They're doing 1776. Looking forward to seeing my friend uh on stage acting. I don't know that I've ever seen him act before, so it's exciting to get to see that if we can pull that up. I have some projects in the works, can't talk about them yet, but what I can talk about, real quick, on the way out the door, go to YouTube, subscribe to Shadows That Shine coming up real soon. We start that journey. Thank you very much for listening. I've been Topher Mac, and this has been Shadows that Shine, a movie podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:56

Now you just showing off. I did it all in one breath. I'm still going because I still got more breath. That's the end. Okay, all right now I'm gonna go bye. Bye bye.