Andy 0:16 Welcome to Monkey Off our backlog the podcast where we exercise our pop culture demons by tackling our media to do lists one week at a time. I'm your host human recommendation algorithm and the moment and with me are my co hosts, Mistress of plant life. Tessa Swehla Hello. And Dr. Strange is assistant Dr. Sam Morris. Hello. This week Sam is still curious about what all those condiments are. Tessa visits the arcade, and I watched what I will reductively label. Japanese Shaun of the Dead alright Sam, you did a director? One Mr. Wong Kar Wai one car Why did you watch this? Tessa 1:10 You got Sam laughing. Sam 1:15 So one car why the man in sunglasses is a director. He was born in Shanghai emigrated to Hong Kong so classified as a Hong Kong director if those things matter at all. Andy 1:29 They matter to the government of China apparently. Sam 1:32 Yeah. Yeah. He is a winner of the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival. He has been nominated for a handful of Oscars, I believe at this point, one, the 1995 Hong Kong Film Award kind of a big deal. And so I first heard about this particular director. back about 15 years ago, BBC presenter Jonathan Ross did a three part documentary series on Asian cinema called rather unfortunately, Asian invasion. Somebody uploaded all three EPS to YouTube. But basically it's a you know, person who sees himself as a bit of an Asian cinephile doing the greatest hits of Japanese Hong Kong and Korean film and I learned a lot just wanting to know more about it. This seemed like a good entry point. Wong Kar Wai Chan Wook Park. Were the two directors that I really, I had a huge list of movies I wanted to see but those two directors were the ones I wanted to get into. I did and I liked them both. I mean, Wong Kar Wai is much more my jam. A little bit more low key than Chan Wook Park. Andy 2:47 It's Park Chan Wook, by the way Yeah, I don't I don't know. Korean name structure if it's a last name, first name or first name last name. Sam 2:56 So when I watched the documentary, obviously, you can tell by me referring to him as Chadwick Park and one car why instead of karwan you know, that was that was kind of the way that I was introduced to it. You know, we do we do fun things with each other's names. My name had more syllables for an entire year. It's it's a good time. But yeah. Andy 3:21 What here here's just a interesting tidbit here, one of my favorite YouTube list. creators, they go by the name cinefex. They are now IGN Cinema and Television because they've been bought by IGN, but they still make the best top 10 lists. One car wise In the Mood for Love and one car wise, Chungking Express are repeatedly on their films with either the most beautiful film lists or the best endings the best romances, you know they are they are on their top 10 lists. So I recommend that people check those lists out, they will give a good explanation for why one car Why should be observed in general and stoked my interest in them. I haven't watched any of the movies yet, because I am a terrible person with a massive backlog. But which films Did you watch because you just gave me the director's name and not the films of the of the director that you watched, so which ones Sam 4:20 so Tessa who had never seen any of his films, and I recently watched for we watched in the mood for love. It's sequel 2046, Chungking Express and its companion film, fallen angels. The last two were the ones that I had not seen previously. So those are my monkeys for the week. Andy 4:41 Okay, Chungking Express and fallen angels. These are of course recently from the Criterion Collection just after they decided to start honoring directors of color. Well, what did you like about them? What did you hate about them? What did you despise about them, and also, who was the best Why were they the best actor? And what are the new lottery numbers for this week? Sam 5:07 So, by the way, the the I don't have the full list of lottery numbers, but the pick six number is in fact 663663. All right, is that that's a that's a real long car. Why fans moment? Andy 5:30 The massive circle podcast listeners, one car why fans, Sam 5:35 we have a good time. So Chungking Express, is it's the film that won the 1995 Hong Kong Film Award, Quentin Tarantino said to the then, head of Miramax whose name we do not speak, to acquire this film, which he did, that gave it the worldwide distribution. This is what brought this director to more of a global audience. But the film itself was made during the production of another film, ashes of time, which is a more of an epic, and there was kind of a law with some things getting done. So he had this brainstorm, wrote this movie, and made it and it came out before the movie, he was making ashes of time before ashes of time came out. It's It's fun. It's it's two stories. It's almost like an anthology. It's one one story short of an anthology film. It's divided into two parts. The first part is about a cop. I will and he has been dumped by his girlfriend and he is eating a can of pineapples because that was her favorite fruit, right? i canna pineapples everyday for a month. And so while he's doing all of this, he runs into Mei who is an assassin and they have a little moment and the the film transitions in a very clever way to the second part where a another character a cop, who is unnamed, played by Tony learn tech he kind of she wrote plays the first cop, Tony learning plays the second one he is he meets this girl named Faye played by Faye Wong. And she ends up becoming a flight attendant, which is super fun because he broke up or was dumped by a flight attendant. It's these kind of really interesting circular stories. So I basically told you the plot of the movie, but I've told you almost nothing about the movie itself. Fallen Angels is the same way. It's a story broken into. The first one is about a hitman and his agent. And then the second one Andy 7:55 doesn't. And yeah, there's a theme here maybe one car why wants to to explore some themes about Hitman and wait, what is the difference between a hitman and an assassin? Sam 8:06 That's That's an excellent question. But hold on, because the second part of fallen angels involves a escapee from justice, let's say who makes his living by running other people's businesses at night. And he says it in that way. And you're like, wait a minute, you are breaking into people's places pretending that you own it, running it and then bullying people into buying your goods or services. Andy 8:31 Why am I okay? Okay, my immediate picture for some reason is someone breaking into a mini golf course. Setting up all the like the mini golf things and then forcing people who are like walking by Hey, hey, you want to play golf? Sam 8:50 Okay, if you replace mini golf with laundry, you got it. That's it. And so Tessa 8:59 I think my favorite part of this gag is that the same person keeps accidentally entering the businesses like he's like forcing people and it happens like three times and the person in the end is like not you and like tries to run away but it gets like pulled back in by the by the other dude it's it's a pretty fun bit for what's honestly kind of a lackluster SQL. Sam 9:23 So Taka she kind of Shirou is back in fallen angels. He's the the only of the four who's a repeat across both movies. Laming Michelle race, and Charlie long are in fallen angels as well. But that's that's it again, I told you the plot of that movie. I haven't really told you much about the movie itself. Andy 9:44 That that's actually fine. It sounds like a very difficult movie to be like accurately like, okay, these are the plot beats. I've always heard that In the Mood for Love is a mood and I'm assuming that one car why in general does that he's just thing you watch and experience. Sam 10:02 So yeah, that's true. All of all of his movies are a mood. The thing about the reason why I say Chungking Express is one story short of an anthology is that the first part a fallen angels, the Hitman or assassin, if you will, and his agent was originally part of Chungking Express, and that story was excised. And then added on to this the second more bizarre part of fallen angels to become its own film. And that's interesting. If you think about it that way. We watched both together kind of saw the whole thing, which is how he prefers you watch them. But yeah, it's it's a mood. It's, it's, it's, you know, it's kind of like classical music, right? It's a it's a meditation in four parts about a theme. And so I can tell you the entire plot of the movie, and it doesn't matter, because it's really about experiencing that theme about love, connectivity, closeness, isolation. You know, all that good stuff that we really like to talk about, especially in the 90s, where we were somehow the most in touch with our feelings and the least able to talk about it. Good times. Okay, Andy 11:13 so on your ranking of film lists, and I'm just going to call have this be rated between the lower one car Why did you watch this, and the higher Akira Kurosawa watch this now? I'm so sad. Wow, I am so sorry. Seriously, though, you've watched a lot of Wong Kar Wai films much more than I have, where do these fit and what one should I start with? Sam 11:46 Okay, so I'll tell you I'll tell you what I think and and then Tessa needs to tell me why I'm wrong. One car why I'm wrong. I can play your game. So he has made at this point 10 films, feature films that have been released. And I have not seen days of being wild ashes of time happy together or his most recent, the Grand Master so of the six I have seen number six is 2046. It is didn't do a lot for me. The test is already shaking her head but that's okay. Number five. Andy 12:23 Down here Sam 12:24 is here's the controversial choice. Number five is my blueberry Knights. His English language debut starring Jude Law, Rachel vies and a young film ingenue making her debut appearance. come away with me herself, Norah Jones. It is not a well received movie, but it goes back to that idea of mood. And I like the mood. I saw it a long time ago. I saw it when it came out. I recall liking it better than I like 2046 upon the rewatch after that. But number four is fallen angels. I almost put blueberry nights ahead of it. Fallen Angels just doesn't work as well for me. Like I said, if we ported that one over to Chungking Express, the that ladder wacky part of the film maybe could have been its own movie to be perfectly honest. After that comes Chungking Express at number three, a better meditate part of the meditation on the theme. I mean, it's number three, but I really liked the movie. The two that I like better are in the mood for love. And my favorite still, and I can't wait till TESSA rewatches it is as two years go by there is. And Tessa doesn't know what it is yet. But people talk about needle drops all the time. And I'm specifically not saying what the needle drop is right now. If you've seen it, you know, it was on the Andy 13:57 list of Top 10 Sam 13:58 needle drops from it is the best needle drop of all time. End of story, bar none. It I Oh, I still remember, as somebody who has a terrible memory and has repressed almost everything that's happened in their life. I viscerally, remember this needle drop, it is perfect. You will never see a better one than it. I have used it in film class. Because not only does it establish the mood of what's going on in that scene, not only does it perfectly encapture, the the essence of the film, it also is a reference to weirdly another film and another scene in which almost the same needle drop happens. And so I taught that original film in a film class and then I said now here's the power of soundtracking and showed them one car wise needle drop from as tears go by and it just destroys you. Ah, it's great. That's that's all time Phil moment right there. Tessa 15:05 I do have a quick question before we before we move on with this. How do you? Okay, I do have a quick question before we move on with this, especially since you brought up the idea of needle drops. All of these films have a lot of really, really interesting things with music. How would you describe that to somebody who's maybe interested in soundtrack as part of their mood, cinema experience. Sam 15:31 In the second half of Chungking Express, there is a really great scene, where you have an example of that thing where a character pushes play on a music device, the song that plays is diegetic. It's it's happening in the events of the film, and then the camera cuts to the next shot. And the song becomes non diegetic. where, you know, we're the ones primarily hearing it. And so that's a really good example, the song is California dreamin by The Mamas and the Papas. And if you've ever said to yourself, could a movie needle drop a song? A dozen 15 times or so and not lose its emotional effect? The answer is yes. But I don't know who else could do it. Other than one car Why? Andy 16:23 I believe JJ Abrams in a lost was able to do it. Sam 16:30 Okay. All right. But the interesting thing about it is is like I immediately think of like, Andy 16:36 wait, Groundhog Day done? ha I Sam 16:40 as I was saying, I tend to immediately think of Groundhog Day for an example like this. But it's not it's it's a gag. I mean, yeah, there is emotional aspect there. But it's it's a joke. Whereas like, this is a character in Chungking express who just really loves the song and wants to keep playing it all the time. She uses it to drown out the rest of the world. So it's it's not a it's not a bit. It's just a thing. But yeah, it's it's really great. Okay, Tessa, why am I wrong? About the ones you've actually seen? Like you haven't seen? You haven't seen as two years go by, or my blueberry nights. But, Tessa 17:18 uh, yeah, so the ones that I've seen here, here's my definitive ranking of the four long car wife films that I have actually seen. So at the bottom, I would actually put fallen angels much for the same reason that you did, Sam. I think that this film has some really, really great elements to it, but it really suffers from being on its own. I think it would have made more sense as being part of Chungking Express, I would have rather that movie been a whole half hour to 40 minutes longer and included this particular story. I don't think that stretched out into a full two hour film does it any favors. So automatically, I'm putting fallen angels under 2046, which is what you had at the bottom of your list. But 2046 is next. I don't think it's as good as the other two. But I think what saves it is sort of the imaginary future the speculative future that this writer is is creating. Honestly, I would rather play a video game that is set in the future of long car wise 2046 then I would play cyberpunk 2020 at 77. Again. So that's that's just my opinion on that. But the other two which I love, which I loved all of these movies, let me be very clear, but the top two are definitely Chungking Express, which is number two and In the Mood for Love, which is just a beautiful, beautiful film. Like it I I don't understand how a film can have so much emotion with so little dialogue in it. It is such a good film. But yet Chungking Express I would rate over fallen angels for sure if you were going to start with the film Andy though I would definitely start with In the Mood for Love, especially because 2046 which you've mentioned previously is actually a sequel to In the Mood for Love. Sam 19:09 So real quick, I would say you got to start at the beginning. Don't start with either one of these films start with as two years go by. Andy 19:20 I almost wrote down saying we'll say start at the first movie. Sam 19:25 And that's only because that's only because I really think it's a good place to start, especially if you have some familiarity with, say like a john Wu or some kind of Hong Kong action because that one kind of veers more toward that, while establishing that that mood that really dominates a lot of his other films. It also works in reverse though. You know, if you start within the Mood for Love or Chungking Express, and then go back and watch it, you're like, Wow, he had that right away, even when it was kind of a hybrid with another genre. Andy 20:00 Overall, you recommend this Mr. Wong Kar Wai? Sam 20:06 Oh yeah, Wong Kar Wai is is excellent. I cannot wait to watch as tears go by again and watch it with Tessa. I cannot wait for his next endeavor is his television series, which may or may not be a continuation of In the Mood for Love. And 2046. By the way, I'm going to make an oddball recommendation. Because I kept thinking about it the entire time, I was thinking about this kind of romantic tension set in the past that In the Mood for Love is I would consider pairing that film with Ang Lee's controversial lust caution. Okay, and that that might be a better parent than in the mood for love and 2046. Andy 20:58 And remember, listeners, if you are under 17, you are not allowed to watch last caution because it is an NC 17 movie. Sam 21:07 It's got some good stuff. Tessa reminds me that if you are going to watch 2046, or really any any of his movies at this point, criterion just did a or criterion released an excellent restoration of most of the films that I have talked about today. 2046 if you look at it on amazon prime is shadow boxed. Don't Don't go from them. Don't go with them. Check out the criterion remasters either through their app streaming service or, you know, if you still buy discs do that it wouldn't be a waste of money. Andy 21:49 All right. Ah, for the quick discussion question here. I want to extend to all of our listeners each and every one of you. First of all, thanks for listening. It's It's wonderful to get the millions and millions of views and listens every week. Second, we need ideas for themed episodes for are things that you want us to hear I have come up with some great things that pretty much all involve punishing Sam in different ways. which is which is great, which is wonderful. Sam 22:23 But but on a serious note, Andy, why don't you I'm sure you're serious about punishing me. But on a serious note, why don't you share with the listeners your ideas that will become reality over the next several months? Give them some examples? Andy 22:41 A few examples here. Okay. One of them is called genres we hate. And what this is, is we have to watch genres that we don't like that we have gone on record as not enjoying Now, you might say to yourself, hmm, how does this punish Sam? Sam 23:02 And that would be a good question, because I never said I didn't like anime I just said I didn't want to watch it. Andy 23:08 Oh, no. Sam 23:10 Go to tape. Go to the tape. Oh, Andy 23:13 I will go to the tape. Sam 23:14 Go to the tape. Anyway, Andy 23:16 I will go to the tape. I will go should really Tessa 23:19 we should really insert the recording of whatever it was that Sam said right here in the episode. Andy 23:26 Yeah, I probably have. I probably have like the raw edited unedited version where Sam's like oh my god, I can't stand anime anime is the worst of all the things I will never watch an anime is not for me. I hate anime. And I'm quoting Sam on that. Sam 23:41 I think I'm on solid ground here. Tessa 23:44 I was surprised at how well you edited that that right Andy there was so much more cursing in the original. Andy 23:51 Anyway, basically, I would probably do just like a musical or or something else. Maybe an arthouse film, you know like one of those just all images, films. Sam 24:04 So if you if you've seen The Princess Bride, and you know Fred Savage is like, is this a kissing book? That's pretty much what Andy's gonna be working with. Andy 24:13 Yep, that that is exactly right. So so that is one of my ideas. Another one of my beautiful, wonderful, smart, sophisticated ideas is called blank assigns. That's where one of your wonderful hosts or a guest host. Oh, that might be fun. Guest hosts assigns three things for us to watch for an episode. And we discussed that. Tessa 24:42 putting our putting our fates into other people's hands. That sounds like something Sam would love to do. Andy 24:48 It does. It does sound like something that the most controlling person who needs order and predictability would love it. Sam 25:00 Say I say we we do that one first. Like, you know, well, we'll take like a month, you know, and get prepared at least a few weeks. But I think I don't know what you guys think. But you know, Andy, you mentioned a guest. I think we should just let somebody call dibs on that one. Like, first one to listen to this episode and called dibs on Twitter gets to assign things. What you think. Tessa 25:28 Sounds great to me. Sam 25:29 I mean, it works for Hannibal, right? Yeah. So yeah, call dibs on Twitter. Andy 25:35 Yep, call dibs. Sam 25:37 At monkey backlog. Andy 25:39 Yeah, another another great, a wonderful sophisticated idea of mine is called, where do I start? And this is going to be basically, you dear listeners, or Sam, possibly tests up although test is much more cultured and understands the right spot to start. And Sam's always gonna answer from the beginning from the first thing that came out the way that it's supposed to be. Actually, no, I don't think Sam would do that. I don't I think Sam would probably put in a lot more thought and effort into the different ways like the the machete order of Star Wars, where you watch four and five, and then you jump to two and three, you never watch episode one. And then you watch six, you know, interesting ways to do it. Tessa 26:30 But by the way, I knew of at least one listener, one regular listener of this podcast who refuses to watch any Star Wars because they take pride in the fact that they have never seen Star Wars so Andy 26:41 Ginger's weird. Sam 26:44 That's not what I thought you were gonna say, Tessa, I was actually gonna say that we possibly rethought our machete order. We're almost to the point where we're ready to just excise Episode Two altogether? I've read a bit that one is a little bit more essential than then two. I don't I don't know. I don't know the next time we're gonna watch the Star Wars series at all. Anyway, there's still a very bad taste left by a certain person. So anyway, I've continued to put a lot of thought in the machete order, but thank you for accurately recapping that. Andy 27:22 Yeah, yeah. And also, another deemed or fun episode to do would be called thing Sam hates. And this is really the fun thing here is it would be an only Sam episode, I maybe maybe it's like, maybe it's just going to be called Sam's descent into madness. And we're not even going to be on here. It's just going to be Sam. And he has to monologue for at least an hour about watching the things that he hates. The best part is, this is nothing new. He's not going to be making progress. By eliminating things from his list. He's going to be doing things that he already knows. Tessa 28:03 So so we're gonna make him watch rise of Skywalker three times in a row. Andy 28:08 I don't know. I that's, that's up to Sam. That is the choice of Sam, but they have to be things that are already known to be hated entities. So that's another wonderful thing. idea. I love this idea for an episode. I think this is a great idea. listeners. Let us know what you think. Um, yeah, so those are kind of my ideas for episodes. Those are my general thoughts. If you to have ideas for episodes, let me know. Tessa 28:43 Well, I think we're going to be seeing a lot more themed episodes. In our future. We've talked a little bit about doing more episodes like the MCU episode. Last week, we talked about doing more episodes, like the kaiju episode they they Andy and I and Arielle did together a few weeks ago. So I think we're gonna start seeing more and more of that. So definitely, you know, tweet at us, email us at monkey off my backlog@gmail.com on twitter at monkey backlog, if there's any particular genres, or even you know, artists, if there's a writer or a producer, or a director or a creator that you really just feel like deserves an entire episode for us also, take a look into their work. Just let us know. I also really liked your idea, Andy, which you didn't mention, just now, but you've mentioned it before off off Mike, where we actually complete each other's monkeys. So you mentioned perhaps you were going to take a crack at Kim's convenience sometimes in the near future. Andy 29:47 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, but I didn't want to you know, get the listeners hyped up over nothing anyway, that that was an idea. Tessa 29:55 Yeah, I think that's a great idea. Do you have any Sam Sam 30:00 Now I'm put into a mire of despair over the ways in which I will be tortured in upcoming episodes of Monkey, but I will say, of course he does fun. But of course in about two months Tessa, what is it going to be time for? Andy 30:22 spook tober Well, and also the Emmys Yeah, yeah, we we've got plans, guys. We have plans, we will do them. It'll be fun. But we also love to hear from you. what ways can you make this supposedly fun? release of stress? what ways can you make it either more fun or much less fun for us? I am. I am also I'm inviting this on myself by the way. This is not just an attack on Sam. This is not just a a make Tessa Oh, okay. Oh, no, no, I I just had a great idea for that. Anyway, this is not just a you know, me taking revenge on the hosts for for perceived slights for for the, for the for the perceived eyeroll in the camera that Tessa made, you know, six months ago when I made a bad pun. This is opening myself for new experiences and things that I wouldn't normally do not as a point of these themes Sam 31:32 as a new father. You're not going to have enough of those. So you know, new experiences. Andy 31:39 Oh, man. Okay. Sam 31:42 All right. Tata. Again, I ask not knowing the answer already. Pinky swear. What is Wreckit? Ralph? Tessa 31:55 So WreckIt Ralph was the or still is the 52nd full length animated studio film by Disney animated studios. It came out in 2012. We have been if you've been listening to this podcast at all, you know that Sam and I one of our big projects that we started last year when the pandemic first started and we all shut down was we wanted to watch all of the full length animated Disney films from Snow White all the way through. What's the most recent one frozen to Ryan Ryan Ryan came out. That's right. There are more movies now than when we started this. So we have been slowly working our way through. We've been doing one a week. We usually do it Saturday morning with some waffles. It's been great. But a couple weeks ago, we crossed WreckIt Ralph off the list and I had never seen WreckIt Ralph, which is kind of surprising because I have seen most of the animated Disney films, either when I was a child or in the theaters because I love animated films. So WreckIt Ralph is one of these films. It's one of the last ones that I hadn't seen. It is a film about a villain of an arcade game this whole thing takes place inside of an arcade WreckIt Ralph, who is voiced by john C. Reilly is the villain of a game called fix it feel like fix it, Felix. I don't know why I can't talk today. I hear he is the villain of a game called fix it Felix. Felix is played by jack McBrayer, who all of you should know the voice from 30 rock. But WreckIt Ralph is very, shall we say unsatisfied with his role as the villain of fix it Felix he is tired of being ostracized by the other characters. And so he decides to go out into some of the other games and try to get a medal so that way he can be perceived of as a hero back in his own game. And of course, as he's stumbling through all of these different styles of arcade games, he runs across a another character who is sort of an outsider, Penelope who is played by Sarah Silverman or was voiced by Sarah Silverman, I should say, who just wants to win a race in her game, which is Sugar Rush. And that is the basic premise of this film. Sam 34:14 So of course, we've watched almost every feature length Disney animated film, up to this point, the only two that we haven't seen are the two that are not available on Disney plus one is make my music and there's another one that is locked so far up into that vault. But unlike those two, there's you could have seen this movie at any time. Prior to Now, why didn't you originally see this movie in the theater? Tessa 34:47 Well, to be honest with you 2012 was a very stressful year for me, but also I just didn't get the premise of this film. I did not grow up going to arcades. I didn't grow up with video games in my house, my parents were anti video game in a lot of ways. So I just didn't. I wasn't sure when I this movie came out that I would understand it. I didn't have the nostalgia for the types of games that they were talking about. And honestly, the 2010s were kind of a rough time for Disney. Like I was reminded of that as we were rewatching some of the films that came out in 2010 Whoo, there was some really really bad animated Disney films Chicken Little is one of the worst films I've ever seen. Like, I can't stress to you how enough how bad that film is. So I think I was also really suffering Andy 35:39 this for the torture test episode. Tessa 35:42 I, I can't stress to you enough how much I was probably over the Disney train at that point, although Disney has since gotten back in the game since 2010. And so I just, I didn't really I wasn't drawn to this film. I didn't have an astrologer for what that film was talking about. And so I think I just skipped it. And it's been one of those films that's just been kind of, you know, it's not a film I've actively avoided it was just a film that hung out in the on the list for a really long time, which I think is true for a lot of people that you just have these films where you're like, oh, like I'll see it someday and then you just never end up seeing it. Sam 36:18 sack brass worst animated roll. Chicken Little his best bojack horseman pardon my reach. Okay, there's got to be a better pardon my reach. So I I really enjoyed this movie. I thought, you know, I grew up playing video games. There's big Donkey Kong energy in fix it Felix you know, WreckIt Ralph is calm. And you know, Felix is basically a Mario stand in and you know, you can look at the game that Penelope comes from it is clearly a candy crush Mario Kart hybrid. It's great. It's good times. I really enjoyed this movie The first time I saw it, how did you feel about it? I asked not knowing the answer. Tessa 37:03 Also Jane Lynch's game, I think it's called like Medal of Honor or something like that, where they're like, it's like one of those arcade games I have been to our Cait an arcade before guys, I promise I just didn't grow up in them. But it's one of the newer ones where you like have the little plastic gun and you're like shooting it like enemies on the screen. And you're like trying to get to the tower or whatever. I thought that was very cleverly done. That was that was pretty awesome. But yeah, I actually really enjoyed this movie, it was much better than I thought it was going to be again, I don't have the nostalgia for these things. But I do recognize them. And I was surprised at how much I actually got out of this film, which I guess just goes to show how pervasive these games these types of games have been in our culture, even for people who didn't really grow up with them. Although I will say I'm probably would not have gotten this movie as much if I hadn't started playing video games in my 20s because there's a lot of that type of humor in it. Sarah Silverman's character is great. JOHN C. Reilly is great. This film really wants us to start questioning, simplistic arcade narratives like we really it brings attention to the idea that we as humans really, really want our narratives to be simple. We want there to be good guys. And we want there to be bad guys, even in nonfiction narratives, I think, although this is certainly focusing more on fictional ones, and this film kind of complicates that, like Wreckit. Ralph is not a bad guy. He's just doing what he was programmed to do. And Sarah Silverman's character, Penelope, she's known as a glitch. So there's a lot of like disability language in here, which I think is really interesting. They do a pretty good job of that for the most part. But yeah, I found this movie to be pretty heartwarming, I found the relationship between Penelope and WreckIt Ralph to be really funny and engaging and I really, really enjoyed it. I do want to also mention that Alan titik is in it. And Mindy Kaling also does some of the voice work as well as Jane Lynch who I mentioned, it's just a pretty stellar voice cast and it's a very smart, clever little comedy. Sam 39:12 So I believe we have five more movies left. We have officially reached the point where I have seen more of them than you have. I believe we have one movie in common that we haven't seen and what's coming up on Saturday. You have also not seen how does it feel to be almost at the end of this project. Tessa 39:33 It feels pretty good actually. Because I know that we'll continue doing Saturday morning movies because that's just the type of person we are we are type of person we are one person Andy 39:45 that is what marriage is in many states legally Yeah, Tessa 39:48 yeah we actually we were not on the camera with you Andy we just Firestorm and just completely like collapse into one being. Andy 39:56 I've seen it it's terrifying. Yeah, definitely Sam 39:58 her body though. Tessa 39:59 Yeah. It's my body and Sam's voices. Yeah. A terrifying combination. What a terrifying combination. Anyway. Thank you. You heard it here first, folks. Sam 40:15 That's really sad. Nobody else has ever heard that. Tessa 40:21 Okay, all right before we before we get on Andy's nerves anymore. I really think that projects, projects like this apparently I cannot talk today. I really think that projects like this one that we have done, where we've watched, we are almost done watching all of the full length Disney animated feature films. I think they can be really satisfying. I think that it helped, at least for me personally, it helped bring a continuity to this year to know that, you know, every morning we were checking another thing off the list. Like I said, I'd seen a lot of them before, but some of them hadn't seen from my since my childhood. Some of them were better than I remembered. Some of them were way more horrifying than I remembered. I mean, don't even get me started on Peter Pan. I don't know if I can even watch that movie again. It was so so racist. Anyway, Big Hero six is coming up next. I also have never seen it I have not seen Ralph breaks the internet, which is the sequel surecolor Wreckit, Ralph. But I have not seen marijuana either wet, but there was a weird gap. I think the 2010s actually kind of killed Disney for me for a while. That's not the point. The point is, it feels very satisfying to be getting to the end of this thing. And it feels like I'm about to scratch that itch as Andy would call it. Get that huge thing off of my list. Like having seen all of the animated feature films is such a huge part of my list and so you know, it just it feels really good. I will mention it on the podcast when we finally do finish them. It's just you know, for someone who's team chaos like I rarely get this feeling but I feel like I am going to get it get it from this particular project. Alright, Andy, so it's called one cut of the dead you watched another animate didn't you? Did you? Andy 42:15 Well, Tessa, Tessa, you ignorant slut? Yes. This is actually a live action Japanese movie that I watched one cut of the dead so it is not an anime. Tessa 42:32 Well, look at you setting me up for failure here. Yes, so not an anime. I don't want to ask this question. This makes it sound like the only the only thing that Japanese people make is anime. Um, why are you Why are you insisting on making me look bad in front of the listeners? Andy 42:51 It's called the he'll turn Tesla. Tessa 42:55 Alright, so if it's not an anime, because clearly the only culture to come out of Japan is anime. What makes this particularly Japanese? Wow, Tessa. Andy 43:07 That's very offensive, what you just said and what I totally did not make you say I'm okay. I actually actually this is a very Japanese thing. And both its its tone and its way of handling things. And I really want to stress because I think a lot of people will get turned off by the Act One and a few of the filmmaking techniques that are fueled the filmmaking things that happen in live action Japanese film. So one of these things, this is called one cut of the dead. And you might say, okay, what's that about? Well, it is a zombie film that is done in one cut. You know, one take, so that's kind of interesting already. Here's the thing. There is a lighting thing, people who watch k dramas, or our soap operas might be able to recognize this like lighting effect that happens when you're trying to do something very quickly in one take for a very cheaply. This is very common and a lot of East Asian cinema or a lot of East Asian lower budget cinema so so it's, it's, it's something that's going to be a little bit of a shock as soon as you watch it, it's very hard to describe, you'll know it. It's It's It's low budget lighting, and it's only for the first 20 minutes so I really, really want to stress that part. That that's kind of what makes it feel very Japanese. Anyway, let's go over what this movie actually is. It is a movie directed by Shinichiro Ueda It is based on a play written by Rio de Chihuahua. It is a Japanese horror comedy it is. I, I will say this, it is much more heavy on the comedy than you feel like it will be when it starts. It is a bout a hack director who is who's making a one cut movie zombie film. And unfortunately, unfortunately, he may have kind of skimmed out and gotten a very cheap filming location. And that cheap filming location Unknown Speaker 45:43 is Andy 45:45 a old war World War Two Japanese facility where maybe they did some experiments, and some real zombies show up. Tessa 45:54 This seems very like john Carpenter meta, like he's making a movie that is the movie. Andy 46:00 Yes, yes. Yes. Um, and and, you know, maybe some real, some real zombie show up. And maybe that was kind of part of his plan all along. Because there's this thing of like, there's some lines early on that make you feel like wait a minute. This. This might be his plan, because an actor is like, hmm, you know, this this fake blood seems a lot like real blood. And he's like, yeah, don't worry about it. Uh, hey, any you like, tell us like a production assistant. Go outside and spread this out like that. There are these weird little things, and I'm really trying hard not to spoil this movie because it's, it's wonderful. If you like Shaun of the Dead, I think you will really enjoy this movie. Edgar Wright said it was it was like, you know, one of his favorite movies of 2017. When it came out, he has a 100 on Rotten Tomatoes. Like, I can't express enough like, give this a shot. When the zombie show up, it is crazy funny. And where the movie goes is even funnier. Anyway, there are zombies in this movie. Tessa 47:10 So tell me the rules for the zombies? Because is this more like Shaun of the Dead zombies? Or is it more like walking dead zombies? Or is it more like 28 days later zombies? Andy 47:20 That's part of the mystery. And I'm not telling you this is seriously. It's very hard to describe, it's also very low budget. So you might not, you don't see as many zombies as you think you're going to see. It's not very gory. I would say it's less gory than Shaun of the Dead. So you know, just just take that off with, with an understanding as you watch this absolutely phenomenal, hilarious movie. That I, I can't recommend it enough. It's just you are going to feel very weird with the lighting and structure of the first act of this movie that that is really all I can say is you just kind of have to accept what's what's going on and and kind of force yourself to do it because there's a purpose to everything. Even if you're very confused. Tessa 48:15 So who would you recommend this movie to? obviously somebody who's okay with their horror and comedy being mixed up? Andy 48:23 Yes, I seriously, I recommend this movie to literally anyone who likes film likes weird structured films. Who wants more laughs than than horror like this is very far into much more comedy than his horror. And you'll figure that out quickly enough. The the director is it as a character is insane. And like as, as zombies are attacking as, as these people are in this facility, terrified these actors who who can't act, or maybe they can act like that's, that's this entire layer. And the real zombies are attacking and the director goes, Okay, we're going to keep on going. We're going to keep on filming. And they're like, why are you doing this? help us help us like no, no, this is perfect. It is. It's so funny. It's so funny. It's so wonderful. One cut of the dead give it a shot Tessa 49:22 is this Sarah approved movie. Andy 49:24 I did not watch this with Sarah but I am going to make her watch it she she she will love this movie. Tessa 49:30 So this is this is pending. Sarah approval of the horror film variety. Andy 49:35 Right? Right. Right. It's, it is so much more comedy than it is horror. I really can't stress that the the amount of time spent on the setup is totally worth it when when the comedy really starts to come in. And that'll be all for today so you can find Tessa at Swehla Tessa Swehla is spelt SW e HLA you can find her on both Twitter and letterbox for Sam you can find Sam at Sam underscore Morris nine and Archie leech nine on letterbox. For me You can find me on Twitter at Andy noted you can find us on Twitter at monkey backlog Email us at monkey at my backlog@gmail.com Let us know your thoughts about what we talked about anything you'd like to see us talk about a future episode? Hey, I come on come on. You heard us beg for ideas and suggestions so go ahead and claim that top spot our theme song is hot shot by Scott Holmes can be found at Scott Helms music calm please rate review and subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon podcasts, Google podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So get that monkey off your back log Tessa 51:02 track as part of their mood. Cinema experience. Sam 51:06 Yeah, is this a? So in that was internet I lost internet. And we just lost internet. Okay. But I'll keep talking. I'm making sure I'm talking about Yeah, in Andy 51:21 the second part of the movie, oh bomb but there's a Sam 51:24 really classic example of that thing where somebody don't want to play on a music device. And it's it's natural to the scene. And then the Camera Cuts and the song becomes non diegetic Yeah, and it becomes non diegetic Andy 51:43 Sam and Tessa they're the ones who lost the internet Sam 51:50 about the other for your video is off. Andy 51:53 So I can't see you. I can't see your wonderful faces. Sam 51:56 Okay. About now. Andy 52:02 Still off, but it'll be okay. As long as we're recording. We're good. I just wanted to let you know that. I won't be able to pick up on any visual tics. Tessa 52:10 Oh, so I can make obscene gestures. Sam 52:13 Hold on just a second. About now Andy 52:18 Nope. Oh, I'm an idiot. I am super dumb video is disabled by me apparently. I am sorry. Continue Tessa you can make all the obscene gestures you want anyway because Tessa 52:34 I just do them under the desk. Normally Transcribed by https://otter.ai