Selects: Some Movies That Changed Filmmaking

An estimated 50,000 films were made worldwide in 2009 alone. Many are surely clunkers, but in this episode Chuck and Josh talk about the ones that emerged throughout cinema history to change the course of all movies that followed. Get your popcorn and lean back while you enjoy this classic episode.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh. And since it's summertime, it's
movie time. I am oh. So I've chosen our super
interesting two thousand fifteen movie Talk episode some movies that
changed filmmaking. You don't have to be a cinema file
to enjoy this episode, so don't be scared off. And
there's a part right around the beginning of listener mail
where we talk about making a movie podcast that I

(00:22):
now wonder was possibly the seed that Chuck's Movie Crush
podcast sprouted from. Maybe, which if you like this, go
listen to the extensive Movie Crush catalog anywhere you get
your podcasts. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Welcome
to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,

(00:49):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, A k A. Ciskel, and Ebert save with
Sea I'll see, and Jerry's over there. I guess she's
Jeane Shallott. That's that's the stuff. If you should know,
trium for it. I don't know why that took on

(01:09):
me so much, because Jeane sell it's a funny looking
I guess Jerry's not. I'm just picturing her with a
big afro and a mustache and like a tweed jacket
and bad opinions about movies. Jane Shell. It had a
look for sure. Still though he's around right, Oh yeah,
I think so? Yeah, r I p both cisk Lanni,
but it's so sad. Um. Have you seen the Roger

(01:32):
Ebert documentary? No, I've heard nothing but good things, really
really good, very touching. Yeah. What is it? Uh? Something Life,
Life like Mine, Life with Me, Life on Top, Life Itself,
Life with thumbs, Life itself, Life itself, Life with thumbs.
It was really great and I watched it and it

(01:52):
made the mistake of watching on a plane, and I
was just like, my allergies are acting up, so yeah,
oh yeah I was. I was watering because you're allergies. No,
because it was sad. I was crying. Do you want
me to say it? Yeah, crying on a plane. I
was confused there for a second. That's better than when
I watch other movies that are on my laptop that
are like like bad violence or or nudity or something.

(02:15):
I'm always just like, oh, then I kind of lower
the laptop and it's like I didn't realize this was
in here, and the lady next to me, he's just
like you disgusted me. Yeah, because I don't I want
to be sensitive people around me. You know, I'm not
one of those jerks just like just lives in my
own bubble. It's like watching some sex scene on Blane.
You're like elbowing the lake. So no, I hate it.

(02:36):
That's it was so embarrassed that happened to me a
couple of times. I'm like, I needed to start going
PG on movies like airplanes, Judd Apples. How Am I right?
He's unpredictable? Yeah? Alright, so Chuck, this is your episode
to shine Man, is it? Yes, you're a movie guy too.
Though I like movies, but I've I almost consciously don't

(02:58):
let myself watch movies on a like a film aficionado
level kid pure enjoyment. Yeah. I don't never want to
see the individual shots and just be like, oh, well
that could have been better whatever, um and and just
miss the movie as a whole. Yeah. I fall somewhere
in the middle of that. I try to let go,

(03:19):
but um like, our our video producer director, Casey Is
is pretty bad about that, and our Buddy Scotty who
shot our TV show. He's the worst. He's just a
camera working. That lighting in that scene's awesome. Hey, Casey,
they're all in here with this in spirit, and hey,
this is the last show in the studio. Ye, last

(03:40):
episode in the old office, the murder Room. Couldn't feel
more neutral about it. I actually feel less than neutral,
less than zero. It's it's weird. That was a good movie.
You great shots. I say thank you as if I
directed it a lot, right, I not only directed it,
also played Andrew McCarthy. Uh. Yeah, I'm ready to get

(04:03):
the heck out of here. Man. I can't wait to
get in that new office and that it's gonna be good,
tiny little dedicated studio, whole new world. All right, let's
do this. Okay, So, Chuck films, you've seen one or
two of them in your time. Have you seen any
of the ones in this list? I know you've seen
a few of them, but have you seen like some
of the early ones I've seen. Well it we'll just
go piece by piece because I have not seen Battleship Penkin. Okay, Um,

(04:28):
but I do love Mandy Patankin. It's a little different
in spelling pronunciation meaning the whole thing. But it's close,
I guess. But we're talking, of course about films that
change filmmaking and somewhere or another, and the first one
on the list is from Battleship Patankin. That's hard for

(04:49):
me to say, which is not the first movie, by
the way. The first screen movie was Workers Leaving the
Lumier Factory, which is forty seven seconds long. I'm the
most boring piece of celluloid anyone's ever put together, But
it was the first, that's right. This was many years.
That was a full thirty years before Battleship Potempkin. By
the time thirty years had passed, like we were doing
like narratives and there was banning and all sorts of

(05:11):
great stuff, and battleship pretention fell under both of those umbrellas.
It was a narrative story. It was a silent movie, right,
but it told a pretty clear story. And it was
a bit of Russian propaganda as well. Yeah, it tells
the story of a nineteen o five uprising in uh
where there were Russian sailors. Basically, there was a mutiny

(05:32):
aboard a ship and then the bad guys, the Cossacks
came in looking for revenge. Yeah ninety five, that would
have been rising up against tyranny, would have been rising
up against the romanof monarchy, I guess. But it was made.
So this is a time when you know, Lenin and

(05:53):
Trotsky and all those dudes were running around trying to
do the great experiment, and uh it ends up. It
turns out that the battleship Potempkin was banned in some countries.
Some countries are like, we don't want this Rusky propaganda, right,
But Russia itself later on banned it when Stallin came
to power because he was a self aware dictator. Was

(06:14):
that the deal? Yeah, okay, he knew this could be
a metaphor for rising up against my dictatorship. So I'm
gonna just bay in this. Uh yeah, even though it's
Russian propaganda. Well, filmatically, I need to bring the history,
by the way, uh, Filmatically speaking, it was a landmark
film because of the montage, most notably the Russian or

(06:38):
Soviet theory of montage, which is basically that, um, your
impact is going to come from juxtaposition of shots and
not necessarily smooth sequence of shots. Um, and it should
be rhythmic instead of necessarily being tied to the story.
It was like a rhythmic series of shots. And um,

(06:58):
this one is popular. It was The Odessa Steps sequence
is one of the five acts, and it is huge
because it has been aped and um mimicked and mocked
and um homaged, probably more than I don't know about more,
but a lot of times in film history. Well, yeah,
the montage it's like a go to editing technique, right,

(07:22):
Oh yeah, well the montage in general, but specifically the
Odessa Steps. There are two notable parts in that sequence.
One is the you know, it's basically a big charge
on these these grand steps leading up to a building
in a big battle Odessa, Texas. And um, there's a
part of it where there's the old the old baby
carriage going down the steps. You know what's going to

(07:44):
happen to the baby And it sounds tired because we've
seen that in uh, you know, The Untouchables. Notably that
I did not find it tiresome Naked Gun thirty three
and a third everything is illuminated the great movie by
leaf Shaw. Ever, um that was from directly from the

(08:05):
Odessa Step sequence and Battleship Patinkin the Baby Carriage and
the old um shot through the shot in the eye
through the glasses. Oh cool, that comes from this movie too.
They were the first ones to do it. Yeah. Um,
And you've seen that in Woody Allen's Love and Death
and Bananas and of course The Godfather. The great sequence
where Mo Green's getting the massage and he looks up

(08:26):
and puts on his glasses during a montage. Yeah, that's
exactly the whole Yeah, because there was an assassination on
the steps as well. Oh yes, that was definitely a
double Who was that? That was Francis Ford Coppola. Yeah,
he was clearly aware of battleship attemptin clearly. I was
trying to think of other examples of montages and the
only thing I could come up with was the a

(08:47):
team building something. But that counts as a montage, right, Yeah. Yeah.
It's like some related in some way related shots that
are kind of put together that a little bit transand
and like a story in itself, like Rocky training for
a fight. Yeah, that's another good A lot of times
to set to music. Yeah, I love that. That's the

(09:08):
only one you can think of. And in the Great
Movie Brazil too has the shot through the glasses bit
as I like to call it. So that's a Battleship
at Tamkins, doesn't one of the Nazis and Raiders have
lost art gets shot through the glasses. Maybe that wouldn't
surprise me. It's been it's been off homaged, you know. Yeah,
So Battleship at Tempkin was a It made a pretty

(09:30):
big splash in ninety six. The following year, the next
movie on the list. Um, it wasn't his first, but
it really solidified I think his stardom Buster Keaton stardom, Yeah,
the general rightfully so too. Yeah, he was one of
the great Um well, some people call him the greatest

(09:50):
stuntman to ever live. He's done some stuff that I
think earns him that, yeah, because I mean this is
back in the day two where he was legitimately risking
his life, you know, like the the very famously where
he's standing on the street in front of a house
and then the whole front of the house falls over
him and the window he just goes right around him.

(10:11):
I watched that again today. It is I can't believe
he did that. And there's actually a half of a
second where his arm jerks up because he startled as
the house finally makes its way like into his peripheral vision,
and it has to be one of the most dangerous
things that human beings ever done on film. I'm sure

(10:31):
the whole time before that was like, we did the
math right, he did the math. Do the math again,
do the math again, Show me the math right, show
me the math, because that's all it was. It was
math and measurements. But yeah, he could have been squashed
and killed very easily, and he had a lot of
faith in everybody who was pulling off the stunt with him.
You know, he had to just stand there. That was
his whole thing is he had to just stand there.

(10:53):
And his bit was that he um was he played
it straight constantly. He was a stone faced actor. Yeah, deadpan. Yeah,
he kind of started that whole thing because his big um.
I was about to say rival, but I guess um
just contemporary Charlie Chaplin, while similar in some ways, was
completely different because Chaplin was constantly mugging for the camera

(11:14):
and like asking for the audience, uh sympathy, raising his
eyebrows or yeah, like look what's happening to me? Come on?
Come on? Whereas Buster Keaton was just he had that
dead pan look the whole time. Yeah, he would go
from like a house falling around him to jumping on
a train or something like that with just the same
blank facial expression. Yeah. And the reason this is a

(11:34):
highly influential film the generals because it kind of showcases
the best of both, um, the the amazing stunts that
would be mimicked in throughout the years and built upon,
and then the dead pan style that influenced everyone from
Obviously Bill Murray is one of the great dead pan
actors of all time. Like you can count the number

(11:55):
of time Bill Murray even smiles in a movie on
like two hands, much less like apes or laughs or anything.
Michael Sarah's mentioned in here, and I'm like he, I
think he might have Bill Murray beat as far as
actor goes. Well. Zach Galfin Akiss is on the list,
he's super deadpan, um Leslie Nielsen, of course, Amy Poehler.
I think is a is a woman that's a very

(12:17):
dead pan has a dead pan style. Jason Schwartzman, Yes,
but people say this is this all is a direct
descendant of Buster Keaton's work. Yeah, And if you think
we're overstating this. Go watch any Buster Keaton movie. You
will be thrilled and delighted. And if your attention span
has been shredded to ribbons by the Internet, just go
on to YouTube and type in Buster Keaton and it'll

(12:40):
bring up all sorts of um clips of his awesome stunts.
Pretty great. He will be thrilled in amazed, I promise. Yeah,
And I think I made a note here by the way,
that we have a fatty Arbuckle retraction to make. Remember
when we we called him out as the rapist murderer,
I didn't say murderer, well, we said rapists at least,
but we were taken a task by fan he was

(13:01):
he had, he was acquitted of all that stuff and
apparently didn't do uh either act and um, his career
in life and family name were ruined forever. So he
was evidently done a grave miss justice, and we sort
of cavalierly just still called him that today. Yeah, I
need to look into it more, all right, So next
up we have the Jazz Singer the edition not the

(13:25):
Neil Diamond one. No, and there was one in between
two with Danny Thomas. I believe, Um, I like Neil Diamonds.
It's good. I never saw do you ever see it? No? No,
it's not bad. Um. But this is the original from
Alan cross Land, and it is notable because it was
the first feature link uh movie that was at least

(13:52):
spoken dialogue. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's totally new. Yeah,
it wasn't. It wasn't the first talkie because they had
short films that were talking key's. And there was a
movie the next year I'm sorry, yeah, called Lights of
New York that had full spoken dialogue, but the jazz
singer had a mix of music and spoken dialogue. The

(14:14):
first big, big daddy feature length film to do so
right with substantial dialogue, right, Yeah, and they they did
it in the most roundabout difficult way that you could
possibly do it, which is too record the audio and
the soundtrack, both the dialogue and the music, onto vinyl
records probably wax records really, and then um, the projectionists

(14:38):
had to sink the record up with the film strip
so everything was in sync. Yeah. It was a device
called a Vita phone that Warner Brothers sunk about half
a million into. Uh. This company called Western Electric who
invented it, and it was actually physically connected to the
projector's motor. Um, so they did while they did have

(14:59):
to sink it. It was it was a physical connection
between the phonograph player and the projection. Uh real, I guess.
And it went on to gross three and a half
million bucks a lot of dough. That's a ton of dough.
That's like five six million dollars today at least at least,
but uh, it was ineligible for the Best Picture because

(15:22):
they were just like, you can't compete with the rest.
It's not fair, oh wow, because everything else is silent
and everyone's going to vote for you. So that changed
the whole game for sure. We will continue on with
our awesome and engrossing list right after this, So Chuck,

(15:59):
if you will notice the first three movies in our list,
the first three films that changed everything happened in twenty seven.
Things were changing vast they really were. I mean, like
we buy leaps and bounds. But you can also make
the case that there was a lot of new ground
to cover. So just about anybody who did anything new

(16:20):
that was noteworthy. Yeah, it was a big innovation. Harder
to innovate these days, it is um And if you'll
notice on the list. Um, So the earliest ones where
like technical editing, innovations. Um. Now, starting with Citizen Kane
from we start to get into innovations and storytelling, which

(16:40):
is a lot more nuanced than you know, um, doing
your own stunts or using a montage or something. It's
it's figuring out how to tell a story in a
much less linear narrative fashion. And Citizen King was one
of the early ones to pioneer a non linear narrative
of Yeah, did you you saw this? Yeah? Yeah, I

(17:03):
didn't see it until I mean it was probably like
probably about fifteen years ago, but like way later than
you would think I would have seen this as a
big film buff. I saw it in college at a
in a film class. Yeah. Often. Yeah, if you sign
up for a film class, you're gonna study Citizen exactly

(17:24):
pretty much. And I finally found out where Rosebud was.
Don't ruin it. I won't. But it is a landmark
film in every way, and it has often been top
of best Films of All Time lists for great reasons, UM,
one of which, like you said, the non linear narrative
was really unique thing at the time. UM. Although Flashback

(17:45):
wasn't brand new it was the first time it had
been this extensive and effective in the story because I
mean it's substantial enough that it really cuts up the flow. Yeah,
you know, it's not like a quick flashback and they
come back and the actor is like staring off into
space to transition back into the present again. I mean
like it was all over the place. Yeah. Uh. Some

(18:08):
of the more concrete cinematic landmarks. One was using deep focus. Uh.
Director of photography Greg Toland Legend used he had used
deep focus before on a movie called Long Voyage Home,
But um, it's all over the place in Citizen Kane.
And that basically means if you see a shot where

(18:30):
something very far away is in focus in the shot,
basically where everything is in focus, or the background in
the foreground or in focus, so you can press pause
and look around exactly like you're sticking your head into
a box. Yeah, that's called deep focus. And it was
brand new. Uh, as far as Citizen Kane goes. It's
how extensive it used it. One of the other things

(18:51):
was off center framing. Um it was a big, you know,
pretty common thing to just center whatever the main act was,
either the character or the object, and um, Citizen Kane
had a lot of things where the main focus of
the scene the character, maybe even off screen, which was
really weird at the time. People didn't know what to

(19:12):
think of it. Um expressionistic lighting. Uh back then everything
that they just lit it there, like make sure everything's
well lit. Um. But auto premature also like a big
pioneer with that. Yeah, I think so with um Dalin
for Murder, I think he directed that. Was that Hitchcock?
I think that was Hitchcock? Was it? Okay? Well, auto

(19:33):
premature directed stuff like that, though right he was. He
used moody lighting and shadows and stuff a lot. I
probably messed that up. People are going to be Dalin
for murder. I think it was premature, okay, Um, but
U orson Welles of course. I don't think we even
mentioned that who wrote, directed, and started and produced, and
I think he even edited A Citizen Kane. Yeah, I

(19:54):
just assumed everybody knew that, you know. Yeah. Um. He
came from the theater, where uh you create mood with
lighting only certain parts of the stage, so he brought
that into the movies and uh it was very um
evocative and set the mood well. And people are like, man,
why are we lighting everything all bright all the time?
Look at Citizen Kane, which really worked. Um. A couple

(20:19):
of other things, one of which I know you will appreciate, sir,
is that he pretty much invented the wipe. Oh, the
star wipe, not the star wipe, but it followed. Yeah,
the star wipe followed, which I know is your favorite
transition in cinema. Oh, it's all Star wars Star because
it almost makes a beop sound, you know. Uh. And

(20:40):
one of the way, I want to say, you're right, Dallan.
For murder, it was Hitchcock. Okay, what was premature? Did
you look that up? He did one called Laura the
Man with the Golden Arm. It's not who I'm thinking of.
I'm thinking of a director named Auto who directed in
like the twenties or thirties, and he directed like moody um,
like like moody movies like yeah, murder movies, yeah, filmore, yes,

(21:05):
film noir. That's exactly what I was going for. And
I don't remember who it was. Maybe his name is
Otto film Moore, He's French. Um. And then one final thing,
of course, that you could study Citizen Kane for a
week in the film class. So this is an overview.
But um, the low angle shots. Um, people didn't use
a lot of low er high angle shots back then.

(21:26):
It was kind of just shot from straight on and
um Orson Welles even dugout cut out the floor a
lot of times to get the camera lower. And for
the first time we saw ceilings in view in a
movie because quite often things were shot on a sound
stage where you don't have ceilings, and um, he wanted
those low angle shots, so they used um fabric most

(21:47):
times to act as a ceiling, but very effective shots
of from below of orson Wells. As I mean, it
wasn't exactly William Randolph first, but it was an approximation
of William Randolph first, a very effective low angle stuff
that now, I mean we take for granted all these things, Um,
but you know, there would be no pulp fiction and

(22:08):
that non linear storytelling if there was no well maybe
somebody would have done it, but maybe eventually. But the
first he did the first, and and that's why it
was innovative. Exactly. It's Fritz Lang. Yeah, there you go,
Fritz Lang Metropolis and m just um, that's okay, Yeah,
it's all making sense that get confused. Yeah, but you

(22:30):
were right, You were right there. Fritz and Auto are
not close. I mean they're both Jerreman, but that's about it. Yeah,
but do you know the difference between M and dial M?
Just a telephone? What's up next, Chuck Breathless? One of
my faiths. So I am going to rely on you
mostly for this one because I looked up what the

(22:51):
French New Wave really did, what did accounted for? And
like all of the essays I found were are they
were dense, Yeah, and I didn't really understand. I understood
that the French New Wave like changed everything, yea, and
that a lot of the movies that I know and
love today are the offspring of the French New Wave,

(23:13):
but I still didn't get exactly specifically what the French
New Wave did. And you're going to rely on me
to summarize this, no pressure. Well, for me, the French
New Wave basically ushered in an era of what now
I think most people might associate with in d filmmaking Okay, okay,

(23:34):
like uh, handheld camera work and what some people at
the time considered amateurish camera work. UM movies where maybe
not a lot seemingly happens you know, nothing grant happens,
which was the case in Breathless. A lot of people
didn't like it at the time because it was like,
you know, not much happens. You know that the the

(23:55):
two leads in the movie, uh, Jean Paul Belmondo and
Jean c. Berg weren't really lie didn't show express a
whole lot of deep love, and there weren't these big
moments of love and affection and these huge action sequences.
And it was described as flat by a lot of people. Um,
and I think a lot of indie movies do that,
just kind of show life as it happens. Yeah, So

(24:16):
without Breathless, we wouldn't have like Bottle Rocket. Maybe. Wes
Anderson is definitely a big French New wave guy for sure. Um,
but uh go dar John Luc Goodard who directed it,
and Trufaux and some other um French New wave forefathers
were film critics at first. Yeah. Yeah, and they decided

(24:38):
as a group like we want to look at cinnam
in a new way, um and do something different. So
they would and started making their own movies. That's like
James Fenimore Cooper, Yeah, the guy who wrote Less of
the Mohicans. Yeah. He apparently used to complain that, like
nobody wrote good books anymore, and so I think his
wife or something said, well, why don't you do a

(25:00):
big shot? And he did. And the books he wrote
really weren't so great, but he he went and wrote
him and he wrote a bunch of them too. One
of my favorite four sides ever, is the second to
the last of the Mohicans. It's just a line of
Native Americans. In the second to the last one, they're
online facing away. He just sort of turning around and
waving at the camera, I guess the camera at Gary

(25:21):
Larson's hand. Um. So Breathless is notable for those reasons.
It kind of kicked off the French New Wave. But
the use of jump cut editing, which we see so
much now. It was the first movie and it was
very jarring at the time to see jump cuts in
a movie. And that's when you're showing, like, I guess
the best way to describe it as um, multiple shots

(25:44):
of the same subject or thing from different angles. Right,
It's like, um, you indicate the progression of time or
movement or something by just cutting quickly rather than focusing
on somebody walking down the street for five minutes. You
cut a couple of times, and all of a sudden
they're just closer to the camera, and then closer and closer,

(26:05):
and then they're past the camera. It's a jump cut, yeah,
or even as simple. Something as simple is like you're
going to leave the house, so you go and pick
up your keys and you put on your coat. Instead
of showing all that you come out of the bedroom, Boom,
you're putting on your coat. Boom, you're putting the keys
in the door, right exactly, you're just showing the high
highlights of this progression of stuff, where that would otherwise
be boring to watch the whole thing. But it also

(26:27):
um is used to create tension too, because it's it's
um jarring. I guess it's probably why it creates tension.
And Scorsese famously used it in Goodfellas at the end
when Henry Hill is like like trying to sell some guns. Yeah,
he's coat to the gills, right, and he's like trying
to sell some guns to Nero but they don't fit

(26:48):
the silencers, and like he's the helicopters following him. He's
got the sauce going and all this stuff is being
represented and compressed in a very short amount of time
by the use of jump cuts. Very effective and for
budding filmmakers, it's a great way to hide mistakes. UM

(27:09):
of things you may not have gotten that you thought
you got. UM. Jump cutting is a really easy way
to to just sort of uh yeah, to hide your errors.
I did a lot. In other words, when I was
making those shorts, I UM, I was. I realized that
in my head I was referencing the UM shot in
Soul Taker. Have you seen that mystery signs three thousand

(27:31):
with it's um. His last name is Estevez is Martin
Sheen's brother, and he is a soul taker and he's
next to this guy who's a soul taker. You just
have to see this. But anyway, they're they're walking down
the road and this jump cut like has this progression
of them. It's so unnecessary, but it's like a great

(27:52):
use of jump cut. You could tell the director was like,
I can't wait to use a jump cut, and that's
what she did. She used it on UM. But go
watch the MSc three K. It's a good one. Man.
You did you see every single one of those episodes? No,
it's still I still run across the ones that I
haven't seen. Yeah, nice, um hey, and the shout out

(28:13):
to Bill Corbett, who I know as a listener. Oh yeah,
he isn't. Yeah. I don't know if he's gonna hear
this one, but the great Bill Corbett, so take care. Uh. Next,
we're gonna move on to Federico Fellini's eight and a half.
Have you ever seen this one? No? I haven't. Now
I understand why it's called that. Yeah. It was one

(28:34):
of the first, although not the first, movies about movie
making and uh, starring the great Marcello Mastriani Masterroianni from
Ludulta Vita. Amuse of Felini's over the years too, And
this one, Um, this one really kicked off the surrealist
filmmaking and sort of saying you can play around and

(28:56):
shoot a dream sequence where the guys in traffic and
then he leaves his car and floats up in the
air and is you know, being pulled down to the
ground on the beach from a rope tied around his ankle,
just like go nuts. Yeah, and successive filmmakers did go
nuts like um Gondry did. Uh eternal sunch out of
the Spotless Mine. Oh yeah, he's hugely influenced. Um, Darren

(29:17):
Aronofsky did some weird stuff here there, Yeah, David Lynch
and Terry Gilliam. Of course. Just basically surrealism is is
what I'm taking Felini introduced into this, Yeah, for real.
And um, besides the surrealism, uh, that opening sequence of
eight and a half where the director of um, he's

(29:38):
the director in the movie, Uh, Guido is stuck in traffic.
It's really claustrophobic feeling, and that's why he floats away,
uh and escapes. You know that, that traffic jam. But
that was directly mimicked in like R E. M S.
Everybody Hurts video, And Um, the beginning of the movie
Falling Down. Do you remember that that started with the
traffic jam. Michael Douglas just laughed. He doesn't float, he

(30:01):
gets I saw that again the other day. Most of
it it's weird. It alternately felt way ahead of its
time and also very dated. Yeah, because the stuff that
Michael Douglas is doing felt way ahead of its time.
But then there was I just forgot about that whole
um weird subplots with Robert Duval retiring and he had

(30:26):
this wife that was him pecking them, and like this
retirement party they were trying to throw off. Forgot that. Yeah,
it was just so unnecessary and felt really weird and
out of place. The other day when I was watching
it was there like a jump cut montage where he's
putting on his watch, his gold retirement watch. No, but
then to the Barbara Hershey, you know, is in venice

(30:47):
at home with the daughter, and he spends a whole
day coming there to grab them basically, and the whole
time she just keeps calling the cops like a no,
he's coming, and no, he's coming. And I was watching
the other day, I was like, freaking leave, what are
you doing there? That's a movie character thing, you know.
That's just bad writing, bad directing. When you just walk

(31:08):
right past the ability to leave, there's you. You missed
a huge step. Where were we falling down? Yeah? I
think that pretty much sums up eight and a half.
I think so too, falling down boom, so chuck. We
got a little more left, we got more films. Is
this making you want to watch films? Yeah? Me too.
I feel like eating ice cream watching a film and

(31:30):
scratching from poison Ivy lately and burning this office down.
Uh you know if that happens now, suspicion is going
to fall on you for saying that's all right. Uh,
we'll be right back after this. Alright, So we're back

(32:02):
with our awesome jingles, which, by the way, um, we
we have to thank John bagonin John begin begin to begin.
He even emailed with the pronunciation of his name, but he, um,
the original guy who did our jingle, the first jingle ever,
Rusty Maddius Mattias Man, I'm not good with the pronunciation.

(32:24):
Uh well, anyway, Rusty who's banned the sheep Dogs are
on tour right now. Um, just because his work was
so original, we contacted him and said, hey, we got
this other guy who's done like covers of your work.
Can we use these is like totally and John's been
making awesome like versions of it ever since. Yeah, they're
both great and talented. Thanks to you both. And go

(32:46):
check out I think that what you say. They're on
tour right yeah, the sheep Dogs. Go check out the
sheep Dogs in town here you Yeah, all right, let's
finish with these two in reverse order. Okay. Toy story
was a big one, hugely innovative, huge, And again it's
one of those things where now almost everything about it

(33:06):
seems pedestrian or what it did. See. It's still a
great movie, I'm sure, um, but the innovations that it
undertook her it's just seemed pedestrian. But at the time
it was totally groundbreaking. It was the first, um, the
first c g I movie, all c g I movie ever. Yeah,
that was enormous. Well yeah, and I remember at the

(33:29):
time seeing it and just being like, Wow, this is
the future of animated films. What's the best all c
g I animated film you've ever seen? Visually? Uh? Well,
I haven't seen a lot of them these days because
Emily doesn't like those. So I probably wouldn't be the
best person to ask Holly from stuff mom or sophiasts

(33:49):
and history class, she'd probably be the one to ask
for my money. Have you seen The Adventures of Tintin? Oh? Yeah,
that was amazing, mind blow. Yeah. I saw that on
your recommendation and really really liked it. Yeah. The story
was great, the action was great, the characters were great.
But the c g I, the computer animation is but

(34:11):
I think possibly the best ever done. Yeah, And that's
a bit of a different style than say like UP
or Um The Incredible. It's not nearly his cartoons. It's
like the I think it's the motion capture. Yeah, I
think that's what they did for that. Oh yeah, with
UP it would strictly be totally just animation, right, yeah,
but I mean they're both animation. Um. But yeah, man, Tinton,
that was really good. It was good. I'm surprised how

(34:32):
much I like that. But UP was good too, and
Toy Story was good too. And but all of these
things came as a result of the ground that Toy
Story broke absolutely in Um, like you said, what seems
like a common thing today, could I mean, you don't
see sell animation anymore. It's almost I know, I kind
of miss it. I totally miss like the new Um,
Mickey Mouse is all weird and CG like stuff from

(34:55):
our generation should have just been discontinued, and then you
just come up with all new stuff off that's CG.
I start very shortcake not supposed to be c G.
I it just all looks weird now. Yeah, I wish
there would have people would have done a little bit
of both still, because I think Sell animation like Uh.
I think The Iron Giant came out after Toy Story

(35:15):
and they did sell animation and that was great, great
movie that it was really good, you'd like it. Uh
Like it was a movie for grown ups, and Toy
Story sort of laid the way for that because it
was one of the first movies. Um, I guess cartoony
kids movies to really have a lot of dialogue that
flew over kids heads that adults got a little nod

(35:36):
in a wink. What Toy Story. Yeah, yeah, not like
dirty humor, but it's not like f it's the cat
no no no, but a little entendre here and there
that adults might appreciate that kids won't understand. Those are
the best jokes. Um. And now we have you know,
best animated uh feature in the Oscars, which definitely came

(35:58):
straight out of the original Toy Sto worry because movies
started being considered before they created its own category up
in Toy Story. Three were actually nominated for a regular
Best Picture, and I think everyone's like, oh, we need
to get in their own category because you can't have
an animated movie when best Picture it came well up
would have come after. Um, the the best Animated Picture

(36:20):
category came out, really, so that kind of goes as
a testament to just how amazing that movie is. Yeah,
but it was still for Best Picture. Oh, it was both.
I don't know if it was up for it probably
was up for Best Animated as well, but it was
definitely also up for Best Picture while there was an
animated category. Yeah, I never considered that. Bam, that was

(36:41):
a good movie. Yeah, it was sweet. Um, so I
got nothing else in toy Story. Well then what about
the last one? Yeah, two thousand one Space Odyssey quite
a film. You sent this, uh essay on Criterion I
think Criterion dot com, but you know the criteria in collection.

(37:01):
Um it was written, I guess in even though it
says posted in it's like there wasn't an internet to
post it on in night. Maybe it means posted it
like in the mail. Maybe. Um. But I realized, like
I can read film essays about Stanley Kubrick's work all
day long, Like I love that documentary Room two to

(37:25):
seven two three seven six seven, you know the one
about the shining conspiracy theory. Yeah, then the number of
the room is amazing. I can't remember though. Um, I
read a bunch of articles is I think two thirty seven. Um,
I read a bunch of articles around the release of
that documentary, which we're basically like film essays on on

(37:48):
the shining. I read this one amazing one um from
several years ago about Eyes Wide Shut about how it's
like a masterpiece of sociology, studying sociology. People hate that movie. Um.
And then now this like two thousand one. I'm sure
there's tons out there to consume, but I can just
read that stuff all day long because that guy was

(38:09):
so just amazingly detailed as a director. Yeah, I agree.
I can read more about his work critical essays on
his work than any other director. It's just unbelievable. It's
almost like its genre. It is, you know rick. Yeah,
it's got a word named after it, and well it should. Um.
So two thousand one of Space Odyssey, Um, blue minds

(38:33):
back then, blows minds today one for its uh just
the amazing look and the technical achievement. Um. A eight
is really well. I mean, if you see a movie
from nine about out of Space, it still looks like
the future. Yeah, he don't expect it to hold up well,
but it totally does. Um so much so that a
lot of the you know, George Lucas and Ridley Scott

(38:54):
were just like it's done, Like we might as well
give up. Yeah, George Lucas when Star Wars came out
said Star Wars is technically comparable, but for my money,
two thousand one was by far the better movie. Yeah,
everyone was sort of intimidated, I think by how talented
Kubrick was. Well. Plus also, um, you have to take
into account that he made this movie at a time

(39:15):
when other sci fi movies were just pure schlock. So
not only to make the movie in this way this
visually amazing and amazing with an audio soundtrack and just
totally innovative, it also took like that mindset. It is
completely go in a different direction that everybody else has

(39:36):
as well. Yeah, of course I think about Ridley Scott
saying that, and then he goes on to make Alien
and Blade Runner after that. So I mean he helped Prometheus. Man. Yeah,
people are like Prometheus. I don't care. It's a cool movie. No,
I liked it too. I thought, Okay, one flaw, the
big flaw to me was and I'm sure it's like

(39:58):
part of the subtext, the context, or one of the texts,
but um, the engineer coming back to life or coming
out of hibernation after however long and just immediately like
inflicting violence on these p brained humans who are showing
him no threat whatsoever. I just thought it was a little, uh,

(40:22):
it wasn't explained well enough for my taste. Yeah, I
don't think I agree with you, But when I'm watching
a Ridley Scott movie, I just assume if I'm missing something,
he has an explanation for it. I'm just not catching it. Yeah,
I know what you mean. I'd like I think I
read some stuff about how it tied into the alien
cannon and realized I need to go see it again

(40:44):
with all this knowledge that I wasn't really thinking about,
and maybe i'd like it more. Yeah, but I haven't
done that yet, So back to two thousand one. It
was also notable for being bookended basically with thirty minutes
of silence on both ends of the movie. The first
thirty minutes or and when I say silent, I mean
no dialogue in the last thirty minutes have no dialogue. Yeah,

(41:06):
the last line comes like a full thirty minutes before
the end. Yeah, and over the hundred and forty six minutes.
There are only forty minutes of dialogue and the whole thing.
And um, that's why I just when people compare something
like Interstellar and call it kubricky in, I just want
to smash do you know like Interstellar? Not really? Oh,

(41:26):
I liked it. I was super let down despite McConaughey
doing Waterson in the future. I still liked it. I
even liked him in it. I liked a lot of
the parts of it. But um, to me, it's anti
kubricky in because every ten minutes they're explaining everything that's
going on again another thing. Just like Inception, Ellen Page's

(41:49):
entire character was written in to explain what was going
on every ten minutes. Yeah, and I felt like Interstellar
was the same way. It's like Christopher Nolan needs to
just trust his audience a little bit like kubrick did
and say figure it out or don't. Yeah that I'm
not gonna stop every ten minutes just to explain everything.
Here's just going on. Remember if you didn't get it right,
here's what's going on again. Well, I think if they

(42:11):
are labeling something like Interstellar, is Kubrickian right, one of
the ways that you can interpret that is that he
was he rooted his two thousand one in science fact right,
So like the stuff that the astronauts are like dealing
with and the things that are going on and the
conditions of space, it was all factual. Whereas with Interstellar,

(42:36):
same thing. They went to really great lengths to do
what they could to make everything scientifically factual. Aside from
the fact that the idea that you could go into
a black hole and then come back out or something
like that drifting in space, that's not gonna happen. But
for the most part, Interstellar was scientifically accurate. So maybe
that's what they meant when they called it Kubrickian, because

(42:57):
you're absolutely right, like they did blaming a lot and
went to great links to explain a lot, whereas with
with two thousand one, you just watch it the first
five times like what just happened? Yeah, And apparently Carry
Grant had that same reaction as well. That was rock Hudson,
Rock Hudson, that's right. Yeah, the original screening that Roger
Ebert was at in l A. Rock Hudson just left

(43:19):
and said, can somebody tell me what the hell that
was about? Yeah? And it wasn't even over yet. Yeah. Um.
Well the reason it it uh has science fact and
not science fiction is because Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark,
who it wasn't actually a book that was made into
a movie. It was a movie B book made after
a movie, and they collaborated on both. And um, they

(43:43):
went to Carl Sagan, um of course of Cosmos and
said he said, you're gonna make billions and billions. That
was pretty good, it wasn't. Yeah, that's a lot like them. Um.
They went to Carl Sagan said, hey, we want to
portray these extraterrestrials. Are they maybe the Star Child is uh?

(44:04):
Or they turned Dave into the Star Child? Are they humanoids?
What are they gonna look like? And Sagan was like
they were very unlikely to be humanoid. So Kubrick did
the smart thing and was just like, well, we just
won't show him at all, instead of making a fool
of myself like signs and making some dumb looking at man, man,

(44:24):
let me just not show the aliens. Very smart move. Um.
Getting back to the story of two thousand one, although
I think the Village is underrated, Yeah I can stomach
that one. What about well, you like the six cents, right,
everybody like the sixth Cents. I guess that was it

(44:46):
for him. I loved Unbreakable. Unbreakable that was one where like, yeah,
I think it was maybe even better the second time. Yeah,
I still like that movie. Uh. But then he also
made that Lady in the Water movie and the the
one with Marky Mark the people were jumping off no
three kings. Uh is it the one in the elevator? No,

(45:10):
he just produced Oh I know what you're talking about,
the one where people like jumping off of buildings and
stuff inexplicably. Yeah. That I didn't even I didn't see that.
You couldn't get through ten minutes of that movie. So um.
Two thousand one Back to Good Movies was had a
three x three part structure, but not a conventional three
act structure that you might be used to in movies,

(45:31):
which is why it confounded people like Rock Hudson. The
first they called the movements. The first movement was the
Dawn of Man sequence with the the the apes with
a monolith um and uh, he has that great part
where he throws his little bone tool up in the
air and then it morphs into well not Morse but

(45:52):
maybe it's a dissolve into the spinning and outer space.
It's called the match cut. Yeah, match cut and um
of the rotation of what we now know was a
nuclear warhead. Because I read that little article twenty Things
you Didn't Know about two thousand one, I didn't know
those are nuclear warheads necessarily in outer space. They made

(46:13):
it a little more vague, and initially it was going
to be more explicit and they were going to explode
it in outer space. But he said, now it's a
little too close to uh, the ending of strange. Yeah,
so let's not do that. Yeah, probably a good choice, Yeah,
but some as a result, some people have taken it
to mean that, like it was a That match cut

(46:34):
was supposed to show how far humans have come from
using a bone to murder somebody to satellites in space.
But if you know that the satellite is actually loaded
down with nuclear warheads, that match cut demonstrates how little
humans have changed from using a bone to murder somebody
to using satellites to murder somebody. The the motif is

(46:55):
still the same, and it's murder. Yeah. He was going
for some deep things. Oh yeah, a lot of metaphor happening.
I mean supposedly in every single shot, because he started
out as a still photographer, right, supposedly every frame of
a Kubrick movie. You there is nothing that isn't unintentional
in place there by him. He did a lot of

(47:15):
his own set decorating. Yeah, Like the pencil holder on
the desk in the office of the guy at the
Shining Hotel was where it's supposed to be, right, and
if like if it has like a picture of a
goat head inscribed on it, that means something. It's not accidental. Yeah,
Although I will say Room two thirty seven, which I
think may have been the point, is a little bit

(47:35):
like these people are crazy, not like, oh man, I
just see what they're saying in all this, right, I
was just thinking, these people are nuts, right, It's it
was just kind of enjoyable to hear their interpretations of
it well, and I think it had a It was
a comment on obsession and fandom more so than the
Shining but there I thought there some of their ideas

(47:56):
were interesting. I said Room to two sid didn't I
like going out with conspiracy theorists like Mary. Wasn't Room
two two seven like a sitcom? Yeah. It was just
called to seven. Okat. Remember was Jack k She'd be like, Mary, Okay,
that's what my impression was. What do you think I
was doing? Well? I wasn't sure what. You must be

(48:18):
a weirdo. Yeah, okay. The second movement was, of course
the house sequence, the computer, the how was it? The
How nine thousand um really creepy and How ended up
being a lot of people's favorite character, even though it
was just a voice the supercomputer on the Discovery ship. Remember,
he's like, what are you doing to you? It's so creepy.

(48:41):
I had the Mad Magazine spoof of two thousand one
when I was a kid. It was great. And then
the third movement is when Dave moves on to the
next stage of human development with these extraterrestrials that you
know only here and um. Basically, it's when it comes
full circle the third movement, and the third movement is

(49:04):
the one that has almost well, it's really just the
second movement. That's it's dialogue. Yeah yeah. Uh. Some of
the alternate titles for two thousand one Journey Beyond the Stars,
Terrible Universe, not bad, Tunnel to the Stars, not so great,
Planet Fall, that sounds bad. It sounds like good James

(49:25):
Pond movie. And then how the Solar System was one
as a play on how the West was one, Yeah,
which like movie geeks would find that appealing, but everybody
else would say that's dumb. He ruined everything, Yeah, and
Kubrick was this is the last thing I have. He
was so obsessive with protecting his material that he allegedly, uh,

(49:47):
I don't think allegedly. I think he did have all
the sets and props and miniatures destroyed after he shot
it so they would never be reused, which is a
common thing at the time, like, hey, we're doing a
space movie, go get the go get that space from
Stanley set. Yeah, let's reuse it for a planet fall.
He he also destroyed all of the footage that didn't

(50:08):
make it into the original theatrical release. Yeah, destroyed it's gone. Yeah,
so they wouldn't one day after his death recut it,
which they invariably probably would have done. Yep, he's a
smart man. Yeah, I could. We should just do a
podcast on Kubrick. Okay, he was I'm down for that challenge.
Be a dude, Yes, one of my heroes. Yeah, cinematically,

(50:33):
you got anything else? I got nothing else. Uh. If
you want to know more about movies, if you like
this one, you probably also love our exploitation episode exploitation
movie episode fun one. What else have we talked about
movies in Cannonball Run? Oh yeah, I had a lot
to do with the movie. Yeah. Our James Bonda episode. Yeah.
Uh yeah. We've had a few of these, and people
always respond to these, were like, you guys should have

(50:55):
a spin off, should do an all movie podcast maybe
one day. May remember if you're confront any of these,
UM press control F or Apple F in your web
browser and search that way on our podcast archive page. Uh.
You can also search for this article on how stuff
works by typing movies in and seeing what comes up.

(51:16):
And since I said how stuff works, is time for
a listener mail. I'm gonna call this Mike. Could DuPont
really clear something up for us on scientific method? Hey guys,
it was a great um Well, actually he doesn't say
it was great. I think I just made that up.
Hey guys, your Scientific Method podcast has a consistent misuse
of what a scientific law is in relation to uh,

(51:37):
to the working of the scientific method. Uh. It appears
that you believe that a law e g. Newton's law
of gravity isn't held uh in higher esteem than theory,
and that eventually a theory matures into a law. Um.
I think I probably did think that because of politics,
you know, bill becomes a law right exactly, he says,
when in fact, theory is considerably more robust than a law.

(51:58):
A law is a mathematical model that describes observed behavior,
does not answer the why. Theory does answer why something happens.
Did we not say that? I thought we did, Like
I I knew that. I remember finding that out from
the research. I just can't believe it didn't come out
of my mouth. He claims, we did not, and I
I feel like I'm learning this So I definitely did not.

(52:21):
But you may have. For example, Newton's law of gravitational
attraction describes the action of two bodies that can be
used for pretty much everything. Um. It is perfect for
describing what happens, but it cannot tell you why the
two items are attracted or drill down to the underlying mechanism. Yeah,
law is like much more succinct. It just is what
it is. Uh. Nor is the law even universal and

(52:42):
could not be used to explain the para helion procession
of Mercury's orbit burn. In comparison, Einstein's theory of general
relativity was eventually used to solve the mercury issue. Oh yeah,
the mercury issue. Uh, and the standard model, along with
the recent discovery the Higgs boson on my sern, can

(53:02):
answer the why do these two masses attracted to each other? Question?
I think what you mean is, why are these two
masses attracted to one another? Mike, it's pretty teleological theory
is considerably more developed and richer than a scientific law,
which is more of a tool that is applicable to
a wide range of applications. Keep up the good work

(53:23):
that is, Mike DuPont. Thanks Mike, thanks for that of
the Valley Forge DuPont's I think so, huh have you
seen Fox Catcher? Oh no, I've heard it's good. Is
a good? No? Really, I don't think so. Now. I've
heard it's kind of slow. It's beyond slow. Really, I
I can understand why, Um, the Academy loved it, or

(53:48):
a lot of people. I'm sure, do you like it?
I was not a fan of Fox Kich. I think
people generally seeing like a turn by an actor like
Steve Girl doing something really different. They're knocked out by that. No,
I still can't believe you didn't like Birdman. No spoiler
alert for people who have not seen Birdman. The following
conversation is full of spoilers. Yes, what didn't you like

(54:08):
about it? Um? So I thought? I thought Michael Keaton
was good? Okay? Um? Who plays his daughter Emily Blunt?
Is that? Who that is? Emma Stone? Emma Stone? Excellent? Okay?
Um Edward and even pretty good? Okay? So the acting
was fine? Who is Naomi Watts was in it? Yeah?

(54:28):
She did great? Okay, So yes, the acting, the acting
was fine. Sure that the acting was fine. I thought
the photography was amazing. The whole seemingly one take thing
kind of knocked you out. Probably I didn't even pick
up on that, but yes it did. Um. It was
more the the for me, the juxtaposition of the story,

(54:51):
which was pretty boring in realistic and everyday life. Even
though it was about a Broadway production, it was still
about the everyday life of it. Sure, against the surrealism
that's like threaded and embedded in throughout the whole movie.
I didn't like that it was like choose one or
the other? Man? It irked me. Um and uh. And

(55:13):
then just so that one part with the critic or
Michael Keaton tells off the critic. I thought Michael Keaton
did a wonderful job, but just the whole point that
it was in there of like the director, you know,
using Michael Keaton's character to tell off all the critics
he's ever wanted to. I just thought it was pretentious

(55:33):
and I thought it was kind of clumsy in that
sense too, and it was enough that it it. Yeah,
and then the ending. I did not like the ending
at all at all. That'll ruin a good movie because
it was completely went contrary to all the other stuff
that he went out of his way to point out

(55:53):
was fake or fraud and they're not real. And then
all of a sudden it is what no choose one
or the other? The director refused to make very important decisions,
and I think that that ruined the movie. That is
a very well uh thought out the criticism. I think
you thank you very much? Sure, uh man. That was

(56:14):
the end of Listener Mail even, wasn't it? Yeah? Because
now I'm not like she's Josh is weird? He didn't
like Birdman. Now I'm like just in like Birdman. He
has good reasons. Thank you, Thank you. UM. I like
justifying my opinion, don't we all? So? If you want
to get in touch with Chuck and I or Jerry,
who I apparently just spoiled Birdman for UM, you can

(56:36):
contact us via Twitter at s Y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook, dot com slash Stuff
you Should Know. You can send us an email. This
stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com and has
always joined us at Home on the web. Stuff you
Should Know dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,

(56:56):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where
every list into your favorite shows. H