Writer/Director Austin Balke joins Thomas and Frank to discuss the streaming release of "Nate and Moriah in Venice," a new independent drama from Sardonic Motion Pictures.
Then, the group reviews Austin's blind movie pick: 1969's "The Italian Job."
It's our first ever Guest Feature, and it starts right now!
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Meet Your Double Feature is a double-blind movie review podcast hosted by brothers Thomas and Frank. Thomas is an event producer and broadcaster from Chicago. Frank is an independent filmmaker living in Los Angeles.
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For full episodes, written reviews and more, visit our website at https://www.MeetYourDoubleFeature.com/
"Nate and Moriah in Venice" is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video! Rent or purchase here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.a3d9cdc1-4b7c-45c1-a3dc-b77887438867?tag=justusqxg9-20&token=ADE07EB7B9E7DB86DEEEF0D5D4FC5F0B5FB44D3F
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Listen to the Verbal Shenanigans podcast at (https://verbalshenaniganspodcast.podbean.com/)
Music for tonight's show licensed through Soundstripe
"The Shakedown" by Dresden, The Flamingo
"Soul Tonic" by Cast of Characters
"Sophistikitty" by Cast of Characters
(00:09) Nate and Moriah in Venice (2026) Interview
(32:25) Ad Read: Verbal Shenanigans Podcast
(34:11) The Italian Job (1969)
(01:18:18) Final Scores and Wrap-Up
00:00:09
Hello and welcome to Meet Your Double Feature, a double-blind
00:00:12
movie review podcast. My name is Thomas, joined as
00:00:14
always by my brother Frank. Frank, how's it going?
00:00:17
I'm very, very excited today. This is this is a very special
00:00:20
episode. It's a very special episode.
00:00:22
We're going to talk about a real serious subject and we're going
00:00:25
to play sad music. Yeah.
00:00:27
Yeah, exactly. Actually, no, it's a different
00:00:29
thing, Frank. The reason we're excited is
00:00:30
because for the first time ever, we have a guest.
00:00:33
Do you want to tell the world the people about our guest on
00:00:36
today's episode? Do I want to?
00:00:39
I feel like you should be the one, right?
00:00:45
This is my very dear friend and collaborator, director, I guess
00:00:51
multi hyphenated, but director, film industry aficionado Austin
00:00:57
Bulky. You forgot choreographer.
00:01:03
Wow. I said multi hyphenated.
00:01:05
Yeah, multi hyphen. Oh my God, I love that.
00:01:07
OK, hello. Yeah, hello.
00:01:09
Thank you so much for joining us.
00:01:10
Thank you for being our first guest on the show.
00:01:12
I could not think of anybody better because ever since this
00:01:15
podcast began, I've been plugging the movie that Frank
00:01:19
was Co producer on called Nate and Mariah in Venice.
00:01:22
It is a independent drama shot on location in Venice, Italy.
00:01:26
And I've always said Frank Co produces that movie.
00:01:28
And I feel like there's been this soft implication of, like,
00:01:31
who's the other half of the producers for that film?
00:01:34
So today, Austin, that's you, writer, director.
00:01:37
The film is, you know, your project since its inception, and
00:01:41
you and Frank work together to bring it to life.
00:01:43
And we're excited not just because Austin is here, but
00:01:45
because the film is finally available to stream nationwide
00:01:49
on Amazon Prime Video. So doubly excited.
00:01:51
Double announcement. Woo woo.
00:01:54
Not just nationwide. We we just got word that it's
00:01:57
it's streaming in other countries now as well.
00:01:59
Oh, we got international as well.
00:02:01
Fantastic. Today, this morning, it said.
00:02:03
Streaming in Ireland, so all the Irish baddies.
00:02:09
Celebrate Saint Patrick's Day by watching a movie set in Italy.
00:02:12
Oh, good timing. Now I we're going to get more
00:02:15
and more into that, but just as a quick plug off the bat, the
00:02:17
film is currently available to stream nationwide and in some
00:02:20
other places on Amazon Prime Video.
00:02:22
You can find a direct link to it in the description to rent or
00:02:25
purchase. We also have confirmation the
00:02:27
film is coming to Toby. No release date confirmed for
00:02:30
that yet, but stay tuned to our channels and our social media
00:02:33
and we'll let you know when it's available on Tubi as well.
00:02:36
General announcement is the film is now available to watch, which
00:02:38
is very exciting. I believe to my recollection,
00:02:41
the film was first put into production.
00:02:44
I mean you shot it what, like 3-4 years ago now?
00:02:47
It was a while ago. Turns out it's really hard to
00:02:53
finish a movie, so we learned. I mean, let's let's dig right
00:02:58
in. We do have a blind
00:02:59
recommendation that Austin provided.
00:03:00
That's going to be the second-half of our program
00:03:02
today. But here in the first half, I
00:03:03
just want to talk about Nate and Mariah in Venice because I think
00:03:06
it's super exciting. It's the first picture released
00:03:09
by Sardonic Motion Pictures, which is the production company
00:03:11
the two of you work for. Austin going to toss things
00:03:15
straight over to you as our guest.
00:03:17
Tell me a little bit about the film Nathan Mariah in Venice.
00:03:19
I think people have heard the title from us a lot, but they
00:03:21
maybe still don't know what it's about.
00:03:23
Kind of what the vibe is. So just elevator pitch, what can
00:03:27
they expect? Well, you may have guessed from
00:03:30
the title. It's about a couple named Nathan
00:03:33
Mariah and they're on vacation in Venice, Italy and things are
00:03:36
not going so well in their relationship.
00:03:38
The film takes place over the course of a day as they sort of
00:03:42
meander the canals in the streets of Venice, Italy and we
00:03:47
kind of watch their relationship woes and and sort of deteriorate
00:03:51
throughout the day and see where it goes from there.
00:03:54
It's definitely a slice of life film and very dialogue based. 2
00:03:59
characters brought to life by our amazing actors Michael
00:04:02
Ridley and Corinne Mecha. And we did, yeah, we shot it on
00:04:07
location in Italy, in the streets, literally, we'd put the
00:04:09
camera and all of our equipment on our backs every day and, and
00:04:12
go out for, I mean, it felt like 100 hours, probably 12 hours a
00:04:17
day. And in August in Italy and it
00:04:20
was so hot. And but yeah, we just like, we,
00:04:24
we found the locations we wanted, shot it there in public.
00:04:27
And it was like kind of the coolest thing we've ever done
00:04:30
because it was so run and gun. And it was so like, Oh my God,
00:04:33
we're making a movie exactly how we want to and nobody was
00:04:35
telling us what to do. And it was just like the best
00:04:37
thing ever. And then it really, I mean, I
00:04:38
feel like it really did come together in the edit.
00:04:40
There was this huge concern about audio and about
00:04:43
continuity. And we shot it so fast.
00:04:45
And, and then seeing it all come together in the end and be
00:04:48
cohesive. And I think it's good.
00:04:52
It has been so amazing. So now that it's available for
00:04:56
people to watch, it's just like, cool.
00:04:59
That's super exciting. I mean, I got to see I was very
00:05:02
much on the outside of this production.
00:05:03
I like knew what was happening. I got to see a couple of the
00:05:06
earlier screenings of it when it was, you know, pre final effects
00:05:10
and everything. So being able to see multiple
00:05:12
iterations of it was fascinating to me.
00:05:14
And just seeing the finished product, knowing all the work
00:05:17
that went into it. It's fascinating.
00:05:19
Like Frank and I, obviously we cover movies for a living
00:05:22
essentially, and we've both like spent our whole lives watching
00:05:25
them, but getting to see the actual end to end of like we
00:05:29
have a script to we have a movie is so such a gargantuan effort.
00:05:35
It's nuts. I guess Frank just added
00:05:37
commentary from you. What?
00:05:38
What was your experience like? My memory is that actually
00:05:42
filming the movie was like a physical toll on everyone
00:05:45
involved. Oh, it definitely was.
00:05:46
That's that's I was going to jump in with what Austin had
00:05:49
already said. The days were really long and we
00:05:54
had the huge advantage that the. Was it the Venice Film
00:05:59
Association or like. Yeah.
00:06:01
The Venice Film Commission. Yeah.
00:06:02
Yes, they gave, they gave us permits to shoot anywhere in the
00:06:06
city as long as we didn't impede any foot traffic, which was like
00:06:12
huge. Like you don't that's that's
00:06:14
something like, you know, here in LA that's unheard of.
00:06:18
You need you need permits to shoot even anywhere out on the
00:06:21
sidewalk. So like the fact that we could
00:06:24
go anywhere in the city and shoot was amazing, but also
00:06:27
because the production was in Italy and we did all of our pre
00:06:30
production here in the States and it was so gorilla.
00:06:35
We had to do a lot of things on the fly.
00:06:37
So our, our days, especially Austin eyes were so long because
00:06:40
we would do an entire 12 hour day of filming and then have to
00:06:45
go back out at the end of the day oftentimes and find our
00:06:48
shooting locations for the next day.
00:06:50
Oh, gosh, like and kind of even change like the way we were
00:06:56
going to shoot certain scenes, like on the fly.
00:07:00
And, you know, there were definitely times where we would
00:07:03
like the two of us would just step off to the side and like
00:07:05
panic in like a corner about like how we were going to like.
00:07:09
I literally am visualizing some of those moments right now as
00:07:12
you say it. Yeah, me too.
00:07:14
Yeah, so it was. And, and also like Austin
00:07:18
mentioned, like we were literally like, you know, super
00:07:21
small crew. We had our our two lead actors
00:07:24
and then a crew, 4 people and we were lugging around heavy camera
00:07:30
equipment like all through the streets of Venice in the dead of
00:07:36
summer. I think there was a heat wave
00:07:37
going on in in Europe at the time.
00:07:39
So it was just like incredibly hot.
00:07:41
So yeah, it was very physically demanding.
00:07:44
Shoot, like coming home from that, I was like, it's a toll on
00:07:48
my body. Yeah, which is interesting
00:07:50
because I imagine there's a bit of that in any production.
00:07:52
But your guys is was so such a small crew and there's such a
00:07:56
blending of roles. I mean, like Austin, you were
00:07:58
like writer, director, primarily Frank.
00:08:00
I think cinematographer was like kind of your main stated role.
00:08:03
But clearly, even just from hearing you talk about it, it's
00:08:06
sort of just a group effort. It was just like we have to do
00:08:08
all the parts, we just need to get this finished.
00:08:11
Yeah. I mean, like, I was, I was also
00:08:13
like, we were, we were truly wearing a million hats.
00:08:16
I mean, I was like trying to direct the actors while also
00:08:18
like holding an iPad and like, being my own first AD and like
00:08:21
making sure we weren't taking too much times on scene while
00:08:24
also like running the audio, like checking their mics.
00:08:27
And I was like, physically like hitting record and like
00:08:29
listening and checking for levels and trying to look at
00:08:31
their performance at the same time.
00:08:33
So it was, it was like truly a master class in multitasking.
00:08:38
But I think we learned that we can kind of do everything, which
00:08:41
is good to know. Yeah, really.
00:08:43
I mean, this, this was like a very textbook example I think of
00:08:48
just truly independent filmmaking.
00:08:51
I mean, like from the beginning it, this was just Austin and I
00:08:56
and then obviously we brought in some amazing people to work
00:08:58
with, including, as they already mentioned, our lead actors who
00:09:03
anytime we talk about the movie, I want to shout them out because
00:09:05
given the nature of the whole production, like I always say,
00:09:09
it wouldn't have worked if they hadn't been so amazing, both
00:09:13
like in their performances and just their adaptability.
00:09:17
And like in those conditions, like just being super
00:09:20
professional and like, you know, we, we never had to, we never
00:09:24
had any issues with them. We never had like reset a scene
00:09:28
because they forgot their lines or anything like that, even
00:09:31
though the and like the entire film rests on their
00:09:35
performances. It's like this super dialogue
00:09:38
driven film just between the two of them.
00:09:40
So yeah, like I said, I I always shout them out too.
00:09:43
But yeah, it's like it really, it's very difficult to to make a
00:09:49
film that way just purely independently.
00:09:53
So that's why I'm, I'm super proud that we that we did it and
00:09:55
that we did it that way. Absolutely.
00:09:58
I mean, I frank, you and I doing our regular, you know, meet your
00:10:01
double feature reviews. We'll sometimes add these
00:10:03
caveats where we're like dunking on a movie that we thought
00:10:06
really missed the mark. But then we always say like
00:10:08
making movies is hard. Like it's we always soften the
00:10:11
blow by being like, we're not saying you guys didn't work
00:10:13
really hard on this. We just evaluate the finished
00:10:16
product and and especially after looking at the odyssey you guys
00:10:20
went through making your first full length feature here, it it
00:10:23
amazes me honestly. And like you said, the two
00:10:25
actors drive the whole experience.
00:10:28
I feel like, I guess one of my questions that I had written
00:10:31
down that I was thinking about, First off, Austin, for you, was
00:10:35
the film always from its inception set in Venice or was
00:10:39
that something that was based on like where you thought it would
00:10:41
be manageable to actually shoot the film in?
00:10:44
It, I mean, at first it was like I was kind of writing random
00:10:49
scenes without an objective for fun, like between a couple.
00:10:54
And I find writing dialogue to be incredibly enjoyable.
00:10:58
So it was just something I was doing at the time.
00:11:01
It was almost therapeutic because I was kind of pulling
00:11:03
things from people who were annoying me in real life and
00:11:06
like baking them into characters.
00:11:08
And, and so I started to write this couple, no goal in mind,
00:11:13
then randomly took a trip to Italy with my sister and we
00:11:18
stopped in Venice. And I had been before as a kid,
00:11:21
but as an adult, I was like, I remember the whole time thinking
00:11:24
I got to write something for Venice someday.
00:11:27
I'm going to film a movie here. And then I get home and I'm like
00:11:31
working on this random script. And I was like, you know what,
00:11:32
This could be a couple on vacation and I was just in
00:11:35
Venice. So let's see how that goes.
00:11:38
And then started writing it and started researching the
00:11:41
doability of it. And it seemed like something we
00:11:44
would actually be able to do. You know, a lot of people were
00:11:46
saying, like, you can't do that. Like you're not going to be able
00:11:48
to. The sounds not going to work.
00:11:50
You know, it's going to be so difficult.
00:11:51
There's going to be so many people.
00:11:52
But surprisingly, was not all that difficult to get a permit
00:11:56
with the size of our crew. And as I started to break down
00:12:00
the cost, yeah, it was expensive.
00:12:02
But, you know, the fact that we all knew going into it that we
00:12:06
were going to be paid very little and did everything as
00:12:09
cheap as possible with a very small crew actually made it
00:12:12
doable. So at that point we were just
00:12:14
kind of like gung ho about it. Let's do it and we can do it and
00:12:17
just go in. I think going into things
00:12:19
slightly delusional and thinking what's the worst that can happen
00:12:22
is kind of, you know, the best way to do it.
00:12:25
Even as we got there, I was like, what are we doing right
00:12:27
now? This is like insane.
00:12:29
But the delusion got us through at least the shoot pretty
00:12:33
smoothly. I feel like that that's probably
00:12:37
the story behind more famous films than we realize is the
00:12:40
delusion that got us through because it is an ambitious
00:12:43
project. Like you.
00:12:44
You narrowed your scope where it made sense, focused on your two
00:12:47
main actors, but you cover so much ground.
00:12:49
I mean the film structure wise, I think the most obvious
00:12:53
connection I could draw would be to the Richard Linklater
00:12:56
trilogy, like Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight,
00:12:59
in that it's primarily 2 characters.
00:13:01
It's driven by their dialogue that gives you a storytelling
00:13:05
arc, but you set the whole thing against this huge variety of
00:13:08
just scenic, compelling, like vistas, essentially.
00:13:12
I mean, you cover so many different aspects of what
00:13:14
someone would want to see in a film set in Venice.
00:13:17
We get a gondola ride, you know, You know, we got a gondola ride
00:13:20
in there of. Course, it's a great scene too.
00:13:22
Exactly. And you get to see all these
00:13:24
different like landmarks and really just feel like you're
00:13:26
enveloped in that space and it the city becomes a character in
00:13:31
itself, which I think is fun. You have your two leads, you
00:13:33
have Michael and Corinne, and then you have Nate and Ryan, I
00:13:35
should say the characters. And then we have Venice, like,
00:13:38
as the backdrop for this whole drama.
00:13:41
Which was kind of why I named it that because I was like, this is
00:13:44
what the movie is. It's 2 characters and it's a
00:13:46
city. And what's beautiful about
00:13:48
shooting somewhere like that is we might not have any money, but
00:13:52
we don't need money to make the city look amazing.
00:13:54
Like the production value of shooting there was more than we
00:13:57
could have paid for and anywhere else.
00:14:01
So it's like you step outside and you have something more
00:14:03
beautiful than anywhere else in the world.
00:14:05
And so it's going to look good if you can just like get a good
00:14:08
performance. So yeah, that was a big, big
00:14:10
drop, big draw. I guess, Frank, this kind of
00:14:14
moves over into your your side of the coin here to doing
00:14:17
cinematography primarily. How much of the shooting was
00:14:21
like was any particular location or any particular shots like
00:14:25
already kind of established in your head going in or was it
00:14:27
genuinely just, we know roughly a location and we have to
00:14:30
conceive the the visual language as we go every time?
00:14:34
It was, it was kind of a mix. I mean, like Austin had
00:14:37
definitely picked out like very specific locations that some
00:14:42
scenes were going to happen in. And I think for the most part,
00:14:47
that was where we would wind up shooting.
00:14:49
Like, I mean, like you mentioned, obviously, like we
00:14:52
knew we had a scene set on a gondola, but it wasn't until the
00:14:56
day we were going to shoot that scene.
00:14:59
I remember us like walking up, having the conversation, being
00:15:02
like, do you think they're going to let us shoot on this gondola?
00:15:07
Yeah, I was so stressed about that the whole week.
00:15:09
I was like, what's going to happen here?
00:15:11
I really don't know. Let's go.
00:15:12
Let's get get on the boat. It was just, it was just a like
00:15:15
so many things. Like I really like looking back
00:15:19
on it, you can kind of see like how much of the film was on this
00:15:23
like Razor's edge of things going horribly wrong and not
00:15:27
working. I remember at one point Austin
00:15:29
joking like, well, maybe at least we got a vacation out of
00:15:32
this. We don't get a movie out of it.
00:15:34
Or like, at least this scene would make a random good short
00:15:37
film. It wouldn't make much sense, but
00:15:39
we got something. Yeah, yeah.
00:15:41
But I mean, like with like you were saying, both of you like
00:15:46
Venice absolutely is like a character in the film.
00:15:50
And it's it's like not only gorgeous, but it's also just
00:15:53
like historic, you know. So it's, it's just like, you're
00:15:57
like, it made my job so much easier at, you know, the
00:16:02
cinematographer because like, I mean, I look at it and I'm like,
00:16:05
that looks great. But so much of it's just because
00:16:08
Venice, it's just so easy to shoot, you know, I mean, it's,
00:16:12
it's just like Austin said, it's like one of those beautiful
00:16:15
cities in the world. So I I feel like that's a huge
00:16:17
appeal of the film too. It's just like getting to see so
00:16:21
much of that space. And, and I also feel like, you
00:16:25
know, we've, we've mentioned this too, but like for me at
00:16:28
least, and, and I think for all of us that were, there was a
00:16:31
really cool way to experience a place like that for the first
00:16:35
time, because we were very immersed in it by what we were
00:16:41
doing. You know, as opposed to just
00:16:43
going somewhere on a, on a trip and kind of, you know, hitting
00:16:46
the like sort of famous landmarks we were in interesting
00:16:50
like back alleys and like, you know, spaces we wouldn't have
00:16:54
normally ever gone in. I mean like.
00:16:57
We rented like, what do you call it, a palazzo to, to, to live in
00:17:03
while we were filming because I was like, I need this scene to
00:17:05
be pretty. So let's just live in this place
00:17:07
that we're going to use as a set.
00:17:08
I mean, like who in in like a famous square in Venice.
00:17:11
You look out the window in the morning and you were like, Oh my
00:17:13
God, this is crazy. Exactly.
00:17:16
It was so gorgeous. So it was, it was like we were
00:17:18
living it as we were filming it, which was like really cool.
00:17:21
It was almost like documentary esque in that way, I guess like
00:17:28
and yeah, I feel like we had a lot of conversations about that
00:17:30
while we were there too. Like, just like we, we shot that
00:17:34
whole scene on that island that it was like it, it was like the
00:17:38
the graveyard. The cemetery.
00:17:40
Scene. Yeah, the cemetery scene.
00:17:42
And yeah, I remember at one point we were like, are we ever
00:17:45
going to be here again in our lives?
00:17:47
We have no reason to ever come to a place like this, you know?
00:17:51
But it's like we were there because of this and it just
00:17:55
really kind of like elevated the whole experience, I think.
00:17:58
Yeah, which is probably in part what helped the city in the
00:18:01
final film feel like so much of A character is that it was
00:18:04
something that you had to experience.
00:18:05
I mean, it was Nate and Mariah in Venice, but it was Nate and
00:18:07
Mariah and Frank and Austin and whoever else was in the crew
00:18:11
invents too. Yeah.
00:18:12
Yeah. That's fascinating.
00:18:14
I want to, I guess just to further expand on the story and
00:18:18
then and touch on the two actors performances.
00:18:20
So for Nate and for Mariah, I guess Austin, again, back to
00:18:24
you. Like what in your mind was the
00:18:27
character of Nate on the page? And how much did that change
00:18:31
once you actually got an actor in front of you to embody that
00:18:34
role? Like, I guess for either one,
00:18:35
for Michael as Nate or for Corinne as as Mariah, Like was
00:18:40
there anything added to their performance that you think in
00:18:42
the long run actually kind of changed the actual character in
00:18:45
the story? That's a great question.
00:18:47
You know, I think I wrote it, you know, with a much more
00:18:52
comedic tone, thinking that both of the characters were going to
00:18:56
be like really obnoxious and, and dry and like hard to like,
00:19:01
like that was how I approached it as the goal was for them to
00:19:04
be unlikable. Because one of the things that
00:19:06
was interesting to me was like, how unlikable can I make these
00:19:09
characters? How far can I push them before
00:19:11
the audience rejects it? So that's kind of how I
00:19:13
approached it initially. And then what was interesting is
00:19:18
I kind of put a scene that I felt was more comedic as the
00:19:22
sides for the auditions. And when Michael came in and
00:19:24
read it, he read it in a really serious way.
00:19:28
And I was like, oh, like, I didn't think of it this way, but
00:19:32
I guess like, it's so interesting how this could be
00:19:35
interpreted in multiple ways. And he had, he was so good that
00:19:40
I was like, OK, that's like an interesting take on the
00:19:42
character. And similarly, when Corinne came
00:19:45
in, you know, I think a lot of people who read for Mariah, they
00:19:49
read it very much at face value. That was like sort of very
00:19:54
vapid, very like valley girl esque, I guess I could say.
00:19:59
And so when she read it and it felt like there was more to the
00:20:02
character, There was something deeper resonating with it, even
00:20:05
if the dialogue was still a little bit vapid.
00:20:07
I I clocked that like, OK, there's an opportunity for this
00:20:10
to be more than what I initially thought it was going to be, you
00:20:12
know, kind of like an obnoxious comedy.
00:20:15
And so they both brought that out of the roles.
00:20:20
All right, I should say they both like brought that from the
00:20:23
page into something so much more real.
00:20:25
I think if we had gone with what my very initial instinct was, it
00:20:28
wouldn't have worked as well as as what they brought to it.
00:20:31
I mean, they they brought depth to the characters.
00:20:34
I mean, they're it's tricky because it is a story about
00:20:38
people who are unlikable and people who are unable to see
00:20:40
their own faults. At the core.
00:20:41
That was always the idea. But then bringing more humanity
00:20:45
to the role and, and making them feel like real people is not
00:20:50
something I don't think I could have done without 2
00:20:52
collaborators that were really good at their jobs.
00:20:55
Like they brought that out of it.
00:20:57
And, and throughout the process of filming that, that whole
00:20:59
week, I was seeing what it could be so much more than than I
00:21:03
previously had. I mean, obviously this is the
00:21:06
longest thing I've ever directed.
00:21:07
So it's kind of like I just jumped in and I'm like, I can do
00:21:11
this and it's fine and just have blind confidence in yourself.
00:21:14
But seeing them like go in and attack a scene and, and they're
00:21:18
so good that it's more like I'm making adjustments or I'm making
00:21:21
suggestions about the emotional beats I want to hit.
00:21:24
But they're able to interpret that in a way that felt true to
00:21:26
them as a character. And so often their instincts
00:21:30
were just like spot on to, to like a new way for me to, to see
00:21:33
the scene through through new eyes.
00:21:35
And I, I really don't think it could have existed without them
00:21:39
interpreting the characters the way they did.
00:21:41
So definitely there's parts of it that are exactly how I
00:21:44
thought it would be. And because I edited it also, I
00:21:46
got the opportunity to like sometimes they'd push something
00:21:50
a little far emotionally that I thought I think this might work
00:21:52
better in a little more of a comedic tone.
00:21:54
So I would like cut it a little faster.
00:21:56
And so there was this like really nice balance, my
00:21:59
instincts to go more comedy there instincts to go a little
00:22:01
more drama. And then we like hit a a nice
00:22:04
little sweet sweet spot there. That's really interesting
00:22:07
actually, because I feel like the final product is a is a
00:22:10
fantastic blending of those two ideas.
00:22:12
Like conceptually, you're putting these two people in one
00:22:15
of the most romantic settings possible.
00:22:18
And on paper it's they're trying to like save their relationship
00:22:22
after going through some traumas together.
00:22:23
But as the audience, you can tell right away that these two
00:22:26
were like doomed in a way. Like they're so toxic for each
00:22:31
other. But the performance, by making
00:22:34
it a little bit more dry, I think it allows you to not hate
00:22:37
them too much because you end up feeling sorry for them more than
00:22:39
just laughing at their exaggerated traits.
00:22:42
Like there's a sense to which I think a lot of people have been
00:22:46
in a relationship that is basically over, but neither
00:22:49
person, like, wants to admit it yet.
00:22:51
And you're just kind of like hanging on.
00:22:53
And that's not necessarily like, like the path for Nate and
00:22:56
Mariah is more ambiguous than that, especially as the film
00:22:59
goes on. But in the beginning, like when
00:23:01
the scene opens and they're on the train into town and they're
00:23:04
just bickering over nonsense, immediately you're placed in
00:23:06
this position of like, oh, I've seen these kind of people.
00:23:09
Like, I have seen these people in the most beautiful place on
00:23:12
earth, hating every second of it because they can't get out of
00:23:14
their own heads or like, can't get past their own grievances.
00:23:17
And I think that that marriage of like comedy and drama makes
00:23:20
it work because these people can't be too in the know about
00:23:24
how obnoxious they're being because then it would be too you
00:23:27
wouldn't it wouldn't be as believable as if they genuinely
00:23:29
both thought they were in the right and like only the other
00:23:31
person was crazy. Yeah, I like the juxtaposition
00:23:34
of like the most beautiful place and people who are just
00:23:37
miserable. Like that is so fun to me
00:23:40
because it also it'll keep the audience in because you're
00:23:42
looking at something so beautiful and then you hear
00:23:44
these things that they're saying sometimes and you're like, Oh my
00:23:46
God, like what is wrong with you?
00:23:48
But we've we have all been on that sort of vacation or that,
00:23:52
or had that experience where you're like, wow, this is
00:23:54
amazing. And these people are killing it
00:23:56
for me right now. And what if that's the person
00:23:59
that you are like supposedly in love with, but not really.
00:24:03
And it's just like chaotic. And I think the juxtaposition of
00:24:07
it was fun because we also played with that with the
00:24:10
structure of the film. You know, you go into it in the
00:24:13
first a little more than the first half is is very much
00:24:16
leaning on the dry comedy angle with little bits of drama in
00:24:20
there. But it doesn't lean into the
00:24:21
drama so much. It kind of sticks with the the
00:24:24
dryness of their characters. And then you hit a turning
00:24:27
point. All of a sudden it like changes.
00:24:29
And then the rest of the film is like almost pure drama.
00:24:33
And that was just kind of a fun thing to play with the
00:24:37
structure. It's like, OK, you know, people
00:24:39
will tell me, wow, I can't. It felt really fast.
00:24:41
Like the pacing felt great. And I was like, that's 'cause I,
00:24:43
I was trying to pull you in with the comedy and then switch it.
00:24:46
Like I feel when we've watched it in theaters with, with big
00:24:50
groups, like you feel the pin drop moment where you're like,
00:24:52
whoa, this is no longer just like these crazy people.
00:24:57
There's something more happening here.
00:24:58
So that was a fun, a fun thing to play with the audience's
00:25:01
expectations of where we were going.
00:25:03
That's a great thing to highlight.
00:25:05
And I think as part of the appeal for people who maybe
00:25:07
you're hearing the interview and are interested in the film, I
00:25:10
would say that I have seen or at least know of other films that
00:25:13
have a structure akin to this one.
00:25:15
Because it's a good thing you can do with a small crew.
00:25:17
And a lot of people love to write characters and dialogue,
00:25:20
but I don't think I've ever seen an example of one that has such
00:25:23
a like that scene kind of moment, you know, going into the
00:25:27
third act. I mean, it's when I watched the
00:25:30
final cut with Frank and our family and my wife was there.
00:25:34
My wife was like screaming at the characters.
00:25:36
By the end of the movie, she was like yelling at the scream out
00:25:40
of like not even one emotion. It was like anger and confusion
00:25:44
and sadness. And it was just such an
00:25:46
evocative sequence. There's just this one turning
00:25:51
point in that story heading into the like third act where it
00:25:54
really elevates this for me. And I think her story like this
00:25:57
one, to have such a ramping up of tension is really impressive
00:26:00
because you are keeping the context the same throughout.
00:26:03
It's not like you have an action set piece at the end, but you
00:26:05
have a dramatic set piece that manages to give such a lasting
00:26:09
impression that I think is what a lot of people will talk about
00:26:13
when they're finished watching it.
00:26:14
Like you come out of that feeling like a it was well
00:26:17
paced. It's not too long or too short.
00:26:18
You get a full story but also you come out of it just in
00:26:22
heated debate I feel like, which is a very fun movie going
00:26:25
experience. No, that's, that's a good point
00:26:27
actually, because I, I've haven't talked to people that
00:26:30
have seen the movie. I think it's interesting how
00:26:34
people get different things out of it.
00:26:35
They they'll, they'll either relate to one of the two
00:26:39
characters more or like, as, as I think you were mentioning
00:26:44
earlier, Thomas, it's just like you can kind of everybody has
00:26:47
had some kind of relationship, like romantic or otherwise,
00:26:51
where you could kind of like feel where you are in between
00:26:55
these two and the conversations they're having.
00:26:57
And of course, in the beginning, you know, they're doing it in
00:26:59
the most like obnoxious way possible, but that is what
00:27:03
endears you to those characters. That's by the end when it makes
00:27:07
that dramatic turn, like you actually care and you're
00:27:10
invested and in what you know they're going through.
00:27:14
Absolutely. So again, we've been talking
00:27:17
about it for a while now. If you've not already clicked on
00:27:20
that link to rent or purchase Nate and Mariah in Venice,
00:27:23
again, it's in the description for this episode.
00:27:26
Before we move on to our blind movie pic that Austin gave us.
00:27:29
Austin Frank, any other notes? Any other like kind of wrap up
00:27:33
thoughts about about Nate and Mariah in Venice?
00:27:36
You know, I really think, first of all, I just have to say I
00:27:40
couldn't have better partner in this than I keep saying,
00:27:42
Francis, The audience is used to Frank.
00:27:44
Sorry, he's. He's.
00:27:46
Francis to me. He's Francis to me.
00:27:48
Frank has been a Frank for the 1st 20 years of his life, and
00:27:51
then he moves to Hollywood for one day and all of a sudden he's
00:27:53
Francis all right. He had to get all fancy on us.
00:27:56
So if you look at the credits for the film, it's Francis
00:27:59
Dillon, not Frank Dillon. We've not been deceiving you.
00:28:01
It's the same man. Well, Frank or Francis, I
00:28:05
couldn't have had a better partner in this.
00:28:07
I mean, there is so much one can learn about just doing the thing
00:28:11
they want to do. And I feel so great about having
00:28:15
made this beginning to end. And neither of us gave up.
00:28:19
And we just, you know, anytime we thought, well, what do we do
00:28:22
now? We figured it out and I'm proud
00:28:25
of that and I'm happy it's out there for the world to see and
00:28:28
whether people like it or don't like it, at this point it's just
00:28:32
the poster's on the wall in my apartment and it ain't coming
00:28:34
down. So.
00:28:38
Yeah, but of course, I hope you like it.
00:28:40
And, you know, yeah, woo. Yeah, yeah.
00:28:45
Well, I, I, I same I like, I am extremely grateful to Austin and
00:28:53
I, I think, I don't know if I've mentioned it on the podcast
00:28:55
before. Us and I, we've done a short
00:28:57
film together previously and worked on a couple projects.
00:29:01
We we, we went to the same film school.
00:29:03
We were roommates in college, so.
00:29:05
And. They were.
00:29:07
Yeah, they were. Roommates.
00:29:09
But I think like we what I'm really appreciative of is the
00:29:14
fact that like we both have that same kind of drive to do
00:29:20
something like this. And that's why I'm really proud
00:29:22
of the both of us that that we like did see this through to
00:29:27
where it is now. And yeah, it's just been like so
00:29:32
much fun. Like Austin said earlier, like
00:29:33
one of the coolest things I've ever been a part of.
00:29:36
So I've been really appreciative of that.
00:29:39
And, you know, last year, we got to, like, see the movie in
00:29:44
theaters, like, across the country because it was screening
00:29:47
at all these film festivals. And so like, to put all that
00:29:50
effort in and then to actually like, be able to sit in a dark
00:29:54
room and, like, you know, hear people laughing at the jokes.
00:29:57
Oh my God. People laugh.
00:29:59
It's like you'll never know better feeling than when a joke
00:30:03
lands. And especially when they're
00:30:04
strangers, you're like, they're not doing this thing.
00:30:05
We feel good. They actually think it's funny.
00:30:07
We. Yeah, exactly.
00:30:09
Like so so it that was so validating and rewarding and
00:30:13
just like every step of this process has been like that, like
00:30:17
challenging but rewarding. And so, you know, again, very
00:30:20
appreciative to Austin and, you know, stay tuned to Sardonic
00:30:25
Motion Pictures because, you know, I think this is just the
00:30:29
beginning. Yeah.
00:30:30
Yeah, lots of things are cooking.
00:30:31
Lots of things are cooking. Things are cooking.
00:30:33
We we leave the link to sardonicmp.com in the bottom of
00:30:37
every episode. I'll say this podcast launched
00:30:39
when it did as a promotional vehicle for this film.
00:30:43
And it has taken on a life of its own since then.
00:30:45
And Frank and I love doing it. But like, the timing and the
00:30:48
urgency of like, we should get this out there was partially
00:30:51
because we knew that your film was hitting the Film Festival
00:30:53
circuit last year. So this moment of it being
00:30:57
available to watch Austin having you on the show with us, like
00:31:00
it's a full circle moment of like This is why this podcast
00:31:03
exists. And I truly hope that anybody
00:31:06
who is a fan of our show goes to check it out, if only because
00:31:10
maybe they've heard Frank's takes about movies on the show
00:31:12
and they want to go criticize him for a change.
00:31:18
I think it's funny to be able to have the contrast of like film
00:31:22
discourse blended with like you actually are doing it.
00:31:25
Like you guys have made a film. You have, you know, it's more to
00:31:28
come from Sardonic MP, so Congrats again.
00:31:33
Yeah, much. Thank you very much.
00:31:34
Thank you, thank you. And while, while we're being
00:31:36
appreciative, I'm, I'm very appreciative of my brother
00:31:38
Thomas as well for this, this podcast and, and this, this is
00:31:42
like one of the most fun episodes for me because I'm, I'm
00:31:45
here with my, my 2 main artistic collaborators.
00:31:49
So this is, this is really cool. And I'm glad now that we get to
00:31:52
talk about another movie that we all watched.
00:31:55
That's true. OK, so this is the end of our
00:31:57
first half. If you've been listening so far
00:31:59
and you're wondering where's the movie review part of the show
00:32:01
that's coming up after the break, we have asked Austin to
00:32:04
bring us a blind movie pick. We're going to be talking about
00:32:07
1969's The Italian Job, so stay tuned after the break.
00:32:12
Sorry, I cut you off. I cut you off.
00:32:14
Do it again. We're.
00:32:16
Leaving this edge. We're leaving that in this.
00:32:18
It's in the edit. OK, so here in our intermission
00:32:27
segment still, I wanted to take this time to debut sort of like
00:32:31
a new feature to meet your double feature.
00:32:33
Whenever we have time, I would like to spotlight other podcasts
00:32:36
that Frank and I have come across since starting our show,
00:32:39
just because it's fun to sort of connect and cross promote and
00:32:42
and let people know about what else is out there.
00:32:44
So with that in mind, I do have a recommendation for a podcast
00:32:47
that I came across just recently.
00:32:48
Actually, for the past 12 years, Scott Brennan and Michael Berlu
00:32:52
have hosted a podcast called Verbal Shenanigans.
00:32:55
Each week the two bring on some awesome guests and also dissect
00:32:58
life with hilarious stories and banter.
00:33:01
They also play some really hilarious games too.
00:33:04
To be honest, this is our first time doing an interview style
00:33:06
segment on our show, and I do think that a lot of interview
00:33:09
style podcasts can be kind of familiar sounding.
00:33:12
You know, like the same three questions being asked to the
00:33:14
same three people very well. Shenanigans really steers clear
00:33:17
that they're interview focused, but their interviews are fresh
00:33:20
and interesting. It's not just another talk show,
00:33:22
you know? It's a decade long master class
00:33:25
and hilarious banter. Imagine the conversations you
00:33:28
have with a friend at a bar, but in a weekly podcast format.
00:33:31
That's Verbal Shenanigans. Outside of the banter too, it's
00:33:34
really just a who's who in terms of guests that have appeared on
00:33:37
Verbal Shenanigans so far. Of course, they've been doing it
00:33:40
for over 500 episodes and they've talked to a lot of
00:33:42
interesting people for film and TV fans here on Meet Your Double
00:33:45
Feature. They have talked to a number of
00:33:47
different actors and television presenters, people whose names
00:33:50
you might know like Mark Summers, John Walsh, even John
00:33:53
Schneider, who we've been talking about superheroes a lot
00:33:56
recently. John Schneider was on the TV
00:33:58
show Smallville, so connection there.
00:34:01
If any of that sounds interesting to you, we strongly
00:34:03
recommend that you subscribe, follow, give a listen to the
00:34:06
Verbal Shenanigans podcast. And with that, let's get back to
00:34:09
our show. OK, coming in now on the other
00:34:15
side of the break, Austin, we talked about the film that you
00:34:18
and Frank worked on, but we also for the show today asked you to
00:34:21
pitch us a blind movie recommendation.
00:34:23
So could you walk us through the movie you selected and what the
00:34:27
inspiration was for that for that pic?
00:34:29
Well, I'll walk you through the whole process.
00:34:31
At first I thought I would do Roman holiday because I actually
00:34:34
haven't seen it. And I was like, oh, like
00:34:36
vacation. But then Francis has seen it.
00:34:38
So I was like, damn you. Then I was kind of like movies
00:34:43
in Italy. Movies in Italy.
00:34:45
Oh, duh, The Italian Job. And the reason I picked this is
00:34:48
if if everyone during the break went and streamed our movie and
00:34:51
then came back to listen to the podcast, which you should have.
00:34:55
That was what was expected. There's a joke midway through
00:35:00
the movie where the characters are in Saint Mark's Square and
00:35:06
there the opening scene in The Italian Job 2003 version, the
00:35:10
remake is in Saint Mark's Square.
00:35:13
So it's kind of a recurring joke throughout the movie that Nate
00:35:16
as a characterized as a tour filmmaker that he sees himself
00:35:19
as. It's kind of fangirling over
00:35:21
movies that are just like really mediocre.
00:35:25
And one of those and one of those is The Italian Job.
00:35:27
So he goes on a monologue about how much he loves The Italian
00:35:30
Job, but then the joke that is like he's talking about the
00:35:33
remake. And then I was like, you know, I
00:35:36
wrote this and I wrote this joke, but I've never actually
00:35:38
seen the original. So that was my pick.
00:35:42
It's Italian and it is on theme for our film.
00:35:46
That's awesome. I yeah, I had not.
00:35:48
None of the three of us had seen this one prior to this week,
00:35:51
which I think was great. I know it's hard to know what
00:35:53
movies other people have watched before, so I'm glad that we
00:35:56
landed on this one because it's new for everybody.
00:35:59
And it's really interesting because Frank and I mostly so
00:36:02
far have covered lesser known films, like stuff that maybe had
00:36:07
big name actors but kind of flopped or was forgotten about.
00:36:09
Italian Job, it was the opposite where I knew it existed.
00:36:12
I did not know that it is like landmark British film, like a
00:36:17
significant entry in the British film Canon to the point where
00:36:21
there were references to it when London hosted the Olympics.
00:36:24
Like they did a recreation of the bus from the end of the
00:36:28
movie and they put like dialogue from the movie in the closing
00:36:31
ceremony. This is like the.
00:36:32
Spice Girls on the Mini Coopers. Yeah, like they came out.
00:36:36
The Spice Girls came out on Mini Coopers.
00:36:38
So this is fascinating. This is going to be a case of
00:36:40
like, people will actually probably know this one and have
00:36:42
their own thoughts about it. But we're going, we're going in
00:36:44
blind. We each just watched it for the
00:36:45
first time, I guess. Maybe Frank let me throw it over
00:36:48
to you first general thoughts on 1969 The Italian Job?
00:36:53
Well, based on the general vibe I'm getting from the two of you,
00:36:56
I think I might be the outlier here in that I did not love this
00:37:02
movie all. Right cut his mic.
00:37:05
Cut his mic. And, and I will say, I mean, I
00:37:09
like after watching it because this is this is my process for
00:37:14
the show is I will just watch the movie with his little like
00:37:18
outside influence is possible, you know, and then afterwards
00:37:21
we'll do some research on it. And I realized after the fact,
00:37:25
like you were saying, what a like landmark British cinema
00:37:29
film this is. And I feel like watching the
00:37:33
movie outside of that context, it didn't resonate with me in a
00:37:39
strong way. There was there was a lot of
00:37:42
stuff I liked in it, you know, like to to always kind of pull
00:37:46
out the positives and and this might sound harsh, but the stuff
00:37:49
that I really liked, like some of the shots that were like the
00:37:52
most interesting to me, I'm like, oh man, that's a really
00:37:55
cool. It's just a shame it's in this
00:37:57
movie. Oh my goodness.
00:38:02
The entire country of England just turned off the show.
00:38:04
They're done. They're not coming back.
00:38:07
I mean, British humor is very particular and I do find some of
00:38:12
it funny. But like my thought with for
00:38:14
most of this movie was everything was like almost a
00:38:19
joke. It was like almost funny but
00:38:23
didn't quite get there. It was like it it like they like
00:38:26
thought about trying to be funny and then change their minds at
00:38:29
the last minute. But isn't that?
00:38:31
In in its conception, kind of a funny thought, like the idea of
00:38:35
walking up to tell a punchline and then just kind of like.
00:38:37
Moving on that theoretically, yes, but before I get too into
00:38:43
it, I'll let you guys give your initial thoughts because I, I
00:38:46
feel like I like I said, I might be the the negative outlier
00:38:49
here. OK, this is good though, because
00:38:51
now we got the balance of opinions.
00:38:54
One might say the balance is sort of like on the edge of a
00:38:57
Cliff. We will get to that.
00:39:00
We will get to that. Yeah, awesome.
00:39:03
What? What are your just like top down
00:39:05
thoughts on the film? Top down thoughts.
00:39:08
Well, Francis, once again, we're mostly aligned here, you know,
00:39:15
like, OK, I liked it. I, I struggled engaging in the
00:39:20
film. What I'll say is from the get
00:39:23
go, I the movie started and I was like, oh, I'm going to love
00:39:27
this. Like the opening sequence was so
00:39:30
cool and the soundtrack was great and it looked so gorgeous
00:39:33
in the shots and the cars in the Italy And I'm like, Oh my God,
00:39:35
this is right up my alley. So I started off on a really
00:39:37
high note and then I guess I didn't know it was a comedy
00:39:41
because I also like didn't do a lot of research.
00:39:44
So I was like, this is such a weird tone.
00:39:48
And I'm like, am I supposed to? Is this a joke?
00:39:50
Like, or is this just like a slightly older film?
00:39:53
So it's reading as a little bit of a joke.
00:39:55
And I was like, no, no, no, this is a comedy.
00:39:58
So I'm was definitely on the edge of like, not really
00:40:01
thinking it was funny, but like appreciating humor.
00:40:04
But then more than anything, I just found bits and parts of it
00:40:09
kind of odd and I was kind of confused.
00:40:13
I don't, I don't really consider myself.
00:40:16
I'm normally pretty pretty good at like clocking.
00:40:19
What's going on? And I'm not talking about the
00:40:21
overarching plot because they, they kind of hit you over the
00:40:24
habitat like 5 times with what, what the plan was.
00:40:27
But I'm like, oh, this, this guy, he's, he runs the prison.
00:40:31
And then I was like, wait, he's a prisoner.
00:40:34
And I don't know the, that those kind of revelations were
00:40:37
happening to me throughout the movie where I was just kind of
00:40:39
like taken aback a little. But what I will say is I do
00:40:43
agree with the cinematography is what, no matter what, I mean,
00:40:47
was so gorgeous. And I kind of had that like,
00:40:50
wow. It felt sort of like, I thought
00:40:52
of you, Francis, because I was thinking about your love of Kung
00:40:55
Fu. Kung Fu.
00:40:57
Yeah, yeah. Martial arts and how some
00:40:59
martial arts sort of things and how some of those films were
00:41:03
built around the idea of, like, what big stunt do we want to do
00:41:07
and how can we weed that into a sort of narrative so we can get
00:41:10
to our big stunt piece? And I was thinking, OK, they had
00:41:14
shots in mind and they had their big ending chase in mind and
00:41:18
they were like how can we get to these things?
00:41:21
And I will say I enjoyed it. I did not love it, but I am glad
00:41:26
that I watched it and it was really beautiful to look at.
00:41:29
OK. Yes, this is interesting.
00:41:31
I'm glad we've gone through this order because Frank, I think was
00:41:33
unsold. Austin, you were like teetering
00:41:35
like a bus. I had a different kind of Arc
00:41:40
with the film where when it started, I was very unenthused.
00:41:45
The movie tonally has nothing in common with the remake that a
00:41:49
lot of American audiences might have seen in the 2000s with Mark
00:41:52
Wahlberg. That one's like an action drama
00:41:54
that just has car stunts. The 60s one is a straight comedy
00:41:58
that I think tonally people might recognize as being similar
00:42:02
to like the George Clooney Ocean's 11 type heist movie
00:42:06
where you're never supposed to really.
00:42:08
There's dramatic stakes, but the heist is not really the drama.
00:42:12
Like the characters, you're not supposed to worry that they're
00:42:15
going to get killed or that anything particularly upsetting
00:42:18
is going to happen. There's like a cool 60s kind of
00:42:22
James Bond energy to it. But with this particular one,
00:42:25
they just crank up the comedy. And at the beginning, none of
00:42:27
that was working for me because it was a little too slow.
00:42:30
Michael Caine is a fantastic actor, but even he had some like
00:42:34
just pointless feeling scenes. There is a scene that I later
00:42:37
read was apparently largely improvised where he's, he gets
00:42:40
out of prison at the beginning, just like Danny Ocean, Ocean's
00:42:42
11. And he goes to get his car out
00:42:45
of like a garage that he'd been parking it in.
00:42:47
And he has this whole interaction with the guy who's
00:42:49
like giving him the car back about how he owes him money
00:42:51
because it's been sitting there for like 3 years.
00:42:53
And they just go on and on. And there's, like you said,
00:42:55
Frank, there's no punch line in that conversation anywhere.
00:42:58
It's just supposed to be a bit of awkward British politeness,
00:43:01
but it's like 3 or 4 minutes long.
00:43:02
And after that, I was like, this is killing me.
00:43:04
This is so boring. But the movie wore me down.
00:43:08
And by the end I was genuinely enjoyed it quite a bit.
00:43:12
Like I think there was a turning point once they finished their
00:43:15
setup, which is a little weak and actually just start moving
00:43:18
towards the heist. Like they get into Italy, they
00:43:21
get all their cars, they get the team together where just
00:43:24
something about the humor started to click for me more.
00:43:27
And I got a couple legitimately like laugh out loud moments in
00:43:29
it and I love. Really.
00:43:32
I loved the ending, which I guess we'll get to it a bit like
00:43:35
I, I think my favorite thing in the whole movie.
00:43:37
And I don't know why this tickled me so much.
00:43:39
But they're like in their staging area.
00:43:41
They're hanging out in this very like picturesque, like rundown
00:43:44
church, getting ready to like send everybody off to kick off
00:43:46
the heist. And Michael Caine is kind of on
00:43:48
edge. He's yelling at everybody to
00:43:50
like get in order because his team's a bunch of goofballs.
00:43:52
And then right before they leave, he's like, all right,
00:43:54
everybody out. And then he goes, wait a minute,
00:43:56
one more thing. And then there's a long like
00:43:58
pregnant pause. And then he's like, people in
00:44:00
this country all drive on the wrong side of the road.
00:44:03
And then everybody in the team genuinely grumbles like they're
00:44:07
upset about it. Like they just it cuts to the to
00:44:10
the opposite shot. And this group of like trained
00:44:12
professionals all just kind of goes, wow, ow.
00:44:13
I just thought that was such a funny idea that in the midst of
00:44:17
everything a that he calls it the wrong side just because it's
00:44:20
not what they do in the UK. And the idea that that would
00:44:23
actually bother everybody. They have to remember to drive
00:44:26
on the same. It's the same as in the US.
00:44:28
In Italy, I guess they're like right side of the road.
00:44:30
But I was like, that killed me. I was laughing about that for
00:44:33
like a minute afterwards. So I started off low and I ended
00:44:36
high, which I think is different than both of you.
00:44:38
Interesting. I'm glad that that worked for
00:44:41
you because I feel like that that's that British dry humor
00:44:46
and that felt like one of the only times they they got to the
00:44:51
point where they were telling a joke like, and and like you said
00:44:55
too, Michael Caine is fantastic. And the problem I think with the
00:45:02
rest of the movie is that he's like the only character in the
00:45:06
movie in a way like this, like you mentioned Ocean's 11 and I
00:45:11
feel like Ocean's 11 has become like the template for a heist
00:45:16
movie. And this one, like narratively
00:45:19
from the beginning is hitting some of the same beats.
00:45:23
But like they introduced like the rest of his team.
00:45:28
And you like they're, you know, they're there often enough, but
00:45:31
none of them are characters. You don't really know their
00:45:33
names. You don't know anything about
00:45:34
them. It's just the rest of the people
00:45:36
he's there with and. Impossible to differentiate one
00:45:40
from another. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:45:43
So it's like he was great, but he almost had no one else to
00:45:46
play off of for most of the movie.
00:45:49
Even some of the other minor characters he was interacting
00:45:52
with along the way, it was like nothing, you know?
00:45:55
They just weren't giving you anything.
00:45:57
Yeah, it does have, in a way, a small cast of actual characters.
00:46:01
Michael Caine is like the Danny Ocean, you know, equivalent.
00:46:04
He's the one heading up, I think his name is Charlie Croker.
00:46:06
He's the one actually leading the heist.
00:46:08
The only other character with any depth is Bridger, who you
00:46:11
were talking about Austin who? This is 1, where the joke didn't
00:46:14
really land for me, but I understood what it was.
00:46:16
It was like he's a criminal, like a really wealthy criminal
00:46:20
who has so much power and influence that even though he's
00:46:23
in jail from the beginning of the movie, he basically runs the
00:46:25
whole thing like the the cops all kind of owe him.
00:46:29
So they let him do whatever he wants.
00:46:30
All the other prisoners are like Revere him.
00:46:34
And so he's this kind of like bankrolling mastermind guy.
00:46:37
But the main conceit is that he's deeply patriotic.
00:46:40
So like throughout the whole story, part of his motivation
00:46:43
for even getting involved is to just like strengthen the
00:46:47
economic position of the UK more so than that he cares about the
00:46:52
heist or anything related to it. And I think there's even a bit
00:46:55
where like, First off, they play the Rule Britannia song almost
00:46:58
any time he's on screen, which is should be funny, but I
00:47:01
honestly just got quite annoying after a while.
00:47:05
And so there's elements there where I'm like, that was the
00:47:07
beginning of the movie for me. I'm like, there's a bit here.
00:47:09
This character is a one note joke.
00:47:12
I did like the performance though.
00:47:13
I feel like outside of that kind of like tacked on comedic
00:47:16
conceit, he gave like a good performance overall.
00:47:20
He was maybe the only other character.
00:47:22
To touch on his character really quickly though, I didn't delve
00:47:26
into this too much, but I think part of the context of his
00:47:30
character is lost because I think he is based on an actual
00:47:34
like political figure in England of the time.
00:47:38
So I think again, it's like a lot of this movie is important
00:47:44
like culturally to the time period, but it's like that
00:47:47
context is sort of lost if you're not familiar with it.
00:47:51
So like, that's even why that stuff with him, like Austin, you
00:47:56
were like, I'm confused by this. And it's like I got like the way
00:48:00
you describe the character Thomas.
00:48:01
It's like that made sense to me. Yes, but I can see being
00:48:04
confused by it too, because it's like it wasn't until after the
00:48:06
fact reading it that I was like, oh, this.
00:48:08
He is supposed to be either literally an actual person or
00:48:12
just sort of like an an analog for someone.
00:48:16
I found his introduction being like a bathroom gag to be really
00:48:22
off putting to me. I know that's so ridiculous, but
00:48:25
I was like, OK. And now like the rest of the
00:48:29
movie was colored by that scene where I was just confused at
00:48:33
where they were like I did not clock that they were in a
00:48:35
prison. I was like, what is this weird
00:48:37
building there? I don't know why.
00:48:38
Why does he have guards to go to the bathroom?
00:48:40
Like I was sitting there thinking about what was
00:48:41
happening. And then I was like, why is he
00:48:43
obsessed with the queen? Like, I don't know.
00:48:46
I obviously. And then I realized he was a
00:48:50
prisoner. He was just well dressed.
00:48:52
I thought he was like running the show.
00:48:53
I was like, oh, we, they're trying to protect him from the
00:48:56
other prisoner. They, he must be a bad warden.
00:48:58
I, I don't know, like I, I was, I was not thinking what was
00:49:02
going on, what was going on. It's it's not completely
00:49:05
obvious. I think there's there's things
00:49:06
that in a modern telling of the story you would establish more
00:49:10
firmly with like specific gags about who they are.
00:49:13
But the movie just kind of kicks off and I would call the whole
00:49:15
story very loose. I mean, there's characters who
00:49:18
fall in and out of the story without any proper resolution
00:49:22
just for the sake of doing gags. I think my least favorite was
00:49:26
the Benny Hill character, the Mr. Peach, Professor Peach, who
00:49:32
that was awkward. They do this whole setup about
00:49:35
how he's in like a home because he's like super smart but like
00:49:39
mentally deficient or something. I thought he would like was
00:49:43
sexually assaulting overweight women and was like, was that not
00:49:48
the gag? I mean, I, I think we were
00:49:50
supposed to laugh, but I was like, I'm why can't this lady
00:49:52
get through doors? Like what?
00:49:54
There was just. And then he just leaves the
00:49:57
story. He just like is there they give
00:50:00
him a role that's like not really shown but just described
00:50:03
that he's part of the like the technological side of their like
00:50:05
heist and then he just chases some woman away and then you
00:50:08
never see him again. I think he was arrested.
00:50:11
He's arrested. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:50:13
So he gets arrested, but like, they don't, they don't go get
00:50:15
him. Like he never comes back.
00:50:17
So that like, what was the purpose?
00:50:19
Like he didn't fulfill his part of the plan.
00:50:22
There was like a man dressed as a woman throwing, like doing
00:50:26
some sort of tech thing. Right.
00:50:28
But they were trying to disrupt, Yeah, like the the security
00:50:31
cameras, because the heist itself is they're trying to
00:50:32
steal gold in the middle of a traffic jam.
00:50:36
It's just sort of similar to the the plot in the remake where
00:50:39
they essentially know that there's a gold shipment that's
00:50:42
been delivered by plane and taken to like a central bank or
00:50:44
something. And so their goal is to initiate
00:50:46
a massive traffic jam in in Turin and then rob the truck in
00:50:51
broad daylight and just get away amidst the confusion.
00:50:53
And there is some like, technical aspects to it, but
00:50:55
half the characters, yeah, like their their roles just done
00:50:58
immediately. The most of the cast is done as
00:51:00
soon as they initiate the robbery, because then it's
00:51:03
mostly just the three Mini Coopers trying to evade the
00:51:06
police. Which was awesome.
00:51:08
That part was awesome, but it was maybe not earned in the
00:51:11
sense that it was like, we really like this.
00:51:13
We have some fantastic imagery of them driving up and down
00:51:16
roofs of tall buildings and open jumps and in rivers.
00:51:20
But by the time you get to that point, you're like, did we
00:51:21
really build to this or did we just kind of do it at the end?
00:51:24
Yeah. And I, I think that ties back to
00:51:26
Austin's point earlier because, because I think Austin, you and
00:51:30
I, we may have watched one of like Jackie Chan's movies
00:51:33
together. I think.
00:51:35
I think it was the original police story.
00:51:37
Yeah. We're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:51:39
And like, I, I remember in, like, the commentary for that
00:51:42
film, it was what, like you were talking about where it's like
00:51:44
Jackie Chan. He's talking about like building
00:51:47
the movie around the action sequences and I feel like the
00:51:51
the note I have about this movie is really cool slash dangerous
00:51:56
looking ending sequence that got there in the most dull and
00:52:01
honest interesting way possible. Like it's just.
00:52:06
Did you like that part of their elaborate scheme?
00:52:09
They were like, we're going to throw these transmitters to
00:52:11
block security cameras. We're going to do some other
00:52:14
high end hacking thing to disrupt all the streetlights so
00:52:16
that everybody gets stuck in gridlock.
00:52:18
We're going to drive our car through the back streets and
00:52:20
then in in the key part of the heist, when they actually
00:52:23
approach the van carrying the gold, the step in the original
00:52:26
plan is beat the crap out of all the military guys and take.
00:52:30
I was like, how did you just bank on that work?
00:52:33
Can you imagine if in the middle of Ocean's 11, George Cooney was
00:52:36
like, so then we get in the vault, right, and we just beat
00:52:38
up all the guards? Like that's also a note I have.
00:52:42
I'm like, this was so these guards have guns and their plan
00:52:45
is to walk up to them with sticks and hit them with sticks
00:52:48
and that works like. Not just sticks, they also were
00:52:51
wearing blue jumpsuits. OK.
00:52:53
Yeah, that's true. Very threatening.
00:52:55
They all meant I. Don't think they were
00:52:56
bulletproof jumpsuits so. I think the visors might have
00:53:01
been the visors had like chicken wire on them.
00:53:03
I was like, OK. They looked like football
00:53:04
helmets, like American football helmets.
00:53:07
I would have assumed the plan would be that you make so much
00:53:10
noise that you can offload the gold without the people driving
00:53:13
the car even knowing about it. Or something like some elaborate
00:53:16
thing where you draw them away and then you steal the gold and
00:53:18
you leave. But they're like, no, we just
00:53:19
knocked him unconscious. And I was like, wow, that is not
00:53:22
clever. No.
00:53:23
And like, as long as we're talking about the, the plan of
00:53:28
their heist here, the next step was like also confusing to me
00:53:32
because they like drive the gold into this room and then like
00:53:36
barricade one entrance. And it's like the police are
00:53:39
trying to break in through that entrance.
00:53:41
And I'm like, at this point I'm like, OK, this is interesting.
00:53:43
How are they going to get out of this?
00:53:44
And then they like go out the back door and I'm like, if
00:53:47
there's a back door or why didn't the police come in
00:53:50
through that way? Like why were they trying to get
00:53:53
in through the only blocked off entrance to?
00:53:57
That they went through like a big house, like the, the cars
00:54:01
drove out some sort of mansion and I was like, I feel like I
00:54:03
missed some I, I didn't understand the architecture
00:54:06
here. I thought they were trapped in a
00:54:07
room and then all of a sudden we're in the museum and then
00:54:11
driving. Through the.
00:54:12
Open air market. They spend a lot of time telling
00:54:15
you the plan, but unlike a a newer movie that would do like,
00:54:18
infographics to like show you what's going to happen, they
00:54:21
kind of just rely on you to catch the dialogue.
00:54:24
And then when it's actually happening, I was like, I don't
00:54:26
really know the plan. And I don't know if that's
00:54:28
funnier or less funny that I don't actually know what's
00:54:30
happening, but I agree that it is.
00:54:33
It really does not play with what a lot of heist movies play
00:54:37
with, which is like changing the plan on the fly.
00:54:40
They're kind of just like it mostly works up until the very
00:54:42
end. Well, again, it's it's hard to
00:54:45
for me at least to not compare this to like an Ocean's 11
00:54:48
because with the guy that you were mentioning earlier that
00:54:50
just like leaves the movie at one point because he gets
00:54:53
arrested or whatever happens to him in a different type of heist
00:54:57
movie. That would be the point where
00:54:59
it'd be like, OK, this messes up the plan.
00:55:02
Now somebody else has to step in and fill his role and adds
00:55:05
dramatic tension to that. You know, it's like the whole
00:55:08
formula is like they tell you the plan ahead of time, set up
00:55:12
your expectations and then show you the complications along the
00:55:15
way. And this movie doesn't do that.
00:55:17
It it like barely tells you the plan and then when they're
00:55:21
executing it, it's like confusing and then, you know,
00:55:25
you go back to that character and it's like, I guess we didn't
00:55:28
need him at all because he's not here and that didn't change
00:55:30
anything. But but to touch on the barely
00:55:33
telling the plan, I felt like so much time was spent repeating
00:55:39
some sort of plan that I was kind of like, OK, I don't really
00:55:41
know what they're talking about. Like there was a a sort of 16mm
00:55:44
video with very high production value to describe the plan 1st
00:55:48
and. I was like just.
00:55:50
Like he hired someone to make this video #1 but so they they
00:55:54
he sort of explained it and then he re kept reiterating it to
00:55:57
himself through the whole thing. OK, traffic jam, traffic jam I'm
00:56:00
like OK, I get it. And then it was like and this is
00:56:02
our team and I'm going to tell you the plan again in a really
00:56:05
long scene, which was more or less just like escape.
00:56:08
And then we got to the the mansion, the decrepit mansion or
00:56:12
whatever, and they're like, and now we're when I talked about
00:56:14
the plan again, I'm like, I get it.
00:56:15
You take the gold and you go. And then we went to go do the
00:56:18
plan and the plan was we take the golden, we escape and it was
00:56:22
really just like a really cool car chase.
00:56:24
But I guess my modern day sensibilities with how I expect
00:56:27
the the formula of these movies to go, it's like that's like to
00:56:31
me, you're cold open to a heist movie is kind of what we got in
00:56:34
the finale. And I know that's like my modern
00:56:37
perception expecting, I'm expecting like a turn halfway
00:56:41
through there. I'm expecting someone who's on
00:56:42
the team is actually the bad guy.
00:56:44
And then like, uh oh, what do we do?
00:56:46
I'm expecting them what ends up being the end of this movie to
00:56:49
be like, I don't know, just like a moment of drama midway through
00:56:53
an action scene. So I do take, I take
00:56:57
responsibility for having incorrect, you know,
00:57:00
expectations coming into it because I'm used to the formula
00:57:03
of a heist movie. And maybe that's my own fault
00:57:05
and why I couldn't connect to it.
00:57:06
But I did feel like there was a long lead up only on Michael
00:57:10
Caine's character randomly having orgies.
00:57:14
And I'm like when we get into the good stuff like.
00:57:19
And immediately after that orgy, he goes to have sex with someone
00:57:23
else. That's a lady, Yeah. 333 in a
00:57:27
row. Boom boom boom.
00:57:29
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is like 3 scenes in a row.
00:57:30
Yeah, that's just all he's doing.
00:57:32
I will say Frank supports your point.
00:57:34
They really just whiffed an obvious dialogue style punchline
00:57:38
with that because Michael Caine gets out of jail his
00:57:41
girlfriend's question mark, like kind of, you know, like they're
00:57:45
not that committed. But she is like his girlfriend
00:57:47
picks him up and takes him to an orgy and he's like, here's these
00:57:51
twenty women I brought for you. Way too many.
00:57:54
And then in a way too many. I was talking about this with my
00:57:57
wife. I was just like, what do you do
00:57:59
in that room? Like yeah, he's ruined.
00:58:01
Where do you start? Like imagine just being like all
00:58:04
right I need like 15 of you to go way over there for like 3
00:58:07
hours. Like you, you go make my bed.
00:58:11
Like you go pick up my laundry because you're not going to get
00:58:16
to each one of them. Yeah, I'm just.
00:58:20
But then later, there's another scene that is played as a joke
00:58:23
where Michael Caine is sleeping with three other random women
00:58:25
because he's really good at that, I guess.
00:58:27
And his girlfriend comes in and, like, storms in and, like,
00:58:29
chases them away and gets mad at him.
00:58:31
And the joke is, why is she mad about this if she invited all
00:58:35
those other women the first time?
00:58:37
And they just kind of like, stumble over that punchline.
00:58:39
There's no obvious, like, dialogue punchline to that.
00:58:42
Michael Caine says it. He's like, well, I thought it
00:58:44
was fine. And she just says, like, oh,
00:58:46
that was your coming out party. And then they move on.
00:58:48
And I'm like, no, that's a funny interaction.
00:58:50
Like you've created comedy, do the comedy and they that's.
00:58:53
What I'm saying, they always walk up to the plate and then
00:58:56
turn around and go home. They just there's nothing like.
00:59:01
She as a character was also odd in the fact that I'm like OK
00:59:05
maybe I am also missing some context.
00:59:07
I'm thinking maybe she's like a a play on like the femme fatale
00:59:11
kind of character where I thought she was going to have
00:59:13
some sort of significance and then all of a sudden she just
00:59:15
like leaves and I'm like, oh, OK, maybe she's been kidnapped
00:59:18
by the mafia and she's going to be held hostage at the end.
00:59:20
Literally that's what I'm thinking.
00:59:21
I'm like, yeah, she's got to have some significant.
00:59:23
Then she's just kind of like gone.
00:59:25
And I was like. She does leave before the heist
00:59:27
and never comes back, even though they show you that the
00:59:29
mafia, the Italian mafia guy who's their main concern outside
00:59:32
of the the government of Italy stopping them, sees her boarding
00:59:36
that plane. Yeah.
00:59:37
So they're like, oh, he's going to get.
00:59:39
I will say to defend the movie and my viewing of it, sort of
00:59:43
every one of these faults does make the ending of the movie
00:59:46
funnier to me. Like all of these unfinished
00:59:50
plot threads and like unfocused character ideas culminating in a
00:59:54
movie in the ending that we get, which I think we can get into
00:59:56
because it's a pretty famous ending in British film.
01:00:00
I. It literally said out loud as it
01:00:03
was about to pull away. My God, I hope this is the end
01:00:05
of the movie. And then it was and I again was
01:00:07
laughing out loud. I was like, that's so funny.
01:00:10
You've saved it. You've saved it in the last five
01:00:12
seconds. Really so?
01:00:13
Like it? I liked the ending I did.
01:00:15
Yeah, I mean, it's a literal cliffhanger.
01:00:18
They're literally the edge of a. Cliff because like you said, the
01:00:22
plan has no issues at all. No matter what happens, the plan
01:00:25
is fine. They make fools of the police
01:00:27
and the mob, even though the mob acts like they're going to be
01:00:30
the ones who actually outmaneuver them.
01:00:31
They don't. They get away with the gold.
01:00:33
They load it onto a bus. And we've seen throughout the
01:00:35
whole movie all these scenes of the driving through like the
01:00:37
mountains with all these winding roads.
01:00:40
And so their bus hits like a rock or something and whips out
01:00:43
so that the back half is teetering off a Cliff and all
01:00:46
the people are towards the front of the bus and the gold is on
01:00:49
the back. And so Michael Caine starts very
01:00:51
slowly in a very drawn out sequence, trying to crawl over
01:00:55
to where the gold is so that he can pull it closer.
01:00:57
And every time he gets closer, it just slides further towards
01:01:00
the back of the bus. And then he says, he's like, all
01:01:04
right, lads, give me one second. I've got a great idea.
01:01:07
And then the music starts up again.
01:01:10
And we just start pulling away. And we show this like,
01:01:11
helicopter shot of the cliffs. And then I'm like, is this it?
01:01:14
Is this it credits? And I'm like, that's so much
01:01:16
funnier than any other resolution to this story.
01:01:20
So I will say again, from what I read about that ending, Michael
01:01:25
Caine himself has said later that the reason for that ending
01:01:31
was because of censorship laws at the time, similar to like how
01:01:37
in the US we had, I believe it was like the Hayes Code where it
01:01:42
was like the rules of filmmaking.
01:01:44
They weren't allowed to show these guys getting away with the
01:01:47
heist. They couldn't be criminals and
01:01:50
then be successful at the end. So they had to like, leave it
01:01:53
ambiguous. And then I guess the idea from
01:01:56
there was it was setting up a sequel.
01:01:58
That was the initial concept of the ending, was that they were
01:02:02
going to do another film to follow up on where that goes.
01:02:06
Which the movie does set up properly because you have all
01:02:09
these threads that as a viewer, you know, any one of us was
01:02:11
like, OK, clearly the mafia is going to come back into the
01:02:14
story somehow. There they already showed that
01:02:16
the mafia is on their way to intercept them.
01:02:18
But then the fact that that doesn't happen is so funny to
01:02:20
me. It's just like, Nah, we're out.
01:02:22
We're we've had our fun. You can all go home.
01:02:25
See, it's funny that that worked for you because that is the
01:02:29
intention. But like for me watching it, I
01:02:31
didn't get that at all. I was just like, that's OK.
01:02:35
Yeah, I definitely felt like it was just a lot of loose plot
01:02:38
threads. And the ending did lead me to
01:02:41
think like I was kind of looking at the Wikipedia.
01:02:44
I was like, is there another one?
01:02:45
It's like you set up all these interesting characters and then
01:02:47
they don't, a lot of them just leave the story.
01:02:49
And I was expecting, I was like, the mafia's got to have a
01:02:52
presence here in the second-half here.
01:02:53
It's not just going to be this car chase.
01:02:55
They're going to show up. That's why I'm like, they're
01:02:57
going to show up and she's going to be kidnapped and it's all
01:02:58
going to connect. Then I was like, OK, so.
01:03:00
Well, because there even is the guy like you mentioned Thomas
01:03:05
and you're, you're talking about now us and the the the mafia guy
01:03:08
sees his girlfriend get on the plane.
01:03:11
And then later there is dialogue from him where he's like find
01:03:15
people that flew out in the past couple days or something along
01:03:19
those lines. So there is, there's like a
01:03:21
follow up to that even where he's where it's like setting up
01:03:25
that they're going to find her and where she went and then we
01:03:28
don't see that. So I thought the plane was going
01:03:30
to explode. I was like, damn, they got the
01:03:32
budget to blow up this plane right now because they were
01:03:34
blowing up everything else. Yeah, they did blow a lot of
01:03:37
stuff you could do. I almost wonder how many of
01:03:39
these later heist movies were, like, playing on the ideation
01:03:43
that came from seeing a movie like this.
01:03:44
Because the beginning of the of Ocean's 12, the like middle one
01:03:48
starts with Andy Garcia's character just tracking down all
01:03:51
the people from the first movie and like capturing them all
01:03:53
individually, which is a fun sequence in that movie.
01:03:56
And it almost feels like what they were going for here where
01:03:58
it's like, oh, you got away with the heist, but we can track all
01:04:01
the people involved and then the story's not over yet, which I
01:04:04
think would have been the sequel would have been like, we have to
01:04:07
now do a new job for the Italian mob to get even for what we
01:04:11
stole. I will say to concede what I was
01:04:14
mentioning earlier, I don't think that all these loose
01:04:17
threads leading to that ending we're done with intention.
01:04:21
I don't think they intentionally made it like an unfinished story
01:04:24
to make that part funnier. I think that's just a
01:04:26
coincidence. Like if they had done everything
01:04:30
the same up to the bus scene and then we get a more standard
01:04:34
ending where like maybe it's just Michael Caine back in jail
01:04:36
where he was at the beginning to like put a button on it in a
01:04:39
more normal way, then I would have been even less engaged.
01:04:42
But something about with all the other missteps, them choosing to
01:04:44
end it where they did, I was like this was one good idea
01:04:47
mixed with everything else. No, I mean, I do enjoy like just
01:04:53
for the shell shock alone, because I remember watching it
01:04:56
and I was like looking at like the, you know, the time code.
01:04:59
I'm like, wait, wait a minute. I'm like.
01:05:01
This two minutes left. Like 2 minutes left.
01:05:03
I'm like, why are they? What's going to happen here?
01:05:05
Like and then I was like, Oh my God, that's the ending.
01:05:08
So it like took me a minute to process even.
01:05:10
But then I was like, yeah, I guess that's kind of great like
01:05:12
that they ended it that way. But but also to to touch back on
01:05:16
something that you mentioned earlier, Austin, like a viewing
01:05:18
this through like a more modern like sensibility, like the
01:05:22
version of this movie that you were describing where it's like
01:05:25
that sequence at the end happens at the beginning and then
01:05:28
there's a betrayal like, like you're describing the remake.
01:05:31
Like that's what, that's is what they do.
01:05:33
The Italian Job is the opening scene of The Italian Job remake.
01:05:39
Right, exactly. That's true it.
01:05:42
It's funny bringing up the remake again.
01:05:44
I had seen that movie. I think we'd all seen it a long
01:05:47
time ago. Nobody rewatched it for for this
01:05:48
recording today. But my memory of the 2000s
01:05:51
Italian Job was always like, it's fine.
01:05:53
It's like that goofy action heist movie.
01:05:56
But now, as much as it fulfills some of the narrative
01:05:59
obligations of having an actual beginning, middle and end and a
01:06:02
real story, I'm like annoyed in retrospect that they stripped
01:06:05
all the comedy out of it. Like I think that you could have
01:06:07
made a version of this that was funnier and clearly there was
01:06:11
just a kick going on because they made, they remade Ocean's
01:06:14
11 around the same time they remade Italian Job.
01:06:16
So there was something about these like 60s crime caper
01:06:19
movies, but Ocean's 11 held on to the comedy underneath the
01:06:24
whole thing and makes that movie much better.
01:06:25
Whereas the Mark Wahlberg one I think is there's comedy, but
01:06:29
it's kind of like boring Western Michael Bay ass comedy Michael.
01:06:34
Bay Yes. Yeah, I don't.
01:06:36
I would have loved clever humor. I think that the closest follow
01:06:41
up we got, and the thing that I also did like about this movie
01:06:44
was Michael Caine, when he comes back in the third Austin Powers
01:06:48
movie, is clearly riffing a lot on his Italian Job character.
01:06:52
And I did like all those connections.
01:06:54
Quincy Jones even does the score for Italian Job, the 60s one.
01:06:57
I was like, OK, this is starting to track for me that it's part
01:07:00
of the DNA of those Austin Powers movies.
01:07:03
And like what they were a parody of like outside of just being a
01:07:07
parody of like James Bond and stuff like that.
01:07:10
Well, that's funny you say that because I wrote like, oh, this
01:07:13
is I, I in my notes, I wrote to myself.
01:07:16
I didn't expect this to be more Austin Powers than James Bond.
01:07:19
Like when I. Started.
01:07:20
I was like, oh. Where James Bond?
01:07:22
And then I was like, and no, this is Austin Powers like.
01:07:26
Yeah, 100% I I don't even know if I have other notes.
01:07:31
I feel like normally we touch on all these different aspects, but
01:07:35
there's so little going on in Italian Job in a way.
01:07:38
Like we kind of if you walk through the store, you kind of
01:07:40
catch all of the like thematic and stylistic elements.
01:07:44
I can't speak highly enough of the Mini Cooper chase.
01:07:48
Did either of you watch the in the trivia talks about?
01:07:51
There was a deleted scene that is available to watch on like
01:07:53
YouTube where the Mini Coopers go into like an ice rink.
01:07:58
And it's a very overplayed. Like, I like that scene in
01:08:01
isolation, but it was actually a case of the movie recognizing
01:08:03
like, this is too silly because there's like an orchestra
01:08:08
playing like this, like famous classical piece.
01:08:10
And the three Coopers and the three cop cars are just doing
01:08:12
literal like dance choreography in the rink.
01:08:16
Like they kind of like approach and then they back away.
01:08:18
And it's very cartoonish. And it's a great scene in a
01:08:21
bubble, but actually is tipping the scale far enough into comedy
01:08:24
that they're like, we can't include this.
01:08:25
How interesting. Really, that's so interesting
01:08:28
because I feel like the movie wasn't afraid of being comedic.
01:08:32
To me, what felt like, it's like I'm surprised that they, but
01:08:35
that was the reaction. I mean, I haven't watched the
01:08:37
scene. I'll I'll look it up, but I felt
01:08:39
like the scale got tipped a little bit and the gag where
01:08:43
they drove up on the roof, like up until that point I was like,
01:08:46
OK, I know what they're doing. Like they have all these cool
01:08:47
places they want to drive through.
01:08:48
And then at that point, I'm like, how was this part of the
01:08:51
plan? You were.
01:08:52
Going to drive up on a roof and then you were going to like,
01:08:55
really, it was a beautiful shot. I was like, you were going to
01:08:57
strategically park in these spots very nicely framed and
01:09:01
they're going to turn around and drive right back down and like
01:09:03
just in case that cop car was chasing like that's where I was
01:09:07
like, and and now we're in a pipe like.
01:09:09
So I'm surprised that the and I liked all I like I thought it
01:09:13
was cool. I mean, I really was thinking
01:09:15
during that whole sequence, like there was a location scout, he
01:09:18
was going around and he was picking places that he wanted to
01:09:21
see a Mini Cooper race through. And they said, we're going to do
01:09:24
that. We're going to have a go through
01:09:26
a pipe. We're going to have a go
01:09:27
through, you know, a dam or, you know, in the water.
01:09:30
So I'm surprised that that the ice rink would have been cut.
01:09:33
I thought the roof was I was one step too far for me.
01:09:36
I don't know for certain that that's why they cut the ice rink
01:09:39
scene. It might have just been for
01:09:39
time. The thing that I think makes it
01:09:41
separate is the Mini Coopers and your protagonists in the story
01:09:45
do obey a bit of a cartoon logic.
01:09:47
But the scene in the ice rink has the cop cars using cartoon
01:09:50
logic. And I think that's what makes it
01:09:51
different. Because in the scenes that we
01:09:53
get, the cars that the police are in are just always trying to
01:09:56
chase them. Whereas the Mini Coopers do all
01:09:58
these silly stunts and the cops just like fail to keep up the
01:10:01
ice rink scene. It looks too coordinated, like
01:10:04
the police are like part of that kind of cartoon logic too.
01:10:10
So for me, that's why it doesn't work.
01:10:11
But it is a fun scene that you can look up if you've seen the
01:10:15
original film. You know, they did have, they
01:10:17
did have cartoon logic at one point in the movie and it was
01:10:20
OK. So when the Benny Hill title
01:10:22
card came up, I'm like, Benny Hill is in like, no, no, no, no,
01:10:25
no, no, no. Is that is that that is that
01:10:29
this is that him? Yeah, I think it is because then
01:10:32
after he decides to sexually assault a woman on the tram and
01:10:35
gets arrested, it's like they put her in like, Fast forward,
01:10:41
like screaming in Italian, like, and like, I was like, oh.
01:10:46
And so this is like a Benny Hill gag.
01:10:50
Like is that's the same person, right?
01:10:53
It is. He's from the Betty Hill Show.
01:10:54
It was like kind of a stunt casting for him to even be in
01:10:56
this. Yeah.
01:10:57
And I was like, all right, that that is where I was like that
01:11:01
pushed into a cartoonish territory a little bit for me.
01:11:05
No, that I honestly, when I was watching that part, I for a
01:11:08
second I was like, is there an issue with the playback of the
01:11:11
movie that I'm watching? When they speed it up?
01:11:13
I was like, I really couldn't tell for a second.
01:11:16
Somebody somebody in editing was like this isn't funny, let's
01:11:19
make it funny. And then they just like added
01:11:21
like the like high pitched Alvin and the chipmunks voice on this
01:11:24
lady. And I was like that does not
01:11:26
help that what you needed to do is not have this character at
01:11:28
all. Just.
01:11:29
Need to cut this. Completely.
01:11:31
The only benefit to Benny Hill's role in the movie is that he has
01:11:34
a nice line when they first arrive up in the mountains and
01:11:38
they're like setting up the plan.
01:11:39
They're sending everyone in different directions.
01:11:41
He wanders off by himself because he's an idiot or
01:11:43
something, I don't know. And he picks up a couple of
01:11:46
flowers and Michael Caine's like, you got to keep moving.
01:11:49
And he has a line where he says Hiddy people aren't as lovely as
01:11:52
flowers, isn't it? And it kind of sells the the
01:11:55
contrast of that sequence because afterwards they hold on
01:12:00
the shot of like the mountains behind them.
01:12:01
And there is this kind of underlying comedy of like, look
01:12:04
at all these petty schemers and robbers totally unable to take
01:12:08
in that much like in Nate Mariah.
01:12:11
It's like they're totally missing the point of how
01:12:14
amazingly beautiful this space that they inhabit is because
01:12:17
they're too fixated on their scheming.
01:12:20
And I was like, that's a nice bit of like, thematic language
01:12:23
that unfortunately came from the Benny Hill character we don't
01:12:26
want in the movie. Yes.
01:12:28
Yeah, a wonderful connection to name Mariah, by the way.
01:12:31
Thank you. Nailed.
01:12:32
It yes, This was my plan. This is why I did this.
01:12:35
I knew this would happen, yes. But just to highlight a couple
01:12:38
of things, I'm glad you, Austin, that you brought up like the
01:12:42
location scout and and Thomas that you're mentioning sort of
01:12:45
like the the cinematography. I think, I think you're both
01:12:47
touching on that a bit cuz like those are the things I would
01:12:50
highlight at like, in terms of like the real strengths of the
01:12:56
film and that and the, and, you know, in terms of like unsung
01:13:02
heroes of like film production, like the, the stunt drivers that
01:13:06
were doing all. I was like, I was shocked.
01:13:09
I'm like, this is like some of this looks legitimately really
01:13:12
dangerous. What?
01:13:13
They're doing. There was a point where in the
01:13:15
in the pipe, one of the Mini Coopers banked up really far and
01:13:20
I was like, oh shit. Like I got nervous.
01:13:22
I thought. I thought like, damn, that car
01:13:24
almost flipped over. That could not have been
01:13:26
intentional. Yeah, yeah.
01:13:28
And even a lot of those, like in that whole chase sequence with
01:13:32
the Mini Coopers, the stuff they were doing was crazy.
01:13:34
But then the cop cars that were like wiping out behind them, I'm
01:13:37
like, there's people in those cars driving those cars that are
01:13:41
just like at 1.1 of them, just it's like carried away by a
01:13:44
river or something. That was crazy, this.
01:13:47
Is nuts. They destroyed a lot of cars.
01:13:49
Like they dumped several of them off a Cliff.
01:13:52
They smashed a bunch of them. Like, I think I was reading that
01:13:56
Fiat, who they like, the car company that they referenced in
01:13:58
the movie, provided a ton of the, like, spare vehicles that
01:14:02
they needed. And they actually wanted to
01:14:03
replace the iconic Mini Coopers with their own cars.
01:14:07
But the director decided against it because he was like, so much
01:14:10
of this movie is poking fun at like Britain thinking that it's
01:14:14
better than everybody else, that we kind of need these to be
01:14:16
British cars that are causing all this mayhem.
01:14:20
But almost every other car in the movie, including a lot of
01:14:22
the ones they blew up and destroyed, although they do
01:14:25
destroy the Mini Coopers too. They dump them all off a Cliff.
01:14:27
Yeah, yeah. Actually just clocked in my
01:14:29
head. You, you were maybe alluding to
01:14:31
this earlier, but Michael Caine's character in Austin
01:14:34
Powers, that scene where he's like, you're spy car's a Mini
01:14:36
and he's strapping a Mini Cooper in that movie.
01:14:38
Yeah, there you go. I like.
01:14:41
It's a connecting thread for me. I do really like that movie.
01:14:44
If you ever talk about Austin Powers, Goldmember, which is the
01:14:47
one that nobody else likes, I think because it was the third
01:14:49
one. But we watched that, Frank and I
01:14:52
on DVD like 600 times, so. That's like a.
01:14:54
Foundation never watched Austin Powers.
01:14:57
I did it on principle because people would jokingly call me
01:15:02
Austin Powers and I knew enough to know that I did not want to
01:15:04
be called Austin Powers with the teeth and with the, I don't
01:15:08
know, the whole vibe. It was very off putting as a
01:15:10
fellow Austin so I never watched it.
01:15:12
I never thought about that, yeah.
01:15:14
Yeah, the Speaking of them, like destroying those cars to the
01:15:19
scene, like where the mafia is like trying to intimidate them
01:15:24
and like using like that bulldozer to like smash the cars
01:15:28
up was so clunky and awkward. I was just like, this is
01:15:34
terrible. Like this is genuinely like
01:15:36
uncomfortable to sit through. Like the way.
01:15:39
It sucks because it was so pretty.
01:15:40
I remember like that shot, you know, it's like way above the
01:15:44
shoulders of all of them. And all of the mafia guys are
01:15:46
like really strategically placed on the Cliff.
01:15:48
I was like, first of all, weird, weird that they're all out here
01:15:51
up on this Cliff. Like, I'm imagining them like,
01:15:53
all right now I got to climb up this Cliff, but then the
01:15:57
weirdness of like very slowly crunching down on the cars and.
01:16:01
Like and it like wasn't. Sound effects wasn't quite
01:16:04
weren't quite like right. And I was like, OK.
01:16:07
No, but that shot that you just brought up, that was where I
01:16:10
took that note, where I was like, Oh my God, I this is
01:16:13
gorgeous. I love this shot.
01:16:15
I love this staging, this framing.
01:16:17
And that's where I'm like, it's just such a shame it's in this
01:16:19
movie. What a waste.
01:16:20
Yeah, You could argue that that level of Polish, frame by frame,
01:16:24
if applied to the story construction, would have made
01:16:26
things even better. Because there was even there's a
01:16:29
scene where in order to change up the scenery a bit for
01:16:32
Bridger, who's always in jail, he stages a fake funeral so he
01:16:36
can go talk to Michael Caine outside.
01:16:37
Yes, Yes. And they have these compositions
01:16:39
in that sequence too, where I was like, did Akira Kurosawa do
01:16:42
this? Like what?
01:16:43
Literally I was going to say that shot the way they had like
01:16:47
blocked all of them. I was like, oh, is that like
01:16:49
like it looked like a painting. You know, some of them are like
01:16:51
in fog, like someone was like holding a gun or some I don't
01:16:54
know. I was like, wow, wow, this is
01:16:56
like so gorgeous right now, but I don't even know whose funeral
01:16:58
this is. I don't know what's.
01:17:00
Going on, I was confused in that scene as well.
01:17:02
I was I was distracted by the cinematography and not paying
01:17:05
attention. The joke was that they wanted to
01:17:09
go talk somewhere outside where they couldn't be overheard and
01:17:12
so they staged a fake funeral for some made-up person.
01:17:14
And that's why Bridger's whole, like, Eulogy is him actually
01:17:17
just talking to Kane and company being like, make sure you don't
01:17:20
mess this up essentially, or you're going to be in a box too.
01:17:24
But he just kind of offhandedly, he's like, oh, who, you know,
01:17:27
Aunt Nelly or whatever. Like it's not a real dead
01:17:29
person. OK well I didn't clock what was
01:17:31
happening I thought I thought blue eyed guy had gotten
01:17:33
murdered or something like the one of the sub side characters
01:17:37
until I saw him again. I don't know why.
01:17:39
I was like, OK. What's going on?
01:17:40
Because it's not clear. I think what we're landing on is
01:17:43
there's editing choices and like, missing establishing
01:17:48
dialogue and shots at times that make it unclear where you are.
01:17:51
I mean, you mentioned Bridger being in prison.
01:17:53
I thought it was weird because we started in a very similar
01:17:55
prison with Michael Caine leaving and I was like, was he
01:17:58
in the same prison as this guy or is this a different?
01:18:01
One right good question. Why do they both look like where
01:18:03
Paddington Bear got pressed? In jail.
01:18:06
I literally said that I was like, I clocked prison right
01:18:09
away because I'm like, this looks like where they put
01:18:11
Paddington in this pink like all.
01:18:21
Right. I feel like this is our first
01:18:23
time doing this sort of guest feature format.
01:18:26
So do we still want to do scores?
01:18:28
Frank and I usually do a score out of 10 to help kind of decide
01:18:31
who gave the better blind pick. I guess we could just for the
01:18:34
sake of getting three different opinions.
01:18:36
Frank, you kicked us off originally.
01:18:38
You got like a score out of 10 for 1960s Italian Job I.
01:18:42
Mean as always, I kind of hate having to do these scores, but.
01:18:46
That's why we do them. Yeah, because I mean, like we
01:18:49
try and take out the the positives, I think.
01:18:52
I think we try and aim for that. It's just kind of how we
01:18:54
naturally engage with this kind of thing.
01:18:57
And you know, we've talked about a lot of things that are very
01:19:01
worthwhile and and beautiful in this film.
01:19:05
But in terms of like a full viewing experience, I just like
01:19:09
for like 80% of the movie I was like, I don't like this.
01:19:14
So yeah, I feel like for me it lands pretty low, like a, like a
01:19:20
three, maybe like a. 4 is that grifters level?
01:19:25
4 we'll. Go there we.
01:19:27
Go you were just bullied into a higher score.
01:19:30
Yeah, no, I was. But grifters is really like
01:19:33
actually upsetting. Like nauseating.
01:19:35
That is like actual Meet Your double feature Laura is how much
01:19:38
Frank disliked the movie The Grifters.
01:19:40
And I gave it a three. I should have scored it lower,
01:19:42
That's the thing. It's.
01:19:43
I know because you always want to be nice, you know?
01:19:46
And I know and we know how hard it is to make things.
01:19:48
So it's like, yes, but at the end of today, the movie stands
01:19:51
on on its own for what it is. Yeah, OK.
01:19:54
So three out of sorry, 4 out of 10 you've been bullied into a
01:19:57
four out of 10. Austin, over to you.
01:20:00
What? Just general thoughts.
01:20:01
Maybe an out of 10 for for. Italian Job quick general
01:20:03
thoughts is and something I didn't say, which I'll say is I
01:20:06
do think some of some of the humor did land for me and I I
01:20:09
feel like I maybe I was like slightly harsh, but there were
01:20:12
points whether or not it was intended to be like funny that I
01:20:15
laugh. I laughed when the power went
01:20:17
out and a random lady at a table screamed at the top of her
01:20:20
lungs. I was like.
01:20:21
What the hell? Like, that made me laugh when
01:20:24
they were like when he was talking about gunning down
01:20:26
machine or tigers with machine guns, I was like, Oh yeah,
01:20:30
what's going like? Things like that did did land
01:20:33
for me. It wasn't consistent.
01:20:34
And I think I also was kind of bored for a large percentage of
01:20:39
the film. I would say on Letterbox they
01:20:42
gave it a 2.5 out of five. I feel like 5 out of 10 sounds
01:20:46
like a little too harsh honestly, because there is
01:20:49
significance and I think the cinematography pushes it to like
01:20:53
5.65 point 7 out of 10 for me. And and I totally appreciate the
01:21:00
significance to film history and I I think it's gorgeous.
01:21:03
I love movies in Italy and everyone gave it their all
01:21:06
except maybe the screenwriter. That's what I'll say about that.
01:21:13
And he can say that as a screenwriter.
01:21:14
And he's a screenwriter. Yeah, that's so funny.
01:21:19
OK, so we have a 5 out of 10, a 57 out of 100.
01:21:23
So I'll just go out of 1000, I guess.
01:21:28
I feel like biased in favor of the movie, but I can't identify
01:21:34
where the bias is coming from. I have no reason to like it any
01:21:37
more than I did, but for some reason I just hit the right lane
01:21:41
while watching it where I started really unenthused and
01:21:44
then got more and more interested as it went on.
01:21:47
And the ending was so funny to me that like, can you really be
01:21:51
that mad at something that like leaves you on such a good note?
01:21:54
So I would give 1960s Italian Job.
01:21:58
I'm going to say an 800 out of 1000.
01:22:03
Wow. Which I know it's like crazy,
01:22:05
but if as soon as I think about scoring it lower, I'm like, I
01:22:07
can't, I can't. They got me with the people
01:22:09
drive on the wrong side of the road and then they're just all
01:22:11
grump groaning like that matters at all.
01:22:15
And just the the bus ending. I don't know, maybe that's crazy
01:22:18
and maybe that's unhelpful because now someone listening is
01:22:20
like, well, what is it? Is it a three I?
01:22:22
Think this is good because I think we all gave very nuanced
01:22:26
opinions and landed in different places, which I'm actually happy
01:22:29
about. Yeah, because we don't normally
01:22:31
do this. Like often times either I've
01:22:33
seen the movie or Frank has seen it, and then that's kind of
01:22:35
dynamic is it's like a storytelling experience.
01:22:38
But this was fun. We'd all seen it.
01:22:39
We had different thoughts. Nobody got mad.
01:22:42
I got a little mad. Nobody got mad, do.
01:22:45
You guys get mad. No, sometimes you get mad at
01:22:48
Frank for making me watch certain things.
01:22:51
We were talking during the intermission about Sphere.
01:22:52
Frank asked me to watch Sphere. I have gotten heated about that
01:22:56
in like several subsequent episodes because I hated it so
01:22:59
much. I have to watch it now, I mean.
01:23:01
I know it's becoming ironic. It's coming all the way around.
01:23:04
For now, it's like, Nah, it's funny again.
01:23:06
But it's my favorite Queen Latifah movie.
01:23:10
Yeah, that one she did with Jimmy Fallon.
01:23:13
Oh, taxi, I'm sorry. The Queen Latifah in Last
01:23:17
Holiday, I won't go. That movie is too good.
01:23:21
That movie. Well, this feels like a good
01:23:24
place to end the upside. With the Queen.
01:23:26
With the Queen Latifah rat. Latifah.
01:23:28
All right. Well, we've done our scores.
01:23:31
Austin as our first guest. Thank you so much for joining
01:23:33
us. It's been a blast having you on
01:23:35
and been a pleasure. We're contractually obligated to
01:23:37
come back at some point. I definitely will thank you guys
01:23:41
so much. This has been a blast.
01:23:42
And you know what? Thank you for plugging our
01:23:44
little movie many, many times. It's a big movie.
01:23:48
It's a little big movie. It's a little.
01:23:50
Big Mac, Yeah, I usually hold time at the end, mostly to plug
01:23:54
the podcast itself and very quickly.
01:23:57
Please, if you enjoyed tonight's episode of Meet in Double
01:23:59
Feature, please like the video, share it with a friend,
01:24:02
subscribe to our channels, look at it, look us up on social
01:24:04
media, or just go to Meet Your doublefeature.com.
01:24:07
You can find all of our links there.
01:24:08
With our remaining time, I want to toss it over again to Austin
01:24:11
and Frank. Give us the the pitch for Nate
01:24:15
and Moriah and Venice and anywhere else that people can
01:24:16
find you. Well, thanks so much, Nate and
01:24:19
Moriah and Venice is streaming now on Amazon Prime, soon to be
01:24:23
to be and maybe even by the time you listen to this, it's also on
01:24:25
to be. And you know what?
01:24:27
This was a movie that really we made with total passion,
01:24:31
creativity and did not compromise for what anybody said
01:24:36
we should do. We totally did what we wanted to
01:24:38
with it. And I'm I'm so proud of that
01:24:40
and, and how much we learned and honestly the friendships we
01:24:43
built during it. And aren't friendships the most
01:24:45
important thing anyways? Thanks guys, Watch the movie.
01:24:52
Watch the movie. Love you all.
01:24:54
Yes, love, love that plug for friendship.
01:24:59
It's true though. It is true though I like I
01:25:01
mentioned earlier, like you know, one of the coolest things
01:25:06
I've ever been a part of. So very appreciative and and
01:25:09
proud of it. I think Austin already shouted
01:25:13
out where you can check out the movie.
01:25:16
You can also find the soundtrack is now streaming on I believe
01:25:22
Spotify and Apple Music. Yeah, and like everywhere,
01:25:26
pretty much. Pretty much.
01:25:27
And everywhere, everywhere music is so.
01:25:33
Yes, Go listen to the soundtrack.
01:25:35
Go watch the movie. In fact, you brought up
01:25:37
Letterbox Austin. Go rank the movie on Letterbox.
01:25:39
I mean, we give things out of 10 all the time and people love
01:25:43
their feedback. We want opinions.
01:25:45
Maybe we don't ask for that enough.
01:25:46
We also want to know what you think about movies.
01:25:48
So please go rank Nate and Mariah on Letterbox.
01:25:51
Maybe a 10 if you're feeling like it.
01:25:53
Let us know what you thought about tonight's episode.
01:25:55
And now Austin, this is my favorite part of the podcast
01:25:57
because when we're done, we just tell Frank to make a joke so
01:26:00
that we can close out the episode.
01:26:02
Frank And I don't call you that often, Frank.
01:26:05
Frank's actually going to do his Michael Caine impression for us
01:26:08
and close this out. Bring it home, Frank.
01:26:11
I, I don't know, give me your Michael, feed me your Michael
01:26:14
Caine, and then I'll. So.
01:26:16
So the boss is full of gold. I can't do it.