Remember (2015)

If you had the chance to seek revenge for an atrocity during your golden years, would you take it? Join Nick, Darren, Kailyn, and Amanda as they discuss the 2015 film Remember, starring Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau, and whether or not we feel the film should be considered an A24 Essential. What will The Almighty Wheel pick as their next watch (warning: it’s a doozy!).

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of A24 Carrot Gold. I'm your co-host Nick Bamback. Joining me are my co-hosts Darren, Kalen, and Amanda. They're all doing fantastic tonight. We're gonna be doing the 2015 film Remember by Adam Egoen. And I'm gonna let our co-host Amanda take it away to tell us about this movie, its plot summary, its production history, and all that sort of information. So I'm gonna let uh Amanda take it away.

SPEAKER_06 0:43

Alright, so we're talking about Remember by directed by Adam Egoyan. The producers are Robert Lantos and Ari Lantos. Screenwriter is Benjamin August. Um it stars Christopher Plummer, Bruno Gatz, Ergin Proknoff, Heinz Luiven, Henry Cherney, Dean Norris, and Martin Landau. The editor is Christopher Donaldson. Cinematographer is Paul Sarasi. Composer is Michael Dana. There was a budget for this film of about 9.6 million. In terms of box office revenue, it made a little over 1.1 domestically, a little over 3 million internationally for a total of a little over 4.2 million. Terms of the background, so screenwriter Benjamin August relayed to the Canadian Jewish News that the story came about as he wanted to write something that was starring an older man. It was partially also inspired by the 2000 film Memento. And he also mentioned a 1999 film called The Straight Story. So just two inspirations for this film in addition to wanting to write something about an older man. August was also influenced by his time spent in Vietnam teaching English during the writer's strike in 2007, as he thought about the interactions between US soldiers and the Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. And how some committed horrible acts and got to live freely. He said, These people got to live a full life. The thought is something that really inspired me to write. Have they changed? Do they reflect on what they did? Are they cowering every day in fear of being recognized and being caught? Regarding how the film relates to his others, director Adam Agullian said in an interview for the shelf that in my first features, Next of Kin, Family Viewing, I was using a lot of handheld camera and I was obsessed with this idea of some central character that was missing in these people's lives. In family viewing, it's a missing mother, and it was a missing son in my first feature. And remember, it's a missing wife. Every time the protagonist wakes up, he's thinking about his wife, Ruth. Agoyan also clarifies that by handheld, he means more of a steady cam. He said, it's handheld on a dolly. So Sarasi is actually sitting on a dolly, so I'm able to sit beside him as he's handholding. It's sort of like something between steady cam and a completely handheld camera. Agoyan relayed that once he read the script for Remember, he instantly thought of both Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer, as he had worked with both prior. He directed Plummer in a 2000 film Ararat and directed Landau 30 years before in 1987 in an effort in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called The Final Twist. And in conversation with Eye for Film, a Goyan said of Plummer's performance in this movie, this is a role with no subtext. Because of his early onset dementia, he has no sense of who he is in the present. He is just playing the present for what it is. And Christopher Plummer makes that so vivid and so urgent, and yet you understand that he's carrying this extraordinary past, which he doesn't seem to be connected to. And of the casting, the producer Robert Lanto said to add to that, this was not the kind of movie where you audition actors. Since the casting was all done based on the body of work, how we knew them and what we knew of them. And also in that same interview, there was the connection between possibly between this film and and North by Northwest, as Landau was was in both. And the Agoyan said, I think it's embedded in the script. I feel there's a lot of Hitchcock in this film. This idea of a character being manipulated by a plan or a machine that's outside of his control or his apprehension, certainly in the way that the music is working, the way that Cinco paid jerky quality to the music really enforces the notion of him being a puppet. He noted for that shelf, dementia is defining the tone, but it's not explaining his character. What is explaining him is something which is very different from dementia, which is suppressed, repressed memory. I really had to understand psychologically if it is possible, but is it possible that someone could obliterate their sense of something? You come to the conclusion that he's traumatized himself by whatever happened at that camp, and he was also traumatized, and that's very unusual as a character. We not only had to really research that, we had people who were specialized in that explain it to us, but also we had to understand what exactly his story was. In terms of the distribution for this, A24 acquired the U.S. distribution rights in May of 2015, and that's also when the film premiered at Venice in September of that year. It was first released widely in Canada in October of 2015 and then on direct TV in the US in December of that same year. It then had a limited theatrical run in the US in March of 2016 and a wider international release also in that year. In terms of top critics on Rotten Tomatoes, the reviews are a little mixed. There's a lot of talk regarding the plot. Richard Roper of the Chicago Sun Times said, you wouldn't expect me to invoke the Terminator in a movie about a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor with dementia. But Adam McGuyne's bold but often ludicrous remember plays a like a mashup of the Terminator, Marathon Man, and Memento, as filtered through the lens of an old Twilight Zone episode. And Plummer's performance is also praised quite a bit. Um the critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 68%. Audiences on Rotten Tomatoes liked it a little better, uh, with a 79%, and many also placed Plummer's performance and actually really liked the story and the ending. On Letterboxd, a little over 20,000 members have seen it, and it's rated fairly positively with an overall rating of 3.6. And on IMBDB, it has a 7.5 out of over 29,000 votes. And in terms of summary, to sum this film up in a very succinct way, it was a little difficult, but in terms of summary, we have after losing his wife to cancer, an older man with dementia runs away from an assisted living facility to seek out the Nazi who killed his loved ones during the Holocaust.

SPEAKER_05 6:46

So I believe this is a first-time watch for everyone as far as I know.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

First time watch, first time I had ever heard of it.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yep. I've I heard of it, but I had not seen it because I'm a really big fan of the Goen's films. And then I was gonna ask our group a question before we get started. Have people seen his movies, or do they know about his style as like narrative themes?

SPEAKER_04 7:13

I don't think I've seen any of his movies before.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

I've seen quite a few of his films.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

I didn't know. So he's probably in the 80s and 90s, besides Daven Crodenberg, probably the biggest Canadian director in terms of critical acclaim and notoriety. So the reason why I bring this up is because he did films like The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, Next of Kin, um, Araret, like some of the movies that Amanda mentioned. And I think that with him, the reason why I kind of mentioned this is because he was part of the Toronto New Wave, these filmmakers who came out of the 1980s, not Cronenberg, really, because Cronenberg predated him, but um definitely go in the 80s. And his films had to do a lot with like knit alienation and memory and historical trauma. That's so that's the reason why I'm kind of bringing that up is because at first when I was watching this movie, I didn't really see a lot of that at first. But then the more I thought about it after the fact, that's like right up everything that this guy's been doing essentially. So I was just curious if you guys had seen any of his movies. I know Dared said that he saw a few, but I didn't know if Amanda or Caitlin saw any.

SPEAKER_06 8:19

No, I hadn't. Uh no, I w I wish I had having read some of this, and I feel as if and we'll talk about this as we get into the category. Maybe those were a better representation of the type of director and his style than this movie. Obviously, people who've seen it can correct me if I'm wrong, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Well, he's weird because after the the 21st century, he kind of goes to Hollywood a lot and uh and makes American films too and Canadian films interchangeably. And he made a couple A24 films in the early years, like The Captive and Remember. And it's just really interesting because he's a big deal for them to kind of get uh a notable director to release their movie. So I thought when it was announced that he was doing these films, that that's someone to kind of put a feather in their cap. Like, oh, we got to add him a goen film or two. Um, but I don't know, he kind of lost his luster in in the 21st century too. It's it's a weird thing because it's like I don't know if if they like Darren or Caleb, if you guys think of examples like directors who like were really a big deal at one point, and then like it just for whatever reason, it just like a downward spiral. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 9:28

Yeah, I mean I can't think of any off the top of my head, but definitely. I was thinking not necessarily downward spiral, but like you don't really hear a lot about Aronofsky as much anymore. I feel like he's had his heyday, but maybe it's just because he takes a while between projects.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

He just takes his time. I think that's the problem with a lot of these directors. I mean, I don't know. I'm so sorry to hijack the conversation. I was just genuinely curious before we get started because I just I I think that'll depend on how we think about the movie too.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

So I I I don't I don't I don't know of a specific off the top of my head that fits into that trajectory, but I know that that definitely happens a lot. Um as for whether or not uh this is kind of typical of the Adamagoyan films that I've seen. Uh not really. This this kind of seems like a a separate thing. Maybe it shares some themes, but uh when I watch this, I don't get a whole lot of sweet hereafter or exotica or next to kin from it.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Thank you so much, Amanda, for that if uh information. I feel like I always learn things every time from it, and it's so informative and you say it so well. So I can't thank you enough. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

So one of my favorite parts, it reminds me of our movie club because that's where you really learn about like things that you wouldn't have otherwise known to look up for yourself. So I like to learn that stuff too.

SPEAKER_06 10:41

Yeah, and like Agoyan also did a tribute for Martin Landau when he when he passed um as well that was on that was online talking about them working together.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Oh wow. Very cool. Well, we're gonna go to our first section, which is narrative elements. So this that concludes things like themes, uh character, overall write-in, screenplay, just some of the things we think about when we think of the narrative elements of a movie when we evaluate each A24 film. And Caleb, you are our person to start the conversation. So take it away.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

So yeah, I feel like a lot of this we've I hate saying this, I feel like a broken record, but I mean, I feel like also we're kind of getting the films out of the way that are not necessarily memorable, and that's for a reason. So I feel like this is a lot of the same beats that we've seen in other movies, specifically like Memento definitely stood out to me as being an inspiration here. And it was a lot of the same, I feel like they had a really good line, like a plot line that they could have gone with. It was intriguing enough, and it was definitely a good premise, but I just feel like there was something missing with the narrative that it just, I don't know. I feel like it could have been more interesting than it was, and I that kind of let me down. And then there were some things that just completely blew my mind about like what? But I'm sure we'll get into that. So prefacing it with, I feel like we've done this before and it really didn't move me. Does everyone else agree?

SPEAKER_06 12:06

I loved the twist at the end. I I did not see that coming. I don't know if my my other co-host did, they can they can chime in on that, but I no. Okay, good, because I said maybe I was I was the only one who didn't see it coming. Um, but besides that, I found myself going throughout this movie thinking, is this plausible? And I think because in the world that the story creates, it just doesn't there's not enough connective tissue and things like that for me to think that it is. I I don't know. I just kept thinking this man is for all intents and purposes, maybe in the early stages of dementia, we're not really sure because his son seems to know he has dementia, his wife knew and and people knew. And I and I just kept thinking to myself, can a man with dementia with armed with a letter, like a really long letter, and various taxis and hotels and whatever along the way, could he execute this to the fullest extent that he does? And then also, we'll probably talk about this farther in the discussion, then like the social area of it. Why is everyone being so nice to him and accepting of all the things he's doing? He shows up at this Canadian nursing home, and the woman says, Let me just help you find your friend, the person you're looking for, even though I've never seen you before and you've never been here before. And there was just a lot of really outlandish things that happened, and they're so nice and accommodating to this random old man who just shows up at places because he's an old man.

SPEAKER_04 13:35

I think the worst one, the worst incident, though, was oh my god, with the security guard and the steers the gun, and it's oh well we have talk, and we're like, What?

SPEAKER_06 13:45

And you may or may not have stolen a shirt possibly out of the Welcome to America, you know. So I just can't. I just see this for that. Yeah, I kept thinking to myself, is this possible? Does this does this work? Do people would people be this unassuming to this person? And Agoyan said like in an interview, he was saying that it seems like everyone's extending themselves, and that could be, you know, a projection of either Zeb's personality that he's assumed or just the way that Zeb is seeing the world in terms of maybe he just thinks everyone's more accommodating than they actually are. But I still don't, I don't know. It just it just doesn't do enough for me to to buy it, and then it's I maybe everybody else has very different thoughts. But I think that's what threw me off through this whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

So I I I think that the accommodations that people are being nice to him are pretty plausible because if there's two groups of people that can basically get away with anything and people will allow it, it's children and the very, very old. So I think they see this man and they assume that he's not a threat and that he's you know feeble or they project themselves onto him like Dean Norris's character does. And of course he wasn't wrong. And I I think that that it's very plausible that um that he could be treated so nicely.

SPEAKER_06 15:02

Even after he threatens two different people and nobody calls the police, or uh when he confronts the first Rudy in his house with a gun, and that guy doesn't call the police, and then he confronts somebody else in the hospital, another Rudy in the hospital, and they don't call. Nobody calls the police even though they're being threatened by a random man in their home.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

I think once I think once you find out that they're you know the guy who's threatening you is doing so because he's trying to execute a Nazi, people are like, Well, it's not me, and he knows it's not me, so it's uh carry on.

SPEAKER_07 15:36

Well, I mean maybe maybe Godspeed to you, sir.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

I mean, haven't the Bod traps been through enough, goddammit?

SPEAKER_06 15:47

That is there were so many sound and music comparisons in all the interviews. Oh yeah, all the reviews.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

So I think a man that you kind of hit on something that I think we can kind of talk about is the plausibility of this narrative because I mean his character, Sev, he has uh the early stages of dementia and he relies heavily on written notes in order to do things because he can't remember. Even at the gun shop, when I don't know, you're buying a gun in Cleveland, which you probably should do, by the way. Um, you he can't remember just basic things of how to use a gun. He's asking, like, can you write down the directions? The guy just kind of looks at him like, Wait, what? Or or the fact that he is, you know, being registered for for clearance to get the gun, basic things like that. And you think to yourself, is this guy gonna become like a Jason Satum type a character? He just gets turned on like a light switch. That's what I was sort of thinking in my head. I'm thinking, how could he remember, how could he do all this badass shit when he can't even remember what he ate for breakfast?

SPEAKER_06 16:53

Right. And it's just like I said, if this was gonna, if he was gonna completely do a 180 and turn into like a Liam Neeson type character, if that was the premise of this movie, that this older person is just that's what they do, and I and I can believe that in the world of of Liam Neeson land and and things like that in the taken movie. But I just I don't know with this part, and I think that also lends itself to the character, like the character development in this is not great, and I think that's where a lot of the holes are for.

SPEAKER_04 17:23

But I think too, like they they couldn't really develop the character because that would totally spoil the ending. And honestly, I feel like that's kind of like I get a feeling going into it. I'm like, okay, he can't remember anything about himself, so he can't remember he's probably the bad guy. And then I'm like thinking to I wrote in my notes, like, you're gonna send your friend who has dementia on this trip, but I guess you're just like it just felt so heartless. Then I'm like, wait, why would you do that? And then I feel like that kind of spoiled it. Like, of course he's gonna send a guy that he hates to maybe go, you know, end up in some situation that gets him killed because he's actually a Nazi. So I feel like if they had actually fleshed that out who they were, like that would totally have ruined the movie, which probably doesn't make it a good movie.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

Yeah, much like Memento, the best thing about it is is the mystery that unravels. And I'm sure it would be a completely different movie the second time that I watch it.

SPEAKER_04 18:09

Once he wrote down on his wrist, read the letter, I'm like, oh Lord, here we go. He's gonna wake up tomorrow, he's gonna have notes on his stomach.

SPEAKER_06 18:16

Right. I was just every and often I every time, and just I well, maybe not even for him, maybe just for for like the Max character. I don't know. I feel like Martin Landau didn't have much to do in this movie, even though he was in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

He's second or third build or something, and you're thinking, like, he's not even I mean, we're gonna get to the acting later, but he's barely in it, and he died within two years after this movie came out, too. That's why I mean I I think something else to kind of hit on with this movie isn't even just the plausibility of it or the memory, but I think it's also this idea of how do I want to say it? Because it does deal with guilt and this idea of inescapable guilt because it has to do with the Holocaust and being a Holocaust survivor. And I think it's actually telling an important story in that sense because he's trying to avenge the death of his family. It's a very disturbing film in many ways, because that's something that you can never really truly get over because you lose your entire family to that. It's really strange that he doesn't remember anything until Mart Lando tells him because he has the memory at the beginning of his wife, right? He thought he had a conversation with his wife, but his wife died. The things that they're going for are very interesting, but I don't know if they're fully flushed out either.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

I feel like it was kind of exploitative. I was where there's a I was reading that in a bunch of reviews, and it was kind of borderline exploiting the Holocaust for a plot, and it did kind of feel that way. It felt like it could have been such a better Holocaust revenge movie, but it feels like just the way it was kind of like put together just felt more shallow to me. I don't know. There was just something missing that made it not hit, and it could have hit, but it didn't hit for me. So I don't know if it's because of the whole like characters not being fleshed out thing, but like in a good thriller, you'll find and I had to laugh when I was reading that this is a thriller. I'm like, I'm sitting here yawning, like I'm not on the edge of my seat at all. Like, how is this a thriller? But on it, like in a good thriller, like you know, Memento, when you find out at the end who he really is, I guess they didn't kind of earn it for me. I don't know, it just felt kind of shallow.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

I felt like I didn't know where it was going for a lot of it, but yeah, even when we'll get to one actor that I had I I wrote down a very funny note about, but I think that it just felt like it didn't really hit. Although I had to sit on this movie for a while because I was thinking about Egoen's films. That's why I was asking at the beginning like, did people see his films? Because to me, the one of the key themes that it goes films is this idea of memory, and he deals with like the Armenian genocide and like Erareth, for example, and some other films. Um, and it's really just interesting how it kind of intertwines within this narrative because he's really known for psychologically based films, like even Exotica. It's like this construction of identity and memory and trauma and stuff like that that are kind of being put together. I just think that it's really interesting when you compare it to his other films, but I feel like this could have been directed by almost anybody, really. Yeah, for someone that's such a distinctive filmmaker. And I mean Absolutely, yeah, he's not an autor, I would argue, but he is a notable person.

SPEAKER_04 21:26

And also something too I wrote down that kind of sucked all the thriller out of it is like, okay, you have to go through a list, and you have four guys, and it could be any guy on this list, and you know it's gonna be the fourth guy, so it's just like oh my, I didn't necessarily think it would be it could have been the third guy, but not with that much time left in the movie.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

If you know how long the movie is and you know how the structure is set up, it's obviously not going to be the first or the second one.

SPEAKER_07 21:51

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Although it would be a unique horror movie if you forgot that the first guy that he killed was the guy he was supposed to link after the next three, and someone else dies in. The process that would be uh that would be a different kind of thing.

SPEAKER_04 22:02

That would be amazing. Could you imagine like the like the black comedy that would be there? Like he shows up at the same guy's house.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

He just keeps killing people with the same name because he thinks that you know they're Sarah Connor or something.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

You know what it reminded me of after I was thinking about it? It reminded me of Law and Order because I love Law and Order, but it's always like the set fairy formula-like aspect where in the first uh 10 minutes of any Law and Order episode, it's never the first person or even the second person, it's always the third person. Or the husband. Or the husband, or the lover.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Well, they said they had to change the str they said they had to change the structure of their shows because it was getting so obvious. It's like every once in a while it's gonna be the first one just to keep you on the toes.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Oh, yes. Uh, shout out to all our Law and Order fans for A24 Carat Gold. Uh, I still watch it. Maybe that's uh maybe that's the trauma that I'm talking about tonight.

SPEAKER_06 22:59

The fact that people find Law and Order relaxing, I think, is really all our collective trauma that we find that relaxing.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

True crime shows, people watch those to relax. It's like eh. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 23:12

I watched a grizzly murder. I can finally go to bed now. They never solved it either.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

It's about a serial killer who kills you while you sleep after watching television. Well, nighty night.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

But I think you hit on something too, is that you kind of knew it wasn't gonna be the first two or three people, so it kind of dragged. So I'm gonna ask you guys a question. Do you think this would have been better? I always say this on show, so I feel like I broke a record. Would this have been better as a short film or like an episode of a TV show?

SPEAKER_06 23:40

Yeah, and probably mini-series, the premise kind of thing. I well, okay. I also was curious if we had taken the dementia out of it. I I don't know how we would have, you know, how the film would have been constructed. But if Plumber didn't have dementia, this character didn't have dementia. I I I feel as if I would have been more along for the ride of it. I don't I like I said, we would have had to reconstruct a bunch of things, but I I would have maybe found it more plausible if we had just taken the dementia part.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

Because I I I think with it wouldn't work without it though, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_06 24:16

It wouldn't, yeah, the whole thing would probably fall apart horribly.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

But yeah, because you know, I I don't think we've even discussed it yet, but spoiler alert is that um the reason he needs to have dementia is because he's not the character he thinks he is throughout the entire movie. Right. He's actually the person that he's looking for to to kill and he's like trying to find his associates.

SPEAKER_06 24:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

And he doesn't realize that until the very, very end.

SPEAKER_06 24:41

Right. Or well, just that's that's the other thing. I'm like, does he really not realize it, or does he is he just Well, it that's a good question.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

It's like is he repressing it? Is he lying to himself or does he legitimately not know?

SPEAKER_04 24:55

Right. I think he legitimately doesn't know.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Kind of the uh the Shutter Island question.

SPEAKER_04 25:00

Yeah, because I feel like when you when you open a movie with him, like really upset that his wife is dead and he forgot that she died two weeks ago. I feel like he legitimately doesn't know. And like I feel like it's supposed to hit hard when he has that second of clarity at the end, like, oh, it is me, and then he kills himself. Like you're supposed to kind of get that in that moment, he's more sure than he's ever been.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

Like Yeah, it's like he doesn't know what's going on until the very, very end. I yeah, I don't think that that he would be able to be convinced if he didn't have dementia and wasn't confused about his identity to do any of this. Not saying that he would still be, you know, the Nazi commandant or whatever. But I mean, he's like literally hunting down because he hates Nazis so much, and it's like, well, yeah, because um, you know, that's ironically, guess what?

SPEAKER_04 25:44

It took a Nazi having dementia to realize that he was the bad guy.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

I thought that was a great plot twist though, because when I did not see how it was.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

I did not see that coming. I I really liked if I watch it a second time, yeah, I you'll be able to see it. That was unintentional.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Um yeah, I really like Dared, who could remember? And when they said that a couple times too, I was just like, Oh my god, we get it. It's about memory. He has dementia. It's called Remember. They said it, I felt like at least a dozen times.

SPEAKER_06 26:18

They they did, and also how did the other thing just have so many problems in the spot?

SPEAKER_04 26:23

How do you think you like crack it up about how did okay?

SPEAKER_06 26:28

The other thing I didn't I I love the twist, but then I also was thinking, did Max like send him on this journey thinking that this would happen where there would be some type of thing? But but I don't I don't how do you uh hopefully after he kills the target? Right, right. How do you know it's gonna end because you know that it's two people? So how would you know it was gonna end in a tragic for both parties?

SPEAKER_03 26:52

I don't think he had much to lose. I mean, if this guy exposes himself as a former Nazi, he's you know gonna get you know, he's not coming back for you know him.

SPEAKER_04 27:01

And actually, like thinking about it, like he gave him the list of names, are they in order? Like, does he know that the fourth guy on the list is actually like the guy?

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Maybe possibly. That's what I was wondering too. Was the list of names intentional, or was it just happened to be that Bruno Katz was the fourth person?

SPEAKER_03 27:19

It couldn't have been because if you think about it this way, this guy is he's not right in the head, and what if he kills you're not gonna list the three innocent people first, and then oh, oops, sorry, I killed him and I thought he was the right guy. It's like, um no, it was number four. Uh oops, oops. No, I think that it is legitimately he did the research and he found these four names that all fit the right criteria. And um he sent them on uh that that mission. Although I would think that he would check the name of the one guy who's um you know Dean Norris's father, who was only 10 years old at the time. Obviously, that should have been a disqualifier, but I guess he didn't have that information uh available.

SPEAKER_06 27:58

Yeah, I wasn't sure on that. And then also what had happened with you know Ruth? Did was this kind of did Max know after Ruth and Zeb moved into this assisted living thing like six months ago? Did he figure it out then or did he know before you know when they arrived? Or did he rec did he recognize him? You know. Did did Ruth know anything about this? You know, who that that that he was this person, that Zeb was this person all along? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 28:28

So I think it's fair to say maybe not, because like they did make a point in the movie of showing you how the families of these people had no idea that their families are Nazis, so possibly not. It might have been hinting at the fact that like he was just completely buried in this secret life, and then yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

I think that it it was really interesting because with the plots was I just didn't see it common, and then it kind of made sense because I kept thinking when I was watching this, is this a fever dream? Because then I would ex uh excuse all the implausible details, but like you were saying with the shopping incident to me, the uh and the gun, but even with the border agent, like his passport expired.

SPEAKER_06 29:07

Yeah, like a time, you know.

SPEAKER_04 29:09

Like the amount of times that he went back to a train and his gun was still under his jacket on a seat, like really, they must have showed you that same scene like two or three times of like, look, he's on another train and he successfully brought the gun along. Like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

The very irresponsible ad for train uh travel. It's like you can bring a gun and don't know, I'm gonna check.

SPEAKER_06 29:29

All you gotta do is hide it under your coat jacket, they'll never check. Or in a bag that apparently you give to the border patrol agent, and he's gonna check it, but he won't see the gun. He'll admire your gun. He'll look at your letter, but he won't see the parts about you killing people. He'll just tell you where you gotta go. It's fine.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

I maybe he just assumes all Americans have guns. I mean, there's some pretty solid logic behind that.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

I I this is kind of like on a lighter note. I thought it was kind of funny that uh in the hospital scene, he's with the little girl who it it was a kind of a poignant moment in the film, but I I did laugh at the moment where he's like, What is that? And she's explaining Phineas and Fur, but the animated show on Disney Channel, and he's like, You don't like Mickey Mouse? Like it just made me laugh a little.

SPEAKER_04 30:17

How much did the education system fail that girl that she's like what, 11 and doesn't know what a Nazi is, or how to even pronounce Nazi?

SPEAKER_02 30:24

Like, yeah, that's kind of weird. It's like, um, this is the weird thing for me to be reading here.

SPEAKER_06 30:30

I thought her mom was gonna come back in at any moment and be like, You're reading this letter, where he's basically saying he's gonna kill a bunch of people.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Honey, this is a hint list.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

Who gave this to you? I don't think we would ever laugh this much at a Holocaust movie.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

It's you guys are gonna roll that up just sitting here thinking like my co-hosts are just uh they're they're messed up mofos. No I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_06 30:58

Lots lots happening. Well, but I but I will say I I I think the parts of with Zev calling out to his wife every time he wakes up and when he's in the hospital, him thinking that his son's gonna come and gonna come with Bruce. He says maybe you can come with your like those are truly uh very heartbreaking moments, and I think and we'll talk about this in the act again, but I think Plummer does an incredible job with the turns and the and the twists and the turns that are happening in this entire film and plays each moment as it as it should have been done. Um but but yeah, uh just otherwise though, there's just there was just too much messiness for me to love it as much as I I loved the twist. I like the journey, I like the twists. I just there was just too much, too much messiness.

SPEAKER_04 31:45

I wrote my notes like I was trying to give it some grace. I was like, you know, your friend has dementia and you send him off on this trip, and then I wrote in parentheses. Well, I guess he's just saving grace if you're in a wheelchair. Like I'm trying to do it.

SPEAKER_06 31:55

We also didn't find out that he like he I mean he is a puppet, Max is like a puppeteer kind of thing, and and that's what Egoyan was saying in the interviews. But we also just didn't find out really why he sent them on this wild journey until about halfway through the movie, which was also just I'm because I thought to myself, why is he pushing this? Why does he really want him to keep going? Why is he telling him this is a thing you said you were gonna do after your wife died and being really, really adamant about it?

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Yeah. Anything else we want to add about the Nerve elements, or we want to go to the uh verdicts. Caitlin, you start.

SPEAKER_04 32:32

All right, so yeah, I said it was a moment to wannabe already and exploitative. It was my two big things, highlighting like my overall feelings on the movie, and that it could have done more, but it just fell flat for me. And I saw the twist coming a mile away. It definitely had potential, and I felt like it could have gone somewhere else with it. I felt like it could have been more exciting. I felt like it could have even, you know, going through the four people, if you know that it can't be like person one, person two, ever, like you could have made those situations a little bit more interesting. Like, well, you know it's not person one, so person one is instead like this other person. Like, you build that out into its own little separate story and just make those instances more interesting, like they did with Dean Norris. Like, that was definitely an interesting little twist that you didn't see coming. That was nice, but like we could have done that along the way and just kept the energy going. And I feel like it really wasn't a thriller, it was more just like, okay, where is this gonna go? Just following the lines. So, yeah, overall, I figured that was uh it could it had potential, but it was weak for me. So I gave it a two. Darren, what do you think?

SPEAKER_03 33:34

All right, uh, I think that the story is a decent but predictable plot. It's a bit of a retread of similar films. The twist at the end is solid, and I wonder if I might get more out of a second viewing now that I know the full context of the story, but I don't know if I'd be interested in watching it again. I'm gonna give it a three. Amanda?

SPEAKER_06 33:51

I gave it a two. I loved the twist, and I appreciated where we went with it, and I was on the ride for all of it, but there were too many holes for me, and the character development was really, really lacking, and you only really had two central people in this film to to learn anything about. So I I just felt there was a hugely missed opportunity with stuff. So yeah. So we'll leave we'll leave Nick to maybe be the tiebreaker for for us.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

So I this was one I saw Sunday, and we're recording this on a Wednesday, and I had to like really think about my scores for this one. I feel like it does, I think, have a lot of consistency with Agoid's other films from a narrative standpoint. Is it implausible? Oh, yes. I mean, good god. I mean, we just went through the screenplay with a chainsaw, and it's there's still plot holes. I mean, I'm not gonna deny that, but I mean, I think some of the themes that they are touching on are important, like trauma and the Holocaust and memory and identity. So I I mean, I'll forgive it. So I'll give it a three, even though like a three is kind of like a low recommendation, but like you know what, that's that's where I'm at in my life.

SPEAKER_04 35:12

I feel like all my scores, I'm kind of like, it's it's this number, but I went back and forth on this one between a two and a three.

SPEAKER_06 35:19

It was it was it was kind of neck and neck for me for it. I because I thought I thought the twist was really unique. I did, and I thought it was earned, but I just didn't think the rest was.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

That's what made me go from a two to a three, honestly, that one, because you're right, it is like memento. It's uh almost like a twilight zone episode, really. The more I thought about it, too. I know you mentioned, Amanda, about Alfred Ishkoppers, but it felt very Twilight Zone in the sense that it kinda is plausible, but could it really happen? I don't think so. But uh it's a fascinating pro uh concept, but I I don't know. So yeah, we went through category one, which was the narrative elements, and next up, we're gonna be going to the direction and acting. So uh, Darren, you're gonna lead the charge.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

Okay. Uh the second category encompasses the directorial vision, casting, and acting in the film. For me, this is probably the highlight of the film as Christopher Palmer does a fantastic job in the crucial lead role, and Adam McGoyen's style as a director lends itself well to the film. I also think that the film is very well cast as the characters that are cast as potential Nazis are all credible and lends to the mystery element of the film. I also thought Dean Norris was well cast as what amounts to a Nazi of the modern era. What does everyone else think?

SPEAKER_01 36:42

As soon as I saw Dean Norris, I said, he's gonna be a cop. He's gonna be a cop. And I kept taking a hank from breaking bad. Yeah, and of course it is that he is a cop, and I just thought to myself, this isn't gonna end well.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

He's the new Michael Chicklist. You see him and think he's a cop or Dennis Franz.

SPEAKER_04 37:04

Yes, that's like Michael Chickless.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Now that I think about it, Darren.

SPEAKER_04 37:08

He does. He does.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

He does. They need to be brothers in a movie or TV show or something. They need brothers.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

Shave Dennis shave Dennis Franz's head, and you'd probably have the same thing there on there.

SPEAKER_06 37:18

That scene was incredible. That that whole sequence was I was I was on the edge of my seat for that whole frickin' dog whole thing. The dog eating outside all day. You know, it's the first person who reacted in the way that I would think he would for a random person just showing up in your house that doesn't end up being who you think they're gonna be. So it's it's the whole thing, and then and I know I was knocking the character development before, but I thought that Dean Doris's character was perfectly you found out everything you needed to find out about that man in 15 minutes or however long that scene was, and it was perfect like a perfect encapsulation of everything in that scene. But that was kind of the I mean, besides Plummer, just like I said, doing a lot of the turns in terms of showing the the areas where the dimension that where the dementia was creeping in a little more. There's that scene in the last hotel where he's just staring at this water feature, and you can tell that all of these all this traveling is really starting to break him down physically, and he just has this look of just such confusion on his face. He's really good in just these moments of having the dementia, but also being very serious and being kind of action hero-like when he has to confront these ruddy characters, which I didn't think was gonna be something that this person would be able to display, but he has such a toughness and seriousness to him when he has to, and I think maybe that's a bit of the suppressed memory kind of thing coming back or showing through. So I think he just plays this, he does so well in this film, and then Martin Landau is also great, he just doesn't have a lot to do, which I thought was really disappointing considering the caliber of actor that Martin Landau was.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

I thought they all gave really great performances. I mean, Landau, I mean, how old was he at the time of this? He had to be close to 90. Yeah, and even Christopher Plummer, he was getting up there in his in age too. I mean, they're they're almost the same age. So the reason why I'm saying that is because even Bruno Gant Gantz is also in this, they all died not too long after it came out, so it's actually kind of a weirdly melancholic film, in a way, to watch now, because like most of the people who are the leads are no longer with us, right? Uh and I thought, um, and I'm gonna ask you guys a question about um Plumber's performance. Could you understand him really? I needed subtitles for this movie because I could not really understand anything that he was saying.

SPEAKER_06 39:50

I think I I did pretty I mean, I watched I used subtitles for every movie, so I'm probably not against representation.

SPEAKER_04 39:57

I did not, and I I could understand him well enough. I thought it's funny, one of the reviews I was reading, he played this movie like he was King Lear, and I thought that was just a brilliant sum-up because he really does. I feel like he didn't have like great material to work with, and like even for the little bit that Landau's in it, like the two of them do such a great job. And I mean, like, of course they do, they're heavyweights, like, yeah, but I I could understand him. I thought he was very fantastic and grave as he should be.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

I guess I'm the dumbass that just needed subtitles because I I felt like I just couldn't like for some reason, and I'm from New York, and I know Jewish people and very ethnic groups, and I don't know why. For this one, I watched it in the morning. I just could not. I don't know if you guys got that way since I switched movies, where we just watched for the movie club, Harlan County, USA, a movie that I taught in film school multiple times in documentary classes. This one I needed the subtitles because I could not understand those Kentucky coal miners. I felt terrible. I'm like, damn, I'm really I'm really good at bad at age.

SPEAKER_06 40:57

There's also no audio consistency to all of these streams. There's no audio consistency, there's no lighting consistency. That's why everything's so dark. Every single movie we watch, I'm always I'm always like, guys, this is as dark as I think.

SPEAKER_04 41:11

Yeah, no, I mean it literally is a problem. And even like the TVs that you buy now, like I know we have Lord of the Rings on DVD and Blu-ray. We tried watching DVD, and like you couldn't even make out what they were saying. We had to put the Blu-ray on, and we're like, oh, now we can hear it. Like they're actually made to not really support all the different types of media, which is very frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

Yeah, it it's so it's so crazy how the sound imbalance because I think we get to like streaming, how they make the ads a bazillion times louder for the ads.

SPEAKER_04 41:39

Oh, yeah, they'll blast you out your house.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

Yeah, actual movie.

SPEAKER_04 41:43

Or like even some of the Blu-ray releases. Like one of my favorite movies of all time is Empire Records. The movie is like this, and then when the songs come on, it blasts you out of the couch. It's like we don't need the sound, like, yes, the the soundtrack absolutely rocks, but we don't need the neighbors to hear it. Like, can we just tone it down a little?

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Okay, my hosts are make me feel better. Not that like I'm just loosen my gear.

SPEAKER_06 42:02

I watch everything with subtitles. I I mean, yes, I know it's ruining the movie theater quality by watching subtitles.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

I forget which movie I went to recently, but I bought the subtitle movie, and I was just like trying not to read the lines on the bottom. Because a lot of times if I read ahead and I don't like enjoy the way the actor is delivering it, it ruins it for me. So I try not to read it and I try to use it as a guide of like, wait, what did they say? And then I'll just look down super quick. But I try not to read while I'm watching.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

You're gonna pull a muscle watching a movie one day. That is too much effort. Caleb trying to interpret the performance before it happens.

SPEAKER_07 42:40

I know.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Kayleigh's eyes are just gonna be like up and down, up and down, and and then she's not gonna be able to look upwards down.

SPEAKER_04 42:47

She's gonna be smelling theater with like a massive headache. And I'm like, why do my eyes hurt?

SPEAKER_06 42:52

Like crane your neck one direction. Doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 42:54

How would you develop whiplash at a movie theater?

SPEAKER_04 42:59

Well, you kind of do that when you put the subtitles at the bottom. Yes, you kind of do that when you watch like an international movie. You have to read that.

SPEAKER_06 43:07

That is true, but it it normally gets to a point where I am so settled in the movie though that I don't even really notice the subtitles.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Can I just make a hot take comment? I wish that they did not always use white for the text for subtitles. I think that they should use yellow or they should do it based on the color, palette, or scheme of the movie. So, for example, if you're watching something that's very I'm trying to think of an example. So if you're watching Marie Antoinette, because I watched that movie not too long ago, I mean, you don't use a white because there's so much like likeness in the movie, but if you use like a yellow or I I don't know, not something distracting, but something that at least it makes it.

SPEAKER_03 43:49

Something that contrasts.

SPEAKER_04 43:50

Well, I remember when I watched Weapons on HBO and I was like, this movie's super dark and super quiet. So I put the subtitles on for that one, and I realized like in the little settings, you can change the colors, so I made them purple. I know they're always purple.

SPEAKER_03 44:03

Fancy. Look at you. I think one reason I didn't have any problems with the uh understanding this particular character is because uh you're partially German heritage. So I've heard a lot of older people with German accents. So kind of used to that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

I am I have that too, Darren, and I feel stupid now.

SPEAKER_06 44:22

No. We only need two people to have understood it, and then I have to make it who can get the interpretation from that.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

So go back to the movie because I sidetracked our co-host. Uh, but it's so much fun when we when we talk about things that bother us with modern day movies. Is I kept thinking, where is Bruno in this movie? I literally wrote down my notes. I'm like, it's an hour and 15 minutes of a 90-minute movie. I know he's obviously going to be the last, but like at the same time, uh I'm thinking, where like where is he? Where is Ruby?

SPEAKER_03 44:58

We don't talk about Bruno.

SPEAKER_06 45:01

And that like, and those the two people that he ended up picking, which were which were Gantz and and Procnow, they weren't the original choices either because they wanted to look for Germans that had been living in the States for a while. But I think the other people that they wanted were like a little bit older. I think one of them he was saying it was it was Maximilian Schnell had just passed away. So they wanted him to do so it was they had to go with the younger people because that was who was who was there. Um but they originally wanted different people for for some of these Rudy roles that happened.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

But I think those three names alone: Christopher Plummer, Bartlanthau, Bruno Getz, those are big names. Like if you're selling a movie or if like you happen to see it on TV, I think that catches your eye almost as much as it's an Adam McGowan film because you're thinking two of those three are Oscar winners. I mean, really, Plummer just won an Oscar for beginners a couple years before that. He had like a resurgence, so it was kind of I mean, to me, the cast is what made me really excited to watch this almost more than anything. Let's talk about the direction. Uh, I think part of what I was gonna ask you guys is because we haven't really seen any Adam O'Goan films, is I I thought he'd tailor it fine, but at this and I think like I was saying the Nair Velmets, I think it does connect to his um other films, but I also felt like it could have been directed by any director. I don't know. I don't know if how one of the guys felt.

SPEAKER_03 46:33

Definitely the vibe I got from it that it didn't need to be Adam Ogoyan, it could have been pretty much anybody.

SPEAKER_06 46:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:39

It's just one of those types of films.

SPEAKER_06 46:41

I think I was the same. Well, that and that's what I was curious about to hear from uh people who had seen his previous films was if you got a particular stylistic sense of his direction from the because I I didn't, and I was from his other movies, yes, and I was looking for it in this one after having read things about him.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

From his other movies, there's definitely a unique style uh of the types of things that he does and the performances that he gets, but I don't really get that from this one.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

Yeah, I mean it's it could have just been anybody, really. He's very much a minimalist, too. Like, we'll probably talk about more in the next category, but that's kind of what he goes for. Um so I mean it's almost I don't want to say because he's not an auditor by any means, I don't think, but I but he's more of just I like we were I was just talking about because we recorded an episode last night on it, but like Rob Reiner is someone that is kind of like that, like consistently a good filmmaker, but he almost has like an invisible style to him, and I think that also applies to someone like Adam McGowan, who's just a good working director, but not every director has to be an author or bold or audacious. Like that's just that's not for everybody, I think, either.

SPEAKER_04 47:52

Agreed, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:54

So um, any other performances that stuck out to you guys or direction?

SPEAKER_06 47:59

You know, I thought all the kids were great in this for the for the few, you know, we had a couple of children that were that were in this that I thought were really good.

SPEAKER_04 48:08

Yeah, the first boy on the train was really good. And I feel like that kind of went on for too long where you're starting to feel very uncomfortable for the boy, and you're like, Can we please like end this? And then he finally, like, is you know, he wakes up and doesn't remember anything, and the kid gets scared, and you're like, Oh no, like you just feel bad because like you knew that was where that's gonna go, obviously. And then I felt bad, like you're worried when the dad comes up to me, like oh no, the guy's gonna like punch him out because he was like scattering his son, but then he's like really nice and like, oh, you're trying to find you know your bride and whatever. And I'm like, Oh, well, that's a nice little twist. Like, I'm just like like the roller coaster of like, oh no, oh thank god, oh no, oh thank god.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

I thought the child actors were really good in this. I mean, yeah, yeah, they handle the material well. Like, we were talking earlier about like the girl didn't know what a Nazi was. I mean, it is a touchy topic, so I can kind of see if you're not introduced that yet. Um, I guess, but at the same time, I mean, I don't know. Like, we're talking about a movie where the lead actor has dementia he's killing people and he doesn't remember how to do things no consequence, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:10

He just goes and kills people and that's gonna no police called, nothing happened into that.

SPEAKER_04 49:15

Oh, he's an old guy, just let him go. Nature will take him out.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

It's fine. It's fine. But um, yeah, I mean, anything else we want to add for this category? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

Darren, what's your square to lead us for our verdicts on this category?

SPEAKER_03 49:35

Uh overall in this category, I think they did a solid, if not overly spectacular, job. So I'm giving a three. Kaylin?

SPEAKER_04 49:44

Pretty much echoing the exact same thing. Gave it a three. I think the acting was fantastic for what they had, and they didn't really have much. I think definitely Plummer sold the role. And yeah, I mean, uh like we said, like the direction was whatever. So yeah, I feel like a lot of it really rested with the actors, and they brought their a game and yeah, three I mean Deanor's special shout out. He also did an amazing job. Three Oh, Amanda.

SPEAKER_06 50:11

This was I probably my high I think my highest score, I gave it a four. Um, I was I was just really impressed. Plummer always impresses me, but I I think especially in this film, and I know they had it at Venice and things like that because they wanted to make this more of an Oscar kind of film for Palmer, and it and it didn't end up going that way. Um, but it but I but I think it was I think he was really incredible in it. I think Landout was great for the limited amount of material that he had to had to do. And then I also you know think Dean North always playing a cop, but always doing it really well and really creepy and really sleazy. So, you know, there you go. So I thought everybody, everybody did a great job in it. And even though there wasn't a for me a really big kind of stylistic directing choice um from a goya in here, I I you know I I did get the Hitchcockian feel at times. So I, you know, but props props for that because that was an influence. So but Nick, what do you what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 51:09

Oh well, thank you, Amanda. Um I uh I gave us a three. I think that this is one of the strongest attributes of the film because I think uh they all play it very well, especially Christopher Plummer, who I mean for someone in their 80s to still do really high-caliber performances, pretty incredible. And this is actually nominated for a bunch of the Canadian Screen Awards as well. Like it won for screenplay, but he was nominated for that as well. I mean, I I liked um the act and I thought that they were they all did a great job. Gene Norris always plays the son of a bitch really well, and you know, I just I don't know why. Anytime he's in anything, he steals the movie or the show, whatever he's on. Yeah, and he's in like everything. I feel like he's one of those actors where he's probably gonna be on at one point by Letterboxd most watched actor, just because he pops up everywhere. And I like, I mean, they all are really solid, and I think a Goan's a good filmmaker. Is it his best film? No, not at all. It does what it needs to do for this category. So a three. So we're all positive on this one. So great. So we did the acting and direction category. Next up, we are going to do the visual and technical elements. So this includes things like cinematography, editing, music, special effects. If any of those apply, we're gonna let Amanda start off this category. Amanda, what's your uh take on this?

SPEAKER_06 52:39

So I think for this one, the music was really doing a lot of the work for me in this film. I th I it was helping to to ratchet up the tension a lot when there's certain scenes, especially the the whole scenes with Dee Norris that we were talking about in the last category. I think that really that the classical music that they have that's kind of a refrain throughout, really helps to enhance that tension. When the cop is looking through his his bag and looking at his letter at the at the Border Patrol, you have these kind of really heightened strings in classical music. And that also was a huge theme throughout the film, with the fact that Deb plays piano, and and that's also mentioned um in the film as well. So I for me kind of the music was the strongest part of this category. Um, but I'm curious what stood out to my co-hosts.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

I thought it was a well-edited film. I mean, the way that they did the the continuity between scenes, even though we were talking about the continuities, but in terms of the storytelling, is is kind of uh shaky at best. I thought it actually had this invisibility to it that I think it actually helped it flow well because it's only a 90-minute movie. I mean, that's the included the the credits. So I think from that perspective, it actually did a really wonderful job.

SPEAKER_04 53:55

Yeah, I I don't know, it just didn't stand out to me in any which way or form, if anything. I feel like the score sounded a little hammy at the end. It just felt like it went a little over the top. Like, look at this dramatic ending with the picture on the desk. It just felt a little bravado-y to me. But other than that, like it just seemed like it just was, it just exists, like it didn't blow me away in any way. Like I didn't feel like we had an environment or a mood that we needed to release set. It was just kind of one of those quiet, slow boil kind of movies. And like that just it reminds me of like movies like Broken Flowers, where it just it just you know takes its time and paces, and you know, it just it is what it is. So it didn't really stand out to me either way with you know anything involving cinematography or score or anything like that. It just existed.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Is that the Jim Charmoush movie with uh Bill Murray?

SPEAKER_04 54:42

Bill Murray, yep.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

Oh, that movie's 20 years old. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 54:45

Oh god, don't start doing that.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

You just reminded me, Caitlin.

SPEAKER_04 54:51

It reminds me all the time, the slow march of time.

SPEAKER_03 54:55

Empire Records from 1995.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

We won't say how old that is just because we want to make sure Caitlin doesn't, you know, ha have one of those moments outside where she's like, oh my god, what year are we in?

SPEAKER_04 55:09

I was broke in my wheelchair.

SPEAKER_06 55:11

I forgot what year we were in after 2020.

SPEAKER_03 55:13

Yeah, she's not so old that she can't do math.

SPEAKER_04 55:16

Actually, I always have been. That's the trick.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

I think the music is kind of sparse. I mean, I I think that to me, I don't think we talk about the scene, but there was that scene where you see a go in um film from afar, like with the doorway, and you see Christopher Palmer's sh uh sev uh play the piano because that's what he what he did. And I thought that that was actually a pretty tender moment in the film because you know that must be really hard when you're an artist or you do something like that, especially with your hands, or that deals with memory, and you can't physically or mentally do it anymore. But I thought that was really nice. It kind of led a little bit of tension out of the narrative for a couple minutes. I didn't really notice the music though, honestly, though.

SPEAKER_05 56:03

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

But maybe, but maybe I wasn't paying attention either. I mean, I I couldn't understand him, so like what like who am I to say?

SPEAKER_06 56:10

I well, that it was the thing I noticed the most because I just there weren't any, as Scanlin was saying, hugely cinem cinem cinematic moments in terms of the cinematography for though there were a couple shots at the end when they're in in the last house, um, kind of the camera's looking through the piano at different points as he's like bending down to get the gun in his in his pouch and things. I thought those were those were really nice shots. But yeah, I just I didn't see a lot of really big cinematography moments in this, so that's why the music I think was really the thing that stood out.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

So cinematography stood out to me because emphasizes like themes of isolation or loneliness or these empty like landscapes that he tends to put in his movies, and I feel like he puts a lot of wide angles or wide shots to kind of show the space more. And I feel like I'm trying to remember the movie. Wow. I said I didn't even mean that as a joke, I was really trying to remember the boofy. I I think a lot of the shots from my memory, I'm trying not to say the title, goddamn it, is uh from afar at some point. So you're trying to see he's just this person in this empty landscape, and even the places he goes to, it's in the middle of nowhere, like Idaho and Ontario, and where else was it offhand? It was like like Lake Auto. Yeah, Reno.

SPEAKER_06 57:33

Yeah, Reno. The but the the the sound, yeah, that was really interesting. The last hotel he was at where he just is completely tuning out the woman at the desk because he's just I think that's the point where he's kind of breaking a little bit from doing all this and physic because his body just can't handle it. And I thought that was a great and a really cool effect as well to just show that in a in a sense where we could hear it as well.

SPEAKER_01 57:59

So well, it's all very naturalistic, I would argue. I mean, the way that they kind of put the shots together and kind of like show the visual elements of the film, it it is kind of I don't want to say it's it's invisible because I I said that about the editing, but I think it's there, it's just it's more muted. Um did you guys pay attention? Like to I I don't know why my brain thinks like this when watch a movie is like the color palette. Did you guys pick up on any colors that like stood out to you guys while watching this?

SPEAKER_03 58:28

Oh, not really.

SPEAKER_04 58:29

No, I don't think so. That's usually what sways my vote on cinematography, if it's really pretty, if it's lit really brightly, if there's an eon in it. I don't remember like anything really striking me is unless like you want to like consider the outside scenes, like when he's outside with the guy with the gun, like it's like that was a really nice sunny day that day. Like for some reason that stands out in my head as being very bright and well like well shot for satellite, I guess.

SPEAKER_06 58:55

But the house is beautiful too. Yeah, gorgeous house.

SPEAKER_04 59:00

Yeah, but aside from that, like not really, it didn't really seem to be very colorful. If anything, like uh the scene Darren has in the background with Dean Norris, it's very like old man house kind of feeling. They get the plan.

SPEAKER_06 59:12

Very dark, too. Yeah, that added a little bit more, I think, of the vision. And the I mean, uh obviously all the horrible Nazi regalia, the fact that they got all that for film or created it or however they they came about it, you know.

SPEAKER_04 59:25

That's one of the things I was reading too, is like this movie was made in 2015, and only a year later it would seem much more relevant than it did in 2015. I was like, oh, ouch.

SPEAKER_01 59:34

The colors I picked up on were muted colors because it's a really uh desaturated palette, I would kind of argue, because it's beige, it's gray, it's brown.

SPEAKER_04 59:44

And even the colors like even the last house with the piano, like that's very same colors as the Dean Norris house. Like it's all all the houses he goes to pretty much are very dank and dark and blech.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

I see. I think that represents two things that I'm going back to Nairvelements. I think it's like of a yet of an other time periods. Like even when you go to Dean Norris's house, like in Darren's picture, it feels like almost like the 70s or 80s.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:10

It doesn't feel yeah like the 2010s, and even sepia, like sepia photographs when you're looking at like old, old photographs. That's what it reminds me of.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

Yeah, it has that the untimeliness to it. And I don't and I know that's the wrong word to probably use, but it just has this um uh luster to it, but it's this like dark colors, and uh that the reason why I'm thinking about like this brown, beige, and uh gray colors is like the film is dealing with a very dark and disturbing topic with the Holocaust, but also that kind of represents the psychological aspects to these characters, especially Sev, who is d doing this to avenge the murder of his family. So his whole life is like gray and brown and dark, and you know, those are not uplifting.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:58

Even the nursing home, too, like where Martin Landau is, it's very dark and dank. And when if he first wakes up in the movie in his room, like it's kind of dark and not well lit. Like everything's just kind of depressing and dank and blah.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:09

But I did like the misdirect for that in the beginning because it even though it is, you know, confined to one room um and it's and it's a little and it's a little darker, it also looks it's very home-y inside, so it was very jarring for him to open the door and it be this hospital hallway. I I wasn't expecting that at all. So I so I thought that that was a great misdirect in the beginning.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:32

I always thought that I I thought that like with well, I mean, I've seen I've ever seen one in person. I don't think so. I've I think I've only seen them in like TV shows and movies, so like maybe it's not realistic, but I always thought that like nursing homes throughout are made to look kind of like a home. Because like if you have a person who's struggling and they leave their room and it looks like a hospital, like that would be jarring. You wouldn't expect it to be like nice wallpaper and carpet and blah. So I think I'm actually thinking of the TV show Dead to Me, where that that like nursing home really looked like like a house, like a very big, carpeted, beautiful upholstered house. So I feel I always feel like they're supposed to look like that. So I don't know if the one in this movie is realistic or not, or if that's just supposed to show the vast difference between the two worlds. I don't really know how that works. So I've watched I've seen both. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:16

Yeah. So that's why I was thinking when watching this movie, is it a fever dream? Uh because the way that we could maybe see the color palette is maybe it could be a metaphor for his deteriorating mental condition, like the dementia that he's experiencing, because it's all melancholic. And then you kind of mentioned something, Caitlin, that I think is really important. Uh, and I don't think we mentioned this, but a lot of the locations for this film are places that usually have people in it. So you see nursing homes, you see train stations, hotels, airports, places where people occupy and shared spaces within communities and both public and in private, with you know, like a nursing home or uh a house or a hotel or whatever. But it's just really interesting how uh they do that as well, and like the contrast between these color palettes and the way that they're shot, like from a lighting perspective, because it's almost like they're trying to show you like one and then the other, like this radical difference between the the two.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:26

Yeah, it kind of feels like it could have been, and obviously it wasn't because it was too early for that, but it could have been a COVID movie because every scene is like two people or three people max. And maybe like, you know, that's why he's not getting caught when he's killing people because there's nobody else around. Like, and that could also lend credence to the whole like Twilight Zone feel, because it's usually just like the people who are in that episode and look, things are happening to them, you know, the guy who wakes up and everybody else in the world is dead but him. Like it just it's it's very isolated and alone and just kind of not natural feeling. And that's where I could definitely see, like, is this happening in his head? Because like you are in all these populated areas, and like, yeah, he's in like Idaho and stuff, but like there's people in Idaho. It's not like you know, he's in like a vast field where it's just him. Like, where are all the people? But like I probably didn't have a big budget for a lot of people, but you know, it's just it's noticeable.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

And what a I think when you were talking, Caitlin, I kept I thought of a way to kind of describe it. It's kind of cold and isolated.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:22

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:24

Like almost like uh just detached, maybe. Yes, because even his clothes, I mean, he wears like very plain jackets, he he's wears really comfortable clothes. I mean, for someone that is a badass uh hitman, like he's trying to be in this movie, he wears very normal clothes. I don't know, maybe it's just me. It just seems like it's very much hitted on, like I guess like a realism for for that, you know, to try to mirror our everyday world.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:53

But well, remember too, he's gotta have a very baggy overcoat because how else would you hide a gun on a train, several trains, and get away with it?

SPEAKER_06 1:05:00

It's in his toiletry bag, it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:03

I love that he carried that toiletry bag, by the way.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:07

But didn't he also steal um like Dean Norris's dad's clothing? He left just leaving a cop and his dog dead in the house and just taking the guy's father's clothes. It's fine.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:22

I mean, he did pee him herself on the couch. I mean so much DNA everywhere. What's Christopher Plumber supposed to do?

SPEAKER_06 1:05:30

Oh no. Oh my god, that seems so horrible, but it's also kind of really funny because it's not so implasable.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:40

What's that on the couch? Oh, never mind. No, I'm kidding. I was surprised you'd see like plastic on the couches. Like as a New Yorker, you know, when you would see grandparents forever with the this European test positive for Nazis.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:00

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:01

Umanda, what's your score for this category?

SPEAKER_06 1:06:06

I I will say I I and that's and that's why I appreciate doing this with y'all, because you did make me see a lot of things I did not see in this category before. So I but I I'm sticking by my score of a two because I just I thought the music really did a lot of the heavy lifting for for me. But I but I do appreciate that there were a lot of LN maybe I missed um in this in this category. So um, but Nick, we'll go to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:32

I texted Darren right before this. I literally did. I was full on giving this a two because it was probably the weakest category. But again, that Adam McGowan made me think again, and I had to sit down and reflect on it, and I said to myself, I can't give this a two because there are some good things that are going on here in terms of the color palette, the uh editing, the cinematography. And I think it does reflect the themes of the film, so that's why I gave it a three. Of the four, it is by far the weakest. If I had to pick one, but I think it is going for something here. Um, but uh that's my score. Caitlin, what's your score for this category?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:14

This is one of those that's gonna sound a lot harsher than I mean it to, but I gave it a one, and that's because, like, again, I felt like it really didn't stand out for me. I mean, maybe I would have changed it now, talking about all of the colors that we just spent like 20 minutes talking about. But no, I would still stick to one because I feel like while watching the movie, it needs to make an impression on me, and it didn't. And I feel like the best that like a movie like this could have done is probably the score because it's just kind of a quiet, meditative, it is what it is kind of movie. And the score kind of annoyed me at the end. Like I said, it was too hammy for me. So yeah, I gave it a one because I felt like it was either not at all there, or when it was there, it was a little too much there, so it didn't hit at all for me. So yeah. Darren, what did you give it?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:00

Okay. Uh uh, these elements weren't a highlight for me, as there isn't much being done here that I can't see in a standard made-for-streaming movie. They also weren't glaringly awful, so I'm giving it a two.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:13

And I'm gonna ask our host a serious question before I go to category four, because I think I wonder this sometimes. When we talk about the movie, each category, do you guys feel like you know you could change your scores? So you feel one thing when you watch a movie, because we submit our scores to Darren before, but while we're talking, do you sometimes feel like I'm low ball on this or I'm marking this too high? Like Catholic guilt, essentially, or do you just like screw it? I like what I like, and I'm just sticking to my guns. Because I'm genuinely curious about this.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:46

Sometimes I mean, like, I feel like this one I legitimately feel like if I could have changed it for cinematography, I might have, but I'm still sticking to the whole like I want to go with what I feel in the moment because like generally speaking, most movies, I'm not a re-watcher. I've seen it, I've seen it, I move on to the next life is short, and I want to see as many movies as I can before I die. So, like, if I don't get gripped in the moment by the cinematography, the music, the acting, then I'd want to stick to what I felt in the moment. And like some movies, of course, you come back to them years later for whatever reason, even though like I don't re-watch. But sometimes like something happens and you end up re-watching something and it totally moves you in a different way. Then I would probably change my scores. But I like to stick to the ones that I have because I like to go with what I felt in the moment.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:27

I do think for this particular one, I could have I could have changed maybe for for a couple, but it but I I it has happened with these films that I've gone back and forth between like a point for for a couple of these categories. And it and it happened in in in this episode, I think it also happened when Nick gave a very impassioned uh spiel for Sharper last time. So there are definitely a few moments where I was like, teeter in between the two, three years. I I agree with Kaylin. I like doing stuff in the moment, but also when people give me more to think about, and especially people who've watched um a Goan films before give more context. I think that's helpful for me to think. Okay, well, I could have probably tweaked this to be a little high or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:14

I am the only person on earth who has really been that impassioned by Sharper. I mean, like I don't know if they uh if you exist, please add us because I I gotta know and meet you and you know figure that all the stuff out in life. I feel like this is our support group too for that. We're all in therapy after that movie or the lovers. Oh my god, they didn't know therapy in that movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:36

My name is Nick, and I really liked Sharper.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:39

Hi, Nick. I wish I was Sharper, god damn it, with my articulate thoughts on that movie. Um, I think for me, I feel like that's part of why I like the movie club so much that I run, because I feel like even when I'm introducing the movie, I let you guys all talk. I always hear different things that I did not pick up on or I didn't think was as important, or I don't know. So to me, sometimes when I'm evaluating a movie, I think to myself, but did I give this a too high of a ranking or too low? And I think it's just you know, sometimes you just gotta call it a day two and be like, that'd just stick it to my rating. But yeah, I feel like killing of a sacred deer after that. I was like, that was our longest episode by far, and I gave one of it a two. And I think to myself, if I had given it a higher score, it would have been gold or essential. So, like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:35

That was all your fault.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:36

It all rests on your shoulders. Yorgos is just gonna kill me in one of his next movies.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:40

So like a sacred deer. That was a hard one. Yeah, that was that was one of the ones that was gonna that I would have been totally fine with had it been had it been essential.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:49

Sorry to take that detour. I just I was genuinely curious because I feel like this movie, as we're talking, I feel like in the room we're all kind of thinking, okay, do we maybe rank it too low? Uh one of the categories. So I'm just genuinely curious.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:01

Yeah, this is keep an open mind.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:03

Yeah, this is like the only time I feel like I would have honestly maybe change it, but generally, yeah. I and plus two, like if I feel like I'm gonna change it, I don't usually want to change it by much. It's like, oh, so it would be a two instead of a one. So, like, what difference does it really make? It's not like I'm like, oh, we talked about it. I went from a one to a five. That will never happen, I promise you. Never.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:23

No, no, no, that's not logical.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:25

No, it's like, oh, I was totally understanding this movie completely incorrectly. No, no. And if I was, well, then the movie did a horrible job of telling me what it was.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:35

Thank you guys. I just I wanted to ask because that's sort of been on my mind for the last couple of episodes. Let's go to our final category, which is the cultural and uh social relevance. So these are just things about like timely issues, diversity, inclusion, representation, aspects like that. So I'm gonna start this category by saying that it's obviously a film about the Holocaust, so I don't want to get too much into that. I thought it was really interesting of how it represented advanced age in relation to the Holocaust. And I thought that's what was actually kind of unique about this film because it's focused on dementia, declining health, and aspects like that that make the story seem somewhat urgent to tell the story if they were gonna do it in this context, because this is someone who's more near the end of his life than at the beginning. So I don't know if you guys saw it uh from that perspective.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:27

I thought that besides acting, the acting categories, this was probably one of the stronger ones for this film. Uh just alone with I know we just mentioned the lovers, but something, you know, uh a film's focusing on an old older people going through, you know, issues in life, very different, obviously, than the lovers, but you know, facing facing issues, you know, uh all the same. And I though we talked about this in the first category in terms of the treatment that Plummer gets throughout this film because of his age. I thought that that was a really interesting element, though it didn't seem like everyone was being way too nice to him and giving him all these passes. It also, as Darren was saying, would make sense for somebody at that at that particular age. And, you know, just the idea too about how the Holocaust permeates everyone's lives in this film, uh, between the people that he he is going to uh with with the intention of killing to to you know, Max making this whole elaborate plan, just how it permeates every aspect of of these people's lives, um, and still and still haunts them uh to this day, I I think was was something also that was very, very prevalent throughout, and and just the the Jewish representation as well, and terms of the the Shiva for Ruth in the beginning and and things like that. So I think there was a lot of really really good kind of cultural and social elements taking place here that we haven't really gotten, I feel, as much in some of the other films we've done.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:02

Well, you know what it is, Amanda, because you kind of touched on it a little bit, but I think that's what helps make it stand out a little. It's more like the aftermath of the Holocaust. So this is not just the late 40s or in the 50s, this is like 60 years after it happened, 70 years. So it's this idea that you know it's really about how trauma permeates and persists throughout generations and throughout history. And I thought that that was actually something that made me think that that was kind of unique because I'm sure there's other films out there that are kind of doing something similar. Uh, but I I thought that that was actually kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:43

And it's it's giving people agency too, though, to try to, you know, uh right right the wrongs. I think that's the whole thing, too, is just giving these older people this ability to, you know, try to take control of their lives at a time where probably their lives are the least in their control because of their lack of independence, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:03

I think in relation to age too, we were talking about the dementia aspect to it. Um, but I think that I mean, Ogoen produced another film about Dementia. I don't know if you guys have seen Called Away from Her. That was a really great movie with Julie Christie and Sarah Polly directed it. But I thought that that was kind of interesting because O'Goen was one of the producers or consultants on the film. He worked on it somehow. And I I thought it was really interesting that he went back to Alzheimer's and dementia as a theme here. I was also, well, I'll just say um something that else I thought was kind of interesting is how the post-war identities of these people, where they start and where they end up. So, like the character I don't think we mentioned yet, that's I thought was among the most interesting rubies is the one that was in Ontario. And he said that you know, he could have been the Nazi, and then you find out that he, because of his arm and the the inscription, that he was gay, and you know, so it obviously could not have been him. Or it kind of rules him out. So I think it's really interesting, like how that character immigrated from Nazi Germany to Ontario, or these other characters end up in different places. So I don't know if you guys thought that that was kind of interesting as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:20

Yeah, no, that scene was definitely moving. And I think like the more we talk about it, the more there was actually a lot of representation in this movie that like you don't really realize at the at the surface, because like we said, like they represented you know, homosexuals, they represented older people, not to be a token black guy, but there is a black person in the movie. Like they they tried to touch on a little bit of everything to not make it just like this movie about this white guy and his white friend. Like, there are you know elements to it that you might not necessarily see in another movie, and I did definitely appreciate the fact that it was from you know the perspective of an elderly guy, and like what would you do if you had you know not a lot of time left and you could possibly get revenge for this? I think in that part of it was kind of realistic, even the method wasn't exactly believable, maybe perhaps, because I keep trying to imagine, like, well, I keep trying to imagine a real person with dementia, like how would it have ended differently? And I think my brain just won't let me do it because it's just so disturbing. So I just can't go there. So I can't like imagine, well, actually, it would have happened this way. No, I can't, I can't do it. But I think like between, you know, having all the things I'd mentioned before and then having somebody who has dementia and just you know, exploring that aspect of it, I think they did a really good job with representing a lot of different types of people in the little bit of runtime that we had.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:33

Yeah, yeah. But what makes it kind of interesting is that it's also raising this question of how do you avenge this type of justice for crimes against humanity? And like what is right and what is wrong? You know, I'm trying to say in terms of asking the audience, you know, these broader questions about how do you prosecute people who commit war crimes or genocide or atrocities against individuals, you know, it like even if you don't kill them, does it does they're always gonna be a state of melancholy or not like they they they feel the guilt every day is what I'm trying to say. So I don't know. Um, I don't have any answers to everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:14

I think it's because one dead Nazi at a time.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:16

Yes. I think it's because like you can't really heal from it. Like you can even like in this kitchen situation, like he can go and kill the guy who like killed his family or whatever, and like it's not gonna bring them back, it's not gonna kill, like, it's not gonna go back in time and make sure the Holocaust never happens. It was such a horrible atrocity that there's just it's like throwing a cup of water into the ocean, like there's no way to make it feel better. So I think that's why it's a wellspring of ideas that people keep going back to for literally every year. There's another film made about it because there's so many different ways that you can present stories from it and just try and, you know, make it feel better. That sounds gross, but like you know what I mean. Like it's it's hard to get closure, I guess, basically, because it's just so huge and so monstrous. And like no matter what you do, it doesn't feel like you can make it any better. So even in this situation, like, sure, maybe he could get some retribution, but like at what cost? They're all old now. It's like they got away with this for 30, 40 years at this point. Like, yeah, even if you kill him now, he was able to live from from for argument's sake, what, 20, 30 years old to 80 years old? He's had a full life, he's had a family, he's a grandpa, like he's got a beautiful house. So he dies now. It doesn't really help you feel better. The guy's had a great life, quote unquote, since the war ended. So, like, what are you really accomplishing? That's why I think it feels so hollow and gross anyway. You can't really feel better.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:38

Like, that's that healing process of like a kind of um trying to uh closure. Yeah, absolutely. Closure is the right word, Aaron.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:48

Yeah. So yeah. Which I guess Max gets sort of at the end of the film for for what for what transpired and happened ultimately.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:59

He does seem to have that uh lifted off of him at the end. Yeah, it's a it's a very familiar theme, especially when it's coming to like avenging the Holocaust or related crimes, especially anti-Semitic crimes. Another movie that's very uh reminiscent of this movie is uh Munich. Very similar themes. So it just it it it happens quite a lot. There's almost every year there's a movie about you know hunting down Nazis, and there was a show on Amazon Prime about a team that was hunting down Nazis. It's like you know, it's just a very common theme in a movie, and uh it's been done before, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:39

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think this might be something to consider for the film is just how it portrays um these ideas of trauma and memory and identity. I was kind of agreeing with Caitlin when I was thinking about this. It's kind of like um, you know, you lived a full life essentially, so like why now? Like, like why? But I mean, we gotta have a movie. We we and it's called Remember. So, you know, yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:11

So I guess maybe I guess maybe there's some solace in the fact that like you decided how his life ended, and he didn't just die naturally, like you took the rest of his life away from him, even if it was gonna be one to five years left. Like he doesn't get to have that because like screw him kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:26

You take his agency away.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:28

Yes, yes, you reclaim control.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:31

Just like he took away your families, yep, or Max's family, honestly.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:35

Well, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:38

Yeah, absolutely. Um was there anything else we wanted to talk about with this category? Okay, I'll go first for the raid in. I think this was the strongest category because it deals with uh the Holocaust, deals with trauma, grief, uh dementia. I think all really important themes uh in our society and culture and history. So I gave it a four. I thought that uh the the the it touched on a lot of things that I think um it did really well on. And it's not a perfect film, so I don't want the listeners to think that the higher scores are I mean, and that it's not flawed. There's a lot, especially to the story. But um I think what it's going for is really interesting. Amanda, what's your score?

SPEAKER_06 1:23:21

I gave it a three. This was the second, uh, really the second highest or so for me, and um after the acting. And yeah, I agree with Nick. I think just it's tackling uh such a big issue, like the aftermath of the Holocaust in a very unique way. Um it's it's giving representation to a lot of groups that we may not otherwise see in films, um and keep great showcases for older actors. And yeah, it as as Nick was saying, even though it's not a perfect movie, I I think it did really really well to represent a bunch of different things in this category. So give it a gave it a three. Um Darren, what about you?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:04

Um sadly, I think stories about hunting down criminals who committed crimes against humanity in the name of their government will always be a relevant theme in every period of history, and this movie handled that very well. Issues related to dementia are handled less delicately, but not in a way I would describe as poor taste. Uh the themes of revenge and justice are a bit murky as well, so I'm gonna give this the middle range score of three. Kaelin, you're up.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:29

Alright, so you might be surprised by my answer, but I gave it a five. And I don't think that I I think pretty much it's an amalgamation of both what Nick and Amanda said. So I think my five does not mean that it is a flawless movie. It is not perfect. I gave it a five because of all the representation that it had in it. So, yes, all the things that I said before, you don't really see that in a movie like altogether, usually. And I unfortunately think, like Darren said, movies about Nazis and such will always be color culturally relevant because the argument is made that if we don't learn history, we're doomed to repeat it. But so, yes, unfortunately, I think that it could not be more relevant, and that's why I gave it a five. Not because it's perfect, but because it has a lot of important things to say, even if I don't necessarily agree that it said them well.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:19

I think that's our only five for the entire thing, right, Darren?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:23

Yes, that's correct. It was the only five that this movie review received from any of the four viewers in any of the four categories.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:30

Wow. I'm shocked by that. I did not expect that. So this is why I do the show still, because I'm like always on the edge of my seat with our radiance sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:40

I shocked myself because I was teetering. I'm like, do I? I'm like, no, like you can't you can't say in this year of our Lord 2026 that a movie about Nazis isn't relevant. Like, I have to give, like, it can't be more relevant. Like, I had to give it a five.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:55

Well, I'm just shocked that Kaelin remembered that five was an option for any scores.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:03

So much shade.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:07

Oh, uh that's why we love each other because we give each other shit. So we finish out our four categories, and Darren, it's your turn to tell us how we did in terms of the rankings and whether it's A24 Essential or A24 carat gold.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:27

Based on the combined ratings for all four categories and the fact that no reviewers gave the film a total score of 16 or higher, remember is not viewed by the reviewers of this podcast to be an A24 carat gold essential film, which requires three out of four reviewers meeting the threshold of 16 points or higher. Nick gave it a combined score of 13. Amanda, Darren, and Kalen each gave it an 11, giving it an average score of 11.5, which qualifies it for the second highest grade of almost essential or silver. Overall, Remember is the fifth highest rated film of the six films reviewed so far with a total score of 46 positioned between Sharper, which scored 47 total points, and The Lovers, which scored 37. The highest rated film overall remains Moonlight with a score of 77, and the second highest film is The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which has a score of 61. The film ranks as the fourth highest rated film for Nick, finishing between The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Eternal Daughter. It ranks as the fourth highest rated film for Kalen, ranking between Sharper and The Eternal Daughter. And it ranks as the fifth highest rated film for both Amanda and Darren, in between in both cases, ranking between The Lovers and Sharper.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:45

I'm I'm kind of surprised it was that high, quite frankly. I thought it was gonna be lower for some reason.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:50

I'm honestly shocked that three of us got an eleven despite having vastly different scores.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:54

I think Christopher Palmer sold us, guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:56

Um that five carried a lot of weight on Your score. Actually, that's probably why I qualified for silver. If that had been a three, I don't think it would have qualified.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:07

Is that crazy, Kaylin?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:09

That is crazy, but I'm sticking to my five.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:13

Oh, it needed to be a two. Uh, okay. Yeah. So it would have been exactly 11 and qualified if it had been a three.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:22

Yeah. Wow. Uh any thought at any other thoughts on that? Because I I honestly thought the scores were gonna be m more towards the bottom of the overall rank. And so that uh that's why I'm always impressed by that.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:37

Fourth or fifth. There's definitely a tier break between Moonlight and the killing of a sacred deer and everything else. But uh yeah, it's kind of running even. It's not quite as low as the lovers, but it's uh it almost caught sharper.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:49

If anything ever the lovers, I'm gonna I'm I don't know. I feel like the lovers will consistently be our bottom tier.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:57

I don't know about that, man. You know, A24 has gotta have some duds in there somewhere. 37 is a pretty good score. Yeah. Well, not not a pretty good score, but it could definitely be lower.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:08

Yeah, it could be lower. I think we we we crap on the lovers up. I think we actually kind of we didn't, I don't think all of us collectively hated it that much.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:17

Like the minimum score is 16. So there's plenty of uh there's 21 options that are below 37.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:25

So well, thank you, Derek, so much for that. I mean, I'm I'm always intrigued by the uh the scores and how we all shape them and how you know we just don't know where it lies. So, do you guys want to see what our next movie's gonna be for August? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:43

Yes, and hopefully, it's one we've heard of, please.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:47

Oh my god, no guarantee. So spin the wheel, let's make a deal.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:11

Oh wow, okay. That's the movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:17

That's a good that's a good reaction. That is a movie, all right.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:21

Oh yes. Oh, Gasper No Way. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:27

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:28

Oh, we are. I have not seen this movie. I have not seen this one.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:37

So you're kind of squeamish around horror films, right? You know, yeah, a little something a little bit more nastier and more gruesome than a horror movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:49

This is gonna be fun for me. But Amanda, so I mean, that just seems uh not up our alleys, or especially yours, but the good thing is it's only $2.99 to rent on Amazon.

unknown 1:31:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:02

I would actually really be excited to revisit this because I remember when I first watched it, I was getting a headache, and by the end I had a migraine. So, like, I think if I watch this without a headache, I might get like I mean I enjoyed it. It's a hell of a movie, but I would like to watch it without a blistering migraine at the end of the movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:21

Uh the good thing is I think it said it's only like 95 minutes or yeah, it's short.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:25

Yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:26

Okay. That's not true.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:27

It impacts a bunch. I don't I don't think even he would try and make two hours out of this type of story.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:33

I did forget to say before I spend the wheel that the death of Robin Hood and the invite were added to the wheel. So, in case if you're wondering, when we recorded this episode, those are the two most recent additions.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:47

I will definitely say climax feels like an A24 movie. Finally, for the first time in like months, we have one that feels like an A24 movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:55

Yes. I'm looking forward to it. I've I've always wanted to see it though.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:59

I am super curious to see if this one ends up essential because I feel like if you talk to A24 nerds, they would say that it is, but I'm super curious as to what our maths is.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:08

We are a funny bunch. So yes, listeners, we're gonna be doing uh climax from 2018 uh for our August episode, and I'm looking forward to uh what we think of it. Thank you guys so much for uh doing this episode with me on Remember, a movie that I can't believe we've been recording for almost two hours, but it was a good one. I think we had a really solid conversation on that movie. So thank you guys for that. Thank you again to our listeners for checking out this episode. If you would like to follow us at A24Gold, Carrot Spelled Out, you can follow pretty much any social media platform, so many to name, but some of the big ones are Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Blue Sky, and Threads. And if you feel compelled to do so, support our Patreon with that same handle to help independent podcasters like us. While you're at it, if you could feel compelled to do so, leave us a rate and or review of this episode or really any episode in our archive. We just an episode on AI and A24, which you should definitely listen to if you haven't already. It's only a half hour. That also helps people discover the show and all the content that we do for A24 Carat Gold. And with that said, thank you again to Darren, Kaelin, and Amanda for joining me tonight. And thank you to our listeners once again for checking this episode out. We'll catch you all next one.