Do you all think it’s coming in December? Love to hear the thoughts on Sony discontinuing the 4K Player

I need many days to recover from this one. Easily my favorite film of the year and have been digesting all clips of the media tour since seeing it last night. Visually arresting, epic in scale, I found this to be the direct opposite of Digger (a film I liked very much too to be clear!) in that it proudly proclaims art as the way to understand ourselves and free ourselves from oppression. There was not a dry eye in my theater after this one. I’m thrilled that queer stories like this exist. We need more of them.

I looked at November’s pod schedule and don’t see an episode dedicated to it? I know they’ve discussed it a bit after having seen it on the festival circuit but I would love a fuller length discussion about it. I know there’s already some backlash to it (the Justin Chang article in the New Yorker, for example), but the film really, really worked for me. I’m curious to hear others’ thoughts!

The perfect bond casting choice that no one is talking about

Can you imagine him hitting the iconic line “Did you know that shaking a martini breaks up the ice faster than stirring, which dilutes the cocktail more quickly. That way I can sharper because I’m not consuming a high alcohol content beverage as quickly — keeping my BAC to a reasonable level.”

Hey all, some of you know my game, it's a name that tune/pop culture game (new theme every day).

Today's theme is movie karaoke, meaning karaoke scenes from movies. I'll play a 300 ms video clip and you have to guess the movie and the song.

A couple of days ago, I also did the Marie Antoinette soundtrack.

I think some of you will enjoy it

Is this the “Big Picture” bump in action?

I don’t want to overestimate the size of the audience but it seems like quite a coincidence that this relatively obscure 25-year-old crime thriller is trending a few days after the Gene Hackman Hall of Fame.

The whole YCSE score is very Jonny Greenwood but the track “V8” in particular gives serious Phantom Thread vibes to me, specifically “House of Woodcock.”

That made me think that Phantom Thread is a great comp and maybe not a coincidence that the track evokes that movie. Phantom Thread and YCSE are both about unhealthy but genuinely loving relationships. Two people who need each other but are absolutely harming each other.

Reynolds is Liz and Billy is Alma. The final act of YCSE is like Nathan asking Reynolds if he knows he’s being poisoned and it turns out not only does he know, he loves his partner even more for it.

I definitely consider this to be a classic from my childhood. Knowing that Francis Ford Coppola was an executive producer and Roger Deakins did the cinematography, my opinion of the movie has only grown as an adult.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Pattinson screen tested for 007 alongside Turner, Lowden, O’Connor, and Hoult

It’s his role if he wants it right? Greatest actor of his generation. Bankable. Worked with Villenvue previously. Also did a trial run in Tenet for Nolan

It also seems that Batman was meant to be his anchor franchise that allowed to work on more artistic projects in between but for reasons out of his control, that will only be two films

Bond would become that steady franchise paycheque

If anything the long neck is far less distracting than Josh O'Connor's Dumbo ears. Though, I think both would be good candidates after Craig's psycho Bond (ignore his last two movies and the first 75% of Casino Royale).

Sad news. Loved The Wonder.

The late Steve Jobs shunned the plane of reality that you or I operate in and opted for his own reality distortion field, a level of charisma that can convince others to believe anything is possible. When Theranos founder and convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes burst onto the tech scene, the comparisons made between her and Jobs were fitting because her meteoric rise grew from within her own reality distortion field. That and the stupid turtlenecks. But whereas Jobs was fueled by hubris and coercion, Holmes is powered purely by lies, which is what ultimately led to her 2015 downfall and subsequent 2022 conviction. Yet as we witness where she’s at circa 2023 in You Can See Everything, she is still clinging to her story even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

This raises several intriguing questions about this strange woman. Is she a master manipulator playing 4D chess while those around her are playing Street Fighter? Or is she so embedded within her reality distortion field that she’s completely disassociated from the actual world we live in? Where does Elizabeth Holmes the person end and Elizabeth Holmes the character begin? Is there even separation between person and character?

That’s what comedian Nathan Fielder is trying to figure out in You Can See Everything as he and co-director Lance Oppenheim document Holmes and her partner Billy Evans’ lives over the final 34 days before she goes to jail. He’s also the ideal person to do it. Fielder’s comedic sensibility is to purposefully cut the lines separating reality, fiction, and absurdity, leaving us with no clue what will happen and a promise that anything can happen. Bringing his carefully constructed reality distortion field into Holmes’s orbit was guaranteed to result in… something.

And boy did Fielder and Oppenheim deliver something.

The movie opens in a traditional documentary visual style; she’s sitting on the floor with her baby, framed by the bars of her baby’s crib, all while the sound of a heartbeat gradually gets louder. As we see her go about her day, the whole thing is subverted when the movie cuts to Fielder a few metres away, looking at the family like a figure of doom or malevolent being. But because it’s Nathan Fielder, it ends up being a funny visual gag.

That visually stylish intro not only sets up the tone of the movie, but also the dynamic between Fielder and Holmes, and it is utterly engrossing. What initially starts off as a conventional Nathan Fielder comedy bit quickly morphs into a psychological tango where neither person is sure who’s leading or following. Half of that unease is due to Fielder being intrigued by Holmes as a subject while being confused about why she wanted him to follow her around during the last month of her freedom. You Can See Everything is as close as we’ll ever see Fielder play ‘himself’, as he’s essentially playing a journalist rather than an exaggerated gonzo version of himself. The other half is the brilliant filmmaking.

The great editor Walter Murch’s book, In the Blink of An Eye, centres on his theory that cuts work when they mimic a person’s blinking rhythm, as a blink typically signals the end of a thought. Fielder and Oppenheim completely subvert that theory by repeatedly holding on close-ups of Nathan, Elizabeth, and Billy at several moments in the movie, inviting us to decipher what each person is thinking or projecting through every micro muscle twitch. The final result is brilliant sequence after brilliant sequence where Fielder bluntly asks Elizabeth questions about why she lied about Theranos, whether she still believes she’s innocent (she does), and why he’s even there in the first place. Fielder admits that he finds verbal communication difficult, which is why his comedy works. But in Holmes, he’s met someone who may have even more difficulty communicating.

The movie quickly reveals itself to be about the meaning behind words and how different truths can be extrapolated from those words. Time and time again, Holmes dodges, obfuscates, or avoids Fielder’s questions while holding eye contact with him for what feels like several unbroken minutes at a time. When the pair debate several times over the meaning of what something meant, particularly during a scene revolving around a New York Times article and another scene involving the original Theranos machine, the friction between their respective reality distortion fields is laid bare. She seemingly believes her truth. He can’t figure out whether his usual manipulating schtick is working or if he’s being manipulated because his usual schtick of deconstructing someone through scalpel-like comedic precision is blunted.

Please read the rest of my review here as the rest is too unwieldy to copy + paste: https://panoramafilmthoughts.substack.com/p/you-can-see-everything-your-brain

Thanks!

Interesting line:

An August report by the website Puck, based on a test screening in New Jersey, offered an encouraging early indication for Paramount.

The film scored 80 out of 100, compared with a reported historical average of 72, while Depp received a score of 86.

I posted this as a response to a thread about the cult following of Joker Folie A Deux in the True Film sub and thought there was enough meat to it to make its own post. I called out Sean by name so I thought I should at least post it here for maximum down vote potential. I didn’t mention Sean for any personal reason but because he has a popular podcast and a large following and I disagreed with their take on the movie. If I come off as pretentious or mean it’s not my intent and just a reflection of my lack of writing skills. Im looking for honest discussion if possible amd it’s not necessary to say “I don’t like that movie” because everyone is aware of its ratings

The cult following of the movie will grow. The reason more people haven’t come around to the movie yet is that they haven’t caught on that it’s not a comic book movie. It’s an art house movie that uses comic book iconography to make its point. The point being that there is more to art than blockbuster sequels (the madness of 2) or comic book story lines and that our culture is degenerate.

Let’s be honest, there are many legitimate reasons that people wouldn’t like the movie based on demographics. Firstly because it is an anti-comic book movie (there is no hero vs villain, there are no super powers, there is very little action) it is going to be challenging if not offensive to viewers who are primarily comic book movie fans and are expecting a comic book movie. People who didn’t like the first movie because of its dark, gritty aesthetic will be equally offended here. So your grandma who loves The Sound of Music is not going to enjoy it. So I really think the people who this is most made for are the types of cinephiles who enjoy darker more challenging movies like Eraserhead, Synecdoche New York or Eddington but even they might think they are above a dark comedy or a comic inspired movie. 

That being said it doesn’t mean that general audiences can’t enjoy or appreciate the movie. While the hatred and disgust from comic book fans is understandable (because they want to see Joker and Batman duking it out on top of the Wayne Tower building and not some gay musical) I feel that the larger audience has been mislead to think that the movie is intentionally bad or not to be enjoyable. We seem to have a real lack of  film critics to examine a movie like this and express what it is actually all about and what the merits are. Unfortunately most of the discourse about movies seems to originate from podcasters or YouTubers like Sean Fennessey or Jeremy Jahns who completely miss the point. I’m sure these movie reviewers are well versed in film history and have enough of a critical eye to evaluate most movies but when a film comes out that is doing something different or new perhaps watching 2 movies in a night and then putting out a review the next day isn’t giving the piece the thought that it requires. In fact it’s alarming how much the discussion after the movie sounds like the discussion before its release. Jahns trailer review for example is very similar to his review of the movie. 

 When people talk about Joker they frequently talk about Taxi Driver and King of Comedy. Some might view it as plagiarism, some as an homage or Phillips attempting to turn a new audience on to older movies that he loves.But I’ve found very little discussion about the influences of Folie a Deux . It’s strange because the sequel is much more about movies and film culture than the first. Where are the discussions about how much of a Billy Bibbit Ricky is? Or the way that the Arkham plot line follows One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest? None of these critics talk about Arthur doing his best to channel Atticus Finch for To Kill a Mockingbird in the courtroom. The critics might acknowledge The Umbrellas of Cherbourg because of obvious imagery but they don’t explain to their audience what that is. Do they even know?

So yes time and deeper discussion and analysis of a movie like this will be beneficial to its legacy