Interpreting the Shining

Welcome to the Rue Oibles. I'm Bill Simmons. This is a special one. It's going to actually be a special summer for us. We're going do A from hell gimmick Um we're going to rip through bunch of my favorite dot, dot d from hellouse ' talking about the roommate from Hell We're talking about the tenant from hell talking about the little kid from Hell The nany from Hell. U theseese are some of my favorite movies. They're ridiculous They're just Perfect for the rewatchables. We can make fun of them, we can admire them talk about how campy they are talkalk about what they did right wrong And we're into a lot of them. And guess what Almost all of them are going to be on Netflix. So keep an eye out for it. Next week, we're going to be doing single way female, which is on Netflix, but a bunch of them will be on Netflix. We're going to be from hell at least through June and in part of July as well. So stay tuned for that comoming up. Me and Sean Fantasy got to do An entire rewatchables episode With the greatest living director we have Steven Spielberg It's the three of us. It's me Sean And Steven Spielberg and we're going to talk about two thousand one is Space Odyssey. I can cram it into the from hell gimmick by saying this is how the computer from Hell's a little bit of a reach to kick off from hell We'll do it that way. Anyway, this is u Really one of the great podcasts I've ever been a part of. Steven Spielberg was incredible. Can't wait for you to listen to it. Here it is, The reewatchables two thousand one of Space Odyssey The re Watchables is brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network. where you can find the big picture with Seaan Fantasy. Steven Spielberg, not on Ringer Podcast Network. this is like your second podcast ever, right? second podcast where there's a couple of cameras around ever. What do you think of this whole new world? Well, it's guess what? Radio's back We're gonna talk about one of your favorite movies ever, two thousand one, Space O of sea, which is the oldest movie I think we've ever done in the rewatch. by one year. Yeah. Rominia Mal steps into McDonald's L looks left sees Pulisick, looks right se Simenez, Gives a nod to Ronaldino in the corner with a FIFA World Cup meal Ronald Dinio sees Sun in the booth, Sun finds Beckham going for extra bigig Mac sas. He's got Dav's at the table just behind him. Davy's going for his collectible cup.! A steal byenri! Who pulls his own collectible cup? Collect one of nine legendary cups with a FFA World Cup meal. P participating McDal's for un limited time whilew suppies last Allrightes reserve twenty six McDald's FF Worup twenty six. You survived the Miami weekend nailed the speech, and maxed out your credit card in the name of friendship. Now you've got one hangover, four pastel dresses, and zero reasons to wear them again sell them on depot Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. And you at least get some of your dignity money back Someone on DepPop wants what you've got. Start selling now De pop where taste recognizes taste All right, so this movie is released april second, nineteen sixty eight. What are you doing Um, I'm in school believe I'm at Long Beach State in April Um semester is coming to an end Everybody's talking about This movie that is a drug tri The word around campus really surround myircles and I'm a teetoter. don't never done any of that at all. I smoked cigarettes for a year. That was the worst thing I did't college. So one year? Yeah, I quit, one year. and I quit. But but everybody was talking about this kind of like Roger Corman's the trip And and so the scuttlebt on campus was, this is trippy This is going to be like the trip. This is going to be like a really trippy film. So everybody was getting ready to Get into a car and go down to, I believe it was the Pantagious Theater. to see the film. So I think I saw the film probably the first week it opened. And I went with three or four of my college friends. We all piled into a car drove to Hollywood Crect me if I'm wrong it might have been the Pantages. It might have been another one of those big movie palaces. Yeah in nineteen sixty eight Parked walked like nine blocks to get to the theater Um G into a line because in those days there was no such thing as buying your tickets ahead of time And so we waited in line for a long time and everybody was being I looked around. Nobbody was smoking grass because there were cops up and down haollow j But when I walked into that theater and people started filling it up was Filled. with with smoke. It was just filled with smoke Was that common? I had never been to a movie where I smelled marijuana as thick as a London fog inside that movie palace Everybody was in the theater A lot of guys, not as many women, more men Everybody with long hair Everybody making a lot of noise I thought I wouldn't be able to hear the dialogue First of all, I didn't realize because the movie hadn't started yet that there was going to be very little dialogue. but it didn't matter. I was worried that there wasn't going to be room to hear the dialogue because everybody was making so much noise in the theater And then when the movie started and thus sppoke Var Zathustra started and it hits that Tremendous chord Shut everyverybody the F up Everyone just got completely quiet So as the music was decaying after that big explosive chord I was aware Everyone was still, it was kind of in itself before the film started mind blowing. And then what began, I think for a lot of people in that theater was a religious experience. U fueled by whatever they were on For me It was Not so much a religious experience but one of the most audacious films I had ever watched in my life The audacity and of course we all knew Kubrick and we all knew he was audacious the audacity and the risks he took. telling that story. If you could even call it a story set me back and I think you know, just rock my world for sure Be your career cinema world. Your career started next year Yeah, I got my contract to be a TV director at Universal the next year pretty good start. And it really is like a before and after with movies the sixty eight, right? L it feels like I remember you said in some interviews, Stehven that you thought this was like the big bang theory for a whole generation of filmmakers, but ye what was the before and after? Well, it's like that year is Planet of the Apes, Rosemary's Baby, Bullet, a handful of other like all time classics. I see them all a couple? Yeah. I see them all Yeah. what did you feel it in the moment? Did you feel like Something is changing about this thing that I love Yeah, I did. I didn't feel that way until after Stargate and which we'll get to But but after Stargate, I felt that nothing would ever be the same. Eespecially as you're watching people run out of the theater for death. But I'm watching the movie completely in a state of of, you know intoxication because Stanley intoxicated me Perhaps I was getting a contact high with all the smoke in the room. but I was completely intoxicated by what I experienced. and it wasn't a film. It was an experience It was the most expiential thing I had ever seen Since I was a little kid and got scared to death by the greatest show on Earth And then later by Bambi and then again by Snow White in reissues Well, what's crazy. It's fifty eight years old now It's all kind of banging. L when you think of like some of the other movies from back then feel like they happen in the sixties Yeah This is like, you know, it's obviously it's slow by today's standards and things like that, but for the most part, the special effects, the feeling of like being in space Just like is this what it's actually like to be in space? Like that could' have existed in a movie before. Also, you have to remember how big the screen was Mm hm. The screen was so big During Stargate, I just have to say that a person in the theater, several people in the theater, got up and started walking into the screen. And that was, by the way, and you could probably look it up in the LA Times. It was reported that people were walking into the screen in those days, at least in that theater. screens were like looouvers. They were vertical strips. of of reflected, you know, reflective material. And and a couple of the people in the film during Stargate reported to have walked actually into the screen appeared backstage. Did you find anybody was not feeling it or walking out? becausecause there was reports of it being divisive when it was released? No, because no everybody everybody I saw the movie with that day were all probably under thirty five years old. So I don't know anyone I wasn't I was unaware of it. Look, half the audience could have walked out and I would not have noticed. I I looked I looked dead center. Dead left to center, dead right of center because that was my field of vision and I was completely, you know I was completely magnetized by what was happening. Yeah, because there was a story when they when it had its big premiere They were counting how many people walked out. and it was like two hundred and forty one people. and the writer, Arthur Clark was there who worked on it with them. and he was like This is a disaster. this is devastating. people were what would saved this movie. Yeah, listen, a lot of people walked out of the sneak preview of Goodfellows. One of the greatest films I've ever seen and one of the greatest films, Marty's ever made. And yet, I didn't go to the preview, but Brian O Pala was there. and he just said there were a lot of walkouts in that because of the violence, but the movie went on to to become a piece of our collective history So you said Nobody could shoot a picture better in history than Kubrick Well, what context did I say that? I don't know. Okay No I't I don't want to for said it. I want to if I said it, I'm sure there was a context for saying it. I'm not sure it was a declarative statement. Well explain the shooting part, like what made him so special, like as you saw is different catalog Well, I think because Stanley in all the films, for one thing, he started out as as a photographer for Look Magazine So he had an audacious, rambunctious, ambitious eye and his compositions and his choices of what to show pictures to take already set him apart. I mean, if he wanted to become a W corresponded like Bob Cab, Robert Kappa, he could have become that too Um, but he turned that still eye into twenty four frames of stills a second and became one of the greatest, I think professors we've ever had my generation that always looked up to him as one of our greatest teachers. And what made him that way was he knew how to tell a story He knew how to tell a story unconventionally He knew how to shock the audience and he knew how to make them laugh. Dr. Strange Love is One of the greatest black comedies ever ever created for the screen And and with two thousand one of space Aen see, he was also He was also a wizard ologically, he was almost an engineer. hisis mind had a kind of OCD quality were when he focused in on something he was doing it for himself and we were the beneficiaries of whatever reason he was creating these incredibly advanced spacecraft that no one had ever seen before in anybody else's films craft alone were u kind of works of art I always felt. And those spacecraft Um,, especially the Jupiter mission craft. U is is what inspired Ralph McCorey and myself u to create the mothership in close encounters. inspired George Lucas with the the imperial st, you know, starship destroyer Yeah and included and certainly, certainly inspired Ridley Scott in creating the space traiter Nostromo These wouldn't have existed unless Stanley had come first Yeah it seems like the lesson is if you're going do this, we're going all out ike even in the research where they told him it would take them like thirteen years to to basically create this universe and have people do the painting. It's like, well, I'll get thirteen people and I'll take One year each know I'll be done in a year And it was just, I don't know who else was even like that in the sixties. Ite seemed like he had incredible patience and spent four years developing, writing and then making the movie long period of editing, which there's not a lot of information about the period of time when he was editing the film together and what it ultimately became, if you read about, first reaching out to Arthur C. Clark and the idea that he has for the movie, it changes a lot. Yeah in the progression. It does. And and I knew Arthur I had the honor of meeting and having lunch with Arthur C. Clark. when I shooting Indiana Jones to the Temple of Doom, we stopped, we were shooting in candy Sri Lank And and we stopped in Colombo before changing airplanes to fly back to the UK to continue shooting the film. He lived there for decadays. he he lived in the Bontanical Gardens where David Lina shot Bridge in the River KQuai And he invited us all to lunch at his house. and I had a great conversation with him about two thousand one of Space Odyssey. Wow. So He had the kind of filmmaking where he might take five years before he made his next movie. Y.. You're more prolific than that. is there's two typees of directions. I wouldn't call it prolific. I'm more impatient. Stanley was prolific. I was impatient. I just love telling stories and love I just if I get a story and it gets into my into my bananas, I just have to I just have to tell the story. I got to get it out. I I got to exercise this. So you never could have had the type of career where you would have spent four years between projects. You gone nuts. No I've spent three years between projects and I went a little nuts. but the great thing about that I went I went a little bit nuts, not directing, but I was raising a family and that was keeping me completely preoccupied so was okay So you You didn't actually talk to him until nineteen eighty I met him on the set of on the set of a shhining in nineteen eighty They had just finished dressing the big overlook hotel Grand grand grand room with with the double staircase. and the fireplace and the table with the typewrer on it, That That's when I first met him. Did he invite you to the set that would led you to going? Yeah, who reset the who? Yeah. No, what happened was I was about to make Raiders Lost Arc and I was going to build the well of the Souls on the same set that he had had already built The oververlook Hotel Yeah. And I was scheduled to move when he struck his set when he was done shooting with it, we were going to build our set And and so I was going to scout the set anyway. Stanley happened to be there doing doing his still photographs And he had a camera with a periscope lens and he had a tabletop model of the set that he was actually standing in when I first met him and Dou Douglas Twitty, our production manager brought me over Stanle's at Stanley's I asked to meet Stanley And Stanley said, yeah, he'd meet me. And when I met Stanley I was surprised he knew anything I had done and he just wanted to talk about Del The movie I made the TV movie I made with Dennis Weaver Truck chasing the car. Thankk you. And that's what he wanted to talk about. And then we didn't talk for long because he was busy, but he said, whyy didn't we we talk more? Come over to the house for dinner tonight? And so I got a chance to meet Christ Jan and Jan Harlan and Vivian and his daughters. And that was theginning beginning of our relationship. Seaan, you never claim him as a New Yorker I think most people mistakenly think. all you to do is through three speaking voice. Totally broad. mean he has he sounds like a WFAN caller. I mean, he really is It's an unusual thing because he's obviously looms over film history as this great intellectual and dynamic powerhouse. He really just is a fast talking New Yorker. Yeah. Yeah. What was the biggest thing you learned during all your conversations with him? just about him as a talent. Um Well, what I'd learned was he was a human being And I also learned he was not a recluse as he's so often been accused of. And and I think it's the most unfair thing about Stanley's reputation is that people think he's like Howard Hughes He never, you know he never left his house, didn't speak to people, didn't go out any anywhere. Stanley used the telephone, and Stanley used all kinds of means of communication. If Stanley had been born now, he would have reinvented the iPad and the iPhone to his needs. He would have bented toward his visionary needs I mean, you could argue he invented it in the movie. you know he of did. He sort of did. You know, but Stanle Stanley really, really was social in the sense that if you liked somebody's movie He would surprise a director and call him And just say, hi, it's Denna Kubick here. I just saw your picture. I loved it. Where'd you get the idea and start a conversation Was he the number one holy shit this guy likes my movie director? Be like you're that now. He was the number one holy shit that guy lokves my movie director. And I'll tell you the story. just qu quickly as Albert Brooks was a friend of mine. called me up and he said, didid you give Stanley my phone number? And I said Yep, ye, because he asked for it. Why is it because he called me at three o'clock in the morning to tell me how much he loved Loston America. And then and then Stanley and Albert began a rel began a friendship from that moment. Do you imagine getting a call from him at three in the morning? Was it three in the morning though because he was in England and he was calling LA. Yeah was never aware of times. He called me at the strangest hours. He was he just didn't have that kind of I mean, I'll never understand Stanley. I don't have to I was not in his family circle. But I feel that Stanley allowed me to be a colleague And the greatest honor he afforded me was me into his prorofessional circle And he treated me like a colleague And he was very generous with his compliments when he saw a movie I made and liked it And we had a Re poorn often on the phone I mean, he basically handed AI over to you Well, he asked me to direct it Yeah for him to produce. and then after that didn't work out only because Stanley really wound up directing it, directing it withith a lot of memos, he was sending me he was sending me many faxes about you know, hey, it'd be great if you put the camera here. Here's a couple storyboards. And I finally after six months I said Stanley, let's reverse rollles. I'll co produce it with you Yeah. and you direct it because this is your baby. This is this is your vision and and he agreed and then he got distracted by eyes wide shut and then sadly, tragically in nineteen ninety nine, he passed Well, when you were talking to him about that movie, did he see a very clear link between two thousand one and AI We he never made the link there. He did we did a couple of times. The only link he made was was the clear and present danger. He thought it was a cautionary ta ta a taail about unrestricted machine sentience. He was really, really concerned about machine learning. and machines teaching machines to teach machines And that just his v was that was, I think the main link between two thousand one and his version of AI I mean, you could argue twenty twenty six. is the most relevant year we've had for this movie since nineteen sixty eight These are all the conversations everyone's having right now. What happens if the machines learn too much These are things that have been in movies now for six decades Um Sean, can you think of anybody who could have gone Strange Love, two thousand one, Clockwork Orange and Barry Lindon all in a row in ten years No, I mean, obviously, that's the thing, I think that continues to attract Film fans, especially young film fans to him is that each movie feels so dramatically different. And so you start trying to comprehend how one person can bounce around between genre, style, time period. The other thing is that All the movies, once you've seen them I think multiple times, you realize they are all sort of the same in some ways too. Even this movie, which is a little bit quieter than some of those films, they're all about controlled chaos There's always something very intense and dangerous and manic happening inside the middle of the story, even if this film is a little more leisurely or quiet or there's not as much dialogue as you said But you know, his flexibility and versatility, I think maybe accounts for those long stretches of time too, between projects where he's trying to figure out what can I do that would interest me maybe for a five year period if I'm really going to spend this much time developing something. But I don't know. My experience with him is the same as like, I think, millions of movie freaks, which is that you're thirteen years old and you find one of these films. Usually it's either this one, Clockwork Orange or the shhining and then you just launch yourself into his entire filmography, which feels very conquarable to young people too. Hopefully it's not as wide shed at thirteen years old. No Well, you never know I should You never know. That wasn't around when I was thirteen, but was a shing when I was ten, my dad took me M be a wee bit too early for me Holy macroll. And that became everybody I think has their entry point with his career and that was mine Yeah, think think I think everybody does. And I think the thing the thing that Stanley does to all of us is if we're just surfing the channels and we come across Stanley, one of Stanley's movies, thirty minutes in I dare anybody to switch it off. Even if you have a meeting at seven o'clock the next morning, and it's already midnight I don't know how you get your finger on that off switch. I don't know how you do that. Yeah. I don't care what the movie is. you know, from you know, you know, you know, from killer's kiss to eyes wide shut, whether you love these films more than others of his or not you completely become you know, in you become a zombie R family zombie. and and you just stare you walk straight ahead and you sit there and you wait till it's over. Do you remember the first one of his that you saw I think the first movie I saw was, I know the first movie I saw In a movie theater was Doror Strange Love. That was the first one. The other films I saw were in art houses later in my life. For instance, you know, Killerers's Kiss and And those paths of glory I saw on television actually for the first time Um,, but I cught up I cught up with Stanley in terms of going on a regular basis to his films R around I would think Cockwork orrange What do you think the equivalent is in twenty twenty six of this movie coming out? likeike a movie where the People watching it could just walk into the movie. I don't even know like someome of the Effects that he has in here were so far ahead of anything else and I don't even know how to wrap my head around it. I don't know if it's a movie so much. It may be the sphere in Las Vegas mayaybe the equivalent of two thousand one of space Odyssey Oh, that's a good call. J just went for the first time. It was fascinating. we were there together But I mean, I mean, I mean, Santa Kubrick with two thousand one created I think the first three D experience The first not a three D in terms of interocular, but I'm talking about wrap around three dimensional sight and sound And even though the screen did have its boundaries, and you could look off the screen top bottom, left, right, it didn't matter because it had enough of a fold around the audience that the audience was really enrapped and B the experience in two thousand one was the perfect film for it And also two thousand one also does something with suspense. The middle part of that film is as suspensible as anything Alfred Hitchcock ever made. I feel that film is the most suspenseful movie Stanley ever made The whole section Bowman and Pool going out placeplace the AE thirty five, you know, antenna unit And u and what happens to pool? And then what Bowman has to do when how decides that The human beings are too flawed to really successfully carry this mission through to completion and have to take over command of that ship. When you first saw it, did you feel like you grasped all of these details and the construction that he was building or did was it repeated viewings and trying to study it to understand what he was doing? Be it's a film that can be confusing on first viewing. It was really. I abbsolutely repeated viewings. I mean, I've seen two thousand and one countless times. I can't tell you how many times I've sat there beginning to end I finally saw it for the first time in seventy millimeter in New York City in two thousand one U when it was reissued on that special year. U But I can watch it over and over again and I don't claimed to have understood it metaphysically or philosophically, or even completely when I first saw it But it kept bringing me back and the layers continuue to expose themselves to me. And then when I got to meet Stanley, I got to talk to Stanley about the film I knew enough about it at that point that I didn't sound like a clown talking to him about his own his own, you know work Um The thing about the picture is the movie it's an anti emotional film that's truly a deeply Cathic picture. But it's kind of anti emotional Pool and Bowman You know, Gary Lockwood and Kadulia are play it like you know, they don't they they don't laugh, they don't smile, there's nothing, you know Cool is getting a little getting a little he's he's on on a sun deck, you know, and in an adjustable bed and he's getting some raays. Yeah, good vitamin C And a recording comes from his mother and father wishing him happy birthday, and he takes it in a stride He doesn't smile, he doesn't blink, he's not warm. He just listens. and says and he asks how to adjust the chair. You know, you know, you know, for recline after his parents sing happppy birthday to him badly. And and and and so the most emotional and we all we've all heard this spoken, but it's true The most emotional character is how nine thousand The was that was built in nineteen ninety two in I believe, Urbane, Illinois. Yeah. And that was the most emotional character in the entire piece. The movie begins with a pretty good character played by William Sylvester You know, Haywood Floyd, Haywood R Floyd. And he's warm and he's Commanding and you listen to him He's got that great scene and the kind of, u Hilton the space station next to what the the wall says Hilton five and he's he's meeting with a Russian delegation Yeah, that he knows. I think is I think the the Russian' name is Uh Shmirov or Shmirikov posossibly I don't don't really know, talking about you know, one of their one of their landers was denied landing rights at Clavus Moonbase. And he wants to know why. and there's a rumor the Russians hear that there's some kind of an epidemic. But that of course, is the cover story, which I immediately stole when I made close encounters and use Pzgene gas as the cover story to clear the civilians away from Devil's Twower so they can have this first communion between an off wheel civilization and the human race So how many movies did this directly influence you think? Beause you is your movie like every film, every film. It's funny like growing up with it because The theme of the movie if you're a kid is compomuters are going to take over computers someday, watchatch out Watch out the moment they get too much. That's true. You know, And it's like, all right. And then in the eighties we start getting the home computers like, this is nice. this is great And the interternet comes in the nineties This is fun. I can talk to my family and now we're in this stage. Yeah. And it's like, o, did we go too far? No. And remember the great movie that Walter Parks made called War Games? ye. And And before that there was Colossus, the Forbin project. Yeah. Yeah. We're c were computers U you know, machines were threatening to take over the world. Now that's an old sci fi trope and it's fine because All science fiction eventually comes true It just does Yeah, one thing that struck me thinking very hard about this movie was there are dozens, maybe hundreds of sci fi movies that come before this, but almost all of them, and especially the American films, all about what will happen when either an alien species, or robots come to Earth. And this is not that. This is a kind of post earth exploration of life. you know, it's about something completely different. And just to conceive that very small but critical thing makes the movie feel so different than everything that came before it two thousand one made me feel Big as a grain of sand You know, I felt I felt no more When I was done seeing the film for the first time, I was No more important than any of the stars in that sky that were by the way, hand painted by Doug Trumble and his team U it made me feel really small in a good way. becausecause, you know, you can look up at the night sky and feel pretty small and diminish if you don't have the contamination of a big city. spoiling your view. But if you get out to the desert or into the country where there's no city lights and you really see that awesome vist you see the entire our entire Milky Way Um you can get the same feeling every single time you watch two thousand one of Space Odyssey. Stanley created that And um And when when you think about some of his concepts They found a monolith buried on the moon and had been buried there for four million years right away that makes us all feel Yeah like a greater intelligence before we ever had evolved into you know a race of homo sapiens. had already been here once and possibly had seed the planet with the life that we claim is is is is is generated whatever your belief system is And and and so two thousand one, even if you've seen it fifty times The movie can still I think shock, shock you What does seem like there I felt like I had to get was two thousand one.'re having the best time ever. This is yeah. This is what I want. Well it feels like there's two types of people, right? There's the people who are like I really want to know what's out there, you know Tell me more, like let's talk. And then there's the other people like, I'm afraid to know what's out there And I think I'm in that camp The ladder. Yeah. This really. Yeah, the sci fi stuff has always kind of freaked me out Wow. And especially this movie, I think I've only seen it twice before I started preparing it for this one because brings things into my brain that I don't even know if I'm one hundred percent ready for. Like you're talking about Dona Ban all the way through, whereere are we going Um what happens to this guy at the end? Yeah. Was he get sent back as like this superhero or is he just dead and he saw the end of his life? thinkink of this stephan you can I don't know, go craz. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of The next twenty tenv they made. Yeah I was I really wanted to be left in my imagination when the star child turnurns and uh lookooks at the planet Earth I wanted to leave it at that. I just wanted to be able to have that image exist without any possible film follow up. It's so interesting though, because you know, Obviously, Clark wrote a novel while they were making this film.. and in the novel, There's all kinds of explanations about why the monolith exists, who put it there, the meaning of the star Ch, Yeah All of this discussion about sort of exploding the nuclear weapons in orbit and the intentions of the film I didn't learn about that until after I'd seen the movie many times. And it is a little bit of a let down to learn details of intention. Yeah I think it's Monday. It for me, that's that's mundane because It's a mundane thing to start to explain U and and start to u throughout other plot lines Be in the abstract When the st child turns and those eyes are moving in the models in the puppet's head and almost looks at the audience You know, it's just a moment that let sort of Stanley is saying, we need to start looking within ourselves Yeah know, we can always be looking to the stars and ambition and exploration is great, but Aren't we missing us? S shouldn't we start All of us looking more inward And that's what that said to me, not the first time I saw the film, not the twenty fifth time I saw the film. but eventually it started to make It tried to become very clear to me. Is that something you think about when you talk about intention for movies you've made U, because some directors like Tarantino will never tell us what's in the briefcase, right? He's probably the only one that knows of pulp fiction And then there's other other directors wrriters of stuff, they'll be like, Oh, here's what Im, here's what I think. Like I like the mystery, but where do you stand on this? I like the mystery too. I don't think I've made enough movies with enough mystery that anybody said, but what did you really mean? Everybody sees my movies and says, I get it okay. What are you doing next? That's not true. What is the What's the most kind of confused people were after one of your movies where they were like, oh I w to I think they were really confused in a good way in kind of a I think they were kind of confused at the end of Munich You know interesting. because I showed the Twin Twers at the in the last shot And I think they they made a big link and it was wasnt shouldn't they should have been confused. I intended the link. to what the N ending cycle of violence. it's the seemingly unsolvable cycle of violence is going to did eventually lead to So there's a lot of people talking about the end of that movie and a lot of people talk about the end of AI Um, u where David gets his mom back for like from dawn till Nightfall and that's it And what happens to David? is he just going to sit in that bed until his batteries run down with Teddy. and then what happens whats happens to him? Is he going to be Is he going to become Um, a deity for all the machines that found him This super mechca peoplee often confusingly think are aliens. They are not. They are the result of of many iterations and generations of machine built entities Sentient, but completely built by other machines Um, is David going to become kind of deity or oracle. for them because humans They actually had their hands on David and created David. So David is the first iteration of who they have now become. That's one of the major reasons I ask you about the link between two thousand one and AI because so it's such an echo of the apes touching the monolith and the astronauts approaching the monolith. You know It's l this film had an effect on it two thousand It worked. Yeah. Close encounters definitely leaves you with some questions. it does, especially like Richard Deffvers's character, ever gonna be able to have a normal day ever again in his life. Richard Driververs's character went up in the mothership, but then he came back down to make all h f f with Holly Hunter. So with sequels for the most part Jean and I are both that think pro sequels when it's like, we like these characters. like Raiders is a great example. It's like, I get to hang out with Indiana Jones. Yeah Awesome And then there's other ones like jaws too, like you didn't You didn't necessarily want to be in jazz two. You want the story to end You never saw it. I didn't see it for twenty years. We did rewatchableaza like, my on ph It's a very silly I. They try to get to make it and I kept saying We blew the shark up guys. Let's b at a shark up. It's unmakable. S shark got blown up, and they said well there's other sharks. There are no other sharks twenty six feet long. onlyn jaws. You know we've had this podcast since twenty seventeen and we were trying to figure out all these different structures, formats with it And Jaws was ironically the one that we were kind of like We We'd been doing it for nine months. mee and Sean and Chris Ryan did jaws and it was like the first one we were like, this is the p. This is what it is. This is what And one of the things that we love talking about like the Robert Saw stories and what he was like on the set and him daring Dreyfus to climb up to the top. you know So that is that story tr? They offered a money. But Richard didn't do it for the money. Richard did it because Robert dared him and Richard is a very courageous person and Richard u, is going to I mean, he's Richard stood up to Robert. Ray I think there's a lot of exaggeration that's happened over the years over the fifty fifty two years. Richard and Robert admired each other. They respected each other as actors, and they respected each other as people But they had a routine like Steve Martin and Marty Short where they go on the road. They're always acting like they're rivals and they're teasing each other and making jokes about each other And they had a comomedy act in a way. I think it's kind of push Richard Rober push Richard a bit to the brak. Yeah and sometimes Richard put push Robert to the brink. You don't do that too other people unless underneath it is an enduring admiration. R and respect. And I think that's what gets overlooked after all these years. It servie. They really didn't like each other. That's not true. But it really serves the movie. But it serves the movie and I was happy about it. because when they got in front of the camera, they knew their business. they knew who they were to each other as Cooper and Quint It probably also almost served a heart attack for you when you find out Dreyphus is going climb up fifty feet up Oh we stopped him. Yeah stop Richard get. It's funny though when Steven was talking about catching a Kubrick movie thirty minutes in and not being able to turn it off, which is literally the premise of this show. That was that I think Jaws is definitely one of those movies for us and for Chris, for millions of people where It doesn't if you're in the eighth minute or the ninetieth minute, you're like, I just I got to I gott to get to the end. I got to get to the Indianapolis. I got to get to, you know, I got to see that the shark popping out. Like I just have to get to those moments. That's very it's hard though to make something where you can go back not two times or five times, but fifty times like this movie They were talking about It kind of demands several viewings. Like you was like, you'd only seen it a couple of times beforehand, but if you watch it at different stages of your life, it tells you something different. you learn more about yourself when you watch it. It's really notice different things, different themes, It's true And you also get kind of seduced by the amazing musical choices. You know, he hired his composer. when Stanley directed Spartigus Alex North, one of the greatest Hollywood film composers ever Compose a brilliant score for Spartagus is one of the greatest scores ever written for a film, especially the main title that Alex North did. And so Sanley employed Alex to write the score, a film score for two thousand one the Space Odyssey. and and quickly threw it out because it turned his movie too much into a movie And so he went and did what he did best, Anley, which is needle drops But look who he went to He went to Airm Catchatorian He went to Pendareki He went to court Lageti or're Lgetti. Yeah. And and u and he went to the he went to both Strauss composers And so you've got the blue Danu playing When you suddenly go from a proto human taking a bone And throwing it in the air and the camera follows the bone into the air. And on its descent, the bone transitions into a space shuttle in the year two thousand. It's unbelievably audacious and then suddenly you hear Blue Danny Walsh playing completely relaxes you into accepting possibility of a future like this one Also, the most New York thing he did was just use the music and didn't tell some of those people, right And that became I think an issue for a couple of them. They were like, wait a second, my music said this? mus said this? I'm Staying the Kubrick. I'm going to use your music. Well, we'll figure it out later. I couldn't think of another example of a movie before this. transition so radically, not just to the future, but to a completely seemingly unconnected phase of the movie. It just feels like it's a you know, we've changed tone, the style, the color, the location, everything is just different and you're expected to not only accept it, but understand what he's trying to tell you. Yeahaz. I wrote down the timing of the movie. So it launches the modern sci fi boom, right? There's science fiction movies, but they're all cheap and they're just they're making them for less than a million bucks. This is the first one where somebody's likeem real' a pretty serious coin it'. Plan of the Apes released five days before this movie though, which is very interesting. Oh my God, that they are so twin together and they both prominently feature apes up. Butid didn't Plan of the Apes outgrow two thousand one? It did. But maybe not over time, ultimately. But mayaybe not over time. those two movies I see as very U It's a year before Apollo thirIteen and Neil Armstrong, everything. Yep It's hitting the psychedelic late sixties. Perfectly. This is like right as this whole generation, this counterculture thing's happening whole generation of young filmmakers, including yourself all waiting to be influenced by movies like this. So you have that G the seventy millimeter just like the big awesome. this is like the perfect thing to go, which is now, by the way I don't know if you've heard, but it's now made a comeback And people going to movie theaters and seeing Imax, awesome different things. It's made for I wrote down Nerds, philosophers and movie junkies But somehow became massive. and then And then what we talked about earlier about life in the next century, what's going to happen two thousand one is thirty three years after they make this movie But when you watch it, it feels like it's one hundred and thir years after nineteen sixty eight. And the movies already outlive some of the sponsors, Pan American airlines Airways no longer exists. The other thing Bll telephone. Yeah. No longer exists. O Johson's How J Jnson still around. I think that's still around in Spotty, but it' still around. But you've got a lot of things that don't exist anymore where the film is outlived the Some of what I think Stanley assumed would be around for millenniia. these like bedrock corporations in life. I think he assumed those were bedrock corporations. Yeah. So when you're watching this and you're thinking, saidam, I'm gonna to make movies And then you're seeing the special effects in this movie. likeike what is what's going through your brain Well I didn' when I first saw the movie, I didn't notice the special effects. I was in that story. I was part of that experience. so I was't picking it apart. I went back to see the movie two weeks later And I went back to see the movie a week after that. So I saw the movie about four times in a month And it was the second and third and fourth timees that I started just marveling at how do they get that on the screen? How do they do that And who are these people Who was Woally Beavers? Who was Who is Douglas Trumble Who is Colin Cantwell I mean, who are these people? And because they all got kind of special effect supervisor credits. on single cards And I just wanted to get to know them. So of course, I went to Doug Trumble when I went when when I made close encounters with the third kind So then fourteen years later, you have little kids riding their bike in the air And it's like the greatest moment of every kid's generation. It's basically the same thing. Like, oh my God How did they do that This has this movie has a lot of. how did they do that? Yeah, how did they do that? I mean, how did they How do they create weightlessness when he had to back He had to back The rover forge with the exploding bolt door against the Pod Bay. And then he had to get You know, he had to basically hold his breath,, you know, blow up the first of all, he McCany manually opened the pod bay doors because how wouldn't do it. Yeah And then he had to turn the entire pot around. he had to back the pot up to the entryway and he had to wait for the detonation. And when it occurred Blew toward camera completely weightless And what I didn't realize until much later was he was on a a wire, but the wire was coming from the camera. R. because they didn't have wire removal. They didn't have digital wire removal on those days Before a digital wire removal, we just put The special effects guys would put a little vaseline blur where the wire was to make it harder for the audience to see the wires U u films like War of the Worlds the Geor Pell film. You see the wires on the triangular you know, you know,, you know, you know, Martian ships But in this case, because the wire was came right from the middle point of the lens, almost right to the side of the lens looked like he was completely weightless, bouncing around like on a bungee inside that place And when Stanley built an entire set The set turned three hundred and sixty, but the actors just walked It wasn flight attendant. Thats out does they actually rotated the entire set I got the idea in P poltergeist when I produced and had co written pololtergeist I wrote the story. wrote I wrote the screenplay. I wanted Joe Beth Williams, the character kind of Weightlessly fly around a room. We built an entire bedroom. put it on the same kind of a vertical carousel. And we just started revolving it and Jo Beth just had to go like Jean Kelly did in Royal Wedding, when he danced on the walls on the floor of the ceiling. Jo Beth just had to understand where she what down was, where up was where down was so she could struggle and traverse the entire room from the wall to the ceiling to the wall, back to the floor again which is exactly how Stanley Also got the guys jogging in the ship with the, uh, with the Catcheturian music playing when they were jogging all around for exercise. Even some of the shots Id feel like because have drifted into other movies. like the when when the thing you just mentioned about him flying around, bounced around. It's a little like castaway with Hanks When the plane blows up and he gets sent yes. Yes. But I thought of that when I was watching it Ker Delay did not enjoy shooting that sequence. I can't imagine. only did it twice. and he record He said that He did not enjoy it. So here's what Kubring said about the ending in a nineteen eighty phone interview with a journalist. read Go ahead. The idea was supposed to be that he is taken by Goddli entities Crereatures of pure energy and intelligence with no shape or form put him in what I suppose you could describe as a human zoo to study him And his whole life passes from that point in that room and he has no sense of time And then maybe he's transformed into some kind of superbe and sent back to Earth We'll only have to guess what happens when he comes back He makes it seem like doesn't die. That's completely logical, but it's not very fun to think about. This is an interesting thing where I'm also very interested in directorial intent. Like what did the person who made this? Think about it? Why did they do it I've spent the last ten years asking filmmakers, like why did you do this? However, with certain movies, this being one of them, do not an explanation of that never said anything. I wish that I did not read that. I wish that I'm actually quite surprised that he shared that. And it seemed like he shared that maybe shortly after the film had come out. And he was not as concerned maybe about being so mysterious at this particular period of time. May it mayaybe it's what it's twelve years after he made the movie. Do you get like you make a movie you send out in the world after ten years. you're like ah, fucuckking, I'll tell you what happened. I'd like to think that Stanley said that Because that's exactly what the movie doesn't mean, what Stanley never intended. and he's throwing the world off. I see, I love that. So he can keep He can keep the truth little more. think he's playing a little chess with us. Oh, he was a great chess player. Matter of fact, you know, the best gift I ever gave Stanley for his birthday was the first computer chess game. O. because Stany, I played chess and Sanley played chess. I would never play with Stanley because I could only make four moves and he'd made me chck made me. But when I found out that in the eighties they had made a little, you know, tabletop electric computer chess game Um I said it to Stanley and Stanley called me back a week later. and he said Couldn't you have sent me a smarter one? That's a real careful what you wish for, given what happens in the movie. Sent me a smarter chess electronic chess game because you kept beating it Playoffs are here and you can predict all the action all the way to the finals with fanual predicts. All you have to do is sign up twenty five dollars bonus spread the total points, even the game winning moments that make the playoffs from opening tips Final buzzer Stay locked in with every pass, every play, every moment that moves us closer to crowning a champion Sign up now for your twenty five dollars bonus on Fandle predicts offered by Fando Prediction Markets LLC A registered futures commommission merchant eighteen plus bonuses n withrawo expires seven days after recet.rading derivatives involve Significant risk may not be suitable for investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools Restrictions supp pollyy terms at fnder. com slash predict slash bonus Dash offer dash terms Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zetbounds Terzepatide may be able to help. Bbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off Zepbound is approved as a two point five, five, seven point five, ten, twelve point five, or fifteen milligram injection Zepbound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepotide containing products or any GLP one receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medulary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type two Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop zetbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If your' nursing, pregnant plan to be or taking birth control pills Taking Z bound with a sulfonyal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems T to your doctor. callall one eight hundred five four five five nine seven nine or visit zppbounds. liily. com Let me ask you about the casting quick because this movie does not have anyone who was a star at the time or became a major star. which is l littleerally I think if they're making this movie now they're probably like, you got to figure out if gosling can do it or whatever Um Kubrick didn't want big name stars. He wanted like anonymous faces, and anonymous expression That's right. And yet Like if Steve McQueen is in this movie, does it feel different or does he take you out of it It would take me out of it, Steve McQueen were in two thousand one of space Odyssey. Yeah, because I would have too much baggage to unpack from all the movies I've seen you know, from basically from, you know, the blob to bullet came out that year. So he's bringing the Steve McQueen IMDB baggage with them. Yeah. I thought it was really smart to hire Gary Lockwood and here L a careare of course was Brilliant Frankin Eleanor Perryes, David and Lisa. And he had a wonderful career And Gary Lockwood did some great stuff too. I really admired both of them. But they were they were more like they were like astronauts who were a little more there was more anonymity and casting them. And nobody William Sylvester was an American living in England working on stage and nobody had seen him in American movies. u 'cause you went you went both ways with this because like, In Raiders, every knew who Harrison Ford was. You could have gone somebody more anonymous, but in ET Basically people I didn't have a history with. so like I'd never seen Henry Thomas. I'd never seen D DY said scene ' because she'd been a couple things. But you know what I mean? Like You could have put big stars in that and you did No, not really. I couldn't have put big stars in ET because There are there were no I mean, Drew Barmore became a big starertain about two months after ET opened. And Henry did had a great career. Henry Thomas, D D's great. She's a wonderful actor. I love her But I wanted the same kind of anonymity. you know, I wanted the movie to be known and I wanted them to be the characters that would become known because if look, I never thought ET would work. I thought ET was going to be U I couldn't believe that they gave me ten million dollars to make the movie because I didn't think it would make any money back. Really? I thought it was it was going to be parents were going to have to drop their kids off and say, you should go see ET. It's healthy. It's good for you. I didn't take off the way it did. I had no idea. I've also done ET on this show just for have you really?, we've done You're the leader in directors. We've done nine Spielberg movies. Yeahah. you're the leader in the club house. I love close encounters one Oh, thank you. That was great work. Yeah yeah. Yeah, you're the you guys got it. We still have got it. That's nice. That's nice to hear. Yeah that is nice to hear. Yeah, we still have some left in your catalog. R. see in this film too, like the star of the il and How nine thousand. And Chaw is the star And Roy Schidder was the star. He had done French cononnection and stuff. and Richard had done American graffiti and Richard had done the apprenticeship with Detdy Krabitz, which was a huge critical hit. And Robert Shaw had done Man for All seasons and he was well known. He had done the sting before a big, big hit movie, won the Oscar for Best Picture But it was about threeree anonymous guys that divested themselves of who they were to all of us publicly and became those characters. I mean, that's the whole thing about good actors. Maybe even Steve McQueen, I thought was a really good actor. I knew Steve pretty well. Maybe Steve could have done two thousand one. I mean, a good actor supposed to become an anonymous character. basased on what the writer and the director have offered us. And so I'm going to take that back. Im to back I'm going to kind of back that up a little bit by saying I talked you into it. You did. You love make. You can use movie stars in a film. and if the movie is compelling enough, you forget The filmography of the character in The the only reason I thought of him was he was talked about. this is a big Tarantino point about how We don't have enough McQueens now, people that didn't really need dialogue, but just seeming like stars. they just You could read their faces and something about them. you're like, oh, that guy's a movie. also for such a film with so little dialogue, you know, you need somebody. On the other hand though, like he obviously is encouraging these actors to kind of drain some of their inherent charisma Q could so effortlessly communicate courage. So maybe that isn't what he did. Maybe that wanted outt of the ass. That's. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to go back to your point. You're right, because two thousand one to space honesty. should have done it. But maybe Hackman could have done it. I don't know. Yeah. done Yeah. So he was he was a legendary million takes guy Who is that? Kubrick? Yes. What's where are you in the because we have like you always hear stories about like Clint Eastoods like two takes. let's move on to the thing. Where you in that in that scale? I'm six to eight Mbbe six to eight takes. What are you trying to accomplish in the six to eight? What are you trying to find out from the actors Well, I'm' it varies because The number takes I make It depends on whether I feel that it is all the actors are going to be able to contribute or or Is it all I want or need the actors to contribute? I have to make that determination on every take. So I've done thirty takes before I've done thirty takes with certain actors. Um, but I've also done two takes certain actors. Right. It all depends. Anthony Hopkins on Amistad came over to me before we shot the movie. and he said, I'm going to give you a little insight into how I work takeake one. I'm just getting a feeling of about how it's sounding and how it's feeling to me T. I'm going to nail it Take three You can use parts of it But after take three, you're not going to want to use any of those takes. And he told me ahead of time that he's good for about three Take two take two Tony. Yeah. And we did a couple more takes than that sometimes we did five, six takes, but Tony is one of the most intuitive And his choices are almost gifts. I don't know where it comes from, but when he makes a choice And he finds a moment. The moment is not a moment that he has thought about a lot. It's a moment that comes to him. It's intuitive. It's right. It's in the it fits the shoes of the character he's walking in And then That's it. He's giving you his best giving you I sh it like this. Like our favorite one ever is Nicholson and a few good men when they did all the Colonel Jessup courtroom scenes and he was done And they're like, you can all right, now you can go, we can use this stand in. We're going to get the other one. He's like, no, no, I'm gonna stay. I'm gonna just keep doing this over and over again. And they're like, reallyally? It's like, yeah, no I love it. He loves to act. Also it's fun. You get actors that have done, you know three hundred, four hundred performances on stage. They want to do a lot of takes You know, because every night they bring something else to the theater. They bring something else to the character. They find other ways of expressing things that don't throw the other characters off that aren't going to sabotage the company because they' suddenly come up with a better idea than the playwright. They're not going to do that. or some of them most of them are not going to do that. I find that if an actor who's had a lot of stage experience, he really desires more takes And I'm fine. And if an actor comes to me and says, when I work with Leo, Leo likes to watch his own takes when I did cash me if you can with Diaprio. He likes to go to the monitor after every take and look at the take backack And it gives him ideas And he says, let me to have one more. let me have one more. So might I might do nine, ten, eleven takes because Leo feels he hasn't explored it sufficiently So I will wait for Leo to tell me when he thinks he's got it I'm not going to overseer you know, as a director and say, no, I think it was great on Tape four. we're moving on. If I got a schedule problem, if I'm losing the light and racing the light. Yeah, I'm going to be a little more c come on. I hope you felt that enough because we're not doing it again. We can't do it again. But short of that, I'm gonna let an actor tell me when they think they've given me best their best takee. Leo, grinds tape. who knew? Not surprised. Grind tape like a quarterback. like Patrick Ms And other people are just like, whatever, Steven, let's I trust you.'re one of sometometimes sometometimes I have to, especially in this later area of my career, I've got to sometimes go to an actor and say, you know, if you want another take, you can ask me for another take just because I'm expressing joy that I love what you just did. It doesn't mean there there' something I haven't seen yet that you've that you know you haven't given yet So if you so I have to go to the actors and say, don't be intimidated You know, because I made ET, tell me that you and you know, and your childhood was informed by it, tellell me if you think you have more to give. don't as an answer. I don't know if our guy Stanley was doing that seemed like y had a different manner. Yeah in terms of approaching actors. Making the movie we mentioned He spent five years developing it Sott and Bob with Arthur C. Clark kept doing it and I'll say people, there's a lot of great research on this. There's been documentaries, multiple books. Yes. he most interesting thing of all that stuff, the clip notes Clark had the book ready to go, and he's like, you can't do it until the movie comes out. And he's like paying him on the side because he was banking on the money from the book And No, no, you gotta wait, You gotta waitntil movie comes out and then M movie came out releases the book That That's a lot of trust. you got to do. So they worked on the script together and U seemed a little tumultuous in the research Like between them? Yeah, like working on the script and stuff. I don't know if it was perfect It got to where it needed to get to. I don't know anything about their working relationship, but they were they were both uh, they were not hive minds They are not hive minded. They were single minded visionaries who I'm sure had alternative points of view and common points of view Whatever the magic was between Clark and Kubrick, man, we're so grateful to both of them. Have you ever had somebody like that that you We're just like, parters on this thing where you had to sketch out this whole thing and spending you know, months and months and years absolutely. I have I I have a deep partnership with Tony Kushner And I have an equally deep partnership with David Kepp And it has been just just I'm just lucky that they're on this planet to tell stories with me. Can you talk about like the relationship that you have with a writer like that who you return to over and over again and what happens when they have an idea that you don't like or how do you come to a common ground Well, if there's it depends. I mean, I mean Both they're two completely different. Number one Tony Kushner is a Tony awward winning Poler Prize winning playwright and an academy multiple Academy Award nominated screenwriter. And David Keep is one of the most commercial screen writers in Hollywood history. Yeah. U and they both have different ways of working, which I really love. And I've got to be the flexible one here. I have to be the chameleon that I'm not asking them to conform to the way I work. I will conform to what makes them great writers. And so I have to listen more than I talk sometimes But um It's just when you I've always said, look, I always said that Shakespeare said it first. He said it best. He said, the play is the thing And without a screenplay, I'm nothing. U I'll just take my iPhone and take a lot of really nice still photographs But without a screenplay, I absolutely am lost. And so For me, the writer is the most important person in my life Interesting. This is a funny one too though because you and Kubrick are somewhat alike in this way. All of his movies are based on something He was always on the hunt, it sounds like for material, for something that could make for a good story, But then you have to shape the story. In this case He approaches Clarark And he has the original idea Clark's story The Sentinel is a huge inspiration the idea that he has. And so they take parts of a pree existing story and then they fold it into one section of this smaller movie. It's this really unique version of story synthesis that Again, like I was trying to F some O examples of a movie like this, There's just not any other movies like this. Yeah, there aren't, there aren't. Can you answer me this? didid Arth Arthur Clark's book rendezvous with Rama happened before? I think it thousand one followed. I think it's seventy three. Okay Beause that had similar themes. Yeah. So When they were working this, Kubrick wrote the Clark's agent workload because they weren't getting long. And he said, I get up at seven AM Hit the studio about eight fifteen. begin a day that generally ends around eight thirty PM. I go home, say goodnight to the children, have dinner, work on the novel and go to bed around midnight I do this seven days a week Wh said that one? Kubrick. said That's like meens for puse. ye. Thank you watching the entire Kubrick catalay. Be get ready? Oh my go. He really sounded demanding and was just That was it. He's working on something. That's what he's doing. Interesting though, Polansky. asked him if he hadd ever taken drugs And Stanley said I never had I never will N because he had a problem getting high, but because he didn't know the source of his creative gift They didn't want to fuck with it. Oh. I love that. I love that he acknowledges that he had a creative gift. Yeah. I mean, a lot of filmmakers are shy about even confessing that they have any gift at all. those who've been really successful, I don't know anybody in my circle I mean, I paint models with directors at Guillermold D Toro's house every weekend. And not once during those model painting and making sessions does anybody refer to themselves as gifed, right Well it's interesting that he knew he had something probablyably didn't want to veer from it, both in the structure of his day to day life Maybe mayaybe he drank some wine. I don't know if I don't know I sounded. We talk about I mean we talk about we certainly talk about stuff we've done and how but to finders to make movies. up stuff that never existed five seconds ago and suddenly get an idea of where did that idea come from what came from being born and living and experiencing everything. And that's where your ideas come from. But ye, but we never we never look at each other like where I think Guerm Mototoro is a genius, but Guiribo will never refer to him that way, nor will I ever say to Guiribo, you're a genius because' that's it's going to make all of us flush. I mean, that's something that we don't talk about. We don't Think of ourselves, any of us that way. We think of ourselves as people. loveo doing what we do, but it's the hardest thing we've ever done There is nothing harder I can imagine except raising children that in my profession, there's nothing harder than directing a movie. On the absolite, I tell Sean, I'm a genius all the time.s actually That's actually true. Yeah. I've been working with that for almost fifteen years. ye. So they do the premiere for this movie. and it goes badly And and Kubrick's wife said, Stanley was tearing himself to shreds. He saying, o my God, they really hated it. He was heartbroken, couldouldn't sleep couldouldn't speak, couldn't do anything, was shattered. felt terrible, and then what we talked about, the young people started to come out. Did you ever have an experience like that when You released a movie and you were like, oh my God, they hated it and just went to go a spiral U No, I've never gone into a spiral. Usually when I have a movie that opens, I go away somewhere where nobody can find me and where I can't read anything. I try to go away. I go because it's my excuse for taking a vacation The film gets released and then I go somewhere And it's been really therapeutic and it's good and I know if something's not going well Of course, I know when something is said, I didn't before the internet. It was harder to find out before the internet. You had to have somebody call you and you know the person that calls you and says your film's a bomb. is not a person you're going to want to have dinner with the next week. But now if your film is a huge success or is a middling success or isn't a success at all It gets you. It just osmoses through the the current you know, the current social state of the art that that we're all enveloped in. And and but I still can get away and so I don't have to stress out you know, there's some this is a little bit of a confusing one with two thousand one because Critically, it's very split And there are some extremely sharp elbowed kind of navy Yeah. Yeah count. notot a fan. very not a fans. And then there's some that are very lauditory right out of the gate. Yes. And then the movie it seems like in the first week, it does okay business. Yes. It's not a bomb but it just does okay. And then it seems like you said, like it seemed like people caught on One weekend Something else really helped that movie catch on. the markarketing department at MGM And I want to give Stanley credit for this because Stanley I don't think Stanley actually came up with this slogan But the market department at MGM put on all the posters and all the billboards two thousand one is Space Odyssey the ultimate trip Hm appeal to the psychedelic generation Did he anticipate though that this was going to be a drug trip movie when he was making it. I asked him that question and he actually said He doesn't think the movie is a drug trip movie and he sort of is I'm not saying he's in denial of that because I don't really know You know, if that's the reason that eventually did so well and people saw it I think it's I think drugs notwithstanding, the film itself is a drug You don't need to smoke marijuana to get off on two thousand space Odyssey. And like me who's never taken drugs I went to that movie and that was a drug. and to this day it continues to be something that every year I need a little bit of a two thousand one fix. And me. Well, he wins his only Oscar that he won. a movie, which was Visual effects, nominated for director sccreenplay. Art direction. Yes Do you remember who wins that year For best picture In sixty eight? Yeah No. Oliver with an exclamation point. Oh, Oliver Oliver. Yes, Oliver. You mean, we did it in the sixties. we put exclamation point. Oh my goodness. Oliver. Oh of course that was Carol Reed's first Oscar. Yeah. yeah. So painful one for me. one of my favorite directors ever been. It's one my favoriteusicals ever. It's of my favorite micals I fans. I'm not fan of. don'tn that one for now I I can tell you another podcast. I'll tell you why I love that movie. Why I love the choreography, especially by Oa White in that movie. I can talk to you about that later ten million dollar budget for For two thousand one. Yeahah Double what they gave them He jacked it up. They gave him like four point five. He's like, I have a ten. Did you ever jack it up higher than that on a movie Well, Jaw's was budgeted for three point five million and it cost ten because it went over schedule one hundred days. They were okay with that trade. Well, no, they weren't okay with that. Eventuallyntil. They were okay with that the second day of release. But not until. They got you back by making seven sequels. Are we done with Jaw's sequels How many have we had four? I think we have three, right? Three se wasas it four or three? Three sequels the last one was the three. Yeah. Yeah. Jos two was solid U I it was f. Second biggest movie in nineteen sixty eight. U And what two thousand one? Yeah. That was great. We mentioned Poll and Kale said it was the biggest amateur movie of them all, and there's only one hour's worth of a good movie here LA Times G guy loved it Roger Ebert four stars. We always do a Rodery review. R. Well, great. Yeah. The film creates its effects essentially out of visuals and music. It's meditative Does not cater us wants to inspire us enlarge us goes on. he loved it Um We're going do some categories Hold on buckle up. You can see But he has photographed recall of the sequences. he's going to be fine in this. This is not going to be a problem. I'm going to give you some choices for rewatchable Most reatchable scene. This is the premise of the podcast You're hopp into a movie and it's like, oh shit, this scen's coming. I gott to This is two thousand one Yeah, the most rewatchable scene in two thousand one. I'm gonna give you some choices Um, Dawn of Man beginning with the apes leading onto the leopard, which is holy shit, the leopard' scene. We didn't even talk about that yet. These are people in monkey costumes. And they're just planning a play acting leopard jumping out and this is something that happened. Yeah wasas that I just couldn't believe it. I thought I don't know how I thought they did this, but They did it way with a real leopard and a guy in a guerilla suit. Yeah And Kubrick was like, I hope this works. I hope the guy in the grilla shot got got got a stunt adjustment. Unbelievable. So we got that. which' a great choice because it's just a jolts you in the movie. We get the ape figuring out that bones could be a weapon leading into the big fight with the two gangs We get Floyd and the astronauts checking out the buried artifact Big sit down with the Russians, which is our second summit of two Revel gangs. Jogging scene into the eating scene, into the how interview How does the lip readating thing? Yeah, that's my favorite scene in the movie. Okay, explain My favorite of the movie is where they for one thing These guys should have known that how nine thousand could read liipps I mean, they should have known that After all He holds up A sketch she made and he says That's a very good rendering, Dave So he's already comments about Dave moments artwork Dave's got to realize that he's got tremendous visual acuity So when they rotated the pod, you know, rotate pod Yeah, rotate pod, please, how And rotates around The best moment in that movie though, is cutting to Hlls I the eye that Peter Jacksighterstand has in his archive Oh w Yeah, I hear the Peterion has prop high That foretells a response to one of the categories. Oh my God. ye. Yeah And and I think that's my favorite scene of the movie because I didn't see it coming. I must say like Bowman and Pool, I did not see that coming. It's funny that they didn't use the NFL coaches calling in the play.vering the mouth. Yeah. in their mouth, right Yeah. That was their big mistake. That's Bowman's playaysheet. What was he he forgot what they were supposed to be running there. with little information they supposed to be using the That's such a great moment of trusting the audience to understand what is happening. Yes. It's not oveexplained what's transpiring, but because the way shoot the astronaut and then cut does the cut that you're describing. We get it. We get it in a very clear way. But here's what also happens He strategically places that scene just before the intermission. So you go black And it says intermission on this for maximum impact Um Pal attaxs pulls he's trying to fix the pod Dave tries to disconnect howal. justust what do you think you're doing, Dave That's my other favorite. Dave. I'm afraid. No, I love that. D We get the Stargate approach, which is, I think in the running for the Let's getet Stoned and watch this later. Greatest scenes of all time, I'm sure That's been Yeah, that's that's I the reason I go for the I'd love Because I love Cal so much as a character, my favorite moment in the movie is the character moment. but my favorite visual effect in the film is is the slit scanner they used that Doug Trumble created with Stany Kubrick conceived this amazing idea to do this Stargate effect. It's out of control. And then the It's out of control evenven now. Yeah Th thenen the ending, Boma goes through the stages of life, the music on thatuff. What do you have Sean from most rewatchable. I think One that we didn't mention is when they land on Clavius and witnessing the monolith and that like selfie moment they're taking and that right right before that Sonic That was note hits. you know, that's such a bracing. it's the film is so quiet at so many times and it jostles you. so abruptly. And I always like to watch that scene because he At a certain point, he puts the camera on the astronaut's shoulders and it turns into a horror movie. It's before Halleie even shows a the movie. It' true. The movie gets very scary intense and you described it as like a hitchcocky and thrill. likeike it is so you are waiting to find out what's going to happen. And then we get this Sonic hit. And then it just cuts into the future and we don't know what's happened. No. That's the aud that's the other that's his conceptual audacity, E Stanley Kubricks You go from the high pitch a mission of a sound that makes everyone hold their face helmets because it's going right through their suits into their ears And you go right from that, which is hurting the audience's ears at least in the Pantagous theater it was with that the monoro or the stereo sound system they had in those days the years And then it goes into complete silence. And then suddenly it's quiet And you see Troper mission eighteen months later And then this huge ship comes in which I think inspired George Yeah to do the first shot of Star Wars with that hugeperial. destroyer coming over the top of the screen H I think I like when he disconnects, tries to disconnect howal. I think it's my favorite part. But I will say in the four K area, I haven't seen this movie in a theater because it was Kim In the fourcade just when they're landing On the on the space station. Yeah Detail Everything is amazing. L you can see everything they Trevis every I just don't understand how they did it I don't either do Do remember the scene where the shuttle takes takes, you know, Haywood Floyd Yeah to Clavius the shuttle when it lands on some kind of a huge almost like a mono. it's like an elevator. It's like an elevator. It's like And it starts coming down. Now you see what it looks like And if you look very carefully For me It looks like an Egyptian sculpture of an Egyptian head with the two eyes, which are the windows, the red window lights. the windows are spaced equally apart And there's a flat nose in the center and it looks like an Egyptian head And and u and there's something just something about the anro the way you could anthropomorphize. on what all of these designs remind us of in the of the ships and the shuttles they were using. And all the opening Dawn of Man sequence and all the space stuff they're meant to be these kind of reflections of each other of like ancient history and evolution of man. And the original monolith was a tetrahedron. It was more of a pyramid. It was not this kind of large rectangular relay that way Yeah. And so this idea of the development in Egyptian societies and then you know what that meant to technology and evolution as people, like all of this stuff kind of mixing together in the story and that whether that's intentional or not, you feel that you're thinking about all this stuff as you're watching the movie. When I asked Anley about the what I thought was the Egyptian sculpture coming down. Stanny looked at me. was't He didn't look at me. We're on the phone. and he said, um Is that what you think it looks like to you? Wow. Stanley sometimes answered questions with questions. He was really interesting about that. We had a kind of real interesting s. Yeah, you both this is how you guys are together? Oh that so Bill? Yeah ye. What do you mean, Bill What's the most nineteen sixty eight thing about this movie You mentioned Pan A in the grip shoes and Howard Johnson's, which you say is still around. I'm not positive. I know they've it might be in Middle America maybe. Maybe somewhere on the east coast if around or in Ohio or Indiana, possibly. What was the other one that doesn't exist anymore? There's, Pan American phone No phone doesn't exist anymore N two would be the intermission, which just doesn't happen anymore And then Just starting a movie With three minutes of a black screen and weird music. Yeah. Nobody would do that. It doesn't say overture, it doesn't. But it doesn't present that we're all gonna sit here quietly. It just starts. Right, right. It's like auch like a nineteen sixties seventies choice. I just don't ever that happened. Be there were these big road show epics that made, you know, arguably one of the greatest movies ever made, Laurerence Arabia you know, Ben her followed all that roads show, you started out with an overture And then the titles come on, Dr. Jago starts out with an overture in a dark theater. The titles go out Westide Story starts with an overture. And then the titles come on And u One film after the other you know, that's that said this is worth this is we're going to give you more bang for your buck. You're paying more money to see these movies that you do for on in a double bill ie movie house. Yeah. This is a single bill experience. It's one night like going to a play. You're going to see a movie. It's going be longer than two hours And there's going to be a prologue of music. There's going to be a long main title sequence. There's going to be an intermission And we're going pipe you out with a medley of themes as you get up and the lights come up and you leave the theater Sper times. And but but that's called that's called exhibition. Yeah. That's called presentational style. Right. That's stylish I miss that Well we sh nineteen sixty eight, most nineteen sixty eight I have a couple. I mean, Stehven just the story that he told at the very beginning, the idea of a movie becoming a phenomenon People are smoking marijuana in a movie theater, like that just could not that's so perfectly nineteen sixty eight. Sure I mean, the idea that two thousand one is a long ways away is for nineteen sixty eight, you know, we were approaching almost double the time. other stand go wrong We're not even close to the technology. In some cases, the one thing that really strikes me is so it's a movie made entirely without digital effects in which handmade tools are used to explore a film about man discovering the utility and danger of those tools There's something fascinating because we just literally don't make movies this way anymore. There are no films of this scale and size that would be made entirely by hand. And the fact that this film, not every film from nineteen sixty eight still looks this good. If you look at the ape costumes in this movie versus the ape costumes in Planeted of the Apes, they're not close. One looks like it's aged badly, the other looks really good The space effects and the ship effects and the models in this movie and those hand painted stars that you talked about They look as good as any movie that is out right now. It's amazing And you know, they had a whole apartment that did nothing but put black paint on white stars because when when one of the what when the when the Jupiter mission a ship passasses and starts blocking out stars. It's done in two different passes They shoot the stars first with a camera moving basically to to allow the the mothership, let's say, to come into the frame, you know, Kubrick had an entire department of young people that did nothing but blot out the stars with black paint to make it look like it was being occluded occluded by the ship that's entering frame. Crazy. I mean, it's a handmade movie guys. It's a handmade film. And the last handmade film I saw was Guermo del Toro's Pinocchio. Yes, that's stom mushion animation is that's the last vestage of the handm. Even when we were working with Ardman at Dreamworks releasing Ardman's movies, the last couple movies they made were they looked they were you know, done with with, you know, armatures and stop motion. But the last couple were on the computer Did you have a most nineteen sixty eight thing about this movie? The only no, the only nineteen sixty eight thing about this movie was the wasas the, uh How can I say this the trying to find the right word. Um, two thousand one had nothing to do with nineteen sixty eight. There was no nineteen sixty eight when you're watching two thousand R. The whole year went away Whatever the year stood for, whatever was relevant about that year wo and a half hours is irrelevant while you're watching for one hundred and thirty nine minutes. I think I saw the hundred sixty one minute version. I'm not sure I did. but I think I saw in the first week the longer Bird he ended up before you cut up to one ninet nine, right nineteen sixty eight was completely. Oliterated by two thousand one. We haven't mentioned that either though. this is a very tumultuous time in America. number one is tumultuous. Yeah. Yeah, very violent year and very Vietnam is raging. Yeah RFK, Martin Luther King. And this is's Kind of a retreat from that, but also kind of that call to the self and to think about who you are in the world. True. And I think Stanley Look, Stanley knew history and he he watched the news. He knew he was really up on every current event which is also undermines the fact that people think he was a recluse You know, you know why Sean hates the year two thousand one? This here, Tom Brady got the Patriots starting job. And end up winning six Sper bows for the Patriots. I hate that. San. Yeah. I do you're not a patrion Patriots. You're a patriot. I know I'm a Neworker. I I'm sadly a Jz fan Our next category don't judge us, but we love the movie Boogie Nights It's the Floyd Gndoli Butter in my ass and lollipops in my mouth, a word for something I just enjoy thing about this movie we didn't give this one to was shown in Arggan to ours Here's here's mine. Courtneew his brother in law B Brick was adamant that the trims that he made, the nineteen minutes would never be seen And he burned all the negatives afterwards and This is like a famous thing, which I guess I didn't fully know about that he would just get rid of everything because he was so So horrified that anybody would take anything from a movie. burn all the models. He burned all the models in the movie. He makes the movie and then destroys all the other pieces of it so it could never come back. was deleting sports tweets. This is crazy. Well what he's doing is he's striking the sets Great, yeah. Do do you care about what happens to stuff from your movie after the movie? I save everything I mean, I have a huge, huge collection of props from all of my films. That's smart. E. I don't know if you've noticed what's happened in that world There's the whole prop auction world. But I save everything not to give it to Heritage Foundation to sell. I save everything in an archive And can you have like a little mini hall of fame at this point? no, but if the Academy Museum needs anything that I've got, anything I is on display right now, right? The Jraws is on display right now at the Academy Museum. What's the single greatest thing you have from one of your movies The single greatest thing I think it's not one of my movies. I think a greatest thing I possess in terms of Hollywood icons is I've got Rosebud, the sled from Wells's movie saw it. You You did see it. I saw my in my office. I I had a heart pelation. Well, I moved to New York. As of january first, we became residents of New York State. and I've moved everything to New York City. so that lives with me in New York. Oh., I saw it just the last minute, then I guess. Yeah. I did last minute. What did you have for Floyd I just love when a movie refuses to explain itself that there is we're in a time of ultimate lore where we have to it's not just that there are like wider worlds that are explained and there's rationale for character choices, but Character specific trauma tends to explore and explain the reason for the movie's existence This movie is completely disistinterested in this and I wish that we had more like The fact that this movie endures and lets us spend two hours sitting in a room trying to figure out what we think it's about, how it makes us feel U that's just my that's one of my favorite things about out movies and this is Is this maybe the single Like the signature example of, well, what do you think the end of the mov It's it's the opposite of sports, right? Sports we have wins and losses And we can argue about stuff like who is the MVP and stuff like that This movie, you could come away, like my son My son's getting into movies and he's watched this four times. He loves this movie And we've had like real talks about what do you think at the end? ust these variables to it that I don't feel like happens as much with movies anymore You almost have to go backwards This movie has so much room work everyvery single person who sees this movie personally there and premature on to it. It allows Stantally lo so much room. justust like interpretive impressionistic art E expression to start He left so much room for us to draw our own conclusions and make ourselves a part of his vision. But then he said Oh, you think I'm done doing this? Here's the shining. That's right. And it all started over again, didn't it? I mean, two thirty seven, an entire documentary about how to interpret the shining. That ab. I'm not even sure. what's your interpretation of the shining? do you have one Of the shining Well, I recreated some of the Shining and Ready Player One I love that movie. It took me a while to love it. I didn't love it when I first saw it U I believe in the the I'll tell you a story about Stanley. I haven't told the story very often publicly. I'll tell you a story about Stanley. when I um When I saw the movie I was it came out. I had finished Riders. I was in England And I went out to eat with Stanley. And he wanted to know what I thought was shining. And because Stanley is, he's not brutally honest. he's got He's really careful about his honesty, but he's honest. He'll tell you if he doesn't like something. and I'll tell you why it didn't work for him. And I said to Stanley, he said, Did you like the shiny? I said, Yeah, I really liked a lot. And and he stopped me right there He says, no, you didn' I said, whyy? he says For I can tell, you didn't like it a lot. You might have liked it, but you didn't like it a lot What did you really think of the shining And I told him that there were certain things that confused me because I was in love with the book I love I loved when the when the heaters, the the generators blew up. I mean, I love the tpeiary animals coming to life. R. You know, there's a lot of things in the book I loved And And and I and but I just said And he said, is there anything that you Tell me other things that you didn't like didnt you didn't like it because I didn't include those things that I cut out of the book. And I said, T me, I lik the movie. I'm not saying I didn't like it W I had liked it more had Jack Torrrenance had An encounter with those toppiary animals that were reanimated. Yeah, that would have been fun setpiece. That would have been fun And Stanley said, What did you think of Jack And of course, I love Jack Nicholson, He's one of my favorite actors of all time alwaysways will be. But I said, but I thought Jack was Big, he was big, his character was big. you know, he was doing big, big things And Stanley said, Okaykay, so you didn't love Jack. I said, no, I'm just saying I didn't love Jack. I'm just sayining that Jack was was I thought I thought you let him have his head, so to speak, you know. And he went running not for the barn, he went running for the hills. he really expressed himself. It was very kabooky and Stanley laughed And he said, okay I w you up without thinking nameame your top favorite actors of all time And I reeeled off ten names And the second I got to the last name, he said Where's where's Kagney I said, What' down? He says, Where is Cagny on your list James Cagney isn't at the top of your list. You're not going to understand what Jack and I did with with his character. You're not going to get it. If you if you did not put Kagney at the top of your top ten list End of conversation That was it Jesus. James Kagney, that's great. But do you see the wisdom of that? Yeah? Of course, I mean, that's brilliant. But were you listing more naturalistic leading men? I don't even remember the names I said because he had me on the spot. Yeah. I mean he was Looks Tany is witty and he's funny The other other thing that people don't give him credit for is he's got a devilish sense of humor and he's a really funny guy. He's a great laugher. So but he kind of pushes you in that kind of a way. So when Stanley asked me a question when he says, I don't say how high. You, Brad This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a fifty page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responssees set upp required compatibility and availability varies eighteen plus This episode is brought to you by Fox One. Watch all one hundred and four matches of the FIFA World Cup live in four K for just nineteen doll ninety nine cents a month. with three days free. Build your own multi view, choose up to three streams, and follow players spotlights. Stay on top of every moment with live stats, highlights, and instant replays The FIFA World Cup, streaming live on Fox onene, offers a subject to change seefox. com for complete terms and conditions What age the best is the next category? What is it? What age the best So we've talked about some of this stuff, but what do you think is the single thing that's aged the best from this movie What is age the best? Aging like a fine one. L all these years later, Wow How nine thousand is age the best I think that's the correct answer. I agree Yeah. That's number one. This is like probably the easiest what stage, the best we have. There are hundreds of things in this movie though Oh yeah. I have a ph prom through a couple. I mean, wanted to establish the sci fi blockbuster as a Hollywood staple. Yep. Vide phones voice print identification Artificial intelligence video tablets zero gravity toilet The growing concern or belief that alien life exists relevant to your film presence of brands everywhere. Also I thought of Minority report when I was watching this as well, something you did in that movie Kubrick, one thing that really sticks out to me is that forebooding a mysterious style that a movie without a narrative engine can still draw you in has aged very, very well. And also famous people watching videos of themselves When the astronauts are watching the news segment about them and the interace which is such a social media thing right now. I thought that that was so clever and him kind of Seeing the future on that one in particular made me laugh You had a lot of what I had. I also would add a mysterious government cover up of something unsettling stage well. A movie that pulled off no dialogue in the first twenty five minutes or the last twenty three minutes Just as an achievement seems I can't imagine anyone even trying to pull that off now. Nots just for FifFi, rightight Space Auditive from David Bowie came from this month, right The Solo astronaut space Traveler moovie gimmick. then eventually became the Martian project E Mary like Just sending people out by themselves.. I feel like this probably invented this. This story is aged the best C Dlay said that during the New York preremiere All these people walked out, including Rock Hudson who left early and was heard to mutter. What is this bullshit? Will someone tell me what the hell this is all about Thatats are juststerious The who contacted Kubrick about directing Tommy After this movie and he said no because soon He was doing a Clockwork orrange. Re, you know, the who to tap into Stanley for that? Well, they were upset. so the next album they did, who's next was them urinating out a monolith Thats the best Um Using classical music over a real score And then We got to talk about the moon stuff with with that ends up circling back in the shiny, but The way he films outer space and then we go to the moon the next year, and then the conspiracy starts that he might have filmed the mooon landing and it didn't happen. And then he has fun of it and the shining Danny's wearing an Apollo thirteen shirt R. And all these people think he filmed the mooon Landing. What are your thoughts on this? Well because because Stanley was always he was great inside of a joke terrific in creating putting himself inside of any kind of what you could call a you know, a conspiracy theory And I think Stanley really enjoyed I didn't by we never talked about this. D. So you think he loved that people thought this and his like leadaning into this the fuckle thought. The Moon landing was fake and Stanley directed the fake Moon landing. I think not every Having spoken about this Kning Stanley as little as I do, for as much as I do I think he would love that. There are sequences in the movie The moon surface, clavus landing you're like This is a little too close to the imagery that we saw one year later. It definitely feels like it is inspired by. Now he also at least what I read was kind of slavish to accuracy and details of what certain things would have been like too. And we did obviously have a lot of footage of space at this point. So he's working with materials to replicate something that he thinks is real It is eerie if you look at the Aldrin and Armstrong. phos especially the high resolution photos that we see now that have been sort of like developed in the aftermath of the landing. How similar they are to a lot of stuff in the movie? My hottest take is we did land on the mooon they also had Stanley filmed or used spaced stuff just because they couldn't have actually shown video and they did the hybrid bify. Great shot Gder Award For the most cinematic shot named after the greatreat Gordon Willis, we call it Great Shot Gordon. Oh, that's a good title for that. Yeah I've heard that. I had the ape and slow motion learning how to use a weapon and how he filmed that would be my favorite. What do you have, Sean Um, I think the match cut that Steen described earlier is probably the number one answer. The one I like the most is the floating pen And I liked learning about how they did that shot. I never really cracked it. Well I know how I know how they did the shot, but you just took my answer. Oh ye, that was silly That was what I was gonna say was the floating pen was one of my favorite shots They simply put a very large piece of circular glass you can tell when the flight attendant takes the pen off She doesn't take it out of midair. pops into her finger because it's been stuck with a very light tape a little light adhesive onto the glass. But the glass is slowly turning on a motor. It's not hand turning because that would be uneven. You could tell that it was a human turning it. So there's a little motor turning the glass Apparently double sided tape had just been invented and they adhereered to it with double sided tape But let me take my other favorite shots But My other pavorite shop is everything at the D ofan involving the time ever projection screen were used to make you think you were actually outside You never saw a process shot process shot like that before in the history of movies Stamy got this Scotch three sort of three D a front projection material that when you put a projector right next to your camera lens. It can't be too far away from the center of your camera lens. but when you put another lens next to this lens and you project that image Probably taken with a Hzleblath or some very large negative strip of film And those were still photographs, Th those weren't movies those are still photographs of sunsets of different parts of the world. And when you project that against the screen It's return. is so bright. you can almost with a light meter read an F eleven or an F sixteen just from the return of that light flash. It made and that's why when the when the, um when the tiger or the the leopard the leopard. Yeah You can see the you can see the front projector reflected in the leopard's eyes, that thing that chateoyance that inside the eyes of the leopard. That is actually the leopard got it in the way of the light. You see that in the forest outside when you take a light and you see animals running around the forest? Well, that's That's the only giveaway during the Dawn of Man that there was some technique being used to create those vivid backdrops. It's such a happy accident because then it makes you wonder why there's something so animated about that leopard. you know, It's they have something up on these apes, which are humans in ape costumes. Exactly. So when I made two when I made close encounters in the third kind, I got the same front projection. Doug Trumble brought that front projection material into to the studio Yeah. And there's one a couple scenes when I have my actors against the front projection material and Doug Trumble and Richard Yursich and his whole special effects group had to generate the effects first and then project the effects. It was mainly lightning in clouds. And that was done in the cloud tank on close encounter. We had a cloud tank and it made very realistic clouds and we put lights behind inside the water, behind the actual paint that was being jetted with great force into the water, which creates cumulous clouds. and we had lights behind it. and when he photographed that in sixty five millimeter, We had a sixty five mim seventy millimeter projection onto our front projection material and it made it look like we were really outside during a distant. Electrical storm. I think Sean's gonna I'm in heaven, yees.. I think Sean just passed out. But I learned so much from Doug. I mean, Doug Trumble taught me so much about special effects, which of course, he and Stanley had devised You have a haall of Fame Gade shock order Award winner Um, Brody Got that beach Tombone shot. Yeah, that was what you can recreate at the Academy Museum right now. C. You could do that your own iPhone. Yeah. Yeah L not. When did you think of that one I thought of it. I didn't even realize it had been done before because I don't remember it being done before, but later Brian Opala was the one because he knows Hitchcock. Bet than anybody, Brian said, You stole that from Verttigo. I said, No, I didn't. And He said, Yeah, Hitchcock did that in Verttigo. That's easy. You with you start with a one hundred Millim of lens, you put it on a dolly and as you as you're dolling in, you're zooming back. Come on, that's been done before. But I didn't know that. I did I did it first in Sugarland Express, notot as effectively Yeah When the snipers are getting the beat on the police car with my main principal characters approaching the house where the supposedly the the foster child is, Lugene Poplin's child is in the house. I did it the first time there. It didn't work as well And then I was able to use it effectively in justust UQuick ones. Sarah Connor Award for Wood Modern Technology Ruin this movie We've talked about it. I think one of the things that makes this movie great is they had to think outside the box and they did, you know. It wouldn't ruin it, but I think it would hurt the legacy of greatness. Today's technology Yeah. So you say if if he had the same digital tools that we have today I just feel like part of the legend of this movie is It's like watching somebody make a world class meal based on like some leftovers and the leftover groceries. you know what I mean? Like the stuff we had back then And now if he had all this AI stuff. Yeah, it would be cool, but I don't know. Would you have people dotting out stars and no No wouldnt you wouldn't you'd lose that star. If you if you did if you used AI, you would you would employ about four hundred people wouldn't have jobs, R Yeah. I it's funny, you know, Project How Mary's come up a couple of times and they shot that movie as very practically relatively speaking. they built sets and they shot on sets, which is not common for movies like this nowadays And um I hope that there's like a little bit of a turn backack to that because the practical stuff is what's like the movie doesn't really make sense as an idea if it's just made with digital effects. Like that's part of I think one of the reasons why it endures and feels so different from other things is that there's so much hamm. Same goes for Star Wars. I mean, when you watch a new hope, the everything is tactile. You feel like everything feels what worn and lived in and real And that stuff matters. It's just there's a lot of virtue and analogue When you look at TCM as much as I watch it Um you see a lot of virtue in u like in like in like in for instance San Francisco, you you see this San Francisco earthquake The great quake And you see it being done in analog, meaning they actually had to build big models, probably an inch and a half of the foot and have them collapse when you see the collective movie about the Chicago fire They had to burn several acres in order to make it appear as if it was all the Chicago burning after Mrs. O'Lary's cow knock knocked over the lantern Uh, I, you know, I watched those films in the context of the age and era they were produced. appreciate them as much as watching effects in a modern day in Novatar, let's say today. I appreciate those handmade effects as much as I appreciate the genius digital motion capture work that Tim Cameron has done consistently with his avatar films. Yeah U Kid Cutty pursued a happainess Award for Best Nele Drop. That has to be the opening credits By far, you named it. That's unbelievable.. The Sun Fantasy Award For stealth homage that gives every movie nerd a criteria orgasm. Yes, this award is named Aes. Yeah.. And is what is the category? It's your category It's an homage that's in the film to previous film or an aspect of film history. So that only a psycho like Sean or you would There's a great one in this one. Okay, let'sar it. I will say that this movie might be number one for the inverse of this award, which is people who have borrowed from this movie. and that there are several there are inspirations, there are you've talked about some of them, some of them in your films. There are parodies up the Wazzoo of this movie. It's appeared on the Simpsons several times magazine, Airplane two There's one in the film that is Kubrick. winking at himself which is that in Dr. Strange Love, Major Kong says, fire the explosive bolts And in two thousand one, the entry hatch sign reads, caution colon explosive bolts Oh, which is his own. I never saw that. You know something Look at Sean teaching you about movies. Hey guys, I'm just saying that I'm having such a good time talking to both of you about this movie One inssight It just makes this day. That's great. never in the history of the cab. A crterial orgasm right there. We just saw it I only have a couple whats Age the worse. We mentioned the intermission, which nobody would do anymore Especially it just would never happen This is a good one They mentioned BBC twelve There were only two BBC channels at this time. He look Kubrick joke. Kubrick joke basically saying that England would surpass America with the number of channels in the future. So I researched how many BBC channels there are now in two thousand How many are now We have BBC one, two, three, and four We have BBC News, BBC Parliament CBBC, which is children's content, CBB's preschool programming. BBC Scotland and BBC Albo, which is Scottish Gaelic language serervice So only eleven. so he was wrong. Sorry, Stanley. med. There's still time. onene short. Sorry, buddy. You mentioned the sequel as a Woodsage the worst. Couldn't agree more. I don't really have any other ones, Steve. Well Just the idea that we could shut down AI, I think, maybe under some Yeah, right now you know Yeah The whole thing about shutting the heoth down. you know when I made Bady Payer one, I had a great time making. it was a hard movie to make, but I had a great time with the outcome of the movie in terms of what it said at the very end, you know, after all this stuff and and the kids win the Oasis, they you know, they they get the Easter egg. And u and they're happily escononsed. kissing in a chair And the narrator comes over And he says and Furthermore They're going to close the Oasis two days a week so people can really connect with each other and get on with normal lives. That was the whole reason I think I made that movie to basically say this sometimes We have weekends, weekends we're supposed to Take our weekends off But there are no weekends in terms of the amount of demand on our time and our lives And demanding that we make our identities known and shared with strangers Why can't there be one or two days that we take off from that? down to heavy picnics outside somewhere It's a great idea. I wish I could just put my phone in the ocean, but I can'. My kids are gonna hate me for that so much. W they hear this? W they listen to this process? come. C they hear that? S Dad, you are eight. Square. The Steven Segal Award for Most unbelievable anecdote from the actual film shoot. So they had a dead horse painted like a zebra for the shot of the leeopard next to the zebra And apparently the horse had been dead for a few days and was really starting to smell That was the thing that happened. D this we. Casting what ifs Kubrick wanted Sterling Hayden for Floyd and MGM vetoed it. Yes, I know I know. Yeah. They wanted Henry Fonder, George C. Scott landed where landed. He I read Holden as well that hold also. yeah, I read that too, which is Holden would have been good for Floyd. Foyd That's Hold would have been it would have been like Chanet Lee and Psycho, you know what I'm saying? He never reappears in a movie again, you know, and it would be it would be sort of a red herring. F frront loading a movie that really needs to You know with a clean slate He looked at a bunch of actors, famous ones for The Moon Watcher, the lead ape including your guy, Robert Saw That would have been interesting. Now where are these facts from this is why they're hf half ass internet research. They're just on Wikipedia and random articles about the movies. So as the years go along, we never totally know what to believe, but we talk about them anyway. Okay, so you will you wink at me if it's If it's Uurban legend Just give me a little we don't know. F on the internet. You never know. What's the most what's the biggest urban legend about Jaw's Riders of Lost Ar ET? What's the one that's takingen hold that You're like, how did Why is that Well the biggest the biggest urb election that is occurring right now involves My movie coming out Disclosure Day. Yeah, that somehow twelve. I have made this movie in concert with you know, deep state you know, factions that um are hoping this movie is going to be a I remember thiss a moment in two thousand one of sppace Odyssey where he talks about the grave dangers of social dislocation. and that my movie is going to somehow you know, make it easier for people to accept the fact that we have been ively interacting in secret with extraterrestrials for eight to nine decades Um Am I starting to believe that? Yes, I am. However, I am not. I made this movie independent of any influence except You know, what I know and what I've been following for the last seven decades. So you're saying you didn't do it with them, but maybe they have a point It happ I do. So I not working in deep state, but you see it. Okay. two brickle rejected Martin Balsom for hell. H Oh,' a little too. Yeahah, but here's a little New Yorkish Yeah Um I can see that. And then I think Floyd was approached to perform music and they turned it down due to other commitments That wow.'s hard to miss out on that one. Yeah. Yeah, that that's why that's on the fringe of I'm not sure how true that is Dan Witers's awward, which so that's like Somebody who's not the star of the movie comomes in hot for like ten, fifteen minutes. I think it's Hal. I think howal's the Who do you have? I have Daniel Richter as Moon Watcher The chief ape 'cause that was an amazing performance. Yeah that suit. Yeah. I think it's Vivian Kubbrook, who wants a bush baby, whose father calls her squirt. She is my number two on my list U Reasting couch director or city So we wouldn't put any name actors in this And no, we wouldn't. Okay. no. Half faster inner research. I'll blow through some of these really fast It's interesting that one of the astronauts that howow kills is named after my cameraman, Janers Kaminski Kaminsky is one of the I didn't touch astronauts I was a soccer dad with him for years. Were you really Yeah? We thought it was so funny with Bruce. Yeah. Well no it was his daughter with Helena. Yeah. My daughter's always teammate for years. and we always thought it was so funny. He would take like photos at the games of these seven year old girls, they were like the most beautiful G shock G soccers you've ever seen of these photos that he would take. I think When I first met Ynish, I don't know when I said it to him. I said, Hey, do you know you're in two thousand one of space, Odestly? Right Well he He would disappear because he was going to make movies with you. That's exactly. Yeah, he's not he's notaking mov movies with me. So Kubrick was so dissatisfied with the script that he approached some other writers All of them turned him down on two thousand one. Yeah. Wow because he was disloyed. There's a lot of stuff about this about great writer himself is your Stanley writes Well lot of his on movies two hundred and five special effects shots in this movie. Now, you know how you know what a poultry amount of shots that is from they heard by the time we compared to a streaming movie on Netflix. Yeah today. two and five a lot back then, not a loted now Not now. T a thousand. Not even now. I mean, one of the reasons for that is because so many of the shots are so long There's just not a lot of cutting in the movie.. So if he is getting a special effect shotes, if they put a tremendous amount of time into what you're looking at and holding on it But remember what Stanley was trying to create, he was trying to He was trying to lure us into a I guess a not a heightened state. He was trying to lure us into a kind of state of mind where we're going to be relaxed and we'll start to accept anything I mean, you know how long I mean, I know he cut about Two minutes. from the jogging when pool is jogging u did his daily workout cut about two minutes out of that jg What makes the jog work though is the catchaturian score You know And it just lows you. You don't lean forward at that moment watching two thousand one. You sit back And you I was thinking, how long is this shot going to go on? And what's the point of it? And will there be a point of it? And when there wasn't a point of it The joke was really on me because the point is he's creating a state of mind for the audience. to start to accept things that are going to be a little more conventional. Yeah in terms of suspense and betrayal and all of the other great neat things that happen in the Patience. Yes, patients. So Samsung battled with Apple about the origin in the computer tablet And one of their cases was this movie They were like, look at this. this was nineteen sixty eight. You didn't invent anything. Look at that. wases way back there. So that happened Um Only a cut There was a stunt man that they forgot to put air holes in his suit and he almost got asphyxiated. that happened. The Ferris wheel cost seven hundred fifty thousand dollars that you mentioned. That's a big line item on a movie that cost only ten. Yeah. Well, a lot lot in it's era tenens to lot in sixteen seven. Letti's permission was not granted for this movie and he didn't know his music was in there and they had to settle it after fact. There's Lire. I mean, there's been books writting about this movie Doccumentaries, there's been multiple Kubern books so you can Dive into if you want Apex Mountain. So this is something we do. where we try to figure out show certain. What The actual apex of Somebody's career was where they had like the most juice possible whereere it was like not only were they at the peak of their powers,, but they're at the point of their career where they could have done anything. Right. Right. That's like the ideal I have lived to see you explain this to Steven Spielberg. is incredible I would say so for you, you had multiple apexes, but in ' eighty two when you have ET and pololtergeist, at that point you could have probably gone into any any studio on the planet been like, I'd like to do this. no would' have been like, hereere's a chext Stehven. That's an example, right So for Kubrick. Yeah. Okay. I'm with you.'m I'm trailing I'm trailly behind you, but I am behind you still. So for Kubraick, What was the moment where he had the most of everything going at the same time as a director. Was it this movie? Yeah, I would say this this is the movie where he headed together. This is this is the movie that This is the movie that made Stanley famous, not just among Citics and journalists and people that write about film But this is a movie where the public discovered him put space movies for the apex of space movies? Well, this is certainly the This was certainly the big bang every single movie about serious science fiction where science is being emphasized. Even Jurasse Park where science creates the credibility for an audience to believe that yes, dinosaurs can come back We have a category called Cuiser Hanks You work both. You know both of these guys? Yeah, I'd love both. What Cus? Another question If Cus You have to have Cruz or Hanks in this movie Who would you pick? Hanks Because he hank because he made apaul thirteen, right. He did he's the astronaut guy. Sean can't believe I asked her this. If could be if he could be an astronaut, Tom, he would give it all up to be an astronaut. I think the answer is both I think I think Bonean have had each of them. And I think I think Floyd is Hanks. Can I give you Cruise as the lead ape How amazing that would have been. Cruz just like throwing himself into very physical performance. Teaching himself how Apes walked for like nine months to prepare for ten ten minutes. I think it would have been cool for any of the movie stars to Daniel Craig was a stormtrooper in Force Awakens, right. We have another category Spielberg or Scorsese. Oh that we have to do since you're here. Okay. I mean, I think I think it's. I got to clear my pallate for this. I think you w I made it a hold on What was the most what was the biggest battle we had in that category? Usually it's pretty apparent. Yeah. Oh, of all time. I don't know. Yeah don't know I mean this this one is a no braak. This one's. Picketets. So this is where we picked little nets in the movie. Okay Ape costumes in four K. It feels a little nineteen sixty eightish. like you could really times it feels like, yeah, that's probably a guy there. But I mean, for nineteen sixty eight amazing. We accept that it's not're not real apes. But also there were apes in Planet of the Apes just a year before, coming out the same year as two thousand one space Audi. So it was the year of the ape And by the way, they're not apes, they're pr humans pro fun. Yeah Uhuh Would Hal actually be able to read their lips Are we like even now in AI, would we actually get there? Absolutely. I think so. Yeah, I think that's a walk of the park for AI They're reading our lips right now Hopefully The film never actually tells us what year it's set. So it's two thousand one when they go and they get the cra when they're taking the selfie and they get the crazy noise or was it eighteen months later? Which year was two thousand one? Giving that a little bit of thought I think two thousand one is The it's not a year. I don't think it's a year specific to anything I don't think it takes place in a year. two thousand one is about the millennium. It is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. o Um I had one more, but did you have answer?' a great answer. You just solved Did you have a nitpick before we go Yeah know, if how so advanced, why can't he anticipate Dave's move to remove his central function You know, there Houses flaws think are often overlooked. and like the question of Did he react this way and turn against the astronauts because of some sort of emotional crisis that he has because he feels fallibility around this plan. like what is actually the reason for that? And then how does he not anticipate after that And obviously, Bowman is going to try to takeake him offline. There's some questions around that. H a little over it. I can join you in that nitpick a little bit. When how knows Bowman is inexorably approaching his last mile Green mile. Yeah. he's going to get He's going to be executed. Why doesn't Hal turn off all the lights? Why doesn't Hal not everything is has manual over Why didn't he turn off the light? Why doesn't he close certain ports and where there's no manual override controls And I have an answer for that. I think that how somehow knew being so sentient that he was a bad boy and needed to be severely hurt. I wanted to be shut down. It's like it's like Grady Sing saying to Jack Nicholson, what he should do to his children Grady did it to his He needs to correct that How knew he needed to be corrected. And that moment, Bowman was Jack Torts ove it That was amazing Did you have another nippick from this it's almost a perfect film. Okay I had one more. This movie was rated G What were we doing in nineteen sixty eight It's really in it though. I mean, what's a what We were talking before we ever started recording hearing. Could you bring a kid to see this movieould you bring would your dught enough? He's gonna to be fine. No, I wouldn'ting a kid to see two thousand w sppace Oy evenG for this. But but I'm not sure what that was about. I think The film I would have gone PG for it . The most violent thing in the movie is probably the Tempir being beaten in that like little quick cut with the bones, right? I mean, obviously, we see Pool floating and being killed, but ye you know, donon't forget Jaws was PG. So maybe one should have stayed to G byy comparison. If you're gradating on the curve of that era between two hs that I'm going to do my imitation of Quint shoot down for. I' not do. I'm right J just do it. I can't justever comes back. I'll do it a second time. I will come back. you. If you come back and do jaws with us, I will do. I'd love to do jaws with you. That'd be fun All right, He just promed. Just one Oscar who gets it direct or director. Best director. Would you go best film or best director? I would go best film and best director ust two askers. Probably an answable question. I would also have given Doug Trumble. an Oscar along with Stanley for special effects. Okay Probably un answer questions, you mention this. Wh whyy did How break down? This is a big part of the dialogue about this movie. Was it legitimate? Was he faking it Kubrick We know not to trust him whenever he talks about this movie, but he said How had an acute emotional crisis because he could not accept evidence of his own fallibility So My take is that He had these two things, right? He's supposed to be all knowing everything But he's also smart enough to know when he's being lied to and told basasically lying to them about the mission. and these two things K kind of short circuit at him.. No, the reason I think that Kal did what he did was how I was a narcissist He was a complete narcissist Listen how he brags about u, you know the his product, his design He brags about where he was born He brags about How smart he is. He brags about the fact that no nine thousand computer has ever made a mistake He's an artist. He's so smug when he wins that chess match. Good game, Dave, you know, I think that the intention, I think that's right. I agree with you And also that he is obviously inspired by his creator. I mean, the narcissism of the human race and could only come these machines could only come from You absute wrote them. That's right. You guys, you are a mirror of who who created you, you know preacher Certainly in Gerermo's movie, which I think is the best Frankstein movie ever made, the creature was a reflection of Viictor. wasas Victor unanswered both. The first shot of the three astronauts we see. Sure looks a lot like the Mon landing as Seun mentioned. It's still a tiny bit unanswerable. Do you have I have one good one. Do you have any other ones Um I mean, I think who delivered the monoliths is like the ultimate question of the movie. Yeah That's the most unsanswerable That's definitely ananswerable question.. All right, here's my here's my good one Did this movie ruin the name Hal I because we had H Hal Ashby and Hal Lindon We have no When was the last time you met anyone under forty named Howal? Well you know any house? I don't know any house Could this have been The end of the house I think Hal was such a villain and so scary in this movie, that was it. Howal was out. You know, I love a heal though. I love when Falstuff is calling him Hal, you know, I love Henry Oura Harold can be a heal. That's a great name. It's a great nickname No house I don't I I never even thought to name one of my boys hell Gone Not because of was was too tred to the computer, no thing. All right one piece of memorability you'd want from this movie . Quick story in this Jean Sisko love this movie And he really wanted the monolith. and he asked Kubrick about getting it And Kubrick said it didn't exist and that they threw it away. So And it's gone. wow But what would be your answer for this? Well, I actually I actually bought the one piece of memorabilia I wanted from this movie. It's never been uttered on this show before. Yeah, you just trumped. I have I have a David Bowmans face it whichich I donated it to the Academy Museum. I don't possess it. just that. I bought it and I donate it rent to the museum. Yeah. Well you said Peter Jackson owns Hal's eye. I understand Peter Jackson owns Hal's eye That would have been my answer But see, there's all these stories of him burning all of these things after they finished the shoot and you said that's him striking the set, but they make it seem as though he was burning costumes and these all the models and everything. L so how did some of these things survive , you know, to me Stanley isn't What I know of Stanley is he doesn't remind me of somebody that would do all that that would burn all these props and costumes He also wasn't sentimental at all. So it was not he was not himself, unlike myself. I'm a collector off a lot of memorabilia, also a lot of my own memorabilia, I collect it. Stanley is not sentimental. He's not going to be collecting his own memorabilia My only other anancible is just because he was from New York Jetsets fan. Tubric Could have explained a lot with some of the darkness in the movies I mean, although they did win nineteen second season is the year that they won the suuper Maybe that was over the that moveved to England. Okay Yeah Coach Finstock, Mr. Miyagi Award for B Wst Life Lesson from this movie. I guess it's Keep questioning what's out there Oh, yeah the the best well the best life lesson in in this movie is, uh, you know, never, ever close your mind off to an impossible possibility I don't have a follow up. Yeah. I can't do better than that. I can't We only have two more categories left I love these categories. great. If We had more. I cut them down because I didn't know how long we had you, I would have thrown more at you. Um, Best double feature choice Oh I And you could put either this is first or second with the other one You want to go first Well, my pick would be AI for all the reasons that I talked about. Interesting. And the lineage and the relationship that you both have and the way the movies it feel like you're talking to each other.ow Good choice Mine would be George Powell's Destination Mon madeade I think in fifty two or fifty, fifty one, fifty two because it was the most scientifically realistic film about man's first trip to the Moon U not taking into account you know,, you know, George Milier's film. Yeah, the first film which was more of a pageant, less of a of a science project, but Destination Moon, which also is a tremendous exercise in suspense echoes a lot of what then became In Stanley's vision, two thousand one of space Odyssey too me, that was the first breakthrough movie that makes an audience actually believe that someday we will be able to land on the moon Can I tell you something? Destination Moon finally being issued on Blue Ray in June. It is. Wow Right full circ My double feature choice is Disclosure Day opening on june twelfth. There we go Steven Spielberg. And I've seen it. Backup choice would be the shining. I don't know why, but I think be really I you'd watch two thousand one first then the Shining, but I'd be really interested to just watch both and see Is there any stuff that he took or things are You know what I mean? J's just watching it fresh for five hours. But I think the connection between that movie, the Shining in two thousand one is a connection Stanley has made with all of his films is what I said when we first sat down talk about Stanley Audacity. Yeah. Audacious choices Who won the movie? Stanley Kubrick Craig, you're up What'd you think of this movie? It came out Were you were you born? nineteen ninety four All right, so you're twenty six years late. Don't screw this up, Craig. No, no, no. This is the third time I've seen it. I saw it first in film school when I was nineteen and then I saw it again in my mid twenties and now the third time in my mid thirties or early thirties. And I have to say my maturity has affected how much I appreciate this movie I have to admit, when I saw it when I was nineteen I think I was a little bit underwhelmed. and I think I didn't I didn't like the lack of clarity at the ending I didn't enjoy that. It was just like ambiguous and essentially, you know, was left up for interpretation. and I have completely pivoted And now that is why I appreciate the movie. believing, you know, that ambiguity letting yourself use your life experience to kind of inform what you think about the movie is why I think it's so good. And just the attention to detail and the craft and the more movies I've watched over my life, you just appreciate it so much more. How mesmerizing the visuals are It almost feels like, I mean, these big synchronized spacecraft sequences, you almost feel like you're watching like with these big musical numbers behind it, when the scenes end and they kind of go to black for a second, these vignettes. you almost want to applaud. It's like you're at a magic show and you like turn person next to you and you go, wow, how did they do that? Yeah I love it. The one thing that you guys didn't mention that I think is the reason why the movie is so successful and so perfect. How's voice, the choice of how soft but chilling tone I think makes the entire film. That's a good point, Craig. I thought you would open the pod by saying open the pod bay doors, Stephven. You know I thought you could have we' literally We're in the pod bay right now. so comforting, but also ominous and you know there's something beneath it that that is chilling. I'm just gonna walk up the wall later just do a three hundred sixty around there. Well, that's it. You just completed your first re watchatchables. A long one. You did it What You did you gave us two hours That was amazing. Wow. Isn in more categories This was so much fun. Seaan passed out twice You have disisclosure dayay coming. I' be lated. We're running this on june first. so you have disclosure dayay coming june twelfth. Yeah twelve days later. Yes And then Are Are you thinking about the next movie already? or no? I'm just thinking about Disclosure Day. That's all I got on my mind right now And you promiseed you'd come back except today and now'm all I'm thinking about is two thousand one space honestly, But you promise you'd come back for jws. That's let's do jws. I would love that We on tape, we vide video tape. It doesn't have to be the fifty year anniversary, that's behind us. Let's do it. And I'll do my quint getting impersonation at something. I want bu. I definitely it Stven Spielberg an absolute honor Thank you. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Sen. Thankk you, Seaan. Thank you. Thankk you And that's it for the rewatchables. What an honor to be here with you guys. Thank you so much