220: The Sounds of The Silence

Yes, hello, this is Kentucky Riley. You're listening to Movie Meltdown. It's showtime. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised.

Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. Oh, fuck it. I don't have to talk either, man. See how you like it. Just total fucking silence.

Two could play at that game, smart guy. We'll just see how you like it. Total silence. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian.

And I'm Phillip. I'm Lucy. I'm Fred. And we are coming to you live via digital recording from the Alley Theater. And we're glad to be back here.

And I'm still liking the setup here. It's definitely quieter. I like that. We're not dealing with near as many sound issues at the moment. So that's always a plus as far as I'm concerned.

We're on the stage. We are, as we should be. We are stars. And there's actually lights on us, too. When we first got here, it made me nervous.

I was having flashbacks to school production. You wait until we get the audience out there. That's coming, too. I'm going to quote Mitch Hedberg again. When he's on stage, he says, I like this.

It's like y'all were all chasing me, and when you finally got me cornered, you just went all fuck it and sat down. That sounds like Mitch Hedberg. So to get into this week's geek activity, the only thing I had, but it actually, the more I thought about it, it ties in kind of a little too well, like more than I expected. I did go see, they're doing sort of a film noir series at Dreamland Theater that we were recently at, and I saw Act of Violence. Are you familiar with this one?

It's 1948. It's Van, I'm trying to say, heffling i'm not calling him van helsing like i really want to but uh it's him robert ryan i guess the most notable is uh a young janet lee isn't it in 48 she was pretty young so it's uh it's really again it's definitely like they did sort of a double feature and it was my favorite of that bill and it's it's interesting and then the more i got to this it is about guys who used to be friends and then something goes wrong and then one takes off and the other one's searching for him and there's people die. Like it's, it's a little closer to where we're going later in this episode. But it's actually, it's funny how most movies that came into the whole little film noir world, a lot of it, you know, when you get into like movie geeks and film historians, which is a fine line, by the way, I mean, they always go into how it's all like post-war and it's all this, this feeling about, you know, after the war.

And like, this one is literally about, it is a POW from World War II comes back looking for one of his buddies. And it's like, everything ties to this event that happened during the war. I mean, it's very, you know, right in your face with the whole World War II angle this time around, which is unusual. Usually it's just sort of an, overbearing presence that goes on in these. But no, this one's very specific.

World War II fucked us up. So, you know. That was mine, unless anybody else has some fun stuff to get to. I saw My Life as a Dog. It was really pretty good.

I was struck by how vividly it had to be like a memoir because nobody can make up Like, a credible life experience the way you can. And even at that, this person must have, like, meticulously kept notes about their life and then edited them to just, like, really striking, memorable things. It was a nice movie. One story. Yeah.

Take out all this other crap that happened to me, but one specific moment. Yeah. I've heard good things about it. Yeah, it's pretty good. That's all I've got to say about it.

I went to see Side Effects, the new Soderbergh film. I believe that's the name of it. I think they're all just the new Soderbergh movies. Yeah, exactly. I don't even pay attention anymore.

I mean, that's the thing that's kind of delightful about Soderbergh as a director, is that even when he makes terrible things like Magic Mike, he's still interesting. You still want to see what he makes and talk about it, even if it's just to deride it. And he also cranks them out. Is he in a competition with Woody Allen? He's getting out like two a year.

It's really amazing, especially for a man that retired five movies ago. He seems to be even more prolific now. Yeah, Soderbergh, every time I turn around, there's like, and the new one. And I'm like, but it's only been like six months since the last new one. Like, how can he keep cranking them out?

Well, the thing is like, you kind of forget that he's actually a really talented filmmaker. That was what was nice about watching this movie. It was like, Oh yeah, I do remember that he is really good at these things. Um, I feel like he's one of these guys and who blames him. I mean, he's a smart guy.

He's got a lot of friends. Sometimes he just wants to take the studio money and go to Vegas. Or maybe he wants to hang out in Florida with Matthew McConaughey. Like let him do what he wants to do. Like, This movie was actually a movie again.

It had a plot. Not a great one. It was very schlocky. There's lots of sort of twists and turns. If you haven't seen the trailer, I suggest you not see the trailer because there's some serious spoilers in the trailer that made it kind of a bummer to watch.

But it's great. And Rooney Morris... in it. She's legitimately talented. Catherine Zeta-Jones is legitimately void of talent. That sounds about right.

I was afraid you were going the other way. I was going to have to argue. That's the biggest weak link. But again, he wants to hang out with his friends. Let's let him do it.

There's these moments of brilliance that shine through and we get to benefit from them. I'm okay with that. I'll let him slide with a lot. I give it a thumbs up. It's not a perfect film.

There were some some plot points that weren't totally deserved. There's lots of, like, oh, this will be a fun setup to have this thing happen. It's like, no, I wouldn't do that. Nobody would do that. But anyway, you just watch it.

I'm putting your quotes on the poster now. It's actually sort of a movie again. You know, actually, advertising like that would probably work for me. you know, like understated. It's like, it passed two hours. Yeah.

Well, when David Lynch released Lost Highway, the advertising had all these quotes from all these critics. This movie's horrible. I hated it. Don't waste your time. And it was in all of the print advertising on the radio.

It was everywhere. And even, I think it was Roger Ebert was like, because he was one of the ones who hated it. And his was the biggest quote. And he was like, He's like, I love it. He's like, it's honest.

You've got a filmmaker who actually said, yeah, my movie's a piece of crap, but here it is. Watch it. Steve Martin said whenever people went on talk shows hawking their movie, they would always show the best clip. He said, what I do is I'm going to show the worst part of the movie, so at least audiences will know. that all the rest of it is at least better than this. They can sit at home and go, well, we got that out of the way.

You've seen the rock bottom. So the rest, you know. It's... That's the opposite of how they do trailers now. I watch that and go, I don't need to see that movie because that's the best five minutes in that whole movie put together.

Well, have you seen anything recently? Yeah, I recently saw the movie Mama, which not a very deep intellectual movie, but very creepy. very disturbing, atmospheric type movie. And I jumped several times in the theater. I'll be honest. There was a sharp intake of breath.

Did you see it? Yeah, I hated it. It was just so silly. I almost have a. Theory now that Guillermo del Toro is producing other Spanish language filmmakers, just purposefully bad ones.

I feel like it's almost like The Tarantino-Eli Roth-like relationship where he just wants to be like, I'm obviously the best. That's what I'm thinking. If he puts a lot of other bad Spanish language films out, he'll just be like, look how good mine are. But I felt so bad for Jessica Chastain the whole time. I was like, oh, you've built a career and you're actually now like legitimate and sort of respected.

And then this has to come out at the same time. And it's heartbreaking. I'm sure the people who made the movie love that. That timing was awesome for them. All right.

Well, I think, I think we've, Got another movie to get into, so we'll go ahead and take our break and come back with this week's movie. Words like violence Break the silence Come crashing in Into my little world Painful to me Pierce right through me Can't you understand Oh my little girl All I ever wanted All I ever needed Is here in my heart All I ever wanted All I ever needed Is here in my heart. All I ever wanted. Hey, kids, how would you like to hear this on the screen instead of the great show you came to see? That's what you sound like.

Honest. Please cooperate and do your part in keeping this theater quiet so everyone, including you, can enjoy it. Remember, lots of adults and kids, too, paid admission to enjoy the show. We must insist on absolute quiet. Otherwise. we will be forced to evict all disturbance makers from the theater.

Those asked to leave today will be refused admission to this theater in the future. You get spotted before the hit, the contract's off. You understand me? Yeah, I understand you. You're going to be party to an attempt to kill a man.

This is the asphalt jungle. This is New York City, with its fancy women and fancy hoodlums, with its very special beat, its very special places. Its hunters and hunted. And you will walk side by side with Frankie Bono as he stalks his prey, knowing what is in his mind, feeling what is in his heart. And your hands will sweat with his fear, Your pulse will pound with his desire.

Frank, no. You're going to have to be game, Frank. You're going to have to pay luxury prices, boy. I'll pay you nothing. And even as he prepares to unleash his blast of silence, you will discover that you and Frankie Bono are playing the most dangerous game in the world.

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Why would you use wood to make technology? Because they're, it's like, they're steampunk. Is steampunk really wood? I thought it was more of a brass thing. Well, you got to work the wood in to hold the brass together.

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TweakedAudio.com. Hey, they are available in three styles and seven colors only. And they sound pretty damn good. I kind of forgot because I hadn't had my old pair in a while and I was using the knockoff crappy ones I bought at the store. And I got these and put them in.

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As well you should be. tweakedaudio.com. Use the Meltdown code. That's all I'm saying. Hi, I'm John Water. Hi, this is Dolph Lundgren.

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If you haven't been listening to the Projection Booth podcast, you're missing out. Each week, the Projection Booth brings you in-depth discussions of some of the most interesting movies ever made. I'm Mike White. No, the other one. I'm the guy who wrote the film fanzine Cashiers to Cinemart since 1994.

Since early 2011, I've been co-hosting the Projection Booth podcast. Try us, won't you? I never try anything. I just do it. Visit the Projection Booth at projection-booth.com.

I've got to keep on searching for the dream that I've been seeking since I left my Oklahoma. Hi, this is Martha Stevens, and you are listening to Movie Meltdown. Hey, this is Drifter. You're listening to. That'd be great.

Oh, I wish I could be called Drifter. It's not appropriate, though. I'm a drifter, and I've seen the rain. I'm a drifter. And I felt the pain, the pain that comes with loneliness.

So I drift from town to town, searching all around. It's time for Sofa Theater. And? How's it going? I'm just playing.

Exactly 23 years. On July 8, 1986, the 11-year-old Pia was raped and murdered in this field. A boy had a red small car at the time. But the perpetrator was never caught. An derselben Stelle fand die Polizei heute Morgen ein Mädchenfahrrad und eine Sporttasche.

Die Blutspuren am Fundort deuten auf ein Gewaltverbrechen hin. Auf verblüffende Weise stimmen die Indizien mit dem alten Fall überein. Auch damals gab es zunächst kein Opfer. Erst Wochen nach der Tat wurde die Leiche des Mädchens in einem See gefunden. Der Täter konnte bis heute nicht gefasst werden.

Trotzdem geht die Polizei im Moment noch von einem vermissten Fall aus. Wenn Sie sachdienliche Hinweise haben, wenden Sie sich bitte an Ihre nächste Polizeistation. No darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk with you. Again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain.

Still remains within the sound of silence In restless dreams I walked alone Narrow streets of cobblestone. Neath the halo of a street lamp I turned my collar to the cold and damp When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light. It split the night touch the sound of silence. And in the naked light i. Saw all right welcome back to movie meltdown sofa theater and i will tell you a heads up now this movie is actually just coming out and just coming out in theaters so we're a little ahead of the game possibly depending on when you're listening to this so uh we'll throw the spoiler alert right now because you probably want to go see this um in some form or another, whether it's in your town or, you know, pick it up on maybe video demand.

I don't know. But it's definitely worth seeing. So before we ruin it for you, yeah, we'll throw the spoiler alert now. So this week's Sofa Theater feature is The Silence. And it is, if you're confused, there's like a Bergman film out there.

It's not that. It's from year 2013. It is actually a German language film. So go looking for that if you're looking for it. The director is Boren Boadar.

And the plot, and they gave a whole big rundown of it. I think I'm going to cut it off with the first two sentences before it goes too far into it, in case you weren't listening on the spoiler alert. The silence begins 23 years ago on a hot summer day when a young girl named Pia is brutally murdered in a field of wheat. Now on the exact same date, in the present, 13-year-old Seneca is missing and her bicycle abandoned in the same spot. And we'll leave it at that.

It goes on to the whole rest. Of the plot. So I think that's a good setup. That gets you right into it. So uh where would you like to begin with the silence.

Well early on i i started to think it it might be a really really good movie but um I came to feel that it suggests a much better movie than it is. Amen. It suggests a movie that it doesn't quite live up to the, I'm still, I just really finished watching it a few hours ago. And, uh, the cinematography in it is so fastidious and clean and bright. It's like the air quality.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just i'm not sure how it connects to anything in the movie but it's so striking. Very yeah it's got a really strong visual presence but at the same time it is very different than the subject matter it's not what you would expect going. Into this those wheat fields there is not a grain of wheat out of place you know.

Keep in mind the director was an artist He came late into film and specifically spent years getting into painting and doing everything in that very controlled, very specific, very visually oriented world and then found filmmaking. Super clean. It explains a lot. There was one crumb in the entire movie. Did you see it?

It was like when the women on the cutting board with the knife and the guy picks up the knife. There was like a single crumb. And he placed them. Because you've never seen anything else like that in this whole movie. It's like, wow, there's a crumb there.

It's very specifically placed, I'm telling you. Yeah, so that was my overall general take without getting into too much specifics. Well, where do you think it goes off track? Because I think it's telling a really interesting story and one that's different from a lot of movies of this type. So what is it that you.

Thought is different? Well, it really starts to engage me early on when a couple of the characters talk about how they're not good at math. And it's just like, ooh, something weird is going on here. There's some sort of literary kind of undercurrent. Somebody knows they're doing something with it.

But then there's no specific... Wait, no, there is. There is a specific point. I can't think of it right now. um there's some dialogue i think it's when the guy uh the the character his name is um not not pier but uh timo yeah timo is sitting in his volvo staring at the lake and he gets a call from and he's talking to his wife and their dialogue and she says something about their son has, like, hurt himself on the trampoline, and she says she thought that was a bad idea to begin with. It's like, he knows that.

Why is she telling it and giving us, like, that's just bad dialogue. Isn't that how marriages work? You tell each other shit. You already know. Yeah, I don't know.

It's just at that point, it's like the dialogue isn't ringing true. Well, there was another moment like that, though, where after Seneca... leaves and the wife sitting on the well after she's dead and she's sitting on the stairs and she's like why didn't why wouldn't you take her to tennis practice. That one killed me yeah that one killed me but it's. That same like oh by the way you're an asshole. Well and that one's just like when you're in that horrible situation it's starting to shift blame oh it's.

Like i feel guilty i feel bad for both of them. Yeah like i need to make someone else feel even. Worse and yeah it's oh that's but Really, I don't think it was like any one thing. It's just there's a mounting sense that this isn't really living up to what I expected it to do or be. And you start to feel like, isn't it odd how you don't care more about the girl who is currently missing?

Isn't it? There's a weird feeling like it's just an abstract thing hanging in the air, like there's not this urgency. Because everybody seemed to feel that she was already dead. Yeah, that's because the number two is irresistible to our Western minds. You can't help think that it's...

Why would the detective, without any evidence, say, oh, she's dead? They don't know she's dead! But the weirdness of having a replicated crime scene... It's just there's something strange about it, something really deeply strange about, like, you just want it to be somehow the same thing again or the same criminal. There's no real hard reason to think it is, but that's what we do.

And to me it's interesting because I've had this discussion about math many times, which I maintain that math is fiction. And some people believe that math is real. No, it's a tool. We made it up. Somebody thought of the idea of zero.

And without zero, all this stuff we do with math, you can't do. You have to have a repeating system. We made it up. Because my philosophy is that there is no two. Two is just the way we look at things.

We say, This thing and that thing are the same thing, so we're going to class them together. But in the real world, every single thing is a different thing. And there only becomes two because we consider them from our point of view. Anyway, that's just a thing that I've had little bullshit philosophy things about. And it comes partly from one of my favorite writers, Nabokov, said philosophically he was an indivisible monist.

And that's essentially what that comes to, is that you don't believe that math is fiction, and it's a tool that we use. And so that's interesting to me, you know, because there's a fiction writer behind this, and it seems to me like he's doing something like George Louis Borges, his detective stories. or he had a story about a guy who, um, had a perfect memory. So he devised his own system of numbers that didn't have any repetition. Like every number just had a different name. Um, and, and he discussed, and he did this thing like he would write fiction, uh, The short way, instead of writing like a big long novel, he'd pretend he'd already written the novel and write a review of it.

And you got a good sense in a couple of pages of what the book was and the characters. And it was charming. Just charming. But anyway, that's the thing that got me interested. I thought somebody is really trying to get into something weird.

And why are there two killers? And what is their weird relationship? Talk about being an enabler. Yeah. After a while, there was too much unanswered about that relationship.

There is a lot left open there. I started to not buy the one guy, Timo. It's like, how can that guy exist? I don't know. In the middle, I kind of was at that point.

And then as it unfolded a little more, I was like, oh, I guess that's how. It seems like it becomes a little more credible when you find out more about him. But I don't know. What was your take? What was frustrating for me was that, and sometimes these movies happen, and where...

It's like a whodunit or a crime thriller. And you start constructing these endings. You're like, oh, I think I know what– oh, that's good. This is going to be good. And then that's not what happened.

And then by the end, you've written five better movies than the one you're watching. And I thought it was so many different ways it was going to end. And I was like, oh, that's going to be really satisfying. And then it literally ended in the least satisfying way where it was like, what? That doesn't even make sense.

What? I don't know. In a way, I– kind of came to like that because i felt like it was a very real world case it really i mean that's i mean it's like so many of those police you know he actually has had like all these different cops come up and tell him like this is how my job was like you know there's so many cases that go either unclosed or they close them and i'm pretty sure they got the wrong guy or they did you know they they pinned it on this guy and this guy's dead. And you know, there's so much of that that I think goes on that we don't want. And maybe again, cause we don't want it cause it's a fictionalized narrative, but, and it made, that made it feel really real world to me was the fact that everybody was kind of dirty in some way or another.

Everybody got roped into it. There was not a whole lot of black and white and this by the end, there was no real happy ending for anybody. It was very real world to me. It felt, I don't like life, sadly. Well, okay, so how, are we just going spoilers?

Are we full blasted? I mean, yeah, because I don't know how we can really talk about it without it, Okay, because it felt. Like the, I've completely forgotten all the characters' names. Was it David? Who was the cop whose wife's died?

David. Okay. Yeah. It seems like he was sort of our voice of reason throughout. Like he was the one that was actually good at his job and not trying to sleep with people.

And woke up on his kitchen floor in a. He missed his wife. It smelled like her. I like that scene. What I liked about that scene was the older cop shows up while he's got his wife's nightgown on.

Doesn't even acknowledge it. Just like, hey, I got some info on the case. And I'm like, well, say something. And it just moves on to the next scene. I'm like, that's Germany for you.

Oh, I would love to get into German protocol in the police department, by the way. But we can save that. But so... at the end where he pieces everything together and figures out that he was the second man and then okay but he says wouldn't he have raped her if it's a pedophile wouldn't he have gone ahead and raped her so wait why why didn't summer why didn't it why didn't he rape her he's a pedophile she's right there rape. Her again i don't think he even cared about that again that's why like the more it got into it the more fucked up it was like it's to the point where Everything seems like he's going through the motions at this point, to the point where he really doesn't even need to have the sex part.

All he wanted was the act and to drop the body in the same spot and to send the message out. Because it's not even about, like, he's not even getting anything out of it anymore. Even the porn isn't doing it. All he wants is to not be alone anymore. All he wants is to bring this guy back, the only guy that he feels like he connected with.

Why does he assume that that guy, I mean, the guy obviously was appalled by the original violent act. He obviously put as much distance between him as possible. He obviously disappeared. You bring him back, why don't you just assume that the rest of your relationship is going to be him pointing to you from a witness stand? Yeah, he seemed completely unconcerned that the guy might rat him out.

He was so placid. There was something about the relationship that I could maybe accept it on some abstract level, but I don't know. Something about it didn't quite work for me. It does feel like something's missing in the middle between those two, and I don't know. You never really know what it is.

There's something that's not in their scenes that maybe needs to be there. I will give you that. About their relationship. And when the guy, like, and maybe this is natural, but he goes to see him, but then he decides to leave and he runs away. It's like, It's a little too, like, he keeps doing that.

Like, you know, he goes to see him and he runs away. And the way he played it just didn't quite seem. He's very inactive, obviously, from the very beginning. Like, that's what gets him into trouble to begin with, is the fact that he just sits there and lets things happen that he knows he shouldn't. I'm not entirely convinced that it couldn't be that way.

It just didn't seem believable the way they did it, somehow. It just, there was something missing. I agree. And I couldn't understand why the murder rapist guy was just so... Oblivious.

I think he didn't care. I mean, by the end of it, that's what it felt like. It's like, I don't care if he tracks me down and kills me as a way to stop me. I don't care if he throws me in jail. I've been doing the caretaker job for 30 damn years.

I just want something to change. I just want somebody to care about me. Even if it's in a horrible negative way. I think it's just he needed something. Okay, that explains groundskeeper Willie.

But I'm not sure about This guy. Because he does seem concerned enough about getting caught to go through the thing with the knife in his pocket. Exactly. He does have a sense of self-preservation. Yeah, but as far as that other guy goes, he just seems kind of like, let's have a drink.

But in the scenes with his family, he really did seem like a normal dad. He was having fun at the pool. Everything was awesome. And then he saw the news. And then he went into his weird trance-like thing.

The character just never felt developed enough. in a way that made the plot work. Well, I liked the fact that they worked in what a good normal person he'd become. And especially as they get into, because again, I thought he was just, he was horrified by that and he didn't want anything to do with it. And then, you know, that's why he left. He just didn't want to be implicated in it.

And then as you get into it and you're knee deep in and you're like, oh shit, he really is into that. And like, he knows that it's wrong and he's the one that's fighting it. He's the one that does have a problem with it. And it's like feeling this overwhelming guilt, but like it's a compulsion and he's trying to deal with it as best he can and still be a good dad. And still like that never crosses over into the other world.

And like, that's, kind of amazing because you know that's going on out there like there have to be people out there going through that situation because you see the ones that go wrong and don't pull it off so somebody's skating that line out there and this was I thought a pretty at least I mean again they probably could have done a little more yeah they could have done a little more maybe with developing his character at home before he left but yeah I don't I don't know I like what it presented there. With him well but the good dad part I mean it just didn't make any sense that he would get off the phone with his wife he hasn't confessed anything and And then he kills himself, and then maybe he decides that he doesn't want to kill himself, but then it's too late.

He didn't murder this girl, and now his children are going to be the children of a pedophilic girl killer. Why wouldn't he write a note being like, this is what happened... I'm sorry, I'm going to plunge myself into this lake now. But kids, you get to live the rest of your lives not chastised by the community. And it just didn't make sense.

That's a very logical suicide plan. I don't know if that always comes into play. Why would he not want to give... I don't know, like the scene where he goes to the mother's house. Why couldn't she know what happened?

What. She kind of did, but she was waiting until he left, I guess. Is he like such a good friend to the actual rapist murderer that it's like, I don't want to mess up his life. He's got a thing going. Yeah.

He's got his groundskeeper gig. Kind of worked out. Well, this is one of the endings that I came up with because when David starts saying that maybe it was a trap to bring somebody out, I was like, oh. what if the mom was the one that killed a girl because her daughter's case had gone to the cold cases and nobody cared about it anymore? And then I was going to love that movie because it was just going to be so over the top and insane. And then I was thinking back to the beginning, and I was like, well, when she saw the police around the cross.

She walked away. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm about to love this movie. But, no. And then for a while I thought that maybe Seneca– never died and that she was just a petulant 12 year old that hated her parents so she decided to do this thing and then run away and then that would come out and then this man's life would have totally unraveled based on something that had nothing to do with anything and i was like that would be a more interesting movie there were just so many more interesting it was. A really striking concept for a detective movie, and it just somehow, for me, didn't live up to the expectations.

I mean, I went in not knowing anything except seeing the visuals in the trailer, which is amazing. It's definitely just... That sucked me in right there. But going into it, I ended up... Again, I ended up being really impressed with what it did.

Again, there may be a few things that it didn't do right, but I think it presents... a couple of different things that it does really well. And it does do that weird, like shades of gray thing that like, there are really black and white, especially when you get into the killers and everybody's kind of wrong and kind of horrible and kind of, you know, going about everything the wrong way. And I like that it presented that and didn't make one or the other, this squeaky clean character. And it didn't make him horribly bad by the end. That guy is horrible, but, But at the same time, you start to see, like, I don't know, there is a little bit of humanity to him and you don't understand him, which is good.

But at the same time, you see that, like, and I think that's what he was trying to go for was the fact that all of these horrible acts that go on out in the world, it's like it's not, you know, I think he described it as like it's not done by monsters. They're monsters, things done by human beings. And he's trying to look at the human behind it and, like, it's horrible, but why? why are you doing it? Like, it's something that I don't think they fully understand. I don't think it's something they control.

Yeah. It's just something that they do. I think, I mean, I, I respect that, but in that framework, it does seem like, couldn't they have like shown us like them relating as friends or like, so we understood they had some sort of connection that the guy, because they never really, you know, it was, it was so dry. Yeah. Well, even in the beginning, it would make sense by the end, but even in the beginning, it seemed like they barely knew each other.

Yeah. So it would make a lot more sense. There wasn't like a great sense of something at stake. At the end, you find out it's like, oh, it's because he didn't want to be alone and he wanted to have a friend. But you never really saw the upside of their relationship.

You just saw... a girl get raped and murdered and the other guy got sick over it, but not enough to act. Again, it would make more sense to develop that. Again, that is the only big area that I feel like it really needed something. There was something in their relationship that wasn't developed enough. It was like they only had two things in common.

You know, they were both bad at math. And they were both into kiddie porn. And that was it. I mean, that seemed to be the only commonality, you know, between the two of them. Yeah, and part of that was even imaginary because Pierre wound up.

Timo? Yeah. I keep wanting to. Call him Tivo. I want to call him Tito.

Tito. He said he quit school. He was studying... He said he didn't do well in math. And the other guy said, I told you.

No, you didn't. You just said you were bad at math. You didn't tell him. He told him in that scene that he wanted. I mean, it's only been 23 years.

Do you not remember what you said to this guy on a bench one day? How do you? It was in that scene that was cut out. Where they developed a really touching relationship. Yeah, I don't know.

I've, yeah. Yeah, it did raise a lot of expectations, and it came so late, like, where, you know, it started to fit together. And, of course, it seemed to begin a movie about David, like, trying to reopen the case, but, you know, that wasn't where it was going. It was almost similar to a Coen Brothers ending, where, like, nobody in the end would know what actually happened. Yeah.

It's kind of like that, and that's sort of, you know, like Blood Simple is a classic detective construction that maybe is wholly original to them. I don't know of any other story where it winds up like nobody ever really understood each other enough to know what actually happened. And they do that again. It's sort of like they're by the numbers, Coen Brothers script, like in Burn After Reading, where they wind up, well, I guess we learned never to do that again. Whatever it was, it didn't work out very well.

And that's kind of similar to this too, because they had this unresolved murder case and like, are they going to be able to learn from the mistakes of the, but the future isn't the same as the past. That's the problem. How do you, you know, How do you apply a moral to a lesson that you don't even know if it fucking applies? Because they don't know if the girl's dead or what. They just found a bike and shit.

It's weird. I mean, that would be such a bizarre and disturbing situation for everybody involved. Those early scenes, like when they hand all the different people and their reactions to the news. Yeah, I really liked that scene. Yeah, me too.

How it sort of wove everybody together into this one reaction shot almost. Yeah. It was really impressive. See, for a while, another film I thought the film might wind up being was I thought that he'd baited him back to pin the crime on him so that he could start living the rest of his life because there was so much stuff that didn't make sense. It's like, Yeah, those headphones with your fingerprints on them.

Just throw those out the window. And here's some evidence I'm going to. Plant on you. Here's a DVD of a girl that is also dead. I was like, that was the 80s.

You could still get away with doing that. DNA, maybe. Fingerprints, I'm pretty sure that was still a thing. No, they didn't have those in the 80s. Maybe not in Germany.

Way back in Germany. I will say this about Germany. Save the girl... rapings and killings it seemed like a very um civilized place because i was noticed like the police never have to pull out a badge everybody just trusts like this stranger coming into my house if they say they're a police person they're a police person um and then when they find the computer full of the kiddie porn and they're like all right well don't you. Touch that he said don't touch it i can't touch. It now so it seemed like a nice place to live but you know and there's only two pedophiles in the whole country.

And they met each other because yeah on a bench yeah it is weird and they must have gone over the whole country with like a lint roller before they filmed this because there was just not a speck of anything anywhere it was like the opposite of a 70s urban cop movie yeah. But yeah i mean they were focusing on the small town in germany I don't know what small town this was, but it was pretty ideal. But there's a lot of truth in that. I mean, cultural standards, there are a lot of places where it's just, you know, that's exactly how it is. I don't know if you've ever had the experience of going to a foreign country and going out into the suburbs and walking up to a stranger's front door, knocking on it, and then standing there like you expect to be invited in.

But I have. I have done that. because the numbers to the house were misaligned somehow, and I was supposed to be at this dinner in Versailles in France, and I was running late, and I get there, oh, and here's the house, and I go up and I knock on the door. Some guy opens it, and I'm like, hi. Hi. And there's an awkward moment.

Eventually, I work out that I'm at the wrong house and the dinner is at the house next door. You're supposed to be in Versailles. You got that all wrong. But, you know, there's perfectly, I could have said I was a cop. I've been invited in.

Look around, rifle through the DVDs, stuff like that. Or you could have pretended that you were the murderer of their child and they'd invite you in. To give you crackers or whatever that was. Because I'm looking for a house. Is anybody moving?

That's how I look for a place to live. You're the killer. Come on in. Is that how you house hunt in Germany? In Germany, yes.

Do you know of anybody moving? They don't have realtors in Germany, man. That's not a job. They have real jobs. Just go ask around.

Just go ask your neighbors. Anybody not doing well, maybe going to die? I don't know. If not, we can arrange that. I can ask around.

I know a guy that kills people, but only one. Or two. Maybe two, but we don't know that yet. Morgen. Morgen.

Ja, hier wurde ja schon mal ein Mädchen erwartet, ja. Well, what was. Your police procedure? Oh, that was it. Just that they never have to show badges and that they don't take evidence.

They just ask you politely not to remove it. Don't touch that badge. I thought otherwise as a procedural, it kind of worked pretty well, like more than most for me. I don't know. Sometimes that's, and maybe it's just because we're like completely oversaturated with like procedurals in this country.

So maybe like we've just seen too much of it, or maybe I've seen so many completely watered down, wrap it up in 55 minutes versions that I like, I'm so sick of those that this one was, I thought pretty decent, but again, there's weird cop stuff going on. So, I did like, when they had the crime scene taped off, they had one cop holding back everybody. And they listened. Nope. Yeah.

You know, even the ex-cop, when he tried to, like, sneak in, you know, he didn't put up much of a fight. He was like a Boy Scout cop, too. How old was that guy, like 12? Yeah, I mean, I don't think he'd started shaving yet. And yet, they put him in charge of the police line.

It's interesting. I think he was the only uniformed cop in the whole thing, actually. Yeah, everybody else was a detective, I suppose. Yeah, they weren't even dressed like they had a sense that they were cops. Well, the one guy, his shirt was always wrinkled, and he never shaved.

He was in mourning. Yeah. Yeah, and the whole town, and even the trees and the sky, it was all gleaming, so they really stood out. Against that background, all these unshaven, sort of ruffled figures against this shiny... It was like the whole world of the movie had that new car smell.

It was just all shiny and clean and bright. It's a wonderful land called Germany. Yeah, they get a lot more sun than we do, I've heard the news. That's why there's solar energy. works because they get more sun and they try to do it yeah where we don't i. Also like that they kept telling you what day it was in the movie i was like why are they telling me what day it is over and over and.

Over you gotta keep track you're supposed to take notes at all oh yeah that's kind of an odd device you know like those novels that are written as journal entries, like June 17th, 3 o'clock. The only thing I could think was it was some sort of nod to The Shining, because they'd show you the day, and then you'd hear this stark music cue, and then it'd go off to something else. But then, other than that, there was no real reason for it that I could see. It made sense the first day. Yeah.

Because that was important that it was on Friday. But every time it came up, it made me feel like something's going to happen this day. It's Wednesday. Yeah. Now something's going to happen.

All right. By the end, I thought like the overall feeling of it, aside from the creepiness from everything going on, it was almost like everybody involved, like the whole thing is sort of just like looking at dealing with horrible things and just kind of moving on like everybody's just sort of like it's all this like ending and beginning and it's all going around on around this death you know it's just like you've got a guy dealing with the fact that his wife just died who's there with a woman who's pregnant no and they're just dealing with this murdered girl and like it's like i don't know everything is like these grieving parents you've got this parent that been grieving for 23 years and you've got these that just found out their daughter might be dead I don't know it's all these different glimpses of like different points in this process all kind of centering around the same thing I thought that part was pretty good because it takes this really good look at how this one event intertwines with all these different people and it's on both sides usually it'll just do the cop procedural part or it'll focus weirdly on the serial killer but like this one was pretty evenly balanced with like everybody that it was even mildly involved.

Like it, it went back and forth through everybody pretty evenly, which I thought was kind of interesting to, to balance it out like that. Yeah. It was a, it was a strange pace though, the way they wove it together. Like I kept thinking things were going to turn corners a little differently, like the way they would cut from one moment to the next. The, I think, One of the best ones was like after, you know, the most disturbing scene in the movie is the murder.

And then it goes to that guy and his kids playing by the pool and everything seems so happy. But you're just so, it's so freighted with like really disconcerting, disturbing stuff. And maybe that's what the cleanness of it is about. They're trying to, I don't know, use that as kind of an offset. I don't know.

The director either, like, just really got into this idea. Again, it's so dealing with loss that, like, he on several occasions captures this perfect look of despair and utter destroy. Just, like, the shot of the parents when they find out that she is dead and it just, like, kind of lingers on both of them just staring off into space just like emptiness and then like it goes to like the next time we see that is the when once the other guys killed himself and we get to his family and they're just cleaning the place out and the cops are taking all the stuff for evidence and like all three of them are just sitting there just like dead like it's I don't know he really like pinned that down that look of complete hopelessness at that point and I don't know that it was just done so Well and horribly sad.

And he got, like, a really good effect of, like, creepiness when the two guys meet each other, and they're both wearing those kind of noncommittal long hair haircuts from, like, the late 70s or early 80s. Leftover from the 70s, yeah. Yeah, it's like the people, don't really have short hair, don't really have long hair. It's sort of in between and feathered. Mm-hmm.

I was working that for a while. I was at that get a haircut phase. And the one guy was wearing like this yellow shirt with his little tubby guts in there. That was so, so disgusting. That was seriously disgusting.

Well, I don't think you're supposed to like him too much. And didn't he have a little bit of like a German... Jeff Daniels quality. See I was thinking if Germany had a Gerard Depardieu. Maybe yeah or kind of couple times where he's got the longer hair with a catchment just the right angle he kind of looks like a like a strawberry blonde like Robin Williams.

Oh he does have a little bit of a Robin Williams quality too yeah I. Thought Seneca's dad was very Wonder Years father also I'd just like to throw that out in terms of bizarro casting yeah. And then the older retired cop had a little bit of like a George Bush quality. He really did. Yeah, junior.

Dub you? Yeah. I don't know if I'm seeing that, but all right. Well, his face is broader, but he has kind of that nose, which the Queen of England has, too, for some reason. Hmm.

Yeah, there are times like in Profile, and also just sort of his physicality was similar. And I guess, you know, you just let police in without ID, and you wind up sleeping with them. And I sort of missed where that developed. Yeah, there was an interesting jump cut. I kind of liked that, actually.

I did, too. I didn't really like the way it wrapped up, because I didn't understand where... that came from to me that seemed more yeah that seemed more out of place than the. Beginning i kind of liked it i i felt like he needed to get out of her kitchen. Well probably but if i don't know it felt like both of them were kind of doing something useful with this relationship versus what they've been doing for 23 years so to have them in that means okay now you're both going to go back to living a horrible miserable lonely life yay germany. They can both move on now they haven't for 23 years yeah but now there's some resolution the part that I didn't understand okay so he had told her that the killer very well may come back to the house I'm not entirely sure how he knew that but he knew that was going to happen so she was kind of waiting for him so when he shows up and he has this weird cover story and she's like alright come on in and she's fearless and she invites the killer of her child into her home and Why doesn't she call the police at that point while he's sitting on the couch waiting for her to make food?

Why isn't she like, well, I'll just take your business card and thank you very much? Like, it's just nothing that anybody did made any sense to me in this film. Yeah, and that whole scene, I kept thinking of The Virgin Spring. It's weird that there's another Bergman movie with the same name as this movie. And then there's that thing where the killer of your daughter comes into your home and he serves her cake.

I guess she gets the cake out and then he serves her. And those are huge fucking pieces of cake that they're eating. Those are big pieces of cake. Well, she does run all the time, so she's working that off. That's true.

That's true. But I don't know. That's a strange scene, and I couldn't really understand what... I mean, in a way, you could see, like, he wanted to go there, but it was odd. It was really odd.

A lot of his actions and motivations are odd. Yeah. But again, he's a weird guy. Yeah, he was kind of like a Lon Chaney pedophile. Because remember how Lon Chaney was always so...

He always felt so bad about being a werewolf. And he would mope around. He was kind of like the school janitor in a way. He was just like this little guy like, Oh, I feel bad. I turn into a wolf and kill people and stuff.

Again, I think that's something that they don't do in these movies. Again, they make them big, cheesy... cartoony serial killers and horrible child rapists and murderers. And I like that he's trying to look at it from some sort of human angle and be like, yeah, they are horrible, but they're, they started as a person. Some not even doing a weird backstory. I kind of liked that.

It didn't give you his reasoning why he did this. Like he's just fucked up and we're looking at why this is going on again. It doesn't pinpoint it down. Probably, uh, I don't know, probably in a way that people won't like. They want some sort of resolution to it, but I don't know.

I kind of like the fact that it just sort of catches him in this middle portion where it's like he's just messed up, and depending on which one, either one of them are messed up, but the one is very aware of it and kind of self-loathing because of that. It's like he knows it's wrong, but he won't, you know, it's a compulsion, it's a need, and he still does what he does, but he tries to contain it enough to not, you know, hurt other people on the, I think that's interesting because there's, again, that's like to the best of everyone's benefit. Like if you're that messed up, but you have enough of a conscience to stop yourself from hurting others, like that's. That's interesting. So like it should, yeah.

Well, not even credit. Like it's interesting, like just from a philosophical level, from a psychological level, like how you are looking at your life and like how you're using that, your consciousness to like, save other people from being taken down that horrible road. I don't know. I think that's something that Victorians believed in more than we do in the general culture today. It was like vices could be kept like a house plant, just contained.

But you couldn't imagine anything like that now because the assumption is that somebody who is messed up is going to act on it. But that's not true, and I know because I've worked in retail for years and many times wanted to punch a customer in the side of the head, and I've never done it. So you're keeping it at bay. Yeah. That's where the movie didn't work for me because he knows that there's a person out there who is acting on it, and why wouldn't he want to stop that person?

It is weird. Like they didn't get into that. There needs to be more to. The relationship where we understand why he would protect this person. Because there's no reason.

There's no reason. Well, I mean. And why would he do that to his family? Again, as it goes on, it's also he's implicated into it to the point where. I assume there's an anonymous tip line.

I mean, come on. Yeah. Assuming he knows. Again, Germany. I don't know.

Yeah, maybe not in Germany. I don't know. They have crazy stuff going on there. Maybe anonymity is frowned upon. And again, he's just very inactive.

So, I don't know. I mean, he's just like that's become his way of dealing with things is not dealing with them. Not dealing with them. Moving and running away and changing his name to his wife's name. It's like, that's his way of dealing with things.

So he's not really out to save anybody. But my wife's last name was Perkins. And I didn't want to be Fred Perkins. I don't know. That sounds like a TV character.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't want to do it. She took my name, which, you know, I didn't want her to, but she was just tired of spelling it. Yeah.

Yours is pretty normal. Yeah. I guess. I don't know. I thought that was an interesting movie.

It's a really interesting movie. I'm curious what would be in the book that they didn't manage to flesh out in the movie. Because you can't get away with that in the book, with evading that much psychology and motivation. In the movie, you can just watch people doing things. And it's interesting how the one guy was like, always you could see him being tortured. almost to the point where they were illustrating it.

And then the other guy was just so blasé, and he's like, oh, no, that was just that rape murder. That was a one-time thing back then. That was. Oh, okay. I think that's exactly how he phrases it.

That's a one-time deal. That's a one-time thing. But again, I mean, there are people out there walking around that have done that. Again, even if they don't fully examine it the way they should, I thought just using that character is really interesting. Maybe it deserves more exploring, but I don't know.

Did you believe him at that point that he didn't? Because I was kind of up in the air at that point. Yeah, at that point I wasn't sure, but Was it not him, and was it somebody? I don't know. Yeah, they were kind of setting that up at that point.

Like, it really did, because they went out of their way to make sure you couldn't see the guy dumping the body and throwing the phone. And they were wearing a big jacket, so it could have been a lady. They really went out of the way to make sure you didn't know who it was. And he didn't have a car. He didn't have a car.

They set it up pretty good. So, again, I think at that point... and they're also late like they wait really late on that for him and they wait really late on the other guy as to how messed up he is like you're still assuming he's just living his squeaky clean life and the only thing he ever did wrong was you know run away and not report him but as you get into it you're like no he's equally messed up and was at that point too and we didn't know it we're getting these flashbacks granted maybe more flashbacks would have been good but Yeah, they keep you in the dark all the way up until the last third of the movie on both of them as to what's kind of going on in both of their heads. But do you remember that weird scene where she's calling her daughter's phone and there's the guy in the hoodie walking around with the phone?

And he did have a car. It was like a silver something. Right, it's a neighbor's car. Yeah, you borrowed it from the old lady. Yeah, that's...

I think you, Fred, totally hit the nail on the head that I'd completely forgotten that it was an adaptation. And I think maybe that's a problem. Had this person written much else, this writer, director? I think so. The director, this is actually his first feature film.

So I think visually he's amazing. No, but I mean the actual person who adapted the screenplay. Because it does kind of have that feeling of somebody that read a book and understood the book. And then when you try to tell a story and there's details. You maybe leave out certain parts.

Yeah, there's details that you assume the person knows because it's in your brain that you forget to communicate. And it feels like he created a screenplay. Like some of those adaptations of books that everybody has read, but you haven't. And so you're going, what? So maybe that's what happened.

I think he wrote the screenplay. The author? No, the director. Right, that's what I'm saying. Maybe he's just a bad screenwriter.

And he got so obsessed with those books. Maybe the book's not really I think you're going to have to investigate to claim that one because I don't want to have to read it that's words. I read no words and it's in German even more difficult to read yeah I don't know that's always a question that's a funny thing my son just. Read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and had like the most interesting like because he had seen the movie already And he was like, all the stuff they leave out of the movie is all stuff about the chief. And I'm like, yeah, I remember how like he started having this issue when like people came to his hometown and ignored him.

I was like, yeah. And it's weird that the movie kind of ignores him and makes it all about. It's almost like deeply ironic that the movie makes it all about what a cool guy McMurphy is. Yeah. But the book is very much about the chief, and you don't even know in the movie that he was in the war or anything like that.

Well, he's such a minor character in the movie. Yeah. But in the book, I mean, it's pretty much his story. It's what makes the book is because it found a way to make a first-person omniscient narrator. Because he's just a guy talking, but because everybody thinks he's a vegetable, he knows everything.

Yeah. And then he has this visionary thing that, you know, like, I think in the end he says, even if it didn't happen, it's still true. Yeah. But, yeah, I don't know. To me, there was stuff that was missing from the movie that would have made it work better.

See, I think it can work the other way, too, though. I think you can, there are things that are elaborated on in the book that, either don't need to be or sometimes take it down the road that I don't think it needs to go down. Yeah, no, I'm not saying it needs to be the book. No, I'm just saying I'll watch a movie that takes some of those parts out and sometimes it's really selective about what it takes out and it makes it a better story, I think. So it can go either way.

This one, I don't know, but the director did write the screenplay. Did you think it was quoting Fargo? Pregnant detective? Not really. I read up about that on the IMDb page.

Did you read that? Yep. And it wasn't because they didn't know she was pregnant when they cast her. But it is interesting because it reminded me of the two kidnapper-murderer guys in Fargo I've always thought were such an interesting pair because the one guy was so transparent, the funny-looking guy. You could see he had just weird issues with authority and he got in an argument with a parking lot guy.

Because he's in a uniform. You think you're some figure of authority in that uniform? And you could just tell he's messed up. And he couldn't shut up. He's like, all the way, all the way here, I'm talking.

And you don't have anything to say. You know, the Twin Towers. And he always had, you could just, he was transparent. But the other guy is just a. He's just impenetrable.

You couldn't get any sense of him except that he was a guy who would kill people if it was in his interest. And he was so slow moving, but he always caught up with everybody. These guys, somehow they didn't become characters that I could understand in any way. And I think that was maybe they were trying to do that. They were trying to humanize them, but I didn't see them connecting well. really in a credible way.

I mean, that's kind of the one thing that we said. I think it throws out all these issues and does it in a really interesting way and sets up an interesting procedural, but the thing that would have, I mean, that's kind of what's missing from it. If it had that, it would probably make this so much better as it comes together. It really kind of needs them to connect and it needs to sort of flesh out just a little bit more. Again, I don't even need to know the weird backstory as to why they got the way they are.

I think I just would like to see a little more of what brought them together and why they would, you know, why he would want to cover up for him aside from the fact that he doesn't do anything. And then why the other one really wants him back after 23 years. Like why he's going to all this trouble. It would make it more of a satisfying payoff if there was something at stake there. Did it take him that long to think of it?

I guess. And he couldn't wait till 25 a nice you know. Anniversary year i mean because what what anniversary is the 23rd is that the dead girl well there's the modern style and then there's. I think it's contemporary because you get 25 you get silver and i think 23 is pickles. I don't know I think it's the dead girl anniversary.

Or dead girl in a field anniversary. It could be that. It's the wheat anniversary. Wheat anniversary, yeah. So I got more of like a Zodiac feel, which granted it's the most procedural movie ever is Zodiac.

But again, I think just the way that it operated, it felt like a not so elongated Zodiac version. I still think visually, like there's so much stuff he does. Like I really want to see what else he does. as a director. Do you know what kind of painter he was? Was he like a photo realist?

Maybe? I don't know, but he like that. I mean, just the, the shots, the overhead shots, which again is very like omnipotent. And like, especially when you tie it in with the little model that they have, that's, I thought that was a cool little tie in. And then the, um, just like the dream sequence is amazing.

I don't know. There's so many really good visual things. Yeah. Yeah. I, I definitely don't fault him as a visual director.

Just hire a screenwriter. Screenwriter, just bring in a co-screenwriter. Punch up those extra scenes. Tie everything together. A little bit.

Yeah, his visual style kind of reminds me of a photo realist. I'm not big on photo realist painters, but I came across this woman, Lee Price, who paints herself surrounded by junk food over and over, and she's just delightful. It's just wonderful. And it's not just because of this funny idea. She's just so incredibly good.

Great painter. And she'll be like in a bed surrounded by cakes. Or in a bathtub with like ice cream lined up along the side. And she does things that look like some of his scenes like There was one scene where there were just two stalks of wheat like blurred in the foreground. And I think you're seeing the killer standing there just sort of like coming to terms with like, oh, fuck.

It's just such a great shot. But I don't know. For some reason, it reminded me of this woman who paints herself. Where is she based? I think she's in New York.

Lee Price. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of photorealism, because usually it looks sort of disappointing. You see it in reproductions, it looks like, oh, super tight, then you see it, and it's like, nah, okay. That sort of works if you get back from it.

You squint and tilt your head. Yeah, but she sneaks in little color things, like the bathtub water will get this Michelangelo cloud effect to it that you know isn't true. Bathtub water doesn't look like that. But it looks great. You know.

That's how this guy seems to work. Yeah. We haven't addressed the gratuitous full frontal male nudity. It just makes me think. I was hoping we could just quietly pass over.

No, no. This is a warning. Don't go swimming in lakes and ponds in Germany. Yeah. Because that might be waiting for you.

Dear God. With the body or the naked guy? No, the naked guy. I mean, the body, whatever. If you got to find a dead body, I mean, you know.

Whatever, but it's crazy, creepy, naked guy. I don't need that. What was he doing there? Yeah, and his body language, if you'd call it that. He was like a drunk bear.

Why does he crouch over and go... I don't even know what you... Loping into the water. Things about Germany we do not understand. Wow.

Yeah, that was such a strange scene. I mean... I guess I had the idea maybe they're going to find the body, but is that necessary? Couldn't some guy be walking along? It's supposed to be a dog walker.

It's always like a dog walker or a runner in the park. A jogger, yeah. Yeah, it's usually one of those two. Yeah, but no, it's a big naked guy in a pond. I don't know.

I still think it's definitely worth seeing. It's not a perfect movie, but I think it's got a lot of interesting things to work with. I think visually it's pretty damn amazing. So, I don't know. That's my take.

Works for me. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to like about it. I mean, I think that's what ultimately was so frustrating about it. If it had just been a bad movie, then all the questions I have wouldn't matter, and I would forget it immediately. But there was so much potential there.

And it seemed like it was going someplace really interesting, and then it just, like Fred said, was just lacking. Yeah, I'd like to write a version of that movie. I was actually thinking, like, maybe I kind of want to remake it with My Mom Killer. Like when your five movies are coming. Well, I think I'm going to do the Borges thing and, like, pretend I've already made these movies and write reviews of them.

Yeah, or you could just do a trailer for your movie. I think, Lucy, you should do, like, a clue style and, like, just go ahead and go, or maybe it ended like this. Or how about like this? As long as leaving gets the part. Oh, yeah, you could make it into a video game then, and it ends depending on which way.

The choose your own adventure. Yeah, and so you'd be the little rumpled detective in the lavender negligee. I wanted that role. The game starts... You wake up on the floor of your kitchen.

Like many a night, sure. Well, who hasn't? Waking up on the floor in a negligee. It happens. I missed my wife.

Of course, she was just upstairs asleep. But I mean, I didn't feel like going all the way upstairs. But the negligee was down here in the laundry room, so. Yeah, it had its flaws, but I think overall, I think they were going for something that they just didn't quite possibly get. I just like what it brings to the table, I think, and how it doesn't treat things the way most movies do.

Yeah, that's definitely on the plus side. It's a different movie. And I loved The Bad Detective. The Bad Detective was my favorite. I was like, I don't know, I think it's a coincidence.

I don't know, I think this. I loved it when they first found it, The guy shows up and it must be a coincidence. You are a good guy. Breathtaking. Everybody in the movie is already piecing these two murders together except for that guy.

And then later on, he's like, oh, we got to do everything by the book. Can't go crazy. But it's like, well, how could you not think that this girl who was murdered in the same spot, you know, on the anniversary couldn't be at all related? Yeah. Fine police work, then.

Yeah. Must be a coincidence. There's nothing to it. And then the other detective is like, she's dead. Yeah.

She's dead. He's like, I'm sure she's going to show back up any minute. It's like the opposite extremes. And then we've got our dead wife guy that's there in the middle piecing it all together, man. I like that guy.

Yeah. Yeah, that guy was cool. All right, so that is the silence, and hopefully you've already seen it if you listen this far in. Otherwise, you've messed it all up. All right, well, we do want to thank Sterling for letting us come back in here and hang around the alley.

It's very cool, and we're planning lots of devious ideas. Thank you, Sterling, who's not in here right now. He's wandered off, but he's in the building somewhere. He wouldn't leave us alone. We're like children.

We'd be swinging off these rafters, and that light would be broken already. Anyway, thank you, Sterling, for trusting us not to break all your stuff. Again, that is theallytheater.org and see what they've got in the works. And I think that about does it. Otherwise, that is it.

We will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening. Hello, darkness mild. I'm going to talk to you.

The meeting that was meant to be I'm cold as hell My eyes are stabbed by the passion I said you do not know Silence like a cancer rose We'll be right back. We're like completely.... Are we about to be chainsaw murder? Maybe so. This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by The Oddity Studios, with the opening music performed by The Empires.

For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard!