Goya's Ghosts

H we're I have a question for you, Mike. Yeah, how do you feel about Natalie port Not a big fan? Okay, because um, there are parts of this movie that are almost predicated on you liking Natalie port or at least finding her performance to be endearing as an actress. And yes, Natalie Portman for me will always be padme amadala and there's nothing she can do about it. And that's fine.

But she's a good actress. I just don't resonate with her. No, No, it's tough because, yeah, she's been in a lot of great things. She's been in some things that I just outright don't like, like The Professional That movie just makes me so queasy with all the pederasty in there. But things like Viva Vendetta, you know, that's a fine movie.

That's one of the better Alan Moore adaptations, I have to say. But yeah, there's I kept thinking about Anne Hathaway in Lei Misurab while I was watching this movie, and I think I might have more empathy for Hathaway in that than I do. Definitely more empathy with her in that than I do with Portman in this. Yes, because it's in a lot of ways of feels like the same role. Yeah kind of, yeah, yeah, just with very funny makeup.

Hilarious one mind knock over, a hilarious entry into Milo Schforman's philmography. Goya's Ghosts, A lot of ghosts, not a lot of Goya. Yeah boy. So on that note, on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host, Chris dash You, much to the chagrin of many, and I am joined by the man who put Mike White in, Mike White may or he is Mike White of the Mike White may of the Projection Booth, the more important thing of any of the things, and especially on the weirding Way Media Network. You're a friend of mine, host of the Projection Booth, Mike White, I'm here, you programmed this month.

I plead innocent of all charges. Yikes. Well, somebody's somebody's pleading for something, and it might be Natalie Portman for her life, because I've heard she's a judaiser, judaizer, judais god. Oh well, we're here, folks. It's Milosh Warman's final movie.

We're talking about it from two thousand and six, and it's called Koya's Ghosts. They consider him the greatest painter in Spain, most marvelous work indeed? Oh yeah, an artist renowned for his genius. You have the reputation of mocking them and of cloth in your work. Are you aware of how many powerful enemies you have?

Well? Yeah, Fortunately I also have a few very powerful friends. A woman adored for her beauty. Why doesn't that painting have a face? Because he's a ghost, No, he is not.

How do you know? But behind the art do you not see what tomnic filth this guy is selling? Do you painters not become very intimate with your models beyond the canvas? My daughter es has been summoned by the Holy Office Es s fosterous is a world where the powerful are declared righteous. We have to return to the god fearing ways of the past, and the innocent are declared guilty.

What do you want me taking bed? My daughter was tortured. Tell me what the truth is? There are revolutions everywhere in the name of Emperor Napoleon. We hereby proclaimed the Spanish Inquisition of Boy all of his prisoners.

We'll be friend, who's that car? There? Can me me? S Alicia? She has taken leave of her senses in jail, very is he nice?

She's a very good hens Javier Bardem, Natalie Portman and Stelein scars Guard. Why she's so important to you? You are completely obsistent theory that face is engraved on my mind. I'm not going to bed in her again. So it is directed by Milosh Foreman and it stars Natalie Portman if you can't tell, Javier Bardem, Stelein scars Guard, and Randy fucking Quaid because reasons, and the movie more or less focuses on Javier Bardem as as Lorenzo casamis a man who has no country and no allegiance other than the people that are paying.

And he's like Winston from the Ghostbusters, but not as charming. And he goes around and interacts with Natalie Portman, who plays a woman accused of being a jew sell and scars Guard plays Goya in a movie where it's named for him. Like you said, he's in it for two seconds, and Randy Quaid plays King Charles the Fourth And uh yeah, it's very much a Melosh Foreman movie. It's about people in control controlling other people and what that means for the people that are being oppressed. So Mike, I gotta ask you, as I've asked you every moment up until now on Mike white Man March.

Why are we talking about Goya's Ghosts? Same answer. I had never seen this movie before. I didn't even really know that this movie existed until I don't even know when, when I was doing some sort of research on Foreman. And yes, I remember Man on the Moon of course, the People versus Larry Flint, the two movies that he was doing with the same writers.

But Goya's Ghost you know, he's back to Jean Claude Carrier, who we've talked about before on the show. He co wrote Valmont. He what else did they work on? Taking Off? They also worked on together.

So I guess this is almost like Jean Claude Carrie a Month as much as it is Milosh Foreman Month. Yeah, and boy, all the Carrier stuff, at least this in Valmont have a distinct flavor to them. Yeah. I have to say right off the top that I didn't think that this was a bad movie. It might not have been for me, but I don't think that inherently this is unentertaining, and it's definitely it's put together pretty well.

There's a time jump that happens in the movie. That was very shocking to me, but it makes sense when it comes to kind of two halves of the same story, like yourself. I'd never heard of this movie. I'm a fan of Javier Bardem. In no country for old men like Javier Bardem, at least in Western cinema, ain't known for doing a lot of quality stuff.

In the same way that I would say, Oh Jesus, what is his fucking name? God damn it? The black English actor who oh yeah, La plays Luther like. I don't necessarily consider Indris Elba's work in American cinema to be quality stuff. Dark Tower, that movie where he fights those lions, Dark Tower, Prometheus.

Are you forgetting Pacific rim my friend? He canceled The Apocalypse? Yeah, I know you like them. I do enjoy that movie, No have you ever? Dam hasn't been having a lot of luck in our cinema.

I don't know how he's going to be in The Little Mermaid. I'm not holding my breath. I think that was a joke. I wasn't a big fan of his. Stillgar in Dune, all right, It's very curious to see what's what he's going to do in Dune too, because obviously Stilgar takes a much more prominent role in that, or at least he should.

I haven't seen Mother so one of these days, but he was a Radiss Captain Salah's are in that Pirates at the Caribbean. But yeah, just okay, Like, yeah, he hasn't done a ton of great stuff. His Bizarro Turn and Skyfall. Wow, Oh my god, Raoul Silva man the gayest Bond villain ever. Oh boy, yeah, good lord.

And I mean I think this might have been his last purely foreign film. I mean, I guess he wasn't Collateral that Tom Cruise movie, but I barely remember him being in that. I loved him in that fucking Pirates of the Caribbean movie only because the way he's a jets fill rolf. I know, he's so good. It's like he saw what Jeffrey Rush was doing and like, let me just ham it up like twice as much.

Look, I love Javier Bardem as an actor. I think he's an interesting actor. He's got a great face, he has a great look. He is a distinctive looking guy. But it's kind of unfortunate that I saw him in the best thing he's ever been in the first time I saw him, and I think that's for a lot of American filmgoers.

Oh Seven's No Country for Old Men is like, that's the first time we've seen this act. That's the first time I've seen this actor. And he makes such an impact in that movie. He's the best part of that movie. And that movie is really good anyways, Like it's a great movie.

He's also a great role in it, to the point where anytime you see anything about that movie, now it's about him. It's not about Josh Rowland's performance or not anything else. It's Anton Sugar, Anton Sugar all the way down. And like that speaks Volumes Tavii or Bardem as an actor. That being said, what were they thinking putting him in this movie?

I just he's so uninteresting as a character, Like he's meant to be this kind of guy who is a cell sword for anybody, right, Like I'll just go and follow whoever is in charge or whoever is going to give me whatever benefit I need from it. But like that story becomes muddied in a story about Goya, which has very little presence in the story, and it ultimately becomes like it just is so narratively disjointed that even if Javier Burdem was given a lot to do, the amount of time that they focus on his character is just not enough to get a sense of like anything going on in this movie. Really, it's so all over the place. And he didn't take it as him following who's ever in power? I mean, we've got really for me.

Yeah, I mean my interpretation was, while he's a man of the cloth, but he's weak, is very very weak. That he forces himself on Natalie Portman while she's in jail, and we'll back up a little bit later to talk about why she's in jail, and I'm very curious about some things around that he forces himself on her. His confession comes out and he has to go into hiding. So I was thinking that he goes to France to go into hiding and basically is relishing when the regimes change and he can come back to Spain and punish all of the people that punished him. That's what That's how I interpreted his role in this.

No, I mean, that's that's fair. I mean, I guess it was just more to the idea of like, he doesn't seem to have. Really, I mean, he has an allegiance, but look at the opportunity he gets to take Michael Lonsdale and just toss him under the bus, right, Like I mean that, and that's a thing. Like I like the idea of this character of like a guy who again he's out for himself, like he said, he's weak. He forces himself on Natalie Portman, but he's out for himself, Like he has a family, but they're the one scene that they share.

It's like this guy doesn't even belong here, Like he seems like an alien on the moon compared to these people, because you know that this guy is just putting on airs for everybody. And what I don't get is why wasn't he just the focus of the movie entirely, Like, yeah, we didn't need Goya in this boy. I don't don't know what the fuck's boy was. Yeah, I mean I love Stolen scarp. Oh my god, we just talked about him, Yeah, and I love he showed up.

I was just super excited. I was like, oh, great, Goya, cool, this is all gonna because they start the movie off with all of these images of his etchings and all this sudden like oh, very cool. I can't wait to learn more about this Goya guy and just what motivates him. He's got all this great imagery that he's doing, and this is really a bad time to be making any sort of etchings or paintings of demonic figures because you might get lumped in with witchcraft and just burn at the steak or thrown the jail or whatever. You know.

One thing I didn't expect was the Spanish inquisition in this movie, and sure enough, there they are, and yeah, he really takes a back seat. You know. He paints the painting of Natalie Portman and then he's painting pain he's painting a portrait of Javier Bardem as well, kinda helps those two meet ish and then he takes a back seat. You know, he shows up. I mean, he's so ineffectual as a character that he goes to that party where the after Natalie Portman has been taken and put through the ringer almost literally and thrown into jail, and her father and her family are just very upset.

They say, hey, Javier Bardem, come to dinner. We kind of want to flee their case for our daughter. They force him, they literally force him out of the movie. They push him out the door and they're like, yeah, that's great, mister Goya. Take care.

We're going to deal with this stuff with Javier Bardem. We're going to torture this dumbass and make him send his paper that says that he's actually the prodigy of or the seed of an orangutang and a chimpanzee, and that he's snuck into the church and he's there as a spy or all this kind of hilarious. I thought garbage, and yeah, then he goes away and then fifteen years later, what Yeah, it's and that's the thing, like we're a title of a film called Goya's Goes and the way that the movie opens it is a complete misdirect the movie that is in the opening sequence of this movie. I was totally on board. Oh yeah, Like Javier Bardem is this kind of learned priest maybe who is kind of defending Goya's work and saying like if we if we do X to him, it will look like why so we shouldn't do it, even if it's just the optics of it, like don't do it, and people see it.

I read on the internet it's supposed to be abu grab but whatever bullshit I call on any any of that, Like this is like anti war thing, Like it's such a small part of the movie that the purpose of the movie is not the opening scene. Any any importance you might draw from the dialogue of the opening scene gets erase the moment the movie actually gets going, because the movie is so much like Valmont's not even funny. It's that same high intrigue, people backstabbing one another, not being on the level, doing shitty things to each other because we're shit heads, like this movie in Valmont. There's a through line of the DNA here, because again in Valmont, it's you know, the Hals and the seemingly have not Here it's the holier than Thou and the seemingly Jewish, is what the I mean, Nobody ever expects the inquisition right until until it's the entire movie.

I didn't know Natalie Portman is going to be strung up and smacked around in this movie. Yeah, yeah, and that's I mean, of course it's supposed to be upsetting, but you're just like, wow, where did this come from? The question that I had though was why her? Why did she get picked up? Why do they say, because they do their research, And I go, oh, yeah, your fourth grandfather on this side converted from Judaism or whatever, like but why her?

Was it? Him? Was was Harvier Bardem? And I'm sorry that I keep using the actress rather than the characters. But other than Goya, we're not given a whole lot here.

But well, I guess we'll talk about how Natalie Portman actually placed two characters that want point, But like, why her? Why was she the one that gets picked up and accused of this? Is it because he saw her picture in Goya's studio because like that's the only wondering. Yeah, I mean, but he doesn't seem to be happy about them picking her up. No, it's like he sent people to spy on her, and in spying on her, she got made out to be falsely Jewish, Like how did that happen?

Like yeah, I don't get it, Like it's it makes no sense, like the whole like she's a Judaeazer because she turned down pork like what like yeah, here is this coming from here? Like it's just it's so weird because Natalie Portman's character is seemingly not on anybody's radar until all of a sudden, she is right. I mean, according to Wikipedia, it's as Later and as A spotted in a tavern by Holy Office spies trained by Lorenzo, who's the Javier Bardem character, declining a dish of pork. She is summoned by the Inquisition and arrested on charges of the icing is that it was it just the pork, Like yeah, but why right, Like yeah, how could that be? I mean again, some people don't eat pork because porks are filthy.

Animal man, you know, you can't tell me that dog tastes like, oh, I can't remember the lines. It's a dirty animal god. I mean I I just it's weird because it seems so just random, right, like there's no any like, well, there's a lot of randomness in this. I mean, the whole thing with her daughter and the whole thing with her fighting the baby. I mean again, we'll get there, but that was just like, okay, so you know that your daughter was holding that baby like five minutes ago, but she's fucked off now and is in a wagon being taken through the countryside.

Meanwhile you're wandering around like a crazy person holding this baby. Natalie Portman, if anything, she definitely puts in the hours in this movie to be considered like a major player and almost takes that takes the reins away from everybody because she's such a focus of the movie. But what a nothing of a character, like just like, yeah, when she's normal, Inez, she's just kind of sad and like begging for her life, and then when she's gone full you know, crazy as one might say, it's just oh, there's I had a baby and I had a baby, and it's like what like even in Sweeney Todd, something that I would consider to be similar to this in a lot of ways, because you have someone going away, has been in prison, they get out fifteen years later, all that kind of finding your family after you've had this thing happened to you.

Even that, which in like the Tim Burton adaptation is pretty ham fisted, it works better than this because at least I understand why the characters are looking for one another, and ultimately when they find each other there's a moment of like emotion between them. Here it's like who cares? I just it's so weird that this is the Melosh Foreman movie because it doesn't have the trappings in a lot of ways, of a Foreman movie. Those Sweeney Todds set in the years seventeen eighty five, Valmont, which we just talked about last week, set in the year of seventeen eighty two, and Goya's Ghost set in the year of seventeen ninety two. So I know, Sweeney todd is just funny because you're just talking about it.

But with Valmont and Goya's Ghost, these stories are basically taking place at the same time. So this whole idea of this costume drama, you know, it's it's like, why why the costume drama stuff? Like it's so bizarre, Like with these and then Amadeus, it's like you compare those films versus Fireman's Ball and Loves of a Blonde and Black Peter, where it's like the most naturalistic thing where we've got all these amateur actors and all this, and then you come over to his later career in the US and it's heavily costume dramas, all set in the late seventeen hundreds. It's like, Wow, that's that's a real switch. Well, I wonder if it's like a budget thing, because you know, Black Peter and stuff like that, like they don't have the budget to have all these amazing visuals of you know, yeah, like that's the thing.

You know. I just watched Cuckoo's Nest. I enjoyed it, and it felt like a Foreman movie. It felt like it was still talking about the same things that I expect from Foreman. Even if he doesn't write the script, he adds that Milosh Foreman essence to the movie that only he can do because he's a check filmmaker.

There's none of it here, Like, there's none of it here this this could have been made by anybody. Like maybe it's like that, like that dry wit is there. There's there are parts of this movie that are unintentionally hilarious there, and there are parts of this movie that are intentionally funny too, the whole Hangatang and Chimp thing or the Queen. Yeah, like that's funny. Randy Quaid being in this movie at all.

This hilarious, Like, there's plenty of funny stuff in this movie. But there's plenty of unintentionally funny stuff. But there's nothing that I could really point to and say that's a Melosh Foreman. Given now that I've spent this month watching his stuff, reading about him learning about what makes him the filmmaker that he is, and then seeing it while watching the movies. It's just this is just a period piece, like okay and great, like to what end?

So we can hear Stelein scars Guard pretend to be Spanish because okay, he doesn't even try. He does not try. He tries as as Randy Quaid tries. Yeah, it's any Stealin. Scars Guard has such a distinct voice that I can hear it in my head and like there's nothing like even Harkonen just sounds like Stelen scars Guard, Like oh yeah, yeah, like you know what you're getting when you you hire Stelen scars Guard.

So why did you hire him for this movie? Like he doesn't I looked at Goya. I guess he kind of looks he looks more like old Goya than he does as young. Oh yeah, yeah Goya with that hat, Yeah yeah, with the candle hat. I mean pretty ingenious and yeah yeah it seems like a fire hazard but kind of a genius.

H yeah. Yeah. I mean I'm not putting down Randy Quaid because I think that he does a very fine job and it almost looks like he was actually playing the violin in that scene. Like, if you told me that he played the violin, I would believe you because it looked very believable. And yeah, I think that the level of acting and actors that are in this movie are great.

It's just it feels it feels almost and I am so sorry jacque Land Carrier. It feels like this needed another couple passes through the typewriter just to kind of tighten some stuff up. It feels like it's a little lucy goosey that we you know, like again, it's like maybe we eliminate Goya or we just call him somebody else. He doesn't need to be Francisco Goya, the portrait artist. Well, and even to that end, it is like the ghosts of Goya, Like what does that mean?

Because they mentioned it in the movie a couple of times, like I guess, let's actually walked that back. Not a couple times they mentioned it once. They mentioned it one time in one scene. What this idea of the ghosts are? And it's you know, I can see their faces or I can see them, but I can't see their faces and that makes them go.

So it's like what I just I have a hard time understanding what was the point of this story? I guess, like Valmont, I understand it's dangerous, Liaisa, right, this is just like okay, So whose story is it? Is it? Natalie Portman's story? Is it?

Javier Bardem's story? Is it? Francisco Goya's story? Whose story is it? And because the movie, in my opinion, never makes up its mind.

It feels like it's just kind of hurtling towards this kind of bizarre conclusion of where it ends up going. And then at the end of it, you're just left wondering what the hell you watched because that that final scene of them going off in the cart with Natalie Portman, and everything's like, what what was the message here? Like? Did I just it? Is it such a deep message that I missed it?

No? I just don't think Carrie A knew necessarily what he wanted to say. I feel like there's something here. I just don't know what it is, not because I think the movie isn't clear with it. I just don't think the movie does a very good job of conveying it.

It knows what it wants to say, I just don't think it knows how to say it. Well, yeah, it's like it starts off with that really good question of the question and just the use of torture to get answers out of people more than Abu grab I would say, more like why am I blanking on Gilmo? Yeah? I felt very Giitmo to me. But I mean even then, it's like, okay, yeah, that was pretty cool, the whole thing of him than admitting that he's the son of a monkey, all this kind of stuff.

But then they cannot drop it. I mean, they do talk about the evils of the church a little bit more and just whose empower and all that kind of we already talked about, but they can lose that whole thread of the evils of the church as we go along, Like it's more just about who's empower and we don't see the church do anything else evil really. I mean, I guess the idea of them just taking her baby after she has this baby in prison, maybe, I mean, of course that's pretty evil, But what else you gonna do? You know, you can't let a prisoner have a baby. You gotta take it away and put it in an orphanage.

The better of the options. Yea, yeah, I mean you know, I've seen Gamo del Toro's movies. I know what Spanish orphanages were, Like, yeah, yeah, I know where they're taking those children. Yeah, it's no. And you know the I think the bigger point here, and I think it's the thing you clearly touched on the first part of this movie.

I actually think it's fine. Oh yeah, it's the second half that just like shits the bed and then wallows in it. Like it just it unabashedly feels like the movie just doesn't care in the second part, and frankly like why not just end it there? Like why not just end the movie with him being like, you know, run off of town. Like again, that's like a forty five minute movie, so maybe you need to shore it up more, but don't do like, oh, I'm fifteen years later, right wait a second, Like yeah, now, and so does that mean that the prostitute daughter is fifteen years old?

She wasn't even well, she was probably a little pregnant when we did that time jem. But I mean, like we just had Zygote, you know, we have Zygote. I know, I guess she was supposed to be fifteen. I mean, that's the thing Natalie Portman at this point in her career. She was born in eighty one, so nine, she was like twenty five, twenty six, yea seven.

So does Natalie Portman always present younger? Is that what it is? And that's what we're trying to do, Okay, But she doesn't present that young like, no, no, she didn't look she didn't. I mean, she's also been blessed that she looks very similar now to when she was a kid basically, But no, I didn't. I didn't take her as being fifteen years old.

It just that just hit me like right now. Well and like you know, speaking of Valmont for Rusa Bak looked, I mean, we talked about it in that episode. She looked, she looked young. Yeah, she looked younger than the age she was supposed to be even exactly she was. She would have been fifteen when that movie was fourteen, fifteen when that movie is being filmed.

So yeah, Natalie Portman is twenty seven trying to pass is fifteen. Like, because let me tell you, folks, you've never seen it, UNTI. You've seen Natalie Portman in brown face, oh boy, and she's got her brows and fake teeth I think she's got going on, and the ringlets is what really gets it. She looked like she looked like Kate Littlson from Always Sunny when she's doing her like brown Face character, when she like shows up at like work sites and it's trying to like get the workers to strike as like her Hispanic character. That's where she looked like, it's like, but that's funny.

This is just like whoa, wait a second, Natalie Portman like, you look ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, it looks pretty silly, and she like there are times because so this movie is set in Spain and it's shot in English, which is okay, that's great for great for me, I know, threw a lot of people off apparently, and especially because you have a very well known Spaniard as your lead with Javier Bardem. But it's like every once in a while it gets so Spanish that you're just like, whoa, what happened? Is this a cast party for Carmen or something like? What?

Why are all these people suddenly like in the traditional garb whereas nobody else is. And it's like, especially when it comes to those women, the prostitutes in the trailer later on, when they all get picked up, and I guess they're getting sent to America, that all these prostitutes, and Bardem is just like, Wow, better for her to be sent to America as a prostitute than for her to get killed in the war, Okay, and like the idea of indiscriminately just killing civilians. Yeah, but when she's in that i mean her garb and all of the other prostitute's garb, it's almost like, well, if you're paying for a Spanish prostitute, you want them to look like somebody who just went to you know, Halloween, USA and picked up the Spaniard costume.

You know that comes with little two dollar festinets, you know, I mean she looks like that. Yeah, it's it's goofy as fuck like it is. And and the funny thing is, so after the time jump, it's okay, so Goya's deaf, Now how do your Bardem has come back? And he is now you know, he's for the French and he's here kind of spitting in the face of the Spaniards who ran him out, and Natalie Portman gets out of prisons. He's having a real uh what was the last one?

Dark Knight Rises or whatever he's I'm surprised that it isn't the scarecrow sitting over judgment of everybody and I'm taking them out to a half frozen river and saying walk. Yeah, right, he's relishing that opportunity. Oh yeah. But Natalie Portman, the version of her in prison, gets out and she's looking for her daughter, and we find her daughter and it's her obviously, like we've mentioned, playing her daughter. That threw me for a loop the moment I saw that, because I was like, not expecting a dual role at all, and it's barely a dual role, because the character of Alicia or Alicia as if she is not a character, no like, and I mean Natalie Portman's other character not really a character either.

But somehow the daughter that she's playing of Habbier Burdem and herself is less of a character than she is. And yet we're supposed to care about this character for some unbeknownst to us reason. Yeah, and when she gets led out of prison, you were talking about unintentional laughter. This was definitely one for me, just to see the like prosthetic that they put on her face, because it just looks so funny when she talks, you know, it just looks like she's you know, like doing like Sean Penn from I Am Sam or something. It's just like, this is so weird.

And she's got the horrible stringy hair and the dress that's all shredded. And then my funniest part was she's walking down the street just totally out of it, you know, basically shuffling through, and nobody's paying attention to her because she just looks like a madwoman, which she is. There's this guy on the street who has the audacity to reach up his hand like he's begging from her, and I'm like, don't what you see what she's wearing. She doesn't have any money, what is your problem? And she basically stays in that same rattiness for almost the entire rest of the movie.

Yeah, that's why I was just saying the Sweeney Todd thing because it totally reminded me of Johnny Depp's like wife in that movie that gets taken away and then he sees her and she's like, oh, kind of nasty looking, but this is like speaking of party suits, you know what. This is the kind of makeup I expect from someone. On Season two, a face off that's eliminated before the halfway point of the season. Yeah, this is the quick challenge. Glenn Hetrick is shaking his head at this makeup, going it ain't for me.

Dog Like he'd walk up and go, okay, open your mouth. You can't. Okay, all right, this is the guy to mask. What the fuck? It's laughably bad.

And and I think that they know that almost because we don't see her a lot like she's when she's in her kind of like emaciated state, She is not on screen a lot. We almost see the like normal version of her more. However, however, right you saying the thing about the like whatever they thought they were gonna do with her mouth. I can't even like the way she holds her mouth the entire time. It's just like there's there's an image I have in my head of Bart Simpson from The Simpsons taking his fingers stick him in his mouth and taking his mouth and like stretching it down and his teeth are sticking out.

It looks like that. It looks comically bad, like like in Bubba Hotep or actually in The Frighteners when John Asketon like rearranges his jaws it's like that. It's like, what's going on here? Like she was in prison, she wasn't being eaten by rats every days she looks like she's doing a bad Sylvester Stallone impersonation. Yeah, oh yeah, it's so fucking strange.

And that's why I asked the thing about Portman because I don't unlike Natalie Portman is one of those actresses where, like Robin Wright, I just don't what's the appeal, Like, is it she's good looking and she's talented, because like, yes she's good looking and yes she's talented, but it doesn't ever feel like she brings anything to the roles. It's just like her being her. I don't know, Like I don't. Maybe that's just me. I feel terrible for saying that, but Natalie Portman is just one of those actresses that I don't resonate.

Yeah. Yeah, there's I'm trying to think of anything of hers where I'm just like oh yeah, yeah, like I might like the movie that she's in, Like I know, this is a horrible example Zoolander, because she's just playing herself. Yeah, but yeah, it's like, yeah, there's not a lot where I'm just like, oh yeah, Wow, that Nadalie Apportman performance was just amazing. I guess maybe maybe, And I think this works well because of the way that I see her is her performance in Black Swan, which is funny because we I just mentioned Mother, So it's like a little lah, what has Aaronovsky done for me lately? Kind of thing.

Hey, I'm not an Aaronovsky fan, but I know people are. I know people are. I thought, well, I've only seen that movie once, but I really it really made an impression. But that maybe, I mean anybody could have been an Annihilation Anybody. Yeah, I was gonna say, like, that's the only movie I can think of that I like that she's in, But a character that she's playing in that movie could have been played by Robin Wright, and I would like the movie like it's that same, like cold detached, not involved, but that's the character in the movie.

Like that's the whole stick is like cold and detached. I haven't seen the new Thor movie. Okay, that's all I needed to hear. Ye. Good.

Basically, it's almost like avoid the Thor movies where Jane's in them. But her little cameo in Endgame that worked well. But that was about it. I don't even know if that was actually that might have been her, that might have been an outtake. I can't remember.

I honestly forgot she was even in it, Like wow, yeah, it's just when they're trying to get the soul stone. Oh yeah, Rocket and Thor going over to Asgard. It's just weird the Natalie Portman's involved with such mainstream stuff in such a big way, because like obviously again Amidala from Star Wars and I just rewatched those prequels, like she is bad in it, but we all know, yeah, we all know that, Like it's no fault of their own, right, right, I mean, Hayden Christensen is actually a case booble actor. Yes, and they made him horrible. Yeah, they somehow made creating Christians and look like fucking a two by four with googly eyes.

Yeah yeah, and Nat only for him in the same way, like really like their chemistry in that movie, it's what chemistry? Yeah exactly, it's horrifying, Like and that's honestly, I would say the same thing about this movie, like what what what chemistry is? Is Natalie Forman supposed to have with Goya, because that's the intended relationship that's supposed to matter in this movie, right, It's right Goya and her and him going to bat for her, and then forgetting about her for fifteen years, well yeah that and then she is I mean, I guess in her mind because we don't stay with her enough. We don't see her like when they bring her back out, when they go okay, release all the prisoners, and then they cut to her and like, oh yeah, yeah, that that lady in Nez.

Yeah, I forgot about her. Like honestly, I forgot about her character. I was just like, Okay, well she's fucked. She's going to jail whatever, She's probably going to be tortured and die. I mean, I've seen the devils.

I know what happens. But you know, like she comes back and I'm like all right, And then we eventually find out about the baby and I'm like, oh, hey, yeah, but I don't know. I mean, I guess because she was a virgin and Bardem takes her virginity. That's why she becomes obsessed with his character and is trying to find him, is trying to find the baby. Is there at the end, desperate for him to look at the baby and make that connection and yeah, but that's you doing the work for the movie.

That's definitely me doing the work that because I'm just like, well, what was that like for her in prison? And I'm thinking about that while the movie's running, and I'm like, well, maybe I should actually pay attention. I think it's to the I think it's more to the movies. Failing that, it's not able to keep it didn't keep my attention. And look, the movies hour and a half hour, it's like our almost two hours.

It's not even over two hours. It's one hundred and fourteen minutes, right, so that's like an hour and fifties. So it's it's a glacially paced movie, and that's an insult to glaciers. Like it's just by the end of it, I went okay, and what was what were what was Foreman getting at? Because that's the thing, Like Melosh, Foreman makes movies where he's saying something like in Koku's Nest, like even in Black Peter, and I'm sure I haven't seen Man in the Moon in a decade.

I'm sure he says more about the human condition in that movie than he even attempts to get at in this movie, because it seemed like for me, at least, Melosh Foreman's movies are about the human condition and being human and also like, you know, the shared experiences that we all have, beat them good or bad, and kind of how we find a way to deal with them, and like there's none of that like Goya or as much of a character in the title of the movie he is, he's not around enough to be kind of the Jimminy cricket of the piece, because that's what I was expecting, like the emotional core of the movie. He was gonna be Goya, who all these things are happening too, and he's just I'm just an artist, like you know, like because that's kind of the sense that you get early on in the movie is he wants to get involved, can't get involved because his patrons are the people who are doing all this nasty stuff.

I mean, the stuff with Randy Quaid right like that. Honestly, that's some of the best stuff in this entire movie is when it's away from Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman and we get to see Stellen scars Guard and Randy Quaid on screen together, which I thought you were going to say Stelen scars Guard and Philippe has deaf interpreter. Oh, that guy's great, it's great. Well, even when it comes to him losing his hearing, it's like he gets that noise in his ear. Cut fifteen years later, Okay, now he's deaf.

We don't get to see the struggle like by this time, like Philippe is not in his life, but eventually he does come into his life and he uses him for Darren. Well, but it's not really a struggle for him, even when he's just like, oh yeah, if you and then see it very clearly, I can read your lips. That was an interesting scene and the way that we're cutting between Bardem's mouth and Scarscar's eyes. And then later on there's a moment when he's talking about how Spain is. This is Bardem talking about how Spain is a whorehouse.

And as I'm watching that, I keep watching when his head turns away from Goya, so I'm again I'm doing I guess more of the work of the movie going. Okay, he could hear that, Oh, he couldn't hear that? He could hear that, he couldn't hear that, And just like then he comes out with like I'm not a whore or whatever, and I'm like, well, I guess, yeah, you only heard just half of the conversation because Bardem kept turning away. Yeah, it you were doing the movie's job for it. Yeah, I was really putting a lot of work into this one.

I do like the amount of work that they put into the Napoleon ADR. That was so bad. Did you notice that scene? Than I didn't notice that was that when they're picking out the the artworks or something else. Is so it's like I believe it's like right after the fifteen year cut.

It's like Napoleon is addressing like a room of people and he's like walking from left to right in the frame and it's like someone ad ard In doing Napoleon and you can see the actors like mouth moving a little bit, but it's clearly it sounds out of place. It doesn't sound like it was recorded within like a room with like echoing. It's just very like flat. And I was just saying, they're like, this is a movie made by people in Hollywood, and somebody just let that happen. Like I know again, ADR is what ADR is, But like, good lord, guys, like anything else in that scene to distract us, because you can't can't, Like that's a rookie like mistake.

Again, Like that's the thing. Like, ultimately, as good as this movie looks, it does feel kind of like slipshot, right, Like it doesn't feel very well put together. No, No, which is weird because the sets look beautiful. I mean there's so many times where I'm just like, oh wow, you know, all these costumes are amazing. But yeah, it just doesn't it doesn't feel like it holds together.

No, And it's a shame. Do you know what this movie is missing Vincent Skia Valley. Yes, because he was dead, right, he was dead. Yeah, he died four years before this came out. I don't even think she could have saved it.

Like, yeah, I mean, you have plenty of great actors in this movie. Again we've mentioned some of them. Michael Lonsdale's in this Moon Fox's sake, like not given much to do? No, No, Lonsdale's amazing and yeah, yeah I really well, his eyebrows are fantastic. Oh yeah, I just kind of wish that he had been wearing that same Moonraker outfit, you know, the silver suit, the nehru jacket.

Hell yeah, that's a that's a look man, that Nehru cad. Yeah, I always forget he's wearing like a fucking Nehru jacket that movie. What they should do they should do a remake of Moonraker and cast Peter Dinklich in that role. Oh wow, he does kret like a like a diminutive Michael landsdem kind of Does they have that same like old man face? Yes, yeah, I don't know, Like I don't know Foreman's all of his works enough to say that this is the worst thing I've ever seen of his But for the things that I've seen, this is worse than Black like it's and I think that's because of what the promise is, right, because Black Peter, it's just a bunch of yoyo's on screen, like real check people having real check problems.

This is Haffier fucking Bardam, like still working today. He's in a movie that comes out this week, Like he's still a known entity and a quantity that people want to have in their movies, just like Natalie Portman, just like still in Scars Guard. It's gonna be Dune too later this year with fucking Abar Bardem and yet they pissed it all the way, Like this feels like a fucking pissed it down the toilet opportunity because you have Milo's foreman working with these people. I've seen how he I've seen the performances he gets out of people like Tom Holsey for fuck's sake, like he knows how to point the camera at actors and get a good performance. And here it's just like everything failed him.

And maybe it's Carrier's script, but Boorman's name is on that written by just like Carrier's name is. So yeah, yeah, I think I enjoyed it more than you did, But this is one I will never be revisiting. Yeah, what is there to glean from a second watch? Like nothing, or not even a second watch, like a second opportunity to watch it because ultimately the movie that you mentioned that it made me think of, the most that I wish I was watching instead is The Devil's Like everything in the last ten minutes of this movie is like just he saw Ken Russell's Devils and went, how can I do that? But with Javier Bardem And it's not even half as compelling as the climax of the Devils because you don't care about the characters, right, and I think it would have made sense.

I mean, Javier Bardem is a very attractive man, and I agree if they had made if they had cast somebody who was less attractive in the role, would have been a little a little easier to believe, because sometimes I just feel like attractive people who just kind of get to glide through life. It feels like nothing probably would ever really happen to his character, even with the confession. It feels like he would just get a few laughs and he would own up to it, and he would get a nickname for a few years and eventually fade away. You know. But it feels like if they asked more and put peace Hustlewaith in this role and then see how it plays to be like, oh, this ugly old man impregnated this girl and is now seeking power and is back from France and putting all of his cronies on trial.

I think that would have been a lot more compelling than to see a handsome Javier Bardem. I mean, of course, he does a great job with the role, but I just feel like it should have been somebody else. Would this movie had possibly been better if they had just swapped stell and scars Garden Javier Bardem possibly, yeah, and then they have to focus on Goya more because then it's your lead actor as as Goya. I think that would have fixed it. Does Javier Barden look like Goya?

No? Is Javier Bardem actually able to speak the language that Goya spoke convincingly? Yes, So that also would fix like the language issue, because I don't know why this movie was not in Spanish, Like for all of the things Foreman has ever done, like he normally tries to hu closer to people of the time in the movies, try like trying to replicate it somewhat like this is just like Natalie Portman and Stellin's scars Guard. You can't get around the fact that that's who that is, even if even if they're amazing, which they're not in this movie, it's still just Javier Bardem and Stelein scars Guard and Natalie Portman on screen. It doesn't have that natural like even in you know, in Cuckoo's Nest.

One of my kind of only issues with the movie is Jack Nicholson is too much Jack Nicholson, Like he is too much himself and the movie kind of doesn't need him to constantly be ten x Jack Nicholson because what's going on in the movie, you know what I mean, Like he's just kind of always Jack Nicholson this movie, like they're just Javier Bardema, Natalie Portman and Stelle's cars Guard. Like I can't because because Milish Foreman doesn't do enough to give me something else to latch onto, I kind of just see him as that. And in Cucker's Nest he does give me enough. And Nicholson is such a fucking massive presence as an actor that that feels like a hard thing to do and they almost don't succeed at it here.

It's like they're not even interested. Well, so not to turn this into a conversation about one flu or the Cuckoo's Nest, but I think that because at that time in Nicholson's life, like, of course Nicholson's always going to be Nicholson, but there's degrees of Nicholson. It's kind of like degrees of Paccino, right right, And like I'm thinking, like Colonel Knowledge and five easy pieces and drive he said, and just like the things that came, you know, the Manti Helmond films that he's working on. He was Nicholson, but I don't think he became the Nicholson with like you know, Capital and until until Cuckoo's Nest. So I think, like what you're seeing, you know, you've grown up with Jack Nicholson always being around and being bigger presence.

You know. It's kind of like somebody who has grown up over the last twenty years and just knows al Pacino is who knows you know, these kind of things, and it's like you go back and you watch The Godfather, You're just like, Wow, this guy could really act. This is amazing. You mean al Paccino from Jack and Jill. Yes, exactly, I'm talking about dump Pachito.

Oh what's in my name? I totally get it. And you're You're completely right, like and in a lot of ways, like people like Nicholson retiring spare themselves from doing the Paccino thing, right. Nicholson's been retired for thirteen years now, so who knows what shitty rolls he missed out on being in. But I just stop it and Foreman, honestly, like, I wonder the same thing because like, oh six, this is his last movie.

It's not like he died the next year. He died twelve years later. Right, So I'm curious because this one didn't do jack shit in the box office, literally nothing. I'm wondering if yeah, fifty million dollar budget, nine million nine point four return, he's not getting courted to make anything, even though I think he should have. He to me is one of those almost can't say an elder statesman, but he has had I would I would say that that's a close approximation.

Yeah, with his especially with his American films, you know, just the last few before that with People Versus Larry Flint and Man on the Moon. But like, why wasn't the next movie the two thousand and one rather than two thousand and six? So it felt like there was a long time between there. I mean, he did take a long time to make his movies, but man, oh man, it's like, why aren't you getting the gigs after even after a box office bomb like Boya's Ghosts, right, And you know, in doing research, there was another movie that him and Carrie A had written along with block of hovel from Czechoslovakia, but that movie never got made. And it's like in the late in the late two thousands, is what I kept reading about it.

It's like, okay, so was that before this or was this like the proverbial nail in the coffins again, Like I'm not gonna say this feels like one, but this feels like a director Flaylet, like like a fish on the bish on the sand, gasping for air. Like I just by the end of it, it was like, all right, Milish Foreman, like you have done great movies and that is why I am watching this, but this is not one of them. And you see that with all kinds of you know aw tours or you know, big name directors, I mean some of them managed to go long enough and not make enough movies that they avoid it. But you know again for I mean, Foreman almost avoided it. Like you know, a lot of his movies are pretty well regarded, this not being one of them, ultimately, like it doesn't affect the fact that he directed two of what is widely considered to be some of the greatest movies ever made.

So and you know, one of the few movies where a comedic actor actually has a decent dramatic turn, which is a hard thing to do success because very few directors have been able to get the performance out of Jim Carey that Foreman got out of him in Man on the Moon. Regardless of what you think about that movie, it's the only Jim Carey performance dramatic wise, where he actually like shows up. And I give Foreman a lot of credit because Melosh Foreman was able to do what a lot of directors don't have any interest in, which is like getting that performance from that kind of actor and dealing with the bullshit on set. But this, to me is just not indicative of the quality that Melosh has put up until this point.

And in a lot of ways, it reminds me a little bit of taking off in that like there wasn't a lot of information about it, kind of like taking off. It's like Borman doesn't even if he's feeling that way, I is the audience. I'm kind of receiving that from the film itself, where you're just kind of not disinterested, but you're you're not putting your best foot forward because you realize maybe this movie is not as successful as I hoped it would be. Yeah. Yeah, it's a real shame to think.

You know. He apparently after this, I don't know if he went back to chuckles Vakia. But his last credited thing that he did was it sounds like it was a readaptation of a movie that he I want to say co directed it back and I want to say sixty five. I can't remember for sure, but it's a musical play called A Walk worth While And it looks like he and I think Peter is his son, one of his sons that he directed that with his son for the stage and for film. Um, yeah, which was you know that.

I'm glad that they were working together. That's kind of cool. That was two thousand and nine. That's the last thing that he did apparently, But yeah, I wish that he had been able to make at least one more film, yeah, because he kind of just disappeared. Yeah, Like and even Goya's Ghost, like nineteen ninety nine to six is a long time.

Yeah, seven years in the like I would say, and I don't know where you come down in this, Like six months in the movie industry is a long time to not have something come out like right, and like that used to be the rules. Now it feels like a month and you're not in something and you're not relevant anymore. But seven years, even in ninety nine and like their mid two thousand. It's like that's a long time. Yeah, now you're like, whatever happened to that Twain the Rock Johnson, He hasn't put out in anything for a while.

I wish, I wish we could say that, Yeah, a little a little break would be fine, Dwayne, if you want to put your projects a little better, I mean, okay, I mean and even think about someone like Lynch right like seventy seven, eight, eighty four, eighty six, ninety like cranking them out every five to six years. This is just Oh, it's a shame. It's a shame that Foreman couldn't figure out a way to make things work after this. This does not seem like a death sentence the way some movies I've seen that au Tour's release then never do anything else, like right, this is not that this is just like yet another costume period. This was not some sort of major vanity project that he was doing.

Yeah it was. It feels like it feels like it is. It feels like a smaller movie, even though it's got amazing production design. But I imagine that's because you're shooting in Spain and able to use a lot of locations that are still around and still look like they did at least in our minds. You know, yeah, they might have looked a lot different back then.

Yeah, but no, I mean to your point, like, if you shoot on location like it, you make this easier for yourself to look to look period authentic. But looking period authentic, having good actors, having nice costumes, just it doesn't pass muster if the movie's not engaging and it's just not and I wish I wish it was, and I'm not, you know, I'm not. I think I maybe dislike it more than you do, but at the same time like it and honestly just it's kind of sad more than anything else, Like it's this movie in a lot of ways, is the film equivalent of the Natalie Portman character in the movie after the Fifteen Years. It's just like, ah, man, Like that's kind of unfair, Like that's unfortunate that this is a story director's final film, like we couldn't have had, like, you know, an Irishman type thing or anything.

Who knows what Scorsese's final movie will be, but hope is it's not going to be something like this. Like in my mind, if Scorsese had ended on like a Hugo. It's the equivalent of this, right, Like, well, that's I mean that would That's an interesting question that I want to kind of ask you, Um, like, are there other directors that have had this kind of like weird stop and done moment that you can think of? Yeah? I'm sure there are, but I can't think if any right off the top of my head.

Um, yeah, I'm trying to think of even like, you know what, what were the last few films of like houred Hawks or Billy Wilder Row, Like Buddy Buddy was a weird movie for for a Wilder to go out on, you know, right, and I don't remember what some of Hawks is later? Or like I mean Keeper had like a forty five year decline, right well, I mean, like you know the joke about Hugo aside, Like, can you imagine if Tarantino just stopped at like I don't know what would be considered his less least of his movies by people. I like that movie, really, I do. I you know why I like it, it's because it's like an hour and a half. I suppose they Hateful Eight, which is three hours.

I think that's his least successful movie from I think for most people. I think I think Kate Phile eight is not the one that people returned to the same way like they returned to Glory's pastards and kill bills. So like, imagine if Tarantino didn't make anything past that, Like it's just weird, because again, this doesn't feel like such a blow up that Foreman couldn't have like weathered the storm, right right, right, Yeah, this was not a I mean, the movie is put together well, it wasn't a disaster as far as that goes, And it wasn't like some sort of weird politics or something. No, it's just yeah, I don't, I don't. I guess I don't understand how this movie exists the way that it does and has no like like nobody talks about this, Like I know why people are talking about the Foreman movies that they talk about, because those are worth talking about, but nobody mentions this as like a weird artifact at the end of his career, Like I had never heard of this until you talked about watching it, like and I like, we've talked about Hobbio, Bardem Style and scars Gard.

Nowy Foreman. All people at least two of the three I would watch in fas if they were in it. And oh yeah, yeah. Well the biggest thing, the biggest shame is that I don't think that Stillgar ever meets Baron Harconan, so we can't really get a reunion. Oh my god, Oh my god, I oh my god.

Right, I mean maybe no, the Baron's already dead by the time. Well I'm thinking of the lynch version, but micause, Stillgar is there in the throne room at the end, but by that time, Baron Harconan's already been eaten by a worm, right long dead? Yeah, my brother. You know, when I watched these movies that have actors from doing in them, I just and make me think of doing. I just want to watch dude, I know, right, I mean really, like I was saying before we started recording, you know, like, what's the movie that you quote from the most, And I was like, Good Fellows, Lord of the Rings.

It might be Dune, just because you can't say that somebody tried, because as soon as somebody says they tried, I'm like tried and died, tried and fa tryin and died. Yeah. I hate that about movies. That make me think about better movies, because then it just makes you want to watch the better movie. And when you do that as a movie, like it's like when a movie has a movie in the movie that the characters are watching, and it's like, you know, I wish I was watching that.

Like Scream does it perfectly. Scream shows Halloween in the movie and it ends up being a good movie. But there are so many movies that just have another movie in there that I'm like, you know, don't show me that, because I'd rather watch that than this. Yeah, there was a Turkish movie I was watching one time at a film festival and they were watching TV in the movie, and I was just like, no, no, leave it on the TV. This is far more interesting than what these two guys are up to.

Just let I want to hear about this. Let me know about Yes, yeah, I want to watch Turkish TV for an hour and a half. I'd be absolutely fine with that. Just let me flip around the channels. You know, anything beats having to see Natalie Portman in brown face or de mouth.

Oh my god. Yeah, I don't know what's worse the alf that she's doing with those fake teeth or the the kind of like light brown face. It's like, what was that woman called the woman who was like claimed that she was black. It's like, oh, that woman, Like it's like that, like, don't don't put curls in your hair and then tell everybody that you know, well like my family. Yeah, Rael, that's kind of what she looks like.

It's like again, like I just I didn Natalie Portman look that way to begin with. Is my question? If they're all supposed to be in Spain, right right? She looks like and then she looks like Natali A Portman or Portmando. It's like that senior Spielbergo thing.

Natalie Portmando, Yes, that's her stunt double. Like, guys, come on, I identified as Spanish. Yeah, oh okay, got it. That doesn't make you Spanish though, but I identify that way. Okay, got you?

Natalie? Oh my god? Yeah, I hey. You know what, though, I think ultimately with something like this, I'm coming into this in a in a direction that's not I'm not the right person for these movies. Period piece costume movies are not my game, Like I've maybe I need to watch the right ones.

Maybe I've never watched the good ones. Maybe I haven't watched enough Judy Dench and Cate Blanchet movies to really understand how good they are. But this is not helping. Neither was Valmont. Yeah.

I don't know, man, Like, maybe I've just missed those movies and the good ones. But there are good contemporary costume period movies out there, right, Like, are you the same way? Do you feel the same way? I know some people dig the fuck out of them, but like as Bridgerton exists for some person, right right, Yeah, it really doesn't float my boat. There's you know, I can think of things like oh Fool's Eaterrings, Madam, and it's like, Okay, that's a costume drama and that works beautifully.

I love it, And I'm sure, I'm sure there's got to be other costume dramas like you mentioned the Judy dene Kate Lanchet like Sense and Sensibility was really good, but that was Yeah, I mean maybe, um Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, maybe, but it is knocked out. I thought you were gonna say fucking A Night's Tale. A Night's Tale is a great movie. Now, I haven't seen it in a very long time. I love recipens in Marcatti though, so I should, I don't don't.

I don't have an opinion about Heath Ledger though, so I just don't. I guess for me, I don't know what they don't resonate with me about. But yeah, like all those like Kate Blanchett, Elizabeth you know, all those kinds of movies just to be the plots. I mean, so much of it is like when we're talking about Valmont, the whole castle entrigue kind of thing of like who knows what and who's telling what to who kind of thing. May a lot of those share that when it comes to the costume dramas, because it's not like you know, well, there's stuff like Count of Monte Cristo, which is basically an action movie but set in that time period, right right, yeah?

Which yeah, that oh god, that Kevin Reynolds version of it, Chef's Kiss. I love that movie. Is that the one with Leonardo DiCaprio. No, No, that's the that was the man in the Ironmask. This is the Jim Jim Covezel completely Jim Caviezel, Guy Pearce rufus sewel yep, And oh my god, Louis Guzman is so fucking good in that.

I like, don't you like? How of all the people that I mentioned, it's rufus Sewell. I appreciate that because you could have put a gun to my head. Um, yeah, the U And actually was it him? And that is he not in that?

I don't think he is. Freddy Jones is though, So how is Oh no, rufus su Well is in A Night's Tale. Yes, you're right, You're right, that's what it is. Yeah, it's I'm trying to remember the name of the guy who's Monsieur Clarion and he's in that Prodigal Son show now with Michael Sheen. I think isn't rufus Will also an Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter.

I think it might be everything else the Press, not the Prestige, the other one. Oh the Illusionist. Yeah, he's the bad guy in that one. Oh he just he's a he's a good actor, but he's not in that movie. Apparently.

I've seen that man in the Iron Mask, the Man in the End Mask. No Count of Monte Cristo, which one, Yeah, both of them are good, but Count of Count of monte Cristo's one. I actually own on DVD, not blue, right, I don't think I'm upgraded yet. I have never seen any of I know that they exist. I remember the poster for The Man in the Iron Mask and The Count of Monte Cristo because those are like early two thousands movies.

But yeah, yeah, but like you said, they're action movies, right, like, oh yeah, yeah, it's all Duma and Hugo, you know, very swashbuckling. So and I think I think we you know, gosh, we're way off tangent here, but just the idea of where you draw that line between swashbuckling films and the costume dramas, because they share a lot of stuff, and I think it might be because of the plot and just like I was talking about the who Knows Who the that intrigue versus. You can still have that, but then you have sword fights, right, Well, there aren't a lot of sword fights in the Judy Dench movies that we're talking about, right, I mean, I guess, I guess a period piece movie with costumes and stuff that I do, like is Pirates of the Caribbean.

We kind of men. Yeah, you go into that swashbuckling territory man, right, exactly, but it still has that like the high intrigue and the bullshit of like the people backstabbing each other. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's it's one of these things where I think some of us just resonate with certain things and others don't. And I don't know.

I this is not what I was expecting from Miloschfordman, And like you said, like it's kind of weird that he was just like mister costume period piece man, like right, yeah, And you know, when we talk next week about Ragtime, it's also a period film, but from a much different period and rat in my mind, and I'm very curious to get your take out it, but in my mind, that one works better than all of the ones that we're talking about over the last pretty much month. Well, I will tell you that, you know the fact that a non American made Cuckoo's Nest and was as unbiased as he ends up being, which is such a benefit to the quality of that movie and the story that it tells and the way that it's able to convey it.

I can only imagine that Ragtime will feel similar, and that is a complete outsider talking about the American can experience through the lens of a checklist Slovakian. And that's the thing. I mean, ultimately, with something like Goya's Ghost, it's there is no the voice of Foreman gets lost, and it is such an important voice, because his voice is such an integral part of what makes his films great, even if their adaptations of other people's work right, And and that's and that's the failing here is we know that Foreman makes great movies, and this should have been one, and it's not. And that's the ultimate bummer, right because again, like unlike so many directors who have ten twenty thirty, forty fifty movies to their name, he had like twenty two, not even like it's it's such a small number that it's you're able to count it easily, and that and that's a shame.

It's like David Lanche and so many other people where their output doesn't match the like their output doesn't match the quality of the movies because the quality of their movies are so good that it takes too long. I guess maybe possibly with some people that might be the case. I guess it's hard to tell. White Foreman takes forever to make movies. Yeah, you know, like you can't pin it on any one thing.

But when someone takes a while and their movie comes out and it's amazing, you chalk it up to they know what they want and they know how to get it, and they're you know, this, that and something else. But when it comes out like this and there's eight years in between, you ask yourself why did it take so long? So it is a complete double edged sword as an autour. I feel like, so, you know, Twin Tarantino waited six years and people are excited, Milo's Foreman waited six years and it comes out nobody cares. That's unfortunate.

So so, Mike, anything else you want to talk about with this? Goya's Ghosts. Final thoughts on Goya's Ghosts, Mike, No, final thoughts on this one. I thought I wish it was I wish it was better. Yeah, it's okay.

You're not going to absolutely hate it if you see it, but don't seek it out. I mean I don't. I don't know how easily or difficult it is to find this one, but yeah, you don't need to be a completist. And I think that's kind of the lesson that this month has taught me, Chris is that I don't need to be a completist. So I just want to tell you to answer your question.

This right now is on Peacock. Oh okay, that's where I watched it because I was like I was. I punched it into Google and I was like, where is this because sometimes it is just places. It was on fucking Peacock. So and it's actually on Plex for free too.

So it was really weird because the version I had, I was very afraid because the opening credits were half in German and half not, which was really weird because I would say, like music by you know, all of those things were absolutely in English. But then when it came to Goya's Ghost, it was like Goya Geese or whatever. And then the opening where it's like, you know, seventeen eighty two Spain, but here's the inquisition that was all in German. And then as soon as a character starts to speak, he's speaking English and there was no German for the rest of the movie. It's like that was weird.

Yeah, I noticed. I noticed that too, because I watched one version on Plex and the other on Peacock, and like the Peacock one didn't have that. But what's funny is on to be. The description of the movie is painter Francisco Goya faces a scandal involving his muse, who is labeled a heretic by a monk. No, it's not that movie that we watched.

She's not really his muse. Well I guess she is, because he does say at one point she's in every face that paint And they do that montage which really stands out because it's not like anything else in the movie, the montage of all of the faces from his paintings that looked kind of like Natalie Portman. They tried to make us believe as an audience by not showing it but telling it that Natalie Portman is somehow Goya's muse, right, And that feels pardon parcel to the ultimate failing of this movie, which is getting us to care about something that you don't care enough to tell us about in a way that would be entertaining or enthralling or making me empathetic with a character who's been locked up for fifteen years.

Ultimately, I was kind of just ready for this movie to be done. Well, it's weird because I don't like to advocate for longer movies, but this one feels like it could have used more, especially when it comes to the setup and then the something during the fifteen year time jump. Yeah. Well, I mean I'm always hesitant with any movie that has like a massive time jump in it, especially one that happens like this with no warning, because it feels like they're covering up for some failing that they just don't want to deal with, which is like a conclusion to the story or I don't know, like really, the second half of the movie is way worse than the first part, so much so that it's like, that's if anything needed a second or third pass, it's the second half.

Yeah, but yeah, I'm with you, like it could have used twenty thirty minutes, even because it feels like an incomplete movie. It doesn't feel like a form in movie. And yeah, like you've said, it's just for the amount of time in between the movie. He's like, hey, you know, at least we have cuckoos Ness and Amadeus because otherwise, like this would not be like you said, Nope, this is free for a reason, like people are not Nobody would pay for this, hopefully nobody in their right mind at least so so. On that note, let's take a break and we'll play a TV spot for the final movie of Mike white May.

What a time. It was a time for crystal chandeliers and flowing champagne, A time for secret seductions and public scandals. I know what you do with your chorus girls. A time when a chorus girl became the mistress of a millionaire and triggered the murder of the century. Bad Time, Good Time, Ragtime rated PG.

That's right, we're gonna be talking about Ragtime, and Richard's going to be joining us, which I think is actually the first time the three of us have done a culture cast together. Wow, Okay, you might be right, yeah, because I've never been on your show with him, and you've never been on my show with But he's been on our respective shows, right, Yeah, he's been on cole check tapes, he's been on Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller. I don't think he was ever on any of the like Father Malone shows that we do, No No, but and then yeah, franking on ass, big cranking. Yeah. So we're gonna be talking about a big ensemble movie directed by Melish Foreman called ragtime and Richard had him of ranking on bass.

We'll be joining us and you'll be joining us, Mike, Yeah, I'll be out the money. Yeah, try to stop me run. So, speaking of trying to stop you, where can people find what you do every Mike, Oh, you can find all of my stuff over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, which is available at weirdingwaymedia dot com. So things like the Projection Booth. I may just mentioned a few other shows that we do.

What else are we working on, Chris? Oh? Yeah, The Shabby Detective yet another Columbo podcast, which just had a new episode go up this week. So get on over there and hear us not rag on an episode. We were very positive about this one.

Yeah. We tend to be positive people for the most part. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I feel like I've really brought the room down with these Foreman films this month. I don't think you've brought the room down as much as you did in twenty twenty. Oh boy, it was.

It was just like Mike's piling on with the universe, folks. Yeah, here's the pandemic and now here's all these depressing foreign films. Yeah, intentionally depressing foreign films about the end of the fucking world. Yeah, she couldn't have picked a better time, so good lord. Yeah, I would say where you can find me, but it's just going to be exactly what Mike said, so Weirdingwaymedia dot com.

You can find this show on the internet culturecast dot com, Patreon, go there to give money, but like rate and review the show wherever you get it, which is more than likely iTunes or Spotify, though only one of those have the ability to rate and review the show, which is Itune, So even if you listen on Spotify, go over to iTunes to give us a review because that's where it helps. Mike, thank you so much for joining me and for programming the month. Even if these movies haven't been Foreman's best, it's been fun to talk about. It has been a lot of fun, and thanks as always for allowing me to come on here and talk about anything, much less be able to program a whole month. Of course, I relish the opportunity to give you the opportunity because it's always a fun time.

We always watch stuff I've never seen, and it's it's going to be something like something something worth talking about. So yeah, as always until next time, We'll catch you on the next episode.