111: The Killer (2023)

David Fincher’s new film, “The Killer,” is now on Netflix and it ROCKS. Alex and Nick give a spoiler-free review of the film, discuss masterful genre movies, films about process, the arc of Michael Fassbender’s career, favorite movie assassins, and much more.
For What Are You Watching, both guys enthusiastically recommend new movies to check out.
Listen to our David Fincher episode here.
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Watch Alex's films at http://alexwithrow.com/
Watch Nick's films at https://www.nicholasdostal.com/
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Transcript

0:17

Hey, everyone. Welcome to. What are you watching? I'm alex witt. Throw it. I'm joined by my best man, Nick Dostal. How are you doing there? John Wilkes Booth. Whoa, whoa. Who did I. W w j w b d What would John Wilkes Booth do? It's hard to come up with new odds for a new movie. And you know what? That's fair. Because as soon as you said it, I immediately remembered exactly all of it. Maybe I got there just a little too. Anyway, it's a quick line. It's a quick line. You've got a good line film once. But. But how do you feel? My heart rate is below 65. It better be. And I'm ready. Don't improvise. That was good. That was really good. This film is available to watch on Netflix on November 10th. David Fincher's new film, The Killer. I already gave a mini review of it and our last episode, which is on David Fincher. I loved this movie. It jumped right to the top of Fincher's filmography for me. I have since gone back and seen it the second time. You've seen it once. So high level thoughts throw it to us. What did you think of the killer? Oh man, I Well. Well, I can't tell you what I thought about until I told the story of what happened, because it affects it affects everything. I'm not going to necessarily spoil it, but what an odd bullshit twist of fate that my experience seeing the killer both times has been great. The crowds are into it. If everyone goes back to our Oppenheimer Review, you had a fine experience watching that. It's sold out. Everyone's in there. Everyone's having a good time. I had a very disruptive experience seeing Oppenheimer, which is why I've gone back and seen it so many times. I've seen it tomorrow. Nick They rerelease it, Get It Ironclad again. I absolutely, Yeah, but the air at the Air and Space Museum and what's so cool, I've never mentioned this. What's so cool about seeing it at the Air and Space Museum is that as soon as the movie is done, you can walk like a hundred yards and be standing in front of the Enola Gay, the aircraft that dropped the fucking bomb on Hiroshima. Like, it's very weird. This has nothing to do with the killer. My point is, I had a bet. I had a disruptive experience the first time I saw Oppenheimer. And it sounds like you had a disruptive experience the first time you saw the killer. And what I want to say is we really advocate for people going to the movies and supporting cinemas and yay theater experience, even if this movie's going to be out on Netflix. But when this shit happens, it sucks. It sucks. It's one of those ones where it's a common one. Mm hmm. But it was a sold out Theater is a smaller theater in North Hollywood. And I had this man, this old person behind me, just hacking up along the entire time, and he wasn't covering hip. He could have just been old. And, you know, he's just got, you know, you know, bad lungs or whatnot. But it's like, all I'm thinking about just the spray going everywhere, and now I'm just breathing in his fucking spewing shit. And he's like, right behind you, right behind me. I can feel the air on the cough. I can feel it. Is that an exaggeration or are you serious? No. A few times I felt the wind of it. Yeah. Cover your mouth, dude. Yeah, I get it. You're right. If you have a cough, you have a cough. Like, whatever. It's something that's passing through you or it's like a chronic thing. I don't know, but you got to cover your mouth. So? So basically, I'm trying to settle into the movie every time because it is a movie that I think this does require you to settle. I think you need to be like one with the the the rhythm of the movie that it's setting up for you. And so I'm in and out the entire time because either I'm being coughed on and I'm just getting angry or I am wondering when the next cough is going to happen. Exactly. So I'm just anticipating I'm just like hasn't done in a while. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it in there? It is in there. Yep, yep, yep. What do you see in Fassbinder? I don't know, but I'm very excited for this movie to come out on Netflix so I can give it a proper viewing. But even with this disruptive experience, I really enjoyed what I got from it and what it was doing when I was able to really get into it. So I can only imagine how much more I'm going to like it when it's like that all the way through. Yeah, yeah. And this is I mean, it's exactly like I said, for Oppenheimer, like definitely one of the reasons why My Oppenheim review on this podcast was not as enthusiastic as it would be now because my viewing had such a constant disruption. So I do get it. I do that movie still punch through. For me, it sounds like the Killers still punch through for you. That's what's in did. But it did. But yeah, it'll be I can't wait for it to come out on Netflix like interestingly these are kind of opposite points because your first point is that this is a movie that requires your full attention. Is this not a second screen movie? So if you fire this up on Netflix and you're on your phone, you know the movie's going to lose. You can enjoy it as much. I'm saying you like everyone. So this is one of those movies it's going to hit streaming. And I'm like, will it be appreciated enough? Like enough people paying attention to it, or will it just be ignored? I mean, Mank was straight up ignored. No, And none of us were doing shit when that movie came out. We were like barely allowed to go outside, would make, came out and no one gave a shit. I don't think that'll be the turn of fate for the killer, but I do wonder about this stuff. You know how it's going to catch on. Well, this is a very like, I honestly don't know, based on the audience experience, because I took the audiences temperature for the theater I was at. It didn't seem like the movie was landing. Oh, man. See, both of my crowds have been, like, in hysterics both times. Oh, we're just not laughing. Fuck. In North Hollywood, it's North Hollywood. Jesus Christ, it was. You could feel the energy of the of the room that even my buddy John, who I went with, he laughed a few times. But each time we did, we each looked at each other like, Oh shit, I shouldn't laugh because I'm going to fucking get crucified for like because you could feel it. It was it was a bad crowd. I'll just say that. It sounds like it. I think the humor was absolutely there, but it was not taken in by this crowd, which is so interesting because, yeah, I don't know though, that there is humor in this, but this humor is not exactly. It's the Fincher humor that I love. It's it's very dry. There's no jokes. It's ever is delivered very, very flatly. But there is an absurdity to a lot of the things he's saying that I felt was intentionally absurd, such as WWE, AWB, like I'm like I mean, just ridiculous things that yeah, I think he's trying to be funny and it all, it just all came through and through to me and to my crowd. So this is weird. It'll be interesting to see if people actually find this movie funny in some sort of ways because it's all, I don't think this is ruin anything. It's all in voiceover. Yeah, like a lot of the movie is. VOICEOVER Sure. It's and that's that's not ruling anything. It's, you know, no, it's like 95% of his performance is in voiceover. Other people talk and he talks, but he is saying very little in actual face to face converse conversations. Yeah, it's much more about you getting his internal dialog, a lot of which can be profane or absurd or funny at times. I definitely thought about I stand alone, like I thought about that guy, just like this kind of running narrative of Oh yes, it some of which matter, some of which don't. We're just like, listen to this guy go on. And it's funny or absurd. I don't know. Yeah, there is a point of view that I think he does express when he speaks in person, but the humor really comes in his internal monologue. Yeah. So let's talk about what this movie's about. Let's talk. Sometimes we need Martin Scorsese to make a gangster movie like The Irishman. Sometimes we need Quentin Tarantino to go back to Los Angeles like he did with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And sometimes, goddamn it, we need David Fincher to make a movie about a dude killing people. And that's just what we need. And that's what the killer is. This is a very easy movie to set up in. The movie is based on a French comic book series called The Killer, written by Alexis Metz, no length. That series was published in 13 volumes from 1998 to 2014. I haven't read or looked at a single page of any of these. The idea for the movie has been kicking around since 2007, when Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B, started backing it. I mean, honestly, I'm not trying to put too much stock into this, but just researching how the movie came together, it sounds a little bit like a warped, updated version of how Taxi Driver came to be, because we have a convergence of three supreme talents who really needed to meet in order for this movie to exist. We have a director fresh off his most personal film, Mank, and he's looking for perhaps looking for a return to form. He's been wanting to adapt this comic book series, The Killer, for 15 years. He has a stable partner in Netflix. So let's go. We have a writer, Andrew Kevin Walker, whose biggest script to date is his original spec screenplay for seven, which gave him a career, his career as a Hollywood screenwriter. He's like a journeyman screenwriter. He doesn't have as many solid credits as you think he may have. So perhaps he's looking for a comeback as well. A bit of a return to form. And now we have the actor Michael Fassbender, who in my humble opinion, is the most talented actor of his generation. I think he's capable of emotional depths that his contemporaries wouldn't dare go near, even if they do win Oscars over Fassbinder, whatever. Fassbinder's been out of the Hollywood game for a while. He needs perhaps a comeback, something that he can really dive into. That would be a return to form to what he's capable of. He watches Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai, the Samurai. He gives that to his agents. And somehow in this whole concoction, it kind of is revealed that, you know, Fassbinder finds a script and he's like, okay, this is perfect. He and Fincher meet a bunch of times. Fincher didn't even know if he wanted to do this script. Like, is it time? Should it just put this one back in the drawer? But because of Fassbinder's enthusiasm, they go and they make this movie. And right up front. I did mention this in the previous episode. This is not an Oscar movie. This is not a movie trying to win Oscars, Not one trying to be nominated for Oscars. It's just David Fincher making a fun B-movie. That is what I love most about it. I mean, I had told you a long time ago, I think we were talking about something about like, what's your dream actor director, collaboration. That hasn't happened yet. And I remember I said, Fassbinder and Fincher. Yeah, because they match. Like I can see in all of Fincher's work with Leading Men, because I think Fassbinder is just an absolute lead. Oh, he can actually do supporting too, but I think he carries just in his like his presence. There's just a there's a weight like an emotional weight that just serves really well is a lead. And I was like, I don't know what type of movie it could be, but I was like, I bet you if they ever worked together, that would be a dream combo. And I think it is. I think this movie for for exactly what it is like. It's not it's not the Zodiac movie. It's not the it's not the Oscar. I'm going for this. It is a genre movie, but it's done so much differently. It's done like Fincher. Exactly like Fincher. It's a genre movie done by him. It's like, How Gone, girl? Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's the Lifetime movie. That Gone Girl was done as like Fincher would do. And this is the I don't even know how you said this is The Assassins. Yes. The Assassin movie. Yeah. Slicker than shit. I haven't even really said about the damn movies. About movies? About a killer. It's about a contract killer. An assassin played by Michael Fassbender. And we follow him through a series of parts. I will say the film takes him on a journey. I don't want to go really into any of it. If you've seen the trailer, you have an idea. I had no idea what it was about. I just knew he was going to be a killer. And like we've mentioned, a lot of it is in voiceover. Some of it can be very humorous at times depending on your sensibility and this isn't a guy who we're watching like kill hundreds of people throughout the movie. That's not what this is. It's it really. If you've seen Melville's The Samurai from 1967, it has a lot in common with that movie in terms of the structure, what he is going through, what he's going after, what he's avoiding. It's just a really fun 2 hours that breezed by for me. It has twice, and the second time I went to it. I'm waiting for scenes to happen. I'm not going to say what the scenes are. Yeah, but it has a few set pieces. One in particular, it just it's it involves some hand-to-hand combat. That's what I'll say. But see, and two people get after it in a very physically aggressive manner. I went, I was like, here we go. So the second time I saw it, I was so pumped for it. So in terms of rewatch ability on Netflix, I could see scenes like that getting played a lot. I could see this getting a lot of airplay. I don't want people to think like when they fire this up, they're watching a potential best Picture nominee or potential best actor nominee. That's not what this is maybe gets. You know, the cinematography is great, the editing is great, the sound is great. All that stuff. It's great. Maybe it's great, but it's Fincher. It's just a fuck. Yeah, it's Fincher. This is the funniest movie. That's it. That's what I that's the expectation you should have for it. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think I think it's definitely something that you should go into with the idea of having fun, but having fun. Fincher's kind of fun and Fincher's kind of serious. Like even though there's like, you're serious and you have to say, Yeah, exactly. Like, they're like that humor that we're talking about. It's, it's there. But the movie is not funny, but it is fun. It is. It's got it's got a it's got a pep in its step, so to speak. Damn right it does. I mean, it moves. It moves so well. It's exactly like when we reviewed the Social Network in the Fincher episode, how I said it feels so deliberate that the Social Network is exactly 120 minutes long, exactly 2 hours that he's just boom. And so is this. It's 118 minutes. But that feels so deliberate to me that he just wants to get in, get out, not waste a lot of your time, not ask a lot of you, but yeah, you have to pay attention. Fincher's like, Yeah, you have to pay attention during my movies, but you're going to have a fun time. And I think it's something where I didn't expect this from it at all. It's a process movie. I love process movie so much. Yeah, that's what I loved about it. Was it the overall sort of like watching somebody have to deal with what's currently happening. But I mean, it's also like no Country for Old Men in a lot of ways. So much as I was just going to say that it's like so much is heavy, relied on just watching props and watching him handle these props. And in order to really kind of enjoy this movie, you have to like that stuff that has to be kind of swirling in your head. Yes. You're like, ooh, what is like, how is he? Oh, that's cool. That's cool. That's where the pleasure of this movie really is, is in these little tiny little details of what he's doing, not what's happening. Yeah. What he's doing is much more important. That like is the story. So how would someone in 2023 actually gain access let's say to like a secretive lawyer type person who has like office? It's in the open, it's in like a major city. But you got to like, make sure you can get through the door and you got to have the right thing to say to the assistant. How would you like, actually break in and do that? How what's a practical way you could do that? That's what this movie is. Yeah. And while there is voiceover, he's this is not voiceover where he's like, And now I am going to paint a recycling thing. It's not that it's much more, I don't want to say sparse because there's a lot of it, but he's that's not what he's talking about. He's not describing his exact actions. It's not what it is. He's just explaining what he's thinking. Is there as it's going on? Yeah. Yeah. A lot of it is like actual, like thoughts, kind of like in the moment that can be cut off sometimes based on if, if he's surprised. Yeah. Like if something happens and he can be surprised and it's, it just stops which Scorsese. He does a lot you know. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's never like that's the thing that's why you have to pay attention because if you if you're not watching what he's doing, he's not going to explain it to you in his voiceover. He's just going to it's just like how anyone would do. If you're doing something right and you're thinking in your head, if you're if you're if someone was recording the thoughts in your head as you're doing something they're not about, Oh, I'm doing this right now, I'm tying this. It's like, what song should I be listening to right now? Yes, it's like that. It's like that. That's. And why am I listening to this song? Why did I pick this song at this moment? Like what? And then the there's a little kind of explanation, but then also a little humor in that as well to me, back to the processing because I don't want to lose this. Yeah, this is a processed movie. No Country for No Country for Old Men is a great title to bring up. And it's especially you didn't even know this. It's especially fitting because I'll just tease it. Our next episode is going to be ah, No Country for Old Men commentary. And we spend so much of that commentary talking about process, watching them like create their weapons, check out the hotels, fix their wounds. And I didn't even mean for that to happen. But when I saw the killer, I was like, Oh, this is perfect. We're going to drop this back to back. And so, yeah, if you like that stuff like you what, Like watching, you know, Javier Bardem, clean dress, his wounds. Yeah. Watching him figure out like, Josh Brolin, like, why does he need all the tent poles? Like, why does he need this stuff? What's going on that it's in that same vein. But this is a much and that movie is funny too, but not like. Yeah, but it has funny moments that are just kind of baked in. Yes. Similar vibe, similar vibes Didn't make your top ten favorite comedies of all time, though. No Country for Old Men did not make my top ten funniest movies of all time. That's true. But The Big Lebowski did another No burn after reading Funny. It's the same directors. Good. Oh, after reading did Big Lebowski. Fargo? Oh, I love Fargo. Fargo. All right, let's jump into the movie itself. We talked we spent a lot of time on David Fincher's opening credits. I mean, here's how I want to say it will be on Netflix so you can rewind, pay attention. These are big credits because they zip. They go, go, go. And I loved them. I loved them. I don't like an eyeball by gun thing. I didn't like it so much. Oh, my God. So the first time I saw them, I just focused on the text and there's this really cool design that's going on. The second time I saw it, I focused on the images and there's already humor baked into those images when you watch them because they're really creative ways on how to kill people. And I did. I missed it the first time. Oh, God, I loved it. Loved all. I have to watch them again. But I was not a fan of the pacing. I was not Oh, I loved I didn't like the Fonz. I didn't I did not like it. Okay. We we definitely disagree here. There's some they're one of my favorites so far, but my appreciation for them, I will admit, fully came to be realized when I saw it a second time when I did not look at the text at all. Yeah, it's going have to be a second time. And I saw like there's just I don't want to reveal what they are, but there's a lot of things, a lot of the images are, you know because he will mention in his voiceover on occasion that like, oh, this is another shooting job. Like, why can't I just do another creative one? Like, what was the last time I drowned someone like a creative drowning? So that's what you're seeing in like, these images. So I get it. They move fast. That's the thing. They move faster than hell. But I need to watch them again to see what you're there to see. Well, they felt. They felt very comic book to me, too. Like on purpose. Like very. Yeah, I want like, a comic book. And that's what. Yeah. But that's these are based on it. That's exactly. So I didn't know that. So I remember thinking I was like, Oh, this is a weird version of this. And so but now that makes more sense. So I'm like, okay, well, that's. So you didn't know this is based on a comic book that was like the only thing I knew about it when I went to it. Oh, okay. So I was I was always wondering in the back of my head, like, he's not going to do a comic book movie. So what is this? I didn't want to read them, but I'm like, you know what's kind of going on? And then there's a lot of prestige movies. Like A History of Violence is based on a graphic novel, so I thought it was going to be, and that's kind of more of the vibe of it. But that comic book aspect I only really saw in the opening credits, and I think that is true. You don't feel that that that that rapid of a pace elsewhere in the movie. That's true you don't and maybe a lot of these images are actually taken from the comic books themselves. I bet they are. Yes. What I was wondering because they are not in the movie like those creative ways that we see during the credits aren't in the movie. So I wondered if those are, you know, I mean, if this thing spanned like over a decade and all these volumes, there's got to be I don't know. I would love to know like is this movie just one of the volumes or is it a spread out over a bunch of them? I have no idea. I haven't. I haven't read them. Yeah, that could be like what? That was. That could just been like a giant homage to their the source material and. All right, here's our title card sequence. It's going to go by real fast, but this is all going to be a tribute to the comic. The text did feel comic book, too, so I could get hell, maybe not knowing that how you could be like, what the hell is going on here? But it doesn't. We don't need to keep talking about it, so fine. All right, fine. Let's talk about the script. Let's talk about Andrew. Kevin Walker. He wrote seven himself. This is just this is a time like late eighties, early nineties when you could write an original screenplay. He wrote that script in 1991 and then moved to Los Angeles based off the strength of that screenplay. Wow. He got a few random jobs here and there. But yeah, it was a seven script. It was obviously the perfect marriage of talent for Fincher. That became still our favorite David Fincher movie. And I think that's right. Thanks much. In part to that script. He was just 30 years old when seven was being filmed. That's nuts. And he's written other produce scripts. He has credit on eight millimeter, Sleepy Hollow, a lot of work punching up other scripts. He punched up the script for the game for Fight Club. I would argue that the killer is his biggest screenwriting credit since seven. He's 59 now, and this was the first time in a Fincher movie that I felt kind of Brad Pitt's humor in seven coming through where it's very dry. And then I would feel Michael Fassbender dipping back into like that sarcastic dryness. And I loved it. The killer is all voiceover and action, like those dialog scenes that we're talking about. They're not a lot in the movies. So writing a voiceover in ActionScript is so different than seven, where seven a lot of seven is in the talking. Well, there's a lot of process and oh no, of course there is. Of course there is. You're voyeur watching the crime scenes and everything like that. But this is so acute, it's very different. It is very different. The killer is. Yeah, but I think that that's really cool because I would have no idea how to where to even begin in trying to write a process movie in a screenplay format like this. Oh my God, it sounds awful, to be honest. I mean, I've done one. Yeah, you've talked about it before, and I'm the things that I'm researching now and doing it is I'm just. I'm living in this world a little bit. I have been for a while and it's. I just love it. Oh my God, I love process so much, but you've got to know what the fuck you're talking, but you've got to know what you're talking about. You have to. Yeah. And you have to find a way to know what you're talking about on like a masterful level and then still communicate it in through the writing in a way that someone who knows nothing will be able to read it. And at the very least just be like, Oh, I get it. Yeah, yeah. Without even appreciating. But that's, that's such a Oh my God, that's hard. I think like the end of to give a Fincher example, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is that great. Like 20 minute coda. In the end where she has to completely redo her look and she's got the blond wig and she's going around and you don't really know what the fuck she's doing, but you're just watching her do stuff, talking to people that's the killer. Flick the entire runtime. You're just watching him go around. Go around. But you are aided a little bit by voiceover. But yeah, I don't think John Doe from seven in the Killer from the killer would have much to talk about. I don't agree on a lot. So it's not like they're those sentiments are the same. The Evil seven is like about evil. The killing is just about like, let's see how this chummy contract killer goes about his days. That's I mean, that's really what it is. I mean, they're very different because John Doe gives a lot of fucks and not the killer. The killer gives no fucks, no fucks. So, yes, they're very, very different. And that's the craziest thing is like John Doe, like you can actually see the point and what he's doing in a weird way where like, I think you have to be a little bit attracted to that like hitman type. I think there is something appealing about that. Like, like I'm not saying that to kill people, but no, I know, but we can talk about it like, yeah, like why so many movies have been made about Hitman because it's a, it's an entertaining lifestyle to glorify on film. It just is. It just is. There's something about like the idea of being completely isolated from the world. You have this job questionably more morally as it is, but it's this thing that only you and you're operating on a super secret level in the you get like that's why it's it's so funny because it's always like, you know, the longs black suits. Yeah. You know, like the there's an idea behind it that is been romanticized, I think, over the course of storytelling over the years. Tom Cruise Collateral Yeah. The perfect example suit the hair slick move. I mean, yeah. John Wick. I mean John Wick, of course. I mean there's so much of this in it's kind of law that we are kind of drawn to that mystery. What's it like to be what's their life like? Because we don't know. And that's what's great about like he says, I think it's even in the trailer. He's like, If you don't like doing anything, then this job isn't for you. Yeah, because it's got to be a lot of what it's about. And also, remember Michael Fassbender, never in a suit and a killer. No dressed like Hunter S Thompson the whole time. Yeah. By the side just to look like a tourist. That he looks fucking great. I love it. Let's get into him. Let's talk about Mike. Mikey Fassie Bassey Fassie. Oh, let me just do this. Let me just do this. 2008 to 2014. I'm just going to do his career. Six years of his career because I want to kind of talk about maybe why he has left us for a few years. 28 He's in. He plays Bobby Sands in Hunger. It is a miraculous performance in a gut wrenching movie from Steve McQueen. This is where he links up with Steve McQueen. Here's what he fires off Eden Lake, which is actually a really effective and absolutely fucking terrifying horror movie that could really happen. It's one of those like realistic horror movies, Christ Fish Tank, Inglorious Bastards, Jane Eyre, X-Men First Class, A Dangerous Method, Shame, Haywire Prometheus 12 Years a Slave. The Counselor. Those. I didn't even list all of them. Those are just the ones I really like that he's in. And then, I mean, you know, he still has Macbeth. He still has to get nominated for an Oscar for Steve Jobs. Did things kind of. Yeah. Steve Jobs. Right. See, that's something a lot of people remember. Oh, he is. But a lot of people this is where things like I don't necessarily know if it was him. I don't know if it was the roles he was picking. I don't know. But things kind of start to fall apart. Like, not a lot of people talk about his Macbeth. Not a lot of people talk about Steve Jobs. The light between the oceans trespass against us. Song to song. I like him in all those movies, but all of those movies feel they came out after 2015, but they were all filmed around or in 2015. So they feel like run offs from that. Don't forget Assassin's Creed. Well, that's what I mean. For all intents and purposes, after 2016, things get rough. There's I'm not even listing credits like Assassin's Creed, but it gets rough. And I like him in Alien Covenant, but I don't know if he's given a truly great performance since 12 Years a Slave and or The Counselor, and I'm like one of 12 people who love the counselor. So 12 Years a Slave, is that the one we can all agree on? That was 11 years ago. Steve Jobs. But you didn't even remember that movie. You know, that's what I mean. The memory recall that we all have one when it's like, what's the last great Michael Fassbender performance? And you think, can you go? I you know, he's great in Steve Jobs, but I have only seen that movie once. And I love Michael Fassbender. Like, I just you should see it again, man. It was kind of a nothing burger movie to me, dude. Nothing Burger is fast better all the way. Three I love like spender areas in his life and he's great in all of them. He has a great line reading towards the end. You know, why don't. Why don't you care about me or something? He goes, I'm poorly made on the top of the parking structure. I like that. I like him in the movie. But it's it's not a movie that has a lot of memory recall. That's all I'm saying. So where has he been? You know, what happened or why did this happen? When Shame came out in 2011? That is one of the most buzzed about performances that never got nominated for an Oscar. He was on the campaign trail. It was a big deal because the movie's NC 17. Wow. He's going to be nominated for an Oscar for an NC 17 rating movie. Got the Golden Globe nomination He's getting made fun of constantly on talk shows. He's going on talk shows and Jay Leno's making fun of his dick because you see his dick in shame. George Clooney wins a Golden Globe and is on stage and holds the Golden Globe down at his genitals. And it's like, Hey, Michael, check this out and go look all this up like this is And, you know, Fassbinder's being a good sport about it, but he's like, What the fuck? Like this is when did this become Yeah, like, when did this become cool to, like, we talk about this stuff like, we don't, but he's playing the game, he's doing the talk shows, he's going to all the stuff, he's playing the game, and then what happens? No Oscar nomination. 2011 is a tough year. It's a very challenging film. I get it. I never even thought I was going to be nominated for an Oscar, but according to him, that's when he was like, I still want to act, but I don't give a shit about this game. This is not for me at all. So then what happens in 12 Years a Slave comes out. He doesn't know. Pressed for it. Nothing like he doesn't. He goes on some talk shows, but he is not playing the Oscar campaign game and he gets nominated for it and he doesn't do anything, you know, campaigning or whatever. Jared Leto was winning every single award for for a performance that he wouldn't even be allowed to do now. Whatever. So. Yeah, yeah. So look how this stuff ages, you know, like, okay, so then now jump to 2015. He's in Steve Jobs. It gets nominated for an Oscar. He's not playing the Oscar campaign game. And then, you know, it really sounds like he got much more into car racing. He has a four part series on YouTube for free about him racing in Le Mans four years in a row. And I never seen this. I put it on last night, Season three. I was like, Holy shit, They're like eight episodes are like 19 minutes long each. I just watch a few. But this is this dude's passion. I mean, he's in these Porsche 9/11. Oh my God. I get so you're wired differently. You clearly cannot do not get this stimulation from acting. Yeah, it's my long way of saying he has been taking a very deliberate step away from acting, got married, had a child with Alicia Vikander, Very happy for them. I'm just glad to have him back. I've been wanting to have him back. I don't know if he's going to keep doing it. He's got a few more roles coming out soon, but this was like one of the best performances I've ever seen him do. I do think it's my favorite male lead performance in a Fincher movie. I'm not just saying that because I've just seen it. That's what I said. I gave my best actor Oscar when we did our Fincher Oscars. I said that. Yeah. I think his performance in Shame is one of the towering performances in cinema, and that is a lot to live up to because I really, really value him in that movie. But this is all a long way of saying that. I thought he was perfect in this film. I thought it was a perfect actor for it. I thought his voiceover was perfect. It didn't really sound like he sounds. It is not his normal cadence. And I love that. I mean, my I had not seen Hunger Games, so I had not heard that. Oh, yeah, so stupid. I just saw the trailer for that new one. I think that's was in my head and I certainly had not seen Fish Tank. Yeah, I was really going off of shame as being my kind of one and only I did see I remember him in Inglourious Basterds and Fine got, I remember he was the one thing that when I, when I was in my phase of not liking that movie, he was like the one thing I. Oh yeah, yeah. The guy from Shame is really good in that. Yeah, But shame was really the thing that I put on a pedestal at that time. I was not looking at him like as a whole, as an actor is like the guy, like the best actor of his generation. I was just using that performance as being like, Well, this is the performance of the year, no doubt. I was always excited to see what this guy was going to do next. He was always on my radar. I know he's one of those actors where when ever I'm going to see him, I'm going to be completely captivated. He's got this thing that you can't teach. I don't know how else to describe it, but he's piercing. Yeah, he has a fucking conviction, like a lot of yes, no voiceover in shame, but he says very little in that movie just watching him. And we're like, What is this dude? That's a lot of the killer too. We are again, aided by voiceover, but just watching him. And that's the stakes and he's like this in every single movie. There's just something very there's a seriousness to him that is absolutely compelling that you can't take your eyes off of. So I think this is why this he's a perfect type of person to play something like this. Because if you have a movie where you just have to watch someone doing things, not every actor can pull this off and it doesn't know how good of an actor that they are. I'm trying to think of an example of somebody that, well, Javier Bardem says very little and No Country for Old Men, and he won an Oscar for it. Like he does not say a lot. And you're just watching this guy do shit. Now, part of the allure of that, the morbid allure, is that we know how expert of the killer is. But that's kind of the same thing here, too. I didn't think I'd be talking about no country. We would be talking about no country for old men so much. But it's a it's a pretty good cop. It's they're different. They're much, much different stories, but they're sensibilities are. There's a lot of the process stuff here. But yeah, not every actor I can't think of many that would put it this way. I cannot think of many actors currently right now under the age of 30 or 35 who could pull something like this off. I know there's and there is something there's an X factor to just having a certain presence that commands your attention is the only way you're going to pull off something like this. Yeah, he he absolutely serves this role so well because of that. Yeah. Similar to Fincher himself, the precision. There's something about everything that Fassbinder does in its specificity that lends itself to Fincher's style. Yeah, they both seem very just like technical preset. Like. Yes. When I heard this, I went, Well, this is when I knew they were going to be working together. I was like, Well, this is great. I mean, Fassbinder's worked with Steve McQueen three times. Steve McQueen is not the easiest guy to work with. He can be very, very demanding. But if you just get it's like we said with Fincher so much in our Fincher episode, if you understand that, if you step into it and go, This is what I'm doing. I'm stepping into David Fincher's world for, what, 100 shooting days? And that's my life for 100 days. So be it. Then we can get something like this. And he is really good. And this is not like even Brad. I love Brad Fincher loves Brad. Brad Pitt couldn't do this. He's too good looking. He's too known. He's too charming. He couldn't play. He could Brad Pitt could play a contract killer. He could not do it in this way. It would be very different. There is a there's a very delicate balance. We're speaking about the killer. We're being a little sparse on purpose because people still need to see this. But there's a very delicate balance between like having that stillness and being able, when push comes to shove, to like, okay, now we're not just sitting, watching people anymore. We are using our hands and fighting for our lives. And he can pull that off too, which we saw him do a little in Haywire. But this is a different, completely different game. Yeah. I'm glad you liked a minute. You know, I think I think we've said this before on when we did our shame episode. Part of who he is. There's just their very animalistic, primal male thing that he does. That's just kind of who he is when there's not so many roles like that anymore. I don't know. I don't know where to go. Where is he going to do this? That would have been a fun game if I looked it, because when did I say things? Kind of like is start to fall apart? If I looked at every like not every but all the major male roles since 2017, if I would have done that before this, I could have been like, Oh, he could have played that. He could have played that. Doing it now in my head, quickly, I'm like, I don't know what what what was out there for him. Maybe. Yeah, yeah, maybe The times have changed in a way that he has involved with either and the roles weren't as plentiful. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. So it's cool. It's cool to just. I'm just glad he's back, basically. Same here. I hope he's back. Yes, his attitude is the same in those Lemmons documentaries. I really recommend him because he's just like on a couch either talking to someone from his team or he'll be interviewed and he's still like calm and collected, and when he's in the car he's calm and collected as all those races, you know, they're not back. They're like, Yeah, I'm going to fucking beat him to you. Very calm, but just to see see him do it like how fast they go. It's crazy. So the control line, you got to have a laser focused brain to do that shit. Like, you got to be very precise. So I get it. I'm going to skip over the rest of the cast for this movie because it was great to see some familiar faces. I don't want to ruin big moments. Maybe this isn't the last time we talk about the killer. It's not going to be brought up in the Oscar conversation a lot, I assume. But there are some good supporting performances. One pretty big one in particular that I loved. But talking about this crew, we're going to name some familiar names that we talked about on the Fincher podcast. First of all, we have cinematographer Erik Mr. Schmitt, who man so much is made about David Fincher's obsessiveness, his control. A lot was made about how in Gone Girl, there's just one handheld shot when Ben Affleck is running to the car. After the vigil. And I think that shot lasts for like 2 seconds. And that was a big deal. Like the only handheld shot and gone girl. A lot of the killer was handheld. A lot of it had this real sensibility where I was like, when it started doing that, I went, I don't know if he's ever done a movie this handheld. No, I don't think so. And not it's not the whole thing. But when it dips to it, of course it's Fincher. He knows exactly when to do it. But I was like, Damn. So yeah, this is not make this isn't it's a very, very different style for Mank but it was shot digitally. The killer was. And I really thought it looked like it was shot on film. Like right from the beginning. They have all that grain baked in there and there's no David Fincher movie where the is poor and this is no exception. The cinematography is incredible and it kind of goes back to our Fincher Pod episode where we talked about where it still looks like a Fincher movie. Yeah, even though it's it's probably his biggest departure from a cinematography standpoint of how much handheld he uses and the way that he's going about the movement of the story. But it's still precise. It's still exact the way that Fincher is and the color palette as soon as you're in that room. Yeah, the opening scene in the room I'm seeing the yellows, I'm seeing the greens, and I'm like, There we are. That's that's, that's. Fincher. He really has a specific vision for how his movie should look like down to the literal color palette of every movie. Every movie is how I think that's just how he sees, like that's how he prefers the world. He likes those take out the life and and but that's the thing is like, it's not it's not boring or muted. They're actually like, beautiful, beautiful beautiful. It's exquisite. And this guy just started being a cinematographer. Like, his first credit is Mindhunter on Netflix or some of his first credits. And then he goes to, Mank, he did this movie, Devotion, well intentioned True story movie with Glen Powell. He did The Killer this year. He did Ferrari, Michael Mann's Ferrari, which Oh, did he really? I've heard the racing scenes in Ferrari are astonishing. I cannot wait for that. So this is the guy on the come up and maybe maybe he does get nominated for the killer. You know, he just won for Mank. So maybe this does get an Oscar nomination. I don't know. But yeah, again, like the look of the film is not going to steer you wrong. And when he decides to go handheld, when he decides to do whatever he wants to do. Fincher I mean, it works and it's fitting. It is. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are back for the score. I really, really loved this score. I love all their scores. They have done. The Social Network, which they won an Oscar for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, Mank and the Killer. I don't know. I've been actually since our episode, I've been listening to that Gone Girl score a lot. It's it's oh, better than I gave it credit for. And I actually put one of the songs into our episode. I edited it in because we were just talking about it. So I would say that the killer is like vying for my number two spot right now in terms of the scores they've done for Fincher, Social Network is always number one. I mean, come on. Yeah, The things that you can't top it. I really love the killer. I can't think of like, a standout track from it yet necessarily. But there's there's one big scene that we keep referencing this. The music was really good during that. But yeah, it's more it's just vibe music, all that's what it is. It's yeah, it just establishes, it doesn't establish, it helps cement and maintain the vibe. It's not flashy. It's more, it's more like sound design than anything else. I know. That's what I love about it so much. Yeah. I mean, every other one of the movies that they've scored there is always that element of sound design to it, but it's still music. Yeah. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the one I think that is actually the smartest. I think. Yes. I think for me, I think I think that is the most like sound design baked in there. But but yeah I agree. I agree. A lot of their work I mean they they use some crazy ass instruments that are, you know, screeches and all this stuff that Yeah. They really play to do like a scene breakdown of this One scene that we're always alluding about would be very cool because just from everything about it, from the choreography to the lighting, the lighting, the editing to the sound design, it's everything about that scene because it is unlike any other scene in this vein that I've ever seen. I truly think that it could be remembered as an all timer Fincher scene that that one scene and everyone. I'm sorry to be coy about it, but you will understand when you see the film, you will know what we're talking about. It is not a quick thing, is a is a long thing, and it is very memorable. It could be the breakout thing. Everyone's talking about the murder from Gone Girl. You know, people are you got to go see this shit. I think it's in undeniable scene. I think if you don't like this movie at all, like if you see the killer and you're like, You know what? I don't like this at all, but that scene is awesome. I think that yeah, I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it. I've been there and not done the way that he does it, and it's because it's the first time I ever seen Fincher do this. Exactly. It's truly something. Well, it's like can be very critical of seeing those scenes in movies because they are usually hyper unrealistic. This is not this is just not. And that's what sets it apart. It kind of reminds me of Haywire a little bit, but to a much, much heightened degree. There was one laugh I remember now that the audience had collectively, in my experience, yes, it was. I just I made I made a look holding up an object with my holding up a prop, you know, a prop in a in a kind of bemused look on my face. Yes. That will get a laugh. And it's during this big scene. It's during this big scene. Kurt Baxter, editor, Kurt Baxter, who again, just marvelously put together, he was an additional editor on Zodiac Angus Wall, asked him to be the coeditor of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. They worked on that film, The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Together, they went back to back Oscars for Social Network and Dragon Tattoo. I looked it up. This is only been done once before. Back to back editing Oscars. Ralph Dawson in 1935 and 1936 is the only person to win back to back editing Oscars. So that is a feat. That is a feat in and of itself. Of course, as we mentioned, Angus Wall is tapped out of film editing since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Curt Baxter has since edited solo Gone Girl Mank and the Killer. And you can tell it's just another very well put together film that is going to zoom by the structure of the pace. I loved it when you when you broke down what this man does for his movies in terms of the post-production edits, situation, editing to the syllable, literally editing to the syllable. Imagine editing this voiceover. Oh my God. I bet every word of the voiceover is from a different take like it. And it's also like, When do you put it in exactly? Like to the millisecond. No, no, I want one more. And did this second have a pause? Did they do that first? So he has to be on set like waiting. Are they playing it back to him? Like on Fight Club? They had to do all that first for Edward Norton. But Edward Norton was different because he is sometimes looking right into the camera and addressing that. So it's yeah, it's a different thing. But yeah, I can't imagine assembling just the voiceover, just the voice. Can't imagine. This is I thought about how many takes he had to do. I was thinking about like particularly in the scene where this isn't really anything either, but he's stretching. Oh, yeah, we're getting, we're getting, like, bowled over in voiceover. The movie is letting us know that this is how this is going to go. And I'm thinking to myself, I wonder how many times they went over exactly when he's going to start speaking with this shot. Oh, my God, He's going to look at his foot, making this stretch for a second longer before we pipe that in. Like how Like, because, you know, Fincher's crazy. I have no idea. As I said many times in the Fincher episode, I have no idea how one of his movies is complete. I don't know, like how Kurt Baxter, like, finishes. And there are just so many options in editing. Like, I don't know how he makes the decision. He goes, All right, we're done. I don't know. Maybe it's such an easy thing. At a certain point, like maybe Fincher is just sort of like, No, I want to just let. Yep, Perfect. MOONEN Yeah, I mean, you can if you watch any of his special features, you see him reacting to things if he's watching. I mean, he watches pre the previews of Panic Room. He's watching, like the first draft of it in real time. He's making edits to it. He's not saying pause that. He's like, yeah, that needs to be two feet up that she's not going to be there. She's going to be coming from the other side. And these are computer graphics and he's like editing it in real time. You're like, How the fuck does your brain work this fast? Like what? I imagine that because he's so efficient. That's the other thing to oh, is that he knows exactly what it is and he probably does not second guess it as soon as he knows exactly where it is and whatever he's getting his crew to do, once they've hit it, you've got it. That's it. We're moving. Because otherwise he would never release a movie. I mean, yeah, if he's constantly searching and he's like, I don't know if it's that I don't know if it's that he knows. And then once he hits, it's there. That's true. He does have a vision in his head. His whole thing is he has to somehow convey that or find it from the people he is hired. That's how he is. He's not with them going. I don't know. What do you think of this scene? How should it play out? He knows exactly how he wants it to look. So that's that's the pool. That's what takes so long, is pulling all that out and trying to find it. And then, yeah, when he sees it, you can see him making decisions on his making other features. He does make them and it's very it is efficient. Okay, good. Moving on. Crazy. I know we're about wrapping up here on the killer. I wanted to remember I did that bulleted list of panic room, everything it went through to get made. I forgot like one big thing and it really bothered me. It's right at the very end. So you know how Forest Whitaker's fate in the movie. I won't spoil it just like what happens to him in the movie test Audiences did not like that. They didn't like how his character was resolved and the sets had already been torn down and the studio wanted him to reshoot the ending. And Fincher's like, You want to rebuild this fucking set? Do you have any idea how long and how expensive that's going to be? So the solution after the movie, it's like a locked movie. It's test screening. What they had to do is go back and get all different audio tapes from Forest Whitaker to make his character seem less sympathetic because the way the character like sounded, you know, he would do takes where like, his voice is warm like this. So yeah we're going to they do replace them all with a harsher tone like this. So we saw this and they didn't like at the end like that. That's crazy, dude. They had to rerecord the dialog. Anyway, at the end of last episode, I spoiled my ranking of where I would put the killer on my David Fincher rankings. Here, let me do my list and then I'll read yours off and you tell us where it fits. All right. Well, I have it right here. I can read mine. You know how to read mine of. All right, my list Number 12, Alien 311, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ten. Mank nine. Panic Room eight Fight Club seven The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo six Gone Girl five. The Game for the Killer. Three The Social Network two. Zodiac one seven. Number 12 Alien three. Number 11 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Number ten The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Number nine. Mank Number eight Panic Room. Number seven The Killer. Okay. Yeah, that's where it's right now. We'll see what happens. Number six, the Game Bird. Number five, Fight Club four Gone. Girl three Zodiac to the Social Network. And one seven. It could very well, I don't know if it's going to break the top five, but it could very well take the sixth spot. I wouldn't ever expect it to take your top five. I could potentially see it outranking that game for you in the future. You know, and that's just that's a subtle shift, you know, that's just a one place shift. I'll tell you how this could potentially crack the top five, please. I'm dying to know that this the more that I watch it, like if I watch it a second time and I find myself wanting to live in the movie, like, all the time, like, I just want to be involved. I'm going to watch this movie all the time. This is the way that it could do it, but I don't know if it's going to take that life. It very well could. But because I need a better experience with it. Yeah, it's got the feelers where I can like I can see myself wanting to watch this movie all the time just to have it on and just to kind of be in that process world. So if I start to fall in love with it in that level, it could absolutely crack the top five. It is going to have a lot of rewatch ability for me, like a lot. I'm going to have it on a lot. I'm going to have it on. Yeah, maybe doing stuff, maybe like doing chores and then, oh, this scene's coming up on me. I don't know. It could be. It could be something like that, But it's something that I could find myself getting a lot of enjoyment on over and over. Such as? Like since I've been done with Fincher, I'm like, What do I watch? What am I doing? What am I doing? You know what I fucking thought to put on last night? Seven. Oh, what? What? I just watched it twice and it's like, I kind of want to watch this movie. You get like, what? What is wrong with me? I don't know. I just, for some reason, I'm drawn to go back to right when they show up to John Doe's apartment and they're just knocking on it. Like, I just want to go put on that scene and then I know if I do that now, I will probably do that when we're done recording this. And then I'm just going to watch the rest of the movie. California Stay Away from here. That's actually one of my in just in terms of cinematography, that's one of the scariest shots I can think of with him all the way in the background. Yeah, the play with the pause, and then you've got Morgan Freeman and he just like the way he goes is it's so unnerving it's so unnerving. Oh, my God. It's right that that shot in that moment is right up there with me in Halloween when the when the car stops, when the girl yells out like, like she she there's speed kill. Yeah. I saw that at Alamo on Halloween night. It was great. But it's great that that moment. It's not really cinematic cinematography, but it's that moment that I'm like, Oh God, oh God. There's a movie that still holds up. That thing was sold out and we were all just having the time of our lives. People. It's so fun to see old movies in the theater because there were still some people in there who have never seen Halloween. You can tell, you can tell by what they're screaming at, what they're jumping at. It's it's great. It's I don't know. COVID did that. COVID brought old movies back to the theater. It just was not a thing before like it would be in L.A.. I know it's always been a thing, but where I live, it was never a thing. Never. And then in COVID, when there was no movies, they started doing that. And I mean, I'm here for it that most of the movies I see I went to the movies four times this week in the theater, man, Four time Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, because this is what do. And two of those were old movies Halloween like I just love it. I love it. 90% of the movies that I've seen in theaters this year have been old movies. Yeah, but yeah, I know you said something. This is interesting. It always has been an L.A. thing. It's always been a New York thing. But since COVID, I'm telling you, man, the theaters that I've gone to, to see any type, whether it's the American Cinematheque or Quentin Tarantino's Theater or the Alamo, the old movies are what everyone's going to see. The older movies in My Alamo are almost always more crowded than the new stuff without. And I, I just love it. I'm like, everyone came here on Halloween night, like you're old. I think there is more appeal right now in America when it comes to movies that people would rather go to the theater to see an older movie than see a new one. That's not the big franchise movie. Yeah, I think I think we're getting a message loud and clear. I think OP and Oppenheimer and Barbie are even a part of this message where not not original concepts. One was a real guy. One was a very, very famous toy, but their original movie ideas and they broke through. And yeah, a lot of people in these older movies I go to are younger, and then you have people like me who I'm looking right now at my I have Halloween on Blu ray and DVD and I still win because it's just cool to like be in there with other people and like, have some popcorn and like, watch it on the big screen. Yeah, it's great. I didn't even know we were going to talk about this, but yeah, I love it. Like what Alamo's very good at is they will pick a director sometime, so they have Tarantino coming up, so they're going to show all his stuff. I would have loved for them to do David Fincher because there's so many of his. Like I've never seen seven on the big screen. I would love to see them on the big screen, the game screen, Love to see the game. That'd be cool. Yeah, But the killer both very highly endorsed from us. If you're watching it, let us know that you're watching it. It's on Netflix. I'm curious to see how it plays on Netflix like that. Actually, the technical look of it, because it looked so good on the big screen to me. But, you know, in the film, Michael Fassbender plays a hitman and I thought it'd be fun to just talk about some of our favorite hit men and women in film and film history. I split my to do a few categories, and so let's just open it up. There's there's, there's one and it has yet to be beat and the rest are all competing for number two. Who is your number one? Who's your number one movie Hitman with? Without question. My number one movie hitman is John Cusack. And GROSS Point is Martin Blake that is hating me of a hitman. Yes. What? Where it suits always where it suits do it. I always wear suits, even says it because look at the way I dress. Oh, God. Alan Arkin, don't kill anyone. No, don't watch the film. What a film. I had that. Here is my funny hitman. I had him paired with Colin Farrell in In Bruges. Oh, yeah. I have a funny hit. Yeah, I have. And Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson is by far the more professional. Yes. Hitman Colin Farrell has done one hit and it went quite poorly with John Cusack. It's just, Oh, it's great, it's great. Very creative ways. Like in the hotel room, the drip in the mouth. Yeah, yeah, very good, very good. I'm going to list two that we've already talked about it. My evil hitman category. I had Tom Cruise and Collateral. Yeah, and I have that Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men. No Country for Old Men. It's interesting because he works for a cartel, so he's more like, I have to go find I don't know if he's specifically if Anton Chigurh is like a hitman, but Vincent and Collateral is that is his job. He just needs to take out five people. That's it? Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's what I'm going to say. Like, what's the difference between someone who is an actual hitman or someone who is like, It's part of their job. Yeah, it's part of their job. So like another one I have this is a loose one, but I called it the Mob Enforcer, which is De Niro in The Irishman, because he only works for the filming mob. That's all he's doing. He's just taken out hits for them. But that is his job. That's what he does. He's a hitman for the Philly mob. The Zone carpentry to Jean Reno. Okay. Yes, Jean Reno. I watched that this morning. I watched it on this morning. I'd only seen that once ages ago. And I put it on. Yeah. Good vibe. I mean, it's Gary Oldman. It's like, oh, he's so good in it. And Natalie Portman. Yeah, but it was fun to put that back on and he's great in it. Reno So good. Yeah, he's so, so vulnerable. It's so great. We mentioned John Wick so he can cross off. Keanu Yeah, he's great. But again, like I've never viewed John Wick as a hitman. I haven't. I viewed him as like he worked for one group, like this one mob thing. But no, that's probably what he did. He did hits, but he wasn't taken out like civilians, you know, he's there represent different levels of hit hit people. My favorite political assassin is Edward Fox in the Day of the Jackal. I know you haven't seen it, but wow, what a great movie. Yeah. Yeah. Remade as The Jackal with our beloved Bruce Willis and Richard Gere and Sidney Poitier. I have the quiet professional. I would probably classify Michael Fassbender as a quiet professional, you know, in terms of like, the Hitman category. I have Vince Edwards here for murder by contract That's what I brought up, because that was Scorsese, his biggest influence on Taxi Driver, like writing into the diary, doing the pull ups, doing the push ups. That's all in my contract. You can find that for free very easily on YouTube. I highly recommend it. It's a great way to spend about 80 minutes. Oh my God. I was going to say we talked about it a little bit, but Brad Pitt in killing them softly. Okay. So that that was one of my honorable mentions was that like that is a movie about Hitman, just all but two different guys. They bring it. James Gandolfini to do it like he can't do it You know market trap and they bring it all these different people but it all comes down to Pitt. God, what a movie the killer is. 1964 with Lee Marvin. Great movie about, again, a group of hit men. Hit men and women. Chow Young fat as in the Killer. That's John Wayne movie. I've only seen that once, but that's kind of like talking about Hitman. We got to talk about the killer. And then my I, we haven't mentioned my favorites One is a loose what do you watching recommendation for me this is what I had I'm going to do a few others, but this is what I had because I already mentioned it. Jean-Pierre Melville's The Samurai, starring Alain Delon as just the epitome of cool. You're so good looking, just this piercing face. I know. I really want to see this. Yeah, I watched it just a few days ago and I went, I mean, it's only an hour and 45 minutes and you talk about no dialog. This is, this is the movie Fassbinder rewatched and went, This is the type of shit I want to do. And he is so good in it. And there are it has a lot of sensibilities with the killer. It is not the same. It's not the same. But you will you will understand that everyone who made David Fincher's the Killer watched the samurai from Melville. Got to see that. And then, of course, Travolta and Samuel Jackson. Pulp Fiction. Yeah, I was waiting for the Jaws. Yeah, Yeah. Got me fucking shark. All right. What are you watching? Here we go. We've made it to the end. It's a lot of fun to talk about the killer. I did. I have my old one, which is the samurai, which you can find on Criterion. You can find it on HBO. It's available. It is a very, very good about an assassin in Paris. And this is just like a nickel style movie to me, genuinely is. You mean the Melville movie? Yes, Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. It just feels like a Nick Dostal film to me for reasons I don't even want to mention. But I will tell you why after you see it. I like the sound of that, but I'm to. Do I have two more? Well, three more that I'm going to mention for what you watching? To give some people some recommendations that are actually quite easy to find. But do you want to. Yeah. Going hog wild because you know the killer is going to be on Netflix. That's a solid recommendation. And then I have two movies from 2023 that I'm giving a good endorsement on, a good recommendation that people can check out. Oh no, I'm going last because nothing is going to top what I got to bring to this table. Oh, okay. Okay. So a few more for me. Anatomy of a Fall. Well, this one, the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year, directed by Justine Trier. Sorry, I'm probably not pronouncing that well. Very good movie. This is what I saw on Monday. You're going have to go to the theater to see it. This will be the big foreign language movie of the year. There's always one, at least one, and this will be it. But interestingly enough, like 65, 70% of the movie is in English, the rest is in French. And then there's some German language very, very important to this movie in terms of what we are speaking when we are speaking it, why we are speaking it all. Very important. Just very briefly, the movie is about a husband who falls from the third story of his house and dies and the wife is to blame. Did you push him? Did she hit him? Did he die by suicide? They have a child, small child who has vision impairment that gets brought into it. And then we go to court. And I'm watching this movie lose two and a half hours long. So I it felt like a tall order getting into it when this movie was done. I just I'm like, can we keep going? Like, I could sit here for another hour and a half and find a fantastic procedural that is directed to perfection, cinematography kind of a lot like Fincher. They are going handheld for a reason when they go handheld, and then sometimes edits can be kind of jarring, but you're getting insight into, you know, what did happen, How did this happen? It was a fascinating movie, so detailed, so impeccably detailed in my head. I knew this has to be a true story. I don't know when this case was, but I cannot wait to go look at this case. I'm going to watch documentaries about this case. I can't believe I'd never heard of this case. Nope. It's an original film. Feels like it was based on a book, but it wasn't. It's just. It's really, really good. I see why it won the Palme d'Or, and I highly recommend it. If you are into, like, true crime stories, like The Staircase, which was on it, which was a documentary series and then got turned into an HBO series. This plays like a France staircase kind of, but it's not real. It's just fake. And I loved it. I was so enthralled. I loved it. Anatomy of a Fall. Well, you would like it. This is just wild. I rewatched the movie called Wild Tales from 2014. This is an Argentinean film directed by Damian Ziffren. You would love this movie. It's six short movies connected only by theme. It's like six short stories. It is. Oh, I love it so much. I had only seen it once. It's almost been ten years, so I just blunt. Not blind, but I bought the Blu ray and put that on and I went, God, I love this thing. Perfect amount of it is that is like every sensibility. It's it can be funny, it can be terrifying, it can be sad, it can be deranged, absurd. It has it all. And I'm like, What else is this guy done? What has he done since his next film comes nine years later this year, he made an English language movie called To Catch a Killer, and it stars Shailene Woodley and Ben Mendelsohn. And I have never heard of this movie. Never. So I looked it up. It's on Hulu right now, streaming for free. The poster is like a bad schlocky. I'm looking at it right now, schlocky like Photoshop thing. And I go, First reaction was, Oh boy. So he it took him nine years to make a movie and he did like the straight to streaming action thriller thing. Yeah, don't judge a book by its cover. I did some research on it. Woodley produced this. The director wrote and directed it. I'm not trying to build it up too much. This is not an Oscar movie, but to, like, put on on a Friday night when I was expecting straight to DVD, straight to streaming garbage, I kept rewinding the movie ten or 15 seconds going like, Wait, how? Like it was just watching it. I went, Yeah, this is it's not as good as Wild Tales, but the guy who made that movie made this movie too, because it's really smart. There's some silly things about it. Sure. You know, whatever. But to Catch a Killer is on Hulu right now and the killer is on Netflix. And those are just two big recommendations for me. You know, Anatomy of a Fall is still in theaters. It will be nominated for Oscars. It will undoubtedly come to streaming soon, probably Hulu. But yeah, well, my what are you watching? Should be nominated for every single Oscar that there could possibly be. And it should win everything because it's the greatest cinematic achievement of all time Halloween weekend. So I got I got a friend and we didn't want to stay at home for the night. We wanted to do something, get out of the house. So I buy tickets to go see bears the Taylor Swift concert, all 3 hours of it. So I like Taylor Swift just fine. I've never really I like pop music, I like good pop music. I appreciate what pop music does in L.A. When she was here selling out Sofi Stadium for six nights in a row, this was the news that no one could get away from because traffic. Yeah, they trying to get in and out of this city during those six days was a nightmare to sell out Sofi stadium. And I'm hearing that this is just the greatest show like ever done. And I'm like, really? So going to see this movie. I had high expectations going in because I was like, All right, she must have done something great. I cannot recommend going to see this enough. It is. It's so good. It's so like I. I went through all the emotions. I cried, I danced. I was like in like, just my jaw was dropped. My friend and I, we had the whole entire back of the theater to ourselves. We are dancing down the aisles. We are going hog wild. It was amazing. But just as a show, she plays 45 songs, 45 rice, six nights in a row, and there was elements of theater that were happening here. The each song was its own spectacle, and she's doing it all. It was the greatest concert ever seen, and I wasn't even there, but I just saw the movie version of it. So I've heard obviously a lot about this. The movie theaters have been packed for weeks because of this film. You can hear that the air is talking in another theater like you'd make the like you're like, damn, you could hear that were my lady said it. Was it ever in time? It was never hot time. I'm so sad to say that there wasn't 43 songs. Of her 45 songs, setlist are set. Those are the songs because you to think, to like the choreography and the lighting and the stage is a production design. There's too much. So during the Los Angeles tour, Huynh, who opened for them, comes on stage and they perform one song all together. That was every single night of the tour that was not included in the Errors movie before. Before I saw this, I only knew a handful of songs myself that I actually knew. Oh, those are that's a Taylor Swift song. But the thing that I loved about it was that each song that I was watching her perform, I was like, It's good music for its genre, for its honor. I cannot imagine anybody even like the haters of haters going in and watching this movie because I know you know one Oh, I do. I would love to see what happens if they saw this. You can still have whatever personal feelings you might to outright deny that you've just seen the greatest of all time shows. I just don't think I just don't think it's incredible. That's it. I know we spent a long time. You should see it. My wife might put out a contract on me If I see that. I know. I'm telling you, you got to listen to her. I don't want to talk shit without her, without her being here. But that was when we met her least favorite celebrity. I know. She was not shy about sharing that. I'm. I'm flying to D.C. and we're going to take Ali as what's going to happen. She would have you killed. You try. You try. You could try if. I can't do it. I mean, Jesus, you know, I got to go see Oppenheimer again because I've seen you. Oh, you. Oh, see? Now. Okay, now, now I have a problem. Yes. You're. You're going to spend 3 hours in the theater having a life changing experience, or you're going to see a movie for the 14. I don't know if my life will be changed. See, air is. Oh, I take the challenge. That said, this was fun. Those fun. The killer is on Netflix. Anatomy of a Fall still in theaters to catch a killer can have a fun thriller movie that's on Hulu. Heiress tour is now in theaters tour. There's a lot of good recommendations, like Wild Tales is available. Fine. Find that good recommendation today. Good pop, everything that you recommended. I actually really want to watch, as usual, no use of social media. If go to at w a y w underscore podcast. We are on Twitter, we are on Instagram, we are on Letterboxd. We are also, as of yesterday on Reddit, officially I made an account. What are you watching account? And that is because I'm just scrolling Reddit yesterday and I see our logo. What are you watching? Logo? And I was like, Well, it was one of those like brain lapse things. I go, Wait a minute, that's our logo. But I don't post on Reddit and some extremely kind soul had posted our M83 episode into the M83 subreddit, and it got a lot of play and there were a lot of people talking. And so I felt compelled to sign up an account for our movie podcast to talk about my favorite bands. So I all it's a bit of fun, but I like this is a movie podcast. We don't talk about M83. Aaron started following me on Instagram. We met Aaron, she does the lighting. It was a big day yesterday. I was like, Whoa, big M 83 day. Oh, that's amazing. I would love to interview her. He'd be great. We are also on YouTube. We haven't been able to like, record ourselves. We still talk about that sometimes, but you can get different clips. I'll post YouTube clips of some of the stuff we've done occasionally, so that's fun. At W AIW Underscore podcast. We're everywhere. We're out there engaged with us. As always, thank you for listening and happy watching. Hey everyone. Thanks again for listening. You can watch my films and read my movie blog at Alex Withrow dot com Nicholas Dose Dotcom is where you can find all of Nick's film work. Send us mailbag questions at What are you podcast at gmail dot com or find us on Twitter, Instagram and letter box at WUKY w underscore podcast cast. I genuinely didn't realize no Country for Old Men would be brought up so much in this episode, but next time is our commentary on that best Picture winning film from Joel and Ethan Coen. Watch it right along with us. Stay tuned.