149: One Movie Every Day Challenge

Alex watched at least one movie a day in calendar year 2024. In this episode, Nick interviews Alex about this fun and ridiculous exercise. The guys also discuss a lovely note from a fan, the impact of “Duel of the Fates,” Alex’s (even crazier) 2025 movie challenge, and much more.
Follow @WAYW_Podcast on Twitter and Instagram and Letterboxd.
Send mailbag questions to whatareyouwatchingpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

0:09

Your show. Let's go. Let's fucking go! You ready? Yeah. I was so nervous. Yeah. Hey, everyone. Welcome to. What are you watching? I am Nick, docile and joined by my best man. By best friend, Alex Withrow. How are you doing there, Doug Boot? Tavi. Wait. Who's that? It's right at the tip line. Who is that? Oh, my. Is this night at the Roxbury? Yes. You just saw this with dad, did you? At the theater? Yeah. Oh, my gosh, Jean, I was trying to think. I was trying to think of the actor. That was always like, hey, hey, hey, did you grab my ass for me, Terry? Did you grab my ass? Yeah. That's it. Yeah. And I couldn't find I couldn't find his fucking character's name on the IMDb, but. Oh, well, we're doing things a little different today for ya. We're switching it up. That's right. Because today, Alex, I am going to essentially be interviewing you on a years long journey. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Blood. Sweat. Tears. Sacrifice. I've seen it, I was there, I bear witness to it. I actually have, photographic proof of you in the throes of this. With all due respect, ridiculous. Challenge yourself for one year. It was ridiculous. So, as we announced it, why don't you tell the people? Why don't you let them know what exactly your crazy ass did this year? So great. Yeah. Great. Intro. Thank you. So, like, in 2023. All right. In in late 2023. My. No okay. Early 2023. My what. My movie challenge for true. Yeah. My movie challenge for 2023 was kind of simple. It was I'm going to log every movie I watch on Letterboxd. That was it. Like I'm going to write. Or if the review is four paragraphs, if it's two sentences, I'm going to do all that because I've never really, like genuinely written a review for every movie I watch. So I did that in late 2023. I realized that through no fault of my own, I had accidentally watched at least one movie a day since late October 2023. So I saw that and went, wow, that's weird. I've gone like 2 or 3 months by just watching a movie a day without trying. What if I do that for an entire calendar year? What if all the 2024 I make it a challenge to watch at least one movie a day, start to finish, one movie a day? No cheating. There's no like watching an hour and 15 minutes of a movie, going to bed, waking up and finishing the ten minutes left to that movie and counting that for that day? Absolutely not. Start to finish one movie day. It didn't mean I had to sit there and I couldn't move and like, look at my phone. It just meant at least one movie a day. And before you ask the people that I told this to, I really kept it like secret because I didn't want to jinx it. I told I didn't even tell Allie. I didn't even tell my wife. Yeah, the person you live with until you're anywhere first 20, 25, I told her because I just didn't want to jinx it. I told you, if you guys I work with, that was it. And I even told you, like, kind of late. The first thing people at first thing people say. It's not even a question. They they say, well, that must have been easy for you and fair, fair thought like it must be easy for, lunatics. Cinephile who dedicates his life to movies to watch at least once a day. And for about 300 days it was quite easy. It really wasn't a challenge, but some challenges did arise, let me tell you that I was not really aware of. We're going to talk about the challenges, but that was it. Why did I do this? I don't know, just to see if I could. And I did it. It was a fun thing to do. So didn't have to be a new to me movie. But I did try to prioritize those. I tried to watch a new to me movie first. Yeah, yeah, there really wasn't any cheating. So that's like, if I watched four movies on Thursday, that doesn't mean I'm covered for Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So I was just going to say, yeah, no. Nope. So I was allowed to watch as much as I wanted to. But yeah, that was the challenge. I did log everything on Letterboxd and yeah, we're going to come up here to some, some totals, you know, some more films, some metrics, some metrics that I was, quite stunned by, like, actually keeping track. And, you know, we're doing this a few weeks into 2025 because I genuinely had to crunch these numbers. And I was like, Holy shit, like you really? Yeah, that was my challenge. And wow, was it a lot of fun. I didn't even mention on the podcast. I, I just don't want to jinx it. I didn't want to jinx it. Short films didn't count. Had to be a feature film, one feature film. Now when I like for the Oscars, when I came out to LA in March, I was like, cool. I don't even think I was talking about it yet. I was very much low key doing the challenge. When I came out there for September for your birthday, I had entered the neurotic stage of it to where I bet I basically told you. I was like, look, I know we're seeing Megalopolis tomorrow at 10 p.m., okay, that's not good enough for me because something could go wrong. We could get there in the print, could break it, could do something. So basically, I'm going to wake up and I'm not coming out of my room until I finish the movie. So you're not going to see me even though we're staying in the same Airbnb until I'm done with the movie. Now, when I went on vacations, I would plan I would like, plan out 4 or 5 movies, one a day, and they were always shorter running times. But this is how I got it done. These were indeed the sacrifices I made. So yeah, let's get into it. Today we're just going to talk about into it the, the fun, the challenges. Some of the movies I watched and I'm going to list some of some of my favorite new to me movies. These aren't favorite 2024 movies. Favorite anything? Just any movie I watched in 2024. If it was new to me, I made a little list of ones that I like so. And, you know, and I actually, I have well, clearly not as many as you, but I've got some, I have to say, the movies that were new to me this year that I saw, I loved. Yeah, yeah. So yes, it started honestly, when I first started the challenge, I went, I wonder if I can make it to October 2024. Then I will have done like 365 days of a movie a day. But then I went, I should just do the calendar year. Make it harder for yourself. Exactly. So, but we do have something important to talk about. I want to just keep going. We're going to switch gears from being fun to being like, honestly, drop dead series for a second. Jesus Christ, we on Christmas Day. Jesus Christ, I'm, like, getting fucking choked up. On Christmas Day. This is the second year in a row, actually, that we have received, in, in, like, just the, the nicest, most, I mean, empathetic, kind emails from one fan in particular who we mentioned this last year, but I don't want to mention him by by name. He even said it was okay. But because of the stuff I'm going to talk about, I think, you know, just for privacy, a very nice email about how many listens or how many minutes this person spent in his year listening to our podcast, which I did the math. It was like weeks like when I added all together, it was like weeks of listening time. And I'm like, Jesus and you just saying so many nice things about how all these I mean, he listed like 20 movies that we've recommended. And I'm like, God, this is like the what are you watching? Like hit list right here, like waves. I mean, just everything. Everything. And then he ventured into another part of his email saying that, you know, this is a hard thing to talk about, but that he's for the first time, he's going to therapy. He's trying therapy out because of me talking about my mental health on this podcast. And that is like, I you know, it, you know Nic better than anyone that I was mortified to start talking about this really serious stuff on Mike, which we do not do every episode because people come to listen to movies, not necessarily, you know, dark like stories from childhood and how movies may have an imprint from us, from these events in the movies means something in particular. But I just started doing it occasionally because it helps me, because I'm not someone who I'm someone with depression and I'm not someone who has. I certainly hope it never comes off that I have quote unquote beaten this. Nah, like it ain't like that. I had a little spell just a few weeks ago. If I'm being totally honest, it gets it still gets dark sometimes. So talking about it and being like, no, like it's okay, everyone's fine, everyone's cool, everyone's safe. So let's talk about it. To know that that meant something to one person means everything. It makes four and a half years of podcasting worth it. And that's what I wrote him back in my response. And I just I couldn't believe that I really I was not expecting that. And this for this fan, for separate email that we got over the summer from our guy, our friend Flavio. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. I probably am not from Portugal, and that was an extremely kind email. Yeah. And it's just like we get these sometimes, like our main man John Klein on Twitter, like we get these and I go, it's just crazy how this means something to some people. And it does. And we're just I mean, we started this is to just jackass friends talking about movies. And it evolved into something that for some people really means something. And the majority of the time on this podcast, we have fun and we like to talk around and talk about why we really want people to take certain movies seriously. But yeah, sometimes there's room to get very serious and to talk about something like sleepers and how that has such a profound impact on me, or even a band like Haim, and how that has such a profound impact. But I just I want to say thank you to these fans who write us to everyone who listens. It's not certainly don't have to write into the show to like, be a listener. We just we appreciate everyone who listens. It just it means the world to me. And when my wife saw me open this email on Christmas evening and it's a it was a long email from him, she's like, what the fuck is that? And I went, oh my God. Like, this is just this is the absolute best gift Christmas gift I could have gotten. This is just. Yeah. So thank you to our friend. You know who you are and that I just really wanted to I really wanted to say that from the heart before we have a little fun, that's all. And I want to reciprocate that. That love and gratitude towards that fan in particular. But like you were saying, all of our all of the people that I mean, it's funny because we started doing this and remember, we would say that we were only going to do like less than one hour episodes. 45 minutes. Yep. Yeah, yeah. And and like my how like we've clocked in even our last episode was our longest we've ever done longest one. And and you all listen. You listened to every minute of it. That is just beyond anything that we could have dreamed of when we started this. And, and I think to your point, like, yes, this is a movie podcast. But part of the reason why we love movies is because they're there for us in ways in our lives when we're dealing with this mental stuff that we all have. And that's how powerful and important they are. And I think that's what we really try to, you know, support and kind of encourage these types of movies. And the only way to do that is to get real. The only way to do that is to acknowledge who we are and not without any judgment. And, but but kind of just putting it out there, it's important and it's, it's important to normalize this type of talking, whether it's revolving around art or whether it's not, it's it's it's it's too important. And I think, I think our past as humans has shown us that we know what it's like to not talk about it. That's what people would when for ever. And that has gotten us nowhere. It's been a slow we're chipping away at things, and now that we're able to kind of open up and talk about these things and learn as well as be inspired by, our I don't want to say flaws, but I want to say some of maybe more of the negative things that might make up a big piece of who we are, and to actually turn those around and be like, I wouldn't be me without this, and good or bad. And the fact that we can talk about it and then have art around us to fuel and to support and to scare all the things. So all of that is to say, to specifically that one fan who opened up to us in that letter, that we see you and thank you for seeing us and anything that we could have done to even remotely make your, time on this earth, even even more educational or important, is just like the biggest compliment that we could ever get. So thank you for that. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So we'll we can I could I could gush about our fans and our listeners forever. You're all awesome, by the way. All our bad movie buffs. We love you. You guys are so cool. Yeah, we talk about you guys all the time. Trust me, like we do. I'm like, I, I forwarded that email to Nick right away and I'm like, look at this shit. Like, this is nuts, man. This is like something that a human being sat down and wrote us because of our podcast, like, this is it's just crazy and. Yes. Huge, huge. Thank you as always. So this challenge I'm just going to throw a number at you. I don't want you to be alarmed. Here we go. In 2024, the total amount of feature films I wait can I guess please. All right. So this is your total amount of movies. Not just your one today, but like, in including, like, some of the dub everything and and. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, I should also say that Alex is a frequent moviegoer. I don't know if you might know this. And he'll go to the movie theaters. So much to see. Double features, triple features? Oh, yeah. All days. So I pay for only two people. If you're if you're already talking about 365 days, that's 365 movies right there, plus everything else that you're doing. And let me be clear, Rewatches count in my total. It's how many times I sat down and watched a movie to watch. Yeah. So Oppenheimer is not just one like I watched that a few times in 2024. It's like it's going to make this number go past a thousand if Oppenheimer's involved. Yeah, I'm going to say 636 826 oh my gosh. Good guess. Good guess. Oh my God, 800 I know, I know, I know eight. Listen to this. 826 movies. And keep in mind I everyone heard me talk about 2024 how I don't watch TV, I'm not watching TV. 26 shows, 26 shows. I didn't even that's me. Not watching TV. When the fuck did I watch all those shows? Or and what I count as a show is also like, you know, Netflix does like two three episode crime. Things like the Zodiac thing we just talked about. I count that. So it's not all like 20 episode things, but 26 shows. Jesus. But start to finish those those shows start to finish, start to finish. Well, 15 short films. Most of those are the Oscar nominated shorts. But then also I talked about like Night and Fog, which is a really intense, and Death middles, which are really intense concentration camp documentaries. Elephant. It's about the IRA troubles and a bunch of assassinations. It's on YouTube. It's like 48 minutes long. But that was really, influenced hunger by Steve McQueen and Gus Van Sant's Elephant, adding all those and the tally is even higher on letterbox. It's 847, but I took out the shows and I took out the shorts. Total films, 87% were older. That's great. 13% were from 2024. I mean, I watch a lot and new movies. I don't talk about them all on here because I don't I honestly don't like most of them. Like that's, you know, when you dedicate your life to this and you're watching them like there aren't a lot of truly fantastic bowl me over good movies that are made like they're just not most of them are very like two and a half, three star movies. And that's okay. I just love the art form. 57% of all those 826 movies were new to me, and that is me trying. So that shows how hard it is to watch. New to me movies, because 43% of those 826 films were rewatches. Usually those rewatches were for that for this podcast, like I'd seen every David Lynch movie, but we did him as a director. So I'm rewatching all those, you know, watched Oppenheimer a number of times. Yes, I did, yes you did. How many times did I go to the movie theater? You want to get that? And that means that means like, if I went on a Saturday and saw two movies as two trips, I count. That is two. That's two movies. Yeah. You count. So I should say, okay, how many movies? How many times did I sit my ass in a movie theater and see a movie has to be. It has to be over 365, 110 trips to the movie theater, which is still a lot. I didn't go to movie theater every fucking day. Jesus. That's like, yes, 76 of those trips were for 2024 movies. I sold 7620, 24 movies in the theater scene. Plenty more on streaming on demand. 35 trips were for old movies, and those are way more fun to see in the theater than new stuff. Some of my favorite old ones I saw. And believe me, we're going to talk about a lot of random movies today. The only thing these movies have in common, or that I watch them in 2024. But I thoroughly enjoyed starting the year with showgirls at Alamo. That was a fantastic sold out screening that was just a ball of fun. Clerks a movie I've never been huge on. A lot of fun to see in a sold out screening with people laughing. It just changed. I've only ever watched that movie, like at home, like or, you know, with 1 or 2 people at home. Star Wars episode one. They rereleased that The Phantom Menace. I had a lot of fun watching that duel. Fates was Grand Duel, the fantasy adventure. I've had sex of that song. Jesus, I'm leaving that in. I don't fucking care. I believe in that shit. And I know you have. That's why I set it. So that we could have a cool like inside last moment. I'm fucking. Leave it it it was with a woman to not. You know what I what what I want people to think like you're talking. I mean, it's two guys talking on a podcast, and I want people to get the wrong idea. It's okay. But, I mean, Jesus. Other, It all states it also four and a half years where I would have believed that fought three years ago, but I'm not anymore. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai from the eighth dimension. The whole Dan wreck. That was great in the theaters. Creature from the Black Lagoon I never seen. Got to see that in 3D. That was great. Those are some just fun ones. Here's what else I got to see. I've talked about some of the stuff. I got to see Bergman on the big screen for the first time. Autumn Sonata I got to see my favorite fucking film, Taxi Driver, on the big screen for the first time. I flew to New York City to watch Oppenheimer for the 15th time. The one and five time on the biggest Imax screen on the East Coast in 70 millimeter. I drove three hours to see tenet for the 10th time, but this was the only time I've seen it on Imax in 70 millimeter. So interstellar on Imax, it's all eyes wide shut in theater twice. Oh that's cool. Commentaries. I try to make those a big priority. There's going to be a huge priority for me this year. Listen to 33 of them a lot for the podcast. But, like, here's just a few. Like, I really learned a lot from, Training Day by Antoine Fuqua made me appreciate that movie so much more. And Denzel's performance so much more. Cannot remember if I talked about this on the podcast, he says, though in that track that Denzel did everything and every take rather how I say this in every setup, he did everything, so every take he would do would be a different version, and he would do one take like really calm and cool, and he would do another take where he was hysterical and racially vulgar and all this stuff. And it was up to Fuqua and the editor to create the character's temperament in editing. Intense. I was basically like, if you want this dude to be a nut job from scene one, when we're in that diner, you know, pay the bill. He he was behaving like a nut job in certain takes, but. So he would always kind of pare it down. And that's how he crafted this performance. It's like. Like you're going up a roller coaster. Like you're slowly going up, and then you go over the hill when, you know, King calling it got shit on me. I didn't realize that about the movie. I thought that was a fascinating exercise for no reason whatsoever. After I saw Star Wars Episode one decided to put on my Star Wars Episode two DVD, listen to the commentary with some technical people on it. Really informed it. Like I never thought I would listen to that. I really enjoyed it. George Lucas is not it, but it's just people like, I love tech commentaries, like the crew people where they're like, yeah, this is how you know, every every Star Wars follows and they're talking about the beats that it follows. And I'm like, oh yeah, every movie does do that shit. I never realized that. That's my favorite. Oh, it is attack of the clones. Oh that's cool. Prequels. It made me. Yeah, the prequels. Fair enough. And made me appreciate it more for sure. October Sky with Homer Hickam, who the movie's based on. So hearing the real guy do the commentary a lot of fun. I really, really love that movie. When it came out. It's a, movie with my dad clean shaven, a movie not a lot of people have heard of by Lodge Kerrigan, the director. This commentary lodge and Steven Soderbergh Lodge went on to co-create The Girlfriend Experience. So he's kind of. So it's one of the guys Soderbergh put him under his wing now, clean shaven people. If you guys haven't seen this, it's stars Peter Green, who was Z in Pulp Fiction, and also what the hell, some kind. California's name is Red Foot and Usual Suspects, and the villain in The Mask. So that guy, he's, a paranoid schizophrenic, and you're just watching it, and it's all through his eyes, and it is the best auditory representation of paranoid schizophrenia that I've ever seen. That movie is all sound, and what he's hearing and how it is fucking with him constantly think it's like 75, 80 minutes clean shaven. Go watch this film. It's on criterion. That's where I listen to the commentary. Is it is do they is it voices? Is he hear voices? Everything. Voices scratching just all sorts of shit. And how he's no way. I believe he's out. I believe he's been institutionalized. And now they've let him out and he is not handling it well. And he's just this extremely disturbed man. And honestly, I watch movies like that because that's what my my brother's mental health evolved into. It's where when his paranoid schizophrenia was raging, he was just hearing all these voices. It was like someone just fucking talking to. And it could be something is, quote unquote simple is you can't stand here like we're outside. You actually can't stand here. You have to move five feet to your left, because if you stand there, they can, put a signal into your head, whatever it is this movie gets that it's not. It's not like a 1 to 1 to my brother, but it just gets it really well, so clean shaven. It's a good movie. 1994. Wow. But yeah. Criterion's good. They'll put up some commentaries on their, you know, on their platform, which I love. And then when we did Insider in Miami Vice part, I just went, yeah, sure, I'll relisten to every Michael Mann commentary. So thief man Hunter, collateral, Ali, Miami Vice, they're is great. He's a fantastic speaker. So knocked all those out. Great stuff. Most watch actors oh the great Barbara Stanwyck at 13 films I watched 13 Barbara Stanwyck films. God, I love her. Yeah. Oh, because of the criterion. Had a, that helped. Yeah. That helped. And then, just chipping away. She was in more than 100 movies. So, you know, it's not something I'm not doing a full career thing. It's just when I want to, I chip, chip away. I watched one two days ago and loved it. I had a great time. The ball fire by Howard Hawks, written by Billy Wilder. Great film. Her and Gary Cooper absolutely fucking loved it. It was great. Ball of fire. I love Barbara Stanwyck. Also watch 12 Willem Dafoe movies and 12 Frank Grillo movies because I love Frank Grillo. I don't know that. I don't even know that's awesome. The Willem Dafoe, he's like in stuff here and there, here and there. And then Frank Grillo, I, I will fire on a cheesy, bad Frank Grillo action movie on Tubi and have a ball that I enjoyed. You very much. Enjoyed always love, Frank. You've always fucking always championed that guy. God, I love him. Dan told me that a friend is met him. I didn't know that I would have loved him. No, I mean, that's possible. That's possible. Fuck, friend of the part of friend on the David. Actually, I brought him in on the Twin Peaks part. That's right. Most watched director. So this is where it gets fun, because I did have a few director like I. When I'm finishing, I'm either starting and finishing his filmography or I've been chipping away, and now I'm getting real. The hardest one. And I watched 27 of this director's movies. 27 Sidney Lumet movies, so I could finish his filmography. Kind of talked about that throughout the year a lot worse. Yep, yep. Not good. And that's okay. I mean, he was making a movie a year for like, a long time there. There's a lot there. Somebody's never seen that. I like stage Struck A view from the bridge, which is based on a play. Wow. That went really that was really intense. The offense with Sean Connery, where he's a cop and he's interrogating someone in the first scene, it fucking kills him like he just hits him and kills him. So that's the movie. It's it's kind of like a play. The morning after a Jane Fonda movie where she went on such a bender the night before, she can't remember if she fucking killed a guy. That was a great one. So she wakes up the next day and she's like, what the. What did I get into last night? I loved it, so, yeah. 27 you met once? Yeah. That was that was tough. I'd only seen one Dario Argento movie, Suspiria. Only one? Yeah. Now I've seen them all. So I've 19 Dario Argento movies. That was a lot of fun. I just completely diving into a director's body work. Like here we go. Peter Himes is a journeyman studio director. I've always loved, I think, probably best, no, I don't know, for my age group like I grew up on Stay Tuned, which is a really funny kind of dark satire about people like going into a TV. But I mean, the 2010, the year we make contact, sudden Death. Great film. Jean-Claude Van Damme. Narrow margin in that with Gina Hackman. Yeah, the Star Chamber with Michael Douglas. So really, really good director. Capricorn one was a fantastic political thriller. I loved. I watched every Abel Ferrara movie. I'd seen a bunch, but, you know, most famously known for King of New York and Bad Lieutenant. That was a ride. Well, some of those films got weird, very fun. Toby Hooper, director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is the only movie by him I had ever seen. So I went, I'm going to watch them all eaten alive. The fun house, Life force, Life force was not just fun sci fi horror movies. George Romero I'd seen like 1 or 2, but I watched Dawn of the dead, all those. My favorite of the dead movies was day of the dead. For sure. That movie's mean and nasty as shit. It was so mean. Which one? Where does that fall in the order? It's right after. I know they're not like, yeah, connected necessarily. No, not just like the theme. It's after Dawn of the dead and all takes place like in a bunker and it doesn't. Oh, it's kind of like what I said my review is. It feels like the, you know, 28, days later when they go at that house and they're with the military guys, that's like the last 20 minutes of the movie. This is like a whole movie. It's like that. So the whole movie is kind of like that, and it's it gets. It gets good. So I really like that one. Martin is about like a serial killer thinks he's a vampire. It was an indie. It was really good. I really like the first seed is so gross. What does he do? Like breaks into a train compartment and, like, stabs a woman with a needle to, like, knock her out and just starts, like, fucking sucking her blood. But he's not a vampire. It's not a movie where vampires exist. It's just crazy. Great film. Wow. There's probably people out there like that. Yeah, probably. I mean, it's got to be based on someone, so I don't go as fast, but I'm just crushed and I'm just, you know, knocking out directors here. There was, a few other I've mentioned. I mentioned Catherine Brulé, who's a French director who's done some really tough stuff, like Fat Girl and really tough movies. I watch all those er is a Mexican director, I believe it's Michelle, not Mike. I believe it's, I believe it's Michelle Franco. He's come to America now. He made this movie memory with Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard. But my my, my, my my, these are tough fucking movies. Tough, challenging films. His first Daniel and Anna. I don't even want to read the logline. If you look up the logline on IMDb, it's tough. It's one sentence long. I've sent it to people. I send it to Taylor, friend of the pod Taylor, who has four kids, and he replied, can you, like, honestly tell me why anyone would want to watch a movie like that? So I replied, and I'm like, here, you know, here's what I think it is. These are tough movies. But why are you said you'd seen chronic with Tim Roth? Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the director. So that's an American movie too. So he didn't just come over with memory, but yeah, after Lucia, that was the toughest. I couldn't. That was about bullying in school. Jesus Christ through the eyes. Chronic. April's daughter. New order son. Down in memory. Well, what a collection of films. Not easy to watch, man. He sounds that easy. Yeah. Yes. So I looked at my entire list of everything I watch, and I picked a few movies that I would give my pretty much my highest recommendation to. I, I ordered them just for fun. They're it's so it is like a ranked list. But these are all they all get my recommendation. And again, the only thing these movies have in common or that I watch them in 2020 for now, are these are these new to you? Like these are your orders. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thanks. Oh, God. I'm glad I have you. Literally, the top of my list says the top ten new to me films. So yes, top ten new to me films that I watch in 2024. So yeah, no Oppenheimer here. Sorry, everyone I know that's I know ridiculous. And no, no. And no 2024 movies either, because we have our top ten of 2024 coming up in due time. So just new to me, movies that weren't from the year I was watching them in. First up, palm trees and power lines. Did you hear this? Little sounds familiar, actually. What is that? Got a few, got four indie spirit noms to actually patient, well done character study of how a teenage girl is groomed by an attractive older guy, played really perfectly by Jonathan Tucker, an actor I love. Oh, yeah. He's awesome. Yeah. Groomed to become a child prostitute. Oh, she's like 15, 16. And none of this is clear in the beginning. We start to put the pieces together and we learn more and more. And, Tucker is just capable of so much depth and humanity. You don't dislike this guy? He's a he knows the character, knows what he's doing. He knows how to groom. But you're like, he he plays this abuser with such an unsettling amount of tenderness. That's it just it's so creepy. He was nominated for it. The movie racked up some nominations. It was just little scene. So it didn't get any, you know, wins or anything like that. But I highly recommend that movie. It's not as it's not like Michelle Franco. Tough, I'll put it that way. It's not Daniel Nana, you'll if you go read that long line. But the implications of what happens are tough. It's the implication. Good movie. The implication. Implication number nine the Duel at Silver Creek. Don Siegel is a director who made like a gazillion movies, and I've been chipping away at them ever so steadily. He. Don Siegel came in. Wow. Did he come in handy over the year? Because one of the biggest challenges I had early on was knowing that I was going to see a movie in the theater that night. So let's say it's a Wednesday, and I'm going to the theater that night at 7 p.m.. I don't need to watch a movie. Earlier in the day because I'm going to the theater. That was my mindset early on in 2024. Then my wife comes home from work and is dead dog sick and needs a little help, needs to be taken care of. So I'm not going to the movie theater that night. So that means now it's 855 and the sick wife is asleep. And I realize you haven't watch a movie today. Oh, no. But what was there on YouTube? The 80 minute long, the 80 minute long film The Gunrunners, which isn't even the movie I recommended. But I watched the Gunrunners and I started that fucker and finished it like 11:20 p.m. it when I. All right, I'm going to bed. So so that was a challenge. I learned that even if I'm seeing a movie later in the day, like Miguel's topless, I can't bank on that. I have to knock out a movie as early as possible. I, I remember this really quick interruption, when you were here for my birthday in September for, your movie challenge. No, it wasn't the night that we saw Megalopolis. It was the next night we came home, and, you and I put on wolves. Yep. Wolves. And but we. But we started it when it was still the night of the, like of of my actual birthday. And then it crossed over into past midnight, and we were watching it, and and we were sitting and watched and you're like, Something about the column. Pretty tired. And I'm like, yeah, that's fine. And you just go this big sigh. This isn't going to count for my movie today. It wasn't. Yeah. That was the only time that happened all year. Only once did I start a movie on one day and finish it the next day. Like in one sitting. And I went, yeah, it's not going to count because we watched, like the majority of it. And on the previous day I was like, yeah, it's not going to work. I got to do another one. But then I think we ended up watching like American Psycho, which we did like. Oh yeah, it's like, that's good. After Wolves Don't Do It. Silver Creek is very good. It's a huge influence on Tarantino. And actress's name in the film. Her last name is Dormer Gue, which is also Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hateful Eight. So. Oh yeah, it's I got that recommendation from him from not personally like on his podcast or some from sht from YouTube called you up. Yeah. He texted me and said, yeah, dude, it's Silver Creek. Already talked about her. But my dear Barbara Stanwyck, my two favorite from her that I watched in 2024, forbidden from 1932, directed by Frank Capra. Here's why I'm mentioning this movie. This is one of the movies sometimes I say this is the movie that caused this. Forbidden actually is one of the movies that caused them to introduce the Hays Code and completely changed how movies are rated, because it was so salacious. It was so it's about a woman who has a child in secret and then becomes the child's nanny without anyone knowing she's the real mom, including the child. And it's all like it's affairs. It's having kids out of wedlock. It's all this stuff. And when I was watching, I'm going, all right, so this because I think the Hays Code is like 33 or 34. And yeah, this is one of the ones that made them do it where they're like, how dare we have the salacious content given to our public? We're gonna, you know, control all the content our films and then The Lady Eve by Preston Sturges I had never seen. It's a very famous movie with Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. She plays a con artist trying to hustle Fonda before falling for him. You just you just love it, you know? You just love it. I 1941 was lady Eve, and I believe it's the same year. Ball of fire. It's this woman. She's just a catch. Is an absolute force. She's a god. I love Barbara now. Number seven was was an early Peter Jackson film. You. It's either called Brain Dead or it's called Dead Alive. It's from 1992. And one fun thing I did in October was I exclusively. I'm not counting times I go to the movie to see a movie, but at home I exclusively watched new to me, scary movies and all of October. That was how I knocked out Argento, Tobey Hooper, George Romero. That's how I did all that. So this was one that I found, and I only watched like, didn't watch anything that I'd seen before. So that was a lot of fun. And it's just really fun to see what a mischievous little fucker he was before he, you know, did Lord of the rings and stuff. He was it's it's one of the goriest movies ever made. And it's just so out there and ridiculous. I had a great time with it. It's a comedy. It is also went back for a few movies. I mentioned Jack Arnold's Creature from the Black Lagoon. I got to see that in 3-D at Alamo. It was great for my favorite one. Oh, man. I bought a, universal Monster 4K pack, Dracula The Wolfman, which is getting remade here in a couple days with Abbott with Have It the original The Invisible Man, directed by James Whale. Holy shit, I love this. It's 71 minutes. These movies came in so handy for vacations because I would go on vacations and it helps that I just wake up early. Shit. It's, 536 every day. Doesn't matter. That's what it is. Ali on vacation. My wife, she likes to sleep in. So with that time, I could sit in, like a 70 minute long movie, like The Invisible Man. So that's what I was doing. I love this Claude Rains fucking Gloria Stuart from Titanic is in. It was Gloria Stuart. Yeah, like young, like a beauty. 1933 I love this movie. A lot of these are really easy to find, too. They're, you know, find them on good old Tubi. Tubi. I finally got to see Gaspar in his favorite film, The Mother and the whore, released in 1963. It is 3.5 hours long. It is a French love triangle. A lot of talking, a lot of talking. But it's there on criterion. And that was one. I mean, 3.5 hours. This is not going to be an action movie. This is going to be three people sitting in rooms smoking and talking. I knew that, so I did. I set out an hour a day for myself three days in a row, just I wanted to set myself up for success. Honestly, because if it got too challenging and I knocked it out in two sittings, it was good. It's a talkie, but you can see why he likes it. That's, you know, that's why I wanted to see it. That movie is popping up everywhere because it's never been available for to watch and thank God criterion boom. It's just there it is. Yeah, I because I think they were even playing that at some of like the arrow theaters or like, oh, American Cinematheque. That's a loaded set man all over criterion. And I was like, man, this movie is is everywhere where it is. So where does that rank to you on the list that was number five. I put that I was I was all right. It's like, I'm glad I did it. You know, it's it's kind of like John Tillman like, you know. Yeah. If you love movies, like, you want to sit down and like, let's just do this. Let's do it is it going to be long? Yes. A lot of talking. Yes. I have to read the whole time. Yes. But let's put the phone away and actually try to do it. So it was fun. Number four I can't. Sometimes I save movies. I there was one Tony Scott movie I never seen and I was just saving it. Don't know don't know why I and I went, you know what? I've never seen it. I'm going blind. Buy that Blu ray 1990s revenge starring Kevin Costner. This movie fucking rocks. It absolutely rocks. It's another. It's Tarantino and Roger Avery's favorite, Tony Scott movie. I don't want to talk out of turn them. I mean, it might be True Romance or something for Tarantino, but, you know, they talk about revenge a lot, and it features one just one of the greatest line deliveries in all of film. When Kevin Costner is invited by his friend to go out like, let's go, it takes place like in Mexico. And you know, you want to come out tonight to the bars, try to pick up a woman. But Kevin Costner was just laying in bed and he looks off and he goes, I killed someone. I hate it today. And his friend goes, I understand you don't want to mix pleasures and leaves. And I'm like, that is fucking awesome. The best thing he's going to do today is that he killed somebody hated. So no, I don't want to go get drunk. No, I don't want to pick up women. I want to sit in bed and just think about how I killed that motherfucker. Awesome movie. Also movie. Yes. Madeleine Stowe plays a Mexican woman. I'm sorry. That's just the way the 90s were. Like, it's a great movie. It's a great movie. Number three. I never heard of this. I heard, some podcasters talking about it. Hear me out, people. Oh my God, it's called The Entity. It's from 1982, directed by Sidney J. Furie. Great name, great name, great. Apparently a true story about a woman who was repeatedly raped by ghost. Well, that's what it's about. By ghost. And this movie starts and it's Barbara Hershey playing the lead. And I heard of this and I'm like, okay, every time an attack happens, this, I'm going to play it. Oh, like on the part I know you can't hear it. This fucking music kicks up where it's like to dun dun dun dun dun. It's doing this hard. Dun dun dun dun dun. And she's getting like, assaulted by ghost. Like over and over and clear. And she, she has kids. She's telling like scientists and they're like, this woman is full of shit. This is a crock of shit. They come to the house, they have all the instruments, and they watch it happen like it happens. Seward. Apparently this is a true story, so tough movie to watch. It was a very 80s movie, but I was like, how have I never heard of this? Like, I oh my. So it was intense, man. It's an intense movie. But the entity true story. It's what it says. It even ends with some title cards about what happened to him. I was like, how the fuck is this real? And you know, it's not a evidently it's not just her talking smack because she invited these like, college professors and scientists who study this stuff to come to the house, and they witnessed it. They witnessed like her being, I mean, she is assaulted, she is thrown on a bed, she is pinned down, she cannot move. And she has no idea why any of this is happening. Oh my God, it's terrifying. Yeah. So it's like hollow man, but real. Oh, God, what a film. This Christ, hollow man. I mentioned him earlier, but what a joy it was to watch every Dario Argento movie and, you know, just getting into Italian horror. And, one of my favorites was Tenebrae from 1982. I loved this movie. It's, you know, guy and author on a book tour in Italy. And someone start that someone woman's a murder, woman's a murder. Jesus Christ, woman's a murderer. Yes. You're doing great. You're doing great. Nighttime pod murders a woman in part by shoving pages of this guy's book into her mouth. So it's not funny. So the cops show up with him, and they're like, do you want to explain this? And he's like, I wrote the book. I didn't like Kill the woman. I'm just the author. So it's fun. It's fun. It's some type of movie where, a detective is offered a drink and a woman goes, would you like a drink? Oh, sorry, I forgot. You're on duty. And he goes, I only drink when I'm on duty. And then he starts drinking. So it's just fun. Opera. Wow. A little double feature opera from 1987. This is my shared number two, Tenebrae from 1982. Opera from 1987. You can look up the poster. What the killer likes to do is he puts a bunch of, like, sewing needles on a piece of tape and tapes it to their fucking eye. So if they blank, they stab themselves in the eye and he keeps doing it like, oh, and you get to see their perspective, like through the through the nails. Oh, great. God, I loved it. Oh I loved it. No, no. And then my number one I've already mentioned. Wow. I believe it's actually on criterion now. One of Sean Baker's early films, Prince of Broadway from 2008. Oh, yeah. Jesus, did I love this movie. It made me laugh, made me cry, made me angry. Hopeful. Terrified. Simple film, simple story. A guy just a hustler selling bags on the street in New York City. But a good guy. Like a good do good dude gets, apparently his one year old kid dropped in his lap, you know, while he's working in the, baby mama, who he hasn't seen, presumably since they hooked up, says I have to go away for a couple weeks. He's yours. And the guy is like, what the hell? You know, Taurus, our great Taurus from Nora is in it. He owns the shop that the guy works out of. It's hilarious. It's a great movie. I highly recommend Prince of Broadway. That was my favorite new to me film. Wow, that's your favorite one? Yeah, I'm creating my second favorite, Sean Baker and Nora and Prince of Broadway and starlet. I loved Prince of Broadway. Really blew me away. So yeah, just a quick run through there of some, yeah. Again, they don't have a lot in common, but some are hard, some fun, some are easy. But they all had an impact on me. Like that entity got. I can't get that music score out of my head. You're, so intense. They don't make them like that anymore. Let me tell you. You know, it's a freaky. It's a freaky one, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Other. I kind of talked about some challenges. Another huge challenge I had for the movie a day exercise. Was it? This was all early in the year. It was banking on. Hey, I'm seeing a movie later, later in the theater. Got to do that. It was also watching too. Like I got obsessed with that show Kingdom, which I talked about a lot in the warrior podcast. Taylor told me about that show starring Frank Grillo and Jonathan Tucker. Fantastic show. I got to so into that, that I would watch like 5 or 6 episodes and we would be getting toward the end of the day and I'd go, Holy shit, I haven't watched a movie. So then at that, I just had to stop and I went, no more TV. But I still had 26 shows. Lord knows how that happened. So basically. But no more like long series. Because that Kingdom has 40 episodes. I think that was the most, episodes of a show. The whole show I did. So yeah, it was fun. It was it was a lot of fun. The challenge can't believe I did it. What was your least favorite new to you movie? Oh my God. Oh oh, that's easy actually, I fucking hated, on frosted, that Jerry Seinfeld movie. Oh, he hated that you did, man. I felt that through those text messages. I swear to God, I hated it because I am convinced I talked with my dad about this lifelong money guy like finance guy. Retire now. He was a financial controller. He was a CEO. Oh, like big money guy. Taylor is also, like, knows a lot about money. I mean, I know how to like, manage money, but I don't know about, like, books and all the taxes. I'm convinced that movie was a write off as a way to like, the same way that like, was it Warner Brothers? It just films all of that movie Batgirl. And they're like, now fuck it. Like we're scrapping this, like we're throwing it out as like a loss, like a tax. Somehow movies like this like, have to be. But yeah, that thing was that thing sucked. But that's another that's probably another. Another misconception that I know a lot of people have. Like, yes, for the most part, I do try to watch movies that I think I'm going to like or that not necessarily like. It'll be challenging, like The Mother and the whore, but man, when you're watching, when you make a commitment to watch every Sidney Lumet movie he did, he would admit that not all those movies are good because they're not. And some of those, like some of the director stuff, can get really, really tough when you're in there. Like Dario Argento made some dog shit movies toward the end of his career. It's fine. It happens. You made him. You made enough classics. Who cares if you need? You know, to make a little money here? I totally get it. It's fine. But as a completist, when I'm doing that, that's what I'll say in my reviews. Like, there's really no reason for people to watch this, in my opinion, unless you're trying to watch every George Romero movie, every Tobey Hooper movie. Tobey Hooper's later movies were not good like as his career went on. So. But it's not fair to like, shit on those. I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing by starting that. It's pretty rare that I'm going in blind to a movie where I've done a little research like, yeah, I think I'll like this, and I hate it, but I, I pretty much finish every single movie I start. I that that's a sickness. Yeah. That's been in me since birth. If I don't even if it's bad, it gnaws and wears at me. It just fucking gnaws at me. Gaining on me again and on me. So gain. Yeah, I try to. I do try to finish everything but busy. Yeah, that was it. That was. That was my year of film. Oh, there was one movie recently. I can't remember what it was. I think we were talking about it, but I told you I turned it off and then, like, that's something that I don't do either. Oh, I forgot what? Oh my God, no. It was so smart of you. Oh I know what it was. Oh but I don't. Yeah, but I don't know if we should say it because Jesus Christ, we just talked about it. What the hell did you turn off? I what? Just tell me and I can. I know what it was this night, bitch. It wasn't I pitched. Yeah, I already talked shit about that bitch, but it's fine. Yeah. It's fine. Yeah, literally. That was like, the quickest theater to streaming ever. That was like two weeks. Yeah. So movie a day is done. That challenge is done, I completed it. My first movie of the year was The Grand Budapest Hotel because Ali had never seen it. She wanted to watch it. She loved it. So that was on January 1st, and then on December 31st. Because of your enthusiastic endorsement in the top 25 of the century so far, rewatched In the Mood For love for the first time in. Oh yes, I'm getting to the age. I guess we're getting to the age where I can actually start to say, like, I haven't seen that movie in 20 years, which is a weird thing to say. Yeah, but it had been like, yeah, 18 years since I'd seen it and I had seen it once, even though I own it. So I watched it. That's another one where I have some. I have trouble with his movies sometimes because of the way they move, and I miss stuff. So I think it's fine. Like that movie is an hour, 45 minutes. I blocked off three hours from and I took like 2.5 hours to watch it because I kept rewinding it like, okay, what did that mean? And like looking for all those clues and being like, oh, wow. The sort of like dance, verbal dance they're doing. This is what Nick meant. That's right, that's right. So yeah. But yeah, good stuff. But but any new challenge 225. Oh something new I listen and I. And I know what you're about to say and what you're about to reveal to the people. Yeah. I love you with all my heart I support you, but this one's crazy. This one is even more wild. But you're going to ruin this movie for yourself. Yeah, I know, thank you. So I don't want to. I didn't want to do one movie a day because I've done that. And that was. It was fun and it was a challenge. But that was like, on average, a two our commitment a day. Not every movie I watch was two hours. Some were 70 minutes long, some were 3.5 hours. So the average, it's like a two hour day commitment. This thing that I'm doing now is a much smaller time commitment, but a much more emotionally taxing commitment. So what I decided to do, in all my infinite wisdom, is I thought, wouldn't it be fun? Fun? Wouldn't it be a challenge to pick a movie of my choosing and watch it once a week for all of 2025? Watch the fucker 52 times. I'm allowed to watch whatever I want. I watch what I do, what I want, I watch whatever I want, but at least once a week I have to watch the same movie. Why? There's no why. There's no explanation. There's no reason. If you want to be in my brain, there's no reason. It's just because I'm nuts. It's just. I'm nuts. And I want to challenge myself. So I locked into that idea, and I'm like, all right, I like this now. And I spent months on this. What movie? What movie does one pick to do this? And I set up a few rules for myself. I went again, trying to set myself up for quote unquote success. Wanted something short, not comically short, not 70 minutes short, but absolutely under two hours let. Because honestly, I flirted with Oppenheimer a little bit because I'm like, hey man, you already have. You've already knocked off a few. Like, this could be that hard. But three hours is tough time to put in every week. So I'm like, so I made a list of ten movies that I liked that were around 90 minutes, and I wanted it to be something I had seen because I didn't want to start this road and I didn't like it. By October, I had made up my mind, and this is a movie that has some lore and it has some sequels, so I bought every property in 4K. I bought a calendar to mark my progress. We're recording this episode January 13th, which means I've already watched it twice, and I have indeed already watched John Carpenter's Halloween two times so far 2025, and I love to watch it every fucking week. This year I've already watched it, in fact, that I. My first viewing of the year was my first time watching it in 4K, watching my 4K disc, and I recorded a commentary for it, a solo commentary, 90 minutes. Oh, okay. So what I'm going to do is I recorded that one alone, and I'm going to edit it now. I'm not going to listen to it again, and then I'm going to record one for my last viewing the last week of the year, and I'm going to put those together in one episode. So the episode's going to be like three hours long, but it will be two Halloween commentaries. But I just want to hear the difference between how much you know, I spent the this commentary talking about the challenge a little bit, how I decided on Halloween. I went through each sequel and I was like, I don't really remember much from the sequel. I was just being honest. Like, I don't know, I don't know. And, you know, I bought all the sequels. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to January is just Halloween, so almost every sequel has and the original has at least two commentaries. They all have one, save at least two. So January is Halloween. I'm watching Halloween every week and a different version with the commentary on. I recorded a commentary. I watch it in 4K, watch it in the original color timing on Blu ray. Then February is I always have to watch Halloween every week, but then after that I watch Halloween two, and then the next week I'll do Halloween two with the commentary. We get to that Halloween two with the second commentary. March, Halloween three, April Halloween for on and on. That's going to take me all the way up to December because there are 13 of these fucking things, and I had to combine the Rob zombie ones into one month. But but wait, but you're still watching the original. Absolutely, absolutely. I'm just I just added the sequels in for fun. Just to try to learn more of the lore. I will always, always, always start with Halloween. I'm going to start 90 minutes. Boom, we're going and then I'll put if I have time, I'll put on the sequel, I'll put on two. You know, it doesn't have to be right after, but it's like February. My crutch will be Halloween two. I always have to do Halloween, but I'll fall back on Halloween two and then hopefully by the end of this year I'm going to know this fucking franchise. But yes, yes, you know, you are right in in picking the movie. Yes, I'm like, I have to accept that I could hate this at the end of the year. Like I could hate it. And I don't know when the next time I'm ever going to watch Halloween again because I love Halloween. I love John Carpenter's Halloween. I know I watch it every Halloween like I didn't in 2024 because I wanted to skip it and save it. But other contenders were, I got a little too stuck on foreign, and I really wanted to do foreign, but then again, trying to be pragmatic and practical, like you're going to have to read. So personas sounded great, but it's 83 minutes. But, you know, I'm reading and Rashomon sounded great. It's 85 minutes, but I just I didn't want to, you know, I want to be something where I'm paying attention and sitting here watching it. So there were double Indemnity was close. That's a little over 100 minutes. It was stuff like that. The the one that was on the top ten. That's the only modern one was Dunkirk. Actually, I thought it might be interesting because it is, you know, has this wild construction and I thought it'd be interesting. You guarantee by the end of a year I will have that thing fucking figured out and mapped out. Perfect. Yeah. And I thought that would be a challenge, but that was me trying to be cute picking a movie that's out of order. Every other movie was just in order. I went, damn, I didn't I didn't set it up like that. But what? And yeah, it just Halloween. That was the that was my very first idea. And March. That was the first one that popped into my head. And then I tried to avoid it. And then I just said, do it, man. Just do it. Shame. Thought about shame. Yes I did, yes I did, I thought about shame and just what I was like, I don't know, it's a, it's a lot. But plus while I kept a movie a day challenge kind of a secret because I was afraid of jinxing it, I'm telling everyone about the Halloween challenge, hence me talking about it right now. Everyone knows, like everyone in my life and I want to watch it with everyone. That's what's fun. Like, yeah, Ellen, I've watched together plenty, but I want to try to watch it with you and I will. I'll just watch it with everyone and I'm going to fucking carry a copy out of it with me and be like, want to watch Halloween? Because then I can say, like, this is I've seen it with everyone and now experience this one movie with like everyone in my life. So yeah, we could have a little Halloween watch party. Maybe I can or I can picture of ridiculous comedy movie in my head of of some guy coming up to his friend being like, hey man, you want to watch Halloween? And like, why was I? I've been watching this movie once, a once, once a week for the whole year. So you want to watch Halloween? Then the next question is, why are you doing that to yourself? And I say, I don't know, I don't know, I don't worry about it. But yeah, like it's it's an easy movie to wake up. And if I get my workout that day or if I'm going to work out later that I put it on when I wake up. Boom. Done before work 90 minutes Halloween, baby, here I come. You know. What do you might say Halloween is? It's the kind of movie have a cup of coffee with. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna have everything with it at some point. Jesus. I'm gonna be up, down, sideways. Alert on alert, unhinged. That's it. That's the big challenge. I am also going to finish Kurosawa. I, I, I go on, I have little binges with it. I can't keep doing it every day because something they're dense, they're just they're long. Some of them are long. But yeah, I have never watched a bad one. And I will not. I will finish Kurosawa. I actually have like seven left. But they're the really long ones at the end of his career, red beard, stuff like that. And then Barbara Stanwyck is always someone I fall back on. If I'm sitting there and I'm going, I can. I have time for a movie or I have 30 minutes. There's something of hers is always available either on YouTube or on any of the apps. So I'm going to watch a lot of new to me Barbara movies because I wow, do I love her? I love that woman. She's she's like the female Monty Clift for me, in terms of my heart. Yeah, in my heart. You know, like same time period, a bold statement. Yeah. And everybody loved her. She got along with everyone. She was no diva. She got along with everyone. Orphan like life. Just lifelong. Like I'm doing it. Doing it my fucking self. She was man. She was in the from like love by everyone orphan because she had she didn't have the easiest life and she's like I'm here to fucking work. I'm here to act. I don't care about this stuff. Like, wasn't you didn't hear a lot about her. Whatever. I love Barbra. Oh, I love her and my collection. That's another thing. I neglect my vast movie collection often. Which may I spend the majority of these 826 movies? These were watch streaming, not commentaries, but they're streaming. And I just have so many movies that I probably only have like ten that I haven't seen that aren't open. But yeah, I want I need to watch those. Like, I have Fassbinder's, world on a wire that I've never seen stuff like that, a ton of movies I've seen, but I've never listened to the commentary on random stuff. Analyze this as a commentary by Robert De Niro. What it does I didn't know that Robert De Niro did a commentary. Well, that's going to be fun, but I'm going to listen to it. That's going to be it's going to be terrible. Something it's gonna be terrible. But I'm like, but that was back when, like every movie, back when DVDs were thing, every movie had a commentary. They would pay them like, I think it was 2500 bucks or three grand to. And you would usually do that when you were done filming or when the movie was done editing. So the movie for these old commentaries wouldn't have even been released in theaters yet. So yeah, I'm like, I'll go back and knock some of those out. So yeah, that's my 2025 Halloween course, Kurosawa, Stanwick and my collection. That's it. It's it's a beautiful year, man. It's a beautiful year. I'm looking forward to it. Very much so. Yeah, that was the 2024 challenge. And then I'm excited to get to my tonight because I feel like it's appropriate. Is that new to me movies for the year because you'll you'll like what a lot of them are. You might do that first. Yeah I do, I do. I really want to hear this. At some point it was over the summer I started doing this. And and so these were all the movies that that meant the most to me. Out of the ones that were either new to me or ones that maybe I hadn't seen in a really long time that like hit. Yeah. So it's like a little bit of a combination. This is what I've kind of put together is these were my favorite movies. Most of them are new to me, but like, there's one that I think you'll like and appreciate that I'm putting in there because I liked it that much. Let's start with that one. Cool. Because I've I've seen it before, but it was I think this was one of my favorite movies that we covered in 2024 for an episode, the Insider oh my God, I'm so I didn't realize you'd only seen it once, so I'm so glad you did that. So, like, that's why. That's why I'm do. I'm putting that in there because it's like I've only saw it once, way back when I wasn't able to appreciate it. So it was like seen. It was new to me seeing it that way and I, I can't I haven't stopped thinking about that movie since we covered that. I love that movie so fucking much. Yeah, that movie rocks. It really does. Yeah. And then another movie that I had seen before that I really did like. And when I watched it again, I liked it even more. Two of them Rumble fish. Oh great. One. Yeah. Fucking love hope movie I loved. Dude, it was just so good. I saw some of that dialog. I know it was written from a book and everything. But man, some of those conversations that Mickey Rourke and Matt Dillon have, there is just some real poignant fucking shit going on right there. Yeah, it's it's really, really good. Really good writing. So again, so once, I think 15 years ago and I own it. So that's one where I'm like, there you go. I'm gonna fire it up either today or tomorrow because of this recommendation. Yeah. It's a it's a weird movie because Coppola is doing some it's doing some stuff in there that doesn't really make sense. It doesn't really have like a coherent thread to it, to me at least, like metaphor or anything. I think it was just Coppola was like, I just kind of want to be cute a little bit with some of these camera setups and the way very abstract shots. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but but it works. It's distracting and there doesn't seem to be a real rhyme or reason for some of these choices, but at the same time, I'm like, I like it. I think it's kind of cool. And then camera buff, like, I guess that that was just one that I just, I rewatched that and I was like, God damn it, it's so fucking good. And then the last one that's sort of a little bit of a cheat here. I had seen pieces of it and didn't realize I hadn't seen the whole entire thing. And that's 1997 Copland. My god, yeah, cheese. I mean, that's an all talk that that movie is fucking great. All right, so these were these were the new to me that I, I really, really loved, if I, if I'm going right to Kieslowski with The scar, his first feature. God, did I love that movie a lot. I liked that a lot. That was, you know, sometimes, like when you look at, like, a director's body of work, sometimes that first movie isn't always the best. Sure. You sure? You you would think with a director like Kieslowski, when you see what he does and how good of a director he is, surely his first foray out into a feature is going to be like, you know, the the training wheels are still on Bergman. Fuck no, man. Right. Like he is. He is doing Kieslowski shit right from the right away. Get go. Yep. It's amazing. And that ending. Oh my god. So everyone really quick. The Scar is Krzysztof Kieslowski, his very first feature. He did a lot of documentaries and a lot of shorts, in his homeland of Poland and The Scar is his first feature, and it's about a small town where industry is coming in. Yeah, they want to, like, create factories. They want to just they, they, they just kind of want to make the new world. And then there's this one guy that's assigned the job of that no one would ever want to have of being the main person in charge of this industry leading boom, and then deal with the townspeople and how this is affecting all their lives. And then you get an ending that just comes out of nowhere and it's so, so good. It's like I think about endings. I mean, you talk about the ending like stalker, you know, that's like an all timer ending. But I don't think that there's been an ending that I've seen this year in a movie that him. Well, maybe. And Nora, a Nora is, Well, that's like in a fucking league of its own, man. That's making. Yeah. That's really beautiful. Yeah, yeah. But the scar I would put into that if I had to do a top ten of endings up here, that would be one of them. So the scar. And then I saw one of your big recommendations that you've always been telling me for a long time, but I saw it in theaters, Last samurai. Oh, my God, I love Melville. I love your Melville movie. Another director. We have it. We got a I. Really? Yeah. We've had talks about where we're going to go with the pod. Well and we'll bring that up later, but I definitely want to do some more like I want to do Kozlowski. I would love to do Melville. Yeah. I'm so glad you watch this movie. I fucking love this movie. I saw two in the theater. Yeah. It's just so cool. Yeah, it really is. It's just a very, very cool movie. Oh, this was a huge surprise. I did not expect to actually enjoy this. We did lose in 2020 for a, a giant, in the acting world. And Gena Rowlands. Oh, and, yeah, the, American Cinematheque in LA was doing a career retrospective, so I mean, most of them obviously were the Cassavetes movies, but there were a few peppered in there that were her work with, other movies. And I saw another woman, oh man, directed by Woody Allen, who is I've mentioned on the pod. He's never been really a director for me. I've, I but what I've come to kind of find is that I do like his movies where he's not starring in them. I, I find that I can I connect more with those movies. But this was a even because even a movie like midnight in Paris is still kind of like Woody Allen. It's a very because it has like his whimsy and he has the Woody Allen proxy and Owen Wilson. Yes, it's very rare. When you had a Woody Allen movie with no Woody Allen and no Woody Allen proxy, and another woman is match point match points, another one? There are a few, but like those are the ones I was always most drawn to. In other ones. My favorite from him 80 minutes. Oh, I'm so glad you saw that too. I loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it. And then, then we had I finally watched a movie that you had, gifted me. Once upon a time, I watched Sweet Smell of Success. Oh, yeah, I got to rewatch that one too. That's right. You did watch it, dude, that movie's just like, that's just one of those old Hollywood movies that just cooks. It's. It's got this, like, rat a tat screenplay where it almost feels like dynamic pentameter. Like there's so Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster are like boom, boom, boom, boom. You're like a cookie filled with arsenic. Boom boom, boom boom boom. They're going back and forth. It's so good and only like 90 minutes. And you're going to love what I'm about to say right now, because the very next movie I'm going to reference is a movie that has Burt Lancaster and that's The Swimmer. Yes, fucking love The Swimmer. But I mean, when you gave me the short story of what it's based on and then you watch that movie just like what? What? It's just a bizarre but yet, like, powerful. Yeah, movie. But between those two movies, I have developed a little bit of obsession with Burt Lancaster. Oh, I am like, like really, really compelled by him. Yeah, I he he would be an actor that I'm not familiar with really. Like when we watched, from here to Eternity. Oh my God, I think that was, that was probably my first real Burt Lancaster experience. And then so now in this year, I've seen two movies from him, and every time he's on the screen, I am just like enthralled. I am like, this is just he's got this charisma and this presence that's just like, you can't teach it. And I was watching on the Criterion Channel, who was talking about a movie of his. It was like his was in Atlantic City. No, no, he was like one of his very first movies where he was in prison. He's in sorry, Wrong Number with Barbara Stanwyck. No brute force. Brute force. Brute force level force. Great film, great film. Yeah, yeah. And the actor who is talking about this movie on the, on the criterion, channel was mentioning that Burt Lancaster, you know, was a dancer. And the one thing that you that I've started to take from him is, like, even in any of his movies where he's not necessarily, you know, a dancer or anything, he holds his body in a certain way for all of his characters, where it's just, this is the awesome thing about acting is like when you just inhabit that physicality. But watching him in The Swimmer and watching him and Sweet Smell of Success and just seeing what his body is, there are two completely different types of bodies I can sweet smell of success. He is as like shoulder wide as as like confident in a football field. Yep, yep. Cornfield tall like every other key to his body takes up so much of the frame in just the way he hits angles. It's just like he's the he's the quarterback of the world. And then the swimmer, you know, he's pretty much in his Speedo the whole entire time. Seriously. Yeah, he's but yeah he is but but but he's also he doesn't carry himself quite like that. He's still confident but he's not that wall of a man. Right. He's more of this I like he because his head is up in the clouds and his body is sort of like this flowy kind of thing. It's just he's, he's he's really like he's become like just with those two movies. Someone that I'm like, I'd like to see more of his stuff. Yeah, I can, I can recommend a lot to you from him that I like. And from, for listeners maybe our age who don't know him by name, a lot of people call him. He's the old guy, Doctor Moonlight, Graham and Field of Dreams. So a lot of people grew up with Field of Dreams and saw that. So he's the, you know, the old guy. Oh my God, it's young girls choking to death. I love him, I love her. Seven days in May was, one that he's in that I hadn't seen. Great political thriller, basically. Like, are we going to have to, you know, is is some stuff going to go down here like a Cold War, paranoid thriller from the 60s that he was great, and Kurt Douglas, Fredric March. Yeah, I've always really, really liked Lancaster. Judgment at Nuremberg. You've seen or did you just watch his scenes? Oh, yes. In that, yeah I just yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen a lot for him. Separate tables, the rose tattoo. Yeah. I've always, always liked him. Sorry. Wrong number. Great film. I'm going to rewatch, brute force now. Actually, I haven't seen that in ages. I actually, actually, I'm going to watch Sweet Smell of Success because I haven't seen that in ages. All right, give us another one. These are great. These are great. This is this is my last one. But this is one that I've been excited about bringing up. And this is the perfect, perfect time to do it is because I just wanted to do this because I like how you just did. I kind of wanted to keep it secret and just kind of give like a little mini review. So, I jumped in over the summer with Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales. So Eric Ramirez, this French director who he does this a lot, he, he kind of packages a bunch of movies into these themes, like he's got, he's got, the Four Seasons. Yeah, that's another one. So here's like, a tale of Summer, a tale of Winter and all this and that. So these are his six moral tales, and we have the bakery, girl of Monceau. Suzanne's career. My night at mods, which is, I think that still goes down as his most, popular and most, like, critically acclaimed. Yeah. Movie in his entire film career. Yeah. LA collection news, the collector, and then Claire's knee and love in the afternoon. And all of these movies really have to deal with a male fruit I don't think is a protagonist, but our our male, it's very it's like it's always it's always this one guy who's dealing with a girl. And then also, it seems like there's always another guy. It's like a love triangle. Yeah. French type situation. Jules and Jim. Yeah, I mean, it's. Yeah, yeah, it's it's just it's all there. But these were all really good. The Bakery Girl of Monceau is actually a short movie. I want to say it's about 20 minutes. And Suzanne's career is also about maybe 70, so. So they definitely range. Suzanne's career, I think, is my favorite out of all of them. Oh, cool. It's actually a really good, movie depicting youth, especially we're talking to young college age, and it's these two guys, they're really good friends, and one of them is shy and reserved. And the other one is the the boisterous, extroverted always gets the girl, and the other guy is like, I need to go home and study. I need to, but he's got all this welled up like passion for these girls that the other guy gets. Right. And a lot of it is. VoiceOver. I think that would be the one I would recommend to you the most. There. There's, there's something in the flow of movement in that movie where, we, we, we, we pass through time in ways that he doesn't track. But you get that time has now passed over the course of what seems like maybe a full school year. And things don't necessarily really add up, but you'll hear certain things or, and, and it's kind of a movie you really have to kind of pay attention to, to kind of really understand what might be happening. But the voiceover, his voiceover is really good. I think it's up there with the best examples I could give of of how voiceover works. Well, but he is French and so he is talking a lot. So there's a lot of talking that's in all of his movies. He even the voiceover is a lot of a lot of talking. My night at mods, that's probably the most talky. That's, about a guy who is really conflicted between science and religion. And then in one night, he's kind of challenged by all of these things because he, he, he, he spends the night with mud and, on his, she, she presents some new ideas that are very conflicting for him. Locke election news is a really cool one. Is about, again, very similar. These two best friends go up to this summer house where this girl who is sexually, promiscuous, awake. Okay. Yes. She's very she's very ravenous. She's alive. She lives with them. And then it's all about this guy trying to kind of deal with this girl that he actually really likes, but then treats like he doesn't like. Claire's knee is an interesting one. This is a now he's getting older. So now there's an older guy who's in love with a younger woman, very French. And then love in the afternoon is a married couple. So this guy's married, and now he's having thoughts outside of his marriage. So these are all these moral tales that are coming from all male driven perspectives. Sure. Kind of beaten the dead horse a little bit with the themes. But I do think in all of these movies he does touch on very, very human components that are worth seeing. But Suzanne's caught is careers. But I think what you'd like the best. Yeah. And as as listeners may have guessed or maybe not, I have never seen an Eric Roman movie. Right. It at this point in my life, honestly, it's been now it's just it's avoidance because I, I'm waiting for the space to when I can go in. And that's just how I roll. Like I'm going to I'll watch, you know, a month will pass and I will, you know, we'll have seen all of them. So I'm just waiting for that. I want that to happen and maybe I can do that in 2025. This has always been one of Tarantino's favorite filmmakers. I think if you're wondering where you know, Bruce Willis talking to his girlfriend for such a long time, Pulp Fiction comes from it's from stuff like this. The a lot of Tarantino's dialog, he traces right back to this filmmaker, and for that reason, I've been saving him. Actually, it's funny you brought up samurai because that was the same thing I was doing with Melville. Melville had like eight movies or so. Two were not available anywhere. Now they are. But in 2017 they weren't. And I went, man, I just want to I just want to do this like I've seen like samurai. That was the only one I had seen. I just want to watch. All because Tarantino talked about how much and I mean, there's what is it, leaderless. There are actual lines of dialog that are in Reservoir Dogs, like from that script. So it's you're seeing like, yeah, all this influence. So I, I would love this. I love how Ramirez packaging them up in these, you know, seasons some moral tales. I actually had a plan to do this a few years ago. And my, my last, criterion 2022 idea where I was going to pod all year about new to me criterion films. This this list was it was on the list. These movies were on the list. But then that fell through. So yeah, that'll be I'll probably just add that to 2025 at some point. Watch. It's not Halloween, but I'm sure I can fit them in at some point there. You'll you'll definitely see, I Quentin Tarantino for sure. And you'll also see a lot of this is where Linklater gets your shirt. Sure. Yeah, there's a lot of that. Okay. Because I think it's more Linklater than Quentin Tarantino. I think when Tarantino's it's an absolute inspiration because of the staging for a lot of these conversations. Yeah, yeah. And but but that's the thing about this Romero guy, this Romero, he's an intellectual. So these conversations that everyone's are talking, he this is why it's Linklater like, is because he's actually throwing out like, really intelligent conversation. That even for me, like, my night at Mudd's, like, the guy's a mathematician, and he is talking about numbers against science, and he's just he. Romero is not afraid to make the audience feel stupid, not necessarily make him feel stupid, but he's like, no, no, if I'm talking about these theories, they're from these, you know, real scientists. And comparing these, I'm not going to explain what those theories are. Yeah. So it's so I think you dig it because of that. It's a very, very intelligent guy. And then he's just kind of like, wrapped around with some very sort of like, conflicting, feelings towards women, moral tales. I mean, this is the where the mother and the whore lives. It's this area. Yeah. Yep, yep. A guy called the Loesch is, another, like, French New Wave guy that I love. He made this movie a man and a woman in 1966 that I've heard lives like in the same, you know, spaces. Roman. A man and a woman. I love. Oh, my God, do I love that movie? Kind of hard to find, but, Yeah. So I'm. I'm down with this stuff. I'm definitely into it. Yeah. Oh, I've already cheated. But I forgot to mention my favorite 2010. My favorite new to me movie from 2024 is what I'll use for my what are you watching? Okay, okay, good. I didn't know where that was going. Good, good. Great. Grand. Yeah, I got one for. What are you watching? I fucking got one. So let's move on to it. Do you want to go first? You want me to go first? You just built it up. I'll go first. I'll just I it's a cheat because I've done this already this year. But that's what it is. What it is. I'll double down on everything. So earlier this year, I had an audition for a play where I had to, I had to get a very, very, in a very short period of time, a New York accent. And so I asked you what what New York movies do you recommend that I could watch that are the best New York accent? And then you gave me a recommendation of a movie that I had never seen. But you specified the borough, which helped me a lot. It was Staten Island. Yes, yes, Staten Island ended up killing that audition, by the way. I didn't get the part, but I like I like that it worked out really well because the everyone was like, you just came in here fucking full of fucking piss and vinegar, ready to go. But that movie is Saturday Night Fever. Damn right. And I, I have I can't believe how wrong I was about this movie. Everyone. I was talking to someone yesterday. Yeah. Yep. I, I thought when I first met you and you talked about how much you love that movie, I is, I think a lot like everyone. It's sort of like, oh, this is a movie that's just kind of like it's a it's a disco movie. It's just, you know, it's it's John Travolta being very cares magic. It's like a magic Mike idea. Like, you think it's exactly like this, but then you watch it. But where that movie fucking goes is as dark as anything you could think is where a movie could go. Oh, yeah. And I was just like, blown away. I watched it three times. Fuck, yeah. And and it was, it was by far and away my favorite movie new to me movie of 2024. So that is what I'm recommending. So if anyone hasn't seen it, make that your movie. Because if if you're anything like me, you're like, Saturday Night Fever, that's a cute, dancy movie. But it's so much more and it's so good. Like, everyone is, that John Travolta is just amazing. So good. Pleasing that. Yeah. I mean, and everyone views it that way because I did too. I saw it when I was younger, but I still, I didn't I wasn't interested because grease came out the next year, and that is a PG rated high school set musical. And I think a lot of people put Saturday Night Fever on that will like, oh, so it's like another grease, right? No no no no Saturday Night Fever. It's hard hard hard. That is not afraid to go there to the I remember the first time I sold. There's something that happens in a car where Travolta's like in the front and I went, Holy shit, this. Whoa. This. Okay, okay. We're not kidding here. Like, this is really going for it. My dad loves that movie. Said that's just like what it was that era. It was just disco everywhere. And people, so many guys like that. And yeah, it's not a movie where, like, everyone gets what they want and everyone lives happily ever after. It's way more nuanced than that. It's an intense movie, but it's a great movie to recommend when you go, oh, not only should you not expect grease, you actually need to like, mentally prepare yourself for where this is going to go, because this ain't no like, this ain't no smooth ride. It's fun. It's great ass music. But oh yeah, there is. Yeah, but and it's funny and a lot of times it's so it's got everything. But that movie is a hard hitting drama. Yes. What that is. Yeah. Absolutely. Go to blockbuster. That's going to be in the drama section. Black. But right there, right up, right up at your local blockbuster Saturday Night Fever. You'll you'll find it. You'll find it right there. Okay. Yeah. Mine is it's a 2024 that I've watched recently. It's not going to make my top 10 to 2024, but and it's a it's a loose recommendation because the movie like give it like you know what my review was favorable but I'm not I didn't love it, but it hasn't left my head. So a few years ago we had this movie called Drive My Car. But this Japanese guy, Russ Yamaguchi, got kind of a lot of attention. It won him the Oscar for Foreign Language International Film. He got nominated for directors, nominee for picture. It was a big deal. It was a three hour. It's a long movie. It was a it was a long one. He's made up, like an hour and 47 minute movie called Evil Does Not Exist. Cool title. It's on criterion right now, which is how I watch it and it looks. This thing is stunning. It's very we're talking slow, patient Japanese cinema takes place now, but it just looks gorgeous, like it was shot in HK or something. It probably was. And the movie is actually not unlike scar and that there are these people, this, glamping industry, you know, like camping for people who don't like to camp, they want to come basically establish this huge center in this really small Japanese village that relies solely on its water. Like this. Our main characters like scooping up water and kind of taking it to the villagers every day, because that's what needs to be done. And if they build this glamping thing, then their septic tank, it's going to ruin the whole villages water supply. There's a meeting early on in the movie where the townspeople are like, no, you don't understand. You can't do this because you're going to ruin our entire village. In the of people are like, you don't understand. Like it's this is done like we are doing it. We start building in a few months. And one of the guys from corporate, one of the representatives like, feels bad about it. So he stays around in the town and, like, wants to become one of the village. Village people. One of the villagers now like he's because these people like they collect water, like they chop wood. They that's what they do, that they live off themselves like that's how they're living. So it's a very small, quiet movie. But it's also like what happens when these corporate assholes are come in trying to like, disrupt something. And then a few days later, life is so fucking funny. My father in law, Joe, who's 88, and we moved him up closer to us to be in a retirement community. So he's close to us. He 88 year old man gets a note slid under his door for Monday morning saying in two months time, we're we're turning this retirement community into a 55 and up apartment complex. You are no longer going to be served food. You are no longer going to be given entertainment. There are no health services here. There's no emergency courts. And so we had to go Alayna, to a little meeting there. That was exactly like the meeting in the beginning of evil does not exist. And exactly like the meeting where there's this one representative from the financial group that just bought out this retirement community, and this guy gives zero fucks about our complaints. He does not care what there are 96 year old women there who don't have relatives. And they're going, this place makes my food every day. What am I going to do about food? And he's like, well, there are, you know, there are places you can order food from. She goes, do you have a list? Like how do I order it? You order on your cell phone and she goes, I'm 96. I don't have a cell phone. And like, so I'm living this in real time. Watching like this is going to be a reality come the end of February, that they're not kicking these old people out, but they're basically telling them this isn't a retirement community anymore. It's an apartment complex. So fuck off. And it well, my whole morality was mad. Who was she mad? Yeah, but I mean, rightfully so. Rightfully so. So we have to work some stuff out, but it's like, I'm not. It's not like a full hearted recommendation for the movie because it's slow. But then the life imitating art thing and now I've, I haven't stopped thinking about the movie in two weeks, even though I wasn't like, it's not going to make my top ten of the year, but it's just weird. So I'm, I'm recommending like that, but like, but yeah, that's my poor, poor father in law's reality. They're just it's like a fucking financial group. Some bigwigs in New York, sitting around a table who run some financial group, decide to buy out a retirement community. That it's just bullshit, man. It's just corporate fucking bullshit. And the wheel goes round and round, but yeah. Fun part. Yeah. Fun movie challenge. That's good shit, man. Yeah, yeah, it's good stuff. He'll be okay. We'll take care of him. Oh, Joe, they're going to figure figure stuff out. But yeah, that was fun. A lot of movies I should say. Again, we're recording this on January 13th. I have not been able to break my streak. Can't bring myself to do it. I'm still watching a movie a day. I can't do it. I don't know what it's going to do to you. I don't know what I'm going to. I have a mini vacation. Are you logging them? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I have a mini vacation with Taylor planned at the end of this month. And I think, like, if I have to take time, if I find myself taking time away from what we're doing to watch a movie, I'll go. This is this is the organic way to like, the streak can end here. Like, it's fine because I told myself, you have to fucking end the streak, or else you're going to go nuts and you're it's going to be ten years from now, and you will spend watching a movie every day. You're not going to be friends. You're not going have anybody ever that's going to be like, you just cares about this. Yeah. So no, there there are some some. But honestly, some shows I want to watch. Like I want to rewatch some shows or watch some shows for the first time. I want to rewatch The Wire because I haven't seen that a few years. So. Oh yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, yeah, there's some stuff I want to do to where I don't want to have to worry about checking off a movie every day, but it was a lot of fun. It was a fun way to spend the year. It's fun to go partially on that journey with you and receive your support, because it wasn't always easy. It wasn't always easy. But I love those new to me movies. You added. Those are great. Those. Yeah, yeah those are there's it was a good year. There's some I really liked a lot of those movies. We talked about a lot of good shit in this episode. So let us know what you're watching. Let us know what strikes. You're on it. WA w underscore podcast on x. I guess that's what I'll start calling it now. I guess is what it is. It's Instagram letter box and I'm always on letter box. You'll see me there. As always, thanks so much for listening and happy watching for have, Hey everyone, thanks again for listening. You can watch my films and read my movie blog at Alex withrow.com. Nicholas Dose Telecom is where you can find all of Nick's film work. Send us mailbag questions at What Are You Watching podcast at gmail.com or find us on Twitter, Instagram and Letterboxd at AUI w underscore podcast. What an absolute savage bringing up this song that way. Got four and a half years of this thing. Four and a half years of this podcast, and a few times listeners have heard me do a takedown. Nick and I did one last year of Bradley Cooper's Maestro. We even had one a few months ago when Nick, Dan and I talked about Megalopolis. I certainly don't want to do a takedown just to be mean, but if a movie in particular is getting a lot of awards attention and it rubs me the wrong way, I often have very strong opinions about it. I just don't share them that much on the podcast. That will change in the next episode, I hope. For two half years of podcasting has brought us some goodwill because I'm a little unhinged in this rant, let me tell you. Hold onto your butts and stay tuned for up until two. I don't know. It's. Oh.