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The Boys and SASHEER ZAMATA premiere their own Fyre Fest documentary.

For Gangs Of New York, I saw something where they had to make up Daniel Day Lewis' accent because we genuinely don't know how people sounded then. They can do some educated speculation. There might be recordings from people in the area who were alive at the time or written descriptions. It would be inaccurate to have Bill The Butcher speak with a modern Brooklyn accent in the 1860s. If we have to speculate how people sounded 150 years ago, 2000 years is a real shot in the dark. We don't even know definitively what Latin sounded like. We certainly aren't going to know the accent people used to speak it.

Me too! And while I'm a bit sad that this pick didn't generate all that much discussion (I dipped out for a week, accidentally), I'm very happy that everyone liked it! I think we can all agree that this was my second best ever MM pick!

I think this would be like Repo! The Genetic Opera for me where I get far more out of the music without the visual “distractions”. The Last Five Years as well, come to think of it.

I loved these commercials and every so often a new one will pop up. What's weird is in Japan a celebrity appearing in a commercial is not a bad or uncommon thing. Scarlet Johanson was the spokesperson for Lux cosmetics, George Clooney was for Nescafe, Brad Pitt hocked Levis I believe at some point. A large majority of Japanese commercials feature Japanese celebrities. From A list actors and actresses to pop stars to comedians, famous people appear in commercials all the time. I would hazard to say they appear in a majority of them. It is not seen as odd here as it is in the west. It's like Super Bowl spots year round. You're not selling out by doing the commercial. In fact a lot of companies insist on getting big names for the ads because it creates a level of trust and belief in the product. "Hey if this famous person is willing to talk about it, it must be good" type attitude.

Sorry all, fell asleep a little early last night. I was a bit torn as what to pick this time around. It was between something classic and traditional and something a bit more off the beaten path. Looking at my previous choices I decided that maybe it was my time to do something less traditional musical and just something that spoke to me. We like musicals. We like the music of Sondheim and Lloyd Webber. These are classics of musical theater. In recent years a new trend of musicals started, and that was the juke box musical. Take a band or singer you like and write a story around some of their songs and bingo, you have a musical. What if there was a singer that decided to make his own musical though. He'd write the film and all the music but kept it very himself. Well in the mid 80's The Talking Head's David Byrne decided that he wanted to make a movie. He wanted to make a comedy. However he was David Byrne so it'd include lots of music numbers in it as well. I present my pick for Musical Monday... True Stories Best I can tell this is not streaming anywhere but is a pretty cheap rental from Amazon, iTunes, etc.

true but I don't remember the Romans conquering Lake Michigan or any cities on it.

bump

I finally registered for an account just to suggest this turd for the podcast: i’m watching it right now, and my one-sentence review is “Has time started going backward?” I want - no, NEED - to hear Jason and June react to every element of this bizarre-o world Furry Nazi Extravaganza of Hell.

I like the music more and more each time I hear it! Thanks for picking this as I would not have known it existed

The guests brought up Steely Dan and the call sheet unprompted, so this has to be one of Scott's favorite episodes of all time.

The kid is a bit of a MacGuffin. He admits that hunting down the kid was merely an excuse to enter China and the silk road. At least that's what I recall.

Case in point: What was interesting about Great Wall is that Damon and his partners in that movie really are playing second fiddle to the Chinese actors and what they are trying to do, but to get a wide release for a monster movie set in Ancient China with a 99% cast along with a 150 million dollar budget, the director went with a huge name action star to play the English foil to his female lead who was also amazing for the role given to her, in an overly ludicrous film to begin with. As someone who studied linguistics and language for my degree I think the hard thing when it comes to doing Roman characters is that there really isn't a "Roman accent" that people can point at and go "oh yeah that's it." I mean when you say things like British, Italian, Spanish, we all have a strong idea of what that sounds like, but not for Roman for the reasons you stated. Fuck for all we know, Cusack was nailing a Roman accent. They did the same thing in the opening scene of Troy where the kings agreed to send their "champions" forward to battle one another in order to save themselves the bloodshed, time, and loss of resources. At a glance it makes sense for back then as nations would at times be left in unsecured states when large swaths of their armies were off at war, so a king would want to end the conflict as quickly as possible to get back to keeping what was his his. Now with how advanced militaries have become, it's no longer a viable option a nation really doesn't ever become fully unsecured and transportation is so much more advanced that large numbers of troops can be moved quickly in a shorter amount of time. There was a good TV movie in the 70s starring Darren McGavin called The Challenge that had a premise of America and China agreeing to a "surrogate war" with their two best soldiers in order to lay claim to a fallen orbital platform. Yet even in that both sides cheat and send other soldiers after they think their guy can't win.

I just watched this for the first time last month. It was interesting.

I just got live footage of Cam Bert...

First of all, I just wanted to say that I thought Erin and Daniel were fantastic guests! I loved the energy they brought, and I really hope that they can be brought back sometime in the future. In defense of John Cusack's accent work, or lack thereof, I have to admit that I was totally cool with it. The movie had already made the decision that English was going to equal Roman/Latin, but back then, just because someone was "Roman," didn't necessarily mean that they were "from Rome." The Roman Empire stretched from the Portugal to the Middle East and from the British Isles to Africa. Once a culture was conquered by the Romans, they weren't expected to completely abandon their native language, so I'm sure that a pure "Roman accent" would be pretty hard to pin down. I mean, how many accents are there in the America? Hell, accents can change within the same state. So, maybe, in the world of Dragon Blade, to show a difference in class, Roman's born in Rome - like Brody's character - have English accents, while Roman's born in Gaul or some shit have a more Chicagoan, every man type of flavor. The fact that they all sing in Latin still makes no fucking sense though...

I know this won't mean much to anybody because most everybody probably watched the American edit, but they talk about the couple that bookends the film in the international cut. Yes while they use satellites and computers to reconstruct how the city looked there is a plaque that they uncover that basically gives a brief history of the city. This combined with the fact that it is mentioned they found out about the place from a book and legend would imply how they knew the story and the computer wasn't telling them the story. Their reason for lying about it is still a mystery. However the craziest part is how in just under 2000 years the city that seemed to be on level ground in the desert went to being in the snow covered mountains. That's the craziest part about the bookends.

Not to necessarily defend this movie or John Cusack's performance, but I think I can at least explain it. They mention in the show the movie made $121 million but it only made $74 thousand in the US. So, I speculate this movie was never meant to be seen outside of China. Part of that means that there's simply cultural stuff that doesn't translate to Americans. Chinese audiences might simply want a different experience than what we're looking for. Anyone who has dug deep into foreign film has probably run into a movie that was a smash in its home country but simply doesn't work in the US due to different expectations (I'm sure Cam Bert can give us examples of Japanese movies). So, does anyone know how this did critically in China? Was this Chinese Transformers 2 or Chinese Mad Max Fury Road? But a movie never being seen outside of China might explain John Cusack's lazy performance and accent. There are lots of celebrities who do commercials or bad movies in foreign countries because it's easy money that doesn't ruin their reputation in Hollywood. I know I can't pick up accents in a foreign language and I suspect Chinese audiences can't tell a Chicago accent from what Italian accent Cusack could have put on. So, no real need to do an accent if no one in the intended audience will even notice.

WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!

Why would they make the film longer?

I Know Who Killed Me is definitely one of those movies where you’re better off just listening to the episode. The last time I listened to it, I was like, “I have to see this movie! It sounds bananas.” And it is, but not in a very interesting way. I found it to be pretty dull overall.

I watched I Know Who Killed Me this weekend for this and I could not have had less reaction to it. It wasn't unwatchable, but neither was it interesting in any way. Like Grudlian, I think it made no sense, but at the same time, it didn't have all that much to at least try to untangle or figure out. It was just a movie that exists for no reason: not a horror, not a murder mystery, not supernatural, not anything at all. It is an existential conundrum. How did this get made, indeed.

You should try and get this published in The New Yorker.

Tree > Mailbox The mailbox is a man-made structure. For whatever dumbass reason it can send mail through time, it cannot change time. It is when Keanu embraces nature and plants a tree then reality has changed. That's why the tree wasn't noticed until Keanu chose to plant it. Keanu wanted the house to be more in harmony with nature. Something else about dog paw prints, but to be honest, I have not and will not see this shitty movie. Thanks for digging deep in the episode so I didn't have to watch this.