Weird, weir.

So, Mike, I'm very curious because I think that this is one of the things that is going to be a big issue of discussion on this episode.

How yes, I hate the Jews?

What the fuck outing me right now?

Gosh, yeah, Israel is not a catchy Mike, I hate the Jews.

Boy, we're just gonna lead with that.

Huh, sure, we're not.

No.

I was going to ask you because I think that this is a thing that is for people that are you know, film film fanatics or film critics like you and I are.

You should probably bleep that.

I don't want you to be deplatformed or demonetized, so.

Well, I'll bleep it just for you.

People will not know what it is that you said this.

Bleep bleep.

What do you think of Adrian Brody?

Oh boy, that's.

The real question here.

I mean this is that he's a guy who is polarizing, and so you know that's where That's why I want to lead off with before we even talk about the movie, is what do you think of Adrian Brody?

What was that movie we watched?

It was a Bullet the the one with Mickey Rourke.

I think I talked a lot on that episode about my distaste of Adrian Brody.

So that should tell you right there which side of the camp I'm on.

I'm not a big Adrian Brodie fan, never have been.

I think the first time I really remember seeing him was in Summer of Sam.

I don't know if it's that him I dislike, or if it's the movie he's in that I dislike, because he's usually in a lot of those Anderson films.

Wes Anderson a Wes Anderson guy.

Yeah, not a big Wes Anderson guy either, so you can keep him.

And then yeah, that stunt that he pulled with Halle Berry a few years back on the Oscars.

I wasn't a big fan of that either, though, Yeah, I guess so.

But then as fucking Oscar speech was so frickin' long, I'm like, oh my god, dude, just get off the fucking stage.

Anyway, Yeah, I'm not a big fan.

But I can't say I respect his work because most of it is garbage in my opinion.

But I well, sorry, wow, I mean no, I really hated some earth stam and he was just like he was this awful punk who is like listening to the Who and stuff I'm like, what are you doing, dude.

But anyway, not that I disliked the who.

I definitely like them way better than Adrian Brodie.

That's fair.

Yeah, But I mean I do try to always separate the art from the artist, and I kind of appreciate what he was doing here.

I've never seen the pianist.

It almost feels like this might be a spiritual sequel to that with all of the World War two and the internment camps, concentration camps and stuff, because it took a lot for me to even realize that he was in a concentration camp, because I don't know if they necessarily make that explicit.

There's a lot of implicit stuff in this film.

Yeah.

So on this episode of the Culture Cast, as Mike already alluded to, we're going to be talking about The Brutalist.

I am your host, Christashu.

I am joined by my good friend Mike White from the projection booth.

Yes I'm here, she says.

Yeah.

We are talking about a film that is relatively recent.

It came out last year.

It won an Oscar for Adrian Brody, like Mike already alluded to, but it's a film that I really resonated with the times I watched it last month, and so I knew, because of your feelings towards Adrian Brody, that you were probably not going to watch this movie unless somebody asked you to watch it for a reason.

And so I wanted to watch this movie.

I felt like this movie has some interesting things going on that I think we will have an interesting discussion about.

And on this episode of the Culture Cast, we are going to be talking about twenty twenty four's three and a half hour long Oscar nominated Oscar winning for Adrian Brody.

Brady Corbet directed The Brutalist.

Welcome to America.

Don't miss The Brutalist.

It's an amazing and engrossing epic starring Adrian Brody, Felicity Jones, and Guy Pierce for flying cinematic.

Experience, Faint brought us together.

And now the winner of three Golden Globes, including Best Picture and Best Actor.

The Brutalist.

The film is directed by Brady Corbet, written by Brady Corbey and Mona Fastvauld stars Adrian Brody as Laslow Toth, a Bauhaus trained Jewish Hungarian Holocaust survivor who comes to the United States in Search of the American Dream, and boy does that not go well?

From like day what the ominous specter of the upside down Statue of Liberty is as ominous as it gets.

And boy, I am excited to talk about this movie.

I hope we can have a good discussion about it, even if you're not a fan of Adrian Brody, which I knew ahead of time was the case.

Obviously, I just wanted you to talk about it openly at the beginning of this episode, because again, this is an Adrian Brody movie, So you know, yeah, for good or for bad in a lot of ways, obviously.

I mean, I've been able to put it decide.

I mean, on my own podcast, we've covered Splice, and I definitely like the movie Predators.

So there are a lot of things that he's been in where I can tolerate him, if not actually like him.

But yeah, there's just that, you know.

And of course he's in Poker Face.

I think he's coming back this season, so I'm excited for that.

So, Mike, what did you think of the Brutalist?

I am so curious.

So it's funny that you said that I probably never would have watched this movie, and I probably would not have except that I had a conversation with a former co host of the projection with Rob Saint Mary, and he was doing a lot of comparisons between the Brutalist and Megalopolis, and I am fascinated by the film Megalopolis.

I'm hoping to do an episode on that later this summer because it is one of the most glorious disasters I've ever seen in my life.

And the whole movie is about an architect and how really he actually seems to do any freaking work.

He just seems to talk about a lot of stuff a lot.

But it was interesting to compare Megalopolis to the Brutalist and the Brutalist.

I have to say it's a It's a rare movie where I can watch it and feel like I'm watching an adaptation of a book that doesn't exist.

There are movies the movie Hannah is always the one that comes to mind when I talk about that, where it feels like there's so much more in the world around the story, and of course this one kind of being set in, uh, you know, the real world, even though there is no las Low to there is no I can't remember Franklin van Buren or whatever the diacri Yeah, these thank you, thank you.

There are all of these tropes that we're playing with and pulling in some real bits of history and and kind of tossing those around, and it just feels like there's so much more to this movie than I would love to have read the book that it's not based on.

I mean, it just feels like there's just a huge story here and we get a glimpse of it, and there are times where I'm like, no, no, I want to know more about that.

But I know that they're purposefully leaving certain things vague, and I think they're doing that to generate some conversation, but also to generate some thoughts and to just leave some things vague and to not have to spell everything out for us.

You know, I've talked before about how I don't like movies that hit you over the head with things.

Sometimes there are things in this movie where I'm like, oh, I'd like to explore that a little bit more.

It's like a you know, the new business terminology, Like can I double to click on that and just see a little bit more of that?

Can I Can I get a little bit more of the incest between the kids.

I really want to know if that's actually happening or if I'm just picking up these vibes.

I am so glad you mentioned the adaptation of a book that doesn't exist, because that is what this movie feels like it is.

Look, I don't like historical epics.

I actually detest to them.

Frankly, They're not my kind of thing.

However, here we are talking about a historical epic on the month that I programmed for myself.

So what the fuck to quote Lewis Black.

I think for me, the thing that I resonate with this movie is a couple things as the son of a first generation American whose father came to this country from Ukraine after World War Two, who was in an internment camp.

While I am not Hungarian nor Jewish, and Brady Corbet, in multiple interviews, has said that the Jewishness of the movie is not the intent.

It's just like you said, some of the things are just there for conversation, and some of it is just there because the Jewishness of the movie is just part of it.

He's not trying to he said that he's not necessarily trying to say anything about Israel or Judaism.

Specifically, but more that's an easy thing to use as a reference point because it's post World War two, right, which is it's an interesting thing for the director of the film to say, because yes, the movie is very explicitly Jewish.

Oh yeah, but.

Yet and it's shot through with the idea of Israel and who belongs where?

And how do you feel as an outsider?

And is a whole country of outsiders?

Does that make someone feel like they are an insider?

But again, the United States of America at this time, in a lot of ways, is still a country of outsiders.

And that's the thing, Like it's I mean again, like it's an immigrant story.

Yes it's a Jewish immigrant story, but it's broadly an immigrant story.

You take the jewishness out of it.

And again, my family came to this country at a similar time that Laslo toss family came to this country at a similar time Adrian Brody's family came to this country.

That's the reason he resonates so much with this role, I honest to God, And like I will tell you this, like watching Adrian Brody in this role, I can't tell you that there's an actor there.

This feels like one of those things that I'm like, this is not a performance, This is a fully realized and lived in thing like this in my mind, like the Again, to your point about Adrian Brody, he seems like one of those dudes that like he's super self serious, like and you know what, Okay, Like there are there need to be actors like that in the world.

I'm not sure i'd want to hang out with the guy.

However, this is one of those things where I look at the role and I'm like, I'm having a hard time divorcing the man from the role.

It almost feels like Part and Parcel this like you said with the Pianist, This almost feels like the role Adrian Brody has been waiting his entire career to play.

And I feel like he could retire after this movie and do nothing else, and he would have no there would be nothing else for him to say as an actor, do you know what I mean?

Like this movie in my mind feels like it spans the gamut of again like you and I do a Sopranos podcast that is soon to be released, and in a lot of ways, this role feels like James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano like he has nothing left to say as an actor Adrian Brody in my opinion, with this role, and same with James Gandolfini in Sopranos, Like what else is there to say with that role?

Like you've made an impact with one singular role.

And like again like maybe I'm being hyperbolic, but like something about what Adrian Brody is doing in this movie feels again to your point, like it's it's trying to have a conversation about the immigrant experience.

And yes, there is a Jewish aspect to it, but I do think it really is about at this time in our country right now, the immigrant experience has become something that is a really hard conversation to have.

Oh yeah, and this movie's having a conversation that is important to have, which is the American dream is not a success for a lot of people then or now.

The fact that the Statue of Liberty is upside down the moment we see it is a foreboding omen for things to come in this movie.

And man, what a what a piece of imagery that, Like again like I've never seen before.

Yeah, such a simple shot, but it just really hangs over the entire film.

I mean that they used it.

The poster image is very telling, and just the way that not just the way that the credits are set up, with the way that things are slanted and skewed, they're not out straight on, you know, and just the care used to make this movie to employ things that we haven't had in films for a while.

I mean, I know that there have been films even probably in the last ten years, that have had an overture or a intermission.

Yeah yeah, intermission, yeah, But you know this is it feels like this is a huge presentation.

You know, it feels like this is the reason.

And I know this was shot in VistaVision, and I know that it is not seventy millimeter, but it feels like this is the reason why you show a film in seventy millimeter.

This is the reason why you still have movie projectors, not for something that is primarily set in doors and could have been shot on sixteen mil with something like The Hateful Eight.

It's like, this is a movie that deserves to be seen on the big screen.

This is a epic film.

I completely agree.

I mean, you know, I wish I could have seen this film in theaters like Dead Dead series to be perfectly honest with you, like, this is a movie that, yeah, I every shot feels intentional, and that is such a in this day and age, that's insane.

Yeah, in the in the day and age of brave New World where you know, you the the you can count on one hand the amount of seconds between shots the opening of this movie, the the the steerage like the steerage shot is one is one of the great steady cam shot, like of all time.

It's up there with Goodfellas.

Am I wrong?

Yeah?

No, it makes total sense, and it really brings you that claustrophobia, you know, because you have that, and then you get to see boom the Statue of Liberty, and you know, as the opening credits are going, you're you're pretty much in the bus, but you're following the bus with the camera and you're seeing the road and seeing that huge landscape and it just is I think you thought I was saying that a country of outsiders is America, but really I was talking about Israel as a country of outsiders.

Both technically are, yeah, exactly, but one is brand new at this point and the other one's been around for over one hundred years, and really they are not welcoming to the Outsiders at all when it comes to this.

And yeah, I can't I can't wait to talk about that relationship.

Well, and that's well, and that's the other thing I think, you know, just when we you know, to go back to that opening scene of the movie where we have this this this one shot of Adrian Brody walking through the steerage of the ship and we have the narration with Felicity Jones talking about you know, I'm I'm alive and you know, I can't wait to hear for you.

But we don't realize that he doesn't know about this.

This note is being read by somebody else or it's being narrated by her.

He does not know that this is what's going on.

He thinks that she is dead, but dad.

Till he sees Attila, but he knows that she's alive.

Yeah.

I really really, really really really love the opening shot of this movie.

I really do.

I Like I said, talking about the shot with the niece or the.

Actual I guess the I mean, I guess it's like this the study camp okay, steady cam steerid shot.

Yeah, because it is interesting that she's the bookmark or bookends of this film.

Well, and that's the other thing, you know, the end of the movie is, you know, the end of the movie and the beginning of the movie being that wrap around, like I think in my mind like that is the key to deciphering the meaning of the movie.

Is kind of like you know, what is the movie opening with and what is the movie closing with?

And the look ultimately I don't know for me, the big takeaway the message of the movie is that you know, sometimes no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter the lengths to which you go to try and be successful or take action or do the right thing, the bad things happen.

And sometimes bad things happen all the way down to the point where not a damn good thing ever really happened and you have to give up on again.

The American dream in this movie is the villain of the film.

Yeah, it is.

I mean the concept, right, Like, the concept of the American dream is the villain of this film because you come to this country looking for acceptance and success and freedom, and Adrian Brodie's character finds very little of that.

If anything, he finds immigrants who have rejected their homeland completely with the Alessander Novola character, who, Yeah, to your point, like he's now like Attila Miller, Like you know, Miller has sons.

Yeah, living on a lie, but it you know.

But it's not a lie.

It is but it isn't but it is right, Like you don't blame you don't blame him.

No, that's the thing, like in this movie.

You know, the only real villain in the movie is Guy Pierce, Like I mean like physical, tangible, Like him and his son are the villains, tangible villains.

But it is the American dream that is the genuine villain of the movie.

Because at the end of the day, Adrian Brodi comes to this country, he could go anywhere else to chase the American dream to be successful, and by the end of the movie they literally have to leave America.

Yeah.

And I want to say that Attila has also converted.

Right his wife is Catholic.

I think he's converted to Catholicism.

Yeah, and yeah, he's really he has to give up who he is in order to have his slice of the American dream, right.

Yeah, And that's the other thing in the entirety of the movie.

The question that the movie keeps asking and again it's not explicit.

I think it's implus.

I mean, so much of what I enjoy about this movie is what the movie doesn't say.

What the movie lets you as the audience is is the American dream even worth?

To what lengths would you go to obtain the American dream?

And how much of yourself are you willing to lose in that pursuit.

Because again, there are people that would look at someone like Attila Miller and say you are a Again, you're not a good example of what it means to come to this country as an immigrant.

But at the same time, other people would say that is he is a perfect example of what it means to come to this country and be an immigrant to integrate and assimilate into American culture.

Again, the movie doesn't take a stand either way, which is what I appreciate because it doesn't bash you over the head with what it's trying to say.

It kind of leaves you.

It leaves a fair amount of wiggle room as an audience member to actually have an interesting conversation about what the movie is kind of driving at.

Overall, Yeah, there's one part that I feel is a little too on the nose and it's really a shame because there's a scene that comes before that that is much more subtle and tells the exact same story for me, So should I just say what I'm talking about?

For me, it's the rape scene of abral Berdy by Guy Pierce.

It's way too on the nose.

I mean, the capitalist raping the immigrant and just proving that he has power over this immigrant and denigrating him through the entire rape.

That's one thing.

The dropped penny is the subtle version of it.

I don't think he needed the rape.

I think the dropped penny was just fine.

Yeah, I am off put by a rape that's the intention?

Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it really this movie is not afraid to go places, you know, like the whole hand job seen by Felicity Jones.

It's like, okay, yeah, like we are.

We are showing frank adult stuff here.

That's absolutely fine.

And yeah, it's funny because it's like, well, am I being too prim and proper by saying we didn't need the rape scene?

Not really.

I just think that, like I kind of got the point before that happened.

But I mean, at the same time, it where it happens in the movie showing the basically the rape of the land, the rape of Italy, like taking all that marble out of that quory and everything and just to see how that has changed the landscape literally, And you know, this whole thing is for Guy Peers to, you know, basically show off, like look what I can do.

I can go and i can get this beautiful marble, and I'm taking my lackey with me, you know, because he treats him like a lapdog through so much of this film, and that whole thing of why Guy Pierce even wants Laslow to be around.

I mean when the first time we meet Guy Peers, he comes in and just screaming at Laslow and Attila and just you know, what are these two pieces of shit doing?

And my son was so wrong to hire these idiots, and blah blah blah blah blah.

It's not until all the right people talk about how beautiful his library is, and then he does the investigation and finds out, oh, he went to this prestigious school.

So now if I can be a patron of the art and arts and basically hire this guy and control his life, then look at me, and how great of a patron I am, and how great of a person I am because I am getting all of this art built.

And it's just such a you know it really questions like what is the motivation of a patron of the arts.

Like most of the time I would think it's very selfless, but with this it's very much like, oh, I'm doing the right thing in order to increase my stature and increase like the articles being written about me and making myself look good by giving this guy a job.

Well, I also really and this is another again, another angle and another direction of conversation to go in.

I love the idea that this guy is so fucking in net he couldn't create a finger painting if he tried.

And there's also part of it where he's like, by raping Adrian Brody, is he taking some of his creative power away?

No, he doesn't, like, Well, he's attempting, but he doesn't like that's and that's the thing, like, that's not how creativity works.

You can't take someone else's creativity away like you.

And and that's you know, like it goes back to something like amadaeis right, like Salieri and Mozart, Like Salieri was talented, but he was no fucking Mozart, and there's nothing he was ever gonna be able to do to become Mozart.

Harrison Lee van Buren has no artistic ability whatsoever, And no matter how hard he tries, even if he sits in again to your point, to the movie's point, trying to, you know, steal it from Adrian Brody, he can't.

That's not how this works.

You can't take someone else's creativity away by force.

It's not something to it's not even something to give.

That's like you said, to be a patron of the arts, Like, what does that even mean?

There doesn't seem to be in this movie.

The movie in this movie's making a case that there is no such thing as a try patron of the arts.

I guess, well, yeah, not altruistically anyways.

Yeah, to your point, it's very much the Jeffrey Iffy Jones what was his name, the guy who's been who was all into kitty porn and still yeh, Jeffrey Jones, Yeah, Jeffrey Jones.

Yeah, it's the Jeffrey Jones of it all, where he's the king in or the emperor i should say, of Austria and just like, you know, oh, yeah, this is great Mozart, but yeah, too many notes, you know, like has no idea what the fuck he's talking about?

Yeah, too many notes, you know, as if Mozart's supposed to understand what that is.

So and yeah, the way that with the courtroom and stuff.

Luckily there is no courtroom here, but there are some similar things as far as hitting people against each other, like how does the sun play into this?

And was he actually doing a good thing at the beginning because he treats least like absolute dogshit as well.

Well, And that's the thing, I mean, you know, the idea of treating someone like garbage unless you see the value in what they do is also a part of this movie's you know discussion, right, I mean, that's another discussion that this movie's having is you know, if you don't see the value, and so if you don't understand the value of someone, why why treat them with respect?

I guess is what the movie is saying.

And it's like, well, because you should.

But in this movie's kind of world and rationale, that's not a thing.

Like in this movie, no one treats anyone with any sort of respect or kindness unless they can get something out of them, is it?

And again that's a corruption of the American dream, the quid pro quo of it all, as it were, like, you know, what can I get out of you?

What can you do for me?

Nothing?

Nothing is free in this world and that is made abundantly clear in this in this movie, well, it's.

Like his wife, Like he's trying to get his wife back.

They know that she's alive, they know where she's at.

He can send letters to her.

And you know, one of the first things we see is him taking the when he's in Pennsylvania, taking that long bus ride to Temple because there's probably not very many Jewish people in this part of Pennsylvania.

You know, he's not in Philadelphia.

He's somewhere in the Boonize, you know, where Miller and Sons can survive as a furniture store and has to take that long trip and he's talking to the rabbi at the end and he's just like, yeah, it's really hard, you know, it's really hard to get these people reprecreated.

Who is it that can actually do it.

It's one of Van Buren's friends who's just like, oh, yeah, no, I can totally help out with that, and then he actually comes through with it.

But again it's probably all what you know not or all who you know not.

What you know well, And that's I mean again, you know, the idea of Guy Pierce's character, not initially and not having any respect for Adrian Brodie's character, but then once he does the research and figures it out, it's like, oh okay, it's like, why didn't you just do that to begin with?

Why did you have to act like a fucking asshole to begin with?

And again it's the idea of I guess the American rejection of the immigrant as you know, a lesser or as an intruder, or as someone who takes away from a national or a born, natural born citizen is having their stuff taken away by immigrants is something that's so strange to me.

But yet this movie again reinforces that that's a thing that people think even now, I mean again, this movie is insanely pressioned obvious.

God yeah right, Like again, it's not it's not unintentional that what this movie is doing, like the scene between Guy Pearce and Adrian Brody where they're sitting in the study talking to one another, is the heart of this movie.

It is the entire theme of this movie is what this movie is getting at the idea of again, nobody does anything for free, nobody does anything out of the kindness of their heart.

And Adrian Brody knows that even what he is doing in terms of the architecture, he's doing it with the hope and intent that in the long run it will be used for things and reasons that he can't even begin to understand.

And he's perfectly okay, at least it seems to me, with whatever the message of the things that he is he has created being viewed through the lens of other people, because that ends up being kind of the final theme of the mo which is, you know what, the intent of the person seems to not matter at the end of the day when other people have taken it and start, you know, re and not reinterpreting it, but reviewing it through a lens of their own personal beliefs.

Well, I have a question about that as far as the end of the film and the way that the niece is up there talking about her uncle's designs, and it feels like she's talking about the thing that he built for Guy Pierce, for van Buren.

And with that, of course, there's this huge Christian part of it.

There's the cross on the top, there's the way the cross shows down on the floor, and he's just making this big deal and it's all for Guy Pierce's mother, which is also an interesting thing, the whole like mother son relationship.

I don't think we ever see her, but he definitely is very torn up about his mother dying and all that.

When the niece is talking about that building, is she talking about that building as far as the reason for the high ceilings, I think so, and that basically he built that building more as an homage to the prison camps and the small cells in the prison camps with the high ceilings, right, Okay.

Well that's her interpretation of it.

Anyways, that's the thing.

Like again, in my mind, that's the thing.

It's like, it's that's her interpretation.

And he doesn't get to speak for himself at the end of the movie.

So as far as the audience is concerned, what we're left with at the end of the movie is someone else telling us what they perceive to be the reason Adrian Brody did what he did and built what he built, because by the way we never hear him say that, that's what the fuck is the intent of the building.

We are hearing her say that at the end of the movie as well, that was the intention.

Okay, I guess we have to assume that that's the case because going along with what the movie is saying.

But we never hear Adrian Brody say it has anything to do with the concentration camp that he was in.

Never once in the movie does he say that.

Well, is that because Schofia has the voice at that point, Like she is voiceless at the beginning, but we know that she reads the letters or she might even write the letters that her aunt sends.

Like there is a part where they talk about how she's reading these letters, and it's almost like, is this Sofia's story?

Is this her interpretation of everything?

I believe?

So?

Okay, well, I guess I guess The question is does it matter?

I mean, it doesn't ultimately matter, but it just feels like if you were to take because there's no real POV I mean, there are a lot of POV shots in this movie.

I would consider all of these travel shots that we have, you know, the bus shot that I mentioned earlier when they're going to the Van Buren estate.

It's very much a it feels like a first person po be from the truck and I'm just like, all right, who is the one that gets granted the POV who gets granted voiceovers?

I mean most of the time that's Erzabet gets the voiceovers.

So it's it's interesting in that way too, as far as who who is in control of this narrative?

And I'm always fascinated by that because it feels more like some of these characters are controlling this and obviously they were the creations of the director and the writer, but it feels like they're the ones in control of the story sometimes.

And it feels like at the end, Shofia is the one that has she literally has controlled the narrative at the end when she's giving that speech.

And what do you think the intention of Brady Corbet is to have Rafia Cassidy playing all three versions of the character, including the daughter of Zophie, because that's her playing her daughter and her and the younger version of her.

Right for the longest time, I thought it was Daniel Redcliffe and drag.

The only person that's being played by a different person is the adult version of her, right.

Yeah, because it's even the older or old makeup version of him at the end of Adrian Brody at the.

End, Yeah, which is not great.

Open they don't know, Thank god, they didn't linger on it very long.

No, And I do have to say it was funny while I was watching this and we get to see I think Guy Pierce's aged up in this movie, and I was just like, oh, well, this this is a much more subtle performance of age than that horrible thing that you had to do in Prometheus.

Oh lord, oh lord, Mike White, Prometheus hater.

Yeah, yeah, it's okay.

What do you know, talking of the son of Van Buren's son, what do you make of that character?

That's the Donald Trump character?

Right, It very much feels like the Donald Trump character.

Okay, I'm just making sure because it's like it it feels a little on Again.

We talked about the rape being a little on the nose.

He's a little on the.

Nose right as a character, but I'm almost feels like Philip Seymour Hoffman's character from Incredible Test to Replay.

Mmmm, okay, yeah, just that kind of smug asshole type of Yeah.

And then at the end of the movie, he can't even like fathom that is the way his father is, so he rejects the reality completely m you know.

Which is something that happens in this movie quite a bit.

I mean, going back to Attila, that whole thing of like, oh, made a pass of my wife, you know, and I'm like, uh, so again, what do you read what do you read on that?

It feels like he's just throwing her into his arms.

It feels like he wants to be RFK Junior, you know, and just watch from the corner and jack off.

You know.

It's just like that's what if he's just like, oh, yeah, yeah, take my wife, and yeah, dance with my wife.

Dance with my wife.

And then it's you know, the next day, you tried to make a pass with my wife, and I'm like, uh, who is throwing her into Avier Brodie's arms around here?

You know.

But it just feels like such an excuse, like maybe things went too far.

And also I don't think the wife necessarily likes him that much, so I'm like, Okay, we're just going to use this as an excuse to get rid of Laslow.

I feel like she looks at him as a dirty immigrant.

Yeah yeah, oh yeah.

The first thing she talks about is like, oh, we can get your nose fixed.

Yeah, And I'm like, is that because he you know, damaged it because he talks about running into a tree, or is that the let's get you an American nose and not that big old Jewish honker you got on?

All right?

Laslow Tov he doesn't change his lady name to Larry Tillman Larry Miller.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm curious because again we kind of alluded to it at the beginning of the episode, but now I want to ask you about it directly.

What do you think of Adrian Brody specifically in this movie and his performance, because we really haven't we haven't really spoken about it specifically.

I mean, other than his his Hungarian which was atrocious, not just kiddies, hey yeah, the Ai of it all, huh oh yeah yeah, which I really I could not hear AI being used in this and.

It's really yeah, it's really good ais oh yeah.

And I totally agree with who was it that came out afterwards?

Was it Cronenberg who was just like, man whoever started that whole thing, just was you know, actively campaigning against the brutalists to win Best Picture.

Yeah, like, I don't understand who fucking cares Like they used AI in a way that makes sense.

Blue oh yeah yeah, and the rest of the you know, it's almost this movie's almost a low budget movie compared to the rest of the horseshit that was at the Oscars and other.

Places also a low budget, but it's nine point five million dollar movie that looks like a fifty million dollar movie.

Yeah, you look at Megalopolis again, two hundred and twenty million dollars I think spent on that and this ten you can have twenty two.

Megalopolis is out of this thing.

Come on, this movie is beautiful.

This is a like it'ctually so good.

I know.

It's like again, like, the thing about this movie for me is like, yes, it's three and a half hours long, but I'm not gonna lie to you.

This movie reminds me of Goodfellas.

Like I watched this movie twice in one day, and it kind of flew by both times.

Like it's it's a challenging movie in a way that movies aren't anymore.

It's challenging because again, like and same with Goodfellas and you know, other movies that again allow the audience to have a little bit of wiggle room for you to kind of interpret it as you will.

The movie doesn't, like you said, beat you over the head with the idea of like the corruption of the American dream, because again, that's what Goodfellas is about.

Goodfellas is about the corruption of the American dream.

What happens when people don't have genuine interests and concern in mind when it comes to the American dream, and all they want to do is look out for themselves.

Because again, once again we have someone looking out singularly for themselves and no one else.

Harrison Lee van Buren is a good example of a rich piece of shit like who cares only about himself?

That story that he tells Adrian Brody scene about how he's like why fuck these people and I fucking screwed him over financially and haha, like it's like.

Oh yeah, whoa man, Like yeah yeah, and he's kind of it.

You mentioned Donald Trump, and there you go.

But what I love is that the movie doesn't beat you over the head, even then with the Donald Trump of it.

All right, it's not like we have a character who shows up, who's orange with blonde hair that's thinning, and he's yeah, like this there's none of that.

It's it's it's an evocation of a certain American dream ideal that does not play well with the reality anymore.

Oh yeah, I mean this was this was of course shortly after like the whole idea of like the oil barons and this type of tycoon and that type of tycoon.

But they were still around obviously, you know, and there are so many people that are making bank because of what happened with the war.

I mean, that was the time to be a profiteer and just okay, invest all over here over here.

Yeah, maybe I'm invested with the Germans.

Maybe not, I don't know, but yeah, okay, I'll just use this to parlay my fortunes into bigger and bigger fortunes.

You know.

I talked recently about the movie being there and how it was shot at the Biltmore State and it's like, oh, okay, there's what was it, Andrew Carnegie's like summer home or something, and it's just like God, like, looking at the house where they're making the library or putting up the library, it's just like, yeah, this thing is immense.

You know, there's no reason why why people need a.

House this big, well unless you're being ostentatious.

Oh yeah, completely, that's why you've got that huge stained glass roof right the dome.

The dome of stained glass, which is so ostentatious.

My god.

The whim character I really wanted to know more about throughout the entire movie, you know, going back to the whole this feels like a book.

I really would have liked to have known a lot more about the what's his name.

Gordon American character?

Yeah, Gordon and his son, because we get to see his son.

You know, you're talking about how the Joffia is played by the same person all but the very end of it, and then she plays the daughter.

Well you've got one night blanky on the actor's name that plays Gordon, Oh, Isaac de Bencole, I think it is.

And I'm like, this guy, he's fascinating to look at, handsome, handsome man, but then he's got the accent, and I'm just like, Okay, what's his story?

Where is he from?

Because he is obviously another immigrant as well, and I would love to hear more about him, and just it feels like he and Adrian Brodie are having the best time of it, just shooting smack like crazy.

Yeah, why aren't they?

Yeah.

I also love the idea of the immigrant to this country, embracing the marginalized group of this country that this country at the time was rejecting, and him not having any issue with it.

We see that scene early on where he's standing in line and he's like, what the fuck this guy has a kid and he needs food, like right, and it's like, well, you know, in the reality of the world that's going on here, like this African American gentleman is gonna have to be fighting for his ability to exist in this country to begin with, let alone having to provide for his son during you know, economic strife, and yet Adrian Brody just embraces him wholeheartedly without even like a question.

Oh yeah, yeah.

I love when he's like, you guys go home, I'll stay here.

You know, at first he's like, I'll be the first one in the morning, and then it sounds like he's like, now you know what, I'm just gonna stay here.

I'll like fucking sleep here in order to get you guys food tomorrow.

And you can sense that a Gordon character has never been given any sort of anything by anyone that way.

And it's like, and here is this immigrant who is embracing this guy the way that people of this country will not and have not.

Oh yeah, and then that he is the face that Van Buren sees that great shot.

You don't even see the car, I don't think at first.

You just see the light hitting Gordon in the face when he's trying to pick up all that stained glass, and then you know the way he holds up his hand and everything is squinting.

And then when van Buren comes in, he's just like, who's this deg Roman out there?

And like just you know, that's one of the first things out of his mouth.

Oh well, and again like he he tries to walk that scene back the entire moment.

Oh yeah, it's like he is trying to walk back to the audience that he is not, in fact a piece a racist, bigoted, rapist piece of shit, but yet that is exactly what he is.

From the moment we see him, he outs himself and like, like we've said before about this patron of the arts thing, it's almost like he's trying to cover up the fact that he's this rapist piece of shit by you know, Oh, I'm so well in tune with the world culturally, and I understand the you know, I understand the plight of the artist, and it's like, no, you don't, you do you?

Literally again, I do agree with you that the rape scene is just too on the nose.

But at the same time, I'm like, I kind of think that if it's with this character, yeah, I mean just say, like if any movie can do it, this movie kind of gets to the point where it's like, what else could he do at this point, literally rape Adrian Brody's character.

Like, I guess it's the logical next step for a character that's been taking advantage of him every other way up into this point anyways.

And it feels the rape of it.

I mean, it feels like there's a lot of shit going on in the Van Buren household.

Like I was not joking around when I was talking about the incest between the brother and sister.

That feels like a very real thing to me.

Like there are a couple shots where I'm just like, oh, they're fucking and then I don't know what's going on with, you know, the father and those two, and then also the son there's one part where he goes up to Schofia while she's sitting on the bank of this river and she's in like it looks like swimming gear, and they cut away from that, and next thing you see is both of them coming up.

I'm just like, I'm pretty sure he raped her.

I just had this feeling that he raped her and it never comes out.

I mean, there is the other rape and that gets addressed by uh By.

It's a bed when she comes in, and it's just like accusing him.

By the way, am I to imply because she can use a walker in that scene that the heroine helped cure her osteoporosis.

I don't know, Okay, I was just just her osteoporosis.

I think just got cured by getting better nutrition.

I kind of assumed was the I don't know.

So Yeah, she's a fascinating character, oh f And I really have not liked Felicity Jones and anything I'd ever seen her in up into this point.

But she's great.

What again, Like like you said before, with the whole like this is an adaptation of a book that doesn't exist the literary like nature of all these characters, Like you said, there's just like it's it's a testament to Brady Corbet and and the and the other writer monofastvol that they can craft these characters that seem so real like these are this seems like a bio pick, right of a real person that just doesn't actually exist.

Yeah, and you're expecting like opinion pieces or like you know, oh, the real Attila speaks out.

I never said that my cousin was going to rip my wife or anything.

It's yeah, it does.

I mean, this feels like the relationship like you know, I'm sorry to keep going back to like the Robert Barons and just like the you know, the the self made millionaires of like the eighth eighteenth century or sorry, nineteenth century into the twentieth century.

This feels so much like that Oh who was it?

Was it JP Morgan or was it oh was it Peer?

I can't remember who it was that was the patron of Nikola Tesla.

And it's just like, I mean, talk about a failure, right that that he had all the money and everything, but yet Thomas Edison still beats Nikola Tesla to everything.

I guess probably because he had his hand in the patent apartment and everything, but just like that whole thing of like, oh, I'm the rich America and I'm going to take this you know, stupid immigrant under my wing and just basically fuck him over.

Don't you love that The movie is also willing to make the statement that no matter how much money you have, it can't make up for actual artistic ability.

Oh yes, yeah, I mean.

That's such a I'm not gonna lie, like what an artist thing to do?

What a what a right?

Like oh of course, but like at the end of the day, like fuck it, who cares?

Like if anybody's gonna say something like that, it'd better be somebody who's an actor and a writer and a director.

Like again, I trust Brady Corbey.

I trust him explicitly as a director, like his ability to I don't know again, like craft a story that for the architecture that is the theme of the movie.

The movie is crafted in such a similar way that it's like so well crafted that it's like this this film is everything is intentional.

Everything is intentional, And that is a hard That is a hard thing to see in this day and age where so many things just again seem like just throw shit at the wall and see what happens like this movie doesn't doesn't do that.

Every single scene is made with intent, which is again how they were able to make this movie look so good on a nine and a half million dollar budget because they had to make sure they knew exactly what they were doing every time they turned that camera on.

Yeah, it's not a question.

Oh and by the way, I'm sorry.

Megalopolis budget was only one hundred and twenty two hundred and thirty six million, so they could only make you know, wells brutalless.

Ironically, the box office for Megalopolis was fourteen point three million, so just just one Brutalist could be made with the profits.

Oh, like god, this movie is such a good film Compared to megal Melopolis is not a good movie.

Right, No, No, I know, it's a fascinating movie to me.

It's you know, we talked about it a little bit when we talked about Joker too, where it's like that was the more interesting of the two car crashes that I saw over the summer, and that one is like the car crash I want to go back and see about out, you know, doing some sort of forensic investigation of it to see how exactly did this become what it became, because it's one of those like it's not going to be ever hailed as like a heavans Gate or something, but it's up there as far as just like, wow, what a singular vision by a director and I don't think it was successful at all.

And this is that singular vision by a director that is successful.

Oh yeah, one hundred percent.

Yeah, it's amazing to know just how little this cost but how great it looks and just I mean the salaries of the actors feel like they would have just blown that budget right apart.

Well, again, I giveing to go back to the Adrian Brody of it all.

If you watch interviews with him talking about this movie, he's like, I would have done this fucking movie for free.

Is kind of what it sounds like like.

And look to his credit, Win's an Oscar for it, and I think it's well, I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

Does this?

I mean again, we as film critics sit here and reject the oscars, I think broadly because they don't fucking mean anything.

But yet I will ask you, what does this feel well deserved?

Oh yeah, hundred percent.

Yeah, I think it's a good thing that whoever gave him that fake beard didn't win an oscar because that's pretty atrocious.

But the rest of the time, I am right there with Adam Brody through this whole thing, and yeah, he, like you said, he disappears in this role.

It doesn't feel like this is Adrian Brody as laslow Tooth.

It feels like this is laslow Tooth.

And look, you know, looking at the other things that were nominated, Timothy Shallo May is Bob Dylan.

You have Coleman Domingo from Sing Sing, Refines from Conclave, and Sebastian stand playing Donald Trump, of all fucking things.

The only other person that could have theoretically won was Timothy Shallow May, and I'm glad they didn't give it to him because I'm sick and fucking tired of biopics.

It's not that impressive for you to play a real person, Jesus fucking Christ.

It's much impressive to watch Adrian Brody convincingly play a fake person real.

To your point, Lazote is not a real person, but yet it feels like he is.

Oh yeah, just those little mannerisms, like his whole thing with this lighter, he's got that Zippo lighter through the whole thing, which he uses for cigarettes but then also for cooking up as heroin.

And he always does that little like flick of the lighter and I'm like, I don't know if that's Adrian Brody or if that's laslo Tooth.

It feels like that's laslow Tooth than how he uses this lighter.

I agree, it's you know, It's just I think the best performances elevate movies in a in a direction that again like few, I mean again, like the best performances are the ones that the movie can't live without.

And Adrian Brody, like his performance is so great in this movie that this movie, again, it is really a masterclass in acting from everybody involved, from Adrian Brody to Felicity Jones to Guy Pearce, Like everybody involved in this movie is operating at one hundred percent.

But Adrian Brody is real what you come to this movie for.

And again, like you've, like you mentioned like he's kind of a polarizing guy, but by the end of this movie, I'm like, I he might be a polarizing actor, but he's a fucking hell of an act.

He's not the reason why I really came to it, the reasons being the megalopolis thing, like I was saying, But also I didn't know that guy Pierce was in this, and once I found out he was, I was like, oh, well, sign me up, because I've been a Guy Pierce Stan since Adventures a Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Like I didn't see I haven't seen anything for that, but I've seen a hell of a lot post that, some real shitty stuff too, But I'm there for it because he's always an interesting actor.

The Time Machine, I saw it.

Me and my boy Orlando Jones in there.

Yeah, not to say I saw that movie in theaters, but I mean, you know, god best thing for me always goes back to like Confidential.

But then his role in Momento, and I know he doesn't like his role that he did in Momento, and I think he said like, oh this is why Chris no, them won't work with me anymore.

I'm like, I don't know.

I thought you did a really damn good job.

I mean, I just made a Sammy Jemcase reference today.

I have never seen Memento.

Oh really that might be the only well, I take it back.

The Nolan two of the three Batman films I really like, but for me, Memento is the one of his non superhero films that I really can get behind.

I think that in the prestige are my favorites of his because you can really keep the rest of them.

Interstellar me, oh, I'm good.

Yeah, I never need to see that again.

I like Guy Pierce a lot.

To your point, you know, people's mileage is going to vary with Alien and Prometheus and all that, and I have, again, I have a very different opinion than you do on those movies, but that's fine.

I think he you know, neither here nor there in terms of his performance in those movies, but he's great here.

And I think he's great in pretty much everything I've seen him in.

And I would, almost to your point, like go out of my way to watch a movie if he's in it because he's a great actor.

And yeah, like again, like I going into this movie hadn't really seen Adrian Brody in a lot of things, but now I will probably go out of my way to watch a movie if he's in it, because you know, he kind of nails this movie and this performance in a way that I mean, again, he's uniquely suited because he has the familial connection, he has the real life connection to this character.

But just because that's the case doesn't mean he's gonna nail it.

I again, Like I like I said, he could stop acting right now, and I think you could make the case that he would never need to act again to be considered like one of the great like one of the great actors.

Like again, he might be a prickly human being.

I would think in my mind he's comparative to someone like a Marlon Brando.

And I'm not talking about, like again, his abilities and skill, like that's kind of subjective.

I'm talking more about just like how much of a fucking weird dude he seemingly is and how serious he takes himself.

But at the same time, like, can you blame him given how good he is in this movie?

Like I'm not sure he's wrong.

I just mean he's a consummate artist, which is like a Daniel day Lewis thing, Like all right, bro, you're not exactly this fun person to be around.

Okay, how long ago was it that he won for the penist because that is years ago Jesus, So, yeah, this guy twenty years ago wins an Oscar for Best Sax.

Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, twenty two years ago.

Twenty two years ago, so probably smouth his age, you know, if not a little bit more.

I'm not sure what he's racking these days.

No, he doesn't look like he's really aged much over the years.

He's very well preserved.

You want to guess how old he is?

Fifty three?

Off by a year.

He's fifty.

Wow.

So yeah, so he's what thirty when he wins that, yes.

Twenty nine he's the youngest Jinners at the time.

Wow.

So yeah.

No, wonder he's a weird dude because you get that thrown on you when you're twenty nine years years old.

Yeah, you're gonna it's gonna warp your perception of things.

It was in the fucking Village after he was in The Pianist Man.

Yeah, which might be a role of his that I actually liked.

It's two words, King Kong.

Oh yeah, I actually.

Want to rewatch that King Kong.

I've seen it recently and it still doesn't work for me.

Yet, So that's too bad.

I want to watch it only because like it's Peter Jackson and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But yeah, yeah, to your point, man, if I look that good when I'm fifty two the way Adrian Brody does, now, oh yeah, good for him.

Oh yeah.

And you get to see like he's there shirtless when the prostitute's trying to give him a hand job.

And that's the other thing too, with the tilla.

It's like, I don't think Gater and Brodie is going to be like, dude, I didn't make a pass with your wife because I'm having a hard time even getting it up these days.

Right.

It isn't until Felicity Jones comes in and gives me a handy that it's like, Okay, now I can finally have sex in a way you know, I would consider a hand jobs.

But it's like, okay, cool, I can finally.

Come Yeah within reason.

Yeah, apparently Adrian Brody Pate played Harry Houdini in a History Channel mini series.

Really, yeah, that's weird.

I'd watch that.

Yeah.

Hey, speaking of people that are, it's weird that are in this movie.

Jonathan Hyde, friend of the culture cast, Jonathan Hyde, the Mummy's own Jonathan Hyde.

Oh okay, where was he at?

He was the builder.

Okay, he butts heads with Adrian Brody.

Yeah, oh yeah, he was an interesting guy.

I didn't recognize him with those glasses and everything.

He looked a lot older than he actually is.

I think, looks a lot less like an Egyptologist, Oh that's for sure.

Yeah and yeah, no, he was great and yeah, like him really trying to.

I mean, it's surprising that they got that thing built at all, because really, like between that very friendly architect who wants to cut foreigners here and there, and then you've got the actual builder who also wants to cut corners everywhere, and it's just like, oh no, concrete's so ugly, we don't want to use that.

But it's like, hey, guys, that's brutalism right there.

Yeah, and that's you know.

I was watching a review of the film today.

I watched a bunch of like video essays out on YouTube, just to see what other people had to say and if I was missing any sort of symbolism and stuff, you know, again, like talking about fire and all these things, and he's kind of the modern modern Prometheus.

But anyway, one of the reviews was like, well, I really like the first half of the movie the second half of the movie kind of drags for me, and I'm like, oh gosh, I I if anything, it was the opposite for me.

But I think I like both parts equally.

But I love the whole idea of the building and just like like, all right, let's you know, it's like, we finally have a project, because the first half of it kind of meanders as far as him going from job to job to job.

He finally gets the job, and then the second half for me is very much okay, now let's do the job and just seeing something being built and of course all the struggles around that.

I mean, that's my life.

Every single day is like the struggle to get things built.

And it's like, Okay, here's this guy with this huge project, and everybody is working against them, doesn't want to give them the money, doesn't want to get in the materials, don't want to follow the specs cutting down now the ceiling height cut down on this, and it's just like so frustrating, but at least you're getting to see things getting done.

So I really chimed with that second half of the film.

I'm with you as much as I enjoy the first part of the movie.

I like the second part more.

I think it's more interesting.

I think there's more interesting questions and conversations that are being had in the second half of the movie than are in the first half.

That's for sure.

I'm glad we watched this movie.

I really am.

Oh yeah, same here.

I'm really glad you talked to me into coming on this episode.

Yeah, and again, Like, what's surprising for me is the fact that this movie came out last year and I resonate with it so much, which is not really the case because a lot of the stuff we're watching this month, at least a lot of the other things I picked are like things that I've liked for a long time, Like this is a fairly recent addition, But I've seen this movie like four or five times now at this point, Like that's a lot.

Because this movie is three and a half hours long.

We will be interesting to see how this plays out.

But I have a feeling that this will probably be in like the pantheon at some point, you know, like I think it is for some people.

But I'm saying, like in forty fifty years when they talk about movies from the early earliest, earlier part of the twenty first century.

I have a feeling like a lot of people will be like, oh, have you seen The Brutalist, Like that's when you should definitely check out.

It feels like there are a few of those movies that come and go throughout these last twenty five years.

I was thinking this morning about the film Inherent Vice, which I'm not sure if I really like it very much, but it definitely made an impression, and it's probably one that I can see other people again forty fifty years from now being like, oh, you have to see that, Like that is one of the better films from the early part of the twenty first century.

But I also think that this movie is going to end up being a and you can already see it now, like people are starting to use VistaVision again.

Yeah, oh, which again looks fantastic.

Yes, And I really liked there was a I don't know how much I like Ryan Coogler as a director, Like I've seen some of his stuff that I've really enjoyed, other stuff just like whatever.

But he's got that new movie Sinners.

I think it is out, and I watched this really nice thing where he was going through all of this pretty much all the different film stocks as far as commercial projects go, you know, like from eight to Super eight, up to sixteen, Super sixteen, and he takes it all the way up to like seventy.

But he's talking about all of these different formats and all of the things that he shot A Sinners in, and I was just like, this is so nice to see somebody who's taking such care to choose the right format for the right time and being able to really talk about why he likes these different formats.

And it doesn't film feel like that same film fetishism as like a Nolan or a Tarantino.

It feels like, Oh, there's actually a purpose behind us.

And to hear him talk about the film, I could just hear the love.

And I was also getting that a lot with the director of The Brutalist when he was talking about VistaVision.

I could just hear the love and respect in his voice, and I was like, Oh, that's really nice to hear somebody who really takes care with the craft.

I mean, and again, a three and a half hour fricking movie with top talent that looks gorgeous the whole way through for ten million dollars is inscene.

To your point, he must have had everything planned out as to the to the millimeter, as far as like getting some of these shots.

How meta that is to be a movie called The Brutalist Huh yes, yes, well, And you know something we haven't mentioned, but it's something that I was appreciating earlier today while I was working out a soundtrack.

The score for this Oh yeah, that reas me.

Brutalist in and of itself.

It's brutalist inspired.

It's like minimalist in a weird way.

It's jagged in all the ways that brutalism is like.

It's I don't know.

Everything about this movie is so well crafted with such obvious intent.

That reminds me there were parts of this movie that I felt It's not the whole damn thing.

Really, when I think about it, listening to the score was it put me on edge.

It made me feel like, what was that Safty Brothers film Uncut Gems?

Yeah, like the tightness that was in my chest while I was watching Uncut Gems.

I was feeling a lot of that from this movie.

And I was feeling I think a lot from the music because that music, it's there's some gorgeous parts like I love the theme, the no thing that they do wonderful.

But then listening to even that first overture in the car today when I was driving, I was like, I can hear almost some Stravinsky, almost some bar talk in this It's just some real discordant stuff going on.

Oh man, and I do.

I honestly felt like through so much of this movie I was watching a horror film.

And I mean that in a really good way.

That made me American Dream is the horror.

I mean it's horror, fact, I mean it is.

I kind of think this movie is a horror film in a lot of ways.

And the really the score is what is your entry point to that?

I think.

And here's the other fucking nutsoid thing.

There are discordant tones in the score that make me again reinforce the idea of the corruption of the American Dream, because you have this beautiful score within these like bizarre discordant tones throughout, and it's like the intent is to reinforce the idea of the corruption of the American dream, like the corruption of a beautiful thing, the thing that people have strived for and believed was a thing worth attempting to achieve, and yet here we are essentially being told like, nah, it's not real, like it is a false idea that does not actually exist.

Yeah, no matter how friacking talented you are, because I love the actual architecture that we're seeing designed in this film and brutalist architecture.

I mean, there is some some real beauty inside of that, that truth that they have, and it also has made for some amazing things because I know there's a lot of as far as I know, there's a lot of brutalist architecture in Mexico City, and that's where they were shooting a bunch of stuff for Total Recall, the Bearhoven film and using that brutalist architecture to be like this is the future.

And I was like, oh, that's really nice.

Like it's a building in Getica where it's like, here's this amazing building, this is the future.

And it's like, yeah, that's all you need to show me is one building and I'll believe that we're in the future.

I don't need to see a rocket ship, you know, or you know, like George Jetson across the scene or anything.

I know from that architecture that that's the thing, and I mean, I know that some of the Brutalist was based on some real people, and I was I'd love to start tracking these guys down and seeing what they did, because I think one of them, one for sure model was a furniture designer, and that's where we get the furniture part with Miller and Sons in the display.

And then another person was an architect, and so we get this.

It's like the mirroring of those two things for the Laslow Toath character.

And I would love to see some of their work.

Well.

And that's the other thing, like I love that we actually get to see the architecture in the movie, and we get to see something that again I've never seen before, like that the water reclamation route underneath the building is so oh my god.

I don't know what Brady Corbet is getting at with that.

What is that in?

What is that meant to be?

I don't know, Yeah, but it's meant to be something.

There's some intention with the way that it looks.

And I mean we see it a couple times, like I don't know, like every I don't know.

Everything about this movie is just so intentional that I yeah, you know, And again, like we talk about people like Kubrick, and we talk about Room two three seven, and it's like people searching for intent.

And I'm not saying Kubrick did or didn't have intent.

I think Kubrick had plenty of intent.

But I also think there is some like people, you know, jumping to fucking conclusions and looking from things and aren't there.

I don't think with this movie you would have to look.

I don't think there's anything that we've talked about that isn't actually in the movie, implicitly or explicitly.

I feel pretty confident that everything we've talked about is actually there was an intentional reason behind everything that we've talked about, that this was that well thought.

Out, like that is the thing.

Yes, it doesn't feel like anything and this is a mistake.

It definitely feels like we know what we're talking about.

When it comes to this, I'm like, Okay, I definitely feel like I'm in the hands of somebody very capable when I'm watching this movie.

It's not like, oh, this came together by mistake or there was a happy accident.

There were probably plenty of happy accidents.

Happy accidents happen all the time, especially having film sets, especially when you have talented people like you have, nothing feels like, oh that was just a throwaway thing, Like oh that that that thing that happened over here on the side, or this thing that happened to this character.

Yeah, I don't don't even worry about it.

It's like, no, no, I'm sure everything is intentional.

Yeah, I think everything is intentional.

And for me, again, it's very meta that the film is called The Brutalist when everything about the movie feels intentional, because Brutalism is intentional, right, like every everything has a meaning and a purpose.

To your point, you have a scene where a penny is thrown at Adrian Brody.

Yeah, yep, and then we have him being literally raped, So there you go.

Like, maybe we didn't need to see it, but I guess at the end of the day, I'm glad Brady Corbet felt it necessary to show it because it jibes with the rest of the movie.

But yeah, it is.

This is a rough movie to watch in a lot of ways.

To your point, like it is a I don't I don't know, maybe I'm not using the term correctly.

I feel like I am it's post it's postmodern horror movie in a lot of ways, like this isn't the idea of how do we make a horror movie that's a horror movie, but it's not really a horror movie.

But we have to acknowledge the fact that if you live in this country, we're living in a constant state of horror because the American dream, as we've been sold it even now, is a fucking lie.

Oh yeah, to see how the rights of people have crumbled over the last one hundred days, it's just you would think that there would have been safeguards in place that this could not happen, and I guess there are with the courts.

But if you're going to ignore the courts, then do whatever you need to.

Just go ahead and export people who haven't committed crimes, send them down to El Salvador and good luck getting them back, or you know, let's I'm not gonna even talk trade with this country until they disavow like LGBTQ rights.

It's amazing that all of this stuff can happen that quickly, and it's the same shit that laslow Too has witnessed, you know a few years before this.

Movie began, right well, and that's the thing.

It's like again, you you'd never see what he dealt with in the concentration camps, but you don't have to, because it informs literally everything else that happens in them.

It informs the way he acts, the way he reacts, the way he handles himself, the way he carries himself is all informed by the fact that he was somewhere that Guy Pierce's character could never even fucking fath him any more than I or you could fathoim.

Again, my dad's dad was in a displaced person's camp in Germany, the largest displaced persons camp.

My parents have been looking through stamps that my grandfather had from said displaced persons camp.

It wasn't a concentration camp because they weren't killing the people, but it wasn't far off.

It was the same fucking thing, people being held against their will, displaced persons camp.

I can never understand what that's like.

I couldn't even begin I live in the fucking Midwest in a fairly sheltered life, just like you do.

We both do.

We can't imagine what any of them those things are like.

And that's the thing that Guy Pierce's character, at the end of the day can't fathom is no amount of raping laslow Tooth is going to be worse than what he had to deal with in those concentration camps, right.

I mean, that's the reality, that is the literal reality of the movie, is that there's nothing you can do to laslow Tooth at this point that he already has a no And it is the determination of the human spirit at the end of the day that wills out because instead of giving up and I don't know, and giving up, they just decide to pick up and leave once again.

Just like at the beginning of the movie, we see them coming to this country with you know, eas hoping and praying that this is going to be the start of a new life.

By the end of the movie, we're seeing what effectively could have been the beginning of this movie all over again, having to leave somewhere that he thought was going to be his home forever and isn't because of things outside of his control.

Oh yeah, yeah, when he really comes to the realization that he doesn't belong, they don't belong, and it just breaks your heart.

But I mean, yeah, they've proven it out time and time again that he is not accepted in that society.

No, and there's nothing he'll ever be able to do to change m h.

And it's I mean that stark realization by the end of the movie that you can't change you can't change the environment that you're in.

You can only do what you can to adjust to it.

And they go to Israel at the end of the movie, and then you have that great epilogue that again kind of puts a pin in I think the theme of the movie, which is, at the end of the day, you are the author of your own story and however you interpret it is up to you.

And you know she's she has you know, she has that great line where she's like, it is the destination, not the journey.

And you know, I mean in a lot of ways, like that's counterintuitive to the statement as you've heard it every other way every other time.

Especially, I found that line to be so ironic when she said it's a destination at the journey, because this three and a half hour movie is a journey.

You know.

It's like, yeah, I started with you when the sun was out, the sun's now doubt.

I've been with you for a while here.

You've taken me through Laslotoa's life.

You know, or at least a good chunk of it.

And yeah, it has been the journey.

It's not necessarily now this end scene, but I think that that's them telling us you should really be paying attention to this final scene, that it's not just a quick little epilogue.

There's a lot of stuff just to impack in that final scene.

Yeah, it in a lot of ways feels like the Rosetta stone of the movie and its entire ye And yeah, that honestly like that last the epilogue of the movie.

Is there's a lot going on.

I mean, you know, again, we have the idea of what was the point of this entire movie.

Was it for laslow Tooth to process his trauma and pain externally?

Was it for him to create a building that other people would be able to do that with in the future.

Was it him trying to prove to himself that he's still has what it takes to do the thing that he was known for for so long.

Like, you can go down any number of those paths, and I don't think any one of those is incorrect.

I think the movie gives you the opportunity and room to actually say, yeah, I think all those themes are present, which at the end of the day a three and a half hour movie.

Well, it's making use of best use of its fucking time, that's for sure.

Yeah, damn straight.

Or you know, to go back to Jofia and her whole thing, is this Shafia's story?

Is she the one that's telling this to us?

With her at the beginning and at the end.

It kind of feels like it, which is interesting in and of itself because then it's the immigrants recollection of an immigrant story as told to them by the immigrant, and now they're recollecting it to someone else or I guess to a room of people even I don't.

Know, yeah, yeah, and that you know, it's we don't even we don't hear her voice for a long time, But it's the what I guess, are the Nazis at the beginning are or hearing or I guess did they say I think I might beginning there's story mixed up with something I just heard on MPR recently.

But as far as wherever they're at at the beginning of this whole thing, because did they go to a Russian camp after?

Because they're separated right right, I'm trying to remember, Yeah, like I think she and and it's about that are in the same camp, separated from from Laslow.

But the now I just completely lost where I was going to go.

Oh, but the first sounds that we hear are the guards, the either Russian or maybe even Hungarian, but hearing her, hearing them give her orders, and it's like, right, write this down, and it's just like, you know, basically, I think they're saying, like, write your story.

So it's like, again, is this movie her, like you said, interpretation of what happened to her uncle?

I think it kind of is.

I think it's an interpretation, and it's also again like one has to look at it as her since again like the idea that a lot of this movie is a synthesis of things that have happened.

It's her synthesis of what she heard him say, because at the end of the movie, you know, the it's the destination at the journey, she claims that he said that.

We never heard him say that, no, no, which again, awfully fucking convenient.

Again, I like the idea that Laslow toof knows very early on that what he is doing and what he is providing to the world is going to be seen through the lens of whomever it is that is that is looking at it, and that doesn't even that extends directly to someone that he's related to.

It's not just random people who look at his building and find meaning in it.

Personally, his own family is like, nah, we're going to interpret it the way we want.

It's like wait, what, like hold.

On, yeah, I like that idea that she might be rewriting his story without his consent.

Well, it is the destination at the journey, yeah, because again, at the end of the day, history is written by the victors, and at the end of the day, history is often about the outcome less the journey of getting there.

Most people don't care about the journey.

They only care about the outcome.

And I think that the journey is just as important as the outcome.

But the movie is kind of being very cynical at the end and saying fuck you, that's not the case, which I appreciate.

I mean this movie, I think you know you mentioned it being kind of a horror movie.

I think this movie is also darkly comedic, like it's oh yeah, it's very very mean spirited.

Like again, we have man rape in this movie.

We have like possible incest.

We have all kinds of like really terrible things.

But the movie again, like I feel like the movie's always winking at the audience like we know, just like you do.

How fucked up the American dream is, like we get it, Like nobody is not keyed in here, and like that that feels like again like I don't know Brady Corbet's intention, and hey, isn't it great that ultimately at the end of the day, the asshole rich American character isn't even played by an American actor.

He's so good and yeah, his American accent is top notch.

Yeah, oh yeah, Well those Australian oh yeah.

Well, that's what I hear is that they used to get so many American and British TV shows that that's why Australians can do our accents better than we can.

Sometimes.

Yeah, I believe it.

They nail it in the way that it's almost like they do an American accent better than Americans.

Oh yeah, yeah.

And they're not just flattening everything out like a hughe Lorry or Benetic cumber Batch.

Yeah no, Chris Hemsworth is a very convincing American accent.

He does oh yeah, no, he sounds great and he's got a great Norse accent as well.

Get out of it.

I mean the music in and of itself.

We could have an entire discussion just about the music like it.

I would love to read some good at it, you know, scholarly articles about that in its in and of itself.

Yeah, I mean the music, the cinematography, like the framing of the shots, like the shot construction, Like this movie is going to be talked about for a very long time, I think to your point, Like, I think it has made the case that like, look, I'm glad that we're alive in a time and a place where like movies of substantial quality and long term value are actually coming out.

Like that didn't feel like a thing for a very long time.

No, I completely agree.

I mean it just felt like maybe once in a while we somebody would throw us a bone.

But it's like, yeah, it was just a lot of popcorn for a long time.

And then occasionally like oh, well down the street there's this other thing, but good luck, fine in it, you know, but the Brutal is actually playing legit big theaters several times.

You know, Like for a while I was seeing to remember there was an opportunity to go see it, so didn't do it, but I probably should have.

A twenty four baby been good films.

Yeah, good for them.

Yeah, I'm curious, Mike.

Final thoughts on The Brutalist.

Well, again, thank you for having me watch this, and it was really nice to be able to talk about it.

I've been looking forward to that since.

I think I watched this Saturday, and I keep watching all those video essays and just keeps rolling around in my head, and I think it probably will for a long time to come.

Yeah, I you know, I mentioned to you when I floated the idea of watching this movie that I watched it twice in one day.

And it's a three and a half hour movie and most people aren't up for more than sixteen seventeen hours in a day, so that's half your day if you sit and watch this movie twice and look, it is definitely a lot.

There's a lot going on.

There's a lot of subtext, there's a lot of explicit stuff going on.

There's a lot of implicit stuff.

There's a lot of stuff that the director is hinting at.

There's a lot of stuff that director wants you to think about, and like we've alluded to already and said outright, movies like this aren't being made anymore, but they seem to be being made more frequently now than they used to be at least for a long time.

And that's a good thing, and that bodes well, I think, for big, important movies coming out that are being made for reasonable budgets by talented directors with immensely talented actors.

And yeah, yeah, I'm glad that I didn't have to convince you very hard to watch this movie.

And I'm glad you enjoyed it because yeah, you know, you mentioned the idea of like, well, this movie is kind of making a case for it being an important movie already, you know, a year into its release, Like this is already one of my favorite movies of all time, genuinely, Like I enjoyed this movie immensely, and again, like it hits notes for me that I didn't think I needed in a movie and didn't know I needed in them.

And you know what, one of the things that really strikes me as rare about this movie is the guy Peace character dies off screen in the movie, makes just the movie just chugs right along.

Yeah, in that great.

That great.

I appreciate that the movie is willing to allow the audience to go.

I'll give you one line and you can assume what happened beyond that.

I don't need to beat you over the head.

And it's like, you know what.

I appreciate that, in this day and age, that a director is willing to trust the audience, because it doesn't feel like directors are doing that anymore.

No.

No, it felt like, oh, you actually respect us, and that made me respect the director as much.

And the director assumes that I'm actually paying attention.

Yeah, exactly.

So on that note, we'll take a break and play a preview for the final Culture cast of April.

Randy had the world and his fingertips, but just when he had it all in control, things took a turn for the worse.

School called when I get home, young man, I'm going to confiscate every model in the house.

Three minutes perspected of Robbie a local convenience store, are still at large.

Tonight police warned that the three should be considered armed and dangerous.

I've never known anyone who can expel before my mom's threatening to confiscating every model in the house.

So I'm taking him to the hideout till he school down.

He was about to find out what real trouble was all about.

Wow, this is a real pretty house.

How long we got a whole up here?

Would cops give up on the road?

Flash three four days?

Man?

Now he's matching wits with glee out laws who are about to outwit themselves.

Error by error, right the spark of the air for you guys.

Blunder by blunder Oh quit, so Mu's coming.

Don't work here.

We're not gonna hurt you.

Oh no, no, loot take up the army after us and blow by blow.

You gotta be pretty smart to get away from Louie, can't.

He's teaching the bad guys just how far a kid will go.

Roade Boat a comedy powered by adventure.

So that's right on the final cold Chacass of April, We're going to be taking a look at Remote a Moonbeam video one film from Full Mood Charles Band.

It's essentially home alone with remote controlled airplanes and cars and a yodeling Hitler doll, which, yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like.

I'm going to be joined by Disc Connected's Ryan Verel until then, where can people find you and the things that you work on?

Mike White, You're never going to believe this, Chris, but everything that I do is available over at wordinglymedia dot com, where you can find all the stuff that I do, like the projection booth or the Sadly over but still all completely available, the Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller podcast, the Cold Chac tapes also gone but not forgotten, a whole bunch of other things except for one thing which Chris and I do over at our patreons patreon dot com slash Projection Booth and paedron dot com slash culture cast, and that is ranking on Bond, where once a month we take a look at at one of the James Bond films in order and kind of work our way through the entire Bond catalog and just took a little stop on the way to talk about some Austin power So that was a lot of fun as well.

So yeah, that's all that I have to say.

How about you, Chris, same place Weirdingwaymedia dot com ash were can go to find all the things that I work on, So head on over there if you want to watch or listen, given that Film Foundations technically is a viewable thing as well on YouTube.

But yeah, that's where I would go.

And like Mike mentioned patreon dot com if you want to engage financially, but like rate and review the show on iTunes, because that is where most people find podcasts, So that's where I would I know, that's where I would advise.

You want to give the show a good review or a bad review, or any review at all, do it on iTunes.

So, Mike, thank you so much for joining me.

This was fun.

I'm glad you resonated with the movie and enjoyed it, and it was something that you know you appreciated, because you know, I never know, not that I never know with you, I just never know because sometimes I get excited about things in my excitement needs to be temperates.

No, it was well well suited excitement Chris for sure.

And h And as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.