Bob Dylan, Vampires, and Popes: 'A Complete Unknown,' 'Nosferatu,' and 'Conclave'

Hello, welcome to the Working Man's TV and Streaming podcast.

And folks, we're off the farm with this episode.

Indeed we did.

We went to the movies.

We toss in a streamer amongst the three discussions.

This is our kind of going to the movies episode.

We do it probably two or three times a year at the most.

Kind of bends our rules, takes us out of just TV and streaming, puts us in the theater for at least a couple of episodes per year.

We're going to begin with a complete unknown, the Bob Dylan movie.

We're gonna go from there to Nosferatu, and then we'll end with Conclave, which is the only one that's streaming.

That's on Peacock if you want to play along at home.

As always, we'll begin.

No spoilers, but we will talk about those three films in that order, but no spoilers.

So don't freak out.

And then I will give you a heads up when we start talking about the details of each one.

So are they any good?

Well, let's figure it out.

Alabama, take projection.

The three of us, the three being me, Adam and Donovan.

We're all here.

It's kind of funny because we've been to the movies.

You know, we do this twice a year, really.

One time over the holidays and then once during the summer where we bend the rules of the podcast and we actually go to the movies and break down a movie or two that hasn't hit the streamers.

That's what we're doing this week to actually double down on that, on that bending or breaking of the rule.

That's how we ended up this week with only one of the three things on streaming.

We're going to be talking about things in this order, non spoiler.

We'll go a complete unknown Nosferatu.

And then on the tail end, we're going to do Conclave, which is our streaming choice.

Usually we do all streaming or all tv, but we, we had a break.

It was the holidays.

We were at the movies.

Let's begin.

It's the Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothy Chamolay Chamberlay as the man himself in a complete unknown.

The movie is directed by James Mangold, whom you may know from Logan Ford v.

Ferrari walk the line 310 to Yuma remake.

If you know the story of Dylan's early years at all, you know what's going to happen on screen.

Still, we won't cite specifics until later.

I think only Adam and I saw this one.

I haven't seen it yet.

That's correct.

Okay, I Loved it.

I didn't know it was.

I saw it maybe a week after it came out.

And it was funny to run down this checklist of.

Of, like, people, you know.

I texted Blaine is Blaine.

You can admit that you have spent time on Bob Dylan forums, right.

Adam?

I will admit.

I'll go so far as to admit to say I was kind of known on a Dylan forum for the early aughts.

I'm trying to establish your bona fides here.

Yeah.

Not only has.

Not only has Blaine been on a forum, he's been thrown off of him.

I've not been thrown up.

I was a very nice and kind soul on these forums.

Very, very polite.

Ye.

And I went by my real name, which is probably.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah.

Why not?

So I could probably find the archive.

Maybe.

I only.

I only would comment a few things or question a few things.

Yeah, I knew a guy who got thrown off tighter Insider.

And then he.

He, like, was so addicted to it that he got his buddy's login, but his buddy was like, slapping him on the hand, like, you cannot comment under my name and get me kicked off.

I say that to say I wanted the opinion of people who, with Dylan, are in pretty deep, you know, and then just ask folks who like Dylan and like movies.

And everybody had this attitude of, like, I'm shocked at how good it is maybe because I think everybody's kind of tempering expectations.

Right.

Like, here's this.

If someone's life is borderline unfilmable, it's the guy who wrote volume one of his own autobiography and seems to have no intention of writing volume two and seemed to have no intent of telling the truth in volume one.

Very little.

How do you pick a start and end point?

And it just did all of those things so well.

I think maybe people get jaded about the biopic and, like, what?

Especially with music and me being surrounded by musicians.

You're kind of easily dismissive of things.

I thought Walk the Line was a really good music biopic.

And so with all of these factors, I'm not surprised it ended up being very good.

But I loved it.

My friends that I know here in town who haven't gone yet, I keep texting them, like, hey, if you need a buddy to go to the movies with, I'll go see it again.

Yeah, I've seen it twice.

I loved it to its core.

I appreciate that it knew it was a biopic, but decided to cover only those four years.

And as all movies have to do, it condensed a lot of things the moments James Mangold decided to use here earlier than it actually happened versus later, when it really happened in reality.

It just worked.

It clicked.

It wasn't a case of trying to squeeze in more fact as much as it was to get emotional power out of an already vital.

And I'd forgotten revelatory story, revolutionary story.

I kind of forgotten that.

You know, I think a lot of Dylan fans would admit that we kind of have forget.

Forgotten that he played right before Dr.

King's I have a Dream speech that's in this movie, but, like, for two seconds.

I work at a community college and has an old archive of.

Of newspapers and from the late 60s.

I mean, the students are crazy.

You literally couldn't print half the stuff today.

But they're quoting, like.

Like what.

What Blaine is saying is like.

Like this.

Bob Dylan was so important to these students that they're printing lyrics from his songs in the student newspaper.

I mean, that's real impact.

These random community college students in Connecticut.

Yeah.

Printing Dylan songs.

Yeah.

I loved it to its core.

I thought that it could not have been any better considering what it was trying to do and take on.

It's one of my favorite movies, but I am its audience, so it's hard to.

For me to give a really clear opinion on it.

But I would do my best in the spoiler section on what.

What I feel like made it tick with.

With two of these movies.

Conclave did this too.

I'm like, if you like ideas and you like big thoughts being important and having, like, real world impact.

Oh, yeah.

Then this movie is for you.

And, like, when I think of art, I think that's what it is.

And I realize not everybody watches movies for that or listens to music for that, and that's fine.

But I just can't imagine anybody who's like.

And I'd say this is unpretentiously as possible if you're serious about filming, if you enjoy being moved by something, I can't imagine not liking it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's funny.

A quick aside that's totally related is Lee and I were talking this week, just the other day, about how we're so tired of our phones and social media and that we do actually watch TV and movies to activate our minds.

Like, we don't.

We don't watch things passively.

Yeah.

I think a great film you're still thinking about.

And if I was to quickly go down this list, I have thought a lot about a complete unknown, very little about Nosferatu, and a lot about Conclaves.

And seeing it.

Well, that's a perfect segue.

Next on the list is another film that's still in theaters, the Robert Edgar's new endeavor, Nosferatu.

Many folks, I suppose, know that the original version of nosferatu was a 1922 silent film.

A.

M.

I right?

No, it was silent.

Right, Correct.

It is.

It is silent.

And then Werner Herzogen.

Yes.

Also made a version in the 70s.

Indeed.

I think it was the 70s.

Both went by some version of that ar.

Archaic name for vampire because it.

Was it because of some problems with the rights of Dracula originally in 1922.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

It was basically like an unauthor.

Like, it's Dracula.

But, you know, copyright law was a.

Was a lot more loosey goosey too.

Okay.

But it's.

It's Dracula.

Yeah, it is, but, like, they're not acknowledging that it's Dracula at all.

So it's.

It's basically a pirated version of Dracula.

Yes.

The.

The 22 film.

Now.

Now, Herzog could have done the 22 film.

Could have done whatever he wanted in 79, but he made his version of Nosferatu.

And then we have last December's version from Eggers, which stars Lily Rose Depp of the Idol and its train wreck on hbo.

But this new incarnation of the film has also Nicholas Holt, Will Willem Dafoe, and Bill Skarsgard as the titular Nosferatu.

I didn't see this one.

So this is gonna.

It's an odd one here.

It's rare that I'm the one who hasn't seen something.

I'm gonna let Adam and Donovan give us general feelings on what they felt about it.

Adam did send me a text that maybe could kick off the conversation, which is.

He said, it feels like one you wait for at home.

Right.

I don't know.

I'm gonna.

This is a tricky one because I love Eggers.

Yeah.

And I think that the irony in that is this was a beautiful film.

It looked amazing on the big screen.

I saw one review say, if you're walking out of the theater and you're hearing people say, wow, the cinematography was great.

That probably doesn't bode that well for how good the story was.

A 24 Eggers.

A classic plot, these familiar elements, you're kind of expecting a home run.

So I don't know that that's completely fair to a film to walk in with, but I was kind of lukewarm on it, unfortunately.

I was the Blaine of this movie.

This was for you.

This was for Me?

Yeah, I.

This is one I'm glad I saw on the big screen because.

And I.

And I liked.

You know, a lot of people said it was, like, sedate and boring.

I was.

I got the feeling that it's like.

It really felt like you're adapting, like, and made up, like, early 19th century, like.

Like a Gothic novel from, like, 1846 or whatever.

I liked the cinematography, I liked the acting, and I liked that it.

What.

What it did to my expectations.

Yeah, it just all kind of worked for me because I actually have thought about it since it's gone.

I agree with all of that.

And maybe I was being too harsh.

I thought it was good.

I didn't think it was outstanding.

Okay.

I should say, like, I thought that if we're comparing his films, it's.

I mean, the Witch is top of the heap for me, and it's.

It's kind of like the mark to beat if I think that he's done something great, which is probably not fair.

Yeah.

I actually ended up.

I think I liked it more than now than I did, walking out of the theater.

And it was.

It.

It's hard for me to describe why, because there were just, like, lots of little things where I'm like, oh, yeah, I like that they did this.

Like, this.

This was weird.

This was creepy.

This was unsettling.

This worked for me.

How much benefit does it did you have, having seen the 22 version and the 79?

For me, it's mostly.

I felt like I saw the analogues, like, where they're like, oh, this bit was in, like.

There's stuff in the 22.

I thought, can I.

Is it.

Is it a spoiler to, like, basically say things from Dracula?

I don't think so.

Okay, so, you know, in the.

In the Herzog, there's.

There's the.

It's actually this really, really great scene where the ship that the Count has been on is.

You know, everyone dies on it.

Right.

And it comes up this canal.

It's supposed to be in a German city or something.

It comes up this canal with no one alive on it, and then rats come out and there starts to be Pestilence.

And the city kind of starts to break down.

And there were a bunch of stuff there where I'm like, oh, okay, I see.

Like, he was probably really inspired by Herzog here.

He was probably really inspired by.

I think it was Murnau, or was it Pabst?

The first one.

And then stuff like, oh, okay, he's doing his own thing there.

Yeah.

So I.

I Enjoyed it.

But by no means do you have to see the other two.

Yeah.

Although I would recommend you see the other two, which are probably honestly, like, maybe not better than this one, but I felt like they were all doing enough of a different thing that I didn't mind having seen the same story three times.

Yeah.

Of the three, which one do you.

Would you tell people to watch?

For sure.

Oh, boy.

The original.

The original.

If you're fine with silent film, the original one is so striking and the original Count Orlok is so creepy.

Yeah.

That it's.

It's like.

It's.

It's almost.

Well, I mean, it's.

It's.

It's a movie with a plot and everything, but it's more.

It's almost like just these like primordial images.

Yeah, it is that.

Get that get stuck in your brain.

Yeah.

Everybody knows that image of the 1922 Nosferatu.

Sure.

The.

The Herzog one, though, you know, is great.

Herzog's a great director.

He does more with.

Like, he does more with.

With the effect of this thing on the city.

Klaus Kinski is a horrible person and an amazing warlock.

Yeah.

I got you.

It's like, if you can.

If you.

Herzog had the advantage of finding, like, the one guy who was like, as evil as Dracula to play Dracula.

That seems to be the case.

Yeah.

Adam said that if you leave a theater talking about the cinematography versus the story might not be so good.

Well, here you could talk about the either one.

Conclave was a beautiful film from late 2024, I think it was released in and around September or October, but it is now on Peacock.

So this is one you could play along at home with if you want.

It's directed by Ed Edward Berger.

He also directed the Netflix movie All Quiet on the Western front, of which both of you guys loved.

I didn't c.

But y'all both gave it a high prize around this.

I gave it.

I.

I'm not sure if I would say I loved it, but it's like, oh, this is.

This is a thumbs up for me.

Yeah.

It's about this time last year you guys were talking about that.

And here's something that's wild.

I don't know if y'all realize this.

Edward Berger has directed at least one episode of the show, your honor, as well as the Terror.

Huh.

Didn't know that.

At least one, if not more.

It's coming full circle.

Sure is.

All roads lead to the terror, which if those.

Of course, this is inside joke completely, because nobody knows this, but Adam has recently watched the Terror on Netflix, which was originally on AMC 34 years ago.

And now I have watched 8/10 of the Terror.

And only college football is the reason I haven't watched more.

Yeah, it's a good show.

We can highly frankly talking with you guys because I could be in my living room right now.

Well, I was going to say, if our listeners want a freebie, go watch the Terror on Netflix.

It's about five years old.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, just got Jared Harris flexing on everybody.

Jared, man, he's so good, but everyone's really good.

I love Jared.

Ship tries to traverse some very cold waters.

There you go.

But don't, don't take it from us.

Conclave, though, is Adapted from a 2016 Robert Harris novel.

Film gives an inside, albeit a fictional, look at a conclave where Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, played by Ray F, leads a sudden conclave for a new pope when the last one suddenly dies.

And while he conducts this mysterious conclave, Cardinal Lawrence finds out all kinds of secrets.

One secret kind of leads to another.

The movie fits our mold, our rules, because it's currently streaming on Peacock.

And it's.

It's also got John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Both of those guys are cardinals.

And it's got out of retirement Isabella Rossellini as David Letterman.

Used to.

Used to love that.

Non spoiler sections.

I'll start.

I came into this movie fairly curious as to what it could present that I hadn't seen in two seasons of the wildly entertaining HBO series the Young Pope.

I seriously thought, there's no way this movie is going to tell me anything I haven't seen in that show.

Well, well, guess what?

Blame for this movie, they had an old.

They had an old pope.

They had the wool over my eyes.

Let me tell you something.

The old bait and switch, completely different.

No, I was not enthralled at first, but conclave slowly enveloped me with this internal and political intrigue found not just within the story, which you've seen in various forms, but with the characters.

It became interesting as through two questions like, what secret does that guy have?

And which one of these guys is worse?

It's.

It almost became a detective story for me as much as.

As much as it was about a conclave, absolutely.

I'd say it was a detective story without as many clues.

Because I was watching, thinking, okay, where's my clue?

What's.

What am I supposed to get?

You get the clues as Cardinal Lawrence gets them.

So you're with him, the Ralph Vines character.

And did I like it.

Yeah, a lot.

I.

I really did.

I.

It just builded.

It continued to build.

Continued to build, and I really liked it a lot.

If A Complete Unknown was for Blaine and Nosferatu was for Donovan, this film was for me.

This was Cardinal Morrow, two thumbs up.

I loved it.

Yeah.

There is nothing wrong with this movie there.

I do have a slight thing or two I'll mention, but it's.

It's.

It's barely a critique I'll give.

Just with my, like, general impression of watching it is like, Ralph Fiennes just has an ability to bring you in to his characters, doesn't he?

Like, I was so instantly intrigued by him.

And then also, I mean, a lot of good stuff to say about this movie for being what could be like, a fairly standard, like, melodrama.

I feel like it elevated that.

Oh, yeah.

You know, good call.

And so I feel like the script actually was.

Was good.

Yes.

And pretty smart.

Yeah, sure.

I.

I thought it was definitely done.

It's listed on Peacock if you.

You know, it has the quick genre description underneath it.

It says thriller.

Yeah.

And, you know, there's.

I don't know, the Da Vinci Code and Angels of Demons through, like, things like the Two Popes, which are.

Is just like a thoughtful conversation between two great actors.

You know, it's a pretty wide range of things that you get dealing with the Catholic Church in this day and age.

And I feel like this one threaded the needle really well.

Of, like.

Yeah, it's kind of a detective story, but it's also people who are completely serious about their convictions, and they may not always be religious convictions, but, like, these are serious people.

Taking a job seriously in the film is not, like, winking at the camera.

Like, look at who still puts this much importance on religion in 2024.

You know, it's.

It's given the full gravity of its potential.

That's.

Yeah, it is a sharp script.

I mean, it.

To me, it felt like.

Like, my phone is currently buzzing because I.

I've texted so many people, like, you should watch this.

Yeah.

Me and Hayden always joke.

We.

Capital S, capital L.

Serious literature.

This is a serious literature film.

Yeah.

I mean, the layers of literary references, historical references, all that stuff.

And then a few people have texted back, you know, holy crap, that.

That cast list is insane.

And my response has been, not only is it insane, but they're all at, like, full stride from minute one of this.

Yeah.

Some of them not even on screen for very long, and.

And they're great.

Yep.

I think something that like, just like.

As far as, like, the movie being made that supports all of this too is like.

I thought it was paced extremely well.

This is maybe one of the best pace movies I've seen.

Yeah.

For something that could be really.

And I think that just goes and serves everything Adam was talking about.

Where it doesn't it.

The pacing is so good.

You're not caught up on it.

And it gives.

It gives each scene enough time to build upon each other.

I thought that was like, for something that you can.

You can see a version of this movie right.

Where it's like, oh, this is boring.

This was not that movie.

This was paced extremely well.

Yeah.

That was the big worry of mine that it was going to be.

Let's insert a break here.

And on the other side, we'll run them down with spoilers in the order that we began.

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Seti Pimco Part two, the Revenge.

Every Wednesday.

Any place you listen to podcasts.

Start where we began.

We'll go with a complete unknown.

The James Mangold Bob Dylan Story.

Bob Dylan had a full reign on the script.

I think Mangold met with him about three or four times.

Dylan read it, made notes, gave it back.

How intimidating would that be?

I assume the hardest part of communicating with Bob Dylan is figuring out what the hell he's talking about.

Yeah.

Not the way that he speaks.

It's nice.

Not a Dylan joke in the way that he speaks, but.

No, he speaks a metaphor.

More in the way he texts.

Yeah.

Or tweets.

He's a pretty straight shooter on those tweets.

Have I.

I know that we have.

We discussed this on air, that I'm kind of fascinated by the idea of, like.

Like, if you are this incredible before and after historical figure in whatever your field is, you don't get to have that person.

Bob Dylan has, you know, his heroes.

But, like, the Beatles had Bob Dylan.

Right.

You know, everybody following him, it's like there's this dude who's like.

And he's still with us, living in this over half a century, three quarters of a century that he kind of created.

Yeah.

And he's.

He's kind of like, not that he's stuck in a pre Dylan world.

Like, how do you move through the world like that?

I kept thinking about that during this film.

Yeah, me too.

Before this movie was an idea.

I was watching something with Timothy Chamolay and I thought, man, he would be a good Dylan in a movie.

But that won't ever happen.

His casting never bothered me in the least.

When I found out, I thought, that's perfect.

Great idea.

I guess I figured out shortly after it was James Mangold and he was directing and writing it.

I didn't even bother with a trailer for this one.

I was just like, all right.

I mean.

And I think news.

Timothy Chamolay had been taking guitar lessons.

And then due to Covid, they had to halt shooting, which gave him longer time to practice guitar and harmonica.

And I was like, well, it's gonna be fine.

He's putting in the work.

It's going to be great.

It proved out he even played in the very specific.

It almost takes that long because he probably had to learn to play guitar normally and then, like, unlearn the things to sound like Dylan in 1960.

Whatever.

My guitar brain.

The rhythms are so weird in the way that he very.

He moved around.

It's almost like borderline.

Not good.

But it's perfect for the song.

No, it isn't.

Almost not good.

You're right.

He talked about working with a dialect coach to get Dylan's cadence down.

Chevrolet does a wonderful performance.

And it's the classic thing you can say, which is, he doesn't make a caricature of.

Of the guy, but yet it's very much Bob Dylan.

I.

It's a line that he straddles that I can't quite describe.

I mean, the first test, right, is him.

It opens.

We get him walking through New York City.

And I think when they announced this, we texted amongst ourselves and I.

My opinion was, I will go see anything that's high budget with people smoking cigarettes in the village in the 60s.

Yeah.

Well, that's what this is.

Yeah.

If you're wearing a nice winter coat.

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

Boy, howdy.

So we're already checking boxes before we even get to that hospital scene.

And they kind of throw them in the deep end.

Like, okay, this is.

What's your.

How much Dylan are you going to bring to your Dylan?

Yeah.

This movie made me emotional and not.

Not just tears.

That's not the only emotion.

There is rage.

I was smiling.

I was smiling the whole time.

You know, I won't ever see a young Dylan unless It's in clips, but the movie helps you to feel like maybe you did.

It was hard for me not to sing along too loudly.

And that 1961 New York.

You're there.

The sets were amazing.

High dollar.

I just loved how he boiled the director.

Boiled it down to.

It's.

It's about the personal versus the political.

For me, it was.

There's a lot more to say about the film, but this is what I could carry away from it.

You know, what the people around Dylan didn't see or couldn't fathom was that when you start blending ideas or taking something from one piece and another.

Something from another piece and you combined it into something maybe new or maybe hybrid, then that is kind of political.

Yeah, absolutely.

Through that they couldn't see past their own nose and.

Or at least that's the way they're presented the film.

That's such an interesting point, Blaine, because like, we often think of like, for example, like the impressionists.

Right.

Like, oh, they just painted pretty pictures.

But it was actually like a radical break with like, tradition.

Right.

So just like painting pictures in this way of the countryside is a statement.

Right.

Like just putting forth something new in art is a statement in and of itself besides any other statement.

I like that they.

They showed that early on when he's.

He's working the radio and he wants to listen to everything.

Yeah.

You know, Seeger's.

Maybe less and.

Can we shout out to.

Edward Norton was so good in this movie.

Edward Norton was so perfect.

No, perfect as Pete Seeger.

You get the sense that Pete Seeger's probably a really sweet guy anyway.

He was very.

For the downtrodden.

Wanted to help people of America and that's how Edward Norton plays him.

But also Norton plays him with a sweet sensibility that.

That's probably a little over the top.

It's a little over baked.

But it had to be because if it's the movie.

Because somebody's heart has to break when Dylan.

When Dylan goes electric.

Well, and you need.

He's surrounded by antagonists in that moment.

Right.

I love Lomax just getting the hatchet job there.

But apparently there really was a.

Yeah.

A physical altercation.

Yeah.

Between.

Between Grossman and.

Yeah.

Dylan's manager.

Yeah.

Who was kind of an.

At the time.

Well, that's the thing in real life, every.

Yeah.

I mean, what if you.

I want to make a sweeping blanket statement for the effect of comedy and possibly this film.

I don't know how many people who didn't have some connection to some CD underworld were in the music business in 1960.

Whatever.

I'm not saying they were an organized crime, but I'm not saying they weren't either.

Yeah.

Ye.

So I mean, it's just.

It's.

Yeah, of course, everybody's an.

You know, and I think giving Making Seeger the.

Like you felt for him, like the moments when Dylan sees him and he kind of like.

Like winces like, I don't want to talk to this guy right now.

Like, your heart kind of hurts when you're watching the movie.

Yes, but you understand both sides.

And I think, yeah, you do.

They used, you know, if they had said, like the arc of the film is Dylan comes to New York and then he goes electric at the end.

It's like, okay, that's good.

But then the way that they layered relationships on top of that, it took it to another and you can't.

I mean, sometimes friendships take a real arc like that.

But, you know, it takes some fictionalization to have a lot coalesce at the same time.

So, you know, I'm sure they blended.

You would know better than me a few stories to create that outcome.

But yeah, that blurring.

That doesn't bother me at all because it was.

It just captured the heart of it so much.

And the other thing it did great, that is to your point about the.

The political side of it and the radical side, you know, we texted about.

For me growing up, it felt like we were like beyond the end of history, you know, like the.

The Berlin Wall has come down.

Civil rights is decades in the past.

All these things.

And it's like, oh, all our problems are solved.

And clearly the last 10 years enough, whether it's, you know, the invention of the cell phone camera so that you can show that, oh, a lot of bad shit's still going on, or having a.

This is.

This is not a political side statement.

A convicted felon is going to be president.

You know, this is complex times we're living in to then see.

I think this movie coming out now was way more impactful than if they had done this when they did Walk the Line.

Like, what would it have been like if they.

If it had come out during 04.

When walk the Line, it feels more like a victory lap then, like, look.

At, like, how good we did.

Like boomers kind of looking back and saying what a crazy time that we lived through.

But, man, we solved all the problems and now it's like we live.

And obviously 2004, we were invading the Middle east and it was complex then, but, you know, that scene of Joan Baez trying to figure out what to do during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Yeah.

And she finds Dylan playing at a club.

It's like, this is who this guy was, you know, we think I got a greatest hit CD with Blowing in the Wind and just wore it out when I was 15, 16, but.

And loved it.

But you don't have the full picture of, like, was physically frightening to go play a civil rights march, or it was physically frightening to, you know, they thought that the nuclear holocaust was about to happen.

And he grabs his guitar and goes down and plays.

Did that actually happen, Blaine?

No.

It's a great.

That's great symbolism, though.

Oh, yeah.

It worked perfectly.

In fact, he would probably have.

He was working on its Hard Rain's Gonna Fall.

Probably not so much Masters of War around the human missile.

Like a few days after, if I'm not mistaken.

A few days.

Maybe a month or two.

But to go down to the club while New York's evacuating, essentially, and tried out a masterpiece and then get some.

It's the end of the world, baby.

Action from Joan Baez.

I mean, what a.

What a run of film that is.

And what a great actor.

Monica Marie.

Oh, gosh, I'm blanking on the actress's name who played Joan Baez.

But she was.

I thought she was great.

The film really gives you an.

Almost puts you in the shoes of this feeling.

I still have it to this day.

Donovan, have you ever been energized and happy about what you're doing, and then about midway through it, you're still energized and happy, but you think of the next good thing that you're going to be doing and you're like, oh, fuck, this thing I'm doing now.

I want to go do this next thing.

Have you ever been, like, you kind of had to be caffeinated in a way to do this, Adam, have you ever experienced where you're just like.

And it happens on stage a lot, where you're like, I'm playing the fuck out of this song, but I got a verse left.

I just can't wait to get the next song.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like every creative project ever.

Yeah.

I think I'm riding this goddamn wave and I want to get to the next thing because it's going to be awesome.

That was Dylan then.

Yeah.

It's like you're eating a potato chip and already thinking about the next one.

Yeah, well, kind of.

I mean, that really lowers my analogy, but thank you.

Yeah.

If you're Like a creative person, you almost have to have that like.

Like you just forget about anything bad that was associated with creating it.

And you're only thinking about the good and the rush.

And I mean, hasn't that was.

That's what it was happening to him.

He felt the.

He felt the energy of playing with a band and it's like, nah, man, I can't wait to do this.

But y'all were wanting me to play Blowing in the Wind again.

Fuck.

I mean, even the scene where he.

The composite character that Elle Fanning plays.

And I thought she did a fine job in that role.

Well, I don't think she was a composite so much as she was just.

Dylan himself made them change her name.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know if they maybe mix some elements.

Obviously she's.

Remind me the.

The woman's name who's on the COVID of the record.

Susie Rotolo.

Yep.

And Dylan wanted her privacy protected somewhat.

She must have been a pretty important person to him.

She was an activist up until her death, so she.

She lived it and breathed it.

But when they're having a conversation and he's.

I can't remember what song that he's playing, but he's kind of just noodling around on a chord progression and like, you're like, oh, my God.

He's the kernel of Don't Think Twice is like, happening before our eyes, you know?

Yeah.

It had some of the, like the Beatles doc feeling of like.

Like they're playing Don't Let Me down and it's not quite there, but I know what they're missing and they don't know yet.

And I love that Mangold manages to present Dylan as a.

As somehow, which was true, too.

An absolute child, but yet the coolest grown up in the room.

Yeah.

I don't know how they do that.

The bomb bath that Dylan had to.

Have had, you know, the little detail of, like, he can make coffee.

How did he learn how to make coffee?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dylan going electric was probably something he was going to do no matter who said not to.

In fact, he probably did it because some said not to.

And.

But the thing that they give us, which is true to the story, is that it scared him to death.

I love that he didn't know if he.

If he had ended his burgeoning career, but he just wanted to try something and then he continued to do it for about a year and a few more months in the face of booing.

Not just for one night, but for a year.

And you don't get to see that in the movie because it would be a three hour movie.

But, you know, he.

He goes over to England and they're booing there and he.

And he gets so fucking sick of it, of the booing.

At first, he's very funny with it.

And then by the end of the.

The whole world tour and you can hear it in some of the recordings, he's just like, fuck y'all.

You know, I know what I've got.

This shit's actually in tune now, you know?

Yeah.

That.

That complete dedication to.

On both Sides, as the fans and as him, the creator.

Like, he's completely committed to an idea, but the people there are so passionate about this other idea.

You know, there is no passive part of that relationship.

And I think that's nostalgic for all of us where, like, I couldn't imagine that any music would shock anyone at this point.

Yeah, that's.

That's the trick.

That's something that people can't get their head around.

Even me sometimes.

I asked some students of mine about Dylan Friday and they.

They hadn't heard of him.

And when I explained it to him, you just can't project how much of a bomb that was, how shocking that would have been.

Yeah, I mean, there's no.

I can't.

I'm sure that someone who actually lived through it would say the same thing about trying to tell me when I was in high school, you know, even though, like, I.

You can intellectually understand that.

But this was the first.

Not the.

Because I've seen the clips, but the movie did such a good job of making that real.

Does the movie make that as important as it probably was for you, a viewer?

I thought so.

Yeah.

I thought.

I mean, because there's a bunch of ways to do it, right?

Like, you can make him.

We've already kind of touched on it.

Be like the unapologetic badass hero who just rolls in and does this thing.

And I'm right, you're wrong.

This is the future.

Deal with it.

But you get both sides.

Mm.

You understand why the traditionalists want to.

You know, they've worked so hard.

Now they have.

The Chosen One has come to elevate the art form to the masses.

And it's working.

But now he's going to betray us and he feels weird about it.

And I mean, it's.

It's so well done.

Like, it's.

Yeah.

It had to happen, you know.

Yeah.

You couldn't live.

Like Dylan was beginning to live.

He was getting accosted everywhere and that had to have been exhausting and still is, I would imagine.

But I mean, the scene of him getting punched in the face at the bar.

Yeah, I don't.

Did that actually happen?

I.

I've never heard.

Never heard if that's ever.

I doubt it.

I've heard like, beat for Beat, the Celebrity Store.

Like, Tom York famously got punched in the face when he.

Oh, did he really?

Yeah, he, like, went out to a pub and this was when.

Because I would assume British attitudes toward fame are a bit more resentful than ours.

But it's.

It's like, well, this was New York.

It's.

I don't know that they would use the word uppity, but like, you know, who do you think you are?

Yeah, kind of.

I punched this famous guy in the face, you know.

Yeah.

I think that there's a good moment in the film where it's.

It encapsulates that Dylan's response to it.

He's surrounded by all these fans, many of whom just want something of him maybe to punch and maybe to see him, maybe to.

In our day and time, it would be take your picture with him.

Though they did have cameras then.

And a girl says, you know, I won't be at the venue because it's sold out.

And he rolls down the window just a slight crack and he says, I'll sing louder.

And that.

And that's just pure Dylan from that era.

One, because it's hilarious.

Two, he's acknowledging I'm no longer doing acoustic.

And three, it's also you, but you.

Wonder even that the times are so heady and confusing.

And here's this guy who is a lyrical genius and seems almost like a prophet or something.

And people are such, again, maybe more predisposed to take big ideas seriously.

Like, oh, here's like a signpost in this confusing landscape.

And then he starts moving.

So you understand both why you'd want a piece of it and why you would be upset.

And that's.

This is all.

Obviously we're kind of veering into biographical Dylan stuff now, but this is completely what the film is about.

To me, the.

The key to the film, I think.

I think it might not be as great as it was, but for a four minute scene.

And that was Pete Seeger sitting down with Dylan in the early morning.

He's brought coffee into the Newport Hotel and he says, we all had our teaspoons, putting dirt, try to balance the scales.

And you brought a shovel.

And I was like that.

I don't know if that conversation happened but that makes everything important that's happened and everything that comes after.

All these actors were cooking, though.

You know, there's the Joan Baez.

I thought Elle Fanning did great.

There's a.

There's a really good scene where Joan is trying to figure out they've just slept together.

And Joan's trying to figure out, are we.

Is this.

Is this a date thing?

Is this.

You know, what's.

What do we have here?

And she asked him something along the lines of, what do we have here?

And since he's playing guitar, he says, I don't know, which could be an answer to the song he's playing or what.

Or what.

She's asking him about their relationship, and then she just simply turns it on him by saying, well, let me have that song.

Then the relationship with the two women, obviously, you're.

You're gleaning different things from each one.

The scenes where they're doing the photo shoot in the apartment, and it's like he's gotten a $10,000 check, and things are starting to accelerate.

And that's kind of like an old conceit in these sort of biopics, right?

Like, whoever's with you before you're famous, now all of a sudden, that's a strained relationship.

The way that they did with this one, that.

That final conversation where she said, you're like, the guy.

I feel like the.

One of the plates that the guy spins on Carson.

Oh, yes, that was so good.

And Dylan even gets in a line like, I kind of like that guy.

Yeah, he said so.

Exactly what he said.

It immediately grounds him in this.

Like, he just loves this weird Americana, circusy kind of stuff.

But then she says, I'm sure it's great to be the guy spinning the plates, and that just hits you like a ton of bricks.

But she says, but I'm one of the plates.

Yeah, that was just such a good version of.

Of that arc that we're kind of familiar with.

And then the Baez arc of him immediately giving her for her songs being too pretty, essentially trying too hard.

I thought that was, you know, somebody who was kind of the top of the.

The heap, then meets the one, you know, and it's like, obviously she's gone on to be pretty good herself, but.

Sure, she's had a great career.

Do you have thoughts on Cash here in this version of Cash?

I thought this was.

Might be the ultimate version of Cash.

I.

I have heard that they tried to get Joaquin to do it at first.

Oh, really?

That would have been fascinating.

That would have been pretty good.

But I think it worked out for the best.

I think it worked out better.

I love that you just get this unhinged, you know, on speed and drinking.

He's not reformed.

You're not going to see that art close.

No.

And, you know, the tramp.

Mud on somebody's carpet or so good.

That's a.

That's a real line he wrote in a letter to Dylan, and he stood up for Dylan a lot.

That's not a little.

It's a little overplayed in the film, but he.

He still did it.

I think he wrote an open letter to Village Voice or sing out where he wrote in capital, all capital.

Let.

Let the man sing.

Dang.

I really wish they would have tried to mimic the one apocryphal story I've heard is that when Dylan first met him, though, they exchanged letters.

Dylan look is so small.

Dylan's a small guy and Cash is a big guy.

He said he walked all the way around him and looked while looking up, and he said, yeah.

I like the way that they played it because they're.

It's almost like they have been, like, Instagram buddies that they met in real life, you know, and, like, Dylan's almost a little bashful about it.

Exactly.

At first, but.

Yeah, that was great.

All right, last thing.

Final scene, Dylan visiting Woody in the hospital one last time.

If you're gonna make a biopic that doesn't try to.

A lot of time, I feel like they get too clever for their own good.

Right.

Just tell me a really good story.

Do it sequentially, even.

You don't have to wow me with, you know, filmmaking here.

That's a great way to leave off.

Yeah, it was.

It was bittersweet, but, yes, I thought it was very sad.

It was a little overwrought, but still sad.

Yeah, You.

You could have conveyed that idea a thousand different ways.

But to have Dylan visit Woody in the hospital, give him the harmonica back, and then kind of lovingly look at him as if to say, I made my decision.

Yeah.

I can't.

I can't come back from it.

Doesn't mean I don't love you, though.

And then the jump cut to the really loud motorcycle, and we know where that goes.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, he's still riding the motorcycles, right?

Or he was.

Yes, he is.

So we.

We have a buddy, world.

We have a buddy who interned at a studio in Louisville where they said, dylan's coming.

Yeah.

And, you know, he's.

He's the lowly intern so they're like just be out of the way, blah, blah, blah.

And they had a garage attached to the studio.

And he said when they.

Him and his posse pulled in, the building shook from the motorcycles.

Jeez.

Well, let's shift gears into that's so funny into some more scary.

I suppose the details from the latest from director Robert Eggers.

His take on Nosferatu.

Y'all have at it.

Tell me what worked for you and what didn't.

It's been noted as being maybe too slow, maybe a little dilatory.

What do you think?

I almost don't feel like I can be.

I didn't watch it with the critical eye.

Does that make sense?

You just watch it for fun.

Not that I'm saying like I sat down, I was like, okay, turn my brain off more.

Is like this movie put me in more of like a sort of mood than movies.

Anything else.

Yeah.

And that.

And if I'm just like.

If I'm in.

I find that really hard to analyze.

Does that make sense?

I think the term vibe has been just like run into the ground at this point.

But this was kind of a vibe piece.

You know what I mean?

You.

Even the points that it was making, you feel them as much as you.

Which is a credit.

I mean, it's a good movie, but.

This may be too much.

But like spiritually with the first, I feel like it linked up kind of with the.

The 22 Nosferatu, where it's just like I don't need like if you just show me like a succession of im that don't necessarily make perfect sense, but like have that kind of weird like dream or nightmare sense where everything seems hyper real or elevated.

I'm like, oh, that's gonna work really well for me.

I do think the.

If we get into specifics of.

You're talking about dream sequences.

Nicholas Hoult, I think is always good, especially if he's playing the kind of in over his head.

Maybe he has like selfish motivations, but is not like a bad guy.

He just kind of.

Even when he played Tolkien, it was.

He was like kind of naive playing that role.

When he goes to the village and then kind of dream sees or does see that weird sacrifice thing happen and then goes into the castle.

All of that sequence was so surreal and so great.

I thought there was just.

Yeah, a lot of like the coach and like just the.

The horror and uneasiness of it.

It felt like a movie was like, oh, I don't need anything super explained.

Like this is just like.

This is a malevolent force that humans are afraid of, but kind of don't know.

Like they come up with their own explanations for it, right?

Like, oh, he's a.

He's a magician who sold his soul.

But I think the, like.

Like him just kind of being a malevolent force.

At one point, Orlok himself says, you know, I'm just appetite.

I'm just hunger.

Like that.

That's kind of scary to me.

Right?

Like, like, like there's nothing more here.

There's nothing interesting.

There's nothing more than just like this hunger.

Did it say something differently than the two previous versions for you especially, maybe in the context of the years they.

Were produced, just because on it, walking out and this was a con.

I think I texted you all this, but I was like, that felt like an older movie.

That's right.

You did say that.

It didn't feel like a movie from 2024 necessarily.

I don't.

I don't know what that means and I'm not going to justify it.

That does make sense.

It's been noted for its gore too.

Is that right?

Did I.

Have I read a headline that's right about that.

There's a few gory scenes.

Did it feel ridiculous with its gore or something?

Because it seemed like.

So the headline was alluding to that.

I think, by and large, at least in my recollection, it does a very good job of kind of letting you imagine the worst of what is happening.

Right.

Like there's a scene where, like, he's very clearly finished killing some children and you don't really see the.

The deaths, but you see him toss a body, a silhouette of a body aside.

And the way he feeds is.

Is fairly grotesque as well.

And hot.

And hot.

Oh, super hot.

I mean, we haven't even started talking about the.

The sexuality of all of it, which is fairly intense is what I have to say about it.

Is it.

Is it more sexualized than the.

Than the other two?

More overtly, yes and no.

It would almost have to be right in 2024.

What they do kind of have a really good thread running through all three of them is like, you really get this kind of like, gross sense that this thing is like a disease.

Yeah, like, like.

And you almost have the, like, like it's kind of like horrible for anyone, much less a young woman, to be touched by this, like, kind of like, revolting thing.

And he is purely revolting.

There's no.

At no point is like a handsome man standing there.

No that, like, changes by night or whatever.

I Gotta tell you, I loved the way they did Bill Skarsgarden as Orlok.

And I feel like they made him look almost like a, like a.

Like an End of Napoleonic wars ulan.

Like he's, he's, he's.

Even for the time that he's in, like he's a little old fashioned.

You know, like he's kind of up with the times, but he's.

And I just thought like he just is placed so well there.

I thought that was.

I really liked.

And the.

Some people might be very annoyed by it, but the.

He had like Darth Vader breathing which worked for me too.

Where it's like this body is deceased.

Yeah.

Like it should not be touched.

It's.

It's a corpse.

This guy is walking around and he's dead.

I mean we want to throw our ibuterol at the screen while we're watching it.

Yeah.

Clear those lungs out, buddy.

It did.

You know you said earlier in the.

The initial talk about this, it feels like an 1840 whatever Gothic piece.

It did work as such.

Like a little, you know, the things contracted the whole time.

Right.

And you obviously there's things like with how seriously are we taking women and their complaints about medical issues that are being talked about.

That absolutely.

That, that felt of.

In a good way of his time that you're throwing the absurdity of that into relief.

And then you got somebody like Willem Dafoe showing up, which I think I texted you that he made me laugh.

But I'm not sure that he was completely in control of when that happened.

That is exactly.

My feeling about, about his character is like I was delighted to see him because it's just like he's, he's out of his mind.

This is great.

He's always going to kill it.

And he.

Yeah.

As insane as they made him as that, that expert kind of figure, like he was unhinged at all times.

You know.

And it was the classic kind of like this guy's crazy, but these are crazy circumstances.

We just have to accept him.

Right.

I thought it was you said earlier talking about different films approach to the effect on the city that it has.

This one had such like.

Like I thought of Camus, the Plague the whole time.

Like everybody's kind of suffering through this thing.

That a man accompanying his wife and two children to the graveyard is like not even the saddest thing that's going to happen that day.

Right.

Just a Hellscape and the plague imagery really felt like Camus.

And also Herzog I think did a really Good job with that.

Willem Dafoe is like.

He's like Nicholas Cage when he shows up.

You know he's never going to give it less than 110%.

Like you just don't really know what's going to.

I love it.

I found him very entertaining.

And yeah, the, the creepy sex stuff, very good.

We're in spoiler territory.

Is there just blatant sex in it?

Not as such.

You're being coy here.

There's.

There's penetration.

So at the end of the movie, Lily Rose Depp's character, basically Willem Dafoe realizes that like they've got to destroy his resting place and they've got to keep him out passed on.

And like he literally can't resist her.

So she's like, yes, come to me.

So she's naked on the bed and the way he feeds is he kind of bites you right on your breastbone.

So he's like this tick or bug like over her and he makes these really gross like gulping noises.

Okay.

And so, yeah, it's pretty.

It's pretty gross.

It's pretty intense.

It's good.

It was good.

And then.

And then he does.

Stays out.

Right.

And his body crumbles into.

To this horrible desiccated thing and she dies as well.

So he dies on top of her?

Yeah, he dies on top of her with like this dried up body.

Yeah, on top of this.

This lovely young woman.

And it's pretty gross.

I think it works well like a lizard brain level.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

No.

Well, we all want to go out.

There's definitely some lizard brain in universe decision making with Nicholas Holden.

Her like him trying to like retain.

Is retaining ownership the way to explain why they have that angry sex?

Yeah.

Interesting choice of words.

Yeah.

You know what I kind of wondered at the end of that scene is because there's been some stuff that didn't really.

Did it even happen at all because we've seen her mental state, has had some dreams that seem pretty real.

I like the ambiguity.

I don't think you can prove one way or the other.

I like the ambiguity of it.

Give me.

We should have done this earlier, but give me a five star ranking here.

Give me a letterbox.

Five star.

Three for me.

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't know if I want.

I would even say I probably not.

Five for me.

Like I don't want to oversell it, but I don't want to undersell it either.

It's maybe four, four maybe.

Maybe higher.

If I watch it again, it could go up or down, but we'll say a tentative four.

For me, I like this.

This is a tentative four and a recommendation.

You can watch it at home.

I liked seeing it in the theater because of the production and the sound design.

I felt like that was very fun.

Also, I went to it by myself, which is great because then I can eat as much popcorn as I want.

God can't see me in the theater.

God can't see you.

I think that's what Pete Wee Herman got in trouble about in the 1990s.

Our last movie is one that's actually not as much about God, maybe.

I don't know.

It's streaming on Peacock.

Play along, if you will.

Earlier, we said we'd recommend it.

It's conclave.

It's about a secret voting technique for the Pope.

That's what conclave is, and it garners more and more mystery upon each scene.

I, for one, am happy that at least one religion is able to have a little fun at its own expense.

Wasn't this commissioned by the church?

Do Catholics believe in Jesus?

Are they the.

Is it a religion Catholics?

Your evangelical is showing Blaine.

He was raised Baptist.

He can't help himself.

Guys, I went into this movie not knowing a damn thing about it other than the name and that it, you know, the commercials would say it's intriguing and that, you know, that kind of thing.

And I.

And I glossed over that.

Whatever.

So early.

Early and often the music did the heavy lifting for me because I would go, oh, wait, what is it?

Is it really this kind of movie that deserves this kind of music?

Because again, I thought it was just going to be about a conclave.

Maybe there was an issue here or there.

This guy didn't get along with this guy.

There's a little back biting, and God damn some back biting.

All right?

But there was.

There was a lot more.

I loved it.

Some high tension.

I really appreciate a movie.

I watched it with my wife last night.

I really appreciate a movie like this because there's.

There's a particular scene in here where I got to lean over to my wife and say, did you get that?

It's the Holy Spirit.

And then she divorced me.

Well, you hate Catholics.

It's been.

You've said so on this podcast of how much you just hate Catholicism.

So let's go on.

Let's get into that.

When you go back through this one, I really do.

I really wish I would have given it the attention it deserved.

Which is not to say I wasn't, because I was watching it it's propulsive.

Every scene leads to the next one, and then the next thing leads to the next one.

And it's perfectly well done in that sense.

I wasn't playing on my phone, but I was taking kind of notes on my phone.

And I would get lost in a note and be thinking, how could I fray?

And then I'd look up at the screen and go, oh, God, I missed.

And I rewind it for, like three minutes, and it's a.

That happened.

Well, the other thing that it did to maybe exaggerate that is you got some subtitles, but not all of the subtitles.

That's true.

At first I was wondering, do I have the subtitles on?

Do I need to turn them on?

And I think that that is like a clear indication that this film respects its audience enough to, you know, if you're.

If you're listening to people, Cardinals in Rome talk.

Yeah.

They may just lapse into Latin at times, and you don't know what they're talking about or you're supposed to infer or you didn't catch all of the, you know, someone speaking in Spanish just off screen or Italian or whatever.

And you.

Yeah.

Are meant to just infer, glean whatever they're.

They're actually getting at.

Everything in this movie felt as though it's done nicely and they trimmed the fat perfectly.

Early on in the film, you get Ralph Fahn's character speaking to the cardinals there to cast their votes, and he's talking to them about doubt.

It immediately took me back to the play in the movie of the same name.

So I was trying to figure out where is this movie wanting to sit.

I quickly came to the conclusion it's, oh, this is a movie that's about politics and religion where there's not really.

It doesn't matter who God is or what you think God is.

This is about the.

The political.

Well, and it's.

That's what I thought early, by the way.

Let me.

Let me just say this.

In the first 30 minutes, things change.

And.

And, well, so I feel like, like.

I said at the top, you're always with.

With films that center on religion.

You're trying to figure out how seriously that film takes the religion it's talking about.

And I think this was done.

These were allowed to be very intelligent men who had power agendas in a political sense.

But also, I mean, you see some of them completely break down over what they would consider a moral failing or, you know, Ralph Fine's character is a cynical read and a different outcome would have made him this puppet master, this master manipulator the whole time.

But by the end, through his subtle acting and the script, of course, it's just this guy who was trying to do his best, or that's the sense that I had.

Me too.

Same.

And if you had a lesser cast, I don't think that you can pull off all of that nuance.

Like, it took a.

Just a stacked list of actors to make this tick in the way that it did.

It was kind of underneath all of it.

And I think that this is what I pulled from those great actors, too, with the kind of, like, doubt and certainty.

Is this almost bigger question about what religion or metaphysics or whatever gives you.

Right.

Like, we want that certain.

Don't we want that certainty?

We want to be very certain.

And it's scary to have somebody who's like, we're.

I don't know.

Like, we'll figure it out, I guess.

And I felt like there, you know, there was that kind of good push and pull, too, because I was the whole time watching it, I'm like, you know, I'm.

Obviously, I want some of these people to be pope and some of these people not to be pope.

Yeah.

But it's hard.

But, boy, it's hard to found a religion on uncertainty.

Yeah.

And like.

Like a.

Like a something.

And by that I mean like something that works in and of this world politically, not necessarily in the ideal form, if that makes sense.

Can I give you all a.

On that point?

Did y'all catch the.

The reference to Yates that happens when.

Yeah.

Yes.

So absolutely.

When Tedesco tells Lawrence, things fall apart, the sinner cannot hold.

And he's referring to losing the Latin liturgy as like, the founding.

That's the center for him.

Right.

And that you need.

It's like Donovan saying, in a way, you.

Especially towards the end or at the end when he gets up to give his speech about, like, the enemy is at the gates.

This is not theoretical anymore.

We need certainty.

We need all these things.

I went back and.

And read just the stanza that things fall apart, the sinner cannot hold is in.

The rest of that is mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood dim tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passion and intensity.

Which, of course, ends up being the man who brought up the Yates in the first part, which is so good.

That's so good for a movie.

I can't think of many films recently that have sent me to, you know, the bookshelf in that way to catch listeners up here.

Ray Fonz plays Thomas Lawrence.

Stanley Tucci's Bellini, who is.

It seems like a viable and, and quite acceptable candidate for Pope.

It seems as though that's who the audience should be rooting for.

John Lithgow plays Cardinal Tremblay, who matter might not be okay, but he seems to have some sort of secret which Cardinal Lawrence is going to figure out for us.

And there's the, the head nun sister and her.

That's the Isabella Rosalini character.

And she kind of helps out Ray fonts to, you know, she, she gives him access to the computer after he tells her, you know, I really, I really need to know what the previous Pope on his deathbed or in his last days had done with Tremblay.

What's going on?

Why, you know, there's a couple of secrets I need to know so I can be the dean here.

This felt like a movie to me from the early aughts.

Remember how movies felt back then, like they didn't have to have bombast, but the, the, the excitement was in who was going to do what next.

You mean movies for adults?

Yeah, I do mean movies for adults.

I've never seen one.

So the Catholics is a religion.

They're making them less and less.

Well, they, they set it up early on with Tucci's Bellini saying, can I keep this chessboard?

Right.

And he says, I played with the Holy Father.

Did you ever win?

Oh, oh, God, no.

He was always eight moves ahead.

That's right.

And then.

Which makes you think he's just.

How much of what to follow did the, did the dying Pope kind of maybe try to lay out?

And it's, it's playing with your expectations the whole time because you have this guy show up who nobody knows, and he's, he says, I'm a cardinal.

And they, they investigate and you know, they've already.

Shortly after that, they again invoke the eights, where something's slouching towards Bethlehem and we're supposed to be a little anxious about it.

I don't know.

Yeah, it gives you some baked in.

Suspense because you just, you, you're suspicious of everybody.

Yeah, you're suspicious.

That's it.

You're thinking, is Thomas Lawrence the worthy one?

Is this new mysterious figure from Kabul?

His name's Cardinal Benite.

Benitez.

He seems genuine, kind.

Is he worthy?

He seems very quiet, very.

Forgive my word choice here, but demure he seems.

But then you get Stanley Ticci.

He Knows the ropes.

He knows that I can be, you know, 80% progressive, but still kind of be 20% good old fashioned Catholic.

And that's where we need to be in this day and time.

Well, I love that he draws the line in that.

The.

I'm going to call it the movie theater.

When they're in the movie theater talking, he says, yeah, you can say all of that.

I hold these liberal policies.

Let's not talk about women.

Yeah, yeah, Exactly.

That's the 20% of us.

Yeah.

Yes.

That was another thing, the movie just to jump on women dead for me, that I thought, you know, it is very tense and you're not sure who to trust.

Just the setting with the cut, with the art, with every, with the, every the Vatican City setting and the, the way that, like the women just kind of like serve these men.

It's like, oh, there's like real power over real people.

Like, there's power and money involved in this.

And without like saying it, I think it just showed that so very well in a way that really, really worked for me.

Well, who wouldn't want to be in charge of this?

Right?

Yeah.

And again, that's given weight.

Like the.

Now we look at Vatican City and think just the millions and millions of dollars, billions of dollars wrapped up in it and the ostentatiousness and all these things.

But it's beautiful art.

And they're making these decisions that they believe, or at least a lot of the men in the room believe, that God is trying to work through them to accomplish something.

Which is like the headiest thing you could possibly participate in.

Oh, yeah.

But at the same time, they're being served by these women who are, you know, all along there's the great establishing shots of, you know, their play too, with like, it's funny to see cardinals on a bus.

Yeah, yeah.

That they still do have to indulge these modern things.

But, you know, the women going early to cook all of these, they just do such a good job and they.

There's two moments that drove home the power dynamic you're talking about, Donovan.

One is when Cardinal Lawrence finds.

Goes into that office and pretty well insists that he talk to the Nigerian nun and pulls rank and does it.

That's really the only time you see him throw his full weight around and you get a glimpse of like, oh, he could be kind of a monster if he wanted to be, that this position would allow him to do that.

But he's not.

And he's actually the other brothers probably kind of think he's naive when he starts investigating Tremblay.

Yeah.

Lithgow's character.

And he's sending his assistants essentially out to investigate it.

It's like.

Is he sending them into actual physical danger?

Because these are very high stakes for these men.

A different movie that becomes like a high speed chase through Rome.

Right.

For sure.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Then there's Daime and he's one of the possibilities.

And it's.

He's.

He would be a great representation for the.

As Pope because he would be the first black gentleman to be the Pope.

But he's strictly anti homosexual.

And it.

So it's like every one of them have this.

I said before mystery.

But they all have this also negative component to their personality that's really hindering them.

Who do you want to end up with it.

That's a little of what propels the action.

As the film goes on.

You notice that Ray finds Thomas Lawrence character has something weighing on him.

You really.

You see it in the opening scene because he tears up.

He gives them one tear.

Weeping silently over the Pope's death.

But it feels like more than just sadness.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like you think they.

Were getting it on.

Well, he breathes very heavily throughout the entire movie.

His.

His Thomas Lawrence character.

That was a choice to have that audible breathing.

Did you.

Did no one notice this but me?

It's like every scene.

I don't think I noticed it.

He sounded like Tony Soprano in everything.

They did that and the other clever sound thing.

Pure aside to what we're talking about.

But did you notice how many.

How much bird song there was?

Yes, there was.

I did notice that.

And the.

Yeah.

And the breathing.

I'm telling y'all, go back and watch it.

It's the breathing.

But the bird song is always somewhere else.

Right.

Because they're sequestered and they do such a.

Like, it's always in the sister's room where they're looking at the computer too.

It's really.

Well, there's that.

The actual bird, but you can hear life happening outside of the buildings that they're in.

And obviously it really happens with the almost on the nose moment where the breeze blows through because the bomb has been.

Yeah, the hole's been blown in the building.

Yeah, that's.

That's the Holy Spirit.

Blaine, what explains Ray Fonz crying once more?

And the only time you see him crying is when the Pope dies and when he goes back into the room and he holds his glasses completely works.

For me as like this was an important relationship that he Lost.

Yeah.

And also, it seemed like.

Brother, I don't.

I'm not gonna express this well, but Brother, Father Cardinal Lawrence was really, like, kind of upset and disturbed by the unromantic practicalities of being a religion in the world.

Like, for me, right.

Like, I'm involved with my church and, you know, we are sort of.

You know, I go to church for many of the same reasons that I read books and watch movies and appreciate art.

But, like, at the end of the day, like, also, we have to, like, keep the lights on.

You know, like, people.

People fight over money.

It's.

It's grubby.

It's not.

This isn't money, but, you know, this is power.

You know, people get mad.

People.

It's very unromantic.

And like, Father.

Father Lawrence is almost like.

It's a.

It's a.

It's upsetting to him that he's been told that he's going to be the manager, that these spiritual things are maybe for other people.

He's just gonna.

He's just good.

He's good at spreadsheets, basically, which was.

Interesting because you don't.

You don't fall backwards into being a cardinal.

Like, how has he not had this crisis before this point?

I find it striking how much the film mirrors our own conversations as a public.

When we're electing officials.

Yeah, the easy read on this, because it came out, I think, two or three weeks before the November election is which.

I reject that read on the movie.

I don't.

You know, it's a German director, a British writer.

It's clearly an international film.

Obviously, American elections have international importance, but this is the conversation that's kind of endless, right.

Like the.

The conservative impulse of, there's real danger.

Let's circle the wagons.

And I've, in my reading, people said in the book, Tedesco gives that speech at the end, and if he just cut himself off, he probably would have been elected Pope.

But he liked the sound of his own voice too much.

Yeah, I could see that with that character.

You know, honestly, it's great to finally see a film that takes a strong stance and the perfidiousness of Italians.

This.

And Daisy Miller, all of.

To me, it's a movie about how what secrets have more weight than the other secret.

Everyone has their own.

But then you end up with Benitez getting elected.

And I suppose we can go ahead and get into this ending.

It's the one that's driven all of the right wing crazy, which, of course, easily avoided because I never look at that stuff.

But apparently there's so much online from Catholics and right wing who keeps saying that this movie had an agenda.

Which I would like to say, if they're listening, you're a fucking idiot.

Because that's not a valid complaint.

Every movie ever made has an agenda.

Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that, Blaine.

It's like even Happy Gilmore.

I'm sorry, have you seen maybe the wizard of Oz or.

Every movie's got an agenda.

So that's an invalid complaint.

So, yeah, you get this idea that Benitez has gone to Geneva.

And then when they say it wasn't a hospital, it was a clinic, of course, my mind, My idiot mind goes, oh, he's addicted.

He's got a.

He's got a cocaine addiction.

He went to a clinic, a rehab facility.

But no, he went to Geneva not for an illness, but for a laparoscopic hysterectomy.

And for those who don't know, that's a.

It can be a gender affirming operation.

It helps a person transitioning to become a man.

It can be that Benitez says he did not accept the operation, so he still has the uterus and ovaries.

I think.

Yes.

It just flips the entire way you see the.

The movie and your mind goes back to the beginning and put places, everything in order.

Well done.

You know, you.

You applaud it for where it got you there.

And it did so without pulling the rug out from under you.

And it did so to me, people that are.

I think back to George W.

Saying, I don't do nuance, you know, like.

Like, we couldn't tell.

Like, if you're upset with this, someone having an actual medical condition that is free of identity politics and sexuality in 2025, to me, is a callback to the idea of certainty that they're playing with the whole time.

Right.

Yes.

It's wonderfully done.

Yes.

And I perfectly fit.

I just don't think.

If that upsets you so much, I don't really.

I don't know.

I'm sure there are also a lot of Catholics who would be upset by the idea of, like, the three young women at the end who appear to be in high spirits walking across that courtyard, being the parting shot as, like, this is the future, you know, and there are people who wouldn't like that so much less someone with complicated gender would.

Would be very problematic to them.

So it's.

I just.

The outrage over it.

It was fun to go through.

People who saw it in theaters, they were surprised by how reactive the audience around them was to things.

Who.

You know, they talked about people standing up and leaving at that point.

Which is comical because there were like four minutes left in the movie.

Yeah, there's.

If that.

Yeah.

But also, I don't understand.

Culture war has a concept.

So some.

Yeah.

And I'll agree, like, yes, it had an agenda.

As Blaine said, every movie ever has an agenda.

Right.

Like, it has an agenda.

It has a point of view.

And I did.

And it was like.

It was a little on the nose.

Right.

But like, we.

The.

The kind of reference to.

Right to Pentecost with the wind blowing through.

And then Lawrence is kind of inspired to cast his vote and this thing happens.

And I kind of like, at least from the perspective of my faith, it made me think exactly of St.

Paul when he's like, you know, there's no longer male or female.

Like, there's nothing.

There's just people in Christ.

Really.

Completely.

Like, blows up all the identities that we have.

And he's like, God's going to do this new thing.

And so there's.

And like.

And you don't understand it because nobody can.

And I kind of like that where it's like, oh, no, this is going to be the new thing.

Like the things that we thought we knew.

Old broken.

To quote our good friend Lee, old broken things are fixed.

It also says to me that nothing matters with dogma.

This is the way it's got to be.

So if Benitez is the kind, gentle, wonderful soul who will lead us into the new century wonderfully and pleasantly, that doesn't matter because, yeah, he didn't have the surgery or how he was born.

You got to be dogmatic.

Yeah.

There's a real.

There's a really bad side to it where we have.

We.

We have reimposed all of these strictures that we're told we're free from.

Yeah.

But at the same time, the movie, you know, I remember in maybe the 2000, 2005.

Right.

People election after John Paul II.

Yeah.

People talking about, you know, why.

Why is the church.

Why haven't they elected anybody?

Or where are these issues going to come up?

Blah, blah, blah.

And a representative said, the Catholic Church thinks in centuries, not months or decades or any of these things.

Not in a way that makes it unreactive to, I don't know, pedophiles being amongst their ranks.

So there's not great aspects to that.

But.

But I think in this.

It did a great job showing, like, this is this institution full of mystery and tradition.

And all of these things, and you're.

You're shown that these are not inherently bad things before the progressive conclusion, I think.

Yeah.

And you're even.

To go back to Tedesco's little speech, you're kind of sympathetic with him for a second, and you think, oh, this is how fascism happens, because these people still have dust on their clothes from a suicide bomber.

Well, they do let Tedesco be the coolest of the bunch when he hits the vape.

That was hilarious.

I love that.

That was so good.

He does hit a vape right in the middle of proceedings.

That was so funny, man.

It is.

That scene's worth repeating.

Is Rossellini in the movie after she does her curtsy and walks out?

Nope.

That's her mic drop, right?

That's it.

Yes.

Yes.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

Yes.

Excellent use of her and excellent use of her decision making to.

To do this, although I didn't know she was retired, but.

Yeah.

One reason I did love the movie, though, is that Megyn Kelly, who's really into the notion that the letter Y may certainly be a vowel, she.

She claims the movie embarrasses Catholics.

She said a film like this would never be made about Muslims or Islam because she.

I guess she suddenly cares about Islamic religions.

Why?

I guess because they.

I don't know.

She didn't say why.

She just says that that would never happen.

And that was an attack on the.

Filmmakers on the film having an agenda.

An agenda to embarrass Catholics.

I think the Catholics came out looking pretty good in this movie.

I.

I would suggest Megyn Kelly, like, watch anything by Abbas Kirastami from Iran, who is not necessarily making a movie about, like, choosing a next religious figure, but it's like, is making movies about Muslims very much in conversation with Muslim life.

And they're beautiful.

And they're beautiful.

Donovan, he's great.

And also, he kind of went to jail for it.

I have bad news, Donovan.

She.

She's not gonna.

She's not going to.

She's not going to.

She listens to this podcast regularly, but she won't.

Nobody with those kinds of takes is engaging with it.

Right?

You're just.

No, it's just that.

No, she just sees the black.

She sees the news or.

Or the reactions.

It's that.

Just add water.

Outrage.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, everything is very economical almost to a fault when it comes to Benitez's election.

I felt like that just happened in a snap of the fingers.

Again, it could be my fault.

I could have been taking a note at that moment and just looked up and like, whoa, he's elected suddenly.

I mean, there's a little bit of, like, he gave a great speech, and then they're like this, let's make this man.

Yeah, he did.

Yeah.

It happened pretty quickly.

That's the only thing I docked it for.

I told you earlier I would tell you.

It's fine.

Yeah, I agree.

I agree with you, Blaine.

And that's also fine.

To me, that was the one.

The speed with which that happened.

And then, you know, they rush him into that side room, the famous room where they dress him and all this stuff and.

That's right.

Yes.

Lawrence bust in.

That.

All of that did feel a little out of step with the rest of the pacing.

It did a little rushed, a little tacked on.

I'm glad y'all felt that, too, because I was worried I missed something.

I liked the way that they revealed that he had won.

Where you're thinking, people start clapping and Lawrence stands up and it's.

Is he about to accept their.

Their vote?

And then he begins clapping and looking along with everybody else.

I thought that was great.

But the.

The way they arrived, especially to be so exact about a lot of the traditions.

And then, like Donovan said, let's make this man our leader.

Even though they have no concept of his religious politics, you know, his theology.

It just seems a little.

You don't even know.

I mean, he gave a great speech, and I agree with it.

But, yeah, like, he's.

He's been.

For.

For good reasons, but he's been a cardinal in secret.

Right?

Yeah.

So you, like, sort of know about his career, but, like, you don't know about him as a leader, as an administrator, the outsider, or.

Or pastorally.

Right.

Like, you don't know what his pastoral care is going to be like.

I think he got over the top when he said that he wanted the Gulf of Mexico to be the Gulf of America.

You beat me to it.

I was about to say he said he likes popes that don't die.

That's what got him.

They don't get captured.

Yeah.

All right, gentlemen, we're going to wrap it there and hope you enjoyed our conversation and dissection of these three movies.

It's rare we did three movies, and even more rare that we do two that weren't streaming yet.

Shamala is open to doing a trilogy of Dylan movies, he said this week.

Has he really said that?

Yeah, he really said it.

They should do this like Boyhood, where it's like they wait, they just film like 45 year old Timothee Chalamet.

And then like they wait 30 years and it's like 75 year old.

I think that's a great idea.

He's the host of SNL this weekend.

He's also performing.

And is he gonna do Dylan songs?

Don't know.

We haven't heard.

What if he brings Bob out?

Geez, come on.

I feel like that's not beyond possibility at this.

It's not beyond possibility, but no one would know, including Timothy Chamon.

Up until five minutes, he just show.

And then, you know.

Can.

Can Timothy change keys?

That's important.

Probably.

Hey, man, I'm telling you, when he played gospel plow or like fixing to die, you know, he went in as Dylan.

I was like, oh, yeah, he took his lessons.

No, it was good.

Where they dropped D string and was running on down it.

Oh yeah.

I.

I hope that his monologue this week is just his thoughts about the College Football Playoff.

That would be cool too, because I liked him on game day.

I like.

I've always, like, what era of.

I feel like everybody should go if they made a film about a specific era of Dylan.

What are you going with?

I already have my answer.

Dude, you got to hit me with that.

Religious era.

What the was happening.

Oh, yeah.

Action then.

Yeah, that's my answer too, Blaine.

They would really.

That would.

That's fascinating.

Like, is he doing cocaine and worshiping God or is he like really into it?

Like not drinking, not doing nothing.

I'm with God.

I really want to know.

He was pretty angry at his ex wife for not letting him be a Christian when he wrote the lyrics.

So maybe some of that in there.

Wow.

Yeah.

So is that your era, Adam?

No, I would have him and it would exclusively be him and Lanois riding around New Orleans.

I mean, just hijinks.

Yeah, hijinks in New Orleans.

That's it.

I'd watch it for the three of us.

I'm Blaine and we will.

We're on our weekly bullshit.

Thanks for listening.

Talk to you next Tuesday.