187: Whiplash (2014) | Favorite Movie Endings

Hey everyone, it's Alex sharing an exciting update? Go to our brand new website, a podcast for all of your what are you watching needs right to us by merch, donate. And after long demand, we have finally joined Patreon. What are you watching? Bonus features is our Patreon feed. We're doing biweekly episodes. Ton of fun uncut content. We already have episodes live over there, so please head to Patreon and find what are you watching. Bonus features. Now to the show! Hey everyone! Welcome to What Are you watching? I'm Alex Woodrow and I'm joined by my best man, Nick Dostal. How you doing there? Weepy wallow, shit sack. Oh, Jesus Christ, we're not even going into the whole entire. Oh, you guys see what you did? You you missed you. You can include some things from one movie, then another. What do you mean? No, that's one of his. That's one of his best. His best to them. You, Yeah, that I wrote down all of his best insults, just like he drew specifically, so. And that's one that he calls him. I thought you were making a reference to obsession for the. Oh, wow. I didn't even do that. Well, yeah. Weepy wallow. That's right. Because it's the the willow tree. The willow, the willow. The one wish Willow. Oh, you call weepy wallow. You know the English language. Only one vowel can really just change a whole entire word as you like it. Listen to this one. Limp dick. Sour note. Flatter than their girlfriend. Flexible tempo. Dipshit. Couldn't even get through it. Flatter than their girlfriends. Flexible tempo, dipshit. That's how you win Best Supporting Actor right there. You make that shit sing as J.K. Simmons does. What a performance. Oh, God. Yeah, I'm excited to be here specifically because our last main feed episode, we did all of Damien Chazelle, the whole big filmography. No, I mean, I sure did. We covered every movie we were. We're very passionate about all of them, particularly, you know, the most recent four. And we've given Babylon, like, a lot of audio on the podcast over the years. You know, we're always trying to sing the praises and increase awareness of First Man. We are always down to talk about how well La La Land has held up. But no, we're going back to a major start. Not the official start, but Chazelle's first big announcement whiplash, a movie that took this country by storm and indie that made a ton of money, won three Oscars. And it is still it was released in 2014. It is 2026. The popularity is only grown. The younger generation picked it up. They love it. It's just gonna it just keeps going. So it's a very popular movie and I'm excited to be talking about it. Sometimes the deep dives, you know we do a little smaller movies whatever. But this is a big one. It's a big one. Well, and it's a big one. And again, this is one that has been really on our radar of doing a deep dive, even before the idea of doing a full on Damien Chazelle filmography episode. We had always been been like whiplash as a deep dive would probably be a really great episode that's going back to like, year one. We've been talking about this. Yeah, absolutely. I think even the fact that now six years have gone by since we've even started talking about this, the lure, the popularity and the reverence for this movie has just increased. This is going to go down, I think if we're already talking over ten years and people are still viewing this movie as one of the great Indies, it's in. It's that good. It will always hold up to. This is a I can't ever imagine the the timelessness of this movie ever going away. You could watch this 30 years from now and it wouldn't feel dated. It wouldn't really feel anything other than very what it is, which is just a really good movie. Yeah. I don't, I do not see it going like its popularity or love going away anytime soon. It's I had a note. This is stupid. I mean, it only applies to like a very specific type of film watcher. But letterbox, you know, very a lot of people, a lot of movie lovers use letterbox and this is, I swear, wrote down stats. It is something crazy though if you they have a coveted list letterbox top 250 and those are the top 250 most logged movies. So like what is the most seen and most liked? I think that's I think that's how they're doing it. It's not just the movies that have gotten like the highest reviews. It's also, you know, most all that stuff. This is the highest. They're like interstellar is like a little a little just right above it. But then I did some, like number crunching since whiplash has come out because it came out after interstellar. I don't believe any live action American movie is above it. Like truly and so and I think it's number 48 right now as of this recording and in numbers one through 47, there are no American live action movies. I think one of those, like Spider-Man, you know, the fun one, like the animated one, I think it's on there. But no American live action movies above whiplash on that list. So that's wild. And then when you keep going down, you have to go pretty far to get to a live action American movie that has been made since whiplash. That's on that list. And I think the next one is Dune two. So like, take all of this with the greatest songs due to is not we're not the biggest fans of it. On what are you watching but that's you know, we respect aspects of it, but still, it's just by a way of saying that for users of Letterboxd, whiplash is insanely popular. I've logged it three times just this week. Or no, I rewatched it for the shizzle pod. Then I watched it with the commentary, and then I rewatched it just this morning. So it's fresh, you know, watch it straight and it does not ever get old. It just moves and cruises and we're going to get to this. There are some people who do not like it. I'm not saying it's universally beloved by every single person who watches it, but probably respected in one way or another by everyone who sees it. Do you really know someone that does not like the movie? We talked about this. Don't you have fun too? Because they have coaches? Yes. Okay. Yeah. My dad. My dad would never say I don't like the movie whiplash. I believe he would say that one's hard to watch. I don't know if I can rewatch it often, but, I mean, yes, he deserved to win Best Supporting Actor. Like, oh, that won Best Editing. It absolutely deserved to like, I think most. Oh those last ten minutes unassailable. Can't take anything away from I think that is what you'll hear a lot. But no, I don't know anyone personally or online who's ever been like one star, you know, half star. This movie sucks. This movie is bullshit. Yeah, I'm sure they exist, but we're talking in general in mass. This is an incredibly beloved film. I mean, and it's that good. I mean, for anyone who votes this as one and a half stars, turn off the pot or stay tuned, because maybe we'll tell you why exactly. Also, I'm doing a little math here. We're recording this a little earlier, just a few weeks earlier before the release. But I believe this is going to be released in the beginning of July, which means that this will be our closest released episode to our anniversary, because the first time we published an episode was July 10th, 2020, right in the middle of Covid. We recorded it a few months before that. So yeah, that's six years of what are you watching? And we've come a long way. We've done a lot of pods. We are now on Patreon. What are you watching? Bonus features. Go to a podcast. Com for merch for all of your what are you watching needs? We are out here but yeah, happier pod anniversary. We're using the whiplash pod for it inadvertently, but here we are. I mean, it's it's fitting. I mean, I mean, it's we're the only real pod out there that's ever going to release for Christmas a whole entire Ingmar Bergman, you know, dive filmography. So, I mean, it's only really fitting that. How do we celebrate our anniversary with whiplash? I've been very proud of the Christmas episodes over the years. Did that Manchester by the sea commentary not review a commentary for Manchester by the sea? Yeah, they've been they've been fun. Another thing I'm going to tease this is going to take place in this episode. Again, if you listen to our Damien Chazelle pod, Nick out of nowhere, completely did not prepare me for this at all. Said, well, I'll let you say the take, and we have a whole category at the end of this episode where we are going to explore this very brave and fun hot take, probably the biggest you've ever unveiled on this pod. But give it to us here and we're going to take you're going to give it to us. We're going to talk about whiplash, and then we're going to pick it back up. Just to be clear, I mean, I've said it, I meant it. I'm here to represent it. I think whiplash has my favorite ending to any movie ever made. And since I've made that hot take, which, I mean, I've had so many good hot takes on this show. I mean, what are we talking about? So many. I mean, that's why people here, it's a tough one to beat. The Halloween one, it's not even but this, this, it's it's the best take. And you're just an idiot, right? That's been my problem. Oh. The chair. It's the height of the chair. Now you have it right. Oh, that looks great. I love that so much. That was nice. That was a fucking problem. Thank you. In relating to my hot take of favorite movie of all time I have put together now, I did a top ten because that's what are you watching? I did a top ten of my favorite movie endings. Good. I'm glad you did that. I'm also going to tease that this is I mean, that's a that is a fun take from someone who has seen, I don't know, 1/100 the amount of movies I have. Hey, you call me an idiot. I'm fucking coming for me. I mean, I am not. Well, I mean, the Halloween, I mean, it came AV 980 it, but I mean clearly just so nonsensical. My list I'm only doing of the 21st century so far because I tried to do all time. I couldn't make it past the 40s. I found a few in the 40s that I like better than that, and then the 50s and the 60s where these were like no brainers for me, where I went, yeah, but that's not to take anything away from whiplash. But then I came up with I didn't rank them or anything, but I have like 7 or 8 really, really good ones, some of which we talked about on the pod. And we'll be careful there. I'm not trying to like bombshell, all these endings, like at the end of this episode, like spoil all these movies I can give. You can say whatever you want. I will take care of us in editing because we're not just going to like, firebomb all these spoilers about movies, but you know, there's a way to speak generally about ending. We're going to say everything about whiplash, obviously. But yeah, I am very excited to hear your list. Very excited. Because again, as someone who's watched this movie three times in two weeks and twice in the past two days, I'm just on the edge of my seat for the end. The entire time, every viewing I'm. I'm chomping at the bit. Okay, good. Well, hang on to that because we'll get there. Love it, love it. Okay. Whiplash is you know, it does. Well 2014 at Sundance. Very well. It wins the Sundance Grand Jury Dramatic prize. So that's like the people, you know, on the jury who vote and it wins the audience award. That didn't used to happen a lot. It seems to have happened a bit more since whiplash for far less good films, in my opinion. But that's okay. We're also covering this because this was Nick's 19th favorite film in his list of the 21st century best films of the 21st century so far. I looked it up. It'll still be on that. My my amendment amendment. That'll be episode 200 when we amend it. Another reason why we're covering it, which we've already kind of alluded to. They made this for $3.3 million independently. They shot it in 19 days. They shot it in Los Angeles. Despite being set in New York. They had one pickup day in New York for exterior shots, like when he's standing in front of Carnegie Hall. And it does contain one of the reasons why it lives on so well. It just contains one of the most unassailable, fantastic, Oscar deserving performances since it was released. But absolutely, of this century so far, it is whether it, you know, it ignites some traumas. Former Travis in you, whatever it is J.K. Simmons is, Fletcher is it's just a miraculous feat of the art form of acting. Not to be grandiose or anything, but. Right. No, you're exactly right. And I think that's I think that was very well said. It is. It is a true masterclass on on everything that you can do with your appearance, with your voice, with your instrument, with your choices. He did a lot of his own costume. Yeah. I loved hearing that. Yeah. So this was really like, you know, an actor that really took on everything and it was all his choices. Listening to the commentary between Damien Chazelle and J.K. Simmons for the movie whiplash, you know, when you look at a director actor commentary, sometimes you kind of worry that it's going to get overwhelmed by the actors. Yes. You know, this is why solo acting commentaries are usually very rarely good. And I mean, like, almost never, unfortunately. Yeah. And and they don't go to indulgent or J.K. Simmons does not go to indulgent with his bits. But the thing that I found the most interesting was Damien would always kind of give his opinion, like his take on what J.K. was doing or what he was after in the scene. And I noticed that more often than not, J.K. had a very, very opinionated stance on, well, no. I was either like, fuck him or I'm going to make him great. Like they're like, whatever. Damien's sort of interpretation of it was, J.K. had a hard stance as a very black and white sort of, because that that's that's who he was as a character. So I love that, because that just means that J.K. Simmons was doing his thing and just, you know, take after take, just delivering gold. And Damien Chazelle, along with the editor, were just sifting through all of this, I mean, delicious performance and crafting it, however they did. But to think that the director had a whole different idea of what was actually going on in Jake's mind, I love that. I think that's a very that lets you know to also that the director allowed JC to just do his thing. Yeah, they I listened to the commentary yesterday. They have a few of those conversations. I don't remember what it what one is, but it's when he's conducting and he's like, oh yeah. And I came out, this isn't it. But he's like, oh yeah. And I come in really aggressive because I'm mad learning about, you know, my former student has died. And then you hear Damien like, no, no that's not it's because like this and that. But but I love how you put a dark spin on it. And I'm listening to this going, nah, man, it's what Jake said. Like, whatever. I mean, that's like the intention, but yeah, just Jake be like, really? That was what you meant by it, to hear them go back and forth. I mean, that helps add, I don't know, like some dynamics to the character, certainly, because neither of them are incorrect. Neither of them are wrong. Yeah. What they're saying exactly. What's so cool? Because it is it seems like a one note character, but he's not. The glimpses they give him of his humanity really mean everything. You know, a lot of movies, you get flashes of someone that can, like, flash their inhumanity or like flash their violence. This is the opposite. This is a mean, evil motherfucker. But he he still has a heartbeat. He still has a pulse. And there's a soul in there somewhere. Even if we see, like, you know, 60s of a total. Yep. And just in just hearing the passion behind Jake's choices and, you know, and listening to him recall them, it was, I'm either going to make him the next Charlie Parker, or I'm going to chew him up and spit him out. Yeah. For the actor to kind of have that sort of hardened stance on everything that you do, it just influences your choices that much more. Because. Because you can't be thinking about as the actor whether or not like, oh, this is where we kind of have to give the we have to kind of give some space for the movie because the movie is trying to do something right. Like, that's the director's job. Yeah. Your job is the actor is to play the truth of what you are doing in that scene, because no one, you don't go through your life and do the things you do on a daily basis, thinking of the days, you know, perspective of everything. It's like, you know what I mean to the next. Yeah. And and this is always an issue that sometimes happens with actors is like, yes, you do kind of need to know like like the overall story, but where you're at and what senior shooting, you're just thinking about you, what they need to get in this scene. And that's how Jake talks about it. Yeah. And it's great. Discussions are really interesting to hear from, you know, articulate actors who have played villains. Like we're recording this before. We've seen Disclosure Day and before we were a week before we've recorded our top ten Spielberg. But Schindler's List will make my list. And I have been studying the Ray finds performance is really a miracle because he is such. I mean, he's one of the most brutal, evil people to ever exist in real life. And then I remember him on Inside the Actors Studio telling James Lipton, he's like, how do you like play that? Like, how do you bring? And he goes, well, what he thinks he's doing, he thinks is the correct thing. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, Terence Fletcher is not at that level. That's not what I'm suggesting at all. But Fletcher thinks he's doing the right thing. Fletcher. Fletcher does not find faults. You hear him say a little bit. Yeah, I, I pushed. Did I push hard? Yeah, but God damn it, I tried, I really, really tried. And he thinks he's doing the right thing and he plays that perfectly without. It's a really difficult thing to play such a skilled villain or such a skilled, whatever bad guy. Like, I mean, to play it so well, it's just to not make it one note, to not make it flat, or you never really know what you're going to get from this guy. We expect he's going to. Yeah, storm into a room and the doors are going to just fly open. But sometimes he walks in and then you get a little sneak and it's like he's being genuinely cool to that little girl in the hallway. Like he's it's this isn't like performative. Like it's a genuine 30s from him. Okay. This is interesting. Absolutely. And again, like you hit the nail on the head like if you are playing a quote unquote bad guy and the villain of the movie, you, there is no other way to go about it. You have to play it as if what you you believe in your soul, what you're doing is right. If that's blind to others, then they're the problem because you're like, I can't be bothered if you don't like this. I am on a mission and I am justified. And and that does mean because you can be on that mission and then see your friend's daughter down the hall and, you know, and give her that kind of like, compassion and like sweetness, because that doesn't have anything to do with you like that. You're a good person, like, oh, that's my friend's daughter. She's she's so big, you know, but now I'm going to get back to my thing because this is what I do and this and and and fuck you if you don't. I mean, I mean, honestly, we're just talking about Jake, but that goes for anything because there's no good villain performance. There's no bad guy antagonist. However you want to say performance where they know that they're evil unless you're the Joker in some ways. But that's a little bit. Yeah. Because, yeah, he's a he's a literal agent of chaos. That is what he's doing. So he's just like, I'm an evil dude running around. But as you and I have discussed before, one of his big like his big credo is do I, you know, really look like a guy with a plan. And I'm like, oh yeah, plan some stuff. Come on, don't. You've rigged up like boats on bomb. You know, bombs on boats, like, come on, you play. But he's always he's so contradictory. That's what makes that character a lot of fun. Exactly. But when you look at, like, I'm thinking of Louise Fletcher from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Oh, yeah. Which is always like a great one to bring up because you feels the audience so much vitriol and just sort of like angst and frustration because that's what Jack Nicholson feels. But she truly believes she's doing her job and she has she has a standard. I will make sure all of these patients are safe. I will make sure that they are taking their medication because this is what they need to get better. And and to her, Jack Nicholson is the problem. She's he's the one that's not. And and and so she never plays it evil. She never is like I'm going to do all this or that. Yeah. She doesn't like, give him false medication or something. And then she basically just follows procedure by the book that I love joining the, the headspace of villains. Like, well, you know, it's a fun path to go down if you've seen a movie a bunch, like we've both seen whiplash a lot or all these other movies were referencing. Not, of course, not agreeing with them. I highly doubt that actors playing them agree with them, but it is still a lot of fun to just you look at like, training day. That guy needs money, that guy needs money tonight or he is dead. And whatever he has to do or say or whatever crime scene he has to fabricate, that's what he has to do. And that's like his, you know, grand motivation. It's kind of fun to be in his shoes. Like, this guy must be actually shitting his pants all day, like he's putting on a good show. But if he doesn't pay, you know these Russians don't fuck around if you don't pay him off. Bye bye. Yeah. Or even this is just the in one battle after another, even though he's not the main villain, but it's the performance that you really love from the the army guy. Yeah, yeah. Because again, he's not a main villain of the story, but he is just someone who is participating in the world and doing a certain job. That's very questionable morally in a lot of ways. But he believes he's justified. That is, that is his job. He maybe may. And this is the interesting thing too, is when you get people like this, that may or may not actually believe in what they're doing, but they stand by the job. It's my job when when duty goes over your own values. See, that's when you get interesting characters like that because there's always a choice, but they end up choosing duty. That's Oskar Schindler not to go. And exactly what happened. Him. Yeah, that's exactly what happened to him. What are their names and where do they live? Oh, I love him. God, I love him. Rather mean one battle, Howard Somerville. All right, speaking in this villain, I, I don't know, I'm like, should we just stay with this villain stuff and get to the movie later? Because I think a huge thing to talk about. And I was going to talk about it during the chair throwing, hand slapping scene, but we need to set like block off some time to talk about Fletcher's abuse and the way that he treats his students and how the audience can perceive that. And it's just I it really is a the first time I watched this, I didn't I probably did just see like, wow, screaming villain that you know. But in the Chazelle episode, I kind of alluded to like, thank God this guy is just a musical teacher because the whole time he's just grooming all of them. He's doing all of those disgusting tricks luring, luring the men with, making them feel special. Like when he calls him out. No. Not you. And when he first calls him out in that first class, you know, being all cool, like, oh, yeah, what did your dad do? Oh, man. You know, just take it easy. And then, you know, of course, we see the venom and the violence, but it's always this, this wave, this, like, roller coaster going up and down. You never know who you're going to get. But I it's it really is a fascinating portrayal of someone who has power and abuses it. Yeah. Yeah. And I just yeah, I do think the abuse is worth talking about and like how we feel about it as, as real people, as people watching a movie, all that stuff. And to hear JC talk about, you know, again, his whole entire thing, he looked at every single student that came into his life and he was either like, well, you're either going to get up after I beat you, like I'm going to knock you out, and you're either going to get up off the mat, get back on your instrument and get better and become what I'm looking for, or you won't. And then like, you're like, I got no time for you. So. And then if you kind of just look at the measure he takes off, that's his whole entire thing, then that's exactly how he treats everybody. Like like it's sort of like, all right, are you going to be able to take this? Oh no you didn't. And so you're out. So moving on. What are we doing next? How about you you you you think you can handle this? Let's see. And then so it's just and and he's okay with that. Like that. That's that's his method. And then that method just really just doesn't really know any bounds in terms of where does all of this go? Does it go into. And it goes into all of it. It goes into verbal abuse. It goes into physical abuse. Oh yeah. It's manipulative. I mean, it covers the gamut on how you can physically and psychologically fuck with somebody. Yeah, in a pretty short period of time. Yeah. One of the most beautiful things about this movie, in terms of what it's after, is that question that they say at the jazz club, you know, the two worst words in the English language are good job. But then after you're hit with that beautiful like line that lets you know about who Fletcher is, and you can actually, I think everyone can kind of wrap their heads around that. You can agree or disagree, but you can see I see that. But then immediately Miles Teller's line is but is there a line that's the crux of the whole movie. Yeah. Is that right there? And then what does he say immediately? No, man. Yeah. So another reason I wanted to talk about this. This is something that either like I had lost sight of. And I want to get your opinion on this too, because my whole thing when I watch this, I mean, I'm 40 years old now, so I'm speaking from a very different perspective of someone who would absolutely never tolerate anyone to talk to me this way, blah, blah, blah. But I did grow up with someone, my brother who just talked to all of us this way, and I was so just like vitriol, verbal vitriol was so constant. It was daily physical abuse too. And that, you know, it's not fun to admit, but it did kind of harden me in a way. And my whole point is, I think the reason he gets to get away with this is because he's young. Miles teller is young and scared, and he thinks this is his only way out, but then jump a little ahead like Fletcher's abuse is now. Abuse is now very well known because they fought on a stage and Fletcher ends up getting fired. But then also Andrew gets kicked out of school. So it's like, if you just would have said something you want. I mean, nowadays I feel like I was laughing at this. Nowadays, I feel like you could go to the Dean on day one and be like, why did this teacher tell me to show up at 6 a.m. when class doesn't start until nine and the teacher would get in trouble? But I mean a chair throwing as soon as the teacher is, you know, smacking you in the face. Now, if a guy is intent is Fletcher, Fletcher is keeping you behind and making you like, have drummer versus drummer versus drummer, you know, round off and you're just going going for hours and hours. That could be within his balance as a teacher. He could be allowed to push you that hard, I don't know. But the the constant like belittling and the crass insults and then the physical abuse, I'm just like, man, if you would have stood up for yourself and gone to the proper authorities, he probably would have been fired. You could have stayed in school. But it's like they he feels like this is it. And he's telling that to people all the time. Like he talked to me today. He noticed me today. Like this is at the dinner scene. You know, this is yeah, the most prestigious, like, musical thing in the country. But you you ended up losing your position in the school. He lost his position, and then you still kind of ended up I don't know, it's a great lesson in that, that I do not think the lesson is you have to endure such abuse to become great. I don't think, and I think some people have misconstrued it as that. But that's not what it is. It's just, you know, it's just two people who are one guy who is a very specific way and a kid who's going along with it. And that's what makes it so fascinating. But yeah, don't put up with this shit if someone's treating you like this fucking well. Yeah. You bring up a very good point in just in terms of generational just. Yeah. No. Because like when we were kids, like things were not really talked about like, like if, I mean, I went through a whole entire year of, of, like, legitimate verbal abuse and bullying by a teacher, by an actual teacher who didn't do that way for no reason, just ridiculous. And kids. Yeah, this happens. It's. Yeah. Yeah. And the and the most that happened was I would I told my mom and my mom threatened to beat up this teacher at a parent teacher conference. Good. Like like there. Yeah, exactly. But there was no, like, case made to the school about it. No administrative action. No action was done. It was. It was just my mom being like, all right, well, I can take it to the fucking streets if you keep treating my son like this. Did she? I mean, did she keep treating you that way or did you back? Well, I mean, unfortunately, the year was kind of getting to the end. My mom had already talked to her a few times about it, so it never really ended. But I mean, without getting too much into it, one realization did come from the teacher. My teacher realized after my mom had laid into her about how irresponsible this is. My mom basically just told her, like, you have no business being a teacher if you are, because my teacher wasn't even aware she was doing this, but she says what she sort of realize and told my mom. I never realized that I don't like a certain type of personality, and apparently I was that personality. And so she just used her power just because she didn't like it and then treated me the way that she did. And and it was I almost kind of like now looking at like, Fletcher, I was like, well, at least he had a fucking purpose. Now defying Fletcher's actions at all. But yeah, like he is. Yeah, he is looking for greatness. Yeah, but your teacher is just like a mean son of a bitch. And my brother had very serious mental health issues. Issues. So. Yeah, there's different scales to all this. You will remember that in in our friendship I had in the history of this pod, actually a a boss who can only be described as a corporate sociopath. This person was out of their mind. I'm talking all the horror stories. You've heard of a boss. Like constant calling after hours, constant calling on weekends, emails, texts, constantly. I started the company before this person and it's one of my I say this line all the time. Ocean's 13. They were trying to get me to quit. The problem was all the people they needed to convince that I wasn't an asset at the company. They liked me more than they liked them. So I love that it like it did. It fucked with me. It broke me down. It it hurt for like, I mean, I was an adult. This is not that long ago. This is like, this is about six years ago. And man, I was just an agony. You knew about it. Ali knew about it. Everyone did. And my dad was just like, it can't maintain. You just got a hold strong. Keep your cool and people, it'll start. They'll start to get a reputation. And that's what I did. I took a lot of notes, wrote a lot of stuff down, recorded some conversations because you could legally do that in Washington, DC and built a case and then went to people I trusted within the company. And within a matter of weeks, this person was fired, like, get the fuck out of here. So that but, you know, if I if this would have been my first ever job and I was eight, if I were right out of college, 24, it may have broken me to the point where I quit. But, you know, now, I had some had some strength to me. But it's still however, I come off on this part of like, oh yeah, I would have whatever box or whatever, like I'm still there. I can still very much be broken and fucked with, like, absolutely. There's no question. Especially when someone has control of my money, when they this person didn't have the authority to fire me, but they could have gone to people who could have fired me. But when you start messing with my money, I'm like, oh my God, what am I going to do? All of this and that? And it's just, yeah, like you did not have that recourse because you were very young. I'm glad your mom stuck up for you. We haven't mentioned how old you were, which I think is very important. But when you had this teacher. But. Yeah, I was in fourth grade. Yeah, that's a fucking nonsense. Like my. It burns my skin. Now, whenever you tell me the story, like, that's fucking ridiculous. And and and just to give a little bit of context to it wasn't just like, like a teacher for like one class. Like the way that I went to an elementary school was like, the tiniest school ever, where your grade you had you were in the exact same classroom with lockers in the room, with bathrooms in the room with the exact same classmates. And the teacher taught every single subject. We had that too. Not bathrooms in the rooms, but yeah, like my fourth grade teacher, we got to school at 830. We sat in her classroom till 330. That just just her class? Yeah, it's just her. So it was it was just like an all day just sort of thing. And I mean, and I can say like 90% of all of my shit in life is it came from her like, like so like of that year. Yeah. And 100% of mine came from my brother. It is. It's just the truth. Like we can't. And and in the grand scheme of life, your thing was like a year. But when you're in it and you're eight, nine, ten, that is your world. Like there's nothing like that is your world. So that's why it stays with us for so long. When you're young and especially that young, you don't have any kind of understanding as to why. So you can, you know, come out of it as I did, as you did. But we can't exist. It's so much harder to kind of deal with all of that stuff because you don't have like a frame of reference. It's just so raw in there, and it doesn't really ever kind of go away. You just kind of learn how you just, you kind of go through like the checklist of like, oh, I feel like this because of this, but I know how to deal with it now. I've equipped myself with tools, I've done work, I've done things like that. But even if you're someone like Miles's age, see what you were saying about, you know, when all of a sudden you want something in life, when you're going down a competitive road, whether it's a job, whether it's being an actor, when you are on the doorstep of where you want to be or where you want to go, and there is a person that does gatekeeping all that power. Yep. That's a big part of what Fletcher does. And I think that's why there's such a beautiful talk about Paul Reiser character, because we don't have many scenes with him. But that is an older man that has been through life, and we get an idea from him and his soul, really, that his point of view is you may want this now, but if this man is treating you like this, life is not worth like not it's not. And and again, I think this is what we're saying is like the younger you are and shit like this happens, the harder it is to reconcile. And it never gets easier. But when you get older, you you do learn that so much of what we think is important or what weighed on us, it's all just because we haven't lived enough to put together perspective or and realizing to that this happens everywhere, to everybody like this is we're not we're not alone in how many people are affected by life's shit. And it ranges, it varies and we're none of us walk out unscathed. And the older we get, the more you just sort of realize it's not worth it to put up with that. But then you're talking to your son and who's a man on a mission not very dissimilar to J.K. Simmons character, Miles teller and J.K. Simmons. To me, in this movie, they're cut from the same cloth. They're there are different points in their lives, and they have different things, but they are after that same greatness. And that's another big question of the movie is, is sure J.K. Simmons is sure dishing out some very, very awful behavior, but Miles teller is character. He's coming back for more. He's come. And then even in that drummer reverse drummer, you know, rage off there, he's the only one who doesn't really look scared. He's like, all right. I mean, he looks exhausted, but it's like. And I think they even mentioned that in the commentary that, yeah, he's he's just going going. Yeah. He's showing up for more. If he seems to be in a place of if this is what it takes to be great. This guy obviously has a reputation. The school has a reputation. I don't care. Fine. Let's go. There was something that Damien Chazelle said in the commentary that I thought was just a very simplistic, but also very profound viewpoint of the movie. He's like, he goes, essentially, this is a drug movie. It's just loved that, that it was like a cocaine movie. He's like, I wanted it to feel like the especially the sequence of like the jazz competition, like, well, especially for got the sticks. Gotta go back, gotta get the car, gotta go all the bus, blah blah blah blah blah blah. That very much feels like Leo to like, the hell you want to see helicopters, you know? Oh, I said oh. Oh, wow. Hold on, little break for the diddy. I haven't done this in ages. Business bad. Fuck you pay me. Oh, you had a fire. Fuck you pay me, please. Got hit by lightning, Fuck you pay me. But you don't drive down Broadway to get to Broadway. Really funny guy. If he tries anything, I'm gonna shoot him. And if there's something out there and it comes in here, I'm going to shoot it. And if any one of us tries anything, I'm going to shoot. You. Jump into the fire. But you never knew. All right. Okay. There. When? That was awesome, I forgot that even existed. Yes. Sorry. It does remind me of that Goodfellas. And then he just. Yeah. Mentioned it. Like I wanted to feel very kinetic. Very. Yeah. That energy. Well, even that scene. But even the whole movie, the whole movie is an addiction movie. It's just the drug of choice is drums. And he and he gives it up as some addicts try to do. They try to like, okay, I'm gonna I'm going to put the drug in the closet, you know, or in this case, the drum set in the closet, but then keeps it. It beckons you. You see that enabler? You see your old teacher, he gives you, he offers you. Use whatever metaphor you want. He offers you the pipe back. Whatever. He offers you a chance to live in your addiction, which is performing for the mad man. It's great. I do love these type of characters that we're talking about, though, one as we were going, and it's one of the reasons why I love waves so much because I don't I wouldn't call Serling K Brown a monster in it. I would say he's he pushes him to a point where I think he has crossed the line. But again, would his son have done all the things he would done if he had a supportive dad? I always like to think, know, like if he had a dad that he could go to and be like, look man, my shoulders messed up and not. I mean, look what happens when his shoulder gets toward his smithereens like surly K Brown's standing back there looking so disdainful. But this is what I mean. Like, if you have someone in your life who's pushing you, pushing you, you don't have any escape. I try to do something about it because you might end up, you know, in a car accident, as in this movie, or killing someone as in other movies we've referenced. Whatever. But this is one of the best movies to it since it's been released and before. To just play with this whole dynamic, the, you know, the tutelage, the teacher with cruel tutelage, all that stuff. It's very. I've also heard, in addition to making it like a drug movie, he wanted to make it like a boxing movie, like with the cutting and like staging people on opposite, like when he's at the conductor stand and he's the drums. It's kind of like different corners of the ring, and I never really put that together. And I'm like, well, that tracks for me, you know, the close ups of Blood on Sticks, like close ups of hands or I've. I never put that together. And I went, okay. Yeah. So even investigating the movie now, a movie we both already loved, I'm finding even more reasons to love it like this is this is the power of this very small 106 minute movie. It's crazy. Oh, I love you know, I'm thinking of all the visuals. They're always diagonally diagonal. Each other. Like in a ring. Like in a ring? Yes. I never around. Exactly. You're doing round and they're bloody in the face. They're tackling like when I got when I likened it to the not me, but when I heard the likened to the close ups are like, you know, Raging Bull, blood on the ropes. It's like, yeah, we see the blood on the drumsticks. We see it's the sweat. It's all working like in a way that makes the movie endure. And it is JK Simmons and it is the editing. As much as I love Damien Chazelle in the movie would not exist without him. Of course, if he did not have Tom cross as an editor and he did not have J.K. Simmons in that performance. The movie is not as strong or as memorable as it is good movie, yes, but that editing, I that was the thing that I remember most the first time watching it. I was just fucking dumbfounded and mesmerized that they were pulling this off. I have a lot of notes as I was watching the movie. Like insert shots can often be very annoying and very like I get it, you want me to see this? And a lot of this comes down to timing some insert shots, especially in movies or TV shows now, because they want us to read so many text messages. It's like they hold things for too long. Like, do you see it? Okay, wait, I'll come back to it. Did you see it? Did you see it? But with Andrew, like early on, it's just, you know, seeing that other drummer, like chatting with his girlfriend, like moving her hair back and just give that, giving us a little insight into Andrew. Like he doesn't have any love in his life. It's perfect. Right down to the blood on the drumsticks, which are perfect. Yeah, well, you get into his, you get into his head space very, very well by the way of these insert shots, because they're happening so fast and we're just tracking what he's noticing. You're you're paying attention to the things that he's clocking that either he wants or, or is nervous about. Like looking at everyone tuning looking at everyone, doing all of the things. So he's noticing everything, tracking everything very fast. But you can see it and we gather. Yeah. When he's seeing like the the guy and the girl. Like being flirtatious. Don't have a girlfriend. All right. That's a problem for me. But shit, they're all getting to like, do I have everything? Like, you can just see it all and there's no. Yeah. We're not spelling out like. And if you missed one of those, you're going to be fine. You'll be fine. Yeah, you'll be fine. That's another okay. Fantastic point where my criticism of some insert shots are too. They hold on to them for too long. Some insert shots are so important that like it's literally a second going by. And if you missed it, you missed something crucial. It shouldn't be that either. None of none of them. Yeah, it shouldn't be that important. But like yes, really extreme close ups of like the sheets of music. It's not doing it all the time. But when he does it, it's so well earned. Like exactly like here's a great example of when we should have seen that. I don't know, maybe in the Dune fight scene in Dune Part two where apparently he has a knife. Where where do you get the knife? Where do you get the other night, folks, every time I bring this up, I've had some lovely, kind, positive discussions on letterbox with people about this very thing. And the general consensus I'm given is he just would have had multiple knives on him. And that final scene, it is like a knife on knife fight, and Shalom just pulls out a knife from nowhere and that's how he wins. And I was always confused by that. And then last Oscars you'd I sat down and damn near as much as Netflix would allow. You can't go frame by frame, but like, we rewound it so many times and I'm going, there's no other knife here. But yeah, that could have been nice. A little insert shot there. Sometimes you need a little, sometimes you need some insert shots. Helps move things along a little bit or just string all these pieces together. We're going to talk about the Insein in depth. But yeah let's get into the movie a little bit here because it's been a good talk though. It has, it has. We talked a lot about Fletcher. We don't need to ever mention J.K. Simmons again for the rest of the podcast, so that's good. Thank you. Done, done. Okay. The last thing I want to do I wrote these down this morning. So it feels important for me to say I will apologize up front if any of this is offensive. I have taken liberties to bleep out certain words. Some of them I may have to bleep out in post-production because I don't feel good about them. Wind up monkey. Squeaker, pig. Retard. Worthless, friendless, beep lipped piece of shit. Nine year old girl, beep sucker, limp dick, sour note flatter than their girlfriends. Flexible tempo dipshit. Worthless beep fuck darling. Weeping willow shit sack. Or is it weepy wallow? Shit sack? It might be weepy Willow. Damn it. We'd be Willow. Shit sack. Self-righteous prick, fucking weasel. Fucking pathetic pansy ass fruit. Fuck. Andrew, man. Those are all the things that Fletcher calls Andrew throughout the course of the film. Andrew, what are you doing, man? Yeah. So, I mean, these are these are all written to, as I learned in the commentary, these were not ad libs. These were I mean, no, Damien has that. He's got that side to him like he's he's a devious guy. You see it most in Babylon. But there's a lot of stuff in Babylon like that horrible stuff that is being said about Nelly when she's hiding in the bathroom. And that ADR voice is Damien Chazelle, and it's like, there's some he has. He has a mean streak to him, which I love, because he's not just like this fluffy La-La land jazz guy. There is a darkness there. No Jason Reitman, who was a big, a big part of this script getting into. He is the ambassador. He's the ambassador of the movie. He got Jake involved. It's this movie. You know, I, I don't have the highest opinion of all of Jason Reitman's films, but as a producer, he nailed this one. He fucking nailed it. Absolutely. And, and, and Damien was talking about how when he was, you know, Jason Reitman said, oh, Damien's a really nice guy. And then he reads the script and Jason Herman goes, I thought you were a nice guy, but you really you're really an asshole, aren't you? Because you can't really read that script and then realize the person who wrote it be like, yeah, man, you kind of got that in there. Don't you? You got that in you to go back 50 minutes. I think it is weepy willow shit sack. And I said weepy wallow. If I would have said weepy Willow, that would have tied in obsession. So much better. Obsession, which we have reviewed on the Patreon feed. Patreon. The reason why I wanted to bring that up. Okay, first shot movie I was right. You were right, I was right. I believe you were. I'll fact check if it's weepy, but Weepy wallow is like wallow works too. I think it's weepy. Wallow? I don't know, I've taken incorrect notes. I mean, both of them work as one is sad, and one is sort of, you know, you know, you know, prissy, I suppose. Fucking pathetic. Pansy fruit fuck might be my favorite. That is. There's just a lot going on there, a lot of hyphens. The movie begins with a the musical cue that we're going to hear at the end, when he's having him slow it down. I didn't realize that till the commentary, and that's really cool. And seeing the movie as many times as we have, it makes these opening scenes so cool because that opening shot is a long shot. They're not showing us yet that, like this movie, what he is showing us is, okay, you're going to see a lot of like quick, maybe French Scorsese inspired editing coming up, but this movie's not going to rely on that. Even though I said just a few minutes ago that I don't think it would, the movie would work as well without those cuts. He can still maintain really well composed shots. It creates a sense of eeriness because we come to learn it's the POV of Fletcher. It's just it's it's really a good kind of. Set up a preamble before the movie proper begins. Watching these two. The first round one, perhaps? Yeah, but it also sets you into because you see the lighting and you see everything like you are. You are being let known that you are now in the hands of somebody that knows what they're doing. Color palette is fantastic. Greens. Oh my god. Oh, the dichotomy of JC is in the shadows, dressed all in black. Sometimes you can barely see him. And then when you look at Andrew Miles teller Andrew Neiman in this scene white t shirt, we got that Robert Richardson fucking like light coming down with like a fucking angelic halo over this nice kid, you know. So we're really kind of seeing like, you know, you kind of get like those, like that idea. It's not exactly heaven and hell, but it is light versus dark. It is good versus evil in a lot of ways, or at least it's just sort of setting you up for this idea. Or I suppose what I think it more is, is innocence versus. Yeah, I mean, dirt. Yeah, the dark over here. And I love the confidence of letting him where those clothes which apparently were JC that you know, his own words a lot of that's. Yeah a lot of them. Yeah. But that as someone personally who wears pretty much exclusively all black and I have very pale skin, it's just very fun to see like they're they don't care that sometimes he just looks like this floating kind of orb with his bald head in his arms is jacked arms. I love it, Jack. Triceps. Yeah, that's. He worked on the triceps a lot. He's I remember that, he said that's what made made it really look like they were tight on, you know, the arms were tight. Looks great. Anyone if you if you want bigger arms, you got to work out your triceps through the dips. You got to do it all. Triceps. I love a good tricep workout. Hey no one got that tricep meet like J.K. Simmons. Got that tricep meet. It does I mean he's in fantastic shape in it. Another thing even really early on from this first scene, a thing I love about this movie is the confidence in the writing of not explaining things. I've seen this movie so many times, I do not have the slightest clue what double two on the third. I'm not even saying that right. You know what I'm saying? Like I, you know, I get double time swing, I know I can count time, I can. I tried to read music when I was younger because I sang. I never like tempo. All the stuff, even like, oh, tune this to be flat. I don't know, that doesn't make sense to me. Like, what are they doing? It's like he pulls a tool out of his pocket and then twist something on the drums. And as a piano player, play like a B-flat. But how does he know that the the kid is in tune? Like, I don't know any of that when they spit. When the people spit stuff out and, like, water goes on the ground. Is that, like their saliva? That's fucking gross. It's like what? It's crazy. Okay, so like what? The sweat on the drums. Is that from Andrew or is that like. Because so much. I just love that none of this is explained. My what are you watching is a very completely different from whiplash. It's an independent movie that uses a lot of like, big terminology and that the characters would understand. It would be ridiculous if in the family dinner scene, Andrew's sitting around going, well, you know, a five, five, 18, it's on the on the second bar is this is what this means. It would be absurd and ridiculous and I'm so glad they don't do it. I trust that they know what they're talking about. That's enough for me. I just love that. And the thing is too, is like you, you get lulled, you get kind of in a great way as an audience. If you don't know what any of that stuff is, you are both overwhelmed and impressed. Exactly. These musicians, because you're sort of like, because it's okay that you don't know it, but you're like, man, exactly. Your point? How do they know how to do all that? Look at the precision. Look at all of this that they're doing. And you also realizing you're looking at the top a plus level. So when all of a sudden someone says this, yeah, the movie takes care of you in the way, you don't need to know what all these things are, but you'll get it because you'll see what it's at. Like, essentially no. Like even we're going to the whole like not quite my tempo. Something's off, you know, and you're like rushing or dragging. I don't know what that means, but I know what the word rushing means. That means going fast. I know dragging means going slow. So you're able to kind of like you, your as a human being, you can put together an idea in your head of what's happening without needing to be spoon fed. Yeah. I mean and that, that even there's an added layer of element to that because I don't think he is rushing or dragging. I think he's literally in like Arlee Army full metal jacket mode there where you, no matter what answer you give Fletcher in this moment, there is no correct answer. There's if you're silent, he's going to say, well, he makes fun of the the overweight kid for being silent. If you fight, if you talk back, that's not going to get you anywhere. And if you play play correctly there is no correct right now in this moment. There's no rushing, no dragging. He's just fucking with you. He's just breaking you down. Really? You think that I think he I think he is doing that constantly throughout the movie. I believe very, very little of the jazz bar scene when they are having a drink together at the end. I believe what he says in like I believe he says there, you know, the most harmful two words in the English language are good job. I do believe that he believes that. I think the second he spots Andrew, he is immediately going, oh my God, I, I can't believe I ran into him on the street. This is the kid who fucked me over. How can I fuck him over? And I think his wheels are turning right away, and especially out there on the street when we see Miles teller does not see Fletcher. You know his reaction, but he kind of like, puts his hand on his lip and he's like, you know, Andrew, you know, the the drummer is just not not cutting it. I bet that drummer fucking rocked. I bet that drummer was amazing that they were going to have, in the end, all timer like an amazing drummer who for no reason, just got a text or call from Fletcher and said, you're out, fuck off. And he and he's manipulating Andrew the entire time. And I think he took the folder. I think he took the Fletcher took the folder from the poor kid. And he's again, it's just all fucked with like no rushing or dragging. I do not know as I am not a musician, so I cannot say if he is rushing or dragging. But it's the same thing with the out of tune player. He doesn't. He's just doing it to fuck with them. He doesn't even punish the legit player that was out of tune. He says, I, I by the way, he wasn't out of tune, but he didn't know he was. And that's worse. Neither did the kid who was out of tune. The kid who was attitude didn't know either, but he's still allowed to stay in there. The whole point is that it makes no logical sense. You can. There's no pleasing. There is no logic to be gained. There's no like measure of if you go make 100 free throws in a row, then I'll be the I'll be nice to you. It's not like that. It's, you know, because you can't argue that the ball went through the hoop, but rushing or dragging, he's in control here. You can argue that I don't. I think he's playing perfectly in time I don't. That's always been my assessment, that very little of what Fletcher is doing is like, actually, it's all in an effort for control. Breakdown control. He's an Army drill sergeant. That's it. Yeah, I see that point. I, I and I there's no right or wrong answer. I think you're absolutely right in terms at the end with the with the ending for sure. When he sees him, that's now that's his that's his way to completely get back. Yeah. Exactly. Like that's just it. And no. And he does have you're exactly right with like the guy out of tune player I think I've, I think this is just me. I like the idea better that it's like a combo of everything with the rushing and dragging probably. I just like that idea better. I like I like that there might be some bit of like technical, like I am looking for perfection here and you are not getting it. And then maybe sometimes during it he does hitting it, but now we're in it. Now it's sort of like, all right, you were rushing or dragging in the beginning. That's a problem because that's not my thing. Get better. And now now it just sort of kind of goes, I don't know. It's the means to an end. Yeah. It's the means to Fletcher's end. There's that. There's the fuck with three. There is the disaster, the compulsion to find greatness. And then it's like there's also just the confection. Yeah, perfection. Then there's just the complete, like, off balance nature of it, like I'm. And to see, okay, this is this kid's first day in my classroom. I've thrown a chair to him. Now I'm. I'm humiliating him by making him say I'm upset out loud. I'm slapping him. Will he come back? If he comes back to me, will he come back? Fletcher respects him a little more. He doesn't have to. He's never going to show that kid that. But he's like, I mean, he has to. He has to inherently respect it. All Fletcher has to say is, get the fuck out of my class and don't ever come back. He doesn't say that. The kid comes back the next day. So on to another day. Round two. Round three. Here we go. There's it. There's all a bit of that. Like if I keep pushing you. If you do come back for more like. Are you a player? Because if you can run with me, you can run with anyone. This is all the the thinking. Like, I don't think Fletcher is like, let me invite the worst player, the poor leprechaun kid in here. And then just, like, abuse him just to abuse him. I mean, he's doing that to get it at Andrew. But I don't necessarily think this guy is like doing this with, like, musicians he knows are bad. He's doing it to get in some level, try to reach perfection. We jumped. We did jump ahead because we've already, you know, we've had them meet and then we've met. Melissa Benoist I think I hope I'm saying that right. She was in you know, she works at the movie theater, which I love. They're going to see Raffi. It's a fantastic one of my favorite heist movies. Like it's fucking amazing movie. I have it on criterion, but she was in Glee, and then more recently she was in Supergirl, the TV show. And I really, really like her and respect her because she has a difficult Wikipedia page. That is not her fault at all. And I just think she's really cool. No, I'm just saying she's she just thinks she's I do. She's been through a lot and she's come around on the other side and yeah, that's that's you know, I like her and I think she's really good in this. I think the, the asking out scene, which is all in one take which I love. And then and then there's that, the first date in the breakup, they're all played so, so well. And the breakup, which they called out in the commentary really cool that he's doing, you know, the mouth vomiting and but the camera's largely on her. And just her reaction is like, listen to this fucking arrogant asshole. She didn't say that, but it's just all in her face. It's great. She's great. She's great. Yeah, that was the audition too. So that that it's kind of like like the because there's. Yeah, because there isn't a lot of dialog there. So it's you think in an audition maybe you'd get a little bit more of like that, that first date scene where she's talking about her family and all this, or you can do all that. But no, the audition scene was the breakup scene and and. Yeah. And that they asking out scene. That's such a I mean yeah. Again you talk about like the editing. Here's one of those scenes where we just have a complete oner. Yep. I liked Damien Chazelle. He was talking about how this was probably because he said the first few takes, because they didn't have a lot of time to shoot this 19 days. Nothing. It's nothing. It's nothing. So they would they, they, they didn't like because they also would normally had so much coverage to get through. Right. So they allowed because this was the only one that we could probably run with this for a little bit. And the first few takes were all exactly in the script exactly as it was written. Then it started to kind of morph into a little bit of a more like organic. The actors could kind of say lines differently, they just hitting the beats. So Damien said that that scene that we end up with is probably like the second to last take. So they like really kind of finding that they found their way through it, just hitting the beats of the scene. Yeah. And I love again it's calling back to that the beginning. Like when he's holding that opening shot for a while and it's but like also to the first time we go to the movie theater I love, you know the music players up and then we just get all those amazing cuts of like New York and stuff. But if you put it on, if you put it on mute, I counted it's 17 cuts tellers in like a few of them walking. If you put it on me, you're like, oh yeah, this is this is cool. This this looks good. Take it off mute. Oh, you get that music. Oh, you get that music. And he had Justin Horowitz is just singing to us. And again, like, without Justin Horowitz, it's with Damien Chazelle. Like, they're just they're just so simpatico together. And he's such a part of his career and obviously music very important to whiplash. And it just carries through the entire time. You got everything working here. You got a great, funny, kind of nasty but great screenplay. You have fantastic editing, a great, you know, musician scoring it and then most important, great cinematographer and then most importantly, a director who knows how to take care of all of it. And yeah, wow, Paul Reiser is the other character. I've I forgot to kind of talk about him when you mentioned. Yeah, great bit of casting and yeah, he's I mean, I think even their first conversation, he's like it's just all about like perspective. He mentions perspective and he says kind of in a funny way, maybe not. Like I just don't understand you. And, you know, he says that to his son. And it's really that I love watching him more and more and just studying him throughout. And I have we can either get to it now, but I've got I've such a question about his character that I cannot figure out that I want to ask you about, and it is very small, but I've studied. Can I just ask you now? Yeah. Andrew takes a bus and the next and he's, you know, on the bus, watching stuff, watching buddy Rich on his phone, whatever. And then the next cut is Paul Reiser is preparing meal. Okay. So immediately I'm like, oh, this is Paul Reiser house. But then the way everyone is seated at the dinner table, I am almost certain that that is his brother's house. The brothers at the head of the table, the sun, the brothers sun walks in like he lives there. So question one why the fuck is Paul Reiser cooking dinner for everyone? And question two why is he taking ball busting from his brother about the fish being overcooked? These two things are honestly like kind of critical to me, to understanding him and Andrew, because I really don't think that's his house. So I'm like, so he traveled to his brother's house, offered a cook, now his brother's busting his ball like interesting. Well, and to even further, that is Paul Reiser reaction to that ball busting his laughing and taking it. And you cut to Miles Teller's reaction. You don't like he is disgusted by that. Yes. He's like like, why are you like Giovanni going along with this? And it's not crazy ball busting. No, it's not like he's being like, but it's just rude. It's just it's rude. Especially if you consider. We know Paul Reiser cooked the meal because he's busting his chops about cooking the meal, but I really don't think Paul Reiser lives there. So it's all that. But then and this goes back to their first meeting, when the guy bumps into Paul Reiser and he says, sorry. And then Miles teller, like, looks at the guy. You know, they're in the movie theater. It's it's all like there's the movie is very loud and big and big cuts and all that, but there's a lot of smaller nuance to it as well, a lot. And, you know, you pay attention to an outside of what he's wearing in that scene. But like the rest of his wardrobe, you know, he doesn't look like he's, you know, he's he dresses nicely, but it also looks old. It looks a little bit worn, like even at the very end when he comes to see him again. Like, that's he's probably had that shirt and jacket for decades. Yeah. He's he's a teacher. Like. Yeah, he's a teacher. He's a teacher. Yeah. It's one of the suits. And his mom left him. So that means she left him all. Reiser. So and you can also see the there's a, there's a sweetness and a kindness to Paul Reiser. So you might just sort of, kind of get the impression that this is kind of a guy that like, maybe is a bit of a pushover. Yes. And maybe hasn't gone very far in his life because of things like this or doesn't have certain things. But what he does have, which you can just tell this is why it was really great in these very few scenes, is that even in the few lines that he does get, where there is a bit of wisdom in knowing what actually does matter, if at the end of the day, my brother's ball busting me a little bit about something, I'm not really going to take this to heart because like, like there could be more. There's there's so much going on. But I love that you're bringing this up because I've thought about all this, too. And and if you're someone like Miles where you're all about this, like heady ambition, your dad cannot really be a good, source of inspiration or someone to look up to. Well, and then you get this, Fletcher. Well, they call that. They call that out in the commentary that he's kind of, you know, when he. When Andrew retakes the stage, he walks away from one father, but then kind of sits in front of another, a surrogate, one of sorts, who's. And. Yeah, I definitely think there's some truth to that too. So yeah. So there's there's some. But you can also say there's like love to. Oh yes. Yes, absolutely. It's like I don't hate my dad. Maybe I don't I don't want to turn out like him. Like he says he's a novelist but he teaches high school. Or you know, he's a writer but teaches high school. I don't want to be a musician who teaches high school. Maybe that's interest thinking, you know, still a great performance. Great bit of casting, too. Hadn't seen him in a while. Just just kind of great. It's like, hey, it's Paul Reiser, I love it. Said he got the idea for casting him after his performance and Behind the Candelabra. Yeah, I love it. Soderbergh. Yes. And he's great. Soderbergh, baby. Oh, Soderbergh knows how to cast love the first day of class. That room looks like the room from the short. It's like blue. There's windows, the whiplash short, which we did talk about a lot on the Damien Chazelle pod. His first teacher, that guy who seems a little kinder and stuff that is is dad in the drama? Who gives that way? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I thought it was designed as dad. And in real life. No, in the drama. Yeah. And I think, you know. Yeah, we talked about this, like seeing, looking at others, like spotting, you know, moving the hair back and forth and that. But that first opening the door just kicked the door open. Doesn't care. They slam into the wall. That first teacher is kind of like this motherfucker again. I mean, even the way he steps out of the way, like, I've been through this before, I just let him do his thing. Just. Yeah, he he mentioned Simmons mentions in the commentary. It was so smart, the way that they hold on the reactions of others. And Fletcher walks into the room. And that's your way of like, okay, there's fear, there's reverence, there's we're just staring at the ground. That tells you a lot. No one's got a smile on his face when this guy walks in the door, and then when he, like, tests everybody out, I mean, then he is like that one, like, super disrespectful line where it's like, let's see if your first chair just because you're cute. And then then she plays and he goes, yep. That's it. It's yeah I mean yeah, dude. He he does everything sexist, racist, anti-Semitic. Wait. He makes. Yeah. There's nothing. Yeah. Nothing that is unscathed here. But yeah, even like the, the start of, like, this sort of process of like grooming him in of. No, I want you know that chair the the second chair and it kind of slows down and Miles teller is like got you know, he's kind of smiling like he feels cool and everything. Maybe a little embarrassed. Yeah. Lowering you in. But even the fuck with three I'm talking about I think starts with be there at 6 a.m., don't be late. And he doesn't show up till now. Of course it's this. That's the same thing to me as rushing or dragging. Like you can't. You can't win. It doesn't. You know, he over sleeps his alarm, which is also a stupid thing, because what if it was 6 a.m. and you overslept? Idiot. Set multiple alarms. That's what I was saying. Alarms. I never get this in movies, I really don't. It's used a lot. But, like, I have had to be up early for some extremely important things in my life. And I'll have to. I'll set many alarms. You can probably relate to that better because you're late to everything. I'm well, I'm rarely late because the alarm was the problem. Well, here's the deal. Yeah, like this is one of those ones where, like, you just have to give a reason to why he's. No, it's funny, it's funny, and he's all rusty. It's true. I mean, I think I think it's happened to everyone where for whatever reason, the. But I mean, I can literally count on one hand the amount of times that that's happened. Let's we we talked a lot about this first scene because it's this is where, you know, rushing like it's all right here. It's just a long sequence of, again, love is entrance. I love that the insistence in the very precision of the camera work to his hand and then to Andrew, like across the boxing ring on the set and then back to Fletcher's hand, perfectly in focus. And he just moves it like one, two, three. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum. It's so it's so, so good. And yeah, that precision all of his hand, all the stuff is fantastic. The whole time. The fist. What he wants him to stop. Because it's not just like a fist that you hold up. It's like spinning. He's like puts his shoulder in elbow and like, head to it. It's a whole like movement of that would and the final scene were in that way, way, way far wide shot. You could still see him to it. He puts everything into that move just all it's great. It's just great. It's it's great. And something that Damien Chazelle said that it's very true to your point about this too, is like there's something very about his wardrobe, about how tight the shirt is and all that. That's very much like a dance, like a dance teacher. And then the precision in his movements, the. Yeah, because they're all for a point and it's all power. Oh, yeah. So yeah. So going up from like that, that big bombastic, like fists arm up in the air to those slow little like starts of everything. It's all controlled movement like a dancer. And he keeps himself in that sort of shape like that. And there's a, there's a fluid rigidity to him that is that he also find that he like provides like menace to its. That's again, this is all just in his acting. This is how he's chosen to kind of make sure that all of this stuff is there for him. He never, ever breaks any of it. No. And that's this is the short film scene, the short film whiplash is this scene of Andrews, like first day, you know, with Fletcher. And it kind of. It's just cool. You can watch the short if you own the film. I'm sure it's easy to find online and it's, it's cool to watch them back to back and then watch this scene and see how Jake has not missed a step at all. He's on his way to Oscar greatness. He could win the Oscar for just this scene of all of it. The hallway manipulation, the you know, how extreme it goes. Just it is sort of fun to kind of like, look back at both scenes because they are so similar in so many ways. I do like the way that they've switched the color palette me to like the browns, the ambers like the claustrophobic sense of the room. You feel more trapped in there, like it's beautifully lit, but it it's almost monochromatic in. That's the wrong word. That just means black and white, but it's a it's a sparse color palette. I'm using the incorrect words here, but you're not seeing like bright if there's no neon in it. Right. It's yellow little some glow, some orange, and then whatever they're wearing the gold. It's like the gold of the brass instruments is kind of how the robots. But there is no windows. And when that door closes, it feels like a tomb, which I wouldn't describe the first classroom or the classroom short. They feel just more like a regular, you know, classroom. This things like, we're locked in here, baby, this is this is a sanctuary or a torture chamber. Yeah, exactly. There's just something that's a little bit more, it's more beautiful, but it's also a lot more uncomfortable. And I think it serves the rest because it also, if you were like to make if the rest of the movie looks the way that it looks and you didn't have this, like, I feel like so much of this movie, when you first think of whiplash, that room has to come to mind like that, because you think of that scene in like, these colors. Like, I couldn't imagine thinking of this movie and thinking of the way it looked in the short. No, no, not at all. Not at all. They shot the short in three days, and they shot this scene in the full length in two. Crazy. Yeah. I mean, but just the amount of coverage, like, he didn't say exactly how many cameras they used, but like, I, it's really wild. Just the amount of raw material they captured in 19 days. I mean, you just have to assume with scenes like this, you don't you don't have many takes. Not at all. Like you're, you're if you're covering that much, even if you do have multiple cameras setups, you're still probably looking at like, yeah, if we're doing three takes, we're kind of pushing it like we kind of we got to kind of get this, but you guys set a tone for it. This is how we're working. This is how we're going. It's not going to be any different. So crew casts get ready because this is how this has to be. We have 19 days. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well burn through some stuff. Not burn through. But like we talked about the first aid scene, I really like that scene because I honestly, like, you could actually show that scene to a film class in terms of what to do when they close in on each other and when they close back out like that. At first you got the wide shot. They're doing small talk, and then they get into a little bit deep stuff and that's when they close in. So any time that Miles Andrew Nieman is talking about his passions, it's close up. She talks a little bit about hers, but they're not aligned. She's just a college kid who's trying to figure it out. Yeah, and he does not like her point of view. He is not attracted to her lack of ambition. And when that happens, we go back from his perspective. We're closing in because I'm talking about what I love, and I want to hear you say what you love back. I want to know that we're on the same page. Oh, we're not, and we're going right back. And then they kind of find their way back to it. The whole film is genius assembled just like that. It's it's not just the musical performances. It's it's that. Yeah, yeah, I want to get to the end. And then we got to get to our list. So let's I know, I know, we're just, we're we're talking we're having a good time. No, no, we're saying what we're fucking drinking here, man. You're always saying fucking drinking. Jesus. Go look at Melissa's Wikipedia for that movie to be connected somehow. She's in that. No, her troubles are from the star of that movie. Oh, that's right, that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Usually I wouldn't include stuff like this, but she's doing better now, and that guy can go fuck himself. Sorry. It's true, it's true. That was a Patreon comment right there. But leaving for the main feed. Okay. Yeah. Overbooked jazz competition. It's. You know, this is folder gets mistook the guy who is, you know, the lead chair. That was the guy who he's in the short and he also was Miles teller, you know, main drunk drummer, coach coaching. Nate Lang, Nate lang. And he's good. He's very apparently he's just a really nice, like, pleasant guy and not an asshole like that at all. So I like I like to and I love that scene of him, you know them like getting chewed out by Fletcher. It's like the two. Oh yeah, little kids. It's great because we haven't talked much about him. This very big. Good opportunity to talk about Miles Teller's performance in here, what he really does, where all of what's going on in his face in a it's not a one. No performance at all. You can see what he's after. You can see what he likes. There's also like there is an innocence to him. But then what happens when that innocence gets destroyed? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And like almost this sort of like, there is like this running defiance in him to not to to not lose where he's at right here. Like when he starts to bark up against Fletcher. Right. And, and all of this or when he does start to kind of a little bit like not just take it anymore. It's all, it's all it's all in this scene. Yes, I love that. And I love the I was looking at his career a little bit. I think this is his best performance I don't know, I mean, I love how just weird and like, what he's doing and rabbit hole, like, he's he's kind of, oh, he's done something horrible and can't really like come to grips with that. He's very convincing as a young alcoholic and The Spectacular Now. But yeah, I mean he's just I don't have any notes for him here. I really think he's good. I would have notes for some of his other performances, which is fine. We're not here to talk about those, but he's quite good in this. And yeah, he yes he doesn't. He never does play one note. You're right. Like he does have a main objective. But it's he's willing to get messy and dirty and scratchy to get their dinner scene. We talked about that at the family dinner scene. I counted. It's the scene when they were just at the table is two minutes and 43 seconds long. There are 73 cuts in that. 73 cuts means that you had a great load of coverage. You had a camera on those brothers. You had a camera on the dad at the head of the table and Paul Reiser on The wife. You had all I mean, it's just really, really impressive. And I cannot imagine as an editor, those are my those are the least, the worst things. Dinner conversations. Holy shit. Cutting those. Oh it's tough. 73 cuts. He did it. Fletcher gets the call. This gives us a brief moment to talk about some genuine humanity that seems to be with J.K. Simmons. I'm laughing as I say that because, like, again. Right. You know, he has the moment where he gets the call. Get the fuck out of here, Andrew. But then the next time we see him is the heartfelt speech. He's playing his students music. But again, it's all manipulation. He died. What did he say? He died in a car accident. No he didn't. No he didn't. He did not die that way. That dude died. Well, I think the insinuation is largely. It's kind of what you said about Paul Reiser, about the perspective stuff. Yeah. If you let this guy push you this hard right now, you could be dying by suicide in just a few years because you couldn't. You realize that you were able to get up to take the abuse in the moment, to be called all these names, to get slapped in the face, to maybe concussed yourself in a traffic accident just to make it on stage at the time you did all this. But now, when all that is quiet and settled and it's years later, or do you have the emotional capacity to deal with this legit PTSD, or are you going to die by like this is so that information is crucial, but then knowing that we find out later that Fletcher is manipulated this like he knows in his head that boy didn't die from a car accident. That boy died by suicide. Well, okay, here's where I'm going to jump in. You're in again. We don't know the answer to this. I think that's more of a thing where I think he is actually that upset and move by as a human for the death of this. But I don't think he would ever let himself think that it was because of him. So I don't know if it's manipulation as much as it's a denial to admit that maybe he could be part of that problem. So people do that shit where they just sort of like they find out that he's dead and howdy die suicide. Well, I'm well, if I'm if I'm going to talk to my students about this as a car accident or something like that, I'm going to. Why why does he make it a car accident? Because he feels responsible. Why not say he died by suicide? Okay, that's what I'm saying. He feels responsible. So he is aware of his of his implications. His cause probably affected that tragic outcome. But. And only as much as someone like him will. Will it let in that kind of admittance to themselves that they could be a problem? Yeah, I think I don't think he's going home necessarily and weeping about it, which a deleted scene does give us a moment alone with Fletcher. It's a very good cut. It's good that they did. Yeah. It's a good that we don't. We don't need that. Yes. So I think I do think he's genuinely sad that this like great student, this musician has died. Absolutely. But I, I cannot agree that he doesn't implicate himself at least summon it. Hence the lie. Hence the tragic accident lie. Because if he died by, he knows as soon as he says he died by suicide. Every damn kid there, especially Andrew, is going to go, gee, I wonder why, Well, he knows. He knows he's lying because he's said a lie. But that's what I mean. That's he knows that he he has some guilt in the way that this kid has died. He had in my life. That's not even a question for me. That's why he lies about it. If the kid, like, had actually died in a car accident, then this wouldn't, you know, okay, it wouldn't be a thing. But he lied about it. It wasn't, you know, it it suicide is very, very different from a car accident. Suicide is a very, very specific, horrible, tragic thing. And for. You mean they're not the same? No, they're not at all. Not at all. So yes, I think I don't think he's weighed down 100% in guilt by it. But there is some part of him that goes, this kid died because of me. He is aware, and I do think he's okay with that. As horrible as that is, when we see him at the jazz bar and he's like, I tried, I tried. He doesn't break down in tears. It was me who pushed him. It was me. Like he's accept he's accepted his role or responsibility in it, but he still knows he's responsible in some way. Yeah. And he's and he's he's not going to admit that to to class. And he won't even admit that to himself. Like exactly. That's what I mean in his head. In his head. Like it's it's back there. That's why he puts up the front of a car accident. Exactly. And that's. Yes. So yes, yes. We get the frantic day of the Dolan competition. Fantastic sequence. I mean, it's just like bus breaks down. New bus in town. No cabs, rent a car. Their clothes beg open in the rental. Sweating, speeding. Nine minutes arrive. You made it. No missing sticks. Rental again. Huge argument with Fletcher. Yeah, that I that was the last thing they shot was this argument. The argument like where thing. Yeah. Where he ends up like I'm going to go get it. You're like, I'm going to be ready. Fuck you John Utah. Yeah. And then yeah you know he spins out and ends up. He cannot take it. He ends up attacking him on stage. And I think because it's never I don't think it's ever said in dialog. We just have those insert shots of Andrew looking at his discharge work that's saying he's been, you know, dismissed from Schaefer. So like, Fletcher's been fired and you're dismissed. So like what now? The drums go in the closet. The addiction, quote unquote goes away for now. But this is all I'm saying. Like, don't don't let someone have this much power over you, because it may be all for not anyway. Well, one thing I think is really cool thing about this movie is that when you do get to some of these most intense things, like the drummer versus drummer versus drummer scene, and then this very, very frenetic car crash scene, you do not see that fucking car accident coming. Nope. Not at all. That could be such a thing where you could actually be taken out of the movie, because he could be in the fucking. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I I'll never forget the first time that I saw this. That slam happens. I remember thinking, I can't believe it's gotten here. I can't believe we're in this kind of a reality. It's an actual earned shock. That doesn't seem like it actually fits into the movie, but yet that's just where this is taken, this man's obsession. And then again, with the tackle. Oh, it's sort of like, oh, this movie is not afraid to actually get into the muck of real. How psychological shit can affect the physical world where you don't know what you're doing and you get into a car crash, but now you're actually okay. But I still have somewhere to go, and then you're bleeding on a drum kit, practically passing out, and then you're going to fight the guy that's brought you here. It all actually tracks and makes sense, but it feels so out of place. But yet it's so real into what it is. So I had great, just good shit in the commentary. You know? JK is very sarcastic, dry, good sense of humor. And he says, you know, Miles broke two of my ribs there when he tackled me. Did you believe that? Oh, I, I, I did it first. But then based on his sort of I don't think he did. I looked it up. He did. Oh my God he did, he did. He wrote his ribs. Oh, I thought he was dry. It's sarcastic. And I was like, Holy shit. He. So that's a real tackle. Like he tackled him and broke two of his ribs and yeah, thank God he's not in every scene because that could I mean, a two day with your main actor taken out. But Fletcher is not in every scene. But yeah, I, I immediately went, oh that's funny. And then I'm like, could that be real? Yeah, I just I googled it and I got confirmation that is indeed real. Just like Damien Chazelle was in like a horrific car accident while they were filming, like in real life. And he almost they almost couldn't make them. I mean, it could have gone. It could have gone the worst way. But it's weird. Like he's in a car accident making this. There's like a car accident, you know, in the movie, it's. Yeah, it's it's crazy. 19 days. Yeah. All the time. He gets kicked out. We get one scene with the great April Grace, who got cast because of her expertise in interviewing Tom Cruise and Magnolia. And we again know her as the lead nun in one battle after another. But she's great. Very calming presence. We get the jazz bar scene. I love this scene so much. I love I sent you a video of when Simmons is done and just looks up at the band and gives, you know, his nod, and then kind of leans back and looks at the crowd. I, I'm, I don't know what a specific disease this is that I have. I would love to get this diagnosed someday, but I can rewind. I rewound that like 15 times. Just that, just 10s like I'll do. I'll fixate and go like back and back and like, look at that. And then he spots Andrew. But yeah, we talked a lot about I'm not trying to burn through. Been going for a while. I've tried to get to I've tried to get to the big one here, the big one, the big claim. But yes. Very good. You know, the good job thing that was paramount in the trailer. There are no it's everything more. Yeah. More than good. Everything about the movie. Right. And then setting up, you know, he invites him to I got a big thing. The drummer sucks. That's nonsense. That's. That is actually another question I had. What is Fletcher's endgame here? He clearly wants to, you know, cast Andrew out. And as Andrew's leaving, well, I'll just do it and I'll just do an order, okay? He arrives. Fletcher I love he's got some putting on his jacket. Like a fucking asshole. It's just so good that. Yeah, you think I'm fucking stupid. I know it was you. And Andrew doesn't have the sheet music, so things go wrong here. And Andrew ends up walking off stage and he makes a joke like we were little avant garde in the percussion section there. What? Now? What? This is a big deal for Fletcher. He's at Carnegie Hall. Does he have another drummer on cue? I've always wondered this. There's no one else going and sitting down. Or does he have a set that is not percussion? But I don't think he does because I think he's going to perform whiplash, going to perform caravan. So what other drummer is there to take the stage? Or it was he literally prepared to cast Andrew out and bears him so permanently and then just have a non percussion set, like, is that a thing? I don't know, I don't know anything about this shit. I would have to if we're I mean this is this is a really cool question. Just. Yeah. Just genuinely wondering. No idea. My, my impulsive reaction to if you were Fletcher. I think you're 100% right. There was a drummer that he called up and said, you're fucking out. And because he doesn't really care about like, this, like his life is a little bit kind of fucked because of this whole entire thing. So another question. Yes. How does Fletcher feel about the outcome of this performance? It's everything for Andrew. But yes. Good, good. Fair point. So I would imagine that I think in Fletcher's particular place in his, if he could find a way to fuck over Andrew, then I think he could do one of two things I don't. I don't know enough about the music world to know if like, yeah, you could have a non percussion set. Is fucking Andrew over more important than putting on a good show for everyone. Okay. Yes. Okay then then my question is answered. Then that's all I needed. Honestly, I think you're right. I think he would just basically be like, well everyone, this is so unexpected. But our drummer just flipped the fuck out and we apologize. But that's going to be his name, by the way, is Andrew Neil. Yeah. He lives and he was kicked out of Shafer. Don't ever hire him. Yeah. Because because also if if that does happen he doesn't really like nothing can bad happen to him. Like what you. Cause you could always be like. Yeah, that was a weird night. Our drummer. You see, the way he played in the beginning, he was on drugs. All right. Angela leaves, goes and waits in the wings. Paul Reiser comes to meet him. Will hug? Yeah. Makes a decision. This to me when you say this is important, that it's your favorite ending. When does the end start for you? Because to me, it starts when it genuinely starts to me, when Paul Reiser says, what are you doing? And then when he goes back, and in particular when he sits down and we hear and the piano goes, boom! That to me is the beginning of the end. We still got ten minutes of movie left. But I was wondering when you say the end is your favorite, like, how far back are we going in the time? And and this is a great question just to introduce our favorite movie endings because you could probably in with an ending this long, break this down, I would actually start the entire end of this movie from the second that he sits down onto that drum kit, like when he goes out there and this whole entire thing starts. But if I was to cut that, then I would say the end would then start when he sits back down after coming back from seeing Paul Reiser, that's when I really feel like it starts, because when he I do not think the beginning of the end is, what do you think I'm fucking stupid. I don't like to me, that's like the beginning. Maybe even like we're kind of like brushing up against, like, the start. We've just entered the third act to me, and I know we're just dealing with minutes here, and this is semantics. I'm willing to go with whatever, but I'm just bringing up a point for something I'm going to get to later. But I am considering yeah, I'm considering the end. When he goes back out on stage, throws the jacket down, sits down at the drum set, and then we'll very soon launch in a plane caravan solo like like basically he he he hijacks the show like, yeah, when Paul Reiser goes, what are you doing? And he walks away from him. That is when I think the beginning of the end starts for this particular movie. But if you're saying it starts with, what do you think I'm fucking stupid? It's semantics. That's fine, because that's like an additional four minutes. Honestly, it's fine. And really, because all that, I'm the only reason I kind of put that in there is because you're getting a bit of it all where you're getting the, the, the stakes of where we're at for Andrew, and then we're seeing a huge thing being thrown his way, a retreat from it, a return to it. And then where it goes, I think in terms of an overall all the things. Yeah, all the beats feel that. But but you're 100% right though. Like if you were just to be like all right, like cut that. It would just be as soon as he turns away from his dad and comes back and then that would be it. Yeah. But however you slice it doesn't change my opinion. Yeah. One hour and however you slice it, in my opinion, one hour and 32 minutes into the film whiplash, Andrew walks back on stage, sits at the drums and starts playing, and he does not stop playing until the movie ends. And this is, in my opinion, one of the finest conclusions to any film that I have seen in the past century. And even like Nick's take is a big one. Yes, but please don't. Please don't discount your loyal host take as well. I love this ending too. I just, you know, I mean, it is so powerful. And I said in the episode, I've seen whiplash, I don't know, in the teens, mid to high teens from start to end. I've seen that end. Specifically clips on YouTube which begin with him sitting down, you know, mom in the piano to the end. So many times, so many times and it is just never gets old. Watch it. This morning moved my seat right? Right. When he sat down, I was right in front of the TV. I'll kill you in. Took him three days to film this. They were on that stage for three days. That is 16% of their total filming time. 16% is on the stage. Oh, man. And I've. I mean, we're gonna have some. Yeah, I'm gonna have some fun with it. But from when Andrew walks back on stage, I'm gonna hit you with a prompt, a question. You know, when I'm saying it. Boom to. Yeah, yeah. Starts caravan. How many editing cuts are for the rest of the film? Hold on. Little context. Little context. I've only done this three times. Halloween, 91 minutes long, has 606 editing cuts total. That is damn near nothing. Hunger because that's. I've only counted for two movies 96 minutes long, has 468 cuts. That is nothing. There I go, 28 minutes long has. Would you like to guess how many cuts? There I go. Has I counted the total? And there I go I in the 28 minutes of there I go. How many editing cuts are there? There's got to be less than 200. There's good. There's 160, 160. I counted them in the the final nine minutes and 41 seconds of whiplash. There are 224. Editing cuts is fucking awesome. And one of the longest ones is there the coveted Damien Chazelle whip hands that we love so much. Because that's all. That's one shot, and that's is give me a little leeway on 224, because I think I found like one hidden cut maybe. But yeah, it's 224 from all of it. And I dropped it into my editing software. And by doing that I could see like how long he's holding stuff or not. And yeah, there are all the shots of teller usually held for longer, which is interesting. And then the shortest one, I mean, he has some cuts that are less than a second. He has one like of sheets and music and stuff that are like, you know, there's 24 frames in a second that are like 12 frames. I mean, he you are boom, like cruising and, and when I did that and then watching on mute and was counting the cuts, there actually is a rhythm. It's not perfect. It's not music. They're not like four cuts. It's not whatever beats a minute. But I could see like as because that's I mean, at this point that's probably my I really consider myself in the world of film like an editor. I'm so strong in editing and I like in my exploration of like the process. And I just love it so, so much. And it was cool to see, like the musicality of that and then thinking of like, poor Tom cross, like how all the coverage you have had, you would have. I don't even know where to begin. The only thing I could think of, I was watching because of an episode, we're about to record some interviews with the great editor Michael Kahn, who's done most of Spielberg's work, and he was talking about D-Day, Normandy. And he goes, I just had to begin. I had no idea how to begin, but I just had to, like, I had so much footage and it all looks incredible. It was shot and all the, you know, all these different ways shutter light streaks, all this. And in some ways this was Tom crosses Normandy invasion like in the fact that he did it. And it is so perfect. And it is one of or in your eyes, the best movie ending. Everything about it works. Every single thing. I mean, we could talk about it, we could dedicate an entire episode to, just like the last ten minutes of this movie. But you know, from I'll gouge out your motherfucking eyes to I mean, he says that and then the next thing he says to him is, Andrew, what are you doing, man? And the tone is different. He's in. He doesn't know. And Andrew is this this is the only time he's in control because Sheriff Fletcher, go ahead and stop this. See how weird that makes things look that like. Yeah. No, stop doing it. No, you got to let him cook because now he's doing it. Andrew's ahead on time and Fletcher, like, has to catch up. And the way he takes control is okay. Slow down slow slow slow and then build it back up. But then still, even when he starts building back up and then the switching like back and forth movie. Oh, I mean, I get chills talking, taking the jacket off, slab of the jacket town queuing up, you know, the right side of the orchestra pushing it on him. It is all you really can't believe that this is. I mean, it's technically Chazelle's second films. First one was like micro, micro micro-budget, but like your first major film, you just can't believe that he pulled off something this strong and this confident. That's why we covered him as a director, like it's directors who've been making movies for a lot longer than him, have gone whole careers without executing a scene this well done. A lot of times it's crazy. So I'll stop talking now because I just love everything about it. Well, he was talking about in the commentary how you take a movie like Raging Bull, and it's sort of like, how do you follow that? Like how do you kind of like take like one of the best, like made boxing movies and try to make your own boxing movie? Or and he goes, so he goes. So I actually hopefully like had the luxury. Like no one had really made an ending to a movie with a, with a, with a drum solo. So I was like, I kind of could do whatever I want. I don't have to worry about someone tried to follow that. But then I love that. He said that Death Proof was an actual like a source of inspiration for these, because he he says that he not for everything, but like, you know, he's like this concept that you must have a denouement. And he's like, what if you just end on the climax? This movie's decision of when it cuts to black is fucking brilliant. Yes. Yep. It's perfect. And and again, I always stick by the. My favorite reason for this being my favorite ending is because I'll never forget how I left out of my chair when I first saw it, and seeing this movie as many times as I have since for its individual. Like how you said you could just go on YouTube and just watch this ending and still be floored by the filmmaking of it and just getting that just complete satisfaction. But like when you watch this movie as a whole and you go on the ride with these two to get that satisfaction at the very end with the way that they look and see as see each other. There's just so much here that I there's never a time where I have seen this movie where I am not, if maybe not physically leaping out of my chair, but emotionally leaping out of my chair. And I've I've tested it. I've waited, I've waited. I there isn't another ending I can think of that does this particular thing emotionally and then practically looking at the filmmaking of it, I'm like, this is fucking flawless. So you get flawless craftsmanship and an emotional, just complete burst and it's fucking perfect. One of my favorite parts still, I did this when you and I watched it together a few years ago. I don't know why. It's it's one of my favorite shots. It's actually a longer shot in context with the scene, but it's when Fletcher's standing over him and, you know, he's speeding up. And then we cut to the right of the drum kit and we're just holding. And Andrew's playing in front, playing in front, playing in front. And then after a perfect amount of time he goes boom to the to like a I don't know the terms for these different sorts of drums but it's definitely bass here. And he goes boom, boom, boom. And then we just cut the flesh and he's like, go! But I love that boom, boom, boom. And just oh, here we go. We're revving back up. And then the fucking wide shot of the camera going the sorry. The really close up of boom boom boom right left right left. Then the wine from Paul Risers perspective. Then just one of the great cutaways in the history of fucking film polarizers face for 10s. Yeah, I mean that that makes me emotional. Just like thinking about it. It is so perfect and like, whatever he's thinking, but like, look at that thing on stage. Go look at it. Oh, God. It's just it's brilliant. You. This is such a great I'm glad you brought this up because that had, like, there's no way when you're editing this scene that there wasn't a question as to whether or not we do that. Because you are. That's the only time we remove ourselves from so well. So if you're going to do that, then you need something that is going to enhance what we're seeing, because we're not seeing that just to get a reaction from Paul Reiser. We're seeing that in the overall scope of the movie to realize, yeah, the or of who of the talent of what this person has. If we didn't already know it, we now know it from the outside world because he has gotten this good. And in this movie that's pursuing greatness, to be able to look at it and being like, oh, they've achieved it, he's achieved it, they've achieved it. If you want to go that far. Yeah. I mean, sure, I've again, I've rewound that. I've watched that ten second shot so many times seeing like if his face does change, it's a subtle change. It does change. But there's some like drop but it's mostly it's mainly the expression he's holding like the mouse, just a little agape. And I mean it's it's just perfect. But yeah, no audience cuts. We don't go back to riser. We never leave the stage. Except right then in the way they set it up, just like the first date scene with first, we don't cut to him. First. It's the wide, wide, wide back. And at first I the first I don't know, ten, five times I saw it, I didn't realize, oh, there we can see the doors on the right and left like that. He's looking through the doors because in the next shot is him. And we see the doors on the right and left. Oh my God. And yeah, I mean done done done done. Dun dun dun. And then you know hold on him. We're so close on J.K. Simmons because we haven't seen him smile this wide yet. But we just know he's smiling. And the little sound design of like his fingers or shirt when you can right before he lifts his, you know, arms up and you're like as he goes. And then. Yeah. And yeah, death proof is like, no one saw that in the theater, which was a bummer. In 2007, no one went for the Grindhouse experience. I mean, the opening weekend, like the lunatics like me were in there. I have seldom I have seldom seen a crowd react like that at the end of the movie. I hope I'll speak. Generally, I brought someone who was not very into movies, into violence, into Tarantino. It, you know, that's fine. It was where I was in my life at the time. That person even got up and started cheering like, we didn't get up and cheer and then leave. We just launched out of our seats. Like, as soon as that, he'll just went out at the end, like storms in popcorn went. And this is the same thing. Knowing when to cut to black is so important. Then it's black. I counted for 42 frames before we see written and directed by Damien Chazelle. That's important to it's not. Watch Reservoir Dogs. It cuts to black and the title card is already there, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. So like, this stuff matters to me as an editor again, like, do you cut to black and it's a black screen? Have you set your credits up in a way? So the first thing we're going to see is like unit production manager, first assistant director, which a lot of movies do, you know. So it just handles all of it. Well. It's waited for its credit. So the first credit we get is written directed by Damien Chazelle. It's it knows when to cut. It's it's brilliant. It's really brilliant. It it really is. Because it also matters when you see who wrote and directed it in that way. Because when you do come off of an ending that's like that, to give it that tiny little breath and then you're met with who's responsible exactly. You know, because because otherwise if you do go too fast, you're still stuck in that emotional place. So you could very easily, like, run over that very important piece of business and then be like, wait, who directed this as opposed to being like that guy? That's what. Yeah, yeah. That's why when you go watch Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, he contractually had to have opening credits because he didn't have control. It's like in heartache they do too. But he was legally allowed to withhold his credit from the opening credits. So the first thing you see in the credits for Reservoir Dogs in Pulp Fiction is written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, and then it just goes into the the way, way below the line stuff. So directors think about this thing, think about these things, believe me. And that's going to bring us right to a very coveted list. This could be a whole other episode because we're fucking we're going long. We're we're talking drinking. All right. So you have set up in the Damien Chazelle episode that whiplash is your favorite ending to a movie of all time. I have made a list. I'm looking here, I have seven, I have seven because I really I didn't want to just throw ten on there. I seven really mean a lot to me. I actually figured something out about myself and my list in making the list, but the difference between my list and yours is all of mine are from the year 2000 on. So that's that's the difference. I did not go back because as soon as I went back, I found Rosebud, Citizen Kane, I found oh, God. Really? You're going to think about that ending? Kidding. Do you have any idea what that. It's not that he says it. It's that we see the sled like that. Books have been written out. We see books. The end of I know I Hate the Dance of Death in the Seventh Seal is in no way does whiplash. And you know, this is what I mean. Like when I went back, I was like, well, no, this doesn't I mean, entire people have relitigate the entirety of Taxi Driver based on the end, not the shootout when she gets back in the cab. No, I'm not I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm saying, I mean, the end of Raging Bull. It's like even the biblical quotes he gives us. These, these things are all these things do not hold a candle to whiplash to me. As much as I love the ending of whiplash, but no. And the ones I'm going to mention today like, as much as I do love the end of whiplash, the ones I'm going to mention day are they just blow it out of the water again for me. But if you want to go back to the dawn of history, the dawn of cinema, then go for it and sit here and tell me that the end of whiplash is better than the Star Child in 2000. What a space odyssey. That's fine, but that is fucking bananas to me. But that's fine. I'm not hating on your take, but I'm like it. The thing that this, this is very ending, but it doesn't leave any questions open it really at all like, okay, well is he going to go become like oh transition is a question. But the end like that's why I wanted to really hammer home how long you when you think the ending starts. Because if you're going back to if you go back to I what do you think I'm fucking stupid. That's the final 15 minutes. And if we look at the final 15 minutes of a lot of movies, because a lot of ending scenes and movies are like three, four minutes, so the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, calling out where the quote unquote end takes place. But like, if the end of 2001, if we're including any of the trip to Jupiter, like, forget it, that's in there. But then the stuff of the stuff of him in the room, you're a studied. I'm like, no, that that to me is going to provoke more thought and and everything. But again, that's just me like I had I basically came up with like 30 that I liked way more than whiplash. So I went, all right, let's just keep it 21st century. But here's how I want to do it. I want I don't want to go back and forth. I want you to give me all yours. I want you to go 10 to 1 how you done it, and I'll talk or not talk. But I am not hating on the take. This is a great mound to plant your flag in the whiplash mound. I am not hating on it at all. I'm just saying, yeah, I think I have a slightly bigger sample size and what means stuff to us is different for everyone, but I'm not hating on the take. I love the take, I genuinely do, I love it, and yes, and you're exactly right. I'm not saying that whiplash is the best movie and it's your favorite because you have your favorite. Yeah. You can't you can't lay claim to something like that. And yes, I have not seen an even. I don't even want to know what the percentage is of the amount of movies that I was just being a jerk. I was just being stupid. But every what is true though, everything that we do on this part is just a matter of a matter of opinion. We this podcast would not exist if you or I were the type of person. It's like whiplash is the best ending in the history of cinema. And I'm going to tell you why I don't. I'm never enjoyed that sort of discourse. What's much more fun is we're about to hear, you know, the other ones that rival Nick Dostal. Take that whiplash is the best ending of all time. That's what's fun. And I also can guarantee that, like, well, I certainly hope that I will see movies that could take away almost all of these endings that I have here because, you know, because that's because there's you got to wow them in the end, you know, and I don't I wouldn't have too much hope for the future. But you got a lot of hope for the past. That's what I'll say. Because the future. Yeah. The endings of the of the future, I don't know, but, But I always had a few, though. But just just start. Man, I it's so cool that you ranked them. I love it. All right. So I did my top ten. And these are as of this episode in 2026. These are my these are what I have come to conclusions to be my favorite endings. And we got to start with one of them. That's I know everyone's going to roll their eyes, but I'm going to give it to it because I like it. Inception. Let's just love this fucking I love this, I love everyone's going to roll their eyes. He busts my balls over. Citizen Fucking Kane novels have been because it's a fucking sled. Yeah, but so that's what I'm saying. That shot is about 30s the end 15 minutes before that is like him completely destroying his whole life. It's amazing. He completely destroys a room. So like when I say Citizen Kane, I'm not talking about the last. That 32nd shot I'm telling, you know. Okay. What would you say for ten? I just don't I don't like that movie. That's a fucking asinine take. You have not seen it in ages. Then if I, if I knew that, I would have put on my 4K for you. Every other version of that movie that exists looks like dog shit. This thing is fucking miraculous, citizen. I'm not saying everyone has to like it. It it can be a little academic. It is so profoundly well made, considering many of the things were never used in cinema before until he invented it. And he was 24. Fuck yes. Know all of that? Okay. Spending top boy. Cool. Inception. Great. Is he. Is he alive? Reality. Give us your take. Is it reality? Oh, it's a question. Yeah I yeah I think I think so because it's, it's just nicer that way. And it also doesn't matter because the whole point was I want to be able to see my kids and he sees his kids. But yeah, I always thought his reality. Nolan's a fucking no one loves his love. Sentimental shit. Guys come on, you know. Yeah he's gotta, gotta get it in, gotta get it. That's not even my favorite Nolan ending. Inception. All right, keep going, keep going. I know well I yeah it's. What's when's your favorite Nolan. In its important point. In fact it's on my list. So hold that thought. Oh, shit. Wow. Oh, I know what it is. I know you don't know shit. I know, I know what it is. I know what it is. It's memento. You don't know. God damn it, it is. Fuck. You know that I'm saying. So that is on my list. Because that when I saw that, holy shit, I went, wait a minute. The the end of this negates everything we've seen. And he did it in the just the construction of it. So yeah, that is that is one of my favorite endings. But again, like how far back in the quote unquote ending do we go? Do we see him like kill Jimmy? Do we or is it just you can be my John G. But yeah, that thing, like my mother calls me Teddy. Just all of it. The look on his fucking face in that Polaroid, he looks like a pig and shit. Just, like, stared at the put on his chest of where he's gonna put. I killed him anyway. Yeah. Good, good. Pull. That is one of my picks, you limp dick. Sour note flatter than the girlfriend's flexible tempo, dipshit. Sorry to scroll back up and look at that. Okay, inception. Good. Damn it. I can't believe you got that and that. Damn well. And that is my. That's my. That is my basic bitch. I think one in there for inception. Okay, give me nine. Number nine. Chinatown. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. See I, I would prefer that to. That's what I like more than whiplash because of the complete and utter hopeless despair that necessarily. Exactly. That is not really introducing any questions either. That's that's kind of a period, not an ellipsis. It is. Just forget it. Fucking forget it. Jake. Yeah. I mean, you're we talked about it on that episode, but I mean, it's just to end your movie with a universal idea that evil always wins. It's not comfortable. The end of that movie is. So there's not even really there's not really music, is there? Like, there's it's not. Yeah. No. It's like the absence of everything. Yeah. The absence of everything. So love that. And then we got number eight coming in at Before Sunset. Yeah. That was close to making it that. That one's tough because that's almost like the ultimate. We're asking questions like this is not done. You know, this is this is the ultimate ellipsis movie. And that that is an ending that the first time I saw it, remember the exact theater I was in still still around cinema Arts theater, one of the few independent theaters left in America. I'll have everyone know. Go check it out if you are in Fairfax, Virginia. I love that teeter. And you hear like gasps. You hear, What? I just went through the whole thing where I'm like, did they miss a real like, did we? Because this movie's only been 80 minutes. And then it took me the end of the entirety of the credits to realize what he had done and went, oh, brilliant. Just brilliant. So that is, that is close to making my list of also kind of beating whiplash. But yeah, love that good one Before Sunset and now this one. This is a long one because it's a it's a whole entire montage. But I can't fucking shake it, man. 25th hour. Oh very good. Yeah. See that was one I think I texted you when I was like, well did you? Because yeah, I would basically consider the quote end of that movie, beginning when him and Brian Cox get in the car and when they get in there and he's just trying. Cox he's such a dad. Well, we can be traffic if we take the the you know, it's like it's just so. And then of course the long. Yes the long. What could have happened. And it's because it's a whole entire like potential life lived all within like five minutes, maybe a little bit longer. And being left with that question of what, you know, what does he do? Is does that actually become the reality or does he just stuck in left it on the table, my friends, they left it on the table. It could have been seven years later with a sequel, 26 hour. Whatever. Maybe it's his last 24 hours in prison before he. Whatever. You just left it there like it at Benioff got super famous. I mean, every I really, really, really wanted them to do that. I just think they could have when if they were all, you know, they always still would have been around. Like, it just would have been amazing. Why not? But no one asked me. No one fucking asked me. Great pick though. Yes. Number seven. All right. Number six. Oh, boy. I don't care, I don't care what anyone says. The the mist. Hey, I'm not gonna argue with you that in that movie. Fucking rules, dude. Rules. And I don't want it. And I don't want anybody about this fucking ending of this movie. Listen, there's. I will tell everyone that it absolutely and unequivocally fucking dumbfounded my wife. She could not believe it. The credit started, and at first she was mad. And then she just went, that's fucking awesome. Whoa! And I went, yeah, that's what balls, man. Yeah, I love that. That's a great, great pit. No one's gonna get mad at you for that. It's great great great great. It's a it's a great take. And and I love that fucking Frank Darabont actually had to run that by Spielberg. Spielberg Stephen King Stephen King goes, oh, I like it better. I should have thought of that. You should have. Yeah, yeah, it's better that than his story. But is his story good? All right, all right. The mist and then top five. Here we go. So at number five. This is a bit of a you have to do a lot of work to get to this ending. You have to watch two other movies before it. But if you watch the Red, the blue, white and Red trilogy by Christoph Kieslowski and you get to the end of red. Can't, can't this that's we're gonna. Yeah, we're gonna have to talk offline because I don't know specifically. Okay. Why would people have to see the other two? Well, okay. Now, you wouldn't have to see the other two. It doesn't hance it, but I think the ending by Red does stand on its own. That's a really cool pic. Very. Dude, I don't know how you do this. This is the thing that I think is the most amazing thing. And I don't want to say it because I want people to see the movie, but this is not something you can write. This is not something. And this is what he does all the fucking time is there is a fucking light bulb idea that he wants you to connect with. Like, all he can do is try to get there, but it's not a guarantee that that light bulb is going to go off for you in the end of this movie. But if it does, the way that the ending of this movie washed over me and hit me, I go, you're done. I don't know how you do this. This is a whole. Yeah. So but okay, so I will I will run that back. You do not need to see blue and white in order to get. But if you do, it is a nice little. It's not going to hurt. Yes. I was just trying to get at like if people, you know, we have some dedicated listeners who might want to go down this rabbit hole of watching these movies for their endings, so I know it would enhance the experience to watch blue and white, but you don't necessarily have to. I think it's fair. You don't have to. There is no yeah, there is no like there's not like a sequel necessarily to it. So you don't need to know it. But yeah. Red number five, number four. Number four. Here we go. Once upon a time in Hollywood. All right. Good about it. That was the one I referenced. And that's. This is another key one. When does the end begin? Does it begin with. Totally. Away we go. Does it begin with, you know, them kicking the door open like. But no, no matter what the final beat of it, using the literal title like this was a fair pair like fairy tale. What if once upon a time, what if is? Yeah, relatively kind of ingenious. Oh it and I yeah. And you could, you could, you could even give me like. All right Nick, you can only have that ending when the gates open. Fine. I'll take it. That's fine. You could have the whole. You could have the whole Leo Emile Hirsch conversation. I'll take it. You could have the whole entire end sequence that starts with the way we go. Then I'll take it all. I'll like that is my. That is all. My God, it's just the fucking best. All right. Top three didn't make top three, though. All right, top three. We got some bullshit. Here we go. Number three stalker by fuck. Wow. I just rewatched that one recently. Oh, dude. Just like the the existential questions that arise by by watching, like, the bigger thoughts that you start having about it. I'll find a way to edit it to where we don't ruin soccer. But you mentioned this in the Chazelle one, and I was like, I wonder what he means specifically. So I'm literally pulling it off the shelf and yeah, it's coming back. Okay. That's a fucking great pic, too. It's like red in its way of that idea that washes over you. The light bulb, that light bulb that comes off and your mind is just blown. You're like, what the fuck? Are you serious? I had to go walk. Yeah, I had to take a walk. After that, I was like, okay, I can't even fucking handle this. But it was amazing. I pick, well, we'll get to Tarkovsky at some point, folks. Main feat, I promise. Not not this year, but I think because we have 2 or 3, we have two left this year, two big ones and we'll do him. It's not going to be easy for us or for me because I need to watch, rewatch, study and it's seven films, but my God, my God. And here's what I think I could confidently say. I think, you know, we're talking about these movie endings and everything. I hope that all of these can change, but upon seeing other movies or newer ones. But I don't think that anything is going to change my final two. Okay. These are this is like 1A1 be if there was one ending that is going to rival whiplash, because I remember you were in the Chazelle. So we're like, all right, I got some things that you have said that might not even trump this, this, these are the two. But I still put whiplash at number one, but solidly right behind it. Close second, five easy pieces. Okay, so then in this list is whiplash number one. Yes. Okay. So you gave us like nine other movies. Okay. Five easy pieces. Yeah, yeah. Look at five and please go listen to that. We. That was the first movie we covered on the way. New Hollywood Film project. Like we had a soft launch with French Connection. But yeah, that end of five Easy Pieces is that's a that's a great pick. That's a very you pick two. Very. Yeah. Yeah. And then whiplash number one. All right. It did have I'll just go throw in three other ones that that were up for contention in here okay. One one you're going to absolutely fucking I did actually have memento in a top five here. Okay. Good. But I have another round because I think that ending is really, really it says a lot about that movie. And it's also just sort of a very fun sort of thing. But there's a lot of ideas that go into that ending that I really liked. My dad thought that movie was so sad because he's like, though they're all alcoholics, like, they're all a bunch of that's like what it is. And he goes, if there's any other message that that movie's trying to give, I can't get on board with it at all. Like, they're all there, they're all drunks. And I went, I was like, hey, yeah, well, that that's why I like that ending a lot, because it actually does give you a little bit like, I don't think the message of it is, is that alcohol is great, but that's how these guys are taking it. Exactly. And, and and there's something sad about that. But then you get this huge celebration. Juxtapose it. Yep. And it's like it's not such a yeah, it's not one thing. So I really like that ending that almost made it. I did, I did I couldn't give it to it but I can't I maybe this will enter it and I did mean good. Can you say good, Nora. And then the one that almost made it was all that jazz. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, man. I mean, yeah, that's another hard one of like, when does the endings kind of start? If it's that whole big number, then yeah, that's. I'm okay. It could be because it's great. Because then you get to that final cut where it's for anyone who go see all that jazz. I love that fucking movie. Go see it. Yes. So you have seen it two other times. Oh, you know, since we've watched it. Yeah. I can't, I can't get enough of it. You. If that's the case, I would highly recommend a. Oh no, you could probably do it on criterion. The Alan Heim the editor commentary. Wow. Fantastic. You would love it if you love the movie. Oh it's okay. It's on my Blu ray. Hopefully it's on criterion like because you know, they do commentaries because they're awesome. So that's cool. You had in your top ten, you had six movies post 2000. So six of your favorite endings so far, the century, two from the 70s, three from the 70s. Beg your pardon? One from the 90s. So that's yeah, that's cool. And then I like the honorable mentions too. Okay. I'm just going to do a few. I did not rank them. Here's what I realized. And this is only true if I'm looking at your list of one. Only one of yours heavily features music, which is whiplash. All of mine. My top five have musical cues in them that that is why the ending means so much to me. I've talked about all these on the do. Yeah, I do not realize how important that was for me. So that's cool. Number. So the first one I went in chronological order here, but the first one, traffic. Yeah. From seeing the meeting with Michael Douglas to the final thing with Benicio at the baseball field, and you have an ending ascent by Brian Eno playing. Playing, which is just like one of my favorite songs. Use it in my first ever movie, I, I love that, and that is so. It's such an emotional ending to me. I've watched it so many times. I cried on this podcast describing the end of the New World, directed by Terrence Malick, which really uses Das Rheingold, Vasile by Wagner, and that is just like I've, I have seen some of the hardest, most like emotionally not present men cry at the end of that movie just because it is just, I think it's just beautiful. So that immediately went on, is it is this one isn't beautiful, but you got to give it to Brahms, because what happens after I'm finished? Brahms kicks on and Daniel playing. Dude, sit there, the bowling alley. Oh, I love the end of there Will Be Blood. And you're going to take that whole sequence, right? That would be. Well, so another huge thing is if we just take like when the bowling alley starts, that's like 25 minutes. So that is a little, I think liberal and saying like the end I could go to when he asks him for money because then we cut out about ten minutes of, you know, introduction, I'll make us drinks and, you know, whatever it is. But yeah, that whole kind of buildup to I'm finished is brilliant. Yeah, it's it's astounding. I quoted the end of Rust and Bone in my wedding vows, because it means so much to me about how you can break a bone, and it can actually heal in a way that is stronger than it was before. That is being scored to The Wolves by Bon Iver, which I a song I just absolutely love. And then keeping with this, I, I start to get my voice start to crack and I started to get chills just looking at the title. The number one, without question is warrior, because when when you have two brothers who've had it extremely difficult relationship beating the ever loving hell out of each other in a boxing ring and their chronic, perhaps hopeless outcome now hopeless isn't fair. Their chronic alcoholic father, who they're strange from, is sitting there watching it all as about today by the national place, and that that ending bettered my life that I. I started living my life in a different way. Not as I was walking out. First time I was walking, I was kind of horrified and I was like, yeah, that was okay. And it I really do it just it clicked a lot. It helped me out a lot in life. A lot of these endings said traffic. Oh yeah. Big time. And now just some that don't really have anything to do with music over. Although there is a magnificent song called tomorrow playing at the end of Michael Mann's Ali, which brilliantly recreates the rumble in the jungle. So if I include that whole fight, that's like 20 minutes. But if I just include like when things are getting kind of dicey, that's like ten I that the end. The Michael Mann's recreation of The Rumble in the jungle is largely responsible for me becoming a boxer. Like for me, I saw that December 2001. Micky Ward started fighting Arturo Gatti a few months later in 2002. It was those two things and I was off and discovered this whole world of boxing. So Ali absolutely. Memento, which you called out doesn't have anything to do with music. But no, no, but the effect but coming back thing I would, I also would prefer the end to Inori if I was picking, because that really makes her entire character click into place. And I don't think that maybe wins an Oscar without those last five minutes. I do not think it makes a single Academy Award, including maybe especially for her, if those. And they took three days to film that, three days to film everything in that car, and just the way he plays it, she got I've watched it so many times again, that arms, I'm getting chills again. It might actually overtake inception. It really might. Yeah. Top ten it is just. And then a really I this one I thought of as you were talking because what were you talking about. It was something. Oh that it was the mist and how horrifying that is. Oh, yeah. Okay, folks, you go back to cinema spring 2006. If you went to the cinemas and I think it came out in April and you saw United 93, that experience was this is not a pleasant ending. Come on, you know what I'm saying? But it's not one that I like, like to rewatch and watch on YouTube. But the power of that of him, of Greengrass deciding at some point you don't you don't know he's decided it, but at some point a little earlier than you expect, he makes the decision to not cut away, and you were just going to be in the plane for the end. No more ground control, no more nothing. And then when you realize that's what's happened, I mean, everything from let's roll to storming like it is to the horrific final shot, the sea of hands flooding the cockpit like that is that's just cinema. But of everything I've mentioned, it's probably the ending. The traffic probably helped, like save my life a little bit. Honestly, I needed my family was riddled with addiction, especially when that movie came out. It helped me understand so much just the empathy of the characters and then warriors like that. That thing is just that thing is me. Oh yeah, and then that sent me off and falling in love with the National. So yeah, I love your pics. I love all all of your pics. I love all of those endings. I'm immediately going to go and fire up stalker when we're done with this just to check that out, but oh yeah, a good movie ending. That's it. Can it can make it there. Honoré is the one. Like, I am fucking positive that movie would not be as successful without that ending. There are so many movies as Tarantino does not fully land the plane on. This is a bit of a spoiler, but come on, you guys know this of why Sharon Tate is still legitimately alive. Like, how is this possible? And just a fucking lips does it? Once upon a time in Hollywood dot dot dot dot over her house and you're like, oh fuck, you did it. Oh wow. You really, really did it. Like, oh man, it's yeah. Like you just a great movie ending. Can it's usually better than, like any other part of the movie. It's just like if you nail an ending, it's so fucking special. So special. And I just like this whole entire conversation because I love that you brought up the music because, yeah, it's funny. Like. Yeah, all like five. Easy. Even though I'm I'll probably switch. I think I probably would take out inception, but if you were to take a Nora five Easy pieces like some of these like. Yeah, there's not music, there's like there's like this kind of emptiness to it. And because you're just sort of left with something. But I, I've once upon a time was actually probably my one. And whiplash is really the only kind of musical cue and really Once Upon a time is really it because it just comes in with that. But I love that for you. That's such a huge because it's all emotion. Exactly, exactly. It's a complete it's it's the visual culmination of what story like for warrior that especially because of your experience. But the thing is is like I understand like the how great an ending that that is because it is in terms of just that story, what that means, but that emotional swell and I mean, and then it's all a part of it too, because it's even like you hear that crowd over them when they're talking in the ring when he's saying it's okay. Yeah, like, like that, that, that, that dialog is not in your face. It's private. It's and and and but you mix all of that with the sound and the and then you get the song with it and everything like that. It's in unbelievably powerful. And now the single tear from Nulty, he takes his hat off. It's just you know, he he gets it. Tommy's arm is broken but they can't like he can see it. Oh yeah. But yeah I mean I didn't really realize that. And I was like oh music. Because that's the thing. Like in terms of my filmmaking and writing, it all starts with music. I've been I've talked about something on Patreon. People want to go to Patreon. What are you watching? Bonus features. We've talked about some exciting projects on there, but my, you know, 2026 project, every single thing, every word that I've written in this project, M83 was playing in the background, wordless M83 lyric just and always. And I go to like my, you know, 2026 rewind. It's like you've played these so many times, but yeah, like my gateway into stuff is usually music. And to find out that, like the gateway to all of warrior was about today, I've listened to that commentary like it was that song and then the National remixed it so they can make like a seven minute version of it and they go without without this song, not only does this ending not exist, the movie doesn't exist. And I'm like, man, I fucking. I identify with that like a lot. Cliff Martinez tried really hard to come up with something adequate instead of an ending ascent by Brian Eno for traffic, because that's what Soderbergh laid in there as a temp track. And Cliff Martinez, genius musician, was like, couldn't do it. Sometimes you just got to go with the greats. And I agree, like sometimes you just Wagner ending like New World. It's just yeah. So I, I don't know I just didn't realize like music really it's so important to, to me in terms of nailing like a good, a good ending. But someday we could do I could really sit down because like, of the ones I've listed, no, I the Citizen Kane ending, it's not like more rewatchable than the whiplash ending. I'm just saying, if we're rewatch ability is different than like the implications of what an indicator. So like the implications like United 93 is not implying anything. It's a very clear, deliberate final ending, nor is implying a lot. There will be blood to be probably best of all, like what I genuinely, in my heart of hearts, think I'm finished means like yes, I am through here and please go call those boys we know who live down the street because I got another body for them to dig, dig a hole for. I do not think it's like I am not afraid of consequence of authority at all. So that just the ellipsis of that is, you know, a lot of fun. And again, there's a difference between rewatch ability and something that's very like emotional makes you cry and all that shit. A good though barometer though, because like, I remember you brought the 2001 ending and you're right, like like I that that ending is amazing and I'm, I'm always moved by it. But I think in terms of rewatch ability, I think it's very important for, you know, no matter how many times you see that ending, it's like a song in a way. Where does that song ever lose its luster? Right. And that's like a very good barometer for no matter how you choose to end it, is there at least some point of it where it stays where you're like, fucking matter how many times I fucking see it, it still fucking gets me. I actually just went ahead and changed my top ten because I realized that Honora will absolutely trump inception every time. Look at that folks. We did it. Open the document, Alex, and just changed that. I think that's a better switch though. Yeah I do I know it really is because nail endings. Oh, Nolan Nolan the Odyssey tickets two days ago that came out. It broke everything. It was amazing Imax. Com AMC, Regal, Fandango AMC didn't work all day like Fandango. No it did. I had to go see a movie. Oh, God, I love it and use my email to prove I had a ticket. Love it. I have secured eight tickets to four screenings of The Odyssey. You're So fucking cool. Taking place in the first week of an opening Imax screening, one Imax screening, two Imax 70 millimeter. Got to drive three hours for that screening, three 70mm screening for Imax 70 millimeter. Got to drive another three hours for that. I say three hours one way. So that is six hours for screening. Hello. Here we go. You know what? This fucking asshole texted me back when I told him. I text Nick. I was like, I've secured for tickets for four screenings. He goes, what if you don't like it? And my response was, I don't understand the question. Hey, first major motion picture to be shot fully in Imax. There's if anything, if I if I don't like it, which won't happen. But if for some reason I don't, I can just look at it or listen to it. I'm very excited. It is shorter than Oppenheimer. I think that's kind of cool and much, much cooler. I'm a set of backflip. When I found this out last night, it's rated R. It's fucking awesome. He he insomnia was his ass related R-rated movie until Oppenheimer. And he's going back to art. I'm like, dude, go for it. But the fact that it broke all those websites and I've gone like your screenings at that fucking AMC at Universal Studios for 70mm. They are just exit out, man. They are sold out like all of them for a long time. And I'm going, this movie ain't going to need Barbie to ride coattails. This thing's going to make no money. And but when I saw it was R, I went, whoa, that's a lot of cool. Anyway, what are you watching? Let's do it. That was fun. Long episode about whiplash, about abuse, about villains, about endings. We went down a lot of different, like roads. I liked that because we didn't, you know, we like covered and kind of went in order. But still the first like hour and a half. We're just talking about whiplash now, which we like it because it's awesome. Yeah. What do you got going with all that jazz? Oh, cool. Okay. Because man, I love this. How many other movies that we covered for that have you rewatched since for the New Hollywood Film Project? And it's fine if it's if it's fine if it's just that, well, I was actually going to take that a little bit deeper because I was actually going to say something about this movie that, well, get a little cheesy right here, but, oh, I have to kind of sit back a little bit right here. And you know, what we try to do with this podcast you have done to me, you, your, your movie knowledge and, and, and your personalized recommendations. I currently am struggling to think if there is one movie, since we have been doing this podcast that you have forced upon me, because that was how this one went. This wasn't one where where we were in agreement. You just said for the 1979 we're going to do this, but you're like, trust me. Yeah, you. I will say that is true. But you didn't fight me on it. You're. I remember exactly what you said. You went, oh, I've never seen it. And I didn't know that. And I went, okay, please just trust me, knowing you don't like musicals, nor do I really. Please just trust me. I had no idea you would respond this way. I, I this might be my. This is in the conversation. Definitely within the top five, maybe even the top three of my favorite movie discoveries that I have had in these past six years of doing this podcast. Wow, that would be a great list for me. I would love, I mean, Exorcist one and then two. It's hard to say. I don't know, maybe because you hadn't seen shampoo. Yeah. Shampoo that all that jazz shampoo. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's cool because there have been we've we've had similar talks like this before where you're like. So I watched blank and I'm like, oh, you watched it cool. Like where you really surprised me. Like a arm accord by, like Fellini. And I'm like, oh, good to watch it. Yeah. But yeah, dude, that's awesome. I didn't know, and honestly, when I recommended it to you, I didn't even put together the whole life lived thing, which is like your life. Things like what the movie is, I wasn't even I was just thinking about the the spectacle of it. And then of course, like the putting that together with themes that you editing, man. Oh my god, the editing. Oh my. It's no that in this movie has had a real, real profound effect on me. Anytime I go on to, you know, social media like on our Instagram, and you look at all these actors and directors, this movie comes up for a lot of creatives. So makers love all that jazz. Yes. Yeah. There's there is something about this movie that it got me the first time I remember even we can go back and listen to that episode. I am enamored with this movie, but I didn't think it would sustain because it's gotten to the point where that's how I know where a movie really lands with me is when I like, I have to go back and watch it, said the after. Like, whatever you want to say. Yeah, if you are feeling compelled. I mean, that was warrior for me. That's so many of my favorite movies where the first time you're like, wow, cool, whatever. Fill in the blank, overwhelming, depressing, blah blah blah, but it doesn't. The deer Hunter the first time I saw that entirely too young. Yeah, extremely depressing experience, but did not leave my head. Had to go back. Had to. And like, there's an idea that I think in some of you like your favorite movies where wherever they might be like this sort of rough to watch, but if all of a sudden someone just sort of brings it up. Hey, should we watch The Deer Hunter? And you're like, I could have watched The Deer Hunter right now, because if it's like that, good, right? But, you know, it's like it's a tough ask. Yeah. Manchester by the sea, same thing. It's sort of like I that fucking any time. Funniest movie ever made. But all that jazz is sort of like one of those ones that for me, I'm like, I want to watch it again. I want to yeah. So I, so I and and you know, not that there's anything to do with whiplash except for the fact that jazz is in the title, because it's not really even about jazz, but it fits. It does. It fits. All right. Few selling points for people who haven't seen it. I'm going all over the gamut with this one, one that was brought to my attention again recently, your number one selling point. We've covered it on the pod. No kidding. Episode 160. All that jazz covered it. I'm looking here on a podcast where I have everything all nicely organized. We cover that more than a year ago. That's time is a god. It feels like. That's fucking crazy. The episode came out on May 31st, 2025, which means we were a few weeks before that, like Jesus was more than a year ago. That honestly feels like it was like like I most I would have given that six months, and that was another movie like shampoo that I did not grow up being obsessed with. I I've discovered all that jazz because of all the directors, all the creatives talking about it constantly. Same thing with shampoo. Another big selling point this is we're never going to review this movie on the podcast, and that's fine. But Michael Jackson's biggest inspiration for how he moved was based on Bob Fosse, and Bob Fosse wrote, directed and is the inspiration for Roy Scheider character in All That Jazz. So if you go watch some old Bob Fosse stuff and you watch Michael Jackson like Jackson did, he didn't hide behind. He openly admitted it like he is one of my main sources. So just like the the grace and I mean Roy Scheider inhabited it so well. Sam Rockwell inhabited it incredibly well. So falsely burden. And that's another selling point. Falsely burdened with where Sam Rockwell plays Bob Fosse and miraculous. Michelle Williams plays bird, and she's just so good. That's great. I'm not the biggest fan, you know, TV miniseries. It was phenomenal. Good. All that jazz has some staying power, I love it. I'm going back. Not that far, but a little back movie I had only seen a few times. I don't know if you've seen it. Just bought the Blu ray. It's called primer, made in 2004, directed by Shane Carruth. Have you ever seen this? You've always know and you've always liked this movie. Another Sundance winner. Okay, so yeah, like I said, finally bought the Blu ray. It has two commentaries on it that I haven't listened to yet. I'm very excited. This movie is 77 minutes long and it was made for $7,000. It won the Sundance Film Festival 77 minutes long, and nearly every time I watch it when it is done, I spend far more than 77 minutes researching it, reading deep dive essays, watching explainer videos, charts, graphs. Many say this is the most realistic depiction of time travel ever for a movie. One of the reasons is that, much like whiplash and the the jargon of the instruments, they are speaking an extremely complex engineering scientific terms. I do not know what they're saying, but they I mean, Carruth was an engineer like he he made this movie. He was, you know, he was in his 30s, like he was an engineer. And he just he just said, I'm not going to explain this. Like, I'm not going to waste time with exposition or explaining what's happening. And I guess the hope is that people would go back to it and rewatch it. And they do. I mean, I watched a 45 minute video explaining because they they only go back. The whole movie takes place like in a week, and they're only going back. And if you think you could sit down and be like, I know, time travel, I could do this, you can. And the way that it does this is never with visual effects.$7,000, $7,000. He does this with dialog. Ingenious cutting. There are no tricks, though. There are no tricks. There's there's no flourish. There can't be. It's well shot. He knew how to use, you know, stabilization. Shane Carruth wrote, directed and starred in. Casted, produced, edited, scored, sound. Designed. His family members, did craft services all for this movie. It's I mean it was just. And then he I mean he made this in 2004. Goes away for a while, comes back with Upstream Color in 2013, my favorite film of that year, and really damn near nearly made my top 25 of the century so far. And those are the only two movies he's going to make, because personally speaking, he is. Because personally speaking, he's a mess. Hasn't made a movie since upstream. Probably won't. Again, he hasn't made another movie for good reason. Amazing artists can sometimes be cruel assholes, and that's just all I'll say. But I did think it was important to mention. Yeah, I'm not going to get into like where his personal life has gone, but it was important to mention that if I'm going to sit here and sing the praises of primer, which is a really, really trippy, cool movie, and I mean, it's using like a U-Haul like storage units in very, very important ways, like very important ways. You would love it. And there's no way to, like, necessarily figure it out. I watch an explainer video and I was like, all right, I kind of I kind of get it. But wow. And talk about implications like the implications of this are it's just it's really, really good. And it is complex and tricky. But again, it's it doesn't use any tricks. There are no visual effects. There are no there's nothing like that. Nothing. You had me a time travel. Time travel. There it is. People say it's one of the best and most realistic in terms of implications, in terms of this whole whatever grandfather paradox, those words are never said in the movie. But the whole thing of like going, if you go back and adjust something can blah, blah, blah, all that. And again, never distilling, never dumbing the language down at all. They're just talking like engineers the entire time. And they it's him mainly. And one other guy. There's more of a cast, but it's him and one guy cooking this whole thing up and wow, very, very cool. Like it's just a cool movie. Excited to rewatch with the commentary on primer. Good movie. Whiplash, great movie, all that jazz, great movie. All right, you did it. Your top ten endings. I liked hearing them all. I'm not objecting, I like them. I like to take. I like the stance. Let us know what you're thinking, what you're watching. Go buy a shirt. Go buy a coffee club sticker, a magnet. Go buy it all at w w podcast. Find us on Patreon. But as always, thank you so much for listening and happy watching. Hey everyone! Thanks again for listening. Go to our brand new website, a podcast for everything. Episode categories. You can write to us. Donate. If you're feeling generous by our brand new merch and you can find our new Patreon link. That's right. What are you watching? Bonus features. We are on Patreon now, so for just a few bucks a month you can get so much more w a w content. Go to w a podcast for all of your what are you watching needs next time? Oh, we're getting close. Christopher Nolan has a new movie coming out. Maybe you've heard of it. The Odyssey I am excited. Nick is excited. We may get in an episode before that. We'll see. If you want new w w content, head on over to Patreon Patreon.com. We've reviewed obsession. Rooms. We have commentaries going on there. I've reached out to every Patreon subscriber for a dive recommendation they have given them to us. Some of the movies are terrifying, some are hilarious. It's going to be a lot of fun. Stay tuned for the Odyssey.