Transcript of 70mm’s Orlando (1992) Episode.
SLIM Heeey, it’s your old pal Slim and this is 70mm, a podcast for film lovers. Every Monday, I’m joined by famous artist, Danny Haas.
DANNY [Danny laughs]
SLIM And spiritual advisor, Protolexus.
PROTO I’ll say it right now. I’ll say — everyone can hear it. I like Wes Anderson movies. Okay?
SLIM And together as friends forever, we discuss recently watched movies. This episode for Leading Ladies Month, Proto chose Orlando starring Tilda Swinton. Is it time for us to wake up and recognize Tilda as one of the greatest living actors? Find out… right now.
[70mm theme music ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM We have some biiiig news. I try not to bring up the Patreon too, too much. You know, I don’t want to make it like real in your face for everybody that isn’t signed up. You know, it’s a separate thing. It’s fine. But we have some updates to the Patreon. First time ever, in a year, since we’ve launched. Almost — we’re at 145 patrons right now.
DANNY Wow.
PROTO Thank you.
DANNY That’s a lot.
SLIM More than probably, I mean, we ever would have anticipated, very grateful. But we are adding — now Eric says $100 an episode tier. Well, stay tuned. [Danny laughs] We’re adding a goal. We have two pieces of news. We’re adding a goal for the first time ever. So we’re adding a goal to hit 200 patrons and if and when we hit 200 patrons, we will be unlocking the Harry Potter cinematic movie franchise.
DANNY Ohhhhh my goodness.
SLIM For future episodes. The entire franchise.
DANNY All of it.
PROTO Count them.
SLIM There’s like nine movies!
PROTO All nine movies.
SLIM So the first episode will probably go out to everybody but everything after that will be just for patrons. I’m excited.
DANNY It’s a big one.
SLIM You know, that’s a big goal to have. [Slim in what is supposed to be a Hagrid voice] Yerrr a wizard ‘Arry! [Danny laughs] The veins in my neck popped when I said that.
DANNY You’re hurt. I know you’re hurting.
SLIM How do you feel, Danny, of potentially going through the Harry Potter franchise together on the show?
DANNY If I can be honest.
SLIM Please.
DANNY I’m very excited. I love these movies. So this is big. Very big.
SLIM This is big. Proto, what do you think?
PROTO I’m really nervous because I’m assuming Danny gave every movie five stars. [Danny laughs] He’s gonna be pissed off at me for the majority of that.
SLIM Mamma mia. So that’s that. We have our first ever goal, 200 patrons. Once that happens, we’ll unlock those episodes. So the second piece of news that we’re announcing.
DANNY Shoooo. This is the big one.
SLIM You know, we’ve existed on the Patreon is just one tier for four bucks a month you get access to our Discord, exclusive episodes. We’re adding a second tier. folks have been asking about maybe adding another tier with some new perks. So that’s what we’re doing. Called the VHS Village Council tier. So if you’re a council member, council person, and are paid up for the year, we’re paid annually. You, I’m talking to you. You get to pick a movie we will cover for patrons.
DANNY Shoooo. My gosh. What are we doing?
SLIM If you’ve been waiting for your moment. [Proto laughs] In the sun. So if you want us to do you, Titanic, we will do Titanic. You want us to do…
DANNY Say it.
SLIM Robocop 3. [Danny laughs] I’m looking at you know, I’m talking to that person right now. Do it. Choose it.
PROTO If you want us to do Barbie Goes to the Rodeo. [Slim & Danny laugh]
SLIM There are some, there are some ground rules for that which are spelled out in the Patreon post that will be live when this episode is live for patrons. So that is going to be 12 bucks a month or the annual version which gets you two free months discount for the year. Oh, not only that, but you’ll be getting a free print of that episode by Danny.
DANNY Mmmm!
SLIM Sent to you, to your home.
DANNY Who knows what else will be in that package?
SLIM Oh my God. Getting Danny’s signature on there? You kiddin’ me? Final piece of that tier, you’ll have access to a very special exclusive VHS Village Council channel in the Discord for just those members. So that’s the piece of news. Harry Potter goal at 200, new tier where you pick the movie.
DANNY Big time.
SLIM Anything’s possible if you just believe. That stuff is live on our patreon.com/70mm right now and on 70mmpod.com. Leading Ladies Month this episode. First ep.
DANNY It’s time.
PROTO I’m feeling fantastic. I’m so glad that I picked this movie. And I’m looking forward to us talking about it.
SLIM Danny, what did you watch this week?
DANNY Well, thanks to Proto picking Orlando.
PROTO You’re welcome.
DANNY I realized how little of Tilda Swinton’s filmography that I’ve seen. So I wanted to do a little mini journey this week. Going through till those movies, some of her bigger ones. Some ones that I’d wanted to see. Started with Michael Clayton, her Oscar winning role, Supporting Actress role. She’s fantastic in that, I moved on to one our Discord members Marcie, that Marcie told me about called Only Lovers Left Alive and it is a vampire movie with her and Tom Hiddleston. And it’s, I don’t even know really how to explain it except —
PROTO Try.
SLIM Tell us. [Danny laughs]
DANNY It’s not your like every day, kind of vampire movie, they’ve existed obviously forever, but they’re in a modern. They’re in like modern times to where they’re still in hiding. So they’re not out feasting on people’s flesh, because everyone’s blood is contaminated with something these days that could possibly kill them. So they’re either getting like pure oxygen, or pure blood from the hospitals and stuff like that or stuff like that. But there’s John Hurt’s in it, too. He plays like an older vampire. And it’s just kinda like a love story between Tilda and Tom and it’s really cool. I really enjoyed it.
SLIM Bloody love story.
DANNY Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s pretty great.
SLIM Oh I was about to say Eric has already grabbed the $12 tier. Eric is going to be the first person to choose the movie. As we’re recording this.
DANNY You said Eric but I think it’s Forrest.
SLIM Forrest did too? My God. So that so that was one thing I forgot to mention. We’re only opening 10 slots of this for now. We don’t want to go effing buckwild 30 people [Danny & Proto & Slim laugh] choosing movies. If two people have signed up for it, that means there’s only eight slots left for now. And then we can talk about that a little bit later. I didn’t even know Tilda Swinton won an Oscar! That’s how much of a dumb-dumb I am.
PROTO She did?!
SLIM That’s what Danny just said.
DANNY Am I wrong? She won Best Supporting and Michael Clayton I thought?
PROTO I’ll take your word for it.
SLIM Oh my God. Can someone back this up?
DANNY Am I wrong?
PROTO I’ll take your wooord.
SLIM Kevin and Forrest and Eric have moved up to the council status! Can anyone back up this Supporting Actress information here? Do we have anyone with the power to do this? I’m looking at Dale in the studio. He’s frantic. He’s just shaking his head.
DANNY Cord just wrapped around his neck right now. [Slim laughs] So then I watched the the remake of the horror film Suspiria and I gave that five stars. I was blown away. Now I have, before anyone says anything, I have not seen the original. But I will go back and watch it because I really, really do want to watch it. And I thought her and Dakota Johnson in that film are phenomenal. There’s just some really incredible scenes in that film. I mean, I watched so many, I moved on to Okja. I really wanted to see after Proto talked about it. I didn’t remember that Tilda was in it. So Okja is amazing. And it’s disturbing. Watched Snowpiercer and I wish that it wasn’t Chris Evans. It would have been a better movie I think.
SLIM Wowww. You went hard this week.
DANNY Yep. I got two more. Today I finish A Bigger Splash, is with the same director of Suspiria. He also directed Call Me By Your Name, Luca. I can’t say his last name. I can’t think of it right now. And that was a great film. But then I watched yesterday We Need to Talk About Kevin.
SLIM I —
DANNY Matt, I know.
SLIM Can I just say, I can’t believe Danny watched this movie.
DANNY Listen.
SLIM I left a review that I thought maybe would scare you off.
DANNY I didn’t click on it. I didn’t click on it. I didn’t want to spoil it. But the thing is when you click on anything that talks about Tilda Swinton, this is always brought up as like a shining performance of her.
PROTO Holy grail.
DANNY And it really, it really is. She’s amazing. But this is a traumatic movie and it’s very, very hard to watch. And it’s a partly because Lynn Ramsay is phenomenal at giving like telling disturbing stories that bother you in the way she — the way this film like time jumps as well as is amazing too. But Ezra and Tilda, I said this in my review, that they are literally, they’re putting on a masterclass. Like if they fall at any point in this movie, if their performances like let down at all then this movie flops. But the two of them are phenomenal but I honestly could never recommend this film to people to watch.
SLIM Yeah, you asked me after word in Apex. ‘Should I watch You Were Never Really Here?’ and I said ‘eff no’ [Danny laughs] You should not watch that movie. [Slim laughs]
DANNY Didn’t listen to you.
SLIM Did not enjoy it.
DANNY It was rough but it really is amazing. I don’t, I think a lot of my — I didn’t give it stars, I didn’t know how to feel about this film. There’s a bigger conversation that probably needs to be had that I am uneducated on when it comes to mother/son, that kind of trauma that you could see in Ezra’s character. But it’s rough. It’s a rough watch. It’s a rough watch as an American when it comes to the tragedy at the end and how much we deal with school killings and all that kind of stuff. Which isn’t a spoiler, it’s very apparent that this is what happens.
SLIM Yeah, big part of the movie. Emily in chat it made a comment about Suspiria. ‘Argento Suspiria is literally a perfect movie.’ Confirm. I can confirm that.
DANNY I’m excited to watch it. The problem for me is it doesn’t have Tilda in it, so we’ll see.
SLIM Gotta use your imagination.
DANNY I’ll deep fake Tilda in it. [Slim laughs]
SLIM As we’re recording there are now only four slots available.
DANNY Oh my gosh! You guys are wild.
SLIM Marcie and Ismael signed up. Kevin, oh my word. Proto, what did you watch? Thank you for everyone for signing up. Dave just upgraded!
DANNY Oh my gosh.
SLIM We’re running outta slots.
PROTO Well, one question, so A Bigger Splash isn’t a sequel to the Ron Howard movie Splash?
SLIM Proto’s been sitting on that one for about three minutes.
DANNY You’ve been marinating on that one. I don’t know — if you’re being serious… [Slim laughs]
PROTO Thanks everybody for being here.
DANNY But I don’t think so. Definitely not. But Tilda plays like a rock star that is recovering like from a throat surgery. So what’s brilliant as she doesn’t really speak until, speak this whole movie. So her performances, almost like a mime-esque. She’s amazing.
PROTO Well, what did I watch? So me and JR Scrolling. We actually had a night where we could watch a movie and we watched, lo and behold, the winner for best movie of the year at the Oscars. Nomadland.
DANNY Oh yeah. I saw that.
PROTO Yeah, I gave it three stars. [Danny laughs] Frances McDormand. I saw that, I saw I’ve seen of the ones that were nominated, I saw Nomadland and Mank. So I haven’t seen a lot. But even only seeing those two I would not have given Best Picture to Nomadland. Just like there’s got to be a better movie. Like it’s fine.
SLIM What about Minari?
PROTO I haven’t seen it yet. I’d love to see it.
SLIM How about us barely even talking about the Oscars in a movie podcast, the first and potentially only movie podcast and we didn’t really even dwell on it too much. [Slim laughs] Neither of the hosts watched it but there was a watch party in Discord, everyone had a great time watching and chatting.
PROTO Yeah, just caught some of the chat, it sounded like not a great one. Not a great one to watch.
SLIM I think that’s what I gave Nomadland, three stars. I just had problem connecting with the her character in that movie. And if you don’t connect to her character in that movie, you’re pretty much just waiting that movie out.
PROTO I think it’s kind of hard to connect with her character because she’s not very open. There isn’t, she doesn’t really open up to anybody in her life. Even when there’s other characters that are opening, opening up, she doesn’t really give too much of her background. Like she describes her history with her husband, but I don’t feel like she really you know, gives, you know, opens up that much about her life. But I enjoyed it. I think it’s it’s a good interesting meditative movie. Like it’s very relaxing to watch. It’s, it’s gorgeous. But it just didn’t, you know, just didn’t really wow me. And then I was able to get on the Lean journey. Was able to carve out some time and watch the Bridge on the River Kwai. And I gave it, I gave it four stars. You know, we’ve talked about this movie.
SLIM Wowwww.
PROTO A little bit now, now that we’ve all seen it. And yeah, it’s like Danny said, it’s long. There’s a lot of nothing in it. But I enjoyed it. I had a good time. And the ending really is, you know, I had no idea what to expect with the ending. I would love to talk in detail about the ending, because it is just, wow.
SLIM The layers in ending and those characters in the last seven minutes. It’s just some wild stuff.
PROTO Yeah, amazingly satisfying in terms of everything coming together and being shocked at how it unfolds! I just kind of believe it. Well worth the five hour investment or however long. [Danny laughs]
SLIM It’s not that long! C’mon! Get it outta here.
PROTO Alright I think it was like three hours, two hours 45. But yeah, that was fun. And then I the other night, I was able to watch Wes Anderson’s first flick, Bottle Rocket. You know, I think, I think now I’ve seen all of his movies.
DANNY Oh my.
PROTO Yeah, because you know, I’m a big Wes Anderson fan. So this is the one that had eluded me for a while now. And if you haven’t seen it, I actually, I’m not even really sure how to describe this movie. It’s, it’s about kind of like low rent, a group of low rent criminals who are doing some jobs trying to make some money. But they’re friends at the same time. But the relationships are not that great. And they’re kind of struggling through it, trying to make it work. But in my review, I said it’s so wild seeing Wes Anderson in his first movie, and it has all of the things that make a Wes Anderson movie his, you know, just his iconic style and the way he shoots it. Even things like little lists with things, you know, marked and running down like a tabulated list things. But it’s only like halfway there. It’s kind of not fully, you know, fully rendered yet. And I think that that might be because he did write it with Owen Wilson. So I wonder if he just not having full control, you know, it wasn’t entirely his movie. And I think I would like this movie a lot more, if I watched it again. Because I think it’s kind of jarring to watch, and have kind of an expectation of what a Wes Anderson movie is going to be. And it kind of kept throwing me off. But it’s a lot of fun. And if you like Wes Anderson, I think it’s totally worth watching. So really, in my book, I don’t know if he has a bad movie. Now that I’ve seen them all. I love his flicks. I’ll say it right now. I’ll say it so that everyone can hear it. [Danny laughs] I like Wes Anderson movies. Okay?
DANNY That’s a great theme for a month too. First movie month.
SLIM Ohhh!
DANNY Find directors, pick their first movies, first flicks.
SLIM Wowwwww.
PROTO I love that.
SLIM What Spielberg’s first movie? Is it the car one?
PROTO Yeah, Back to the Future. [Danny & Slim laugh]
SLIM Stupid ass. Duel. Marcie, thank you.
DANNY Ohhhh lord.
SLIM Inapprope.
PROTO I think yeah, that’s and that’s the movies that I watched.
SLIM Okay. I do want to call out new patrons this week, Nolan, Brian, Colburn, Stefan, James and Maggie joined this week. So you can do so at 70mmpod.com. Join our Discord, chat movies during the day. Have your dreams crushed when people talk about your favorite movies, and then build yourself back up into a stronger person.
DANNY Yes.
SLIM Let’s see before I get to a movie that I watched this week, I do want to call out that, lotta love for Letterboxd this week in our Discord. We’re on Letterboxd every day, seeing what our friends are watching. And you can get a free year of Letterboxd Pro by sharing our show on social media on Instagram, Twitter, share it out, tag us in it. And this week’s winner is PTFilm. Peter Tedone on Twitter.
DANNY Oh Peter!
SLIM You just got yourself a year of Letterboxd Pro.
PROTO Congrats!
SLIM So that gets rid of ads and as Neil graciously pointed out in Discord today, you can sort your watchlist by where it’s streaming, according to the streaming services that you yourself use. Very helpful. And if you want 20% off Letterboxd Pro or Patron status, you don’t want to wait for a freebie. You can get a discounted link on our website 70mmpod.com. Support our friends at Letterboxd. We’re running outta tape and I just want to point out that you know, our dear friend friends, Dale, producer of this show, he’s in the studio right now mixing, mastering. Producer emeritus. He does a podcast called BAT & SPIDER, where they just watch, he and Chuck just watch garbage movies. And this week, they did The Baby.
DANNY I can’t believe you watched this.
SLIM I was like, you know what, I want to join my dear friends at BAT & SPIDER on their journey for this movie. And I wasn’t prepared for this. You know, usually you get some kind of weirdo, horror, gore or something. But this movie essentially follows a adult man who exists as a baby. You know, it’s kind of like weird things, I don’t mean to kink shame anybody. [Danny laughs] But you know the kind of guy that rolls around in a diaper, baby clothes.
DANNY We know them.
PROTO I grew up with one!
SLIM You probably knows somebody that does that. But anyway, this character is just an adult, but still acts like a baby. And he lives with his mother and sisters who are kind of like pseudo evil and kind of keeping him in line until a social worker gets wind of them. And she wants to try to like rescue this baby man from them. It’s just bizarre. Totally bizarre. It’s on Shudder. I love Shudder. A lot of stuff I watched these days on Shudder. It’s like the horror app. So check out The Baby if you’re interested to see what BAT &SPIDER is all about. But the other thing I watched on Sudder this week is there’s a original series called Cursed Films on there. And they spend about 20, 25 minutes interviewing people related to productions of “cursed films”. So like, The Omen. They did the Twilight Zone movie with that horrific death with the helicopter scene. And the one episode that was just incredible was The Crow. So they spent time 20, 25 minutes doing an episode on what happened with The Crow. You know, we talked about that movie in the past Brandon Lee unfortunately, killed on set. Yeah, they did an Exorcist episode, rumble in chat. And they talk about you know what led to Brandon’s death. They talked to the production, the people like in production, really powerful. A lot of people they interviewed like the director, the guy who did Brandon’s makeup, you know, they’re really still, you know, affected by what happened in that movie. And the guy who did the makeup still had Polaroids of him taking photos of Brandon so that he knew at what stage of the movie he had to match up like the makeup and stuff. So there’s like a scene where he’s just like opening a book and going through Polaroids frin filming the movie, it was crazy.
DANNY That’s incredible.
SLIM And conversely, on the Twilight Zone episode, they talked to the guy who was like, responsible for setting up this village, this Vietnam village where a guy that there’s a storyline in — we’re running way over. But this is a good story. Not a great story. But the one story in The Twilight Zone where this guy is like a racist. And he goes transferred through time and lives as a persecuted person, as a way to like have him understand that he’s like in the wrong, you know, so he goes in Nazi Germany. He’s like, chased by Nazis. It goes to Vietnam and he’s like trying to rescue, he sees that like people are being persecuted there during the war. And there’s a scene where he finally changes his mind and rescues these two kids, and runs through the village through a lake, escaping a helicopter. And for those that don’t know The Twilight Zone, it’s a horrific accident. Poorly planned, the helicopter loses control because of the explosions and crashes on the actor and the two kids. Kills them.
DANNY Oh, excuse me?
SLIM And they interviewed the guy who likes set up a lot of that set and design. And he is just still you know, it’s just crazy to watch them explain that and just having to live with that for decades. Jonathan Landis directed that and was like, you know, vilified in Hollywood for many years after that.
DANNY Wow.
SLIM So very amazing documentary stuff on Shudder. So by all means, check it out. We need to get into Orlando. 1992. Proto’s pick for Leading Ladies Month. Sally Potter directed. Tilda Swinton starring. Proto, can you walk us through this movie streaming right now on Amazon Prime?
[The Maze by David Motion & Sally Potter fades in]
PROTO Sometimes, life can be surprising. Maybe the most for Orlando. A noble man in 17th century England, Orlando is given a generous gift from Queen Elizabeth. If he promises to do one thing, never grow old. Accepting this, he is unbounded by the restraints thought innate to all mankind, that have of sex and aging. Frozen in youth, Orlando’s life spans centuries. And yet he does not age. Having lived the life of a man for more than a century, he becomes she, and all the world changes for her. We peer into Orlando’s life throughout the centuries, and their pursuits of love, poetry, sex, art, and wonder. Who are they? Given enough time, who could you become? Orlando.
[The Maze by David Motion & Sally Potter ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM Tilda Swinton. Is she gonna be like one of the most celebrated actors of our time in like 20 years? Can we just get into it a little bit? Like, why have I slept on the power of Tilda for so long you think?
DANNY That’s how I felt this week, especially after watching Orlando, I was just kind of like, I’ve only known of Tilda from, you know, Marvel, and the Narnia movies. I don’t really know much of her outside of that. And so I felt like after watching Orlando that I am greatly under educated on this woman’s career. Because she’s fascinating as a person already. She just is like such a rare individual, in my opinion. And so that’s why I went through so many of her films this week, just to you know, educate myself.
SLIM For the first time, I think I saw her in a movie, probably might have been Vanilla Sky.
DANNY I keep forgetting she’s in that!
SLIM She’s in that when she was working at the life extension company for Tom. And I thought she was a very strange person in that movie. Like your first introduction to Tilda, she could be playing, you know, a very eccentric character, and you might not be quite ready for it. Proto, what about you? What do you what are your overall thoughts on Tilda and getting into this movie?
PROTO Well, if you would have asked me 10 years ago, or maybe a couple of years ago, I would have thought like Tilda Swinton was a relatively new actress. I didn’t, I didn’t know, I didn’t even know about her, you know, till a few years ago. So it’s, you know, it’s strange when someone’s you know, this talented and to not really have heard about them. And maybe that’s because she just doesn’t, she never had like a huge smash hit, where she was, you know, kind of became a household name. So she often plays like, pretty weird out there roles. And maybe it’s also because she morphs herself so well. That, like, she really becomes the characters and she’s, you know, it’s not like, you know, it’s not like watching I don’t know, like a Nick Cage, where you’re like, oh, that’s Nick Cage doing Nick Cage. She’s very, yeah, she’s a chameleon.
SLIM Could you picture Nick Cage and Tilda Swinton in like Con Air 2? [Danny & Proto laugh] Also, yeah, the Constantine movie. I forgot that she was in that and she plays — who does she play in that? Does she play Gabriel?
DANNY Yeah she plays the angel.
SLIM Oh my. So another thing this is directed by Sally Potter based on a book by Virginia Woolf. So you really get like a triple out of this. Actually, I guess you could say you know, around the park homerun? Is that a baseball phrase?
DANNY Grand slam.
SLIM And where, you know, she plays multiple — that’s another thing to get into. So this, the story of this movie. She traverses time, like the whole movie. If you miss that one line about the Queen saying, you know you can have this all if you just never die or whatever. [Danny laughs] You’re like, wtf is going on? Because she’s not aging. And we’re like, 200 years past where that first scene happened.
DANNY If I’m gonna be honest.
SLIM Tell us please, you missed it?
DANNY I heard it, but it was just felt like something you say to someone, like, oh never grow old or something like that. So we got to like, I was apparently not even watching when it said like 1650, when I got to 1700 I paused, I looked at Casey and was like, wait a minute. What did I miss? Because it’s been 100 years. And she hasn’t aged a day. [Danny laughs]
SLIM Can I be honest with the two of you also? I also missed that line. So when she was the ambassador, I think at the second stage where it was like, you know, 100 years later, I was like, okay, I need to load up the Wiki. [Proto & Danny laugh] I missed something very important, and I need to figure this out. So that was me. Proto, I’m assuming you didn’t miss that.
PROTO I think It was in the, it’s like in the summary of the movie on Letterboxd, about her not growing old. I thought it was, I definitely read it somewhere before the movie, I read some synopsis that had it. So I was waiting for it. I was, I was looking for it. So when the Queen said it, I was like, ah, there it is. And can we talk about this Queen?
SLIM Please.
PROTO Good lord.
DANNY Quentin.
SLIM It’s a dude. Right? He’s played by an old man.
PROTO It’s a man. What a wild choice for that. It fits perfect with the themes of, you know, men and women swapping genders. So having this this, Quentin Crisp play this Queen was pretty, pretty amazing, I thought. And the, the way, this starts out, the costumes, and the sets of this are just wild. It’s hard to believe that this was real. Like, did they really live like this? [Slim & Danny laugh] These clothes.
SLIM I know! I was thinking the same thing. Like the first outfits that she wore and the people she was with, I just thought of myself like these people look like clowns without their face paint. You know? And that was just the era. And that’s not really like a negative, I guess it’s more of a negative on how just I perceive clowns, you know, and the clothes that they wear. But, you know, they all wore these really just over the top costumes. And you know, it really just did fit for the time. You’re right. The other thing with the Queen, I was wondering if the whole movie was going to be kind of gender fluid like that. Where there’s a male Queen, she is playing a male character. And I was like, okay, who else who’s going to be swapping around in this movie? But really, that’s about it. I guess you could say Billy Zane’s character is very down the middle to a little bit. He’s just a beautiful man. So he can pull that off.
PROTO I did read in the Wiki that there were some differences from the book. And one of them was that the the suitor who was I think it was Bishop Harriet or, or something? The guy who was pursuing Orlando.
SLIM Archduke Harry or something?
PROTO Yeah. Apparently. Before Orlando goes as an ambassador. He’s a woman. And then when Orlando comes back as a woman, he’s a man.
SLIM Really?
PROTO Yeah. So apparently, that’s what happens in the book. So I think there is there are more of those themes in the book. But for whatever reason, Sally Potter didn’t include that.
SLIM How about Archduke Harry, meeting up with Orlando, I think Orlando is in like a sauna of some kind, maybe. And he’s wearing kind of like local to that area clothing. And Harry walks in on Orlando. And he’s like, so smitten by Orlando’s appearance and is immediately in love with him. I just thought that scene was amazing. And then later, when Orlando is physically, quote, unquote, a “woman” at that point, where she is more apparent to be a woman, he makes his pitch to her like, I don’t care if you were a man before, or a woman now like this is our chance, we can get married now. [Slim laughs] I was not expecting that kind of like fourth wall-ish. His acknowledgment that she was perceived to be a man before but is now a woman. I don’t know that there ever really threw me for a loop. But I really enjoyed it. How did you feel about that Danny?
DANNY I found it like insanely fascinating. Well, first of all, it’s fascinating that Virginia Woolf is writing a novel in what? 1928 about gender roles anyway. Like, feels way ahead of the game. And then this is out. And it’s funny, because when this film comes out, gender roles, I feel like are taking like the step of like women in, you know, working and the males, you know, that kind of dominated industry. But then now that this film, we watch it in 2021. And it’s like, we’re dealing with a whole different sort of gender roles when it comes to the LGBTQ community. So it’s just, it’s honestly fascinating how even this film kind of trusts and transcends decades of our culture.
SLIM Marcie points out that Tilda’s eye color also changes in each century.
PROTO Oh, wow.
SLIM Marcie is our resident Tilda expert. Tilda historian I think. Make a badge for that.
PROTO Oh, you mentioned the scene where the the Archduke pretty much proposes to Orlando. Right after that, I think it’s in the same scene right after that where some official comes to her and says, basically, that now that you’re a woman or you’ve been hiding that you’re a woman and not a man, all this land that you have, and this property is no longer yours, because you’re not who you said you were. And unless you produce an heir, you’re going to lose it all. Which was interesting just to see these things like, kind of slapped in their face. One thing about this movie I love is that Sally Potter doesn’t try to explain most of this stuff. It kind of just is there. It’s like, you know, why isn’t she growing old? Or why in seven days, she can sleep for seven days. And now she’s a woman. It’s like, it doesn’t matter. It’s, you know, it’s just part of the movie. But those aspects of it like that, and then the scene where she’s in a sitting room. And I think it’s like a, like a poetry club. And she sits down there. And these guys are just laying into her, because she’s a woman, like, like no other reason at all. And I think it’s because you know, that she would want to sit there and be a part of, basically the club. And how shocking that would be for somebody who had spent, you know, over 100 years as a man.
[clip of Orlando plays]
ORLANDO Gentlemen, I find it strange. You will put each one of you and speak of your muse in the feminine. And yet you appear to feel neither tenderness nor respect towards your wives nor towards females in general.
POPE Madam! I have only the highest regard and purest respect for females.
ORLANDO I find no evidence of that sentiment in your conversation.
POPE Conversation is the place where one place with ideas, my dear lady. The one forges them quite alone.
SWIFT Quite so.
ADDISON Quite! Quite!
POPE The intellect is a solitary place, and therefore quite unsuitable a terrain for females who must discover their natures through the guidance of a father or husband.
ORLANDO And if she has neither?
POPE Then however charming she may be, dear lady, she is lost.
[clip of Orlando ends]
SLIM Yeah, that scene with those pieces of human garbage men, the snooty men, that scene was unreal. The conversation that they had, the way that it was acted by them. God, they were so good in that role. Her face hearing all of it, too, when she really just like realizes like, oh shit. Like this is what I’m dealing with right now. I thought that was incredibly powerful. The scene right before that, where she sees herself in front of the mirror in the buff. And like, comes to the realization that she’s changed. I thought that was an amazing scene.
DANNY That’s a great line too. She looks at the mirror and she says “Same person. no difference at all. Just different sex.” I really liked that line.
SLIM Yeah, the thing that I really enjoyed about this movie is obviously it’s beautiful to look at. And there’s just so many closeup shots of Tilda, you know, that almost just looks like a photograph that they just put in the movie. Like they’re really just like stretching how visually pleasing her in these costumes are. Like yeah, Sean just posted another photo. It’s just gorgeous to look at. It’s like a visual, you know, flex on us. This whole movie. And what’s also a flex In my opinion, too, is just that like Proto said, not explaining anything. We’re just gonna make this weird ass movie that is a Tilda, we’re just gonna prop Tilda up for 90 minutes, you’re gonna get it or not, it’s gonna be a ride so you’ll get we get out of it. And I got a lot out of it, to be honest. I really enjoyed seeing Tilda just walk around as a weird character, androgynous. She’s a man to start with. She makes the change and realizes she’s not like masculine in the way that a masculine man is to be perceived. And that’s when like the switch is flipped after that kind of war scene and she becomes a woman. I love that stuff. Danny, do you have any thoughts on the visual and nature of this movie too?
DANNY Yeah. And one of the things I love that Sally did when it comes to Tilda playing the male is she acts, she just doesn’t she doesn’t over masculine Tilda or even like, allow her to be — there’s something about Tilda’s performance as the male where it’s not, she’s not trying to play a male. You know, you’re just told that she, you know, isn’t a female. But Tilda, there’s nothing about her in those scenes that make her look like a male at all. And I think that’s kind of brilliant when it comes to still trying to define these gender roles. She’s just Tilda Swinton being herself in this entire film. And that’s kind of what I loved about it.
PROTO I think it helps because the time period, where it’s set, is the men, at least based on, you know, images and photos and the clothing that you’ve seen, the men look very feminine to begin with. And I found as a viewer, I think one of the one of the coolest aspects of this movie is that in my brain, as I’m watching it, in the beginning I’m trying to remember like, alright, she’s, she’s a man, and almost trying to like, look at her and imagine her as a man. Like, I was actively trying to do this to kind of see like, if, like, I could, like switch my brain to just like, believe that as I’m watching it. And, you know, after a while, I feel like you can because of just like, the way she plays the role. She really does great at it and making you believe that. And just the subtle things like she doesn’t do a lot, but her voice is definitely a little bit deeper as she talks. So then when she switches to be a woman, this this character who spent an hour, who I’ve spent an hour trying to convince in my head is a man is now a woman, when she actually is a woman. Just put me in this really weird, confusing place, almost where it was, you know, it kind of just blurred the line of gender as I’m watching this for this character, and I can’t think of another movie where, like that, like, how would a movie do that? Other than like a story like this? Um, so I just found that incredibly fascinating.
SLIM Yeah, the lines are blurred a little bit too when she meets Billy Zane. Finally, they have that like, big connection that they make between the two of them. There’s a few things we need to talk about Billy Zane right now.
DANNY Let’s get into it.
SLIM One, Billy Zane’s hair. It is like a lion’s mane blowing in the wind when he’s on that horse. Yeah, Kev points out that Zane was like barely in the movie. And yet he’s on the cover in a lot of the posters that are circulating. His eyebrows. They’re like black boomerangs on his forehead. [Danny laughs] They’re huge! I’ve never seen eyebrows like that on a man before, just unkempt wild eyebrows. Third thing, Billy Zane’s lips.
DANNY Okay.
SLIM He has the most sensual lips I’ve ever seen a man before. [Danny laughs] I don’t know how to explain it. They’re, they’re puffy. They’re supple.
DANNY Supple. That’s the word.
SLIM I just couldn’t get my eyes off them during his entire scene. [Danny laughs] That’s all I wanted to say about Billy Zane. You know, wish he still had that hair. You know, I guess he was probably losing it too early, had to cut it all off.
PROTO He has a pretty small part in this.
DANNY Yeah, I was gonna say. It bugged me. Because he’s on the cover.
SLIM He didn’t need to be on the cover at all.
DANNY Right? He’s in there for five minutes. And I was like, I feel frustrated. I was a little frustrated. I’m like, why is, I wanted more of the relationship between the two of them. And I understand the need to move the story along because we’re keep jumping 100 years but I don’t know, I was bugged by Billy not being in it more because I wanted, I wanted more of a performance with him and Tilda.
SLIM Yeah, I can see him being double billed maybe by like the studio, you know, like told us when as a androgynous gender swapping character in the 1600s. Oh, Billy Zane’s in it? Can we maybe add his name to the poster? Like maybe, I don’t remember when Titanic came out? But maybe that was, that played into a little bit?
DANNY 97.
SLIM Same year? This came out the same year as Titanic?
DANNY Did it? Am I wrong?
SLIM 97. You said 92? Come on.
DANNY I said 97.
SLIM Geez. So I don’t know what he was in for that. So maybe my scheme just doesn’t work at all.
DANNY Thank you. This came out in 92 Matt. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Proto, what else is on your list Orlando?
PROTO I absolutely love the soundtrack to this. I have actually been listened to it all week. There was just like this 15 minute clip of it on YouTube. And the other day, I probably just kept replaying that for hours. I just I love it so much. It’s, it definitely comes from this time period. You know, like the 90s like you can hear aspects of it. But in the same time, I think it’s timeless.
[Coming by David Motion, Sally Potter and Jimmy Sommerville ramps up]
PROTO I’m just in love with the music in this. I would love to get, you know all of it somehow online.
DANNY Sally hand had a hand in it too.
SLIM Really?
DANNY Sally was a part of composing it with David, Motion, is that his last name? I think I have written down. She composed most of the score with him.
SLIM Yeah, Eric posted I think maybe the YouTube clip that you listened to. And the song that plays at the end, you know at the other movie where she’s looking up in the sky, I think that’s when that song plays and she sees that like holographic singer. I don’t know what the hell that was going on in that scene. [Proto & Slim laugh]
DANNY The only other note that we all haven’t kind of gone over was I liked the vignette kind of based storytelling of this film that it wasn’t a continual like, a long continual narrative for 400 years or whatever. I liked that it was broken up until like death and love and whatever the other titles they gave it. And then the years, there was just like these nice, I like how it was like these capsules of these like a quick story of what Tilda I can’t think of her name. What Tilda was going through. Orlando, sorry. And I just, I really enjoyed that kind of storytelling. It was it felt kind of, I don’t know, I don’t know if I can pull any other films that have done this, but it was just a nice kind of style from the norm of what we know from kind of like time jumping films where you have to travel a lot of time fast in two hours, but it was kind of cool how she did it.
SLIM Yeah, like I liked it too. It kept everything kind of segmented. Wasn’t really too, you know, scattered. Each section was named too.
DANNY Because I can only assume that the Virginia Woolf book is huge, or at least long and hard to make into a movie. So I’m sure this was daunting already. And I love the cinematography in this. That scene with the hedge maze.
PROTO Yeah!
DANNY With her running through it, is absolutely beautiful. I did look up it’s Aleksei Rodionov and he did the cinematographers for Come and See, that 4.6 star banger on Letterboxd.
SLIM Wowww.
DANNY So he was cinematographer on that too.
SLIM Interesting. Yeah, how ‘about the shot of her in the rain?
DANNY Crazy.
DANNY Kinda like looking towards the camera. Mamma mia. Proto, what else you got?
PROTO One other thing was so I was confused at the beginning of this or more towards the middle where she has, I think it was called the love section where the, it’s like a Russian princess or someone from east of France —
DANNY The ice skating?
PROTO Yeah, comes and she falls in love with with this this woman but everything is frozen at this time. I’m like wait, where are they? Are they in England? Why is there this much ice? But then I looked up on the on the Wiki it said that there was actually like a crazy ice winter of 1608 where it’s like recorded. It was this crazy winter where everything was like frozen over for a long time. So it actually fits, because it kind of looks ridiculous because there’s no way there would be all this ice and everything would be this frozen in they’re ice skating everywhere. It just didn’t seem realistic. But one thing that I loved about that scene was they’re at the dinner table and you know Orlando is English and this woman, I think it’s Russian or just somewhere on like Eastern Europe are at the table and they both speak French together. Because I guess it’s like, it’s a country that they’re both adjacent to so they both learn this language that isn’t their, you know their first language but it’s the one closest to them, so that they then both use this to communicate with each other because they both you know have a different primary language. And I just thought that was cool. I wonder if like that you know that that happened a lot where you would know more than one language or like the neighboring country and then like that’s how you communicated if you met somebody who was from further away.
SLIM In live chat, Anaïs, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever said it out loud so please correct me if I’m wrong. ‘I like when the ice breaks or certain winds blow, the lover must leave.’ Yeah the ice scenes were interesting. How about when they first walked upon that person who fell through the ice and froze to death?
DANNY Oh my gosh. With the apples.
SLIM Oh my God.
DANNY And they were laughing at him?
SLIM Disturbing.
DANNY I did not like that.
PROTO And then they were carrying the like the blankets for him to walk on.
DANNY Oh my.
PROTO I’m like, these guys are like, isn’t everyone like pooping in an outhouse?! [Danny laughs] And this guy, this guy is having them put down blankets as he walks.
SLIM Funny you say that about pooping because one of my lines was when the Queen was put to bed. She was wearing like this elaborate gown. Where did I write that line? I was like, imagine pooping in that gown. The amount of work you have to get up from bed as a Queen and then use the bathroom with all this stuff on.
DANNY Oh my gosh.
SLIM I mean, it’s gonna be a 20 minute process getting that stuff off.
PROTO All I can think about when I see something like this is like trying to get clean. Like if you want it to take a bath. There’s no hot water. How did anybody — how did we make it this far? [Danny laughs]
SLIM Marcie ‘this isn’t a Shrek episode.’ Listen, these are the things I think about when I see someone wearing a get up like that. I got to think about how I would do it. [Slim laughs] The other note, if you’re not looking at the screen where her original fiance appears, the one that she didn’t stay with. Did anyone else get Jean-Ralphio vibes from Parks and Rec? [Danny laughs] Like you could have replaced her with Jean-Ralphio and it would have been perfect. Anything else in your notes, Danny, for Orlando?
DANNY Kind of. I did not, I’m gonna be honest.
SLIM Tell us.
DANNY I didn’t enjoy the ending of this film. There was something about jumping all the way to modern times. That felt a little too jarring. That just took me out of it too much to where I was really bummed out with how it ended. And I don’t know why. I mean, yes, the weird angel in the sky thing was interesting. But I don’t know what it was about this finale that they kind of was, just kind of just like, agh, I didn’t like it. So I didn’t know how you guys felt about how jumping to the modern time.
SLIM Yeah, I was wondering too, it’s a big jump, in the book it ends in 1928. But in this one, I think the the jarring thing for me is that the first scene you really see her in and she’s in an office that is very 90s. It could not be a more 1990s looking office if you tried. The ending is pretty open ended. I didn’t love it. But by that point, I was pretty enthralled with just the entire experience. Proto, what about you?
PROTO Well, I think it’s a hard, it’s a hard story to know how to end. Especially if like, that’s how it ended in the book. Like, you can’t have her die. So the expectation is that she just continues to go on living. So what is a good point to end it? Especially when you’ve told the story like she doesn’t, she doesn’t have a love interest. There isn’t some kind of conflict that she’s trying to resolve. It’s, it’s more of just a biography about her. So there, there really isn’t a good place to really end it. Other than that, I did like the fact that it mirrors the beginning where it is, I think it’s Tilda who’s who’s speaking and kind of narrating a little bit about this character. I can’t remember what she says. But I noticed that it was the same in the beginning of the movie as it was at the end.
DANNY Yeah, where she’s sitting at the tree, like 1917.
PROTO Yeah, so I liked that part of it. Yeah, I didn’t really have strong feelings either way, about the way that it ended. The only thing I did, the one thing that kind of like took me out of it is when she was an ambassador, and I think it was Constantinople. And there was that attack on the city. And at that point, I was like, man, this movie, I guess didn’t have much of a budget. [Danny laughs] Or Sally didn’t really know what to do with this scene. Because I was like, oh, this looks bad. But I’ll give my rating. Well, it’s kind of hard because I after watching it, I landed at three stars. But the more I think about this movie, the more I like it, and I want to give it four stars, especially because my favorite genre of storytelling of any kind is magic realism, which I think this falls into that category. Stories like this where it’s set in the real world, but there’s some magical element that not in our reality. I just love that kind of story. So this is totally in my wheelhouse. And I really enjoyed this. I had a great time. And I think for now I’ll stick at three stars.
SLIM Wowww. I don’t know where I’m landing either. I’m teetering between three and a half stars and four stars. I really enjoyed the experience. You know, it’s just like a visual flex like I mentioned earlier, and the ending i think is just always going to be difficult, like you said. Like if she’s living forever, everything kind of just blows like you’re gonna outlive your poor daughter who was running around with that VHS videotape recorder filming you. [Danny laughs] So I’m not, I’m not sure. I might I might end on four stars. I’m not sure yet. I really enjoyed it more than I was expecting it. You know, seeing the poster and the two posters and the screenshots of Billy Zane like, you’re really not going to get what you might be expecting of this movie, which I appreciated actually, like I thought it was just gonna be some kind of droning on period piece, but it’s not really. It’s something totally different. So what about you, Danny?
DANNY Well, I have to be honest with myself coming into this because I got, like I said, I got to the 1700 mark and was confused. Like I wasn’t getting it then, obviously, and then when I finally clicked about her living forever, I started seeing a different. And I really did love Tilda in this, I mean, she’s absolutely brilliant. Her breaking the fourth wall, the deadpan kind of humor as well was, I mean, it felt great. But I don’t like the ending. It didn’t stick. It didn’t just stick the landing for me. So I’m right there with you. I met three and a half stars with this. I would like to watch it again at some point. I tried to watch it today, but I just couldn’t get around to it.
SLIM Imagine 4K of this movie.
DANNY Right? It would look great.
SLIM Quote unquote “HD”.
DANNY Yeah, so I’m at three and a half stars with us.
SLIM Mmmm! Good pick, Proto, to lead off Leading Ladies Month, imo.
DANNY That’s an excellent pack actually. I really enjoyed it.
SLIM I do want to point out you know, the tiers, the VHS Village Council tier that we added. As of recording this moment. Two slots left.
DANNY Oh my gosh!
SLIM Unbelievable.
DANNY We got our work cut out for us.
SLIM I did ask on Instagram, what movie would you choose for Leading Ladies Month. A lot, a lot of responses. A lot lot lot lot lot lot of responses. Let’s see, I got Lucy or Matilda. I got Kill Bill a few times.
DANNY Oh my gosh. Ew.
SLIM Several times. The Favourite.
DANNY Great movie
SLIM And in all in caps: IMAGINE THE DANNY ART.
DANNY Rachel Weisz.
SLIM Irma Vep.
PROTO Oh, I love that.
SLIM Alien came up quite a few times. The Nightingale. Alex, you’re crazy if we’re going to do The Nightingale on this show. You talk about Danny barely getting through We Need To Talk About Kevin. My God. Kill Bill again. Mikey P, I’m gonna name him right now. A League of Their Own.
DANNY Oh my gosh, Mikey.
SLIM Erin Brockovich. Clueless from Mel. The Color Purple. The Help. Lady Bird. Set It Off. My Best Friend’s Wedding. [Slim laughs] Rogue One, round two.
DANNY Oh my gosh.
SLIM So those are just a few of the examples of the suggestions that we got. Danny’s gonna reveal his pick in just mere moments before we get to our VMs and letters. You can leave us a letter at 70mmpod.com or leave us a VM, your choice, audio file, whatever floats your boat. We got a letter from Yoli that I didn’t quite get in time last week. Let me get to that letter right now. “Dear 70mm pod, love what you guys are doing. I’ve been enjoying the pod for several months now. Thank you for bringing so much film fun on a weekly basis. I think it was back in December, something was said about a possible musicals month that sounded so fun. And I told myself if and when that happens, I’m joining the Patreon for sure. It hadn’t happened yet. But when you announced the Patreon exclusive episode for West Side Story, which I’ve never seen, I knew it was time. I just signed up my first Patreon thing ever. I’m such a noob and I’m excited to explore the VHS Village. Today I got a call from my library that the West Side Story DVD is ready for pickup. So I have a little catching up to do but I’m excited to join in on the fun, keep doing what you’re doing. And thanks again 70mm boys. Big hugs, Yoli.”
DANNY That’s so cool.
PROTO That’s awesome.
SLIM Yoli. Welcome aboard. We know Yoli I think from the BAT & SPIDER Discord. I wonder if Yoli watched The Baby. I think they did.
DANNY Oh gosh. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Let’s see. Delilah coming in hot. Subject line: Shrek. Get ready. “Hello 70mm. I am here to proclaim my love for Shrek. I own this movie on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray. Shrek was the movie that we watched over and over again on band tour back in 2002. I love the music and it will always be one of my favorites. I am sad that Danny said that it’s his hell, but someone’s hell is another person’s heaven. Proto, I love Donkey and he makes the movie. Slim, I’m right there with you. This is a life changing Movie. Much love, Delilah.”
DANNY Amazing.
SLIM What an episode that was. That was a fun episode. I had a lot of fun editing that, I was cracking up in my office.
DANNY When was the last time Delilah — is it Delilah? Sorry, is that her name?
SLIM Yeah, Delilah.
DANNY When was the last time she listened to Smash Mouth? [Proto & Slim laugh]
SLIM She did not include that information in the email, that was left off.
DANNY Write us back. Let us know.
SLIM Delilah. Let us know the last time you listened to Smash Mouth. Let’s see, next letter, this comes from Daniel. “Dear 70mm, I will admit that my own snobbery typically makes me chuckle at a couple of your guys opinions. Nevertheless, you are always just undeniably fun to listen to. In fact, I enjoy so much that I have been steadily making my way through your older episodes. So thank you for that. Earlier tonight I listened to your double feature of Armageddon and Deep Impact.”
SLIM Man, from the archives. It feels like forever ago we did that.
DANNY That was ages.
SLIM First and last time we did a double VHS. Maybe we should do that again. “Since I was familiar with Armageddon, I was delighted to hear you rightfully call out so many of its flaws, what a ridiculous movie, and a truly bizarre choice for the early Criterion Collection. However, I was not prepared to hear such praise about deep impact a movie I hadn’t seen and wouldn’t have considered seeing given its reputation. You got me so intrigued and I was stunned watching it. This is a downright five star banger!”
DANNY Ohhhhh my gosh!
SLIM “And it is criminal that is not regarded as such. If you would slap Steven Spielberg’s name on this film people would still be lovingly referring to it to this day. Instead, it goes on being under appreciated even though this film asserts Mimi Leder’s status as one of the greatest living directors. Do I need to remind you that she also directed some of the best early episodes of ER? Including the tenses hour in television history Love’s Labour’s Lost. And she did not stop there. She has been a trusted guest director for many TV shows and has always delivered. More recently, she has directed key episodes of the phenomenal The Leftovers, a show that she also help produce. So I end with this. Her latest film is the 2018 Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic On The Basis of Sex, oddly fitting. Give it a watch if you haven’t already. Cheers, Daniel. PS. I didn’t mean to drag Spielberg. He has always actually been a champion of Leder” Actually, I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing her last name correctly, but high praise for deep impact in that letter.
DANNY I love it.
PROTO It deserved it.
DANNY Thank you Daniel.
SLIM Maybe I need to go back and listen to that episode again.
DANNY I want to watch it again now.
SLIM Savvy confirmed that it’s a very good biopic. I watched it for class.
DANNY I actually, I’ve seen that, On the Basis of Sex. Me and Jenna watched that. Yeah, last year at some point.
SLIM What’s your rating on that?
DANNY BLB?
PROTO Did I rate it? I don’t know if I did.
SLIM Was that BLB? Was that BL 70mm? [Slim laughs] Eric dragging me for my pronunciation of biopic.
PROTO He just won’t let it go.
SLIM It’s the Philadelphia pronunciation maybe, Eric, okay?
PROTO Oh, yeah, I don’t have a rating for it. I don’t know what happened.
SLIM Wow. Let’s see, we got some VMs that I want to get to real quick.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey 70mm guys. This is Scott Marvel. Smarvel_the13th on Letterboxd. Loving the app. Use it like four times a day. Dug the last few shows, Shrek and Iron Giant one of my favorites. Just figured you got to the end though. And you missed the big one by going May Leading Lady Month, you missed the big one. May could have been the movies of NSYNC. Joey Fatone, Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, the other guy. It’s gonna be May. No? Okay.
Anywho, sitting here getting my second shot of the COVID vaccine so I hope there’s no side effects. Take it easy guys, if this is my last voicemail. I love you. I love y’all. Take it easy.
[Voicemail ends]
SLIM Wow, what a VM.
DANNY Scott also commented I think on my Suspiria watch and told me to watch the old one.
SLIM The OG?
DANNY I get it people, I’m gonna watch it.
SLIM I can give you my 4K disc?
DANNY I don’t have a 4K TV, Matt.
SLIM Maybe you just sit on it until the day happens, down the line, whenever it is. You know if we’re lucky enough, gracious enough, for you to be able to grab a 4K TV so future in the future. You know, I thought I would never do it but, love shone brightly on me one day and I was able to make it happen. I’m grateful for that. Thank you for the VM Scott. I think I’m getting my second shot this weekend. So I might be out of Apex commish for a night or two.
PROTO You won’t let it happen.
SLIM That’s not gonna stop me. I play with one hand if I have to. [Danny laughs]
PROTO Toes! [Slim laughs]
SLIM Let’s see, next VM.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey guys, Steven here. I haven’t called in for a while but wanted to leave a short voicemail about Proto’s pick Orlando, or what we can call in honor of Danny’s movie that knocked this out months ago, riding through time with boy girls. This movie, like the writing of Virginia Woolf that it’s based, is a fascinating and playful look at things like gender and sexuality, expectations and social norms, friendship and endurance, and of just how much weirdness British society is willing to accept without comment. Thematically, I give this movie five stars. The execution didn’t always work for me. Sometimes asks the viewers to rely a lot on voiceovers, can’t always tell what’s going on. It gives us one really developed character while everyone else in acts is about her. Can’t wait to hear what you all think. Thanks.
[voicemail plays]
PROTO Bless you.
SLIM Steven. Five stars for, five star visually?
DANNY Thematically.
SLIM Thematically.
PROTO Thematic rating.
DANNY Can we get that added to Letterboxd?
SLIM Never been done. It actually reminds me I need to clip out Scott saying “it’s gonna be May.” He said it like almost like totally deadpan in that voicemail. [Slim & Proto & Danny laugh] I love seeing those Orlando reviews come in. You know when you get a movie streaming. You know, just pop it on. See what the fuss is about. Just pop it on. I heard tell the Danny’s pick is streaming. I don’t know what the pick is yet. But I heard tell.
PROTO Whispers in the dark.
SLIM We’ll find out after this VM what Danny’s pick is.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey Proto, Danny, and Slim. It’s Tim calling.
DANNY Tim!!
VOICEMAIL It’s been almost a year if not more since I left a voicemail. But I feel like you might not know how much I appreciate all the effort that at least two of you do on this podcast. I calling to thank you. Thank you for the podcast. Thank you for the friendship. Goodbye.
[voicemail plays]
DANNY Aw, thank you Tim!
SLIM Reminds me, let’s see what we were talking about a year ago.
DANNY Oh gosh.
SLIM Let’s see. What’s today’s date? April 27th, 2020. We released My Neighbor Totoro.
DANNY Oh, baby.
SLIM Big ep.
DANNY Had we switched up the format by them now?
SLIM No. The Good, The bad and The Ugly was the week after that. Wowwww. That art that episode. Are you kidding me right now? Holy moly.
PROTO That’s what we’re still doing like group pics.
SLIM Yeah, there was no themes happening there.
DANNY Simpler time.
SLIM Stay tuned. Is it time to get to Danny’s pick for Leading Ladies Month? You were agonizing over this.
DANNY I was. I just didn’t know, Proto, Proto went hard with this pick. Not gonna lie. Sally Potter, Tilda Swinton, Virginia Woolf. I mean, I had to live up to something. And then let me just tell you how where I went first. I took Proto’s comments about righting a wrong with A League of Their Own. And to do that movie, you have a female director, you have major leading ladies, but I didn’t do that.
SLIM Madonna.
DANNY It’s not time for that. Then I pivoted. I thought let’s go real big. Big.
SLIM Wonder Woman.
DANNY Titanic. Kate Winslet. But I felt like it was too much of a Leo movie. So I pivoted again and I had to do some digging, some googling, some researching.
SLIM I pick Danny in a lab, like in a lab suit. He’s like mixing beakers. [Slim laughs]
DANNY I did. And I really wanted to find a performance from a woman that was just legendary that I hadn’t seen. Okay? And this kept coming up time and time again. I don’t know, I know this actresses is legendary. She’s not a household name though. So I went with 1974’s John Cassavetes.
PROTO Oh my gosh.
DANNY A Woman Under the Influence.
PROTO Niiiiice.
SLIM Excuse me?
DANNY Gena Rowlands role apparently is one of the greatest performances ever. And I’m very excited to finally watch this film. Now, looking at it, I have a maybe a couple villagers have seen it.
SLIM Excuse me?
DANNY Streaming on HBO Max, and the Criterion and I’m excited. I’m really excited for this film.
SLIM This is sitting at a 4.3 on Letterboxd.
DANNY 4.3 on Letterboxd.
SLIM 155 minutes. Sean says not the easiest watch.
DANNY So I’m excited. Gena’s performance came up so many times on things that I was reading about performances. And so I’m very excited about this.
SLIM Former producer of this show who left for us greater pastures.
PROTO Disgraced.
SLIM Disgraced producer Ian, host of the Cinenauts podcast. Four and a half stars on this movie. “Gena gives one of the best — “ I’m quoting from his review.
DANNY Quote him.
SLIM “Gena Rowlands gives one of the best performances I have ever seen.”
PROTO There you have it.
SLIM That is an exact quote from his review.
PROTO No hyperbole there.
SLIM I would not hyperbole anyone’s review. Believe me.
DANNY If you don’t have HBO Max or the Criterion, you could rent it on Amazon. So I’m excited guys. John Cassavetes.
SLIM Amazing. I’m excited.
PROTO I’ve been wanting to see this for a long time.
DANNY I saw it on your watchlist.
PROTO Thank you.
SLIM Great pick. Great pick.
DANNY Yeah. Excited.
SLIM Wow. I’m also excited. Leading Ladies Month rolls on. Seen some new movies this month so far. Man, you’re putting the spotlight on me. You know?
DANNY You said you had it locked!
SLIM I did have a lock! A big time lock!
PROTO We know the lock. [Danny & Proto & Slim laugh]
SLIM Everyone knows what my lock is! If you can take you one, if you could hazard a guess everyone can probably figure out what my lock is. Now starting to second guess myself a little bit.
DANNY Sweatin’ it.
SLIM I am sweating and not because it’s 90 degrees in this office. [Proto & Danny laugh] What an episode, we announced a new tier on the Patreon, there’s two slots left as of this recording, we’re limiting it to 10 for now. 12 bucks a month, you get two months free to do annual. You get to pick a movie for this show. For the Patreon. You pick the movie, we’ll do it you get a free print, and you get exclusive Discord access to a special channel. And the road to 200 begins now. Once we hit 200 patrons, the Harry Potter cinematic franchise will become unblocked. And we will be doing those movies for the Patreon. First episode will go out wide, but then the rest just for patrons.
DANNY Big time.
SLIM Art wants to know why isn’t there a lady Robocop? You know? It’s a good question.
DANNY It’s a good question.
PROTO Real good question.
SLIM I ask that question every day.
DANNY Tilda Swinton Where are you?
SLIM Oh my god! Tilda Swinton in a Robocop Returns sequel?! [Danny laughs]
DANNY Let’s go!
PROTO Ooff!
SLIM This is huge. Proto, do you have any closing thoughts for us as we enter into the darkness tonight?
PROTO God. If Tilda Swinton has taught us anything if that you can’t, you can’t pin somebody down. You can be whoever you want to be. Tilda has done it many times. Yeah, Sean is saying she could be Tildacop. That’s true. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Danny could you work on that art?!
DANNY I’m doing it.
PROTO Some concept art.
SLIM Her without the mask on but in the Robocop costume! [Danny & Slim laugh]
PROTO Oh my God. This has to happen. Anyway, yeah, so Tilda can’t be defined. And neither can you. You know, we can all recreate ourselves and change and be someone different than we were before. So go out and and be who you want to be.
SLIM Be who you want to be. Thank you to everyone for their support on the Patreon so far this year. It’s not even a year yet, but we’re obviously blown away by everyone’s friendship and support. And we will see you next week for Leading Ladies Month.
[70mm theme music ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM 70mm is a VHS Village production, featuring original artwork provided Danny Haas. Spiritual guidance and VGER, the robot who loves movies, provided by Protolexus. Producer emeritus, dale_a. Prints and other merch are available on 70mmpod.com. This episode was mixed, edited and produced by me, Slim. And you can support our Patreon for access to our Discord to talk movies with other Villagers, get early access to episodes, discounts on merch, and a physical membership card mailed to you. If you would like to support our friends at Letterboxd and upgrade to Pro or Patron status, you can do so with a 20% off discount using the links on 70mmpod.com. Goodbye!
