Ep. 802 - Juror #2
Added 2024-12-10 17:00:13 +0000 UTCDavid, Devindra, and Jeff step up to the microphone with A Complete Unknown, reflect on the nature of performance with Sing Sing, and embed themselves with the FBI in The Order. Then they render their verdict on Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial effort, Juror #2.
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Weekly Plugs
David - Decoding Everything: Matt Goldberg’s A Complete Unknown Review
Devindra - News about Intel’s Arc B580 video card
Jeff - DLC 577 with Lucy James
Shownotes (All timestamps are approximate only)
What we've been watching (~00:16:37)
Jeff - A Complete Unknown, Babygirl, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (Episodes 1 & 2)
Devindra - Sing Sing, No Other Land, Dahomey, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
David - A Complete Unknown, Sing Sing, The Order
Featured Review (~01:20:36)
Juror #2
SPOILERS (~01:31:51)
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Credits:
Our theme song is by Tim McEwan from The Midnight. This episode was edited by Noah Ross who also created our weekly plugs and spoiler bumper music. Our Slashfilmcourt music comes from Simon Harris.
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Comments
No problem! Yeah that episode just goes to show that you can not love the genre/be skeptical of a movie and still critique it without sounding silly (as Sean did).
Jon See
2025-01-04 05:12:10 +0000 UTCJeff misspoke in this episode. At the end of A Complete Unknown text appears that says Bob Dylan was the only musician to win the Nobel Prize for literature. You could tell when Jeff was discussing this he was unsure of what prize Dylan had won that nobody else had and just guessed it was the Pulitzer, but instead it was the Nobel Prize.
Stranger2Reality
2025-01-04 00:50:05 +0000 UTCHey, I wanted to thank you again for that podcast recommendation. It was great to hear a legit discussion about the movie, rather than just an absurd dismissal of its existence. I've enjoyed listening to those people on The Rewatchables podcast, and think I'll be adding this to my podcast list to keep up with, so thank you again!
Stranger2Reality
2025-01-03 11:09:49 +0000 UTCI will have to check that out. Another problem with this podcast's discussion of A Complete Unknown is that they did it a month before anyone else could see it, so it got buried (that and that one of the people had absurd and inane things to say about it which weren't constructive or interesting at all). I would enjoy hearing a genuine discussion of the movie, so I'll go give that a listen. Thanks!
Stranger2Reality
2025-01-02 21:04:32 +0000 UTCAgreed. I hate to recommend other things on here but I found “The Big Picture” podcasts discussion on it to be much more satisfying. They really dig into the movie much more deeply there.
Jon See
2025-01-02 12:25:41 +0000 UTCAgreed again. Virtually every genre has a formula of some kind that the vast majority of films in that genre stick to. This is not a criticism either, as it shouldn't be foremost in the filmmaker's mind that they need to reinvent or redefine or transcend a genre to make a good movie. Again, I think it's absurd if anyone expects a film to do that and trashes it if it doesn't, but that's just me. I just think Dave has written off this entire genre of movies based entirely on one parody movie from decades ago, which I find strange, but that's his preference, of course. To me that's like saying that Austin Powers immediately rendered the entire James Bond franchise null and void and it should now be impossible for people to ever enjoy those films again, so they should just stop making them. And then making a point to review every new one just to trash it and nitpick it to death to keep reiterating this point. I just think if Dave can't get beyond this, then he should probably stop watching musical biopics, or at least just make his entire review of them "this entire genre offends me, so I didn't enjoy the movie, but that's just my own weird quirk." Needing to make explicit that A Complete Unknown was his least favorite film this year mainly just reflects poorly on him, IMO, as it proudly foregrounds a blind spot he has as a critic due to his biases. Also, there already are documentaries about Bob Dylan, if that's what people want to see, including a four hour one directed by Martin Scorcese. So if this movie wasn't informative enough for people, they can always go watch that.
Stranger2Reality
2025-01-02 04:44:28 +0000 UTCVery well said totally agree. 👏🏻 Something that’s frequently stated by reviewers in general when discussing a (musical) biopic is “I would have preferred a documentary” but really those are subject to their own formulas and cliches as is so deftly depicted in Spinal Tap. Just something to consider.
Jon See
2025-01-01 14:19:01 +0000 UTCI sometimes think one of Dave's weaknesses as a film reviewer is he prejudges some movies before he sees them, both for good and ill, and where it's almost like he knows what he's going to say about it before he's even watched it, and then forces the film to go to unrealistic lengths to change his mind. I think Dave just flat out hates biopics, and especially musical biopics, to the point where it's virtually impossible to overcome that bias. I can relate, as there's certain genres I also tend to really dislike, and as such I just avoid those movies. Dave reviews movies for a living, so I get that he can't just skip them like I can, but he probably should just embrace the thought that he's not the target audience and should basically say "this wasn't for me, but it never was going to be." Jeff will do this when they make him watch horror movies, for instance. Dave does some of this with his comments here, but he also then goes into the bizarre invented quibbles he created due to his bias (like the "fake guitar playing") to try to make it like the movie is actually bad, rather than just that he's very clearly someone who would dislike it almost regardless of how good it was. I'm not someone who knew much about Dylan, and am only marginally familiar with some of his more well known songs, and I thought this movie was great. It doesn't reinvent the genre, but honestly that's an absurd standard to hold any movie to. If we held every movie to that standard, how many movies would any of us like? I thought it was great at transporting me as the viewer to a time and place I was not alive for, and for making me aware of a burgeoning music scene that was at a crossroads I had heretofore been totally unaware of. I thought it expertly made me understand the importance of what was happening in the world at that moment, and the impact Dylan's music had on a great many people at that time. I think it's kind of pointless to expect a movie like this to explain the interiority of someone like Bob Dylan, or to sufficiently explain his songwriting process, or whatever, as if such a thing could ever be sufficiently explained. Art is not a mathematical formula that we need to be "shown the work" on. The movie even addressed this, as Dylan said people always ask him where the songs come from and he can see what they're really asking is why didn't they come to them. For people who don't feel like every musical biopic has to be in dialogue with Walk Hard, and is free to just exist as a genre despite being parodied once decades ago, I think they'll really like this movie. After all, most people still enjoy horror movies despite the Scary Movie franchise, or action movies despite MacGruber or the Hot Shots films, or cop dramas despite the Naked Gun movies. I think it's weird that Dave let one parody film ruin an entire genre of movies for him, but if that didn't also happen to you then I think you'll like A Complete Unknown. It sure seems like audiences are loving it anyway, with an A Cinemascore and a 96% on the Popcornmeter on RT.
Stranger2Reality
2025-01-01 12:43:39 +0000 UTCRevisiting this after having seen A Complete Unknown. I’m completely with Jeff on this one too. Thought Chalamet was great. I really don’t understand what Dave is talking about when he said it’s “some of the worst guitar faking” he’s ever seen. I played guitar/took guitar lessons for almost a decade when I was young and it seemed convincing to me 🤷♂️. I was expecting like Wesley Snipes pretending to be good at basketball in White Men Can’t Jump levels of bad fake performance lol. I also feel like both Jeff and Dave (Jeff to a lesser extent) missed the story the film was trying to depict. It’s not the whole 60s for Bob Dylan. It’s based on the book ‘Dylan Goes Electric’ and the specific events around the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. It’s very specifically 61-65 and the point when Dylan broke from traditional folk music to transition to folk rock and the social and personal costs Dylan paid for pursuing an artistic vision that only he could appreciate at the time. It’s not nearly as thematically rich as Inside Llewyn Davis and it doesn’t quite capture what Scorsese’s No Direction Home can with all its archival footgage but it does a really good job of letting you be a fly on the wall of some pretty amazing moments in music history which a documentary or book cannot do.
Jon See
2024-12-31 06:52:44 +0000 UTCI agreed with Jeff, that movie was a bunch of contrived nonsense and I'm mystified by all the love for it. To each their own though.
Stranger2Reality
2024-12-30 09:43:52 +0000 UTCI’d counter and say it had the courage not to. Loved the ending.
Wil Johnson
2024-12-29 04:11:50 +0000 UTCHe watched a different movie than the rest of America I think.
Wil Johnson
2024-12-29 04:10:09 +0000 UTCJeff you are so wrong on Juror #2. Loved it. Shocked at your criticism.
Wil Johnson
2024-12-29 04:07:15 +0000 UTCI feel like this has unfortunately become a hallmark of Clint Eastwood's later films, due to the fact that he works so fast and won't do more than 2 takes. A prime example of this was the infamous baby scene in American Sniper, where it was laughably obvious that Bradley Cooper was holding a doll in his hands and treating it like a baby. They should have done another take on that one. Makes me think of Ed Wood (the Tim Burton movie) where actors bump into the scenery and he just says "cut, print, moving on" without doing another take lol
Stranger2Reality
2024-12-16 10:14:09 +0000 UTCwhere's that sweet sweet after dark guys lol
Matthew Matthew Satullo
2024-12-13 21:32:11 +0000 UTCYeah I’m not sold on Skeleton Crew either. Especially since I watched Star Trek: Prodigy. This may be great for kids. I don’t hate it so I’ll keep watching just to see where it goes but I’m not expecting much.
David Jones
2024-12-13 16:56:59 +0000 UTCPublic defender/criminal defense attorney for over a decade here. I thought I would love this movie especially given the rave reviews but I am with Jeff. This movie takes a dubious premise and then adds on several more preposterous conceits. I really wanted to like it but it was just too hard to suspend my disbelief this much. From a crim defense prospective this case has a metric TON of reasonable doubt. The other thing that’s completely bonkers is it appears the defense attorney did absolutely no scrutiny during jury selection of figuring out actually who was on the jury and what they did for a living. That’s like the first thing you look at when doing voir dire. I’m glad not just people in the legal field realized how ridiculous this movie was. Also, fun fact during the OJ trial the jury did actually visit OJ‘s house. It was not during deliberations, but it occurred before and did happen so that highly unusual but is actually based in real life. Dave, a hung jury is “bad”result for the court and for the prosecution. Most defense attorneys consider that if not an outright win, at least a non loss.
Jon See
2024-12-13 05:18:15 +0000 UTCSide note... I enjoy the space pirates connection with The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Mandalorian 🤓
Rick C
2024-12-12 19:21:28 +0000 UTCI just would never trust him with declarations like this 😀
Mountain of Conflict
2024-12-12 19:07:13 +0000 UTCSkeleton Crew 100% requires viewing it with kid lenses, otherwise I can see how someone like Jeff would be upset. Even though, I think he goes way overboard to comical effect. I think there's room for something like this. The tagline of a *Star Wars Adventure* recalls those post-Jedi made for TV Ewoks flicks and it's in the same vein, albeit the writing is far better (so far, better writing than The Acolyte too 😅). In any event, I ultimately found it to be fun in a childish way, I think it looks great, and once Jude Law shows up in episode 3, the show turns a great fun corner that I hope Jeff and Dave will consider watching.
Rick C
2024-12-12 18:12:36 +0000 UTCAnd Jeff using "Anatomy of a Fall" as a counter example was a weak point. We're talking about American Courtroom dramas and they always have ridiculous things like Juror #2.
Papool Chaudhari
2024-12-12 17:34:27 +0000 UTCOk jeff is only allowed to watch andor from here on out
Graham
2024-12-12 03:31:59 +0000 UTCAfter years of thinking I’m a Jeff it turns out I’m a Dave. Loved this episode.
April Reid
2024-12-12 01:54:11 +0000 UTCI have zero expectations of Jeff knowing that
April Reid
2024-12-12 01:52:59 +0000 UTCWhich is to say no Dylan isn’t the only musician to do that
Reynaldo K. Cruz
2024-12-11 21:33:17 +0000 UTCUmmm Jeff Kendrick Lamar has won the Pulitzer Prize.
Reynaldo K. Cruz
2024-12-11 21:26:39 +0000 UTCGoogle translate disagrees with Oxford that’s good enough for me. Dour it is. (Dower)
Reynaldo K. Cruz
2024-12-11 21:02:27 +0000 UTCInterstellar 1.43 IMAX rerelease review please please please
Branden Cancino
2024-12-11 20:06:00 +0000 UTCI’m usually in Jeff’s side but I agree that this man probably doesn’t watch many courtroom dramas. 12 angry men has one of these “you’ve got to be kidding me” situations every 20 minutes and it’s one of my favorite movies of all time.
Branden Cancino
2024-12-11 19:51:28 +0000 UTCListening to Jeff’s thoughts on Skeleton Crew (a show I haven’t watched yet), I’m left convinced that the much bigger problem with adapting IP lately hasn’t been the “adapting IP” part. (IP has been adapted as long as filmmaking has existed.) The problem IMO is that too many studios insist that the characters within their worlds *love* the IP as much as the audience does. This is a problem that stretches from Rey (yes, this is a *major* problem with the third trilogy) to Ghostbusters to Beetlejuice. I wish more IP adaptations had the courage of something like Fury Road, which doesn’t hold up Mad Max like some unimpeachable god. He’s almost a side character who serves the plot rather than *being* the plot.
John Halski
2024-12-11 18:05:03 +0000 UTCDour pronounced “do-er” has very bad mouthfeel.
Brian Deaton
2024-12-11 15:59:14 +0000 UTCPretty sure Dave was right on that one! (Edit to say should’ve waited till the I’d finished the episode before commenting!)
Lahiru
2024-12-11 15:37:48 +0000 UTCI think he may have confused it with it being solved with a certain amount of pieces left, as just solved. I thought that was funny too. The thought process and them trying to not push it because this is a movie podcast, this is not the time to be debating if chess is solved. haha
Jacob Chimilar
2024-12-11 15:35:37 +0000 UTCIt seems Jeff is pronouncing it the British way and not the American way? https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/dour
Lahiru
2024-12-11 15:24:12 +0000 UTCIt's not surprising given that Jeff doesn't watch most new Star Wars stuff but they've been doing genre stretches for years. It's one way for this to survive and find out "what can be Star Wars". He even excuses the same model for the MCU! And it's obvious that Jeff has a very narrow view on what Star Wars can be. There's more of oldschool Star Wars in here than Andor. And saying that pains me because I find the show mid ;)
Mountain of Conflict
2024-12-11 09:55:53 +0000 UTCI actually thougth Juror #2 was ok (barely) until I heard Jeff's thoughts, and then I reconsidered and now I don't think it's very good. lol Also, did anyone else notice how bad the filmmaking was? It felt like I was watching an episode of NCIS or something. It felt like a TV movie, right down to the lighting. It was weird.
Sarah Rosenberg
2024-12-11 08:19:50 +0000 UTCI was a little surprised and disheartened by Jeff's reaction to Skeleton Crew until I heard that he didn't yet show it to his kids. I like Jeff have an 8-year old son (and a 10-yeaf old daughter) and Skeleton Crew is all they have been talking about for the last week. Tonight we had some commitments and the kids were bummed that they couldn't watch it. I think Devindra's point is spot on that this is expanding the universe and expanding who the universe is targeted towards. I'm okay that this might not be for the 40 year olds because my kids love it and have a new set of characters that they will grow up thinking about. I also appreciate Dave's reference to Peter Sciretta and Andor because I am one of the few that didn't love that show. I also disagree with Jeff when he said that Andor was more Star Wars because it was a war in the stars. While that is true, Skeleton Crew is taking place during a time of peace and liberation. There is no war in the stars because this is currently Star Peace, though that is a less interesting name for IP.
Scott M. Adams
2024-12-11 06:19:47 +0000 UTCIn Australia we only say dour to rhyme with hour
Mark P
2024-12-11 02:47:00 +0000 UTCI fully guffawed at the absolute show-stopper moment when two great minds disagreed on something they both feel very strongly about: Is chess a solved game?
Outlandish Beats
2024-12-10 21:49:12 +0000 UTCFunny - Bob Dylan is my least favorite artist
Lino Rodriguez Jr.
2024-12-10 19:59:12 +0000 UTCYeah, I too thought this movie was crap basically from start to finish. I've been mystified by all the love it's getting. Feels like I watched a different movie than everybody else. The script in particular was awful, it was wall to wall absurd contrivances that made no sense all to just keep moving that stupid plot along.
Stranger2Reality
2024-12-10 19:40:26 +0000 UTCI'm honestly shocked at Jeff's thoughts on Juror #2
Ryan Goodwin
2024-12-10 19:00:01 +0000 UTCFair enough. The ending bothered me because I wish it would’ve had the courage to show us what you imagined happens to these characters.
Ryan Crisp
2024-12-10 18:55:00 +0000 UTCThe term headcanon implies it’s not actually in the text. -DChen
Slashfilmcast
2024-12-10 18:49:15 +0000 UTCYou mentioned Sing Sing having a bigger budget cause it had a star in it. Not so much. Take a look at the finance model for that film. It’s unique and interesting.
David Stripinis
2024-12-10 18:45:54 +0000 UTCThank goodness for Jeff’s voice on this movie because when it wrapped up I felt like I’d wasted two hours. I can suspend my disbelief to a certain point but this movie is completely asinine and the ending is such a cheap cop out. I’m shocked that Dave made such an assumption about what the ending means since it was obviously meant to be ambiguous and his assumption is not necessarily supported by what the movie shows us. If the movie wanted to show what was in his headcanon, it would have shown it.
Ryan Crisp
2024-12-10 18:42:30 +0000 UTCSo glad you FINALLY addressed dour. Sorry, Jeff ! You can say it either way.
Cece
2024-12-10 17:28:57 +0000 UTC
