Weekend Watchlist: Vortex, Hatching and Memory
[Izon by Trent Walton fades in, plays alone, fades out]
MITCHELL Hello and welcome to Weekend Watchlist, a look at what’s screening and streaming brought to you by The Letterboxd Show. I’m Mitchell, He’s Slim.
SLIM Hiii!
MITCHELL And together we’ll dig through what’s dropping this weekend, last weekend, recent trends on Letterboxd and we’ll also take a peek at our own watchlists. All under 30 minutes or your next pizza is on us! [Slim laughs]
SLIM Mitchell, we’re back. But we have a special message for folks that have been listening and vibing along with us. Maybe consider rating the show or leaving us a review to help folks discover Weekend Watchlist, and in-turn discover new movies. And as a reminder, we have a brand new list on Letterboxd for you to check out each week for all the movies we talk about. So we have a jam-packed show. This week we’ll be covering Vortex, Hatching, Memory, some great community reviews and maybe—just maybe—your thoughts on Joe Versus the Volcano.
MITCHELL I have a lot of thoughts on Joe Versus the Volcano, so very excited to get into that. But let’s just get right into it, since it’s such a busy episode, by first checking out our first new release of the week which is Gaspar Noé’s Vortex. This is a film that is, it currently has a 3.8 average on Letterboxd from, you know, it’s had some festival plays. It’s on 32,000 watchlists. Gaspar Noé, a director people might know from films like Irreversible or Climax. Vortex is about the last days of an elderly couple who are stricken by dementia. It premiered at Cannes in 2021. I know I haven’t been able to see it yet, but I know that you saw it recently. So why don’t we start, give us your thoughts on Vortex.
SLIM Also a little backstory, I think I watched Climax for the first time last year...
MITCHELL Climax is a great movie.
SLIM Oh my god, that blew me away, Climax. I also saw Irreversible at a very young age when I was working at a video store...
MITCHELL Good movie to see young... [Slim laughs]
SLIM I’ll never watch that movie ever again. But this is a very tough sit. I mean, the synopsis speaks for itself. It’s one of those movies where I wouldn’t really recommend it to people if the synopsis gives you pause at all, because it deals with a very real situation. And you do get a little bit of that filmmaking variety that you saw in Climax. You know, Climax starts out with that incredible opening shot, like one take of the dancers and that really knocks your socks off. So I wasn’t sure if I would get, you know, something different like that. And you do in Vortex. It’s always two cameras going at the same time for the majority of the film, like two shots next to each other. It’s almost like a split-screen.
MITCHELL Yeah...
SLIM Of the married couple. And I thought that was really well done in this movie!
MITCHELL Yeah, Noé is like one of those directors who’s always—people might know him also from a movie like Love or Enter the Void, where he is always doing really interesting things with camera work and technique. And before Vortex, he’s done it in these films that are very intentionally provocative. He makes controversial films that really shock the audience and are kind of taking us off-guard. And Vortex is him going in a slightly different direction. It’s a more... you maybe would call it “mature” type of subject matter. But it also is not any less... provocative. It’s not any less... challenging of a watch, I would assume just from the subject matter. And yeah, it is interesting to hear that he still is taking those formal techniques that he’s experimenting with and putting it into this new film. I know that he wanted to tackle this idea of dementia and a fear of getting older and dying because he had a brain hemorrhage on New Year’s Eve in 2019. I read him talking about it and that was kind of what inspired him to tackle this subject matter, which is definitely an interesting direction to go down.
SLIM Our dear friend Ella Kemp wrote a review I think that dropped this week. No star rating, keeping it very close to the vest, Ella. But her review: “Just be mindful of the well-being of the people you love and your own before committing to this.” It stars Dario Argento!
MITCHELL Yeah, yeah, he plays the father, the man in it, which is very cool and exciting. I read this great interview with Noé at The Film Stage from I think when the film premiered at Cannes where he also talks about—he talks about the brain hemorrhage, which is a wild story! He talks about like eating oysters and getting like food poisoning and just like then getting blackout drunk the next day and just like destroying his body for like three days. And then that’s kind of what led to the brain hemorrhage that almost killed him. I mean, it’s a very Gaspar Noé kind of story. But yeah, he also talks about working with Argento and wanting to work with a filmmaker as an actor and that bringing a specific kind of vibe to the set and that being just a different kind of experience than working with an actor who doesn’t know the ins-and-outs of filmmaking as a director too, which I mean, yeah, it’s really cool that he would bring in Argento to do this.
SLIM So I was thinking of Dario Argento. Do you have the Suspiria 4K? I would assume you do.
MITCHELL I don’t actually have it on 4K...
SLIM Ohhhh...
MITCHELL But it is one that I need to get because, I mean, speaking of movies that are formally experimental and visually just astonishing, Suspiria, Argento’s Suspiria is like top-tier movies that visually will blow your mind.
SLIM Our next film dropping this weekend is Hatching directed by Hanna Bergholm in theaters and video-on-demand. 3.3 average, so this also has been out-and-about for a little bit elsewhere, and 8,500 watchlists. And it’s about a twelve-year-old who’s desperate to please her mother, a woman obsessed with presenting the image of a perfect family. One night she finds a strange egg. What hatches is beyond belief.
MITCHELL The Letterboxd Slack has certainly been popping off with people who, you know, in our group who really are digging it. So it’s one that I’ve got to get to. You liked it right?
SLIM I really did like it. There was a lot of buzz in our Slack. The synopsis kind of sells itself, so it is a horror-fantasy film. So this felt right up my alley. So I was excited to watch it and it is a Finnish film, so it’s subtitled. And let me tell you dear watchlister, I gave this four stars on Letterboxd...
MITCHELL Four stars!
SLIM I had a lot of fun.
MITCHELL Take that 3.3 average! [Slim laughs] We’re gettin’ it up!
SLIM I’m trying it! Every single point matters!
MITCHELL One star at a time.
SLIM There are some really on-the-nose metaphors, you know, obviously about a young coming-of-age girl going through changes at that specific time in her life and feeling not-in-control. But the way things are done in a very practical-effect way and not relying on CGI, that really caused me to fall in love with the movie itself. I love watching horror movies and this feels like it would become a hit on Shudder, if it were to ever be released streaming on Shudder, and I mean those—I’ve said that a few times, but I mean that in a real positive way. Like if a movie like this were to hit Shudder, that would develop a real cult-following in that community. So I hope it does hit streaming services at some point after its real release.
MITCHELL Yeah, I mean Shudder is doing—just a quick shout-out to Shudder, I guess. Shudder is—the horror vibe on Shudder is so strong. Shudder is a streaming service specifically for horror. And it really has been doing fantastic work, both with kind of original releases that they pick up but also stuff like this where, yeah, it maybe doesn’t get a huge audience from playing digitally or playing in theaters. But if you’re on Shudder, you can find stuff like this that just is really—I mean this isn’t on Shudder right now. But it’s definitely a kind of movie that you could see going to Shudder and picking up a cult-following there. You know, because I mean from the Letterboxd Slack, it has been popping off with it, but also from the festival releases, Letterboxd member reviews have been giving really positive word to it as well. I wanted to shout out Justin LaLiberty’s review, who says that the film is “feminist body horror that skews more Breillat than Cronenberg, but still has no problems getting gory; the big takeaways here are that babies/children/eggs are terrifying and practical monster effects will never not be great.” So again, shouting out the thing that you were talking about there with the practical effects next to the CGI and how well that plays off.
SLIM I kind of compared it to, as like a subtle pitch, of like a low-key Finnish alternate-universe Carrie...
MITCHELL Right, yeah, yeah.
SLIM That doesn’t seem too out of place for me. And the the poster is fantastic, also on Letterboxd, so that could draw people in.
MITCHELL Well, check out Hatching, it’ll be on digital. One film that is not going to be on digital, theaters-only for this one, is Memory, the latest Liam Neeson thriller. This one’s directed by Martin Campbell, who people may know from movies like Casino Royale and GoldenEye and Green Lantern. Memory is on 1,200 watchlists at the moment. The film stars Neeson as Alex, an assassin for hire, who finds that he’s become a target after he refuses to complete a job for a dangerous criminal organization. Is there any other? With the crime syndicate and FBI in hot pursuit, Alex has the skills to stay ahead, except for one thing—he is struggling with severe memory loss affecting his every move. Hate when that happens! Alex must question his every action and whom he can ultimately trust. Now this is the latest, you know, Liam Neeson doing his thing, being an old guy kickin’ butt. Would you believe me, Slim, if I told you this was the second Liam Neeson action-thriller to come out this year? [Slim laughs]
SLIM I thought you’re gonna say the second Liam Neeson memory-loss action-thriller to come out this year. And then I would have been shocked.
MITCHELL I haven’t seen Blacklight, the other one, I feel like maybe not a lot of people have seen it. [Slim laughs] So I can’t if there’s memory loss in there. There very well could be. You know, maybe I saw it, maybe I actually saw it and I just don’t !
SLIM Maybe you have, yeah, maybe you’re affected. That’s true. I’ve kind of slept on Liam Neeson’s action career in the later years. What about you? Do you seek out Liam Neeson action?
MITCHELL One, it’s very surprising that you are not on-board with it.
SLIM Yes.
MITCHELL That you have not been seeing all of these religiously, because I mean, that is you...
SLIM My bad?
MITCHELL To a tee. Yeah, exactly. The Takens?! [Slim laughs]
SLIM No...
MITCHELL But... I have been watching them. I would say that, you know, they kind of have like a hit-and-miss for me, where some, like a movie like Run All Night that came out in 2015, I think, with him and Joel Kinnaman and Ed Harris, I really dug that one. It’s very old-school, Charles Bronson, kind of bruiser that takes place all in one night—as you can maybe assume by the title. That one’s really cool. I really liked The Commuter, which mostly takes place on a train with him and Vera Farmiga and a young Florence Pugh.
SLIM Whoa.
MITCHELL The kind of like later Taken ones, I’m not particularly fond of, but—and then there’s movies like, I mean, Blacklight I haven’t seen. The Marksman, like that came and went. I don’t know anybody who’s seen that from like, a couple years ago. So I mean, he’s just dropping these things. I feel like there’s one every year that you can just rely on if you’re a fan of him and what he’s doing. But I like them for the most part. They are kind of those like, TNT thrillers that you and I like from, you know, when we were growing up that you would just kind of catch on late night one night. And I mean, they’re not the greatest thing in the world. But I really do enjoy getting into them when they come out. So I’m definitely, I’m stoked to check out Memory when it is going to be available to me. And I do want to mention too, that Guy Pearce, one of my beloved favorite actors, is in it, who I’m super excited to see in it. And also it’s weirdly completing his own memory loss trilogy, where he started with Memento, and then he did Bloodshot a couple of years back with Vin Diesel. And now he’s doing this. I don’t know what it is with Guy Pearce, where he sees amnesia on a script and he’s just like, “I’m in. We’re going this. Let’s go.” [Slim laughs]
SLIM Aye carumba... did you see—what do you think about the big news about Justin Lin dropping out of Fast and Furious 10 [Fast X]? Do you have any official thoughts on that?
MITCHELL Yeah, I’m not as into the Fast and Furious movies as, you know, some people are—Patrick Willems, of course, you know, huge on ’em. But I know he was devastated by you.
SLIM He was.
MITCHELL And Gemma might have had a first—
SLIM We broke the news to him live on the podcast recording.
MITCHELL First-hand view of that while you were recording next week’s episode of the Letterboxd Show last night. But yeah, I mean, the ones that really work I think are the Justin Lin ones. So it is shocking that he would drop and so suddenly like that, like they just a few days ago, Vin Diesel put a video of them on set with Justin Lin. And I mean, it certainly makes you curious who is going to take over. Is it going to be Vin? Are we going to see Vin Diesel stepping into the director’s chair?
SLIM Oh my god, that would be insane.
[music plays]
SLIM Let’s look back at last week. Let’s look back at the previous week and see how movies that came out last weekend are doing, maybe some physical releases and see what our community is saying. And one call-out for myself, the number one movie, quote unquote, “at the box office” last week, we didn’t even talk about. And that was The Bad Guys, which I was like, what is this movie? Why didn’t we talk about it last week? So I looked at The Bad Guys—I just thought this was interesting—it’s a 3.5 average on a Letterboxd. And on Letterboxd, 10,000 people have watched this and it was number one the box office, while The Northman had 100,000 people on Letterboxd watch it. So I thought that was just an interesting disconnect between the box office and what the Letterboxd community was watching.
MITCHELL Yeah, I feel like, I mean the bad guys seems like certainly a movie, it’s an animated movie, certainly geared towards kids. So maybe we’re not getting the under-tens on Letterboxd logging Samm and I were watching, we watch Survivor every week and we watch it like when it comes on. And so we’re seeing it with commercials and it’s really the only time that I’m watching something on TV and getting commercials. And it was like commercial after commercial after commercial of The Bad Guys. And I was like “What even is this movie?” But it’s got a pretty stacked voice cast. Sam Rockwell, who I love, is like the main voice in it, Marc Maron, Awkwafina, Craig Robinson and Richard Ayoade. I mean, it’s got a really great voice cast that is fun to hear. But yeah, I mean, it seems like 3.5 average on Letterboxd, like you said.
SLIM Not too shabby!
MITCHELL So maybe it’s one to checkout, yeah!
SLIM Not too shabby. So we have to mention too, that if you want to tag your reviews with “Weekend Watchlist”, we’ll see if we can spotlight them on the show. And they’ve been coming in hot, the “Weekend Watchlist”. The Northman specifically, there are a ton of [The] Northman reviews tagged “Weekend Watchlist”. So Omar’s review, I want to spotlight: “Eggers is a craftsman at his peak right now. The movie explains itself, even if it doesn’t provide a definition for everything you’re seeing. A beautiful pairing of design and execution. P.S. The amount of barking and yelling I almost did in this movie is uncanny.”
MITCHELL Yeah, I wanted to shout out, I read this review from Bryce Chapman that was tagged as “Weekend Watchlist” that just starts with: “The guy from Before Sunrise is barking, shitting and farting...” which I think is um... [Slim laughs] I mean if that’s not gonna get you into a movie, I don’t know what possibly could!
SLIM That’s true!
MITCHELL You know, another one for The Northman from Kev I really liked. It said: “CANNOT BELIEVE that the guy who gets to bridge the gap between high concept indie filmmaking and mainstream blockbusters is the guy who gave us Farting Willem Dafoe.” [Slim laughs] Which I guess, you know, I haven’t been able to see The Northman yet but Robert Eggers is just throwing in those farts everywhere!
SLIM I’m seeing a lot of flatulence references in the Eggers-verse, so I will be excited to watch this once this hits video-on-demand. I’m ready at that point. Probably not gonna see this in theaters, but I’ll be ready.
MITCHELL Yeah, I’m super excited to see it when it lands whenever it does. One that is available on HBO Max right now that I wanted to shout out is Jerrod Carmichael’s new special [Jerrod Carmichael:] Rothaniel, which I think has been out for maybe a couple of weeks. I just caught up with it this week. And I absolutely loved it. It’s, you know, a very intimate—it’s a technically a stand-up special. For people who know Jerrod Carmichael, he’s a comedian. But it is a lot more intimate. It’s almost like him just having this conversation in a way with this small audience. It’s really him kind of grappling with his own identity, his sexuality, he comes out as being gay in this special, he’s struggling with masculinity and the way kind of we are all afraid to tell our own truths. I just found it really beautiful. A man really using his art to fully express himself. You can see throughout the course of this like hour-long special how his body and his face shifts as he starts feeling this, his own shifts and both the elation and the discomfort of going through this process with the audience. Yeah, it’s really gorgeous. It’s directed by Bo Burnham, who of course we love. It’s very visually striking to see. And yeah, I would recommend people check that out if they haven’t seen it.
SLIM I watched it too. I watched it and I loved the visual aspect of this. The special’s very good, but the visuals of the special are awesome! And I had heard that Bo Burnham had directed it and—full disclosure, I’m outside of the Bo Burnham bubble. I haven’t seen anything Bo Burnham has done. So this is my first Bo experience.
MITCHELL Oh yeah.
SLIM And I was kind of blown away by the direction of it. So I looked at Bo’s Letterboxd credits and he has done a few other comedy specials. He even did a Chris Rock special like four or five years ago. So I was surprised by that, but the direction of this absolutely blew me away and the editing too, Bo also edited it, so I really liked it.
MITCHELL I don’t think—so that’s interesting... I don’t think you’re actually allowed to work for Letterboxd if you haven’t seen [Bo Burnham:] Inside, Bo Burnham’s special. [Slim laughs] I think that’s kind of... one of the things—
SLIM I’ve been keeping my feelings—
MITCHELL It’s interesting that you got in here. It’s interesting you got in here.
SLIM I’m keeping my feelings close to the vest on Bo Burnham. You know, the hype is nuclear for Bo! I need some time away before I can dip my toe in.
MITCHELL Yeah, it can—it can be a little bit overwhelming. [Slim laughs]
SLIM The other review I wanted to spotlight this week was Jess’s Paris, 13th District review, was tagged “Weekend Watchlist”: “I appreciated how real the characters felt in many ways, at times relatable and unlikable as I applauded or questioned their various decisions, but it often felt like the spark that makes the magic was missing from scenes where I know I was supposed to feel more than I did.” So Paris, 13th District still getting views.
MITCHELL Great movie, check it out! Check out Paris, 13th District. Well, let’s slide into checking out our updates on our Letterboxd Top 50 of 2022. That’s right, folks! Jack is back! We’ve got the updates. We know we’ve been missing them for a couple of weeks. But we’ve got the updates now. So let’s take a look at how things are shifting. Slim, what’s poppin’ off on the Top 50, now that Jack has given us some updates?
SLIM Jack’s back, he’s probably really tan. And Jack pointed out the only new entry this week is Jerrod Carmichael’s On the Count of Three.
MITCHELL Jerrod Carmichael! Back in again!
SLIM First release next month after not being screened since Sundance 2021 and it enters at number 2. Jack’s a big fan. What about you?
MITCHELL I’m a huge fan. It was my favorite movie that I saw at Sundance 2021, so I’m extremely excited that On the Count of Three is finally being made available for people. As you mentioned, it’s coming out in theaters and on digital May 13. As we’re recording this, we’re recording this the day before this Weekend Watchlist episode will drop, the trailer just came out, which you can catch on our Twitter or Annapurna’s Twitter as well to get yourself a little bit excited for it. I know you just watched it for the first time, right? What did you think of it?
SLIM I watched it the first time—I loved it. And this is Jerrod’s first direct feature, directorial debut.
MITCHELL Yep!
SLIM And I mean, similar to Bo, I was really stunned by what I saw on screen. The acting was great. The story was fun. And the direction was awesome. So I loved it a lot. What’s next? What else we got from Jack?
MITCHELL So the only other real update in it is The Northman is in and it’s high. It’s at number five on the list. You know, I mean, as you said, Letterboxd going strong for The Northman. Maybe the box office wasn’t what they were hoping it would be, maybe it didn’t do those [The] Bad Guys numbers... [Slim laughs] But The Bad Guys doesn’t have anything on The Northman as far as the Letterboxd Top 50 goes. It’s number five right now. I mean, based on Eggers’ track record with the Letterboxd community, I’ve got a pretty good feeling we might be seeing The Northman stand in there for our End of Year special, at the end of—
SLIM Ohhhh... Year in Review—get ready.
MITCHELL Get ready!
SLIM Get ready! So last week, you know, Mia and myself, we shuffled our watchlists, we had movies, and two weeks ago, Mitchell, when you were on the show, we shuffled our watchlists, and you got Joe Versus the Volcano. So you were gonna watch that before we met this week. How did it go?
MITCHELL It went well. It is a wild movie. It came out in 1990, but I feel like it has, you know, major ’80s vibes to it. And I feel like every decade feels like it has these defining sensibilities, and the more that—I used to be big on the ’70s, I still am big on the ’70s. I love the ’70s vibe. But the older that I’ve gotten, the more I feel like the ’80s are where it’s at for me. And I think Joe Versus the Volcano, even though it came out in 1990, is kind of a good reason why the ’80s sensibility works for me. There’s a sense of like, brutal despair and nihilism... But it’s pushed against by this energy and this resilience to somehow just keep going. And I feel like Joe Versus the Volcano, it’s written and directed by John Patrick Shanley, who people may know as the writer of Moonstruck...
SLIM Oh!
MITCHELL Or the playwright who did Doubt, which is a very—and I think he wrote and directed the movie Doubt as well. And it’s a very different—he also made Wild Mountain Thyme, which is a... bizzare movie. I mean, he’s kind of really interesting filmography. But yeah, I mean, he’s just bringing something so interesting here. The first section of Joe Versus the Volcano is this Terry Gilliam’s Brazil kind of critique on the bureaucracy of capitalism and how it just sucks your soul away. But then it turns into this romance with Meg Ryan and just this wild, I mean, volcano movie. [Slim laughs] I mean, it’s really interesting. Some of the—I looking at reviews on Letterboxd and I think it’s one of those movies where it wasn’t a hit when it came out. I think it kind of bombed commercially. But there has been a cult following that’s developed around it over the years. Brett Marryman’s review on Letterboxd says: “If this had been made in 1938 with Jimmy Stewart and in black and white, it would be an American classic. But instead it’s been rescued off the flop heap by a cadre of devoted cultists and cinema is better for it.” And one other review I wanted to shout out from my friend Charlie Nash just says: “This movie just makes me so happy.” [Slim laughs] And I feel like that’s as good as the recommendation is anything, I think!
SLIM How’s Meg Ryan’s hair in this movie? Because I gave her some crap on an In the Cut comment a couple of weeks ago. How’s her hair in this movie?
MITCHELL It’s—so Meg Ryan interestingly plays three different characters in this movie. The movie is split into three very distinct sections. And she plays a character in each one kind of like the running connection is with her and Tom Hanks. And it’s the first film that they did together. Obviously, people know them together from Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. Her hair—so she’s doing some wig work, at least in her first two characters. [Slim laughs] She’s got some wigs going on. But it’s nice hair, especially the third one when it’s just her being herself. It’s very lovely. Those blonde locks are just flowing in a very wonderful way.
SLIM I was just about to look to see if we have any great wig lists on Letterboxd...
MITCHELL Oh, there’s gotta be.
SLIM Maybe this appears in there.
MITCHELL There’s gotta be. [Mitchell laughs]
SLIM Have you ever seen The Money Pit with Tom Hanks?
MITCHELL I haven’t! I haven’t. That’s one of the few that I haven’t checked out. And I really want to because I know—I’m doing a podcast on Tom Hanks right now...
SLIM That’s right!
MITCHELL And I’ve got to dive through the ones that I haven’t seen. So I’m rewatching a ton of the ones that I had already seen. But yeah, Joe Versus the Volcano kind of coincidentally just came up Weekend Watchlist-wise and was a perfect timing. But what do you think of The Money Pit? That’s one you really like?
SLIM I have vivid memories growing up watching that, I think it was one of my brother’s favorite movies. So I have like certain scenes burned into my brain from The Money Pit, but I would love to rewatch. And for folks that obviously enjoy Mitchell every week, we’ll have a link to Mitchell’s new pod in the episode notes.
MITCHELL Oh, thank you very much.
SLIM To subscribe and listen along. So my shame this week... Fates conspired against me. I did not have the time to watch The Sacrifice.
MITCHELL Terrible.
SLIM Subtitled movie—listen, it’s a subtitled movie, two and a half hours, you know? And sometimes things pop up!
MITCHELL It’s almost like you record two podcasts every week. [Slim laughs] Three! Three, actually!
SLIM Maybe, maybe there was an interview that was supposed to happen that didn’t happen... So, you know, next week is my week to watch The Sacrifice. It’s coming. So I will not be rerolling my shuffle this week but we do have some reviews that we want to spotlight because some friends in the Letterboxd community are also shuffling their watchlists. Robin wrote a review for White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie and Fitch. And Robin’s review: “I being twelve in 2012 and my cousin wanted to go to Abercrombie so we went to the store in Burlington Gardens and I accidentally bumped into one of their models and I got his six-pack sweat and musty cologne all over face...”
MITCHELL Eughhh.
SLIM ”Now that I really think about it that has probably really changed my life for the worse.”
MITCHELL How could it not, honestly... [Slim laughs]
SLIM Were you an Abercrombie shopper?
MITCHELL No, no. I was... I did not have the money to be shopping at Abercrombie regularly and I mean according to Robin, I might be better off for it. [Slim laughs] Thankfully I avoided that store completely. [Mitchell laughs] I wanted to shout out a review from Ismael on Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, which stars Mads Mikkelsen. Ismael says: “This movie had my heart racing so much. I felt like I should go to the hospital or something. Do I send the bill to ‘Weekend Watchlist’ or just a fine to Slim?” Ismael, I will tell you right now, you can just send that bill right to Slim. Don’t even worry about it... [Slim laughs]
SLIM I need to get our New Zealand lawyers on the horn to discuss next steps for that review. [Mitchell laughs] Butt I don’t like where it’s heading at all. Let’s shuffle your watchlist again. So if you do—if you want to us along each week, you can tag “Weekend Watchlist” in our review, just head to your watchlist and filter by stream-only, if you so choose, readily available. You can always choose ones and just to rent, and then sort by shuffle. So let’s see what comes first for Mitchell. [shuffle sound plays]
MITCHELL enger 57...
SLIM Oh my!
MITCHELL Directed by Kevin Hooks. 1992 movie starring Wesley Snipes. The Letterboxd plot description is as follows: “An infamous terrorist has evaded capture for a long time by being extremely clever and ruthless...” Uh oh! [Slim laughs] “Things get interesting when he hijacks a plane carrying famous security expert John Cutter, who isn’t about to stand this sort of thing.”
SLIM Oh my god...
MITCHELL First of all, I love this plot description. [Slim & Mitchell laugh]
SLIM You know how I know this is gonna be a great movie? Because it stars none other than Tom Sizemore.
MITCHELL Tom Sizemore, Bruce Greenwood, Elizabeth Hurley!
SLIM Oh my god!
MITCHELL In what might be a smaller role, she’s a little bit further down the cast list, an early one for her. The film is streaming on Showtime for anybody who has Showtime who wants to see it. It’s also available to rent on iTunes and Amazon and all the usual. I’m stoked to watch it! Very excited to see it. I know enger 57, the main reason why it ended up on my watchlist is because it’s—Cinephile card game, who we know and love, those guys over there. Their Wesley Snipes card is from the film enger 57 and I hadn’t seen it before. And I was like, ‘Well, if it’s got a Cinephile card, I should definitely make sure that I’m watching it...’ [Slim laughs] While you still have to watch The Sacrifice.
SLIM I still have to watch The Sacrifice... [Slim laughs]
MITCHELL A very different—I keep getting very “Slim” movies, while you get The Sacrifice, which is like a very “Mitchell” kind of movie.
SLIM You and Mia both seem to be getting the “Slim” movies, while I’m getting the inverse. [Mitchell laughs] So I have another two weeks to watch The Sacrifice, and I’ll make it happen this week by hook or by crook.
[Izon by Trent Walton fades in, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM Thanks so much for listening to Weekend Watchlist, brought to you by The Letterboxd Show. You can follow Mitchell, Slim—that’s me—and our HQ page on Letterboxd using the links in our episode notes. And you can also look out for our brand new Weekend Watchlist list—updated weekly. And don’t forget if you’ve been enjoying listening each week, consider rating us or leaving us a review to help folks discover Weekend Watchlist, and in turn, new movies.
MITCHELL Yeah, keep tagging those reviews with “Weekend Watchlist”, it’s a lot of fun to see so many more coming in than when we started off. People are really again on board with it. Just want to say thanks to our crew, and thanks to Letterboxd member Sophie Shin for the episode transcript. And most of all, thanks to you for listening. Weekend Watchlist is a Tapedeck production.
[Tapedeck bumper plays] This is a Tapedeck podcast.