Jan. 21, 2025

The Nice Guys, Does the Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe Pairing Work? Exploring Eucatastrophe and Neo-Noir in Comedy

In this episode, we explore "The Nice Guys," a cleverly crafted film that intertwines humor with unexpected twists, making it a rewatchable masterpiece. We tackle the intriguing concept of eucatastrophe within "The Nice Guys," revealing how unexpected twists and comedic flair illuminate Shane Black's mastery of the genre.
We break down the film's seamless integration of 1970s aesthetics and themes, reflecting on the gritty yet glamorous world it creates. The dynamic duo of Gosling and Crowe is put to the test.
As we wrap up, the conversation turns to character depth and dialogue—a testament to the film's respect for audience intelligence. We explore Holly's pivotal role as a moral compass and how her interactions with the flawed heroes drive the narrative.
Join us in advocating for more stories that subvert expectations and entertain with brilliance.

• Discussion on the film's clever writing
• Exploration of the eucatastrophe phenomenon
• Analysis of character dynamics between Gosling and Crowe
• Insights from the Fandom Portals community reactions
• Examination of the film's 1970s setting and its thematic relevance
• Call for a sequel based on the film's reception and potential storyline.

Instagram: instagram.com/fandomportals/?locale=en
Threads: threads.net/@fandomportals
Email: fandomportals@gmail.com
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fandomportals

Chapters

00:00 - The Nice Guys Movie Review

09:33 - Fandom Face-Off

15:42 - Clever Eucatastrophes in the Nice Guys

24:22 - 70s Aesthetic and Neo-Noir Themes

30:18 - The Reel Deal

40:43 - Character Development Through Dialogue

44:24 - Depth of Character and Clever Humor

53:48 - Fandom Portals Podcast Giveaway

Transcript

WEBVTT

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Hello everybody and welcome to the Fandom Portals podcast, where we explore fandoms that help you learn and grow.

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This week, we are looking at the Nice Guys.

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That is the 2016 movie starring Ryan Gosling, russell Crowe, and it is directed by Shane Black.

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Now in this episode, we are looking at how the clever writing of this movie makes it one of the most rewatchable comedies.

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We're looking at the phenomenon known as the you Catastrophe and we're answering questions about how this breaks the mold of your traditional kind of comedic detective story.

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And we're looking at the unlikely pair of Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe and we're discussing whether that works as a combination that should be in further movies.

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Now you guys are very vocal on this topic for our podcast, on our threads, and if you're interested in joining our threads and becoming part of the Fandom Portals community, make sure you look at the show notes below or go onto threads and find us at Fandom Portals.

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We hope you enjoy this episode on the nice guys.

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Hello everybody, it's Aaron here from the Fandom Portals podcast.

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I'm here with Brash Sup.

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How's everyone doing?

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Very well, thank you, brash.

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All right, today we are going to start off as usual with our gratitudes and growth.

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You can go first today, brash.

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What are your gratitudes and growths?

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I did have one, actually.

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No, I am grateful for my health.

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I've been not so struggling with my health like.

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I'm fine, like according to the doctor there's a horse, but fantastic.

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Nah, it's always good to be healthy, shit way to end the year.

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But you know you can only go up in.

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January.

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But the thing is like anytime there was something on, so, like my Christmas party or anything like that, I was fine and it was always.

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It's always the in-between yep, yep, all right.

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So for me, um, I'll start with my growth, and last week we talked about my sleeping pattern, how it's absolutely rubbish, so so for me, my growth, or my area of growth, is still the fact that I have a shitty sleeping pattern.

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I actually looked into sleep debt.

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I don't know if it's a real thing or not, so I looked it up.

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Apparently it is, um, but I got one of those tracking apps and it tracks the times where you go to sleep and it's supposed to be in the times that you get up, and I'm very consistent in when I wake up.

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Yeah, and I am thankful to my children for that, because they're like the best alarm clocks but the times that I go to bed, I was only consistently going to bed last week the same time, two nights in a row, so that's a plus.

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Yeah, this is, you know, two nights in a row, row, but it's still somewhere that I need to grow, so I'm working on it.

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I'm working on it.

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Sleeping pattern, important people.

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And then my gratitude for this week.

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I was talking to you earlier about it, but, uh, my gratitude is for our threads community um bit of a podcast gratitude for this one.

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But, yeah, you guys have been really awesomely commenting on a lot of the stuff that we've been putting out there, which is awesome to see.

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We're going to be chatting you guys out in this episode when we're talking about the nice guys, because, yeah, you guys had a bit to say about it.

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So, very thankful for you guys.

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Very grateful for you guys and, yeah, keep it coming, because we love reading them.

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So very grateful for the Fandom Portals community.

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Actually I do have.

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Actually, now I'm grateful for let's go.

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I was up early this week and I fell asleep on the couch and it messed up my shoulder, Yep, and I had to go.

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I went to work and it was just pain all day and then.

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So I'm like I'll go in masseuse and hopefully that'll help.

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And here's my gratitude it helped.

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Then here's the double-edged sword.

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It hurt, yeah, good, good, they know how to do their job hey yeah, so I.

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My gratitude is to the um, all the masseuses out there and the um physios.

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Thank you guys, you do God's work.

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Yeah, but ouch yeah, I don't know how they do it.

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Hey, because I can like for me, I can sit and game on the couch using my thumbs for hours and hours on end, the.

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And the moment you have to massage something else like 15 minutes those thumbs are cooked.

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Gorilla grips.

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They must be like those squeeze, like the tension, like they should be, like you'll smash those, the squeezy hand grips just while they're driving.

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Without any further ado, let's get into our first segment, which is our first takes.

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Our first takes segment is the segment where we like to talk about how we first were introduced to this movie.

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Again, we are talking about the nice guys.

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A couple of people say you're a pretty good detective.

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That's a lot of work.

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I want you to help me with this case.

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My profession is very complicated.

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It's very nuanced.

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Well, look who decided to show up for class.

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This is a high profile case.

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You've seen this girl Her name's Amelia who said it for me.

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We can do this the easy way.

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Ow, we're currently doing it the easy way, dad.

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There's like whores here and stuff.

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Sweetheart, how many times have I told you Don't say and stuff, just say, dad, there are whores here, where are you going?

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I think this is going to work better if we split up.

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Wow, that's really insensitive.

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Emilius, run March, march, march.

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Alright.

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So the Nice Guys is a movie starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe, and this segment of the first takes is where we talk about how we first discovered, or our first impressions of, the movie.

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It's in this segment also where we're going to start shouting out some of our threads, commenters, to get your first takes of the movie as well.

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So if you would like to, that is, at fandom portals definitely come and connect with us on threads when we post a what are your thoughts on this movie?

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Post Brash, you want to go first.

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How did you first discover the Nice Guys?

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I first saw it ads on just TV, but I never actually like.

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The first time I watched it was yesterday.

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Yeah, I saw it and I was like, oh yeah, that might be alright, but then I don't think it ever caught my eye enough to hit, play, hit play, because of late Ryan Gosling for me has been absolutely amazing, everything he does Like I reckon.

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Yeah, so back when I was 26, I was.

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You weren't a film connoisseur like you are right now.

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No, no.

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The thing is I was, I used to watch everything and then but like there's just some things that I just miss Because back then, but like there's just some things I just miss, because back then, like Ryan Gosling was for the girls, yep, yep and then like Russell Crowe was in it and I was like, oh yeah, but then last time I really liked anything Russell Crowe was in was like the Gladiator.

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Yeah, that's true.

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Ryan Gosling, to me, has gone through the same transition as Matthew McCona.

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Yeah, because you know how he started in his rom-com phase and then everyone was like, oh fuck, this guy can actually act Interstellar and then get to like Interstellar and stuff.

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I was like yeah, yeah, dallas Buyers Club, all that, but yeah, for me, when I first encountered this movie, I did not know it existed at all until I downloaded Letterboxd.

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And when I downloaded Letterboxd, obviously that's a social media platform for movie lovers.

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I added he was my only friend for a while Shout out, dylan, how you going.

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And one of his favorite movies, because on Letterboxd you can highlight your top four movies and it sits at the top of your profile.

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Yep, and one of his was the Nice Guys, which is a surprise for me because I didn't think he was into those kinds of movies.

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He rated it five stars and I was like I'll have to check it out because it wasn't the story for me.

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Yeah, and again, the pairing of Gosling and Crow two bird, last names, by the way, out of the blue, like I don't know, it's not a pairing that.

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I'd pick, and that's probably like another reason why I didn't really watch.

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I didn't think like like them two together would make enough impact for me to make it good yeah impact for me to make it good.

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Yeah, I know what you mean.

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Yep, all right.

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So the people from our threads there is a lot of positive talk about the movie.

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So Lizette69 said that they loved it and then Scribe31Ounce said it's a crime that we never got a sequel, and that was probably mirrored by a lot of users.

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Lollivitala said it's not bad, and then BillMiddleMass said, vitalis said it's not bad, uh, and then, uh, bill middle mass said it's an absolute gem of a movie should have had a sequel.

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But, to be honest, the best ones really don't need a sequel.

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So a lot of talk about sequels.

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Brash, did you make it to the end of this movie?

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I did, yeah, yep, and it kind of lines it up pretty well for one yeah, yeah, especially at the end, like, but we'll talk about it, we'll talk about it later, yeah, laney delaneyaney said that she loves this movie so much and they're ashamed that they didn't make a sequel.

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So again that sequel talk.

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Another one Old Geek Scott said that it was vastly underrated.

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With Lester Lee, I agree with that.

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They loved it and they would love to see a sequel as well.

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I agree with that.

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It was definitely.

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If I'd have known that I was going to like it, had known that I was going to like it, I probably would have watched it back when it first came out.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So before we leave our first take segment, we always sort of frame our point of view for the talks to come.

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So, brash, did you enjoy the movie?

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Did you like the movie?

00:08:54.663 --> 00:08:55.586
I did like the movie, yes.

00:08:55.919 --> 00:08:56.543
I very much did.

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Yeah, so for me, when I first watched it I thought it was pretty average.

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But then I re-watched it and I did some reading on it and instead of me thinking that the because on initial view I watched it and I thought that the plot was really disjointed and some of the connections didn't really hit, but then when you look at it from particular point of views, it's actually very clever.

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So I gave it three and a half stars on my letterbox, but I'm thinking I might have to bump that up because I liked it a lot more than what I did on a second watch through and that's something that one of our threaders said as well is that it gets better with every rewatch, which is rare for a movie.

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So there we go.

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It is pretty universally liked, which is surprising because it's like it didn't do too well at the box office.

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But we'll get into that in my favorite segment, the fandom face-off.

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So it's been two weeks so far since we've started this.

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The Fandom Fact Face-Off is a segment where Brasher and I give trivia questions to one another.

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We give three each and we score each other out of three and the winner after a month.

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So four movies or four episodes, will treat the other to a cinema date, all expenses paid if they beat their opposing player.

00:10:04.849 --> 00:10:10.293
So the current score after two weeks is that Brasher is on four and that I am on three.

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So if you're doing the maths, after two weeks, six possible questions, I'm hitting a 50% and Brasher is hitting just a little bit more than that.

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So we'll see if we can bump those scores up, bump up those rookie numbers in this week's episode.

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I'm going to go first Brash, if that's all good with you.

00:10:23.453 --> 00:10:24.794
Yep, alright, I'll do this one first.

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So the director of this movie is named Shane Black, and they also worked on Iron man 3 and they famously wrote one other screenplay featuring a buddy cop dynamic.

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What was that screenplay or script, buddy cop?

00:10:39.525 --> 00:10:41.413
Hmm, very famous.

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I'll give you a clue.

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One of the characters has a famous catchphrase or line and he says I'm too old for this shit.

00:10:48.744 --> 00:10:49.488
Oh, lethal Weapon.

00:10:49.488 --> 00:10:51.969
Yes, lethal Weapon is correct Ding, ding, ding.

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So, yeah, his very first and most famous screenplay.

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He wrote all of the Lethal Weapon movies.

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As I said before, he also worked and directed Iron man 3.

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And, funnily enough, ty Simpkin, the kid from Iron man 3, also features in this movie at the very, very start, yep, yep.

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He plays Harley in Iron man 3.

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And in the Nice Guys he plays the boy who finds Misty Mountains dead on her on a rock after he's rummaging for his dad's nudie magazine.

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So good, good work, brash.

00:11:21.081 --> 00:11:22.402
Good point for you, good point for you.

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He sort of feds me with that the line yeah well, you know, we always get one hint.

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That's how it works, so you'll go.

00:11:29.205 --> 00:11:35.827
Okay, so the actress who plays Holly what's her country of like, what's her?

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nationality.

00:11:36.268 --> 00:11:39.509
Okay, so Holly is the daughter of Ryan Gosling.

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Her name is Angry Rice, which sounds like angry rice.

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Angry.

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I don't know her nationality, but it sounds Swedish.

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She's Australian.

00:11:51.035 --> 00:11:53.216
No way, yep, really, yep.

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I did not pick her as an Australian.

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Her accent is completely hidden.

00:11:56.738 --> 00:11:58.081
Yep Born in.

00:11:58.945 --> 00:12:01.731
I think she's Perth born, yep.

00:12:01.731 --> 00:12:08.422
Don't quote me on that one, though, but she was born in 19, 19, sorry, 2001.

00:12:08.422 --> 00:12:09.364
2001.

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So that would have made her 15 at the or 14 at the time of shooting, 15 when it was released this movie.

00:12:14.913 --> 00:12:21.202
So yeah, you have a history of feeling like the, the families slash.

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Children of protagonists in movies are useless characters.

00:12:23.928 --> 00:12:25.873
So we'll see how that goes later today when we talk about it.

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But a score currently for the fandom fact face off brash one, me nothing, next one for brash.

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I always ask your box office question.

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So here is it for this week.

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This movie had a budget of $50 million.

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How much did it earn?

00:12:41.285 --> 00:12:43.201
I have a feeling it was underrated.

00:12:43.221 --> 00:12:43.942
I actually couldn't tell you.

00:12:43.942 --> 00:12:44.543
I'm going to take a.

00:12:44.543 --> 00:12:44.964
How much did it earn?

00:12:44.964 --> 00:12:46.005
I have a feeling it was underrated.

00:12:46.005 --> 00:12:47.528
Mm-hmm, I actually couldn't tell you.

00:12:47.528 --> 00:12:49.571
I'm going to take a stab.

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So it cost $50 million to make.

00:12:52.495 --> 00:13:00.700
Yes, I'm going to say it probably at least matched what it costs or over what it costs, but not by much.

00:13:00.700 --> 00:13:03.274
So I reckon maybe $100 million to $125 million, $125 million is very generous.

00:13:03.255 --> 00:13:04.523
It actually only made $71 million from a budget of $50 million.

00:13:04.523 --> 00:13:06.437
Not by much, so I reckon maybe 100 million, 125 million, 125 million is very generous.

00:13:06.437 --> 00:13:10.004
It actually only made 71 million dollars from a budget of 50 million dollars.

00:13:10.004 --> 00:13:32.284
The Angry Birds movie actually outperformed this one and it's considered one of the reasons why it didn't perform well at the box office so the thing is I've actually watched Angry Birds movie so, but yeah, that's actually kind of just one, so I think I read this.

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The director, Shane Black, originally wanted this movie to be a TV series.

00:13:36.380 --> 00:13:39.879
That's right he did, but they were worried it wasn't going to go anywhere.

00:13:39.879 --> 00:13:40.802
So they turned it into a movie.

00:13:41.323 --> 00:13:52.543
Yeah, and you know what that's like not encouraging If somebody says to you we don't really think that you have the plot or the direction to make this into a you know a 10 part or 12 part Long series.

00:13:52.562 --> 00:13:53.926
Yeah, let's make it into a movie instead.

00:13:54.527 --> 00:14:02.883
All right, glad they did, though, because it's now finding appreciation nowadays as our threads community and you and I both both sort of have figured All right.

00:14:02.883 --> 00:14:08.620
Your last question so Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe both accepted their respective roles in this movie?

00:14:08.620 --> 00:14:09.365
For what reason?

00:14:09.365 --> 00:14:13.464
Ooh, surely it couldn't be just like, uh, ooh, surely it couldn't be just like because they liked the script.

00:14:13.464 --> 00:14:15.570
Well, they did, but that wasn't.

00:14:15.570 --> 00:14:16.235
That wasn't.

00:14:16.235 --> 00:14:17.346
That wasn't the reason.

00:14:17.405 --> 00:14:21.926
That wasn't the reason uh was it, did they do?

00:14:21.966 --> 00:14:22.855
it as a favour?

00:14:22.855 --> 00:14:25.054
No, they didn't do it as a favour.

00:14:25.054 --> 00:14:33.423
Russell Crowe had already been in talks with Shane Black to have signed on for the movie, and Ryan Gosling signed onto the movie because he knew Russell Crowe was going to be in the movie.

00:14:33.423 --> 00:14:36.729
So they signed on because they wanted to work with each other.

00:14:36.729 --> 00:14:39.801
So that was the story.

00:14:39.801 --> 00:14:41.024
Do you have one question left?

00:14:41.024 --> 00:14:41.625
I do.

00:14:42.005 --> 00:14:46.278
Here we go when Misty Mountain is on the rock.

00:14:46.278 --> 00:14:51.567
Her last words to the boy was the title of the film they made.

00:14:51.567 --> 00:14:52.850
What was the title of the film?

00:14:53.174 --> 00:14:54.600
Something, something, something, big boy.

00:14:54.600 --> 00:14:55.524
That's what she said.

00:14:55.524 --> 00:15:00.841
She says Do you like my car, big boy?

00:15:00.841 --> 00:15:03.482
Yes, yes, there it is Very good.

00:15:03.482 --> 00:15:08.721
Yeah, so when she's dying on the rock there, I thought that was really that sort of gave you the vibe of the movie, wasn't it?

00:15:10.958 --> 00:15:19.062
Because that was weird, because it took him a hot minute to figure out that she, like she wasn't just saying oh, because I was like sort of like.

00:15:19.062 --> 00:15:23.960
I sort of thought like, oh yeah, I saw the name of the film that they made.

00:15:23.960 --> 00:15:25.524
It's only then that I clicked it.

00:15:25.524 --> 00:15:27.090
Oh shit, she was trying to give the kid a hint.

00:15:27.090 --> 00:15:30.577
Yeah, yeah, it was like a light bulb moment, that's when the Detective should have clicked on.

00:15:30.618 --> 00:15:31.418
That's what she was saying.

00:15:31.418 --> 00:15:33.041
Yeah, what were her last words?

00:15:33.041 --> 00:15:33.802
This was the last word.

00:15:33.802 --> 00:15:37.488
Yeah, yeah, that didn't click to me until the second watch as well.

00:15:37.488 --> 00:15:41.533
That's what I mean when I say that this movie is kind of clever and you pick something new up every single time.

00:15:41.533 --> 00:15:42.215
Very good.

00:15:42.215 --> 00:15:51.258
So currently for our fandom fact file segment, we have myself sitting at five points and Brash are sitting at five points after three weeks.

00:15:51.258 --> 00:15:52.139
So sitting at five points after three weeks.

00:15:52.139 --> 00:15:56.005
So next week will be the final and it will also decide who shouts the movie date.

00:15:56.005 --> 00:16:02.738
So we'll have to wait and see Brash, have to wait and see All right, so let's get into our next segment.

00:16:04.019 --> 00:16:13.322
All right, our next segment of the show is the most valuable takeaway, and this is the main sort of segment of the show where Brash and I talk about the thing that we liked the most from the movie.

00:16:13.322 --> 00:16:15.945
Whether it be a particular scene, it could be a life lesson that we've learned.

00:16:15.945 --> 00:16:18.268
It could be something that we can apply to our own lives to help us grow.

00:16:18.268 --> 00:16:19.910
It could be an educational fact.

00:16:19.910 --> 00:16:28.760
It could be something in the cinema, uh cinematography of the movie, that we really liked, or it could even be something from a character that we really want to employ, improve our own lives with.

00:16:28.760 --> 00:16:29.523
Um.

00:16:29.523 --> 00:16:34.710
So yeah, this could be really anything that really just sort of stuck with us for this movie.

00:16:34.710 --> 00:16:40.024
I have one or two for my MVTs this week, brash, what about yourself?

00:16:40.285 --> 00:16:40.746
I have one.

00:16:40.986 --> 00:16:45.264
You have one, one main, so I might go first for this one.

00:16:45.264 --> 00:16:59.772
Mine is more of a cinema sort of themed learning takeaway for me, and it encompasses a phenomenon known as the eucatastrophe.

00:16:59.772 --> 00:17:01.260
Have you heard of eucatastrophe before?

00:17:01.260 --> 00:17:16.625
No, okay, so the eucatastrophe was a term coined by JRR Tolkien, who obviously wrote Lord of the Rings my most famous fandom of all time and it refers to a sudden and favorable resolution of events in a story, often bringing a moment of joy or hope amidst despair.

00:17:16.625 --> 00:17:26.602
So if you think of Lord of the Rings, it could be the moment where Frodo and Sam make their way all the way up to Mount Doom, having encountered lots and lots of turmoils along the way, lots of hardship, lots of bad luck.

00:17:26.602 --> 00:17:40.931
Eventually, when they get to Mount Doom, frodo decides not to throw the ring in but, in a great turn of events and fate, gollum steals the ring from him and then, when he's celebrating, he slips and falls into the fire of Mount Doom, and that is a really happy coincidence.

00:17:40.931 --> 00:17:56.598
Yeah, so it's usually associated with those sorts of moments that bring joy out of despair, and it's usually like an unexpected coincidence, pretty much that occurs, and I found that this movie was absolutely rife with you catastrophes.

00:17:56.598 --> 00:18:14.566
Uh, when I watched it the first time, I was spoken speaking to you earlier about how the plot seemed a little bit disjointed and every time something happened it happened in a manner that you didn't really expect it to, or it had a lot of similar tropes in this sort of neo-noir genre and you expected the movie to go a particular way.

00:18:14.566 --> 00:18:18.724
But then in other scenes it kind of didn't pan out the way that you wanted it to.

00:18:19.266 --> 00:18:30.906
The scene that comes to me the best built-up joke in the whole movie, in my opinion, was when they were being faced down by Tali in the room the femme fatale, which is a neo-noir theme, the femme fatale in the room.

00:18:30.906 --> 00:18:31.836
They were held at gunpoint.

00:18:31.836 --> 00:18:40.106
Russell Crowe's character and Ryan Gosling's character were there and you know the scene was progressing in a manner that saw them.

00:18:40.106 --> 00:18:42.363
They were basically stuffed like they were at gunpoint.

00:18:42.363 --> 00:18:51.165
And then it clicked over in Ryan Gosling's mind, in Holland March's mind, that he would stall and go for an ankle gun.

00:18:51.165 --> 00:18:53.261
So he ducked to the floor.

00:18:53.261 --> 00:19:08.561
He immediately started grasping at Healy's legs and then when he did that, he realized that the ankle gun wasn't there and he had dreamed it up in the first place because, thematically, 15 minutes before he had been shown an ankle gun in the car by Russell Crowe's character as Healy.

00:19:09.315 --> 00:19:19.663
But through that process of events, obviously it got more and more fantastical as that scene went on and they were eventually in the car with a giant bumblebee and he crashed the car.

00:19:19.663 --> 00:19:36.766
So it's that awesome moment of filmmaking and film telling for me, where Ryan Gosling was sort of figuring it out as the audience was figuring it out, because it wasn't fully apparent that that was like a dream sequence or a fantasy, or that he'd fallen asleep until the bee arrived.

00:19:36.766 --> 00:19:43.241
And when you're introduced to the ankle gun, it was still almost in that foggy phase of is this real or is it not?

00:19:43.241 --> 00:19:57.928
So it was perfectly timed, perfectly placed, and then 15 minutes later, which I think is like the perfect amount of time to build up for a joke, because any more and you would have forgotten about it any less and it would have been too soon, and I just found myself laughing my guts out at that actual scene.

00:19:57.928 --> 00:20:12.680
And then it continued even further with the trope of somebody calling for room service, holly calling for room service, and then, when she called for room service, you expect at that moment for Holly to come in, initiate the distraction and then the heroes bust over Tali, but then that didn't happen either.

00:20:12.680 --> 00:20:25.141
It was almost like these series of events that were occurring that weren't occurring in a manner that was predictable, and then the thing that gets Tali in the end was the fact that she slipped on the coffee and knocked herself out.

00:20:25.141 --> 00:20:27.362
Yeah, and those were all throughout the movies.

00:20:27.362 --> 00:20:35.275
These eucatastrophes were all throughout the movies and the more that I looked at it, the more I found that was.

00:20:35.295 --> 00:20:43.498
My big takeaway from this is how clever Shane Black actually initiates these comedic elements in combination with neo-noir film stereotypes.

00:20:43.498 --> 00:20:48.708
So you expect the ankle gun to be there and you expect them to shoot Tally.

00:20:48.708 --> 00:20:50.962
In any other movie that would have happened, not in this one.

00:20:50.962 --> 00:20:55.121
You expect the hot coffee to scold the villain and the distraction to occur.

00:20:55.121 --> 00:20:57.828
Big shootout, bang, bang in any other movie would have happened in this one.

00:20:57.828 --> 00:20:58.751
No, it didn't.

00:20:58.751 --> 00:21:04.201
So that you catastrophe element for me was so surprising and I learnt a little bit about it for this week.

00:21:04.201 --> 00:21:06.727
So that was mine damn damn.

00:21:07.048 --> 00:21:39.320
Yeah, another moment was when you know how, how Ryan Gosling Healy or not Healy, sorry, colin March is going through the porn star's party and he goes and he tries to impress that woman and as he does, he falls off the balcony and in falling off the balcony he actually stumbles upon the dead body, which initiates their quest or their detective journey Healy, healy, healy.

00:21:41.262 --> 00:21:46.008
Healy, come on, come down here.

00:21:46.008 --> 00:21:47.950
What the fuck are you doing down there?

00:21:48.390 --> 00:21:56.027
get down here like it's that kind of happy accident, that eucatastrophe, that drives the whole film.

00:21:56.027 --> 00:21:57.229
Yeah, lots of happy accidents.

00:21:57.229 --> 00:22:02.903
Another one, and probably my second favorite one, was when they were in the elevator and they were going up to see the lead.

00:22:02.903 --> 00:22:04.740
And then they got all the way up there.

00:22:04.740 --> 00:22:10.821
They poked their heads out of the elevator and they see that John Boy's already just eviscerating everybody with the guns, and then they go straight back down the elevator.

00:22:10.821 --> 00:22:16.058
You know, they did all the work.

00:22:16.058 --> 00:22:16.500
They did all the work.

00:22:16.500 --> 00:22:26.240
They went up the stairs and then they're like nope, ducked out Straight back down, got in the car and then the eucatastrophe happens because Amelia the girl that they've been looking for, played by Margaret Hawley she jumps onto the car.

00:22:27.663 --> 00:22:28.403
What are we doing?

00:22:28.403 --> 00:22:31.148
I can't just leave why.

00:22:31.148 --> 00:22:39.698
She just leave, why she's in danger, man, we have to do something about it.

00:22:39.698 --> 00:22:40.218
She's dead.

00:22:40.218 --> 00:22:40.617
What do you mean?

00:22:40.617 --> 00:22:51.106
Come on, she's not dead.

00:22:58.031 --> 00:23:00.594
Yeah, all these eucatastrophes that happen, these happy coincidences.

00:23:00.594 --> 00:23:02.298
You look at it and you think that was really convenient.

00:23:02.298 --> 00:23:10.795
But then you think, oh, wait a minute, this is a movie somebody actually wrote for that to happen, and that's what started to make me think that this movie was actually really clever.

00:23:10.795 --> 00:23:12.342
So that's mine.

00:23:12.342 --> 00:23:15.061
Yeah, go back and watch it and see about all the happy coincidences.

00:23:15.061 --> 00:23:15.963
I reckon you'll find a few.

00:23:16.585 --> 00:23:21.041
So many yeah, like even Blueface getting hit by the van.

00:23:21.323 --> 00:23:23.288
Yes, yep, a hundred percent.

00:23:23.288 --> 00:23:31.502
And things you don't expect to happen, like when March is driving the red sports car in chase and he's just going a hundred miles an hour and he does that wicked looking skid.

00:23:31.502 --> 00:23:32.544
I an hour and he does that wicked looking skid.

00:23:32.544 --> 00:23:34.227
I was like, oh, this is a movie, he's going to do this awesome skid.

00:23:34.227 --> 00:23:36.328
Stop, shoot out the car.

00:23:36.328 --> 00:23:37.310
That's how it's going to happen.

00:23:37.310 --> 00:23:38.942
But he did this skid and he hit the tree.

00:23:41.413 --> 00:24:00.682
It just does it like it's and then he can't get to Holly and that in time because the car is stuck on the tree and it takes him a while to get the car off the tree yeah, that's exactly it and you know it's that kind of timing, that comedic timing, and everybody always says, you know, comedy is timing and it takes a lot for a movie to make me laugh, really, because I find that all of the lines and the attempts at witty dialogue and things, they're really hit and miss for me.

00:24:00.682 --> 00:24:05.442
But this kind of unexpected eucatastrophe coincidence, it didn't.

00:24:05.442 --> 00:24:19.170
It subverted my expectations in terms of what I thought would happen in a movie, which was good for me, because I'm notoriously bad for trying to predict how a movie goes, and when I watched this one, it was really good to be surprised, yeah.

00:24:19.170 --> 00:24:20.800
So I really liked it.

00:24:20.800 --> 00:24:21.182
It was good.

00:24:22.036 --> 00:24:32.857
Mine is their um, their devotion to the theme or, for the, a theme around the seventies, yep, Um, how you like.

00:24:32.877 --> 00:24:47.555
There'll be scenes where it'll cut in and it's filmed like it was filmed back in the 70s, like rough, yeah, yeah, rugged, and then like, then you see, it's just it just like smooth, slowly transitions into like, and I'm because I don't like where they did that.

00:24:47.634 --> 00:24:57.163
They did that at the four-star party when they first when they had the band playing, and then it was like all 70s, like, looked like it was filmed in the 70s and then it cut.

00:24:57.163 --> 00:25:04.675
And then when they walked in through the door, it sort of changed, yeah, into like the cutaway shots were really good, um, and they did that a few times.

00:25:04.675 --> 00:25:19.605
When they're at the towards the end, when they're at card, like sale dealership convention, um, same thing like when they're showing all the cars and that show girls was all filmed like, filmed on an old school, yep, old school camera, and it just looked vintage.

00:25:19.605 --> 00:25:33.583
And then they just cut straight through again, yeah, and then just like it, just what it looked back at the day and then it sort of cuts into sort of their perspective yeah, and even down to the, the themes in terms of the stuff that they decided to depict.

00:25:33.623 --> 00:25:40.775
So one of the big themes of like neo-noir movies is like an urban decay sort of theme.

00:25:40.775 --> 00:25:51.986
Where the city is, it looks really glamorous, like the city of LA looks really glamorous, but it's literally showing us the underbelly of that city, the way people live in terms of drugs, hitmen, porn stars, that kind of thing.

00:25:51.986 --> 00:25:56.380
But it's all colorful and glitz and glamour and that's how they depict it as well, in that sort of 70s vibe.

00:25:56.380 --> 00:26:04.824
I really enjoyed the way that they did that and the way that even the music and the soundtrack all fed into that 70s aesthetic as well.

00:26:05.315 --> 00:26:29.064
The whole plot was centered around like a conspiracy and there was lots of people throughout the movie that distrusted the government, which was a theme, a cultural theme that was rife through the seventies with, you know, watergate scandal and all that kind of thing which gave rise to like private investigators, which is what this movie centers around, with Ryan Gosling's character of of March being a private investigator, pro being an enforcer.

00:26:29.064 --> 00:26:32.078
Yeah, I just I think that seventies vibe just worked for this movie.

00:26:32.078 --> 00:26:36.449
I think I read something about Black wanting to make a neo-noir movie or a noir movie.

00:26:36.449 --> 00:26:51.301
And a noir movie is like an old detective style movie and usually it's made in a post-World War II sort of situation and it encompasses very flawed characters, which this does Usually very cynical characters.

00:26:51.301 --> 00:27:01.542
They usually end in ambiguous ways and it also sort of entails that that urban sort of sprawl and decay.

00:27:01.542 --> 00:27:05.521
So I liked the way that they they meshed all that together.

00:27:06.395 --> 00:27:27.625
But Shane Black sort of said you know, I don't want to do it in the forties and fifties, I want to make it in the seventies or the sixties and seventies, and I think that made it like that well, I don't know if you noticed, but when there was a shot at the very start which is the cameras coming over the hollywood hills, you see this, the sprawling city back in the 70s, but it still looks glamorous and everything like that.

00:27:27.625 --> 00:27:34.768
But then if you look at the hollywood sign, the hollywood, the back of the hollywood, graded, got graffiti all over it.

00:27:34.768 --> 00:27:41.083
It's all like like some of the like, the actual letters are starting to break apart and it just looks like uncared for.

00:27:41.083 --> 00:27:42.659
Yeah, so.

00:27:42.659 --> 00:27:49.027
So you see this big sprawling city, but then you see the back of, like, the Hollywood sign it's all done, grungy and dirty.

00:27:49.047 --> 00:27:49.991
That's such a good metaphor.

00:27:50.333 --> 00:27:53.303
So, yeah, so it shows like on the, on the, it looks great.

00:27:53.303 --> 00:27:57.049
But if you look behind the scene, yeah, if you look that a little bit deeper, and I love that they've.

00:27:57.191 --> 00:28:11.563
I didn't even notice that, but the fact that they put that right at the start of the movie for people like yourself to sort of notice, you're just like here's this beautiful, pristine city, but if you look a little bit closer, you see, in the end there behind the scenes it's a bit dirty and like it sort of, and that sort of shows with the characters too.

00:28:11.643 --> 00:28:22.267
Like Russell's co-character, he wants to do right, but then his character he's been shat on a bit, yeah, and he goes around, he beats people up for a living, yep.

00:28:22.267 --> 00:28:27.066
He beats people up for a living to be a nice guy, yep.

00:28:27.066 --> 00:28:29.541
And then the same with Ryan Gunsley.

00:28:29.541 --> 00:28:41.465
He'll go and do his detective work and like, sometimes probably does it, but for the most part he's just trying to get as much money out of this possible and try to get out as much as possible.

00:28:41.645 --> 00:28:55.650
The scene that I remember from that one is when he's sitting in front of the old lady and she says I haven't seen my husband since the funeral and he goes I'll do the best I can, exactly, and then he'll go off and he'll investigate for a couple of days.

00:28:55.694 --> 00:29:00.060
Come back and be like oh your husband's died, yep, but he takes the money off anyway.

00:29:00.060 --> 00:29:06.445
Yeah, and that's another theme of that noir sort of style is they have like the characters are very morally ambiguous.

00:29:06.445 --> 00:29:13.406
Where we see Ryan Gosling character of Holland March being I will use this term lightly but a functioning alcoholic.

00:29:13.406 --> 00:29:18.089
Colin March being I will use this term lightly, but a functioning alcoholic, that's his flaw.

00:29:18.089 --> 00:29:19.750
And then we might get into this a little bit with the Real Deal segment.

00:29:19.750 --> 00:29:24.252
But Russell Crowe's character of Jackson Healy is a reformed alcoholic.

00:29:24.252 --> 00:29:35.021
Yeah, it's just like the two different sorts of flaws that they play in that and the way that they develop throughout the film is really kind of brilliant in that sort of noir 70s style.

00:29:35.021 --> 00:29:37.768
So, yeah, I love your MBT this week.

00:29:37.768 --> 00:29:38.229
That's awesome.

00:29:40.856 --> 00:30:06.644
All right, we are on to our real deal segment and this is where we take some of the elements from the movie and we rate it as being either good or bad and we use special terms that we coin ourselves in order to call them good and bad, and we get a generator to tell us what things we're going to be talking about, and this could be anything from the themes of the movie or it could be something from the actor's chemistry, it could be the cinematography, it could be the director's vision, it could be the cultural impact of the movie.

00:30:06.644 --> 00:30:10.959
The real deal is a way for us to sort of review a movie without going from top to bottom.

00:30:10.959 --> 00:30:12.481
It's kind of like a gamified way that we do it.

00:30:12.481 --> 00:30:18.130
So for this week, brash, if we think something is good, we're going to be calling it healy's hits.

00:30:18.130 --> 00:30:19.438
Give me your left arm.

00:30:19.438 --> 00:30:21.403
Huh, your left arm.

00:30:21.403 --> 00:30:22.023
Give me your left arm.

00:30:22.023 --> 00:30:29.746
This one, no, yeah, come on you cut yourself I'm dealing with an injury right.

00:30:29.846 --> 00:30:30.047
Look.

00:30:30.047 --> 00:30:35.026
When you're talking to your doctor, just tell you have a spiral fracture of the left radius.

00:30:35.026 --> 00:30:37.262
No, no, deep breath, no.

00:30:42.922 --> 00:30:50.682
Because they knock it out of the park as Russell Crowe does a lot of the time in the movie you see him absolutely flossing people, including Ryan Gosling's wrist spiral fracture.

00:30:50.682 --> 00:30:57.476
That scream is just awesome too, and then, if it's a bad point, we're gonna call it an ankle gun.

00:30:57.476 --> 00:31:02.364
You nervous at all me no, I got insurance.

00:31:03.767 --> 00:31:07.578
This baby right here, an ankle gun because it wasn't really there.

00:31:08.580 --> 00:31:12.477
Let's get our generator to pick what we're talking about this time.

00:31:12.477 --> 00:31:21.830
All right, so the first one that we've got from our generator at the first part of our real deal segment is going to be climactic buildup slash villains.

00:31:22.534 --> 00:31:26.480
Yeah, so I think that's to me.

00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:32.069
This is ankle gun, ankle gun.

00:31:32.069 --> 00:31:43.362
Okay, I felt the whole way through the whole way through it sort of built up and then it just sort of like fizzled fizzled at the end, yeah like there was no an unsatisfying ending.

00:31:43.382 --> 00:31:46.624
Yeah, like to any sort of like to most of their confrontation.

00:31:46.624 --> 00:31:48.318
Yep, like it.

00:31:48.318 --> 00:31:49.102
They just sort of like.

00:31:49.102 --> 00:31:50.184
They usually just like end.

00:31:50.184 --> 00:31:53.703
But from what you said earlier it sort of makes sense.

00:31:53.703 --> 00:31:56.261
Yeah, yeah, yeah, with the coincidences and everything like that.

00:31:56.261 --> 00:32:04.224
But even still, like the last scene when they're both at the bar they got John Boy, they got John Boy.

00:32:04.224 --> 00:32:07.605
There's an assassin going around just absolutely messing people up.

00:32:07.605 --> 00:32:21.964
And then the last scene you see they're having a shootout, russell Crowe's chasing him and they're trying to get away with the film and all these security guys come to try and take out John Boy and he's just flipping them over and just beating the crap out of them, killing all these guys, just taking everyone out.

00:32:21.964 --> 00:32:26.910
And then Russell Crowe pretty much handedly just kicks his ass.

00:32:26.910 --> 00:32:35.084
Yep, and it's like this dude's like a proper assassin who takes like ease in killing people.

00:32:35.084 --> 00:32:42.265
Yeah, and Ruffles, he sort of just barely even lays a hand on Russell Crowe's character yeah, it was kind of convenient as well.

00:32:42.305 --> 00:32:43.211
But it goes back to that thing.

00:32:43.211 --> 00:32:51.450
We were talking about how the coincidences occur like pulls a grenade and he throws the shirt down and lands on the guy about to shoot his character and explodes.

00:32:51.470 --> 00:33:05.675
Yeah, very full of coincidence and even to the like, to the point where we're talking about even more coincidences when when Ryan Gosling's character, march, falls off of the building with the villain the villain, yeah, happily in the pool.

00:33:05.675 --> 00:33:22.250
But in that regard as well, I kind of liked the way that that that John Boy the character was represented in terms of him being a very proficient user of violence, splattering bodies wherever he went, and then throughout the movie, healy, although he's an enforcer, and March as a private investigator.

00:33:22.250 --> 00:33:28.003
Traditionally in these neo-noir movies or these noir movies, the investigator is supposed to be really competent.

00:33:28.003 --> 00:33:30.054
They're supposed to be really together.

00:33:30.054 --> 00:33:31.922
They can hold themselves up in a fight.

00:33:32.242 --> 00:33:40.046
This guy can't like Ryan Gosling's character is absolutely, even though, even though um he's meant to be um army, ex army.

00:33:40.165 --> 00:33:43.490
Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah, so maybe we know why he was discharged.

00:33:43.490 --> 00:33:48.061
But yeah, I really liked how John boy was this this perfect pro and Gosling the whole way through.

00:33:48.061 --> 00:33:51.181
Putting that together, it's just like these characters are absolutely stuffed.

00:33:57.474 --> 00:34:01.980
You'd expect them to, yeah, but I think that's the, I think that's the thing that, because all of them were like, yeah, coincidentally they were able to get the upper hand.

00:34:01.980 --> 00:34:16.615
Um, russell Crowe's probably a bit more efficient in his ability to fight than Gosling, but yeah, I just feel like at the end, and especially because Russell Crowe goes to kill him at the end, don't do it, don't do it, yep.

00:34:16.615 --> 00:34:18.525
Um, especially because Russell Crowe goes to kill him at the end, don't do it, don't do it, yep.

00:34:18.525 --> 00:34:28.277
But like I would've, it would've been more impactful if he had of, because when they break into his apartment and he's like, oh, it would've been fine if he had come in, messed up the place and left.

00:34:28.277 --> 00:34:30.965
Then he started messing with my fish and made me angry, yep.

00:34:31.175 --> 00:34:56.626