Another Pass at The Little Things

It’s The Little Things that we’re here to talk about. It’s The Little Things that drive us mad. It’s The Little Things that keep us up at night. It’s The Little Things that brought Heather Antos onto the show. It’s The Little Things that we’re doing our episode on.

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Transcript

(Subject to Error)

00:00
Heather Antos
No, I agree. I think there's, like, very simple, small things they could have done.

00:06
Case Aiken
Little things, if you will.

00:07
Heather Antos
Fuck you.

00:09
Sam Alicea
It's the little things.

00:13
Case Aiken
Welcome to certain point of views, another pass podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com. Hey, everyone. Everyone. Welcome to another pass podcast. I am case Aiken. As always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

00:31
Sam Alicea
Hi.

00:32
Case Aiken
Fanfare flourish and today we've got a very special guest. We've got Heather Antos.

00:42
Sam Alicea
More fanfare.

00:47
Case Aiken
Heather, you've been a wonderful friend of this network over the last couple of years. You came on certain POV, the flagship show that has since ended, and you were the voice of Leia on Scruffy Nerf herders for me. But I'm so glad to finally have you here on another pass.

01:01
Heather Antos
Yeah, no, thanks for having me. You know me. I have opinions and I can't shut up about. So when you invited me to be on a podcast where I get to give my pitch on a movie, I mean, who could say no?

01:16
Case Aiken
Well, I'm so glad to hear your opinions and your strong ones. I love following you on Twitter. You're a great follow for people, but where can people find you? What do people know you from?

01:26
Heather Antos
Yeah, so people know me from a lot of things. People know me from Twitter. I spend a lot of time on Twitter, for better or worse, at Heather Antos. But you may also know me from my work in comics as an editor on anything from Marvel's Star Wars, Deadpool, Gwenpool lines, to images, Redlands injection, bitter root bog bodies, and more, as well as now I am a senior editor at Valiant, working on titles like Manowar, Quantum, and Woody, and the soon to be debuting Shadow man.

02:02
Case Aiken
Excellent. Excellent. Yeah. Your career has been awesome. I think you had just left Marvel when the last time we actually talked, but it's always so cool to see what you're up to.

02:13
Heather Antos
Yeah, I stay busy. No, it's been a wild ride. But yeah, I like Nerdm, obviously. I love nerdom. I love comics. I love all things geek and people who are passionate about them. Right. I think that's what's so cool, is how passionate fans are about the things that they love, and that's what brings us all together. I mean, literally, that's what brought you and I together.

02:44
Sam Alicea
That's right.

02:47
Case Aiken
Yeah. But today we are not talking about something that is nerdy. Although there is passion in this call for this particular thing. Today we are talking about kind of a genre that is usually in my blind spot. We are talking about the little things.

03:01
Sam Alicea
Yes, that is what we are talking about. I like movies like this. I like crime dramas. I was not a fan of this movie. I found it kind of dragging, actually. I felt like it. Too many monologues. There's so many monologues. There's many monologues everywhere. I was just like, okay, I get it. Like, stuff. And you're a cop and there's philosophy, but oh, my God, way too much. Way too many monologues. Good actors, but too many monologues.

03:37
Heather Antos
And could they say the title of the movie one more time?

03:41
Sam Alicea
Oh, my God. I think that was definitely in my notes. I was like, seriously, is this like a second or third time? I felt like I was like, with a bad. Just like a bad guy who loved bad dad jokes. And it's the little things. Shucks, guys.

03:59
Heather Antos
Think. I think literally, even again, was it the third, 4th, 5th time? Who knows? We lost count. But there was one where it was like, literally a close up of Denzel Washington, where he was like, it's the little. I just. If I had a drink in my hand, I would have thrown it.

04:19
Sam Alicea
It's fine to say it once, but.

04:21
Case Aiken
Yeah, I didn't realize this was a period piece.

04:23
Sam Alicea
Yeah.

04:24
Case Aiken
And the fact that I didn't even realize it was a period piece when I had watched the movie, when it was done, because there wasn't a lot of big indicators for it. There's stuff, but it just wasn't really paying attention to it because it just kind of looked like a rundown town. That it was like, okay, whatever. Then when I'm looking back on it, I'm like, oh, that actually explains a lot about why this was so goddamn boring. Because it wasn't actually written to be a period piece. It was written in the. It's set in that period.

04:55
Heather Antos
Yeah. No, a little fun fact trivia. Johnny Hancock actually claims he wrote this in 1990, which is why it took place in 1990. Who's to say? But yeah, it's crime film set in the was telling case a little bit for this before we hit record, Sam. But just. I'm a huge crime fan. I hate saying crime fan because I don't like crime. I'm not a fan of crime, but.

05:23
Sam Alicea
Please, people do crime. No, that's not it.

05:26
Heather Antos
No, I'm fascinated by true crime. And so a lot of my quote unquote free time, I listen to every single crime podcast that has ever existed. I've probably watched every documentary that's out there I have a very substantial Google Doc of crime recommendations. Books, movies, documentaries, everything that I send around people because I'm obsessive and I like to document my obsessions. I don't know. I don't know if that made me a harsher critic on this film just because I know so much of what they're trying to go for, aping what they're trying to make a red herring but failed. I don't know. I also love David Fincher as a director, and he is the crime film director. If you're going to do a psychological crime thriller, David Fincher is the guy. No one can do a film like he does.

06:31
Heather Antos
And literally at the end of this film I said, I've seen seven and that was actually a good movie because the little things really feels like a seven knockoff in a very bad way.

06:47
Sam Alicea
Yeah, I agree. It's like they tried to do seven, but then throw Mindhunter in there and try to mimic what they could do with the show, which makes in depth conversation about psychology of criminals into a two hour movie. I don't know, again, but they even.

07:08
Heather Antos
Do that in seven too. But the writing was so much better. I feel like. I don't know, maybe this is my personal feelings on John Lee Hancock, but I feel like he has such a savior complex in his films of his main character has to be the hero and save someone else. I mean, we see it in this, we see it in the blind side. We've seen it in, oh gosh, I'm blanking on another one. But we see it time and time and time again where the quote unquote hero of the film is basically white knighting everyone else. And it rubs me the wrong way.

07:49
Case Aiken
Yeah, this movie rubbed me the wrong way even outside of the conventions of the genre, because the detective genre, the crime thing, I'm not a fan. I don't really like this kind of stuff. Typically. It always kind of bothered me. And now I have a much better word to describe why. It always kind of bothers me, which is it's all fucking propaganda and this whole movie. Anyone who tunes into this podcast, despite my political leanings, should probably turn off this episode because, oh my God, the whole fucking time I was rolling my eyes at this whole, like, being a cop's tough, it really wears on you kind of like, vibe that the characters had throughout the whole movie and the end of the movie, even though it has a scenario of like, we're really not talking about. Good for this movie, by the way.

08:36
Heather Antos
I'll say some good after this.

08:38
Case Aiken
Yeah, there will be good to say. But the end of the movie where it's just like, oh, look, even our heroes can do bad. In fact, they're being eaten alive by. It still felt like propaganda because it felt like a scenario where that was the exception, not the rule, and that it weighed on them horribly as they got away with it. And it also presented this world where they had to take all these drastic steps to get away with it, which also just doesn't feel right in the world that we know is real, or at least the world that how I have come to understand it, to be real. It's, like, really frustrating looking at this, and then it's also slow and boring. There were good shots. Everyone's trying their damnedest to have an Oscar beatty kind of speech in there.

09:25
Case Aiken
Everyone's got a good monologue. It's just. There's way too fucking much of all of it. I had such a hard time paying attention to this movie because it's just not for me, and it kind of hurt.

09:38
Heather Antos
No, you're 100% correct. It is a beautifully shot film. The cinematography is gorgeous, the coloring is gorgeous, the production is gorgeous. Jared Leto is very convincing playing alleged serial killer, and that is all I will say on that. But the know, the performances are like you're saying, case. I think one of the things that I kept getting so frustrated at is so much of this was, as you said, cops trying to cover up these, quote, unquote, wrongful deaths. Right? Except I don't know. I'm not a police officer. I've never actually worked in that field. But I know a lot from my own research. And he was on a crime scene where they just found bodies when he shot this survivor. She died. That sucks. That's terrible. That's a tragedy. He wouldn't have gone to jail for that. He might have been on probation, obviously.

11:02
Heather Antos
Should have done psych exams, all this stuff. But I don't know why everyone covered up that murder that caused all of this stress and trauma and triple bypass heart surgery, and he had to divorce. And everything's terrible and sad, and it's carrying over me for ten years. Yada, yada. Again, it's a tragedy. He would have been fine. Same thing with the murder that Rami Malik, when he killed Jared Leto at the end. Like, he. He wouldn't. That he. He wouldn't have lost his job. He wouldn't. Yes, again, psychovals. But we all know cops protect their own.

11:41
Heather Antos
This makes them look way more shady than I think they were actually trying to do, and I don't know, maybe I'll talk about this more in my pitch, but if that's what they were trying to do, make them look shady, then they should have pushed further in that direction. I think that's my biggest complaint, is I don't know what this movie was trying to say. I don't know. What is it about how shame can push you in dark directions? I don't know. I truly don't know what this movie was trying to say. And it said a lot of nothing.

12:23
Sam Alicea
Yeah, I agree. And to your point, this goes back to that white knight kind of aspect of it, right. Because if you had gone the other directions and you had gone the direction of the shield, right. And made it so that this guy's just crazy. He's just doing all sorts of, I don't know, backdoor things, at least you would understand who he is. But Denzel's just this very complex cop that is just overburdened with this terrible thing that happened one time, and everyone, the captain hates him, won't touch him, and it's like one bullet, and she came out of the woods and kind of scared him. And we know from current cases that would have been explained away.

13:15
Heather Antos
He's a good cop.

13:16
Sam Alicea
He's a good investigator. Like, it was one incident. We're going to get him the help he needs, and he'll be back on the beat. Like, he literally had to leave and move to a small town and not be near murder at all and be the kind of person that solves the mystery of who keeps turning off the g in the black Angus sign so that it reads black anus and that's his life. It's like he was this hot shot finding criminals on the case investigator in LA, and he had to go up to northern California and get away from it all because he just couldn't handle it anymore. And it's like, yeah, what is this movie trying to.

14:06
Heather Antos
Yeah, he's a very bad cop. He literally took all of Jared Leto's stuff from his house and burned it on his own property.

14:20
Sam Alicea
Right. I was like, so no one's going to come check out. First of all, he's also a bad cop because he never brings the boots back. There's a whole thing. The reason why he goes to LA is to get these freaking boots that are part of evidence. And his CEO actually says to him, this drove me crazy. His CEO actually says to him, like, you got to bring those boots back by tomorrow, because the case is tomorrow. And if we don't have them, then we won't get a conviction. And then, I don't know, three scenes later, the CEO in LA is just like, well, you're going to have to wait for them. So it's going to have to be good enough. I'm not going to sign off on anything. And I'm like, what about this pending case? What about this victim?

15:05
Sam Alicea
What the fuck is going on? Are you fucking kidding me? And then he just never, ever takes it back. He just becomes obsessed with Rami Malek's case. In fact, when he leaves to burn all of Jared Leto's stuff and cover up the murder, the boots are on the bed along with all of his evidence in the motel. So he does not give a flying fuck about actual crime.

15:30
Heather Antos
I guess if this movie was trying to say, again, it's all very on the surface and not really. It's asking a lot of the audience to try and follow what it's trying to say. Because I guess the true message of the movie is how obsession can corrupt you. I guess because we see his obsession and he's careless and doesn't care about these boots anymore. But a CEO also isn't following up on him ever on any of this. If the boots were so important, you think a phone call would you get?

16:10
Sam Alicea
The most you get is that the other commanding officer in LA says to Malek, like, be careful. His CEO said that he took vacation. You think he's really just hanging out? And I'm like, but you take a vacation after you bring the boots, right? Like, I kept saying that out loud to my. But the, also when he's a bad cop, also because when he goes to the apartment where they found the young lady dead, he just enters and he starts kind of poking around at things with his fingers. I'm like, oh, my God. I know that I just listened to some podcasts and watched documentaries, but, dude, I know they've already collected most of the evidence, but why are you touching shit? It's still an active crime scene.

17:02
Heather Antos
Yeah, it is. Also, this is devil's advocate a little bit. If we want to be period appropriate. It's early enough where dna still isn't hugely being tested in any way, shape or form yet. Like fingerprinting, pushback on that one.

17:22
Case Aiken
Fingerprints.

17:23
Heather Antos
Totally. No, I do agree with that. I was just about to say that's the caveat to that.

17:30
Sam Alicea
Not that it matters, because that landlady probably was in there trying to rummage through that girl's stuff. Well, 100%. She was not sad at all that girl died.

17:40
Heather Antos
No, she was not. She was just like, how long are we going to have to wait for this? I can't rent this out tomorrow. And the other thing that really, I think, irritated me with the storytelling of this is, again, Jared Leto did a great job at know this alleged serial killer. But the whole narrative surrounding is he. Is he not the murderer? I just didn't buy in any way, shape or form because John Lee Hancock played literally. Let's check all the boxes of what a serial killer looks like. Everything from Helter Skelter to in cold blood on his bookshelf, where he has a fascination with crime scenes. He's showing up to the events. He's following the case down to. I have a secret treasure box where I have newspaper clippings of all of these murderers that is hidden.

18:42
Heather Antos
That box in and of itself. Had Denzel Washington solely taken that box to the police officers. Rami's character is scot free from any murder, period. Because that is evidence. Like, we've seen police convict people on so much less. And I don't know, this whole did he, didn't he narrative, it was all bullshit to me. And I don't know. I spent the whole time. Your audience is so much smarter than I think the filmmakers were trying to make us feel.

19:33
Case Aiken
Yeah, this felt so first drafty. And I'm sure there were a lot of rounds of updates. I'm sure that there have been lots of drafts, but it still felt very first drafty, both in its assessments of the world and how things like the research that would have gone into what period appropriate police actions would have looked like or police procedure would look like. But then, yeah, just like, what are the stakes of this world? What is the point of this whole thing? Everything is either very hack or it's very naive. I mean, this presumes a world where police are subject to consequences far more severely than what we know to be true. And that's not a change that happened in 30 years.

20:20
Case Aiken
We just know that in a scenario where there is no contesting person with no witnesses and very little evidence besides a wound to the head, the cop would be fine. He would be fine. We all agreed that's a weird part, that they're even worried about it. And then, so, as a result, having to take these extra steps and indicate that it is a big deal to do something like this makes it feel like, well, what's the point? It feels like the world is kind of brighter in weird ways. And that someone who is a killer is more of a weird deviant of what the world? I don't know. Like I said, it feels very naive, where there's very clear, like, these are the bad people and even Leto, who there should be a question about if they murdered an innocent man or not.

21:10
Case Aiken
And while there's a little bit of it doesn't feel like big weight on that part. It feels like big weight on Remy Malik's elements. How is he accepting it all? It feels like it's from the. Feels like they haven't really retouched it after they did, like, a bunch of drafts at the beginning, and they were like, this looks great for 1993.

21:33
Heather Antos
And that's it.

21:34
Case Aiken
They filmed it, and we're like, no, we got into a pretty good shape. I'm pretty happy with it. We're going to start filming soon. And didn't stop to look at it again.

21:43
Sam Alicea
No.

21:43
Case Aiken
And then they fucking released it after 2020.

21:47
Heather Antos
Yeah. Well, they waited till the end of January in the hopes that maybe we can sneak it in for the Oscars. No, I agree. I think there's, like, very simple, small things they could have done to little.

22:04
Case Aiken
Things, if you will.

22:05
Sam Alicea
Fuck you. It's the little things. Sorry.

22:09
Heather Antos
No, but they're very subtle, small things that wouldn't take up a ton of screen time. I mean, the thing was already somehow 2 hours long. But again, had they implemented in the very beginning, a cop accidentally killed someone? I almost said on set at a crime scene, a survivor, innocent bystander, whatever, accidentally shot someone, and now they're in prison for life or something like that. Had that been mentioned? And so we know why the stakes of why Denzel had to hide it. Right? Or why Rami has to hide what he did. Or had they pursued any other suspect for any ounce of time.

22:57
Sam Alicea
Wait, cops have to do that? No, just the one guy obsess about him. Wait, out to his.

23:06
Heather Antos
Literally. Literally, it felt like profiling. Literally. It was just like, you look like you could be a serial killer. And, like, sure he did.

23:16
Sam Alicea
I mean, honestly, Jared Leto is very. He's. He's very good at that. He's very good at just staring at the camera and making you feel a chill down your spine just by looking at you. So I get it. I understand why you would profile him, but, yeah, they didn't do any of the other police work at.

23:38
Case Aiken
There's no. There's no other red herrings. There's just this. And, like, that's not enough for the movie that they made. If Leto was guilty if he was the murderer and this whole movie was them circling around this guy that they couldn't nail down as being the guy. Sure, spend all your time with that one guy, but I feel like I'm repeating myself. A few episodes back, I did the snowman, and it was the same sort of situation of, like, at a certain point, you have to have a few red herrings. Otherwise, being the reveal when it's the only guy we care about, or in this case, not the anti reveal, doesn't do anything for you. You just didn't have a story. You just sort of meandered until finally you got to the third act, and you're like, oh, we need a conclusion.

24:25
Heather Antos
Yeah.

24:25
Sam Alicea
I almost felt like the writer felt like Jared Leto was guilty, but that they would never, like, I don't know why, but I just got this feeling of like, no, he probably was, but he just wants you to question if he was or not. Because there was nothing in there that really made me feel any kind of conflict. I think it would have been more interesting, and I know this is getting kind of into pitch territory, but it would have been more interesting if there was another person and there was some pushback from Rami Malik to be like, no, but it also could be this guy and then have kind of Denzel's character pull him in to the obsession of like, no, man. You got to understand. This guy checks our, like, he's perfect.

25:14
Heather Antos
It's the little things, man.

25:16
Sam Alicea
Yeah, it's the little things. Say it for the fourth time. But just kind of being like, no, but what about this? Or, what about that? Or this doesn't match up. Maybe give him an alibi that is maybe not super reliable, but also happens because a lot of times, sometimes cops are like, oh, so close. But that person seems to have, like, I don't know if I believe that woman who said that she was with him. She could be lying. But there's an alibi. And so had there been something like that, but there was nothing, really. Even the young lady who escaped from him on the highway, or possibly him on the highway, because she recognizes him, sort of. But we don't know if she does right, because they do it as if she does right.

26:10
Sam Alicea
Because when she ties her shoes, she stares at him in a way that they're kind of implying. And then she says something later on, like, oh, he's in the building. Right. And Rami looks at his partner, and she's like, oh, sorry. So then you're like, oh, wait, did she actually recognize him? Because she recognized him, or is it because the partner was there and she was like, that guy looks super creepy, so he must be the person that chased me. So it gives you that. But I don't know. There's just so many missed opportunities in this film.

26:48
Heather Antos
I agree. I think there's two things. I think maybe they were trying to have a debate or try and make the audience feel when you're a jury in a murder trial, it's beyond a reasonable doubt. Right? Well, they're trying to give you reasonable doubt in he. There's no actual concrete evidence. He's just creepy, and he's fucking with them, and he's enjoying fucking with them. But, no, you're right on the thing. Like, they introduce him like, he's this hot shot guy who just comes in, and then he's sort of just Denzel's puppy. The whole, don't. If I was Rami and this old detective who, again, has these boots that he needs to bring back, keeps walking around my crime scene, I'd be like, yo, bro, what the fuck are you doing here? Leave.

27:50
Sam Alicea
Yeah. I felt like there wasn't enough of a reason to show his obsession with Denzel's character. There's a throwaway line that's kind of like, oh. Kind of lists his. Not attributes. Oh, my God. His achievements. I was like, that's the wrong word. Why don't I know what word I want? But lists his achievements as like, yeah, he was an amazing cop. He did this, he did that. He caught blah and blah. Right? And kind of like. And he's like, yeah, he was a big deal, but you never really quite understand. It's not like Denzel's character was never experience, really. It's a throwaway line.

28:37
Sam Alicea
But you don't get this feeling of giddiness when someone meets their hero, which I think there's supposed to be something in there where he was this legendary cop who broke and then left, and the legend is back in the building. And Rami, being the person who wants to fill that position, wants to pick this guy's brain because he was a legendary. But there's no other than that throwaway line. I don't understand. If someone's broken and everyone, like, his CEO is like, he's terrible. Stay away from him. Is this just like, he's a teenage girl whose dad is like, don't date that boy. He's bad for you. And she's like, oh, my God, I want to. What is going on?

29:23
Heather Antos
Also, the whole, he's terrible. Stay away from him. He was so traumatized by this last murder that he had open heart surgery, and the response to be like, stay the fuck away from that guy is, like, so mean.

29:43
Sam Alicea
He's got a bionic heart now. Stay away from him.

29:47
Heather Antos
Like, heart attacks are contagious.

29:50
Sam Alicea
You don't want to go getting a heart attack.

29:57
Case Aiken
Mean. I think it would have worked better if Baxter was familiar with Deacon already, where he's like, oh, that's ratled. And if he ratled off a couple of the big cases or something, like, if he was already a little bit of a fanboy. Because then you could have a discussion about being fanboys for this type of stuff because that could be there, but it's not because he's starstruck by Deacon. Once someone tells him who he is and that he should be. But I don't understand why we have the earlier scene where he tries to have Deacon's car towed. Because it doesn't feel like anything that we get later, and it doesn't really feel like he's remorseful for it.

30:38
Case Aiken
It's not like you spat on the prince because you didn't realize it was the prince, and then you're feeling really apologetic for the remainder in this scenario. They're kind of just cool pretty fast. And then after that, like we said, he's a puppy.

30:53
Sam Alicea
Yeah. It's kind of like, I've got power. I'm going to move your car. And that's it. It's just to show that he's kind of a big.

31:01
Heather Antos
It's actually, now that I'm thinking about it's weird because the majority of the film, after he's introduced, treats Rami's character like he's a. And like, we're learning about Deacon through him. We're experiencing this crime scene through him. We're learning about this past crime through him. And we're being introduced to Jared Leto through him, like, all of this stuff. But the way they introduce Rami is anything but as a limbs character.

31:32
Case Aiken
Right. He's a hotshot. He's a superstar.

31:34
Heather Antos
Yeah. And we're introed to the film through idea, and it's told through Denzel's perspective, but, yeah, Rami's treated as a limbs character. And I think that might be also why all three of us really, it feels like, as viewers could not relate or identify to any of the characters.

31:59
Sam Alicea
Yeah.

32:00
Heather Antos
I feel like also it could have.

32:03
Sam Alicea
Also know, even with the age difference, if Rami had been a rookie on the force, maybe not even at the detective level, when Baxter was still, like, just, like, around, right. And kind of heard of his fame. If you have someone who once said something to you that was encouraging, sometimes you see them through a different lens. Any kind of connection, like, previous connection in any way, like an obsession with watching his cases on tv or reading it about it in the paper, anything that would have connected them previously to before, like Denzel coming back to get the boots that he doesn't care about. I'm sorry. It really bugs me, guys. Really bugs me.

32:56
Heather Antos
How do you feel about those boots?

32:58
Sam Alicea
I'm really angry about it because I keep thinking, and this is ridiculous because I know it's fiction, but I keep thinking about that conviction backup state that really needed to happen. They needed those boots. Does no one care? We only care about the people being murdered in LA. Someone was murdered, and these are very specific boots, which I think is really funny because they talk about the night stalker case, and those were very specific shoes. And these are very specific shoes. And I was just like, okay, that's, like, a thing that happens. Especially. A lot of serial killers were tracked by shoe prints before we had better dna stuff. I mean, they still do that too. But specific shoes that were specialized were very big in leading some major cases. But I was just like, dude.

33:56
Sam Alicea
And then I thought, oh, what if this is somehow connected? And then he just left the boots. Because a lot of movies try to do, like, a full circle thing, right? The boots are actually connected to a crime because serial killers don't always stay in the same city. They may stay in the same state, but they don't always stay in the same city. And we already saw him on the highway. We already saw him on the interstate chasing a girl. Whoever this person is, or whoever, we don't even know if that is technically connected to this case because they never actually tie anything back together again. Those damn boots.

34:32
Heather Antos
This horrible theory that if it is later revealed to be true, I will never watch anything ever again.

34:39
Sam Alicea
Oh, wow.

34:41
Heather Antos
And I will just quit life. I will just quit the escape button.

34:47
Sam Alicea
I really hope it's not true. Then go on.

34:50
Heather Antos
Where someone was theorizing that Denzel is a serial killer.

34:57
Case Aiken
I saw that. Yeah.

34:59
Heather Antos
And he shot the girl so she wouldn't point him out. And that's why all of so many things.

35:08
Sam Alicea
So are the boots his then?

35:10
Heather Antos
Right, but that's what it is. He purposely didn't bring those boots back because he killed that person upstate too. Because he moved upstate. That's where that murders happened.

35:22
Sam Alicea
Okay, but also the murders that are happening in the city are pretty fresh. And the girl died in the city before he got.

35:30
Heather Antos
I don't believe it. I think it's bullshit. But also, I want to know now. I'm thinking now I'm stuffing these boots now. Need. Why are there boots in LA that are needed for a case of state?

35:43
Sam Alicea
Well, that's what saying, like, for some reason, the La morgue or evidence room has these boots and they need to come upstate because they believe that they're connected to a crime upstate. And I'm just like, okay, case is shaking his head, guys, every time you.

36:03
Case Aiken
Say boots because it's such a small Macguffin, it's a little thing. Exactly. Yes. It's the little things that are driving us insane about this movie. Yeah, man. Yeah, I saw that theory. And rationally, it doesn't make sense. But also, if you surmise that this is a real world and not just a constructed universe for the movie, there's going to be murders just in general. There's going to be murders after this. If he wasn't actually the killer, they're just going to be more. There's going to be murders, murders.

36:39
Heather Antos
He's the only one. Yeah.

36:42
Case Aiken
Which makes you wonder, is it a world where there are even serial killers? The connections they have between these different murders?

36:49
Heather Antos
Nightstalker, he tried to set time in place by, oh, people haven't been this spooked since the night stalker.

36:55
Case Aiken
Well, no, I get that. And I get that the concept of serial killers are out there, but I'm saying, well, maybe all these murders aren't connected because they talk about how a lot of them have distinct differences between them that have, like, yeah, you can draw a connection, but part of that's just geography, which by itself isn't necessarily sufficient. I don't know. At the end of this movie, was there ever a serial killer at all?

37:20
Heather Antos
No, I think that's valid. Again, what is this movie's perspective? What is this movie trying to say? I think it's trying to say how the little things will drive you crazy. And they couldn't think of a better title because nothing in this film is creative.

37:41
Sam Alicea
I have to say, I am now having an existential crisis. I'm wondering if we even saw a movie at all.

37:48
Case Aiken
I don't think we did. I honestly don't think we did. I think we saw an episode of a procedural that they did not trim down to an appropriate level.

38:01
Heather Antos
I apologize for making you guys watch this, but I feel like someone else.

38:05
Sam Alicea
We've seen worse.

38:06
Case Aiken
No, it's okay. I'm happy that I did. And I can't wait for your rant because you've promised us one, and I'm going to let you go in a second.

38:12
Heather Antos
Oh, we're hearing it. This is all bits of it.

38:15
Sam Alicea
Case made me watch killing joke, so anything else is fine, right?

38:22
Case Aiken
No, I understand that. I deserve anything that comes to me by virtue of being the person to create this podcast. I'm subjecting people to movies that I swear have merit and that they're like, I don't know, can we make something good of it? And that's what we just do every time. So I get it. This is all coming to me. But, yeah, this is a movie that's about guilt. That is thesis of it. The little things are like the little pieces of memory that seep in and make you question yourself about the choices that you made earlier in your life. They could be little things or it could be big stuff, but that's what it's about. It's that there is something that's nagging at you and you can't let it go unless you totally forget about it.

39:09
Case Aiken
And that is the thing that we're going through with them. But it just happens to be a police procedural that, like I said, is very nice to the police officers who murder innocent people. And I realize that I'm being so lefty, right?

39:27
Heather Antos
Hey, that sex worker was just doing her job.

39:32
Sam Alicea
Yeah, but Jared Leto was allegedly innocent. He may have been guilty. Hey, being creepy is not a crime.

39:40
Heather Antos
In some places it is. So maybe in LA in 1990, it was. Who knows? Who's to say?

39:47
Case Aiken
Even if he's guilty, the vibe at the end of this movie is, well, the real victims are the police officers that had to deal with it.

39:55
Heather Antos
No, that is 100%. And Denzel being the savior that he was, relieved Rami of his guilt. But it's just all upsetting. Everything in this is so upsetting because, again, cinematography is great, the production design is fantastic, the acting was fantastic. They did a really good job with what they had. They didn't have a lot to work with. And I think that's what pisses me off so much more than anything, is you have a cast that's this and. And it's this hoity toity, preachy, pretentious, sack of shit script that very clearly was trying to get slid in for oscars. And I don't know, they got nominated. Woo.

41:03
Case Aiken
Yeah. I mean, we should talk about some good, because while I am very frustrated with how thin, blue, liney. This whole thing is in the older context, not the current political ideology kind of stuff. But like you said, the cinematography is really good. The opening scene, I was like, this is actually a pretty good looking scene. I wonder how it will connect to the rest of the movie. And it kind of does. The performances are great. Everyone is, like, given a monologue at some point that they have so much desire just to devour that scene, and they're all doing a great job. Rammy Malek in particular, it's just like, I feel like he's like this vacuum, being like, I'm trying to absorb all your attention so I can get the Oscar buz on this one. Now, production design, I thought, looked really good.

41:52
Case Aiken
Some of the various set pieces, like the various crime scenes, the hotel that Denzel's staying at, the elements of him envisioning interacting with the people who died, I thought was artistically interesting. Although I don't know if it necessarily landed in terms of having a thesis.

42:09
Sam Alicea
No. Yeah, I thought that was a pretty cool shot, though. It did evoke something. I'm not sure what that was, but I definitely was like, oh, interesting.

42:22
Heather Antos
It was discomfort and eerie. Right. It definitely provoked a visceral reaction of some kind. But I agree case that, I guess, again, showing how delusional he was and obsessive he was and how far it's driven him that he's talking to dead bodies. Guess. I don't know. But the one scene that really stood out to me performance wise was the scene where we see Denzel go back to his old house where his one of those. It's one of those quieter moments where plot isn't happening, really. This is purely a character developing, character moment where we see so much restraint from Denzel. You see more in the quiet moments where he's not saying anything than when he's actually speaking. It's reading between the lines of how much he misses his wife and how much he misses the life that she has.

43:28
Heather Antos
And she has the house and the perfect lawn and the husband and going to the job and everything's great. And you can tell that she pities him. And when she leaves and he turns and he kicks the tree or the leaves or whatever that's there, and how much anger he has at himself for not being able to let go. Denzel doesn't get to do a lot of quieter stuff like that. We normally get to see him be loud and driven and was. That was really cool to see.

44:04
Sam Alicea
Yeah, I loved that scene, as awkward as it was. But it was supposed to be awkward, and I was just like, wow. If you had to interact, if you're standing there on that lawn, you'd be like, I'm going to wait in the car. Probably you'd walk away from that scene. But I thought it was so beautifully done on both of their parts. It was just a really. The tension was really palpable between the two actors, and this is a very awkward moment. This is two people who've known each other for a very long time who fell apart. It was excellent.

44:40
Case Aiken
I mean, there's a part of me that does worry, though. Like I said, I'm not super deep on the genre. Like, I've seen seven. I've seen stuff over the years.

44:48
Heather Antos
Stuff was a great movie.

44:52
Case Aiken
Total Oscar beat. But you know what? It was worth it. But it's just not my main thing. I'm not a murderino. I don't really care for all the various law and orders and all that. So there's probably trope stuff that I took in as being like, oh, that was a good shot, but may have been like a worse version of someone else's scene. So I don't know. Like I said, aesthetically speaking, the movie was overall fine. It was just really long, and I didn't really enjoy the story that was being told, and I didn't think it was very nuanced in what it was trying to talk about. But, yeah, like I said, I thought performances were good and it looked good as a movie. That part was good.

45:33
Heather Antos
I get how it got made. That director, writer, that cast, I get it. I 100% get how it got made. I've seen people that did enjoy it, and it was made so people could enjoy it. So I'm very happy that people have. Not for me.

46:00
Case Aiken
So, Heather, when you suggested this as a movie to talk about, and I hadn't seen it, you had a very impassioned stance that you would be able to spin perfection out of this thing, or at least greatness out of this thing. And I trust you because you're an accomplished editor and I am just a guy with a podcast. So I would like to hear your rant, if I may.

46:25
Heather Antos
Oh, my gosh. I mean, we got most of my rant, of the things that drive me insane about this movie, and I hadn't really given much thought to the boots before this, but now, hey, I'll add that to my list.

46:39
Sam Alicea
Thanks, Sam. You're welcome.

46:40
Case Aiken
It's your list of the little things. The boots.

46:43
Sam Alicea
It's the little things you got to come back to those.

46:47
Heather Antos
I do. I really do. And this list has gotten quite long. It's a lot of little things, let me tell you. It's a lot of little things. No, first and foremost, I would really just give this film a perspective. And if that is guilt, if that is his guilt, then his guilt should drive the movie more so than be. It felt present. But he wasn't really super active. We saw him be active. Well, that's not true. He was active, but his actions didn't really account for a lot. I don't know. I can't decide how I would change a lot in the beginning, aside from really definitively, is Jared Leto the guy? And can they just not pin it on him? Right.

47:52
Heather Antos
And either that is shots where we, the audience, know that Jared Leto is the guy, but the detectives just whatever, like some clue, maybe some item or some specific thing where the detectives know the shoe. Because we're going to bring it back to shoes. Because that's all the LAPD know about.

48:18
Sam Alicea
Fancy shoes.

48:19
Heather Antos
That's it. That's all we know about some shoe that we see that Jared Leto has and discards or whatever. Something with the car specific. Who cares? I don't care. Doesn't matter. Just something concrete. But the one shot, I think that pissed me off more than anything at the end and where really just kind of flipped the table, lost. It was when. And it's that savior moment. And again, I think it's that I hate more than anything is this. Well, I lived a life of suffering, but I'm going to make sure Rami doesn't, because no one can be accountable in this fucking universe. I think that's really what we've learned, is no one can be accountable. We all have to have our little secrets and hide our guilt. And God forbid I go to therapy because it's. The mental health isn't real then.

49:19
Heather Antos
But we see Denzel or we see Rami get the hair clip, right? Or hair tired, whatever. The red haired something.

49:30
Case Aiken
Yeah, the red beret.

49:31
Heather Antos
Beret. That's what it was. That the mother of the missing girl, which also, by the way, we don't know that she is dead. I think that's another thing that they're trying to bring back. There's no body, there's no proof that she is tied to this particular case. And I think that was also infuriating, is they're obsessing that she could have just run away. Something else tragic could have happened. She might not be tied to this serial killer because these serial killings that we've seen. The body is always on display. Always on display. And this body wasn't, which to means it's not attached whatsoever.

50:13
Sam Alicea
Yeah, they don't work that case at all.

50:16
Heather Antos
They don't work it at. No, no, she's just gone. She's just gone. And it's on mind, and it's, that's what's driving him crazy, except he's not doing anything about it except has decided that Jared Leto did it, because Denzel Washington has decided Jared Leto did it, because we just decide things without any evidence in this world. Anyway. So we see Rami get this red hair clip, know, come back to life after he's been comatosed by the pool, and, oh, my God, Jared Leto did it. I can be fine, right? And then we go back to up north, where Denzel is burning all of Jared Leto's belongings on his property, because that's a way to get caught if anyone ever wanted to pin him on. But, but we see know with that packaging of other hair clips.

51:10
Heather Antos
And that pissed me off, because if you really wanted to have suspension of disbelief and really have a doubt as to whether or not Jared Leto did it, like, really have a doubt whether or not Jared Leto did it, showing for certain that Denzel Washington had those clips just completely fucks that we see him. What I would have done instead of that is, as he's getting cleaning supplies or whatever to burn Jared Leto's apartment, we see him at like a CVS or whatever, and we see him look in the hair aisle and see a red Barrett, but we don't see him touch it. We don't see him purchase it. We don't see anything. He just notices it's there, and then Rami gets it, but we don't know where it came from. It could have been in that box.

52:00
Heather Antos
It could have not been in the box. That doesn't matter, because whether or not he did it wasn't the point of this movie. And I think that it's like the top spending an inception, right? Whether or not it's real isn't the point of know. The point of it is now Rami doesn't have to live with that guilt in the way that Denzel did, but instead it became about how Denzel saved know, even though Denzel is the entire reason that Rami went down that dark hole in the first place.

52:40
Sam Alicea
So it's a Schrodinger's red beret for you.

52:43
Heather Antos
Yes.

52:44
Sam Alicea
Does it exist? Does it not exist? Is it in the box?

52:49
Case Aiken
We'll never know what is in the box.

52:51
Sam Alicea
What's in the box again.

52:53
Heather Antos
But again, at the end of the movie, I've seen seven, and that's a good movie.

53:00
Sam Alicea
Yeah.

53:01
Case Aiken
Sam, do you want to go? Since I'm apparently not allowed to go before you anymore?

53:06
Sam Alicea
You just come up with such good pitches, especially when there's movies like this where I'm like, there's a lot, like I said in the beginning, again, I don't have my notes. What I would do is I would give them more of a connection in the beginning. Not sure exactly how I would establish that connection, but it could be something as simple as. Rami was a rookie. He helped out with one clue that actually helped Denzel figure out a case. And he was like, good looking kid, and there's, like, a memory of him remembering that and being like, oh, he's back. Like, he's here. And people being like, oh, but you know what happened to him? And be like, yeah, I know what happened to him. But, wow, he's back in, like, kind of give me a connection between the two of them.

53:55
Sam Alicea
And also throughout the movie, you can keep all the monologues, but give me more of a push and pull between Denzel and malik so that if theory or thesis of the film is obsession and guilt. Right. These are, like, the two main points they're trying to get. Have Denzel pull Rami into obsession. So have Rami do his normal good cop stuff, right? No, I'm following up on all the leads. No, she may not be part of it. Have Denzel convince him, really convince him that this girl with the red. No, he's probably changing up his mo because we're onto just, we need to find this body. We need to find this girl. We need to figure it out. We need to break this guy and figure out where the body is.

54:48
Sam Alicea
Have the push and pull, have another person that's a possible suspect kind of come in and watch, like, Denzel work on Rami to kind of dismiss that person so that it becomes about obsession. It becomes about Denzel's obsession with solving this case, to absolve him of the guilt of the case before that he failed on, like, this is his chance at redemption. Give him that kind of very just using this kid that thinks that he's once really looked up to him to get weasel his way onto this case. And in terms of the mean, you could keep the red beret. You could even have Rami murder this guy who's possibly innocent. I say instead of have them hide the body and do all the things like make this guy disappear, turn in the evidence, have Rami take full credit newsreels, whole thing.

55:50
Sam Alicea
Have Denzel know, maybe make it so that this guy was innocent, maybe leto was. Absolutely. You have to make that decision. Like, the writer has to make the decision, but make him innocent and make it that Denzel, basically, to solve the case, solve it, have him basically frame this guy and then walk away.

56:14
Heather Antos
You saying that made me also think of, I almost want Rami to turn himself in from the guilt and not being able to suppress the guilt, turn himself in, be like, hey, I killed this guy. And then almost nothing happened. Not nothing happened, but know the police are like, shit happens, we'll figure it out, blah, blah, blah. And he can live and continue his life and have a career, and Denzel almost loses it even.

56:44
Sam Alicea
Yeah, absolutely. There's actually, like a moment where in the middle of the movie, possibly to add tension or pressure, the captain says to Rami, like, we've got four, maybe five girls out there. And the press is chewing at the know, at the bit, oh, my God, I can't. Like, to me, it's like, well, Rami killed this guy. And Denzel brings all this evidence, quote, unquote, in, why wouldn't the LAPD just be like, listen, you're a good kid. We're going to take care of this because this is the guy. It's probably the guy. Listen, you don't even have to worry. The red berets in here. He's got all these clippings. Helter skelter. We saw that guy. He was also a repair man, and he's dead. So we're just going to tell the press that this was the.

57:37
Sam Alicea
Like that makes sense to, like, that's going to happen. So Rami could totally turn himself in. Totally be like, I've turned myself in. I'm terrible. And everyone could be like, no, you got the guy. He'll be like, no, I didn't get the guy. No, you got the guy. And just kind of gaslight him into believing that he got the fucking guy.

57:58
Heather Antos
Well, again, that's what I think in reality would actually happen. And I think that's one of the things that infuriated me so much.

58:07
Case Aiken
Yeah, that feels like a convention that would be written for a script within the last five years, as opposed to one that's 30 years old.

58:15
Heather Antos
Roll your eyes a little harder, case.

58:18
Case Aiken
I can't stop. No, I mean, that's pretty close to what I was going to say. The fact that the end of the movie is like, all right, well, everything's done. Let's hide the shit and walk away. I don't think it should happen that way. And I think this movie, while, yes, it's too long, I think it ends too soon. I think that if I was going to be trying to craft this into something a little bit more workable, I would move the death to the beginning of act three, and I would have act three, the twist of this movie, be that dealing with the fact that this death occurred. And I think that the script that I would like would be one where it's like, yeah, the police union kind of bullies them into.

59:03
Case Aiken
Or, like, Sam, like what you said, gaslights them into being, like, taking it as a scenario of the mission's accomplished, everything's done. You jumped the gun, metaphorically and not with a gun, murdered the guy. But he was the guy. You got the right guy. But I don't think that's the script they would have written. This just doesn't seem that way. But I do think that them kind of just getting away with it and presenting all the evidence they have and everyone finding them innocent should weigh on him. And I think that if they want to talk about the guilt and how the little things eat at you and the little things are what gets you caught, have him spend some time after this happens where we see him being weighed on, and maybe they get into arguments.

59:47
Case Aiken
Maybe there's more that happens from that, from their connection with each other. Because the other weird part is that while Baxter to Deacon are, well, Rami to Denzel is so. Such a fanboy puppy dog for the majority of this, they actually aren't investigating stuff together that much, and I would like more time with them together. And maybe that's where the friction really happens. Maybe once they're actually working directly with each other, especially know Leto is like, then maybe that's when they both get kind of burned on each other.

01:00:22
Case Aiken
Like, Denzel's insistence of, like, no, we did do the right thing, or whatever standpoint he takes, but have some conflict between them, arise from this all and really deal with that guilt and not just sort of say, like, you can do a bad thing, and maybe your friend could be nice and just tell you that you didn't do a bad thing, and then you're good. That resolution comes around so easily at the end, and I would rather spend time really dwelling on it.

01:00:51
Sam Alicea
Yeah. Actually, that would give an opportunity for a stellar scene between the two of them where Rami kind of can confront Denzel and be like, this is what we're like. We don't even know. And he can be like, we do know because we have to know because this has to be the answer. And it can be like one of those things where you're questioning your hero. Because, of course, in my thesis, this is a hero. Like a hero worship thing. And so it could be like a really beautiful moment because it's like a moment where you start to lose faith, right? Like, you kind of face it, and then they can go their separate ways. Kind of like a breakdown of what that was. Because this is the truth. Of course, that's also like, is this the truth of policing in know I.

01:01:42
Sam Alicea
Again, I don't know if that's where. But it would have been really good. And both of those actors could pull that off. Denzel could still defend the like, you do what you can and you do it as best you can, and you try to catch up on everything, and you try to stend the tides of crime. I don't know, something dramatic. And sometimes you fuck up like you're human. And Malik's like, but is this really morally good? And he's just like, what the fuck is morally like? Sometimes people.

01:02:20
Heather Antos
I'm just. I'm sitting here thinking again, because I'm still just so perplexed on what the fuck is this movie's thesis and what is it trying to say? And this will haunt me until the end of my days if it's guilt, right? And I think we all agree guilt is what's driving a lot of this. But if it's guilt? And what is guilt? And how does guilt impact life? The thesis statement of this film? Because Rami doesn't relax until he gets proof, know, being able to be guilt free, proof that he did the right thing and killed the murder. Right. With that red bread. And then is the movie saying you can't ever forgive yourself and you need concrete proof and evidence to let go of a guilty conscience? You can't ever just overcome and grow and forgive yourself and move forward.

01:03:32
Heather Antos
No, you actually have to, or you become a fucking loner, isolated wizard in the woods, I guess.

01:03:40
Sam Alicea
Yeah. And you burn people's possessions in a garbage can you keep outside for burning people's possessions as one does.

01:03:48
Heather Antos
Right? That's what I learned from this movie. Right? That's what this film told us, is we're not allowed to forgive ourselves unless we know for sure or unless someone manipulates us into knowing for sure. Otherwise, we have to hold ourselves guilty and punish ourselves for the rest of our lives. This movie is a catholic stream.

01:04:11
Sam Alicea
Yeah. Everyone get out your flagellating whips. You are guilty. Go through the streets. Shame, shame.

01:04:19
Case Aiken
You know what scene I would have really liked after Leto's death is? I would have really liked a scene of Denzel. Man. We really just, every now and then, I'm trying to use character names, but it's such the actors of Denzel, and we're here for Denzel in this scenario, point by point, going through his previous cases, like, the stuff that. The stuff that happened in the before times, and explain how all of his cases are so riddled with holes, go through and explain every single thing, that if he were a defense attorney, what he would say and respond to it. I would love for him to sort of explain. Ultimately, the truth can be spun in so many ways, and that even if you think you have a perfect understanding, you ultimately don't.

01:05:05
Case Aiken
And use that as an example, then to discuss this particular case and why you need to sort of grow the ability to move on past it somewhat. I don't know if that's ultimately what we would get with this particular movie, but I feel like in a scenario where we spent more time dwelling on the guilt about getting obsessed with these cases and potentially doing terrible things in the name of solving these cases and then not even having answer, we kind of need to spend some more time with Rami getting that lesson and not just saying, it's the little things that get you caught.

01:05:40
Heather Antos
As if, like, that means anything. And I think that, yeah, it's the little things that get caught. It's the little things. It means nothing in that movie. Every time he says it, as a viewer, I was like, is that supposed to mean something to me? Because it's the title of the movie. I don't know what this is supposed to mean.

01:06:03
Case Aiken
Yeah, what if every case he cleared, he has one lingering question about, and they talk about this great career that Denzel had 15 years more. Was it more closed cases than any other person on the force? If every single one of them, there was something nagging at Denzel about it that, like, oh, but in that, like, yeah, it made, for the most part, sense, but how did he get into the building? Or. Yeah, but we think that they probably knew each other, but there's no evidence that they did. If each case had something that was perpetually nagging at him and that we saw that the reason Denzel is the way he is today is because he's carrying all these little things that are weighing him down.

01:06:45
Case Aiken
And this was his speech to Malik, to let go of that burden, because otherwise you are just going to be destroyed. Because I am currently destroyed. That would be more interesting than the kind of, like, fixer, kind of.

01:07:03
Sam Alicea
Tarantino.

01:07:04
Case Aiken
Esque character he is at the end.

01:07:05
Sam Alicea
Yeah, he definitely fixed the whole situation for him. Also, I would have treated the line, the little things, like, people who want a PG 13 rating treat the word fuck one really great place to place it that really mattered, and I would have made sure that it landed so that the audience definitely heard it. And maybe it would have been in the moment where Denzel is. If we get a moment where he's talking about how the things ate away at him for years, or how this last case and the guilt has eaten away at him and kind of get this emotional, which, of course, he could do so well, moment where he's kind of going down that experience and says, and at the end, he would be like, it's the little things. It's the little things that eat away at you.

01:07:59
Sam Alicea
And then you would get, like, this moment, like, oh, the title, something like. But at the end of the day, it's just said so often that it just means nothing. It's just like. It becomes a wink and a nod.

01:08:21
Heather Antos
Thoughts and prayers.

01:08:22
Sam Alicea
Exactly. I would definitely, in my revision, make the writer choose one place to use that one, make it count, and make.

01:08:36
Heather Antos
It a deleted scene.

01:08:42
Sam Alicea
And also do something with the garst darn boots. It bugs me so much.

01:08:55
Heather Antos
That's now I want the epilogue rolling short film in the credits that we see just the case up north. Just the assistant or legal assistant who's waiting for those boots to show up. And what they do.

01:09:15
Sam Alicea
It's been weeks at this point. They've given up on this case. There's someone up north that gets no justice at all because of obsession. And.

01:09:28
Heather Antos
Again, the weirdest shot for, like, because he's truly punishing himself in this Denzel's character and that he's in this really shitty hotel like motel that he's staying at. And it's like he waited until it was nighttime to see where the light shone in to hang the pictures of the girls perfectly, so he could stare at them as he sits in the bed while they glow in the moonlight of these murders from 615 years ago. Whenever that old case is just so he can stare. That's fucked up. That's so creepy. And if I was Rami and I walked in and saw that's when I would be like. And he's not allowed to help me on this case anymore.

01:10:24
Sam Alicea
Well, and I guess I understand with that scene and specifically the garbage can outside of his house, because just for convenience, I can understand why people are like, maybe Denzel's the murderer. Only because it's like, why do you have a burning. Like, why is this specific to you? Why are you staring at dead women so much?

01:10:46
Heather Antos
You don't have bonfires in the middle of the woods.

01:10:50
Sam Alicea
Yeah, it turns out I don't.

01:10:52
Heather Antos
California? Because that seems smart.

01:10:55
Sam Alicea
Well, it was the 90s. They had more water.

01:10:57
Heather Antos
Right?

01:10:59
Sam Alicea
That was not funny. I'm sorry. California. After I laughed about it, I was like, oh, that seems insensitive. I apologize to all of California.

01:11:09
Case Aiken
Well, this movie's pretty insensitive in general.

01:11:12
Sam Alicea
Well, apparently all law enforcement in California is incompetent because the boots never get back, and this may not be the guy.

01:11:23
Case Aiken
Yeah.

01:11:25
Sam Alicea
So that's the one true thing, is what you're saying.

01:11:27
Heather Antos
I mean, it's the LAPD in the 90s. Enough set, right?

01:11:32
Sam Alicea
Yeah.

01:11:32
Case Aiken
I've got two things that we didn't really talk about in bats, because I'm not really sure where they fall for me. But I realize we just haven't really spent too much time. One we've talked about, which was the fact that it's a period piece. Does that do anything for this? Did that make it work better for you in any ways?

01:11:49
Heather Antos
It didn't not make it work. It doesn't not work. I mean, I think crime stuff, when technology isn't as ubiquitous as it is right now, and lab testing and all of this makes it more of a mystery because you don't have these databases, and you can't just call someone on your cell phone, and you don't have the gps tracking because that scene at the end, when Rami goes with him in the car and they don't know where he's at and location and all that would never happen ever like that. Just couldn't know. You can't get those moments attention. Or the stuff with the payphone when he's in the building and Jared Leto comes back and calls the police on him, all of that stuff would not happen because people would have cell phones on them.

01:12:37
Sam Alicea
Which I really did like that scene. I really like Danville trying to get out after being a bad rogue cop. Really? Breaking into someone's apartment and trying to get out.

01:12:49
Heather Antos
Breaking in. Yeah. A black guy breaking in someone's apartment. Absolutely. That's a scary time. And, yeah, I thought that scene was done really well. But again, all of these moments of tension, it becomes a lot harder to do in a modern setting. I think the fact that it's a 90s doesn't make me go, who? A crime show in the 90s? I'm not excited about that, but I'm not put off by it.

01:13:20
Sam Alicea
Yeah, I felt like they did some stuff, but I was not really sure where it fell. I noticed that the cars were definitely older models, but I couldn't tell if it was, like, late 80s, early 90s for me. And after I looked it up, I was like, oh, okay. Because cops technically did have beepers starting in the 70s. So I was just like, what era is this? When am I watching this?

01:13:48
Heather Antos
Okay.

01:13:49
Sam Alicea
It's definitely after some 80s pop songs, because those were on. And the night stalker exists, so it's definitely after the 80s. So, like, post 86, that's just, like, basic things that someone who watches way too many crime documentaries would know. I was kind of like, while I was watching was like, 89 to 93. It was a little distracting for me, trying to guess, but then I was like, stop trying to guess. Just know that it's, like, somewhere along that rhine, that line, and just watch the movie. Sam.

01:14:28
Case Aiken
The other thing that I kept thinking about was that this feels like. I mean, it is. It feels like a guy wrote it. And all the women in this don't really behave the way that I would expect women to behave. Such as running alone in the dark when there's constant coverage about serial killers attacking women. Like, lots of moments in that where it's just like, I don't know about this.

01:14:51
Heather Antos
Yeah, they kind of treated it a little bit like it was still. The serial killers were a new thing and everyone hitchhiked and all of this stuff. Also, the girl at the beginning, the opening scene, which. The opening scene was creepy.

01:15:10
Case Aiken
Yeah, I like the opening scene a lot.

01:15:11
Heather Antos
The opening scene really set it up for, like, oh, this is going to be chilling and creepy. And then, holy fuck, was I disappointed. But the opening scene when the guy's following her in the car, or is he following her in the car? We're not really sure at first. I've been there. I've had that. It's creepy. And the fact that she just stops at this place where there's no cars.

01:15:45
Case Aiken
Parked, it's clearly closed.

01:15:48
Heather Antos
Like, just keep driving. Unless you have an empty gas tank, in which case, what are you driving out anyway? Again, I don't want to victim blame or anything like that, but also wts.

01:16:05
Sam Alicea
Well, I actually rewound because I wanted to know if there was a moment where they showed her gas tank, because I remember writing in my notes, like, why did you get out of the car? There's barely a light on inside in this station that you stop on. Why did you do that? And then I also thought, even though it was a beautiful shot, when she stops in front of the truck and the truck stops for her so that she can get in, I was just like, why are you kneeling in front of it? Keep running till you get to the door. You don't stop just because there are lights on. You. Like, you run up there, you're like, thank God. Get the fuck out of here, sir. Because there is someone fucking chasing me.

01:16:46
Heather Antos
See, for me. And this is just because I just finished the happy face killer. But I'm just like, oh, no. The trucker that stopped for her, he's the real killer. That's where I immediately go.

01:16:59
Sam Alicea
He's the real killer. All along, the killer was the people we met along the way.

01:17:04
Heather Antos
Along the way. I mean, technically, in this movie, it's true.

01:17:09
Case Aiken
Yeah, it.

01:17:10
Sam Alicea
Yeah, they're all killers, actually. Technically, except for Jared Leto, who's allegedly a killer.

01:17:17
Heather Antos
Right. Who's allegedly just creepy. But, no, I agree with that. Women are really, given the short end of the stick in this one, there's just the helpless wife, the ex wife, and then the victims, and that's it. And then the coroner.

01:17:33
Sam Alicea
The coroner, yeah, the coroner. And the partner. And the partner does the one thing where she tells the person that the suspect is in the building. And the coroner who covered up everything also.

01:17:47
Heather Antos
Yeah. Everyone who's guilty in this, again, they're punishing. Why would you have a bullet on your keychain? As a reminder? Why are you carrying this evidence around if you're so fucking burdened by it? Yeah, the people in this film are crazy. They're all crazy. That's what I've learned. We're all crazy.

01:18:09
Sam Alicea
They all need help.

01:18:10
Heather Antos
Therapy is great. And thank God it's LA, because they're going to soon be just swarmed in.

01:18:16
Case Aiken
Therapists and weed, which I think will also help the situation because they'll be able to calm the fuck down a little bit. Yeah, it'll be a better world.

01:18:29
Heather Antos
Just wait ten years.

01:18:30
Case Aiken
Yeah. Not that the present day is a better world, necessarily. I don't know. I don't actually know which way it would go, but I was going to.

01:18:37
Sam Alicea
Be, like, somewhere in the middle ten years from then. But not a full 30.

01:18:43
Heather Antos
No.

01:18:44
Case Aiken
Right.

01:18:45
Heather Antos
No.

01:18:48
Case Aiken
It would be nice if this was a better world, if we could be, like, empirically, this is a huge changed.

01:18:54
Heather Antos
And police are great now, and murders don't ever go unsolved. It's great, right?

01:19:02
Case Aiken
Yeah.

01:19:03
Heather Antos
Especially police. Murders never go unsolved.

01:19:05
Sam Alicea
Never.

01:19:07
Case Aiken
There's never any question about it. We always have very good evidence to speak to it. And there's no one who ever just gets hired after being fired for misconduct.

01:19:16
Sam Alicea
Or anything like that. Never. No.

01:19:18
Case Aiken
I'm sorry I can't make you.

01:19:20
Sam Alicea
So angry all the time. It's fine. I'm angry about it, too.

01:19:24
Case Aiken
Yeah. But you know what I'm not angry about? I'm not angry that you joined us, Heather. I very much appreciate you coming on the show.

01:19:34
Heather Antos
No, this is super fun. Thanks for having me, Sam. Great to meet you.

01:19:38
Sam Alicea
Oh, yeah. Nice to meet you, too. Come back anytime for any other thing. Yes. Come help us edit other movies anytime.

01:19:48
Heather Antos
I'm all for it. Maybe next time we'll pick something that isn't so rage inducing. Maybe.

01:19:57
Case Aiken
Yeah, because it's fun to talk about fun movies that we want to tweak. But it's also fun to talk about movies that make us mad and try to speculate on it, because I think they're. Again, this feels very first drafty, but I think that we had a lot of good suggestions that would make it feel like something that you could actually put out.

01:20:14
Heather Antos
Watch the world a second time.

01:20:15
Case Aiken
Yeah, that would be a lot of fun movies that you could watch twice.

01:20:19
Heather Antos
You know what would make this movie better case? Penguins.

01:20:24
Sam Alicea
Yeah, I agree with that. I don't know where you'd fit them in, but have them go to the zoo. Have someone murdered at the zoo.

01:20:32
Case Aiken
Yeah, I was going to say, you just have to go to the zoo a bunch. You could make some whole thing about Remy Malek's kids. Maybe they have to go to the zoo. And that's where Denzel bumps into them all the time. And they have a deep conversation about the little penguins that they're looking down at.

01:20:50
Sam Alicea
Yeah, or maybe penguins are. Make it a lot better. Penguins are the only thing that make Dendell happy. So that's where he goes. It's where he goes to solve crime. To think about crime.

01:21:01
Heather Antos
I can relate to this. It would make it a perfect movie.

01:21:04
Case Aiken
In my know, it's kind of perfect. The coroner has been a lot of stuff, but one of the big things was she was on crazy ex girlfriend. And there is a great song about going to the zoo to relieve stress. That happened in season four.

01:21:17
Heather Antos
Amazing.

01:21:19
Case Aiken
But yeah. So, Heather, again, thank you for coming. On. You've got so much stuff that you're working on right now. Where can people find you? What should people be looking at first?

01:21:28
Heather Antos
Oh, my goodness. The best place to keep track of my happenings, I guess, is at Twitter at heather Antos. You can also follow me on Instagram at heatherantos or my art page, which is at Heather Artos, because I am clever. Yes. Check out my comics. Savage number one just dropped valiant comics. Savage number two is on sale March 17, so that's probably the closest to when this drops. And Shadow man number one drops April 20 eigth, which I'm really excited about. And if comics aren't your thing, then, hey, check out Shadow man, remastered by Night Dive, which is coming out on pcs, Xbox, PlayStations, all the good video game consoles, also in April, and play some good spooky comic book horror video games.

01:22:24
Case Aiken
Yeah, that sounds fantastic. I remember Shadow man from back in the day, and I didn't know it was being remastered, so that's great.

01:22:30
Heather Antos
Yeah.

01:22:32
Sam Alicea
You went to school together, right? Oh, yeah. I remember Shadow man. We used to get tuna together.

01:22:44
Heather Antos
We used to talk about the little things together.

01:22:47
Case Aiken
Yeah, it's the little things that bring us close. Bring us together. Sam, where can people find your little things?

01:22:54
Sam Alicea
They can find me here on another pass, and only here. Anything that you want to complain about, please tweet at case where you can find him at.

01:23:03
Case Aiken
You can find me on Twitter at case aiken. You can find the podcast at another pass. You can find more stuff that we're working on@certainpov.com. There's tons of great shows. I'm going to give a shout out to panelology. It's one of the new shows on our network. It's comic book based, which is a lot of fun. Alex has been a part of the network for a while, but he and all the people on the show weekly go into all the releases that came out and also look at solicitations for future stuff, which is a much more broad in topic and up to date in material than any of the other stuff that we've got going on, and more so than the usual comic fair. So it's a great show. Panelology, it's at certainpov.com also@certainpov.com. You can find a link to our discord server.

01:23:46
Case Aiken
We are currently having the call on Discord, but you can just come hang out, share memes, talk about latest episodes, talk nerd stuff. By this point, when this comes out, Falcon and the Winter Soldier will be deep into the show, and we will definitely be talking about spoilers in our spoiler thread. So come, please. It's a lot of fun. Sam, take us home.

01:24:09
Sam Alicea
Let's just all go home. No. Next episode, we'll be talking about Highlander two, the quickening. But until then, if you enjoyed the show, pass it on you.

01:24:25
Case Aiken
Thanks for listening to certain point of views. Another pass podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com. Before you got on, I was just saying, like, this is not really my genre, but we'll see how this one goes. I'm kind of excited to hear Heather's rant.

01:25:03
Sam Alicea
Yeah, I left all my notes at work, so that's great. So, yeah, we're winging it. When Matt was like, hey, I love editing Sam's episodes. He's going to hate this. Sorry, Matt. Sorry. It's not me. It's discord. It hates me today. I don't know why.

01:25:22
Case Aiken
Hi, I'm Matt, aka Stormageddon, and I'm the host of POV autographs@certainpov.com. It is a biweekly interview series where I interview folks from all over the arts, from writers, comedians, to magicians to musicians, even actors, historians, podcasters, pretty much anyone who's willing to chat with me for a little bit. If you like interesting conversations with even more interesting people, go to certainpov.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, music.