Reaction Shots: The Easy Allies Movie Podcast

Firstly, I love the podcast. The book club style formula is a great idea and I love that really talking about filmmaking rather than just news/reviews, etc. I went to film school too and kind of miss that level of discourse. I'm a little disappointed that no one brought up Rian Johnson's Brick as a great example of world building in a non fantasy/sci fi film. He practically created his own language for that world too, which is amazing. I got to see it in theaters at the time and they even handed out a small glossary/pamphlet with definitions of some of the made up words/terms in the film. Also, just about anything Coen Brothers (big lebowski, Fargo, oh brother where art though) would have been great examples too. I bet Big Lebowski will fit in with the next topic too. Great work, guys!

Chachzilla

Liked what Ian said about constraint. A big example for me is the entire career of John Carpenter, every time he has too much money he fails completely, but when he is counting each dollar, he makes some of the most iconic horror films of all time...

Miguel Pires Ramos

Oh, if you want you can find a trailer here: <a href="https://vimeo.com/180802534" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://vimeo.com/180802534</a>

Miguel Pires Ramos

You should take a look at São Jorge, a portuguese film that won Best Actor this year Venice Film Festival. It's an intimate story, but for me it's masterfull in it's world building, and most of the film is at night with really close, dim lit shots.

Miguel Pires Ramos

Where were the links to his short films? I wanted to check those out. Also, great episode. Really enjoyed the discussions.

Ian, I think you also need to include lowers in this podcast. Your names, The name of the assignment (and year) ans also easyallies.com at the end.

Jordan Buitendyk

Not bad, and I liked some of the discussions because I thought of a few things that have never crossed my mind, but it does feel like it needs to be moderated a bit more. Maybe a more focused and edited discussion would serve the overall topic better, but that obviously takes more work. I worry that EZA is getting a tad bit too informal in the fact they have many discussion programs now. Obviously, the quality of reviews, retrospectives, or game sleuth videos is incredible, I just feel like sometimes the discussion shows go quite lengthy and in this case, a bit off the rails. Still has room to grow but I enjoyed listening to it and I think I'll appreciate Mad Max much more on a second viewing.

M I K E Y M O

Loved the show! Really enjoyed the depth of the discussion and the variety of movies discussed.

Cash

So I didn't think this was all that great. The biggest problem I believe was allowing Alan Miller to define "World-Building" in as broad a manner as possible. "Manchester by the Sea" is not the first thing I think of when I think of world-building. There was a VERY specific type of world-building you had pitched for this podcast and Mr. Miller decided to throw that completely out the window. It felt like he was constantly out of his depth and instead tried to change the topic to fit his knowledge base. For example, '89 Batman was brought up and instead, Mr. Miller started talking about Nolan Batman for no reason. We get it: those are both Batman films. We've known that for 12 years. But the focus of the discussion was the world of Batman '89. What did you think about that world, Mr. Miller? As a filmmaker yourself, what kind of effort goes into building that kind of world, Mr. Miller? How much of an achievement was the world building in '89 Batman compared to kind of films that were being released at the time? It's was akin to being in a mathematics class and asking is, "2+2=4?" and Mr. Miller replying, "I really like the texture of the number 8." Personally, Ian, I think next time someone tries to redefine the intended focus of this podcast, there has to be some pushback from you. At the minimum, you could have said, "Yes, I see how all films have world building in them because films aren't real, but the focus of this podcast is to look at specific films which create foreign and alien worlds with new cultures inside them. For example, there is zero chance any of us will ever enter the world like Fury Road where people pray to steering wheels where the filmmakers have created such a genuinely place that we as an audience can go, 'Okay. I can buy into this as a real place without ruining my suspension of disbelief'. Getting people to buy into the fact that Quincy, Massachusetts is a real place in "Manchester by the Sea" isn't nearly the same thing and that's the angle we're looking into world-building from. In a world where "Every Frame a Painting" exists, you have very real competition for our time for when it comes to high-quality discussion of film. As such you're going to have to step up as a host to really veer discussion into the places it's expected to go. Personally, with EZA branching into anime and now movies, my concern is that you guys are veering into "Jack of all Trades, Master of None" territory. But to be positive I think you and Huber have all the tools you need to do something amazing. It might help if the panel is given the questions ahead of time so that they can seriously contemplate their answers rather than being expected to come up with deep, meaningful answers on the spot.

Zen Davis

Really liked the movie pod, great discussion. Nice set with the curtain, changes up the look from the other pods. Ian did a great job as host moderating the discussion and naturally bringing in patron comments. I do think maybe have two different segments to bookend the main topic of the month discussion. Like maybe a 'what we've watched this month' and give opinions (like frame traps what we've been playing), and at the end maybe answer a few movie club member questions, before closing with the quote off showdown. But that's just my two cents. I really like the commentary idea as well, I've been wanting the allies to do movie commentaries for a while.

Dylan Wiggan

Hey Ian + Huber + Guest + Allies -- Just wanted to compliment everyone on how fantastic a job you did. When you guys first announced it, I thought that the movie podcast was just a nice bonus on top of my Patreonage (???) that would make for a good passive listen whenever it came out. But then it came out, and like 5 minutes in, I was already all in and regretting not submitting a comment/question ahead of time for the episode. Can’t wait to see more! Also, while I know it’s too late, just to scratch this mental itch about ambient storytelling, I have to bring up THE LARGEST OF ALL OVERSIGHTS IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY -- Spirited Away. Hayao Miyazaki puts more world into a bathhouse than most movies put into worlds. I don’t want to go deep into the specifics of what makes it great for spoiler reasons, but I actually caught Hellboy 2 on TV the other night, and watching it in the context of this then-upcoming podcast made me compare the two -- specifically the troll market in HB2. I know Huber’s the biggest GDT fan alive, but looking at the troll market through the lens of ambient storytelling and in comparison to Spirited Away, it just fell flat. Why? Because everything was there *for* the audience. The characters had a domineering attitude in an environment they just discovered. They found the exact things they needed to find the second they started looking. The crazy characters popped into frame or interrupted a thought at just the right moment, as if to say “ISN’T THIS SUCH A CRAAAAZY CHARACTER?” Giant contraptions exist in that micro-world for no purpose other than sucking in the rocket-fist of the bad guy. Contrast that to Spirited Away, which might hit the bullseye on the Venn diagram of ‘restrained’, ‘mysterious’, and ‘purposeful’ better than any movie ever. It’s the difference between being the passenger on a trip into another world, and getting on the boat for a Disney attraction. Anyway, just had to get that out of my system. Fantastic podcast, looking forward to the next one, for which I will be prepared. PS: Hellboy 2 is a fine movie, and certainly has solid world building at other points. It’s just the type of movie where a monster knocks the cigar out of Hellboy’s mouth and he obviously, totally, 100% has to say “Oh, now you pissed me off!” L&amp;R

Andrew Silverman

Ian in his element- great! I love it, love it, love it! So happy to see you guys doing something so different :D very very psyched...

Rhodesiensensical

I REALLY enjoyed the show and am excited to see where you guys take it from here. One film whose world building sticks with me is Carol Reed's "The Third Man". Seeing the post-World War II state of Vienna, with its split sections occupied by American, British, French and Soviet section and mix of different languages from all walks of life, gives it such an alien, yet alluring feel. And I love that there are no subtitles; the audience is just as lost as the American protagonist, Holly Martins (assuming that the audience only knows English, of course). Wonderful film. And when discussing the importance of nature in a film like "The Revenant", I was reminded of several films by Werner Herzog. Speaking of Herzog, man did his film "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" do a fantastic job of setting up it's world, tone and theme in its first shot... Ahhhh, it's fun discussing movies. :D

Beau

The thread will be here?

I think Inception is widely loved - and rightly so if you ask me. Yes it gets some criticism and yes you could say it could do some things better, or even makes them 'bad', but I don't see many people that say the film is bad. It will stay with me as one of the best Theater-Experiences I had. And I disagree with the guest on this one, there is no reason to compromise/risk that just to make it better on repeated viewings. It is not as rewarding to discover and understand all the hidden meanings and theories, like say Mulholland Drive or Donnie Darko were for me, but those two certainly didn't give me that excitement when watching them for the first time.

David

This is great, i loved it ! Going in, i thought, because of the theme; this is going to be Dark Souls this; Bloodborn that, than at 1:20:22; i thought, GREAT ! not one mention of Dark Souls, allriiight !... 1:20:24.... Dark Souls, great world building ..... but ok :) allmost no Souls mention.... Still loved this to bits, amazing, keep doing this please :)

Randy Verschueren

This was great! I'm real excited for more. I love film but I've never actually seen many movies, so both Ian and Huber's favourites lists gave a whole ton of recommendations. Suuuuuper excited to check them out &lt;3

Kit Snow

Great podcast, good structure. So refreshing to have a podcast for movies that's not, omg marvel movies are fun

Faraz Rizvi

10/10 podcast you two &lt; 3

navyblueprince

Great stuff guys. The higher-brow vibe is refreshing. Don't dumb it down. Looking forward to more! (Also, I'm with you on Inception Huber. It is a flawed film, but the criticism/praise ratio seems out of proportion.)

Gan Khef

For as brilliant as Eddie Redmayne is, he is the worst part of Jupiter Ascending. If we could have had a smaller scope in that film it would have been awesome like lets see Sean Bean and Channing Tatum as space cops up to them being demoted.

Steven Beaumont

Also would love to know if their will be a Brazil discussion thread before the next podcast like we did with Mad Max or will we watch it and come back here?

Steven Beaumont

Now, I have never seen Brazil so this is gonna be nuts

Thank you for the pilot episode. We need more episodes to get an idea of the format and estructure. I think the conversation really flows but a bit of estructure would be better.

My only defense for enjoying Suckerpunch is take it as 5 music videos and dont think about it. If that film cut 75% more dialogue i think it would be more enjoyable.

Steven Beaumont

I also think Inception is better on the second viewing because you were so caught up in the spectacle the first time around, it is amazing to watch and realise oh Chris Nolan explains all the scenes that are to come in the plan layout on the first level map. You then forget these details because of mals subterfuge. Plus as with terminator 2 its awesome spectacle at its base level

Steven Beaumont

I love the talk in the show. It's very informative for someone like me who knows very little about movies and very fun to listen for someone who is a film fanatic, but I really think that it's missing a lot of structure and some segment like your regular gaming podcast. It's really great, but it could be something even better I think if everything was not all over the place. Keep up the good work Ian and Huber.

My significant other, film fanatic, told me to write that the first 5 minutes of Sucker Punch are the best, but the rest of the movie is garbage. If those 5 minutes were the rest of the movie, it would have been an awesome film.

This is exactly what I wanted, thank you. I've always wanted to see Brazil but never followed through, now that it is homework I am going to actively seek it out.

Jereme Hiestand

Think i was saying that sometimes the story of the world matters more than the story told in it. 1984 is a good example of this where the story is the totalitarian world and all the methods by which that has been achieved. the protagonists fate is just to build the world.

Great show Ian and Huber! Loved it when Ian mentioned Upstream Color as one of his favorite movies because I feel the same way and its not a movie that's talked about much. I've been wanting to watch Brazil for a long time now and this will force me to watch it before the next episode. I would like to see an episode about David Lynch movies as I would love to hear what you think about his crazy movies. Specifically about Inland Empire as its THE strangest movie I've ever seen. As a person who loves director's commentary, I'm into the idea of the RiffTrax especially for a second viewing. Looking forward to the next episode!

This is my new favorite show on EZA. Great job guys. Couple of things: Inception is one of my favorite movies and I agree with critiques, but I think the movie is better because of it. Still talking about Nolan, I think Interstellar is better with multiple viewings. And talk about great world building! It is not my favorite Nolan (Inception is) but Interstellar has incredible world building. I'm going to buy Brazil asap. Haven't seen it in 15 years.

Daniel Ray

I didn't think this would be my thing, but it was really great! The rifftrax idea sounds great, for synch I would suggest you can do it the way giant bomb does it for film and 40s, where you pause the film, do whatever intro you want, then say "we have it paused at X, we'll start in 3, 2, 1, mark" so everyone can unpause at the right time. Also if possible you can include a few seconds of dialog or w/e but that's not always necessary.

Bradley Spies

Awesome Job! Love it so far!

Ditto!

The name of this podcast is genious, I'm so excited

Let's do this