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The Project Infinite Podcast
A New Cinematic Benchmark with the Return to Arrakis in Dune: Part Two
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We are back with a special episode where we provide a fully NON-SPOILER review of “Dune: Part Two” We cover the technical marvel directed by Denis Villenueve starring Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson and so many more. We talk less about the plot and more about how the movie made us feel exiting the theater. This is a totally safe review to listen to before you go see, so come join us and decide for yourselves if this is the movie for you before our full spoiler review later this week!
We were whisked away to the sweeping dunes of Arrakis, as we share our fresh impressions of "Dune: Part Two." bringing Denis Villeneuve's brilliance into sharp focus. Through our discussion, you'll witness how the sequel enriches the storytelling canvas with robust performances and a visual grandeur that could easily crown it as 2024's cinematic masterpiece.
We remark balance struck by Greg Fraser's cinematography, marrying technical genius with emotive depth. We dissect the film's budget and box office potential, juxtaposing its release against the backdrop of a world emerging from pandemic shadows. This chapter in the Dune series, we argue, is not just a film; it's a defining moment for the franchise and for movies in general that reshape the cinematic landscape.
Join us as we celebrate the creative triumphs of "Dune: Part Two" and the visionaries who have propelled it onto the screen.
Timecodes are provided if you want to skip around to your topic of choice! Thank you to everyone who continues to support and don’t forget to subscribe to download new episodes as they become available and don’t be afraid to share a rating!
0:00 Intro
02:10 Dune: Part Two NON-SPOILER REVIEW
Topic for Next Week: Dune Part II
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Speaker 2:It's the Infinite Podcast. My God, it never ends.
Speaker 1:It's the Infinite Podcast, we're driving toward the queue. Hello everybody, and welcome to a special episode of the Project Infinite Podcast, the podcast covering the infinite and ever expanding multiverse of fandom, from movies, comics, tv shows, video games. We've got you covered, or, in this case, in this episode, we've got you covered for one movie, and one movie only. Madam Webb, nope, nope, not yet, not this time. I'm Rob, and that voice you heard, of course, is, as always, court. And uh, we saw Dune part two. We did so. Uh, yeah, we're here, I'll see you on.
Speaker 2:Arrakis, my boy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to give you some some very non-spoilery thoughts, probably probably go for like 20, 30 minutes-ish, depending on how this, depending on how this goes. Um, we saw it. So today is Tuesday the 27th. We saw this on Sunday, um, about five days before it releases, you know, in theaters. Um, and yeah, man, we're just, we're just going to talk about it as lightly spoiled as we can probably talk about. You know, the technical stuff, obviously we'll talk about, you know, the performances, um, kind of with broad strokes, um, the performances of the characters and actors that we know, or people know that are actually in this movie. We'll talk about, um, as lightly as we can, without diving too much, because obviously the movie's not out yet. This episode will also be out before the movie is out. So, um, if you want to listen to it, you absolutely can. If you kind of want to get like a, you know, a feel out of, should I see this? Um, is this for me?
Speaker 2:The answer's yes. The answer's yes.
Speaker 1:And, in short, uh, yeah, this, this, uh, we talked in our last full episode um last week about like kind of like the early reviews and stuff like that, and it was getting all this critical claim and having now seen the movie, I can definitely say those that critical claim is very warranted. Um, this is as good a sequel um as you're going to get. Um, the two towers is instantly what comes to mind for me. Um, especially since I watched um Dune Part One, literally, you know, I finished Dune Part One around 430-ish pm eastern time. Uh, we, we saw Dune Part Two at seven, so a couple hours in between, and the two movies weave together perfectly.
Speaker 1:Um, if this, if you, if you had told me you know this movie Dune was going to be just a six hour movie, um, it would still work. Um, which is an incredible compliment to give it. Um, these two movies flow together seamlessly. But at the same time, part Two um just expands on everything from Part One. Everything is better, in my opinion, um, the performances, the visuals, everything is just better from the first movie, and not to say that the first one's bad. Obviously the first one's amazing, um, but this movie just does whatever great sequel does? It expands upon and improves upon everything from its predecessor. In my opinion, this is special.
Speaker 2:It's just, it is the entirety of what is possible and the idea of what movie making is I mean from visual to sound, to story, to development, to theme, to questioning all these things is just encompassing of what Dune was able to do with this. And I mean, you know, I listened to the IMAX premiere of Tenant uh, the re-release, when Dune and Chris were talking about you know both their, both their films and kind of the approach. And you know, you can tell when you have a Titan talking about film and the ideas of it and you can tell Dune is just, he is a once in a generational town, if you want to look at it like that. It's just his command. It's not just his command of, you know, visual storytelling, it's his command of of the imagery and the possibility of what it could be. It's just the expansiveness of life of that doesn't exist, it's not real, but somehow it feels ever so present, ever so important as well.
Speaker 2:This is probably one of the most important movies that's going to come out, narrative-wise and just the filmmaking process-wise. At this point, you know, in my opinion this is probably going to be the film to beat for 2024. You probably are going to think there's a sigh of relief from Christopher Nolan that this movie didn't come out last year, because it is, truthfully, just spectacle, is like an understatement. This is just like. This is one of those, those ones that just it gnaws at you, for this is two days after we saw it. I can't stop thinking about this movie, like I can't stop thinking about how this was a possible thing that was made.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's insane, there's so many great mirrors to the first one.
Speaker 1:And just going back to what you said about the visual storytelling element being so important, obviously this is not even really a spoiler, but there are multiple instances in this movie where he goes back to the shot of the thumpers and they're used.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I didn't hand count it, obviously, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:It might have been five or six times throughout the movie where it goes to that close-up shot of the thumpers going off, but each time it means something different. If that makes sense and implies something different every time, and I think that's really great because of how simple a technique it is just to be able to use that, because in any other, in a lesser movie, that would be distracting, where you're like, oh, we're doing this, we're doing this again, but in this movie, every time it happens feels important, like you feel like something important is about to happen, like it almost feels like this, you know, both in the universe and in the movie as a movie, each time that happens it feels important and I think that's a great kind of flag throughout the movie. I don't know why that particular repetition stood out to me so much, but it did, and it just goes to show you how well-crafted the movie is, that he can make the same shot, same moment, throughout almost a three-hour movie feel important each time.
Speaker 2:I love how present we are in this movie. I love how attached you are to this world, like it's the same energy. It's different, but it's round about the same energy that Oppenheimer had. And I mean we always talk about this. Great films have ores to them. This movie exudes ores. It depends what the film is like. Top Gun has different ores than Oppenheimer did, then Barbie did so, on and so forth, but this one just feels grand.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, you made your point and at this point it keeps happening about this being. You know the two towers or the empire. You know what this is. This is the Dune part two to Dune part one. I don't think there really is a comparison for this. This, truthfully, is unique. This is one of the most unique films.
Speaker 2:I know obviously no spoilers, but Empire is a huge draw. But you know I always say and you know it's a relevant statement that perspective is everything, and once we get into spoilers, you're going to understand that. You know the Empire. You know comparison is very interesting. I think it's probably one of the most interesting pieces. If you know the Dune story, you know why that is. But he's what's able to be presented here and, like I said it's the theme. You know I said it before Craig Mason talks about it how themes should always be a question, themes not a thing. The questions you get, you have to ask in this movie are some of the best that you think about. There's thought provoking this time because, like I said, perspective is absolutely everything you know. I mean, if you want to go down into performance, I mean this.
Speaker 2:In my opinion, this might be in Timothy Chalamet's second best performance, maybe only behind Beautiful Boy. That's probably the only one that might be better than this. You know, zendaya is I think she might be the best, the best acted character in this movie. Rebecca Ferguson is horrifying, to say the least. In this movie she is. She's just somebody. You just can't take your eyes off. But it's just. You feel uncomfortable the whole time and you want to talk uncomfortable. You talk about Austin Butler's fade wrath. It's just. You know the idea of the movie star and I know we talked about it a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 2:This is the movie that I think it's starting to feel like it's coming back and it's just crazy because Timothy Zendaya, austin Butler, um, Florence Pugh they're all under 30 years old, all I think Austin's the oldest and he's 30, I'm pretty sure he's 29, something like that. Like all of them are under 30. And I can tell they're probably not, besides Zendaya, who has who's contractually obligated to do this. Like they're probably not going to dip into television at this point. They're probably going to stay in movies. Like you can tell, I don't know what it is about the last couple of months, so we talked about 2023. And once we talk about the Oscars, we're going to talk about how generational 2023 was.
Speaker 2:The movies feel like they're in a good spot right now, like the actual movie theater going experience. I mean, I'll let you talk about it, but just the the theater experience. We had five days, but this is an early fan event screening and I just want you to talk about what we experienced at that. I mean, first of all, it was packed. I packed it was. It was. There was almost no seats left and we were in a massive theater Having done a couple of these now with you.
Speaker 1:This was easily the most populated one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we saw the Batman, yeah, yeah, and that was and that was packed that was packed, but it wasn't this pack.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was like there was no sin, like you felt the buzz, like you felt something was about to happen and I told you when we were walking out. I always have this theory about you know how people are going to perceive movies. Like usually what's happening is this is just the human nature to do this. It's like, well, I'm going to think, I'm going to try to find the bad thing about something. I knew this movie was something when I was walking out and people are like that was that, was that was pretty good, that was not bad, it wasn't bad at all that there wasn't a lot of the like, visceral reactions to things that you, that we've kind of grown accustomed to, people were.
Speaker 1:People were locked in. They were locked in even like the moments that you know were humorous in the movie. It almost felt like people were afraid to laugh. Yep, and I want to.
Speaker 2:I want to go even further with that point about those humorous moments too. They they were relevant in this movie. Sometimes there's comedic timing and comedic, you know that humor for humor's sake Like it was like a crescendo of what happened, because there's one specific character that gets a lot of comedy in this movie that you don't necessarily suspect is going to be this character. But then once it starts to wrap up, you've learned like there's reason for this, and then it, and then it just has a heel turn to like, oh, this is the real, like this is serious, like this is not just, you know, it works. The kind of like people were reacting to it. It was funny, but it was well done, but it wasn't just there to be there, it had substance to it and it made sense.
Speaker 1:Like I said, it was almost like people were like should we laugh at this?
Speaker 1:But, like it was just the. I feel like just whatever the scene was or the delivery was, they just kind of prompted people to laugh and they were just like should we be laugh? Like because people, because people were so locked into the movie Like I feel like nobody wanted to break the like, break the tension or break like the the focus. But, like you know, that's how you know a line is genuinely good in a movie when it kind of draws this unbeknownst reaction from from people, when they're like we didn't expect to laugh in this movie, but here we are, like we're doing it. So I yeah, it was. It was incredible to kind of just be a part of like it felt. It felt obviously because the I mean the theater was more packed than when we saw Top Gun, but it was a similar air about it where like people were just we talk about all the time when we saw the top gun in theaters, like that third act, and people were just yeah, like, yeah like lock in like and this movie has a very similar.
Speaker 2:It's similar, but it's it's a bit different, because it's almost so. I was, I was thinking about how, to, how I can convey this thought that like, these thoughts that I was having about this, these prescient visions just kidding, I was thinking about this this movie is gorgeous, but that's a given like, but it's deeper than that. It's so, so, so, so, so much deeper than that. It just being gorgeous. This movie is the epitome of the ideology of what visual storytelling is. It's not the idea of I need to tell you what's going on, because that's not simple but it's easy. I can show you what's going on, but for me to feel what's going on, that's a truthfully special thing that the has and this team has and Greg Fraser has, who you know deserves all the credit. I mean you look at Greg Fraser's body of work since since he shot Lion in 2016. I mean Lion Rogue One, yeah, lion Rogue One. He shoots Dune One, dune to the Batman. The create part of the creator. Like, not bad, that's, that's a resume in of itself. He's just I. So obviously there's the Roger Deakins podcast. I listen to Greg Freight and the cinematography podcast.
Speaker 2:Like I listen, I just I love listening to Greg Fraser talk because he's he's very technical, but he's technical with intent. If he's very technical with story intent and like how to, how to make you feel about something, very technically he's just, he's so sound at what he does but he's transformative. I mean he's he's going to go down as probably one of the greatest photographers in film history, if he's not already. And you know, obviously he's not. He's not a young, young man anymore, but he's got a, he's got a long career. And like these are the movies you put back to back against each other and I'm going to talk about this for Dene, because we were talking about this leaving the theater. It is just, you have to feel proud of yourself at some point, like these are the movies you're having. What I want to talk about real quick is the blockbuster mentality, and this movie is tracking one hundred and seventy million for an opening weekend, which is, you know, that's a good sign for a lot of movies, because you, you crack one fifty plus opening weekend.
Speaker 1:And that's going to be has a relatively low budget.
Speaker 2:This movie cost one hundred and ninety million dollars. The Joker two cost two hundred and twenty million dollars. That shouldn't even. That shouldn't even make sense. Yeah, and when, once everybody sees this movie, you're going to understand that that there's no way it should have been possible. But it's just, it's understanding that this needs to feel real, to feel relevant.
Speaker 1:And this is, you know this, this one in particular is not, actually it sounds dismissive to be like. This is the true measuring stick of this franchise, because the first one came out when we were still in that weird pandemic.
Speaker 2:Not only the weird pandemic phase, but the actual weird pandemic phase for HBO Max at the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I feel like this one is going to have what you know. Obviously it's building off the backbone of the first one. It was really great and people know the first one's really great, so I think that's going to obviously help this one. But this is going to be, this is going to be the one that tells us what this is and if this is kind of like the perfect mixture of a blockbuster plus the actual movie like the art.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, that's a great way to put it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think this movie is going to be that balance. For lack of, a better word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just. You know, obviously they shot this film in IMAX, we saw it in IMAX theater. That this is the way to see it, that I just want to make that abundantly clear. This is the absolute way, and I love the quote that film is half, or movies are half, visual, half auditory, like this movie needs to be. You know, seen and heard, seen and heard. Like the sound, like the sound mix in this movie is just phenomenal, I mean. And then to go along with the score, the score is just score should always accompany and bolster, never overpowered. This score is just synonymous at this point, but it just, it feels so, you know, enigmatic, for lack of a better, better term, like I don't know the better way to explain how the score makes you feel. Yeah, it's just, it weaves itself through the story itself, but it knows when to stay and it knows when to leave, it knows when to crescendo and knows when to leave.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can't talk about it, but yeah, yeah, boy.
Speaker 2:Boy, oh boy, yeah, this is, this is an absolute special, special, special film. It's just, it's one of those ones where, upon rewatches, I just have a it's going to probably get even better, like I, oh yeah, for sure. This movie is, in my opinion, a masterpiece. I don't know how you even get better, but I on rewatches. It's just going to become more relevant.
Speaker 1:We actually, you know we talked about before we recorded. We're like, are we going to do the non-spoiler thing and then the spoiler thing in the same like day and do that, do both reviews? And then we both kind of agreed, like kind of got to see this again before we do that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely have to see this again.
Speaker 1:Because it just it would be. It would feel like to me like a, not a disservice, but it would feel along those lines to like only see this once on Sunday and then just be like here's everything that we think about it. Like I just feel like it needs more than that. I feel like I also need more than that because I think this movie warrants it, for lack of a better term. Like I think it warrants, like my that, not that I wasn't giving my full attention, but like it needs my full attention twice more or less.
Speaker 1:There's so much movie in this, in this movie.
Speaker 2:And what you said about the visual stuff.
Speaker 1:Like the visual. The visual stuff is more than just oh, that looks cool, well, that looks nice. It's actually like the visuals are actually telling the story.
Speaker 2:So I just want to get nerdy about camera stuff for a little bit. Obviously, they shot this in the IMAX, they shot. I just love the mixture of what they do. They, they shoot the IMAX, they use the film prints. One of my favorite examples from the first movie on that was the the vision of the Jammus fight before it happens. And they're switching aspects and like to.
Speaker 2:It's like supposed to be a conduit for like he's seeing all these different timelines at the same time, these different ways of looking at things, the way that IMAX renders faces in that depth of field. There's a specific shot in the movie it's in the trailer where he's walking throughout like the Fremant. He's walking through the Fremant. It's that massive wide shot where he's just they're clearing the path for him In that shot. There's another shot of just a close on one of the Fremant's face and like that's when the third act starting. That's like when it's like about to be like go time for this film. That shot just floored me. I couldn't explain why, but it's like I said, it's just the way that this, you know, this modern technology of filmmaking and just renders faces how you know this it's not just the depth of field, it's just the depth of the world that you're in. You just feel encompassed in this place and then you know, allegorically, for story too, like you feel encompassed by the presence of, of, you know of Paul.
Speaker 2:At this point, and that's a big piece of this movie is like the presence of Paul. Obviously, this is the ascension of Paul Trady's, you know. That's where I'll leave it without going in the spoilers. But this is just. This is one of one of those films that you know people are going to talk about. I think you know you're. We always talk about it like the normal moviegoer, Like this is a, this is a film for everyone. Yeah, Like they deal with the weird stuff really well, Like incredible, like way more than I thought and I shouldn't have ever doubted Denny in this way. But you know, the second half of the book really gets off the rails, weird, and that's that was always the argument with what Frank Herbert was doing, especially once you get later it's like this is getting, this is getting interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, to that point I, you know, I went back, obviously, and I listened to our first review of the first movie and you know, and just general critiques that people had in the first one was that, like, the lore is confusing. This is the other thing and it's slow, yeah, and what I kept saying to you was the lore. The lore is not confusing, it's overwhelming, but a lot of it can be broken down in layman's terms, and I think the same is true for this movie. But what this movie does is which I think all great sequels do, is it doesn't hold your hand and it's like look the first one pretty much.
Speaker 1:We talked about this a little bit, we talked about Avatar, where it was like the first one is like here's the war, here's the building of the world, here's these characters. And then the second one is like now we're going to, now we're going to show you everything, now we're going to show you why all this stuff matters. And I think that's what this movie does really well, where it's like I said, it marries so perfectly to the first one, where it pretty much picks up where the first one ended and it's like here you go, like you're back in this world and you know everything's going to ramp up now and now we did the building of the lore, we did the building of the world, and now we're, now the characters are going to flourish. Yeah, and I think that's where this movie, you know, succeeds the most. Is it for people who maybe we're a little not into the characters or the performances in the first one, besides, maybe, rebecca Ferguson's character? Everyone levels up in this movie across the board.
Speaker 2:And most importantly it is. It is Timothy Chalamet. Yes, the biggest, Absolutely you know how I look at this.
Speaker 2:It's how I looked at, that's how I looked at Leticia Wright in Black Panther 2. It's like you have to, you have to take the step and you know I'm going to ask you at the end. You're one word to describe this movie, but I'll say my word now. It's grace. This movie is just absolutely a graceful film. And it's not graceful in the narrative, because the narrative is quite the opposite of graceful, but it's the handling of a film like this. Again, it shouldn't. This shouldn't be real. Like this. I told you when we were walking out of the theater, like I was kind of speechless walking out of the theater. It wasn't speechless of like you know, hyper, hyperbolic speech, like being speechless, it was like I said it was the idea of like this, this shouldn't exist. Like the fact that this on top only cost $190 million. On top of you have all these stars in this movie. And you know I was reading, like I said last week, I was reading through doing exposures, and you know Josh Rowland talked about like at that point you have to leave the egos at the door and I guess the last point, before you get into your word, is that all comes together and this is the beauty of what directing is. That's the whole. This is the whole point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why Denis Villeneuve is, you know, one of the greatest storytellers on the planet, because he wrangled all these people. Not only did he wrangle all these movie stars, not, he had to deal with these old movie stars that already were established. He had to deal with these younger movie stars that were, you know, arguably some of the most famous on the planet. He had to deal with the story that he's been told his whole life was impossible to do. This is the most impossible sci-fi thing you ever do.
Speaker 2:So in a lot of ways, he was told this isn't going to work, there's no way this works. And then he's turned around and said I'm just going to give you one of the greatest movies possible at this point. So that's my biggest like win is Denis Villeneuve himself. I think, when it all gets said and done, obviously he's going to make, like I said last week, he's going to make Rendezvous with Rama, that Arthur C Clark book he's going to. I think he said yeah, they said two days ago he's almost done with the Dune Messiah script. Like in a couple, in like 10 years, we're going to start to have some conversations. There's some much needed conversation about Denis Villeneuve, and you know.
Speaker 2:I said it Prisoners to Sicario, to arrival, to Blade Runner, to Dune One, to Dune Two. I think he's probably going to do Dune Messiah, then Rendezvous, with, like that's a, that is a generational run of movies. I didn't even talk enemy. I didn't talk in Cindy's, I didn't talk polytechnic. Like he's been doing this for since the what, the early 2000s. He's been doing this and look at the quality every single time he steps out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, assuming that the third one holds and exceeds the quality of this one, to me it's this, it would be this in Lord of the Rings, in terms of film trilogy, yeah, I just, and I never thought, I never thought that, you know, I didn't think. I, to this point, no trilogy for me has touched those Lord of the Rings films. I think that's, that's the perfect trilogy in terms, that's the perfect film trilogy. In my opinion, it just is. Every movie is better than the next and all three are exceptionally high quality. And you know, again, I mean the Tolkien stuff again is probably something that you never thought would be able to be put on film to that degree and.
Speaker 1:Peter Jackson pulled it off. So, and I think that's what we're talking about, we're talking about a true, you know, a tried and true. You know it feels weird Because you know, those movies feel so recent to me, but this really is, like you know, this generation's Lord of the Rings trilogy. To me it's. It doesn't, it doesn't belong in that conversation with the Dark Knight trilogy. It just doesn't. I think we're past that. I think we're already past it. I truly do. Yeah, in terms of a film trilogy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I think that Dune 1 is stronger than the, than Batman Begins. And then, you know, there's going to be people that don't like what I'm about to say.
Speaker 1:No, I think I, I, I think I agree with you.
Speaker 2:Dune part two is, you know, on paper, a better film than than Just say it, just say it. Because the Dark Knight is just yeah.
Speaker 1:I think I agree, I think I agree, I don't like I agree. So I think that's what we're talking about. Like, I think we're talking about a truly generational film and probably a generational trilogy.
Speaker 2:When it's all said and done, yeah, I, I, I cannot overstate how just and this movie. When this movie ends, you're like I need Messiah right now. There's a line that Paul says at the end of this movie, yep, and you're like, oh yeah, like I need this film.
Speaker 1:And not in a. Not in a like a ham-fisted, like this is a sequel line.
Speaker 1:It's more like a I'm here, yeah, yeah. Which is exactly what a great sequel does is it leaves your characters, you know, in some degree at a state of at a crossroads, and that's that's where this movie leaves fall in a, in a way that the first one sort of did in, in the sense that, like, the first one was more like he's starting his journey, and now this one was like he's on the journey, but now he's at a crossroads, and the third one is where we're going to take it, and I think that's obviously a perfect setup, yeah man, these performances are magnetic and I mean, you know, we, we say it all whenever we give out our awards, and we'll give out our awards during the spoiler one.
Speaker 2:We always say, like, sometimes it's simple, this one, this one is probably the most complicated simple one that we're going to get, because that second half that there's two characters that walk very a very similar arc but do it in a totally different way.
Speaker 1:Yep, you know which two characters are talking about, but they walk a very similar arc at a very with a very similar inciting incident that that crescendos that arc. But the way they both go is so subtly different and that's what makes their performance is really exceptional is that you could easily clock that these two characters are kind of walking a similar narrative track, but the performances are so subtle that you're like, yeah, they're, they're kind of doing the same thing and that could be distracting, but they both. There's a specific point where they both kind of go like this and they and they split from from the similar arc to one goes one way, one goes the other way and you're like, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:You know this movie again on levels that shouldn't work. The religious connotations are. You know he I'm talking. One wrong line could have just ignited the internet on fire, ignited this film and just destroyed this film. But again, that's why I used grace, as my is my word, to describe this movie. It's just the way everything is handled. It's just, it's just understood Like. It's just like. Everybody got to set and everybody and everybody looked at the knee and he was just like you know it's unexpected, and they were like, understood, like we know exactly what's expected out of every single last person on that set of that movie Yep, yep, totally great. One of the man, one of the best third acts to. That third act is exceptional. That second act also was it's probably one of the strongest, if not that's got to be one of the best second acts in terms of holding that movie together to, because a lot of times second acts can get lost Actually in a long movie.
Speaker 2:arguably this, this, it's funny, like I did not worse, but like the weakest act is the first act, which usually is in the case in the first act is phenomenal too. So the second act of that movie is that's when there's a, there's a huge, there's a revelation and a heel turn right in the second act and it's just, it's obviously, it's monumental. And there's a, there's two I'm talking massive spoilers that happened during that that we can't talk about until Friday. But you know, once that flips, the performances flip with it and you're like, oh my, like you can feel it. And again, same thing that happened with Top Gun and that third. Like I said, it was that close on that Fremen's face and then it was just. I was like, oh, it's, it's happening, like it's, it's, it's about to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think there's it's. It's easy to kind of get get yourself lost in the in. In stuff like that, like when characters flip, it can be distracting because you, because you, it really relies on the performance to sell it, because that's a difficult thing to do. It's a difficult thing to do to be like I've been this character for so long and then kind of kind of like on the drop of a dime, like now I'm different, that's. That's way more difficult to pull off than like a gradual, a sense or descent, and in this case it's like more of like a, like a coin flip, and then you know that character is characters different?
Speaker 1:not in a bad way. It's narratively designed that way to happen in that sense, and it's just flawlessly done by by the performers involved.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it's like I said it's. You know you can write it away, but you have to personify it. That's the exact, that's the sell it you have to sell it, you have to sell it.
Speaker 2:That's the exactly what. In my opinion, the devil, you have to give me the cell of this thing. And, man, the scene that comes after it. We were I mean, we talked about that scene for a good bit when we were standing outside the theater. We were like, oh, like it's crazy. Yeah, that's in my. That might be, I don't want to ask his beautiful boy is an incredible performance, but what he does in that second act and that's seen, you know exactly what scene I'm talking about. I was like, wow, like I was like. I was like jaw dropped, like that's. When the acting is like, that's like you know, like you know the hashtag acting award, like I'm just going to spoil it. That's going to be proud, that's going to be mine, like there's. And Zendaya is so incredible in this movie. Rebecca Ferguson is haunting and just just it's. Oh, I can't wait to talk about Rebecca Ferguson's arc because you want to talk about you became the very thing you swore to destroy. It's so good. It's so good, it's incredible, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean just. You know, you said earlier, like your word I think my word is inexplicable, but just in the best way, Like you know, it's along those lines of, like this movie shouldn't exist, it shouldn't be as good as it is yeah, it shouldn't draw everything out of you. That it draws out of you, it just does. You know why it's so good.
Speaker 2:This is like I said. It's the. It's the whole idea of what the what the movie is like what movies, whatever the word you want to use, like it's everything put together. We've perfectly, it's literally everything, visual audio acting like everything works. There's not one piece that does not work or that slack. Everything is on 10, every single piece of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean that you know, in simple terms, like just to kind of get back to that, to that kind of idea of simple terms, it's a. This movie is is a master at work, a master at the peak of his powers is what we're as a whole, we're witnesses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is like like I said you know I can. I can't even say the same argument that I used for Christopher Nolan when I said you know you can throw, you know you could throw the hat in the air like who's what's the best film he's done is it? Interstellar is a dark night, but I still think Oppenheimer is the best time he's ever directed. I was going to use that same thing One. I walked out of the theater and I was going to say Arrival is probably his best movie, but this is the no, no, no, no, no, no. This is his best movie. This is the best movie he's ever directed and hopefully you know you keep the same energy with Messiah, but this is just. This was everything you could have asked for.
Speaker 1:He's yes, he's just. I know it feels kind of dismissive to say this, but the way this movie is directed and put together, I know how much hard work goes into it. I know how how many like tireless days I'm sure everyone spends on this, but it felt so effortless.
Speaker 2:I know exactly. I know exactly what you mean. It's just, it's when you again it's what.
Speaker 1:It's what.
Speaker 2:Nolan had for for Oppenheimer. In my opinion, where it's just like this is this I worked my whole career to get here. Like this is like the championship.
Speaker 1:It's confident. Yeah, movie is confident.
Speaker 2:You know and you know, zendaya said it in one of the interviews like what do you want? Like our energy is stemming from looking at Denise face every day when he's on set. He's like I got, like, like I have this, like I know, I know what this is, this is a confident movie.
Speaker 2:You know, you know what I think about that. I think about how, the, how the Daniels did everything everywhere all at once. It's once. You know exactly what the thing is. I know, I know what this is. Like you, I mean, you look at, you know, I'll just you know. You look at the Godfather trilogy. Same thing. You look at Empire, like I know, I like story, wise, visual, like I know everything, I know every beat about this. There's no confusion, there's no studio interference. I know what the heck this thing is.
Speaker 1:It's like you know it's like in a sport. It's like basketball or like golf, you know like a player lets off like a shot.
Speaker 2:And you, just you, know as soon as you let it go.
Speaker 1:And that's what this movie feels like. It feels like such a confident movie, like it knows. It knows what it is, everyone involved knows what it is. They, everyone involved in it, knows what they're a part of. And you feel it. There's no other way to you feel it.
Speaker 2:You feel it it's the best way. This one, obviously, you know the movie starts with the famous throat singing from the first movie. But like you feel the roller coaster, you know harness, come down as soon as you hear it and then, as soon as the WB logo, and I'm like, oh, shoot, like it's happening again, like I got that same feeling that I got from, like it's happening.
Speaker 1:And it's brilliant to basically start the two movies the same way.
Speaker 2:It's so smart, like Messiah is going to be probably the same exact thing. I wonder who's going to be the monologue for Messiah, though, and I would love if it was Paul himself for this one. I think that would be a really good, a really good mirror. I have a. This movie or this trilogy, I think is going to play a bit like. I think this is going to play very interestingly because the third movie, obviously Messiah is going to be more.
Speaker 2:I think Messiah is going to be a little bit more talky than this movie, because this movie is you know, we didn't even talk about the technical marvel of just the fight choreography in this movie. Sound is like an understatement, like, again, this is the blockbuster meets art. These fights are just visceral, they actually feel relevant and tough. So you know, but I think, like I said, messiah is going to be a little bit more politicky. It's going to be a little bit more talky. Obviously, you know for those who know what happens in this franchise you know that there will be action in this third movie, messiah. There's some stuff that's going to happen in Messiah, but I think it's going to be more of a this. Messiah is probably going to be the most character-study, one out of the three of them, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's something I can't wait for. You know and I have. I don't know why I get this weird feeling that you know they're going to wait. Maybe not because I think that Warner Brothers is going to be like, as soon as the B hits instead of the M, the B hits for the billion. Because 170 opening weekend, the energy we got from that fan event and that was five days before this movie, six days before this movie comes out I just got to think that this movie is going to make at least 850, at the very least.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean it's one of those things where at the same time, like if you're Warner Brothers, you kind of got to give them the Jim Cameron leash, like if he wants to take five years to do this third one, let him. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's cool and I implore everybody to read, you know, Rendezvous with Rama. Like I don't know why I get the sense that he can. I don't know why. It would feel cool if he just made that movie in between. So he took more time and then he makes another sci-fi movie. It's probably going to be incredible, like usual. It's something where he can probably, you know, take a breath. I don't even like to say that because Rendezvous with Rama is a mass. It's like a story that feels so small at first and then it just balloons. But if he decides to go that route and maybe makes another type of movie in between, so be it.
Speaker 2:Did Nolan do that for the Dark Knight? Yeah, he made Inception in between the Dark Knight and the Dark Knight Rises. So he made a I mean not a small movie, he made a massive movie in between the two. So maybe Denea and I know Denea and Chris are friends, so you know maybe he takes a page out of that book before you hit your last movie. Hey, take a break, man, like step away from that world for a little bit and gather yourself.
Speaker 2:There's also the other sides to the coin, where this energy's too high. Hey, warner Brothers is probably going to be like no, don't even think about it. Like, messiah is green lit. I bet you, as soon as Monday hits, next Monday, messiah will be green lit, like as soon as they get out of the weekend and that movie has 200 million in the. Yeah, you're getting the third movie, so don't even worry about it. Rollercoaster Hood's probably going to get green lit off of this too, off the power of Rebecca Ferguson herself. Just green lit. A whole show maybe. Yeah, hopefully they let her in the show. I just have a feeling that show's going to be in the past. It's probably not going to be in the present.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, I would expect it to be in the past. Yeah, what a picture.
Speaker 2:It's really what a picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's one of those things where, like it's funny that you used the roller coaster metaphor, you know, a couple minutes ago, because that's what it felt like you ever been to an amusement park and you get off a really sick ride and you just get right back online.
Speaker 2:Like, you're like.
Speaker 1:I got to get back on. I got to do that again. That's how I feel about this movie.
Speaker 2:I felt like sad, leaving the figure. I was like I have to see that again immediately Like.
Speaker 1:I have to experience that again. I wanted to go right back in, right back in and get back in line.
Speaker 2:And it felt even worse because I was like, oh, I have to wait a week to do it. Like it wasn't even one of those things where, like all right, well, we can go again to more. Like no, and that Like the weight, like Sure, because people are, you know, usually and I was just talking to somebody about that Usually when this happens as soon as it hits, like because we got to see it, so normal people could see this it wasn't just critics that saw it Usually it starts to tail. Like this movie is at altitude, like it's at its cruising altitude and it's not. There's no turbulence, there's nothing. Like it feels like everybody that's seeing this movie like I feel like the worst review I've seen was like an eight. Like this movie is like that's absurd, that's the worst one I've seen. Like it's like all these different critics that have been critical of all these different types of movies that we've liked or anything like that are. It feels like all of them are like, oh yeah, like this movie is, this is the one.
Speaker 1:Like this is Well. I mean, sometimes you just get a thing that's just undeniable. Yeah, and that's what this movie is Like. That also could have been my word for this movie is undeniable Because that's what it is Like. You can, you can, obviously, everyone can look at anything and nitpick it and criticize it, but at the end of the day, that's all you're doing, whereas, like, the overall presentation of the thing is undeniable, and that's how I feel about this movie.
Speaker 2:Man, this story is so tight, Like you know, that was an argument for the first one that the story was slow. I never picture, and I just rewatched the first one. I never take that story as slow. I think that story, you know, or I think it gets confused. I think people confuse the slowness for the uncomfortable nature of what happens in the second act, Like the siege of Ericheen and when the Atreides are murdered, like that doesn't feel good and that makes this movie way even better, Because like, I mean the first one and the second one married together perfectly.
Speaker 2:But they both stand alone on. Yeah, like they stand alone very well. Like you don't need to watch the first one to watch the second one, but like also you do need, you should watch the first one because I would recommend it.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because they hold very well. And I mean, obviously he walks into the desert in the end of the first one and you know, the second one starts and, like aw man, even the score bit. It's just so powerful but so subtle in the beginning of this movie and you're like, oh, I'm in, like that's energy, that's power. Yeah, oh man, I could talk about this movie for I know, for days.
Speaker 1:But I'm more excited to talk about it more in depth later this week. Yeah, Like the visuals. We talked for 40 minutes and we didn't say anything substantive about the plot, which is great. Yeah, which is great, because sometimes we do these when we're just like, oh, we gotta talk about this thing. We're like this, we're just, we can just talk about the overall presentation of the thing for an hour if we wanted to, and not even dip into a single thing that happens, because that's just how good it is.
Speaker 2:This is filmmaking. This is blockbuster. But like not, this is blockbuster.
Speaker 1:It's a perfect marriage. It's a perfect marriage, like I said, confident, undeniable, inexplicable, all of those things.
Speaker 2:I'm feeling really good about the state of the movies right now, and it's just. This has gotta make a lot of people feel good that, like this, is the type of movies that we're getting. Like, you got Oppenheimer last year that is a blockbuster, but it's also and I didn't even say that himself this is an R-rated talking movie and it made a billion dollars. People want these types of movies. You just have to tell it and show it. Well, that's all it needs. It just needs people that care about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, man. So that's gonna do it for us until later this week, when we talk about the movie in full, probably being maybe like a five to ten minute kind of quick overview, and then we'll just dive right into the spoilers, because we just went on for about 45 minutes about, kind of our general thoughts, so you'll kind of know where we sit. So, yeah, this will be up tomorrow. It's Tuesday, so this will be up Wednesday, and then you can consume that if you like, before you go see the movie, because I'll try and make it as clear as possible that you can absolutely listen to this without having seen the movie. This is more like. This is more or less us selling you on the movie. We don't have to, but we want to. So that's what this is.
Speaker 1:So you can follow us on Twitter at project INF underscore pod. You can follow us on Facebook. You can follow us on Instagram. That's a project infinite pod. And yeah, man, later this week, in a couple of days, we'll sit down again and talk about this movie in full. Just talk about everything, talk about everything. I can't wait. I can't wait to see it again, can't wait to talk about it again, because this is just one of those.
Speaker 2:It's one of those.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, that theater walkout was something Out of that theater was. Everybody was like oh wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Hey whoo.
Speaker 1:A wolf went over the crowd and we were walking out there like, oh yeah it was like it's such a such as you'd like a quiet euphoria just washed over the entire time.
Speaker 2:I see what you did there. Shout out Sunday.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about her and everybody else and him who was Timothy Chalmay, because he was him in the movie and we'll talk about everybody and everything in this movie, in Dune Part Two.
Speaker 1:We'll have some, we'll have some, we'll have some numbers for you. We'll have some numbers for you by Thursday, so that'll be far by. Yeah, thursday, friday, we'll have some numbers for you, so that'll be fun. Yeah, man, we will see you later this week for our full review of Dune Part Two. Until then, goodbye Peace.
