Film Junk Podcast Episode #434: Prisoners

Posted by on September 24th, 2013   Filed under: Featured, Film Junk Podcast

podcast434

0:00 – Intro
3:55 – Review: Prisoners
24:35 – Headlines: Disney Ends Deal with Jerry Bruckheimer, Terminator 5 Gets a Director, Dinobots Confirmed for Transformers: Age of Extinction, Jurassic Park 4 is Jurassic World, Arnold Rumoured for Avatar 2, Grudge Match Trailer
36:35 – Other Stuff We Watched: Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, The Fifth Element, The Tourist, Incendies, Sexy Beast, Lilo & Stitch, Tangled, Below, Big Fish, E.T., The East, Breakdown, Derek, Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden, Frankenweenie, True Grit, Homeland, Breaking Bad
1:16:50 – Junk Mail: Best Summer Movie Season of All Time, Alternate Cuts of Movies Screening at Festivals, Watching Movies at High Speed, How Much of a Movie Do You Need to Watch In Order to Say You Watched It?, How to Handle Blu-rays Without Cases
1:49:35 – This Week on DVD and Blu-ray
1:52:38 – Outro
1:54:50 – Spoiler Discussion: Prisoners

Film Junk Podcast Episode #434: Prisoners by Filmjunk on Mixcloud

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  • GNM

    PRISONERS: Terrence Howard cries alot while Jake Gyllenhall blinks HARD. Pretty unsubstantial stuff. Great cinematography though.

  • Sean

    Unsubstantial how?

  • GNM

    It just felt like David Fincher redux (the pitch meeting must’ve been – “It’s Seven meets Zodiac meets Girl With Dragon Tattoo”). Nothing I hadn’t seen before – twists and all. I guess I went in expecting a unique take on the kidnapping procedural, but to me it was like a 2 and a half hour episode of The Killing or any number of mystery cop shows that are a dime a dozen these days.

  • Sean

    I better start watching The Killing then!

    Seriously though, I get the Fincher comparisons but to be in the same league as those movies is still impressive. And I think what makes this one unique is the moral dilemma over Hugh Jackman’s actions.

  • Sam

    Frank is pretty tough to listen to in this episode, well at least at the end that is. Good times overall though.

  • JY

    I am in 100% agreement with Frank on Prisoners.

    I think the problem with this movie is that they’ve taken a fairly standard low-brow genre script and attempted to present it as if it were something more than that.

    I thought overall the performances, direction and cinematography were very good. But the script was pretty lazy.

    I could overlook all the plot holes and absurd twists if there wasn’t so much talent behind this movie. It could have been something great.

  • Dan Day

    All hail Frank, the King of contrary.

  • Lior

    Regarding Piranha II: The Spawning: Cameron was going for something more ambitious then a T&A exploitation film but was booted from the production at an early stage by the (I believe) Italian producer of the film who went on to re-shoot about 80 percent of the movie, apparently adding lots of the aforementioned T&A. I did not see the film (indeed it is not considered essential for Cameron fans) so can’t attest to its quality first hand, but yeah, Cameron doesn’t view it as part of his official filmography. Anyway, the whole fascinating story can be found in the book The Futurist.

  • Lori Cerny

    Did Frank actually watch Prisoners or was he woozy from being sick?

  • CrumbThumber

    **SPOILER**

    It didn’t bother me during the film, but it does seem odd that they did a sweep of the entire woods in the county, but didn’t feel the need to investigate the place where he parks his RV.

  • Sean

    They did investigate the house but they didn’t find anything. I think Frank brings this up at some point during our spoiler discussion. Maybe it’s questionable that they didn’t find anything but they definitely mention searching it.

  • Kasper F. Nielsen

    Frank was hilarious this episode.

  • Dooobie

    “All my problems are spoilers.” – The Great K.O.C.

  • gerry gyllenhaal

    jay vs, frank. a hidden truth. a desperate search.

  • horse the one you love

    great podcat!

  • horse the one you love

    podca*St, sry. it’s genuine enthusiasm, what can i say

    loved it

  • Mrespony

    Frank’s outrage in the spoiler discussion is classic.

  • Colin

    The search involved Loki lazily looking around Alex’s room for a minute and then stealing a toy car

  • Colin

    Definitely agree with frank on this one… you have to accept a lot of coincidence and convenience in order for the story to make any sense. Basically Loki is simultaneously the most inept and luckiest cop ever.

  • T. Heilman

    Re:Homeland, I’d say the show shit the bed halfway through season 1. A great idea for a deep, epic, multi-faceted show involving terrorist cells and political intrigue and they boil everything down to a stupid soap opera plot about a brainwashed jerk off who is neither likeable or sympathetic. As for Ms. Daines, her acting style can be best summed up with her hilarious wide-eyed head tilts that resemble a confused canine. If there isn’t a YouTube video of all those moments interspersed with clips from dog food commercials, there should be.

  • T. Heilman

    Re:Homeland, I’d say the show shit the bed halfway through season 1. A great idea for a deep, epic, multi-faceted show involving terrorist cells and political intrigue and they boil everything down to a stupid soap opera plot about a brainwashed jerk off who is neither likeable or sympathetic. As for Ms. Daines, her acting style can be best summed up with her hilarious wide-eyed head tilts that resemble a confused canine. If there isn’t a YouTube video of all those moments interspersed with clips from dog food commercials, there should be.

  • T. Heilman

    Re:Homeland, I’d say the show shit the bed halfway through season 1. A great idea for a deep, epic, multi-faceted show involving terrorist cells and political intrigue and they boil everything down to a stupid soap opera plot about a brainwashed jerk off who is neither likeable or sympathetic. As for Ms. Daines, her acting style can be best summed up with her hilarious wide-eyed head tilts that resemble a confused canine. If there isn’t a YouTube video of all those moments interspersed with clips from dog food commercials, there should be.

  • Tom Nook

    Brit Marling the goddess.

  • Tom Nook

    Brit Marling the goddess.

  • Tom Nook

    Brit Marling the goddess.

  • Tom Nook

    Also lol @ these poverty discussions about mental health. The struggle is real.

  • Kenneth Serenyi

    Some Trivia: Because of Union rules in 1982, Spielberg wasn’t allowed to direct 2 movies in one year. Since he directed E.T that year, he handed over the reigns for Poltergeist to Tobe Hooper. Poltergeist still has a lot of Spielbergian touches in it, especially the whole ending sequence which Hooper didn’t want but Spielberg insisted on. Luckily the rules had changed by 1993 so Spielberg was able to direct both Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List that year. The moral of the story: Frank should have watched Poltergeist as well as E.T. ;)

  • Captain Fram

    I haven’t seen Prisoners and I listened to the entire spoiler discussion because it was so damn entertaining. More of this please! If I do get around to seeing the film, I think I’ll enjoy it more now.

  • Please. PLEASE. Puh-lease tell me someone else saw the closeup of Detective Loki’s knuckle tattoos and that I didn’t imagine it. What was the significance of that? That was just a weird coincidence?

  • Sean

    I don’t think there was a significance other than to show that his character had tattoos. But like I said on the show, I am pretty sure they were zodiac symbols. Maybe there is something deeper going on there… I know he was talking about the Chinese zodiac with the waitress at the beginning of the movie.

  • My question was more based on me reading the word maze across his knuckles, but it’s looking more like I just saw a zodiac symbols and saw letters… I’m like Hugh Jackman, just seeing what I wanna see.

  • Sean

    Ah okay, yeah that makes sense. The zodiac symbol for both Scorpio and Virgo look like an M.

    I read a review that pointed out that the symbols are just another representation of a belief system since the movie is all about faith and morals.

  • Ahh okay, thanks for the clarification Sean, that was eating me up inside after getting out the show.

  • Matt the Kiwi

    I’m am right there with ya on that one. The overall story was kinda compelling but the individual episodes were drawn out and painful. If they’d made both leads a little more likeable and realistic I would’ve been tempted to watch season 2.

  • piggystardust

    Mr. Dwyer, can we get a bonus episode for the end of Breaking Bad same way you did one for Lost? Or are you not as passionate about this show?

    Also, on the subject of cases, you boys may be interested to know they fixed the Back to the Future blu ray case. It payz to be a late adopter, yo!

  • Sean

    Possibly. I’m not sure I will have much to say about it though.

  • Andrew James

    I’m with Frank at almost every turn regarding Prisoners. The narrative is terrible.

  • patrik

    The Killing was very good when it got going, it’s a shame they cancelled it. I’d recommend it.

  • Victor

    Unusual for Frank to ‘lose’ the plot completely …

  • Jonnie123

    I missed that too. Still enjoyed Prisoners though. The mystery just took a little longer to resolve for me as I was unsure of Jackman’s motivations or Dano’s involvement at that point.

  • New listener to filmjunk and I am a big fan. Figured I would start with a podcast about a movie i really liked, prisoners. Here are some comments about the podcast. In the scene when the state police are going through the RV, Jake does say “After you’re done with this take a team over the Aunt’s house” so he does search the Aunt’s home. But I agree 100%, there is no way they miss that hole under the car. Also, what wasn’t touched on is that even though Paul Dano’s character is mentally challenged, there is no way he doesn’t give up some evidence when he is being tortured. He would have said something. Overall I did like the movie a lot due to the acting by Jake and Hugh but from a procedural standpoint, it was flawed. Thoughts?