Film Junk Podcast Episode #729: The Lighthouse

Posted by on November 6th, 2019   Filed under: Featured, Film Junk Podcast

podcast729

0:00 – Intro
14:30 – Review: The Lighthouse
40:50 – Hot Topic: Netflix Introducing Variable Playback Speed
1:11:40 – Other Stuff We Watched: Danger: Diabolik, Unmasked Part 25, High Life, The Laundromat, Tales from the Hood, Dennis the Menace
1:44:00 – This Week on DVD and Blu-ray
1:44:55 – Outro
1:48:55 – Spoiler Discussion: The Lighthouse

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  • ReelJunkie

    Itching to watch The Lighthouse. It doesn’t even have an Australian release date yet :(

  • devolutionary

    I agree regarding the Netflix autoplay discussion (~1:03:00). I think it’s an absolute joke that Netflix is phasing out their player for older Roku devices, some Blu-ray players, and Samsung/Vizio TVs due to enforced auto-play requirements (Dec 1st). They’re streamlining their service model, making older players that don’t support this feature obsolete. They haven’t even disclosed all devices affected yet. As if people wanted this feature in the first place :-/
    https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1572938932

  • Len F.

    Netflix needs achievements. So if you, say, watch all Adam Sandler movies to completion you get some sort of badge.

  • Lori Cerny

    RE: the theater captioning device.

    I have used them several times at both Regal Cinemas and at AMC. Anyone can use them, you just ask the ticket taker. Sometimes they go wonky and pick-up films playing in other theaters, but if you ask them how to reset it, you won’t have to run into the lobby for help and miss a crucial scene.

    Oh, they are also very flexible; I keep mine just below my eyeline so I can quickly scan it for a missed word.

  • Beat_C

    lol at frank being a stickler and then calling “the world’s end” “end of the world” ????

  • colin the dude

    I’m at a loss as to why Parasite isn’t on the radar to review next week. This is easily one of the best films of the year and demands a theater experience and a Film Junk review.

  • devolutionary

    In their defense, they did review it for their TIFF episode in September.
    https://filmjunk.com/2019/09/23/film-junk-podcast-episode-723-parasite-tiff-2019/

  • colin the dude

    Totally forgot. Frank hasn’t see it though, I think?

  • Matthew MacGyver

    I’ve listened to every episode and every bandcamp premium, and have never not listened at 1.5x. Last year, I was listening to an episode, and for first few minutes of the show I thought you guys were committing to a tasteless bit where you were all pretending to have some kind of disability… I kept waiting for the punchline, but when it didn’t come, I realized that my podcast app had been reset and I was just hearing you at 1x speed for the first time. True story.

  • Lior

    Another notable lighthouse movie is the The Light at the Edge of the World, a period action-adventure film made in the early 70’s, with Kirk Douglas and Yul Brinner. It was a box office bomb at the time and is definitely not considered a great movie, but i enjoyed it, it has a brutal edge to it, interesting locales and great cast.

  • john collins

    I appreciate its against the “art of cinema” unwritten rules. But I’d probably use it. Mainly to get through boring bits of tv programmes rather than movies.

  • Sean

    No, Frank watched it too. Get on it bud!

  • gibson8

    That monkey scene which I saw as a child was horrible.

  • gibson8

    You lose all nuance and inflection when listening at 1.5 speed. You get the content but lose what makes the contributors entertaining. The only reason to do is when you are not fully engaged which will be perfect for a some of the mediocrity netflix green-lights.

  • gibson8

    You realise that you just said that Sean, Jay and Frank sound retarded. You also apparently considered that maybe they were pretending to be for a ‘bit!’ ? Does the retardation lie with yourself? If so, I apologise.

  • Matthew MacGyver

    I certainly DID NOT use the R word!

  • Matthew MacGyver

    Certain media benefits from variable playback speed. Anything visual with a lot of editing or action, I would say no, since varying the pace of visual editing is quite different than increasing (or decreasing) dialog speed. With audio, you acclimate to the pacing such that it will only sound ‘odd’ when you listen at other speeds. When you speed up visuals, you never quite get a sense of normalcy.

    With an acting performance, you’re right, you definitely lose a bit of nuance. But with something like podcasts or audiobooks, where performance isn’t really an issue, the time saved greatly outweighs any loss. I assure you, one can still “fully engage” with Film Junk at 1.5x.

  • devolutionary

    He did, mind you not quite as highly as Jay and Sean. I think their ratings are reflected on the Podcast summary page.

  • Mister Quigley Jr.

    HUGE fan of Angry Frank, lovin’ it.

  • Lior

    Am I missing something here? my seven-year old Blu-Ray player doesn’t allow fast-forwarding with sound. So when you fast-forward or rewind you only see the image jerking back and forth. Do newer models allow that?

    In any event, I have never speeded up podcasts, You Tube videos, or god forbid, movies. We live in a world where everything is speeded up already. Where we are bombarded with content to be consumed and discarded. I sincerely believe that by slowing down we enrich our experiences, as in our frenzy to do more we make our lives shallower. I am “consuming” what my free time allows me to, according to my priorities, and whatever I don’t have time to, I just don’t, and that’s fine. I’ll just miss out.

    I can see this feature being useful in certain cases, the problem is, that even more so than in DVD and BR players, having it on a digital platform makes it much more easier and more tempting to rush through things the moment we feel just a little impatient with what we are watching.

    When I was reading some articles about this, I saw a comment by someone who got bored with 2001: A Space Odyssey while watching it on the PS4 and watched it in 1.5 speed just to to see “what happens”. How many will be tempted to do so with “boring” movies on Netflix? Is this the future we want to see for this art form? Just a piece of content to be speeded up and consumed to see “what happens”? Or do we value things like pace, editing, temporal unity and other big words?

    Technology gives us tools, but it’s up to us to decide how we want to shape our experiences.

  • I’m feeling the Patreon effect of split comments sections, do I say something here or there? Patreon comments feel more exclusive, but here feels more visible somehow. Anywho, I had the best theatre experience of my life with The Lighthouse, alone, no trailers, totally free to cut a little Willem love-hole in the seat, you know?

    I think you guys definitely missed some dialogue that may have made your experience a bit clearer, but it definitely doesn’t hinge on that. As for the question about Dafoe’s last assistant, there’s a scene where Robby Patty pulls something up from the lobster cage that you may have been thinking of Sean. But whether that’s “real” or not is questioned.

  • Beat_C

    i never listened to an episode (or watched a movie) at a higher speed. i did once listen to a conversation between reed and sean at 0.5 speed though and almost pissed my pants laughing. highly recommended.

  • This is fucking genius. Netflix should implement this immediately. If they make it so you can share your achievements on social media, people will flock to this. And you can’t cheat either because Netflix knows what you watched and what percentage you watched and in what amount of time.

    Brilliant. Have an upvote!

  • Kenneth Serenyi

    I see that Sean was very quiet during the variable playback discussion. I remember Sean was considering watching The Avengers at 1.5x speed for the “Marvel” Premium episode because Sean had seen the movie just a couple years earlier. ????

  • I feel like variable playback works great on audio, but once you switch to video, it has a gross effect, especially on a narrative film.

    Side note: I listen to a lot of my podcasts at 1.3-1.5x to get through them a little faster but I NEVER listen to Film Junk higher than 1x… Gotta savor it. Hell, sometimes you can go .5x and it turns into Film Drunk.

  • Kenneth Serenyi

    Aquaman was a notable Lighthouse movie ????

  • Sean

    Considered it but never did! Mostly because the movie was good enough to keep me entertained. If it came down to a time crunch, I might have done it.

  • Kenneth Serenyi

    I know – I’m just going to rib you on this every time the subject comes up ????

  • gibson8

    Totally agree. Frank was arguing against performance, pace, nuance and character which based on his taste is not surprising. He is devaluing all of film and television and sounds exactly like the mouth breathers he resents so much. Jay’s right the medium is dying and the Frank’s of this world are too arrogant and stupid to realise.

  • gibson8

    A pox on both your houses.

  • samlam

    frankie teardrop