Memento (2001)

Matt (00:00:00):

Oh, hello. Hello, listener. This is 1-Week Rental. This is The Summer of Nolan. I will know you’re anxious to get to Christopher Nolan and Memento, but I just wanted to take a second to ask you to do us the kindness, do us the favor of giving us a review on Apple Podcast. If you’re listening to this show on Apple Podcast right now just pull out your phone, find 1-Week Rental a movie podcast in the Apple Podcast app and scroll to the place where it says write a review and then write a review. Give us five stars, of course, but then type in a nice thing about us. Tell the world what you like about our podcast and I want to know what you like about our podcast. I like our podcast. Maybe you and I like the same things about our podcast. This is really, really, really helpful and apparently it’s very, very important for a podcast to grow is to have these Apple podcast reviews.

Matt (00:00:46):

Thank you so much. Here’s Christopher Nolan. Here’s a song we wrote about Christopher Nolan.

Matt (00:01:38):

This is the best- The

Laci (00:01:40):

Story

Matt (00:01:40):

Of the girl. This is the story of a girl who cried a river and drowned the- Whole

Laci (00:01:46):

World.

Matt (00:01:46):

Drowned the whole world. What an auspicious start to our Christopher Nolan miniseries. Welcome to 1-Week Rental. This is the best time of the year when we do a summer mini series. Two years ago, it was Steven Spielberg. Last year it was The Rock this year. It’s the summer of Nolan, baby.

Laci (00:02:01):

And we like to dive in and really get to know this man behind the work and just start just getting real parasocial about it and diagnosing him and everything. But you know what I think we’re actually discovering is ourselves.

Matt (00:02:15):

Yeah, I think so. I think we have that. That’s what we really … We’re trying to answer this question. Christopher Nolan, what’s up with him? What

Laci (00:02:22):

You doing?

Matt (00:02:23):

What’s his deal anyway? But in the end, we really just learn about ourselves that we are trapped in a dream or in space or on a beach. And what we do

Laci (00:02:30):

Is project. Also, I’m not wearing any underwear unrelated to this.

Matt (00:02:35):

I’m Matt Stokes.

Laci (00:02:36):

I’m Laci Roth.

Matt (00:02:37):

And this is when we grantle every week we spend seven days with a movie obsessing over that movie, researching it, learning all about it.

Laci (00:02:44):

See pictures of it, tattooing it to our bodies and different fonts for some reason.

Matt (00:02:47):

In case we forget. And sometimes we have to be like, “This doesn’t make any damn sense. Oh, I’m standing in front of a mirror. It spells Memento.” That was Christopher Nolan’s second movie.

Laci (00:02:56):

And then I’m standing there with awesome minty breath thinking, “I thought it said Mintos.”

Matt (00:03:03):

No, you got to read the fine print, by which I mean

Laci (00:03:06):

The letters. I’m dyslexic. I’m going back, forth, back, forth, back. It’s fucking me. I just want to know about the night that Lenny went to get the big fucking old English tattoo across. He really wanted to remember that point. I don’t even remember what it is.

Matt (00:03:22):

I figured he was very- It’s not that one. No, it’s not that one. I think he was upsold by the tattoo artist on that one. I think

Laci (00:03:26):

It was just a really enthusiastic person that didn’t understand why he was doing it. And he’s like, “No, no, this is the only body I have after … Oh, shit.”

Matt (00:03:33):

No, he bought extended warranty and stuff on that tattoo, like stuff that doesn’t exist. How do you know? He bought the Geek Club support for the tattoo. But yeah, about this podcast 1-Week Rental, we tell you all about the movie, but during the summer we do things a litle bit differently. And if this is your first time with us for the summer, it is our favorite time because we get to dig in on an individual and answer that question. What’s up with that guy? What’s

Laci (00:04:01):

Up with the guy?

Matt (00:04:02):

We sat out on Christopher Nolan and then I got worried that when we dug into Steven Spielberg, and then I think especially with the rock, these are deeply neurotic men and we like that. We like our neurotic fucked up men. We feel close. Fucked up in a good way. Yes. We coze up.

Laci (00:04:19):

Oh God, I think I know what you’re going to say.

Matt (00:04:21):

What?

Laci (00:04:22):

Is Nolan well adjusted?

Matt (00:04:24):

Yeah. So this is actually my concern the more I dug into him. Is this just like kind of a normal like- Well, then

Laci (00:04:30):

I’ve got these.

Matt (00:04:31):

He’s got to shit together. No, no, no. I think there’s so much to dig into beyond his movies. I mean, the whole point of this is we look at the movies and then try to weave a broader story about-

Laci (00:04:42):

Even if he doesn’t see it, we’ll see it.

Matt (00:04:45):

About what makes these people tick and what are they trying to say and what do they not understand about themselves that they’re nevertheless communicating to us? Maybe

Laci (00:04:53):

What’s up with Nolan is that he’s stupid.

Matt (00:04:56):

Why do you think he’s stupid? Because

Laci (00:04:57):

Maybe he thinks he’s making these think pieces, he’s really complicated, like, “Oh man, people are going to have to watch this more than once.” And he thinks that makes it smart, but that’s what a stupid person would think.

Matt (00:05:07):

That is one of the wrinkles that I think is interesting. Now, I don’t think he’s stupid, but I think he’s very smart and a very talented filmmaker. Damn it. There’s a fucking bug, a fucking bug on my pants. We did

Laci (00:05:18):

In the swamp.

Matt (00:05:19):

But as we watched Memento last night and Laci got mad at the movie.

Laci (00:05:24):

I did not.

Matt (00:05:25):

She said, “This movie’s for dumb people who think they’re smart.” And I think that’s …

Laci (00:05:33):

I didn’t see it in 2002. That would have made a difference. It fucking won an MTV award and shit. It was important. People liked it. It was unlike other things that had come before and it was like, “Oh shit, we got a new one.” I think even then we were searching for the autours even though we were swimming in them and didn’t appreciate what we had. I was like, “Oh, no one’s kind of different.” Yeah, but I would have been a teenager then and that’s exactly when I would have thought, “This is a smart ass movie.” What I got mad about is that I did all kinds of homework during the movie and the teacher didn’t even ask for it at the end of the fucking class. I’m like, “Why was I paying attention?”

Matt (00:06:11):

Because it’s a noir and that’s the point of noirs. It’s a

Laci (00:06:14):

Noir. Do you know how many times I’ve watched a neo noir only for someone to tell me that that’s what it is and I had no fucking idea. Shouldn’t I be aware that’s what I’m watching?

Matt (00:06:24):

You weren’t aware that it’s a noir? I mean, just, oh hey, they seem to be … Okay. I mean, noirs tend to have very, very convoluted plots and often are very difficult to follow because they’re about the experience of being caught up in a web that you can’t fully wrap your head around, but that can make them frustrating if that’s not what you’re into watching. If you want to watch something to get answers, this movie concludes by saying there’s no answers. And if you got an answer, it wouldn’t satisfy you. In fact, Lenny, you got your answer. You already did and it didn’t mean shit to you. And that unlocked something for me about Nolan, which is I think he makes movies, he’s so-

Laci (00:07:03):

Searching.

Matt (00:07:04):

He’s so dominant in film culture conversation as basically the only director people pay attention to anymore. Because he makes movies that seem like puzzles, people online gobble them up and try to solve puzzles. Yeah.

Laci (00:07:19):

He’s itching their conspiracy brain.

Matt (00:07:21):

But I think if you go back to our episode about the shining, we said Stanley Kubrick would be furious at the people who try to solve the shining.

Laci (00:07:29):

Nolan’s the opposite.

Matt (00:07:30):

No, I don’t think Nolan wants his movie. I think Nolan would say, “If you’re trying to solve the puzzle, you’re missing the point.”

Laci (00:07:36):

Right, because these are movies about searching and looking for the thing that will fill the need that you fill in your heart. And the point is you probably already found what you think you were looking for and it didn’t do anything.

Matt (00:07:48):

Yeah. There’s no new

Laci (00:07:49):

Version

Matt (00:07:50):

Of this. If you got what you say you want, it’s not going to mean anything to you. I didn’t remember the memento in that way. I’ve only seen it a few times, but I find the last two minutes to be the most interesting part of the movie by

Laci (00:08:02):

Far. Yeah. It’s a weird movie where after the second half, it gets good and where I thought the whole thing was just going to be this like, woo, yeah, fun. But it’s challenging. It goes backwards, but it also goes sideways and it also goes frontwards less far than it did the time before. And then it’s hard to grasp how long he’s actually holding onto memories. He was able to spend a night with a woman and not understand and not be confused why he was fucking somebody. So he was able to hold that in his head. But then sometimes when it fits the plot, it only takes 30 seconds for him to reset.

Matt (00:08:43):

I don’t know. It’s not

Laci (00:08:44):

Consistent.

Matt (00:08:45):

Is it? I don’t know. I feel like that’s the kind of thing he would be very consistent about, but maybe not. And maybe that’s just not the point. And it is also it’s a movie and movies are like movies play with time too. When you’re watching a movie, you’re not watching something that occupies real time and he’s obsessed with time and he’s obsessed with movies. Those are his two great subjects. I mean, you hear Christopher Nolan, what do you think?

Laci (00:09:12):

This movie will be a little challenging. I’ll have to pay attention, but that I’m in good hands, I guess.

Matt (00:09:20):

Why do you think they’re so popular though?

Laci (00:09:23):

It’s like he’s the smart blockbuster guy. It’s like if Fincher’s a little too avant-garde, I don’t know if that’s the right word. And then Spielberg’s a little too blockbuster wholesome and you just smoosh the two together and you’ve got smart wholesome or like you’ve got something for the whole family. I don’t know. I think his movies are thought of as fun or at least like they stick with you. They matter in the culture even if you’re not sure why. No one laughs at him. He’s not a joke where you’ve got your Tim Burtons who at first were so praised and then turn into kind of a joke. And I’d say Nolan’s just a safe director to admit you like and no one’s going to be like, “What? He’s found a way to make a bunch of mess that still appeals to a lot of people.

Laci (00:10:15):

“

Matt (00:10:16):

I guess I want to try to figure out what exactly though is he doing that other filmmakers are not that does translate to that broad audience. Why does his biopic of a physicist in the 40s make a billion dollars? And one thing that I’m thinking is more and more interesting about him is he seems like he feels a little guilt that he’s the only one who gets to do it, that he talks about the responsibility of getting to use all this wonderful technology and shoot on film and shoot entirely on IMX and all these expensive locations used in camera practical effects, make movies the way David Lean made movies in the 50s. But if you know you’re the only person who gets to do that, how does that make you feel? Don’t you feel like there’s not- I’m

Laci (00:11:05):

A Goppenheimer.

Matt (00:11:06):

I’m not that special. I’m good, but I

Laci (00:11:08):

Just kep getting lucky. But

Matt (00:11:10):

Wouldn’t it be nice if me making these successful movies meant lots of other filmmakers also got to make big movies this way?

Laci (00:11:17):

Does put a lot of pressure on him to make the most of it for everyone. That’s not fair.

Matt (00:11:21):

And it’s not trickling down in any way. It’s just he’s the only one who gets to do it.

Laci (00:11:25):

Okay. But so aren’t there ways? Shouldn’t he be taking people under his wing? Shouldn’t be mentoring more people? Shouldn’t there be executive producers or co-directors? There’s got to be a way. Maybe he’s not good at training, but if their name’s on a project and he knows his project’s too good, then that’s got to help them, right?

Matt (00:11:43):

I don’t think it does. And I don’t know of any- So

Laci (00:11:46):

You’re saying Nolan himself is IP?

Matt (00:11:48):

Yeah. Yeah.

Laci (00:11:50):

His name is Cash in the Bank. And I

Matt (00:11:51):

Don’t think he likes that.

Laci (00:11:53):

I don’t

Matt (00:11:53):

Think he’s torn up about it, but I think he does feel something about it. And I think that’s why he relates to Oppenheimer so much and why he is the heir to Spielberg because both of them had this early career movie, Jaws for Steven Spielberg in 1975.

Matt (00:12:07):

Batman begins for Nolan in 2005 that while these movies are good, they arguably change the movie industry for the worse. And I think Nolan feels a lot of guilt about that. And Spielberg, while not feeling guilt is kind of like, that’s funny. And then they both go on to make movies commenting on that. I think Jurassic Park is kind of a comment on Spielberg being like, “We didn’t know what we were doing. We never asked if we should do this. And then with Nolan, it’s Oppenheimer. Should I have made Batman Begins and started the era of Blockbuster Superhero movies?”

Laci (00:12:37):

Let me undo it by taking a historical movie and making that a Blockbuster. At least maybe we’ll be doing this more.

Matt (00:12:46):

Yeah.

Laci (00:12:47):

So I’ll look forward to the people who invented Penicillin movie coming out. I’m trying to think of other things I remember in my history textbooks.

Matt (00:12:55):

I

Laci (00:12:55):

Remember the bomb.

Matt (00:12:57):

And when I heard these making an Oppenheimer movie, I thought, well, that sounds boring before knowing that it’s kind of … He says, “This is a heist movie. It’s got the energy of a heist movie. You assemble the team to do a project.” And that’s one of the reasons that movie is so fun. God, there’s so much to fucking say. I’m overwhelmed, but the good thing about this is- We want to say all of its own. Yes. We have so much time and this episode is going to be about Memento, but we wanted to sort of give some big picture thoughts on Nolan up at the beginning. Before we get to the movie, subscribe. Everybody subscribe on YouTube, subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, leave reviews, all that stuff. Thank you so much. Do

Laci (00:13:33):

It before you don’t remember to do it.

Matt (00:13:34):

Exactly.

Laci (00:13:35):

Tattoo it to your leg.

Matt (00:13:36):

Take a Polaroid of your review and send it to us.

Laci (00:13:40):

And there’s no other way to find out if I ever put on Underwear. If you don’t look at all-

Matt (00:13:44):

No, I won’t tell you.

Laci (00:13:45):

It’s not up to you and you won’t know. Only my doctor’s going to know.

Matt (00:13:50):

That’s between a woman and her doctor. It’s a private decision.

Laci (00:13:53):

Could go to my OBGYN.

Matt (00:13:55):

And finally our theme song. We have a theme song and as always, we love our beautiful musical collaborators, TJ Barrons.

Laci (00:14:03):

They’re so beautiful.

Matt (00:14:04):

On the ones and twos and Wade Hemel, my band mate playing the drums and the tambourine and going. It’s such a good … Taking my insane ideas and making them good. And to Laci for singing as well.

Laci (00:14:20):

I’m the commentary on the song. I’m the talking.

Matt (00:14:25):

You’re the ad libber. You’re the sporty spice. I’m

Laci (00:14:27):

Getting crazy.

Matt (00:14:29):

I’ll be the hell. Oh, I

Laci (00:14:30):

Wish.

Matt (00:14:32):

So why don’t you talk about the history of memento? Let’s do it.

Laci (00:14:36):

It’s the only part of it I’ll remember.

Matt (00:15:06):

Christopher Nolan. Who is Christopher Nolan?

Laci (00:15:10):

He’s only 5’11”.

Matt (00:15:11):

That’s how tall I am.

Laci (00:15:13):

Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. Well, he’s born in 1970, Matt, so that makes him 55 years old right now.

Matt (00:15:21):

Yeah, he is.

Laci (00:15:21):

His wife, Emma Thompson, who is-

Matt (00:15:23):

Thomas.

Laci (00:15:24):

… not the girl from Harry Potter. That’s all I know because it’s all on the screen. You told me they’re a little duo.

Matt (00:15:30):

Yeah, they’re a little duo. They’re always together. She is his producer. She’s produced all of his movies. Any footage of him working on set, she’s usually there. They went to school together in London. In this photo of them from the late ’90s, does he not look like Leonardo DiCaprio?

Laci (00:15:46):

Does look like a smush, sad Leo DeCaprio.

Matt (00:15:49):

And in inception, Leonardo DiCaprio looks very much like Christopher Nolan. And on that movie, everybody … I didn’t make up this theory. Lots of people subscribe to it, that movie, everybody corresponds to the role on a movie said. DiCaprio’s the director, George Gordon Levitt’s the producer, et cetera, et cetera. But Christopher Nolan, born in 1970, grew up split between two worlds, England and America because his father was a British advertising executive. Literally had Don Draper’s job. He was a creative director. And then his mother was an American flight attendant and they split time between London and Chicago. Bet they

Laci (00:16:29):

Got a good deal in those flights.

Matt (00:16:30):

They must have. That must be why they were always doing

Laci (00:16:33):

It. Smoking. Smoking in the sky doesn’t sound fucking amazing.

Matt (00:16:38):

Oh, he’s the middle child. His older brother’s name is Matthew, a. K.a. Matt. And his younger brother is Jonathan AKA Jonah, who is his frequent collaborator. Jonah- Jonah.

Laci (00:16:48):

Not

Matt (00:16:48):

That. Right. Jonah grew up more in Chicago. So the weird thing about the Nolan brothers is Christopher sounds like this posh British gentleman and Jonah’s like, “Hello, please to meet you over here. Let’s go catch up game with the cabis.” Okay. But what about that other brother? What about Matt Nolan? Oh God. All right. Well, Matt Nolan was accused in the 2000s of a check-kiting scheme. Oh

Laci (00:17:11):

God, I know what the fuck you’re … Everything goes back to Leo. So he’s like, “Catch me if you can.

Matt (00:17:15):

“This is such a Frank Abignail scheme. So he would open a bank account in Costa Rica, write a check from that account, deposit it in a bank in Chicago, then withdraw the money from the account because there’s always the time before the money actually clears. The bank will let you take out a certain amount of money and then the check bounces and he runs away. And ultimately he got about $600,000 via this.

Laci (00:17:39):

Wow.

Matt (00:17:40):

This is from a 2010 article in the Sunday Times. Matthew Nolan is believed to have stolen at least $600,000. He would name drop his brother, Christopher Nolan. My brother, Chris, is shooting a movie in town. I believe it’s called The Dark Night. Maybe I can get you some tickets to the premiere. Now he was arrested in Chicago and held awaiting extradition to Costa Rica because he was accused of having tortured and murdered a man there. This from the Sunday Times. “Nolan has been in federal jail in Chicago awaiting extradition to Costa Rica since February this year. In March, he was discovered planning his escape from the Metropolitan Correctional Center. A prison notoriously difficult to escape from. According to the authorities, a search of Nolan’s cell discovered 31 feet of improvised rope, which had been braided together from betting a makeshift harness and a metal clip of a pin cap, which Nolan manipulated to make a handcuff key.

Matt (00:18:35):

He also had a razor blade hidden in a bar of soap. Local newspapers called today Batman-like escape attempt.

Laci (00:18:41):

“Like Bane. But by the time you’ve gotten all that together, just let him go. That’s not cool. He

Matt (00:18:46):

Tried really hard. He wants it really badly.

Laci (00:18:48):

He did a bunch of things.

Matt (00:18:50):

Now eventually a Chicago judge determines there’s insufficient evidence of the murder in Costa Rica to grant the extradition, but he is still charged with 14 months in prison for the escape attempt.

Laci (00:19:01):

Wait, wait. Okay. So a murder and a what? A torture?

Matt (00:19:04):

Torture. That he tortured this guy before murdering him.

Laci (00:19:07):

Got it. I understand the order of events, but just making sure it was that word.

Matt (00:19:12):

Jesus. Now one more thing about this. After this, Matt Nolan’s … Matt Nolan’s whereabouts right now, currently unknown. His younger two brothers. Do not talk about him. But one final thing, an alias that Matt Nolan would use during his criminal operations- Matt

Laci (00:19:29):

Stokes.

Matt (00:19:30):

His alias was Oppenheimer.

Laci (00:19:32):

Oh, before he made the movie or?

Matt (00:19:35):

Yeah, this is like 20 years ago. Presumably if you grow up with this guy as your brother, he’s always up to some stuff, you got to figure. Always running some game. He’s doing

Laci (00:19:44):

Some things. He’s so smart. He could be doing anything else. He’s eventually going to blow up the world. He’s Oppenheimer.

Matt (00:19:50):

You always know these guys who always have an angle on something. They’re always cooking up some scheme to get rich. The

Laci (00:19:57):

Thing about those guys though is that they’re very smart. You know when you’ve run into the dumb kind of those.

Matt (00:20:04):

Yeah. But we watched Nolan’s first movie following this week and he made that in his 20s and they’re about con artists and sort of low level street thugs running cons and games and stuff. And Nolan always makes movies about cons and heists and grifts and fem fatals.

Laci (00:20:29):

His movies are trying to understand that person, trying

Matt (00:20:31):

To understand his

Laci (00:20:32):

Brother.

Matt (00:20:33):

O can only conclude that this is an enormous part of Christopher Nolan’s story that he just does not talk about.

Laci (00:20:40):

Yeah. I could see him using his art to work that out. I thought for sure his wife was dead. And then you said that bitch is always around. So I was like, ” Well then what

Matt (00:20:46):

Is it? “Because he’s always making movies about a man whose wife is dead or a man who fears his wife is going to die.

Laci (00:20:51):

Okay. But specifically the two movies I’m thinking about are of this perfect angelic wife and these weird fuzzy memories of her being perfect. So that could also just be I have this feeling and thought that I used to have Make America Great Again. There was a time in my life where things were perfect, like that nostalgia, that false memory of like, no, people were prancing in the fields or whatever the fuck it is that’s perfect about Days of Your, but that they had a great childhood and he was such a good brother and he was just so fun, but maybe he was always a little bit broken. So he’s like, ” What happened? “But the point is you’re just not remembering anything the right way. You’re idolizing the past before you knew he did anything wrong. Before you had to think about your brother this way, that’s the part that’s perfect, not him.

Matt (00:21:50):

Or you got this guy who’s just like, you feel like is always poisoning things in your family. Why can’t you be the well behaved, well-dressed brother like me, Chris, and my younger Chicago brother Jonah. We’ve

Laci (00:22:00):

Got John Ham and we’ve got a fucking flight attendant and now this.

Matt (00:22:04):

But you said while we watched the movie Memento together, this whole dead wife thing, did Christopher Nolan lose his wife? And I say,” No, his wife is his best friend. They’ve been married for 30 years. She’s a producer. She’s always with him. “And you said,” Oh, okay. So she’s so terrified of losing her.

Laci (00:22:23):

“She is so terrible.

Matt (00:22:24):

He is so terrified of losing her.

Laci (00:22:26):

Then he makes movies

Matt (00:22:26):

About it. She is the tether to reality because he’s somebody who is trying in both following Anne Memento, trying to understand human nature by sort of breaking it into its component parts. What constitutes someone’s identity? In following, it’s a collection of stuff you put in your shoebox. In Memento, it’s like, if I can’t make new memories, then what even makes a person a person?

Laci (00:22:49):

Well, it could be one of the situations where he realized when she’s around, I’m more palatable to everyone and it just makes my life easier. So I mean the idea that he’s always there, I think she’s always there, that almost seems like a crutch. And so it’s like this fear of she’s what makes me cool and people get me and she softens me or whatever it is that there are so many relationships like this. Yeah,

Matt (00:23:17):

Yours and mine.

Laci (00:23:18):

I constantly find myself in them where I’m like vouching for the person who’s not as socially adept as I am. And I don’t mean to be this for that person, but I love that role and it’s like, well, if I’m going to keep wanting to make movies, you can’t die. Do not die all these movies about you. Don’t die.

Matt (00:23:38):

You make me less annoying to people and I play the role where the guy then comes up to me later and says, she’s a lot of fun, isn’t she?

Laci (00:23:45):

You make me less annoying to people too because I seem like this wild lady who couldn’t possibly be domesticated and it’s like they don’t really know hey. Yeah, you’re

Matt (00:23:54):

Boring and

Laci (00:23:55):

Quiet.

Matt (00:23:57):

You’re not quiet. I’m quiet. You’re boring. No,

Laci (00:23:59):

The boring part was the part I didn’t like. Nevermind.

Matt (00:24:01):

No, you’re not quiet. You’re boring

Laci (00:24:02):

And loud. How?

Matt (00:24:04):

You’re boring and loud.

Laci (00:24:05):

Oh, that sucks.

Matt (00:24:07):

No, I know. We’re both boring. We’re both boring and don’t do anything. We’re just regular people.

Laci (00:24:11):

I mean, no one’s constantly on and if they are, guess what? They’re annoying.

Matt (00:24:16):

So here’s the other thing that connects him to Spielberg is he didn’t go to film school like Spielberg didn’t go to film school, but they both have this hugely romantic idea of the movies, the magic of the, oh, the Grand Palace where you go watch the movie and you’re engulfed by the picture.

Laci (00:24:31):

Wouldn’t also put Tarantino in this because his goes beyond. His is like all things people make, even commercials, even-

Matt (00:24:39):

Yeah, he’s taken in all the garbage too and the TV. Whereas I think Spielberg and Nolan are like, “You got to go to the theater, to the cinema and be engulfed in it. ” That’s where the magic is.

Laci (00:24:49):

Wouldn’t Grindhouse be evidence that he also cares about the platform? I know he was doing that to help a friend, but I don’t know. I just feel like Tarantino gets left out all the time. There’s this boys club and how many years apart are Spielberg and this dude? He’s closer to Tarantino’s age than he

Matt (00:25:07):

Is Spielberg.

Laci (00:25:08):

And

Matt (00:25:08):

He

Laci (00:25:08):

Looks like him.

Matt (00:25:09):

Yeah. And when I first came to awareness of Nolan, I very much grouped him in with Tarantino because it’s weird to think of it now, but until Batman begins, he was like a … Yeah, he’s one of these Sundance guys. He makes these cool little movies like Reservoir Dogs or Memento or Donny Darko or something. Those were the kinds of movies he made. And then Batman happened and he became a huge movies. Do you know if

Laci (00:25:33):

Tarantino went to film schools? I didn’t know if he did. I was just like, “Let him be in the club, please.”

Matt (00:25:40):

I was just linking the two because of the specific thing where going to the movies is like church and Tarantino was more like going to the video store and watching the television is also my church.

Laci (00:25:51):

Okay. Agree. The wholeheartedly agree, Tarantino.

Matt (00:25:54):

So they didn’t go to film school, but they taught themselves how to make movies by making movies. They made movies as kids. They made movies in college. He and his wife, Emma Thomas, went to the same college, university college, London and ran the film society there. Again, they weren’t film students. He was studying English, but he runs the film society. From the hobby club. Yeah. Yeah. But they screen movies at their film society, make money that way, and then use that money to fund their own amateur movies. So one member of the film society, his name was Matthew Tempest, and he wrote in The Guardian in 2011 about his memories of his old friend. “It was pretty obvious to anyone at the University College London Film Society in the early ’90s, which comprised about half a dozen of us in a windowless, airless basement that Chris Nolan was going places.

Matt (00:26:40):

I thought his career might even go all the way and he might shoot a few adverts before eventually if he got lucky directing episodes of The Bill and Coronation Street. That was simply how the UK film industry was back then. The only career path was to warm away into directing for telly or commercials. It had been generations since John Schlesinger, Ridley and Tony Scott, Adrian Lyon and Alan Parker had managed to make the leap from London and Tally to Hollywood.

Laci (00:27:04):

Well, you see our boy Nolan’s been making that puddle jump his whole life.

Matt (00:27:08):

Yeah, no big deal for him whatsoever.

Laci (00:27:10):

He’s got airline miles.

Matt (00:27:13):

This sort of dead zone where there is no pipeline from the British film industry into Hollywood, whereas in an earlier generation there was, and that’s where you get your Ridley Scotts and your Adrian lines.

Laci (00:27:24):

Is there a pipeline from any other country to Hollywood or is it specifically just that their pipeline is?

Matt (00:27:30):

I don’t know how any of it works anymore. Probably, yes, because so many productions are based in Australia and New Zealand. So you

Laci (00:27:37):

End up making connections because you’re there on location.

Matt (00:27:41):

Chris, however, was different. Not only in appearance, a permanent open collared shirt and Linnen’s suit as an undergraduate, even as the rest of us took pride in our early 90s Indie grunge student status, but is in his ambition and focus. Now the author of that column also points out that Nolan also stood out because the rest of the film society were into all the artsy European art house movies. Nolan liked Blade Runner. He liked big Hollywood movies. He was a populist. And that’s the other thing is people

Matt (00:28:12):

Will say,” Oh, Nolan so pretentious. “He makes smart movies, but I don’t think he thinks of himself that way at all. He thinks of himself as a Steven Spielberg or a David Lean. I make big movies for everyone for the populace at large and that’s the main thing I want to do is I want to entertain you. So he works in the British film industry in the ’90s in corporate films, industrial films, works his way through this while shooting his own short films on the weekend and works his way up to financing and producing and directing his first feature film following.

Laci (00:28:51):

Now with Spielberg, there’s all these delightful tales from his family and sisters of him literally since his earliest ability to work a camera making these movies and the neighborhood kids watching them and starring in them and all that. I mean, with Nolan having two brothers, are they very far apart or do we know yet if he was making these movies at a young age or it was appreciation, appreciation, college, then movies? He

Matt (00:29:17):

Made movies as a kid. I didn’t find any cute stories like with Spielberg, but I’m not saying they’re not out there. I just haven’t found them. But his younger brother also wanted to be a filmmaker and has become one.

Laci (00:29:30):

Who does his brother play in the … So his first movie is called Following and I see it says,” And John Nolan. “That’s his brother?

Matt (00:29:35):

That’s his uncle.

Laci (00:29:37):

His

Matt (00:29:37):

Uncle. He plays the cop. His uncle was a working actor in London. So following his first feature film, he pays for it himself, shoots it on the weekends over a long period of time. It’s just we get some free time. So on the weekends we go make a movie, shoot it in black and white because we can’t afford lights so we have to use natural lighting. That means, okay, if we do it in black and white, people won’t notice that Like the lighting doesn’t match the colors or whatever, just how can we make this as cheaply as possible shooting people’s in the apartments that belong to our family and friends? And they make this movie, which you watched this week for the first time. I had only seen it once before, but-

Laci (00:30:15):

I didn’t finish the last 20 minutes and I’m going to because it is captivating from the very start. It’s so good. And once I knew it was his very first, I wasn’t expecting a ton. I thought he’d throw every trick that he had, but I feel like it was very measured, very, I don’t know, pulled … It was very professional. And that’s so interesting to hear. I feel like that is a through line with all great directors is that in the beginning they are really, really good at knowing how to use their resources and what they have access to and then create their idea around it. It’s kind of like the way that I’m in awe, how you start with the music for your song, like literally the instruments and then you think of the lyrics where my brain is the opposite. I much more think I could be a director who writes a movie than I could be a songwriter who writes the music of a song.

Matt (00:31:15):

I can’t imagine being a director, but it is funny that whenever I think of directors, that’s the part I never think about of just filmmaking is like all of this man, you’ll hear people say like, “What is all about is spreadsheets and ledgers and stuff.” And that’s actually how you make movies is you make your list of resources and when can you use them and how.

Laci (00:31:35):

Yes. Well, and ever since being on this podcast and actually getting to know people who make movies, not a lot of them, but just a little bit enough to realize the people’s first and second and third projects that don’t quite get there are the way overly … They had the idea before they had the means. And when you’re having to pretend too much about what it is you’re looking at, it just takes you out of it. These guys are just walking around a city that they can walk around anytime they want. It’s a great sense of place. He’s literally following so it makes sense that the camera’s just following some guy. It’s captivating. We feel like we’re doing something we’re not supposed to do. And so even just the story and the characteristics of the characters make everything that you can do for free so much more compelling.

Matt (00:32:28):

And so modest in its ambitions but so professional and so precise and so much. He’s already structuring his movies and the way his movies will always be structured in some ways that I find annoying. I think it is frustrating that he insists always on jumping around through time and keeping you parceling out the information at a deliberate pace.

Laci (00:32:51):

Interstellar is just like a big fucking fuck you. It’s like, “Oh, you don’t like jumping through time. Jump through decades, bitch.”

Matt (00:32:57):

Yeah. And what I always forget about this early part of his career is how much he is emphasizing noir in his movies. Do you think it was just cost? And I think he’s interested in it. He’s obsessed with Ridley Scott’s movies. He’s obsessed with Tony Scott. They both did a lot of noir. He’s obsessed with The Big Sleep and the Maltese Falcon. And he was also very influenced when he made Memento by The Matrix, which I just watched this week. I mean, I’ve seen it a billion times, but I watched it this week and I always forget that the Matrix is a noir, especially for the first 45 minutes. So much of the Matrix when they’re in the real world is it’s rainy. Before

Laci (00:33:33):

You understand the … Yeah.

Matt (00:33:35):

It’s dark streets. It’s like mysterious people in-

Laci (00:33:38):

That’s why he was drawn to Batman. It’s noir, but it makes sense why you’d be attracted to the material to begin with. And that that is the super hero story that is literally dark. You could see the darkness in the character in a way that you don’t see with … I mean, pick any other one, Superman, Spider-Man are the ones that come to mind.

Matt (00:33:58):

So following, it costs $6,000 to produce and they finish it. Again, it’s like they’re shooting it over the course of a year or so, just a few hours at a time on the weekend rather than-

Laci (00:34:09):

Even the practical nature of that is

Matt (00:34:11):

That’s

Laci (00:34:12):

Just good movie making. Right.

Matt (00:34:13):

Because most people, if they make their low budget first movie, they go away for a week or whatever and just do it all then.

Laci (00:34:19):

But you’re rushing. And yes, going back to a project I’ve learned over my adult years, that always makes it better if I take a break. And even if it’s a forced break. I didn’t do it for cognitive reasons, but then I come back and I just see it different.

Matt (00:34:34):

Yeah. So 1998, this movie makes the film festival rounds and this is like the golden age of independent film festival of the independent film festival scene and it gets a lot of praise, makes a hefty return at the box office. It makes $120,000 at the box office.

Laci (00:34:50):

So he did get a theater release?

Matt (00:34:52):

He did, yes.

Laci (00:34:53):

I mean, so what if you do well at festivals, you’ll get like a limited release of

Matt (00:34:58):

Theaters? So he did find a distributor. I didn’t write who the distributor was, but- But this

Laci (00:35:02):

Is like an England only?

Matt (00:35:04):

No, no, no. No, it screened here too. So this led to his opportunity to make a bigger movie on a bigger budget. And again, this is the golden age of, or maybe right after the golden age of Sundance and Miramax and all of that. But Memento, this is the movie we’re actually here to talk about. So the story that Christopher Nolan tells is that he and his brother Jonah were on a cross country drive from Chicago to Los Angeles and to fill the time, Jonah started telling him this idea he had for a short story. I’m reading now from this book, Christopher Nolan, the iconic filmmaker and his works by Ian Nathan. “Inspired by a psychology class on anterograde memory loss and eventually published in Esquire as Memento Mori, it opens with a striking image. A man wakes up in a motel room looking into a mirror, he sees his entire body is covered with tattoos.

Matt (00:35:52):

Rather than designs, they are sentences, notes to self. One of them reads,” John G raped and killed your wife. Jonah knew his brother to be a sharp critic who’d be quick to sniff out the flaw in a story, the cog that didn’t fit, but Christopher didn’t raise a single objection. There was only more silence before he finally spoke. That’s a terrific idea for a movie.

Matt (00:36:13):

“Now, they then go their separate ways with this. They will collaborate in the future, but Christopher’s like, ” I have an idea for how that could turn into a movie. “And he writes a screenplay sort of based on the conversation they have right there before Jonah had really come up with how he wanted to tell the story himself. He goes and writes it as a short story that gets published.

Laci (00:36:33):

That makes sense too because it kind of works in this idea of a road trip. The movie does feel like he’s always on the road. Yeah, that’s true. And these hotels are so anonymous that even he doesn’t know which one he’s at because they all look the same. And there’s two hotels in this movie, but like-

Matt (00:36:50):

And I cannot track it.

Laci (00:36:52):

Most people probably think there’s one.

Matt (00:36:54):

Yeah. I always assumed there was just one and they’re just calling it two different things or I didn’t even notice. But it’s a thing of like if somebody tells you about a movie that they’ve seen and it sounds cool to you and then you see the movie and then you think, ” I liked the version that lived in my head before I saw it. “I kind of think of this like this. He really enjoyed his brother telling him that story and things. I’d like to turn what you just said into a movie because as my understanding is the published short story that Jonah writes doesn’t have any of the backwards stuff. That’s Nolan’s idea of like how this is how we’ll approach it.

Laci (00:37:29):

Have you tried to think of the movie of how it would be if you went forward?

Matt (00:37:32):

There is a version of that on the blue, and if I get a chance, I’m going to watch it.

Laci (00:37:38):

I’m having a hard time even because it goes backwards, then forwards, backward, and then Tenant really plays with this idea, but you can’t actually just go backwards. You have to then go forward from the back. So that’s the problem. It’s the stop, start, restart, stop, start. That’s why I can’t put it all together. It starts to make you feel

Matt (00:37:56):

Makes you feel insane.

Laci (00:37:57):

Yeah. But that’s why it goes sad and dark and you just feel bad for him where I feel like the movie opens and you’re like, ” Oh, he’s a badass who even with this has figured shit out.

Matt (00:38:09):

” Yeah. And I think one of his ideas, one of the reasons he thinks it’ll make a great movie is if you tell the story in a certain way, your entire perspective on who this guy is and whether he’s cool or whether he’s like this cool badass Quentin Tarantino hero is going to be entirely inverted the more you understand about him.

Laci (00:38:29):

And you know there’s something up with the car because the actor playing Teddy cannot stop mentioning the car as if it didn’t come with the package. Oh, easy for you to say, you’re the one in the Jaguar or whatever. But he mentions it way too many times and I’m like, ” Okay, that’s why. “Because it wasn’t his. It’s new in their little game that they’re playing. It could have just as easily ended up with Teddy, but it somehow ended up with Lenny and he hates that. And also why does Teddy wake … Oh sorry. I was like, how does Lenny know where his car is? So if he didn’t get this fucking memory thing before, beep beep beep beep were a thing on your car, he would just never know where his car is wandering around forever. Or know that he has one.

Matt (00:39:15):

Forget what he’s looking for.

Laci (00:39:17):

It’s literally that on the car that allows him to use it.

Matt (00:39:22):

He’s very lucky he was born when he was. When I think of Memento, I think once Nolan made Tenet, it’s like, of course he’s always been into the, we’ll go simultaneously forwards and backwards because Memento is a movie that goes backwards and also goes forwards at the same time. What I had forgotten about is the scenes with Steven Tobilowski are shot in black and white and that’s also what he does in Oppenheimer is he has two temporalities. He has the color sequences and then the black and white sequences, which are from someone’s different perspective. And then eventually they combine and you’ll see scenes that you originally saw in black and white in color and vice versa.

Laci (00:40:00):

It’s in following as well. He just doesn’t do it with color. He does it with the length of the guy’s hair, short hair, long haircut.

Matt (00:40:06):

Yeah. I will not be telling a story from beginning to end because that’s not the point. Stories aren’t to tell you what happened. Joe Panteliano- What

Laci (00:40:17):

Are

Matt (00:40:17):

They? Who plays-

Laci (00:40:19):

If they’re not to tell you what happened, what are they? To talk?

Matt (00:40:23):

They’re to tell you how it happened. They’re to give you an experience. Joe Pantaleo.

Laci (00:40:29):

So wasting my time.

Matt (00:40:30):

Joe Panteliano who plays Teddy, he said to Entertainment Weekly in 2001, he said, quote, “You could reedit it to go forward. It’s extremely linear, but backwards it becomes a why done it, not a who done it. ” So I really love that.

Laci (00:40:42):

He had so much energy to this movie, the Teddy character. Love him. He’s so different from Lenny. Anyway, he always pops that actor.

Matt (00:40:54):

Christopher Nolan said in 2001, in a 2001 interview, he said, “I went off to write the screenplay and my solution to telling the story subjectively was to deny the audience the same information that the protagonist is denied. And my approach to doing that was to effectively tell the story backwards. That way when we meet a character, we don’t know just like the protagonist how he’s met that person, whether he’s even met that person before or whether or not they should be trusted, that kind of thing.” So it’s not just a gimmick. I didn’t watch this movie when I was in high school because all the cool kids liked it, so I was very resistant to that. And I heard, oh, it’s a movie that goes backwards. And I thought that’s a lame gimmick. And no, it’s an essential part of the movie and it’s a thematic necessity for the story you’re watching.

Laci (00:41:40):

Oh yeah, sorry. You go on such a rollercoaster with the two people you get to know, including the fucking clerk at the hotel. I’m like, he’s up to some shit too. I mean, anyone that interacts with him can’t seem to help but fuck with him a little bit. It’s not fuck with them. It’s exploit him. They all seem to see some usefulness in him.

Matt (00:42:01):

Yeah. It raises your awareness that one of the load bearing beams of just being a human is people are going to remember things. Now we have a person in our life who’s not good at remembering stuff and when I- I’m

Laci (00:42:16):

Right

Matt (00:42:17):

Here. It’s not you. When I tell this, I get uncomfortable telling this person things because I know that they’re getting auto deleted as I tell this person those things.

Laci (00:42:25):

But doesn’t the version of the person that you’re seeing right then deserve to know?

Matt (00:42:29):

Yeah, I know, but it’s always like it’s stupid. I feel embarrassed in front of myself. Why am I even bothering telling you anything? Because

Laci (00:42:37):

You’re enriching their life in that moment.

Matt (00:42:39):

I know. And

Laci (00:42:40):

You’re engaging in conversation with that person and they enjoy that.

Matt (00:42:42):

Yeah, I know. I know. So Nolan writes the script. His wife then sells it to New Market Films, which is an independent studio. They get a four and a half million dollar budget, but this is just a deal for production, no distribution. They’re going to have to go find a distributor at film festivals. Nolan is extremely influenced by Noir and he’s extremely influenced by two popular movies that had just come out, LA Confidential and The Matrix. And indeed, those two movies are where he gets his three main actors in this movie.

Laci (00:43:11):

Was that Guy Pearsonelli confidential?

Matt (00:43:13):

Yes. But their target for the lead for Lenny is the most obvious person of all time.

Laci (00:43:18):

And I would have eaten that shit up.

Matt (00:43:20):

Yeah, of course. Brad

Laci (00:43:21):

Pitt. Was he just about to be in Fight Club?

Matt (00:43:26):

He would have already been at Flight Club. He passed. They decided we’re going to go with lesser names. And so they end up with-

Laci (00:43:31):

He’s too stupid. I don’t want to do that. I don’t get that.

Matt (00:43:35):

They end up with Guy Pearce who had done LA Confidential two years earlier, was this big up and coming name. When you look back now, you realize this is a guy who was positioned to be a big movie star and it just never really happened. And instead he’s been a very interesting character actor, but one of those interesting character actors who has the movie star good looks and that’s kind of what makes them interesting.

Laci (00:43:55):

Only he could have been an avatar and he could have had that arc to that man.

Matt (00:43:59):

Too bad.

Laci (00:44:00):

It was supposed to be a thing and he only ever ended up was being the guy an avatar.

Matt (00:44:03):

I’ve changed. I don’t-

Laci (00:44:05):

No, you didn’t change your mind. You still feel that way. He never happened.

Matt (00:44:08):

No, he never happened of Sam Worthington. No, I now think he was cast because he’s kind of anonymous. I don’t think he was ever intended to be a movie star because that character’s supposed to be anonymous. That character’s supposed to be a replaceable cog. Indeed, Jake Sully is someone’s twin brother. That’s why he gets the role he gets.

Laci (00:44:25):

I remember. All

Matt (00:44:26):

Right. Guy Pearce told Empire Magazine in 2020, “I got to meet Chris. Then I saw following. Then I called him and I said, Look, I’m really embarrassed to be doing this, but I hear people tend to respond to this sort of thing so I’m just going to do it. I’m calling to tell you that I really love this and I’d really love to do it. If my enthusiasm plays any part in you making a decision about who you cast, then I’m just letting you know that I’m really keen. I was so in love with the script and so in love with the idea of doing it that I just felt I needed to express something. It’s the only time I’ve ever done that. And Chris, in his typical non-committal fashion, wasn’t going to gush at my attempt at flattery. He just went, “Oh, right. Okay.

Matt (00:44:59):

Well, good to know. Thank you. “

Laci (00:45:02):

Ouch. Ouch.

Matt (00:45:03):

Guy Pearce was 32 years old at the time, an Australian- He turned into a

Laci (00:45:06):

Five-year-old baby after that happened.

Matt (00:45:09):

Nolan was a big fan of LA Confidential and Guy Pearce got the part. So in that same interview, Guy goes on to say, talking about why he loves Nolan, “Not just because of how clever he was and how honest and humble he was, but how communicative he was about what he wanted to achieve and how he was going to achieve it through the technical channels, how he wanted to shoot it, but also equally adept at analyzing and breaking down the emotions of the characters, the moments with his scenes, why he wanted to push in on a closeup at this moment, because he felt that that would actually trigger something that somebody saw on a scene five scenes ago. I was completely intimidated, completely inspired, completely enamored. I will take this to my grave. I feel so proud and pleased that I got to have that experience because that doesn’t come along very often.” Not for

Laci (00:45:53):

You. Sorry.

Matt (00:45:56):

He was great in the brutalist, got the Oscar nomination for that. He was so good in that.

Laci (00:46:01):

I haven’t seen it. I’ve

Matt (00:46:03):

Worked with-

Laci (00:46:03):

Is that about the kind of art, brutalism?

Matt (00:46:06):

It’s an architecture movie. I’ve worked with great people, Ridley Scott, Catherine Bigelow, Curtis Hanson, and they’re all fantastic, wonderful people, but Chris is unique, a very special human being. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Everyone gushes about Christopher Nolan, the greatest person you’ve ever met. It interacts beautifully with everybody on the set, so smart

Laci (00:46:26):

And- Just how generous, and maybe this is what his wife does for him, but to be so open about … I mean, you and I have worked with people who have something in their head and they’re almost withholding it to fuck with you, where it’s like if they just shared their vision more fully or walked you through what they were thinking, then you both could just get to the right thing faster. And for him to just not think anything’s obvious, not think any questions are stupid, not think anyone should have an innate ability to do anything, no assumptions. It’s just, “Here’s the moment I fully see this. I think you should do … ” That’s so nice to just be spoonfed in a way like, “Here’s how you’re going to get an Oscar nomination or whatever.” Yeah. He sounds very patient and open and not hard to ask a question.

Matt (00:47:17):

Maybe that knowing everything ahead of time is what turns people off and why they find him so clinical. For example, people point out all the dreams and inceptions seem very much like not dream … Everything’s at these right angles and stuff. There’s no dream feeling to it. It doesn’t feel like eerie dreams. Maybe that is a result of him just being calculated, figuring these things out ahead of time. It’s not that that works for him, but maybe you lose some sort of improvisational magic that can come out in movies if somebody doesn’t totally know what they’re going to do ahead of time. I don’t think it’s always good to know every step of the story you want to tell ahead of

Laci (00:48:00):

Time. Well, and to keep your actors in your box and not see what they could have come up with on their own. Sure. You were asking the question, why does he get this right? Why does it work out for him so often? I don’t know who does this for him, but I think he’s very candy at casting. I think he has a good eye for who’s about to pop or a big enough name but not too much exposure or something. I don’t know. The idea to pick Christian Male for Batman, it was so interesting to me and it’s the only thing that made me want to watch it.

Matt (00:48:35):

Gets good people at the exact right time, which you just said.

Laci (00:48:39):

That’s

Matt (00:48:39):

What I’m saying. Yeah. Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar, at the height of his goodwill, everybody in that toward him. “Ooh, I’d love to see Matthew McConaughey in a space movie. Yeah. And Killian Murphy, who he’d worked with a bunch of times, was not a big movie star, but he says,” You’ve always been supporting characters in my movies. You’re going to be the lead in Oppenheimer. “And he talked about being very intimidated by that, had never carried something like that on his shoulders, but Christopher Nolan knew he could handle it.

Laci (00:49:10):

I want to say Skinny Lister. I know that’s a band. Isn’t he in the network? He’s in a show everyone likes, right? Pinky Blinders. That’s Skinny Lister. That’s the same fucking thing.

Matt (00:49:21):

Okay. So The Matrix is the other big inspiration. That’s how he finds Carrie Ann Moss like her in that movie, so let’s cast her. And then she recommends Joe Panteliano, who is her co-star in The Matrix for the role of Teddy. And Laci guessed that and I gave her one star. I only had one to give. I’d give her two if I had two. So Memento was very well received on the film festival circuit, ended up at Sundance in 2001, but nobody bought it. Joe Panteliano said in 2001 … To

Laci (00:49:51):

Distribute

Matt (00:49:52):

It. If you don’t know this, the actual point of a film festival is we screen films for potential buyers. These are movies that don’t have distributors yet. So come and watch them and we’ll have an auction. Who wants memento? Oh,$a.

Laci (00:50:06):

Okay. Okay.

Matt (00:50:07):

Joe Penteliano told Entertainment Weekly in 2001, “At the Independent Spirit Awards, I ran into Bill Block from Martisan and he said,” Oh my God, memento, you were wonderful. “And I said,” Thank you. You going to buy it? “He says,” No. “Then I saw Russell Schwartz of USA films. Russell said,” Joey Pants. Memento. Brilliant, baby. Thanks, Russell. You going to buy it? No. No. Next night, Harvey Weinstein. Joey Pants, Memento. You’re fucking great. Thanks, Hav. You’re going to buy it? No.

Laci (00:50:33):

Dodged a bullet.

Matt (00:50:35):

Air

Laci (00:50:35):

Max would have been good.

Matt (00:50:36):

That was the big one. Harvey passed on this. This is their bread and butter movies like this.

Laci (00:50:41):

But artisan also seemed like they do edgy weird movies.

Matt (00:50:46):

You mean artisan?

Laci (00:50:47):

Artisan,

Matt (00:50:47):

Artesian. Yeah. Although Miramax had kind of at this point transitioned into making their own movies that were very boring and had lots of costumes and won lots of Oscars.

Laci (00:50:57):

Had lots of costumes.

Matt (00:50:58):

Yeah. Lots of little people dress up as Shakespeare and Chocolates and stuff.

Laci (00:51:03):

Okay. Okay.

Matt (00:51:04):

Versus the early 90s when they were finding cool independent movies and distributing them. The festival ends without treatment. Everyone

Laci (00:51:12):

Dresses up in a movie. They have to wear clothes.

Matt (00:51:14):

That’s a good point, Laci. They do wear costumes in movies. Every movie arguably has costumes. I think

Laci (00:51:18):

So.

Matt (00:51:19):

So New Market did the very financially risky move of distributing the movie itself. I guess if you don’t know what this means, the company that paid to produce the movie is theoretically going to be a much smaller company than one of these big movie studios. So if it wants to distribute the movie itself, distribute means print it, send it to the movie theaters and advertise it, which is just as expensive as producing the movie itself, that they’re going to have to come up with the money themselves. That’s very risky, that’s very difficult to do, but it paid off big. Movie made $40 million at the box office and was a huge hit on DVD. And when you put the DVD in your DVD player, it made you solve a damn buzzle to watch the movie.

Laci (00:52:05):

Are you human? Yes.

Matt (00:52:07):

It was just fucking go backwards and forwards. DVs were doing this at the time. I

Laci (00:52:12):

Actually remember that. I remember that kind of gimmick.

Matt (00:52:14):

Yeah. No, people are going to love this. They’re not going to be mad at all that they can’t just start watching the movie that you have to play a fun little game.

Laci (00:52:21):

Go to track 99 if you want to hear the impressive this

Matt (00:52:23):

Album. Oh, I love going to track 99 on Follow the League. Yeah.

Laci (00:52:29):

Yeah.

Matt (00:52:30):

And it was just a fucking law in the late ’90s that your hidden track is 35 minutes after in the same track as the last track of the album. That was great. Just got to

Laci (00:52:40):

Let it

Matt (00:52:40):

Play. To just hold down on your CD player. Folks, the 90s. We got to go back though. It was the Golden Age Man.

Laci (00:52:45):

We were using the tools we had.

Matt (00:52:47):

That’s memento. We’re going to be talking about Christopher Nolan all summer long, and we look forward to doing it with all of you. If you’re watching on YouTube, please look in the description.

Laci (00:52:55):

Nola.

Matt (00:52:56):

We’re in New Orleans, Louisiana. Nola. And we’re going to keep this- We’re near it.

Laci (00:53:02):

Nolan near Nola.

Matt (00:53:04):

That should have been our slogan. If you are watching on YouTube and you want to hear us talk about Memento and break it down, subscribe to the podcast, link in the description. And if you’re listening, thank you. Just keep listening.

Laci (00:53:16):

You’re doing it. You’re doing such a good job. What a good listener.

Matt (00:53:53):

Do you want even more 1-Week Rental in your life? We have a Patreon. It’s only a dollar a month at the moment because we don’t update it very frequently, but we have new stuff right now. A brand new episode about 28 years later, The Bone Temple. And we’re going to be doing some of the Nolan movies that we are not covering on the main feed like Insomnia and Dunkirk, so patreoniccom/oneweakrental, a dollar a month for now. Prices will rise in the future. So

Laci (00:54:20):

Watch your back and save your money.

Matt (00:54:22):

And it’s not a lock you’re rate in now because you’ll have to pay more too in the future.

Laci (00:54:26):

We don’t even believe in grandfathers.

Matt (00:54:28):

So a memento. The guy shakes a Polaroid. Although wait a minute, is he doing this backwards?

Laci (00:54:36):

And is he doing this for way too long? And I’m losing focus.

Matt (00:54:41):

It takes a minute before you realize he’s going backwards now. Or that he’s

Laci (00:54:44):

Even moving at all.

Matt (00:54:45):

Yeah.

Laci (00:54:46):

But yeah. Polaroids are handy this way. You can’t shake a regular photo and figure out backwardsness.

Matt (00:54:51):

Right. And later there will be a thing where it transitions into … This is supposed to be your first clue. Okay, this is a backwards movie because it’s going backwards. But like a Polaroid, you shake it and it’s black and white and then it comes into color. He’s got one that- That also happens.

Laci (00:55:09):

Yeah. He’s got a broken Polaroid. He should take it to the store.

Matt (00:55:13):

Yes, to Fox Photo.

Laci (00:55:15):

It went … Remember drive through fucking get your film developed places?

Matt (00:55:20):

Where else are you going to go if your photo breaks?

Laci (00:55:22):

Right. If you have one of those undeveloping photos that start with a memory of your family when you buy it.

Matt (00:55:28):

So we got a dead guy on the ground. It’s Joey Pantoliano. And I don’t know if we’re supposed to know that’s him or not.

Laci (00:55:34):

I think so. At

Matt (00:55:35):

The moment.

Laci (00:55:36):

I knew the first time I watched it that he is the one who dies. I mean, that mustache is for a reason, right? The glass is the mustache. They want you to remember that face.

Matt (00:55:44):

Yeah. I know because I know Joey Pants is in the movie and then we’ll just like, “Well, that’s Joey Pants, so he’s…” Okay. I would like to know from Christopher Nolan and really all directors. I always want to know how much are we supposed to have figured out when the movie starts and how dumb are we supposed to be.

Laci (00:56:03):

Okay. Well, I did not know Joey Pants was in this movie and I did know right away that he was dead. And you have face blindness and I’m here to tell you, you put a guy in those glasses with that kind of real pushbrew mustache, you’re trying to make sure people remember the face. Don’t go all liney on you.

Matt (00:56:22):

So he’s dead, but then he’s alive because Guy Pearce talking to the hotel clerk played by Mark Boone Jr., Who will later show up in Batman Begins.

Laci (00:56:33):

I know that face. I’m sure he’s in a million things.

Matt (00:56:36):

He was in seven and I think this movie- That’s where

Laci (00:56:38):

I know that face.

Matt (00:56:39):

Owes a lot to seven. It’s playing in sort of the same sandbox of a spooky gritty crime murder drama.

Laci (00:56:46):

It’s got a bit of a bride pit going on.

Matt (00:56:49):

Well, I mean, what do you think of Guy Pearce in this

Laci (00:56:51):

Movie? So here’s the problem. Because I feel like he’s kind of like this non-plosed kind of person also in Mayor of Eastwick. Yeah.

Matt (00:57:02):

Eastown.

Laci (00:57:03):

So I don’t know if this casual aloofness is the way he always is or if this is part of the character. I’m having a hard time because I don’t know. If this is all character work, then this is good. But he’s always kind of like, “Huh? What are we going to do? Whatever we got to do. It’s nothing personal.” I mean, he’s so kind of aloof. He’s kind of light in a way. He’s got a nonchalance.

Matt (00:57:31):

I think the performance improves when you see it again because-

Laci (00:57:34):

I think so

Matt (00:57:34):

Too. As long as you remember the thing about this guy is he’s an asshole.

Laci (00:57:38):

Well, true. He’s also incredibly sad and always anxious. He can never relax. It’s impossible to be relaxed in this state. He’s existing purely on mission.

Matt (00:57:51):

Yes, but also false confidence. He’s very confident in his system that as we will see totally is not a good system at all.

Laci (00:57:59):

No. And in fact, part of his system is this regimented repeating of how good his system is. That’s what he’s really learned to fold into his day today is confidence enough to keep going.

Matt (00:58:12):

And I think there is something to the idea that he was an insurance investigator who was so confident. I was good. I was very good. You look in someone’s eye and I can tell if they’re lying or not.

Laci (00:58:22):

Well, right. And just such a weird thing for this insurance person to be giving medical opinion at all or even the authority to be like, “Let’s run some tests.” Okay, that his doctor didn’t ask for?

Matt (00:58:34):

All right. That’s the extent the insurance agencies will go to to not pay your claims. We will pay some very expensive theoretical memory doctors to electrocute this guy over and over and over again.

Laci (00:58:45):

And then make conclusions on our own from these studies. Yep, they did what we wanted.

Matt (00:58:50):

Yes, exactly. That’s

Laci (00:58:51):

All there for.

Matt (00:58:52):

But he’s very confident that he always knew when people were lying to him, but even then we see that’s not true. You were totally wrong about Steven Tobilowski.

Laci (00:59:02):

Right. Well, and he says as much. Yeah. He’s like, “Now I understand. You got to fake it. You can’t know until you’re in the situation, but just to not feel so incredibly uncomfortable in your skin 100% of the time, you’ve got to mask it. ” He did register as way sad at the first watching I’m sad for himible way, but very sad for him at the end and with the knowledge of it going in the second time, I’m definitely picking up on the sadness more. Not that he wasn’t sad all along, but the story jumps around so you’re like, “Oh, they’re jumping to a sad time. Oh, now a confident time.” Now he’s in control of time, but I’m under the impression because of the Tarantino of it all that this is a man completely in control and he knows exactly what he’s going to do and people aren’t going to fool him because he’s got his little mementos and he knows his own handwriting and he’s got a system.

Laci (00:59:57):

And it takes tooth Heards of the movie for you to really see that falling apart the first time, but it’s all there from the beginning. You just don’t know that to look for it.

Matt (01:00:09):

It’s not the right

Laci (01:00:10):

Tone.

Matt (01:00:10):

So now that you’ve watched it twice, do you feel like you have a handle on everything that happens? Could you put the story in chronological order?

Laci (01:00:20):

I think I could, but I don’t know if it matters because what I’m still not sure of is the chicken or the eg with, was Natalie a bad person? And so Teddy was truly trying to let her know about, “Hey, this chick Natalie’s no good.” Or is Teddy also kind of a shit person? And Natalie was kind of … I mean, Natalie seems fully to be using him and that’s it. But I can’t tell that Teddy’s good. I cannot understand Teddy’s motivation at all except for that he just wants to get into some high jinks and he thinks that this person’s broken in a fun way. Let’s go set up people to die. You’re going to kill him. I’m not going to be in trouble. I just get to watch you kill random people.

Matt (01:00:59):

I think Teddy is Penteliano’s playing him as someone who has successfully lied to himself that he’s helping this guy.

Laci (01:01:07):

But why?

Matt (01:01:08):

Because you have

Laci (01:01:09):

No family, you have no people. This is what you want to do for the rest of your life

Matt (01:01:12):

Until

Laci (01:01:12):

This kid dies.

Matt (01:01:13):

He’s a scumbag. I don’t know.

Laci (01:01:14):

Well, thank you. That’s what I’m saying. There’s a scumbagness about him even if most of the movie, if not all of it, he’s telling the truth. And that the lies he’s telling are ones to give Lenny whatever peace he’s patched for himself. It’s not a fun movie. It leaves me with that sad feeling that so many Nolan movies leave me with is just like, yeah, being a human’s hard. We’re all broken. Some of us are more broken than others, so we pick on them. Some of us are more lost and more longing than others, so we pity them. And at the end, you’re just like, “All right, go on with my day then.”

Matt (01:01:59):

What he would go on to be better at is making that still be a fun experience to watch. And I just remember Memento being a more fun movie.

Laci (01:02:07):

And I was prepared. Just the fucking cover art alone and I can remember the trailer. I was like, “That looks fucking cool.” Very usual suspects, very like, “Oh my God, I’m going to piece this shit together. I’m going to be smart with this guy.” And no, you get dumber. He gets sadder. It’s just not the trajectory you’re used to. I mean, you’re used to the anti-hero or the hero getting banged up and going through some shit, but not completely unwinding. I guess the way the movie is styled, I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t see total crash and burning. Ugh.

Matt (01:02:45):

He does have a sort of conventional movie arc where he takes control at the end. It’s just that the end is the beginning where he decides to finally make a change. I will now target Joey Pantoliano instead of just following him around on our missions and reset.

Laci (01:02:59):

Well, yeah, now that guy’s gone, but Natalie’s still around. So it’s like a different bad guy just takes him over. At least Teddy was like a chaperone to him in a sense and he was under his wing. Now he’s fucking left Lenny in the

Matt (01:03:12):

Dragon

Laci (01:03:13):

Of Natalie who is hot as shit and who is very convincing and very manipulating. So he’ll wake up sometimes and be good Natalie and we get to have sex right now. And then the other times it’ll be sad. And other times it’ll be, “Why are you calling me the R word, Natalie?”

Matt (01:03:28):

Yeah, it’s not that it’s going to be better, but he did make a change. He finally decided I’m going to get rid of one toxic person. Maybe I’ll just end up with another toxic person. He should just kill us.

Laci (01:03:38):

I would just kill myself.

Matt (01:03:40):

On our severance recap podcast, Rumen is listening. I’m alive myself.

Laci (01:03:45):

I just don’t mean to be so flippant about that. That is not an easy decision for anyone to make and anyone that’s dealt with that kind of topic. I shouldn’t just say that so dismissive. You know what’s a solution because it’s not. We all have this drive to live even if our lives are bad.

Matt (01:04:07):

Yeah. I’m going to, as I’ve said many times, I’m clinging to whatever shitty life I got for as long as it’ll take me.

Laci (01:04:13):

And I’m going to give you so much tape to cling.

Matt (01:04:16):

That’s nice. Oh, it’s so nice of you to say.

Laci (01:04:18):

Yeah, but I’m going to leave. I’m going to give you the role of tape. I’m

Matt (01:04:21):

Going to

Laci (01:04:21):

Leave.

Matt (01:04:22):

No, I thought you’d hang around and let me give you shots and stuff because you know that’s my kink as we learned.

Laci (01:04:26):

We did learn

Matt (01:04:27):

That. In the severance show, but it was in the severance show that we sort of debated this idea or discussed this idea of a question as old as time is what makes a person. Is it a collection of our memories? Well, if somebody loses their memories, are they no longer the person?

Laci (01:04:43):

You cling to whatever you have and if you’re lucky enough to have the body without the memories, then you cling to that and you’re lucky to have memories without a body, you cling to that. And I don’t think anyone knows the answer until they get there because all the other situation or the other things surrounding that person’s life by the time they need to make those choices are going to help determine it.

Matt (01:05:02):

I was grateful to Christopher Nolan for just choosing to tell the story backwards rather than jumbling up everything and just totally shuffling the deck and no scene you can never tell which scenes follow the other, which would be a more accurate representation of how he feels, how he experiences life. True. But I think that that tells you right there that Nolan is aiming for a popular audience. This is an unusual narrative structure, but it is a narrative you can follow. And I think a more artsy director would say like, no, you’re never going to know where you are in time. You’re just going to be hopping the fuck around.

Laci (01:05:38):

Catch up on your third watch, bitch.

Matt (01:05:40):

Joey Pants. There was a bound 30 anniversary panel that just happened. So look at these nice people. Gina Gershon. Oh

Laci (01:05:47):

Yes. Is that Lily Wachawski?

Matt (01:05:49):

Lily Witchowski, Joey Pants and Jennifer Tilly all getting together, celebrating that. Tilly

Laci (01:05:54):

You fucking minks. Never look better.

Matt (01:05:58):

What about Gina Gershon though, those glasses? How fun would it be to hang out with Joey pants? Look at

Laci (01:06:04):

Him. Look at him. Look at

Matt (01:06:05):

That little

Laci (01:06:05):

Smile. Look at Lily. She’s like, “What are you going to do with this guy? He’s always cracking pants.” You can just tell him that’s what you call it. He’s cracking his pants wise. Yeah, he

Matt (01:06:16):

Is. Wise

Laci (01:06:16):

Pants. That’s what you call it.

Matt (01:06:18):

Wise pants.

Laci (01:06:20):

He’s wise pants. Here comes

Matt (01:06:21):

Wise

Laci (01:06:22):

Pants. Oh, pants are on … I thought I’d come with something and I didn’t. All right.

Matt (01:06:28):

Black

Laci (01:06:29):

And white

Matt (01:06:29):

Sequences are like, these are the objective sequences. These are less from Leonard’s point of view, whereas the color sequences are from Leonard’s points of view. And he’s talking on the phone and he’s explaining his methods. It’s like David Fincher’s the killer. I’ve got a system. I’m the most regimented, competent man in the world. Very quickly in the killer you see. No, you’re not, but it takes a while and memento to see that. No, you’re not.

Laci (01:06:50):

It’s interesting. These black and white parts are … We’re using … Okay, I’m going to say nighttime Laci, daytime Laci, as if those two things, those are two separate people. We’re using black and white, Lenny, as the narrator to his own fucked up life because he doesn’t know what we’re going to do with this footage. But he says something kind of key about Jimmy. Sammy, sorry, Jimmy and Sammy are the same word to me. Sammy, what? It doesn’t matter.

Matt (01:07:19):

Jankus.

Laci (01:07:19):

Jamie Jankis is that he could do something very complicated as long as he was focused. And there’s something about telling all the things that he can remember about this, being on this phone call that keeps him focused. Because if you think about it, this is a very long phone call. This is way too long for him to have stayed understanding who he’s talking to. He gets off the phone, he says, “Hold on, let me go look at something, gets back on. Hey.” And then whenever the person’s like, “The got to go, ” he’s like, “Okay, but you call me back.” He doesn’t like the phone. He’s not a phone person, but this motivates him. So you kind of get to see what his life would be like if he could choose to stay this engaged with his life all the time.

Matt (01:08:02):

Yeah. And when you watch the movie multiple times, you realize he violates his own rules or at least the things he says about how his memory works a lot.

Laci (01:08:10):

Yeah, he doesn’t even know. He doesn’t remember how his memory works.

Matt (01:08:12):

Yeah. So yeah, he can seem to follow this complicated set of things for an extended period of time.

Laci (01:08:19):

He can remember the things he’s regimented to remember and those things are hard to commit to memory at all. Like, “Oh, I have six pockets that means something. How this hurts, I guess that’s something tattooed to me. I know I have a big giant file of everything about my wife’s case, but I don’t have that tattooed to me anywhere. I just know I have it. ” He does seem to remember a lot.

Matt (01:08:46):

So he goes to Mark Boone Jr. Who runs the hotel and he’s like, “Hey, I’m sorry I have this condition.” And Mark Boone Jr. Acts like they haven’t had the conversation then reveals. No, we have this conversation all the time and asks him, “What is it like? What is it like to have that condition?” And he says, “It’s like waking up. It’s like waking up. Great.”

Laci (01:09:06):

Okay, Matrix.

Matt (01:09:08):

I was reading about interior grade memory loss on Wikipedia, so I’m like a real expert and it seems like the movie does get it all very much in line with the reality. Even the thing about there’s a part of your brain that creates what’s called procedural memory and Sammy Jenkins, Steven Tobilaski should have been able to create that by doing the experiment with the electrified objects, but he couldn’t.

Laci (01:09:33):

So he’s dumb.

Matt (01:09:36):

So the thumb. The seed of doubt that this is a psychological condition, that his brain wasn’t actually damaged, therefore claim denied. But it’s all playing with the what makes a person, and are we even correct about that? You would think that what defines Lenny is his devotion to his wife and his quest for vengeance, but as we find out at the end of the movie, he’s wrong about both of those things. He already got the vengeance and he’s incorrect about his wife even having been killed.

Laci (01:10:11):

Yeah. The vengeance is for his anger about what it did to his life. It’s not about the, “You killed and raped my wife.” It’s for him. He’s

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):

Doing

Laci (01:10:20):

This for him and maybe he can’t remember actually ever killing the guy because it was never actually for the thing he said it was for. I think this movie’s also about invisible disabilities. There’s that, the idea of struggling with something when looking like a handsome, capable young person and also what little would it take to make me vulnerable like this and what if I got dementia? I mean, it’s kind of like all the how fragile even someone, like he looks perfect, but-

Matt (01:10:53):

Yeah, so it’s not like the world will naturally accommodate him because he looks extremely capable in the prime of his life.

Laci (01:10:59):

It’s almost worse because there’s this expectation from him and then he doesn’t know if a woman’s looking at him a certain way across the bar because she’s flirting with him or because they had the deepest conversation two days ago.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):

It’s

Laci (01:11:13):

Got to feel so … It’s like always seeing your teacher outside of school and not being able to place who the fuck this is in your life, but you know her. Sarah

Matt (01:11:25):

Teacher

Laci (01:11:25):

Sarah.

Matt (01:11:26):

If you’re like me and sometimes have difficulty hearing somebody and you just don’t feel like getting them to repeat, so you’re just like, “Uh-huh, yeah.”

Laci (01:11:34):

And then he has the fucking nerve to get mad whenever I’m like, “Did you actually just hear me?

Matt (01:11:38):

” I’m not talking about you. Yeah, whatever. I’m not talking about yours and my reactions. Your ableist toward me. We’ll talk about that in the future. But that also points to him being a shitty insurance industry. You’re taking your

Laci (01:11:49):

Condition.

Matt (01:11:49):

That he didn’t even know that when he was the world’s ace insurance investigator, that sign of recognition he saw in Tobeloski was just, “This guy’s being polite. He sees me and he smiles because that’s what you do when you see anybody when you feel like you don’t know anything.

Laci (01:12:02):

This also … No, when you feel like you want to fit in with the situation and you know enough to know you don’t fit in. It’s the most heartbreaking parts are when he’s trying so hard to do what his wife is asking him to do and he just says, did I did it wrong? Yes, you did it wrong or I messed up. Yes, you met.” Those parts because that is the experience of certain disabilities. You very much know you’re fucking up.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):

And

Laci (01:12:26):

Anyway, I think this movie is dealing with that too in how he’s like, now that I have this disability, I do see how this … Yeah, masking’s a fucking thing. It’s just because you are a cis white man, you’ve never had to do it before. We mask for all kinds of things. I Christian mask. Just depends on who we’re

Matt (01:12:45):

Out. Sure. Yes.

Laci (01:12:46):

No, yeah praise Jesus.

Matt (01:12:47):

Yeah. Let us pray. Sometimes I’ll tell people, let us pray. We’ll get down on our knees. I’m crisp masking. He goes to a diner sees Carrie Ann Moss as Natalie. She has information for him. She traced a license plate number for him. It’s John Gamble. Oh, that’s Teddy. Okay.

Laci (01:13:06):

Okay. So it’s very smart for them to play her the way that they do because you can tell she’s got this look of expecting in her eyes toward him and on a second watch you’re like, “Oh, you’re just kind of an asshole.” You’re always kind of an asshole to him, but because I’m a woman so I’m like, “Oh, I’ll bet they slept together and I bet she feels jilted. Okay, girlfriend, I get it. ” So you’re dismissing the way that she’s acting because it would suck if you have a nice night with somebody and they truly don’t remember you and you thought you’d be the one. So it’s like the whole time she’s being very, I don’t know, I don’t know if Kurt’s the right word, but she’s not a sweetie.

Matt (01:13:47):

She’s not, but I think that she is playing it as if you’re viewing this actually chronologically that at this point she does have more sympathy for him.

Laci (01:13:57):

You think?

Matt (01:13:58):

Yeah. She still is using him. It’s still a very evil thing of what she’s doing, but I think she does have more pity on him than she did earlier. What does that matter? Nothing. Anyone would have pity on him. Anyone would start to feel bad for him, but I still can’t piece together. She has nothing to do with Teddy. This is just a-

Laci (01:14:20):

But they seem to know of each other because they both warn each other of each other.

Matt (01:14:25):

But these sort of worlds intersected by accident.

Laci (01:14:28):

Oh, absolutely. Because you don’t know how new they are to this town. They don’t seem to stay in one place for very long. So getting to know anyone for very long seems hard. I do not get it. What is the system? Do we just let fucking Lenny lead the way or does Teddy drop little clues like, “Here’s kind of a scumbag. Let’s pretend he’s John G. Let’s see if I can get him to kill him.”

Matt (01:14:51):

How much leash does Teddy give him or is Teddy always just in the next room and then walking in and being like, “Oh, hey, Lenny.”

Laci (01:14:57):

Yeah, maybe, but then how the fuck does Natalie get so much access for so long, if that’s true. Also again, what are we doing? Why are we doing this?

Matt (01:15:08):

Some sort of bounty hunting drug deal stealing-

Laci (01:15:13):

I guess he’s trying to get the loot along the way. This time I’ll get the drugs. This time I’ll get some money. Next time we’ll boost that car. I guess that’s … Teddy just doesn’t have a lot going on at home.

Matt (01:15:25):

To me, my favorite part of the movie’s always been the Tobolowski parts. It’s always the stuff I remember the most vividly and I think he’s really, really good. Like you said, especially when his wife is telling him to be fucked up, he’s like, “I did buy him.” She’s

Laci (01:15:38):

Really good.

Matt (01:15:39):

She’s really good too. And then I always forget what the actual twist is. Wait a minute. Is he actually Guy Pearce? Is Guy Pearce actually him?

Laci (01:15:46):

Right. He does exist.

Matt (01:15:49):

He does

Laci (01:15:49):

Exist. But he wasn’t married.

Matt (01:15:52):

Right. And Guy Pearce just inserted himself into-

Laci (01:15:56):

No.

Matt (01:15:57):

Or inserted Sammy into his own life to take the part of the thing that he did.

Laci (01:16:02):

Exhumed his wife out of his life and put it in Sammy’s and just let all the abuse happen to Sammy Jenkins instead of him.

Matt (01:16:10):

Since he can’t watch TV. He gets too confused, but he likes the commercials.

Laci (01:16:15):

Which makes me so sad because that just sounds like a little man with dementia. Oh my God, your tattoos. They’re freaky. Oh, this one. What about above your nipple? I don’t have anything there. What is this? Come here. Let’s look in the mirror together. Oh my God. It says murder and rape. Let’s bone.

Matt (01:16:34):

Okay. It’s interesting that she asks him to tell me about your wife and he’s like, “Well, she was beautiful and she was an angel.” And Carrion Moss is like, “Well, can you tell me something real or specific about her? Can you actually remember her?” And he just kind of proceeds to … I remember the feeling of the whatever. And I do kind of feel like Christopher Nolan has always been criticized for not being able to write female characters. All of his lead characters are men who either their wives are dead. The only thing we know about their wives is that their wives were fucking angels. And so it’s almost kind of like Tim Burton. He can’t see to imagine a woman in any other role than an uncomplicated angel who is dead and I’m very, very sad. And so it’s interesting that right here in his first real movie with a budget, you have a female character being like, “Chris, can you say something actually though?”

Laci (01:17:29):

Okay, but he’s writing for that female too.

Matt (01:17:31):

Yeah, I know. So I think in a way this is kind of his-

Laci (01:17:34):

Admitting.

Matt (01:17:35):

But also maybe his best female character right in the very beginning of his career because she was aware that he seems incapable of imagining a woman who’s a real person.

Laci (01:17:45):

Well, also you say you were still in love with her. You’re not able to replace her, but I mean the real truth is, well, you already made those memories so you literally can’t replace. I’m not going to be able to reset with anyone else. She’s all I got. And if you’re interested in him sexually, I could see that being very frustrating, but it’s like her trying to prove what were you in love with? What do we even like in a woman? Do you even know? You just tell me you smell her brush and she read a book and you guys were kind of shitty to each other and you pinched. It’s just like, can you nail down what you actually saw in her except for that you feel lost, that she’s gone?

Matt (01:18:30):

Yeah. And then that continues to pain you and that sometimes you wake up and feel confused because you feel her there, but you’ll wait for her to come back from the bathroom and then don’t know how long you’ve been waiting. And then it’s like losing her over and over and over and over again.

Laci (01:18:41):

Which is dementia. When my peepog got dementia, his brother died after that. So every couple weeks my mom or sisters would have to tell people again and he’d cry again.

Matt (01:18:54):

Jesus Christ.

Laci (01:18:55):

Yeah, it was bad. She said sometimes they’d just like because it was

Matt (01:18:59):

Easier.

Laci (01:19:00):

Yeah.

Matt (01:19:02):

So this thing, she’s setting him on the path of Dodd, of the mysterious Dodd.

Laci (01:19:07):

Who is a non-character in this movie.

Matt (01:19:11):

But he’s played by Callum Keith Renne in a non-Canadian movie, which I thought was illegal, but here he is.

Laci (01:19:16):

I don’t know Canadian laws.

Matt (01:19:18):

I think the thing is this is just some sort of drug associate who she had to … So she’s in cahoots with Jimmy, her boyfriend, who’s a big drug guy over here and Dodd is either an associate or arrival. So Lenny, go get Dodd and he does get Dodd by saying, “Get out of town, Dodd.”

Laci (01:19:35):

Get Dodge town.

Matt (01:19:36):

Yeah. And that’s all it takes.

Laci (01:19:38):

I’m so crazy that I kicked your ass and don’t remember kicking your ass. Isn’t that wild?That’s literally what he did to scare him. You did this. Oh, did I? That’s it. Mind freak.

Matt (01:19:52):

When he’s telling her about the thing about waking up in bed, forgetting that his wife is dead, wondering if she’s coming back from the bathroom. I wrote in my notes to psychoanalyze Nolan, I think that to him, an obsessive person who gets lost in his projects, he probably does have this fear that like, oh, my actual life is happening parallel to me. I’m missing all of it and he will come back to this theme over and over and over again, but sort of having to be reminded, “Hey, here’s what you’re missing, by the way. Here’s what you’re missing while

Laci (01:20:25):

You’re…” And the waking up in an anonymous hotel room, right? It’s all right here. It’s like, “Oh, not another hotel room. Have I been here a week, a month?” Just the process of shooting movie just goes and goes and goes and you just get sick of that same old meaningless hotel room you’re in.

Matt (01:20:42):

But his wife has always been with him the entire time in every single movie. It would be like one thing if you learned his wife didn’t make the first couple of movies with him and then he realized, “No, you need to always be with me, please.”

Laci (01:20:52):

Maybe he had a mistress he was very in love with and it was just all about her.

Matt (01:20:55):

It’s all about someone else, yes.

Laci (01:20:56):

I never get to see Marie.

Matt (01:20:59):

The thing where he wakes up, he wakes up or just comes to awareness in the bathroom holding a bottle of liquor. Huh, I don’t feel drunk.

Laci (01:21:08):

And then I wonder to myself, “That’s the only thing I’d ever want to do. ” And then there’s this one where he has this huge yawn and I’m like, “Okay, let me pay attention for him not getting to sleep the night before.” And I guess he doesn’t because he spins it doing a hobo fire and burning stuff, but this timeline is so confusing, not the one in the movie, but the one from when he stops being around his wife, she does eventually die. He does kill her with the insulin. Okay. All right. But he’s still got her stuff. He’s still sleeping in their house. No one’s watching him. He’s just alone. This man with this condition is just left alone after she’s gone. That seems illegal. And so then he starts traveling to hotel rooms because it’s too sad waking up there and realizing it over and over again.

Laci (01:22:01):

Okay, but when did you start waking up and realizing that she’s gone and not …

Matt (01:22:07):

I thought he was traveling … He’s never in his home that he’s traveling to hotel rooms with his wife’s stuff.

Laci (01:22:14):

He is after the time we see him waking up there by himself.That’s when he decides to go. It’s further in the movie because it’s the beginning. He still got on his other clothes. Is it useless to dig in like it is for a time travel movie to dig in because it’s not the point? But how did he … I guess because his wife abusing him were new memories. You really can do anything to him including the horrible shit that she did, even though she was also just terribly upset, but he did choose to remember it through Jimmy … I mean-

Matt (01:22:53):

Through Sammy, yeah.

Laci (01:22:54):

Through Sammy. That’s interesting. So it’s almost like he wants to remember that there was a wife like that, that he’s lucky that that didn’t happen and don’t use your old notes system because that’s going to keep happening to you. You’re going to get slapped around and get abused by the people who love you even. So we need a new system. Remember Sammy. And it’s a warning to not be like his old self, not really anything to do with Sammy. It’s don’t be like you were when you first got this condition. That made you kill your wife and made her super hate you and she loved you more than anybody, so you’re fucked my guy.

Matt (01:23:28):

It never occurred to me that is a new memory.

Laci (01:23:32):

I think I would need to watch it again and really dissect the things, really listen carefully to the things he said, Sammy didn’t know, Sammy did this, you shouldn’t do it like this. Then I can know he has regimented himself into finding a way to remember those new things because he folded it into his memories of Sammy and he talks about Sammy to everyone that’ll listen and he will even makes it a point every day to remember Sammy’s story. So it’s like he didn’t want to totally forget his wife and this was his way of putting it into someone else’s story so he didn’t have to feel horrible for second thing while still remembering the things he learned and like his motivation for being different than Sammy

Matt (01:24:22):

AKA

Laci (01:24:22):

His old self.

Matt (01:24:23):

I’m looking forward to you watching Inception because there’s so much that it has in common with that with Leonardo DiCaprio and his wife Marian Cotiard and the dreams as ways of him processing what they did to each other and like what he can’t acknowledge having done to her and what he can’t acknowledge her having done to

Laci (01:24:39):

Them. Does that remind me of Minority Report?

Matt (01:24:42):

What’s

Laci (01:24:42):

The one where you can put in something and then like the whole hologram pops up and it’s like you’re there with them

Matt (01:24:49):

That’s Minority Report. Yeah.

Laci (01:24:51):

Yeah. I feel like that also was … Well, I mean in any relationship, if you were married in the dial that you think about all the time all the things you did wrong, just as much as the good things.

Matt (01:25:02):

Well then the same year that Inception came out, Shutter Island also came out with Leonard DiCaprio. That’s

Laci (01:25:07):

Confusing.

Matt (01:25:08):

Which is dealing with a lot of similar plots and I think like-

Laci (01:25:11):

Which one has a beach? Both.

Matt (01:25:14):

They both have beaches. They do both have beaches.

Laci (01:25:17):

But him trying to run after her on a beach or he’s getting off of an elevator and he

Matt (01:25:25):

Gets- That’s inception.

Laci (01:25:26):

Okay.

Matt (01:25:29):

But in Shutter Island, spoiler alert for Shutter Island, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is either schizophrenic or has delusions and they’re trying to cure him of it by playing along with his fantasies and that I feel like is kind of what Joey Pants thinks he is doing is I can help him or that’s what he originally thought. I’ll help him by helping him get his revenge and that’ll cure him I guess kind of.

Laci (01:25:55):

It’s got to be exhausting spending any time with him and if you’re not staying in touch at least once a day with him, he will just run off to another town. So it’s like Joey Pants got him on this mission. He’s responsible for him in that way because now this man’s just wandering the earth instead of in a fucking facility. So I’m thinking of like co-parenting and it’s a toddler and so, okay, let him spend a couple nights at Natalie’s house. That’ll actually help me out because it’s like, yeah, Natalie could rally and figure out how to settle him down. It’s hard for him to settle down. Settle him down and just make him chill. Let’s talk about something that’s not going to be totally boring for me, but you’re really hyper and are we going to get to bed? And it is just like taking care of a baby.

Laci (01:26:39):

And so who would do that voluntarily? Who would want to do that every single day? So it’s like Teddy just

Matt (01:26:48):

Let a

Laci (01:26:49):

Genie come out the bottle and he’s like, “Fuck it, I might as well get some shit out of it. Money, a car.”

Matt (01:26:54):

His justification at the end is you’re not a killer. That’s why you’re so good at it. So I guess his utility to Joey Pants is that this guy kills lots of people and he’s the perfect so

Laci (01:27:04):

Many people

Matt (01:27:04):

That- The perfect stool pigeon because no one can ever trace it back to him. I

Laci (01:27:09):

Guess. And even if he ever got caught, they’d see right away he’s not faking this, so he’d get let off or he wouldn’t and that’d be great because he wouldn’t remember me.

Matt (01:27:20):

Maybe their early missions together, Teddy is always with Lenny and now we’ve seen them so far into it and he’s like, “I’ll just let him go. ” No,

Laci (01:27:27):

But that’s what I’m saying. You would have to … He’s got a car. He can drive. And if he’s got a fucking Post-it note saying Detroit, he’s fucking gone. And you’re like, “What? I didn’t put a tag on him or nothing. Now he’s gone and now it’s my fault that this man is wondering Detroit.” I think there’s a part of Teddy that is like, I am your chaperone. I didn’t necessarily want to do this. I thought I did, but this is a lot of work. Even says, he’s like, “I’ve had more rewarding friendships and I think he means it. This is fucking exhausting. I always have to sneak up on you and convince you that you know me. “

Matt (01:28:03):

You know how they say dogs experience time differently when our dog will be in the front yard in the morning and I will get our son into the car and just drive to the bus stop, which is 30 seconds away, put the kid on the bus, return. I’m not gone for more than three minutes and the dog goes exactly as nuts to see me as if I were gone for 48 hours.

Laci (01:28:28):

Oh, you’re

Matt (01:28:29):

Home.

Laci (01:28:29):

Oh, I never thought you’d come back.

Matt (01:28:31):

And while that may sound sweet every time I’m annoyed, I’m like stupid dog. I was just here. We just saw each other.

Laci (01:28:37):

Oh yeah, you would get mad at Lenny constantly.

Matt (01:28:40):

I would be mad at him. Of course

Laci (01:28:40):

You would. I mean, this is definitely like a commentary on like elder care or I mean, imagine it’s Lenny plus you have to change his shit diaper. I mean, this is why elderly with dementia and stuff get taken advantage of, get abused because they forget.

Matt (01:28:56):

Yeah. And Mark Boone Jr. Says it like, “I mean, what do you expect? My boss told me to take advantage of you. We’re going to not take advantage of you. ” You’re not even going to remember me telling you

Laci (01:29:05):

This. Anyone he has an interaction with for long enough is just trying to see what they can get out of him. He looks like he’s got money, he’s getting out of a Lamborghini or whatever kind of car that is, he’s in that suit and again, he looks capable. He’s all beat up so it’s like, ooh, he can use his hands. He just looks like he’s walking around with money and it’s like, “Well, if I just hang around long enough, he’ll forget. Put his pants down. I don’t know. I’ll get that money.”

Matt (01:29:33):

You got the flashback where his wife is reading her favorite book. I don’t remember what the book is. They

Laci (01:29:37):

Don’t want you to know. They take the cover page off.

Matt (01:29:39):

Oh, they don’t tell you? Okay.

Laci (01:29:40):

No. Yeah. Because then you’d have to analyze too much. What does that mean about her, that she’d read that book over and over and over again. It specifically has the cover off of it so you don’t have to think about that at all.

Matt (01:29:52):

Okay. It’s James Patterson’s Pop Goes The Weasel, but he’s like, “You’ve read that book a thousand times.” The book

Laci (01:29:58):

With no words.

Matt (01:29:59):

And she’s like, yeah, but I enjoy it. And he says, “I thought the point was to find out what happens.” Which I think is, you can read as a meta commentary. Nolan didn’t know how people would react to his movies over the course of his career, but I think he would say- My movies are

Laci (01:30:15):

Meant to be read over and over and over again.

Matt (01:30:18):

Well, I mean, he definitely wants that, but-

Laci (01:30:21):

It’s happening.

Matt (01:30:25):

The point of a novel? The point of a movie is not to get information. It’s to have an experience. Yeah. Right. So knowing what happens doesn’t mean you don’t continue to enjoy it.

Laci (01:30:34):

The ride. Right. Yeah. And she’s in bed. The way I have nighttime shows, she has a nighttime book. She’s reading herself something calming and soothing where she knows what’s happening.That is the key to a nighttime show or movie everybody. It’s got to be entertaining enough to sustain you while you’re awake and you got to know it well enough to let it go when you’re drifting.

Matt (01:30:56):

A nighttime

Laci (01:30:57):

Book.

Matt (01:30:57):

Okay. Yes. That is a nighttime book.

Laci (01:31:01):

It’s literally what you do with children.

Matt (01:31:02):

It doesn’t have to be a comfort book that you can reread tons of

Laci (01:31:06):

Books. No one fucking set out to be comfortable. It just can’t be so intriguing that it may … No, Matt, you’re wrong. You do not treat your insomnia correctly when you’re reading something new. You shouldn’t be doing that. You do that all the time and you shouldn’t be because then you’re anticipating the things that you don’t know. That’s not helping your mind relax.

Matt (01:31:26):

Nothing better than when I can’t go to sleep and just finding a great Wikipedia page. Ugh, knock your right

Laci (01:31:33):

Out. All right, maybe. Find a Wikipedia, but

Matt (01:31:36):

I’m doing.

Laci (01:31:37):

Oh, who knows? Watching porn letters.

Matt (01:31:40):

So you wake up in the middle of the night and I have my iPad out. I should be asleep. Are you ever taking in what’s on the iPad?

Laci (01:31:47):

No, I can’t

Matt (01:31:47):

See. Yeah, I know. So whatever- Unless this is a

Laci (01:31:50):

Map and you’re doing this, I’m like, oh, he’s on a map.

Matt (01:31:53):

Yeah. But it’s a map of Westeros. I do read the Game of Thrones and the Star Wars Wikipedias, the Wikias, the fan Wikis like, “Oh, let me learn about this fractional character if I ever can’t sleep.” It’s just very soothing.

Laci (01:32:09):

And mainly I wake up and find you like this with your face just illuminated by the iPad that’s still right here and I’m like, don’t let it fall on his face.

Matt (01:32:20):

Oh, sometimes it does.

Laci (01:32:21):

Well, because I know if I take it off, that’ll wake you up. So it’s like it’s just got to happen.

Matt (01:32:26):

If I have my CPAP on, you can do it because I’ll go right back to sleep. He does a thing where he pays the sex worker to pretend to be his … Can you just lay out these things like you’re a woman? Where do women put their

Laci (01:32:37):

Braziers?Because he thinks anything can be done by this method if I just go through over and over and over again this thing where if I get woken up in the middle of the night, it’s not my wife in the bathroom. It’s not my wife. It might be nothing at all. It might be an escort, but stop waking up in the middle of the night and getting excited or getting confused and then sad again. As long as I can condition myself to knowing whatever it is, it might be a person taking a shit that I don’t know. It might be someone with a knife, but at least it’s not me thinking my wife is still around and having to remember she’s not.

Matt (01:33:15):

So you don’t think this is the thing where somebody dies and you call their phone to hear their voicemail?

Laci (01:33:21):

No, this is the opposite.

Matt (01:33:23):

This is the

Laci (01:33:23):

Opposite. This is the opposite. He is trying to condition himself to be like, “This brush does not mean my wife. This bra doesn’t mean my wife.” Even if all of her stuff is in … Because he wants to go back and live in his house. So if I wake up and I’m surrounded by her things, it still doesn’t mean she’s alive. I need to remember this. I need her. The most uncomfortable thing needs to be behind this bathroom door so I start to remember bathroom door bad.

Matt (01:33:49):

Because burning her- But you

Laci (01:33:50):

Think about it, bathroom door is bad because of what happened to her in the bathroom.

Matt (01:33:55):

Yeah. And what happens every day?

Laci (01:33:58):

Number two.

Matt (01:33:59):

So burning her stuff isn’t working. He thinks, if I just burn all traces of her, then she’s gone and then I can truly move on, but it’s not working at all.

Laci (01:34:07):

No. I mean, he just needs to move. But when you can’t remember anything, how the fuck do you deal with the real estate agent? Like, “Hey, do you like that condo I showed you? Who is this?

Matt (01:34:16):

” Now we see more of Natalie in her darker side seems to come out when she realizes how she can manipulate Lenny. I think the most harrowing scene in the movie is when she tells him like, “You’re a fucking idiot and I’m going to take total advantage of you and you’re stupid and you won’t-” I wish she

Laci (01:34:31):

Said

Matt (01:34:31):

Idiot. Yeah, I know. And you won’t remember what I’m even saying right now, dumb bitch.

Laci (01:34:35):

She looks so hurt and scared. Can you imagine though if this role were played by a woman if this were written? They’d never let it. America could not tolerate a woman having this kind of vulnerability because women already are vulnerable. It’s just like it would be an impossible thing to even fathom.

Matt (01:34:56):

And he’s looking desperately for a pen to just write down. Don’t trust her.

Laci (01:35:00):

It’s so sad. And when she’s taking all the pins off the desk, you’re like, “Natalie Elizabeth, what are you doing? You’re up to no good.” I’m about to tell you things you’re going to want to write down and you can’t write them down. What if he just stabbed himself with something and just starts riding in a button? Natalie mean.

Matt (01:35:18):

But what does Natalie mean mean though? It could mean a lot of things.

Laci (01:35:21):

Ellie mean to me.

Matt (01:35:22):

I see her moving the pens and I just think women love to rearrange stuff. That’s just a thing they love to do. I

Laci (01:35:27):

Love that. This is the saddest thing. I mean, I didn’t want to believe she was mean. Look how pretty she is. Why is she being so mean?

Matt (01:35:34):

Because her whole arc is she’s the girlfriend of Jimmy. Jimmy’s the drug dealer. She helps him by running drugs out of this bar and uses the bar coasters as like a message thing.

Laci (01:35:45):

Yeah. What I don’t totally grasp even after watching it twice is does she like Jimmy? She’s sad he’s gone because the part where she walks up to his car and inside of his car is the guy that killed him. She’s so … Oh, hi. She’s not sad at all. She’s not even confused or like …

Matt (01:36:03):

The first thing … She’s scared. The first thing she is is scared, which she plays, which Carrie Moss plays when she sees that it’s not Jimmy and knows, oh fuck, this means something huge. And so she immediately is like, “Oh, okay. Sorry.”

Laci (01:36:18):

Okay.

Matt (01:36:18):

Because she sees Guy Pearce pull up in her boyfriend’s car and her boyfriend’s clothes and she does it.

Laci (01:36:25):

He’s wearing a Leonard suit.

Matt (01:36:26):

So this is a fucking psychopath who has just killed my boyfriend and taken his place.

Laci (01:36:33):

You like my suit. Hey, why did she initially spit in his beer?

Matt (01:36:38):

So he goes into the bar and she’s like, “Hey, man who took my boyfriend’s place. We’re not welcome in this bar.” You’re

Laci (01:36:44):

Going to get spit in your beer. That’s how upset I am. You killed him mean man.

Matt (01:36:49):

But she has heard, her boyfriend has said, “Hey, there’s a guy in town who can’t remember anything. That’s funny.

Laci (01:36:54):

If I heard that, I’d be like, is he alone? Should he go home and not be just driving? Should he be driving? What if he forgets he’s got a lie? Also, why are you telling me this? Why do you know this? And someone needs to put him away safely and I’ll never think of him again.

Matt (01:37:11):

But we don’t live in Laci’s world. We live in Crime City where this movie is.

Laci (01:37:16):

Oh yeah. One of them rare Pokemon, the kind where you shake them and they don’t remember. You can say all kinds of

Matt (01:37:23):

Shit. No, exactly. It’s like the city and saw. It’s just Crime City USA.

Laci (01:37:28):

It’s courage. Say the meanest shit you’ve ever wanted to say to a living human and then in three seconds it’s gone.

Matt (01:37:34):

Yeah.

Laci (01:37:34):

This is our meany night.

Matt (01:37:35):

But she does the spit thing to test is this real and much.

Laci (01:37:40):

Oh. Yeah.

Matt (01:37:41):

And it’s the most … Well, this is actually the most harrowing thing for me. Because

Laci (01:37:46):

She gets him to spit as well. It’s for a bet or whatever. Okay. All right. I was like, wait, she’s so mad that he killed her boyfriend that she’s spitting his beer. That’ll get him Natalie. It’s unrelated.

Matt (01:37:59):

And gets the gross guy at the bar to also spit into the dream.

Laci (01:38:02):

He’s just a fucking guy, Matt.

Matt (01:38:03):

He spits, so that makeshim gross. I think spit is so gross.

Laci (01:38:06):

It is worse than any other bodily fluid.

Matt (01:38:09):

I can

Laci (01:38:09):

Take shit over spit.

Matt (01:38:11):

I drink shit.

Laci (01:38:12):

Give

Matt (01:38:12):

It to me.

Laci (01:38:13):

Give me a second.

Matt (01:38:14):

And this is the second movie in a row where someone has spit in a drink and I always have to look away. Oh,

Laci (01:38:21):

But I can taste it. Yeah,

Matt (01:38:21):

Me too. I can feel it go

Laci (01:38:22):

Down my throat.

Matt (01:38:24):

Because of the thing that happened to me in 2018.

Laci (01:38:27):

No, no. What? I don’t even know what it is. You

Matt (01:38:30):

Don’t know what I’m

Laci (01:38:31):

Talking about. I’m leaning and do not reinstall this memory. I don’t know what you’re about to say and I don’t care. I want to talk about the movie. Don’t you tell a story.

Matt (01:38:40):

We were adding- No,

Laci (01:38:41):

Matt.

Matt (01:38:42):

Tennis event.

Laci (01:38:43):

Oh, I remember. I

Matt (01:38:49):

Remember. And I picked up a red solo cup of what I thought was my water. You

Laci (01:38:54):

Were wrong.

Matt (01:38:54):

And instead it was a cup that someone had spit their gum into.

Laci (01:38:59):

And I think anyone who’s listening to this podcast, three different episodes with Domat hates gum.

Matt (01:39:04):

It’s still the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

Laci (01:39:07):

It was not a red solo cup, Matt. It was a clear one. No, this is important. Yo cock sucking fool. It was a clear one because I saw the green piece of gum at the bottom of the clear cup and I said, “Matt, put the drink down.” And then you pulled it away and realized why.

Matt (01:39:30):

It being green makes it worse. It was meant

Laci (01:39:32):

Gum. We have a sleeping child.

Matt (01:39:37):

You wake him up to tell him about this.

Laci (01:39:39):

Jimmy is such a non-fucking character. Who is his fucking loser? Yeah, that looks like a guy. That looks like a guy that’s on top of the world in this random city.

Matt (01:39:48):

But I mean, he is just a guy and-

Laci (01:39:51):

He’s just some fucking schlub.

Matt (01:39:53):

And there will always be a guy in a city and Teddy’s whole thing is, it’s always a John G. You know how many fucking John G’s, and it’s not even John G. It’s either John G or James G. So that’s half of all men.

Laci (01:40:04):

Right.

Matt (01:40:07):

Lenny, even my name is John Jay. I’m John Edward Gamble. My mom calls me Teddy. And so yeah, it doesn’t matter. There will always just be a fucking guy who’s a scumbag in a town that you can kill. And I mean, the most interesting thing to me about the movie is now this revelation about their relationship about how he was the cop who believed him when he and his wife were assaulted in their homes. And even this is like Christopher Nolan sort of like the only kind of crime he can imagine is some thugs came into my house and beat me and my wife.

Laci (01:40:43):

The most elaborate daytime thing ever. I’m going to wrestle her down. Well, I know there’s a man in the house. I’m going to wrestle her down onto the floor and put the shower curtain on top. It’s clear. So I get to watch her struggle and I’m just going to … While she’s struggling like that. It is so elaborate and unthought through.

Matt (01:41:03):

And I snuck into

Laci (01:41:04):

The bathroom window.

Matt (01:41:05):

When we get into Batman Begins, I think his ideas about crime are the things that I find are the things that put me off of his Batman movies more than anything. And we will talk in depth about that.

Laci (01:41:16):

There’s many true crimes been mad.

Matt (01:41:18):

But yeah, his idea about crime is so like baby brained. Murder

Laci (01:41:21):

And divorce.

Matt (01:41:22):

I like his Batman movies, but he wants you to treat them seriously, but his ideas about crime are so … His ideas about crime are some thugs break into your house. Hey, where’s your wife?

Laci (01:41:32):

Yeah, Shangi. I mean, okay, but to be fair, the background thug story or whatever that the thing that’s haunting, I remember the movies enough to know who that happens to, but it’s always seemed pretty cartoony how at least Batman’s parents die. She’s like, “We’re in an alley. We’ve been shot.”

Matt (01:41:53):

Yeah, I know. It’s also- But the conceit of his Batman movies is like, “Well, take all that cartoon stuff and make it real.” And what I say is- And

Laci (01:42:00):

What if your mom wore a woman?

Matt (01:42:02):

What I say is, “No, don’t do that. That’s stupid. He and his wife were assaulted. The cops only found one guy, but there were two guys and the cops didn’t believe him because he was suffering the memory loss.”

Laci (01:42:15):

He’s like, “But I can remember things after the accident. This happened before.”

Matt (01:42:20):

Oh,

Laci (01:42:22):

That’s so funny because you know what happened after the accident? She went like this and was alive to him. She was dead.

Matt (01:42:30):

But she didn’t die there. That’s the big revelation. She didn’t die. She kept living and she was the-

Laci (01:42:36):

Right. Right. He stopped recording right with the shocker.

Matt (01:42:42):

And Teddy, Joe Pantiliano, believed him, believed, yeah, I believe there was a second guy. I want to help you. I will go beyond the mandate of my job to help you find this guy while his wife is simultaneously trying to bring him back.

Laci (01:42:57):

Right. Wait, what do you do if the last recorded memory of your brain is that you saw your wife murdered and dead and then you wake up constantly and here’s this fucking twin like, “What is she doing here? Hey, you’re dead. I saw you die.” How many times did they have that conversation? “You’re dead. What are you doing? You’re dead. Dead. You dead one? What was that relationship like? Because it’s like seeing her, does that change his mind? Does that like, ” Oh, clearly I was wrong. “That would get annoying too. Oh my God, thank God you’re a lot. Every single time, every 10 minutes

Matt (01:43:32):

You’re saying that whenever he resets, he’s resetting to …

Laci (01:43:38):

He only knows things from before he hit the floor and the last thing that he saw was his dead wife. So to him, that’s a memory that stuck. That’s it. And it’s the last one that happened. So if he’s waking up all the time after the accident after she’s fine.

Matt (01:43:53):

Oh, but before she dies. Okay.

Laci (01:43:55):

Yeah.

Matt (01:43:56):

Okay.

Laci (01:43:57):

Right. While she’s in his life, you’re not supposed to be here. Your dead is all you dead.What is his reaction? Is it like he’s happy? I mean, because that sounds exhausting either way, right?

Matt (01:44:07):

Yeah, that’s your dog. He’s so joyous. Yes. My wife, my loved wife. So I like that your wife gets so fucking mad. She’s like, ” Just fucking kill me.

Laci (01:44:18):

“Yes, I’m alive. I’m alive. I need your shot.

Matt (01:44:20):

But this is another inception through line of the thing of DiCaprio and his wife had to do these weird things to each other to pull them out of the dream worlds. He had to incept her with the fucking spinning top. She had to jump off a hotel balcony. Love,

Laci (01:44:34):

I remember nothing about the movie.

Matt (01:44:36):

I know, but some people listening do.

Laci (01:44:38):

Yeah, great. So maybe I could watch it and experience it.

Matt (01:44:41):

You will.

Laci (01:44:42):

Yeah. You’re going

Matt (01:44:43):

To remember this.

Laci (01:44:44):

You ruined it for me. How

Matt (01:44:45):

Is that ruining it for you? You’ve

Laci (01:44:46):

Taken away the magic of my brain, which is that I get to reset. You’ve unreset me.

Matt (01:44:51):

So he starts attacking this Jimmy guy. It seems like he’s killed him, but he hears the guy muttering Sammy and Guy Pearce is like, ” Wait a minute, how do you know that name? The only people who could know about Sammy are people who I’ve spoken to. That means I must have talked to this guy before. “But

Laci (01:45:06):

What would that matter?

Matt (01:45:08):

I don’t know. But for him, that means-

Laci (01:45:09):

That does mean he talked to him after when he would’ve killed his wife.

Matt (01:45:14):

That this is not the guy who actually killed my wife. Yeah. And Joe Panteliano explains everything. No, we got the guy a year ago. We thought it would cure you. No, it didn’t. We’ve just been doing this over and over and over again. Lucky for

Laci (01:45:28):

You, I love it.

Matt (01:45:30):

But he knew about Sammy. You tell everyone about Sammy.

Laci (01:45:36):

Because that’s part of his regimen.

Matt (01:45:39):

So you lie to yourself to be happy. We all do it.

Laci (01:45:42):

But then they go back and forth between the like, oh, when he’s pinching her, but it’s not really him pinching her. It’s him giving her a shot. But then it goes back to him pinching her and it’s like the movie’s like, ” Who cares what the truth is?

Matt (01:45:53):

What? “That’s a visual thing Nolan will return to over and over again as you see something in a memory, you see it again, but something is slightly different and now it takes on a different valence. Seemed like a cute

Laci (01:46:03):

Thing. That’s fine. But then he does it the third thing, which is to go back to the first.

Matt (01:46:07):

Because it’s memory, that’s

Laci (01:46:08):

Annoying.That’s

Matt (01:46:09):

Memory. It’s all true

Laci (01:46:11):

Simultaneously. That’s memory,

Matt (01:46:13):

Baby. Exactly. Yes. It’s marriage. We’re all trying to give each other shots. We’re all trying to pinch each other. Ooh, got you. I’m

Laci (01:46:18):

Going to

Matt (01:46:18):

Catch a little thumb.

Laci (01:46:20):

I’m going to come right for your thigh.

Matt (01:46:21):

Don’t threaten me with a good time.

Laci (01:46:23):

Pinching on your thigh is a good time. You’re about to have the time of your

Matt (01:46:26):

Life.That’s my thing. You lie to yourself to be happy. We all do it. You’re living a dream, a dead wife to pine for, a sense of purpose to your life, a romantic quest that you wouldn’t end even if I wasn’t in the picture. And that’s the whole thing. And it’s also the whole thing of Nolan’s entire filmography. Or maybe it’s changed recently, but we’ll see. I mean, his new movie is The Odyssey, the oldest story in the world about a guy who’s just trying to get home to his wife.

Laci (01:46:51):

Fuck’s sake. And it’s going to be him just like … Ollie’s almost there, but then all these sirens. I’m there, but then there’s opens up. I hate that kind of fucking story, Nolan.

Matt (01:47:07):

And this time-

Laci (01:47:08):

It’s the way I feel when an ant is this close to a crumb and I can see it’s really made a journey. It started from the grass over there and then someone comes by and just kicks that aunt. It’s like, oh buddy, that’s the whole day’s worth of work. That’s what it’s like.

Matt (01:47:24):

You’re a very empathetic person thinking about the ants like that.

Laci (01:47:27):

It’s because of all the movies, Bugs Life, Ants.

Matt (01:47:30):

Both of them.

Laci (01:47:32):

All the movies.

Matt (01:47:33):

But Teddy’s like giving him the speech a billion times before. He’s so sick of it and even says,” Ah, come on, ah, come on. We’ll go get beignets together. Whatever.

Laci (01:47:41):

It’s your favorite.

Matt (01:47:43):

But this time Teddy is not careful enough because he lets Lenny go off by himself to write himself a little note and does it in the clever way of, I’ll give myself clues that I know I will point me in the direction of this guy. “You

Laci (01:47:55):

Can’t give him pens. It’s like a toddler. You give them a permanent marker, you can have it all over your walls.

Matt (01:48:01):

Exactly. I have to believe in a world outside my mind. I have to believe the world still goes on when I close my eyes. And he closes his eyes while he’s driving.

Laci (01:48:10):

But he’s making the choice to remember the wrong thing. This is when you see kind of a … Nope. He’s a mean man. Kill him. He’d rather murder someone than remember a story where his wife didn’t love him.

Matt (01:48:26):

Right, right. And that’s life. Or that’s what makes us human is the stories we tell about each ourselves.

Laci (01:48:33):

He turned himself into a murderer by saying kill him. He did it. When he knew that that was not true. In that moment, he knew that that was not true and he still wrote that note and that note is what killed him. Matt. This guy. And Matt, him deciding. Yeah,

Matt (01:48:51):

This guy has made me murder people on his behalf. That’s also not okay. That perhaps is worthy of me.

Laci (01:48:57):

That’s not why he’s doing it. He’s doing it so that that man can never tell him that horrible thing again that hurt him so bad to know that he is Jimmy or Sammy or what the fuck these names are and his wife hated you. Your wife hated you at the end so bad that she killed herself.

Matt (01:49:13):

Yes, I agree. And that’s really interesting. I think it’s just frustrating. I really loved this movie like three years ago and now I find it kind of … I experience it the way I assumed this movie would be before I had ever seen it, which is frustrating and sort of like a gimmick. And it’s not a gimmick. There’s tons of interesting stuff going

Laci (01:49:33):

On in the movie. Absolutely. It’s just that it leaves me a little empty.

Matt (01:49:37):

Yeah.

Laci (01:49:39):

And maybe it’s too good of a commentary on how useless and futile some things are, some wants are, a lot of desires are your mission, your goal, that it’s not really about achieving it. You don’t even want to achieve it. You’ve achieved it a hundred times and it didn’t fill you up. It’s like what you want is to want something and that’s it.

Matt (01:50:02):

And a story about a guy who’s built a palace out of self-delusion and will, like you said, manipulate this elaborate system to kill this guy, to ensure he never makes me remember the truth about myself. That’s interesting.

Laci (01:50:22):

I need to be around only the people who will let me keep believing this. And if it makes me a murderer to a bunch of innocent people, then at least I get to keep my mind, palace.

Speaker 2 (01:50:31):

Yeah.

Laci (01:50:32):

You selfish son of a bitch. This is why he didn’t become a fucking super star. Guy Pearce. His teeth are too big.

Matt (01:50:39):

And I like him a lot.

Laci (01:50:41):

Okay.

Matt (01:50:42):

But the performance, I don’t know.

Laci (01:50:45):

I would have rather Edward Norton. I feel like that’s the right kind of disheveled, just untethered wandering, but there’s rage in there.

Matt (01:50:55):

Yeah, there’s rage and there’s something-

Laci (01:50:57):

Because in Fight Club and in American History X, there’s this misplaced anger of just like, my life is not what I found. I’ve been misled.

Matt (01:51:05):

You got something a little scary about him. And this character is scary and Guy Pearce does make him scary at times.

Laci (01:51:11):

I just see a sad … That was the thing. On the second watch, I didn’t feel like he was capable at all. He felt like a useful idiot and it made me so sad. It’s like when my mom gave me the little miss executive set for Christmas and it came with a briefcase, but the briefcase was like kid sized and it’s like, this is fucking stupid. The whole point was for me to feel like a junior miss executive and I need a full size and then it’s got a flip phone, but it’s this big.

Matt (01:51:40):

Just make it the right size. I’m

Laci (01:51:42):

Not this … Oh, how am I supposed to pretend?

Matt (01:51:44):

Wait, how is this like that?

Laci (01:51:46):

I don’t know. It’s like, oh, give her this and she’ll just be on her way to make Believeland. She just can do whatever she wants. But it’s this little reminder of this is fake. I don’t know why it’s the same thing, but it feels like it. They just wind me up and watch me go. But where I go is right in the wall, nothing to do because this phone doesn’t work in this briefcase too small to hold my documents. It didn’t even hold a letter size piece of paper. What kind of executive has to fold their paper to fit it in their fucking …

Matt (01:52:18):

When I was a kid, my dad had a briefcase. My dad drives a truck for a living. Why did he need a briefcase? But I’ll tell you what was in that briefcase. Scotch tape and stamps. That’s just smart. And I would get into the briefcase and take his scotch tape and he would yell his catchphrase, “Thieves.”

Laci (01:52:34):

Thief is fucking

Matt (01:52:35):

Right. Threeves. And he was right. He was right. And I find myself feeling more like my dad every day. Every day when I can’t find one of my charging bricks, one of my thieves. You

Laci (01:52:45):

Know where

Matt (01:52:46):

They

Laci (01:52:46):

Are. They’re all against her.

Matt (01:52:47):

I know who has them. It doesn’t mean that I know where they are or that I want to look in the places they might be. She’s sleeping

Laci (01:52:52):

On a pile of

Matt (01:52:53):

Them. I know.

Laci (01:52:54):

And they’re little rat-ness.

Matt (01:52:55):

Thaves. So final thoughts on Memento. Found it more frustrating. I think it’s a better movie than following. I had more fun watching following.

Laci (01:53:25):

Yes. So I guess it’s like, what do I need? A Disney ride or something to make me think. And I think the answer is, I need both. I’m going to need Gone Girl. Okay? I don’t know. I think this one was a little bit too much processing. It made me feel the way I felt when I was watching Tenet and Inception where it’s like … I know to pay attention during a movie, but when I know a movie is one of those movies where you have to pay attention or you’re going to be even lost at the end than you would be had you taken in everything, it’s exhausting. Even on medicine, that’s not how ADHD works. It’s just not. It makes me too … I’m too tense in a homework way, not in a, “What’s going to happen next way?” It’s like, “Is this going to be on the quiz?” That’s what it feels like and then it’s like, there’s not even a quiz.

Laci (01:54:13):

I guess I’ll watch it again.

Matt (01:54:15):

So the most interesting things about it are sort of ways that you can see it has themes in common with movies he would go on to make, things where you can project what you know about him onto the characters.

Laci (01:54:27):

The most interesting things to me are the themes it’s playing with and how little does it take to make somebody unlovable and they still look like them. They still talk like them and yet just all the … Yeah, how disposable people are. It’s sad, guys.

Matt (01:54:50):

I think that the ideal version of this movie is the version that gives you the experience of Lenny, which is basically all of time is happening simultaneously effects precede causes and I think inception beautifully gives you the experience of not knowing if you’re in a dream or not.

Laci (01:55:09):

I’m looking forward to watching that again. I think I was too young. I only saw it in the theater. I was like, “Is this not Juneau too? I came here for then Ellen Page.” I really did watch that movie because of her. Wouldn’t that be her follow-up Juno?

Matt (01:55:31):

Not immediate, now them. Wait, is it

Laci (01:55:36):

They/them? I thought it was he/him.

Matt (01:55:38):

I believe it’s they/them.

Laci (01:55:39):

Okay.

Matt (01:55:40):

Not their Elliot’s immediate follow-up. But big follow-up. I mean, next big, huge movie But I don’t feel like Memento succeeds at making you feel like you’re experiencing all of time simultaneously.

Laci (01:55:56):

No, just makes me feel like I’m watching a very confused person.

Matt (01:56:00):

So then the other thing is Tenet, which is a movie I find very frustrating and feel like I can’t connect to and don’t really understand. I nevertheless feels a lot of fun to watch. Film noirs overload you with information and you are supposed to feel a lost and adrift and that is kind of the experience of Tenet and I don’t feel it a memento and so I’m just not having fun watching it. So I’m going to give it three stars. I think it’s interesting but ultimately not that pleasant to watch.

Laci (01:56:31):

And it’s rewatchable but for all the wrong reasons. So three sounds right.

Matt (01:56:37):

Yeah. And I was surprised because my Nolan rankings on Letterboxd, I had this, I think at number four before watching it most just to prepare

Laci (01:56:45):

For this podcast. Watch this movie before you die. And I’m like, I made that list two years ago. I’ve never fucking seen this movie. I guess it’s a-

Matt (01:56:56):

Oh, movies that you … Guys, you have to see Memento before you jack.

Laci (01:57:00):

Yes.

Matt (01:57:00):

But as we said, you’re Lenny, you forget things as soon as they happen. So what’s coming up next, Laci?

Laci (01:57:07):

Inception.

Matt (01:57:07):

Next week is Batman

Laci (01:57:09):

Degas. Already? Already.

Matt (01:57:11):

Insomnia is the movie that he made between Memento and Bts. Yeah, but you’re doing

Laci (01:57:15):

That with

Matt (01:57:16):

Coda. On the Patreon and that is the only movie that he ever made in his career as a hired gun. They had a script. They had a project. Chris, will you make this movie? So it doesn’t have as much Noley stuff in.

Laci (01:57:29):

Let me use my points.

Matt (01:57:30):

But still a great movie. Batman Begins, a movie I feel very conflicted about. A movie that I showed Laci when we first started dating.

Laci (01:57:37):

I lineied up on this guys because at first I was like, whoa, fucking tubular. And then three years ago or whatever I watched it again. I was like, ew.

Matt (01:57:45):

And I loved this movie when I saw it in theaters and kind of every time I watch it, I like it less.

Laci (01:57:52):

That is when you know that he’s hit on something novel but not important, right? It’s like, oh, this is a unique … Okay, this is a twist on what I’m used to seeing, but that twist wears off and then it gets copied and then that makes it even less interesting and it’s no longer unique. It’s just now I’m just here to deal with what you’ve made beyond your little novel idea.

Matt (01:58:15):

Yeah. So if I’m no longer feeling like this fresh, what’s left? And what’s left is a lot of stuff that rubs me the wrong way.

Laci (01:58:21):

Right. So beware of gimmicks. They don’t preserve the movie.

Matt (01:58:27):

That being said, I like Christopher Nolan a lot. And after Batman begins, we will get to movies that I love. I’m

Laci (01:58:33):

Not going to not see his new movies. He’s someone I will watch

Matt (01:58:37):

Except

Laci (01:58:37):

For Odysseus.

Matt (01:58:39):

You’re seeing that. Come

Laci (01:58:40):

On. All right.

Matt (01:58:41):

So if you think this was not a rollicking, joyous, rapturous premiere of Summer of Nolan, stick with us folks. We got some good stuff coming up.

Laci (01:58:50):

We’re going to get joyous.

Matt (01:58:52):

Check out all of our social media, please. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok, and follow my band Rural Route nine. And thank you again to TJ Barons and Wade Hemel for helping us make our new theme song and Rural Nine. Goodbye.

Laci (01:59:07):

Okay. You love.

Matt (01:59:08):

All right.

Laci (01:59:09):

I did it backwards.