Henry Sugar & Company

[00:00:00] What you want, when you want it, where you want it.

[00:00:06] This is the mesh.

[00:00:11] Foot Candle Films.

[00:00:13] Film news and reviews from two guys who really like movies.

[00:00:18] This episode is brought to you by the Foot Candle Film Society.

[00:00:22] For a schedule of upcoming screenings and you know, thank you allergies. We are in fall now, so I've got a little bit of the fall. So yeah, my voice is a little deeper than normal, but yeah, doing, doing good. Little deeper, a little richer voice, but it just adds to the experience here on the audio podcast side of things. So Chris here at Fook and Kendall Films, we talk movies, we review films,

[00:01:41] got a little bit of a different review take on this episode,

[00:01:45] a little different in that we we're going to review all four of them. They'll be short reviews because they are short films, short stories, but we are going to review all four of those and talk about them as kind of a individually and as a piece of work by Mr. Sugar, said the man behind the desk whose job it was to never forget a face. Henry Sugar was 41 years old, unmarried and rich. Strange. The following is what Henry read in the Little Blue Exercise book. Gentlemen, I'm a man who can see without using his eyes. He saw it, I cried. He saw that trolley. This is absolutely unbelievable.

[00:04:23] I was fl big fan of. But I think some people could argue that maybe it just feels a little longish at times and it just kind of spins its wheels at times and and spends more time in the visual flourishes than it does actually advancing a kind of story. Here with

[00:05:42] the wonderful story of Henry Sugar, we have. Well, no, except for Rupert Friend is not in this one. He's not in this one. Well, not that I noticed. He very well could be some other way. But I thought the story was fun. It was a nestled story with any story, which is a very Wes Anderson thing to do.

[00:07:01] You have a narrator explaining the story

[00:07:03] and then he's telling the story of Henry Sugar

[00:07:05] who finds a book that we then dig into least favorite film of some kind. I have time of it. I was gonna guess that. And it was one of my favorites. And I get it, and I could see it's a little bit sounded like I'm being a little contradictory about saying, give me a 20, 30 minute Wes Anderson short film and I love it. I think the fact that this truly is a standalone, it is a singular piece.

[00:08:20] In French Dispatch, you could argue those are singular

[00:08:23] pieces, but I think there was still a desire to make them

[00:08:26] all work together into one big piece. narration direct the camera. I think that was, is kind of a first for this series of shorts or definitely the amount. If it's not a first, it's definitely the amount because Cumberbatch, you know, actually Roald Dahl starts, you know, fine starts a little bit. You know, he talks a little bit in direct addresses, but then when they get into the actual characters moving around, they still do.

[00:09:40] And it has a very theatrical feeling

[00:09:41] where it's like they give stays directions

[00:09:43] like I exit to the left and then I do this

[00:09:45] and then he said, and to him and it kind of changes the course of his life. And this was kind of a similar way.

[00:11:00] So, but you know, this was obviously written way before Dr.

[00:11:04] Strange and all that kind of stuff, stage performance where there's an actor playing multiple roles and It adds to the fun of the piece that you can tell like okay This is this is the same person and it's like he knows that and he's enjoying you feel like you're watching Community theater yeah in a way. It's like a really good community

[00:12:22] Good fast sure small cast he adds were really excellent here. So not, I thought this was great. I mean if I've got to give one complaint. Okay. I don't know if Dev Patel's quite operating on the same Wes Anderson level that the rest are. I didn't feel it. Okay.

[00:13:40] I felt he was, I felt that he, I liked the story within the story element that played out here. It never got too complex or too overly complicated for me to where I felt like

[00:15:04] it was going to just lose itself in the story.

[00:16:04] of like, it's not yodeling music, but it's like you have this like, I don't know. It just, the music reminded me of Grand Budapest Hotel. Now could it have been

[00:16:09] because the number of sets they kept moving between and instead of like, you know, Grand

[00:16:13] Budapest had the different kind of sets that it did. And so maybe that's what reference,

[00:16:17] but I just thought the music was interesting and kind of stood out in this one, which didn't in

[00:16:22] the other three. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah stage directions and yeah, still kind of explaining what's happening. This to me was the most, I mean, it was the most narration driven one where yes, there is visually, there's some acting out of what's happening. But I'd say 75% of the time you're really just watching Rupert

[00:17:40] Friend on screen.

[00:17:43] Narrate the story.

[00:17:44] Right.

[00:17:44] And as you know, kind of, I mean to see if I can cut up a service where if I have new stories I want to listen to in the morning, I want him to read them out to me narration person than I am a Rupert Friend narration person. Not that it was bad, but it was just different and maybe I felt like, I don't know, something about his cadence made it kind of hard for me to keep up with him. And I think also because I'm a trained animal, I think everything is gonna be like what I just watched. So I'm like, okay, here's another Wes Anderson short and they're doing the direct narration. Okay, got it.

[00:20:23] And I thought that eventually it would be handed off or other people would production elements into that Henry Sugar one, which is the longer one, a little bit more elaborate piece. And then these other three are very stripped down, probably the most stripped down, I think I've seen Wes Anderson since. Gosh, Rushmore.

[00:21:40] And even before that, maybe with bottle rocket, I mean, just letting it,

[00:21:44] letting the story in the story

[00:23:00] that's kind of just following along with him.

[00:23:02] But that's really the action you've got.

[00:23:05] So you're right, the stage hands coming in of Henry Sugar where Cumberbatch was driving and we did kind of not stop motion, but obvious green screen of him driving in a car and projected. Yeah. Projected rear projection. You could tell that that was what it was. With this one, there's some images of a boy way up in a tree and it's like he doesn't bother to try to make it realistic. It's like, no, this is, this is clear.

[00:24:23] It's animated or a claymation or something that's up there. So, right. Which he did a little bit in Grandpootabest hotel. And of course he made,

[00:24:25] you know, Isla dogs and just found like in a journal of his or something written that way So it makes me wonder if like some of these are kind of a little intentionally abrupt and they're just you know this is the story this is the way he ended it and There it is. That's it. And do you I hope you spent okay there again that they also did I think at the end of each

[00:25:42] One of these they kind of put these little hand it they did. I really hope that's Wes Anderson's handwriting now

[00:26:42] This one, oh and also in the swan. This one we have Rupert Friend is in it.

[00:26:45] We also have Richard Iota is acting as more of,

[00:26:48] more of the narrator for this one.

[00:26:50] And then we also have Ray Fiennes as the rat man.

[00:26:54] So Chris, I'll go ahead and tell you with this one

[00:26:57] just to kind of jump right to it.

[00:26:59] This is probably my least favorite of the four,

[00:27:02] I'll go ahead and say,

[00:27:03] even though I think it has one of the best performances

[00:27:06] in it, which is Ray be pantomined or imagined. So the imagined things in this one didn't work for you as well? Not as well. Not as well as they did in the swan. Which was a little disappointing because there is the rats and he is going to explain how he's going to catch and outwit these rats. So that's the story. Chris, what are your thoughts on this one? So we'll get to the ranking of the four later after we finish the last short. But yeah, this one was,

[00:29:40] I felt like there wasn't a whole lot to it.

[00:29:43] I mean, it's called the Rat Catcher,

[00:29:45] so you kind of know what it's gonna be focusing on,

[00:29:47] a guy who catches rats. made me think about something in a Harry Potter movie, which he was in those, but not as a rat guy. This one, kind of towards the end, the rat catcher makes some interesting comments on candy making, and that kind of made me think, okay, Rolled Doll, that's the whole Charlie and the Chocolate Factory stuff, so Willy Wonka. So I was like, huh, that's interesting that he's kind of,

[00:31:01] again, taking kind of a dig at the candy industry

[00:31:04] and maybe somehow it can have a darker side.

[00:31:07] So I found that interesting. defense for that. Okay. Um, so the animated rat I think is done simply because, Hey, West Anderson likes doing stop motion stuff. He was like, but other than that also because, um, the rat talks, but it's actually, it's the rat catcher is saying things and the rat is saying it. And there's commentary there on whether this person really thinks he is a

[00:32:22] rat himself and that's how he can get in the right. So I think that,

[00:32:25] that was the reason to have a stop motion, and I think, again, you were saying you preferred the actors pretending to be, one pretending to be a rat and the other one being the rat catcher and he's just being himself at that point. So I explained why I thought they did the stop motion rat. And I think while they go this route

[00:33:41] and some of the pantomiming they do earlier in the film,

[00:33:43] it's all about animal rights and try not to be.

[00:33:47] Oh yeah.

[00:33:48] And keeping this, I mean, I was like, oh, that was kind of a missed opportunity not to do some type of the shirt billowing around. Or like get a stage hand behind it, like just to kick the hand and rustle around in the back.

[00:35:01] Exactly.

[00:35:02] However, when I watched it the second time,

[00:35:04] it made me appreciate it that much more

[00:35:06] because some, and I've got some thoughts about this whole experiment that we'll get to at the end for sure but um that's the rat catcher let's move on to the fourth one fourth one's thoughts on this one? Benedict Cumberbatch, because of his assignment, he is made to lay in a bed. He cannot move anything other than his mouth and his eyes. Like, try not to even move his chin as he talks. It's really like just his mouth.

[00:37:40] And they show him, because he's got a snake on him.

[00:37:42] And they show him profusely sweating. just enough visual style to it to keep it engaging. This is not one that works as a just audio, just gonna listen to it. I think this is- Because you can't see Benedict come back to face. Right, no, you've gotta see his face and you've gotta see the situation that we're dealing with. It's a very visual situation that they're working with. But I really did enjoy this. I thought this was a lot of fun.

[00:39:02] And it ends, you could argue it ends a little abruptly,

[00:39:08] but I like the ending. the doctor and the hairy character, what is their makeup, what is their difference? You're right, there's a little bit of that. So I feel like, I mean, they say something, but again, I guess that's kinda good in a way. They're not beating you over the head with it, but still, I kinda felt like they make some statements at the end, you're like, okay, so you're meaning this? And so I was a little unclear, but yeah, maybe I could see how you could say I ended

[00:40:20] a little abruptly.

[00:40:21] Just a bit, I think maybe,

[00:40:23] I don't wanna say unsatisfying ending,

[00:40:24] it's just a, it moving on to now that we've discussed all four, what would you say your ranking would be for them? My ranking, so I'm gonna say the Wonderful World of Henry Sugar's first. Okay. Just because I did really get engaged in that story. I think obviously it was the most Wes Anderson-ish of all four visually.

[00:41:42] Having a lot more room to play with,

[00:41:43] there was obviously a lot more production work

[00:41:45] put into the film.

[00:41:47] Bandit Cumberbatch was great. I say the swan is number three for me. The swan and the rat catcher again, I like the stripped down version of these two films I liked how simple they were that they were folks more focused on the narration and the storytelling than they were Everything else going on around it in the scene The swan I just I really like Rupert friends narration. I like the story in general

[00:43:02] It had just a little bit more going for me the rat catcher again, I liked

[00:44:14] I think a lot of it also has to do, I don't know, maybe I'm just the frame of mind I'm in right now, but Henry sugar is an uplifting kind of positive tone poison. I mean, it doesn't end on a, you know, it doesn't, it's not dark. Let's just leave it. It's not dark. It's not a little me or Cumberbatch was talking too fast that I couldn't get what was going on. The imagery and everything in the scenes, the way they would, it was like you were watching a play because they would have like different scene or scenery fly up and down, like you were using a fly rail in a typical theater. And said at the beginning. I do think this is a perfect Wes Anderson formula. And I wonder going back to like the French dispatch, if you were to take those stories, and separate them out. Break them out and let them stand on their own and let them be their own thing

[00:47:00] if I were to watch that in that format,

[00:47:02] if I would feel like they were better.

[00:47:05] Because I think there's just something to that. I almost wonder if that kind of putting it into one singular piece kind of forces you to think how are they connected and what's the overall arc of things whatever. I like the fact that it's all fours like nope they're they are their own thing the only connective tissue is the writer of the original piece right and Ray Fiennes as the stand-in for that author and kind of the overall narrator

[00:48:22] but there's no other connective tissue I mean you can watch these independently and that's it performance version, but yet with a lot of creative elements floating around it, it just, it works for Doll's work for sure. Sure. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, I would be perfectly happy and satisfied if Wes Anderson announced tomorrow that from here on out, I am just taking short stories

[00:49:42] written by either a doll or other similar authors

[00:49:46] or maybe my own short stories But I wonder how when the Academy Awards rolls around, which it's going to be rolling around, we have four different shorts by Wes Anderson. We have a short by Pedro Elmodovar. I can't remember the name of it. But has, yes, as, what's his face?

[00:51:01] Ethan Hawke.

[00:51:02] Strangers.

[00:51:03] Oh, no, I can't remember.

[00:51:05] It's a cowboy film.

[00:51:06] It stars Ethan Hawke.

[00:51:07] Hold on, I'll be sort of talking about it. I just feel like, how could you not? I mean, with those two guys, and I don't know. I think, I don't know if we used it as a news item a couple of shows ago, but they've stayed, the Academy has stated something like,

[00:52:21] starting in 2025, I think, you have to have

[00:52:25] something more than like over 10 years. And he'd gotten the blessing or whatever from the Roald Dahl family. So I guess maybe bought the rights or whatever. So they said, okay, you can do that. And then Netflix bought, I guess, everything

[00:53:43] from the Dahl family or the Dahl estate.

[00:53:45] So then basically he was gonna have to release it

[00:53:47] on Netflix because either short films, all based on the works of Roald Dahl. I think I love what he did with this whole body of work, this whole piece. I think some pieces worked better than others, but overall I still think it was a, even the pieces that didn't work as well for me,

[00:55:00] I mean, that's the beauty of short film.

[00:55:02] It was really, they were only like 12 or 13 minutes

[00:55:05] because Netflix puts on like several minutes or all four of these films right now. If you can find them, just do a little searching. Honestly, you do a search for Wes Anderson and you'll find them easier. That's probably the best way to do it, but there's somewhere in that mix of new releases if you look around. Okay, Chris, so let's take a quick break and we'll come back.

[00:56:20] I know we've got some recommendations of films to make.

[00:56:23] You're listening to Foot Candle Films here on themesh.tv

[00:56:25] and we'll be back in to find out what trailers have been released for films that are gonna be coming out soon, maybe ones of projects we've heard of, and we're excited to see the trailer for it, or sometimes it's a project we've known nothing about and the trailer's gonna be our first taste, our first little morsel of that film. So Chris, I understand you have something you wanna share with us on this first one.

[00:57:41] Yes, so A24, a studio which I really, really like,

[00:57:46] and they do choose interesting films. Okay, so Chris just shared the trailer for The Iron Claw. That's the name of it. Yes. 824 film coming out, Zac Efron. And then we have also the actor from the TV show The Bear. What is his name? Okay, it's three names, Jeremy and then White, but I'm not sure about what the middle name is.

[00:59:00] Okay, we're gonna go with Jeremy White.

[00:59:01] Okay.

[00:59:02] But there is a middle name.

[00:59:03] Is it Allen?

[00:59:04] Jeremy Allen?

[00:59:05] Jeremy Allen White?

[00:59:06] Everybody listening probably knows who we're talking about.

[00:59:07] Yeah, we need's great. So this is director Ish Sean Durkin, who did Martha Marcy, Mae Marlene.

[01:00:20] Okay.

[01:00:21] So that was his...

[01:00:23] Wow.

[01:00:25] That was his only other feature film.

[01:00:26] He did that in 2011.

[01:00:27] I recognize the name, and yeah, the shots in the ring look so much like what we saw in The Wrestler, the actual Aronofsky film with Mickey Rourke. You know, it's almost like it's a little bit of a being positioned as a early story of somebody that eventually became the character in The Wrestler, but it's just interesting how the shots and the colors and the lighting all's very similar to what we saw

[01:01:41] in that film as well.

[01:01:43] No, I'm very excited, Chris.

[01:01:45] I had actually read about this film.

[01:01:47] I had not seen the trailer, but. Not, I think this looks really good, man. I'm honestly excited for it, council. Great, thank you for sharing that trailer. I'm very, very anxious to see that. Well, Chris, I'm gonna stick with the recommendations because I do have recommendations to give. I don't have a new trailer to share.

[01:03:01] But I am gonna recommend a couple films for people

[01:03:03] that I was very happy to catch back up with on both fronts. at the crux of our enjoyment of horror movies. And look, Royce Meade's Baby, there's a lot of personality-driven issues behind this film. It is directed by Roman Polanski, which Roman Polanski has had his own share of issues

[01:04:21] over the years and challenges

[01:04:22] and however you wanna kind of perceive those issues.

[01:04:27] I know different people have different frame of mind And over time you start to get the feeling of she becomes pregnant through a very horrific scene in the film and Then that builds into this tension of what's gonna happen when the baby is born and what is the role of these other people? around her these neighbors

[01:05:45] Everybody who's ever heard of the film knows it has to do with giving birth to the devil's child And yeah, I'm just gonna leave it at that sure

[01:06:43] It's gotten maybe one, I mean, one scene in particular that I would say yes, that is a horror scene.

[01:06:46] It is the scene where she actually does become pregnant.

[01:06:50] It's terrible to watch.

[01:06:52] It's very, very rough to watch.

[01:06:54] The rest of the film, not really so much,

[01:06:55] is all a sense of building of dread, intention,

[01:06:58] and anxiety that Rosemary is going through.

[01:07:01] But to me, that's the kind of horror film I really like.

[01:07:03] So Rosemary's Baby, I think, is great.

[01:07:07] I think it's a very tough watch. That leads me to, I'm gonna give a two for this month, just because it is Halloween season and we've been catching up on a lot of horror films. The other one for me that I mentioned is a little bit of a distant cousin in a way to Rosemary's Baby.

[01:08:21] It's one that you and I reviewed, I think, years ago.

[01:08:24] Did we review it or maybe it was before we started

[01:08:26] the podcast?

[01:08:27] It would have been 2018. Even though I want to say Ari Aster might be slightly diminishing returns since this first movie, this was... it's a masterful horror film in my mind. Because it has just the right moments of shock and disturbing moments. But also this impending dread and tension.

[01:09:41] Just like Rosemary's Baby. You just don't know where it's going, but you know it's going somewhere bad.

[01:09:46] And that's the whole thing. my, my family just recently and uh, nice family evening. Oh, perfect. It's a warm family get together. You know, you all see Alan's family has children that are older. All of our children are grown adults at this point pretty much. So, uh, yeah. But, uh, boy, it was a, it was a, it was a fun watch. So hereditary by Ari Oster, uh, 2018, it is available on HBO max. I know for streaming for free,

[01:11:04] there, well, if you have a subscription up with us on anything we talked about or give their own impressions or questions, how do they reach out to us? You can send an email to info at footcandle.org. You can follow us on Twitter, at Foot Candle Film, Facebook, Foot Candle Film Society,

[01:12:22] Instagram and threads, Foot Candle Film.

[01:12:24] Alan and I are also on Letterbox where we try to track

[01:12:26] what we're seeing and leave quick takes. The reverence of the heritage of an art Watch films through the courtesy of McCann No Film Society Special thanks to Carpal Taller for the show theme music. For more about Carpal Taller, visit www.carpaltaller.com

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