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[0:00] Unknown speaker: The trouble is, Mr. Thatcher, you don't realize you're talking to two people. That's Charles Entertainment Cheese, who has 80,631 shares of public transfer. You see, I do have a rough idea of my holdings. I sympathize with you. Charles Entertainment Cheese is a dangerous scoundrel. His papers should be run out of town, and a committee should be formed to boycott him. You may, if you can form such a committee, put me down for a contribution of $1,000. On the other hand, I am the publisher of The Enquirer. As such, it is my duty—I'll let you know, and on a little secret—it is also my pleasure to see that the decent, hard-working people of this community are not robbed blind by a group of money-mad pirates, because they have no one to look after their interests.

I'll let you in on another secret, Mr. Thatcher. I think I'm the man to do it. You see, I have money and property. If I don't defend the interests of the underprivileged, somebody else will. Maybe somebody without any money or property, and that would be too bad. I happened to see your consolidated statement yesterday, Chucky. Could I suggest to you that it is unwise for you to continue this philanthropic enterprise? This... Enquirer... that is costing you $1,000,000 a year? You're right! We did lose $1,000,000 last year. We expect to lose another $1,000,000 next year, too. You know what, Mr. Thatcher? At a rate of $1,000,000 a year, we'll have to close this place in... 60 years.

[1:15] Jesse McAnally: Hello, I'm Jesse McAdally.

[1:25] Andrew DeWolf: And I'm Andrew DeWolf.

[1:26] Liz Esten: And I'm Liz Esten.

[1:27] Jesse McAnally: And welcome to the Cheese Wheel, a hyper-fixation podcast where our topics are gambled on a big wheel. How are we doing today, guys?

[1:32] Andrew DeWolf: Um, I did just die recently, um...

[1:35] Jesse McAnally: I knew it!

[1:39] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, and I muttered, uh, and you're gonna have to figure this one out, I muttered one word when I died. Maybe two words, you actually have to, you might have to guess whether it was one or two words.

[1:49] Liz Esten: Is it a hyphenated word?

[1:51] Andrew DeWolf: It may have been a hyphenated word.

[1:53] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I think I walked in on you after you died, Andrew, actually.

[1:57] Liz Esten: It's after you died, so who heard him?

[1:59] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, who the fuck heard you?

[2:00] Andrew DeWolf: Well, apparently everybody heard me, because there was multiple people that said they heard me, but I was definitely the only one in that room, and we all saw it at the beginning. I mean, it all depends on interpretation. The word was rosebud, by the way, and we're gonna spend the whole movie figuring out why I said that. The movie's not about rosebud. The point of the movie is it's not about rosebud. It's a classy, well-made film, but it has so much history, so much important things, and even though I really can't play the argument that it is the greatest film of all time, every great film has ripped this off. Like, if there is something you like about a film made post, you know, 1930, 40... Post-1941, it's due entirely because of the techniques and technical advancements brought about by Citizen Kane, in which case, cue the trailer.

[2:51] Unknown speaker: How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? This is Orson Welles. I'm speaking for the Mercury Theater, and what follows is supposed to advertise our first motion picture. Citizen Kane is the title, and we hope it can correctly be called a coming attraction. It's certainly coming, coming to this theater, and I think our Mercury actors make it an attraction. I'd like you to meet them. Speaking of attractions, well, the Chorus Girls are certainly an attraction, but frankly, ladies and gentlemen, we're just showing you the Chorus Girls for purposes of ballet-who. It's pretty nice ballet-who.

[3:25] Jesse McAnally: So Citizen Kane was a film written by Herman J. Mankiewicz, John Housman, and Orson Welles. However, it was originally supposed to only be credited to Orson Welles, then you get into some technical lawsuit stuff. It doesn't matter. It was directed by Orson Welles, based on the life of William Randolph Hearst. Kane opened up RKO Palace Theater on Broadway in New York on May 1st, 1941, and in Chicago on May 6th, and in Los Angeles on May 8th. Critical reviews fell in three types, great, mixed, and negative. Most were in the first category, but it caught—basically, a lot of shit happened behind the scenes. William Randolph Hearst did not like the fact that this movie existed, and threatened movie houses that they would not be able to promote themselves in Hearst Papers if they screened the film.

So the film was a flop on release, and then later got appreciation down the road. So it's hard to do a proper critical response, but the fact that we're talking about it today is because of the people that looked at it once again. The plot of Citizen Kane is, following the death of the publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance, Rosebud. Um, this movie has the sauce. I love Orson Welles. I cannot be objective about this. It is so much of my early life, and my knowledge of film, and I know there's a lot of people that will say, friends of mine, who just said, or, Citizen Kane is the most boring fucking movie I've ever seen. And, you're wrong. There are so many more boring movies.

[5:04] Andrew DeWolf: I don't think it was really boring, honestly. I feel like it was paced decently. Um, I have not seen this, but this is one of those movies that—

[5:13] Jesse McAnally: But before now, we have to clear, you did watch it for this podcast.

[5:16] Andrew DeWolf: I have seen it now, yes. I have not seen this prior to this week. Um, so this is like a first time viewing type of thing. But, um, this is one of those movies that you just hear about, where everyone's just like, oh, this is like the best movie ever, ever, ever, ever, and you have to watch it in film school or whatever. Um, to the point where I think now there's like a negative backlash to it, where it's just like, well, it's not that good. I mean, come on. Um, but you know, it kind of is that good, you know? It feels like a modern movie, even though it was made in fucking 1941.

[5:51] Liz Esten: Yeah, it's really crazy.

[5:53] Andrew DeWolf: And a lot of the reason why it feels like a modern movie is because the techniques developed in this, other directors would take and then use to make the modern idea of what a film is. Because if you look at films pre-1941, like pre-Citizen Kane, they feel like stage plays. They feel like, pop the camera down in a room and let it happen. It's also like an early example of an anti-hero type movie, which are very popular now. Just like movies about bad people. You know, like Breaking Bad type shit.

[6:32] Liz Esten: Jesse, had you seen this before now?

[6:34] Jesse McAnally: I had.

[6:36] Liz Esten: I watched it in like early 2020 because David Fincher was directing Manc.

[6:42] Andrew DeWolf: Which is bad.

[6:43] Liz Esten: Which I was going to watch and I never actually watched. But I watched Citizen Kane because it happened to me on HBO. But that was like four years ago?

[6:53] Jesse McAnally: So I honestly forgot a lot of it.

[6:56] Liz Esten: But I don't hate this. I honestly wanted to be that asshole and bother Jess and be like, Citizen Kane is so boring, Jess. I hate this. Film bros suck. No, it's good. It's a good movie. I can't deny that. I can't deny that. It's one of those things where it's kind of undeniable how good it is. It is Orson Welles' best film by far. And unprecedented in every way.

[7:22] Andrew DeWolf: Do you guys know about how this film came to be?

[7:25] Liz Esten: Yeah, I know. This was in an episode of Drunk History.

[7:28] Andrew DeWolf: So I actually know everything that went into making this movie.

[7:32] Jesse McAnally: I have no idea. Explain it to me.

[7:35] Liz Esten: So let's start with Orson Welles being born in, he feels very European, but he was born in fucking Wisconsin. He was a Wisconsinite, born basically a genius. And I don't say that in the Justin Bieber kind of way. I say that in the way that he was already reading by the time he was four. He basically had to, he was already performing by the time he was five. He was reading, like, criticizing Nietzsche by eight. And he was, mother died on his eighth, like, a few days after his eighth birthday. And then he was basically on his own, taking care of his own drunken father. He was drinking and smoking cigars before he turned ten. And by the time he was twenty, he was already considered the best play director of all time. Man's got a good history. Doing some, I mean, some shit that even today would be thought of as, what the hell.

[8:38] Andrew DeWolf: All Black Voodoo Macbeth was, like, one of his big things.

[8:42] Liz Esten: What?

[8:43] Andrew DeWolf: Interesting.

[8:45] Liz Esten: Performed in Wisconsin?

[8:47] Andrew DeWolf: No, that was in New York, part of his Mercury Theater. And then, of course, there is the famous Julius Caesar that he performed with no set, done entirely through lighting, which he would use very well in Citizen Kane to have those dramatic shafts of light. And all that would build from theater to radio. And we all know his big radio fiasco, which is the War of the World reenactment done to, basically as a news broadcast, which it has been blown out of proportion how much that was taken advantage of. People weren't freaking out as much as you think. They were like, huh, that's weird. Is this real? Let's call someone. That was the kind of thing. And then he had to basically do a notes app apology, like, my bad, guys.

[9:40] Andrew DeWolf: I feel like it was a marketing ploy, almost.

[9:42] Liz Esten: Oh, 100%. Like the Blair Witch, the Blair Witch ploy of 99. Like, this is totally real, guys. Who the fuck bought that? Like, who's listening to the radio and they're like, oh my god, there's aliens. And remember, he's still, like, just 24 at this time. So that happens. His name goes everywhere, including out to Hollywood with RKO. Marketing ploy. He was kind of that kind of guy. It would not surprise me if that was where he was kind of playing at. But after that, RKO comes and offers him a deal so unprecedented that it has never been done again. This man who has never made a film or anything of the sort was offered full, completed creative control to make two films for RKO, including Final Cut, and they have no say in what he does.

[10:37] Jesse McAnally: Well, this deal was actually offered one more time by Orson Welles to the Muppets.

[10:42] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, yeah!

[10:45] Liz Esten: You are correct. The standard rich and famous contract.

[10:49] Andrew DeWolf: Miss Tracy, bear the standard rich and famous contract for Kermit the Frog and company.

[10:58] Jesse McAnally: And he pitched several films in the meantime, and some of them didn't work. And then he discovered, he came to Charles Foster Kane through his own ego, more or less, and William Randolph Hearst, because he's like, I can't play a meek character. No one would picture me as a meek character. I am a king, so you need someone of noble status. This is a guy that would talk to me in college, and I would be so pissed off the entire time they were talking to me.

[11:30] Liz Esten: Yeah, I love Orson Welles, but he seems like a fucking pain to deal with.

[11:36] Andrew DeWolf: Now, William Randolph Hearst was still alive. Yeah, William Randolph Hearst was living, owned a fuckton of newspapers, was having an active public mistress that no one gave a shit about, and was throwing constant parties at Xanadu equivalent. It had a weirder name in real life. Sam Simeon. Sam Simeon, which is stupid. So it is wild to write a movie about a guy who's currently alive that's heavily critical of him. Both of you just say that he wrote this movie. Nah, he didn't. Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote the movie. Let's pan away to Herman J. Mankiewicz. Thank you, Liz.

[12:10] Liz Esten: Herman Mankiewicz is a horrendous alcoholic working in the film industry, but cannot really stand upright. He was invited to every party because everyone loved him until he started throwing up on the table. That is a paraphrase of exactly what the kind of man he was. He was a very prolific writer, but he was often uncredited because he just kind of wanted the jobs. And he was very good friends with William Randolph Hearst. He was also very good friends with Marion Davies. He was invited to Hearst Castle, he did all these fun things, and then he was excommunicated from there. Orson Welles hears about this and hires Herman Mankiewicz, puts him basically in a secluded house, says you're not allowed to drink, and also, like when they're just talking, he discovers, oh fuck, if he's writing this script, I could get sued.

Oh no! Because in his RKO contract, he needs to be the sole writer, sole director, sole creative thing. And RKO wants that because they want to bet on their wonder boy. So RKO wants it to be only Orson, Orson wants it to be only him.

[13:23] Andrew DeWolf: And Herman Mankiewicz is used to having his credit being thrown out, so he's fine with it.

[13:30] Jess McAnally: Until he isn't. Is that when the movie starts doing really well?

[13:33] Andrew DeWolf: Kind of. So the film gets made, we'll go into all the bullshit that went into it, but basically he develops, he along with his incredible team of camera and VFX people, create an entirely new style of filmmaking. I don't know if you guys noticed this, but none of the ceilings were really ceilings. Because this is like the first film that tried to, you're shooting on a set, sets don't have a ceiling. What the fuck do you do? And also, where are you going to put the boom mic if you can see the ceiling? All the ceilings were cloth, so that they could put the boom mics right over it and get all the sound. And every time we have these very big, wide, deep focus shots, especially like when he's doing the dance with the girls, in the potted plants, you'll find mics hidden so that you can capture all the audio.

Doing these fascinating techniques just because this guy didn't know film and was like, why can't we do this? Can we try it like this? And he had to break holes in the floor to get these low angle shots and move these cameras in these ways. And in his own words, I didn't know I couldn't do it, so I did it. But it's that kind of rule breaking that we needed to make it more interesting than just a TV show type shot that we have in sitcoms. Like a front shot.

[14:54] Jess McAnally: Yeah, front facing. Yeah, it doesn't look like a sitcom anymore. But the film gets made and you guess who hears about it? William Randolph Hearst. He doesn't like any of this. Hedda Hopper insists on going to the critics screening and Orson Welles is pissed scared of her. He's like, okay, whatever, go ahead. And Hedda Hopper reports it right back to Hearst and Hearst is not happy. Immediately tries to basically destroy the film, hide it. The film flops. Critically, it's respected, but they're like, as a weird kind of intrigue. Immediately his contract with RKO gets thrown out the window. His follow up film, The Magnificent Ambersons gets destroyed by RKO and never released in its proper format. And he was still working on that and still pissy about it when he died in the 80s.

[15:43] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, damn. Oh, when he was when he was that guy in the Transformers movie, he was still doing it when he was that guy in the wine commercials. Yeah.

[15:54] Jess McAnally: Ah, the French champagne has always been celebrated for its excellence. And he also was working on, he never had that success again. He peaked at basically with Citizen Kane, got blacklisted. And even though he did do great films, Shines the Midnight Touch of Evil, he never made anything nearly as good ever again. And we should return to Herman J. Mankiewicz, who at that same critic screening saw the film and thought, holy shit, this is actually good. Something I made might matter. And he started arbitrating to the WGA to get his credit back. Well, I guess the contract was thrown out, so. And that was the only Oscar that they won was for best screenplay or best written film. And all these years later, every single film that we love today is stealing techniques made by this movie. You know, it's pretty it's pretty great that William Randolph Hearst saw this movie and was like, yeah, that's me.

[17:01] Jess McAnally: Well, he never saw the movie. He just had other people report back to him.

[17:04] Andrew DeWolf: And they were all like, yeah, that's you, bro. Someone told him, like, the Marion Davies equivalent was like considered like a floozy or something. But no, she wasn't. I mean, she kind of was, but she wasn't like it wasn't like the worst it could have been. It was needlessly cruel to Marion Davies, who, by all accounts, was a lovely person.

[17:24] Liz Esten: True, true. She might have involved in a murder, but, you know, that's a whole other thing.

[17:28] Andrew DeWolf: So was Christopher Walken, and we can still put him in fucking Dune, too.

[17:32] Jess McAnally: Oh, yeah. And Matthew Broderick killed a guy, so.

[17:35] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, a lot of folks can still just be performers. So on that note, all that history aside, the film has aged incredibly well. It does not feel like a film made in the 40s. It feels very much like, you know, a movie in the traditional sense. And I think it developed the technique of, I won't call it Rashomon style, because that's much later, but telling a story out of order, telling it through the points of view of different people. And it's so fascinating how it comes together by the end of it.

[18:08] Liz Esten: Didn't D.W. Griffith do that like a while ago with tolerance to be completely technical?

[18:15] Andrew DeWolf: Not to the same extent. Not in the same way. I think Rashomon is probably the closest comparison. I think that's a few years later.

[18:21] Jess McAnally: Okay, cool. Also, the racist guy made a movie named Cult Tolerance right after the racist movie. That is a true fact.

[18:29] Andrew DeWolf: I'm not pretending Orson Welles is some faultless guy. Let's not pretend he didn't play Othello full makeup. Like, Orson Welles developed some things and was a very fascinating figure, but definitely, definitely, definitely a fault-filled man.

[18:46] Jess McAnally: Now, I've ranted and raved. Does all that come across in the final product? Do you guys understand when you're looking at this deep focus shot that there isn't that lensing effect that you see even in films today?

[19:00] Andrew DeWolf: I don't think I can. I'm not enough of a film-brained person that I can notice that type of stuff. I just watch it and it just looks really nice, and that's all I can really recognize beyond that. It's just like, oh, they did something cool there.

[19:17] Jess McAnally: Fair enough.

[19:18] Andrew DeWolf: But I don't understand how cameras work or the techniques behind it, so I don't get that kind of a...

[19:25] Liz Esten: You don't get that cinema boner?

[19:28] Andrew DeWolf: I don't, which maybe that would make the movie better for me, or maybe I would be more bored by it if I was just looking for that type of stuff.

[19:36] Jess McAnally: Understandably, understandably. Liz, you are more of a film person than Andrew. Do you get lost in the sauce in the same way I do?

[19:44] Liz Esten: Okay, to be technical, I did go to film school, but I didn't study film in the way that Jess studied film.

[19:54] Jess McAnally: Pretentiously.

[19:57] Liz Esten: He studied film pretentiously. My degree was in television production, so I learned more how to make commercials and things that were more for a mainstream mom and pop audience, basically. I had friends in the film program, so I heard about all the shit they had to watch, and my god, it sounds fucking horrible. I didn't study film the way Jess studied film, so I understand cameras vaguely, but I don't understand...

[20:24] Andrew DeWolf: When I see a deep focus shot, I know it's a deep focus shot and it looks pretty, but I don't think about the technique that hard.

[20:33] Jess McAnally: What is a deep focus shot?

[20:35] Liz Esten: I mean, it's like a shot...

[20:36] Andrew DeWolf: Let's go!

[20:37] Liz Esten: It's like a shot that heavily focuses on a single subject, I'm pretty sure.

[20:42] Jess McAnally: Nope, you got it backwards.

[20:43] Liz Esten: Okay, I haven't been to school in a long time.

[20:46] Jess McAnally: Jess, tell me what a deep focus shot is before I continue my thought.

[20:50] Jess McAnally: The audience demands it.

[20:51] Liz Esten: Yeah, look at the definition.

[20:52] Jess McAnally: Look at the audience seeing me.

[20:54] Jess McAnally: So, deep focus is basically... So when you have a camera, like you have this one right here, they can only focus on one thing at a time. That's why you have your f-stop at certain levels. So the higher, the more open your aperture is, the more blur you're going to get in the background. But that's not how our eyes see. Orson Welles was very keen on showing things the way our eyes see it, which is deep focus. Everything is in focus. Now you have things like diopters that can kind of do that and you see that in like the greatest film of all time, Trap.

[21:27] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, f- you.

[21:30] Jess McAnally: I had to throw it in. I don't want to hear about Trap anymore.

[21:34] Jess McAnally: But let's take a look at this shot right here. For those of you listening, which there's a couple of you, it is a scene of the parents. So in this shot we have here, everyone is in focus. The mother, Mr. Bernstein, his father, and little Charlie back there. Everything is in focus. There is no follow-up. Charlie's all the way in the back, way outside of a window. And now we have fake deep focus here that Greg Toland would claim is actually deep focus. Now this is a lie.

[22:05] Andrew DeWolf: So this shot right here.

[22:06] Jess McAnally: Yeah, it's a collected diopter shot.

[22:08] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[22:08] Jess McAnally: It's- well, diopters didn't quite exist. These are two shots cut out the same way that you would a match- match shot of something like Star Wars where you have those paintings. But it's just two shots. But the cinematographer, Toland, would always be like, No, no, we totally did it. I won't tell you how. And he did that. Alright, dude. Whatever makes you happy. But yeah, like, to go off of that, I don't think about cameras that way a lot of the time. Like, it's- my thought is, does the shot look pretty? Cool. Then I move on. Like, I don't think too hard. Like, does the lighting look good? Like, all this other stuff. My brain, because of what I studied, kind of goes more into the post-production of it all.

So like, the way the scenes are cut and like how much cutting is in it. So that's where I really focused on a lot of the- throughout the watching of this earlier. So yeah, like, I don't know. My brain works differently than Jess's because I learned to make commercials and I studied editing and I never shot anything on camera after two semesters.

[23:10] Andrew DeWolf: So I didn't have to rent equipment anymore.

[23:13] Liz Esten: So after two years, I stopped renting equipment. I just majored in editing.

[23:18] Jess McAnally: Well, let's talk about the editor really quick, Robert Wise, who would go on to direct The Sound of Music and West Side Story. One of the most prolific directors of all time and just a baby when doing this. The film was edited by him and assistant editor Mark Robson after a more, I would say, tenured editor was hired and Wells said, No, I don't want that. I don't want this to feel like a movie. I want it to feel like a different movie. And then he brought in Robert Wise, who would go on to direct some of the greatest films ever made. And all those weird kind of little connective tissues that would develop the future of the film industry. But back to deep focus for a brief moment. Deep focus is cool in this movie, but it's anyone that tries to do it. Nowadays, it looks very bad because it kind of looks like iPhone footage. So we've kind of swung all the way back around to deep focus, replicating the eye looking cheap.

[24:17] Andrew DeWolf: So just just to be a cynical piece of crap for a second, right? Would this movie look nearly as good if it was in color?

[24:26] Jess McAnally: No.

[24:27] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, I look like I look terrible in color. In the late 80s, or I want to say, yeah, in the 80s. This, this great, horrible man, Ted Turner, was colorizing old black and white films to put onto his television station. Without the permission or insight of the original filmmakers who had died, George Lucas and many other filmmakers came along to speaking against this saying this is a bad idea. You should not fuck with a film after it's done. And when George Lucas said this.

[25:01] Jess McAnally: Yes, he did.

[25:03] Andrew DeWolf: The irony.

[25:10] Jess McAnally: I thought movies were never done, George.

[25:13] Andrew DeWolf: Ewoks need to blink.

[25:29] Jess McAnally: And when Orson Welles was specifically asked about it, his direct quote was, "Held Ted Turner to keep his crayons away from my picture." Which that's a great quote. Actually, I love that.

[25:31] Andrew DeWolf: It would be so much worse. It would lose that noir feeling. It would lose that newspaper feeling. But Andrew, you texted me about this, and we can't not bring it up. This is a former president and presidential nominee. Donald Trump's favorite film of all time. He has said it numerous times.

[26:01] Andrew DeWolf: There's a whole reading here with this one. OK, so for one, just to start out, I'm just going to say that it doesn't. I don't think it means that much. And we're going to go into it deeper anyways. But I think Donald Trump only says that this is his favorite movie because a lot of people say it's the greatest movie ever made. And he wants to say that his favorite movie is the greatest movie ever made. I think that's the only reason he really actually says he likes it. I'm not even really sure he's watched it. He could have said Shawshank. Like, Shawshank Redemption is the best movie ever made. He digs a tunnel. Pretty lady. Best movie ever. IMDb said so. I think that he has heard that this is technically the greatest movie. And he wants to be like, my favorite movie is the greatest movie ever made. It's the greatest because I'm the greatest. And so I like the things that are.

[26:47] Andrew DeWolf: He's brought up like, it's about this guy who's got money and has like all these ladies that want him.

[26:55] Jess McAnally: I don't think he's, he either hasn't seen it or he has such a ridiculously surface level understanding of what happens in the movie that it's, he doesn't even understand what happens just in the plain text of the movie.

[27:09] Andrew DeWolf: You know? Like, it's not even that he doesn't have like a good deeper reading of it, he doesn't even understand what the fuck happens, just like a normal person watching it would take away from the movie.

[27:23] Jess McAnally: I mean, there are a lot of, you can't ignore the similarities there.

[27:30] Andrew DeWolf: What's, yeah, so here, what's, what is crazy is, the movie is about William Randolph Hearst, but if you want to, the movie is about Donald Trump.

[27:42] Jess McAnally: Why would you want to? Wait, wait, wait.

[27:45] Andrew DeWolf: Well, because it's relevant to modern day. You know, who gives a shit about William Randolph Hearst? Citizen Kane is more famous than William Randolph Hearst at this point, I mean, come on.

[27:59] Jess McAnally: Donald Trump is exactly what Charles Foster Kane is. He is a miserable liar who is corrupt and cares about nothing but himself.

[28:12] Andrew DeWolf: Do, okay, I have found it on the Wikipedia page. Do we want to know Trump's own interpretation of the film's theme?

[28:18] Jess McAnally: Yeah, of course we do.

[28:19] Andrew DeWolf: Go for it, yeah.

[28:20] Jess McAnally: Holy shit, why would we not want to know this?

[28:21] Andrew DeWolf: I cannot do a Donald Trump impression. I can do a kind of okay Orson Welles, but not a Donald Trump.

[28:26] Jess McAnally: If you want to show it, I can try mine. Mine's not very good either, though.

[28:29] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, I just don't do one.

[28:31] Jess McAnally: My Trump is really not that great, but if you're saying yours is bad, then I'll do my best.

[28:36] Andrew DeWolf: You learn in Kane maybe wealth isn't everything because he had the wealth, but he didn't have the happiness.

[28:42] Jess McAnally: In real life, I believe wealth does, in fact, isolate you from other people. It's a protective mechanism.

[28:49] Andrew DeWolf: Perhaps I can understand that.

[28:56] Jess McAnally: Maybe he used to be a little bit more articulate, but that's not an unfair reading.

[29:02] Andrew DeWolf: It's, I suppose, a fair reading for someone in his position.

[29:08] Jess McAnally: Yeah.

[29:09] Andrew DeWolf: Where he is looking at Kane as someone who is essentially in the same position that he is.

[29:16] Jess McAnally: He was quoted with that less than a month before he would become president.

[29:20] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[29:21] Jess McAnally: That wasn't in 2002, which is where my bet was.

[29:24] Andrew DeWolf: I found a Politico article from 2016 explaining what it means that Citizen Kane is Donald Trump's favorite movie.

[29:31] Jess McAnally: It means that he doesn't watch that many movies, probably.

[29:35] Andrew DeWolf: The article is basically he doesn't understand Citizen Kane.

[29:38] Jess McAnally: Here's the thing. It's not that complicated a movie.

[29:43] Andrew DeWolf: It really isn't.

[29:44] Jess McAnally: No, it's not.

[29:45] Andrew DeWolf: A film that is trying to entertain an audience at the end of the day.

[29:48] Jess McAnally: It is not pretentious, really.

[29:51] Andrew DeWolf: The most pretentious thing in it is the cockatiel in the two-thirds part.

[29:57] Jess McAnally: I think it gets a reputation for, well, it must be this art house movie because they watch it in film school and everyone thinks it's really good.

[30:08] Andrew DeWolf: But really, watching it, it's pretty grounded.

[30:11] Jess McAnally: It's pretty understandable and, I would say, entertaining for even just a normal movie-going audience.

[30:20] Andrew DeWolf: Maybe not a modern movie-going audience because all we watch now is action movies about guys in masks.

[30:26] Jess McAnally: I disagree.

[30:27] Andrew DeWolf: I think this is very similar to Oppenheimer as far as style.

[30:31] Jess McAnally: Oh, yeah.

[30:33] Andrew DeWolf: Definitely similar to a Nolan film or something like that.

[30:36] Jess McAnally: But I would also say there's a section of the world that doesn't think Oppenheimer or Nolan films are accessible.

[30:43] Andrew DeWolf: They see them as too long, too strung out, too artsy, and they don't engage with them.

[30:48] Jess McAnally: I don't like Oppenheimer because I don't engage with it.

[30:52] Andrew DeWolf: But do you engage with Citizen Kane?

[30:54] Jess McAnally: I engage with Citizen Kane because it doesn't feel like the director has a stick up his ass.

[30:58] Andrew DeWolf: Oppenheimer feels like Chris Nolan has three sticks up his ass.

[31:03] Jess McAnally: I will give you that for Tenet.

[31:06] Andrew DeWolf: Nolan is actually a pretentious director, in my opinion.

[31:09] Jess McAnally: I don't agree entirely because he's still making blockbusters to please an audience at the end of the day.

[31:16] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, but Oppenheimer is only a blockbuster because of Barbenheimer.

[31:19] Jess McAnally: If Barbenheimer wasn't a thing, it wouldn't have made as much money.

[31:23] Andrew DeWolf: I think it still would have done well.

[31:26] Jess McAnally: It would still have done well, but it wouldn't have made the money it made.

[31:28] Andrew DeWolf: It wouldn't have made a billion.

[31:30] Jess McAnally: It wouldn't have made half of the money it made.

[31:32] Andrew DeWolf: It's still half of the billion dollars.

[31:34] Jess McAnally: It's still more than most movies make.

[31:35] Andrew DeWolf: That's still good, but it still wouldn't have made a billion dollars.

[31:37] Jess McAnally: Barbie really helped it.

[31:39] Andrew DeWolf: I watched Barbie, and I didn't watch Oppenheimer because I don't want to watch a three-hour movie about a war criminal.

[31:47] Jess McAnally: But this is a two-hour movie about a war criminal.

[31:51] Andrew DeWolf: One of the most incredible shots in this is the shot of Charles Foster Kane and Hitler.

[31:56] Jess McAnally: It's doing the Forrest Gump thing 50 years before Forrest Gump.

[32:00] Andrew DeWolf: Hell yeah.

[32:02] Jess McAnally: It's so fucking cool.

[32:04] Andrew DeWolf: This came out before the war was over, right?

[32:06] Jess McAnally: Yeah, this is during World War II, right?

[32:08] Andrew DeWolf: This film is so ahead of its time, not only on its politics, which is mostly good.

[32:13] Jess McAnally: This film has pretty sound morals that it's trying to preach.

[32:18] Andrew DeWolf: As far as the acting, it's very naturalistic.

[32:21] Jess McAnally: One of my favorite parts about it that Robert Wise basically brought in is that actors are talking over each other.

[32:29] Andrew DeWolf: You didn't do that in films before this!

[32:31] Jess McAnally: Well, it was like a play before.

[32:33] Andrew DeWolf: In a play, you wouldn't write lines that overlap each other, at least not often.

[32:38] Jess McAnally: Also, no one's doing the 1930s movie voice that I can't replicate, but is not their real talking voice.

[32:47] Andrew DeWolf: Isn't that... what is that called?

[32:49] Jess McAnally: Jimmy Stewart?

[32:51] Andrew DeWolf: It's like... oh my god.

[32:53] Jess McAnally: There's a name for it.

[32:54] Andrew DeWolf: The transatlantic accent.

[32:56] Jess McAnally: Yeah, the transatlantic accent.

[32:57] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, because you watch old movie blueprints and they're like, oh shit, sorry, I messed up that take. Let me get back into it!

[33:04] Jess McAnally: They actually did that on purpose.

[33:05] Andrew DeWolf: I used to think that was the mic quality or something, but it's actually...

[33:08] Jess McAnally: It's just how they're talking.

[33:10] Andrew DeWolf: It's how they were taught to perform, because they grew up in the vaudeville.

[33:13] Jess McAnally: Probably the closest to that is Orson Welles, who just has this...

[33:17] Andrew DeWolf: Like, he feels European, but he's a Wisconsinite.

[33:21] Jess McAnally: He is just as European as Mike Stoklasa.

[33:26] Andrew DeWolf: Alright, it is time for PREVIEWS!

[33:30] Jess McAnally: It's time for PREVIEWS, PREVIEWS, PREVIEWS!

[33:34] Andrew DeWolf: It's time for PREVIEWS!

[33:38] Jess McAnally: So this is the Letterboxd game, where I pull up real Letterboxd reviews, and I put Liz and Andrew head-to-head, and they have to guess whether it's a 1-star or 5-star based on just the review alone. Are you guys ready?

[33:50] Liz Esten: I'm always ready for Letterboxd.

[33:52] Andrew DeWolf: I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

[33:54] Jess McAnally: Alright, Liz, you're first.

[33:55] Liz Esten: Alright.

[33:56] Jess McAnally: Have you guys seen this shit?!

[33:58] Liz Esten: Five exclamation points.

[34:00] Jess McAnally: Well, someone has...

[34:02] Andrew DeWolf: Five?

[34:03] Jess McAnally: That is correct!

[34:04] Andrew DeWolf: Yes?

[34:06] Jess McAnally: I mean, it wasn't as good as Shrek 2 2004, but it was okay.

[34:10] Andrew DeWolf: Nothing as good as Shrek 2 2004.

[34:13] Liz Esten: Yeah, the comparison...

[34:14] Andrew DeWolf: Shrek 5 might be.

[34:15] Jess McAnally: That's a 1-star, because, I mean, Shrek 2 is...

[34:18] Andrew DeWolf: If Shrek 2 is your comparison point, you're not gonna reach that.

[34:21] Liz Esten: Yeah.

[34:22] Jess McAnally: It was a 5!

[34:23] Andrew DeWolf: Damn!

[34:24] Liz Esten: Dang!

[34:26] Andrew DeWolf: I thought I had something.

[34:27] Liz Esten: I really thought I had something.

[34:28] Andrew DeWolf: Shrek 2 is the perfect movie.

[34:30] Jess McAnally: Alright, Liz, you're up.

[34:32] Liz Esten: Yes.

[34:33] Jess McAnally: Not as good as Shrek 2 2004.

[34:35] Liz Esten: You just said that.

[34:36] Andrew DeWolf: No, no, I said, I mean, it wasn't as good as Shrek 2 2004, but it was okay.

[34:40] Jess McAnally: This one says, not as good as Shrek 2 2004.

[34:43] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, you just read a review that was very similar, that was 5-stars.

[34:48] Liz Esten: You're trying to get me comfortable, so I say 5-stars.

[34:52] Andrew DeWolf: So, I would say 1-star.

[34:54] Jess McAnally: But, you might be tricking me, it might be 5.

[34:57] Andrew DeWolf: 1.

[34:58] Jess McAnally: That is correct!

[34:59] Andrew DeWolf: She's kicking her ass, Andrew.

[35:03] Liz Esten: I went to film school.

[35:05] Andrew DeWolf: I gotta start cheating, hang on.

[35:09] Jess McAnally: Andrew.

[35:10] Andrew DeWolf: Yep?

[35:11] Jess McAnally: I didn't think a scene from Citizen Kane could give me a heart attack, but here we are.

[35:15] Andrew DeWolf: It's the cockatoo scene.

[35:17] Jess McAnally: I know what they're talking about.

[35:19] Andrew DeWolf: 5-stars.

[35:20] Jess McAnally: Do you know, Andrew, why Orson Welles put that there?

[35:25] Andrew DeWolf: I was told it was to wake the audience up.

[35:28] Jess McAnally: I think that might have just been a joke he told on The Late Night Show, to be honest. Like, but that is what he claimed.

[35:35] Andrew DeWolf: It's in a little bit of a strange spot. But yes, that was a 5, correct, Andrew.

[35:40] Liz Esten: Orson Welles!

[35:42] Jess McAnally: Wishes!

[35:43] Andrew DeWolf: He directed Twilight 2008.

[35:46] Jess McAnally: I mean, don't we all?

[35:48] Andrew DeWolf: 1.

[35:49] Jess McAnally: That is correct!

[35:50] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah?

[35:52] Jess McAnally: What the fuck is a magnate?

[35:55] Andrew DeWolf: Google it.

[35:56] Jess McAnally: Isn't a magnate like someone who owns a lot of land or something?

[35:59] Andrew DeWolf: No, it's a thing that sticks to a fridge.

[36:02] Jess McAnally: Yeah, how do they work?

[36:03] Andrew DeWolf: Fucking magnates, how do they work?

[36:08] Jess McAnally: We're gonna go with a 1-star, they didn't understand even the basic vocabulary of the movie.

[36:13] Andrew DeWolf: That is incorrect, that was a 5.

[36:15] Jess McAnally: I really should have cheated.

[36:17] Andrew DeWolf: What the fuck?

[36:20] Jess McAnally: Orson Welles.

[36:24] Andrew DeWolf: Liz!

[36:25] Liz Esten: Yes?

[36:26] Andrew DeWolf: Post-credits scene with Morby is coming through a Doctor Strange portal.

[36:30] Jess McAnally: Citizen Kane, we need you to defeat Kang.

[36:35] Andrew DeWolf: Fascinating.

[36:37] Jess McAnally: It would just be during the scene where he's destroying the room.

[36:41] Andrew DeWolf: Then the Doctor Strange portal comes in.

[36:43] Jess McAnally: Then he says, it's Kane in time.

[36:48] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, 5?

[36:49] Jess McAnally: That was a 1, Liz.

[36:50] Andrew DeWolf: Yep?

[36:51] Jess McAnally: I think it could be a really good bit if my last words were also rosebud.

[36:58] Andrew DeWolf: But everyone would already know it's just your sled, bro.

[37:00] Jess McAnally: It's just your fucking sled, spoiler alert.

[37:02] Andrew DeWolf: Or your girlfriend's vagina.

[37:04] Jess McAnally: Ew.

[37:05] Andrew DeWolf: We're gonna go with 5.

[37:08] Jess McAnally: That is correct!

[37:10] Andrew DeWolf: Also, it was his mistress's vagina. He was married, remember?

[37:13] Jess McAnally: Well, kind of.

[37:17] Andrew DeWolf: It's complicated.

[37:19] Jess McAnally: Tell me the thing!

[37:21] Andrew DeWolf: William Randolph Hearst was married. His wife refused to divorce him despite him asking so many times.

[37:29] Jess McAnally: And that actually turned out to be a benefit for him.

[37:31] Andrew DeWolf: Because when he went broke later on, Marion Davies financially supported him. She was not just a gold digger.

[37:35] Jess McAnally: Good on you, Marion Davies.

[37:39] Andrew DeWolf: Good on you. I actually- Marion Davies is a true class act lady.

[37:43] Jess McAnally: Um, Liz!

[37:44] Liz Esten: Yes?

[37:45] Jess McAnally: Orson Welles smiles like this.

[37:47] Andrew DeWolf: Colon, uh, little dooble-dob.

[37:51] Liz Esten: Little dooble-dob?

[37:53] Andrew DeWolf: What the fuck does that mean?

[37:55] Jess McAnally: It's like the parentheses but not the parentheses, you know what I mean?

[37:59] Andrew DeWolf: Like the parentheses with a straight line?

[38:02] Jess McAnally: The parentheses with the little nipple on it.

[38:05] Andrew DeWolf: So that's- wait, that's not a bracket, is it?

[38:07] Jess McAnally: That's not a- oh wait! No, I'm looking at a keyboard.

[38:10] Andrew DeWolf: It's like a bracket with a little thing on it.

[38:12] Jess McAnally: With a little titty on it.

[38:14] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, okay.

[38:16] Jess McAnally: It is called a bracket.

[38:17] Andrew DeWolf: It's called a curly bracket.

[38:19] Jess McAnally: Oh, curly bracket.

[38:22] Andrew DeWolf: Or braces.

[38:26] Jess McAnally: Orson Welles smiles like colon curly bracket.

[38:27] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, fine.

[38:28] Jess McAnally: That is correct!

[38:30] Andrew DeWolf: And Andrew!

[38:31] Jess McAnally: Last one.

[38:32] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, yeah.

[38:33] Jess McAnally: Watch for class.

[38:35] Andrew DeWolf: That's right, we're gonna cheat.

[38:37] Jess McAnally: Uh, one.

[38:38] Andrew DeWolf: That is correct!

[38:40] Jess McAnally: And Liz won anyways.

[38:41] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[38:43] Jess McAnally: I know.

[38:43] Jess McAnally: I went to college, so you know it's clever.

[38:45] Andrew DeWolf: I went to film school.

[38:45] Andrew DeWolf: Speaking of people that went to college, how about we go into a mid-show and talk about our patron?

[38:58] Andrew DeWolf: Toriana Fraser said, I'm not gonna lie, I'm still hung up about George Lucas advocating for not changing movies after they're made.

[39:04] Jess McAnally: Um, it's funny because he, like, he, you can't even use the excuse, well they're my movies, I directed them. No! Like two out of the three were directed by other fuckers.

[39:14] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah!

[39:15] Jess McAnally: Hey guys, sorry to interrupt you in the middle of the show, but we've got a show for you. Today's show is brought to you by the extremely kind donations by our donors over at Patreon.

[39:23] Andrew DeWolf: Andrew, we got some cool stuff going on on Patreon, right?

[39:26] Jess McAnally: Like, we just did a commentary on Halloween Town.

[39:30] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah! We actually, we finally got a new commentary out, the first one of the cheese wheel.

[39:36] Jess McAnally: So, Halloween Town?

[39:38] Andrew DeWolf: I thought we were pretty funny, honestly.

[39:41] Jess McAnally: I think it was a good time.

[39:42] Andrew DeWolf: It was a good time. We had some fun, and hopefully we can get the second Halloween Town done this year.

[39:48] Jess McAnally: Calabar's Revenge, baby!

[39:51] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, so I think, look forward to that. We're gonna have more commentaries.

[39:56] Jess McAnally: We really are trying to do more Patreon stuff. We're all just so fucking busy all the goddamn time.

[40:01] Andrew DeWolf: Jess and I have plans for a bonus podcast, which we will record soon.

[40:05] Jess McAnally: Eventually! We have plans, we'll get it done!

[40:09] Andrew DeWolf: We've got a lot of people in here. One of the things that we don't see many people using is you can, when we're recording the episodes, you can come in and chat with us. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us your thoughts. We've got people in here. We need more. Yeah. Tell us your thoughts. We want to hear them. We'll put them on the podcast. Yeah. Really. We will. We'll bring you on. We'll hit the bring you on button. Fuck it. Yeah. You can also vote for what we're picking. In fact, our Halloween episode has been picked by patrons. We're covering both scary godmother movies.

[40:39] Andrew DeWolf: Um, which is exciting. So get ready for the spooky season. They'll probably pick another holiday movie if we can get around to either Thanksgiving or Christmas. So, uh, things are coming together over at Patreon and our current patrons are Justice Stampede, Ewan Cassidy, Monica Thurow, Brent Black, Nathaniel Stacey Kuhn, Mary Lou Choquette, John Van Nals, Russ Walker, Musical Hell, Emily Gracie, Janay C. Scoot, or sorry, Nothing is Certain Except Death and Taxes. When they leave, it leaves an open hole in my heart.

[41:08] Andrew DeWolf: Thezbian. Um, Thezbian. Okay. They wrote us, I shit you not, 15 pages about our Pride and Prejudice episode in an email. Fucking wild. Like, good or bad? Like, correcting us. Like, as kindly as possible, giving context for the words we were saying. And also being like, actually Jess, Jane Eyre is not a Regency romance, it's a Gothic romance.

[41:37] Jess McAnally: I get it, I know, I'm stupid. Um, Chai Tea Cup, Chris Marcotte, TG Marie Anastasio, RJ Noriega, Sebastian Canino, Cinemageddon Reviews, Joe, Bjorn Hermans, Toriana Fraser, Sammy the Adequate, Mt. Jacobson. Now Orson Welles is coming in to finish the rest.

[41:54] Andrew DeWolf: Kaylee Blazier, Villainous Miss, The Omega Geek, Maddie Wargrew, Elisa Erdman, Evan Ball, Zachary Torres, Ah, Rorah Marasso, Mara, Possessed Washing Machine, Nick Rotan, Puffy Boy, Sydney Hicks, Killplated Kikimora, Ari Arte, Emma Corrabalda, Gerald Studios, Alexandra Dom, BT McManamy, Sarah and Virgil Z. Demon. Um, Andrew, Virgil Z. Demon, um, needs you to draw something for them, because that is part of their Patreon tier. Uh, don't let me forget to give you that.

[42:37] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, uh, let me, let me know what they want me to draw. I'm better at drawing people than I am anything else, I'll give you that, I'll say that.

[42:45] Jess McAnally: Um, but yeah, Orson Welles was getting more drunk as he read that, so he had to go home, uh, to the funeral home.

[42:51] Andrew DeWolf: Thank God, he's really annoying.

[42:53] Jess McAnally: Yeah, let's get back to the show, how about that?

[42:56] Andrew DeWolf: So, we talked about the history, we talked about the techniques, I guess we kind of have to talk about this as a movie.

[43:12] Jess McAnally: Yeah, I mean, that would be a stunning revelation, it's actually a movie.

[43:16] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, it's a movie. It is, is it, is it the greatest movie of all time? Can that argument still be made, or is that just something that we can't posterize anymore?

[43:27] Jess McAnally: I think it can. I think it can be made in the sense that sometimes the greatest thing in a genre or a medium is not it actually being the best, but it being the most influential.

[43:40] Jess McAnally: You could use that as a definition for greatest of all time, as in it had the greatest impact of all time, or something like that.

[43:47] Jess McAnally: I don't know if I would say it's the greatest movie of all time, I certainly don't think it's my favorite movie of all time, so I would say probably not for me, but I could see someone having that and respecting that opinion.

[43:59] Andrew DeWolf: I think there's the greatest movie of all time, which like Andrew said, I think should be influential on film as a whole medium, like how we've evolved it. But there's a difference between that and your favorite movie of all time, which I feel is more of an emotional thing.

[44:15] Jess McAnally: It's not like the most perfect technically made movie, it's the thing you connect with the most. And it can be both, but it's not always both.

[44:26] Jess McAnally: I would argue that Citizen Kane is one of the greatest movies of all time, technically, and it's a pretty good movie overall. I wouldn't say it's my favorite movie ever, but that's me.

[44:35] Andrew DeWolf: And that's fine. I consider it one of my favorite movies ever because I truly believe the technique and the actual storytelling.

[44:44] Jess McAnally: The story is still good. It's not like fucking D.W. Griffith's fucking racist tyrant.

[44:50] Andrew DeWolf: Birth of a Nation.

[44:51] Jess McAnally: Yeah, Birth of a Nation. Which, yeah, that is technically the first three-hour epic where it's all narrative. But it's bad, and it's very boring, and has not stood the test of time.

[45:04] Jess McAnally: It is not like anything that you would really want to watch. Citizen Kane, I think, is a crowd-pleaser, it's an interesting watch, it is not boring.

[45:14] Andrew DeWolf: But does that make it the greatest movie of all time, though?

[45:17] Jess McAnally: Yeah. I think it's a personal thing, honestly.

[45:22] Andrew DeWolf: I think film historians can look at it differently, but film historians have to contend with the fact that one of the first epics was a massive racist tirade. It is not the most ideal, but I'm pulling up the AFI 100 greatest movie of all time.

[45:39] Jess McAnally: And it's still number one, as far as that's concerned. Number two is Casablanca, which I don't really love. That is not a film I really, really connect with.

[45:50] Jess McAnally: Number three is The Godfather, number four is Gone with the Wind, and Gone with the Wind, I also believe, is a racist film. It is a well-made racist film, it is a compelling racist film, but it is a racist film.

[46:03] Jess McAnally: So, I think that Citizen Kane's existence in the world of film is only a net positive.

[46:13] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[46:14] Andrew DeWolf: So, Citizen Kane, I actually liked, whereas The Godfather, which was number three on that list, I think, I found boring as fuck.

[46:21] Jess McAnally: Okay, okay. In all fairness.

[46:24] Andrew DeWolf: I like The Godfather.

[46:25] Jess McAnally: I think The Godfather's great. I think The Godfather 2 is a fucking masterpiece.

[46:30] Andrew DeWolf: I've not seen The Godfather 2, I couldn't get through the first one, I thought it was so fucking boring.

[46:33] Liz Esten: I haven't either, it looked too long.

[46:35] Andrew DeWolf: What was that, Liz?

[46:36] Liz Esten: The Godfather 2 looked too long, so I did not watch it.

[46:39] Andrew DeWolf: The Godfather feels like a three-hour movie, in a negative way.

[46:44] Jess McAnally: Like, oh god, this is a feast I have to eat, and while I enjoyed it, it does feel that way.

[46:50] Andrew DeWolf: The Godfather 2 fucking flies by. That movie sails on by, because so much shit happens.

[46:57] Jess McAnally: Do you think Oppenheimer feels like a three-hour movie?

[47:00] Andrew DeWolf: Yes.

[47:01] Jess McAnally: Okay, I was going to say, I also think it feels like a three-hour movie. It's a very well-made three-hour movie, but it is a three-hour movie.

[47:07] Andrew DeWolf: It feels like a six-hour movie to me.

[47:08] Jess McAnally: I watched, like, Goodfellas, and I was like, dang, that's good as hell. Let me watch some other Mafia movies. So, I was like, Godfather's like the best one, right? I'll watch that.

[47:16] Andrew DeWolf: So fucking boring, holy hell. I wanted Goodfellas again.

[47:23] Jess McAnally: I mean, those are decidedly different movies.

[47:26] Andrew DeWolf: It's like watching Longlegs and Trap right back to each other.

[47:29] Jess McAnally: Like, they're two different feels.

[47:31] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, literally, it's the worst little feature of all time, Jess.

[47:33] Jess McAnally: Why did you do that?

[47:35] Andrew DeWolf: I'm dumb sometimes.

[47:36] Jess McAnally: You're very dumb.

[47:37] Andrew DeWolf: What the fuck is Trap?

[47:39] Jess McAnally: Well, I'm glad you asked, Andrew.

[47:42] Andrew DeWolf: Jess, can I answer the question, please, instead of you, for once?

[47:45] Jess McAnally: Yes, you can.

[47:46] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, Trap is the most recent M. Night Shyamalan thriller that is actually a comedy about a guy who's a serial killer who goes to a Taylor Swift concert with his daughter, and it's a trap that he's gonna get kidnapped by the police because he's a serial killer.

[48:05] Jess McAnally: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That looked terrible.

[48:07] Andrew DeWolf: Aren't all M. Night Shyamalan movies comedies?

[48:10] Jess McAnally: No, they are not.

[48:12] Andrew DeWolf: It's a comedy.

[48:13] Jess McAnally: What?

[48:14] Andrew DeWolf: Trap is a comedy.

[48:15] Jess McAnally: Trap is a comedy.

[48:16] Andrew DeWolf: It's technically a thriller, but it's not thrilling, so, you know.

[48:20] Jess McAnally: It's not, Jess, it's not.

[48:22] Andrew DeWolf: I felt no tension the whole time.

[48:24] Jess McAnally: Can we talk about, like, the best scenes in Citizen Kane?

[48:27] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, please.

[48:28] Jess McAnally: Yes. Andrew, you start.

[48:30] Andrew DeWolf: All right, I know it's the big meme right now, but the clapping scene is genuinely incredible.

[48:36] Jess McAnally: Oh, my God, the clapping scene's so good in context.

[49:09] Jess McAnally: CROWD CLAPS

[49:24] Andrew DeWolf: That scene and the sled burning, the sled burning at the end, which is a spoiler, I guess, but that one got me, too. It was a big sad.

[49:32] Jess McAnally: Did you not know?

[49:33] Andrew DeWolf: I'm so sorry, Liz.

[49:34] Liz Esten: I was gonna say, I think the ending has been spoiled for, like, almost 100 years now, so I think we don't have to give a spoiler warning.

[49:41] Andrew DeWolf: I didn't necessarily, I knew it was the sled. I didn't know it got thrown into a fire and that was the reveal.

[49:45] Jess McAnally: Yeah, that's true, that's true. But, yeah, like, Rosebud's the sled. We all know that Rosebud's the sled. Like, the way it's revealed is truly ruthless, I would say.

[49:54] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, it's like, well, this is the only thing this guy cared about and they're burning it with no one will ever know. It's so sad.

[50:00] Jess McAnally: And only the audience knows. It's like using the cinematic language to convey information as opposed to just being like, you know, I love Psycho, but that last scene is definitely an insecure man not knowing how to end his movie.

[50:13] Andrew DeWolf: The, uh, damn, the clapping scene, though, where he just, he's the only one applauding, that's like a meme right now, but I feel like it's not used in the context of the movie. They use it for, like, actually applauding, whereas this is like, it's this desperate guy trying to, like, prove something to other people and he just can't, you know?

[50:34] Jess McAnally: It's like, he wants to convince everyone that this is a great singer, and so he's just clapping as loud as he possibly can to drown out the fact that no one else is clapping.

[50:43] Andrew DeWolf: I can kind of see why Donald Trump likes this movie now when you explain it like that.

[50:48] Jess McAnally: Um, and, like, just before that moment, which I agree, like, you have this really incredible scene where she's performing this opera and it just keeps going up and up and up and up and it just, they repeated it, like, I don't know when, but there's, like, three different shots melded together to make it go up ridiculously high to two people being like, yo, she sucks.

[51:10] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[51:13] Liz Esten: Um, Liz, what is your favorite scene in the movie?

[51:16] Liz Esten: My favorite scene is the scene where, it's the, like, montage with the first wife, where it starts with them all close together and lovey-dovey and it keeps fading and she's getting more clothed and the table's getting bigger and the conversation's getting tenser and it's just done through fades and cuts and it's like, this is, this is where I, I, as an editing person, this is where it got my film nerd thing going. I was like, this is cinema.

[51:43] Jess McAnally: Do you want a fun fact about that specific scene?

[51:46] Liz Esten: Absolutely.

[51:47] Jess McAnally: That is the one scene that we know for a fact is 100% Orson Welles.

[51:51] Liz Esten: Amazing.

[51:52] Jess McAnally: That was not in Mankiewicz's script, it was not in any of the notes, that was Orson Welles coming in and describing it. Like, from a man that's used to theater, that is a very filmic move.

[52:03] Liz Esten: Very.

[52:04] Jess McAnally: It's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's the brilliant, like, it's the pinnacle of, like, the Kuleshov effect that we actually should discuss. Like, you cut between just to show a story. Like, cutting does so much in a movie. We need to, people need to think about editing more in movies, y'all. Please.

[52:21] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, I mean, if you cut two images together, no matter what, you're gonna imply connected tissue, which is basically what you said with Kuleshov effect.

[52:29] Jess McAnally: Yeah.

[52:30] Jess McAnally: And with that, you've got the editing and also the way that things are staged, where I think when it decides not to cut, where it is very kind of stagey and we just hold on the shot, it makes those harsh cuts mean even more.

[52:48] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[52:49] Jess McAnally: Also, a quick explanation of the Kuleshov effect for people that didn't go to film school, it was invented by, like, Russian film academics, and it's like between two shots, there's a secondary meaning between the two of them. The pinnacle example is shot of a man and a shot of a bowl of soup, and the implication is he's hungry. And it's basically that. That's basic film editing in a nutshell.

[53:13] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[53:32] Andrew DeWolf: Same guy, and he's looking at a dead child, and you make the implication that he's sad, despite there being no change in the original shot. So it is literally all the editing deciding how you feel about something.

[53:43] Jess McAnally: Are you sure they weren't both him being hungry? And that's why we have Andrew! That's it! Well this idea was created by the Russians, so maybe!

[53:55] Liz Esten: Um, my favorite scene in this movie, um, oh god there's so many it's hard to narrow down, it's probably the mirror scene, where he, it's right after he, he loses everything.

[54:07] Andrew DeWolf: Is this him walking, and there's just a shit ton of mirrors?

[54:10] Liz Esten: Yeah, where he's left all alone with just himself, and the, the, the, what do you call it?

[54:17] Andrew DeWolf: Snow globe?

[54:18] Liz Esten: Snow globe, uh, which is the catalyst for everything. Um, and they do give us enough to kind of figure out what Rosebud is, without, like, the big reveal at the end. Like, the mis, they are playing fair in this movie. Like, they are not being...

[54:33] Andrew DeWolf: Well, they kind of are. I was looking for it, because I knew it was the sled, obviously, because everybody knows it's the sled, and earlier on, I don't, I feel like it's not printed on the sled, like...

[54:43] Liz Esten: It is not.

[54:43] Andrew DeWolf: ...in the earlier scenes, so...

[54:45] Liz Esten: It's not.

[54:46] Andrew DeWolf: But he gets two sleds. There are two sleds.

[54:49] Liz Esten: Um, he gets, there's one he's playing with in the opening scene, then the one he's gifted to by his benefactor.

[54:54] Andrew DeWolf: Um, and neither of them are Rosebud.

[54:57] Liz Esten: Yeah, which one, like, which, which one is supposed to be Rosebud?

[55:00] Andrew DeWolf: I got, I interpreted that with the earlier one as supposed to be, not the one he's gifted. I believe it's the earlier one that they want you to have the implication is the correct one.

[55:10] Liz Esten: Yeah.

[55:10] Andrew DeWolf: But, as you said, it is not printed on there, because that would be kind of, that would be a big reveal, wouldn't it be?

[55:17] Liz Esten: Or, it is printed on there, and they just did a really good job of hiding it.

[55:20] Andrew DeWolf: Because he was kind of, like, holding it in ways that, like, you can't see the front of it.

[55:26] Liz Esten: That's true, that's true. I, I, I, the, honestly, the hardest part to get through in this movie is from the opening, like, okay, the opening scene is incredible, but, like, once we start, stop setting up Xanadu, we get to Rosebud. When we get to the news on the march, all the way up to the first interview, it's a really hard sit, and that's where you're like, everyone just sit down, relax, it'll be a real movie soon.

[55:48] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[55:49] Liz Esten: If I'm being negative at any point.

[55:51] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, it goes, that goes for a little too.

[55:53] Jess McAnally: Do you want, do you want to be Nostalgia Critic negative?

[55:56] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, go for it. So, I think that this movie, this movie has such a great, uh, like, rebuttal of everything about how that style of, like, angry nerd criticism works, in that the movie opens with probably just the biggest fucking plot hole in the whole fucking thing, just immediately, like, other people heard him say Rosebud, but there's nobody in the room, like, nobody heard him say it, like, and I feel like that is a common, like, thing to say about this movie, but it's, like, such a dumb criticism that it's just so easily dismissed, and it's just, like, people actually nitpick other movies, though, they nitpick other movies like that, where they're just, like, um, technically, there was nobody there to hear him say that, so really, this isn't a good movie at all.

[56:42] Liz Esten: I think people have said, like, the butler heard him, but I don't know when the butler heard him.

[56:48] Andrew DeWolf: Jess is, like, Jess is, like, I know the butler was behind the camera.

[56:51] Liz Esten: The butler was the camera.

[56:54] Andrew DeWolf: I think it doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is we heard them.

[56:58] Liz Esten: Yeah, no, it doesn't matter, that's what I'm saying, is, like, it doesn't matter, and it's, it's kind of a, it's a good rebuttal of, like, well, this is, like, one of the greatest movies ever made, and, uh, it has a really stupid nitpick right at the beginning, and it doesn't change shit, so.

[57:11] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, like, the rest of the movie slaps, so who cares?

[57:14] Liz Esten: My favorite thing is the editor of The Inquirer, um, Herbert Carter. Um, the, basically, the one that is driving this entire film, we rarely see his face, and he's just supposed to be us. We are that guy.

[57:27] Andrew DeWolf: Like, we learn everything through him, and that's it, and it's great.

[57:35] Liz Esten: Um, on that note, what is our overall thoughts on Citizen Kane, and what is our cheese ratings? Uh, Liz, you start, you never start.

[57:45] Liz Esten: Ah, we have, like, five minutes to Google shit. I know, I know, I, I threw, I threw a fucking wrench at ya.

[57:53] Andrew DeWolf: All right, I, I can multitask, uh.

[57:56] Liz Esten: I- Sorry, my mouse died in the middle of that sentence.

[58:01] Andrew DeWolf: Well, I can give a fun fact about Orson Welles really quick. Um, in his own opinion, he was more dolled up and made up during the scenes when he was supposed to be young and attractive than he was when he was supposed to be el- old and elderly.

[58:15] Liz Esten: And how did we not talk about the incredible makeup work of this fucking movie? Like, my god, he looks like the way old Orson Welles eventually would look. It's like The Exorcist.

[58:24] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, okay, I'm good now. I'm good now. Note, I, charge your, charge your mouse, charge your computer mouse, kids.

[58:31] Liz Esten: Uh, always charge them.

[58:34] Andrew DeWolf: Anyway, uh, I like Citizen Kane a lot. Um, it's really interesting from a technical aspect, if you, like, know about filmmaking. But outside of that, it's also just a really solid story with good pacing, good characters, really good acting. And you should definitely watch it. This feels like a movie no one's actually seen. They just, like, it's Citizen Kane. I don't need to watch it.

[59:00] Liz Esten: Yeah, you should watch it. You should experience it. It's, like, a seminal piece of film history. And if you have, it's, like, a little under two, two hours-ish? Two hours? Like, you should check it out. So my cheese rating is a potato and cheese bake, which is apparently a 1940s recipe, so.

[59:12] Jess McAnally: Fair enough. Good choice. And I agree with all your sentiments. How about you, Andrew?

[59:16] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, this is, uh, it was a good watch, honestly. It's, like, a lot of really great-looking stuff. It aged really well, surprisingly. There's nothing, nothing crazy, like, objectionable even in it, which is strange for a movie from 1940. Um, and it's just really well done. I mean, it's fucking Citizen Kane. Like, what do you want me to say? Like, I'm not, I don't have a hot take on this one. It's, it's, it's as good as people say it is.

[59:45] Liz Esten: There you go. Isn't it nice to have one thing that's as good as people say it is?

[59:50] Andrew DeWolf: It is nice. It's, it's, like, yeah. People say it's good. I watched it. It was good. And what's, what I think is great is it's, it's not a pretentious art house movie. This is a, this is just a, a good movie that's trying to entertain you. It is not just trying to make you think or make you, you feel some way or whatever. It's just, it is a movie that does do those things, but it does it by trying to entertain you, which is good. That's what you want.

[1:00:20] Liz Esten: Um, I'm gonna give it a rosé cheesecake, because, uh, you know, it's like rosebud. That's, I couldn't come up with something good.

[1:00:29] Jess McAnally: That's pretty good, actually. Um, that's a great, uh, I, I, all right. This movie's great. This movie has no faults, in my opinion. And the faults that you do take with it are, I, I could be argued to be attributes in my, in my experience with it.

[1:00:47] Andrew DeWolf: Um, I think that as far as films that have something to say, this one has some of the more useful takes on the world. And there are things that I wouldn't have done if I was a director. You know, like, maybe I would have written the women to be more than what they are.

[1:01:05] Liz Esten: Yeah, I think that is just a little bit, that, that is, that is a fault. But with movies made in the forties, you kind of just have to move on and look past it. Cause it's kind of an issue that goes, doesn't beat them.

[1:01:19] Andrew DeWolf: It does go through most of the decade and they're like, they don't, they don't like get abused and they aren't like nothing characters. They have some personalities could be branched out more. Like it's actually is writing.

[1:01:32] Liz Esten: That is surprising that they don't have the scene where the guy, like slap sense into her or something.

[1:01:37] Andrew DeWolf: Like that's always a fucking thing in these fucking movies. And it doesn't happen. I was anticipating with wife number one the whole time. I was just like, my God, there's going to be a fight scene. It'd be terrible. There isn't.

[1:01:46] Liz Esten: Not wife number one, but number two.

[1:01:50] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, wife number two. And it's very tastefully done. Like even when he cheats on her, it's like a very kind of tasteful key falls in love. Truly.

[1:02:01] Liz Esten: Like, it's not even like, oh, he gets trapped by some Harpy. No, he just is charmed by a girl and falls in love with her. It's like very sweet.

[1:02:11] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. In the moment. Then it gets bad, but it starts like a good moment.

[1:02:16] Liz Esten: And it like, that is Orson Welles. Least favorite scene is that toothache scene because it's like, it's too rom-commy. It's too filmy.

[1:02:24] Andrew DeWolf: It feels like a scene from a movie and it does, but I love it.

[1:02:28] Liz Esten: Yeah. You can't trust directors with their own movies.

[1:02:30] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. These people are stupid.

[1:02:31] Liz Esten: Yeah.

[1:02:31] Andrew DeWolf: This is like the most movie movie that ever movie like.

[1:02:37] Liz Esten: Yeah.

[1:02:37] Andrew DeWolf: Can't even lie. So I'm giving this a Wisconsin cheesehead because it's everyone's favorite Wisconsinite Orson Welles.

[1:02:43] Liz Esten: And on that, we should leave you with this incredible, uh, have either of you seen the wine commercial that Orson Welles did late in his life?

[1:02:50] Andrew DeWolf: Of course I have.

[1:02:54] Liz Esten: Well, we all got to watch it together. By that same French excellence, it's fermented in the bottle and like the best French champagne, it's vintage dated.

[1:03:06] Andrew DeWolf: So call my song.

[1:03:11] Liz Esten: Why did they let him get so fucking drunk?

[1:03:13] Andrew DeWolf: He drank all of the champagne before he did the take.

[1:03:18] Liz Esten: I wonder what those actors have to say about that shoot.

[1:03:22] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, the French champagne.

[1:03:26] Liz Esten: Um, but Orson Welles is still changing the world. Did you guys know that his last film came out in 2018?

[1:03:33] Andrew DeWolf: Yes.

[1:03:34] Liz Esten: Other Side of the Wind.

[1:03:35] Andrew DeWolf: It's not good.

[1:03:35] Liz Esten: It is.

[1:03:36] Andrew DeWolf: I don't like it.

[1:03:37] Liz Esten: I think it's actually very bad.

[1:03:40] Andrew DeWolf: Jake Hannaford, the Ernest Hemingway of the cinema.

[1:03:43] Liz Esten: Mr. Hannaford, I just want to know what he represents.

[1:03:48] Andrew DeWolf: The man is infested with disciples.

[1:03:50] Liz Esten: I'm the apostle. Just like me and God. How could you tell us apart?

[1:03:57] Andrew DeWolf: But they took like this unfinished like series of reels, recut it together, um, by with approval from his basically mentee, uh, and his mistress at the time, Oya Kadard.

[1:04:15] Liz Esten: And it's a bad movie, uh, with interesting people in it.

[1:04:19] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, the documentary about how it got made is much more interesting than the film itself.

[1:04:23] Liz Esten: Uh, Orson Welles has done wrong and is not an infallible figure.

[1:04:27] Andrew DeWolf: Um, unlike us and our wonderful patrons. Thank you guys for listening. Please follow us on iTunes and Spotify at the cheese wheel.

[1:04:34] Liz Esten: We're on Twitter at cheese wheel cast.

[1:04:36] Andrew DeWolf: We're on Patreon at the cheese wheel.

[1:04:37] Liz Esten: And we're on the Instagram at the cheese wheel.

[1:04:39] Andrew DeWolf: We're on the cheese wheel everywhere. Go follow us on Patreon. We have a new commentary up there for Halloween town. Hopefully at this point.

[1:04:46] Liz Esten: Email us at musicaltheaterlives at gmail.com.

[1:04:49] Andrew DeWolf: Our cheat keeper of the cheese is Juliet Antonio.

[1:04:52] Liz Esten: This show is edited by Andrew DeWolf and our theme was created by Andrew DeWolf with orchestration by Jesse McAnally.

[1:04:58] Andrew DeWolf: That's me. Um, thank you to the Broadway podcast network having us on the platform. Thank you, Liz Esten, for joining in and really helping us get this all put together. Because I'm dropping the ball lately.

[1:05:09] Liz Esten: Oh, I'm happy to be here.

[1:05:13] Andrew DeWolf: Anything else we have left to say before we wrap up?

[1:05:16] Jess McAnally: What about the wheel?

[1:05:17] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, yeah, we got a spin for next week.

[1:05:20] Liz Esten: Oh boy.

[1:05:23] Andrew DeWolf: Now our audio is really peaking.

[1:05:25] Jess McAnally: He's a little too excited for this.

[1:05:26] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, he's a little too excited about this. Bring in the wheel!

[1:05:30] Liz Esten: Oh my god, it's so beautiful.

[1:05:32] Andrew DeWolf: It's so shiny and so pretty.

[1:05:34] Jess McAnally: I love the wheel.

[1:05:35] Andrew DeWolf: I love the wheel.

[1:05:35] Jess McAnally: I love looking at the wheel. Worship the wheel.

[1:05:38] Andrew DeWolf: Um, any predictions for what we're doing next week?

[1:05:42] Liz Esten: Well, it's almost spooky month.

[1:05:44] Andrew DeWolf: So.

[1:05:45] Liz Esten: You're right. Maybe something spooky.

[1:05:46] Andrew DeWolf: Hopefully something spooky.

[1:05:47] Liz Esten: Yeah, get us in the mood.

[1:05:49] Andrew DeWolf: Well, let's spin the wheel and find out!

[1:05:52] Liz Esten: Look at it go!

[1:05:54] Andrew DeWolf: Oh my!

[1:05:54] Jess McAnally: Wow!

[1:05:55] Andrew DeWolf: Wow, it's so pretty!

[1:05:56] Liz Esten: Wow!

[1:05:56] Andrew DeWolf: It's so shiny.

[1:05:58] Liz Esten: And look at that!

[1:05:59] Andrew DeWolf: It has landed on Ridley Scott's incredible film, Alien 1979, as put on the wheel by our own Elizabeth Esten.

[1:06:08] Liz Esten: Hell yeah!

[1:06:11] Andrew DeWolf: We go from one perfect film to another perfect film.

[1:06:14] Jess McAnally: It's so great and so rare to have such chance.

[1:06:17] Andrew DeWolf: I'm excited.

[1:06:18] Jess McAnally: I'm psyched.

[1:06:19] Andrew DeWolf: Personally, I fucking love this movie.

[1:06:21] Jess McAnally: It's aight.

[1:06:24] Andrew DeWolf: We'll see you next week to talk about Alien.