The Aviator – Thanks for the mammaries

Full transcript of The Aviator – Thanks for the mammaries.

0:00KT: It's another week in the For Your Reference household. And we are in the middle, our third course in our 2024 fifth Reference Degustation, friends and lovers. We had our first course, which was a chef's experimental and lover's delight, uh, in the King of Comedy. We also just covered, you know, the classic.

0:24KT: Go to crowd pleaser of Goodfellas today.

0:33KT: We are going to get into the. Youngblood, I guess is the way to say it, flavor, in The Aviator and upcoming dishes in the tasting menu. We have The Irishman as well as Killers of the Flower Moon. Thank you friends and lovers for tuning in. If you're late to the For Your Reference Reference Degustation, how nasty Stick, but you are most welcome.

0:52KT: And if you're interested on Patreon, we do have a lot of things, including video podcasts of our Scorsese run. Let's get on with the show.

1:06KT: Hey friends and titty lovers. Welcome back to the For Your Reference podcast. You got your host, the titty host, KT.

1:18Oti: I'll take the mammary host, Oti.

1:20KT: Oh, nice. You get your own mammaries. You don't even, the worshiper of the mammaries.

1:26KT: Thank you for joining us.

1:28KT: Friends and lovers on our third course, a month long celebration of sizzling Scorsese cinema, print out the transcripts, learn what pleases a beautiful woman and acquire sustenance through the boob buffet. Open your mouth and have something to say with The Aviator this week.

1:49KT: Woohoo! Oh, I heard you come around here, see? What are your demands, huh? I think, in another timeline, friends and lovers, we got the role, not Cate Blanchett. Oh,

2:03Oti: yeah, come on and do it proud.

2:07KT: Um, I was talking to our beloved patron, Julio, and he had to remind me that Cate Blanchett won the Oscar. Yes, sir. Exactly. Welcome, welcome friends and lovers. If you've been to our other Reference Degustations, if you've even been on the Reference Degustations this year, you will know that we will come to common and recurring themes for Scorsese. Before we do that,

2:29KT: We do first impressions before we do that.

2:31KT: We do general stats and information. We might need some time to talk about this, but this is the first director that isn't always writing his films. Which is very, it's an interesting tasting note, but let's get into it. Director Martin Scorsese, writer John Logan.

2:52KT: And just to give us a peppering, a tasting, writing credits for Gladiator. The Gladiator. Since we're talking about other patrons, friends and lovers go Brent's gorgeous Letterboxd review on Gladiator. He only watched it for the first time and he wasn't best pleased. And because he is a man of quality, I feel like I need to go and watch Gladiator again and maybe change my mind.

3:18Oti: And did he also write your favorite, They/Them?

3:21KT: He did. Uh, yeah, that's why you're not allowed to look at the spreadsheet because I was also supposed to mention Skyfall and Spectre, but there you go. The Aviator was released in December of 2004. Again, friends and lovers, we've done 80s, 90s, and now 2000s.

3:40KT: It had a budget. A budget, budget, budget of 110 million. And I guess as we'll start to see something with that sort of price tag comes with a lot of voices, just like this film and the themes in this film. It had a world wide gross of 213.7 million.

4:03KT: Yeah. And this is, was the first movie by Martin Scorsese that grossed over a hundred million. I wouldn't pick it, but cool. Yeah. Cause if I'm looking at Goodfellas, it was 47 million, which arguably has more lasting power than The Aviator. I, I dunno, maybe this is the big blockbuster y. Pre Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese.

4:27KT: Um, also, uh, just in the algae, uh, Don Cheadle algae rhythm, internet IMDB trivia, Scorsese spent 500,000 of his own money. And if we can quote later on in the film, you don't care about money because you have it. You know what? I don't who's got 500,000 laying around anyway, because he had drums with Miramax and Warner Brothers, which Warner Brothers was also mentioned, in the film as well.

4:58KT: And he almost considered retiring because of the arduous sort of process, which Works on every metal layer. Yeah. Right.

5:07KT: In way of cast, cast, cast, obviously so many Leonardo DiCaprio. Uh, Titanic is, would probably be the first time we've covered him on the podcast. Feel free to go and check it out.

5:19KT: Friends and lovers, Cate Blanchett, Tah, John C. Reilly, Kate Beckinsale, Alec Baldwin, Alan Alda, Gwen Stefani, who I was like. Is that Gwen Stefani? Adam Scott.

5:31Oti: You breezed past Kate Beckinsale too fast, bro. Well, go on then. You're here to, to, to linger.

5:36KT: I breezed past it the way she, she swatted away, you know, Howard's hands when he was trying to get some titty.

5:45KT: I'm not,

5:46Oti: what did she say? I'm not up to be bought, say. Just buy me dinner.

5:53KT: Dinner doesn't count. How does that make any sense? Yeah. It's a pretty girl logic, I guess. And also Willem Dafoe, I'm plugging it again, friends and lovers, I will be embarking on my own pilgrimage, a bonus for Patreon. I will be watching The Last Temptation of Christ.

6:12KT: So it was nice to see Jesus, in The Aviator. Okay.

6:17KT: Well, let's get into first impressions. Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, uh, piss milk, piss milk, piss milk. Wow.

6:26Oti: Oh, I hard. I actually didn't even go to the bottom of writing this, like put too much brain cells in it.

6:35KT: Oh, I see. I see.

6:36Oti: So I hard. Aviator starts strong, but feels lengthy, with some accents bordering on comedic.

6:44Oti: Hughes's struggles could be better portrayed, yet it remains a worthy watch.

6:50KT: Wow, you were in quicksand. You were fighting yourself in that court. I was.

6:56Oti: I kept on drowning and trying to pull myself back up. Just like those accents, I made it up somehow.

7:02KT: It was a lot. Yeah, it was a lot. Let me get into my, uh, first impressions.

7:09KT: The Aviator is an adequate biopic led by capable performers, but the exhilaration sped to puberty level sensuality and hollow thrills.

7:20KT: It's like Martin Scorsese saw and touched a boob for the first time. Like, I don't even know if he's gotten to the point of areolas and nipples yet. Over, over the, over the shirt action, maybe a little bit of cleavage will give him a good night. But I'm just like, either he's a titty man or he doesn't know asses exist.

7:46KT: Geez, Martin Scorsese, that anime

7:51Oti: weeb nosebleeds until you die, bro.

7:56KT: Her, but it was just like, it wasn't even appreciation of the feminine form. It was just like her booby buffet. Yeah. Today. Okay.

8:08Oti: I hear you.

8:09KT: Well, it seems like, it seems like you have the same level of sensuality.

8:15KT: Again, thank you friends and lovers to our patrons that have contributed to common and recurring themes in Scorsese's filmography. We're going to start off with direction and stylistic choices. If you listen to Goodfellas, we were wondering what Brent meant when he said long ass movies. So I actually got clarification from here.

8:40KT: It depends on the movie for real, not even the genre. Most movies nowadays are too damn long, but some of my favorites are too damn long. I love Goodfellas, Scarface, BlacKkKlansman, Seven Samurai, and those that are all closer to three hours, but it doesn't bother me. Then you have most of the MCU movies, Netflix movies, and other random joints that just feel eternal and never ending.

9:03KT: So he's essentially saying what I was saying in Goodfellas, if the plot is good enough to get it to a longer runtime, then it works. But if they're stretching it unnecessarily, or just filling it with uninteresting stuff, I check out. No, you said you had a hard time limit. It doesn't matter what it is.

9:21KT: Your time is too precious. You got boobs. You got boobs to touch over, over the clothes. Yeah.

9:26Oti: My memory is finished. It will not be quite. I. I do get that this movie felt long compared to everything else we've seen of Scorsese up until this point. This one is the one that I was like struggling towards the end.

9:43KT: Maybe we can have a two tier. It was a long ass movie in duration and it was a long ass movie in the way it was paced.

9:52KT: How about that? Yeah. Okay. Let's move on. This is from two of our patrons. Rob says, narrating Julio says voiceover as an effective storytelling tool.

10:04Oti: No narration in this. Yeah.

10:07KT: Hmm. There's going to be a short episode. Hey,

10:12KT: Brent, New York. No, no. Again. Bye. Um, Scorsese bingo: freeze frame, slow mo, split diopter, tracking shots, extreme closeups.

10:26Oti: I'm sure we got most, some of those in.

10:29KT: Yeah, I think given the nature of the film. Yeah,

10:32Oti: it felt like I remember telling you, or at least noticing some of the zoom frames, zoom shots.

10:37Oti: And I was like, at this point, what this movie, all I'm noticing now is. His directing style rather than his technical directing style, rather than enjoying the story and the narrative.

10:51KT: Yeah.

10:58KT: Brent historical retelling of real events. So this is yes. Yup. Real life. Uh, I was looking at his credits producer for Scarface.

11:03KT: Cause there was a reference made to Scarface. It felt a bit derogatory, like it felt a bit pejorative, like it didn't feel like it was, in, in like love shout out to, but there you go. Obviously Hell's Angels and there's a couple of other plane related ones. I don't know, like it's also the same as like documentaries.

11:23KT: In biopics, in the sense that yes, it's based on some sort of real life source material or like people and lived experiences, but it should be inshallah, like it should give you all the parts that you need to build that sort of resonance or, you know, any sort of watching experience. So, um, I would say.

11:46KT: I don't care to learn anything like I do have questions, but I don't care to go and research about it. You know what I mean? Like he seemed a bit insufferable, just in his sort of nature. I'm assuming because he is, I didn't know this was based off a real person until afterward, but I'm assuming because it was based off a real person, Howard Hughes, that he did have OCD.

12:11KT: That it wasn't just stacking extra layers on top of an already, saturated movie.

12:17Oti: Yeah, he had battles with mental illness, which I think some aspects of it, it felt it was just OCD up until the point it wasn't where he would lock himself up in the room and not come out for, what was it, six months.

12:33KT: How did you feel when it got Twin Peaks y?

12:37KT: Right, right. Yeah. It didn't allow for the platform of fantasy. This film. Yeah.

12:46Oti: I hear you. I hear you, especially for someone, because I knew this was based off someone's story or someone's life. Yeah. You went in thinking, okay. Stretch your wings, so it must have been such a weird experience for you.

13:03KT: No, it's just that things just felt like they were happening just to happen.

13:08KT: But then I can, the grace that I would give is that it was grounded in what really happened or how the lives really were. Yeah.

13:20KT: You also drew parallels to the Avenger.

13:22Oti: He felt very Tony Starky and you could tell. At least you could feel that sense in him as well.

13:32KT: Actually, let's go to that. Cause you said it when we were watching the film and I, cause you said that he was a genius, this Howard Hughes.

13:39KT: And again, obviously not the real person we're talking about Leonardo's portrayal. I was like, what indicates that this man is a genius? The money covers any sort of like, yeah, he might be capable, but the money covers any sort of mistakes or extends any sort of intelligence he might have. There was nothing about him that struck me as this guy's a genius.

14:03KT: I think he is Jay Z's best friend. I think he's a mad capitalist because he wanted to squeeze the life force out of his workers. Even when they told him it wasn't fucking possible, he kept pushing them, kept pushing them, kept pushing them. IE capitalism, and they ended up achieving what they said they would never be able to do through the key word of exploitation.

14:27KT: But you know what I mean? So I don't know. I just don't buy that. He was a genius and I don't know if that's me. And I don't know if that's the film, but let's continue.

14:38Oti: He pushed the boundaries of aviation. He pushed boundaries? So, he was an aerospace engineer, so at some level, he's fucking smart.

14:45KT: No, he was, surely he's like the Steve Jobs, like he's not really the actual.

14:51KT: Tinkerer.

14:53Oti: Mandem was going through blueprints saying nah, nah,

14:55KT: yeah, yeah. Yeah, but that doesn't, that just means he's got the money to wave around and cry to daddy. It was funny when he What's a respect? You know what? People only want to be called out for privilege when it's other privileged fucking people telling them.

15:12KT: Because he's sitting there being like, you don't care about money because you have it. Motherfucker, you inherited money from your mom and dad and told people to fuck off when you wanted to make your plane zzzzzz movie.

15:25KT: True or not true? True. Exactly. Exactly, sir. The court rests. Uh, let's move on. Julio, the minutiae of large scale operations presented as an entry point into our character's world and

15:40Oti: What do you think about this one?

15:41KT: Yeah. I think so. I think it's done. It has the sort of similarities of Goodfellas in that there is a bigger world and we explore it through Howard Hughes's character. Um, obviously we're saying it's not as interesting or as enjoyable. but I think it does a lot to speak to who he is and what he contributes to that world.

16:09KT: You literally just talked about the blueprint and shit. No, but.

16:12Oti: At what stage did it, and here's where I struggle, at what stage did they paint a picture of what it's like to be an aerospace engineer, philanthropist, uh, whoever you want to fucking label him as.

16:26KT: That's not how I see this theme though. But if that's how you see it, that's okay.

16:31KT: Yeah.

16:32Oti: Fair. I needed, it's, it's, it's, it's the details of right. The details of expanding on a world that we are in and I just didn't feel that this did that to that degree of what we saw in Goodfellas, but well,

16:49KT: I guess I'm just fine with the tip. I think you're hoping for a bit deeper. That's how I like it.

16:56KT: That's how we both like it. Double plugged if you're nested. Uh, let's continue. Brent throwback films. Yes, this is it. Um, I said, this is better than Babylon. Uh, in every sense of the word, it's kind of set in the same time. Like literal King Kong, 1930s, like.

17:20Oti: I somehow found Babylon more intriguing, to be honest.

17:23Oti: It was more flat. I just didn't finish it because I didn't have to. If you're covering it for a pod, I probably would have finished Babylon.

17:31KT: I did it for the kids, man.

17:35KT: That's what, that's all I'm hearing. That's all I'm hearing. Um, yeah, I, I think it was done. Yeah, it just felt like, cause you know, even the way that the mom was bathing him and telling him to stay away, you know, from particular people. About like diseases and shit. And it's like, yeah.

17:56Oti: So actually, that bathing scene, they made a ref, they made reference to it throughout the movie.

18:03Oti: Yeah.

18:03KT: The quarantine shit.

18:05Oti: Kid was too old to be bathed by the mom. I'm just saying.

18:08KT: As in, he should have been bathed by the house help or just bathed himself? Yourself. Okay, you can do it all by yourself. Bro. Yeah. Okay. Instead of the mom helping him, he should have just been helping himself thinking about his mom.

18:25KT: Yeah. Like normal people. Yeah. I think, I think like he said, I think like he said later on in the film that a certain actress was lacking the engineering, I think that's also why he had such a puberty level obsession with breasts because his mom was also lacking as well. Wow. We don't titty shame. Wow.

18:49KT: Even a little full is enough. Again. I don't think based on the way he was talking, he has not seen an areola. But anyway, let's continue into themes. This is Brent again. Crime slash gangster drama. I don't think we get very far with gangster in way of crime. No. Why are tapping yourself? And your woman.

19:14KT: Yeah.

19:15Oti: Bribing people was not illegal.

19:15KT: He wasn't bribing them. They were bought.

19:19Oti: Yeah. My distinction sir,

19:22KT: I must say, I must say, and this did feel like Leonardo's own Oppenheimer, and I know Julio will appreciate that reference. Um. But that courtroom scene, I think one of my favorite sort of moments in this film was Howard Hughes's character when they were trying to call him up on the bribes and he was saying, it's very normal in the aviation business to wine and dine people.

19:50KT: And unless you make it a law to not that you can't wine and dine them, what is he to do? His hands are tied and I really appreciate it. I was like, okay, you get some points.

20:03Oti: It had moments where it hooked me and that's why my overall rating or review for this was so quick sandy because I kept on divvying in and out.

20:17Oti: Oh, I wanted to love this. Just pulling back away from the themes a little bit. What did you think of the performances, especially Leo's? Ugh.

20:29KT: Ha ha ha ha ha.

20:33KT: Like, are you telling me I have the choice of watching Denzel and Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2000s? Are you telling me I have that choice? Even Will Smith in the 2000s?

20:45KT: Are you telling me I have that choice? Even Wesley Snipes?

20:49Oti: Yeah, man was active then, before Taxman.

20:53KT: Well, the Taxman comes for us all. Enter the Taxman. Um, I don't know, like What would you, okay, like now, cause you said you wanted to pull back from the themes for a second.

21:09KT: What would you say is Leonardo DiCaprio's best performance?

21:13Oti: Oof. Cause it was in this.

21:16KT: Great Gatsby. Okay, I haven't watched it. Uh, Wolf of Wall Street. Did you actually like it? Because you are a part of this production team and you made it very clear you were not watching that film again.

21:32Oti: The movies I don't need to watch again.

21:34KT: You compromised because The Irishman, you know, it needs to be watched again.

21:39KT: So you're like, okay, I'll watch it. But I don't know. Okay. I don't know what your point is because you just said, anyway, you've, you can feel and say whatever you want, even if they're fighting each other. But what would you say is his best performance? I don't know. Definitely.

21:55Oti: I don't know. Revenant.

21:57KT: I haven't seen it.

22:00KT: Like, is he that guy to you? Or is he just there?

22:04KT: Just like Tom Cruise?

22:07Oti: Tom Cruise has some

22:10KT: Tom Cruise is still breathing down the neck of Renée Zellweger in Jerry Maguire. He's also someone that hasn't seen an areola and a nipple. Wow. It was a titty movie, so it's a titty podcast. Welcome friends and lovers.

22:27KT: I don't know. I don't find,

22:30KT: I know I'm the hot take gal, but I don't, I don't mean this to be salacious in any way, but I just, I genuinely don't find him magnetic. And you're welcome to bring performances that might remind me of that, but I don't have a gravitational pull towards him. He, and maybe that's what was hard to latch on to his performance because he did feel like he felt like he was going through awkward growth spurt and growing pains and shit in this film.

23:04KT: I think it was still leveraging that sort of Titanic of like an older woman taking under his wing sort of thing. But yeah, I just, I don't know, I, I don't know if that's what you wanted because you wanted to go down this detour, but I've never consciously thought about it, but yeah, I, I don't necessarily regard him as one of the greats.

23:29Oti: Okay,

23:29KT: I hear you. Top five white actors, he wouldn't be them.

23:33Oti: Probably not.

23:34KT: Maybe top ten. No, I said top five,

23:38Oti: but the aspects in this that felt a bit overacted and, and this is hard, right? Because is it the direction or is it, I doubt it's him just.

23:53KT: It's a bit of both. Mm. But I do wanna talk about Scorsese as a whole. So we will come to him.

24:02KT: Let's continue on with the themes, friends and lovers. Uh, in short, Catholic Boy is what we're getting into.

24:10KT: Rob says, religion or religious overviews, sacrifice. Temptation. The seduction of good by evil. Julio says, Catholic Guilt, that's a big one. And Ben says Catholic guilt or just guilt revealing itself through self flagellation, self harm mental or physical Ben. And again, I was just talking to Julio. And I said to him, I'm not seeing this theme anyway.

24:33KT: You know where he said, I can find it. The Last Temptation of Christ. Of course, it's going to be in there. I think that's cheating. No, I don't think this was met at all. And this is. And this is what I was saying to Julio, all three of these films that we've like chosen for the Scorsese run are protagonists that don't have a problem with the ends justifying the means and they aren't challenged by the world or the characters in it.

25:08KT: So they really have free reign to do whatever the fuck they want. So even if they are in our eyes or in everyone else's eyes, morally, like bankrupt or, you know, that sort of thing, it doesn't play into the consequences of the world. Does that make sense? All right, let's move on.

25:26KT: Rob, powerful cabals and the inner workings of absolute power.

25:31KT: I think it was that, cause it was fighting with all of these studios. Yeah, it was. Yeah. I think that absolutely works. And then you see the way that there's, that's what I was going to say, the political ties as well. And that whole Peru thing. Of like, how did you get me, you know, the, the simple sort of things.

25:55KT: So he did have a cavalier about him. There you go. There's a little atta boy there. There was, there was cavalier to Leonardo's performance in this, but there were only like small glimpses that we could witness that.

26:09KT: But anyway, um, Julio violence is the means to resolve conflict. No,

26:18KT: it wasn't violence. Was it? No. He, he buys people off if there was no violence and we were bored. Are we the problem?

26:27Oti: I think it is. Yeah. I think we are the problem.

26:28KT: That's why you love precious so much. That's a different type of, let's continue on with Julio.

26:36KT: The idea that sooner or later, our sins catch up with us.

26:39KT: And sooner or later you learn that crime doesn't pay kind of

26:44KT: like it caught up to him in the end. What did? Like just, just his reluctance to, to be a part of a cog in the machine

26:54KT: of the three of the three we've done so far, but are you saying that's stretching it?

27:00Oti: I think it's stretching it. I think the only, I think the mental side of it or the mental illness was not portrayed as it felt more, Oh, because I'm doing ABC or focusing too much on something. That's when I'm, you know.

27:19Oti: Again, I feel like that could have been done way different and way better to just lay that out a bit more, but no, I don't think this was met.

27:28KT: Okay. Of the three, I think it is.

27:32Oti: Even his hearing loss, like it wasn't clear up until halfway through the movie.

27:38KT: Another parallel that The Aviator has with Oppenheimer was them sitting naked on those nasty couches.

27:46KT: Cause I don't know. I don't know if I ever had a naked Leonardo ass in my For Your Reference film bingo. I don't think I've been exalted in any way after seeing his ass, which is a point to me because I'm not objectifying the man, friends and lovers. But yeah, I don't know. Like I just, again, it got very Twin Peaks y, but it was very grounded.

28:12KT: So it didn't allow for that levitation to fantasy. You know what I mean? And it just decided, like you said, it came in the wash near the end, but there you go, Julio living by a specific code of conduct, whether you're a criminal or not, he didn't have a code of conduct.

28:29KT: I think we're choosing films with protagonists that just do whatever the fuck they want and they don't care. Really. This one's from Ben, a Marty cameo. Very, very briefly. We see him on the red carpet. Hmm. Nice. Let's move on. Julio, the struggle to be spiritual in a materialistic world.

28:52Oti: If anything, he wanted to be more materialist.

28:55KT: Yeah. He was like grade a capitalist. So, how wild was it? I think it was done so well in the portrayal of how farcical it is that you would just have one airline internationally, right. So I think they did that very well, but again, that's opposite. The next one that we have is from all four of our patrons.

29:19KT: This is from Rob conflicted protagonists who are charming and righteous in their cause. They really believe what they're doing is the right thing. I don't think he was righteous in his cause. Julio.

29:28Oti: I don't think he was charming. It's not for me to judge.

29:31KT: Cavalier is as far as I will go. Julio walking the tightrope when depicting morally compromised characters in a way that doesn't condone their actions, while also keeping them interesting as protagonists.

29:43KT: I think what I also need to say, because Julio also pointed out that I said, Scorsese is morally neutral. I think we need to have a morality barometer of the world of the film. Because if the world is already portrayed as debaucherous. Then you can't necessarily, you can't necessarily score on a protagonist for being lacking in morality.

30:11KT: Exactly. Right. That's, that's the way that I think we both see it. Ben, challenging protagonists who are ethically and morally flawed yet human and layered. Brent, heroic bad guy slash relatable villains usually loved for the wrong reasons by viewers. Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Mean Streets, Wolf of Wall Street.

30:32KT: So what do you think about this theme?

30:34Oti: The main issue is they just felt like characters. Yeah. And that's it. Like, lift them off the page and they just don't exist anywhere. Yeah. And to know that this is based off real events. A real people, and you're like, bruh, what do you mean, are you ready like this?

30:57KT: Is that your Italian accent again?

31:00Oti: I'm having fun.

31:02KT: Go and listen to Goodfellas if you haven't already.

31:05Oti: Take me on a plane.

31:06KT: Oh my.

31:07Oti: I could do this for days.

31:09KT: I guess. Um. Let's get to the last theme because there's definitely a lot that I want to talk about. I don't know if it's a general thing or if it's specific to The Aviator. But before we get there, this last one's from Julio.

31:24KT: The toll of keeping necessary secrets from the people you love. Again, Howard Hughes didn't give a fuck. His underage romantic partner, that was 15 at the time, came and like literally T boned their car because of the fact that he wasn't keeping secrets. Right. I don't know. I, it just doesn't fit. It doesn't fit here.

31:48KT: Do you think, um, do you think a more mature Leonardo DiCaprio, like in Killers of the Flower Moon, for example, will grow on us? Is it just because he's like shedding out of his younger skin?

32:04Oti: Maybe, maybe, but I do like Leo though. So maybe,

32:10KT: like, I like him, but do you love him? No. Yeah. Thank you. Friends and lovers.

32:18KT: I hope you got this far and you didn't just stay where I said I didn't care for him. Okay. So there's a couple of things that I want to talk about and it's because we are at the journey and you know what I'm realizing?

32:30KT: We didn't even rank. But I think it's pretty clear where we're ranking them, but let's, let's go into ranking before we get into the bigger topic that I want to talk about.

32:38KT: But how do you rank the film so far?

32:39Oti: King of Comedy, Goodfellas, Aviator.

32:44KT: Yeah. And it's like the other two films game to lose. Do you? Aviator can go, like you can change altitude depending on the rest of these films. But yeah, like I find it hard to understand. I guess the destination of The Aviator. How did she get an Oscar then? Well, they don't check the tomatoes, you see? Ah, ha ha! Fwah fwah! So this is something that I wanted to talk about.

33:16KT: Feel free to bring anything up, but this is what I want to talk about now. I wouldn't say that this Reference Degustation was a mistake or that we chose the wrong director.

33:29KT: However, after doing four years of writer directors, maybe Taika had a couple where he didn't write some, but to have a really solid set of writer director Reference Degustations, each film talking about themes and, you know, motifs and that sort of thing, it, it kind of stunted my experience with Scorsese and yes, you could say he's done so many films and he has so many interests.

34:00KT: We only did four Takashi Miike films and they all felt like Takashi Miike films. You know what I mean? And that man makes like 80 a year. So to say the sampling size isn't big enough, I would question, because we literally did it last year. And, and even if the themes change, even if the core sort of sense of morality and justice changes, the, the.

34:27KT: The essence and the, the style guide is the same, right. Which is so interesting to me because I start to wonder who is the chef. Or does it depend on who the filmmaker is? Because, you know, I would imagine Spike Lee has a very succinct voice, right? And even Aaron Sorkin as a writer, as a screenwriter, you can tell when it's his, right?

35:00KT: So how, if a director is the J. K. Simmons of Whiplash, literally the conductor or the head chef, yes, chef that controls all of the elements and the tasting and the flavorings, how do these all feel driven by who wrote it? Do you see what I'm saying? I hear you. Coen Brothers. You can very much tell when you're watching a Coen Brothers film.

35:29KT: Mm hmm. Right? So it's hard for me to understand. Unless he's a different type of director and he's, again, it's hard for me to give that, that reasoning of he's done so many, and he has a lot of range because other directors have a lot of range, but you can tell it's them. Bong Joon-ho has so many different sort of elements and messaging and styles that he does, but you can still tell it's his voice.

35:58KT: What are your thoughts on this, Oti?

36:02Oti: It's hard. I think this has been the most sort of challenging watching experience when it comes to Degustations, especially just covering directors and writers, because a lot of the themes and the aspects that I expected to, you know, we, we got a lot of information from our patrons on what to expect and watching the movies outside of the technical aspects of filmmaking that is daily, of course.

36:34Oti: Yeah. It's, I'm not feeling the love. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not sitting there thinking about the dialogue after. Yeah. I'm not sitting there thinking about, Oh my God, I'm going to reference this all the single time. Yeah. Every other Degustation we've had moments, we've had specific instances of dialogue, you know, in Tarantino, we, we had a lot, pretty much in every other movie.

37:05KT: No, but you could tell it was his film as well. Yeah. So that's what I don't get. Like, whether you like it or don't like it, it should be very clear on whose vision it is, literally, and I'm finding it hard to understand why. In this instance, it's not the same.

37:25Oti: And that's the thing, right? Because when we watch Issa Rae, you know, Issa Rae wrote something. You can tell, you could, you could, you could feel it. Yeah. You know, even, even when she's not on screen, you can still feel that. Hey, this is Issa Rae. Yeah. If I watch a Tarantino, if I watch a Scorsese movie, outside of some of the film, some of the cinematography aspects of it.

37:54Oti: That maybe I might even miss if I'm not looking for it. And even if I do watch it, I'm not going to be able to pinpoint it. Yeah. Far out. I don't know. It's, it's, it's been very challenging.

38:07KT: This is a disappointing, if we can be honest.

38:11Oti: Uh, at some level, uh, yes, because this was the most excited I've been for Degustation.

38:16Oti: Oh, okay. So it's because I know all the Scorsese movies that I love, that I grew up on. And we already sort of discounted The Departed, but I grew up on a lot of these movies. Some of these were my favorites.

38:35KT: So it was a redemption round, I think. Yeah. And maybe we were right all along. And I feel like. We could have just done them as separate films.

38:44KT: We could have reserved the Reference Degustation for something that felt like a tasting menu.

38:50Oti: So does it feel, does it, does it make the next reference or does it make Reference Degustation now to be writer directors?

38:58KT: Well, I bet you miss Guillermo del Toro now.

39:01Oti: Maybe that's the thing. Maybe we need to watch his movies from the get go so we can understand him.

39:08KT: Hellboy, Pinocchio. We're eating good. Pan's Labyrinth. Yeah. Anyway. Maybe, maybe that's the thing. Spike Lee as well, like, I just feel like there's so yeah, I don't know, but, friends and lovers sound off, uh, you're welcome to say that Scorsese is, has so much range and you can't cover it all in five movies, but again, I would knock you back personally, professionally, podcastingly, um, because I feel like other, other directors can do it.

39:42KT: If you have a director that doesn't necessarily write all of their films, we would love to hear it. Like, even if it's just like a separate side quest, we would love to do that. But yeah, to, to tell me to wait for The Last Temptation of Christ for all the morals and all of like the Catholic shit, it does bear to question, personally, but

40:05KT: Yeah, this is, this is what the kids call mid. You know, cause I don't think we've had a mid experience in this degustation yet. So it became harder to get through, especially when he started going like a bit loopy. It was a bit, it was a bit much, you know. But is there anything else you want to add, whether it's to The Aviator or just our Reference Degustation in general?

40:34KT: I miss King of Comedy. I miss it too. We could have just watched it five times. Yeah,

40:46Oti: but we have The Irishman to look forward to

40:50KT: now I am looking for, I don't know if I was looking forward to it, but now I am looking forward to it and what's the other one, Killers of the Flower Moon, Killers of the Flower Moon, and I've mentioned it before, but friends and lovers, that's literally why we're doing this because we didn't have time in the schedule to do Killers of the Flower Moon and I thought, why not let's just, we, we've never done this course as a film, right?

41:12KT: Um, on the main podcast anyway, so why not?

41:16KT: I don't even, I'm not bloated from myself. But I am disappointed with this course. We've had palate cleanser courses that were more satisfying than this meal.

41:30KT: I don't need to sit with it. I think we just need to move on and just go straight into The Irishman. But thank you, friends and lovers for joining us. This is where you start questioning whether the restaurant actually exists. Like on TripAdvisor when that guy made up the whole restaurant and it was never real in the first place.

41:51KT: It was just fucking hipsters validating the existence and the prestige of it. Um, and you know, this is where we're getting ready to gear up into the final courses of our Reference Degustation. So if anything, it has set us for high hopes. Can't get any lower. Any, but if you wanna see how low we can get on Twitter, Instagram, Spill, Bluesky and TikTok we're @ForYourRefPod.

42:21Oti: Write us an email, hello@fyrpodcast.com.

42:24KT: We're also on Crash Landing 'Cause It Never Took Off Podcast. Mm. If you like to leave rating a review and we'll see you guys in the next course. See you.