Whiplash – Drum and Drummer

Full transcript of Whiplash – Drum and Drummer.

0:00KT: It's another week in the For Your Reference household and we are starting off with Quid Pro Mo. We most recently, most deliciously featured on the Filmbusters podcast Oti. Mhmm. The Jesus Rolls and, you know, however you feel is just your opinion, man. That's a reference. Thank you so much, Paul, Ben, and Adam. We love you guys so much. Take the promo away.

0:00Clip: Hello. I'm Paul. I'm Adam. And I'm Ben. And welcome to Filmbusters. Three friends who love each other, but hate each other's taste in movies.

0:34Clip: You just hate to improve, don't you? It was annoying me. I think when I was watching it, I was in a mood to be irritated because I get irritated when I see Tom Cruise straight away. How do you even get into a fucking acting career when you're that shit? The lines are awful, but you can't even deliver a shit line. Yeah. Listen listen right now. Me just say that I wasn't bored at any point during the film. Oh, but I'm I'm saying something. No, I don't. No. No. I'm going first.

0:59Clip: I'm done with it. Fucking white male hero saving everyone all the time. It's particularly starting to piss me off. I don't think they should make any more Toy Story films. After this one, because Because it's the perfect ending to a Toy Story franchise. It's 10 out of 10. Fuck off. I don't think I can continue podcasting with you boys. I'm shocked, Tim.

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1:50KT: Howdy, friends and lovers. Welcome back to For Your Ref, friends. You got your host, KT.

1:50Oti: And Oti.

1:50KT: And hold on to your screaming daddies because I'm upset.

2:00Oti: This Good Joel Miles Teller.

2:04KT: Thank you, Oti Simmons. Mhmm. This week, we are fortunately, unfortunately, I guess you'll see, diving into the film Whiplash. I I was gonna give it a but I didn't think it deserved Let's quickly get into the stats before we unravel. Came out in October 2014. If you didn't know, this was actually a short because there wasn't enough funding to make the film. And then it got a lot of notoriety and it won an award at Sundance and then it got the funding for the film. So budget, $3,300,000. This is Blumhouse. We've covered Blumhouse,

2:43KT: Upgrade, Get Out are better examples, but, know, it's it's the model of Blumhouse. Mhmm. Right? The cumulative worldwide gross was Oti, $48,900,000. Alright. Directed, written by Damien Chazelle.

3:01Oti: Then She's not the La La guy.

3:03KT: The La La Land, not the moon La La Land. And, well, essentially, there are really only two characters in this movie, Miles Teller and JK Simmons. Now we there there's a lot to fuck fuck me with a drumstick pole, I tell you. How about you, Sato T? Let's talk about first impressions because you actually watched Whiplash.

3:29Oti: Yeah. Before Watch it when it came up.

3:29KT: And I

3:33KT: blame our Filmbusters friends because that's why I felt like we should have covered it. But you've watched it before. Yeah. Right? This is your second time? Yep. Okay. Did you watch it when it first came out? And what did it feel how did you feel and how did you feel now watching it again?

3:47Oti: Pretty much felt the same way watching it the second time as I did the first time. Okay. Which was? It's alright. People really love on it, and I get it. Do you get it? Sort of. It's it's it's an okay movie with great acting from JK Simmons. Although, the abusive relationship and all, like, it's just it's a fun movie. That's all I have to say in my like, watching it the first time, I like, what if I could now just watch other end? Albeit some moments which I had in the movie, they're like, okay.

4:24Oti: But then the story was felt a bit nonexistent.

4:28KT: Where? Where? I did not see it anywhere. How dare you?

4:36Oti: I'm not sure character development is what they really would tell as character development. For who? Jesus. But well, people love it because

4:49KT: This is not for your people. This is For Your Reference, Oti. Who the fuck cares? How you feel is how you feel. Don't even we're not even talking about the the masses out there,

5:00KT: unless you are one of them, which whatever.

5:00Oti: I'm not the masses. And I and I try to sort of indulge myself in a lot of things.

5:00KT: Oh my.

5:00Oti: And this just didn't strike strike the chord that it did with a lot of people out there.

5:00KT: Nice. I like the wordplay. I appreciate that.

5:00Oti: It's it's not it's it's been rated like 90% on Rotten Tomatoes for both Cute Critic and the audience.

5:24KT: Yeah. 93 and then 94 audience. And then interestingly enough, I just wanted to pull it up because I was getting pissed off. And if you fucking loved Whiplash, then let's be mature and have a real conversation about it. If you didn't like it, you're going to enjoy this episode, I'm assuming. But anyway, the point is I pulled up Get Out because I wanted to see what Get Out got because I wanted to rage against the world. But Get Out is pretty much in the same ballpark. You got 98% by the critics and then 86%,

5:54KT: which I guess can kinda make sense because social commentary especially between black Americans and white Americans is a thing. Right? But the audience score was around 70,000. So it's kind of sitting in the same sort of sphere, which I don't think it should be, but at least it's not catastrophically rated higher than Get Out, but continue.

6:14Oti: And I could see why people would see through this and think, wow, I've just watched something different. That's that and and it won an Oscar. Yeah. It actually won three Oscars.

6:25KT: But there you go. If you're surprised, you are in KT's company. Best performance in a supporting role, JK Simmons. Mhmm. Yes. So this movie has won three Oscars, one of which was a supporting actor role for JK Simmons. Okay.

6:40KT: But he was up against Ethan Hawke for Boyhood. I know we didn't like Boyhood, but I think Ethan Hawke did very well as the deadbeat sort of dad that had a lot of heart. Ethan Rock Hawke should have won that. Yeah. I think this is just gonna be us taking the attention away from Whiplash. That's the episode today. So strap in, friends and lovers, or strap on. It also won in film editing and also sound mixing.

7:01Oti: Okay. Yeah. So I won three Oscars, essentially, is what I'm saying. Okay. I'm glad he didn't win best picture because that it wasn't.

7:09KT: It was nominated for adapted screenplay and also best motion picture.

7:13Oti: Okay. Nominated, but he didn't win. Okay. Alright. So JK Simmons that does act well, he we know his caliber. We know whatever he's in, it'll be good, and he'll give it his all. He's won 47 awards for this specific role. That's too fucking many.

7:13KT: He

7:29KT: won a Golden Globe, but also an IMDb trivia. So go and fight IMDb. 47 awards for Fletcher.

7:36Oti: You know, and I think this is one of the personal sort of preferences that you'd have. Because to me, art isn't necessarily something that you'd you'd you'd strictly follow some rules to make it exactly precisely the right tempo, the right note in this

7:55Oti: like, it's

7:55KT: So you're being like his brother's being like, how do you win an award? How do you win a competition? You think it's fucking subjective. Can I get into my first impressions? Or

7:55Oti: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

7:55KT: Because I think it's starting sound like a movie. Hello, friends and lovers. This was the first time I've ever watched Whiplash. It is a cinephile darling. If you are privy to the hashtag film Twitter, Whiplash is always almost always a very prominent feature in people's top five, if not top 10 film lists.

8:30KT: Right? So I'm like, okay, cool. Whenever I feel like I need some quality, whenever I feel like I need some substance, this is where I can go. So we're kind of leaving it for a good time and that is not what I got friends and lovers. So I guess if we want to distill this into a definitive sort of nutshell, films that really resonate with me do a couple of things. The first thing is they establish characters within the setting. Okay. Then what they also do is once they've established the characters,

9:05KT: they've dictated to me or they've alluded to me why I should care or why I shouldn't care about these characters. Are they worth cheering on? Are they not worth cheering on? Okay. Right? And then we need to have an overarching narrative that is driving us through the movie. It would be nice to have secondary characters. And if you are going to have them, they definitely need a lot of dimension to them. They need to add something. They can definitely be cautionary tales along the way. Give me something,

9:36KT: Give me something to hold on to. You know, we with films, you know, 90 is cute. Two hours can be a bit much, especially if it's not epic in any sort of sense. This was, think, an hour and forty ish minutes. And it didn't really achieve what I wanted it or at least what I was expecting or at least what I was hoping. But again, that was based on the rhetoric, going around the town saying this is the splooshiest best fucking film ever. Right? There's a lot of fan service.

10:10KT: There are a lot of quotable lines, but I wouldn't necessarily denote that to great writing. Okay. The story wasn't there. The narrative wasn't there, but they definitely had very quotable lines. And I'm sure if I go into Giphy right now, there'll be many delicious GIFs specifically of JK Simmons shouting profanities at you. Yeah. Well, just throwing a chair at someone. Hey. You know what? If you're going to do insufferable, be JK insufferable Simmons.

10:36KT: That is the fucking way to do it. Right? I've never watched Fifty Shades of Grey, but I'm assuming it's pretty much the same plot, but not JK Simmons. Right? You have like a sub, you have a dom, it's a whole situation that goes on. But just just overall, this was not this was not something for me. But also at the same time, even if it's not something for me, usually if it's good enough, I can still find places of refuge and places to resonate. Mhmm. Right? This was like Uncut Gems Lite.

11:07KT: There was so much clashing and shouting and I'm sure people get off on that and I'm sure people love, you know, just jerking it to it. I'm sure people enjoy that, but that's just not my jive. You know? I I'm just not into that. By the way, we do have a Patreon exclusive on Uncut Gems if you do wanna hear us talk about that, but it's pretty much similar to what we're saying now. And it also reminded me of Breaking Bad. How so? Breaking Bad had a lot of bravado.

11:38KT: It also had a lot of quotable lines, but the the story and the character development never really took off from Breaking Bad. So this is for all of the, yeah, I'm gonna call I'm gonna call you out, bro. No. Get in the ring, bro. No. That's weird. You you just No. No. You made your point equally the minute you say that. I am KT Simmons. You are going to sit there with your bloody hands and take it, you red wing warrior.

12:05KT: Breaking Bad, you know, it's all of the yo ho, all the bows. Yeah. Yes, Sai. It's Walt White. You know what I mean? Like, it's just there for fan service. There's there was a lot of fan service that I felt like was in this movie that you're just gonna chortle and giggle gaggle about with this movie. But where is the substance? Where where where is the anchorage of substance in this movie?

12:05Oti: Journey the journey from Walter White to Heisenberg was epic.

12:33KT: Cute.

12:33Oti: And whatever happened in between and how we were taken to that journey through his fucking eyes was something that I sincerely haven't watched in TV before.

12:33KT: Okay. But it took, like, three hundred hours for him to get there.

12:33Oti: Because it was a bloody long journey.

12:33KT: Cool.

12:47KT: Like like I said, feel free to cover your own Breaking Bad podcast. But I'm I'm just saying. I'm just saying. But do do you understand what I'm trying to say? I understand what you're trying to say. It's kind of like very fanboy Whiplash. And it's kind of like the same way people love Breaking Bad is kind of how I feel like they'll okay, friends and lovers. If you if you love Whiplash and you don't love Breaking Bad, please please DM us. If you're gonna get very angry, email because Oti looks after those.

13:16KT: But anyway, those are my first impressions for Whiplash. Again, I told you guys this is what what this episode is going to be about. But it also doesn't mean that we can't have a tantalizing discussion about the movie. Mhmm. And, you know, like vultures, we will pick up the bones and whatever's left. Yep. For sure. Okay. You know, even though JK Simmons is in a supporting role, he's really the only one I wanna talk about. But I think we should definitely focus a bit on Miles Teller.

13:46KT: Actually, before we talk about his character, Andrew, is there anything you wanna say about Miles Teller as an actor?

13:46Oti: I don't mind him.

13:46KT: Yeah. But do you do you yearn for him? You talk about yearning. Do you yearn for him?

13:46Oti: Not necessarily.

13:59Oti: Do you remember he was in Fantastic Four? Yeah. But then again, I'm not a teenager, so maybe the teenager Yeah.

13:59KT: But you watched for him.

13:59Oti: Yeah. I did. But I'm oh, I didn't watch it to yearn for Miles Teller.

13:59KT: Is that your merch? Is

14:12KT: that the merch you're going to sell on?

14:15Oti: Yeah. For what is worth, I think he did a a good job acting in this. Okay. It's just that the story was really light. And if they're calling this a fucking jazz movie, I wouldn't even really call it that. I think of jazz, I think not. But I think more like saxophone. Like, I don't really think No. It's not even about instrumentation's

14:34Oti: used. It's just the onus wasn't on the jazz more than the journey it took to portray Miles Teller to elevate him into an artist or one of the greatest artists there is. And through that, we see JK Simmons come in and his perception of what an artist or what it is to push an to push a regular person beyond the line to make him that great artist. And to him, it's fucking abuse howling at them, making their life insufferable because that's what it takes. Because he has this fucking story of of of a young jazz player who who got howled at a who got laughed at in a concert, and he practiced every day. And that's his mantra.

15:13Oti: So every fucking day, I come to teach. I'll make their lives fucking miserable because, hey, it worked for one person, then I'll just you know? It's ridiculous. It's it's offensive. You're offensive. And and and for him to to to make it as if he cares, you know, he doesn't, he fucking doesn't. And then when he had this whole sob story that, oh, he was one of the greatest people that I taught, but he had an accident.

15:39Oti: The first time I watched it, I was like, bitch, please. I know you are the reason for that shit. Yeah. And soon enough, we saw that, didn't we? Yeah. We did. We saw that the kid developed some serious mental mental

15:52Oti: issues.

15:52KT: Look at Oti coming with the receipts.

15:52Oti: Developed some serious mental issues because of him. Yep. I I So now,

15:59Oti: we're being told, hey, come on and enjoy Ipsos because it's a fucking great jazz movie. It is fucking not. And this David Hulapalash, whatever his fucking name is Hulapalash. Did the same shit with okay. La La Land is a completely different sort of monster, which we're not even going to go with because Mhmm. You know how I feel about that. Yeah. So I just don't think that they they went through some serious major life issues so trivially that I was like, what the fuck? Yeah. They covered suicide,

16:28Oti: depression, like, there was some throwaway things. Like, it's what makes an artist an artist. Yeah. I'd rather fucking die at 34 because yo, mate, they'll talk about me in the eighties. Instead of being 90 and rich. Yeah.

16:28KT: That was very presumptuous for Miles Teller to think he would be rich.

16:45KT: And I love how you gave me the plot instead of talking about Miles Teller's character. See, that's how forgettable this guy is. But my point is with Miles Teller, and I guess also at the same time, you you talk about frame of reference, but you also talk about, what interests you as a human. Right? I don't really understand music, especially classical or orchestral

17:08KT: sort of music. Again, see, this might not even be orchestral, but that's what I think it is. So I don't even know if his drumming was good or not. But, like, I have a question. If you're good at, like, playing the drums, is it normal to be bleeding? It's not like a kung fu movie where you're punching, like, grains of sand to strengthen your knuckles.

17:29KT: So I feel like was he good, like, at being a drummer? Is it normal to bleed?

17:29Oti: No. It's good. He was good. He was good and he pushed himself. The bleeding symbolize that he pushed himself harder and pain wasn't a barrier that would make him shy away from what he wanted to achieve. If you're doing it for hours and you're bleeding, then it's not a good sign.

17:48KT: And that applies to everything. His bloody practice.

17:50Oti: You know? You could you could you could pluck the guitar until your bloody fingers fall off, fingernails fall off. But

17:58KT: Are you working on a screenplay, Oti?

17:58Oti: Oh, yes. Yes. I am. It's called lip wash.

18:06Oti: I'm just gonna win an Oscar. Or a Oscar.

18:12KT: Oh, wow. I think I think the the crux of the qualms, the foundational qualms that I had with Whiplash is exactly what you're saying. A lot of the themes that were not even explored, a lot of the themes that were introduced into this movie was surface level and they never really resonated and they never really attached themselves to a specific character, which is the downfall to Andrew. Right? Because you see him literally putting his blood, sweat, and tears into mastering drumming. Right? You can see he's really trying his best,

18:46KT: but the agony that he feels, the triumphs that he feels, I'm not necessarily feeling it because they didn't give us we don't even know who he is as a person.

18:55Oti: We don't even who No. No. We know he's a crap dude. We know he's a crap dude who doesn't care about anyone else other than what he's he set his goal for. Okay. Ricky and Drake. Him being the greatest artist there is. And the problem with that is he does he has a girlfriend. And I'm assuming this guy Had very briefly. Yeah. Briefly. We saw how he treated her. Uh-huh. Right? Because, oh, you're getting my way of achieving greatness.

19:19Oti: She was not. Like, mate, she was not the reason why. We saw how he treated his cousins and his general family. Like, he didn't give a shit. We know who he is as a person. Yeah. They laid it out for us. If you if you wanna care about Miles fucking Teller, Andrew, in this No. But you have to care. It's not like it's presenting

19:39Oti: reasons why you should care. Oh, I didn't. In in in in whatever moment, were you ever emotional watching this movie? Because I wasn't.

19:39KT: Dude, I'm agreeing with you.

19:39Oti: Oh, good. I just felt I just felt

19:49Oti: you're coming at me. You're coming at me.

19:49KT: And it just felt like, oh, mate, we should be saying the same thing. Mate, if you wanna go toe to toe with the champ, we can find some there are many things we can fight about, but I'm definitely not fighting with you about this. But it's exactly what I'm saying. He didn't really yes. It's not necessary to know what he had for breakfast,

20:09KT: but it's important to know what's motivating him. Right? Andrew, Miles Teller's character, Andrew, he's not working in a office drone sort of life. He's not working nine to five. He's not working at a diner. He's

20:22KT: not just working to pay the bills. He's working for his passion. Right? And to have such a passionate person that's working so hard, but not really get any sort of inklings as to why or what the motivating driver is for them, it makes it very hard to latch onto that character. There are things that you need to bring in your own toolkit to be able to relate to him as a character, and that is where I take qualm.

20:45Oti: I I feel like okay. I guess I guess and this is where I think the sort of maybe the storyline the the writing wasn't as great because we know JK Rowling.

20:55KT: Oh my.

20:58KT: We we will not. Unless

21:01KT: we're going to make fun of JK Rowling, she is not going to be mentioned here.

21:01Oti: So we see Fletcher

21:06Oti: Mhmm. We see Fletcher inquiring as to why

21:10Oti: like, with the background of why he's there. You know? Are you how how's your family? How's your parents? Where does your what does your dad do? Where's your mom? And this all seems so quiet, you know. Okay. So why is he asking? Why is he acting all kind when we just seen him torment a little kid a few minutes ago? Yeah. We later come find out that was his ammo to make him feel like crap throughout the whole session because I knew that's what he did. Yeah. And I fast the first time I watched this, I didn't get it. I was like, oh, he actually has some

21:38Oti: decent human bones in him, but he doesn't. Just one one decent bone.

21:43KT: And I thought he was going to use it on the orchestra.

21:43Oti: To answer your question,

21:46Oti: what drives Andrew to be the best is him simply wanting to be the greatest.

21:54KT: Boo. Garbage screenplay.

21:56Oti: Boo. Really. Really. And it's also bad. Like, when you're younger, you'd be like, oh. No. No. I'm not younger. The greatest.

22:07KT: Okay, Naruto. No. This is a proper screenplay written by a proper adult. So where is the story? Where do we care about the triumphs? Where do we comfort him in the lulls?

22:19Oti: Well, his dad apparently didn't allow him too much, which I think is bull hockey. You know? He's he's a high school teacher. Let's let's

22:19KT: As if being a high school teacher is a failure.

22:28KT: Fuck, man. To have to deal with high school students, they deserve above and beyond. Yeah. All the arms and all the legs. But we'll I definitely wanna talk about the lack of dimension for secondary characters, but let's just focus on Andrew for a little bit, even though again, there's not much to focus on. He seems very complacent. It seems like if you were to look through the lens of his life, it would all be in gray. He was very bland. He was very dull.

22:56KT: It was very surprising that he would do something that required so much of his time and so much of his talent, I suppose, if you want to say. But there there weren't any sort of there was no sort of moment watching this where I felt like I was rooting for him and I was happy for him. So when you have Oh, deep in it guys. Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. I think I just gave Whiplash with the spoiler because we're kind of deep in this. But when we had moments of perceived triumph, like when he tackles

23:32KT: Fletcher, the first time when he's going to the car rental and he forgets the drumsticks. When he first tackles Fletcher, I guess, yeah, you know, he's been abused by him, verbally abused. Actually, no, physically abused as well. You know, I guess you could call that a moment of triumph, but because I didn't care about his character, it just felt indulgent to me. Yeah. It felt very indulgent. And then you also have like the ending sort of scene where he's, I guess it's the equivalent of like,

24:01KT: what do they call what's the American football called? The gridiron? There's Gridiron Gang that has Dwayne Johnson in it, but I feel like Dwayne Johnson's in everything. Right? Anyway, but, you know, there's there's usually a point in like a football movie where it's like, you know, this is where we're gonna get it. This is our moment, you know, and then you have this like rousing sort of speech or like Denzel Washington and Remember the Titans. Right? And

24:26KT: it seemed like that's that was gonna be the moment. You know, the scouts were there or the

24:26Oti: Wait. I'm just surprised you went to Gridiron Gang before you went to Remember the Titans.

24:37KT: I have to support my fellow Polynesians. Okay? I have to I have to support, as you would say, Dwight Johnson. Oh my god. He has no he just does everything, doesn't he? Yeah. Because he did San Andreas, and then he did something else that was exactly the same. There was like a sleeper Back to back to back. And there was one with a gorilla, like a one. There was like five with gorillas or some shit.

25:02KT: They should call it Planet of the Dwayne Johnsons. Yeah. This is like one Dwayne Johnson for all of the planets. Anyway, but I felt like that it looks like that was supposed to be a triumphant moment. But again, because I never latched onto Andrew's character, I'm just like, he's being really selfish and he's being really indulgent right now. Of him, like, after he gets comforted by his dad and playing drums, I'm like, you can fuck off, mate.

25:28KT: Like, don't don't you think about all of these people in the JVC that have been working hard and you have to put a spotlight on you because you're so important, and you've been hurt. How about you just fuck off and go and live on with your life?

25:41Oti: Okay. I think that moment got me sort of differently the first time I watched it. Okay. I think I got I got I got chills watching the last scene. Okay. See him actualizing on stage, seeing him surpass his limits, seeing mister Fletcher acknowledging it when he brought him there just to ridicule him that this is his moment, this is where he ascends, I got chills.

26:10Oti: And I I fully appreciated the last scene. And and

26:10KT: Can we also account for the fact that that was the last fifteen minutes of this movie?

26:10Oti: Yes. It was the last fifteen minutes.

26:10KT: Okay. And I did I actually So was I floating in space for the whole time?

26:10Oti: No. I enjoyed I enjoyed it. I enjoyed that last scene. Even rewatching it today, I still enjoyed it because it felt not emotional because I wasn't. Yeah. It just felt cool. This guy, at least, we've got we've we've gotten to see him

26:38Oti: achieve something in this movie. There there it is. That's one good thing that I can say about this. The last fifteen minutes one. Okay. The last fifteen minutes That's a terrible wait. The last fifteen minutes makes this makes this movie palatable.

26:53KT: Nah, man. Nah, man. You you you can't ignore me for the first three quarters of the movie and be like, wait for it. Wait for it. Even

26:53Oti: Isn't that what edging is all about?

26:53KT: Yeah. But we've established you're the edge lord. Right? Hello, friends and lovers, personal note. If this is the first time you're listening to For Your Reference, we are very agreeable people. So please feel free to go and check out our other episodes.

27:20KT: But the reason why I am directly talking to our most delicious friends and lovers is we have a Christmas tradition where we rate our movies. And I would love to tell you guys to, if you would like to stick around and wait for our Christmas episode where we physically rate this movie. Until then, you'll just have to deal with us discussing with it and you'll never know until then. But it's it's not that far away.

27:48Oti: I It would be like a Jesus Rolls rating. Fucking hell, man.

27:54KT: Don't watch it. Just is that is that really is that really where you wanted to go? Yeah. Because, you know Is that the Jesus you wanna roll on?

27:54Oti: We pre call mock code film

28:05Oti: bastards. I'm not sure I said that properly, but, you know

28:05KT: You know you didn't say that properly. Oh.

28:12KT: But I guess that's a part of the qualm that I have. And a lot of the time I talk about, I don't need action. I don't need the bravado. What I really enjoy is deeply personal insular sort of stories. And I guess you could say that, yes, this is an insular story Whiplash, but there wasn't any sort of personal ties to this. Mhmm. It it was interesting and it was very telling that Fletcher chose to say that his previous student died in a car accident.

28:48KT: You to you can't just say something like that and not explore it. And I think not necessarily irresponsible, but I think it was it was like, what's the point? Like, if you're gonna bring it to the surface, if you're going to mention that his mother wasn't around and it was just him and his dad, because it seemed like he didn't have any siblings. Right? Those were his cousins. Yeah. Then then bring us through it. Right? But it's like, nah, I want all of these cool sort of drumming scenes. I wanna see JK Simmons,

29:16KT: you know, scream depravities at me that somehow give me a boner or get me wet in some sort of way. You know, I feel like a lot of the praise that this movie gets is for the mechanics of it. For the fact that Miles Teller, even though he had been playing the drums since he was 15 years old,

29:31KT: had to take up lessons for this movie. And JK Simmons, even though he had played piano for a couple of roles, he had to do some more training for that. I think it reminds me of Boyhood, if you'll pardon the reference to earlier with Ethan Hawke, who we fucking love. It reminds me of that because we're praising those efforts as opposed to the actual story that's going or that is trying to hopefully very thinly unfold. Right?

29:56KT: And that's a lot of the problem that I had because once you talk about Andrew, once you talk about Fletcher, that's pretty much the whole movie. Yeah. And moving on to that, let's talk about the secondary characters that don't really get their time in the sun.

30:10Oti: So we have Andrew's dad, Jim. A very supportive dad, a single dad. He's raised Andrew pretty much alone the whole time. Mhmm. He's always there. They watch movies together, which I thought it was kind of cute. Yep. But you could see he's always there supporting Andrew in whatever

30:29Oti: problems he has.

30:29KT: I feel like he was only really introduced to provide a contrast between his character and Fletcher.

30:29Oti: Yeah. But at least he had that. You know? At least Andrew had that.

30:29KT: Is that what we're striving for in movies? At least.

30:43Oti: Well, at least he had a support system to fall back on. I suppose. You know? Because we see Andrew isn't sort of he he needs that, and that's where his father comes in and steps in and and provides that sort of comfort and and support whenever he feels like he's faltering.

31:02KT: It's it's interesting. And he was only really there to provide a contrast between him and also Fletcher. I thought it was quite heart heartwarming. It was very nice that Andrew's dad actually tried to pull him out of that abuse and what Andrew was going through. It was interesting to see that he actually cared and he understood and he knew the situation and he wanted to get his son out of it. Yeah.

31:29Oti: Yeah. And I think maybe I'd forgotten the first time watching it, but for some reason, I didn't think that Andrew was the one that provided evidence or came forward about mister Fletcher.

31:29KT: Well, do we know for sure or was it just that Fletcher? Because I felt like

31:29Oti: Because Fletcher came came came came out of the last scene and said, hey. I know it was you. And Marcel was like, oh, shit.

31:51KT: As as His facial expressions ain't it all. No. I I feel like he did it, but I'm just wondering was it definitive that he did I could assume he he was. But I think that that it was like a trap. Like, Fletcher was trying to get him in a trap, get him nervous, and Yeah. Like, fuck off. And embarrass him. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty Shame.

32:08Oti: And this is I was supposed to show you. You want to push people beyond their limits to to get this perfection.

32:14Oti: But what the fuck are you? Yeah. You know? He he doesn't seem the epitome of success, does he? Not really. No. When you think of success, he's also coming like, oh, Fletcher, mate. He seems like a sad man. Yeah. He looks like a sad man and who has no one in his life because probably he's pushed them all away. It would have been interesting to get a dynamic like you said you said, that would have made a far better movie

32:36Oti: if we got to know Fletcher a bit more rather than the facade he brought into class because that's

32:44KT: mhmm. If the facade is Fletcher going home and, you know, tickling his pickle to pictures of himself, I would believe that. I would believe that too. And isn't that what we all do? Isn't that how we pay penance in this world? Yeah.

32:58Oti: Because we see moments in mister Fletcher's interactions with other people that display he's not this is he's not inherently like this all the time. And that because when he saw him talking in the hallway with a kid and the and the dad and he was, like, all cute and nice to the family. Yeah. Even hugging the bloke. I was like, okay. That seems a bit out of character. Or was it?

32:58KT: Well, even when Because we don't fucking know, do we? Even

33:25KT: when he was playing the piano in the jazz club. Right? Yeah. Like, he seemed very kind and gentle there.

33:33Oti: He seemed kind and gentle. And even talking to Andrew, he invited him to do the JVC thing. Yeah. But then again, we found out that was that was all vindictive. So what exactly is he in this? I just idea. Who is he as a character?

33:47KT: So what drives him? Like, did he wanna be one of the greats and something just stopped him? Because one of the final scenes is I think it's when they're in the club after Fletcher played the piano, you know, they were having a conversation and Fletcher was essentially justifying his violent sort of behavior. Right? Not sort of, his violent He is justifying it. Yeah. Yeah. And he's justifying it. And he's he's saying, you know, sorry, I'm not a, I was gonna say magician.

34:15Oti: You can be that too. Not a magician. Don't discriminate.

34:19KT: My magic in all the places that you need me, my love. But I'm not a musician. So I don't remember. I'm just gonna say Craig David. Fletcher said, I'm not Craig David or they won't be Craig David. But when they wake up tomorrow, they're going to practice until they're Craig David.

34:19Oti: I love Craig David. They're practice for seven days and they can fill you in.

34:41KT: Oh, wow.

34:41Oti: Right? And they can tell you what's your flavor. I'm trying to think of a Craig Jemington right now.

34:48KT: If you can't think of one, then I'm walking away.

34:51Oti: Oh, shit. He did one with sealed empty. Not seal? Sting. Oh, shit. What was it called?

34:59KT: And this is why, motherfuckers, we are not a music podcast. Thank you for exposing us, Oti. Oh, right. Anthony Fantano.

35:09Oti: Alright. Take take it away.

35:11KT: Love Anthony Fantano. But the reason why I bring this up is maybe maybe he realized that he wasn't going to be one of the greats. Something happened to him. Who hurt him? I guess is the question. Because something made him the way that he is. The fact that he enjoys and he indulges in insulting, budding, starry eyed, rose colored glasses sort of musicians says a lot to him as a person and his failings and his struggles.

35:41KT: But again, a lot of that is assumed because we don't know that for sure. Yeah. True. We have to bring reference, our own personal experiences, our own toolkit and apply it to what we think this might be. Right? I don't even know if he was human at all. He was really a caricature of whatever the story needed him to be.

36:02Oti: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's a person Mulder and

36:06Oti: Scully needed to find because the truth was out there, mate.

36:06KT: You know what's really interesting? Maybe this would be a good story, but it just wasn't the right medium. Because could you imagine an anime about a piano teacher trying to teach a drummer? That would work. Right? That would bloody work. That would work a lot. I think it's just it it didn't work so well in this format. You know, maybe sometimes we just need to hear it in a foreign language. Who knows?

36:34Oti: The foreign language of JK Simmons. But the the acting wasn't bad though.

36:38KT: Well, it doesn't matter, does it? The story wasn't that.

36:42Oti: You know, I I try I'm trying to rack my brain other than the last fifteen minutes. Exactly what I enjoyed in this movie.

36:42KT: I love how you say you're trying to rack your brain, but it was just in the last fifteen minutes.

36:42Oti: No. Like, intrinsically Mhmm. What the movie tried to portray as a message, I do not agree with it. So I think that's sort of reflecting

37:02KT: What was the message, though? That you you need to abuse people?

37:02Oti: You need to abuse people to get the best out of them. And they stuck to their guns until the end because we saw Miles Teller fucking saw in the last fifteen minutes. So it doesn't look like it's approved the message. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. That's the message they delivered at the end. And I was like, okay. Oh, fuck this shit. Fuck this message. So exactly what else did I

37:24Oti: cling on to? There was nothing really because my Miles Teller's character is fucking a jerk to everyone around him.

37:24KT: I feel like he didn't have enough dimension to be a jerk though.

37:24Oti: He was a jerk to the girl. He was He was just like I felt when when when there was a scene where he was telling the girlfriend exactly why he they couldn't be together, I thought it was a joke. I thought it was or it was him practicing on what he was going to tell

37:46Oti: mister Fletcher Yeah. That I cannot be in this band anymore because prior to that, they had an altercation. Mhmm. I thought, okay. He's practicing to on on what he's going to tell Fletcher after that. But no. It's not. He was actually saying those words to the body, girl. Know, so many things frustrated me in this movie. And it didn't I didn't have any emotional pull to the characters at all. No. Because there there wasn't anything to pull.

38:14KT: I'm serious, but that that is funny.

38:14Oti: And

38:18Oti: even them sort of explaining away why all the two the two other alternate drummers falling away Mhmm. Just no. Nothing. Like, I would not be in his class with that sort of abuse. And I guess that's in his reason, it's oh, he's not meant to be great anyway, so piss off.

38:18KT: Okay. But okay. Let let's talk a little bit about it because we're not really going to release an episode of The Last Dance.

38:43KT: We talked a bit about it in our Patreon episode. But Yeah. Recap.

38:48KT: Oti said Oh, wow. Oti's recaps. Oti said, Save the Last Dance. No. I'm talking about The Last Dance of Michael Jordan, motherfucker.

38:48Oti: Sorry. I just had Last Dance, and I got I went with Julia Stiles, mate. I went with Julia Stiles.

38:48KT: I think you referenced that in Bad Boys because we were talking about great soundtracks.

38:48Oti: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, forgive me. Alright. Take us take us to the Jordan land.

38:48KT: Do you have, like, a secret podcast that I don't know about?

38:48Oti: I actually do.

39:19KT: Damn, dawg. Can you focus? I'm talking about I'm talking about Savants. I'm talking about Mavericks. I'm talking about the greatest of the greatest. Right? Michael Jordan being one of them. He was a fucking dick to everyone. So I do obviously, don't con condone abuse, but I do see that in order for you to be better than everyone else, you kinda need to hit above a threshold. And I think it's just in our human nature, if we're comfortable, we're not really going to grow. We're not really going to extend ourselves

39:59KT: more than we need to. Right? So I think a lot of the driving forces to push you to be great are things that push you out of your comfort zone. Okay. Which which, you know, can can can can become detrimental to you as a person. You might be an amazing athlete, you might be an amazing drummer, but the fragments of who you should be as a holistic person is not that. And

40:27KT: I guess that's what I'm driving at because there was nothing aside from him wanting to be a drummer, but even him wanting to be a drummer was quite vague and superficial.

40:35Oti: Putting someone's passion as wanting just wanting to be the best is fucking lame and weak, and it just shows that you didn't have any sort of thought process Mhmm. As to what it would drive this character to want to be the best other than, oh, I just want to be the best.

40:55Oti: That's the kind of talk you do and nothing has really come in your way in life, mate. Yeah. You're well, you're still naive. You're still a bit What is it? What what's the what's the term? Green? Green behind your ears?

40:55KT: No. Wet behind your ears. If you're

41:10KT: you're green behind your ears, you should consult a doctor.

41:10Oti: Oh, that that makes more sense, doesn't it?

41:10KT: Unless you're fucking Mark Ruffalo and you can fuck off.

41:10Oti: Maybe I that's why I was going with it because I was thinking of Mark Ruffalo when I was talking about that. That is a big succession. Fuck off.

41:24KT: Don't fucking care about Mark Ruffalo. Feel free to tweet me or not because I will fight you. Wow. Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, how I never knew ye. There was nothing to latch onto. There was nothing to care for. And literally, it's just there for fan service. I don't see I try not to read too much about the reviews before we do an episode because I don't want it to cloud me in any sort of way. The wine does that and Oti does that enough. So I don't need the reviews to cloud me. Remove JK Simmons.

42:04KT: Miles Teller is forgettable so you can keep him there. But what else do you have, sir? Nothing really. This is not this is not something that I'm going to have to force people in my immediate circles to run out and see it.

42:04Oti: The

42:18Oti: funny thing is for the longest of time you've asked to watch Whiplash. Yeah. And I've always been like, yeah. Not now. Not now. For this sport, I was like, okay. Let's do it. Let me get in the mood. Oh my. And then, you know what? What I remembered or what I thought I remembered was exactly correct. Which is rare. Which which is rare, to be honest. Regardless of how you want to look at it, at the core of every movie is the story. Yes.

42:50Oti: And if if if the story falls short, regardless of the performance or whatever else you're clinging on to, whether you want to see yourself as as a jazz lover, which any jazz lover, in my opinion, will not gravitate towards this.

43:06KT: How about a jazz friend and lover?

43:09Oti: Maybe so. Maybe so. I dabbled in jazz way back as a kid. I listened to a lot, and this just didn't do it for me.

43:09KT: You you were really focusing on the jazz element.

43:09Oti: Because I I went into this thing. Don't think it's, like, part of the post on me. Are you sure? There's nothing about that's Is this the La La Land one? Maybe I'm confusing.

43:35Oti: I'm confusing his movies then because I feel like those are big sort of, ew, this is gonna be this is the best jazz movie ever. I'm like, what the fuck?

43:35KT: It says exhilarating,

43:43KT: astounding, but it doesn't say

43:46Oti: Okay. Maybe maybe my

43:48Oti: if if I got that wrong

43:48KT: Oh, vomit. Sorry. Can I read the top quote on this movie poster? Whiplash didn't just raise the bar, it electrified the spirits of everyone who saw it. Fuck you and suck off my clit. Wow.

44:03Oti: If if it if if abuse electrifies the spirit, if if abuse makes you because abuse actually made him better. If that's the In this instance. Yes. If that's the road you wanna go down on as electrifying spirits Mhmm. Well, right, go ahead.

44:22KT: This is this is a problem, Oti. Does this mean that we watch stuff as it comes out, or does that mean if we don't like it, we just don't cover it?

44:31Oti: It's not that it's not aged well because I fucking hate I didn't I I just thought it was alright when it came out the other time when when it was released. But, like like, you know, when the Joker came out, there was a time where that that was when people would listen to the episode. Maybe so. Maybe so. Maybe maybe they then again, we are not the target audience for this. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe maybe it's just targeting a different sort of demographic out there. Yeah.

44:57Oti: And if that's the case, fair enough. Because that shit just flew past my head. And a whiplasher? He didn't even leave her with whiplash.

45:06KT: What if JK Simmons wasn't in this movie, would there even be anything to say? I don't think they would.

45:11Oti: I think the casting director should have been given all the all

45:16Oti: the awards for getting JK Simmons into this and his performance.

45:16KT: No. Because it's fun. Like, if you're JK Simmons and you got the script and you could shout calling people pigs and, you know, happy meals and all this fucking shit, like, it would be fun. It would be fun to play this character.

45:16Oti: You know what made me cringe?

45:16KT: What?

45:16Oti: Right at the end

45:16KT: Uh-huh.

45:16Oti: When

45:34Oti: when Andrew is getting into his beat Yeah. He's drumming drumming for his life. Oh my. And then Fletcher comes on and says, oh, what the fuck are you doing? And Marcelo's like, I'll cue in. I'll cue you in. He goes on. At that moment when he realizes he's bloody ascending, you know? Wow. He's ascending.

46:01KT: It's like a celestial sort of experience.

46:01Oti: Exactly. He

46:05Oti: just he buys into it. And as if he's this is my creation. I know. I'm taking and then he starts to bopping. I was like, fucking hell, mate. You didn't do this. He takes off his coat. Biggest or serious. Yeah. So, you know, I'm like, there's no way you can make a conductor's job look fucking sexy. That's not it. It does not work

46:27Oti: regardless of whether you put JK Simmons on there.

46:27KT: I feel like I wanna watch a documentary about sexy conductors. I think that's what I wanna do. Yeah.

46:35Oti: It just felt a bit, mate, this is not you. This is not you. Let him be. Let him shine.

46:40KT: Do you think do you think that Andrew was talented?

46:40Oti: Andrew was very talented.

46:40KT: I don't think he was very.

46:40Oti: I think he was very talented.

46:40KT: I don't think he was very.

46:50Oti: What's your case was saying that because at the end, we saw him going through things that a normal person who if they hold just a passion project,

46:59Oti: no one would go through that shit.

46:59KT: It's one thing to practice for hours and hours and hours, but if you're bleeding by just practicing what you're supposed to be practicing, I feel like it gets to a point where it's like, okay. I don't think this path is for you, my friend.

46:59Oti: What do you mean? The bleeding wasn't that he wasn't good and he was holding the drumsticks wrong.

47:18Oti: It's that he's been practicing for too long. He's Have okay. He's overdoing it Have you watched be the best. Have you watched any sports movie or you know, since you love Arsenal, have you watched any sports sort of documentary or whatever where they're actually bleeding because they practice so much?

47:18KT: I would love to see Arsenal players run their heads off until they start bleeding. Then they can be probably they can probably play the football better and win some cups. Be happy to see that.

47:44Oti: I struck a nerve there.

47:44KT: You did struck a nerve. No. But I'm just like we we've recently watched Umbrella Academy and we won't cover it because it's coming out at the end of July, but we have Ellen Page's character. Right? And someone tells her, maybe you're just not good enough. Right? Yeah. It doesn't matter. If you've practiced that many hours and that's how you sound

48:08Oti: Oh, so you're saying more of how it sounded.

48:11KT: No. I'm just saying, like, do you really like, we've been podcasting for episodes now. If we started bleeding out of nowhere,

48:21KT: does that make us

48:24KT: does that make us the most dedicated podcasters in the game? Or does that mean we need to call the ambulance?

48:32Oti: I don't I don't get what this argument you're trying to go down on because No. You get it. Maybe maybe you're joking. I don't know. But I'm

48:39KT: How can he be bleeding that much? Just it's not even like he's trying to compose his own song and he's about to perform at a stadium. He's literally just trying to do the sheet music as a part of the class. He's not even doing something astronomical.

48:54Oti: He's drumming at an at an insane tempo for hours on end. It is fucking draining. Yeah. But how do you stop bleeding at that point? That's what I don't understand. Have you have you have you tried drumming before with sticks and shit?

49:10KT: I've tried it with other objects. Right. Because we No. That that shit takes a toll. We we went to Comic Con. Right? And there's like there was like full on gaming championships. And you see those motherfuckers with their keyboards and their mouses. You don't see them start fucking bleeding.

49:25Oti: Okay. I don't know where you're going with this. I think that's joke. Did I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not subscribing to this. Okay, you fucking fanboy. All I'm saying is it showed his dedication. Pain wasn't a mere pain wasn't an obstacle. And that's one of the things that you get to see that was special with Andrew. He knew that to be the best, he had to put the work in, and he did put the work in. And that was self evident.

49:49Oti: And then to see him at the end because he we know he practices so much. He knew the sheet of Whiplash off head. On the top of his head, he he could remember that and he played that. So it's not that he's taking this shit lightly.

50:03Oti: He's practicing as hard and as long as it takes. Mhmm. And that's dedication for you right there. That's one thing you cannot take away from him.

50:03KT: But, you know, you can have, like, singers that they just have it. And then you just have singers that just sing to sing. Right?

50:17KT: That's all I'm saying. I'm gonna back up off it, but that's all I'm gonna say. Let's talk a little bit about him and the way that he navigated the females, specifically Nicole.

50:29KT: The females. He did navigate females. That's a Friday Night Dinner reference,

50:35KT: if anyone caught that.

50:37Oti: Like I said, he's trash until you talk about it.

50:43KT: Over to me for the trash report? Yeah. Okay. Yes. I can confirm that he is and continues to be trash.

50:50Oti: Mhmm.

50:51KT: It's but I that goes back to what I'm saying. I don't even think he was at the point where he needed to shut everything off from his life to become great. I don't think he ever would have been great. Wow. What? Do you wanna go and tell the kids out there, you can do whatever you want. You can literally fly. Do you mean figuratively or literally? No. Literally. That's a Key and Peele reference. Oh, it's it's

51:18Oti: he thought he thought he was Fletcher's man. He thought he had the sport. So he's he was like, I'll be fully dedicated in this. I'll just cut off all distractions. Fair enough. But the way he did it was just come on now. We knew the lady didn't exactly have a plan of what she wanted to do. Uh-huh. And she wasn't the most driven, but fucking cares. It's college, you know. Your life is still there's so much to laugh than that.

51:47Oti: So he really dumps her in in the one of the worst possible ways.

51:47KT: No. I I get what he's saying. I'm very pragmatic. So I I get what he's saying. He's just mapping it out and he's trying to avoid any sort of emotional turmoil. So I understand and I get that. It was more him trying to call her

52:07KT: after time had passed. After time. That's more where I was like, really, bitch? Yeah. I'm glad she said, oh, I'll try and see if my boyfriend She was too nice. Yeah. She should've just said fuck off. I wouldn't even have answered. Yeah. You could piss right off. I would find you the juiciest GIF and I will send it to

52:22Oti: I wouldn't even bother sending. I'll just be like, your phone calls won't be getting through me. Your number will be blocked.

52:30KT: But it was interesting because then what else does he have? If he's not good at drumming, sorry. If he's not a savant at drumming, if he's terrible to his dad, if he doesn't treat women around him good enough or at least Nicole in that instance, then what what are what are we watching this fucking shit for? For the whiplash. Yikes. We can keep that to yourself. Is there anything else you wanna say, Oti? Not really. No closing thoughts for the court?

52:58Oti: It's an alright movie. It's it's not as good as what people want to portray it as, at least in my opinion. Yeah. Rewatching it a second time just solidified what I thought.

53:09KT: My my comedy, like Tracy Morgan, is like jazz.

53:13Oti: Oh, yeah? Jazz that you laugh at. Oh, you gotta tell them, how you gonna eat lobster?

53:19KT: I'm proud as a peacock, baby. Mhmm. And that's how we save our negative episodes by quoting 30 Rock.

53:27Oti: Uh-huh. Alright.

53:28KT: I guess just generally, it's already been said, but, know, if you somehow fast forwarded through all of the gripes and all the qualms

53:37Oti: He fast forwarded the whole episode.

53:40KT: Like, why would you even get to this point if you fast forwarded?

53:44Oti: Oh, well, to hear what we recommend.

53:47KT: You know what I also noticed? I haven't sung in this episode at all. That's how fucking annoyed I was. Oh, do you sing? At least I brought some beats to this. Nope. I dropped some mass beats. No. But I'm saying you're not going to get the it it has to evoke itself out. But generally, I don't get the hope and the hope is to make me care about who the character is and none of that happened in this movie. There wasn't any sort of substance to it.

54:16KT: If you love it, feel free to scream it from the mountain tops of the Northern Hemisphere so I don't have to hear it. Right? Yes, it's not my cup of tea, but I can resonate with it if it gives me enough to latch onto and this movie didn't do that. Let's finish off in the segment we call For Your Reference, Oti.

54:38Oti: You know what I'm gonna recommend, KT? Uh-huh. Treme. Woo hoo hoo. It's a HBO show with Wendell Pierce.

54:46KT: And a cool Lester Smith.

54:46Oti: Watch

54:49Oti: it. Watch it. If you've not done that before, don't miss this opportunity.

54:54KT: This is a first in the For Your Reference podcast. I'm going to reference shit that I don't even like. Which is quite fitting because I didn't fucking like this either. Oh, wow. I coined Whiplash as the Uncut Gems Lite. So of course, I'm going to reference Uncut Gems. I felt like a lot of the time the shaky camera was just reacting to JK Simmons being a fucking dick. Just trying to run away from where he was.

55:23KT: So I would recommend Uncut Gems if you enjoyed it. I personally didn't. And again, feel free to come and talk slash fight with me about that. And the last one I will reference is Breaking Bad. For reasons Wow. I won't touch it. No. No. It's it's cool. It's cool, man. Like, I can go to a house party. Like, I can talk. I can I can quote references to you from Breaking Bad, but it's not my fucking jive, man? Man, you're jiving no one's jive. I'm just a groovy cat.

55:55Oti: Without no jive.

55:57KT: Damn, dog. So there you go. If you want to fight and or love on us on a day to day basis on Twitter and Instagram, we are @ForYourRefPod. You could write us an email at hello@fyrpodcast.com. And we'll see you guys

56:11KT: next fucking week. Oh, see you. I'm upset.