iTunes Exclusive Episode Genius
Don reviews Genius, Michael Grandidge's directorial debut about Max Perkins, the legendary Scribner book editor who worked with Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Starring Colin Firth as Perkins and Jude Law as Wolfe, the film chronicles their relationship over 14-15 years as Perkins edits Wolfe's massive manuscripts. Don praises the acting, historical accuracy, and pacing of the 104-minute period piece.
About this episode
Key takeaways
- Jude Law delivers an energetic, unfocused portrayal of Thomas Wolfe that captures the fine line between genius and instability, playing a character constantly talking and moving
- Colin Firth and Jude Law have strong on-screen chemistry, feeding off each other as the editor trying to ground the volatile writer
- The film avoids getting bogged down in minutiae typical of period pieces, maintaining good pacing despite its length
- Historical details and locations are carefully researched and accurate, with appropriate use of CGI for New York backdrops like the Empire State Building
Q&A
What is Genius about?
The film tells the true story of Max Perkins, a Scribner book editor, and his relationship with writer Thomas Wolfe as he edits Wolfe's massive manuscripts over 14-15 years, starting in 1929 New York.
Who are the main cast members?
Colin Firth as Max Perkins, Jude Law as Thomas Wolfe, and Nicole Kidman as Wolfe's love interest. Guy Pearce, Dominic West (as Hemingway), and Laura Linney also appear.
What is Don's recommendation on how to watch it?
Don recommends seeing it at twilight matinee showings at theaters as a good date night or with a teenager interested in history, followed by dinner to discuss the film's themes.
Read Transcript
If you are hearing the sound of my voice to follow in conditions have been met, at least once in your life you have listened to the Clubhouse podcast live every Sunday, night, 70's turn for Pacific, your one-stop shop for all things pop culture. It also means you subscribe on iTunes because it is time for another iTunes exclusive. I can't really give you a number on this one because we're getting this one done way early.
So just look at the number on your screen, I'll be fine. My name is Rob, I'm the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast and I am the smartest man alive. Get used to it.
But I'm not alone for this particular episode, joining me across the desk as he tends to do is the official fact checker of this show. And a man who doesn't mind taking one for the team because sometimes he's got to sit through movies with people that he doesn't like. You may know on this fun don-go, but it's about my name and downport, I'm going to call him downport, welcome sir.
You know, this is about literary and English was not my strong point, but on the other thing you said earlier, there's one person who questions you being the smartest man alive. What do you mean? Look behind you.
Remember? She put a question. That's right, she did.
Well, you know, we all have our falls. So, you know, today we are actually Don's going to review the latest film from director of Michael Grandige. This is his first film he's ever directing, he's done some acting things like that.
It is called Genius, it is based on a true story, a Max Perkins, who was a book editor at Scriptner where he worked with people like Thomas Wolf, Ernest Hemingway, F.F. Scott Fitzgerald, amongst others. Other people in this film, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Guy Pierce, Colin Firth, Laura Lennie, Dominic West, who was one of the greatest shows of television of all time.
A lot of people, this is a period piece, it's based on a true story, it runs an hour, 44. Before we start this whole melee, we got to think Carol, Carol, Carol, Galer of Galer Smith. Big fans of this guy.
Yeah, we love Carol, very liquid, nice lady. We all got invited, but of course, you had your incident on glad you're okay. Little things.
Yeah, little little incident at the house, we had to take care of everybody's fine. We'll talk more about it. But still, I'm here as there for the Empire.
We got it done. We'll break the rain last night, but we're good. So let's get this going.
So an hour, 44, in contrast to a film that we saw the night before, which was about 20 minutes longer, how is it pasted in comparison? Very good. So it did move nicely for you.
Yeah, because you do with period pieces, especially true story period pieces, you can kind of get bogged down in the minutia, exactly. But this didn't do that for you. No, no, the flow was very, very good on this one.
Isn't our 45, but I felt like in our 45, and didn't seem on, was it a big bang and a bang in my back? No, it's basically the story of one of the great poets, Thomas Wolfe, you know, one of the great writers, it starts off in New York in 1929, and he's trying to get his work published. And finally, he goes to a bunch of places, gets rejected, then he goes to a scriptner and where he meets in real life the person Max Perkins, who was played by Callm Firth, Kingsman, big fan.
Yes, great. I'll get the acting in a minute. Okay.
But basically, he wants to get published in Perkins or Firth reads it and just finds it amazing. And basically, it's the story of them going through these pieces, because he brings in this whole stack of papers, and it's them kind of going through the paper through the story to get editable, to put in one book, and those, the first two books he did were huge, they were thick. Okay.
The second book, which that Wolfe did, it was like three or four boxes of papers. We're going to check them two years like to go through the scripts and everything, but it's the story of a building of a friendship between Wolfe and Perkins. And I've seen the trailer for this, and it looks like sometimes things can get a little volatile there.
There are a few volatile points. There are a few points also with, who played Wolfe's love interest and burnt steam. Was played by Nicole Kidman, who is who I referenced in the beginning, one of your little, lesser favorite actors, and we won't go into all that.
But we're going credit to Stu, credit to Stu. Okay. Fair enough.
Basically, she left her husband and her family because she fell in love with Wolfe. And so they're not married or anything, but it's that love interest. It's the story of the three big relationships in a little bit with Wolfe's wife, which is played by Litty.
The Great Laurel. Yeah. He's the home.
He takes commute from New York to the home and does the editing, and I, with his daughters and stuff like that. But basically, it's, I got to get into the acting on this. Wow, it was incredible.
First of all, it was juot loss. Yeah, in Perkins, Perth. Yes.
But, you know, we always say, you know what you're going to get. There's no disappointment on this. The bond that he's too had was incredible.
They fed off each other. Wolfe plays a character, I mean, a lot plays a character of Wolfe that's, a guy he could say is about four or five cans short of a six pack. But wow.
Which I put in my written view of the www.clubassplacass.com. That's our website. But he plays, there's a fine line between insanity and genius.
He's really on that line. Okay. But he's acting like a guy who seems, you know, about four cans short.
But who's also getting Red Bull pumped into his veins by an IV. He's so high strong. He just keeps going.
His thought he keeps talking, talking, talking, moving, moving. That's your saying. Okay.
You kind of lost you there. Yeah. You're, you're, you're, you're doing like a symbolism thing.
I'm like, they didn't have Red Bull back then. That would take you literally, you're being metaphoric. Exactly.
Like your punk. He wants your energy, drink into his veins. So he's so, he's so high, he's strong.
High strong. Just all over the place. Yes.
All over the place. But he plays a part perfect. Fair enough.
The guy who's not there mentally who just keeps going and talking and moving and just has to can't keep one thought straight. But that's why he's probably that genius when it came to writing. Okay.
And that's why they spent the so much time editing these films. Work plays the guy who's kind of, the guy who's trying to get him down to planet earth. Okay.
But also try to say, this is what we have to do. There's one scene where he says, you spent 60 pages just talking about the conductor at the train. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. It was that's so much in depth into the writing that they go, we really have to cut this down kind of thing. And so from a story telling standpoint, you thought it was told well, you're acting standpoint.
You thought it was done very well. Anybody that stood out amongst the peck is there's a lot of heavy hitters. Yeah.
Well, here's the thing. The basic story. Guy Pierce is only in there for a few minutes.
Seven minutes too. Yeah. As well.
Dominic West is Hemingway. Not very much. The main acting, which I got to give it to him is Firth Law in Kidman.
And I'd say like a minor bit to the guy who plays for some life winning, who plays his wife. She's in there some. There's the girls and stuff from there a few scenes.
Basically, it's rotating around that three. I'd say there's 3.5 characters in this film. Okay.
Firna. I would say to the acting Nicole Kinman, my thoughts on her. She played that role perfectly.
Not a fan of her as a person, but you're a fan of her as well. Yeah. I think she didn't really have to act too much on this role.
What I'm saying. Okay. Yes, right now.
Put it nicely. Fair enough. But she is just one of those people who's just treated like the dog that no matter what you do to the dog, always comes back home.
You know, you leave them outside for five, five days straight with no food and water come back in. Hey, you know, that kind of thing. She just can't leave him, no matter how bad he treats her.
You could say that Juva has trouble with the characters. I mean, with relationships in life. Okay.
As Thomas Wolf did. So I could say the acting, it was three and a half characters, but very good for an hour of 45 minutes to the look. Just to set mostly in New York, very historically correct.
They had to find a lot of places. I think the scouts found a lot of places. It's been a lot of time trying to find places that looked historically correct.
Where you could say Max Perkins are first lived in this house outside New York when he commuted. They think they found just an old neighborhood, but it still looked like that time period. Of course, they had to do some CGI's in the backdrop of New York course, but it's still show like the Empire State Building, that kind of thing.
But historically correct, very much so the look felt very New York at that time. They're starting into the Great Depression. So it really, there's a couple scenes where the product, the Great Depression, we see the Superlines and stuff like that.
Okay. Look, props, everything, very historically correct. Look good.
They look, have complimented the feel of the movie very well. I thought. But basically it's just the story of the time when Thomas Wolf comes in, meets Perkins.
They decide to get published in that story for the next basically 14, 15 years before Thomas Wolf passes. I mean, yeah, any downsides to it at all? I'm trying to figure, overall there's nothing you really that I didn't like.
Okay, you know. Fair enough. Good film.
I would say for the teens and above, you know, of course, the little kids might be bored out of their mind. But if people like you've got a teenager who's in the history and stuff and to English and writing, this would be a perfect film for them. There's not really any, you know, there's some cursing and stuff, but nothing really graphic or anything like that that really stands out that would freak out apparent.
Maybe some way in which of that's about it. All right, anything else you want to add for, we get to the final analysis? Not really.
The final analysis on this show, we're not going to give you thumbs up thumbs down. We're not going to give you stars. We're not going to give you letter grades, number rankings.
Our audience whom we affectionately refer to as the empire, they want us to dig deeper. So we're going to do that. I'm going to ask, down up to two questions, question number one, we'll be would don't see this film again.
If the answer is no, then we're done here. But if it says, yes, I'm going to ask him a second question. That second question will be, how far are you willing to go to see this film?
Would you pay full price at a theater? Would you go? That twilight show, maybe Matt and A, early morning on a weekend, maybe second run at the dollar theater, would he venture out of this house to get it from red box, would he stream it on Netflix, would he wait for it on cable?
That's the scale. Darling, would you see this film again? Definitely yes.
How far are you willing to go to see it? I'm going to say, over all the main things going to be, I'd say, twilight, Matt and age of twilight at theaters. It would be a good date night.
I don't think first date, but if you've been dating for a while or married or if you've got a teenager who loves history, do see it as a twilight and go to dinner after. It would be a lot to discuss, there's relationships in this plus history, plus the English. In the acting, I can't say enough, Firth and Law hit it out beyond, they were incredible.
The bond on them was just great. And last thing, again, we have to think, Carol Gailer from Gailer Smith from Viteness to this thing. Genius is the film and the release date.
And you hear this, it will be available in theaters, let's do the plugs. Visit our website, www.theclubhousepodcast.com, find out everything you need to know in some stuff you don't. Like our Facebook page, look up to Clubhouse Podcast on Facebook.
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So until next time, for Don, for the Empire, I'm Rob, clubhouse is closed. I'm pretty Palmer, she can do period pieces, she's versatile.