iTunes Exclusive Episode The Book Thief

The following is a sooner orgator production.
I'm ready for the jam.
I said, I'm ready for the jam.
Yo, gee.
Keep throwing it away.
Greetings.
It is now time for another episode of the clubhouse podcast, but this is...
...and iTunes exclusive.
You'll only get these if you subscribe to the show and iTunes, but if you're listening, you already know that because you do.
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My name is Rob, and again, I welcome you.
Thank you for downloading our podcasts.
Hopefully you download each and every one that we do that would make us happy.
Or we go into our live show, normally Sunday nights at 70's or 4 Pacific.
Joining me for this, iTunes exclusive.
He is the official fact checker of this show.
You may know him as fun, don't go, but his mom and name him Don Ford.
I'm a column, Don Ford.
Welcome, sir.
Uh, welcome.
Thanks for having me, sir.
It's always an honor.
It's just you and I tonight.
We don't have to come like this, you and me.
This show is interchangeable parts.
And when we do these, we have to have the personnel involved in order to do these that we do.
Whatever we do, and iTunes exclusive.
Usually means, there's something specific to it.
It's not just a general show, and this is no exception.
The other night, Don and I had the fortitude opportunity, thanks to our friends at Alight Integrated Marketing,
Josh and everybody over there, to see a film called The Book Theath.
And I'm going to be honest, when I first saw the trailer for this, I wasn't, I wasn't real sure about it.
I was kind of taken or leave it, but you kind of added an interesting element of the mix to me that kind of made me go,
you know what?
This might be worth a worth of viewing.
So why don't you share with our listeners what you're talking about?
Well, first off, I get one thing, you know, Josh, everybody to Alight again.
But I was kind of interested after seeing the trailer.
But friend of the show, Gary Murray, been on a couple times.
He, he saw the movie a week before we did at a prior screening.
And he said it was one of the top ten of the year for him.
And when I hear that, that means go.
Oh, and you told me I was like, you know, I'll check it out.
Because I now have heard from someone who's seen who really enjoyed it.
So there's at least a shot here.
What I didn't know is what I was in for.
Me neither.
This film directed by Brian Perseval, who has won Emmy awards for directing Downton Abbey.
He's won Bethta Awards for some work he's done with some Shakespeare overseas.
Starring Sophie Nellies will get to her in just a moment.
Also of the great Jeffrey Rush, the great Emily Watson.
About a young girl who is orphaned in Germany in World War II.
And Mr. Rush and Ms. Watson play her adopted parents.
And how she kind of lives through World War II.
She ends up, she starts out, I don't think we're spoiling anything here.
She starts out illiterate and Rush teaches her how to read.
They learn better reading together.
And she ends up using books as a teaching tool.
And as almost a survival mechanism.
And one point there is a Nazi hiding out from the Jews that they do hide from the Nazi party.
And I really don't want to give away much more than that.
There is of course the boy next door that grows up with her.
And I think that's about all I want to go into.
Is that said about right for user?
Yeah, spoiler spoiler wise.
That's it.
That's it.
I want to go do you try this thing.
Yeah.
Let's start with the movie itself as we do.
What did you think of the film itself?
Well, first up under your thing.
I don't like to give out more than what the trailers give out.
Usually, but I think we didn't get job there.
But that's a fair point.
Yeah.
I was really.
After seeing this movie.
Confirm I.
I.
Thought that if Gary says to see it because it's one of his top 10.
I, it confirmed it again.
It was that good of a movie I thought.
And.
What I really liked about it is how it showed people in Germany who lived in Germany during the war.
And this was in a major town.
This is a very small town.
Yeah.
And not very many people people showed was like for the average citizen to live in Germany and live there grow up.
They're like like Sophie does during that movie.
It was a different perspective.
It did not glorify Nazism.
Not at all, but it was a short.
It was short.
It was a short.
You're absolutely right.
Treated historically because there's a couple of scenes in this thing that get a little uncomfortable.
There's a scene in the school where all the kids are singing the Germany National Anthem and they're transiting the words for you on the screen.
And you're reading the words.
You're going to.
Oh.
But they treated it with the historic.
Yeah.
And the historic aspect is deserved.
Totally.
Because you had to understand the backdrop of what was going on to really invest in the characters, which I thought this film did very very well.
I was emotionally invested.
And this is not a short film.
This runs almost two hours and 15 minutes.
But and I do want to get to that.
I want to talk about the running time here in just a minute.
But let's also talk about the acting.
Sofine Elise, who's has a sister who's an actor who was in the horror film earlier this year.
Mama.
She was amazing incredible.
She sold me.
Like I wanted to like adopt her through the screen.
Like she's she did an amazing job playing a girl who didn't really like where she was but tried to make the best of her situation.
The interaction between her and Jeffrey rushes character was absolutely.
Beautiful.
You understood his love for her even even though she was not his biological daughter.
He loved her as if she was an Emily Watson who plays his wife slash her adopted mother.
Gave a nice little bit of comedic relief to it.
Yes.
Sometimes intentional.
Sometimes maybe I wouldn't say the unintentional but unintentional to the character.
It shows how they grew together too.
Absolutely.
You have so many great.
Great.
Great.
And what I like is it shows so many different perspectives of people as I people's ideals.
It was like during that time in Germany during the war.
Some were really awesome.
And some were like yay we're going to war.
You know and some of the stuff you hear like you're saying in the company but you know when they're saying we love the fewer and you're going to.
But they did it back then you know and it showed so many different perspectives but the acting was spot on.
I honestly feel I'm going to say this right now might be a little early but I think Sophie she.
Mike in an Oscar not for best actress possibly.
And of course Jeffrey Rush incredible.
Emily Watson.
I can't say enough about the characters in this film and acting that they did because they played a true to form of living in Germany.
At that time.
And what and that kind of brings us to the next thing I want to talk about the story itself in amazing script based on a best selling book.
I've actually lost that page so I'm going back a little bit.
But it did not bore you.
It was not a long-filling film.
You just kept in the whole time.
Michael Petrony did an adoption of the Marcus Zuzak novel.
Which and I want to address this I loved this film and I'm just going to say it out front.
Very rarely and I can't really pinpoint if ever.
Have I watched a film that made me want to read the book.
This film makes me want to read this book.
I don't know when because I got about a hundred books to read right now.
But rare isn't an occasion and not in a bad way.
Sometimes I need to read the book to understand this film.
Like my wife talks about memoirs of a gay chef.
She read the book first.
And she said when I saw the movie, if I hadn't read the book, I wouldn't have gotten a lot of the things that happened.
It was just kind of like if you don't read the book, you're missing a whole aspect of the film.
This I want to read the book because the story in the film and the translation that Mr. Petrony did was so amazing.
It made me want to read the book.
And the clarify for that.
After we saw the film, remember I was talking to Julie who is another reviewer.
He was the audio and she was saying now she read the book and she was satisfied.
I mean a lot of times they have a great book and horrible film.
And that's tough to do.
Yeah.
Then she confirmed everything about this film.
I thought, you know, I think the book would be an incredible read.
Everybody hard to read it said some incredible read.
This film does justice for the book.
Also, and let's let there's somebody else I'm going to recognize in this film.
Brian Schnitzer who played Max, who is the young Jewish man who ends up hiding out in their basement.
He was amazing. He is a major catalyst within the story that cannot be ignored.
I don't see, I really don't see a best supporting actor non for him.
For Jeffrey Rush, the question becomes, do you nominated him for best actor or best supporting?
Because I am of the philosophy that he would get a best supporting actor non for this.
Possibly.
You know, some people can see him as a lead actor.
I saw him as a supporting actor because she is really her story.
Totally.
The director.
Brian Perseval.
Incredible job.
Beautiful vision.
The use of the darker colors, which in, you know, that's what Europe kind of was,
especially in that area of Europe.
It was a lot of just drab grades.
And he uses that to help tell the story of really even though they felt like they were in the right.
And a very raw, raw Germany.
There was an undertone of is this really the right thing.
And they had some great whoever designed the sets.
Oh, that was job.
Oh, steamer.
It's incredible.
It's incredible.
Try to be historically correct.
And the thing I really liked is I kind of fell at times that I was there with them.
And one of the best scenes, which I've never really seen before in a movie and showed it this well.
And this is going to be no spoiler because you know this happens.
Are when the bombs are going off in earnest shelter.
Oh, if you felt like you were there, they got louder and louder.
Shake your and shake your.
Oh, it felt like you were there with them at the time.
And like you're saying to people was, is this worth it?
You know, or some people were aware of war.
You know, cinematography by Florian Bauhaus.
Production by sign, production designed by Simon Elliott.
Our direction bill creature.
Jens Lockman and onion Mueller set decoration by Mark Rosinski.
It just and we don't normally go that deep and do a crew.
Oh, no, we don't do these.
But they deserve this.
They deserve their will.
There will there will be at least golden globe nominations for a lot of the design.
If not Oscar.
I don't know.
We've still got a month and a half of the year left.
Yeah.
Um, just I can't say enough good things about this movie.
And I will go ahead.
I have a two word review for this film.
And of course, we'll do our written reviews for our website, as well.
Of course, tragically beautiful.
Those are my two words.
Oh, set it.
Yeah.
Because I.
You sit there the whole time.
This is a long film.
It's not a short film.
But it doesn't fit to fill long.
But and here's the thing.
I actually judge the length of a film by how many times I look at my watch.
And I looked at my watch quite a bit.
But for me, it was more of a anticipation of.
Okay, how much longer before, you know, it was just I was more of a of a nervousness thing.
Then it was of this is a boring thing because it didn't bore me in any way.
She didn't.
Because we all, I mean, there's not a spoiler alert.
We all know how world war two ends.
We all had history class.
Of course.
But you sit there and you go.
How's this going to play out?
And you get that that nervousness to you like you you're so emotionally invested in that you're just like.
Oh, I want this character to get us come up and so or I want this character to really pull through or.
You know, will this character survive the night or it's.
And like I said, it's tragically beautiful.
This movie I already told people already by word of mouth.
It will make you laugh.
Make you cry.
I got to weld up quite a bit.
Oh, totally.
Ed.
I'm going to say it right now.
This will get since there's nine or 10 get a get a best picture not.
I'm going to say it right now.
Yeah, and you said that's the screening.
I don't know if I'm willing to put this in a best picture.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, since there's nine, this will get one of the numbers.
There's 10.
Oh, no.
Yeah, that's why there's nine, but I think.
It's a bigger field than it.
Yeah.
It's a beautiful film.
Yeah.
I just don't know that I would say it's one of the best of the year that I've seen.
And I may have to kind of sit down because for the first time in probably in the history of this show.
We've seen enough movies that we could probably sit down in December and do our top 10 movies of the year.
But I just don't know if I'm willing to say it's one of the best films of the year.
For me, yeah.
For you.
Yeah, you're telling me.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm just not sure I'm there.
I'm not saying that I won't get there, but I'm not there yet.
Now, we haven't seen everything yet, but I've kind of kept eyes on what's coming out and everything like that.
But here's my thing.
I'm trying to think of nine or 10 other films that I will say was way better than this.
I can't think of any.
I can't think of nine or 10.
That's why I think there's also a lot of films that have been getting a lot of critical acclaim that personally I haven't seen.
So I may need to go back.
You know, maybe go to friends of the show's rotten tomatoes and kind of look at what the top rating to the year go and go.
You know what, maybe I would rank that above or maybe I wouldn't.
I've definitely seen worst shows.
Oh, there's movies this year.
I would put it up there.
I don't know if I would make it a best picture of them.
For for young Miss Nellies.
Absolutely.
And I hope I'm saying that right.
I'm probably killing that.
That's like our Sophie.
So for Jeffrey Rush, I would even give Emily Watson a best supporting actress.
Not.
I suppose I'm to possibly.
Well, I'd say.
And I was thinking about the the young boy who plays the kid next door.
Rudy, Nico Learsh is his name.
I was on board with him.
Until the end of the film, I thought he overacted a bit towards the end of the film.
And that kind of took it away for me.
I thought he did a good job.
I don't know that he did a great job.
But there were, but he also, I mean, he also could say, you know, that's like saying, what's the worst part of a banana split.
Yeah.
You know, it's still great.
Yeah.
It's just not as great as the other parts.
Yeah.
I can't give you a performance in this film that I didn't like.
There were certain characters I would have liked to have seen more from.
Like the the wife of the burger, myster.
Okay.
I would have liked to have maybe gotten to know her character a little bit better.
Yeah.
Because it was kind of surprising on how that interaction kept going and started.
You know, I found that can I interesting kind of did kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of okay.
But you know, I don't know if that's believable.
I look like I grew with it.
Maybe see more of her.
And of course, there's there's so many people there didn't incredible job on that.
And I'll say this.
One of the scenes that shot with me was the kids running down the street going, we're at war.
And they're cheering in the crowd.
As we as as the actual war itself broke out.
Yeah.
Barbara hour plays Ilsa Herman is who we're referring to.
She's done a lot of foreign films that she did an amazing job in this film.
It's.
There's so many layers to this film, which I absolutely loved as well.
So final analysis.
The way we do it on the show.
We don't give you stars.
We don't give you numbers.
We don't do thumbs up or thumbs down.
You the audience of the clubhouse podcast are deserve more than that.
And we give you more than that.
So here's how we rate films.
It's two prong questions.
Prong number one.
Would you see this film again?
Prong number two.
If the answer to prong number one is yes.
Then how would you see it again?
Would you pay for it in an evening show?
Would you go to a twilight show?
Would you go to a matinee?
Would you pay for it in second run?
Would you rent it?
Would you wait for it on DVD?
Or would you watch it on cable?
Donna will defer to you.
Again in a heartbeat.
So you would see it again in a heartbeat.
Okay.
So in what manner would you see it again?
If I had people who haven't seen it yet with me, I'd pay the full evening price.
What if you were by yourself?
Maybe matinee or a growing value for $6.
I definitely would like to see this film again.
There are people in my social circle that I would like to take to this film.
Mainly the Justin Timberlick of this show, Sharla.
She is a huge history buff and I think she would love this film.
I think my co-host and also producer of this show, Chad Warmic.
I think he would absolutely adore this film.
Totally.
I would like to go see it with them because I'd like to see it through their eyes.
It's just such an emotional roller coaster.
But not in that, I'm high, I'm low, I'm high, I'm low.
It brings you through this journey very smoothly.
It brings you through this journey very organically.
Nothing feels like it's being forced fed to you.
I cannot say enough good things about this film.
I loved this film.
Me too, that's why I'm saying it will get a best picture not.
You can put me on the record.
If we do a betting pool, it's already on record, sir.
It's on wax, it's going out to the globe.
By the time our readers are listeners here, this, it will be in theaters.
But if we did a betting pool, oh yeah, 100% this will be one of the nine.
Maybe we'll do that here in December.
We'll have our, we'll sit down maybe as one of our last shows of the year.
We'll sit down and we'll say, okay, let's do three, three, three.
Yeah, maybe we'll do it as an iTunes exclusive.
We might, you never know.
We can't be predicted on this show.
Oh, no, we never are.
So we're both in a grand, great film.
Go see it.
Full prize called the book thief.
Congratulations to everybody involved in this film.
It was amazing.
And I got to thank you again, Josh.
Everybody at all.
All our friends over here.
I like it.
Thank you so much, guys.
For, for giving us the opportunity to see this film.
So let's do the plugs.
Visit our website, www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
Where you can get our written reviews and so much more.
You can go to the store show there too.
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Like our Facebook page, look up the clubhouse podcast.
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I end.
And I'm fond, don't go.
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You can email Don.
He is down at the clubhousepodcast.com.
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We thank you so much for being a subscriber on
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Tell everybody you know.
So in that next time.
For Don.
I'm Rob.
The clubhouse is closed.
Go see this movie.
But wait till you finish listening to the whole thing,
which is like right now.
The preceding was a sooner or later production.
Get him home, get him home!
Why?
Because I have to.
Come on.