iTunes Exclusive Episode The Walk

The following is a sooner orgator production.
The following is a sooner orgator production.
The following is a sooner orgator production.
The following is a sooner orgator production.
Welcome Empire member and or members.
If you are hearing my voice, it means the following conditions have been met.
It means at least once in your life you listen to the clubhouse podcast.
And we are greatly fully appreciative of that.
It also means that you subscribe on iTunes because it is time for another.
The 140th one of these, as we slowly approach another milestone,
welcome.
My name is Rob.
And I've been walking a long time, Rob.
I'm just saying.
But I am not alone for this particular episode.
Joining me across the desk as he tends to do is a man that's probably been walking
a little bit longer than I have.
And he'll tell you that.
He is Chad.
Welcome sir.
I've been doing everything a little bit longer than you have, but not by much.
Everything.
I might have you on a couple of things.
Also joining me across the desk as the official fact checker of this show.
And a man that walks so much, you can tell a lot about his shoes.
You may know him as fun, don't go, but his mom and name him Don Ford.
I'm going to call him Don Ford.
Welcome sir.
Back home.
Makasant.
Makasant.
Makasant.
Makasant.
He's always comfortable things on the plane.
Whenever we do one of these, it is to review something.
And this particular episode is no exception.
Today, we are here to review the brand new film at the time of this recording.
From the director that you might have heard of named Robert Zamekis.
You might have seen some of his films, you know.
The back to the future trilogy, who framed Roger Rabbit.
You may have heard of him.
I'm just saying.
But he brings us a brand new film starring Joseph Gordon Levitt called The Walk.
It is based on the true story of Philippe Bipetti.
He's French.
So, you know, I thought I'd do the Alex Trebek thing there.
In 1974, right before they were completed,
he strapped a wire from one corner of one tower to the opposite corner of the other tower.
And he high wire walked.
Over, was it 1200 feet?
I think they said in order mile.
110 stories at quarter mile.
So, right about 1200 feet then?
Yeah.
Well, you talked about the distance between it?
No, from the ground.
From the ground.
On the top of the world, trade centers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This has already been done in a documentary a few years ago called Man on Wire.
But this is the narrative version of it.
It goes all the way back to his childhood as he tells his story of how he pulled this off.
I mean, that's pretty much it.
That's what you need to know.
Chad, I'm going to start with you because you, I'm sorry.
What are we doing?
What are we doing?
Before we get in, we have to think,
Ashden and everybody at Marock.
We love them so much.
We love them so much.
And Candace too.
We got to see this in IMAX 3D.
Yes, we know.
Which we'll get into that.
But they were so good.
We thought we were special that night.
Thank you so much to those guys.
We think we're special a lot.
We don't really really are enough.
But Chad, you, I think you're the only one in the room that's actually seen the documentary.
Am I correct in that assumption?
Uh, Don, have you seen Man on Wire?
No, yes.
So you are the only one that can really compare the documentary to the narrative.
And I kind of multiple times.
I kind of want to, with you, I want to go there.
Okay.
How did the story within the documentary compare to the narrative version?
Because they're both based on his book.
Right.
Which is called, I believe, a walk in the clouds.
Or to touch the clouds.
Which is what they were thinking about.
They were thinking about calling this and then they backed away from it.
And it was called a walk in the clouds.
A walk in the clouds.
And they're just short.
Which wouldn't that already taken?
I think not a Mandy Moore film.
I think it was.
It followed it fairly closely.
Okay.
I mean, like, you know, the whole, the whole scene with them coming up with the idea by finding the
article in a magazine and then sneezing to tear the magazine out.
The page.
So we can get away with it in the, in the, in the Dennis office.
Uh, that's in the documentary verbatim.
But there were just little things.
If I remember when we were talking about this, there was just little differences that they'd made.
Well, there was one that I was kind of surprised that they omitted because we touched on his walk at the cathedral at Notre Dame.
Which is in the film.
Which is in the film and it was in the documentary.
But in the documentary, he also crossed the towers that were connecting both sides of a bridge in Sydney.
That was overlooking the opposite of the harbor.
Which I was kind of surprised they left that out because everything was building up to,
the big walk, you know, the subject of the story.
Right.
In this, everything was just leading up to this to this,
his ultimate achievement pretty much.
This runs you right at two hours, two hours and three minutes.
But that's, you know, that's including the end credits.
Now, Don and I have not seen the documentary.
So when I asked Don what he's going to be thinking,
I'm going to ask him how he thought about the script and how it was told.
I thought it was very good.
Okay.
Because he was kind of like that.
Him doing that kind of, well,
put this in the written view at the callbuspodcast.com.
That's our website.
It kind of reminded me of a.
Fun, cute.
Culkin digger kind of thing.
On how what what they had to go through to try to get all the stuff done.
Well, he refers to the people that help him out as accomplices.
Yeah.
And then the cool or whatever.
Right.
Because he talks about it as being an artistic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It had that kind of cute feel.
I thought it was just don't don't done.
Kind of a comedic feel.
It was very, yeah, very lightly told.
Exactly.
It felt like two movies at times.
Yeah.
Like partially a heist film.
Yeah.
And then partially this sweeping grand tale of.
Of course.
It's the same kind of story.
Terrifying that they do in the in the documentary.
Is it that lighter?
Is it a little bit more serious?
Or it's it's fairly lighthearted.
But it's also broken apart.
Like they'll show you part of them.
Pulling off the heist and then they'll do.
Then they'll do some backstory.
Then they'll show more going into the heist quote unquote.
Then doing more backstory.
Okay.
Done.
But I was saying.
I like how he did talk to the camera.
He's talking to the audience.
And so I thought that's kind of good saying.
Here's what's going on there.
Here's what's going on there.
So you kind of get an ideal idea of what's going on.
So you feel what's going through his mind and trying to say,
Here's what's going on.
Here's the story.
So you don't have to put too much into it.
So I thought that was kind of good.
You kind of learned a few things from that.
Because there's something she may have not caught.
Right.
If he didn't tell you that, this is why I'm doing this.
This is why I'm doing that.
So on overall, that thought that was very good.
For me, a lot of what I thought as we watched this because
Don's right that there's the narrative part of it.
Because he narrates his own story.
He's standing on the flame of the statue of Liberty with the
Towers in the background.
I saw this.
I kept thinking of myself.
You know what?
This would make this.
I'm this could be adapted for the stage fairly easily.
That's that that crossed my mind.
Are we going to get the walk the musical?
Yeah.
I'm not saying it necessarily a musical.
But it could it could be a stage presentation.
You know, and because it's just presented in that way.
You know what I mean?
Mm-hmm.
But I thought the story was told well.
There was there.
There's some flash forward flashback.
You're welcome internet.
Um.
Oh.
You're welcome internet.
Well played sir.
You're beautiful audience.
I hear always try the wheel.
Um.
Wow.
But it didn't do so much flash forward flashback that you lost about
Was going on.
You pretty much knew that the line of the story.
And you knew when it jumped, you knew you still knew where you were.
Yeah.
And it was important stuff.
Oh, absolutely.
You know, showing how it's not just, you know, being able to balance yourself.
There's a lot into this.
I mean, checking the wires.
There's just so much physics into getting the wire right alone.
Oh, absolutely.
You know, that's just one part of many.
And be advised that the the walk itself is about the last 20 minutes of the film.
You ever take, yeah.
Right.
So when you look at your watch and you're like, oh, it's getting ready to be over.
Just be aware that the actual climax of this film takes some time.
Which is about half the time he actually spent on the wire.
Oh, so he was there almost an hour.
48 minutes.
I think it's how long he was up there.
Yeah.
And I think what's very interesting, if you go and read all three of our reviews,
which we appreciate if you would read all three of them at www.theclubhousepodcast.com,
which is our website.
There's a, there's a unifying thread through all three of them.
That all three of us have a certain level of a fear of heights.
A fear of heights.
A fear of heights.
That's terrible.
Which was my concern going into this because with my fear of heights being what it is,
especially a fear of open heights.
Like, if I'm in a building, I can look out of a building and be okay,
because I know I'm in the building.
I can't even do it.
But if I'm on the roof of something, and there's nothing between me and the ground,
but air and opportunity.
Nope.
I'm out.
Nope.
Or a quick fact check.
45 minutes.
So I can go to like the oil Derek at six flags on the two hours a year that
is actually open.
Like, I'm okay.
Nope.
I'm okay there because I'm contained.
Like, I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris casino in Vegas,
because that's contained that bother.
But when it's open air, I'm out.
Has anybody other than me actually been in these buildings?
The twin tower?
No, I never had the opportunity to have.
Yeah.
I went to the observation platform in 89 in the dead of night around Christmas time.
Wow.
When I was in the Navy, we pulled into Staten Island for about a week.
Right.
And that was my first goal.
This has been on my bucket list since 76.
For your Broadway, you're doing this thing first.
Well, because I didn't have the passion for it then that I do now.
I did go to Broadway.
I did see things.
But that was your number one.
But that was it for me because I fell in love with these buildings when I saw King
Kong in 76.
The remake with Jeff Bridges in Jessica Lang.
And I said, before I go, I've got to go up in these buildings.
And I really feel like I got lucky.
But when you go up there, I still got woozy.
Because at night, it seems to be a little bit lesser because you can't see it.
You can't see as much.
But when you get this broad sweeping view of New York City at Christmas time,
it's awe-inspiring.
It's absolutely, it'll bring tears to you.
But back, back, back, back on to the road here.
My concern going into this was given my fear of heights and given the trailers
that we had seen.
I was, I don't know.
I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it through this.
Yes, I may have to close my eyes through half of this.
And this is where the genius of Zemeckis comes in.
Because you know, you and I are both huge Robert Zemeckis.
Absolutely.
Uh, he presents it in a way, especially seeing it in IMAX 3D
was even bigger concern of mine because I'm like,
this is that much more realer.
You never like going, oh God.
Oh God.
But he presents it in such a way that you understand the gravity of the
situation pun intended, pun intended.
But it didn't like freak me out.
Like I thought it was going to, especially in IMAX.
After a while, you kind of got used to it.
You did.
And that's what he probably did.
Yeah, because I think eventually it sunk in.
You weren't in any imminent.
I mean, I want to say that he was.
He was, but we weren't.
Do I have a fair of heights like Chad?
No.
I've repelled before I bungee jump before.
Okay.
But the first scene when he's scoping it out at the top
and gets on that little I beam.
Oh, well, we saw the teaser.
Yeah, that's the teaser.
Yeah, that's the teaser.
Yeah.
But I mean, when that happens in the film,
my legs start to get that little with that.
You guys still win.
Yeah.
Just like, nope.
No.
You know, think.
You guys also loved this.
Here in the wires.
The mechus did that incredibly.
Here in the tent.
Yes, the sound.
The sound editing.
Yeah.
I mean, that was incredible on that.
And you might know some people over in IMAX.
Yeah.
Just a couple.
We can't really work with all of them.
But I thought the story was told well.
I thought it was presented absolutely beautifully.
On every level, whether you're talking, you know,
1930s France or whether you're talking or 1940s France or you're talking
1970s America.
It had a really genuine honest to God.
This is happening in the time frame, but we don't have to
beat you over the head with it.
Because it wasn't like they had to keep turning on the radio.
The sound instruments that you had to know really historically
correct, even at the cars, you know, you saw the cars.
I mean, they made sure that was, but I mean, events that really happened.
Most of the stuff did happen.
They didn't do this liberty of making a, you know, doing this and adding
that, not adding that, which, you know, just to make the movie.
It was pretty, really historically correct.
The only thing that really seemed like they were trying to reinforce the
timeframe that it was happening in is whenever they were playing
Nixon's I am not a crook speech at one point.
Yeah.
That was the only thing that they really lent you
an audio cue of where this was where and when this was happening.
And for me, I mean, when we talk about performance.
This thing really does rest on the shoulders of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Absolutely.
And that was a, that was a concern of mind going into because I,
I'm not, it's not that I'm not a Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan.
Just him and a film like this.
I was like, man, he's really kind of taking, again,
pun intended a leap of faith here.
I thought he was great.
Yeah.
Like, I didn't think it came in as Robin.
Yeah.
And he also wasn't the kid from third rock for the sun for me.
Yeah.
He kind of melts into this role.
And I guess not having seen man on wire, but knowing how it ends,
helped me get through the film itself because I knew how it ended.
So there wasn't that suspense for me.
But not having seen the documentary and not having the image of
uh,
Felipe T.
in my mind.
He just kind of melted into the role.
Now, I know you said that this film doesn't do,
uh, him or his lady friend, uh, any favor.
They do a tons of favors because they don't look anything nearly,
what, what they look like in real life,
Charlotte LeBon playing Annie, the, his girlfriend.
But I thought they were both, it was a great cast, but I think
Gordon Levitt really carries this thing well.
Hey, I mean, he pretty much asked to.
I mean, with them constantly going back to him on the,
on the Liberty torch.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The man in your head basically telling you this story as it's unfolding.
It's some of the crewness thing.
I mean, I like his crew.
Some of those guy's plays.
Yeah.
The accomplices.
They did a very good job.
I thought they showed a good relationship of what it was probably like back
then with, with having some comedy, but also where it gets very tense,
and he just gets so overbearing where,
this is it.
This is the only thing I care about.
I don't care that compromise.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the book is called to reach the clock.
Okay.
Written by Philippe Petty.
But the, the screenplay was actually written by the mechanism Christopher Brown.
I just, I can't find a whole lot of fault in this film.
No.
I mean, you, you, you, it's populated virtually with, with,
very obscure unknown young actors and actresses.
Nobody is instantly recognizable outside of Joseph Gordon Levitt.
And everybody holds their own very, very well.
I mean, it's, it's not necessarily an ensemble piece,
because it does rest solely on his shoulders.
But one thing I want to, we have to,
just get into the, the look of this thing,
because I want to get real in depth, because there's so many scenes
where they're doing an aerial view, we're looking down.
He's on that wire and seeing that in 3D.
That's what we were talking about really.
Yeah.
I mean, this is really, I cannot say how impressed I was on this thing.
I mean, it just blew me. That's what you can say.
You can say it.
Oh, I just did.
I can't express the true feeling of, you can't express enough.
Yeah.
Because, you know, 3D, you just felt like you were there.
Everything there, but the, the wires,
I just, it just blew me away.
I just can't really put in in words.
It was that incredible.
When, the way it was shot,
it there literally moments where you feel like you're on that wire.
Absolutely.
Right next, right next behind the side of our,
I don't know how you would fit, but you know,
you feel like you're taking the walkway.
And if you have a fear of heights watching us,
yeah, we all do.
Yeah.
But it kind of goes away.
Yeah, it really does because it's shot so well.
You do understand what's going on there,
but it doesn't, like, my heart didn't sink into my stomach as bad as I thought it would.
So if you do have a fear of heights,
don't let that keep you from this.
Right.
Yeah.
Because it shot really, really well.
And I think I almost want to say that
a shot at certain ways on purpose,
so that he could get,
let you understand the diurness of what could happen
without, like, putting you there.
Yeah. You want to mean?
He wanted to put that lurch in your stomach initially,
but he, I think that he shot it,
like you said, in such a way to where it would kind of go away after all.
Now, let me ask you, Chad, does,
by seeing the documentary,
did it enhance your viewing of the walk
or did it take away from it?
Or was it kind of six to one half a dozen of the other?
I think it enhanced it just because you felt,
I felt like I already knew these people going in.
Fair enough.
And you already have somewhat of an attachment to these folks
before you see this narrative telling of it.
So don, let me ask you,
by seeing the, the narrative version,
does it make you want to watch the documentary?
Oh yeah.
Which by the way, at the time of this recording,
it is available on Netflix.
Yeah.
I will definitely, I will definitely get to this.
There's, if I had two minor complaints.
Please do it in just the minor.
I would love to see the punishment that he got for doing this
a little scene of him.
Let's, let's not, let's not give anything away.
I'm not, I'm just saying, but that, I'm just saying.
And also when they credit started,
I wish they would have showed some real-life pictures.
I would agree with that.
That would have made it just perfect.
I mean, I'm not, can, yeah.
If I could do it.
But one thing, they ended the movie,
the last scene perfect.
Agreed.
And I'm definitely not giving anything away.
I locked up.
Yeah.
I definitely didn't.
Beautiful final sequence before the credit.
Yeah.
I noted that in the written review,
I just, it was done right.
Everything I thought.
I think we can honestly say that this movie had
a perfect use of CG of digital effects.
Because you forget those buildings aren't there.
Yeah.
You totally forget those buildings aren't there anymore.
You are totally fooled into thinking.
They're still standing.
Or they're still standing somewhere.
It's like, I had to keep reminding myself,
because the makers couldn't go back and get
HD shots of this building of these buildings.
They're gone.
But every time they're on camera,
they look like how we remembered seeing them before they fell.
It's just, that's one of the most mind-boggling things to me.
That they can take something like a skyline
and completely restore it to how you,
you remember it.
And to me, that was one of those moving things.
Well, let's get to the final analysis.
The way we do the final analysis on our particular program,
we don't give these thumbs up thumbs down.
We don't give you stars, letter grades,
ranking from one to ten.
Our audience whom we affectionately refer to as the empire
is better than that.
We asked two questions.
Question number one,
is would you see this film again?
If the answer is no,
then we're done here.
But if the answer is yes,
it becomes how far are you willing to go to see it?
Will you see it in first run?
Will you see it in evening show?
Maybe a twilight show,
maybe a matinee,
maybe early morning on a Saturday.
Would you wait for it?
The dollar theater in second run?
Would you venture away from your house to get it from red box?
Would you stream it through Netflix?
Or would you wait for it on cable?
Dom, let's start with you.
Would you see this film again?
Oh, that's a definite.
How far are you willing to go?
I'll say this that the movie is
good, regardless, agreed.
But the IMAX 3D puts it through the roof.
Okay.
I mean, I cannot say that enough.
Seeing it regular,
there'd be a bunch of huge difference between watching this on your TV
versus watching this in IMAX 3D.
Blight and simple for the first time ever.
Double?
No, this is a triple coveted.
Four price IMAX 3D.
Would you see this again?
I echo what Don just said.
So you're going to say you've got to see it in IMAX 3D?
I'm not saying you've got to,
but I would you're missing out if you don't.
That makes this film.
Yeah, it pulls you in in a way
that no other format can.
Call it a sweep.
I agree with both of you.
Go see this movie and IMAX 3D
because there's really no other way to see it.
Don't watch this on your phone.
I never gave a triple coveted ever.
This is, this is they must watch.
And it really needs to be experienced in a premium format.
Larger screen that's available in your area.
3D if you can't.
It does.
It's worth the cost.
It's, it's sensory overload.
It almost would be fun.
Almost had a drive in in 3D too.
Oh, wow.
With the way.
You know, you know, you know, you know, you know,
my family driving.
Yeah.
So.
All right.
Anything else we want to add?
Let's look into that.
Yeah.
For letting us see this and IMAX 3D.
We have to think again.
Ashden.
Everybody at Moroccan.
They're so good.
We love those guys.
Thank you so much Candison.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Let's do the plugs.
Totally.
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IMAX yes.
That Rob Urban at a spelled ERV.
I.N.
I'm at Chad in PG69.
I'm at fondango.
And you can email me at Don at clubhousepodcast.com.
Email Don for information on how we can come do a live remote show
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So until next time, for Don, for Chad, for the Empire,
I'm Rob.
Clubhouse is closed for any Palmer.
So.
The preceding was a sooner orgator production.
Get it on, get it on!
Why?
Because I have to.