Ep. 807 - Wolf Man
Added 2025-01-21 17:00:11 +0000 UTCDavid, Devindra, and Jeff get involved in some on-air scandals with Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action, remember the late great David Lynch with Lost Highway, and compete in a game of wits with The Devil’s Plan. Then they are transformed for their review of Leigh Whannell’s latest thriller Wolf Man.
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Weekly Plugs
David - Decoding Everything: Matt Goldberg’s review of Wolf Man
Devindra - Engadget Podcast leading up to the TikTok mess + NVIDIA’s AI NPCs are a nightmare
Jeff - Jeff’s Cameo Page
Shownotes (All timestamps are approximate only)
What we've been watching (~00:13:38)
David - Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action, Lucky You
Devindra - Lost Highway, MadS, Sakamoto Days
Jeff - The Devil’s Plan, How It’s Made, Severance S2
Featured Review (~01:02:38)
Wolf Man
SPOILERS (~01:22:28)
Support David's artistic endeavors at his Patreon and subscribe to his free newsletter Decoding Everything. Check out Jeff Cannata’s podcasts DLC and We Have Concerns. Listen to Devindra's podcast with Engadget on all things tech. You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993.
Credits:
Our theme song is by Tim McEwan from The Midnight. This episode was edited by Noah Ross who also created our weekly plugs and spoiler bumper music. Our Slashfilmcourt music comes from Simon Harris.
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Comments
I just needed to vent my frustration towards the hosts on this one. I’m a huge fan overall. This one just hit me hard than most films, so much that had to say something. I’ll be more mindful moving forward. I just personally loved this one and it caused an emotional reaction by the end of it.
toeknee
2025-01-30 20:10:03 +0000 UTCBanaNanas is peak Jeff! Love it!!
Kayode Adigun
2025-01-29 18:22:21 +0000 UTCAnd just think this guy is a patron! Imagine what the non-patrons must be saying 😮
Mark P
2025-01-29 03:55:01 +0000 UTCI think you guys need to do a full David Lynch episode. If I’m hearing you guys right, some of you were checking out Lost Highway for the first time? And you haven’t seen The Straight Story? This is a great opportunity for first impressions of some real masterpieces, real essentials in a once-in-a-lifetime artist.
John Halski
2025-01-27 16:38:10 +0000 UTCWhat's draining is this comment section. Sheesh!
Mathew
2025-01-27 16:10:05 +0000 UTCWow. It is so hard to hear these guys talk about movies more and more these days. It’s kinda draining. It seems like they’re getting a little too hyper critical. I really enjoyed Wolf Man so much that it left me with such a strong emotional response. I feel like like David and Jeff aren’t even watching the movies and then they just bring up such asinine issues about it that are just baffling to me. Sounds like they are incapable of suspending your disbelief and also removing themselves from yourself in order to enjoy a fun movie like the Wolf Man.
toeknee
2025-01-25 06:14:21 +0000 UTCI’m now on episode 8 of The Devils Plan, on Jeff’s recommendation. What an incredible show.
Chris Cameron
2025-01-24 19:39:57 +0000 UTCMy Banaheads from the Banabunch don’t need to hear this but if you haven’t seen “Chopper” it’s real good. The next time there is a call for favorite episode moments, the Huck Cheever discourse will be in my selections.
Don Wood
2025-01-24 15:35:38 +0000 UTCYeah, I thought a better analogy would have been something like basketball movies. Basketball is in a lot of movies but very, very few good ones follow a basketball player playing basketball. You have Air Bud and then a bunch of pretenders. :) I did love listening to David move the goal posts further and further.
Don Wood
2025-01-24 15:32:30 +0000 UTCAny time Jeff brings up these "reality shows for people who hate reality shows" I always feel like the one that most fits that description is Alone. There's no host on that show, and the contestants never interact with each other. It's just 10 people dropped by themselves in the middle of the Arctic wilderness, each with 10 tools for survival and a bunch of camera equipment to film themselves, and the competition is to see who can survive in the wilderness for the longest. But the contestants don't have any idea when anyone else drops out, so they have no idea how long they have to stay out there. Whoever is the last one left wins a half million dollars, and everyone else gets nothing. The show is a pretty crazy endurance test, both mentally and physically, as some people drop out because they get lonely and depressed, and some injure themselves and have to be extracted. Others get pulled out because they are starving to death, while some get sick, and a few have even quit because they were scared of wild animal attacks. Everyone who participates is a wilderness survival expert, and typically by the end the environment is a frozen tundra, as they're dropped off in late summer, but it's fully into winter by the time the last person leaves. For people who hate all the stupid manufactured drama or annoying hosts in most reality shows, and also for people like Jeff who love crazy endurance tests, Alone is the perfect show for them. Dave talked about this show a few years ago and was a big fan, but I think he only watched one season as that was the only one Netflix had. But every season is great. Jeff should check it out.
Stranger2Reality
2025-01-23 08:14:48 +0000 UTCJeff, if you’re still looking for something to scratch that itch when you finish The Devil’s Plan, the creator of the show made one very similar back in 2013-2016 called The Genius. I don’t consider myself to be a reality tv guy, so know that I am not being hyperbolic or biased as reality tv fan when I tell you that The Genius is one of my favorite shows ever made. It’s like a higher energy version of Devil’s Plan. The games are entertaining, the cast is compelling, and the way the edit is crafted to take the audience on an edge of your seat roller coaster ride is phenomenal. It ran for four seasons and I definitely think you would like it if you’re having a great time with The Devil’s Plan. Unfortunately, it hasn’t gotten distribution in the west, but there are dedicated fan communities on Reddit who have subtitled the episodes and collected links to where episodes can be watched. A quick google search should take you to relevant Reddit posts. Hope you get a chance to watch it!
Benjamin Nicholes
2025-01-23 06:34:59 +0000 UTCAt the end of the review Jeff mentioned the Jack Nicholson film Wolf and said it was awful, and I just wanted to counter that by saying even though that film isn't ever discussed by anyone anymore, and isn't generally well thought of, I'm actually quite fond of it. It's not the best movie, but I love the vibes of it, even if it's generally more concerned with the world of publishing than werewolves. I feel like werewolf movies as a genre are kinda weird, in that there's a fair number of them, but hardly any are legitimately great, and I say that as someone who has a real soft spot for werewolf movies. Probably the two best werewolf movies I can think of are The Howling and An American Werewolf in London, but I wouldn't put them near the top of my favorite horror movie list. I really want someone someday to make an absolutely astounding werewolf movie, but I worry it will never happen. I was really hoping Leigh Whannell would do it, because I really loved Upgrade and The Invisible Man, but Wolf Man was very disappointing.
Stranger2Reality
2025-01-23 05:34:09 +0000 UTCI think Devindra is just like a lot of people from NYC (or who lived there) in that they think that's something everyone else is super impressed by, and as such they bring it up as much as possible.
Stranger2Reality
2025-01-23 05:25:14 +0000 UTCI was referring to what Dave said on this week's episode. Appreciate the insight!
Papool Chaudhari
2025-01-23 02:26:47 +0000 UTCHaving worked on a Blumhouse movie I’m not sure where you (or David) are getting the “hands off” thing? The one I worked on Jason Blum was around for quite regularly all through production. Seemed very “hands on” to me. But that was just one experience I suppose, so I’m not claiming that it’s the final word on anything.
Brad Arnold
2025-01-23 02:25:43 +0000 UTCJEFF! So so so glad you're finally checking out Devil's Plan! You actually read my Weekly Plug of this show on DLC a year or two ago and looks like I correctly clocked it as something that you'd absolutely love and appreciate as much as I did. I'll echo what others said too that you have to update the audience once you've completed this first season. It's incredible. Yay smart people!
Nizar B
2025-01-22 23:42:57 +0000 UTCDevindra keeps saying Manhattan, but it's very obvious that they live in San Francisco. They show the Bay Bridge and other things that show it is SF.
Papool Chaudhari
2025-01-22 22:30:56 +0000 UTCWolf Man was co written by Whannell and his spouse Corbett Tuck, the latter's only writing credit. Given Whannell's track record, I can only surmise that it was this duo, and perhaps the lack of getting this script reviewed outside of their marriage (because Blumhouse is hands off), that was a major issue.
Papool Chaudhari
2025-01-22 20:26:28 +0000 UTCJEFF! Please report back on your thoughts on the ending of Devil's Plan! I was also a reality tv denier before I stumbled into Devil's Plan, and it has an outstanding final stretch of episodes! I was on the edge of my seat, and I'm sure you will love what happens as well!
Cosmia
2025-01-22 16:21:52 +0000 UTCRegarding the last point of the review, about the view in Oregon: Christopher Abbott's character says something like "when you see that view, you know everything is gonna be all right" when trying to convince his wife to come to Oregon. So I guess the final shot signifies that they will be alright despite the trauma. 🤷
Matilda Söderbacka
2025-01-22 14:57:22 +0000 UTCI was pretty disappointed by Wolf Man as well, and for a lot of the same reasons the hosts expressed. It felt like it wanted to be for werewolf movies what Cronenberg's The Fly was for sci-fi, in that it seemed to focus a lot on the body horror of transforming into a wolf man. However, by taking away the dad's ability to speak or understand speech pretty quickly after being scratched, and with the whole transformation taking place in the span of a few hours, it took away any chance for there to be any kind of interpersonal drama between the characters coming to grips with what was happening to him. The Fly was a metaphor for a loved one being stricken with a fatal disease or a metaphor for old age, with two people who are in love trying to grapple with this horrifying development over the course of weeks and months, and that made for utterly heartbreaking drama between the characters. Wolf Man, on the other hand, was akin to making a movie about a married couple where the husband has an accident and then slips into a coma, and is then in that coma for the rest of the movie until the wife has to pull the plug on him, at which point the movie ends. There isn't much room for any kind of drama there, which is a shame, because why even set these characters up at all in the first place? This movie really needed to decide if it was going to be a home invasion/monster movie like Night of the Living Dead, or if it was going to be a body horror monster movie, like The Fly. It tried to do both and ultimately failed at adequately doing either one. It looked pretty good though, I'll give it that.
Stranger2Reality
2025-01-22 10:37:43 +0000 UTCThe city in the beginning of Wolf Man is supposed to be San Francisco, not NYC. I'm guessing Devindra was confused about that because they actually filmed it in Wellington, NZ.
Stranger2Reality
2025-01-22 08:57:56 +0000 UTCHe also put together the soundtrack (again, not the score) for Natural Born Killers, and that's probably the best part of that movie. Lost Highway was, I believe, his second time putting together a movie's soundtrack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Born_Killers_%28soundtrack%29
Stranger2Reality
2025-01-22 08:45:56 +0000 UTCOh, he knows!😀
Mountain of Conflict
2025-01-22 06:07:54 +0000 UTCSaw this at TIFF and agree, he was great!
Stephen David Miller
2025-01-22 05:03:50 +0000 UTCChristopher Abbott gives an excellent lead performance alongside Barry Keoghan in BRING THEM DOWN which releases on Feb 7. (My favorite film out of this year’s Fantastic Fest.) Hope you’ll consider this indie for the main review in what will be a soft week for new releases!
Andrew Campbell
2025-01-22 04:45:58 +0000 UTCIn regards to poker movies, I agree with Dave. I think part of what he's speaking to is that some sports/games are naturally cinematic...and some just aren't. For me, boxing is a great example of a sport that I have no personal knowledge of, I don't understand the intricacies of, and the very idea of it sounds horribly painful. But still there are dozens of great boxing movies! Poker is simply not capable of sustaining that level of cinematic tension for more than 2-3 hands. Most of poker is 12-hour days of constant mathematical calculations in your head, and a large amount of random bad luck. Poker is cinematic when one cowboy's straight flush beats another's full house. But it's hard to make something interesting out of checking down through the river, taking the blinds with a suited 10-7, or watching 9 sleep-deprived men attempt to avoid showing even the most basic emotion
Mike H
2025-01-22 03:20:08 +0000 UTCI find it interesting that Trent Reznor out together the soundtrack for Lost Highway (Not the score). It’s a fantastic soundtrack. And now Trent Reznor has made a name for himself composing movies. Like this was the first hint of things to come.
Danny Champlin
2025-01-22 03:03:47 +0000 UTCDavid just can’t stop watching crappy, slapdash documentary series on Netflix. Here’s a hint Dave: they’re pretty much all like that!!
DarmineDoggyDoor
2025-01-21 23:58:27 +0000 UTC1. Thanks for shouting out my Decoding Everything piece! Funny enough, I’m realizing it’s almost an even split between David and Devindra’s Top 10s in terms of content, especially the #1 and #2 slots (Challengers + The Brutalist, Nickel Boys + I Saw The TV Glow). Not as much Jeff overlap, sorry Jeff! 2. No one plays dirtbag / dude with an unsettling undercurrent of volatility quite like Christopher Abbott. He’s been killing it in the indie / festival scene for ages (+1 to Devindra’s shout out of On The Count Of Three), and I keep waiting for him to find a bigger starring vehicle worthy of his talents. Wolf Man should have been a home run; sad to know I’ll have to keep waiting.
Stephen David Miller
2025-01-21 20:32:39 +0000 UTCJeff’s review of The Devil’s Plan (which I’m excited to checkout) was apparently 1.86x a rules explanation. Haha. I’d like to propose this as a unit of time for the pod…[0.05952 later] already a denied proposal? Fair enough.
Dan Cameron
2025-01-21 19:24:25 +0000 UTCI would love to see Jerry Springer-style chirons on the bottom of your YouTube videos of the show lol
Matthew Henshaw
2025-01-21 19:04:56 +0000 UTCHell yeah it a filmcast day woo hoo! 🙌🏻
Reynaldo K. Cruz
2025-01-21 17:36:13 +0000 UTCThe intro jokes are so bad they are good.
Cardassian Vexillology
2025-01-21 17:05:46 +0000 UTC
