 Tuesday it's the movie show and George Kason and me we review a movie every couple of weeks and this time we're reviewing the lake house 2006 on Netflix with Sandra Bullock she's wonderful and Keanu Reeve he's wonderful too the two of them together and this is the first time they made a movie after the movie about the bus remember the bus what was that called um they they were together in 1994 riding this crazy bus the bus was out of control it was and if it slowed down remember that if it slowed down below a certain speed it would blow up it was it was really very creative movie but they were together and this was the next time they were together 2006 the lake house is originally a Korean movie and this was a remake of a Korean movie I didn't see the original Korean movie but this is very good the lake house but you you know you thought it was good too George and um and I wonder why what what caught your attention about this movie because that it has one of these time plots you know change in time and um you know back in the old days it would be simple you know you go fly into the future or fly into the past this was much more complex in terms of the change in time I can't tell you that I ever really wrap my mind around it and I'm hoping and one of the reasons I wanted to meet with you today George is that you could tell me what was going on with the time it was a two-year difference and yet and yet they could have a love affair two years different how did that work had to do with a mailbox at the lake house which both of them were living in at different times right and um Keanu Reeves character Wyler whatever his name was um in the movie he had lived there uh it it seems that his father who was also he was an architect his father was also an architect and had designed this house that was sitting on a lake um you know on spilt there was a mailbox on the shore and and basically um you know one day he he gets in there and he opens the mailbox and there's a letter from a woman who has lived in the house or at that point we thought had lived in the house before and she's she's saying could you I I've done my mail forwarding but you know it slips through which I well know right and if anything comes through for me please forward it to my new address in downtown Chicago because she must have gotten a job she was an mv right so basically you know they're right they start writing to each other right and and sort of get to know each other and and sort of fall in love with each other right from from the notes right something uncanny because she she says to him you know um something about a box there was a box sitting in the in the attic and there were cat paws along that walkway that went from from land into the house the house was sitting on spilt and he doesn't see this I mean he he doesn't remember that at that point in time where he is his point in time there's no box in the attic and there's no cat paws right so something uncanny is going on so this is just time time warp you know so as the plot progresses you start it starts to fill it in but initially you start to wonder I mean you don't understand what's going on until later in the movie which I know you like when they live they give you a little pieces that don't happen here little pieces then you have to figure it out and right you're just a step behind them because they have to figure it out too exactly exactly so little by little they figured they're figuring it out and you don't understand why the bot there's no in his time there's no box 2000 early 2006 right and her time 2008 there was a box in the attic and they were kept but then as the show progresses you see that back when he was at his time earlier in 2006 he was painting that that walkway and the cat went by and then there was a little paint on the poor and then as he's ready to leave and the house you know to go to leave the house he he puts all her letters or whatever in a box right in the attic and that was the box that that was in the attic that she never opened right that she left that box in the attic at that point in time right but as things go on they really get to fall in love you know there's you know letters just like that other movie we saw the English people you know with the falling in love just in back in my the last love letter it was called right that was a great movie i remember 1967 i met this woman and i was taking summer courses at nasa community even though i was at stony brook and i met this young woman from garden city and we sort of got to know each other and sort of fell in love right and then after she went back to some school you know in washington dc some private college right um we were writing and that day and age you know that was writing you know and this this was what was happening here so little by little they fall in love and there's a lot of non secateurs you don't really understand because then he wants to meet her and he says that you know they figure out there's a time gap right so he says that he says to her you know you know i'll wait for you in two years from now now we'll meet at this restaurant right and she goes to the restaurant waiting for him waiting for him waiting for him he never shows up you know if the guy never shows up but she just waits until they're closing and she's disappointed and then she says to him in the letter you know it's just not going to work we're in different time frames right and then she is uh he's back in the in the architect's office in this architect she finds this architect he needs an architect and it seems that the architect that she's going to is the younger brother uh of uh of this alex who yeah and he said and she asked oh who drew this drawing on the wall he said my brother it was my brother who did it and and she said oh well where is he living now and and the brother says fortunately he passed away but then she realizes that's why he didn't show up because he's he's in 2008 he's dead now he was trying he was trying to reach her he was trying to cross the street in this busy chicago intersection yeah that that that's exactly what i'm going to get to jay that's that's the cute thing there yeah he was trying to reach her and he got hit by a by a bus right and he died and she was the m she was an mg she was her mother there she's with her mother and she runs across and tries to save him but she does i guess she didn't remember the face you know doctors he's so many patients she didn't remember the face because he was lying initially on his face anyhow so so she didn't realize that so the and he realizes because and he she asked the brother where did he get died and she tells him the whole he tells her the whole story and then she realizes that that guy that she was trying to save that she couldn't save that that was the crime she's in love with in a tie warp right so she goes and she writes he rushes back to them to the lake house writes a letter and prays and prays he's gonna listen right and then she says please don't need me at that plaza today please just forget it don't need me so he's learned he gets the letter thank god and he doesn't go to the plaza right and then they were able to meet in 2008 waiting because that's the time and that's the whole movie and it's just it was so heartwarming for me you know i mean it was just it was anybody could really feel very touched by the movie because these two are really in love you know and she has this other boyfriend who she doesn't really like but you know she figures you know she's getting older she's got to end up with it she's a real i think he's i sounded to be a real jerk you know so she so it turns out really good this movie ends in an upper note and one last thing i don't know if you want to mention that it was based on a on a korean movie from a few years before the whole plot but this one ends a lot better than the other one so that's basically the plot now you want to get into any particulars that i know i do i do i do first of all you know you're you're a graduate school architect right now oh yeah and the whole thing was built around the lake house and the lake house in in the in the chicago lake there somewhere was very important as a symbol in the movie and it was it was transparent in other words the walls were like glass you could see into it you could see out of it and as you said it was on poles it was really a spectacular residence a place to live a place to live a place to live the lake house and and this had great significance in the movie but how did you see that from an architectural point of view well basically i really like the house i like the design i like the the location where it was cited in a lake and just the whole arcade the open you know glass and like was that new vendor row type type design yeah and and i think that added to uh for me i i mean i just love the whole architectural aspects of this movie that was a real plus for me as well um but why i mean what was it that how did the architecture connect with the story you just told i mean there's there's some kind of connection i don't know what it is is that is it's not that it's a haunted house but it's a house that you can see through uh it's a house that uh that is so attractive um that you can see beyond the reality you can see into the past or the future um the house offers you um more than just a house am i right and really the lessons there is that a house can do that a nice piece of architecture can do that it can offer you much more than just a house right oh definitely i mean there's always the emotional sociological aspect of every design you know and it was in a natural setting on the lake you know open to the you know to the water and stuff but the brother and him were mentioning that there was no the father had not done any way from the house itself to get down to the lake so that was an aspect that it was sort of sitting on its own there um you know the only connection was with the land you couldn't really get to get to the water you have to go onto the land to get to the water so that i think that's really an important point it doesn't touch the land the lake house is in the lake on the piling it's only accessible by this kind of walkway this wooden walkway which as you said he was painting and the and the cat's paws well there's a lot of symbolism here the cat's paws walking on there um the painting that the appearance and disappearance of the paw prints um on this walkway and the walkway itself is a very interesting walkway it's the only access to the house it has an aesthetic all of its own um and it is symbolic in the sense that um you have the mailbox which which roots you to the current time whatever time that is and then you have the walkway and then you have the house and they're not really connected they're connected by the walkway and um yeah like it's it's like a it's like a theater platform like a stage the house is like a stage exactly yeah that and a lot of the things do you know with him he's in the house while he's communicating you know and then finally they're able to talk to one another on the cell phone which is really interesting too you know so i'm trying to think others the fact that that house was sitting except for the for the you know the support into the lake it's sort of sitting on its own you know yeah but floating i think that's symbolic too yeah yes there's something about that that that was symbolic too um you know on the water on the on a lake that is you know you think of maybe that had something to do with the warp you know because you've got the reflection of the house and the water you know so there's a whole kind of symbolism that you're expressing that i think is really important here well i want to go back to the time thing with you george the time thing as i said at the outset of our discussion um i never really wrapped my head around the time thing because there were no rules it's almost as if the you know the producers directors the the filmmakers here are playing with us and they're throwing this this time thing out but it's very hard to understand exactly how it works and what are the rules you know it's two years you know that she's ahead of him or was he ahead of her one of them was ahead of you okay ahead um and you knew that their only connection was this very wanting to say there's ephemeral the spiritual kind of connection through the mailbox and the mailbox is a cruddy old mailbox which has all kinds of mystical powers this mailbox it's just an old mailbox it's and it's not in the house it's at the um you know the shore side of that gangway but what i what i find interesting is that they the movie makers the filmmakers would have you believe that they were able to connect from different time zones they they didn't really know each other they only knew each other from mail that was um you know that that was at random in this mailbox almost at random it was like um there was fate operating here and the fate was going to bring they were made for each other and indeed the acting was very good you know as you said before it really was very romantic and the two of them were excellent both of them you believed you believed in their relationship i i think sandra is is fantastic actress uh and and i think that keanu you know played beyond anything i've seen him in actually this was very good he's been in a lot of you know violence and vengeance but this was one of his best if not his best anyway so it just strikes me that what the what the filmmakers are telling you is that you can have a romance through a mailbox you can have this serendipitous spiritual experience through a mailbox they were made for each other even though they never met and and time was out of joint and i i gotta wrap my mind around that because i think what it is it's also telling you that you could be ahead or behind of the time when you were romantically involved with someone and it doesn't matter you know you can look back and remember nostalgically somebody who you were repatriated with um and that's okay and you don't have it's like it wasn't really a physical love kind of thing it was a mailbox mailbox love you know you've got mail you've got mail and and i found that that was um that was very appealing in the sense that you know it it it elevated their romance to more than just the customary romance uh that that's what i'm trying to say that i think this was so interesting um because it it it was a step above a step more a step more um symbolic spiritual whatever you want to say about it um and and and and sustainable and uh gee it was awful to see him killed in traffic but then you realize that they understood it well enough so they could actually change the result you change yep yeah that that that that's the time thing that if you knew if you know that what's just going to come in the future right you can change the results by just not being in a certain place at a certain time or we're doing something and that that's that's the key you know the the the whole movie you know and and Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves they really work really well together i think they have i don't know for romantic but they have a lot of affection for one of them you can tell that they really like each of them and i think the earlier movie that that we get you mentioned they also worked really well together in that movie as well so that this was like a repeat for them to work together and it was just it's a great movie i mean it really touched me at the end you know when they got together that was just phenomenal you know so many movies really don't end on that positive note this ended on a really positive note and i really enjoyed that ending so great movie i mean i just love this movie so um what else do you want to get into about it i'm trying to think what else i can say about i want to i want to tell you the i want to tell you the name of that movie um 1990 yeah ilmade or something like that ilmade or something like that in in in in french speed it was called speed it's called speed what was it speed oh that you're talking about the korean movie i'm talking about the the one that was talking about the korean movie yet that you're talking about the movie they were they were on and then christopher plumber plays the two young architects father he's phenomenal i mean he just passed away last year he's great i mean in this movie he's just he plays the role to a t you know well that's a whole new dimension isn't it it's the relationship of the father and the son the the demanding architect the uncompromising architect uh who is in the previous generation who really is not a very pleasant person but highly disciplined uh highly successful architect a bastion of the community of the city of chicago and then the son who is creative and who represents another generation of architecture did you see that did you see that yes similar to some of my instructors and professors at minnowa you know where the father is prominent architect and then they these kids grow up in in in that office right with that father and they learn you know my mom and dad both had they didn't have college they just had two years technical school or whatever trade schools you know so when you have that kind of a mentor an apparent it makes a difference yeah well it makes a difference but it also creates a problem i mean i think i think it was very well handled in the movie um yeah christopher plumber was mean he was demanding he was intolerant yeah um very and um you know he was he he was he was as i said before he he was a kind of guy was highly successful highly disciplined but no love there no love there and it you know it's i guess one one thing i said to myself she was you know a successful architect really has to be that way or at least had to be that way in that prior generation you know uncompromising absolutely demanding absolute perfectionist in every way um and and he had you know they say the lawyers are married to the law you know the law is a jealous mistress well architecture is also a jealous mistress he was completely dedicated to his art form and and you got that feeling on the other hand uh keanu reeves was not he was like emancipated in his own way and um he was not happy with his father they had to work it out as so many movies you know allow you to do that so but i wanted to get get get down with you on this thing you know if you look at netflix or for that matter prime you see and it's more and more the case here in the third year of coven you see these movies that are all about violence and vengeance like the original speed movie you know there's detectives and cops and and and the european movies and for that matter the asian movies copy it they copy the violence and the vengeance and the and guns everywhere guns i mean if you go to one scene you know without a gun it's a failure it's incredible how many guns there are in these movies that are on cable they're feeding us a steady bite of guns i'm not saying you know this is what happened in texas but maybe it it had an effect in some way to think that you could shoot a gun a lot of i think a lot of young people you could shoot a gun with impunity that you know that it's a romance thing um and um it's too bad that they are raised now in the formative years of their lives on the kind of movies that i'm talking about which are the um beyond plurality that probably the majority of the movies that people are watching and people are watching more movies now than ever you know even even back in the day when movies were hollywood was king they're watching more movies you know just more units of movie and these movies teach them something and sometimes it's it's hard to you know define the line between the fiction and the fact you go from you know the cable news to the cable movie and you know each one has an effect on you and and after a diet of that for two and a half going on three years it has an effect on the way you see the world your worldview now this movie was different this movie was in a way it was the who done it you know you had to figure it out you know you had to make notes in your mind about where this is going how do you explain these strange phenomena this movie was different in the sense there was no violence at all it was romance it was art it was um you know a kind of fine appreciation of the world in which they were living or the worlds i should say and the relationships they had um it was nothing like gianna reeves other movies there was no violence no vengeance none of that none of the guns nothing like that and yet it was fascinating because it was challenging i and i kind of want to say george i think what turns me on about a movie any movie is is this challenging me is this is going to spoon out the information you're going to make me feel that i got to solve the problem make me feel i got to learn what's going on i got to collect data on it right when i collect enough data that i will understand what the filmmaker is trying to tell me um and so this movie fits neatly in that much more than a shoot-up movie um and so i really appreciate this movie for that reason not only the romance which as you say was very sweet very well acted very well written and the architecture which was likewise very sweet you know and symbolic and interesting and a sort of a portal a keyhole into the world of architecture and relationship of our structures with our lives and all that um it was this thing about the time and looking at somebody through a mailbox through through a cylindrical mailbox into another time and trying to figure out what's at the other side and why do i like this person so much uh i mean you could you could plant those same kinds of uh images and reactions and emotional emotional experiences uh in so many other love stories but this one was the challenge this wasn't you know a soap opera sappy thing at all this this made you think it made you figure it made you take the lessons of the movie and try to apply them to your own life or to other lives that you're familiar with tell me your reaction i totally agree with number one you're the quintessinal attorney tries to get into the understanding the intricacies here and so you're you're just like you were saying about architects and attorneys you know you fit the bill exactly because you're trying to find out the intricacies here but um i couldn't agree with you more you know that there's very there's no violence here her interaction you know with that Iranian actress that's in place of a good friend another another MD you know that's really good too and then all the interaction between the two sons especially um Alex you know with his dad there's sort of an estrangement there is the coldness and then he sees sometimes they when the after the father dies they should have his his book his memoir and he's with his with this Alex as a little kid holding his hand so he knows his father loves them you know as a small style so there's a lot of interplay going on there you know i just love this movie and as we said before too much i don't want to see any more violence you know there's too much violence going on in the world as we in the real world so this is sort of like a escape and uh yeah it's a escape from a escape from violence for sure so i want to ask you about this thing um you know this movie points up a phenomenon that i'd like to explore with you just for a moment and that is george you and i've been talking about movies we select them almost at random whatever appeals you know whatever our taste draws us to at a given moment and um and we you know we have a good time talking about them and trying to find some value in them or not um but that's been going on for about a year year and a half whatever along and i wanted to ask you this question how how has your taste in movies paid in the last year year and a half okay but you know i over the last 10 15 years i've only been to a few movies that are more like documentaries right and what it's done for me it's got me back into the um certain feeling some emotions you know which i was sort of so dedicated to my school and my my work and i wasn't really watching movies so it's got it sort of opened up my world into you know feelings again you know i mean sort of emotions that i didn't even know i still had you know are you are you saying that you had an emotional reaction to this movie the lighthouse oh yeah i mean definitely if you mind you have your own you know life you know that's why i i emailed you that too late for me in this life but maybe in my you know reincarnation of my next life definitely definitely made a difference do i hear envy you see this couple yeah overcoming the obstacle of time overcoming the obstacle of time when you say why can't i do that why can't that happen to me and it's envy is why can't why can't i go back and know what i i know now back then you know making mistakes because i was too young to get into this relationship i didn't want to settle down because in my 20s i didn't want to be burdened you know and if you get well i'll just go on and then you moved on to somebody else so but bottom line is it brings back into your own life like you said before and before we go we should rate them j2 of course i'll give you my rating this is a 10 10 plus now where do you how do you feel 10 plus yeah you know and it's not this is not a multi-million dollar spectacular like tom cruise and you know the the fighter pilot thing you know where they made 150 million dollars in in 24 hours or something at the at the at the box office this is a movie with a lot of thought a lot of nuance it's like you have to see it more than once to pick up on on all the messaging that's going on there and it's it's different it's not like any other movie you can find on netflix really it's unique in its own category it's hard to categorize this movie and you wouldn't find it so easily so i give it a 10 because i i want to see this kind of creativity i i think filmmakers can and should go out of the box and and stimulate us to think and emote emote i mean or have an emotional reaction onto what they're trying to tell us i i want to be provoked i want to be encouraged i want to i want to understand the depth of experience they're trying to to send my way you can't do that in a shoot up movie or a marvel comics movie but in a movie like this yes and so i mean it's it's sad when i say this there are no other movies that i can think of that really fit in this category maybe you and i have touched on some that are worthy um but nothing quite like this one yeah great movie great great movies we've been working and pretty much variety from different different angles too so um thanks i know you chose this one it was a really good choice jade all right well i will we'll meet again on uh june 12th um and it was we'll see it two weeks hence and we'll see what else we can find that will be worth discussing that you know i mean part of my gratification here is to be able to talk to you about it uh forget there's a show um but worth discussing in front of others worth telling the story to others worth recommending it or at least evaluating it for others um so it's really a trip to do this so we'll come up with something else and it will be unusual also all right good thank you so much george george kason thank you jay my partner in movie review thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think.kawaii.com mahalo