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BOSS OF IT ALL (2006)

Well, as the famous playwright Antonio Gambini once wrote: All good things (and Season 13 of TGTPTU) must come to a close. And what better stage for which our four hosts to give their final thoughts and review of the four directors covered this 4x4 season, as well as their general opinions of Lars von Trier, than with LvT’s office comedy THE BOSS OF IT ALL (2006)? (Sorry, we can’t hear you response. This isn’t a radio show, and you’re not live on the air and it was a rhetorical question as The House that Jack Built would have been better, your author of the Show Notes knows, but the movie was banned from discussion by the TGTPTU’s boss of it all.)

Before LvT’s crippling depression set in (see previous episode covering 2009’s Antichrist), while mainly dealing with anxiety, and in-between his second and still unmade third installment of his America Trilogy, the enfant terrible and Cannes darling challenged himself with a genre he’d yet to, and hasn’t returned to, film: a comedy. While edited using his Dogme 95-influenced time-cut style, instead of hand-held camerawork by LvT himself The Boss of It All was another- first-and-only for the filmmaker in using Automavision. This LvT invented technique let a computer decide focus and movement as replacement for a cameraperson. Allowing the blame to be put on the computer instead of himself, LvT symbolically repeats the conceit of his comedy where the character of Ravn hires an amateur actor and playwright Gambini stan Kristoffer, played by Jens Albinus (mentioned previous ep), to pretend to be The Boss of It All, an absentee owner that Ravn created to pretend he did not own the company and to shunt unpopular decisions but now needs Kristoffer to pretend to be in order to sell the company. Hilarity ensues.

Join the fearsome foursome for their collective explorations of neoliberal capitalism while, individually, Ken predicts beyond the new year into the near future by betting LvT has sent drones back in time to shoot the comedy that will be Year 2025; Thomas nearly learns Danish; Ryan reveals he hates the look of a $20k engine inside a Datsun; and Jack stays awake for the entire film.

And keep listening past the wrap of our fourth movie by our fourth director to enjoy a surprise visit from a musical guest--the Boss himself--who introduces hosts’ LvT four-film rankings and Season 13 reflections.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

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Ken: Ken Koral
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