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Hi, this is Dana Steven, Slate's movie critic here with the Slate. Spoiler Special podcast on Cloud Atlas, the new adaptation of the David Mitchell novel, directed by Lanna and Andy Wachowski and Tom Teichwer.

This movie was actually is divided into segments, as we'll discuss, and the different segments are directed by different directors.

So joining me in Slate's New York studio is John Swansberg, Slate's editorial director,

fancy new title for you. I hope I can live up to it. I'm glad that you're still willing to come in

now that you're too big for your purchase. I said that I would only take the new job if I could

still do a spoiler special. Oh, excellent. I'm glad you're here. And joining us from D.C.,

specifically because he wanted to call in and discuss slash defend Cloud Atlas is Dan Koyce,

senior editor at Slate.

Hi, Dan.

Hi, guys.

So, yes, John and I saw Cloud Atlas together last night.

Dan, you saw it a few days ago, I believe, right?

I saw it the night before last, yes.

And now what we need to do, I need to work myself back up into the lather of fascination

with discussing Cloud Atlas that I felt at about 1230 last night.

We should also start up by stating that this is a three-hour movie, very nearly three hours,

two hours and 50 minutes. So this may be a longer spoiler special than usual, given both the

length of the movie and the incredibly labyrinthin multiple interweaving storylines.

Yeah, we have six plots to spoil. We better,

we better get cracking. Yeah, I think we'd better get started. But I always like to do a quick

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