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00:00:00
00:00:01
Weapons
50 Plays14 days ago
When Tony comes to The Juice Cave to discuss a movie 3 things are guaranteed:
It's gonna go long
The discussion will get political
And Black Snake Moan will be referenced
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introductions and Promotions
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey there, juice holes. Huh? I say juice heads. That's the more disrespectful way out. Just you guys. You. looks anyway uh just want to give you guys a heads up that like going forward with some episodes uh if you want to hear them sooner there'll be a longer like shaggier edit you know like the maybe the audio sounds little crunchier or the the conversation is little more meandering maybe me and the guests go up our own assholes a little more talking about built twitter stuff that no a reasonable person should even know about
00:00:39
Speaker
so If you want to hear all that bullshit, you can check out the somebody cooked here, feed and that's available to Spotify, Apple podcast. It's also sub stack for it. I can link that the show notes, but they'll still, don't worry. This, there's be playing juice here on this feed.
00:00:58
Speaker
You guys are getting the cleanest of the, the, the crop you eat in the fine edits. ah So those those are going to be still, that's still going to be here and And yeah, we got lots of cool stuff coming up between movie reviews, commentaries, and some interesting discussions on just like industry stuff. Like where's the whole industry headed with some of these things?
00:01:31
Speaker
that's so stay tuned with that uh i got some exciting stuff for you guys uh and also be sure to check out nick's other podcast uh morbid curiosities so yeah lots of good stuff for you guys check out anyway here you go
00:01:50
Speaker
are
00:02:04
Speaker
All right.
Introduction to 'These Guys Got Juice' Podcast
00:02:05
Speaker
I'm Doug Davenport and this is These Guys Got Juice sitting down with with Tony talking in black snake mode. No, wait, we're talking weapons.
00:02:17
Speaker
very Oh, man. You know, this was my off week. You know, I usually watch Black Snake Moan every week, but you caught me on like my one break. um So that's a real shame. Sorry, listeners. i'm go to be a bit rusty. So, yes, you just forgot. That's why you have to watch it every week, just to kind of remind you like what what happens in it. You're just like, it's so, it's like, how you do a thing? Like, what happens in movie.
00:02:42
Speaker
um You see, look, I watch so many movies, right, that my my brain is actually shrunken in response. So, like, the capacity of films I can remember, you know, it's just, it's gotten smaller as age has gotten higher.
00:02:55
Speaker
So, for me, ah you know, it's either Black Snake Moan or, like, Childhood Informative Memories. I got i gotta make some decisions there. You gotta pick one. Hold on, real quick before we go any further, could you just turn down your game, like, a ton?
00:03:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, of course. You don't want it to be clipping. I get it. Mm-hmm. I mean, if I want to beat Diggs and whoever the other guys is clipping and the other two, the other clipping people.
00:03:19
Speaker
We appreciate their effort, right? But they weren't in Hamilton, right? So it's really really hard to like, you know, keep that in front of mind. They haven't played Jefferson. How am I supposed to know who the fuck they are You know, it's like... I'm sorry. they should have been in They should have been in blind spotting or something. Something for me to keep track of.
00:03:37
Speaker
They made a blind spot in TV show. Did you know that? Yeah, you know, like, I love the movie. I think the movie was really good. and And also it came from like a music video director. So like, I like the way that it was visualized in that film. Just like when, as soon as you tell me that like a visually interesting and like thematically a rich movie is being turned into a television show, I just brace up. It's like the same reason why I didn't watch Snowpiercer.
00:04:01
Speaker
did Did you watch the show or no? the The Blind Spawning Show. I didn't watch that. Or Snowpiercer. Daveed Diggs crossover. Yeah, and he's in that. i And I love the movie, but I was just like, and I mean, I guess Snowpiercer was also a novel or a graphic novel beforehand. So there's like maybe other like materials to adapt there for...
00:04:22
Speaker
You could tell me on like what's different about a show because it sounds like that's like more of a murder mystery thing, at least initially. Like, so so it's like a different take. But I have the same reaction. Like, I mean, now I'm totally in on whatever Noah Haley does.
00:04:36
Speaker
But like ah when Fargo was first announced, it was like, a Fargo TV show? What the fuck you talking about? Like, they're not remaking the the the events of the movie. They can't do that a show. So what is it? What are we even doing? And then i was like, oh, okay. That's really good.
00:04:52
Speaker
and has like its own like
Noah Haley's Storytelling in 'Fargo'
00:04:55
Speaker
voice. So yeah, that's yeah. But it really does depend on the author. and like like who Like who's at the helm? Like you said, Noah Haley, like he's a very like considerate, ah you know, shepherd of these shows, you know, showrunner.
00:05:08
Speaker
um But like most of the time when they try to do that, it does kind of fall in their face for my summation. But you're right. I also feel like Noah Haley's all almost like kind of overhated, right?
00:05:18
Speaker
like he's Like he's really got a focused way of approaching these things and doing something like Fargo, taking what the Coens did and taking it to such a far degree to where you're not even thinking about the movie while you're watching the show. That is impressive. Right. Because like by the later seasons, there's even some of this in the first season, like he's doing like full blown.
00:05:36
Speaker
There's like mysticism and magic stuff in it. Like, you know, like there's a mortal people and big things that like the last season had a Sineater. i had to look up even the cultural context of like what that even was like from cultures that had like Sineaters in their village and stuff. i was like, what what's a sit eater? And I like that though, because it's like the the show doesn't really explain the concept fully. You like see some flashbacks out content. I'm like, so what what is, what's, what's this concept? then it's something that I didn't look up, which is like, don't know. I like stuff like that.
00:06:06
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I like it when there is a show where the lore is a bonus, right? I feel like there are some ah properties that feel almost like a Dark Souls, right?
00:06:17
Speaker
Where the lore needs to be studied in order to be understood. And then you kind of get the plot, right? I prefer it when the lore is something that's almost like supplementary, but in an enriching way, right?
00:06:28
Speaker
And I feel like something like Farno does that well. falls under that category because like all the actual like let's explain this stuff is the Mark Frost books. So like you can read those if you want, which are the ones I've read are interesting. I still need to read the final dossier, but like the final history of Twin Peaks is exactly my shit.
00:06:46
Speaker
And also illuminates of like, oh, it makes sense why him and David get along because like he's, even if... Lynch is less plot-brained, but Frost is, like, way into, like, government UFO conspiracy stuff, and then, like, incorporating that into, like, Twin Peaks history was, like, is... That's cool for someone like me who's, like, you know, loves shit like the X-Files and Twin Peaks, but, like, yeah. ah I think that's another good example like, yeah, the
Discussion on 'Weapons' and Zach Kreger's Transition
00:07:13
Speaker
lore is... I mean, in fact, like, it's best...
00:07:16
Speaker
to not read any of that until after you've gone through all sorts like, you know, like, you have to, like, experience it as just, like, an experience first and then do the other stuff. So, anyway, speaking of...
00:07:27
Speaker
yeah No, I was just going to say things with lore that you can kind of speculate or chew on. i was trying to bring us back to the the weapons. I think i think this this this movie, ah I'm just going to say out the gate, I love this film. I've been looking forward to it for a while. I've been on board the Zack Krager train since the whitest kids you know days. Like that was...
00:07:53
Speaker
like Growing up, Chappelle's show was the pinnacle of sketch comedy. Probably still is, but then there i under them, I'm like, Why's Kids You Know? That's like one of the best sketch things ever. like I may even not trash the other sketches. I just love Mr. Show and stuff like that, but I'm like, maybe I love Why's Kids You Know more than like that or like other sketch shows.
00:08:15
Speaker
um it just has a special place in my heart. And i I was, I'm always so fascinated in that transition when someone, people act surprised when like someone the comedy background does horror, but like the more times it happens and the more that I get into horror as, I mean, I have like a loose comedy background. Like I was in some improv groups that done some like comedy writing stuff, but but I'm like, from that standpoint, it's,
00:08:42
Speaker
it's They're like twin genres. I also just don't believe in separation of genres. I'm anti-segregation, so I'm like, don't keep them said. They don't have to be on different parts of the bus. You don't see genre?
00:08:57
Speaker
I don't see genre. People tell me like Sinners isn't a musical. I'm like, why? i don't know. There's music in it. I just treat them like any other movie.
00:09:08
Speaker
I don't treat it like any differently. But I think they are, they go so well together. Like, it's not oil and vinegar, comedy and horror, you know, peanut butter and jelly, basically, of like, they were meant to be mixed because it's like the mechanics of setting up a laugh and a scare. So, so like, it's all about surprise, timing, details.
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's why ah these people with community backgrounds can make such effective horror. I've seen some people level against this movie that it's not scary. I mean, it's never most interesting place for me to critique like a horror movie anyway, because I'm like, that's such a subjective thing anyway. Like, what is scary? I personally was on the edge of my seat for several parts.
00:09:50
Speaker
It's more unsettling, I guess. But like, if you to me, that's like, effective horror. Like if something has like an atmosphere or persistent a sense of dread of just like, ah, these vibes are fucked.
00:10:03
Speaker
Like I kind of I'll take that over just like straight up. I feel like a lot people saying movies aren't scariest because there's, it wasn't a lot of jump scares or something. There's like two jump scares in this, which got me, but like that's, those aren't the parts that will like stick with me the most probably. Like there's other imagery and things, even though those moments were effective.
Comedy and Horror: Complementary Genres?
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it's, it's hard to tell what someone means when they, when they come at something from, from that. And it's like, okay, well, even if that is true, you was scared. What else about you just going to toss the whole experience of the movie out? I didn't shit my pants. So zero stars. Yeah.
00:10:40
Speaker
I brought a diaper and it ain't full when I left. So but nothing. My my pants don't look like Liam Neeson's. but Why do we stop talking about that? i do it I keep it at the front.
00:10:53
Speaker
I think it just took up. There was other stuff that transpired because, you know, there's like everybody starts sharing that you want to do it. It's you its it's kind of weird how everyone kind of moved on from that. But I guess like Atlanta does wonders for the but career of rehabilitation, right? Even if they're just blatantly saying what happened and how it was, you know?
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's true. I also wanted to believe that that would be the case when, what's his name, the Republican guy who played Superman in Lois and Clark? Dean Cain? Dean Cain?
00:11:28
Speaker
Dean Cain was on the curse and kind of making fun of himself. And I was like, oh, is he like it on the joke a little bit? But then the recent comments, i'm like, oh, okay, he probably was not even like thinking about the context of like what it meant for him to be on that show playing that character. Yeah.
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like the though the the way that I view Dean Cain's actions, like going into ICE and all that stuff, I i i obviously recognize that he's being like an ignorant, you know, bigoted. That's obviously the case, right?
00:11:56
Speaker
But the funniest way for me to perceive that situation is that he just really needs the money. And he's just finding like the stupidest way to like justify it in the process. He's just like, yeah, I really love ICE. No, ah he he just needs the money.
00:12:08
Speaker
That's probably why he was on the curse. They were like, we yeah here's some money. He's like, okay. Yeah. I'm the Superman no one remembers. um But yeah, ah back to weapons. Do you want to continue the train of thought?
00:12:22
Speaker
yeah and that That was just me. He's like... rattling off some initial thoughts about you like my my history with with Zach Kreger and ah that it this this experience really worked with me for me. I think there's a lot to un unpack here.
00:12:37
Speaker
I feel like most of that will... and this will probably be a ah brief non-spoiler section because the trailers don't tell you much in a way that I enjoy, which is very rare in film. Now, I feel like this is kind of the long legs of the summer of this summer in terms of like the, both movies were kind of marketed with,
00:12:56
Speaker
at least in the initial trailers of like, here's some weird imagery. This is the director. I mean, I think Zach Kriker, at least amongst like the general audience, like that name already has more pull just from one, one horror movie. DTS, he did do this March but before that. But, uh, I, I, think, uh, long legs was similarly just like, yeah, it's a new Oz Perkins film. And also here's some like weird fucked up imagery. And then the, the, like the,
00:13:23
Speaker
last trailer for Kaon was like, okay, yeah, it's some kind of like murder investigation thing. And similarly, like Weapons Closer started to show like, yeah, like there's some kids missing and stuff, but you don't really know like what's going on or what the movie's about. And i i just being surprised is such a rare thing any movie now that I really, really love that. It's best done in horror because like,
00:13:48
Speaker
it It builds that feeling. It almost makes an immersive experience,
Themes of Grief and Loss in 'Weapons'
00:13:52
Speaker
especially when them this is a movie, I'll use spoilers say, where the characters also don't know what's going on and they're trying really hard to like make sense of things. So it kind of puts you in their shoes. You're like, yeah, this doesn't make sense. and so Wait a minute, what happened to you? So I think that's like, it makes it ah a journey that you can invest in. And yeah, this this one really worked for me. But what about you, Tony?
00:14:15
Speaker
Yeah, ah like, i guess I'll come in, like, I guess from like the Craigers initiation, or Craig, or I should say, I don't know why there's so many egg-based filmmakers, but there here we are. Anyways, when it comes to my entry point into Kreger, I actually did not watch The Whitest Kids You Know as it was airing or anything like that. I was a late-comer to it.
00:14:35
Speaker
In fact, I would even call myself a fake fan. I didn't even start watching until after Trevor Moore died, right? But I feel like... um i like I came at like sketch comedy almost from like an older perspective. I love Chappelle's show, obviously, the same as you, but Mr. Show and like In Leading Color were kind of like more what I grew up with. right um I think I just kind of either just missed Whiteest Kids, you know, or I just didn't have the channel that it was on.
00:15:00
Speaker
like I only saw it in a few cases, so it like wasn't with I lucked into having that. like, oh, my parents' cable package that it happens to have this. But otherwise, I feel like most people's exposure to that was just like YouTube clips for the longest time of like like... For sure.
00:15:17
Speaker
People knew the LinkedIn sketch and it would be like, okay, what's that from? It's like, oh, the whitest kid you know. I'm pretty sure that was the first sketch I saw it before i even saw like any of the episodes was just like, yeah, Abraham abraham Lincoln. What?
00:15:29
Speaker
What? What? It's a classic, right? And I feel like it's one of those things that's on YouTube just as a standalone clip. Sometimes that happens with sketch comedy shows like yeah like the one that Linnea was on, right? Where it's like, you'll just get those sketches, right? That will just do numbers on their own, right?
00:15:45
Speaker
And I feel like that was one of those ones that you could just like see in its own isolated context would be like, yeah, that was funny. Yeah. um But yeah, when Craig started like making movies like Barbarian, right like I kind of viewed him specifically as a filmmaker, right and I saw the comedic background as something that I could like pull from in relations appeal as well, right because as you'd already gone over, are the The two genres are interlinked. They are based off of like subversion of expectation. You know, there's, you know, beats that are clearly defined. Right.
00:16:20
Speaker
And sometimes and also within those two genres, ah the structure can sometimes be plainly visible to the audience. And that's forgivable. Right. Because you know that it's going somewhere.
00:16:30
Speaker
Right. Sometimes in a drama, right, if you know that the structure if you can see the structure of like, oh, this thing happens to person, they're going to do this thing and then they're going to prevail. Right. That's not going to be as interesting to an audience member who's aware of that as like, oh, but I know I'm going to laugh later or I know I'm going to see some blood later.
00:16:48
Speaker
Right. So that's why drama often has to do a lot of things to subvert those expectations. However, what's interesting about Craig is that he's never asleep at the wheel. He's always trying new things. he's he's trying He's actually trying to push forward as a medium forward. and And I'm not trying to say it in like a, you know, pretentious way.
00:17:05
Speaker
I'm just ah showing ah that this movie fucking rules and we need more of it. You know, it's actually about things. It it actually takes you on a ride. um It's not too self-serious.
00:17:16
Speaker
um It treats its characters like people and they're human, they're flawed. And there are many ways to interpret both their actions as well as what the film is trying to say.
00:17:27
Speaker
and But ultimately, I think that it's trying to gnaw at some things that people just try to ignore often. And it's just, it's one of those movies that hits you like a breath of fresh air. It was like, ah, that's that's why I go to the movies, you know?
00:17:41
Speaker
And you can feel it in the crowd as well. You know, people are laughing at the right times, they're you know, scared at the right times as well. But when When you feel something like that in a crowd of people, it's just electric.
00:17:51
Speaker
And when it comes to the film, separate from spoiler talks, you know, I think going back to what you were saying about the promotional material, um people who have not seen the film yet, who for whatever reason are listening right now before we get into spoilers, just know that the promotional material even lies to you.
00:18:09
Speaker
There are things that it sets up in the trailers that they subvert when the movie starts. and Like only immediately you find out, you're like, oh, I didn't even... they expect this because the trailer told me something different.
00:18:22
Speaker
Yeah, you know good and and even separate from that, if you had never seen the trailer, right, the moment itself plays on its own so well, right? So it's just a very well-considered film.
00:18:32
Speaker
um And I guess like, ah you know, just to end off my general thoughts, ah before we dig deeper. um the the The main movie I just couldn't stop thinking about while watching this was Psycho.
00:18:45
Speaker
And the first time I'd first seen Psycho. Because the way that the script is structured is very similar. um ah Many people have talked about Magnolia, right? And we can obviously get into that later on as well.
00:18:57
Speaker
But I feel like just from the beats... the beat as well as the ways in which the scares are prolonged. And also, like, you can literally go to the minute mark and similar things happen in similar minutes, you know. Oh, interesting.
00:19:12
Speaker
I want to go backwards with that in mind, yeah.
Societal Critique in 'Weapons'
00:19:14
Speaker
but but When we get into spoilers, I'll point out some things. But did when it when it comes to, like, just the... What the audience should know going into this film, if they haven't already, is this is like a screenplay delight.
00:19:26
Speaker
This is a strong script. This is like airtight to the max. There are loose ends. There are questions that it will leave for you. And there's a lot of room for interpretation. But I think it's about the same time that we have a bit more opaque cinema around.
00:19:39
Speaker
You know, let us let us just kind of. sit around and stew in things a bit more. and And going off of that opaque thing, you know, I saw the TV glow. It was very similar in that sense where it didn't explain everything to you and you were allowed to interpret a lot.
00:19:51
Speaker
I feel like horror films have finally regained the stabilization after the elevated horror realm, you know, where... It was obvious metaphors all the time, right? Now that there is like, now that we got that of the way, we can be a bit more interpreted.
00:20:05
Speaker
and And I think that movies like us, TV Glow, and ah now Weapons are are showing that there is a massive like move towards something a lot more emotive and vibes based. That just personally speaks to me a lot more.
00:20:17
Speaker
And it it just inherently works better in a genre like horror. Like, not that this movie has a plot and I would say is fairly propulsive because, like, I saw some people referring to this as, like, a slow burn. I'm like, I mean, slow burn as in, like, there's, like, five minutes where things are happening.
00:20:35
Speaker
I mean, it's like there's always something, some escalation or new information or so. So it never felt slow to me. And even if it was, I'd be fine with that because I actually do like slow burns or things that let you sit in. But this movie is kind of like trying to...
00:20:50
Speaker
because it is, I don't think it's a spoiler, say the movie deals with like grief and things like that. ah But a lot of movies that are like linger in that, that they maybe go at a ah slower contemplative pace. This this movie kind of just keeps going, but you do feel that loss kind of hanging over the film still. So like, it it is wearing both hats.
00:21:14
Speaker
So I, yeah, I think also before his spoilers worth mentioning, i mean, we've brought up the, the wise kids, you know, the background, Zach has openly said that like the death of his friend, Trevor Moore was a big inspiration ah for, for this film. And you can, you can feel that, that kind of personal loss, ah how that's been,
00:21:36
Speaker
influences it. I guess this so some of the specific ways will be spoilers, so I'll hold off going, ah detail detailing out, but I think i and I was pretty moved by that, because yeah, that death, when I remember reading it, I didn't believe it, because I was like like, wait, what happened?
00:21:52
Speaker
And it's kind of, this this movie kind of deals with that idea of like, it doesn't even really make sense when something bad happens, and you need it to make sense. It needs, there's ah There's a good quote from Heart Huckabees. I mean, fuck David O. Russell, but that movie is massive.
00:22:11
Speaker
It is. Yeah. um and when When Mark Wahlberg's like, why do people only ask bad questions or or why people only ask deep questions after something bad happens and then otherwise they just want to forget all all about it?
00:22:25
Speaker
which that movie was written in as like a response to 9-11. Like his character is a firefighter going through an existential crisis and they never even say 9-11 out loud in the movie. There's like, he's been with us since the September thing or the New York thing. I think they they allude to, but it's like...
00:22:40
Speaker
that that that the inexplicableness of kind of tragedy, even someone who isn't directly involved, like this is, that his character was like a firefighter in the West Coast and it's like that happened in New York, but that's still like, you're like, fuck, that could have been me, you know, you like you think of it that way of like, even if something doesn't directly impact you can still have that kind of like existential angst that a great loss or tragedy brings with it. And in this film ah definitely taps into that in a, in I think a powerful way.
00:23:10
Speaker
1,000%. agree with everything you just said there. Mainly ah the the the sense of dread brought upon by Moore's passing, right? Like you can feel it in every frame of the film, right? And, you know, I've seen some people ah kind of shrug off ah interpretations of this film, almost saying like this movie is almost meaningless.
00:23:29
Speaker
Like it's almost like a just purely a visceral experience. Right. And don't get me wrong, ah listeners, like it is a visceral experience. Right. um I don't want to disparate those people who perhaps didn't have, you know, didn't get that from the film. Right.
00:23:43
Speaker
But I feel like it's it's a movie that's so much about what's not said, about what's implied. You know, what what we see is one thing. Right. But how it drips down from there is something else. And I think that's where some of the the best scares or, or most unsettling elements come from.
00:24:00
Speaker
We were talking earlier about like ah the best kinds of horror. Right. And to me, like, obviously it's not just me. It's also in like literary study of horror. There's the difference between terror and horror, right?
00:24:12
Speaker
Terror is the suspense, the creeping, the dread, right? And then horror is the the outcome, right? Like the the monster, the gore, the dust, right? And this movie is like a terror machine.
00:24:23
Speaker
It's just this. bringing that terror all throughout the film. So when the horror finally does come, it's like a punch in the face. And it like, even if you're lost in whatever the film has presented you up until that point, it finds new ways to just like rip the rug from under your feet.
00:24:40
Speaker
um To recommend those people who have not seen it, Yeah, you gotta go into this thinking it's something that's going to really like pull at you, right? Don't go into this expecting to see like kills every scene, right?
00:24:53
Speaker
This going to be something that's drawing out things. and and And I think that that is due in large part to how novelistic it feels. how it really does feel like a Stephen King novel. and And we were talking in DMs earlier how this movie has like an unmistakable creepypasta feel to this like to this book narrative, you know?
00:25:11
Speaker
Something almost like juvenile itself in the storytelling, you know? and And I just think these are all important things to keep at the front of your mind when you're watching this film. Absolutely. um With all that said, let's just dive in the spoiler because I feel like that's to unpack all the these interesting things. We've got to...
00:25:28
Speaker
We got to just opened ah open the book. We got to open the book
00:25:38
Speaker
you think that Samuel Jackson was right to chain that lady to the radiator? Well, she really was in a rough spot in her life and maybe she might have ended up dead if he didn't intervene. So it's like, yeah, kidnapping is wrong, but like, what if you helped someone?
00:25:55
Speaker
Yeah. He really cared. He really cared. He stepped up. He stepped Yeah, number one Black Snake Moon podcast. ah Here we are. We did it. So I was listening to an interview with Zach Kregor and he said, this isn't a political film. the I don't know if that's just something in your media training you'd have to say now because you want conservative a people to see your film. Yeah. Or if you just...
00:26:21
Speaker
It's unclear what people mean when they say that because I'm ah i'm always of the bicep like, well, every film is political cool because it's like a reflection of the time that it's coming out. So it's like all film is political in this way, but this movie is dealing with so many different things. It's hard to not say that that's not political, but i some of the things I could believe that he just puts in there without like on unpacking it because he has referred to ah were we're just going to jump all around the p plot but like that gun in the sky that Roland sees like he he says
00:26:54
Speaker
that was kind of just like in the David Lynch style of, of, you know, just using stuff from your dreams or trans transcendental meditation and just dropping it in your film without questioning And so it's like, he's like that. So that, that's just an image that came to him that the head was powerful in, in some way. So he's like, yeah, that's just going to be in Berlin's dream. And,
00:27:15
Speaker
I mean, I think that that definitely means something, but that and like him saying that the film is, is not political. Does it negate all that? I just think it's interesting when creatives or filmmakers do say that I like, if it's coming from someone who's like doing something at the level of like, and like say James Gunn, I'm like, Oh, well he, they're definitely doing like damage control or like, you know, trying to make sure that,
00:27:37
Speaker
ah the audience that they need to see the movie go see it like I don't I don't know that Zack Greger is like thinking that way i mean he's he seems smart that he probably has some kind of ah business acumen in that sense but I think he is more concerned from the filmmaking standpoint so um Yeah, but on that note, let's talk about the politics. Yeah.
00:28:01
Speaker
I think there's like lot here. Yeah, I want to, I want to build off what you just said quickly, just because like, I think you're totally hitting the nail in the head about it probably being like a business acumen thing. Like he's probably just covering his ass a little bit, right?
00:28:14
Speaker
Like we we talked about Eddington last time, right? And Ari Aster was going in these interviews and he was saying like, oh, I see all these people equally, you know, like they're all loom, you know, like, I see them as all normal, reasonable people, and I'm just looking at their humanity, you know, and that's just what I'm exploring, right?
00:28:28
Speaker
We both saw that movie. He thought that Krause was an idiot, right? And that's fine, right? He didn't still, he didn't sacrifice his humanity, right? He wasn't lying, right? um The thing is, is with weapons is that Trager's isn't lying, you know, like on its face, it's not a very political film, right? If for whatever reason you just wanted to like close your eyes and just be like, wow, damn, these kids really just be missing and and not looking deeper. you could you You could just take it that way, right? You could listen, yeah.
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah, but but like that's just like the most boring way to watch movies in my opinion. And I think that there are so many ways that Craigers leaves the door open. ah for those interpretations and and he's doing it on purpose.
00:29:10
Speaker
think the gun in the sky is just like one of many elements that go bit rather unexplained. and And honestly, like it's just such a breath of fresh air just to see a movie put things that don't entirely make sense and just letting people accept it, you know, like on the grand scale.
00:29:27
Speaker
Like you you see that a lot in independent films all the time, right? But you never see that in studio movies. So you're when you're seeing like a giant AR in the sky with 217 written on it, you're just like, what the fuck?
00:29:38
Speaker
how How did this happen? Why did this happen? And can I get two more? Is what I think about when I see that. But yeah, let's totally talk more about the politics in the film. But before we move on from that AR, right, we we talked about the 217. Do you know what the meaning is behind that? Or you heard the theories behind that?
00:29:56
Speaker
ah The main theory that I've latched on to that, it I mean, there could be multiple, um you know, or reads that make sense. ah When on the night that Trevor Moore died, the cops were called to his place at 2.30 in the morning. So his actual time of death could have very well been in the 2.17 area.
00:30:16
Speaker
and I think that's just like one of many ways that his death is in. I mean, he got he said that he started writing this after... Trevor's death. So even if that wasn't explicitly on his mind, that could have just subconsciously, you know, like the events in this movie are almost like a manifestation of the subconscious.
Character Analysis: Justine and Community Dynamics
00:30:33
Speaker
It makes sense that that even from a writing standpoint, the writer wasn't even like aware of like the, all the different connections. But that, that, that's the one that I go with is, is the Trevor more, uh,
00:30:45
Speaker
ah think but But I'm sure there's other reasons. There's like a Bible verse 217 or something that lines up. or Those days are long behind me. I don't know. But when it comes to like the Trevor Moore ah death, you know, i that's the interpretation I heard as well. And I believe it makes it sound sense. Right.
00:31:05
Speaker
The reason I bring it up right now is because I feel like it's also like interlinked to the political conversation that, you know, the film was trying to say. Mayfue wanted to dig a bit deeper into like how we perceive the film. what What did you see politically speaking from this one? I think there's a lot of different things. I mean, because ah but people, because of the AR and the fact that there's there's children missing and a community dealing with loss, like,
00:31:28
Speaker
school shooting is, is a clear one that, that you could go to. And I think, I think that, that read is, is definitely valid and there's a lot there to support it. But I was also thinking about and the same way is, is kind of like a follow-up to our Eddington conversation of like how the climax of that movie, especially is like almost like that these conservative fears have been made, been given flesh and form, like that they're like tulpas in a way that, that, uh,
00:31:55
Speaker
ah because the community being mad at, they have no one, there's no target for their anger in all their, like, all these mixed feelings they're having besides this teacher.
00:32:06
Speaker
Like, they can't, there's, there's, yeah, one kid in the class who, who wasn't taken, but you can't get, like, get met mad and and harass a kid. I mean, you can, but that's a pretty psycho behavior. i mean, it's still psycho to harass the teacher, but, uh, that, that,
00:32:23
Speaker
ah Going after her kind of ah makes me think of how conservatives have this idea of like, well, these liberal schools are like brainwashing our children. That's why they're coming out like gay and liberal from, ah you know, like we sent them to school. They came back gay and leftist. And that's because the teacher did something to them.
00:32:42
Speaker
ah And like, I don't know what, you know, like I i love, I love that scene with the, um, with with the chief, the great Toby Huss, who's like talking Brolin. It was like, what do you think that she did exactly? You know, like, it's like, what am I not seeing? Because like, you can't just charge someone on the grounds of like, suspected witchcraft. Like, that's, you know, like you write a witch on her car, but it's like, yeah, what do what do you think that happened here?
00:33:08
Speaker
Can I build off that real real quick? it like is Because I actually wrote down that line of dialogue while I was watching it the second time. as Because I think that that right there is the whole film, you know? he He says that. He says, I have it written down.
00:33:21
Speaker
What do you see that I don't, right? And then Brolin's character, it match cuts to him at the parent-teacher interview. And he stands and he says, what I see is something that I don't understand. And I think this whole film is just like weaponized talking points.
00:33:35
Speaker
That's what it is, right? like Like, the school shooting thing is the the the correct, in my eyes, you know, like, one-to-one comparison, you know, in terms of, like, the emotions surrounding this event as well as, like, the similarities to certain elements, right?
00:33:50
Speaker
But when it comes to... like the aftermath, you know, like, and in broader strokes, right? this This film is about like the real concerns that people have and how they take those and then they use them for their own pet projects. It's just like, and and feed into their own insecurities and and let their like ah hedonistic things just get worse and worse. And in the process, they make their communities worse. Right. They're not eating their their their children, you know, is what really the film is getting to. Right.
00:34:19
Speaker
a tragedy happens and they're still not able to be there for the people who need the most. They're only there for themselves. and And that's why this film inspires a lot of sadness with it. be, you know, because because it's really about like the selfishness of American society, you know, and is how it's connected to the violent, ah you know, events surrounding school shootings as well as just right wing radicalization in general.
00:34:42
Speaker
um But I found that this film was like really getting to the heart of like how brains are broken and how people aren't aware of those brains being broken and they just kind of spiral out from there. and And you see that within each of the chapters. And and ah and one thing, you you touched on Justine and how she's treated early on in the film.
00:35:01
Speaker
She's falling apart, right? But I get it. You know, like the fact that she's drinking, the fact that she's, you know, like ah ready to sleep around or whatever with somebody who may or not may not be partnered, you know.
00:35:13
Speaker
Like, I get it, you know, her her brain is in a place that few of us could even imagine, you know. She's she is truly one of the few unjustifiable canceled people that ever exist, you know, because there is no, there is, there like, there is no other possible way like, someone could rationalize what happened to these children, right?
00:35:35
Speaker
The fact that the only two people are a child and an adult, right? Of course, they're going to be looking at the adult, right? I think that is like, you know, if you're an audience member who's queued in on horror films, I think you can kind of spot that Alex is not so trustworthy from the start of the film.
00:35:49
Speaker
um But when it comes to ah like Justine up front, you know that she's a victim as well. And like a victim in her own way, you know, where she she is feeling just as deeply as everybody else.
00:36:01
Speaker
ah But she's also painted as a villain. Yeah, no, exactly. And it's like, what do you even do in that scenario? But I want to go back to like the selfishness that like the the bat like this ah provokes out of people because I think ah you can see it all the characters, but I think Brolin, especially Archer, ah bodies that so well because there's where you see him like waking up in his son's bed.
00:36:24
Speaker
And it's been it's been a month later at this point. So for as far as they know, their son's dead. They've lost a kid. i mean Yes, the cops are still working on it, but like or what leads? you know like like There's nothing for them to work. and Were they working on it?
00:36:43
Speaker
I never saw them working on it in this film. this They keep saying they're working on you know all the all the dead rex is like yeah yeah we're on it it's like oh well like what what leads do you have there's there's two people you could question and those are dead ends so like show me the work yeah show the work um but but but the fact that he is still sleeping in like he's waking up in his son's bed and then the mother is like I'm going to work so there's kind of just an implied thing there she's not even part of the movie really besides that one moment but it kind of says everything of like she lost the son too but she's like kind of trying to do what she has to do to move on and get back to some kind of
00:37:29
Speaker
normalcy but her husband's there just woping around the house, sleeping in their son's bed and and stuff. And it's like probably not there for her at all. I mean, because we're only seeing how people deal with the aftermath of this kind of thing. But like you can kind of extrapolate like how things were prior. He probably wasn't, but it's not it's not like he was like,
00:37:50
Speaker
husband or father of the year beforehand. And we know from his dream, our ah when he's like talking to his son, he's like, I'm sorry, I sorry i never said it. i It's like, I've never told your son I love you. What the fuck, man? Like, talking about toxic masculinity, like, don't know. Like, yeah, you should be able to that. He's Thanos. We already know he's not a really good dad, you know? but Even he gave Gamora some props before he killed her or something, some kind of acknowledgement.
00:38:18
Speaker
I was a sneak by that point. Was he supposed to be, because Pedro Pascal was ah going to be in the film before he dropped, was that the, art he was going john well recently keen out Yeah. It's hard to imagine anyone but Brolin doing this because like, I feel like he brings such a specific, ah like Pedro can play prickly and like, mean, he's like,
00:38:44
Speaker
lot people know he came on the radar from Game of Thrones. they're Like, yeah, he's someone out for revenge who is enraged in that way. But there's other times like, i mean, maybe this is a hot ticket. Like in the Last of Us show, i don't really buy him as angry Joel or like a scary Joel.
00:38:59
Speaker
He talks about like, I did horrible things. And you're like, I used to be a raider. I'm like, no, you did it, man. they're Like, you didn't do anything. What did you do? Like, and because yeah even when he starts doing sociopathic, like, violence against people, I'm like, I don't know. he's the His version's, like, too warm for me to, like, buy that he would ah be that rage-fueled. Like, Roland can do that because, like, even before, you know, in the climax when he's weaponized, like, he is, that's just...
00:39:32
Speaker
ah giving a target to this anger that's simmering in him. So I guess in a way, you know, off mic and DMs, I was saying that like, yeah, even though both these movies deal with hypnosis or people, people's wills being eroded to commit violence, like it isn't,
00:39:49
Speaker
the the similarities between Cure kind of surface level, but I guess that element could be read as some crossover because, like, Cure also plays with the idea of, like, we're all these hypnotized people. They wanted to, like, they they were just looking for an excuse or and a release, and, like, this was, like, their permission to, the you know, kill whoever they wanted to kill, and that's...
00:40:13
Speaker
Because it's like you can't hypnotize someone to do something they don't want to do. um And it's like this this is a town that's dealing with all these like strong emotions, hate, anger, grief,
Narrative Techniques and Character Perspectives
00:40:23
Speaker
sadness. And it's like, yeah, now we're going to weaponize that and turn it on someone. So like I think i think that that that day is and an overlap there in terms of like the this this was lurking under the surface of all these people kind of just needed like a a switch to be flexed.
00:40:40
Speaker
You know, it's like we're all... capable of this, especially a very American society where it feels like a powder keg about to go off it at any moment. so Like, I think i think that idea is definitely at at play of, like, this community kind of just represents a I mean, yeah, there's, like, Pennsylvania plates on cars and stuff, but I was kind of just reading as, like, suburbia USA, kind of like how ah Saw movies take place in, you know, America town, know?
00:41:11
Speaker
It's just like it there's not like an actual a city that that it takes place in, right? Like they never say like this is where the story is. the The whole setup and like the the surrounding nature of it, right? They keep it very like basic, right? We know that it's like somewhere where there's a lot of trees. So maybe it's somewhere in the northeast or northwest, right?
00:41:31
Speaker
We really don't know, right? um and and And the fact that it feels just so universal, it kind of feels like the original Halloween on Wall Street, where even though you... they're told that it's happening where where is it like Illinois or Ohio yeah yeah you're they're shooting in gulf Illinois right you're like those kids wouldn't be outside during the like the fall like with the in Illinois yeah but but that's has that same feeling. Yeah, Sinister and Sting, Carpenter, come on, buddy, like, you shit the together. Yes, Rob Watch, you're on it.
00:42:04
Speaker
um But when it comes to, you know, the the the feeling that movie elicits, right? It's even though it's shot in California and they're telling you it's Illinois, it then becomes this thing where it exists within, like, a dream world where it just...
00:42:18
Speaker
every town USA like you said but there's like something wrong about it there's an off tilterness to it right and this film does an excellent job of nailing that off tilter nature mainly in how like shrubs and trees are used like that like trees and and bushes are often used to like then yeah a frame almost on what you're supposed to focus on And I think that that leans into what ah you're alluding to with like these hidden boiling emotions that people have within suburban life, right?
00:42:46
Speaker
um And something about that too is I brought up Stephen King earlier. This feels a lot like needful things, you know, story where it's like all of these all these characters who are separate are brought together by their vices that are just amplified by one individual.
00:43:03
Speaker
We'll get into that later. um And when it comes to like how all of those people take those things out on one another, I found it very interesting that while a film is segmented into different sections, based on these different characters, the storytelling itself and the filmmaking actually changes as well.
00:43:19
Speaker
Like Justine's storytelling, like the editing is very, um you know, lots of long takes, lots of like environmental, letting things soak in And to get to Archer, finally, who you brought up at the beginning of this point, was his is all about matching ah the headspace of Matthew.
00:43:37
Speaker
You see like the shot ah Matthew running away on the porch and then it's match cut with him leaving to work. Right. And what the film is telling you is that he has now entered into like a recessed adolescence.
00:43:50
Speaker
Right. We are now watching. He has forgotten his, ah you know, professional duties. And he also himself has reverted to like a childlike status. where he's ah like influenced by emotion mainly rather than rationality.
00:44:05
Speaker
um And you see that obviously in how he goes to work and how he goes to the police station. But I think most interestingly, the wife is barely a character in the film. You know, the first time I watched the movie, I forgot she was a character in the film and I just assumed he was a single father.
00:44:20
Speaker
and Yes, I failed at watching the film the first time by not recognizing that there was the life of Josh Roll in there. But however, i think the fact that the film pays that little a mind to that character.
00:44:33
Speaker
And that's like him, but probably does not exist really right now. you know Exactly. Exactly. it all his grief, his you know need for understanding that matters. It's like you kind being a a supportive, attentive husband to his wife, who's almost certainly also grieving, ah is not even on his to-do list. And the film does this over and over again where you see the same actions happen from a different character's perspective and you see how they interpret that event differently just through the editing alone.
00:45:03
Speaker
And actually, I think the most interesting moment, and this will be like the last thing I say after this ramble, you know, when it comes to like the the most interesting thing I caught early on in the film was James was outside the liquor store that Justine goes to after the parent teacher every interview.
00:45:19
Speaker
And we don't see his version of that event, right? And we see Justine's first impression, like that's our first impression of James, A, right? And B, also we see how James is perceived by the characters broadly in that one moment as well.
00:45:32
Speaker
The fact that he is just like a nothing thing, he's brought up at that first moment, right? And then he comes back, and then he comes back. That speaks about the entire film. Yeah, and it's interesting because it's not just like the editing changes. like There'll be differences in the performances too. or um Because what's Alden's character's name? The cop?
00:45:51
Speaker
um Oh, I've got IMDb. Hold on. hold on ah and Paul. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. So when we see it from his point of view, you know, when, when he, when he hits, uh, you said the junkie's name was James, right? Or James. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome performance by both of them.
00:46:09
Speaker
But, uh, yeah.
00:46:12
Speaker
both of them but but yeah after after he hits James from Paul's point of view, like he, yeah, he's like panicked and stuff, but you're kind of, it's presented more understandably when he like deals down to him and is like, Hey, i I'm letting you go. Just, I just, you gotta leave. I can't, I don't want to see you again ever. Then, then from,
00:46:34
Speaker
ah James' perspective, Paul is like, you know, it's like a low angle looking up and it's like terrifying, you know, because that fucking would be terrifying. A cop just assaulted you and I was telling you, you gotta fucking eat it.
00:46:48
Speaker
ah Yeah. And yeah, I thought those those were interesting. And especially the editing on the James segment is so fun. Like, of... but that that's the that's the best part of whenever you're falling so some kind of like and tweaker or like methodic characters that you get those like really quick cuts and like the it is his his segment was one of my favorites because it's like the movie is like watching someone assemble all these different pieces of a puzzle but you're cutting to like different corners of the puzzles at first I'm like yeah how does he intersect with with these these missing kids like I don't
00:47:26
Speaker
I don't know how that would even work. And then when you see him like break, you realize whose house he's about to break into. Like, oh, okay. yeah so House with the worst vibes ever.
00:47:40
Speaker
even before you even see it inside the house, you know, there's nothing good in there. You're like, these, the windows are covered with newspaper. and we've only ever seen a kid leaving and entering. you're just like, okay, so where are the parents? And the parents.
00:47:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Because we he's taking the bus to school at that point, so those parents aren't even picking him up from from school or anything. that Yeah, that that moment where she peeks, before she even looks, you see what she's seeing in the window.
00:48:10
Speaker
and just like, it's not going be good. What the fuck? da Just the image of them as just sitting there is so good.
00:48:20
Speaker
And the the movie gets a lot of mileage out of that imagery of like kind of like these like frozen statue poses of like basically like when when they're like not being weaponized, that that they're just in like low power mode, basically.
00:48:34
Speaker
But then, when they are you know made to move, that there's like something so unnatural about it. I mean, yeah, there's the... people incorrectly calling it the Naruto run. I saw your post. It's like, no, it's a Sonic run. I agree with that. It's the Sonic hedgehog run that they're they're doing. But even the non-run actions, like when Alex's mom comes out of the car are out of the house to when Justine's like asleep in her car, which that was probably moment where it was like, as soon as you see that door open and it's just like blackness inside, I'm but no, no.
00:49:08
Speaker
but no He's still got to cut in. be like I gotta, I gotta, I gotta say like that sequence where, where the scissors, I guess this is what I'll call it. Right. You know, that moment where the door opens and and it's, is a zoom lens just capturing like this at this point, just like nameless figure with scissors impossibly high in the air as their bodies just like jimmying forward. Right.
00:49:34
Speaker
Um, in like, Obviously, going into this film, I knew that Zach was going to be making a Resident Evil film, but I didn't realize it was going to become Clock Tower because that's what this is at this moment.
00:49:46
Speaker
We're watching like the Clock Tower guy coming after the protagonist in that game. And also, it feels like Tobey Hooper, you know? It feels like almost like a Texas Chainsaw Scare.
00:49:57
Speaker
Right. Where you're just like letting something happen. You know, it's alive in the capturing of the moment. Right. And going back to when Justine's first seen the house. Right. that um That does feel like Resident Evil. That feels like, you know, Resident Evil 7 even, you know, when like you're first approaching the house. Right.
00:50:14
Speaker
And the the fact that it's like normal and then it becomes increasingly not normal with the newspapers and then they go into the backyard and it's unkempt for whatever reason. And then they start going into the backyard, you know, and then it's even weirder because there's a hole and then they tear in. Like it's just building and building in ways that video games do as well as like the best environmental storytelling, especially, you know, it's captured because oftentimes the camera is kept right behind the characters.
00:50:40
Speaker
So you're like seeing it over their shoulders the entire time. and And so you'rere you're you're put in this position where you can't escape. You are with him on this ride. And going back to that scissors moment, it's almost the kind of reveal that there is something more sinister than what is real happening.
00:50:57
Speaker
I mean that in a sense where it's like in that moment, you have the scissors flipping the hair, right? And in that moment, you know that they could have killed them, right? But you have that question to yourself, why would they take the hair?
00:51:10
Speaker
Right. So that's when you know that whatever is going on. Right. It's a little deeper than like just murder and kidnapping. Right. I just wanted to point that out first before launching into the next thing is i'm going off of what you were saying about Paul and James. Right. Like, I feel like this is the Justin Long.
00:51:26
Speaker
segment of Barbarian, right? It's their two stories, right? And what I love about Paul's segment is is we're watching like this cop who wants to do good ah but he's a fucking asshole and he's because he's a cop but he's too stupid to understand that, right?
00:51:43
Speaker
So it's like, you know, to him like trying to chase down James is like some kind of good that he's doing, right? And up until that point like where he's going after James, you know, like we see what he's doing is kind of stupid, but we don't hate him, right?
00:51:57
Speaker
But the moment he punches him, the moment that he punches James is the moment that you know this guy's a fucking asshole, you know? Because A, like, just blatant police brutality, right? a but then B, like, he he sees himself as the victim there, you know? Obviously, like, the the the needle is a worrying thing to get the possible STI, right? He's a terrifying prospect, but... He wouldn't punch him much as... Yeah, well, what does that solve? Like, you like you're yeah you're, like, scared and freaked out. And I feel like they are playing in the, like, yes, you can have, ah you know, AIDS panic from from the needle stuff. But I also immediately thought in how he's playing the, when when he's going to clean it and stuff rushes to his car. I was, like, thinking, of like, oh, this is every cop when they they know there's, like, fentanyl around. So they're always dying.
00:52:46
Speaker
Apparently, you just need it in the vicinity of a cop and they could just die. like but It's like kryptonite. yeah It's totally not what they're just doing recreationally and they're blaming after the fact. That's not what it is. Don't look into it at all.
00:53:02
Speaker
i not They're not stealing coke that's laced from the drug lockup from evidence and then ODing. That's definitely not like what's happening. No, it's Havana syndrome.
00:53:12
Speaker
I've told you a million times. ah but But you're you're right. that I loved how you brought up about ah James's interpretation of that punch is so important, right?
00:53:24
Speaker
Because, you know, when we do see Paul's version of the event, you know, we like He punched the guy. Game over. you know like ah we We already hate him at that point, right? But we still see like his well-meaning attempts you know to be like, hey, I'm really sorry that I did that, but we'll just call it even.
00:53:42
Speaker
you know Like, we already hate the guy, right? But he's trying his best to, you know, like, be the good guy in that situation in quotation marks, right? And then when we see James' perspective, right, it's important that the punch happens and then, like, it fades up on him being so mad at Sink, right? Because that implies that in whatever state that James was in, whatever happened up until that point did not register with him.
00:54:06
Speaker
The only thing that registered with him was whatever he said in that moment, you know? at All the pleasantries, right, were meaningless. It doesn't matter how nice he approached it, right?
00:54:17
Speaker
and And when he's walking towards the police station later on to try to get the reward, you know, from his perspective, it's just like, yeah ah it's it's almost impossibly evil how he's just standing outside of the police station.
00:54:30
Speaker
And the ah Paul, he thinks he's going to rat on him. I think that's one of the best written parts of the film. Yeah, i love I love that, like, from Paul's perspective, like, ah this fucker's here again. Because, like, what his...
00:54:44
Speaker
plan to, if he chases James, to brutalize him more so he doesn't tell on him for for the other brutality that he did. you know It's like just like a no-hit scenario of like where he's youre like, you realize how stupid this guy is. Like, what what is your fucking plan? And i ah jumping around another way showing how dumb Paul is of like, okay, well, not that I'm rooting for a guy to cheat and get away with it but he doesn't even but he can't even like come up with any kind of believable lie or anything like as soon as his wife is home that he's just like ah e
00:55:31
Speaker
uh I mean yeah i guess he's in the double ah way because it's like and well he can't raised suspicion that he was out all night and because of the cheating, but then also the drinking thing because he's supposed to be sober. So it's like, yeah it's and that that that that does eliminate alibi when you could just be like, yeah, I was just out with the boys, you know, like having a drink. It was like, well, fuck, I can't say that. Yeah.
00:55:57
Speaker
p Yeah. I, yeah I, I gotta like, uh, before we even delve into that whole like cheating subplot, I just gotta throw a flag on the plate, not against you, but just to, you know, bring, bring a note to June Diane Raphael, you know, all accounts thing legends from this game made. Yeah.
00:56:16
Speaker
I mean, that that's the benefit of a comedy guy doing a movie like this is that they are allowing to like, you know, yes, you get some respected character actors in there. But then also you're like, well, I also want some comedy people to show up in it. I mean, and she's been in dramatic movies. She was in fucking Zodiac. She was a alemorre wife. ah Yeah, and that.
00:56:38
Speaker
ah But yeah, her deployment here was great. I mean, she really just gets a couple of seats, but you kind of understand everything about how not great that marriage must be and that she probably has...
00:56:51
Speaker
probably has the burden of being like the adult, you know, like, but it's just kind of like all the wives in this movie of like the on barely seeing Roland wife, June Diane Raphael.
00:57:01
Speaker
And then also Justin Long. Yeah. yeah I love that's one of my favorite cut to moments of like, but first he goes to her house like, Hey, can I see like your doorbell, your ring camera? She's like, I'm not comfortable with that.
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah. He like has out of dialogue options. Like if that was a video game, he's exhausted all the time. Like, all right, fuck. I was going go away. And then as soon as Justin Long comes home, he asks him the same question.
00:57:26
Speaker
And then cut to, after they're reviewing on computer, she's watching, she's just, standing there watching, like, looking so nice. It's like the the wives are completely not considered by any of these men in this at all. And I i love that, that that's, like, acknowledged. that Yeah, no, to these guys, their pain it is, but Paul's just having a really hard time, guys. Come on. Like, he's just, like, really, and and then just seems just, like, kind of throwing herself at, you know, it's not really his fault. That's my, my foot boy defense of, um,
00:58:01
Speaker
um but ah loves wet i Yeah, no, he's just trying to be ah good friend. That's why when a girl and but girls just texts you, hey, like that, with no other message in the thing, and you go to meet her at a bar, like, what do you think you're going there to do? You know, it's like, there's not an outcome where he gets to be virtuous there. and Like, yeah I just need to support my friend. It's like,
00:58:28
Speaker
you You know what she's looking for when she said that and you showing up is you're signifying that, yeah, okay, I'll give that to you. Well, like, we got to jump into the details of this affair because I think it's, like, a really important thing to analyze, you know, because it it did talks about, like,
00:58:44
Speaker
the The filmmaking is kind of rooted in how, like, this is handled almost, you know? Like, everything is approached in this kind of way. But to kind of go go into it, you know, first, like, she recognizes him after she, like, tries to report the witch being written on her car in red paint, right?
00:59:02
Speaker
Which Archer, Josh Brolin's character obviously did. We know that because we see the paint fans later on at a film. But when it comes to that, right, i like the fact that which is written on her car is important to me because it's an allusion to the Scarlet Letter, right?
00:59:17
Speaker
And I have reason to believe that that's the case because obviously in that story, the Scarlet Letter was meant to ah you know, ah symbolize adultery, right? And of course, she's at the police station with the witch thing and that's how she gets the eye of ah Paul and hence why they have that dinner date and then, you know, adultery.
00:59:35
Speaker
but anyway Because they already had a thing prior to this, right? Like that's the, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But also like the narrative of the the narrative of the Scarlet ah Letter, right? Is this woman is essentially like ostracized within the community due to adultery, right?
00:59:50
Speaker
Like she's seen as, ah you know, like a ah wrecker almost within this community because of her promiscuity. And this film is linking that struggle with how Justine is, ah you know, blamed for the disappearance of his children, right?
01:00:05
Speaker
So the fact that it then also also becomes an adultery thing is interesting to me. And then when we get to the actual bar, right, the fact that she pressures him to drink, um like that's like the first red flag for me to think that Justine's probably not that great of a person, right?
01:00:20
Speaker
Because... regardless Regardless of their situation, right? In her mind, she sees him come in and he says that he's single, so she can only take him out of his word, whatever, right? That makes sense in that moment.
01:00:33
Speaker
So that when, you know, what happens happens later, ah you know, is all the more shocking, you know. Put that aside, right? The fact that she pressures him to drink, you know, we don't know if he's an alpha. alcoholic and that's why he's not drinking anymore.
01:00:46
Speaker
So it's just at this moment she's pressuring this guy to do that, right? If that it was what was happening. Yeah, but also we don't know that at that moment, right? ah yeah At that moment she's just somebody pressuring somebody to drink. It's so early in the march the movie, right?
01:01:01
Speaker
And the things that she does right after that as well would also lead us to believe that she's not that great of a person. We can get into that a bit later. But when it comes to that moment, right, she's pressuring the guy to drink, right? When he's saying that he doesn't want to drink.
01:01:14
Speaker
That itself is a pretty, like, that's a boundary step, right? That's immediately invalidated when we then re-watch that scene and we realize that Paul never really cared about that at all. He walked into that conversation knowing he wanted to fuck.
01:01:27
Speaker
Right. and And probably thinking I could use a drink, you know, when he shows up to the bar based on everything that's that and going on with him. they that Yeah, the that's he is. He wasn't misled or, are and you know, forced it into anything like that's what he showed up to do. Exactly, but the film at the front tricks you into thinking that perhaps he was pressured into it, right, in some way, right?
01:01:56
Speaker
But we know not by the end of the film. hello on man Because she's a witch. She's a witch. Me. But ah um also, um just ah going off that, when she wakes him up with the ah Harry Nilsson song, Gotta Get Up, right? Gotta Get Up. That song.
01:02:15
Speaker
It's just amazing. and and we've We've got to also, like, talk about how great the music is just in general. Like, the fact that, like, when the children disappear, we get, like, that George Harrison song.
01:02:27
Speaker
Like, this audio is really, like, Yeah. Like that moment is meant to be played as like almost profound, but we're watching the death of children. What the fuck? Cracker is like, just like trying his best to hit a whole lump, you know, and somehow he did it, you know, but it sells it in that moment. Things that really shouldn't work together. It really works together. It, It gives the whole thing this, ah because we've talked about how, well, that that you kind of browned the the story in the believable emotions of of the people in this community, but how things just kind of feel off.
Propaganda and Authority Critique
01:03:02
Speaker
from the get-go, and that it just has this kind of almost storybook feel down to the narrator, who's like, you know, a little girl that we don't see, who's not a character. I don't want to forget to mention her because also as soon as she starts narrating and saying this is a true story, that's when my the Toby Hooper bell goes off in my brain. I'm like, oh, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Like, you know, like I love, love, love pretty much any time a movie that's the the the Well, the exception is that some of so of the like bad exorcism horror possession things that are like try saying that this is true story in a way to like ah ah lionize ah some... Ellie Lorraine Warren?
01:03:43
Speaker
Yeah. Don't look into Ed's past, guys. Trust us. This is the true story. Don't look into Ed specifically. Don't look into anyone who he might have had living in home when she was under age. so so That's... Don't. Definitely don't.
01:04:01
Speaker
Don't. Although that same cast in a movie about the real Ed and Lorraine would go really hard. James Wan should do that after this will be The Last Conjuring. Then just be like, ah, actually, these guys are fucking boning.
01:04:14
Speaker
He's in Metafiles. You want to see the real story? No exaggeration. That's like one of the best pitches for movies I've heard in a long time. Like literally James Wan just being like, oh, yeah.
01:04:24
Speaker
i I've got one more left in me. And we said this was the last chapter. No, we got one more. And you still, but you can, you can do both at the same time of being like, yes, demons are real and they're, they're doing yeah like, but also they're sex criminals.
01:04:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:47
Speaker
yeah but But to go off what you're saying with the little girl at the beginning of the film with the narration, right? I love that the narration contradicts itself by the end, you know, not to spoil things too much, right? There are things that it sets up, you know, in that narration as definitive truth. But then by the time you get to the end of the film, you realize that what they said wasn't entirely like on its face true, right?
01:05:11
Speaker
And also ah one thing I wanted to point to in that narration specifically was... um When they're talking to Alex, right, about what happened, right?
01:05:22
Speaker
it does The film game makes some point to say that the only thing that they asked him was if he was inspired by what he saw on television. And I think that that's a really important thing to signpost right now for what this film is about later on.
01:05:35
Speaker
you want to get into that now? Because that just gave me the thought of, like, when, when ah I mean... the most I know there's been 50 billion schools shooting since then, but you know I was still young enough to remember how huge Colin buying a deal that was. And the kind of debate that that kick-started of like, yeah, were these kids inspired? I mean, they had like heavy this heavy metal music they were listening to, and then also they were like playing Doom or whatever. like Was the video games like make them kill all these people?
01:06:07
Speaker
And I'm here to say, folks, if video games did did that to you, I and killed so many fish. Oh, God. that was That was the case.
01:06:18
Speaker
If anything, games are probably... Confessions podcast. If anything, games are probably ah preventing murders because it gives people like a safe outlet to like, yeah you know, like kind of exercise those like impulses and negative ah ah like feelings. You're just like, yeah, i'm just to go on a GTA killing screen. Then I'm all good. My anger is gone.
01:06:39
Speaker
ah Well, I can tell you from experience. I can tell you from experience, you know, I've had many, ah you know strange sleepovers when I was in like, you know, elementary school, you know, where you you sometimes play rated games, you know, with some people and you see how they react, right?
01:06:55
Speaker
And you're like, they kind of needed that, you know? can't. They kind of needed that. out you're You're on the money, right? Where it's like, you know, there there is no media really that can truly inspire that unless it's something that's trying to teach something, right?
01:07:10
Speaker
Like a video game is not really like teaching you anything, but it's game mechanics. Right. And you're buying into that world. Right. And there's a separation between fiction and reality. And only the people who have issues like discerning fiction from reality, ah you know, have problems with, you know, that connection.
01:07:27
Speaker
You brought up Columbine and that's exactly something that is brought up in that circumstance. And you'll. as well as many other school shootings where people are inspired by those things, but they also had underlying concerns beforehand, right?
01:07:38
Speaker
um But anyways, in Weapons' case, right, I think it's interesting to point out that this movie is about, like, one individual who knows what they're doing, is feasting off of the energy that they're inspiring, right?
01:07:52
Speaker
And when while they're doing this, while they're inspiring all this stuff, and they're not even doing a great job hiding it, right? Everybody is so blind and distracted by their own shit that they can't accurately talk about the issue, right?
01:08:06
Speaker
Just like, from a broad point standpoint, you know, just... looking at what happens in weapons from that conversation point, right? I view this film very much so about right-wing radicalization, like the Trump era, right?
01:08:20
Speaker
How, you know, these things, ah you know, that persist through like proxy pundits, you know, like Charlie Kirk's or Andrew Tate's, you know, these are, these are things that exist that just fumble under the water, right?
01:08:31
Speaker
And ultimately, ah because they're supported by people in power, you know, we aren't equipped with the right vocabulary to ah accurately like address these things, right?
01:08:43
Speaker
and And what weapons is doing is indirectly calling attention to those elements, in my opinion. I mean, yeah, I think you hit it right on the head. i mean, especially down to calling it weapons. And I've already, I don't know if other people are talking about the movie this way, like when someone's like possessed or being influenced, referring to them being weaponized.
01:09:03
Speaker
Because like, yeah, it's, but that's kind of like what those right wing pundits are doing besides providing cover for like the active fascism take, takeover is that they're like redirecting. It's kind of, and they're, they're, they're stoking everyone's fear and anger, but then making sure it deflects to not, you know, like, no, don't look here. It's over here that you need to be,
01:09:28
Speaker
this these are you This is the problem and who you need to be upset at. And and that best you're you're weaponizing, the turning people against each other. I mean, she even says at one point when she's making that super scary threatening speech to to Alex of like, I could make them eat each other if I wanted to. And that's kind of, i mean, that's a America right that we've been made to the did to eat each other and said,
01:09:52
Speaker
set against each other. Another thing that I was ah reading this movie is about with the witch character ah specifically that I was thinking about Eggers Nosferatu and like how yeah that movie there's a juxtaposition of how like proper European society just has no way to you know like they're they're the pomp and circumstance and you know performance of manners doesn't leave room to like an actual like demonic malevolent entity who disregards all of that, you know, that like that they had just have, ah you know, it's kind of like how the Aaron Taylor Johnson character and that just like does not know what to make of It's just like, what the fuck are you talking about? It is like and but the the high society in that is just can't even comprehend what's going on. where This it's like, i think,
01:10:49
Speaker
One of the my favorite scenes, I loved any scene with, them I blanking on um his name, the the the principal, Benedict Wong. Oh, yeah. We got a name later, but yeah.
01:11:02
Speaker
Yeah. So and when she comes to his house, and if you already have seen, like from Jussie's perspective, that he does get weaponized and is sent after her. But I love the, the the you know, the arrival of her at the house. And props to him, he did not want to let her in He was like, ah ah you know, whether he just had a bad feeling, I think a lot of it was just down to the professionalness of him of like, no, that's not right.
01:11:27
Speaker
I can't let you in my home. Like, that's not prop. But then even as these keep escalating, he's still acquiescing to her even before he's like, take it over in terms of like, she's like, yeah, can I get a bowl of water?
01:11:39
Speaker
And I like that she doesn't even like try to really rationalize. She even says like, yeah, it's just just my thing. Like i don't even try and rationalize it anymore. and And like right there, you should be like asking questions of like, hold on lady.
01:11:52
Speaker
boy What is this bowl for? but Who are you? like we We got to talk about her now. Her name is Gladys, right? And like in my and my eyes, like, you know, she is one-to-one Trump almost, you know?
01:12:07
Speaker
Like she she has the red hair, you know, she is the senile old person who is always imposing, right? Knows it and doesn't care, right? And there's a magnetism brought by her presence that people can't look away from. And they almost encourage because she's so entertaining, right?
01:12:24
Speaker
But like the more that they let her speak, the more that they let her invite her in, the more she just imposes and poses and poses until she takes everything, right? and And we see that with songs that she won't leave. Exactly. She like, vice grips, right? Because she feasts off of it. She's a vampire, but for attention, you know?
01:12:42
Speaker
In the War of the Worlds remake with Ice Cube, you know, that they got up, right? But she, like, souls, you know? So when it comes to, ah you know... Eric Wong's character, right? I think that you bring him up at at the perfect time because he is almost like the the perfect like representation of like neoliberalism, right?
01:13:01
Speaker
Where he's super reasonable. he's He's always, like and I say reasonable quotations, right Because he's doing everything like above board, right? And I say that because like he's reprimanding Justine early on in the film for like driving a kid home from school and hugging another kid.
01:13:16
Speaker
right? Again, weaponized like ah things against one another, right? That was probably something that like a parent complained about one time or something because, you know, why are you touching my kid? ah Like, maybe the kid needed... um Now it was important because people are blaming you for all these missing kids and...
01:13:33
Speaker
And then like all the stuff like her past, she was let go from another school. Like, like those are just like human things that like, yeah, she's maybe had messy relationships before with people she shouldn't, with adults she shouldn't have had before. like, it's not, uh, nothing like child abuse or any lines like that were actually crossed. But yeah, I mean, yeah, teachers aren't allowed to touch kids, but like, it's not like she was hugging him malevolently. You know, that's just like, you can tell that they're probably just like instinctively that she wanted to comfort someone. She's literally reprimanded for caring too much, right? And, you know, while in reality, you know, I think that both of us would agree that like a teacher hugging a kid is probably actually crossing a line,
Exploration of Teacher-Student Boundaries
01:14:16
Speaker
right?
01:14:16
Speaker
Yeah. In some ways, right? And they're like, oh, finally... someone agrees with me, I should be touching my kids. No, don't do it. Finally, I'm a tactile learner. But but no, and it was like I think what's interesting is that was a really dark joke. I apologize. But when it comes to her specifically with crossing those lines, when she's talking to Alex early on in the film, right, when she's like following him home and like stopping him in the street, right?
01:14:45
Speaker
She is crossing massive lines when she's doing that. And then that moment without the context of what happens later in the film and as an audience, we don't know if we can trust her. You know, she's sitting outside of their house drinking alcohol and passing out.
01:14:58
Speaker
You know, that's not really a trustworthy person. So then going back to Benedict Wong's character, right, he seems almost kind of justified in in not trusting Justine so much, right, in in putting up that wall, right?
01:15:11
Speaker
But then it's also that same kind of, like, politeness that he afforded Gladys in that that first meeting that then becomes his undoing later where he can't put the foot down against his ah husband, you know, who is who is totally in the right way welcome her in because he's just being nice, you know?
01:15:28
Speaker
But at the same time... ah It's an old lady who wants water. we got to talk about the snacking in this movie because because what what is the deal with Benedict and his partner just like eating all the time? They're eating three pebbles. They got hot dogs, carrots, chips, you know. oh I love it. I'm not complaining, you know.
01:15:48
Speaker
But isn't but it's it's almost like the Strange Darling pancake, and but um but almost better. Almost better, yeah. I do love that pancake couple in Strange Darling, but... Yeah. Yeah. it's so It's almost like they went to the brads ah Brad Pitt School of Acting where it's like you just got to be eating something always.
01:16:07
Speaker
Every scene. They got an active mouth, you know? If they're not moving that mouth, you know, something's going wrong, you know? It's a tick, a nervous tick. Yeah, but i love i love that scene so much when she comes to Benedict Wong's house.
01:16:20
Speaker
And then the shot, because it's like, you can put, you know, once the your pieces are starting to fall into place, like not fully, but she has revealed... Her nature to a degree of like, we're starting to see the the mechanics of how she does what she does.
01:16:35
Speaker
And you're like, okay, well, between this happening and when when he runs at Justine, the husband's probably not leaving this scene alive. But i would i wasn't going to guess that he's just going to keep headbutting him until there was no more face.
01:16:51
Speaker
just like fucking is is ter it's like yeah do weapon you know somes a gentle big guy but like yeah but like that who's probably in his life never done anything that aggressive ever is just suddenly a switch is turned off and that he can just obliterate someone and by it was ah so gnarly I I just got to say, i love the fact that he's wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt and his husband's wearing a Minnie Mouse shirt, you know, and the fact that that's the shirt that he's wearing when he's like coming after Dressine, you know, because because like, a you know, like that's a very rare thing to see just like Mickey Mouse in a horror context like this, unless you're watching like those terrible Steamboat Willie movies they're making now.
01:17:33
Speaker
ah But when it comes to like just seeing like that kind of iconic character in that grisly moment, you know, I'm not an IT guy, but at the same time, it's like that means something. it's It's a corruption of Americana that we're watching in that moment in a way, you know, and and and I like that, you know, and then also just like then the look of Benedict Wong when he's got those. Yeah. eye Eyes, oh you know, doubt eyes. Yeah. And the blood's just covering his face as he's running, you know, doing the Sonic Adventure Battle 2 run, you know, coming after her.
01:18:04
Speaker
and and and And going back to what I was saying earlier about Psycho, you know, the moment in the film when Archer confronts for her and we see the the first time, the Benedict Wong thing, it happens like at 30 minutes in the movie. It's like almost the same point in which the shower scene happens in Psycho.
01:18:21
Speaker
And in my eyes, like, because because we do that and then we go to Paul at that moment, right? It's doing the same thing in Psycho where we're following one character predominantly. You know, we are seeing Archer as well up until that point.
01:18:33
Speaker
But ah at that point, we understand that she's the justine as the protagonist the film. Right. And in Psycho, ah you know, we we believe, I forget the name of the actress, Jimmy Lee Curtis's mother, ah you know I'm talking about.
01:18:47
Speaker
Yeah, it was Marion or something. there other cra comp that but That's the initial big protagonist. the who Exactly. I always forget how long you stay with her. of like that this You're just like, oh yeah, this is just a ah Hitchcock crime thing. She's stealing this money and and it it it's not speeding to get there. so that I can only imagine how audiences in the 60s would have just like fucking lost their shit. of Like, what?
01:19:15
Speaker
He's dead now. And also, right, if we're making the psycho comparisons even further, right, we've already been introduced to Benedict Wong as a character, right? And if we're imagining him as Anthony Perkins, the psycho, right, we are now watching the subversion of the character that we had first been introduced to now in this moment, right?
01:19:33
Speaker
The shower sequence... more so works only in hindsight because then we figure out who Norman is, right? But in this moment, we are seeing this character who has been only shown to us as like one of the most reasonable people in the room, right?
01:19:47
Speaker
And now he's running at her like he's going killer, right? And it's it's just such an amazing use of Steadicam, you know, and what we're seeing, Benedict Wong running towards her later on in the film, right?
Film Adaptation Discussions and Directors
01:19:59
Speaker
One of my favorite deployments ah that you can do in a horror film is raising the shutter speed. and And when they raise the shutter speed on Benedict Wong running through like ah picnics, and and down the street, you know? Like, yeah all of a sudden, it just becomes a David Slade film, and you're just like, yeah, this is why i'm watching the movies.
01:20:17
Speaker
this This is exactly, i'm I'm locked the fuck in. i Benedict Wong just, like, running through a shit. Like, when I think about it, it just makes me excited to watch it again. I can't wait to watch this again. Yeah, I'm really excited for it. And i would also say that like that moment in Psycho, because that's like when it becomes a different kind of movie. You you alluded to the moment like when we see the scissor scene, because that tells us there is some kind of supernatural larger thing going on. ah but But then to see that that's like kind of confrontational. that we're in a whole different ballgame with Benedict Wong of like, okay, well, if this guy this guy wasn't nefarious or in on anything before, if he's now been turned into this, then that this is like something like ah at a whole new level.
01:21:03
Speaker
So like that that's that's a nice parallel there. ah What a fuck good fucking movie. if If his Resident Evil movie is half as good as like his other stuff, then we're in for, I mean, by default, it would just be the best. I was trying to think about, I'll talk about this with Fred's the other night of like, what even is the best video game of just movies? Because I know there's like some yeah TV, like the Fallout show is pretty solid, but like if we're just sticking with like movies. Yeah.
01:21:32
Speaker
I guess I would go to the Silent Hill movie. ah Yeah, by default. Yeah, by default. I mean, there's ones I find compelling, like the original live-action Mario Brothers movie is like a thing I'm glad exists. And it it only grows, my fondness of it only grows, especially like when the recent bad Mario Brothers movie came out. i was like, oh, I couldn't have been like the really weird one. Yeah.
01:21:58
Speaker
you're You're totally right. It's like a cultural artifact. That Mario movie is amazing. You know, it's made by the guy who did, what was it? It was that MTV guy, ah like a the guy with the slick back hair. He almost was plastic. ah He kind of stuttered when he talked. I'm i'm losing his his name. Do you know who I'm referring to It's like... I mean, wasn't it like a ah husband and wife? Yeah.
01:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's a husband and wife duo, but they came up with this music video like introducing kind of character. like I want to say it's like Max, maybe, like something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a very... Max Hedrum. Exactly. They came up with Max Hedrum. And and and the fact you can actually like draw the parallel between Max Hedrum and that film, which I think is really interesting.
01:22:45
Speaker
and And obviously, there are a lot of things like Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Hopper. denni hopper playing King Koopa, you know? and like He's just an amazing thing to watch in it, but you're right that the best video game adaptation is the Silent Hill film, even if like it needs another re-edit.
01:23:02
Speaker
You know, Sean Bean doesn't even need to be in a film, really. You just cut all that stuff out. um The thing is, is that you're going to need it because I'm like, oh, Sean Bean, GoldenEye, or whatever. I was a fan of Sean.
01:23:14
Speaker
I feel like I just came out of the womb liking Sean Bean. don't remember like what a movie I saw that made me like him, but at this Probably Goldeneye because that was like a formative young, young movie. Maybe Lord of the Rings?
01:23:26
Speaker
But yeah, that would have been like, I was already fully on, but I already like, yeah, I was, I was glad to see him in Lord of the Rings because I'm like, okay, good. He's here. Yeah. But, uh, you know, like new game adaptations, you know, uh, one thing I wanted to point to, this is just kind an aside where, where,
01:23:41
Speaker
I'll bring it back to Resident Evil after this because this is just something I wanted to say. So Until Dawn was made into a movie, right? and yeah I need to see the movie still. I like the game lot.
01:23:52
Speaker
Yeah, same. yeah Like, I think the game is great and I think that it makes sense that it should have been made into a film. But the thing that really annoyed me was that it was directed by the Lights Out guy, right? And I think this should have been directed by Larry Fezzenden because Larry Fezzenden helped make the games. Yeah.
01:24:07
Speaker
And I was like, Larry Pesadon should have directed that movie. And that would have been like a yeah big step up in terms of like, hey, he's working at a studio, you know, and then B also like he helped me make it. He he knows the story. he he And he was in the game itself as an actor, you know, like I think that would have been a cooler, you know, way of adapting that story, at least in my eyes.
01:24:30
Speaker
When it comes to, like, Zack Greger's acumen being somebody to helm Resident Evil, right? um I think that he's somebody who evokes, like, the early PS1, PS2 days, you know, from, like, Resident Evil 1 2 in terms of, like, the static backgrounds, ah you know, like, fixed camera angles.
01:24:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. The thing that Criter comes at horror in a similar way where it's like you're presented something and it finds a way to like represent it in a way that you wouldn't expect it, you know, and I'd almost compare it to Eternal Darkness in that way as well. That's one of my favorite games of all time.
01:25:06
Speaker
um Have you played that once? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, id be I never finished it because it scared the shit out me. It was like too... And then the scariest part was when it faked me out thinking it had erased my memory card. and I was like, oh, fuck, all my games. Those game mechanics are so fucking cool. like ah The fact that no other game has tried to do the things that it did in Eternal Darkness just blows my mind.
01:25:32
Speaker
I feel like outside of Metal Gear Solid, like, yeah, what games even try and mess with the player on a meta level of, like, ah like they're and and I don't mean, like, meta within the narrative of, like, some, like, maybe someone in the game knows they're in a game, but, like, yeah, actually, like, yeah, like, Metal Gear Solid, you have to look at the back of the CD case or, you know, Psycho Mantis reads your memory card.
01:25:53
Speaker
Like, I can't, I can't, outside of Eternal Darkness, I can't think of, like, other games that even try and, like, ah ah do that. Yeah, it's really they've really ah it considers the player's experience in a way that many games just don't, right? And I think that ah Resident Evil, especially in those early entries, are famous for doing so.
01:26:14
Speaker
You know, like there's some bullshit puzzles. There's some bullshit, you know, like deaths because the controls suck at times, you know? Yeah. But at the same time, it's all very intentional, right? And when we talk about Zack Greger's work in ah weapons, I think that we get the same kind of intentionality.
01:26:31
Speaker
I think that ah his approach to horror weans really well to experiential. And while we've talked at length already, and I'm sure we'll keep going on in terms of what this film means, I think that it just from a standpoint of pushing the narrative forward in the most interesting way possible, um it resembles a video game in a way that doesn't feel condescending.
01:26:52
Speaker
And I will always say that video games are, are, you know, they are, are. Absolutely. And I think, I think that Craigers understands that as well and doesn't, I i don't get the impression that, ah you know, him doing a Resident Evil film is him like ah going down a level.
01:27:11
Speaker
i feel like if anything, it shows that there's somebody who has a voice that might actually do something cool with it. Because back in the day, you know, when an interesting director would do a property, they would have the freedom to do what they wanted.
01:27:25
Speaker
You know, that was the norm. But that isn't the case anymore. bor Well, it's not a pricey anymore than asterisk now. Yeah, with an asterisk because like the norm is like the like, well, yes, we need this to be a hit with these demographics or it needs to be a four-quadrant hit, but we really got to make sure the fandom, like all that there's all this fandom catering with all these large properties.
01:27:48
Speaker
And the most promising things that Craig has said so far is that He's like, yeah, I'm not adapting any of the games directly. Like, Leon Kennedy is not going to be the star of any of this. And I'm like, good.
01:28:01
Speaker
that this is like yeah but He correctly said the story of those games you can experience in the game. So, like, why i take the ideas or or some kind of...
01:28:12
Speaker
ah the mechanics in some way, how can you translate that into an interesting filmmaking experience? And I think he probably has a lot of good ideas. i mean, there's a lot, there's a lot of different influences we can point to between this and Barbarian. I mean, yeah, he pointed out, uh, PTA and Magnolia for, for weapons, but I definitely see some Ramey in them.
01:28:36
Speaker
Uh, yeah. I, i He cited the Coen brothers raising Arizona as ah as an inspiration for Barbarian. um and I could definitely you see that a little bit of that and in in weapons also. ah but But like someone who has all these different inspiration points and it isn't just, I like this video game. I'm sure he likes the Resident Evil games and or he wouldn't have like taken the the job. But like it the that that he's going to,
01:29:06
Speaker
I'm sick of all these properties where like the only take is like, hey, remember this thing we liked or like, yeah, I was really like, I really like X property and it's like, okay, but like, what do you have a thing to say beyond that? And I think Zach Craig or Will.
01:29:20
Speaker
Yeah, and and like he even announced this week that there's a chance that he may do a DC film about henchmen in the Batman universe, right? That sounds cool, no yeah. It does sound kind of cool, and I hate superhero films, and I think the reason that he's able to like bring that up is because James Gunn is fucking cool, and but you may actually get some real like artists making cool movies, you know?
01:29:43
Speaker
That's what it really is at the end of the day, right? is As long as there is the structure for interesting artists to make ah like good films ethically, right? There shouldn't be an issue with those kinds of movies.
01:29:56
Speaker
The problem with what happened with the MCU is A, they're like doing things that are against what would be allowed on regular sets, right? And A, they're just not really well considered, right?
01:30:08
Speaker
So when you have somebody like Gregor who is promising working on these IPs and taking these directions, I see it to bring up his name again. Like if Peele were to do that, right?
01:30:19
Speaker
Like Peele didn't make that Twilight Zone. He just attached his name to it, right? But I'm sure if Peele actually tried to make his own Twilight Zone, it would be amazing. It would be like exactly what a Jordan Peele Twilight Zone should be and not a Simon Kinneberg one with his name on it, you know?
Reception and Interpretation of 'Weapons'
01:30:35
Speaker
And the thing is, is that um It's all about focus, tension, and providing the space. And I think that Craigor, as a filmmaker, especially with barbarian and weapons, known that he's an incredibly intelligent, well-considered filmmaker.
01:30:48
Speaker
one that One who, ah while understands what business things strike the right bells, because obviously weapons and barbarian are still commercial films, um and I still think that he... um he's he's not sacrificing the opportunity to be honest.
01:31:07
Speaker
And I think that that's something that we undervalue a lot, which is with filmmakers in general, you know? Like, we we can get into, like, how this film has been received at the end of this. I don't feel like it's appropriate to talk about with the film itself.
01:31:19
Speaker
But I feel like there's been a lot of, like, willful ah ignorance in terms of, like, approaching Craig's intentions as well as his, you know, perspective, you know? And I think that, um,
01:31:33
Speaker
All that his storytelling approach tells me is that we ah are entering into a space that perhaps ah more interpretation can happen. And perhaps if that does happen, um it would be a better place for everyone.
01:31:54
Speaker
And I saw this in another negative review of weapons talking about that. It's like, oh, oh, no. ah You know, ah a woman who looks like she was made up in a John Waters movie. They're coming to get your children. and but I think you could engage that imagery in in the film, but like not in a way where i actually think that makes the film better because it's maybe playing to like in the same way where Eddington, these conservative fears are like, you know, made manifest in like a boogeyman that it's like, yeah, Aunt Gladys could, you could have some kind of read of her as that of like,
01:32:37
Speaker
some some kind of like fake vaguely queer coded woman stealing children but like and that's you know concern in the same way of like the liberal teacher you know indoctrinating your kids of like no here's the actual witch but she's some you know kooky lady with all this crazy makeup and then your kids are going to come back not normal but then this movie but making it literal is like almost like that yeah everyone's fears manifested this because it's like in all ways all this has to mean something for all these people who've had need this figured out. Like the way that Archer, ah Josh Brolin's characters, like drawing these lines of like where they were going.
01:33:18
Speaker
That can easily just be the, the ramblings of a, of a lunatic trying to make sense of it, of, of something like it could just be, you remove the supernatural from this movie. It could just be like a serious man scenario where everyone wants this, all this, these things to mean something. And it's like,
01:33:34
Speaker
i Maybe it means nothing. don't know. But but but yeah, that because all the these fears have like taken physical form, it does lead to ah them. like It's almost like a confirmation of their fears.
01:33:48
Speaker
But I don't read that as the film saying like that those are valid, real things that we should be worried about. But in the Eddington way of like showing on its face of like, but you see how ridiculous this is? Do you think there's like a witch like taking your kids and stuff?
Horror Themes: Aging, Regret, and Childhood Perspectives
01:34:03
Speaker
like that's Because that's what this is and it's showing you the mood.
01:34:07
Speaker
Do you think that's happening? Is that what you think is happening right now? ah that's that That's why i i think you could have that read of the Edglas character because she's d is very entertaining, very funny, probably like the funniest stuff, a lot of funniest stuff in the movie comes from it. But she's also legit scary. and It shows to Kregers' masterful control of tone that it can be both within the same scene of of of of that character. But but sorry, you you had something you want to say about her?
01:34:39
Speaker
No, I just wanted to build off of what you were saying because you were just hitting the nail on the head. ah The thing is is that ah there is a valid reason to interpret you know perhaps elements of her performance as problematic specifically from the lens of misogyny, right? Yeah.
01:34:54
Speaker
And the reason I point to that is because it's also rooted in exploitation, right? She's fucking going Betty Davis and whatever happened Baby Jane in this movie, right? Oh, absolutely, yeah. And, like, honestly, I think there needs to be more space for that.
01:35:11
Speaker
I think that we need more fucking crazy women on screen. And the reason why is because men get all the fun, you know, like even though ah the whole fucking long legs discourse happened where like we could argue about whether or not it's transphobic or not. Right.
01:35:27
Speaker
Like Nicolas Cage never got any pushback from that. Right. He never got like like in the way that he performed it. Right. Right. Like it was only from the page. And like, it's not to say that like ah anyone's going after Amy Madigan for her performance in weapons. Right.
01:35:42
Speaker
But at the same time, i feel like there is a permission structure in place for when guys go in these places that are outside of the realms of traditional acceptability that is just is not there for women.
01:35:55
Speaker
And specifically in this case, right, like Amy is using age age in a way that, like, Ty West weaponizes age in X, right? Oh, my God, yeah. Like, we could talk about whether or not that film is successful in doing that. and And personally, I think X is a great movie.
01:36:14
Speaker
think it's the best Ty West that I've seen. i think there was, like, some segment he did on an anthology thing I haven't seen, but, like, of of that trilogy, X is the strongest.
01:36:25
Speaker
And X was a time where it it strikes that balance of... ah Pearl and her husband are scary, but then there's, it's also extremely sad because you can tell like, of like, there's this, this like longing for like, oh oh what we used to have or like, did we miss out on you know, we, you know, we could have been like the these kids, but now because they're like resent that this leads to the resentment of, oh, we need to fucking murder these, these kids now because it's like, they're doing, they're being free in a way we never could be.
01:37:01
Speaker
And I think that's thematically rich. Yeah. And in that I think film should have room to explore those kind of ideas. One thousand percent. and and And in order to like understand that element of Gladys, like we need to see it from the prism of Alex, because like the way that Alex interprets Gladys' intentions is very interesting because, A, we see like the way that she takes the lives of his parents.
01:37:26
Speaker
but which is like a horrifying, like, so the best horror in this film is the fork stabbing in the face. And the reason that's so great and effective is because like, and from Alex's perspective, you're watching these people who are the people, like you're watching the parents who are the arbiters of power above him reduced to nothing. He is now the caretaker in that moment, right?
01:37:48
Speaker
where they can no longer understand what's right for them. And he has to step up in that way far too young. And also another thing, it draws a parallel to a classic horror film. Have you ever seen ah Bob Balaban's parents?
01:38:00
Speaker
No, no, I haven't. Do you know that film? I know Bob Balaban. I don't know. I don't know if I know parents. like It's one of the only movies he ever directed, and it's starring Randy Quaid.
01:38:11
Speaker
that I should tell you enough on that. ah that the The pitch for that movie, and the reason I'm bringing this movie up will become very apparent very soon, but that film is told from this perspective of a child who understands and realizes that his parents are cannibals.
01:38:27
Speaker
hero yeah He knows that that's a problem, right? But the parents are trying to teach him how to be a cannibal, right? So that film is playing off of the like fears of a child ah not trusting their parents entirely, right? And I think that ah Gladys, as a character in this film, occupies a similar space where it's like, while she is sick, is weak in ways, right? That emphasizes Alex like to her, right? That's why we're able to see Gladys' humanity in those moments, right?
01:38:57
Speaker
However, when we then start to see like the negative aspects of her and like the parasitic ways that she operates, right? um Because we're watching it from a child's perspective, we're able to more easily contextualize it, more easily accept it.
01:39:12
Speaker
I brought up the black phone earlier when talking about Robert Cargill. And I feel like both films kind of operate in that same way where it's like a child having to process that information. And the thing about children and humans in general is that they're able to accept their circumstances ah very quickly, right? Especially friday if there're if they're in a position that's really tough, they find a way to acclimate to it very quickly.
01:39:34
Speaker
And that's what we see with Alex in this film. Like he just becomes the custodian of this misogynist. you have to feed them soup, which was like, that's what takes the film to a whole nother level because it's like, oh yeah, we're actually seeing the logistics of only does he have to feed his parents to keep them alive, but then I didn't even consider like, oh yeah, the classmates too need to eat and be maintained. And the fact that she is doing no effort into this, like that, those are like her
01:40:07
Speaker
her her blood bags for like your access to life force. And it's like, you think that she would care enough to like, it was like, no, I'm leaving this child in charge of that because I could not be bothered to, to, to, to deal with this. And it's interesting because it's like, yeah,
01:40:26
Speaker
I forget who originally came up with this concept, probably someone smart, but good that like parents are our first conception of God because it's like everything, there are window to all information and we kind of just have to take them, you know, they're the first, they're the main authority and they inform people.
01:40:45
Speaker
everything about our reality oh gladys shows up she's killed god or at least kneecapped him and now you know he's the i mean that's kind of like what i see in his face is like the terror of of of of a guy you of like when he's he he he can like he's not it's a great performance by this kid because it doesn't overplay some like like like weepy like ah like but he's like He clearly terrified, like you could see it in his eyes and, and, and the concern for, cause it's not just like, yeah, he loves his parents and wants them restored, but it's also the idea of like, well, now there's no safety net.
01:41:28
Speaker
They've been taken, it you take them out of the equation and what is here to protect me? Nothing. It's just me and her now Gladys becomes the safety net. Gladys offers some level of comfort to him, right?
01:41:41
Speaker
There's a routine present when he is serving her, right? He goes to the supermarket, he buys those Campbell's soup, he comes home, he feeds those kids and his parents, and that's his duties, that's it, right?
01:41:53
Speaker
It's a couple of extra steps to whatever life he was leading before, right? But like it's so traumatic in just the fact that he has to care for all of these people who don't care about him. on one hand with the other kids, right? Because we see how they bully him, right?
01:42:07
Speaker
And there's the other element, right? Where he worships his parents, you know? And that's one of the things I love about the filmmaking in this movie, right? Is when we are introduced to Alex as a character, right? We see it like how he's bullied at school all day, right?
01:42:20
Speaker
He goes into the parking lot and then his dad is there and he's like... Hey, champ, how's it going? He's like right there. His dad is on time. he's there for him. and The same can't be said about the other parents, as we've already talked about with Josh Brolin and Archer, right?
01:42:34
Speaker
He didn't say I love you enough to his kid. And his kid was one of the ones bullying ah fucking Alex. Yeah, so the odds that are he was a bad dad. Exactly.
01:42:45
Speaker
how that How that kid was turning out that that he wasn't he wasn't super present or yeah are there for it. And yeah, it's it's such a sick inversion like home and family are supposed to be sources of of safety and warmth and all that's inversed and taken away. But like you said, like it's Gladys still presents some kind of safety in the routine in the way that like a lot of abusers do do in order to be able to keep their tendrils in you of like, yeah, no, if but if you leave me, then what do you have? And it's like, i I do love that like once she's gone, everyone's not magically restored. Like almost like that she's drained them to too much or...
01:43:30
Speaker
ah maybe brain damage from only eating the been minimal amounts of soup required in addition to whatever Gladys was doing to them of like, you know, there's the narration it says like ah parents had to go where they're fed soup by someone else. so like they were institutionalized.
01:43:46
Speaker
And then like one of the kids started speaking again sometime later, but it's like that that they're never going to see it. This year, they say it's this year. So like how long ago was that?
01:43:58
Speaker
ah You know, they and and it's like they've lost something irrevocably. Like it's like even if you were to survive a school shooting, ah you you're not coming out of that change. Like I can only imagine like the what that, I mean, it had that to be a complete loss of innocence. Like you you got to grow up so fast then.
01:44:19
Speaker
And Even Alex, who wasn't under anyone's spell, ah is never going to be the same. you know It's like, this changes everyone. There's no like magic malls for it.
01:44:30
Speaker
Well, to start from Alex's perspective there, right? like Think about it, right? He stole the names of the children in his class. He took their labels, right?
01:44:40
Speaker
And that was the thing that killed them, right? and He took away like their identity in that moment. like Literally. right ah That's why Kreger is a good writer, by the way.
01:44:51
Speaker
ah my Doubters. You gotta fucking shut the fuck up because that's fucking brilliant. But anyways, he bullied them. right They bullied Alex. He stole their names. He killed them.
01:45:03
Speaker
If we're looking at this from a school shootings perspective, that's what he did, right? Yeah. um but ah When it comes to the aftermath of that, right? The whole thing of Alex's parents not being able to speak, right?
01:45:15
Speaker
They handle it worse than the kids who are the victims there too, right? The fact that the adults are actually less equipped to rationalize all of this than it happened, that the kids are able to do that, right?
01:45:27
Speaker
That means something to me. That means to me that like... The young perspective actually is more open to more ideas. And in that way, they are more open to ah recovery.
01:45:38
Speaker
Right. And what happens with these adults in this film is they have these walls that are built up to prevent them from recovery. And we see that with Justine and Archer. Right. The only reason that those two characters get some kind of reprieve is because they're able to let those walls come down just a bit.
01:45:55
Speaker
disobey between each other, right? And that allows for them but to be saved, right? We've already talked about how like Justine was like stalking a kid and like waiting outside of their house drunk, you know, and like sleeping with a guy who may or may not still be married, right? Like we already know that she's kind of untrustworthy, right?
01:46:16
Speaker
With Archer, it's like he's not got a great relationship with his wife. He's bad at his job. And he's like, you know, not applying anything helpful to this, like, ah search to find his son, right?
01:46:28
Speaker
They have to put those things aside in order to get to that common point of, you know... at least finding some solution, right? And this idea that these kids may never actually become themselves again is a tragedy itself because they allowed for it to happen.
01:46:43
Speaker
this's This only happened through their uncaring, right? Like, that obviously, them running outside of their house at 2 Second Teen is a very mystical thing, right? and And in the context of the film, we're meant to take that as mysticism. right?
Character Development Post-Trauma
01:46:57
Speaker
But I think that what it's actually getting out underneath the level is that if for whatever reason they were able to be a bit more present, for whatever reason they would have broken through just a bit more. Yeah, yeah. I like that ah read of it because like unlike fountain possession things, like sometimes there's a moment where a person's about to become lucid or you see them fighting it.
01:47:18
Speaker
There's never... anything like that with anyone who's been weaponized. It's just purely they're going to keep coming until you stop them. And in the case of James and Paul, it's like, no, you just have to shoot them because like I like that that fight sequence of like when they come into the house.
01:47:36
Speaker
First, any imagery of the doors opening in this movie are so good, but especially when it's nighttime, you see Paul. like and It's not even like...
01:47:47
Speaker
is It's almost like there's an invisible string moving his arm because it's like such an unnatural way for him to like wave someone in Even they share a look of like, well, that's not right.
01:47:59
Speaker
But they still have to go in because it's like, what are they supposed to do? like Not not a resolve this? But yeah, i i do I do like that there's no solve easy solve for it.
01:48:12
Speaker
But what do you make of... So like if this is a school shooting allegory, the fact that they, i mean, yes, Alex does come through with why like turning the the spell against Gladys. But in terms of the other, like, ah is it just like, he actually has a creative solution because he's had a firsthand account of like how this all works.
01:48:35
Speaker
But the adults, the only thing they can think of to do is just destroy more because like, They have, that's what Justine, when she gets a hold of Paul's gun, is like, okay, well, this is the way through. We just, I kill him and I i kill Jane.
01:48:49
Speaker
Like, that's, you know, if if they hadn't broken out of it by then, was she going to shoot Alex's parents to save him? Probably. Yeah. I mean, yeah. But from her perspective, what else is she supposed to do? Because she doesn't know about how the spells work or anything, you know? Well, if we're going to bring it back to how like talking points are weaponized, right? Like how people are like activated by talking points or by motivations from other people, right?
01:49:18
Speaker
um These people can only stop doing that when that person who motivated them disappears, right?
Societal Influence and Real-World Parallels
01:49:24
Speaker
Like let's imagine the Trump comparison again, right? Yeah. Like, how many people do you really think are going to keep vouching for Trump's talking points when Trump is gone?
01:49:34
Speaker
I'm going to throw that out. I don't think a lot because no one else in his camp has like that kind of basically cult. cult leader charisma, the cult of personality. Like, Vance is a fucking wet blanket.
01:49:49
Speaker
Both of his adult sons are losers, so it won't be any of them. ah It's hard to imagine what... because yeah ah all aliens instead The only way Vance gets elected is if it's like Trump is like at all the rallies and promoting Vance and saying this is the guy vote for him because I can't run again.
01:50:11
Speaker
But and he could I don't know that there's a rule against us not that that would stop him. But he could probably just be like, I'm also on the ticket. I'm the vice president. I I can't be president again, but I'll just run as the vice president.
01:50:22
Speaker
I think he could do that. Probably. and he what well i need he'll probably He's going to keep it matter and whatever loophole is available to him. That's what he's going to do. But like like you said, once he's gone, and it's just going to be a power grab in the party. But like, yeah, I don't see anyone like like actually like making a clear coalition like in the way of like It is unambiguously his party at this time. And and then after that, it's just going to be like factions. It's going to get balkanized, basically.
01:50:54
Speaker
Republican Party will be post-trouble. Yeah, we're already seeing the Turkification. now it's going to be the Balkans afterwards. It makes sense. ah But but but what when it comes to, like, you're filling in the exact things that I'm getting at here, where it's like, I don't think that there's anyone to fill that space on the conservative side. And you're seeing a lot of ah things happening on the left side where, you know, you're getting that Zoran Mondani, like, boost, where it's like there's some motion there, right? there's There's a possibility of a change that's happening there, and conservatives are lost to it, right?
01:51:25
Speaker
Yeah. I'm not saying that they're powerless. i'm not saying that there's no possibility that they'll bounce back from that. The fact that they have institutional control alone is enough to say that they can hold out for a while. and you anyway Yeah, they have they have the advantage still. thats um not I'm not blind to that.
01:51:40
Speaker
Exactly. but but But when it comes to like galvanizing the people, because that's actually the most important thing. And also what directly relate relates to weapons, right? If we're looking at this from Gladys' perspective, right? Gladys was the only thing that was causing us.
01:51:53
Speaker
but glasses and put on these kids going missing was the only thing that happened. Right. And the only time that it it went away was when she went away. Right. And when she did went away, to like everyone pretended like she didn't happen.
01:52:05
Speaker
Right. Because it was too hard to do so. Right. I think that that really gets to the point of what happens like in American society over and over again, over the years, like people like the Reagan years, you know, like the,
01:52:19
Speaker
the 90s come after the 80s and everyone's like, yeah, those 80s kind of suck because like we let Reagan do whatever we want, right? And yeah like it happens over and over again where they just let that happen and it just gets out of hand and they let that happen because of the charisma, right?
01:52:36
Speaker
And when it comes to... like the The text of Alex being a school shooter, right? And his forgiveness, right? um I think that's important to talk about, right? Because essentially we're, you know, at the end of the film, we're meant to see him as victimless. Yeah, whole thing yeah. like Like, yeah, he's a victim. And and the thing is, as he is, right? Because his parents were held hostage and he was a black male victim at the end of the day, right?
01:52:59
Speaker
But also, but also like ah the system didn't make Alex that way. the system made Alex that way. And even if he had a, and you know, lack of good options, he did enable the, you know, kidnapping of 17 kids. So like, he is a victim, but he's not without, like no one in this is really without blame, even if Gladys is the catalyst. Exactly.
01:53:25
Speaker
Like, like even like something I didn't bring up about James earlier, right? um Because like it's crazy. We should talk more about James actually because James is awesome. But when it comes he's a little lost in Abrams.
01:53:39
Speaker
Yeah. I would have had the same reaction. I mean, it was like a Super Nintendo. It's a boss. Yeah. yeah That was an emulation system where I could play like several different consoles on it. I was like, they know all. They're racing their kid right. they They could play Nintendo. They could play Super Nintendo. They could probably play a few games. ah and Not GameCube, but like Game Boy Advance, you know?
01:54:00
Speaker
Regardless, you know, like, A, the way that that shot is shown, you know, where it's like, oh, you see the Willow DVD, and then it goes up. Like, the Willow DVD is in the left side of the frame, and then it pans up a bit, and in the right side of the frame, you see the reflection of the two parents there. you And we we know that coming because we've seen the, it's so good of, like, playing on expectations of this, like, puzzle we've seen put together because it's like, we know what's waiting for him there.
01:54:29
Speaker
But we also don't know the next step and of like, do they ever move? Will they be animated? And then because like things keep escalating and while he's in the house. I would personally have not gone into the basement.
01:54:43
Speaker
And also but when he hears like the thud from upstairs, his reaction is like, the fuck? And then he keeps looting. like i would have left him. And then any of those opportunities, of um i i I would want to minimize my time in that house. I like like the little boundaries he puts for himself that we see in his actions, right? Because like he gets into the house.
01:55:07
Speaker
He's in Alex's room to start, it looks like, right? And then he sees Alex's bedroom or where Gladys is, right? And it's a door that's locked.
01:55:18
Speaker
All of the stories, it's just a door that's closed, right? And he could go in there. If he opened that door, he would have confronted Gladys because he heard Gladys upstairs when he was like, you know, looting the room and confronted by he try the door and it doesn't open or something? No, he doesn't touch it. He doesn't touch the door. i when I rewatched the film yesterday and I paid attention to this specifically. Not the specific point, but I was ah paying more attention general is what I should say. But anyways, it was like, ah you know, like he's like, he goes to the door, he looks at it and he doesn't touch it because he's seeing it closed.
01:55:50
Speaker
and and And I think that's an interesting thing for James's character because like, let's remember when he is going down the street on the phone earlier, right? He's checking. He's just trying to look through things that are already open because then it's almost like ah not even my fault. You just like brought this on yourself because you left it open kind of deal. Exactly. Whereas like a,
01:56:12
Speaker
it's It's not a hard B&E. and e There's just like this window was open. So then I helped let myself in. And then I took all this other stuff. He does open the door, then oh right?
01:56:24
Speaker
Or does the basement door open itself? i think I think the basement door opens itself. I think you're right on that um in terms of just like there's something like calling him to the basement. No, no, no, no. He's pushed to the basement from the parents, isn't he?
01:56:37
Speaker
Like he gets fight into the fight with the parents. He goes into the basement and then he sees the kids and then he runs out. Is that what it is? Because he like passes the door and doesn't open it initially and then somehow ends up back down. trying to remember the order of the event because i I thought I remember the parents reanimating is like what he ends up just running out the house after that.
01:56:58
Speaker
But maybe you're right. i need I need to watch it again. yeah I need to see it a third time. hey And you know, I'll even say it on mic. I'll admit to this, you know, like I watched this movie twice for the, you know, pod, but I also like earlier today was watching the camera, just like going through parts that I loved again. because Well, I just... I do that before, especially when I'm about to talk about something too, I like want to refresh myself. And yeah, it's, or I'm looking for a a specific line. I'm like, well, can't trust the IMDB quotes section. They're not going to have everything I'm looking for. So I yeah take matters in my own hand. I'm i'm even lamer than that. You know, like i I'm somebody who like,
01:57:36
Speaker
The opening shot of this movie is just something I need in my bloodstream all the time. Because, like, you get that monologue. It's on a black screen, right? And then we open. It's the school. And it's a push-in on a glide with the steadicam, right?
01:57:50
Speaker
and And honestly, like... daniel luie was your leader in my montage Yeah, yeah and and and and and they always say like the first shot of a film is like one of the most important because it ah really like tells you like what the film is going to either be like or what it's about, right? And what they're doing is they're pushing it in on the school really quickly, right? And what that tells me is the movie's just going to move really fast and it's about a lot of people and that's and that's what's happening in that moment right and and the steady cam itself in this movie is just fucking amazing like the way this movie is captured just with that colliding camera both through the action sequences as well as just through those creeping like dread moments like like in the climax when alex has those parents and they're standing in the salt line right and then he steps over the line don't love the sound design of like the dink because like we've already established like her using the bell for spells but they it's like a different kind of tone that they use for the effect when the lines get crossed. It almost sounds like like like kind of game-like of like of like a ah um like a ah a dinging like that and and it it' it's it's kind of playful like with with with the sound design and and in that way but but I love i love that touch of like
01:59:04
Speaker
He puts one toe over the salt line and then then they're they're activated. And then in that moment, too, you get the dolly zoom effect on do ah the two sides, right? You see the parents.
01:59:17
Speaker
ah the The camera pulls out and zooms as they put their arms forward and leer, right? And then we get that match effect. with him running to his door and the hallway becomes extended.
01:59:29
Speaker
It's such like, um like it's two shots and it's quick. Right. But what happens is like the space between the parents and Alex from Alex's perspective, all of a sudden they seem a lot closer than they actually are.
01:59:41
Speaker
And then on the inverse, like Alex reaching for his door they get away from them, all of a sudden seems really far away. it's like, yeah this is how I know Zach Greger is like the real deal.
01:59:53
Speaker
This is, how we know he's a great director is the fact that like these little moments are just like sprinkled in there right and they're nothing he's just like yeah like you can catch that or you cannot catch that and the fact that like if you catch that you realize how smartly constructed that is like it's just so rewarding but I also think that that sequence is a good showcase for like it's So many times when shit hits the fan, we start getting to like action in these movies.
02:00:20
Speaker
It's very disorienting. And like, so you know, I like to be disoriented when I feel like it's intentional and you're trying to like, you know, make me feel lost in a space. But he's already set up how the layout of of this house and like multiple characters have been been through here. So when Alex has to start running through room to room to get, you know,
02:00:41
Speaker
when he wants to get her bowl and her stick to turn the spell on her, we can kind of already track because we've seen the space. But there is also, we've seen all these parts of the house at like disparate times. So like seeing him run through it all at once, it ah it does start to like feel like a labyrinth.
Complex Villains and Urban Legends in Film
02:01:00
Speaker
So it's like both the smart use of like a stat pre-establishing the space, but then also it still feels off because nothing in this movie feels right or safe that like, even if he knows how to move from space to space, none of this is guaranteed.
02:01:15
Speaker
has a fucking ravenous parents after him. Like those shots for when like the mom's heads, like through the door is so fucking terrifying. Yeah, like the the the lighting on that, like the way that she's looking down, it like, like it is. you scar about or Yeah, yeah. It's scarier than Jack Nicholson, the signing. I agree.
02:01:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it is. And like, and it reminds me of the movie Mom and Dad with Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair. I think it is. Is that Selma Blair? maybe Maybe it's not. I don't know. like Right. is i never I never saw that one, but I know what it's about. like it's Like, it's like some kind of, like, transmission or virus that turns all the adults crazy, right?
02:01:53
Speaker
Yeah. also it A, it's Stella Blair, so ding, one cinema point for me. And then B, um do you know who directed it? No, who directed him? um I closed the link, actually, so I can't get the right guy, but it's one of Neville, Dean Taylor, like like from Neville, Dean and Taylor, who did the Crank movies, right?
02:02:10
Speaker
but One of those guys made it. So I would definitely highly recommend red watching that movie because it has that same kind of kinetic ethos to it, right? Um, but, uh, that film, it's using the idea of like parents suddenly hating their children and going against them as, as like the main threat. Right.
02:02:30
Speaker
And this film just tosses it off. Like it's nothing. That's how good Zach Greger is in that sense. Right. Where it's like this, this one scary idea, this thought of like a parent turning away. You could, envy on that.
02:02:42
Speaker
there's multiple There's multiple like kind of primal fear. ah Not prime primal or cultural because like I would say ah another thing that Gladys is evoking especially in some people's visions of her is clowns.
02:02:58
Speaker
Clowns have a history of being very scary and I used to be definitely afraid of of clowns. um And so I, the sequences that really emphasize her painted face, the one that really got me wasn't even the jump scare from any of the dreams. It's when James runs to the woods because he's trying to get away from Paul or, or, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, and then he's like quickly, she see he sees her like, as she's like waving him.
02:03:31
Speaker
to him and he's like, I'm bugging out. I did not see that. I did not see that. But like, he saw it, bro. He was there. And that means when we see the zipper opening, right, we think it's her for that moment.
02:03:46
Speaker
We don't. be ah ma and I'm in his dead space. i had me I was like, oh, he lost Paul. That's not going to be Paul. It's like fucking. Exactly. there's a fucking clown witch in this woods. She's going to get them.
02:03:58
Speaker
I mean, she does get them eventually anyway. So, um, no, but like you bring up something about her painted face. And I think that we should talk about like her over the top, ah display of, uh, you know, I, one was a femininity and that's right. You know?
02:04:14
Speaker
And I would also say like, uh, what she's doing is she's trying to over present like liveliness. Right. I feel like she's a sick woman, ah older than she appears, right?
02:04:25
Speaker
And she does that on purpose because she doesn't want people to know her power level almost, right? Like if she were to display herself as the sickly woman, she would still get sympathy in a different way.
02:04:36
Speaker
And i don't think that's the way that she wants to be perceived, which is what makes that portrayal so fascinating to me, right? and She only wants to be seen as the top dog. She only wants to be seen as like, you know,
02:04:49
Speaker
highly entertaining, charming, young, like old woman who, you know, lets lets herself be perceived that way. Right. um And also like with the James character ah and him spotting her in the woods. Right. Like it's, it's, it's a confirmation of her knowing that he was in the house.
02:05:10
Speaker
Right. In that. own way, right? if we're If we're like outside of the film and tracking everything, right? like that That's a great moment where we're able to know that like she is a really strong omniscient force in the story, right? Where she is really tuned in to who is aware of her and who is not aware of her.
02:05:28
Speaker
Because her presence in... the Justine's or Archer's dreams almost seem incidental because like she has no actual functional purpose unless she just like wants to fuck with him. It does seem like almost kind of like you know how the Twin Peaks spirit is beat on pain and suffering that she does like causing this this grief and stuff that she's caused. but It also just seems like she wouldn't care enough to even be doing that willfully. that It's like some kind of...
02:05:59
Speaker
just like reverberate. She's like, has her tendrils in these kids already. and yeah like, almost like there's like a collective subconscious in the town. And like, we're seeing her, her repeat through these visions.
02:06:12
Speaker
And also like i she wouldn't want to do, cause like, Oh, someone could maybe interpret it in a way that could lead her that would lead to her. She wouldn't want that because ah it does kind of give away the, when Justine walks into the classroom, all the kids have their heads down. And then Alex in the back has the painted face.
02:06:28
Speaker
So like, it's like um you know, ah foreshadowing that they, that connection there. So I feel like that she's not consciously, Gladys is not consciously like manipulating those dreams in that way. It's happening because of her, but it's not because of like, she's like, oh, I'm going to Freddy Krueger this shit and pop into their dream. Yeah.
02:06:48
Speaker
I think you're you're bringing up a great point there because like, is it manifestation on the ends of Justine and Archer because they're just want it so bad, right? Because like, they're so compelled by this force that they can't reckon with that it's actually revealing itself to them, right?
02:07:05
Speaker
Or is it the opposite ends like you've already brought up before with the Talbos? right? Is this a Tulpa that's slowly revealing itself just through, ah you know, its presence, right? ah Because a Tulpa seems off of like understanding, right?
02:07:18
Speaker
And the closer that Justine and Archer are to understanding the Tulpa's existence, the more it would reveal itself to them. So ah just kind know what happens in the film of with Gladys is that the closer we get to like, we kind of start circling these revelations from different viewpoints. And then she just waltzes in once we're like kind of ready to actually see her.
02:07:39
Speaker
Then it's like, OK, she's going to walk into, you know, Marcus's office now. Like she's just here. It's like, yo, no more, no more hiding. This is just like the Mothman prophecies was a character, you know, like, like this is like what the movie is to me. Right. It's like imagine if urban legends were manifested in like the perfect human way.
02:08:01
Speaker
And that's what Gladys is. Right. He is the thing that people ah don't want to talk about. She's the thing that people ah pin their things off or their fears on, right?
02:08:13
Speaker
She's the thing that gives you comfort from the fear that you also have, right? That's what urban legends are in my mind. You know, they are all of those things. They're the thing that give you fear and the the the thing that give you comfort, right?
02:08:25
Speaker
And Gladys is doing that. And that's what makes her so malicious is that she feeds into the thing that makes people afraid, right? While also providing the relief without showing that there is a way to defeat her.
02:08:39
Speaker
yeah Which I also want to talk about like the ending of the film of when the spell is broken, when when we finally do get that snap from Alex, right? The fact that he finally regains his agency. Do we want to talk about that right now?
02:08:52
Speaker
Um, I'm, I'm ready to do the ending. The only other point I wanted to to bring up is like, I don't know how oh we can leaveal back if we want to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's just, I, I don't, I don't know how much this would have influenced Craig or at all, but have you heard of, uh, uh, John, uh, gosh or gosh, he was like kind of like the first milk garden missing kid. Yeah.
02:09:15
Speaker
And this like it was like he was a paper boy in Iowa who went missing. And then there was like all these conspiracies about what happened because there was another kid who disappeared like a little bit later. But and then specifically the mother was convinced that ah he showed up in her house one day. When did he disappear?
02:09:41
Speaker
He disappeared in 82. to The mom claims in 97 that ah ah there was an unidentified man and her son appeared and said that he had been the victim of a pedophile organization and was cast aside when he was too old.
02:09:56
Speaker
So he was ah Austin Butler from Eddington. No, but... ah Yeah, but he feared for his life and then had to live under, assume my daddy, because it wasn't safe. But then no one else has confirmed that, this you know, that's just like the mom's account. The father, you know, later divorced her. It was like, I don't know. Some people think that that visitation could have occurred, but it was someone else. It wasn't actually John.
02:10:21
Speaker
Could have just been right so someone pretending to... Yeah. um ah ah I'm your missing son. like you get caught mid-break. I did my research. I did my research.
02:10:35
Speaker
ah Yeah. ah You know what that reminds me of? ah Did you ever watch the Stephen King miniseries slash TV movie Storm of the Century? but No. No, I haven't.
02:10:47
Speaker
I'm i'm un familiar with the story. I haven't seen it. Do you mind if I spoil it a little bit? Just like not a little bit, a lot for the sake of this podcast? Yeah, no, I think it it probably has relevant things. And and I saw me for not having seen it at this point. So go ahead. i I'm going to say it because i am so confident that you will still enjoy the series when you do watch it. Because I do think that it's one of the best Stephen King adaptations, period.
02:11:13
Speaker
Right. And one of the reasons for that sake Like, it's a strong recommend for me. Like, and and and the reason that I say that is because it was written for the screen, right? Like, from Stephen King.
02:11:25
Speaker
It wasn't a novel, from what I understand. Like, it like it was, like, he made it for the miniseries format.
Personal and Societal Transformation in Film Conclusions
02:11:30
Speaker
And, like, if you have watched many Stephen King adaptations, that's not regular, right?
02:11:35
Speaker
Right. But anyways... um The ending of that series, but the seed of the series I just started with, right, is this guy, he enters town, right, and he's feeding off of the children in order for him to gain power.
02:11:48
Speaker
Sound familiar, right? any burning Yeah, right? But anyways, the ending of the story, right, is that he presents an alternative. He says, that I just want one of the children.
02:11:59
Speaker
You know, we'll leave everyone else alone if I can take one of these children. Right. And the ending of the story is he does take one of the children. He takes the protagonist's child, right? The son this father. Right.
02:12:11
Speaker
the The town is able to heal, right? After the son is taken away from him. But him and his wife, they can no longer be together. They can, like, their passion is gone because their son is gone.
02:12:21
Speaker
right yeah the ending of this the ending of this miniseries is he's walking down the streets in San Francisco and he sees the villain again with his son his son is older now and his son has now become like a supernatural threat like the villain of the super storm of the century is he has become storm of the centuries son no longer a his right ah that's that's what ah weapons is getting at too, right? In a different way, the inverse way, right? Where it's like the impact that Gladys had on these children has changed them so irreparably. It's permanent.
02:12:56
Speaker
you Even when you see the spell, the moment of her death, you know, you hear the other ding, you know, like the spell has been broken, but you can't they've regained something that can't be law. I mean, like just the look on when they're standing around and or at first I was like, Oh, they're just kind of shell-shocked because they murdered a woman and that's, there'd be a lot to take in, but I thought it better.
02:13:20
Speaker
I think that's part of it, but it's also, i it just they it's it's not something that they're just going to shake off. You know, like, that you're just like, okay, I got you. but I put a blanket around you like cops do at the end of the movies and get used to cocoa and you'll be fine.
02:13:36
Speaker
No, they're going to, extensive therapy won't even begin to cover it. I mean, it's like, e how do you even move forward after that? about like how that scene sorry go ahead no I was just joking was like weapons 2 should ah you know but explore that 10 years later like what where what but what what are the kids doing hey and there's dark there's no supernatural threat it's just a life but slice of life thing of like adjusting yes trauma and it's kind of It's kind of like the doctor's sleep of weapons, but without the the psychic vampire. It was like, no, we just take, there's actually no antagonists.
02:14:16
Speaker
We've taken out that part. Maybe like Zack Kregor takes this like ah Stephen King with It, right? Where he does like a time jump, right? Where we now see the children as adults.
02:14:27
Speaker
right? you There's Harding and Rawls. There we go. That's a sequel idea. but But he has to also make like ah a fictional, ah you know, 2040. You know, I want um want to see what Zach Craig's vision of the future is.
02:14:40
Speaker
ah But anyways, when it comes to that scene where the children are it's important to say that they're not broken out of the spell ever. No one has ever broken out of the spell.
02:14:51
Speaker
They're just redirected, which is interesting, right? Alex redirects the energies of the children from stasis to attack mode. If they were like murder robots, that's what they're doing, right?
02:15:02
Speaker
And the capturing of the sequence, right? If we're just going to talk about this from like a purely visceral filmmaking standpoint, right? Like, screw all of the great things that we've said about this film so far, right? Yeah.
02:15:16
Speaker
the spirit of Sam Raimi is a alive and well. He can't breathe. That's the reason mean, Craig. I was tackling when there's like the image the and imagery and and energy of like an army of kids.
02:15:31
Speaker
And they're screaming too as they're like running. was it' it' Kids can already be scary without any supernatural intervention, especially if you see the kid who's like on ah on like a sugar high and they're like ready to like rampage through a town.
02:15:45
Speaker
like so Imagine that in a full sprint. They're just like bursting through glass. and like I love... like but like ah uncaring of any damage they're doing because, because they're definitely getting cut up, like going through this glass and like, cause it's just a straight line to her. I liked it. It's like, you know, like just like Roland says, it's like a missile. Yeah. That's exactly what they're doing. They're just going in a straight line to her.
02:16:10
Speaker
And it's incredible. Roland's understanding of like the weaponization of these people is great because it's like a dumb American's idea of, yeah, weaponization, right? He uses the language heat-seeking missile. He uses the language like weapon.
02:16:24
Speaker
He sees a gun, right? Like, is the this is like the apex of power in the mind of an American, right? And that's why it works so well for using it as a metaphor for these children, right? big days They are the victims of those things that he internalizes.
02:16:40
Speaker
Anyways, but When they're bursting through those doors, when they when we're seeing that overflowing, I don't know how your a theater reacted when you would see it, right? But the first time I had seen this film, had seen it a packed house. It was 3.40 in the afternoon or Friday, right? Packed house. The rest of the film, everyone was queued Everyone laughed at the right moments. Everyone was scared at the right moments, right?
02:17:02
Speaker
In that moment, I was the only person laughing. and I was really like slapping my knee. I was tired hours eighty so sorry. I was surprised that more people at that moment specifically where I was like, you guys not find this. So I mean, yes, there is still something not in the same way of them doing like the Sonic run hypnotized. It's like on unnerving and unnatural about seeing these kids do it. But it's also extremely funny.
02:17:30
Speaker
did is that It's absurd. So it's that that alone is enough to get in with the same energy. You're talking about the rainy of of it all. Like there's so many great sequences in specifically I'm thinking of Evil Dead 2 when Ash is like basically running from the the unseen COV demon through the house. Like it's like a chase. Yeah. The hot.
02:17:54
Speaker
and and and and And when the demon goes through a door, like the door just collapses down and stuff. Like it's it's it's fucking awesome. But like, yeah, I was feeling a lot of those vibes in this sequence.
02:18:06
Speaker
I was like, do you guys don't think this is funny? Because this is fucking funny. One of the funniest things I've seen is people similarly weren't laughing at the end of Eddington also, which I'm like, oh, come on. daddy Not even when about ah but even when he comes out of the gun store? Come on, this is funny, guys. Come on. is It can't all be heat.
02:18:25
Speaker
you know like It's trying really hard to be heat in that moment, but we all know how funny that is. but But to go off of your point, right? like it's It's great because Craig, as a filmmaker, he trains us how we should see the children ah in that space.
02:18:39
Speaker
but scenario twice, right? He trains us ah to see it as almost beautiful, right? Like I've alluded to before with the George Harrison moment, right? When you see him run through the, like that moment, it's a theory. Profound.
02:18:52
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And then there's the second time when you see all the labels put into the pot and she rings the bell and the best shot in the film, like I said best moment, but this is the best shot in the film is ah when you get that like,
02:19:05
Speaker
ah it's it's it's trucking along from left to right and it's this like stabilized Fedicam that like is just like really beautiful and you're seeing these kids like appear through the frame like it starts off with like one kid and then like another kid in the foreground and then another kid in the background until there's like six kids in the frame in one full shot and you're like this is what the movie is Right. As well as that Josh Brolin waking up with his in his son's bedroom.
02:19:32
Speaker
But then to bring it back to that climax. Right. We've only been trained to see this as a theory. We've only been trained to see this as profound. So then when it's weaponized into this attack against their captor, it becomes this like a thartic release. Right. And then you get that shot from over the shoulder of that one little girl And she burst through the the the the the backyard. She burst through the screen door. She burst through the glass.
02:19:59
Speaker
She then burst through the window. It's like... It's not like a 28 days later sequence of like following a zombie, an infected person, like going after someone or something like that.
02:20:10
Speaker
And... Yeah, yeah. And like you said, it is cathartic, but then it also immediately started, like basically once they start pulling her head off, you're like kind of starting to sit with the realization that this is children doing this and and that you're like, no, fuck.
02:20:26
Speaker
Jesus, fuck. I can do it. There's no other, there's no other way forward, but also it's fucked up. Yeah. Yes, but like but like nico like good you just alluded to, right? Like what solace does that give, right?
02:20:41
Speaker
Like does does killing Gladys make everything better? no it doesn't, right? Just like how like, you know, Elliot Rogers being gone, you know, killing themselves after that doesn't make that event any better either, right?
02:20:57
Speaker
The pain still lingers, right? Like that's what it is, right? Whether the issue them are alive or you know he kills himself cops kill him it doesn't kind of the the you're still left with the this tragedy and but the the families and survivors that have pick up the pieces afterwards exactly exactly and it's just like such a like it's sobering that's what the whole film is to me it's sobering it to like to finally have somebody who is just like talking about it you know
02:21:30
Speaker
Everyone is always so afraid to talk about, because, because again, they talk about video games, they talk about movies, they talk about like what they see on TikTok, all that stuff, right? When the reality is, is the lack of attention to the kids themselves.
02:21:44
Speaker
That's what it is, right? That's what protecting our kids is. It's not this like, you know, sound of freedom idea that like that then it'd be stolen from a Walmart parking lot, right? No, it's about like,
02:21:55
Speaker
they're they're Your kid is doing ah shit that you can't see and you're letting them do that because you just don't care. That's what the problem is. Right. Yeah. So parents, no, step it up.
02:22:10
Speaker
place kind place the game of mr hand Even Tony Soprano played Mario Kart with his son. Incorrectly, he was holding the N64 controller with one hand. and Like, someone who's never played a video game before.
02:22:23
Speaker
I always clock that, like in Enora, when the fuckboy boyfriend was like playing Xbox. And he's like, I'm like, okay, this is either Sean Baker doesn't know how video games work, or this is a brilliant character detail. This guy just sucks. and everything including games.
02:22:42
Speaker
know if that kid is like, you know, like what, what he was 18 19. You're telling me that an 18 or 19 year old doesn't know how to hold an Xbox remote. That's a really like sheltered actor. If that's the case, he himself does not understand how to. it Right. right because at least At least the actor could could say, Hey, Sean, like, actually I would do it this way.
02:23:03
Speaker
So that leads me to believe it almost is like a character thing of like, no, this is, this is just, he's, He's sheltered and also is just like so bad. He doesn't even realize how much he sucks at video games. He's playing the game and all the controller, right?
02:23:21
Speaker
Like just because we're on this tangent of video games and movies, right? My all-time favorite inclusion of video games in a movie for a narrative reason, right? Did you ever... the Like do you remember the Inside Man inclusion of video games?
02:23:35
Speaker
Being an Inside Man, but what was... no wanted playing a PSP game and then like Clive Owen comes over and like has like a monologue about violence and it's like one of the funniest things when this podcast is done go go go watch like that monologue it's great I love it I need to rewatch Inside Man it's There's a new Spike Lee coming out this week.
02:23:58
Speaker
Everyone goes, I don't know. I still don't even know where I'm going to see highest to lowest. yeah God willing, I'm i seeing it. I don't want to stream it on at home. I mean, I'll rewatch it on this. I like how I'll show my parents it, but I want to see it. A new Jeff Zell movie should not be experienced on a small screen for the first time.
02:24:21
Speaker
I feel like. Did I ever tell you that I met Spike Lee? What? Air horns. You never move over the place. ah This is a exclusive announcement. ah yeah I joke about it because, you know, ah feel like I feel like that's like a ah stupid thing to brag about almost, but also at the same time, like, you know, it's cool as hell, man.
02:24:41
Speaker
yeah Yes. oh Like, yeah, like he he was in Toronto, like before Defy Bloods came out, right? Great movie. Yeah, amazing movie, right? He was there to do like an anniversary screening of Do the Right Thing.
02:24:55
Speaker
really? Like, you know. it It was one of those things where I went to the screening without a ticket and I bought one ticket it from like the rush line, right? And when I bought the ticket from the rush line, it turned out to be a VIP ticket, right?
02:25:10
Speaker
And the reason I bring that up is because the VIP ticket allowed for you to go to the back the bar area after the movie was done and that's what I did right and that's where I got to like hang out in the space where like Spike Lee was chilling with everybody else right and like you know ah I'm always yeah they like I'm not I'm not bringing this up to even like talk about my experience of like meeting Spike Lee.
02:25:32
Speaker
All I'll say he is he's a great guy. And like, you know, i was probably an annoying person being like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm talking to this person. But at the same time, you know, um his movie is coming out highest to lowest and everyone needs to watch it.
02:25:48
Speaker
And if you're listening to this and you don't have plans to watch it, you're a fake cinephile. um I think of you differently, lesser even, if you don't support his film. Personally, I'm going to be watching his film and then nobody too, because I'm not much of a cinephile.
02:26:02
Speaker
that's That's how you know it's coursing through my blood. Yeah, I'm seeing both. I mean, the highest to lowest is the priority because nobody will have way more screens that will be playing everywhere. Highest to lowest, I probably have a small window in maybe like two places that that i can I can go on.
02:26:16
Speaker
Also, the original Akira Kurosawa one, I believe, was streaming on Macs. People want to see that one before the... If you're like me, it was a late adapter to like ah you know just broadening your taste in international cinema for a longest time, I was like, Kurosawa only did samurai stuff, right?
02:26:37
Speaker
Oh, he did stuff...
Film Education: Formal vs. Self-Guided
02:26:39
Speaker
It didn't have Sam Rice in it, and it was just as good and maybe better in some ways than his other things. I mean, it's go check so check that one out.
02:26:49
Speaker
I would say, like, I'm not somebody... I'm not a Sith, you know? I don't deal in absolutes, you know? ah But when it comes to, you know, ah that movie, right? That's the best blocking in any film ever.
02:27:01
Speaker
Like, high high and low. Like... like yeah Honestly, Spike Lee has changed the way that I perceive that name because now I don't even remember the original name. hi. Doolo. Denzel isn't in that one. I don't care.
02:27:14
Speaker
um But anyways, A$AP Rocky isn't in that one. I don't care. but But when it comes to that original, just the way that it's like blocked, like physically, like like the way that the characters are framed, it like positioned in the frame.
02:27:29
Speaker
It's a mini film school. Like if you don't know anything about films, you know, you should watch that movie. It's really all, you can like give yourself a better film school education than actual film. Like as someone who's been to film school, yes, there's this value in it in terms of like you get to meet like potential collaborators, there's networking ah quality to it and access to equipment. Yeah.
02:27:50
Speaker
the school has it is is um is like the number one bullet point. But obviously if you don't, but also that costs a lot of money. So if you don't want to do that, just watch a lot of movies. Just watch movies.
02:28:04
Speaker
And then especially if you're watching from eras where there used to be commentaries, then you can just listen to the commentary too. And the sometimes theyre it that sometimes they're not, all commentaries are equally insightful, but they're there's still a valuable tool. I wish that we should, that should go back to being a standard feature. I should be able to like any new movie I own. I i need, I want to hear the filmmaker talk about it. I want to hear Zach Greger's commentary on weapons, you know, because like we already talked about before, like how he's alluded to this film being apolitical. He's talked about how like some things he doesn't know what the meanings of it is, you know, I,
02:28:46
Speaker
like In the moment, I just want to hear how he responds to that. you know But when it comes to Prager's way of approaching Phil, way that he is a carefully considerate director, it's an important thing for people to understand, especially from a media literacy criticism internalizing kind of perspective.
02:29:09
Speaker
I feel like there's a lot of people who think that because... think that because like They see intention, right but they don't see reality. And when I say reality, I mean the reality of the set.
02:29:20
Speaker
right like You don't understand like what it takes to make a movie. right yeah we we we we we We both talked about like ah you know film school. you know like understanding You don't need that stuff to understand how to make a movie.
02:29:32
Speaker
You don't. All that it really takes for you to make a movie is who you know. right and And that's who gets the success in the industry. right and right That system is flawed.
02:29:44
Speaker
It is, right? Because it's not a meritocracy, right? um However, ah we we should appreciate the people who take that broken system and fleece it and make the best of it, right?
02:29:58
Speaker
You brought in sinners earlier with Ryan Coogler, right? That's exactly what he did with sinners, right? he He took the studio's money and he made what he wanted to make. Zach Greger took the studio's money and he made what he wanted to make. right like these are the These are the good people.
02:30:14
Speaker
These are the people yeah we should be supporting in my eyes. you know and and they They are interlinked with the indie people in my eyes. you know When somebody is able to take ah that ah you know realm, that that inspiration pool, and bring it to the major ah big screen, it elevates all tides in that sense.
02:30:35
Speaker
Absolutely. Well said. Yeah. I mean, i and I'm just, if if Prager leveled up like this between... ah barbarian and weapons. I can't even imagine like, I mean, I guess Resident Evil is his next movie. I'm just like excited. Yeah. At first, if we're on the same upward trajectory, then that's going to be incredible because like off mic, we had talked about the Peel comparison of like between Get Out...
02:31:03
Speaker
And to be clear, Get Out this is a great movie, it's like but I do think each subsequent film pe it is just showing off new tools in this toolbox of like, you're like, oh, I did not know oh you were you had this. in you i mean Personally, my favorite one is still Us, but I would say on a filmmaking level, Nope is better than both of them. Like, he goes up each time.
02:31:28
Speaker
yeah i For us, it's just... ah something is primordially terrifying about dopp doppelgangers always has been. ah yeah Also, the final needle drop always gets made. But... And Hands Across America thing, too. That's just like a good weaponization of like a cultural... that That's the movie where...
02:31:51
Speaker
the metaphor is a little more opaque. Like, yeah, you could be like class. There's definitely like clear things there, but I feel like the movie is like touching on a lot of things, especially coming from deal who grew up in like Reagan era America that, and, and that, you know, but he's of that ah evoking that era with the hands across America thing. So I think that that's supposed to kind of be informing of how, how we read, kind how the movie relates to race, class, the all of the above. um
02:32:23
Speaker
But um sorry, sorry, go on us
Growth of Filmmakers and Cultural Impact
02:32:25
Speaker
tangent. I love that movie. No, no, no. You don't apologize. That was a great tangent. Continue. ah Yeah, but I guess my point is is that all all these filmmakers, we should be cheerleading them and these additional stages, but if guys like that, like, he'll, has three under his belt so far, Craig has done, these two horror ones, like, I'm i'm just gonna, I'm gonna start counting from, of what, I also think Miss March, was that, like, a co-directing, like, did he co-direct that with Trevor or something? So maybe, ah there's like a type of, I never watched it either, I kind of do want to watch it, I mean, I, I don't know if it's actually good,
02:33:03
Speaker
by He has Hugh Hefner's in it, so that's ah that's a seal of quality in some circles, I'm sure. I mean, he's a xenophile, for sure. that's why That's why George Lucas went to his name. I think there's few other files.
02:33:18
Speaker
Yeah. Well, George Lucas didn't go to the plate the the Playboy Mansion for those reasons. He went for the the film preservation stuff, according to him. Absolutely. Absolutely. You're right.
02:33:29
Speaker
You're right. There is a quote about that, isn't there? It's like it say he went to Playboy for film. like You're not even bullshitting about that, right? he did Yeah, it was it was the thing that he like skipped on something Carrie Fisher invited him to. And she was yeah ra and but like, right you you blew me off to go to the Playboy mansion, George. And he's like, oh, no, it was for film preservation.
02:33:50
Speaker
yeah and And you're like, yeah, yeah, he he would. He would. That's that's that tracks to me. That sounds that sounds like George Lucas. Exactly. Yeah. Always like barely clothed women standing around him. He's like, I like movies. I wanted to bring it back to Peel for a second. Right. Because you talked about like his films and how they stack up against one another. And I think you're absolutely on the money about how he levels up from each film to each film.
02:34:14
Speaker
Right. And, but but I want want to bring it back to Get Out, right? Because I think it Get Out is an important film to bring up with weapons as well. um So Get Out was a necessary film in my eyes, right?
02:34:26
Speaker
Like Get Out needed to happen because it was essentially a refugiation of the Obama youth, right? it was It was saying like a lot of like specifically white liberals thought that that was the end of their growth.
02:34:39
Speaker
They were like, you know, like, I've learned enough. i lived through your Bible years and I can be this way. and I don't get it. and I don't get it. get it, man. that That's why people saying I get it to the Black people. I get it.
02:34:52
Speaker
i i wasn't sure if that was you saying that to me, you know, and I was being annoying, you know, and I was like, should I check my privilege? You know, I was like, but Sit your ass down and listen.
02:35:04
Speaker
No. Yeah. but i I already am. Keep going. we're we're we're We're going back and forth. This is good. We're good. ah Yeah. No, no. um who was a ah Yeah. So, so Peel with us, right? Like ah he he, like us was so specific.
02:35:21
Speaker
It was, it was personal to him, right? No, even more so than nope in my eyes, right? Like he's talking on cultural touch points. Yeah. that are specific to when he was growing out, right?
02:35:32
Speaker
And I think that that's a very important thing to talk about in his oeuvre, in the way that he sees the world, right, is the another the way that he was able to relate that to his own thing.
02:35:43
Speaker
There are a lot of people who look at us as like a stepping stone to get to some places like to where he got with Nope. I think that's false. I think that's him leveling up from Get Out because he learned how to be a more implicit filmmaker, right?
02:35:56
Speaker
Not learned in a literal sense where he didn't have that quality within him already, but it was where he was proving it, right? It was like, I don't have to scroll that out for you. Yeah. Exactly. And then Nope is like, e that's his jaws. Like, literally, right? Like, he made jaws in his own way, right?
02:36:14
Speaker
And Nope is... Like, look, I don't want to be hyperbolic on a podcast, but we've already done it. But like, Nope is one of the best movies of the decade. It is. Wait, wait, wait, wait. what Sorry, you cut out for a second. What'd you say? Nope's the best of the decade? one One of the best of the decade.
02:36:31
Speaker
Like, certainly within the top 10 for my money, at least. Right. Oh, yeah, I agree. It's it's definitely in my top 10. Like, I got like Matrix Resurrections and problems some other stuff in there. But yeah, the Nope is definitely securely in there. It's in like the the the way that I phrase it is like in my bathroom, right?
02:36:51
Speaker
I've got hung a classic Jaws poster, right? And then on either end, I have many posters that I got from the but note premiere where one of them is Daniel Kaluuya, one was Kiki Palmer, and I put them right beside poster because like to me, that that's how linked they are, right? Yeah.
02:37:10
Speaker
And like not just from a structural standpoint, but also from what they're trying to do narratively, right? And and from Jordan Peele's perspective, like he just leveled up in just every single way. like Just budget, execution, murderous chimp, you know like let it happen. you know I want it.
02:37:27
Speaker
Give it to me. um But when
Horror Films Reflecting Societal Issues
02:37:29
Speaker
it... like ah linking him to Kreider and how their art is important for pushing this horror medium forward, right?
02:37:39
Speaker
Like both Geel and Kreider, they're from the ilk of a carpenter or a Cronenberg. Or oh even like I referenced early, pheasanton, you know, like these are people who carefully carefully consider the artistic process and what it he means.
02:37:56
Speaker
And, you know, some people, they really take it upon themselves to try to tear down anyone who comes through with an original vision because they want to, you know, protect. I get it, you know.
02:38:07
Speaker
But at the same time, you know, like they're coming from the same position as you where they want something better. And I think that we should be open to that. And with weapons specifically, it's like, even if the film isn't talking about school shooting specifically, even if it's not talking about you is how children are are, you know, sorry, did you say something?
02:38:27
Speaker
Oh, I was subliminally whispering into the mic. You said it's even if it's not about school shootings. And I said, it is. but Okay, good. Good, good. Now it's clearer. I heard in my ears. It's good. Yeah. Yeah.
02:38:38
Speaker
i'll I'll turn it up so people actually make sure they hear what I said. Keep it it in, double it. The thing is, like it's it's important. We have to have these conversations. like Even if the film is so absurd you know and is so stupid, even.
02:38:54
Speaker
yeah like like if you want to take it as just the experiential ride, but just accept it that there is something just underneath the surface. I talked about in DMs, before this pen pal creepypasta. I wanted to bring it up on mic because i think other people should read it as well.
02:39:11
Speaker
ah there ah he saw Like I said, pen pal creepypasta. You guys should read it. It's more of a novella than it is really creepypasta. And the conceit of that story is you're watching, you're reading...
02:39:25
Speaker
um A kid growing from the age of 10 to the age of 18, growing up with their childhood friend and how they drift apart, right?
02:39:36
Speaker
And what drifts them apart is not ah something natural that we would suspect from life, not like you know high school drama, but rather a stalker who gets in between the two of them.
02:39:48
Speaker
And I think that that kind of storytelling, right, where it's like, you know, you've got the basic, relatable thing that happens in life, but then there's just the one supernatural or grisly element that's added to it, right?
02:40:01
Speaker
That's the things that help us get to the truth of matters more than most, more than like a searching. The the screen life movie where it's like, this is what happens when your mom goes missing, right? Weapons or Empty Man, any movies like that where it's like they can get something that's just a bit deeper, but something that's a bit more universal, These are the important films that we should be pushing to the forefront.
02:40:21
Speaker
Did I hear an Empty Man shout out in there? Yeah. This pro Empty Man podcast and I also wanted to this is a pro-empty man ah podcast and i also boy the ah I thought of Empty Man a couple of times because the thing I love about James Badgdale's performance in that movie is that he reacts to all these inexplicable things in very real feeling ways. Like there's a part where he's seeing a cult inch towards him he's just like, no.
02:40:50
Speaker
And they are when when he's like in the car later after that, he's like, what the fuck was that? And there's a moment in like when and weapons when Roland wakes up from from one of those dreams. He's just like, what the fuck?
02:41:03
Speaker
There's just like a lot of good moments like that. I also like when Justine's being chased by Marcus and she just says to the guy at the store, like, help me. You know, the guy's like mad at her, wants her to get out of her store.
02:41:13
Speaker
but the guy's trying to kill her. She's like, fucking help me. yeah That felt really real. off of that but like Like, she doesn't even say that first. She says to her, get out of my store.
02:41:27
Speaker
Yeah. He is not at her first before she says, come and help me, right? So yeah in his perspective, it's just like, he's free still recruiting by store, right?
02:41:39
Speaker
But also like, yeah again, if we're talking about this weaponization idea, right? This angle, you know, where it's like, you know, these things are happening. So he sees it more as these crazy people who are ruining his livelihood.
02:41:51
Speaker
And he allows that to get in the way of his empathy, right? And that's what the film is, right? And, you know, ah what was the film we were just invoking?
02:42:02
Speaker
Empty Man. Yeah, Empty Man. So Empty Man. Yeah, Empty Man. ah So um what's great about that movie is ah it's something that exists around the character, the the protagonist, right?
02:42:15
Speaker
ah Separate from the world, like they're hearing about it, right? Until they become the focus of the story, right? Like it's something that exists around them until they realize that they are the central focus of it, right?
02:42:25
Speaker
Right. And that's what weapons is too, right? Where it's like Justine, right? She is ah the central point in a different way where perceptually she's seen that way, right? But then she is also inserting herself into the narrative of weapons where she's the one trying to solve it, right?
02:42:42
Speaker
So it's this thing where it's like, But there's a beckoning, right? There's a call for these protagonists where they have to go towards the threat, either for their own ah safety, their own security, or like their own curiosity, right?
02:42:58
Speaker
and And I think that's a really interesting story structure when you're able to tell a story where these characters are compelled to do things. Hell yeah. agree with all of that. Another movie I was thinking of at the very end, like when the kids kind of, i mean, avenge is the not the right word because that implies like an active thing. Like there're there's redirected towards Gladys and that's, it's cathartic for us, but they'll never feel that satisfaction.
02:43:24
Speaker
Really. When, when that all happened, kind of reminded me of the Jersey when evil lurks. Uh, Yes. um You know, I'm going to be honest with you.
02:43:35
Speaker
I don't like that movie. Oh, okay. Well, dear I know some people who don't. i I just but i thought of the ending to it because ah like that movie is almost like if you look at it from the children's point of view...
02:43:49
Speaker
the demons winning is like victorious for them. Like they're allowed ah to take um kind of back a world that has discarded and forgotten about them and doesn't care that yeah, they're being demonically influenced and doing horrible things like eating their grandparents or whatever. But it's like, ah I don't know, maybe those fuckers deserved it because they didn't they didn't do their job and which was supposed to be, you know, looking out for kids.
02:44:19
Speaker
this is a ah maniacal point I'm about to make, but it's like, I i come at it from urgency. I'm going to draw a direct line between that film, When Evil Erks, right? ah Weapons and Mikael Haneke's film, ah What the White Ribbon, because I thought about that film a lot ah while watching Weapons.
02:44:39
Speaker
um Have you ever seen The White Ribbon? The White Ribbon. Sounds familiar. um From Mikael Haneke. He did like ah The Piano piano Teacher, Yeah, I know the director. So this is 2009. Just broad strokes. That film is about the children who become Nazis in Germany, right?
02:44:59
Speaker
You see like the the children, ah like the parents the parents and how they raise the children who grow into Nazis is what that film is about. And I think that that film has a lot in common with the weapons, right?
02:45:12
Speaker
Or it's like a lot, just as much of what happens in that film is about the kids as much as it is about the parents. But relating it again to like Justin Long and and and his wife's character, ah like in that moment where Josh Brolin is looking through the footage, right?
02:45:28
Speaker
Do they seem like particularly good parents to you? I don't think so. Right? Yeah. I mean, not everyone needs to be going vigilante and searching for their own answers like Brolin, but they also, ah they seem kind of annoyed.
02:45:45
Speaker
that ah by and And to be fair, Brolin has bad vibes, but like in terms of like, even if you're not out there devoting every second of your life to this, because, you know, people are processing things in in different ways.
02:45:58
Speaker
I think they would at least welcome any, if there was like someone who showed up and like presented an opportunity of any answer or like chance of like understanding or clarity on like what the fuck happened, I'd be like, yeah, please ah do sure. Look at this camera.
02:46:13
Speaker
and And instead they're like, oh, what are you doing here? You know, it, i they theyre the yeah it's they're more focused on the inconvenient momentarily inconvenience to them. And that's also just gets it like the selfishness of like everyone in this community and in America. I want to clear.
02:46:33
Speaker
Yeah. yeah and it's the thunderstorms happen at that moment. um ah Going into that, right? Like, i want to I want to clarify that I think that Josh Brolin is also equally as bad of a parent in that moment, right? ah Yeah, in a different way. Yeah. Exactly. But like the fact that it happened to their kids, right?
02:46:54
Speaker
Like the thing is, I'm not playing the kids. like I got to say that right now. You know, like these kids, they they were victims, right? But I think the parents, every single parent of the the kids in that moment, right?
02:47:06
Speaker
I could have done better. I do. Right. and And you see that through their actions specifically with Josh Brolin, as well as ah Justin Long and and their wife. Right. Like they there are power imbalances where they're letting their own personal shit get in the way.
02:47:19
Speaker
Right. and and And that's what makes them ah worse parents in my eyes. Right. And that's he's getting at there in in in my eyes again. Right. but They care. They love their kids, right? But they're not fully there for them.
02:47:33
Speaker
They don't really understand what they need, right? They're not they're not as attentive as they think they are. And Alex is technically the best parented of all of them, right? But he is the most susceptible to influence because of carelessness.
02:47:48
Speaker
Must be the sweetest away. Must be the sweetest away.
02:47:57
Speaker
Not that it matters, but do we think that Gladys has either, she's run this scheme in a couple other towns, like she kind of just goes fermenting chaos and and sucking people dry?
02:48:08
Speaker
Or is she legitimately Alex's aunt? I guess both could be true. They're not mutually exclusive ideas. But like, do you think there is a possibility? Because it doesn't seem like, like there's always the thing where someone in impersonates a family member of like, oh, I'm this long lost aunt or uncle. Now I'm showing up and inserting myself into your family.
02:48:26
Speaker
But she does, the mom says, has the line of like, this is what my mom would have done in a way of like, oh, did you know Gladys? Like you've met Gladys before then or something like, or or or maybe she's just assuming you're going off of a story Gladys told or like looks enough like her real. ah Yeah, I don't know. There's any number of possibilities are true. I guess for the themes of the story, you It is a little more safe. If he is like a blood relative of Alex, this idea that like, you know, family is actually could be the least safe place, you know, like the call is coming from within the family that like only furthers that. So and maybe I lean towards that interpretation just because I like that. that And it's just like, ah that's just really unlucky.
02:49:10
Speaker
Your answer, evil witch. Well, I think that it implies that she had met her at least once, right? Like, there was at least the one moment where recognized her, right?
02:49:22
Speaker
um But at the same time, the problem with that, ah you know, i guess, like, her, like, recognizing that like, at least, like, knowing who Aunt Gladys is, right, is that means ah at least some point she met her, right, at some family gathering and she was there, right?
02:49:39
Speaker
ah But the problem is just, like, like is she actually an aunt, right? Like, did she actually just appear at this event and she just transposed that way, right? Because as you alluded to before, like, she could have done this from town to town.
02:49:52
Speaker
She had lied about that, right? All this stuff. I think that's why it's important to bring up the Stephen King story, Needful Things, right? ah because in that story, it's like this guy who just just drifts into town, right? And he promises like what these people want that he has, right?
02:50:10
Speaker
And I think that that's more what Gladys occupies where it's like, you know, there's a selflessness in Alex's parents that they are looking to achieve. That's why they let Gladys in, right?
02:50:21
Speaker
Like even like the the the dad doesn't want Gladys there as much as the mom does, right? But they're trying to be better people is what's happening there, right? And that that's why they're also the best characters in the film is because like they are so truly altruistic, right?
02:50:39
Speaker
So at the end of the day, like but the question is less like, is Gladys actually related to the parents or all that, right? But it's like born from their intentions, right?
02:50:52
Speaker
It's because they are so ah trying to be good people, right? Because they are trying to be good people so hard, right? They manifest this evil that allows us to take advantage of their kind heart in this.
02:51:07
Speaker
Uh, also this is just a separate point, right? Like I completely forgot to bring this up earlier. This has nothing to do with what I just said. Um, but bringing it back to video games, bringing it back to Archer, the character, ah Josh Brolin's character,
02:51:20
Speaker
um When he's screaming Matthew throughout the film, he just reminded me of Heavy when he's like going after his son. There's that Jason. Jason. Jason.
02:51:34
Speaker
nice son very soon Jason! Jason! Jason! du rule of David Cage. Have you played the sci-fi one he did after that? um um What is it called?
02:51:48
Speaker
digitalify as human Yeah, I played that game with a friend. All we did was, was like, we we chose the character so we wanted to be growing up. Yeah, and when I got the Messiah character. I got the one who, like, ah starts the revolt.
02:52:02
Speaker
And what I did was I purposely made him, like, the most, like, in a are there's There's a sequence where like you have to go and break out people from ah ah cage. You remember that sequence?
02:52:15
Speaker
I chose right at the beginning to run away. Those games can be so funny. That's how I interact with these games. Yeah, I mean, that that that's kind of like, those games get way funnier when you start failing intentionally, especially in the heavy rain games, because like, uh, in that one, you can fail enough that a character can die except for one character, you know, spoilers, one character is the killer in it. But like, if you, it it's funny how they have to like, like justify keeping him like, okay, well, he just got really badly fucked up, but he's still alive. And that like, like, could you do a way forward? Yeah.
02:52:52
Speaker
Those games are funny. um There should be a weapon. I'm willing to put on mic. so i was saying there should be a weapons video game. The weapons video game should be like a twin stick shooter. And you play as like either Justine or you play as, zara you know, Josh Brolin's character. And you're just fighting against like Lattice's minions.
02:53:10
Speaker
They're just like adults that come after you. That's what it is. But to go out, what was the film we were just talking about? Sorry. just Oh, or ah we're talking about David Cage games like Heavy Rain. Yes, the Sedata Cage Heavy Rain.
02:53:22
Speaker
So I'm willing to admit, Mike, that before a Heavy Rain came out, you know, i was a stupid child. I was just excited to play that game, right? And ah when they were announcing that game, they had put all of, like, the PlayStation avatars, like, on there. So, you know, like, you have your online profile, and then you choose, like, a character from, like, a video game series. They can put it, like, your face on your profile, right?
02:53:47
Speaker
Before Heavy Rain came out, I was like, I'm doing Shelby. Like, I'm... Like, and now... and And, like, that's in my day... To this day, you know, I've done my PlayStation 3. I think on my online profile, it's Shelby from Heavy Rate.
02:54:02
Speaker
but Because that was just... the Coolest sequences. And also, I've i've maybe seen that actor... as show up as like a background, like actor in more things than I've seen any of the other heavy rain actors and other stuff. Like I've actually seen Shelby's actor. Yeah. Just like in the background of like an indie movie or something. It's just, I think he might be Canadian. He might be, he might be related to you. guys are all related, right? Well, well David Cage is a Frenchman, right? So like, he's probably going to Canada because, yeah, exactly. The French Canadians are French here, you know?
02:54:35
Speaker
No, French here. They are French. Well, It changes very well. They're French in some places, but not all of them. well Well, you know, that's not too far off, you know, in Canada. It's pretty much just one province where all the French people are, you know, unless you're going to like a French immersion school. Keep them up for something. Yeah. Well...
02:54:54
Speaker
yeah I don't know um i don't know how much you know about Canadian politics and stupidness of it, but like there's like ah theres like a Quebec-based politician who at one point wrote a book.
02:55:06
Speaker
ah and like It was about how the French in Canada are treated like black people. in America and it had like at some kind of crazy title to it where it was like the white N word.
02:55:19
Speaker
And I was just like, yeah you know I don't know if it's exactly that, right? But it was like something very similar to that where it's like, our French Canadians are crazy. do not lunch Do not look at them as like reasonable. Like sometimes they've got reasonable points in the sense of like, you know, hey, you know, like we were colonized by the such.
02:55:38
Speaker
Maybe for whatever reason we want to keep the French ah language around here. Sure, whatever. Right. But at the same time, you know, like they have like a very crazy way of perceiving how Canada treats the French here.
02:55:52
Speaker
me You think David Cage should make a ah game based off that that book? Yeah, he did. Called Detroit Becoming Human. Detroit Becoming Human is about the French Revolution in Canada.
02:56:03
Speaker
It's going to happen any day now. Learning so much about your culture. I thought it was all just so go on of the and the show and Jay Burechel and Seth Rogen up there.
02:56:16
Speaker
Do you know about Corner Gas? Corner Gas. I know of it, but I haven't actually watched it. I probably liked it. I had somebody like reach out to me recently. They were just like, do you know what Corner Gas is? And they were American. And I'm just like, of course I know what Corner Gas is.
02:56:30
Speaker
Like, ah but But when it comes to ah Canadian culture, film, television, all that stuff, you know, Nirvana, the band, on the show, you're you're getting the greatest hits. yeah Like that that that is truly one of the best things that we put out there. um ah What is Matt Johnson doing next? I know there's the Nirvana, the band, the show movie.
02:56:50
Speaker
um Yeah. but Did you ever see, what's the movie? he The Dirty? ah Recently. oh no, no. Blackberry. He started in it. He didn't. He didn't direct it. He starred in a movie recently that was quite good.
02:57:03
Speaker
And for whatever reason, I'm forgetting the name. Just forget it and while I'll get it tomorrow. So the director, Kazik, I just want to get the full name so I can pronounce it correctly, Zik Radwanski.
02:57:14
Speaker
Right. He is a fantastic director. ah He made movie be called In at 13,000 Feet, which also had Matt Johnson. And then he also has this movie called Matt and Mara, right? these These are great films when it comes to like understanding what it's like to be from Toronto, right?
02:57:30
Speaker
Or my neck of the woods, right? um So Mad Mara, I'd almost call it like a pessimistic ah When Harry Met Sally. It's got that kind of like really romantic approach to it, right?
02:57:44
Speaker
But then it's also got like a very like realistic, like this is how life is approach. approach to it, right? And then Anna 13,000 feet, it's like more of an adolescent, not adolescent, sorry, more of a a young adult approach to like a woman under the influence.
02:58:02
Speaker
But instead of Gia Rollins being an alcoholic, it's a woman who is addicted to skydiving. It's a great movie. Those both sound great. Yeah, I haven't seen and matt johnson of Matt Johnson's like non either stuff he directed or outside of Nirvana, the band, the show. So I should check those out. And the best part is it's like the director knows his talents, right? Like he's clearly seen the run of the band, the show he's clearly seen like the dirties. Right.
02:58:32
Speaker
So like not Johnson is playing within his wheelhouse while still being like a romantic lead, which is a different thing that you would expect from him. Right. so so This is me saying like Kazik, he's a great director.
02:58:46
Speaker
You need to watch his stuff. And Gideon films, they're not always great, you know, but he's one of those filmmakers who I'd point to is like, yeah he's got the goods. I forgot that Matt Johnson's doing the Anthony burr Bourdain movie with Dominic Sessa. I mean... I think that sounds great. that's not i Some biopics, i robot him doing it makes me interested in it. ah Like, on its own, I don't know that I would trust i like anyone to do the Bourdain movie, but he also took...
02:59:20
Speaker
Like, even knowing who Matt Johnson was and being a fan of Nirvana, the band, when, like, I heard about Blackberry, I was like, is that going to be any good? And I'm like, oh, this is, like, actually the only other good tech origin story movie after, you know, social network everyone was. They kept trying to do all these other ones. I'm like, oh, well, there's Blackberry's the only other they're good one. Well, I think that Blackberry works specifically because it's a very Canadian story, right? Like, not to make it about Canadians all the time, you know, but hey, you know, I'll take it where I can get it.
02:59:50
Speaker
ah But when it comes to ah BlackBerry specifically, right, like the narrative of it is that they took something that already existed and they tried to make it better. Right. And the problem is, is that they didn't, ah you know, ah try to make it better in an efficient way.
03:00:03
Speaker
Right. And when you look at it, not so much from like a tech story, but rather from like how Canadians try to interpret American ideas and try to do them better. and fail, right? I think that Blackberry becomes like almost like a very strong national film.
03:00:18
Speaker
ah because There there does a great i is a nationalistic aspect to the, I think ah the actual tech industry is 100% nationalistic, but then also within the movie, they keep invoking China and stuff produced in China that in ah in a way of like, oh, we have to best them and also, but their stuff is also not good enough.
03:00:40
Speaker
But they're also trying to beat iPhone because they're coming at the same time as iPhone when Blackberry is happening, right? like like Like when Blackberry was coming out, do you remember Blackberry is coming out?
03:00:51
Speaker
hit Barely. I mean, I know a couple of people who've had them, but it was more iPhone. iPhone, like, single-handedly won. Like, it wasn't like even a contest.
03:01:02
Speaker
Like, they just kind of... And it was because like BlackBerry like tried to like step in so many different markets, right? They tried to touch screen it at the keyboard and all those things, right? They did too much was the same, right?
03:01:14
Speaker
And like when you're looking at it from like a Canadian storytelling standpoint or like what it means like the greatest human Canadian film, right? Or Canadian culture. um It's saying like it wants to improve, but it doesn't know how.
03:01:27
Speaker
Well, and they they don't have time to figure out any actual iterative innovations because it it has it also is accurately portraying like the endless ah upward gains you have to do in capitalism. It's just expansion and selling, selling. It's it's is's endless expansion without any actual end goal.
03:01:50
Speaker
And you have to keep spending with the expectations that you will continue to grow exponentially forever. And like, it was like, oh, maybe that isn't sustainable. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but like everybody in that film is a Canadian except for Glenn Howerton, who is an American.
03:02:05
Speaker
Am I right? Yeah. His character is Glenn Howerton is... Oh, his character is Canadian? Is he? i don't know. I don't know enough about the real... I thought he was an American. Maybe.
03:02:16
Speaker
i could be wrong. I could very well be wrong. You're probably wrong. No, no. We're both too polite. This is the problem. This is this what we call a Canadian standoff. But, uh... but the the The way I interpreted the film, right, it was Glenn Harrington's perspective.
03:02:32
Speaker
He's an American perspective, almost, where it's like, you know, buy-sell, buy-sell, you know, like very like aggressive. Jay Baruchel and his partner, ah they're they're they're more so interested in making the best possible phone, right?
03:02:48
Speaker
And it's that fight between commerce and betterment, right? And what ends up winning in the end? The American side. Yeah, right. um he that the He's a Canadian businessman, according to Wikipedia.
03:03:01
Speaker
It makes sense because no American would know what water would live. I was going to say, just based on that scene, which I assume happened because you can't put it in a biopic unless it was real. so um No, so so so you're close, actually. It did happen, but the reason that that scene is in the film is because it's a remake of a viral video.
03:03:21
Speaker
That's so Matt Johnson. That's the most Matt Johnson shit I've ever heard. If you watch the original video, it's literally just like somebody, like, it's it's like a man on the street interview about politics, right?
03:03:33
Speaker
And it's just somebody shit-talking Waterloo. And it's just somebody going like, I made the Waterloo. I know we're the vampire. by You know? And you're just like, yeah. I feel like we've gotten this tangent and maybe like one other person knows what we're we're talking about, especially American audience.
03:03:49
Speaker
Yeah. that's not but They should know what Nirvana, the band, the show is. ah There's not really a a free place to stream it. You know, i don't know. Hit me up. I'll find you a link.
03:04:00
Speaker
ah Check out BlackBerry, which is streaming on Hulu. That's what I think. One thousand percent. Both worth your time. And the thing is, is like, you know... There is no con connection between weapons.
03:04:13
Speaker
I was trying to think of a way to bring it back, but was like, we went too Canadian, and it's just like we went so far.
03:04:23
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I apologize for my nationalism. I did this. up yeah You should be lucky I didn't bring up universal language, you know? I get I get to derail this thing in a really different direction, but I did in the most fun way possible. And like you guys can't see Tony right now. He's wearing like the Canadian flag. He's got like maybe nepal but maple syrup in his both hands.
03:04:47
Speaker
he's ah He's like there's a hockey game in the background. It's crazy. For real Tony patriots out there, you should know. I'm wearing a New York shirt. I'm wearing a New York necklace. you know i've read rep the Burroughs. Bookland boys, shout out. Fucking Dime Store podcast people.
03:05:12
Speaker
ah Will Menneker, you're now on my mutual, you know so you're listening to this. I know. ah New York boys represent New York, New York. The hell of a town I've heard.
03:05:23
Speaker
ah you I mean, I was, but I was like too young to, um it was before 9-11, so make it that way, Chewell. What's the conspiracy?
03:05:34
Speaker
ah I remember seeing... We're still off stage. Yeah, who you get back to when you're at. No, no, no, but I wanted to build off of 9-11 because like i like this is just an interesting thing I like talking about. When 9-11 was happening, right, the day it was happening, I was in grade one, right, and they wheeled the TV into the classroom and we watched the the footage as it was happening.
03:05:58
Speaker
and ah and And whenever I'm talking to an American, right, I love to bring that up because like that's how ingrained American society is in Canadian society.
03:06:09
Speaker
Well, oh school should say I almost wish my school did that because a lot of that day was me not knowing what was happening. It was like clearly. the adults were aware of something had happened and we were all sent home early.
03:06:23
Speaker
But then also my friend who I would carpool with, I was like, no, you can't hang out Roland's place. You got to come home. And I was like, what the fuck? We got out early. And you're saying I can't go over to my friend who has like every game console and hang out.
03:06:37
Speaker
Yeah. Like, come on. He's got, he's got 3DO. He's got shit that the no one even knows about. Like, come on. He's just a pillow. Come on. And then realized, but I was told later what, what had happened, but I, it was a lot of the day just being confused of like, so what's going on? Like there's, the vibes are weird. Like we, would we couldn't go out at recess and, you know, they're sending us all home.
03:07:02
Speaker
And, oh, actually, yeah, yeah can I can steer this back to to weapons. it's But, you know, the adults that don't know how to handle a situation, like that they're kind of, instead of,
03:07:16
Speaker
doing something that might be uncomfortable, like having ah ah sit down with a kid who gets going to understand a lot of different things. There's always that, like, you know, like when when the queer panic of like, how am I supposed to tell my kid about trans person uses a bad, like,
03:07:33
Speaker
Kids are like sponges. They can ba understand that stuff easier than your dumb old brain. it so It's also but not a complex concept. So it's like not that that hard to wrap your head around.
03:07:46
Speaker
But yeah, in weapons, like this community is... is you know, is kind of brought to their knees and crippled just because ah the the fact that this is able to spread is just because none of these adults know how to cope with any of this.
03:08:02
Speaker
A thousand percent. And like, you know, it's it's one of those things where children are able to conceptualize things easier than adults because they're able to buy into perceived realities.
03:08:14
Speaker
Right. And that's what weapons is Right. Alex is able to buy into the perceived reality of what Gladys presents to him when he has to, you know, be a part of her plot. Right. But that's true with children as well.
03:08:26
Speaker
Like just in our daily lives, you know, or it's like they're they are fed information that parents are privy to, you know, and they let that shape the world that they and then exist within. Right. And that's something that we should all be cognizant of. We should all understand that.
03:08:43
Speaker
is Because I think that there are people who will walk away from this film thinking it's very reactionary, that it's like trying to tell you to be afraid of these things, right? But think it ah people need to know it's a reality, right?
03:08:55
Speaker
That there is no way to keep your kids 100% safe. There is no way to keep your communities 100%. It's really only what you're able to do in the preventative measures or in the communicative measure measures that you can construct, right?
03:09:11
Speaker
And what this film is talking about is the the systems that are in place, as is, are ill-equipped. We see that with Benedict Wong's character. While he's the most reasonable person on paper, you know,
03:09:24
Speaker
He just is not able to ah bring that to a logical conclusion. He represents a small, but the all but in not it is that is bound by kind of perceived manners and like what is right and proper and like that ah it can't stop actual evil. You know, like we've seen that very clearly in America where it Democrats are always going like, well, but the norms and the rules, you can't, you couldn't possibly do this. No one would do that. Oh, it was like, no, you're, you're starting from the basis of this the the person has the the capacities of shame or like, others it like, they know what they're doing is wrong.
03:10:07
Speaker
Like, so you're acting like some, some, some mistake of like, oh, how could they do this? It's like, well, cause you guys are a bunch of bitches. and That's why. oh You're letting it happen. You're seeding ground and that you don't need to.
03:10:22
Speaker
Yeah. Is the thing, right? And that that's where ah good because like that's where reasonable politics fail, right? ah Because like when when you're trying to see all viewpoints as valid or when you're trying to... ah here, everybody, right?
03:10:41
Speaker
You do allow for some malicious approaches to come in. And that's that's what the film's about, you know? And it's sad.
03:10:52
Speaker
It's deeply sad. like Like, still thinking about the film, like, it just makes me mad. enraged to think about like the real world parallels, right?
03:11:04
Speaker
um Yeah, but we're like emotional. um But like when it comes to like just the real world impact of this stuff, um like these parents are not like rectifying with the reality that these kids have to live within.
03:11:19
Speaker
They're not trying to create a better world. Instead, they're feeding into that world and then acting unaware of it. their Like their their victim was even by the end of a film, right?
03:11:31
Speaker
The narration says that there was a cover. and there The narration says that like nobody talks about it, but they'll talk about it if you talk to them about it, right? And that speaks entirely to what their motivation is.
03:11:43
Speaker
they They can't come to terms with the event that happens. and The literature truth is future and olds is a man it's too embarrassing. that's like the sheli and but That's where she says that everyone was embarrassed because it's like it highlights their failure this was allowed to happen.
03:12:01
Speaker
Like, how did you um did you not know there was an evil way to do that? She's not even that stealthy, eventually but especially when she's feeling her oats and starts walking, coming about.
03:12:13
Speaker
you should be You should be clocking that. Like, what the fool? Who are you? Yeah. and Why aren't Alex's parents coming out? Like the fact that she's like not even a good liar is like, I like that.
03:12:26
Speaker
and but But you can't add a stroke. And you kind of just have to go along with like, to like, like no one's like pushing back on it. They're kind of just like, even Marcus is like, okay, like he, you can tell that he maybe doesn't buy it, but also what is he going to do? Because it would be proper to, you know, like he can't, You can't just go to the home on a wellness check on a, you know, like ah that would be overstepping. So, but he has to just keep asking to see the parents. So it's like the extent of what he can do.
03:12:56
Speaker
And it's interesting too, because like in that intro sequence when we're getting that information, right? And you're seeing Alex on the couch talking to the cops, right? Gladys is there.
03:13:07
Speaker
but Oh, you you see yeah we see her initially too in the beginning? i only, in my mind, I'm focused on the Alex and you see her again at the end, but she was there the whole time. She was there with his father, right? And that's supported by what happens later in the film when you see the father going in, right?
03:13:27
Speaker
They're not doing a good job hiding it. that's the That's the funniest part is that she is not doing a good job hiding her tracks. And it's just like, and and the filmmaking supports that where it's like, you didn't even catch that.
03:13:41
Speaker
you didn't You didn't know. Right? and And that's not a failing. and but you you like That's that Prager just being a fucking Joel. Because you see a kid flanked on two sides by adults who like, oh, his parents. And that's probably like what my brain clocked it as because I didn't actually know what his mom looks like at that point.
03:13:57
Speaker
And then by the time i do as the time I do see the mom, I don't remember that he looked like, oh, wait, that wasn't Alex's mom. It's not until later when it comes full circle.
03:14:10
Speaker
it's It's just like the town. I was was fully unaware. was right there in front of me. And that's okay. That's okay for you as the audience, right? Yeah, I don't have it yet. The thing is that it's done.
03:14:22
Speaker
Exactly. You're fucking good. get as selfish as I want. You're so like, I want to bring up James again. Because James, like, what I love about James' character, we didn't touch on this before talking about his arc, right?
03:14:34
Speaker
When he goes into trying to trade in the iPad early on in the film before he even finds out that the kids are there, right? He's looking at the sign of how much money he could get for pawning, right?
03:14:48
Speaker
And right beside that sign is the missing children's sign. He's not even... It's only like when he comes back and then he sees it, he now knows where the kids are ah ah so like When he goes back to the house of Paul and he's just like, wait, how do I know you're not going to try and keep me out of my cut the money?
03:15:10
Speaker
ah my by cut of the money And what I love about that, too, is that Paul doesn't answer. and Is that Paul, at that moment, understands that there is money to be had as well.
03:15:20
Speaker
And that he understands that he can also be a partner. He understands that. And also, he's like, his career is not in a good place. So he's probably looking to leverage this. Like, if he's a hero, he brought Busy's kids home. Like, that could save, maybe even override any faults in his marriage. Because it's like, look, I fucking saved these kids, honey. You have to take me back. I'm um a hero.
03:15:43
Speaker
this I see it on you, but, like, it all evens out. ah But, like, what what I love about, like, his setup at the police station, right, because, like, the police chief is his wife's father. father oh i Yeah. yeah So it's, like,
03:15:57
Speaker
There's that moment where he admits to him that he beat James, right? And the two of them are colluding, right? Like, up until this point, ah we've seen the police chief as, you know, less empathetic, but like, he's been seen as, the you know, efficient.
03:16:15
Speaker
You know, he's still doing his job, room right? But this is the first time that we see him doing anything that's like breaking the boundaries of what a cop should be doing. It kind of forever and ever, right? But this is the moment that we know for sure that he's a dead cop, right? Yeah, and I've already seen Rebel Ridge, so I know about the hard drive only keeping the the but cam footage for like 30 days or something. Yeah, apparently that's real, because when I saw Rebel Ridge, I wasn't sure, was like, are they making up those rules? But the fact that multiple movies are referencing that, I'm like, oh, so that's this's probably just a systemic thing of how that footage is stored.
03:16:52
Speaker
and Yeah. And so, yeah, cops definitely have a workaround for when they know that there's like compromising footage and they just have to like kind of like stall the clock or something, basically.
03:17:03
Speaker
And protect their own, right? And also, you you invoke Rebel Ridge, which is another, you know, ah film Twitter bad faith classic, you know? Oh, there's things and there's the hanging of not all cops at the end or something. That was so dumb. don't remember if I...
03:17:20
Speaker
so debated that fully on our, our rebel, uh, rage review. But like the idea that like, cause he doesn't trust, he knows he still can't trust any cops by the end. The only reason that they even, the state troopers are like escorting them across the finish line is because there's an injured cop.
03:17:41
Speaker
Now that's who they're care, care about. They don't care about the girl who almost OD'd or him. Another cop was injured. So he, you know, uh, a line was crossed.
03:17:52
Speaker
Like, you're not supposed to, the regular everyday corruption, whatever, but once you're starting to injure other cops, this has gone too far and we have to shut this down. That's what people missed about that film.
03:18:04
Speaker
they They thought that they the cops were being just so altruistic, right? But there was also an element of selfishness to it, right? And at the end of the film, one of the final shots that we see of that character is him walking into the police station like,
03:18:17
Speaker
but He's not giving that to anyone. He's probably not going to let go of that until he's like yeah in front of a judge. you know like but exactly Even then, he'll probably be reticent to give it up because it's like, how do i trust out oh am I going to trust who would I give this to that this won't just like get deleted?
03:18:33
Speaker
Exactly. and and And you need that, right? In order for that film to work, right? The fact that he is so untrusting of the police. The third act, people are saying, like, you know, it becomes cop again. I think that that's false, you know?
03:18:45
Speaker
I think that it still presents the reality at the end of it, that he does not trust McCox at the end. He still has to deliver that himself in order for that. one And he has to do it but completely non-lethally because he wants to live and he knows that, like, as soon as he...
03:19:01
Speaker
it fatally injures one of them that it's over. Like that they could, they can already do whatever they want to you. But like, if you have killed one, then you're certain that you ceded all rights to life or anything, you know, like it's like they could, they, it won't matter how much injustice you've uncovered then.
03:19:22
Speaker
you know what You know what Rebel Ridge is? It's Rambo first blood, no death run. You know? Like, yeah imagine you're playing, like, a video game and, like, you're trying to get, like, the best achievement and you gotta, to like, make sure that you don't kill any of the people with stealth segments, right?
03:19:36
Speaker
That's what Rebel Ridge is. He has to do that for the entire film in order for him to be seen as a human. And that's what makes that movie good is that he has to live up to some imaginary perspective that nobody else has to live up to, right? But he has to because in order for his voice to be heard.
03:19:54
Speaker
It's fucked up. It's stupid. But at the same time, it's a reality with an American life. And bringing it back to weapons, right? Like these parents can only listen once their kids are away.
03:20:04
Speaker
these These parents, they don't actually care about their like the interiority of their children's lives until they're gone. Yeah, like you're going to apologize for never saying I love you to your son, but like you had so up so many opportunities when he was there. so like That's on you, Bucko.
03:20:23
Speaker
like like they did they're not good they're You're not a good parent in my eyes. None of them are. i mean, Alex's parents is are are the are the good ones, but even they're compromised in the way of like their need to be good just kind of blinds them to the very clear danger because even when Gladys shows, anywhere Gladys shows up, there should be red flags going on. mean, it's just like, oh, it's the sickly old woman defensive. Like, look how old she is. She's very old.
03:20:54
Speaker
like in She also is in rough shape before the kid, you know, she starts, ah as she takes the kids. Like, it it does, you know, the dad's even like, I don't think she's going to be here much longer. And as in like, that like yeah she doesn't have much longer. And I think i think that is is true that she is desperate, which is why it's like 17 kids. I saw someone debating of like, well, why didn't she just take one kid at a time? i was like, I think she is on a crunch. Like, the she just needs them like now.
03:21:21
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, she's even successful, right? Like, they at no point do we even see that these kids are actually giving her up the strength to succeed. The only time that we ever actually see her like,
03:21:33
Speaker
feel alive. When her juvenate is. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's like when she gets Benedict. She only truly feasts off of like, like really grotesque, like power imbalances.
03:21:44
Speaker
Right. That's what it is. Like the way I perceive this movie is like, she's going to die either way. Right. But for whatever reason, she just gets so much plea out of this death. No, absolutely. I think she just, she just feeds off of that negativity, that hate, that pain.
03:22:01
Speaker
Uh, Yeah, Ori invoked Tulpa's, and yeah, she's basically like a Twin Peaks spirit, with the Garmin Bosia. Like, she just needs to throw up some cream corn, and you're there. Forget the fucking transphobia readings.
03:22:14
Speaker
She looks like the fucking woman on the tarmac in Fire Walk With Me, who does the whole- Oh, the answer code. Yeah, oh, yeah. Exactly. That's what she fucking looks like.
03:22:24
Speaker
Forget whatever fucking trans reading people had. that's so That's what her character's model of. I bet that's pretty good. Besides, I think Prager would admit that some kind of clown imagery he's trying to evoke with with her makeup, but I think also, I mean, that woman on the tarmac has clown makeup on. So, like, that that's, yeah.
03:22:45
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I think it's like, it's so much more clear. all goes back to Firewalk with me. All the all the great All the great horror filmmakers are inspired by Rob Zombie when he did Halloween 2 and but Halloween 2 is like a tragedy in my eyes.
03:23:01
Speaker
I don't think there's any version of that film that's actually as good as the thing that people promise it to be. But I also see the film that Robin Zombie wanted to make with it on the director's cut to the point where it's like, damn, that's the one that got away. i i love it. And i I feel like it benefits from lot of Halloween movies being straight out bad.
03:23:22
Speaker
it It is in the upper half line. And it it's like, well, he had fully had a take. His take was, what is Fire Walk With Me but with Michael Myers and Laurie Stroh? But, you know, it's that's a take.
03:23:35
Speaker
And it's weird because that's not even like the only time that happened because I'd almost argue that Halloween ends is almost trying to be a Fire Walk With Me as well. Yeah. Yeah, David Gordon Green is like, okay, I see how everyone was upset with the zombie version. I hear you.
03:23:51
Speaker
But also, but me tell you about Corey Cunningham. The best Halloween character ever. Corey Cunningham is the fucking G. I love Justice for Corey Cunningham. I'm a Halloween ends.
03:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, my may my only issue with ends is that we, not enough Corey. You know, like he gets he gets killed too early. Or if you want to still have that cathartic ending of like where they, you know, throw...
03:24:14
Speaker
Michael Myers into a wood chip or fire, but then Corey like can like sit up or something at the end and then the themes start playing or something of like, okay, well now he's fully like...
03:24:25
Speaker
you know, like yeah he's reanimated somehow, the kind of like how Michael seemed invincible and he's just like the new. There should be more Corey movies, you know, in my eyes, you know, there should be like, you know, Corey eight right now.
03:24:38
Speaker
I would love that, you know, ah but just to bring up, Paul Wee ends in comparison with weapons, ah because I think that those two films are linked, you know, um I think that what's important to bring up with those two films is that,
03:24:52
Speaker
the the The killing of a Gladys from the children, as well as the trash compactor in Halloween ends, they're linked because it's like a town that needs to expel an evil, right?
03:25:03
Speaker
And in Halloween ends, it feels less emotionally honest, right? Because everyone's involved with that. right? Everyone's able to feel that pain, right? Whereas in weapons, right, the children have the capacity to take back their agency in that moment, right?
03:25:20
Speaker
But the parents, again, are unaware of it, right? Like we see a bit of the people who the children's ran through the houses of, right? there they're not happy the kids are back.
03:25:32
Speaker
They don't know who those kids are. They don't know who the parents are. They're just upset that somebody ran through their house, which is understandable, right? But at the same time, those kids heard the evil that was at the the core of this town. And the parents will never re-understand. One, the kids aren't talking, but like no one, even if Justine or Archer was to tell the other parents, like yeah, there was this woman in the basement and they she had the kids, that like the Like, what are you talking about? Like, that's not so that won't be a satisfactory answer. You know, like, well, there'll be no answer. Nothing will make sense. So then makes sense. The town would just come up with a lie. i don't, I don't know what their cover story is to explain that. But, you know, like they, it would, it would make, they would come up with something that would make more sense than the actual truth.
03:26:22
Speaker
Is the film that we're watching the cover story? are we watching a rationality of a woman stealing a bunch of children? Is everything that we've seen been an imaginary perception of that?
03:26:34
Speaker
The movie is a tall bing bing bomb, you know? is Because this whole film is just about like perceived reality ultimately, right? Is it possible that This is just a film about child abduction and everything else that we see that's so viscera based is just like the rationalization of these children going away from the minds of these parents. I mean, that tracks.
03:26:59
Speaker
That tracks a lot. Right? Fuck. Yeah. its it's It's not like satisfying, I would say. But at the same time, it's like, like it's it makes more sense than witch, you know?
03:27:12
Speaker
A Baba Yaga, if you will. Well, also, it's not, like I was saying, it's not said to the people in this town, like the the actual answer, if there was the answer was a witch, that's not satisfying. So it's like either way, you're never going to have...
03:27:26
Speaker
a full clarification or something, a satisfactory answer to this. It's just an inexplicable tragedy. Like sometimes fucking evil, horrible shit just happens.
03:27:38
Speaker
but And like, looking at back to school shooting, it's the over-intellectualization of it in the aftermath, right? It's like how like, what levels does this make sense now that we are seeing it from hindsight, right?
03:27:53
Speaker
And in some cases, people do a better job of convincing themselves of what the problems are than others, right? Like where, again, we've talked about like right-wing radicalization where sometimes they can clearly pinpoint that, right?
03:28:07
Speaker
And they can talk about how, you know, these people suck and that they should be called out. But then on the other hand, you know, they'll they'll go after Grand Theft Auto, you know, whatever thing to distract from what the actual problem is.
03:28:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, because dealing with the actual problem is not going to... ah it's it's just It's just too painful uncomfortable a conversation. Well, and then also the power that but gun lobbyists have of shutting any of that shit down here. But...
03:28:39
Speaker
ah I also do think that beyond how easily accessible that stuff is, the ah that there is something to the idea. i remember...
03:28:51
Speaker
in Mindhunter when they're talking about that, like how the the politics of the time and how crazy the world is, is maybe correlated to, you know, the rise in all these serial killings and that like is how fucked up everything is now was like why this is like an pure...
03:29:12
Speaker
all the time. like this happens, like it will happen continually because it's it's a societal sickness. It's not, it's not just a ah thing you can legislate away, even if yes, those things should not be as assault rifles should not be just like, don't need those.
03:29:33
Speaker
good i No, let's do, I mean, for hunting, like, did the deer have, like, machine guns on their antlers? If that was the case, if and dear we ah running around with with machine guns, yeah, then then then you need them. Or or like in the whitest kid you know gun debate sketch, it's interesting that they've done. Violence has always been a part of a lot of their their sketches but but Trevor is playing like a right wing guy who's like defending all these talking points of like yeah why these are armor piercing rounds like why do you eat these like all alright well we's some kids i go to the the woods and they're fucking around and then they put a bulletproof vest on a bear and then what do you have invincible bears they're raping your churches burning your women and but but but and yeah exactly it's it's that It's paranoia that doesn't make any sense, right?
03:30:30
Speaker
But it makes sense within these broken, addled minds, right? and and And I think it's important to bring up like Peel and Kreiger specifically as these prisons of each other, right?
03:30:42
Speaker
Where it's like Peel is an outsider to American society almost, right? Because of his own marginalization living within American society, right? Right. And, uh, he's able to see it from that different perspective, but then Kregor is able to see it from the inside perspective. Pinpointed, you know.
03:30:59
Speaker
Where he's a part of the model. Exactly. Right? Where he's able to, uh, pinpoint, uh, the shortcomings of, you know, ah a, uh,
03:31:10
Speaker
What's the word? A sheltered community. That's what weapons this is. A sheltered community. This has been ruptured. Right. And what credit is... There's never been a controversy or anything this large before. Like, obviously, like, any community or group of people, like, bad things have happened, but they've probably been more private and smaller scale. And, like, this is this is out like in the open now. Like, it can't be ignored. Like, this is, like, it's just a gaping wound that's oozing everywhere.
03:31:38
Speaker
This is just like a completely off topic from what we've just been discussing, think but it's still related to weapons. So like ah Justine at the beginning of the film, right? Like she's talking to Benedict Wong's character and ah Benedict Wong is like, hey, I got to give you like leave, right? You can't be at the school right now.
03:31:55
Speaker
I'm sorry, right? And she's like, no, I want to like teach, right? And in the back of my mind, I'm just like, what kids do you have less to teach? me Yeah, like because they're not going to give her. Is it still blood in a man? Probably. Like Alex was the only one left and they moved him to a different classroom and it's like they're not going to give you another batch of kids right now. I mean like we we're how you think that's going to work?
03:32:20
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. i think of that itself is really gross and and and funny but also like even in all of the you know politeness of that, right? They don't want to even trust her with that.
03:32:32
Speaker
And also at the same time what kids does she have to teach? Yeah. they They're all gone. She lost them all. Yeah, I'm so glad the marketing didn't give any of the Alex stuff. Like there is that image of him with the painted face from the dream in some of the commercials.
03:32:48
Speaker
But the the ah the information that there was one kid left was smartly held out of it because it just said they just had a whole classroom in all the marketing. ah like, it disappeared, everyone in a classroom.
03:33:02
Speaker
And I think it almost like and lends this kind of urban legend quality to like how a tale gets told over and over and like some small detail changes, but also good, clever to obfuscate that fact because with how everyone analyzes everything, and there needs to be like a full thing. Like Reddit would have been going crazy with just that information and would have like pinpointed all the vector points or the possibilities of it being this one kid and how that could have done every... So it's like you have less to go out of off of like not knowing that that key piece of information.
03:33:37
Speaker
But kind of the most important information since Alex ends up being like the key to it all. But... But yeah, thats some glad I'm glad they held that back. We've talked about like where this story takes place, right?
03:33:51
Speaker
And this story could have taken place in Sandy Hook, right? like This feels like that space and time where everyone felt like they had the right to talk about what happened there, right?
03:34:03
Speaker
Where everyone felt like they they had their own theories on it, right? And I think that that's purposeful. you know, that like everyone, the humanity was completely forgotten.
03:34:14
Speaker
You know, this week, you know, the same week that this film came out, you know, there was an ex-CMN anchor, right, who did like a deep fake interview with a Mark Dale Hewitt. Oh, my God.
03:34:25
Speaker
Sorry, he's not a victim. Did you see that? didn't watch the night. Red sound isn't looking grotesque, but I saw it. I think that that is as much weight to this film, right? Where it's like, it's somebody who's like listening past what the problem is, right?
03:34:40
Speaker
Where it's like, the bottom is right there. You see it right in your face, right? You've got Jim, ah ah like I think Acosta name of the reporter. You know, they're right in front of it, right?
03:34:53
Speaker
But they just can't see it because they're letting their narrative get in the way of understanding the truth. And society, man. it's like And it's It's going to make me go Joker mode.
03:35:03
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's... Did you see Happy Gilmore 2? I have not watched it yet, no. um I'll probably throw it in all. that I don't want to spoil it. If you ever do watch it, right, the best bit in the film is that Shere McGavin, they're they literally just remade the beats of Joker with Shere McGavin when he's in the mental institution.
03:35:25
Speaker
Like, they literally shoot it the same way and everything, right? And i make and i just that. Yeah. Yeah. yeah the the The problem with Happy Gilmore 2 is all the AI.
03:35:36
Speaker
but They use a lot of like AI CGI in the film. And if if you know what it is, then you'll see it. That's gross. Um, make sense of me, an Netflix movie. and I mean, I've already seen ads where I'm like, this looks sus.
03:35:51
Speaker
I mean, they're for sure have done it for marketing things like that one wicked poster, that like I, sometimes you can get bent to what I was like, Oh, this might just might be badly designed. But when there's like things that are off, like we're,
03:36:05
Speaker
objects that should be in the foreground or like blending with the background in a weird way or like, you know, multiple digits on hands where they shouldn't be. Yeah. That's whole other... i that I don't want to sound pessimistic.
03:36:18
Speaker
Oh, we're all going to die here. A dark part of me, and and I don't want to put this out there to like put this on Craigor, right? And I'm just like throwing it out there, right?
03:36:30
Speaker
A part of me was worried that the AR in weapons was AI. I don't know if it was. I'm not throwing it out there as you like throw that on, right? right I don't want them to confirm that, you know.
03:36:42
Speaker
But at the same time, I'm trying to kind of allude to something different, which is big or a bigger problem, right? Which is that so many films are using ai right? And they're not talking about it.
03:36:53
Speaker
right? They're not alluding to it until later. She just glows at the top. Like, it shouldn't be like that we're finding out about it after opening weekend or like a little bit after the the heat dies down. Like, it should be it should be just, quote you should have to Honestly, you should have to put it on your poster, but also it should be like a disclaimer in front of it.
03:37:16
Speaker
Similar to what we were talking about before with ah transphobia in, well, not transphobia in weapons, like the the label of transphobia on weapons. The thing is, that's a political statement when you're saying that, right?
03:37:31
Speaker
When you're saying that a film has ah transphobia or when you're saying that as AI, that's a political statement, right? When it comes to a film having AI or not having AI, right?
03:37:44
Speaker
I think that it needs to be presented as if it were preservatives in food, as if it were, you know, something that you need to know for your health, right? You have to put that little skull on the side of cigarettes. So, like, I think there should be a digital skull on the side of movies.
03:38:02
Speaker
Yeah. Tell you, like it arguably is more cancerous. We need to stuff out everything that causes cancer. And once we do that, everything will be solved in our lives.
03:38:15
Speaker
Well, according to some CEO that was on 60 Minutes last month or some point earlier in the summer, that AI will actually speed up the the solve. i That's why I'm kind of...
03:38:28
Speaker
know there has to be a bubble is that these guys are pulling all this shit out of their ass because they need it to work. They've invested so much money in all this stuff that they're like, ah yeah, I could cure cancer.
03:38:41
Speaker
but A little bit back to Brady Corbett with Brutalist, right? Because there were so many people who gave him the pass when it was revealed that he used AI in that film, name right? he did Film Twitter gives a pass to ah people who do things they like. Like the people who like Megalopolis are like not going to bring up so what Coppola was doing on that set.
03:39:04
Speaker
and just they they should be doing it um also none of the people even though I'm excited for a new PTA movie in one battle after another I think ah there he's designed I think Leo leo But also, some stuff that he's been...
Political Critique: Zionism and Global Awareness
03:39:24
Speaker
Isn't he, like, building a thing in Israel or something? or Hey, Leonardo DiCaprio is building a hotel in Israel, right?
03:39:35
Speaker
Altair S. Anderson is a Zionist. Like, very... openly, you know? And like, that's a conversation that's coming down in the next month. like we're We're at a discourse right now.
03:39:48
Speaker
This is discourse that people are going to have to come. I'm not even reading violin, but page one, very, I've seen pretty keen in like, oh, this is going to be a political movie.
03:39:59
Speaker
So, i like, that's the fucking Zionist brain rot. That's the fucking Zionist brain rot. It's stuff like they fucking, did they understand American ah disrupt, right? They understand all that stuff, but then, like, they're blind to it in other areas of the world.
03:40:16
Speaker
that That's what I mean when I say Zionist brain rot. It's like there is no consistency within why aren't you applying those values to, like, what's going on? What's blatantly going on? Like, it's like, not a thing that's even debatable. Like, it's a genocide. It's a starvation. Like, lately, they were, like, some big from Israel saying, to're like, oh, there's no famine or whatever. It's like, what the fuck are you talking about? We could see it happening. So,
03:40:43
Speaker
It's like you just have to have this compartmentalization of reality, which kind of gets back to weapons and even Eddington of like how all these different... Someone had pointed out in Eddington that like all the different crazy people are... It's not it's not a perfect circle of the Venn diagram of where their stuff overlap. Like the anti-maskers aren't also...
03:41:08
Speaker
100% all the people who are into the Austin Butler anti-trafficking or who also aren't the same as you know his mother-in-law who's into conspiracies. it's like It's like these different siloed rationales. But I think that also applies to it's not just conservatives. like That kind of thinking happens in you know, more, more liberal mindsets all the time too. And I think Zionism is a big way that that manifests of like, it's like, yeah, you can say, say that you're for these, these altruistic humanist values, but also this is a huge blind spot. And it's not, you're not seeing how that applies or just won't see how that applies.
03:41:51
Speaker
You know, yeah. Yeah. but Like you're absolutely hitting the nail on the head, right? Or it's like these these ideologies that are conflicting with one another when they really shouldn't be, right? Like anyone who can understand the cruelty of Gaza should understand that it's a problem.
03:42:09
Speaker
You know, and it needs to be dealt with. And the fact that there are liberal Zionists who try to make a distinction between ah offensive or defensive weapons or make a distinction between like ah the right ways to deliver aid.
03:42:24
Speaker
They're just ah as complicit, you know. Like, that's fucking Bernie Sanders won't call it a genocide. You know, fuck them forever for that, you know? But at the same time, you know, to bring it back to weapons, you know, um this is a film that's about ah o um you know, society can see what the problem is, right?
03:42:46
Speaker
That they choose to ignore but to look at something else, right? and And that goes for school shootings, that goes for anything in American society, right? And I know it's cringe as a Canadian to comment on such things, but at the same time, it's what happens, you know? is It's a land of contradictions, you know?
03:43:04
Speaker
That's what kind of makes it beautiful, you know? But at the same time, I'm going to have thick of... Yeah, right? Come on. There was so much promise, and there was so much promise, and then it moves into the wrong direction, you know?
03:43:20
Speaker
And that's the problem, right? And I think that that's that weapons is kind is also getting up, too, where it's like, he's like... but but There is no reason why these parents can't give these kids the best version of their lives, right?
03:43:33
Speaker
like There's like Matthew and Josh Brolin's character, right? like the The whole conflict of not saying I love you enough, right, is the biggest first world problem in the world, right?
03:43:44
Speaker
Right. But at the same time, it's still a problem. He still didn't tell his kid he didn't love them enough, right? For whatever reason, the the echoes of the past are still a problem in the present. Yeah. I mean, you ah parents like that might try and argue like, well, you know, I've done all this for you. I provide for you. So it's like ah action our are you know, speaking for how I feel. But, you know, actions can speak louder than words. But sometimes words are what is needed.
03:44:11
Speaker
As much as it goes to that, like just tell parents, listen right now. Go tell your kids you love them. If they're asleep, after that time, shake them awake. Like, hey.
03:44:22
Speaker
and Also, you got to make sure that they're there and not, you know, running out out the front door. So, like, make sure they're there and then wake them, shake them awake and tell them you love them. And then tell them go back. is already and If I were to, like, give any ah listeners advice, you know, I would not recommend that they let their children play Dreamcast games.
Video Games and Cultural Influence
03:44:41
Speaker
Don't let them play Sonic Adventure 1 or Sonic Adventure 2. This has to be for the game. Yeah, Grind Radio is fine. Power Stone, fine. Yeah.
03:44:52
Speaker
Shenmue might be kind of boring for a kid, but if they're into it, I would say go for it. That game's kind of ahead of its time in the sense of quick-time events, you know? So, like, if you want them to be, like, more acclimated to, like, how modern game design works, then maybe you want to put them onto a Shenmue.
03:45:09
Speaker
But when it comes to, like, growing up to be, like, a full person, you steer them clear from those Sonic games, you know? Because is we don't know where they take them, you know? um I've read Sonic.DXC, you know?
03:45:24
Speaker
I know the tones. I mean, we could do a five-hour podcast on Sonic, you know? and and that yeah I got to reveal something about myself.
03:45:34
Speaker
I got to do this right now. Can I this right now? Do you pull out a Sonic Lububu, or do they do licensed Lububus? How do Lububus work? I think it has something to do with Dubai and chocolate something. I'm not entirely sure. I'm 30 years old now. I need to act my age.
03:45:52
Speaker
um but But when it comes to this topic, there's something I wanted to bring up. I'm losing the train of thought. yeah Did you give me a quick refresher while we were just referring to Drain S. Sonic. Ah, yeah, i were i i remember I remember. I'll reveal this about myself now. So when I was first learning about bosses, I was probably 12 years old.
03:46:14
Speaker
And when I was 12 years old, I was probably like 2007 what we'll say, okay? Okay. is what we'll say okay And ah I discovered creepypasta, right?
03:46:26
Speaker
And the creepypasta that I discovered first and the thing that reverberated through my being was not Sonic.exe because that was before Sonic.exe. I got obsessed with creepy bosses based on the Tails doll from Sonic R. Whoa, that's a deep cut.
03:46:46
Speaker
you know Right? there were entire There was ah website that was devoted to creepy stories based on the Sonic R character Tails doll, which sounds ridiculous because this is just a one-off character who was in the racing game.
03:47:04
Speaker
Sonic are, but for whatever reason, there are a million creepypasta stories based on the Tales doll. l It looked like where I think of... I've seen this doll, but it looked so much not like Tales that I didn't even clock that that's what it is.
03:47:22
Speaker
like It looks like a horror character, does it not? Yeah, that that's scary. Yeah, right? Like, it does not, like, Tails is the the happy sidekick. ah and You know, if we're gonna imagine, like, Waluigi, you know, and ah in a Mario party, you know, yeah if Tails still is supposed to be, like, the Waluigi of Luigi in in Sonic R, this is a fucking terrifying Waluigi.
03:47:46
Speaker
There's no reason that they needed to make this Waluigi so scary. Why does he look like that? That's Oh, it's a robot. Okay, so Robotnik made a, like, Tails robot, and that's why. Yeah. Okay. I thought i thought in context I was supposed to buy that that's just Tails. I'm like, what the fuck did they do to him? But that it's ah it it's a robot. I mean.
03:48:09
Speaker
That's the way they explain the story. but But, you know, like, just as it is, it looks like Annabelle. Oh, yeah. That might be scarier than Annabelle. I could take Annabelle on fucking punch that bitch in the face.
03:48:20
Speaker
um don't care. Braggity Ann. Catch these elbows. Just punch her out of a window and then they'll throw her in an incinerator. Listen, listen. i There's only one indestructible doll I'm worried about, and that's Talkie Tina from the Twilight Zone.
03:48:35
Speaker
She killed Telly Savalas. And for that... I will never forgive her, but other dolls like Chucky and all that, yeah, they're creepy, but I could i can take them. you just They're small. You just like fucking kick them away or something. But to go on a large tangent, and I'm going to bring up this tangent by asking a question, and it's going to revert back to weapons ultimately.
03:48:59
Speaker
ah But anyways, have you ever seen Toby Hooper's The Mangleth? No, I have. um i have... mostly Toby Hooper blind spots. Like it's like I've seen Poltergeist and Texas Chainsaw. That's it.
Horror Influences and Societal Reflection in 'Weapons'
03:49:12
Speaker
Oh, okay. So I'll give you some recommendations like maybe even off mic if it's not relevant to the conversation, but Toby Hooper is great. Oh, I see that. Yeah.
03:49:22
Speaker
ah There's one specifically I'll touch on in relation to weapons later on in this mautilogue that I'll rant on, I guess, in a second. ah But anyways, the Mangler, ah just relating it to our conversation we were just having.
03:49:36
Speaker
Killer washing was machine. Killer. It's a killer. but yeah He's in Life Force. I've seen Life Force. Life Force rules. Yeah. Yeah, naked vampire lady. Come on, that's a amazing. Is there alien lady? Come on.
03:49:48
Speaker
Mangler. That's great. That was good. Is that a based off a book or is it just someone just came up with that brilliant idea? It's based off of the Stephen King novel and it stars Robert Englund.
03:50:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's shooting the top of my... Oh, Ted Levine. Hell yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. it's and And guess what? There's two sequels. Come on. Yeah, watch it. Like, that's that's enough in my books.
03:50:13
Speaker
Like, they made 11 children of the corns. You can watch Two Manglers in my books. Yeah. and so but Did he do the sequels or you just did the first one? Oh, no, I just did the first one, of course. No, the the sequels is kind of like the lawnmower man, you know, where it's like they had conceit, right? And then they just kind of built out from there in ridiculous ways.
03:50:34
Speaker
But bringing it back to Tobey Hooper, I want to talk about Tobey Hooper relation to weapons because ah there's one film in particular that reminded me of Tobey Hooper while i was watching weapons.
03:50:44
Speaker
Did you ever see The Fun House? No, I'm aware of what it is, but I've never i've never seen it. Do you know what the structure of that film is like or no? ah No, I don't know anything about the structure other than like the setting. Yeah, and I won't spoil too much of the film.
03:50:59
Speaker
I'll just tell you the structure of like the intro, right? And when I say the intro, I mean like the first 50 minutes of a 90 minute movie. I'm sorry in that sense. Toby Hooper's The Fun House is like an anti-horror film.
03:51:12
Speaker
It was like Here is a ah setting for a horror movie. We all know it's going where it's going, right? But it's is drawing it out in the most, like, sadistic ways.
03:51:24
Speaker
Like, it's like, we all know they're not going to kill this one else. We all know that this is going to be, like, a terrible time and we're going to learn something about this, right? But it draws it all ah for like a really long period of time.
03:51:35
Speaker
It also gives us a perspective in which we understand the development, right? And I think that Weapons is doing a very similar way a similar thing in a similar way in the sense ah that Alex is almost like ah like the villain in the funhouse where they are equally and complicit in the death of the protagonist of the story, right?
03:51:59
Speaker
ah But also, um we're talking about something that's like a societal fear, right? Everyone has had the fear of this carnival fucking sucks. And I don't know if I should be at this carnival, right?
03:52:11
Speaker
Like, hey do you feel best? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's carnivals have weird vibes. i I mean, I like the rides and in the funnel cake. So, you know, I stick it out. But, you know, I'm...
03:52:23
Speaker
Yeah, anything could happen. there You go there for but he goes there for like the the prizes you know to win, you know like at those shooting games, right? Or or eatly like maybe you do bumper throws, right? but you don't You don't ever go on the Ferris wheel.
03:52:38
Speaker
You don't ever go on the roller coaster, right? I mean, some of those roller coasters, like, are rickety, and they're, like, wood, and it's like, oh, this shouldn't be. Like, why why was this built that way?
03:52:51
Speaker
Yeah. Not to bring up Larry Pheasanton again, but the guy's a fucking G, so I'll do it. ah But have it, you know, like, there's a scene in that film where you're watching, like, a character just be nervous about being on a rickety ah Ferris wheel, right?
03:53:05
Speaker
and and and And that's related also in how weapons is like this like kind of constructed thing that exists was within this community that you don't fully trust.
03:53:17
Speaker
And then just because you you allowed for yourself to be open to it, it just sucks you in. Right? ah that's That's where I'm drawing the connection. Okay. Yeah, I could i can see it. Because like, yeah, you are, you see Alex, but but like Alex is a victim, but at the end of the day, it's like he fed his classmates to a monster. You know, it's like he did he did it because, i like you know, he didn't want his parents to get hurt in the sense of self-preservation.
03:53:44
Speaker
But I think even he knows it's a lie that when she says of like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'll leave then once get me, you know, I can give me something from your classmates like that'll help me and then I can leave. Like yeah he's just telling him what he wants to hear because he needs some kind of like light at the end of the tunnel to motivate him.
03:54:04
Speaker
of like, oh, yeah, return to Normancy. I can totally give you that. But I think part of it, like he knows that like she's not going to leave. But he also he doesn't really have ah choice. Like, I mean, like, what's as far as he knows, like there's no one can help him with this. And she's all powerful. Like, you know until that final at the end when he takes his agency back like that was And it was like his opportunity to make a play, but that was like, you know, kind of lucky that it had even worked out that way. And he wasn't, wasn't just really murdered by his parents or something.
03:54:39
Speaker
I don't want to spoil the fun apps too, but too much for you. Right. So we hope for a film to bring that back again. Right. But there's like two plot lines, right? There's like the teenagers and then there's like an adolescent child.
03:54:50
Speaker
who's like a part of the narrative, right? And the adolescent child is always kept in a place where the deathly nature of the events can never attack them, right? But then the teenagers, they're always a threat of murder, right?
03:55:02
Speaker
And I think that that's a really important distinction that the film makes, right? Where it's like the teenagers are slightly older and they understand thrust that they put themselves in, right? And they ultimately are their own undoing, right? They're fair game. But the adolescent... Exactly.
03:55:17
Speaker
But the adolescent perspective is still equally important where they also are interpreting it as something that's going to reverberate throughout their lives forever, right?
03:55:27
Speaker
And that's what weapons is,
Children's Trauma and Societal Constructs
03:55:29
Speaker
right? It's like these adults, you know, they're fair game. theyre They're going lose their lives because of the openness they allowed for this happen with Gladys, right?
03:55:38
Speaker
Whereas the kids, like, they're going to be stuck along with this ride. They're to live through it. Maybe they'll recover, but we don't know what kind of shape they take once they're done. Yeah, like, even if all them start talking again, they're never going to be the same. So it's, that's, that's, that's a,
03:55:55
Speaker
a permanent mark. I mean, it's it's ah it's a trauma that they will inform the rest of their lives. And I can't wait to see how Weapons 2 explores it.
03:56:06
Speaker
Did you see what they were handing out at the premiere of this film? The ah the peeler? ah Yeah. Yes, they did the potato peeler. And then did you know what was on the back it? What on the back of it?
03:56:17
Speaker
It was a recipe for chicken noodle soup. Oh, Oh, I started cute with the peeler, but then the soup makes me sad. Right? the but and And like this the soup stuff in the film, right? The soup stuff, like like I've seen people meering about it, you know, like I saw someone like post like a clip of Trump being like, soup for my family, you know? like Like soup is like a really funny thing to talk about food-wise, right?
03:56:43
Speaker
But like this concept of like these people being trapped in owls, like eating nothing but soup for them is really fucking terrifying to me. Trapped in the house, also trapped in their bodies. And it's like, they can't. It's that's it' dark shit, man.
03:56:57
Speaker
It's... so Yeah, that's kind of like the most unnerving part of all of it to me is like that kind of not only loss of autonomy, but like the helplessness of of it all. and And yeah, it's just it's just so effective.
03:57:13
Speaker
Zach Greger, kudos. Also, kudos to anyone still listening. He's a good egg. Kudos to anyone still listening, to which I think we've had by the time, i mean, there's there's like some breaks we took to all shave off, but like I think i think we're going to end up longer than editing. Oh, wait. No, we we we we were done by, like, fucking midnight and with that one. I thought we were doing better here.
03:57:35
Speaker
No, I mean, I but i must say there's a complaint. just adding up the first record. The first part is an hour, 35 minutes. And right now we're at 3.19.
03:57:45
Speaker
So that's going to be, like, five hours. Okay, but, like, maybe, like, however long are our breaks were where I didn't pause the record, that might be, like, ten minutes.
03:57:56
Speaker
if 15 sounds like too many minutes, but I think... i think And we also... I'm blaming this one on you, Doug. I'm blaming this one you, Doug. I'm going to say this. you know like i don't want to be the EFAC podcast. I don't want be talking about julien ah Julian Nicholson's Joker review for 11 hours. you know but but But you did this to me.
03:58:18
Speaker
You did this. You coast out five hours of Robert Crayer's thoughts. Robert Crayer's. I fucking mixed him up. by a together It's fucking Zach. They fused together.
03:58:31
Speaker
It's fucking together. oh We got them all together. It's this the fucking Allison Brink. I still haven't seen that. Is it good? it like I think that's like, okay, I'm not trying to say this in like the the meanest way possible.
03:58:44
Speaker
Well, it's a movie for Moron. I mean that in the nicest way possible. That's one of those movies. I enjoy some movies for Moron. Yeah, right? Like, I'm not saying that to be like mean to morons, you know, but like, it's it's just like not a deep movie, you know, like the metaphor is very blatant, you know, it's it's that it's trying to be more meaningful than it is.
03:59:07
Speaker
ah But that's not what the strength of the film is. The strength of the film is like the body horror and the performances. And I've heard that people like that Dave Franco isn't as good in the film as Alison Brie is. I kind of disagree because it's the character that they're playing. The movie is about boring oh a boring couple that realizes that they have nothing but each other.
03:59:29
Speaker
And I think that's an interesting story. i think that like a couple who themselves, they they don't really have their own identity, but then they have found this identity through themselves and they become like, I'm not spying anything. I guess I can say that there's a connection between them where they are one entity, right?
03:59:48
Speaker
the the The thing is, it's like I think that's interesting when you're especially talking about vapid characters. I think that that's not necessarily a faux pas, right? However, it's not as deep as a hereditary. It's not as deep as a sixth sense. It's not as deep as a weapons, right?
04:00:04
Speaker
But for morons, for stupid people, it's a fucking good time. yeah it is It's a It's stupid. and Well, those those need to exist along with your weapons and your hereditaries. I think that that is part of the ecosystem.
04:00:20
Speaker
It's just that when those are ah the only horror we're getting is when it's the problem, but I'm fine with, you know, some of those coming out a year, you know. love to turn my brain off every once a while.
04:00:37
Speaker
Yeah, you you you need a you need a War of the Worlds. You need a you know something like there. We're going to discuss a lot of deep and rich text about like family.
04:00:50
Speaker
Honestly, there were parts of watching War of the Worlds where Amazon saves the world. I was like, get rid of the alien invasion stuff. It's just the idea of, like I guess, spoilers for the blue ice.
04:01:04
Speaker
Sozo, if for whatever reason you're listening, I was going watch. Fuck you, you. Fuck you, you piece of shit. You ruined my fucking movie. But a movie about like, oh, you're anonymous and your dad is in the NSA and then he finds out and what is he going to do?
04:01:20
Speaker
Could be an interesting movie. and ah Yeah. On take it at face value. Like if that was like something you were exploring, I was like, that we actually. but But then also we have to do this dumb alien bullshit.
04:01:32
Speaker
It sucks. That's not a movie. That's a movie for brain debt. if you're being yeah if you're being If you're being fed soup because yeah a witch took over your mind and your body and brain atrophied and you can't even like ah take care of yourself. But that's the, those the kinds of movies that you can watch still.
04:01:57
Speaker
but that The good thing about Amazon Prime is you can get Campbell's soup just sent directly to your house via drone. Movies all at once.
04:02:08
Speaker
You know, you never have leave your house. It's actually much better for Alex. You know, he doesn't even have to go to like a supermarket, you know? Oh my God. Why did Alex use Amazon? Is she stupid? Does Gladys don't have a credit card? She's stupid. Oh my God.
04:02:24
Speaker
the the the the the War of the Worlds film is like, you know, that's a movie like where like the ordinary person can feel smarty gets, you know, where like everyone can kind of come together and go like, yeah, that's some bullshit, you know?
04:02:40
Speaker
And we need those, right? Like an easy victim, but an easy villain. That's a villain in that case, you know? Because like it's trying sell Amazon. It's trying to sell Amazon. There was also some weird, one of the co-writers, me and my friend Chris went down a rabbit hole of like, is this guy real? Because it it there was like one...
04:03:00
Speaker
book written by him that we couldn't and sure it started to feel like that one of the credit authors was AI we can't verify that I'm not saying oh I'm not saying it is because this delete that we found a book that he wrote but we didn't check the book so there are reviews for said book that this one guy wrote but I don't it's not even about it's like about ah like tax refunds or something or something. I don't know. Like it's, oh my, uncle this sounds like some bullshit. So like I almost wanted to be like, no, let's buy the book right now. We're downloading, downloading to the Kindle. We need to, we need to find, start reading this and check every page.
04:03:43
Speaker
I'll drop. We got to get into the bottom. I'm not trying to read the whole thing. I'll just feed it to an AI. Wait. I mean. Oh, God. yeah That is their food.
04:03:54
Speaker
Why do they need data if there they're like just blowing up ah buildings and taking over? Like if it was like a silent invasion and they were going to like infiltrate like governments on the stealth and data makes sense.
04:04:10
Speaker
But it's it's this's just literally what they eat.
Film Tropes and Technological Portrayals
04:04:13
Speaker
It's just the bones are their money. Yeah, yeah, you're right. It's the bones of their money. That's hilarious. Yeah, great, great reference.
04:04:21
Speaker
um When it comes to like their data, the the data being their food, ah the way that I perceive that as a viewer is like, how selfish are we as people?
04:04:32
Speaker
to imagine that our data is so important. It learns from another world. Yeah. but like and And also like that our data would be then taken away from us. you know like That Ice Cube's long-lost voicemail would be so important for these aliens to these that that is also taken off of the internet you know because they were just that hungry. It's just so stupid to me. But also, did he even love his wife? only has a voicemail and he doesn't even have a video of her like in the bed where she like puts her hand up and she's like, no, I'm i'm not ah ready. And stop. And then and then like her running on the beach laughing and stuff like if he if they were really in love and happy, like that there would there would be like video evidence of that.
04:05:17
Speaker
So I have to assume it was a bad marriage. I'll go a step further. I don't think that Ice Cube loved any of his shows. This is something I meant to bring up earlier, actually, were talking about this film initially. It was like, you know, like, making your protagonist a DSA agent is like the biggest, like, way to handcuff yourself, you know?
04:05:37
Speaker
There is no way to make a DSA agent seem like a like a reasonable good guy, you know? There are many right? that you have in filmmaking, you know, that people have that are arbitrary, right? And and one of them is like, you know, like the likability question, right?
04:05:53
Speaker
And I think that like DSA crosses that boundary so firmly where it's like their job, it's like they work for fucking ICE and very but if it You know, Goliath in that film, right? The whole like secret mission that the government's going after, right? The whole like, oh, this is what Wilson did on the side. Yeah, i very go exactly.
04:06:14
Speaker
but but And like the whole point of that mission was just to spy on more Americans, right? Right. But in a... Why would they need mail? yeah Well, isn't that where I see it's already? Because what they show, do nothing we see is more advanced than the surveillance state that already exists. So I'm like, what was Goliath giving you? It was like they they allude to like it could predict patterns or something with all that extra analysis or data. But I'm like, it wasn't, unless you're going to do fucking, what's the Alex Garland show where you can see the future
04:06:50
Speaker
death uh 28 oh yeah there you go if if you unless you're doing dev stuff and it allows you to look for you could look forward or backwards in time because the surveillance is so advanced then that then that's the actual sci-fi concept not like there's nothing actually it but i'm like okay so these aliens are stupid then because their technology sucks if that's the extent of like it's like and We can already do all that.
04:07:18
Speaker
And it's also like, why would Ice Cube as a character draw a line in the sand? ah with Goliath, right? Because like when he hears that that's the thing, right? oh dus lost just said no So you're spying on people?
04:07:34
Speaker
Yeah, he' he's more indignant that they told him no, but he is really upset that they're spying on people, really, right? Like he's like, yo what are you going to see in Amazon package cards?
04:07:45
Speaker
Obviously, you know? and like and So yeah, do you think War of the Worlds is better than weapons? How much higher are you ranked for I would say like if you are a never if you are like a blithering idiot who doesn't care about movies.
04:08:02
Speaker
Yeah, if you if you if you like eating soup every night ah fed to you by your child. Do they shit? and a fail Because they have to eat so their bodily functions. Like, is Alex also changing diapers?
04:08:15
Speaker
Hey, if that's the case, that's not Alex's the problem. Well, I just didn't tell him to do that. So he's not touching that, you know. but Whatever is happening on the rear end, ands so they're just shitting their pants and and then doing, yeah, puppet zombie walks.
04:08:31
Speaker
so towards wherever they're set. Yeah, so those... It's just like, cling down their pant legs. That's why Brolin's like, he's really rushing to get Matthew home. He's like, yeah, I get you a fucking shower, kid.
04:08:42
Speaker
That's why all the kids are... That's why the kids are all silent because they're like, I've been shitting myself for months. Exactly. Like, we've we've been we've been being rather a serious with this conversation in terms of, like, their trauma, right? But that's also true.
04:08:55
Speaker
Where it's like, hey, you know, they've shitting their pants for a month. You know, like, there's a reason why they're not. Like, if it happens to you once, it's embarrassing, and then, you know, you want to move on from it. It's just like, if you're in a continual state of shitting yourself, and no one's, like, addressing it,
04:09:12
Speaker
And the kid you've been bullying for weeks is feeding soup as you're shitting yourself, you know? but Like, ah that's not a good feeling. Yeah, it's like also how much will they remember of it? will also be like that trauma, you know, like how our brains, when something is that traumatic, you kind of just, you know, it causes memory loss then and can even do brain damage.
04:09:35
Speaker
it's like ah that but because they're not like cognizant when they're not and or it's it's it's not fully explained so it's like uh but but the fact that like his parents still seem vacant even after she dies kind of indicates of like there just might be something like permanently lost there cognitively that like that even even the ones that are able to speak again might not fully like be all there so I had to make it sad again. So I was like, hold on, let's go back to the mental decline.
04:10:10
Speaker
yeah You gotta to crank it back down. Also, like, it also speaks to the failure of Justine, right?
Generational Disconnect and Parental Failure
04:10:17
Speaker
like Because Justine really wants to make, prove the lives of these children, right? To to make these, give the the chance of a better tomorrow to them, right?
04:10:26
Speaker
And at the end of the day, like no matter what she does, no matter what the parents do, right? They all failed them. They all did, right? That's what the tragedy the film is. it's so It's so sad by the end because it's like no matter how well each of them understand elements of what these kids are going through, none of them understand everything going through.
04:10:47
Speaker
And it's something that horror films just don't broach. And that's why I think that this film is a big old golden egg. I want to keep it in my pocket.
04:11:00
Speaker
I will look at it when I'm bored. I'm going to look at it when I'm not bored, when I'm like perfectly content. I'll pull it out and get even more entertained. Because that's the thing, too. It's like sad dealing with all these these themes, but it's also entertaining as hell.
04:11:16
Speaker
Like, it fucking just fucking move. That's why they call them movies because they move. Anyway, you start you start with the camera constantly moving. And, of course, ah you know, he said that that talked about Magnolia, the intro in that is, you know, very kinetic.
04:11:37
Speaker
PTA's camera is always moving. So you feel, feel bad. And we've talked about the rainy influence. I feel like we've, we've pretty much covered a lot of grounds here. Uh, you have one more point about Black Sigmund or? what One more, uh, uh, you know what? I did want to touch on the soundtrack of Black Sigmund. I just think of that film as a sound to it that just, uh, other films, uh, just,
04:12:03
Speaker
don't get. Sorry, it's not exactly what wanted to talk about. um What I did want to talk about was they shoot horses, don't they? um The 1969, what is it?
04:12:14
Speaker
Pollock film. yeah it's a Pollock film. I think that Weapons is similar to that film. I think that Weapons has that kind of, like, have you ever seen that movie? No, and I'm familiar with it, but i've never seen it. a So, like, essentially, it's like a rat race, you know, where it's like, it's all these desperate people who are forced into, like, an inhumane circumstance to make a livelihood, right?
04:12:35
Speaker
And i think that, like, gasplot weapons is also, right, where it's like, in order for any kid to grow up successfully, right, it's a crapshoot, right?
04:12:46
Speaker
If you're a parent in America now, right, it's a selfish act to have a child, in a way. Right? Essentially, you're bringing them into a world that's broken. but Yeah. I mean, i know a lot of couples that just don't have that conversation. And it's like, yeah, why would I bring a kid into this world? it's It's fucked up.
04:13:05
Speaker
Because then you're going to be gone at some point. And then they're still here. And then things will probably be worse by then. And they still have to deal with that. so Exactly. Exactly.
04:13:17
Speaker
And this is a film about like people who just do not understand what the world is now trying to introduce new people to that world. And it's like that is insidious in itself, right?
04:13:28
Speaker
But then there is the added layer where it's like they are trying their best and they just are not well equipped for it. So like as we're rounding out this conversation, the horror of this film is not just in how it's delivered. It's not just in how, you know, we're we're we're seeing these things impact on the children, but it's also just like how on a fundamental level from like the the tools that we provide, right, it's just not enough.
04:13:54
Speaker
and And that is in its own way as deeply sad as a school shooting in its own way, you know, where it's like, the The tools that we give to the children to grow up into whatever adult they could be is not enough, right?
04:14:10
Speaker
The AI that people may try to teach them on, the you know lessons that they may try to impart, the previous generations have failed multiple times over. And now it's for the children to take it upon the themselves to do it, right?
04:14:23
Speaker
And now the problem is, are the children going to steer us in the right direction? oh It's the scariest thing to contemplate because I do... I do think there are ah lot of the younger generation that are keyed into these problems and are passionate and and humane and want to like you know do do the best they can, but then also this startling trend of ah Nazification going on on the internet that you know it seems to spread to the youth.
04:14:57
Speaker
ah i We just have to the the The number one anti-Israeli voice on the internet right now is Nicholas Frentis.
04:15:08
Speaker
That is related to weapons, in my eyes. No, you're right. I just said that in the world. Right? so but That's what it is, right? Like, it's it's like he is the Pied Piper leading the kids to his whims, right? And it's like the the problem is real, Israel and Palestine, right?
04:15:28
Speaker
But he's leading it towards nazification rather than like Palestinian emancipation. I mean, that's why shit like... ah even though Fight Club is maybe like the most 1999 movie of all time. Well, Matrix is probably the most 1999 movie of all time.
04:15:45
Speaker
ah fightke Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight. And Brick and Beauty, too all Every movie that came out in 1999 is a very 1999 movie. But Fight Club is kind of, yeah but it does happen. But Fight Club is evergreen in that idea of like,
04:16:00
Speaker
Tyler Burden, Tyler Burden, Tyler Durden is gesturing at like real issues, you know, like ah capitalistic systemic issues that have brought us all down. But he's like weaponizing it and using it to just, I mean, Project Mayhem is like clearly like theyre they're like clearly skinheads by the end of the movie. So it's...
04:16:24
Speaker
it's a pretty clear that like, yeah, you can, you can, those kinds of people like Trump, you know like, you know, he's gesturing at broken systems that are real, but then giving aim of targets that are, you know, distractions, you know, basically of like this, it's these people you need to worry about or it's this that's caused you, you're suffering.
04:16:47
Speaker
And let's draw ah the the bold line back to film Twitter because that's what really matters here. Do not trust people who give you artists as your targets.
04:16:58
Speaker
Do not trust people who try to like, you know, hit you against like an indie person, right? Because that's what ultimately is happening here, right? Is we're seeing like ah people fighting amongst themselves within the mud while like bigger people are allowed to flourish. And that's what Eddington was about.
04:17:16
Speaker
That's what Cloud is about. It's what weapons is about, right? it like there are The reason I'm bringing up this whole film Twitter thing just again because yeah everyone is so concerned about like the individual when they realize that the collective is being brought down in the process.
04:17:33
Speaker
And like that's why it's so important to me. It's like, you know, if there's any kind of way for us to have any kind of meaningful conversation going forward, you got to leave other people's hot takes behind.
04:17:45
Speaker
You know, leave them in the past. No longer should you follow other people in interpretation. Let your own interpretations flourish. Amen to that. And also just don't ah give those people your time. at it Not every, even at the worst takes, I'm guilty of this too. like Don't quote tweeting on a bad tweet. You just block them and move on. like You just don't even need to like interact with it. like It's like but it just focus on...
04:18:19
Speaker
the things you want to be talking about in like actual interesting ah points of discourse where it's like if something is clearly trying to bait you and has made a bad fate, just don't just don't take the bait.
04:18:34
Speaker
have I'm saying that and then I'm going to get off and be like, this what did they say? oh yes get them. Why did they say that they'll talk to me?
04:18:45
Speaker
Come on. Yeah. But but it but you're right, you know, because like but but and and it is ceding grounds to somebody who's like looking to gain power from hate, right?
04:18:55
Speaker
And that, you know, like hate, as we've talked about in the context of this podcast, manifests in many different ways. And in the context of weapons, it manifests in the sense of like gun violence or in how communities go against one another, right?
04:19:10
Speaker
but ah but But it should also be known in these spaces too, ah people should be more aware how we are weaponized against one another to also try to tear down things that are within our own best interests.
04:19:26
Speaker
That's really all what I wanted to say in the grand scheme of things. You know, if anyone in a six-hour conversation has anything to take away from this. no is that we are being pitted against one another by larger forces at play, whether that be from somebody who has their own you know motive in understanding a film or in a film studio who is trying to make something more popular than it actually is, right?
04:19:50
Speaker
We need to hold true to the fact that art criticism or media literacy only comes from our own understanding of things and how we relate that to each other. so the more that we do that, the more that we live as honest people... I yeah i couldn't have said it better myself. I mean, that's, and just outside of film criticism, just in general, like that's,
04:20:11
Speaker
ah don't take the bait in terms of like we don't we we're being pitted against each other societally and and politically it's like if we could find a way to just sidestep or overcome that it'd be an actual way forward but I mean ah the actual odds on doing that we'll see Guns don't kill people.
04:20:36
Speaker
i kill people with guns. Remember enough people. We all have the guns. Did you combine like two songs there? You have like John Lajoie and then also we have...
04:20:47
Speaker
bo Yeah, that's the level of ah layered references we're on tonight. ah That's powerful stuff. Okay, well, before we start getting completely incoherent, ah and also my tummy's rumbling, so I think we should we should call it.
04:21:05
Speaker
But you got anything to plug? Yeah, um you know, can follow me at OroldRoloTony. um That's my Twitter ah handle, right? And you can also follow the InFilmWeTrust podcast.
04:21:19
Speaker
um I'm going to be doing a series with them ah discussing the filmography of Larry Fezzenden. We've already done The Habit. um Very soon, in the next couple weeks, we're going to be doing both Wendigo and The Last Winter as one episode. We're going to be going through his entire filmography.
04:21:37
Speaker
um If you know anything about movies, if you pretend to know anything about movies, if you want to know more about movies, you should be listening to that series because there's some very exciting things planned in the pipeline.
04:21:51
Speaker
Hell yeah. I'm excited because i want to like watch along and like get the full Fezden experience. So i'm I'm excited for that. Have you seen? I've seen none of them. I've seen none of them. I know what Wendigo is because it always shows up on like Tubi when I'm like looking for horror a movie to watch at like one in the morning or something. And and I'll always pass. I'll be like, oh, it's like 4.7. Even though I know that that the net is like not indicative of if it but actually is good or not. I was like, yeah, but IMDB said it's not good. so they clearly know.
04:22:25
Speaker
Most people know what they're talking about. games there but I know exactly what you're saying. Even though, I'm like, the best horror movies are usually like in the 5 to 6 rate. If but if it it's under 7, a 7.0, it might be really cooking.
04:22:42
Speaker
You might have something really good to have. I find like 6.5 to you know, if it has an IMDB user score of that, you know, it's amazing. Right. But then once you dip into like five or four, sometimes you find like the really good stuff. Right. Yeah.
04:22:58
Speaker
And, you know, I'll talk to you a bit it off mic because don't want to spoil anything for your listeners. But like Peasanton, you know, he's one of the most important horror filmmakers in America. alive today, right? Like, if if you like the genre, right? If you like what Craig is doing in weapons, right?
04:23:16
Speaker
You owe it to yourself to watch more Larry Fessenden. Well, that's... right I can't get any more hype than that. I definitely need need to watch that now. um You follow me at TheDugFiles on Twitter, TheDuggerNaut on Letterboxd. I'm pretty bad about blogging stuff consistently, but occasionally we'll Two review or two on there. And then also my YouTube, the Doug Files. But thanks for listening to this, you psychos. the but ah I mean, you probably listened to it in in chunks like most people listen to podcast. But there is there is going to be one weirdo out there who just sat down for five hours.
04:23:58
Speaker
sat motionless on his couch because he, you know, they had a ah witch spell on him, but someone, while feeding him soup, plugged some earbuds in and played this podcast. And so, um for those people, ah i hope you the best and enjoy the soup.
04:24:16
Speaker
Good night. I'm glad that we could be your Gladys for a few hours. I'm terrible.