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EPISODE 132: FARMING IS TERRIFYING
327 Plays1 day ago
Farming? Terrifying? 100%, dudes. Listen in as we dig into the stories of animal abuse, genetically modified crops, and the costs heaped on farmers.
HORROR IN THE MOVIES
SIGNS and THE MESSENGERS reminded us that it's time to milk the cows, whether you like it or not!
WHATCHA BEEN WATCHIN’, BITCH?!
Listen in to hear what we’ve been watchin’... bitch!
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsors
00:00:00
Speaker
Friday the 13th Horror Podcast is a proud, independent podcast. To learn more about the show, visit Friday13.com. Here at Frage Farms, if it's one thing we know, it's beef. And sausage. Don't forget about sausages. How could I forget? They're so big. Our beef is antibiotic-free and raised on a gluten-free, carb-free paleo diet, complete with some magnitudes and GLP ones. That's right. They're already built in, so need no need for osemic here when you're already eating Frage beef. And our long, girthy sausages have a surprise, too. It's Molly.
LGBT Farming and Thanksgiving Themes
00:00:40
Speaker
so when you think where's the beef and sausage remember fry gay farms meet with a purpose it's episode am the writing on the wall the whisper in the
00:01:14
Speaker
Doubters, the doomsday, the gloomsters, they are going to get it wrong.
00:01:41
Speaker
I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning. Sometimes. but The pandemic food prices have soared and a new report finds. Now there's one other thing threatening food access and affordability. Katie's Pamela comb joins us live from the studio in Pamela. You found extreme weather conditions are hurting our food system.
00:02:06
Speaker
Good morning Rob. Yeah, well here in Texas we continue to face a sore drown and a new report by the Texas Department of Agriculture links climate change with food insecurity. This report was coordinated by TDA along with the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and they found these dry conditions could be a potential threat to the nation's food supply.
00:02:27
Speaker
Welcome back to Fry Gay the 13th Horror Podcast. My name is Matty. And I'm Andrew. And if this is your first time with us at Fry Gay the 13th Horror Podcast, first of all, hi.
Films on Farming
00:02:38
Speaker
And second of all, this is the podcast where we talk about horror, horror in real life and in the movies from an LGBT perspective.
00:02:48
Speaker
It's great to have you with us for our 132nd episode all about farming. You know, Thanksgiving is right around the corner. We're thinking about harvest. We're thinking about corn. We're thinking about but potatoes and turkeys, cranberries, you name it.
00:03:05
Speaker
And those things come from somewhere and that somewhere is generally called a farm and so Andrew and I got to thinking and thought you know what we this is one we've never thought about talking about and there just happens to be a couple of good ah well a couple of films about to say good couple of films that that apply directly so we'll be talking about signs which I do love and the messengers which. ah You know, it didn't it didn't win an Oscar that year in 2007. Let's just put it that way. um So, Andrew, first of all, i I just want to mention first, because this this will be coming out on November 1st, this episode the day after Halloween and i all Saints Day, by the way, too.
Importance of Voting and Elections
00:03:49
Speaker
um But that means that the week after is the election in the United States of America.
00:03:56
Speaker
So this is just our little last ditch effort to encourage you, if you have not voted yet, you should really go vote. And maybe there's a few of you that are thinking, I don't want to vote. Or maybe there's a couple of things happening in the world where you're like, damn it, I'm so pissed off about those specific things that this year I'm not going to vote. I'm not going to do that.
00:04:23
Speaker
And I'm here to tell you that that is the wrong approach, my friends. And I'm not going to yell at you or call you stupid. I'm just going to say that if you don't vote, and frankly, if you don't vote for Kamala Harris, you are going to let a fascist win this election. And he is going to pack the courts for the rest of your lifetimes. And he is going to be a danger to the entire world in a way that we've never seen from America.
00:04:52
Speaker
So we're going to leave it there because that's not what we're talking about today. But we kind of have to let you know that, you know, Andrew? Yeah, especially for our friends in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona. Yeah, ah we really need you to pull through and make sure that listen, nobody likes change.
00:05:16
Speaker
And if you don't want change for the real bad, then I encourage you to yeah just go do something with your life. Right. And here's the thing, like, actually, there's some good change ahead. You know, like, no, I i mean, like, I feel like one side is going to be ah slight changes to make your life better and the other side is going to be changes that will affect literally the rest of your life and in a bad way. Yeah, I mean, if if you're if if you're OK with the military going across the entire country and literally rounding up people and deporting them, the military, not the the what whatever agency, whatever they're called right now, I have covered somebody. Yeah. i So my brain is a little weird.
00:06:02
Speaker
ah But if you're cool with the military raiding people's houses all across the country, if you're cool with the border not being controlled but being completely closed, if you're cool with tariffs going up on every item that you can think of that is imported such that you will not be able to afford them,
00:06:22
Speaker
You won't be able to afford them, my friends. You won't be able to afford it. um If you're cool with LGBT rights being rolled back, if you're cool with abortion being officially banned across the United States, if you're cool with, oh, look, I could go on and on, right?
Personal Farming Experiences
00:06:36
Speaker
If you're cool with those things, then don't vote.
00:06:39
Speaker
Don't vote, please. But if you are scared of those things in the same way that me and Andrew are, please, please, for the love of God, go vote. I did it in Ireland. I had to pay to vote for God's sake. I had to pay 20 euro to send him my fucking vote. For you, it's free in America. It's absolutely free. So please go do it. For the love of God, that's all we'll say.
00:07:03
Speaker
And listen, my birthday is about two weeks after it, and I don't want to be depressed. Exactly. go vote Exactly. Thank you. OK, so now on with the show, we got that over with. um Look, we're we're talking about farming today and we've got some cool stories to share with you ah stuff about about agriculture. i I'm going to talk about a particular little farm in Indiana that thinks it's cool, but actually is a pile of shit.
00:07:30
Speaker
um And so actually, Andrew, why don't we start right there if that's cool with you? um i I just wanted to say like yeah I have like a special like connection to farming to the farm. um I grew up on a farm. My my my grandparents on my ah my mom's first husband's side, which pretty much raised me and my brother because they were kind of our daytime babysitters when we were very young. sure ah They had a functioning dairy farm. that that's how they That's how they made a living by bailing hay and selling milk and selling eggs. and
00:08:08
Speaker
me and my brother would have to clean the chicken coops and feed the chickens and feed the cows. For a very long time in my life, I thought chocolate milk came from brown cows. Well, it does, though. It does. That is where it comes from. But I grew up on pretty much like the pasteurization process on the dairy farm was very different than what you would get from your shelf-stable milk. Sure, yeah.
00:08:35
Speaker
I thought milk tasted a certain way for a really long time until I had store-bought milk. so it's just i I do really appreciate farming and I appreciate like what it does for you know not only the United States but the for the whole world depending on where you live. like god a staple It's a staple of culture. it's a staple of like it's it's literally It's literally how we survive. yeah um And you know, ah living in Ireland now, that this is a country where farming is but one of the biggest industries in this country. It's absolutely huge. And when it comes to dairy farming, beef farming, um ah livestock like sheep um or other other types of cattle, um it's incredibly important. Interesting thing though about Ireland, Andrew, you can't grow corn here. We do not grow corn.
00:09:22
Speaker
That's okay. It messes with your stomach anyway. You know what though? I do god i do miss corn. like whenever if it is ever like You can still get it over here, it's actually but it's actually like strangely expensive to get an ear of corn, which is kind of funny because in America, like you can get a ear of corn. It's like a penny for God's sake or less perhaps. um So when I do get to have it, I'm like, oh, this is so good.
00:09:43
Speaker
um But you know the the farming is is a very serious industry here and and it's not just a serious um industry in terms of the food that it produces, it's a serious industry in terms of the money that it takes to do it um and the regulations and everything else.
Animal Abuse Investigation
00:09:58
Speaker
um But you know when we were thinking about this particular topic,
00:10:02
Speaker
you know like Like every other topic we do, there's so many ways into it. But of course, I'm always going to try to find the most depressing one. And so um that's we have a horror podcast. It's not ah not a meditation podcast. um But I was thinking back just a few years ago to um an investigation that took place by an animal rights organization called Animal Recovery Mission, ARM.
00:10:26
Speaker
um And they did this um they did this investigation of a farm called Fair Oaks Farms. This is an industrial farm in Indiana. um If you ever drive up I-65 in Indiana, you'll see a lot of signs for it.
00:10:44
Speaker
um They have like, ah and and it's like the the branding is really well done. So like all the signs are really cool. And when you when you pass Fair Oaks Farm, it's a really like beautiful barn and like there's a big restaurant and all this kind of thing. Looks like a petting zoo. It does, yeah. Well, and and they they have a petting zoo there and they've got, you know, because like school groups will go there and they'll do tours, that kind of thing, right? So you can go and see like a functioning farm. The thing is, is that they're only showing you like the facade of what's going on there.
00:11:13
Speaker
In the background, this animal rights organization, once again called Animal Recovery Mission, heard from workers there about the extreme animal abuse that was taking place. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to read to you directly from their report that actually just came out last year. It was an update on their 2019 investigation.
00:11:35
Speaker
where they went undercover at Fair Oaks Farms um and they were able to get a whole lot of video that proves point blank what this place was doing. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is not just to tell you a sad story about cows getting mistreated. That's not really what it is. I'm doing this because it actually brings me back to a book. Maybe i don't maybe you've read this before, Andrew. It's called Omnivore's Dilemma. Do you know it?
00:12:02
Speaker
i i I know of it. I have not read it, but I've read like think Michael Pollan, you know, like you have like great read like like spark notes. Yeah. Omnivore's Dilemma is a really wonderful book by Michael Pollan. and Michael Pollan is probably like probably the most prolific food writer um in terms of writing about like the business of food and how food works. um He's probably the most prolific one and in the last, you know, 15 years, I would say.
00:12:29
Speaker
So really incredible guy and and really important stuff. Omnivore's Dilemma is a lot of what it sounds like. He sort of takes you through chapter. It's been a while since I've read it, but he takes you through chapter by chapter in that book, thinking about like, you know, plants and thinking about this and thinking about meat and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:12:46
Speaker
And one of the things that he that he says in the book is you know he he goes to this like local farm where they do butcher stuff. like they'll they'll butcher yeah You pick out the cow, they'll butcher it for you, there it is. And I forget where this farm was, it's like maybe in Nebraska, something like that. And the meat from this place is supposed to be absolutely incredible, like the best you can possibly get. And the farmer that owns it,
00:13:12
Speaker
he insists that like the only way that you can buy meat from him is you have to go to the farm and you have to see him slaughter your animal. and that Now listen, that might sound a little crazy, but really think about it. The guy's not doing that so that he and and he talks about this. He's not doing that so he can like give you a horror show.
00:13:34
Speaker
He wants people to come and see where their food comes from. That's the most important thing for him. And so he wants people to come and see like, look, this is how I raise animals. You can see it from start to finish and even when it's time for them to die so that you can eat them because guess what? That's how you get meat. You have to kill an animal for it. I want you to see what that looks like so that you own it, so that you really understand where your food comes from. I think it's really genius to be honest.
00:14:02
Speaker
And ah bringing me back to Fair Oaks Farms, that's not what you're getting at this kind of place, right? Instead, you're getting a sanitized cartoonized version of what they're giving you when the reality is bullshit. So what's the point I'm making? You can make better choices in the grocery store. You can make better choices in how you buy things. And that's whether you have a lot of money or whether you have a little bit of money, if I'm being honest.
00:14:28
Speaker
you can make a better choice so anyways let me tell you a little bit about what this investigation had and so in twenty nineteen a r m executed the biggest undercover dairy investigation in history at fair oaks farms owned by mike mcloskey of fair life milk which is a subsidiary subsidiary pardon me of coca-cola so this is a place that coca-cola owns for god's sake ARM documented animal cruelty upon dairy cows, including but not limited to being stabbed, punched, and kicked. ARM uncovered never-before-seen cruelty toward newborn calves whose frail bodies were slammed, burned, and thrown and taken to veal farms to suffer.
00:15:09
Speaker
ARM concluded that Fair Oaks Farms and the dairy industry at large failed to meet the basic standards of care for animals and operates a broken system with no effective monitoring or disciplinary modules. So in the spring of 2023, ARM reentered Fair Oaks Farms at its Windy Ridge and Windy Ridge 2 dairy farms, conducting two independent investigations. And they had four years to clean things up. is Exactly, right, yeah precisely.
00:15:37
Speaker
um An ARM undercover operative entered the dairy farm facilities as an employee and documented the similar felony and misdemeanor crimes being committed as in the 2018-2019 investigation. It's a first that a factory farm has been investigated for a second time in the US.
00:15:56
Speaker
In this case, ARM was directing full accountability toward Fair Oaks Farms owners Mike and Sue McCloskey, who stated that, no and and this is quote, no animal abuse or cruelty would ever be witnessed on any of his dairy farms again following the public outrage and backlash at the discovery of ARM's 2019 investigative findings.
00:16:17
Speaker
This is the fifth independent investigation conducted on Fair Oaks Farms and the Fairlight Corporation owned by Coca-Cola. So what did they find in 2023? This time they witnessed, documented, and obtained evidence of animals trapped in a continuous cycle of widespread abuse and neglect by being inhumanely handled and in gross violation of Title 35 criminal law of Indiana.
00:16:42
Speaker
um And these egregious crimes include, but are not limited to, and this is under the heading, physical harm and violence, constant harassment and aggressive assault. Animals are kicked, beaten, and punched daily by employees. Cows are flogged and repeatedly whipped with heavy ropes, beaten and sawn off golf clubs, and poles stabbed with sharp shanks, pardon of me, knives and screwdrivers.
00:17:10
Speaker
cows are s swingwam it's disgusted and Cows are slammed into and dragged by tractors and heavy machinery while conscious and in clear distress. Employees use excessive force when moving the cows, including breaking their tails. Downer cows are are hoisted in the air with ropes. Managers inhumanely and improperly shoot sick and injured cows with shotguns as a means of euthanasia.
00:17:36
Speaker
Downer and injured cows are dumped and abandoned in small enclosed death pens, along with sick, dying, and dead cows. When it comes to medical neglect, cows are neglected and refused critical medical aid from veterinarians. They suffer from painful, infected wounds. They were documented with large abscesses on their knees that immobilized them and showed obvious signs of pain, swelling, and distress.
00:18:02
Speaker
When it comes to living conditions, the cows are forced to live in overcrowded living quarters in deplorable, unsanitary conditions. Feces piles were regularly documented at major depths. Animals are forced to reside in areas with overpowering, pungent odors from dirty living.
00:18:19
Speaker
50% of all the dairy cows walked with limps, and at times cows were deprived of clean, hygienic drinking water. Usually it was covered in sludge, breeding ground for disease. Cows were also trampled and crushed to death.
00:18:36
Speaker
Newborn calves were abandoned and left to die slowly in dark corners of barns and in piles of filth and fiy feces, and deceased mothers and babies were picked up like garbage and dumped. Fair Oaks Farms is not only engaging in egregious animal cruelty crimes, excessive abuse, and animal mc neglect, they also continue to contribute to the very same.
00:18:58
Speaker
So how did they get all their evidence? The first thing was from 24-7 live streaming video surveillance. um They also had transparent surveillance access to animal-human interaction areas.
Responsible Food Consumption
00:19:10
Speaker
They had independent regular and random audits, training and oversight of employees, and designated animal welfare experts on staff.
00:19:19
Speaker
um And then you know behind the scenes, they were able to see how even with those things in there, um that Fair Oaks Farm still failed to do what it was supposed to do in those four years. So they concluded that the 2023 follow-up investigation revealed that the measures that McCloskey and industry leaders point to ah in terms of rectifying and implementing, and they don't protect dairy cows and calves against excessive animal cruelty, abuse, and neglect.
00:19:45
Speaker
and the lack of reform and animal welfare, ah it just demonstrates an undeniable and fundamental failure of executives like Mike McCloskey. All of the footage from the 2023 investigation was collected by ARM's investigator and was followed up on the ground with on the ground surveillance at Fair Oaks Farms.
00:20:06
Speaker
So look, it's just another illustration, as I was saying earlier, that this place that looks happy dappy and has, you know, cute signs along the road with, you know, kids going to a petting zoo and getting to see a baby cow being born and, you know, seeing how milk is produced and blah, blah, blah, and, you know, good food and great, you can buy great butter from there and cool milk and ice cream and blah, blah, blah. And then in the stores, you can buy it there too.
00:20:31
Speaker
You know, you can buy fair life milk in the stores, you can buy Fair Oaks Farms, milk and butter and ice cream in the store. I'm just here to tell you, what if you didn't buy that? And what if instead everything else that you started to buy in terms of of of ah of of animals that you buy from a grocery store? What if you really started to think about, wait a minute, where does this actually come from? What am I supporting? Where am I putting my money? That's why I've told you that story today.
00:20:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's an important one to understand. um And i but I would encourage people to um seek out an actual farm and seek out like where your food does come from because it is it is it is a strange and disturbing thing to understand where your food comes from. But you should know where it is and where. Yeah.
00:21:25
Speaker
that that life was sacrificed for yours. And that's a weird thing to think about. But it is something that we have to understand that, you know, things have to die for you to enjoy that cheeseburger or that well chicken sandwich, or it's not just something that's like, um I don't know, the the way that we look at food nowadays,
00:21:47
Speaker
And i'll I'll let this go after this, but like the way that we look at food nowadays is such a commercialized crazy cartoon world of people eating in their cars and videotaping it and being like this brand new great sandwich and I can't wait to eat it. I really, I really hate that.
00:22:06
Speaker
But, you know, I mean, like let let's just say, just for sake of argument, that there's somebody listening right now who's like, you know what? I don't really care about animals. Like, I don't I don't care about them. Like, I don't care how they feel. I don't care about I don't think they have feelings. Fine. OK, fine. You might be that kind of person. Here's the thing. Even if you feel that way, think about what I've just said to you in the course of that story. It was unsanitary. So how do you know?
00:22:33
Speaker
that that stuff you're about to drink or eat or consume is even safe. Well, that's the main reason why you need to know where your food comes from, because if you want to not get, you know, E. Coli or God knows what there's there's a huge E. Coli outbreak right now in America from what I hear from McDonald's, right? Or or and some other
Challenges Facing American Farmers
00:22:51
Speaker
foods. If you want to know, hey, wait a minute, what am I putting in my body? Is it safe right now? Is this disease? Is it, you know, what's going on? You might want to start thinking about that.
00:23:01
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, there's a big thing right now with Listeria, like there, I mean, there has been, there has been for a number of years, but it's just now coming to the surface again because Boer's head basically has to stop making liverwurst because they can't control the Listeria outbreak of black and the liverwurst. And mying from my dad would be so so upset. He loved liverwurst.
00:23:25
Speaker
Well, I was just going to say in coming from a ah German descent person who loves living worst. That's very disappointing to hear. You're one of the you're one of the few, Andrew. I know. I know. I love some Braunschweiger, whatever. So that's it for me, Andrew. what What do you got for us today?
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, let's shift focus just a little bit to importing and exporting of agriculture. So changing a little bit from meat to our fresh fruits and veggies. um So but the the statistics I have here, I want you to think about this when we're thinking about talking about immigration, because that's on the top of everyone's mind, where are you going to live? Everyone's saying, if that we if we lose this election, we're moving out of America. Well, good luck because nobody else wants you either. and um Just thinking about how we get food and how we get fruits and vegetables, because I think the average American would just think, oh, all my fruits and vegetables in the grocery store come from America. They might think that.
00:24:25
Speaker
Now, you might be surprised because between 2007 and 2021, the percent of US fresh fruit and vegetable availability were supplied by imports grew from 50 to 60% for fresh fruit and from 20 to 38% in fresh vegetables.
00:24:44
Speaker
Now this is excluding some of our biggest and some of our biggest ask exports, which are potatoes, sweet potatoes, and mushrooms. um But the import share increased by um more than 20% of points during this period for 10 crops. Asparagus, avocados, bell peppers, blueberries, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, raspberries, snap beans, and tomatoes. So just think about that.
00:25:11
Speaker
60% of all of those things come from a different country. They are grown in a different country and imported to America. And we buy them, which is great. I i amm all for ah ah some sort i don't think we're doing globalization quite right, but I'm all for some sort of globalized way of sharing of of goods, basically. um But I want you to think about that in terms of, oh, so we can depend on other countries for food, but we can't treat them with basic human rights. That's all I'm going to say. I don't want to go ah much deeper than that. but
00:25:52
Speaker
um And then like since 1982, so that this study has been going on for you know a number of years, the number of US farms has continued to to decline, but much more slowly. In the most recent survey, there are about 1.89 million US farms, and 2023 down 7% from 2.04 million um from the 2017 Census of Agriculture.
00:26:18
Speaker
Now, that being said, the United States does ah export a lot of food to our biggest ones are soybeans and corn, as you mentioned earlier, corn. um And then we do um the top of some of our other big exports are beef, dairy, cotton, tree nuts, feed and fodder and pork.
00:26:38
Speaker
So listen, do we do a good job of kind of like exporting goods and, you know, making money off of that? Sure. But I guess my point here is I just, I, I'm so sick of America being scared of the entire rest of the world. And I just want you to understand that deep down we all depend on each other. Uh, and that goes for food as well. Yeah.
00:27:07
Speaker
All right, do we wanna talk a little bit about, I found this piece from Time Magazine and I thought it was really good. um You can look it up yourself, because I'm only gonna do some of the highlights. It's called American Farmers Are In Crisis And Here's Why. So you can look that up from Time Magazine. But I just wanna read a little bit about this. um This comes from 2019, so think about where we were in 2019, right before. remember remember that Remember that year? The before times.
00:27:35
Speaker
So just think about that. We were at the end of a Trump um first presidency. um And ah this is kind of where we were at. So I'm going to read this verbatim. We can kind of talk about it throughout. Feel free to interrupt me, Addy, if you want to talk about any points specifically.
00:27:51
Speaker
Alright, in the American imagination at least, the family farm still exists as it does on holiday greeting cards, as a picturesque, modestly prosperous expanse that wholesomely fills the space between the urban centers where most of us live. But it has been declining for generations, and then the closing days of 2019 find small farms pummeled.
00:28:13
Speaker
from yeah every side, a trade war, severe weather associated with climate change, tanking commodity prices related to globalization, political polarization, and corporate farming decline defined by a silo and a red barn, but technology and the effectiveness of i'm sorry the efficiencies of scale.
00:28:35
Speaker
It is the worst crisis in decades. Chapter 12 farm bankruptcy were up 12% in the Midwest from July of 2018 to June of 2019, and they're up 50% in the Northwest. Tens of thousands have simply stopped farming, knowing that reorganization through bankruptcy won't save them. The nation lost more than 100,000 farms between 2011 and 2018,
00:29:02
Speaker
12,000 of those just between 2017 and 2018 alone. Farm debt at $416 billion is at an all-time high. More than half of all the farmers have lost money every year since 2013 and lost more than about $1,600 this year. Farm loan delinquencies are rising. Now that's just the financial side of things. There's a whole other side of this.
00:29:31
Speaker
Suicides in farm communities are happening at an alarming frequency. Farmers aren't only aren't the only workers in the American economy being displaced by technology. But when they lose their jobs, they also it they're also ejected from their homes and the land that's been in their family for generations. Quote, it hits you hard when you feel like you're the one who is losing the legacy and that your great grandparents started. Oh, gosh, that's from you. Go ahead. Go ahead. That's from Randy Roker, a Wisconsin dairy farmer. Yeah. God, especially the dairy farmers in Wisconsin. um I mean, that is that's huge, huge business. I think that this that that that's really important stuff to talk about right there. And and just just to interject for a moment, um you know I really think that Americans ah don't think about farmers nearly enough.
00:30:21
Speaker
And that and you know well while we're talking about an election, right I don't think the Democratic Party does enough for farmers to be qui right like to be quite frank. I don't think anyone does. um you know Republicans included. um And there's a vacuum there. And so it's no wonder why you find you know a lot of farmers supporting you know who. But beyond that point of it,
00:30:39
Speaker
um you know What are we doing to the American farm? And it's it's absurd that we're not subsidizing farmers in better ways and that we're not giving farmers better ways to think about how to more sustainably farm now and create better food for people. Instead, we're just thinking about factory farming and about pesticides and about how we can buy farmers out of, you know as you mentioned there, out of the land that that has been in their families for generations.
00:31:08
Speaker
And that is terrible. It's something that we have not picked up on. And I think it's related to American elitism in the country. I'll be very honest about that. I think that we continue to look down upon people who are lower class. And when we think about farmers, they're not, by the way, but that's how they're perceived in America. Oh, you're a farmer? you must be stupid. Oh, you do this? You must be stupid. Actually, farmers are fucking smart as hell. Do you know how hard it is to raise fucking cattle or to raise fucking dairy cows like like like your family did or to grow soybeans? I couldn't tell you how to fucking grow a fucking daisy right now, for God's sake. right right And these people have figured it all out. That's smart as fuck.
00:31:51
Speaker
Yeah, and um I did read that the only the only prosperous farms right now, the ones that are actually not bleeding money, yeah are small organic farms. That makes sense. That just says something. um Just to continue, um even large companies are facing unprecedented challenges. So Dean Foods, which I did not know this, this must have skipped my brain. yeah um A global dairy producer that buys milk from thousands of small farmers filed for bankruptcy Tuesday, November 12th, 2019. And is seeking a sale, a move that could further hamper farmers from looking for places to sell their milk. I did not know that Dean Foods was even in trouble. i don't know about you i grew up on tubs of dean's ice cream man Oh, for sure. Yes. Big Neapolitan fan over here. But yo only if you eat one flavor at a time. no Of course. Of course. You you you you buffoon.
00:32:50
Speaker
All right, small farms defined as those bringing in less than 350,000 a year before expenses accounted for just a quarter of food production in 2017 down from nearly half in 1991. So this just shows kind of the the farm the big farms are only getting bigger and they're shoving out the smaller farms, which is not a good thing because if we only are getting food from one place,
00:33:15
Speaker
then they're allowed to do whatever the fuck they want, which is really scary. which Which also means genetically modifying the food that you're eating. You know, yeah back to thinking, what are you putting in your body? Man. Yeah. And then finally, just one one more little paragraph here and ah to sum it up as they put it. President Trump's trade war has not helped matters.
00:33:38
Speaker
After the United States slapped tariffs on Chinese goods including steel and aluminum last year, China retaliated with 25% tariffs on agricultural imports from the US. China then turned to other countries such as Brazil to replace American soybeans and corn. So I want you to think about that when he keeps talking about the tariffs.
00:34:00
Speaker
yeah um There's a lot of statistics in this article. You can read it for yourself on Time Magazine. I just thought it was a nice way to kind of sum up things on, ah you know, maybe a time that we don't really think about anymore. I think we're also concentrated on the here and now. We forget the implications of just, what, five years ago.
00:34:21
Speaker
so yeah um and you know when When it comes to this kind of stuff, you know back to thinking about the choices that you have. right like you know Look, i I live in Dublin and you know I don't live on a farm
Local Food Sourcing
00:34:33
Speaker
here. Although if I go out in the country, I can find some farms where I could go buy stuff. But to make it easy in a city, right there's a thing called the Dublin Food Co-op.
00:34:42
Speaker
And at the Dublin Food Co-op, they source responsible food. And I can't get a bunch of meat there. they don't They don't do that part of it. But when it comes to produce, I know that the produce that I'm getting there is safe. And I know that it's also gonna be really high quality and it's gonna taste good. Does it cost a little more? Yeah, just a little bit more. And I pay a very, very low membership fee for the entire year. But like I encourage everyone. like Chances are, no matter where you live,
00:35:10
Speaker
There's probably a co-op by you and you just don't know about it. So go check it out. Like go find out from people where these resources are. I promise you it really is worth it, man. Yeah. And then just to kind of like, you know, sum up our, our, our conversation here, I did want to talk about climate change a little bit and how got to, yeah and how this is ah also impacting farming. Um, so there are one, in two, three, four, five biggest ah stresses on farming because of climate change. And, um, I think that maybe
00:35:46
Speaker
I'm putting a big maybe out there, but maybe this year they, uh, some people are finally starting to understand that climate change is real and it is starting to affect extreme weather. Um, this highlighted by two devastating hurricanes, right? Neuro, but you know, the South will never learn. So I don't really know. Shame. It's a real shame. Sorry for everyone that lives down there and is experiencing displacement because of the hurricanes. It's really awful, but.
00:36:14
Speaker
but it's just gonna get worse. That's just it. And so so I'll be honest with the people that are down there, if you're listening, God, i I hate saying it, but I hope that you move. I hope you find a way. I hope that there is a way. Cause I know that that's not easy, of course, but Jesus, God, is it awful. And it's just gonna get worse as we go. but But yeah, talking about farming, so there's a couple of different areas where like this extreme, you know, the climate climate change is affecting it. So crop yields, of course. So while higher temperatures and carbon dioxide initially benefit crops, they also increase. Oh my God, that word. What is that word? ah Let me let me try.
00:36:50
Speaker
e if it Evapotranspiration. Evapotranspiration. See, I just need you to say it once. I'm a latchkey kid and phonics didn't work for me, but that's fine. And make it harder for crops to get enough water. um This can lead to lower yields of major crops like corn, rice, and oats.
00:37:07
Speaker
Also, water availability. Remember, water is required to grow crops, so changes in precipitation patterns can lead to water scarcity during peak growing seasons. um Obviously, extreme weather. More frequent and extreme weather events like floods, storms, heat waves, and droughts can disrupt food delivery and cause crop loss.
00:37:28
Speaker
Soil erosion, heavy rainfalls can lead to more soil erosion, which can threaten sustainable crop production. And finally, heat stress. Dairy cows and are especially so sensitive to heat stress, which can affect their appetite and milk production.
00:37:43
Speaker
so it it's these I don't know how to stress this enough to people, but like climate change is not just, it's hot today. like You know what I mean? That's called weather.
00:37:56
Speaker
Yeah, like it is a a systematic way of looking at yeah like patterns and how they affect literally everything you do yeah from from the way you get to work to the food you eat to ah where you lay your head down at night to where your kids are going to live to where you're going to be buried is all fucking dependent on climate.
Climate Change Impact on Farming
00:38:22
Speaker
And so you have to be very so careful about it.
00:38:25
Speaker
and and it's it also Look, i mean we we've talked about this in previous episodes. it's Climate is also about war. I mean, that's why wars are being fought right now at the very heart of it is because it's always going to be about resources and who has them and who doesn't. And so you can track you know the the movements of refugees. A lot of times you can track it based on climate and climate change and it's terrifying. So if we want to have a better world,
00:38:51
Speaker
You know what though, Andrew, sometimes, I'll be honest, since we're on it, like sometimes I just think about it and I think, you know what, maybe it's, maybe it is too late. Maybe it is too late. I don't know. And, and I'm not saying that we just, you know, you throw up your, your hands and say, well, fuck it. But, you know, maybe we think about like, well, how can we make it even just like a a little bit better, you know? And that's, there might be people out there that feel that same way. Like, you know what, it's, ah it's, it's a goner anyway. Well, I mean, man, what if we can get up?
00:39:18
Speaker
What if we can get 10 more years out of it? What what if we can get 15? Won't that be better for you and for your kids or for your nieces and nephews? That's that's what I think about. you know yeah i think that like I don't know. I struggled with those same feelings of being like, well, if nobody else is going to care, why should I care?
Thanksgiving Shopping Tips
00:39:35
Speaker
But get it then I have to just reach down further and be like, no, just do what you can do. And maybe it'll make a smidgen of a difference. And I think that if enough smidgens are done, then something can change. So I agree with you. But.
00:39:55
Speaker
All right. Well, I think that will do it for farming. I think we were all over the place on this episode, but hopefully you learned a little bit about farming. I think we were right. I think we were right on. And I think, you know, look, especially with Thanksgiving coming, people are going to go buy a lot of shit. Listen, Friday listeners, we want you to be responsible when you go buy your shit for Thanksgiving. I'm going to. You know what I mean? So give it a shot, dude.
Netflix Show Reviews
00:40:17
Speaker
Now, listen, that's it for this part of the episode. We'll be right back with our next segment, which is what you've been watching, bitch.
00:40:37
Speaker
and we're back with what you been watching bitch what you've been watching, you moo cow bitch. That was a good one. And folks, this is the segment of the episode where we talk about the things that we have been watching. So Andrew, tell us what you have been watching, bitch. Yes, my newest obsession is the show on Netflix called Nobody Wants This. um This is Kristen Bell and Adam brout Brody led with an ensemble cast. It is about a
00:41:08
Speaker
a woman played by Kristen Bell, obviously, who, funnily enough, it plays a podcaster on the show. Oh, dear. It is so funny to me. the um big that that The like Hollywood now depicting podcasting as an actual job is really funny to me. But that's like beyond like the point of the show. But like Um, we make little money, patreon dot.com slash frag eight 13. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Um, but, um, but Kristen Bell plays this girl. Uh, she has a podcast with her sister and she's at a party one night and she meets Adam Brody and kind of falls head over heels, uh, for him. Little does she know that he is a, uh, he's a Jewish and he leads the Jewish church in his Jewish. Yeah.
00:41:55
Speaker
Well, that's like that's like the main part of the show is like the push and pull between Judaism and non-Judaism. Is he a rabbi? Is that it? He is a rabbi. Yeah. rabbi um And like her trying to fit in with his family who's very devout, obviously, and don't want him with ah you know a non-Jewish girl.
00:42:15
Speaker
um And it's kind of just the push and pull between those two worlds, which ah I'm i' proud to see a show on Netflix that's depicting Jewish people that doesn't involve Nazis, which I i know that sounds really weird, but just.
00:42:30
Speaker
bear with me here because I'm so sick of Nazis and like that's the Jewish culture that we are talking about. And I think that shows sharing they love Nazis as we know. Well, you know, what i mean know I do get it. but i I think what what what what you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong, is that.
00:42:47
Speaker
You're it's good for you to see a show about about, you know, normal Jews that isn't about the Holocaust. Yes. yes got Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. um and And like, honestly, it's it I think it's eight episodes or 10 episodes. But like I burned through these because the ensemble cast is so funny. Like the the.
00:43:09
Speaker
I don't know what it is about Kristen Bell, which listen, I am a huge Kristen Bell person. yeah and I have been ever since Veronica Mars. I donated to that movie when it was being made. Like it's like there's no there's no love lost here. yeah Never really. ah Adam Brody to me has just existed like he was in Jennifer's body. Like I didn't watch the OC, so I have no nostalgia for that. But like them together in this show, there is something magical happening. That's wonderful. And the ensemble cast around it is really good. So I encourage you if you're looking for something like modern rom com, but with a twist. Yeah, I think that this show is a really good fit for that. So it's on Netflix. It's called Nobody Wants This. Very cool. My first one also comes from Netflix and it is called It's What's Inside. Oh, I'm going to watch this today. Oh, this is really, really good stuff. I really enjoyed this. I had so much fun watching this. It was a great time. So it is looking at just like the Wikipedia for it just to give you like the basic rundown.
00:44:13
Speaker
um They describe it as ah ah a twenty twenty four american science fiction comedy horror and that actually makes a lot of sense um it's basically about this group of friends that comes together for a ah for a but like.
00:44:29
Speaker
It's sort of like a bachelor party, but not really. it's It's kind of hard to explain. It's just it's the night before their friend's wedding, basically. OK. And their friend is is named Ruben and um his his his fiance is not there. So it's just this group of college friends and this guy named Ruben and Ruben's family is really, really rich. His mom was like an artist. So they have this incredible house with like crazy art all around it. And um and in the midst of it,
00:44:58
Speaker
This isn't giving anything away. um Another friend arrives that nobody thought would be invited. and Nobody thought this guy would be invited because when they were in college, he there was a really crazy night and he did some stupid stuff. And like everyone, you know, just kind of stopped talking to him and there was just kind of a falling out, right? But it turns out he is invited.
00:45:19
Speaker
And when he brings a toy with him, things go haywire. So you ah this movie is really good for a number of reasons. I really enjoyed the writing. The writing is extremely well done. um It was written and directed by Greg Jardin or Jardin, however he pronounces his name.
00:45:38
Speaker
Um, and the cast is really good. I don't know a lot of these people. I feel like I've seen some of their faces before, but like, I just, I don't really know them. Um, and there are, there's some, you know, some good looking people in this too. Um, and what else is really good about it? Oh yeah. Duh. It's the style. Like the style of this movie is so like.
00:45:57
Speaker
it's just cool like it's really cool like it's it's it's flashy it's slick it is edited so so well and like and you know you'll see when you watch it hopefully you feel the same way that i do that it just it was a slick fucking film dude And a I really enjoyed that. So I think it was really well made. Is it the best thing I've ever seen? No. But like, is it definitely a really good time? Yeah, I had a great time with this. So make this maybe part of what you're watching during spooky season, um even after Halloween is over, um because I really enjoyed it. It's what's inside.
00:46:33
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. No, this was on my short list, so I'm glad that you watched it. um My next one is the new Salem's lot on Max. Oh, yeah. How is this? So here here's the thing because I am looking forward to seeing this. i I do hope it's good. No. So here's the thing. Like I grew. I i this is one of the same books I have read. It's actually so like I am not.
00:46:57
Speaker
Like contrary to popular belief, I'm not a huge vampire person. Like it's just like vampires and werewolves are just what they are to me. Like I do like seeing stories about them. Like I think it's fun, but it's not like what I seek out. You know what I mean? But um Salem's Lot, the book was actually one of my favorites. of c and It was just so well written. And so there's so much story in there about a little town. And then the um the T made for TV movie that came out in the 90s. I think I think I really liked that as well. So I was looking forward to Salem's lot. Here's what I'll say about it.
00:47:36
Speaker
It looks really good. Okay. And it, and unlike the, um, you know, the mini series, it does come in under two hours, which I appreciate oh that's because I think the mini series is like four hours, ah to um but this is what I'll say. It's, it's, it's a, it's a slimmed down version of this story. because the the book and the miniseries do take a lot more time to um build up the main characters of you know kind of the story, you just so like when you know when they do either suffer or succeed, you can either cheer or be sad. And I think in this, they they do miss the mark just a little bit on character building, but that's okay because at the end of the day, it's about kind of like our main guy and like sure what's going on with him.
00:48:22
Speaker
And so like, but that's, that's being said, like that's what's so hard about adapting Stephen King books that especially things like Needful Things, it, um, like these ones that take place in like these towns where you have to know about the town and you have to know about the lore of the piece. Yeah, fair enough.
00:48:39
Speaker
And so like I still enjoyed it. I think that they make some pretty um successful changes in the third act that give it a little bit more action than like the ah than the original did. nice And so like I will give it that. I just think like if you're looking for like a deep Stephen King immersive universe, you're maybe not going to get that from the new Salem's lot. But still, I had fun revisiting kind of this story in a new way. Oh, I'm glad you did. That's good stuff.
00:49:06
Speaker
um i'll have I do want to watch it, so I'm looking forward to it. it Definitely, definitely watch it. It's definitely worth your time. It's not it's not a slog. It's not boring. It's it's action-packed. It's fun. It's a vampire story. Now, ah Andrew, my next one. um So I'm just back from a really great little trip to New York City for a night and then to Punta Cana and the Dominican Republic for a week. It was really, really cool.
00:49:30
Speaker
um And with that, of course, I got to watch some movies on the plane. I also got COVID as part of that trip probably too, but that is beyond the point. um So by the way, folks, if you're hearing me sniffle or whatever right now, that is of course the reason why. um Anyways, ah one of the movies that I watched on the plane was this movie called Abigail.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yeah, I love it. Have you seen it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think i I think I reported on this like a couple of months ago. but I know that you did. And then my next one you did, too, for sure. I know. But anyways, Abigail um Abigail is crazy. Abigail is really, really wild. um So um Abigail is actually, I guess it's ah it's an it's an adaptation of Dracula's daughter.
00:50:09
Speaker
um the old one from like nineteen like the or whatever. um It's got a really great cast. Melissa Barrera is in it. Dan Stevens, come on. We love Dan Stevens, isn't it? um and And some other people are in it too. um And this comes down to a team of criminals who are all hired to go do this job. They don't know everything about it.
00:50:33
Speaker
So they have to go to this crazy house and and they're going to do this thing. And then they find out um as things start to go wrong, um exactly who they're stealing from and what's going on here. And they start to think, maybe we should get the fuck out of here. But by then, it's too late because it turns out that Abigail is not who they think she is. Right. She's not just a little girl. That's actually not a spoiler.
00:51:02
Speaker
and Anyways, look, I had a lot of fun with Abigail. It was it was wild. It was weird to watch on a plane, too, if I'm being honest. It was a really great time, though. I enjoyed it. I'm not going to give you anything else from there because i I think it probably would ruin some things in the movie. But if you have not seen Abigail yet, I do recommend it. um You know, once again, is it is it my favorite thing I've ever seen? No, but it was a lot of fun and it it's pretty fucking crazy, too. I kind of enjoy when like horror films are just sort of like You're just watching it and you're just going, what the fuck? like yeah It just keeps going again. And this is definitely one of those movies. And I'll tell you what, the girl who plays Abigail, she's fucking great, man. like ah She was wonderful in that role.
00:51:44
Speaker
Yeah. No, I, uh, that whole team that is behind, you know, ready or not in the screen, the new scream movies and now Abigail, they're, they're, they're hitting on all cylinders. So they know what they're doing. Yeah. My next one is called hysteria. It is on peacock. It is a eight episode series so far because there's a little bit of a cliffhanger at the end, but, um,
00:52:08
Speaker
No, hysteria is all about um the satanic panic of the late eighties. So it takes place in 1987. I think love it um it is all about a Midwest town that two teens go missing and ah There's a big mystery around that. But then in the wake of that, um the town is kind of going crazy about like satanic panic. And so one of the kids in town has a metal band and he decides that, hey, let's fake being a Satanist cult to make a band more popular. That's awesome. I love it. That's great. And so it's all about that. But like, but in their practice of pretending to be a cult, is there something more nefarious happening on the other side? um This is a fantastic cast, Julie Bowen. I'm trying to think. Milly Shapiro from ah ah from ah cut from our favorite movie. strange No, from.
00:53:11
Speaker
Oh my God. Why am I blanking right now? Um, ill I'll get to it, but Millie Shapiro, she gets her head. Oh, from hereditary hereditary. Yes. For a minute. I thought you were talking about Millie Bobby Brown. Nevermind.
00:53:23
Speaker
MJ Anthony from Krampus, if you remember that kid. A ton of people. Bruce Campbell is in this movie. How our is how was Millie Shapiro? She's good. She plays kind of like a ah like a band geek or like ah like a chorus. Nice. Good for her getting to play something else. I'm happy about that.
00:53:41
Speaker
And so like this, this shows is like it it plays tongue in cheek because it's also got Anna camp in it, which, you know, from the movies and she plays kind of like a crazy religious lady in in the movie nice um or in the show. It's not a movie. It's a show. Whatever.
00:53:58
Speaker
But yeah, this is like plays a little bit Italian cheek, but it's also got like a serious side. So like every time it gets a little too punchy, it pulls itself back and gets a little more serious. So like I appreciated that push and pull. Um, usually I'm a huge thing. I'm like a huge person about tone and like pick a tone and stick with it. But I think that this does a really good job of writing that line of like,
00:54:20
Speaker
It doesn't go too campy, but it doesn't go too serious. And so it made for a really enjoyable. We binged this in like three days, maybe three or four sittings um just because it was so enjoyable. And listen, I think that Julie Bowen is a great actress and her talents were wasted on um ah that family show for so long yeah sure that I'm glad to see her released from that show so that she can do other shows. Yeah, for real. For real. And so this was ah this is a fun one. I know it's going to be very limited because it's on Peacock, but hopefully people will be able to see it soon enough. If you if you don't have Peacock, maybe you can get a little subscription for a month and cancel it um because there's other stuff on Peacock too that you can watch like the traders and whatnot. Unfortunately, with Peacock, there's just not enough to sustain it quite yet as a regular membership, so I understand why people don't have it. But I would encourage people to seek this out maybe when it's available to like rent per episode or something. That's cool. Very cool.
00:55:18
Speaker
Um, onto my next one, which is another one that you've talked about before, Andrew, but I thought I'd bring it up because it really is insane. Chimp crazy. who ah Yeah. So i I finally watched this. I watched it just just before the trip that I went on. And, um, this is from the makers of Tiger King. Um, and a better version of that. Yeah, yeah I would agree. um you know it's it's It's kind of the same stuff, same same subject matter just with chimps. um Man, I think that this goes like deeper into the psyche of America than maybe we realize. realize and like you know Look, Andrew, you're a pet owner. you know A lot of my friends are pet owners. I have owned pets before I get it.
00:56:02
Speaker
But land this is not a dig on pet owners. What I am saying is that Americans get fucking weird about animals, man. And they don't get... It's funny how like Americans don't want to think about food and where their food comes from, and like whether it's safe or not. But they do want to obsess about animals all the fucking time.
00:56:22
Speaker
and to a point where like you shouldn't. like i mean i'm I'm just gonna be honest with you, in the same way that I think some people shouldn't have children, some people also shouldn't have dogs. Do you know what I mean? Because you're not capable of taking care of them. And guess what? They're not fucking people, they're animals. So you don't get to treat them like you're like they're your fucking kid because you shouldn't be feeding them fucking burgers and shit. Do you know what I mean?
00:56:47
Speaker
So absolutely they are an animal. You have to understand that because that's what a responsible owner of an animal would do. But Americans are so obsessed with having affection that they have to get these animals to make themselves feel better. They don't do it for the dog. They don't do it for the cat. They do it for their fucking selves. And it's selfish and it's wrong.
Animal Ownership Ethics
00:57:10
Speaker
And that's why we see so many dogs and cats and this and that get mistreated and get left on the side of the road when, of course, guess what?
00:57:18
Speaker
the human discovers that they can't give them the kind of affection that they actually need. Because what you should have spent your fucking money on was going to therapy, you fucking freak. Anyways, on to Chimp Crazy. Because this is another example of that. This is an example of a bunch of crazy fucking people in the middle of Missouri, go fucking figure, where they are obsessed with owning Chimpan fucking Z's.
00:57:41
Speaker
It's so weird. what it It actually it makes me fucking angry. Like what the fuck is wrong with you? That you think a chimpanzee wants to come live in your fucking shitty house in Branson fucking Missouri. Go fuck yourself. The lady that is in that show, I forget her name now, but like the main crazy lady, and ah you you know of whom I so of whom i speak.
00:58:03
Speaker
Fucking the pain that she has put on those animals who are smart and are cognizant and have and chimps have fucking feelings The pain that she has put on them because she can't get her own Messed up life together. She should be ashamed for the rest of her life I really do mean that and all those other people that get depicted in it. it I I think some people might think that like I maybe after after Tiger King, like enough of this or whatever. like No, I actually think this was a really important documentary series to put out there so that these people can be exposed and so that shame can be brought upon them and so that hopefully laws can change so that people don't get to own these animals like they're slaves. That's how they are owned. I got to tell you, like it just sickened me. It absolutely sickened me how awful it was.
00:58:53
Speaker
So, look, if you have if you want to get pissed, like you just heard right there, I've got COVID and I'm pissed for God's sake. Like, if you want to get pissed, you should watch Chimp Crazy um because i just I think, like I said, it's it's about more than just chimps, man, at the end of the day. It is about how Americans think about animals as pets and it's fucked up, dude.
Film Reviews
00:59:12
Speaker
So there you go, Chimp Crazy.
00:59:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's a crazy story. um My next one is currently in theaters. i I saw a smile, too. Oh, yeah, I can't wait for this. um So ah records will show on this show that we were both big fans of Smile, um yeah kind of a kind of a weird hit for us like that wasn't yeah weren't expecting to like that movie as much as we did and we really, really liked it. And so I was excited to go see Smile, too. And I got to tell you,
00:59:44
Speaker
It's really good. good um So glad you I've only heard from one other person, my little cousin, Josh, and he said he loved it. And I was like, Oh, God, thank God. So I'm glad to hear this from you, too. This is good. Now, it's basically taking. So the premise of the movie is that the smile demon basically has moved on to its next victims. And guess what? The next victim is a very popular pop star. And so it's just just It's just ratcheting up the intensity of the first one where it was a very small, quiet story about like one woman and her dealing with her own mental health issues and her dealing with her family and stuff. Well, this now takes that to a whole different concept because now you have to deal with fame, you have to deal with managers, you have to deal with... Uh, basically being in the public eye, like all of that. And so like, I think that and it's, it's by the same, it's written and directed by the same guy that did the first one. So a lot of the same, um, choices were made on screen. And so it's a very cohesive, like literally I watched smile one the night before I rewatched it.
01:00:48
Speaker
And going in a smile too, you feel like you're just okay. And here's the, here's the next part of the story. i Like it's very like continuous, which I really do appreciate. Um, it'll be interesting if they give the him a smile three, because I'm not giving any, I'm not giving away the ending. I'm just saying okay and yeah crazy on this one. And so like, let's see what happens. What I will say is I go so far as to recommending this movie is that there was one part in the movie.
01:01:13
Speaker
where there is an argument in a car and the way that it is filmed, it made me want to jump out of the theater. like I did not want to watch what I was watching. It made me so uncomfortable. um and so ah that's what and When I say that, that's not a bad thing about the movie. That's actually a good thing because so so many times these days, movies don't make me feel anything. and so like To make me feel something was really something. and so like Honestly, give Naomi Scott, who plays the main character, and some sort of award for this, her and Demi Moore for the substance. You got to do it. like I'll tell you, Demi Moore for the substance, man, she deserves it. She really does. She deserves it. And frankly, Margaret Macqually for for supporting the actress.
01:01:57
Speaker
Um, Andrew, my final one is the, uh, you had another one that you've talked about before. Um, and it's another one that I watched on the airplane. Um, and it's a quiet place day one. Um, finally got to watch this. Um, yeah a little difficult to watch on an, on an airplane. I'm not going to, that's a big movie to watch on a small screen. Yeah. Yeah. And so I, I do feel like I want to watch it again, but you know, look, I felt mostly the same as you. Um,
01:02:21
Speaker
It's i I think it's a really solid entry in the franchise. It's i I really do like it when they make a prequel movie that's that is set up to explain where the thing came from in the first place. Yeah. And it actually works. And like you know, look, there are parts of this I don't think are that great. And you know, like you, I still share the whole like,
01:02:42
Speaker
Well, how does this actually work in this world? Because there there's rules being broken sort of all the time when it comes to this. But, you know, beyond that, I think for the most part, though, it does work. And so I'm really happy about that. I think the performances were really good and it was like like I said, it was a solid entry in the franchise. i'm I'm really interested to see what else they do with this. Like, is that the end? Will there be more? I don't know. um If there is more, I don't know. I might watch it. You know, it hasn't let me down yet.
01:03:11
Speaker
Um, you know, it's, it's, it's not that it's always going to be a solid 10 or anything, but you know, they're all entertaining to a certain extent. Yeah. they're They're entertaining. It's, it's an interesting story and it does always make me just kind of go, huh, I wonder what's going to happen next. I wonder know what's going to happen next. So, um, interesting stuff. If you haven't seen it yet, I give it a recommend. Go ahead.
01:03:31
Speaker
Cool, well that does it for what you've been watching. Bitch, Maddie brought us It's What's Inside on Netflix, Abigail, which I believe can stream on Macs in the United States, Chimp Crazy on Macs as well, and A Quiet Place Day One, which I believe is on American Netflix.
01:03:46
Speaker
I think it's on and on some other things, too. like mean Pretty much all those things you can find in various places. yeah Next up, Andrew brought us Nobody Wants This on Netflix, Salem's Lot on Max, Hysteria on Peacock, and you can see Smile 2 in theaters today. So folks, that does it for what you've been watching, bitch. Stay tuned. We'll be right back with our first film of the episode, Signs.
01:04:35
Speaker
You can make geometric shapes the size of a football field. What kind of machine can bend to stock a corn over without breaking it? It can't be by hand. It's too perfect.
01:04:46
Speaker
So the aliens can't write our minds. Oh. Some animals around the county have been acting funny. Some of them violent. Some of them act when they smell a predator around.
01:05:01
Speaker
Amman and Irobi, Bangalore and Jerusalem as the latest. Same shares on every station. Every station? It is the 18th reported crop sign in that country in the last 72 hours. I'm a little scared. All this stuff on TV. Joe Gilles was in here talking about the end of the world. They're staying in the shadows. It's called probing to make sure things are all clear. Clear for what? For the rest of them.
01:05:31
Speaker
There's a monster outside my room. Can I have a glass of water?
01:05:50
Speaker
be afraid. It's like War of the Worlds. Believe it's going to pass. Don't be afraid. They're in the house. um you're a cop Don't be afraid.
01:06:19
Speaker
Stop. Yield. ah Traffic lights. They're all signs that we follow. But this isn't about that. This is about something completely different. Maddie, tell us all about signs. It's not like they didn't warn us. A family living on a farm finds mysterious crop circles in their fields, suggesting something more frightening to come. That's a really like black, generic. Anyways, Signs was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan Dindong, as I say. um It was also produced and distributed by Touchstone Pictures stars Mel Gibson as Graham, Joaquin Phoenix as Meryl, Rory Culkin as Morgan, Abigail Breslin as Bo, Cherry Jones as Caroline and M. Night Shyamalan himself as Ray.
01:07:08
Speaker
Film is PG-13 rated. It's 106 minutes long, made in the US of A, released all the way back August 2nd, 2002. Films on location in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. ah Counting on you, Bucks County. Get out there and vote, motherfuckers. Budget was $72 million, raked in a gigantic $408 million. It was a runaway that year. It was huge. I remember that.
01:07:35
Speaker
um This is most certainly not a first watch for either of us. I've seen this film many, many, many, many, many, many times. um So Andrew, tell me what you think about science. So yeah, just a funny um little story about this movie. This came out when I worked at the movie theater in high school and I went to go see it with my free pass. Thank you very much. And ah we were watching it and I forget what part it was at, but this was one of those films that accidentally burnt through. Oh, no. Oh, my God. How terrible. oh So we had to stop them because ah ah for people who don't remember this, films used to actually be on film. We used to actually have to put them on reels and play them. um And if the light stayed on the film for too long or it got stuck, it would burn through the film and cellulose.
01:08:24
Speaker
the projectionist would have to re-tape the film and get it back on the on the tracks. And that's what happened during this movie. That's just a little slight side by just a memory that I have of this movie. um No, I'm signs. I feel like this was of a time where I don't a film was very different in 2002. And so I think that this movie came along and really like just took the culture by storm. Like this was like a big movie for the time. Yeah. And, you know, I think this is a great I think it's a great movie, especially for, um you know, M. Night Shyamalan and kind of like set him up for many more failures to come. But that's that's besides the point. No, no, true. But
01:09:08
Speaker
um I think that this was kind of at his height. um I do watching it this time around. I'm picking up on some of the things that like maybe were his was his detriment in the future. um Most of it is dialogue focused. I feel like ah dialogue, he just doesn't. I don't think M. Night Shyamalan knows how people talk. That's all I'm going to say because people in this movie, especially at the beginning of this movie, drive me crazy. There's a part where they keep talking about Lionel Pritchard and the Wolfingtons brothers. And I was like,
01:09:44
Speaker
We get it. You've said that now four times. We don't hear it anymore Nobody talks like that stop it And so like there's certain parts of that where it just like rub me the wrong way this time around But my overall sentiment about the movie is that I think it's a great depiction of aliens and it's a great depiction of the kind of that hysteria around crop circles that was happening a little bit before this time, but this was kind of like the ah precipice of it all. And so like overall, I think the story is really well done. And I think that the most of the acting, especially of our kid actors, yeah do a really great job. I think Mel Gibson feels weirdly out of place in this movie, but we can talk about that. Yeah, sure.
01:10:27
Speaker
um but um Overall, I had a great time watching it again. It's been a couple years since I've seen it, and so it was fun returning to it. I have my qualms about it, which we can talk about, but overall, ah a great film with just a pretty awesome way of looking at grief and how we deal with that.
01:10:46
Speaker
so yeah What about you? I love this movie. um I the only films of M. Night Shyamalan that I actually like are Signs, Sixth Sense and The Village and and Unbreakable to a certain extent. um I think everything else is just not great. And you mentioned the word failure, and I think that's basically it. I think he's he's had the ability to experiment a good deal in film and and he's he's basically had a 50% success rate if you think about it or maybe less than that and you know what look that's okay you know it not everything can be a banger man.
01:11:23
Speaker
um And in this case, though, he produced a banger. I do agree with you that that he his writing can be stilted. However, I think that he he's he is attempting to create his own little Shyamalan universe.
01:11:39
Speaker
Yeah. and And I think that the writing is part of how he does that. And you see that in nearly every single thing that he does. It's it's always coded language. It's always its own system of language. And so, um you know, you find that in sixth sense, you definitely find it in the village for sure. It's probably where he goes the deepest into that, to be honest. But in signs, we also find it.
01:12:01
Speaker
But at the same time in signs, we do find, you know, sort of undulations out of there. You know, we find with like Joaquin Phoenix's character, mostly he's not very stilted. We even find it with like Rory Culkin's character now and then. So we we find sort of like blips and blabs of of um of more normalcy coming through.
01:12:23
Speaker
i think I think it's important to remember when this film was released. It was released just about a year after 9-11. And so you know what do we have as subject matter in this film? We have an invasion, we have violence, we have destruction, we have fear, we have anxiety, we have grief, we have, we have, we have. right lots of things that that we have here. and so i mean It's interesting to think about how like
01:12:55
Speaker
It's interesting to think about films being made directly after, you know, one of the most pivotal moments in American history. And to this day, the moment when the most Americans were killed at one time. um And, you know, this was M. Night Shyamalan's maybe a subconscious response, but his response nonetheless. um And instead of, you know, focusing on a gigantic alien invasion like Independence Day, for example,
01:13:22
Speaker
He chooses instead to focus his alien story on a very small family that has been wracked with grief because of a very, very just terrible tragedy that happened for for them in their very small town in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. So I think it's a really bold and and interesting concept to to sort of attack that post-9-11 America.
01:13:44
Speaker
um And I think for you know in a lot of ways it works. um And then also in some ways it doesn't. you know like you know For example, I think the end of the movie takes a little bit too long to get there. right yeah yeah um you know When it's when when they're they're encountering the final boss of it, you know when you think of it that way.
01:14:01
Speaker
ah The aliens have pretty much all left. ah the the Earth figured out, oh yeah, water kills them. um And so they've got this one alien left in their house though. I think this is when it starts to go into a little bit too much cheese, but it's almost like just enough cheddar to keep me okay with it, right? I think when I first saw it, I was like, yeah. And now with you know eyes 22 years later, I'm kind of like, well, that is kind of cheesy at the end.
01:14:28
Speaker
But then again, that's what M. Night Shyamalan does. You know, he's kind of a cheese ball. And like, I don't know, that's just his style. And I guess, you know, in a lot of ways, maybe sometimes we need a cheese ball. It's okay. He did say I found this this interesting bit from Vulture.
01:14:44
Speaker
Shyamalan has talked about signs as being the most joyous movie he's ever made, and you can see it. The sixth sense and unbreakable are heavy and brooding. By contrast, signs is so much springier on its feet. The humor flows more freely. There's something inherently comedic about the prospect of a lapsed pastor whose faithlessness initially prevents him from groggy in the alien invasion before his eyes.
01:15:12
Speaker
and the golden hues of rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania make the world of the film more of a pleasure to be around. In the lead up to Trap, of course Shyamalan's newest thing that came out this year, Shyamalan drew an overt connection between the two films, noting how he had a damn good time working on both scripts despite their subject matter. He also talked about how Trap was the fastest he has ever written the script behind signs. So this is something that really flowed out of him very quickly before he made Trap this year. It's the fastest film he's ever made. And, you know, there's something to that. Maybe in his other films, he just spends too fucking long, you know, creating this Shyamalan universe creating this weird way of talking creating this creating that when when it came to signs he was like you know what this is what I need to get out of me right now bam and then it happened I've got a lot more to say but that's my initial take
01:16:03
Speaker
Yeah. um So I think this is maybe ah let me think. I'm trying to think of all of his movies. Yeah, I think maybe this is one of the scariest ones behind the sixth sense. I think the sixth sense may be a little scarier, but yeah um um and I think that the jump scares in this for the most part. And I don't really like there's only like one like true, like, quote unquote, like jump scare for me. yeah And that's like the claw under the door, basically like.
01:16:30
Speaker
I think all the other words are there there's the other one too when the the Brazil tape and the alien comes out. It's like a half jump scare in a way. i can so I consider most of those kind of things more like reveals, if you will, like, because you're like, you're like in a moment, like, it's not like,
01:16:46
Speaker
like when he's in the cornfield and you spot the leg like and when in when you were talking about the the film on on tv i kind of consider that you're in a moment and you're waiting for something to happen so i don't really consider that like a jump scare fair enough fair enough yeah but um I will say all the scares in the movie I think are really effective. You know, the claw under the door still got me to this day. I kind of forgot that that's how it goes down. um I do think that those things really do work. I think that the kid actors in this, especially Abigail Breslin being as young as she is, does a great job. She has one line reading where she just is like,
01:17:23
Speaker
this is serious, where it just was really funny to me. yeah And there's a part where they're getting out of the car and he, and Rory Culkin yells at everybody to stop. And she kind of has like a a spit take almost stop that she does, which I think is really funny. um I think that like where I start to question things about the movie,
01:17:44
Speaker
is there are two parts that I just kind of question, and I am wondering if maybe you have a hot take on either of these things. Sure. The first one is the whole Bo kind of being psychic, maybe? Because she kind of has, like, there's moments where um ah Morgan says things like, oh, are you getting one of your feelings again? And she leaves the water all around and the contaminated water. I don't know if, do you have a take on that? Like, I guess, like,
01:18:11
Speaker
They don't explain it enough for me to understand it, but I get it in the greater context of the movie. I just don't quite understand why it's there and why we concentrate so much on it. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, it does. I think if I'm being honest, that Bo is probably my least favorite part of the movie if I'm being real. And she's a fine little girl. It's something against the actress or whatever. I just think um The fact that that's not really explained is yeah one of it is one of the problems of the film. And and also too, if I'm being real, like when we're talking about like well how people say things, man, after a while, listening to Bo talk, I'm like, I've had enough. My water gets like this, can I have some more? or something I'm just like, okay. that that's when When we're just like scripting kids to be creepy in a way, like i I don't get into it. like Make it authentic in some way.
01:19:04
Speaker
um Yeah, I mean, we we never find out. and and And at the end of the day, yeah, the water thing is really important. um bank Could they have discovered that in other ways too? Probably, I don't know. But I mean, at the same time, it's like, how do you delve into that and in the film without adding on another half hour almost? You have to find a grand way of explaining it. So look, is it ah it's I think it's a bit deus ex machina, but it mostly works at the same time.
01:19:30
Speaker
Yeah. And my other theme in the movie that I i i think that like I didn't think about it this until this time around was like the aspect of faith and like that oh that you that part of it. And like, I don't know. And I i honestly, i I think it might be Mel Gibson. I'm just being honest. I don't know if it's just him, but like there's something about that ending where he comes out now dressed up as ah as a ah minister again, um that I was like, okay, so everything finally went your way, so now you're faithful again? like it And I know that that's not what I'm supposed to get out of it, but I kind of had like a cynical thought for a second about that. because like So if his kid would have died, he wouldn't have become a minister again. But
01:20:16
Speaker
And so like, I don't know, I have a push and pull that because I know that like the greater scope of things was like, Oh no, all of this stuff was supposed to happen. Like it all makes sense now. But I was like, Hmm, that's kind of a weird take that I just had. And I, I have to bring it up because ah it went through my brain this time. And I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Um,
01:20:40
Speaker
Do you know what I mean? I i know it's kind of cynical, but no, I mean, it no, it it it makes sense what you're saying. um I just I think like. I think that um faith is obviously a major theme of the movie. He is a he is a pastor or some some sort of priest um and he is somebody who has lost his faith because of what happened to his wife. And in in the movie, we find out that his wife was involved in a car accident.
01:21:07
Speaker
Ray Ready, who was played by M. Night Shyamalan, falls asleep at the wheel, hits her with um with his truck, and the lower half of her body is like mostly gone. And so she's pinned up against a tree, and he has a chance to go and see her once before she passes away. And um she says some things that he thinks about for a long time, and it turns out in the end, those are kind of prophetic too, right?
01:21:32
Speaker
So, um, I don't know, man. I mean, like, i'm I'm a person of faith, so I think about faith and theology and all that kind of stuff quite often. um I mean, look, if you've never been a person of faith, it might it might um it might not make perfect sense that like losing your faith is really, really easy to do. And gaining your faith is also really, really easy to do. And and because we're human, and that this does it doesn't matter what faith you're in. It could be literally any of them.
01:22:04
Speaker
um I think that humans are just programmed to to go back and forth like a light switch. and There's never been anybody in the course of time that has ever had 100% faith. Even Jesus Christ had doubts. so i mean like there are There's plenty of things you know to to think about when it comes to it.
01:22:23
Speaker
It doesn't bother me as much. um I would just say that, like, you know, theologically, it reminds me of a conversation that I had with with one of my spiritual mentors when she told me, you know, it's not always going to be a fucking carnival, Maddie. And she basically said it just like that. Like, it's not always going to be a carnival. You just have to deal with that.
01:22:41
Speaker
like that's how it is. So how are you going to live today? And so like I sort of wonder, I sort of think about it in that way, right? Okay. In terms of like, it's a little less like, now I believe in God again, and a little more now how shall I live? I think I don't, I'm not sure There is the part where Mel Gibson says to Joaquin Phoenix, you know we are alone. There's nobody else out there. ah right I don't buy that he believes that. That's the thing for me. I don't buy that he's 100% into that. I think you know if he was 100% into that, he might have a little bit more peace. Instead, we find a man who was constantly wrestling over and over again throughout the entire film until the end when he gets it back and he puts on his collar at the very end.
01:23:28
Speaker
So, I mean, like I don't know. it's It's a little bit rambly, I understand, but you know this it's sort of hard to talk about this sort of thing without being rambly, I guess. like there's there's There's the struggle that we see him in and that struggle eventually leads him back to a a way of life again. And I think belief is often that. It's not a belief, it's what you do with it. It's what you do.
01:23:54
Speaker
All right. It was just something that I noticed this time around. I did want to bring up. No, it's an important theme of the movie. It's hugely important. Uh, another, another, uh, just one other thing. Um, speaking of people that shouldn't have pets, uh, these people should not have pets because they treat them awful. I felt so bad for Isabel, the dog, uh, because you listen, I get, I get the Houdini thing. He goes crazy because he's in fight or flight mode and they have to kill the dog. Like I get it, but their other dog, they just leave it out for the aliens to die. And I was like, this is so awful. like You guys, you couldn't take you couldn't take half a second to put the dog in a building like ah bad, bad pet owners, I will say. um I love that. So this is of the time where I actually liked Joaquin Phoenix. I actually thought he was kind of cute back in the day. This is like Joaquin Phoenix time right? Yeah.
01:24:51
Speaker
And so, like, I don't know. Like, I think that he's actually like the kind of like the the beacon of the movie, if you will, like he's kind of like the character that you're like, OK, like, what is he going to do next? What is he going to do? Like, um I love when he's watching that little video and he's like, move, children, vamanos. I know. Yeah, I love it. Move. to I think that like he's just kind of like the anchoring character of the movie, maybe him and Culkin a little bit. But um I don't know. There's there's just like certain certain things in the movie that this time around like oh so for instance the audacious um credits that happen at the beginning and end of this movie are insane.
01:25:34
Speaker
ah One thing that I noticed this time around is that we don't get a score until the aliens show up don't know if notice that good Observation it's it's very quiet until we start to get alien activity and then all of a sudden we get that kind of like Do to-do-do to-do-do to-do score that that plays throughout the rest of the movie. um I think that that he maybe because this is one of his earlier movies, he plays around a lot with um slow motion that is just not needed in this movie. Like, for instance, there's a scene towards the end where we're waiting for Morgan to reawaken like he was like, you know, his lungs were closed, his lungs were closed. And we're waiting for him to like wake up. And there's a moment where
01:26:15
Speaker
and It almost sounds like they got Macaulay Culkin to do voiceover for Rory Culkin at certain parts of this movie. interesting They're just certain line reads that just sound exactly like Macaulay Culkin. But he just says like, dad, and like there's a weird slow motion of like, oh, my God, can you believe he's alive? And I was like, yeah, we get it. Like you don't have to be like so over the top with this. And I think you kind of alluded to this earlier in your review that there's maybe a little too much saccharine towards the end. that agreed yeah like It just gets a little too over the top. It doesn't ruin the movie for me. It's just like, okay, we get it. They're a family. like Exactly. Right. um But yeah, I think overall, I think the signs is a great little look into 2002 culture and like what we are going through and what we valued at the time.
01:27:08
Speaker
um And I think that M. Night does a good job of weaving a very good story of heartbreak and you know all that stuff, and but also weaves in this cool little story about aliens, for God's sakes. Yeah, i I totally agree. this is its It really is one of my favorites, and it's one that I've watched many times. and People know that I'm very much into to UFOs and aliens. And I think this one, does it was when it came out, it was unique. And you know what? It still remains unique in so many ways.
01:27:38
Speaker
Well, here at Frage the 13th Horror Podcast, we judge on a seven-striped scale for the seven stripes of the gay old rainbow. Maddie, what do you give signs? I gave it a six, and I said that this is one of Shyamalan's in his in his ah quartet of good films. um and And it's a major entry. I think it's a beautiful film. I think it's haunting. And I love how it explores family, loss, belief, and grief in such a deft way. And as a UFO devotee, this one has always hit me just right.
01:28:08
Speaker
Yeah, and I guess I should say welcome to the podcast M. Night Shyamalan. Wonderful. um I gave it a five. I said this is obviously a standout in the Shyamalan-averse. Effective scares and a devastating narrative. However, some of the writing is just weird.
Review of 'The Messengers'
01:28:26
Speaker
yeah Well, look, I'm glad that we felt that way about this movie because Andrew, our next one, we have some words about it. Folks, that does it for Signs. We'll be right back with our next film, The Messengers. There is evidence to suggest that children are highly susceptible to paranormal phenomena. They see what adults cannot.
01:28:51
Speaker
That is poor. They believe what adults deny. Come on. Let's get you to Daddy loves you. ...to warn us.
01:29:10
Speaker
You're gonna run down the battery. I think you can get a signal out here anyway. We're here. They're going back down.
01:29:22
Speaker
It's so quiet out here. Just give it some time Jess. It takes some getting used to. I saw something today. It's easy to understand getting scared out here.
01:29:35
Speaker
are
01:29:39
Speaker
um
01:29:43
Speaker
you As of now, we're gonna classify this as a false alarm. Is there any reason that would make her want to hurt or draw attention to herself? Mom, please believe in them. I'm not making this up. Just please. Just stop. Did you know the family that used to live in my house? They just up and left about five, six years ago.
01:30:18
Speaker
married
01:30:24
Speaker
I don't think the family is just up and left. I've seen them. Ben, I'm really scared. Can't we just go home? Jessica, this is home. What do you see? What does it look like?
01:30:42
Speaker
Ben? You okay? Hey, Benny.
01:31:03
Speaker
Get out your blackberry. I have a messenger to send you. Remember those blackberry messenger? Remember that? ah I miss it. Yeah, those are dead. And so is this movie called The Messengers. um Andrew, tell us about The Messengers.
01:31:19
Speaker
There is evidence to suggest that children are highly susceptible to paranormal phenomena. They see what adults cannot, they believe what adults deny, and they are trying to warn us. When the Solomons trade in the craziness of big city life for the quiet of a North Dakota farm,
01:31:37
Speaker
Little do they expect the nightmare that follows. Soon after arriving, teenage ah Jess, played by Kristen Stewart, and her younger brother see terrifying apparitions and endured attacks from a supernatural source. Jess must warn her to disbelieving family before it is too late to save them. Directed by the Pang Brothers, written by Mark Wheaton, production and distribution were handled by Sony Pictures,
01:32:04
Speaker
Now, I just want you to listen to this cast and then what we're going to say about the movie. ah Jess is played by Kristen Stewart, who's a pretty big actress now. Roy is played by Dylan McDermott. At least we had something to look at in this movie. Denise is played by Penelope Ann Miller, an accomplished actress of herself. John is played by John Corbett of Sex and the City fame. Colby is played by William B. Davis.
01:32:26
Speaker
I don't know what he's from, but I'm sure he's from stuff. Ben is played by Evan and Theodore Turner. And Bobby is played by Derek Mulligan, a little baby Schitt's Creek actor. Yeah. um Rated PG-13. This comes in at just 90 minutes. um It was made in the Indian he'd sasket. Oh, it's in India, Saskatchewan. and i I just had to read it. etc ah I see long words and I'm just like, Oh no, sad I know what Saskatchewan is. Sorry, Canadians. Um, it was made on February so or released on February 2nd of 2007. It had a $16 million dollars budget and it made 55 million. Wow. This yeah crap made a lot of money. Um, that so listen, this is the messengers. It's about sunflower farming. So it fits the theme. Maddie, what did you think of the messengers?
01:33:16
Speaker
I hated it. um It's it's done not supposed to put you find a point on it. This is not a good movie, man. um And there I was just telling Andrew before we started recording, like I watched it last night. um I have covid right now. I've said it a thousand times, but like I'm dying just at home very, very bored. Right. And you just kind of hate being locked in. And I was watching it last night and I i was feeling pretty sick last night. So like I was like, OK, maybe today, like maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. Right.
01:33:46
Speaker
So I watched it again today. and that that's That's how much I love you listeners. I can save you from ever watching it once. No, it's actually bad. um It's bad in so many ways. ah First off, just the story is stupid. This is a dumb story. And like it doesn't matter like I don't understand why why we're even really telling the story and it's it there's so many parts of it that are just like what what even is going on why revenge ghosts yeah and and like but where did they like how does this yeah how does this happen I don't i don't understand it
01:34:20
Speaker
um And like it's it's it's just a bizarre film. I think that the acting isn't very good. you know Kristen Stewart is a very good actress, um as evidenced in, I think, for example, Stewart. um Not Stewart. What is it called?
01:34:38
Speaker
Oh, what is it called? Where she plays Princess Diana. Is that called? Yeah. No, that's her last name. um No, that's her last name. Whatever. It's Spencer. Spencer forgot Spencer. What a wonderful film. And she is a genius in that movie. So I think Kristen Stewart is a really good actress.
01:34:56
Speaker
I just think that this is early on in her days when basically all of Kristen Stewart's acting was making a face and like making a sound. Well, this was post panic room pre Twilight. Yeah, yeah, just pretty terrible. um I think the best part of this movie is Derek, Derek Mulligan um from Schitt's Creek. He's like a little baby and he's super cute in this movie. He's just like a little cutie. um So like that's great. But everyone else in this is dumb.
01:35:21
Speaker
and like the script is bad and the effects are stupid and after a while like i mean i'm sorry i'm being a dick about the movie but like it just sucks and like you just kind of don't care at the end of the day um i don't know man like i don't want to keep bashing it what what did you what did you think Yeah, I remember that I had seen this in the theater when it came out, but I literally didn't remember anything about it. except that i I knew that it took place on a farm like that. And I was like, OK, farm movie, this is what we're doing. And so like going into it, I was like, OK, I'm ready to reset my mind. I'm ready to like see what this is all about.
01:35:58
Speaker
And going into it, like the setup and like the beginning, I was kind of like, ooh, am I forgetting that this actually might be good? like This is kind of fun. And like the family dynamic is really weird. I thought for about half the movie that her mom was her stepmom, but no, it's her actual mom. who Yeah, for real.
01:36:18
Speaker
Um, and so like, I think that once I settled into the movie and then it started doing stuff and I was like, okay, ah this is like, okay. And then there's a decent enough twist to where I was like, okay, that's kind of cool. But then like,
01:36:34
Speaker
As i'm thinking about the movie i was like but wait what about this but wait what about this exactly there is a ah recurring character. um I believe it is this colby guy that's the banker right yeah he's played by the cigarette smoking man from the x-ray.
01:36:53
Speaker
and he comes to the farm to offer the family a better deal basically like somebody wants to buy the farm they'll give you fifteen percent more and in my brain i go fifteen percent that's not even enough for moving costs but that's my brain but um but i was like That never plays into the plot like that. Never. We never and find out anything about it. And apparently he gave the same deal to John Corbett's character, which doesn't make any sense because there's in a flashback, he's in his flashback. And then there's also another dropped plot point of all the missing people at the yeah at the feed store where there's like a wall of like missing persons. So you're thinking like, oh, there's something crazy happening in this town or there's something crazy happening on this property.
01:37:37
Speaker
Nope, never explained, never even considered in the plot of the movie. um So there's just I think that there's like there's a glimmer of a story in here where it's like about abuse and how abuse creates a ghost and how the ghosts come back for revenge. That's such a smidgen, though, of what this movie is trying to say. And it's just it's it's saying too much like there's just too they're throwing like literally like cans of tomatoes at the at the wall, yeah seeing what will what will like what will stick. And so like overall, I just think that it's a mess. like There's a part where, um for instance, there's a part where Roy, played by Dylan McDermott, runs into the house trying to save his family, and he sees a boy on the ground who's knocked out, and he goes, Bobby, Bobby, where are they?
01:38:29
Speaker
Um, I'm sorry, sir. You've never met that boy in the entire movie. So how do you know his name and why? Like, so I think that is there maybe a director's cut of this that makes more sense? I don't know. But like, but given what we watched on our screens, this movie just suffers from not knowing its own plot and not knowing like what to do with it. Well, so just some of the the trivia about the film, it apparently began as an original script called The Scarecrow by Todd Farmer.
01:38:59
Speaker
um originally written as a psychological thriller as opposed to a more supernatural horror film about a family on a farm suffering from financial problems and bad weather. When the patriarch puts up a strange scarecrow out in the field, things start to change. But then people start to get killed and the main character suspects the scarecrow. By the end, the main character is revealed actually to have caused the killings himself. The original is interesting. Yeah.
01:39:24
Speaker
The original scare scarecrow script was finally used as the basis for the prequel. Yes, the prequel mass dinner too messengers to the scarecrow because apparently we didn't suffer enough. We another film in this franchise.
01:39:40
Speaker
um Yeah, so I mean, that might be a part of it, that this was originally supposed to be something entirely different. um And frankly, the plot of that one sounds better, I'll be honest. um So I'm really surprised because I mean, like, this had some big producers on it too. Sam Raimi was the executive producer on this. I know, I saw that. Yeah, so I'm i'm kind of surprised that Sam Raimi himself wasn't like, why aren't we just going with a scarecrow? Because that sounds kind of cool. Like, this sounds like a good idea. Like, why are we changing this to be something else?
01:40:09
Speaker
And so then you have to wonder, well, were they just looking to make a vehicle for Kristen Stewart? Is that what this is about? Or like, I don't know. It just doesn't. ah This movie is just fucking bizarre, but not in like a fun way in like a how did this get made way?
01:40:26
Speaker
Basically. Yeah. And I will say I did not realize there was so much money in sunflower farming because apparently they're putting up all their money on sunflower farming. I don't think that there is. I think I think that's part of it, too. I think like sunflowers are like a side crop for people unless like you're like going deep into sunflower, like you're doing you're doing the oil, you're doing the seeds, you're doing the this, you're doing them that.
01:40:55
Speaker
Um, that struck me as bizarre too, I'll be honest. yeah um And I did look this up because there is a part in the movie where Dylan McDermott, uh, looks at his daughter and said, I thought you were going to try to make this work. And I was like, wait, how long have they been there? And I looked it up.
01:41:12
Speaker
And the average gestation of a sunflower plant is 55 days. So they have been there for at least two months without her even raising a stink. And then all of a sudden he's like, I thought you were going to try to make this work. And I was like, she is trying. I don't understand. Yeah. But I mean, on on top of that, too, like the reason why they're even there in the first place is almost like delegated off to the wayside on this, too. Like yeah you don't learn about it until three quarters into the movie. And and when when we do learn about it, we barely even hear about it. Like we hear it in Kristen. So it was very quiet voice in the car because she could talk like this when she was acting in 2007. And so like you hear about the story about like she was kind of drunk, but not really drunk. And they were in the car and that's how the kid got hurt. and
01:41:57
Speaker
That caused family uproar, which of course it's going to. But like, you just, just like the cigarette smoking, man, you barely hear about it again. You know what I mean? You hear about it only in one drip where the mom says, well, how can we trust you? And that's what that goes back to. And like, you just barely even know what's going on. So just going into what you were just saying there, how are we supposed to trust you? In the next scene, she's putting the baby to bed.
01:42:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's just that is very, very strange to me. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So like I on that stuff, it just i met out on all of it. Like, I mean, there's very little good about the film that I have to say. And I hate it when that happens, because Andrew and I never go into this going, let's pick a film that we hate. Like, we great I promise you, we really don't do that. So when it does come across that we really don't like it, where I think we're always both kind of like, man,
01:42:52
Speaker
that sucks, you know, just sucks. um I did hate um when they're in the hospital and and this just shows the misogyny of twenty twenty oh seven um is when they're in the hospital after she has gotten hurt and The doctor comes up and is basically like, is there anything going on in your house that would lead you to believe that she would hurt herself? Like that kind of a thing. And the dad just goes, well, we have been dealing with a lot of emotional issues. You son of a bitch. Yes, she's she's hysterical doctor. That's what the problem is here. My goodness gracious. But yeah, um I there were certain choices in this movie that I didn't understand. So throughout the entire movie, we see that we are on the setting of an actual sunflower farm like there is actual sunflowers throughout the movie. But when they show the initial like.
01:43:47
Speaker
Alright, we're going to farm the land, and John Corbett's going to help, and we know we're going to sprinkle stuff, and we're going to do this, and they show kind of like the you know the growing of the plants. They reveal the the sunflower field at the end of that whole repertoire, and it's CGI flowers.
01:44:03
Speaker
you had real flowers it's like why did you why did you why did you do this sir why did you and then the other thing that I didn't understand is okay so did he bury ah so ah okay there's a twist in this movie everybody and spoiler alert oh no that you probably never want to watch oh i know don't don't tell mom Um, that John Corbett, who is there hired on hand, which they just hire off the street for God's sakes. Like that's one part of it. Um, and that he is the father of the family that went missing. And wouldn't you know it, he killed his family. thank like god There weren't ghosts in the house after all. It was just the ghosts of his family. So
01:44:47
Speaker
So am I led to believe that he buried them in the cellar and that's why the cellar is like the place? Is that what you got? Andrew, I don't really know. i And that's the thing is that I wish I did, but I i i really don't know what to make of it, to be fair. Well, because there's like there's a whole other part where the crows are circling the barn, circling the barn, circling the barn. And what did that mean?
01:45:10
Speaker
Yeah, and it doesn't mean anything because nothing happened in the bond. And they they attack Dylan McDermott and they also attack John Corbett. Why did they attack Dylan McDermott? For what? Because he's a dad. I mean, that's just it. And why why are the ghosts attacking the children? Why are they attacking the mountain? What's the point? What is the point? Do they want their story to be told? Okay, that's a plot point.
01:45:33
Speaker
but do they want to warn them about John Corbett they don't they want to warn them they don't do they want to wreak havoc and kill other people because they're pissed off maybe but we don't know we have no idea what the purpose of them is and then finally they do reclaim John Corbett into the ground but you're also kind of left wondering Why was he here in the first place? Why was he sticking around? Why was he still in the town? And why did he come back to the farm? And why did no one question him when his whole family went missing? How did how did no one figure it figure it out? Like, how did no one figure it out? And also, like, is John Corbett crazy? Or what is the deal? Because it seems like he's fine until one thing happens that sort of like flips his lid.
01:46:21
Speaker
So is he a yeah yeah, is he just a maniac is is this is he a sociopath? Is he a serial killer? What is he? We don't know. And then we still don't know by the end. Like, yeah, this this is the kind of shit where you're watching it. You're just going, man, like truly, what is going on here?
01:46:38
Speaker
And that's and that's not a good way. Yeah. And that's why at the end of the day, Andrew, I'm just going to can we just talk about what what we rate this goddamn thing? The only thing I do want to talk about is I appreciate I did appreciate the ah crow work and I appreciated that they interpret they kind of interpreted how crows remember faces because they like go after. Yeah. This is probably where the croning came from. um Yeah, frankly. Anyways, Andrew, um what did you grade the messengers? Tell us.
01:47:08
Speaker
Listen i i i don't see any reason to recommend this movie so i have to i have to grade it below an average so i think i'm gonna tell it. I think i'm gonna give it like a i wanna say i was gonna give it a three but the more we've talked about it in the more we've kind of dissected what doesn't make sense i think i have to go as low as demon house and give it a two point five yeah.
01:47:31
Speaker
I'm going to give it a two. um And the the only funny thing that I could think of to say about this one was, you know, they say, don't shoot the messenger. Actually, shoot the messengers. Please shoot this movie. Kill it. I will say, yeah I didn't realize that that's where sunflower seeds were on the plant. So that's one thing. You didn't know that, really? I don't think I ever did it. kind Have you ever seen a sunflower up close?
01:47:55
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe hell you should. so Sunflowers are they're really amazing, amazing things. Absolutely incredible. They're fractals on on the front of them. It's really it's really I just I just couldn't believe that with this cast. This movie was so boring. Yeah. Well, guess what, everybody? It was we saved you on having to watch this. Anyways, folks, that does it for the messengers. We'll be right back to close out the show.
Themed Game: Produce Origins
01:48:39
Speaker
All right, folks, and we're back to close out the show. And as always, we have a little silly game prepared for you. This one, Andrew made it up and it's called That Comes From Where? Tell us how to place it. Yes. So I'm going to read you some popular fall produce and you have to tell me who either the country or the place where you think the most of them come from. Does that make sense? Sure. I'll give it a try.
01:49:06
Speaker
So the first one is not so fall, but I wanted to put it out there ah ah because it's kind of a gimme. I'm assuming you know this one, but it just will get you in the spirit of the game. So where do you think the most avocados come from? Mexico.
01:49:21
Speaker
You're correct. So Mexico supplies about 45% of the international market. Um, where do you think the most apples come from? I'm going to guess it's actually not America. Um, and I'm going to say it's probably something like maybe it is America. I'm going to say America.
01:49:41
Speaker
a wrong. What was it? China is actually a number one producer. No way. I would not have guessed that. But you're, you were correct as in Washington state is the largest in the US. Okay. Fair enough. Okay. Where do you think the most pumpkins come from? Oh geez. Now I'm scared. Um, I mean they're really big. So like they're hard to transport there and they're heavy. Um,
01:50:10
Speaker
You gotta have enough space for it. Maybe something like, it's not gonna be America. Could it be something like Brazil or something like that? different climates, but um China and India kind of share, they go back and forth on who produces the most. Jesus, my on the lord, I'm doing really bad at this. But in the US, Illinois is the biggest producer of pumpkins. Okay. Who do you think produces the most cranberries? Most cranberries, well, they got to have water because they're in bogs. So cranberries, maybe like one of the Scandinavian countries, like Sweden or something.
01:50:49
Speaker
This is actually the U.S. and most interesting in more than half of the world's cranberries come from Wisconsin. oh I did not know that. I thought they would have come from ah Maine or something like that. And then finally, your last one for your pie eating pleasure this year. Where do you think the most pecans come from? Ooh, trees, nuts, tree nuts.
01:51:15
Speaker
um Oh God, I have i have no idea. um the Maybe somewhere in the Middle East or something? Is it Israel or something like that?
01:51:31
Speaker
So this is also a US export. This comes from the state of Georgia who produces 100 million pecans a year. And I realized that I just said pecan and pecan and different sayings. I don't know yeah say that work They say it differently all over the place. Listen, Andrew, thank you for that game. And folks, thank you for being with us for Episode 132. A couple of housekeeping things first for you here. um Look, a great way to support independent podcasts out there um is to join their Patreons, and we too have one. um We actually have a new patron. Her name is Nicole Trawick. Nicole, thank you so much for being one of our new patrons, pledging a dollar a month.
01:52:15
Speaker
And a dollar a month is a great way to support us. In fact, like that's perfectly fine. like We don't even need you to do more than that. I'll be real. like a dollar and That's cool. We're giving you a thumbs up, man. It's perfect because that gives us 12 bucks a year from you and from ah a bunch of other people.
01:52:29
Speaker
And that scales out pretty quickly, actually. And it gives you access to our exclusive chat on Patreon. yeah and And for us, it gives us the ability to to produce the show. And, you know, producing a show does cost money. um There's the thing that we're recording on right now. that It's called Zencaster. That's a monthly fee. It's how we do our marketing. There's monthly fees there. It's the equipment that we buy. It's the power that we use. It's the time that we put into it.
01:52:56
Speaker
So lots of little jibs and drabs go in to make a podcast that we're really proud to make. um And look, we'll keep doing it no matter what, but um having your your your contributions in Patreon makes it a whole lot easier and gives us a whole lot more space to play. So for the patrons that we have, thank you. For our new patron, Nicole, thank you. And for those of you that are considering becoming a patron, thank you too. You can do that by going to frigay13.com slash support.
01:53:25
Speaker
And if you can't support monetarily, that doesn't get you off the hook. We get it. Money's tight, but you can still leave a review. You can leave a review on Apple podcasts or more importantly these days on Spotify, because we noticed that not a lot of you have hit that little five star button on Spotify. So if you go on Spotify,
01:53:47
Speaker
You don't have to write anything. Literally, it doesn't let you like you can't. So you just literally just hit five stars. It's a one click. So go over there and do ah that. um But you know what? We hope you had a great spooky season, a great Halloween, and we hope that you're looking forward to this harvest season. And with that, we just have one last thing to say, and that's for you to get slayed.