Transcript
Speaker: In this episode, we dig into the back catalogue of Metanoia, the makers of the QAnon-flavored hit movie, Sound of Freedom. You'll learn about the brains behind Metanoia, three wildly different Latin American Catholic propagandists making it big in Hollywood who call themselves the Three Amigos.
Speaker: Then we go through their 2015 film, Little Boy, a poisonous bit of nostalgia bait that reveals itself to be a sick exploitation of the wars of World War twoi
Speaker: There's really nothing real. There is no real. And that's that's what's called the postmodern mentality. I couldn't receive the word racist remark. The adventure of life justifies its suffering. i don't want to see him having political succubus with goblins. Do it live. Is Trump going to have babies with a goblin? Do it live! And turn against us like Darth Vader.
Speaker: Do it live! Now listen, you. I'll fuck you in your goddamn face. And you'll stay plastered. I was going to have a guest speaker, but the person I had invited in died.
Speaker: Some level of masochism. Okay, it's our third bonus episode. We're doing a movie review. This is going to be our first paid episode movie review.
Speaker: Our third bonus episode. earth This is such a compelling way to open the podcast. well Let's just list random numbers. It's more compelling than the movie you made us watch. I watched this just like a little bit under 24 hours ago, and I'm still hyped about it. I'm still so excited to talk to you about it. i feel like I'm all hopped up on Goofberry. This is such like a morally berserk movie.
Speaker: i had a really bad time watching this. think we need to try to convey like to the listener because i don't think anyone else should watch this movie like if if people come out of this episode and think like oh i should watch a little boy i feel like we haven't done our job right i want to yeah definitely we do not recommend this movie so i want to convey to you like what the experience was like this is very much a like we watched it so you don't have to type review Originally, you wanted to do The Sound of Freedom, which is kind of QAnon-flavored movie about this guy who, like, goes to Latin American countries or African countries—I don't know, we didn't watch it—and, like, rescues children from child traffickers.
Speaker: This was one I was aware of, but then realized it wasn't a good idea also because other—like, I had heard about it because other podcasts had reviewed it. And so we were kind of like, okay— Maybe that's not the movie we want to watch. Here was my rigorous research process by which we arrived at Little Boy. went to the Wikipedia page for Sound of Freedom and I clicked the director's name and I saw that he'd made a movie called Little Boy. i saw that Little Boy referred to the bombing of Hiroshima and I looked at one of the review blurbs. which called it, I forget the exact phrase, but just like a sick, cynical, twisted movie. I was like, Helen, this is the one.
Speaker: So you got to me fast enough that I did not know that Little Boy was going to be a reference to the bombing of Hiroshima until about 15 seconds before they reveal it in the movie. Like i put it together and I was like, oh, wait a minute. And then it hit in the movie.
Speaker: And then it hit me in the movie and then i was like, holy shit so that's that's when you sent me that string of text messages right just like no sarah what is happening all that you didn't actually like indicate what was going on but i knew no i i was like periodically messaging like this is so stupid ah this is this movie is so bad and then at some point i said sarah like all caps like what the fuck This movie was made by Metanoia Films. So Metanoia means conversion. And Metanoia Films largely consists of these three guys.
Speaker: And they call themselves The Three Amigos. We've got the director, Alejandro Verde. Now, Helen, I have a question for you. Does this movie have a point of view?
Speaker: I think this movie has about as much a point of view as like a Thomas Kinkade painting has a point of view, which is to say like, yes, in a way, but also like, no, like it's very, very sanitized of like, I would say a coherent point of view. I would say it does have a vague point of view, which is just like the beauty of faith. But I also think that the things it has to say about faith are like more insulting than like even your worst Reddit atheist.
Speaker: would say about like what faith means. Okay, here's the director. i don't like to impose any beliefs, neither mine or someone else's. I like to propose a theme in all of my films. Unfortunately, we live in a time where labeling People, filmmakers, ah everything. We live where everything is being labeled. And that is a very dangerous thing to do because once something is labeled, it alignates audiences. And for me as a filmmaker, i didn't I didn't set out to make a movie only for a group, for just only a group of people.
Speaker: I like to make movies for everybody that create conversations and And I like to explore things from a very objective point of view. Little Boy, it does that. Little Boy, it's a movie that explores the power of fate from a very objective point of view. It doesn't have, you know, it doesn't lean one way or the other. It actually has two very strong belief systems in there. You have, you know, a Catholic priest, but you also have a man that has faith in oneself. So you have one man who's interested in the will of God, and the other one is interested in the will of man.
Speaker: However, even though they disagree, they don't need to hate each other. They're actually very close friends, and they come together to help one little boy who's hurting. And I think if we, this movie proposed tolerance, if we instead of fighting and focusing on what we disagree, if we change our perspectives and don't even talk about the things that we disagree and focus on the things that we do agree, I think there will be change in the world.
Speaker: Okay, so this is this guy's role in talking about these movies in publicity. He's always like, look, there's no point of view. It presents all sides. It's not propagandistic, certainly. He said the same thing about the QAnon movie were just talking about. And he also said the same thing about their other movie, Bella, which is, I haven't seen it, but it's an anti-abortion indie style film.
Speaker: Yeah, that I think fits in a lot with the sense I get from the movie. This is the vision of faith that this guy has. And I think it's a very like American evangelical vision of faith. And I think you can see that throughout.
Speaker: Well, he's not evangelical. He's Catholic. This is actually yeah specifically a Catholic movie. That was one of the things that I was kind of noticing. Interesting is that like the priest in the movie is Catholic. And so I was actually thinking a lot about one of my other favorite, Extremely Catholic. It's probably the most Catholic Jewish movies I've ever seen, a Serious Man, which I'll talk a little bit more about later. But yeah, he's Catholic, but the movie feels very evangelical.
Speaker: Okay, the second of the three amigos is Leo Severino. Leo Severino used to work in a major film company before he met the third person that we're going to talk about.
Speaker: And he got an undergrad degree in philosophy and he has a law degree and he's all about logic. He's all about deep thinking about real issues. Here he is talking on the Busted Halo show, where he went to promote his book, Going Deeper, a Reasoned Explanation of God and Truth.
Speaker: But let's start with some of those basic building blocks, because I think you do you do lay it out well, just talking about things that we would kind of all agree on, right? Like like like a cause and emotion and all that sort of thing. Sure. I even go even further back because I found that part of my own philosophical training, I think, is something that most everyone can relate to. And that's this common notion that even Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI referred to as the dictatorship of relativism. And I think it's in modern culture, it's this notion that there is no truth. yeah And in fact, there's memes and millennials can have this the saying about, you know, live your truth. And ultimately, your truth, yeah your truth. It comes down to, you know, truth is is subjective, meaning your truth is different than my truth. I'm going live my truth. You're going live your truth. And, you know, the two of them should never sure intersect. And essentially what they're saying is that there is no overall truth. There is no objective truth. Ultimately, there is no truth. To which in the book, I implore people, if someone has this notion or expresses this notion, there is no truth. The immediate question should be, is that true?
Speaker: Right. Well, sure. yeah Because when you're saying there is no truth, aren't you making a truth claim? Aren't you really saying it is true that there is no truth? Well, Father, I don't mean there's no. certain Certainly certain things are true. What I mean is there's no objective truth. There's no universal truth that applies to everyone. Well, is what you just said, is that objectively true? Does that apply to everyone?
Speaker: The complete incompatibility of this guy talking about how the whole thing is about objective truth and he wants... I know he's not talking about this movie. He's talking about this other movie. But this is what he's all about. And he's one of the producers.
Speaker: Yeah, the idea that he wants to pursue this notion of like, oh, not everyone has a... trip Like, first of all, you can already see that it's directly in conflict with what the other guy was saying, which is like, I don't want to make something with a point of view. i don't want to alienate viewers. I want to make something for everyone. Well, how do you put those two ideas together, right? Like...
Speaker: Shouldn't the truth then have to like alienate people who don't believe in the truth? And then the movie itself also presents some things that are really bad, but wants to play this game of like, oh, but everybody has their own truth.
